The False Faces Part 31

"Is this the man who returns at midnight?"

"Yes, sir. I thought it best to make the appointment."

"Why?"

"He said he had crossed on the _a.s.syrian_, said it significantly, you know.

I fancied he might be the person you have been expecting."

Stanistreet looked up with a frown. "Hardly," he said--"if, that is, he is really what he claims to be. I wonder how he came by those letters."

"Does seem odd, doesn't it, sir? A confessed criminal!"

"An extraordinary man, by all accounts.... Those other callers--?"

"n.o.body of importance, I should say. A man who gave his name as Ember and got a bit shirty when I asked his business. Told him you might consent to see him at nine in the morning."

"And the other?"

"A young woman--deuced pretty girl--also reticent. What was her name?

Brooke--that was it: Cecelia Brooke."

"The devil!" Stanistreet exclaimed, dropping the papers. "What did you say to her?"

"What could I say, sir? She refused to divulge a word about her business with us. I told her--"

Warned by a gesture from Colonel Stanistreet, Blensop broke off. Walker was opening the door.

"Well, Walker?"

"A Mr. d.u.c.h.emin, sir, says Mr. Blensop made an appointment with you for twelve to-night."

"Show him in, please."

The footman shut himself out. Blensop clutched nervously at Mrs. Arden's jewels.

"Hadn't I better put these in the safe first?"

"No--no time." Stanistreet opened a drawer of the desk--"Here!"--and closed it as Blensop hastily swept the jewellery into it. "Safe enough there--as long as he doesn't know, at all events. But don't forget to put them away after he goes."

"No, sir."

Again the door opened. Walker announced: "Mr. d.u.c.h.emin." Stanistreet rose in his place. A man strode in with the a.s.surance of one who has discounted a cordial welcome.

Through the gap which he had quietly created between the portiere and the side of the window, Lanyard stared hungrily, and for the second time that night d.a.m.ned heartily the inadequate light in the library.

The impostor's face, barely distinguishable in the up-thrown penumbra of the lampshade, wore a beard--a rather thick, dark beard of negligent abundance, after a mode popular among Frenchmen--above which his features were an indefinite blur.

Lanyard endeavoured with ill success to identify the fellow by his carriage; there was a perceptible suggestion of a military strut, but that is something hardly to be termed distinctive in these days. Otherwise, he was tall, quite as tall as Lanyard, and had much the same character of body, slender and lithe.

But he was "Karl" beyond question, confederate and murderer of Baron von Harden, the man who had thrown the light bomb to signal the U-boat, the brute with whom Lanyard had struggled on the boat deck of the _a.s.syrian_--though the latter, in the confusion of that struggle, had thought the German's beard a masking handkerchief of black silk.

Now by that same token he was no member of that smoking-room coterie upon which Lanyard's suspicions had centered.

On the other hand, any number of pa.s.sengers had worn beards, not a few of much the same mode as that sported by this nonchalant fraud.

Vainly Lanyard cudgelled his wits to aid a laggard memory, haunted by a feeling that he ought to know this man instantly, even in so poor a light.

Something in his habit, something in that insouciance which so narrowly escaped insolence, was at once strongly reminiscent and provokingly elusive....

Pausing a little ways within the room, the fellow clicked heels and bowed punctiliously in Continental fashion, from the hips.

"Colonel Stanistreet, I believe," he said in a sonorous voice--"Karl's"

unmistakable voice--"chief of the American bureau of the British Secret Service?"

"I am Colonel Stanistreet," that gentleman admitted. "And you, sir--?"

"I have adopted the name of Andre d.u.c.h.emin," the impostor stated. "With permission I retain it."

Colonel Stanistreet inclined his head slightly. "As you will. Pray be seated."

He dropped back into his chair, while "Karl" with a murmur of acknowledgment again took the armchair on the far side of the desk, where the lamp stood between him and the secret watcher.

"My secretary tells me you have letters of introduction...."

"Here." Calmly "Karl" produced and offered those purloined papers.

"You will smoke?" Stanistreet indicated a cigarette-box and leaned back to glance through the letters.

During a brief pause Blensop busied himself with collecting together the doc.u.ments which had occupied him and began rea.s.sorting them, while "Karl,"

helping himself to a cigarette, smoked with manifest enjoyment.

"These seem to be in order," Stanistreet observed. "I note from this code letter that your true name is Michael Lanyard, you were once a professional French thief known as 'The Lone Wolf', but have since displayed every indication of desire to reform your ways, and have been of considerable use to the Intelligence Office. I am desired to employ your services in my discretion, contingent--pardon me--upon your continued good behaviour."

"Precisely," a.s.sented "Karl."

"Proceed, Monsieur d.u.c.h.emin."

"It is an affair of some delicacy.... Do we speak alone, Colonel Stanistreet?"

"Mr. Blensop is my confidential secretary...."

"Oh, no objection. Still--if I may venture the suggestion--those windows open upon a garden, I take it?"

"Yes. Blensop, be good enough to close the windows."

"Certainly, sir."

Stepping delicately, Blensop moved toward the end of the room.

Again Lanyard was confronted with the alternatives of incontinent flight or attempting to remain undetected through the adoption of an expedient of the most desperate audacity. He had prepared against such contingency, he did not mean to go; but the feasibility of his contemplated manoeuvre depended entirely upon chance, its success in any event was forlornly problematic.