Tales of Mystery & Suspense: 25+ Thrillers in One Edition. E. Phillips OppenheimЧитать онлайн книгу.
is no fear of your being called out of the country because of that, I hope?” he asked a little anxiously, nodding his head towards his companion’s uniform.
“Not at present,” Dominey answered. “I am a trifle over age to go with the first batch or two. Where have you been?”
Seaman hitched his chair a little nearer.
“In Ireland,” he confided. “Sorry to desert you as I did, but you do not begin to count for us just yet. There was just a faint doubt as to what they were doing to do about internment. That is why I had to get the Irish trip off my mind.”
“What has been decided?”
“The Government has the matter under consideration,” Seaman replied, with a chuckle. “I can certainly give myself six months before I need to slip off. Now tell me, why do I find you down here?”
“After Terniloff left,” Dominey explained, “I felt I wanted to get away. I have been asked to start some recruiting work down here.”
“Terniloff—left his little volume with you?”
“Yes!”
“Where is it?”
“Safe,” Dominey replied.
Seaman mopped his forehead.
“It needs to be,” he muttered. “I have orders to see it destroyed. We can talk of that presently. Sometimes, when I am away from you, I tremble. It may sound foolish, but you have in your possession just the two things—that map and Von Terniloff’s memoirs—which would wreck our propaganda in every country of the world.”
“Both are safe,” Dominey assured him. “By the by, my friend,” he went on, “do you know that you yourself are forgetting your usual caution?”
“In what respect?” Seaman demanded quickly.
“As you stooped to sit down just now, I distinctly saw the shape of your revolver in your hip pocket. You know as well as I do that with your name and the fact that you are only a naturalised Englishman, it is inexcusably foolish to be carrying firearms about just now.”
Seaman thrust his hand into his pocket and threw the revolver upon the table.
“You are quite right,” he acknowledged. “Take care of it for me. I took it with me to Ireland, because one never knows what may happen in that amazing country.”
Dominey swept it carelessly into the drawer of the desk at which he was sitting.
“Our weapons, from now on,” Seaman continued, “must be the weapons of guile and craft. You and I will have, alas! to see less of one another, Dominey. In many ways it is unfortunate that we have not been able to keep England out of this for a few more months. However, the situation must be dealt with as it exists. So far as you are concerned you have practically secured yourself against suspicion. You will hold a brilliant and isolated place amongst those who are serving the great War Lord. When I do approach you, it will be for sympathy and assistance against the suspicions of those far-seeing Englishmen!”
Dominey nodded.
“You will stay the night?” he asked.
“If I may,” Seaman assented. “It is the last time for many months when it will be wise for us to meet on such intimate terms. Perhaps our dear friend Parkins will take vinous note of the occasion.”
“In other words,” Dominey said, “you propose that we shall drink the Dominey cabinet hock and the Dominey port to the glory of our country.”
“To the glory of our country,” Seaman echoed. “So be it, my friend.—Listen.”
A car had passed along the avenue in front of the house. There was the sound of voices in the hall, a knock at the door, the rustle of a woman’s clothes. Parkins, a little disturbed, announced the arrivals.
“The Princess of Eiderstrom and—a gentleman. The Princess said that her errand with you was urgent, sir,” he added, turning apologetically towards his master.
The Princess was already in the room, and following her a short man in a suit of sombre black, wearing a white tie, and carrying a black bowler hat. He blinked across the room through his thick glasses, and Dominey knew that the end had come. The door was closed behind them. The Princess came a little further into the room. Her hand was extended towards Dominey, but not in greeting. Her white finger pointed straight at him. She turned to her companion.
“Which is that, Doctor Schmidt?” she demanded.
“The Englishman, by God!” Schmidt answered.
The silence which reigned for several seconds was intense and profound. The coolest of all four was perhaps Dominey. The Princess was pale with a passion which seemed to sob behind her words.
“Everard Dominey,” she cried, “what have you done with my lover? What have you done with Leopold Von Ragastein?”
“He met with the fate,” Dominey replied, “which he had prepared for me. We fought and I conquered.”
“You killed him?”
“I killed him,” Dominey echoed. “It was a matter of necessity. His body sleeps on the bed of the Blue River.”
“And your life here has been a lie!”
“On the contrary, it has been the truth,” Dominey objected. “I assured you at the Carlton, when you first spoke to me, and I have assured you a dozen times since, that I was Everard Dominey. That is my name. That is who I am.”
Seaman’s voice seemed to come from a long way off. For the moment the man had neither courage nor initiative. He seemed as though he had received some sort of stroke. His mind was travelling backwards.
“You came to me at Cape Town,” he muttered; “you had all Von Ragastein’s letters, you knew his history, you had the Imperial mandate.”
“Von Ragastein and I exchanged the most intimate confidences in his camp,” Dominey said, “as Doctor Schmidt there knows. I told him my history, and he told me his. The letters and papers I took from him.”
Schmidt had covered his face with his hands for a moment. His shoulders were heaving.
“My beloved chief!” he sobbed. “My dear devoted master! Killed by that drunken Englishman!”
“Not so drunk as you fancied him,” Dominey said coolly, “not so far gone in his course of dissipation but that he was able to pull himself up when the great incentive came.”
The Princess looked from one to the other of the two men. Seaman had still the appearance of a man struggling to extricate himself from some sort of nightmare.
“My first and only suspicion,” he faltered, “was that night when Wolff disappeared!”
“Wolff’s coming was rather a tragedy,” Dominey admitted. “Fortunately, I had a secret service man in the house who was able to dispose of him.”
“It was you who planned his disappearance?” Seaman gasped.
“Naturally,” Dominey replied. “He knew the truth and was trying all the time to communicate with you.”
“And the money?” Seaman continued, blinking rapidly. “One hundred thousand pounds, and more?”
“I understood that was a gift,” Dominey replied. “If the German Secret Service, however, cares to formulate a claim and sue me—”
The Princess suddenly interrupted. Her eyes seemed on fire.
“What are you, you two?” she cried, stretching out her hands towards Schmidt and Seaman. “Are you lumps of earth—clods—creatures without courage and intelligence? You can let him stand there—the Englishman who has murdered my lover, who has befooled you? You let him stand there and mock you, and you do and say nothing! Is his life a sacred thing? Has he none of your secrets