21 Greatest Spy Thrillers in One Premium Edition (Mystery & Espionage Series)

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  “You will find,” Pamela warned her companion almost as they took their places, “that I am a very curious person. I am more interested in people than in events. Tell me something about your work at the War Office?”

  “I am not at the War Office,” he replied.

  “Well, what is it that you do, then?” she asked. “Captain Holderness told me that you had been out in France, fighting, but that you had some sort of official position at home now.”

  “I am at the Ministry of Munitions,” he explained.

  “Well, tell me about that, then?” she suggested. “Is it as exciting as fighting?”

  He shook his head.

  “It has advantages,” he admitted, “but I should scarcely say that excitement figured amongst them.”

  She looked at him thoughtfully. Lutchester was a little over thirty-five years of age, tall and of sinewy build. His colouring was neutral, his complexion inclined to be pale, his mouth straight and firm, his grey eyes rather deep-set. Without possessing any of the stereotyped qualifications, he was sufficiently good-looking.

  “I wonder you didn’t prefer soldiering,” she observed.

  He smiled for a moment, and Pamela felt unreasonably annoyed at the twinkle in his eyes.

  “I am not a soldier by profession,” he said, “but I went out with the Expeditionary Force and had a year of it. They kept me here, after a slight wound, to take up my old work again.”

  “Your old work,” she repeated. “I didn’t know there was such a thing as a Ministry of Munitions before the war.”

  He deliberately changed the conversation, directing Pamela’s attention to the crowded condition of the room.

  “Gay scene, isn’t it?” he remarked.

  “Very!” she assented drily.

  “Do you come here to dance?” he inquired.

  She shook her head.

  “You must remember that I have been living in Paris for some months,” she told him. “You won’t be annoyed if I tell you that the way you English people are taking the war simply maddens me. Your young soldiers talk about it as though it were a sort of picnic, your middle-aged clubmen seem to think that it was invented to give them a fresh interest in their newspapers, and the rest of you seem to think of nothing but the money you are making. And Paris…. No, I don’t think I should care to dance here!”

  Lutchester nodded, but Pamela fancied somehow or other that his attitude was not wholly sympathetic. His tone, with its slight note of admonition, irritated her.

  “You must be careful,” he said, “not to be too much misled by externals.”

  Pamela opened her lips for a quick reply, but checked herself.

  Captain Holderness and Ferrani had entered the room and were approaching their table, talking earnestly. The latter especially was looking perplexed and anxious.

  “It’s the queerest thing I ever knew,” Holderness pronounced. “We’ve searched every hole and corner upstairs, and there isn’t a sign of Sandy.”

  “Have you tried the bar?” Lutchester inquired.

  “Both the bar and the grillroom,” Ferrani assured him.

  “If he had been suddenly taken ill—” Molly murmured.

  “But there is no place in which he could have been taken ill which we have not searched,” Ferrani reminded her.

  “And besides,” Holderness intervened, “Sandy was in the very pink of health, and bubbling over with high-spirits.”

  “One noticed that,” Lutchester remarked, a little drily.

  “He might almost have been called garrulous,” Pamela agreed.

  Ferrani took grave leave of them, and Holderness seated himself at the table.

  “Well, let’s get on with luncheon, anyway,” he advised. “It’s no good bothering. The best thing we can do is to conclude that the impossible has happened—that Sandy has met with some pals and will be here presently.”

  “Or possibly,” Lutchester suggested, “that he has done what certainly seems the most reasonable thing—gone straight off to the War Office with his formula and forgotten all about us. Let us return the compliment and forget all about him.”

  They finished their luncheon a little more cheerfully. As the cigarettes were handed round, Pamela’s eyes looked longingly at a tray of Turkish coffee which was passing.

  “I’m a rotten host,” Holderness declared, “but, to tell you the truth, this queer prank of Sandy’s has driven everything else out of my mind. Here, Hassan!”

  The coloured man in gorgeous oriental livery turned at once with a smile. He approached the table, bowing to each of them in turn. Pamela watched him intently, and, as his eyes met hers, Hassan’s hands began to shake.

  “The waiter is bringing us ordinary coffee,” Holderness explained. “Please countermand it and bring us Turkish coffee for four.”

  The man had lost his savoir faire. His wonderful smile had turned into something sickly, his bland speech of thanks into a mumble. He turned away almost sheepishly.

  “Hassan doesn’t seem to like us to-day,” Molly remarked.

  “I should have said that he was drunk,” her brother observed, looking after him curiously.

  There was certainly something the matter with Hassan, for it was at least a quarter of an hour before he reappeared and served his specially prepared concoction with the usual ceremony but with more restraint. Molly and the two men, after Hassan had sprinkled the contents of his mysterious little flask into their coffee, gave him their hands for the customary salute. When he came to Pamela he hesitated. She shook her head and he fell back, bowing respectfully, his hand tracing cabalistic signs across his heart. For a moment before he departed, he raised his eyes and glanced at her. It was like the mute appeal of some hurt or frightened animal.

  “You don’t approve of Hassan’s little ceremony?” Lutchester asked her.

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “In America,” she observed, “I think we look upon coloured people of any sort a little differently. Well, we’ve certainly given your friend a chance,” she went on, glancing at the little jewelled watch upon her wrist, “We’ve outstayed almost every one here.”

  Their host paid the bill, and they strolled reluctantly towards the door, Holderness and Pamela a few steps behind.

  “Now what are your sister and Mr. Lutchester studying again?” the latter inquired, as they reached the lobby.

  Molly had paused once more before the notice on the wall, which seemed somehow to have fascinated her. She read it out, lingering on every word:

  MÉFIEZ-VOUS!

  TAISEZ-VOUS!

  LES OREILLES ENNEMIES VOUS ÉCOUTENT!

  Holderness listened with a frown. Then he turned suddenly to Lutchester, who was standing by his side.

  “It would be too ridiculous, wouldn’t it—you couldn’t in any way connect the idea behind that notice with Sandy’s disappearance?”

  “I was wondering about that myself,” Lutchester confessed. “To tell you the truth, I have been wondering all luncheon-time. If ever a man broke the letter and the spirit of that simple warning I should say your excitable young friend, Captain Graham, did.”

  “But here at Henry’s,” Holderness protested, “with friends on every side! Isn’t it a little too ridiculous! We’ll wait until the last person is out of the place, anyway,” he added.

  The crowd soon began to thin. Ferrani, seeing them still waiting, approached with a little bow.

  “Your friend,” he asked, “he has not arrived, eh?”

  “No sign of him,” Holderness replied gloomily.

  “What about his hat and coat?” Ferrani inquired, with a sudden inspiration.

  “Great idea,” Holderness assented, turning towards the cloakroom attendant. “Don’t you remember my friend, James?” he went on. “He arrived about half-past one, and threw his coat and hat over to you.”

  The attendant nodded and glanced towards an empty peg.

  “I remember him quite well, sir,” he acknowledged. “Number sixty-
seven was his number.”

  “Where are his things, then?”

  “Gone, sir,” the man replied.

  “Do you remember his asking for them?”

  The attendant shook his head.

  “Can’t say that I do, sir,” he acknowledged, “but they’ve gone right enough.”

  A party of outgoing guests claimed the man’s attention. Holderness turned away.

  “This thing is getting on my nerves,” he declared. “Does it seem likely that Sandy should chuck his luncheon without a word of explanation, come out and get his coat and hat and walk off? And, besides, where was he all the time we were looking for him?”

  It was unanswerable, inexplicable. They all looked at one another almost helplessly. Pamela held out her hand.

  “Well,” she announced, “I am sorry, but I’m afraid that I must go. I have a great many things to attend to this afternoon.”

  “You are going away soon?” Lutchester inquired.

  She hesitated, and at that moment Mr. Fischer, who had been saying farewell to his guests, turned towards her.

  “You are not thinking of the trip home yet, Miss Van Teyl?” he asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she answered a little evasively. “I’m out of humour with London just now.”

  “Perhaps we shall be fellow-passengers on Thursday?” he ventured. “I am going over on the New York.”

  “I never make plans,” she told him.

  “In any case,” Mr. Fischer continued, “I shall anticipate our early meeting in New York. I heard from your brother only yesterday.”

  She looked at him with a slight frown.

  “From James?”

  Mr. Fischer nodded.

  “Why, I didn’t know,” she observed, “that you and he were acquainted.”

  “I have had large transactions with his firm, and naturally I have seen a good deal of Mr. Van Teyl,” the other explained. “He looks after the interests of us Western clients.”

  Pamela turned a little abruptly away, and Lutchester walked with her to the door.

  “You will let me see that they bring your car round?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Thank you, no,” she replied, holding out her hand. “I have not yet said good-by to Captain Holderness and his sister. Good-by, Mr. Lutchester!”

  Her farewell was purposely chilly. It seemed as though the slight sparring in which they had indulged throughout luncheon-time, had found its culmination in an antipathy which she had no desire to conceal. Lutchester, however, only smiled.

  “Nowadays,” he observed, “that is a word which it is never necessary to use.”

  She withdrew her hand from his somewhat too tenacious clasp. Something in his manner puzzled as well as irritated her.

  “Do you mean that you, too, are thinking of taking a holiday from your strenuous labours?” she asked. “Perhaps America is the safest country in the world just now for an Englishman who—”

  She stopped short, realising the lengths towards which her causeless pique was carrying her.

  “Prefers departmental work to fighting, were you going to add?” he said quietly. “Well, perhaps you are right. At any rate, I will content myself by saying au revoir.”

  He passed through the turnstile door and disappeared. Pamela made her adieux to Holderness and his sister, and then, recognising some acquaintances, turned back into the restaurant to speak to them. Fischer, who had just received his hat and cane from the cloakroom attendant, stood watching her.

  CHAPTER III

  Table of Contents

  Pamela, after a brief conversation with her friends, once more left the restaurant. In the lobby she called Ferrani to her.

  “Has Mr. Fischer gone, Ferrani?” she asked.

  “Not two minutes ago,” the man replied. “You wish to speak to him? I can stop him even now.”

  She shook her head.

  “On the contrary,” she said drily, “Mr. Fischer represents a type of my countrymen of whom I am not very fond. He is a great patron of yours, is he not?”

  “He is a large shareholder in the company,” Ferrani confessed.

  “Then your restaurant will prosper,” she told him. “Mr. Fischer has the name of being very fortunate…. That was a wonderful luncheon you gave us to-day.”

  “Madame is very kind.”

  “Will you do me a favour?”

  Ferrani’s gesture was all-expressive. Words were entirely superfluous.

  “I want two addresses, please. First, the address of Joseph, your head musician, and, secondly, the address of Hassan, your coffee-maker.”

  Ferrani effectually concealed any surprise he might have felt. He tore a page from his pocket-book.

  “Both I know,” he declared. “Hassan lodges at a shop eighty yards away. The name is Haines, and there are newspaper placards outside the door.”

  “That is quite enough,” Pamela murmured.

  “As for Monsieur Joseph,” Ferrani continued, “that is a different matter. He has, I understand, a small flat in Tower Mansions, Tower Street, leading off the Edgware Road. The number is 18C. So!”

  He wrote it down and passed it to her. Pamela thanked him and stood up.

  “Now that I have done as you asked me,” Ferrani concluded, “let me add a word. Both these men are already off duty and have left the restaurant. If you wish to communicate with either of them, I advise you to do so by letter.”

  “You are a very courteous gentleman, Mr. Ferrani,” Pamela declared, dropping him a little mock curtsey, “and good morning!”

  She made her way into the street outside, shook her head to the commissionaire’s upraised whistle, and strolled along until she came to a cross street down which several motor-cars were waiting. She approached one—a very handsome limousine—and checked the driver who would have sprung from his seat.

  “George,” she said, “I am going to pay a call at a disreputable-looking news-shop, just where I am pointing. You can’t bring the car there, as the street is too narrow. You might follow me on foot and be about.”

  The young man touched his hat and obeyed. A few yards down the street Pamela found her destination, and entered a gloomy little shop. A slatternly woman looked at her curiously from behind the counter.

  “I am told that Hassan lodges here, the coffee-maker from Henry’s,” Pamela began.

  The woman looked at her in a peculiar fashion.

  “Well?”

  “I wish to see him.”

  “You can’t, then,” was the curt answer. “He’s at his prayers.”

  “At what?” Pamela exclaimed.

  “At his prayers,” the woman repeated brusquely. “There,” she added, throwing open the door which led into the premises behind, “can’t you hear him, poor soul? He’s been pinching some more charms from ladies’ bracelets, or something of the sort, I reckon. He’s always in trouble. He goes on like this for an hour or so and then he forgives himself.”

  Pamela stood by the open door and listened—listened to a strange, wailing chant, which rose and fell with almost weird monotony.

  “Very interesting,” she observed. “I have heard that sort of thing before. Now will you kindly tell Hassan that I wish to speak to him, or shall I go and find him for myself?”

  “Well, you’ve got some brass!” the woman declared, with a sneer.

  “And some gold,” Pamela assented, passing a pound note over to the woman.

  “Do you want to see him alone?” the latter asked, almost snatching at the note, but still regarding Pamela with distrustful curiosity.

  “Of course,” was the calm reply.

  The woman opened her lips and closed them again, sniffed, and led the way down a short passage, at the end of which was a door.

  “There you are,” she muttered, throwing it open. “You’ve arst for it, mind. ‘Tain’t my business.”

  She slouched her way back again into the shop. At first Pamela could scarcely see anything except a dark figur
e on his knees before a closed and shrouded window. Then she saw Hassan rise to his feet, saw the glitter of his eyes.

  “Pull up the blind, Hassan,” she directed.

  He came a step nearer to her. The gloom in the apartment was extraordinary. Only his shape and his eyes were visible.

  “Do as I tell you,” she ordered. “Pull up the blind. It will be better.”

  He hesitated. Then he obeyed. Even then the interior of the room seemed shadowy and obscure. Pamela could only see, in contrast with the rest of the house, that it was wonderfully and spotlessly clean. In one corner, barely concealed by a low screen, his bed stood upon the floor. Hassan muttered something in an Oriental tongue. Pamela interrupted him. She spoke in the soothing tone one uses towards a child.

  “That’s all right, Hassan,” she said. “Sorry to have interrupted you at your prayers, but it had to be done. You know me?”

  “Yes, mistress,” he answered unwillingly. “I your dragoman one year in Cairo. What you want here, mistress?”

  “You know that I know,” she went on, “that you are a Turk and a Mohammedan, and not an Egyptian at all.”

  “Yes, mistress, you know that,” he muttered.

  “And you also know,” she continued, “that if I give you away to the authorities you will be sent at once to a very uncomfortable internment camp, where you won’t even have an opportunity to wash more than once a day, where you will have to herd with all sorts of people, who will make fun of your colour and your religion—”

  “Don’t, mistress!” he shouted suddenly. “You will not tell. I think you will not tell!”

  He was sidling a little towards her. Again one of those curious changes seemed to have transformed him from a dumb, passive creature into a savage. There was menace in his eyes. She waved him back without moving.

  “I have come to make a bargain with you, Hassan,” she said, “just a few words, that is all. Not quite so near, please.”

  He paused. There was a moment’s silence. His face was within a foot of hers, lowering, black, bestial. Her eyes met his without a tremor. Her full, sweet lips only curved into a faintly contemptuous line.