Wallace at Bay (14 page)

He awoke suddenly in the early hours of the morning; sat up with all his faculties about him and his revolver in his hand. He did not know what had disturbed him, but it seemed to him that there had been a hand under his pillow. He must have dreamt it, of course; there was not a sound in the room, and his ears were keenly attuned to anything out of the ordinary. If there had been anybody besides himself there, he would have heard breathing, however suppressed. No extraneous sounds disturbed the almost deadly silence. It was unfortunate that there was no electric light switch by the bed. There was one by the door, that was all. To reach it he would be compelled to cross the room, but there was no knowing what trap might await such a venture. After sitting perfectly quietly for some minutes, he decided to risk it. With a sudden bound he was out of bed, had darted across the room. His fingers found the switch, and the light blazed on. The little apartment was empty except for himself. He noticed, however, that the door was ajar; he felt quite certain he had closed it firmly before going to bed. Perhaps the latch did not catch very well. He tried it; found it to fasten perfectly. After that he no longer had any doubt. Someone had attempted to enter, and the opening of the door had awakened him. Without bothering to put on his coat or slippers he went out into the tiny hall bent on investigating. The door of Bresov’s room was tightly closed, he could hear the sound of regular breathing coming from within. The remainder of the flat revealed no sign of any intruder and the entrance door was fast closed.

Considerably puzzled, Carter returned to his room, took care to shut himself in, and sat on the bed in deep cogitation. The would-be intruder must have been the Slav; it could have
been no other. What could he have wanted? Were the anarchists still doubtful of him, and had instructed Bresov to search his belongings? Or had the fellow intended to search on his own account, bent, perhaps, on a little pilfering? Naturally enough Carter was unable to answer the questions he put to himself. He turned out the light, and got into bed, but not to sleep. He spent the rest of the night lying awake, his hand never far from his revolver. In the morning he resolved on complete frankness. Over their coffee with Schlagobers and delightfully hot rolls, he confided in his host. Bresov merely laughed.

‘It is the latch of the door that disturbed you,’ he returned. ‘It does not fasten well. I have slept there, and have also been disturbed. It opens sometimes with the noise like a pistol shot.’

Carter was not convinced, however. He had ascertained that the latch did fasten well. He went out for an hour alone that morning, found his way on to the Floridsdorf Bridge. From that vantage point he had a wonderful view. The early morning sunshine touched the roofs of Vienna, over which towered the spire of St Stephen’s Cathedral, with a glint of gold. The Danube itself, for once in a way, was earning the reputation conferred on it by Strauss’s immortal waltz. As a rule it is a greyish green touched in places by a suspicion of ochre. That morning it was a genuine blue.

At noon precisely Ivan Modjeska arrived in a large saloon car into which he invited Carter to step. Bresov was not asked, but was apparently expected to accompany them. He entered the car after the Englishman, and sat himself on one side of him; Modjeska was on the other. Carter, for a moment, experienced the peculiar feeling that he was a prisoner, but smiled to himself at the absurdity of the idea. Modjeska chatted with great animation during the journey, though he volunteered no information regarding their destination. Carter knew Vienna very well, however, and was not at a loss. The car ran through the suburb of Dornbach, on the fringe of the Wiener Wald, and, turning through a wide gateway, the posts of which were surmounted by bronze lions, passed along a well-kept avenue until it reached a large mansion. It stopped before the ornate portico. Modjeska stepped to the ground, inviting Carter to follow. In response to the Pole’s ring, the huge entrance door was opened
by a wizened little man, who glanced keenly at the Englishman from beneath a pair of remarkably shaggy eyebrows. He muttered something to Modjeska which Carter did not catch, and stood aside to allow them to enter.

The Secret Service agent found himself in a magnificent baroque hall adorned with hundreds of the short, sharply curved horns of the chamois. Whatever it had become, the mansion had obviously once been owned by a great sportsman. Carter could not imagine an anarchist with the sporting instinct, skill in mountaineering and other attributes which mark chamois stalking as one of the most trying and difficult of sports. He was conducted to a small chamber, bare except for a table, two chairs and a rug.

‘You vill please remain here,’ remarked Modjeska. ‘Soon you vill meet the Council of Ten. Refreshment vill be brought to you.’

‘How long will it be before the committee interview me?’ asked Carter.

For some reason which he could not define, he had begun to feel a trifle uneasy. The sight of Bresov’s swarthy face looking at him over Modjeska’s shoulder, his lips curled in a sneering smile, did nothing to reassure him.

‘You vill not be keep long,’ the Pole declared. ‘Perhaps half an hour it vill be, not long more.’

He and Bresov departed, closing the door behind them. Carter glanced round the little room; discovered that on the outside of the closed window were strong-looking iron bars. There was nothing very strange in that, he decided. If the house were in reality the headquarters of the anarchist organisation it was only natural that precautions should have been taken to keep out possible intruders. But iron bars, he reflected grimly, were more often placed on windows to keep people in.

Over an hour went by before he received the summons he was expecting. Bresov came for him. He was conducted up a broad flight of polished, uncarpeted stairs leading from the hall to a gallery above adjoining a corridor that, as far as he was able to judge, ran the whole length of the building. This was punctuated at various intervals by numerous closed doors. A little way along they passed the foot of another staircase leading to the second and, as Carter guessed from the view he had obtained of the exterior of the house, the top floor. The guide stopped outside a door not far from this flight, threw it open, and invited the Englishman to enter. The latter promptly obeyed. He found himself in a large, panelled apartment lighted by two great windows that extended almost from floor to ceiling. In the centre was a long, beautifully carved oak table and, at this, were seated several men, their backs to the light. A solitary, high-backed chair was placed on his side of the table, and Carter gathered that it was there for him. He would be facing the light. Two or three other men – fierce-looking scoundrels he thought them – stood close to the door. All regarded him with great interest as he entered. A remarkably small individual, appearing like a child in the great chair in the centre, waved to him to be seated. Carter felt a chill as he looked at him. He was completely bald; there was not a vestige of hair on his head or face. The latter was of the colour, and seemed to be of the texture, of old parchment. His eyes were mere slits beneath drooping eyelids and were rendered more repulsive by the absence of eyebrows. His nose was thin, and resembled the beak of a hawk, his mouth was merely a slash in his face practically devoid of lips. Four men flanked this grotesque-looking creature on both sides, Modjeska sitting at one end of the table. They were a motley collection, appearing, from their physiognomy and colouring, to comprise several races. Carter took the chair indicated and glanced
from one to another with a good deal of curiosity. Two or three were, he guessed, natives of Balkan countries, a couple looked like Russians, Modjeska he knew to be a Pole, Grote a German. It was impossible to conjecture the nationality of the man who appeared to be president of this flagitious committee. He might have been anything – he looked as though he had sprung from a grotesque world peopled by creatures the existence of which had been hitherto unsuspected on this globe. Somehow Carter felt glad to note that, as far as he was able to judge, none of the men in that room was of Austrian blood. They were a cruel, ruthless-looking lot, appearing, in fact, to be exactly what they were – assassins. The president commenced to speak.

‘Your name is Carter?’ he asked in a cracked, metallic kind of voice, but in excellent English.

‘It is,’ returned the Englishman.

‘Can you speak German or French? Some of my colleagues are not acquainted with your tongue.’

‘I am afraid I can’t.’ Something that might have been a sneer flitted momentarily across the otherwise expressionless face, and Carter was puzzled.

‘Very well,’ went on the hairless man, ‘we will continue in English. It is your desire to become a member of our society, is it not so?’

‘Yes.’

‘Our friend Ivan Modjeska was impressed by the sentiments you expressed in his hearing. It was necessary that we have an agent in London. He thought that you were exactly the right type and, because of that, he cultivated you. Before an appointment of a nature so important could be made the approval of the Council of Ten was essential. You were therefore told that you must appear
here. Well here you are, Herr Carter.’ The monotonous, harsh voice ceased for a moment. Without knowing exactly why, the Englishman felt his uneasiness return. All eyes were on him, and in none of them was there any friendliness; on the contrary, most of them seemed to contain distinctly inimical expressions. ‘Yes, you are here,’ went on the spokesman, and now there was a threatening note underlying his utterance,
‘and here you will remain.’

There came some guttural sounds denoting approval from two or three of the others. Carter knew then that he was in a trap, and a feeling of apprehension and deep mortification filled him. How could he possibly have been found out? There did not seem any doubt that he was known to have been playing a part. His face showed nothing of his inner feelings. He looked very much surprised, that was all, having summoned the appropriate expression in the hope that he was mistaken in his supposition; that the president meant he was to be given a job in Vienna.

‘What do you mean?’ he demanded. ‘I thought I was to be appointed agent in England. What can I do here? I do not know the language, and––’

‘You can die here,’ came the staccato reply. ‘That is what you are about to do.’

Carter started to his feet with a well-simulated cry of fear and astonishment.

‘Die!’ he repeated. ‘What do you mean? Why should I die?’

‘Because you are a menace. Sit down, Herr Carter, and let us cast aside pretence. You are not a communist, we know it. You are an official of the secret police of Great Britain.’

So they knew everything! But Carter smiled ironically.

‘You must be crazy,’ he retorted. ‘How on earth did you get such mad ideas into your head?’ He turned, and looked at Modjeska.
‘You know me, Mr Modjeska,’ he went on; ‘tell him that he is making a fool of himself.’

‘Almost you make vone fool of me,’ hissed the Pole, his eyes glaring weirdly from behind his pince-nez at the Englishman. ‘In time I find out who you are, but bring you vith me and Herr Grote from England for purpose vich our leader, the great Ulyanov, vill tell you.’

‘I will tell him very soon,’ declared the president. ‘First, I think, since he is trying to continue the pretence, we will explain how it was discovered who he really is. Ivan Modjeska,’ he continued to Carter, ‘is a very clever man in many ways, but he is impetuous – that, I think, is the correct word. He also has unbounded confidence in his ability to judge the characters of other men.’ Modjeska grunted a little; shifted in his chair uneasily. ‘You, no doubt, acted cleverly, Herr Carter, and you deceived Ivan so well that he even sent a telegraph message to us that he had discovered a most excellent substitute for the dead Luigi Casaroli, and would bring him to us for our approval. He impressed Herr Grote also, but Herr Grote was a little more cautious. He suggested that you should be watched.’ He turned to the German who was sitting three places away on his right. ‘Herr Grote,’ he invited, ‘perhaps you will continue the story in order that this young man may be convinced that it is useless for him to continue any longer the deception.’

Grote’s little piglike eyes glittered, his loose mouth was twisted into an ugly smile.

‘You desired to worm your way into our secrets,’ he began, ‘and, as we say in America, you nearly got away with it. You will be surprised to know that we first obtained our real suspicions of you from the statement Ivan Modjeska took from that fool Carberry.’
Carter started despite himself. ‘Ah! I thought that would astonish you. Towards the end of it he wrote that that afternoon he had entered your room with the purpose of finding evidence against you. He had found nothing of importance, or so he said, except a writing pad. The blotting paper attached was examined with the help of a looking glass – he thought on it he might have found something which would give a clue to your revolutionary activities.’ Grote laughed harshly, then went on: ‘There was nothing legible, he wrote, except two lines at the very bottom of the blotting paper. They puzzled him, and he only noted them in his statement because he thought they contained a double meaning, and would be understood by the authorities, if his document ever reached their hands. He cut off the narrow strip of the blotting paper on which were the lines in question, with a pair of nail scissors, in order that you would not notice anything wrong. That strip was pinned to his statement. Would you like to know what it contained?’

Carter was feeling deeply chagrined and mortified. His carelessness over the blotting paper had, after all, proved a fatal oversight; the blunder had ruined Sir Leonard Wallace’s great scheme. At that moment the young man felt bitterly ashamed – he thought he would have eagerly welcomed the death with which he had been threatened. He continued to control his features, however.

‘Yes,’ he replied carelessly to Grote’s question; ‘it would be interesting perhaps.’

‘It was most interesting to Ivan Modjeska and me. There were eleven words without beginning or end. Some of the letters were not legible, as is usual on blotting paper, but there were not enough missing to confuse us. The words were: “comes of my conversation with Modjeska tonight, will telephone headquarters in—” You will
understand that though they puzzled Julius Carberry they were more easily understood by us. We sat until the very early hours of the morning discussing the matter, and we at last decided to carry out our programme with the only alteration that Modjeska and I would remain to watch you instead of leaving that night for Havre. It occurred to us also, that, if indeed you were a spy, you would not be of the ordinary police, as it was clear to us then that your intention was to accompany us to Vienna in the hope of discovering the headquarters of our organisation. We knew of the existence of the British Secret Service controlled by a man who is world famous – I refer to Sir Leonard Wallace, of course – and we concluded you were of that service. It was when we had reached that inference that Ivan Modjeska had a clever idea. “How is it,” he asked, “that Carter knew anything of me to come to this hotel? There can be only one solution: he was at the raid on the house in Shirland Road, and there my name and residence were mentioned, or he found something with them on.” I pointed out that a colleague of yours might have obtained the information, and you have been instructed to act on it. Modjeska, in any case, decided to go to Shirland Road, find the ice cream vendor, who lives in the basement of the house, and persuade him to return with him to the Canute Hotel. There was a possibility you see, Herr Carter, that, if you had been present on the night of the raid, he might have seen you and would recognise you again. In that case we would be convinced of your identity.

‘At breakfast that morning we were a trifle anxious when the officials arrived to investigate the death of Carberry, I must admit. You English have peculiar ideas about death and there was a possibility that, through perhaps a revulsion of feeling, you would make a statement which, though it could not have proved anything
against Ivan Modjeska, might have had consequences which would have been – shall I say? – distinctly awkward. However, you said nothing. Your attitude, in fact, almost persuaded us that, after all, you were what you pretended to be, but the two blotted lines were too damning evidence against you. Modjeska had a word or two with you to find out how you reacted to that very convenient death of the fool Carberry, who chose to try blackmail on a man with the most dangerous gift in the world—’

Suddenly Carter swung round in his seat and pointed an accusing finger at the Pole.

‘You murdered him in about the foulest manner possible, Ivan Modjeska,’ he cried. ‘Whether I am a communist or not, I’ll take care you hang for it one day.’

‘Ve vill see,’ sneered the other. ‘You forget that soon you vill be dead vith yourself. And first,’ he added leaning forward and speaking with intense ferocity, ‘it vill give me mooch great pleasure to make you suffer for that you make me valk all over London.’