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

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

Table of Contents

  It was one evening towards the end of the voyage, and about an hour after dinner. A huge form loomed out of the darkness, continuing its steady promenade along the unlit portion of the deck. Pamela, moved by some caprice, abandoned her caution of the last few days and called out.

  “Mr. Fischer!”

  He stopped short. The sparks flew from the red end of his cigar, which he tossed into the sea. He hastened towards her.

  “Miss Van Teyl?” he replied, a little hesitatingly.

  “How clever of you to know my voice!” she observed. “I am in the humour to talk. Will you sit down, please?”

  Mr. Fischer humbly drew a chair to her side.

  “I had an idea,” he said, “that you had been avoiding me the last two or three days.”

  “I have,” she admitted.

  “Have I offended you, then?”

  “Scarcely that,” she replied, “only, you see, it seemed waste of time to talk to you with the foils on, and a little dangerous, perhaps, to talk to you with them off.”

  His face reflected his admiration.

  “Miss Van Teyl,” he declared, “you are quite a wonderful person. I have never believed very much in women before. Perhaps that is the reason why I have never married.”

  “Dear me, are you a woman-hater?” she asked.

  He looked at her steadfastly.

  “I have made use of women as playthings,” he confessed. “Until I met you I never thought of them as companions, as partners.”

  She laughed at him through the darkness, and at the sound of her laugh his eyes glowed.

  “Really, I am very much flattered,” she said. “You give me credit for intelligence, then?”

  “I give you credit for every gift a woman should have,” he answered enthusiastically. “I recognise in you the woman I have sometimes dreamed of.”

  Again she laughed.

  “Don’t tell me, Mr. Fischer,” she protested, “that ever in your practical life you have spent a single moment in dreams?”

  “I have spent many,” he assured her, “but they have all been since I knew you.”

  Pamela sighed.

  “I have never been through a voyage,” she observed, “without a love affair. Still, I never suspected you, Mr. Fischer.”

  “You suspected me, perhaps, of other things.”

  She nodded.

  “I am full of suspicions about you,” she admitted. “I am not going to tell you what they are, of course.”

  “There is one thing of which I am guilty,” he confessed. “I should like to tell you about it right now.”

  “Could I guess it?”

  “You’re clever enough.”

  “You like me, don’t you, Mr. Fischer?”

  “Better than any woman in the world,” he answered promptly. “And my confession is—well, just that. Will you marry me?”

  Pamela shook her head.

  “Quite early in life,” she confided, “I made up my mind that I would never give a definite answer to any one who proposed to me on a steamer. I suppose it’s the wind, or is it the stars, or the silence, or what? I have known the sanest of men, even like you, Mr. Fischer, become quite maudlin.”

  “I am brimful of common sense at the present moment,” he declared earnestly. “You and I could do great things together, if only I could get you to look at one certain matter from my point of view; to see it as I see it.”

  “A political matter?” she inquired naively.

  “I want to try and persuade you,” he confessed, “that America has everything in the world to gain from Germany’s success, and everything to lose if the Allies should triumph in this war and Great Britain should continue her tyranny of the seas.”

  “It’s an extraordinarily interesting subject,” Pamela admitted.

  “It is almost as absorbing,” he declared, “as the other matter which just now lies even nearer to my heart.”

  She withdrew her fingers from his sudden clutch.

  “Mr. Fischer,” she told him, “what I said just now was quite final. I will not be made love to on a steamer.”

  “When we land,” he continued eagerly, “you will be coming to see your brother, won’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “Of course! I am coming to the Plaza Hotel. That, I suppose, is good news for you, Mr. Fischer.”

  “Of course it is,” he answered, “but why do you say so?”

  “It will give you so many opportunities,” she murmured.

  “Of seeing you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Of searching my belongings.”

  There was a moment’s silence. She heard his quick breath through the darkness. His voice assumed its harsher tone.

  “You believe that it was I who searched your stateroom?”

  “I am sure that it was you, or some one acting for you.”

  “What is it, then, of which I am in search?” he demanded.

  “Captain Graham’s formula,” she replied. “I think you want that a good deal more than you want me.”

  “You have it then?” he asked fiercely.

  She sighed.

  “You jump so to conclusions. I didn’t say so.”

  “You went up the stairs … you were the only person who went up just at that one psychological moment! He had his pocketbook with him when he came in— he told Holderness so.”

  “And when you searched him it was gone,” she remarked calmly. “Dear me!”

  “How do you know that I searched him?” Fischer demanded.

  “How dare you ask me to give away my secrets?” she replied.

  “Listen,” he began, striving with an almost painful effort to keep his voice down to the level of a whisper, “you and I together, we could do the most marvellous things. I could let you into all my schemes. They are great. They will be successful. After the war is over—”

  He held his breath for a moment. The tramp of approaching footsteps warned him of the coming of an intruder. The Captain came to a standstill before their chairs and saluted.

  “Miss Van Teyl,” he said, “there will be a mutiny in the saloon if you don’t come down and sing.”

  She almost sprang to her feet. The ship was rolling a little, and she laid her fingers upon his arm.

  “I meant to come long ago,” she declared, “but Mr. Fischer has been so interesting. You will finish telling me your experiences another time, won’t you?” she called out over her shoulder. “There is so much that I still want to hear.”

  Fischer’s reply was almost ungracious. He watched their departure in silence, and afterwards leaned further back in his chair. With long, nervous fingers he drew a black cigar from his case and lit it. Then he folded his arms. For more than half an hour he sat there motionless, smoking furiously. He looked out into the chaos of the windy darkness, he heard voices riding upon the seas, shrieking and calling to him, voices to which he had been deaf too long. The burden of these later years of turbulent, brazen, selfish struggling, rolled back. He had been a sentimentalist once, a willing seeker after things which seemed to have passed him by. At his age, he told himself, a man should still find more than one place in the world.

  CHAPTER IX

  Table of Contents

  James Van Teyl glanced curiously at the small, dark figure standing patiently before him, and then back again at the wireless cable which he held in his fingers. He was just back from a tiring day in Wall Street, and was reclining in the most comfortable easy-chair of his Hotel Plaza sitting- room.

  “Gee!” he murmured. “This beats me. The last thing I should have thought we wanted here was a valet. The fellow who looks after this suite has scarcely anything else to do. What did you say your name was?”

  “Nikasti, sir.”

  Van Teyl carefully reconsidered the cable. It certainly seemed to leave no room for misunderstanding.

  Please engage for our service, as valet, Nikasti. See that he enters on his duties at once. Hope land this ev
ening. Your sister on board sends love.—F.

  “Well that seems clear enough,” the young man muttered, thrusting the form into his waistcoat pocket. “You’re here to stay, I guess, Nikasti? I see you’ve brought your kit along.”

  “In case you decided to engage me, sir,” the man replied.

  “Oh, you are engaged right enough,” Van Teyl assured him. “You’d better make the best job you can of putting out my evening clothes. If you ring for the floor valet, he’ll help you. The bedrooms are through that door.”

  “Very good, sir!”

  “I am going down to the barber’s now,” Van Teyl continued, rising to his feet. “Just remember this, Nikasti—what a name, by the bye!”

  “I could be called Kato,” the man suggested.

  “Kato for me all the time,” his prospective employer agreed. “Well, listen. My sister, Miss Van Teyl, arrives from Europe on the Lapland this evening. If she comes in or rings up, say I’m here and I want to see her at once. You understand?”

  “I understand, sir.”

  Van Teyl strolled out, and Kato disappeared into the inner room. The floor valet, dressed in the dark blue livery of the hotel, was already laying out his master’s dinner clothes. He eyed the intruder a little truculently.

  “Who are you, anyway?” he inquired.

  “My name is Nikasti,” was the quiet reply. “Mr. Van Teyl has engaged me as his valet, to wait upon him and Mr. Fischer.”

  The man laid down the shirt into which he was fixing the studs.

  “That’s some news,” he remarked bitterly.

  “To wait on Mr. Van Teyl and Mr. Fischer, eh? What the hell do they want you for?”

  Nikasti shook his head slowly. He was very small, and his dark eyes seemed filled with melancholy.

  “It is not for a very long time,” he ventured.

  “Long enough to do me out of my five dollars’ tip every week,” the man grumbled. “I’m a married man, too, and a good American. Blast you fellows, coming and taking our jobs away! Can’t think what they let you into the country for.”

  “I am sorry,” Nikasti murmured.

  “Your sorrow don’t bring me in my five dollars,” the valet retorted bitterly. “There’s only two suites on this floor to work for, anyway, and this is the only one worth a cent.”

  “I am taking the situation,” the other explained, “for the sake of experience. I do not wish to rob you of your earnings. I will pay you the five dollars a week while I stay here. You shall help me with the work.”

  “That’s a deal, my little yellow-skinned kid,” the valet agreed in a tone of relief. “I’ll show you where the things are kept.”

  His new coadjutor bowed.

  “The telephone is ringing in the master’s room,” he observed. “You shall remain here, and I will answer it.”

  “That goes, Jappy,” the man acquiesced. “If it’s a young lady take her name, but don’t say that Mr. Van Teyl’s about. Forward young baggages some of them are.”

  Nikasti glided from the room, closed the door, and approached the telephone receiver.

  “Yes,” he acknowledged, “these are the rooms of Mr. Van Teyl… No, madam, Mr. Van Teyl is not in at present.”

  There was a moment’s pause. Nikasti’s face was impenetrable as he listened, but his eyes glowed.

  “Yes, I understand, madam,” he said softly. “You are Miss Van Teyl, and you wish to speak to your brother. The moment Mr. Van Teyl returns I will ring you up or fetch you.”

  He replaced the receiver upon its hook, and returned to the bedroom. For some little time he was initiated into the mysteries of his new master’s studs, boots and shoes, and general taste in wearing apparel. Then the latter entered the sitting-room, and Nikasti obeyed his summons.

  “Anyone called me up?” he inquired.

  “No one, sir.”

  Van Teyl glanced at the clock in an undecided manner.

  “I’ll change right away,” he decided. “Just set things to rights in here, fill my cigarette case, and hang round by the telephone.”

  Nikasti bowed, and the young man disappeared into the inner room. His new attendant waited until the door was closed. Then he removed the receiver from its hook, laid it upon the table, and moved stealthily towards the open fireplace. For several moments he remained in an attitude of listening, then with quick, lithe fingers he drew from his pocket a cable dispatch, reread it with an air of complete absorption, and committed it to the flames. He watched it burn, and turned away from the contemplation of its grey ashes with a sigh of content. Suddenly he started. The door of the sitting-room had been opened and closed. A tall, broad-shouldered man, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, a long travelling coat and a Homburg hat, was standing watching him. Nikasti was only momentarily disturbed. His look of gentle inquiry was perfect.

  “You wish to see my master—Mr. Van Teyl?” he asked.

  “Where is he?” Fischer demanded.

  “He is dressing in the next apartment. I will take him your name.”

  Fischer threw his coat and hat upon the table.

  “That’ll do directly,” he replied. “So you’re Nikasti?”

  They looked at one another for a moment. The face of the Japanese was smooth, bland, and imperturbable. His eyes were innocent even of any question. Fischer’s forehead was wrinkled, and his brows drawn close together.

  “I am Nikasti,” the other acknowledged—“Kato Nikasti. Mr. Van Teyl has just engaged me as his valet.”

  “You can take off the gloves,” Fischer told him. “I am Oscar Fischer.”

  “Oscar Fischer,” Nikasti repeated.

  “Yes! … Burning something when I came in weren’t you? Looked like a cable, eh?”

  “A dispatch from London,” Nikasti confided.

  “Nothing that would interest me, eh?”

  “It was a family message,” was the calm response. “It did not concern the affair which is between us.”

  “How came you to speak English like this?” Fischer inquired.

  “I was at Oxford University for two years,” Nikasti told him, “and in the Embassy at London for five more.”

  “Before you took up your present job, eh?”

  Nikasti assented silently. Fischer glanced around as though to make sure that they were still alone.

  “I have the communication with me,” he announced, “which we are to discuss. The terms of our proposal are clearly set out, and they are signed by the Highest of all himself. The letter embodying them was handed to me three weeks ago to-day in Berlin. Have you been to Washington?”

  Nikasti shook his head.

  “I do not go to Washington,” he said. “You will understand that diplomatically, as you would put it, I do not exist. Neither is it necessary. I am here to listen.”

  Fischer nodded.

  “There need be very little delay, then,” he observed, “before we get to work.”

  Nikasti bowed and raised his forefinger in warning.

  “I think,” he whispered, “that Mr. Van Teyl has finished dressing.”

  CHAPTER X

  Table of Contents

  Van Teyl, as he hastened forward to meet his friend, presented at first sight a very good type of the well-groomed, athletic young American. He was over six feet tall, with smooth, dark hair brushed back from his forehead, a strong, clean-shaven face and good features. Only, as he drew nearer, there was evident a slight, unnatural quivering at the corner of his lips. The cordiality of his greeting, too, was a little overdone.

  “Welcome home, Fischer! Why, man, you’re looking fine. Had a pleasant voyage?”

  “Storms for the first few days—after that all right,” Fischer replied.

  “Any submarines?”

  “Not a sight of one. Seen your sister yet?”

  “Not yet. I’ve been waiting about for a telephone message. She hadn’t arrived, a few minutes ago.”

  Fischer frowned.

  “I want us three to meet—you and she and I�
�the first moment she sets foot in the hotel,” he declared.

  “What’s the hurry?” Van Teyl demanded. “You must have seen plenty of her the last ten days.”

  “That,” Fischer insisted, “was a different matter. See here, Jimmy, I’ll be frank with you.”

  He walked to the door of the bedroom, opened it, and looked inside. Its sole occupant was Nikasti, who was at the far end, putting away some clothes. Fischer closed the door firmly and returned.

  “I want you to understand this, James,” he began. “Your sister is meddling in certain things she’d best leave alone.”

  Van Teyl lit a cigarette.

  “No use talking to me,” he observed. “Pamela’s her own mistress, and she’s gone her own way ever since she came of age.”

  “She’s got to quit,” Fischer pronounced. “That’s all there is about it. You and I will have to talk this out. Where are you dining?”

  “Downstairs,” Van Teyl replied gloomily. “I was thinking of waiting for Pamela.”

  “You leave word to have your people let you know directly she arrives,” Fischer advised, “and come along with me.”

  Van Teyl allowed himself to be led towards the door. Nikasti, with a due sense of his new duties, glided past them, rang for the lift, and watched them descend. Fischer turned at once towards the dining room.

  “Thank God we’re in a civilised country,” he observed, “and that I don’t have to change when I don’t want to!”

  They found a quiet table, and Fischer, displaying much interest in the menu, ordered a somewhat extensive dinner.

  “Grapefruit and Maryland chicken are worth coming back to,” he declared. “Now see here, James, let’s get to business. You’ve got to help me with your sister.”

  “But how?” Van Teyl demanded. “Pamela and I are good pals, of course, but she has a will of her own in all she does, and I don’t fancy that anything I could say would influence her very much.”

  “There are two things about your sister,” Fischer continued. “The first is that she’s got to quit this secret service business she’s got herself mixed up in.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense!” Van Teyl exclaimed. “Pamela doesn’t care a fig about politics.”