“This woman is known to me,” he confided. “She has had a slight fit but she will be better in the air. You bring her out and I will follow,” he directed. “We can leave the place by the stage door. I will take her to her home.”
The woman groaned but showed no signs of reviving. The attendants carried her off, with Professor Ventura well in the background. The enterprise was safely accomplished. The woman had relapsed into complete unconsciousness when they reached a waiting taxicab. Once they arrived at the Avenue Laperle everything was easy.
Farther down in the great block of buildings which fronted the Avenue Laperle, in the boudoir of Cheng’s Chinese suite, there had been some slight disturbance. Hou Hsi, her eyes languid with love, reluctantly unwound her arms from her husband’s neck.
“My lord is weary of his singing bird?” she asked mockingly.
He replaced the small ivory receiver upon the telephone instrument and rose to his feet.
“You are a sweet opiate for all the hours of all time,” he answered. “But Hou Hsi, great things are astir. Fan Sik Tsun has sent me a prayer that he may depart for Pekin to-night to join the American, Mayne. I must hear what he has to tell me. You will lie here and sleep, dear one, until my return.”
“I am weary,” she sighed, “but if you go I lie here and wait. When you return you shall tell me the story the lightnings bring…”
Almost at the sound of the key in the lock, General Fan Sik Tsun stood on the other side of the threshold. He was already in uniform, a military cloak upon his arm. He bowed low at Cheng’s entrance.
“Your Highness,” he said, “many times I apologise for breaking in upon the night of nights, but behold the great map is there. It tells its own story. I ask your permission to depart.”
“Mark Humberstone is here?” Cheng asked.
“He has this moment arrived,” the General replied, pointing to Mark who was standing inside the railings studying the huge chart. He turned his head at the sound of their voices and advanced to meet them.
“You have heard the General’s request?” Mr. Cheng said. “He believes that the hour has struck. He wishes to leave at once.”
Mark assented briefly.
“I found his message waiting for me when I arrived a few minutes ago. When I heard what he had to say I begged him to send for you at once. Seems to me he’ll have to get a move on.”
“All day I have been in touch with our Chinese stations,” Fan Sik Tsun recounted. “Eastwards from Vladivostok to Moscow the conflagration spreads. The world has become like a smouldering bonfire. Messages are raining in upon us. The panic is spreading across Europe. The press demands the truth. I cannot imagine that they will let us remain here any longer.”
Cheng stood quite still. Although his brow was unfurrowed, it was obvious that he was deep in thought.
“Those damn’ newspapers,” Mark grumbled. “The only thing is that so far as I am concerned I shall have to see our ambassadors in Paris and London before I join Mayne. Otherwise I am ready to pack up.”
“This then,” Cheng said gravely, “is the end.”
“Not the end,” Fan Sik Tsun declared. “The beginning. The glorious beginning. There is one machine which is still not dismantled. It is still connected with the instrument which our marvellous young friend brought with him from Beaumont Park. Spread about on that map,” he added, pointing to the huge chart, “you have army corps comprising very nearly two million men. Behind the chart is a secret panel. Touch a button there and the wave will reach China. Two million swords will be drawn!”
“And then?” Cheng muttered.
“We touch the button,” Fan Sik Tsun repeated, “and Vladivostok will fall to one small cruiser fitted up and manned by Humberstone’s men. A converging concentration from the twenty-seven points marked out there,” he added, pointing to the map, “should then start at the same moment. Simultaneously I would order the unloading of the whole of the rolling stock on the steamers at Vladivostok and the putting of it on the rails. Then should commence the march of supplies covered by reserve forces. The whole scheme, as my lord knows, General Mayne’s scheme, his own scheme and mine which march together even as though they were planned by the same brain, should be brought into work.”
“What do you suppose,” Cheng asked, “the Russian plan of campaign will be?”
Fan Sik Tsun smiled cryptically.
“We have had an army of spies at work,” he said, “for two years. My lord knows how far reaching their labours have been. They have penetrated even into the councils of Moscow, into the War Cabinet, into the most secret chamber of all—the People’s Supplies Committee. The Russian armies may march but they will not fight.”
“They will not fight because I shall not give them the chance,” Mark interposed. “In a sense there is something tragic about it because the Russians have always been brave soldiers.”
“It is true,” Cheng pronounced, “that the armies of the Grand Duke Michael, the famous ancestor of Catherine Oronoff, performed prodigies, but the Russian armies of today are like those great flocks of sheep which in the old days one could see on the banks of the great rivers. They will go where they are driven and the moment the driving power ceases they flag. They have no patriotism. Those who misrule Russia have murdered it. They have no religion. Again, those who misrule Russia have stripped it out of their hearts and souls. They are animals, and animals never fight if they can creep away…Compare them with the soldiers of our celestial country. Every man goes into battle with flashing eyes, with the thought of his great overlord to inspire him, with the certainty of Paradise in the hereafter if he should fall. The great overlord may be a myth, the figure behind the clouds no more than an inspiration, but the inspiration must be there. A wind of destruction has blown even as though it were the weapon of a destroying angel through the towns and country of Russia. The souls of the people have perished. They might make a brave show but if it came to fighting they would crumble like the dust…I grant your request my General,” Cheng concluded. “This shall be the great moment of the generation.”
Fan Sik Tsun’s face was illuminated with joy.
“To-night, with my lord’s permission,” he announced, “I shall fly to Alexandria and from there I shall cross to General Mayne’s headquarters. Everything is prepared. My staff is already chosen. There were only two causes for delay when I begged for your lordship’s presence here tonight.”
“What were they?” Cheng demanded.
“One was the word.”
“I give it.”
“The second was the slaying of the world’s great enemy.”
“It is accomplished.”
The little man with the brown withered skin, the clear deep-set eyes and the soft voice stood for a moment motionless. He was simply dressed, his uniform indeed might have been found in an emporium of readymade garments in the Avenue de la Victoire, his very lack of height seemed to rob him of distinction. Yet as he stood there, very rigid, his eyes devouring the great chart before which they had been gathered, one remembered that there was not a medal or order which had been issued by the military dictators of his own days or the sovereigns of ages before which had not flashed upon his narrow chest. There was something in the faraway lights of his eyes at that moment curiously suggestive. He had sat on his horse, he had leaned back in his old-fashioned, imperfectly protected automobile, he had climbed to the spurs of mountains through the snow and ice to watch without a tremor on his face battles upon the issue of which hung the destiny of his country, the destiny of a once still greater power, the destiny of a decaying Empire. No man could claim more than he to have seen in agony and bloodshed the making of the new history of the world…Slowly he moved now towards the platform in front of the chart. His hand crept behind the frame, his thumb was turned downwards. A panel slid back. He pressed a hidden knob. As they stood there they heard the soft vibrant ringing of a bell, drowned in a few moments by the louder vibrations of the sleeping instruments he h
ad awakened. One of those toneless, denationalised shadows of men who seemed to haunt the place came silently up to Cheng. He whispered a few rapid words. Cheng was swift to act, although his expression remained unchanged. He summoned Mark. The two turned together towards the door. They glanced back at the General but it was doubtful whether the latter noticed their going. A strange tumult awakened by the instruments below grew in volume. In his mind those pegs had become divisions. Great hordes of men were creeping across the empty spaces, fording rivers, climbing mountains, marching with eager feet to the everlasting rumble of artillery, supply wagons and the beating of aeroplane engines. The campaign had commenced.
CHAPTER XXIV
Table of Contents
Cowardice, a very awkward and difficult characteristic for a man who had lived the life of Paul Hanson, was at its old tricks again. He felt a sudden sinking of the heart. The spirit of bravado with which he had awaited the coming of Mr. Cheng and Mark Humberstone seemed suddenly to have deserted him. He shuffled in his chair and though his knees felt like water he was conscious of an urgent desire for flight. Yet not a threat had been uttered. To all appearance the two men who had come down to receive his visit were only slightly interested, perhaps a little mildly amused, by his story when he made his last attempt at bluff.
“Well, there it is, Mr. Chinaman,” he wound up, “or whatever your name may be. You run this Bureau, so I am told. Anyway you are responsible for what goes on here. The woman cannot be found anywhere but I know that she was brought into this building unconscious after her outburst at the Casino. She is here now somewhere and the police are looking for her.”
There was a chill silence for a moment, a silence which somehow or other Hanson disliked. Mr. Cheng was lolling against the desk, indifferent yet with a faintly derisive expression upon his face. Mark was seated in an easy chair with his hands clasped behind his head, smoking a cigarette. At that moment Hanson himself would have given the world to have been inhaling tobacco smoke up his nostrils. His yellow stained fingers were twitching with desire, his lips were dry and his throat parched.
“A quaint but significant story,” Mr. Cheng observed calmly. “What I ask myself is why Mr.— did you say your name was Hanson?—why you come to me at this unusual hour instead of taking your very interesting information to the police?”
Hanson made a gesture at rising from his chair but he knew quite well that without a smoke, without a drink, without something to give him a spark of courage he would never be able to reach the door.
“All right,” he said, “it is your choice—not mine. I will go.”
Mr. Cheng put out that beautiful white hand of his with the big jade ring and waved it gently. Hanson obeyed. He ceased his effort and sank a little farther back in his chair.
“You must not misunderstand me, Mr. Hanson,” Cheng continued. “I have no wish to part with you. Please do not think that I am inhospitable but it did occur to me to wonder why you did not carry that very interesting information to the Gendarmerie opposite or to police headquarters. If Professor Ventura brought the woman here, however, the matter is simple. You would doubtless like to interview him?”
“Not I,” the man in the chair called out. “I wish to have nothing to do with Jonson, or Professor Ventura, as he calls himself.”
“Dear me!” Cheng exclaimed. “I thought that he was a friend and an ally.”
Hanson shivered. He looked round the room as though praying for a door to open or anything to happen. What a fool he had been! This smooth-tongued Chinese aristocrat who had slipped through his fingers in London knew everything.
“Three of you there were in Moscow,” Mr. Cheng went on reflectively. “Jonson, Krakoff and Hanson. Very fine fellows. You were the bodyguard of a person of consequence in Moscow—yes?”
Hanson made no reply. Mr. Cheng continued.
“Occasionally you had outside commissions. One brought you not long ago to London. There you were not quite so successful as your talents and courage deserved. In other words—you failed. Mr. Jonson returned to the new duties which he had taken on. You—Hanson—and Krakoff also, came down to Nice. I wonder why? Was it to follow me or was it to protect the man who was to arrive?”
Hanson’s finger nails were digging into his flesh. He felt that at any moment he might be sick. It was a spasm of cowardice which had seized him. The overheated atmosphere of the room—for Mr. Cheng loved warmth—seemed icy. He felt the chill in his veins.
“Ah, well, why should you give away your secrets?” Mr. Cheng went on tolerantly. “Here am I and there are you, Paul Hanson. Did you come here to-night to make good your failure in London or did you come here with the idea of being allowed to visit your lady friend? That could doubtless be arranged.”
Words of a sort came to the panic-stricken man.
“I know nothing of her. I with to know nothing. I came because I thought it was best. I want to get away out of this country. I thought you might help me.”
“Blackmail,” was the quiet comment. “I am glad you came, Hanson. After all, I would rather you came here, you know, than went to the police.”
Mr. Cheng threw away the end of his cigarette and turned towards Mark. It seemed to Hanson that this was his chance. He rose to his feet and made his unsteady way to the door. He tried the handle and pulled. Useless. The door refused to move. He turned the handle every way and shook it at last. Finally he looked round. His tormentor was watching him with a smile.
“A little device of ours,” the latter explained. “When we have a particularly unpleasant visitor and we think there may be trouble, we tread upon a little bell underneath the carpet here—so simple—and the door is locked on the other side. Would you really like to run away from us so soon? I hope not, for you see it is unfortunate but we cannot afford to let you go.”
“I am not going to the police,” the shivering man gasped. “I never thought of going there. It is not my affair. All that I want is to get away.”
Mark rose to his feet. He glanced contemptuously towards the speaker and addressed his colleague.
“He’s a poor little rat,” he said, “but I don’t see that he can do us any harm. I should pack him off about his business.”
“The matter is more serious than that,” Mr. Cheng replied. “You have not heard what happened to-night—only a few hours ago.”
“Anything new?”
“Jonson was giving his usual show at the Casino—that was not a very sane thing to do—and this woman rose in her place, shouting out that he was an assassin. There was a great commotion. She had a fit. Jonson, who is really very clever at dealing with a crisis, got to her first, gave her a glass of water and some medicine and spirited her away before she recovered consciousness.”
“She is here now, then, in the building?”
“Precisely. She is not likely to give any trouble just yet but there she is locked up in Jonson’s room.”
Mark was momentarily perplexed.
“You never told me any details about that night.”
“It was not necessary. What had to happen happened, and Jonson was there by his own special request. He had a reason for that. Anyhow he was there and the woman saw him. So was I. The men who disposed of Mr. Paul Agrestein’s body a mile or so out at sea were to have looked after the lady too when they got back. You know that the lives or deaths of this sort of people,” Mr. Cheng went on, “are a matter of absolute indifference to me, but I try, my dear Mark, sometimes to remember your scruples—and the lady lives, to make herself rather a nuisance, it seems. Of course, it is only a matter of hours. When we reach Paris, for the first time we reveal our whole scheme. After that we are supreme. No one will venture to interfere. History has known many occasions upon which a political assassination of a far more criminal type has been adjudged anything but a crime.”
Mark nodded.
“Meanwhile there is this poor devil here listening hard all the time.”
Cheng returned to his chair without imme
diate reply. He lit another cigarette and looked thoughtfully across the room.
“It has just occurred to me, Hanson,” he said. “You have had quite a reasonable chance of making up for your failure in London.”
“You are mistaken about that,” the terrified man protested. “It was Krakoff alone who had a commission. You can see for yourself—”
He rose to his feet and turned his pockets inside out. Mark stood over him.
“He is telling the truth,” the latter declared. “He has no weapon.”
“And I can tell you why,” Mr. Cheng said with gentle sarcasm. “It was taken from him below. No one of whom we have suspicions is allowed in any of the audience rooms until Jacob or one of the men has been over him. That is true, is it not, Hanson? They took your gun away before they brought you here.”
“That is true,” the latter admitted. “But I swear before God I did not bring it here to use.”
Cheng looked straight into his eyes, and Hanson felt strangely as though he were some sort of wild animal who had blundered into a trap. He said nothing but there was a queer feeling at the back of his head. He tried to look away and failed. The terror had come back. All the time, the door behind him was being slowly opened. Mr. Jonson came noiselessly in, still carrying the master key by which he had gained admittance. He reached the back of the chair. Mr. Cheng nodded and the grip was upon the terrified man’s throat before he could move. He gave one cry a gurgling panic stricken effort at speech—then he collapsed. Mr. Cheng looked at him scornfully.
“Take him away, Jonson,” he ordered. “It would be a kindly thing to let him die of fright, perhaps, but the moment is scarcely opportune. Take him away.”
Jonson dragged the fainting man to his feet. He shook him slightly and a small but wicked-looking knife fell from some concealed place in his coat onto the carpet.
“Take him away,” Cheng repeated contemptuously, “and his toy with him. He would never have had the courage to use it.”
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