Читать книгу Tales of Mystery & Espionage: 21 Spy Thrillers in One Edition - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 25

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It was evident from the moment of her entrance that Elida was not entirely her usual composed self. She was breathing rapidly as though she had run up the stairs. Her eyes darted restlessly around the room. The sight of Micky in no way discomposed her. She drew a sigh of relief, as though the thing which she had feared to see was absent. She nodded to the young man as she held out her hand to Fawley.

“You see that my brother is here to answer for his sins,” he remarked.

She sank into a chair.

“Poor Micky!” she exclaimed. “Some day I hope he will forgive me when he understands.”

“Oh, I forgive you all right,” Micky conceded. “I was just an ass. Didn’t quite understand what I was doing, I suppose.”

“Do any of us?” she lamented. “Please give me a cigarette, Martin. You have, perhaps, some brandy. I have been greatly disturbed and I am not well.”

Fawley produced cigarettes, touched the bell and ordered the liqueur. Elida took one sip and set the glass down. She looked half fearfully at her host.

“The little girl of Krust—Greta—she has not been here?”

“Not that I know of,” Fawley assured her. “I have not seen her since I left Berlin.”

“Nor Krust? Nor Maurice von Thal?”

“Not one of them.”

She seemed a trifle relieved. She threw open her cloak a little and tapped a cigarette upon the table. Her eyes were still full of trouble.

“I am almost afraid to ask my next question,” she confessed. “Pietro Patoni?”

Fawley shook his head. This time he was bewildered but grave. If Patoni was in London, there might indeed be trouble.

“I have not seen him,” he assured Elida, “since I was in Rome.”

“I know the fellow,” Micky put in. “Nephew of a holy cardinal, with eyes like beads. Looked like a cross between a stork and a penguin.”

Elida smiled despite her agitation.

“Kindly remember that he is my cousin,” she said. “Anyhow, I am thankful that he has not found you out yet, Martin. I have word that he is in London, and if he is in London, it is because he is looking for you. And if Krust is in London, or any of his emissaries, it is because they are looking for you. And if Greta or Nina are here, they are here for the same reason.”

“Well, my name is in the directory,” Fawley observed, “both here and in New York. I am perfectly easy to find. What do they want with me?”

“I think,” Elida confided, “that they all want to kill you—especially Pietro.”

“He looks just that sort of pleasant fellow,” Fawley remarked.

“He hates all of us Americans,” Micky grumbled. “He was never even decently civil to me.”

Elida took another sip of her fine, lit a second cigarette and relaxed. A slight tinge of colour came into her cheeks. Her lovely eyes had lost their tiredness.

“It is not so much that he hates Americans,” she explained. “He resents their interference in European politics. He has a very clear idea of how the destinies of Italy should be shaped and just now there are rumours passing across Europe which are stupefying everybody. I came over myself to see if I could learn anything of the truth. I am ashamed of what I did but I wanted so much to know.”

Her eyes were pleading with Fawley’s. He avoided their direct challenge.

“To revert to this question of Prince Patoni and his antipathies,” he said, “I should not think that America herself was very keen about any individual interference upon this side.”

“Please do not try to mislead me any more,” Elida begged. “I understand that I may not have your confidence—perhaps I do not deserve it—but you need not try to throw dust in my eyes. There is something else I have to say.”

She glanced at Micky and hesitated. He rose to his feet.

“I will be toddling off, Martin,” he announced. “Good night, Princess.”

“No ill will, Mister Micky?” she asked, smiling. “Those cables were terribly uninteresting. They did me no good whatever.”

He made a wry face.

“Sorry,” he rejoined gruffly. “They didn’t give me much of a boost!”

She waited patiently until the door was closed behind him then she turned almost hysterically to Fawley.

“Why have you not reported to Berati?” she cried breathlessly. “Tell me what has brought you here? Do you know that you are in danger?”

“No, I don’t think I realised that,” he answered. “One always has to watch one’s step, of course. I did not go back to Berati because I had not finished my job.”

“What part of it have you to finish here in England?” she demanded.

“I had most of my clothes stolen in Berlin,” he confided. “I had to come and visit my tailor.”

“Is that sort of thing worth while with me?” she protested. “Do you not understand that I have come here to warn you?”

He smiled.

“This is London,” he told her. “I am in sanctuary.”

“Do you really believe that?” she asked wonderingly.

“Of course I do.”

Elida shook her head. She seemed very tired. There was a note of despair in her tone.

“That man Berati is always right,” she lamented. “He told me that the ideal Secret Service man or woman did not exist. They are all either too brave or too cowardly. If you have no fear, you have no caution. If you have no caution, you are to be caught by the heels. Very well. For you, perhaps, that may be nothing. Life must end with all of us, but for your work it is finality. The knowledge you have acquired is lost. You are a failure.”

“You really have a great gift of intelligence, Elida,” Fawley declared, in a noncommittal tone.

“It does not amount to intelligence,” she objected. “It is common sense. Very well. Let us continue. You think that you are safe in London, when you have failed to report to Berati, when there are rumours going about in Rome that you are not to be trusted, that you have all the time been working for a cause of your own, concerning which no one knows anything. Italy has sent over her spies. They are here now. In Germany, they have the same distrust. Krust has given word that you are to be removed and Krust has more assassins at his back than any man in the world. Maurice von Thal swore only three nights ago that this next time he would not fail. Even Behrling has doubts of you! In France it is almost as bad. They suspect you of double espionage and of selling some great secret of theirs of which even I know nothing.”

“It all sounds very unpleasant,” Fawley murmured under his breath.

She took a cigarette from the box. Her slim beautiful fingers were shaking so that she lit it with difficulty. Fawley bent over her and steadied her hand. She looked up at him pathetically.

“Now I shall qualify for the executioner’s bullet,” she went on. “There is one of Berati’s spies outside on the pavement at the present moment. Another one has applied for a position as valet in this building. I do not say that either of these men has instructions to proceed to extremes. I do not know. This I do know. They are to keep a faithful record of your movements hour by hour and minute by minute. Patoni, on the other hand, scoffs at such mildness. He, like Maurice, has sworn to kill you on sight. Krust’s men have the same instructions and they are clever—diabolically clever. You will see that the situation is not wholly agreeable, my friend.”

“It certainly is not,” was the grim reply.

“So now again I ask you,” Elida continued, “what are you doing in London, Martin, when you should be in Rome? You acquired a great deal of information in Berlin which Berati needs. You are his man. What are you doing in London?”

“That I cannot tell you just yet,” Fawley said gravely. “But, Elida, believe me when I tell you that I am not working for the harm of Italy or Germany or France. I may not have kept my word to the letter with any one of these countries, or rather with their representatives to whom I

have talked, but I have been aiming at great things. If the great things come, it does not matter what happens to me. And they may come. In the meantime, I can do so little. A single false movement and calamity might follow.”

“You speak in riddles,” Elida faltered, “but I trust you, Martin. None of the others do. I trust you, dear Martin. If I could help—if I could save you—I would give my life!”

For a moment he took her lightly and reverently, yet with a faint touch of the lover, into his arms. The worn look passed from her face. Her eyes suddenly lost their terrified gleam, a tremor of joy seemed to pass through her body. He drew quietly away but he kept her hand in his.

“Tell me,” he asked, “are you here officially?”

She shook her head.

“They do not trust me any more,” she confided.

“Then why are you here?” he persisted.

She lifted her eyes. Since those last few minutes they were so soft and sweet, so full of expression, that at that moment she was entirely and utterly convincing.

“Because I am such a big fool. Because I like to see you. Because I knew that you were in danger on every side. I had to tell you. You must have thought me such an ordinary little adventuress,” she said wistfully. “You will forgive me for that? All that I wanted to know I wanted to know for your sake—that I might help you—”

The door was suddenly half flung, half kicked open. Micky, in his pyjamas, swayed upon the threshold. All his fresh colour had gone. He was gripping the wainscoting as though for support. There was an ugly splash of colour on his chest.

“Fellow in your room, Martin,” he faltered. “Room—Jenkins told me I was to sleep. Must have been—hiding somewhere.”

Fawley half carried, half dragged his brother to a couch. Elida sprang to the bell and kept her finger upon it.

“Did you see the fellow, Micky?” Fawley asked.

“Looked like a foreigner. He came out from behind the wardrobe—only a few feet away—and shot at me just as I was getting into bed.”

Fawley gave swift orders to Jenkins, who was already in the room. Elida had possessed herself of a cloth and was making a bandage.

“There will be a doctor here in a minute, Micky,” his brother said. “Close your eyes. I must have a look. Elida is making a bandage for you. Missed your heart by a thirtieth of an inch, thank God,” he went on. “Don’t faint, old chap. I can’t give you a drink, but I am going to rub some brandy on your lips. God, what a fool I was to let you sleep in my room!”

“An undersized little rat,” Micky gasped, with feeble indignation. “I could have squeezed the life out of him if he’d given me the chance. He turned out the lights and stole up behind. What are you in trouble with the Dagos for, Martin?”

“You think he was a Dago, then?”

“Sure. What about the police?”

Fawley shook his head.

“We ought to send for them, I suppose, but it is not altogether etiquette in the profession.”

“Am I in on one of your jobs, then, Martin?” the boy asked, with a weak grin.

“Looks like it,” his brother assented. “I’m damned sorry. It was Jenkins’ fault, putting you in there. You were not prepared, of course.”

“Well, I didn’t think it was necessary to hold a gun in your right hand and untie your tie with the left in London,” Micky grumbled.

Then the door swung open. The man with the bald head, the beady eyes and the long jaw stood upon the threshold. He seemed to grasp the situation in a moment. With an impatient turn of the shoulder, he threw back the long evening cape he was wearing. His hand flashed out just too late. He was looking into the muzzle of Fawley’s steadily held and vicious-looking revolver.

“That won’t do here, Patoni,” the latter said, in a voice such as no one in the room had ever heard him use before. “Drop your gun. Before I count three, mind. There’s going to be none of that sort of thing. One—two—”

Patoni’s weapon fell smoothly on to the carpet. Fawley kicked it towards Elida, who stooped and picked it up. From outside they heard the rattle of the lift.

“That’s the doctor,” Fawley announced. “Micky, can you get back to your room? You will find Jenkins there to help you.”

“I guess so,” the young man replied, moving unsteadily towards the door.

“An accident, remember,” Fawley continued. “You were unpacking your gun and it went off—shaking a cartridge out or anything you like. The doctor won’t be too particular. He leaves that sort of thing to the police and we don’t want the police in on this.”

There were hurried footsteps outside and the door was thrown open. Jenkins was there, the doctor, the liftman. Micky staggered towards them.

“Take Mr. Michael into my room, Jenkins,” Fawley ordered. “Let the doctor examine him there and report. I have looked at the wound. I do not think it is dangerous. Close the door and leave us.”

Fawley’s voice was not unduly raised but some quality in it seemed to compel obedience. They all disappeared. Elida, obeying a gesture from him, closed the door. He pointed to a chair.

“Sit down, Prince,” he directed.