The False Faces Part 15

"How is it you have abandoned the habit of going armed, Herr Lone Wolf?

That is not like you. Is it that you grow unwary through drug-using? But that matters nothing. We have more important business to speak over, you and I. You will be very, very docile, and answer promptly, also in a low voice, if you would avoid getting hurt. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly," Lanyard replied, furtively working at the bonds on his wrists.

"Good. We speak together like good friends, yes?"

"Naturally," said Lanyard. "It is so conducive to chumminess to be caressed with an automatic pistol--you've no idea!"

"Oblige by speaking German. Our ears are sick with all this b.a.s.t.a.r.d English. Also, more quietly speak. Do not put me to the regrettable necessity of shooting you."

"How regrettable? You didn't stick at braining those others--"

"Hardly the same thing. You are not like those English swine. You are French; and Germany has no hatred for France, but only pity that it so fatuously opposes manifest destiny. In truth, you are not even French, but a great thief; and criminals have no patriotism, nor loyalty to any State but their own, the state of moral turpitude."

The speaker interrupted himself to relish his wit with a thick chuckle. And Lanyard's jaws ached with the strain of self-control. He continued to pluck at the folds of silk while concentrating in effort to memorise the voice, which he failed utterly to place. Undoubtedly this animal was a shipboard acquaintance, one who knew him well; but those detestable German gutturals disguised his accents quite beyond identification.

"For all that, you are not wise so to try my patience. I permit you five minutes by my watch in which to make up your mind to surrender that doc.u.ment."

"How often must I tell you," Lanyard enquired, "all this talk of doc.u.ments is Greek to me?"

"Then you have five minutes to brush up your cla.s.sical education, and translate into terms suited to your intelligence. I will have that doc.u.ment from you or--in four more minutes--shoot you dead."

To this Lanyard said nothing. But his patient attentions to the handkerchief round his wrists were beginning perceptibly to be rewarded.

"Moreover, Herr Lanyard, you will do yourself a very good turn by confessing--entirely aside from saving your life."

"How is that?"

"Providing you persuade me of your good faith, I am empowered to offer you employment in our service."

Lanyard's breath pa.s.sed hardly through a throat swollen with rage, chagrin, and hatred, all hopelessly impotent. But he succeeded in preserving an unruffled countenance, as his captor's next words demonstrated.

"You are surprised, yes? You are thinking it over? Take your time--you have three minutes more. Or perhaps you are sulky, resenting that our cleverness has found you out? Be reasonable, my good man. Think: you cannot be insensible to the honour my offer does you."

"What do you want of me?"

"First, that paper--thereafter to use your surpa.s.sing talents to the glory of G.o.d and Fatherland. In addition, you will be greatly rewarded."

"Now you do begin to interest me," Lanyard said coolly.... Surely he could contrive some way to slay this beast with his naked hands! He must play for time.... "How rewarded?"

"As I say, with a place in the Prussian Secret Service, its protection, freedom to ply your trade unhindered in America, even countenanced, till that country becomes a German province under German laws."

"But do I hear you offer this to a Frenchman?"

"Undeceive yourself. Men of all nations to-day, recognising that the star of Germany is in the ascendant, that soon all nations will be German, are hastening to make their peace beforehand by rendering Germany good service."

"Something in that, perhaps," Lanyard admitted thoughtfully.

"Think well, my friend.... Yes, Karl?"

The voice of the other spy responded sullenly: "Nothing--absolutely nothing."

"Two minutes, Herr Lanyard."

Of a sudden Lanyard's face was violently distorted in a grimace of terror.

He lurched his shoulders forward, openly struggling with his bonds.

"But--good G.o.d!" he protested in a voice of terror, "you can't possibly be so unreasonable! I tell you, I haven't got your d.a.m.ned paper!"

A loop of the handkerchief slipped over one hand.

"Be still! Cease your struggles. And not so loud, my friend!" The peremptory voice dropped into mockery as Lanyard, pale and exhausted, sat back trembling--and a second loop of silk dropped over the other hand. "So you begin to appreciate that we mean business, yes? One minute and thirty seconds!"

"Have mercy!" the adventurer whined desperately--and licked his lips as if he found them dry with fear. Now both hands were all but wholly free. True: he remained blindfolded and covered by a deadly weapon. "Give me a chance.

I'll do anything you wish! But I can't give you what I haven't got."

"Be silent! Here, Karl."

There was a sound of unintelligible murmuring as the two spies conferred together. Lanyard writhed in apparent extremity of terror. His hands were free. He sought hopelessly for inspiration. What to do without arms?

"Be grateful to Karl. He urges that perhaps you know nothing of the doc.u.ment."

"Don't you think I'd tell if I did know?"

"Then you have one minute--no, forty seconds--in which to pledge yourself to the Prussian Secret Service."

"You want me to swear--?"

"Certainly."

"Then hear me," said Lanyard earnestly: "_You d.a.m.ned canaille_!" And in one movement he tore the bandage from his eyes and launched himself head foremost at the man who stood over him.

He caught part of an oath drowned out by the splitting report of a pistol that went off within an inch of his ear. Then his head took the man full in the belly, and both went sprawling to the deck, Lanyard fighting like a maniac.

Sheer luck had guided clawing fingers to the right wrist of his antagonist, round which they shut like jaws of a trap. At the same time he wrenched the other's arm high above his head.

Momentarily expecting the shock of a bullet from the pistol of the second spy, he found time to wonder that it was so long deferred, and even in the fury of his struggles, out of the corner of one eye caught a fugitive glimpse of a tallish man, masked, standing back to the forward part.i.tion in a pose of singular indecision, pistol poised in his grasp.

Then the efforts of his immediate adversary threw him into a position in which he was unable to see the other.

Of a sudden the stateroom was filled with the thunder of an automatic, its seven cartridges discharged in one brisk, rippling crash.

It was as if a white-hot iron had been laid across Lanyard's shoulder.

Beneath him the man started convulsively, with such force as almost to throw him off bodily, then relaxed altogether and lay limp and still, pinning one of Lanyard's arms under him.

Its visor displaced, the face of Baron von Harden was revealed, features distorted, eyes glaring, a frozen mask of hate and terror.

His arm free, the adventurer rolled away from the corpse in time to see the open window-port blocked by the body of the other spy.