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

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  And yet he would have to go. He admitted that to himself as he ate his solitary breakfast, with the letter spread out before him. Since it was inevitable, he decided to lose no time. Better go at once and have it over. The sooner he got there the sooner he would be able to return. He rang the bell, and gave the necessary orders. At a quarter to twelve he was at King’s Cross.

  He took his ticket in a gloomy frame of mind, and bought the Field and a sporting novel at the bookstall. Then he turned towards the train, and walking idly down the platform, looking for Selby and his belongings, he experienced what was very nearly the greatest surprise of his life. So far, coincidence was certainly doing her best to befriend him. A girl was seated alone in the further corner of a first-class carriage. Something familiar in the poise of her head, or the gleam of her hair gathered up underneath an unusually smart travelling hat, attracted his attention. He came to a sudden standstill, breathless, incredulous. She was looking out of the opposite window, her head resting upon her fingers, but a sudden glimpse of her profile assured him that this was no delusion. It was Mr. Sabin’s niece who sat there, a passenger by his own train, probably, as he reflected with a sudden illuminative flash of thought, to be removed from the risk of any more meetings with him.

  Wolfenden, with a discretion at which he afterwards wondered, did not at once attract her attention. He hurried off to the smoking carriage before which his servant was standing, and had his own belongings promptly removed on to the platform. Then he paid a visit to the refreshment-room, and provided himself with an extensive luncheon basket, and finally, at the bookstall, he bought up every lady’s paper and magazine he could lay his hands upon. There was only a minute now before the train was due to leave, and he walked along the platform as though looking for a seat, followed by his perplexed servant. When he arrived opposite to her carriage, he paused, only to find himself confronted by a severe-looking maid dressed in black, and the guard. For the first time he noticed the little strip, “engaged,” pasted across the window.

  “Plenty of room lower down, sir,” the guard remarked. “This is an engaged carriage.”

  The maid whispered something to the guard, who nodded and locked the door. At the sound of the key, however, the girl looked round and saw Wolfenden. She lifted her eyebrows and smiled faintly. Then she came to the window and let it down.

  “Whatever are you doing here?” she asked. “You——”

  He interrupted her gently. The train was on the point of departure.

  “I am going down into Norfolk,” he said. “I had not the least idea of seeing you. I do not think that I was ever so surprised.”

  Then he hesitated for a moment.

  “May I come in with you?” he asked.

  She laughed at him. He had been so afraid of her possible refusal, that his question had been positively tremulous.

  “I suppose so,” she said slowly. “Is the train quite full, then?”

  He looked at her quite keenly. She was laughing at him with her eyes—an odd little trick of hers. He was himself again at once, and answered mendaciously, but with emphasis—

  “Not a seat anywhere. I shall be left behind if you don’t take me in.”

  A word in the guard’s ear was quite sufficient, but the maid looked at Wolfenden suspiciously. She leaned into the carriage.

  “Would mademoiselle prefer that I, too, travelled with her?” she inquired in French.

  The girl answered her in the same language.

  “Certainly not, Céleste. You had better go and take your seat at once. We are just going!”

  The maid reluctantly withdrew, with disapproval very plainly stamped upon her dark face. Wolfenden and his belongings were bundled in, and the whistle blew. The train moved slowly out of the station. They were off!

  “I believe,” she said, looking with a smile at the pile of magazines and papers littered all over the seat, “that you are an impostor. Or perhaps you have a peculiar taste in literature!”

  She pointed towards the Queen and the Gentlewoman. He was in high spirits, and he made open confession.

  “I saw you ten minutes ago,” he declared, “and since then I have been endeavouring to make myself an acceptable travelling companion. But don’t begin to study the fashions yet, please. Tell me how it is that after looking all over London for three days for you, I find you here.”

  “It is the unexpected,” she remarked, “which always happens. But after all there is nothing mysterious about it. I am going down to a little house which my uncle has taken, somewhere near Cromer. You will think it odd, I suppose, considering his deformity, but he is devoted to golf, and some one has been telling him that Norfolk is the proper county to go to.”

  “And you?” he asked.

  She shook her head disconsolately.

  “I am afraid I am not English enough to care much for games,” she admitted. “I like riding and archery, and I used to shoot a little, but to go into the country at this time of the year to play any game seems to me positively barbarous. London is quite dull enough—but the country—and the English country, too!—well, I have been engrossed in self-pity ever since my uncle announced his plans.”

  “I do not imagine,” he said smiling, “that you care very much for England.”

  “I do not imagine,” she admitted promptly, “that I do. I am a Frenchwoman, you see, and to me there is no city on earth like Paris, and no country like my own.”

  “The women of your nation,” he remarked, “are always patriotic. I have never met a Frenchwoman who cared for England.”

  “We have reason to be patriotic,” she said, “or rather, we had,” she added, with a curious note of sadness in her tone. “But, come, I do not desire to talk about my country. I admitted you here to be an entertaining companion, and you have made me speak already of the subject which is to me the most mournful in the world. I do not wish to talk any more about France. Will you please think of another subject?”

  “Mr. Sabin is not with you,” he remarked.

  “He intended to come. Something important kept him at the last moment. He will follow me, perhaps, by a later train to-day, if not to- morrow.”

  “It is certainly a coincidence,” he said, “that you should be going to Cromer. My home is quite near there.”

  “And you are going there now?” she asked.

  “I am delighted to say that I am.”

  “You did not mention it the other evening,” she remarked. “You talked as though you had no intention at all of leaving London.”

  “Neither had I at that time,” he said. “I had a letter from home this morning which decided me.”

  She smiled softly.

  “Well, it is strange,” she said. “On the whole, it is perhaps fortunate that you did not contemplate this journey when we had supper together the other night.”

  He caught at her meaning, and laughed.

  “It is more than fortunate,” he declared. “If I had known of it, and told Mr. Sabin, you would not have been travelling by this train alone.”

  “I certainly should not,” she admitted demurely.

  He saw his opportunity, and swiftly availed himself of it.

  “Why does your uncle object to me so much?” he asked.

  “Object to you!” she repeated. “On the contrary, I think that he rather approves of you. You saved his life, or something very much like it. He should be very grateful! I think that he is!”

  “Yet,” he persisted, “he does not seem to desire my acquaintance—for you, at any rate. You have just admitted, that if he had known that there was any chance of our being fellow passengers you would not have been here.”

  She did not answer him immediately. She was looking fixedly out of the window. Her face seemed to him more than ordinarily grave. When she turned her head, her eyes were thoughtful—a little sad.

  “You are quite right,” she said. “My uncle does not think it well for me to make any acquaintances in this country. We are not here for ver
y long. No doubt he is right. He has at least reason on his side. Only it is a little dull for me, and it is not what I have been used to. Yet there are sacrifices always. I cannot tell you any more. You must please not ask me. You are here, and I am pleased that you are here! There! will not that content you?”

  “It gives me,” he answered earnestly, “more than contentment! It is happiness!”

  “That is precisely the sort of thing,” she said slowly to him, with laughter in her eyes, “which you are not to say! Please understand that!”

  He accepted the rebuke lightly. He was far too happy in being with her to be troubled by vague limitations. The present was good enough for him, and he did his best to entertain her. He noticed with pleasure that she did not even glance at the pile of papers at her side. They talked without intermission. She was interested, even gay. Yet he could not but notice that every now and then, especially at any reference to the future, her tone grew graver and a shadow passed across her face. Once he said something which suggested the possibility of her living always in England. She had shaken her head at once, gently but firmly.

  “No, I could never live in this country,” she said, “even if my liking for it grew. It would be impossible!”

  He was puzzled for a moment.

  “You think that you could never care for it enough,” he suggested; “yet you have scarcely had time to judge it fairly. London in the spring is gay enough, and the life at some of our country houses is very different to what it was a few years ago. Society is so much more tolerant and broader.”

  “It is scarcely a question,” she said, “of my likes or dislikes. Next to Paris, I prefer London in the spring to any city in Europe, and a week I spent at Radnett was very delightful. But, nevertheless, I could never live here. It is not my destiny!”

  The old curiosity was strong upon him. Radnett was the home of the Duchess of Radnett and Ilchester, who had the reputation of being the most exclusive hostess in Europe! He was bewildered.

  “I would give a great deal,” he said earnestly, “to know what you believe that destiny to be.”

  “We are bordering upon the forbidden subject,” she reminded him, with a look which was almost reproachful. “You must please believe me when I tell you, that for me things have already been arranged otherwise. Come, I want you to tell me all about this country into which we are going. You must remember that to me it is all new!”

  He suffered her to lead the conversation into other channels, with a vague feeling of disquiet. The mystery which hung around the girl and her uncle seemed only to grow denser as his desire to penetrate it grew. At present, at any rate, he was baffled. He dared ask no more questions.

  The train glided into Peterborough station before either of them were well aware that they had entered in earnest upon the journey. Wolfenden looked out of the window with amazement.

  “Why, we are nearly half way there!” he exclaimed. “How wretched!”

  She smiled, and took up a magazine. Wolfenden’s servant came respectfully to the window.

  “Can I get you anything, my lord?” he inquired.

  Wolfenden shook his head, and opening the door, stepped out on to the platform.

  “Nothing, thanks, Selby,” he said. “You had better get yourself some lunch. We don’t get to Deringham until four o’clock.”

  The man raised his hat and turned away. In a moment, however, he was back again.

  “You will pardon my mentioning it, my lord,” he said, “but the young lady’s maid has been travelling in my carriage, and a nice fidget she’s been in all the way. She’s been muttering to herself in French, and she seems terribly frightened about something or other. The moment the train stopped here, she rushed off to the telegraph office.”

  “She seems a little excitable,” Wolfenden remarked. “All right, Selby, you’d better hurry up and get what you want to eat.”

  “Certainly, my lord; and perhaps your lordship knows that there is a flower-stall in the corner there.”

  Wolfenden nodded and hurried off. He returned to the carriage just as the train was moving off, with a handful of fresh, wet violets, whose perfume seemed instantly to fill the compartment. The girl held out her hands with a little exclamation of pleasure.

  “What a delightful travelling companion you are,” she declared. “I think these English violets are the sweetest flowers in the world.”

  She held them up to her lips. Wolfenden was looking at a paper bag in her lap.

  “May I inquire what that is?” he asked.

  “Buns!” she answered. “You must not think that because I am a girl I am never hungry. It is two o’clock, and I am positively famished. I sent my maid for them.”

  He smiled, and sweeping away the bundles of rugs and coats, produced the luncheon basket which he had secured at King’s Cross, and opening it, spread out the contents.

  “For two!” she exclaimed, “and what a delightful looking salad! Where on earth did that come from?”

  “Oh, I am no magician,” he exclaimed. “I ordered the basket at King’s Cross, after I had seen you. Let me spread the cloth here. My dressing-case will make a capital table!”

  They picnicked together gaily. It seemed to Wolfenden that chicken and tongue had never tasted so well before, or claret, at three shillings the bottle, so full and delicious. They cleared everything up, and then sat and talked over the cigarette which she had insisted upon. But although he tried more than once, he could not lead the conversation into any serious channel—she would not talk of her past, she distinctly avoided the future. Once, when he had made a deliberate effort to gain some knowledge as to her earlier surroundings, she reproved him with a silence so marked that he hastened to talk of something else.

  “Your maid,” he said, “is greatly distressed about something. She sent a telegram off at Peterborough. I hope that your uncle will not make himself unpleasant because of my travelling with you.”

  She smiled at him quite undisturbed.

  “Poor Céleste,” she said. “Your presence here has upset her terribly. Mr. Sabin has some rather strange notions about me, and I am quite sure that he would rather have sent me down in a special train than have had this happen. You need not look so serious about it.”

  “It is only on your account,” he assured her.

  “Then you need not look serious at all,” she continued. “I am not under my uncle’s jurisdiction. In fact, I am quite an independent person.”

  “I am delighted to hear it,” he said heartily. “I should imagine that Mr. Sabin would not be at all a pleasant person to be on bad terms with.”

  She smiled thoughtfully.

  “There are a good many people,” she said, “who would agree with you. There are a great many people in the world who have cause to regret having offended him. Let us talk of something else. I believe that I can see the sea!”

  They were indeed at Cromer. He found a carriage for her, and collected her belongings. He was almost amused at her absolute indolence in the midst of the bustle of arrival. She was evidently unused to doing the slightest thing for herself. He took the address which she gave to him, and repeated it to the driver. Then he asked the question which had been trembling many times upon his lips.

  “May I come and see you?”

  She had evidently been considering the matter, for she answered him at once and deliberately.

  “I should like you to,” she said; “but if for any reason it did not suit my uncle to have you come, it would not be pleasant for either of us. He is going to play golf on the Deringham links. You will be certain to see him there, and you must be guided by his manner towards you.”

  “And if he is still—as he was in London—must this be goodbye, then?” he asked earnestly.

  She looked at him with a faint colour in her cheeks and a softer light in her proud, clear eyes.

  “Well,” she said, “goodbye would be the last word which could be spoken between us. But, n’importe, we shall see.”


  She flashed a suddenly brilliant smile upon him, and leaned back amongst the cushions. The carriage drove off, and Wolfenden, humming pleasantly to himself, stepped into the dogcart which was waiting for him.

  CHAPTER XIII

  A GREAT WORK

  Table of Contents

  The Countess of Deringham might be excused for considering herself the most unfortunate woman in England. In a single week she had passed from the position of one of the most brilliant leaders of English society to be the keeper of a recluse, whose sanity was at least doubtful. Her husband, Admiral the Earl of Deringham, had been a man of iron nerve and constitution, with a splendid reputation, and undoubtedly a fine seaman. The horror of a single day had broken up his life. He had been the awe-stricken witness of a great naval catastrophe, in which many of his oldest friends and companions had gone to the bottom of the sea before his eyes, together with nearly a thousand British seamen. The responsibility for the disaster lay chiefly from those who had perished in it, yet some small share of the blame was fastened upon the onlookers, and he himself, as admiral in command, had not altogether escaped. From the moment when they had led him down from the bridge of his flagship, grey and fainting, he had been a changed man. He had never recovered from the shock. He retired from active service at once, under a singular and marvellously persistent delusion. Briefly he believed, or professed to believe, that half the British fleet had perished, and that the country was at the mercy of the first great Power who cared to send her warships up the Thames. It was a question whether he was really insane; on any ordinary topic his views were the views of a rational man, but the task which he proceeded to set himself was so absorbing that any other subject seemed scarcely to come within the horizon of his comprehension. He imagined himself selected by no less a person than the Secretary for War, to devote the rest of his life to the accomplishment of a certain undertaking! Practically his mission was to prove by figures, plans, and naval details (unknown to the general public), the complete helplessness of the empire. He bought a yacht and commenced a series of short cruises, lasting over two years, during the whole of which time his wife was his faithful and constant companion. They visited in turn each one of the fortified ports of the country, winding up with a general inspection of every battleship and cruiser within British waters. Then, with huge piles of amassed information before him, he settled down in Norfolk to the framing of his report, still under the impression that the whole country was anxiously awaiting it. His wife remained with him then, listening daily to the news of his progress, and careful never to utter a single word of discouragement or disbelief in the startling facts which he sometimes put before her. The best room in the house, the great library, was stripped perfectly bare and fitted up for his study, and a typist was engaged to copy out the result of his labours in fair form. Lately, the fatal results to England which would follow the public disclosure of her awful helplessness had weighed heavily upon him, and he was beginning to live in the fear of betrayal. The room in which he worked was fitted with iron shutters, and was guarded night and day. He saw no visitors, and was annoyed if any were permitted to enter the house. He met his wife only at dinner time, for which meal he dressed in great state, and at which no one else was ever allowed to be present. He suffered, when they were alone, no word to pass his lips, save with reference to the subject of his labours; it is certain he looked upon himself as the discoverer of terrible secrets. Any remark addressed to him upon other matters utterly failed to make any impression. If he heard it he did not reply. He would simply look puzzled, and, as speedily as possible withdraw. He was sixty years of age, of dignified and kindly appearance; a handsome man still, save that the fire of his blue eyes was quenched, and the firm lines of his commanding mouth had become tremulous. Wolfenden, on his arrival, was met in the hall by his mother, who carried him off at once to have tea in her own room. As he took a low chair opposite to her he was conscious at once of a distinct sense of self-reproach. Although still a handsome woman, the Countess of Deringham was only the wreck of her former brilliant self. Wolfenden, knowing what her life must be, under its altered circumstances, could scarcely wonder at it. The black hair was still only faintly streaked with grey, and her figure was as slim and upright as ever. But there were lines on her forehead and about her eyes, her cheeks were thinner, and even her hands were wasted. He looked at her in silent pity, and although a man of singularly undemonstrative habits, he took her hand in his and pressed it gently. Then he set himself to talk as cheerfully as possible.