Читать книгу The Spymaster - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 4

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Four men on the evening of the following day, seated in heavy mahogany chairs around a bridge table within the sacred purlieus of the St. George’s Club, leaned back with the relaxed air which follows upon the completion of a closely contested rubber. They were all men of some distinction. One was Henry D. Prestley, American banker, husband of the Princess Sabine Pelucchi and host of the previous night’s great diplomatic reception. His partner was Sir Herbert Melville, Deputy Commissioner of Police. His two opponents were General Lord Robert Mallinson and Lord Fakenham, the latter a Press magnate, owner of half a dozen newspapers and many other periodicals.

“A cheap rubber for you fellows, considering your shocking overcalling,” Fakenham observed as he rang the bell for a waiter. “I can have a drink now with a clear conscience. Join me, gentlemen. I can afford to treat you. I make it that I win forty-two pounds.”

“You are too infernally lucky,” Mallinson grumbled. “However, I’ll drink a whisky and soda with you.”

The orders were given. The door of the private room was quietly opened. Cheshire, alert and debonair notwithstanding a slight stoop, made his appearance. Fakenham drew a sigh of relief.

“Now if you fellows want to go on,” he said, “you have a fourth. As for me—I am tired. The strain of Prestley’s glorious party last night was too much for me.”

Cheshire leaned over the table, reached out for one of the packs of cards, performed an amazing trick, threw another pack into the air and had apparently shuffled it before the cards came fluttering down. Finally, he calmly nominated the partner with whom he had decided to cut and succeeded in drawing him.

“Why anyone plays cards with me I cannot imagine,” he remarked. “Cards have kept me from penury throughout my life. You all know what I can do and yet you go on trusting me.”

“The fact of it is, my dear friend,” the Deputy Commissioner of Police remarked, “you will probably end your days in prison, but it won’t be for your cheating at cards. Up till now I should say you were one of the most consistent losers in the club.”

“I purposely handicap myself by making every obvious mistake known to man,” Cheshire confided. “I also deliberately choose to play with a small circle whose appreciation of the intricacies of the game is negligible. Even on an Admiral’s half-pay, my losses mean no more than a snap of the fingers to me.”

“You look very spruce and pleased with yourself this evening,” the General yawned. “What have you been up to?”

“Work,” was the prompt and emphatic reply. “Zealous and untiring work on behalf of an ungrateful country. Seven hours at a stretch at my desk at the Admiralty.”

“I might play one more rubber,” Fakenham decided. “We four cut. This intrusive newcomer, with the deplorable manners and the absurdly inflated ideas of his own capacity, is in, anyway.”

The Admiral chuckled.

“I’m in all right,” he agreed. “You couldn’t have cut me out if you had tried. Try the seventh card from the middle if you want to play, Melville.”

Melville did as was suggested and turned up a king. The others scowled at him.

“Look here, you sea-faring charlatan,” Fakenham observed drily. “You leave off these tricks in a respectable club. I’ll choose my own card, thanks.”

He hesitated for a moment, then drew a two.

“Play instead of me, if you like,” the General suggested.

Fakenham shook his head.

“I’d sooner watch for a time.”

A long-drawn-out rubber finished some time after Fakenham had taken his leave. Cheshire glanced at a handsome clock which stood on the chimney piece. It was one of those modern creations fashioned to tell the time without any audible indication of progress. Everything in the room was made for silence, to enable the greatest brains in Europe to struggle more successfully with the problems of their latest diversion.

“Rotten time to finish a rubber,” he remarked. “Half-past seven.”

Sir Herbert grunted.

“An unpleasant reminiscence,” he said. “If I were really a faithful servant of my country I should call in at the Yard on my way home and go through the evening reports.”

“Digging up mares’ nests,” the General suggested chaffingly.

“Queer chaps, you Britishers,” Prestley sighed. “I don’t know why it is that directly a soldier retires he becomes a devastating critic of all military operations. A sailor takes you on one side and tells you that his country is at the mercy of anyone with half a dozen submarines up his sleeve.”

“And a policeman?” the Admiral interposed. “Don’t forget the policeman, Prestley.”

“He is worse than anyone else. He is always ready to assert that as soon as he gave up office and since he lost his job in one of the mysterious branches of the hidden service, the country is drifting into the hands of foreigners, every maître d’hôtel is a spy, and every Russian ballerina in the pay of some foreign country or other. You Englishmen are wonderful at your work,” he concluded, “but when you do lay off for half an hour you are the most howling mob of pessimists I ever came across.”

“What about another rubber?” Cheshire asked patiently. “It’s better than being slated by this glib-tongued millionaire.”

“Since the Navy took to revoking,” Sir Herbert declared, “this game is getting too expensive for me. I’ll play another rubber if I can be insured against cutting with Cheshire.”

The latter’s profanity for the next few seconds was both instructive and awesome. The Deputy Commissioner rang the bell.

“You are fined drinks round for using language like that,” he said sternly. “Give your orders, gentlemen. The Admiral will sign the chit.”

“Once in my life,” Cheshire grunted, “have I revoked in this club and never shall I hear the last of it. It cost us precisely nothing at all. We won the rubber afterwards. However, I’ve told you what I think of you and I’ll pay for the drinks with pleasure. Pink Gin for me, Brooks,” he added, looking up as the waiter approached.

“Dry Martini,” Sir Herbert murmured.

“Mixed Vermouth for me,” Prestley chose after reflection.

“A glass of the Dry Amontillado for me,” the General decided.

“And what about me?” demanded a man who had opened the door a few seconds before. “Am I left out of this orgy? I warn you I am going to cut in.”

“Who cares?” the Admiral exclaimed. “I’m paying for the drinks and you can have this crowd so far as contract bridge is concerned. They’re over-cautious, George. That’s what’s the matter with them. They won’t call their hands, they get left, and they grumble. A man revokes for the first time in his life and they haven’t the least idea how to treat the matter in a gentlemanly fashion. That’s why I am paying for drinks.”

The newcomer, George Marsden, a well-known permanent official in the Foreign Office, glanced at the clock. A smile parted his lips and his expression, always amiable but sometimes a little too serious, relaxed.

“The hour has struck,” he said. “I’ll take a Dry Martini.”

The waiter departed. The five men were alone in the room. Marsden drew up a chair close to Sir Herbert’s.

“No Continental news, I suppose?” the latter asked him.

Marsden shook his head.

“I am calling at the Foreign Office on my way home,” he confided. “There will be the usual evening messages from the two capitals we are chiefly interested in. Nothing else has transpired.”

The drinks arrived. Cheshire signed the chit and rose to his feet.

“I have a leaning towards domesticity,” he declared.

There was a subdued jeer from everybody. The Admiral, more than once, had been said to be the least married man in the Service and his bachelor parties were famous.

“You’ve got your four,” he pointed out. “You don’t need me, anyway. I must think of my country. All very well for you landlubbers, but I may be on the bridge of a battleship in a week’s time.”

“Swashbuckler!” Melville muttered.

Cheshire turned towards the door.

“It’s a nice club, this,” he remarked. “A warm, cosy little place for a dreary evening. All the same, it has its drawbacks. Less than a fiver that revoke cost you, Policeman, yet the memory still rankles. Good night, you others.”

Cheshire stood for a moment or two upon the steps of the club considering the weather. The commissionaire, with an open umbrella, glanced up at him from the pavement.

“Nasty night, sir,” he said. “Shall I call you a taxi or is your car here?”

“I think I’ll have a taxi.”

The man whistled. The taxi arrived. Cheshire was piloted across the rain-splashed pavement.

“Where to, sir?”

“The Admiralty. The Arch entrance.”

Before they had gone a hundred yards Cheshire stopped the taxi.

“Drive down Lambeth way,” he ordered.

“Which end of Lambeth do you want, sir?”

“The post office.”

The man drove on. Arrived at his destination, Cheshire alighted and, with his collar turned up and his Homburg hat pulled over his eyes, entered the place and made his way to one of the counters.

“Letters for Henry Copeland?” he enquired.

The clerk in attendance disappeared. When he returned he was holding a long typewritten envelope.

“Henry Copeland?”

Cheshire stretched out his hand.

“That’s right,” he said.

The young man went about his business. Cheshire, with the letter in his pocket, left the place and stepped back into the taxicab. For a moment he hesitated.

“The Admiralty,” he ordered.

They drove off. Twice Cheshire drew the letter from his pocket and each time he replaced it. Arrived at the Admiralty, he paid off the man, made his way along divers passages to a row of lifts, mounted to the top floor, traversed another long corridor, and paused before a door guarded by two commissionaires in uniform. They both saluted gravely as Cheshire entered the room. He passed a long line of clerks through a small chart room and finally opened with a key which he took from his chain a private office at the end. He closed the door behind him. A young man, who had sprung to his feet outside, followed him in.

“Do you require Captain Ryson, sir?” he asked. “He has just gone into the lower chart room.”

“Not at present.”

“Commander Hincks, sir?”

“No one for a few minutes.”

The young man disappeared. Cheshire opened a massive roll-top desk and pulled down the electric light. Slowly, and with a visible reluctance, he drew the letter from his pocket. He laid it on the blotting pad before him and fingered a paper cutter. For several moments he hesitated. A queer look of indecision seemed to have come into his face. He tapped the letter with the end of the cutter and then very slowly slit open the envelope and drew out half a sheet of foolscap and a folded slip of tracing paper. Word by word he read the contents of the note. He turned it over hastily and looked at some figures on the other side. Then he spread out before him what appeared to be a portion of a plan. He stared at it for several minutes. Afterwards he returned the letter and the tracing to the envelope and slipped the latter underneath the blotting pad. He leaned a little back in his chair. His fingers were interlaced. Something of the light-hearted humanity seemed to have gone from his expression, the lines to have sunk a little deeper, his eyes to be filled with something which seemed like a desire for escape from some hideous dilemma. So he sat for several moments without moving. Finally, he touched one of the buttons of a bell push on the top of the desk. A young officer in Naval uniform almost immediately hurried into the room.

“Commander Hincks, sir,” he announced. “We were not expecting you back to-night.”

“These are the times when unexpected things happen,” was the grim reply. “Is the door closed?”

“Yes, sir.”

Cheshire opened one of the drawers by his side, drew out a metal box which he unlocked with a key from his chain, and took from it a small oblong key which seemed to be its sole contents. He handed it to the newcomer.

“The code word is ‘Pernambuco’,” he confided. “Open my private safe.”

The young man took the key and approached the safe in a corner of the room. In a few minutes he turned round.

“Safe open, sir,” he reported.

“Give me the folder with the 7XTY designs.”

A folio in a green cardboard cover was produced and brought over to the desk.

“Now close the safe,” Cheshire directed, “and fetch Captain Ryson.”

“There’s nothing wrong, I hope, sir?”

“I hope not. Return yourself with Captain Ryson.”

“Very good, sir.”

The young man left the room. Cheshire lifted the blotting pad and withdrew the typewritten letter and slipped it into his pocket. Then he unfastened the folder and drew out the plans. There were twenty-one in all, fastened together in threes, each three apparently being plans of the same vessel—fore, aft and amidships. He spread them out before him and drew the light a little further down. Presently there came a knock at the door. Commander Hincks reappeared, ushering in an older man.

“Good evening, Admiral,” the latter said cheerfully.

Cheshire ignored the greeting and beckoned the two men to approach.

“You know what these are, I suppose?” he asked, touching with his forefinger the parchment.

“Rather,” was Ryson’s prompt reply. “They are the sectional plans of what is to be our 35-36 cruiser.”

“And you, Hincks?”

“Why yes, sir. You gave us a locked-door lecture on them only last week.”

The Admiral thrust his hand into his pocket and brought out the tissue slip.

“What do you make of this?” he asked.

The two men bent over it. There was a little exclamation from Hincks, something that sounded like a groan from the older man.

“It is a tracing of the hidden lower deck of the cruiser, sir. The secret deck that you were so keen about.”

Cheshire returned it to the envelope and his pocket. The two men were staring at him, white-faced and mute. It was Ryson who spoke first.

“Where did you get that from, sir?” he cried hoarsely.

The Admiral’s voice was hard and stern now as he answered.

“It is I,” he said, “who propose to ask questions, but in case you are really curious, I will tell you that someone calling himself Henry Copeland collected it from Lambeth post office less than an hour ago and brought it here. Fortunately, we have an Intelligence Department with eyes in the back of its head as well as the front. Now listen to me. You know where the keys are kept, you two. You know sometimes the code word. Hincks knows where to find the key of this desk when I am away. You, Ryson, know where to find the key of the inner drawer. You two between you form the only link between the contents of that safe and the outside world. You two together, I said. Now what about it?”

“Are we accused?” Ryson demanded, his deep voice vibrant with something which might have been passion or might have been fear.

“Where were you both last night? You were both invited to Regent’s Park. You neither of you came.”

“We were here, sir, according to arrangement,” Hincks replied. “I stayed till midnight and handed over to Captain Ryson at that hour.”

“I was here till six o’clock this morning,” Ryson corroborated.

“You were here,” Cheshire repeated. “Yes—the one night when you knew that I was away! What were you doing?”

“I was drafting, sir,” Hincks replied.

“I was in the model room working on my submarine,” Ryson affirmed.

“Perhaps. Go away now. Sleep on it. See me here, both of you, at nine o’clock to-morrow morning, then I will tell you whether you are accused or not. Lock up the safe, Hincks. That will be all for to-night, Captain Ryson.”

Both of them seemed about to burst into speech. Suddenly Cheshire raised his eyes. Something in his expression seemed to freeze the words upon their lips. Ryson swung round and left the room. Hincks busied himself with the safe and came back with the key.

“I shall be here for twenty minutes resetting the combination,” Cheshire told him. “Remember what I said. I do not wish to see either of you again to-night. You will preserve absolute silence as to what has happened.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Convey my wishes also to Ryson.”

“Yes, sir.”

Admiral Cheshire was alone. He moved over to the safe and for a quarter of an hour he was busy. Then he closed it again and came back to his seat. He seemed suddenly to have aged. The lines about his mouth had grown deeper and deeper. He took the letter and the sheet of tracing paper and placed them in a leather case in his inner pocket. When at last he rose to leave, he looked around him and threw up his arms to the ceiling as though in mute protest. That was the end of it. Once more wearing that expression of complete detachment which he carried with him always in the hours of crisis, he left the room.