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

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  “You don’t need to go on with this business now that we have had our little talk,” he remonstrated.

  “I cannot leave until the twentieth,” Nikasti replied. “I think it best that I remain here. Your cocktail, sir.”

  Fischer accepted the glass with a good-humoured little laugh.

  “Well,” he said, “I suppose you know what you want to do, but it seems to me unnecessary. Say, is anything wrong with you? You seem shaken, somehow.”

  “I am quite well,” Nikasti declared gravely. “I am very well indeed.”

  Fischer stared at him searchingly from behind his spectacles.

  “You don’t look it,” he observed. “If you’ll take my advice, you’ll get away from here and rest somewhere quietly for a few days. Why don’t you try one of the summer hotels on Long Island?”

  Nikasti shook his head.

  “Until I sail,” he decided, “I stay here. It is better so.”

  “You know best, of course,” Fischer replied. “Where’s Mr. Van Teyl?”

  “He has gone out with his sister, sir—the young lady in the next suite,” Nikasti announced.

  Fischer sighed for a moment. Then he finished his cocktail, drew on his gloves, and turned towards the door.

  “Well, good night,” he said. “Perhaps you are wise to stay here. Remember always what it is that you carry about with you.”

  “I shall remember,” Nikasti promised.

  Fischer entered his automobile and drove to a fashionable restaurant in the neighbourhood of Fifth Avenue. Arrived here, he made his way to a room on the first floor, into which he was ushered by one of the head waiters. Von Schwerin was already there, talking with a little company of men.

  “Ah, our friend Fischer!” the latter exclaimed. “That makes our number complete.”

  A waiter handed around cocktails. Fischer smiled as he raised his glass to his lips.

  “It is something, at least,” he confided, “to be back in a country where one can speak freely. I raise my arm. Von Schwerin and gentlemen—‘To the Fatherland!’”

  They all drank fervently and with a little guttural murmur. Von Schwerin set down his empty glass. He was looking a little glum.

  “In many ways, my dear Fischer,” he said, “one sympathises with that speech of yours; but the truth is best, and it is to talk truths that we have met this evening. We are gaining no ground here. I am not sure that we are not losing.”

  There was a moment’s disturbed and agitated silence.

  “It is bad to hear,” one little man acknowledged, with a sigh, “but who can doubt it? There is a fever which has caught hold of this country, which blazes in the towns and smoulders in the country places, and that is the fever of money-making. Men are blinded with the passion of it. They tell me that even Otto Schmidt in Milwaukee has turned his great factories into ammunition works.”

  Von Schwerin’s eyes flashed.

  “Let him be careful,” he muttered, “that one morning those are not blackened walls upon which he looks! We go to dinner now, gentlemen, and, until we are alone afterwards, not one word concerning the great things.”

  The partition doors leading into the dining room were thrown back and the little company of men sat down to dine. There were fourteen of them, and their names were known throughout the world. There was a steel millionaire, half-a-dozen Wall Street magnates, a clothing manufacturer, whose house in Fifth Avenue was reputed to have cost two millions. There was not one of them who was not a patriot—to Germany. They ate and drank through the courses of an abnormally long dinner with the businesslike thoroughness of their race. When at last the coffee and liqueurs had been served, the waiters by prearrangement disappeared, and with a little flourish Von Schwerin locked the door. Once more he raised his glass.

  “To the Kaiser and the Fatherland!” he cried in a voice thick with emotion.

  For a moment a little flash of something almost like spirituality lightened the gathering. They were at least men with a purpose, and an unselfish purpose.

  “Oscar Fischer,” Von Schwerin said, “my friends, all of you, you know how strenuous my labours have been during the last year. You know that three times the English Ambassador has almost demanded my recall, and three times the matter has hung in the balance. I have watched events in Washington, not through my own but through a thousand eyes. My fingers are on the pulse of the country, so what I say to you needs nothing in the way of substantiation. The truth is best. Notwithstanding all my efforts, and the efforts of every one of you, the great momentum of public feeling, from California to Massachusetts, has turned slowly towards the cause of our enemies. Washington is hopelessly against us. The huge supplies which leave these shores day by day for England and France will continue. Fresh plants are being laid down for the manufacture of weapons and ammunition to be used against our country. The hand of diplomacy is powerless. We can struggle no longer. Even those who favour our cause are drunk with the joy of the golden harvest they are reaping. This country has spoken once and for all, and its voice is for our most hated enemy.”

  There were a variety of guttural and sympathetic ejaculations. A dozen earnest faces turned towards Von Schwerin.

  “Diplomacy,” Von Schwerin continued, “has failed. We come to the next step. There have been isolated acts of self-sacrifice, splendid in themselves but systemless. Only the day before yesterday a great factory at Detroit was burned to the ground, and I can assure you, gentlemen, I who know, that a thousand bales of cloth, destined for France, lie in a charred, heap amongst the ruins. That fire was no accident.”

  There was a brief silence. Fischer nodded approvingly. Von Schwerin filled his glass.

  “This,” he went on, “was the individual act of a brave and faithful patriot. The time has come for us, too, to remember that we are at war. I have striven for you with the weapons of diplomacy and I have failed. I ask you now to face the situation with me—to make use of the only means left to us.”

  No one hesitated. Possibly ruin stared them in the face, but not one flinched. Their heads drew closer together. They discussed the ways and means of the new campaign.

  “We must add largely to our numbers,” Von Schwerin said, “and we had better have a fund. So far as regards money, I take it for granted—”

  There was a little chorus of fierce whispers. Five million dollars were subscribed by men who were willing, if necessary, to find fifty.

  “It is enough,” their leader assured them. “Much of our labours will be amongst those to whom money is no object. Only remember, all of you, this. We shall be a society without a written word, with no roll of membership, without documents or institution, for complicity in the things which follow will mean ruin. You are willing to face that?”

  Again that strange, passionate instinct of unanimity prevailed. To all appearance it was a gathering of commonplace, commercialised and bourgeois, easy-living men, but the touch of the spirit was there. Fischer leaned a little forward.

  “In two months’ time,” he said, “every factory in America which is earning its blood money shall be in danger. There will be a reign of terror. Each State will operate independently and secretly.”

  “Our friend Fischer,” Von Schwerin told them, “has promised to stay over here for the present to organise this undertaking. I, alas! am bound to remain always a little aloof, but the time may come, and very soon, too, when I shall be a free lance. On that day I shall throw my lot in with yours, to the last drop of my blood and the last hour of my liberty. Until then, trust Oscar Fischer. He has done great deeds already. He will show you the way to more.”

  Fischer took off his spectacles and wiped them.

  “Our first proceeding,” he said, “sounds paradoxical. It must be that we cease to exist. There can be no longer any meetings amongst us who stand in this country for Germany. Gatherings of this sort are finished. We meet, one or two of us, perhaps, by accident, in the clubs and in the streets, in our houses and perhaps in the restaurants, but the
bond which unites us, and which no human power could ever sever because it is of the spirit, that bond from to-night is intangible. Wait, all of you, for a message. The task given to each shall not be too great.”

  Mr. Max H. Bookam, a little black-bearded man who had started life tailoring in a garret, and was now a multi-millionaire, raised his glass.

  “No task shall seem too great,” he muttered. “No risk shall make us afraid. Even the exile shall take up his burden.”

  CHAPTER XXI

  Table of Contents

  Mr. Fischer’s business later on that night led him into unsavoury parts. He left his car at the corner of Fourteenth Street, and, after a moment’s reflection, as though to refresh his memory, he made his way slowly eastwards. He wore an unusually shabby overcoat, and a felt hat drawn over his eyes, both of which garments he had concealed in the automobile. Even then, however, his appearance made him an object of some comment. A little gang of toughs first jostled him and then turned and followed in his footsteps. A man came out of the shadows, and they broke away with an oath.

  “That cop’ll get his head broke some day,” Fischer heard one of them mutter, with appropriate adjectives.

  There were others who looked curiously at him. One man’s hand he felt running over his pockets as he pushed past him. A couple of women came screaming down the street and seized him by the arms. He shook himself free, and listened without a word to their torrent of abuse. The lights here seemed to burn more dimly. Even the flares from the drinking dens seemed secretive, and the shadowy places impenetrable. It was before a saloon that at last he paused, listened for a moment to the sound of a cracked piano inside, and entered. The place was packed, and, fortunately for him, a scrap of some interest between two villainous-looking Italians in a distant corner was occupying the attention of many of the patrons. A man with white, staring face was banging at a crazy piano without a movement of his body, his whole energies apparently directed towards drowning the tumult of oaths and hideous execrations which came from the two combatants. A drunken Irishman, rolling about on the floor, kicked at him savagely as he passed. An undersized little creature, with the face of an old man but the figure of a boy, marked him from a distant corner and crept stealthily towards his side. Fischer reached the counter at last and stood there for a moment, waiting. Two huge, rough-looking negroes, in soiled linen clothes, were dispensing the drinks. As one of them passed, Fischer struck the counter with his forefinger, six or seven times, observing a particular rhythm. The negro started, turned his heavily-lidded, repulsive eyes upon Fischer, and nodded slightly. He handed out the drink he had in his hand, and leaned over the counter.

  “Want the boss?” he demanded.

  Fischer assented. The negro lifted the flap of the counter and opened a trapdoor, leading apparently into a cellar beneath.

  “Step right down,” he muttered. “Don’t let the boys catch on. Get out of that, Tim,” he added thickly to the dwarflike figure, whose slender fingers were suddenly nearing Fischer’s neck.

  The creature seemed to melt away. Fischer dived and descended a dozen steps or so into another bare looking apartment, the door of which was half open. There were three men seated at the solitary deal table, which was almost the only article of furniture to be seen. One, sombrely dressed in legal black, with a pale face and fiercely inquiring eyes, half rose to his feet as the newcomer entered. Another’s hand went to his hip pocket. The man who was sitting between the two, however—a great red-headed Irishman—rose to his feet and pushed them back to their places.

  “There’s no cause for alarm, now, boys,” he declared. “This is a friend of mine. I won’t make you acquainted, because we’re all better friends strangers down in these parts. Hop it off, you two. Sit down here, Mr. Stranger.”

  The two men stole away. The Irishman poured out a glassful of neat whisky and passed it to his visitor.

  “Clients of mine,” he explained. “Tim Crooks is in politics. Got your message, boss. What’s the figure?”

  “Two thousand!”

  The Irishman whistled and looked thoughtfully down at the table.

  “Isn’t it enough?” Fischer asked.

  “Enough?” was the hoarse reply. “Why, there isn’t one of my toughs that wouldn’t go rat-hunting for a quarter of that. If it’s any one in these parts, twelve hours is all I want.”

  “It isn’t!”

  The Irishman’s face fell.

  “Some swell, I suppose? Fifth Avenue way and the swagger parts, eh?”

  Fischer assented silently. His host poured himself out some whisky and drank it as though it were water.

  “You see, boss,” he pointed out, “it’s no use sending greenhorns out on a job like that, because they only squeak if they’re pinched, and pinched they’re sure to be; and all my regulars are what we call in sanctuary.”

  “You mean they are hiding already?”

  “That’s some truth,” was the grim admission. “The cops ain’t going to trouble to come after ‘em, so long as they keep here, but they’d nab ‘em fast enough if they showed their noses beyond the end of Fourteenth. Still, I’d like to oblige you, guv’nor. I don’t know who you are, and don’t want, but my boys speak fine of you. You know Ed Swindles?”

  “Not by name,” Fischer confessed.

  “He did that little job up at Detroit,” the Irishman went on, dropping his voice a little. “I tell you he’s a genius at handling a bomb, is Ed. Blew that old factory into brick-ends, he did. He’s in the saloon upstairs—got his girl with him. They’ve been doing a round of the dancing saloons.”

  “That’s all right, but what about this job?” Fischer inquired, a little impatiently.

  The Irishman glanced behind him. Then he dropped his voice a little.

  “Look here, guv’nor,” he said, “I’ve some idea, if it pans out. You’ve heard of the Heste case?”

  “You mean the girl who was murdered?”

  “Yes! Well, the chap that did it is within a few feet of where we’re sitting.”

  Fischer took off his spectacles and rubbed them. In the dim light his face looked more grim and powerful than ever.

  “Isn’t that a little dangerous?” he observed. “The police mean having him.”

  “You’re dead right,” the Irishman replied. “They’ve got to have him, and he knows it. They’d keep their hands off any one in these parts if they could, but this bloke’s different. He done it too thick, and he’s got the public squealing. Now if we could get him out for long enough, he’s the man for your job. Come right along, boss.”

  He rose heavily to his feet, crossed the room, and threw open the door of what was little more than a cupboard at the further end. The place was in darkness, but a human form sprang suddenly upright. His white face and glaring eyes were the only visible objects in a shroud of darkness.

  “That’s all right, kid,” the Irishman said soothingly. “No cops yet. This is a gentleman on business. Wait till I fix a light.”

  He stepped back, and brought a candle from the table at which he had been seated. Fischer helped him light it, and by degrees the interior of the little apartment was illuminated. Its contents were almost negligible—there was simply a foul piece of rug in the corner, and a broken chair. With his back to the wall crouched a slim, apparently young man, with a perfectly bloodless face and black eyes under which were blue lines. His clothes were torn and covered with dust, as though he had dragged himself about the floor, and one of his hands was bleeding.

  “The gentleman’s on business, Jake,” his host repeated.

  “Give me some whisky,” the young man mumbled.

  The Irishman shaded his eyes.

  “Holy Moses! why, you’ve finished that bottle!” he exclaimed.

  “It’s like water,” the fugitive replied in a hot whisper, “I drink and I feel nothing; I taste nothing—I forget nothing! Give me something stronger.”

  He tossed off without hesitation the tumbler half full of whisky which hi
s guardian fetched him. Then he came out.

  “I’m sick of this,” he declared. “I’ll sit at your table. It’s no use talking to me of jobs,” he went on. “I couldn’t get out of here. I made for the docks, but they headed me off. They know where I am. They’ll have me sooner or later.”

  “Yes, they’ll have you right enough,” the Irishman assented; “but if there was any chance in the world, this gent could give it to you. He’s got a job he wants done up amongst the swells in Fifth Avenue, and there’s money enough in it to buy Anna herself, if you want her. Anna’s our real toff down here,” he explained, turning to Fischer, “and all the boys are crazy about her.”

  Jake shook his head, unimpressed. He fixed his eyes upon Fischer, moistened his lips a little, and spoke in a sort of croaky whisper.

  “Money’s no use to me,” he said, “nor women either—I’m through with them. You know what I done? I killed my girl. That’s what I’m going to the chair for. But if I could get out of this, I’d do your job. I’m kind of hating people. I can’t get my girl’s face out of my mind. Perhaps if I did your job I’d have another one to think about.”

  “Pleasant company, ain’t he?” the Irishman grunted. “He’s the real goods.”

  Fischer stared at the young man as though fascinated. He seemed beyond and outside human comprehension. Their host was sitting with his hands in his pockets and his feet on another chair. The braces hung from his shoulders upon the floor, his collarless shirt had fallen a little open. His face, with its little tuft of red side whiskers and unshaven chin, was reminiscent of the forests.

  “If you want this job fixed, Mr. Stranger,” he said, “I don’t know as Jake here couldn’t take it on. It’d have to be done like this. Jake’s a real toney chauffeur—drive anything. If you had your automobile at a spot I could tell you of one evening, just at dusk, I might get him that far, in a set of chauffeur’s clothes. Once on the box of your auto, he’d be out of this and could give ‘em the slip for a bit. It’s the only way I can think of, to get him near the game.”