Wallace of the Secret Service (9 page)

‘Here, Batty,’ called Sir Leonard, ‘keep your gun pointed at this fellow while I remove the burnous.’

The disrobing process was quickly accomplished, and he gave a sigh expressive of relief as he threw the voluminous garment down beside its owner.

‘It was a trifle smelly,’ he muttered. ‘Thanks, Batty. I’ve got him covered. Lead on as silently as you can.’

‘Wot about this ’ere bloke?’ questioned the ex-sailor in a hoarse whisper. ‘’E’s beginning to come round, sir.’

‘Tie him up and gag him; then put him inside and shut the gate.’

With naval thoroughness it was done, after which Batty and
the sailors led the way back to the launch. No alarm was raised behind them, and nothing untoward happened during the hour it took them to reach the boat. Every now and then Wallace prodded his prisoner in the back, as a warning that he was still there, but El Arish had accepted his fate apparently, and made no more protests.

Once in the cave, Sir Leonard set two men to keep watch on him, and drew the Prince aside.

‘I don’t think any good purpose will be served by taking El Arish with us, your Highness,’ he observed. ‘This, I believe to be a matter for settlement between your country and another. El Arish has been merely the tool.’

He proceeded in a whisper to enlarge on his suspicions to the astonished Prince.

‘If you agree,’ he concluded, ‘I’ll tell him he can go if he confesses.’

The Prince nodded, and Wallace confronted the Moor.

‘You can go,’ he declared, ‘if, to use an Americanism, you come clean.’

‘How do you mean?’ queried the Moor.

Sir Leonard explained and, once he understood how much the Englishman knew or suspected, El Arish gave away the whole plot. It had, as Wallace had guessed, been engineered by a nation jealous of Great Britain and antagonistic to Italy. By the light of a lamp brought from the launch, he agreed to write down his part in the affair, and sign it. When that was done he was told he could depart.

‘If I were you,’ advised Sir Leonard, ‘I should take a long holiday in the interior of Morocco until this affair blows over.’

The Moor who, at the prospect of release, had recovered his insouciance, bowed mockingly.

‘Your anxiety on my behalf,’ he observed, ‘touches me deeply.’

He watched his late prisoners climb aboard the launch; then bowed again, and walked away. With three additional passengers the boat was somewhat crowded, but nobody minded the crush. The Prince was in high good humour, and repeated again and again the great debt of gratitude he owed to Wallace, until the latter became rather embarrassed and sought the company of Cousins. To the latter he handed the morocco-bound notebook, and the little man’s wrinkled face creased in its extraordinary way into a smile.

‘So you saw through my design, sir,’ he chuckled. ‘I thought you’d be sooner or later on the trail, and nobody else but you would have guessed what I wanted to inform you. It was very clever of you, if I may say so, sir.’

‘Not so clever as your idea to leave such a clue.’

‘It was a lucky thing I had the book with me, and in my hip pocket. I wouldn’t have been able to get at it, if it had been elsewhere. My hands were tied behind me, you see.’

‘But you always carry the book in your hip pocket, don’t you?’

‘Generally. How did you know, sir?’

‘Just observation, that’s all. You can get at it more surreptitiously there, when you can’t think of an appropriate quotation, can’t you?’

Cousins actually blushed, but it was too dark for his smiling chief to see his face distinctly.

‘How did you trace us, sir?’ he asked hastily. ‘The book only told you we were in Morocco, but it’s a biggish country in which to search for anybody.’

Wallace told him the whole story; then inquired how they had been kidnapped. It appeared that after they had been walking up and down the lawn of Government House for ten minutes or thereabouts, and at the moment were at the far end close to the
shrubs and trees, they were suddenly pounced upon by several men, who threw some sort of thick material over their heads, and tied their arms and legs. Then they were thrown on the ground, while a whispered conversation took place in Arabic, a language which Cousins knew well. By straining his ears he heard a man telling others to climb over the wall, and get back to the dhow as soon as the Prince and his companions had been placed in the car. He added that it was necessary that the boat should sail for Morocco as soon as possible. Cousins, straining at his bonds and wondering what to do to leave some sort of clue behind, suddenly remembered that his notebook was bound in morocco leather. It was a slender hope that anyone would grasp the significance of the little volume, but there was nothing else he could do. He managed to get his fingers into his hip pocket, pull out the book, and leave it on the ground. A few minutes later they were picked up, carried a few yards and bundled into a car, which immediately started. It seemed a long time to Cousins before it stopped again and, when at last it did, they were thrown into a boat and rowed some distance, before being transferred to the larger vessel.

‘We only reached the house of El Arish,’ he concluded, ‘about thirty hours before you came along, sir, and, do you know, we were tied up all the time we were on that blessed boat. El Arish pretends to have manners, but he’s no gentleman. “What is he but a brute whose flesh has soul to suit” – Browning, sir!’

‘Thanks,’ returned Wallace sarcastically. ‘Did you look in the book for that one?’

Cousins became silent.

The relief of the Governor of Gibraltar was tremendous when his royal guest was brought back to him, as was that of the British Foreign Office. The revelations of Sir Leonard Wallace caused a
tremendous sensation in diplomatic circles, with the result that the nation which had hoped for so much from the abduction of the Prince of Emilia was forced by Italy, backed by Great Britain, to eat very humble pie indeed.

‘The old country came out of the affair with flying colours,’ observed Wallace to his wife, as a week or so later they sat together once again on the terrace of their New Forest home.

‘Thanks to you, dear,’ she murmured.

‘No; thanks to Cousins’ passion for quotations and the little book in which he writes them.’

‘The whole gas question is in the air,’ observed Major Brien with great profundity.

Sir Leonard Wallace, who was busily engaged in signing documents, glanced up at his friend and smiled.

‘Where did you expect it to be?’ he queried. ‘Buried in the ground?’

Brien looked at him suspiciously; then he, too, smiled.

‘Rather a
bon mot
that,’ he said in self-congratulatory tones. ‘But what are you going to do about this Mason affair?’

Wallace did not answer. Instead he went on reading through the reports, and appending his signature. The last one appeared to give him a good deal of thought, but at length he signed it.

‘Is that all, Stephenson?’ he asked the man standing respectfully at his side.

‘Yes, sir,’ was the reply.

‘Very well. Take them away. As soon as Mr Cousins returns tell him I am waiting here for him.’

The clerk gathered up the papers and quietly left the room.

‘Now, Bill,’ urged Sir Leonard, ‘tell me what’s worrying you.’

Brien rose from the chair in which he had been lounging.

‘It’s that message from Brookfield,’ he asserted walking across to the bookshelves, and running his finger along the titles as though in search of a particular volume. ‘It seems fairly evident from what he says that Professor Mason’s secret is out – in fact that it is a secret no longer, and that the poor old chap not only lost his life, but all he has worked for since the War.’

Wallace nodded.

‘Looks like it,’ he agreed, ‘but the formula may not have been in the safe at all. What are you looking for?’

‘That book of yours on Lewisite.’

‘Third shelf down, seventh book along from the right-hand side,’ was the prompt direction.

Brien turned, and looked admiringly at his chief.

‘How do you do it?’ he asked.

Wallace laughed.

‘I was glancing through it myself half an hour ago,’ he confessed, ‘and that’s where I put it.’

Brien uttered a sound expressive of disgust, removed the book from its shelf; then returned, and sank into the chair he had vacated. He quickly found the chapter he wanted, and began to read carefully. Sir Leonard rested his head in his hands – one natural, the other artificial – and gazed unseeingly at his desk. Although he had spoken so lightly to his friend, he was feeling anything but elated.

Professor Mason who, practically since the cessation of hostilities, had been seeking a poison gas that would be supreme, that would destroy all life against which it was directed, and
stifle any attempt at resistance, had at last succeeded. Working with care and patience on the principles of Lewisite, he had gradually evolved a gas so malignant that, according to him, no mask could be invented that would be proof against it. He had been actuated all the time by the belief that such a gas would make war impossible. In the hands of a nation, as honourable as Great Britain, he declared that it would prove far more efficacious for peace than the League of Nations could ever be. At the same time he was forced to admit that, if the formula fell into the hands of an unscrupulous country, the result might well mean that all other nations would become subject races to that country. Despite themselves, high officials at the War Office had been impressed, with the result that during the final stages of the professor’s work the Secret Service had been asked to supply a man to guard him and his discovery from possible curiosity on the part of agents of other powers. Sir Leonard Wallace had sent Brookfield, a very clever member of his staff, who, after proving himself one of the successes of the Special Branch at Scotland Yard, had been transferred to the Secret Service.

For six weeks Brookfield had lived with the scientist in his rambling old house at East Minster on the Isle of Sheppey, keeping constant vigilance, but nothing untoward had happened. Even he had not been permitted to enter the large laboratory where the professor conducted his experiments. It was a chamber that possessed double doors, the inner one being constructed of steel, both of which were locked when Mason was inside. There were no windows, air being supplied in plentiful quantities through three ventilators. As soon as he was satisfied that his five years of careful experiment had proved successful, the professor informed
the War Office and arranged a date for final demonstration of the efficacy of the gas, which he had named Veronite. Major Brien had been present with the experts on the day appointed and, like his companions, had been amazed and shocked by the manifestation.

‘It was devastating, catastrophic,’ he had told Sir Leonard Wallace on his return to the office. ‘I had never even imagined anything so dreadful, and I hope I never see the infernal stuff in action again.’

The War Office specialists had been enthusiastic, and had desired to take possession of the formula there and then, but Professor Mason had told them there was still one little experiment he wished to carry out before announcing that his work was complete. That morning he had failed to appear at breakfast, and repeated and loud knocking on the door of the laboratory had met with no response. Thoroughly alarmed Brookfield rang up Sir Leonard Wallace, who promptly sent down Cousins to help in the investigation. Two hours later Brookfield telephoned with the information that he and Cousins had broken in the first door and opened the second by means of a steel cutter to find the professor lying dead, shot through the brain. Cousins was then on his way to Town to make his report, whilst Brookfield remained awaiting orders.

‘Has it struck you,’ asked Brien suddenly looking up from his book, ‘that the most terrible consequences may result from this tragedy?’

‘Naturally,’ was the reply. ‘There would be something wrong with my mentality if the thought had not occurred to me.’ He glanced keenly at his friend. ‘What kind of a man was Mason, Billy? I never met him, you know.’

‘A genial little chap with a mop of white hair and the face of a schoolboy,’ returned Brien. ‘I was rather struck with the youthfulness of his complexion. It was as smooth as a woman’s, and hadn’t a line or wrinkle in it. It made me think of that big poster of a schoolgirl which advertises Palm Olive soap.’

‘Would you think he was the type of man to commit suicide?’

Brien shook his head emphatically.

‘Absolutely not,’ he declared. ‘Why? Do you think—’

‘I can hardly think anything until I’ve heard what Cousins has to say,’ interrupted Wallace. ‘It occurred to me, however, that the appalling nature of the force he was handing over to others may have suddenly caused him misgiving; a dread that he had no right to put such power into the hands even of Great Britain. You know what these savants are. Their minds are not normal like yours and mine.’ Brien smiled to himself. Nobody would ever have described Wallace’s mind as normal, a mind that had been on several occasions, spoken of as one of the most brilliant in England. ‘There is just a chance, therefore,’ went on Wallace, ‘that a sudden revulsion of feeling came to him, whereupon he destroyed his formula and shot himself.’

‘But,’ objected Billy, ‘Brookfield spoke as though he was certain of murder. If it had been suicide, a weapon would have been found, and he made no mention of one. I hope,’ he added reflectively, ‘that it does turn out to be suicide. The idea of the gas being in the hands of a nation that does not hesitate to employ agents, who commit murder to attain their object, does not bear thinking about.’

There was a knock on the door and, in response to Wallace’s call, one of the most remarkable and popular figures at Secret Service headquarters entered. Cousins, with his slim boyish
figure and wrinkled face, was generally a source of amusement to his colleagues. But on this occasion neither Wallace nor Brien smiled a greeting at him. His sharp brown eyes had a look of solemnity in them; the humorous curves of his face had, in some extraordinary manner, changed into lines of grim solicitude. Without a word he sank into the chair his chief indicated, and accepted a cigarette from the silver box that was pushed across to him. Both his superior officers were watching him anxiously. He took two or three quick puffs at his cigarette before he spoke, then:

‘It’s murder without a doubt,’ he proclaimed, ‘and I’m just as certain that the formula has been stolen.’

A sharp intake of breath came from Brien. Sir Leonard gave no sign, but his steel-grey eyes were boring into the little man’s face as though he expected to read the solution of the mystery there.

‘You found no weapon, I suppose?’ he asked quietly.

‘No, sir. Apart from that there is no sign of singeing as there would have been if the bullet had been fired from very close range.’

‘Well, being certain that the professor was murdered, how did his assailant get into the laboratory?’

Cousins raised his hands in a helpless sort of gesture.

‘That’s what Brookfield and I have been trying to puzzle out all morning,’ he observed ruefully. ‘He not only got in, but he got out again, and left both doors
locked from the inside.’

‘I suppose they are self-locking,’ put in Brien, ‘and all the murderer had to do was to pull them to after he was out.’

Cousins looked at him, the glimmer of a pitying smile on his face.

‘We happen to have noticed that neither latch was self-locking,’ he remarked with the slightest trace of sarcasm. ‘Also I found both keys lying on one of the tables in the laboratory. Not only that but
Brookfield sat on an armchair close to the outer door all night, only leaving his post when the housekeeper told him breakfast was ready at eight this morning.’

‘There are no windows in the laboratory, are there?’

‘No sir. It is lit by half a dozen powerful electric lights. There’s not even a chimney.’

‘Then,’ declared Brien with conviction, ‘the professor must have killed himself, unless—’ he stopped as a sudden thought struck him. ‘Would it have been possible for the man, whoever he was, to have hidden in the room and made his escape when you and Brookfield were bending over the professor? You see there is a chance that Mason took the fellow in with him.’

‘Nobody went in with him,’ replied Cousins. ‘Both Brookfield and a maid saw him go in alone, and bade him good night; and it is out of the question that the murderer could have been hiding there. When we finally succeeded in opening the steel door we both stood at the entrance for some time while I bound up Brookfield’s hand which had been cut during the process. If anybody had been in there we would have been bound to have seen him. There’s nowhere a man could hide effectually. Besides, Mrs Holdsworth, the housekeeper, was standing outside in the passage.’

Brien, looking thoroughly mystified, sat back in his chair. ‘It beats me,’ he confessed. ‘He must have shot himself, but how?’

Wallace who had remained silent since his first question, and appeared to be deep in thought now looked up.

‘Any theory, Cousins?’ he demanded.

‘I’m afraid I haven’t,’ was the reply. ‘The whole thing is impossible on the face of it, and yet it has happened. Take the bare facts as they stand, sir: nobody could get into that room, yet
somebody did; nobody could get out without going through the double doors, yet somebody did.’

‘Perhaps the murderer had duplicate keys!’

‘I have gone into that possibility, sir. But I ascertained that the locks were specially made with only one key for each door, which never under any circumstances left the professor’s possession.’

‘Why are you so sure that the laboratory was entered?’ asked Sir Leonard quietly.

‘How else could the professor have been murdered, sir, and the safe ransacked?’

‘Ah! The safe was ransacked, was it? Brookfield only told us on the telephone that you found the door open. How do you know it had been ransacked?’

‘It was full of papers mixed together in hopeless confusion, as though someone had conducted a hasty search. While the doctor was examining the body, I went through them. There was no sign of the formula for Veronite either there, in Professor Mason’s pockets, or in fact anywhere in the laboratory.’

‘How do you know?’ demanded Brien.

Cousins smiled.

‘I happen to have a fairly extensive knowledge of chemistry,’ he replied, as though he were confessing a weakness, ‘and there was certainly no formula concerning poison gas.’

‘Is there anything you don’t know, Cousins?’ asked Wallace.

The little man sighed.

‘A lot more than I should care to confess,’ he said. ‘What I do know can only be classed as extraneous knowledge, sir. I browse in the suburbs so to speak.’

‘They must be singularly well-informed suburbs,’ observed Brien.

‘“Give me ae spark o’ Nature’s fire, that’s a’ the learning I desire”,’ murmured Cousins.

‘Were the lights on when you entered the laboratory?’ asked Wallace.

‘All of them, sir.’

‘Did you inform the Sheerness police?’

Cousins shook his head.

‘I thought you’d want to have a look round first,’ he pointed out.

‘Quite right. We’ll let Scotland Yard know. If they want to send a man down they can, but they’ll probably leave a matter like this to us entirely. Who is the doctor you called in?’

‘A man called Cummings, with a practice at Minster, sir. He wanted to call in the police, and was altogether an officious sort of person. I told him to stay in the house, and gave Brookfield the tip not to let him out. He’s the sort that would have blabbed the news to the whole countryside, if we had let him go. He made a bit of a fuss; imagines Brooky and I are criminals of the deepest dye, I think.’

‘The usual type of country practitioner, I suppose.’

‘Worse than the usual, sir. Simply oozed importance when he knew what we wanted him for, and talked an awful lot. Still he knew enough to be able to declare life extinct, which was clever of him considering poor old Professor Mason was shot right through the centre of his forehead.’

Wallace rose.

‘I’ll go along at once. Perhaps you’d better come with me, Billy, and you too, of course, Cousins. Is the sewing machine here, Bill?’

The sewing machine was his disrespectful name for Major Brien’s car and, after many protests against such a title, the latter
had accepted the inevitable, and even used the designation himself. He nodded.