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

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  “I see them.”

  “They are the two men,” he continued, “who are out to spoil my show if they can. You may see them again under very different circumstances.”

  “I shan’t forget,” she murmured. “The dark one looks like Brightman, the detective you were up against in that Fall River business—the man who believed that you were the High Priest of crime in New York.”

  “You have a good memory,” he remarked. “It is the same man.”

  “And the other,” she continued, with a sudden added interest in her tone—“Why, that’s the Englishman who had me turned off from the hotel in Washington. Don’t you remember, I went there for a month on trial as telephone operator, just before the election? You remember why. That Englishman was always dropping in. Used to bring me flowers now and then, but I felt certain from the first he was suspicious. He got me turned off just as things were getting interesting.”

  “Right again,” Jocelyn Thew told her. “His name is Crawshay. He is the man who was sent out from Scotland Yard to the English Embassy. He crossed with me on the steamer. We had our first little bout there.”

  “Who won?”

  “The first trick fell to me,” he acknowledged grimly.

  “And so will the second and the third,” she murmured. “He may be brainy, though he doesn’t look it with that monacle and the peering way he has, but you’re too clever for them all, Jocelyn Thew. You’ll win.”

  He smiled very faintly.

  “Well,” he said, “this time I have to win or throw in my chips. Now if you like we’ll have some lunch, and afterwards, if you’ll forgive my taking the liberty of mentioning it, you had better buy some clothes.”

  “You don’t like this black silk?” she asked wistfully. “I got it at a store up-town, and they told me these sort of skirts were all the rage over here.”

  “Well, you can see for yourself they aren’t,” he remarked, a little drily. “London is a queer place in many ways, especially about clothes. You’re either right or you’re wrong, and you’ve got to be right, Nora. We’ll see about it presently.”

  They left the room together. Crawshay looked after them with interest.

  “This affair,” he told his companion, “grows hourly more and more interesting. You’ve been up against Jocelyn Thew, you tell me. Well, I am perfectly certain that that girl, whose coming gave him such a start, was a young woman I had turned away from an hotel in Washington. She was in the game then—more locally, perhaps, but still in the same game. I used to sit and talk to her in the afternoons sometimes. Finest brown eyes I ever saw in my life. I wonder if there is anything between her and Jocelyn Thew,” he added, looking through the door with a faintly disapproving note in his tone,—a note which a woman would have recognised at once as jealousy.

  “If you ask me, I should say no,” the other answered. “I’ve kept tabs on Jocelyn Thew for a bit, and I’ve had his dossier. There’s never been a woman’s name mentioned in connection with him—don’t seem as though he’d ever moved round or taken a meal with one all the time he was in New York. To tell you the truth, Mr. Crawshay, that’s just what makes it so difficult to get your hands on a man you want. Nine times out of ten it’s through the women we get home. The man who stands clear of them has an extra chance or two—Say, what time this evening?”

  “Come to my rooms at 178, St. James’s Street, at seven o’clock,” Crawshay directed. “I’ve a little investigation to make before then.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Table of Contents

  Crawshay took a taxicab from the Savoy to Claridge’s Hotel, sent up his card and was conducted to Katharine Beverley’s sitting room on the first floor. She kept him waiting for a few moments, and he felt a sudden instinct of curiosity as he noticed the great pile of red roses which a maid had only just finished arranging. When she came in, he looked towards her in surprise. She appeared to have grown thinner, and there were dark rims under her eyes. Her words of greeting were colourless. She seemed almost afraid to meet his steady gaze.

  “I ought to apologise for calling in the morning,” he said, “but I ventured to do so, hoping that you would come out and have some lunch with me.”

  “I really don’t feel well enough,” she replied. “London is not agreeing with me at all.”

  “You are ill?” he exclaimed, with some concern.

  She looked at the closed door through which the maid had issued.

  “Not exactly ill. I have some anxieties,” she answered. “It is kind of you to keep your promise and come. Please tell me exactly what happened? You know how interested I am.”

  “I have unfortunately nothing to report but failure,” he replied. “Everything seems to have happened exactly as the doctor on the ship suggested. The detectives at Liverpool were quite smart. We were able to trace the car without much difficulty, and the body of your patient Phillips was found at his home, the other side of Chester. We obtained permission to make an examination, and we found that, just as we expected, fresh bandages had been put on only a few hours previously.”

  “And Doctor Gant?”

  “He is at an hotel in London. He is watched night and day, but he seems to divide his time between genuine sight-seeing and trying to arrange for his passage home. Naturally, the whole of his effects have been searched, but without the slightest result.”

  “And—and Mr. Jocelyn Thew?”

  “His business in Liverpool seems to have detained him a very short time. He is staying now at the Savoy Hotel. Needless to say, his effects too have been thoroughly searched, without result.”

  “You know that he sent me these?” she asked, glancing towards the roses.

  “I saw him buying them.”

  Her fingers had strayed over one of the blossoms, and he noticed that while they talked she was convulsively crushing it into pulp.

  “Were these detectives from Liverpool,” she asked, “able to keep any watch upon Doctor Gant and Mr. Jocelyn Thew after—Chester?”

  “To some extent. There is no doubt that Jocelyn Thew spent the first night in Liverpool. After that he travelled to London and took up his residence at the Savoy. Here Doctor Gant, who had travelled up from Chester, called upon him, late in the afternoon of the day of his arrival. They spent some time together, and subsequently the doctor took a room at the Regent Palace Hotel. The two men dined together at the Savoy grill, and took a box at the Alhambra music-hall, where they spent the evening. They appear to have returned to Jocelyn Thew’s rooms, had a whisky and soda each and separated. There is no record of their having spoken to any other person or visited any other place.”

  “And their rooms have been searched?”

  “By the most skilled men we have.”

  She pulled another of the roses to pieces.

  “So it comes to this,” she said. “All these documents, of whose existence both you and the American police knew, have been brought from America to England, and even now you cannot locate them.”

  “At present we cannot,” he confessed drily, “but I am not prepared to admit for a single moment that they are ever likely to reach their destination.”

  “Jocelyn Thew is very clever,” she reminded him calmly.

  “I am tired of being told so,” he replied, with a touch of irritation in his tone.

  She smiled.

  “You probably need your luncheon! If you care to come downstairs with me,” she invited, “we can finish our conversation.”

  “I shall be only too pleased.”

  Katharine Beverley’s table was in a quiet corner, and she sat with her back to the window, but even under such circumstances the change in her during the last few days was noticeable. There was a frightened light in her eyes, her cheeks were entirely colourless, her hands seemed almost transparent. Such a change in so short a time seemed almost incredible. Crawshay found himself unable to ignore it.

  “I am very sorry to see you looking so unwell,” he observed sympathetically. “I am afraid th
e shock of your voyage across the Atlantic has been too much for you.”

  “I am terribly disturbed,” she confessed. “I am disappointed, too, in Mr. Jocelyn Thew. One hates to be made use of so flagrantly.”

  “You really knew nothing, then, until those things were discovered in your stateroom?”

  “That question,” she replied, “I am not going to answer.”

  “But the main part of the plot?” he persisted, “the bandages?”

  “Doctor Gant never allowed me to touch them. That is what I found so inexplicable,—what first set me wondering.”

  “The whole scheme was very cleverly thought out,” Crawshay pronounced, “but if you will forgive my repeating a previous speculation, Miss Beverley, the greatest mystery about it all, to me, is how you, Miss Katharine Beverley, whose name and reputation in New York stands so high, were induced to leave your work, your social engagements and your home, at a time like this, when your country really has claims upon you, to act as ordinary sick nurse to a New York clerk of humble means who turns out to have been nothing but the tool of Jocelyn Thew.”

  “I am still unable to explain that,” she told him.

  He realised the state of tension in which she was and suddenly abandoned the whole subject. He spoke of the theatres, asked of her friends in town, discussed the news of the day, and made no further allusion of any sort to the mystery which surrounded them. It was not until after they had been served with their coffee in the lounge that he reverted to more serious matters.

  “Miss Beverley,” he said, “for your own sake I am exceedingly unwilling to leave you like this. I may seem to you to be an inquisitor, but believe me I am a friendly one. I cannot see that you have anything to lose in being frank with me. I wish to help you. I wish to relieve the anxiety from which I know that you are suffering. Give me your confidence.”

  “You ask a very difficult thing,” she sighed.

  “Difficult but not impossible,” he insisted. “I can quite understand that your discovery of the fact that you had been made use of to assist in the bringing to England of treasonable documents is of itself likely to be a severe shock to you, but, if you will permit me to say so, it is not sufficient to account for your present state of nerves.”

  “You don’t know all that is happening,” she replied, in some agitation. “There is a very astute lady detective who has a room near mine, and a man who shadows me every time I come in or go out. I am expecting every moment that the manager will ask me to leave the hotel.”

  “That is all very annoying, of course,” he acknowledged sympathetically, “and yet I believe that at the back of your head there is still something else troubling you.”

  “You are very observant,” she murmured.

  “In your case,” he replied, “close observation is scarcely necessary. Why, it is only four days since we left the steamer, and you look simply the wreck of yourself.”

  “A great deal has happened since then,” she confessed.

  He seized upon the admission.

  “You see, I was right.—There is something else! Miss Beverley, I am your friend. You must confide in me.”

  “It would be useless,” she assured him sadly.

  “You cannot be sure of that,” he insisted. “If this espionage gets on your nerves, I believe that I have influence enough to have it removed, provided that you will let me bring a friend of mine to see you here and ask you a few questions.”

  She shook her head.

  “It is not the espionage alone,” she declared. “I am confronted with something altogether different, something about which I cannot speak.”

  “Is this man Jocelyn Thew connected with it in any way?” he demanded.

  She winced.

  “Why should you ask that question?”

  “Because it is perfectly clear,” he continued, “that Jocelyn Thew exercises some sort of unholy influence over you, an influence, I may add, which it is my intention to destroy.”

  She smiled bitterly.

  “If you can destroy anything that Jocelyn Thew means to keep alive,” she began—

  “Oh, please don’t believe that Jocelyn Thew is infallible,” he interrupted. “I have had a long experience of diplomatists and plotters and even criminals, and I can assure you that no man breathing is possessed of more than ordinary human powers. Jocelyn Thew has brought it off against us this time, but then, you see, one must lose a trick now and then. It is the next step which counts.”

  “Oh, the next step will be all right!” she replied, with a hard little laugh. “He has brought his spoils to England, although there must have been twenty or thirty detectives on board, and you won’t be able to stop his disposing of them exactly as he likes.”

  “I don’t agree with you,” he assured her confidently. “That, however, is not what I want to talk about. You are in a false position. In the struggle which is going on now, your heart and soul should be with us and against Jocelyn Thew.”

  Her eyes were lit with a momentary terror.

  “You don’t suppose for a moment,” she said, “that my sympathies are not with my own country and our joint cause?”

  “I don’t,” he replied. “On the other hand, your actions should follow upon your sympathies. There is something sinister in your present state. I want you to tell me just what the terror is that is sitting in your heart, that has changed you like this. Jocelyn Thew has some hold upon you. If so, you need a man to stand by your side. Can’t you treat me as a friend?”

  She softened at his words. For a moment she sat quite silent.

  “I can only repeat to you what I told you once before,” she said. “If you are picturing Jocelyn Thew to yourself as a blackmailer, or anything of that sort, you are wrong. I am under the very deepest obligations to him.”

  “But surely,” he protested, “you have paid your debt, whatever it was?”

  “He admits it.”

  “And yet the terror remains?”

  “It remains,” she repeated sadly.

  Crawshay meditated for a moment.

  “Look here, Miss Beverley,” he said, “I have a friend who is chief in this country of a department which I will not name. Will you dine with me to-night and let me invite him to meet you?”

  She shook her head.

  “It is a very kind thought,” she declared, “but I am engaged. Mr. Jocelyn Thew is dining here.”

  Crawshay’s face for a moment was very black indeed. He rose slowly to his feet.

  “I know that you mean to be kind,” she continued, “and I fear that I must seem very ungrateful. Believe me, I am not. I am simply faced with one of those terrible problems which must be solved, and yet which admit of no help from any living person.”

  Crawshay’s attitude had grown perceptibly stiffer.

  “I am very sorry indeed, Miss Beverley,” he said, “that you cannot give me your confidence. I am very sorry for my own sake, and I am sorry for yours.”

  “Is that a threat?” she asked.

  “You know the old proverb,” he answered, as he bowed over her fingers. “‘Those who are not on my side are against me.’”

  “You are going to treat me as an enemy?”

  “Until you prove yourself to be a friend.”

  CHAPTER XIX

  Table of Contents

  At a quarter to eight that evening, a young man who had made fitful appearances in the lounge of Claridge’s Restaurant during the last half-hour went to the telephone and rang up a certain West End number.

  “Are these Mr. Crawshay’s rooms?” he asked.

  “Mr. Crawshay speaking,” was the reply.

  “Brightman there?”

  Crawshay turned away from the telephone and handed the receiver to the detective.

  “What news, Henshaw?” the latter enquired.

  “Miss Beverley dines at her usual table, sir, at eight o’clock,” was the reply. “The table is set for three.”

  “For three?” Brightman exclaimed. />
  “For three?” Crawshay echoed, turning from the sideboard, where he had been in the act of mixing some cocktails.

  “You are quite sure the third place isn’t a mistake?” Brightman asked.

  “Quite sure, sir,” was the prompt reply. “I am acquainted with one of the head waiters here, and I understand that two gentlemen are expected.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Nothing, sir. Miss Beverley sent away two parcels this afternoon, which were searched downstairs. They were quite unimportant.”

  “I shall expect to hear from you again,” Brightman directed, “within half an hour. If the third person is a stranger, try and find out his name.”

  “I’ll manage that all right, Mr. Brightman. The young lady has just come down. I’ll be getting back into the lounge.”

  Brightman turned around to Crawshay, who was in the act of shaking the cocktails.

  “A third party,” he observed.

  “Interesting,” Crawshay declared, “very interesting! Perhaps the intermediary. It might possibly be Doctor Gant, though.”

  The detective shook his head.

  “Three quarters of an hour ago,” he said, “Doctor Gant went into Gatti’s for a chop. He was quite alone and in morning clothes.”

  Crawshay poured the amber-coloured liquid which he had been shaking into a frosted glass, handed it to his companion and filled one for himself.

  “Here’s hell to Jocelyn Thew, anyway!” he exclaimed, with a note of real feeling in his tone.

  “If I thought,” Brightman declared, “that drinking that toast would bring him any nearer to it, I should become a confirmed drunkard. As it is, sir—my congratulations! A very excellent mixture!”

  He set down his glass empty and Crawshay turned away to light a cigarette.

  “No,” he decided, “I don’t think that it would be Doctor Gant. Jocelyn Thew has finished with him all right. He did his job well and faithfully, but he was only a hired tool. Speculation, however, is useless. We must wait for Henshaw’s news. Perhaps this third guest, whoever he may be, may give us a clue as to Jocelyn Thew’s influence over Miss Beverley.”