The Mystery of Tunnel 51

by Alexander Wilson

  ‘Well, Woodhouse,’ began Leonard, ‘tell me what happened!’

  ‘There isn’t very much to tell, sir,’ replied the mechanic. ‘Me and Green had been sitting with the prisoner, and having a quiet hand of nap together, and Green just went outside to fetch something. I was sitting with my back to the door, and presently I heard footsteps. I didn’t look round, because I thought it was Green coming back; the next moment something hit me on the back of the head, and that’s all I know, sir.’

  ‘H’m! You didn’t hear the sound of a scuffle outside before you were attacked?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘How was Green injured?’ enquired Leonard, turning to Forsyth.

  ‘Stabbed in the back, sir.’

  ‘Then he doesn’t know anything about his assailant either. Is he very badly hurt?’

  ‘Pretty severely,’ replied Watkins, ‘but he’ll recover all right.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ said Leonard fervently. ‘I suppose he has been taken to hospital?’

  Forsyth nodded.

  ‘Batty arrived soon after we did,’ he said, ‘and I sent him to fetch an ambulance. I saw Green half an hour ago. He has recovered consciousness, but has no idea who stabbed him.’

  Wallace lapsed into a brown study for a moment or two.

  ‘All right, Woodhouse,’ he said, at length. ‘You had better go and rest.’

  The mechanic walked to the door, then turned.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir—’ he began.

  ‘Good Lord! You weren’t to blame,’ said Leonard. ‘I’m very sorry that you had such an unpleasant mishap.’

  Woodhouse looked relieved and went out.

  ‘Of course it was Dorin,’ said Leonard. ‘By Jove he had a fairly successful night last night. And I blame myself,’ he added. ‘If I hadn’t mentioned to him that Levinsky was a prisoner, we would still have had the latter. What a fool I am!’

  ‘Don’t be an ass,’ said Billy disrespectfully. ‘How could you know that Dorin was going to escape?’

  ‘One should always be prepared for eventualities,’ replied his chief. ‘Anyhow we’ve got to make a big effort to retake these two, and in the meantime,’ he turned to Watkins, ‘you had better send a few more men to watch for Ata Ullah’s arrival at the station, in case he is spirited away somehow.’

  ‘I’ve already taken precautions, Sir Leonard,’ replied the Commissioner. ‘As soon as I heard what had happened, I gave orders that the station, and all approaches leading to it, should be guarded by squads of plain clothes men, with a full description of this fellow. Further, fearing that perhaps Dorin and Levinsky would get away by car and intercept him at Jungshahi or Pipri, I telephoned to both those places and ordered them to be closely watched.’

  Leonard held out his bandaged hand, which Watkins touched very gingerly.

  ‘Thanks, Major,’ he said. ‘No man could do more!’ Then he added briskly, ‘Send Batty in to me – I must dress and get along to Waller and Redmond’s premises to receive Mr Ata Ullah – if he comes!’

  ‘You think there might still be a doubt of his arrival?’ queried Brien.

  ‘There is always a doubt when trying to checkmate Levinsky and Dorin, Bill. I have staked a lot on this last throw, and if we don’t get those plans this morning, we shall be very nearly – though not quite – beaten.’

  Watkins and Forsyth left the room, and soon afterwards Batty entered. He was all solicitude, and he helped Wallace and Brien to dress with the tender care of a young mother fussing over her first child.

  When they were dressed the nurse looked in.

  ‘I’m glad I haven’t many patients like you two gentlemen,’ she said. ‘I should go grey in a week.’

  ‘Sorry, Nurse,’ said Leonard. ‘I’d very much like to be nursed by you for a month, but the calls of duty have decided otherwise.’

  She smiled and proceeded to give them advice, which was presently augmented by the doctor.

  As they stood waiting for the arrival of the car which was to take them to their destination, the two regarded each other.

  ‘We do look a pretty pair!’ said Billy. ‘I must say that with those bandages round your head and face and on your arm, you have a most interesting appearance.’

  ‘I’ve certainly had the most complete singeing I’ve ever had in my life, and I am wondering what colour your moustache will be when it grows again that is, if it ever does.’

  Billy fingered his upper lip lovingly.

  ‘I feel a bit naked there now,’ he admitted.

  Batty came in to announce that the car was waiting, and offered the assistance of his arms, but they both refused and made their way to the door without support. They found themselves very shaky and weak, however, and once Wallace would have stumbled, had not the sailor caught him and thenceforth insisted on helping his employer to the car.

  They were rapidly driven to the Bunda Road. Curious heads in the windows of neighbouring shops and houses watched them alight with Major Watkins and enter the open door of the establishment which had flourished under the name of Waller and Redmond. In spite of the extreme reticence of the police, knowledge of the raid had leaked out, and once or twice a crowd started to collect and stare open-mouthed at the building, only to be moved on by the plain-clothes policemen under orders from the Commissioner, who took every precaution to prevent Ata Ullah scenting danger and making his escape.

  Once inside the office Leonard sank into a chair and smiled wanly at the Commissioner.

  ‘It is extraordinary how quickly one’s strength departs,’ he said.

  ‘I am amazed that you have any left at all, Sir Leonard,’ replied the Commissioner. ‘You both must be made of iron.’

  ‘Good Heavens!’ exclaimed Billy suddenly, and the other two stared at him in surprise. ‘Didn’t you tell me,’ he went on excitedly to Wallace, ‘that you had put the photographic copies of those plans in one of your suitcases?’

  Wallace nodded.

  ‘Then, man alive, don’t you realise that they may have been retaken by Levinsky and Dorin last night!’

  ‘They couldn’t have been.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I took the precaution of taking them out of the case, and pinning them to the inside of my waistcoat before I left the aeroplane. I also pinned them inside this suit while I was being dressed this morning, which shows that your powers of observation are not yet fully developed, my son.’

  ‘Phew!’ said Billy. ‘For a moment I felt hot and cold all over.’

  ‘Please don’t talk about being hot,’ complained Leonard. ‘It takes my mind back to the incidents of last night; and why, oh why, Bill, will you persist in regarding me as an infant in arms?’

  Brien grinned.

  ‘For a moment, I admit,’ he said, ‘that I thought the infallible Sir Leonard Wallace had blundered.’

  ‘Infallible be hanged. If I were I shouldn’t be sitting here trembling in my shoes in case Ata Ullah fails to turn up.’

  ‘You don’t look as though you were worried!’ scoffed Billy.

  ‘Nevertheless I am!’

  Whatever Wallace’s real feelings were, it could be easily seen as time went on that his companions were agitated. Half past nine came, and still there was no sign of the seditionist. In the outer office waited two native policemen, dressed as clerks, with instructions to send Ata Ullah in as soon as he arrived. Although they knew nothing of the great issues hanging on the arrival of the Indian, they apparently found the waiting very tedious, for the three men in the inner office could hear one of them pacing up and down as though he were on beat. The monotonous sound presently got on Billy’s nerves.

  ‘I wish that fellow would keep still,’ he growled.

  ‘Hullo, Bill, feeling jumpy?’ asked Leonard.

  ‘We’re not all cold-blooded beings like you,’ retorted Brien.

  ‘I think I’ll ring up the station and find out if the train is delayed,’ said the Commissioner, and immediately did so.
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br />   He was told that it had arrived ten minutes before, and he was imparting the information to his companions, when there was the sound of voices outside and then came a knock on the door.

  ‘Come in!’ sang out the three, almost in one breath, and a policeman looked in.

  ‘Ata Ullah, Excellency!’ he announced.

  A sigh escaped from Leonard, and Billy murmured, ‘Thank the Lord!’

  ‘Show him in!’ said the Commissioner; and the officer withdrew.

  There was a second’s pause, after which the door opened again. A small elderly man, with a greying moustache and wrinkled face, clothed in the height of Indian fashion, and wearing a spotless white turban, stepped in. He gazed in astonishment at the two bandaged men, and from them to the Commisioner.

  ‘Which of you three gentlemen is Mr Waller?’ he enquired in perfect English.

  ‘None of us,’ replied Major Watkins. ‘I am the Deputy Commissioner of Police for Karachi and district, and this gentleman’ – he indicated Wallace – ‘is Sir Leonard Wallace, the Chief of the Intelligence Department of Great Britain!’

  A great gasp of fear burst from the trapped man. He looked wildly from one to the other, and his hand went mechanically to a certain part of his coat.

  ‘Yes, Mr Ata Ullah,’ said Leonard. ‘We want those plans. But sit down, and let us talk!’

  With the perspiration breaking out in beads on his forehead, the Indian sank slowly into a chair.

  ‘I am at your mercy, gentlemen,’ he murmured.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Plans at Last

  The shock which Ata Ullah had received on finding himself in the presence of the very men he had striven so hard to avoid was almost too much for him. For some minutes he sat hunched up in his chair, breathing in a slow, laborious way, as though it were a great effort; and overcome every now and again by violent trembling fits, rather painful to witness. Wallace regarded him almost with pity, and waited patiently until he had become somewhat calmer. At last with an effort he pulled himself together, and Leonard started to interrogate him.

  ‘Just as a matter of interest,’ he said, ‘I should like to know how you became involved in this Russian campaign against Great Britain. You will find it to your advantage to answer my questions straightforwardly and without hesitation. You are in a very serious position, and will gain nothing by further duplicity.’

  ‘I recognise that, Your Excellency,’ replied the man in a low voice, ‘and all I can do is to throw myself on your mercy.’

  ‘Well, answer my question!’

  ‘I first got to know Mr Silverman about six years ago, after the riots which had taken place in the Punjab. He entered my house of business one day and had a long conversation with me. At that time I was in a very bad position financially, and was almost on the verge of bankruptcy. He astonished me by the knowledge he appeared to have of my affairs, and ended by offering to finance me on condition that I obeyed his orders implicitly. Such an offer was wonderful to me then, and I accepted it.’

  ‘I see. So he started you on this propaganda work.’

  ‘Not at once, Excellency. He left India for nearly two years, and I was allowed to carry on my ordinary business in peace, with only an occasional letter from him to remind me of our compact.’

  ‘Was that compact in writing?’

  ‘Yes, in the form of a letter from me to him, by which I bound myself to his service. I agreed that if I failed to carry out his instructions in any one particular, he could take the business entirely out of my hands without warning.’

  ‘What did you receive in return?’

  ‘My affairs were put on a firm financial basis, and apart from all profits, I have been receiving a sum of rupees six thousand a year from him.’

  ‘That is, from the Russian Soviet?’

  Ata Ullah bowed his head in assent.

  ‘Where was Levinsky during the two years he was absent from India?’ went on Wallace.

  ‘In England, Excellency.’

  Wallace looked at Brien and smiled.

  ‘That was when we had our first encounter with him, Billy. So he had already commenced his activities out here.’

  Brien nodded, and Wallace resumed his questioning.

  ‘When he returned to India,’ he said, ‘did he immediately commence on his propaganda work?’

  ‘I believe so, Excellency, but it was only by degrees that I was involved in it, until I found myself unable to withdraw.’

  ‘Did you try?’

  Ata Ullah was silent for a moment, his hands clasping and unclasping nervously.

  ‘I regret to say that I did not,’ he confessed at last. ‘I regarded it from a business point of view.’

  ‘Did you not realise the risk you ran?’

  ‘Mr Silverman always assured me that there was no risk if I were careful, and I was so thankful for my release from debt that I seldom thought of it.’

  There was a slight pause, then:

  ‘Do you know what Levinsky – or, as you continue to call him, Silverman – was doing in India before you first met him?’ asked Leonard.

  ‘He was engaged upon the same enterprise.’

  ‘Oh! But not on such a large scale, I presume?’

  Ata Ullah looked round as though terrified of being overheard, then he lowered his voice to almost a whisper.

  ‘Perhaps on an even greater scale, Your Excellency,’ he said. ‘I found out only last year that it was entirely due to Russian influence that the disastrous riots occurred in the Punjab which nearly had a very serious result.’

  ‘What!’ exclaimed the Commissioner.

  ‘It is true, sir. I came across notes on the riots in a pocket-book he gave to me containing certain instructions.’

  ‘This is very interesting,’ said Leonard. ‘What else have you to tell us, now that you are being so candid?’

  ‘There are two hundred and seventy Russian agents in India, all engaged upon the work of undermining British influence.’

  ‘Two hundred and seventy!’ Leonard whistled. ‘Have you a list of these people, and where they can be found?’

  ‘No, Excellency, but Mr Silverman – I mean Levinsky – carried one about with him.’

  ‘I must remember that when I meet Levinsky again.’

  ‘He didn’t have it on him when we searched him,’ put in Billy.

  ‘No, you’re right. Probably it was left in his clothes at Samasata. By the way,’ he added, turning again to Ata Ullah, ‘where did you go when you escaped at Samasata?’

  Without hesitation the Indian gave an address, then Leonard asked him if there was any other information he could give about the activities of the Russians, which they did not already know. And he repeated for Ata Ullah’s benefit what he and Major Brien had discovered. The seditionist was very much surprised at their knowledge, and looked startled when Wallace produced the exercise book in which were contained the list of addresses of the buildings devoted to the activities of the spies.

  ‘There is very little, Excellency,’ he said, ‘which I can tell you apparently, except that the communal disturbances are mostly due to the Russians.’

  ‘I don’t see how they can be of any advantage in undermining British rule,’ said Brien.

  ‘It is hoped, sir,’ replied Ata Ullah, ‘that a great outburst of feeling can presently be caused between the Hindus and Muslims, which will keep the Government and troops fully occupied. Then under the cloak of that rising, the movement will start which is intended to drive the British out of India.’

  ‘Well, you’ve certainly told us something,’ said Wallace. ‘And now I come to the plans which were stolen from Major Elliott between Simla and Kalka. We know you have them on you, and I have three photographic copies of them in my possession. I want an honest reply to this question: these copies were made on your premises – Were there any more than three executed?’

  Ata Ullah looked him straight in the face.

  ‘No, Excellency,’ he said. ‘
It was thought that three would be sufficient; the originals, of course, making a fourth.’

  ‘Very well. Hand them over.’

  For a moment the Indian hesitated. Then with a sigh he slowly opened his coat and an under-garment and presently produced a package, which he handed to Wallace. The latter took it, opened it and examined the contents. After a while he looked up.

  ‘They are complete!’ he announced. Then he looked gravely at Ata Ullah. ‘Do you realise,’ he said, ‘that a British officer was foully murdered for these?’

  ‘I do, Your Excellency. But I knew nothing of the means taken to obtain them until afterwards. And if I had I could have done nothing. I was merely a catspaw.’

  ‘Perhaps, but you have become involved almost beyond forgiveness. You have been helping to set a train for an explosion that might have meant another world war, and the sacrifice of thousands of lives, merely in order to save yourself, a puny little pawn on a gigantic chessboard, from financial worry. If you had not acted the traitor, and had behaved like a man, your reward would probably have been far greater than that which you have obtained from the Russian Soviet. As it is, you have lost everything. Don’t you realise that under British rule everything possible has been, and will be, done for the benefit of India and her people? If the Russian Bolsheviks ever stepped into Great Britain’s shoes, God help this country. Every man and woman and child of you would be ground down in utter slavery. You have only to study their methods in their own country. By Jove! You and those of your race with you in this movement must be madmen, if you have any love in you for your country. If you have not, then you are the very worst type of scoundrel, and you are selling yourselves and your fellows for a mess of pottage.’

  It was seldom that Leonard spoke so feelingly, and Billy looked at him in surprise. Presently Ata Ullah spoke.

  ‘Excellency,’ he said, ‘do not judge me too harshly! I and my countrymen have always been led to believe that Russia merely favoured our independence; that they wished to see a republic established in India on the lines of their own ideal government. There was no question of their taking possession of India, but merely of acting as protector, until we could guard ourselves from invasion and outside interference. I may have been disloyal to the British Government, but I have not been a traitor to my country.’