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

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  “That may be,” the captain agreed, “and yet I can’t get rid of my premonition. I wouldn’t mind laying you anything you like, Dix, that we don’t sight a submarine, and shouldn’t, even if we hadn’t our guns trained.”

  “That’s one comfort, anyway. Being a family man, sir—”

  “Yes, I know all about your family, Dix,” the captain interrupted irritably, “but just at the present moment I am more interested in what is going on in my ship. I begin to believe that Mr. Crawshay’s voyage through the air wasn’t altogether a piece of bravado, after all.”

  The purser smiled a little incredulously. “He sent round this evening to know if I could lend him some flannel pyjamas,” he said,—“says all the things that have been collected together for him are too thin. That man makes me tired, sir.”

  “He makes me wonder.”

  “How’s that, sir?”

  “Because I can’t size him up,” the captain declared. “There isn’t a soul on board who isn’t laughing at him and saying what a sissy he is. They say he has smuggled an extra lifebelt into his cabin, and spends half his time being seasick and the other half looking out for submarines.”

  “That’s the sort of fellow he seems to me, anyway,” the purser observed.

  “I can’t say that I’ve quite made up my mind,” the captain pronounced. “I suppose you know, Dix, that he was connected with the Secret Service at the English Embassy?”

  “I didn’t know it,” Dix replied, “but if he has been, Lord help us! No wonder the Germans have got ahead of us every time!”

  “I don’t think he was much of a success,” the other continued, “and as a matter of fact he is on his way back to England now to do his bit of soldiering. All the same, Dix, he gave me a turn the other day.”

  “How’s that, sir?”

  “Showed me an order, signed by a person I won’t name,” the captain went on, lowering his voice, “requesting me to practically run the ship according to his directions—making him a kind of Almighty boss.”

  Mr. Dix opened his lips and closed them again. His eyes were wide open with astonishment. There was an indecisive knock at the door, which at a gesture from the captain he opened. Wrapped in a huge overcoat, with a cap buttoned around his ears and a scarf nearly up to his mouth, Crawshay stood there, seeking admittance.

  * * * * *

  “I am exceedingly fortunate to find you both here,” the newcomer observed, as he removed his cap. “Captain, may I have a few minutes’ conversation with you and Mr. Dix?”

  “Delighted,” the captain acquiesced, “so long as you don’t keep me more than twenty minutes. I am due on the bridge at nine o’clock.”

  “I will endeavour not to be prolix,” Crawshay continued, carefully removing his rubbers, unfastening his scarf and loosening his overcoat. “A damp night! I fear that we may have fog.”

  “This all comes off the twenty minutes,” the captain reminded him.

  Crawshay smiled appreciatively.

  “Into the heart of things, then! Let me tell you that I suspect a conspiracy on board this boat.”

  “Of what nature?” the captain asked swiftly.

  “It is my opinion,” Crawshay said deliberately, “that the result of the whole accumulated work of the German Secret Service, compiled since the beginning of the war by means of Secret Service agents, criminals, and patriotic Germans and Austrians resident in the States, is upon this ship.”

  “Hell!” the purser murmured, without reproof from his chief.

  “It was believed,” Crawshay continued, “that these documents, together with a letter of vital importance, were on the steamer which conveyed the personnel of the late German Ambassador to Europe. The steamer was delayed at Halifax and a more or less complete search was made. I was present on behalf of the English Embassy, but I did not join personally in the search. You have all heard that the seals of a tin chest belonging to a neutral country had been tampered with. The chiefs of my department, and the head of the American Secret Service, firmly believe that the missing papers are in that chest and will be discovered when the chest is opened in London. That is not a belief which I share.”

  “And your reasons, Mr. Crawshay?” the captain asked.

  “First, because Hobson and I were decoyed to Chicago by a bogus telegram, evidently with the idea that we should find it impossible to catch or search this steamer. Secondly, because there is on board just the one man whom I believe capable of conceiving and carrying out a task as difficult as this one would be.”

  “Who is he?” the captain demanded.

  “A very inoffensive, well-mannered and exceedingly well-informed individual who is travelling in this steamer under, I believe, his own name—Mr. Jocelyn Thew.”

  “Jocelyn Thew!” the captain murmured.

  “Thew!” the purser repeated.

  “Now I tell you that I have definite suspicions of this man,” Crawshay continued, “because I know that for some reason or other he hates England, although he has the appearance of being an Englishman. I know that he has been friendly with enemy agents in New York, and I know that he has been in recent communication with enemy headquarters at Washington. Therefore, as I say, I suspect Mr. Jocelyn Thew. I also suspect Robins, the wireless operator, because I am convinced that he has received messages of which he has taken no record. I now pass on to the remainder of my suspicions, for which I frankly admit that I have nothing but surmise. I suspect Mr. Phillips, Doctor Gant and Miss Katharine Beverley.”

  The last shock proved too much for the captain. For the first time there was distinct incredulity in his face.

  “Look here, Mr. Crawshay,” he protested, “supposing you are right, and that you are on the track of a conspiracy, how do you account for a physician from the finest hospital in New York and one of the best-known young ladies in America being mixed up in it?”

  Crawshay acknowledged the difficulties of the supposition.

  “As regards the physician,” he said thoughtfully, “I must confess that I am without information concerning him, a fact which increases my suspicion of Robins, for I should have had his dossier, and also that of the man Phillips, by wireless twenty-four hours ago.”

  “What about Miss Beverley then?” the captain enquired. “Her family is not only one of the oldest in America, but they are real Puritan, Anglo-Saxon stock, white through and through. She has a dozen relatives in Congress, who have all been working for war with Germany for the last two years. She also has, as she told me herself, a brother and four cousins fighting on the French front—the brother in the Canadian Flying Corps, and the cousins in the English Army.”

  “There I must confess that you have me,” Crawshay admitted. “What you say is perfectly true. That is one of the mysteries. No plot would be worth solving, you know, if it hadn’t a few mysteries in it.”

  “If you will allow me a word, Mr. Crawshay,” the purser intervened, “I think you will have to leave Doctor Gant and his patient and Miss Beverley out of your speculations. I have our own ship doctor’s word for it that Mr. Phillips’ condition is exactly as has been stated. Mr. Jocelyn Thew may or may not be a suspicious character. Anything you suggest in the way of watching him can be done. But as regards the other three, I trust that you will not wish their comfort interfered with in any respect.”

  “Beyond the search to which every one on board will have to be subjected,” Crawshay replied, “I shall not interfere in any respect with the three people in question. Mr. Jocelyn Thew, however, is different. He is a man who has led a most adventurous life. He seems to have travelled in every part of the globe, wherever there was trouble brewing or a little fighting to be done.”

  “Why do you connect him with the present enterprise?” the captain asked.

  “Because,” Crawshay answered, “the wireless message of which your man Robins took no record, and concerning which you have kept silence at my request, was delivered to Mr. Jocelyn Thew. Because, too,” he went on, “it is my very ear
nest belief that at somewhere in the small hours of this morning there will be another message, and Mr. Jocelyn Thew will be on deck to receive it.”

  The captain knocked out the ashes of his pipe a little apprehensively.

  “If half what you suspect is true, Mr. Crawshay,” he said, “you will forgive my saying so, but Jocelyn Thew is not a man you ought to tackle without assistance.”

  There was a peculiar glitter in Crawshay’s deep-set eyes. For a single moment a new-born strength seemed to deepen the lines in his face—a transforming change.

  “You needn’t worry, Captain,” he remarked coolly. “I am not taking too many chances, and if our friend Mr. Jocelyn Thew should turn out to be the man I believe him to be, I would rather tackle him alone.”

  “Why,” Mr. Dix demanded, “should anything in the shape of violence take place? The ship can be searched, every article of baggage ransacked, and every passenger made to run the gauntlet.”

  Crawshay smiled.

  “The search you speak of is already arranged for, Mr. Dix,” he said; “long cables from my friend Hobson have already reached Liverpool—but the efficacy of such a proposed search would depend a little, would it not, upon whether we reach Liverpool?” “But if we were submarined,” the captain pointed out, “the papers would go to the bottom.”

  Crawshay leaned forward and whispered one word in the captain’s ear. The latter sat for a moment as though paralysed.

  “What’s to prevent that fellow Robins bringing her right on to our track?” Crawshay demanded. “That is the reason I spent last night listening for the wireless. It’s the reason I’m going to do the same to-night.”

  The captain sprang to his feet.

  “We’ll run no risks about this,” he declared firmly. “We’ll dismantle the apparatus. I’d never hold up my head again if the Von Blucher got us!”

  Crawshay held out his hand.

  “Forgive me, Captain,” he said, “but we want proof. Leave it to me, and if things are as I suspect, we’ll have that proof—probably before to-morrow morning,” he added, glancing at the chart.

  There was a call down the deck, a knock at the door. The captain took up his oilskins regretfully.

  “You will remember,” Crawshay enjoined, “that little mandate I showed you?”

  The captain nodded grimly.

  “I am in your hands,” he admitted. “Don’t forget that the safety of the ship may be in your hands, too!”

  “Perhaps,” Crawshay whispered, “even more than the safety of the ship.”

  CHAPTER IX

  Table of Contents

  Robins, the wireless operator, bent closer over his instrument, and the blue fires flashed from the masthead of the steamer, cutting their way through the darkness into the black spaces beyond. The little room was lit by a dull oil light, the door was fast-closed and locked. Away into the night sped one continual message.

  “Steamship City of Boston, lat…. long…. lying four points to northward of usual course. Reply.”

  A time came when the young man ceased from his labours and sat up with a yawn. He stretched out his hand and lit a cigarette, walked to the little round window which commanded the deck, gazed out of it steadily, and turned back once more to his chair before the instrument. Then something happened. A greater shock than any that lay in the blue lightning which he had been generating was awaiting him. His right hand was suddenly gripped and held on to the table. He found himself gazing straight down the black bore of a small but uncommonly ugly-looking revolver. A voice which seemed remarkable for its convincing qualities, addressed him.

  “If you speak a word, Robins, move, or show signs of any attempt to struggle, I shall shoot you. I have the right and the power.” Robins, a young man of nerve, whose name stood high on an official list of those who might be relied upon for any desperate enterprise, sat like a numbed thing. Dim visions of the face of this man, only a few feet away from his own, assailed him under some very different guise. It was Crawshay the man, stripped for action, whose lean, strong fingers were gripping the butt of that revolver, and whose eyes were holding him like gimlets.

  “Now, if you are wise, answer me a few questions,” Crawshay began. “I’d have brought the captain with me, but I thought we might do better business alone. You’ve been advertising the ship’s whereabouts. Why?”

  “I’ve only been giving the usual calls,” the young man muttered.

  “Don’t lie to me,” was the grim reply. “Your wireless was supposed to be silent from yesterday midday except for the purpose of receiving calls. I ask you again, why and to whom were you advertising our whereabouts and course?”

  Robins looked at the revolver, looked at Crawshay, and was dimly conscious of a damp feeling about his forehead. Nevertheless, his lips were screwed together, and he remained silent.

  “Come,” Crawshay went on, “we’ll have a common-sense talk. I am an agent of the British Secret Service. I have unlimited powers upon this ship, power to put a bullet through your head if I choose, and not a soul to question it. The game’s up so far as you are concerned. You have received messages on this steamer of which you have kept no record, but which you have delivered secretly to a certain passenger. Of that I may or may not speak later on. At present I am more interested in your operations of to-night. You are signalling the information of our whereabouts for some definite reason. What is it? Were you trying to pick up the Blucher?”

  “I wasn’t trying to pick up anybody,” the young man faltered.

  Crawshay’s fingers gripped him by the shoulder. His very determined-looking mouth had suddenly become a ring of steel.

  “If you don’t give me a different answer in ten seconds, Robins, I’ll blow your brains all over the cabin!”

  The young man broke.

  “I was trying to pick up the Blucher,” he acknowledged.

  “That’s exactly what I thought,” Crawshay muttered. “That’s the game, without a doubt. What are you? An Englishman?”

  “I am not!” was the almost fierce reply. “Blast England!”

  Crawshay looked into the black eyes, suddenly lit with an ugly fire, and nodded.

  “I understand,” he said. “Robins, your name, eh? Any relation to the young Sinn Feiner who was shot in Dublin a few months ago?”

  “Brother.”

  “That may save your life later on,” Crawshay observed coolly. “Now you can do one of three things. You can come with me to the captain, be put in irons and shot as soon as we land—or before, if the Blucher finds us; or you can send the message which I shall give you; or you can end your days where you sit.”

  “What message?” the young man demanded.

  “You will send out a general call, as before, repeating the latitude and longitude with a difference of exactly three points, and you will repeat the altered course, only you will substitute the word ‘south’ for the word ‘north.’”

  The young man’s eyes suddenly gleamed as he turned towards the instrument, but Crawshay smiled with grim understanding.

  “Let me tell you that I understand the wireless,” he said impressively. “You will give the message exactly as I have told you or we finish things up on the spot. I think you had better. It’s a matter of compulsion, you know—in fact I’ll explain matters to Mr. Jocelyn Thew, if you like.”

  The young man’s eyes were round with amazement.

  “Jocelyn Thew!” he repeated.

  “Precisely. You needn’t look so terrified. It isn’t you who have given away. Now what are you going to do?”

  The young man swung round to his instrument. Crawshay released his hand, stepping a little back.

  “You are going to send the message, then?”

  “Yes!” was the sullen reply.

  “Capital!” Crawshay exclaimed, cautiously subsiding into a chair. “Now you’ll go on every ten minutes until I tell you to stop.”

  Robins bent over his task, and again the crackling waves broke away from their prison. On
ce his finger hesitated. He glanced surreptitiously at Crawshay. “Four degrees south,” Crawshay repeated softly.

  The night wore on. Every ten minutes the message was sent. Then there followed a brief silence, spent generally by Robins with his head drooped upon his clasped arms; by Crawshay in unceasing vigil. Just as the first faint gleam of daylight stole into the little turret chamber, came the long-waited-for reply. The young man wrote down the few lines and passed them over. Crawshay, who had risen to his feet, glanced at them, nodded, and thrust the paper into his pocket.

  “That seems quite satisfactory,” he said coldly. “Now ask the Blucher her exact course?”

  Robins sat for a moment motionless. He felt Crawshay’s presence towering over him, felt again the spell of his softly-spoken command.

  “Don’t waste any time, please. Do as I tell you.”

  Robins obeyed. In less than a quarter of an hour he handed over another slip of paper. Crawshay thrust it into his pocket.

  “That concludes our business,” he said. “Now let me see if I remember enough of this apparatus to put it out of action.”

  He bent over the instrument, removed some plugs, turned some screws, and finally placed in his pocket a small concealed part of the mechanism. Then he turned towards Robins.

  “You can leave here now,” he directed. “I shall lock the place up.”

  Robins had in some measure recovered himself. He was a quiet, hollow-eyed young person, with thick black hair and a thin frame, about which the uniform of the ship hung loosely. “You are the man who boarded the steamer from a seaplane, aren’t you, and pretended afterwards to be such a ninny?”

  “I am,” Crawshay acknowledged.

  “How did you get on to this?”

  Crawshay raised his eyebrows.

  “Sorry,” he replied, “that is a matter concerning which I fear that you will have to restrain your curiosity.”

  “How did you get in here?”

  “By means of a duplicate key which I obtained from the purser. I hid in your bunk there and drew the curtains. Quite a comfortable mattress, yours. You’ll have to change your sleeping quarters, though.”