But, although the story he was on had been promised for an early date, he could not bring himself to write more than a few paragraphs a day. The fatal inability to concentrate still dogged him. Writing novels suddenly seemed a ridiculous and absurd occupation.
Then he had stepped across the threshold of a door and found himself face to face with something real, vital, dynamic. Life with the lid off.
But Grim-face had turned him down cold.
His mood had not improved by the experience.
* * *
—
There was the usual pile of letters on the breakfast-table, but he pushed them aside whilst he had his meal. Then, gathering them up, he crossed to the wide fireplace, lowered himself into a worn morocco chair, and filled and lit a pipe.
The mood of irritability was rather worse that morning—the memory of the talk with Grim-face the night before was very vivid—and Chertsey’s perusal of his mail was marked by a series of short explosions. He was not a mean or selfish man—but he wished these charity-mongers would leave him alone for a bit. Then there were the immaculately typed envelopes which, upon being opened, proved to contain the compliments of Samuel MacJacob and his tribe, who, upon note of hand alone, were prepared to advance any sum up to twenty-five thousand pounds….
Another. This from the editor of a monthly magazine:
Dear Chertsey,
I want to start that serial.
Where the deuce is it?
Yours sincerely,
JOHN BEZZANT.
The reader groaned. He was sick of work.
The last envelope of the batch was small and azure-coloured. A faint fragrance drifted to him as he picked it up. He viewed it curiously for a minute. The writing was not familiar, and it had been addressed to him c/o his English publishers. He tore the flap.
Dear Mr. Chertsey,
I hope you won’t think me too much of an abandoned female if I write to say how much I enjoyed your last book? I have read them all—they are my favourite bed-time literature, as a matter of fact!—but “The Lure” beats all the rest.
I hope you are not too hopelessly conventional! Judging from the kind of stuff you write I should not imagine you were. If you feel capable of such a rash act, let me offer you some tea one afternoon. This is not an entirely disinterested invitation, I warn you—I want your autograph in some of my favourite novels.
You might ring me up if you think anything about it.
Sincerely yours,
SOPHIE LAURENT.
His worst enemy could not have said that Chertsey had many illusions about himself. He was fast advancing towards the unromantic forties, he was only moderately good-looking, and he regarded his novels mainly as a means of livelihood. It was necessary that he should make money somehow, and writing appealed to him as the easiest way he knew. Contrary to the average experience he had sold his stuff from the start and as time went on he got better and better prices for it. He was fond of change and he could work whilst he travelled.
He might have become conceited. His novels contained nothing of sex, and yet all classes appeared to read them. In the Berengaria library list there was a long row of them, and the library steward said they were always “out.”
In the ordinary way he would probably have ignored the letter and concentrated on the business-like epistle of the editor of the Centurion Magazine. That meant something practical: English magazines paid badly compared to American ones, but he had got Bezzant up to one thousand pounds for the serial rights of “The Midnight Club”—and what was even more important, directly he delivered the manuscript he could receive his money.
But when he looked through the open door into his study which adjoined and saw the typewriter waiting…he reached out for the telephone. Holding the letter signed “Sophie Laurent,” he asked for a number.
* * *
—
“So you have been bored? We must see to that.”
Chertsey watched through the cigarette-smoke her eyes quizzing him.
“I am no longer bored,” he said.
She reached out for a fresh cigarette from the jade box, and he sprang up—rather awkwardly, for the Chesterfield was deep—to strike a match. As he held the flame cupped, the girl’s fingers touched the back of his hand. A gleam of amusement was in her eyes, which held a deeper challenge.
“It was very good of you to come.”
“I hope you are not too disappointed?”
“On the contrary.” She smiled again. “It would, I confess, have been a terrible blow if you had proved to be a fat, bearded person with a large family.”
“Many of my tribe are just like that.”
“Really? Then the beautiful emotions they express are nothing more than their secret longings and desires?”
“Probably. But what would you have done had I turned up with a beard and a family portrait album?”
“Given you tea, of course, got your signature to my books—and then discovered an acute headache. As it is——” She gestured with her free hand.
“I am flattered—and grateful.”
“Thank you. This is rather jolly, don’t you think?”
She motioned again with a white, ringless hand, exceptionally groomed. The movement was comprehensive. It embraced the glowing fire, the corner of the room in which they were entrenched, the Chesterfield on which they were both seated—and her visitor.
It was evidently intended as a compliment. Chertsey, soothed by his surroundings, accepted it as such. For the speaker was by no means ordinary; on the contrary, she was distinctly unusual.
Sophie Laurent was not beautiful in the orthodox, stereotyped fashion—her mouth was too large and her features too irregular for that—but she was a striking type, nevertheless. Her body had an attractive suppleness, and its grace was shown off to advantage by the afternoon gown she wore.
She had a personality, and it was compelling. Chertsey found himself becoming more and more interested—almost fascinated. This woman—he put her age down at twenty-six or so—was intensely alive. The movements of her body, the animation of her voice and glance, the play of her hands showed it. He liked people to be alive.
They drifted into more or less intimate talk: the girl had let the barriers down, and Chertsey, never a slave to convention, willingly stepped over the threshold. She told him that she was alone in London, that, although possessed of sufficient private means, she was herself often-times bored and——
“You don’t think me too dreadful for writing you, I hope, old chap?” she asked. Her outstretched hand picked a speck of dust off his shoulder. “I’ve never done such a thing before, but there’s something in your work which thrills me. Is it the way you make your heroines behave, or what?”
“My dear—you overwhelm me!” he replied.
“Not at all. I mean it. Tell me, have you had many adventures yourself?”
He looked at her; she was extremely attractive with the firelight playing on her white, opulent skin.
“Amorous or otherwise?”
“ ‘Otherwise,’ of course. You don’t think I’ve lured you here in order to get details of your dreadful past? No, what I mean is, you describe action so well in your books that I always feel you must have actually taken part in something of the sort yourself. I should like you to have met a great—a very great—friend of mine. He’s dead now. But Bob Baintree——”
“You knew Baintree?” His surprise made him interrupt.
She regarded him with astonishment. “Do you mean to say you were a friend of his, too? But, how extraordinary!”
“I saw him once—that’s all.” Some intuitive feeling—he could not tell what instinct it was which guided him—made him temporize.
She nodded.
“He died a couple of days ago—quite suddenly, and rathe
r mysteriously. When I say ‘mysteriously,’ I mean that it seems strange to think of a man in the prime of life, and as strong as he was, dying at all. And no one seems to know what it was that struck him down.”
Into the listener’s mind flashed a picture. Chertsey saw that still form with the grotesquely limp limbs lying on the blue-patterned carpet with the blood staining the shirt-front. Should he tell this girl what he knew? He decided not—evidently she was ignorant of the truth—and it might cruelly distress her.
“My feelings for poor Bob were never more than those of a friend—a very dear friend—but he—he always said he was very much in love with me. He wrote me the most wonderful letters. The night before his death he called here. It was rather a painful scene we had. You see, he asked me once again to marry him and I refused. He was a dear, and I liked him awfully—but it’s absolutely suicidal to marry anyone you do not love—don’t you think?”
“I should imagine so.”
“It was then I gave him back his letters. I felt I no longer had the right to them. I fancy I can see his face now”—she shivered slightly, although the room was very hot—“as he put them away in a black leather case. It’s hateful to think that prying eyes may read the words which must have been sacred to him.”
Chertsey leaned forward.
“You would like to have those letters back?” he asked.
“Only to destroy them. Now that Bob is dead…perhaps you can understand?”
“Of course. But if the letters are addressed to you, they are your property. Mr. Baintree’s executors would deliver them up to you if you made application.”
“Oh, but I have written—and received no reply. Do you know what I think?”
“What?”
“I have the idea—although Bob never told me, great friends as we were—that he was engaged on some private work for the Government. That would explain the secrecy which has so surrounded his death. It might also explain why I cannot get my letters returned. Being a woman, I feel so helpless——” She paused, biting her lower lip. “Then there is another possibility. They may have been stolen. There is the chance of blackmail.”
It was obviously up to Chertsey.
“If I can do anything——” he started.
She turned to him so impulsively that one rounded arm encircled his neck.
“Oh, will you? Thank you! I know where the letters were put—if only you could find that black leather case….”
The red lips were parted; her eyes sent forth an invitation, but, strangely enough, when Chertsey found himself five minutes later out on the Earls Court pavement, it was not of the woman he had just left that he thought. His mind dwelt on the still form of a man lying on the floor of his flat—brutally murdered.
* * *
—
A month passed. It was during this month that Gilbert Chertsey’s friends went round inquiring of each other what the deuce had happened to him. On the principle of going to the fountain-head, Ringwood, who was really anxious, rang up the novelist’s literary agent.
“Don’t ask me,” replied that harassed individual; “all I know is that he won’t work and that he spends all his time with some woman….No, I don’t know anything more than that….I can’t tell you her name, but she’s got him all right; they’re inseparable. I saw them lunching at the Savoy yesterday, and when I reminded Chertsey that he was already two months behind with his new novel he nearly bit my head off….Yes, he’s either mad, or is going to get married…’bye.”
* * *
—
Chertsey adjusted the gold-rimmed spectacles of plain glass, fingered the small moustache glued to his upper lip by spirit-gum, and walked on.
It was difficult to believe that he was in London—even in the noisome East End: this dark, fetid alley was more in keeping with the underworld of some foreign capital. It was so dark that he could scarcely see his hand in front of him.
Dread struck him: he might not be able to find the place again; he had been there only once before. And he had to find it.
He stumbled on until he reached the end of this unsavoury alley. A turn to the right brought him more light and a clearer knowledge of his surroundings. He was in a street now—a street lined with grimy-looking houses that frowned evilly upon the few persons walking furtively upon the pavement below.
Into one of these houses he turned, watched by many curious eyes. Up the rickety staircase he climbed until he reached a door on the third floor. He thrust this open without the preliminary of knocking.
For such a house it was a surprisingly comfortable room. At a big desk placed against the farther wall, a girl sat writing. As the door opened, she swung round in her chair.
“Yes?” she demanded. Her right hand was in a pocket of her skirt.
“Don’t trouble to shoot, Sophie,” said Chertsey.
The girl stared incredulously and then tilted back her head. There was relief—and something else—in her laugh.
“You’re wonderful, old thing,” she declared—“but why the disguise?”
Chertsey turned to lock the door.
“Yes, I should have done that; it was very careless of me. I don’t know what Philip would say.” Her tone changed. “By the way, he should be here—it’s not like him to be late. You haven’t seen him?”
“No—but I’ve heard about him.”
Her expression changed as she saw the look in his eyes.
“What do you mean? Has anything happened to him?”
“He’s been taken.”
She opened her mouth to scream, but self-control asserted itself.
“How do you know? When did it happen? Philip!…Oh, God, they’ll hang him!”
“Undoubtedly,” Chertsey confirmed, “but then he always knew they would.”
She passed over the singular remark in her urgent desire for further information.
“When did it happen?”
“He was arrested an hour ago in the California Hotel in Leicester Square.”
She came closer.
“Gilbert, how do you know this?”
“Ever since the night of Baintree’s death I have been shadowed—under suspicion——”
She caught his arm.
“That has been through me. Oh, my dear, they will not touch you…is that why you came here disguised?”
He disregarded her question, and continued: “I thought two could play at that game and so I did a bit of spying back. That is how I knew of your brother’s arrest.” He freed his arm from her hand.
“I came straight here to warn you. They know that your brother had a woman working with him. Although they have the murderer of Baintree”—he wondered she did not notice the hardening of his voice—“they will not be satisfied. I have heard of this man Bellamy: he’s a tiger; and he will not rest until he has got you as well. He must know all about you by this time.”
It seemed incredible that she did not suspect him. But the girl remained calm, almost impassive. Was she stunned by grief?
He went on hurriedly.
“They may be here any moment. This place can be traced now that they have O’Donnell.”
She just smiled. It was pathetic.
“I do not care,” she said; “let them come.”
Chertsey caught her by the shoulders.
“You don’t realize what you are saying, Sophie. Through O’Donnell there may be the clearest evidence against you. Although England is not at war, the country cannot afford to be sentimental against agents working for a foreign power which is known to be hostile. Don’t you realize the risk?”
“I have taken a greater risk than that—and lost.”
“A greater risk?” He was puzzled.
“When I endeavoured to make you love me, Gilbert.” She sat down again at the big desk at which she had plotted so brillia
ntly against the country which was giving her hospitality.
“I, who had sworn to steel my heart against all emotion, have lamentably failed; that is why I do not care what the future may hold….”
Chertsey kept silent because he did not know what to say. He had played the traitor to this girl who had trusted him, and the reflection was not pleasant. He had encouraged her to love him—and now this love, unless she got away, might mean her death.
“This is the end—and I do not care,” continued Sophie Laurent. “You know part of my story; I will be very brief with the rest. I am Irish. My father was killed—butchered is the better word—by those licensed murderers known as the Black and Tans in 1920. I had just left the Convent then. Philip, my half-brother, had sworn vengeance against England, the employer of my father’s murderers, and he persuaded me to join him in his work. He soon found a way….”
“Russia?” There was contempt in Chertsey’s inquiry.
She shrugged her beautiful shoulders.
“What did it matter for whom we worked?” she said wearily. “Germany, France, Italy—it would all have been the same. We were out for vengeance, not money; neither Philip nor I ever received a penny.”
Chertsey shifted in his chair. She paid no attention.
“Philip had no special personal animosity against Robert Baintree, but Baintree was the most dangerous member of the special branch of the Secret Service working against us. He had collected certain information——”
“Which was in the black leather case?”
“Yes. It was just a forlorn hope asking you to try to get it back.”
“It was already in the hands of Scotland Yard; I took it to them on the morning after the murder.”
She showed no surprise.
“I guessed it all along—but I would not allow myself to believe it true. Then it was you who betrayed Philip?”
Chertsey nodded.
“It was I. When I saw the dead body of Baintree, I swore I would bring his murderer to justice. I asked Sir Harker Bellamy to let me join his staff. He curtly refused and so I worked on my own. We have been on different sides, Sophie—the luck of the game, I happen to have won.”
The Big Book of Espionage Page 44