Philippa came a little shyly into her husband’s arms, as he turned back into the room. The tenderness in his own face, however, and a little catch in his voice, broke down at once the wall of reserve which had grown up between them.
“My dear little woman!” he murmured. “My little sweetheart! You don’t know how I’ve ached to explain everything to you—including the Russian ladies.”
“Explain them at once, sir!” Philippa insisted, pretending to draw her face away for a moment.
“They were the wife and sister-in-law of the Russian Admiral, Draskieff, who was sent over to report upon our method of mine laying,” he told her.
“You and I have to go up to a little dinner they are giving to-morrow or the next day.”
“Oh, dear, what an idiot I was!” Philippa exclaimed ruefully. “I imagined—all sorts of things. But, Henry dear,” she went on, “do you know that we have a great surprise for you—here in the house?”
“No surprise, dear,” he assured her, shaking his head. “I knew the very hour that Richard left Wittenberg. And here he is, by Jove!”
Richard and Helen entered together. Philippa could not even wait for the conclusion of the hearty but exceedingly British greeting which passed between the two men.
“Listen to me, both of you!” she cried incoherently. “Helen, you especially! You never heard anything so wonderful in your life! They weren’t fishing excursions at all. There weren’t any whiting. Henry was laying mines all the time, and he’s blown up half the German fleet! It’s all in the Times this morning. He’s got a D.S.O.—Henry has—and he’s a Rear-Admiral! Oh, Helen, I want to cry!”
The two women wandered into a far corner of the room. Richard wrung his brother-in-law’s hand.
“Philippa isn’t exactly coherent,” he remarked, “but it sounds all right.”
“You see,” Sir Henry explained, “I’ve been mine laying ever since the war started. I always had ideas of my own about mine fields, as you may remember. I started with Scotland, and then they moved me down here. The Admiralty thought they’d be mighty clever, and they insisted upon my keeping my job secret. It led to a little trouble with Philippa, but I think we are through with all that.—I suppose you know that those two young women have been engaged in a regular conspiracy, Dick?”
“I know a little,” Richard replied gravely, “and I’m sure you will believe that I wouldn’t have countenanced it for a moment if I’d had any idea what they were up to.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” Sir Henry agreed. “Anyway, it led to no harm.”
“Maderstrom, then,” Richard asked, with a sudden more complete apprehension of the affair, “was over here to spy upon you?”
“That’s the ticket,” Sir Henry assented.
Richard frowned.
“And he bribed Philippa and Helen with my liberty!”
“Don’t you worry about that,” his brother-in-law begged. “They must have known by instinct that a chap like Maderstrom couldn’t do any harm.”
“Where is he now?” Richard asked eagerly. “Helen insisted upon keeping me out of the way but we’ve heard all sorts of rumours. The Commandant has been up here after him, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, and I sent him away with a flea in his ear! I don’t like the fellow.”
“And Maderstrom?”
“The pseudo-Mr. Lessingham, eh?” Sir Henry observed. “Well, to tell you the truth, Dick, if there is one person I am a little sorry for in the history of the last few weeks, it’s Maderstrom.”
“You, too?” Richard exclaimed. “Why, every one seems crazy about the fellow.”
Sir Henry nodded.
“I remember him in your college days, Dick. He was a gentleman and a good sort, only unfortunately his mother was a German. He did his bit of soldiering with the Prussian Guards at the beginning of the war, got a knock and volunteered for the Secret Service. They sent him over here. The fellow must have no end of pluck, for, as I dare say you know, they let him down from the observation car of a Zeppelin. He finds his way here all right, makes his silly little bargain with our dear but gullible womenkind, and sets himself to watch—to watch me, mind. The whole affair is too ridiculously transparent. For a time he can’t bring himself even to touch my papers here, although, as it happens, they wouldn’t have done him the least bit of good. It was only the stress and excitement of the shipwreck last week that he ventured to steal the chart which I had so carefully prepared for him. I really think, if he hadn’t done that, I should have had to slip it into his pocket or absolutely force it upon him somehow. He sends it off like a lamb and behold the result! We’ve crippled the German Navy for the rest of the war.”
“It was a faked chart, then, of course?” Richard demanded breathlessly.
“And quite the cleverest I ever prepared,” Sir Henry acknowledged. “I can assure you that it would have taken in Von Tirpitz himself, if he’d got hold of it.”
“But where is Maderstrom now, sir?” Richard asked.
Sir Henry moved his head towards the window, where Philippa, for the last few moments, had softly taken her place. Her eyes were watching a green light bobbing up and down in the distance. Suddenly she gave a little exclamation.
“It’s moving!” she cried. “He’s off!”
“He’s safe on a Dutch trawler,” Sir Henry declared. “And I think,” he added, moving towards the sideboard, “it’s time you and I had a drink together, Dick.”
They helped themselves to whisky and soda. There were still many explanations to be given. Half-concealed by the curtain, Philippa stood with her eyes turned seawards. The green light was dimmer now, and the low, black outline of the trawler crept slowly over the glittering track of moonlight. She gave a little start as it came into sight. There was a sob in her throat, tears burning in her eyes. Her fingers clutched the curtains almost passionately. She stood there watching until her eyes ached. Then she felt an arm around her waist and her husband’s whisper in her ear.
“I haven’t let you wander too far, have I, Phil?”
She turned quickly towards him, eager for the comfort of his extended arms. Her face was buried in his shoulder.
“You know,” she murmured.
THE END
THE KINGDOM OF THE BLIND
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
CHAPTER I
Table of Contents
Lady Anselman stood in the centre of the lounge at the Ritz Hotel and with a delicately-poised forefinger counted her guests. There was the great French actress who had every charm but youth, chatting vivaciously with a tall, pale-faced man whose French seemed to be as perfect as his attitude was correct. The popular wife of a great actor was discussing her husband’s latest play with a Cabinet Minister who had the air of a school-boy present at an illicit feast. A very beautiful young woman, tall and fair, with grey-blue eyes and a wealth of golden, almost yellow hair, was talking to a famous musician. A little further in the background, a you
ng man in the uniform of a naval lieutenant was exchanging what seemed to be rather impressive chaff with a petite but exceedingly good-looking girl. Lady Anselman counted them twice, glanced at the clock and frowned.
“I can’t remember whom we are waiting for!” she exclaimed a little helplessly to the remaining guest, a somewhat tired-looking publisher who stood by her side. “I am one short. I dare say it will come to me in a minute. You know every one, I suppose, Mr. Daniell?”
The publisher shook his head.
“I have met Lord Romsey and also Madame Selarne,” he observed. “For the rest, I was just thinking what a stranger I felt.”
“The man who talks French so well,” Lady Anselman told him, dropping her voice a little, “is Surgeon-Major Thomson. He is inspector of hospitals at the front, or something of the sort. The tall, fair girl—isn’t she pretty!—is Geraldine Conyers, daughter of Admiral Sir Seymour Conyers. That’s her brother, the sailor over there, talking to Olive Moreton; their engagement was announced last week. Lady Patrick of course you know, and Signor Scobel, and Adelaide Cunningham—you do know her, don’t you, Mr. Daniell? She is my dearest friend. How many do you make that?”
The publisher counted them carefully.
“Eleven including ourselves,” he announced.
“And we should be twelve,” Lady Anselman sighed. “Of course!” she added, her face suddenly brightening. “What an idiot I am! It’s Ronnie we are waiting for. One can’t be cross with him, poor fellow. He can only just get about.”
The fair girl, who had overheard, leaned across. The shade of newly awakened interest in her face, and the curve of her lips as she spoke, added to her charm. A gleam of sunlight flashed upon the yellow-gold of her plainly coiled hair.
“Is it your nephew, Captain Ronald Granet, who is coming?” she asked a little eagerly.
Lady Anselman nodded.
“He only came home last Tuesday with dispatches from the front,” she said. “This is his first day out.”
“Ah! but he is wounded, perhaps?” Madame Selarne inquired solicitously.
“In the left arm and the right leg,” Lady Anselman assented. “I believe that he has seen some terrible fighting, and we are very proud of his D. S. O. The only trouble is that he is like all the others—he will tell us nothing.”
“He shows excellent judgment,” Lord Romsey observed.
Lady Anselman glanced at her august guest a little querulously.
“That is the principle you go on, nowadays, isn’t it?” she remarked. “I am not sure that you are wise. When one is told nothing, one fears the worst, and when time after time the news of these small disasters reaches us piecemeal, about three weeks late, we never get rid of our forebodings, even when you tell us about victories…. Ah! Here he comes at last,” she added, holding out both her hands to the young man who was making his somewhat difficult way towards them. “Ronnie, you are a few minutes late but we’re not in the least cross with you. Do you know that you are looking better already? Come and tell me whom you don’t know of my guests and I’ll introduce you.”
The young man, leaning upon his stick, greeted his aunt and murmured a word of apology. He was very fair, and with a slight, reddish moustache and the remains of freckles upon his face. His grey eyes were a little sunken, and there were lines about his mouth which one might have guessed had been brought out recently by pain or suffering of some sort. His left arm reclined uselessly in a black silk sling. He glanced around the little assembly.
“First of all,” he said, bowing to the French actress and raising her fingers to his lips, “there is no one who does not know Madame Selarne. Lady Patrick, we have met before, haven’t we? I am going to see your husband in his new play the first night I am allowed out. Mr. Daniell I have met, and Lord Romsey may perhaps do me the honour of remembering me,” he added, shaking hands with the Cabinet Minister.
He turned to face Geraldine Conyers, who had been watching him with interest. Lady Anselman at once introduced them.
“I know that you haven’t met Miss Conyers because she has been asking about you. This is my nephew Ronnie, Geraldine. I hope that you will be friends.”
The girl murmured something inaudible as she shook hands. The young soldier looked at her for a moment. His manner became almost serious.
“I hope so, too,” he said quietly.
“Olive, come and make friends with my nephew if you can spare a moment from your young man,” Lady Anselman continued. “Captain Granet—Miss Olive Moreton. And this is Geraldine’s brother—Lieutenant Conyers.”
The two men shook hands pleasantly. Lady Anselman glanced at the clock and turned briskly towards the corridor.
“And now, I think,” she announced, “luncheon.”
As she moved forward, she was suddenly conscious of the man who had been talking to Madame Selarne. He had drawn a little on one side and he was watching the young soldier with a curious intentness. She turned back to her nephew and touched him on the arm.
“Ronnie,” she said, “I don’t know whether you have met Surgeon-Major Thomson in France? Major Thomson, this is my nephew, Captain Granet.”
Granet turned at once and offered his hand to the other man. Only Geraldine Conyers, who was a young woman given to noticing things, and who had also reasons of her own for being interested, observed the rather peculiar scrutiny with which each regarded the other. Something which might almost have been a challenge seemed to pass from one to the other.
“I may not have met you personally,” Granet admitted, “but if you are the Surgeon-Major Thomson who has been doing such great things with the Field Hospitals at the front, then like nearly every poor crock out there I owe you a peculiar debt of gratitude. You are the man I mean, aren’t you?” the young soldier concluded cordially.
Major Thomson bowed, and a moment later they all made their way along the corridor, across the restaurant, searched for their names on the cards and took their places at the table which had been reserved for them. Lady Anselman glanced around with the scrutinising air of the professional hostess, to see that her guests were properly seated before she devoted herself to the Cabinet Minister. She had a word or two to say to nearly every one of them.
“I have put you next Miss Conyers, Ronnie,” she remarked, “because we give all the good things to our men when they come home from the war. And I have put you next Olive, Ralph,” she went on, turning to the sailor, “because I hear you are expecting to get your ship to-day or to-morrow, so you, too, have to be spoiled a little. As a general rule I don’t approve of putting engaged people together, it concentrates conversation so. And, Lord Romsey,” she added, turning to her neighbour, “please don’t imagine for a moment that I am going to break my promise. We are going to talk about everything in the world except the war. I know quite well that if Ronnie has had any particularly thrilling experiences, he won’t tell us about them, and I also know that your brain is packed full of secrets which nothing in the world would induce you to divulge. We are going to try and persuade Madame to tell us about her new play,” she concluded, smiling at the French actress, “and there are so many of my friends on the French stage whom I must hear about.”
Lord Romsey commenced his luncheon with an air of relief. He was a man of little more than middle-age, powerfully built, inclined to be sombre, with features of a legal type, heavily jawed. “Always tactful, dear hostess,” he murmured. “As a matter of fact, nothing but the circumstance that it was your invitation and that Madame Selarne was to be present, brought me here to-day. It is so hard to avoid speaking of the great things, and for a man in my position,” he added, dropping his voice a little, “so difficult to say anything worth listening to about them, without at any rate the semblance of indiscretion.”
“We all appreciate that,” Lady Anselman assured him sympathetically. “Madame Selarne has promised to give us an outline of the new play which she is producing in Manchester.”
“If that would interest you all,” Mad
ame Selarne assented, “it commences—so!”
For a time they nearly all listened in absorbed silence. Her gestures, the tricks of her voice, the uplifting of her eyebrows and shoulders—all helped to give life and colour to the little sketch she expounded. Only those at the remote end of the table ventured upon an independent conversation. Mrs. Cunningham, the woman whom her hostess had referred to as being her particular friend, and one who shared her passion for entertaining, chatted fitfully to her neighbour, Major Thomson. It was not until luncheon was more than half-way through that she realised the one-sidedness of their conversation. She studied him for a moment curiously. There was something very still and expressionless in his face, even though the sunshine from the broad high windows which overlooked the Park, was shining full upon him.
“Tell me about yourself!” she insisted suddenly. “I have been talking rubbish quite long enough. You have been out, haven’t you?”
He assented gravely.
“I went with the first division. At that time I was in charge of a field hospital.”
“And now?”
“I am Chief Inspector of Field Hospitals,” he replied.
“You are home on leave?”
“Not exactly,” he told her, a shade of stiffness in his manner. “I have to come over very often on details connected with the administration of my work.”
“I should have known quite well that you were a surgeon,” she observed.
“You are a physiognomist, then?”
“More or less,” she admitted. “You see, I love people. I love having people around me. My friends find me a perfect nuisance, for I am always wanting to give parties. You have the still, cold face of a surgeon—and the hands, too,” she added, glancing at them.
“You are very observant,” he remarked laconically.
“I am also curious,” she laughed, “as you are about to discover. Tell me why you are so interested in Ronnie Granet? You hadn’t met him before, had you?”
Almost for the first time he turned and looked directly at his neighbour. She was a woman whose fair hair was turning grey, well-dressed, sprightly, agreeable. She had a humorous mouth and an understanding face.
21 Greatest Spy Thrillers in One Premium Edition (Mystery & Espionage Series) Page 344