Microbes of Power (Wallace of the Secret Service Series)

by Alexander Wilson

  ‘Colonel Cummings has received the entire confidence of His Excellency,’ he told Shannon in a low voice, ‘and everything has passed off as we arranged. There is a place over there where we can talk without being overheard.’

  He indicated a lounge seat standing in a remote corner of the large hall in the midst of a group of palms in pots.

  ‘Wouldn’t you rather come to my room?’ asked the Secret Service man.

  ‘No; it is better to remain here. Our conversation will not be heard, and it will not have an appearance of secrecy. The news has got about and, of course, it is known here that you dined and danced with Miss Havelock last night.’

  Shannon noticed, as they strolled to the seat, that curious glances were cast at them by the members of the hotel staff present in the lounge and some of the guests.

  ‘Would you mind giving a display of startled surprise as we talk to you?’ suggested Colonel Cummings, as they sat down. ‘We want those who are watching to get the impression, Shannon, that you are hearing the news for the first time.’ The young man nodded. ‘By the way,’ pursued the colonel, ‘how do you feel today? I understand you were pretty badly injured.’

  ‘Oh, I’m all right, sir,’ was the response.

  ‘You’ll have to have those wounds properly dressed,’ put in Hastings. ‘Sir Gordon has directed me to tell you that he insists on it. The Chief MO has been requested to call at Government House at eleven for the purpose.’

  ‘Very well,’ acquiesced Shannon impatiently, ‘but it wasn’t necessary. As I tell you, I’m quite all right. May I know what has been done?’

  Colonel Cummings nodded. He at once proceeded to tell Shannon that, after he had been made acquainted with the facts by the governor, he had called out the Senior Superintendent of Police and a body of men, and had driven to the scene of the tragedy. There they had found the car with the damaged roof. Inside it lay Miss Havelock – Hastings had followed the corporal of the guard in his own car, conveying the poor girl back to the place where she had met her death. After placing her in the vehicle which had originally taken her there, he had driven back. Close by lay the man who had died while jammed in it and, in various spots in the vicinity, lay four men and the woman also dead. Four had been shot, the fifth had a broken neck. A short distance away, not far from a group of bushes, was another man who apparently had died of strangulation, though several bones in his body were also broken. As he announced this item, the colonel and Major Hastings both looked at Shannon as though tremendously impressed.

  ‘I gather,’ declared the former, ‘from the medical evidence, that he lost his life very much as though he had been hanged. You told Sir Gordon and Hastings that you used a man to clear a space by swinging him round you. Have you any clear idea how you grasped him?’

  ‘Not very,’ admitted Shannon, who had not had any difficulty in obeying the injunction to look startled and horrified as the colonel spoke. The tragedy of Barbara’s death had still too real a grip on his mind. ‘I think I went a little mad when I heard the cry which told me she had been hurt. I grabbed the fellow by the shoulders and neck I believe.’

  Colonel Cummings nodded.

  ‘That would account for it,’ he agreed. ‘His neck had certainly been held in a terrible grip. God! I shouldn’t like to be on the opposite side to you in a fight.’

  ‘Was there no one left alive?’ demanded the Secret Service man.

  ‘No; not there. Somebody survived, of course, as the two cars had one when we reached the place. The man with the broken neck turned out to be the fellow who had driven you and Miss Havelock. He wasn’t – er – quite dead when we picked him up! I have his dying confession here.’ He looked significantly at Shannon as he spoke. ‘Would you like to see it?’

  The young man nodded, and accepted from the commandant a sheet of foolscap paper. On it was penned the following:

  I, Michael Doberinas, wish before I die to make full confession of my part in the attempt to kidnap Miss Barbara Havelock. I was engaged by Stanislas Mowitz, who knew she had accompanied a young Englishman to the Palace Hotel, to arrange that my car was to be hired by them for the return journey. I succeeded in my design, though it was nearly one o’clock before they left the hotel. My instructions were that I was to stop at a certain place in the Phaneromene quarter as though I had engine trouble. Mowitz and his men would then be in waiting, overcome them, and give me further instructions. Soon after leaving the hotel, we overtook a man and lady walking. The Englishman told me to stop, and offered a lift to the woman who, it appeared, was Madame Malampos, the housekeeper at Miss Havelock’s school. The Englishman left the car, as he was assured that the two ladies would be perfectly safe. I drove on, stopping as arranged near the Phaneromene market. Two other cars were in waiting, containing Mowitz and eight or ten men, who quickly overcame the two women. I was then told to turn and drive to Evrykhou. A little way beyond Nicosia, on the Evrykhou road, a dispute arose, and I was ordered to stop. The men got out of all the cars, and a violent quarrel took place, some siding with Mowitz and others taking the part of another man whose name I do not know. Weapons were used, and a bad fight took place. Madame Malampos attempted to get away and was shot, and Miss Havelock was stabbed as she tried to get from the car. I saw Mowitz fall dead, and that is all I know, for two men sprang on me. One caught me a terrible blow in the back of my neck, and I lost consciousness until the police came and revived me. I believe that the reason Stanislas Mowitz tried to kidnap Miss Havelock was because he wished to marry her, and she would not have anything to do with him. The quarrel arose because another man wanted to obtain possession of her. That is all I know.

  The document was signed in scrawly, practically undecipherable letters. Shannon shuddered as he handed it back.

  ‘Do you know if that is anything like the fellow’s signature?’ he asked.

  ‘No, and it hardly matters,’ replied the colonel. ‘A man with a broken neck could not be expected to write legibly. His hand would have to be guided. Nobody is likely to come forward and dispute either the statement or the signature.’

  Shannon bent forward, and covered his face with his hands for a few moments. Here was no acting. For the time being he was genuinely overcome at the necessity for such subterfuge.

  ‘It’s all so horrible,’ he groaned. Then he looked up. ‘Tell me the rest,’ he urged.

  ‘The bodies of the six men were removed to the mortuary,’ the colonel told him. ‘Those of Miss Havelock and the woman Malampos were conveyed to the school and, after the news had been broken to Miss Pritchard, the headmistress, were taken in and left there. You are entirely out of the affair, Shannon. The story will appear in full in the papers with a reproduction of the statement made by Doberinas. It is quite natural that I should interview you, as you spent the evening with the girl. I have already questioned the porter who called the car. I am convinced he was not in the plot. He, of course, said you had gone with Miss Havelock, but I let him know that you left the car, when Madame Malampos was invited to enter it, and returned to the hotel.’

  Shannon clenched his hands until the knuckles gleamed white.

  ‘God!’ he ejaculated in a low, fierce undertone. ‘I’d give almost anything if the necessity hadn’t arisen to make that woman appear an innocent victim.’

  Colonel Cummings gave a short, grim laugh that had nothing of mirth in it.

  ‘I don’t think she’ll appear innocent for long,’ he commented.

  ‘What do you mean?’ demanded Shannon eagerly.

  ‘The man Stanislas Mowitz was the fellow she introduced to you as her brother. It was known that she was at the dance with him. It is also believed that he was her lover – you probably guessed the brother yarn was – well, just a yarn. Do you imagine she will be regarded as innocent, when the whole story, as we tell it, is out? Why, even a child will suspect that she was only kidnapped by necessity, because she happened to be in the car with poor Barbara. Mowitz would hardly want to take along his mistress,
when he was abducting a girl he proposed to make his wife. A good many people will decide in their own minds that she started the supposed row. Quite a number will believe that Doberinas, either by accident or by design, made a misstatement, and that actually she stabbed Barbara herself in a fit of jealousy. What is believed matters nothing to us. We have got to the bottom of the business as far as all practicable purposes are concerned, and the police will endeavour to find the scoundrels who got away. We won’t find them, and don’t want to, but nobody knows that but the superintendent and I. Like you, I also hope her name becomes anathema.’ He rose, and held out his hand. ‘That’s all there is to the business as far as you are concerned, Shannon. All that remains for me to do is to wish you – good hunting!’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ returned Shannon gratefully, giving the commandant’s hand a grip that caused the colonel to wince.

  ‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed the latter, ‘I thought that arm was pretty badly cut about.’

  ‘So it is,’ Hastings put in. ‘It seemed to me to be almost in ribbons.’

  ‘Well, I hope I don’t have to shake hands with Shannon when it’s fit.’

  He nodded, and marched briskly across the lounge, and out of the hotel. The manager was standing a few yards away. Major Hastings caught his eye, and beckoned to him. The immaculately attired and popular man hastened up to them.

  ‘Mr Shannon,’ the aide-de-camp told him, ‘has had a very bad shock, as you, no doubt, will have gathered. He is a friend of Miss Havelock’s relations, and only called at Cyprus to convey their greetings and get to know her. It is rather early, I know, but I think a good stiff dose of your best brandy will help to steady his nerves.’

  ‘I’ll give orders myself, Major Hastings,’ the manager assured him, and added to Shannon: ‘Please accept the very deep sympathy of myself and my staff, Mr Shannon. We all knew and liked Miss Havelock, and the affair has been a tragic shock to us.’

  The Secret Service man thanked him, and he hurried away to give orders for the brandy.

  ‘That completes everything I think,’ murmured Hastings. ‘I don’t see how you can now figure in the matter at all, except very incidentally.’

  Shannon expressed his gratitude for the manner in which anything suggestive of political intrigue or Secret Service work had been entirely eradicated from the tragic affair. He drank the brandy when it arrived, afterwards driving to Government House with the ADC. There his wounds were dressed, it being found necessary to insert stitches in several. The medical officer, who had been admitted to the governor’s confidence, was rather doubtful about the wisdom of allowing his patient to travel for a day or two.

  ‘Who will remove the stitches?’ he demanded.

  ‘Oh, I’ll find a doctor in Naples,’ returned Shannon carelessly. ‘The consul there will see to that.’

  ‘Don’t forget,’ urged the Chief of the Medical Service; ‘and for goodness’ sake don’t do anything to break open those wounds again. It is all very well your calling them scratches. I don’t.’

  Shannon’s report to Sir Leonard Wallace was despatched, but the young man decided, not only for the sake of appearances but because of his own inclinations, to remain in Nicosia for Barbara Havelock’s funeral, which took place early the following morning. He calculated that by driving to Famagusta by car directly afterwards – instructions having been given for the flying boat to be ready to start on its journey immediately when he arrived – he could still reach Naples a considerable time before the Ile-de-France was due there. A suggestion, emanating from the school, that Madame Malampos and Barbara Havelock should be accorded a joint funeral, was promptly vetoed by the governor, who did not consider it necessary to give Miss Pritchard his reasons for interfering. The poor girl, known in Secret Service records as Number Thirty-Three, was followed to her grave by practically the whole British population of Nicosia, all the girls of her school, and a great concourse of other Nicosians. The governor himself attended, walking directly behind the hearse with Major Hastings on one side of him and Captain Shannon on the other, his commissioners and members of the Legislative Council following directly behind him. Shannon’s last tribute, a beautiful wreath composed entirely of violets, had on it the simple inscription: ‘To Barbara from Helen and Hugh’. He was almost the last to leave the graveside, but, as he stood there erect without movement, it is unlikely that any of the others, except the governor, the Chief Commandant of Police, Major Hastings and perhaps the chief medical officer, realised that he was paying the silent tribute of respect, as representative of his department, to a member who had given her life in its service.

  On returning to Government House, he bade farewell to Sir Gordon and Major Hastings, and left at once in an air force car for Famagusta. Every precaution had been taken to ensure his leaving the capital unobserved, and, in addition, a devious route chosen to throw off any attempt on the part of interested people to trail him. Shannon was able to assure himself fairly confidently, before he had gone far, that he was not being followed. His thoughts were too deep to allow him to take much interest in the scenery, though, probably at any other time, he would have been absorbed in the tract of treeless plain, known as the Messaoria, through which the car passed. It is here that a large portion of the cultivated area of the island is situated. In summer and winter it presents an appearance of barren desolation, but now was at its best. Fields of barley gloriously green gave a perfect background to others rich in irises, poppies, narcissi, anemones, marguerites, ranunculi, and gladioli. To the north was the imposing skyline of the Kyrenia mountains, relieving the flat monotony of the plain. Cyprus has been described by people who have only travelled from Famagusta to Nicosia in the winter, or the latter part of the summer, as barren and desolate, but, like many another country, it presents an entirely different aspect in spring and early summer.

  Famagusta appeared to Shannon to be a town of ruins, which indeed it is. Inside its Venetian walls are the remains of nearly a dozen churches dating back to the Lusignan period and even further. The mosque of St Sophia, once the cathedral of St Nicholas, towers over all and, with its beautiful architectural style, of one period only, is most impressive. The car passed slowly through the town, as though the driver thought his passenger would not wish to be hurried through a place with such a chequered history, which had during the fourteenth century, in fact, been of such importance as to merit the title of ‘Emporium of the East’. Shannon, however, was eager to be in flight for Naples. He urged the mechanic driving him to go faster. There was an extraordinary contrast between the calm, lazy silence typical of the sabbath in the Christian part of the town and the noisy bustle of the Muslim districts. It was almost as though the one was deliberately doing its utmost to defy the other. The car stopped in the centre of the town near the ruins of Palazzo del Provveditore, and a young flight lieutenant saluted Shannon and entered.

  ‘There is a party of ladies and gentlemen at the Savoy,’ he announced, after he had introduced himself, ‘who are anxious to see the boat. We thought that, if you went on board with them, sir, as though you were one of the party, you would not be noticed. When they leave, you can stay there. Your bags will be taken on by the driver when he has dropped us at the hotel.’

  ‘Good idea,’ approved Shannon. ‘When do you think you’ll be able to get away?’

  ‘At noon, and I promise to get you to Naples for about seven.’

  The car was driven to the Savoy Hotel, where Shannon and the flight lieutenant descended. It then went on to the little dock where the flying boat lay. The Secret Service man was introduced as a visitor touring Cyprus to half a dozen people who had evinced a desire to see the great aeroplane.

  ‘He’s another person keen to see the inside of a flying boat,’ declared the officer. ‘Well, if you’re ready, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be off. I can’t give you long, as I am due out on a run to Malta at noon. There’s no lie in that,’ he added in a whisper to Shannon; ‘I have orders to go there tonight after drop
ping you at Naples.’

  ‘I suppose you can’t take a passenger?’ queried a pretty girl, ‘because I should very much like to come with you.’

  ‘Passenger!’ He raised his hands in mock horror. ‘Why, my dear Miss Molesworth, I should be court-martialled, shot at dawn, and suffer every other unpleasant penalty to be found in regulations, if I dared do such a thing.’

  The party, talking merrily, went along to the harbour, and was rowed across to the anchorage of the flying boat which, by that time, had been towed from her dock. She looked beautiful, as she lay there gleaming brightly in the sun like some great silver-grey seabird about to spread her wings in flight.

  ‘There she is,’ exulted her pilot. ‘Isn’t she a beauty? Fifteen tons of Blackburn Perth plane with three Rolls-Royce Buzzard engines, each giving eight hundred and twenty-five horsepower. She can do a hundred and twenty-six miles per hour with ease.’

  ‘Anyone would think you were proud of her,’ smiled Miss Molesworth.

  ‘Proud! I’m crazy about her.’

  During the inspection Shannon, with the assistance of a smart-looking sergeant wearing a pilot’s wings, contrived to get lost, a difficult operation for a man of his bulk, and was hidden away. The uncomfortable attitude in which he was forced to crouch gave him cramp, and it seemed to him an interminable time before the visitors took their departure. At last they went; he rose to his feet with a sigh of relief and stretched himself. Fifteen or twenty minutes passed before the flying officer in charge returned, accompanied by a junior.

  ‘Sorry to keep you crouched up in there for so long, sir,’ he grinned, ‘but they seemed to want to see everything twice over.’