The Island Mystery Part 37

"By whose authority do you give these orders?" he said.

"The Emperor's."

Von Moll clicked his heels together and saluted as he spoke. King Konrad Karl shrugged his shoulders. Gorman, determined not to be ignored this time, took von Moll by the arm.

"I say, von Moll," he said. "After the frightfully impressive way you said that, we ought to have some sort of demonstration. Let's drink the old boy's health and say 'Hoch!' or whatever the proper thing is.

I'm sure you must want a drink, and those swashbucklers of yours"--he looked round at von Moll's six men--"could hold hands and sing '_Deutschland uber Alles_.' It would cheer us all up."

The Queen looked at von Moll in amazement. Then she glanced at Konrad Karl. While Gorman was speaking she made up her mind to a.s.sert herself.

"You forget," she said, "that King Konrad Karl is my guest, and so are you while you are in my house."

Donovan, still in his shirt sleeves, looking very tired and hot, slouched into the hall while the Queen spoke. Smith followed him. The Queen, nervous and half frightened in spite of her brave words, turned to him.

"Oh, father," she said, "I am glad you've come."

Donovan nodded to von Moll.

"Sit right down," he said, "there's a chair behind you. You'll stay for luncheon, won't you?"

He sat down himself as he spoke and took a cigar out of his case.

"Smith," he said, "c.o.c.ktails."

"Yes, sir," said Smith.

Von Moll turned to the men behind him and pointed to Smith.

"Arrest that man," he said.

Two of the sailors stepped forward and crossed the hall towards Smith.

"Say," said Donovan, "is this a rehearsal for a cinema? and when do you reckon to have the camera operating?"

"That man," said von Moll, pointing to Smith, "is a deserter from the service of the Emperor and a spy. He pays the penalty."

Donovan deliberately cut the end off his cigar and struck a match.

Then he looked up at von Moll.

"Seems to me," he said, "that there's some kind of misunderstanding.

I'm not blaming you, Captain, not at all. But this is a neutral State, and according to international law you can't b.u.t.t in and arrest citizens without applying for an extradition order in the regular way."

"You talk like a fool," said von Moll. "This is war."

He gave a fresh order to his men.

"Take him," he said. "Shoot him on the steps outside."

Donovan struck a fresh match and lit his cigar. He puffed at it slowly.

"It pains me some," he said, "to go contrary to my life-long principles. I'm a humanitarian by conviction and I'm opposed to capital punishment. It seems to me that the taking of human life is not justified, and that the advance of civilization, especially in the great republic of which I am a citizen----"

"He is a spy," said von Moll, "and he dies."

"You're hasty, Captain," said Donovan. "I don't blame you, but you're hasty and you haven't quite tumbled to my meaning. When I spoke of my humanitarian principles I wasn't thinking of what would happen to Smith. You may shoot him, Captain, and I shall deplore it. But that won't outrage my convictions any. For I shan't be responsible, that execution being your affair and not mine. What I was thinking of was how I'd feel when I saw you and every d.a.m.ned one of your pirates hanging at the end of ropes over the edges of the various fancy balconies and other tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs which adorn this palace. It will be going clean against my principles to arrange that kind of obituary dangle for you, Captain. I may have some trouble soothing my conscience afterwards. But I expect that can be managed. You may call me inconsistent and you may be right. But I'm not a hide-bound doctrinnaire. There are circ.u.mstances under which the loftier emanations of humanitarian principle kind of flicker out. The shooting of Smith is a circ.u.mstance of that sort. Your treatment of the American flag is another."

Gorman tells me that he suspected Donovan of attempting a gigantic bluff. He admired the way he did it, but he did not think he could possibly succeed. Donovan did not, so far as Gorman could see, hold in his hand a single card worth putting down on the table. Smith stood, cool and apparently uninterested, between the two sailors who had arrested him. Konrad Karl was lighting and throwing away cigarette after cigarette. The Queen had grown pale at the mention of the shooting of Smith; but she kept her eyes fixed on her father. She did not understand what he was doing, but she had great confidence in him.

Von Moll stared at Donovan with an insolent sneer.

"You threaten," he said, "you think that your American Republic----Pah! what is America? You have no army. Your navy is no good. What can you do?"

"You're taking me up wrong again," said Donovan. "I'm not reckoning on America just now. The hanging will be done by the crew of the English ship that I'm expecting to see in this harbour. Not to-day, maybe, or to-morrow, but some time before the end of this darned war."

King Konrad Karl threw away another cigarette.

"Alas and d.a.m.n!" he said, "by this time there are no longer any English ships."

Gorman was watching von Moll closely. At the mention of an English ship the man's eyes flickered suddenly. For an instant his face changed. A shadow of uneasiness appeared on it. But this pa.s.sed at once, and the look of insolence took its place. Donovan was also watching.

"There may be one or two left," he said. "I don't say the one that turns up here will be a first-cla.s.s battle cruiser; but I guess the men on her will be up to the little job of hanging you, Captain. And they'll come. Sure. And you'll be here, just waiting for them."

"I shall be gone," said von Moll. "Not that I fear your English ship.

But to-morrow I go, and before I go, to-day--I shoot the spy."

"You misapprehend the situation," said Donovan. "As a warship of a belligerent Power entering a neutral harbour you are liable----"

Von Moll laughed aloud.

"You intern me," he said.

"Well," drawled Donovan, "I do. Say, Captain, you didn't drop in here just for the pleasure of shooting Smith and carrying off the King.

Those weren't your main purposes. I'm not an observant man, but I did happen to notice as I left my room that your ship was shifting her anchorage a bit. Now I wouldn't say that it's particularly healthy, with a wind like this blowing, for a ship to lie right under those cliffs, slap up against the mouth of a cave. I give you credit, Captain, for knowing your trade as a sailor, and I don't think that you'd put your ship there unless you wanted something out of that cave, and wanted it pretty bad. What's more, Captain, you want it in a hurry. Now I may be wrong, but it's my opinion that what you expect to find there is petrol. That so?"

It was plain--so plain that even King Konrad Karl saw it--that von Moll was disturbed. His confidence was not what it had been earlier in the interview. Donovan went on, speaking with irritating deliberation.

"Now when I said that you were interned in the harbour of this neutral State, Captain, I wasn't counting on your respect for international law. I wouldn't risk a dollar on that. What I meant was this. The petrol's not there. Your darned tanks are empty. I'm not defending the action on economic grounds. It was waste. But that petrol is gone. We ran it off."

"You have not dared," said von Moll. "You could not dare----No one but a madman would touch the Emperor's war stores."

"I hope," said Gorman, "that the poor old Emperor won't have a fit when he hears about it."

"You may be able to run that ship a mile or two," said Donovan. "But I reckon you'll not go far. You were dependent on that petrol? Come now, Captain, own up."

What von Moll intended to do next I do not know. Gorman is of opinion that he might very well have shot the whole party. He was white with pa.s.sion.

Donovan rose from his chair, stuck his cigar in a corner of his mouth, and crossed the hall towards the door.

"While you're sizing up the situation," he said to von Moll, "I'll just see if I can't find that flag that you cut down. It would gratify me to have it flying again. You'd better come with me, Smith. I'm not inclined for climbing poles in this storm. I have to consider my heart."