The Secret of Chimneys
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Bill looked up at the face that was laughing down on him, and which was always inclined to reduce him–and not him alone–to a state of babbling incoherency. He took the stairs two at a time and clasped Virginia Revel’s outstretched hands tightly in his.
‘Hullo, Virginia!’
‘Hullo, Bill!’
Charm is a very peculiar thing; hundreds of young women, some of them more beautiful than Virginia Revel, might have said ‘Hullo, Bill,’ with exactly the same intonation, and yet have produced no effect whatever. But those two simple words, uttered by Virginia, had the most intoxicating effect upon Bill.
Virginia Revel was just twenty-seven. She was tall and of an exquisite slimness–indeed, a poem might have been written to her slimness, it was so exquisitely proportioned. Her hair was of real bronze, with the greenish tint in its gold; she had a determined little chin, a lovely nose, slanting blue eyes that showed a gleam of deepest cornflower between the half-closed lids, and a delicious and quite indescribable mouth that tilted ever so slightly at one corner in what is known as ‘the signature of Venus’. It was a wonderfully expressive face, and there was a sort of radiant vitality about her that always challenged attention. It would have been quite impossible ever to ignore Virginia Revel.
She drew Bill into the small drawing-room which was all pale mauve and green and yellow, like crocuses surprised in a meadow.
‘Bill, darling,’ said Virginia, ‘isn’t the Foreign Office missing you? I thought they couldn’t get on without you.’
‘I’ve brought a message for you from Codders.’
Thus irreverently did Bill allude to his chief.
‘And by the way, Virginia, in case he asks, remember that your telephone was out of order this morning.’
‘But it hasn’t been.’
‘I know that. But I said it was.’
‘Why? Enlighten me as to this Foreign Office touch.’ Bill threw her a reproachful glance.
‘So that I could get here and see you, of course.’
‘Oh, darling Bill, how dense of me! And how perfectly sweet of you!’
‘Chilvers said you were going out.’
‘So I was–to Sloane Street. There’s a place there where they’ve got a perfectly wonderful new hip band.’
‘A hip band?’
‘Yes, Bill, H-I-P hip, B-A-N-D band. A band to confine the hips. You wear it next the skin.’
‘I blush for you Virginia. You shouldn’t describe your underwear to a young man to whom you are not related. It isn’t delicate.’
‘But, Bill dear, there’s nothing indelicate about hips. We’ve all got hips–although we poor women are trying awfully hard to pretend we haven’t. This hip band is made of red rubber and comes to just above the knees, and it’s simply impossible to walk in it.’
‘How awful!’ said Bill. ‘Why do you do it?’
‘Oh, because it gives one such a noble feeling to suffer for one’s silhouette. But don’t let’s talk about my hip band. Give me George’s message.’
‘He wants to know whether you’ll be in at four o’clock this afternoon.’
‘I shan’t. I shall be at Ranelagh. Why this sort of formal call? Is he going to propose to me, do you think?’
‘I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Because, if so, you can tell him that I much prefer men who propose on impulse.’
‘Like me?’
‘It’s not an impulse with you, Bill. It’s habit.’
‘Virginia, won’t you ever–’
‘No, no, no, Bill. I won’t have it in the morning before lunch. Do try and think of me as a nice motherly person approaching middle age who has your interests thoroughly at heart.’
‘Virginia, I do love you so.’
‘I know, Bill, I know. And I simply love being loved. Isn’t it wicked and dreadful of me? I should like every nice man in the world to be in love with me.’
‘Most of them are, I expect,’ said Bill gloomily.
‘But I hope George isn’t in love with me. I don’t think he can be. He’s so wedded to his career. What else did he say?’
‘Just that it was very important.’
‘Bill, I’m getting intrigued. The things that George thinks important are so awfully limited. I think I must chuck Ranelagh. After all, I can go to Ranelagh any day. Tell George that I shall be awaiting him meekly at four o’clock.’
Bill looked at his wristwatch.
‘It seems hardly worthwhile to go back before lunch. Come out and chew something, Virginia.’
‘I’m going out to lunch somewhere or other.’
‘That doesn’t matter. Make a day of it, and chuck everything all round.’
‘It would be rather nice,’ said Virginia, smiling at him.
‘Virginia, you’re a darling. Tell me, you do like me rather, don’t you? Better than other people.’
‘Bill, I adore you. If I had to marry someone–simply had to–I mean if it was in a book and a wicked mandarin said to me, “Marry someone or die by slow torture,” I should choose you at once–I should indeed. I should say, “Give me little Bill”.’
‘Well, then–’
‘Yes, but I haven’t got to marry anyone. I love being a wicked widow.’
‘You could do all the same things still. Go about, and all that. You’d hardly notice me about the house.’
‘Bill, you don’t understand. I’m the kind of person who marries enthusiastically if they marry at all.’
Bill gave a hollow groan.
‘I shall shoot myself one of these days, I expect,’ he murmured gloomily.
‘No, you won’t, Bill darling. You’ll take a pretty girl out to supper–like you did the night before last.’
Mr Eversleigh was momentarily confused.
‘If you mean Dorothy Kirkpatrick, the girl who’s in Hooks and Eyes, I–well, dash it all, she’s a thoroughly nice girl, straight as they make ’em. There was no harm in it.’
‘Bill darling, of course there wasn’t. I love you to enjoy yourself. But don’t pretend to be dying of a broken heart, that’s all.’
Mr Eversleigh recovered his dignity.
‘You don’t understand at all, Virginia,’ he said severely. ‘Men–’
‘Are polygamous! I know they are. Sometimes I have a shrewd suspicion that I am polyandrous. If you really love me, Bill, take me out to lunch quickly.’
Chapter 5
First Night in London
There is often a flaw in the best-laid plans. George Lomax had made one mistake–there was a weak spot in his preparations. The weak spot was Bill.
Bill Eversleigh was an extremely nice lad. He was a good cricketer and a scratch golfer, he had pleasant manners, and an amiable disposition, but his position in the Foreign Office had been gained, not by brains, but by good connexions. For the work he had to do he was quite suitable. He was more or less George’s dog. He did no responsible or brainy work. His part was to be constantly at George’s elbow, to interview unimportant people whom George didn’t want to see, to run errands, and generally to make himself useful. All this Bill carried out faithfully enough. When George was absent, Bill stretched himself out in the biggest chair and read the sporting news, and in so doing he was merely carrying out a time-honoured tradition.
Being accustomed to send Bill on errands, George had dispatched him to the Union Castle offices to find out when the Granarth Castle was due in. Now, in common with most well-educated young Englishmen, Bill had a pleasant but quite inaudible voice. Any elocution master would have found fault with his pronunciation of the word Granarth. It might have been anything. The clerk took it to be Carnfrae.
The Carnfrae Castle was due in on the following Thursday. He said so. Bill thanked him and went out. George Lomax accepted the information and laid his plans accordingly. He knew nothing about Union Castle liners, and took it for granted that James McGrath would duly arrive on Thursday.
Therefore, at the moment he was buttonholing Lord Caterham on the steps of the club on Wednesday morning, he would have been greatly surprised to learn that the Granarth Castle had docked at Southampton the preceding afternoon. At two o’clock that afternoon Anthony Cade, travelling under the name of Jimmy McGrath, stepped out of the boat train at Waterloo, hailed a taxi, and after a moment’s hesitation, ordered the driver to proceed to the Blitz Hotel.
‘One might as well be comfortable,’ said Anthony to himself as he looked with some interest out of the taxi windows.
It was exactly fourteen years since he had been in London.
He arrived at the hotel, booked a room, and then went for a short stroll along the Embankment. It was rather pleasant to be back in London again. Everything was changed of course. There had been a little restaurant there–just past Blackfriars Bridge–where he had dined fairly often, in company with other earnest lads. He had been a Socialist then, and worn a flowing red tie. Young–very young.
He retraced his steps back to the Blitz. Just as he was crossing the road, a man jostled against him, nearly making him lose his balance. They both recovered themselves, and the man muttered an apology, his eyes scanning Anthony’s face narrowly. He was a short, thick-set man of the working classes, with something foreign in his appearance.
Anthony went on into the hotel, wondering, as he did so, what had inspired that searching glance. Nothing in it probably. The deep tan of his face was somewhat unusual looking amongst these pallid Londoners and it had attracted the fellow’s attention. He went up to his room and, led by a sudden impulse, crossed to the looking-glass and stood studying his face in it. Of the few friends of the old days–just a chosen few–was it likely that any of them would recognize him now if they were to meet him face to face? He shook his head slowly.
When he had left London he had been just eighteen–a fair, slightly chubby boy, with a misleadingly seraphic expression. Small chance that that boy would be recognized in the lean, brown-faced man with the quizzical expression.
The telephone beside the bed rang, and Anthony crossed to the receiver.
‘Hullo!’
The voice of the desk clerk answered him.
‘Mr James McGrath?’
‘Speaking.’
‘A gentleman has called to see you.’
Anthony was rather astonished.
‘To see me?’
‘Yes, sir, a foreign gentleman.’
‘What’s his name?’
There was a slight pause, and then the clerk said:
‘I will send up a page-boy with his card.’
Anthony replaced the receiver and waited. In a few minutes there was a knock on the door and a small page appeared bearing a card upon a salver.
Anthony took it. The following was the name engraved upon it.
Baron Lolopretjzyl
He now fully appreciated the desk clerk’s pause.
For a moment or two he stood studying the card, and then made up his mind.
‘Show the gentleman up.’
‘Very good, sir.’
In a few minutes the Baron Lolopretjzyl was ushered into the room, a big man with an immense fan-like black beard and a high, bald forehead.
He brought his heels together with a click, and bowed.
‘Mr McGrath,’ he said.
Anthony imitated his movements as nearly as possible.
‘Baron,’ he said. Then, drawing forward a chair, ‘Pray sit down. I have not, I think had the pleasure of meeting you before?’
‘That is so,’ agreed the Baron, seating himself. ‘It is my misfortune,’ he added politely.
‘And mine also,’ responded Anthony, on the same note.
‘Let us now to business come,’ said the Baron. ‘I represent in London the Loyalist party of Herzoslovakia.’
‘And represent it admirably, I am sure,’ murmured Anthony.
The Baron bowed in acknowledgement of the compliment.
‘You are too kind,’ he said stiffly. ‘Mr McGrath, I will not from you conceal anything. The moment has come for the restoration of the monarchy, in abeyance since the martyrdom of His Most Gracious Majesty King Nicholas IV of blessed memory.’
‘Amen,’ murmured Anthony. ‘I mean hear, hear.’
‘On the throne will be placed His Highness Prince Michael, who the support of the British Government has.’
‘Splendid,’ said Anthony. ‘It’s very kind of you to tell me all this.’
‘Everything arranged is–when you come here to trouble make.’
The Baron fixed him with a stern eye.
‘My dear Baron,’ protested Anthony.
‘Yes, yes, I know what I am talking about. You have with you the memoirs of the late Count Stylptitch.’
He fixed Anthony with an accusing eye.
‘And if I have? What have the memoirs of Count Stylptitch to do with Prince Michael?’
‘They will cause scandals.’
‘Most memoirs do that,’ said Anthony soothingly.
‘Of many secrets he the knowledge had. Should he reveal but the quarter of them, Europe into war plunged may be.’
‘Come, come,’ said Anthony. ‘It can’t be as bad as all that.’
‘An unfavourable opinion of the Obolovitch will abroad be spread. So democratic is the English spirit.’
‘I can quite believe,’ said Anthony, ‘that the Obolovitch may have been a trifle high-handed now and again. It runs in the blood. But people in England expect that sort of thing from the Balkans. I don’t know why they should, but they do.’
‘You do not understand,’ said the Baron. ‘You do not understand at all. And my lips sealed are.’ He sighed.
‘What exactly are you afraid of?’ asked Anthony.
‘Until I have read the memoirs I do not know,’ explained the Baron simply. ‘But there is sure to be something. These great diplomats are always indiscreet. The apple-cart upset will be, as the saying goes.’
‘Look here,’ said Anthony kindly. ‘I’m sure you’re taking altogether too pessimistic a view of the thing. I know all about publishers–they sit on manuscripts and hatch ’em like eggs. It will be at least a year before the thing is published.’
‘Either a very deceitful or a very simple young man you are. All is arranged for the memoirs in a Sunday newspaper to come out immediately.
‘Oh!’ Anthony was somewhat taken aback. ‘But you can always deny everything,’ he said hopefully.
The Baron shook his head sadly.
‘No, no, through the hat you talk. Let us to business come. One thousand pounds you are to have, is it not so? You see, I have the good information got.’
‘I certainly congratulate the Intelligence Department of the Loyalists.’
‘Then I to you offer fifteen hundred.’
‘Anthony stared at him in amazement, then shook his head ruefully.
‘I’m afraid it can’t be done,’ he said, with regret.
‘Good. I to you offer two thousand.’
‘You tempt me, Baron, you tempt me. But I still say it can’t be done.’
‘Your own price name, then.’
‘I’m afraid you don’t understand the position. I’m perfectly willing to believe that you are on the side of the angels, and that these memoirs may damage your cause. Nevertheless, I’ve undertaken the job, and I’ve got to carry it through. See? I can’t allow myself to be bought off by the other side. That kind of thing isn’t done.’
The Baron listened very attentively. At the end of Anthony’s speech he nodded his head several times.
‘I see. Your honour as an Englishman it is?’
‘Well, we don’t put it that way ourselves,’ said Anthony. ‘But I dare say, allowing for a difference in vocabulary, that we both mean much the same thing.’
The Baron rose to his feet.
‘For the English honour I much respect have,’ he announced. ‘We must another way try. I wish you good morning.’
He drew his heels together, clicked, bowed and marched out of the room, holding himself stiffly erect.
‘Now I wonder what he meant by that,’ mused Anthony. ‘Was it a threat? Not that I’m in the least afraid of old Lollipop. Rather a good name for him, that, by the way. I shall call him Baron Lollipop.’
He took a turn or two up and down the room, undecided on his next course of action. The date stipulated upon for delivering the manuscript was a little over a week ahead. Today was the 5th of October. Anthony had no intention of handing it over before the last moment. Truth to tell, he was by now feverishly anxious to read these memoirs. He had meant to do so on the boat coming over, but had been laid low with a touch of fever, and not at all in the mood for deciphering crabbed and illegible handwriting, for none of the manuscript was typed. He was now more than ever determined to see what all the fuss was about.
There was the other job too.
On an impulse, he picked up the telephone book and looked up the name of Revel. There were six Revels in the book: Edward Henry Revel, surgeon, of Harley Street; and James Revel and Co, saddlers; Lennox Revel of Abbotbury Mansions, Hampstead; Miss Mary Revel with an address in Ealing; Hon Mrs Timothy Revel of 487 Pont Street; and Mrs Willis Revel of 42 Cadogan Square. Eliminating the saddlers and Miss Mary Revel, that gave him four names to investigate–and there was no reason to suppose that the lady lived in London at all! He shut up the book with a short shake of the head.
‘For the moment I’ll leave it to chance,’ he said. ‘Something usually turns up.’
The luck of the Anthony Cades of this world is perhaps in some measure due to their own belief in it. Anthony found what he was after not half an hour later, when he was turning over the pages of an illustrated paper. It was a representation of some tableaux organized by the Duchess of Perth. Below the central figure, a woman in Eastern dress, was the inscription:
The Hon Mrs Timothy Revel as Cleopatra. Before her marriage, Mrs Revel was the Hon Virginia Cawthron, a daughter of Lord Edgbaston.
Anthony looked at the picture some time, slowly pursing up his lips as though to whistle. Then he tore out the whole page, folded it up and put it in his pocket. He went upstairs again, unlocked his suitcase and took out the packet of letters. He took out the folded page from his pocket and slipped it under the string that held them together.
Then at a sudden sound behind him, he wheeled round sharply. A man was standing in the doorway, the kind of man whom Anthony had fondly imagined existed only in the chorus of a comic opera. A sinister-looking figure, with a squat brutal head and lips drawn back in an evil grin.
‘What the devil are you doing here?’ asked Anthony. ‘And who let you come up?’
‘I pass where I please,’ said the stranger. His voice was guttural and foreign, though his English was idiomatic enough.
‘Another dago,’ thought Anthony.
‘Well, get out, do you hear?’ he went on aloud.
The man’s eyes were fixed on the packet of letters which Anthony had caught up.
‘I will get out when you have given me what I have come for.’
‘And what’s that, may I ask?’
The man took a step nearer.
‘The memoirs of Count Stylptitch,’ he hissed.
‘It’s impossible to take you seriously,’ said Anthony. ‘You’re so completely the stage villain. I like your getup very much. Who sent you here? Baron Lollipop?’
‘Baron?–’ The man jerked out a string of harsh sounding consonants.
‘So that’s how you pronounce it, is it? A cross between gargling and barking like a dog. I don’t think I could say it myself–my throat’s not made that way. I shall have to go on calling him Lollipop. So he sent you, did he?’
But he received a vehement negative. His visitor went so far as to spit upon the suggestion in a very realistic manner. Then he drew from his pocket a sheet of paper which he threw upon the table.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘Look and tremble, accursed Englishman.’
Anthony looked with some interest, not troubling to fulfil the latter part of the command. On the paper was traced the crude design of a human hand in red.
‘It looks like a hand,’ he remarked. ‘But, if you say so, I’m quite prepared to admit that it’s a Cubist picture of Sunset at the North Pole.’
‘It is the sign of the Comrades of the Red Hand. I am a Comrade of the Red Hand.’
‘You don’t say so,’ said Anthony, looking at him with much interest. ‘Are the others all like you? I don’t know what the Eugenic Society would have to say about it.’
The man snarled angrily.
‘Dog,’ he said. ‘Worse than dog. Paid slave of an effete monarchy. Give me the memoirs, and you shall go unscathed. Such is the clemency of the Brotherhood.’
‘It’s very kind of them, I’m sure,’ said Anthony, ‘but I’m afraid that both they and you are labouring under a misapprehension. My instructions are to deliver the manuscript–not to your amiable society, but to a certain firm of publishers.’
‘Pah!’ laughed the other. ‘Do you think you will ever be permitted to reach that office alive? Enough of this fool’s talk. Hand over the papers, or I shoot.’
He drew a revolver from his pocket and brandished it in the air.
But there he misjudged his Anthony Cade. He was not used to men who could act as quickly–or quicker than they could think. Anthony did not wait to be covered by the revolver. Almost as soon as the other got it out of his pocket, Anthony had sprung forward and knocked it out of his hand. The force of the blow sent the man swinging round, so that he presented his back to his assailant.
The chance was too good to be missed. With one mighty, well-directed kick, Anthony sent the man flying through the doorway into the corridor, where he collapsed in a heap.
Anthony stepped out after him, but the doughty Comrade of the Red Hand had had enough. He got nimbly to his feet and fled down the passage. Anthony did not pursue him, but went back into his own room.
‘So much for the Comrades of the Red Hand,’ he remarked. ‘Picturesque appearance, but easily routed by direct action. How the hell did that fellow get in, I wonder? There’s one thing that stands out pretty clearly–this isn’t going to be quite such a soft job as I thought. I’ve already fallen foul of both the Loyalist and the Revolutionary parties. Soon, I suppose, the Nationalists and the Independent Liberals will be sending up a delegation. One thing’s fixed. I start on that manuscript tonight.’
Looking at his watch, Anthony discovered that it was nearly nine o’clock, and he decided to dine where he was. He did not anticipate any more surprise visits, but he felt that it was up to him to be on his guard. He had no intention of allowing his suitcase to be rifled whilst he was downstairs in the Grill Room. He rang the bell and asked for the menu, selected a couple of dishes and ordered a bottle of Chambertin. The waiter took the order and withdrew.
Whilst he was waiting for the meal to arrive, he got out the package of manuscript and put it on the table with the letters.
There was a knock at the door, and the waiter entered with a small table and the accessories of the meal. Anthony had strolled over to the mantelpiece. Standing there with his back to the room, he was directly facing the mirror, and idly glancing in it he noticed a curious thing.
The waiter’s eyes were glued on the parcel of manuscript. Shooting little glances sideways at Anthony’s immovable back, he moved softly round the table. His hands were twitching and he kept passing his tongue over his dry lips. Anthony observed him more closely. He was a tall man, supple like all waiters, with a clean-shaven, mobile face. An Italian, Anthony thought, not a Frenchman.
At the critical moment Anthony wheeled round abruptly. The waiter started slightly, but pretended to be doing something with the salt-cellar.
‘What’s your name?’ asked Anthony abruptly.
‘Giuseppe, monsieur.’
‘Italian, eh?’
‘Yes, monsieur.’
Anthony spoke to him in that language, and the man answered fluently enough. Finally Anthony dismissed him with a nod, but all the while he was eating the excellent meal which Giuseppe served to him, he was thinking rapidly.
Had he been mistaken? Was Giuseppe’s interest in the parcel just ordinary curiosity? It might be so, but remembering the feverish intensity of the man’s excitement, Anthony decided against that theory. All the same, he was puzzled.
‘Dash it all,’ said Anthony to himself, ‘everyone can’t be after the blasted manuscript. Perhaps I’m fancying things.’