“Perhaps,” the former observed, “Suzanne is working on her own.”
The two were still dancing. Suzanne seemed to have given herself over with complete abandon to her partner. Mark watched with unseeing eyes and expressionless face. The girl knew her business without a doubt.
“I sometimes fancy, my friend,” he said, “that you in your official capacity also make use of Mademoiselle Suzanne.”
“In my official capacity,” Déchanel answered in a consequential tone, “that might be true. The Department—but then one does not speak of these things. The girl is well-behaved. She has a good dossier. She is the sort of young woman one might find useful.”
“Discreet I see, my dear Déchanel. An admirable trait.”
“Of course I know that you use her too,” the Frenchman declared, with a little burst of candour. “Why, she is established in your precincts. To-night, however, she must have found a new client. There is nothing I could learn from that young officer. Turkey lies outside the scope of our interests.”
“One might be mildly interested to know why that lone craft has been brought into Nice Harbour,” Mark reflected.
“As to that,” Déchanel replied with a savage little twirl of his moustache, “I should think that Suzanne is already informed.”
“Or will be presently,” Mark added under his breath, as he watched the cloakroom attendant bringing her fur coat.
CHAPTER XI
Table of Contents
Mr. Jonson remained cheerful in the face of adversity. Things were certainly not looking well for him. At first, he had applied for this interview in vain and now, when he had at last been admitted to the audience chamber of the International Bureau of Espionage, Mr. Cheng, who was watching him from the other side of his table, showed little signs of friendliness.
“Is it like this,” Jonson asked, “that you treat all your staff, sir, even when they have done you great service?”
The glimmer of a smile passed over Mr. Cheng’s set face.
“You consider that you have rendered me great service?” he enquired.
“Indeed, yes.”
“Why did you go to London without orders?”
“I went there to save your life. I served you well inasmuch as I succeeded.”
“You saved my life, did you?”
“Without a doubt.”
“Explain.”
Jonson smiled.
“There are still a few things which your wonderful International Bureau has never discovered,” he said. “One of them, let me tell you, is that there is a triumvirate of men nominated by your greatest enemy, whose mission in life is your assassination.”
“I know all about them,” Mr. Cheng assented. “One is called Nikolas Krakoff, another Paul Hanson.”
“And the third?”
Mr. Cheng looked steadily across the room towards his questioner.
“The third is a man who has borne many names,” he replied. “He is known at present under the title of Jonson.”
The little man was perturbed. The wrinkles which were so seldom visible creased his face.
“Astonishing,” he murmured. “Did you chance to know that, sir, when you consented to have me join the staff? Did you know it when you saw me crossing Grosvenor Square?”
“Perfectly well. I consented to your engagement because I came to the conclusion that you were safer working under my direction. When I saw you as I was leaving the house of the British Foreign Secretary, it was perfectly apparent to me that for the moment you were harmless.”
“Well, you chance to have been right,” Jonson reflected. “Nevertheless, it was a brave action to take me into your entourage.”
“Why?”
“You knew that I had presented myself with a false passport.”
“Naturally.”
“You also knew that I was one of the triumvirate delegated in Moscow to guard the life of the acting head of the Soviet and incidentally to arrange for your assassination.”
“Bravery is not a word the meaning of which you understand,” Mr. Cheng said scornfully. “I run no risk from you or, I should think, from those other two assassins. Not one of the three of you was ever meant to harm me. You would never succeed.”
“You have a charm over bullets?”
“It never comes to bullets.”
“Nevertheless,” Jonson persisted, “I saved your life in London.”
“Explain, if you please,” Mr. Cheng invited.
“It was simple. Mr. Wang Kai-Hsiung gave me a chit to the Inspector of Police Squad, Scotland Yard. They were worried about you and were only too glad of outside help and information. There were two police squad cars at work that afternoon.”
“That I already know,” Mr. Cheng assented. “I was asked to change from one to the other in a side street about a hundred yards from Grosvenor Square: some Mews, they called it.”
“Precisely. The other car took a somewhat roundabout route, entered Heston by the back way, and took you to your plane in safety. A pleasant ride, I trust, and without misadventure?”
“Almost monotonous,” Mr. Cheng admitted. “There was not a soul to see me off except the officials of the aerodrome.”
“Not so with my brief promenade,” Jonson recounted with a bland smile. “Yes, it was exciting while it lasted. A slight drizzle of rain, as you may remember—most convenient. There was a fog that threatened. Alas, it never came. As we passed along the park by the barracks I fitted in the bullet-proof windows on the left-hand side of the car. A very remarkable invention! Really I think Scotland Yard improves. I can assure you that as we neared the shelter at the beginning of the broad byway to Heston I felt that adventure was back again. I placed myself in the far corner of the car in a careful position. At precisely the spot agreed upon, the bullets came spattering against the window like the large drops that fall on to the pavement before a thunderstorm. Very thrilling. It is not given to everyone to sit a yard or two off from these bullets and remain in safety.”
“This interests me,” Mr. Cheng acknowledged.
“From the flap window behind,” Jonson continued, “I saw Krakoff and Hanson spring into their car and drive off. Then I spoke through the tube to the chauffeur. He hoisted the police signal and we made Heston going at something like sixty miles an hour. I was at the plane ten minutes before they arrived. I joined them just as you, my lord, passed over our heads.”
“You joined them?” Mr. Cheng exclaimed. “They did not suspect you of interference?”
“Why should they?” Jonson protested with wide-opened eyes and his head a little upon one side. “The car passed the shelter at precisely the appointed hour. With the drawn shutters they could not have had any idea as to who was inside. They had their message from me, with the police number as arranged. I was there on the grounds waiting for them. I gave a lifelike impression of a disappointed traveller whose friend had failed him—and that is all.”
Mr. Cheng sat for a moment in silence. His eyes were fixed speculatively upon his companion.
“An interesting adventure,” he remarked. “One thing puzzles me.”
“I will explain,” Jonson promised cheerfully.
“I do not see why, when Krakoff and his companion, who have a great deal of experience in such matters, saw the armoured windows in the car, they took the trouble to risk firing at it.”
“That is to the credit of the British police,” Jonson pointed out. “These armoured shutters have blue cloth on the side that faces the window. They have a tassel. They resemble in every respect a closely drawn curtain through which, naturally, a bullet would go as though it were butter.”
Mr. Cheng nodded gravely.
“And what,” he asked, “has become of your companions?”
“Oh, we shall hear of them soon,” Jonson declared. “I have an appointment to meet them a week from to-day at a small hotel sacred to Russian emigrés, ‘the House with the Red Blinds,’ they called it. It is at the far end of the Promenade d
es Anglais.”
“So they are coming here?” Mr. Cheng reflected. “Are they still hoping to carry out their enterprise against me?”
Then—a thing he seldom did—Jonson hesitated.
“I cannot tell,” he admitted. “They may be coming here for other reasons. I know that it was their wish to be successful with you in London before they came here. They will perhaps receive further orders before we meet.”
“Does it never occur to you,” Mr. Cheng asked him, “that to remain one of that triumvirate and yet to be secretly my man is a post of some danger?”
Jonson smiled again, that fat comfortable little smile which changed his whole appearance.
“I love danger,” he confided. “Favour me with a sheet of paper and I will show you how I love to court a knife between my shoulder blades or a bullet in my heart.”
Mr. Cheng passed him a sheet from the table by his side. Jonson produced a pencil which travelled like lightning here and there across its smooth surface. A score of words. No more. He held it out to his Chief. There was in the latter’s immobile face a gleam of admiration as he studied it.
“I wonder,” he reflected, as he tore the page to pieces, “how you can possibly expect me to allow another man to live and share with me a secret like that.”
“Yet that is what you will surely do,” was the confident reply, as Jonson backed towards the door.
Mark came presently into the room. His fatigue had passed, his step was once more buoyant, but his expression was grave. Cheng nodded and tapped the telephone receiver which he was holding. He held it away for a moment.
“They have rung me up from the Quai d’Orsay,” he confided. “I must hear what they have to say.”
Mark nodded and sank into an easy chair. Cheng held the receiver once more to his ear. All the time he spoke and listened he betrayed no signs of any special interest. He wound up, however, in a different tone.
“You must explain to Monsieur le Ministre,” he said, “that this matter, important though it may be, scarcely comes within the scope of my activities. We deal with smaller affairs altogether. However, I am very much at the disposal of General Levissier when he arrives. It will give me great pleasure to receive him here. How are things in Paris?”
Again Mr. Cheng became a listener. He hung up the receiver with a few final words.
“I shall await the arrival of Monsieur le Général,” he said.
“And who,” Mark asked, “is Monsieur le Général?”
“Someone who would be a very unwelcome visitor for us just now,” Cheng replied. “He is the head of the whole police system of France. He wishes to look over our observatory. However, we have faced difficulties before. Tell me—how are things going?”
He lifted his arm and forefinger towards the ceiling. Mark rose lightly from his chair, lit a cigarette and paced restlessly up and down, talking a little disjointedly all the time.
“Fan Sik Tsun,” he said, “has been with me up there for fourteen or fifteen hours. He is lying down for a short time. I promised to let him know when you were here. No, not now,” he went on, waving his hand as Cheng rose to his feet. “The General is in the same condition as I was when I came down some time ago. He is almost speechless.”
“Nothing has gone wrong, I hope?”
“On the contrary,” Mark went on, “every enterprise seems to be maturing at the same moment, according to plan. I liked Fan Sik Tsun’s simile just now. He said it was like a huge bouquet of blossoms all creeping into flower at the same time. I can see what is happening in Vladivostok,” he continued. “We could not bottle them up as we have the western frontier. They have had more direct news of what is happening. Our outposts have reported thirty-five trains crawling back to Russia. That must be pretty well half the garrison. The fourteen routes, as planned, have all been cleared right up as far as the railway. Wu Lu Chên reports a million men under arms.”
“That is all good news,” Cheng said quietly. “The moment is arriving when it will be impossible any longer to hide from the world what is happening in Asia. Yet you know, Mark, there is one more task to be accomplished before we can flash the great signal around the world.”
Mark paused in his restless perambulation of the room. He stood by his partner’s desk—a grim expression of distaste upon his pleasant face.
“I don’t like that much, you know, Cheng,” he said.
“It is fortunate, then,” was the smooth rejoinder, “that its execution does not fall within your province.”
“It is part of the joint scheme, though,” Mark pointed out.
“In any case, the affair is not imminent,” Cheng observed. “I have been thinking it all out,” he went on, leaning back in his chair and looking meditatively out of the window towards the mountains, that one particular corner which was so dear to him. “It will be next month, Mark. The third week of next month. We cannot strike before. Until then, I think we can keep all this restless flood in check. Some time between now and then this thing will happen. Do not concern yourself with it. You will have no time to waste over such a trifle. Remember this too, Mark. If there are two men in this world who will move along in peril upon the borderland between life and death during those five weeks, it will be you and I and not that other one.”
“Getting scared?” Mark asked with a grin.
That very rare smile softened for a moment Cheng’s whole expression.
“That,” he said as he ‘rose to his feet, “would, I think, be a new sensation for either of us, my friend Mark.”
CHAPTER XII
Table of Contents
Suzanne was sulky. She was unaccustomed to failure, and it was failure which she had to report on the following morning. Perhaps because she knew that she was to be interviewed by Catherine Oronoff she had dressed with less than her usual care. Her sleepy eyes had lost their charm, her hair its sheen, and her manner its allure. She had to confess her failure, too, to another one of her own sex, which made things no better.
“I could do no more,” she declared sullenly. “The Commander laughed at me when I hinted and was contemptuous when I pleaded. He was also very rude.”
“Quite an unusual experience for you, I should imagine,” Catherine Oronoff remarked.
“Anything I set out to do I generally accomplish,” was the curt rejoinder. “Men of any ordinary type are easy. This one is an exception. Why not try him yourself, Mademoiselle Oronoff? You have the interests of the Bureau at heart as much as I. Stroll along the Quay once or twice until he takes notice of you and then invite him to tea with you. You may be his style, perhaps.”
The Russian girl struck back with glacial poignancy.
“I have not the usual inducement to offer,” she said. “Apart from that, I desire that you do not address me again with such suggestions. Will you be so good as to remember that or leave the room immediately.”
Suzanne glanced at the speaker, then cowered in her chair as though she had been struck with a lash.
“Je regrette,” she faltered. “Mille pardons, mademoiselle.”
Catherine dismissed the matter with a wave of the hand.
“All the same, I am surprised that you failed so completely, Suzanne,” she went on coldly. “What do you propose to do about it? The Bureau is keener than ever. They will not be satisfied with your report.”
“I can deal with any man who is a natural human being,” Suzanne grumbled. “With this one I can do nothing.”
“Take a few hours to think it over,” Catherine advised. “Mr. Cheng is not satisfied with Posing the elder of those two Italians. Elise and Mademoiselle Despard are coming down to the Opera House next week. He may choose to put other singing birds in your cage.”
“He had better not try,” Suzanne cried. “One learns things here, you know.”
Catherine Oronoff was leaning forward in her place. She seemed to have gone very stiff and rigid. Her eyes were steely.
“Are you threatening us, Suzanne?” she asked.
>
The girl bit her lip.
“No, I am not threatening,” she answered. “I am not going to be sent away, though—especially for a Turk. Turks are only half-civilised creatures. Ils sont plutôt des sauvages.”
“I have no right to suggest that the Bureau would go so far as to send you away,” Catherine said, “but they abhor failures and people who have failed. I should advise you to go and think it aver. There may be another way.”
Suzanne obeyed her companion’s gesture of dismissal and left the room, but on her return through the labyrinth of passages to her own suite of apartments, another way dawned upon her.
It was about six o’clock that evening when, raising her skirts a little and making careful progress to avoid the sinking of the high heels of her shoes into the crevices of the imperfectly laid pavement, Suzanne descended the steps and walked slowly along the Quay at Nice. She paused at the spot where the small Turkish cruiser lay alongside the dock. The gangway on board was a very easy one to surmount. At the top stood a uniformed sentry, smoking a cigarette.
“I should like to come on board, please,” she said.
The man stared at her, waved his hand as though bidding her go, and answered her in Turkish. Suzanne shook her head and commenced the slight ascent. The man stood at the top of the gangway immovable. She reached him and paused.
“You are in my way,” she told him smiling. “Please.”
He shook his head and stamped on the deck with his heel. Another man, in the uniform of a junior officer, made his appearance. He, too, stared at Suzanne, and it was perfectly obvious that the Commander’s inclinations towards playing the Saint Anthony were not shared by his subordinates. He saluted and addressed her courteously in French.
“This is not a visiting day. Mademoiselle desires something perhaps?”
“I desire to speak to your Admiral,” she confided. “I have even forgotten his name, but he may remember me. We met, I feel sure. I think it was at Alexandria.”
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