The Traitor (8 page)

Chapter VII

Through the Wall

The manager was profoundly apologetic—but there was the situation.

“I regret it is entirely impossible,” he stated again. “The complete accommodation of the hotel was booked up weeks ago. You should have telegraphed, Herr Wingate. It is the influx of visitors for the Musical Festival, you know.”

Bobby stood, frowning. He had heard so much about the Poste—easily the best hotel in Pé—that he felt reluctant to try elsewhere; and it was while he was standing irresolute that the manager made a suggestion.

“We have a guest-house that belongs to the hotel—it is not more than three hundred yards away—where we accommodate overflow visitors at such times as this. If you will pardon me a moment, I will telephone.”

When the manager returned a couple of minutes later, his face was smiling.

“There is one room vacant. It is an excellent room, and you will be very comfortable. The head porter will take you across himself.”

“Thanks very much.”

The house—which was of the large villa type and evidently a private residence that had been taken over by the hotel management—was spotlessly clean and extremely well furnished; it looked eminently comfortable. Bobby congratulated himself on his good luck, as a valet offered to unpack his bags.

“You needn't trouble.”

The man bowed.

“I am entirely at your service,” he stated.

***

Within the three-quarters of an hour that was left to him after spending the day sight-seeing, Bobby had bathed, shaved, and got into his evening kit. He went down in the lift to find a group of twenty or so men and women drinking cocktails in the large room that served as a lounge. Somewhat to his surprise, the manager of the Poste was there in person, effecting introductions.

Among those to whom Bobby was presented was an extremely personable woman who was introduced as Fräulein Minna Braun. She smiled at Bobby after the manager had left them together.

“As you are on your own, I feel I must take you under my wing, Mr. Wingate. Oh, no,” she went on with a merry laugh, “that isn't nearly such a sacrifice on my part as you might imagine—I was feeling very lonely and was looking for some one with whom I might talk. Shall we go in?” A gong had sounded.

The young British officer found his companion a brilliant conversationalist. This woman was evidently widely travelled and had seen a good deal of life. She left him far behind in her knowledge of men and countries.

“Tell me something about London,” she pleaded, after Bobby had confessed that he had never visited any of the American cities. “I have always loved London—but have not been there for many years. I read the English newspapers, and try to keep track of your most interesting books and plays—but it is not like being on the spot.”

This extremely attractive woman, who looked only a few years older than himself, placed Bobby under something of a spell during the rest of the evening. She seemed so
understandable
. She had the gift of making him feel, not merely at his ease, but as though he were something of a personage! With an artistry that was very deft, she brought him out of his shell to such an extent that he felt himself shining in unaccustomed repartee.

There was some talk, of course, of the Musical Festival, scheduled to begin on the following day; and Bobby, in a burst of confidence, confessed that he scarcely knew one note of music from another. The admission was greeted by a sympathetic smile on the part of his companion.

“If you have nothing better to do, we might play truant together,” she whispered. “You see, I am just as naughty as yourself! I had arranged to take a party of cousins from Echlen to the different performances; but at the last moment they sent me a telegram to say that two of them were ill and so their visit had to be postponed. Not that I am overcome with grief,” she went on, her eyes shining; “they are both heavy in the mind as well as in the body, and I was not looking forward at all to spending a week in their company. Perhaps that sounds very ungracious—but”—sighing—“I have devoted a good deal of time during my life to looking after relations, and I am now glorying in my freedom.”

Bobby was quite frank with himself. If it had not been for Rosemary, back in London, he would have been considerably attracted by this woman. She was
soignée
, she had a sophistication which appealed to him enormously, and the evening sped quickly in her company.

Altogether, the people gathered at this guest-house seemed a very agreeable crowd. They were, in the main, well dressed, and, while one or two struck Bobby as being possible outsiders, the average level was pretty high. Some of them, he gathered from scraps of conversation that he heard around him, occupied quite decent social positions in various provincial towns of Ronstadt. There were two visitors from Holland, three from France, and quite a number from the countries forming the Little Entente.

***

As eleven o'clock struck, Minna Braun pressed the stub of her cigarette into the ash tray and picked up her gold mesh vanity bag.

“Bedtime,” she announced. “No doubt I shall see you in the morning.”

“Of course. And—”

“Yes?” she prompted.

“I was going to thank you for a very jolly evening.”

She made him a mock curtsey.

“But you are too kind,” she replied, smiling into his eyes. “It is I who should be expressing the gratitude. For haven't you kept a tiresome old woman from being bored all night?”

She turned away before he could think of a worthy retort.

Bobby himself went up shortly afterwards. The long train journey, followed by sight-seeing, had been very tiring, and, now that he was left alone, he felt he might fall to sleep at any moment.

The weather had turned cold, although it was only mid-September, and the sight of a fire burning in the old-fashioned hearth was very comforting. He undressed by its cheerful warmth and got into bed.

***

He awoke with something like a start. Some one was making an awful racket—pounding on the door, it sounded like. Had a fire broken out?

He sat up and groped with his right hand for the electric light switch; but the noise, whatever it might have been, ceased directly he recovered consciousness. Had he merely dreamed it?

But, because the shock had been so considerable, he continued to train his ears to listen. And, after twenty seconds or so, he heard something which was unmistakably real: it was the sound of two men talking. Their voices could be distinctly heard, coming from the wall at the back of his bed. Evidently there was a very thin partition between the two rooms.

The first voice was angry.

“What did you want to make such a devil of a row for?—Just as likely as not you woke him up.”

“Not a chance,” returned a second voice, also speaking in English. “If you hadn't kept your door locked, I shouldn't have needed to make any noise at all.”

The other seemed appeased.

“Well,” Bobby heard him declare, “it may be all right, of course. Now, what is it you want to tell me?”

“Just this: that boy in the next room is the adopted son of Colonel Clinton, who's got a big job in M.I.5.”

“British Military Intelligence?” gasped the other.

“Yes.” The affirmation was followed by a short, harsh laugh. “I wonder what the British authorities would say if they knew the truth about Colonel Clinton.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked the first voice, after a pause.

The reply was very confident.

“You can take it from me that I'm telling the truth. It happened seventeen years ago—during the last year of the war, that was—in August, 1918, as a matter of fact. Clinton—he was then just a Captain—was sent over from London with some very special dispatches. The British were going to try out a new gas, among other things. But something went wrong”—again a short, harsh, unpleasant laugh racked the listening boy's ears. “Clinton spent the night with a supposed French girl, named Marie Roget. She was a German decoy. She doped his wine, and a Prussian Secret Service officer named von Ritter was able to get at the dispatches and take photographic copies. As a result, the British got it in the neck and lost five thousand men when they attacked.”

“What happened to Clinton? Wasn't he court-martialled?”

“Nothing happened to him. He swore that no one had got at the dispatches, and he had the support of another English officer named Mallory, an intimate friend, who lied like fury to save him.”

“How do you know all this, Johann?”

“I got it from a waiter named Pierre, who was in the German Secret Service. All this happened at a little hotel called the Lion d'Or, just off the Rue Caumartin.”

“I know it. Well, what does it all amount to? Why wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me something which happened seventeen years ago?”

“Because we are both hard up; and I thought perhaps, if we told the young man in the next room, he might be inclined to fork out a little money. These British officers are very sensitive about their honour, don't forget.”

There was the sound of a yawn.

“Well, I'll think about it. As you say, it might be worth something. But what proof have you got? If we told this story to young Wingate, he'd just laugh in our faces.”

The reply was sinister.

“I can get plenty of proof.”

After that there was the sound of a whispered good-night and then—silence.

Bobby felt as if he had been turned into stone. It simply could not be true. His own governor! And yet, what was it Mallory had said the night he had arrived home from leave? Hadn't Uncle Peter made a jesting reference to some Paris sex exploit of Alan Clinton's when the latter was a young man? Had he had this very incident in mind?

Bobby's thoughts continued to race.

But if Mallory had been referring to this particular affair, he surely wouldn't have joked about it? On the contrary, he wouldn't have mentioned it at all. He couldn't have mentioned it, for the thing was far too horrible—too utterly horrible ever to be raised between two friends.

And Colonel Clinton had served in the trenches for two-and-a-half years on end.

Five thousand lives lost
. The words kept repeating themselves in his brain, hammering out a devil's refrain. And he had been given special dispatches.…

When he got back he'd ask Mallory. He'd put him on his honour. But would he tell the truth? Could he be expected to tell the truth—that was, if the truth was damning? As he had lied seventeen years before, so would he lie now. It wasn't likely that he was going to give his old friend away—more especially to the man's own boy.

Bobby's thoughts took another twist. Who were these men; and why had they had that talk that night? On the surface the answer appeared simple enough: they were a couple of crooks come to Pé to see whom they could pluck among the great crowds gathered for the Musical Festival. And their object, so far as he was concerned, was blackmail.

Blackmail! But that meant money—and he had no money! At least, nothing beyond the few pounds he had brought with him to cover his expenses.

Did this thing go deeper than ordinary crime? Had these men a more dangerous intention than mere crookery?

He suddenly realised that he, a British officer, was in a country which might declare war on England at any moment—and that if hostilities did so swiftly break out, he would be in an extremely awkward position.

The thought came—and persisted: Had that conversation been carefully planned?
Had he, in other words, been meant to listen to it? If so, what was the object?

For the rest of the night Bobby debated the most important question which had ever occupied his attention. Should he do the sensible thing and return to Paris the next day, or should he stay on in the hope of discovering what lay at the back of the plot?

Long before dawn, he had arrived at his decision.

He would stay.

Chapter VIII

Drama

Morning brought merely a strengthening of this resolve. It was foolhardy, perhaps, but he was going to see this thing through. He simply had to get at what was behind the plot—for of the fact that it was a plot, every moment's further thought brought added confirmation.

As he lay in his bath, he endeavoured to piece together the different bits of the puzzle: Seventeen years before, if those men were to be believed, Colonel Clinton had committed an indiscretion which had been attended by disastrous consequences out of all proportion to his offence. Providentially, it had been hushed up, and nothing had been heard of it until—once again, war threatened. Was the governor to be blackmailed in some way? Was he to be threatened now because of his lapse seventeen years before? That was what Bobby had to discover. That was the reason why he had to stay on in Pé instead of doing what the average person, he supposed, would have termed “the sensible thing” and returning to Paris.

***

At twenty-four, risk is the very salt of life, and the thought of possible danger merely gives a tang to existence. Bobby made an excellent breakfast that morning and, when he heard that the manager of the Hotel Poste would like to see him in his private office he sprang up from his chair in the lounge immediately.

The man whose life Dr. Emeric Sandor had said he had saved smiled at the visitor.

“I hope you have been quite comfortable, Herr Wingate?” was his opening question.

“Very, thank you.”

“You slept well?”

“Very well.”

Was this fellow in the plot, too? Of course, it was a completely conventional question for the average hotel manager to ask a guest for whose comfort he had made himself personally responsible; but.…

“I ask because my friend Dr. Sandor has just telephoned. He wished to be remembered to you.”

“Very kind of him.”

The manager hitched his chair closer.

“He asked me to give you a message. He said that his brother-in-law—now, wait a moment,” he broke off to rummage among the papers on his desk. “I have his name here somewhere.…Ah, here it is: Ernst Schroder. Well, as I was saying, Dr. Sandor asked me to say that if you would like to pay a visit to Echlen, his brother-in-law would be very pleased to see you and show you round the works.”

There was an intensity in the last few words which caused Bobby to be on his guard. But the next moment he was completely staggered. The manager, after going to the door and locking it, returned to stand by the young officer's side.

“I place Lieutenant Robert Wingate on his honour,” he said.

Bobby stared at him.

“I don't follow you,” he said. How the deuce did this fellow know who he was?

The man bent forward to whisper.

“I am of the British Intelligence—you can trust me. Dr. Sandor works under my direction; he is a thoroughly reliable agent.”

“Honestly, I haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about.” He had no means of checking this amazing information, and in the circumstances the only thing he could do was to play safe. It was just possible, of course, that the speaker—Aschelmann—was Swiss, and therefore he might be telling the truth; but Wingate was not taking any risks.

The manager smiled.

“In the absence of documentary proof you are wise to be cautious—but if you wish to visit Kluck's works, here is the opportunity.”

“Why should I wish to visit Kluck's works? I am a civilian, and I'm in Pé to attend the Musical Festival.”

The manager shrugged.

“You must please yourself,” he returned. “I have done everything possible for you.”

“You've made me very comfortable, and I'm very grateful,” was the young officer's response. He pondered for a moment whether he should tell of the eavesdropping he had been forced to do during the night, but decided against it; it would involve too much explanation.

Returning to the guest-house, he felt himself in a quandary. If he did not go to Kluck's works at Echlen, he would miss the opportunity of a lifetime—but if he did go, he would be laying himself open to grave suspicion. Suppose the talk he had recently had with the hotel manager was nothing but a snare set to trap him?

He compromised by reminding himself that the big Agricultural Exhibition would have its opening on the next day. Any one was free to visit it, and if he kept his eyes and ears open he would probably be able to pick up almost as much as if he had paid a visit to Echlen, and certainly he would not place himself in anything like the same danger. Running a legitimate risk was one thing, but behaving like a damned fool was another. He assumed the worst for the moment: supposing the hotel manager had lied when he said he was working for the British Intelligence? Then, with his identity known, a visit to the famous Kluck works would give the Ronstadtian authorities every excuse to arrest him on a charge of “attempted espionage.” He recalled, with a fervent sense of thankfulness, that he had not given himself away in any one detail either to the talkative Sandor or the equally loquacious Aschelmann.

He was still in a state of suspense, wondering what exactly he should do, when he heard a woman's laugh.

“Well, are you going to keep to your promise and play truant to-day, Mr. Wingate?”

It was Minna Braun, her face dimpled, the shapely lips drawn back in a smile showing dazzlingly white teeth. She made a supremely attractive picture—a companion, here, whom any man must have delighted to accompany on an adventure, amorous or otherwise.

Bobby responded to her lure. He would not have been true to his age or sex had he not done so.

“You don't really mean to say, Fräulein, that you were serious last night?”

“About playing truant with you?”

He nodded.

“But of course. In the whole of Pé I could not have found a more charming playmate.…The whole day is ours,” she went on quickly; “we will do whatever you like.”

“I'll leave it to you. I know I could not be in better hands.”

“You are very sweet,” Bobby heard her exclaim softly. And then, very unaccountably, she sighed. A shadow crossed her face, which a second before had been so radiant.

Just as quickly her mood changed once again; she became almost boisterously happy.

“Come,” she said, “we will enjoy ourselves—and you shall make me forget, for a few hours at least, that I am an old woman.”

“Old woman!” he returned scoffingly. “That's absurd! I think you're marvellous.”

For the second time the transformation took place in the woman's face. It became drained of colour; a haunted expression showed in the eyes that had been so brilliant, shining with what had seemed high-spirited but innocent mischief. It was as if she were looking at a ghost.

“What's the matter?” asked Bobby, alarmed. “Are you ill?”

She recovered herself quickly.

“No, of course not. I am never ill. I was thinking of my cousins.…Oh, it was nothing—nothing at all,” she ended with a trace of irritability. “Are you ready? If so, we will go.”

***

They had had a wonderful time. Bobby, as he smoked a final pipe before the bedroom fire, decided that he had never more enjoyed a day. Sight-seeing had taken up the morning, then lunch—and what a lunch!—at a little select restaurant which his cicerone stated she had discovered the last time she had come to Pé.

After the coffee and cigarettes—a testing-time for the young officer, who realised that, but for the memory of Rosemary, he would certainly have fallen in love with this extremely fascinating woman of the world—his companion had suggested a cinema.

“I admit I have a craving for films,” she said, with a frankness that appealed to Wingate. “A deplorable taste, perhaps, but”—waving the manicured hand that held the cigarette as though the praise or censure of the world did not bother her in the least—“there it is! How does it appeal to my new—what is it you say in England?—boy friend, is it not?”

“I think it's a very sound scheme—but all your ideas are so good.”

“You are beginning to spoil me,” she protested.

“Then I'm merely in the fashion,” he replied. “I can't imagine any one not spoiling you.”

There must be some reason why this woman had never married, Bobby told himself—and started to speculate on what it might be.

She picked up her fox fur from the adjoining chair and signalled the waiter.

“If I stay here any longer listening to your nice words, I shall end by falling in love with you—and that would never do. The bill, if you please,” she added to the waiter, who had now arrived.

Bobby, confused already by the remarks she had made, became more embarrassed.

“I say, you can't do that, you know—” he expostulated.

“But it is already done. Apart from that man over there—and I had a very good mind to tell him to keep his eyes to himself—no one knows that you have honoured me by taking lunch with me to-day.…Silly boy,” she added, patting his hand. “What use is money except to bring one happiness?”

The words were puzzling. He couldn't understand this woman. Surely, with her attractions of mind and body, she could get any man she liked—and yet, here she was, saying things which…Oh, it was absurd. She couldn't possibly have fallen for him. Yet the emotion he experienced as her hand closed over his for the second time, and she told him that it was her determination to pay the bill, was very agreeable.

They then visited the latest monster cinema to be opened in Pé.

“Can you see?” his companion whispered as they entered. “Let me have your hand.”

So it was that, with her fingers touching his own, Bobby walked down the carpeted aisle and presently sank into a seat at the end of a gangway.

The scent of violets came to him as Minna Braun leaned sideways to whisper: “It is said to be a good film—you will enjoy it.”

Looking back, he realised that he had but the most hazy notion of what the thing was about. In straightening his legs, his knee brushed the dress of his companion; he felt the outline of the woman's thigh. Immediately her fingers pressed his hand.

The story of the film remained unheeded. Why not? he asked himself. If this woman—this marvellously attractive woman—offered herself, as she seemed on the point of doing, why should he refuse such a gift from the gods? Such offerings came but seldom. Young as he was, he knew that. Another man would not have hesitated—he would be a fool if he held back.

***

The temptation he had gone through returned with added ardour as he tapped his pipe out on the bars of the grate and prepared for bed. The very fact that he had kept himself so rigorously under control—it was the thought of Rosemary Allister that had been largely responsible for this in the past—now came as an enemy to attack him.

The woman had been kind—too kind. Apart from what she had actually said, she had promised so much—it seemed, everything—with her eyes, that day. They had smiled at him as she wished him good-night.

“Sleep well—Robert,” she whispered.

Gripped by a temptation infinitely stronger than anything he had ever known before, he turned to the bed. In doing so, his mind did a complete volte-face. He realised, with a sense of something approaching horror, that for the space of nearly twelve hours the thought of the danger and disgrace which threatened to close in on his father had been obliterated from his mind. Fascinated, almost in spite of himself, by Minna Braun, he had forgotten the one vital reason for his decision to stay on in Pé. The knowledge was humiliating and staggering.

The fact sobered him. It caused him to remember that there was a girl in England who still had complete trust in him. True, he could never marry her—it wouldn't be fair, as he had already done his best to explain—but, all the same, he couldn't let her down. He wasn't a prig, but Rosemary
believed
in him.

Sleep would not come. He tried to banish from his thoughts the woman with whom he had spent the day, but the face of Minna Braun would not be dismissed; her personality had taken too strong a hold on him.

He tried strenuously, and then desperately, to switch his thoughts. His first duty was to his governor: everything came back to that. He must, by some means or other, get to the bottom of the plot, which perhaps by this time had developed another stage. He ought, he supposed (his mind a jumble of conflict now) to have tried to get into touch with Colonel Clinton the first thing that morning. Yes, that was what he should have done, instead of wasting a whole precious day gallivanting about with a woman. He could have telephoned or telegraphed. There would have been no need to tell the whole story: just a hint that a blackmail plot of some kind was being prepared against him in Pé, and that these two men, who claimed to know a certain Marie Roget, were in it, would have been sufficient. The governor would have known what to do—he could trust him for that.

But now, perhaps, it was too late. Practically twenty-four hours had passed—and how much might not be done by unscrupulous enemies within twenty-four hours!

***

He continued to toss from side to side.

Half-expecting and yet half-dreading it, he waited to hear another talk between the two men in the adjoining room. But no sound came; there was only silence on the other side of the wall.

Had he turned his eyes towards the ceiling, however, he might—had he been quick enough—have observed a face peering down at him.

As it was, he waited for—he scarcely knew what: his usually reliable nerves were at full stretch; the slightest further call and he felt they would snap.

And, presently, they did snap: with a bound he was out of bed and rushing across the room! Some one was outside his door, clamouring to get in—some one whose voice was shaking with terror. And that some one, unless all his faculties had played him false, was Minna Braun.