by Sapper
“And how the devil do you propose to do that, seeing that it is the one thing Belfage and Meredith don’t want? Their whole idea is to keep that fool Hoskins from knowing anything about the aeroplane.”
“They must be made to want it,” said Veight calmly. “And it can be done by pointing out to them the vital importance of keeping the airman’s mouth shut while negotiations for selling the plans are in progress. What does it matter if Hoskins does know? I admit that before we used the gas we were not going to tell him. But now that is all changed. And, as I say, what does it matter if he does know? The only plans will be in our possession. Let the old man think what he likes. We can pretend to have copies made for distribution to every government. That will keep him quiet. To Meredith we can pretend that we are only waiting for Waldron to speak, when both secrets can be sold to the highest bidder.”
“And then? What then?”
Veight leaned even closer to the Russian.
“Have you ever heard of adrenalin?”
Gregoroff shook his head.
“Adrenalin,” continued Veight, “is used for asthma. I know, because I suffer from it at times myself, and I always carry a supply with me. And it has one very strange property. Though quite harmless when taken in the proper way, it causes death if it is injected into a vein. Now it will be necessary to keep the two airmen under the influence of drugs to prevent them raising a disturbance, which will be Belfage’s job as usual. And my suggestion is quite simple. When we have got what we want we will kill both of them and Waldron by giving them an injection of adrenalin. The fact that the doctor is more or less permanently drunk is all to the good. He will think he has killed them by giving them an overdose of morphia. And then, my dear Gregoroff, we will fade rapidly out of the picture, leaving the dear doctor and the rest of the crowd to explain away three dead men as best they may.”
“But it is a marvellous scheme!” cried the Russian with genuine admiration. “It is sheer genius.”
“I flatter myself,” said Veight complacently, “that it has a certain merit. Small unforeseen details are, of course, bound to crop up, but we must deal with them as they arise. In the main, however, I think the scheme is workable.”
“Eminently so,” said Gregoroff. “I congratulate you most heartily. There is, however, one point that occurs to me. How do you propose to get Graham Caldwell and his mechanic to Horsebridge? They will have to be drugged, and the sight of two unconscious men in a motorcar travelling through the country will be apt to cause some comment.”
Veight rubbed his hands together.
“Once again, my friend, I think I have solved your difficulty. The English, as you know, are a peculiar race, and at this time of year many of them are in the habit of attaching to the backs of their cars a strange-looking contraption on two wheels called a caravan. In this they tour the country, eating tinned foods and living in the height of discomfort. But what could be better suited to our purpose? In the first place it supplies a raison d’être for our going to the Highlands at all. We are tourists – sightseeing. In the second place, it supplies an admirable hiding-place for our prisoners. There are two bunks, and curtains which can be drawn, so that one can drive with absolute safety through the largest towns, with both of them inside.”
“Upon my word, Veight, it is a pleasure to work with you,” cried Gregoroff. “So far as I can see, the scheme is as nearly fool-proof as it is possible to make it.”
“Two heads are better than one,” said Veight. “If you can see any flaws, mention them.”
“How do we do our final getaway?”
“Private machine and fly,” answered Veight without hesitation. “There’s an aerodrome not twenty miles from Horsebridge. We’ll deliver the stuff to Kalinsky in Paris.”
“I suppose there is no chance of him double-crossing us?”
Veight shrugged his shoulders.
“All I can say is that I don’t think so. He’s too big a man to make it worth his while. I certainly have never heard of him letting an agent down.”
He got up, rubbing his hands together.
“Don’t fear: he will pay up if we give him the goods. And unless something entirely unforeseen occurs we can’t fail. Drummond and his damned friends are dead; Lovelace is helpless, and the Venables girl…” He paused. “That young woman is a bit of an enigma. I can’t make out where she fits in.”
Gregoroff laughed coarsely.
“Not for want of trying, from what I’ve seen of you,” he remarked. “And as for that fool Meredith, he eats out of her hand.”
Veight looked at him through narrowed eyes.
“Don’t fall into that error, Gregoroff. I have never been in the habit of letting a woman interfere with business. And I repeat, I can’t make out where she comes in. Ostensibly she is an enthusiastic member of the Key Club. But what is she really? Was it, as Meredith maintains, just feminine curiosity that sent her back to that cottage? Or is she in their secret service?”
“In either event it doesn’t seem to me to matter much,” said the Russian. “She’s safely under the influence of dope and will remain in that condition until we are clear of the country. And after that it doesn’t matter a kopeck who or what she is. What is far more to the point is what happened at your interview this evening. I must be going soon, and so far you’ve only given me the barest details.”
For a few moments Veight was silent; then, sinking his voice, he uttered one word – “War.”
“Did they say so definitely?” cried the other eagerly.
“My dear Gregoroff,” said Veight, “the Kalinskys and Morgensteins of this world very rarely say things definitely. But I waited a little before actually entering their room, and I heard one or two of their remarks. And even had I not done so the thing is obvious. We both know quite enough to realise how matters stand in Europe today. And the only doubtful point was what Kalinsky was going to do about it. Tonight’s interview has answered that question. He means war, and I believe he means it soon. And that is where you and I can considerably increase that fifty thousand pounds. We may only be small men financially, but when a small man has certain inside information he can soon become big.”
The Russian nodded.
“That is true,” he said.
“Kalinsky is not buying our stuff to frame it. Kalinsky isn’t insisting on having the monopoly of it for nothing. Kalinsky is playing deep, and it is up to us to play his tune. And there’s one place I shall not be visiting when the music starts – London. There won’t be any preliminary orchestra this time. No question of ultimatums expiring in twenty-four hours.”
“Which is what these fool English can’t believe,” remarked Gregoroff.
“My friend, they are incredible. With London a mass of smoking ruins, they would send an indignant note, saying, ‘Play the game, you cads: we weren’t ready.’”
Gregoroff laughed.
“At the same time,” continued Veight, “since we are playing for big stakes ourselves, I would like to be sure that the counters are full value. I don’t think there can be a possibility of error, but all the same, I would like to see that aeroplane in action. Even if it is not all that has been claimed for it, and all that I told Kalinsky it was, we can still sell the plans to him. But in the jargon of the people who race over here, we shall know the true form of the horse. And that will help us in making our bet.”
“I gather they try it out every day,” said the Russian.
“Exactly. And I suggest we see it on its trial flights, before we finally destroy it. With my caravan idea it should be easy. We can take our hotel with us to within a couple of miles of the place.”
“It’s a beautiful idea – that caravan. But you realise Meredith, and probably Cortez as well, will insist on coming with us.”
“Of course. Let ’em. I allowed for that. They can do the dirty work,” he added with an evil laugh. “If you and I, Gregoroff, are not capable of dealing with those two miserable specimens we’ll give up the g
ame for good.”
He glanced at his watch.
“I think I’ll come back with you tonight to Horsebridge. Not expecting you, I had intended to sleep here and go up tomorrow, but there’s nothing to keep me.”
“Where are you going to get this caravan?” asked Gregoroff, as Veight rang the bell.
“You can get them all over the place. I’ll hire one locally. Let me have my bill,” he continued, as a bleary-eyed youth appeared round the corner.
“Bill! You can’t ’ave no bill. H’everybody ’as gone to bed.”
“Then somebody has to get up, or I shall go without paying it.”
“Ho! you would, would yer? Can’t go without paying yer bill. Send for the perlice, I will, if yer tries them gaimes wiv me.”
Veight turned to the Russian.
“In some ways I would like to be in London on the date we have been discussing,” he remarked softly. “You’ll send for the police, will you?” he continued to the night porter. “Now I’ve been here one night. I am still alive because I have eaten no food here. I will therefore pay you for two nights, as it is so late. How much will that be, schweinhund?”
“’Oo are yer calling naimes? Mine’s ’Orace.”
He hiccoughed loudly.
“Pardon! ’Ad tripe for me supper. Comes back on one like, don’t it? Two quid, yer said. Right oh! Suppose it’ll be orl right.”
He pocketed the notes and shuffled off into a noisome recess under the stairs, from which there emerged a series of devastating explosions, showing that the tripe was still active.
“’Ere’s yer receipt,” he said, appearing once more. “Shall I get yer bag?”
“No,” said Veight. “All you can do is to get out of sight and hearing. I won’t be a moment, Gregoroff: I’ve a few things to put in. I’ll join you in the car.”
He went upstairs, and the Russian, lighting a cigarette, went down the steps into the street. It was past two o’clock, and not a soul was in sight. An occasional car flashed past the end of the street along the Bayswater Road, and in a neighbouring basement an amatory cat made music. There was no moon, but in a couple of hours it would be dawn, and it would take him just about that time to reach Horsebridge.
He got into the car and started the engine. It was a fast machine, though a good deal slower than the one stolen by Drummond, and as he thought of that episode he cursed under his breath. Even the fact that he had struck the damned Englishman in the face, and that the swine had since died in agony, was not enough. He would have liked to have murdered him personally.
Unlike Emil Veight, who only killed as an absolutely last resource, Paul Gregoroff gloried in it. Beneath a very thin veneer the man was a merciless savage. Human life meant less than nothing to him. Willingly would he have done in the four men in Hartley Court with his own hands, had he not been dissuaded by the others. In fact his readiness to kill was a constant source of anxiety to those with whom he worked. He never seemed to realise that what might be done with impunity in Russia was a very different matter in Western Europe.
With an effort he dismissed Drummond from his mind, and concentrated on the work ahead. He felt a genuine admiration for Veight’s scheme, which he readily acknowledged as a masterpiece. Try as he would he could see no flaw in it. There were difficulties which he could see, and unforeseen ones which would almost certainly arise. But in the main the conception was magnificent. Particularly the idea of the caravan. It tickled his sense of humour to think that they would be able to stop and ask a policeman which way to take the two men they were going to murder. And the adrenalin. Very, very good.
“My dear Veight,” he said as the German flung his bag in the car and sat down beside him, “once again I congratulate you. I have been thinking it over while I waited for you, and I cannot see any possibility of failure.”
“Nor can I,” said Veight. “But I’m glad you confirm my opinion. Yes, Gregoroff, my friend, I think we shall be able to retire in the near future. How long will it take us to get there?”
“Two hours. One must admit one point in favour of this country: its roads are wonderful.”
Save for an occasional lorry there was no traffic at all. Villages loomed up in the glare of the headlights and fell away behind them as the car ate up the miles. And gradually over the flat country towards the east the dawn began to break.
There was a coolness in the air. Here and there little patches of ground mist lay in the fields, and the smell of damp earth came faintly to their nostrils. And suddenly Veight spoke.
“I remember it like this away back behind the line during the last war.”
Gregoroff glanced at him quickly, but did not speak.
“Strange, isn’t it,” he continued, “that we two are helping to start another. Don’t think I’m becoming sentimental,” he added with a laugh, “but at moments like this one cannot help marvelling at the congenital idiocy of mankind.”
“All the better for us,” said Gregoroff cynically.
“Agreed. But one can wonder at a state of affairs even while one profits by it.”
“You’ll be talking about the happy hours you spent at your mother’s knee soon,” sneered Gregoroff, and Veight frowned. Unscrupulous blackguard though he was, there was a streak of the genuine artist in him, which at times recoiled with disgust from the crude inhumanity of the Russian. But he said no more and they drove on in silence.
At length, just as they reached the last village before their destination, the sun rose. The actual house was about a mile farther on, and soon it came in sight, standing in its sheet of reed-fringed water. And with it Veight’s mood vanished – he was once more the man of action.
“Let’s get it clear now, Gregoroff,” he said. “We want a few hours’ sleep; then we must get down to things. The sooner we get up north the better, so we’ll have a conference with Meredith as early as possible. He or Belfage will have to make arrangements for the caravan, and it will be best not to bring it to the house. We don’t want old Hoskins to know a minute before it is necessary. In fact he needn’t know until we actually come back with the two men. I will fix up the aeroplane for us; if I can’t do it in any other way I’ll buy one and hire a pilot. I shall say that it is wanted for an important business deal, and that it must be ready to start at a moment’s notice.”
“We, of course, say nothing about Kalinsky,” said Gregoroff, as he backed the car into the garage.
“Good God! no. Are you mad? We hint at a possible buyer, to whom we will go accompanied by Meredith. And it is vital they should know nothing about the aeroplane.”
Gregoroff produced a latch-key as they walked over the drawbridge.
“I follow,” he said. “I wonder if that damned man Waldron has cracked yet.”
He opened the door, and they stepped into the hall. In front of them the staircase led up to a mullioned window through which the sunlight was streaming. In the room to their right the remains of a meal littered the table, and Gregoroff entering poured himself out a whisky and soda.
The house was in complete silence as Veight went up the stairs and he paused by the window to look out. The whole expanse of the mere lay in front of him, and for a while he stood there staring idly across the water. The morning was still: in the undergrowth that stretched down to the edge not a leaf stirred. And he was on the point of going on up to his bedroom when he stiffened. The top of one of the bushes fringing the water had shaken.
“Gregoroff,” he called softly. “Gregoroff – come here.”
The Russian joined him.
“What’s the matter?” he demanded.
“Watch the bank just beyond the waterlogged boat,” said Veight, and even as he spoke the bush shook again.
“There’s somebody hiding there,” he continued softly.
“It might be an animal,” said Gregoroff, but Veight shook his head.
“The undergrowth is far too dense for a sheep or a cow,” he said. “And only a big animal would make that bush shake. It
is a human being. We must go and investigate.”
Silently they let themselves out of the front door and crossed the drawbridge. Then they followed the narrow path that skirted the pool. They were screened from view, but progress was slow. In places the path petered out completely and they had to force their way through brambles, but at length Veight, who was leading, held up his hand. They were just abreast of the boat.
They paused, listening intently, but save for the bird chorus they could hear nothing. Then very cautiously, a step at a time, they pushed forward. Suddenly, with an agitated squawk, a moorhen scuttered across the water, and Veight cursed under his breath. Then all its friends followed suit, and the possibility of surprise was gone.
“Come on,” said Veight. “Damn those birds.”
He pushed forward rapidly, regardless now of noise, with the Russian just behind him.
“Here’s the spot,” he cried. “It was just beside that coloured shrub. This is the actual bush that was shaking. And,” he muttered, gripping Gregoroff’s arm, “animals don’t eat sandwiches.”
On the ground at their feet were the remains of a meal, and they both bent down to examine them. Some ham and bread; the core of an apple; a piece of paper and some string.
“The devil take it,” said Veight softly. “That apple core hasn’t turned brown yet, so whoever it is he’s only just gone.”
Once again they stood and listened, and this time in the far distance they heard the noise of someone crashing through the undergrowth; then silence.
“Who the devil can it have been?” said Veight. “Tramps don’t eat that sort of sandwich, and a tramp wouldn’t have bolted. What’s the matter?”
“Look at the house, man; look at the house,” Gregoroff was breathing in his ear.
Through an opening in the bushes Veight looked. Leaning out of a top window, staring over the water in their direction, was Doris Venables.
“The girl, by God!” Veight muttered. “This must be dealt with at once.”
Chapter 12
To all appearances she was fast asleep when they entered the room. The door had been locked as usual with the key on the outside; the window was wide open.