Wallace of the Secret Service (24 page)

‘I do not care,’ she muttered, ‘I have avenged my Philon’s death. You can send me to him if you wish.’

She took her handkerchief from a pocket of her neat coatee, and raised it to her face. But Sir Leonard’s quick eyes noticed something else and, though he clenched his hand and gritted his teeth, he made no effort to prevent her from swallowing the pellet she had inserted in her mouth. Better that way than the misery and degradation of a sordid trial, followed by a felon’s death. Suddenly she broke into hysterical laughter.

‘Yes I killed Monsieur l’Ambassadeur d’Angleterre,’ she cried, ‘and I am glad, do you hear me? Glad! But I have cheated you – I am going to Philon without your aid.’

Her beautiful face became distorted with agony and with a groan she fell over sideways.

A little later, when they had removed her body, Sir Leonard
sank heavily into a chair, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

‘What a hollow triumph!’ he muttered. ‘If only Paterson had not meddled in Turkish politics.’

A very deep sigh broke from his lips.

A few days later, when the new Ambassador had arrived, Wallace made his farewells to Lady Paterson, and left Constantinople. Once in the seclusion of his coupé, he drew forth his pocket-book and extracted the banknotes which contained so much information vital to Greece. He examined them with a quizzical smile on his face.

‘If I had taken you to Athens,’ he soliloquised, ‘I could have claimed a king’s ransom for you, been acclaimed a hero, the saviour of Greece – God knows what! On the other hand it might have been considered that I was too dangerous to live. The sooner I forget what is written here the better for Greece, in fact, the better for the world.’ He sighed. ‘One more secret to be relegated to the very depths of my mind.’ Batty entered the coupé and looked at him inquiringly. ‘Batty,’ he observed, ‘there’s one thing I’ve never been rich enough, or fool enough, to do in my life yet.’

‘Is that so, sir?’ returned the ex-sailor, wondering what on earth his master was talking about.

‘Do you know what it is?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Fill me a pipe, and I’ll tell you.’

Batty performed the office, and handed the well-seasoned briar to Sir Leonard, who twisted the banknotes together, and asked for a match. From the latter he lit his improvised spill.

‘I’ve heard of people lighting a pipe or cigarette with a banknote,’ remarked Sir Leonard, as he watched the flame grow
larger, ‘but I’ve never done it myself until now, and I am using half a dozen at once. I may add that it is giving me more delight and satisfaction than I’ve felt for a very long time.’

He lit his pipe carefully, and continued to hold the burning flimsies until he was in danger of burning his fingers. Batty watched fascinated, his eyes almost popping out of his head. As the charred remnants of what had once been good money burnt themselves out in an ash-tray, and were ground to dust by Sir Leonard, the mariner heaved a deep sigh.

‘Swab my decks!’ he exclaimed in a low voice, but with intense feeling. ‘If that ain’t a sin, I don’t know wot is!’

The large touring car, grey with dust, tore through Ospedaletti and on along the sea-road towards Ventimiglia. It passed through the little straggling frontier town, up over the promontory, down the other side, and ascended the steep rocky road leading to the French Custom House. There it was detained for some time, while perfunctory search for contraband was made by the officials, and the passports of the two travellers examined. Then on again along the steep, winding, wind-swept road towards Mentone.

‘Well, we’re in France, thank the Lord,’ observed Major Brien, turning and regarding his companion, a twinkle in his blue eyes.

‘Yes,’ returned the other, whose carefully trimmed moustache and imperial gave him the appearance of a typical Frenchman. ‘We’re across the frontier. Now what?’

‘We’ll draw up and have a smoke, I think. I don’t seem to have had a pipe for hours.’

He brought the car to a standstill by the side of the road, the two of them lit up.

‘It was a lucky thing you were at Genoa,’ commented Brien, ‘otherwise I don’t think I should have got out of Italy.’

‘What has actually happened?’

‘As you know I have been travelling round Europe for the last fortnight receiving reports, and generally tightening things up. I concluded my itinerary at Rome and was ending to wander home by way of the Riviera – in fact my wife is meeting me at Monte for a spot of sunshine – when I saw that fellow Gibaldi outside the Palazzo Venezia. The sight of him made me wonder. Sir Leonard told me he had been dismissed from the Italian Secret Service and, from information supplied by Gottfried, had succeeded in getting taken on by Berlin. Yet there he was as large as life in Rome, apparently without fear of arrest. I guessed at once that there must be some dirty work on foot, and followed him. He was met by one of the understrappers of the Foreign Office, which made the affair look more mysterious than ever. Obviously he was expected and, therefore, it seemed to me, must be in possession of something worthwhile to Italy.’

He paused, and blew out a cloud of tobacco smoke, watching it curl away in wisps as the wind caught it.

‘They went into a café in the Piazza di Spagna and sat at a secluded table in a corner. I rang up Tempest, told him where I was, and asked him to join me. Luckily he was at the office, or things would have panned out altogether differently. Great gift that lip-reading game; I’ve often envied Maddison and Tempest. He arrived promptly, and together we sat where he had an uninterrupted view of their faces. By Jove! I was jolly glad I had followed Gibaldi. It turned out that he had obtained possession of certain documents from the Quai d’Orsay, and was bargaining
with the Foreign Office official for their sale to Italy, one of the conditions being his reinstatement in the Secret Service. Of course it wasn’t our business, and we wouldn’t have interfered, only Tempest caught one phrase which made us sit up and start taking interest in right earnest. The under-secretary fellow said: “But, if what you say is true, it means war most certainly.” He arranged to take the Minister himself to meet Gibaldi that night in the spy’s hotel, a little place quite close to the Hôtel de Russie where I was staying. To cut a long story short, Tempest and I crept into the hotel unseen before the hour appointed, found our way to Gibaldi’s bedroom and, while I held him up, Tempest searched for and found the documents. Then we bound and gagged Gibaldi, and got away just as a closed car, which I presume contained the Minister and the under-secretary, drove up to the door of the hotel. Two hours later when I left Rome, the station was full of agents, no doubt looking for the men who had pinched the precious papers, and I caught a glimpse of Gibaldi. Thanks to the fact that I am not known, and look so innocent, nobody interfered with me; anyway I suppose they were searching for two men and Frenchmen at that.’

‘But isn’t it a wonder Gibaldi didn’t recognise you?’ asked the man with the imperial.

‘Why should he?’ returned Brien. ‘Tempest and I, in true melodramatic style, wore caps drawn down low over our eyes, and handkerchiefs tied round the lower parts of our faces which we only put on before entering the bedroom, and removed as soon as we were outside again. It was lucky for us that Gibaldi stayed in such a rotten little place. If he had chosen one of the big hotels it would have been a much more difficult job.’

His companion laughed.

‘I had begun to fear,’ he remarked, ‘that Tempest’s usefulness as the Rome agent of
Lalére et Cie
had been badly impaired.’

He laughed again, and Brien grunted indignantly.

‘What do you take us for, Lalére,’ he protested. ‘Do you think that either he or I would have been so dashed foolish as to meet Gibaldi face-to-face without a little bit of purdah. Fie on you!’

‘This is a new rôle for you, sir,’ chuckled Lalére.

‘You bet it is,’ returned Billy sucking at his pipe complacently, ‘and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. Do you know, Gibaldi travelled up in the same train. I’m jolly glad I remembered you were in Genoa on that Marchesa affair. If I had remained in the train I shouldn’t have been able to cross the frontier without having to submit to an exhaustive search. There were two
hawk-eyed
johnnies scrutinising every person who descended from the train at Genoa. What would have happened at Ventimiglia, where Italian officials really get down to business and enjoy themselves, I shudder to think.’

‘Where are the documents?’

Brien tapped his breast pocket.

‘The safest place I could imagine,’ he declared, ‘because it is so thoroughly obvious.’

‘Have you glanced at them yet, sir?’

‘No; except for the cursory glimpse Tempest and I took in Gibaldi’s bedroom to make sure we had the right ones. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a look at them now. We could hardly be in a safer spot.’

He looked around him. Not a soul or a vehicle of any sort was in sight. In the distance could be seen Mentone; behind, the winding road that runs round the rugged coast towards the frontier; far below the deep blue of the Mediterranean
sea washing the rocky shore. From his pocket he took a long, fat envelope, from which he extracted quite a dozen official-looking documents and, with his companion, perused them one by one. When the last had been returned to its cover, they turned and looked at each other, and a low whistle broke from Lalére’s lips.

‘I doubt if anything more compromising has ever been committed to paper in the world’s history than what is written here,’ he remarked. ‘To think that two French statesmen could pen such letters to each other is well-nigh inconceivable. I certainly wouldn’t have believed it possible, if I hadn’t seen them with my own eyes.’

‘They’re astounding,’ agreed Brien. ‘Of course neither of them is in the present government.’

‘It’s lucky for France they’re not,’ returned Lalére drily. ‘That doesn’t alter the fact that the responsibility rests on the shoulders of whatever government is in power, and all the diplomacy and tact in the world would fail to explain away letters like these. In the hands of Italy they would have been bound to have caused tremendous trouble. You certainly have averted a war, sir. What do you intend to do with the packet?’

‘Sir Leonard Wallace is in Monte, taking a short holiday with his wife. I’ll hand them to him, and let him decide.’ He knocked out the ashes in his pipe. ‘We’ll get on now, if you’re ready. By the way, will your man know what’s happened to you?’

‘Yes,’ nodded Lalére; ‘I left a note telling him to return to Paris at once. He’ll be awaiting me there.’

‘That means that when you drop me you’ll have to drive all the rest of the way yourself. I’m sorry we couldn’t wait until he returned, but—’

‘That’s all right, sir. I don’t mind driving; in fact I like it.’ And the clever agent of the British Secret Service, who cloaked his real profession behind his position as managing director of the great Parisian firm of
Lalére et Cie
, leant back in his seat, and stretched himself comfortably as Major Brien let in the clutch, and drove onward towards Mentone.

The sun was setting as the car ran into Monte Carlo to draw up at last before the Hermitage Hotel, where Brien knew his wife, Sir Leonard, and Lady Wallace would be staying. As soon as his companion’s baggage had been removed, Lalére shook hands, and drove on to the Gallia at Beausoleil, where friends of his had rooms.

‘I shall remain there until tomorrow morning,’ he remarked, ‘and, if I hear nothing from you by ten, will leave for Paris.’

On inquiry Brien learnt that Sir Leonard Wallace, his wife, and Mrs Brien had gone to lunch with friends at the Reserve in Beaulieu, and had not yet returned. He, therefore, bathed and dressed leisurely in evening kit, afterwards sauntering to the wide terrace in front of the Casino where he sat down amid the palms, mimosa and geraniums and studied, with an interest he always felt in Monte, the cosmopolitan throng passing and repassing close by. He had hardly been there more than five minutes, when a medium-sized man with dark, saturnine face, a small black moustache, and little furtive eyes walked by in earnest conversation with two men not unlike himself. Brien sat up and stared, a soundless whistle pursing his lips. His eyes followed the three men until they were hidden from his view; then he rose to his feet staring thoughtfully down at the railway line below, the one blemish to what is probably the most picturesque scene in Europe. But he was not concerned with the picturesqueness of
his surroundings just then. He was wondering why Gibaldi had left the train at Monte Carlo of all places.

‘It looks to me,’ he muttered under his breath, ‘as though something has come unstuck. I wonder if he suspects me, and walked by in order that his companions could have a good look at me. But then, how the devil could he possibly know I was coming to Monte Carlo when I left the train at Genoa?’

He walked back to the Hermitage and, in the crowded entrance hall, impatiently awaited the coming of the party from Beaulieu. They arrived at last, greeting him cheerily as their car pulled up and they caught sight of him standing at the entrance. Phyllis Brien, quite unmindful of the people around them, kissed him affectionately.

‘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?’