Tales of Mystery & Suspense: 25+ Thrillers in One Edition. E. Phillips OppenheimЧитать онлайн книгу.
life and customs?”
“You must remember that he was educated here. Nevertheless, his aptitude has been marvellous.”
“One might almost call it supernatural,” she agreed. “Tell me, Mr. Seaman, you seem to have been completely successful in the installation of our friend here as Sir Everard. What is going to be his real value to you? What work will he do?”
“We are keeping him for the big things. You have seen our gracious master lately?” he added hesitatingly.
“I know what is at the back of your mind,” she replied. “Yes! Before the summer is over I am to pack up my trunks and fly. I understand.”
“It is when that time comes,” Seaman said impressively, “that we expect Sir Everard Dominey, the typical English country gentleman, of whose loyalty there has never been a word of doubt, to be of use to us. Most of our present helpers will be under suspicion. The authorised staff of our secret service can only work underneath. You can see for yourself the advantage we gain in having a confidential correspondent who can day by day reflect the changing psychology of the British mind in all its phases. We have quite enough of the other sort of help arranged for. Plans of ships, aerodromes and harbours, sailings of convoys, calling up of soldiers—all these are the A B C of our secret service profession. We shall never ask our friend here for a single fact, but, from his town house in Berkeley Square, the host of Cabinet Ministers, of soldiers, of the best brains of the country, our fingers will never leave the pulse of Britain’s day by day life.”
Stephanie threw herself back in her easy-chair and clasped her hands behind her head.
“These things you are expecting from our present host?”
“We are, and we expect to get them. I have watched him day by day. My confidence in him has grown.”
Stephanie was silent. She sat looking into the fire. Seaman, keenly observant as always, realised the change in her, yet found something of mystery in her new detachment of manner.
“Your Highness,” he urged, “I am not here to speak on behalf of the man who at heart is, I know, your lover. He will plead his own cause when the time comes. But I am here to plead for patience, I am here to implore you to take no rash step, to do nothing which might imperil in any way his position here. I stand outside the gates of the world which your sex can make a paradise. I am no judge of the things that happen there. But in your heart I feel there is bitterness, because the man for whom you care has chosen to place his country first. I implore your patience, Princess. I implore you to believe what I know so well,—that it is the sternest sense of duty only which is the foundation of Leopold Von Ragastein’s obdurate attitude.”
“What are you afraid that I shall do?” she asked curiously.
“I am afraid of nothing—directly.”
“Indirectly, then? Answer me, please.”
“I am afraid,” he admitted frankly, “that in some corner of the world, if not in this country, you might whisper a word, a scoffing or an angry sentence, which would make people wonder what grudge you had against a simple Norfolk baronet. I would not like that word to be spoken in the presence of any one who knew your history and realised the rather amazing likeness between Sir Everard Dominey and Baron Leopold Von Ragastein.”
“I see,” Stephanie murmured, a faint smile parting her lips. “Well, Mr. Seaman, I do not think that you need have many fears. What I shall carry away with me in my heart is not for you or any man to know. In a few days I shall leave this country.”
“You are going back to Berlin—to Hungary?”
She shook her head, beckoned her maid to open the door, and held out her hand in token of dismissal.
“I am going to take a sea voyage,” she announced. “I shall go to Africa.”
The morrow was a day of mild surprises. Eddy Pelham’s empty place was the first to attract notice, towards the end of breakfast time.
“Where’s the pink and white immaculate?” the Right Honourable gentleman asked. “I miss my morning wonder as to how he tied his tie.”
“Gone,” Dominey replied, looking round from the sideboard.
“Gone?” every one repeated.
“I should think such a thing has never happened to him before,” Dominey observed. “He was wanted in town.”
“Fancy any one wanting Eddy for any serious purpose!” Caroline murmured.
“Fancy any one wanting him badly enough to drag him out of bed in the middle of the night with a telephone call and send him up to town by the breakfast train from Norwich!” their host continued. “I thought we had started a new ghost when he came into my room in a purple dressing-gown and broke the news.”
“Who wanted him?” the Duke enquired. “His tailor?”
“Business of importance was his pretext,” Dominey replied.
There was a little ripple of good-humoured laughter.
“Does Eddy do anything for a living?” Caroline asked, yawning.
“Mr. Pelham is a director of the Chelsea Motor Works,” Mangan told them. “He received a small legacy last year, and his favourite taxicab man was the first to know about it.”
“You’re not suggesting,” she exclaimed, “that it is business of that sort which has taken Eddy away!”
“I should think it most improbable,” Mangan confessed. “As a matter of fact, he asked me the other day if I knew where their premises were.”
“We shall miss him,” she acknowledged. “It was quite one of the events of the day to see his costume after shooting.”
“His bridge was reasonably good,” the Duke commented.
“He shot rather well the last two days,” Mangan remarked.
“And he had told me confidentially,” Caroline concluded, “that he was going to wear brown to-day. Now I think Eddy would have looked nice in brown.”
The missing young man’s requiem was finished by the arrival of the local morning papers. A few moments later Dominey rose and left the room. Seaman, who had been unusually silent, followed him.
“My friend,” he confided, “I do not know whether you have heard, but there was a curious disappearance from the Hall last night.”
“Whose?” Dominey asked, pausing in the act of selecting a cigarette.
“Our friend Miller, or Wolff—Doctor Schmidt’s emissary,” Seaman announced, “has disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” Dominey repeated. “I suppose he is having a prowl round somewhere.”
“I have left it to you to make more careful enquiries,” Seaman replied. “All I can tell you is that I made up my mind last night to interview him once more and try to fathom his very mysterious behaviour. I found the door of your butler’s sitting-room locked, and a very civil fellow—Mr. Pelham’s valet he turned out to be—told me that he had left in the car which went for the evening papers.”
“I will go and make some enquiries,” Dominey decided, after a moment’s puzzled consideration.
“If you please,” Seaman acquiesced. “The affair disconcerts me because I do not understand it. When there is a thing which I do not understand, I am uncomfortable.”
Dominey vanished into the nether regions, spent half an hour with Rosamund, and saw nothing of his disturbed guest again until they were walking to the first wood. They had a moment together after Dominey had pointed out the stands.
“Well?” Seaman enquired.
“Our friend,” Dominey announced, “apparently made up his mind to go quite suddenly. A bed was arranged for him—or