“Yes,” he agreed, “it was ingenuous. It just shows that it is not quite fair to bring these lads fresh from college into a world where they meet women like you. Go on, please.”
“The cables,” she continued, “and your brother’s note, if you wish for it, are at your disposal in return for accurate knowledge of just one thing.”
“What is it you wish to know?” he asked.
“I wish to know why you came here to London instead of taking the information you collected in Germany straight to Rome.”
“Anything else?”
“Whether Washington and London are likely to come to any agreement.”
“Upon what?”
“Some great event which even the giants fear to whisper about.”
“I have seldom,” he declared, rising to his feet and beckoning to a young man who was standing upon the threshold of the ante-room looking in, “spent an hour in which the elements of humour and pleasure were so admirably blended. Dickson, young fellow, you are in luck,” he went on, addressing the friend to whom he had signalled. “I am permitted to present you to the Princess di Vasena. Put your best foot foremost, and if you can dance as well as you used to, Heaven is about to open before you. Princess—to our next meeting.”
He bowed unusually low and strolled away. She looked after him thoughtfully as she made room for the new-comer by her side.
“You were wondering?” the latter asked.
“When that meeting will be, for one thing. Major Fawley is always so mysterious. Shall we dance?”
Chapter XX
Fawley, during the course of his wanderings about the world, had years ago decided upon London as his headquarters, and occupied in his hours of leisure a very delightful apartment in the Albany. At ten o’clock on the evening following the ball at Dorrington House a freckled young man, still in flying-clothes, was ushered into his room by the family servant whom he had brought with him from New York and established as caretaker.
“Mister Michael, sir,” the latter announced. “Shall I serve dinner now?”
“Cocktails first,” Fawley ordered, “then dinner as soon as you like. You won’t need to change, Micky. Just get out of those ghoulish-looking clothes, have your bath and put on a dressing-gown or anything you like. That is, unless you want to go out. I am not moving myself this evening.”
The young man appeared doubtful.
“The fact is, Martin, old chap,” he confessed, “I have a very particular friend over in London just now. I thought of trying to see if I could locate her.”
“The Princess di Vasena?” his brother enquired casually.
Micky stared at him.
“How the mischief did you guess?”
Fawley smiled a little sadly.
“This is not like home, you know, Micky. Here you have to picture to yourself nations and individuals all standing on tiptoe and crazy to get to know everybody else’s business. The whole place is like a beastly whispering-gallery.”
“Still, I don’t see how—” the boy began with a puzzled frown.
“Go and get your bath and dry up,” his brother interrupted. “I will send Jenkins round with a cocktail.”
“Jove, that sounds good,” Micky admitted. “I shan’t be longer than twenty minutes. Awfully decent of you to wait dinner.”
***
The cocktails tasted good, as indeed they were, for, granted the right material, the American touch on the shaker is after all the most subtle in the world. The dinner was excellent and the bottle of Pommery ’14 iced to perfection was a dream. Michael Fawley, a rather loosely built but pleasant-looking lad, drew a deep sigh of content as he lit his pipe.
“Well, I don’t know what you were in such a devil of a hurry to see me for, Martin, old chap,” he observed, “but it is pretty well worth it even if they dock me the three days off my leave. French champagne tastes all wrong in Italy, and though the food is good enough for a time, it’s monotonous—too many pâtés and knick-knacks for my taste. This is like New York, again.”
“You always were fond of New York, weren’t you, Micky?” his brother remarked speculatively.
“I’ll say so,” the boy assented. “New York and the summer life on Long Island should be good enough for anybody.”
“I’m glad.”
“What the devil do you mean?” Micky demanded, with a match hovering over the bowl of his pipe.
“I mean that I think you would be better out of this diplomatic business, young fellow,” his brother said. “I want you to post your resignation to Washington to-night.”
The match burnt out between the lad’s fingers. He laid down his pipe and stared.
“For the love of Mike, what are you talking about, Martin?”
“You are too susceptible for our job, Micky,” was the grave reply. “A little too credulous.”
“Gee!” the young man muttered under his breath.
“I came across the Princess di Vasena last night,” Fawley confided. “I am not going to say hard things about her, because, after all, I am in the same job myself, and if we take it on at all we have to go right through with it. It happens that there is something she wants very badly from me just now and she tried to bargain for it with a copy of those cables you sent her, Micky.”
“Are you telling me,” the boy cried in horror, “that the Princess di Vasena—”
“Come, come,” Fawley interrupted. “Don’t make such a tragedy of it, Micky. It isn’t worth it. I could have told you directly I heard her name that you would have to be careful. She is in our Black Book, but of course that doesn’t come round to the juniors. We don’t think that they ought to know everything. There is no actual mischief done, I am glad to say, but that—to put it plainly—is not your fault.”
Micky was petrified into a stark and paralysed silence. His hands were gripping the side of the table. He was ghastly pale. Fawley leaned over for a cigarette and lit it.
“There is just one rough word to be said, Micky,” he continued, “and you can guess how I hate to say it, but it is better to get it over. You have offended against the code. You have to pay. It will be my business to see that no one knows anything about it, but you must post your resignation to Washington to-night and you must catch—let me see, I think it is the Homeric, the day after to-morrow for New York.”
Micky picked up his pipe, relit it and smoked for a moment or two in silence. He came of good stock. He showed no signs of whimpering.
“You are dead right, Martin,” he blundered out at last. “I cannot think how in hell I came to do it. It was not as though she vamped me, made any promises or that sort of thing. I was simply almighty crazy.”
“Never mind, old chap,” his brother remarked consolingly; “the thing is over and done with and so, perhaps fortunately, is your diplomatic career. You were not cut out for it. Fortunately those cables did not tell the Princess what she wanted to know. There is no real harm done—only a great principle broken. I hope we will see you over this side again, Micky, for the Walker Cup next year. You are a good lad, but I think you are better at golf than at diplomacy.”
Micky walked over to the writing-table and drew out a sheet of paper.
“Dictate, Martin,” he invited.
Fawley stood at the window looking out with his hands behind him. He knew precisely how much of his brother’s composure was assumed, and he took care to keep his face averted.
“To Q.D.A.S. Department 137, Washington. Michael Fawley Third Secretary Rome begs leave tender resignation important family business stop confirmation by letter follows stop leave of absence already granted.”
“Who has given me leave of absence?” the boy asked, looking up.
“Douglas Miller over here is able to deal with all these slight matters. Your Chief, as you know, is on the high seas. I told Miller what is quite true, that your
family affairs at home were in the devil of a mess. You have far too much money, you know, Micky, like all of us, and he agreed to your getting out at once. There has not been a suspicion of anything else. There never will be unless you give it away yourself.”
“And the Princess?” the boy faltered hopelessly. “Shan’t I ever see her again?”
Fawley made no reply for the moment, then he swung slowly round in his chair. Micky, the personification of rather sulky boyhood, was leaning back on the divan with his hands in his pockets.
“How old are you, Micky?” he asked.
“Twenty-two.”
“The Princess is thirty-two,” Fawley confided. “There is nothing in the world to be said against her. She is noted throughout Europe as a woman of great charm and many accomplishments. She has, also, a little more brain than is good for her. I do not fancy that she has much use for boys, Micky, except when she can make use of them.”
“Rubbing it in, aren’t you?” the other muttered.
“For your own good, young fellow.”
“I can look after myself,” the boy grumbled.
“On Long Island, yes. At Newport, very likely. At any petting party at Bar Harbour I think you might be a star. But over here you are a trifle out of the game, Micky. We experienced ones have to don our armour when we come up against women like Elida.”
“Hello!” Micky exclaimed. “Do you call her by her Christian name?”
“A slip of the tongue,” Fawley confessed. “All the same, we have met quite a number of times lately. I don’t mind telling you, Micky, in confidence, that she is the only woman who has ever tempted me to wish that I had never taken on my particular branch of work.”
The younger man whistled softly. He was rather a cub in some matters, but he was honestly fond of his brother.
“Why don’t you chuck it and marry her, then?” he asked.
Fawley smiled a little sadly.
“Mine is just one of those professions, Micky,” he said, “which is pretty difficult to chuck. When you are once in it, you are in it for good or for evil. If you once leave the subterranean places and come out into the sunshine, there are risks. People do not forgive.”
“Have you been looking for any particular sort of trouble, Martin?”
“Perhaps so. At any rate I have this consolation. The goal towards which I have been working for years is worth while. Any man in the world would feel justified in devoting his whole life, every energy of his brain, every drop of blood in his body, towards its accomplishment, yet I cannot even make up my own mind whether my last few months’ energies have been the energies of an honourable man. I should hate to be arraigned at any Court in which my conscience would be the judge.”
“That damned Quaker streak in our family cropping up,” the young man muttered sympathetically.
“Perhaps so,” his brother agreed. “After all, it is the old question of whether the end can justify the means. Soon I shall be face to face with the results which will tell me that; then I shall know whether I shall ever be able to rid myself of the fetters or not.”
“I wonder,” Micky speculated, “what makes you so eager to get out of harness. You were always the worker in our family.”
“The same damned silly reason, I suppose, which has brought your diplomatic career to an end,” Fawley answered with a note of savagery in his tone. “Within thirty seconds of knowing Elida di Vasena I saved her from committing a murder; within five minutes I had the evidence in my hand which would have sent her out to be shot as a spy; and within ten minutes I knew that I cared for her more than any other woman I have ever known.”
“Does she know?” Micky asked, with a note of reverence in his tone.
“Was there ever a woman who did not know when she had succeeded in making a fool of a man?” Fawley rejoined bitterly. “I have not told her, if that is what you mean. I doubt whether I ever shall tell her.”
Jenkins presented himself upon the threshold. He stood on one side as he opened the door.
“The Princess di Vasena, sir,” he announced.
Chapter XXI
It was evident from the moment of her entrance that Elida was not entirely her usual composed self. She was breathing rapidly as though she had run up the stairs. Her eyes darted restlessly round the room. The sight of Micky in no way discomposed her. She drew a sigh of relief as though the thing which she had feared to see was absent. She nodded to the young man as she held out her hand to Fawley.
“You see that my brother is here to answer for his sins,” he remarked.
She sank into a chair.
“Poor Micky!” she exclaimed. “Some day I hope he will forgive me when he understands.”
“Oh, I forgive you all right,” Micky conceded. “I was just an ass. Didn’t quite understand what I was doing, I suppose.”
“Do any of us?” she lamented. “Please give me a cigarette, Martin. You have, perhaps, some brandy. I have been greatly disturbed and I am not well.”
Fawley produced cigarettes, touched the bell and ordered the liqueur. Elida took one sip and set the glass down. She looked half fearfully at her host.
“The little girl of Krust—Greta—she has not been here?”
“Not that I know of,” Fawley assured her. “I have not seen her since I left Berlin.”
“Nor Krust? Nor Maurice von Thal?”
“Not one of them.”
She seemed a trifle relieved. She threw open her cloak a little and tapped a cigarette upon the table. Her eyes were still full of trouble.
“I am almost afraid to ask my next question,” she confessed. “Pietro Patoni?”
Fawley shook his head. This time he was bewildered but grave. If Patoni was in London, there might indeed be trouble.
“I have not seen him,” he assured Elida, “since I was in Rome.”
“I know the fellow,” Micky put in. “Nephew of a holy cardinal, with eyes like beads. Looked like a cross between a stork and a penguin. Sort of fellow, if you were a Catholic you would cross yourself when you saw him and hope that you never met him again!”
Elida smiled despite her agitation.
“Kindly remember that he is my cousin,” she said. “Anyhow, I am thankful that he has not found you out yet, Martin. I have word that he is in London, and if he is in London it is because he is looking for you. And if Krust is in London, or any of his emissaries, it is because they are looking for you. And if Greta and Nina are here, they are here for the same reason.”
“Well, my name is in the directory,” Fawley observed, “both here and in New York. I am perfectly easy to find. What do they want with me?”
“I think,” Elida confided, “that they all want to kill you—especially Pietro.”
“He looks just that sort of pleasant fellow,” Fawley remarked.
“He hates all of us Americans,” Micky grumbled. “He was never even decently civil to me.”
Elida took another sip of her fine, lit a second cigarette and relaxed. A slight tinge of colour came into her cheeks. Her eyes had lost their tiredness.
“It is not so much that he hates Americans,” she explained. “He resents their interference in European politics. He has a very clear idea of how the destinies of Italy should be shaped, and just now there are rumours passing across Europe which are stupefying everybody. I came over myself to see if I could learn anything of the truth. I am ashamed of what I did, but I wanted so much to know.”
Her eyes were pleading with Fawley’s. He avoided their direct challenge.
“To revert to this question of Prince Patoni and his antipathies,” he said, “I should not think that America herself was very keen about any individual interference upon this side.”
“Please do not try to mislead me any more,” Elida begged. “I understand that I may not have your confidence—perhaps I do not deserve i
t—but you need not try to throw dust in my eyes. There is something else I have to say.”
She glanced at Micky and hesitated. He rose to his feet.
“I will be toddling off, Martin,” he announced. “Good night, Princess.”
“No ill-will, Mister Micky?” she asked, smiling. “Those cables were terribly uninteresting. They did me no good whatever.”
He made a wry face.
“Sorry,” he rejoined gruffly. “They didn’t give me much of a boost!”
She waited patiently until the door was closed behind him, then she turned almost hysterically to Fawley.
“Why have you not reported to Berati?” she cried breathlessly. “Tell me what has brought you here. Do you know that you are in danger?”
“No, I don’t think I realised that,” he answered. “One always has to watch one’s step, of course. I did not go back to Berati because I had not finished my job.”
“What part of it have you to finish here in England?” she demanded.
“I had most of my clothes stolen in Berlin,” he confided. “I had to come and visit my tailor.”
“Is that sort of thing worth while with me?” she protested. “Do you not understand that I have come here to warn you?”
He smiled.
“This is London,” he told her. “I am in sanctuary.”
“Do you really believe that?” she asked wonderingly.
“Of course I do.”
Elida shook her head. She seemed very tired. There was a note of despair in her tone.
“That man Berati is always right,” she lamented. “He told me that the ideal Secret Service man or woman did not exist. They are all either too brave or too cowardly. If you have no fear, you have no caution. If you have no caution, you are to be caught by the heels. Very well. For you, perhaps, that may be nothing—life must end with all of us, but for your work it is finality. The knowledge you have acquired is lost. You are a failure.”
“You really have a great gift of intelligence, Elida,” Fawley declared, in a non-committal tone.
“It does not amount to intelligence,” she objected. “It is common sense. Very well. Let us continue. You think that you are safe in London, when you have failed to report to Berati, when there are rumours going about in Rome that you are not to be trusted, that you have all the time been working for a cause of your own concerning which no one knows anything. Italy has sent over her spies. They are here now. In Germany they have the same distrust. Krust has given word that you are to be removed, and Krust has more assassins at his back than any man in the world. Maurice von Thal swore only three nights ago that this next time he would not fail. Even Behrling has doubts of you! In France it is almost as bad. They suspect you of double espionage and of selling some great secret of theirs of which even I know nothing.”
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