Wild horses would not drag from me the real reason for my act, and what did it matter if I got into trouble with the police about it if only I had managed to get Daphnis’ letters out of that case, and either destroy them or dispose of them in some place where they would not be found? I would be court-martialled for assaulting a police officer and obstructing others in their duty, but that would be a small price to pay if only I could once and for all eliminate the evidence which would cause Daphnis to be connected with Mondragora.
It may be thought that, in putting Daphnis before my country, I was acting a traitor’s part, but I do not consider that I was. The restrictions with which Daphnis was hedged about by her family made it quite certain that she could be only a static agent, collecting information which happened to come to her in her own home and passing it on. It was most unlikely that she had more than one contact, and that contact had now been unmasked. Everything about the secret cache indicated that there was enough stuff there to put an end to all Mondragora’s activities in Alexandria and land him in prison on the gravest charges if he were caught. If that happened, all the better. I hoped that they’d shoot the swine. But if he succeeded in evading the police and smuggling himself out of Egypt, the effect as far as Daphnis was concerned would be just the same. With her contact gone there would be no one else to whom she could pass on her information, so she would automatically be rendered incapable of doing any further harm.
But that was allowing for the very worst possibilities of the case. Daphnis’ passion for Italy had suffered a severe setback when Mussolini’s Fascists had attacked Greece, and I felt certain that it had been further neutralised by our engagement. In justice to her, whatever she might have done in the past, unless it was proved or she admitted it herself, I refused to accept the suggestion that she had been communicating with the enemies of Britain since she had become engaged to me.
Major Cozelli would have plenty to employ him in rounding up the really dangerous gang who had been conspiring in the flat that night, and following other leads that his haul of documents had given him, without chivvying a young girl who, possibly months before, had contributed a few pieces of gossip to a spy’s budget out of a romantic passion for what, after all, was her father’s country.
Those were my views on the ethics of the thing and, whatever Daphnis had done, I was determined to protect her in any conceivable way that I could. What man would not have felt the same in such circumstances?
The ghastly problem was—how to set about it? The negro-policeman stood there actually looking at me. He was a huge six-footer, with a deep chest, and shoulders almost as broad as von Hentzen’s. If I suddenly went for him he would drop the bag to defend himself, and taking advantage of his surprise there might be just time for me to snatch it up; but even if I rushed him I felt that there was little chance of my being able to knock him down and none at all of getting away with the bag before his shouts had attracted his officers across the hall. As they came running to see what was the matter they would inevitably cut me off from the front door.
It was the man himself who unconsciously put me on the track of the opportunity that I had been seeking. Having stared at him in silence for a moment I closed my eyes and passed my hand over them. It was no more than an automatic reaction, due to the strain which events of the night had placed upon me, and I was just about to pull myself together when I heard him ask with concern if I were ill.
Instantly I realised the possibilities that such an opening offered. I took a hesitant step forward and staggered to a chair. Then letting my head fall between my hands, as though I were trying to prevent myself from fainting, I murmured: “I’m about all in. Water! Get me a glass of water.”
The good-natured negro immediately put down the bag and left the room. He was hardly across the hall before I was kneeling by it. I could still hear the bathroom tap running when I already had Daphnis’ letters in my pocket and the case shut again. By the time the negro returned I was sitting on the chair where he had left me.
He had only just given me the water when Major Cozelli came back into the room.
“Hullo! You feeling ill, Day?” he asked.
I raised a sickly smile. “It’s the reaction, I’m afraid, sir. It’s not a very jolly experience to be told that in a few minutes time you’re to be thrown over a high balcony so that you’ll be dashed to pieces on the pavement.”
“No, I should have thought of that before,” he said very decently. “I shall want to see you in the morning, of course, to take a more detailed statement, so you’d better report to Police Headquarters at ten o’clock; but you can get off now. We’ve finished here in any case.”
Having thanked him, I drank the rest of the water and made a show of pulling myself together. The detective-sergeant was left in charge of the flat and the rest of us went out on to the landing together.
As we went down in the lift I was smiling inwardly at the thought of my unexpected triumph. The evidence that Daphnis had been a Fascist agent was now in my pocket, so it would be impossible for Cozelli to bring any charge against her. Yet we had hardly reached the entrance-hall of the block when a new thought came, like an ice-cold douche, to quell my smug self-satisfaction. What if among the mass of papers that Cozelli still had in the case there was a list of agents and Daphnis’ name appeared upon it? Or references to her occurred in letters from some of Mondragora’s other correspondents?
Directly he got back to Headquarters, Cozelli and half a dozen of his assistants would begin a frantic sorting out of the captured documents. Speed of action was absolutely vital if the maximum results were to be obtained from the haul, and Cozelli was nothing if not efficient. Within an hour or so he would have given instructions for the arrest of perhaps half a hundred people. Only by not losing a second could he hope to catch Mondragora’s principal associates before the Portuguese had a chance to warn them that, the police having raided his own flat, their whole organisation must now be considered in danger.
If there was anything in the case to connect Daphnis with the Fascist Secret Service, her name would be on that list. She would be roused from her sleep and questioned before she had any chance to collect her wits and her room would be searched by the police in the hope of finding incriminating documents before she had any opportunity to remove or destroy them.
I saw now that by having stolen the letters I had won only half the battle. I must go straight to Daphnis, have a showdown with her, and warn her that the police might be arriving with a warrant at any moment.
On the steps of the block Cozelli told me that, although technically I had committed a criminal act by breaking into Mondragora’s flat, I need not worry myself on that account, as it had resulted in throwing a really big spanner into the works of such an exceptionally dangerous gang.
I said perfunctorily that I was glad to know that, and impatiently watched him and his men get into their car. It was now close on two in the morning and too late for any taxicabs to be about in this section of the town, which was some way from the principal night-clubs, so immediately the police car had disappeared I began to run. Ten minutes later I was dashing up the broad marble steps of the Diamopholi mansion. My breath was coming in painful gasps, but I knew that every moment might be of the utmost importance as Cozelli must by now have arrived at Police Headquarters.
Jamming my finger upon the electric bell, I kept it there. The bell pealed shrilly through the house, but at least five minutes went by before a faint line of light appeared under the great frosted-glass double doorway which was protected by a decorative iron grille. The door swung open and I saw young Tweifik, one of the Arab footmen, staring sleepily at me.
As I thrust my way inside and slammed the door to the portly figure of old Mohammed Abu, the Diamopholi’s head manservant, appeared upon the scene. Half-clad, and with his scant hair fluffed up at the back of his bald head, the old boy was far from his usual dignified self, and he asked with ill-concealed annoyance what had happened to caus
e me to rouse the house at this unusual hour.
I told him that I did not wish to see Monsieur or Madame Diamopholus, but he was to go straight upstairs and bring Mademoiselle Daphnis down to me.
As he waddled off I was immensely tempted to kick his vast stern in order to stir him into greater activity, but I knew that I must restrain myself, and I stood champing in the hall while he slowly heaved his great bulk up the broad shallow stairs.
He was actually away for over a quarter of an hour by my watch, although it seemed very much longer to me. Eventually I grew so frantic with impatience that I had just decided upon the extraordinarily drastic measure in such a household of invading Daphnis’ bedroom myself, when Mohammed Abu reappeared. But with him, instead of Daphnis, was her mother.
“My dear boy!” she exclaimed in Greek, as she hurried down the stairs in front of him. “What is it? Are you ill? Have you been ordered back to the Front? Why do you look so pale and worried?”
“Forgive me,” I said. “I must see Daphnis at once.”
“But, at this hour!” she protested.
“Yes,” I insisted. “It’s most important. I’m sorry that I can’t tell you why; the affair is purely personal.”
“But—but …” She spread, out her hands and I noticed that, even to come downstairs in the middle of the night, she had put on her magnificent rings as well as dressing almost entirely. “I know that you are engaged, yes, but even for engaged couples it is not done for them to have private interviews at such an hour.”
“I’m sorry,” I reiterated, “but I’ve simply got to see Daphnis—and, if you must know … this is a police matter.”
“The police!” she exclaimed, her eyes going round. “It is not true! How can my little Daphnis have done anything which would cause her to become mixed up in the affairs of the police?”
“For the moment it doesn’t matter what she’s done. The point is that I must see her before they get here.”
“What! The police come to this house!” My future mother-in-law threw her hands up in alarm and distress. “Oh! But this is awful! How I wish that Nicholas was not away!”
It was only then I remembered that old Diamopholus was spending that night in Port Said on some urgent shipping business—which was unfortunate because I felt that he would have been easier to deal with than Daphnis’ mother.
Time was flying. Well over half an hour had gone since I left Mondragora’s flat.
“Listen!” I said in desperation. “I’m terribly sorry about all this, but you know that I love Daphnis. I’m trying to save her from what might turn out to be very serious trouble. Either you must go up and bring her down to me without any more delay or, sorry as I should be to offend your susceptibilities, I’m going upstairs and I’ll rout her out of bed myself.”
“Dear God, dear God! All right, then, wait here.” Puzzled, anxious, but evidently feeling herself no longer capable of thwarting me, the portly lady shrugged her shoulders with an eloquent gesture which suggested that I, like all other Englishmen, was mad. Then gathering her ample skirts in front of her, she went as quickly as she could upstairs.
Another ten minutes dragged by, and either Daphnis was beautifying herself quite unnecessarily for my edification or else her mamma was anxiously cross-questioning her in an effort to find out what she had done to attract the attention of the police.
At last they appeared. Daphnis, dewy-eyed and flushed, in a flowing dressing-gown of heavy silk, looked like something straight out of a dream.
“Julian, whatever is the matter?” she cried, as she ran downstairs. “Something awful must have happened for you to get us all out of bed like this.”
Even at that anxious moment I could not bring myself to be abrupt with her. Going forward I took her hand and kissed it, as I said: “I must see you alone for a few minutes. I’ve already told your mother that, so I’m sure she won’t object. Let’s go into the library.”
Without further reference to Madame I took Daphnis by the arm and led her into the room at the back of the house, where months before Paolo had shamed me in front of her. Closing the door, I said quickly:
“Daphnis, for your own sake as well as mine I want you to answer my questions truthfully. If I know the full facts it may enable me to save you from being sent to prison.”
The colour drained from her face as she stammered, “What—whatever do you mean, darling?”
“I mean that the police may be here at any moment, and once they come on the scene I’ll no longer be able to advise you about the best line to take with them. If we’re going to talk we’ve got to talk fast and there’ll be no time to spare with half-answers and evasions. Are you an Italian agent?”
“No,” she replied without hesitation.
I pulled the bundle of letters from my pocket and held them up for her to see. “That’s your writing, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Those letters were found tonight in the apartment of a certain Count Emilo de Mondragora. Do you know the Count?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know that he was an Italian agent?”
“Yes, I knew that.”
“Yet you deny that you are one yourself?”
“I do.”
“Daphnis, these letters were hidden with other obviously confidential papers behind a secret panel in an old bureau in the Count’s sitting-room. I take it that you did write them to him and that you remember what’s in them?”
“Yes.”
“I haven’t read them, but if you can assure me that they contain no information which might have been detrimental to the interests of my country you’ll be taking an enormous load off my mind.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Julian, I can’t tell you that. They contain particulars about shipping, things I learnt from my stepfather and passed on to Count Mondragora.”
“Yet you maintain that you are not working in secret for Italy against Britain?”
“I do, but I never said that I had not done so in the past. Those are old letters, written last summer and autumn.”
“When did you stop giving information to the Italians?” I asked, and my voice had gone a little husky.
“I thought I ought to stop when they went into Greece. As I’m half-Greek it seemed to me that, much as I love Italy, I ought to become neutral. I was still undecided when you came on leave early in November, but our getting engaged settled the matter without my having to think about it any further. How could I possibly even think of working against the country of the man to whom I had plighted my troth?”
A great wave of relief surged through me. Whatever Daphnis might have done in the past, she had acted with complete honesty towards me. I needed no proof of that. Her voice was calm, her clear eyes steady and untroubled.
“Bless you, darling,” I murmured. “From the beginning I had an idea that you might be mixed up with Italian espionage, but I felt certain that you would never continue to do such work once it was settled that we two were to marry. The devil of it is, though, that the Anglo-Egyptian authorities here won’t recognise that dividing line of the day that we became engaged. It was the police who found these letters tonight and they might still bring a charge against you for something that you did last summer.”
“What’s happened to the Count?” she asked quickly.
“I don’t know. He got away before the police raided his apartment.”
“What were you doing there with the police, Julian? Are you—are you really in the Secret Service?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m nothing to do with the police. I only happened to be there by chance.”
“You just said that it was the police who found the letters. If you’re not connected with the police, how did you get hold of them?”
I smiled a little ruefully. “To tell you the truth, darling, I stole them. They were packed into a suit-case with a whole lot of other confidential documents which came out of the bureau, and as they were put into it I recognised your
writing. When the police chief wasn’t looking I opened the case and got them out again.”
“Wasn’t that running an awful risk?” she whispered.
“It might have been a bit awkward if I’d been caught,” I agreed. “But I felt that if only I could get hold of the evidence and destroy it, they would never be able to bring a charge against you.”
She smiled up into my eyes and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Darling, how wonderful of you! And you did that, knowing all the time that I might have been working against your country.”
“I felt pretty certain that the letters were old ones. But even if I had seen that they were dated last week, I should have done what I did just the same.”
“I’m glad this has happened,” she said suddenly. “It’s proved us to each other—proved our love. I put you before my country when I agreed to marry you and now you’ve put me before your country by stealing those letters without knowing what they contained.”
I nodded. “Yes, I’m glad it’s happened, too, because now we have no more secrets from each other and nothing can possibly ever come between us again. But we must get things sorted out as far as the police are concerned; otherwise you may find yourself in serious trouble yet.”
“How do you mean?” she asked.
“As I told you: the police have got all Mondragora’s papers. Among them there may be a list of the people who have worked for him. If your name appears on that or is mentioned in any of the other documents the police will certainly come and question you.”
She shrugged. “Let them come. Since you have retrieved my letters what can they do? The only times that I ever saw Count Emilo were when he used to come secretly by night to the bottom of the garden to tell me what he particularly wished me to find out. If I say that I have never met him they cannot possibly prove that I have.”
“Is he the only Italian agent that you ever had any dealings with?”
The Sword of Fate Page 23