Читать книгу The Spymaster - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 8

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For the third afternoon following, the private card room of the St. George’s Club had been deserted by its most ornamental members. It was the third day of a series of informal conferences which had been hurriedly summoned by the Prime Minister to discuss certain alarming developments in European politics. Although the Press had shown a most laudable restraint, there were many sinister and disquieting rumours afloat. On the Stock Exchange prices had sagged badly. No one knew exactly what was happening except that handful of men seated in the official library of No. 10, Downing Street, and they themselves had very few facts to go on. On this third afternoon, Malcolm Dunkerley, joint Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who had recently been appointed Envoy Extraordinary from Great Britain to one of the disturbed capitals of Europe, was supplying the thrills. He had flown back from the Continent the previous evening and his report had produced something akin to consternation amongst the few who had been asked to listen to it. Dunkerley had just come up from the House and his harassed and dejected appearance was sufficiently clear indication of the badgering which he had received and the questions which had been showered upon him. From this informal gathering who were present by special invitation, he had nothing to conceal and he was very frank indeed.

“Orson-Meade thought that his reception was chilly enough,” he confided, “but his people were at least polite. That is more than I can say of my friend. He didn’t mince words either. After dealing with diplomats for so many years it seems a queer thing to hear a Dictator talk.”

“Are you serious,” Fakenham asked, “when you say that he actually threatened war?”

“I am indeed,” was the somewhat agitated reply. “‘We are weary of conversations,’ were his last words to me. ‘We want peace but we are tired of talking about peace. It leads nowhere. It gets nothing that we want.’ I asked him plainly then what it was he wanted. He showed me a map that would have created a sensation in the House if it could have been passed round! ‘We want people of my country established there and there and there,’ he said, touching three places. ‘We want a coinage, banks, and an exchange of our own. We want an open market for petrol, iron, steel, rubber, cordite, nickel—practically everything you can think of in raw materials. We do not want to buy any manufactured articles. We want to import the raw materials ourselves from our own people and pay for them with our own money. Until we can do this we are dissatisfied and our only alternative is to do as we are doing—to prepare to take what we want for ourselves.’ It is no good concealing the fact, gentlemen, that this is a distinct and definite threat. I am practically ordered back again to an interview on Tuesday week and I am expected then to reply to what amounts to an ultimatum.”

“Our friend,” the Premier observed, “has opened his mouth wider than ever before, because up till now he has always spoken of the issues between us as being matters for discussion and arbitration.”

“Well, there is no question of discussion or arbitration at the present moment,” Malcolm Dunkerley pronounced. “I am to be back at the Palace on Tuesday week and unless I take a definite proposal, their next move will be with battleships.”

“You really believe that they want war?” the Premier persisted.

Dunkerley shrugged his shoulders.

“I am afraid I do,” he answered.

“Jellicoe’s reply to such demands as these would have been a Naval demonstration at Malta,” one of the younger of the Ministers put in.

“In Jellicoe’s days,” Fakenham remarked drily, “the country against whom he would have been demonstrating did not possess a matter of a thousand war planes.”

There was silence for a few moments. Then Dunkerley summed up the whole affair.

“This is the first positively belligerent move which either Orson-Meade or myself has encountered. The curious feature, otherwise, in these attempted conversations, has been the reluctance of each of the countries we have approached to put forward any definite proposals. It seems to me that up till now they have been playing for time.”

“No doubt about that,” Fakenham agreed. “I can tell you why, if you like. Before they committed themselves finally they wanted to find out exactly how far we had got on with our rearmament scheme.”

“I can prove the truth of your words,” General Mallinson remarked from his corner. “It is not a thing we ever talk about outside the department, but if it interests you gentlemen I can tell you that there are more foreign spies at work at the present moment in this country than ever before. They are all here after the same thing and they are positively reckless about it. They are at Aldershot, at Devonport, at Newcastle, at Chatham, at Woolwich, and several other places I needn’t mention. They are running almost incredible risks, for which, naturally, a few of them have already paid the penalty. They are out to discover exactly how far our schemes have been carried out, especially in planes and battleships. Now that they have found out the truth, or what they believe to be the truth, we are for it.”

There was a further brief silence.

“I should imagine,” the Prime Minister decided at last, speaking firmly and resolutely, “that General Mallinson is right. Our potential enemies have not wished to commit themselves until they were sure that we were really in a hole. I have not a word to say about the espionage business. That lies entirely in the hands of the General here and Admiral Cheshire, but I do think, having studied carefully the reports of Malcolm Dunkerley and Orson-Meade, that both countries with whom they have been attempting to hold these conversations have come to the conclusion that our rearmament preparations are in a parlous state. I propose that Malcolm Dunkerley and Orson-Meade return at once to their respective posts and insist upon a continuance of the conversations. If any further delay is attempted we shall know that they mean war. We are working on that presumption already.”

“Personally, I do not think there is much doubt about it,” Fakenham agreed. “I know the general public always believes that a newspaper wants war. We don’t. I can assure you of that. All the same, I think it is coming.”

“If so, it must be faced calmly,” the Premier continued. “Malcolm Dunkerley and Orson-Meade must return to their posts to-morrow. If they are confronted with the same difficulties, they must break off negotiations and return. In that case we will have another brief meeting amongst ourselves and a Cabinet Council the day after.”

“There is just one thing more I should like to mention,” General Mallinson said as the meeting showed signs of breaking up. “It is on Admiral Cheshire’s behalf as well as my own. We should like to be allowed to make a formal statement as to this matter of espionage before anything in the shape of mobilisation is determined upon. We might have some interesting facts to lay before you.”

“You shall have the opportunity that you ask for,” the Premier agreed. “Your departments are run, as is only right, in complete secrecy. That secrecy, however, in the face of imminent war, must come to an end. If there is anything you have to say that might influence the situation, we shall expect you both to say it in this room immediately you are called upon.”

“Cheshire, I know, will be prepared,” the General said. “So shall I.”

The Prime Minister rang the bell.

“The meeting is dissolved,” he announced, rising a little abruptly to his feet.

Prestley rose from his easy chair and strolled over to the card table as Fakenham, Mallinson, and Herbert Melville entered the room almost together half an hour later that afternoon.

“Heavens!” he exclaimed. “What a welcome sight! Come along and cut, you loiterers. Anyone been down in the City?”

“Not a soul,” Mallinson replied. “Be reasonable, my dear fellow. Why should we imperil our diminutive pensions and feeble savings by furtive visits to our Stock Brokers in these days of panic?”

“It’s a bad day down there, I can tell you that,” Fakenham observed, spreading out a pack of cards.

“I don’t care a hoot about your stocks and shares,” Prestley assured them. “It’s the franc I was anxious about.”

“Seven points down since yesterday,” Melville declared. “I saw it on the tape downstairs.”

Mallinson yawned.

“No more shop,” he begged. “Your deal, Fakenham. Melville and I are together.”

The first hand was played in silence. Prestley marked down the score and leaned back in his chair.

“If I were Dictator or Monarch or Prime Minister of this bright little island where I am at present much enjoying life,” he said, “I should have the newspaper posters censored.”

“Gets a perfectly sane idea, sometimes, this transatlantic gent,” Mallinson murmured.

“Glad you agree. I left my abode this afternoon a happy man.”

“Congratulations,” Melville grunted. “Considering you had about two thousand people eating you out of hearth and home and doing their best to drink your cellars dry last week, you seem to be bearing up pretty well.”

“I was all right until I saw those damn’ posters,” Prestley confided as he sorted his cards. “There’s one just outside. ‘Reported hitch in foreign conversations. Gloomy tone in City.’ Is Britain really going to be bullied into war, does anyone know?”

“No one, unless they are actually in the Cabinet, knows a thing of what is going on,” Mallinson declared blandly. “All that we know of politics is confided to us by the leader in the Times and the hysterics of the Express. I gather from these that the Dictators are slowly making mincemeat of our plenipotentiaries and ambassadors.”

Prestley glanced towards the closed door.

“I read the Times occasionally,” he said, “also less often the Express, but I form my ideas as to whether things are going well or badly chiefly from Cheshire’s expression. I saw him in the distance somewhere near Bury Street last evening on his way, I suppose, from the Admiralty to one of his usual haunts in Piccadilly, and to me he looked as though the blow had already fallen.”

The door had been quietly opened. It was now closed. Cheshire stood there on the threshold scowling.

“Who is libelling me?” he demanded.

Prestley sorted his cards.

“On the contrary,” he objected. “I was just saying that you should be regarded as the human barometer. I saw you last night looking like a thundercloud. I knew then that you had had bad news down at that gloomy show of yours and that probably the enemy fleets were already in the Thames!”

“My expression at that moment,” Cheshire explained, “meant nothing except that I was still feeling the effects of that marvellous champagne which was flowing in your palace last week.”

“That’s the one weak spot in the British Navy,” Prestley sighed. “They never could stand their liquor.”

The playing of the hand commenced. The bidding was spirited. It was at least a quarter of an hour before any remark outside the game was ventured upon.

“This looks like a conspiracy to keep me out,” Cheshire grunted as the callers wrote down the amount of their penalty.

“A perfectly justifiable catastrophe,” Melville declared. “A partner who revokes is the one thing to be dreaded at this game.”

“Many a rubber,” Cheshire pronounced, “has been won by a judicious revoke. The great thing is to know when to make it and to measure rightly the intelligence of your opponents.”

“No more back chat,” Prestley insisted. “War is declared. I go four no trumps.”

A dreary negative on his left.

“Grand slam,” from his partner.

“Pass me,” murmured the General.

“And me,” echoed Prestley.

“Double,” from Melville.

There was no redouble. Melville led the ace of clubs. Prestley’s partner exposed his hand. Prestley laid his on the table.

“Any other lead, my friend,” he said, “and you had chosen your bedfellow for the night!”

Cheshire rose to his feet with a sigh.

“I shall go to the library and find a book,” he declared. “I might have been dealing the cards myself. Two absolute Yarboroughs except for the ace of clubs against two mighty no-trumpers and they lose thousands! The game progresses. My God!”

Nevertheless, in due time the inevitable happened. The rubber came to an end. Almost simultaneously Brooks, the only waiter who was allowed to enter the small card room, made his appearance with a note upon a salver. He presented it to Mallinson, who glanced it through and passed it across the table to Cheshire who had just returned. The latter nodded.

“Serve you right for keeping me out so long,” he remarked to the other three. “Mallinson and I have to go.”

“Downing Street?” Prestley asked.

Cheshire nodded. His remark was scarcely reverent.

“The old man’s got the jitters,” he confided. “The General and I are off to save the Empire.”