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

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  “I have told you before,” Sagastrada said, “that I would not for the world be the cause of any embarrassment to you. I have to thank you already for all that you have done. Give me a few more days and I will take my leave.”

  “We can promise that, certainly,” Domiloff assured him.

  “I may be sure of to-morrow?”

  “Absolutely, and the day after.”

  “Very well then. To-morrow night or the night after I give a dinner party in the club here to pay off my friends who have been so kind to me. You and the Baroness will come?”

  “We shall be enchanted,” was the prompt reply. “Do not take my warning too lightly or too seriously, though,” Domiloff went on, placing his hand on the other’s shoulder as they moved towards the door. “We live in queer times, my young friend. You have been in the thick of it. You know. There is something coming to the world—not before it is due perhaps—and that icy sort of feeling that goes before a great calamity is in the atmosphere already. Personally,” Domiloff continued, suddenly very serious indeed, “I have been down in the depths already. If I allowed myself to think of the past and what I have seen and known I should go mad. People think I have turned time server because I have become a sort of glorified Master of Ceremonies here. They can think so, but I shall never mind the end when it comes. For you youngsters it is different. I would help you more, Sagastrada, if I could. I know it is no use offering you money. It is pouring in for you already. I will advise you hour by hour how things are going. And remember this—do nothing without consulting me. Go about armed every second you are here and sleep with a revolver under your pillow. There was more in the message than I have told you. They want you back in your country but so far there has been no ultimatum. Do not go—unless we are forced to give you up—without guarantees.”

  Rudolph sighed.

  “And yet,” he lamented, “it is the country of my birth. I have been to their Universities. I have won all the higher honours. I have been a patriot. But I could not accept this new creed of a divinely appointed autocracy.”

  “And if this government falls—what afterwards?” Domiloff asked.

  Rudolph made no reply. The lamps in the room were crude, unshaded and penetrating and the one under which he stood was shining with a ghastly light upon his finely moulded features. He was forced to shade his eyes from its brilliance. Domiloff, nevertheless, understood. He never quite forgot the sight of the young man with whom he passed out of the room a few minutes later. . . .

  “Well?” the two women asked him as he reentered the bar.

  “I am on parole,” Rudolph announced. “Domiloff is a sort of uncrowned king here and he is doing his best to guard me for a few days, anyway. He and the Baroness will come to my banquet. Three hours of dancing, eating and drinking, and being merry! I shall also try to wangle an hour or two for gambling. What do you say, Miss Haskell?”

  “I think you are taking things much too lightly,” she answered. “If you really are in political trouble at home and they are trying to get you back, I think you ought to be making your plans to escape, instead of staying to give a frivolous dinner party. You have plenty of money. There are planes to be bought here at Cannes.”

  “I cannot pilot a plane,” he confided.

  “You can hire a pilot.”

  “The day after to-morrow,” he declared. “After then I will make plans.”

  CHAPTER XII

  Table of Contents

  RUDOLPH SAGASTRADA was in the clouds, and the knock on the door of his salon passed unheeded. He was seated at the piano which had been the joy of his luxurious imprisonment and he was nearing the last bar of one of his favourite nocturnes. His eyes were half-closed, his head thrown a little back. The melody which was flowing from his fingertips seemed to him, after the mingled agonies of the last few days, like a soothing message of joy. Suddenly he felt cool, sweetly perfumed hands over his eyes. He was enveloped in a delicious darkness.

  “Do not move,” he begged. “Whoever you are stay like that. So I finish the last few bars.”

  Slowly and more slowly the music died away. His fingers left the notes with a queer little sense of reluctance. As he opened his eyes the Baroness was smiling down at him.

  “My young friend,” she cried, “you play divinely. Last night when you were playing Mozart I was not so sure, but now I know. You are an artist, Rudolph. What do you do with banks and money changing?”

  “It is not impossible,” he assured her, “to be something of an artist, to have some small measure of artistry in your brain and senses, and yet to hold your place in the counting houses. My uncle Leopold was Paderewski’s favourite pupil and when he died great things were said of him. Whoever thought of this,” he went on, touching the instrument lightly, “deserves my eternal gratitude. I came in here with my nerves awry. Very soon, all memories of ugly things will have passed.”

  “On your knees then, young man,” she enjoined smiling, as she sank into an easy chair and lit a cigarette. “It was I who thought of it. It is even my piano. It was en route to our new apartments here. I stopped the men in the corridor. I told them to bring it here.”

  “I have never before,” he said simply, “met so many kind friends in so short a time. It is a tragedy that I must leave you all so soon.”

  She nodded.

  “Paul is worried about you.”

  “I know.”

  “One thing is quite certain,” she went on. “He will not give you up until the last moment. The new constitution which he has been working for so long gives us far greater powers. His only immediate fear seems to be—”

  She hesitated.

  “Assassination,” he interrupted smiling. “At least he is doing his best to protect me from that. I walked on the Terrace this evening and I had a bodyguard of something like half-a-dozen zealous but furtive Monégasques. Someone had an eye on me all the time.”

  She smiled.

  “Paul is very thorough,” she said. “This apartment is really part of our new suite, and both entrances are guarded by men who have been in the service of the police here for many years.”

  Sagastrada’s rather petulant grimace was the gesture of a boy.

  “They need not worry about me at this hour,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “I cannot leave the place,” he confided. “To-morrow I shall have as extensive a wardrobe as any man in the Principality. To-night I have only the clothes I stand up in. I have not been able to dine in the restaurant or to go into the Salle des Jeux except in the afternoon.”

  There was a knock at the door—rather an official knock. In response to Rudolph’s invitation to enter, a clerk from the main bureau presented himself, accompanied by a gendarme. The latter saluted. He addressed the Baroness.

  “This is Monsieur Patou,” he explained, “the senior cashier. He presented himself as having important business with the young Monsieur Sagastrada.”

  “Eh bien?” the Baroness queried.

  “According to instructions,” the man continued, “I first searched him and then brought him here. He has no concealed weapon—only a very large sum of money.”

  Sagastrada threw up his hands.

  “Hurrah!” he exclaimed. “It is for me. It is the first instalment.”

  “The money is for you, sir,” the clerk admitted, producing the packet. “It arrived through Barclays Bank late this afternoon and they have had insufficient time to collect it all. There are two hundred thousand francs here and Barclays note payable on demand for five hundred thousand.”

  “I breathe again,” Sagastrada declared, holding out his hand.

  The clerk counted the money. Sagastrada disposed of it in his various pockets, he gave a receipt, everyone thanked everyone else and the two men withdrew.

  “It is my first credit which has arrived,” Sagastrada announced, “and, alas, the Baccarat is finished. What can I do—like this—with the best part of a million francs to spend?”

 
The Baroness considered the matter.

  “Let it be supper,” she suggested. “I am starving. We dined too early and nothing was really good. At the Night Club here your costume will be accepted.”

  Sagastrada was like a boy.

  “Supper by all means,” he agreed. “Imagine, dear Baroness, the joy of it,” he went on. “I have not given a franc away nor paid for anything since I came here. Everyone has been wonderful but one cannot live at Monte Carlo without small money in the pocket and big money in the portemonnaie. How can we get hold of our friends?”

  She rose to her feet.

  “I will see to that,” she promised. “First of all, I will take you to the Night Club. There you must remain until I can find them. The De Hochepierres, I suppose, and Mademoiselle Haskell, Dolly Parker and Lord Henry and Sir Julian Townleyes—and Paul if I can find him.”

  “Anyone you like.”

  “Wait,” she begged. “One moment.”

  She spoke on the private telephone. It was an affair of very few minutes.

  “Paul is in his office,” she confided, as she rang off. “You may go into the Night Club. Three of your guard are there rather expecting you and everyone who enters will be watched. I will show you the way.”

  They descended in a newly established lift and Rudolph found his way into the Night Club. A maître d’hôtel, all smiles and bows, hurried forward to meet him.

  “Monsieur le Baron has announced your coming, Monsieur,” he said. “The best table in the room has been prepared. It is a great pleasure to welcome you.”

  Rudolph glanced at the wine list which the man presented.

  “Pommery ’21 in magnums,” he ordered. “There may be twelve—fourteen—perhaps more.”

  “Parfaitement, monsieur. Et pour manger?”

  Rudolph glanced at the card.

  “Caviar—plenty of it,” he directed, “served with the ice; hot toast; flasks of vodka. Afterwards everything that you usually serve. You know your patrons and their tastes.”

  The man bowed once more.

  “Entendu, monsieur.”

  Rudolph handed him a mille from his bursting pocket.

  “See that we are well served,” he concluded. “Give us everything of the best—but this is nothing to the supper I shall offer on the night of my party. Tell the orchestra that I send them a present. No—take them this,” he went on, drawing a handful of notes from the packet. “They must play their best to-night and when we come up after dinner on the night of my party. We like the music of the waltz but there must be music in all that they play. No bumping jazz, you understand—melodies, rhythms.”

  “I shall speak myself to the chef d’orchestre.”

  “My guests arrive,” Rudolph announced.

  They were trooping into the room—the De Hochepierres, Lord Henry, Townleyes with Joan Haskell, Dolly Parker and in the background Domiloff himself. Rudolph welcomed them all joyously.

  “Cast one eye on my clothes and forget,” he begged. “To-morrow you shall see me as Solomon in all my glory. To-night I apologize. It is all that can be said. Princess,” he added with a bow, “until the caviar arrives—five minutes?”

  “Delightful,” she murmured.

  They glided away across the perfect floor.

  “All the same, I can assure you that I need no exercises to give me an appetite. For dinner we ate nothing. I think we were all too excited.”

  “Alas,” he sighed, “the festivities will soon be over. Very soon I have promised the Baron that I will prepare to leave.”

  “But where will you go?”

  “Who knows—who cares? A week ago I counted for something in the world. To-day I am a real outcast.”

  “You hear what he calls himself,” Lucille scoffed as they finished their dance and rejoined the others at the table. “He calls himself an outcast.”

  “I think that he is a fairy prince in disguise,” Joan laughed. “The Baroness tells me that his pockets are dripping with money. Whatever is he going to do with it all?”

  “I wish I could tell you that or that someone would tell me,” he answered. “Will you dance with me, Miss Haskell, while the champagne cools and the hot toast for the caviar arrives? One turn, please.”

  She rose to her feet willingly enough.

  “I am not like the Princess,” she confided. “I was not hungry but I did not starve at dinnertime. All the same, your message was delightful. I can’t really tell you how pleased everyone was.”

  “And you—you yourself?” he asked, bending down. “You are still glad that you rescued me from those bandits at Beaulieu?”

  “I’ll say we all are,” she declared. “We were talking about it in the bar this evening. Fancy if you had gone up to look for your friend a little earlier!”

  For a single moment he seemed to lose his nerve. He slowed down in the dance and peered into the dark corners of the room. He looked right and left and everywhere, then he saw Domiloff standing at the table, serene and watchful. There were others whom he recognized in the background. He seemed reassured.

  “Is the Baron really afraid that they will try to arrest you here?” she asked.

  “He believes that they may try. After all, though, I am only a political offender. What he fears is that when they find difficulties in the way they may try other means of getting rid of me.”

  They were near the table and Joan glided to her place.

  “I can smell the hot toast!” she exclaimed. “The caviar looks delicious.”

  “You must not touch your champagne yet,” he warned her. “You are going to drink vodka first.”

  “I think that you must have spent a great part of your life learning how to eat and drink,” she told him as they settled into their places.

  “I should like to spend the trifling part that may be left to me,” he rejoined, “in sharing my knowledge with you.”

  He looked her in the eyes. There was a touch of banter in his tone but an undernote of sincerity which thrilled her.

  Monsieur Mollinet and a maître d’hôtel in the background whispered together.

  “Un type,” the former confided. “See that he is well served and keep your eyes upon him. His pockets are full of money. He has dangerous enemies, they say, but fortunately he has also good friends.”

  CHAPTER XIII

  Table of Contents

  ARDROSSEN sat the following morning in his favourite seat on the Terrace, his back to the sea, a glimpse of the scarlet coats of the Hungarian Band visible through the swaying boughs of the lime trees, the ebb and flow of their music in his ears, and the panorama of the passers-by always before his eyes. Though there was sunshine, there were also occasional puffs of wind, such as sometimes disturb the tranquillity of the broad walk. Ardrossen, being a man careful in his habits, wore a comfortable overcoat, a scarf tied neatly round his neck and very disfiguring spectacles shielding his eyes, with the aid of which he remained unrecognized and unnoticed. There was a constant clamour of conversation around him, a chorus of gay voices, little knots of people, mostly casual acquaintances, standing about everywhere talking over the latest scandal—the Baccarat of the night before, Lady O’Dowd’s latest and most amazing costume, the story of the gigolo who had been missing for three days and the husband who was expected back to-night, the latest war news from Spain, various exchange rumours. Everyone seemed interested and happy. But no one spoke to Mr. Ardrossen.

  Lord Henry, very smart in a light grey tweed suit, a deep red carnation in his buttonhole and his Homburg hat at a slightly rakish angle, accosted Joan, who was walking with Rudolph Sagastrada.

  “What about lunch at the Château de Madrid?” he suggested. “Grand day for a view. I will telephone for a terrace table, on the chance.”

  Joan glanced towards her companion and looked a little doubtful.

  “It is outside the Principality,” she observed, “and I am not quite sure that the Baron has not constituted us a sort of bodyguard to take care of Mr. Sagastrada.”<
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  “Well, part of the bodyguard have deserted already,” Lord Henry told them. “I had a note from Lucille just before I left the hotel to say that they had gone off to Cannes for luncheon.”

  “I had one, too, and no one knows where Sir Julian Townleyes is,” Joan said. “The Princess’s lunch was really rather important. They are playing tennis with Royalty. It was arranged a week ago. She is coming back early though. We are all to meet at the Sporting Club at five o’clock. Until then, I am afraid I am the only one, except the Domiloffs, left in charge.”

  Lord Henry, who was a little too much inclined to have his own way, and would have liked very much to have lunched alone with Joan, looked distastefully at her companion.

  “My clothes are not very chic,” Rudolph declared, “but you can put fifty million in your pocket and still, if you may not step across the frontier of Monaco, you will not find it easy to buy wearing apparel. The flannel trousers I thought were not so bad, and this white jersey covers the pattern of a shirt which is loathesome. However, do not let me stand in anybody’s way. I will renew my parole. I will lunch in my room.”

  “You will do nothing of the sort,” Joan insisted indignantly. “As if it mattered about your clothes.”

  Lord Henry still looked as though he thought it did a great deal.

  “Well, see you all later on,” he remarked, preparing to depart.

  “You will not forget,” Rudolph said, “that you are coming to my salvation dinner, Lord Henry. I should not have been here now but for that little episode at Beaulieu.”