CHAPTER VIII

Dacent Smith, busy in his luxurious bachelor apartments in Jermyn Street, was going through a pile of documents, all relating directly or indirectly to the multitudinous activities of his department. He had continued his work for, perhaps, half an hour after his brief luncheon interval when the man-servant entered and announced a visitor. Dacent Smith's man-servant was discretion itself. He looked like a walking secret, and was a big, pallid man, with high cheek-bones and a grim, hard mouth. He was devoted body and soul to Dacent Smith, and no tortures ever devised could have ever wormed a word from him of his master's activities.

"Well, Grew?"

"Mr. Treves, sir."

"I'll see Mr. Treves at once."

Grew, the man-servant, departed, and a minute later John was ushered into the apartment.

Dacent Smith greeted him with brief cordiality, then indicated a chair.

"Well, Treves," he said, with a smile, "what is your news?"

"There is very little to tell you, sir, so far. The person who wrote that telegram signed 'Elaine,' is Bernard Treves's wife!"

Dacent Smith lifted his eyebrows; a twinkle of humour was detectable in his expression.

"What happened?"

"She was quite deceived, sir!"

"A piquant situation," smiled Dacent Smith.

"Very!" answered John, seriously.

"You see how quickly you find yourself in deep waters, my friend." Dacent Smith was looking at him with an expression of raillery in his keen eyes. Nevertheless he was saying inwardly: "I like you, Manton; you are a man after my own heart. There is a good deal of humour, as well as courage and intelligence, hidden behind that good-looking face of yours."

"Now, Manton," he said, "tell me about Manwitz. Are you in touch with him again?"

"I have his address, sir, and an invitation to go to him whenever I wish--that is, whenever the cocaine habit seizes me violently."

"I see," remarked the elder man. "Whenever the craving is violently upon you, you go to Manwitz and he supplies your want?"

John nodded.

"It is amazing," went on the chief, "the way these fellows manage to secure these drugs. Perhaps, later, Manton, you will be able to enlighten us upon that little matter; but in the meantime Cherriton is your chief responsibility."

"Cherriton showed a particular anxiety about his overcoat, sir, containing Treves's letter."

John gave a brief report of the events of the previous evening, and Dacent Smith made one or two notes on a slip of paper marked M. 15.

When John had finished, the elder man leaned back in his chair.

"It will take you some days--perhaps weeks," he said, "to get the hang of things with us. At present you are to play a lone hand. There is a chain of German emissaries working against us--some traitors and some spies--who pass information from all our dockyards to London, and thence to Germany. I want you to get into contact with one of the links of this chain--any link will serve our purpose. You must do all you can to keep the confidence of Cherriton and Manwitz. If they set you upon any task, carry it through absolutely. If papers or documents are given to you to be delivered elsewhere, don't fail to act absolutely according to their instructions. If you can get a sight of the documents, and memorise them during transit, do so, of course. This applies to letters or documents which may be handed to you by strangers--other German spies. Do you understand the importance of all this?"

John assured him that he did.

"It appears to me, sir," he added, "that by doing this I shall myself become a sort of link in their chain."

The great man looked at him with eyes of approbation.

"Exactly," he responded; "that is what you will be. Information is leaking out of England day by day, hour by hour--rippling along these chains of which I speak."

Half an hour later, John took his departure from the chief's sumptuous bachelor apartments. He had learned many things that amazed him, and one of these things, which filled him with fury and loathing, was that there were indeed traitors in unexpected places, that there were British-born people, few, but active, who were willing to sell their country into the power of the enemy.

"I hope it won't be my destiny to run across one of these gentry," thought John; "for even the chief himself would find it hard to make me keep my hands off him."

And yet that night, in a few brief hours, he was to find himself in contact with just such a traitor.

Reaching the corner of Jermyn Street, after his departure from Dacent Smith's rooms, John hailed a taxi and drove to Hampstead Tube at Tottenham Court Road. Here he took train to Hampstead, and made his way towards the address Manwitz had given him. The address was Cherriton's, and when John arrived there he found that the unamiable captain occupied a suite of rooms in a large, old-fashioned house near the Heath. The house was maintained by a retired butler, who received John at the door. The butler ascended to a handsomely furnished, spacious drawing-room on the first floor. Here Manners was seated at a grand piano, and Cherriton, deep in an arm-chair, was reading an English Pacifist pamphlet.

"Is that a telegram?" asked Cherriton, as the door opened.

"No, sir," answered the man; "it is a Mr. Bernard Treves called in to see Mr. Manners."

Two minutes later John stepped into the room.

"Did you get your overcoat?" he asked, shaking hands with Cherriton.

The fair man nodded.

"Many thanks," he said.

He had spent the earlier part of that day inquiring into the existence, status, and habits of John Manton. He was still not quite satisfied as to his visitor's release from Scotland Yard, and at that very moment he was awaiting a telegram from the Isle of Wight which would either increase his suspicions or remove them altogether. In the meantime, he preferred to trust John to a certain extent.

"You have come at an opportune time, Treves," he said.

John was seated now, and this time accepted a cigarette from the Baron's case. Suddenly, Rathenau looked him full in the face.

"You and I, Treves," he said, "have both been treated damnably!"

"Damnably!" answered John, wondering what was coming. The other continued:

"But there comes a time, Treves, eh, when the worm turns? You turned and I turned! You cast in your lot with our friend Manners, who knows how to appreciate loyalty! Manners," he continued, in the ironical tone that was his general habit, "fat and stupid and lazy as he is, is always willing to pay for loyalty!"

John looked into the Baron's thick-skinned, pallid face, into the steel-like eyes, and smiled inwardly. A pause came. John leaned forward.

"Cherriton," he said, "what are you leading up to?"

Manners, from the piano-stool, spoke up.

"Ah, you see, Cherriton--he is sharp, our friend Treves. Tell him what you want, Cherriton, straight out!"

He rose, came, for all his great bulk, softly across the room. He laid a fat hand on John's shoulder and looked down at him.

"Bernard," he half whispered, "you shall have all you want of everything. Money--and the other thing. I want you to throw in your lot with me as the good Captain has done. That note," he continued, still in the half whisper, "you gave me in regard to the sailing of the _Polydor_ was well appreciated in certain circles."

"I am glad to hear that," John answered.

"That was good service," continued Manners, "but there are bigger things afoot." He paused a moment, then walked round John, and seated himself on a sofa quite near. "You have heard, no doubt," he continued, "of the _Imperator_----"

"You mean the new Grey Star liner?"

Manners nodded.

"A monster ship--a wonder ship! Forty-eight thousand tons."

He uttered the words slowly, rolling them unctuously over his tongue.

"Nearly as big as the _Vaterland_," John said, and for the life of him he could not help looking across at Cherriton's face.

But Cherriton was quick as lightning.

"The _Vaterland_?" he repeated. "You mean the German ship?"

John returned his attention to Manners. He could feel the web closing about him--the web in which Dacent Smith had ordered him to entangle himself.

"The _Imperator_," said Manners, "is to sail one day quite soon, but your Admiralty has grown doubly cunning of late. As yet we know not either her port of departure or the hour of departure!"

John noticed that the fat man's tones deepened as he spoke; excitement gleamed in his eyes. He leaned forward and laid a fat hand on Bernard's knee.

"Treves, my boy, I trust you--eh?"

"Certainly!" answered John, truthfully. "I want you to trust me."

"Good!" exclaimed Manners, uttering the word thickly in his throat. "Now, you will understand Cherriton and I cannot appear in certain places, but with you--it is different with you--eh?"

"Quite," said John. "I can appear anywhere without suspicion."

Cherriton, who had remained silent, again took control of the situation.

"What Manners and I want you to do," he said, "is to stay a few days at the Savoy Hotel. A Dutch gentleman is giving up Room 104C. You are to take that room, and stay at the hotel at Manners's expense."

"Thank you," said John.

"There will be no need for you to stint yourself. What is more, you will have no duties whatever to perform!"

John lifted his eyebrows in genuine surprise.

"I don't quite see what help I can be in that case!"

"We are hoping that the matter will resolve itself," said Cherriton.

"Yes--yes!" intervened Manners, "everything will resolve itself beautifully. All you have to do now, my dear boy, is to say that you accept the----"

"The invitation," intercepted Cherriton.

John thought there was nothing easier in the world than to accept an invitation to stay, free of expense, at a first-class hotel, and with no duties to perform. He said as much to Manners, and two nights later found him the occupant of the room 1046, a delightful Louis Seize bedroom overlooking the Embankment. He had spent a day and a night at the hotel, and no incident whatever had occurred. On the evening of the second night, however, after dinner, John seated himself in the foyer and ordered coffee and cigarettes.

Presently, in the great crowd moving, laughing and talking near him, John observed a politician who at various periods in the past had loomed importantly in the public eye.

"He is even more ugly than his photographs," thought John, watching the important personage move among his friends. John did not like Beecher Monmouth's smile; altogether he disliked the man on the instant, and was the more astonished to notice that a strikingly beautiful woman of thirty, wearing a glittering diamond necklace and diamond ear-rings, moved towards him and slipped her arm through his. The woman wore a deeply decollete evening dress of a shimmering silk that looked to John now green and now blue. He noticed her flash a smile into Beecher Monmouth's face. He saw the politician put her hand into his. Then recollection came to John. The woman was Beecher Monmouth's wife, a beautiful woman thirty years his junior, who had appeared from nowhere and married him.

"She certainly is a beautiful woman," thought John. "A case of Beauty and the Beast!"

Then, to his utter amazement, Mrs. Beecher Monmouth's eyes met his. She slid her arm from her husband's, and made her way quickly through the crowd to John. He felt his heart-beat quicken. A moment later Mrs. Beecher Monmouth was holding out her hand towards him. She flashed a smile into his face.

"My dear Mr. Treves," she said, in a voice that was low and intimate, "I have been looking for you all the evening!"

A moment later she was shaking hands with John.

"I must fly now," she added, "but you must come and see me to-morrow--six o'clock."

A moment later she was hurrying back towards her husband, her gown shimmering and gleaming as she went. There was something in the palm of John's hand--something that had passed from Mrs. Beecher Monmouth to himself.

Holding his hand below the table and free from observation, John saw that the something Mrs. Beecher Monmouth had passed into his hand was a slip of paper on which was pencilled: "_Imperator_--three o'clock to-morrow. Route 28."

John was conscious of a quite definite thrill. His nerve was of the best; he had accepted the momentous slip of paper without any outward sign of disturbance. Indeed, he had smiled back into Mrs. Beecher Monmouth's eyes in a manner that had won that lady's sincerest approbation. Nevertheless, he was not inwardly calm. He felt that fate, or destiny, had seized him suddenly in its relentless grip. The slip of paper was still in his right hand, concealed beneath the level of the table. For some minutes he drew at his cigarette, then, carefully taking out the pocket-book, laid the slip in its leaves, and replaced the book in the inner breast pocket of his coat. For some minutes longer he retained his seat, leaning back in the delicate gilt chair. His gaze wandered among the brilliant and fashionable crowd moving about him. The gentle murmur of music mingled still with the chatter of voices, and twenty feet away he caught the gleam of Mrs. Beecher Monmouth's ear-rings, the scintillation of her superb diamond necklace. She was talking to her yellow-skinned and unprepossessing husband, but her attention was entirely and solely fixed upon John.

Their eyes met, and John was obliged to concede, for the second time, that she was a woman of exceptional beauty. The art of her coiffeur, and, possibly, the art of her complexion expert, had wrought its best for her. Nevertheless, she would have stood out among any assemblage of young and prepossessing women. Her husband quite visibly adored her, and every word she condescended to transmit to him was received with a quick, responsive smile on his part.

John was thinking rapidly, wondering and speculating. Was it possible that Beecher Monmouth knew of the existence of the little slip of paper that reposed in his pocket-book? Beecher Monmouth, who had sat on numerous committees, who had more than once stood in the running for an under-secretaryship? The thing seemed utterly incredible!

As these things flashed through John's mind, realisation slowly came to him that Mrs. Beecher Monmouth was observing him with close intensity, under slightly lowered lids.

John rose, and as he did so the lady flashed a brilliant smile towards him--an intimate, understanding smile, full of meaning.

"I wish I knew what you meant," thought John, as he made his way through the throng out towards the cloak-room.

The circulating door received him, and he passed out into the dim light of the Strand. There was a crowd, as always at that hour, and a young man who followed closely at his heels found difficulty in keeping him in sight.

John was burning once more to look at the information Mrs. Beecher Monmouth had conveyed to him. But caution forbade anything of the sort. He was determined that this, his first swim in deep waters, should achieve a successful issue. His chief desire in life was to make good in Dacent Smith's eyes, and, moreover, obeying his chief's instructions, he had already indelibly impressed upon his memory the portentous sentence: "_Imperator_--three o'clock to-morrow. Route 28."

The word "treachery" floated into his mind, and filled him with rage. Until now he had been outside--one of the public. But to-night the curtain had been drawn aside. He felt himself engaged in the secret fight which is for ever taking place beneath the surface--the fight between our own secret service and the spies and traitors in the pay of the other nations.

At Hampstead, John emerged from the Tube and made his way through the darkness of Well Walk. Presently he turned to the left, through an alley, crossed a square of shabby-looking houses, and ascended a further closely-built, narrow street, leading towards Cherriton's residence.

The young man who had followed him from the Savoy was still in his wake. At this point, however, he apparently ceased his pursuit, and vanished up a side alley.

John, who had been aware of footsteps for some minutes, halted and looked behind him. The road was empty, and the suspicion that had been growing on him vanished. Nevertheless, he laid a hand on his hip pocket, assured himself that he was prepared for eventualities and moved forward again.

"I'll give this nefarious bit of news to Cherriton, then hop down to Dacent Smith and report the fact as quickly as I can," thought John.

He reached the top of Christ Church Road and paused to recollect which turning was the right one. At that moment some one moved in the shadow of the church railings near him, and before John could turn his head a doubled fist smote him heavily. The attack was so sudden, unexpected and swift that before he could in any way retaliate a second blow had been delivered.

His assailant leaped through the air, clasped two strong hands round his neck, and fell into the road, still gripping for all he was worth.

The two struggled ignominiously, and John became aware that the stranger, who had released one hand grip, was groping for the precious pocket-book. For the first time John was able to aim a blow, then, with a violent twist, he drew himself uppermost, and plunged his knee heavily into the other's chest. In the dim light he observed that his opponent was young. John was already aware that he had met no mean antagonist, and he was taking no chances.

The downward blow he now delivered on the other man's countenance staggered him for a moment. He wrenched himself free and stood upright on his feet.

His enemy was prone, but only for a moment.

"You've got a good deal of spirit, my young friend," said John, through his teeth, "but you'll get nothing from me, except another punch like the last! Now, get up!"

"Thanks," returned the other.

He rose and began to dust his clothes carefully. John did not like the man's attitude. He was quite obviously preparing to make another attack.

"Now," commanded John, moving back a pace, "don't try that with me!"

He stepped back and reached for the Colt weapon that reposed in his pocket.

"I should hate to do anything drastic," he continued; "but if you make it a habit to leap at people in the dark, and to aim half-arm jolts at strangers, you must take the consequences."

"I am prepared to take anything that is coming to me!" responded the young man.

He spoke almost jauntily, and John admired his spirit.

"I evidently did not hit you quite as hard as I thought," John remarked.

"Quite hard enough," responded the other, "but please don't shoot, because----"

Then, to John's amazement, and with the utmost daring, he leapt forward like a flash and seized John's pistol. There was a swift, fierce struggle. The moment was one for quick decisions. The stranger held the weapon by the wrong end, and John knew it. Unexpectedly he let go, and simultaneously landed a heavy left on the young man's downbent jaw. He followed with a right, and then another left. He was as busy as he had ever been, and he knew he was fighting for his entire future, possibly for his life.

"I've had enough," gasped the stranger.

He reeled away, and seated himself on the farther side of the narrow street.

John searched about, picked up the weapon from the middle of the road and pocketed it. Then he buttoned his coat, after carefully satisfying himself that the pocket-book was still in its place, and prepared to go.

"Good night," called the other, seated on the edge of the pavement, as he went.

Manton, however, was in no mood for persiflage. He took himself off, walking as swiftly as he could.

"He certainly doesn't lack pluck," mused John.

Five minutes later he reached the large house wherein Cherriton had his abode.

"I want to see Captain Cherriton at once," he said, when the door was opened to him.

He found Cherriton alone in the big drawing-room. He was in evening clothes, and was wearing comfortable house slippers.

"So it's you, Treves?" exclaimed the German as the door closed. "Come in, and I'll give you a drink of whisky; that is always acceptable, eh?"

"Always," answered John.

Cherriton was looking at him intently.

"There is a slight cut on your forehead."

"Is there? It must be a scratch."

John applied his handkerchief to the slight abrasion, then slipped off his overcoat and took a drink of whisky and soda.

"I have some news for you, Cherriton."

"News?"

The other flashed a swift glance at him.

John slowly drew out the pocket-book and produced the slip of paper.

"You wanted to know when the _Imperator_ sailed out, and by what route."

Cherriton was suddenly and unfeignedly impatient.

"What is it you know?" he demanded.

"At the Savoy to-night," John said quietly, "this was handed to me."

He passed the slip of paper into the German's eager fingers.

"Gott!" exclaimed Cherriton, utterly absorbed. "You got this from----"

"Mrs. Beecher Monmouth."

"Three o'clock to-morrow," mused Cherriton. "There is not much time for us to act!"

He looked suddenly into John's face.

"What a woman she is!" he exclaimed. "Invaluable--invaluable!"

"Invaluable!" echoed John.

Cherriton laid a hand on John's arm.

"Keep your hold on her, my dear Treves. Your work to-night has been excellent!"

Excitement had brought an unusual gleam into his hard eyes.

"We will do great things for you yet!"

He crossed the room and rang the bell imperiously.

"My coat and hat," he commanded of the butler when the man appeared. "When Mr. Manners returns, ask him to wait up for me."