“It is the most remarkable case I ever heard of in my life,” the Duke admitted, helping himself to a cigarette from a box which he had just discovered.
“There is another point,” the Prime Minister continued. “There are features in common about both these murders. Not only were they both the work of a most accomplished criminal, but he must have been possessed of an iron nerve and amazing strength. The dagger by which Hamilton Fynes was stabbed was driven through the middle of his heart. The cord with which Vanderpole was strangled must have been turned by a wrist of steel. No time for a word afterwards, mind, or before. It was a wonderful feat. I am not surprised that the Americans can’t understand it.”
“They don’t suggest, I suppose,” the Duke asked, “that we are not trying to clear the matter up?”
“They don’t suggest it,” his chief answered, “but I can’t quite make out what’s at the back of their heads. However, I won’t bother you about that now. If I were to propound Heseltine’s theory to you, you would think that he had been reading the works of some of our enterprising young novelists. Things will have cleared up, I dare say, by next week. I am coming round to the House for a moment if you’re not in a hurry.”
The Duke assented, and waited while the secretary locked up the papers which the Prime Minister had been examining, and prepared others to be carried into the House. The two men left the place together, and the Duke pointed toward his brougham.
“Do you mind walking?” the Prime Minister said. “There is another matter I’d like to talk to you about, and there’s nowhere better than the streets for a little conversation. Besides, I need the air.”
“With pleasure,” the Duke answered, who loathed walking.
He directed his coachman to precede them, and they started off, arm in arm.
“Devenham,” the Prime Minister said, “we were speaking, a few minutes ago, of Prince Maiyo. I want you to understand this, that upon that young man depends entirely the success or failure of my administration.”
“You are serious?” the Duke exclaimed.
“Absolutely,” the Prime Minister answered. “I know quite well what he is here for. He is here to make up his mind whether it will pay Japan to renew her treaty with us, or whether it would be more to her advantage to enter into an alliance with any other European power. He has been to most of the capitals in Europe. He has been here with us. By this time he has made up his mind. He knows quite well what his report will be. Yet you can’t get a word out of him. He is a delightful young fellow, I know, but he is as clever as any trained diplomatist I have ever come across. I’ve had him to dine with me alone, and I’ve done all that I could to make him talk. When he went away, I knew just exactly as much as I did before he came.”
“He seems pleased enough with us,” the Duke remarked.
“I am not so sure,” the Prime Minister answered. “He has travelled about a good deal in England. I heard of him in Manchester and Sheffield, Newcastle and Leicester, absolutely unattended. I wonder what he was doing there.”
“From my experience of him,” the Duke said, “I don’t think we shall know until he chooses to tell us.”
“I am afraid you are right,” the Prime Minister declared. “At the same time you might just drop a hint to your wife, and to that remarkably clever young niece of hers, Miss Penelope Morse. Of course, I don’t expect that he would unbosom himself to any one, but, to tell you the truth, as we are situated now, the faintest hint as regards his inclinations, or lack of inclinations, towards certain things would be of immense service. If he criticised any of our institutions, for instance, his remarks would be most interesting. Then he has been spending several months in various capitals. He would not be likely to tell any one his whole impressions of those few months, but a phrase, a word, even a gesture, to a clever woman might mean a great deal. It might also mean a great deal to us.”
“I’ll mention it,” the Duke promised, “but I am afraid my womenfolk are scarcely up to this sort of thing. The best plan would be to tackle him ourselves down at Devenham.”
“I thought of that,” the Prime Minister assented. “That is why I am coming down myself and bringing Bransome. If he will have nothing to say to us within a week or so of his departure, we shall know what to think. Remember my words, Devenham,—when our chronicler dips his pen into the ink and writes of our government, our foreign policy, at least, will be judged by our position in the far East. Exactly what that will be depends upon Prince Maiyo. With a renewal of our treaty we could go to the country tomorrow. Without it, especially if the refusal should come from them, there will be some very ugly writing across the page.”
The Duke threw away his cigarette.
“Well,” he said, “we can only do our best. The young man seems friendly enough.”
The Prime Minister nodded.
“It is precisely his friendliness which I fear,” he said.
XVII. A GAY NIGHT IN PARIS
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Mr. James B. Coulson was almost as much at home at the Grand Hotel, Paris, as he had been at the Savoy in London. His headquarters were at the American Bar, where he approved of the cocktails, patronized the highballs, and continually met fellow-countrymen with whom he gossiped and visited various places of amusement. His business during the daytime he kept to himself, but he certainly was possessed of a bagful of documents and drawings relating to sundry patents connected with the manufacture of woollen goods, the praises of which he was always ready to sing in a most enthusiastic fashion.
Mr. Coulson was not a man whose acquaintance it was difficult to make. From five to seven every afternoon, scorning the attractions of the band outside and the generally festive air which pervaded the great tea rooms, he sat at the corner of the bar upon an article of furniture which resembled more than anything else an office stool, dividing his attention between desultory conversation with any other gentleman who might be indulging in a drink, and watching the billiards in which some of his compatriots were usually competing. It was not, so far as one might judge, a strenuous life which Mr. Coulson was leading. He had been known once or twice to yawn, and he had somewhat the appearance of a man engaged in an earnest but at times not altogether successful attempt to kill time. Perhaps for that reason he made acquaintances with a little more than his customary freedom. There was a young Englishman, for instance, whose name, it appeared, was Gaynsforth, with whom, after a drink or two at the bar, he speedily became on almost intimate terms.
Mr. Gaynsforth was a young man, apparently of good breeding and some means. He was well dressed, of cheerful disposition, knew something about the woollen trade, and appeared to take a distinct liking to his new friend. The two men, after having talked business together for some time, arranged to dine together and have what they called a gay evening. They retired to their various apartments to change, Mr. Gaynsforth perfectly well satisfied with his progress, Mr. James B. Coulson with a broad grin upon his face.
After a very excellent dinner, for which Mr. Gaynsforth insisted upon paying, they went to the Folies Bergeres, where the Englishman developed a thirst which, considering the coolness of the evening, was nothing short of amazing. Mr. Coulson, however, kept pace with him steadily, and toward midnight their acquaintance had steadily progressed until they were certainly on friendly if not affectionate terms. A round of the supper places, proposed by the Englishman, was assented to by Mr. Coulson with enthusiasm. About three o’clock in the morning Mr. Coulson had the appearance of a man for whom the troubles of this world are over, and who was realizing the ecstatic bliss of a temporary Nirvana. Mr. Gaynsforth, on the other hand, although half an hour ago he had been boisterous and unsteady, seemed suddenly to have become once more the quiet, discreet-looking young Englishman who had first bowed to Mr. Coulson in the bar of the Grand Hotel and accepted with some diffidence his offer of a drink. To prevent his friend being jostled by the somewhat mixed crowd in which they then were, Mr. Gaynsforth drew nearer and nearer to him
. He even let his hand stray over his person, as though to be sure that he was not carrying too much in his pockets.
“Say, old man,” he whispered in his ear,—they were sitting side by side now in the Bal Tabarin,—“if you are going on like this, Heaven knows where you’ll land at the end of it all! I’ll look after you as well as I can,—where you go, I’ll go—but we can’t be together every second of the time. Don’t you think you’d be safer if you handed over your pocketbook to me?”
“Right you are!” Mr. Coulson declared, falling a little over on one side. “Take it out of my pocket. Be careful of it now. There’s five hundred francs there, and the plans of a loom which I wouldn’t sell for a good many thousands.”
Mr. Gaynsforth possessed himself quickly of the pocketbook, and satisfied himself that his friend’s description of its contents was fairly correct.
“You’ve nothing else upon you worth taking care of?” he whispered. “You can trust me, you know. You haven’t any papers, or anything of that sort?”
Then Mr. James B. Coulson, who was getting tired of his part, suddenly sat up, and a soberer man had never occupied that particular chair in the Bal Tabarin.
“And if I have, my young friend,” he said calmly, “what the devil business is it of yours?”
Mr. Gaynsforth was taken aback and showed it. He recovered himself as quickly as possible, and realized that he had been living in a fool’s paradise so far as the condition of his companion was concerned. He realized, also, that the first move in the game between them had been made and that he had lost.
“You are too good an actor for me, Mr. Coulson,” he said. “Suppose we get to business.”
“That’s all right,” Mr. Coulson answered. “Let’s go somewhere where we can get some supper. We’ll go to the Abbaye Theleme, and you shall have the pleasure of entertaining me.”
Mr. Gaynsforth handed back the pocketbook and led the way out of the place without a word. It was only a few steps up the hill, and they found themselves then in a supper place of a very different class. Here Mr. Coulson, after a brief visit to the lavatory, during which he obliterated all traces of his recent condition, seated himself at one of the small flower-decked tables and offered the menu to his new friend.
“It’s up to you to pay,” he said, “so you shall choose the supper. Personally, I’m for a few oysters, a hot bird, and a cold bottle.”
Mr. Gaynsforth, who was still somewhat subdued, commanded the best supper procurable on these lines. Mr. Coulson, having waved his hand to a few acquaintances and chaffed the Spanish dancing girls in their own language,—not a little to his companion’s astonishment,—at last turned to business.
“Come,” he said, “you and I ought to understand one another. You are over here from London either to pump me or to rob me. You are either a detective or a political spy or a secret service agent of some sort, or you are on a lay of your own. Now, put it in a business form, what can I do for you? Make your offer, and let’s see where we are.”
Mr. Gaynsforth began to recover himself. It did not follow, because he had made one mistake, that he was to lose the game.
“I am neither a detective, Mr. Coulson,” he said, “nor a secret service agent,—in fact, I am nothing of that sort at all. I have a friend, however, who for certain reasons does not care to approach you himself, but who is nevertheless very much interested in a particular event, or rather incident, in which you are concerned.”
“Good!” Mr. Coulson declared. “Get right on.”
“That friend,” Mr. Gaynsforth continued calmly, “is prepared to pay a thousand pounds for full information and proof as to the nature of those papers which were stolen from Mr. Hamilton Fynes on the night of March 22nd.”
“A thousand pounds,” Mr. Coulson repeated. “Gee whiz!”
“He is also,” the Englishman continued, “prepared to pay another thousand for a satisfactory explanation of the murder of Mr. Richard Vanderpole on the following day.”
“Say, your friend’s got the stuff!” Mr. Coulson remarked admiringly.
“My friend is not a poor man,” Mr. Gaynsforth admitted. “You see, there’s a sort of feeling abroad that these two things are connected. I am not working on behalf of the police. I am not working on behalf of any one who desires the least publicity. But I am working for some one who wants to know and is prepared to pay.”
“That’s a very interesting job you’re on, and no mistake,” Mr. Coulson declared. “I wonder you waste time coming over here on the spree when you’ve got a piece of business like that to look after.”
“I came over here,” Mr. Gaynsforth replied, “entirely on the matter I have mentioned to you.”
“What, over here to Paris?” Mr. Coulson exclaimed.
“Not only to Paris,” the other replied dryly, “but to discover one Mr. James B. Coulson, whose health I now have the pleasure of drinking.”
Mr. Coulson drained the glass which the waiter had just filled.
“Well, this licks me!” he exclaimed. “How any one in their senses could believe that there was any connection between me and Hamilton Fynes or that other young swell, I can’t imagine.”
“You knew Hamilton Fynes,” Mr. Gaynsforth remarked. “That fact came out at the inquest. You appeared to have known him better than most men. Mr. Vanderpole had just left you when he was murdered,—that also came out at the inquest.”
“Kind of queer, wasn’t it,” Mr. Coulson remarked meditatively, “how I seemed to get hung up with both of them? You may also remember that at the inquest Mr. Vanderpole’s business with me was testified to by the chief of his department.”
“Certainly,” Mr. Gaynsforth answered. “However, that’s neither here nor there. Everything was properly arranged, so far as you were concerned, of course. That doesn’t alter my friend’s convictions. This is a business matter with me, and if the two thousand pounds don’t sound attractive enough, well, the amount must be revised, that’s all. But I want you to understand this, Mr. Coulson, I represent a man or a syndicate, or call it what you will.”
“Call it a Government,” Mr. Coulson muttered under his breath.
“Call it what you will,” Mr. Gaynsforth continued, with an air of not having heard the interruption, “we have the money and we want the information. You can give it to us if you like. We don’t ask for too much. We don’t even ask for the name of the man who committed these crimes. But we do want to know the nature of those papers, exactly what position Mr. Hamilton Fynes occupied in the Stamp and Excise Duty department at Washington, and, finally, what the mischief you are doing over here in Paris.”
“Have you ordered the supper?” Mr. Coulson inquired anxiously.
“I have ordered everything you suggested,” Mr. Gaynsforth answered,—“some oysters, a chicken en casserole, lettuce salad, some cheese, and a magnum of Pommery.”
“It is understood that you are my host?” Mr. Coulson insisted.
“Absolutely,” his companion declared. “I consider it an honor.”
“Then,” Mr. Coulson said, pointing out his empty glass to the sommelier, “we may as well understand one another. To you I am Mr. James B. Coulson, travelling in patents for woollen machinery. If you put a quarter of a million of francs upon that table, I am still Mr. James B. Coulson, travelling in woollen machinery. And if you add a million to that, and pile up the notes so high that they touch the ceiling, I remain Mr. James B. Coulson, travelling in patents for woollen machinery. Now, if you’ll get that firmly into your head and stick to it and believe it, there’s no reason why you and I shouldn’t have a pleasant evening.”
Mr. Gaynsforth, although he was an Englishman and young, showed himself to be possessed of a sense of humor. He leaned back in his seat and roared with laughter.
“Mr. Coulson,” he said, “I congratulate you and your employers. To the lower regions with business! Help yourself to the oysters and pass the wine.”
XVIII. MR. COULSON IS INDISCREET
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On the following morning Mr. Coulson received what he termed his mail from America. Locked in his room on the fifth floor of the hotel, he carefully perused the contents of several letters. A little later he rang and ordered his bill. At four o’clock he left the Gare du Nord for London.
Like many other great men, Mr. Coulson was not without his weakness. He was brave, shrewd, and far-seeing. He enjoyed excellent health, and he scarcely knew the meaning of the word nerves. Nevertheless he suffered from seasickness. The first thing he did, therefore, when aboard the boat at Boulogne, was to bespeak a private cabin. The steward to whom he made his application shook his head with regret. The last two had just been engaged. Mr. Coulson tried a tip, and then a larger tip, with equal lack of success. He was about to abandon the effort and retire gloomily to the saloon, when a man who had been standing by, wrapped in a heavy fur overcoat, intervened.
“I am afraid, sir,” he said, “that it is I who have just secured the last cabin. If you care to share it with me, however, I shall be delighted. As a matter of fact, I use it very little myself. The night has turned out so fine that I shall probably promenade all the time.”
“If you will allow me to divide the expense,” Mr. Coulson replied, “I shall be exceedingly obliged to you, and will accept your offer. I am, unfortunately, a bad sailor.”
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