“I don’t care a hoot about your stocks and shares,” Prestley assured them. “It’s the franc I was anxious about.”
“Seven points down since yesterday,” Melville declared. “I saw it on the tape downstairs.”
Mallinson yawned.
“No more shop,” he begged. “Your deal, Fakenham. Melville and I are together.”
The first hand was played in silence. Prestley marked down the score and leaned back in his chair.
“If I were Dictator or Monarch or Prime Minister of this bright little island where I am at present much enjoying life,” he said, “I should have the newspaper posters censored.”
“Gets a perfectly sane idea, sometimes, this transatlantic gent,” Mallinson murmured.
“Glad you agree. I left my abode this afternoon a happy man.”
“Congratulations,” Melville grunted. “Considering you had about two thousand people eating you out of hearth and home and doing their best to drink your cellars dry last week, you seem to be bearing up pretty well.”
“I was all right until I saw those damn’ posters,” Prestley confided as he sorted his cards. “There’s one just outside. ‘Reported hitch in foreign conversations. Gloomy tone in City.’ Is Britain really going to be bullied into war, does anyone know?”
“No one, unless they are actually in the Cabinet, knows a thing of what is going on,” Mallinson declared blandly. “All that we know of politics is confided to us by the leader in the Times and the hysterics of the Express. I gather from these that the Dictators are slowly making mincemeat of our plenipotentiaries and ambassadors.”
Prestley glanced towards the closed door.
“I read the Times occasionally,” he said, “also less often the Express, but I form my ideas as to whether things are going well or badly chiefly from Cheshire’s expression. I saw him in the distance somewhere near Bury Street last evening on his way, I suppose, from the Admiralty to one of his usual haunts in Piccadilly, and to me he looked as though the blow had already fallen.”
The door had been quietly opened. It was now closed. Cheshire stood there on the threshold scowling.
“Who is libelling me?” he demanded.
Prestley sorted his cards.
“On the contrary,” he objected. “I was just saying that you should be regarded as the human barometer. I saw you last night looking like a thundercloud. I knew then that you had had bad news down at that gloomy show of yours and that probably the enemy fleets were already in the Thames!”
“My expression at that moment,” Cheshire explained, “meant nothing except that I was still feeling the effects of that marvellous champagne which was flowing in your palace last week.”
“That’s the one weak spot in the British Navy,” Prestley sighed. “They never could stand their liquor.”
The playing of the hand commenced. The bidding was spirited. It was at least a quarter of an hour before any remark outside the game was ventured upon.
“This looks like a conspiracy to keep me out,” Cheshire grunted as the callers wrote down the amount of their penalty.
“A perfectly justifiable catastrophe,” Melville declared. “A partner who revokes is the one thing to be dreaded at this game.”
“Many a rubber,” Cheshire pronounced, “has been won by a judicious revoke. The great thing is to know when to make it and to measure rightly the intelligence of your opponents.”
“No more back chat,” Prestley insisted. “War is declared. I go four no trumps.”
A dreary negative on his left.
“Grand slam,” from his partner.
“Pass me,” murmured the General.
“And me,” echoed Prestley.
“Double,” from Melville.
There was no redouble. Melville led the ace of clubs. Prestley’s partner exposed his hand. Prestley laid his on the table.
“Any other lead, my friend,” he said, “and you had chosen your bedfellow for the night!”
Cheshire rose to his feet with a sigh.
“I shall go to the library and find a book,” he declared. “I might have been dealing the cards myself. Two absolute Yarboroughs except for the ace of clubs against two mighty no-trumpers and they lose thousands! The game progresses. My God!”
Nevertheless, in due time the inevitable happened. The rubber came to an end. Almost simultaneously Brooks, the only waiter who was allowed to enter the small card room, made his appearance with a note upon a salver. He presented it to Mallinson, who glanced it through and passed it across the table to Cheshire who had just returned. The latter nodded.
“Serve you right for keeping me out so long,” he remarked to the other three. “Mallinson and I have to go.”
“Downing Street?” Prestley asked.
Cheshire nodded. His remark was scarcely reverent.
“The old man’s got the jitters,” he confided. “The General and I are off to save the Empire.”
CHAPTER VII
Table of Contents
The Prime Minister’s reception of his two visitors was friendly but a little depressing. He motioned them to chairs.
“Sorry to trouble you again so soon,” he said, “but I have been thinking over your request to me, General Mallinson.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It seems to me that if we waited until the time came for mobilisation, we might miss the bus. We three are alone together now. I should like to have a few words with you on this Secret Service question. The increase in the number of foreign spies working here seems to me rather significant.”
“No doubt about that, sir,” Cheshire acknowledged, accepting and lighting a cigarette from the box which his host had passed him. “At a rough estimate I should say that there were twice as many major spies at work here as ever before. Money is being thrown about everywhere. Half the time the trouble is to avoid arresting some of these fellows before we have found out as much as we want to about what they are after.”
The Premier nodded.
“Well, I’m glad you realise what you are up against,” he remarked. “Remember, I consider that you, Admiral Cheshire, you, General Mallinson, and the Commissioner of Police at Scotland Yard are the three people responsible for dealing with this inroad. We discussed this afternoon, as you doubtless remember, the much stiffer attitude, during the last week or so, of our friends, or rather, I should say, our enemies in Europe.”
“Certainly, sir,” Mallinson admitted.
“I suppose it has occurred to you,” the Premier continued, “that all this increase in the number of spies working here is due to the fact that the enemy are furiously anxious to discover just how our scheme of rearmament is progressing.”
“That, too, was mentioned this afternoon,” Mallinson pointed out.
“You are, without a doubt, then, feeling your responsibilities,” the Prime Minister continued. “It is obvious that a great many of these spies have succeeded in getting through reports which have disclosed a considerable part at any rate of the situation.”
“To a certain extent, sir, that may be true,” Cheshire replied. “Our reaction to that is simple. A portion, by far the most important portion, of the reports which are sent out almost daily from London and all over England we could stop if we liked.”
“You could stop?” the Premier repeated incredulously. “Then why the mischief don’t you?”
“Because,” Cheshire explained, “at the present moment our counter-espionage is at least as good as any work that is being done on the other side. A great many reports are being sent to foreign countries, through sources which they consider above suspicion, based upon information which is not altogether correct.”
The Prime Minister stroked his chin.
“Aren’t you taking a great responsibility in letting these reports go through?” he asked.
“Perhaps so,” Cheshire admitted, “but on the other hand we believe that it pays. I need not say that both the General and I are proud of our organisations. Foreign esp
ionage over here is very far-reaching and comprises an enormous number of correspondents, but our counter-espionage is, on the whole, a great deal better.”
“What you mean, then, I suppose,” the Premier remarked, “is that you are deliberately permitting two enemy countries to build up an idea as to the progress of our rearmament schemes, which is, to say the least of it, pessimistic.”
“Quite true, sir,” Cheshire acquiesced. “You are putting into plain words what I was only hinting at.”
“I knew that something of the sort was a recognised principle, of course,” the Premier went on thoughtfully, “but just now don’t you see the danger of the position? We are at work tooth and nail to prevent war. The reports you are allowing to go through might be reports which are likely to encourage it.”
“On the other hand,” the General pointed out, “the advantage of having an enemy country completely deceived as regards our position, say with regard to the calibre of our guns or the number of divisions we could put into the field at once or the capacity of our planes, might easily win the war for us.”
“We always win any war in the long run,” the Prime Minister observed a little irritably. “What good do we get out of it? None at all. We generally find ourselves having to pay our enemies’ debts.”
“The coming of war,” Cheshire ventured, “is never likely to be wholly influenced by the reports of spies. On the other hand, supposing war comes, we should be in a much better position if the enemy conducted their tactics in ignorance of our true dispositions. For example, sir, the Admiralty have bought five thousand tons of a metal which is really an alloy of aluminium from a neutral country. The enemy believe we are going to use those five thousand tons in coverings for our aeroplanes and they know perfectly well that the stuff, instead of being non-inflammable, as it should be, will blaze up at the slightest suggestion of fire. Of course it is not going on our planes at all. It is going on the dump heaps.”
“Pretty costly piece of work, that. You have to pay for it.”
“Yes,” Cheshire admitted, “but, unlike most of the material we have bought, this comes to us on extended terms of credit. Long before we have parted with the money we shall have found out its defects and turned it down.”
The Premier was thoughtful for a few moments.
“It is a dangerous game you two are playing,” he remarked. “You are really encouraging enemy countries to have a whack at us.”
“Our idea,” Cheshire pointed out, “is to carry on right to the last moment and then let the truth leak out about one or two little matters. Simultaneously, there is a chance that the enemy may come into possession of papers purporting to disclose an exceedingly well-thought-out offensive, with which they might have to deal. It would be calculated to give them a shock. Personally, I think we should always be able to engineer a climb-down on their part.”
“Something up your sleeve there,” the Prime Minister observed with a smile.
“My pièce de résistance.”
The Prime Minister changed the subject a little abruptly.
“What about this Naval Captain of yours—Ryson—who shot himself the other day?”
Cheshire was suddenly grave.
“You realise, of course, sir,” he said, “that his letter was a fake. It is a terrible thing to have to confess of anyone in the Service, but I have had the idea for some time that he was engaged in traitorous work. The time came when I was able to prove it. No information that he has passed on will do us any harm. On the other hand, the enemy believe, or will believe in a day or two, that they have the secret of the hidden deck on our new fast cruisers.”
The Premier was once more thoughtful.
“What you have told me, gentlemen,” he said at last, “is in a way reassuring. It may account to some extent for this change of attitude on the Continent. I cannot say, however, that I am completely convinced as to its wisdom. I shall have to consult a few of my colleagues. Keep a tight hand on your operations for the next few days. I agree, of course,” he concluded, rising, “to the principle of supplying false information. On the other hand, in this instance it is a distinct incentive to the one thing we want to avoid—war.”
“Do you think you will ever be able to avoid it, sir?” Cheshire asked quietly.
“It must be avoided for another two months at any rate,” the Prime Minister declared.
The two men, as was their custom, left separately—Cheshire on foot, walking the few hundred yards to the Admiralty, Mallinson returning in a taxicab to his almost secret block of offices in a little-frequented part of the War Office. They met again at the hour for apéritifs at the club. Cheshire, who had been unable to forget the slight break in the Premier’s voice as he had uttered his last brief sentence, referred to it almost at once.
“The Chief was right, in a way, this afternoon,” he pointed out. “We are not pulling quite the same rope. His job is to prevent war. That is not exactly our line. Ours is to see that if the war comes we win it.”
The General sipped his glass of sherry.
“That robot-like man with still, set features and glasses and half-opened mouth is perfectly right,” he admitted. “You and I are treading all the time on gunpowder, you know, Cheshire. Can’t you imagine them gloating in some faraway council chamber over the false plans of that cruiser of yours and chuckling when they think that those five thousand tons of aluminium are quite enough to make a whole fleet of fighting planes worthless? It’s a dirty business sometimes, Cheshire.”
“You don’t think I like it, do you?” was the almost savage rejoinder. “What about your Gibraltar plans?”
Mallinson nodded.
“That has been the finest achievement of our whole organisation,” he declared.
“Yes, but don’t forget,” Cheshire reminded him, “you had to kill three partially innocent people before you brought that off. Not only that, but if any enemy were to launch an attack upon the place, based upon what they believed to be the existing conditions, it would cost them a thousand or two of lives.”
“That,” the General replied more equably, “would be la guerre.”
Footsteps were heard approaching and the conversation between the two men faded away. Prestley lifted the curtain and entered the room.
“You haven’t come back expecting another rubber at this hour of the evening, have you?” Cheshire asked.
Prestley shook his head. He drew the curtain again behind him and joined his two friends.
“No, I don’t want to play any more bridge,” he confided. “I came back rather hoping that I might find you here, Cheshire.”
“Here I am, a little crushed, but still cheerful,” the latter observed. “At your service, my friend. I’m ready to lend you a spot of money if that’s what you are looking for, or to stand you a drink. What about a glass of this sherry?”
Prestley nodded in an abstracted sort of fashion. The Admiral filled a glass from the decanter which was standing on a silver salver between the two men. Prestley sipped its contents with the air of one whose thoughts were far away.
“Tell us some good news,” Cheshire begged. “Mallinson and I are feeling rather depressed. We have been round to Downing Street and had something of a wigging from the old man.”
“If I had been on the same terms with the old man, as you call him, as you two are, I should probably have been a visitor in Downing Street myself this afternoon. Somehow or other, he is always a little stiff with me.”
“No one in the world would believe it,” Mallinson remarked, “but I have come to the conclusion that our Prime Minister is a shy man.”
“Maybe,” Prestley agreed. “Anyway, there is something I would like to say, but I don’t want to say it to the Press. You two fellows would be as good confidants as anyone else and, mind you, what I am going to disclose comes in just the course of a friendly little chat.”
Cheshire and Mallinson were very silent. They both listened intently.
“What I mean,” Prestley
continued, “is that I am not making a confidential communication to you, I am telling you a fact which you can make use of exactly as you like. All I say is—keep away from any direct intercourse with the Press. Get me?”
They nodded acquiescence. Prestley went on.
“Well, this is what I want you to know,” he said. “You are aware that Count Patani came to England on some sort of a special mission and that he never went near the Foreign Office and only left a card at Downing Street? As a matter of fact, his visit over here was not official in the least. He did not come with the idea of discussions of any sort with the British Foreign Office. He came to see me.”
“The devil he did!” Cheshire interjected.
“To justify myself,” Prestley went on, “and you know I am very careful in such matters, directly he announced that he was visiting London on a special mission to me which must be considered entirely confidential, I shut him straight up. I told him that as a member of a friendly nation living in England, I could not agree to a confidential interview with anyone whose country was on strained relations with the Court of St. James’s. I offered to hear what he had to say and to give it my consideration, but I declined to treat his visit, or any offer he might make, as confidential.”
“This man ought to have been a diplomat,” Cheshire murmured.
“Patani was a considerable time hesitating after that,” Prestley continued. “In the end he accepted the situation. His mission was to ask me for assistance in helping to arrange an immediate loan of a very large sum of money to his country in case she should find herself in urgent need.”
His two listeners were pensive for several moments.
“In urgent need of it,” the General repeated, “means war, of course.”
“That depends upon how you choose to take it,” Prestley went on, the frank, good-humoured expression and twinkle in his eyes temporarily banished, his face the face of a very serious man. “You understand that in coming to you and telling you this I take it for granted that you are as anxious to keep affairs of this sort out of the Press as I am. I cannot accept the hospitality of your country and the friendship of so many delightful people and remain silent upon such an important matter. I leave it to you two entirely how you treat the communication I have just made. Pass it on to anyone whom you think ought to know, but keep the Press out of it.”
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