Читать книгу The Spymaster - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 7

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Cheshire, for reasons of his own, had chosen for his town quarters a comfortable but certainly not luxurious suite on the seventh floor of the Milan Court. His rooms were at the end of the corridor and he had his own little staff installed there—a valet, and a chauffeur and private secretary neither of whom were ever allowed to go near the Admiralty. The latter gave him rather a shock a few days later when he announced that a lady had telephoned up that she was waiting below and might she come up at once. Cheshire was more than a little annoyed.

“What the devil is the concierge about?” he asked. “He knows perfectly well how to deal with chance callers like that.”

“The concierge was not to blame, sir,” the young man explained. “He refused to say whether you were in or out and told the lady that you did not receive visitors here except by appointment. She went to one of the telephones, rang up again, and asked me to go down and get her card. She gave it me in a sealed envelope. I thought I had better bring it up to you. She assured me you would recognise the name, at any rate.”

Cheshire tore open the envelope and glanced at the card:

Contessa Elida Pelucchi

“Better fetch her up,” Cheshire ordered a little curtly. “Any other visitors due?”

“You told me to put them off, sir,” the secretary reminded him. “I think you had an appointment in Downing Street which does not appear in the diary.”

Cheshire nodded and waved him away.

“Keep out of sight as much as you can,” he enjoined. “You can bring the young lady straight in here.”

Elida was not supposed to possess the superlative looks of her sister but she was still beautiful, and in a divinely simple grey afternoon dress and a black hat which did little to conceal the beauty of her hair, her appearance was sufficiently striking. She entered the room a little tentatively, almost shyly.

“Are you very angry with me for coming, Guy?” she asked.

“My dear,” he answered as he led her to a chair, “I am honoured—flattered. But this sort of thing is all wrong, you know. If you had wanted me I would have hurried on my call of ceremony. Must go to Regent’s Park within the week, you know. You ought not to come here. Even at my time of life I daren’t receive young ladies of your age and appearance at this classic hour.”

“I had not forgotten,” she admitted hopefully, “that it was about the time you took your first cocktail.”

“A quarter of an hour too soon,” he told her, “and before that, Elida, I think I shall have sent you back. What do you want?”

“To know about Ronnie Hincks, for one thing.”

“There is nothing to tell you.”

“Nothing—terrible has happened to him?”

“He is still at work. That is about all I want to hear from you, young lady. Now tell me the other thing.”

“I really am very fond indeed of Ronnie Hincks,” she declared, leaning forward. “The other thing I have come to see you about, though, is even more serious.”

He seated himself in a high-backed chair, his fingers drumming faintly upon the table, his expression entirely impassive. He said nothing to help her, he was exercising his gift for assuming a mantle of reserve which made him very unapproachable. Her beautiful eyes pleaded with him in vain. He refused to respond in any way to their appeal.

“Well?” he said at last.

She played with her vanity case nervously. If there was a fault in her appearance, however, she decided not to remedy it at the moment.

“Guy,” she began, “this is really a terrible business. I have come about Sabine.”

“A terrible business?”

“You must not mind,” she went on. “Sabine tells me everything. We trust one another. I should also like you to trust me. I am as safe from speech, from any form of breaking confidence, as any human being could be.”

“You have character, I know,” he admitted, “but what is all this leading to?”

“You gave Sabine the other evening a most awful shock.”

“So she told you about it.”

There was nothing in his tone to denote anger, but she understood.

“You must remember this, Guy,” she pleaded. “Sabine and I are one. There has never been a secret between us of any sort. I know that she had turned the head of that stupid man, Godfrey Ryson, and that he was giving her documents and tracings of plans which she passed on through the Embassy here to officials of her own country. A terrible thing to do, perhaps. I am not here to defend it, Guy. I shall only ask you to remember that Sabine is not an Anglo-Saxon and she loves her country passionately. She believes that that country is being rashly led and may soon be engaged in what might be a mortal struggle. Sabine felt her old patriotism in her blood, in her heart, everywhere. She was forced to do something. She did what she could.”

“I am not arguing,” Cheshire said. “I am not complaining. What next?”

She looked at him with wonder in her eyes.

“You are changed.”

“Danger changes everyone. I, too, have a country.”

“We spoke of that, Sabine and I,” she went on eagerly. “Believe me, we are not unsympathetic. We realise your position entirely. I am here only to ask one thing, and that can make little difference to you. The price of your silence with regard to Sabine, your attitude towards Henry, who is the dearest person on earth, and to your British Government, to whom your honour is pledged, is, she tells me, that she continue to be the intermediary for these communications which, I presume, will be deceptive and which you will supply.”

“Well?”

“I am here, Guy, to beg you to let me take her place.”

“So that’s it,” he murmured half to himself.

“It is reasonable,” she pleaded. “Sabine, apart from her illustrious name, which is also mine, holds a great position in life. She is the wife of Henry Prestley and even I know what that means to-day. If anything happened to her it would break his heart, it would shock all Europe.”

“What do you mean by anything happening to her?”

“My dear Guy, you will not pretend that these secret meetings, this interchange of letters, does not involve her in danger.”

“No,” he admitted. “I do not deny that.”

“Then please think, and think fast. I wish to take her place. I have little to lose. I am not married. I am not even betrothed. There are reasons why I should take her place, Guy. Do not ask me what they are, but they are sufficient. If one of us must do it, and I can see no other way, let it be me.”

“I don’t believe,” he said, “that your sister would allow you to make the sacrifice.”

“She will. She has already consented. The final decision remains with you.”

“Does she realise,” he asked quietly, “that if this business came to the knowledge of the outside authorities you might possibly be shot?”

“As though that mattered!” she scoffed. “Read the history of my country and you will discover that a Pelucchi has never feared death. Please agree to what I ask. I will come where you wish, when you wish. I will tell you how to communicate with me like Godfrey used to with Sabine. I will be absolutely faithful to my word. I, too, love my country but even if what I do were to hurt her mortally, I would rather it were I who did it than Sabine.”

“Think carefully,” he advised. “You are a very young woman, Elida, and you have a brilliant life before you, perhaps—”

“What do you mean—a brilliant life?” she interrupted scornfully. “Every one of the Pelucchis are as poor as rats. I do not mind telling you that Sabine dresses me. Of the men who have asked me to marry them there is not one at whom I would look, and twenty-six years old, let me tell you, for a girl of my country, is the beginning of the end.”

“I shall not attempt to flatter you,” he said with a faint smile. “I will not even tell you that you are as beautiful from the world’s point of view as Sabine, but I shall still say that there is no other woman to compare with you in appearance and vivacity and charm in this country or any other. You will marry, of course. Remember that you risk possibly making a very great match if a whisper of this gets about. There might even be a scandal about our meetings. You risk a great deal, Elida, for your sister’s sake.”

“Not only for her sake,” she reminded him. “It is also to save Ronnie.”

“Let me test you,” he insisted. “More than anything else your country wants to know the range and speed of our new bombers and the guns we are mounting upon our fast cruisers. Probably within the next few days I shall be handing you this information to pass on, only it will not be strictly true. You understand what that means—the possession of it so long as they believe in its truth is likely to do your country more harm than good, a great deal more harm than good. Furthermore, if they ever discovered what you have done you would never be able to revisit your country and your life would be safe nowhere.”

She laughed bitterly.

“You cannot frighten me,” she said. “As to my patriotism, however strong a force it might be, I have this to think of. If I do not do it Sabine will. I would rather it were I. Guy, you consent?”

“Yes,” he promised. “I consent.”

He touched a bell.

“Now I must send you away,” he continued. “My secretary will take you down. You will hear from us when we need you.”

She took his hands.

“I am so grateful, Guy,” she confided, looking at him earnestly. “I cannot tell you how much Sabine means to me and how I love Henry. I feel now that they at any rate will be safe. Ronnie, too—well, Ronnie counts for something.”

He studied her curiously.

“Well, we may be at war in less than a week. That will settle everything.”

“You really think that war is coming?” she asked with a distressed frown. “Oh, Guy, I hope not. I hate war or rather the thought of it. When Patani told me—”

“What did he tell you?” Cheshire interrupted abruptly.

She hesitated.

“He told me that he thought there would be war. He told me that if only they could get certain figures they were waiting for as regards your preparations, war would be a certainty. It might come any day.”

Cheshire smiled.

“Perhaps we may be able to oblige your friend,” he remarked as his secretary knocked at the door and Elida took her leave.

Sabine, very beautiful in her gold-coloured negligee, was resting when Elida came softly into her room. She made room for her sister on the couch by her side.

“Sit down for a moment, child,” she begged.

Elida looked round the boudoir.

“Where is Marie?” she asked.

“Having her dinner. I’m dressing early for the opera. No one will disturb us. Henry is at the club. Tell me—what did he say?”

“I thought at first that he was going to be difficult,” Elida confided. “He was so stern—such a different person altogether. In the end, though, he consented.”

Sabine raised herself on the couch. Elida, who knew her sister so well, was a little surprised. It might have been evil news that she had brought.

“You are glad, Sabine?” she asked anxiously.

Sabine gazed dreamily up at the frescoed ceiling.

“Of course I’m glad,” she said, holding her sister’s hand. “It is a great relief—a great joy. But you, Elida, have you counted the cost of this?”

“I have,” the girl answered. “I am happy, Sabine, because I know now that nothing can disturb your happiness and Henry’s. No one will ever guess that you had anything to do with this, even if trouble should come. For me it does not matter. . . . But really,” she went on, “I do not think that anything will ever happen. Guy seems so confident, so sure, so successful in everything he does. He talks and looks like a man of power. I think he will make quite a good spy of me before we have finished.”

“I wonder whether he was sorry,” Sabine meditated.

“He should have been glad,” Elida declared severely. “He has worshipped you so long and with such fidelity. He was your friend when I was a child. He must be glad to know that you are safe.”

Sabine made no reply. Elida was watching her anxiously.

“Tell me,” she begged, “if Guy had ever asked you to marry him should you have said yes?”

“I suppose so,” Sabine sighed. “He is the sort of man very few women would refuse.”

“You do not, by any chance,” Elida asked, bending a little closer to her sister, “care for him still?”

“I might have done if I had realised how much he cared. He never said so and yet, since I am at the confessional, shall I tell you something? He was a poor man in Washington—just Naval Attaché to a very extravagant Ambassador. You know how much liberty one has over there and I think if I were to have gone on seeing him secretly, with all the excitement and glamour of those little dinners together or stolen meetings in strange places—well, I do not know, Elida. I do not know what might have happened. There have been times when I have been alone with him when I should have been afraid to let him know just what I was feeling. He never expected anything from me, he never asked for anything. Perhaps that is why I cannot help loving him a little. There are not many men like that.”

Elida smiled as she stood upright.

“Perhaps,” she said, looking down at Sabine with her mass of tumbled hair framing her flushed face and a very soft look in her damp eyes, “perhaps I am more glad now than I have been at all that I am to take your place.”