CHAPTER VI

THE SECRET OF THE IKON

She must have dropped the telephone receiver, for a clatter sounded dully in her ears. The strange and baleful glare of the man at the table held her gaze. The blood seemed to drain away from her heart as she met the cruel menace of those blackly bitter eyes. The bushy dark beard had vanished and the fleshy scarlet lips pressed together in a hard line were clearly visible above the squarely massive chin. But she knew her visitor again immediately. It was as though she recognized the extraordinary air of authority that his presence exhaled without requiring the additional aid to identification that the heavy misshapen boot presented.

She felt as though she must scream. The mute telephone, the unanswered bell, the sudden appearance of this frightening, apelike creature in the room, above all, his forbidding, ominous silence, produced a culminating effect of terror upon her. And, though she wilted before the fixed stare of those burning eyes beneath the bristling black eyebrows, she could not look away.

Suddenly there came an interruption. Two men emerged from the bedroom door and took up their position behind the stranger. One was a narrow-chested youth whose pointed nose and snarling mouth had something of the rodent about them, his sallow cheek slashed by a long white scar. The other was a gross and burly fellow with a bullet neck, close-cropped hair, and small pig eyes.

“Niemand da?” asked the clubfooted stranger.

“Kein Mensch, Herr Doktor!” replied the youth with the scarred face.

The voices broke the spell that had seemed to bind her. Her eager American vitality came to her aid. She began to study with interest this man of whom Francis Okewood had told her. “Strong as an ox, brave as a lion, cunning as a rogue elephant,” he had called him. And cautious as a cat, she told herself as she watched him peering about the room with quick, suspicious glances, his gaze always returning to the door as though he feared interruption.

He gave a curt order in German to the men behind him, then removed his black wide-awake hat, displaying a glistening mass of iron-grey stubble.

“Miss Maxwell,” he said with a fawning civility that struck chill upon her, “I have come to fetch the ikon!”

This time he spoke in English, harshly, with a thick guttural accent.

She clasped her hands tightly together. They were as cold as ice.

“I—I have not got it,” she faltered.

A deep furrow appeared between the cripple’s bushy eyebrows.

“I advise you not to play with me,” he said. He took a step forward. The thud of his heavy boot shook the floor. “Where is it?” he cried hoarsely.

“I . . . I left it . . . at home!” stammered the girl.

His great arm shot out. A huge hairy paw, hot and soft, clamped itself with a vice-like grip about her wrist. Of a sudden his face was distorted with fury, so that his heavy sallow cheeks trembled beneath their thatch of loose black hairs. He might have been a huge man-ape chattering with passion as he shook her in that iron grasp.

“You lie! You lie!” he spat at her. “You brought it here to the spy, Okewood. That ikon is here, you understand me? Donnerwetter, are you going to give it up?” With a supreme effort he regained his self-control. But he did not relax his grasp on her hand. “If you refuse, I have the means to make you!”

“Herr Doktor,” said a suave voice from the other side of the room, “won’t you let go Miss Maxwell’s wrist? I’m afraid you’re hurting her!”

With a roar Clubfoot swung round. A large automatic was in his hand. His two companions had likewise drawn and covered Desmond Okewood, who, dapper and unruffled as ever, his hat on the back of his head, stood in the bedroom door, a brown paper parcel under his arm. Clubfoot laughed, a harsh and grating laugh. “Put your hands up, my friend!” he said menacingly.

Desmond wavered. “But I shall drop my little parcel . . .” he began.

“Put ’em up, zum Teufel nochmal!” roared the cripple, his tufted nostrils twitching with rage.

Desmond hesitated for an instant. He shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m sorry, Miss Maxwell,” he said. “If only Francis had been here . . .”

And, pitching his parcel on the table, he slowly raised his hands above his head.

“Keep him covered, Jungens!” cried Clubfoot and flung himself upon the parcel. “Francis, indeed!” he exclaimed. “He had an important telephone summons just now, didn’t he, Miss Maxwell?” And he chuckled noisily.

But the American did not heed him. With a pink flush on her cheeks she was staring fixedly at Desmond.

The young man sought to avoid her gaze. “It’s three to one,” he muttered, abashed. “I’d no idea they’d be able to get in here! I should never have brought it back if I’d dreamed of . . . this!”

But now, with a shout of joy, Clubfoot had drawn from its paper wrapping the ikon with its blackened silver sheath. With a rapid motion he thrust the little picture into the capacious pocket of his overcoat. Then he turned to Desmond.

“Lieber junger Herr”—he spoke in German now—“if on this occasion I should neglect to settle the debt which has for so long been outstanding between us, believe me it is because other considerations take precedence. Do not delude yourself, however! When I want you, I have only to stretch out my hand”—he raised his long prehensile arm with clutching fingers—“and crush you like an egg! Heinrich, Max, vorwärts! Miss Maxwell! Ich habe die Ehre!” He broke into English. “It would have been wiser to have accepted my offer of this morning, or, better still, from this poor Süsslein’s point of view, to have listened to reason last night!”

He bowed to the American and, with head erect, stumped out into the hall.

Hardly had the door closed upon him than Patricia Maxwell turned on Desmond.

“You . . . you quitter!” she exclaimed with withering contempt in her voice. “Are you going to let him beat you to it all along the line? Are there no _men_ in this town?”

But Desmond held up his hand. He had altogether discarded his rather abashed air. Now his eyes sparkled and a little smile played about his lips.

“Give me five minutes’ grace,” he said, “and I’ll explain everything!”

“There’s nothing to explain!” cried Patricia hotly. “He’s got my ikon, hasn’t he? What’s there to explain about that, I’d like to know!”

But Desmond Okewood had dashed out into the hall. She heard him rattling loudly at the front door. In a moment he was back in the sitting-room.

“They’ve wedged up the front door!” he cried and snatched the telephone receiver.

“The wire’s cut!” said Patricia coldly. “And your man doesn’t answer the bell!”

“Damnation!” exclaimed the young man. “I might have known he’d come here after you! And there’s no time to get out by the roof! To think that he’s walking calmly down Saint James’s Street . . .!”

Again he tore out into the hall. The little flat rang to the din of his frantic assault on the front door. Presently the noise ceased. She heard the voice of Francis outside.

“. . . Decoyed me away with a bogus message from the Chief,” he was saying, “and Batts is imprisoned in the lift with the cable cut. What’s happened to Patricia?”

He came into the room.

“Thank God, you’re all right!” he exclaimed. “Desmond rushed downstairs like a madman. What’s happened, Patricia?”

She surveyed him coldly. “Nothing, only your clubfooted friend came here to fetch the ikon . . . my ikon. And your brother had the . . . the presence of mind to give it to him!”

“Desmond gave it to him?” Francis Okewood seemed dazed.

She nodded.

Desmond Okewood reappeared, panting. Without speaking he crossed the sitting-room and went into the bedroom.

“Are you sure?” asked Francis.

“Didn’t I see it with my own eyes?” said the girl impatiently. “Without the least show of fight!” she added contemptuously. She gathered her furs around her. “Do you think I could get a taxi?” she asked.

But Francis was staring past her. “Des.!”

There was such unbounded amazement in his exclamation that, involuntarily, the girl turned round. Desmond Okewood stood behind them. And on the table before him lay the ikon. In the doorway of the bedroom appeared a little yellow-faced man muffled up to the eyes in an ulster and scarf.

Desmond’s eyes twinkled. “Let me introduce Professor Krilenko, the celebrated Russian art connoisseur,” he said. “Although he is crippled with lumbago he came roof-climbing with me to-night to help me get the better of old Clubfoot. There’s friendship for you!”

The Professor bowed and groaned piteously, snatching at his back. “What a man!” he said.

Patricia Maxwell stared in silence at the pair. But her eyes were softer.

Desmond turned to the Professor. “Tell them about it!” he said.

Krilenko picked up the ikon. “Fate has placed in your hands, Madame,” he said in fluent English, “one of the most revered treasures of the Russian Church, none other than the miraculous ikon of Our Lady of Smolensk, smuggled out of Russia at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution to save it from desecration at the hands of the Reds. It is probably a thousand years old, but the tradition is that it was painted by the evangelist Luke himself.

“Major Okewood, who knows this man Grundt, doubted whether religious or artistic fervour had anything to do with his determination to acquire the ikon. With a perspicacity which I can only ascribe as astounding, he insisted that there was something about the picture which enhanced its artistic or intrinsic value . . .”

So saying he turned the ikon over on its face. Four screws loosely set held the stout wooden backing of the frame. He removed the screws and lifted out the back. In four slots sunk in the wood four little grey metal tubes were visible. Round one of them a slip of paper was wrapped.

“He suggested that we should remove the back,” the Professor resumed, “if we could do so without damaging the ikon. We scraped the back and at length laid bare the screws. Their presence had been very skilfully concealed first beneath a layer of . . .”

The Russian was evidently, like most experts, a prosy person, but imperiously Patricia stopped him before he could launch out into technicalities.

“What are those little bits of lead?” she asked.

“Radium!” Desmond replied. “Translate the letter, Krilenko!”

He detached the slip of paper that was rolled about one of the cases and handed it to the Professor.

I, Vladimir Lemuroff [Krilenko read out], Professor of Chemistry in the University of Moscow, being in imminent danger of arrest by the Tcheka [“the Extraordinary Commission of the Soviet Government,” Krilenko explained], have in the presence of Bishop Tchergeroff, whose signature is here appended, concealed for safe custody in the blessed ikon of Our Lady of Smolensk the four grammes of radium, the property of the Moscow Chemical Institute, which I took with me in my flight to save them for science from the ruthless vandalism of the wild beasts who are destroying Holy Russia.

(Signed) Lemuroff (Witness) Tchergeroff

Smolensk, 13/26, July, 1919

“By Jove!” ejaculated Francis. “Four grammes of radium! Let’s see!—the market price stands somewhere about £12,000 a gramme, I think. That makes these four little tubes worth something like £50,000. No wonder old Clubfoot wanted that picture, Des.!”

“But,” remarked Patricia, perplexed, “I _saw_ you give the ikon to the man Grundt!”

Desmond laughed. “I had to finesse him,” he said. “Old Clubfoot never lets the grass grow under his feet, and I wanted to gain time to get your ikon into a safe place before he could seize it by force. Directly I found out from Krilenko here that this was one of the famous miraculous ikons, I knew, from my experience of Russia, that thousands of copies must be in existence, for most of the ikons you find in Russian churches and homes are copies of these wonder-working pictures. Krilenko, who has been a perfect trump all through, routed up a Russian pope he knows who remembered that there was a copy of the Madonna of Smolensk in one of the Russian churches in London. It was nice and grimy, as it had hung there for years.

“Krilenko and the priest did the rest. My intention was to hang up the copy in your boudoir for Clubfoot to steal, for I was virtually certain that your house would be broken into to-night. But, when we were scrambling over the roofs just now, I heard old Grundt’s voice coming up through the skylight and I just couldn’t resist the chance of bluffing him. My word, I could hardly keep my face straight!”

He glanced humorously at Patricia. She held out her hand.

“I feel just terribly!” she said. “I’m sorry I was so rude! But, oh! what an actor!”

Desmond grinned. “It wasn’t bad, was it? Especially the pathetic bit about their being three to one . . .”

They all laughed.

“In the mean time Grundt is off again!” observed Francis ruefully.

“He’s a clever devil!” said Desmond with real admiration in his voice. “He simply bunged up the front door and walked out, knowing that one minute’s grace would be enough to allow him, lame as he is, to get away in the London crowd. Directly you opened the door I bolted down to the street. But I knew it was too late. We’ve just got to wait for him to come back . . .”

“He might have shot you!” remarked Francis.

“Not he! Clubfoot knows that you can commit almost any crime in London as long as you act normally. But a shot would have aroused the whole block. Besides, he’s a single-minded person. To-day he was after the ikon. Next time it may be you or me. I don’t worry about losing his trail, Francis. He’s coming back after us . . .”

He chuckled with infinite relish.

“Des.,” said his brother, “tell us the joke!”

“Well,” Desmond replied slowly, “when we were weighting that duplicate ikon, I couldn’t resist slipping in a note for Clubfoot. I was just thinking of his face when he reads it!”

And he chuckled again.

By Patricia Maxwell’s direction the radium, duly tested and found to be genuine, was handed over to the Russian Refugees’ Fund. The ikon of Our Lady of Smolensk went to take the place of the copy in the Russian church, where, night and day, a great candle burns before it in memory of the donor.

As for Clubfoot, the evening traffic of Saint James’s swallowed up him and his companions, and the unremitting vigilance of the Secret Service, assisted by Scotland Yard, threw no light on their whereabouts. But, two days after the encounter in his flat, Desmond Okewood found in his mail a postcard, unsigned, with this epigrammatic message:

_A sense of humour is a dangerous thing!_