‘I expected you yesterday,’ she said reproachfully; ‘that’s a whole day gone by out of our lives, when we might have been together, and weren’t.’
He looked down at her sweet vivacious face and smiled.
‘I was detained in Rome, old thing,’ he explained. ‘Awfully sorry and all that, but duty you know—’
He was greeted warmly by Lady Wallace and Sir Leonard, and the four of them strolled through the hall, and took a lift to the floor on which their various rooms were situated. Sir Leonard glanced keenly at his second in command as they were about to part.
‘Why the portentous frown?’ he asked. ‘You look as though you have weighty matters on your mind.’
‘I have,’ returned Brien shortly.
Wallace raised his hand in protest.
‘Well, for the Lord’s sake don’t spring them on me,’ he expostulated; ‘at least not in Monte. When we get back to London you can—’
‘As soon as you have changed, Leonard,’ interrupted Brien firmly. ‘I’m coming along to your room. Molly will be ordered to join Phyllis, and wait for us, and I will proceed to unburden myself of certain grave matters.’
Lady Wallace made a grimace at Phyllis. Sir Leonard looked disgusted.
‘The man’s not nice to know,’ he murmured.
‘Come along, Phyllis,’ said Billy, taking his wife’s arm. ‘You haven’t kissed me yet!’
‘Oh, you fibber,’ she returned. ‘I kissed you downstairs.’
‘That was in front of the rude and scoffing multitude, and, therefore, doesn’t count.’
He marched her off. Twenty minutes later he was admitted to Sir Leonard’s dressing room, where Batty was engaged in putting the finishing touches to his master’s evening wear. Taking the bulky envelope from his pocket, Brien extracted the contents, and handed them to his friend. Wallace took them casually enough, but he had hardly read one when his manner changed entirely, and he perused the rest with intense interest. After he had finished he glanced them through again; then laid them face downwards on the dressing-table.
‘All right, Batty,’ he said to the ex-sailor, ‘that’ll do. Help me on with my coat; then you can go. I shan’t want you again until about midnight.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
As soon as Batty had departed, Wallace looked sharply at Brien.
‘Where did you get these?’ he demanded.
Billy told him the whole story, and he listened intently, a smile of approval on his face.
‘Good work,’ he applauded as his assistant concluded. ‘If you hadn’t acted in the way you did, the peace of Europe would have been shattered by now. You’ve read these letters, I suppose?’ Brien nodded. ‘The garrulous old fatheads!’ went on Wallace. ‘They must have been in their second childhood to sit down and write such stuff to each other. They’ve damned everything about Italy they could think of from her African policy down to internal finance. Nothing could have prevented a conflagration once these had reached the Italian Government. They’re nothing but a collection of gratuitous insults written by a couple of fossils who ought to have known better. We have a few idiots among our statesmen, but none to equal these two. I should rather like to know what the letters were doing at the d’Orsay, and how Gibaldi got hold of them. By Jove! What a stew they must be in in Paris at losing them. Clement of the French Ministry of the Interior is staying in this hotel. I’d love to see his face if he knew the letters were here.’
‘Do you think the whole thing may be a plot by Germany to cause a rupture between France and Italy?’ asked Brien. ‘Gibaldi, remember, had been taken on by the German Secret Service.’
Wallace considered the matter for some time.
‘I don’t think so,’ he replied at length. ‘It is possible of course, but Germany can have no object in stirring up strife between Italy and France just now, unless—’ he stopped and frowned, then: ‘The sooner these are back at the Quai d’Orsay the better,’ he said. ‘You’re quite sure no suspicion attaches to you?’
‘I should hardly have been allowed to leave Italy unmolested if there were,’ returned Brien. ‘And yet I’m beastly troubled about an incident that happened while I was waiting for you. I strolled over to the terrace in front of the Casino, and sat for a while watching the people. While I was there Gibaldi passed by with two fellows who might have been his brothers – they were so much like him. I wondered if by some chance suspicion had fallen on me, and he was pointing me out to them.’
‘Gibaldi? Are you sure?’ asked Sir Leonard sharply.
‘Absolutely. What do you think?’
‘It’s difficult to know what to think. It is quite possible, of course, that he is on the track of somebody who left the train at Monte Carlo. You weren’t subjected to anything in the nature of surveillance on the train or at the stations en route, were you?’
‘No.’
‘Naturally you would have been noticed. I suppose note was taken of everybody travelling from Rome.’
‘But I left the train at Genoa, so it cannot be that Gibaldi is here after me.’
‘Were your bags labelled?’
‘Yes; to the Hermitage, Monte Carlo.’
Wallace smiled grimly.
‘Then I’m afraid it is you, Billy, whom they suspect. The very fact that you left the train at Genoa with bags labelled Monte Carlo would raise their suspicions. You would have been wiser had you stayed on the train.’
Brien groaned.
‘I hope you’re wrong,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t they hold me up at the frontier and search me, if I was suspected? A telephone call through from Genoa would have done the trick.’
‘For the simple reason that they had nothing to go on but the fact that a traveller, who had booked through to Monte, left the train at Genoa; after all not an unheard of happening. You see they obtained your name and destination from the baggage. If, despite your apparent change of plans, you still arrived at the Hermitage they decided they would be able to go through your belongings at their leisure. At the same time all roads and routes out of Genoa would have been watched and, while you were congratulating yourself on getting across the frontier nicely, they were here waiting for you.’
Billy looked very crestfallen.
‘Dash it!’ he ejaculated. ‘I thought I was being so clever, and all the time—’
Wallace smiled.
‘Cheer up, old chap,’ he consoled him, ‘you’ve done some jolly good work. You have nothing to blame yourself for.’
But Brien refused to be consoled. He knew very well that the man who was congratulating him so generously would not have made such a slip. There came a knock on the door, and Lady Wallace looked in.
‘Are you men ever coming to dinner?’ she inquired plaintively. ‘Phyllis and I are thinking seriously of eating the furniture.’
‘Coming, Molly,’ answered her husband cheerfully.
She disappeared, and he picked up the documents and put them back in their envelope.
‘I’ll take care of these for the time being,’ he observed. ‘Everything you possess will be gone through while you are away from your rooms. They’ll be more certain than ever that you’re the man they want, when they see you with me, for Gibaldi knows me well.’
‘Your rooms will be searched also at that rate,’ decided Brien.
Wallace nodded.
‘Exactly,’ he returned calmly, ‘and, when the letters are not found, you and I will be held up and lots of nasty things will happen to us, if we’re not careful. Lalére also, I’m afraid, will have quite an exciting night. We must warn him somehow. It’s a pity this should happen when the ladies are with us.’
‘Hang it all!’ exploded Brien, ‘you’re taking it pretty coolly. What do you propose to do about it?’
‘I don’t know – yet. Look here, we mustn’t keep the wives waiting any longer. Come on!’
He put the envelope in his pocket, and they joined their impatient womenfolk. Brien was rather moody during dinner, but S
ir Leonard was full of joviality, and kept Molly and Phyllis from speculating too much on the cause of Billy’s preoccupation. Even the latter fell under the influence of his friend’s good spirits before the end of the meal, much to the relief of his wife who, from time to time, had been regarding him anxiously.
While they were drinking their coffee, Wallace left them to procure tickets for the opera. He was away nearly a quarter of an hour, and they had begun to wonder what was keeping him, when he returned. They strolled across to the Casino, presented their cards of admission, and walked through the rooms before entering the theatre, which is in the same building. For a little while they watched the people playing roulette, but none of them were keen on gambling, and they were all rather glad to get away from the overheated atmosphere and feverish excitement, and take their seats for the performance of Rigoletto. As they sat together, Sir Leonard turned to Brien.
‘It is as I thought,’ he whispered, ‘we have been followed all the way. Take this; you may want it before the evening is out.’
He pushed a small automatic into the other’s hand.
‘What about you?’ asked Brien.
‘I’ve another. I’d be looking forward to meeting Gibaldi and his pals if Molly and Phyllis were not with us. As it is, I’m afraid I’m not very keen.’
‘Why not send them home after the show?’ murmured Brien. ‘We could then force a meeting on these fellows.’
‘Not a bit of good. They’ll wait until everything is in their favour. We must be prepared for anything. I rang up Lalére a few minutes ago, so he knows what to expect.’
‘But shouldn’t something be done about those letters? It seems to me that it is decidedly risky to carry them about.’
‘Don’t worry, Bill.’ He turned his attention to the stage, curtain having just gone up. ‘Rigoletto is my favourite opera, and these people are said to be exceptional.’
Major Brien looked at him with a glint of admiration in is eyes. He wished he had the gift of being able to put aside anxieties as easily. To look at Wallace his whole attention now devoted to the opera, his attitude denoting enjoyment and approval, it was difficult to imagine that he had anything on his mind but Verdi’s beautiful music.
Afterwards, as they walked back to the hotel, Brien continually glanced from left to right, momentarily expecting to be held up, even though he knew that such an attempt would be manifestly foolish when there were still so many people about. Still, strange things happened at Monte Carlo, and, as Wallace had said, it was as well to be prepared for anything. As they entered the foyer an obsequious attendant hastened across to them and bowing profoundly, held out a salver on which lay a letter.
‘This was handed in for you, Monsieur,’ he stated, ‘at eleven o’clock precisely.’
Billy took the envelope and glanced at it curiously.
‘Who the dickens?’ he began; then stopped and sniffed. ‘It’s scented,’ he proclaimed in disgusted tones.
Lady Wallace laughed merrily.
‘Oh, Billy,’ she bantered, ‘what have you been doing during the last two weeks? Phyllis dear, I should inquire into this if I were you.’
Phyllis, who knew her husband far too well to misjudge him, was rather indignant.
‘It’s probably one of Monte’s cocottes who has taken a fancy to you, Billy mine,’ she decided. ‘What awful cheek!’
‘It wouldn’t be a bad idea to open the thing and see what it’s all about,’ suggested Wallace quietly.
He walked on with his wife, but had hardly taken more than half a dozen paces when an exclamation behind him caused him to turn and look inquiringly at his colleague. The latter was standing gazing at the half-sheet of notepaper in his hand, looking anxious and bewildered. Sir Leonard retraced his steps.
‘What’s the trouble?’ he asked.
Without a word Brien handed the letter to him. It was written in a quaint mixture of French and English:
Monsieur,
Excusez la liberté que je prends de m’addresser à vous without the introduction, but la gravité it compel me. Mon ami, Monsieur Anatole Lalére, has been hurt much by un coup de poignard. He ask for you, Monsieur. Je vous serais infiniment obligé if you can quickly come.
Mes salutations bien empressées.
Mireille Garreau.
Wallace handed the note back without a word.
‘Poor old Lalére,’ murmured Brien. ‘I wonder how it happened?’
‘What’s the matter, Billy?’ asked his wife.
He handed the letter to her, and she and Lady Wallace read it together, presently giving vent to various expressions of sympathy.
‘Is it that nice man to whom you introduced me in Paris?’ asked Mrs Brien.
Her husband nodded.
‘What are we to do about it?’ he asked Wallace.
‘Ring up the manager of the Gallia,’ returned the latter promptly, ‘and find out all about it.’
They walked across to the office while the two ladies awaited them in the lounge.
‘It looks to me like a very crude attempt to get hold of us,’ observed Wallace. ‘Who is Mireille Garreau?’
‘She’s a pukka friend of his all right,’ was the reply. ‘He mentioned that she was staying at the Gallia with her mother. What do you mean by a crude attempt to get hold of us?’
‘If nothing has happened to Lalére,’ declared Sir Leonard, ‘and this is merely a blind, then Gibaldi and his friends have shown an absurd lack of common sense. I rather think, however, that he has probably been attacked in order to get you or me or both of us into their power. They know, at least, that he is a friend of yours, and guessed that you would be sent for. Somewhere between here and Beausoleil they are awaiting us.’
Inquiries by telephone quickly assured them that Lalére had been set upon in the grounds of the Gallia Hotel, and badly wounded. Only the cries of Mademoiselle Garreau, who had been with him, had prevented his assailants from murdering him. She, the manager informed them, had been brutally knocked down, when she had attempted to grapple with the scoundrels. Monsieur Lalére had certainly asked very urgently for Monsieur le Major Brien.
‘There’s nothing for it but to go,’ remarked Wallace, as he and his colleague turned away from the instrument. ‘It is quite likely that Lalére has something important to tell us. Ten to one though, we’ll either be attacked going or coming back.’
They informed their wives of their intention to go to Beausoleil, and escorted them to their rooms, where they changed into lounge suits. As Sir Leonard bade good night to Lady Wallace, she regarded him a trifle anxiously.
‘Monsieur Lalére is one of your men, isn’t he?’ she asked.
‘Well, in a sense,’ he replied jokingly. ‘He is the managing director of a firm which pays me a nice fat dividend on the money I invested in it.’
‘Don’t be foolish, dear,’ she pleaded; ‘you know what I mean. He is actually a member of the Secret Service, isn’t he?’
‘Well, yes,’ he admitted.
‘Are you going into danger?’ she asked in uneasy tones.
‘Good gracious, no!’ he laughed. ‘At least not to my knowledge.’
‘Do be careful, dear,’ she returned. ‘I have an uneasy presentiment.’
‘Don’t then,’ he said kissing her. ‘Go to bed. We’ll be back in a couple of hours at the most.’
Before rejoining Brien he spent five minutes in his dressing room talking to Batty, the latter’s contribution to the conversation being several repetitions of his usual: ‘Aye, aye, sir.’
A car had been ordered, and Wallace ascertained that the chauffeur was a Frenchman well-known to the hotel authorities. The drive to Beausoleil was uneventful, and they found Lalére very ill indeed. He had been stabbed behind the right shoulder, the knife just missing the lung by a hair’s breadth. The police had made their inquiries and had departed. A doctor and nurse were in attendance; the former assuring them that Lalére had had a very narrow escape but would recover.
&
nbsp; ‘At present he cannot be moved,’ he added, ‘but in a day or two arrangements will be made to convey him to a nursing home. Madame and Mademoiselle Garreau have very kindly taken charge of everything.’
They were taken to the invalid, who smiled at them painfully.
‘He would not sleep until you came, Monsieur,’ observed the doctor to Brien, ‘but please do not let him speak too much.’
He and the nurse left them, and they questioned Lalére about the attack. He could tell them very little, however, as he was sitting with Mademoiselle Garreau at the time, and the first intimation he had of any danger was when the knife entered his back.
‘I don’t think they meant to kill me,’ he added, ‘for they had ample opportunity to make certain of stabbing me in a fatal spot.’
‘Exactly what I thought,’ nodded Sir Leonard. ‘But, by Jove! They were pretty desperate. Had they made a search of your rooms, do you think?’
‘Yes. Mademoiselle tells me that the contents of my suitcases were strewn all over the bedroom floor when I was brought in. I daresay they intended to search me also, but she, plucky little soul, grappled with them and screamed.’
‘I wonder who were with Gibaldi,’ mused Wallace. ‘They can’t be genuine members of the Italian Secret Service. It’s only renegades of Gibaldi’s type who use methods like this to gain their ends.’
‘That’s what I wanted to tell you,’ gasped the injured man. ‘I wouldn’t have brought you up here otherwise, although at first I thought I was booked for another world. As I lay on the ground, and before I lost consciousness, I saw them quite distinctly in the moonlight, when they were trying to silence Mireille. I’ll swear that one of them was André Chalant.’
Sir Leonard whistled under his breath.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked in incredulous tones.
‘As certain as it was possible to be under the circumstances.’
‘Then we are up against it,’ muttered the other. ‘It’s no wonder Gibaldi was dismissed from the Italian service, if he is an associate of a man like Chalant.’
Wallace of the Secret Service Page 23
