Читать книгу Tales of Mystery & Espionage: 21 Spy Thrillers in One Edition - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 28

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After all, it seemed as though a great deal of fuss had been made about nothing. There were certainly half a dozen curious strollers in Downing Street but the small cordon of policemen around the entrance to Number Ten awakened no more than ordinary comment. People of international importance were passing through those portals by day and by night and in these disturbed times an escort was not unusual. Fawley himself, dressed in the clubman’s easy garb of short jacket and black tie, with a black slouch hat pulled over his eyes and a scarf around his throat, was quite unrecognisable as he jumped lightly from the taxi, passed the fare up to the driver and stepped swiftly across the pavement and through the already opened door. He was ushered at once into Malcolm’s room. The two men, who were old friends, shook hands.

“Any idea what’s wrong?” Fawley asked.

“Very likely nothing at all,” Malcolm replied. “I have spoken to Washington twice to-day and I gathered there was something stirring in our department. They wanted the Prime Minister himself at seven o’clock. The Chief spoke and came out from the box looking rather like a man who had had a shock and yet who had found something exciting at the back of it all. He insisted upon breaking all rules and seeing you here himself at once. I hope you did not mind the cavalcade. It was my job to get you here safely, at all costs.”

“I generally find I am safer alone,” Fawley confided, “but I didn’t mind at all. The others dropped out at the corner of the street and made a sort of semicircular drive down. Queer days we are living in, Malcolm.”

There was a knock at the door. The butler entered.

“The Prime Minister asks if you have dined, sir,” he said, addressing Fawley. “If not, will you join him in a simple dinner in ten minutes.”

“Delighted,” Fawley assented.

“I was to ask you to entertain Major Fawley for that time, sir,” the man went on, turning to Malcolm.

“You and I will do the entertaining together, Philpott,” the secretary replied, with a smile.

“Dry Martinis, sir?” the man asked.

“A couple each and strong,” Malcolm specified. “This has been a wearing day. And bring some more cigarettes, Philpott.”

“This sounds like good news,” Fawley remarked, installing himself in an armchair. “The cocktails, I mean. Any late news from Berlin?”

“We had a message through half an hour ago,” Malcolm confided. “The city is still in a turmoil but Behrling seems to have got them going. I think the Chief hit it on the nail at the luncheon to-day when he remarked that he could not make up his mind whether a weak and disrupted Germany for a time or a strong and united country gave us the best hope of peace.”

Fawley sipped his cocktail appreciatively. He made no comment on the other’s remarks. Just at the moment he had nothing to say about Germany, even to the secretary of the British Prime Minister.

“Good show at the American Embassy last night,” he observed.

“I didn’t go,” Malcolm regretted. “The Chief just now is too restless for me to get away anywhere and feel comfortable. I cannot help feeling that there is something of terrific importance in the air, of which even I know nothing.”

The two men smoked on for a minute or two in silence. Then Fawley asked his host a question.

“Are those fellows outside waiting to ride home with me?”

“I’m afraid so,” Malcolm assented. “You see, the Chief gave special orders to M.I.2. and they brought Scotland Yard into it. We know how you hate it, but the Chief is just as obstinate, and it seems you must be kept alive at all hazards for the next week or so.”

“They didn’t stop a mad Italian having a go at me last night,” Fawley grumbled. “Got my brother instead. Not much harm done, I’m glad to say. What sort of an Italian colony is yours here?”

“No idea,” Malcolm confessed. “This sort of work that you go in for is right outside my line. From what I have heard, though, I believe they are a pretty tough lot. Not as bad as in your country, though.”

“They don’t need to be,” Fawley smiled. “As a rule, I find it pretty easy to slip about but it seems I am not popular in Rome just now.”

“These fellows to-night didn’t annoy you in any way, I hope?” Malcolm asked.

“Not in the least. I dare say, as a matter of fact, they were very useful. I don’t take much notice of threats as a rule but I had word on the telephone that they were laying for me.”

“Official?”

“I think not. I think it was a private warning.”

The butler reopened the door.

“The Prime Minister is down, sir,” he announced. “If you will allow me, I will show you the way to the small dining room.”

“See you later,” Malcolm observed.

“I hope so,” Fawley answered. “By the by, I sha’n’t be sorry to have you keep those fellows to-night, Malcolm. First time in my life I’ve felt resigned to having nursemaids in attendance but there is a spot of trouble about.”

Malcolm’s forehead wrinkled in surprise. He had known Fawley several years but this was the first time he had ever heard him utter any apprehension of the sort.

“I’ll pass word along to the sergeant,” he promised. “They would not have been going in any case, though, until they had seen you safely home.”

Fawley had the rare honour of dining alone with the Prime Minister. As between two men of the world, their conversation could scarcely be called brilliant but, when dinner was over and at the host’s orders coffee and port simultaneously placed upon the table, the Prime Minister unburdened himself.

“You are a man of experience, Fawley,” he began. “You would call things on the Continent pretty critical, wouldn’t you?”

“Never more so,” Fawley assented. “If any one of five men whom Italy sent out to the frontier had got back to Rome alive, there would have been war at the present moment.”

The Prime Minister was allowing himself a glass of port and he sipped it thoughtfully.

“It’s a funny thing,” he went on. “We have ambassadors in every country of Europe and never, by any chance, do they make any reports to us which are of the slightest interest. When anything goes wrong, they are the most surprised men in the world. They seem always the last to foresee danger.”

“You must remember,” Fawley pointed out, “they are not allowed a Secret Service department. The last person to hear of trouble as a rule is, as you say, the ambassador to the country concerned. What can you do about it, though?”

“Not much, I’m afraid,” the other sighed. “Take our friend at Rome. It was only last night we had a long rigmarole from the Embassy there. Lord Rollins said he had never been more deeply impressed with the earnest desire of a certain great man for European peace. All the time we know that Berati has the draft of a treaty ready for the signature of whichever party in Germany comes out on top.”

“Berati very nearly made a mistake there,” Fawley remarked. “Still, I don’t know that he was to be blamed. There were a few hours when I was in Berlin when the chances were all in favour of a monarchy. Von Salzenburg and his puppet played the game badly or they would have won, all right.”

“Shall I tell you why I sent for you to-night?” the Prime Minister asked abruptly.

“I wish you would,” was the very truthful and earnest response.

“You have your finger upon the situation in Germany and in Rome. You are not so well informed about the Quai d’Orsay, perhaps, but you know something about that. You know that war is simmering. Can you think of any means by which trouble can be postponed for, say, one week?”

“You mean,” Fawley said, “keep things as they are for a week?”

“Yes.”

“And after that week?”

“Rawson is on his way over. He is coming on the new fast liner and there is a question of sending a plane to meet him. You know what this means, Fawley.”

“My God!”

There was a brief and curious silence. Fawley, the man of unchanging expression, the man whose thoughts no one could ever divine, was suddenly agitated. The light of the visionary so often somnolent in his eyes was back again. His face was transfigured. He was like a prophet who has suddenly been given a glimpse of the heaven he has preached… The Prime Minister was a man of impulses. He leaned over and laid his hand in friendly fashion for a moment on the other’s shoulder.

“I know what this must mean to you, Fawley,” he said. “The long and short of it is—so far as I could gather—the President is coming in. He is going to adopt your scheme. What we have to do now is to keep things going until Rawson arrives.”

“How much of this can be told to—say—three men in Europe?” Fawley asked.

“I have thought of that,” the Prime Minister replied. “You know that I am not an optimist—I have been coupled with the Gloomy Dean before now—yet I tell you that from a single word the President let fall this evening, they have made up their minds. America is going to make a great sacrifice. She is going to depart from her principles. She is going to join hands with us. It will be the launching of your scheme, Fawley…Don’t think that your labours are over, though. It is up to you to stop trouble until Rawson arrives. On that day we shall communicate simultaneously with France, Italy and Germany. Until that day what has to be done must be done unofficially.”

“It shall be done,” Fawley swore. “A week ago I heard from the White House. They were still hesitating.”

“They only came to an agreement this morning,” the Prime Minister announced. “It was the recent happenings in Germany which decided them. Another Hohenzollern régime—even the dimmest prospect of it—was enough to set the greatest democratic country in the world shivering.”

“It shall be done,” Fawley repeated stubbornly, and the light was flaming once more in his eyes. “For one week I shall be free from all the bullets in the world.”

“I shall ask you nothing of your plans,” the Prime Minister continued. “In years to come—on my deathbed, I think—these few minutes we are spending together will be one of the great memories of my life…I have been reading my history lately. It is not the first time that the future of the world has been changed by subterranean workings.”

“You can call me a spy if you like,” Fawley observed, with a smile. “I don’t mind.”

“You shouldn’t mind,” the Prime Minister replied. “They tell me that you are a millionaire and I know myself that you accept no decoration or honours except from your own country. What a reward, though, your own conscience will bring you, if we succeed. Think of the millions of lives that will be saved and lived out to their natural end. Think of the great sum of unhappiness which will be avoided—the broken hearts of the women, the ugliness of a ruined and blasted world. Fawley, sometimes the thought of another war and one’s responsibilities concerning it comes to me like a hideous nightmare. Twice I have suffered from what they called a nervous breakdown. It was from the fear that war might come again in my days. Think of being in your place!”

Fawley rose to his feet.

“I shall be no more than a cog in the wheels, sir,” he sighed. “I just had the idea. Directly it has been put on paper, the sheer simplicity of it will amaze every one. I am going to gamble on Rawson.”

“I will back you,” the Prime Minister declared. “I tell you I know for a certainty that he brings the President’s signature.”

Fawley glanced at the clock.

“Very good, sir,” he said. “Will you allow me to arrange with Malcolm for the most powerful government plane that can be spared? I shall want it ready at Heston to-morrow morning at six o’clock.”

“Where are you off to first?”

“I am afraid I shall have to go to Paris, where I am not very popular, and on to Rome, where they have sworn to have my blood. Something I saw in Germany, though, will help me there. If my scheme comes off, there will be no war.”

The Prime Minister held out both his hands. Afterwards he took his guest by the arm.

“We will go in to Malcolm together, Fawley,” he proposed. “Paris and Rome, eh? And Germany afterwards. Well, you are a brave man.”