Spies of the Kaiser Part 23

"Guess two heads are better than one, as the hatter said when twins entered his shop," laughed the broad-faced American.

We both agreed, and a few moments later I left the room.

The Edgcotts seemed to be entertaining quite a large house-party, all of them smart people, for that evening after dinner I caught sight of pretty women in handsome dresses and flashing jewels. Being a warm night, bridge was played in the fine old hall, where the vaulted roof echoed back the well-bred laughter and gay chatter of the party, which included Mr. Henry Seymour, Civil Lord of the Admiralty, and several well-known politicians.

Essentially a sporting crowd, many of them were men and women who hunted in winter with the Cottesmore, the Woodland Pytchley and the Edgcott packs. William and I peeped in through the crack of one of the doors, and he pointed out to me a tall, fair-haired, middle-aged man whose soft-pleated shirt-front and the cut of whose dress-coat betrayed him to be a foreigner. At that moment he was leaning over the chair of a pretty little dark-haired woman in pale blue, who struck me as a foreigner also, and who wore twisted twice around her neck a magnificent rope of large pearls.

"That's von Rausch," William explained. "And look at the guv'nor!" he added. "He seems to be having a good time with the thin woman over there. He's talking in French to her."

My eyes wandered in search of Pawson, and I saw that he was seated at one of the bridge-tables silently contemplating his hand.

The German spy was evidently a great favourite with the ladies. Perhaps his popularity with the fair s.e.x had gained for him entry to that little circle of the elegant world. Two young girls approached him, laughing gaily and slowly fanning themselves. He then chatted with all three in English which had only a slight trace of Teutonic accent.

And that man was, I reflected, the head of a horde of secret agents which the German War Office had flung upon our eastern coast. To expose and crush them all was surely the patriotic duty of any Englishman.

The magnificent old mansion with its splendid paintings, its antique furniture, its armour, its bric-a-brac, old silver, and splendid heirlooms of the Edgcotts rang with the laughter of the a.s.sembly as two young subalterns indulged in humorous horse-play.

The appearance of the old sphinx-like family butler, however, compelled us to leave our point of observation, and for an hour I strolled with William out in the park in the balmy moonlight of the summer night.

"There'll be a sensation before long," declared the valet to me. "You watch."

"In what way?" I inquired, with curiosity.

"Wait and see," he laughed, as though he possessed knowledge of what was intended.

Next day I drove my master and the German Colonel over to Nottingham, where we put up for an hour at the Black Boy Hotel. This struck me as curious, for I recollected that William had been sent down from London with a message to some person named Raven staying at that hotel.

All the way from Edgcott, through Oakham, Melton Mowbray, and Trent, I had endeavoured to catch some of the conversation between the pair in the car behind me. The noise and rattle, however, prevented me from overhearing much, but the stray sentences which did reach me when I slowed down to change my speeds showed them to be on the most friendly terms.

Evidently the spy was entirely unsuspicious of his friend.

At the hotel, after I had put up the car, I saw my master and the German speaking with a tall, thin, consumptive-looking man in black, whose white tie showed him to be a dissenting minister. He was clean-shaven, aged fifty, and had an unusually protruding chin.

All three went out together and walked along the street chatting. When they had gone I went back into the yard, and on inquiry found that the minister was the Reverend Richard Raven, of the Baptist Missionary Society.

He had been a missionary in China, and had addressed several meetings in Nottingham and the neighbourhood on behalf of the society.

Why, I wondered, had Bob Brackenbury, so essentially a man about town, come there to consult a Baptist missionary, and accompanied, too, by the man he was scheming to unmask?

But the ways of the Secret Service were devious and crooked, I argued.

There was method in it all. Had Ray and I been mistaken after all? So I, too, lit a cigarette, and strolled out into the bustling provincial street awaiting my master and his friend.

After an hour and a half the trio came back and had a drink together in the smoking-room--the missionary taking lemonade--and then I brought round the car, and we began the return journey of about sixty-five miles.

"What do you think of it now?" asked my master of his companion as soon as we were away from the hotel.

"Excellent!" was the German's reply. "It only now lies with her, eh?"

And he laughed lightly.

Dinner was over when we returned, and Captain Kinghorne was profuse in his apologies to his host. I had previously been warned to say nothing of where we had been, and I heard my master explain that we had pa.s.sed through Huntingdon, where a tyre-burst had delayed us.

I became puzzled. Yes, it was certainly both interesting and exciting.

Little did the gallant German Colonel dream of the sword of England's wrath suspended above his head.

Nearly a week pa.s.sed. Captain Kinghorne, D.S.O., and Mr. Pawson, of Goldfields, Nevada, shared, I saw, with the Colonel the highest popularity among members of the house-party. With Mr. Henry Seymour they had become on particularly friendly terms. There were picnics, tennis, and a couple of dances to which all the local notabilities were bidden.

At them all Kinghorne was the life and soul of the general merriment. A good many quiet flirtations were in progress too. Kinghorne seemed to be particularly attracted by the pretty little widow whom I had first seen in pale blue, and who I discovered was French, her name being the Baronne de Bourbriac. She seemed to divide her attentions between Mr.

Seymour and the German Colonel.

From mademoiselle, her maid, I learned that Madame la Baronne had lost her husband after only four months of matrimony, and now found herself in possession of a great fortune, a house in the Avenue des Champs Elysees, a villa at Roquebrune, and the great mediaeval chateau of Bourbriac, in the great wine-lands along the Saone.

Was she, I wondered, contemplating matrimony again? One evening before the dressing-bell sounded, I met them quite accidentally strolling together across the park, and the earnestness of their conversation caused my wonder to increase.

Careful observation, however, showed me that Colonel von Rausch was almost as much a favourite with the little widow as was the Honourable Bob. Indeed, in the three days which followed I recognised plainly that the skittish little widow, so charming, so chic, and dressed with that perfection only possible with the true Parisienne, was playing a double game.

I felt inclined to tell my master, yet on due reflection saw that his love affairs were no concern of mine, while to speak would be only to betray myself as spying upon him.

So I held silence, but nevertheless continued to watch.

Several times I took out Brackenbury, Shand, von Rausch, and others in the car. Twice the widow went for a run alone with my master and myself.

Life was, to say the least, extremely pleasant in those warm summer days at Edgcott.

Late one afternoon the Honourable Bob found me in the garage, and in a low voice said:

"You must pretend to be unwell, Nye. I want to take von Rausch out by myself, so go back to the house and pretend you're queer."

This I did without question, and he and the Colonel were out together in an unknown direction until nearly midnight. Had they, I wondered, gone again to meet the consumptive converter of the Chinese to Christianity?

I took William into my confidence, but he was silent. He would express no opinion.

"There's no moss on the guv'nor, you bet," was all he would vouchsafe.

Thus for yet another four days things progressed merrily at Edgcott Hall. William had been sent away on a message up to Manchester, and I was taking his place, when one evening, while I was getting out "the guv'nor's" dress clothes, he entered the room, and closing the door carefully, said:

"Be ready for something to happen to-night, Nye. We're going to hold up the spy and make him disgorge all the secret reports supplied by his agents. Listen to my instructions, for all must be done without any fuss. We don't want to upset the good people here. You see that small dressing-case of mine over there?"--and he indicated a square crocodile-skin case with silver fittings. "Well, at ten o'clock go and get the car out on the excuse that you have to go into Peterborough for me. You will find Shand's bag already in it, so put your own in also, but don't let anybody see you. Run her down the road about a mile from the lodge-gates and into that by-road just beyond the finger-posts where I showed you the other day. Then pull up, put out the lights, and leave her as though you've had a breakdown. Walk back here, get my dressing-case, and carry it back to the car. Then wait for us. Only recollect, don't return to get my bag until half-past ten. You see those two candles on the dressing-table? Now if any hitch occurs, I shall light them. So if I do, leave my bag here and bring my car back. You understand?"

"Quite," I said, full of excitement. And then I helped him to dress hurriedly, and he went downstairs.

We were about to "hold up" the spy. But how?

Those hours dragged slowly by. I peeped into the hall after dinner and saw the Honourable Bob seated in a corner with the Baronne, away from the others, chatting with her. The spy, all unsuspicious, was talking to his hostess, while Shand was playing poker.

Just before ten I crept out with my small bag, unseen by any one, and walked across the park to the garage. The night was stormy, the moon was hidden behind a cloud-bank. There was n.o.body about, so I got out the "ninety," started her, and mounting at the wheel was soon gliding down the avenue, out of the lodge-gates, and into the by-road which the Honourable Bob had indicated. Descending, I looked inside the car and saw that Shand's bag had already been placed there by an unknown hand.

In that short run I noticed I had lost the screw cap of the radiator.

This surprised me, for I recollected how that evening when filling up with water I had screwed it down tightly. Somebody must have tampered with it--some stable lad, perhaps.

Having extinguished the head-lights, I walked back to the Hall by the stile and footpath, avoiding the lodge-gates, and managed to slip up to my master's room, just as the stable-clock was chiming the half hour.