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

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  “I have heard rumours of this,” the Comtesse confessed.

  “When one bears these things in mind and looks a little into the future,” Norgate continued, “one might easily believe that the reply to that still unanswered letter of the Kaiser’s might well become historical.”

  “You would like me, would you not,” she asked, “to tell you what that reply will most certainly be?”

  “Very much!”

  “You are an Englishman,” she remarked thoughtfully, “and intriguing with Anna. I fear that I do not understand the position.”

  “Must you understand it?”

  “Perhaps not,” she admitted. “It really matters very little. I will speak to you just in the only way I can speak, as a private individual. I tell you that I do not believe that Andrea will ever, under any circumstances, join in any war against England, nor any war which has for its object the crushing of France. In his mind the Triple Alliance was the most selfish alliance which any country has ever entered into, but so long as the other two Powers understood the situation, it was scarcely Italy’s part to point out the fact that she gained everything by it and risked nothing. Italy has sheltered herself for years under its provisions, but neither at the time of signing it, nor at any other time, has she had the slightest intention of joining in an aggressive war at the request of her allies. You see, her Government felt themselves safe—and I think that that was where Andrea was so clever—in promising to fulfil their obligations in case of an attack by any other Power upon Germany or Austria, because it was perfectly certain to Andrea, and to every person of common sense, that no such aggressive attack would ever be made. You read Austria’s demands from Servia in the paper this morning?”

  “I did,” Norgate admitted. “No one in the world could find them reasonable.”

  “They are not meant to be reasonable,” the Comtesse pointed out. “They are the foundation from which the world quarrel shall spring. Russia must intervene to protect Servia from their hideous injustice. Germany and Austria will throw down the gage. Germany may be right or she may be wrong, but she believes she can count on Great Britain’s neutrality. She needs our help and believes she will get it. That is because German diplomacy always believes that it is going to get what it wants. Now, in a few words, I will tell you what the German Emperor would give me a province to know. I will tell you that no matter what the temptation, what the proffered reward may be, Italy will not join in this war on the side of Germany and Austria.”

  “You are very kind, Comtesse,” Norgate said simply, “and I shall respect your confidence.”

  She rose and laid her fingers upon his arm.

  “To people whom I like,” she declared, “I speak frankly. I give away no secrets. I say what I believe. And now I must leave you for a much subtler person and a much subtler conversation. Prince Herschfeld is waiting to talk to me. Perhaps he, too, would like to know the answer which will go to his master, but how can I tell?”

  The Ambassador had paused before them. The Comtesse rose and accepted his arm.

  “I shall take away with me to-night at least two charming memories,” she assured him, as she gathered up her skirts. “My two dances, Mr. Norgate, have been delightful. Now I am equally sure of entertainment of another sort from Prince Herschfeld.”

  The Prince bowed.

  “Ah! madame,” he sighed, “it is so hard to compete with youth. I fear that the feet of Mr. Norgate will be nimbler than my brain to-night.”

  She nodded sympathetically.

  “You are immersed in affairs, of course,” she murmured. “Au revoir, Mr. Norgate! Give my love to Anna. Some day I hope that I shall welcome you both in Rome.”

  CHAPTER XXXII

  Table of Contents

  Norgate pushed his way through a confused medley of crates which had just been unloaded and made his way up the warehouse to Selingman’s office. Selingman was engaged for a few minutes but presently opened the door of his sanctum and called his visitor in.

  “Well, my young friend,” he exclaimed, “you have brought news? Sit down. This is a busy morning. We have had large shipments from Germany. I have appointments with buyers most of the day, yet I can talk to you for a little time. You were at the ball last night?”

  “I was permitted to escort the Baroness von Haase,” Norgate replied.

  Selingman nodded ponderously.

  “I ask you no questions,” he said. “The Baroness works on a higher plane. I know more than you would believe, though. I know why the dear lady went to Rome; I know why she was at the ball. I know in what respect you were probably able to help her. But I ask no questions. We work towards a common end, but we work at opposite ends of the pole. Curiosity alone would be gratified if you were to tell me everything that transpired.”

  “You keep yourself marvellously well-informed as to most things, don’t you, Mr. Selingman?” Norgate remarked.

  “Platitudes, young man, platitudes,” Selingman declared, “words of air. What purpose have they? You know who I am. I hold in my hand a thousand strings. Any one that I pull will bring an answering message to my brain. Come, what is it you wish to say to me?”

  “I am doing my work for you,” Norgate remarked, “and doing it extraordinarily well. I do not object to a certain amount of surveillance, but I am getting fed up with Boko.”

  “Who the hell is Boko?” Selingman demanded.

  “I must apologise,” Norgate replied. “A nickname only. He is a little red-faced man who looks like a children’s toy and changes his clothes about seven times a day. He is with me from the moment I rise to the last thing at night. He is getting on my nerves. I am fast drifting into the frame of mind when one looks under the bed before one can sleep.”

  “Young man,” Selingman said, “a month ago you were a person of no importance. To-day, so far as I am concerned, you are a treasure-casket. You hold secrets. You have a great value to us. Every one in your position is watched; it is part of our system. If the man for whom you have found so picturesque a nickname annoys you, he shall be changed. That is the most I can promise you.”

  “You don’t trust me altogether, then?” Norgate observed coolly.

  Selingman tapped on the table in front of him with his pudgy forefinger.

  “Norgate,” he declared solemnly, “trust is a personal matter. I have no personal feelings. I am a machine. All the work I do is done by machinery, the machinery of thought, the machinery of action. These are the only means by which sentiment can be barred and the curious fluctuations of human temperament guarded against. If you were my son, or if you had dropped straight down from Heaven with a letter of introduction from the proper quarters, you would still be under my surveillance.”

  “That seems to settle the matter,” Norgate confessed, “so I suppose I mustn’t grumble. Yours is rather a bloodless philosophy.”

  “Perhaps,” Selingman assented. “You see me as I sit here, a merchant of crockery, and I am a kind person. If I saw suffering, I should pause to ease it. If a wounded insect lay in my path, I should step out of my way to avoid it. But if my dearest friend, my nearest relation, seemed likely to me to do one fraction of harm to the great cause, I should without one second’s compunction arrange for their removal as inevitably, and with as little hesitation, as I leave this place at one o’clock for my luncheon.”

  Norgate shrugged his shoulders.

  “One apparently runs risks in serving you,” he remarked.

  “What risks?” Selingman asked keenly.

  “The risk of being misunderstood, of making mistakes.”

  “Pooh!” Selingman exclaimed. “I do not like the man who talks of risks. Let us dismiss this conversation. I have work for you.”

  Norgate assumed a more interested attitude.

  “I am ready,” he said. “Go on, please.”

  “A movement is on foot,” Selingman proceeded, “to establish manufactories in this country for the purpose of producing my crockery. A very large company wil
l be formed, a great part of the money towards which is already subscribed. We have examined several sites with a view to building factories, but I have not cared at present to open up direct negotiations. A rumour of our enterprise is about, and the price of the land we require would advance considerably if the prospective purchaser were known. The land is situated, half an acre at Willesden, three-quarters of an acre at Golder’s Hill, and an acre at Highgate. I wish you to see the agents for the sale of these properties. I have ascertained indirectly the price, which you will find against each lot, with the agent’s name,” Selingman continued, passing across a folded slip of foolscap. “You will treat in your own name and pay the deposit yourself. Try and secure all three plots to-day, so that the lawyers can prepare the deeds and my builder can make some preparatory plans there during the week.”

  Norgate accepted the little bundle of papers with some surprise. Enclosed with them was a thick wad of bank-notes.

  “There are two thousand pounds there for your deposits,” Selingman continued. “If you need more, telephone to me, but understand I want to start to work laying the foundations within the next few days.”

  “I’ll do the best I can,” Norgate promised, “but this is rather a change for me, isn’t it? Will Boko come along?”

  Selingman smiled for a moment, but immediately afterwards his face was almost stern.

  “Young man,” he said, “from the moment you pledged your brains to my service, every action of your day has been recorded. From one of my pigeonholes I could draw out a paper and tell you where you lunched yesterday, where you dined the day before, whom you met and with whom you talked, and so it will be until our work is finished.”

  “So long as I know,” Norgate sighed, rising to his feet, “I’ll try to get used to him.”

  Norgate found no particular difficulty in carrying out the commissions entrusted to him. The sale of land is not an everyday affair, and he found the agents exceedingly polite and prompt. The man with whom he arranged the purchase of about three quarters of an acre of building land at Golder’s Green, on the conclusion of the transaction exhibited some little curiosity.

  “Queer thing,” he remarked, “but I sold half an acre, a month or two ago, to a man who came very much as you come to-day. Might have been a foreigner. Said he was going to put up a factory to make boots and shoes. He is not going to start to build until next year, but he wanted a very solid floor to stand heavy machinery. Look here.”

  The agent climbed upon a pile of bricks, and Norgate followed his example. There was a boarded space before them, with scaffolding poles all around, but no other signs of building, and the interior consisted merely of a perfectly smooth concrete floor.

  “That’s the queerest way of setting about building a factory I ever saw,” the man pointed out.

  Norgate, who was not greatly interested, assented. The agent escorted him back to his taxicab.

  “Of course, it’s not my business,” he admitted, “and you needn’t say anything about this to your principals, but I hope they don’t stop with laying down concrete floors. Of course, money for the property is the chief thing we want, but we do want factories and the employment of labour, and the sooner the better. This fellow—Reynolds, he said his name was—pays up for the property all right, has that concrete floor prepared, and clears off.”

  “Raising the money to build, perhaps,” Norgate remarked. “I don’t think there’s any secret about my people’s intentions. They are going to build factories for the manufacture of crockery.”

  The agent brightened up.

  “Well, that’s a new industry, anyway. Crockery, eh?”

  “It’s a big German firm in Cannon Street,” Norgate explained. “They are going to make the stuff here. That ought to be better for our people.”

  The young man nodded.

  “I expect they’re afraid of tariff reform,” he suggested. “Those Germans see a long way ahead sometimes.”

  “I am beginning to believe that they do,” Norgate assented, as he stepped into the taxi.

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  Table of Contents

  Norgate walked into the club rather late that afternoon. Selingman and Prince Lenemaur were talking together in the little drawing-room. They called him in, and a few minutes later the Prince took his leave.

  “Well, that’s all arranged,” Norgate reported. “I have bought the three sites. There was only one thing the fellow down at Golder’s Hill was anxious about.”

  “And that?”

  “He hoped you weren’t just going to put down a concrete floor and then shut the place up.”

  Mr. Selingman’s amiable imperturbability was for once disturbed.

  “What did the fellow mean?” he enquired.

  “Haven’t an idea,” Norgate replied, “but he made me stand on a pile of bricks and look at a strip of land which some one else had bought upon a hill close by. I suppose they want the factories built as quickly as possible, and work-people around the place.”

  “I shall have two hundred men at work to-morrow morning,” Selingman remarked. “If that agent had not been a very ignorant person, he would have known that a concrete floor is a necessity to any factory where heavy machinery is used.”

  “Is it?” Norgate asked simply.

  “Any other question?” Selingman demanded.

  “None at all.”

  “Then we will go and play bridge.”

  They cut into the same rubber. Selingman, however, was not at first entirely himself. He played his cards in silence, and he once very nearly revoked. Mrs. Benedek took him to task.

  “Dear man,” she said, “we rely upon you so much, and to-day you fail to amuse us. What is there upon your mind? Let us console you, if we can.”

  “Dear lady, it is nothing,” Selingman assured her. “My company is planning big developments in connection with our business. The details afford me much food for thought. My attention, I fear, sometimes wanders. Forgive me, I will make amends. When the day comes that my new factories start work, I will give such a party as was never seen. I will invite you all. We will have a celebration that every one shall talk of. And meanwhile, behold! I will wander no longer. I declare no trumps.”

  Selingman for a time was himself again. When he cut out, however, he fidgeted a little restlessly around the room and watched Norgate share the same fate with an air of relief. He laid his hand upon the latter’s arm.

  “Come into the other room, Norgate,” he invited. “I have something to say to you.”

  Norgate obeyed at once, but the room was already occupied. A little blond lady was entertaining a soldier friend at tea. She withdrew her head from somewhat suspicious proximity to her companion’s at their entrance and greeted Selingman with innocent surprise.

  “How queer that you should come in just then, Mr. Selingman!” she exclaimed. “We were talking about Germany, Captain Fielder and I.”

  Selingman beamed upon them both. He was entirely himself again. He looked as though the one thing in life he had desired was to find Mrs. Barlow and her military companion in possession of the little drawing-room.

  “My country is flattered,” he declared, “especially,” he added, with a twinkle in his eyes, “as the subject seemed to be proving so interesting.”

  She made a little grimace at him.

  “Seriously, Mr. Selingman,” she continued, “Captain Fielder and I have been almost quarrelling. He insists upon it that some day or other Germany means to declare war upon us. I have been trying to point out that before many years have passed England and France will have drifted apart. Germany is the nearest to us of the continental nations, isn’t she, by relationship and race?”

  “Mrs. Barlow,” Selingman pronounced, “yours is the most sensible allusion to international politics which I have heard for many years. You are right. If I may be permitted to say so,” he added, “Captain Fielder is wrong. Germany has no wish to fight with any one. The last country in the world with whom she wo
uld care to cross swords is England.”

  “If Germany does not wish for war,” Captain Fielder persisted, “why does she keep such an extraordinary army? Why does she continually add to her navy? Why does she infest our country with spies and keep all her preparations as secret as possible?”

  “Of these things I know little,” Selingman confessed, “I am a manufacturer, and I have few friends among the military party. But this we all believe, and that is that the German army and navy are our insurance against trouble from the east. They are there so that in case of political controversy we shall have strength at our back when we seek to make favourable terms. As to using that strength, God forbid!”

  The little lady threw a triumphant glance across at her companion.

  “There, Captain Fielder,” she declared, “you have heard what a typical, well-informed, cultivated German gentleman has to say. I rely much more upon Mr. Selingman than upon any of the German reviews or official statements of policy.”

  Captain Fielder was bluntly unconvinced.

  “Mr. Selingman, without doubt,” he agreed, “may represent popular and cultivated German opinion. The only thing is whether the policy of the country is dictated by that class. Do you happen to have seen the afternoon papers?”

  “Not yet,” Mr. Selingman admitted. “Is there any news?”

  “There is the full text,” Captain Fielder continued, “of Austria’s demands upon Servia. I may be wrong, but I say confidently that those demands, which are impossible of acceptance, which would reduce Servia, in fact, to the condition of a mere vassal state, are intended to provoke a state of war.”

  Mr. Selingman shook his head.

  “I have seen the proposals,” he remarked. “They were in the second edition of the morning papers. They are onerous, without a doubt, but remember that as you go further east, all diplomacy becomes a matter of barter. They ask for so much first because they are prepared to take a great deal less.”