“I’m for the hospital,” Mallinson answered. “I want to see the physician. If someone can breathe just one word to Cheshire it may save his life. I wonder whether he would recognise the code.”
“What—Cheshire?” Fakenham demanded.
“Yes.”
Fakenham laughed quietly.
“The man’s a living marvel,” he said. “He knows the code book backwards. One word, General. That’s all that’s wanted: JUBILATION.”
CHAPTER XXXI
Table of Contents
Once again, the palatial London home of Henry D. Prestley was the scene of great and gorgeous celebrations. Signor Broccia, the Ambassador from her country, bent over Sabine’s fingers and there was a quiver of emotion in his tone as he greeted her. They spoke, as they always had done, naked words to one another.
“You are content?” she asked him anxiously.
“It is for the best, Princess,” he replied. “Sometimes one is led away into the region of alluring dreams but there come the awakening moments. War is a horrible and brutal force. I am content. So is the better part of my country behind me.”
She sighed with relief. There were things in her mind which he would never know, but his words and his manner seemed almost like absolution.
“And the Master?”
“For the time being he sulks in his cage, an angry lion. That will pass. The age of a greater wisdom comes. It must be a joy to you, dear Princess,” he went on, “to know that your husband has helped as much as any other man in the world towards stopping war. It was a terrible blow to our Minister of Finance when he practically destroyed every hope we had of a foreign loan.”
She smiled.
“I think there was one who did even more for his country than my husband,” she murmured.
The Ambassador shrugged his shoulders. The stream of guests behind him was brought almost to a standstill. He passed on. Sabine, a minute or two later, took a quick step forward and held out both her hands to the gaunt man who was slowly climbing the stairs.
“Guy!” she exclaimed. “This is really wonderful of you! I cannot tell you—I cannot begin to tell you—how happy it makes me to think that you are here.”
He smiled into her dimmed hazel eyes. There was a momentary gap in the flow of arrivals.
“Dear Sabine,” he said, “you know how I always love a party. I wasn’t going to miss this one. What a glorious show! You have heard the news, I suppose. I am chucked out of hospital free to eat and drink and amuse myself.”
“But who is looking after you?” she asked anxiously. “You ought not to be going about alone.”
“Commander Hincks is my special attaché,” he told her. “Gazetted to-night.”
She held out her hand to the young man who was hovering round.
“I thought there was something strange about your uniform,” she remarked. “Take care of him, Ronnie. Go into the Tapestry Room and as soon as I can I will come and have a talk for a few minutes.”
Henry Prestley, who had been escorting some distinguished guests into the reception room, returned to take up his place by Sabine’s side. He clasped Cheshire’s hand warmly.
“We are missing you at the club,” he declared. “They tell me you are working again.”
“A few things to clear up, that’s all,” was the cheerful reply. “They won’t put me on the retired list yet so I am having a busman’s holiday. Harding is taking me out to Malta in his new toy.”
“The forty-five-thousand-tonner, eh?” Prestley asked with a smile.
The other nodded.
“Your country’s fault we had to build them so big,” he observed. “Come on, Ronnie, help me toddle into a quiet corner somewhere.”
“Here I am, sir,” Hincks replied. “I know just the spot where you will be comfortable. Elida and I fixed it up this afternoon. We have made a regular Holy of Holies of it.”
“I shall be there presently,” Sabine called out over her shoulder.
“And I am coming now,” Elida cried, breaking away from a group of young people.
It was a wonderful and very jealously guarded retreat. Cheshire sank into an easy chair and Elida, with a sigh of satisfaction, settled down close by. Hincks, who had sent a footman away on a not very mysterious errand, arranged a table in front of them.
“Short leave, if you please, sir,” he begged. “I will be back in a few minutes.”
He vanished in the crowd. Elida drew her chair a little nearer to her companion’s.
“Hundreds of things I want to ask you,” she confided.
“I shouldn’t,” he advised. “An over-inquisitive spirit in the young should always be checked.”
“I will be content with one question, then. Broccia looks at me sometimes curiously. Do you think that he suspects?”
“No one will ever know, because he is the type of man who never tells,” Cheshire replied. “And for the sake of your private conscience I will remind you of this. Supposing some of those documents you handled were intended to deceive; I had working against me on the other side a secret envoy of your country who succeeded in selling to various departments of the Government a great many million pounds’ worth of material which was intended to do more than deceive. It would have destroyed.”
“Why were your experts so blind?”
“They were not,” he assured her. “They acted under my instructions when they accepted all these shipments. We should never have used them, but no one else knew that. It was done with the object of instilling into our possible enemies a sense of false security.”
“But that last set of plans?”
“The last effort was different,” Cheshire admitted. “That was our chef d’oeuvre. Whether it was a truthful representation of our intentions is not your affair. You transmitted it. Your agent in the Embassy here eagerly accepted it. In Rome they passed judgment upon it. It was a ruse de guerre which, coming from the head of the British Secret Service, was perfectly justified.”
“But will there not be bad feeling if they find out?”
“No one could find out,” Cheshire assured her. “For that very reason, we are still carrying on the bluff. Imaginary ships have been moved to unknown ports, fifty mine sweepers are at work in the North Sea at the present moment destroying mines which never existed. Guns have been mounted and jealously guarded which could never fire even a cannon ball! They will be dismantled at once. Let that be sufficient.”
A footman brought champagne, filled their glasses and discreetly withdrew.
“Serious talk is now finished,” Cheshire insisted. “I have dwelt enough upon the events of the past few months in my nightmares at the hospital. There is to be no war. To stop that is worth more than the whole soul of any man or woman. When are you and Ronnie going to be married?”
“Very soon,” she confessed.
“Capital.”
“It might be the week after next,” she told him.
“Better still,” he declared. “I shall be here to give you my blessing.”
Sabine swept down upon them, gorgeous in her amber satin gown with its faint suggestion of the old Court crinoline, aglow with the famous diamonds which she so seldom wore, exquisitely human with that faintly wistful light in her eyes as she crossed the room towards them. Behind her came Hincks, a changed man, debonair and happy, perfectly at ease and a very attractive figure in his new uniform.
“Elida,” Sabine said, “you must go and dance with Ronnie. It is my turn in here. I am only afraid that it will be too short.”
The young people departed. Sabine took her sister’s place.
“Guy,” she said, “Elida has not been tiring you, I hope.”
“No, my dear,” he replied. “I have only been trying to set her mind at rest once and for all.”
“I have been so terrified for her, but those days have passed. We are in smooth waters now… . And you, Guy?”
“Off on a pleasure cruise,” he confided. “XYZ is disbanded. Masses of our papers h
ave already gone down to the Tower. The Aircraft Carrier Department is taking over our offices.”
“And you,” she asked, “what will they do for you? There are no honours which your country has to give which should not be yours. I am one of the few who know, remember.”
He smiled.
“My dear Sabine,” he explained, “the men who work on the lines which I have done and for the purpose which I have had in mind think nothing or know nothing of honours. We live in the shadows. I go back to my old job, except that they have given me a ship and six months’ leave.”
“But that is preposterous—” she began.
He stopped her.
“Sabine,” he insisted, “it is common sense. Supposing I were singled out for special promotion, for special orders, for special distinction, would not the whole world want to know how I had earned these things? Then our secrets might be dragged into the light. We work for the salvation of the Empire—not for special distinction. I am absolutely content.”
“It does not seem fair,” she meditated.
“Life,” he pointed out, “is brim-full of compensations.”
She lifted her head. Perhaps she was listening, perhaps she was looking down the avenues of the past, perhaps she was gathering in the sense of her own great position as she caught those glimpses of the moving throng outside, heard the hum of voices, the laughter—knew herself to be the reigning spirit of this great concourse of the world’s distinguished people. Her hand fell softly upon his for a moment.
“Guy,” she asked, “have you ever loved any other woman?”
“Never,” he answered. “Nor have I for one minute,” he went on, after an instant’s pause, “regretted your decision. A poor sailor cuts no sort of show in this great life, Sabine, in this kingdom over which you rule. I have found my meed of happiness in other things. When my days of active service are over I shall have a whole crop of marvellous memories. I think that nature must have meant me for the life I have lived and the post I have held. These things which fill your world I could never have given you.”
“Perhaps,” she said quietly, “you might have given me something which has always been missing, but even you, Guy, could never have been a more wonderful husband than Henry.”
“I suppose,” he declared, “Henry Prestley is about the only man living whom I can think of with content and without a shadow of envy as your husband.”
“Are we super-romantic or ultra-practical?” she asked.
“My dear,” he answered, “we are ourselves and the lives which we have lived and are living seem good to us.”
Elida drifted back presently … Sabine’s private secretary came swiftly to her.
“Princess,” he announced, “word has come from the Palace that their Royal Highnesses have left. They will be here in five minutes.”
Sabine waved her hand in farewell and with her usual unhurried grace swept away towards the reception room. Elida and Cheshire were left alone. A footman hurried up and filled their glasses.
“Guy, may I ask you one more thing,” she begged, “about those affairs that lie behind?”
“Of course,” he acquiesced. “Let us finish with it, my dear. Let us put a seal upon the lot of them but before we stamp it I will gratify your curiosity. Come on, what is it now?”
“Greyes, your valet, the man who shot Florestan on the flying ground?”
“Tried by a special court called together by Act of Parliament under an almost disused statute,” he confided. “Sentenced to detention during his Majesty’s pleasure. As a matter of fact,” he added, with a smile, “it will be a matter of another fortnight.”
“And the large woman, the one who came to the rooms that afternoon—I suppose Ronnie told you—and demanded you? She said she was Florestan’s wife.”
“So she was,” he answered. “At least, for anything I know to the contrary. She had little or no share in his marvellous career. We had to break the firm with which Florestan was associated but there was plenty of money. She has a large income, a flat somewhere in Paris, where she lives with her two children, and she is taking a mature course of voice production to enable her to sing publicly again.”
“One more secret—the shot in Downing Street?”
“They caught the fellow, as you may have read, and half-killed him. It was a long time before he could come into court. His case was remanded and he died in prison.”
“And who was he?”
“His name was Marius Ludini and he was one of the few men in life,” Cheshire told her, “whom I have specially and actually disliked. He was one of Florestan’s gang, a sort of personal bodyguard, I think. I had him in custody once but he escaped from his cell. His job towards the end was to get rid of me, somehow. He was not really a good conspirator any more than he was an agreeable personality. Anyway, that was the end of him.”
“And we go on,” she murmured. “I am marrying Ronnie. Sabine will remain, I suppose, what Signor Broccia called her just now—the greatest feminine figure in diplomatic Europe. Henry will live, too, with his head a little in the clouds, gently detached from the world, loving his wife and bridge more than anything in life. And you are going back to the sea. There is something wrong somewhere, Guy. What is it?”
All the sailor’s high spirits rang out in his happy laugh but if he could have answered her question he preferred silence.
THE END
AMBROSE LAVENDALE, DIPLOMAT
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1. The Man Who Could Have Ended The War
2. The Lost Formula
3. A Deal With Niko
4. General Matravers Repays
5. Susceptible Mr. Kessner
6. The Machinations Of Mr. Courlander
7. The Indiscreet Traveller
8. The Undeniable Force
9. An Interrupted Revue
10. The Sentence Of The Court
1. THE MAN WHO COULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR
Table of Contents
I
IT was a few minutes after one o’clock—the busiest hour of the day at the most popular bar in London. The usual little throng of Americans, journalists, men of business and loiterers, were occupying their accustomed chairs in one corner of the long, green-carpeted room. Around the bar, would-be customers were crowded three or four deep—many of them stalwart Canadians in khaki, making the most of their three days’ leave, and a thin sprinkling of men about town on their way to lunch in the grill-room adjoining. On the outskirts of the group was a somewhat incongruous figure, a rather under-sized, ill-dressed, bespectacled little man, neither young nor old, colourless, with a stoop which was almost a deformity. His fingers were stained to the tip of his nails as though by chemicals or tobacco juice. He held the glass of vermouth which he had just succeeded in obtaining from the bar, half-way suspended to his lips. He was listening to the conversation around him.
‘The most blackguardly trick that has ever been known in civilized warfare!’ a Canadian officer declared indignantly.
‘It’s put the lid on all pretence of conducting this war decently,’ another assented. ‘What about the Hague Convention?’
‘The Hague Convention!’ a young journalist from the other side repeated sarcastically. ‘I should like to know when Germany has ever shown the slightest regard for the Hague Convention or any other agreement which didn’t happen to suit her!’
The little man on the outskirts of the group, who had been listening eagerly to the conversation, ventured upon a question. His accent at once betrayed his transatlantic origin.
‘Say, is there anything fresh this morning?’ he inquired. ‘I haven’t seen the papers yet.’
The Canadian glanced down at the speaker.
‘We were talking,’ he said, ‘about the use of poisonous gases by the Germans. They started pumping them at us yesterday and pretty nearly cleared us out of Ypres.’
The effect of this statement upon the little man was, in its way, ext
raordinary. For a moment he stood with his mouth open, the glass shaking between his fingers, a queer, set repression in his pale face. Then his lips parted and he began to laugh. It was a mirth so obviously ill-timed, so absolutely unaccountable, that they all turned and stared at him. There was no doubt whatever that for some reason or other the news which he had just heard had excited this strange little person almost hysterically. His lips grew further apart, the whole of his face was puckered up in little creases. Then, just as suddenly as his extraordinary impulse towards mirth had come, it seemed to pass away. He drained his glass, set it down on the edge of the counter, and, turning around, walked slowly out of the place. The remarks that followed him were not altogether inaudible and they were distinctly uncomplimentary.
‘All I could do to keep my toe off the little devil!’ the Canadian exclaimed angrily. ‘I’d like to take him back with me out into the trenches for a few days!’
A young man who had been talking to an English officer on the outskirts of the group turned around. He was a tall, well-set-up young man, with a face rather grave for his years and a mouth a little over-firm. He, too, had watched the exit of the stranger, half in indignation, half in contempt.
‘Who was that extraordinary little man?’ he inquired.
No one seemed to know. The waiter paused with a tray full of glasses.
‘He’s staying in the hotel—arrived yesterday from America, sir,’ he announced. ‘I don’t know his name, but I think he’s a little queer in his head.’
The young man set down his glass upon the counter.
‘A person,’ he remarked, ‘who can laugh at such a ghastly thing, must be either very queer in his head indeed, or—’
‘Or what, Ambrose?’ his companion asked.
‘I don’t know,’ the other replied thoughtfully. ‘Well, au revoir, you fellows! I’m going in to lunch. Sure you won’t come with me, Reggie?’
‘Sorry, I have to be back in ten minutes,’ the other replied. ‘See you to-morrow.’
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