“You cannot frighten me, Hassan,” she declared. “No man has ever done that. And outside I have a chauffeur with muscles of iron, who waits for me. Be reasonable. Listen. There are secrets connected with your restaurant.”
“I know nothing,” he began at once; “nothing, mistress—nothing!”
“Quite naturally,” she continued. “I only need one piece of information. A man disappeared there this morning. I just have to find him. That’s all there is about it. At half-past one he was inveigled into the musicians’ room and by some means or other rendered unconscious. At three o’clock he had been removed. I want to know what became of him. You help me and the whole world can believe you to be an Egyptian for the rest of their lives. If you can’t help me it is rather unfortunate for you, because I shall tell the police at once who and what you are. Don’t waste time, Hassan.”
He stood thinking, rubbing his hands and bowing before her, yet, as she knew very well, with murder in his heart. Once she saw his long fingers raised a little.
“Quite useless, Hassan,” she warned him. “They hang you in England, you know, for any little trifle such as you are thinking of. Be sensible, and I may even leave a few pound notes behind me.”
“Mistress should ask Joseph,” he muttered. “I know nothing.”
“Oh, mistress is going to ask Joseph all right,” she assured him, “but I want a little information from you, too. You’ve got to earn your freedom, you know, Hassan. Come, what do they do with the people who disappear from the restaurant?”
“Not understand,” was the almost piteous reply.
Pamela sighed. She had again the air of one being patient with a child.
“See here, Hassan,” she went on, “a few days ago I went over that restaurant from top to bottom with the manager. There is the musicians’ room, isn’t there, just over the entrance hall? I suppose those little glass places in the floor are movable, and then one can hear every word that is spoken below. I am right so far, am I not?”
Hassan answered nothing. His breathing, however, had become a little deeper.
“An unsuspecting person, passing from the toilet rooms upstairs, could easily be induced to enter. I think that there must be another exit from that room. Yes?”
“Yes!” Hassan faltered.
“To where?”
“The wine-cellars.”
“And from there?”
Hassan was suddenly voluble. Truth unlocked his tongue.
“Not know, mistress—not know another thing. No one enters wine- cellar but three men. One of those not know. If I guess—I, Hassan—I look at little chapel left standing in waste place. Perhaps I wonder sometimes, but I not know.”
Pamela drew three notes from her gold purse, smoothed them out and handed them over.
“Three pounds, Hassan, silence, and good day! You’ll live longer if you open your windows now and then, and get a little fresh air, instead of praying yourself hoarse.”
Again the black figure swayed perilously towards her. She affected not to notice, not to notice the hand which seemed for a moment as though it would snatch the door handle from her grasp. She passed out pleasantly and without haste. The last sound she heard was a groan.
“Done your bit o’ business, eh?” the landlady asked curiously.
Pamela nodded assent.
“Rather an odd sort of lodger for you, isn’t he?”
“Not so odd as his visitors,” the woman retorted, with an evil sneer.
Pamela passed into the narrow street and drew a long sigh of relief. Then she entered her car and gave the chauffeur an address from the slip of paper which she carried in her hand. When they stopped outside the little block of flats he prepared to follow her.
“Tough neighbourhood this, madam,” he said.
“Maybe, George,” she replied, waving him back, “but you’ve got to stay down here. If the man I am going to see thought I was frightened of him I wouldn’t have a chance. If I am not down in half an hour you can try number 18C.”
The chauffeur resumed his place on the driving-seat of the car. Pamela, heartily disliking her surroundings, was escorted by a shabby porter to a shabbier lift.
“You’ll find Mr. Joseph in,” the lift boy assured her with a grin.
Pamela found the number at the end of an unswept stone passage. At her third summons the door was cautiously opened by a large, repulsive-looking woman, with a mass of peroxidised hair. She stared at her visitor first in amazement, then in rapidly gathering resentment.
“Mr. Joseph is at home,” she admitted truculently, in response to Pamela’s inquiry. “What might you be wanting with him?”
“If you will be so good as to let me in I will explain to Mr. Joseph,” Pamela replied.
The woman seemed on the point of slamming the door. Suddenly there was a voice from behind her shoulder. Joseph appeared—not the smiling, joyous Joseph of Henry’s but a sullen-looking negro, dressed in shirt and trousers only, with a heavy under-lip and frowning forehead.
“Let the lady pass and get into the kitchen, Nora,” he ordered, “Come this way, mam.”
Pamela followed her guide into a parlour, redolent of stale cigar smoke, with oilcloth on the floor and varnished walls, an abode even more horrible than Hassan’s lair. Joseph closed the door carefully behind him, and made no apology for his dishabille. He simply faced Pamela.
“Say, what is it you want with me?” he demanded truculently.
“A trifle,” she answered. “The key of the chapel in the little plot of waste ground next Henry’s.”
She meant him to be staggered, and he was. He reeled back for a moment.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he gasped.
“Facts,” Pamela replied. “Do you want to save yourself, Joseph? You can do it if you choose.”
He folded his arms and stood in front of the closed door. Without a collar, his neck bulged unpleasantly behind. There was nothing whatever left of the suave and genial chef d’orchestra.
“Save myself from what, eh? Just let me get wise about it.”
Pamela’s eyebrows were daintily elevated.
“Dear me!” she murmured. “I thought you were more intelligent. Listen. You know where we met last? Let me remind you. You were playing in the Winter Garden at Berlin, and the gentleman whom I was with, an attache at the American Embassy, spoke to you. He told me a good deal about your past life, Joseph, and your present one. You are in the pay of the Secret Service of Germany. Am I to go to Scotland Yard and tell them so?”
He looked at her wickedly.
“You’d have to get out of here first.”
“Don’t be silly,” she advised him contemptuously. “Remember you’re talking to an American woman and don’t waste your breath. You can be in the Secret Service of any country you like, without interference from me. On the other hand, there’s just one thing I want from you.”
“What is it? I haven’t got any key.”
“I want to discover exactly what has become of Captain Graham,” she declared.
“What, the guy that missed his lunch to-day?” he growled.
“I see you know all about it,” she continued equably.
“So he’s your spark, is he?” Joseph observed slowly, his eyes blinking as he leaned a little forward.
“On the contrary,” Pamela replied, “I have never met him. However, that’s beside the point. Do I have the key of that chapel?”
“You do not.”
“Have you got it?”
“Right here,” Joseph assented, dangling it before her eyes.
“I think it’s a fair bargain I’m offering you,” she reminded him. “You lose the key and keep your place. You only have to keep your mouth shut and nothing happens.”
“Nothing doing,” the negro declared shortly. “Keys as important as this ain’t lost. If I part with it, I get the chuck, and I probably get into the same mess as the others. If I keep it—”
“If you keep it,” Pamela
interrupted, “you will probably stand with your back to the light in the Tower within the next few days. They’ve left off being lenient with spies over here.”
He looked at her, and there were things in his eyes which few women in the world could have seen without terror. Pamela’s lips only came a little closer together. She pressed the inside of the ring upon her third finger, and a ray of green fire seemed to shoot forward.
“I guess I’m up against it,” he growled, taking a step forward. “I’ll have something of what’s coming to me, if I swing for it.”
His arm was suddenly around her, his face hideously close. He gave a little snarl as he felt the pinprick through his shirt sleeve. Then he went spinning round and round with his hand to his head.
“What in God’s name!” he spluttered. “What in hell—!”
He reeled against the horsehair easy-chair and slipped on to the floor. Pamela calmly closed her ring, stooped over him, withdrew the key from his pocket, crossed the room and the dingy little hall with swift footsteps, and, without waiting for the lift, fled down the stone steps. Before she reached the bottom, she heard the shrill ringing of the lift bell, the angry shouting of the woman. Pamela, however, strolled quietly out and took her place in the car.
“Back to the hotel, George,” she directed the chauffeur. “Don’t stop if they call to you from the flats.”
The young man sprang up to his seat and the car glided off. Pamela leaned forward and looked at herself in the mirror. There was a shade more colour in her face, perhaps, than usual, but her low waves of chestnut hair were unruffled. She used her powder puff with attentive skill and leaned back.
“That’s the disagreeable part of it over, anyway,” she sighed to herself contentedly.
CHAPTER IV
Table of Contents
The last of the supper-guests had left Henry’s Restaurant, the commissionaire’s whistle was silent. The light laughter and frivolous adieux of the departing guests seemed to have melted away into a world somewhere beyond the pale of the unseasonable fog. The little strip of waste ground adjoining was wrapped in gloom and silence. The exterior of the bare and deserted chapel, long since unconsecrate, was dull and lifeless. Inside, however, began the march of strange things. First of all, the pinprick of light of a tiny electric torch seemed as though it had risen from the floor, and Hassan, pushing back a trap-door, stepped into the bare, dusty conventicle. He listened for a moment, then made a tour of the windows, touched a spring in the wall, and drew down long, thick blinds. Afterwards he passed between the row of dilapidated benches and paused at the entrance door. He stooped down, examined the keyless lock, shook it gently, gazed upwards and downwards as though in vain search of bolts that were never there. His white teeth gleamed for a moment in the darkness. He turned away with a little shiver.
“Not my fault,” he muttered to himself. “Not my fault.”
He listened for a moment intently, as though for footsteps outside. The disturbance, however, came from the other end of the building. There was a sharp knocking from the trap-door by which he had ascended. He touched an electric knob. The place was dimly yet sufficiently illuminated. He hastened towards the further end of the place and pulled up the trap-door. A melancholy-looking little procession slowly emerged. First of all came Joseph, stepping backwards, supporting the head and shoulders of Graham, still bound and gagged. After him came a dark, swarthy-faced wine waiter, who supported Graham’s feet. Behind followed Fischer, carrying his silk hat and cane in his hand. He paused for a moment as he stepped on the floor of the chapel, and brushed the dust from his trousers.
“You can take out the gag now,” he ordered the two men. “There isn’t much shout in him.”
They laid him upon a couch, and Joseph obeyed the order. Graham’s head swung helplessly on one side. His eyes opened, however, and he struggled for consciousness. His lips twitched for a moment. In these long hours he had almost forgotten the habit of speech. The words, when they came, sounded strange to him.
“What—where am I? What do you want with me?”
Fischer laid his hat and stick upon a table, on which also stood a telephone instrument.
“The formula, my young friend,” he replied, “for that wonderful explosive of which you spoke in the lobby.”
A sudden accession of nervous strength brought something almost like passion into the young man’s reply, although to himself there still seemed some unreality in the words which might have come from the walls or the roof—surely not from his lips.
“I’ll see you damned first!”
Fischer smiled. The man was good-looking, in his way, but this was a pale and ugly smile.
“My request was merely a matter of courtesy,” he remarked. “The difficulty of searching you is not formidable. It would have been undertaken long ago but for the fact that the restaurant has been crowded and gags sometimes slip. Besides, there was no hurry. Observe!”
He leaned over Graham, who for the first time struggled furiously but ineffectually with his bonds. His fingers all the time were straining towards the inside pocket of his coat. Fischer nodded understandingly.
“Allow me to anticipate you,” he said.
With a quick thrust he drew a little handful of papers from the pocket of his captive. One by one he glanced them through and flung them on to the floor. As he came towards the end of his search, however, his expression of confident complacency vanished. His lips shrivelled up a little, his eyes narrowed. The last folded sheet of paper—a little perfumed note from Peggy, thanking Sandy for his beautiful roses—he crumpled fiercely into a little ball. He opened his lips to speak, then he paused. A new light broke in upon him. The fury had passed from Sandy Graham’s face. In its stead there was an expression of blank astonishment.
“Where is the formula?” Fischer asked fiercely.
There was no reply. Sandy Graham was still staring at the little pile of papers upon the floor. Fischer made a brief examination of the other pockets. Then he stepped back. His voice shook, his face was dark and malevolent.
“Joseph, Hassan, Jules—listen to me!” he ordered. “Did any one else enter the musicians’ room whilst he was lying in the alcove?”
“Impossible!” Jules declared.
“The door was locked,” Hassan murmured.
“Stop!” Joseph exclaimed.
Fischer wheeled round upon him.
“Well?” he exclaimed. “Get on, then. Who?”
Joseph moistened his lips. He was still feeling sore and dizzy, but he began to see his way.
“You noticed, perhaps,” he said, “the American girl—the beautiful young lady with this guy’s friends? She was waiting with the others for Captain Graham to come down. I saw her go up the stairs. I saw her come down again, three minutes later.”
“Miss Van Teyl?” Fischer exclaimed, with a frown. “You’re mad, Joseph!”
The negro laughed grimly.
“Am I!” he retorted. “I tell you this, Master Fischer. She was in Berlin where I was, and she was at the Embassy every day. She was asked to leave there. They put her over the frontier into Holland. I knew her when she came into the restaurant. She’s no society young lady, she ain’t! Bet you she was on to the goods.”
Fischer hesitated for a moment. The thoughts were chasing one another through his brain. Then he took up the receiver from the telephone instrument which stood upon the table.
“1560 Mayfair,” he asked in a low tone.
They all stood listening, grouped around Graham’s writhing figure.
“Hullo! Is that Claridge’s Hotel?” Fischer went on. “I am speaking from Giro’s. Put me through, if you please, to Miss Van Teyl’s apartments… What? Repeat that, will you?… Thank you.”
Fischer laid down the receiver. He turned towards the others. He was breathing a little quickly, and his eyes glittered behind his gold-rimmed spectacles.
“Miss Van Teyl,” he announced, “has left for Tilbury. She is going out on the Lapland
this morning. My God, she’s got the formula!”
There was a moment’s silence. Joseph was standing by with a wicked look on his face.
“I saw her slip away,” he muttered, “and I watched her come down again. There was just time.”
Fischer turned suddenly to where Graham was lying. He drew a sheet of writing paper from the rack upon the table, and a pencil from his pocket. There was an evil and concentrated significance in his tone.
“That formula,” he said, “can be written again. I think you had better write it.”
“I’ll see you damned first!” was the weak but prompt reply.
Fischer bent a little lower over the prostrate figure, “Look here,” he went on, “we don’t run risks like this for nothing. You’re better dead than alive, so far as we are concerned, anyway. We’d planned to take the formula from you, and you can guess the rest. There are cellars underneath here into which no one ever goes who matters. Now here’s a chance of life for you. Write down that formula—truthfully, mind—and we’ll discuss the matter of taking your parole.”
“See you damned first!” Graham repeated, his voice a little more tremulous but still convincing.
Fischer stood upright and turned to Jules.
“Get a bottle of brandy and a glass,” he ordered.
The man pushed open the trap-door and disappeared. He came back again in a few moments, with a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other. Fischer poured out some of the cordial and drew a small table up to Graham’s side.
“There,” he said, loosening the cord around his left wrist, “drink that, and think it over. We shall be gone for about ten minutes. If you change your mind before, ring that little hand-bell. If you have not changed your mind when we return, it will be the cellars.”
“Beasts!” Graham muttered.
Fischer shrugged his shoulders. For a moment he had straightened himself. His face had softened, but it was in tune with his thoughts.
“I would twist the necks of a million fools like you,” he said, “for the sake of—”
He paused, leaving his sentence uncompleted, and beckoned to the other men. They followed him through the trap-door and down into the cellars below. The place was once more silent. Graham rolled from side to side, drew a long breath, and tugged vainly at his bonds. The effort overtaxed his strength. He seemed to feel the darkness closing in upon him, the rushing of the sea in his ears….
21 Greatest Spy Thrillers in One Premium Edition (Mystery & Espionage Series) Page 214
