For a moment or two they neither of them spoke. From out of the windows of the house before which they were standing came the music of a popular waltz. Olive turned a way with a little shiver.
“You think I’m brutal, dear,” Conyers went on, as he patted her hand. “Remember, I’ve seen men killed—that’s what makes the difference, Olive. Yes, I am different! We are all different, we who’ve tackled the job. Thomson’s different. Your young man at luncheon, Geraldine—what’s his name?—Granet—he’s different. There’s something big and serious grown up inside us, and the brute is looking out. It has to be. I’ll come in later, Olive. Tell the mater I shall be home to dinner, Geraldine. The governor’s waiting down at the Admiralty for me. Good-bye, girls!”
He waved his hand and strode down towards the corner of the Square. Both girls watched him for a few moments. His shoulders were as square as ever but something had gone from the springiness of his gait. There was nothing left of the sailor’s jaunty swagger.
“They are all like that,” Geraldine whispered “when they’ve been face to face with the real thing. And we are only women, Olive.”
CHAPTER IV
Table of Contents
Surgeon-Major Thomson had apparently forgotten his appointment to view camp bedsteads, for, a few minutes after he had left Geraldine and her brother, his taxicab set him down before a sombre-looking house in Adelphi Terrace. He passed through the open doorway, up two flights of stairs, drew a key of somewhat peculiar shape from his pocket and opened a door in front of him. He found himself in a very small hall, from which there was no egress save through yet another door, through which he passed and stepped into a large but singularly bare-looking apartment. Three great safes were ranged along one side of the wall, piles of newspapers and maps were strewn all over a long table, and a huge Ordnance map of the French and Belgian Frontiers stood upon an easel. The only occupant of the apartment was a man who was sitting before a typewriter in front of the window. He turned his head and rose at Thomson’s entrance, a rather short, keen-looking young man, his face slightly pitted with smallpox, his mouth hard and firm, his eyes deep-set and bright.
“Anything happened, Ambrose?”
“A dispatch, sir,” was the brief reply.
“From the War Office?”
“No, sir, it came direct.”
Thomson drew the thin sheet of paper from its envelope and swept a space for himself at the corner of the table. Then he unlocked one of the safes and drew out from an inner drawer a parchment book bound in brown vellum. He spread out the dispatch and read it carefully. It had been handed in at a town near the Belgian frontier about eight hours before:—
Fifty thousand camp bedsteads are urgently required for neighbourhood of La Guir. Please do your best for us, the matter is urgent. Double mattress if possible. London.
For a matter of ten minutes Thomson was busy with his pencil and the code-book. When he had finished, he studied thoughtfully the message which he had transcribed:—
Plans for attack on La Guir communicated. Attack foiled. Believe Smith in London.
“Anything important, sir?” the young man at the typewriter asked.
Thomson nodded but made no immediate reply. He first of all carefully destroyed the message which he had received, and the transcription, and watched the fragments of paper burn into ashes. Then he replaced the code-book in the safe, which he carefully locked, and strolled towards the window. He stood for several minutes looking out towards the Thames.
“The same thing has happened again at La Guir,” he said at last.
“Any clue?”
“None. They say that he is in London now.”
The two men looked at one another for a moment in grave silence. Ambrose leaned back in his chair and frowned heavily.
“Through our lines, through Boulogne, across the Channel, through Dover Station, out of Charing-Cross, through our own men and the best that Scotland Yard could do for us. In London, eh?”
Thomson’s face twitched convulsively. His teeth had come together with a little snap.
“You needn’t play at being headquarters, Ambrose,” he said hoarsely. “I know it seems like a miracle but there’s a reason for that.”
“What is it?” Ambrose asked.
“Only a few weeks after the war began,” Thomson continued thoughtfully, “two French generals, four or five colonels, and over twenty junior and non-commissioned officers were court-martialled for espionage. The French have been on the lookout for that sort of thing. We haven’t. There isn’t one of these men who are sitting in judgment upon us to-day, Ambrose, who would listen to me for a single moment if I were to take the bull by the horns and say that the traitor we seek is one of ourselves.”
“You’re right,” Ambrose murmured, “but do you believe it?”
“I do,” Thomson asserted. “It isn’t only the fact of the attacks themselves miscarrying, but it’s the knowledge on the other side of exactly how best to meet that attack. It’s the exact knowledge they have as to our dispositions, our most secret and sudden change of tactics. We’ve suffered enough, Ambrose, in this country from civil spies—the Government are to blame for that. But there are plenty of people who go blustering about, declaring that two of our Cabinet Ministers ought to be hung, who’d turn round and give you the life if you hinted for a moment that the same sort of thing in a far worse degree was going on amongst men who are wearing the King’s uniform.”
“It’s ugly,” Ambrose muttered, “damned ugly!”
“Look at me,” Major Thomson continued thoughtfully. “Every secret connected with our present and future plans practically passes through my hands, yet no one watches me. Whisper a word at the War Office that perhaps it would be as well—just for a week, say—to test a few of my reports, and they’d laugh at you with the air of superior beings listening to the chatter of a fool. Yet what is there impossible about it? I may have some secret vice—avarice, perhaps. Germany would give me the price of a kingdom for all that I could tell them. Yet because I am an English officer I am above all suspicion. It’s magnificent, Ambrose, but it’s damnably foolish.”
The young man watched his chief for several moments. Thomson was standing before the window, the cold spring light falling full upon his face, with its nervous lines and strongly-cut, immobile features. He felt a curious indisposition to speak, a queer sort of desire to wait on the chance of hearing more.
“A single kink in my brain,” Thomson continued, “a secret weakness, perhaps even a dash of lunacy, and I might be quite reasonably the master-spy of the world. I was in Berlin six weeks ago, Ambrose. There wasn’t a soul who ever knew it. I made no report, on purpose.”
“Perhaps they knew and said nothing,” Ambrose suggested softly.
There was a moment’s silence. Thomson seemed to be considering the idea with strange intensity. Then he shook his head.
“I think not,” he decided. “When the history of this war is written, Ambrose, with flamboyant phrases and copious rhetoric, there will be unwritten chapters, more dramatic, having really more direct effect upon the final issue than even the great battles which have seemed the dominant factors. Sit tight here, Ambrose, and wait. I may be going over to Boulogne at any hour.”
Thomson pushed on one side the curtains which concealed an inner room, and passed through. In a quarter of an hour he reappeared, dressed in uniform. His tone, his bearing, his whole manner were changed. He walked with a springier step, he carried a little cane and he was whistling softly to himself.
“I am going to one or two places in the Tottenham Court Road, by appointment,” he announced, “to inspect some new patterns of camp bedsteads. You can tell them, if they ring up from Whitehall, that I’ll report myself later in the evening.”
Curiously enough, the other man, too had changed as though in sympathetic deference to his superior officer. He had become simply the obedient and assiduous secretary.
“Very good, sir,” he said smoothly.
“I’ll do my best to finish the specifications before you return.”
CHAPTER V
Table of Contents
Lord Romsey, after his luncheon-party, spent an hour at his official residence in Whitehall and made two other calls on his way home. His secretary met him in the spacious hall of his house in Portland Square, a few moments after he had resigned his coat and hat to the footman.
“There is a gentleman here to see you who says that he made an appointment by telephone, sir,” he announced. “His name is Sidney—the Reverend Horatio Sidney, he calls himself.”
Lord Romsey stood for a moment without reply. His lips had come together in a hard, unpleasant line. It was obvious that this was by no means a welcome visitor.
“I gave no appointment, Ainsley,” he remarked. “I simply said that I would see the gentleman when he arrived in England. You had better bring him to my study,” he continued, “and be careful that no one interrupts us.”
The young man withdrew and the Cabinet Minister made his way to his study. A little of the elasticity, however, had gone from his footsteps and he seated himself before his desk with the air of a man who faces a disagreeable quarter of an hour. He played for a moment with a pen-holder.
“The skeleton in the cupboard,” he muttered to himself gloomily. “Even the greatest of us,” he added, with a momentary return of his more inflated self, “have them.”
There was a knock at the door and the secretary reappeared, ushering in this undesired visitor.
“This is Mr. Sidney, sir,” he announced quietly.
The Cabinet Minister rose in his place and held out his hand in his best official style, a discrete mixture of reserve and condescension. His manner changed, however, the moment the door was closed. He withdrew his hand, which the other had made no attempt to grasp.
“I am according you the interview you desire,” he said, pointing to a chair, “but I shall be glad if you will explain the purport of your visit in as few words as possible. You will, I hope, appreciate the fact that your presence here is a matter of grave embarrassment to me.”
Mr. Sidney bowed. He was a tall and apparently an elderly man, dressed with the utmost sobriety. He accepted the chair without undue haste, adjusted a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles and took some papers from his pocket.
“Sir,” he began, speaking deliberately but without any foreign accent, “I am here to make certain proposals to you on behalf of a person who at your own request shall be nameless.”
Lord Romsey frowned ponderously and tapped the desk by his side with his thick forefinger.
“I cannot prevent your speaking, of course,” he said, “but I wish you to understand from the first that I am not in a position to deal with any messages or communications from your master, whoever he may be, or any one else in your country.”
“Nevertheless,” the other remarked drily, “my message must be delivered.”
An impulse of curiosity struggled through the gloom and apprehension of Lord Romsey’s manner. He gazed at his visitor with knitted brows.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “An Englishman?”
“It is of no consequence,” was the colourless reply.
“But it is of consequence,” Lord Romsey insisted. “You have dared to proclaim yourself an ambassador to me from a country with whom England is at war. Even a discussion between us amounts almost to treason. On second thoughts I decline to receive you.”
He held out his hand towards the electric bell which stood on his study table. His visitor shook his head.
“I wouldn’t adopt that attitude, if I were you,” he said calmly. “You know why. If you are really curious about my nationality, there is no harm in telling you that I am an American citizen, that I have held for three years the post of American chaplain at Brussels. Better let me say what I have come to say.”
Lord Romsey hesitated. His natural propensity for temporising asserted itself and his finger left the bell. The other continued.
“You are in the unfortunate position, Lord Romsey, of having failed absolutely in your duty towards your own country, and having grossly and traitorously deceived a personage who has always treated you with the greatest kindness. I am here to see if it is possible for you to make some amends.”
“I deny every word you say,” the Minister declared passionately, “and I refuse to hear your proposition.”
Mr Sidney’s manner suddenly changed. He leaned forward in his chair.
“Do not be foolish,” he advised. “Your last letter to a certain personage was dated June second. I have a copy of it with me. Shall I read it to you, word by word?”
“Thank you, I remember enough of it,” Lord Romsey groaned.
“You will listen, then to what I have to say,” the envoy proceeded, “or that letter will be published in the Times to-morrow morning. You know what that will mean—your political ruin, your everlasting disgrace. What use will this country, blinded at the present moment by prejudice, have for a statesman, who without authority, pledged his Government to an alliance with Germany, who over his own signature—”
“Stop!” Lord Romsey interrupted. “There is no purpose in this. What is it you want?”
“Your influence in the Cabinet. You are responsible for this war. It is for you to end it.”
“Rubbish!” the other exclaimed hoarsely. “You are attempting to saddle me with a responsibility like this, simply because my personal sympathies have always been on the side of the country you are representing.”
“It is not a question of your personal sympathies,” Mr. Sidney returned swiftly. “In black and white you pledged your Government to abstain from war against Germany.”
“How could I tell,” the statesman protested, “that Germany was thinking of tearing up treaties, of entering into a campaign of sheer and scandalous aggression?”
“You made no stipulations or conditions in what you wrote,” was the calm reply. “You pledged your word that your Government would never declare war against Germany. You alluded to the French entente as an unnatural one. You spoke eloquently of the kinship of spirit between England and Germany.”
Lord Romsey moved uneasily in his chair. He had expected to find this an unpleasant interview and he was certainly not being disappointed.
“Well, I was mistaken,” he admitted. “What I said was true enough. I never did believe that the Government with which I was associated would declare war against Germany. Even now, let me tell you that there isn’t a soul breathing who knows how close the real issue was. If your people had only chosen any other line of advance!”
“I have not come here to recriminate,” Mr. Sidney declared. “That is not my mission. I am here to state our terms for refraining from sending your letters—your personal letters to the Kaiser—to the English Press.”
Lord Romsey sprang to his feet.
“Good God, man! Do you know what you are saying?” he exclaimed.
“Perfectly,” the other replied. “I told you that my errand was a serious one. Shall I proceed?”
The Minister slowly resumed his seat. From behind the electric lamp his face was ghastly white. In that brief pause which followed he seemed to be looking through the walls of the room into an ugly chapter of his future. He saw the headlines in the newspapers, the leading articles, the culmination of all the gossip and mutterings of the last few months, the end of his political career—a disgraceful and ignoble end! Surely no man had ever been placed in so painful a predicament. It was treason to parley. It was disgraceful to send this man away.
“Germany wants peace,” his visitor continued calmly. “She may not have accomplished all she wished to have accomplished by this war, and she is still as strong as ever from a military point of view, but she wants peace. I need say no more than that.”
Lord Romsey shook his head.
“Even if I had the influence, which I haven’t,” he began, “it isn’t a matter of the Government at all. The country would never stand it.”
<
br /> “Then you had better convert the country,” was the prompt reply. “Look upon it as your duty. Remember this—you are the man in all this world, and not the Kaiser, who is responsible for this war. But for your solemn words pledging your country to neutrality, Germany would never have forced the issue as she has done. Now it is for you to repair the evil. I tell you that we want peace. The first overtures may come ostensibly through Washington, if you will, but they must come in reality from you.”
The Minister leaned back in his chair. His was the calmness of despair.
“You might as well ask me,” he said simply, “to order our Fleet out of the North Sea.”
Mr. Sidney rose to his feet.
“I think,” he advised, “that you had better try what you can do, Lord Romsey. We shall give you little time. We may even extend it, if we find traces of your influence. You have two colleagues, at least, who are pacifists at heart. Take them on one side, talk in a whisper at first. Plant just a little seed but be careful that it grows. We do not expect impossibilities, only—remember what failure will mean to you.”
Lord Romsey looked steadfastly at his visitor. Mr. Sidney was tall and spare, and there was certainly nothing of the Teuton or the American in his appearance or accent. His voice was characterless, his restraint almost unnatural. Relieved of his more immediate fears, the Minister was conscious of a renewed instinct of strong curiosity.
“How can I communicate with you, Mr.—Sidney?” he asked.
“In no way,” the other replied. “When I think it advisable I shall come to see you again.”
“Are you an American or a German or an Englishman?”
“I am whichever I choose for the moment,” was the cool response. “If you doubt my credentials, I can perhaps establish myself in your confidence by repeating the conversation which took place between you and the Kaiser on the terrace of the Imperial Palace at Potsdam between three and four o’clock on the afternoon of April the seventh. You gave the Kaiser a little character sketch of your colleagues in the Cabinet, and you treated with ridicule the bare idea that one or two of them, at any rate, would ever consent—”
21 Greatest Spy Thrillers in One Premium Edition (Mystery & Espionage Series) Page 346
