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

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  “That charter,” he said, “was only completed within the last forty-eight hours. It has never been out of Regnier’s possession.”

  “That may be true,” Ardrossen replied calmly. “It is also true that I have never exchanged a word with Monsieur Pierre Regnier in my life, but I know the contents of that charter—and you know that I know them. If it is any satisfaction to you to realize it, in acquiring that knowledge another man lost his life and mine was saved by a miracle. Be wise, Baron Domiloff. I have passed you on this information and paid you this visit with one object only. Rudolph Sagastrada is not to be given up without my permission. That is all you will hear from me. . . . I ask you now to excuse me.”

  Domiloff touched the bell. Tashoff appeared almost immediately.

  “Escort Mr. Ardrossen out of the Club by the private way,” Domiloff enjoined.

  “Certainly, sir. Your next caller has arrived.”

  “I am quite ready. Do I say good afternoon, do I offer you any thanks, Mr. Ardrossen, or do you disappear in a cloud with a strong smell of gunpowder?”

  Ardrossen’s grim smile possessed a flavour of self-congratulation. It was, however, only a passing flicker.

  “I leave it to you, Baron,” he replied, “to choose the treatment which best suits the circumstances.”

  Müller’s anger was not expressed in any ordinary blustering fashion. He accepted a chair, although no other amenities passed between the two men. His tone was cold but his temper seemed to be completely under control.

  “Baron Domiloff,” he began, “a young man, a fugitive from my country, entitled Rudolph Sagastrada, is living here in the Principality under your protection. I have been given to understand that Monaco is now an Independent State for the conduct of whose affairs you and Monsieur Pierre Regnier are jointly responsible.”

  “You appear to know a great deal, General,” Domiloff observed, “considering that the charter, if it exists, has not yet been made public nor have the people of Monaco themselves been officially apprised of the change.”

  “Is there any need?” the General asked, leaning a little forward and tapping the edge of the desk with his clenched fist. “Is there any need, Baron, for us to waste a lot of words about this matter? I like to get at my business in a simpler fashion. I have applied to the French Government for an order of arrest which would enable me to take back Sagastrada to his own country, there to stand his trial for various misdemeanours. I have been referred to you. I am told that four hours before I made my application, Monaco became a free State.”

  “Your information seems to be correct, General,” was the calm reply. “Monaco is now engaged in the task of framing its own laws which will govern its attitude towards foreign powers.”

  “I see.”

  “At present,” Domiloff went on, “there is no statute which would justify its rulers in handing over to any country a person supposed to be guilty of political misdemeanours. I therefore cannot help you in the matter. As soon as our charter is established, our representative in your capital shall discuss the matter with you.”

  The General’s eyes flashed.

  “Your present attitude, in plain words, is that you decline to give up Sagastrada to my custody.”

  “I most certainly do,” Domiloff replied. “My co-President, Monsieur Regnier, is on the premises and you shall hear his voice also upon the matter if you so desire.”

  “It is unnecessary,” General Müller pronounced. “Baron, we are men of common sense. A fortnight ago, if such a demand had been made, it would have been made to France only and the consequences of a refusal would have been serious. Tell me, why should the consequences be less serious when, instead of provoking a great war by our insistence, we are involved only in a quarrel with a small state boasting no army, no navy and very little money?”

  “Do I gather,” Domiloff enquired, “that presuming I refuse to give up Sagastrada your government proposes to declare war against the State of Monaco?”

  There was a change in Müller’s expression. It was not a pleasant gesture but it was unmistakable. He smiled. From that smile came a laugh. He shook slightly in his seat. He had a large stomach and that also shook.

  “The question of a declaration of war, Baron,” he said, “appears to me to savour somewhat of the humorous, but if you should refuse the reasonable request of a country fifty thousand times larger and more powerful than your own, that country would, in plain words, help itself. A single one of our smaller battleships would be quite sufficient to lay your country in ashes. If you desire us to use other means, half-a-dozen squadrons of our fighting aeroplanes would produce the same result.”

  “I am to consider this,” Domiloff demanded, “as a serious threat?”

  “You can take it in any way you like so long as you give me your answer within twenty-four hours.”

  “There is one point upon which I should like your opinion, General,” Domiloff continued, after a moment’s reflection. “Yours is announcing itself everywhere as a peace-loving country. In these days of European disturbances she has entered into undertakings with several of the Powers to preserve the status quo. Supposing France should decide that the new charter arranged between Monaco and herself has not yet taken root, is too recent to bear the strain which you suggest putting upon it, and decides that she, too, has battleships nearer than yours and air squadrons at a safer range, are you prepared to take the responsibility of commencing that long-threatened war for the sake of this young man you have hounded out of his country?”

  “That is a question which I do not answer,” was the prompt rejoinder. “I give you formal notice, Baron, as the representative of the State of Monaco, that if my demand to hand over the person of Rudolph Sagastrada is not acceded to in twenty-four hours, I shall instruct my government of your refusal and they will take the steps they consider necessary.”

  “I am to accept that, I presume, as an ultimatum,” Domiloff said. “May I ask that you deliver it to me in writing?”

  The General rose to his feet.

  “I have already established a small bureau here,” he said. “My secretary will attend to your request.”

  Domiloff touched the bell. Tashoff immediately presented himself and in response to a gesture from his chief stood with the door open.

  “I may add,” the General concluded, “that I have transferred my headquarters to the Consulate of my country in the Boulevard des Italiens at Nice. I retain my suite in this hotel if you wish to speak to me personally.”

  Domiloff nodded.

  “You will not like Nice after Monte Carlo, General,” he remarked. “The food is much better here, too. We shall miss you.”

  The visitor made an effort to compete with the other’s irony.

  “I only trust,” he said with a little bow of farewell, “that when we return to Monaco you will be in a position to offer us a more convincing welcome.”

  CHAPTER XXVII

  Table of Contents

  AT eight o’clock that evening Mr. Ardrossen, almost unnoticed, slipped into his usual place in a corner of the bar of the Hôtel de Paris. He had just completed a circuitous journey from the Sporting Club and he carried an evening paper in his hand. He took his accustomed easy chair and as usual Louis emerged from behind the counter and came to take his order.

  “A dry Martini to-night,” his patron decided. “When I say dry, I mean one teaspoonful of Italian vermouth with the French and a squeeze of lemon rind.”

  “Parfait, Monsieur,” Louis murmured. “The biscuits or the chips?”

  “Neither, thank you.”

  Louis took his departure as Mr. Ardrossen unfolded his paper and began to read. How dull they all sounded, these items of stale news and paragraphs of conjecture written from the outside of the world which Mr. Ardrossen knew so much better from the inside. Nevertheless, it was interesting to read how the events of daily life were presented to the general public. It was interesting, for instance, to read of a certain great man’s ange
r because some of the chiefs of the great world against whom his latest blow had been struck had eluded him. Besides, the reading of a newspaper had other advantages. The gossipers who crowded around left alone a man who was immersed in his journal. He was able to evade that fragmentary conversation, the exchange of banalities with the uninteresting world whose acquaintance he desired never to make. To study the inaccuracies of the news itself gave him sometimes a queer satisfaction. For instance, he read that Rudolph Sagastrada, the great banker and industrialist who had fled from his country, had boarded an American steamer at Marseilles and was now on his way to the States. Then there was this rumour of a fresh offer on the part of the Italian Government to take over the protectorate of the Principality of Monaco. It was odd to think that such complete ignorance could reign in the editorial mind of any published journal. Mr. Ardrossen, from a neatly kept corner of his memory, could have corrected half-a-dozen misstatements in the column he had just finished reading. He could have gone further, if he had chosen. He could have told the whole truth.

  His newspaper had served him well but he was compelled at last to lower it. A chair had been deliberately drawn across to his table. Mr. Foxley Brent arranged it to suit his convenience and, spreading himself out, made cryptic but effectual signs to Louis.

  “Say, you seem to like sitting by yourself,” he remarked affably.

  “I do,” was the pungent reply.

  It did not seem to occur to the newcomer to offer any apology for his intrusion.

  “Well, you aren’t like me,” the latter went on. “I like a chat with anyone who’s around. I would sooner go without food than eat a meal alone. Say, that was a great feast the young man Sagastrada gave last night. You weren’t along, were you?”

  “No, I was not there,” Mr. Ardrossen admitted.

  “I have visited here a good many years,” his companion continued, “but I have never seen such prodigality. Caviar by the bucketful, champagne in magnums pouring all the time. God bless my soul! I can put champagne away with any man I ever met, but I reached my limit last night—and a bit over,” he concluded with a chuckle. “Nothing but a pint of the Widow put me straight this morning.”

  Louis brought over the champagne cocktail which was Mr. Foxley Brent’s inevitable beverage. The latter hesitated and glanced across the round table at his companion’s half-filled glass. He drew a long breath and broke the habit of a lifetime.

  “Drink that up and join me in another,” he invited.

  Mr. Ardrossen looked at him for a moment with non-comprehending eyes.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I am a man of fixed habits—like yourself, I understand. I never take more than one cocktail before dinner.”

  “Gee!” the other exclaimed. “Can’t think how you manage to stick it out in this place.”

  “I have peculiar tastes, perhaps,” Mr. Ardrossen admitted, “but it interests me to indulge them.”

  There followed a brief interval. Foxley Brent sipped his cocktail, eyeing his companion furtively. Mr. Ardrossen laid two ten-franc notes upon the table, finished his dry Martini and with the slightest of bows rose to his feet and left the bar by the hotel entrance. Foxley Brent looked after him blankly.

  “Say, that’s a queer bird,” he remarked, turning his head to Louis.

  Louis glanced towards the door through which Ardrossen had disappeared and smiled slightly.

  “Not very sociable, sir,” he remarked.

  “Sociable! He’s like a frozen dummy! I just thought he must be lonely sitting there by himself all the time. He’s gone off as though someone had bitten him.”

  Worse was to happen. Foxley Brent stooped down to make some adjustment to the collar of his favourite mastiff. When he looked up again, Mr. Ardrossen had reentered the bar through the other doors and was establishing himself in an easy chair a little lower down! Louis took the opportunity of leaving his place behind the counter to come over and collect the twenty francs which were waiting for him.

  “Did you see that?” Foxley Brent demanded.

  “He is an eccentric, sir,” Louis declared. “I should not take any notice.”

  Foxley Brent changed his place into the more comfortable easy chair which its late occupant had vacated. Joan Haskell, who had just entered, waved her hand to him. He rose at once to his feet and stopped her.

  “Come and keep me company for a minute,” he invited. “Diana and I are feeling a trifle crushed.”

  She smiled.

  “I can’t stop for more than a minute,” she warned him.

  “Say, I want to ask you something,” he went on. “Do you know that little man—at least he’s not so very little when you look at him—sitting down there with the newspaper—prim-looking chap?”

  The smile faded from her lips.

  “Yes, I—no, I don’t know him,” she replied. “He came out on the Blue Train with me but we didn’t speak.”

  “Fellow’s crazy,” Foxley Brent declared. “I saw him all alone so I stopped and sat down and asked him to have a cocktail. He declined. A moment later he got up and left me. But listen, Miss Joan. Do you know what he did? He went out by one door and came in by the other and sat down again by himself! Can you beat that?”

  Joan shrugged her shoulders. For the first time, her companion found her unsympathetic.

  “He is really a strange person,” she said. “I shouldn’t worry about him if I were you.”

  “Worry! I haven’t got to worry, but, my dear, I never met anyone like him before—that’s all. Here’s the Baron. Let’s ask him what he thinks. Baron!”

  Domiloff paused.

  “I was looking for you, Joan,” he said.

  “Just a minute,” Foxley Brent interrupted. “Do you know that little man down there?”

  “Very slightly,” Domiloff admitted. “Why?”

  Foxley Brent told his story. Domiloff was not impressed.

  “I do not think he is down here with any idea of making friends,” he said. “He keeps away from everybody as much as he can. I should not bother about him.”

  “But what does he do in life? Is he always like this, then?”

  “I know very little about him,” Domiloff replied, “but I do not think he is a person I should take much notice of either way. You meet them occasionally in life, you know, these men who want to walk their own path and who seem to have cut themselves adrift from their fellows. Excuse me, please. I am going to take Miss Haskell away for a minute.”

  He passed his hand lightly through Joan’s arm and led her to the corner table at the end of the room.

  “What is this Sagastrada tells me about an expedition to-night?” he asked her.

  “Well, he suggested going in to the opera,” Joan confided. “Do you think there is any danger?”

  “There might be.”

  “But why?”

  Domiloff frowned and Joan suddenly felt a qualm of regret at her persistence. In his lined face there was a shadow of weary resentment.

  “It is not necessary for you to understand the whole situation,” he said quietly, “but the presence of Rudolph Sagastrada here imposes a great responsibility upon us. Out here we are in a state of transition. We have the laws but we have not yet the means to enforce them. We should be humiliated in the face of all Europe if that young man came to grief here.”

  “Of course we’ll call the opera off, if it’s any worry to you at all,” Joan assured him. “Shall I send word up? Louis will telephone.”

  She rose to her feet. Domiloff drew her gently back again.

  “Too late now,” he said. “This young man has been playing snatches of ‘Louise’ for hours and singing to himself. You will have to go—only I want you to do exactly as you are told.”

  “I will,” she promised him.

  “I understand that you are having sandwiches here in the bar in ten minutes,” he went on, glancing at the clock.

  “That is so,” she agreed.

  “Very well. Carry out your programme. W
hen you are finished, there will be four gendarmes outside. You will walk with them, and I, too, will stroll with you, through that side entrance—Prince’s entrance, you know, we call it—which leads straight to his box. I will take you there myself. Later on I shall join you. You must see that Sagastrada sits back in the box and that he does not leave it until I come. Is that a promise?”

  “Absolutely,” she answered. “I am terribly sorry if I have done anything silly and I suppose I have. You have all been so kind to me here.”

  He patted her hand gently.

  “My dear,” he said, “you are not responsible for this situation and nothing that I can say would make you understand how serious it really is. We have done our best, too. We are censoring all telephone communications and telegrams but unfortunately we cannot help messages going to France and being re-transmitted from there. That is what I am afraid is happening.”

  He was silent for a moment, tapping with his fingers upon the table. His eyes were set. There were no blinds and he seemed to be watching the lights flashing out on the distant hills which encircled the place.

  “You see,” he went on quietly, “I have been through the greater part of one war. I have seen enough horrors to last me for the rest of my life. I suppose it is the struggle to keep the memory of them down in my heart and at the back of my mind which has made me the apostle of gaiety here. Just now and then, when I hear these mutterings and I know how close we are to disaster, I feel what I never felt in those days—I feel fear.”

  Joan, in those few moments, was more moved than she had ever been in her life. It seemed to her, though his words came rapidly enough and his voice sounded clear, that it was the speech of a man in agony. The transition from the life of the last few weeks with its ever-unrolling panorama of gaiety and happiness seemed to have arrived like a thunderclap. Yet Domiloff himself just then had the look almost of a prophet. She seemed to feel with him some of that vague, terrible sense of apprehension. Then, without a moment’s warning, the whole atmosphere was changed. Louis had turned on the rest of the lights. The corridor outside—now the bar itself—was becoming crowded. There were gay voices on every side. Rudolph with the Baroness was leading the way down the room. Lord Henry was a few steps behind with the Princess. Louis threw a cloth over the table and produced dishes of sandwiches.