Читать книгу Tales of Mystery & Espionage: 21 Spy Thrillers in One Edition - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 23

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It was the moment for the sake of which Elida had made many sacrifices. She had, for the first time in her life, disobeyed certain instructions issued from a beautiful white stone and marble building in the Plaza Corregio at Rome, instructions signed by the hand of a very great man indeed. Not only that but, in quartering herself upon a relative whom she loved better than any other amongst her somewhat extensive family, she had involved him in many possible embarrassments. As she sat there, she felt that she had offended against the code of her life and, listening to the music in the distant rooms, the hum of joyous voices, watching men in brilliant uniforms and beautifully gowned women pass back and forth, she felt conscious of a sense of shame. Yet it all seemed worth while when young Hartley Stammers, second secretary at the American Embassy, the acquaintance of a few hours, from whom she had begged this favour, and Fawley, a quietly distinguished-looking figure in his plain evening clothes amongst this colourful gathering, suddenly appeared upon the threshold. The light which flashed for a single moment in his eyes filled her with a sort of painful joy. For the first time, she felt weak of purpose. She was filled with a longing to abandon at that moment and forever this stealthy groping through the tortuous ways of life, to respond instead to that momentary challenge with everything she had to give. Perhaps if the mask had not fallen quite so quickly, she might have yielded.

“This is indeed a great pleasure, Princess,” Fawley said courteously, as he raised her fingers to his lips. “I had no idea that you thought of coming to London.”

“Nor I until—well, it seems only a few hours ago,” she said. “My aunt has not been well and my uncle—you know him, I dare say—he is our Ambassador here—begged me to pay him a flying visit. So here I am! Arrived this evening. Will you not sit down, Major Fawley? I should like so much that we talk for a little time.”

The younger man took regretful leave. Elida smiled at him delightfully. He had fulfilled a difficult mission and she was grateful.

“You will not forget, Mr. Stammers, that we dance later in the evening,” she reminded him. “You must show me some of your new steps. None of our Italian men can dance like you Americans.”

“I will be glad to,” the boy promised a little ruefully. “I have a list of duty hops down here which makes me tired. I’ll surely cut some of them, if I can. Being sort of office boy of the place, they seem to leave me to do the cleaning up.”

He took his leave, followed by Elida’s benediction. The quiet place for which she had asked fulfilled all its purposes. It was an alcove, as yet undiscovered by the majority of the guests, leading from one of the smaller refreshment rooms. Fawley sank onto the divan by her side.

“Why have you come to London?” he asked quietly.

“Is this bluntness part of the new diplomacy they talk about?” she retorted.

“It is the oldest weapon man has,” he declared. “It is rather effective, you see, because it really demands a reply.”

“What you really want to know,” she reflected, “is whether I followed you.”

“Something of the sort. Perhaps you may have had quite different ideas. I can assure you that so far as I am concerned—” he left the sentence unfinished. A very rare thing with him.

“I came here expressly to see you,” she suddenly confessed. “It is quite important.”

“You flatter me.”

“You know all your people in Rome, of course?”

“Naturally. We Americans always know one another. We do not keep ourselves in water-tight compartments.”

“Mr. Marston is a great friend of mine,” she said. “Poor man, just now he seems so worried.”

“What? Jimmie Marston?” Fawley exclaimed. “That sounds quaint to me. I don’t think I ever saw him when he did not look happy.”

“He is what you call in your very expressive language a bluffer,” she answered. “I know what the matter is with him now. He is terrified lest at any moment he may find himself in the imbroglio of a European war.”

Like a flash the relaxation passed from Fawley’s expression. His tone was unchanged but he had relapsed into the stony-faced, polite, but casual guest, performing his social duties.

“Our dear old friend,” he observed, “is probably having an unfortunate love affair. He is the only one of our diplomats who has achieved the blue ribbon of the profession and remained a lover of women. They really ought not to have given him Rome. It was trying him too high.”

“Yet not long ago,” she reminded him, “you were pursuing your vocation there.”

“Ah, but then I am not a lover of women,” he declared.

“I wonder whether it matters,” she went on. “I mean, I wonder whether, outside the pages of the novelist, ambassadors ever do give away startling secrets to the Delilahs of my sex, and whether,” she added, with a flash of her beautiful eyes, “they ever win successes with a whisper which should cost them a lifetime’s devotion.”

With a murmured request for permission, he followed her example and lit a cigarette.

“One would like to believe in that sort of thing,” he reflected, “but I do not think there is much of it nowadays. Whispers are too easily traced back and if you once drop out of a profession, it is terribly difficult to reëstablish yourself. We Americans, as you must have found out for yourself, are an intensely practical people. We would not consider any woman in the world worth the loss of our career.”

She leaned back in her corner of the divan and laughed melodiously.

“What gallantry!”

There was a certain return of good humour in his kindly smile.

“Let us be thankful at any rate,” he said, “that our relations are such that we do not need to borrow the one from the other.”

Her fingers played nervously with her vanity case.

“That may not last,” she murmured, almost under her breath. “I did not follow you here for nothing.”

He listened to the music.

“Rather a good tune?” he suggested.

She shook her head.

“Neither did I follow you here to dance with you.”

He sighed regretfully.

“The worst of even the byways of my profession,” he lamented, “is that duty so often interferes with pleasure. The Chief’s wife who, as I dare say you know, is my cousin, has given me a special list here and I have to take the wife of the French Naval Attaché in to supper.”

“I shall not keep you,” she promised. “I should probably have sent you away before now if I had not felt reluctant to say what I came to say. Sit down for one moment and leave me when you please. It is necessary.”

“Necessary?” he repeated.

She nodded. She was less at her ease than he had ever seen her. Her exquisite fingers were playing nervously with a jewel which hung from her neck.

“I think I told you once that I saw quite a good deal of your young brother in Rome during the hunting season.”

“Micky?”

“Yes. The one in the Embassy. Third secretary, is he not?”

Fawley nodded.

“Well, what about him?”

“He is not quite so discreet as you are.”

A queer silence. The sound of the music seemed to have faded away. When he spoke, his voice was lower than ever but there was an almost active belligerency in his tone.

“Just what do you mean?” he demanded.

“You are going to hate me, so get ready for it.”

“For the first time in my life,” he muttered, “I am inclined to wish that you were a man.”

She was hardening a little. The first step was taken, at any rate.

“Well, I am not, you see, and you can do nothing about it. Here is a scrappy note from your brother which I received a short time ago. It is written, as you see, on the Embassy note paper.”

She handed him an envelope. He drew out its contents deliberately and read the half sheet of paper.

Dear Princess,

I rather fancy that I am crazy but here you are. I send you copies of the last three code cables from Washington to the Chief. I have no access to the code and I cannot see what use they can be to you without it, but I have kept my word.

Don’t forget our dance to-morrow night.

Micky.

Fawley folded up the note and returned it.

“The copies of the various cables,” she remarked, “were enclosed. Rather ingenuous of the boy, was it not, to imagine that any one who interested themselves at all in the undercurrents of diplomacy had not the means of decoding despatches? They were all three very unimportant, though. They did not tell me what I wished to know.”

There was a tired look in his eyes but otherwise he remained impassive.

“Yes,” he agreed, “it was ingenuous. It just shows that it is not quite fair to bring these lads fresh from college into a world where they meet women like you. Go on, please.”

“The cables,” she continued, “and your brother’s note, if you wish for it, are at your disposal, in return for accurate knowledge of just one thing.”

“What is it you wish to know?” he asked.

“I wish to know why you came here to London instead of taking the information you collected in Germany straight to Rome.”

“Anything else?”

“Whether Washington and London are likely to come to any agreement.”

“Upon what?”

“Some great event which even the giants fear to whisper about.”

“I have seldom,” he declared, rising to his feet and beckoning to a young man who was standing upon the threshold of the anteroom, looking in, “spent an hour in which the elements of humour and pleasure were so admirably blended. Dickson, young fellow, you are in luck,” he went on, addressing the friend to whom he had signalled. “I am permitted to present you to the Princess di Vasena. Put your best foot foremost, and if you can dance as well as you used to, heaven is about to open before you. Princess—to our next meeting.”

He bowed unusually low and strolled away. She looked after him thoughtfully as she made room for the newcomer by her side.

“You were wondering?” the latter asked.

“When that meeting will be, for one thing. Major Fawley is always so mysterious. Shall we dance?”