by Talbot Mundy
“He had no trouble in getting cotton cargoes for all four ships. I daresay he could only get away with it once, but once was all he needed. He cut rates and loaded the ships full. Sent ’em to Boston. Loaded up a return cargo of Springfield rifles, ammunition, dynamite, bayonets, some quick-firing guns, revolvers, and lord knows what else — all down on the manifest as hardware. Ordered the ships to sea, and tried to run those cargoes into Egypt for some damned revolution or other!
“Maybe you don’t know the law. I wasn’t as familiar with it then as I am now! Those ships of mine were still under the British flag, you understand. Well, Poulakis spent no money on repairs or overhaul; one ship put into Gibraltar with her condensers out of kilter, and it took a week to fix ’em, but it didn’t take the British a tenth of that time to learn what was under her hatches. They let her proceed on her voyage, but as each ship drew near the Egyptian coast, bum-boats came out at night to run the contraband. British caught ’em red-handed of course. British flag; British law; inside the three-mile limit. Confiscated everything, ships included.
“If I’d already transferred ’em to the U.S. flag, I might have been able to protect my investment. I don’t know. As it was, all I could do was to fire the fool who had got me into the infernal mess, and try to get Poulakis into jail in order to clear my own character. I sent a trustworthy man to Egypt with orders to hire the best lawyer in the country and dig to the roots of the whole business. You’d think that should be easy, wouldn’t you? Nothing more difficult.
“D’you know what the courts are like here? Each foreign consul has jurisdiction over his own nationals. Poulakis claimed he was a Greek, and set up a cast-iron alibi of being an innocent shareholder in the corporation that chartered the ships. The corporation was bankrupt and the directors had all bolted abroad.
“On top of that the British had their hands full of local politics and didn’t want the abortive revolution advertised. The lawyer we’d hired was an Englishman, and I daresay honest, but English first, as am I all the time. I don’t blame him. From his point of view I was an American providing ships for gun-runners and trying to fix the blame on someone else. Besides, I wasn’t on the spot; busy with another lawsuit in the States that might have cost me a couple of million if I’d neglected it.
“Nevertheless, it seemed to me that something should be done about Poulakis. It’s a public duty to jump on a brute like that, and I owed it to myself to clear my name. So I saw the British Embassy in Washington and — you know how they are — made friends with them. Kind of politeness that reminds you of the way they finish the bearings of their machinery — but nothing doing — no ships back — only a friendly offer to soak Poulakis if that could be done without international complications. And mind you, they’re men of their word.
“They must have got after Poulakis promptly; for the next thing Poulakis himself arrived in New York with a brand new wife, damned good looking woman she was, and she contrived to meet me at the house of a friend.
“I couldn’t help be interested. She was wearing diamonds paid for from the profit made out of my ships, and that gave me a parental interest, you might say. Amused me, too, to figure out what her game might be. She wasn’t more than twenty-two or twenty-three. It was possible she’d blab out just the hint I needed to flatten her husband thoroughly. And a pretty woman is — well — damn.”
“We’ve seen her too,” said Jeremy. “Go on.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you’ve seen her, you know very well what I mean! Finish your story and we’ll tell you ours.”
“Well, she was direct; I’ll say that for her, She had the impudence of a modern college girl with the skill of an old campaigner. I don’t dance. We sat out in a corner of my friends’ conservatory, and she asked me point blank whether I’d had enough of defeat at her husband’s hands, I assured her I hadn’t started on him yet, and she laughed.”
“ ‘Isn’t he clever?’ she asked me.
“ ‘Damned smart,’ said I.
“ ‘Then why not make a truce with him,’ said she, ‘and form a partnership, and have the benefit of all his brains?’
“When a thing like that is sprung on you, you’re mighty clever if you have an adroit answer ready. To draw out more information I asked her what sort of partnership her husband had to offer.
“ ‘He doesn’t offer,’ she answered. ‘He compels!’
“I naturally smiled at that, and she elaborated, ‘Mr. Poulakis,’ she said, ‘never makes friends until after he has given a taste of his power. If I could tell you the whole story of his courtship, you would understand me thoroughly. He loved me, but he did not marry me until my parents as well as I were aware that he could ruin all of us if we opposed him, and now I love him all the more because I know his power. His is the policy of the man in armor. The weak ones, who yield too easily, he makes use of, never trusting them; from among the strong ones he picks his friends. He has given you a taste of his strength, and unlike other rich men I could name you have started to fight back. When you went to the British Embassy you caused him inconvenience. He inquired about you, and came to have a look at you, unknown to yourself. Then he made ready to destroy you; and now that he is quite ready he has sent me to tell you this — that you may choose between peace or war.’
“Imagine listening to that kind of talk from a twenty-three-year-old girl in a house on Fifth Avenue! I didn’t know whether to laugh or get furious.”
“Why didn’t you kiss her and make her furious?” suggested Jeremy.
“That’s precisely what I did!” Strange answered. “But I asked her first what peace between a man like Poulakis and me would mean.
“ ‘You would give guarantees,’ she said, ‘and join us.’
“I asked her what she meant by ‘us,’ and then she let the cat out of the bag.
“ ‘We’re the most powerful secret organization in the world,’ she answered. ‘Much more powerful than the Camorra. We make use of others, and leave to them the sardines, as it were, that are too small for our big net. We are so secret that we haven’t a name. Our existence is known and terribly feared by many governments, but none can identify us. Our affairs are conducted by individuals, but very few individuals know more than two or three other members, so none can betray us.’
“ ‘And what do you mean by guarantees?’ I asked.
“ ‘You will find them profitable,’ she answered. ‘You will be given a chance to redeem your losses over that ship transaction, in course of which you will break the laws of the United States and two or three other countries. And you will receive protection just as long as you behave. If you were to misbehave, you would be exposed and go to jail. There wouldn’t be much that you could tell, but if you should try to be indiscreet you would be killed; and all the newspapers would denounce the Black Hand or the Ku Klux Klan, or the Camorra, or some other society that has a name. And if you don’t accept this opportunity, Mr. Meldrum Strange, you will be hammered and whipped and bullied and defeated at every turn until you change your mind; for my husband is one who never allows another human to refuse him. If you elect to give your answer now to me, you will save yourself trouble. Otherwise the taming of Meldrum Strange will begin tomorrow morning!’
“ ‘All right,’ said I. ‘I’ll give you my answer. Tell Poulakis I’ve kissed his wife. I take it he’ll know what that means!’
“The most remarkable thing about it was that she didn’t resist — at least, not much. She wouldn’t let me kiss her a second time.
“ ‘I like you,’ she said. ‘You’re the kind of man it’s fun to fight with! So it’s war, is it? Well, take this.’
“She took a diamond ring off the third finger of her left hand and gave it to me. ‘Send or give that back to me whenever you admit you’re beaten!’ she said.
“That was the last word I’ve had with her from then until now, although she sent me her photograph by mail at the time of her husband’s death, or shortly after it. He die
d in his bed like a Christian, and I’m told the funeral was attended by representatives of every foreign government that keeps a consulate in Egypt. Here’s the ring.”
Meldrum Strange pulled out his watch chain, and unfastened from its end a hoop ring set all around with diamonds. The stones weren’t very big, but when he passed us the ring to examine and Jeremy struck a match they flashed splendidly; and they were set, with skill that is rare nowadays, in a briar branch carved from platinum. It wasn’t a ring that could he easily mistaken for another one; there was probably not another like it in the world; and inside it the initials Z.P. were inlaid in yellow gold.
“The fight began next morning at nine o’clock sure enough,” said Strange. “The office safe in which I kept my private ledger was broken open when I reached the office, and the ledger was missing with most of my secrets in it. A few securities that were in there hadn’t been touched.”
CHAPTER VI. “The more I’m defeated the harder I fight.”
Strange paused to light a cigar, clasped the ring on the end of his chain again, and smoked in silence for several minutes. The only creatures moving were the bats flitting between us and the moonlight, and the only sound was the murmur of the Arabs’ voices from a hundred yards away, still discussing ways and means of making us pay tribute. The shadow of the Sphinx looked like the pit that silence came from.
“You’ve no idea what the loss of that ledger meant to me,” Strange went on. “It wasn’t so much the difficulty of recalling intricate details of business known to few except myself. Whoever stole it had the inside facts of my positions. If I’d chanced to be overextended at the time I’d have met my Waterloo. I still was disposed to laugh at the notion of war waged on me by a secret society; but within two days I had to fight like the Old Guard to keep myself out of the receiver’s hands,
“Every interest I owned was attacked simultaneously. I’d no sooner holstered up one angle than I was squeezed in another. Rumors began to be whispered in the street about my solvency. Bankers who had hitherto trusted me implicitly began to ask for detailed statements at awkward moments, and to call loans without any definite excuse.
“It was no use squealing. You can’t go to the police with a yarn like that. They’d laugh at you; and if I’d gone with it to bank directors they’d have shut down on my credit like a ton of bricks. There wasn’t a thing to do but fight on the defensive against an invisible enemy; and as always happens, when you really take your coat off and show what you’re made of, it left me stronger than I started. It forced me to concentrate on stability, building up real resources. I had a clean stable by the time I had won the first round.
“So when the War came the fall of prices on the Stock Exchange didn’t mean much to me, except that bankers who had sent for me a few months before began coming around to talk with me instead. I had big sums on demand deposit — and the shoe was on the other foot. I made millions supporting the market, saved the bacon of men who’d have been tickled to death six months before to see me down and out.
“And I’d learned principally this — that governments are figureheads. Governments don’t want war. Nations don’t want it, when they think; but they’re never given a chance to think. War is brought on by the rascals who profit by it. They work the game in a thousand ways, irritating first one nation and then the other. The men who do the actual irritating are mostly blind victims of an inner clique of devils, who make mischief for sheer delight in doing it.
“I’d been twenty-five years pondering over the why of things, and that sharp experience I had served to tear away the veil. When we got into the War our Government put me just where I wanted to be, for I’m a hard man to put anywhere else. I was attached to the Secret Intelligence Department. and you’d be amazed to know what trails and cross-trails came under my notice. Of course, the game was to win the War. I’d no time to follow up ninety percent of what came my way, but I learned what my business was going to be after the War.
“I made up my mind, in the same way that other men take up charity or education. I decided to go devil-hunting. That’s the name I call it by. And I didn’t see why I shouldn’t start on this Poulakis gang first of all.
“So I went to the British Embassy again, and had a long talk. That was rather like pulling the plug before starting, but it couldn’t be helped, for I had to establish understanding with men who might otherwise put insuperable obstacles in the way of my doing anything.
“I did the same thing at the French and Italian Embassies, with the result that I have carte blanche as far as they can give it to me. On the other hand, in every instance someone in the embassy reported the conversations I’d had, and there were three separate attempts made to murder me within the week. On top of that, I was sent for by our people and cautioned not to take law into my own hands.
“It would take too long to tell you now all the ramifications of what followed. I had to lie low for a while, and I occupied the time in rearranging my affairs, making investments that can’t be shaken as long as the U.S. holds together, and quietly picking up a man here and another there who’d be the makings of a first-class team. Then this man Poulakis died. I was rather sorry. I’d hoped to lay him by the heels, and I supposed his death would mean the end of his organization. However, he hadn’t been dead and buried thirty days when a man walked into my office as calm as you please and asked me for Mrs. Poulakis’s diamond ring!
“He gave his name as Andrieff Alexis, and he said with a smile like a well-fed cat’s that he supposed I understood on what terms he would accept the ring back. We had quite a chin together. He told me the name of every man I’d talked with at the different embassies; the name of every man I’d hired for my private team, together with some of their past history; and many details of the steps I’d already taken toward the task I have in view.
“He ended by offering to take me over, gang and all, and he promised me more power in the world than I’d ever dreamed of if I’d swallow my prejudices and come on in. He said incidentally that Poulakis had only been a minor agent of the society, which he assured me was stronger than ever but in need of some new genuine American blood.
“So I threw him out of the office. He had the impudence to call the police, and I had to give bail for appearance in the magistrate’s court; but when the case was called he didn’t appear to prosecute. He’d gone. Left the country.
“Well, I sent one of my best men to Egypt — a fellow who knew French and Arabic — with orders to do nothing but mix with the people and investigate. He lasted two months. He sent me a letter every day reporting progress, and by the time his information was beginning to be worthwhile they’d got him, and all that he knew of me into the bargain. He married a Levantine woman, and he’s in the jail in Alexandria this minute on account of some dirty work. The truth is they’d no further use for him, so put him out of the way.
“I sent out a second man, with three assistants. Strict orders to do nothing but investigate, and to report to me in code. Fortunately it’s one of those codes that can be changed completely in ten seconds, for the Poulakis-Alexis people had possession of it in a week, and actually had the gall to write me a letter composed in it. It was a clever letter, and the joke was on me, I admit.
“So I cabled for those fellows to come home and this time I sent a woman — a rip-snorter — Angel Halliday — a she-devil if ever there was one, but true to her salt. She’d worked for newspapers, and for several years for a detective agency. Face like a frozen chorus girl, and a brain that was one perennial question mark. She lasted three months, and got drowned — by accident according to the coroner — in a boating party out at Ramleh. They tell me there’s a dreadful undertow at that place. They said she got drunk and fell overboard, but I’ll believe it when I see that stone Sphinx the worse for liquor.
“I don’t know how you men are, but the more I’m defeated the harder I fight. Casting about for ways and means I thought of Ramsden and decided to come here and see whether he wouldn’t l
end a hand. I took every precaution: started West by train, and returned to New York by auto in the night — boarded the Adriatic secretly under an assumed name, and kept in my stateroom all the way to Southampton. There, if you please, I was met by a gentleman who called himself Antonio Gambetta, who said he’d reserved a compartment for me on the London Express, and presented the compliments of Madame Zelmira Poulakis and Mr. Andrieff Alexis! Can you beat it?
“I had a powwow in the British Foreign Office in London next day. They gave me afternoon tea and a letter to the High Commissioner out here, requesting him to accord me facilities, whatever those mean.
“I saw the High Commissioner, and he’s a dandy. He explained more Egyptian politics in an hour than I could have picked up in a year from other people. Told me with one of his dry, explosive laughs that if I’d uncover that gang I’m after he’d resign his job in my favor! Made no bones about their being too much for his people. Says they’ve undermined the whole police force and corrupted every politician who wasn’t already rotting to pieces! He admitted quite frankly that even if martial law were re-imposed there’d be no chance of scotching any but the small fry.
“Nothing remarkable happened between that talk I had with you fellows this morning and dinner-time, except that I was conscious once or twice of being watched; and in the afternoon, when I went to call on the bank through which I propose to draw on New York for funds, the manager told me that ‘business firms’ had been making inquiries about me. He refused to name anyone in particular; said the inquiries had come through regular business channels.
“Can you wonder that when that note came during dinner I was willing to follow you in the auto? It crossed my mind that the message was a trick to get you fellows away from me. When you drove off, and I followed, four men got into the car behind and followed me. They kept their distance, and when we reached that bridge they had disappeared for the time being. But when you fellows drove through the gate of that house and it shut behind you I made my man drive to a corner, where there was a street lamp, and told him to put up the top.