The Traitor (5 page)

In the same weak, unsteady voice—his nerves being all shot to pieces by this time—Clinton endeavoured to put up a further defence.

“You're shooting off just so much hot air,” he said.

Mallory looked at him and read in his face what he believed to be the truth.

“When you can convince me that the Boche didn't get this news through your mistress—a temporary one, I expect—I'll talk to you again. Meantime, there's only one name I have for you, and that's ‘outsider.' '' He turned fiercely away and, disregarding the instructions he had received from Major General Bentley, left the room.

BOOK II

Chapter I

Kuhnreich Commands

In the huge, barely furnished room which he used as an office, Kuhnreich, the supreme dictator of Ronstadt, that mighty empire of over sixty million souls, faced the Chief of his Secret Police. Emil Crosber, with his mean, shrivelled, sallow face, was almost as much feared as the Iron Man himself. His nickname amongst the masses was unprintable.

“You have found the woman?” snapped Kuhnreich.

The other bowed his head in slavish homage.

“I have found her, Excellency. She is waiting outside.”

The Dictator, never one to waste words, pressed a button on his desk. To the secretary who came in he gave the necessary order.

A couple of minutes later a woman, whose beauty of both face and figure was striking, walked through the door. Whatever her inmost feelings may have been as she caught the cold, implacable stare of the man seated at the desk, she gave no sign of either fear or confusion. Mentally Kuhnreich registered a grudging admiration of such courage. A person of steel nerves himself (although some said he was a hopeless neurotic), he esteemed bravery in others.

He came immediately to the point.

“Your name is Minna Braun?”

“Yes, your Excellency.”

“Seventeen years ago—that is to say, during the last year of the war—you were employed by the German Intelligence?”

This time she did not answer in words, but inclined her head.

Crosber pushed over a file and with an elaborately manicured finger indicated some entries on a certain page. Kuhnreich glanced at the typewritten lines and then resumed his examination.

“You then posed as a French girl by name Marie Roget?”

A smile played around the shapely mouth.

“With some success, your Excellency.”

“I agree, Fräulein,” came the harsh retort; “but, if you please, we will leave the compliments to a later time.…Your age was then nineteen?”

“That is correct, Excellency.”

He stared at her. To himself he said, “She does not look thirty-five.” But to the woman: “A chance has come for you to serve Ronstadt with the same courage and efficiency as years ago you served Germany.”

The manner in which the words were uttered left no doubt that the speaker expected an immediate affirmative response, but the woman kept silent. Working for the new State of Ronstadt was a very different thing from working for the Wilhelmstrasse. Her old taskmasters had exercised a cruel despotism, it was true, but at least they paid well. Kuhnreich, fired with a madman's fanaticism, expected, on the other hand, a selfless sacrifice to what he grandiloquently styled “the call of the State.”

“You do not answer.”

The words cut the air like so many sweeps of a sword. Crosber's yellow features twitched. Was the woman insane?

“Your Excellency,” came the reply after a pause, “much as I should like to do what you ask, I regret my hands are tied. I am no longer a free agent.”

The man who ruled arbitrarily over the destinies of sixty million human beings rose from his seat. His bull-like neck was out-thrust, his face swollen with the terrific inrush of blood to the veins.

“Is it because you are living as the mistress of the Jew Masalsky that you are no longer a free agent? Answer me!” he thundered, his clenched fists raised as though he were addressing a mass meeting of his intoxicated adherents.

The woman, afraid to meet his challenge, looked at Crosber. The Chief of Secret Police paid her no heed; he was directing all his attention to his freshly-manicured fingernails. Sophie certainly did her work very well.…

Minna Braun felt her bones turning to water. Fear struck her like a fell disease. When she had entered that room a few minutes before, she had been sustained by the realisation that, in spite of her age, she was an exceedingly attractive woman—so attractive, indeed, that a month back she had gained the appreciative notice of Ferdor Masalsky, so many times a millionaire that he was said to be the richest man in the capital.

But he was also a Jew.…And Kuhnreich, she knew, hated Jews with a virulence that bordered on the incredible.

“Masalsky, your protector, has been ordered to leave Ronstadt within forty-eight hours.”

“Why?” The word was forced out of her inner consciousness before she realised what she was saying.

The Dictator looked as though he were about to have an epileptic paroxysm. He waved a hand at Crosber.

“It grieves me to say that Ferdor Masalsky has been found guilty of treasonable conduct against the State,” the latter said in his high, squeaky voice. “It is therefore necessary that he should be deported immediately and”—a momentary pause—“his money confiscated.”

Minna's knees trembled. It was a plot—the vilest kind of plot—against the man who had given her every conceivable luxury; and it was this which caused her even more consternation of soul; the action had been taken because these two had meant to trap her. They—the wolf, Crosber, and the man without mercy, Kuhnreich—had set such a snare that it was impossible for her to do anything but fall into it.

“You will work for Ronstadt as you worked for Germany.…Crosber will now give you your instructions.”

With these words she was dismissed.

“You do not appear to appreciate the fact, but his Excellency has been very generous. He could have ordered you severe punishment for associating with that Jew. Aren't you ashamed, as a good citizeness of Ronstadt, to have had any dealings with such a traitor?”

She did not reply—not because she could find no words to say, but because she was afraid that if she once opened her lips she would say too much.

“As it is, you are to be given a great opportunity to serve the State. Instead of scowling there, you should be proud.”

The atmosphere of this room—the most private of all the many private rooms occupied in that building by the Chief of the Pé Secret Police—seemed stifling. She remembered some of the many terrible things that people whispered this man Crosber had done—some almost too ghastly to be given human credence. What a fool she had been to come back! She had been happy enough in America; she should have stayed there. America was a country where one could be free: Ronstadt was nothing but one huge and horrible prison.

The voice of Crosber continued.

“Yes, proud,” he was saying. “We could have selected many women to undertake this task, but I induced his Excellency to choose you. I have always had a preference for von Jago's former agents. The old fox certainly knew his work.”

He leaned back in his padded chair and lit a thin cigarette. He looked at that moment like a decayed ogre, and Minna would have liked—if only she had dared!—to strike him across his yellow face with her clenched fist. If her former chief, Hermann von Jago, had known his job, so did her present taskmaster. He had reduced a once-great city to a state of terror; he had delivered its millions of inhabitants over to the bondage of fear, in which each man spied on his neighbour, and lived from hour to hour in voiceless dread.

“But you are anxious, no doubt, to hear exactly what task is to be allotted to you. Fräulein, war is coming. Yes, war is coming—and that means that our secret agents must get busy. Already the English newspapers are regaling their readers with sensational details.” He chuckled dryly as he opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a long clipping. “Read that for yourself,” he ordered, passing it over.

The woman took it with reluctant fingers.

She read:

SECRETS OF THE NEW WAR
how modern spies risk their lives

Europe once again has become a battleground. Although actual hostilities have not yet broken out, the legions of spies are busily at work, endeavouring to wrest from each other the war secrets of other nations. Within the past nine months over a hundred men and women have been convicted of spying, and of these the greater number have suffered the extreme penalty and have been killed.

Let us, for the enlightenment of those ostrich-like pacifists who are so vehemently declaring that another war of any sort is impossible, throw aside for a few minutes the curtain which hides the activities of these spies. According to the best military and naval authorities, the secret agents of every country in the old and new worlds are at present feverishly engaged in endeavouring to find the answers to the following questions. Two, it will be noticed, deal with aerial warfare, while the other is of particular interest to the British Navy.

(1) Has Ronstadt, that powerful nation, whose preparations for another war are said, on reliable authority, to be already assuming gigantic proportions, a new naval range-finder superior to the one that Germany used in the last war?

(2) Is it true that certain Continental chemists have discovered, to the satisfaction of experts, how to lay a poison-gas barrage in the air which no aeroplane pilot could pierce or a carborundum cloud so dense that machines entering it would inevitably crash?

How efficient Germany's range-finder was our naval leaders learned when they received a demonstration of its deadly efficiency at the Battle of Jutland. We are not betraying any official secrets, we believe, when we state that the Admiralty to-day—many years later, it is true—know every detail of that powerful instrument of war. But nineteen years have passed since the Battle of Jutland, and it is feared in high quarters that Ronstadt, taking over Germany's former experts, is now in possession of a range-finder so infinitely superior to the one used at Jutland that the latter may be declared almost archaic.

Minna looked up.

“Is this correct?” she asked.

Crosber smiled.

“Read on, Fräulein. It is the next paragraph that you will find especially interesting.”

The woman bent her head again.

(3) Has a famous electrical chemist in the North of England at last found a ray that will short-circuit a magneto?

“Is that what you want me to find out?” she asked.

He smiled at her through the smoke of his cigarette.

“You are to be congratulated on your perception,” Crosber answered. “Yes, that is what we want you to discover. You will be sent to England almost immediately on that mission.”

She tried to point out difficulties.

“But I am no longer so young; I may lose my nerve. It is years since I did any work of this description.”

Crosber, drawing to him a file of papers, negatived her words by a shake of his head.

“Then it is time you got back into harness again. Here,” he said in a voice that cut short any further attempt at argument, “is your complete
dossier
. We took it over from the Wilhelmstrasse people when Kuhnreich (whom God preserve!) saved this once-mighty nation from anarchy by becoming Dictator. From this I learn,” he went on, “that in the last few months of the war you performed a great service for Germany by making the acquaintance of a young Captain Alan Clinton. It may interest you to know, Fräulein,” a sudden glitter coming into his eyes, “that this same Alan Clinton is now Colonel Clinton and occupies a very important position in the British Military Intelligence—M.I.5. According to the statement here,” touching the
dossier
with a thin finger, “many thousands of British lives were lost as the result of his spending a night with you in 1918 at a Paris hotel called the Lion d'Or. Is that correct, Fräulein?”

She did not answer, but the expression on her face was enough for Crosber's purpose.

“You will be provided with sufficient money and credentials. I do not know at the moment when you will be required to cross to London, but it may be at any time during the next two days. You will be given technical documents to peruse, which will explain the matter in more detail, but, as I have another ten minutes to spare, I will myself outline the problems which we wish solved.

“It was during the last few months of the war that a Dutch inventor discovered a ray which, when submitted to laboratory tests, was proved able to stop a motor-car or aeroplane magneto, so long as the magneto was not protected by lead. According to the information we have been able to gather, the inventor, pressed to do what he considered at the time was impossible, abandoned this research in disgust and concentrated his attention in another direction.

“But it was recognised even then by every air authority that it was of the most vital importance that this work should be carried on and developed. For, conceive the situation for yourself; if a way could be found which would put out of action the engine of an aeroplane, then all hostile aircraft—and these are bound to be the deciding factor in any new war—would be rendered powerless.”

The speaker turned to his desk as though suddenly tired.

“Well, that is all,” he said. “You shall hear from me at an early date. But I would warn you, Fräulein,” as the woman stood up, “not to indulge in any foolish misapprehensions of any kind. It will be useless for you to return to the luxurious home of your past few weeks: the house of Ferdor Masalsky has been closed this afternoon by my orders.”

Feeling faint, Minna staggered away.

Chapter II

Youth In Love

In the small drawing-room of the house at the corner of Chesham Place, two people—a woman of forty-five and a girl of twenty—were talking in low tones. 1935 is not a year in which girls of twenty parade their emotions, but Rosemary Allister was very desperately in earnest.

“Are you ashamed of me for talking like this?” she asked.

The woman smiled and patted the girl's arm.

“Ashamed? No, darling; I think it splendid of you to give me your confidence.” She looked at the young, ordinarily radiant face, now ravaged by anxiety, and sighed secretly that the days when a man had talked about her, as this girl was talking about the adopted baby whom she had always regarded as her own son, were over; they had passed her by many, many years before. Alan, her husband, was a dear, but the war had seemed to change him irretrievably, as it had changed so many other men. He had never been quite the same since.…Ah, well, she still had Bobby—although, if this vehement but singularly attractive girl had her way, her adopted son would soon pass into the keeping of some one else.

“You do understand, don't you?” went on the girl. “I've kept this bottled up so long that I really must find some outlet. I'm crazy—just crazy about Bobby, but I don't think he cares a solitary single damn about me.”

Mrs. Clinton professed to be shocked.

“Hush, Rosemary.”

“Well, that's my conviction, and I believe I'm right. Take this present leave, for instance. Why couldn't he let me meet him at the station? And why is he going off abroad, when I had planned so many lovely things to do with him?” Tears threatened in the deep-blue eyes.

Mrs. Clinton tried to pacify her as best she could.

“Sit down, my dear. Bobby will be here any moment now, and he mustn't see you upset.”

The girl allowed herself to be drawn to a chair facing the wide window, but as soon as she was seated she started off on a fresh outburst.

“In spite of your being so decent, I suppose it's all wrong my going on like this—but I can't help it. The thing is getting me down— I can't sleep and I can't eat.…Mrs. Clinton, were you ever in love with some one who”—a suspicion of a sob—“didn't care?”

“Not when I was your age, Rosemary. You see, Alan—my husband—came along before I had had much time.…”

“Lucky for you,” was the comment; “for let me tell you it's just plain hell.”

“Doesn't Bobby write to you, darling?” asked the older woman.

“Oh, he writes—but he'll fill up pages with stuff that bores one stiff; all about his duties, and so on and so forth. Can't you imagine how infuriated that makes me when all the time I want him to—”

Mrs. Clinton, feeling that old enemy of hers—the pain in the spine which had kept her more or less of an invalid for so many years—asserting itself, stooped and kissed the girl's forehead.

“I shouldn't worry, dear,” she said. “I'm quite sure that everything will come out all right. Remember, Bobby is still very young—he's only twenty-four—and at the moment he's so terribly keen on the Army that perhaps everything else has to take a second place.”

“I wouldn't mind being placed second; it's being an also-ran that infuriates me,” replied the girl. “Yes, I know Bobby's young—but that's when we should enjoy each other—later on we shall be too old.”

She did not realise what cruel thrusts she was giving her listener—how was this possible when she was so closely concerned with her own affairs?—and Mrs. Clinton gave no sign of her hurt.

To what an astonishing generation this girl belonged! Its frankness was so disconcerting that one was apt to be appalled by it—at least, at first. Yet, no doubt, it was better so; at any rate, a girl like Rosemary knew what she wanted and was determined to get it if it was at all possible. And Bobby might do a great deal worse, she reflected; this girl belonged to a good family; her father was a prominent banker, and there was money there. In far too many cases nowadays good breeding and wealth did not go together, but she had no doubts concerning Rosemary. The girl was amazingly outspoken, but there could be no question about her being devoted to Bobby. And she was quite old enough to know her own mind: girls of twenty nowadays had developed a remarkable selective capacity, from what she had been able to observe.

Suddenly the girl gave a cry.

“Here he is!” She stood up. “Oh, Bobby!” Mrs. Clinton heard her mutter, and noticed that Rosemary's teeth were pressing tightly against her lower lip.

Standing by her, one hand holding on to the chair back—the pain was very bad now—the older woman watched a young officer, wearing the uniform of the Tank Corps, get out from a taxi, thrust a hand into his pocket and pay the driver off. That the tip had been a liberal one was proved by the man's smiling and touching his hat in a salute.

Mrs. Clinton felt her heart swell. This upstanding, handsome young man, who carried the pride of his calling so well and with so much distinction—could it be possible that he belonged to her? At that moment she forgot her pain; even if the physical agony had increased, she would have ignored it: she didn't wonder that the girl by her side had fallen in love with Bobby—how could any one help admiring him? Even the ridiculous bonnet which the military authorities had ordained that officers in this particular corps should wear did not militate against his appearance. Instead, it gave him a jaunty look which—at least to her mind—was irresistible.

With swimming eyes, she watched Hannah, the old servant who had acted as “Nanny” to the boy when he was a baby, rush out from the front door, throw both her arms around Bobby's neck, and hug him as though her faithful heart would break. Then the young officer looked up, saw them at the window, and waved a gloved hand.

“There you are—all for every one else; nothing for me!” complained Rosemary. “Usually I love old Hannah—but now I feel that I hate her.”

“Hush, darling! He'll be up in a moment.”

Bobby Wingate entered the room in a rush.

“Hullo, Mum!” he exclaimed, throwing his arms around his mother. “How's the poor old back?”

“Oh, it's better, Bobby,” she lied.

As he was in the act of kissing her, his eyes caught the girl.

“Hallo, Rosemary!” he said abstractedly. “You're looking fit.”

“It's more than I feel.”

“Why, what's the matter?”

“Oh, nothing.” She turned away, fiddling with the pages of a magazine.

Mrs. Clinton gently disengaged her boy's arms.

“Now I must rush away to see about things, dear,” she said. “I'll leave you with Rosemary.”

After the door had closed behind her, the boy seemed ill at ease.

“If you would prefer me to clear out—don't be afraid of saying so, Bobby.” She faced him resolutely.

“Rot! Why do you say a thing like that?”

“Why do I say it?” she returned. “Why, my dear, dear fool, because you don't seem to care a damn whether I'm alive or not, and I'm—”

“Rosemary!”

“What is it?”

“Rosemary, look at me. You know that's not true, don't you?”

Her eyes shone, but her voice remained accusing.

“If I weren't certain in my own mind it's true, I shouldn't have said it. Have you given me any reason lately to think otherwise? Take your letters—all about your mouldy duty—and then, what about this leave? I'd planned so many things.…Oh, Bobby! It would be far better for you to tell me straight out that you don't care a damn.”

“But I do care—I care a lot.” His voice was low, but it held a note of pain.

“You do care?”

“Yes.”

“Then why.…?”

“Look here, Rosemary,” he said, taking her hand, “you know I always like to be frank, don't you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I'm going to be frank now. I believe in frankness, because I don't think that there can ever be any question of palship, especially between a man and a woman, unless both are frank with each other. I know your—well, I know how you feel about me; and it makes me very proud.”

“Proud!” she interjected. “I just want you to throw your arms round me, hug me like the devil and kiss me like hell. Proud!”

“Wait a minute,” he cautioned; “just listen to what I've got to say. Oh, don't think I don't want to kiss you, darling.”

“Say that again, Bobby,” she pleaded.

“Say what again?”

“Call me ‘darling' again.”

Her face was so close to his that by reaching out a few inches he could have kissed her mouth. But he kept control of himself for a little while longer.

“I couldn't put this very well in a letter—it would have seemed a sort of cowardly thing to do. I had to tell it to you face to face.”

“Tell me what?”

“That—well, that we'd just better be pals, Rosemary. You see, my dear,” he went on in a voice that carried conviction, “I shall never have anything but my pay—and what's the pay of an Army officer?”

“I've got plenty—or shall have once I'm married.”

He shook his head.

“It wouldn't do, darling. I couldn't live on my wife's money. That's why—well, I haven't been letting myself go in my letters. Oh, my dear, tell me you understand.”

Although only twenty-four, he looked in that moment at least ten years older. His speech was that of a middle-aged man. The girl looked at him resolutely.

“You believe in frankness, don't you, Bobby?”

“Yes—of course.”

“Then be frank with me now. Answer me one question truthfully. Will you promise?”

“Yes, but—”

“Never mind. I've only got one thing to ask you, and that is: Do you love me, Bobby?”

“My dear, I worship you.” The words were out before he could check them.

“Then, you blasted fool, what else matters?”

The next moment they were in each other's arms.

Repentance came ten minutes later.

“I ought not to have done that,” he said, as they sat together on the couch. “I ought not to be kissing you when—”

“When—what?”

“When I shall never be able to ask you to marry me.”

She rippled with laughter.

“Marriage! Oh, that can wait—”

He looked at her queerly.

“The only thing that matters in this wide, wide world, my dear, darling ass, is that you've told me you love me. I'm crazy about you, so—” She sprang up, catching him by the arm. “Oh, Bobby, darling, isn't the world a marvellous place? Now let's talk about your leave.”

His face fell.

“I've got to go abroad, dear.”

“Abroad?”

“Yes—Paris?”

He seemed to be hiding something from her, and her feminine intuition became instantly alert.

“Paris?” she repeated. “Well, that's all right. We ought to have a wonderful time.”

“I can't take you, Rosemary; I've got to go alone.”

“Why?” She flung the question red-hot at him.

“I can't tell you that, darling; I've just got to go alone.”

There was a silence.

“After what you told me just now?”

“Yes. You see—” But he was not allowed to finish.

“I think I see too well,” she said, and flung herself out of the room.