Читать книгу The Councillors Of Falconhoe - Fred M. White - Страница 7

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Jelicorse came jauntily into the small dining-room, with its quaint carved walls covered with figures of the chase and archers in fighting garb, and the fine old carpet on the solid floor. A litter of dessert lay scattered over the circular table and the candles in the big silver branches made subdued rings of light.

"Awfully sorry and all that sort of thing, Fairbourne," he said smilingly. "Fact is I had some slight matter of business in this neighbourhood and when I had finished I went to Jocelyn's place and dined there, intending to push on as far as Weymouth before camping for the night. Had trouble with the car just outside your village, so pushed my man into the local inn and came here with my suit-case cadging a bed for the night."

Fairbourne professed himself to be delighted—as indeed he was. He knew Jelicorse intimately and all about the fine work he had done through the medium of the Foreign Office throughout the war. As a one-time Under-Secretary to that department, Fairbourne had done his own bit there, from the breaking out of hostilities until after the armistice. He welcomed Jelicorse with open arms.

"Delighted, my dear follow," he cried. "We can see to all that presently. Sit down and help us to finish the port—you may never have another chance. Lombaso you know, of course."

The young Spaniard gave Jelicorse a friendly grin.

"Rather," he grinned. "There was a time and not very long ago when Jelicorse and myself were in a little venture—"

Lombaso broke off and grinned again but more sheepishly this time as he caught the warning gleam in Jelicorse's eye. The warning glance took in Barrados who sat there without taking the faintest notice of the newcomer with his glass, which he had filled more than once, in front of him.

"But surely you know Barrados?" Fairbourne exclaimed.

"Certainly I do," Jelicorse smiled. "On the contrary, it is he who seems to have forgotten me."

"I beg your pardon," Barrados said, forced at length to speak. "But the last time we met was not exactly a friendly encounter."

"You are right there," Jelicorse laughed. "But surely you have forgotten that long ago. In those days we were enemies. Dashed funny thing war, isn't it? Here I was not so many years ago, playing golf with Count Barrados on the South-East Coast. Deal and Sandwich and Princes. Then, all at once I am invited to cut the throat of the man who was my partner in some corking good foresomes. However, it is all over now."

"Are you quite sure of that?" Barrados asked thickly.

"Oh, surely, yes. You were very fond of the South-East Coast just before the War, Count. You had many friends in that neighbourhood whose houses you stayed in. Would you mind my saying that I didn't think that you were quite fair in so doing? I mean in the circumstances that followed so quickly afterwards."

"All is fair in love and war," Count Barrados replied.

"Ah, there is an admission," Jelicorse smiled. "As an old diplomat, I am delighted with it. All fair in love—and war. Precisely. We can talk it over in a friendly way now, but you have just told us, in as many words, that previous to hostilities you were engaged near one of our vital arteries in, shall we say picking up information. And why?"

"Well, why'" Barrados demanded.

"My dear sir, you have just told us. All's fair in war. You said so. And yet you would have denied that Germany brought about the trouble. All the time you and your fellow aristocrats knew exactly what was going to happen. But I don't want to labour the point, especially in another man's house. But there it is."

"Ah, you are too clever for me," Barrados said with something like a sneer. "But don't you be quite sure that the trouble is over yet. I hope our host will excuse me retorting, but Mr. Jelicorse has touched me on rather a tender spot. My dear sir, you don't suppose that a country like Germany is going to take this lying down for ever. Why, if I had two hundred thousand pounds—but I haven't and the odds are that such a sum will never come my way again. I am practically bankrupt. You all know what happened to my property and to my estates when the revolution broke out. Everything confiscated, and only a partially looted castle left to me. I am an extinct volcano."

"It seems to be the common lot," Jelicorse remarked. "We are all in the same boat. But, my dear sir, you don't mean to suggest that you could start a fresh European war with two hundred thousand pounds? It sounds like a story."

"Yes, but I could make it a fact," Barrados cried. "You are a clever lot in your Foreign Office, but you don't know everything. Even the Councillors of Falconhoe are ignorant of some things. And, by the way, how is the partnership going?"

"Oh, so you know all about it?" Jelicorse asked.

"There are few things in international politics that I don't know all about," Barrados said boastfully. "I have heard of your Devonshire retreat and the romantic spot where you, together with Colonel Enderby and Major Farncombe, plot all sorts of things. International detectives you call yourselves, don't you? Branch offices all over Europe. Family scandals hushed up, and revolutions suppressed at a moment's notice."

"Eh, what's that?" Fairbourne asked.

"Oh, it's perfectly true," Jelicorse said good-humouredly. "When our grateful country had no further use for our services said grateful country told us so in a letter of poignant regret, but none the less definitely for that. So we had to go and fend for ourselves as best we could. Old schoolfellows and college chums, you know. Broke to the world. What with income tax and local taxation, we couldn't muster a thousand a year between us. So we let our places off, and started a sort of scientific monastery at Falconhoe Manor, which, as you know, is close to Lynton. And unless I am greatly mistaken, we are going to make history. However, I am talking secrets out of school. Shall we join the ladies?"

They drifted off into one of the small drawing-rooms presently, and there the ladies Pevensey welcomed Jelicorse warmly. They were frankly delighted to hear that he was spending the night there, and when that matter had been satisfactorily arranged the small house party broke up into groups, but not before Jelicorse had taken the Duke of Lombaso aside and given him a few words of warning.

"Look here, my young friend," he said. "You will have to be careful. I wasn't particularly pleased to find Barrados here, and indeed I don't know how that truculent rascal managed to find his way into a house like this."

"I am afraid I am responsible for that," Lombaso explained. "He is a bit of a sweep, but he is a relation of mine, and rather a near relation, too. I suppose he is related to half the great families of Europe. You see, he happened to be in this neighbourhood, and I couldn't help doing the civil."

"Yes, but what is he doing here?" Jelicorse asked. "He is up to some mischief, I am certain. A man who abused British hospitality as he did in the early part of 1914 is capable of anything. Now, look here, Lombaso, your country was neutral during the war, and, so far as your king knew to the contrary, you personally were playing the part of a looker-on. But we know that you were one of us, and we know what fine work you did in the Argentine, where you were supposed to be looking after some kind of property there. You and I had some pretty exciting adventures together, and may have again."

"Ah, those were times," the young Duke grinned. "But do you mean to say there are big things doing again?"

"Most assuredly there are. There is danger ahead for the whole civilised world. Just imagine Germany and Russia putting up an alliance. No, I am not going to say another word, except this—Barrados knows all about it. He is one of the prime movers in the business, though he is an aristocrat, and professes to despise the present German Government. He hopes, when the time comes, to sweep that aside and replace it with the Prussian heel. Now, don't forget what I have told you, and don't let Barrados know that you suspect him. For the moment, that is all."

Lombaso moved off and joined the girls at the piano. There they stood chattering for some little time, until the billiard room was mentioned, so that a little time afterwards, Jelicorse found himself alone with the two girls.

"At last," Lady Peggy cried. "Now, Hilary, tell us all about it. We are dying to hear, at least I am. Oh, can't you give us something to do at once?"

"But why this breathless hurry?" Jelicorse asked.

"Just listen to the innocence of him," Lady Joan cried. "Anyone would think that he was a child. Can't you see what is going on under your nose? Can't you understand that Lombaso has come down here on matrimony bent? I don't really believe he is any more in love with Peggy than she is with him, but as it will be more or less of a State alliance, nothing will be allowed to interfere with it. And this poor dear sister of mine doesn't know whether she is standing on her head or her heels. If she could only get away for two or three months, the evil day would be postponed. And you promised us."

"My dear girls, of course I did, and I am not going to disappoint you. Things are beginning to move already. When I told the Duke to-night that my being here was entirely an accident to my car, I was using a—well—terminological inexactitude. I can't tell you why I had to adopt that strategy, because the point isn't worth discussing. But within the next two or three weeks you will both be far enough away from the Castle. Now, my dear Joan, I wish you would go into the billiard-room and leave me to have a little talk with Peggy. She will tell you all about it afterwards."

Lady Joan turned away obediently, and closed the door of the small drawing-room behind her.

"Now, then," Jelicorse said eagerly. "The curtain it going up, and the drama is about to begin. The same old drama of intrigue and mystery and adventure. Here we are, fighting for our country as we fought not very long ago, and here is the villain of the piece under the same roof as the two aristocratic heroines who are taking their part in his undoing. I mean you and Joan. Let us say that he has in his possession at the present moment some papers which it is necessary for us to see."

"You don't mean to say he has?" Peggy said breathlessly.

"Indeed I do, my fair confederate," Jelicorse laughed. "And I have got to see them. I am the chief conspirator, understand. Now, what you have got to do is this. I don't in the least know what room I am sleeping in to-night, and so far as I can gather, no arrangements have been made. Now, I want you to so contrive that my bedroom is in the same corridor as that of Barrados. Now that ought to be an easy one for you."

"Indeed it is," Lady Peggy murmured. "I will go and see to it at once. It is not the sort of thing I generally interfere in, but if this means that you are going to carry out your promise to Joan and myself, then you can count upon me implicitly. You must get me away from here, Hilary, you must get me away before Lombaso has spoken. It's very dreadful, but of course I shall have to say yes, and the longer I can postpone it, the better. Stay here until I come back. I won't be more than a minute or two."

Jelicorse sat there smoking his cigarette and turning things over in his mind until Lady Peggy came back.

"It is all arranged," she whispered. "The Count's bedroom is next to yours, and there is a balcony running all along that wing. I have even been in the Count's bedroom and broken the lock of his window. So there! Vive la guerre!"