His Last Bow, Arthur Conan Doyle [love books to read TXT] 📗

such a

humiliation.”

 

“She would at least have peace for the moment.”

 

“But her honor?”

 

“Tut, my dear sir, we live in a utilitarian age. Honour is a

mediaeval conception. Besides England is not ready. It is an

inconceivable thing, but even our special war tax of fifty

million, which one would think made our purpose as clear as if we

had advertised it on the front page of the Times, has not roused

these people from their slumbers. Here and there one hears a

question. It is my business to find an answer. Here and there

also there is an irritation. It is my business to soothe it.

But I can assure you that so far as the essentials go—the

storage of munitions, the preparation for submarine attack, the

arrangements for making high explosives—nothing is prepared.

How, then, can England come in, especially when we have stirred

he up such a devil’s brew of Irish civil war, window-breaking

Furies, and God knows what to keep her thoughts at home.”

 

“She must think of her future.”

 

“Ah, that is another matter. I fancy that in the future we have

our own very definite plans about England, and that your

information will be very vital to us. It is to-day or tomorrow

with Mr. John Bull. If he prefers to-day we are perfectly ready.

If it is tomorrow we shall be more ready still. I should think

they would be wiser to fight with allies than without them, but

that is their own affair. This week is their week of destiny.

But you were speaking of your papers.” He sat in the armchair

with the light shining upon his broad bald head, while he puffed

sedately at his cigar.

 

The large oak-panelled, book-lined room had a curtain hung in the

future corner. When this was drawn it disclosed a large, brass-bound safe. Von Bork detached a small key from his watch chain,

and after some considerable manipulation of the lock he swung

open the heavy door.

 

“Look!” said he, standing clear, with a wave of his hand.

 

The light shone vividly into the opened safe, and the secretary

of the embassy gazed with an absorbed interest at the rows of

stuffed pigeon-holes with which it was furnished. Each pigeon-hole had its label, and his eyes as he glanced along them read a

long series of such titles as “Fords,” “Harbour-defences,”

“Aeroplanes,” “Ireland,”, “Egypt,” “Portsmouth forts,” “The

Channel,” “Rosythe,” and a score of others. Each compartment was

bristling with papers and plans.

 

“Colossal!” said the secretary. Putting down his cigar he softly

clapped his fat hands.

 

“And all in four years, Baron. Not such a bad show for the hard-drinking, hard-riding country squire. But the gem of my

collection is coming and there is the setting all ready for it.”

He pointed to a space over which “Naval Signals” was printed.

 

“But you have a good dossier there already.”

 

“Out of date and waste paper. The Admiralty in some way got the

alarm and every code has been changed. It was a blow, Baron—the

worst setback in my whole campaign. But thanks to my check-book

and the good Altamont all will be well to-night.”

 

The Baron looked at his watch and gave a guttural exclamation of

disappointment.

 

“Well, I really can wait no longer. You can imagine that things

are moving at present in Carlton Terrace and that we have all to

be at our posts. I had hoped to be able to bring news of your

great coup. Did Altamont name no hour?”

 

Von Bork pushed over a telegram.

 

Will come without fail to-night and bring new sparking plugs.

 

Altamont.

 

“Sparking plugs, eh?”

 

“You see he poses as a motor expert and I keep a full garage. In

our code everything likely to come up is named after some spare

part. If he talks of a radiator it is a battleship, of an oil

pump a cruiser, and so on. Sparking plugs are naval signals.”

 

“From Portsmouth at midday,” said the secretary, examining the

superscription. “By the way, what do you give him?”

 

“Five hundred pounds for this particular job. Of course he has a

salary as well.”

 

“The greedy rouge. They are useful, these traitors, but I grudge

them their blood money.”

 

“I grudge Altamont nothing. He is a wonderful worker. If I pay

him well, at least he delivers the goods, to use his own phrase.

Besides he is not a traitor. I assure you that our most pan-Germanic Junker is a sucking dove in his feelings towards England

as compared with a real bitter Irish-American.”

 

“Oh, an Irish-American?”

 

“If you heard him talk you would not doubt it. Sometimes I

assure you I can hardly understand him. He seems to have

declared war on the King’s English as well as on the English

king. Must you really go? He may be here any moment.”

 

“No. I’m sorry, but I have already overstayed my time. We shall

expect you early tomorrow, and when you get that signal book

through the little door on the Duke of York’s steps you can put a

triumphant finis to your record in England. What! Tokay!” He

indicated a heavily sealed dust-covered bottle which stood with

two high glasses upon a salver.

 

“May I offer you a glass before your journey?”

 

“No, thanks. But it looks like revelry.”

 

“Altamont has a nice taste in wines, and he took a fancy to my

Tokay. He is a touchy fellow and needs humouring in small

things. I have to study him, I assure you.” They had strolled

out on to the terrace again, and along it to the further end

where at a touch from the Baron’s chauffeur the great car

shivered and chuckled. “Those are the lights of Harwich, I

suppose,” said the secretary, pulling on his dust coat. “How

still and peaceful it all seems. There may be other lights

within the week, and the English coast a less tranquil place!

The heavens, too, may not be quite so peaceful if all that the

good Zepplin promises us comes true. By the way, who is that?”

 

Only one window showed a light behind them; in it there stood a

lamp, and beside it, seated at a table, was a dear old ruddy-faced woman in a country cap. She was bending over her knitting

and stopping occasionally to stroke a large black cat upon a

stool beside her.

 

“That is Martha, the only servant I have left.”

 

The secretary chuckled.

 

“She might almost personify Britannia,” said he, “with her

complete self-absorption and general air of comfortable

somnolence. Well, au revoir, Von Bork!” With a final wave of

his hand he sprang into the car, and a moment later the two

golden cones from the headlights shot through the darkness. The

secretary lay back in the cushions of the luxurious limousine,

with his thoughts so full of the impending European tragedy that

he hardly observed that as his car swung round the village street

it nearly passed over a little Ford coming in the opposite

direction.

 

Von Bork walked slowly back to the study when the last gleams of

the motor lamps had faded into the distance. As he passed he

observed that his old housekeeper had put out her lamp and

retired. It was a new experience to him, the silence and

darkness of his widespread house, for his family and household

had been a large one. It was a relief to him, however, to think

that they were all in safety and that, but for that one old woman

who had lingered in the kitchen, he had the whole place to

himself. There was a good deal of tidying up to do inside his

study and he set himself to do it until his keen, handsome face

was flushed with the heat of the burning papers. A leather

valise stood beside his table, and into this he began to pack

very neatly and systematically the precious contents of his safe.

He had hardly got started with the work, however, when his quick

ears caught the sounds of a distant car. Instantly he gave an

exclamation of satisfaction, strapped up the valise, shut the

safe, locked it, and hurried out on to the terrace. He was just

in time to see the lights of a small car come to a halt at the

gate. A passenger sprang out of it and advanced swiftly towards

him, while the chauffeur, a heavily built, elderly man with a

gray moustache, settled down like one who resigns himself to a

long vigil.

 

“Well?” asked Von Bork eagerly, running forward to meet his

visitor.

 

For answer the man waved a small brown-paper parcel triumphantly

above his head.

 

“You can give me the glad hand to-night, mister,” he cried. “I’m

bringing home the bacon at last.”

 

“The signals?”

 

“Same as I said in my cable. Every last one of them, semaphore,

lamp code, Marconi—a copy, mind you, not the original. That was

too dangerous. But it’s the real goods, and you can lay to

that.” He slapped the German upon the shoulder with a rough

familiarity from which the other winced.

 

“Come in,” he said. “I’m all alone in the house. I was only

waiting for this. Of course a copy is better than the original.

If an original were missing they would change the whole thing.

You think it’s all safe about the copy?”

 

The Irish-American had entered the study and stretched his long

limbs from the armchair. He was a tall, gaunt man of sixty, with

clear-cut features and a small goatee beard which gave him a

general resemblance to the caricatures of Uncle Sam. A half-smoked, sodden cigar hung from the corner of his mouth, and as he

sat down he struck a match and relit it. “Making ready for a

move?” he remarked as he looked round him. “Say, mister,” he

added, as his eyes fell upon the safe from which the curtain was

now removed, “you don’t tell me you keep your papers in that?”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Gosh, in a wide-open contraption like that! And they reckon you

to be some spy. Why, a Yankee crook would be into that with a

can-opener. If I’d known that any letter of mine was goin’ to

lie loose in a thing like that I’d have been a mug to write to

you at all.”

 

“It would puzzle any crook to force that safe,” Von Bork

answered. “You won’t cut that metal with any tool.”

 

“But the lock?”

 

“No, it’s a double combination lock. You know what that is?”

 

“Search me,” said the American.

 

“Well, you need a word as well as a set of figures before you can

get the lock to work.” He rose and showed a double-radiating

disc round the keyhole. “This outer one is for the letters, the

inner one for the figures.”

 

“Well, well, that’s fine.”

 

“So it’s nit quite as simple as you thought. It was four years

ago that I had it made, and what do you think I chose for the

word and figures?”

 

“It’s beyond me.”

 

“Well, I chose August for the word, and 1914 for the figures, and

here we are.”

 

The American’s face showed his surprise and admiration.

 

“My, but that was smart! You had it down to a fine thing.”

 

“Yes, a few of us even then could have guessed the date. Here it

is , and I’m shutting down tomorrow morning.”

 

“Well, I guess you’ll have to fix me up also. I’m not staying is

this gol-darned country all on my lonesome. In a week or less,

from what I