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

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  “You should read Spinoza.”

  “I don’t want to read anyone just now. I am content with you for a companion and this delightful lunch. Actually peaches!”

  “They are part of the forthcoming banquet,” he confided. “They sent a dozen chasseurs out to search for them everywhere between here and Cannes.”

  He peeled one delicately and passed it across to her.

  “Sip your wine with it very slowly,” he advised her. “Let us go on talking about ourselves and our own particular little niche in life. The world is too vast a place. I have always given too much time and thought to my fellow creatures. Tell me whether you were always as obdurate as this.”

  “And always shall be,” she replied. “What would interest me, would be to know what you propose to do after the next few days, supposing you can no longer find safety here.”

  “If I am alive,” he answered, bending forward to look once more at the man seated on the bench across the way, “I shall very likely be locked into an aeroplane with the great General and his aide-de-camp and the executioner. What a sell for them if we did not mount quickly enough over the mountains here and crashed! I think the world would do very well indeed without General Müller, but a great many of my friends would miss me very much.”

  “Conceit,” she murmured.

  “I am not conceited,” he assured her. “Remember, wealth counts for everything nowadays. They have robbed us all they could. They have drained everything they could away from the firm but we have brains there that have been working for years, just as acute as their men of finance, and I am still a very rich man. Not that it is likely to do me any good, that I can see, after the end of the week. Paradise, hell, extinction or anything! What a lot I may know! No good trying to solve riddles, though, unless you have the brain to understand them. You will be very careful with the coffee, maître d’hôtel,” he went on, turning to the man who was always in the shadows near their table. “Very hot, very strong, but perfectly strained.”

  “It is at your command, Monsieur,” the man replied. “I make it myself the moment you say the word. Jean is bringing the fineand warming the glasses. It is Jean who will take care of your party, Jean and I between us.”

  The Baron appeared on the terrace a few moments later. He lit a cigarette and exchanged greetings with half-a-dozen people. He came down presently towards their table and leaned gracefully against the wall.

  “You have been well served, I trust?” he asked.

  “Perfectly,” Joan replied. “Monsieur Mollinet has been out himself. This place is a paradise, Baron, for the epicure.”

  “Yes, the day-by-day result is all right,” Domiloff admitted. “Things are in a curious state, though.”

  “You would not think there was anything wrong, to watch the people,” Joan observed, “and to listen to the music over at the Café de Paris. They play divinely, Baron. Just as well as that orchestra for which you pay such an amazing price in the Sporting Club.”

  He nodded.

  “I know,” he agreed, “but then they only play the music of their country and here the one cry is for variety.”

  The coffee and fine arrived. A place was made for Domiloff.

  “I have been thinking,” the latter said, lazily lighting another of his endless chain of cigarettes and turning towards Rudolph. “You have kept strictly, I notice, to your parole, but I am afraid I will have to draw the band a little tighter still.”

  “Well, I am not thinking of leaving sanctuary just at the moment,” Rudolph replied. “You see that horrible-looking fellow over on the seat there and the man who is pacing slowly up and down in front of the Casino? Those are the two would-be executioners who tried to snatch me away from the world at Beaulieu. They are the men you and Sir Julian Townleyes saved me from. One of them murdered Paul Rothmann. I cannot understand why your Nice police have not arrested him.”

  Domiloff nodded.

  “We have them marked down,” he said shortly. “We are doing everything we can for you. No strangers are allowed in the Sporting Club unless we really know something about them, and those two men you have been speaking of have been refused entrance cards even into the Casino.”

  “What about General Müller?”

  Domiloff knocked the ash from his cigarette.

  “He is rather a poser, that one, is he not? I have left him sending off cables while his aide-de-camp is trying to telephone. There was a little trouble brooding over this place, my young friend Sagastrada, before you came, but you seem to have stirred it up to boiling pitch. Have you made any plans, may I ask, on your own account, for the future?”

  “None at all,” was the cheerful reply. “I am rather hoping you will ask me to stay on here.”

  Domiloff smiled.

  “You are a very agreeable young man,” he remarked, “although I do not like your clothes.”

  “Wait until you see the contents of the five trunks which have just arrived on the omnibus from the station,” Rudolph rejoined. “Both my servants seem to have come along, too. I hope they will turn me out decently, for the rest of my stay at any rate.”

  “I have not the slightest doubt that you will pass muster under those new conditions,” Domiloff assured him. “Our only trouble is that I am afraid we have not sufficient bodyguard to keep you on here indefinitely. Besides, it is not what we are out for. It is true that we want to make money, but this in the main is a pleasure resort, not a sanctuary for political refugees. To tell you the truth,” he went on, with sudden seriousness, “I am having a devil of a time with General Müller. I rather think that he is now telephoning for a warship. I can see him anchoring in the bay there and training his guns upon the Casino, if we do not deliver you up!”

  “When that time comes I shall offer myself as a sacrifice,” Rudolph declared, “rather than that one strip of plaster should fall from those sacred walls.”

  “You have a few more hours, anyhow, in which to drink and flirt, to gamble and make love,” Domiloff told him. “All those four things you can do better here than anywhere else in the world. Make the most of your time. It is all that I can say at the present moment.”

  He left them with a good-natured little nod of farewell to Rudolph and a more formal gesture to Joan. They watched him thread his way amongst the tables and disappear in the restaurant proper.

  “There goes a man,” Rudolph said, “who has had all that he wanted of pleasure, not only here in Monte Carlo but in St. Petersburg, Paris, Rome—wherever he chanced to be—and paid for it in charm.”

  “It is comprehensible,” Joan admitted.

  CHAPTER XV

  Table of Contents

  BARON DOMILOFF, on the evening of that momentous dinner party, was having an exceedingly busy time. He glanced at the card brought in by Tashoff, frowned slightly and studied it for a moment without speech. It was a very presentable-looking card of its sort. The plain printing was beautifully engraved and the quality of the pasteboard was of the best. The information it gave was scanty.

  Mr. Stephen Ardrossen St. James’s Club, Travellers’ Club, London. Paris.

  There was no permanent address, no indication of the status of the visitor.

  “Know anything of this fellow?” Domiloff asked.

  “Nothing definite, sir,” was the prompt reply. “He has rather the reputation of living the life of a recluse. On the other hand, he sometimes plays high in the Sporting Club. If I might be permitted—”

  “Proceed.”

  “I believe, sir, Monsieur Mollinet might be able to give us some information about him.”

  Domiloff reflected for a moment.

  “That will do later,” he decided. “At present you can show him in.”

  Mr. Ardrossen was duly admitted to the very handsome and tastefully furnished apartment in which the presiding genius of the place occasionally welcomed a distinguished guest. His entrance was characteristic. He contented himself with a slight bow and accepted with a word of thanks the chair
to which Domiloff pointed. The latter leaned back in his place and looked speculatively at his visitor. He was a person, without a doubt, as others had remarked, aiming at the unobtrusive. His clothes, his linen, his tie, everything he wore was the best of its sort but chosen as though to escape notice. Domiloff had a queer idea that this was a stranger with whom it might be well to be on one’s guard.

  “What can I do for you, sir?” he asked.

  Ardrossen’s grey eyes, which had seemed to be studying the pattern of the carpet, were raised. He looked at his questioner with a searching gaze as though for the first time he were curious to know what sort of man he might be, and Domiloff began to have still further ideas about his visitor.

  “I called,” Ardrossen explained, “because I think that as day by day the activities which you have undertaken are leading you into deeper water, you will presently need help. A few words between us just at the present moment might be advantageously spoken.”

  “What do you mean by my increasing activities?” Domiloff asked curiously.

  “When I first knew this place,” Ardrossen replied, “it was managed by one man. As years rolled on a committee was formed, managers of departments spread out all the time, the Administration was under the guidance, if not the subjection, of the reigning Prince of Monaco. Coming to our own time, a man who was not quite strong enough for the post became a sort of dictator, failed on one of the slippery places and disappeared. The bad years came. The Société des Bains de Mer let the money of its shareholders drip through their fingers. Then a stronger man stepped to the front. There was a Cromwellian interlude in the Principality of which few people know. How far he would have succeeded in bringing back prosperity to the place no one will ever know, for again there was a rude shock in world events. The great war was over but its aftereffects remained. A terrible wave of subterranean anarchy and communism and general discontent upset the whole of Europe. For the first time even the Monégasques pricked up their ears and listened. They are listening now. The situation is critical.”

  Domiloff had remained steadily silent without the twitch of an eyebrow. At his visitor’s pause he lit a cigarette. His face had fallen somehow into grimmer lines. He was no longer the great aristocrat, the man of pleasure toying with a child’s kingdom. He had a different air.

  “What is your concern in these matters, Mr. Ardrossen?” he asked. “What is your calling in life?”

  “I,” Ardrossen confided, “am a spy.”

  There was nothing about the speaker to suggest that he was talking for effect. He had the air of a man who was stating a plain fact.

  “A spy? In whose interests?”

  Ardrossen smiled—if it could be called a smile. At any rate, there were faint lines at the corners of his eyes which came into vision.

  “The true spy would never answer that question—nor shall I,” he said. “The true spy works for a hidden master and his right hand and his left are strangers, but there are many times in his life when he comes into contact with other interests—interests which he could serve or injure. One of those moments has arrived with me. I am not in your confidence, Baron Domiloff, but I am inclined to believe that there is no other man in Monte Carlo who knows that you and Pierre Regnier are the joint rulers of the Principality. There is probably no one else who knows that the interests of Royalty over Monaco have ceased, that the meetings of the deputies over which Pierre Regnier presides are directed from the background by you.”

  “This,” Domiloff acknowledged, “is very interesting.”

  “A list of your shareholders to-day,” Ardrossen continued, “would make strange reading. It would be discovered that three parts of the shares stand in your name. Proxy for whom? It does not matter.”

  “Do you mean to tell me that you know even that?” the Baron demanded, forced for the first time from his nonchalant manner.

  “Of course I know,” Ardrossen replied. “It is my business to know. For the moment I am not concerned—perhaps I never may be. I am more concerned in the attitude you propose to take towards the young man whom you are sheltering here, the young man Rudolph Sagastrada, the young man who is entertaining the whole of fashionable Monte Carlo at dinner to-night.”

  Domiloff bowed ironically.

  “I congratulate you, sir,” he said. “Your sources of information, considering the smallness of this community, are amazingly correct. Still, what you know, you know. And then?”

  “I require to know what course of action you propose to take with regard to this young man, Rudolph Sagastrada? Do you propose to let him take his chance, are you going to hand him over to General Müller or hold him here more or less a prisoner while you consult with the French Government?”

  Domiloff raised his eyebrows slightly. He took up his visitor’s card from the desk, glanced at it for a few moments and replaced it. Then he leaned back in his chair.

  “Mr. Ardrossen,” he said, “this has been quite an interesting talk. You have told me more about my position here in Monte Carlo and Monaco than I knew of myself. Now that you have adopted the rôle of questioner, however, I find the conversation less interesting. I do not know for whom you are working, I do not know where your interests lie, I do not see any reason why I should take you into my confidence. That is plain speaking, is it not?”

  “So also is this,” Ardrossen replied. “Answer my questions concerning Rudolph Sagastrada, tell me your intentions with regard to him, or this famous dinner party which he is giving to-night may not take place.”

  Domiloff lit a cigarette thoughtfully.

  “That is rather a curious threat.”

  “I don’t look upon it as a threat,” was the cold reply. “I look upon it as an undertaking.”

  Domiloff tore off a page from a memorandum block which was on the desk and scribbled a few words upon it with his pencil held in his right hand, while he pressed an electric button with his left. Tashoff appeared almost at once. Domiloff handed the paper over to him.

  “See to that, Tashoff,” he directed.

  “Certainly, sir.”

  Very softly and very quietly, Mr. Ardrossen had risen to his feet. Tashoff was in the act of passing him but felt a sudden grip of steel upon his wrist. The paper fluttered from his nerveless fingers. Ardrossen picked it up, glanced at the few written words and tore it in two.

  “Merely a tactical error, Baron,” he said quietly. “You must not send for gendarmes to arrest one with whose complete identity you are unacquainted. Permit me.”

  He drew a slim morocco pocketbook from some hidden place in the left hand side of his coat, extracted from it a half-sheet of parchment on which were stamped some official arms and passed it to Domiloff. The latter read the few lines it contained, glanced at the seal and the signature. He replaced the document and returned the pocketbook. Ardrossen stowed it away in its hiding place.

  “I have not yet found it necessary,” he acknowledged, “to use this—what shall we call it?—laissez passer, but at any rate it may serve to convince you that our interests may not be wholly at variance. Send your secretary away, if you please. We will discuss our plans for this young man.”

  Domiloff, who had risen to his feet, stood for a few moments in stony silence. There was nothing in his expression to denote the fact that he was facing one of the crises of his life. There was no indication whatever of the decision he was presently to make. Ardrossen, to all appearance, was left the victor in this duel of words. Suddenly, however, Domiloff smiled. It was a smile which might well have been the smile of a man admitting defeat but it left Ardrossen with a weird sensation of uneasiness.

  “You can leave us, Tashoff,” he said to the secretary. “Mr. Ardrossen and I will finish our conversation.”

  Domiloff tapped a cigarette upon the table and lit it. He sat down and leaned back in his chair. He was no longer the debonair man of leisure. His gravity matched his companion’s imperturbability. They both seemed to realize that the battle of words was over and that they were up
against stern and fearsome reality.

  “We will, if you please,” Ardrossen said, “pass on from the discussion of this purely local change. It is of import only because it has happened at this particular moment. You realize, without a doubt, that in all probability it is you, Baron Domiloff, who must decide whether in less than a week the new European war commences.”

  “I do not admit that,” Domiloff replied. “Even supposing I offer to this young man the protection of the Principality, I cannot bring myself to believe that any great power would accept that as a casus belli.”

  “General Müller is in the Principality,” Ardrossen pointed out, “to demand that you hand over Sagastrada. You have temporized with him, I understand, until your new charter was signed. That was signed last night. Immediately the fact is proclaimed, he will renew his demand, but what will be your reply?”

  “That is a question,” Domiloff declared, “which I do not feel called upon to answer.”

  “There is no necessity for you to answer it,” Ardrossen assured him. “If you refuse there is a small warship lying outside Barcelona which in a few hours’ time could reduce the whole of the Principality to a mass of smouldering ashes. That, of course, would be an incredible happening. On the other hand, the alternative is that you are driven to make a humiliating apology and hand over the young man, or you appeal for protection to France. If she gives it you are responsible for the war that follows; if she refuses it you are in the same cul-de-sac. You are in a difficult position, Baron Domiloff. Why do you not admit it?”

  “I admit it freely,” Domiloff acknowledged. “Does it help the situation?”

  “Very much,” Ardrossen replied. “I will treat you with a confidence which you have denied to me, Baron. I will tell you that for forty-eight hours a special military conference has been sitting receiving hourly reports from a certain district of France and having hourly consultations with the government. You are a military man, Baron.”