The dangerous game
been in Darville’s employ for ten years or so, ushered in a tall,
lean, fair-haired man in a dark gray overcoat. The visitor wore round,
horn-rimmed glasses, and was clean-shaven and alert.
“Hulloa, Sandy?” exclaimed the novelist, greeting him warmly. “Sit
down and have a drink. As you know, I’m just off a rather long
trip--home from Corfu.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Mr. Alexander Paton seating himself, while Drew
got out cigars and cigarettes. “We had that wire of yours from Corfu
and the second one from Paris.”
“Then why the devil didn’t you act on my instructions?”
“Because we couldn’t. The lady hasn’t arrived in England.”
“Bosh! She left Paris for Calais. I know that.”
“She never came to either Boulogne or Calais. We had both places
watched.”
“And the other ports?” asked Darville with hard, set face.
“Surveillance was placed upon them all. We have the lady’s photograph,
you know. The passport officers were all on the look-out, but up to
the present she hasn’t landed.”
“I don’t believe it,” replied Darville bluntly. “I know Joan Caborn by
reputation too well. If she intended to come to London, she’s here.
She might have gone from St. Malo to Jersey, and over from there to
Southampton. She would know that you people seldom put a close watch
on the Jersey boat.”
“That may be,” Paton admitted rather sullenly, “but my own view is
that she suspected that she was being tracked, and just slipped off
and is lying low somewhere or other.”
“Your Special Branch people at Scotland Yard have amusing theories
sometimes, Sandy,” the novelist laughed. “I disagree entirely. The man
got away from me, and no doubt is here. Then his wife slips through my
fingers and has joined him. But where? That’s the question.”
“We must find them at all costs,” said the great Scotch
detective-inspector, for such he was; one of the most alert and astute
men of the Special or Political Branch at Scotland Yard.
“Yes. I agree, Sandy. But London is a big place to look for two people
who are purposely lying low,” said Darville. “You know that as well as
I do.”
“Quite so, sir. But we’ve been faced with a similar problem before,
and have never once failed to discover the person we want, however
closely she or he may live in hiding. They always come out sooner or
later,” laughed the tall, fair-haired man, puffing at his cigarette.
“So we’ve only to wait.”
“But we can’t wait. It is a matter of greatest importance. They may
act, and then it will be too late.”
“Is the affair really very serious, Mr. Darville?” asked the
well-known police-officer, whose duties lay in the detection of
political conspiracies in Great Britain.
“Most serious,” was the other’s reply. “Unfortunately I can’t tell you
the whole facts. They are secret.”
“Secret?” exclaimed Paton in great surprise.
“Yes,” Darville replied. “Secret--even from you Sandy!”
CHAPTER V.
CONCERNS SOME FACTS
The duty of Mr. Alexander Paton was to act under Seton Darville’s
instructions when required.
The declaration of the novelist that the matter was secret, even from
his department, rather piqued him, and it certainly aroused his
curiosity very keenly.
“Yes, I repeat, Sandy, I can’t tell you the reason for all this hue
and cry. I wish I could. You’d be as interested in it as I am,”
Darville went on. “But, as you know, in my department, we sometimes
have certain secrets which we do not disclose even to yours. This is
one of them.”
“I take it that Mr. and Mrs. Caborn are undesirables?” remarked the
tall, fair man.
Darville nodded in the affirmative.
“At first I was not exactly certain,” he said, “until I followed them
across to Corfu, and watched them there. Then my suspicions were
confirmed. They are over here on a very desperate errand, so we must
find them, and defeat their activities.”
“The name seems familiar to me,” the inspector said reflectively,
taking another cigarette from the box which the novelist pushed over
to him, and gazing around the small, comfortable room which was
Darville’s _pied-à-terre_ in London. The novelist was a man of few
wants. Though he wrote for the English public, he was a thorough-going
cosmopolitan, and preferred to live his wandering life in foreign
hotels.
“You’ve heard it before--eh?” he asked with a smile.
“Yes. Wasn’t the man mixed up in the Meyer matter at Weybourne just
after war broke out in 1914? Didn’t he have some relations with Carl
Lody--the spy they shot in the Tower?”
Darville again smiled good-humoredly.
“Your memory seems to serve you rightly, Sandy,” he said. “But please
forget that, except to remember how cleverly he slipped through your
fingers. He then acted as evasively in getting out of England as he
has now done in re-entering the country. And his wife--well--she’s an
expert, as was proved in the Weybourne affair.”
“We are faced with a problem. How shall we find them, Mr. Darville?
Have you any suggestion?” asked Paton seriously.
“At the moment, no. I’m fagged out after the journey,” said the
novelist. “But I may think of some plan to-morrow.”
“I’ll think it over, too,” said the inspector. “You see, they both
know London; hence they have, no doubt, a knowledge of the various
sanctuaries for criminals which keep ever-open doors, so long as their
guest can pay for the accommodation. There’s a lot of them here, in
the West End. And not a few in the provinces, as you know.”
“I know that,” said Darville, resting his heavy chin upon his hand,
with his elbow on the arm of his big, saddlebag chair. “We have to
track down the pair, or they will cause us a lot of very serious
trouble, Sandy. I’ll keep in touch with you on the telephone. If I
have any suggestions to make I’ll let you know instantly.”
Paton waxed pessimistic.
“If they get into one of the bolt-holes where no questions are asked,
then they can lie doggo for months,” he remarked. “It’s a pity you
didn’t wire to us sooner, sir.”
“I didn’t know they intended to come to London. I believed that Paris
was their destination, and Lemoine received my wire too late.”
“Well, Mrs. Caborn didn’t cross either from Havre, Boulogne, Calais,
Dieppe or Ostend. That’s certain,” said Paton.
“She may have used another passport, and slipped through on the night
service. And what about Antwerp, or The Hook?”
The Scotch detective shook his head.
“I think not, sir, for the C.I.D. are very keen to spot a woman named
Beeton, wanted for murder in Liverpool. She very much resembles Mrs.
Caborn. A watch has been kept upon the ports for that woman for the
past six weeks.”
“My dear Sandy, I don’t care a rap for the vigilance of the C.I.D. All
I am certain of is that the woman is here, and that, having joined her
husband, the pair are lying very low, prior to effecting the big and
serious coup which they intend,” Darville said. “If I were not certain
that something very serious was in the wind, do you think I should
have gone over to Corfu, and pretended to make love to Caborn’s wife,
as I have done?” Then, with a smile upon his broad, clean-shaven face,
he added: “I suppose that the little woman believes me to be the
forlorn lover. Women are funny--aren’t they, Sandy? Thank God I’ve
never loved a woman in all my life; hence I’ve been spared the
terrible pangs of jealousy. At least I’ve understood that that malady
is a very common and extremely painful one.”
“I’ve only loved once, sir,” replied the fair-haired man from Scotland
Yard, “and, thank heaven! I’ve got the best wife in the world.”
“Then you’re devilish lucky, Sandy. Have another drink to wish Mrs.
Paton continued happiness.”
The pair raised their glasses, laughing merrily, and a few minutes
later the officer of the Special Branch, the greatest expert in London
in keeping surveillance upon suspected persons, rose and left.
When he had gone Darville sat for some minutes smoking in silence.
“I don’t think that Joan suspected anything,” he muttered to himself,
in ignorance of that secret visit she had paid to his room while he
lay stupefied by the drug that had been placed in the wine he drank at
lunch. “I suppose I acted the lover all right?” he went on, laughing
to himself. “I hope I did. She seemed thoroughly alarmed at my amorous
declarations. But she’s clever--damnably clever. The man is a
blunderer compared with her.”
Then, after a further silence, he rose, and, pacing the room
impatiently, said aloud:
“I must find them, or--or, by Gad!--there’ll be a terrible disaster!
It’s up to me to checkmate them. No doubt there are half a dozen
others in this devil’s work!” he added, setting his teeth hard as he
spoke.
He went to the telephone, and spoke to several people--short, brief
messages telling them that he had returned to London.
One man, whom he addressed as Bennett, he asked to come round to see
him at eleven that night. Indeed, after Drew had put before him a
frugal meal of cold ham and salad and half a bottle of claret, which
he consumed hastily, he seemed besieged by callers, mysterious men who
came and, after a brief interview, left unobtrusively.
Bennett, however, proved to be a smart, well-set-up man, having the
appearance of a retired naval officer. He brought with him a bulging
leather dispatch-case, heavily locked.
Having removed his overcoat, he seated himself at the table, unlocked
the case, and drew out a number of official-looking documents.
Darville seated himself opposite him, and carefully read and initialed
the papers as Bennett handed them over.
“This is the latest report from Mabelle in Cairo regarding the German
intrigue in Egypt. You recollect, sir, that you sent Mabelle to Cairo
three months ago, and gave her very definite instructions. These she
seems to have carried out to the letter.”
Darville took the report which had been brought to England by King’s
Messenger and was in cipher. The decipher interested him keenly from
the very first line. It was a long report--a careful and concise
survey of the highly complicated situation in Egypt at that
moment--and had been drawn up by a pretty young woman who was a very
clever secret agent of Great Britain abroad. It showed a marvelously
wide knowledge of international politics, and Darville quickly became
absorbed in it.
He read it to the end, initialed it thoughtfully with his red pencil,
and then said to his private secretary--for such Bennett was:
“Send a message in Code Four to-morrow recalling Mabelle. I want to
see her. She knows more than is contained in her report.”
“Very well, sir,” replied the ex-naval officer, for Commander Charles
Bennett had fought at Jutland, and before his retirement had a
brilliant record to his credit. “This next report is about the
Steinberg affair. Meyrick hasn’t got very far with it yet. There’s
nothing in it worth troubling about.”
“Very well,” grunted Darville, who took it and scribbled his initials
without reading it.
Five other lengthy documents were declared by Bennett to contain
nothing of interest, and the man whose name was known the world over
scribbled his initials, “S.D.,” upon them.
“Here is a list of the personnel discharged from the Commission in
Germany. You see Weiss has been axed among the others.”
“So I see,” Darville remarked. “I’m rather sorry. Of course, he has no
idea that I have been his pay-master all this time. He rendered us
very good service in discovering secret stores of arms in Germany. I
wonder why he’s been discharged.”
“I have the reasons here. They were sent over to us from the War
Office three days ago.”
Darville took the sheet of paper, and upon it read the following
memorandum:
“Weiss, Karl.--Adverse-report from General Mitchell. Unstable. Too
fond of gayety, and prone to feminine influence. His retirement