Tales of Mystery & Suspense: 25+ Thrillers in One Edition. E. Phillips OppenheimЧитать онлайн книгу.
am entirely at your service, Countess,” he answered promptly. “As a matter of fact, I have already promised to appear there myself for an hour.”
“You would like to play bridge now, perhaps?” she asked.
“The Princess was kind enough to invite me,” he replied, “but I ventured to excuse myself. I saw that the numbers were even without me, and I hoped for a little more conversation with you.”
They seated themselves in an exceedingly comfortable corner. A footman brought them coffee, and a butler offered strange liqueurs. Catherine leaned back with a little sigh of relief.
“Every one calls this room of my aunt’s the hotel lounge,” she remarked. “Personally, I love it.”
“To me, also, it is the ideal apartment,” he confessed. “Here we are alone, and I may ask you a question which was on my lips when we had tea together at the Carlton, and which, but for our environment, I should certainly have asked you at dinner time.”
“You may ask me anything,” she assured him, with a little smile. “I am feeling happy and loquacious. Don’t tempt me to talk, or I shall give away all my life’s secrets.”
“I will only ask you for one just now,” he promised. “Is it true that you have to-day had some disagreement with—shall I say a small congress of men who have their meetings down at Westminster, and with whom you have been in close touch for some time?”
Her start was unmistakable.
“How on earth do you know anything about that?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“These are the days,” he said, “when, if one is to succeed in my profession, one must know everything.”
She did not speak for a moment. His question had been rather a shock to her. In a moment or two, however, she found herself wondering how to use it for her own advantage.
“It is true,” she admitted.
He looked intently at the point of his patent shoe.
“Is this not a case, Countess,” he ventured, “in which you and I might perhaps come a little closer together?”
“If you have anything to suggest, I am ready to listen,” she said.
“I wonder,” he went on, “if I am right in some of my ideas? I shall test them. You have taken up your abode in England. That was natural, for domestic reasons. You have shown a great interest in a certain section of the British public. It is my theory that your interest in England is for that section only; that as a country, you are no more an admirer of her characteristics than I am.”
“You are perfectly right,” she answered coolly.
“Your interest,” he proceeded, “is in the men and women toilers of the world, the people who carry on their shoulders the whole burden of life, and whose position you are continually desiring to ameliorate. I take it that your sympathy is international?”
“It is,” she assented
“People of this order in—say—Germany, excite your sympathy in the same degree?”
“Absolutely!”
“Therefore,” he propounded, “you are working for the betterment of the least considered class, whether it be German, Austrian, British, or French?”
“That also is true,” she agreed.
“I pursue my theory, then. The issue of this war leaves you indifferent, so long as the people come to their own?”
“My work for the last few weeks amongst those men of whom you have been speaking,” she pointed out, “should prove that.”
“We are through the wood and in the open, then,” he declared, with a little sigh of relief. “Now I am prepared to trade secrets with you. I am not a friend of this country. Neither my Chief nor my Government have the slightest desire to see England win the war.”
“That I knew,” she acknowledged.
“Now I ask you for information,” he continued. “Tell me this? Your pseudo-friends have presented the supposed German terms of peace to Mr. Stenson. What was the result?”
“He is taking twenty-four hours to consider them.”
“And what will happen if he refuses?” the Baron asked, leaning a little towards her. “Will they use their mighty weapon? Will they really go the whole way, or will they compromise?”
“They will not compromise,” she assured him. “The telegrams to the secretaries of the various Trades Unions are already written out. They will be despatched five minutes after Mr. Stenson’s refusal to sue for an armistice has been announced.”
“You know that?” he persisted.
“I know it beyond any shadow of doubt.”
He nodded slowly.
“Your information,” he admitted, “is valuable to me. Well though I am served, I cannot penetrate into the inner circles of the Council itself. Your news is good.”
“And now,” she said, “I expect the most amazing revelations from you.”
“You shall have them, with pleasure,” he replied. “Freistner has been in a German fortress for some weeks and may be shot at any moment. The supposed strength of the Socialist Party in Germany is an utter sham. The signatures attached to the document which was handed to your Council some days ago will be repudiated. The whole scheme of coming into touch with your Labour classes has been fostered and developed by the German War Cabinet. England will be placed in the most humiliating and ridiculous position. It will mean the end of the war.”
“And Germany?” she gasped.
“Germany,” the Baron pronounced calmly, “will have taken the first great step up the ladder in her climb towards the dominance of the world.”
CHAPTER XIX
There were one or two amongst those present in the Council room at Westminster that evening, who noted and never forgot a certain indefinable dignity which seemed to come to Stenson’s aid and enabled him to face what must have been an unwelcome and anxious ordeal without discomposure or disquiet. He entered the room accompanied by Julian and Phineas Cross, and he had very much the air of a man who has come to pay a business visit, concerning the final issue of which there could be no possible doubt. He shook hands with the Bishop gravely but courteously, nodded to the others with whom he was acquainted, asked the names of the few strangers present, and made a careful mental note of what industries and districts they represented. He then accepted a chair by the side of the Bishop, who immediately opened the proceedings.
“My friends,” the latter began, “as I sent word to you a little time ago, Mr. Stenson has preferred to bring you his answer himself. Our ambassador—Mr. Julian Orden—waited upon him at Downing Street at the hour arranged upon, and, in accordance with his wish to meet you all, Mr. Stenson is paying us this visit.”
The Bishop hesitated, and the Prime Minister promptly drew his chair a little farther into the circle.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “the issue which you have raised is so tremendous, and its results may well be so catastrophic, that I thought it my duty to beg Mr. Orden to arrange for me to come and speak to you all, to explain to you face to face why, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, I cannot do your bidding.”
“You don’t want peace, then?” one of the delegates from the other side of the table asked bluntly.
“We do not,” was the quiet reply. “We are not ready for it.”
“The