The Secret Adversary
aroused no suspicion. But he must decide quickly on his next step.
Suppose he were boldly to enter the room on the left of the passage.
Would the mere fact of his having been admitted to the house be
sufficient? Perhaps a further password would be required, or, at any
rate, some proof of identity. The doorkeeper clearly did not know all
the members of the gang by sight, but it might be different upstairs.
On the whole it seemed to him that luck had served him very well so far,
but that there was such a thing as trusting it too far. To enter
that room was a colossal risk. He could not hope to sustain his part
indefinitely; sooner or later he was almost bound to betray himself, and
then he would have thrown away a vital chance in mere foolhardiness.
A repetition of the signal knock sounded on the door below, and Tommy,
his mind made up, slipped quickly into the recess, and cautiously drew
the curtain farther across so that it shielded him completely from
sight. There were several rents and slits in the ancient material which
afforded him a good view. He would watch events, and any time he chose
could, after all, join the assembly, modelling his behaviour on that of
the new arrival.
The man who came up the staircase with a furtive, soft-footed tread was
quite unknown to Tommy. He was obviously of the very dregs of society.
The low beetling brows, and the criminal jaw, the bestiality of the
whole countenance were new to the young man, though he was a type that
Scotland Yard would have recognized at a glance.
The man passed the recess, breathing heavily as he went. He stopped at
the door opposite, and gave a repetition of the signal knock. A voice
inside called out something, and the man opened the door and passed in,
affording Tommy a momentary glimpse of the room inside. He thought there
must be about four or five people seated round a long table that took up
most of the space, but his attention was caught and held by a tall man
with close-cropped hair and a short, pointed, naval-looking beard,
who sat at the head of the table with papers in front of him. As the
new-comer entered he glanced up, and with a correct, but curiously
precise enunciation, which attracted Tommy’s notice, he asked:
“Your number, comrade?”
“Fourteen, gov’nor,” replied the other hoarsely.
“Correct.”
The door shut again.
“If that isn’t a Hun, I’m a Dutchman!” said Tommy to himself. “And
running the show darned systematically too--as they always do. Lucky I
didn’t roll in. I’d have given the wrong number, and there would have
been the deuce to pay. No, this is the place for me. Hullo, here’s
another knock.”
This visitor proved to be of an entirely different type to the last.
Tommy recognized in him an Irish Sinn Feiner. Certainly Mr. Brown’s
organization was a far-reaching concern. The common criminal, the
well-bred Irish gentleman, the pale Russian, and the efficient German
master of the ceremonies! Truly a strange and sinister gathering! Who
was this man who held in his finger these curiously variegated links of
an unknown chain?
In this case, the procedure was exactly the same. The signal knock, the
demand for a number, and the reply “Correct.”
Two knocks followed in quick succession on the door below. The first man
was quite unknown to Tommy, who put him down as a city clerk. A quiet,
intelligent-looking man, rather shabbily dressed. The second was of the
working classes, and his face was vaguely familiar to the young man.
Three minutes later came another, a man of commanding appearance,
exquisitely dressed, and evidently well born. His face, again, was not
unknown to the watcher, though he could not for the moment put a name to
it.
After his arrival there was a long wait. In fact Tommy concluded that
the gathering was now complete, and was just cautiously creeping out
from his hiding-place, when another knock sent him scuttling back to
cover.
This last-comer came up the stairs so quietly that he was almost abreast
of Tommy before the young man had realized his presence.
He was a small man, very pale, with a gentle almost womanish air. The
angle of the cheek-bones hinted at his Slavonic ancestry, otherwise
there was nothing to indicate his nationality. As he passed the recess,
he turned his head slowly. The strange light eyes seemed to burn through
the curtain; Tommy could hardly believe that the man did not know he was
there and in spite of himself he shivered. He was no more fanciful than
the majority of young Englishmen, but he could not rid himself of the
impression that some unusually potent force emanated from the man. The
creature reminded him of a venomous snake.
A moment later his impression was proved correct. The new-comer knocked
on the door as all had done, but his reception was very different. The
bearded man rose to his feet, and all the others followed suit. The
German came forward and shook hands. His heels clicked together.
“We are honoured,” he said. “We are greatly honoured. I much feared that
it would be impossible.”
The other answered in a low voice that had a kind of hiss in it:
“There were difficulties. It will not be possible again, I fear. But one
meeting is essential--to define my policy. I can do nothing without--Mr.
Brown. He is here?”
The change in the German’s voice was audible as he replied with slight
hesitation:
“We have received a message. It is impossible for him to be present
in person.” He stopped, giving a curious impression of having left the
sentence unfinished.
A very slow smile overspread the face of the other. He looked round at a
circle of uneasy faces.
“Ah! I understand. I have read of his methods. He works in the dark and
trusts no one. But, all the same, it is possible that he is among us
now....” He looked round him again, and again that expression of fear
swept over the group. Each man seemed eyeing his neighbour doubtfully.
The Russian tapped his cheek.
“So be it. Let us proceed.”
The German seemed to pull himself together. He indicated the place he
had been occupying at the head of the table. The Russian demurred, but
the other insisted.
“It is the only possible place,” he said, “for--Number One. Perhaps
Number Fourteen will shut the door?”
In another moment Tommy was once more confronting bare wooden panels,
and the voices within had sunk once more to a mere undistinguishable
murmur. Tommy became restive. The conversation he had overheard had
stimulated his curiosity. He felt that, by hook or by crook, he must
hear more.
There was no sound from below, and it did not seem likely that the
doorkeeper would come upstairs. After listening intently for a minute or
two, he put his head round the curtain. The passage was deserted. Tommy
bent down and removed his shoes, then, leaving them behind the curtain,
he walked gingerly out on his stockinged feet, and kneeling down by
the closed door he laid his ear cautiously to the crack. To his intense
annoyance he could distinguish little more; just a chance word here and
there if a voice was raised, which merely served to whet his curiosity
still farther.
He eyed the handle of the door tentatively. Could he turn it by degrees
so gently and imperceptibly that those in the room would notice nothing?
He decided that with great care it could be done. Very slowly, a
fraction of an inch at a time, he moved it round, holding his breath in
his excessive care. A little more--a little more still--would it never
be finished? Ah! at last it would turn no farther.
He stayed so for a minute or two, then drew a deep breath, and pressed
it ever so slightly inward. The door did not budge. Tommy was annoyed.
If he had to use too much force, it would almost certainly creak.
He waited until the voices rose a little, then he tried again. Still
nothing happened. He increased the pressure. Had the beastly thing
stuck? Finally, in desperation, he pushed with all his might. But the
door remained firm, and at last the truth dawned upon him. It was locked
or bolted on the inside.
For a moment or two Tommy’s indignation got the better of him.
“Well, I’m damned!” he said. “What a dirty trick!”
As his indignation cooled, he prepared to face the situation. Clearly
the first thing to be done was to restore the handle to its original
position. If he let it go suddenly, the men inside would be almost
certain to notice it, so, with the same infinite pains, he reversed his
former tactics. All went well, and with a sigh of relief the young man
rose to his feet. There was a certain bulldog tenacity about Tommy that
made him slow to admit defeat. Checkmated for the moment, he was far
from abandoning the conflict. He still intended to hear what was going
on in the locked room. As one plan had failed, he must hunt about for
another.
He looked round him. A little farther along the passage on the left was
a second door. He slipped silently along to it. He listened for a moment
or two, then tried the handle. It yielded, and he slipped inside.
The room, which was untenanted, was furnished as a bedroom. Like
everything else in the house, the furniture was falling to pieces, and
the dirt was, if anything, more abundant.
But what interested Tommy was the thing he had hoped to find, a
communicating door between the two rooms, up on the left by the window.
Carefully closing the door into the passage behind him, he stepped
across to the other and examined it closely. The bolt was shot across
it. It was very rusty, and had clearly not been used for some time. By
gently wriggling it to and fro, Tommy managed to draw it back without
making too much noise. Then he repeated his former manœuvres with the
handle--this time with complete success. The door swung open--a crack,
a mere fraction, but enough for Tommy to hear what went on. There was a
velvet _portière_ on the inside of this door which prevented him from
seeing, but he was able to recognize the voices with a reasonable amount
of accuracy.
The Sinn Feiner was speaking. His rich Irish voice was unmistakable:
“That’s all very well. But more money is essential. No money--no
results!”
Another voice which Tommy rather thought was that of Boris replied:
“Will you guarantee that there _are_ results?”
“In a month from now--sooner or later as you wish--I will guarantee you
such a reign of terror in Ireland as shall shake the British Empire to
its foundations.”
There was a pause, and then came the soft, sibilant accents of Number
One:
“Good! You shall have the money. Boris, you will see to that.”
Boris asked a question:
“Via the Irish Americans, and Mr. Potter as usual?”
“I guess that’ll be all right!” said a new voice, with a transatlantic
intonation, “though I’d like to point out, here and now, that things
are getting a mite difficult. There’s not the sympathy there was, and
a growing disposition to let the Irish settle their own affairs without
interference from America.”
Tommy felt that Boris had shrugged his shoulders as he answered:
“Does that matter, since the money only nominally comes from the
States?”
“The chief difficulty is the landing of the ammunition,” said the Sinn
Feiner. “The money is conveyed in easily enough--thanks to our colleague
here.”
Another voice, which Tommy fancied was that of the tall,
commanding-looking man whose face had seemed familiar to him, said:
“Think of the feelings of Belfast if they could hear you!”
“That is settled, then,” said the sibilant tones. “Now, in the matter
of the loan to an English newspaper, you have arranged the details
satisfactorily, Boris?”
“I think so.”
“That is good. An official denial from Moscow will be forthcoming if
necessary.”
There was a pause, and then the clear voice of the German broke the
silence: