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

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  “You were there so long as that?” Catherine murmured.

  “Two years and a month. Always under another name, always on my guard, always in danger of my life. I shall tell you what I believe to be the truth, that no man alive to-day has seen so much of and understands so well the Russian—shall I use the English phrase and say, the Russian ‘man in the street’? I do not mean the wealthy tradesman, not the man who has battened upon these changed conditions or who enjoys the robes of authority, but the Russian, that great class starting with the farmer and the industrial worker and ending with the peasant, that is where, if any of the soul of Russia survives, it is to be found. I know what they want. I know what must come to Russia to set her free. It is all planned. It is all inevitable. It will come, Mark. It will come, Catherine Oronoff. You could not stop it if you would—nor I. We simply have to bow our heads.”

  Catherine, still clinging to Mark’s arm, was listening intently to every word. The man by her side was filled only with bitter impatience.

  “Russia can be saved and will be saved,” Cheng proceeded, “but in one way only. She will be saved by the return of some form of monarchical government.”

  Catherine’s exclamation was one of sheer amazement. Her eyes were fixed upon Cheng.

  “The heads of the army will take the lead when they realise that thanks to the genius of your father, Mark Humberstone, and you who have followed in his footsteps, fighting is no longer of any avail. Soldiering will be an extinct profession. They will go back, those men who were to have become mercenaries, to the soil or to the factories, and the government which has overridden them for these last miserable years and trained them to face an inglorious death will exist no longer. They will have offered to them a gift which they will eagerly accept—government by a limited monarchy such as England possesses. That is part of my scheme—an inevitable part. It is founded upon a deep study of Russian psychology. They demand some form of absolute but not unlicensed autocracy. They will have it. The world at large only smiled and looked upon it as opera bouffe when Alexander the Grand Duke was proclaimed Czar of Russia in Paris some two years ago. I arranged that. It was a simple affair enough then but, although he does not know it, within twelve months Alexander’s coronation will be repeated in Moscow. My great mistake has been not to have taken him, or the only woman whom the Russians would accept as their Czarina, into my confidence.”

  “Does Alexander know anything of this?” Catherine asked.

  “Nothing,” Mr. Cheng replied. “It was not wise to tell him. He has been removed from all fear of poverty, though, and he believes that the income which is paid to him comes from estates which have never been confiscated. He is living a life of dignity, but in partial seclusion.”

  “And the woman?” Mark demanded.

  “There is only one amongst the noble families of Russia which never, in the old days of tyranny, earned the curses of even a single peasant. They were always beloved. The memory of them is venerated to-day by thousands who were once their serfs and then their dependents. That is the family of Oronoff of which Catherine Oronoff is the head.”

  “In Christ’s name!” Mark muttered profanely.

  “It was because of my plans,” Cheng concluded, “that I sought out Catherine Oronoff in Paris and through my agents offered her an ample salary and protection here. I deeply regret what has happened, Mark, because you are the last person in the world upon whom I would willingly inflict pain or disappointment, but our great plan for the rebuilding of the world has started and gains momentum every hour. It must go on, like a Juggernaut. There are human beings who must suffer. There are many who will lose their lives before the new world runs smoothly.”

  Catherine shook her head.

  “It is magnificent,” she admitted reluctantly, “but it can never be. I have suffered, as every one of my race has suffered, so that I wonder sometimes that I have survived. Now I have found Mark, and I have found my new life.”

  There was a glow on Mark’s face as he drew her closer to him.

  “You hear that, Cheng?” he cried with a thrill of triumph in his tone. “I don’t need to tell you how I am feeling about it. It would take a stronger power than has ever yet been born into the world to separate us. You have heard Catherine’s decision from her own lips. Carry on your scheme, if you like. The scheme is all right—but Alexander will have to find another woman to rule with him.”

  “I do not ask you, just as I have not asked the Princess, to make any sacrifice or to come to any decision,” Cheng reminded him gravely. “The fate which governs us all will take that into her keeping.”

  “Fate has already decided,” was the emphatic rejoinder. “At half-past two this afternoon Catherine will become Mrs. Mark Humberstone. You can go somewhere else to find your Czarina.”

  “It is unfortunate that you should have made any such plans, Mark,” Cheng regretted, “but this marriage is an impossibility.”

  “Have you appointed yourself my guardian or Catherine’s?” Mark demanded with a calmness which surprised himself.

  “I am not your guardian,” was the suave reply. “I never pretended to be. There is without doubt much affection between you and Catherine Oronoff. That very affection should make you pause. What have you to offer, Mark, to compare with the happiness which Catherine Oronoff will feel when she rules over the great kingdom of her subjects, when she knows that she is beloved by all of them for bringing back happiness and prosperity to her country? What life have you to offer compared with that?”

  “The life you are imagining may turn out to be a fairy story. What I offer her is real, and that she knows.”

  “Mine is no fairy story. It is a prophecy.”

  “And you the self-appointed prophet?” Mark scoffed.

  “Why not?” Cheng asked calmly. “There are many of my race during the last few thousand years who have sent out their message to the world. Many who have lived and died with the flame of inspiration always alight in their souls. We speak of what lies outside our actual knowledge in these modern places, in strange clothes and an atmosphere foul with men’s evil lives, but we remain sometimes not of this life although we are in it. The things which I promise you will come to pass. Catherine here is destined to be Czarina of Russia and if she listens to my words that is what she will become.”

  Mark was standing still with his arm round Catherine’s shoulder. He stooped and kissed her forehead.

  “Listen, Cheng,” he said, “we won’t argue. You were always something of a dreamer but you are not going to get away with this. I am not a miracle worker or an illusionist, but here are some plain facts for you. This is the girl whom I am going to marry and if anyone tries to take her away from me he will pay the price. You know yourself what that will be—we have worked together for seven years, I to breathe life into this legacy left me by my father, you, with also I believe a genuine love for peace in your heart, to walk in step with me because at the same time you could restore the fallen fortunes of your country. These are plain words instead of allegories, but I am right so far, am I not?”

  “Quite right.”

  “Very well,” Mark went on. “I am willing to continue that partnership. I am willing to guarantee all that I have promised. I will render powerless any army that confronts you, or any limb of it. The great army we have built up will be for show only, because fighting will not be possible. When that is realised by the world there must be peace. That is the end of our campaign together, is it not?”

  “It is our goal.”

  “Very well. Now we come to this. I am a practical American, and destiny, fatalism and those shadowy philosophies, which in their way are wonderful, do not come into my scheme of life. You have told me that I shall not marry Catherine Oronoff. Interfere between us successfully and I break our compact. I break my faith with others who have trusted me. I withdraw every American soldier and instructor from your armies, and I stop the supplies which alone could keep them in being. Look the matter in t
he face, Cheng. I am not underrating you. You are a great schemer and a fine politician, you have insight and genius and you have awakened a spirit in your nation which no one else could ever have called out. Yet you cannot carry out this scheme without me, and out of it I go if you make the slightest movement towards separating Catherine and me. I shall succeed in the ultimate object of my life but I shall succeed in my own way. Is that clear?”

  The time had come when Cheng at last showed signs of feeling. He looked at Mark in an almost bewildered fashion. Incredulity was written in his face.

  “It seems a foolish question to ask a man with your intellect, Mark Humberstone,” he said, “but are these serious words of yours? Together we stand upon the threshold of recreating the earth and you threaten to withdraw for a woman’s sake, one particular woman, just because fate has decreed that you should lose her.”

  “She happens to be my woman,” Mark answered firmly, “and I am not going to lose her.”

  Catherine was still clinging to him but it was plain that she, too, was suffering. She would have interposed but Cheng raised his hand.

  “But Mark,” he persisted, “do you not understand? I know these Russians. A Czar alone would never strike the right note. There is no other family so beloved throughout the whole of Russia as the Oronoffs. Catherine is the one possible saviour of her country. Russia from next year onward will be climbing step by step. Soon she will be holding out her arms to those miserable exiles whom you find in every city in Europe. She will gather back all her children. Catherine will have brought happiness to millions. You think nothing of this? It is a small thing?”

  “It is all a picture of what may happen,” Mark answered. “It savours too much of fantasy. You waste your breath, Cheng. You come of a race who don’t see life as we see it. The woman we care for means everything to us. For me Catherine is the only woman, and I am not giving her up.”

  He felt her fingers digging into his arm. He looked down and saw that she was trembling. She met the question in his eyes bravely.

  “I am not asking you for myself, Catherine,” he begged, “but tell Cheng that he is wasting his breath.”

  “I think he knows it,” Catherine said, looking courageously across at the grave, motionless figure. “I shall keep my word to Mark because I love him and I could love no one else. What you say,” she went on, “sounds wonderful but, after all, it is a vision and it is a great and wonderful fact in my life that Mark and I love one another. You must find another bride for Alexander.”

  “I am answered,” was the almost inaudible reply.

  Again for a moment there was that look of almost childish incredulity in Cheng’s face. It was as though he failed to understand the sense of the words to which he had been listening. His silence possessed strange qualities. It was as though he were waiting for something to happen. Mark passed his hand through Catherine’s arm.

  “We will say au revoir, Cheng,” he concluded. “If you take my advice you will remember that east and west can never completely meet. We have gone a long way together. There has been give and take on both sides. I have never uttered a word of reproach to you. I never remember one from you. In a way I suppose you have a finer spirit than either of us. Self sacrifice is part of your creed. I am afraid it is not mine. I am glad it is not Catherine’s. Think it over and if you change your mind—half-past two at the American Consulate.”

  “I will remember,” Cheng promised.

  “I think,” Mark suggested, as Catherine and he, half-an-hour later, sat outside a café at the far end of the Promenade and sipped their cocktails, “that I shall drive you away somewhere into the hills—St. Paul, say—for lunch and then take you straight to the Consulate.”

  She laughed at him.

  “My dear,” she exclaimed, “you do not really suppose that I am going to be married in my office frock?”

  “You look sweet enough,” he told her. “Somehow or other I don’t fancy letting you go into that Bureau again.”

  She shook her head.

  “You need not mind that,” she assured him. “Nothing will happen to me, I promise you. And then Nadia, my maid, is there—my old nurse really. She would never forgive me if I went off without a word.”

  “You don’t mean to tell me that you have a wedding dress waiting for you?”

  “Well, I have a frock I have never worn,” she acknowledged, “and a new and quite delightful fur. I hope you will think I look nice. I am certainly not going to be married like this—unless you insist.”

  “I suppose,” he yielded, “that this is the one day in your life on which you must have your own way!”

  “Then I also demand another cocktail,” she laughed. He summoned a waiter and gave the order.

  “My compliments to your barman, Henri. He has the touch—or perhaps anything would taste good to-day. What a morning!”

  “Marvellous,” Catherine assented.

  Before them the Baie des Anges stretched, a glittering expanse of deep blue with tiny little specks of white in the far distance. A pleasant breeze was blowing. The passers-by seemed to Mark curiously human and pleasant. They brought with them an atmosphere of everyday life, DUMB GODS SPEAK of contented and cheerful minds. The tragic interlude at the Bureau was forgotten—by Catherine as well as Mark. It seemed to have slipped out of their lives. They were enfolded in the gorgeous present. Yet the minutes sped away. Their glasses were empty, the stream of passers-by grew thinner as the hour for déjeuner arrived. Catherine rose lightly to her feet.

  “And now?”

  “I am going back with you,” he said, as he paid his bill with an amazing pourboire and afterwards handed her into the car. “I shall be within a few yards watching your door like a dog.”

  She laughed—as gaily as though no cloud even for a moment had hovered over this perfect morning.

  “You need not worry,” she assured him. “Mr. Cheng has gone to pay his farewell visit of ceremony upon the Mayor. I believe he is to lunch there. You know how careful he is on all those matters of etiquette. He would face assassination at any time sooner than not pay a formal call where it was expected.”

  “Then I shall take the risk of making myself a little more like a bridegroom,” Mark decided.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  Table of Contents

  “Everything goes according to plan,” Mark announced joyfully as he filled Catherine’s glass with the white wine of the country and watched the arrival of the chicken. “We have an hour for lunch, half-an-hour to dawdle and half-an-hour to get to the Consulate.”

  “Wonderful,” she murmured. “I always said that you were a born administrator, Mark. You should turn your chair a few inches and look down in the valley. There is a meadow there where the jonquils are growing wild just like the cowslips in England.”

  “I can see everything I want to see in the world without turning my head,” he told her. “Of course, I am getting balmy, but then it is just one day out of a lifetime—”

  “And I never dreamed that it would come,” she whispered.

  “It wouldn’t if I had left you with Cheng much longer. You’re not sorry, Catherine?”

  “Should I be here if I were?” she asked, smiling across at him, just the one sort of smile he was aching to see upon her lips at that particular moment.

  “We will do plenty for your country,” he assured her eagerly, “as soon as things are really settling down. You shall buy back any one of your country places that you like and we will re-establish the people on the land. You will be able to do almost as much for Russia as though you were its Czarina.”

  “Are you really so frightfully rich, Mark?”

  “Hatefully. It is not I who am responsible. It is the lawyers who patented every little thing my father invented and then, of course, the Humberstone television—although we have not given the whole of that away—has been a huge success. The money comes rolling in and there is scarcely anyone to share it.”

  “What on earth shall we do
about it all?” she laughed. “Why, I had to make my own frocks and hats until Mr. Cheng came along and engaged me for the Bureau. I often wondered,” she went on, “why he was so firm about my coming. Now I know.”

  “I am sorry for old Cheng,” Mark declared. “Serves him right for having been so secretive. That was the Grand Duke who spoke to you at Monte Carlo, wasn’t it?”

  “Of course it was. He is my cousin. I have known him, although we have not met so very often, all my life. I was present at Versailles two years ago when he was crowned Czar. It seemed to me a very empty ceremony then.”

  “What is he like?”

  “Well, he is fifteen years older than I am,” Catherine replied, “and I am afraid that when things were so terribly hopeless and there seemed to be no position he could hold in life he was a little careless. He drank too much and spent too much of his time in this part of the country. I believe that he is quite capable of changing all that, though. As soon as Mr. Cheng thinks that the time has come to give him a hint he will be a different man.”

  “Cheng is quite the most extraordinary personage I have ever known,” Mark reflected. “I don’t feel really intimate with him now, although while we were in college we practically lived together. You are not afraid of him, are you, Catherine?”

  “I would not dare to say that I was not—just a little,” she confessed. “Remember, I have seen a great deal of his life and watched his methods. I have seen him overcome so many difficulties. I was never so surprised in my life as when he brought Hou Hsi down from that Château in the mountains, with her retinue of ladies-in-waiting and priests.”

  “He is queer about women,” Mark observed. “It is not that I have ever heard him speak disrespectfully of them but a woman never seems to mean to him anything except the most insignificant pawn upon the board. He married Hou Hsi because she was the direct descendant of the great Empress whom all China revered, and with her as his wife he could obtain a quicker hold upon the people. He evidently sought you out because you were an Oronoff, the most beloved family in Russia, as he told us himself, and therefore all the more likely to draw the people back to their old sympathies. Apart from you two I have never heard the name of a woman pass his lips, or ever seen him look at one as though she were a human being.”