The men seated before the fire were an odd couple. One, of slight but wiry build, clean-shaven and fresh coloured, lean-faced, his hair greying, wore a tweed suit with plus fours, thick woollen stockings and brown brogues. A monocle glittered in the firelight as he bent to refill his pipe. His companion, a clergyman equally lean of feature, watched him, blinking his eyes in the way of one shortsighted. A close observer might have noted a physical but not a spiritual resemblance.
“I mean to say,” said the man with the monocle, stuffing tobacco into the bowl of his briar, “it’s a bad time to see America. I agree; but I couldn’t help myself, if you see what I mean. It had to be now or never sort of thing. People have been awfully nice——” he paused to strike a match—”I am the silly ass; nobody else to blame. Thanks to you, I know it would be stupid to push on to-night.”
“I am told,” said the priest, his gentle voice a contrast to that of the other speaker, “that Colonel Challoner lives some twenty miles from here. For my own part I have no choice.”
“What!” The man with the monocle, in the act of lighting his pipe, paused, looking up. “You’re pushing on?”
“Duty demands.”
“Oh, I see, sir. A sick call, I take it?”
The clergyman watched him silently for a few moments.
“A sick call—yes. . . .”
The outer door opened, admitting a blast of icy air. Three men came in, the last to enter closing the door behind him. They were useful-looking men, thick set and hard.
“In luck at last!” one of them exclaimed.
All three were watching the man with the monocle. One, who was evidently the leader of the party, square-jawed and truculent, raised his hand as if to silence the others, and stepped forward. As he did so the proprietor of the hotel appeared through an inner doorway. The man paused, glanced at him.
“Find some Scotch,” he ordered—”real Scotch. Not here— inside, some place. Me and these boys have business to talk over.”
The proprietor, a taciturn New Englander, nodded and disappeared. The speaker, not removing his hat, stood staring down at the man with the eye-glass. His companions were looking in the same direction. The focus of attention, pipe between his teeth, gazed at the three in blank astonishment.
“Don’t want to intrude——” the leader gave a cursory nod to the clergyman—”real sorry to interrupt; but I must ask you——” he placed a compelling hand on the shoulder of the wearer of the monocle—”to step inside for just a minute. Got a couple o’ questions.”
“What the deuce d’you mean?”
“I’m a government agent, and I’m on urgent business. Just a couple o’questions.”
“I never heard such balderdash in my life.” The other declared. He turned to the clergyman. “Did you?”
“It will probably save trouble in the long run if you assist the officer.”
“Right-oh. I’m obliged for the tip. Very funny and odd. But still. . . .”
Pipe firmly clenched between his teeth, he walked out followed by the leader of the party, the other two members of which bought up the rear. They found themselves in a small back hall from which arose a stair communicating with upper floors. On a table stood a bottle of whisky, glasses and a pitcher of ice water.
“No need to go farther,” said the agent; “we’re all set here.” He stared hard at the man in plus fours. “Listen, Abbot: why the fancy dress?”
“What d’you mean, Abbot?” was the angry reply. “My name’s not Abbot, and if it were you’d have a damned cheek to address me in that way!”
“Cut the funny lines. They ain’t funny. I’m here on business. What’s the name that goes with the eye-window?”
“I’m tempted,” said the man addressed, speaking with a cold anger which his amiably vacant manner would not have led one to anticipate, “to tell you to go to hell.” He focussed an icy stare in turn upon each of the three grim faces. “You’ve stepped off with the wrong foot, my friends.”
He plunged to an inside pocket. Instantly three steel barrels covered him. He ignored them, handing a British passport to the leader of the party. There was a minute of ominous silence, during which the man scrutinized the passport and the photograph, comparing the latter with its subject. At last:
“Boys!”—he turned to his satellites—”we’re up the wrong gum tree. We’ve got hold of Captain the Honourable George Fosdyke-Fosdyke of the Grenadier Guards! Schultz, jump to the phone. Notify Base and ask for President’s instructions. . .”
Some ten minutes later the Honourable George Fosdyke-Fosdyke found himself in sole possession of the little vestibule. The three federal officers had gone. He had had a glimpse through the driving sleet of a powerful car drawn up before the door. The amiable clergyman had gone. He was alone, mystified, irritated.
“Well, I’m damned!” he said.
At which moment, and while through the howling of the storm the purr of the departing car might still be heard, came the roar of a second even more powerful engine. Again the door was thrown open, and two men came in. Fosdyke-Fosdyke turned and faced them.
“O.K. this time, Chief!” said one, exhibiting a row of glittering teeth.
The other nodded and stepped forward.
“Good evening, Dom Patrick Donegal,” he said, and pulled inside a dripping leather overcoat to exhibit a gold badge. “A nice run you’ve given us!”
“Here! I say!” exclaimed Fosdyke-Fosdyke. “This damn joke is getting stale!”
And in a dilapidated but roadworthy Ford the amiable priest was driving furiously through the storm in the direction of New York: the Abbot of Holy Thorn was one stage further on his self-imposed journey.
Chapter 18
MRS. ADAIR REAPPEARS
Moya Adair stepped out of the elevator, crossed the marble lobby of the luxurious apartment house and came out on to Park Avenue. She was muffled up in her mink coat, the little Basque beret which she wore in rough weather crushed tightly upon mahogany-red curls. A high, fiercely cold wind had temporarily driven the clouds away, and a frosty moon looked down from a glittering sky. Moya inhaled delightedly the ice-cold air from the Avenue. It was clean and wholesome in contrast to the smoke-laden atmosphere of the Dumas’ apartment.
Her new assignment terrified her. For some reason known only to the President, that awful Chinaman who dominated her life, she had been chosen to supplant Lola Dumas. And she feared the enmity of Lola Dumas second only to that of the President. It was the yellow streak, more marked in her than in her father, which made her terrible; Moya, who had met her several times, had often thought of Lola as a beautiful, evil priestess of Voodoo—a dabbler in strange rites.
She began to walk briskly in the direction of a nearby hotel where, as Miss Eileen Breon, accommodation had been provided for her by the organization to which unwillingly she belonged. She felt as though she had escaped from an ever-present danger.
Harvey Bragg, potential Dictator of America, had accepted her appearance in the spirit in which sultans had formerly welcomed the present of a Circassian slave girl. And she had nowhere to turn for help—unless to the President. Oddly enough, she trusted that majestic but evil man.
The newspapers, in which politics occupied so much space, were nevertheless giving prominence to the mysterious death of James Richet. In her heart of hearts Moya Adair believed that James Richet had been executed by the President’s orders. The power of the sinister Chinaman ws terrifying; yet although he held a life dearer than her own in his hands, Moya’s service was not wholly one of fear. He had never called upon her to do anything which her philosophy told her to be despicable. Sometimes in her dreams she thought that he was Satan, fallen son of the morning, but in her very soul she knew that his word was inviolable; that execrable though his deeds appeared to Western eyes, paradoxically he might be trusted to give measure for measure.