The False Faces Part 52

"And very good of him, I'm sure," Lanyard agreed. "I was about to explain, Mr. Blensop, that Ekstrom, alias Anderson, was killed in the course of a raid on the Prussian spy headquarters in Seventy-ninth Street this morning."

"Amazing!" Blensop gasped. "I am glad to hear it," he added, and went slowly back to his task.

"I may as well tell you, sir," Lanyard pursued, "I have every reason to believe the doc.u.ment sold you last night was one of those stolen from me."

Stanistreet wagged a contentious head.

"I cannot conceive how it could have come into your possession, sir."

"Simply enough. Miss Brooke requested me to take care of it for her."

The eyes of the Englishman grew stony. "Miss Brooke!" he repeated testily.

"I don't understand."

"It was a doc.u.ment--I do not seek to know its nature from you, sir--of vital importance in this present crisis, with the United States newly entered into the war."

Stanistreet affirmed with an inclination of his head.

"I may tell you this much, Monsieur d.u.c.h.emin: if it had not reached this country safely.... What am I saying? If it be not recovered without delay, the chances of America's early and efficient partic.i.p.ation in the war will suffer a tremendous setback ... Blensop, be good enough to call up the American Secret Service at once and ask whether the doc.u.ment in question was found on the body of this--ah--Ekstrom."

"Pardon," Lanyard interposed as Blensop hesitantly approached the telephone. "It would be a waste of time. I happen to know, because I was there, that no such doc.u.ment was found on Ekstrom's body."

"The devil!" Stanistreet grumbled. "What can have become of it? This business grows only the blacker the deeper one seeks to fathom it. I must own myself completely at a loss. How it came into the hands of Miss Brooke--"

"I can explain that, I think. The doc.u.ment was in the care of two gentlemen, Mr. Bartholomew and Lieutenant Thackeray. The former was murdered by the Huns in search of it, Lieutenant Thackeray murderously a.s.saulted. But for Miss Brooke's intervention the a.s.sa.s.sins must have succeeded. As it was, the young woman herself found it and, one presumes, took charge of it because her fiance was incapacitated, and possibly with the notion that she might thereby prevent further mischief of the same nature."

"Her fiance?" Stanistreet echoed blankly.

"Lieutenant Thackeray--"

"Her brother, sir!" the Briton laughed. "Thackeray was his nom de service."

It was Lanyard's turn to stare. "Ah!" he murmured. "A light begins to dawn...."

"Upon me as well," Stanistreet confessed. "Miss Brooke and her brother are orphans and, before the war, were inseparable companions. I do not doubt that, learning he had been commissioned with an uncommonly perilous errand, she booked pa.s.sage by the _a.s.syrian_ without his consent, in order to be near him in event of danger."

"This explains much," Lanyard conceded--"much that perplexed more than one can say."

"But in no way advances us on the trail of the purloined doc.u.ment."

"I am afraid, sir," Lanyard lied deliberately, "you may as well abandon all hope of ever seeing it again. Ekstrom made away with it: no question about that. There was time enough and to spare between his exploit here and his death for him to deliver it to safe hands. It is doubtless decoded by this time, a copy of it already well on the way to the Wilhelmstra.s.se."

"I am afraid," Stanistreet echoed--"I am very much afraid you are right."

His thick, spatulate fingers of an executive drummed heavily upon the desk.

Stone's figure darkened the windows.

"Colonel Stanistreet?" he called diffidently.

"Yes, Mr. Stone?"

"There's something here I'd like to consult you about, sir, if you can spare a minute."

"Certainly." The Englishman rose. "If you will excuse me, Monsieur d.u.c.h.emin...." Half way to the windows he hesitated. "By the bye, Blensop, I wish you'd call up Apthorp and ask after Howson's condition."

"Very good, sir," Blensop intoned cheerfully.

"And do it without delay, please. I don't like to think of the poor fellow suffering."

"Immediately, sir."

As his employer pa.s.sed out into the garden with Stone, the secretary discontinued his checking and came over to the desk, drawing up a chair and sitting down to telephone. At the same time Lanyard got up and began to pace thoughtfully to and fro.

"Howson is the wounded night watchman, I take it, Mr. Blensop?"

"Yes--an excellent fellow.... Schuyler nine, three hundred," Blensop cooed into the transmitter.

Conceivably that ostensible discomfiture whose symptoms Lanyard had remarked had been a transitory humour. Mr. Blensop was now in what seemed the most equable and blithe of tempers. His very posture at the telephone eloquently betokened as much: he had thrown himself into the chair with picturesque nonchalance, sitting with body half turned from the desk, his right hand holding the receiver to his ear, his left thrust carelessly into his trouser pocket, thus dragging back the lapel of that impeccable morning-coat and exposing the bright cap of his gold-mounted fountain pen.

Something in that implement seemed to possess for Lanyard overpowering fascination. His gaze yearned for it, returned again and again to it.

He changed his course to stroll up and down behind Blensop, between him and the safe.

"I understood Colonel Stanistreet to say the watchman was not seriously injured, I believe," he observed, with interest.

"Shot through the shoulder, that is all.... Schuyler nine, three hundred?

Dr. Apthorp, please. This is Mr. Blensop speaking, secretary to Colonel Stanistreet.... Are you there, Dr. Apthorp?"

With professional dexterity Lanyard en pa.s.sant dropped a hand over the young man's shoulder and lightly lifted the pen from its place in the pocket of Blensop's waistcoat; the even tempo of his step unbroken, he tossed it toward the safe, where it fell without sound upon a heavy Persian rug.

"Yes--about Howson," the musical accents continued, "Colonel Stanistreet is most solicitous...."

Swiftly Lanyard moved toward the safe, glanced through the French windows to a.s.sure himself that Stanistreet and Stone were safely preoccupied, whipped out the envelope he had prepared, and thrust it into a file of papers which did not crowd its pigeonhole; accomplishing the complete manoeuvre with such adroitness that, like the business of the pen, it pa.s.sed utterly without the knowledge of the secretary.

"Thank you so much. _Good_ morning, Dr. Apthorp."

Lanyard was pa.s.sing the desk when Blensop rose, and the footman was entering with his salver.

"A lady to see Colonel Stanistreet, sir--by appointment, she says."

Blensop glanced at the card. At the same time Stanistreet came in from the garden, leaving Stone to potter about visibly in the distance.

"Miss Brooke is here, sir," the secretary announced.

"Ask her to come in, please."

The footman retired.