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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Okewood of the Secret Service, by Valentine Williams
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Okewood of the Secret Service
+
+Author: Valentine Williams
+
+Pseudonym: Douglas Valentine
+
+Release Date: December, 2000 [eBook #2417]
+[Most recently updated: August 18, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Polly Stratton. HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OKEWOOD OF THE SECRET SERVICE ***
+
+
+
+
+Okewood of the Secret Service
+
+by Valentine Williams
+
+
+Contents
+
+ CHAPTER I. THE DEPUTY TURN
+ CHAPTER II. CAPTAIN STRANGWISE ENTERTAINS A GUEST
+ CHAPTER III. MR. MACKWAYTE MEETS AN OLD FRIEND
+ CHAPTER IV. MAJOR OKEWOOD ENCOUNTERS A NEW TYPE
+ CHAPTER V. THE MURDER AT SEVEN KINGS
+ CHAPTER VI. “NAME O’BARNEY”
+ CHAPTER VII. NUR-EL-DIN
+ CHAPTER VIII. THE WHITE PAPER PACKAGE
+ CHAPTER IX. METAMORPHOSIS
+ CHAPTER X. D. O. R. A. IS BAFFLED
+ CHAPTER XI. CREDENTIALS
+ CHAPTER XII. AT THE MILL HOUSE
+ CHAPTER XIII. WHAT SHAKESPEARE’S COMEDIES REVEALED
+ CHAPTER XIV. BARBARA TAKES A HAND
+ CHAPTER XV. MR. BELLWARD IS CALLED TO THE TELEPHONE
+ CHAPTER XVI. THE STAR OF POLAND
+ CHAPTER XVII. MR. BELLWARD ARRANGES A BRIDGE EVENING
+ CHAPTER XVIII. THE GATHERING OF THE SPIES
+ CHAPTER XIX. THE UNINVITED GUEST
+ CHAPTER XX. THE ODD MAN
+ CHAPTER XXI. THE BLACK VELVET TOQUE
+ CHAPTER XXII. WHAT THE CELLAR REVEALED
+ CHAPTER XXIII. MRS. MALPLAQUET GOES DOWN TO THE CELLAR
+ CHAPTER XXIV. THE TWO DESERTERS
+ CHAPTER XXV. TO MRS. MALPLAQUET’S
+ CHAPTER XXVI. THE MAN IN THE SUMMER-HOUSE
+ CHAPTER XXVII. THE RED LACQUER ROOM
+ CHAPTER XXVIII. AN OFFER FROM STRANGWISE
+ CHAPTER XXIX. DOT AND DASH
+ CHAPTER XXX. HOHENLINDEN TRENCH
+ CHAPTER XXXI. THE £100,000 KIT
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+THE DEPUTY TURN
+
+
+Mr. Arthur Mackwayte slipped noiselessly into the dining-room and took
+his place at the table. He always moved quietly, a look of gentle
+deprecation on his face as much as to say: “Really, you know, I can’t
+help being here: if you will just overlook me this time, by and by you
+won’t notice I’m there at all!” That was how he went through life, a
+shy, retiring little man, quiet as a mouse, gentle as a dove, modesty
+personified.
+
+That is, at least, how Mr. Arthur Mackwayte struck his friends in
+private life. Once a week, however, he fairly screamed at the public
+from the advertisement columns of “The Referee”: “Mackwayte, in his
+Celebrated Kerbstone Sketches. Wit! Pathos! Tragedy!!! The Epitome of
+London Life. Universally Acclaimed as the Greatest Portrayer of London
+Characters since the late Chas. Dickens. In Tremendous Demand for
+Public Dinners. The Popular Favorite. A Few Dates still Vacant. 23,
+Laleham Villas, Seven Kings. ’Phone” and so on.
+
+But only professionally did Mr. Mackwayte thus blow his own trumpet,
+and then in print alone. For the rest, he had nothing great about him
+but his heart. A long and bitter struggle for existence had left no
+hardness in his smooth-shaven flexible face, only wrinkles. His eyes
+were gray and keen and honest, his mouth as tender as a woman’s.
+
+His daughter, Barbara, was already at table pouring out the tea—high
+tea is still an institution in music-hall circles. Mr. Mackwayte always
+gazed on this tall, handsome daughter of his with amazement as the
+great miracle of his life. He looked at her now fondly and thought
+how.... how distinguished, yes, that was the word, she looked in the
+trim blue serge suit in which she went daily to her work at the War
+Office.
+
+“Rations a bit slender to-night, daddy,” she said, handing him his cup
+of tea, “only sardines and bread and butter and cheese. Our meatless
+day, eh?”
+
+“It’ll do very well for me, Barbara, my dear,” he answered in his
+gentle voice, “there have been times when your old dad was glad enough
+to get a cup of tea and a bite of bread and butter for his supper. And
+there’s many a one worse off than we are today!”
+
+“Any luck at the agent’s, daddy?”
+
+Mr. Mackwayte shook his head.
+
+“These revues are fair killing the trade, my dear, and that’s a fact.
+They don’t want art to-day, only rag-time and legs and all that. Our
+people are being cruelly hit by it and that’s a fact. Why, who do you
+think I ran into at Harris’ this morning? Why, Barney who used to work
+with the great Charles, you know, my dear. For years he drew his ten
+pound a week regular. Yet there he was, looking for a job the same as
+the rest of us. Poor fellow, he _was_ down on his luck!”
+
+Barbara looked up quickly.
+
+“Daddy, you lent him money....”
+
+Mr. Mackwayte looked extremely uncomfortable.
+
+“Only a trifle, my dear, just a few shillings.... to take him over the
+week-end.... he’s getting something.... he’ll repay me, I feel
+sure....”
+
+“It’s too bad of you, daddy,” his daughter said severely. “I gave you
+that ten shillings to buy yourself a bottle of whiskey. You know he
+won’t pay you back. That Barney’s a bad egg!”
+
+“Things are going bad with the profession,” replied Mr. Mackwayte.
+“They don’t seem to want any of us old stagers today, Barbara!”
+
+“Now, daddy, you know I don’t allow you to talk like that. Why, you are
+only just finished working.... the Samuel Circuit, too!”
+
+Barbara looked up at the old man quickly.
+
+“Only, four weeks’ trial, my dear.... they didn’t want me, else they
+would have given me the full forty weeks. No, I expect I am getting
+past my work. But it’s hard on you child....”
+
+Barbara sprang up and placed her hand across her father’s mouth.
+
+“I won’t have you talk like that, Mac”—that was her pet name for
+him—“you’ve worked hard all your life and now it’s my turn. Men have
+had it all their own way before this war came along: now women are
+going to have a look in. Presently, when I get to be supervisor of my
+section and they raise my pay again, you will be able to refuse all
+offers of work. You can go down to Harris with a big cigar in your
+mouth and patronize him, daddy...”
+
+The telephone standing on the desk in the corner of the cheap little
+room tingled out sharply. Barbara rose and went across to the desk. Mr.
+Mackwayte thought how singularly graceful she looked as she stood, very
+slim, looking at him whimsically across the dinner-table, the receiver
+in her hand.
+
+Then a strange thing happened. Barbara quickly put the receiver down on
+the desk and clasped her hands together, her eyes opened wide in
+amazement.
+
+“Daddy,” she cried, “it’s the Palaceum... the manager’s office... they
+want you urgently! Oh, daddy, I believe it is an engagement!”
+
+Mr. Mackwayte rose to his feet in agitation, a touch of color creeping
+into his gray cheeks.
+
+“Nonsense, my dear!” he answered, “at this time of night! Why, it’s
+past eight... their first house is just finishing... they don’t go
+engaging people at this time of day... they’ve got other things to
+think of!”
+
+He went over to the desk and picked up the receiver.
+
+“Mackwayte speaking!” he said, with a touch of stage majesty in his
+voice.
+
+Instantly a voice broke in on the other end of the wire, a perfect
+torrent of words.
+
+“Mackwayte? Ah! I’m glad I caught you at home. Got your props there?
+Good. Hickie of Hickie and Flanagan broke his ankle during their turn
+at the first house just now, and I want you to take their place at the
+second house. Your turn’s at 9.40: it’s a quarter past eight now: I’ll
+have a car for you at your place at ten to nine sharp. Bring your band
+parts and lighting directions with you... don’t forget! You get twenty
+minutes, on! Right! Goodbye!”
+
+“The Palaceum want me to deputize for Hickie and Flanagan, my dear,” he
+said a little tremulously, “9.40... the second house... it’s... it’s
+very unexpected!”
+
+Barbara ran up and throwing her arms about his neck, kissed him.
+
+“How splendid!” she exclaimed, “the Palaceum, daddy! You’ve never had
+an engagement like this before... the biggest hall in London...!!
+
+“Only for a night, my dear,” said Mr. Mackwayte modestly.
+
+“But if they like you, daddy, if it goes down... what will you give
+them, daddy?”
+
+Mr. Mackwayte scratched his chin.
+
+“It’s the biggest theatre in London,” he mused, “It’ll have to be broad
+effects... and they’ll want something slap up modern, my dear, I’m
+thinking...”
+
+“No, no, daddy” his daughter broke in vehemently “they want the best.
+This is a London audience, remember, not a half-baked provincial house.
+This is London, Mac, not Wigan! And Londoners love their London! You’ll
+give ’em the old London horse bus driver, the sporting cabby, and I
+believe you’ll have time to squeeze in the hot potato man...”
+
+“Well, like your poor dear mother, I expect you know what’s the best
+I’ve got” replied Mr. Mackwayte, “but it’ll be a bit awkward with a
+strange dresser... I can’t get hold of Potter at this time, of night...
+and a stranger is sure to mix up my wigs and things...”
+
+“Why, daddy, I’m going with you to put out your things...”
+
+“But a lady clerk in the War Office, Barbara... a Government official,
+as you might say... go behind at a music-hall... it don’t seem proper
+right, my dear!”
+
+“Nonsense, Mac. Where’s your theatre trunk? Come along. We’ll have to
+try and get a taxi!”
+
+“They’re sending a car at ten to nine, my dear!”
+
+“Good gracious! what swells we are! And it’s half-past eight already!
+Who is on the bill with you?”
+
+“My dear, I haven’t an idea... I’m not very well up in the London
+programmes, I’m afraid... but it is sure to be a good programme. The
+Palaceum is the only house that’s had the courage to break away from
+this rotten revue craze!”
+
+Barbara was in the hall now, her arms plunged to the shoulder in a
+great basket trunk that smelt faintly of cocoa-butter. Right and left
+she flung coats and hats and trousers and band parts, selecting with a
+sure eye the properties which Mr. Mackwayte would require for the
+sketches he would play that evening. In the middle of it all the
+throbbing of a car echoed down the quiet road outside. Then there came
+a ring at the front door.
+
+
+At half-past nine that night, Barbara found herself standing beside her
+father in the wings of the vast Palaceum stage. Just at her back was
+the little screened-off recess where Mr. Mackwayte was to make the
+quick changes that came in the course of his turn. Here, since her
+arrival in the theatre, Barbara had been busy laying out coats and hats
+and rigs and grease-paints on the little table below the mirror with
+its two brilliant electric bulbs, whilst Mr. Mackwayte was in his
+dressing-room upstairs changing into his first costume.
+
+Now, old Mackwayte stood at her elbow in his rig-out as an old London
+bus-driver in the identical, characteristic clothes which he had worn
+for this turn for the past 25 years. He was far too old a hand to show
+any nervousness he might feel at the ordeal before him. He was chatting
+in undertones in his gentle, confidential way to the stage manager.
+
+All around them was that curious preoccupied stillness—the hush of the
+power-house—which makes the false world of the stage so singularly
+unreal by contrast when watched from the back. The house was packed
+from floor to ceiling, for the Palaceum’s policy of breaking away from
+revue and going back to Mr. Mackwayte called “straight vaudeville” was
+triumphantly justifying itself.
+
+Standing in the wings, Barbara could almost feel the electric current
+running between the audience and the comedian who, with the quiet
+deliberation of the finished artist, was going through his business on
+the stage. As he made each of his carefully studied points, he paused,
+confident of the vast rustle of laughter swelling into a hurricane of
+applause which never failed to come from the towering tiers of humanity
+before him, stretching away into the roof where the limelights blazed
+and spluttered. Save for the low murmur of voices at her side, the
+silence behind the scenes was absolute. No one was idle. Everyone was
+at his post, his attention concentrated on that diminutive little
+figure in the ridiculous clothes which the spot-lights tracked about
+the stage.
+
+It was the high-water mark of modern music-hall development. The
+perfect smoothness of the organization gave Barbara a great feeling of
+contentment for she knew how happy her father must be. Everyone had
+been so kind to him. “I shall feel a stranger amongst the top-liners of
+today, my dear,” he had said to her in the car on their way to the
+hall. She had had no answer ready for she had feared he spoke the
+truth.
+
+Yet everyone they had met had tried to show them that Arthur Mackwayte
+was not forgotten. The stage-door keeper had known him in the days of
+the old Aquarium and welcomed him by name. The comedian who preceded
+Mr. Mackwayte and who was on the stage at that moment had said, “Hullo,
+Mac! Come to give us young ’uns some tips?” And even now the stage
+manager was talking over old days with her father.
+
+“You had a rough but good schooling, Mac,” he was saying, “but, by
+Jove, it gave us finished artists. If you saw the penny reading line
+that comes trying to get a job here... and gets it, by Gad!... it’d
+make you sick. I tell you I have my work cut out staving them off! It’s
+a pretty good show this week, though, and I’ve given you a good place,
+Mac... you’re in front of Nur-el-Din!”
+
+“Nur-el-Din?” repeated Mr. Mackwayte, “what is it, Fletcher? A
+conjurer?”
+
+“Good Lord, man, where have you been living?” replied Fletcher.
+“Nur-el-Din is the greatest vaudeville proposition since Lottie
+Collins. Conjurer! That’s what she is, too, by Jove! She’s the newest
+thing in Oriental dancers... Spaniard or something... wonderful
+clothes, what there is of ’em... and jewelry... wait till you see her!”
+
+“Dear me,” said Mr. Mackwayte, “I’m afraid I’m a bit behind the times.
+Has she been appearing here long?”
+
+“First appearance in London, old man, and she’s made good from the word
+‘Go!’ She’s been in Paris and all over the Continent, and America, too,
+I believe, but she had to come to me to soar to the top of the bill. I
+saw at once where _she_ belonged! She’s a real artiste, temperament,
+style and all that sort of thing and a damn good producer into the
+bargain! But the worst devil that ever escaped out of hell never had a
+wickeder temper! She and I fight all the time! Not a show, but she
+doesn’t keep the stage waiting! But I won! I won’t have her prima donna
+tricks in this theatre and so I’ve told her! Hullo, Georgie’s
+finishing...”
+
+The great curtain switched down suddenly, drowning a cascade of
+applause, and a bundle of old clothes, twitching nerves, liquid
+perspiration and grease paint hopped off the stage into the centre of
+the group. An electric bell trilled, the limelights shut off, with a
+jerk that made the eyes ache, a back-cloth soared aloft and another
+glided down into its place, the comedian took two, three, four calls,
+then vanished into a horde of dim figures scuttling about in the gloom.
+
+An electric bell trilled again and deep silence fell once more, broken
+only by the hissing of the lights.
+
+“You ought to stop behind after your turn and see her, Mac,” the stage
+manager’s voice went on evenly. “All right, Jackson! On you go, Mac!”
+
+Barbara felt her heart jump. Now for it, daddy!
+
+The great curtain mounted majestically and Arthur Mackwayte, deputy
+turn, stumped serenely on to the stage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+CAPTAIN STRANGWISE ENTERTAINS A GUEST
+
+
+It was the slack hour at the Nineveh Hotel. The last groups about the
+tea-tables in the Palm Court had broken up, the Tzigane orchestra had
+stacked its instruments together on its little platform and gone home,
+and a gentle calm rested over the great hotel as the forerunner of the
+coming dinner storm.
+
+The pre-dinner hour is the uncomfortable hour of the modern hotel de
+luxe. The rooms seem uncomfortably hot, the evening paper palls, it is
+too early to dress for dinner, so one sits yawning over the fire,
+longing for a fireside of one’s own. At least that is how it strikes
+one from the bachelor standpoint, and that is how it appeared to affect
+a man who was sitting hunched up in a big arm-chair in the vestibule of
+the Nineveh Hotel on this winter afternoon.
+
+His posture spoke of utter boredom. He sprawled full length in his
+chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his eyes
+half-closed, various editions of evening papers strewn about the ground
+at his feet. He was a tall, well-groomed man, and his lithe, athletic
+figure looked very well in its neat uniform.
+
+A pretty little woman who sat at one of the writing desks in the
+vestibule glanced at him more than once. He was the sort of man that
+women look at with interest. He had a long, shrewd, narrow head, the
+hair dark and close-cropped, a big, bold, aquiline nose, and a firm
+masterful chin, dominated by a determined line of mouth emphasised by a
+thin line of moustache. He would have been very handsome but for his
+eyes, which, the woman decided as she glanced at him, were set rather
+too close together. She thought she would prefer him as he was now,
+with his eyes glittering in the fire-light through their long lashes.
+
+But what was most apparent was the magnificent physical fitness of the
+man. His was the frame of the pioneer, the man of the earth’s open
+spaces and uncharted wilds. He looked as hard as nails, and the woman
+murmured to herself, as she went on with her note, “On leave from the
+front.”
+
+Presently, the man stirred, stretched himself and finally sat up. Then
+he started, sprang to his feet, and strode easily across the vestibule
+to the reception desk. An officer was standing there in a worn uniform,
+a very shabby kit-bag by his side, a dirty old Burberry over his arm.
+
+“Okewood!” said the young man and touched the other on the shoulder,
+“isn’t it Desmond Okewood? By Jove, I _am_ glad to see you!”
+
+The new-comer turned quickly.
+
+“Why, hullo,” he said, “if it isn’t Maurice Strangwise! But, good
+heavens, man, surely I saw your name in the casualty list... missing,
+wasn’t it?”
+
+“Yep!” replied the other smiling, “that’s so! It’s a long story and
+it’ll keep! But tell me about yourself... this,” he kicked the kit-bag
+with the toe of his boot, “looks like a little leave! Just in from
+France?”
+
+He smiled again, baring his firm, white teeth, and looking at him
+Desmond suddenly remembered, as one recalls a trifle, his trick of
+smiling. It was a frank enough smile but... well, some people smile too
+much.
+
+“Got in just now by the leave train,” answered Desmond.
+
+“How much leave have you got?” asked Strangwise.
+
+“Well,” said the other, “it’s a funny thing, but I don’t know!”
+
+“Say, are they giving unlimited leave over there now?”
+
+Desmond laughed.
+
+“Hardly,” he replied. “But the War Office just applied for me to come
+over and here I am! What they want me for, whether it’s to advise the
+War Council or to act as Quartermaster to the Jewish Battalion I can’t
+tell you! I shan’t know until tomorrow morning! In the meantime I’m
+going to forget the war for this evening!”
+
+“What are you going to do to-night?” asked Strangwise.
+
+Desmond began to check off on his fingers.
+
+“Firstly, I’m going to fill the biggest bath in this hotel with hot
+water, get the biggest piece of Pears’ soap in London, and jump in:
+Then, if my tailor hasn’t betrayed me, I’m going to put on dress
+clothes, and whilst I am dressing summon Julien (if he’s maitre d’hôtel
+here) to a conference, then I’m going to eat the best dinner that this
+pub can provide. Then...”
+
+Strangwise interrupted him.
+
+“The bath is on you, if you like,” he said, “but the dinner’s on me and
+a show afterwards. I’m at a loose end, old man, and so are you, so
+we’ll hit up together! We’ll dine in the restaurant here at 7.30, and
+Julien shall come up to your room so that you can order the dinner. Is
+it a go?”
+
+“Rather,” laughed Desmond, “I’ll eat your dinner, Maurice, and you
+shall tell me how you managed to break out of the casualty list into
+the Nineveh Hotel. But what do all these anxious-looking gentry want?”
+
+The two officers turned to confront a group of four men who were
+surveying them closely. One of them, a fat, comfortable looking party
+with grizzled hair, on seeing Desmond, walked up to him.
+
+“Hullo!” said Desmond, “it’s Tommy Spencer! How are you, Spencer?
+What’s the betting in Fleet Street on the war lasting another five
+years? Have you come to interview me?”
+
+The tubby little man beamed and shook hands effusively.
+
+“Glad to see you looking so well, Major,” he said, “It’s your friend we
+want...”
+
+“What? Strangwise? Here, Maurice, come meet my friend Tommy Spencer of
+the “Daily Record,” whom I haven’t seen since we went on manoeuvres
+together down at Aldershot! Captain Strangwise, Tommy Spencer! Now,
+then, fire away; Spencer!”
+
+Strangwise smiled and shook his head.
+
+“I’m very pleased to know your friend, Desmond,” he said, “but, you
+know, I can’t talk! I had the strictest orders from the War Office...
+It’s on account of the other fellows, you know...”
+
+Desmond looked blankly at him. Then he—turned to Spencer.
+
+“You must let me into this, Spencer,” he said, “what’s old Maurice been
+up to? Has he been cashiered for wearing shoes or what?”
+
+Spencer’s manner became a trifle formal.
+
+“Captain Strangwise has escaped from a prisoners’ of war camp in
+Germany, Major,” he said, “we’ve been trying to get hold of him for
+days! He’s the talk of London!”
+
+Desmond turned like a shot.
+
+“Maurice!” he cried, “’pon my soul, I’m going to have an interesting
+evening... why, of course, you are just the sort of fellow to do a
+thing like that. But, Spencer, you know, it won’t do... fellows are
+never allowed to talk to the newspaper men about matters of this kind.
+And if you’re a good fellow, Spencer, you won’t even say that you have
+seen Strangwise here... you’ll only get him into trouble!”
+
+The little man looked rather rueful.
+
+“Oh, of course, Major, if you put it that way,” he said.
+
+“... And you’ll use your influence to make those other fellows with you
+drop it, will you, Spencer? And then come along to the bar and we’ll
+have a drink for old times’ sake!”
+
+Spencer seemed doubtful about the success of his representations to his
+colleagues but he obediently trotted away. Apparently, he succeeded in
+his mission for presently he joined the two officers alone in the
+American Bar.
+
+“I haven’t seen Strangwise for six months, Spencer,” said Desmond over
+his second cocktail. “Seeing him reminds me how astonishing it is the
+way fellows drop apart in war. Old Maurice was attached to the Brigade
+of which I am the Brigade Major as gunner officer, and we lived
+together for the best part of three months, wasn’t it, Maurice? Then he
+goes back to his battery and the next thing I hear of him is that he is
+missing. And then I’m damned if he doesn’t turn up here!”
+
+Spencer cocked an eye at Strangwise over his Martini.
+
+“I’d like to hear your story, despite the restrictions,” he said.
+
+Strangwise looked a trifle embarrassed.
+
+“Maybe I’ll tell you one day,” he replied in his quiet way, “though,
+honestly, there’s precious little to tell...”
+
+Desmond marked his confusion and respected him for it. He rushed in to
+the rescue.
+
+“Spencer,” he said abruptly, “what’s worth seeing in London? We are
+going to a show to-night. I want to be amused, mark you, not elevated!”
+
+“Nur-el-Din at the Palaceum,” replied the reporter.
+
+“By Jove, we’ll go there,” said Desmond, turning to Maurice. “Have you
+ever seen her? I’m told she’s perfectly marvelous...”
+
+“It’s an extraordinarily artistic turn,” said Spencer, “and they’re
+doing wonderful business at the Palaceum. You’d better go and see the
+show soon, though, for they tell me the lady is leaving the programme.”
+
+“_No!_” exclaimed Strangwise so suddenly that Desmond turned round and
+stared at him. “I thought she was there for months yet...”
+
+“They don’t want her to go,” answered Spencer, “she’s a perfect
+gold-mine to them but I gather the lady is difficult... in fact, to put
+it bluntly she’s making such a damn nuisance of herself with her
+artistic temperament that they can’t get on with her at all.”
+
+“Do you know this lady of the artistic temperament, Maurice?” asked
+Desmond.
+
+Strangwise hesitated a moment.
+
+“I met her in Canada a few years ago,” he said slowly, “she was a very
+small star then. She’s a very handsome and attractive girl, in spite of
+our friend’s unfavorable verdict. There’s something curiously real
+about her dancing, too, that you don’t find in this sort of show as a
+rule!”
+
+He stopped a moment, then added abruptly:
+
+“We’ll go along to the Palaceum to-night, if you like, Desmond,” and
+Desmond joyfully acquiesced. To one who has been living for weeks in an
+ill-ventilated pill-box on the Passchendaele Ridge, the lights and
+music and color of a music-hall seem as a foretaste of Paradise.
+
+And that was what Desmond Okewood thought as a few hours later he found
+himself with Maurice Strangwise in the stalls of the vast Palaceum
+auditorium. In the unwonted luxury of evening clothes he felt clean and
+comfortable, and the cigar he way smoking was the climax of one of
+Julien’s most esoteric efforts.
+
+The cards on either side of the proscenium opening bore the words:
+“Deputy Turn.” On the stage was a gnarled old man with ruddy cheeks and
+a muffler. a seedy top hat on his head, a coaching whip in his hand,
+the old horse bus-driver of London in his habit as he had lived. The
+old fellow stood there and just talked to the audience of a fine
+sporting class of men that petrol has driven from the streets, without
+exaggerated humor or pathos. Desmond, himself a born Cockney, at once
+fell under the actor’s spell and found all memories of the front
+slipping away from him as the old London street characters succeeded
+one another on the stage. Then the orchestra blared out, the curtain
+descended, and the house broke into a great flutter of applause.
+
+Desmond, luxuriating in his comfortable stall puffed at his cigar and
+fell into a pleasant reverie.
+
+He was contrasting the ghastly nightmare of mud and horrors from which
+he had only just emerged with the scene of elegance, of civilization;
+around him.
+
+Suddenly, his attention became riveted on the stage. The atmosphere of
+the theatre had changed. Always quick at picking up “influences,”
+Desmond instantly sensed a new mood in the throngs around him. A
+presence was in the theatre, an instinct-awakening, a material
+influence. The great audience was strangely hushed. The air was heavy
+with the scent of incense. The stringed instruments and oboes in the
+orchestra were wandering into rhythmic [Updater’s note: a line appears
+to be missing from the source here] dropped.
+
+Maurice touched his elbow.
+
+“There she is!” he said.
+
+Desmond felt inclined to shake him off roughly. The interruption jarred
+on him. For he was looking at this strangely beautiful girl with her
+skin showing very brown beneath a wonderful silver tiara-like
+headdress, and in the broad interstices of a cloth-of-silver robe with
+short, stiffly wired-out skirt. She was seated, an idol, on a
+glittering black throne, at her feet with their tapering dyed nails a
+fantastically attired throng of worshipers.
+
+The idol stirred into life, the music of the orchestra died away. Then
+a tom-tom began to beat its nervous pulse-stirring throb, the strident
+notes of a reed-pipe joined in and the dancer, raised on her toes on
+the dais, began to sway languorously to and fro. And so she swayed and
+swayed with sinuously curving limbs while the drums throbbed out faster
+with ever-shortening beats, with now and then a clash of brazen cymbals
+that was torture to overwrought nerves.
+
+The dancer was the perfection of grace. Her figure was lithe and supple
+as a boy’s. There was a suggestion of fire and strength and agility
+about her that made one think of a panther as she postured there
+against a background of barbaric color. The grace of her movements, the
+exquisite blending of the colors on the stage, the skillful grouping of
+the throng of worshipers, made up a picture which held the audience
+spellbound and in silence until the curtain dropped.
+
+Desmond turned to find Strangwise standing up.
+
+“I thought of just running round behind the scenes for a few minutes,”
+he said carelessly.
+
+“What, to see Nur-el-Din? By Jove, I’m coming, too!” promptly exclaimed
+Desmond.
+
+Strangwise demurred. He didn’t quite know if he could take him: there
+might be difficulties: another time... But Desmond got up resolutely.
+
+“I’ll be damned if you leave me behind, Maurice,” he laughed, “of
+course I’m coming, too! She’s the most delightful creature I’ve ever
+set eyes on!”
+
+And so it ended by them going through the pass-door together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+MR. MACKWAYTE MEETS AN OLD FRIEND
+
+
+That night Nur-el-Din kept the stage waiting for five minutes. It was a
+climax of a long series of similar unpardonable crimes in the
+music-hall code. The result was that Mr. Mackwayte, after taking four
+enthusiastic “curtains,” stepped off the stage into a perfect
+pandemonium.
+
+He found Fletcher, the stage manager, livid with rage, surrounded by
+the greater part of the large suite with which the dancer traveled.
+There was Madame’s maid, a trim Frenchwoman, Madame’s business manager,
+a fat, voluble Italian, Madame’s secretary, an olive-skinned South
+American youth in an evening coat with velvet collar, and Madame’s
+principal male dancer in a scanty Egyptian dress with grotesquely
+painted face. They were all talking at the same time, and at intervals
+Fletcher muttered hotly: “This time she leaves the bill or I walk out
+of the theatre!”
+
+Then a clear voice cried:
+
+“_Me voila!_” and a dainty apparition in an ermine wrap tripped into
+the centre of the group, tapped the manager lightly on the shoulder and
+said:
+
+“_Allons!_ I am ready!”
+
+Mr. Mackwayte’s face creased its mask of paint into a thousand
+wrinkles. For, on seeing him, the dancer’s face lighted up, and,
+running to him with hands outstretched, she cried:
+
+“_Tiens!_ Monsieur Arthur!” while he ejaculated:
+
+“Why, it’s little Marcelle!”
+
+But now the stage manager interposed. He whisked Madame’s wrap off her
+with one hand and with the other, firmly propelled her on to the stage.
+She let him have his way with a merry smile, dark eyes and white teeth
+flashing, but as she went she said to Mr. Mackwayte:
+
+“My friend, wait for me! _Et puis nous causerons!_ We will ’ave a talk,
+_n’est-ce pas?_”
+
+“A very old friend of mine, my dear,” Mr. Mackwayte said to Barbara
+when, dressed in his street clothes, he rejoined her in the wings where
+she stood watching Nur-el-Din dancing. “She was an acrobat in the Seven
+Duponts, a turn that earned big money in the old days. It must be...
+let’s see... getting on for twenty years since I last set eyes on her.
+She was a pretty kid in those days! God bless my soul! Little Marcelle
+a big star! It’s really most amazing!”
+
+Directly she was off the stage, Nur-el-Din came straight to Mr.
+Mackwayte, pushing aside her maid who was waiting with her wrap.
+
+“My friend,” she cooed in her pretty broken English, “I am so glad, so
+glad to see you. And this is your girl... ah! she ’as your eyes,
+Monsieur Arthur, your nice English gray eyes! Such a big girl... ah!
+but she make me feel old!”
+
+She laughed, a pretty gurgling laugh, throwing back her head so that
+the diamond collar she was wearing heaved and flashed.
+
+“But you will come to my room, _hein?_” she went on. “Marie, my wrap!”
+and she led the way to the lift.
+
+Nur-el-Din’s spacious dressing-room seemed to be full of people and
+flowers. All her little court was assembled amid a perfect bower of
+hot-house blooms and plants. Head and shoulders above everybody else in
+the room towered the figure of an officer in uniform, with him another
+palpable Englishman in evening dress.
+
+Desmond Okewood thought he had never seen anything in his life more
+charming than the picture the dancer made as she came into the room.
+Her wrap had fallen open and beneath the broad bars of her
+cloth-of-silver dress her bosom yet rose and fell after the exertions
+of her dance. A jet black curl had strayed out from beneath her lofty
+silver head-dress, and she thrust it back in its place with one little
+brown bejeweled hand whilst she extended the other to Strangwise.
+
+“_Tiens, mon capitaine!_” she said. Desmond was watching her closely,
+fascinated by her beauty, but noticed an unwilling, almost a hostile
+tone, in her voice.
+
+Strangwise was speaking in his deep voice.
+
+“Marcelle,” he said, “I’ve brought a friend who is anxious to meet you.
+Major Desmond Okewood! He and I soldiered together in France!” The
+dancer turned her big black eyes full on Desmond as she held out her
+hand to him.
+
+“Old friends, new friends,” she cried, clapping, her hands like a
+child, “I love friends. Captaine, here is a very old friend,” she said
+to Strangwise as Mr. Mackwayte and Barbara came into the rooms,
+“Monsieur Arthur Mackwayte and ’is daughter. I ’ave know Monsieur
+Arthur almos’ all my life. And, Mademoiselle, permit me? I introduce le
+Captaine Strangwise and ’is friend... what is the name? Ah, Major
+Okewood!”
+
+Nur-el-Din sank into a _bergère_ chair beside her great mirror.
+
+“There are too many in this room,” she cried, “there is no air!
+Lazarro, Ramiro, all of you, go outside, my friends!”
+
+As Madame’s entourage surged out, Strangwise said:
+
+“I hear you are leaving the Palaceum, Marcelle!”
+
+He spoke so low that Mr. Mackwayte and Barbara, who were talking to
+Desmond, did not hear. Marcelle, taking off her heavy head-dress,
+answered quickly:
+
+“Who told you that?”
+
+“Never mind,” replied Strangwise. “But you never told me you were
+going. Why didn’t you?”
+
+His voice was stern and hard now, very different from his usual quiet
+and mellow tones. But he was smiling.
+
+Marcelle cast a glance over her shoulder. Barbara was looking round the
+room and caught the reflection of the dancer’s face in a mirror hanging
+on the wall. To her intense astonishment, she saw a look of despair,
+almost of terror, in Nur-el-Din’s dark eyes. It was like the frightened
+stare of some hunted beast. Barbara was so much taken aback that she
+instinctively glanced over her shoulder at the door, thinking that the
+dancer had seen something there to frighten her. But the door was shut.
+When Barbara looked into the mirror again, she saw only the reflection
+of Nur-el-Din’s pretty neck and shoulders. The dancer was talking again
+in low tones to Strangwise.
+
+But Barbara swiftly forgot that glimpse of the dancer’s face in the
+glass. For she was very happy. Happiness, like high spirits, is
+eminently contagious, and the two men at her side were supremely
+content.
+
+Her father’s eyes were shining with his little success of the evening:
+on the way upstairs Fletcher had held out hopes to him of a long
+engagement at the Palaceum while as for the other, he was radiant with
+the excitement of his first night in town after long months of
+campaigning.
+
+He was thinking that his leave had started most propitiously. After a
+man has been isolated for months amongst muddy masculinity, the
+homeliest woman will find favor in his eyes. And to neither of these
+women, in whose presence he so unexpectedly found himself within a few
+hours of landing in England, could the epithet “homely” be applied.
+Each represented a distinct type of beauty in herself, and Desmond, as
+he chatted with Barbara, was mentally contrasting the two women.
+Barbara, tall and slim and very healthy, with her braided brown hair,
+creamy complexion and gray eyes, was essentially English. She was the
+typical woman of England, of England of the broad green valleys and
+rolling downs and snuggling hamlets, of England of the white cliffs
+gnawed by the restless ocean. The other was equally essentially a woman
+of the South. Her dark eyes, her upper lip just baring her firm white
+teeth, spoke of hot Latin or gypsy blood surging in her veins. Hers was
+the beauty of the East, sensuous, arresting, conjuring up pictures of
+warm, perfumed nights, the thrumming of guitars, a great yellow moon
+hanging low behind the palms.
+
+“Barbara!” called Nur-el-Din from the dressing table. Mr. Mackwayte had
+joined her there and was chatting to Strangwise.
+
+“You will stay and talk to me while I change _n’est-ce pas?_ Your papa
+and these gentlemen are going to drink a whiskey-soda with that animal
+Fletcher... _quel homme terrible_... and you shall join them
+presently.”
+
+The men went out, leaving Barbara alone with the dancer. Barbara
+noticed how tired Nur-el-Din was looking. Her pretty, childish ways
+seemed to have evaporated with her high spirits. Her face was heavy and
+listless. There were lines round her eyes, and her mouth had a hard,
+drawn look.
+
+“Child,” she said, “give me, please, my _peignoir_... it is behind the
+door,... and, I will get this paint off my face!”
+
+Barbara fetched the wrapper and sat down beside the dancer. But
+Nur-el-Din did not move. She seemed to be thinking. Barbara saw the
+hunted look she had already observed in her that evening creeping over
+her face again.
+
+“It is a hard life; this life of ours, a life of change, _ma petite!_ A
+great artiste has no country, no home, no fireside! For the past five
+years I have been roaming about the world! Often I think I will settle
+down, but the life holds me!”
+
+She took up from her dressing-table a little oblong plain silver box.
+
+“I want to ask you a favor, _ma petite_ Barbara!” she said. “This
+little box is a family possession of mine: I have had it for many
+years. The world is so disturbed to-day that life is not safe for
+anybody who travels as much as I do! You have a home, a safe home with
+your dear father! He was telling me about it! Will you take this little
+box and keep it safely for me until... until... the war is over...
+until I ask you for it?”
+
+“Yes, of course,” said Barbara, “if you wish it, though, what with
+these air raids, I don’t know that London is particularly safe,
+either.”
+
+“Ah! that is good of you,” cried Nur-el-Din, “anyhow, the little box is
+safer with you than with me. See, I will wrap it up and seal it, and
+then you will take it home with you, _n’est-ce pas?_”
+
+She opened a drawer and swiftly hunting among its contents produced a
+sheet of white paper, and some sealing-wax. She wrapped the box in the
+paper and sealed it up, stamping the seals with a camel signet ring she
+drew off her finger. Then she handed the package to Barbara.
+
+There was a knock at the door. The maid, noiselessly arranging Madame’s
+dresses in the corner opened it.
+
+“You will take care of it well for me,” the dancer said to Barbara, and
+her voice vibrated with a surprising eagerness, “you will guard it
+preciously until I come for it...” She laughed and added carelessly:
+“Because it is a family treasure, a life _mascotte_ of mine, _hein?_”
+
+Then they heard Strangwise’s deep voice outside.
+
+Nur-el-Din started.
+
+“Le Captaine is there, Madame,” said the French maid, “’e say Monsieur
+Mackwayte ask for Mademoiselle!”
+
+The dancer thrust a little hand from the folds of her silken kimono.
+
+“_Au revoir, ma petite_,” she said, “we shall meet again. You will come
+and see me, _n’est-ce pas?_ And say nothing to anybody about...” she
+pointed to Barbara’s bag where the little package was reposing, “it
+shall be a secret between us, _hein?_ Promise me this, _mon enfant!_”
+
+“Of course, I promise, if you like!” said Barbara, wonderingly.
+
+
+At half-past eight the next morning Desmond Okewood found himself in
+the ante-room of the Chief of the Secret Service in a cross and puzzled
+mood. The telephone at his bedside had roused him at 8 a.m. from the
+first sleep he had had in a real bed for two months. In a drowsy voice
+he had protested that he had an appointment at the War Office at 10
+o’clock, but a curt voice had bidden him dress himself and come to the
+Chief forthwith. Here he was, accordingly, breakfastless, his chin
+smarting from a hasty shave. What the devil did the Chief want with him
+anyhow? _He_ wasn’t in the Secret Service, though his brother, Francis,
+was.
+
+A voice broke in upon his angry musing.
+
+“Come in, Okewood!” it said.
+
+The Chief stood at the door of his room, a broad-shouldered figure in a
+plain jacket suit. Desmond had met him before. He knew him for a man of
+many questions but of few confidences, yet his recollection of him was
+of a suave, imperturbable personality. To-day, however, the Chief
+seemed strangely preoccupied. There was a deep line between his bushy
+eyebrows as he bent them at Desmond, motioning him to a chair. When he
+spoke, his manner was very curt.
+
+“What time did you part from the Mackwaytes at the theatre last night?”
+
+Desmond was dumbfounded. How on earth did the Chief know about his
+visit to the Palaceum? Still, he was used to the omniscience of the
+British Intelligence, so he answered promptly:
+
+“It was latish, sir; about midnight, I think!”
+
+“They went home to Seven Kings alone!”
+
+“Yes, sir, in a taxi!” Desmond replied.
+
+The Chief contemplated his blotting-pad gloomily. Desmond knew it for a
+trick of his when worried.
+
+“Did you have a good night?” he said to Desmond, suddenly.
+
+“Yes,” he said, not in the least understanding the drift of the
+question. “... though I didn’t mean to get up quite so early!”
+
+The Chief ignored this sally.
+
+“Nothing out of the ordinary happened during the night, I suppose?” he
+asked again.
+
+Desmond shook his head.
+
+“Nothing that I know of, sir,” he said.
+
+“Seen Strangwise this morning?”
+
+Desmond gasped for breath. So the Chief knew about him meeting
+Strangwise, too!
+
+“No, sir!”
+
+A clerk put his head in at the door.
+
+“Well, Matthews!”
+
+“Captain Strangwise will be along very shortly, sir,” he said.
+
+The Chief looked up quickly.
+
+“Ah, he’s all right then! Good.”
+
+“And, sir,” Matthews added, “Scotland Yard telephoned to say that the
+doctor is with Miss Mackwayte now.”
+
+Desmond started up.
+
+“Is Miss Mackwayte ill?” he exclaimed.
+
+The Chief answered slowly, as Matthews withdrew: “Mr. Mackwayte was
+found murdered at his house early this morning!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+MAJOR OKEWOOD ENCOUNTERS A NEW TYPE
+
+
+There is a sinister ring about the word “murder,” which reacts upon
+even the most hardened sensibility. Edgar Allan Poe, who was a master
+of the suggestive use of words, realized this when he called the
+greatest detective story ever written “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”
+From the very beginning of the war, Desmond had seen death in all its
+forms but that word “murdered,” spoken with slow emphasis in the quiet
+room, gave him an ugly chill feeling round the heart that he had never
+experienced on the battlefield.
+
+“Murdered!” Desmond repeated dully and sat down. He felt stunned. He
+was not thinking of the gentle old man cruelly done to death or of the
+pretty Barbara prostrate with grief. He was overawed by the curious
+fatality that had plucked him from the horrors of Flanders only to
+plunge him into a tragedy at home.
+
+“Yes,” said the Chief bluntly, “by a burglar apparently—the house was
+ransacked!”
+
+“Chief,” he broke out, “you must explain. I’m all at sea! Why did you
+send for me? What have you got to do with criminal cases, anyway?
+Surely, this is a Scotland Yard matter!”
+
+The Chief shook his head.
+
+“I sent for you in default of your brother, Okewood!” he said. “You
+once refused an offer of mine to take you into my service, but this
+time I had to have you, so I got the War Office to wire...”
+
+“Then my appointment for ten o’clock to-day was with you?” Desmond
+exclaimed in astonishment.
+
+The Chief nodded.
+
+“It was,” he said curtly.
+
+“But,” protested Desmond feebly, “did you know about this murder
+beforehand!”
+
+The Chief threw back his head and laughed.
+
+“My dear fellow,” he said; “I’m not quite so deep as all that. I
+haven’t second sight, you know!”
+
+“You’ve got something devilish like it, sir!” said Desmond. “How on
+earth did you know that I was at the Palaceum last night?”
+
+The Chief smiled grimly.
+
+“Oh, that’s very simple,” he said. “Shall I tell you some more about
+yourself? You sat...” he glanced down at the desk in front of him,”...
+in Stall E 52 and, after Nur-el-Din’s turn, Strangwise took you round
+and introduced you to the lady. In her dressing-room you met Mr.
+Mackwayte and his daughter. After that...”
+
+“But,” Desmond interrupted quickly, “I must have been followed by one
+of your men. Still, I can’t see why my movements should interest the
+Secret Service, sir!”
+
+The Chief remained silent for a moment. Then he said:
+
+“Fate often unexpectedly takes a hand in this game of ours, Okewood. I
+sent for you to come back from France but old man Destiny wouldn’t
+leave it at that. Almost as soon as you landed he switched you straight
+on to a trail that I have been patiently following up for months past.
+That trail is...”
+
+The telephone on the desk rang sharply.
+
+“Whose trail?” Desmond could not forbear to ask as the Chief took off
+the receiver.
+
+“Just a minute,” the Chief said. Then he spoke into the telephone:
+
+“Marigold? Yes. Really? Very well, I’ll come straight along now... I’ll
+be with you in twenty minutes. Good-bye!”
+
+He put down the receiver and rose to his feet.
+
+“Okewood,” he cried gaily, “what do you say to a little detective work?
+That was Marigold of the Criminal Investigation Department... he’s down
+at Seven Kings handling this murder case. I asked him to let me know
+when it would be convenient for me to come along and have a look round,
+and he wants me to go now. Two heads are better than one. You’d better
+come along!”
+
+He pressed a button on the desk.
+
+The swift and silent Matthews appeared.
+
+“Matthews,” he said, “when Captain Strangwise comes, please tell him
+I’ve been called away and ask him to call back here at two o’clock to
+see me.”
+
+He paused and laid a lean finger reflectively along his nose.
+
+“Are you lunching anywhere, Okewood?” he said. Desmond shook his head.
+
+“Then you will lunch with me, eh? Right. Come along and we’ll try to
+find the way to Seven Kings.”
+
+The two men threaded the busy corridors to the lift which deposited
+them at the main entrance. A few minutes later the Chief was
+dexterously guiding his Vauxhall car through the crowded traffic of the
+Strand, Desmond beside him on the front seat.
+
+Desmond was completely fogged in his mind. He couldn’t see light
+anywhere. He asked himself in vain what possible connection could exist
+between this murder in an obscure quarter of London and the man at his
+side who, he knew, held in his firm hands lines that stretched to the
+uttermost ends of the earth? What kind of an affair was this, seemingly
+so commonplace that could take the Chief’s attention from the hundred
+urgent matters of national security that occupied him?
+
+The Chief seemed absorbed in his driving and Desmond felt it would be
+useless to attempt to draw him out. They wended their way through the
+city and out into the squalid length of the Mile End Road. Then the
+Chief began to talk.
+
+“I hate driving through the City,” he exclaimed, “but I always think
+it’s good for the nerves. Still, I have a feeling that I shall smash
+this old car up some day. That friend of yours, Strangwise, now he’s a
+remarkable man! Do you know his story?”
+
+“About his escape from Germany?” asked Desmond.
+
+The Chief nodded.
+
+“He told me something about it at dinner last night,” said Desmond,
+“but he’s such a modest chap he doesn’t seem to like talking about it!”
+
+“He must have a cool nerve,” replied the Chief, “he doesn’t know a word
+of German, except a few scraps he picked up in camp. Yet, after he got
+free, he made his way alone from somewhere in Hanover clear to the
+Dutch frontier. And I tell you he kept his eyes and ears open!”
+
+“Was he able to tell you anything good” asked Desmond.
+
+“The man’s just full of information. He couldn’t take a note of any
+kind, of course, but he seems to have a wonderful memory. He was able
+to give us the names of almost every unit of troops he came across.”
+
+He stopped to skirt a tram, then added suddenly:
+
+“Do you know him well, Okewood?”
+
+“Yes, I think I do,” said Desmond. “I lived with him for about three
+months in France, and we got on top-hole together. He’s a man
+absolutely without fear.”
+
+“Yes,” agreed the Chief. “But what about his judgment? Would you call
+him a well-balanced fellow? Or is he one of these harum-scarum soldier
+of fortune sort of chaps?”
+
+“I should say he was devilish shrewd,” replied the other. “Strangwise
+is a very able fellow and a fine soldier. The Brigadier thought a lot
+of him. There’s very little about artillery work that Strangwise
+doesn’t know. Our Brigadier’s a good judge, too... he was a gunner
+himself once, you know.”
+
+“I’m glad to hear you say that,” answered the Chief, “because there are
+some things he has told us, about the movements of troops,
+particularly, that don’t agree in the least with our own Intelligence
+reports. I am an old enough hand at my job to know that very often one
+man may be right where fifty independent witnesses are dead wrong. Yet
+our reports from Germany have been wonderfully accurate on the whole.”
+
+He stopped.
+
+“Tell me,” he asked suddenly, “is Strangwise a liar, do you think?”
+
+Desmond laughed. The question was so very unexpected.
+
+“Let me explain what I mean,” said the Chief. “There is a type of man
+who is quite incapable of telling the plain, unvarnished truth. That
+type of fellow might have the most extraordinary adventure happen to
+him and yet be unable to let it stand on its merits. When he narrates
+it, he trims it up with all kinds of embroidery. Is Strangwise that
+type?”
+
+Desmond thought a moment.
+
+“Your silence is very eloquent,” said the Chief drily.
+
+Desmond laughed.
+
+“It’s not the silence of consent,” he said, “but if you want me to be
+quite frank about Strangwise, Chief, I don’t mind telling you I don’t
+like him overmuch. We were very intimate in France. We were in some
+very tight corners together and he never let me down. He showed himself
+to be a very fine fellow, indeed. There are points about him I admire
+immensely. I love his fine physique, his manliness. I’m sure he’s got
+great strength of character, too. It’s because I admire all this about
+him that I think perhaps it’s just jealousy on my part when I feel...”
+
+“What?” said the Chief.
+
+“Well,” said Desmond slowly, “I feel myself trying to like something
+below the surface in the man. And then I am balked. There seems to be
+something abysmally deep behind the facade, if you know what I mean. If
+I think about it much, it seems to me that there is too much surface
+about Strangwise and not enough foundation! And he smiles... Well,
+rather often, doesn’t he?”
+
+“I know what you mean,” said the Chief. “I always tell my young men to
+be wary when a man smiles too much. Smiles are sometimes camouflage, to
+cover up something that mustn’t be seen underneath! Strangwise is a
+Canadian, isn’t he?”
+
+“I think so,” answered Desmond, “anyhow, he has lived there. But he got
+his commission over here. He came over some time in 1915, I believe,
+and joined up.”
+
+“Ah, here we are!” cried the Chief, steering the car down a turning
+marked “Laleham Villas.”
+
+Laleham Villas proved to be an immensely long terrace of small
+two-story houses, each one exactly like the other, the only difference
+between them lying in the color of the front doors and the arrangement
+of the small strip of garden in front of each. The houses stretched
+away on either side in a vista of smoke-discolored yellow brick. The
+road was perfectly straight and, in the dull yellow atmosphere of the
+winter morning, unspeakably depressing.
+
+The abode of small clerks and employees, Laleham Villas had rendered
+up, an hour before, its daily tribute of humanity to the City-bound
+trains of the Great Eastern Railway. The Mackwayte’s house was plainly
+indicated, about 200 yards down on the right-hand side, by a knot of
+errand boys and bareheaded women grouped on the side-walk. A large,
+phlegmatic policeman stood at the gate.
+
+“You’ll like Marigold,” said the Chief to Desmond as they got out of
+the car, “quite a remarkable man and very sound at his work!”
+
+British officers don’t number detective inspectors among their habitual
+acquaintances, and the man that came out of the house to meet them was
+actually the first detective that Desmond had ever met. Ever since the
+Chief had mentioned his name, Desmond had been wondering whether Mr.
+Marigold would be lean and pale and bewildering like Mr. Sherlock
+Holmes or breezy and wiry like the detectives in American crook plays.
+
+The man before him did not bear the faintest resemblance to either
+type. He was a well-set up, broad-shouldered person of about
+forty-five, very carefully dressed in a blue serge suit and black
+overcoat, with a large, even-tempered countenance, which sloped into a
+high forehead. The neatly brushed but thinning locks carefully arranged
+across the top of the head testified to the fact that Mr. Marigold had
+sacrificed most of his hair to the vicissitudes of his profession. When
+it is added that the detective had a small, yellow moustache and a
+pleasant, cultivated voice, there remains nothing further to say about
+Mr. Marigold’s external appearance. But there was something so patent
+about the man, his air of reserve, his careful courtesy, his shrewd
+eyes, that Desmond at once recognized him for a type, a cast from a
+certain specific mould. All services shape men to their own fashion.
+There is the type of Guardsman, the type of airman, the type of naval
+officer. And Desmond decided that Mr. Marigold must be the type of
+detective, though, as I have said, he was totally unacquainted with the
+_genus_.
+
+“Major Okewood, Marigold,” said the Chief, “a friend of mine!”
+
+Mr. Marigold mustered Desmond in one swift, comprehensive look.
+
+“I won’t give you my hand, Major,” the detective said, looking down at
+Desmond’s proffered one, “for I’m in a filthy mess and no error. But
+won’t you come in, sir?” he said to the Chief and led the way across
+the mosaic tile pathway to the front door which stood open.
+
+“I don’t think this is anything in your line, sir,” said Mr. Marigold
+to the Chief as the three men entered the house, “it’s nothing but just
+a common burglary. The old man evidently heard a noise and coming down,
+surprised the burglar who lost his head and killed him. The only novel
+thing about the whole case is that the old party was shot with a pistol
+and not bludgeoned, as is usually the case in affairs of this kind. And
+I shouldn’t have thought that the man who did it was the sort that
+carries a gun...”
+
+“Then you know who did it?” asked the Chief quietly.
+
+“I think I can safely say I do, sir,” said Mr. Marigold with the
+reluctant air of one who seldom admits anything to be a fact, “I think
+I can go as far as that! And we’ve got our man under lock and key!”
+
+“That’s a smart piece of work, Marigold,” said the Chief.
+
+“No, sir,” replied the other, “you could hardly call it that. He just
+walked into the arms of a constable over there near Goodmayes Station
+with the swag on him. He’s an old hand... we’ve known him for a
+receiver for years!
+
+“Who is it?” asked the Chief, “not one of my little friends, I suppose,
+eh, Marigold!”
+
+“Dear me, no, sir,” answered Mr. Marigold, chuckling, “it’s one of old
+Mackwayte’s music-hall pals, name o’ Barney!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+THE MURDER AT SEVEN KINGS
+
+
+“This is Mrs. Chugg, sir,” said Mr. Marigold, “the charwoman who found
+the body!”
+
+The Chief and Desmond stood at the detective’s side in the Mackwaytes’
+little dining-room. The room was in considerable disorder. There was a
+litter of paper, empty bottles, overturned cruets and other _débris_ on
+the floor, evidence of the thoroughness with which the burglar had
+overhauled the cheap fumed oak sideboard which stood against the wall
+with doors and drawers open. In the corner, the little roll-top desk
+showed a great gash in the wood round the lock where it had been
+forced. The remains of a meal still stood on the table.
+
+Mrs. Chugg, a diminutive, white-haired, bespectacled woman in a rusty
+black cape and skirt, was enthroned in the midst of this scene of
+desolation. She sat in an armchair by the fire, her hands in her lap,
+obviously supremely content with the position of importance she
+enjoyed. At the sound of Mr. Marigold’s voice, she bobbed up and
+regarded the newcomers with the air of a tragedy queen.
+
+“Yus mister,” she said with the slow deliberation of one who thoroughly
+enjoys repeating an oft-told tale, “I found the pore man and a horrid
+turn it give me, too, I declare! I come in early this morning a-purpose
+to turn out these two rooms, the dining-room and the droring-room, same
+as I always do of a Saturday, along of the lidy’s horders and wishes. I
+come in ’ere fust, to pull up the blinds and that, and d’reckly I
+switches on the light ‘Burglars!’ I sez to meself, ‘Burglars! That’s
+wot it is!’ seeing the nasty mess the place was in. Up I nips to Miss
+Mackwayte’s room on the first floor and in I bursts. ‘Miss,’ sez I,
+‘Miss, there’s been burglars in the house!’ and then I sees the pore
+lamb all tied up there on ’er blessed bed! Lor, mister, the turn it
+give me and I ain’t telling you no lies! She was strapped up that tight
+with a towel crammed in ’er mouth she couldn’t ’ardly dror ’er breath!
+I undid ’er pretty quick and the fust thing she sez w’en I gets the
+towl out of her mouth, the pore dear, is ‘Mrs. Chugg,’ she sez all of a
+tremble as you might say, ‘Mrs. Chugg’ sez she, ‘my father! my father!’
+sez she. With that up she jumps but she ’adn’t put foot to the floor
+w’en down she drops! It was along of ’er being tied up orl that time,
+dyer see, mister! I gets ’er back on the bed. ‘You lie still, Miss,’
+says I, ‘and I’ll pop in and tell your pa to come in to you!’ Well; I
+went to the old genelmun’s room. Empty!”
+
+Mrs. Chugg paused to give her narrative dramatic effect.
+
+“And where did you find Mr. Mackwayte?” asked the Chief in such a
+placid voice that Mrs. Chugg cast an indignant glance at him.
+
+“I was jes’ going downstairs to see if ’e was in the kitching or out at
+the back,” she continued, unheeding the interruption, “when there on
+the landing I sees a foot asticking out from under the curting. I pulls
+back the curting and oh, Lor! oh, dear, oh, dear, the pore genelmun,
+’im as never did a bad turn to no one!”
+
+“Come, come, Mrs. Chugg!” said the detective.
+
+The charwoman wiped her eyes and resumed.
+
+“’E was a-lying on his back in ’is dressing-gown, ’is face all burnt
+black, like, and a fair smother o’ blood. Under ’is hed there was a
+pool o’ blood, mister, yer may believe me or not...”
+
+Mr. Marigold cut in decisively.
+
+“Do you wish to see the body, sir?” the detective asked the Chief,
+“they’re upstairs photographing it!”
+
+The Chief nodded. He and Desmond followed the detective upstairs,
+whilst Mrs. Chugg resentfully resumed her seat by the fire. On her face
+was the look of one who has cast pearls before swine.
+
+“Any finger-prints?” asked the Chief in the hall.
+
+“Oh, no,” he said, “Barney’s far too old a hand for that sort o’
+thing!”
+
+The landing proved to be a small space, covered with oilcloth and
+raised by a step from the bend made by the staircase leading to the
+first story. On the left-hand side was a window looking on a narrow
+passage separating the Mackwayte house from its neighbors and leading
+to the back-door. By the window stood a small wicker-work table with a
+plant on it. At the back of the landing was a partition, glazed
+half-way up and a door—obviously the bath-room.
+
+The curtain had been looped right over its brass rod. The body lay on
+its back at the foot of the table, arms flung outward, one leg doubled
+up, the other with the foot just jutting out over the step leading down
+to the staircase. The head pointed towards the bath-room door. Over the
+right eye the skin of the face was blackened in a great patch and there
+was a large blue swelling, like a bruise, in the centre. There was a
+good deal of blood on the face which obscured the hole made by the
+entrance of the bullet. The eyes were half-closed. A big camera,
+pointed downwards, was mounted on a high double ladder straddling the
+body and was operated by a young man in a bowler hat who went on with
+his work without taking the slightest notice of the detective and his
+companions.
+
+“Close range,” murmured Desmond, after glancing at the dead man’s face,
+“a large calibre automatic pistol, I should think!”
+
+“Why do you think it was a large calibre pistol, Major?” asked Mr.
+Marigold attentively.
+
+“I’ve seen plenty of men killed at close range by revolver and rifle
+bullets out at the front,” replied Desmond, “but I never saw a man’s
+face messed up like this. In a raid once I shot a German at point blank
+range with my revolver, the ordinary Army issue pattern, and I looked
+him over after. But it wasn’t anything like this. The only thing I’ve
+seen approaching it was one of our sergeants who was killed out on
+patrol by a Hun officer who put his gun right in our man’s face. That
+sergeant was pretty badly marked, but...”
+
+He shook his head. Then he added, addressing the detective: “Let’s see
+the gun! Have you got it?”
+
+Mr. Marigold shook his head.
+
+“He hadn’t got it on him,” he answered, “he swears he never had a gun.
+I expect he chucked it away somewhere. It’ll be our business to find it
+for him!”
+
+He smiled rather grimly, then added:
+
+“Perhaps you’d care to have a look at Miss Mackwayte’s room, sir!”
+
+“Is Miss Mackwayte there” asked the Chief.
+
+“I got her out of this quick,” replied Mr. Marigold, “she’s had a bad
+shock, poor girl, though she gave her evidence clearly enough for all
+that... as far as it goes and that’s not much. Some friends near by
+have taken her in! The doctor has given her some bromide and says she’s
+got to be kept quiet...”
+
+“What’s her story!” queried the Chief.
+
+“She can’t throw much light on the business. She and her father reached
+home from the theatre about a quarter past twelve, had a bit of supper
+in the dining-room and went up to bed before one o’clock. Miss
+Mackwayte saw her father go into his room, which is next to hers, and
+shut the door. The next thing she knows is that she woke up suddenly
+with some kind of a loud noise in her ears... that was the report of
+the pistol, I’ve no doubt... she thought for a minute it was an air
+raid. Then suddenly a hand was pressed over her mouth, something was
+crammed into her mouth and she was firmly strapped down to the bed.”
+
+“Did she see the man?” asked Desmond.
+
+“She didn’t see anything from first to last,” answered the detective,
+“as far as she is concerned it might have been a woman or a black man
+who trussed her up. It was quite dark in her bedroom and this burglar
+fellow, after binding and gagging her, fastened a bandage across her
+eyes into the bargain. She says she heard him moving about her room and
+then creep out very softly. The next thing she knew was Mrs. Chugg
+arriving at her bedside this morning.”
+
+“What time did this attack take place?” asked the Chief.
+
+“She has no idea,” answered the detective. “She couldn’t see her watch
+and they haven’t got a striking clock in the house.”
+
+“But can she make no guess!”
+
+“Well, she says she thinks it was several hours before Mrs. Chugg
+arrived in the morning... as much as three hours, she thinks!”
+
+“And what time did Mrs. Chugg arrive!”
+
+“At half-past six!”
+
+“About Mackwayte... how long was he dead when they found him? What does
+the doctor say?”
+
+“About three hours approximately, but you know, they can’t always tell
+to an hour or so!”
+
+“Well,” said the Chief slowly, “it looks as if one might figure the
+murder as having been committed some time between 3 and 3.30 a.m.”
+
+“My idea exactly,” said Mr. Marigold. “Shall we go upstairs?”
+
+He conducted the Chief and Desmond up the short flight of stairs to the
+first story. He pushed open the first door he came to.
+
+“Mackwayte’s room, on the back,” he said, “bed slept in, as you see,
+old gentleman’s clothes on a chair—obviously he was disturbed by some
+noise made by the burglar and came out to see what was doing! And
+here,” he indicated a door adjoining, “is Miss Mackwayte’s room, on the
+front; as you observe. They don’t use the two rooms on the second
+floor, except for box-rooms... one’s full of old Mackwayte’s theatre
+trunks and stuff. They keep no servant; Mrs. Chugg comes in each
+morning and stays all day. She goes away after supper every evening.”
+
+Desmond found himself looking into a plainly furnished but dainty
+bedroom with white furniture and a good deal of chintz about. There
+were some photographs and pictures hanging on the walls. The room was
+spotlessly clean and very tidy.
+
+Desmond remarked on this, asking if the police had put the room
+straight.
+
+Mr. Marigold looked quite shocked.
+
+“Oh, no, everything is just as it was when Mrs. Chugg found Miss
+Mackwayte this morning. There’s Miss Mackwayte’s gloves and handbag on
+the toilet-table just as she left ’em last night. I wouldn’t let her
+touch her clothes even. She went over to Mrs. Appleby’s in her
+dressing-gown, in a taxi.”
+
+“Then Master Burglar didn’t burgle this room?” asked the Chief.
+
+“Nothing touched, not even the girl’s money,” replied Marigold.
+
+“Then why did he come up here at all?” asked Desmond.
+
+“Obviously, the old gentleman disturbed him,” was the detective’s
+reply. “Barney got scared and shot the old gentleman, then came up here
+to make sure that the daughter would not give him away before he could
+make his escape. He must have known the report of the gun would wake
+her up.”
+
+“But are there no clues or finger-prints or anything of that kind here,
+Marigold?” asked the Chief.
+
+“Not a finger-print anywhere,” responded the other, “men like Barney
+are born wise to the fingerprint business, sir.”
+
+He dipped a finger and thumb into his waistcoat pocket.
+
+“Clues? Well, I’ve got one little souvenir here which I daresay a
+writer of detective stories would make a good bit of.”
+
+He held in his hand a piece of paper folded flat. He unfolded it and
+disclosed a loop of dark hair.
+
+“There!” he said mockingly, straightening out the hair and holding it
+up in the light. “That’s calculated to set one’s thoughts running all
+over the place, isn’t it? That piece of hair was caught in the buckle
+of one of the straps with which Miss Mackwayte was bound to the bed.
+Miss Mackwayte, I would point out, has brown hair. _Whose hair do you
+think that is?_”
+
+Desmond looked closely at the strand of hair in the detective’s
+fingers. It was long and fine and glossy and jetblack.
+
+The Chief laughed and shook his head.
+
+“Haven’t an idea, Marigold,” he answered, “Barney’s, I should imagine,
+that is, if he goes about with black ringlets falling round his
+shoulders.”
+
+“Barney?” echoed the detective. “Barney’s as bald as I am. Besides, if
+you saw his sheet, you’d realize that he has got into the habit of
+wearing his hair short!”
+
+He carefully rolled the strand of hair up, replaced it in its paper and
+stowed it in his waistcoat pocket.
+
+“It just shows how easily one is misled in a matter of this kind,” he
+went on. “Supposing Barney hadn’t got himself nabbed, supposing I
+hadn’t been able to find out from Miss Mackwayte her movements on the
+night previous to the murder, that strand of hair might have led me on
+a fine wild goose chase!”
+
+“But, damn it, Marigold,” exclaimed the Chief, laughing, “you haven’t
+told us whose hair it is?”
+
+“Why, Nur-el-Din’s, of course!”
+
+The smile froze on the Chief’s lips, the laughter died out of his eyes.
+Desmond was amazed at the change in the man. The languid interest he
+had taken in the different details of the crime vanished. Something
+seemed to tighten up suddenly in his face and manner.
+
+“Why Nur-el-Din?” he asked curtly.
+
+Mr. Marigold glanced quickly at him. Desmond remarked that the
+detective was sensible of the change too.
+
+“Simply because Miss Mackwayte spent some time in the dancer’s
+dressing-room last night, sir,” he replied quietly, “she probably sat
+at her dressing-table and picked up this hair in hers or in her veil or
+something and it dropped on the bed where one of Master Barney’s
+buckles caught it up.”
+
+He spoke carelessly but Desmond noticed that he kept a watchful eye on
+the other.
+
+The Chief did not answer. He seemed to have relapsed into the
+preoccupied mood in which Desmond had found him that morning.
+
+“I was going to suggest, sir,” said Mr. Marigold diffidently, “if you
+had the time, you might care to look in at the Yard, and see the
+prisoner. I don’t mind telling you that he is swearing by all the
+tribes of Judah that he’s innocent of the murder of old Mackwayte. He’s
+got an amazing yarn... perhaps you’d like to hear it!”
+
+Mr. Marigold suddenly began to interest Desmond. His proposal was put
+forward so modestly that one would have thought the last thing he
+believed possible was that the Chief should acquiesce in his
+suggestion. Yet Desmond had the feeling that the detective was far from
+being so disinterested as he wished to seem. It struck Desmond that the
+case was more complicated than Mr. Marigold admitted and that the
+detective knew it. Had Mr. Marigold discovered that the Chief knew a
+great deal more about this mysterious affair than the detective knew
+himself? And was not his attitude of having already solved the problem
+of the murder, his treatment of the Chief as a dilettante criminologist
+simply an elaborate pose, to extract from the Chief information which
+had not been proffered?
+
+The Chief glanced at his watch.
+
+“Right,” he said, “I think I’d like to go along.”
+
+“I have a good deal to do here still,” observed Mr. Marigold, “so, if
+you don’t mind, I won’t accompany you. But perhaps, sir, you would like
+to see me this afternoon?”
+
+The Chief swung round on his heel and fairly searched Mr. Marigold with
+a glance from beneath his bushy eyebrows. The detective returned his
+gaze with an expression of supreme innocence.
+
+“Why, Marigold,” answered the Chief, “I believe I should. Six o’clock
+suit you?”
+
+“Certainly, sir,” said Mr. Marigold.
+
+Desmond stood by the door, vastly amused by this duel of wits. The
+Chief and Mr. Marigold made a move towards the door, Desmond turned to
+open it and came face to face with a large framed photograph of the
+Chief hanging on the wall of Miss Mackwayte’s bedroom.
+
+“Why, Chief,” he cried, “you never told me you knew Miss Mackwayte!”
+
+The Chief professed to be very taken aback by this question. “Dear me,
+didn’t I, Okewood?” he answered with eyes laughing, “she’s my
+secretary!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+“NAME O’BARNEY”
+
+
+“Miss Mackwayte telephoned to ask if I could go and see her,” said the
+Chief to Desmond as they motored back to White hall, “Marigold gave me
+the message just as we were coming out. She asked if I could come this
+afternoon. I’m going to send you in my place, Okewood. I’ve got a
+conference with the head of the French Intelligence at three, and the
+Lord knows when I shall get away. I’ve a notion that you and Miss
+Mackwayte will work very well together.”
+
+“Certainly,” said Desmond, “she struck me as being a very charming and
+clever girl. Now I know the source of your information about my
+movements last night!”
+
+“That you certainly don’t!” answered the Chief promptly, “if I thought
+you did Duff and No.39 should be sacked on the spot!”
+
+“Then it wasn’t Miss Mackwayte who told you?”
+
+“I haven’t seen or heard from Miss Mackwayte since she left my office
+yesterday evening. You were followed!”
+
+“But why?”
+
+“I’ll tell you all about it at, lunch!”
+
+Bated once more, Desmond retired into his shell. By this he was
+convinced of the utter impossibility of making the Chief vouchsafe any
+information except voluntarily.
+
+Mr. Marigold had evidently announced their coming to Scotland Yard, for
+a very urbane and delightful official met them at the entrance and
+conducted them to a room where the prisoner was already awaiting them
+in charge of a plain clothes man. There the official excused himself
+and retired, leaving them alone with the prisoner and his escort.
+
+Barney proved to be a squat, podgy, middle-aged Jew of the familiar
+East End Polish or Russian type. He had little black beady eyes, a
+round fat white face, and a broad squabby Mongol nose. His clothes were
+exceedingly seedy, and the police had confiscated his collar and tie.
+This absence of neckwear, coupled with the fact that the lower part of
+his face was sprouting with a heavy growth of beard, gave him a
+peculiarly villainous appearance:
+
+He was seated on a chair, his head sunk on his breast. His eyes were
+hollow, and his face overspread with a horrible sickly greenish pallor,
+the hue of the last stage of fear. His hands, resting on his knees,
+twisted and fiddled continually. Every now and then convulsive shudders
+shook him. The man was quite obviously on the verge of a collapse.
+
+As the Chief and Desmond advanced into the room, the Jew looked up in
+panic. Then he sprang to his feet with a scream and flung himself on
+his knees, crying:
+
+“Ah, no! Don’t take me away! I ain’t done no ’arm, gentlemen! S’welp
+me, gentlemen, I ain’t a murderer! I swear...”
+
+“Get him up!” said the Chief in disgust, “and, look here, can’t you
+give him a drink? I want to speak to him. He’s not fit to talk
+rationally in this state!”
+
+The detective pushed a bell in the wall, a policeman answered it, and
+presently the prisoner was handed a stiff glass of whiskey and water.
+
+After Barney had swallowed it, the Chief said:
+
+“Now, look here, my man, I want you to tell me exactly what happened
+last night. No fairy tales, remember! I know what you told the police,
+and if I catch you spinning me any yarns on to it, well, it’ll only be
+the worse for you. I don’t mind telling you, you’re in a pretty bad
+mess!”
+
+The prisoner put down the glass wearily and wiped his forehead with the
+back of his hand. Though the room was bitterly cold, the perspiration
+stood out in beads on his brow.
+
+“I have told the trewth, sir,” he said hoarsely, “and it goes against
+me, don’t it? Hafen’t I not gif myself op to the policeman? Couldn’t I
+not haf drop the svag and ron away? For sure! And vy didn’t I not do
+it? For vy, because of vot I seen in that house. I’ve ’ad my bit of
+trobble mit the police and vy should I tell them how I vos op to a game
+last night if I vas not a-telling the trewth, eh! I’ve been on the
+crook, gentlemen, I say it, ja, but I ain’t no murderer, God choke me I
+ain’t!
+
+“I’ve earned gut monney in my time on the ’alls but life is very ’ardt,
+and I’ve been alvays hongry these days. Yesterday I meet old Mac wot I
+used to meet about the ’alls I vos workin’ along o’ my boss... at the
+agent’s it vos were I vos lookin’ for a shop! The perfesh always makes
+a splash about its salaries, gentlemen, and Mac ’e vos telling me vot a
+lot o’ monney he make on the Samuel Circuit and ’ow ’e ’ad it at home
+all ready to put into var savings certif’kits. I never done a job like
+this von before, gentlemen, but I vos hardt pushed for money, s’welp me
+I vos!
+
+“I left it till late last night because of these air raids... I vanted
+to be sure that ole Mac and ’is daughter should be asleep. I god in
+from the back of the louse, oi, oi, bot it vos dead easy! through the
+scollery vindow. I cleared op a bagful of stuff in the dining-room...
+there vosn’t, anything vorth snatching outer the parlor... and
+sixty-five quid out of an old cigar-box in the desk. The police ’as got
+it... I give it all back! I say I haf stolen, but murder? No!” He
+paused.
+
+“Go on,” said the Chief.
+
+The prisoner looked about him in a frightened way.
+
+“I vos jus’ thinking I had better be getting avay, he continued in his
+hoarse, gutteral voice, ’ven snick.!... I hears a key in the front
+door. I vos, standing by the staircase... I had no time to get out by
+the vay I had kom so I vent opstairs to the landing vere there vos a
+curtain. I shlip behind the curtain and vait! I dare not look out but I
+listen, I listen.. I hear some one go into the dining-room and move
+about. I open the curtain a little way... so!... because I think I vill
+shlip downstairs vile the other party is in the dining-room... and
+there I sees ole Mac in his dressing-gown just coming down from the
+first floor. The same moment I hear a step in the front hall.
+
+“I see ole Mac start but he does not stop. He kom right downstairs, and
+I step back behind the curtain ontil I find a door vich I push. I dare
+not svitch on my light but presently I feel the cold edge of a bath
+with my hands. I stay there and vait. Oi, oi, oi, how shall you belief
+vot I tell?”
+
+He broke off trembling.
+
+“Go on, Barney,” said the detective, “can’t you see the gentlemen are
+waiting?”
+
+The Jew resumed, his voice sinking almost to a whisper.
+
+“It vos quite dark behind the curtain but from the bathroom, through
+the open door, I could just see ole Mac standing with his back to me,
+a-holding the curtain. He must haf shlip in there to watch the other
+who vos komming opstairs. Then... then... I hear a step on the stair...
+a little, soft step... then ole Mac he open the curtain and cry ‘Who
+are you?’ Bang! the... the... other on the stairs he fire a shot. I see
+the red flash and I smell the... the powder not? The other, he does not
+vait... he just go on opstairs and ole Mac is lying there on his back
+with the blood a-trickling out on the oil-cloth. And I, vith my bag on
+my back, I creep downstair and out by the back again, and I ron and ron
+and then I valks. Gott! how I haf walked! I vos so frightened! And
+then, at last, I go to a policeman and gif ‘myself op!”
+
+Barney stopped. The tears burst from his eyes and laying his grimy face
+on his arm, he sobbed.
+
+The detective patted him on the back.
+
+“Pull yourself together, man!” he said encouragingly.
+
+“This man on the stairs,” queried the Chief, “did you see him?”
+
+“Ach was!” replied the prisoner, turning a tearstained face towards
+him, “I haf seen nothing, except old Mac’s back vich vos right in vront
+of me, it vos so dark!”
+
+“But couldn’t you see the other person at all, not even the outline”
+persisted the Chief.
+
+The prisoner made a gesture of despair.
+
+“It vos so dark, I say! Nothing haf I seen! I haf heard only his step!”
+
+“What sort of step? Was it heavy or light or what? Did this person seem
+in a hurry?”
+
+“A little light tread... so! won, two! won, two!, and qvick like ’e
+think ’e sneak opstairs vithout nobody seeing!”
+
+“Did he make much noise”
+
+“Ach was! hardly at all... the tread, ’e vos so light like a
+woman’s...”
+
+“Like a woman’s, eh!”, repeated the Chief, as if talking to himself,
+“Why do you think that?”
+
+“Because for vy it vos so gentle! The’ staircase, she haf not sqveak as
+she haf sqveak when I haf creep away!”
+
+The Chief turned to the plain clothes man.
+
+“You can take him away now, officer,” he said.
+
+Barney sprang up trembling.
+
+“Not back to the cell,” he cried imploringly, “I cannot be alone. Oh,
+gentlemen, you vill speak for me! I haf not had trobble vith the police
+this long time! My vife’s cousin, he is an elder of the Shool he vill
+tell you ’ow poor ve haf been...”
+
+But the Chief crossed the room to the door and the detective hustled
+the prisoner away.
+
+Then the official whom they had seen before came in.
+
+“Glad I caught you,” he said. “I thought you would care to see the post
+mortem report. The doctor has just handed it in.”
+
+The chief waved him off.
+
+“I don’t think there’s any doubt about the cause of death,” he replied,
+“we saw the body ourselves...”
+
+“Quite so,” replied the other, “but there is something interesting
+about this report all the same. They were able to extract the bullet!”
+
+“Oh,” said the Chief, “that ought to tell us something!”
+
+“It does,” answered the official. “We’ve submitted it to our small arms
+expert, and he pronounces it to be a bullet fired by an automatic
+pistol of unusually large calibre.”
+
+The Chief looked at Desmond.
+
+“You were right there,” he said.
+
+“And,” the official went on, “our man says, further, that, as far as he
+knows, there is only one type of automatic pistol that fires a bullet
+as big as this one!”
+
+“And that is?” asked the Chief.
+
+“An improved pattern of the German Mauser pistol,” was the other’s
+startling reply.
+
+
+The Chief tapped a cigarette meditatively on the back of his hand.
+
+“Okewood,” he said, “you are the very model of discretion. I have put
+your reticence to a pretty severe test this morning, and you have stood
+it very well. But I can see that you are bristling with questions like
+a porcupine with quills. Zero hour has arrived. You may fire away!”
+
+They were sitting in the smoking-room of the United Service Club. “The
+Senior,” as men call it, is the very parliament of Britain’s
+professional navy and army. Even in these days when war has flung wide
+the portals of the two services to all-comers, it retains a touch of
+rigidity. Famous generals and admirals look down from the lofty walls
+in silent testimony of wars that have been. Of the war that is, you
+will hear in every cluster of men round the little tables. Every day in
+the hour after luncheon battles are fought over again, personalities
+criticized, and decisions weighed with all the vigorous freedom of
+ward-room or the mess ante-room.
+
+And so to-day, as he sat in his padded leather chair, surveying the
+Chief’s quizzing face across the little table where their coffee was
+steaming, Desmond felt the oddness of the contrast between the direct,
+matter-of-fact personalities all around them, and the extraordinary web
+of intrigue which seemed to have spun itself round the little house at
+Seven Kings.
+
+Before he answered the Chief’s question, he studied him for a moment
+under cover of lighting a cigarette. How very little, to be sure,
+escaped that swift and silent mind! At luncheon the Chief had
+scrupulously avoided making, the slightest allusion to the thoughts
+with which Desmond’s mind was seething. Instead he had told, with the
+gusto of the born raconteur, a string of extremely droll yarns about
+“double crosses,” that is, obliging gentlemen who will spy for both
+sides simultaneously, he had come into contact with during his long and
+varied career. Desmond had played up to him and repressed the questions
+which kept rising to his lips. Hence the Chief’s unexpected tribute to
+him in the smoking room.
+
+“Well,” said Desmond slowly, “there _are_ one or two things I should
+like to know. What am I here for? Why did you have me followed last
+night? How did you know, before we ever went to Seven Kings, that
+Barney did not murder old Mackwayte? And lastly...”
+
+He paused, fearing to be rash; then he risked it:
+
+“And lastly, Nur-el-Din?”
+
+The Chief leant back in his chair and laughed.
+
+“I’m sure you feel much better now,” he said. Then his face grew grave
+and he added:
+
+“Your last question answers all the others!”
+
+“Meaning Nur-el-Din?” asked Desmond.
+
+The Chief nodded.
+
+“Nur-el-Din,” he repeated. “That’s why you’re here, that’s why I had
+you followed last night, that’s why I...” he hesitated for the word,
+“let’s say, _presumed_ (one knows for certain so little in our work)
+that our friend Barney had nothing to do with the violent death of poor
+old Mackwayte. Nur-el-Din in the center, the kernel, the hub of
+everything!”
+
+The Chief leant across the table and Desmond pulled his chair closer.
+
+“There’s only one other man in the world can handle this job, except
+you,” he began, “and that’s your brother Francis. Do you know where he
+is, Okewood?”
+
+“He wrote to me last from Athens,” answered Desmond, “but that must be
+nearly two months ago.”
+
+The Chief laughed.
+
+“His present address is not Athens,” he said, “if you want to know,
+he’s serving on a German Staff somewhere at the back of Jerusalem the
+Golden. Frankly, I know you don’t care about our work, and I did my
+best to get your brother. He has had his instructions and as soon as he
+can get away he will. That was not soon enough for me. It had to be him
+or you. So I sent for you.”
+
+He stopped and cleared his throat. Desmond stared at him. He could
+hardly believe his eyes. This quiet, deliberate man was actually
+embarrassed.
+
+“Okewood,” the Chief went on, “you know I like plain speaking, and
+therefore you won’t make the mistake of thinking I’m trying to flatter
+you.”
+
+Desmond made a gesture.
+
+“Wait a moment and hear me out,” the Chief went on. “What is required
+for this job is a man of great courage and steady nerve. Yes, we have
+plenty of fellows like that. But the man I am looking for must, in
+addition to possessing those qualities, know German and the Germans
+thoroughly, and when I say thoroughly I mean to the very core so that,
+if needs be, he may be a German, think German, act German. I have men
+in my service who know German perfectly and can get themselves up to
+look the part to the life. But they have never been put to the real,
+the searching test. Not one of them has done what you and your brother
+successfully accomplished. The first time I came across you, you had
+just come out of Germany after fetching your brother away. To have
+lived for weeks in Germany in wartime and to have got clear away is a
+feat which shows that both you and he can be trusted to make a success
+of one of the most difficult and critical missions I have ever had to
+propose. Francis is not here. That’s why I want you.”
+
+The Chief paused as if weighing something in his mind.
+
+“It’s not the custom of either service, Okewood,” he said, “to send a
+man to certain death. You’re not in this creepy, crawly business of
+ours. You’re a pukka soldier and keen on your job. So I want you to
+know that you are free to turn down this offer of mine here and now,
+and go back to France without my thinking a bit the worse of you.”
+
+“Would you tell me something about it?” asked Desmond.
+
+“I’m sorry I can’t,” replied the other. “There must be only two men in
+this secret, myself and the fellow who undertakes the mission. Of
+course, it’s not certain death. If you take this thing on, you’ll have
+a sporting chance for your life, but that’s all. It’s going to be a
+desperate game played against a desperate opponent. Now do you
+understand why I didn’t want you to think I was flattering you? You’ve
+got your head screwed on right, I know, but I should hate to feel
+afterwards, if anything went wrong, that you thought I had buttered you
+up in order to entice you into taking the job on!”
+
+Desmond took two or three deep puffs of his cigarette and dropped it
+into the ash-tray.
+
+“I’ll see you!” he said.
+
+The Chief grinned with delight.
+
+“By Jove!” he exclaimed, “I knew you were my man!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+NUR-EL-DIN
+
+
+The love of romance is merely the nobler form of curiosity. And there
+was something in Desmond Okewood’s Anglo-Irish parentage that made him
+fiercely inquisitive after adventure. In him two men were constantly
+warring, the Irishman, eager for romance yet too indolent to go out in
+search of it, and the Englishman, cautious yet intensely vital withal,
+courting danger for danger’s sake.
+
+All his ill-humor of the morning at being snatched away from his work
+in France had evaporated. In the Chief he now saw only the magician who
+was about to unlock to him the realms of Adventure. Desmond’s eyes
+shone with excitement as the other, obviously simmering with
+satisfaction, lit another cigarette and began to speak.
+
+“The British public, Okewood,” he said, hitching his chair closer,
+“would like to see espionage in this country rendered impossible. Such
+an ideal state of things is, unfortunately out of the question. Quite
+on the contrary, this country of ours is honeycombed with spies. So it
+will ever be, as long as we have to work with natural means: at present
+we have no caps of invisibility or magician’s carpets available.
+
+“As we cannot hope to kill the danger, we do our best to scotch it.
+Personally, my modest ambition is to make espionage as difficult as
+possible for the enemy by knowing as many as possible of his agents and
+their channels of communication, and by keeping him happy with small
+results, to prevent him from finding out the really important things,
+the disclosure of which would inevitably compromise our national
+safety.”
+
+He paused and Desmond nodded.
+
+“The extent of our business,” the Chief resumed, “is so large, the
+issues at stake so vital, that we at the top have to ignore the
+non-essentials and stick to the essentials. By the nonessentials I mean
+the little potty spies, actuated by sheer hunger or mere officiousness,
+the neutral busybody who makes a tip-and-run dash into England, the
+starving waiter, miserably underpaid by some thieving rogue in a
+neutral country—or the frank swindler who sends back to the Fatherland
+and is duly paid for long reports about British naval movements which
+he has concocted without setting foot outside his Bloomsbury lodgings.
+
+“These folk are dealt with somehow and every now and then one of ’em
+gets shot, just to show that we aren’t asleep, don’t you know? But
+spasmodic reports we can afford to ignore. What we are death on is
+anything like a regular news service from this country to Germany; and
+to keep up this steady flow of reliable information is the perpetual
+striving of the men who run the German Secret Service.
+
+“These fellows, my dear Okewood, move in darkness. Very often we have
+to grope after ’em in darkness, too. _They_ don’t get shot, or hardly
+ever; they are far too clever for that. Between us and them it is a
+never-ending series of move and countermove, check and counter-check.
+Very often we only know of their activities by enemy action based on
+their reports. Then there is another leak to be caulked, another
+rat-hole to be nailed up, and so the game goes on. Hitherto I think I
+may say we have managed to hold our own!”
+
+The Chief stopped to light another cigarette. Then he resumed but in a
+lower voice.
+
+“During the past month, Okewood,” he said, “a new organization has
+cropped up. The objective of every spy operating in this country is, as
+you may have surmised, naval matters, the movements of the Fleet, the
+military transports, and the food convoys. This new organization has
+proved itself more efficient than any of its predecessors. It
+specializes in the movement of troops to France, and in the journeys of
+the hospital ships across the Channel. Its information is very prompt
+and extremely accurate, as we know too well. There have been some very
+disquieting incidents in which, for once in a way, luck has been on our
+side, but as long as this gang can work in the dark there is the danger
+of a grave catastrophe. With its thousands of miles of sea to patrol,
+the Navy has to take a chance sometimes, you know! Well, on two
+occasions lately, when chances were taken, _the Hun knew we were taking
+a chance_, and what is more, _when and where we were taking it!_”
+
+The Chief broke off, then looking Desmond squarely in the eyes, said:
+
+“This is the organization that you’re going to beak up!”
+
+Desmond raised his eyebrows.
+
+“Who is at the head of it?” he asked quietly.
+
+The Chief, smiled a little bitterly.
+
+“By George!” he cried, slapping his thigh, “you’ve rung the bell in
+one. Okewood, I’m not a rich man, but I would gladly give a year’s pay
+to be able to answer that question. To be perfectly frank with you, I
+don’t know who is at the back of this crowd, but...” his mouth set in a
+grim line, “I’m going to know!”
+
+He added whimsically:
+
+“What’s more, you’re going to find out for me!”
+
+Desmond smiled at the note of assurance in his voice.
+
+“I suppose you’ve got something to go on?” he asked. “There’s
+Nur-el-Din, for instance. What about her?”
+
+“That young person,” replied the Chief, “is to be your particular
+study. If she is not the center of the whole conspiracy, she is, at any
+rate, in the thick of it. It will be part of your job to ascertain the
+exact rôle she is playing.”
+
+“But what is there against her?” queried Desmond.
+
+“What is there against her? The bad company she keeps is against her.
+‘Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are’ is a maxim
+that we have to go on in our profession, Okewood. You have met the
+lady. Did you see any of her entourage? Her business manager, a fat
+Italian who calls himself Lazarro, did you notice him? Would you be
+surprised to hear that Lazarro alias Sacchetti alias Le Tardenois is a
+very notorious international spy who after working in the Italian
+Secret Service in the pay of the Germans was unmasked and kicked out of
+Italy... that was before the war? This pleasant gentleman subsequently
+did five years in the French penal settlements in New Caledonia for
+robbery with violence at Aix-les-Bains... oh, we know a whole lot about
+him! And this woman’s other friends! Do you know, for instance, where
+she often spends the week-end? At the country-place of one Bryan
+Mowbury, whose name used to be Bernhard Marburg, a very old hand indeed
+in the German Secret Service. She has identified herself right and left
+with the German espionage service in this country. One day she lunches
+with a woman spy, whose lover was caught and shot by the French. Then
+she goes out motoring with...”
+
+“But why in Heaven’s name are all these people allowed to run loose?”
+broke in Desmond. “Do you mean to say you can’t arrest them?”
+
+“Arrest ’em? Arrest ’em? Of course, we can arrest ’em. But what’s the
+use? They’re all small fry, and we have to keep out a few lines baited
+with minnows to catch the Tritons. None of ’em can do any harm: we
+watch ’em much too closely for that. Once you’ve located your spy, the
+battle’s won. It’s when he—or it may be a she—is running loose, that I
+get peeved!”
+
+The Chief sprang impatiently to his feet and strode across the
+smoking-room, which was all but empty by this time, to get a match from
+a table. He resumed his seat with a grunt of exasperation.
+
+“I can’t see light, Okewood!” he sighed, shaking his head.
+
+“But is this all you’ve got against Nur-el-Din?” asked Desmond.
+
+“No,” answered the other slowly, “it isn’t. If it were, I need not have
+called you in. We would have interned or deported her. No, we’ve traced
+back to her a line leading straight from the only member of the new
+organization we have been able to lay by the heels.”
+
+“Then you’ve made an arrest?”
+
+The Chief nodded.
+
+“A fortnight ago... a respectable, retired English business man, by
+name of Basil Bellward... taken with the goods on him, as the saying
+is...”
+
+“An Englishman, by Jove!”
+
+“It’s hardly correct to call him an Englishman, though he’s posed as an
+English business man for so long that one is almost justified in doing
+so. As a matter of fact, the fellow is a German named Wolfgang Bruhl
+and it is my belief that he was planted in this country at least a
+dozen years ago solely for the purpose of furnishing him with good,
+respectable credentials for an emergency like this.”
+
+“But surely if you found evidence of his connection with this gang of
+spies, it should be easy to get a clue to the rest of the crowd?”
+
+“Not so easy as you think,” the Chief replied. “The man who organized
+this system of espionage is a master at his craft. He has been careful
+to seal both ends of every connection, that is to say, though we found
+evidence of Master Bellward-Bruhl being in possession of highly
+confidential information relating to the movements of troops, we
+discovered nothing to show whence he received it or how or where he was
+going to forward it. But we did find a direct thread leading straight
+back to Nur-el-Din.”
+
+“Really,” said Desmond, “that rather complicates things for her,
+doesn’t it?”
+
+“It was in the shape of a letter of introduction, in French, without
+date or address, warmly recommending the dancer to our friend,
+Bellward.”
+
+“Who is this letter from?”
+
+“It is simply signed ‘P.’, but you shall see it for yourself when you
+get the other documents in the case.”
+
+“But surely, sir, such a letter might be presented in perfectly good
+faith...”
+
+“It might, but not this one. This letter, as an expert has ascertained
+beyond all doubt, is written on German manufactured note-paper of a
+very superior quality;, the writing is stiff and angular and not
+French: and lastly, the French in which it is phrased, while correct,
+is unusually pompous and elaborate.”
+
+“Then...”
+
+“The letter was, in all probability, written by a German!”
+
+There was a moment’s silence. Desmond was thinking despairingly of the
+seeming hopelessness of untangling this intricate webwork of tangled
+threads.
+
+“And this murder, sir,” he began.
+
+The Chief shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“The motive, Okewood, I am searching for the motive. I can see none
+except the highly improbable one of Miss Mackwayte being my
+confidential secretary. In that case why murder the father, a harmless
+old man who didn’t even know that his daughter is in my service, why
+kill him, I ask you, and spare the girl? On the other hand, I believe
+the man Barney’s story, and can see that Marigold does, too. When I
+first heard the news of the murder over the telephone this morning, I
+had a kind of intuition that we should discover in it a thread leading
+back to this mesh of espionage. Is it merely a coincidence that a hair,
+resembling Nur-el-Din’s, is found adhering to the straps with which
+Barbara Mackwayte was bound? I can’t think so... and yet...”
+
+“But do you believe then, that Nur-el-Din murdered-old Mackwayte? My
+dear Chief, the idea is preposterous...”
+
+The Chief rose from his chair with a sigh.
+
+“Nothing is preposterous in our work, Okewood,” he replied. “But it’s
+3.25, and my French colleague hates to be kept waiting.”
+
+“I thought you were seeing Strangwise, at two?” asked Desmond.
+
+“I put him off until six o’clock,” replied the Chief, “he knows
+Nur-el-Din, and he may be able to give Marigold some pointers about
+this affair. You’re off to see Miss Mackwayte now, I suppose. You know
+where she’s staying? Good. Well, I’ll say good-bye, Okewood. I shan’t
+see you again...”
+
+“You won’t see me again? How do you mean, sir?”
+
+“Because you’re going back to France!”
+
+“Going back to France? When?”
+
+“By the leave-boat to-night!”
+
+Desmond smiled resignedly.
+
+“My dear Chief,” he said, “you must be more explicit. What am I going
+back to France for?”
+
+“Why, now I come to think of it,” replied the Chief, “I never told you.
+You’re going back to France to be killed, of course!”
+
+“To be killed!”
+
+Desmond looked blankly at the other’s blandly smiling face.
+
+“Two or three days from now,” said the Chief, “you will be killed in
+action in France. I thought of making it a shell. But we’ll have it a
+machine gun bullet if you like. Whichever you prefer; it’s all the same
+to me!”
+
+He laughed at the dawn of enlightenment in Desmond’s eyes.
+
+“I see,” said Desmond.
+
+“I hope you don’t mind,” the Chief went on more seriously, “but I know
+you have no people to consider except your brother and his wife. She’s
+in America, and Francis can’t possibly hear about it. So you needn’t
+worry on that score. Or do you?”
+
+Desmond laughed.
+
+“No-o-o!” he said slowly, “but I’m rather young to die. Is it
+absolutely necessary for me to disappear?”
+
+“Absolutely!” responded the Chief firmly.
+
+“But how will we manage it?” asked Desmond.
+
+“Catch the leave-boat to-night and don’t worry. You will receive your
+instructions in due course.”
+
+“But when shall I see you again?”
+
+The Chief chuckled.
+
+“Depends entirely on yourself, Okewood,” he retorted. “When you’re
+through with your job, I expect. In the meantime, Miss Mackwayte will
+act between us. On that point also you will be fully instructed. And
+now I must fly!”
+
+“But I say, sir,” Desmond interposed hastily. “You haven’t told me what
+I am to do. What part am I to play in this business anyway?”
+
+“To-morrow,” said the Chief, buttoning up his coat, “you become Mr.
+Basil Bellward!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+THE WHITE PAPER PACKAGE
+
+
+A taxi was waiting in Pall Mall outside the club and Desmond hailed it,
+though secretly wondering what the driver would think of taking him out
+to Seven Kings. Rather to his surprise, the man was quite affable, took
+the address of the house where Barbara was staying with her friends and
+bade Desmond “hop in.” Presently, for the second time that day, he was
+heading for the Mile End Road.
+
+As they zigzagged in and out of the traffic, Desmond’s thoughts were
+busy with the extraordinary mission entrusted to him. So he was to sink
+his own identity and don that of an Anglo-German business man, his
+appearance, accent, habits, everything. The difficulties of the task
+positively made him cold with fear. The man must have relations,
+friends, business acquaintances who would be sufficiently familiar with
+his appearance and manner to penetrate, at any rate in the long run,
+the most effective disguise. What did Bellward look like? Where did he
+live? How was he, Desmond, to disguise himself to resemble him? And,
+above all, when this knotty problem of make-up had been settled, how
+was he to proceed? What should be his first step to pick out from among
+all the millions of London’s teeming populace the one obscure
+individual who headed and directed this gang of spies?
+
+Why hadn’t he asked the Chief all these questions? What an annoying man
+the Chief was to deal with to be sure! All said and done, what had he
+actually told Desmond? That there was a German Secret service
+organization spying on the movements of troops to France, that this
+man, Basil Bellward, who had been arrested, was one of the gang and
+that the dancer, Nur-el-Din, was in some way implicated in the affair!
+And that was the extent of his confidence! On the top of all this fog
+of obscurity rested the dense cloud surrounding the murder of old
+Mackwayte with the unexplained, the fantastic, clue of that single hair
+pointing back to Nur-el-Din.
+
+Desmond consoled himself finally by saying that he would be able too
+get some light on his mission from Barbara Mackwayte, whom he judged to
+be in the Chief’s confidence. But here he was doomed to disappointment.
+Barbara could tell him practically nothing save what he already knew,
+that they were to work together in this affair. Like him, she was
+waiting for her instructions.
+
+Barbara received him in a neat little suburban drawing-room in the
+house of her friends, who lived a few streets away from the Mackwaytes.
+She was wearing a plainly-made black crêpe de chine dress which served
+to accentuate the extreme pallor of her face, the only outward
+indication of the great shock she had sustained. She was perfectly calm
+and collected, otherwise, and she stopped Desmond who would have
+murmured some phrases of condolence.
+
+“Ah, no, please,” she said, “I don’t think I can speak about it yet.”
+
+She pulled a chair over for him and began to talk about the Chief.
+
+“There’s not the least need for you to worry,” she said with a little
+woeful smile, like a sun-ray piercing a rain-cloud, “if the Chief says
+‘Go back to France and wait for instructions,’ you may be sure that
+everything is arranged, and you will receive your orders in due course.
+So shall I. That’s the Chief all over. Until you know him, you think he
+loves mystery for mystery’s sake. It isn’t that at all. He just doesn’t
+trust us. He trusts nobody!”
+
+“But that hardly seems fair to us...” began Desmond.
+
+“It’s merely a precaution,” replied Barbara, “the Chief takes no risks.
+I’ve not the least doubt that he has decided to tell you nothing
+whatsoever about your part until you are firmly settled in your new
+role. I’m perfectly certain that every detail of your part has already
+been worked out.”
+
+“Oh, that’s not possible,” said Desmond. “Why, he didn’t know until an
+hour ago that I was going to take on this job.”
+
+Barbara laughed.
+
+“The Chief has taught me a lot about judging men by their looks,” she
+said: “Personally, if I’d been in the Chief’s places I should have gone
+ahead without consulting you, too.”
+
+The girl spoke with such directness that there was not the least
+suggestion of a compliment in her remark, but Desmond blushed to the
+roots of his hair. Barbara noticed it and added hastily:
+
+“I’m not trying to pay you a compliment: I’m just judging by your type.
+I believe I can always tell the man that will take on any job, however
+dangerous, and carry it through to the end.”
+
+Desmond blushed more furiously than ever.
+
+He made haste to divert the conversation into a safer channel.
+
+“Well,” he said slowly, “seeing that you and I were intended to work
+together, it seems to me to be a most extraordinary coincidence our
+meeting like that last night...”
+
+“It was more than a coincidence,” said Barbara, shaking her dark brown
+head. “Forty-eight hours ago I’d never heard of you, then the Chief
+gave me a telegram to send to your Divisional General summoning you
+home, after that he told me that we were to work together, and a few
+hours later I run into you in Nur-el-Din’s dressing-room...”
+
+She broke off suddenly, her gray eyes big with fear. She darted across
+the room to an ormolu table on which her handbag was lying. With
+astonishment, Desmond watched her unceremoniously spill out the
+contents on to the table and rake hastily amongst the collection of
+articles which a pretty girl carries round in her bag.
+
+Presently she raised herself erect and turning, faced the officer. She
+was trembling as though with cold and when she spoke, her voice was low
+and husky.
+
+“Gone!” she whispered.
+
+“Have you lost anything” Desmond asked anxiously.
+
+“How could I have forgotten it?” she went on as though he had not
+spoken, “how could I have forgotten it? Nearly twelve hours wasted, and
+it explains everything. What will the Chief think of me!”
+
+Slowly she sank down on the sofa where she had been sitting, then,
+without any warning, dropped her head into her hands and burst into
+tears.
+
+Desmond went over to her.
+
+“Please don’t cry,” he said gently, “you have borne up so bravely
+against this terrible blow; you must try and not let it overwhelm you.”
+
+All her business-like calm had disappeared now she was that most
+distracting of all pictures of woman, a pretty girl overwhelmed with
+grief. She crouched curled upon the sofa, with shoulders heaving,
+sobbing as though her heart would break.
+
+“Perhaps you would like me to leave you?” Desmond asked. “Let me ring
+for your friends... I am sure you would rather be alone!”
+
+She raised a tear-stained face to his, her long lashes glittering.
+
+“No, no,” she said, “don’t go, don’t go! I want your help. This is such
+a dark and dreadful business, more than I ever realized. Oh, my poor
+daddy, my poor daddy!”
+
+Again she hid her face in her hands and cried whilst Desmond stood
+erect by her aide, compassionate but very helpless.
+
+After a little, she dabbed her eyes with a tiny square of cambric, and
+sitting up, surveyed the other.
+
+“I must go to the Chief at once,” she said, “it is most urgent. Would
+you ring and ask the maid to telephone for a taxi?”
+
+“I have one outside,” answered Desmond. “But won’t you tell me what has
+happened?”
+
+“Why,” said Barbara, “it has only just dawned on me why our house was
+broken into last night and poor daddy so cruelly murdered! Whoever
+robbed the house did not come after our poor little bits of silver or
+daddy’s savings in the desk in the dining room. They came after
+something that I had!”
+
+“And what was that” asked Desmond.
+
+Then Barbara told him of her talk with Nur-el-Din in the dancer’s
+dressing-room on the previous evening and of the package which
+Nur-el-Din had entrusted to her care.
+
+“This terrible business put it completely out of my head,” said
+Barbara. “In the presence of the police this morning, I looked over my
+bedroom and even searched my hand-bag which the police sent back to me
+this afternoon without finding that the burglars had stolen anything.
+It was only just now, when we were talking about our meeting in
+Nur-el-Din’s room last night, that her little package suddenly flashed
+across my mind. And then I looked through my handbag again and
+convinced myself that it was not there.”
+
+“But are you sure the police haven’t taken it?”
+
+“Absolutely certain,” was the reply. “I remember perfectly what was in
+my hand-bag this morning when I went through it, and the same things
+are on that table over there now.”
+
+“Do you know what was in this package!” said Desmond.
+
+“Just a small silver box, oblong and quite plain, about so big,” she
+indicated the size with her hands, “about as large as a cigarette-box.
+Nur-el-Din said it was a treasured family possession of hers, and she
+was afraid of losing it as she traveled about so much. She asked me to
+say nothing about it and to keep it until the war was over or until she
+asked me for it.”
+
+“Then,” said Desmond, “this clears Nur-el-Din!”
+
+“What do you mean,” said Barbara, looking up.
+
+“Simply that she wouldn’t have broken into your place and killed your
+father in order to recover her own package...”
+
+“But why on earth should Nur-el-Din be suspected of such a thing?”
+
+“Have you heard nothing about this young lady from the Chief?”
+
+“Nothing. I had not thought anything about her until daddy discovered
+an old friend in her last night and introduced me.”
+
+The Chief’s infernal caution again! thought Desmond, secretly admiring
+the care with which that remarkable man, in his own phrase, “sealed
+both ends of every connection.”
+
+“If I’m to work with this girl,” said Desmond to himself, “I’m going to
+have all the cards on the table here and now,” so forthwith he told her
+of the Chief’s suspicions of the dancer, the letter recommending her to
+Bellward found when the cheese merchant had been arrested, and lastly
+of the black hair which had been discovered on the thongs with which
+Barbara had been fastened.
+
+“And now,” Desmond concluded, “the very next thing we must do is to go
+to the Chief and tell him about this package of Nur-el-Din’s that is
+missing.” Barbara interposed quickly.
+
+“It’s no use your coming,” she said. “The Chief won’t see you. When he
+has sent a man on his mission, he refuses to see him again until the
+work has been done. If he wishes to send for you or communicate with
+you, he will. But it’s useless for you to try and see him yourself. You
+can drop me at the office!”
+
+Desmond was inclined to agree with her on this point and said so.
+
+“There is one thing especially that puzzles me, Miss Mackwayte,”
+Desmond observed as they drove westward again, “and that is, how anyone
+could have known about your having this box of Nur-el-Din’s. Was there
+anybody else in the room when she gave you the package?”
+
+“No,” said Barbara, “I don’t think so. Wait a minute, though,
+Nur-el-Din’s maid must have come in very shortly after for I remember
+the opened the door when Captain Strangwise came to tell me daddy was
+waiting to take me home.”
+
+“Do you remember if Nur-el-Din actually mentioned the package in the
+presence of the maid!”
+
+“As far as I can recollect just as the maid opened the door to Captain
+Strangwise, Nur-el-Din was impressing on me again to take great care of
+the package. I don’t think she actually mentioned the box but I
+remember her pointing at my bag where I had put the package.”
+
+“The maid didn’t see Nur-el-Din give you the box?”
+
+“No, I’m sure of that. The room was empty save for us two. It was only
+just before Captain Strangwise knocked that I noticed Marie arranging
+Nur-el-Din’s dresses. She must have come in afterwards without my
+seeing her.”
+
+“Well then, this girl, Marie, didn’t see the dancer give you the box
+but she heard her refer to it. Is that right?”
+
+“Yes, and, of course, Captain Strangwise...”
+
+“What about him?”
+
+“He must have heard what Nur-el-Din was saying, too!”
+
+Desmond rubbed his chin.
+
+“I say, you aren’t going to implicate old Strangwise, too, are you?” he
+asked.
+
+Barbara did not reflect his smile.
+
+“He seems to know Nur-el-Din pretty well,” she said, “and I’ll tell you
+something else, that woman’s afraid of your friend, the Captain!”
+
+“What do you mean?” asked Desmond.
+
+“I was watching her in the glass last night as he was talking to her
+while you and I and daddy were chatting in the corner. I don’t know
+what he said to her, but she glanced over her shoulder with a look of
+terror in her eyes. I was watching her face in the glass. She looked
+positively _hunted!_”
+
+The taxi stopped. Desmond jumped out and helped his companion to
+alight.
+
+“_Au revoir_,” she said to him, “never fear, you and I will meet very
+soon again!”
+
+With that she was gone. Desmond looked at his watch. It pointed to a
+quarter to six.
+
+“Now I wonder what time the leave-train starts tonight,” he said aloud,
+one foot on the sideboard of the taxi.
+
+“At 7.45, sir,” said a voice.
+
+“Desmond glanced round him. Then he saw it was the taxi-driver who had
+spoken.
+
+“7.45, eh?” said Desmond. “From Victoria, I suppose?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” said the taxi-man.
+
+“By Jove, I haven’t much time,” ejaculated the officer “and there are
+some things I want to get before I go back across the Channel. And I
+shall have to see the Railway Transport Officer about my pass.”
+
+“That’s all right, sir,” said the taxi-man, “I have your papers here”;
+he handed Desmond a couple of slips of paper which he took from his
+coat-pocket; “those will take you back to France all right, I think
+you’ll find!”
+
+Desmond looked at the papers: they were quite in order and correctly
+filled up with his name, rank and regiment, and date.
+
+The taxi-man cut short any further question by saying:
+
+“If you’ll get into the cab again, sir, I’ll drive you where you want
+to go, and then wait while you have your dinner and take you to the
+station. By the way, your dinner’s ordered too!”
+
+“But who the devil are you?” asked Desmond in amazement.
+
+“On special service, the same as you, sir!” said the man with a grin
+and Desmond understood.
+
+Really, the Chief was extremely thorough.
+
+They went to the stores in the Haymarket, to Fortnum and Mason’s, and
+lastly, to a small, grubby shop at the back of Mayfair where Desmond
+and his brother had bought their cigarettes for years past. Desmond
+purchased a hundred of their favored brand, the Dionysus, as a reserve
+for his journey back to France, and stood chatting over old times with
+the fat, oily-faced Greek manager as the latter tied up his cigarettes
+into a clean white paper parcel, neatly sealed up with red sealing wax.
+
+Then Desmond drove back to the Nineveh Hotel where he left his
+taxi-driving colleague in the courtyard on the understanding that at
+7.25 the taxi would be waiting to drive him to the station.
+
+Desmond went straight upstairs to his room to put his kit together. In
+the strong, firmly woven web spread by the Chief, he felt as helpless
+as a fly caught in a spider’s mesh. He had no idea of what his plans
+were. He only knew that he was going back to France, and that it was
+his business to get on the leave-boat that night.
+
+As he passed along the thickly carpeted, silent corridor to his room,
+he saw the door of Strangwise’s room standing ajar. He pushed open the
+door and walked in unceremoniously. A suitcase stood open on the floor
+with Strangwise bending over it. At his elbow was a table crowded with
+various parcels, a case of razors, different articles of kit, and some
+books. Desmond halted at the door, his box of cigarettes dangling from
+his finger.
+
+“Hullo, Maurice,” he said, “are you off, too?”
+
+Strangwise spun round sharply. The blood had rushed to his face,
+staining it with a dark, angry flush.
+
+“My God, how you startled me!” he exclaimed rather testily. “I never
+heard you come in!”
+
+He turned rather abruptly and went on with his packing. He struck
+Desmond as being rather annoyed at the intrusion; the latter had never
+seen him out of temper before.
+
+“Sorry if I butted in,” said Desmond, sliding his box of cigarettes off
+his finger on to the littered table and sitting down on a chair. “I
+came in to say good-bye. I’m going back to France to-night!”
+
+Maurice looked round quickly. He appeared to be quite his old self
+again and was all smiles now.
+
+“So soon?” he said. “Why, I thought you were getting a job at the War
+Office!”
+
+Desmond shook his head.
+
+“Not good enough,” he replied, “it’s back to the sandbags for mine. But
+where are you off to?”
+
+“Got a bit of leave; the Intelligence folk seem to be through with me
+at last, so they’ve given me six weeks!”
+
+“Going to the country” asked Desmond.
+
+Strangwise nodded.
+
+“Yep,” he said, “down to Essex to see if I can get a few duck or snipe
+on the fens. I wish you were coming with me!”
+
+“So do I, old man,” echoed Desmond heartily. Then he added in a serious
+voice:
+
+“By the way, I haven’t seen you since last night. What a shocking
+affair this is about old Mackwayte, isn’t it? Are there any
+developments, do you know?”
+
+Strangwise very deliberately fished a cigarette out of his case which
+was lying open on the table and lit it before replying.
+
+“A very dark affair,” he said, blowing out a cloud of smoke and
+flicking the match into the grate. “You are discreet, I know, Okewood.
+The Intelligence people had me up this morning... to take my
+evidence...”
+
+Strangwise’s surmise about Desmond’s discretion was perfectly correct.
+With Desmond Okewood discretion was second nature, and therefore he
+answered with feigned surprise: “Your evidence about what? About our
+meeting the Mackwaytes last night?”
+
+After he had spoken he realized he had blundered. Surely, after all,
+the Chief would have told Strangwise about their investigations at
+Seven Kings. Still...
+
+“No,” replied Strangwise, “but about Nur-el-Din!”
+
+The Chief had kept his own counsel about their morning’s work. Desmond
+was glad now that he had dissimulated.
+
+“You see, I know her pretty well,” Strangwise continued, “between
+ourselves, I got rather struck on the lady when she was touring in
+Canada some years ago, and in fact I spent so much more money than I
+could afford on her that I had to discontinue the acquaintance. Then I
+met her here when I got away from Germany a month ago; she was lonely,
+so I took her about a bit. Okewood, I’m afraid I was rather
+indiscreet.”
+
+“How do you mean?” Desmond asked innocently.
+
+“Well,” said Strangwise slowly, contemplating the end of his cigarette,
+“it appears that the lady is involved in certain activities which
+considerably interest our Intelligence. But there, I mustn’t say any
+more!”
+
+“But how on earth is Nur-el-what’s her name concerned in this murder,
+Maurice?”
+
+Strangwise shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Ah, you’d better ask the police. But I tell you she’ll be getting into
+trouble if she’s not careful!”
+
+Throughout this conversation Desmond seemed to hear in his ears
+Barbara’s words: “That woman’s afraid of your friend!” He divined that
+for some reason or other, Strangwise wanted to create a bad impression
+in his mind about the dancer. He scanned Maurice’s face narrowly. Its
+impenetrability was absolute. There was nothing to be gleaned from
+those careless, smiling features.
+
+“Well,” said Desmond, getting up, “_nous verrons_. I shall have to make
+a bolt for it now if I don’t want to miss my train. Good-bye, Maurice,
+and I hope you’ll get some birds!”
+
+“Thanks, old man. Au revoir, and take care of yourself. My salaams to
+the General!”.
+
+They shook hands warmly, then Desmond grabbed his box of cigarettes in
+its neat white wrapper with the bold red seals and hurried off to his
+room.
+
+Strangwise stood for a moment gazing after him. He was no longer the
+frank, smiling companion of a minute before. His mouth was set hard and
+his chin stuck out at a defiant angle.
+
+He bent over the table and picked up a white paper package sealed with
+bold red seals. He poised it for a moment in his hands while a flicker
+of a smile stole into the narrow eyes and played for an instant round
+the thin lips. Then, with a quick movement, he thrust the little
+package into the side pocket of his tunic and buttoned the flap.
+
+Whistling a little tune, he went on with his packing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+METAMORPHOSIS
+
+
+It was a clear, cold night. A knife-edge icy wind blew from the
+north-east and kept the lanyards dismally flapping on the flag-mast
+over the customs house. The leave train lay in the station within a
+biscuit’s throw of the quayside and the black, blank Channel beyond, a
+long line of cheerfully illuminated windows that to those returning
+from leave seemed as the last link with home.
+
+The Corporal of Military Police, who stood at the gangway examining the
+passes, stopped Desmond Okewood as the latter held out his pass into
+the rays of the man’s lantern.
+
+“There was a message for you, sir,” said the Corporal. “The captain of
+the Staff boat would h-esteem it a favor, sir, if you would kindly go
+to his cabin immediately on h-arriving on board, sir!”
+
+“Very good, Corporal!” answered the officer and passed up the gang
+plank, enviously regarded by the press of brass-hats and red-tabs who,
+for the most part, had a cramped berth below or cold quarters on deck
+to look forward to.
+
+A seaman directed Desmond to the Captain’s cabin. It was built out just
+behind the bridge, a snug, cheery room with bright chintz curtains over
+the carefully screened portholes, a couple of comfortable benches with
+leather seats along the walls, a small bunk, and in the middle of the
+floor a table set out with a bottle of whiskey, a siphon and some
+glasses together with a box of cigars.
+
+The Captain was sitting there chatting to the pilot, a short,
+enormously broad man with a magenta face and prodigious hands which
+were folded round a smoking glass of toddy.
+
+“Pick ’em up? Rescue ’em?” the pilot ejaculated, as Desmond walked in,
+“I’d let ’em sink, every man Jack o’ them, the outrageous murderin’
+scoundrels. I don’t like to hear you a-talking of such nonsense,
+Cap’en!”
+
+On Desmond’s entrance the Captain broke off the conversation. He proved
+to be a trimly-built man of about fifty with a grizzled beard, and an
+air of quiet efficiency which is not uncommonly found in seamen. The
+pilot drained his glass and, scrambling to his feet, nodded to Desmond
+and stumped out into the cold night air.
+
+“Jawin’ about the U boats!” said the Captain, with a jerk of his head
+towards the cabin door, “I don’t know what the feelings of your men in
+the trenches are towards Fritz, Major, but I tell you that no German
+will dare set foot in any coast port of the United Kingdom in my
+life-time or yours, either! Accommodation’s a bit narrow on board. I
+thought maybe you’d care to spend the night up here!”
+
+“Any orders about me?” asked Desmond.
+
+The Captain went a shade deeper mahogany in the face.
+
+“Oh no,” he replied, with an elaborate assumption of innocence. “But
+won’t you mix yourself a drink? And try one of my cigars, a present
+from a skipper friend of mine who sailed into Tilbury from Manila last
+week.”
+
+Desmond sat in the snug cabin, puffing a most excellent cigar and
+sipping his whiskey and soda while, amid much shouting of seamen and
+screaming of windlasses, the staff boat got clear. Presently they were
+gliding past long low moles and black, inhospitable lighthouses,
+threading their way through the dark shapes of war craft of all kinds
+into the open Channel. There was a good deal of swell, but the sea was
+calm, and the vessel soon steadied down to regular rise and fall.
+
+They had been steaming for nearly an hour when, through the open door
+of the cabin, Desmond saw a seaman approach the captain on the bridge.
+He handed the skipper a folded paper.
+
+“From the wireless operator, sir!” Desmond heard him say.
+
+The skipper scanned it. Then the engine telegraph rang sharply, there
+was the sound of churning water, and the vessel slowed down. The next
+moment the Captain appeared at the door of the cabin.
+
+“I’m afraid we’re going to lose you, Major,” he said pleasantly, “a
+destroyer is coming up to take you off. There was a wireless from the
+Admiral about you.”
+
+“Where are they going to take me, do you know?” asked Desmond.
+
+The Captain shook his head.
+
+“I haven’t an idea. I’ve only got to hand you over!”
+
+He grinned and added:
+
+“Where’s your kit?”
+
+“In the hold, I expect!” answered Desmond. “The porter at Victoria told
+me not to worry about it, and that I should find it on the other side.
+And, oh damn it!—I’ve got a hundred cigarettes in my kit, too! I bought
+them specially for the journey!”
+
+“Well, take some of my cigars,” said the skipper hospitably, “for your
+traps’ll have to go to France this trip, Major. There’s no time to get
+’em up now. I’ll pass the word to the Military Landing Officer over
+there about ’em, if you like. He’ll take care of ’em for you. Now will
+you come with me?”
+
+Desmond scrambled into his coat and followed the Captain down the steps
+to the deck. A little distance away from the vessel, the long shape of
+a destroyer was dimly visible tossing to and fro in the heavy swell. A
+ladder had been let down over the side of the steamer, and at its foot
+a boat, manned by a number of heavily swathed and muffled forms, was
+pitching.
+
+A few officers stood by the rail watching the scene with interest. The
+skipper adroitly piloted Desmond past them and fairly thrust him out on
+to the ladder.
+
+Desmond took the hint and with a hasty “Good night” to the friendly
+captain, staggered down the swaying ladder and was helped into the
+boat. The boat shoved off, the bell of the engine telegraph on the
+steamer resounded sharply, and the vessel resumed her interrupted
+voyage whilst the rowing boat was headed towards the destroyer. On
+board the latter vessel an officer met Desmond at the rail and piloted
+him to the ward-room. Almost before they got there, the destroyer was
+under way.
+
+The officer who had welcomed him proved to be the second in command, a
+joyous person who did the honors of the tiny ward-room with the aplomb
+of a Commander in a super-Dreadnought. He mixed Desmond a drink and
+immediately started to converse about life at the front without giving
+the other a chance of asking whither they were bound.
+
+The suspense was not of long duration, however, for in about half an
+hour’s time, the destroyer slowed down and Desmond’s host vanished.
+When he reappeared, it was to summon Desmond on deck.
+
+They lay aside a mole by some steps cut in the solid concrete. Here
+Desmond’s host took leave of him.
+
+“There should be a car waiting for you up there,” he said.
+
+There on top of the mole, exposed to the keen blast of the wind, a
+large limousine was standing. A chauffeur, who looked blue with cold,
+got down from his seat as Desmond emerged from the stairs and touched
+his cap.
+
+“Major Okewood?” he asked.
+
+“That’s my name!” said Desmond.
+
+“If you’ll get in, sir, we’ll start at once!” the man replied.
+
+Befogged and bewildered, Desmond entered the car, which cautiously
+proceeded along the breakwater, with glimpses of black water and an
+occasional dim light on either hand. They bumped over the railway-lines
+and rough cobblestones of a dockyard, glided through a slumbering town,
+and so gradually drew out into the open country where the car gathered
+speed and fairly raced along the white, winding road. Desmond had not
+the faintest idea of their whereabouts or ultimate destination. He was
+fairly embarked on the great adventure now, and he was philosophically
+content to let Fate have its way with him. He found himself wondering
+rather indolently what the future had in store.
+
+The car slowed down and the chauffeur switched the headlights on. Their
+blinding glare revealed some white gate-posts at the entrance of a
+quiet country station. Desmond looked at his watch. It was half-past
+one. The car stopped at the entrance to the booking-office where a man
+in an overcoat and bowler was waiting.
+
+“This way, Major, please,” said the man in the bowler, and led the way
+into the dark and silent station. At the platform a short train
+consisting of an engine, a Pullman car and a brakesman’s van stood, the
+engine under steam. By the glare from the furnace Desmond recognized
+his companion. It was Matthews, the Chief’s confidential clerk.
+
+Matthews held open the door of the Pullman for Desmond and followed him
+into the carriage. A gruff voice in the night shouted:
+
+“All right, Charley!” a light was waved to and fro, and the special
+pulled out of the echoing station into the darkness beyond.
+
+In the corner of the Pullman a table was laid for supper. There was a
+cold chicken, a salad, and a bottle of claret. On another table was a
+large tin box and a mirror with a couple of electric lights before it.
+At this table was seated a small man with gray hair studying a large
+number of photographs.
+
+“If you will have your supper, Major Okewood, sir,” said Matthews, “Mr.
+Crook here will get to work. We’ve not got too much time.”
+
+The sea air had made Desmond ravenously hungry. He sat down promptly
+and proceeded to demolish the chicken and make havoc of the salad. Also
+he did full justice to the very excellent St. Estephe.
+
+As he ate he studied Matthews, who was one of those undefinable
+Englishmen one meets in tubes and ’buses, who might be anything from a
+rate collector to a rat catcher. He had sandy hair plastered limply
+across his forehead, a small moustache, and a pair of watery blue eyes.
+Mr. Crook, who continued his study of his assortment of photographs
+without taking the slightest notice of Desmond, was a much more alert
+looking individual, with a shock of iron gray hair brushed back and a
+small pointed beard.
+
+“Matthew’s,” said Desmond as he supped, “would it be indiscreet to ask
+where we are?”
+
+“In Kent, Major,” replied Matthews.
+
+“What station was that we started from?”
+
+“Faversham.”
+
+“And where are we going, might I inquire?”
+
+“To Cannon Street, sir!”
+
+“And from there?”
+
+Mr. Matthews coughed discreetly.
+
+“I can’t really say, sir, I’m sure! A car will meet you there and I can
+go home to bed.”
+
+The ends sealed again! thought Desmond. What a man of caution, the
+Chief!
+
+“And this gentleman here, Matthews?” asked Desmond, lighting one of the
+skipper’s cigars.
+
+“That, sir, is Mr. Crook, who does any little jobs we require in the
+way of make-up. Our expert on resemblances, if I may put it that way,
+sir, for we really do very little in the way of disguises. Mr. Crook is
+an observer of what I may call people’s points, sir, their facial
+appearance, their little peculiarities of manner, of speech, of gait.
+Whenever there is any question of a disguise, Mr. Crook is called in to
+advise as to the possibilities of success. I believe I am correct in
+saying, Crook, that you have been engaged on the Major here for some
+time. Isn’t it so?”
+
+Crook looked up a minute from his table.
+
+“That’s right,” he said shortly, and resumed his occupation of
+examining the photographs.
+
+“And what’s your opinion about this disguise of mine?” Desmond asked
+him.
+
+“I can make a good job of you, Major,” said the expert, “and so I
+reported to the Chief. You’ll want to do your hair a bit different and
+let your beard grow, and then, if you pay attention to the lessons I
+shall give you, in a week or two, you’ll be this chap here,” and he
+tapped the photograph in his hand, “to the life.”
+
+So saying he handed Desmond the photograph. It was the portrait of a
+man about forty years of age, of rather a pronounced Continental type,
+with a short brown beard, a straight, rather well-shaped nose and
+gold-rimmed spectacles. His hair was cut _en brosse_, and he was rather
+full about the throat and neck. Without a word, Desmond stretched out
+his hand and gathered up a sheaf of other photos, police photos of Mr.
+Basil Bellward, front face and profile seen from right and left, all
+these poses shown on the same picture, some snapshots and various
+camera studies. Desmond shook his head in despair. He was utterly
+unable to detect the slightest resemblance between himself and this
+rather commonplace looking type of business man.
+
+“Now if you’d just step into the compartment at the end of the Pullman,
+Major,” said Crook, “you’ll find some civilian clothes laid out. Would
+you mind putting them on? You needn’t trouble about the collar and tie,
+or coat and waistcoat for the moment. Then we’ll get along with the
+work.”
+
+The train rushed swaying on through the darkness. Desmond was back in
+the Pullman car in a few minutes arrayed in a pair of dark gray tweed
+trousers, a white shirt and black boots and socks. A cut-away coat and
+waistcoat of the same tweed stuff, a black bowler hat of rather an
+old-fashioned and staid pattern, and a black overcoat with a velvet
+collar, he left in the compartment where he changed.
+
+He found that Crook had opened his tin box and set out a great array of
+grease paints, wigs, twists of tow of various colors, and a number of
+pots and phials of washes and unguents together with a whole battery of
+fine paint brushes. In his hand he held a pair of barber’s clippers and
+the tips of a comb and a pair of scissors protruded from his vest
+pocket.
+
+Crook whisked a barber’s wrap round Desmond and proceeded, with
+clippers and scissors, to crop and trim his crisp black hair.
+
+“Tst-tst” he clicked with his tongue. “I didn’t realize your hair was
+so dark, Major. It’ll want a dash of henna to lighten it.”
+
+The man worked with incredible swiftness. His touch was light and sure,
+and Desmond, looking at his reflection in the glass, wondered to see
+what fine; delicate hands this odd little expert possessed. Matthews
+sat and smoked in silence and watched the operation, whilst the special
+ran on steadily Londonwards.
+
+When the clipping was done, Crook smeared some stuff on a towel and
+wrapped it round Desmond’s head.
+
+“That’ll brighten your hair up a lot, sir. Now for a crepe beard just
+to try the effect. We’ve got to deliver you at Cannon Street ready for
+the job, Mr. Matthews and me, but you won’t want to worry with this
+nasty messy beard once you get indoors. You can grow your own beard,
+and I’ll pop in and henna it a bit for you every now and then.”
+
+There was the smart of spirit gum on Desmond’s cheeks and Crook gently
+applied a strip of tow to his face. He had taken the mirror away so
+that Desmond could no longer see the effect of the gradual
+metamorphosis.
+
+“A mirror only confuses me,” said the expert, breathing hard as he
+delicately adjusted the false beard, “I’ve got this picture firm in my
+head, and I want to get it transferred to your face. Somehow a mirror
+puts me right off. It’s the reality I want.”
+
+As he grew more absorbed in his work, he ceased to speak altogether. He
+finished the beard, trimmed the eyebrows, applied a dash of henna with
+a brush, leaning backwards continually to survey the effect. He
+sketched in a wrinkle or two round the eyes with a pencil, wiped them
+out, then put them in again. Then he fumbled in his tin box, and
+produced two thin slices of grey rubber.
+
+“Sorry,” he said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to wear these inside your
+cheeks to give the effect of roundness. You’ve got an oval face and the
+other man has a round one. I can get the fullness of the throat by
+giving you a very low collar, rather open and a size too large for
+you.”
+
+Desmond obediently slipped the two slices of rubber into his mouth and
+tucked them away on either side of his upper row of teeth. They were
+not particularly uncomfortable to wear.
+
+“There’s your specs,” said Crook, handing him a spectacle case, “and
+there’s the collar. Now if you’ll put on the rest of the duds, we’ll
+have a look at you, sir.”
+
+Desmond went out and donned the vest and coat and overcoat, and, thus
+arrayed, returned to the Pullman, hat in hand.
+
+Crook called out to him as he entered
+
+“Not so springy in the step, sir, if you please. Remember you’re
+forty-three years of age with a Continental upbringing. You’ll have to
+walk like a German, toes well turned out and down on the heel every
+time. So, that’s better. Now, have a look at yourself!”
+
+He turned and touched a blind. A curtain rolled up with a click,
+disclosing a full length mirror immediately opposite Desmond.
+
+Desmond recoiled in astonishment. He could scarcely credit his own
+eyes. The glass must be bewitched, he thought for a moment, quite
+overwhelmed by the suddenness of the shock. For instead of the young
+face set on a slight athletic body that the glass was wont to show him,
+he saw a square, rather solid man in ugly, heavy clothes, with a brown
+silky beard and gold spectacles. The disguise was baffling in its
+completeness. The little wizard, who had effected this change and who
+now stood by, bashfully twisting his fingers about, had transformed
+youth into middle age. And the bewildering thing was that the success
+of the disguise did not lie so much in the external adjuncts, the false
+beard, the pencilled wrinkles, as in the hideous collar, the thick
+padded clothes, in short, in the general appearance.
+
+For the first time since his talk with the Chief at the United Service
+Club, Desmond felt his heart grow light within him. If such miracles
+were possible, then he could surmount the other difficulties as well.
+
+“Crook,” he said, “I think you’ve done wonders. What do you say,
+Matthews?”
+
+“I’ve seen a lot of Mr. Crook’s work in my day, sir,” answered the
+clerk, “but nothing better than this. It’s a masterpiece, Crook, that’s
+what it is.”
+
+“I’m fairly well satisfied,” the expert murmured modestly, “and I must
+say the Major carries it off very well. But how goes the enemy,
+Matthews?”
+
+“It’s half past two,” replied, the latter, “we should reach Cannon
+Street by three. She’s running well up to time, I think.”
+
+“We’ve got time for a bit of a rehearsal,” said Crook. “Just watch me,
+will you please, Major, and I’ll try and give you an impression of our
+friend. I’ve been studying him at Brixton for the past twelve days, day
+and night almost, you might say, and I think I can convey an idea of
+his manner and walk. The walk is a very important point. Now, here is
+Mr. Bellward meeting one of his friends. Mr. Matthews, you will be the
+friend!”
+
+Then followed one of the most extraordinary performances that Desmond
+had ever witnessed. By some trick of the actor’s art, the shriveled
+figure of the expert seemed to swell out and thicken, while his low,
+gentle voice deepened into a full, metallic baritone. Of accent in his
+speech there was none, but Desmond’s ear, trained to foreigners’
+English, could detect a slight Continental intonation, a little roll of
+the “r’s,” an unfamiliar sound about those open “o’s” of the English
+tongue, which are so fatal a trap for foreigners speaking our language.
+As he watched Crook, Desmond glanced from time to time at the
+photograph of Bellward which he had picked up from the table. He had an
+intuition that Bellward behaved and spoke just as the man before him.
+
+Then, at Crook’s suggestion, Desmond assumed the role of Bellward. The
+expert interrupted him continually.
+
+“The hands, Major, the hands, you must _not_ keep them down at your
+sides. That is military! You must move them when you speak! So and so!”
+
+Or again:
+
+“You speak too fast. Too... too youthfully, if you understand me, sir.
+You are a man of middle age. Life has no further secrets for you. You
+are poised and getting a trifle ponderous. Now try again!”
+
+But the train was slackening speed. They were running between black
+masses of squalid houses. As the special thumped over the bridge across
+the river, Mr. Crook gathered up his paints and brushes and photographs
+and arranged them neatly in his black tin box.
+
+To Desmond he said:
+
+“I shall be coming along to give you some more lessons very soon,
+Major. I wish you could see Bellward for yourself: you are very apt at
+this game, and it would save us much time. But I fear that’s
+impossible.”
+
+Even before the special had drawn up alongside the platform at Cannon
+Street, Crook and Matthews swung themselves out and disappeared. When
+the train stopped, a young man in a bowler hat presented himself at the
+door of the Pullman.
+
+“The car is there, Mr. Bellward, sir!” he said, helping Desmond to
+alight. Desmond, preparing to assume his new role, was about to leave
+the carriage when a sudden thought struck him. What about his uniform
+strewn about the compartment where he had changed? He ran back. The
+compartment was empty. Not a trace remained of the remarkable scenes of
+their night journey.
+
+“This is for you,” said the young man, handing Desmond a note as they
+walked down the platform.
+
+Outside the station a motor-car with its noisy throbbing awoke the
+echoes of the darkened and empty courtyard. Desmond waited until he was
+being whirled over the smooth asphalt of the City streets before he
+opened the letter.
+
+He found a note and a small key inside the envelope.
+
+“On reaching the house to which you will be conveyed,” the note said,
+“you will remain indoors until further orders. You can devote your time
+to studying the papers you will find in the desk beside the bed. For
+the present you need not fear detection _as long as you do not leave
+the house_.” Then followed a few rough jottings obviously for his
+guidance.
+
+“Housekeeper, Martha, half blind, stupid; odd man, John Hill, mostly
+invisible, no risk from either. You are confined to house with heavy
+chill. _Do not go out until you get the word._”
+
+The last sentence was twice underlined.
+
+The night was now pitch-dark. Heavy clouds had come up and obscured the
+stars and a drizzle of rain was falling. The car went forward at a good
+pace and Desmond, after one or two ineffectual attempts to make out
+where they were going, was lulled by the steady motion into a deep
+sleep. He was dreaming fitfully of the tossing Channel as he had seen
+it but a few hours before when he came to his senses with a start. He
+felt a cold draught of air on his face and his feet were dead with
+cold.
+
+A figure stood at the open door of the car. It was the chauffeur.
+
+“Here we are, sir,” he said.
+
+Desmond stiffly descended to the ground. It was so dark that he could
+distinguish nothing, but he felt the grit of gravel under his feet and
+he heard the melancholy gurgle of running water. He took a step forward
+and groped his way into a little porch smelling horribly of mustiness
+and damp. As he did so, he heard a whirr behind him and the car began
+to glide off. Desmond shouted after the chauffeur. Now that he stood on
+the very threshold of his adventure, he wanted to cling desperately to
+this last link with his old self. But the chauffeur did not or would
+not hear, and presently the sound of the engine died away, leaving
+Desmond to the darkness, the sad splashing of distant water and his own
+thoughts.
+
+And then, for one brief moment, all his courage seemed to ooze out of
+him. If he had followed his instinct, he would have turned and fled
+into the night, away from that damp and silent house, away from the
+ceaseless splashing of waters, back to the warmth and lights of
+civilization. But his sense of humor, which is very often better than
+courage, came to his rescue.
+
+“I suppose I ought to be in the devil of a rage,” he said to himself,
+“being kept waiting like this outside my own house! Where the deuce is
+my housekeeper? By Gad, I’ll ring the place down!”
+
+The conceit amused him, and he advanced further into the musty porch
+hoping to find a bell. But as he did so his ear caught the distant
+sound of shuffling feet. The shuffle of feet drew nearer and presently
+a beam of light shone out from under the door. A quavering voice called
+out:
+
+“Here I am, Mr. Bellward, here I am, sir!”
+
+Then a bolt was drawn back, a key turned, and the door swung slowly
+back, revealing an old woman, swathed in a long shawl and holding high
+in her hand a lamp as she peered out into the darkness.
+
+“Good evening, Martha,” said Desmond, and stepped into the house.
+
+Save for Martha’s lamp, the lobby was in darkness, but light was
+streaming into the hall from the half open door of a room leading off
+it at the far end. While Martha, wheezing asthmatically, bolted the
+front door, Desmond went towards the room where the light was and
+walked in.
+
+It was a small sitting-room, lined with bookshelves, illuminated by an
+oil lamp which stood on a little table beside a chintz-covered settee
+which had been drawn up in front of the dying fire.
+
+On the settee Nur-el-Din was lying asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+D. O. R. A. IS BAFFLED
+
+
+When Barbara reached the Chief’s ante-room she found it full of people.
+Mr. Marigold was there, chatting with Captain Strangwise who seemed to
+be just taking his leave; there was a short, fat, Jewish-looking man,
+very resplendently dressed with a large diamond pin in his cravat and a
+small, insignificant looking gentleman with a gray moustache and the
+red rosette of the Legion of Honor in his button-hole. Matthews came
+out of the Chief’s room as Barbara entered the outer office.
+
+“Miss Mackwayte,” he said, “we are all so shocked and so very,
+sorry...”
+
+“Mr. Matthews,” she said hastily in a low voice, “never mind about that
+now. I must see the Chief at once. It is most urgent.”
+
+Matthews gesticulated with his arm round the room.
+
+“All these people, excepting the officer there, are waiting to see him,
+Miss, and he’s got a dinner engagement at eight...”
+
+“It is urgent, Mr. Matthews, I tell you. If you won’t take my name in,
+I shall go in myself!”
+
+“Miss Mackwayte, I daren’t interrupt him now. Do you know who’s with
+him...?”
+
+Strangwise crossed the room to where Barbara was standing.
+
+“I can guess what brings you here, Miss Mackwayte,” he said gently. “I
+hope you will allow me to express my condolences...?”
+
+The girl shrank back, almost imperceptibly, yet Strangwise, whose eyes
+were fixed on her pale face, noticed the spontaneous recoil. The
+sunshine seemed to fade out of his debonair countenance, and for a
+moment Barbara Mackwayte saw Maurice Strangwise as very few people had
+ever seen him, stern and cold and hard, without a vestige of his
+constant smile. But the shadow lifted as quickly as it had fallen. His
+face had resumed its habitually engaging expression as he murmured:
+
+“Believe me, I am truly sorry for you!”
+
+“Thank you, thank you!” Barbara said hastily and brushed past him. She
+walked straight across the room to the door of the Chief’s room, turned
+the handle and walked in.
+
+The room was in darkness save for an electric reading lamp on the desk
+which threw a beam of light on the faces of two men thrust close
+together in eager conversation. One was the Chief, the other a face
+that Barbara knew well from the illustrated papers.
+
+At the sound of the door opening, the Chief sprang to his feet.
+
+“Oh, it’s Miss Mackwayte,” he said, and added something in a low voice
+to the other man who had risen to his feet. “My dear,” he continued
+aloud to Barbara, “I will see you immediately; we must not be disturbed
+now. Matthews should have told you.”
+
+“Chief,” cried Barbara, her hands clasped convulsively together, “you
+must hear me now. What I have to say cannot wait. Oh, you must hear
+me!”
+
+The Chief looked as embarrassed as a man usually looks when he is
+appealed to in a busy moment by an extremely attractive girl.
+
+“Miss Mackwayte,” he said firmly but with great courtesy, “you must
+wait outside. I know how unnerved you are by all that you have gone
+through, but I am engaged just now. I shall be free presently.”
+
+“It is about my father, Chief,” Barbara said in a trembling voice, “I
+have found out what they came to get!”
+
+“Ah!” said the Chief and the other man simultaneously.
+
+“We had better hear what she has to say!” said the other man, “but
+won’t you introduce me first?”
+
+“This is Sir Bristowe Marr, the First Sea Lord,” said the Chief,
+bringing up a chair for Barbara, “Miss Mackwayte, my secretary,
+Admiral!”
+
+Then in a low impassioned voice Barbara told her tale of the package
+entrusted to her by Nur-el-Din and its disappearance from her bedroom
+on the night of the murder. As she proceeded a deep furrow appeared
+between the Chief’s bushy eyebrows and he stared absently at the
+blotting-pad in front of him. When the girl had finished her story, the
+Chief said:
+
+“Lambelet ought to hear this, sir: he’s the head of the French
+Intelligence, you know. He’s outside now. Shall we have him in? Miss
+Mackwayte shall tell her story, and you can then hear what Lambelet has
+to say about this versatile young dancer.”
+
+Without waiting for further permission, he pressed a bell on the desk
+and presently Matthews ushered in the small man with the Legion of
+Honor whom Barbara had seen in the ante-room.
+
+The Chief introduced the Frenchman and in a few words explained the
+situation to him. Then he turned to Barbara:
+
+“Colonel Lambelet speaks English perfectly,” he said, “so fire away and
+don’t be nervous!”
+
+When she had finished, the Chief said, addressing Lambelet:
+
+“What do you make of it, Colonel?”
+
+The little Frenchman made an expressive gesture.
+
+“Madame has become aware of the interest you have been taking in her
+movements, _mon cher_. She seized the opportunity of this meeting with
+the daughter of her old friend to get rid of something compromising, a
+code or something of the kind, _qui sait?_ Perhaps this robbery and its
+attendant murder was only an elaborate device to pass on some
+particularly important report of the movements of your ships... _qui
+sait?_”
+
+“Then you are convinced in your own mind, Colonel, that this woman is a
+spy?” The clear-cut voice of the First Sea Lord rang out of the
+darkness of the room outside the circle of light on the desk.
+
+“_Mais certainement!_” replied the Frenchman quietly. “Listen and you
+shall hear! By birth she is a Pole, from Warsaw, of good, perhaps,
+even, of noble family. I cannot tell you, for her real name we have not
+been able to ascertain... _parbleu_, it is impossible, with the Boches
+at Warsaw, _hein?_ We know, however, that at a very early age, under
+the name of _la petite Marcelle_, she was a member of a troupe of
+acrobats who called themselves The Seven Duponts. With this troupe she
+toured all over Europe. _Bien!_ About ten years ago, she went out to
+New York as a singer, under the name of Marcelle Blondinet, and
+appeared at various second-class theatres in the United States and
+Canada. Then we lose track of her for some years until 1913, the year
+before the war, when the famous Oriental dancer, Nur-el-Din, who has
+made a _grand succès_ by the splendor of her dresses in America and
+Canada, appears at Brussels, scores a triumph and buys a fine mansion
+in the outskirts of the capital. She produces herself at Paris,
+Bordeaux, Lyons, Marseilles, Madrid, Milan and Rome, but her home in
+Brussels, always she returns there, your understand me, hein? _La
+petite Marcelle_ of The Seven Duponts, Marcelle Blondinet of the _café
+chantant_, has blossomed out into a star of the first importance.”
+
+The Colonel paused and cleared his throat.
+
+“To buy a mansion in Brussels, to run a large and splendid troupe,
+requires money. It is the men who pay for these things, you would say.
+Quite right, but listen who were the friends of Madame Nur-el-Din.
+Bischoffsberg, the German millionaire of Antwerp, von Wurzburg, of
+Berne... ah ha! you know that gentleman, _mon cher?_” he turned,
+chuckling, to the Chief who nodded his acquiescence; “Prince Meddelin
+of the German Embassy in Paris and administrator of the German Secret
+Service funds in France, and so on and so on. I will not fatigue you
+with the list. The direct evidence is coming now.
+
+“When the war broke out in August, 1914, Madame, after finishing her
+summer season in Brussels, was resting in her Brussels mansion. What
+becomes of her? She vanishes.”
+
+“She told Samuel, the fellow who runs the Palaceum, that she escaped
+from Brussels!” interposed the Chief.
+
+The Frenchman threw his hands above his head.
+
+“Escaped, escaped? _Ah, oui, par exemple_, in a German Staff car. As I
+have told my colleague here,” he went on, addressing the Admiral, “she
+escaped to Metz, the headquarters of the Army Group commanded by the...
+the... how do you say? the Prince Imperial?”
+
+“The Crown Prince,” rectified the Chief.
+
+“Ah, _oui_,—the Crown Prince. Messieurs, we have absolute testimony
+that this woman lived for nearly two years either in Metz or Berlin,
+and further, that at Metz, the Crown Prince was a constant visitor at
+her house. She was one of the ladies who nearly precipitated a definite
+rupture between the Crown Prince and his wife. _Mon Admiral_,” he went
+on, addressing the First Sea Lord again, “that this woman should be at
+large is a direct menace to the security of this country and of mine.
+It is only this morning that I at length received from Paris the facts
+which I have just laid before you. It is for you to order your action
+accordingly!”
+
+The little Frenchman folded his arms pompously and gazed at the
+ceiling.
+
+“How does she explain her movements prior to her coming to this
+country” the First Sea Lord asked the Chief.
+
+For an answer the Chief pressed the bell.
+
+“Samuel, who engaged her, is outside. You shall hear her story from
+him,” he said.
+
+Samuel entered, exuding business acumen, prosperity, geniality. He
+nodded brightly to the Chief and stood expectant.
+
+“Ah, Mr. Samuel,” said the Chief, “I wanted to see you about
+Nur-el-Din. You remember our former conversation on the subject. Where
+did she say she went to when she escaped to Brussels?”
+
+“First to Ostend,” replied the music-hall proprietor, “and then, when
+the general exodus took place from there, to her mother’s country place
+near Lyons, a village called Sermoise-aux-Roses.”
+
+“And what did she say her mother’s name was?”
+
+“Madame Blondinet, sir!”
+
+The Frenchman rapped smartly on a little pocketbook which he had
+produced and now held open in his hand.
+
+“There, is a Madame Blondinet who has a large farm near
+Sermoise-aux-Roses,” he said, “and she has a daughter called Marcelle,
+who went to America.”
+
+“Why then...?” began the First Sea Lord.
+
+“_Attendez un instant!_”
+
+The Colonel held up a plump hand.
+
+“Unfortunately for Madame Nur-el-Din, this Marcelle Blondinet spent the
+whole of her childhood, in fact, the whole of her life until she was
+nineteen years of age, on her mother’s farm at a time when _this_
+Marcelle Blondinet was touring Europe with The Seven Duponts. The
+evidence is absolute. Mademoiselle here heard the dancer herself
+confirm it last night!”
+
+“Thank you, Mr. Samuel,” said the Chief, “we shan’t require you any
+more. But I’m afraid your Nur-el-Din will have to break her contract
+with you.”
+
+“She’s done that already, sir!” said Samuel ruefully.
+
+The Chief sprang to his feet excitedly.
+
+“Broken it already?” he cried. “What do you mean? Explain yourself!
+Don’t stand there staring at me!”
+
+Mr. Samuel looked startled out of his life.
+
+“There was a bit of a row between her and the stage manager last night
+about her keeping the stage waiting again,” he said; “and after lunch
+today she rang up to say she would not appear at the Palaceum to-night
+or any more at all! It’s very upsetting for us; and I don’t mind
+telling you, gentlemen, that I’ve been to my solicitors about it...”
+
+“And why the blazes didn’t you come and tell me?” demanded the Chief
+furiously.
+
+“Well, sir, I thought it was only a bit of pique on her part, and I
+hoped to be able to talk the lady round. I know what these stars are!”
+
+“You’ve seen her then?” the Chief snapped out.
+
+“No, I haven’t!” Mr. Samuel lamented. “I’ve been twice to the
+Nineveh—that’s where she’s stopping—and each time she was out!”
+
+The Chief dismissed him curtly.
+
+When the door had closed behind him, the Chief said to the First Sea
+Lord:
+
+“This is where D.O.R.A. steps in, I think, sir!”
+
+“Decidedly!” replied the Admiral. “Will you take the necessary steps?”
+
+The Chief nodded and pressed the bell. Matthews appeared.
+
+“Anything from the Nineveh?” he asked.
+
+“The lady has not returned, sir!”
+
+“Anything from Gordon and Duff?”
+
+“No, sir, nothing all day!”
+
+The telephone on the desk whirred. The Chief lifted the receiver.
+
+“Yes. Oh, it’s you, Gordon? No, you can say it now: this is a private
+line.”
+
+He listened at the receiver for a couple of minutes. The room was very
+still.
+
+“All right, come to the office at once!”
+
+The Chief hung up the receiver and turned to the Admiral.
+
+“She’s given us the slip for the moment!” he said. “That was Gordon
+speaking. He and Duff have been shadowing our lady friend out of doors
+for days. She left the hotel on foot after lunch this afternoon with my
+two fellows in her wake. There was a bit of a crush on the pavement
+near Charing Cross and Duff was pushed into the roadway and run over by
+a motor-’bus. In the confusion Gordon lost the trail. He’s wasted all
+this time trying to pick it up again instead of reporting to me at
+once.”
+
+“_Zut!_” cried the Frenchman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+CREDENTIALS
+
+
+The sight of Nur-el-Din filled Desmond with alarm. For a moment his
+mind was overshadowed by the dread of detection. He had forgotten all
+about Mr. Crook’s handiwork in the train, and his immediate fear was
+that the dancer would awake and recognize him. But then he caught sight
+of his face in the mirror over the mantelpiece. The grave bearded man
+staring oddly at him out of the glass gave him a shock until he
+realized the metamorphosis that had taken place in his personality. The
+realization served instantly to still his apprehension.
+
+Nur-el-Din lay on her side, one hand under her face which was turned
+away from the fire. She was wearing a big black musquash coat, and over
+her feet she had flung a tweed overcoat, apparently one of Mr.
+Bellward’s from the hatstand in the hall. Her hat, a very dainty little
+affair of plain black velvet, was skewered with a couple of jewelled
+hatpins to the upholstery of the settee.
+
+Desmond watched her for a moment. Her face looked drawn and tired now
+that her eyelids, with their long sweeping black lashes, were closed,
+shutting off the extraordinary luminosity of her eyes. As he stood
+silently contemplating her, she stirred and moaned in her sleep and
+muttered some word three or four times to herself. Desmond was
+conscious of a great feeling of compassion for this strangely beautiful
+creature. Knowing as he did of the hundred-eyed monster of the British
+Secret Service that was watching her, he found himself thinking how
+frail, how helpless, how unprotected she looked, lying there in the
+flickering light of the fire.
+
+A step resounded behind him and old Martha shuffled into the room,
+carefully shading the lamp she still carried so that its rays should
+not fall on the face of the sleeper.
+
+“I don’t know as I’ve done right, sir,” she mumbled, “letting the pore
+lady wait here for you like this, but I couldn’t hardly help it, sir!
+She says as how she must see you, and seeing as how your first
+tellygram said you was coming at half-past nine, I lets her stop on!”
+
+“When did she arrive” asked Desmond softly.
+
+“About six o’clock,” answered the old, woman. “Walked all the way up
+from Wentfield Station, too, sir, and that cold she was when she
+arrived here, fair blue with the cold she was, pore dear. D’reckly she
+open her lips, I sees she’s a furrin’ lady, sir. She asks after you and
+I tells her as how you are away and won’t be back till this evening.
+‘Oh!’ she says, I then I wait!’ And in she comes without so much as
+with your leave or by your leave. She told me as how you knew her, sir,
+and were expecting to see her, most important, she said it was, so I
+hots her up a bit o’ dinner. I hopes as how I didn’t do wrong, Mr.
+Bellward, sir!”
+
+“Oh, no, Martha, not at all!” Desmond replied—at random. He was sorely
+perplexed as to his next move. Obviously the girl could not stay in the
+house. What on earth did she want with him? And could he, at any rate,
+get at the desk and read the papers of which the note spoke and which,
+he did not doubt, were the _dossier_ of the Bellward case, before she
+awoke? They might, at least, throw some light on his relations with the
+dancer.
+
+“She had her dinner here by the fire,” old Martha resumed her
+narrative, “and about a quarter past nine comes your second tellygram,
+sir, saying as how you could not arrive till five o’clock in the
+morning.”
+
+Desmond glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. The hands pointed to a
+quarter past five! He had lost all count of the time in his
+peregrinations of the night.
+
+“I comes in here and tells the young lady as how you wouldn’t be back
+last night, sir,” the old woman continued, “and she says, ‘Oh,’ she
+says, ‘then, where shall I go?’ she says. ‘Why don’t you go home, my
+dear?’ says I, ‘and pop round and see the master in the morning,’ I
+says, thinking the pore young lady lives about here. And then she tells
+me as how she come all the way from Lunnon and walked up from the
+station. As well you know, sir, the last train up leaves Wentfield
+Station at five minutes to nine, and so the pore young lady couldn’t
+get back that night. So here she had to stop. I got the spare room
+ready for her and lit a nice fire and all, but she wouldn’t go to bed
+not until she had seen you. I do hope as how I’ve not done wrong, sir.
+I says to Mr. Hill, I says...”
+
+Desmond held up his hand to restrain her toothless babble. Nur-el-Din
+had stirred and was sitting up, rubbing her eyes. Then she caught sight
+of Desmond and scrambled rather unsteadily to her feet.
+
+“Monsieur Bellward?” she said in French, “oh, how glad I am to see
+you!”
+
+“All right, Martha,” said Desmond, “see that the spare room is ready
+for this lady, and don’t go to bed just yet. I shall want you to take
+this lady to her room.”
+
+The old woman hobbled away, leaving the two alone. As soon as the door
+had closed behind her, Nur-el-Din exclaimed:
+
+“You know me; _hein?_”
+
+Desmond bowed in the most correct Continental manner.
+
+“Who does not know the charming Nur-el-Din?” he replied.
+
+“No!” Nur-el-Din commanded with flashing eyes, “no, not that name! I am
+Madame Le Bon, you, understand, a Belgian refugee, from Termonde!”
+
+Rather taken aback by her imperious manner, Desmond bowed again but
+said nothing.
+
+“I received your letter,” the dancer resumed, “but I did not answer it
+as I did not require your assistance. But now I wish your help. It is
+unfortunate that you were absent from home at the very time I counted
+upon your aid.”
+
+She flashed a glance at him as though awaiting an apology.
+
+“I am extremely sorry,” said Desmond, “if I had but known...”
+
+Nur-el-Din nodded carelessly.
+
+“I wish to pass the night here,” she went on, “in fact, I may be here
+for several days. They are becoming inconvenient in London, you
+understand.”
+
+“But the theatre, your professional engagements?”
+
+“Bah, I have left the theatre. I have had enough of these stupid
+English people... they know nothing of art!”
+
+Desmond reflected a moment. Nur-el-Din’s manner was most perplexing.
+What on earth could induce her to adopt this tone of condescension
+towards him? It nettled him. He resolved to try and find out on what it
+was based.
+
+“I am only too happy to be of assistance to you,” he said, “especially
+in view of the letter of introduction you sent me, but I must tell you
+plainly that what you ask is impossible.”
+
+“Impossible?” repeated Nur-el-Din, stamping her feet. “Impossible? Do
+you know what you are saying?”
+
+“Perfectly,” replied Desmond negligently. “Obviously, you must stay
+here for the rest of the night since you cannot return to London until
+the trains start running, but to stay here indefinitely as you propose
+to do is out of the question. People would talk!”
+
+“Then it is your business to see that they don’t!”
+
+“Your letter of introduction came from one whom I am always anxious to
+oblige,” Desmond went on. “But the service he is authorized to claim
+from me does not entitle him to jeopardize my other activities.”
+
+He drew a breath. It was a long shot. Would it draw her?
+
+It did. Nur-el-Din fumbled in her bag, produced a leather pocket-book
+and from it produced a slip of paper folded in two.
+
+“Read that!” she cried, “and then you shall apologize!”
+
+Desmond took the paper. It was a sheet torn from a book of German
+military field messages. “_Meldedienst_” (Message Service) was printed
+in German at the top and there were blanks to be filled in for the
+date, hour and place, and at the bottom a printed form of
+acknowledgment for the recipient to sign.
+
+In a large ostentatious, upright German handwriting was written what
+follows:
+
+“To All Whom it May Concern.
+
+
+“The lady who is the bearer of this, whose description is set out
+overleaf, is entitled to the full respect and assistance of the German
+forces on land and sea and in the air, wherever it may be. Her person
+and property are inviolate.
+    “Given At Our Headquarters at Metz
+
+
+“Friedrich Wilhelm
+“Kronprinz des
+“Deutschen Reiches.”
+
+
+Across the signature was the impress of a green stamp, lozenge-shaped,
+inscribed “Headquarters of the Fifth Army, General Staff, 21st
+September, 1914.”
+
+On the back of the slip was a detailed description of Nur-el-Din.
+
+Desmond bowed and handed the paper back to its owner.
+
+“Madame must accept my humble excuses,” he murmured, hardly knowing
+what he was saying, so great was his surprise, “my house and services
+are at Madame’s disposal!”
+
+“The other letter was from Count Plettenbach, the Prince’s A.D.C., whom
+I think you know!” added the dancer in a mollified voice as she
+replaced the slip of paper in its pocketbook and stowed it away in her
+hand-bag. Then, looking up archly at Desmond, she said:
+
+“Am I so distasteful, then, to have in your house?”
+
+She made a charming picture. Her heavy fur coat had fallen open,
+disclosing her full round throat, very brown against the V-shaped
+opening of her white silk blouse. Her mouth was a perfect cupid’s bow,
+the upper lip slightly drawn up over her dazzlingly white teeth. Before
+Desmond could answer her question, if answer were needed, her mood had
+swiftly changed again. She put her hand out, a little brown hand, and
+laying it on his shoulder, looked up appealingly into his eyes.
+
+“You will protect me,” she said in a low voice, “I cannot bear this
+hunted life. From this side, from that, they, are closing in on me, and
+I am frightened, so very frightened. Promise you will keep me from
+harm!”
+
+Desmond gazed down into her warm, expressive eyes helplessly. What she
+asked was impossible, he knew, but he was a soldier, not a policeman,
+he told himself, and under his breath he cursed the Chief for landing
+him in such a predicament. To Nur-el-Din he said gently:
+
+“Tell me what has happened to frighten you. Who is hunting you? Is it
+the police?”
+
+She withdrew her hand with a gesture of contempt.
+
+“Bah!” she said bitterly. “I am not afraid of the police.”
+
+Then she sank into a reverie, her gaze fixed on the dying embers of the
+fire.
+
+“All my life has been a struggle,” she went on, after a moment, “first
+with hunger, then with men, then the police. I am used to a hard life.
+No, it is not the police!”
+
+“Who is it, then” asked Desmond, completely nonplused.
+
+Nur-el-Din let her eyes rest on his face for a moment.
+
+“You have honest eyes,” she said, “your eyes are not German... pardon
+me, I would not insult your race... I mean they are different from the
+rest of you. One day, perhaps, those eyes of yours may persuade me to
+answer your question. But I don’t know you well enough yet!”
+
+She broke off abruptly, shaking her head.
+
+“I am tired,” she sighed and all her haughty manner returned, “let the
+old woman show me to my room. I will take _déjeuner_ with you at one
+o’clock.”
+
+Desmond bowed and stepping out into the hall, called the housekeeper.
+Old Martha shuffled off with the girl, leaving Desmond staring with
+vacant eyes into the fire. He was conscious of a feeling of exultation,
+despite his utter weariness and craving for sleep. This girl, with her
+queenly ways, her swiftly changing moods, her broad gusts of passion,
+interested him enormously. If she were the quarry, why, then, the chase
+were worth while! But the end? For a brief moment, he had a vision of
+that frail, clinging figure swaying up against some blank wall before a
+file of levelled rifles.
+
+Then again he seemed to see old Mackwayte lying dead on the landing of
+the house at Seven Kings. Had this frail girl done this unspeakable
+deed? To send her to the gallows or before a firing-squad—was this to
+be the end of his mission? And the still, small voice of conscience
+answered: “Yes! that is what you have come here to do!”
+
+Old Martha came shuffling down the staircase. Desmond called to her,
+remembering that he did not yet know where his bedroom was.
+
+“Will you light me up to my room, Martha?” he said, “I want to be sure
+that the sheets are not damp!”
+
+So saying he extinguished the lamp on the table and followed the old
+woman upstairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+AT THE MILL HOUSE
+
+
+Clad in a suit of Mr. Basil Bellward’s pyjamas of elaborate
+blue-flowered silk, Desmond lay propped up in bed in Mr. Bellward’s
+luxuriously fitted bedroom, sipping his morning coffee, and studying
+with absorbed interest a sheet of blue foolscap. A number of papers lay
+strewn about the eiderdown quilt. At the head of the bed a handsome
+Sheraton bureau stood open.
+
+As the French say, Mr. Bellward had refused himself nothing. His
+bedroom was most tastefully furnished. The furniture was mahogany,
+every piece carefully chosen, and the chintz of curtains and upholstery
+was bright and attractive. A most elaborate mahogany wardrobe was
+fitted into the wall, and Desmond, investigating it, had found it to
+contain a very large assortment of clothes of every description, all
+new or nearly so, and bearing the name of a famous tailor of Cork
+Street. Folding doors, resembling a cupboard, disclosed, when open, a
+marble basin with hot water laid on, while a curtained door in the
+corner of the room gave access to a white tiled bathroom. Mr. Bellward,
+Desmond had reflected after his tour of the room on his arrival,
+evidently laid weight on his personal comfort; for the contrast between
+the cheerful comfort of his bedroom and the musty gloom of the rooms
+downstairs was very marked.
+
+A bright log fire hissed on the open hearth and the room was pleasantly
+warm. Old Martha’s coffee was excellent, and Desmond, very snug in Mr.
+Bellward’s comfortable bed, noted with regret that the clock on the
+mantel-shelf marked a quarter to twelve. But then he thought of the
+tête-à-tête luncheon that awaited him at one o’clock and his face
+cleared. He didn’t mind getting up so much after all.
+
+He fell again to the perusal of the documents which he had found, as
+indicated in the note from headquarters, in the desk by the bed. They
+were enclosed in two envelopes, one large, the other small, both
+without any superscription. The large envelope enclosed Mr. Bellward’s
+dossier which consisted of a fairly detailed account of his private
+life, movements, habits and friends, and an account of his arrest. The
+small envelope contained Desmond’s eagerly expected orders.
+
+Desmond examined the papers in the large envelope first. From them he
+ascertained that the house in which he found himself was called The
+Mill House, and was situated two and a half miles from the station of
+Wentfield on the Great Eastern Railway in Essex. Mr. Bellward had taken
+the place some eight years before, having moved there from the Surrey
+hills, but had been wont to spend not more than two months in the year
+there. For the rest of the time he traveled abroad, usually passing the
+winter months on the Riviera, and the spring in Switzerland or Italy.
+The war had brought about a change in his habits, and Harrogate, Buxton
+and Bath had taken the place of the Continental resorts which he had
+frequented in peace time.
+
+When in residence at The Mill House, Mr. Bellward had gone up to London
+nearly every morning, either walking or going by motor-cycle to the
+station, and not returning until dinner-time in the evening. Sometimes
+he passed the night in London, and on such occasions slept at a small
+hotel in Jermyn Street. His dossier included, a long and carefully
+compiled list of the people he knew in London, mostly men of the rich
+business set, stockbrokers, manufacturers, solicitors, and the like.
+Against every name was set a note of the exact degree of intimacy
+existing between Bellward and the man in question, and any other
+information that might serve Bellward’s impersonator in good stead.
+Desmond laid this list aside for the moment, intending to study it more
+closely at his leisure.
+
+Of intercourse with his neighbors in, the country, Mr. Bellward
+apparently had none. The Mill House stood in a lonely part of the
+country, remote from the more thickly populated centres of Brentwood
+and Romford, on the edge of a wide tract of inhospitable marshland,
+known as Morstead Fen, intersected by those wide deep ditches which in
+this part of the world are known as dykes. At this stage in the report
+there was a note to the effect that the rector of Wentfield had called
+twice at The Mill House but had not found Mr. Bellward at home, and
+that his visits had not been returned. There were also some opinions
+apparently culled locally regarding the tenant of the Mill House, set
+out something in this wise:—
+
+“Landlord of the Red Lion, Wentfield: The gentleman has never been to
+the Red Lion, but sometimes orders my Ford car and always pays
+regularly.
+    “The Stationmaster at Wentfield: A gentleman who keeps himself to
+    himself but very liberal with his money.
+    “Sir Marsham Dykes, of The Chase, Stanning: A damned unsociable
+    churlish fellow.
+    “Mr. Tracy Wentfield, of the Channings, Home Green: A very rude
+    man. He slammed the front door of the house in my face when I went
+    to ask him for a contribution to our Cottage Hospital. It is not my
+    habit to repeat idle gossip, but they do say he is a heavy
+    drinker.”
+
+
+There was a lot more of this sort of thing, and Desmond turned from it
+with a smile to take up the account of Bellward’s arrest. It appeared
+that, about a fortnight before, on the eve of the departure for France
+of a very large draft of troops, a telegram was handed in at the East
+Strand telegraph office addressed to Bellward. This telegram ran thus:
+
+“Bellward, Bellward Hotel, Jermyn Street.
+    “Shipping to you Friday 22,000 please advise correspondents.
+“MORTIMER.”
+
+
+The authorities were unable to deliver this telegram as no such an
+hotel as the Hotel Bellward was found to exist in Jermyn Street. An
+examination of the address showed clearly that the sender had absent
+mindedly repeated the addressee’s name in writing the name of the
+hotel. An advice was therefore addressed to the sender, Mortimer, at
+the address he had given on the back of the form, according to the
+regulations, to inform him that his telegram had not been delivered. It
+was then discovered that the address given by Mortimer was fictitious.
+
+Suspicion being thus aroused, the telegram was forwarded to the Postal
+Censor’s department whence it reached the Intelligence Authorities who
+promptly spotted the connection between the wording of the telegram and
+the imminent departure of the drafts, more especially as the dates
+tallied. Thereupon, Mr. Bellward was hunted up and ultimately traced by
+his correspondence to The Mill House. He was not found there, but was
+eventually encountered at his London hotel, and requested to appear
+before the authorities with a view to throwing some light on Mortimer.
+Under cross-examination Bellward flatly denied any knowledge of
+Mortimer, and declared that a mistake had been made. He cited various
+well known city men to speak for his bona-fides and protested violently
+against the action of the authorities in doubting his word. It was
+ultimately elicited that Bellward was of German birth and had never
+been naturalized, and he was detained in custody while a search was
+made at The Mill House.
+
+The search was conducted with great discretion, old Martha being got
+out of the way before the detectives arrived and a careful watch being
+kept to avoid any chance of interruption. The search had the most
+fruitful results. Hidden in a secret drawer of the Sheraton desk in
+Bellward’s bedroom, was found a most elaborate analysis of the
+movements of the transports to France, extremely accurate and right up
+to date. There was absolutely no indication, however, as to whence
+Bellward received his reports, and how or to whom he forwarded them. It
+was surmised that Mortimer was his informant, but an exhaustive search
+of the post office files of telegrams despatched showed no trace of any
+other telegram from Mortimer to Bellward save the one in the possession
+of the authorities. As for Mortimer, he remained a complete enigma.
+
+That, summarised, was the gist of the story of Bellward’s arrest. The
+report laid great stress on the fact that no one outside half a dozen
+Intelligence men had any knowledge (a) of Bellward being an
+unnaturalized German, (b) of his arrest.
+
+Desmond’s orders, which he reserved to the last were short and to the
+point. They consisted of five numbered clauses.
+
+“1. You will have a free hand. The surveillance of the house was
+withdrawn on your arrival and will not be renewed.
+
+“2. You will not leave the house until further orders.
+
+“3. You will keep careful note of any communication that may be made to
+you, whether verbal or in writing, of whatever nature it is. When you
+have anything to be forwarded, ring up 700 Slanning on the telephone
+and give Bellward’s name. You will hand your report to the first person
+calling at the house thereafter asking for the letter for Mr. Elias.
+
+“4. If help is urgently required, ring up 700 Stanning and ask for Mr.
+Elias. Assistance will be with you within 15 minutes after. This
+expedient must only be used in the last extremity.
+
+“5. Memorize these documents and burn the lot before you leave the
+house.”
+
+“Handy fellow, Mr. Elias,” was Desmond’s commentary, as he sprang out
+of bed and made for the bathroom. At a quarter to one he was ready
+dressed, feeling very scratchy and uncomfortable about the beard which
+he had not dared to remove owing to Nur-el-Din’s presence in the house.
+Before he left the bedroom, he paused a moment at the desk, the
+documents of the Bellward case in his hands. He had a singularly
+retentive memory, and he was loth to have these compromising papers in
+the house whilst Nur-el-Din was there. He took a quick decision and
+pitched the whole lot into the fire, retaining only the annotated list
+of Mr. Bellward’s friends. This he placed in his pocket-book and, after
+watching the rest of the papers crumble away into ashes, went
+downstairs to lunch.
+
+Nur-el-Din was in the drawing-room, a long room with two high windows
+which gave on a neglected looking garden. A foaming, churning brook
+wound its way through the garden, among stunted bushes and dripping
+willows, obviously the mill-race from which the house took its name.
+The drawing-room was a bare, inhospitable room, studded here and there
+with uncomfortable looking early Victorian armchairs swathed in
+dust-proof cloths. A fire was making an unsuccessful attempt to burn in
+the open grate.
+
+Nur-el-Din turned as he entered the room. She was wearing a gray cloth
+tailor-made with a white silk, blouse and a short skirt showing a pair
+of very natty brown boots. By contrast with her ugly surroundings she
+looked fresh and dainty. Her eyes were bright and her face as smooth
+and unwrinkled as a child’s.
+
+“_Bon jour_,” she cried gaily, “ah! but I am ’ungry! It is the air of
+the country! I love so the country!”
+
+“I hope you slept well, Madame!” said Desmond solicitously, looking
+admiringly at her trim figure.
+
+“Like a dead man,” she replied with a little laugh, translating the
+French idiom. “Shall we make a leetle promenade after the _déjeuner?_
+And you shall show me your pretty English country, _voulez-vous?_ You
+see, I am dressed for _le footing!_”
+
+She lifted a little brown foot.
+
+They had a delightful luncheon together. Old Martha, who proved to be
+quite a passable cook, waited on them. There was some excellent
+Burgundy and a carafe of old brandy with the coffee. Nur-el-Din was in
+her most gracious and captivating mood. She had dropped all her
+arrogance of their last interview and seemed to lay herself out to
+please. She had a keen sense of humor and entertained Desmond vastly by
+her anecdotes of her stage career, some not a little _risqué_, but
+narrated with the greatest _bonhomie_.
+
+But, strongly attracted as he was to the girl, Desmond did not let
+himself lose sight of his ultimate object. He let her run on as gaily
+as she might but steadily, relentlessly he swung the conversation round
+to her last engagement at the Palaceum. He wanted to see if she would
+make any reference to the murder at Seven Kings. If he could only bring
+in old Mackwayte’s name, he knew that the dancer _must_ allude to the
+tragedy.
+
+Then the unexpected happened. The girl introduced the old comedian’s
+name herself.
+
+“The only pleasant memory I shall preserve of the Palaceum,” she said
+in French, “is my meeting with an old comrade of my youth. Imagine, I
+had not seen him for nearly twenty years. Monsieur Mackwayte, his name
+is, we used to call him Monsieur Arthur in the old days when I was the
+child acrobat of the Dupont Troupe. Such a charming fellow; and not a
+bit changed! He was doing a deputy turn at the Palaceum on the last
+night I appeared there! And he introduced me to his daughter! _Une
+belle Anglaise!_ I shall hope to see my old friend again when I go back
+to London!”
+
+Desmond stared at her. If this were acting, the most hardened criminal
+could not have carried it off better. He searched the girl’s face. It
+was frank and innocent. She ran on about Mackwayte in the old days, his
+kindliness to everyone, his pretty wife, without a shadow of an attempt
+to avoid an unpleasant topic. Desmond began to believe that not only
+did the girl have nothing to do with the tragedy but that actually she
+knew nothing about it.
+
+“Did you see the newspapers yesterday?” he asked suddenly.
+
+“My friend,” said Nur-el-Din, shaking her curls at him. “I never read
+your English papers. There is nothing but the war in them. And this
+war!”
+
+She gave a little shudder and was silent.
+
+At this moment old Martha, who had left them over their coffee and
+cigarettes, came into the room.
+
+“There’s a gentleman called to see you, sir!” she said to Desmond.
+
+Desmond started violently. He was scarcely used to his new rôle as yet.
+
+“Who is it, Martha?” he said, mastering his agitation.
+
+“Mr. Mortimer!” mumbled the old woman in her tired voice, “at least
+that’s what he said his name was. The gentleman hadn’t got a card!”
+
+Nur-el-Din sprang up from her chair so vehemently that she upset her
+coffee.
+
+“Don’t let him come in!” she cried in French.
+
+“Did you say I was in?” Desmond asked the old housekeeper, who was
+staring at the dancer.
+
+“Why, yes, sir,” the woman answered.
+
+Desmond made a gesture of vexation.
+
+“Where is this Mr. Mortimer?” he asked
+
+“In the library, sir!”
+
+“Tell him I will be with him at once.”
+
+Martha hobbled away and Desmond turned to the girl.
+
+“You heard what my housekeeper said? The man is here. I shall have to
+see him.”
+
+Nur-el-Din, white to the lips, stood by the table, nervously twisting a
+little handkerchief.
+
+“_Non, non_,” she said rapidly, “you must not see him. He has come to
+find me. Ah! if he should find out what I have done... you will not
+give me up to this man?”
+
+“You need not see him,” Desmond expostulated gently, “I will say you
+are not here! Who is this Mortimer that he should seek to do you harm?”
+
+“My friend,” said the dancer sadly, “he is my evil genius. If I had
+dreamt that you knew him I would never have sought refuge in your
+house.”
+
+“But I’ve never set eyes on the man in my life!” exclaimed Desmond.
+
+The dancer shook her head mournfully at him.
+
+“Very few of you have, my friend,” she replied, “but you are all under
+his orders, _n’est-ce pas?_”
+
+Desmond’s heart leaped. Was Mortimer’s the guiding hand of this network
+of conspiracy?
+
+“I’ve trusted you, Monsieur,” Nur-el-Din continued in a pleading voice,
+“you will respect the laws of hospitality, and hide me from this man.
+You will not give me up! Promise it, my friend?”
+
+Desmond felt strangely moved. Was this a callous murderess, a hired
+spy, who, with her great eyes brimming over with tears, entreated his
+protection so simply, so appealingly?
+
+“I promise I will not give you up to him, _Mademoiselle!_” he said and
+hated himself in the same breath for the part he had to play. Then he
+left her still standing by the table, lost in thought.
+
+Desmond walked through the hall to the room in which he had found
+Nur-el-Din asleep on his arrival. His nerves were strung up tight for
+the impending encounter with this Mortimer, whoever, whatever he was.
+Desmond did not hesitate on the threshold of the room. He quietly
+opened the door and walked in.
+
+A man in a black and white check suit with white gaiters stood on the
+hearthrug, his hands tucked behind his back. He had a curiously
+young-old appearance, such as is found in professors and scientists of
+a certain type. This suggestion was probably heightened by the very
+strong spectacles he wore, which magnified his eyes until they looked
+like large colored marbles. He had a heavy curling moustache resembling
+that affected by the late Lord Randolph Churchill. There was a good
+deal of mud on his boots, showing that he had come on foot.
+
+The two men measured one another in a brief but courteous glance.
+Desmond wondered what on earth this man’s profession was. He was quite
+unable to place him.
+
+“Mr. Bellward?” said Mortimer, in a pleasant cultivated voice, “I am
+pleased to have this opportunity of meeting you personally.”
+
+Desmond bowed and muttered something conventional. Mortimer had put out
+his hand but Desmond could not nerve himself to take it. Instead he
+pushed forward a chair.
+
+“Thanks,” said Mortimer sitting down heavily, “I’ve had quite a walk
+across the fen. It’s pleasant out but damp! I suppose you didn’t get my
+letter?”
+
+“Which letter was that” asked Desmond.
+
+“Why the one asking you to let me know when you would be back so that
+we might meet at last!”
+
+Desmond shook his head.
+
+“No,” he said, “I didn’t get that one. It must have gone astray. As a
+matter of fact,” he added, “I only got back this morning.”
+
+“Oh, well then, I am fortunate in my visit,” said Mortimer. “Did
+everything go off all right?”
+
+“Oh, yes,” Desmond hastened to say, not knowing what he was talking
+about, “everything went off all right.”
+
+“I don’t in the least grudge you the holiday,” the other observed, “one
+should always be careful to pay the last respects to the dead. It makes
+a good impression. That is so important in some countries!”
+
+He beamed at Desmond through his spectacles.
+
+“Was there anything left in your absence?” he asked, “no, there would
+be nothing; I suppose!”
+
+Desmond took a firm resolution. He must know what the man was driving
+at.
+
+“I don’t know what you mean,” he said bluntly.
+
+“God bless my soul!” ejaculated Mortimer turning round to stare at him
+through his grotesque glasses. And then he said very deliberately in
+German:
+
+“_War niemand da?_”
+
+Desmond stood up promptly.
+
+“What do you want with me?” he asked quietly, “and why do you speak
+German in my house?” Mortimer gazed at him blankly.
+
+“Excellence, most excellent,” he gasped. “I love prudence. My friend,
+where are your eyes?”
+
+He put a large, firm hand up and touched the upper edge of the left
+lapel of his jacket. Desmond followed his gesture with his eyes and saw
+the other’s first finger resting on the shiny glass head of a black
+pin. Almost instinctively Desmond imitated the gesture. His fingers
+came into contact with a glassheaded pin similarly embedded in the
+upper edge of the lapel of his own coat.
+
+Then he understood. This must be the distinguishing badge of this
+confraternity of spies. It was a clever idea, for the black pin was
+practically invisible, unless one looked for it, and even if seen,
+would give rise to no suspicions. It had obviously escaped the notice
+of the Chief and his merry men, and Desmond made a mental resolve to
+rub this omission well into his superior on the first opportunity. He
+felt he owed the Chief one.
+
+Mr. Mortimer cleared his throat, as though to indicate the conclusion
+of the episode. Desmond sat down on the settee.
+
+“Nothing came while I was away!” he said.
+
+“Now that you are back,” Mortimer remarked, polishing his glasses with
+a bandanna handkerchief, “the service will be resumed. I have come to
+see you, Mr. Bellward,” he went on, turning to Desmond, “contrary to my
+usual practice, mainly because I wished to confirm by personal
+observation the very favorable opinion I had formed of your ability
+from our correspondence. You have already demonstrated your discretion
+to me. If you continue to show that your prudence is on a level with
+your zeal, believe I shall not prove myself ungrateful.”
+
+So saying he settled his glasses on his nose again.
+
+The action woke Desmond from a brown study. During the operation of
+wiping his spectacles, Mr. Mortimer had given Desmond a glimpse of his
+eyes in their natural state without the protection of those distorting
+glasses. To his intense surprise Desmond had seen, instead of the weak,
+blinking eyes of extreme myopia, a pair of keen piercing eyes with the
+clear whites of perfect health. Those blue eyes, set rather close
+together, seemed dimly familiar. Someone, somewhere, had once looked at
+him like that.
+
+“You are too kind,” murmured Desmond, grappling for the thread of the
+conversation.
+
+Mortimer did not apparently notice his absentmindedness.
+
+“Everything has run smoothly,” he resumed, “on the lines on which we
+have been working hitherto, but more important work lies before us. I
+have found it necessary to select a quiet rendezvous where I might have
+an opportunity of conferring in person with my associates. The first of
+these conferences will take place very shortly. I count upon your
+attendance, Bellward!”
+
+“I shall not fail you,” replied Desmond. “But where is this rendezvous
+of yours, might I ask?”
+
+Mortimer shot a quick glance at him.
+
+“You shall know in good time,” he answered drily. Then he added:
+
+“Do you mind if I have a few words with Nur-el-Din before I go!”
+
+The unexpected question caught Desmond off his guard.
+
+“Nur-el-Din?” he stammered feebly.
+
+“She is staying with you, I believe,” said Mortimer pleasantly.
+
+Desmond shook his head.
+
+“There must be some mistake,” he averred stoutly, “of course I know who
+you mean, but I have never met the lady. She is not here. What led you
+to suppose she was?”
+
+But even as he spoke, his eyes fell on a black object which lay near
+his arm stretched out along the back of the settee. It was a little
+velvet hat, skewered to the upholstery of the settee by a couple of
+jewelled hat-pins. A couple of gaudy cushions lay between it and
+Mortimer’s range of vision from the chair in which the latter was
+sitting. If only Mortimer had not spotted it already!
+
+Desmond’s presence of mind did not desert him. On the pretext of
+settling himself more comfortably he edged up another cushion until it
+rested upon the other two, thus effectively screening the hat from
+Mortimer’s view even when he should get up.
+
+“I wish she were here,” Desmond added, smiling, “one could not have a
+more delightful companion to share one’s solitude, I imagine.”
+
+“The lady has disappeared from London under rather suspicious
+circumstances;” Mortimer said, letting his grotesque eyes rest for a
+moment on Desmond’s face, “to be quite frank with you, my dear fellow,
+she has been indiscreet, and the police are after her.”
+
+“You don’t say!” cried Desmond.
+
+“Indeed, it is a fact,” replied the other, “I wish she would take you
+as her model, my dear Bellward. You are the pattern of prudence, are
+you not?”
+
+He paused perceptibly and Desmond held his breath.
+
+“She has very few reputable friends,” Mortimer continued presently,
+“under a cloud as she is, she could hardly frequent the company of her
+old associates, Mowbury and Lazarro and Mrs. Malplaquet, you doubtless
+know whom I mean. I know she has a very strong recommendation to you,
+so I naturally thought—well, no matter!”
+
+He rose and extended his hand.
+
+“_Au revoir_, Bellward,” he said, “you shall hear from me very soon.
+You’ve got a snug little place here, I must say, and everything in
+charming taste. I like your pretty cushions.”
+
+The blood flew to Desmond’s face and he bent down, on pretense of
+examining the cushions, to hide his confusion.
+
+“They aren’t bad,” he said, “I got them at Harrod’s!”
+
+He accompanied Mortimer to the front door and watched him disappear
+down the short drive and turn out of the gate into the road. Then
+feeling strangely ill at ease, he went back to join Nur-el-Din in the
+dining-room. But only the housekeeper was there, clearing the table.
+
+“If you’re looking for the young lady, sir,” said old Martha, “she’s
+gone out!”
+
+“Oh!” said Desmond, with a shade of disappointment in his voice, “will
+she be back for tea?”
+
+“She’s not coming back at all,” answered the old woman, “she told me to
+tell you she could not stop, sir. And she wouldn’t let me disturb you,
+neither, sir.”
+
+“But did she leave no note or anything for me?” asked Desmond.
+
+“No, sir,” answered old Martha as she folded up the cloth.
+
+Gone! Desmond stared gloomily out at the sopping garden with an uneasy
+feeling that he had failed in his duty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+WHAT SHAKESPEARE’S COMEDIES REVEALED
+
+
+In a very depressed frame of mind, Desmond turned into the library. As
+he crossed the hall, he noticed how cheerless the house was. Again
+there came to him that odor of mustiness—of all smells the most eerie
+and drear—which he had noticed on his arrival. Somehow, as long as
+Nur-el-Din had been there, he had not remarked the appalling loneliness
+of the place.
+
+A big log fire was blazing cheerfully in the grate, throwing out a
+bright glow into the room which, despite the early hour, was already
+wreathed in shadows. Wearily Desmond pulled a big armchair up to the
+blaze and sat down. He told himself that he must devote every minute of
+his spare time to going over in his mind the particulars he had
+memorized of Mr. Bellward’s habits and acquaintanceships. He took the
+list of Bellward’s friends from his pocket-book.
+
+But this afternoon he found it difficult to concentrate his attention.
+His gaze kept wandering back to the fire, in whose glowing depths he
+fancied he could see a perfect oval face with pleading eyes and
+dazzling teeth looking appealingly at him.
+
+Nur-el-Din! What an entrancing creature she was! What passion lurked in
+those black eyes of hers, in her moods, swiftly changing from gusts of
+fierce imperiousness to gentle airs of feminine charm! What a frail
+little thing she was to have fought her way alone up the ladder from
+the lowest rung to the very top! She must have character and grit,
+Desmond decided, for he was a young man who adored efficiency: to him
+efficiency spelled success.
+
+But a spy needs grit, he reflected, and Nur-el-Din had many qualities
+which would enable her to win the confidence of men. Hadn’t she
+half-captivated him, the would-be spy-catcher, already?
+
+Desmond laughed ruefully to himself. Indeed, he mused, things looked
+that way. What would the Chief say if he could see his prize young man,
+his white-headed boy, sitting sentimentalizing by the fire over a woman
+who was, by her own confession, practically an accredited German agent?
+Desmond thrust his chin out and shook himself together. He would put
+the feminine side of Nur-el-Din out of his head. He must think of her
+henceforth only as a member of the band that was spotting targets for
+those sneaking, callous brutes of U-boat commanders.
+
+He went back to the study of the list of Mr. Bellward’s friends. But he
+found it impossible to focus his mind upon it. Do what he would, he
+could not rid himself of the sensation that he had failed at the very
+outset of his mission. He was, indeed, he told himself, the veriest
+tyro at the game. Here he had had under his hand in turn Nur-el-Din and
+Mortimer (who, he made no doubt, was the leader of the gang which was
+so sorely troubling the Chief), and he had let both get away without
+eliciting from either even as much as their address. By the use of a
+little tact, he had counted on penetrating something of the mystery
+enveloping the dancer and her relationship with the gang; for he
+thought he divined that Nur-el-Din was inclined to make him her
+confidant. With the information thus procured, he had hoped to get on
+to the track of the leader of the band.
+
+But that ugly brute; Mortimer, with his goggle eyes, had spoiled
+everything. His appearance had taken Desmond completely by surprise: to
+tell the truth, it had thrown our young man rather off his guard. “If
+only I might have had a little longer acquaintance with my part,” he
+reflected bitterly as he sat by the fire, “I should have been better
+able to deal with that pompous ass!”
+
+Afterwards, when thinking over the opening events of this extraordinary
+episode of his career, Desmond rather wondered why he had not followed
+Mortimer out of the house that afternoon and tracked him down to his
+hiding place. But, as a matter of fact, the idea did not occur to him
+at the time. His orders were positive not to leave the house, and he
+never even thought of breaking them—at any rate, not then.
+
+His orders, also, it is true, were to report to headquarters any
+communication that might be made to him; but these instructions, at
+least as far as Nur-el-Din’s and Mortimer’s visits were concerned, he
+resolved to ignore.
+
+For one thing, he felt angry with the Chief who, he argued rather
+irrationally, ought to have foreseen and prevented Mortimer thus taking
+him by surprise. The Chief liked secrets—well, for a change, he should
+be kept in the dark and the laugh would be on Desmond’s side. For a few
+minutes after Mortimer’s departure, Desmond had felt strongly inclined
+to go to the telephone which stood on the desk in the library and ring
+up Mr. Elias, as he should have done, but he resisted this impulse.
+Now, thinking things over in the firelight, he was glad he had
+refrained. He would ferret out for himself the exact part that
+Nur-el-Din and Mortimer were playing in this band of spies. Nothing
+definite had come of his interviews with them as yet. It would be time
+enough to communicate with Headquarters when he had something positive
+to report.
+
+Then Desmond thrust the paper he had been studying back in his
+pocket-book and jumped up. He felt that the inaction was stifling him.
+He determined to go for a walk round the garden. That, at least, was in
+the spirit of his orders.
+
+Remembering that he was supposed to be suffering from a chill he donned
+a heavy Ulster of Bellward’s which was hanging in the hall and wound a
+muffler round his neck. Then cramming a soft cap on his head (he noted
+with satisfaction that Bellward’s hats fitted him remarkably well) he
+opened the front door and stepped outside.
+
+The rain had stopped, but the whole atmosphere reeked of moisture.
+Angry-looking, dirty-brown clouds chased each other across the lowering
+sky, and there was a constant sound of water, trickling and gurgling
+and splashing, in his ears.
+
+An untidy-looking lawn with a few unkempt and overgrown rhododendron
+bushes dotted here and there ran its length in front of the house and
+terminated in an iron railing which separated the grounds from a little
+wood. A badly water-logged drive, green with grass in places, ran past
+the lawn in a couple of short bends to the front gate. On the other
+side the drive was bordered by what had once been a kitchen garden but
+was now a howling wilderness of dead leaves, mud and gravel with
+withered bushes and half a dozen black, bare and dripping apple trees
+set about at intervals. At the side of the house the kitchen garden
+stopped and was joined by a flower garden—at least so Desmond judged it
+to have been by a half ruined pergola which he had noticed from the
+drawing-room windows. Through the garden ran the mill-race which poured
+out of the grounds through a field and under a little bridge spanning
+the road outside.
+
+Desmond followed the drive as far as the front gate. The surrounding
+country was as flat as a pancake, and in almost every field lay great
+glistening patches of water where the land had been flooded by the
+incessant rain. The road on which the house was built ran away on the
+left to the mist-shrouded horizon without another building of any kind
+in sight. Desmond surmised that Morstead Fen lay in the direction in
+which he was looking. To the right, Desmond caught a glimpse of a
+ghostly spire sticking out of some trees and guessed that this was
+Wentfield Church. In front of him the distant roar of a passing train
+showed where the Great Eastern Railway line lay.
+
+More depressed than ever by the utter desolation of the scene, Desmond
+turned to retrace his steps to the house. Noticing a path traversing
+the kitchen garden, he followed it. It led to the back of the house, to
+the door of a kind of lean-to shed. The latch yielded on being pressed
+and Desmond entered the place.
+
+He found himself in a fair-sized shed, very well and solidly built of
+pitch-pine, with a glazed window looking out on the garden, a table and
+a couple of chairs, and a large cupboard which occupied the whole of
+one side of the wall of the house against which the shed was built. In
+a corner of the shed stood a very good-looking Douglas motor-cycle, and
+on a nail on the wall hung a set of motor-cyclist’s overalls. A few
+petrol cans, some full, some empty, stood against the wall.
+
+Desmond examined the machine. It was in excellent condition,
+beautifully clean, the tank half full of spirits. A little dry sand on
+the tires showed that it had been used fairly recently.
+
+“Old man Bellward’s motor-bike that he goes to the station on,” Desmond
+noted mentally. “But what’s in the big cupboard, I wonder? Tools, I
+expect!”
+
+Then he caught sight of a deep drawer in the table. It was half-open
+and he saw that it contained various tools and spare parts, neatly
+arranged, each one in its appointed place.
+
+He went over to the cupboard and tried it. It was locked. Desmond had
+little respect for Mr. Bellward’s property so he went over to the tool
+drawer and selected a stout chisel with which to burst the lock of the
+cupboard. But the cupboard was of oak, very solidly built, and he tried
+in vain to get a purchase for his implement. He leant his left hand
+against the edge of the cupboard whilst with his right he jabbed
+valiantly with the chisel.
+
+Then an extraordinary thing happened. The whole cupboard noiselessly
+swung outwards while Desmond, falling forward, caught his forehead a
+resounding bang against the edge of the recess in which it moved. He
+picked himself up in a very savage frame of mind—a severe blow on the
+head is not the ideal cure for hypochondria—but the flow of
+objurgatives froze on his lips. For he found himself looking into Mr.
+Bellward’s library.
+
+He stepped into the room to see how the cupboard looked from the other
+side. He found that a whole section of bookshelves had swung back with
+the cupboard, in other words that the cupboard in the toolshed and the
+section of bookshelves were apparently all of one piece.
+
+He carefully examined the walls on either side of the recess in the
+library to see how the mechanism worked. The bookshelves were open,
+made of mahogany, the sides elaborately carved with leaves and flowers.
+Desmond ran his hand down the perpendicular section immediately on the
+right of the recess. About halfway down—to be exact, it was in line
+with the fifth shelf from the floor—his fingers encountered a little
+knob which gave under pressure—the heart of a flower which released the
+section of bookshelves. Going back to the shed, Desmond examined the
+place against which his hand had rested as he sought to force the lock
+of the cupboard. As he expected, he found a similar catch let into the
+surface of the oak, but so cunningly inlaid that it could scarce be
+detected with the naked eye.
+
+Before proceeding further with his investigations, Desmond softly
+turned the lock of the library door. He also shot forward a bolt he
+found on the inside of the door of the shed. He did not want to be
+interrupted by the housekeeper or the odd man.
+
+Then he went back to the library and pulled the cupboard to behind him.
+It moved quite easily into place. He wanted to have a look at the
+bookshelves; for he was curious to know whether the cupboard was
+actually all of one piece with the section of bookshelves as it seemed
+to be. He was prepared to find that the books were merely library
+dummies, but no! He tried half a dozen shelves at random, and every
+book he pulled out was real.
+
+Desmond was not easily baffled, and he determined to scrutinize every
+shelf, of this particular section in turn. With the aid of one of those
+step-ladders folding into a chair which you sometimes see in libraries,
+he examined the topmost shelves but without result. He took down in
+turn Macaulay’s History of England, a handsome edition of the works of
+Swift, and a set of Moliere without getting any nearer the end of his
+quest.
+
+The fourth shelf from the top was devoted to a library edition of
+Shakespeare, large books bound in red morocco. Desmond, who, by this
+time was getting cramp in the arms from stretching upwards and had made
+his hands black with dust, pulled out a couple of volumes at hazard
+from the set and found them real books like the rest.
+
+“Oh, damn!” he exclaimed, and had half a mind to abandon the search and
+have a go with hammer and chisel at the cupboard in the shed. By this
+time it was almost dusk in the library, and Desmond, before abandoning
+the search, struck a match to have a final rapid glance over the
+shelves. The light showed him a curious flatness about the backs of the
+last six volumes of Shakespeare. He dropped the match and laid hold of
+a volume of the Comedies. It resisted. He tugged. Still it would not
+come. Exerting all his strength, he pulled, the gilt-lettered backs of
+the last six volumes came away in his hands in one piece and he crashed
+off the ladder to the ground.
+
+This time he did not swear. He picked himself up quickly, lit the lamp
+on the table by the window, and brought it over to the bookcase. Where
+Shakespeare’s Comedies had stood was now a gaping void with a small key
+stuck in a lock, above a brass handle. Desmond mounted on the steps
+again and eagerly turned the key. Then he grasped the handle and
+pulled, the section of bookshelves swung back like a door, and he found
+himself face to face with a great stack of petrol cans. They lay in
+orderly piles stretching from the floor to the top of the bookshelves
+near the railing, several tiers deep. At a rough computation there must
+have been several hundred cans in the recess. And they were all full.
+
+In a flash Desmond realized what his discovery signified. The
+motor-cycle in the shed without was the connecting link between
+Bellward and the man with whom he was co-operating in the organization.
+Under pretext of reading late in his library Bellward would send old
+Martha to bed, and once the house was quiet, sally forth by his secret
+exit and meet his confederate. Even when he was supposed to be sleeping
+in London he could still use the Mill House for a rendezvous, entering
+and leaving by the secret door, and no one a bit the wiser. In that
+desolate part of Essex, the roads are practically deserted after dark.
+Bellward could come and go much as he pleased on his motor-cycle. Were
+he stopped, he always had the excuse ready that he was going to—or
+returning from the station. The few petrol cans that Desmond had seen
+openly displayed in the shed without seemed to show that Bellward
+received a small quantity of spirit from the Petrol Board to take him
+to and from the railway.
+
+The cache, so elaborately concealed, however, pointed to long journeys.
+Did Bellward undertake these trips to fetch news or to transmit it? And
+who was his confederate? Whom did he go to meet? Not Mortimer; for he
+had only corresponded with Bellward. Nor was it Nur-el-Din; for she had
+never met Bellward, either.
+
+Who was it, then?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+BARBARA TAKES A HAND
+
+
+“No luck, Mr. Marigold,” said the Assistant Provost Marshal, “I’m
+sorry, but there it is! We’ve made every possible inquiry about this
+Private... er...” he glanced at the buff-colored leave pass in his
+hand, “... this Gunner Barling, but we can’t trace him so far. He
+should have gone back to France the afternoon before the day on which
+you found his pass. But he hasn’t rejoined his unit. He’s been posted
+as an absentee, and the police have been warned. I’m afraid we can’t do
+any more than that!”
+
+The detective looked at the officer with mild reproach in his eyes.
+
+“Dear, dear,” he replied, “and I made sure you’d be able to trace him
+with that pass!”
+
+He clicked his tongue against his teeth and shook his head.
+
+“Dear, dear!” he said again.
+
+“What’s the feller been up to?” asked the A.P.M. Detectives have a
+horror of leading questions, and Mr. Marigold shrank visibly before the
+directness of the other’s inquiry. Before replying, however, he
+measured the officer with his calm, shrewd eye. Mr. Marigold was not
+above breaking his own rules of etiquette if thereby he might gain a
+useful ally.
+
+“Well, Captain Beardiston,” he answered slowly, “I’ll tell you because
+I think that you may be able to help me a little bit. It’s part of your
+work to look after deserters and absentees and those sort o’ folk,
+isn’t it?”
+
+The A.P.M. groaned.
+
+“Part of my work?” he repeated, “it seems to be my whole life ever
+since I came back from the front.”
+
+“If you want to know what this young fellow has been up to,” said Mr.
+Marigold in his even voice, “it’s murder, if I’m not mistaken!”
+
+“Murder?” echoed the other in surprise. “Why, not the Seven Kings
+murder, surely?”
+
+The detective gave a brisk nod.
+
+“That’s it,” he replied, “I’m in charge of that case, if you follow me.
+I found that pass in the front garden of the Mackwayte’s house in
+Laleham Villas, half trodden into the earth of the flower-bed by a
+heavy boot, a service boot, studded with nails. There had been a lot of
+rain in the night, and it had washed the mosaic-tiled pathway up to the
+front door almost clean. When I was having a look round the garden, I
+picked up this pass, and then I spotted the trace of service boots, a
+bit faint, on the beds. You know the way the nails are set in the issue
+boots?”
+
+The officer nodded:
+
+“I ought to know that foot-print,” he said. “It’s all over the roads in
+northern France.”
+
+“We made inquiries through you,” the detective resumed, “and when I
+found that this Gunner Barling, the owner of the pass, was missing,
+well, you will admit, it looked a bit suspicious.”
+
+“Still, you know,” the A.P.M. objected, “this man appears to have the
+most excellent character. He’s got a clean sheet; he’s never gone
+absent before. And he’s been out with his battery almost since the
+beginning of the war.”
+
+“I’m not making any charge against him as yet,” answered the detective,
+picking up his hat, “but it would interest me very much, very much
+indeed, Captain Beardiston, to have five minutes’ chat with this
+gunner. And so I ask you to keep a sharp lookout for a man answering to
+his description, and if you come across him, freeze on to him hard, and
+give me a ring on the telephone.”
+
+“Right you are,” said the officer, “I’ll hold him for you, Mr.
+Marigold. But I hope your suspicions are not well-founded.”
+
+For a brief moment the detective became a human being.
+
+“And so do I, if you want to know,” he said. “One can forgive those
+lads who are fighting out there almost anything. I’ve got a boy in
+France myself!”
+
+A little sigh escaped him, and then Mr. Marigold remembered “The Yard.”
+
+“I’ll bid you good-day!” he added in his most official voice and took
+his leave.
+
+He walked down the steps by the Duke of York’s column and through the
+Horse Guards into Whitehall, seemingly busy with his own thoughts. A
+sprucely dressed gentleman who was engaged in the exciting and
+lucrative sport of war profiteering turned color and hastily swerved
+out towards the Park as he saw the detective crossing the Horse Guards’
+Parade. He was unpleasantly reminded of making the acquaintance of Mr.
+Marigold over a bucketshop a few years ago with the result that he had
+vanished from the eye of his friends for eighteen months. He
+congratulated himself on thinking that Mr. Marigold had not seen him,
+but he would have recognized his mistake could he but have caught sight
+of the detective’s face. A little smile flitted across Mr. Marigold’s
+lips and he murmured to himself:
+
+“Our old friend is looking very prosperous just now. I wonder what he’s
+up to?”
+
+Mr. Marigold didn’t miss much.
+
+The detective made his way to the Chief’s office. Barbara Mackwayte, in
+a simple black frock with white linen collar and cuffs, was at her old
+place in the ante-room. A week had elapsed since the murder, and the
+day before, Mr. Marigold knew, the mortal remains of poor old Mackwayte
+had been laid to rest. He was rather surprised to see the girl back at
+work so soon.
+
+She did not speak to him as she showed him into the Chief, but there
+was a question lurking in her gray eyes.
+
+Mr. Marigold looked at her and gravely shook his head.
+
+“Nothing fresh,” he said.
+
+The Chief was unusually exuberant. Mr. Marigold found him surrounded,
+as was his wont, by papers, and a fearsome collection of telephone
+receivers. He listened in silence to Mr. Marigold’s account of his
+failure to trace Barling.
+
+“Marigold,” he said, when the other had finished, “we must undoubtedly
+lay hold of this fellow. Let’s see now... ah! I have it!”
+
+He scribbled a few lines on a writing-pad and tossed it across to the
+detective.
+
+“If your friend’s innocent,” he chuckled, “that’ll fetch him to a dead
+certainty. If he murdered Mackwayte, of course he won’t respond. Read
+it out and let’s hear how it sounds!”
+
+The Chief leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette while the
+detective read out:
+
+“If Gunner Barling, etcetera, etcetera, will communicate with Messrs.
+Blank and Blank, solicitors, he will hear of something to his
+advantage. Difficulties with the military can be arranged.”
+
+“But I say, sir,” objected Mr. Marigold, “the military authorities will
+hardly stand for that last, will they?”
+
+“Won’t they, by Jove” retorted the Chief grimly. “They will if I tell
+’em to. No official soullessness for me; thank you! And now, Marigold,
+just ask Matthews to fill in Barling’s regimental number and all that
+and the name and address of the solicitors who do this kind of thing
+for us. And tell him we’ll insert the ad. daily until further notice in
+the _Mail, Chronicle, Daily News, Sketch, Mirror, Evening News_...”
+
+“And _Star_,” put in Mr. Marigold who had Radical tendencies.
+
+“The _Star_, too, by all means. That ought to cover the extent of your
+pal’s newspaper reading, I fancy, eh, Marigold! Right!”
+
+He held out a hand in farewell. But Mr. Marigold stood his ground. He
+was rather a slow mover, and there were a lot of things he wanted to
+discuss with the Chief.
+
+“I was very sorry to see poor Major Okewood in the casualty list this
+morning, sir,” he said. “I was going to ask you...”
+
+“Ah, terrible, terrible!” said the Chief. Then he added:
+
+“Just tell Miss Mackwayte I want her as you go out, will you?”
+
+The detective was used to surprises but the Chief still bowled him out
+occasionally. Before he knew what he was doing, Mr. Marigold found
+himself in the ante-room doing as he was bid.
+
+As soon as her father’s funeral was over; Barbara had insisted on
+returning to work. The whole ghastly business of the murder and the
+inquest that followed seemed to her like a bad dream which haunted her
+day and night. By tacit consent no one in the office had made any
+further allusion, to the tragedy. She had just slipped back into her
+little niche, prompt, punctual, efficient as ever.
+
+“No, it’s not for the letters,” the Chief said to her as she came in
+with her notebook and pencil. “I’m going to give you a little trip down
+to the country this afternoon, Miss Mackwayte... to, Essex... the Mill
+House, Wentfield... you know whom it is you are to see, eh? I’m getting
+a little restless as we’ve had no reports since he arrived there. I had
+hoped, by this, to have been able to put him on the track of
+Nur-el-Din, but, for the moment, it looks as if we had lost the scent.
+But you can tell our friend all we know about the lady’s
+antecedents—what we had from my French colleague the other day, you
+know? Let him have all the particulars about this Barling case—you know
+about that, don’t you? Good, and, see here, try and find out from our
+mutual friend what he intends doing. I don’t want to rush him... don’t
+let him think that... but I should rather like to discover whether he
+has formed any plan. And now you get along. There’s a good train about
+three which gets you down to Wentfield in just under the hour. Take
+care of yourself! See you in the morning!”
+
+Pressing a bell with one hand and lifting up a telephone receiver with
+the other, the Chief immersed himself again in his work. He appeared to
+have forgotten Miss Mackwayte’s very existence.
+
+At a quarter to five that evening, Barbara unlatched the front gate of
+the Mill House and walked up the drive. She had come on foot from the
+station and the exercise had done her good. It had been a deliciously
+soft balmy afternoon, but with the fall of dusk a heavy mist had come
+creeping up from the sodden, low-lying fields and was spreading out
+over the neglected garden of Mr. Bellward’s villa as Barbara entered
+the avenue.
+
+The damp gloom of the place, however, depressed her not at all. She
+exulted in the change of scene and the fresh air; besides, she knew
+that the presence of Desmond Okewood would dispel the vague fears that
+had hung over her incessantly ever since her father’s murder. She had
+only met him twice, she told herself when this thought occurred to her,
+but there was something bracing and dependable about him that was just
+the tonic she wanted.
+
+A porter at the station, who was very intelligent as country porters
+go, had told her the way to the Mill House. The way was not easy to
+find for there were various turns to make but, with the aid of such
+landmarks as an occasional inn, a pond or a barn, given her by the
+friendly porter, Barbara reached her destination. Under the porch she
+pulled the handle of the bell, all dank and glistening with moisture,
+and heard it tinkle loudly somewhere within the house.
+
+How lonely the place was, thought Barbara with a little shiver! The fog
+was growing thicker every minute and now seemed suspended like a vast
+curtain between her and the drive. Somewhere in the distance she heard
+the hollow gurgling of a stream. Otherwise, there was no sound.
+
+She rang the bell again rather nervously and waited. In her bag she had
+a little torch-light (for she was a practical young person), and taking
+it out, she flashed it on the door. It presented a stolid, impenetrable
+oaken front. She stepped out into the fog and scanned the windows which
+were already almost lost to view. They were dark and forbidding.
+
+Again she tugged at the bell. Again, with a groaning of wires,
+responded the hollow tinkle. Then silence fell once more. Barbara began
+to get alarmed. What had happened to Major Okewood? She had understood
+that there was no question of his leaving the house until the Chief
+gave him the word. Where, then, was he? He was not the man to disobey
+an order. Rather than believe that, she would think that something
+untoward had befallen him. Had there been foul play here, too?
+
+A sudden panic seized her. She grasped the bell and tugged and tugged
+until she could tug no more. The bell jangled and pealed and clattered
+reverberatingly from the gloomy house, and then, with a jarring of
+wires, relapsed into silence. Barbara beat on the door with her hands,
+for there was no knocker; but all remained still within. Only the dank
+mist swirled in ever denser about her as she stood beneath the dripping
+porch.
+
+“This won’t do!” said Barbara, pulling herself together. “I mustn’t get
+frightened, whatever I do! Major Okewood is very well capable of
+defending himself. What’s happened is that the man has been called away
+and the servants have taken advantage of his absence to go out!
+Barbara, my dear, you’ll just have to foot it back to the station
+without your tea!”
+
+She turned her back on the door and torch in hand, plunged resolutely
+into the fog-bank. The mist was bewilderingly thick. Still, by going
+slow and always keeping the gravel under her feet, she reached the
+front gate and turned out on the road.
+
+Here the mist was worse than ever. She had not taken four paces before
+she had lost all sense of her direction. The gate, the railways, were
+gone. She was groping in a clinging pall of fog.
+
+Her torch was worse than useless. It only illuminated swirling swathes
+of mist and confused her, so she switched it out. In vain she looked
+about her, trying to pick up some landmark to guide her. There was no
+light, no tree, no house visible, nothing but the dank, ghostly mist.
+
+To some temperaments, Nature has no terrors. Barbara, to whose
+imagination an empty house at dusk had suggested all kinds of
+unimaginable fears, was not in the least frightened by the fog. She
+only hoped devoutly that a motor-car or a trap would not come along
+behind and run her down for she was obliged to keep to the road; the
+hard surface beneath her feet was her only guide.
+
+She smiled over her predicament as she made her way along. She
+frequently found herself going off the road, more than once into
+patches of water, with the result that in a few minutes her feet were
+sopping. Still she forged ahead, with many vain halts to reconnoitre
+while the fog, instead of lifting, seemed to thicken with every step
+she took.
+
+By this time she knew she was completely lost. Coming from the station
+there had been, she remembered, a cross-roads with a sign-board set up
+on a grass patch, about a quarter of a mile from the Mill House. She
+expected every minute to come upon this fork; again and again she
+swerved out to the left from her line of march groping for the
+sign-post with her hands but she never encountered it.
+
+Few sounds came to break in upon the oppressive silence of the mist.
+Once or twice Barbara heard a train roaring along in the distance and,
+at one of her halts, her ear caught the high rising note of a motor
+engine a long way off. Except for these occasional reminders of the
+proximity of human beings, she felt she must be on a desert island
+instead of less than two score miles from London.
+
+Her wrist watch showed her that she had walked for an hour when she
+heard a dog barking somewhere on the left of the road. Presently, she
+saw a blurred patch of radiance apparently on the ground in front of
+her. So deceptive are lights seen through a fog that she was quite
+taken aback suddenly to come upon a long low house with a great beam of
+light streaming out of the door.
+
+The house was approached by a little bridge across a broad ditch. By
+the bridge stood a tall, massive post upon which a sign squeaked softly
+as it swayed to and fro. The inn was built round three sides of a
+square, the left-hand side being the house itself, the centre, the
+kitchen, and the right-hand side a tumble-down stable and some sheds.
+
+The welcome blaze of light coming from the open door was very welcome
+to Barbara after her, long journey through the mist. She dragged her
+wet and weary feet across the little bridge and went up to the
+inn-door.
+
+She stood for a moment at the entrance dazzled by the effect of the
+light on her eyes, which were smarting with the fog. She found herself
+looking into a long, narrow, taproom, smelling of stale beer and
+tobacco fumes, and lit by oil lamps suspended in wire frames from the
+raftered ceiling. The windows were curtained in cheerful red rep and
+the place was pleasantly warmed by a stove in one corner. By the stove
+was a small door apparently leading into the bar, for beside it was a
+window through which Barbara caught a glimpse of beer-engines and rows
+of bottles. Opposite the doorway in which she stood was another door
+leading probably to the back of the house. Down the centre of the room
+ran a long table.
+
+The tap-room was empty when Barbara entered but as she sat down at the
+table, the door opposite opened, and a short, foreign-looking woman
+came out. She stepped dead on seeing the girl: Her face seemed familiar
+to Barbara.
+
+“Good evening” said the latter, “I’ve lost my way in the fog and I’m
+very wet. Do you think I could have my shoes and stockings dried and
+get some tea? I...”
+
+“A moment! I go to tell Meester Rass,” said the woman with a very
+marked foreign accent and in a frightened kind of voice and slipped out
+by the way she came.
+
+“Where have I met that woman before?” Barbara asked herself, as she
+crossed to tile stove to get warm. The woman’s face seemed to be
+connected in her mind with something unpleasant, something she wanted
+to forget. Then a light dawned on her. Why, it was...
+
+A shrill cry broke in upon her meditations, a harsh scream of rage.
+Barbara turned quickly and saw Nur-el-Din standing in the centre of the
+room. She was transfigured with passion. Her whole body quivered, her
+nostrils were dilated, her eyes flashed fire, and she pointed an
+accusing finger at Barbara.
+
+“Ah! _misérable!_” she cried in a voice strangled with rage, “ah!
+_misérable! Te voila enfin!_”
+
+A cold chill struck at Barbara’s heart. Wherever she went, the hideous
+spectre of the tragedy of her father seemed to follow her. And now
+Nur-el-Din had come to upbraid her with losing the treasure she had
+entrusted to her.
+
+“Nur-el-Din,” the girl faltered in a voice broken with tears.
+
+“Where is it? Where is the silver box I gave into your charge? Answer
+me. _Mais réponds, donc, canaille!_”
+
+The dancer stamped furiously with her foot and advanced menacingly on
+Barbara.
+
+An undersized; yellow-faced man came quickly out of the small door
+leading from the bar and stood an instant, a helpless witness of the
+scene, as men are when women quarrel.
+
+Nur-el-Din rapped out an order to him in a tongue which was unknown to
+Barbara. It sounded something like Russian. The man turned and locked
+the door of the bar, then stepped swiftly across the room and bolted
+the outer door.
+
+Barbara recognized the threat that the action implied and it served to
+steady her nerves. She shrank back no longer but drew herself up and
+waited calmly for the dancer to reach her.
+
+“The box you gave me,” said Barbara very quietly, “was stolen from me
+by the person who... who murdered my father!”
+
+Nur-el-Din burst into a peal of malicious laughter.
+
+“And you?” she cried, “you are ’ere to sell it back to me, _hein_, or
+to get your blood money from your accomplice? Which is it?”
+
+On this Barbara’s self-control abandoned her.
+
+“Oh, how dare you! How dare you!” she exclaimed, bursting into tears,
+“when that wretched box you made me take was the means of my losing the
+dearest friend I ever had!”
+
+Nur-el-Din thrust her face, distorted with passion, into Barbara’s. She
+spoke in rapid French, in a low, menacing voice.
+
+“Do you think this play-acting will deceive me? Do you think I don’t
+know the value of the treasure I was fool enough to entrust to your
+safe keeping? _Grand Dieu!_ I must have been mad not to have remembered
+that no woman could resist the price that they were willing to pay for
+it! And to think what I have risked for it! Is all my sacrifice to have
+been in vain?”
+
+Her voice rose to a note of pleading and the tears started from her
+eyes. Her mood changed. She began to wheedle.
+
+“Come, _ma petite_, you will help me recover my little box, _n’est-ce
+pas?_ You will find me generous. And I am rich, I have great savings. I
+can...”
+
+Barbara put up her hands and pushed the dancer away from her.
+
+“After what you have said to me to-night,” she said, “I wouldn’t give
+you back your box even if I had it.”
+
+She turned to the man.
+
+“Will you tell me the way to the nearest station” she went on, “and
+kindly open that door!”
+
+The man looked interrogatively at Nur-el-Din who spoke a few words
+rapidly in the language she had used before. Then she cried to Barbara:
+
+“You stay here until you tell me what you have done with the box!”
+
+Barbara had turned to the dancer when the latter spoke so that she did
+not notice that the man had moved stealthily towards her. Before she
+could struggle or cry out, a hand as big as a spade was clapped over
+her mouth, she was seized in an iron grip and half-dragged,
+half-carried out of the taproom through the small door opposite the
+front entrance.
+
+The door slammed behind them and Barbara found herself in darkness. She
+was pushed round a corner and down a flight of stairs into some kind of
+cellar which smelt of damp straw. Here the grip on her mouth was
+released for a second but before she could utter more than a muffled
+cry the man thrust a handkerchief into her mouth and effectually gagged
+her. Then he tied her hands and feet together with some narrow ropes
+that cut her wrists horribly. He seemed to be able to see in the dark
+for, though the place was black as pitch, he worked swiftly and
+skillfully. Barbara felt herself lifted and deposited on a bundle of
+straw. In a little she heard the man’s heavy foot-step on the stair,
+there was a crash as of a trap-door falling to, the noise of a bolt.
+Then Barbara fainted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+MR. BELLWARD IS CALLED TO THE TELEPHONE
+
+
+A knocking at the door of the library aroused Desmond from his
+cogitations. He hastened to replace the volumes of Shakespeare on their
+shelf and restore all to its former appearance. Then he went to the
+door and opened it. Old Martha stood in the hall.
+
+“If you please, sir,” she wheezed, “the doctor’s come!”
+
+“Oh,” said Desmond, rather puzzled, “what doctor?”
+
+“It’s not Dr. Haines from the village, Mr. Bellward, sir,” said the
+housekeeper, “It’s a genel’man from Lunnon!”
+
+Then Desmond remembered Crook’s promise to look him up and guessed it
+must be he. He bade Martha show the doctor in and bring tea for two.
+
+Desmond’s surmise was right. The old woman ushered in Crook, looking
+the very pattern of medical respectability, with Harley Street written
+all over him from the crown of his glossy top-hat to the neat brown
+spats on his feet. In his hand he carried a small black bag.
+
+“Well,” he said, surveying Desmond, “and how do we find ourselves
+to-day? These chills are nasty things to shake off, my dear sir!”
+
+“Oh, stow that!” growled Desmond, who was in little mood for joking.
+
+“Voice inclined to be laryngeal,” said Crook putting down his hat and
+bag on a chair, “we shall have to take care of our bronchial tubes! We
+are not so young as we were!”
+
+“You can drop all that mumming, Crook!” snapped Desmond irascibly.
+
+“Voice rotten,” replied Crook calmly surveying him through his
+pince-nez. “Really, Major—I should say, Mr. Bellward—you must take more
+pains than that. You are talking to me exactly as though I were a
+British Tommy. Tut, tut, this will never do, sir! You must talk
+thicker, more guttural-like, and open the vowels well.”
+
+He had dropped his jesting manner altogether and spoke with the deep
+earnestness of the expert airing his pet topic. He was so serious that
+Desmond burst out laughing. It must be said, however, that he laughed
+as much like a German as he knew how. This appeared to mollify Crook
+who, nevertheless, read him a long lecture against ever, for a moment,
+even when alone, quitting the role he was playing. Desmond took it in
+good part; for he knew the soundness of the other’s advice.
+
+Then old Martha brought tea, and over the cups and saucers Crook gave
+Desmond a budget of news. He told of the warrant issued for the arrest
+of Nur-el-Din and of the search being made for her.
+
+Desmond heard the news of Nur-el-Din’s disappearance from London with
+some consternation. He began to realize that his failure to detain
+Nur-el-Din that afternoon might have incalculable consequences. Sunk in
+thought, he let Crook run on. He was wondering whether he ought to give
+him a message for the Chief, telling him of Nur-el-Din’s visit and of
+her flight on the arrival of Mortimer.
+
+Now, Desmond had a good deal of pride, and like most proud people, he
+was inclined to be obstinate. To confess to the Chief that he had let
+both Nur-el-Din and Mortimer slip through his fingers was more than he
+could face. He could not bear to think that the Chief might believe him
+capable of failure, and take independent measures to guard against
+possible mistakes. Also, in his heart of hearts, Desmond was angry with
+the Chief. He thought the latter had acted precipitately in getting out
+a warrant for Nur-el-Din’s arrest before he, Desmond, had had time to
+get into the skin of his part.
+
+So Desmond heard Crook out and made no comment. When the other asked
+him if he had anything to tell the Chief, he shook his head. He was not
+to know then the consequences which his disobedience of orders was
+destined to have. If he had realized what the result of his obstinacy
+would be, he would not have hesitated to send a full report by
+Crook—and this story might never have been written!
+
+But if youth followed reason instead of impulse, the world would stand
+still. Desmond was still at an age at which a man is willing to take on
+anything and anybody, and he was confident of bringing his mission to a
+successful conclusion without any extraneous aid. So Crook, after
+changing Desmond’s make-up and giving him a further rehearsal of his
+role, packed up his pots and paints and brushes in his black bag and
+returned to London with “nothing to report” as the communiqués say.
+
+He repeated his visit every day for the next four days. Crook’s arrival
+each afternoon was the only break in the monotony of a life which was
+rapidly becoming unbearable to Desmond’s mercurial temperament. He
+found himself looking forward to the wizened little man’s visits and
+for want of better employment, he threw himself wholeheartedly into the
+study of his role under the expert’s able direction. Desmond’s beard
+had sprouted wonderfully, and Crook assured him that, by about the end
+of the week, the tow substitute, which Desmond found a most unmitigated
+nuisance, would be no longer necessary. He also showed his pupil how to
+paint in the few deft lines about the eyes which completed the
+resemblance between Bellward and his impersonator.
+
+The time hung terribly heavily on Desmond’s hands. He had long since
+memorized and destroyed the list of Mr. Bellward’s friends. Every
+morning he spent at least an hour before the mirror in his bedroom
+working up the role. With every day he felt more confident of himself;
+with every day he grew more anxious to go to London, and, taking the
+bull by the horns, boldly visit one of Mr. Bellward’s acquaintances and
+test the effect of his disguise.
+
+But no orders came from Headquarters to release him from his
+confinement. Moreover, no word arrived from Nur-el-Din nor did Mortimer
+send any message or call again at the Mill House. The silence of the
+two conspirators made Desmond uneasy. Suppose Mortimer, who, he felt
+sure, had caught him out lying about Nur-el-Din’s presence in the house
+at the time of his visit, had grown suspicious! What if Nur-el-Din had
+succeeded in making good her escape to the Continent? He had had his
+chance of laying hold of both suspects and he had failed. Would that
+chance come again?
+
+Desmond doubted it. Every morning he awoke long before the dawn and lay
+awake until daylight, his mind racked by these apprehensions. He chafed
+bitterly at his inaction and he plied Crook with questions as to
+whether he had any orders for him. Each time Crook replied in the
+negative.
+
+In the library Desmond found an Ordnance map of Essex. His military
+training had given him a good schooling in the use of maps, and he
+spent many hours studying the section of the country about the Mill
+House, seeking to impress it upon his mind against future emergencies.
+
+He was surprised to find how remote the Mill House lay from other
+habitations. Between it and Wentfield station, once Wentfield village
+was passed, there were only a few lonely farms; but to the south there
+was an absolutely uninhabited tract of fen traversed by the road
+running past the front gate of the Mill House. The Mill House was duly
+marked on the map; with a little blue line showing the millrace which
+Desmond traced to its junction with one of the broad dykes intersecting
+Morstead Fen. The only inhabited house to the south of the Bellward
+villa appeared to be a lonely public house situated on the far edge of
+the fen, a couple of hundred yards away from the road. It was called
+“The Dyke Inn.”
+
+One afternoon—it was the fifth day after Desmond’s arrival at
+Bellward’s—Mr. Crook announced that this was to be his last visit.
+
+“I go abroad to-night, Mr. Bellward,” he said (he always insisted on
+addressing Desmond by his assumed name), “a little job o’ work in
+Switzerland; at Berne, to be precise. Urgent, you might call it, and
+really, sir, you’ve made so much progress that I think I can safely
+leave you. And I was to say that you will be able to go out very soon
+now.”
+
+“Good!” exclaimed Desmond, rubbing his hands together. “And you think
+I’ll do, Crook, eh?”
+
+Crook rubbed his nose meditatively.
+
+“I’ll be quite frank with you, Mr. Bellward,” he said: “With a
+superficial acquaintance, even with an intimate friend, if he’s as
+unobservant as most people are, you’ll pass muster. But I shouldn’t
+like to guarantee anything if you were to meet, say, Mrs. Bellward, if
+the gentleman has got a wife, or his mother. Keep out of a strong
+light; don’t show your profile more than you can help, and remember
+that a woman is a heap more observant than a man.
+
+“That’s my advice to you, sir. And now I’ll take my leave! You won’t
+want that tow beard any more after to-day.”
+
+That night Desmond slept well and did not awake until the sunshine was
+streaming in between the Venetian blinds in his bedroom. He felt keen
+and vigorous, and he had an odd feeling that something was going to
+happen to him that day.
+
+It was a delicious morning, the air as balmy as spring. As he brushed
+his hair in front of the window, Desmond saw the peewits running about
+in the sunshine on the fields by the road. He made an excellent
+breakfast and then, lighting a pipe, opened the _Times_ which lay
+folded by his plate.
+
+He turned first, as was his daily habit, to the casualty list. There it
+was! Under the names of the “Killed in Action,” he read: “Okewood,
+Major D. J. P.,” followed by the name of his regiment. It gave him an
+odd little shock, though he had looked for the announcement every day;
+but the feeling of surprise was quickly followed by one of relief. That
+brief line in the casualty list meant the severing of all the old ties
+until he had hunted down his quarry.
+
+Now he was ready to start.
+
+He spent the morning in the garden. Here, for the first time, he met
+Mr. Hill, the odd man, who, on seeing him, became intensely busy
+picking up handfuls of leaves and conveying them to a fire which was
+smouldering in a corner. Desmond essayed to enter into conversation
+with him but the man was so impenetrably deaf that Desmond, tiring of
+bawling, “It’s a fine day!” in Mr. Hill’s ear, left him and strolled
+over to the shed where the motor-cycle was stored. Here he amused
+himself for more than an hour in taking the machine to pieces and
+putting it together again. He satisfied himself that the bike was in
+working order and filled up the tank. He had an idea that this means of
+conveyance might come in useful.
+
+The day was so mild that he lunched by the open window with the
+sunshine casting rainbows on the tablecloth through the wine-glasses.
+He was just finishing his coffee when the housekeeper came in and told
+him he was wanted on the telephone.
+
+Desmond sprang from his chair with alacrity. His marching orders at
+last! he thought, as he hurried across the hall to the library.
+
+“Hullo!” he cried as he picked up the receiver.
+
+“Is that Mr. Bellward?” answered a nasal voice.
+
+“Bellward speaking!” said Desmond, wondering who had called him up. The
+voice was a man’s but it was not the abrupt clear tones of the Chief
+nor yet Mr. Matthews’ careful accents.
+
+“Madame Le Bon wishes to see you!”
+
+Madame Le Bon? thought Desmond. Why, that was the name that Nur-el-Din
+had given him. “I am Madame Le Bon, a Belgian refugee,” she had said.
+
+“Do you know whom I mean?” the voice continued.
+
+“Certainly,” replied Desmond. “You will come alone. Otherwise, Madame
+will not see you. You understand? If you do not come alone, you will
+waste your time!”
+
+“Where are you speaking from?” Desmond asked.
+
+“If you will turn to the left on leaving your front gate,” the voice
+resumed, “and follow the road, a messenger will meet you and take you
+to the lady.”
+
+“But...” Desmond began.
+
+“Will you come at once? And alone?” the nasal voice broke in sharply.
+
+Desmond took a moment’s thought. To go was to disobey orders; not to go
+was to risk losing a second chance of meeting Nur-el-Din. To telephone
+to 700 Stanning for assistance would bring a hornets’ nest about his
+ears; yet he might only see the dancer if he went alone. He lost no
+time in making up his mind. The Chief must allow him latitude for
+meeting emergencies of this kind. He would go.
+
+“I will come at once,” said Desmond.
+
+“Good,” said the voice and the communication ceased.
+
+Somewhere aloft there sits a sweet little cherub whose especial job is
+to look after the headstrong. It was doubtless this emissary of
+providence that leant down from his celestial seat and whispered in
+Desmond’s ear that it would be delightful to walk out across the fen on
+this sunny afternoon. Desmond was in the act of debating whether he
+would not take the motor-bike, but the cherub’s winning way clinched it
+and he plumped for walking.
+
+In the hall he met the housekeeper who told him she wanted to go into
+Stanning to do some shopping that afternoon. Desmond told her that he
+himself was going out and would not be back for tea. Then, picking a
+stout blackthorn out of the hallstand, he strode down the drive and out
+into the road.
+
+It was still beautifully fine, but already the golden sunshine was
+waning and there were little wisps and curls of mist stealing low along
+the fields. Desmond turned to the left, on leaving the Mill House, as
+he was bid and saw the road running like a khaki ribbon before him into
+the misty distance.
+
+Swinging his stick, he strode on rapidly. The road was neglected,
+broken and flinty and very soft. After he had gone about a mile it
+narrowed to pursue its way between two broad ditches lined with pollard
+willows and brimful of brown peaty water. By this time he judged, from
+his recollection of the map, that he must be on Morstead Fen. An
+interminable waste of sodden, emerald green fields, intersected by
+ditches, stretched away on either hand.
+
+He had walked for half an hour when he made out in the distance a clump
+of trees standing apart and seemingly in the middle of the fields. Then
+in the foreground he descried a gate. A figure was standing by it.
+
+As he approached the gate he saw it was a small boy. On remarking the
+stranger, the urchin opened the gate and without looking to right or
+left led off down the road towards the clump of trees: Desmond followed
+at his leisure.
+
+As they neared the trees, the low red roof of a house detached itself.
+By this time the sun was sinking in a smear of red across a delicately
+tinted sky. Its dying rays held some glittering object high up on the
+side of the house.
+
+At first Desmond thought it was a window, but presently the light went
+out, kindled again and once more vanished. It was too small for a
+window, Desmond decided, and then, turning the matter over in his mind,
+as observant people are accustomed to do even with trifles, he suddenly
+realized that the light he had seen was the reflection of the sun on a
+telescope or glasses.
+
+They were now within a few hundred yards of the house. The road had
+made a right angle turn to the left, but the diminutive guide had
+quitted it and struck out along a very muddy cart track. Shading his
+eyes, Desmond gazed at the house and presently got a glimpse of a
+figure at a window surveying the road through a pair of field glasses.
+Even as he looked, the figure bobbed down and did not reappear.
+
+“They want to be sure I’m alone,” thought Desmond, and congratulated
+himself on having had the strength of mind to break his orders.
+
+The cart-track led up to a little bridge over a ditch. By the bridge
+stood a tall pole, on the top of which was a blue and gold painted
+sign-board inscribed, “The Dyke Inn by J. Rass.” The urchin led him
+across the bridge and up to the door of the inn.
+
+An undersized, yellow-faced man, wearing neither collar nor tie, came
+to the door as they approached. Although of short stature, he was
+immensely broad with singularly long arms. Altogether he had something
+of the figure of a gorilla, Desmond thought on looking at him.
+
+The man put a finger up and touched his forelock.
+
+“Madame Le Bon is upstairs waiting for you!” he said in a nasal voice
+which Desmond recognized as that he had heard on the telephone. “Please
+to follow me!”
+
+He led the way across a long low tap-room through a door and past the
+open trap-door of a cellar to a staircase. On the first landing, lit by
+a window looking out on a dreary expanse of fen, he halted Desmond.
+
+“That’s her room,” he said, pointing to a door opposite the head of the
+staircase, half a dozen steps up, and so saying, the yellow-faced man
+walked quickly downstairs and left him. Desmond heard his feet echo on
+the staircase and the door of the tap-room slam.
+
+He hesitated a moment. What if this were a trap? Suppose Mortimer,
+growing suspicious, had made use of Nur-el-Din to lure him to an ambush
+in this lonely place? Why the devil hadn’t he brought a revolver with
+him?
+
+Then Desmond’s Irish blood came to his rescue. He gave his head a
+little shake, took a firm hold of his stick which was a stoutish sort
+of cudgel and striding boldly up to the door indicated, tapped.
+
+“_Entrez!_” said a pretty voice that made Desmond’s heart flutter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+THE STAR OF POLAND
+
+
+The room in which Desmond found Nur-el-Din was obviously the parlor of
+the house. Everything in it spoke of that dreary period in art, the
+middle years of the reign of Victoria the Good. The wall-paper, much
+mildewed in places, was an ugly shade of green and there were dusty and
+faded red curtains at the windows and draping the fireplace. Down one
+side of the room ran a hideous mahogany sideboard, almost as big as a
+railway station buffet, with a very dirty tablecloth. The chairs were
+of mahogany, upholstered in worn black horsehair and there were two
+pairs of fly-blown steel engravings of the largest size on the wall. In
+the centre of the apartment stood a small round table, covered with a
+much stained red tablecloth and there was a door in the corner.
+
+The dainty beauty of Nur-el-Din made a very forlorn picture amid the
+unmatched savagery of this English interior. The dancer, who was
+wearing the same becoming gray tweed suit in which Desmond had last
+seen her, was sitting sorrowfully at the table when Desmond entered. At
+the sight of him she sprang up and ran to meet him with outstretched
+hands.
+
+“Ah!” she cried, “_comme je suis heureuse de vous voir!_ It is good of
+you to come!”
+
+And then, without any warning, she burst into tears and putting her
+hands on the man’s shoulders, hid her head against his chest and sobbed
+bitterly.
+
+Desmond took one of her hands, small and soft and warm, and gently
+disengaged her. His mind was working clearly and rapidly. He felt sure
+of himself, sure of his disguise; if this were an exhibition of woman’s
+wiles, it would find him proof; on that he was resolved. Yet, dissolved
+in tears as she was, with her long lashes glistening and her mouth
+twitching pitifully, the dancer seemed to touch a chord deep down in
+his heart.
+
+“Come, come,” said Desmond gutturally, with a touch of _bonhomie_ in
+his voice in keeping with his ample girth, “you mustn’t give way like
+this, my child! What’s amiss? Come, sit down here and tell me what’s
+the matter.”
+
+He made her resume her seat by the table and pulled up one of the
+horsehair chairs for himself. Nur-el-Din wiped her eyes on a tiny lace
+handkerchief, but continued to sob and shudder at intervals.
+
+“Marie, my maid,” she said in French in a broken voice, “joined me here
+to-day. She has told me of this dreadful murder!”
+
+Desmond stiffened to attention. His mind swiftly reverted to the last
+woman he had seen cry, to Barbara Mackwayte discovering the loss of the
+package entrusted to her charge by the woman who sat before him.
+
+“What murder?” he asked, striving to banish any trace of interest from
+his voice. He loathed the part he had to play. The dancer’s distress
+struck him as genuine.
+
+“The murder of Monsieur Mackwayte,” said Nur-el-Din, and her tears
+broke forth anew.
+
+“I have read of this in the newspapers,” said Desmond. “I remember you
+told me he was a friend of yours.”
+
+Briefly, with many sobs, the dancer told him of the silver box which
+she had entrusted to Barbara Mackwayte’s charge.
+
+“And now,” she sobbed, “it is lost and all my sacrifice, all my
+precautions, have been in vain!”
+
+“But how?” asked Desmond. “Why should you think this box should have
+been taken? From what I remember reading of this case in the English
+newspapers there was a burglary at the house, but the thief has been
+arrested and the property restored. You have only to ask this Miss—what
+was the name? ah! yes, Mackwayte for your box and she will restore it!”
+
+“No, no!” Nur-el-Din answered wearily, “you don’t understand. This was
+no burglary. The man who murdered Monsieur Arthur murdered him to get
+my silver box.”
+
+“But,” objected Desmond, “a silver box! What value has a trifling
+object like that? My dear young lady, murder is not done for a silver
+box!”
+
+“No, no,” Nur-el-Din repeated, “you don’t understand! You don’t know
+what that box contained!”
+
+Then she relapsed into silence, plucking idly at the shred of cambric
+she held between her fingers.
+
+Already dusk was falling and the room was full of shadows. The golden
+radiance of the afternoon had died and eerie wraiths of fog were
+peering-in at the window.
+
+Desmond held his peace. He felt he was on the threshold of a confession
+that might rend the veil of mystery surrounding the murder at Seven
+Kings. He stared fixedly at the ugly red tablecloth, conscious that the
+big eyes of the girl were searching his face.
+
+“You have honest eyes,” she said presently. “I told you that once
+before... that night we met at your house... do you remember? Your eyes
+are English. But you are a German, _hein?_”
+
+“My mother was Irish,” said Desmond and felt a momentary relief that,
+for once, he had been able to speak the truth.
+
+“I want a friend,” the girl resumed wearily, “someone that I can trust.
+But I look around and I find no one. You serve the German Empire, do
+you not?”
+
+Desmond bowed.
+
+“But not the House of Hohenzollern?” the girl cried, her voice
+trembling with passion.
+
+“I am not of the Emperor’s personal service, if that is what you mean,
+madame,” Desmond returned coldly.
+
+“Then, since you are not altogether an iron Prussian,” Nur-el-Din
+resumed eagerly, “you can differentiate. You can understand that there
+is a difference between working for the cause of Germany and for the
+personal business of her princes.”
+
+“But certainly,” answered Desmond, “I am not an errand boy nor yet a
+detective. I regard myself as a German officer doing his duty on the
+front. We have many fronts besides the Western and the Eastern. England
+is one.
+
+“Ah,” exclaimed the girl, clasping her hands together and looking at
+him with enraptured eyes, “I see you understand! My friend, I am much
+tempted to make a confidant of you!”
+
+Desmond looked at her but did not speak. Again he felt that silence was
+now his only role. He tried hard to fix his mind on his duty; but the
+man in him was occupied with the woman who looked so appealingly at
+him.
+
+“... but if I do,” the girl went on and her voice was hurried and
+anxious, “you must swear to me that you will respect my confidence,
+that you will not betray me to the others and that you will, if need
+be, protect me.”
+
+Seeing that Desmond remained silent, she hastened to add:
+
+“Believe me, what I ask you to do is not in opposition to your duty. My
+friend, for all my surroundings, I am not what I seem. Fate has drawn
+me into the system of which you form part; but, believe me, I know
+nothing of the service to which you and Mortimer and the rest belong!”
+
+She spoke with painful earnestness and in a tone so mournful that
+Desmond felt himself profoundly moved. “If only she is not acting!” he
+thought, and sought to shake himself free from the spell which this
+girl seemed able to cast about him at will.
+
+“Promise me that you will respect my confidence and help me!” she said
+and held out her hand.
+
+Desmond’s big hand closed about hers and he felt an odd thrill of
+sympathy with her as their hands met.
+
+“I promise!” he said and murmured to himself something very like a
+prayer that he might not be called upon to redeem his word.
+
+She let her eyes rest for a moment on his.
+
+“Be careful!” she urged warningly, while the ghost of a smile flitted
+across her face. “Very soon I may call upon you to make good your
+words!”
+
+“I promise!” he repeated—and his eyes never left hers.
+
+“Then,” she cried passionately, “find out who has stolen for the Crown
+Prince the Star of Poland at the price of the life of a harmless old
+man!”
+
+“The Star of Poland!” repeated Desmond. “What is the Star of Poland?”
+
+The girl drew herself up proudly and there was a certain dignity about
+her manner as she answered.
+
+“I am a Pole,” she said, “and to us Poles, the Star of Poland has stood
+for centuries as a pledge of the restoration of our long-lost kingdom.
+It was the principal jewel of the Polish Coronation sword which
+vanished many hundreds of years ago—in the thirteenth century, one of
+my compatriots once told me—and it was one of the most treasured
+national possessions in the Château of our great king, John Sobieski at
+Villanoff, outside Warsaw. My friend, I am not religious, and since my
+childhood I have renounced the ancient faith of my fathers, but, when I
+think of the extraordinary chain of circumstances by which this
+treasure came into my possession, I almost believe that God has chosen
+me to restore this gem to the King of an independent Poland.
+
+“Four years ago I was in the United States, a very humble dancer in
+vaudeville of the third or fourth class. When I was appearing at
+Columbus, Ohio, I met a German, a man who had been an officer in the
+Prussian Guard but had come to grief and had been forced to emigrate.
+
+“This man’s name was Hans von Schornbeek. Like so many German officers
+who go to America, in his time he had been everything—waiter, lift-man,
+engine-driver and heaven knows what else, but when I met him he was
+apparently well-off. It was only later on that I knew he was one of
+your principal secret agents in America.
+
+“He praised my talents highly and offered to furnish the capital to
+start me as an Oriental dancer with a large company of my own. There
+was only one condition attaching to his offer, a condition, _ma foi!_
+which was not disagreeable to me. It was that, after six months tour in
+the States and Canada, I should go to Brussels and settle down there in
+a house that Herr von Schornbeek would present me with.
+
+“_Mon ami_, in those days, I understood nothing at all of diplomacy. I
+knew only that I was often hungry and that I had a little talent which,
+were it given a chance, might keep me from want. Herr von Schornbeek
+fulfilled his promises to me. I had my company, I did my tour of
+America and Canada with great success and finally I came to Europe and
+made my debut at Brussels.
+
+“I knew Brussels already from the old days. As a half-starved, unhappy
+child with a troupe of acrobats, I had often appeared there. But now I
+came to Brussels as a conqueror. A beautiful villa in the suburb of
+Laeken was ready to receive me and I found that a large credit had been
+opened in my name at one of the principal banks so that I could keep
+open house.
+
+“I think I scarcely realized then the rôle that I was destined to fill
+by the German Secret Service. In all my life before, I had never been
+happy, I had never ceased to struggle for my bare existence, I had
+never had pretty clothes to wear, and motor-cars and servants of my
+own.”
+
+She paused and glanced around her. The room was almost dark; the fog
+outside hung like a veil before the window.
+
+“Light the lamp!” she begged, “I do not like the dark!”
+
+Desmond struck a match and kindled an oil lamp, which stood on the
+sideboard.
+
+“Ah! my friend,” the girl resumed. “I took my fill of life with both
+hands. The year was 1913. Now I know that I was one of the German
+agents for the penetration of Belgium in preparation of what was
+coming. My mission was to make friends among the Belgians and the
+French and the cosmopolitan society of Brussels generally, and invite
+them to my house where your people were waiting to deal with them.
+
+“My pretty villa became the rendezvous for half the rascals of Europe,
+men and women, who used to meet there with all kinds of mysterious
+Germans. Sometimes there was a scandal. Once a Belgian Colonel was
+found shot in the billiard-room; they said it was suicide and the thing
+was hushed up, but _dame!_ now that I know what I know...
+
+“_Enfin!_ I shut my eyes to it all... it was none of my business... and
+I revelled in my _robes_, my dancing, my new life of luxury!
+
+“And then the war came. I was at Laeken, resting after a visit to Rome.
+There was a lot of talk about the war amongst the people who came to my
+house, but I did not see how it could affect me, an _artiste_, and I
+never read the newspapers. My German friends assured me that, in a
+little while, the German army would be at Brussels; that, if I remained
+quietly at home, all would be well. They were very elated and
+confident, these German friends of mine. And rightly; for within a few
+weeks the Germans entered the city and a General quartered himself in
+my villa. It was he who brought the Crown Prince to see me.
+
+“_Mon cher_, you know this young man and his reputation. I am not
+excusing myself; but all my life had been spent up to then in the
+_bas-fonds_ of society. I had never known what it was to be courted and
+admired by one who had the world at his feet. _Parbleu!_ one does not
+meet a future Emperor every day!
+
+“_Enfin!_ the Prince carried me with him back to Metz, where he had his
+headquarters. He was very _épris_ with me, but you know his
+temperament! No woman can hold him for more than a few weeks, vain and
+weak and arrogant as he is. But _pardon!_ I was forgetting that you are
+a good German. I fear I offend your susceptibilities...”
+
+Desmond laughed drily.
+
+“Madame,” he said, “I hope I have preserved sufficient liberty of
+judgment to have formed my own opinion about our future sovereign. Most
+Germans have...”
+
+“_Alors_,” she broke in fiercely, her voice shaking with passion, “you
+know what an ignoble _canaille_ is this young man, without even enough
+decency of feeling to respect the troops of whom he has demanded such
+bloody sacrifices. At Metz we were near enough to the fighting to
+realize the blood and tears of this war. But the Prince thought of
+nothing, but his own amusement. To live as he did, within sound of the
+guns, with parties every night, women and dancing and roulette and
+champagne suppers—bah! _c’était trop fort!_ It awakened in me the love
+of country which lies dormant in all of us. I wanted to help my
+country, lest I might sink as low as he...”
+
+“One day the Prince brought a young officer friend of his to dine with
+me. This officer had come from the Eastern front and had been present
+at the capture of Warsaw. After dinner he took a leather case out of
+his pocket and said to the Prince: ‘I have brought your Imperial
+Highness a little souvenir from Poland!’ As he spoke he touched a
+spring and the case flew open, displaying an enormous diamond, nearly
+as big as the great Orloff diamond which I have seen at Petrograd,
+surrounded by five other brilliants, the whole set like a star.
+
+“‘The Star of Poland,’ said the young officer (the Prince called him
+‘Erich;’ I never heard his full name), ‘it comes from the long-lost
+Coronation sword of the Polish kings. I took it for your Imperial
+Highness from the Château of John Sobieski at Villanoff.
+
+“I could not take my eyes off the gem. As the Prince held it down under
+the lamp to study it, it shone like an electric light. I had met many
+of my fellow countrymen in America and I had often heard of this jewel,
+famous in our unhappy history.
+
+“The Prince, who was gay with champagne, laughed and said:
+
+“‘These lousy Poles will have no further use for this pretty trinket,
+thanks to our stout German blows, will they, Erich?’
+
+“And his friend replied:
+
+“‘We’ll give them a nice new German constitution instead, your Imperial
+Highness!’
+
+“The Prince, as I have said, was very merry that night. He let me take
+the jewel from its case and hold it in my hands. Then I fastened it in
+my hair before the mirror and turned to show myself to the Prince and
+his companion.
+
+“‘_Donnerwetter!_ said Willie. ‘It looks wonderful in your hair,
+Marcelle!’
+
+“Then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he cried:
+
+“‘Erich! What do you say, Marcelle is a Pole. She shall have the Star
+of Poland and wear it in memory of me!’
+
+“The other thought this a famous idea, and so the jewel passed into my
+hands. That same evening I resolved that it should be a sacred duty on
+my part to keep it in safety until I could hand it back to the lawful
+sovereign of an independent Poland.
+
+“I was very unhappy at Metz until the Star of Poland came to comfort
+me. When I was alone, I used to take it from its case and feast my eyes
+upon it. I made many attempts to get away, but the Prince would never
+let me go, though he had long since tired of me and I was merely one of
+his harem of women. _Pfui!_”
+
+She gave an exclamation of disgust.
+
+“It was the Crown Princess who eventually came to my rescue,” she
+continued. “Long-suffering wife as she is, the stories that came to her
+ears from Metz were such that she went to the Emperor and declared that
+she would insist upon a divorce. There was a great scandal. The
+Prince’s headquarters were moved and at length I got my release.
+
+“I had no money. This was a detail which the Prince overlooked. But I
+wanted to resume my stage work, so, with great difficulty, through the
+influence of the Prince, I obtained a passport to Holland and from
+there got across to England.
+
+“I had hoped to turn my back once and for all on my connection with the
+Prince. But your German Secret Service had been warned about me. The
+Imperial Authorities were obviously afraid that I might tell tales out
+of school. Scarcely had I arrived in London when a man who called
+himself Bryan Mowbury, but who looked and spoke like a German, came to
+see me and said he had been instructed to ‘look after me.’ What that
+meant, I was soon to discover. In a very few days I found that I was
+under the supervision of your Secret Service here. In fact, Mowbury
+gave me to understand that any indiscretion on my part as to my stay at
+Metz would result in my immediate denunciation to the English police as
+a spy.
+
+“My friend, I had no alternative. I am not German; I am not English; I
+am a Pole. I have good friends in Germany, I have good friends in
+England, and their quarrels are not mine. I held my peace about the
+past and submitted to the incessant watch which Mowbury and his friends
+kept on my movements.
+
+“And then one day I had a letter. It was from Count Plettenbach, the
+Crown Prince’s aide-de-camp, as I knew by the hand-writing, for it was
+signed with an assumed name. In this letter the Count, ‘on behalf of a
+mutual friend,’ as he put it, requested me to hand back to a certain
+Mr. Mortimer, his accredited representative, ‘Erich’s present.’ There
+were cogent reasons, it was added, for this unusual request.
+
+“I sent no reply to that letter, although an address in Switzerland was
+given to which an answer might be despatched. I was resolved, come what
+may, not to part with the Star of Poland. When Mortimer came, five days
+later, I told him the jewel was not mine to hand over, that it was part
+of the regalia of Poland and that I would never give it up.
+
+“Mortimer replied that the German and Austrian Governments had decided
+to restore the independence of Poland, that probably an Austrian
+Archduke would be made king and that it was essential that the Star of
+Poland should be restored in order to include it in the regalia for the
+Coronation. But I knew what this Austro-German kingdom of Poland was to
+be, a serf state with not a shadow of that liberty for which every Pole
+is longing. Since I have been in England, I have kept in touch with the
+Polish political organizations in this country. Rass, as he calls
+himself, the landlord of this inn, is one of the most prominent of the
+Polish leaders in England.
+
+“Mortimer reasoned with me in vain and finally went away empty-handed.
+But he did not abandon hope. Four successive attempts were made to get
+the jewel away from me. Twice my apartments at the Nineveh Hotel were
+rifled; once my dressing-room at the theatre was entered and searched
+whilst I was on the stage. But I wore the jewel day and night in a
+little bag suspended by a chain from my neck and they never got it from
+me.
+
+“Two days before I came down to your house—it was the day before the
+murder—I was hustled by a group of men as I came out of the theatre.
+Fortunately the stage-door keeper came up unexpectedly and the men made
+off. But the encounter frightened me, and I resolved to break my
+contract with the Palaceum and bury myself down here in the country.
+
+“But somehow Mortimer learnt of my intention. The next night—it was the
+night of the murder—he came to the theatre and warned me against trying
+to elude his vigilance by flight. I have never forgotten his words.
+
+“‘I can afford to wait,’ he said, ‘for I shall get what I want: I
+always do. But you have chosen to set yourself against me and you will
+bitterly repent it!”
+
+As though the recollection proved too much for her, Nur-el-Din broke
+off her narrative and covered her face with her hands.
+
+“And do you think that Mortimer did this murder?” asked Desmond gently.
+
+Wearily the girl raised her head.
+
+“Either he or one of his accomplices, of whom this girl is one!” she
+answered.
+
+“But why not have put the jewel in a bank or one of the safe deposits?
+Surely it was risky to have entrusted it to a girl of whom you knew
+nothing?”
+
+“My friend,”, said the dancer, “I was desperate. Mortimer sees and
+knows all. This unexpected meeting with the daughter of my old friend
+seemed at the moment like a heaven-sent chance to place the jewel,
+unknown to him, in safe hands. I felt that as long as I carried it on
+me, my life was in constant danger. It was only to-day, when I heard of
+the murder, that it dawned on me how indiscreet I had been. I might
+have guessed, since Miss Mackwayte knew Mortimer—”
+
+“Miss Mackwayte knows Mortimer?” echoed Desmond in stupefaction.
+
+“But certainly,” replied Nur-el-Din. “Was it not I myself—” She broke
+off suddenly with terror in her eyes.
+
+“Ah, no!” she whispered. “It is enough. Already I have said too
+much...”
+
+Desmond was about to speak when the door opened and a foreign-looking
+maid, whom Desmond remembered to have seen in the dancer’s
+dressing-room, came in. She went swiftly to her mistress and whispered
+something in her ear.
+
+The dancer sprang to her feet.
+
+“A little moment... you will excuse me...” she cried to Desmond and ran
+from the room. The maid followed her, leaving Desmond alone.
+
+Presently, the sound of Nur-el-Din’s voice raised high in anger struck
+on his ears. He stole softly to the door and opened it. Before him lay
+the staircase deserted. He tiptoed down the stairs to the first landing
+and listened. The murmur of voices reached him indistinctly from the
+room below. Then he heard Nur-el-Din crying out again in anger.
+
+He craned his ear over the well of the staircase, turning his face to
+the window which stood on the landing. The window gave on a small yard
+with a gate over which a lamp was suspended and beyond it the fen now
+swathed in fog. The dancer’s maid stood beneath the lamp in earnest
+conversation with a man in rough shooting clothes who held a gun under
+his arm. As Desmond looked the man turned his head so that the rays of
+the lamp fell full upon his face. To his unspeakable consternation and
+amazement, Desmond recognized Strangwise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+MR. BELLWARD ARRANGES A BRIDGE EVENING
+
+
+Oblivious of the voices in the room below, Desmond stood with his face
+pressed against the glass of the window. Was Strangwise staying at “The
+Dyke Inn”? Nothing was more probable; for the latter had told him that
+he was going to spend his leave shooting in Essex, and Morstead Fen
+must abound in snipe and duck.
+
+But he and Strangwise must not meet. Desmond was chary of submitting
+his disguise to the other’s keen, shrewd eyes. Strangwise knew
+Nur-el-Din: indeed, the dancer might have come to the inn to be with
+him. If he recognized Desmond and imparted his suspicions to the
+dancer, the game world be up; on the other hand, Desmond could not take
+him aside and disclose his identity; for that would be breaking faith
+with the Chief. There was nothing for it, he decided, but flight.
+
+Yet how could he get away unobserved? There was no exit from the
+staircase by the door into the tap-room where Nur-el-Din was, and to go
+through the tap-room was to risk coming face to face with Strangwise.
+
+So Desmond remained where he was by the window and watched. Presently,
+the woman turned and began to cross the yard, Strangwise, carrying his
+gun, following her. Desmond waited until he heard a door open somewhere
+below and then he acted.
+
+Beside the window ran an old lead water-pipe which drained the roof
+above his head. On a level with the sill of the landing below, this
+pipe took a sharp turn to the left and ran diagonally down to a tall
+covered-in water-butt that stood on the flat roof of an outhouse in the
+little yard.
+
+Desmond raised the window very gently and tested the pipe with his
+hand. It seemed rather insecure and shook under his pressure. With his
+eye he measured the distance from the sill to the pipe; it was about
+four feet. Desmond reckoned that, if the pipe would hold, by getting
+out of the window and hanging on to the sill, he might, by a
+pendulum-like motion, gain sufficient impulse to swing his legs across
+the diagonally-running pipe, then transfer his hands and so slide down
+to the outhouse roof.
+
+He wasted no time in debating the chances of the pipe collapsing under
+his weight. All his life it had been his practice to take a risk, for
+such is the Irish temperament—if the object to be attained in any way
+justified it; and he was determined to avoid at all costs the chance of
+a meeting with Strangwise. The latter had probably read the name of
+Okewood in that morning’s casualty list, but Desmond felt more than
+ever that he distrusted the man, and his continued presence in the
+neighborhood of Nur-el-Din gravely preoccupied him.
+
+He stood a moment by the open window and listened. The murmur of voices
+went on in the taproom, but from another part of the house he heard a
+deep laugh and knew it to be Strangwise’s. Trusting to Providence that
+the roof of the outhouse would be out of sight of the yard door,
+Desmond swung his right leg over the window-sill and followed it with
+the other, turning his back on the yard. The next moment he was
+dangling over the side of the house.
+
+Then from the yard below he heard Strangwise call:
+
+“Rufus! Rufus!”
+
+A heavy footstep sounded on the flags. Desmond remained perfectly
+still. The strain on his arms was tremendous. If Strangwise should go
+as far as the gate, so as to get clear of the yard, he must infallibly
+see that figure clinging to the window-sill.
+
+“Where the devil is that doggy” said Strangwise. Then he whistled, and
+called again:
+
+“Rufus! Rufus!”
+
+Desmond made a supreme effort to support the strain on his muscles. The
+veins stood out at his temples and he felt the blood singing in his
+ears. Another minute and he knew he must drop. He no longer had the
+power to swing himself up to the window ledge again.
+
+A bark rang out in the courtyard, followed by the patter of feet.
+Desmond heard Strangwise speak to the dog and reenter the house. Then
+silence fell again. With a tremendous effort Desmond swung his legs
+athwart the pipe, gripped it with his right hand, then his left, and
+very gently commenced to let himself down. The pipe quivered beneath
+his weight, but it held fast and in a minute he was standing on the
+roof of the outhouse, cautiously peering through the dank fog that hung
+about the yard.
+
+Screening himself from view behind the tall waterbutt, he reconnoitred
+the back of the inn. The upper part of the house was shrouded in
+darkness, but a broad beam of light from a half-open door and a tall
+window on the ground floor cleft the pall of fog. The window showed a
+snug little bar with Strangwise standing by the counter, a glass in his
+hand. As Desmond watched him, he heard a muffled scream from somewhere
+within the house. Strangwise heard it too, for Desmond saw him put his
+glass down on the bar and raise his head sharply. There followed a dull
+crash from the interior of the inn and the next moment the yellow-faced
+man, whom Desmond judged to be Rass, stepped into the circle of light
+inside the window. He said something to Strangwise with thumb jerked
+behind him, whereupon the latter clapped him, as though in approval, on
+the shoulder, and both hurried out together.
+
+Puzzled though he was by the scene he had just witnessed, Desmond did
+not dare to tarry longer. The roof of the outhouse was only some ten
+feet from the ground, an easy drop. He let himself noiselessly down and
+landing on his feet without mishap, darted out of the yard gate. As he
+did so, he heard the inn door open and Strangwise’s voice cry out:
+
+“Who’s that?”
+
+But Desmond heeded not. He dashed out upon the fen. Before he had gone
+a dozen paces the fog had swallowed up inn and all. Out of the white
+pall behind him he heard confused shouts as he skirted swiftly round
+the house and reached the road.
+
+Once he had gained the freedom of the highway; Desmond breathed again.
+The dense fog that enveloped him, the hard road beneath his feet, gave
+him a sense of security that he had missed as long as he was in the
+atmosphere of that lonely, sinister place. He struck out at a good pace
+for home, intent upon one thing, namely, to send an immediate summons
+for help to surround the Dyke Inn and all within it. Nur-el-Din, it was
+clear, whether a spy or no (and Desmond believed her story), was the
+only person who could throw any light on the mysterious circumstances
+surrounding old Mackwayte’s murder. Besides, her arrest would safeguard
+her against further machinations on the part of Mortimer, though
+Desmond suspected that the latter, now that he had secured the jewel,
+would leave the dancer in peace. As for Strangwise, it would be for him
+to explain as best he could his continued association with a woman for
+whose arrest a warrant had been issued.
+
+Desmond let himself in with his key. The housekeeper had returned and
+was laying the dinner-table. In the library the curtains were drawn and
+a fire burned brightly in the grate. The room looked very snug and cosy
+by contrast with the raw weather outside.
+
+Desmond shut and locked the door and then went to the telephone at the
+desk. “Ring up 700 Stanning”—he repeated his instructions to himself
+“and ask for Mr. Elias. Assistance’ll be with you within fifteen
+minutes afterwards.”
+
+By the clock on the mantelpiece it was a quarter to seven. If aid
+arrived promptly, with a car they could be at the Dyke Inn by a quarter
+past seven.
+
+The telephone gave no sign of life. Desmond impatiently jerked the
+receiver hook up and down. This time, at least, he would not fail, he
+told himself. Before he went to bed that night Nur-el-Din, her maid,
+Rass, and if needs be, Strangwise (who needed a lesson to teach him
+discretion), should be in custody.
+
+Still no reply.
+
+“Hullo! Hullo!” cried Desmond, depressing the hook repeatedly. “Hullo,
+Exchange!”
+
+But there was no answer. Then it struck Desmond that the line was dead:
+his ear detected none of that busy whirr which is heard in the
+telephone when one is waiting to get a number.
+
+He spent five minutes in vain attempts to obtain a reply, then
+abandoned the endeavor in disgust.
+
+“I shall have to take the motor-bike and go over to Stunning,” he said
+to himself, “how I shall find my way there in this fog, the Lord only
+knows! And I don’t know whom to apply to when I get there. The
+police-station, I suppose!”
+
+He unlocked the door and rang for Martha.
+
+“I have to go over to Stunning, Martha,” he said, “I will try and be
+back for dinner at eight!”
+
+He had no intention of accompanying the party to the Dyke Inn. He must
+preserve his incognito until Mortimer, the main quarry, had been run
+down.
+
+He filled his case from the box of cigarettes on the table and thrust a
+box of matches into his pocket to light his head-lamp. Then, taking a
+cap from the hat-stand, he opened the front door. Even as he did so a
+big open car slowed down throbbing outside the porch. A man sprang out
+and advanced into the light streaming from the front door into the
+eddying mist. It was Mortimer.
+
+“Fortune,” thought Desmond, “has broken her rule. She has given me a
+second chance!”
+
+“Well met, Bellward!” cried Mortimer, blinking at the other through his
+thick glasses. “Tut, tut! What a night! You were never going out, I
+swear.”
+
+Already Desmond had decided in his mind the course of action he would
+pursue. For the moment he must let the party at the Dyke Inn slide in
+favor of the bigger catch. He must slip away later and have another try
+at the telephone and if it were still out of order, he must endeavor to
+overpower Mortimer and then go for assistance himself. On a night like
+this it was useless to think of employing a half-blind old dolt like
+Martha to take a message. As for the odd man, he lived at Wakefield,
+and went away at dusk every evening.
+
+So Desmond muttered some plausible lie about wanting to have a look at
+the weather and cordially invited Mortimer in.
+
+“You will stay for dinner” he said.
+
+“Gladly,” replied the other, sinking with a grunt into the settee. “And
+I should be glad if we might dine early.”
+
+Desmond raised his eyebrows.
+
+“... Because,” Mortimer resumed, “I have ventured to ask a few friends
+round here to... to have an evening at bridge. Doubtless, you have
+cards, eh?”
+
+Desmond pointed to a card-table standing in the corner with several
+packs of cards and markers. Then he rang and told the housekeeper that
+they would dine as soon as possible.
+
+“The coming fortnight,” said Mortimer, tucking his napkin into his
+collar as they sat at the dinner table, “is pregnant with great events.
+No less than ten divisions are, I understand, to be transferred to the
+other side. I have waited to communicate with you until I had
+confirmation of this report. But now that the matter has been decided,
+it only remains for us to perfect our arrangements for communicating
+these plans to our friends beyond the North Sea. Therefore, I thought a
+friendly bridge evening at the hospitable home of our dear colleague
+Bellward would be in place.”
+
+He smiled affably and bent over his soup-plate.
+
+“I shall be delighted to receive our friends,” Desmond replied, “a
+glass of sherry?”
+
+“Thank you,” said Mortimer.
+
+“I shall have to provide a few refreshments,” said Desmond. “May I ask
+how many guests I may expect?”
+
+Mortimer reckoned on his fingers.
+
+“Let’s see,” he answered, “there’s Max, that’s one, and Madame
+Malplaquet, that’s two. No. 13 and Behrend makes four and myself,
+five!”
+
+“And Madame Nur-el-Din?” queried Desmond innocently, but inwardly
+quaking at his rashness.
+
+Mortimer genially shook a finger at him.
+
+“Sly dog!” he chuckled, “you’re one too many for me in that quarter, I
+see! I know all about your tête-à-tête with our charming young friend
+this afternoon!”
+
+Desmond felt the blood rush to his face. He thought of Nur-el-Din’s
+words: “Mortimer sees and knows all.” He picked up his sherry glass and
+drained it to cover his confusion.
+
+“... It was hardly gallant of you to bolt so suddenly and leave the
+lady!” Mortimer added.
+
+_How much did this uncanny creature know?_
+
+Without waiting for him to reply, Mortimer went on.
+
+“I suppose she told you a long story of my persecution, eh, Bellward?
+You needn’t shake your head. I taxed her with it and she admitted as
+much.”
+
+“I had no idea that you were staying at the Dyke Inn!” said Desmond at
+a venture.
+
+“My friend,” replied Mortimer, lowering his voice, “your fair charmer
+is showing a decided inclination to make a nuisance of herself. I have
+had to keep an eye on her. It’s been a very serious inconvenience to my
+plans, I can assure you. But you haven’t answered my question. What
+sent you away in such a hurry this afternoon? and in so romantic a
+fashion? By the window, was it not?”
+
+Through sheer apprehension, Desmond was now keyed up to a kind of
+desperate audacity. The truth is sometimes a very effective weapon in
+the game of bluff, and Desmond determined to employ it.
+
+“I saw someone I didn’t want to meet,” he replied.
+
+“Ah!” said Mortimer, “who was that, I wonder? The Dyke Inn could hardly
+be described as a frequented resort, I imagine!”
+
+The entry of old Martha to change the plates prevented Desmond from
+replying. He used the brief respite to review the situation. He would
+tell Mortimer the truth. They were man to man now and he cared nothing
+even if the other should discover the fraud that had been practised
+upon him. Come what might, Mortimer, dead or alive, should be delivered
+up to justice that night.
+
+The housekeeper left the room and Desmond spoke.
+
+“I saw an officer I knew in the courtyard,” he said.
+
+“Oh, Strangwise, I suppose!” said Mortimer carelessly. “There’s nothing
+to fear from him, Bellward. He’s of the beef and beer and no brains
+stamp of British officer. But how do you know Strangwise?”
+
+“I met him at the Nineveh Hotel in town one night,” replied Desmond. “I
+don’t care about meeting officers, however, and that’s a fact!”
+
+Mortimer looked at him keenly for a brief instant. “What prudence!” he
+cried. “Bellward, you are the very model of what a secret agent should
+be! This pheasant is delicious!”
+
+He turned the conversation into a different channel but Desmond could
+not forget that brief searching look. His mind was in a turmoil of
+half-digested facts, of semi-completed deductions. He wanted to go away
+somewhere alone and think out this mystery and disentangle each
+separate web of this baffling skein of intrigue.
+
+He must focus his attention on Mortimer and Nur-el-Din. If Mortimer and
+Strangwise were both staying at the Dyke Inn, then they were probably
+acquainted. Strangwise knew Nur-el-Din, too, knew her well; for Desmond
+remembered how familiarly they had conversed together that night in the
+dancer’s dressing-room at the Palaceum. Strangwise knew Barbara
+Mackwayte also. Nur-el-Din had introduced them, Desmond remembered, on
+that fateful night when he had accompanied Strangwise to the Palaceum.
+Strange, how he was beginning to encounter the man Strangwise at every
+turn in this sinister affair.
+
+And then, with a shock that struck him like a blow in the face, Desmond
+recalled Barbara’s parting words to him in the taxi. He remembered how
+she had told him of seeing Nur-el-Din’s face in the mirror as the
+dancer was talking to Strangwise that night at the Palaceum, and of the
+look of terror in the girl’s eyes. Nur-el-Din was terrified of
+Mortimer; for so much she had admitted to Desmond that very afternoon;
+she was terrified of Strangwise, too, it seemed, of this Strangwise
+who, like Mortimer, kept appearing at every stage of this bewildering
+affair. What confession had been on Nur-el-Din’s lips when she had
+broken off that afternoon with the cry:
+
+“Already I have said too much!”
+
+Thereafter Desmond’s eyes were never long absent from Mortimer’s face,
+scrutinizing each feature in turn, the eyes, set rather close together,
+grotesquely shielded by the thick spectacles, the narrow cheeks, the
+rather cynical mouth half hidden by the heavy, drooping moustache, the
+broad forehead broken by a long lock of dark hair brushed out flat in a
+downward direction from an untidy, unkempt crop.
+
+They talked no more of Strangwise or of Nur-el-Din. The rest of dinner
+was passed in conversation of a general order in which Mr. Mortimer
+showed himself to great advantage. He appeared to be a widely traveled,
+well-read man, with a fund of dry, often rather grim humor. And all the
+time Desmond watched, watched, unobtrusively but unceasingly, looking
+out for something he was confident of detecting through the suave,
+immobile mask of this brilliant conversationalist.
+
+Skillfully, almost imperceptibly, Desmond edged the talk on to the war.
+In this domain, too, Mortimer showed himself a man of broad views, of
+big, comprehensive ideas. Towards the strategy and tactics of the two
+sides, he adopted the attitude of an impartial onlooker, but in his
+comments he proved himself to have a thorough grasp of the military
+situation. He talked freely and ably of such things as tanks, the
+limited objective in the attack and the decentralization of
+responsibility in the field.
+
+Encouraged by his volubility, for he was a man who delighted in
+conversation, Desmond gradually gave the talk a personal turn. But
+willing as Mortimer showed himself to discuss the war generally, about
+his personal share he was as mute as a fish. Try as he would Desmond
+could get nothing out of him. Again and again, he brought the
+conversation round to personal topics; but every time his companion
+contrived to switch it back to general lines.
+
+At last Desmond risked a direct question. By this time a pint of
+Pommery and Gréno was tingling in his veins and he felt he didn’t care
+if the roof fell in.
+
+“Ever since Nur-el-Din told me you were of the Crown Prince’s personal
+service,” he said, “I have been devoured with curiosity to know what
+you were doing before you came to England. Were you at Metz with his
+Imperial Highness? Did you see the assault at Verdun? Were you present
+at the capture of the Fort of Douaumont?”
+
+Mortimer shook his head, laughing, and held up a deprecating hand.
+
+“Professional discretion, my dear fellow, professional discretion!” he
+retorted. “You know what it is!”
+
+Then lowering his voice, he added:
+
+“Between ourselves the less said about my connection with Master Willie
+the better. Our colleagues are already restless at what they consider
+my neglect of my professional work. They attribute it to the wiles of
+Nur-el-Din. They may if they like and I don’t propose to disillusion
+them. You understand, Bellward?”
+
+His voice was commanding and he bent his brows at Desmond, who hastened
+to protest that his discretion in the matter would be absolute.
+
+When they had had their coffee and Mortimer was contentedly puffing one
+of Bellward’s excellent double Coronas, Desmond rose from the table.
+
+“If you will excuse me a minute,” he said, “I will just go across to
+the library and see if my housekeeper has put all in order for our
+guests!”
+
+Instantly Mortimer got up from the table.
+
+“By all means,” he said, and emptied his glass of brandy, “so, I will
+come with you!”
+
+Mortimer meant to stick to him, thought Desmond; that was evident. Then
+an idea struck him. Why should he not telephone in Mortimer’s presence?
+To ask for Mr. Elias was in no way incriminating and if help came
+promptly, Mortimer could be secured and the other spies pounced upon in
+their turn as they arrived.
+
+Therefore, as soon as they reached the library, Desmond walked over to
+the desk and picked up the telephone receiver from its hook.
+
+“Excuse me,” he said to Mortimer, “I had forgotten I had to ring up
+Stanning!”
+
+“Oh, dear,” said Mortimer from his place on the hearth rug where he was
+warming his coat tails in front of the fire, “isn’t that unfortunate? I
+wish I had known! Tut, tut, how annoying for you!”
+
+The telephone seemed quite dead.
+
+“I don’t understand!” said Desmond to Mortimer. “What’s annoying?”
+
+“The telephone, my dear Bellward,”—Mortimer spoke in a pompous
+voice—“the telephone is the symbol of the age in which we live, the age
+of publicity but also of indiscretion. It is almost as indiscreet to
+have a telephone in your house as to keep a diary. Therefore, in view
+of our little party here this evening, to prevent us from being
+disturbed in any way, I took the liberty of... of severing the
+connection... temporarily, mind you, only temporarily; it shall be
+restored as soon as we break up. I have some small acquaintance with
+electrical engineering.”
+
+Desmond was silent. Disappointment had deprived him for the moment of
+the power of speech. It was to be man to man then, after all. If he was
+to secure Mortimer and the rest of the gang that night, he must do it
+on his own. He could not hope for aid. The prospect did not affright
+him. If Mortimer could have seen the other’s eyes at that moment he
+might have remarked a light dancing in them that was not solely of
+Messrs. Pommery and Gréno’s manufacture.
+
+“If I had known you wanted to use the instrument, my dear fellow,”
+Mortimer continued in his bland voice, “I should certainly have waited
+until you had done your business!”
+
+“Pray don’t mention it,” replied Desmond, “you do well to be prudent,
+Mr. Mortimer!”
+
+Mortimer shot a sudden glance at him. Desmond met it with a frank, easy
+smile.
+
+“I’m a devil for prudence myself!” he observed brightly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+THE GATHERING OF THE SPIES
+
+
+Action, or the promise of action, always acted on Desmond Okewood like
+a nerve tonic. His visit to the inn, followed by the fencing with
+Mortimer at dinner, had galvanized his nerves jaded with the inaction
+of the preceding days. He averted his eyes from the future, he put the
+past resolutely away. He bent his whole attention on the problem
+immediately before him—how to carry off the role of Bellward in front
+of four strangers, one of whom, at least, he thought, must know the man
+he was impersonating; how to extract as much information as possible
+about the gang and its organization before uncovering his hand;
+finally, how to overpower the four men and the one woman when the
+moment had come to strike.
+
+Mortimer and he were in the library. By Desmond’s direction old Martha
+had put out two bridge tables and cards. A tantalus stand with siphons
+and glasses, an assortment of different colored liqueurs in handsome
+cut-glass carafes and some plates of sandwiches stood on a side-table.
+At Mortimer’s suggestion Desmond had told the housekeeper that, once
+the guests had arrived, she might go to bed.
+
+The library was very still. There was no sound except for the solemn
+ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece or the occasional rustle of the
+evening paper in Mortimer’s hand as he stood in front of the fire.
+Desmond was sitting on the settee, tranquilly smoking, studying
+Mortimer and thinking out the problem before him.
+
+He measured Mortimer with his eye. The latter was a bigger man than
+Desmond in every way and Desmond suspected that he was even stronger
+than he looked. Desmond wondered whether he should try and overpower
+him then and there. The other was almost certain to carry a revolver,
+he thought, while he was unarmed. Failure, he knew, would ruin
+everything. The gang would disperse to the four winds of heaven while
+as for Mr. Bellward—well, he would certainly be “for it,” as the
+soldiers say.
+
+No, he must hold his hand until the meeting had taken place. This was
+the first conference that Mortimer had summoned, and Desmond intended
+to see that it should be the last. But first he meant to find out all
+there was to know about the working of the gang.
+
+He resolved to wait and see what the evening would bring forth. The
+telephone was “a washout”: the motor-cycle was now his only chance to
+summon aid for he knew it was hopeless to think of tackling
+single-handed odds of four to one (to say nothing of the lady in the
+case). It must be his business to _make_ an opportunity to slip away on
+the motor-bike to Stanning. Ten minutes to get there, five minutes to
+deliver his message at the police station (if the Chief’s people made
+their headquarters there), and ten minutes to get back if they had a
+car. Could he leave the meeting for 25 minutes without arousing
+suspicions? He doubted it; but it must be. There was no other way. And
+then with a shock that made him cold with fear he remembered Mortimer’s
+motor-car.
+
+If, during his absence, anything occurred to arouse their suspicions,
+the whole crowd could pile into the car and be away long before Desmond
+could be back with help. The fog had lifted and it was a clear night
+outside. The car would have to be got rid of before he left the house,
+that was all about it. But how? A means to that end must also be
+discovered as the evening progressed. By the way, what had Mortimer
+done with his car?
+
+A very faint throbbing somewhere outside answered Desmond’s unspoken
+question.
+
+Mortimer flung aside his paper.
+
+“Isn’t that a car?” he asked, “that’ll be they. I sent Max to Wentfield
+station to meet our friends!”
+
+There was the sound of voices, of bustle in the hall. Then the door
+opened and a man came in. Desmond had a brief moment of acute suspense.
+Was he supposed to know him?
+
+He was a short, ugly fellow with immensely broad shoulders, a heavy
+puffy face, a gross, broad nose, and a tooth-brush moustache. He might
+have been a butcher to look at. In the top edge of his coat lapel, he
+wore a small black pin with a glass head.
+
+“Well, Max,” said Mortimer. “Have you brought them all?”
+
+The man was mustering Desmond with a suspicious, unfriendly stare.
+
+“My friend, Bellward!” said Mortimer, clapping Desmond on the shoulder.
+“You’ve heard of Bellward, Max!”
+
+And to Desmond’s surprise he made some passes in the air.
+
+The man’s mien underwent a curious change. He became cringing; almost
+overawed.
+
+“Reelly,” he grunted, “reelly now! You don’t siy! Glad to know yer,
+mister, I’m shore!”
+
+He spoke with a vile snuffing cockney accent, and thrust out his hand
+to Desmond. Then he added to Mortimer:
+
+“There’s three on ’em. That’s the count, ain’t it? I lef’ the car
+outside on the drive!”
+
+At this moment two more of the guests entered: One was a tall,
+emaciated looking man of about fifty who seemed to be in the last
+stages of consumption; the other a slightly built young fellow with a
+shock of black hair brushed back and an olive complexion. He wore
+pince-nez and looked like a Russian revolutionary. They, too, wore the
+badge of the brotherhood—the black pin in the coat lapel.
+
+“Goot efening, Mr. Mortimer,” said the tall man in a guttural voice,
+“this is Behrend”—he indicated the young man by his side—“you haft not
+meet him no?”
+
+Then, leaving Behrend to shake hands with Mortimer, he literally rushed
+at Desmond and shook him by the hand exactly as though he were working
+a pump handle.
+
+“My tear Pellward,” he cried, “it is a hondred year since I haf see
+you, not? And how are the powers!”
+
+He lowered his voice and gazed mysteriously at him.
+
+Desmond, at a loss what to make of this extraordinary individual,
+answered at random:
+
+“The powers? Still fighting, I believe!”
+
+The tall man stared open-mouthed at him for a moment. Then, clapping
+his hands together, he burst into a high-pitched cackle of laughter.
+
+“A joke,” he yelled, “a mos’ excellent joke! I must tell this to Minna.
+My vriend, I haf not mean the great Powers.”
+
+He looked dramatically about him, then whispered:
+
+“I mean, the oggult!”
+
+Desmond, who was now quite out of his depth, wagged his head solemnly
+at the other as though to indicate that, his occult powers were
+something not to be lightly mentioned. He had no fear of the tall man,
+at any rate. He placed _him_ as a very ordinary German, a common type
+in the Fatherland, simple-minded, pedantic, inquisitive, and a
+prodigious bore withal but dangerous, for of this stuff German
+discipline kneads militarists.
+
+But the door opened again to admit the last of the guests. A woman
+entered. Desmond was immediately struck by the contrast she presented
+to the others, Mortimer with his goggle eyes and untidy hair, Max,
+gross and bestial, Behrend, Oriental and shifty, and the scarecrow
+figure of the tall man.
+
+Despite her age, which must have been nearly sixty, she still retained
+traces of beauty. Her features were very regular, and she had a pair of
+piercing black eyes of undimmed brightness. Her gray hair was
+tastefully arranged, and she wore a becoming black velvet gown with a
+black lace scarf thrown across the shoulders. A white silk rose was
+fastened to her bodice by a large black pin with a glass head.
+
+Directly she appeared, the tall man shouted to her in German.
+
+“Sag’ mal, Minna...” he began.
+
+Mortimer turned on him savagely.
+
+“Hold your tongue, No. 13,” he cried, “are you mad? What the devil do
+you mean by it? You know the rules!”
+
+By way of reply, “No. 13” broke into a regular frenzy of coughing which
+left him gasping for breath.
+
+“Pardon! I haf’ forgot!” he wheezed out between the spasms.
+
+The woman went over to Mortimer and put out her gloved hand.
+
+“I am Mrs. Malplaquet,” she said in a pleasant voice. “And you are Mr.
+Mortimer, I think!”
+
+Mortimer bowed low over her hand.
+
+“Madame, I am charmed to meet one of whom I have heard nothing but
+praise,” he said.
+
+“Verry pretty!” replied Mrs. Malplaquet smiling. “They tell me you have
+a great way with the ladies, my dear sir!”
+
+“But,” she went on, “I am neglecting our host, my dear Mr. Bellward.
+How are you, my friend? How well you are looking... so young... so
+fresh! I declare you seem to have got five years younger!”
+
+The keen black eyes searched Desmond’s face. He felt horribly
+uncomfortable. The woman’s eyes were like gimlets boring right into
+him. He suddenly felt that his disguise was a poor one. He remembered
+Crook’s warning to be wary of women, and he inwardly quailed.
+
+“I am so glad to meet you again!” he murmured. He didn’t like Mrs.
+Malplaquet’s eyes. They assorted strangely with the rest of her gentle
+and refined appearance. They were hard and cruel, those black eyes.
+They put him in mind of a snake.
+
+“It is so long since I’ve seen you,” she said, “that positively your
+voice seems to have changed.”
+
+“That’s because I have a cold,” said Desmond.
+
+“Fiddlesticks!” retorted the lady, “the _timbre_ is quite different!
+Bellward, I believe you’re in love! Don’t tell me you’ve been running
+after that hank of hair that Mortimer is so devoted to!” She glanced in
+Mortimer’s direction, but that gentleman was engaged in earnest
+conversation with Behrend and the tall man.
+
+“Whom do you meant” asked Desmond.
+
+“Where are your eyes, man?” rapped out Mrs. Malplaquet. “The dancer
+woman, of course, Nur-el-what-do-you-call-it. There’s the devil of a
+row brewing about the way our friend over there is neglecting us to run
+after the minx. They’re getting sharp in this country, Bellward—I’ve
+lived here for forty years so I know what I’m talking about—and we
+can’t afford to play any tricks. Mortimer will finish by bringing
+destruction on every one of us. And I shall tell him so tonight. And so
+will No. 13! And so will young Behrend! You ought to hear Behrend about
+it!”
+
+Mrs. Malplaquet began to interest Desmond. She was obviously a woman of
+refinement, and he was surprised to find her in this odd company. By
+dint of careful questioning, he ascertained the fact that she lived in
+London, at a house on Campden Hill. She seemed to know a good many
+officers, particularly naval men.
+
+“I’ve been keeping my eyes open as I promised, Bellward,” she said,
+“and I believe I’ve got hold of a likely subject for you—a submarine
+commander he is, and very psychic. When will you come and meet him at
+my house?”
+
+Mortimer’s voice, rising above the buzz of conversation, checked his
+reply.
+
+“If you will all sit down,” he said, “we’ll get down to business.”
+
+Despite all distractions, Desmond had been watching for this summons.
+He had marked down for himself a chair close to the door. For this he
+now made, after escorting Mrs. Malplaquet to the settee where she sat
+down beside Behrend. Max took the armchair on the left of the
+fireplace; while No. 13 perched himself grotesquely on a high
+music-stool, his long legs curled round the foot. Mortimer stood in his
+former position on the hearth, his back to the fire.
+
+A very odd-looking band! Desmond commented to himself but he thought he
+could detect in each of the spies a certain ruthless fanaticism which
+experience taught him to respect as highly dangerous. And they all had
+hard eyes!
+
+When they were seated, Mortimer said:
+
+“About the 14th of this month the British Admiralty will begin the work
+of shipping to France ten divisions of American troops now training in
+this country. The most extraordinary precautions are being taken to
+complete this huge undertaking with success. It seems to me that the
+moment has come for us to demonstrate the efficiency of our new
+organization.”
+
+He looked round at his audience but no one said a word. Desmond felt
+very distinctly that there was a hostile atmosphere against Mortimer in
+that room.
+
+“I asked you to come here to-night,” Mortimer went on, “to discuss the
+plans for sending prompt and accurate information regarding the
+movements of these transports to the other side. I warn you that this
+time our mode of procedure will have to be radically different from the
+methods we have pursued on former occasions. To expend our energies in
+collecting information at half a dozen different ports of war will be
+waste of time. The direction of the whole of this enterprise lies in
+the hands of one man at the Admiralty.”
+
+Behrend, who had struck Desmond as a rather taciturn young man, shook
+his head dubiously.
+
+“That makes things very difficult,” he remarked.
+
+“Wait,” replied Mortimer. “I agree, it is very difficult, the more so
+as I have reason to believe that the authorities have discovered the
+existence of our organization.”
+
+Mrs. Malplaquet and Behrend turned to one another simultaneously.
+
+“What did I say?” said Behrend.
+
+“I told you so,” said the lady.
+
+“Therefore,” Mortimer resumed, “our former activities on the coast will
+practically be paralyzed. We shall have to confine our operations to
+London while Max and Mr. Behrend here will be entrusted with the task
+of getting the news out to our submarines.”
+
+No. 13 broke in excitedly.
+
+“Vork in London, vork in London!” he cried. “It is too dangerous, my
+vriend. Vot do I know of London? Portsmouth” (he called it Portsmouse),
+“Sout’ampton, the Isle of Vight... good... it is my province. But,
+London... it is senseless!”
+
+Mortimer turned his gig-lamps on the interrupter.
+
+“You will take your orders from me as before,” he said quietly.
+
+Behrend adjusted his pince-nez.
+
+“No. 13 is perfectly right,” he remarked, “he knows his territory, and
+he should be allowed to work there.”
+
+“You, too,” Mortimer observed in the same calm tone as before, “will
+take your orders from me!”
+
+With a quick gesture the young man dashed his long black hair out of
+his eyes.
+
+“Maybe,” he replied, “but only as long as I feel sure that your orders
+are worth following.
+
+“Do you dare...” began Mortimer, shouting.
+
+“... At present,” the other continued, as though Mortimer had not
+spoken. “I don’t feel at all sure that they are.”
+
+The atmosphere was getting a trifle heated, thought Desmond. If he
+judged Mortimer aright, he was not the man to let himself be dictated
+to by anybody. He was wondering how the scene would end when suddenly
+something caught his eye that took his mind right away from the events
+going forward in the room.
+
+Opposite him, across the library, was a French window across which the
+curtains had been drawn. One of the curtains, however, had got looped
+up on a chair so that there was a gap at the bottom of the window
+showing the pane.
+
+In this gap was a face pressed up against the glass. To his
+astonishment Desmond recognized the weather-beaten features of the odd
+man, Mr. John Hill. The face remained there only for a brief instant.
+The next moment it was gone and Desmond’s attention was once more
+claimed by the progress of the conference.
+
+“Do I understand that you refuse to serve under me any longer?”
+Mortimer was saying to Behrend, who had risen from the settee and stood
+facing him.
+
+“As long as you continue to behave as you are doing at present,”
+replied the other, “you may understand that!”
+
+Mortimer made a quick dive for his pocket. In an instant Max had jumped
+at him and caught his arm.
+
+“Don’t be a fool!” he cried, “for Gawd’s sake, put it away, carn’t yer?
+D ’you want the ’ole ruddy plice abart our ears?”
+
+“I’ll have no disobedience of orders,” roared Mortimer, struggling with
+the other. In his fist he had a big automatic pistol. It was a
+prodigious weapon, the largest pistol that Desmond had ever seen.
+
+“He threatened him, he threatened him!” screamed No. 13 jumping about
+on his stool.
+
+“Take it away from him, Max, for Heaven’s sake!” cried the lady.
+
+Everybody was talking at once. The noise was so loud that Desmond
+wondered whether old Martha would hear the din. He sat in his chair by
+the door, a silent witness of the scene. Then suddenly, at the height
+of the hubbub, he heard the faint humming of a motor-car. It lasted for
+perhaps thirty seconds, then gradually died away.
+
+“What did it mean?” he asked himself. The only living being he knew of
+outside was John Hill, the odd man, whose face he had just seen; the
+only car was Mortimer’s. Had the odd man gone off in Mortimer’s car? He
+was thankful to note that, in the din, none save him seemed to have
+heard the car.
+
+By this time Mortimer had put up his pistol and Mrs. Malplaquet was
+speaking. Her remarks were effective and very much to the point. She
+upbraided Mortimer with his long and mysterious absences which she
+attributed to his infatuation for Nur-el-Din and complained bitterly of
+the dancer’s imprudence in consorting openly with notorious folk like
+Lazarro and Bryan Mowbury.
+
+“I went to the girl myself,” she said, “and begged her to be more
+circumspect. But Madame would not listen to advice; Madame was
+doubtless sure of her position with our revered leader, and thought she
+could reject the friendly counsel of one old enough to be her mother.
+Behrend and Max and No. 13 there—all of us—are absolutely agreed that
+we are not going on with this sort of thing any longer. If you are to
+remain in charge of our organization, Mr. Mortimer, we want to know
+where you are to be found and how you spend your time. In short, we
+want to be sure that you are not playing a game that most of us have at
+different times played on subordinate agents... I mean, that when the
+crisis comes, we fall into the trap and _you_ walk away. You had better
+realize once and for all that we are too old hands for that sort of
+trick.”
+
+Here Max took up the thread. “Mrs. Malplaquet had put it very strite,
+so she ’ad, and wot he wanted to know was what Mortimer ’ad to siy?”
+
+Mortimer was very suave in his reply; a bad sign, thought Desmond, for
+it indicated that he was not sure of himself. He was rather vague,
+spoke about a vitally important mission that he had had to fulfil but
+which he had now brought to a successful conclusion, so that he was at
+length free to devote his whole attention once more to the great task
+in hand.
+
+Behrend brought his fist crashing down on the arm of the settee.
+
+“Words, words,” he cried, “it won’t do for me. Isn’t there a man in the
+room besides me? You, Bellward, or you, Max, or you, No.13? Haven’t you
+got any guts any of you? Are you going to sit here and listen to the
+soft soap of a fellow who has probably sent better men than himself to
+their death with tripe of this kind? It may do for you, but by the
+Lord, it won’t do for me!”
+
+Mortimer cleared his throat uneasily.
+
+“Our host is silent,” said Mrs. Malplaquet, “what does Mr. Bellward
+think about it?”
+
+Desmond spoke up promptly.
+
+“I think it would be very interesting to hear something further about
+this mission of Mortimer’s,” he observed:
+
+Mortimer cast him a glance of bitter malice.
+
+“Well,” he said, after a pause, “you force my hand. I shall tell you of
+this mission of mine and I shall show you the evidence, because it
+seems essential in the interests of our organization. But I assure you
+I shall not forget this want of confidence you have shown in me; and I
+shall see that you don’t forget it, either!”
+
+As he spoke, he glared fiercely at Desmond through his glasses.
+
+“Let’s hear about the precious mission,” jeered Behrend, “let’s see the
+evidence. The threats’ll keep!”
+
+Then Mortimer told them of how the Star of Poland came into
+Nur-el-Din’s possession, and of the Crown Prince’s embarrassment when
+the German authorities claimed it for the regalia of the new Kingdom of
+Poland.
+
+“The Crown Prince,” he said, “summoned me to him in person and gave me
+the order to make my way to England immediately and recover the gem at
+all costs and by any means. Did I whine or snivel about being sent to
+my death as some of you were doing just now? No! That is not the way of
+the Prussian Guard...”
+
+“The Prussian Guard?” cried No. 13 in an awed voice. “Are you also of
+the Prussian Guard, comrade?”
+
+He had risen from his seat and there was something almost of majesty
+about his thin, ungainly figure as he drew himself to his full height.
+
+“Ay, comrade, I was,” replied Mortimer.
+
+“Then,” cried No. 13, “you are...”
+
+“No names, comrade,” warned Mortimer, “no names, I beg!”
+
+“No names, no names!” repeated the other and relapsed into his seat in
+a reverie.
+
+“How I got to England,” Mortimer continued, “matters nothing; how I
+fulfilled my mission is neither here nor there. But I recovered the gem
+and the proof...”
+
+He thrust a hand into the inner pocket of his coat and plucked out a
+white paper package sealed up with broad red seals.
+
+Desmond held his breath. It was the white paper package, exactly as
+Barbara had described.
+
+“Look at it well, Behrend,” said Mortimer, holding it up for the young
+man to see, “it cost me a man’s life to get that. If it had sent twenty
+men to their death, I should have had it just the same!”
+
+Mrs. Malplaquet clapped her hands, her eyes shining.
+
+“Bravo, bravo!” she exclaimed, “that’s the spirit! That’s the way to
+talk, Mortimer!”
+
+“Cut it out,” snarled Behrend, “and let’s see the goods!”
+
+All had left their seats and were gathered in a group about Mortimer as
+he began to break the gleaming red wag seals. One by one he burst them,
+the white paper slipped off and disclosed... a box of cigarettes.
+
+Mortimer stood gazing in stupefaction at the gaudy green and gold
+lettering of the box. Then, running his thumb-nail swiftly along the
+edge of the box, he broke the paper wrapping, the box burst open and a
+shower of cigarettes fell to the ground.
+
+“So that’s your Star of Poland, is it?” cried Behrend in a mocking
+voice.
+
+“Wot ’ave yer done wiv’ the sparklers, eh?” demanded Max, catching
+Mortimer roughly by the arm.
+
+But Mortimer stood, aimlessly shaking the empty box in front of him, as
+though to convince himself that the gem was not there. Behrend fell on
+his knees and raked the pile of cigarettes over and over with his
+fingers.
+
+“Nothing there!” he shouted angrily, springing to his feet. “It’s all
+bluff! He’s bluffing to the end! See, he doesn’t even attempt to find
+his famous jewel! He knows it isn’t there!”
+
+But Mortimer paid no heed. He was staring straight in front of him, a
+strangely woe-begone figure with his thatch of untidy hair and round
+goggle eyes. Then the cigarette box fell to the floor with a crash as
+Mortimer’s hands dropped, with, a hopeless gesture, to his sides.
+
+“Barbara Mackwayte!” he whispered in a low voice, not seeming to
+realize that he was speaking aloud, “so that’s what she wanted with
+Nur-el-Din!”
+
+Desmond was standing at Mortimer’s elbow and caught the whisper. As he
+heard Mortimer speak Barbara’s name, he had a sudden premonition that
+his own unmasking was imminent, though he understood as little of the
+purport of the other’s remark as of the pile of cigarettes lying on the
+carpet. As Mortimer turned to look at him, Desmond nerved himself to
+meet the latter’s gaze. But Mortimer’s face wore the look of a
+desperate man. There was no recognition in his eyes.
+
+Not so with Desmond. Perhaps the bitterness of his disappointment had
+made Mortimer careless, perhaps the way in which he had pronounced
+Barbara’s name struck a familiar chord in Desmond’s memory. The unkempt
+hair brushed down across the forehead, the thick glasses, the heavy
+moustache still formed together an impenetrable mask which Desmond’s
+eyes failed to pierce. But now he recalled the voice. As Mortimer
+looked at him, the truth dawned on Desmond and he knew that the man
+standing beside him was Maurice Strangwise, his comrade-in-arms in
+France.
+
+At that very moment a loud crash rang through the room, a cold blast of
+damp air came rushing in and the lamp on the table flared up wildly,
+flickered an instant and went out, leaving the room in darkness save
+for the glow of the fire.
+
+A deep voice cried:
+
+“May I ask what you are all doing in my house?”
+
+The secret door of the bookshelves had swung back and there, framed in
+the gaping void, Desmond saw the dark figure of a man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+THE UNINVITED GUEST
+
+
+There are moments in life when the need for prompt action is so urgent
+that thought, decision and action must be as one operation of the
+brain. In the general consternation following on the dramatic
+appearance of this uninvited guest, Desmond had a brief respite in
+which to think over his position.
+
+Should he make a dash for it or stay where he was and await
+developments?
+
+Without a second’s hesitation; he decided on the latter course. With
+the overpowering odds against him it was more than doubtful whether he
+could ever reach the library door. Besides, to go was to abandon
+absolutely all hope of capturing the gang; for his flight would warn
+the conspirators that the game was up. On the other hand, the new-comer
+might be an ally, perhaps an emissary of the Chief’s. The strange
+behavior of the odd man had shown that something was afoot outside of
+which those in the library were unaware. Was the uninvited guest the
+_deus ex machina_ who was to help him, Desmond, out of his present
+perilous fix?
+
+Meanwhile the stranger had stepped into the room, drawing the secret
+door to behind him. Desmond heard his heavy step and the dull thud of
+the partition swinging into place. The sound seemed to break the spell
+that hung over the room.
+
+Mortimer was the first to recover his presence of mind. Crying out to
+No. 13 to lock the door leading into the hall, he fumbled for a moment
+at the table. Desmond caught the noise of a match being scratched and
+the next moment the library was again bathed in the soft radiance of
+the lamp.
+
+Picking up the light, Mortimer strode across to the stranger.
+
+“What do _you_ want here” he demanded fiercely, “and who the devil...”
+
+He broke off without completing his sentence, drawing back in
+amazement. For the rays of the lamp fell upon the pale face of a
+stoutish, bearded man, veering towards middle age standing in front of
+Mortimer. And the face was the face of the stoutish, bearded man,
+veering towards middle age, who stood in the shadow a few paces
+_behind_ Mortimer. Each man was a complete replica of the other, save
+that the face of the new arrival was thin and haggard with that
+yellowish tinge which comes from long confinement.
+
+As Mortimer staggered back, the uninvited guest recoiled in his turn.
+He was staring fixedly across the room at his double who met his gaze
+firmly, erect, tense, silent. The others looked in sheer stupefaction
+from one to the other of the two Mr. Bellwards. For nearly a minute the
+only sound in the room was the deep ticking of the clock, counting away
+the seconds separating him from eternity, Desmond thought.
+
+It was Mrs. Malplaquet who broke the silence. Suddenly her nerves
+snapped under the strain, and she screamed aloud.
+
+“A—ah!” she cried, “look! There are two of them! No, no, it can’t be!”
+
+And she sank half fainting on the sofa.
+
+Behrend whipped out a pistol from his hip pocket and thrust it in
+Mortimer’s face.
+
+“Is this another of your infernal surprise packets?” he demanded
+fiercely.
+
+All the spies seemed on a sudden to be armed, Desmond noted, all, that
+is, save Mrs. Malplaquet who lay cowering on the settee. Mortimer had
+pulled out his super-Mauser; No. 13, who was guarding the door, had a
+revolver in his hand, and Behrend, as has been stated, was threatening
+Mortimer with his Browning.
+
+Now Max advanced threateningly into the room, a long seaman’s knife in
+his hand..
+
+“Put that blarsted shooting-iron awiy!” he snarled at Mortimer, “and
+tell us wot’s the little gime, will yer! Come on, egpline!”
+
+With absolute self-possession Mortimer turned from the stranger to
+Desmond.
+
+“I think it is up to the twins to explain,” he said almost
+nonchalantly, “suppose we hear what this gentleman, who arrived so
+surprisingly through the book-shelves, has to say?”
+
+Though threatened with danger from two sides, from the gang and
+possibly, as far as he knew, from the stranger, Mortimer was perfectly
+calm. Desmond never admired Maurice Strangwise more than in that
+moment. All eyes now turned questioningly towards the new arrival. As
+for Desmond he drew back as far as he dared into the shadow. He knew he
+was in the direst peril; but he was not afraid for himself. He was
+crushed to the ground by the sickening feeling that he was going to be
+beaten, that the gang were going to slip through his fingers after
+all... and he was powerless to prevent it.
+
+He guessed at once what had happened. Bellward must have escaped from
+custody; for there was no disguise about this pale, flustered creature
+who had the cowed look of a hunted man in his eyes. He must have come
+to the Mill House to get his motorcycle; for he surely would have known
+that the villa would be the first place to which the police would
+follow him up.
+
+Desmond saw a little ray of hope. If—it was a very big if—Bellward’s
+flight were discovered promptly, the police might be expected to reach
+the Mill House very soon behind him. Bellward must have come straight
+there; for he had not even taken the very elementary precaution of
+shaving off his beard. That made Desmond think that he must have
+escaped some time that evening after the barbers’ shops were closed.
+
+With thumping heart, with bated breath, he waited for what was to come.
+In a very little while, he told himself, the truth must come out. His
+only chance was to try and bluff his way out of this appalling dilemma
+and above all, at all costs—this was the essential fact which, he told
+himself, he must keep steadfastly before his eyes—not to lose sight of
+Mortimer whatever happened.
+
+Bellward’s voice—and its tones showed Desmond what an accomplished mime
+Crook had been—broke the silence.
+
+“I have nothing to explain,” he said, turning from the sofa where he
+had been exchanging a few words in an undertone with Mrs. Malplaquet,
+“this is my house. That is sufficient explanation for my presence here,
+I imagine. But I confess I am curious to know what this person”—he
+indicated Desmond—“is doing in _my_ clothes, if I mistake not, giving
+what I take to be a very successful impersonation of myself.”
+
+Then Desmond stepped boldly out of the shadow into the circle of light
+thrown by the lamp.
+
+“I don’t know what you all think,” he said firmly, “but it seems to me
+singularly unwise for us to stand here gossiping when there is a
+stranger amongst us. I fail to understand the motive of this gentleman
+in breaking into _my_ house by _my_ private door, wearing _my_ clothes,
+if I am to believe my eyes; but I clearly realize the danger of
+admitting strangers to a gathering of this kind.”
+
+“Quite right,” agreed Behrend, nodding his head in assent.
+
+“You have had one singular surprise to-night already,” Desmond resumed,
+“in the matter of the jewel which our respected leader was about to
+show us: if you recollect, our friend was only prevented from giving us
+the explanation which he certainly owed us over his little hoax by the
+arrival, the most timely arrival, of his confederate...”
+
+“Confederate?” shouted Mortimer, “what the devil do you mean by that?”
+
+“Yes, confederate,” Desmond repeated. “Max, Behrend, Mrs. Malplaquet,
+all of you, look at this wretched fellow”—he pointed a finger of scorn
+at Bellward—“trembling with fright at the role that has been thrust
+upon him, to force his way into our midst, to give his accomplice the
+tip to clear out before the police arrive.”
+
+“Stop!” exclaimed Mortimer, raising his pistol. Behrend caught his
+hand.
+
+“We’ll hear _you_ in a minute!” he said.
+
+“Let him finish!” said Mrs. Malplaquet, and there was a certain ominous
+quietness in her tone that startled Desmond.
+
+As for Bellward, he remained silent, with arms folded, listening very
+intently.
+
+“Doubtless, this double of mine,” continued Desmond in a mocking voice,
+“is the bearer of the Star of Poland, the wonderful jewel which has
+required our beloved leader to devote so much of his time to a certain
+charming lady. Bah! are you going to let a man like this,” and he
+pointed to Mortimer disdainfully with his hand, “a man who puts you in
+the fighting line while he amuses himself in the rear, are you going to
+let this false friend, this bogus spy, cheat you like this? My friends,
+my advice to you, if you don’t want to have another and yet more
+disagreeable surprise, is to make sure that this impudent imposter is
+not here for the purpose of selling us all!”
+
+He raised his voice until it rang through the room, at the same time
+looking round the group at the faces of the spies to see how his
+harangue had worked upon their feelings. Max and Behrend, he could see,
+were on his side; No. 13 was obviously, undecided; Mortimer and
+Bellward were, of course, against him; Mrs. Malplaquet sat with her
+hands in her lap, her eyes cast down, giving no sign.
+
+“It’s high time...” Mortimer began violently but Mrs. Malplaquet put up
+her hand and checked him.
+
+“Better hear Bellward!” she said softly.
+
+“I know nothing of what has been taking place in my absence,” he said,
+“either here or outside. I only know that I escaped from the escort
+that was taking me back from Scotland Yard to Brixton Prison this
+evening and that the police are hard on my track. I have delayed too
+long as, it is. Every one of us in this room, with the exception of the
+traitor who is amongst us”—he pointed a finger in denunciation at
+Desmond—“is in the most imminent peril as long as we stay here. The
+rest of you can please yourselves. I’m off!”
+
+He turned and pressed the spring. The book shelves swung open. Behrend
+sprang forward.
+
+“Not so fast,” he cried. “You don’t leave this room until we know who
+you are!”
+
+And he covered him with his pistol.
+
+“Fool!” exclaimed Bellward who had stopped on the threshold of the
+secret door, “do you want to trap the lot of us! Tell him, Minna,” he
+said to Mrs. Malplaquet, “and for Heaven’s sake, let us be gone!”
+
+Mrs. Malplaquet stood up.
+
+“This is Basil Bellward,” she said, “see, he’s wearing the ring I gave
+him, a gold snake with emerald eyes! And now,” she cried, raising her
+voice shrilly, “before we go, kill that man!”
+
+And she pointed at Desmond.
+
+Bellward had seized her by the arm and was dragging her through the
+opening in the shed when a shrill whistle resounded from the garden.
+Without any warning Mortimer swung round and fired point-blank at
+Desmond. But Desmond had stooped to spring at the other and the bullet
+went over his head. With ears singing from the deafening report of the
+pistol in the confined space, with the acrid smell of cordite in his
+nostrils, Desmond leapt at Mortimer’s throat, hoping to bear him to the
+ground before he could shoot again. As he sprang he heard the crash of
+glass and a loud report. Someone cried out sharply “Oh!” as though in
+surprise and fell prone between him and his quarry; then he stumbled
+and at the same time received a crashing blow on the head. Without a
+sound he dropped to the ground across a body that twitched a little and
+then lay still.
+
+
+Somewhere in the far, far distance Desmond heard a woman crying—long
+drawn-out wailing lamentations on a high, quavering note. He had a
+dull, hard pain in his head which felt curiously stiff. Drowsily he
+listened for a time to the woman’s sobbing, so tired, so curiously
+faint that he scarcely cared to wonder what it signified. But at last
+it grated on him by its insistency and he opened his eyes to learn the
+cause of it.
+
+His bewildered gaze fell upon what seemed to him a gigantic, ogre-like
+face, as huge, as grotesque, as a pantomime mask. Beside it was a
+light, a brilliant light, that hurt his eyes.
+
+Then a voice, as faint as a voice on a long distance telephone, said:
+
+“Well, how are you feeling?”
+
+The voice was so remote that Desmond paid no attention to it. But he
+was rather surprised to hear a voice reply, a voice that came from his
+own lips, curiously enough:
+
+“Fine!”
+
+So he opened his eyes again to ascertain the meaning of this
+phenomenon. This time the ogre-like face came into focus, and Desmond
+saw a man with a tumbler in his hand bending over him.
+
+“That’s right,” said the man, looking very intently at him, “feel a bit
+better, eh? Got a bit of a crack, what? Just take a mouthful of
+brandy... I’ve got it here!”
+
+Desmond obediently swallowed the contents of the glass that the other
+held to his lips. He was feeling horribly weak, and very cold. His
+collar and shirt were unbuttoned, and his neck and shoulders were
+sopping wet with water. On his ears still fell the wailing of the
+woman.
+
+“Corporal,” said the man bending over him, “just go and tell that old
+hag to hold her noise! She’ll have to go out of the house if she can’t
+be quiet!”
+
+Desmond opened his eyes again. He was lying on the settee in the
+library. A tall figure in khaki, who had been stirring the fire with
+his boot, turned at the doctor’s summons and left the room. On the
+table the lamp was still burning but its rays were neutralized by the
+glare of a crimson dawn which Desmond could see flushing the sky
+through the shattered panes of the French window. In the centre of the
+floor lay a long object covered by a tablecloth, beside it a table
+overturned with a litter of broken glass strewn about the carpet.
+
+The woman’s sobbing ceased. The corporal came back into the room.
+
+“She’ll be quiet now, sir,” he said, “I told her to get you and the
+gentlemen a cup o’ tea.”
+
+Then, to Desmond, he said:
+
+“Nasty ding you got, sir! My word, I thought they’d done for you when I
+come in at the winder!”
+
+The telephone on the desk tingled sharply. The door opened at the same
+moment and a shabby little old man with sandy side whiskers and
+moleskin trousers came briskly in.
+
+His appearance had a curious effect on the patient on the settee.
+Despite the doctor’s restraining hand, he struggled into a sitting
+position, staring in bewilderment at the shabby old man who had gone
+straight to the telephone and lifted the receiver. And well might
+Desmond stare; for here was Mr. John Hill, the odd man, talking on the
+telephone. And his voice...
+
+“Well?” said the man at the telephone, curtly.
+
+“Yes, speaking. You’ve got her, eh? Good. What’s that? Well, that’s
+something. No trace of the others? Damn!”
+
+He slammed down the receiver and turned to face the settee.
+
+“Francis!” cried Desmond.
+
+And then he did a thing highly unbecoming in a field officer. He burst
+into tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+THE ODD MAN
+
+
+Desmond and Francis Okewood sat in the dining-room of the Mill House
+finishing an excellent breakfast of ham and eggs and coffee which old
+Martha had prepared for them.
+
+Francis was still wearing Mr. John Hill’s greasy jacket and moleskins,
+but the removal of the sandy whiskers and a remarkable wig, consisting
+of a bald pate with a fringe of reddish hair, had gone far to restore
+him to the semblance of his former self.
+
+Desmond was feeling a good deal better. His head had escaped the full
+force of the smashing blow dealt at him by Strangwise with the butt of
+his pistol. He had instinctively put up his arm to defend his face and
+the thickly padded sleeve of Bellward’s jacket had broken the force of
+the blow. Desmond had avoided a fractured skull at the price of an
+appalling bruise on the right forearm and a nasty laceration of the
+scalp.
+
+Francis had resolutely declined to enlighten him as to the events of
+the night until both had breakfasted. After despatching the corporal of
+military police to hurry the housekeeper on with the breakfast, Francis
+had taken his brother straight to the dining-room, refusing to let him
+ask the questions which thronged his brain until they had eaten and
+drunk. Only when all the ham and eggs had disappeared, did Francis,
+lighting one of Mr. Bellward’s cigars, consent to satisfy his brother’s
+curiosity.
+
+“It was only yesterday morning,” he said, “that I landed at Folkstone
+from the Continent. How I got the Chief’s message recalling me and how
+I made my escape through the Turkish lines to Allenby’s headquarters is
+a long story which will keep. The Chief had a car waiting for me at
+Folkstone and I reached London in time to lunch with him. We had a long
+talk and he gave me carte blanche to jump into this business now, when
+and where I thought I could best help you.”
+
+Desmond smiled bitterly.
+
+“The Chief couldn’t trust me to make good on my own, I suppose,” he
+said.
+
+“The Chief had a very good idea of the character of the people you had
+to deal with, Des.,” retorted Francis, “and he was a trifle
+apprehensive that the role you were playing might lead to
+complications, supposing the gang were to see through your
+impersonation. He’s a wonderful man, that, Des., and he was dead
+right—as he always is.”
+
+“But how?” asked Desmond. “Did the crowd spot me?”
+
+“No,” answered the other; “but it was your disguise which was
+responsible for the escape of Strangwise—”
+
+“What?” cried Desmond. “He’s escaped after all!”
+
+Francis nodded.
+
+“Yes,” he said, “got clear away and left no trace. Wait a minute and
+you shall hear! When I have told my story, you shall tell yours and
+between us, we’ll piece things together!
+
+“Well, when I left the Chief yesterday, I came down here. The
+description of Mr. John Hill, your odd man, rather tickled my fancy. I
+wanted badly to get at you for a quiet chat and it seemed to me that if
+I could borrow Mr. Hill’s appearance for a few hours now and then I
+might gain access to you without rousing any suspicion. You see, I knew
+that old Hill left here about dusk every afternoon, so I guessed the
+coast would be clear.
+
+“Clarkson’s fitted me out with the duds and the make-up and I got down
+to Wentfield by half-past six. The fog was so infernally thick that it
+took me more than an hour to get here on foot. It must have been close
+on eight o’clock when I pushed open your front gate. I thought of going
+boldly into the kitchen and asking for you, but, fortunately, I decided
+to have a preliminary prowl round the place. Through a chink in the
+curtains of the library I saw you and a stranger talking together. The
+stranger was quite unknown to me; but one thing about him I spotted
+right off. I saw that he was disguised; so I decided to hang about a
+bit and await developments.
+
+“I loafed around in the fog for about half an hour. Then I heard a car
+coming up the drive. I hid myself in the rhododendron bush opposite the
+front door and saw two men and a woman get out. They hurried into the
+house, so that I didn’t have a chance of seeing their faces. But I got
+a good, glimpse of the chauffeur as he bent down to turn out the
+headlights. And, yes, I knew him!”
+
+“Max, they called him,” said Desmond.
+
+“His name was Mirsky when last I saw him,” answered Francis, “and mine
+was Apfelbaum, if you want to know. He was a German agent in Russia and
+as ruthless and unscrupulous a rascal as you’ll find anywhere in the
+German service. I must say I never thought he’d have the nerve to show
+his face in this country, though I believe he’s a Whitechapel Jew born
+and bred. However, there he was and the sight of his ugly mug told me
+that something was doing. But like a fool I decided to hang on a bit
+and watch, instead of going right off in that car and fetching help
+from Stanning.”
+
+“It was just as well you waited,” said Desmond, “for if you’d gone off
+at once they must have heard the car and the fat would have been in the
+fire straight away!”
+
+And he told Francis of the loud dispute among the confederates in the
+library, the noise of which had effectually covered the sound of the
+departing ear.
+
+Francis laughed.
+
+“From my observation post outside,” he said, “I could only see you,
+Des, and that blackguard, Mug, as you two were sitting opposite the
+window. I couldn’t see more than the feet of the others. But your face
+told me the loud voices which reached me even outside meant that a
+crisis of some sort was approaching, so I thought it was time to be up
+and doing. So I sneaked round to the front of the house, got the engine
+of the car going and started off down the drive.
+
+“I had the very devil of a job to get to Stanning. Ever since you’ve
+been down here, the Chief has had special men on duty day and night at
+the police-station there. I didn’t dare stop to light the head-lamps
+and as a result the first thing I did was to charge the front gate and
+get the back wheel so thoroughly jammed that it took me the best part
+of twenty minutes to get the blooming car clear. When at last I got to
+the station, I found that Matthews, the Chief’s man, you know, had just
+arrived by car from London with a lot of plain-clothes men and some
+military police. He was in the very devil of a stew. He told me that
+Bellward had escaped, that the Chief was out of town for the night and
+ungetatable, and that he (Matthews) had come down on his own to prevent
+the gaff being blown on you and also to recapture Mr. Bellward if he
+should be mad enough to make for his old quarters.
+
+“I told Matthews of the situation up at the Mill House. Neither of us
+was able to understand why you had not telephoned for assistance—we
+only discovered later that the telephone had been disconnected—but I
+went bail that you were up against a very stiff proposition. I told
+Matthews that, by surrounding the house, we might capture the whole
+gang.
+
+“Matthews is a cautious cuss and he wanted a good deal of persuading,
+so we lost a lot of time. In the end, he wouldn’t take my advice to
+rush every available man to the scene, but only consented to take two
+plainclothes men and two military police. He was so precious afraid of
+upsetting your arrangements. The Chief, it appears, had warned
+everybody against doing that. So we all piled into the car and I drove
+them back to the Mill House.
+
+“This time I left the car at the front gate and we went up to the house
+on foot. We had arranged that Matthews and one of the military police,
+both armed, should stay and guard the car, while the two plainclothes
+men and the other military policeman, the corporal here, should
+accompany me to the house. Matthews believed my yarn that we were only
+going to ‘investigate.’ What I intended to do in reality was to round
+up the whole blessed lot.
+
+“I put one of the plain-clothes men on the front door and the other
+round at the back of the house. Their orders were to stop anybody who
+came out and at the same time to whistle for assistance. The corporal
+and I went to our old observation post outside the library window.
+
+“The moment I glanced into the room I knew that matters had reached a
+climax. I saw you—looking pretty blue, old man—facing that woman who
+seemed to be denouncing you. Max stood beside you with a pistol, and
+beside him was our friend, Mortimer, with a regular whopper of an
+automatic. Before I had time to move, the plain-clothes man at the back
+of the house whistled. He had found the secret door with Bellward and
+the woman coming out of it.
+
+“Then I saw Mortimer fire point-blank at you. I had my gun out in a
+second, but I was afraid of shooting, for fear of hitting you as you
+went for the other man.
+
+“But the corporal at my side wasn’t worrying much about you. Just as
+you jumped he put up his gun and let fly at Mortimer with a sense of
+discrimination which does him infinite credit. He missed Mortimer, but
+plugged Max plumb through the forehead and my old friend dropped in his
+tracks right between you and the other fellow. On that we hacked our
+way through the French window. The corporal found time to have another
+shot and laid out a tall, odd-looking man...”
+
+“No. 13,” elucidated Desmond.
+
+“... When we got inside we found him dead across the threshold of the
+door leading into the hall. Behrend we caught hiding in a brush
+cupboard by the back stairs. As for the others—”
+
+“Gone?” queried Desmond with a sudden sinking at his heart.
+
+Francis nodded.
+
+“We didn’t waste any time getting through that window,” he said, “but
+the catch was stiff and the broken glass was deuced unpleasant. Still,
+we were too late. You were laid out on the floor; Mortimer, Bellward
+and the lady had made their lucky escape. And the secret door showed us
+how they had gone...”
+
+“But I thought you had a man posted at the back?”
+
+“Would you believe it? When the shooting began, the infernal idiot must
+rush round to our assistance, so, of course, Mortimer and Co., nipping
+out by the secret door, got clear away down the drive. But that is not
+the worst. Matthews gave them the car!”
+
+“No!” said Desmond incredulously.
+
+“He did, though,” answered Francis. “Mind you, Mortimer had had the
+presence of mind to throw off his disguise. He presented himself to
+Matthews as Strangwise. Matthews knows Strangwise quite well: he has
+often seen him with the Chief.
+
+“‘My God, Captain Strangwise,’ says Matthews, as the trio appeared,
+‘What’s happened?’
+
+“‘You’re wanted up at the house immediately, Matthews,’ says Strangwise
+quite excitedly. ‘We’re to take the car and go for assistance.’
+
+“Matthews had a look at Strangwise’s companions, and seeing Bellward,
+of course, takes him for you. As for the lady, she had a black lace
+muffler wound about her face.
+
+“‘Miss Mackwayte’s coming with us, Matthews,’ Strangwise says, seeing
+Matthews look at the lady. That removed the last of any lurking
+suspicions that old Matthews might have had. He left the military
+policeman at the gate and tore off like mad up the drive while
+Strangwise and the others jumped into the car and were away before you
+could say ‘knife.’ The military policeman actually cranked up the car
+for them!
+
+“When Matthews burst into the library with the story of you and
+Strangwise and Miss Mackwayte having gone off for help in our only car,
+I knew we had been sold. You were there, knocked out of time on the
+floor, in your disguise as Bellward, so I knew that the man with
+Strangwise was the real Bellward and I consequently deduced that
+Strangwise was Mortimer and consequently the very man we had to catch.
+
+“We were done brown. If we had had a little more time to think things
+out, we should have found that motor-bike and I would have gone after
+the trio myself. But my first idea was to summon aid. I tried to
+telephone without success and then we found the wire cut outside. Then
+I had the idea of pumping Behrend. I found him quite chatty and furious
+against Mortimer, whom he accused of having sold them. He told us that
+the party would be sure to make for the Dyke Inn, as Nur-el-Din was
+there.
+
+“By this time Strangwise and his party had got at least an hour clear
+start of us. I had set a man to repair the telephone and in the
+meantime was thinking of sending another on foot to Stanning to fetch
+one of our cars. Then I found the motor-bike and despatched one of the
+military policemen on it to Stanning.
+
+“In about half an hour’s time he was back with a car in which were
+Gordon and Harrison and some more military police. I put Matthews in
+charge of the party and sent them off to the Dyke Inn, though I felt
+pretty sure we were too late to catch the trio. That was really the
+reason I stayed behind; besides, I wanted to look after you. I got a
+turn when I saw you spread out all over the carpet, old man, I can tell
+you.”
+
+Desmond, who had listened with the most eager attention, did not speak
+for a minute. The sense of failure was strong upon him. How he had
+bungled it all!
+
+“Look here,” he said presently in a dazed voice, “you said just now
+that Matthews mistook Mrs. Malplaquet for Miss Mackwayte. Why should
+Matthews think that Miss Mackwayte was down here? Did she come down
+with you?”
+
+Francis looked at him quickly.
+
+“That crack on the head makes you forget things,” he said. “Don’t you
+remember Miss Mackwayte coming down here to see you yesterday
+afternoon? Matthews thought she had stayed on...”
+
+Desmond shook his head.
+
+“She’s not been here,” he replied. “I’m quite positive about that!”
+
+Francis sprang to his feet.
+
+“Surely you must be mistaken,” he said in tones of concern. “The Chief
+sent her down yesterday afternoon on purpose to see you. She reached
+Wentfield Station all right; because the porter told Matthews that she
+asked him the way to the Mill House.”
+
+An ominous foreboding struck chill at Desmond’s heart. He held his
+throbbing head for an instant. Someone had mentioned Barbara that night
+in the library but who was it? And what had he said?
+
+Ah! of course, it was Strangwise. “So that’s what she wanted with
+Nur-el-Din!” he had said.
+
+Desmond felt it all coming back to him now. Briefly he told Francis of
+his absence from the Mill House in response to the summons from
+Nur-el-Din, of his interview with the dancer and her story of the Star
+of Poland, of his hurried return just in time to meet Mortimer, and of
+Mortimer’s enigmatical reference to the dancer in the library that
+night.
+
+Fancis looked graver and graver as the story proceeded. Desmond noted
+it and reproached himself most bitterly with his initial failure to
+inform the Chief of the visits of Nur-el-Din and Mortimer to the Mill
+House. When he had finished speaking, he did not look at Francis, but
+gazed mournfully out of the window into the chilly drizzle of a sad
+winter’s day.
+
+“I don’t like the look of it at all, Des,” said his brother shaking his
+head, “but first we must make sure that there has been no
+misunderstanding about Miss Mackwayte. You say your housekeeper was
+already here when you came back from the Dyke Inn. She may have seen
+her. Let’s have old Martha in!”
+
+Between fright, bewilderment and indignation at the invasion of the
+house, old Martha was, if anything, deafer and more stupid than usual.
+After much interrogation they had to be satisfied with her repeated
+assertion that “she ’adn’t seen no young lady” and allowed her to
+hobble back to her kitchen.
+
+The two brothers stared at one another blankly. Francis was the first
+to speak. His eyes were shining and his manner was rather tense.
+
+“Des,” he asked; “what do you make of it? From what Strangwise let fall
+in the library here tonight, it seems probable that Miss Mackwayte,
+instead of coming here to see you as she was told—or she may have
+called during your absence—went to the Dyke Inn and saw Nur-el-Din. The
+muffed cry you heard at the inn suggests foul play to me and that
+suspicion is deepened in my mind by the fact that Matthews found
+Nur-el-Din at the Dyke Inn, as he reported to me by telephone just now;
+but he says nothing about Miss Mackwayte. Des, I fear the worst for
+that poor girl if she has fallen into the hands of that gang!”
+
+Desmond remained silent for a moment. He was trying to piece things
+together as best as his aching head would allow. Both Nur-el-Din and
+Strangwise were after the jewel. Nur-el-Din believed that afternoon
+that Strangwise had it, while Strangwise, on discovering his loss, had
+seemed to suggest that Barbara Mackwayte had recovered it.
+
+“Either Strangwise or Nur-el-Din, perhaps both of them,” said Desmond,
+“must know what has become of Miss Mackwayte.”
+
+And he explained his reasoning to Francis. His brother nodded quickly.
+
+“Then Nur-el-Din shall tell us,” he answered sternly.
+
+“They’ve arrested her?” asked Desmond with a sudden pang.
+
+“Yes,” said Francis curtly. But too late to prevent a crime being
+committed. When Matthews and his party arrived, they found Nur-el-Din
+in the very act of leaving the inn. The landlord, Rass, was lying dead
+on the floor of the tap-room with a bullet through the temple. That
+looks to me, Des, as though Nur-el-Din had recovered the jewel!”
+
+“But Rass is a compatriot of hers,” Desmond objected.
+
+“But he was also an inconvenient witness of her dealings with
+Strangwise,” retorted Francis. “If either Nur-el-Din or Strangwise have
+regained possession of the Star of Poland, Des, I fear the worst for
+Barbara Mackwayte. Come in!”
+
+The corporal stood, saluting, at the door.
+
+“Mr. Matthews on the telephone, sir!”
+
+Francis hurried away, leaving Desmond to his thoughts, which were not
+of the most agreeable. Had he been wrong in thinking Nur-el-Din a
+victim? Was he, after all, nothing but a credulous fool who had been
+hoodwinked by a pretty woman’s play-acting? And had he sacrificed
+Barbara Mackwayte to his obstinacy and his credulousness?
+
+Francis burst suddenly into the room.
+
+“Des,” he cried, “they’ve found Miss Mackwayte’s hat on the floor of
+the tap-room... it is stained with blood...”
+
+Desmond felt himself growing pale:
+
+“And the girl herself,” he asked thickly, “what of her?”
+
+Francis shook his head.
+
+“Vanished,” he replied gravely. “Vanished utterly. Desmond,” he added,
+“we must go over to the Dyke Inn at once!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+THE BLACK VELVET TOQUE
+
+
+Across Morsted Fen the day was breaking red and sullen. The brimming
+dykes, fringed with bare pollards, and the long sheets of water spread
+out across the lush meadows, threw back the fiery radiance of the sky
+from their gleaming surface. The tall poplars about the Dyke Inn stood
+out hard and clear in the ruddy light; beyond them the fen, stretched
+away to the flaming horizon gloomy and flat and desolate, with nothing
+higher than the stunted pollards visible against the lurid background.
+
+Upon the absolute silence of the scene there presently broke the steady
+humming of a car. A great light, paled by the dawn, came bobbing and
+sweeping, along the road that skirted the fen’s edge. A big open car
+drew up by the track and branched, off to the inn. Its four occupants
+consulted together for an instant and then alighted. Three of them were
+in plain clothes; the other was a soldier. The driver was also in
+khaki.
+
+“They’re astir, Mr. Matthews,” said one, of the plain clothes men,
+pointing towards the house, “see, there’s a light in the inn!”
+
+They followed the direction of his finger and saw a beam of yellow
+light gleaming from among the trees.
+
+“Get your guns out, boys!” said Matthews. “Give them a chance to put
+their hands up, and if they don’t obey, shoot!”
+
+Very swiftly but very quietly, the four men picked their way over the
+miry track to the little bridge leading to the yard in front of the
+inn. The light they had remarked shone from the inn door, a feeble,
+flickering light as of an expiring candle.
+
+Matthews, who was leading, halted and listened. Everything was quite
+still. Above their head the inn sign groaned uneasily as it was stirred
+by the fresh morning breeze.
+
+“You, Gordon,” whispered Matthews to the man behind him—they had
+advanced in Indian file—“take Bates and go round to the back. Harrison
+will go in by the front with me.”
+
+Even as he spoke a faint noise came from the interior of the house. The
+four men stood stock-still and listened. In the absolute stillness of
+the early morning, the sound fell distinctly on their ears. It was a
+step—a light step—descending the stairs.
+
+Gordon and the soldier detached themselves from the party as Matthews
+and the other plain clothes man crossed the bridge swiftly and went up
+to the inn door. Hardly had Matthews got his foot on the stone step of
+the threshold than, a piercing shriek resounded from the room quite
+close at hand. The next minute a flying figure burst out of the door
+and fell headlong into the arms of Matthews who was all but
+overbalanced by the force of the impact.
+
+He closed with the figure and grappled it firmly. His arms encountered
+a frail, light body, shaking from head to foot, enveloped in a cloak of
+some soft, thick material.
+
+“It’s a woman!” cried Matthews.
+
+“It’s Nur-el-Din!” exclaimed his companion in the same breath, seizing
+the woman by the arm.
+
+The dancer made no attempt to escape. She stood with bowed head,
+trembling violently, in a cowering, almost a crouching posture.
+
+Harrison, who had the woman by the arm, had turned her head so that he
+could see her face. She was deathly pale and her black eyes were wide
+open, the pupils dilated. Her teeth were chattering in her head. She
+seemed incapable of speech or motion.
+
+“Nur-el-Din?” exclaimed Matthews in accents of triumph. “Bring her in,
+Harrison, and let’s have a look at her!”
+
+But the woman recoiled in terror. She arched her body stiff, like a
+child in a passion, and strained every muscle to remain where she was
+cowering by the inn-door.
+
+“Come on, my girl,” said the man not unkindly, “don’t you ’ear wot the
+Guv’nor sez! In you go!”
+
+Then the girl screamed aloud.
+
+“No, no!” she cried, “not in that house! For the love of God, don’t
+take me back into that room! Ah! For pity’s sake, let me stay outside!
+Take me to prison but not, not into that house again!”
+
+She half fell on her knees in the mire, pleading, entreating, her body
+shaken by sobs.
+
+Then Harrison, who was an ex-Guardsman and a six-footer at that,
+plucked her off her feet and carried her, still struggling, still
+imploring with piteous cries, over the threshold into the house:
+Matthews followed behind.
+
+The shutters of the tap-room were still closed. Only a strip of the
+dirty floor, strewn with sawdust, was illuminated by a bar of reddish
+light from the daybreak outside. On the table a candle, burnt down to
+the socket of its brass candlestick, flared and puttered in a riot of
+running wax. Half in the bar of daylight from outside, half in the
+darkness beyond the open door, against which the flickering candlelight
+struggled feebly, lay the body of a yellow-faced, undersized man with a
+bullet wound through the temple.
+
+Without effort Harrison deposited his light burden on her feet by the
+table. Instantly, the girl fled, like some frightened animal of the
+woods, to the farthest corner of the room. Here she dropped sobbing on
+her knees, rocking herself to and fro in a sort of paroxysm of
+hysteria. Harrison moved quickly round the table after her; but he was
+checked by a cry from Matthews who was kneeling by the body.
+
+“Let her be,” said Matthews, “she’s scared of this and no wonder! Come
+here a minute, Harrison, and see if you know, this chap!”
+
+Harrison crossed the room and looked down at the still figure. He
+whistled softly.
+
+“My word!” he said, “but he copped it all right, sir! Ay, I know him
+well enough! He’s Rass, the landlord of this pub, that’s who he is, as
+harmless a sort of chap as ever was! Who did it, d’you think, sir?”
+
+Matthews, who had been going through the dead man’s pockets, now rose
+to his feet.
+
+“Nothing worth writing home about there,” he said half aloud. Then to
+Harrison, he added: “That’s what we’ve got to discover... hullo, who’s
+this?”
+
+The door leading from the bar to the tap-room was thrust open. Gordon
+put his head in.
+
+“I left Bates on guard outside, sir,” he said in answer to an
+interrogatory glance from Matthews, “I’ve been all over the ground
+floor and there’s not a soul here...”
+
+He checked himself suddenly.
+
+“God bless my soul!” he exclaimed, his eyes on the figure crouching in
+the corner, “you don’t mean to say you’ve got her? A pretty dance she
+led Dug and myself! Well, sir, it looks to me like a good night’s
+work!”.
+
+Matthews smiled a self-satisfied smile.
+
+“I fancy the Chief will be pleased,” he said, “though the rest of ’em
+seem to have given us the slip. Gordon, you might take a look
+upstairs—that door in the corner leads to the upper rooms, I
+fancy—whilst I’m telephoning to Mr. Okewood. He must know about this
+without delay. You, Harrison, keep an eye on the girl!”
+
+He went through the door leading into the bar, and they heard him
+speaking on the telephone which hung on the wall behind the counter. He
+returned presently with a white tablecloth which he threw over the
+prostrate figure on the floor.
+
+Then he turned to the dancer.
+
+“Stand up,” he said sternly, “I want to speak to you.”
+
+Nur-el-Din cast a frightened glance over her shoulder at the floor
+beside the table where Rass lay. On seeing the white pall that hid him
+from view, she became somewhat reassured. She rose unsteadily to her
+feet and stood facing Matthews.
+
+“In virtue of the powers conferred upon me by the Defence of the Realm
+Acts, I arrest you for espionage... Matthews rolled off in glib,
+official gabble the formula of arrest ending with the usual caution
+that anything the prisoner might say might be used against her at her
+trial. Then he said to Harrison:
+
+“Better put them on her, Harrison!”
+
+The plain clothes man took a pace forward and touched the dancer’s
+slender wrists, there was a click and she was handcuffed.
+
+“Now take her in there,” said Matthews pointing to the bar. “There’s no
+exit except by this room. And don’t take your eyes off her. You
+understand? Mr. Okewood will be along presently with a female
+searcher.”
+
+“Sir!” said the plain clothes man with military precision and touched
+the dancer on the shoulder. Without a word she turned and followed him
+into the bar.
+
+Gordon entered by the door at the end of the room.
+
+“I’d like you to have a look upstairs, sir,” he said to Matthews,
+“there’s not a soul in the house, but somebody has been locked up in
+one of the rooms. The door is still locked but one of the panels has
+been forced out. I think you ought to see it!”
+
+The two men passed out of the tap-room together, and mounted the
+stairs. On the landing Matthews paused a moment to glance out of the
+window on to the bleak and inhospitable fen which was almost obscured
+from view by a heavy drizzle of rain.
+
+“Brr!” said Mr. Matthews, “what a horrible place!”
+
+Looking up the staircase from the landing, they could see that one of
+the panels of the door facing the head of the stairs had been pressed
+out and lay on the ground. They passed up the stairs and Matthews,
+putting one arm and his head through the opening, found himself gazing
+into that selfsame ugly sitting room where Desmond had talked with
+Nur-el-Din.
+
+A couple of vigorous heaves burst the fastening of the door. The
+sitting-room was in the wildest confusion. The doors of the sideboard
+stood wide with its contents scattered higgledy-piggledy on the carpet.
+A chest of drawers in the corner had been ransacked, some of the
+drawers having been taken bodily out and emptied on the floor.
+
+The door leading to the inner room stood open and showed that a similar
+search had been conducted there as well. The inner room proved to be a
+bare white-washed place, very plainly furnished as a bedroom. On the
+floor stood a small attaché case, and beside it a little heap of
+miscellaneous articles such as a woman would take away with her for a
+weekend, a crêpe-de-chine nightdress, a dainty pair of bedroom slippers
+and some silver-mounted toilet fittings. From these things Matthews
+judged that this had been Nur-el-Din’s bedroom.
+
+The two men spent a long time going through the litter with which the
+floor in the bedroom and sitting room was strewed. But their labors
+were vain, and they turned their attention to the remaining rooms, of
+which there were three.
+
+The first room they visited, adjoining Nur-el-Din’s bedroom, was
+scarcely better than an attic. It contained in the way of furniture
+little else than a truckle-bed, a washstand, a table and a chair.
+Women’s clothes were hanging on hooks behind the door. The place looked
+like a servant’s bedroom.
+
+They pursued their search. Across the corridor two rooms stood side by
+side. One proved to be Rass’s. His clothes lay about the room, and on a
+table in the corner, where writing materials stood, were various
+letters and bills made out in his name.
+
+The other room had also been occupied; for the bed was made and turned
+back for the night and there were clean towels on the washstand. But
+there was no clue as to its occupant save for a double-barreled gun
+which stood in the corner. It had evidently been recently used; for
+fresh earth was adhering to the stock and the barrel, though otherwise
+clean, showed traces of freshly-burnt powder.
+
+There being nothing further to glean upstairs, the two men went down to
+the tap-room again. As Matthews came through the door leading from the
+staircase his eye caught a dark object which lay on the floor under the
+long table. He fished it out with his stick.
+
+It was a small black velvet toque with a band of white and black silk
+flowers round it. In one part the white flowers were besmeared with a
+dark brown stain.
+
+Matthews stared at the little hat in his hand with puckered brows. Then
+he called to Gordon.
+
+“Do you know that hat?” he asked, holding it up for the man to see.
+
+Gordon shook his head.
+
+“I might have seen it,” he replied, “but I don’t take much account of
+such things, Mr. Matthews, being a married man...”
+
+“Tut, tut,” fussed Matthews, “I think you have seen it. Come, think of
+the office for a minute!”
+
+“Of the office?” repeated Gordon. Then he exclaimed suddenly:
+
+“Miss Mackwayte!”
+
+“Exactly,” answered Matthews, “it’s her hat, I recall it perfectly. She
+wore it very often to the office. Look at the blood on it!”
+
+He put the hat down on the table and ran into the bar where Nur-el-Din
+sat immobile on her chair, wrapped in a big overcoat of some soft
+blanket cloth in dark green, her chin sunk on her breast.
+
+Matthews called up the Mill House and asked for Francis Okewood. When
+he mentioned the finding of Barbara Mackwayte’s hat, the dancer raised
+her head and cast a frightened glance at Matthews. But she said nothing
+and when Matthews turned from the telephone to go back to the tap-room
+she had resumed her former listless attitude.
+
+Matthews and Gordon made a thorough search of the kitchen and back
+premises without finding anything of note. They had just finished when
+the sound of a car outside attracted their attention. On the road
+beyond the little bridge outside the inn Francis and Desmond Okewood
+were standing, helping a woman to alight. Francis was still wearing his
+scarecrow-like apparel, while Desmond, with his beard and pale face and
+bandaged head, looked singularly unlike the trim Brigade Major who had
+come home on leave only a week or so before.
+
+Matthews went out to meet them and, addressing the woman—a
+brisk-looking person--as Mrs. Butterworth, informed her that it was
+shocking weather. Then he led the way into the inn.
+
+The first thing that Desmond saw was the little toque with the brown
+stain on its flowered band lying on the table. Francis picked it up,
+turned it over and laid it down again.
+
+“Where did you find it?” he asked Matthews. The latter informed him of
+the circumstances of the discovery. Then Francis, sending the searcher
+in to Nur-el-Din in the bar, pointed to the body on the floor.
+
+“Let’s have a look at that!” he said.
+
+Matthews removed the covering and the three men gazed at the set face
+of the dead man. There was a clean bullet wound in the right temple.
+Matthews showed the papers he had taken off the body and exchanged a
+few, words in a low tone with Francis. There is something about the
+presence of death which impels respect whatever the circumstances.
+
+Five minutes later Mrs. Butterworth came out of the bar. In her hands
+she held a miscellaneous assortment of articles, a small gold chain
+purse, a pair of gloves, a gold cigarette case, a tiny handkerchief,
+and a long blue envelope. She put all the articles down on the tables
+save the envelope which she handed to Francis.
+
+“This was in the lining of her overcoat, sir,” she said.
+
+Francis took the envelope and broke the seal. He drew out half a dozen
+sheets of thin paper, folded lengthwise. Leisurely he unfolded them,
+but he had hardly glanced at the topmost sheet than he turned to the
+next and the next until he had run through the whole bunch. Desmond,
+peering over his shoulder, caught a glimpse of rows of figures, very
+neatly set out in a round hand and knew that he was looking at a
+message in cipher code.
+
+The door at the end of the tap-room was flung open and a soldier came
+in quickly.
+
+He stopped irresolute on seeing the group.
+
+“Well, Bates,” said Matthews.
+
+“There’s a woman lying dead in the cellar back yonder,” said the man,
+jerking his thumb over his shoulder.
+
+“The cellar?” cried Matthews.
+
+“Yes, sir... I think you must ha’ overlooked it.”
+
+Francis, Desmond and Matthews exchanged a brief glance. A name was on
+the lips of each one of them but none dared speak it. Then, leaving
+Harrison and Mrs. Butterworth with Nur-el-Din, the three men followed
+the soldier and hurriedly quitted the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+WHAT THE CELLAR REVEALED
+
+
+On opening the door at the farther end of the tap-room they saw before
+them a trap-door standing wide with a shallow flight of wooden steps
+leading to the darkness below. Bates pointed with his foot to a square
+of linoleum which lay on one side.
+
+“That was covering the trap,” he said, “I wouldn’t ha’ noticed nothing
+out of the ordinary myself only I slipped, see, and kicked this bit o’
+ilecloth away and there was the ring of the trap staring me in the
+face, as you might say. Show us a light here, Gordon!”
+
+Gordon handed him an electric torch. He flashed it down the stair. It
+fell upon something like a heap of black clothes huddled up at the foot
+of the ladder.
+
+“Is it Miss Mackwayte?” whispered Francis to his brother. “I’ve never
+seen her, you know!”
+
+“I can’t tell,” Desmond whispered back, “until I see her face.”
+
+He advanced to descend the ladder but Matthews was before him.
+Producing an electric torch from his pocket, Matthews slipped down the
+stair with Gordon close behind. There was a pause, so tense that it
+seemed an eternity to Desmond, as he waited half-way down the ladder
+with the musty smell of the cellar in his nostrils. Then Matthews
+cried:
+
+“It’s not her!”
+
+“Let me look!” Gordon broke in. Then Desmond heard him exclaim.
+
+“It’s Nur-el-Din’s French maid! It’s Marie... she’s been stabbed in the
+back!”
+
+Desmond suddenly felt rather sick. This progress from one deed of
+violence to another revolted him. The others crowded into the cellar;
+but he did not follow them. He remained at the top of the trap, leaning
+against the wall, trying to collect his thoughts.
+
+Barbara Mackwayte was now his sole preoccupation. If anything had
+happened to her,—it was through his fault alone; for he began to feel
+sure she must have come to the Mill House in his absence. What then had
+become of her? The blood-stained toque pointed to foul play. But if
+they had murdered her, what had they done with the body?
+
+His thoughts flew back to his interview with Nur-el-Din upstairs on the
+previous afternoon. He remembered the entrance of the maid and the
+dancer’s hurried exit. Might not Marie have come to tell her that
+Barbara Mackwayte was below asking for her? It was very shortly after
+this interruption that, crouching on the roof of the shed, he had heard
+that muffled cry from the house and seen Rass enter the bar and speak
+with Strangwise. He had seen, too, the maid, Marie, in earnest
+conversation with Strangwise by the back gate on the fen. Had both
+Marie and Rass been in league with Strangwise against the dancer? And
+had Nur-el-Din discovered their treachery? His mind refused to follow
+these deductions to their logical sequence; for, black as things looked
+against Nur-el-Din, he could not bring himself to believe her a
+murderess.
+
+But now there were footsteps on the ladder. They were all coming out of
+the cellar again. As soon as Francis saw Desmond’s face, he caught his
+brother by the arm and said:
+
+“The open air for you, my boy! You look as if you’d seen a ghost! I
+should have remembered all you’ve gone through!”
+
+He walked him quickly through the tap-room and out through the inn door
+into the yard.
+
+The rain had ceased and the sun was making a brave attempt to shine
+through the clouds. The cold air did Desmond good and after a turn or
+two in the yard, arm in arm with Francis, he felt considerably better.
+
+“Where is Miss Mackwayte?” he asked.
+
+“Des,” said his brother, “I don’t know and I don’t want to
+cross-examine Nur-el-Din in there until I have reasoned out some theory
+which will fit Miss Mackwayte in her place in this horrible affair. The
+men have gone to search the outhouses and precincts of the inn to see
+if they can find any traces of her body, but I don’t think they will
+find anything. I believe that Miss Mackwayte is alive.”
+
+“Alive?” said Desmond.
+
+“The blood on that toque of hers might have been Rass’s. There is a
+good deal of blood on the floor. You see, I still think Miss
+Mackwayte’s safety depends on that jewel not being recovered by either
+Strangwise or Nur-el-Din. Strangwise, we know, has lost the jewel and
+there is no trace of it here: moreover, we know that, as late as
+yesterday afternoon, Nur-el-Din did not have it. Therefore, she cannot
+have sent it away! I am inclined to believe, too, that Strangwise,
+before going over to the Mill House last night, carried off Miss
+Mackwayte somewhere with the aid of Rass and Marie, who were evidently
+his accomplices, in order to find out from her where the jewel is
+concealed...”
+
+“But Miss Mackwayte cannot know what has become of it,” objected
+Desmond.
+
+“Maybe not,” retorted his brother, “but both Strangwise and Nur-el-Din
+know that the jewel was originally entrusted to her charge. Nur-el-Din
+did not, it is true, tell Miss Mackwayte what the silver box contained
+but the latter may have found out, at least the dancer might suppose
+so; while Strangwise might think the same. Therefore, both Strangwise
+and Nur-el-Din had an interest in detaining Miss Mackwayte, and I think
+Strangwise forestalled the dancer. When Nur-el-Din discovered it, both
+Rass and her maid paid the penalty of their betrayal.”
+
+They walked once up and down the yard before Desmond replied.
+
+“Francis,” he said, “you remember Nur-el-Din’s story—I told it to you
+just as I had it from her.”
+
+“Perfectly,” answered his brother.
+
+“Well,” Desmond went on deliberately, “I think that story gives us the
+right measure of Nur-el-Din’s, character. She may be vain, she may be
+without morals, she may be weak, she may be an adventuress, but she’s
+not a murderess. If anything, she’s a victim!”
+
+Francis laughed shortly.
+
+“Victim be damned!” he cried. “Man alive,” he went on, “how can you
+talk such nonsense in face of the evidence, with this bloody-minded
+woman’s victims hardly cold yet? But, horrible as these murders are,
+the private squabbles of this gang of spies represent neither your
+interest nor mine in this case. For us the fact remains that
+Nur-el-Din, besides being a monster of iniquity, is the heart and soul
+and vitals of the whole conspiracy!”
+
+Jaded and nervous, Desmond felt a quick sting of resentment at his
+brother’s tone. Why should Francis thus lay down the law to him about
+Nur-el-Din? Francis knew nothing of the girl or her antecedents while
+he, Desmond, flattered himself that he had at least located the place
+she occupied in this dark conspiracy. And he cried out vehemently:
+
+“You’re talking like a fool! I grant you that Nur-el-Din has been mixed
+up with this spy crowd; but she herself stands absolutely apart from
+the organization...”
+
+“Half a minute!” put in Francis, “aren’t you forgetting that blue
+envelope we took off her just now?”
+
+“What about it?” asked Desmond sharply.
+
+“Merely this; the cipher is in five figure groups, addressed to a four
+figure group and signed by a six figure group...”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“That happens to be the current secret code of the German Great General
+Staff. If you were to tap a German staff message out in France to-day,
+ten to one it would be in that code. Curious coincidence, isn’t it?”
+
+When one is angry, to be baffled in argument does not have a sedative
+effect as a rule. If we were all philosophers it might; but being
+merely human beings, cold reason acts on the inflamed temperament as a
+red rag is said to affect a bull.
+
+Desmond, sick with the sense of failure and his anxiety about Barbara,
+was in no mood to listen to reason. The cold logic of his brother
+infuriated him mainly because Desmond knew that Francis was right.
+
+“I don’t care a damn for the evidence,” vociferated Desmond; “It may
+look black against Nur-el-Din; I daresay it does; but I have met and
+talked to this girl and I tell you again that she is not a principal in
+this affair but a victim!”
+
+“You talk as if you were in love with the woman!” Francis said
+mockingly.
+
+Desmond went rather white.
+
+“If pity is a form of love,” he replied in a low voice, “then I am, for
+God knows I never pitied any woman as I pity Nur-el-Din! Only you, I
+suppose,” he added bitterly, “are too much of the policeman, Francis,
+to appreciate anything like that!” Hot tempers run in families and
+Francis flared up on the instant.
+
+“I may be a policeman, as you say,” he retorted, “but I’ve got enough
+sense of my duty, I hope, not to allow sentimentality to interfere with
+my orders!”
+
+It was a shrewd thrust and it caught Desmond on the raw.
+
+“I’m sick of arguing here,” he said hotly, “if you’re so mighty clever,
+you’d better shoot Nur-el-Din first and arrest Strangwise afterwards.
+Then you’ll find out which of us two is right!”
+
+He turned on his heel and started for the little bridge leading out
+onto the fen.
+
+Francis stood still a moment watching him, then ran after him. He
+caught up with Desmond as the latter reached the bridge.
+
+“Desmond!” he said, pleadingly.
+
+“Oh, go to hell!” retorted the other savagely, whereupon Francis turned
+his back on him and walked back to the inn.
+
+A car had stopped by the bridge and a man was getting out of it as
+Desmond moved towards the fen. The next moment he found himself face to
+face with the Chief.
+
+The Chief’s face was hard and cold and stern. There was a furrow
+between his eyes which deepened when he recognized Desmond.
+
+“Well,” he said curtly, “and where is my secretary?”
+
+“I don’t know,” Desmond faltered.
+
+“Why are you here, then?” came back in that hard, uncompromising voice.
+
+Desmond was about to reply; but the other checked him.
+
+“I know all you have to say,” he resumed, “but no excuse you can offer
+can explain away the disappearance of Miss Mackwayte. Your orders were
+formal to remain at home. You saw fit to disobey them and thereby,
+maybe, sent Miss Mackwayte to her death. No!” he added, seeing that
+Desmond was about to expostulate, “I want to hear nothing from you.
+However obscure the circumstances of Miss Mackwayte’s disappearance may
+be, one fact is perfectly clear, namely, that she went to the Mill
+House, as she was ordered and you were not there. For no man or woman
+in my service ever dares to disobey an order I have given.”
+
+“Chief...” Desmond broke in, but again that inexorable voice
+interposed.
+
+“I will hear nothing from you,” said the Chief, “it is a rule of mine
+never to interfere with my men in their work or to see them until their
+mission has been successfully completed. When you have found Miss
+Mackwayte I will hear you but not before!”
+
+Desmond drew himself up.
+
+“In that case, sir,” he said stiffly, “I will bid you good morning. And
+I trust you will hear from me very soon again!”
+
+He walked over to one of the cars waiting outside the inn, spoke a word
+to the driver and got in. The driver started the engine and presently
+the car was bumping slowly along the muddy track to the main road.
+
+The Chief stood looking after him.
+
+“Well,” he murmured to himself. “I soaked it into him pretty hard; but
+he took it like a brick. I do believe he’ll find her yet!”
+
+He shook his head sagely and continued on his way across the yard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+MRS. MALPLAQUET GOES DOWN TO THE CELLAR
+
+
+In the age of chivalry woman must have been built of sterner stuff than
+the girl of to-day. At least, we read in medieval romance of fair
+ladies who, after being knocked down by a masterful suitor and carried
+off across his saddle bow thirty or forty miles, are yet able to
+appear, cold but radiantly beautiful, at the midnight wedding and the
+subsequent marriage feast.
+
+But this is a romance of the present day, the age of nerves and high
+velocity. Barbara Mackwayte, strong and plucky as she was, after being
+half throttled and violently thrown into the cellar of the Dyke Inn,
+suddenly gave way under the strain and conveniently evaded facing the
+difficulties of her position by fainting clear away.
+
+The precise moment when she came out of her swoon she never knew. The
+cellar was dark; but it was nothing compared to the darkness enveloping
+her mind. She lay there on the damp and mouldy straw, hardly able,
+scarcely wanting, to move, overwhelmed by the extraordinary adventure
+which had befallen her. Was this to be the end of the pleasant trip
+into the country on which she had embarked so readily only a few hours
+before? She tried to remember that within twenty miles of her were
+policemen and taxis and lights and all the attributes of our present
+day civilization; but her thoughts always returned, with increasing
+horror, to that undersized yellow-faced man in the room above, to the
+face of Nur-el-Din, dark and distorted with passion.
+
+A light shining down the cellar stairs drew her attention to the
+entrance. The woman she had already seen and in whom she now recognized
+Marie, the dancer’s maid, was descending, a tray in her hand. She
+placed the tray on the ground without a word, then went up the stairs
+again and fetched the lamp. She put the lamp down by the tray and,
+stooping, cut the ropes that fastened Barbara’s hands and feet.
+
+“So, Mademoiselle,” she said, drawing herself erect with a grunt, “your
+supper: some tea and meat!”
+
+She pulled a dirty deal box from a corner of the cellar and put the
+tray upon it. Then she rose to her feet and sat down. The maid watched
+Barbara narrowly while she ate a piece of bread and drank the tea.
+
+“At least,” thought Barbara to herself, “they don’t mean to starve me!”
+
+The tea was hot and strong; and it did her good. It seemed to clear her
+faculties, too; for her brain began to busy itself with the problem of
+escaping from her extraordinary situation.
+
+“Mademoiselle was a leetle too clevaire,” said the maid with an evil
+leer,—“she would rob Madame, would she? She would play the _espionne,
+hein? Eh bien, ma petite_, you stay ’ere ontil you say what you lave
+done wiz ze box of Madame!”
+
+“Why do you say I have stolen the box?” protested Barbara, “when I tell
+you I know nothing of it. It was stolen from me by the man who killed
+my father. More than that I don’t know. You don’t surely think I would
+conspire to kill” her voice trembled—“my father, to get possession of
+this silver box that means nothing to me!”
+
+Marie laughed cynically.
+
+“_Ma foi_,” she cried, “when one is a spy, one will stop at nothing!
+But _tiens_, here is Madame!”
+
+Nur-el-Din picked her way carefully down the steps, the yellow-faced
+man behind her. He had a pistol in his hand. The dancer said something
+in French to her maid who picked up the tray and departed.
+
+“Now, Mademoiselle,” said Nur-el-Din, “you see this pistol. Rass here
+will use it if you make any attempt to escape. You understand me,
+_hein?_ I come to give you a las’ chance to say where you ’ave my
+box...”
+
+Barbara looked at the dancer defiantly.
+
+“I’ve told you already I know nothing about it. You, if any one, should
+be better able to say what has become of it...”
+
+“_Quoi?_” exclaimed Nur-el-Din in genuine surprise, “_comment?_”
+
+“Because,” said Barbara, “a long black hair—one of your hairs—was found
+adhering to the straps with which I was fastened!”
+
+“_Tiens!_” said the dancer, her black eyes wide with surprise,
+“_tiens!_”
+
+She was silent for a minute, lost in thought. The man, Rass, suddenly
+cocked his ear towards the staircase and said something to Nur-el-Din
+in the same foreign tongue which Barbara had heard them employ before.
+
+The dancer made a gesture, bidding him to be silent.
+
+“He was at my dressing-table that night;” she murmured in French, as
+though to herself, “then it was he who did it!”
+
+She spoke rapidly to Barbara.
+
+“This man who tied you up... you didn’t see him?”
+
+Barbara shook her head.
+
+“I could see nothing; I don’t even know that it was a man. He seized me
+so suddenly that in the dark I could distinguish nothing... it might
+have been a woman... yourself, for instance, for all I know!”
+
+Nur-el-Din clasped her hands together.
+
+“It was he, himself, then,” she whispered, “I might have known. Yet he
+has not got it here!”
+
+Heavy footsteps resounded in the room above. Rass cried out something
+swiftly to the dancer, thrust the pistol into her hands, and dashed up
+the ladder. The next moment there was a loud report followed by the
+thud of a heavy body falling. Somewhere in the rooms above a woman
+screamed.
+
+Nur-el-Din’s hands flew to her face and the pistol crashed to the
+ground. Two men appeared at the head of the cellar stairs. One was
+Strangwise, in uniform, the other was Bellward.
+
+“They’re both here!” said Strangwise over his shoulder to Bellward.
+
+“Ah, thank God, you’ve come!” cried Barbara, running to the foot of the
+ladder.
+
+Strangwise brushed past her and caught Nur-el-Din by the arm.
+
+“Run her upstairs,” he said quickly to Bellward who had followed behind
+him, “and lock her in her room. I’ve seen to the rest. You, Miss
+Mackwayte,” he added to Barbara, “you will come with us!”
+
+Barbara was staring in fascination at Bellward. She had never believed
+that any disguise could be so baffling, so complete; Major Okewood, she
+thought, looked like a different man.
+
+But Bellward had grasped the dancer by the two arms and forced her up
+the stairs in front of him. Nur-el-Din seemed too overcome with terror
+to utter a sound.
+
+“Oh, don’t be so rough with her, Major Okewood!” entreated Barbara,
+“you’ll hurt her!”
+
+She had her back turned to Strangwise so she missed the very remarkable
+change that came over his features at her words.
+
+“Okewood,” he whispered but too low for the girl to distinguish the
+words, “Okewood? I might have guessed! I might have guessed!” Then he
+touched Barbara lightly on the shoulder.
+
+“Come,” he said, “we must be getting upstairs. We have much to do!”
+
+He gently impelled her towards the ladder up which Bellward and
+Nur-el-Din had already disappeared. At the top, he took the lead and
+conducted Barbara into the taproom. A single candle stood on the table,
+throwing a wan light into the room. Rass lay on his back in the centre
+of the floor, one hand doubled up under him, one knee slightly drawn
+up.
+
+Barbara started back in horror.
+
+“Is he... is he...” she stammered, pointing at the limp still form.
+
+Strangwise nodded.
+
+“A spy!” he said gravely, “we were well rid of him. Go over there in
+the corner where you won’t see it. Stay!” he added, seeing how pale the
+girl had become, “you shall have some brandy!”
+
+He produced a flask and measured her out, a portion in the cup.
+Suddenly, the door leading from the bar opened and a woman came into
+the room. Her black velvet dress, her gray hair and general air of
+distinction made her a bizarre figure in that squalid room lit by the
+guttering candle.
+
+“Time we were off!” she said to Strangwise, “Bellward’s just coming
+down!”
+
+“There’s the maid...” began Strangwise, looking meaningly at Barbara.
+
+The woman in black velvet cast a questioning glance at him.
+
+Strangwise nodded.
+
+“I’ll do it,” said the woman promptly, “if you’ll call her down!”
+
+Strangwise went to the other door of the tap-room and called:
+
+“Marie!”
+
+There was a step outside and the maid came in, pale and trembling.
+
+“Your mistress wants you; she is downstairs in the cellar,” he said
+pleasantly.
+
+Marie hesitated an instant and surveyed the group.
+
+“_Non, non_,” she said nervously, “_je n’veux pas descendre!_”
+
+Strangwise smiled, showing his teeth.
+
+“No need to be frightened, _ma fille_,” he replied. “Madame here will
+go down with you!” and he pointed to the woman in black velvet.
+
+This seemed to reassure the maid and she walked across the room to the
+door, the woman following her. As the latter passed Strangwise he
+whispered a word in her ear.
+
+“No, no,” answered the other, “I prefer my own way,” and she showed him
+something concealed in her hand.
+
+The two women quitted the room together, leaving Strangwise and Barbara
+alone with the thing on the floor. Strangwise picked up a military
+great-coat which was hanging over the back of a chair and put it on,
+buttoning it all the way up the front and turning up the collar about
+the neck. Then he crammed a cap on his head and stood listening
+intently.
+
+A high, gurgling scream, abruptly checked, came through the open door
+at the farther end of the room.
+
+Barbara sprang up from the chair into which she had sunk.
+
+“_What was that?_” she asked, whispering.
+
+Strangwise did not reply. He was still listening, a tall, well set-up
+figure in the long khaki great-coat.
+
+“But those two women are alone in the cellar,” exclaimed Barbara, “they
+are being murdered! Ah! what was that?”
+
+A gentle thud resounded from below.
+
+A man came in through the door leading from the bar:
+
+He had a fat, smooth-shaven face, heavily jowled.
+
+“All ready, Bellward?” asked Strangwise carelessly.
+
+Barbara stared at the man thus addressed. She saw that he was wearing
+the same clothes as the man who had come down into the cellar with
+Strangwise but the beard was gone. And the man she saw before her was
+not Desmond Okewood.
+
+Without waiting to reason out the metamorphosis, she ran towards
+Bellward.
+
+“They’re murdering those two women down in the cellar,” she cried, “oh,
+what has happened? Won’t you go down and see?”
+
+Bellward shook her off roughly.
+
+“Neat work!” said Strangwise.
+
+“She’s a wonder with the knife!” agreed the other.
+
+Barbara stamped her foot.
+
+“If neither of you men have the courage to go down,” she cried, “then
+I’ll go alone! As for you, Captain Strangwise, a British officer...”
+
+She never finished the sentence. Strangwise caught her by the shoulder
+and thrust the cold barrel of a pistol in her face.
+
+“Stay where you are!” he commanded. “And if you scream I shoot!”
+
+Barbara was silent, dumb with horror and bewilderment, rather than with
+fear. A light shone through the open door at the end of the tap-room
+and the woman in black velvet appeared, carrying a lamp in her hand.
+She was breathing rather hard and her carefully arranged gray hair was
+a little untidy; but she was quite calm and self-possessed.
+
+“We haven’t a moment to lose!” she said, putting the lamp down on the
+table and blowing it out.
+
+“Bellward, give me my cloak!”
+
+Bellward advanced with a fur cloak and wrapped it about her shoulders.
+
+“You are the perfect artiste, Minna,” he said.
+
+“Practise makes perfect!” replied Mrs. Malplaquet archly.
+
+Strangwise had flung open the door leading to the front yard. A big
+limousine stood outside.
+
+“Come on,” he said impatiently, “don’t stand there gossiping you two!”
+
+Then Barbara revolted.
+
+“I’ll not go!” she exclaimed, “you can do what you like but I’ll stay
+where I am! Murderers...”
+
+“Oh,” said Strangwise wearily, “bring her along, Bellward!”
+
+Bellward and the woman seized the girl one by each arm and dragged her
+to the car. Strangwise had the door open and between them they thrust
+her in. Bellward and the woman mounted after her while Strangwise,
+after starting the engine, sprang into the driving-seat outside. With a
+low hum the big car glided forth into the cold, starry night.
+
+From the upper floor of the Dyke Inn came the sound of a woman’s
+terrified sobs. Below there reigned the silence of death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+THE TWO DESERTERS
+
+
+Desmond drove to Wentfield Station in an angry and defiant mood. He was
+incensed against Francis, incensed against the Chief, yet, if the truth
+were told, most of all incensed against himself.
+
+Not that he admitted it for a moment. He told himself that he was very
+hardly used. He had undergone considerable danger in the course of
+discharging a mission which was none of his seeking, and he had met
+with nothing but taunts from his brother and abuse from the Chief.
+
+“I wash my hands of the whole thing,” Desmond declared, as he paced the
+platform at Wentfield waiting for his train. “As Francis is so precious
+cocksure about it all, let him carry on in my place! He’s welcome to
+the Chief’s wiggings! The Chief won’t get me to do his dirty work again
+in a hurry! That’s flat!”
+
+Yet all the while the little gimlet that men call conscience was
+patiently drilling its way through the wall of obduracy behind which
+Desmond’s wounded pride had taken cover. Rail as he would against his
+hard treatment at the hands of the Chief, he knew perfectly well that
+he could never wash his hands of his mission until Barbara Mackwayte
+had been brought back into safety. This thought kept thrusting itself
+forward into the foreground of his mind; and he had to focus his
+attention steadfastly on his grievances to push it back again.
+
+But we puny mortals are all puppets in the hands of Fate. Even as the
+train was bearing Desmond, thus rebellious, Londonwards, Destiny was
+already pulling the strings which was to force the “quitter” back into
+the path he had forsaken. For this purpose Fate had donned the disguise
+of a dirty-faced man in a greasy old suit and a spotted handkerchief in
+lieu of collar... but of him presently.
+
+On arriving at Liverpool Street, Desmond, painfully conscious of his
+unkempt appearance, took a taxi to a Turkish bath in the West End.
+There his first care was to submit himself to the hands of the barber
+who, after a glance at his client’s bandaged head, muddy clothes and
+shaggy beard, coughed ominously and relapsed into a most unbarber-like
+reserve.
+
+Desmond heard the cough and caught the look of commiseration on the
+man’s face.
+
+“I rather think I want a shave!” he said, weakly. “I rather think you
+do, sir!” replied the man, busy with his lather.
+
+“... Had a nasty accident,” murmured Desmond, “I fell down and cut my
+head...”
+
+“We’re used to that here, sir,” answered the barber, “but the bath’ll
+make you as right as, rain. W’y we ’ad a genel’man in ’ere, only lars’
+week it was, as ’adn’t been ’ome for five days and nights and the coat
+mos tore off ’is back along with a bit of turn-up ’e’d ’at one o’ them
+night clubs. And drunk!... w’y ’e went to bite the rubber, so they wos
+tellin’ me! But, bless you, ’e ’ad a nice shave and a couple of hours
+in the bath and a bit of a nap; we got him his clothes as was tore
+mended up fine for ’im and ’e went ’ome as sober as a judge and as
+fresh as a daisy!”
+
+Desmond had it in his mind to protest against this material
+interpretation of his disreputable state; but the sight in the mirror
+of his ignominiously scrubby and battered appearance silenced him. The
+barber’s explanation was as good as any, seeing that he himself could
+give no satisfactory account of the circumstances which had reduced him
+to his sorry pass. So Desmond held his peace though he felt constrained
+to reject the barber’s offer of a pick-me-up.
+
+From the shaving saloon, Desmond sent a messenger out for some clothes,
+and for the next three hours amused himself by exhausting the resources
+of the Turkish bath. Finally, about the hour of noon, he found himself,
+considerably refreshed, swathed in towel, reposing on a couch, a cup of
+coffee at his elbow and that morning’s _Daily Telegraph_ spread out
+before him.
+
+Advertisements, so the experts say, are printed on the front and back
+of newspapers in order to catch the eye of the indolent, on the chance
+that having exhausted the news, they may glance idly over the front and
+back of the paper before laying it aside. So Desmond, before he even
+troubled to open his paper, let his gaze wander down the second column
+of the front page whence issue daily those anguishing appeals,
+mysterious messages, heart-rending entreaties and barefaced begging
+advertisements which give this column its characteristic name.
+
+There his eye fell on an advertisement couched in the following terms:
+
+“If Gunner Martin Barling, 1820th Battery, R.F.C., will communicate
+with Messrs. Mills & Cheyne, solicitors 130 Bedford Row, W. C., he will
+hear of something to his advantage. Difficulties with the military can
+be arranged.”
+
+
+Desmond read this advertisement over once and then, starting at the
+beginning, read it over again. Gunner Barling... the name conjured up a
+picture of a jolly, sun-burned man, always very spick and span, talking
+the strange lingo of our professional army gleaned from India, Aden,
+Malta and the Rock, the type of British soldier that put the Retreat
+from Mons into the history books for all time.
+
+Advertisements like this; Desmond reflected dreamily, meant legacies as
+a rule; he was glad of it, for the sake of Barling whom he hadn’t seen
+since the far-away days of Aldershot before the war.
+
+“Buzzer” Barling was the brother of one Private Henry Barling who had
+been Desmond’s soldier-servant. He derived the nickname of “Buzzer”
+from the fact that he was a signaller. As the vicissitudes of service
+had separated the two brothers for many years, they had profited by the
+accident of finding themselves at the same station to see as much of
+one another as possible, and Desmond had frequently come across the
+gunner at his quarters in barracks. Henry Barling had gone out to
+France with Desmond but a sniper in the wood at Villers Cotterets had
+deprived Desmond of the best servant and the truest friend he had ever
+had. Now here was Henry’s brother cropping up again. Desmond hoped that
+“Buzzer” Barling would see the advertisement, and half asleep, formed a
+mental resolve to cut out the notice and send it to the gunner who, he
+felt glad to think, was still alive. The rather curiously worded
+reference to difficulties with the military must mean, Desmond thought,
+that leave could be obtained for Martin Barling to come home and
+collect his legacy.
+
+At this point the _Daily Telegraph_ fell to the ground and Desmond went
+off to sleep. When he awoke, the afternoon hush had fallen upon the
+bath. He seemed to be the only occupant of the cubicles. His clothes
+which had arrived from the shop during his slumbers, were very neatly
+laid out on a couch opposite him.
+
+He dressed himself leisurely. The barber was quite right. The bath had
+made a new man of him. Save for a large bump on the back of his head he
+was none the worse for Strangwise’s savage blow. The attendant having
+packed Bellward’s apparel in the suit-case in which Desmond’s clothes
+had come from the club, Desmond left the suit-case in the man’s charge
+and strolled out into the soft air of a perfect afternoon. He had
+discarded his bandage and in his well fitting blue suit and brown boots
+he was not recognizable as the scrubby wretch who had entered the bath
+six hours before.
+
+Desmond strolled idly along the crowded streets in the sunshine. He was
+rather at a loss as to what his next move should be. Now that his
+mental freshness was somewhat restored, his thoughts began to busy
+themselves again with the disappearance of Barbara Mackwayte. He was
+conscious of a guilty feeling towards Barbara. It was not so much the
+blame he laid upon himself for not being at the Mill House to meet her
+when she came as the sense that he had been unfaithful to the cause of
+her murdered father.
+
+Now that he was away from Nur-el-Din with her pleading eyes and pretty
+gestures, Desmond’s thoughts turned again to Barbara Mackwayte. As he
+walked along Piccadilly, he found himself contrasting the two women as
+he had contrasted them that night he had met them in Nur-el-Din’s
+dressing room at the Palaceum. And, with a sense of shame; he became
+aware of how much he had succumbed to the dancer’s purely sensual
+influence; for away from her he found he could regain his independence
+of thought and action.
+
+The thought of Barbara in the hands of that woman with the cruel eyes
+or a victim to the ruthlessness of Strangwise made Desmond cold with
+apprehension. If they believed the girl knew where the jewel had
+disappeared to, they would stop at nothing to force a confession from
+her; Desmond was convinced of that. But what had become of the trio?
+
+In vain he cast about him for a clue. As far as he knew, the only
+London address that Strangwise had was the Nineveh; and he was as
+little likely to return there as Bellward was to make his way to his
+little hotel in Jermyn Street. There remained Mrs. Malplaquet who, he
+remembered, had told him of her house at Campden Hill.
+
+For the moment, Desmond decided, he must put both Strangwise and
+Bellward out of his calculations. The only direction in which he could
+start his inquiries after Barbara Mackwayte pointed towards Campden
+Hill and Mrs. Malplaquet.
+
+The delightful weather suggested to his mind the idea of walking out to
+Campden Hill to pursue his investigations on the spot. So he made his
+way across the Park into Kensington Gardens heading for the pleasant
+glades of Notting Hill. In the Bayswater Road he turned into a
+postoffice and consulted the London Directory. He very quickly
+convinced himself that among the hundreds of thousands of names
+compiled by Mr. Kelly’s indefatigable industry Mrs. Malplaquet’s was
+not to be found. Neither did the street directory show her as the
+tenant of any of the houses on Campden Hill.
+
+I don’t know that there is a more pleasant residential quarter of
+London than the quiet streets and gardens that straggle over this airy
+height. The very steepness of the slopes leading up from the Kensington
+High Street on the one side and from Holland Park Avenue on the other
+effectually preserves the atmosphere of old-world languor which
+envelops this retired spot. The hill, with its approaches so steep as
+to suggest to the imaginative the pathway winding up some rock-bound
+fastness of the Highlands, successfully defies organ-grinders and
+motor-buses and other aspirants to the membership in the great society
+for the propagation of street noises. As you near the summit, the quiet
+becomes more pronounced until you might fancy yourself a thousand
+leagues, instead of as many yards, removed from the busy commerce of
+Kensington or the rather strident activity of Notting Hill.
+
+So various in size and condition are the houses that it is as though
+they had broken away from the heterogeneous rabble of bricks and mortar
+that makes up the Royal Borough of Kensington, and run up in a crowd to
+the summit of the hill to look down contemptuously upon their less
+fortunate brethren in the plain. On Campden Hill there are houses to
+suit all purses and all tastes from the vulgar mansion with its private
+garden to the little one-story stable that Art (which flourishes in
+these parts) and ten shillings worth of paint has converted into a
+cottage.
+
+For half an hour Desmond wandered in a desultory fashion along the
+quiet roads of natty houses with brightly painted doors and shining
+brass knockers. He had no definite objective; but he hoped rather
+vaguely to pick up some clue that might lead him to Mrs. Malplaquet’s.
+He walked slowly along surveying the houses and scrutinizing the faces
+of the passers-by who were few and far between, yet without coming any
+nearer the end of his search.
+
+It was now growing dusk. Enthroned on the summit of the hill the
+water-tower stood out hard and clear against the evening sky. Desmond,
+who had lost his bearings somewhat in the course of his wanderings,
+came to a full stop irresolutely, where two streets crossed, thinking
+that he would retrace his footsteps to the main-road on the chance of
+picking up a taxi to take him back to town. He chose one of the streets
+at random; but it proved to be a crescent and brought him back
+practically to the spot he had started from. Thereupon, he took the
+other and followed it up, ignoring various side-turnings which he
+feared might be pitfalls like the last: But the second road was as bad
+as the first. It was a _cul de sac_ and brought Desmond face to face
+with a blank wall.
+
+He turned and looked about him for somebody of whom to ask the way. But
+the street was entirely deserted. He seemed to be on the very summit of
+the hill; for all the roads were a-tilt. Though the evening was falling
+fast, no light appeared in any of the houses and the street lamps were
+yet unlit. Save for the distant bourdon of the traffic which rose to
+his ears like the beating of the surf, the breeze rustling the bushes
+in the gardens was the only sound.
+
+Desmond started to walk back slowly the way he had come. Presently, his
+eyes caught the gleam of a light from above a front door. When he drew
+level with it, he saw that a gas-jet was burning in the fanlight over
+the entrance to a neat little two-story house which stood by itself in
+a diminutive garden. As by this time he was thoroughly sick of
+wandering aimlessly about, he went up to the neat little house and rang
+the bell.
+
+A maid-servant in a cap and apron who seemed to be drawn to the scale
+of the house, such an insignificant little person she was, opened the
+door.
+
+“Oh, sir,” she exclaimed when she saw him, “was it about the rooms?”
+
+And she pointed up at the fan-light where, for the first time, Desmond
+noticed a printed card with the inscription-:
+
+“Furnished Rooms to Let.”
+
+
+The servant’s unexpected question put an idea into Desmond’s head. He
+could not return to the club, he reflected, since he was supposed to be
+killed in action. Why not take a room in this house in the heart of the
+enemy’s country and spend some days on the watch for Mrs. Malplaquet or
+for any clue that might lead him to her?
+
+So Desmond answered, yes, it was about the rooms he had come.
+
+Promising that she would tell “the missus,” the little servant showed
+him into a tiny sitting-room, very clean and bright, with blue cretonne
+curtains and a blue carpet and an engraving of “King Cophetua and The
+Beggar Maid” over the mantelpiece. Directly you came into the room,
+everything in it got up and shouted “Tottenham Court Road.”
+
+Then the door opened and, with a great tinkling and rustling, a
+stoutish, brisk-looking woman sailed in. The tinkling proceeded from
+the large amount of cheap jewelry with which she was adorned; the
+rustling from a black and shiny glacé silk dress. With every movement
+she made the large drops she wore in her ears chinked and were answered
+by a melodious chime from the charm bangles she had on her wrists.
+
+She measured Desmond in a short glance and his appearance seemed to
+please her for she smiled as she said in rather a mincing voice:
+
+“My (she pronounced it ‘may’) maid said you wished to see the rooms!”
+
+Desmond intimated that such was his desire.
+
+“Pray be seated,” said the little woman: “You will understand, I’m
+sure, that ay am not in the habit of taking in paying guests, but may
+husband being at the front, ay have a bedroom and this sitting-room
+free and ay thought...”
+
+She stopped and looked sharply at Desmond.
+
+“You are an officer, I think” she asked.
+
+Desmond bowed.
+
+“May husband is also an officer,” replied the woman, “Captain
+Viljohn-Smythe; you may have met him. No? Of course, had you not been
+of commissioned rank, ay should not...”
+
+She trailed off vaguely.
+
+Desmond inquired her terms and surprised her somewhat by accepting them
+on the spot.
+
+“But you have not seen the bedroom!” protested Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe.
+
+“I will take it on trust,” Desmond replied, “and here,” he added,
+pulling out his note-case, “is a week’s rent in advance. I’ll go along
+now and fetch my things. By the way,” he went on, “I know some people
+here at Campden Hill but very foolishly, I’ve mislaid the address.
+Malplaquet... Mrs. Malplaquet. Do you happen to know her house?”
+
+“Ay know most of the naice people living round about here,” replied the
+lady, “but for the moment, ay cannot recollect... was it one of the
+larger houses on the hill, do you know?”
+
+“I’m afraid I don’t know,” said Desmond. “You see, I’ve lost the
+address!”
+
+“Quayte!” returned Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe. “Ay can’t say ay know the
+name!” she added.
+
+However, she consented to consult the handmaiden, who answered to the
+name of Gladays, as to Mrs. Malplaquet’s address, but she was as
+ignorant as her mistress.
+
+Promising to return in the course of the evening with his things and
+having received exact instructions as to the shortest way to Holland
+Park Avenue, Desmond took his leave. He felt that he had embarked on a
+wild goose chase; for, even if the fugitives had made their way to Mrs.
+Malplaquet’s (which was more than doubtful) he imagined they would take
+care to lie very low so that his chances of coming across any of them
+were of the most meager.
+
+Following the directions he had received, he made his way easily back
+to the main road. He halted under a street-lamp to catch the eye of any
+passing taxi which might happen to be disengaged. A dirty faced man in
+a greasy old suit and a spotted handkerchief knotted about his throat
+came slouching along the pavement, keeping close to the wall. On
+catching sight of Desmond’s face by the light of the lamp, he stopped
+irresolutely and then advanced slowly towards him.
+
+“Excuse me, sir!” he said falteringly.
+
+Desmond looked round at the sound of the man’s voice and seeing a
+typical street loafer, asked the fellow to get him a taxi.
+
+“It _is_ Captain Okewood,” said the loafer, “you don’t remember me,
+sir?”
+
+Desmond looked at the dirty, rather haggard face with its unshaven chin
+and shook his head.
+
+“I don’t think I do,” he answered, “though you seem to know _my_ name!”
+
+The vagrant fumbled in his pocket for a minute and extracting a scrap
+of paper, unfolded it and held it out to Desmond.
+
+“That’s me, sir!” he said, “and, oh, sir! if you would kindly help me
+with a word of good advice, just for old times’ sake, I’d be very
+grateful!”
+
+Desmond took the scrap of paper which the man tendered and held it so
+as to catch the rays of the lamp. It was a fragment torn from a
+newspaper. He had hardly set eyes on the cutting than he stretched out
+his hand to the vagrant.
+
+“Why, Gunner Barling,” he cried, “I didn’t know you! How on earth do
+you come to be in this state?”
+
+The man looked shamefacedly down on the ground.
+
+“I’m a deserter, sir!” he said in a low voice.
+
+“Are you, by George?” replied Desmond, “and now I come to think of it,
+so am I!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+TO MRS. MALPLAQUET’S
+
+
+Clasping Barbara’s wrist in a bony grip, Mrs. Malplaquet sat at the
+girl’s side in the back seat of the limousine whilst Bellward placed
+himself on the seat opposite. The car was powerfully engined; and, once
+the cart track up to the inn was passed and the main road reached,
+Strangwise opened her out.
+
+By the track leading to the inn the high road made a right angle turn
+to the right. This turn they took, leaving the Mill House away in the
+distance to the left of them, and, after skirting the fen for some way
+and threading a maze of side roads, presently debouched on a straight,
+broad road.
+
+Dazed and shaken by her experiences, Barbara lost all count of time,
+but after running for some time through the open country in the gray
+light of dawn, they reached the edge of those long tentacles of bricks
+and mortar which London thrusts out from her on every side. The outer
+fringes of the metropolis were still sleeping as the great car roared
+by. The snug “High Streets,” the red brick “Parades” and “Broadways,”
+with their lines of houses with blinds drawn, seemed to have their eyes
+shut, so blank, so somnolent was their aspect.
+
+With their lamps alight, the first trams were gliding out to begin the
+new day, as the big car swiftly traversed the eastern suburbs of
+London. To Barbara, who had had her home at Seven Kings, there was
+something familiar about the streets as they flickered by; but her
+powers of observation were dulled, so great was the sense of
+helplessness that weighed her down.
+
+High-booted scavengers with curious snake-like lengths of hose on
+little trolleys were sluicing the asphalt as the limousine snorted past
+the Mansion House into Poultney and Cheapside. The light was growing
+clearer now; the tube stations were open and from time to time a
+motor-bus whizzed by.
+
+Barbara stirred restlessly and Mrs. Malplaquet’s grip on her wrist
+tightened.
+
+“Where are you taking me?” the girl said.
+
+Mrs. Malplaquet spoke a single word.
+
+“Bellward!” she said in a gentle voice; but it was a voice of command.
+
+Bellward leaned forward.
+
+“Look at me, Miss Mackwayte!” he said.
+
+There was a curious insistence in his voice that made Barbara obey. She
+struggled for a moment against the impulse to do his bidding; for some
+agency within her told her to resist the summons. But an irresistible
+force seemed to draw her eyes to his. Bellward did not move. He simply
+leaned forward a little, his hands on his knees, and looked at her.
+Barbara could not see his eyes, for the light in the car was still dim,
+but inch by inch they captured hers.
+
+She looked at the black outline of his head and instantly was conscious
+of a wave of magnetic power that transmitted itself from his will to
+hers. She would have cried out, have struggled, have sought to break
+away; but that invisible dance held her as in a vice. A little gasp
+broke from her lips; but that was all.
+
+“So!” said Bellward with the little sigh of a man who has just
+accomplished some bodily effort, “so! you will keep quiet now and do as
+I tell you. You understand?”
+
+No reply came from the girl. She had thrust her head forward and was
+gazing fixedly at the man. Bellward leaned towards the girl until his
+stubbly hair actually touched her soft brown curls. He was gazing
+intently at her eyes.
+
+He was apparently well satisfied with his inspection, for he gave a
+sigh of satisfaction and turned to Mrs. Malplaquet.
+
+“She’ll give no more trouble now!” he remarked airily.
+
+“Ah! Bellward,” sighed Mrs. Malplaquet, “you’re incomparable! What an
+undefeatable combination you and I would have made if we’d met twenty
+years sooner!”
+
+And she threw him a coquettish glance.
+
+“Ah, indeed!” returned Bellward pensively. “But a night like this makes
+me feel twenty years older, Minna. He’s a daredevil, this Strangwise.
+Imagine going back to that infernal inn when the police might have
+broken in on us any minute. But he is a determined chap. He doesn’t
+seem to know what it is to be beaten. He wanted to make sure that
+Nur-el-Din had not recovered the jewel from him, though he declares
+that it has never left him day or night since he got possession of it.
+He fairly made hay of her room back at the inn there.”
+
+“Well,” said Mrs. Malplaquet rather spitefully, “he seems to be beaten
+this time. He hasn’t found his precious Star of Poland.”
+
+“No,” answered the man reflectively, “but I think he will!”
+
+Mrs. Malplaquet laughed shrilly.
+
+“And how, may I ask? From what Strangwise told me himself, the thing
+has utterly vanished. And he doesn’t seem to have any clue as to who
+has taken it!”
+
+“Perhaps not,” replied Bellward, who appeared to have a high opinion of
+Strangwise, “but, like all Germans, our friend is thorough. If he does
+not see the direct road, he proceeds by a process of elimination until
+he hits upon it. He did not expect to find the jewel in Nur-el-Din’s
+room; he told me as much himself, but he searched because he is
+thorough in everything. Do you know why he really went back to the Dyke
+Inn?”
+
+“Why?” asked Mrs. Malplaquet.
+
+“To secure our young friend here,” answered Bellward with a glance at
+Barbara.
+
+Mrs. Malplaquet made a little grimace to bid him to be prudent in what
+he said before the girl.
+
+“Bah!” the man laughed, “you understand nothing of what we are saying,
+do you?” he said, addressing Barbara.
+
+The girl moved uneasily.
+
+“I understand nothing of what you are saying,” she replied in a
+strained voice.
+
+“This girl was the last person to have the jewel before Strangwise,”
+Bellward said, continuing his conversation with Mrs. Malplaquet, “and
+she is employed at the Headquarters of the Secret Service. Strangwise
+was satisfied that nobody connected him with the theft of the silver
+box which Nur-el-Din gave to this girl until our young lady here
+appeared at the Dyke Inn yesterday afternoon. Nur-el-Din played his
+game for him by detaining the girl. Strangwise believes—and I must say
+I agree with him—that probably two persons know where the Star of
+Poland is. One is this girl...”
+
+“The other being the late Mr. Bellward?” queried Mrs. Malplaquet.
+
+“Precisely. The late Mr. Bellward or Major Desmond Okewood!” said
+Bellward. “Between him and this girl here I think we ought to be able
+to recover Strangwise’s lost property for him!”
+
+“But you haven’t got Okewood yet!” observed the lady in a mocking
+voice.
+
+The man looked evilly at her, his heavy, fat chin set square.
+
+“But we shall get him, never fear. With a little bird-lime as
+attractive as this—”
+
+He broke off and jerked his head in the direction of Barbara.
+
+“... I shall do the rest!” he added.
+
+“Ah!”
+
+Mrs. Malplaquet drew a deep sigh of admiration.
+
+“That’s a clever idea. He is so _rusé_, this Strangwise. You are quite
+right, Bellward, he never admits himself beaten. And he never is! But
+tell me,” she added, “what about Nur-el-Din? They’ll nab her, eh?”
+
+“Unless our British friends are even more inefficient than I believe
+them to be, they most certainly will,” he replied.
+
+“And then?”
+
+Bellward shrugged his shoulders and spread wide his hands.
+
+“A little morning ceremony at the Tower,” he answered, “unless these
+idiotic English are too sentimental to execute a woman...”
+
+The car was running down the long slope to Paddington Station. It drew
+up at the entrance to the booking office, and Strangwise, springing
+from the driver’s seat, flung open the door.
+
+“Come on!” he cried, “we must look sharp or we’ll miss our train!”
+
+He dragged a couple of bags off the roof and led the way into the
+station. In the booking-hall he inquired of a porter what time the
+express left for Bath, then went to the ticket office and took four
+first-class tickets to that place. Meanwhile, the car remained standing
+empty in the carriageway.
+
+Strangwise led his little party up some stairs and across a long
+bridge, down some stairs and up some stairs again, emerging, finally,
+at the Bakerloo Tube Station. There he despatched Bellward to fetch a
+taxi.
+
+Taxis are rare in the early hours of the morning in war-time and
+Bellward was gone fully twenty minutes. Strangwise fidgeted
+continually, drawing out his watch repeatedly and casting many anxious
+glances this way and that.
+
+His nervous demeanor began to affect Mrs. Malplaquet, who had linked
+her arm affectionately in Barbara’s. The girl remained absolutely
+apathetic. Indeed, she seemed almost as one in a trance.
+
+“Aren’t we going to Bath?” at length demanded Mrs. Malplaquet of
+Strangwise.
+
+“Don’t ask questions!” snapped the latter.
+
+“But the car?” asked the lady.
+
+“Hold your tongue!” commanded the officer; and Mrs. Malplaquet obeyed.
+
+Then Mr. Bellward returned with the news that he had at last got a
+taxi. Strangwise turned to Bellward.
+
+“Can Minna and the girl go to Campden Hill alone?” he asked. “Or will
+the girl try and break away, do you think?”
+
+Bellward held up his hand to enjoin silence.
+
+“You will go along with Mrs. Malplaquet,” he said to Barbara in his low
+purring voice, “you will stay with her until I come. You understand?”
+
+“I will go with Mrs. Malplaquet!” the girl replied in the same dull
+tone as before.
+
+“Upon my word,” exclaimed Mrs. Malplaquet, “you might have told me that
+we were going to my own place...”
+
+But Strangwise shut her up.
+
+“Bellward and I will come on by tube... it is safer,” he said, “hurry,
+hurry! We must all be under cover by eight o’clock... we have no time
+to lose!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+THE MAN IN THE SUMMER-HOUSE
+
+
+The hour of the theatre rush was long since over and its passing had
+transformed the taxi-drivers from haughty autocrats to humble
+suppliants. One taxi after another crawled slowly past the street
+corner where Desmond had stood for over an hour in deep converse with
+Gunner Barling, but neither flaunting flag nor appealingly uplifted
+finger attracted the slightest attention from the athletic-looking man
+who was so earnestly engaged in talk with a tramp. But at last the
+conversation was over; the two men separated and the next taxi passing
+thereafter picked up a fare.
+
+At nine o’clock the next morning Desmond appeared for breakfast in his
+sitting-room at Santona Road; for such was the name of the street in
+which his new rooms were situated. When he had finished his meal, he
+summoned Gladys and informed her that he would be glad to speak to Mrs.
+Viljohn-Smythe. That lady having duly answered the summons, Desmond
+asked whether, in consideration of terms to be mutually agreed upon,
+she could accommodate his soldier servant. He explained that the
+last-named was of the most exemplary character and threw out a hint of
+the value of a batman for such tasks as the cleaning of the family
+boots and the polishing of brass or silver.
+
+The landlady made no objections and half an hour later a clean and
+respectable-looking man arrived whom Desmond with difficulty recognized
+as the wretched vagrant of the previous evening. This was, indeed, the
+Gunner Barling he used to know, with his smooth-shaven chin and neat
+brown moustache waxed at the ends and characteristic “quiff” decorating
+his brow. And so Desmond and his man installed themselves at Santona
+Road.
+
+The house was clean and comfortable, and Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe, for all
+her “refaynement,” as she would have called it, proved herself a
+warm-hearted, motherly soul. Desmond had a small but comfortably
+furnished bedroom at the top of the house, on the second floor, with a
+window which commanded a view of the diminutive garden and the back of
+a row of large houses standing on the lower slopes of the hill. So
+precipitous was the fall of the ground, indeed, that Desmond could look
+right into the garden of the house backing on Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe’s.
+This garden had a patch of well-kept green sward in the centre with a
+plaster nymph in the middle, while in one corner stood a kind of large
+summer-house or pavilion built on a slight eminence, with a window
+looking into Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe’s’ back garden.
+
+In accordance with a plan of action he had laid down in his mind,
+Desmond took all his meals at his rooms. The rest of the day he devoted
+to walking about the streets of Campden Hill and setting on foot
+discreet inquiries after Mrs. Malplaquet amongst the local
+tradespeople.
+
+For three or four days he carried out this arrangement without the
+slightest success. He dogged the footsteps of more than one gray-haired
+lady of distinguished appearance without lighting upon his quarry. He
+bestowed largesse on the constable on point duty, on the milkman and
+the baker’s young lady; but none of them had ever heard of Mrs.
+Malplaquet or recognized her from Desmond’s description.
+
+On the morning of the fourth day Desmond returned to lunch, dispirited
+and heart-sick. He had half a mind to abandon his quest altogether and
+to go and make his peace with the Chief and ask to be sent back to
+France. He ate his lunch and then, feeling that it would be useless to
+resume his aimless patrol of the streets, lit a cigar and strolled out
+into the little back-garden.
+
+It was a fine, warm afternoon, and already the crocuses were thrusting
+their heads out of the neat flower-beds as if to ascertain whether the
+spring had really arrived. There was, indeed, a pleasant vernal scent
+in the air.
+
+“A fine day!” said a voice.
+
+Desmond looked up. At the open window of the summerhouse of the garden
+backing on Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe’s, his elbows resting on the pitch-pine
+frame, was a middle-aged man. A cigarette was in his mouth and from his
+hands dangled a newspaper. He had a smooth-shaven, heavily-jowled face
+and a large pair of tortoise-shell spectacles on his nose.
+
+Desmond remembered to have seen the man already looking out of a window
+opposite his on one of the upper floors of the house. In reply to a
+casual inquiry, Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe had informed him that the house was
+a nursing home kept by a Dr. Radcombe, a nerve specialist.
+
+“It is quite like spring!” replied Desmond, wondering if this were the
+doctor. Doctors get about a good deal and Dr. Radcombe might be able to
+tell him something about Mrs. Malplaquet.
+
+“I think we have seen one another in the mornings sometimes,” said the
+heavily-jowled man, “though I have noticed that you are an earlier
+riser than I am. But when one is an invalid—”
+
+“You are one of Dr. Radcombe’s patients, then!” said Desmond.
+
+“I am,” returned the other, “a great man, that, my dear sir. I doubt if
+there is his equal for diagnosis in the kingdom.”
+
+“He has lived here for some years, I suppose?”
+
+“Oh yes!” answered the man, “in fact, he is one of the oldest and
+most-respected residents of Kensington, I believe!”
+
+“I am rather anxious to find some friends of mine who live about here,”
+Desmond remarked, quick to seize his opportunity, “I wonder whether
+your doctor could help me...”
+
+“I’m sure he could,” the man replied, “the doctor knows everybody...”
+
+“The name—” began Desmond, but the other checked him.
+
+“Please don’t ask me to burden my memory with names,” he protested. “I
+am here for a complete rest from over-work, and loss of memory is one
+of my symptoms. But look here; why not come over the wall and step
+inside the house with me? Dr. Radcombe is there and will, I am sure, be
+delighted to give you any assistance in his power!”
+
+Desmond hesitated.
+
+“Really,” he said, “it seems rather unconventional. Perhaps the doctor
+would object...”
+
+“Object” said the heavily-jowled man, “tut, tut, not at all. Come on,
+I’ll give you a hand up!”
+
+He thrust out a large, white hand. Desmond was about to grasp it when
+he saw gleaming on the third finger a gold snake ring with emerald
+eyes—the ring that Mrs. Malplaquet had given Bellward. He was about to
+draw back but the man was too quick for him. Owing to the slope of the
+ground the window of the summer-house was on a level with Desmond’s
+throat. The man’s two hands shot out simultaneously. One grasped
+Desmond’s wrist in a steel grip whilst the other fastened itself about
+the young man’s throat, squeezing the very breath out of his body. It
+was done so quickly that he had no time to struggle, no time to shout.
+As Bellward seized him, another arm was shot out of the window. Desmond
+felt himself gripped by the collar and lifted, by a most amazing effort
+of strength, bodily over the wall.
+
+His brain swimming with the pressure on his throat, he struggled but
+feebly to recover his freedom. However, as Desmond was dropped heavily
+on to the grass on the other side of the wall, Bellward’s grip relaxed
+just for a second and in that instant Desmond made one desperate bid
+for liberty. He fell in a crouching position and, as he felt Bellward
+loosen his hold for a second with the jerk of his victim’s fall,
+Desmond straightened himself up suddenly, catching his assailant a
+violent blow with his head on the point of the chin.
+
+Bellward fell back with a crash on to the timber flooring of the
+pavilion. Desmond heard his head strike the boards with a thud, heard a
+muttered curse. He found himself standing in a narrow lane, less than
+three feet wide, which ran between the garden wall and the
+summer-house; for the pavilion, erected on a slight knoll surrounded by
+turf, was not built against the wall as is usually the case with these
+structures.
+
+In this narrow space Desmond stood irresolute for the merest fraction
+of a second. It was not longer; for, directly after Bellward had
+crashed backwards, Desmond heard a light step reverberate within the
+planks of the summerhouse. His most obvious course was to scramble back
+over the wall again into safety, in all thankfulness at having escaped
+so violent an attack. But he reflected that Bellward was here and that
+surely meant that the others were not far off. In that instant as he
+heard the stealthy footstep cross the floor of the summer-house,
+Desmond resolved he would not leave the garden until he had ascertained
+whether Barbara Mackwayte was there.
+
+Desmond decided that he would stay where he was until he no longer
+heard that footstep on the planks within; for then the person inside
+the summer-house would have reached the grass at the door. Desmond
+remembered the arm which had shot out beside Bellward at the window and
+swung him so easily off his feet. He knew only one man capable of
+achieving that very respectable muscular performance; for Desmond
+weighed every ounce of twelve stone. That man was Maurice Strangwise.
+
+As soon as the creaking of the timbers within ceased, Desmond moved to
+the left following the outer wall of the pavilion. On the soft green
+sward his feet made no sound. Presently he came to a window which was
+let in the side of the summerhouse opposite the window from which
+Bellward had grappled with him. Raising his eyes to the level of the
+sill, Desmond took a cautious peep. He caught a glimpse of the face of
+Maurice Strangwise, brows knit, nostrils dilated, the very picture of
+venomous, watchful rancor.
+
+Strangwise had halted and was now looking back over the wall into Mrs.
+Viljohn-Smythe’s back garden. Was it possible, Desmond wondered, that
+he could believe that Desmond had scrambled back over the wall?
+Strangwise remained motionless, his back now fully turned to Desmond,
+peering into the other garden.
+
+The garden in which the summer-house stood was oblong in shape and more
+than twice as broad as it was long. The pavilion was not more than
+forty yards from the back entrance of the house. Desmond weighed in his
+mind the possibility of being able to dash across those forty yards,
+the turf deadening the sound of his feet, before Strangwise turned
+round again. The entrance to the back of the house was through a door
+in the side of the house, to which two or three wrought-iron steps gave
+access. Once he had gained the steps Desmond calculated that the side
+of the house would shelter him from Strangwise’s view. He turned these
+things over in his mind in the twinkling of an eye; for all his life he
+had been used to quick decision and quick action. To cover those forty
+yards across the open in one bound was, he decided, too much to risk;
+for he must at all costs gain access to the house and discover, if
+possible, whether Barbara Mackwayte were confined within, before he was
+caught.
+
+Then his eye fell on the plaster nymph in the middle of the grass. She
+was a stoutly-built female, life-size, standing upon a solid-looking
+pedestal fully four feet broad. Desmond measured the distance
+separating him from the nymph. It was not more than twenty yards at the
+outside and the pedestal would conceal him from the eyes of Strangwise
+if the latter should turn round before he had made his second bound and
+reached the steps at the side of the house.
+
+He peeped through the window again. Strangwise stood in his old
+attitude gazing over the garden wall. Then Desmond acted. Taking long
+strides on the points of his toes, he gained the statue and crouched
+down behind it. Even as he started, he heard a loud grunt from the
+inside of the summerhouse and from his cover behind the nymph saw
+Strangwise turn quickly and enter the summerhouse. On that Desmond
+sprang to his feet again, heedless of whether he was seen from the
+house, ran lightly across the grass and reached the steps at the side
+of the house.
+
+The door stood ajar.
+
+He stood still on the top step and listened for a moment. The house was
+wrapped in silence. Not a sign of life came from within.
+
+But now he heard voices from the garden and they were the voices of two
+angry men, raised in altercation. As he listened, they drew nearer.
+
+Desmond tarried no longer. He preferred the unknown perils which that
+silent house portended to the real danger advancing from the garden. He
+softly pushed the door open and slipped into the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+THE RED LACQUER ROOM
+
+
+The side-door led into a little white passage with a green baize door
+at the end. A staircase, which from its white-washed treads, Desmond
+judged to be the back stairs, gave on the passage. Calculating that the
+men in the garden would be certain to use the main staircase, Desmond
+took the back stairs which, on the first landing, brought him face to
+face with a green baize door, similar in every respect to that on the
+floor below.
+
+He pushed this door open and listened. Hearing nothing he passed on
+through it. He found himself in a broad corridor on to which gave the
+main staircase from below and its continuation to the upper floors.
+Three rooms opened on to this corridor, a large drawing-room, a small
+study and what was obviously the doctor’s consulting room, from the
+operating table and the array of instruments set out in glass cases.
+The rooms were empty and Desmond was about to return to the back stairs
+and proceed to the next floor when his attention was caught by a series
+of framed photographs with which the walls of the corridor were lined.
+
+These were groups of doctors taken at various medical congresses. You
+will find such photographs in many doctors’ houses. Below each group
+were neatly printed the names of the persons therein represented.
+Anxious to see what manner of man was this Doctor Radcombe in whose
+house spies were apparently at liberty to consort with impunity,
+Desmond looked for his name.
+
+There it was—Dr. A. J. Radcombe. But, on looking at the figure above
+the printed line, what was his astonishment to recognize the angular
+features and drooping moustache of “No. 13”!
+
+There was no possible mistake about it. The photographs were excellent
+and Desmond had no difficulty in identifying the eccentric-looking
+German in each of them. So this was Mrs. Malplaquet’s house, was it? A
+nursing-home run by “No. 13,” who in addition to being a spy, would
+seem to have been a nerve specialist as well. In this guise, no doubt,
+he had made trips to the South of England which had gained for him that
+intimate acquaintance with Portsmouth and Southsea of which he had
+boasted at the gathering in the library. In this capacity, moreover, he
+had probably met Bellward whose “oggult” powers, to which “No. 13” had
+alluded, seem to point to mesmerism and kindred practices in which
+German neurasthenic research has made such immense progress.
+
+Pondering over his surprising discovery, Desmond pursued his way to the
+floor above. Here, too, was a green baize door which opened on to a
+corridor. Desmond walked quickly along it, glancing in, as he passed,
+at the open doors of two or three bedrooms. Just beyond where the
+staircase crossed the corridor were two doors, both of which were
+closed. The one was a white door and might have been a bathroom; the
+other was enameled a brilliant, glossy red.
+
+The second floor was as silent and deserted as the corridor below. But
+just as Desmond passed the head of the main staircase he heard the
+sound of voices. He glanced cautiously down the well of the stairs and
+saw Strangwise and Bellward talking together. Bellward was on the
+stairs while Strangwise stood in the corridor.
+
+“It’s our last chance,” Strangwise was saying.
+
+“No, no,” Bellward replied heatedly, “I tell you it is madness. We must
+not delay a minute. For Heaven’s sake, leave the girl alone and let’s
+save ourselves.”
+
+“What?” cried Strangwise, “and abandon Minna!”
+
+“Minna is well able to look after herself,” answered Bellward in a
+sulky voice, “it’s a question of _sauve qui peut_ now... every man for
+himself!”
+
+“No!” said Strangwise firmly, “we’ll wait for Minna, Bellward. You
+exaggerate the danger. I tell you I was at the garden wall within a few
+seconds of our friend laying you out, and I saw no sign of him in his
+garden. It was a physical impossibility for him to have got over the
+wall and back into the house in the time. And in his garden there’s
+nowhere to hide. It’s as bare as the Sahara!”
+
+“But, good Heavens!” cried Bellward, throwing his hands excitedly above
+his head, “the man can’t dissolve into thin air. He’s gone back to the
+house, I tell you, and the police will be here at any minute. You know
+he’s not in our garden; for you searched every nook and corner of it
+yourself. Okewood may be too clever for you, Strangwise; but he’s not a
+magician!”
+
+“No,” said Strangwise sternly, “he is not.” And he added in a low
+voice:
+
+“That’s why I am convinced that he is in this house!”
+
+Desmond felt his heart thump against his ribs.
+
+Bellward seemed surprised for he cried quickly:
+
+“What? Here?”
+
+Strangwise nodded.
+
+“You stand here gossiping with that man loose in the house?” exclaimed
+Bellward vehemently, “why the next thing we know the fellow will escape
+us again!”
+
+“Oh, no, he won’t” retorted the other. “Every window on the ground
+floor is barred... this is a home for neurasthenics, you know, and that
+is sometimes a polite word for a lunatic, my friend... and the doors,
+both front and back are locked. The keys are here!”
+
+Desmond heard a jingle as Strangwise slapped his pocket.
+
+“All the same,” the latter went on, “it is as well to be prepared for a
+sudden change of quarters. That’s why I want you to finish off the girl
+at once. Come along, we’ll start now...”
+
+“No, no!” declared Bellward. “I’m far too upset. You seem to think you
+can turn me on and off like you do the gas!”
+
+“Well, as you like,” said Strangwise, “but the sooner we clear up this
+thing the better. I’m going to see if our clever young friend has taken
+refuge in the servants’ quarters upstairs. He’s not on this floor,
+that’s certain!”
+
+Desmond drew back in terror. He heard the green baize door on the floor
+below swing back as Strangwise went out to the back stairs and
+Bellward’s heavy step ascended the main staircase. There was something
+so horribly sinister in that firm, creaking tread as it mounted towards
+him that for the moment he lost his head. He looked round wildly for a
+place of concealment; but the corridor was bare. Facing him was the red
+enamel door. Boldly he turned the handle and walked in, softly closing
+the door behind him.
+
+It was as though he had stepped into another world. The room in which
+he found himself was a study in vivid red emphasized by black. Red and
+black; these were the only colors in the room. The curtains, which were
+of black silk, were drawn, though it was not yet dark outside, and from
+the ceiling was suspended a lamp in the shape of a great scarlet bowl
+which cast an eerie red light on one of the most bizarre apartments
+that Desmond had ever seen.
+
+It was a lacquer room in the Chinese style, popularized by the craze
+for barbaric decoration introduced by Bakst and the Russian Ballet into
+England. The walls were enameled the same brilliant glossy red as the
+door and hung at intervals with panels of magnificent black and gold
+lacquer work. The table which ran down the centre of the room was of
+scarlet and gold lacquer like the fantastically designed chairs and the
+rest of the furniture. The heavy carpet was black.
+
+Desmond did not take in all these details at once; for his attention
+was immediately directed to a high-backed armchair covered in black
+satin which stood with its back to the door. He stared at this chair;
+for, peeping out above the back, making a splash of deep golden brown
+against the black sheen of the upholstery, was a mass of curls...
+Barbara Mackwayte’s hair.
+
+As he advanced towards the girl, she moaned in a high, whimpering
+voice:
+
+“No, no, not again! Let me sleep! Please, please, leave me alone!”
+
+Desmond sprang to her side.
+
+“Barbara!” he cried and never noticed that he called her by her
+Christian name.
+
+Barbara Mackwayte sat in the big black armchair, facing the
+black-curtained window. Her face was pale and drawn, and there were
+black circles under her eyes. There was a listless yet highly-strung
+look about her that you see in people who habitually take drugs.
+
+She heeded not the sound of his voice. It was as though he had not
+spoken. She only continued to moan and mutter, moving her body about
+uneasily as a child does when its sleep is disturbed by nightmares.
+Then, to his inexpressible horror, Desmond saw that her feet were bound
+with straps to the legs of the chair. Her arms were similarly tethered
+to the arms of the chair, but her hands had been left free.
+
+“Barbara!” said Desmond softly, “you know me! I’m Desmond Okewood! I’ve
+come to take you home!”
+
+The word “home” seemed to catch the girl’s attention; for now she
+turned her head and looked at the young man. The expression in her
+eyes, wide and staring, was horrible; for it was the look of a tortured
+animal.
+
+Desmond was bending to unbind the straps that fastened Barbara’s arms
+when he heard a step outside the door. The curtains in front of the
+window were just beside him. They were long and reached to the floor.
+Without a second’s hesitation he slipped behind them and found himself
+in the recess of a shallow bow window.
+
+The bow window was in three parts and the central part was open wide at
+the bottom. It gave on a little balcony which was in reality the roof
+of a bow window of one of the rooms on the floor below. Desmond
+promptly scrambled out of the window and letting himself drop on to the
+balcony crouched down below the sill.
+
+A door opened in the room he had just left. He heard steps moving about
+and cupboards opened and shut. Then, there was the sound of curtains
+being drawn back and a voice said just above him:
+
+“He’s not here! I tell you the fellow’s not in the house! Now perhaps
+you’ll believe me!”
+
+The balcony was fairly deep and it was growing dusk; but Desmond could
+scarcely hope to escape detection if Bellward, for he had recognized
+his voice, should think of leaning out of the window and looking down
+upon the balcony. With his coat collar turned up to hide the
+treacherous white of his linen, Desmond pressed himself as close as
+possible against the side of the house and waited for the joyful cry
+that would proclaim that he had been discovered. There was no possible
+means of escape; for the balcony stood at an angle of the house with no
+windows or water-pipes anywhere within reach, to give him a foothold,
+looking out on an inhospitable and gloomy area.
+
+Whether Bellward, who appeared bent only on getting away from the house
+without delay, examined the balcony or not, Desmond did not know; but
+after the agony of suspense had endured for what seemed to him an hour,
+he heard Strangwise say:
+
+“It’s no good, Bellward! I’m not satisfied! And until I _am_ satisfied
+that Okewood is not here, I don’t leave this house. And that’s that!”
+
+Bellward swore savagely.
+
+“We’ve searched the garden and not found him: we’ve ransacked the house
+from top to bottom without result. The fellow’s not here; but by God,
+he’ll be here presently with a bunch of police, and then it’ll be too
+late! For the last time, Strangwise, will you clear out?”
+
+There was a moment’s pause. Then Desmond heard Strangwise’s clear, calm
+voice.
+
+“There’s a balcony there... below the window, I mean.”
+
+“I’ve looked,” replied Bellward, “and he’s not there. You can see for
+yourself!”
+
+The moment of discovery had arrived. To Desmond the strain seemed
+unbearable and to alleviate it, he began to count, as one counts to woo
+sleep. One! two! three! four! He heard a grating noise as the window
+was pushed further up. Five! six! seven! eight!
+
+“Strange!”
+
+Strangwise muttered the word just above Desmond’s head. Then, to his
+inexpressible relief, he heard the other add:
+
+“He’s not there!”
+
+And Desmond realized that the depth of the balcony had saved him. Short
+of getting out of the window, as he had done, the others could not see
+him.
+
+The two men returned to the room and silence fell once more. Outside on
+the damp balcony in the growing darkness Desmond was fighting down the
+impulse to rush in and stake all in one desperate attempt to rescue the
+girl from her persecutors. But he was learning caution; and he knew he
+must bide his time.
+
+Some five minutes elapsed during which Desmond could detect no definite
+sound from the red lacquer room except the occasional low murmur of
+voices. Then, suddenly, there came a high, quavering cry from the girl.
+
+Desmond raised himself quickly erect, his ear turned so as to catch
+every sound from the room. The girl wailed again, a plaintive, tortured
+cry that seemed to issue forth unwillingly from her.
+
+“My God!” said Desmond to himself, “I can’t stand this!”
+
+His head was level with the sill of the window which was fortunately
+broad. Getting a good grip on the rough cement with his hands, he
+hoisted himself up on to the sill, by the sheer force of his arms
+alone, sat poised there for an instant, then very lightly and without
+any noise, clambered through the window and into the room. Even as he
+did so, the girl cried out again.
+
+“I can’t! I can’t!” she wailed.
+
+Every nerve in Desmond’s body was tingling with rage. The blood was
+hotly throbbing against his temples and he was literally quivering all
+over with fury. But he held himself in check. This time he must not
+fail. Both those men were armed, he knew. What chance could he, unarmed
+as he was, have against them? He must wait, wait, that they might not
+escape their punishment.
+
+Steadying the black silk curtains with his hands, he looked through the
+narrow chink where the two panels met. And this was what he saw.
+
+Barbara Mackwayte was still in the chair; but they had unfastened her
+arms though her feet were still bound. She had half-risen from her
+seat. Her body was thrust forward in a strained, unnatural attitude;
+her eyes were wide open and staring; and there was a little foam on her
+lips. There was something hideously deformed, horribly unlife-like
+about her. Though her eyes were open, her look was the look of the
+blind; and, like the blind, she held her head a little on one side as
+though eager not to miss the slightest sound.
+
+Bellward stood beside her, his face turned in profile to Desmond. His
+eyes were dilated and the sweat stood out in great beads on his
+forehead and trickled in broad lanes of moisture down his heavy cheeks.
+He was half-facing the girl and every time he bent towards her, she
+tugged and strained at her bonds as though to follow him.
+
+“You say he has been here. Where is he? Where is he? You shall tell me
+where he is.”
+
+Bellward was speaking in a strange, vibrating voice. Every question
+appeared to be a tremendous nervous effort. Desmond, who was keenly
+sensitive to matters psychic, could almost feel the magnetic power
+radiating from the man. In the weird red light of the room, he could
+see the veins standing out like whipcords on the back of Bellward’s
+hands.
+
+“Tell me where he is? I command you!”
+
+The girl wailed out again in agony and writhed in her bonds. Her voice
+rose to a high, gurgling scream.
+
+“There!” she cried, pointing with eyes staring, lips parted, straight
+at the curtains behind which Desmond stood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+AN OFFER FROM STRANGWISE
+
+
+Desmond sprang for the window; but it was too late. Strangwise who had
+not missed a syllable of the interrogatory was at the curtains in a
+flash. As he plucked the hangings back, Desmond made a rush for him;
+but Strangwise, wary as ever, kept his head and, drawing back, jabbed
+his great automatic almost in the other’s face.
+
+And then Desmond knew the game was up.
+
+Barbara had collapsed in her chair. Her face was of an ivory pallor and
+she seemed to have fallen back into the characteristic hypnotic trance.
+As for Bellward, he had dropped on to a sofa, a loose mass, exhausted
+but missing nothing of what was going forward, though, for the moment,
+he seemed too spent to take any active part in the proceedings. In the
+meantime Strangwise, his white, even teeth bared in a quiet smile, was
+very steadily looking at his prisoner.
+
+“Well, Desmond,” he said at last, “here’s a pleasant surprise! I
+thought you were dead!”
+
+Desmond said nothing. He was not a coward as men go; but he was feeling
+horribly afraid just then. The deviltry of the scene he had just
+witnessed had fairly unmanned him. The red and black setting of the
+room had a suggestion of Oriental cruelty in its very garishness.
+Desmond looked from Strangwise, cool and smiling, to Bellward, gross
+and beastly, and from the two men to Barbara, wan and still and
+defenceless. And he was afraid.
+
+Then Bellward scrambled clumsily to his feet, plucking a revolver from
+his inside pocket as he did so.
+
+“You sneaking rascal,” he snarled, “we’ll teach you to play your dirty
+tricks on us!”
+
+He raised the pistol; but Strangwise stepped between the man and his
+victim.
+
+“Kill him!” cried Bellward, “and let’s be rid of him once and for all!”
+
+“What” said Strangwise. “Kill Desmond? Ah, no, my friend, I don’t think
+so!”
+
+And he added drily:
+
+“At least not quite yet!”
+
+“But you must be mad,” exclaimed Bellward, toying impatiently with his
+weapon, “you let him escape through your fingers before! I know his
+type. A man like him is only safe when he’s dead. And if you won’t...”
+
+“Now, Bellward,” said Strangwise not budging but looking the other
+calmly in the eye, “you’re getting excited, you know.”
+
+But Bellward muttered thickly:
+
+“Kill him! That’s all I ask. And let’s get out of here! I tell you it
+isn’t safe! Minna can shift for herself!” he added sulkily.
+
+“As she has always done!” said a voice at the door. Mrs. Malplaquet
+stood there, a very distinguished looking figure in black with a
+handsome set of furs.
+
+“But who’s this?” she asked, catching sight of Desmond, as she flashed
+her beady black eyes round the group. Of Barbara she took not the
+slightest notice. Desmond remarked it and her indifference shocked him
+profoundly.
+
+“Of course, you don’t recognize him!” said Strangwise. “This is Major
+Desmond Okewood, more recently known as Mr. Basil Bellward!”
+
+The woman evinced no surprise.
+
+“So!” she said, “I thought we’d end by getting him. Well, Strangwise,
+what are we waiting for? Is our friend to live for ever?”
+
+“That’s what I want to know!” bellowed Bellward savagely.
+
+“I have not finished with our friend here!” observed Strangwise.
+
+“No, no,” cried Mrs. Malplaquet quickly, Strangwise, “you’ve had your
+lesson. You’ve lost the jewel and you’re not likely to get it back
+unless you think that this young man has come here with it on him. Do
+you want to lose your life, the lives of all of us, as well? Come,
+come, the fellow’s no earthly good to us! And he’s a menace to us all
+as long as he’s alive!”
+
+“Minna,” said Strangwise, “you must trust me. Besides...” he leaned
+forward and whispered something in her ear. “Now,” he resumed aloud,
+“you shall take Bellward downstairs and leave me to have a little chat
+with our friend here.”
+
+To Bellward he added:
+
+“Minna will tell you what I said. But first,” he pointed to Barbara who
+remained apparently lifeless in her chair, “bring her round. And then I
+think she’d better go to bed.”
+
+“But what about the treatment to-night” asked Mrs. Malplaquet.
+
+Strangwise smiled mysteriously.
+
+“I’m not sure that any further treatment will be required,” he said.
+
+In the meantime, Bellward had leaned over the girl and with a few
+passes of his hand had brought her back to consciousness. She sat up,
+one hand pressed to her face, and looked about her in a dazed fashion.
+On recognizing Desmond she gave a little cry.
+
+“Take her away!” commanded Strangwise.
+
+Bellward had unfastened the ropes binding her feet, and he and Mrs.
+Malplaquet between them half-dragged, half-lifted the girl (for she was
+scarcely able to walk) from the room.
+
+When the door had closed behind them, Strangwise pointed to a chair and
+pulled out his cigarette case. “Sit down, Desmond,” he said, “and let’s
+talk. Will you smoke?”
+
+He held out his case. A cigarette was the one thing for which Desmond
+craved. He took one and lit it. Strangwise sat down on the other side
+of a curiously carved ebony table, his big automatic before him.
+
+“I guess you’re sharp enough to know when you’re beaten, Desmond,” he
+said. “You’ve put up a good fight and until this afternoon you were one
+up on me. I’ll grant you that. And I don’t mind admitting that you’ve
+busted up my little organization—for the present at any rate. But I’m
+on top now and you’re in our power, old man.”
+
+“Well,” replied Desmond shortly, “what are you going to do about it?”
+
+“I’m going to utilize my advantage to the best I know how,” retorted
+Strangwise, snapping the words, “that’s good strategy, isn’t it,
+Desmond? That’s what Hamley and all the military writers teach, isn’t
+it? And I’m going to be frank with you. I suppose you realize that your
+life hung by a thread in this very room only a minute ago. Do you know
+why I intervened to save you?”
+
+Desmond smiled. All his habitual serenity was coming back to him. He
+found it hard to realize that this old brother officer of his, blowing
+rings of cigarette smoke at him across the table, was an enemy.
+
+“I don’t suppose it was because of the love you bear me,” replied
+Desmond.
+
+And he rubbed the bump on his head.
+
+Strangwise noted the action and smiled.
+
+“Listen here,” he resumed, planking his hands down on the table and
+leaning forward, “I’m ready and anxious to quit this spying business.
+It was only a side line with me anyway. My main object in coming to
+this country was to recover possession of that diamond star. Once I’ve
+got it back, I’m through with England...”
+
+“But not with the army,” Desmond broke in, “thank God, we’ve got a
+swift way with traitors in this country!”
+
+“Quite so,” returned the other, “but you see, my friend, the army
+hasn’t got me. And I have got you! But let us drop talking platitudes,”
+he went on. “I’m no great hand at driving a bargain, Desmond—few army
+men are, you know—so I won’t even attempt to chaffer with you. I shall
+tell you straight out what I am ready to offer. You were given the job
+of breaking up this organization, weren’t you?”
+
+Desmond was silent. He was beginning to wonder what Strangwise was
+driving at.
+
+“Oh, you needn’t trouble to deny it. I never spotted you, I admit, even
+when the real Bellward turned up: that idea of putting your name in the
+casualty list as ‘killed’ was a masterstroke; for I never looked to
+find you alive and trying to put it across me. But to return to what I
+was saying—your job was to smash my little system, and if you pull it
+off, it’s a feather in your cap. Well, you’ve killed two of my people
+and you’ve arrested the ringleader.”
+
+“Meaning Behrend?” asked Desmond.
+
+“Behrend be hanged! I mean Nur-el-Din!”
+
+“Nur-el-Din was not the ringleader,” said Desmond, “as well you know,
+Strangwise!”
+
+“Your employers evidently don’t share your views, Desmond,” he replied,
+“all the documents were found on Nur-el-Din!”
+
+“Bah!” retorted Desmond, “and what of it? Mightn’t they have been
+planted on her in order to get her arrested to draw the suspicion away
+from the real criminal, yourself?”
+
+Strangwise laughed a low, mellow laugh.
+
+“You’re devilish hard to convince,” he remarked. “Perhaps you’ll change
+your mind about it when I tell you that Nur-el-Din was sentenced to
+death by a general court-martial yesterday afternoon.”
+
+The blow struck Desmond straight between the eyes. The execution of
+spies followed hard on their conviction, he knew. Was he too late?
+
+“Has... has she... has the sentence already been carried out?” he asked
+hoarsely.
+
+Strangwise shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“My information didn’t go as far as that!” he replied. “But I expect
+so. They don’t waste much time over these matters, old man! You see,
+then,” he continued, “you’ve got the ringleader, and you shall have the
+other two members of the organization and save your own life into the
+bargain if you will be reasonable and treat with me.”
+
+Desmond looked straight at him; and Strangwise averted his eyes.
+
+“Let me get this right,” said Desmond slowly. “You let me go free—of
+course, I take it that my liberty includes the release of Miss
+Mackwayte as well—and in addition, you hand over to me your two
+accomplices, Bellward and the Malplaquet woman. That is your offer,
+isn’t it? Well, what do you want from me in exchange?”
+
+“The Star of Poland!” said Strangwise in a low voice.
+
+“But,” Desmond began. He was going to add “I haven’t got it,” but
+checked himself in time. Why should he show his hand?
+
+Strangwise broke in excitedly.
+
+“Man,” he cried, “it was grandly done. When first I discovered the gem,
+I opened the package in which the silver box was wrapped and took the
+jewel from its case to make sure that it was there. Then I sealed it up
+again, silver box and all, with the firm intention that no other hand
+should break the seals but the hand of His Imperial Highness the Crown
+Prince when I reported to him that I had fulfilled my mission. So you
+will understand that I was loth to open it to satisfy those blockheads
+that evening at the Mill House.
+
+“I carried the package on me night and day and I could hardly believe
+my eyes when I discovered that a box of cigarettes had been substituted
+for the silver casket containing the jewel. I then suspected that
+Barbara Mackwayte, in collusion with Nur-el-Din, whom she had visited
+at the Dyke Inn that evening, had played this trick on me. But before I
+escaped from the Mill House I picked up one of the cigarettes which
+fell from the box when I broke the seals. Ah! There you made a slip,
+Desmond. When I looked at the cigarette I found it was a
+‘Dionysus’—your own particular brand—why, I have smoked dozens of them
+with you in France. The sight of the familiar name reminded me of you
+and then I remembered your unexpected visit to me at the Nineveh when I
+was packing up to go away on leave the evening you were going back to
+France. I remembered that I had put the package with the jewel on my
+table for a moment when I was changing my tunic. Your appearance drove
+it out of my head for the time, and you utilized the chance to
+substitute a similar package for mine. It was clever, Desmond, ’pon my
+word it was a stroke of genius, a master coup which in my country would
+have placed you at the very top of the tree in the Great General
+Staff!”
+
+Desmond listened to this story in amazement. He did not attempt to
+speculate on the different course events would have taken had he but
+known that the mysterious jewel which had cost old Mackwayte his life,
+had been in his, Desmond’s, possession from the very day on which he
+had assumed the guise and habiliments of Mr. Bellward. He was racking
+his brains to think what he had done with the box of cigarettes he had
+purchased at the Dionysus shop on the afternoon of the day he had taken
+the leave train back to France.
+
+He remembered perfectly buying the cigarettes for the journey. But he
+didn’t have them on the journey; for the captain of the leave boat had
+given him some cigars as Desmond had nothing to smoke. And then with a
+flash he remembered. He had packed the cigarettes in his kit—his kit
+which had gone over to France in the hold of the leave boat? And to
+think that there was a £100,000 jewel in charge of the M.L.O. at a
+French port!
+
+The idea tickled Desmond’s sense of humor and he smiled.
+
+“Come,” cried Strangwise, “you’ve heard my terms. This jewel, this Star
+of Poland, it is nothing to you or your Government. You restore it to
+me and I won’t even ask you for a safe conduct back to Germany. I’ll
+just slide out and it will be as if I had never been to England at all.
+As for my organization, you, Desmond Okewood, have blown it sky-high!”
+
+He stretched out his hand to Desmond as though he expected the other to
+produce the gem from his pocket. But Desmond rose to his feet and
+struck the hand contemptuously on one side. The smile had vanished from
+his face.
+
+“Are you sure that is all you have to say to me?” he asked.
+
+Strangwise had stood up as well.
+
+“Why, yes!” he said, “I think so!”
+
+“Well, then,” said Desmond firmly, “just listen to me for a moment!
+Here’s my answer. You’ve lost the jewel for good and all, and you will
+never get it back. Your offer to betray your accomplices to me in
+exchange for the Star of Poland is an empty one; for your accomplices
+will be arrested with you. And lastly I give you my word that I shall
+make it my personal duty to see that you are not shot by clean-handed
+British soldiers, but strung up by the neck by the common hangman—as
+the murderer that you are!”
+
+Strangwise’s face underwent an extraordinary change. His suavity
+vanished, his easy smile disappeared and he looked balefully across the
+table as the other fearlessly confronted him.
+
+“If you are a German, as you seem to be,” Desmond went on, “then I tell
+you I shall never have guessed it until this interview between us. But
+a man who can murder a defenceless old man and torture a young girl and
+then propose to sell his pals to a British officer at the price of that
+officer’s honor can only be a Hun! And you seem to be a pretty fine
+specimen of your race!”
+
+Strangwise mastered his rising passion by an obvious effort; but his
+face was evil as he spoke.
+
+“I put that Malplaquet woman off by appealing to her avarice,” he said,
+“I’ve promised her and Bellward a thousand pounds apiece as their share
+of my reward for recovering the jewel. I only have to say the word,
+Okewood, and your number’s up! And you may as well know that Bellward
+will try his hand on you before he kills you. If that girl had known
+where the Star of Poland was, Bellward would have had it out of her!
+Three times a day he’s put her into the hypnotic sleep. I warn you, you
+won’t like the interrogatory!”
+
+The door flew open and Bellward came in. He went eagerly to Strangwise.
+
+“Well, have you got it!” he demanded.
+
+“Have you anything further to say, Desmond?” asked Strangwise. “Perhaps
+you would care to reconsider your decisions?”
+
+Desmond shook his head.
+
+“You’ve had my answer!” he said doggedly.
+
+“Then, my friend,” said Strangwise to Bellward, “after dinner you shall
+try your hand on this obstinate fool. But first we’ll take him
+upstairs.”
+
+He was close beside Desmond and as he finished speaking he suddenly
+caught him by the throat and forced him back into the chair to which
+Barbara had been tethered. To struggle was useless, and Desmond
+suffered them to bind his arms and feet to the arms and legs of the
+chair. Then the two men picked him up, chair and all, and bore him from
+the room upstairs to the third floor. There they carried him into a
+dark room where they left him, turning the key in the lock as they went
+away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+DOT AND DASH
+
+
+For a long time after the retreating footsteps of Strangwise and
+Bellward had died away, Desmond sat listless, preoccupied with his
+thoughts. They were somber enough. The sinister atmosphere of the
+house, weighing upon him, seemed to deepen his depression.
+
+About his own position he was not concerned at all. This is not an
+example of unselfishness it is simply an instance of the force of
+discipline which trains a man to reckon the cause as everything and
+himself as naught. And Desmond was haunted by the awful conviction that
+he had at length reached the end of his tether and that nothing could
+now redeem the ignominious failure he had made of his mission.
+
+He had sacrificed Barbara Mackwayte; he had sacrificed Nur-el-Din; he
+had not even been clever enough to save his own skin. And Strangwise,
+spy and murderer, had escaped and was now free to reorganize his band
+after he had put Barbara and Desmond out of the way.
+
+The thought was so unbearable that it stung Desmond into action.
+Strangwise should not get the better of him, he resolved, and he had
+yet this brief interval of being alone in which he might devise some
+scheme to rescue Barbara and secure the arrest of Strangwise and his
+accomplices. But how?
+
+He raised his head and looked round the room. The curtains had not been
+drawn and enough light came into the room from the outside to enable
+him to distinguish the outlines of the furniture. It was a bedroom,
+furnished in rather a massive style, with some kind of thick, soft
+carpet into which the feet sank.
+
+Desmond tested his bonds. He was very skillfully tied up. He fancied
+that with a little manipulation he might contrive to loosen the rope
+round his right arm, for one of the knots had caught in the folds of
+his coat. The thongs round his left arm and two legs were, however, so
+tight that he thought he had but little chance of ridding himself of
+them, even should he get his right arm free; for the knots were tied at
+the back under the seat of the chair in such a way that he could not
+reach them.
+
+He, therefore, resigned himself to conducting operations in the highly
+ridiculous posture in which he found himself, that is to say, with a
+large arm-chair attached to him, rather like a snail with its house on
+its back. After a certain amount of maneuvering he discovered that, by
+means of a kind of slow, lumbering crawl, he was able to move across
+the ground. It might have proved a noisy business on a parquet floor;
+but Desmond moved only a foot or two at a time and the pile carpet
+deadened the sound.
+
+They had deposited him in his chair in the centre of the room near the
+big brass bedstead. After ten minutes’ painful crawling he had reached
+the toilet table which stood in front of the window with a couple of
+electric candles on either side of the mirror. He moved the toilet
+table to one side, then bumped steadily across the carpet until he had
+reached the window. And then he gave a little gasp of surprise.
+
+He found himself looking straight at the window of his own bedroom at
+Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe’s. There was no mistaking it. The electric light
+was burning and the curtains had not yet been drawn. He could see the
+black and pink eiderdown on his bed and the black lining of the chintz
+curtains. Then he remembered the slope of the hill. He must be in the
+room from which he had seen Bellward looking out.
+
+The sight of the natty bedroom across the way moved Desmond strangely.
+It seemed to bring home to him for the first time the extraordinary
+position in which he found himself, a prisoner in a perfectly
+respectable suburban house in a perfectly respectable quarter of
+London, in imminent danger of a violent death.
+
+He wouldn’t give in without a struggle. Safety stared him in the face,
+separated only by a hundred yards of grass and shrub and wall. He
+instinctively gripped the arms of the chair to raise himself to get a
+better view from the window, forgetting he was bound. The ropes cut his
+arms cruelly and brought him back to earth.
+
+He tested again the thongs fastening his right arm. Yes! they were
+undoubtedly looser than the others. He pulled and tugged and writhed
+and strained. Once in his struggles he crashed into the toilet table
+and all but upset one of the electric candles which slid to the table’s
+very brink and was saved, as by a miracle, from falling to the floor.
+He resumed his efforts, but with less violence. It was in vain. Though
+the ropes about his right arm were fairly loose, the wrist was solidly
+fastened to the chair, and do what he would, he could not wrest it
+free. He clawed desperately with his fingers and thumb, but all in
+vain.
+
+In the midst of his struggles he was arrested by the sound of
+whistling. Somebody in the distance outside was whistling, clearly and
+musically, a quaint, jingling sort of jig that struck familiarly on
+Desmond’s ear. Somehow it reminded him of the front. It brought with it
+dim memory of the awakening to the early morning chill of a Nissen hut,
+the smell of damp earth, the whirr of aircraft soaring through the
+morning sky, the squeak of flutes, the roll of drums... why, it was the
+Grand Reveillé, that ancient military air which every soldier knows.
+
+He stopped struggling and peered cautiously out into the dusk. The time
+for darkening the windows must be at hand, he thought, for in most of
+the houses the blinds were already drawn. Here and there, however, an
+oblong of yellow light showed up against the dark mass of the houses on
+the upper slopes of the hill. The curtains of his bedroom at Mrs.
+Viljohn-Smythe’s were not yet drawn and the light still burned brightly
+above the bed.
+
+The whistling continued with occasional interruptions as though the
+whistler were about some work or other. And then suddenly “Buzzer”
+Barling, holding something in one hand and rubbing violently with the
+other, stepped into the patch of light between the window and the bed
+in Desmond’s bedroom.
+
+Desmond’s heart leaped within him. Here was assistance close at hand.
+Mechanically he sought to raise his hand to open the window, but an
+agonising twinge reminded him of his thongs. He swiftly reviewed in his
+mind the means of attracting the attention of the soldier opposite.
+Whatever he was going to do, he must do quickly; for the fact that
+people were beginning to darken their windows showed that it must be
+close on half-past six, and about seven o’clock, Barling, after putting
+out Desmond’s things, was accustomed to go out for the evening.
+
+Should he shout? Should he try and break the window? Desmond rejected
+both these suggestions. While it was doubtful whether Barling would
+hear the noise or, if he heard it, connect it with Desmond, it was
+certain that Strangwise and Bellward would do both and be upon Desmond
+without a moment’s delay.
+
+Then Desmond’s eye fell upon the electric candle which had slid to the
+very edge of the table. It was mounted in a heavy brass candle-stick
+and the switch was in the pedestal, jutting out over the edge of the
+table in the position in which the candle now stood. The candle was
+clear of the mirror and there was nothing between it and the window.
+Desmond’s brain took all this in at a glance. That glance showed him
+that Providence was being good to him.
+
+A couple of jerks of the chair brought him alongside the table. Its
+edge was practically level with the arms of the chair so that, by
+getting into the right position, he was able to manipulate the switch
+with his fingers. And then, thanking God and the Army Council for the
+recent signalling course he had attended, he depressed the switch with
+a quick, snapping movement and jerked it up again, sending out the dots
+and dashes of the Morse code.
+
+“B-A-R-L-I-N-G” he spelt out, slowly and laboriously, it is true; for
+he was not an expert.
+
+As he worked the switch, he looked across at the illuminated window of
+the room in which Barling stood, with bent head, earnestly engaged upon
+his polishing.
+
+“B-a-r-l-i-n-g-ack-ack-ack-B-a-r-l-i-n-g-ack-ack-ack”
+
+The light flickered up and down in long and short flashes. Still
+“Buzzer” Barling trilled away at the “Grand Reveillé” nor raised his
+eyes from his work.
+
+Desmond varied the call:
+
+“O-K-E-W-O-O-D T-O B-A-R-L-I-N-G” he flashed.
+
+He repeated the call twice and was spelling it out for the third time
+when Desmond saw the “Buzzer” raise his head.
+
+The whistling broke off short.
+
+“O-k-e-w-o-o-d t-o B-a-r-l-i-n-g” flickered the light.
+
+The next moment the bedroom opposite was plunged in darkness.
+Immediately afterwards the light began to flash with bewildering
+rapidity. But Desmond recognized the call.
+
+“I am ready to take your message,” it said.
+
+“S-t-r-a-n-g-w-i-s-e h-a-s g-o-t m-e ack-ack-ack,” Desmond flashed
+back, “f-e-t-c-h h-e-l-p a-t o-n-c-e ack-ack-ack: d-o-n-t r-e-p-l-y;
+ack-ack-ack; s-e-n-d o-n-e d-o-t o-n-e d-a-s-h t-o s-h-o-w y-o-u
+u-n-d-e-r-s-t-a-n-d ack-ack-ack!”
+
+For he was afraid lest the light flashing from the house opposite might
+attract the attention of the men downstairs.
+
+He was very slow and he made many mistakes, so that it was with bated
+breath that, after sending his message, he watched the window opposite
+for the reply.
+
+It came quickly. A short flash and a long one followed at once. After
+that the room remained in darkness. With a sigh of relief Desmond, as
+quietly as possible, manoeuvred the dressing-table back into place and
+then jerked the chair across the carpet to the position where
+Strangwise and Bellward had left him in the middle of the floor:
+
+It was here that the two men found him, apparently asleep, when they
+came up half-an-hour later. They carried him down to the red lacquer
+room again.
+
+“Well, Desmond!” said Strangwise, when their burden had been deposited
+on the floor under the crimson lamp.
+
+“Well, Maurice?” answered the other.
+
+Strangwise noticed that Desmond had addressed him by his Christian name
+for the first time since he had been in the house and his voice was
+more friendly when he spoke again.
+
+“I see you’re going to be sensible, old man,” he said. “Believe me,
+it’s the only thing for you to do. You’re going to give up the Star of
+Poland, aren’t you?”
+
+“Oh, no, Maurice, I’m not,” replied Desmond in a frank, even voice.
+“I’ve told you what I’m going to do. I’m going to hand you over to the
+people at Pentonville to hang as a murderer. And I shouldn’t be at all
+surprised if they didn’t run up old Bellward there alongside of you!”
+
+Strangwise shook his head at him.
+
+“You are very ill-advised to reject my offer, Desmond,” he said, “for
+it simply means that I can do nothing more for you. Our friend Bellward
+now assumes the direction of affairs. I don’t think you can realize
+what you are letting yourself in for. You appear to have been dabbling
+in Intelligence work. Perhaps it would interest you to hear something
+about this, our latest German method for extracting accurate
+information from reluctant or untruthful witnesses. Bellward, perhaps
+you would enlighten him.”
+
+Bellward smiled grimly.
+
+“It is a blend,” he explained glibly, “of that extreme form of
+cross-examination which the Americans call ‘the third degree’ and
+hypnotic treatment. Many people, as you are doubtless aware, are less
+responsive to hypnotic influence than others. An intensified course of
+the third degree and lack of sleep renders such refractory natures
+extraordinarily susceptible to mesmeric treatment. It prepares the
+ground as it were!”
+
+Bellward coughed and looked at Desmond over his tortoise-shell
+spectacles which he had put on again.
+
+“The method has had its best results when practised on women,” he
+resumed. “Our people in Holland have found it very successful in the
+case of female spies who come across the Belgian frontier. But some
+women—Miss Barbara, for example—seem to have greater powers of
+resistance than others. We had to employ a rather drastic form of the
+third degree for her, didn’t we, Strangwise?”
+
+He laughed waggishly.
+
+“And you’ll be none too easy either,” he added.
+
+“You beasts,” cried Desmond, “but just you wait, your turn will come!”
+
+“Yours first, however,” chuckled Bellward. “I rather fancy you _will_
+think us beasts by the time we have done with you, my young friend!”
+
+Then he turned to Strangwise.
+
+“Where’s Minna?” he asked.
+
+“With the girl.”
+
+“Is the girl sleeping?”
+
+Strangwise nodded.
+
+“She wanted it,” he replied, “no sleep for four days... I tell you it
+takes some constitution to hold out against that!”
+
+“Well,” said Bellward, rubbing the palms of his hands together, “as
+we’re not likely to be disturbed, I think we’ll make a start!”
+
+He advanced a pace to where Desmond sat trussed up, hand and foot, in
+his chair. Bellward’s eyes were large and luminous, and as Desmond
+glanced rather nervously at the face of the man approaching him, he was
+struck by the compelling power they seemed to emit.
+
+Desmond bent his head to avoid the insistent gaze. But in a couple of
+quick strides Bellward was at his side and stooping down, had thrust
+his face right into his victim’s. Bellward’s face was so close that
+Desmond felt his warm breath on his cheek whilst those burning eyes
+seemed to stab through his closed eyelids and steadily, stealthily,
+draw his gaze.
+
+Resolutely Desmond held his head, averted. All kinds of queer ideas
+were racing through his brain, fragments of nursery rhymes, scenes from
+his regimental life in India, memories of the front, which he had
+deliberately summoned up to keep his attention distracted from those
+merciless eyes, like twin search-lights pitilessly playing on his face.
+
+Bellward could easily have taken Desmond by the chin and forced his
+face up until his eyes came level with the other’s. But he offered no
+violence of any kind. He remained in his stooping position, his face
+thrust forward, so perfectly still that Desmond began to be tormented
+by a desire to risk a rapid peep just to see what the mesmerist was
+doing.
+
+He put the temptation aside. He must keep his eyes shut, he told
+himself. But the desire increased, intensified by the strong attraction
+radiating from Bellward, and finally Desmond succumbed. He opened his
+eyes to dart a quick glance at Bellward and found the other’s staring
+eyes, with pupils distended, fixed on his. And Desmond felt his
+resistance ebb. He tried to avert his gaze; but it was too late. That
+basilisk glare held him fast.
+
+With every faculty of his mind he fought against the influence which
+was slowly, irresistibly, shackling his brain. He laughed, he shouted
+defiance at Bellward and Strangwise, he sang snatches of songs. But
+Bellward never moved a muscle. He seemed to be in a kind of cataleptic
+trance, so rigid his body, so unswerving his stare.
+
+The lights in the room seemed to be growing dim. Bellward’s eyeballs
+gleamed redly in the dull crimson light flooding the room. Desmond felt
+himself longing for some violent shock that would disturb the hideous
+stillness of the house. His own voice was sounding dull and blunted in
+his ears. What was the use of struggling further? He might as well give
+up...
+
+A loud crash, the sound of a door slamming, reechoed through the house.
+The room shook. The noise brought Desmond back to his senses and at the
+same time the chain binding him to Bellward snapped. For Bellward
+started and raised his head and Strangwise sprang to the door. Then
+Desmond heard the door burst open, there was the deafening report of a
+pistol, followed by another, and Bellward crashed forward on his knees
+with a sobbing grunt. As Desmond had his back to the door he could see
+nothing of what was taking place, but some kind of violent struggle was
+going on; for he heard the smash of glass as a piece of furniture was
+upset.
+
+Then suddenly the room seemed full of people. The thongs binding his
+hands and feet fell to the ground. “Buzzer” Barling stood at his side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+HOHENLINDEN TRENCH
+
+
+A man broke quickly away from the throng of people pressing into the
+room. It was Francis. The Chief and Mr. Marigold were close at his
+heels.
+
+“Des,” cried Francis, “ah! thank God! you are all right!”
+
+Desmond looked in a dazed fashion from one to the other. The rapid
+transition from the hush of the room to the scene of confusion going on
+around him had left him bewildered. His glance traveled from the faces
+of the men gathered round his chair to the floor. The sight of
+Bellward, very still, hunched up with his face immersed in the thick
+black carpet, seemed to recall something to his mind.
+
+“Barbara!” he murmured in a strained voice.
+
+“She’s all right!” replied his brother, “we found her on the bed in a
+room on the floor below sleeping the sleep of the just. The woman’s
+vanished, though. I’m afraid she got away! But who’s this?”
+
+He pointed to “Buzzer” Barling who stood stiffly at attention beside
+Desmond’s chair.
+
+“Ay, who are you, young fellow” repeated Mr. Marigold coming up close
+to the soldier. “Ask him!” said Desmond, raising his arm, “he knows!”
+
+The group around the door had broken up. Strangwise, his wrists
+handcuffed together, his hair dishevelled and his collar torn, stood
+there between two plain clothes men. And at him Desmond pointed.
+
+Strangwise was staring at the straight, square figure of the gunner,
+awkwardly attired in one of Desmond’s old suits. Berling’s frank,
+honest eyes returned the other’s gaze unflinchingly. But Strangwise was
+obviously taken aback, though only for the moment. The flush that
+mounted to his cheek quickly died down, leaving him as cool and
+impassive as ever.
+
+“Do you know this man!” the Chief, asked sternly, addressing
+Strangwise.
+
+“Certainly,” retorted Strangwise, “it’s Gunner Barling, one of the
+Brigade signallers!”
+
+Mr. Marigold gave a keen glance at the soldier.
+
+“So you’re Barling, eh?” he muttered as though talking to himself, “ah!
+this is getting interesting!”
+
+“Yes,” said Desmond, “this is Gunner Barling. Have a good look at him,
+Strangwise. It is he who summoned these gentlemen to my assistance. It
+is he who’s going to tell them who and what you are!”
+
+Turning to the Chief he added with a touch of formality: “May Gunner
+Barling tell his story, sir?”
+
+“By all means,” replied the Chief. “I am all attention. But first let
+this fellow be removed.”
+
+And beckoning to two of his men; he pointed to the body of Bellward.
+
+“Is he dead” asked Desmond.
+
+The Chief shook his head.
+
+“He drew a bead on one of my men as we came in,” he answered, “and got
+a bullet through the chest for his pains. We’ll have to cure him of
+this gunshot wound so as to get him ready to receive another!”
+
+He laughed a grim dry laugh at his little joke.
+
+“Now, Barling,” said Desmond, when Bellward had been borne away, “I
+want you to tell these gentlemen the story of the raid on the
+Hohenlinden trench.”
+
+Barling glanced rather self-consciously about him. But the look of
+intense, almost nervous watchfulness on the face of Maurice Strangwise
+seemed to reassure him. And when he spoke, he spoke straight at
+Strangwise.
+
+“Well,” he said, “Major Okewood here, what I used to know along of my
+brother being his servant, says as how you gentlemen’ll make it all
+right about my stoppin’ absent if I tells you what I know about this
+orficer. Tell it I will and gladly; for it was all along of him that I
+spoiled a clean sheet of eighteen years’ service, gentlemen.
+
+“When we was down Arras way a few months ago the infantry was a-goin’
+to do a raid, see? And the Captain here was sent along of the infantry
+party to jine up a line back to the ’tillery brigade headquarters.
+Well, he took me and another chap, name o’ Macdonald—Bombardier he
+was—along with him as signallers.
+
+“This was a daylight raid, d’ye see, gentlemen? Our chaps went over at
+four o’clock in the afternoon. They was to enter a sort o’ bulge in the
+German front line wot they called Hohenlinden Trench, bomb the Gers.
+out o’ that, push on to the support line and clear out that and then
+come back. The rocket to fetch ’em home was to go up forty minutes
+after they started.
+
+“Well, me and Mac—that’s the Bombardier—went over with th’ officer here
+just behind the raiding party. O’ course Fritz knew we was comin’ for
+it was broad daylight, and that clear you could see for miles over the
+flats. First thing we knew Fritz had put down a roarin’, tearin’
+barrage, and we hadn’t gone not twenty yards before ole Mac. cops one
+right on the nut; about took his head off, it did. So me and the
+captain we goes on alone and drops all nice and comfortable in the
+trench, and I starts getting my line jined up.
+
+“It was a longish job but I got the brigade line goin’ at last. Our
+chaps had cleared out the front line and was off down the communication
+trenches to the support. What with machine-guns rattlin’ and bombs
+a-goin’ off down the trench and Fritz’s barrage all over the shop the
+row was that awful we had to buzz every single word.
+
+“There was a bit of a house like, a goodish way in front, X farm, they
+called it, and presently the Brigade tells the Captain, who was buzzin’
+to them, to register B battery on to the farm.
+
+“‘I can’t see the farm nohow from here,’ sez the Captain. I could see
+it as plain as plain, and I pointed it out to him. But no! he couldn’t
+see it.
+
+“‘I’ll crawl out of the trench a bit, gunner,’ sez he to me, ‘you sit
+tight,’ he sez, ‘I’ll let you know when to follow!”
+
+“With that he up and out o’ the trench leavin’ me and the instruments
+behind all among the dead Gers., and our lads had killed a tidy few. It
+was pretty lonely round about w’ere I was; for our chaps had all gone
+on and was bombin’ the Gers., like they was a lot o’ rabbits, up and
+down the support line.
+
+“I followed the Captain with me eye, gentlemen, and I’m blessed if he
+didn’t walk straight across the open and over the support trench. Then
+he drops into a bit of a shell-hole and I lost sight of him. Well, I
+waited and waited and no sign of th’ orficer. The rocket goes up and
+our lads begin to come back with half a dozen Huns runnin’ in front of
+them with their hands up. Some of the chaps as they passed me wanted to
+know if I was a-goin’ to stay there all night! And the Brigade buzzin’
+like mad to talk to the Captain.
+
+“I sat in that blessed trench till everybody had cleared out. Then,
+seeing as how not even the docket had brought th’ orficer back, I sez
+to myself as how he must ha’ stopped one. So I gets out of the trench
+and starts crawling across the top towards the place where I see the
+Captain disappear. As I got near the support line the ground went up a
+little and then dropped, so I got a bit of a view on to the ground
+ahead. And then I sees the Captain here!”
+
+Buzzer Barling stopped. All had listened to his story with the deepest
+interest, especially Strangwise, who never took his eyes off the
+gunner’s brown face. Some men are born story-tellers and there was a
+rugged picturesqueness about Barling’s simple narrative which conjured
+up in the minds of his hearers the picture of the lonely signaller
+cowering in the abandoned trench among the freshly slain, waiting for
+the officer who never came back.
+
+“It’s not a nice thing to have to say about an orficer,” the gunner
+presently continued, “and so help me God, gentlemen, I kep’ my mouth
+shut about it until... until...”
+
+He broke off and looked quickly at Desmond.
+
+“Keep that until the end, Barling,” said Desmond, “finish about the
+raid now!”
+
+“Well, as I was sayin’, gentlemen, I was up on a bit of hillock near
+Fritz’s support line when I sees the Captain here. He was settin’ all
+comfortable in a shell-hole, his glasses in his hand, chattin’ quite
+friendly like with two of the Gers. orficers, I reckoned they was,
+along o’ the silver lace on their collars. One was wearin’ one o’ them
+coal-scuttle helmets, t’other a little flat cap with a shiny peak. And
+the Captain here was a-pointin’ at our lines and a-wavin’ his hand
+about like he was a-tellin’ the two Fritzes all about it, and the chap
+in the coal-scuttle hat was a-writin’ it all down in a book.”
+
+Barling paused. He was rather flushed and his eyes burned brightly in
+his weather-beaten face.
+
+“Eighteen year I done in the Royal Regiment,” he went on, and his voice
+trembled a little, “and me father a battery sergeant-major before me,
+and I never thought to see one of our orficers go over to the enemy.
+Fritz was beginnin’ to come back to his front line: I could see their
+coal-scuttle hats a-bobbin’ up and down the communication trenches, so
+I crawled back the way I come and made a bolt for our lines.
+
+“I meant to go straight to the B.C. post and report wot I seen to the
+Major. But I hadn’t the heart to, gentlemen, when I was up against it.
+It was an awful charge to bring against an orficer, d’you see? I told
+myself I didn’t know but what the Captain hadn’t been taken prisoner
+and was makin’ the best of it, w’en I see him, stuffin’ the Fritzes up
+with a lot o’ lies. And so I jes’ reported as how th’ orficer ’ad
+crawled out of the trench and never come back. And then this here
+murder happened...”
+
+Mr. Marigold turned to the Chief.
+
+“If you remember, sir,” he said, “I found this man’s leave paper in the
+front garden of the Mackwayte’s house at Laleham Villas, Seven Kings,
+the day after the murder. There are one or two questions I should like
+to put...”
+
+“No need to arsk any questions,” said Barling. “I’ll tell you the whole
+story meself, mister. I was on leave at the time, due to go back to
+France the next afternoon. I’d been out spending the evenin’ at my
+niece’s wot’s married and livin’ out Seven Kings way. Me and her man
+wot works on the line kept it up a bit late what with yarnin’ about the
+front an’ that and it must a’ been nigh on three o’clock w’en I left
+him to walk back to the Union Jack Club where I had a bed.
+
+“There’s a corfee-stall near their road and the night bein’ crool damp
+I thought as how a nice cup o’ corfee’d warm me up afore I went back to
+the Waterloo Bridge Road. I had me cup o’ corfee and was jes’ a-payin’
+the chap what has the pitch w’en a fellow passes by right in the light
+o’ the lamp on the stall. It was th’ orficer here, in plain
+clothes—shabby-like he was dressed—but I knew him at once.
+
+“‘Our orficers don’t walk about these parts after midnight dressed like
+tramps,’ I sez to meself, and rememberin’ what I seen at the
+Hohenlinden Trench I follows him...”
+
+“Just a minute!”
+
+The Chief’s voice broke in upon the narrative.
+
+“Didn’t you know, Barling, hadn’t you heard, about Captain Strangwise’s
+escape from a German prisoners of war camp?”
+
+“No, sir!” replied the gunner.
+
+“There was a good deal about it in the papers.”
+
+“I’ve not got much eddication, sir,” said Barling, “that’s w’y I never
+took the stripe and I don’t take much account of the newspapers an’
+that’s a fact!”
+
+“Well, go on!” the Chief bade him.
+
+“It was pretty dark in the streets and I follered him along without his
+seeing me into the main-road and then down a turnin’...”
+
+“Laleham Villas,” prompted Mr. Marigold.
+
+“I wasn’t payin’ much attention to were he was leadin’ me,” said
+Barling, “what I wanted to find out was what he was up to! Presently he
+turned in at a gate. I was closer up than I meant to be, and he swung
+in so sudden that I had to drop quick and crouch behind the masonry of
+the front garden wall. My leave pass must a’ dropped out o’ my pocket
+and through the railin’s into the garden.
+
+“Well, the front door must a’ been on the jar for th’ orficer here just
+pushes it open and walks in, goin’ very soft like. I crep’ in the front
+gate and got as far as the door w’ich was a-standin’ half open. I could
+’ear the stair creakin’ under ’im and I was just wonderin’ whether I
+should go into the house w’en I hears a bang and wi’ that someone comes
+aflyin’ down the stairs, dodges through the front hall and out at the
+back. I see him come scramblin’ over the back gate and was a-goin’ to
+stop him thinkin’ it was th’ orficer here w’en I sees it is a tubby
+little chap, not big like the Captain. And then it come over me quite
+sudden-like that burglary and murder had been done in the house and wot
+would I say if a p’liceman come along? So I slipped off and went as
+hard as I could go back to the old Union Jack Club.
+
+“The next mornin’ I found I’d lost me leave paper. I was afraid to go
+and report it in case it had been picked up, and they’d run me in for
+this murder job. That’s how I come to desert, gentlemen, and spoilt a
+eighteen years’ conduct sheet without a entry over this murderin’ spy
+here!”
+
+Gunner Barling broke off abruptly as though he had committed himself to
+a stronger opinion than discipline would allow. It was the Chief who
+broke the silence following the termination of the gunner’s story.
+
+“Strangwise,” he said, “hadn’t you better tell us who you are?”
+
+“He’s an officer of the Prussian Guard,” Desmond said, “and he was sent
+over here by the German secret service organization in the United
+States to get a commission in the British Army. When a good man was
+wanted to recover the Star of Poland for the Crown Prince, the secret
+service people in Berlin sent word to Strangwise (who was then serving
+with the gunners in France) to get himself captured. The German
+military authorities duly reported him a prisoner of war and then let
+him ‘escape’ as’ the easiest and least suspicious means of getting him
+back to London!”
+
+The Chief smiled genially.
+
+“That’s a dashed clever idea,” he observed shrewdly, “’pon my word,
+that’s bright! That’s very bright! I should like to compliment the man
+who thought of that!”
+
+“Then you may address your compliments to me, Chief,” said Strangwise.
+
+The Chief turned and looked at him.
+
+“I’ve met many of your people in my time, Strangwise,” he said, “but I
+don’t know you! Who are you?”
+
+Strangwise laughed.
+
+“Ask Nur-el-Din,” he said, “that is to say, if you haven’t shot her
+yet!”
+
+“And if we have?” asked the Chief.
+
+Desmond sprang up.
+
+“It isn’t possible!” he cried. “Why, the woman’s a victim, not a
+principal! Chief...”
+
+“What if we have?” asked the Chief again.
+
+A curious change had come over the prisoner. His jaunty air had left
+him and there was an apprehensive look in his eyes.
+
+“I would have saved her if I could have,” Strangwise said, “but she
+played me false over the jewel. She imperiled the success of my
+mission. You English have no idea of discipline. To us Prussian
+officers an order stands above everything else. There is nothing we
+would not sacrifice to obey our orders. And my order was to recover the
+Star of Poland for His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince, Lieutenant
+Colonel in the Regiment to which I have the honor to belong, the First
+Regiment of Prussian Foot Guards. But Nur-el-Din plotted with our
+friend here and with that little fool upstairs to upset my plans, and I
+had no mercy on her. I planted those documents in her dress—or rather
+Bellward did—to draw suspicion away from me. I thought you English
+would be too flabby to execute a woman; but I reckoned on you putting
+the girl away for some years to come. I would have shot her as I shot
+Rass if...” His voice trembled and he was silent.
+
+“If what?” asked the Chief.
+
+“If she hadn’t been my wife,” said Strangwise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+THE £100,000 KIT
+
+
+It was a clear, crisp morning with a sparkle of frost on jetty and
+breakwater. The English Channel stretched flashing like a living sheet
+of glass to the filmy line marking the coast of France, as serene and
+beautiful in its calm as it is savage and cruel in its anger. It was
+high tide; but only a gentle murmur came from the little waves that
+idly beat upon the shore in front of the bungalow.
+
+A girl lay in a deck chair on the verandah, well wrapped up against the
+eager air. But the fresh breeze would not be denied and, foiled by the
+nurse’s vigilance of its intents against the patient, it revenged
+itself by blowing havoc among the soft brown curls which peeped out
+from under the girl’s hat.
+
+She turned to the man at her side.
+
+“Look!” she said, and pointed seawards with her finger.
+
+A convoy of vessels was standing out to sea framed in the smoke-blurs
+of the escorting destroyers. Ugly, weatherbeaten craft were the
+steamers with trails of smoke blown out in the breeze behind them. They
+rode the sea’s highway with confidence, putting their trust in the
+unseen power that swept the road clear for them.
+
+“Transports, aren’t they?” asked the man.
+
+But he scarcely looked at the transports. He was watching the gleam of
+the sun on the girl’s brown hair and contrasting the deep gray of her
+eyes with the ever-changing hues of the sea.
+
+“Yes,” replied the girl. “It’s the third day they’ve gone across! By
+this time next week there’ll be ten fresh divisions in France. How
+_secure_ they look steaming along! And to think they owe it all to
+you!”
+
+The man laughed and flushed up.
+
+“From the strictly professional standpoint the less said about me the
+better,” he said.
+
+“What nonsense you talk!” cried the girl. “When the Chief was down to
+see me yesterday, he spoke of nothing but you. ‘They beat him, but he
+won out!’ he said, ‘they shook him off but he went back and found ’em!’
+He told me it was a case of grit versus violence—and grit won. In all
+the time I’ve known the Chief, I’ve never heard him talk so much about
+one man before. Do you know,” Barbara went on, looking up at Desmond,
+“I think you’ve made the Chief feel a little bit ashamed of himself.
+And that I may tell you is a most extraordinary achievement!”
+
+“Do you think you’re strong enough to hear some news?” asked Desmond
+after a pause.
+
+“Of course,” replied the girl. “But I think I can guess it. It’s about
+Strangwise, isn’t it?”
+
+Desmond nodded.
+
+“He was shot yesterday morning,” he replied. “I’m glad they did it in
+France. I was terrified lest they should want me to go to it.”
+
+“Why?” asked the girl with a suspicion of indignation in her voice, “he
+deserved no mercy.”
+
+“No,” replied Desmond slowly, “he was a bad fellow—a Prussian through
+and through. He murdered your poor father, he shot Rass, he instigated
+the killing of the maid, Marie, he was prepared to sacrifice his own
+wife even, to this Prussian God of militarism which takes the very soul
+out of a man’s body and puts it into the hands of his superior officer.
+And yet, and yet, when one has soldiered with a man, Barbara, and
+roughed it with him and been shelled and shot at with him, there seems
+to be a bond of sympathy between you and him for ever after. And he was
+a brave man, Barbara, cruel and unscrupulous, I admit, but there was no
+fear in him, and I can’t help admiring courage. I seem to think of him
+as two men—the man I soldiered with and the heartless brute who watched
+while that beast Bellward...”
+
+He broke off as a spasm of pain crossed the girl’s face. “I shall
+remember the one and forget the other,” he concluded simply.
+
+“Tell me,” said the girl suddenly, “who _was_ Strangwise?”
+
+“After he was arrested and just before they were going to take him
+off,” Desmond said, “he asked to be allowed to say a word privately to
+the Chief. We were all sent away and he told the Chief his real name.
+He thought he was going to be hanged, you see, and while he never
+shrank from any crime in the fulfilment of his mission, he was
+terrified of a shameful death. He begged the Chief to see that his real
+name was not revealed for the disgrace that his execution would bring
+upon his family. Curiously Prussian attitude of mind, isn’t it?”
+
+“And what did the Chief say?”
+
+“I don’t know; but he was mighty short with him, I expect.”
+
+“And what was Strangwise’s real name?”
+
+“When he told us that Nur-el-Din was his wife, I knew at once who he
+was. His name is Hans von Schornbeek. He was in the Prussian Foot
+Guards, was turned out for some reason or other and went to America
+where, after a pretty rough time, he was taken on by the German secret
+service organization. He was working for them when he met Nur-el-Din.
+They were married out there and, realizing the possibilities of using
+her as a decoy in the secret service, he sent her to Brussels where the
+Huns were very busy getting ready for war. He treated her abominably;
+but the girl was fond of him in her way and even when she was in fear
+of her life from this man she never revealed to me the fact that he was
+Hans von Schornbeek and her husband.”
+
+Barbara sat musing for a while, her eyes on the restless sea.
+
+“How strange it is,” she said, “to think that they are all dispersed
+now... and the transports are sailing securely to France. Two were
+killed at the Mill House, Behrend committed suicide in prison, Bellward
+died in hospital, Mrs. Malplaquet has disappeared, and now Strangwise
+has gone. There only remains...”
+
+She cast a quick glance at Desmond but he was gazing seaward at the
+smoke of the transports smudging the horizon.
+
+“What are they going to do with Nur-el-Din?” she asked rather abruptly.
+
+“Didn’t the Chief tell you?” said Desmond.
+
+“He only asked me what I had to say in the matter as I had had to
+suffer at her hands. But I told him I left the matter entirely to him.
+I said I took your point of view that Nur-el-Din was the victim of her
+husband...”
+
+“That was generous of you, Barbara,” Desmond said gently.
+
+She sighed.
+
+“Daddy knew her as a little girl,” she answered, “and he was so pleased
+to see her again that night. She never had a chance. I hope she’ll get
+one now!”
+
+“They’re going to intern her, I believe,” said Desmond, “until the end
+of the war; they could do nothing else, you know. But she will be well
+looked after, and I think she will be safer in our charge than if she
+were allowed to remain at liberty. The German Secret Service has had a
+bad knock, you know. Somebody has got to pay for it!”
+
+“I know,” the girl whispered, “and it frightens me.”
+
+“You poor child!” said Desmond, “you’ve had a rough time. But it’s all
+over now. And that reminds me, Barney is coming up for sentence to-day;
+they charged him with murder originally; but Marigold kept on getting
+him remanded until they were able to alter the charge to one of
+burglary. He’ll probably get two years’ hard labor, Marigold says.”
+
+“Poor Barney!” said Barbara, “I wish they would let him go free. All
+these weeks the mystery of poor Daddy’s death has so weighed upon my
+mind that now it has been cleared up I feel as though one day I might
+be happy again. And I want everybody to be happy, too!”
+
+“Barbara,” said Desmond and took her hand.
+
+Barbara calmly withdrew it from his grasp and brushed an imaginary curl
+out of her eye.
+
+“Any news of your hundred thousand pound kit?” she asked, by way of
+turning the conversation.
+
+“By Jove,” said Desmond, “there was a letter from Cox’s at the club
+this morning but I was so rushed to catch my train that I shoved it in
+my pocket and forgot all about it. I wrote and asked them weeks ago to
+get my kit back from France. Here we are!”
+
+He pulled a letter out of his pocket, slit open the envelope and took
+out a printed form. Barbara, propping herself up with one hand on his
+shoulder, leaned over him to read the communication. This is what she
+read.
+
+“We are advised,” the form ran, “that a Wolseley valise forwarded to
+you on the 16th inst. from France has been lost by enemy action. We are
+enclosing a compensation form which...”
+
+But neither troubled to read further.
+
+“Gone to the bottom, by Jove!” cried Desmond. “But isn’t it strange,”
+he went on, “to think of the Star of Poland lying out there on the bed
+of the Channel? Well, I’m not so sure that it isn’t the best place for
+it. It won’t create any further trouble in this world at least!”
+
+“Poor Nur-el-Din!” sighed the girl.
+
+They sat awhile in silence together and watched the gulls circling
+unceasingly above the receding tide.
+
+“You’re leaving here to-morrow then?” said Desmond presently.
+
+Barbara nodded
+
+“And going back to your work with the Chief?”
+
+Barbara nodded again.
+
+“It’s not good enough,” cried Desmond. “This is no job for a girl like
+you, Barbara. The strain is too much; the risks are too great. Besides,
+there’s something I wanted to say...”
+
+Barbara stopped him.
+
+“Don’t say it!” she bade him.
+
+“But you don’t know what I was going to say!” he protested.
+
+Barbara smiled a little happy smile.
+
+“Barbara...” Desmond began.
+
+Her hand still rested on his shoulder and he put his hand over hers.
+For a brief moment she let him have his way.
+
+Then she withdrew her hand.
+
+“Desmond,” she said, looking at him with kindly eyes, “we both have
+work to do...”
+
+“We have,” replied the man somberly, “and mine’s at the front!”
+
+The girl shook her head.
+
+“No!” she said. “Henceforward it’s where the Chief sends you!”
+
+Desmond set his jaw obstinately.
+
+“I may have been a Secret Service agent by accident,” he answered, “but
+I’m a soldier by trade. My place is in the fighting-line!”
+
+“The Secret Service has its fighting-line, too,” Barbara replied,
+“though the war correspondents don’t write about it. It never gets a
+mention in despatches, and Victoria Crosses don’t come its way. The
+newspapers don’t publish its casualty list, though you and I know that
+it’s a long one. A man slips quietly away and never comes back, and
+after a certain lapse of time we just mark him off the books and
+there’s an end of it. But it’s a great service; and you’ve made your
+mark in it. The Chief wants men like you. You’ll have to stay!”
+
+Desmond was about to speak; but the girl stopped him. “What do you and
+I matter,” she asked, “when the whole future of England is at stake! If
+you are to give of your best to this silent game of ours, you must be
+free with no responsibilities and no ties, with nothing that will ever
+make you hesitate to take a supreme risk. And I never met a man that
+dared more freely than you!”
+
+“Oh, please...” said Desmond and got up.
+
+He stood gazing seawards for a while.
+
+Then he glanced at his watch.
+
+“I must be going back to London,” he said. “I have to see the Chief at
+four this afternoon. And you know why!”
+
+The girl nodded.
+
+“What will you tell him?” she asked. “Will you accept his offer to
+remain on in the Secret Service?”
+
+Desmond looked at her ruefully.
+
+“You’re so eloquent about it,” he said slowly, “that I think I must!”
+
+Smiling, she gave him her hand. Desmond held it for an instant in his.
+
+Then, without another word, he turned and strode off towards the
+winding white road that led to the station.
+
+Barbara watched him until a turn in the road hid him from her sight.
+Then she pulled out her handkerchief.
+
+“Good Heavens, girl!” she said to herself, “I believe you’re crying!”
+
+
+
+
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