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

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  “Here is your good friend, Colonel Mostyn Ray,” she remarked, with a note of banter in her tone. “What about him?”

  “Not even Colonel Mostyn Ray,” I answered. “The notes which I take with me from each meeting are to be read over from my elaboration at the next. Nobody is permitted to hold a pen or to make a note whilst they are being read. Afterwards I have your father’s promise that not even he will ask for even a cursory glance at them. I deliver them sealed to Lord Chelsford.”

  Ray came up to us. His dark eyebrows were drawn close together, and I noticed that his boots were clogged with sand. He had the appearance of a man who had been walking far and fast.

  “You keep up your good habits, Lady Angela,” he said, raising his cap.

  “It is my only good one, so I am loth to let it go,” she answered. “If you were as gallant as you appear to be energetic,” she added, glancing at his boots, “you would have stopped when I called after you, and taken me for a walk.”

  His eyes shot dark lightnings at her.

  “I did not hear you call,” he said.

  “You had the appearance of a man who intended to, hear nothing and see nothing,” she remarked coolly. “Never mind! There will be no breakfast for an hour yet. You shall take me on to Braster Hill. Come!”

  They left me at a turn in the path. I saw their heads close together in earnest conversation. I went on towards the house.

  I entered by the back, and made my way across the great hall, which was still invaded by domestics with brushes and brooms. Taking a small key from my watch-chain, I unfastened the door of a room almost behind the staircase, and pushed it open. The curtains were drawn, and the room itself, therefore, almost in darkness. I carefully locked myself in, and turned up the electric light.

  The apartment was a small one, and contained only a few pieces of heavy antique furniture. Behind the curtains were iron shutters. In one corner was a strong safe. I walked to it, and for the first time I permitted myself to think of the combination word. Slowly I fitted it together, and the great door swung open.

  There were several padlocked dispatch-boxes, and, on a shelf above, a bundle of folded papers. I took this bundle carefully out and laid it on the table before me. I was on the point of undoing the red tape with which it was tied, when my fingers became suddenly rigid. I stared at the packet with wide-open eyes. I felt my breath come short and my brain reeling. The papers were there sure enough, but it was not at them that I was looking. It was the double knot in the pink tape which fascinated me.

  X. AN EXPRESSION OF CONFIDENCE

  Table of Contents

  I have no exact recollection of how long I spent in that little room. After a while I closed the door safe, and reset the combination lock with trembling fingers. Then I searched all round, but could find no traces of any recent intruder. I undid the heavy shutters, and let in a stream of sunshine. Outside, Ray and Lady Angela were strolling up and down the terrace. I watched the latter with fascinated eyes. It was from her that this strange warning had come to me, this warning which as yet was only imperfectly explained. What did she know? Whom did she suspect? Was it possible that she, a mere child, had even the glimmering of a suspicion as to the truth? My eyes followed her every movement. She walked with all the lightsome grace to which her young limbs and breeding entitled her, her head elegantly poised on her slender neck, her face mostly turned towards her companion, to whom she was talking earnestly. Even at this distance I seemed to catch the inspiring flash of her dark eyes, to follow the words which fell from her lips so gravely. And as I watched a new idea came to me. I turned slowly away and went in search of the Duke.

  I found him sitting fully dressed in an anteroom leading from his bedroom, with a great pile of letters before him, and an empty postbag. He was leaning forward, his elbow upon the table, his head resting upon his right hand. Engrossed as I was with my own terrible discovery, I was yet powerfully impressed by his unfamiliar appearance. In the clear light which came flooding in through the north window he seemed to me older, and his face more deeply lined than any of my previous impressions of him had suggested. His eyes were fixed upon the mass of correspondence before him, most of which was as yet unopened, and his expression was one of absolute aversion. At my entrance he looked up inquiringly.

  “What do you want, Ducaine?” he asked.

  “I am sorry to have disturbed your Grace,” I answered. “I have come to place my resignation in your hands.”

  His face was expressive enough in its frowning contempt, but he said nothing for a moment, during which his eyes met mine mercilessly.

  “So you find the work too hard, eh?” he asked.

  “The work is just what I should have chosen, your Grace,” I answered. “I like hard work, and I expected it. The trouble is that I have succeeded no better than Lord Ronald.”

  My words were evidently a shock to him. He half opened his lips, but closed them again. I saw the hand which he raised to his forehead shake.

  “What do you mean, Ducaine? Speak out, man.”

  “The safe in the study has been opened during the night,” I said. “Our map of the secret fortifications on the Surrey downs and plans for a camp at Guilford have been examined.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I tied the red tape round them in a peculiar way. It has been undone and retied. The papers have been put back in a different order.”

  The Duke was without doubt agitated. He rose from his chair and paced the room restlessly.

  “You are sure of what you say, Ducaine?” he demanded, turning, and facing me suddenly.

  “Absolutely sure, your Grace,” I answered.

  He turned away from me.

  “In my own house, under my own roof,” I heard him mutter. “Good God!”

  I had scarcely believed him capable of so much feeling. When he resumed his seat and former attitude I could see that his face was almost gray.

  “This is terrible news,” he said. “I am not at all sure, though, Mr. Ducaine, that any blame can attach itself to you.”

  “Your Grace,” I answered, “there were three men only who knew the secret of that combination. One is yourself, another Colonel Ray, the third myself. I set the lock last night. I opened it this morning. I ask you, in the name of common sense, upon whom the blame is likely to fall? If I remain this will happen again. I cannot escape suspicion. It is not reasonable.”

  “The word was a common one,” the Duke said half to himself. “Some one may have guessed it.”

  “Your Grace,” I said, “is it likely that any one would admit the possibility of such a thing?”

  “It may have been overheard.”

  “It has never been spoken,” I reminded him. “It was written down, glanced at by all of us, and destroyed.”

  The Duke nodded.

  “You are right,” he admitted. “The inference is positive enough. The safe has been opened between the hours of ten at night and seven o’clock this morning by—”

  “By either myself, Colonel Ray, or your Grace,” I said.

  “I am not sure that I am prepared to admit that,” the Duke objected quietly.

  “It is inevitable!” I declared.

  “Only the very young use that word,” the Duke said drily.

  “I spoke only of what others must say,” I answered.

  “It is a cul de sac, I admit,” the Duke said. “Nevertheless, Mr. Ducaine, I am not prepared without consideration to accept your resignation. I cannot see that our position would be improved in any way, and in my own mind I may add that I hold you absolved from suspicion.”

  I held myself a little more upright. The Duke spoke without enthusiasm, but with conviction.

  “Your Grace is very kind,” I answered gratefully, “but there are the others. They know nothing of me. It is inevitable that I should become an object of suspicion to them.”

  The Duke looked thoughtfully for several moments at the table before him. Then he looked up at me.<
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  “Ducaine,” he said, “I will tell you what I propose. You have done your duty in reporting this thing to me. Your duty ends there—mine begins. The responsibility, therefore, for our future course of action remains with me. You, I presume, are prepared to admit this.”

  “Certainly, your Grace,” I answered.

  “I see no useful purpose to be gained,” the Duke continued, “in spreading this thing about. I believe that we shall do better by keeping our own counsel. You and I can work secretly in the matter. I may have some suggestions to make when I have considered it more fully; but for the present I propose that we treat the matter as a hallucination of yours. We shall hear in due course if this stolen information goes across the water. If it does—well, we shall know how to act.”

  “You mean this?” I asked breathlessly. “Forgive me, your Grace, but it means so much to me. You believe that we are justified?”

  “Why not?” the Duke asked coldly. “It is I who am your employer. It is I who am responsible to the country for these things. You are responsible only to me. I choose that you remain. I choose that you speak of this matter only when I bid you speak.”

  To me it was relief immeasurable. The Duke’s manner was precise, even cold. Yet I felt that he believed in me. I scarcely doubted but that he had suspicions of his own. I, at any rate, was not involved in them. I could have wrung him by the hand but for the inappropriateness of such a proceeding. So far as he was concerned I could see that the matter was already done with. His attention was beginning to wander to the mass of letters before him.

  “Would you allow me to help your Grace with your correspondence?” I suggested. “I have no work at present.”

  The Duke shook his head impatiently.

  “I thank you,” he said. “My man of business will be here this morning, and he will attend to them. I will not detain you, Mr. Ducaine.”

  I turned to leave the room, but found myself face to face with a young man in the act of entering it.

  “Blenavon!” the Duke exclaimed.

  “How are you, sir?” the newcomer answered. “Sorry I didn’t arrive in time to see you last night. We motored from King’s Lynn, and the whole of this respectable household was in bed.”

  I knew at once who he was. The Duke looked towards me.

  “Ducaine,” he said, “this is my son, Lord Blenavon.”

  Lord Blenavon’s smile was evidently meant to be friendly, but his expression belied it. He was slightly taller than his father, and his cast of features was altogether different. His cheeks were pale, almost sunken, his eyes were too close together, and they had the dimness of the roué or the habitual dyspeptic. His lips were too full, his chin too receding, and he was almost bald.

  “How are you, Mr. Ducaine?” he said. “Awful hour to be out of bed, isn’t it? and all for the slaying of a few fat and innocent birds. Let me see, wasn’t I at Magdalen with you?”

  “I came up in your last year,” I reminded him.

  “Ah, yes, I remember,” he drawled. “Terrible close worker you were, too. Are you breakfasting down stairs, sir?”

  “I think that I had better,” the Duke said. “I suppose you brought some men with you?”

  “Half a dozen,” Lord Blenavon answered, “including his Royal Highness.”

  The Duke thrust all his letters into his drawer, and locked them up with a little exclamation of relief.

  “I will come down with you,” he said. “Mr. Ducaine, you will join us.”

  I would have excused myself, for indeed I was weary, and the thought of a bath and rest at home was more attractive. But the Duke had a way of expressing his wishes in a manner which it was scarcely possible to mistake, and I gathered that he desired me to accept his invitation. We all descended the stairs together.

  XI. HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS

  Table of Contents

  The long dining-room was almost filled with a troop of guests who had arrived on the previous day. Most of the men were gathered round the huge sideboard, on which was a formidable array of silver-covered hot-water dishes. Places were laid along the flower-decked table for thirty or forty. I stood apart for a few moments whilst the Duke was greeting some of his guests. Ray, who was sitting alone, motioned me to a place by him.

  “Come and sit here, Ducaine,” he said; “that is,” he added, with a sudden sarcastic gleam in his dark eyes, “unless you still have what the novelists call an unconquerable antipathy to me. I don’t want to rob you of your appetite.”

  “I did not expect to see you down here again so soon, Colonel Ray,” I answered gravely. “I congratulate you upon your nerves.”

  Ray laughed softly to himself.

  “You would have me go shuddering past the fatal spot, I suppose, with shaking knees and averted head, eh? On the contrary, I have been down on the sands for more than an hour this morning, and have returned with an excellent appetite.”

  I looked at him curiously.

  “I saw you returning,” I said. “Your boots looked as though you had been wading in the wet sand. You were not there without a purpose.”

  “I was not,” he admitted. “I seldom do anything without a purpose.”

  For a moment he abandoned the subject. He proceeded calmly with his breakfast, and addressed a few remarks to a man across the table, a man with short cropped hair and beard, and a shooting dress of sombre black.

  “You are quite right,” he said, turning towards me suddenly. “I had a purpose in going there. I thought that the gentleman whose untimely fate has enlisted your sympathies might have dropped something which would have been useful to me.”

  For the moment I forgot this man’s kindness to me. I looked at him with a shudder.

  “If you are in earnest,” I said, “I trust that you were unsuccessful.”

  I fancied that there was that in his glance which suggested the St. Bernard looking down on the terrier, and I chafed at it.

  “It would have been better for you,” he said, grimly, “had my search met with better result.”

  “For me?” I repeated.

  “For you! Yes! The man came to see you. If he had been alive you might have been in his toils by now. He was a very cunning person, and those who sent him were devils.”

  “How do you know these things?” I asked, amazed.

  “From the letters which I ripped from his coat,” he answered.

  “He came to Braster to see me, then?” I exclaimed.

  “Precisely.”

  “And the letters which you took from him—were they addressed to me?”

  “They were.”

  I was getting angry, but Ray remained imperturbable.

  “I think,” I said, “you will admit that I have a right to them.”

  “Not a shadow of a doubt of it,” he answered. “In fact, it was so obvious that I destroyed them.”

  “Destroyed my letters!”

  “Precisely! I chose that course rather than allow them to fall into your hands.”

  “You admit, then,” I said, “that I had a right to them.”

  “Indubitably. But they do not exist.”

  “You read them, without doubt. You can acquaint me with their contents.”

  “Some day,” he said, “I probably shall. But not yet. Believe me or not, as you choose, but there are certain positions in which ignorance is the only possible safe state. You are in such a position at the present moment.”

  “Are you,” I asked, “my moral guardian?”

  “I have at least,” he said, “incurred certain responsibilities on your behalf. You could no longer hold your present post and be in communication with the sender of those letters.”

  My anger died away despite myself. The man’s strength and honesty of purpose were things which I could not bring myself to doubt. I continued my breakfast in silence.

  “By-the-bye,” he remarked presently, “you, too, my young friend, were out early this morning.”

  “I was writing all night,” I answered. “
I had documents to put in the safe.”

  He shot a quick searching glance at me.

  “You have been to the safe this morning, then?”

  I answered him with a composure at which I inwardly marvelled.

  “Certainly! It was the object of my coming here.”

  “You entered the room with the Duke. Was he in the study at that hour?”

  “No, I went upstairs to him. I had a question to ask.”

  “And you have met Lord Blenavon? What do you think of him?”

  “We were at Magdalen together for a term,” I answered. “He was good enough to remember me.”

  Ray smiled, but he did not speak another word to me all the breakfast-time. Once I made a remark to him, and his reply was curt, almost rude. I left the room a few minutes afterwards, and came face to face in the hall with Lady Angela.

  “I am glad, Mr. Ducaine,” she remarked, “that your early morning labours have given you an appetite. You have been in to breakfast, have you not?”

  “Your father was good enough to insist upon it,” I answered.

  “You have seen him already this morning, then?”

  “For a few minutes only,” I explained. “I went up to his room.”

  “I trust so far that everything is going on satisfactorily?” she inquired, raising her eyes to mine.

  I did not answer her at once. I was engaged in marvelling at the wonderful pallor of her cheeks.

  “So far as I am concerned, I think so,” I said. “Forgive me, Lady Angela,” I added, “but I think that you must have walked too far this morning. You are very pale.”

  “I am tired,” she admitted.

  There was a lounge close at hand. She moved slowly towards it, and sat down. There was no spoken invitation, but I understood that I was permitted to remain with her.

  “Do you know,” she said, looking round to make sure that we were alone, “I dread these meetings of the Council. I have always the feeling that something terrible will happen. I knew Lord Ronald very well, and his mother was one of my dearest friends. I am sure that he was perfectly innocent. And to-day he is in a madhouse. They say that he will never recover.”