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

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  “For heaven’s sake, no!” she interrupted. “Tell me more about Mr. Fischer.”

  “You won’t forget to answer my little question later on, will you?” he begged. “To proceed, then. I spent some little time this afternoon with your chief of the police here, and I fancy that the person you speak of is becoming a little too blatant even for a broad-minded country like this. He belongs to an informal company of wealthy sympathisers with Germany, who propose to start a campaign of destruction at all the factories manufacturing munitions for the Allies. They have put aside==I believe it is several million dollars, for purposes of bribery. They don’t seem to realise, as my friend pointed out to me this afternoon, that the days for this sort of thing in New York have passed. Some of them will be in prison before they know where they are.”

  “Exactly why did you come to America?” she asked, a little abruptly.

  “To meet Nikasti and to look after Fischer.”

  “Well, you seem to have done that pretty effectually!”

  “Also,” he went on calmly, “to keep an eye upon you.”

  “Professionally?”

  “You ask me to give away too many secrets,” he whispered, leaning towards her.

  She made a little grimace.

  “Tell me some more about your little adventure in Fifth Avenue?” she begged.

  He smiled grimly.

  “You wouldn’t believe me,” he reminded her, “but it really was one of Fischer’s little jokes. It very nearly came off, too. As a matter of fact,” he went on, “Fischer isn’t really clever. He is too obstinate, too convinced in his own mind that things must go the way he wants them to, that Fate is the servant of his will. It’s a sort of national trait, you know, very much like the way we English bury our heads in the sand when we hear unpleasant truths. The last thing Fischer wants is advertisement, and yet he goes to some of his Fourteenth Street friends and unearths a popular desperado to get rid of me. The fellow happens most unexpectedly to fail, and now Fischer has to face a good many awkward questions and a good deal of notoriety. No, I don’t think Fischer is really clever.”

  Pamela sighed.

  “In that case, I suppose I shall have to say ‘No’ to him,” she decided. “After waiting all this time, I couldn’t bear to be married to a fool.”

  “You won’t be,” he assured her cheerfully.

  “More British arrogance,” she murmured. “Now see what’s going to happen to us!”

  A tall, elderly man, with smooth white hair plastered over his forehead, very precisely dressed, and with a gait so careful as to be almost mincing, was approaching their table. Pamela held out her hands.

  “My dear uncle!” she exclaimed. “And I thought that you and aunt never dined at restaurants!”

  Mr. Hastings stood with his fingers resting lightly upon the table. He glanced at Lutchester without apparent recognition.

  “You remember Mr. Lutchester?” Pamela murmured.

  Mr. Hastings’ manner lacked the true American cordiality, but he hastened to extend his hand.

  “Of course!” he declared. “I was not fortunate enough, however, to see much of you the other evening, Mr. Lutchester. We have several mutual friends whom I should be glad to hear about.”

  “I shall pay my respects to Mrs. Hastings, if I may, very shortly,” Lutchester promised.

  “Are you with friends here, uncle?” Pamela inquired.

  “We are the guests of Mr. Oscar Fischer,” the Senator announced.

  Pamela raised her eyebrows.

  “So you know Mr. Fischer, uncle?”

  “Naturally,” Mr. Hastings replied, with some dignity. “Oscar Fischer is one of the most important men in the State which I represent. He is a man of great wealth and industry and immense influence.”

  Pamela made a little grimace. Her uncle noticed it and frowned.

  “He has just been telling us of his voyage with you, Pamela. Perhaps, if Mr. Lutchester can spare you,” he went on, with a little bow across the table, “you will come and take your coffee with us. Your aunt is leaving for Washington, probably to-morrow, and wishes to arrange for you to travel with her. Mr. Lutchester may also, perhaps, give us the pleasure of his company for a few minutes,” he added, after a slight but obvious pause.

  “Thank you,” Pamela answered quickly, “I am Mr. Lutchester’s guest this evening. If you are still here, I shall love to come and speak to aunt for a moment later on. If not, I will ring up to-morrow morning.”

  The bland, almost episcopal serenity of Senator Hastings’ face was somewhat disturbed. It was obvious that the situation displeased him.

  “I think, Pamela,” he said, “that you had better come and speak to your aunt before you leave.”

  His bow to Lutchester was the bow of a politician to an adversary. He made his way back in leisurely fashion to the table from which he had come, exchanging a few words with many acquaintances. Pamela watched him with a twinkle in her eyes.

  “I am becoming so unpopular,” she murmured. “I can read in my uncle’s tone that my aunt and he disapprove of our dining together here. And as for Mr. Fischer. I’m afraid he’ll break off our prospective alliance.”

  Lutchester smiled.

  “Prospective is the only word to use,” he observed. “By the bye, are you particularly fond of your uncle?”

  “Not riotously,” she admitted. “He has been kind to me once or twice, but he’s rather a starchy old person.”

  “In that case,” Lutchester decided, “we won’t interfere.”

  CHAPTER XXX

  Table of Contents

  Fischer had by no means the appearance of a discomfited man that evening, when some time later Pamela and Lutchester approached the little group of which he seemed, somehow, to have become the central figure. It was a small party, but, in its way, a distinguished one. Pamela’s aunt was a member of an historic American family, and a woman of great social position, not only in New York but in Washington itself. Of the remaining guests, one was a financial magnate of world-wide fame, and the other, Senator Joyce, a politician of such eminence that his name was freely mentioned as a possible future president. Mrs. Hastings greeted Pamela and her escort without enthusiasm.

  “My dear child,” she exclaimed, “how extraordinary to find you here!”

  “Is it?” Pamela observed indifferently. “You know Mr. Lutchester, don’t you, aunt?”

  Mrs. Hastings remembered her late dinner guest, but her recognition was icy and barely polite. She turned away at once and resumed her conversation with Fischer. Lutchester was not introduced to either of the other members of the party. He laid his hand on the back of an empty chair and turned it round for Pamela, but she stopped him with a word of thanks. Something had gone from her own naturally pleasant tone. She held her hand higher, even, than her aunt’s, as she turned a little insistently towards her.

  “So sorry, aunt,” she announced, “but we are going now. Good night!”

  Mrs. Hastings disapproved.

  “We have seen nothing of you yet, Pamela,” she said stiffly. “You had better stay with us and we will drop you on our way home.”

  Pamela shook her head.

  “I am coming with you to-morrow, you know,” she reminded her aunt. “To- night I am Mr. Lutchester’s guest and he will see me home.”

  Mrs. Hastings drew her niece a little closer to her.

  “Is this part of your European manners, Pamela?” she whispered, “that you dine alone in a restaurant with an acquaintance? Let me tell you frankly that I dislike the idea most heartily. My chaperonage is always at your service, and any girl of your age in America would be delighted to avail herself of it.”

  “It is very kind of you, aunt,” Pamela replied, “but in a general way I finished with chaperons long ago.”

  “Where is Jimmy?” Mrs. Hastings inquired.

  “He was coming with us to-night,” Pamela explained, “but I asked him particularly to stay away. I have seen so little of Mr. Lutchest
er since he arrived, and I want to talk to him.”

  The financial magnate awoke from a comatose inertia and suddenly gripped Lutchester by the hand.

  “Lutchester,” he repeated to himself. “I thought I knew your face. Stayed with your uncle down at Monte Carlo once. You came there for a week.”

  Lutchester acknowledged his recollection of the fact and the two men exchanged a few commonplace remarks. Mrs. Hastings took the opportunity to try and induce Pamela to converse with Fischer.

  “We have all been so interested to-night,” she said, “in hearing what Mr. Fischer has to say about the situation on the other side.”

  Pamela was primed for combat.

  “Has Mr. Fischer been telling you fairy tales?” she laughed.

  “Fairy tales?” her aunt repeated severely. “I don’t understand.”

  Fischer’s steel grey eyes flashed behind his spectacles.

  “I’m afraid that Miss Van Teyl’s prejudices,” he observed bitterly, “are very firmly fixed.”

  “Then she is no true American,” Mrs. Hastings pronounced didactically.

  “Oh, I can assure you that I am not prejudiced,” Pamela declared, “only, you see, I, too, have just arrived from the other side, and I have been able to use my own eyes and judgment. If there is any prejudice in the matter, why should it not come from Mr. Fischer? He has the very good excuse of his German birth.”

  “Mr. Fischer is an American citizen,” Mrs. Hastings reminded her niece, “and personally, I think that the American of German birth is one of the most loyal and long-suffering persons I know. I cannot say as much for the English people who are living over here. And as to fairy stories==”

  Pamela intervened, turning towards Fischer with a little laugh.

  “Oh, he can’t even deny those! What about the great German victory in the North Sea, Mr. Fischer? Do you happen to have seen the latest telegrams?”

  “Our first reports were perhaps a little too glowing,” Mr. Fischer acknowledged. “That, under the circumstances, is, I think, only natural. But the facts remain that the invincible English and the untried German fleets have met, to the advantage of the German.”

  Pamela shook her head.

  “I cannot even allow that,” she objected. “The advantage, if there was any, rested on the other side. But I just want you to remember what we were told in that first wonderful outpouring of fabricated news==that the naval supremacy of England was gone for ever, that the freedom of the seas was assured, that German merchant vessels were steaming home from all directions! No, Mr. Fischer! Between ourselves, I think that your cause needs a few fairy stories, and I look upon you as one of the greatest experts in the world when it comes to concocting them.”

  Fischer, who had risen to his feet half way through Pamela’s speech, was obviously a little taken aback by her direct attack. Mrs. Hastings took no pains to conceal her annoyance.

  “For a young girl of your age, Pamela,” she said sternly, “I consider that you express your opinions far too freely. Your attitude, too, is unjustifiable.”

  “Ah, well, you see, I am a little prejudiced against Mr. Fischer,” Pamela laughed, turning towards him. “He happened to defeat one of my pet schemes.”

  “But I am ready to further your dearest one,” he reminded her, dropping his voice, and leading her a little on one side. “What about our alliance?”

  “You scarcely need my aid,” she observed, with a shrug of the shoulders.

  He remonstrated vigorously. There was a revived hopefulness in his tone. Perhaps, after all, here was the secret of her displeasure with him.

  “You wonder, perhaps, to see me with your uncle. I give you my word that it is a dinner of courtesy only. I give you my word that I have not opened my lips on political matters. I have been waiting for your answer.”

  “I have lost faith in you,” she told him calmly. “I am not even certain that you possess the authority you spoke of.”

  “If that is all,” he replied eagerly, “you shall see it with your own eyes. You are staying with your uncle and aunt in Washington, are you not? I shall call upon you immediately I arrive, and bring it with me.”

  She nodded.

  “Well, that remains a challenge, then, Mr. Fischer. And now, if you are quite ready,” she added, turning to Lutchester…. “Good-by, everybody!”

  “Aren’t your ears burning?” Pamela asked, after Lutchester had handed her into a taxicab and taken his place by her side. “I can absolutely feel them talking about us.”

  “I seem to be most regrettably unpopular,” Lutchester remarked.

  “Even now I am puzzled about that,” Pamela confessed, “but you see my aunt considers herself the arbitress of what is right or wrong in social matters, and she is exceedingly narrow-minded. In her eyes it is no doubt a greater misdemeanour for me to have dined at the Ritz-Carlton alone with you, than if I had conspired against the Government.”

  “And this, I thought, was the land of freedom for your sex!”

  “Ah, but my aunt is rather an exception,” Pamela reminded him. “The one thing I cannot understand, however, is that she should have allowed herself to be seen dining with Mr. Oscar Fischer at the Ritz-Carlton. I should have thought that would have been almost as heinous to her as my own little slip from grace.”

  “Is your aunt by way of being interested in politics?” Lutchester inquired.

  “Not in a general way,” Pamela replied, “but she is intensely ambitious, and she’d give her soul if Uncle Theodore could get a nomination for the Presidency.”

  “Perhaps she is taking up the German-American cause, then,” Lutchester suggested. “It is a possible platform, at any rate.”

  “I foresee a new party,” Pamela murmured thoughtfully. “Now I come to think of it, Mr. Elsworthy, the fat old gentleman who knew your uncle, is very pro-German.”

  He leaned towards her.

  “We have had enough politics,” he insisted. “There is the other thing. Couldn’t I have my answer?”

  She let him take her fingers. In the cool darkness through which they were rushing her face seemed white, her head was a little averted. He tried to draw her to him, but she was unyielding.

  “Please not,” she begged. “I like you==and I’m glad I like you,” she added, “but I don’t feel certain about anything. Couldn’t we be just friends a little longer?”

  “It must be as you say, but I am horribly in love with you,” he confessed. “That may sound rather a bald way of saying so, but it’s the truth, Pamela, dear.”

  His clasp upon her fingers was tightened. She turned towards him. Her expression was serious but delightful.

  “Well, let me tell you this much, at least,” she confided. “I have never before in my life been so glad to hear any one say so…. And here we are at home, and there’s Jimmy on the doorstep. What is it, Jimmy,” she asked, waving her hand.

  He came down towards her in a state of great excitement.

  “Say, we’ve had to open up the office again!” he exclaimed. “The telegrams are rolling in now. That so-called German naval victory was a fake. The Britishers came out right on top. You know you stand to net at least half a million, Mr. Lutchester? The worst of it is I have another client who’s going to lose it.”

  Pamela shook her head at Lutchester.

  “The possibility of increased responsibilities,” he whispered. “A married man needs something to fall back upon.”

  CHAPTER XXXI

  Table of Contents

  The offices of Messrs. Neville, Brooks, and Van Teyl were the scene of something like pandemonium. Van Teyl himself, bathed in perspiration, rushed into his room for the twentieth time. He almost flung the newspaper man who was waiting for him through the door.

  “No, we don’t know a darned thing,” he declared. “We’ve no special information. The only reason we’re up to our neck in Anglo-French is because we’ve two big clients dealing.”

  “It’s just a few personal notes about those
clients we’d like to handle.”

  “Oh, get out as quick as you can!” Van Teyl snapped. “This isn’t a bucket shop or a pool room. The names of our clients concerns ourselves only.”

  “What do you think Anglo-French are going to do, Mr. Van Teyl?”

  “I can’t tell,” was the prompt answer, “but I can tell what’s going to happen if you don’t clear out.”

  The newspaper man took a hurried leave. Van Teyl seized the telephone receiver, only to put it down with a little shout of relief as the door opened and Lutchester entered.

  “Thank God!” he exclaimed. “Why, I’ve been ringing you up for an hour and a half.”

  “Sorry,” Lutchester replied, “I was down at the barber’s the first time you got through, and then I had some cables to send off.”

  “Look here,” Van Teyl continued, gripping him by the shoulder, “is six hundred and forty thousand dollars, or thereabouts, profit enough for you on your Anglo-French?”

  “It sounds adequate,” Lutchester confessed, laying his hat and cane carefully upon the table and drawing up an easy-chair. “How much is Mr. Fischer going to lose?”

  “God knows! If you allow me to sell at the present moment, you’ll ease the market, and he’ll lose about what you make.”

  “And if I decide to hold my Anglo-French?”

  “You’ll have to provide us with about a couple of million dollars,” Van Teyl replied, “and I should think you would pretty well break Fischer for a time. Frankly, he’s an important client, and we don’t want him broken, even temporarily.”

  “What do you want me to do, then?”

  “Give us authority to sell,” Van Teyl begged. “Can’t you hear them yapping about in the office outside? They’re round me all the time like a pack of hounds. Honestly, if I don’t sell some Anglo-French before lunch-time to-day, they look like wrecking the office.”

  Lutchester knocked the end of a cigarette thoughtfully against the side of his chair.

  “All right,” he decided, “I don’t want you to suffer any inconvenience. Besides, I am going to Washington this afternoon. You can keep on selling as long as the market’s steady. Directly it sags, hold off. If necessary, even buy a few more. You understand me? Don’t sell a single block under to-day’s price. Keep the market at that figure. It’s an easy job, because next week Anglo-French will go up again.”