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

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  “Captain Granet!” she exclaimed. “You should not say that! You have no right—no right at all.”

  “On the contrary, I have every right,” he answered doggedly. “It isn’t as though Thomson were my friend. He hates me and I dislike him. Every man has a right to do his best to win the girl he cares for. It’s the first time I’ve felt anything of this sort. I’ve never wanted the big things before from any woman. And now—”

  She turned impetuously away from him. Over their head an electric message was sparkling and crackling. She stood looking up, her hand outstretched as though to keep him away.

  “I cannot listen any more,” she declared. “If you say another word I shall go below.”

  He remained for a moment gloomily silent. A young officer stepped out of the wireless room and saluted Geraldine.

  “Very sorry for you people, Miss Conyers,” he announced, “but I am afraid we’ll have to put you on shore. We’ve an urgent message here from the flag-ship to clear off all guests.”

  “But we haven’t had lunch yet!” Geraldine protested.

  Conyers suddenly made his appearance in the gangway, followed by Olive.

  “What’s the message, Howard?” he inquired.

  The officer saluted and handed over a folded piece of paper. Conyers read it with a frown and stepped at once out on to the deck. He gave a few orders, then he turned back to his guests.

  “Gels,” he explained, “and you, Granet, I’m frightfully sorry but I can’t keep you here another second. I have ordered the pinnace round. You must get on shore and have lunch at the ‘Ship.’ I’ll come along as soon as I can. Frightfully sorry, Granet, but I needn’t apologise to you, need I? War’s war, you know and this is a matter of urgency.”

  “You’re not going out this tide?” Geraldine demanded breathlessly.

  Conyers shook his head.

  “It isn’t that,” he replied. “We’ve got some engineers coming over to do some work on deck, and I’ve had a private tip from my chief to clear out any guests I may have on board.”

  “Is it anything to do with this wonderful screened-up thing?” Olive asked, strolling towards the framework-covered edifice.

  Conyers shrugged his shoulders.

  “Can’t disclose Government secrets! Between just us four—our friend Thomson isn’t here, is he?” he added, smiling,—“we are planning a little Hell for the submarines.”

  They glanced curiously at the mysterious erection. Granet sighed.

  “Secretive chaps, you sailors,” he observed. “Never mind, I have a pal in the Admiralty who gives me a few hints now and then. I shall go and pump him.”

  “Don’t you breathe a word about having been board the Scorpion,” Conyers begged quickly. “They wink at it down here, so long as it’s done discreetly, but it’s positively against the rules, you know.”

  “Righto!” Granet agreed. “There isn’t a soul I’m likely to mention it to.”

  “I’ll come over to the ‘Ship’ as soon as I can get away,” Conyers promised.

  They raced across the mile of broken water to the landing-stage. They were all a little silent. Olive was frankly disappointed, Geraldine was busy with her thoughts. Granet’s gaze seemed rivetted upon the Scorpion. Another pinnace had drawn up alongside and a little company of men were boarding her.

  “I only hope that they really have hit upon a device to rid the sea of these cursed submarines!” he remarked, as they made their way across the dock. “I see the brutes have taken to sinking fishing boats now.”

  “Ralph believes that they have got something,” Olive declared eagerly. “He is simply aching to get to work.”

  “Sailors are all so jolly sanguine,” Granet reminded her. “They are doing something pretty useful with nets, of course, in the way your brother was beginning to explain to me when Major Thomson chipped in, but they could only keep a fixed channel clear in that way. What they really need is some way of tackling them when they are under water. Here we are at last. I hope you girls are as hungry as I am.”

  They lunched in leisurely fashion, Olive in particular glancing often towards the door, and afterwards they sat about in the lounge, drinking their coffee. Granet had seemed to be in high spirits throughout the meal, and told the girls many little anecdotes of his adventures at the Front. Afterwards, however, he became silent, and finally, with a word of excuse, strolled off alone. Olive looked once more at the clock.

  “Ralph doesn’t seem to be coming back, does he?” she sighed. “Let’s walk a little way down to the landing-stage.”

  The two girls strolled out and made their way towards the harbour. They could see the Scorpion but there was no sign of any pinnace leaving her. Reluctantly they turned back towards the hotel.

  “I wonder what has become of Captain Granet?” Olive asked.

  Geraldine stopped short. There was a little frown gathering upon her forehead. She pointed up to the roof of the hotel, where a man was crouching with a telescope glued to his eyes. He lowered it almost as they paused, and waved his hand to them.

  “Can’t see any sign of Conyers,” he shouted. “I’m waiting for the pinnace. Come up here. There’s such a ripping view.”

  They entered the hotel in silence.

  “I don’t believe,” Geraldine remarked uneasily, “that Ralph would like that.”

  They made their way to the top of the house and were escorted by a buxom chambermaid to what was practically a step-ladder opening out on to a skylight. From here they crawled on to the roof, where they found Granet comfortably ensconced with his back to a chimney, smoking a cigarette.

  “This is rather one on your brother,” he chuckled.

  “Where did you find the telescope?” Geraldine asked.

  “I borrowed it from downstairs,” he answered. “Do come and have a look. You can see the Scorpion quite distinctly. All the officers seem to be gathered around that mysterious structure on the upper deck. I thought at first it was a stand for a gun but it isn’t.”

  Olive held out her hand for the telescope but Geraldine shook her head. There was a troubled expression in her eyes.

  “I suppose it’s awfully silly, Captain Granet,” she said, “but honestly, I don’t think Ralph would take it as a joke at all if he knew that we were up here, trying to find out what was going on.”

  Olive set down the telescope promptly.

  “I didn’t think of that,” she murmured.

  Granet laughed easily.

  “Perhaps you are right,” he admitted. “All the same, we are a little exceptionally placed, aren’t we?—his sister, his fiancee, and—”

  He broke off suddenly. A hand had been laid upon his shoulder. A small, dark man, who had come round the corner of the chimney unperceived, was standing immediately behind him.

  “I must trouble you all for your names and addresses, if you please,” he announced quietly.

  The two girls stared at him, dumbfounded. Granet, however, remained perfectly at his ease. He laid down the telescope and scrutinised the newcomer.

  “I really don’t altogether see,” he remarked good humouredly, “why I should give my name and address to a perfect stranger just because he asks for it.”

  The man opened his coat and displayed a badge.

  “I am on Government service, sir.”

  “Well, I am Captain Granet, back from the Front with dispatches a few days ago,” Granet told him. “This is Miss Conyers, sister of Commander Conyers of the Scorpion, and Miss Olive Moreton, his fiancee. We are waiting for Commander Conyers at the present moment, and we were just looking to see if the pinnace had started. Is it against the law to use a telescope in Portsmouth?”

  The man made a few notes in his pocket-book. Then he opened the trapdoor and stood on one side.

  “No one is allowed out here, sir,” he said. “The hotel people are to blame for not having the door locked. I shall have to make a report but I have no doubt that your explanation will be accepted. Will you be so good as
to descend, please?”

  Granet struggled to his feet and turned towards his companions.

  “The fellow’s quite right,” he decided. “I am only glad that the Government are looking after things so. The Admiralty are much more go-ahead in this way than we are. I vote we have out the car and go down the front to Southsea—unless we are under arrest?” he added pleasantly, turning towards the man who had accosted them.

  “You are at liberty to do whatever you please, sir,” was the polite reply. “In any case, I think it would be quite useless of you to wait for Commander Conyers.”

  “Why?” Olive asked quickly.

  “The Scorpion has just received orders to leave on this evening’s tide, madam,” the man announced. “You can see that she is moving even now.”

  They looked out across the harbour. The smoke was pouring from the funnels of the destroyer. Already she had swung around and was steaming slowly towards the Channel.

  “She’s off, right enough!” Granet exclaimed. “Nothing left for us, then, but London.”

  CHAPTER XII

  Table of Contents

  Geraldine, a few hours later, set down the telephone receiver with a little sigh of resignation. Lady Conyers glanced up inquiringly from her book.

  “Was that some one wanting to come and see you at this time of night, Geraldine?” she asked.

  Geraldine yawned.

  “It’s Hugh,” she explained. “He has rung up from the War Office or somewhere—says he has just got back from France and wants to see me at once. I think he might have waited till to-morrow morning. I can scarcely keep my eyes open, I am so sleepy.”

  Lady Conyers glanced at the clock.

  “It isn’t really so late,” she remarked, “and I dare say, if the poor man’s been travelling all day, he’d like to say good-night to you.”

  Geraldine made a little grimace.

  “I shall go into the morning room and wait for him,” she announced. “He’ll very likely find me asleep.”

  The Admiral looked up from behind the Times.

  “Where’s that nice young fellow Granet?” he asked. “Why didn’t you bring him in to dinner?”

  “Well, we didn’t get back until nearly eight,” Geraldine reminded her father. “I didn’t think he’d have time to change and get back here comfortably.”

  “Fine young chap, that,” Sir Seymour remarked. “The very best type of young English soldier. We could do with lots like him.”

  Geraldine left the room without remark. She could hear her father rustling his paper as she disappeared.

  “Can’t think why Geraldine didn’t pick up with a smart young fellow like Granet instead of an old stick like Thomson,” he grumbled. “I hate these Army Medicals, anyway.”

  “Major Thomson has a charming disposition,” Lady Conyers declared warmly. “Besides, he will be very well off some day—he may even get the baronetcy.”

  “Who cares about that?” her husband grunted. “Geraldine has all the family she needs, and all the money. How she came to choose Thomson from all her sweethearts, I can’t imagine.”

  Geraldine, notwithstanding her fatigue, welcomed her lover very charmingly when he arrived, a few minutes later. Major Thomson was still in travelling clothes, and had the air of a man who had been working at high pressure for some time. He held her fingers tightly for a moment, without speaking. Then he led her to the sofa and seated himself beside her.

  “Geraldine,” he began gravely, “has what I say any weight with you at all?”

  “A good deal,” she assured him.

  “You know that I do not like Captain Granet, yet you took him with you down to Portsmouth today and even allowed him to accompany you on board the Scorpion.”

  Geraldine started a little.

  “How do you know that already?” she asked curiously.

  He shook his head impatiently.

  “It doesn’t matter. I heard. Why did you do it, Geraldine?”

  “In the first place, because he offered to motor us down after we had missed the train. There are heaps of other reasons.”

  “As, for instance?”

  “Well, Olive and I preferred having an escort and Captain Granet was a most agreeable one. He took us down in a car his uncle has just given him—a sixty horse-power Panhard. I never enjoyed motoring more in my life.”

  “You are all very foolish,” Thomson said slowly. “I am going to tell you something now, dear, which you may not believe, but it is for your good, and it is necessary for me to have some excuse for the request I am going to make. Granet is under suspicion at the War Office.”

  “Under suspicion?” Geraldine repeated blankly.

  “Nothing has been proved against him,” Thomson continued, “and I tell you frankly that in certain quarters the idea is scouted as absurd. On the other hand, he is under observation as being a possible German spy.”

  Geraldine for a moment sat quite still. Then she broke into a peal of laughter. She sat up, a moment later, wiping her eyes.

  “Are you really serious, Hugh?” she demanded.

  “Absolutely,” he assured her, a little coldly.

  She wiped her eyes once more.

  “Hugh, dear,” she sighed, patting his hand, “you do so much better looking after your hospitals and your wounded than unearthing mare’s-nests like this. I don’t think that you’d be a brilliant success in the Intelligence Department. As to the War Office, well, you know what I think of them. Captain Granet a German spy, indeed!”

  “Neither the War Office nor I myself,” Thomson continued, “have arrived at these suspicions without some reason. Perhaps you will look at the matter a little more seriously when I tell you that Captain Granet will not be allowed to return to the Front.”

  “Not be allowed?” she repeated. “Hugh, you are not serious!”

  “I have never been more serious in my life,” he insisted. “I am not in a position to tell you more than the bare facts or I might disclose some evidence which even you would have to admit throws a rather peculiar light upon some of this young man’s actions. As it is, however, I can do no more than warn you, and beg you,” he went on, “to yield to my wishes in the matter of your further acquaintance with him.”

  There was a moment’s rather curious silence. Geraldine seemed to be gazing through the walls of the room. Her hands were clenched in one another, her fingers nervously interlocked.

  “I shall send for him to come and see me the first thing to-morrow morning,” she decided.

  “You will do nothing of the sort,” Thomson objected firmly.

  She turned her head and looked at him. He was conscious of the antagonism which had sprung up like a wall between them. His face, however, showed no sign.

  “How do you propose to prevent me?” she asked, with ominous calm.

  “By reminding you of your duty to your country,” he answered. “Geraldine, dear, I did not expect to have to talk to you like this. When I tell you that responsible people in the War Office, officials whose profession it is to scent out treachery, have declared this young man suspect, I am certainly disappointed to find you embracing his cause so fervently. It is no personal matter. Believe, me,” he added, after a moment’s pause, “whatever my personal bias may be, what I am saying to you now is not actuated in the slightest by any feelings of jealousy. I have told you what I know and it is for you to make your choice as to how much or how little in the future you will see of this young man. But I do forbid you, not in my own name but for our country’s sake to breathe a single word to him of what I have said to you.”

  “It comes to this, then,” she said, “that you make accusations against a man and deny him the right of being heard?”

  “If you choose to put it like that, yes,” he assented. “Only I fancied that considering—considering the things between us, you might have taken my word.”

  He leaned a little towards her. If she had been looking she could scarcely have failed to have been touched by the su
dden softness of his dark eyes, the little note of appeal in his usually immobile face. Her eyes, however, were fixed upon the diamond ring which sparkled upon her third finger. Slowly she drew it off and handed it to him.

  “Hugh,” she said, “the things you speak of do not exist any more between us. I am sorry, but I think you are narrow and suspicious. You have your own work to do. It seems to me mean to spend your time suspecting soldiers who have fought for their king and their country, of such a despicable crime.”

  “Can’t you trust me a little more than that, Geraldine?” he asked wistfully.

  “In what way?” she demanded. “I judge only by the facts, the things you have said to me, your accusations against Captain Granet. Why should you go out of your way to investigate cases of suspected espionage?”

  “You cannot believe that I would do so unless I was convinced that it was my duty?”

  “I cannot see that it is your business at all,” she told him shortly.

  He rose from his place.

  “I am very sorry, Geraldine,” he said. “I will keep this ring. You are quite free. But—look at me.”

  Against her will she was forced to do as he bade her. Her own attitude, which had appeared to her so dignified and right, seemed suddenly weakened. She had the feeling of a peevish child.

  “Geraldine,” he begged, “take at least the advice of a man who loves you. Wait.”

  Even when he had opened the door she felt a sudden inclination to call him back. She heard him go down the hall, heard the front door open and close. She sat and looked in a dazed sort of way at the empty space upon her finger. Then she rose and went into the drawing-room, where her father and mother were still reading. She held out her hand.

  “Mother,” she announced, “I am not engaged to Major Thomson any more.”

  The Admiral laid down his newspaper.

  “Damned good job, too!” he declared. “That young fellow Granet’s worth a dozen of him. Never could stick an Army Medical. Well, well! How did he take it?”

  Lady Conyers watched her daughter searchingly. Then she shook her head.