For a moment he feared that his imposture had been discovered, and that Zarrif had only been playing with him; but his one hope lay in keeping up his part.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “It’s a sort of society, isn’t it, which threatens people who speculate in currencies to such an extent that nations are forced into a corner and driven off gold.”
“It threatens those and others. What more do you know of it?” Zarrif’s piercing eyes seemed to probe the deepest corners of his visitor’s mind.
“Nothing—only rumours picked up in travelling here and there.”
“I see. You have nothing definite you can give me. Well …” The wizened old man’s questions switched to another subject, and Lovelace breathed again.
A few moments later he pretended to be seized with another attack. Zarrif showed no surprise, but treated him with the same consideration as before.
When Lovelace returned to the big, gloomy room he apologised and said: “If there’s any more information you want I’ll come out to-morrow morning. I’ll be all right again by then.”
Zarrif nodded. “There is still much that I wish to hear. If you are free to return to Abyssinia I should like to have you with me. It is always of great value to be able to consult a man who has been so recently at the scene of action.”
Lovelace hesitated a moment.
“You will not find it necessary to work for a long time afterwards if you do as I suggest,” Zarrif went on quietly. “I pay my people well, as anyone who has been in my service will tell you.”
“All right—I’m game,” Lovelace replied, simulating a stab of pain. “What time do we start?”
“My secretary, Cassalis, will meet you by the bookstall at the airport at one-thirty to-morrow. We shall leave shortly after. Good night.”
Zarrif pressed the bell upon his table, and three minutes later Lovelace heard the iron gates of the house clang to behind him.
He found the hired car up on the hillside. It was partly concealed by a group of cypresses. The moon had risen and showed the plain below almost as clearly as in daylight, but it showed something else as well. Valerie was seated in the driver’s seat beside Christopher.
“What the hell’re you doing here?” Lovelace snapped at her angrily. “Didn’t I tell you …”
“Never mind what you told me,” she cut him short as she got out. “I’m my own mistress and I take orders from no one. I’m only here to mind the car and get you away more quickly.”
For a second he was minded to call off the whole business, but Christopher was beside him now, trembling with excitement and urging him to give his orders. No such opportunity to get Zarrif might ever occur again. With sudden decision he gripped Christopher by the arm.
“You see the left end of the house. The last three windows on the first floor are those of Zarrif’s bedroom. The next is the bathroom, and the fifth the lavatory. If you look carefully you’ll see a dark streak running down from it. That’s the two ends of a rope I bought this afternoon, took in round my waist, and threw out of the window a few minutes ago after passing it behind the pipe that runs up to the cistern. It’ll bear you easily and it’s not difficult to climb.
“Yes!” breathed Christopher. “Yes!”
Lovelace pulled the step-ladder and bag out of the back of the car. “Come on,” he said, and led the way off the road down the rocky slope.
Christopher had Valerie in his arms. With feverish lips he was kissing her all over her face. Suddenly he thrust her from him and scrambled after Lovelace down to the wall.
Lovelace was already getting his kit out of the big bag. It consisted of a large screw-hook, a pair of rubber gloves, a length of electric wire, a roll of insulating tape, a pair of wire cutters, and another length of rope.
Propping the steps against a near-by tree, he screwed the hook into the trunk about ten feet up, level with the wall top, then, passing the length of wire through it, he drew on his rubber gloves and, moving the steps, attached one end of it to the alarm wire above the wall. Next, he shifted the steps fifteen feet along, drew the loose wire taut through the hook, and performed the even more delicate operation of attaching its free end so that it would carry the current round the V and take the strain without sounding the alarm. Moving the steps again, he set them up half-way between the two joins.
“Be ready to run,” he whispered, glancing over his shoulder. With a set face he cut the alarm wire where it now formed the base of the triangle he had erected.
They held their breath for a second, fearing to hear the electric gongs shatter the silent night, but no sound broke the stillness.
“It’s all right,” Lovelace muttered. “Pass me the rope.”
When Christopher handed it to him he threw one end of it over the wall in the centre of the gap where the wire had been a moment before, ran down the steps, and attached the other to the lower portion of the tree.
Christopher already had one foot on the steps. Lovelace caught him by the elbow. “Go canny when you reach the sill in case they’ve spotted the rope and are waiting for you. If they are, you’ll have to drop and run. If all goes well, pull the rope by one end when you reach the ground again and bring it back with you. If you can do that they’ll never know how you got in. We’ll be waiting for you at the car. Up you go now and good luck to you!”
“Thanks,” Christopher gasped, “thanks,” and running up the steps he slipped noiselessly over the top of the wall into the garden.
Lovelace turned and scrambled up the hill. He found Valerie leaning against the car.
“Why did you come?” he panted. “Why the devil couldn’t you keep out of this?”
“How—how could I leave him to come alone?” she whispered. Then he realised that she had given way at last and was weeping unrestrainedly.
He put his arm round her shoulders, muttering little phrases of comfort and encouragement as he fought to regain his breath. Her sobbing became a little less passionate. It faded to a whisper of quick-drawn gasps. All his anger with her for adding to his responsibilities by appearing on the scene had evaporated. She was in love with Christopher, that insane—or was he terribly sane?—idealist who was now struggling through the bushes towards the house. Lovelace’s heart ached for her, but he could do nothing; only hold her closer and watch the section of the moonlit garden that he could see across the wall.
“Anthony, I’m frightened,” she gasped suddenly. “I wish—I wish I hadn’t come.”
She had never before called him by his first name. “I wish to God I’d succeeded in persuading you not to,” he said huskily.
“You’re all against this, really, aren’t you? It may be justice in the sight of God—as Christopher says—but actually its horrible to think about.”
“Yes,” he said slowly, “and whatever misery Zarrif may be plotting to bring on the world, he seems a decent sort. He was darned decent to me when I shammed illness so that I could fix that rope for Christopher to get into the house. I’ve never hated anything quite so much as giving him this chance to-night.”
“Oh, Anthony, Anthony, I feel just the same—but what else could we do?” She suddenly pressed against him and he held her tighter yet while her shoulders shook with a fresh burst of sobs.
“I ought to have gone in with him, although I never promised that,” he muttered. “He’s such a boy. I had half a mind to, but—well, as you turned up I felt I couldn’t leave you—in case things go wrong.”
“I’m glad I came, then—after all. This isn’t your show. He must see it through himself …” She broke off suddenly. “Look! There he is, going up the rope. He’s nearly reached the window.”
Christopher was swarming up the double rope hand over hand. Another moment and he gripped the window-sill. Cautiously he raised his head. The moon gave sufficient light for him to see that the room was empty. Heaving himself up, he wormed his way over.
Once inside the house he paused only long enough to get his pistol out of his pocket. He gripp
ed the butt firmly in his right hand and advanced on tiptoe; his left hand outstretched to grasp the shadowy protuberance of the door knob. It turned noiselessly under his touch; the door swung open and he stepped cautiously through it. From the plan of the house he knew that he was now in the small hallway. The valet’s room must be opposite him, a few paces away, and Zarrif’s bedroom to his left. The moonlight which silvered the bathroom behind him hardly penetrated sufficiently to lessen the close, heavy darkness. The gloom was only broken by a thin pale ribbon of light on the floor to the right; indicating the door of the room in which Lovelace had faced the grey, elderly Armenian less than a quarter of an hour before. Christopher passed his tongue over his dry lips and tried to still his breathing. It sounded like a rushing wind, which must alarm the household if he could not control it, as he stood there with the sweat streaming down his forehead. Nerving himself for the final effort, he ran his finger-tips lightly down the door until he found the handle, gave it a sudden twist, and flung it open.
Zarrif was seated quietly writing at his desk. As Christopher entered he swung round; his hand shot out towards his desk bell; but Christopher was quicker, and Zarrif withdrew his arm at the whispered caution when he saw the big black pistol, with its thick attachment like a silencer, pointed at his head.
“What do you want?” he challenged huskily, coming to his feet. “What do you want?”
“Your life!” whispered Christopher, his black eyes blazing in his thin, dead-white face. He stepped forward and thrust his weapon to within a yard of Zarrif’s mouth. “You’ve forfeited it by your proved attempts to promote mass-murder. I am a Miller of God, sent to execute justice upon you.”
For a second Paxito Zarrif’s green eyes flickered towards his bell again; but now it was beyond his reach. He drew himself up and his voice held a contemptuous ring as he answered “I have had a long life and an interesting one. Shoot, then, if you wish—assassin!”
CHAPTER VIII
LOVE AND LOYALTIES
The car sped at a furious pace back down the hill towards Athens.
“I couldn’t do it,” Christopher sobbed, his head on Valerie’s breast. “I couldn’t do it! He was an old man and quite defenceless. He stood there waiting for me to kill him and my courage failed me.”
“Darling!” She sought to comfort him as they rocked together in the back of the car over the bumpy road. “I understand. Please, please, don’t give way so. I think I’m glad.”
“Glad? But you don’t understand!” he exclaimed angrily. “Paxito Zarrif deserved death. The Millers of God appointed me to be his executioner, and Lovelace took a big risk to give me a perfect opportunity. Then, just because I found Zarrif to be frail and old, and he stood up to me, I chucked my hand in and ran away.”
Lovelace, in the driver’s seat, threw a quick glance over his shoulder. The alarm gongs were still ringing in his ears and he expected to see a car crammed with Zarrif’s gunmen hot on their trail; but only the empty silver road showed bright in the moonlight behind them. “Didn’t you even take the precaution of knocking him out?” he asked curtly.
“No,” Christopher admitted shamefacedly, “as I hadn’t the heart to kill him I just bolted and skedaddled down the rope from the window. Directly I turned my back he must have roused the house. I was lucky to get over the wall and reach you so quickly.”
“Have you got the rope, or did you leave it dangling?” Lovelace shot out as he jammed down the accelerator.
Christopher sat up. “I remembered what you told me about pulling one end of it instinctively, I think, and it came running down all over me. It’s here in the car. I left the short one over the wall, though.”
“That doesn’t matter. I don’t know that anything does now; but at all events they won’t know how you got into the house. You might have been hiding in his bedroom for hours.”
As they swerved round the corner into the main road Lovelace looked back again. No car was following. Evidently Paxito Zarrif was satisfied to have got rid of his murderous visitor without ordering his henchmen to give chase. Those tense moments when the alarm bells had shrilled out their warning and Christopher was scrambling breathlessly up the hill towards the car were still fresh in his memory, but he eased the car down as they came into the suburban traffic.
When they reached the heart of the city he pulled up on a corner two hundred yards from their hotel.
“You’d better get out here, Christopher,” he said. “I know you don’t care about drink in the ordinary way, but if you could manage a nightcap, make it a stiff one and get to bed. I’ll be back later—when I’ve returned this hired car—but first I’ll take Valerie out to the airport in it.”
“Good night, darling.” Valerie kissed her fiancé again before he scrambled out.
Christopher came round to the front of the car. His dark eyes looked larger than ever and his face paler as he said hesitantly: “Good night, Lovelace. I’m so sorry I let you down.”
“Good Lord, you didn’t let me down.” Lovelace laughed now that the abortive affair was over. “I did no more than pave the way for you. I’m not a Miller myself, remember, and I never promised to do more than stand by because the opposition crowd had threatened to do you in.”
“You ran a big risk getting into Zarrif’s house to spy out the land under the pretence of being Jeremiah Green; and an even greater one when you faked illness to fix that rope for me.”
“Oh, forget it.” Lovelace grinned again. “You get to bed and in the morning I’ll probably persuade you to join the relief organisation which I was going out to when we first met. That’s all above-board, and the poor devils behind the lines in Abyssinia need all the help they can be given.”
Christopher threw back his head. “You’ll do fine work, I know, but that’s only bandaging the wound after it’s been made. Someone has got to get at the root of this thing and stop the wounds ever being inflicted. I failed the Millers to-night, but I won’t fail the second time. Even if you refuse to help me further, I’ve got to find another opportunity.”
“So you mean to have another go at it,” Lovelace said slowly.
“Yes. I pledged myself to kill Zarrif, and if I don’t I’ll never be able to respect myself again.”
Valerie leaned out of the back of the car. “Please go in now, darling, and get to bed. You’re so terribly overwrought. We’ll talk it over quietly to-morrow.”
“You angel!” He smiled suddenly and, seizing her hand, kissed it. “What should I do without you? Sleep well, my sweet.”
Lovelace drove Valerie out to the airport hotel, but it was still early, only a quarter-past ten, and her nerves were so strung up that she did not wish to go to bed.
“Park the car and stay with me for a little,” she said.
“All right,” he agreed. “We’ll get a drink in the lounge and, God knows! I need one.”
They had their drinks, but the lounge was stuffy and overheated, and a too attentive waiter hovered within earshot, so Valerie suggested that they should go outside where they could talk freely.
There was no wind, so the air was clear of the dust that fought a daily battle with the struggling vegetation in the arid garden. The moon was now high in the heavens, bathing the plain in its brilliant light, yet softening the modern contours of the distant city so that it seemed a fairy town illustrating some old romance. The Acropolis, its ruined state no longer perceptible, and seeming as magnificent as when it was first built, dominated the scene upon its rocky crag. For an hour or two ancient Athens lived again, clothed in the still warmth of the southern night with all the splendour of the past.
“Mind if I smoke my pipe?” he asked, producing it from his pocket as they sat down on a bench.
“No, you love it, don’t you? I’ve noticed you always smoke it in preference to cigarettes when you want to think.”
“Yes, and I’ve got some pretty hard thinking to do at the moment.” He offered his cigarette case.
“Thanks.” She to
ok one. “About Christopher, you mean, and his determination to go on with—this?”
He nodded. “That’s it. I want to think up some really telling arguments against his attempting another cut at Zarrif to-morrow. If Christopher’s left to his own devices it’s a hundred to one on his bungling it.”
“You—you don’t mean to give him any further help, then?”
“No. I’ve done all I promised, so now I’m through. I don’t see the fun of risking my neck in some wild scheme that would probably end in the deaths of both of us, and for all our sakes I’d give a lot to prevent him attempting Zarrif’s assassination on his own. D’you think there’s any chance of my being able to persuade him to chuck his hand in and sever his connection with the Millers?”
“Not a hope. As I told you once before, Christopher Penn is Christopher Penn, the most pig-headed, quixotic darling ever born between Panama and Alaska. No one can make him change his mind once it’s made up.”
“Except yourself. He’s in love with you, so he’d stop this murder game if you asked him to for your sake.”
“Perhaps. I don’t know. But I’m not certain that I want him to.”
“I see,” he hesitated; “you still think of it as a sort of Crusade, then?”
She drew slowly on her cigarette. “The cause of the Millers of God is a just cause. Their systematic execution of the men behind the scenes, the war-makers who deliberately manipulate the Press and national feeling for their own profit, is the only practical scheme ever devised which may in the end stamp out war altogether.”
“It’s murder all the same—you can’t get away from that.”
“No, it’s justice. Nothing has ever been more just than the secret execution of these men who are responsible for limitless human suffering.”
The Secret War Page 8