21 Greatest Spy Thrillers in One Premium Edition (Mystery & Espionage Series)

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  Hebblethwaite knitted his brows. He was clearly puzzled.

  “Still personal, eh?” he enquired.

  Norgate shook his head.

  “It is something of vastly more importance,” he said, “than any question affecting my welfare. I am almost afraid to begin for fear I shall miss any chance, for fear I may not seem convincing enough.”

  “We’ll have the champagne opened at once, then,” Mr. Hebblethwaite declared. “Perhaps that will loosen your tongue. I can see that this is going to be a busy meal. Charles, if that bottle of Pommery 1904 is iced just to the degree I like it, let it be served, if you please, in the large sized glasses. Now, Norgate.”

  “What I am going to relate to you,” Norgate began, leaning across the table and speaking very earnestly, “is a little incident which happened to me on my way back from Berlin. I had as a fellow passenger a person whom I am convinced is high up in the German Secret Service Intelligence Department.”

  “All that!” Mr. Hebblethwaite murmured. “Go ahead, Norgate. I like the commencement of your story. I almost feel that I am moving through the pages of a diplomatic romance. All that I am praying is that your fellow passenger was a foreign lady—a princess, if possible—with wonderful eyes, fascinating manners, and of a generous disposition.”

  “Then I am afraid you will be disappointed,” Norgate continued drily. “The personage in question was a man whose name was Selingman. He told me that he was a manufacturer of crockery and that he came often to England to see his customers. He called himself a peace-loving German, and he professed the utmost good-will towards our country and our national policy. At the commencement of our conversation, I managed to impress him with the idea that I spoke no German. At one of the stations on the line he was joined by a Belgian, his agent, as he told me, in Brussels for the sale of his crockery. I overheard this agent, whose name was Meyer, recount to his principal his recent operations. He offered him an exact plan of the forts of Liege. I heard him instructed to procure a list of the wealthy inhabitants of Ghent and the rateable value of the city, and I heard him commissioned to purchase land in the neighbourhood of Antwerp for a secret purpose.”

  Mr. Hebblethwaite’s eyebrows became slowly upraised. The twinkle in his eyes remained, however.

  “My!” he exclaimed softly. “We’re getting on with the romance all right!”

  “During the momentary absence of this fellow and his agent from the carriage,” Norgate proceeded, “I possessed myself of a slip of paper which had become detached from the packet of documents they had been examining. It consisted of a list of names mostly of people resident in the United Kingdom, purporting to be Selingman’s agents. I venture to believe that this list is a precise record of the principal German spies in this country.”

  “German spies!” Mr. Hebblethwaite murmured. “Whew!”

  He sipped his champagne.

  “That list,” Norgate went on, “is in my pocket. I may add that although I was careful to keep up the fiction of not understanding German, and although I informed Herr Selingman that I had seen the paper in question blow out of the window, he nevertheless gave me that night a drugged whisky and soda, and during the time I slept he must have been through every one of my possessions. I found my few letters and papers turned upside down, and even my pockets had been ransacked.”

  “Where was the paper, then?” Mr. Hebblethwaite enquired.

  “In an inner pocket of my pyjamas,” Norgate explained. “I had them made with a sort of belt inside, at the time I was a king’s messenger.”

  Mr. Hebblethwaite played with his tie for a moment and drank a little more champagne.

  “Could I have a look at the list?” he asked, as though with a sudden inspiration.

  Norgate passed it across the table to him. Mr. Hebblethwaite adjusted his pince-nez, gave a little start as he read the first name, leaned back in his chair as he came to another, stared at Norgate about half-way down the list, as though to make sure that he was in earnest, and finally finished it in silence. He folded it up and handed it back.

  “Well, well!” he exclaimed, a little pointlessly. “Now tell me, Norgate, you showed this list down there?”—jerking his head towards the street.

  “I did,” Norgate admitted.

  “And what did they say?”

  “Just what you might expect men whose lives are spent within the four walls of a room in Downing Street to say,” Norgate replied. “You are half inclined to make fun of me yourself, Hebblethwaite, but at any rate I know you have a different outlook from theirs. Old Carew was frantically polite. He even declared the list to be most interesting! He rambled on for about a quarter of an hour on the general subject of the spy mania. German espionage, he told me, was one of the shadowy evils from which England had suffered for generations. So far as regards London and the provincial towns, he went on, whether for good or evil, we have a large German population, and if they choose to make reports to any one in Germany as to events happening here which come under their observation, we cannot stop it, and it would not even be worth while to try. As regards matters of military and naval importance, there was a special branch, he assured me, for looking after these, and it was a branch of the Service which was remarkably well-served and remarkably successful. Having said this, he folded the list up and returned it to me, rang the bell, gave me a frozen hand to shake, a mumbled promise about another appointment as soon as there should be a vacancy, and that was the end of it.”

  “About that other appointment,” Mr. Hebblethwaite began, with some animation—

  “Damn the other appointment!” Norgate interrupted testily. “I didn’t come here to cadge, Hebblethwaite. I am never likely to make use of my friends in that way. I came for a bigger thing. I came to try and make you see a danger, the reality of which I have just begun to appreciate myself for the first time in my life.”

  Mr. Hebblethwaite’s manner slowly changed. He pulled down his waistcoat, finished off a glass of wine, and leaned forward.

  “Norgate,” he said, “I am sorry that this is the frame of mind in which you have come to me. I tell you frankly that you couldn’t have appealed to a man in the Cabinet less in sympathy with your fears than I myself.”

  “I am sorry to hear that,” Norgate replied grimly, “but go on.”

  “Before I entered the Cabinet,” Mr. Hebblethwaite continued, “our relations with Foreign Powers were just the myth to me that they are to most people who read the Morning Post one day and the Daily Mail the next. However, I made the best part of half a million in business through knowing the top and the bottom and every corner of my job, and I started in to do the same when I began to have a share in the government of the country. The entente with France is all right in its way, but I came to the conclusion that the greatest and broadest stroke of diplomacy possible to Englishmen to-day was to cultivate more benevolent and more confidential relations with Germany. That same feeling has been spreading through the Cabinet during the last two years. I am ready to take my share of the blame or praise, whichever in the future shall be allotted to the inspirer of that idea. It is our hope that when the present Government goes out of office, one of its chief claims to public approval and to historical praise will be the improvement of our relations with Germany. We certainly do not wish to disturb the growing confidence which exists between the two countries by any maladroit or unnecessary investigations. We believe, in short, that Germany’s attitude towards us is friendly, and we intend to treat her in the same spirit.”

  “Tell me,” Norgate asked, “is that the reason why every scheme for the expansion of the army has been shelved? Is that the reason for all the troubles with the Army Council?”

  “It is,” Hebblethwaite admitted. “I trust you, Norgate, and I look upon you as a friend. I tell you what the whole world of responsible men and women might as well know, but which we naturally don’t care about shouting from the housetops. We have come to the conclusion that there is no possible chance of the p
eace of Europe being disturbed. We have come to the conclusion that civilisation has reached that pitch when the last resource of arms is absolutely unnecessary. I do not mind telling you that the Balkan crisis presented opportunities to any one of the Powers to plunge into warfare, had they been so disposed. No one bade more boldly for peace then than Germany. No one wants war. Germany has nothing to gain by it, no animosity against France, none towards Russia. Neither of these countries has the slightest intention, now or at any time, of invading Germany. Why should they? The matter of Alsace and Lorraine is finished. If these provinces ever come back to France, it will be by political means and not by any mad-headed attempt to wrest them away.”

  “Incidentally,” Norgate asked, “what about the enormous armaments of Germany? What about her navy? What about the military spirit which practically rules the country?”

  “I have spent three months in Germany during the last year,” Hebblethwaite replied. “It is my firm belief that those armaments and that fleet are necessary to Germany to preserve her place of dignity among the nations. She has Russia on one side and France on the other, allies, watching her all the time, and of late years England has been chipping at her whenever she got a chance, and flirting with France. What can a nation do but make herself strong enough to defend herself against unprovoked attack? Germany, of course, is full of the military spirit, but it is my opinion, Norgate, that it is a great deal fuller of the great commercial spirit. It isn’t war with Germany that we have to fear. It’s the ruin of our commerce by their great assiduity and more up-to-date methods. Now you’ve had a statement of policy from me for which the halfpenny Press would give me a thousand guineas if I’d sign it.”

  “I’ve had it,” Norgate admitted, “and I tell you frankly that I hate it. I am an unfledged young diplomat in disgrace, and I haven’t your experience or your brains, but I have a hateful idea that I can see the truth and you can’t. You’re too big and too broad in this matter, Hebblethwaite. Your head’s lifted too high. You see the horrors and the needlessness, the logical side of war, and you brush the thought away from you.”

  Mr. Hebblethwaite sighed.

  “Perhaps so,” he admitted. “One can only act according to one’s convictions. You must remember, though, Norgate, that we don’t carry our pacificism to extremes. Our navy is and always will be an irresistible defence.”

  “Even with hostile naval and aeroplane bases at—say—Calais, Boulogne, Dieppe, Ostend?”

  Mr. Hebblethwaite pushed a box of cigars towards his guest, glanced at the clock, and rose.

  “Young fellow,” he said, “I have engaged a box at the Empire. Let us move on.”

  CHAPTER XI

  Table of Contents

  “My position as a Cabinet Minister,” Mr. Hebblethwaite declared, with a sigh, “renders my presence in the Promenade undesirable. If you want to stroll around, Norgate, don’t bother about me.”

  Norgate picked up his hat. “Jolly good show,” he remarked. “I’ll be back before it begins again.”

  He descended to the lower Promenade and sauntered along towards the refreshment bar. Mrs. Paston Benedek, who was seated in the stalls, leaned over and touched his arm.

  “My friend,” she exclaimed, “you are distrait! You walk as though you looked for everything and saw nothing. And behold, you have found me!”

  Norgate shook hands and nodded to Baring, who was her escort.

  “What have you done with our expansive friend?” he asked. “I thought you were dining with him.”

  “I compromised,” she laughed. “You see what it is to be so popular. I should have dined and have come here with Captain Baring—that was our plan for to-night. Captain Baring, however, was generous when he saw my predicament. He suffered me to dine with Mr. Selingman, and he fetched me afterwards. Even then we could not quite get rid of the dear man. He came on here with us, and he is now, I believe, greeting acquaintances everywhere in the Promenade. I am perfectly convinced that I shall have to look the other way when we go out.”

  “I think I’ll see whether I can rescue him,” Norgate remarked. “Good show, isn’t it?” he added, turning to her companion.

  “Capital,” replied Baring, without enthusiasm. “Too many people here, though.”

  Norgate strolled on, and Mrs. Benedek tapped her companion on the knuckles with her fan.

  “How dared you be so rude!” she exclaimed. “You are in a very bad humour this evening. I can see that I shall have to punish you.”

  “That’s all very well,” Baring grumbled, “but it gets more difficult to see you alone every day. This evening was to have been mine. Now this fat German turns up and lays claim to you, and then, about the first moment we’ve had a chance to talk, Norgate comes gassing along. You’re not nearly as nice to me, Bertha, as you used to be.”

  “My dear man,” she protested, “in the first place I deny it. In the second, I ask myself whether you are quite as devoted to me as you were when you first came.”

  “In what way?” he demanded.

  She turned her wonderful eyes upon him.

  “At first when you came,” she declared, “you told me everything. You spoke of your long mornings and afternoons at the Admiralty. You told me of the room in which you worked, the men who worked there with you. You told me of the building of that little model, and how you were all allowed to try your own pet ideas with regard to it. And then, all of a sudden, nothing—not a word about what you have been doing. I am an intelligent woman. I love to have men friends who do things, and if they are really friends of mine, I like to enter into their life, to know of their work, to sympathise, to take an interest in it. It was like that with you at first. Now it has all gone. You have drawn down a curtain. I do not believe that you go to the Admiralty at all. I do not believe that you have any wonderful invention there over which you spend your time.”

  “Bertha, dear,” he remonstrated, “do be reasonable.”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “But am I not? See how reasonably I have spoken to you. I have told you the exact truth. I have told you why I do not take quite that same pleasure in your company as when you first came.”

  “Do consider,” he begged. “I spoke to you freely at first because we had not reached the stage in the work when secrecy was absolutely necessary. At present we are all upon our honour. From the moment we pass inside that little room, we are, to all effects and purposes, dead men. Nothing that happens there is to be spoken of or hinted at, even to our wives or our dearest friends. It is the etiquette of my profession, Bertha. Be reasonable.”

  “Pooh!” she exclaimed. “Fancy asking a woman to be reasonable! Don’t you realise, you stupid man, that if you were at liberty to tell everybody what it is that you do there, well, then I should have no more interest in it? It is just because you say that you will not and you may not tell, that, womanlike, I am curious.”

  “But whatever good could it be to you to know?” he protested. “I should simply addle your head with a mass of technical detail, not a quarter of which you would be able to understand. Besides, I have told you, Bertha, it is a matter of honour.”

  She looked intently at her programme.

  “There are men,” she murmured, “who love so much that even honour counts for little by the side of—”

  “Of what?” he whispered hoarsely.

  “Of success.”

  For a moment they sat in silence. The place was not particularly hot, yet there were little beads of perspiration upon Baring’s forehead. The fingers which held his programme twitched. He rose suddenly to his feet.

  “May I go out and have a drink?” he asked. “I won’t go if you don’t want to be alone.”

  “My dear friend, I do not mind in the least,” she assured him. “If you find Mr. Norgate, send him here.”

  In one of the smaller refreshment rooms sat Mr. Selingman, a bottle of champagne before him and a wondrously attired lady on either side. The heads of all three were close
together. The lady on the left was talking in a low tone but with many gesticulations.

  “Dear friend,” she exclaimed, “for one single moment you must not think that I am ungrateful! But consider. Success costs money always, and I have been successful—you admit that. My rooms are frequented entirely by the class of young men you have wished me to encourage. Pauline and I here, and Rose, whom you have met, seek our friends in no other direction. We are never alone, and, as you very well know, not a day has passed that I have not sent you some little word of gossip or information—the gossip of the navy and the gossip of the army—and there is always some truth underneath what these young men say. It is what you desire, is it not?”

  “Without a doubt,” Selingman assented. “Your work, my dear Helda, has been excellent. I commend you. I think with fervour of the day when first we talked together, and the scheme presented itself to me. Continue to play Aspasia in such a fashion to the young soldiers and sailors of this country, and your villa at Monte Carlo next year is assured.”

  The woman shrugged her shoulders.

  “I will not say that you are not generous,” she declared, “for that would be untrue, but sometimes you forget that these young men have very little money, and the chief profit from their friendship, therefore, must come to us in other ways.”

  “You want a larger allowance?” Selingman asked slowly.

  “Not at present, but I want to warn you that the time may come when I shall need more. A salon in Pimlico, dear friend, is an expensive thing to maintain. These young men tell their friends of our hospitality, the music, our entertainment. We become almost too much the fashion, and it costs money.”

  Selingman held up his champagne glass, gazed at the wine for a moment, and slowly drank it.

  “I am not of those,” he announced, “who expect service for nothing, especially good service such as yours. Watch for the postman, dear lady. Any morning this week there may come for you a pleasant little surprise.”