The Fox Prowls E-Book

Valentine Williams

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

A hard boiled mystery and suspense thriller set in Ukraine. A rich American magnate Stephen Selmar and his daughter Melissa are lured into Rumania by an arms dealer, the sinister Barm de Bahl „"The Fox"”, as part of a plot to boost the arms industry by fomenting a war between Rumania and Russia. Enter the British Secret Service... „"The Fox Prowls"” by Valentine Williams is a fine bunch of villains cooking up international deviltry in romantic surroundings; inextinguishable hero; lovely gal; continuous thrills. In it, a bit of mystery with a rundown Bessarabian castle, a hidden treasure, a gang of international crooks, and an officer of the British Intelligence, disguised as a crude chauffeur. Highly recommended for people who like to treat a mystery story as a solvable riddle!

Leseprobe

Contents

I. R.43 STARTS IT

II. “IN RE BOREANU, NÉE CELMAR, DECD.”

III. ENTER THE BARON DE BAHL

IV. A WANDERER COMES HOME

V. FIRST BLOOD

VI. RENDEZVOUS IN PIERCE STREET

VII. STEPHEN BLURTS OUT A SECRET

VIII. MELISSA MEETS THE BARON

IX. A KING IS DEAD

X. THE BARON PRESENTS HIS FRIENDS

XI. “THE VOICE OF FATE”

XII. CASTLE ORGHINA

XIII. THE FIRST WARNING

XIV. BLOOD IN THE SNOW

XV. BOULTON BLOTS HIS COPYBOOK

XVI. MELISSA HAS A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

XVII. WHEN A NAIL IS NOT A NAIL

XVIII. THE LIGHT BEGINS TO BREAK

XIX. A SUMMONS FROM CHARLES

XX. IN THE MOSQUE

XXI. THE MAN ON THE BALCONY

XXII. THE DNIESTER SQUARES AN ACCOUNT

XXIII. STEPHEN HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD

XXIV. THE BARON HAS A PLAN

XXV. THE FERRYMAN’S HOUSE

XXV. “NOT OF THE LION, BUT THE FOX”

XXVII. FRONTIER INCIDENT

XXVIII. THE POT BEGINS TO BOIL

XXIX. A TAP AT THE WINDOW

XXX. THE CAT’S NINTH LIFE

XXXI. MONEY TALKS

XXXII. A SHOT IN THE DARK

XXXIII. VON WAHLCZEK COMES BACK

XXXIV. MONSTERS OUT OF THE NIGHT

XXXV. UNDER THE BOYAR GATE

XXXVI. EPILOGUE IN THE FOG

I. R.43 STARTS IT

Ferdinand Vermuiven, underpaid drudge in a Bucharest money-changer’s office, started it. It was his somewhat grubby hand, protruding from under its paper cuff, that lit the fuse. Fizzing and spluttering it ran from Bucharest to Belgrade, from Belgrade back to Bucharest, and from Bucharest to London where it detonated a bomb in a certain quiet suburban mansion.

If Ferdinand Vermuiven had not looked up from his desk that morning, the whole course of Don Boulton’s life would have been changed.

Glancing casually through the plate glass window at the seething traffic of the Calei Victorei, the clerk perceived a large, rather untidily dressed man sauntering along in the sunshine. He carried his hat in his hand and displayed a crop of crisp, white hair. He was accompanied by a spruce individual with a black and restless eye which he flashed ardently at every woman they passed. It was upon the second of the two men that the clerk’s gaze dwelt. An hour later, at the humble brasserie where he was wont to take his mid-day meal, he called for pen, ink and paper and wrote to one Peregrine Dyson, importer, at Belgrade:

Hon. Sir,

The undersigned has honour to report that Guido is back. I see same this A.M. in Victory Street with person unknown. Description of said person, age circa 50, white complexion, ditto hair, respectably dressed. Regret that business prevented immediate pursuit of said Guido Miklas as per yr. esteemed instructions at our last meeting but on receipt your hon. orders will follow up prompt, habits of party concerned being familiar to yrs. truly but in latter event small advance for indispensable expenses humbly asked (by telegraph s.v.p.!)

Your oblige servant to command, Hon. Sir, Yours faithfully, R.43.

Two days later Vermuiven had a companion when he left the office to pay his customary evening visit to the café. But instead of going to the obscure establishment he usually frequented, he took his friend to a noisy place with mirrors, potted palms and a gypsy orchestra, where a man with a shock of white hair sat with a jaunty individual with a restless eye. Thereafter, Vermuiven escorted his companion to the main telegraph office, after which they drove to the airport where the clerk saw his charge on to the plane for Belgrade.

To London, into a restful suburban square, the fuse led hissing. Miss Hancock, the Chief’s secretary, signed for the telegram: Breakspear in the Ciphers upstairs, across the landing from the Secret Inks, decoded it. Like a flame the news ran round the Cipher Room: Major Armitage, working in the Chief’s outer office, knew it, even before the buzzer summoned him.

“You’re for Bucharest, Geoffrey,” the Chief greeted him. “‘The Fox’ is on the prowl again.”

II. “IN RE BOREANU, NÉE CELMAR, DECD.”

When old Countess Boreanu died at the age of eighty-eight in her shabby apartment at Bucharest and left Castle Orghina to Stephen Selmar by will, Selmar was crossing to Europe in the Queen Mary. It was the first real vacation he had had in Europe since his college days. His previous visits had consisted of a whirlwind round of the Selmar agents in Britain and on the continent; but now that he had retired from business, he felt entitled to relax and enjoy himself. Moreover, he was planning to test out on a long motor trip through Switzerland and Italy the new Selmar model which would not be on the market until the New York Automobile Show in the fall.

He had a very happy seven weeks loafing between the Alps and the heel of Italy, especially as the new car came up even to his highly critical standard of performance. His only regret was that Melissa had refused to accompany him. But Melissa was temporarily interested in a young man with a wave in his hair and a job in refrigeration and, having had him included in an invitation she had received to a camp in the Adirondacks, was spending the summer in America. Arguing that a millionaire’s only child is privileged to indulge in such whimsies and reflecting that young Barnes was an improvement on the dubious Italian prince who had been Melissa’s penultimate passion, Selmar bore his daughter’s defection philosophically, relying on her promise to join him in Europe later on. He contented himself with sending her daily cables, mostly of a facetious order:

“ZERMATT. TRY NOT THE PASS THE OLD MAN SAID–STOP–BALONEY TO THAT–STOP–THE SELMAR EIGHT FLIES THEM ALL–STOP–MISSING YOU LOVE STEVE”: “VENICE. THIS HOTEL LIKE AN OVEN–STOP–TELL BOY FRIEND GREAT OPENING FOR AIRCONDITIONING HERE–STOP–-WHY NOT BRING HIM OVER LOVINGLY STEVE.”

He liked Melissa to call him by his first name: it kept him young, he used to tell her.

October had come round before Maître Grigorescu’s letter, mailed to Selmar at the works in Michigan, caught up with him in London. He found it at his bank there when, having reached Paris at the end of his trip and garaged the car, he flew across the channel to visit tailor, hosier and shoemaker. Melissa was to join him later–he had a vague plan of spending the winter on the Riviera–but that would not be for another month at least. Already he was beginning to find time hang heavy on his hands and the lawyer’s letter came to him as an amusing diversion.

He read it as he sat, a big, bronzed figure in his holiday grey tweeds, in the chair at the manager’s desk. The letter was in English. Written from a Bucharest address on paper headed “Grigorescu & Sapiro,” it said:

IN RE THE COUNTESS BOREANU, NÉE CELMAR, DECD.

Dear Sir,

We have the honour to inform you that our late client, the Countess Boreanu, deceased the 17th July last, has bequeathed to you under her will the family property situated on the River Dniester, in the province of Bessarabia, known as Castle Orghina...

“Well, I’ll be hornswoggled!” ejaculated Selmar and turned the letter over, as though further elucidation were to be discovered on the other side. Finding nothing, he read on:

The passage in our client’s will relative to the bequest, rendered into English, is as follows:

To Stephen Selmar, automobile manufacturer, of Lansing, Michigan, the only descendant of our ancient house who has accomplished anything useful in my lifetime, the historic family stronghold, Castle Orghina, which came back to the family with the expulsion of the Russians and the reunion of Bessarabia with Rumania in the Great War. The aforesaid Stephen Selmar may not be aware of his descent from the illustrious Stephen cel Mare, Moldavia’s mighty hero of the 15th century and the founder of our line, but I regard him as a worthier representative of our famous ancestor than my useless grandnephews, Georges and Michel, whom I am delighted to disinherit utterly. If only through the excellent motor-car which bears our name (though, unfortunately, in the American spelling) and to whose qualities I can speak, having derived much enjoyment from my Selmar limousine in my declining years, he has revived the family lustre. To him, therefore, I deed Castle Orghina, built and held against the pagan hordes across the Dniester by our common ancestor upon whom Pope Sixtus IV conferred the title of “Athlete of Christ.” I ask him to receive an old lady’s blessing, coupled with the hope that he will spare from his millions the few thousand dollars required to preserve the family stronghold from total ruin...”

“Crazy as a coot!” Selmar murmured, pushing back his hat with a bewildered air. The letter wound up by assuring him that his obedient servants, Grigorescu and Sapiro, were prepared to take his instructions, by letter or in person, at any time.

“Where’s Bessarabia, Joe?” Selmar asked the bank manager. Mr. Harper wasn’t very sure, but he’d send for the atlas. Meanwhile, Selmar read the letter through again.

He knew the family tradition, of course. The first Celmar to land in America had come from Vienna, after receiving a bullet through the lungs with the Austrian infantry at Austerlitz, had gone back to soldiering in the war of 1812 against the British, and retired with a grant of land to the Ohio Valley, the name thereafter appearing alternately as “Selmer” or “Selmar.” Aunt Agatha, who dabbled in genealogy, had dug up the yarn about the family’s descent from Stephan cel Mare: “cel Mare” meant “the Great” in Rumanian; but Stephen had not paid much attention to her–he was too busy building motor-cars.

Wilks, the office messenger, brought the atlas. Selmar and the manager pored over it together: Harper pointed to Bessarabia north-east of Bucharest, with Soviet Russia bordering it on the east. Selmar had grown thoughtful. “How does one get to this place?” he demanded.

“Through Bucharest, I’d say,” replied the bank manager. “Let’s see, doesn’t the Orient Express go to Bucharest, Miss Wheeler?”

His blonde secretary spoke up from her desk in the corner. “That’s right, Mr. Harper.”

“How about flying?” Selmar demanded.

“I guess you could fly if you wanted, Mr. Selmar,” said Harper. “I’ll have someone enquire about the services for you if you like.”

“Thanks, Joe. And they’d better book me by the first available plane. Can I give Miss Wheeler a cable?”

“Sure.” The stenographer came forward, pad in hand. “To your daughter, is it, Mr. Selmar?” she asked–she had taken cables for Selmar before.

“That’s right. The same address.” He drew reflectively on his cigar and began to dictate:

“GET OUT YOUR ATLAS–STOP–WE HAVE BEEN LEFT A CASTLE–STOP–ITS IN BESSARABIA MAP REFERENCE RUMANIA–STOP–GOING DOWN TO LOOK IT OVER–STOP–HOW DO YOU FANCY BEING A CHATELAINE–STOP–LOVE STEVE.”

The same evening the reply came back.

“ARE YOU CRAZY OR ARE YOU CRAZY–STOP–WHO LEFT US CASTLE AND CAN YOU SEND IT BACK–STOP–DOES IT HAVE AIRCONDITIONING–STOP–IF NOT CAN QUOTE REASONABLEST TERMS–STOP–I RUMPLE YOUR HAIR MELISSA.”

At breakfast-time next morning Selmar boarded the Bucharest plane at Croydon.

III. ENTER THE BARON DE BAHL

The streets of Bucharest were hot and dusty in the sunny October afternoon. The Baron de Bahl had doffed his wideawake hat disclosing a shock of snow-white hair and was sponging his face and neck with his handerchief as he turned in out of the glare and clatter of the Calei Victorei under the cool porch of the Hotel Metropolis. It was the hour between tea and dinner and the big hall was rather full. The sensuous strains of a Viennese valse softly played came through the palms where a gypsy orchestra in national dress made a patch of white. Faint perfumes and the languid murmur of voices overlaid the air. People came and went. Rumanian officers in gay uniforms, with lack-lustre eyes and powdered cheeks, established at small tables, ogled the women over their grenadine.

The newcomer bowed amiably to an elegant brunette nursing a griffon who smiled at him and saluted with a condescending wave of the hand a grizzled Rumanian colonel who read the evening paper at one of the tables. He did not stop but, with the relentlessness of a tank, made straight for the telephone desk. He was a big man in a loose, rather over-plump way, but it was less his bulk than the air of authority he dispensed that made people get out of his path. A young fellow well-tailored in a dark suit had risen in the rear of the hall on de Bahl’s appearance and now with cat-like gait came towards him. His skin was olive and he had dank, black hair.

At the telephone desk the Baron coughed diffidently. “Anything for me, Fräulein Ileana?” he asked in German.

The pretty Austrian telephone attendant was most deferential. “Your friend, Monsieur Volkoff, called from Monte Carlo, Herr Baron–the Herr Baron’s secretary took the communication. Trieste rang. The gentleman left no name. He wished to speak to you personally–he’ll call you back. And, warten Sie ein Bissl, Paris was on the line...”

“Monsieur Jaffé, was it?”

“That’s right. Your secretary spoke to him. Prague announces a personal call for the Herr Baron at 7 p.m.”

The big man nodded composedly. “Get me Monte Carlo at once, a personal call for Monsieur Volkoff. You have the hotel number? I’ll take Prague at 7–I’ll be up in my suite. Here!” He fished out a large leather purse, extracted a note, and put it in the telephonist’s hand with a friendly pat on the cheek. The girl reddened with pleasure when she saw the note. “Oh, danke, Herr Baron!”

De Bahl turned to find the olive-skinned young man at his side. “Ah, there you are, Amanescu!” he said in French. “What did Monte Carlo want? Wait!” He drew him into the gangway between the telephone booths out of earshot of people passing in the hall.

“It was Volkoff. He seemed most anxious to speak to you–I’d quite a job to persuade him that I’m your secretary.”

The Baron had a dry cough that seemed to be chronic with him. He gave it now and asked: “Did he leave any message?”

“Yes. He said ‘Tell him to sell.’”

“To sell, eh? Jaffé called, too, didn’t he? Did you give him my order about those shares?”

“Yes.”

“How was the Bourse?”

“Weak towards the close.” De Bahl seemed pleased. “A man named Rapp was asking for you at lunch-time,” Amanescu went on.

“Ah!” The Baron’s tone was eager. “What brought him round?”

“He says they’ve heard from Selmar.”

“The American, yes?”

“He’s in London. He’s flying over to-day–he should be here to-night.”

De Bahl’s nostrils twitched. His nose was clear-cut and aquiline: with his white hair and regular features it gave him a distinguished air. “Where’s he going to stay–did Rapp tell you?” he questioned sharply.

Amanescu’s finger pointed downward. “Here.” Mechanically the other repeated the gesture. Then he clapped the young man on the back. “Thanks, my boy. I shan’t need you any more to-night. Run away and amuse yourself with the pretty Rumanian ladies. Wait!” Once more the leather purse appeared. The secretary’s rather sullen eyes came to life as he perceived the extended note. “Thanks, Baron!” Then de Bahl sought the lifts.

As he entered the sitting-room of his suite, the telephone was pealing. He went to the desk. “Monte Carlo, Herr Baron,” the operator announced. “Monsieur Volkoff is on the wire.”

“Vladimir?” spoke the Baron softly into the instrument.

“Is it you, Alexis?” a cautious voice came back in French.

“Speaking.”

“You had my message?”

“Yes. Your Vienna man examined him, then?”

“Yes. He gives him a month.”

De Bahl’s dark eyes glistened. “Good. But it means we shall have to work fast. Are you sure you can keep it dark?”

“Cannot an old gentleman of 75 keep his room while the mistral lasts? Listen, Grenander’s up to something. He and Wahlczek have been visiting works all over the place for the past fortnight.”

“I know all about Grenander. They won’t touch him with a barge pole.”

“Don’t be too sure. I hear they’re due at Trieste at the end of the month for a conference with certain parties. Apostolou is there already. I think they’re cooking something up.”

“You’re right, they are. But don’t worry, their broth won’t be ready by dinner-time.”

“Meaning that yours will?”

“I shouldn’t be surprised. Meanwhile, if Grenander turns up at Monte Carlo, as he surely will, keep him at arm’s length until I arrive, you understand?”

“You may rely on me.”

With an enigmatic air de Bahl hung up. A furrow between his dark, hot eyes, he stared down at his hands, planted palms down on the blotter. His hands were large and white, but beautifully formed with long, delicate-looking fingers.

He had reached for the telephone again when a sound behind him brought him quickly about. It was the scratch of a match that had caught his ear. A jaunty individual with a restless eye, his hat on his head, stood with his back to the fireplace, nonchalantly lighting a cigarette. “How many times have I told you, Miklas, that I won’t have you sneaking in here without knocking?” said de Bahl.

He spoke in French. His voice was soft and husky, the furred voice of the chain cigarette smoker–one had the impression that he rarely raised it. He did not raise it now: his tone was one of mild reproach. The other blew out his match and dropped it in the fireplace behind him. “Was I to know you were talking secrets? Besides, the door was ajar.”

The Baron puckered his brow. “I feel sure I closed it behind me.”

“It was ajar, I tell you.”

De Bahl had helped himself to a cigarette from a tin box on the desk. They were enormous cigarettes, almost as long as a fountain pen. He lit one now, coughed a spiral of smoke and said throatily, “Rapp was round from Grigorescu’s. Selmar will be here to-night.”

Surprise appeared in his companion’s face. He was a smartly groomed fellow in his black jacket and striped trousers and wore a large pearl in his tie. His eyes, jet-black and liquid, were round as a cat’s, and the teeth below his small, dark moustache were magnificent. Against this he was almost bald and bags under his eyes gave him a worn and dissipated air. “So he bit, eh?” he remarked admiringly.

“As I told you he would.”

“But what does an American millionaire want with an old ruin like this? And in Bessarabia, of all god-forsaken places!”

“Castle Orghina is not a ruin. With a little intelligent restoration...”

Miklas guffawed. “And you really think you can persuade him to let us restore it for him?”

“He knows me for a reputable antique dealer and interior decorator. When he was at my place at Geneva this summer––”

“Bah, a millionaire and his dollars aren’t so soon parted. If he has any sense, he’ll hand Orghina over to the State.”

The Baron laughed contemptuously. “For a Greek, my dear Guido, you’re a singularly poor psychologist.”

“My mother was Spanish,” was the sulky retort.

“Your mother was out of a Tangier dance hall, and you can put ‘dance hall’ in quotation marks, as well you know, and the less said about her the better. In certain enterprises in which we have been associated together in the past you’ve proved your worth as architect and draughtsman and as an exponent of direct action–a quick knife thrust, a shot in the nape of the neck or a bomb in the self-starter–I gladly concede that you have few equals.” As he spoke the blood ebbed out of Miklas’s face and his eyes glittered venomously. But the Baron proceeded serenely. “Psychology, however, is not your forte, so kindly leave the psychology to me. Stephen Selmar has all the money he wants, but like most self-made men, he lacks background. If I know anything of the American mentality the Countess Boreanu’s bequest has made the strongest appeal to his imagination. Castle Orghina establishes his pedigree, so to speak. It’s also a gift, and I’ve yet to learn that the possession of wealth ever predisposed anybody against getting something for nothing. The fact that Selmar’s on his way here proves I’m right.”

“It doesn’t prove that he’s willing to saddle himself with the place.”

De Bahl veiled his eyes. “I propose to organise his trip to the Castle and I think I can promise you that he’ll accept the legacy.” He blew a cloud of smoke. “Grenander and Co. are having a meeting at Trieste at the end of the month––”

“With the Ukrainians, is it?”

He nodded. “Apostolou will keep me posted. But I don’t trust him, so I’m sending you down there. But, if all goes as I plan, I shall want you to come down to Castle Orghina with Selmar and me first.”

Miklas laughed. “You seem very sure of him?”

“I am very sure of him. I saw a lot of him at Geneva this summer. I believe I may say without boasting that he eats out of my hand.”

“He must have a better digestion than most American millionaires,” said the other sneeringly. A shadow fell across his face. “I wanted a word with you about that secretary of yours.”

“What about him?”

“Have you run into an Englishman called Armitage, Geoffrey Armitage, out here, an engineer from London?”

“No. Who is he?”

“He’s supposed to be connected with the oil industry. He and Amanescu are as thick as thieves. They meet almost every day.”

“Well, and supposing they do? What about it?”

“Only that Armitage is a British secret service man.”

The Baron’s fat cigarette, half way to his lips, stopped. His eyes glinted between half-closed lids. “You’re sure of this?”

“I know him as well as I know you. He was at Addis Ababa during the Abyssinian business and at Beirut the other day. I ran into him only this morning, coming out of a café with this secretary of yours. I thought I’d make some inquiries. They play billiards every evening at this place.”

De Bahl nodded. “Did Armitage spot you?”

Miklas laughed, “He wouldn’t know me if he did, I’m too old a hand for that. The British Intelligence, smart as they are, have never been wise to me. I know Armitage, but he doesn’t know me.”

He broke off sharply, for the Baron, with a finger to his lips, was pointing with his other hand at the door communicating with the bedroom. In two noiseless bounds Miklas reached the door and softly opened it. From somewhere out of sight came the sound of a door gently closing. Miklas disappeared and re-entered from the corridor. “There was someone in the bedroom,” he announced, “but he’s gone. Now we know how that door came to be ajar.”

The Baron nodded placidly. “You’d better keep an eye on our British friend, Guido.”

“And what about Amanescu?”

The other smiled. “When they’re going to hang a man in England, Guido, the hangman visits the jail the day before the execution and peeps at his victim through a spy-hole in the door to calculate the length of drop he’ll give him. Not a word to our smart young friend for the moment. I’ll watch him and see how much rope he’ll take.” He chuckled. “They don’t call me ‘The Fox’ for nothing. You leave the young man to me.”

He laughed with great good humour. “Go now–I have some more telephoning to do,” he said. Miklas went out, leaving him at the desk, his loose frame shaking with laughter interspersed with coughing.

IV. A WANDERER COMES HOME

It was only mid-October, but the first fog of the year had dropped down over London. The day had broken dim and windless and the risen sun showed itself to Londoners going to work as a pink disc glowing through an orange pall. By noon the lights were on and along Oxford Street and Regent Street the shop-fronts blazed. In Piccadilly the electric signs were flashing above the silvery furrows cut by the head-lamps of the slowly groping traffic.

With the falling of dusk the fog thickened. In London’s vast acreage of suburbs, away from the glare of the shopping streets, it was night. As Boulton’s taxi chugged into the quiet square, the trees stood like dim wraiths behind the battered railings of the central garden, and the street lamps, ringed with brown radiance, had the dull gleam of sequins sewn on the curtain of fog. The air was raw and smelt of soot; the young man shivered in his thick scarf and heavy Melton overcoat. “What a day to come home!” he murmured.

The taxi stopped at one of the tall houses in the square, a “gentleman’s residence,” mid-Victorian and smug, the sort of place where you would expect a judge or a prosperous chartered accountant to live. Boulton jumped out, thrust his hand in his pocket. “Hell!” he remarked to the dim figure on the box, “Egyptian money is no good to you, is it? Just a minute!”

All the lights were on in the hall when Petty Officer Potts, 180 pounds of solid muscle turning into fat, opened to his ring. “Potts, my old salt!” was the young man’s greeting.

The door-man’s forefinger jerked to his grizzled cow-lick. “Arternoon, Mr. Boulton, sir! We ain’t seen you in a row o’ Sundays! Blow me down, it must be all o’ three months! My word, you ‘ave bin out in the sun, ‘aven’t you? As nice a coat o’ tan as ever I see!”

The young man shuddered. “Does the sun ever shine in this cursed town, I wonder?” he remarked feelingly. With a flick of the hand he sent his rather grubby felt flying in the direction of the hat-stand. It landed adroitly on one of the hooks. “Bulls-eye!” he murmured with gratification. The doorman helped him out of his overcoat. “Ouch! Mind my shoulder!” the visitor warned.

“Still ‘ave trouble with it, do you, sir?” said the other, folding the garment and laying it on the chair.

Boulton nodded. “It’s this cursed damp weather. Ah, my Potts, never sell your farm and go up in the air!”

The door-man grinned. “No fear, Mr. Boulton, sir! I copped mine at Jutland. I’m ashore for keeps!”

“A Jutland veteran, a hero full of honours, with a snug berth and a pension–you’re on velvet, Potts. Look at me! A choked feed pipe crashes me and because it’s in peace time and I’m not on duty, I’m just a blinking civilian with a busted shoulder and darn glad to have landed a job. The trouble is, Potts, my hearty, I was born too late!”

The door-man chuckled. “There was times in the war when some of us allowed as we was born too early!”

“And to think,” the young man continued, unwinding his scarf, “that I might have flown one of these marvellous new ‘buses they’re dishing out to the troops at present instead of the sudden death contraptions which were all we had when I was in the Force. Oh, hell!” He dropped his scarf on top of his overcoat. “Don’t shut that door for a moment: I have to pay off my cab. Hey, Hanky!”

A plain girl of indeterminate age, very neat as to dress and hair, was crossing the hall. At his hail she advanced composedly under the rays of the hall lamp peering through horn-rimmed glasses. “So you’ve arrived at last!” she observed without enthusiasm.

He struck an attitude and in a voice that shook the hall, chanted:

“At home at last, all danger past, I hail my native vill–age!”

dwelling tenderly on the last note, which ran up an octave. He held out his hand. “Half a dollar for the taxi, please. I’ve no English money. Why on earth do you have to live in the suburbs?”

“Stop that noise at once! The Chief’s in conference.” She was hunting through her purse. “Mind you pay me back! No charging it against the petty cash. Your expense allowance ceases when you leave your post, you know.”

“But not when my post leaves me. Thanks, loveliness!” He took the half-crown she gave him and handed it to the door-man. “Discharge the charioteer, my ancient sea-lion!”

The girl said severely: “The Chief expected you for lunch. Why are you so late?”

“The fog, angel, the fog. Ceiling zero and visibility even less. They put us down at Lympne.” He had slipped his arm in hers. “Tell me, dear heart, are you still in love with me?”

Firmly she detached his arm. “Couldn’t you have telephoned or something? The Chief has asked for you at least half a dozen times.”

“And how is my aged employer?”

“Worried. The Foreign Office has been playing up again. Sir Herbert’s with him now. You’d better wait in my room.”

She led the way towards a door at the end of the hall. Boulton said, “How do I stand with him?”

“You’ll find out fast enough!”

“He realises they were on to me, that I had to skip. I mean, when he recalled me like that...”

“You can’t teach him anything about the service!”

She showed him into a plain office lined with white cupboards. There was a typewriter and a very neat desk on which stood a bunch of asters in a vase. She sat down at the typewriter and began to type. Boulton picked up a photograph from one of the desk trays. “Who’s the pretty girl, Hanky?”

“It’s Melissa Selmar, Stephen Selmar’s daughter.”

“The millionaire, the American motor-car fellow, do you mean?”

She nodded, typing on.

He pursed his lips appraisingly. “Rather fetching. What’s her picture doing here?”

“It’s the Chief’s. And don’t go poking about in my trays! I don’t like it.” She took the photograph away from him and thrust it in a drawer. Boulton’s eyes followed the picture to its resting place. “Old man stepping out, is he?” he observed whimsically. “My, my, what a time you must have, Hanky dear! When you’re not receiving lovely American heiresses for our beloved Chief, you’re entertaining a never-ending succession of romantic and, if I may say so without vanity, unusually good-looking Intelligence officers.”

The secretary turned up her line to rub out a word. “Those must be the ones I haven’t met,” she observed witheringly, plying her eraser.

Her companion placed his hand on her shoulder. “No, no, dear Hanky, you must not speak like that. Verily ‘tis piteous when a refined young female allows the iron to enter her soul. Child, if you have not discerned the qualities of your fellow labourers in the vineyard, is it not because your glance has failed to penetrate through the dross to the–er, solid ore beneath? Beauty, dear maid, is but skin deep. What if the faithful Armitage is but five feet high with hair a peculiarly loathsome shade of red, if our brother Elkington has a wall eye and the somewhat dreary Dyson’s teeth fit badly so that it is like a whistling solo when he talks–what are these trifling blemishes by comparison with the sterling merit that gleams like minted gold beneath the surface? And there are others, notably one, whom modesty forbids me to name, who combines the–ah, external husk of a Prince Charming with the soul of a Sir Galahad, oh, my Hanky.”

She shook his hand off. “Stop pawing me about and let me get on with my work. These letters have to catch the continental mail.”

He sighed. “When I joined the service three years ago, I followed the lure of romance. Did I find romance? Yes, I did not. I live the life of a travelling bagman and when I come home with my honours thick upon me, I have to trapse out to the darkest suburbs only to have the aged Potts blow his beery breath all over me and to be kept kicking my heels in the ante-chamber.”

“You’ll be kicking them in the hall if you don’t stop talking,” Miss Hancock promised grimly.

The Chief’s room was spacious and lofty. The elaborately moulded ceiling, the crystal chandelier and the marble fireplace suggested that it had been the drawing-room formerly: a very large map of Europe almost filling one wall, a wireless set, a row of steel filing cabinets and a large safe built into the wall oddly contrasted with these embellishments.

High Foreign Office officials are not frequent visitors at Secret Service headquarters. But a quarter of a century before in the Great War Sir Herbert Ashcroft, then a Third Secretary in the Diplomatic Service, and the grizzled man who now sat opposite him across the desk had undergone sundry unrecorded but none the less exciting adventures together at various neutral centres, and the link endured. At that time Ashcroft had been a young man about town with a Guardsman’s silhouette and a neat Guards moustache. He was still sleek and well-groomed and retained the moustache; but he was losing his hair and if his back was still straight his Guardsman’s figure was nearer that of a Guards sergeant-major than a subaltern’s.

With a plaintive air he was saying, “You know what he is, old boy. He wants Armitage. He was greatly impressed by that report of his from Beirut. Why can’t he have Armitage if he wants him?”

“I’ve told you already, Bertie–Armitage isn’t available.”

“How do you mean ‘not available’?”

“He’s away on a job. In Rumania, to be precise.”

“You can bring him home, can’t you?”

“Not off this job, Bertie.” He paused. “This is for you and nobody else, not even your old man. Armitage is keeping an eye on an old friend of ours.”

“Not ‘The Fox’?”

“‘The Fox,’ no less!”