Through the years of his imprisonment—they were not so long as they felt—he nourished two ambitions. One was to do something to rehabilitate himself, and the other, which gradually grew to be an obsession, was to exact payment from the man who had trapped him.
One bright summer’s day in the present year of grace Sir Reginald Vallery, Colonel Ormiston’s departmental chief, sent for the Secret Service man, and the latter answered the summons with dismay in his heart. Such calls most often came at an inconvenient moment. For two years in succession the holiday season had been spoiled for him by the inconsiderateness of foreign powers or their agents. One was on the occasion of the outbreak of the Spanish trouble, and the other…But there are reasons why the telling of that story must be postponed to a later year.
Sir Reginald Vallery began with apologies, for he knew by the look in Ormiston’s eye that he had to be handled tactfully. He was quite capable of passing in his resignation if he was rubbed the wrong way, and despite the cant about no man being irreplaceable he was far too valuable to lose because of a hasty word.
Ormiston brushed the apologies dourly aside. “Let’s get to business, Reg,” he said with the frankness of an old friend. “What do you want me for?”
Vallery told him with commendable brevity. As everyone knew there were things happening in the Mediterranean, repercussions of the Spanish trouble. A new supplementary naval code had been constructed and distributed to the Grand Fleet. Even though copies of it had been obtained by the wrong people it was not possible, for administrative reasons, to alter it immediately.
Ormiston seized on the operative word. “ ‘Obtained’?” he repeated. “What do you mean by that? Were they stolen?”
Vallery shook his head. “No, photographed,” he said tersely.
Ormiston chewed thoughtfully over that. “But how?” he queried. “Did someone have access to them or was there a leakage?”
He saw other possibilities that Vallery’s explanation did not seem to have dealt with.
“Neither,” Vallery returned. “The work was done from the outside. A man posing as a window-cleaner had a camera with a tele-photo lens hidden in his bucket. He took a series of snaps of the room into which he was looking, and it was just our bad luck that this code of ours happened to be out on a table within range. Someone was consulting it at the moment.”
Ormiston rubbed his chin thoughtfully. This didn’t look too good.
Abruptly Vallery reached into the drawer of his table, extracted something, then triumphantly fluttered a number of prints out fan-wise in front of him.
“These,” he said coolly, “are the photos that were taken, and here”—his hand went into the drawer again—“are the negatives themselves.”
“All of them?” Ormiston said shrewdly.
The other nodded. “Every single one of them,” he answered. “We’re sure of that.” From under lowered lids he watched the Secret Service man’s reaction to the confession.
“Well,” said Ormiston, after a barely perceptible pause, “if you’ve got them back, there’s no need for my services.”
Vallery pursed his lips. “I’m rather afraid there is,” he said deliberately.
Ormiston started slightly, then swiftly an idea came to him. “You haven’t made an arrest, by any chance?” he asked.
“Yes.” Vallery spoke as though he had been waiting for that question. “A man named Kioski.”
“Never heard of him,” said Ormiston curtly.
“I’m not surprised. He’s new to us, too. His arrest came about quite by accident. He was going to the station in a taxi—to catch a boat-train to the Continent, as we know now—and the machine he was in collided with a private car. The inevitable policeman appeared while the two drivers were trying to sort things out. The delay annoyed Kioski. He kept crying that he must catch the train, refused to answer any questions, and wanted to stalk off and get another taxi. When the policeman—quite politely—tried to stop him Kioski lost his head and lashed out. He missed his train all right. People can’t be allowed to assault policemen who are merely doing their duty.”
“Naturally.” Ormiston smiled understandingly. “I fancy I can guess the rest,” he said. “He was searched at the police-station, and these”—he nodded towards the prints and negatives—“were found on him then?”
“Exactly. But there’s a little more to it still.” Vallery went on to relate what that was.
In some way not specified Kioski was induced to talk. Then it came out that he wasn’t the principal by any means. He was merely acting under orders, those of Luss, to be precise. Luss had a copy of the code, it appeared. The arrangement he had made with Kioski was that if the man failed to notify him within forty-eight hours that he had effected delivery, Luss was to start off himself with his own copy.
The notification was to be made by means of an advertisement to appear in the personal columns of three Parisian dailies. All Luss had to do was to buy whichever of the journals he preferred, which he could at practically any large bookstall in the Home Counties within a few hours of the paper being issued.
“He’s made it as nearly fool-proof as he possibly could,” Ormiston grunted.
“He has. But we know that Luss is still in the country, and that he is hardly likely to be leaving for another thirty hours or so. You’ve got that time then to run him down, and retrieve that copy of the code.”
Ormiston smiled wryly. “Isn’t that more a job for the police?” he said gently.
“I’m afraid not. Of course you will have all the co-operation from them that you need, but, as you know, you can do things that the uniformed man dare not. Also you’re one of the few people who should be able to recognize Luss, no matter how he is disguised. You had enough to do with him the last time we got our hands on him.”
He had another reason, he might have added, though it was one he was reluctant to press on Ormiston. Luss was reputed to cherish an undying hatred for the one man who had ever trapped him. Vallery fancied that something of value might yet emerge from that single fact.
II
Colonel Ormiston bent down to knock the ashes from his pipe against the side of the empty grate. In the very act of straightening up he paused, then swiftly ducked his head again. That action in all probability saved his life. For something swished through the air not a foot above the top of his skull, hit the side of the fireplace, and dropped with a faint thud on the tiles.
Ormiston’s reaction was characteristic of the man. He twisted abruptly sideways out of his chair, so that he was no longer in a direct line between the open window and the fireless grate. At the same instant a revolver appeared as if by magic in his hand. Three quick strides took him across the room. Reaching gingerly from behind the shelter of the curtains on one side of the window he drew the sash swiftly down. Then he peered out.
As he had expected the prospect was deserted. There was no sign of any intruder in the garden now. But the topmost twigs of the laurel bush against the fence still moved perceptibly, and at the sight he smiled grimly.
The hidden marksman had gone that way, as quickly and as silently as he must have come. His haste had been such that he had not even remained to see the effect of his shot. Perhaps he was egotistical enough to assume that there would be no need for a second one. More probably he had been disturbed at his work, and had managed to make himself scarce just in time.
Ormiston felt that there was little to be gained by attempting to pursue his assailant. Since he had not caught even so much as a glimpse of the man, identification of him in his present incarnation was not going to be easy. As a strict matter of fact he abandoned the idea of pursuit before it had begun to take tangible form. Instead he turned back to the more hopefully interesting business of examining the missile that had just failed to put a period to his existence.
All the same it was with a view to wha
t he called “improbable possibilities” that he moved so that he was able to keep one eye on the window, while the other was occupied in another direction. The unknown—and unseen—might or might not return. That was something on which Ormiston preferred to keep a deliberately open mind. But should the fellow reappear by any chance the Secret Service man meant to be so placed that the next shot would be fired by, not at, him.
The object that had just missed him was a tiny silvered dart with a feather of fluffed-out, red-coloured, silk-like material at one end. The other was pointed, and at first glance looked as though it had been dipped in glue.
Ormiston picked it up gingerly between two match stalks which he manipulated like a pair of pincers, stared hard at the dirty brown blob on the point, and whistled soundlessly. Next he placed the dart carefully on a sheet of paper, one of several on the table-top, and the red fluff seemed to glow up at him like a malignant eye.
Then and not till then did he open the door, thrust his head out into the hall, and call for his companion.
“Terry,” he cried, “I want you.”
Though his voice was decidedly low-pitched he somehow contrived to fling into it a note of urgency that he believed was bound to reach the other’s ears. He was not wrong in this. Almost immediately he was answered from above.
“Coming,” said a crisp voice, and the soft, swift clatter of feet on the stairs advertised that for once Terry was speaking the literal truth.
He burst into the room like a young whirlwind, then stopped dead, and his jaw sagged at the sight of the revolver in his brother-in-law’s hand.
“What’s up now?” he demanded jerkily. “Don’t tell me you’ve called me down to witness you committing suicide? This Luss business isn’t quite so hopeless as all that.”
“I know it isn’t,” Ormiston said steadily, nevertheless the corners of his mouth twitched slightly. For so understanding a man it was odd that this was the nearest he ever got to a smile. In a different voice he went on: “Terry, what were you doing upstairs?”
Terry’s eyes widened, but: “Snoozing,” he said promptly. “It seemed such a delightfully drowsy afternoon that I thought it was a pity to waste it. Why?”
Ormiston brushed the question aside with a gesture of impatience. He had some others of his own to ask before he answered Terry’s.
“You didn’t happen to be looking out of the window of your room, say, within the last five minutes or so?” he queried.
Terry, immensely serious now, his shrewd dark eyes raking the other’s lean, sun-tanned face, slowly shook his head.
“No, I didn’t,” he declared. “Would I have seen anything had I been?”
Ormiston gave a curt little nod. “I should imagine so,” he said. “As a matter of fact I’ve had a visitor. This is the kind of card he left me.”
He pointed to the shining dart on the table. Terry started forward, put out his hand, and went to touch it.
“Don’t! Leave it alone!” Ormiston snarled. His voice was so startlingly harsh that Terry froze abruptly in his tracks. Then curiously he turned his head to look at the other.
“What’s wrong with it?” he demanded. “It looks like an airgun dart to me.”
“So it does to me,” said Ormiston with feeling, “but its real name is Death. You see, it was intended for me.” Quickly he explained the circumstances of its arrival.
“Luss,” said Terry laconically at the end.
“You think so?”
“There’s little room for doubt. Anyway, he hasn’t lost much time getting to work. It can’t be much over an hour since you left Vallery.”
“He could hardly have known that I’d been there,” Ormiston said thoughtfully. “Still one always has to allow for the possibility of coincidence. He might have seen me in the neighbourhood, and deduced the rest. The one thing about which I can feel certain is that he doesn’t yet know that Kioski has been pulled in. He would have been on the run before this if that was the case.”
“With descriptions of him circulating all over the place it shouldn’t be long before his turn comes,” Terry opined.
“It’s not so easy as all that,” Ormiston protested. “Luss is a past master at disguise. That’s why he has been able to keep going with impunity for so long. All the same he has one or two little peculiarities that I fancy may give him away if ever I clap eyes on him again.”
Terry nodded. That, he surmised, was one of the two reasons why an attack had been made on Ormiston. Luss could never feel altogether safe anywhere as long as the Secret Service man remained alive.
Terry was turning away with some idea of scouting through the garden—perhaps the laurel bush or its vicinity might offer him something in the nature of a clue—when his eye fell on one of the sheets of paper on the table, and he pulled up short.
“What the deuce have you been doing there?” he asked in a voice suddenly gone husky. “Isn’t it a breach of the Official Secrets Act, or whatever you call it, for you to have documents of that nature in your possession?”
“This?” Ormiston picked up one of the sheets in question. It was a neat little blue-print, apparently, of the very latest thing in anti-aircraft guns. “Rather nicely done, isn’t it? Vallery has quite a few more like it. I may tell you something about them some day.”
Terry stared at him. “You’d better be careful with it,” he said warningly, and there was something oddly pinched about his face now. “Suppose Luss had killed you and got away with this, what then?”
“It would have been awkward,” Ormiston said gravely. “That struck me at the time. Anyway, I have a rooted objection to being killed wantonly,” he added with seeming inconsequence.
Terry’s brows furrowed. There was a puzzle here whose depths he could not quite fathom. He did not press the matter further, however. It was fairly obvious from Ormiston’s manner that he was in no mood to answer questions about procedure. All the same:
“How do you propose to get on to Luss’s track?” Terry asked anxiously.
Ormiston’s glance did not waver in the least. “I don’t propose,” he said surprisingly.
“Then…?” But Terry left the sentence unfinished.
“There is a popular superstition, Terry,” Ormiston said meaningly, “to the effect that lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same spot. I am hoping that Luss has never heard of it, or if he has, has common sense enough not to believe it.”
For one long second he held the other’s eyes with his own. Then Terry gasped audibly. All at once understanding had come to him.
III
There was no moon. It would not have mattered much had there been one. The clouds that had gathered earlier in the evening now completely blacked out the stars. Truly the gods were being good to him, thought the man who slipped like a gaunt shadow from behind the masking growth of the laurel bush. He could hardly have had a night more suited for his purpose had he ordered it specially well in advance.
There was no sign of life in the house. The last light had gone out more than an hour before. No servants slept on the premises, that he knew. There were only two men with whom he would have to deal, for the womenfolk were away for the week. All this he had ascertained by careful painstaking research. The final item of information that he needed had come to his hands only that very evening and with its receipt the last piece of his plan had clicked neatly into place.
His procedure was peculiar. He made a cautious circuit of the house. He stopped at every door, found the keyhole, or, if it was a lock of the Yale type, fumbled for a clear space beneath the door. But into whatever opening it was that he located he inserted a length of rubber piping. The other end clamped over a weapon curiously like a Lüger pistol except that its muzzle was inclined to be bell-shaped. On each occasion when he pressed the trigger there was no more than a faint hissing sound that died away
as he plugged the keyhole or the space beneath the door with a handful of earth.
At last he finished. Then he turned his attention to effecting an entry. This he did through a window at the rear of the house, which he found conveniently unfastened. Had he stopped to think he might have felt inclined to regard this as suspicious, but he took it in his stride. If he thought about it at all it was to accept it as a piece of carelessness that played right into his hands.
But before he climbed through the window he slipped on his face a gas-mask that he had taken from under his coat.
The interior of the house was dark and silent. The light from his torch jetted round as he attempted to recall the geography of the place. Once he stopped as he passed the foot of the stairs, and he hesitated for a second. Then he raised the pistol, and fired twice into the gloom above him. Two faint tinkles followed on each other’s heels as the little glass bombs the pistol had ejected struck the floor of the landing overhead.
Beneath the mask the man chuckled softly. He himself walked in an invisible sea of death, safe for the time being. Anyone aroused by his movements who came out on to the landing above would almost certainly sway and choke, then topple to the floor. But even if that failed no-one could come down the stairs without risking dissolution.
With some little difficulty he located the room in which Ormiston had been sitting at the moment of the attack on the afternoon of that very day. His preparations were quick and thorough. He made sure that the curtains were drawn across the window, and that the catch was fast. Then just to make assurance doubly sure he tilted the back of a chair under the handle of the door. No matter how he had miscalculated he could hardly be taken unawares now.
He worked for close on to an hour in a darkness punctuated only by the stabbing gleam of his pocket torch. At the end he had the little wall-safe open, and he thrust his hand in. There was only one thing there, two sections of cardboard clamped together by elastic bands. He slipped off the latter, and his eyes twinkled. The little blue-prints he had glimpsed through the window that afternoon lay there for the taking. The cardboard that had protected them he threw into the empty grate, the plans themselves he thrust deep into an inside pocket.
The Big Book of Espionage Page 30
