A Maker of History by E. Phillips Oppenheim (the lemonade war series TXT) 📕

Andrew, conscious that he was being followed, sat down outside a café on his way homewards, and bade his guide leave him for a little time. Instantly there was the soft rustle of feminine skirts by his side, and a woman seated herself on the next chair.

"Monsieur has not been up to the Café Montmartre lately!"

Pelham turned his head. It was the young lady from Vienna.

"No!" he answered. "I have not been there since I had the pleasure of seeing Mademoiselle!"

"Monsieur has discovered all that he wanted to know?"

He nodded a little wearily.

"Yes, I think so!"

She drew her chair quite close to his. The sable of her turban hat almost brushed his cheek, and the perfume of the violets at her bosom was strong in his nostrils.

"Monsieur has seen the young lady?"

"I have seen her," he answered.

"Monsieur is indebted to me," she said softly, "for some information. Let me ask him one question. Is it true, this story in the newspapers, of the finding of this young man's body? Is Monsieur Guy Poynton really dead?"

"I know no more than we all read in the newspapers," he answered.

"His sister spoke of him as dead?" she asked.

"I cannot discuss this matter with you, Mademoiselle," he answered.

"Monsieur is ungrateful," she declared with a little grimace. "It is only that which I desire to know. He was such a beau garçon, that young Englishman. You will tell me that?" she whispered.

He shook his head.

"Mademoiselle will excuse me," he said. "I am going to take a carriage to my hotel!"

"It is on the way to leave me at my rooms, if you will be so kind," she suggested, laying her hand upon his arm.

"Mademoiselle will excuse me," he answered, turning away. "Good afternoon."

Mademoiselle also took a carriage, and drove to a large house at the top of the Champs Élysées. She was at once admitted, and passed with the air of one familiar with the place into a small room at the back of the house, where a man was sitting at a table writing. He looked up as she entered.

"Well?"

She threw herself into a chair.

"I have been following the Englishman, Pelham, all day," she said in German. "He has seen Miss Poynton. I have talked with him since at a café, but he would tell me nothing. He has evidently been warned."

The man grumbled as he resumed his writing.

"That fact alone should be enough for us," he remarked. "If there is anything to conceal we can guess what it is. These amateurs who are in league with the secret service are the devil! I would as soon resign. What with them and the regular secret service, Paris is an impossible city for us. Where we would watch we are watched ourselves. The streets and cafés bristle with spies! I do not wonder that you find success so difficult, Mademoiselle!"

"I haven't done so badly!" she protested.

"No, for you have not been set easy tasks. Can you tell me, though, where that young Englishman disappeared to when he left the Café Montmartre before your very eyes? Can you tell me whether the secret service got hold of his story, how much the French Government believed of it, whether they have communicated with the English Government, and how much they know? Beyond these things, it is not your province to see, or mine, Mademoiselle, and it is not for us to guess at or inquire into the meaning of things. Tell me, is it worth while to have this man Pelham put out of the way for a time?"

She shook her head.

"I do not think so," she answered. "He is quite stupid. The other, Sir George Duncombe, he was different. If he had stayed in Paris he would have been worth watching."

A bell rang. The man rose.

"The chief!" he said. "Be at the café to-night."

Mademoiselle went away thoughtfully.

"It is over this affair," she said to herself. "Carl knows everything!"

Spencer, whose recovery during the last few days had been as rapid as the first development of his indisposition, had just changed for dinner, and was lighting a cigarette d'appertit when, without waiting to be announced, the Vicomte de Bergillac entered the room. Spencer, with lightning-like intuition, knew that his time was come.

"Off with your coat, man, and get your code books out. I am going to give you the most sensational story which has ever appeared in your paper!" he exclaimed. "Only, remember this! It must appear to-morrow morning. I am arranging for the French papers to have it. Yours shall be the only English journal. Glance through these sheets. They contain the story of l'affaire Poynton!"

Spencer was master of the gist of the thing in a very few moments. His eyes were bright with excitement.

"Who guarantees this?" he asked quickly.

"My uncle has signed it," Henri de Bergillac answered, "and at the bottom of the page there you will see a still more distinguished signature. You understand l'affaire Poynton now? It is very simple. That English boy actually witnessed a meeting between the Czar and the Emperor, and turns up in Paris with a loose sheet of a treaty between the two, relative to an attack upon England. Our people got hold of him at the Café Montmartre, and we have hidden him away ever since. Our friends, the Germans, who seem to have had some suspicions about him, have filled the city with spies, but from the first we have kept them off the scent. We had a little difficulty in convincing our friends your country-people, but we managed to borrow a few papers from the German Ambassador whilst he was staying at a country-house in England, which were sufficient."

Spencer was already writing. His coat lay on the floor where he had thrown it.

"Don't go for a moment, De Bergillac," he said. "I want to ask you a few things. I can talk and code at the same time. What about Miss Poynton?"

"Well, we had to take care of her too," De Bergillac said. "Of course all her inquiries over here would have led to nothing, but they knew her at the English Embassy, so we walked her off from the Café Montmartre one night and took her to a friend of mine, the Marquise de St. Ethol. We told her a little of the truth, and a little, I'm afraid, which was an exaggeration. Anyhow, we kept her quiet, and we got her to go to England for us with Toquet. They had a very narrow shave down at Runton, by the by."

"After this," Spencer said with a smile, "the secret service people proper will have to look to their laurels. It is a triumph for the amateurs."

The Vicomte twirled his tiny black moustache.

"Yes," he said, "we have justified ourselves. It has cost us something, though!"

"You mean?"

"Louis!"

Spencer stopped writing.

"It was an affair of a million francs," the Vicomte said. "I hope he has got the money."

Spencer resumed his work.

"The Baron a traitor!" he exclaimed. "Where is he?"

"In England! We are not vindictive. If the Germans paid him a million francs they got nothing for it. He has been watched from the first. We knew of it the moment he came to terms with them. He only knows bare facts. Nothing beyond. He is going to Brazil, I think. We shall not interfere."

"Tell me why," Spencer said, "you were so down on all of us who joined in the search for the Poyntons."

"We could not afford to run any risks of your discovering a clue," De Bergillac answered, "because you in your turn were closely watched by German spies, hoping to discover them through you. That is why we had to strike hard at all of you who interfered. I was sorry for little Flossie—but she knew the risk she ran. We had to stop you, induce Duncombe to leave Paris, and knock on the head a fool of an English detective for fear he might discover something. Monsieur Pelham was getting into danger, but, of course, it is all over now. To-morrow we are bringing Guy into Paris."

Spencer nodded.

"Where is Duncombe?" he asked.

"Back in Paris," De Bergillac answered. "Arrived here with me to-day. He is much in love with the beautiful sister. Alas! It was to him that she entrusted the missing page of that treaty which she found in her brother's luggage. Some day I must tell you of my adventures in England last night, when I went over to get it and found Louis a little ahead of me."

"Some day," Spencer murmured, writing for dear life, with the perspiration streaming down his forehead. "My dear Vicomte, do you mind ringing the bell? I want my servant. I must telegraph my paper to warn them of this. They must clear two columns of type for me."

The Vicomte did as he was asked. Then he turned towards the door.

"I will leave you," he said. "The dust of England is still in my throat. Absinthe, a bath and dinner! Au revoir, mon ami! Confess that I have kept the promise which Louis made you. It is what you call a coup this, eh?"

Out on the boulevards the papers were selling like wildfire. The Vicomte bought one, and sitting down outside a café ordered absinthe. The great headlines attracted him at once. He sipped his absinthe and smiled to himself.

"The play commences!" he murmured. "I must return to Monsieur Spencer."

Spencer was still working like a madman.

"I must interrupt you for a moment," De Bergillac said. "I have brought you an evening paper. The Baltic Fleet has sunk half a dozen English fishing-boats and the whole country is in a frenzy. It is the beginning."

Spencer nodded.

"Leave the paper, there's a good fellow," he said. "I will look it through presently. If there is time—if there is only time this will be the greatest night of my life. No other paper has a hint, you say?"

"Not one!"

"If I could put back the clock a single hour," Spencer muttered. "Never mind! Williams, more sheets!"

De Bergillac took his leave. He had telephoned for his motor, which was waiting outside. He gave the order to drive to his rooms. On the way he passed the great pile of buildings in the Louvre. In a room at the extreme end of the pile a light was burning. De Bergillac looked at it curiously. A small brougham, which he recognized, stood outside.

"If one could see inside," he muttered. "It should be interesting!"

In a sense it was interesting. Monsieur Grisson sat there in front of his open table. His secretary's place by his side was vacant. Opposite sat a tall man with gray hair and dark moustache. He was dressed for the evening, and his breast glittered with stars and orders.

"It is exceedingly kind of you, Monsieur," he said, "to grant me this interview at so short notice. I was most anxious to apprise you of news, which as yet I believe has not found its way into your papers. You have read accounts of a Russian attack upon an English fishing-fleet, but you have not yet been informed of the presence—the undoubted presence—of Japanese torpedo-boats concealed amongst them."

Monsieur Grisson raised his eyebrows.

"Indeed no!" he answered. "We have not even heard a rumor of anything of the sort."

"Nevertheless, their presence was indubitable," the Prince declared. "In those circumstances, Monsieur, you can doubtless understand that our reply to any protests on the part of England will be of an unpacific nature. We should not for a moment allow ourselves to be dictated to by the allies of our enemy."

"Naturally!" Monsieur Grisson answered. "On the other hand, you surely do not wish to embroil yourself in a quarrel with England at the present moment?"

"We wish to