Microbes of Power (Wallace of the Secret Service Series) (8 page)

‘My God!’ came from him in a hoarse whisper. ‘Barbara Havelock! Is she – is she dead?’

Shannon nodded. He looked like a man carved from marble. The expression of grief on his face, framed as it were in grim, deadly purpose, seemed to have been chiselled there. Hastings turned his eyes full on him and, if possible, his horror increased. The Secret Service man, indeed, was a startling enough object. His clothes were cut and torn, blood was still running from several slashes; his shirt front was stained with large blotches of it; his face alone seemed to have escaped damage. Questions, appalled, urgent questions, were trembling on the ADC’s lips, yearning to find expression all at once, but he refrained, waiting for Sir Gordon Stevenson’s arrival. The governor was not long in coming. Like Hastings he stood appalled by what he saw; went down on his knees by the body of Barbara; remained there like a man in grief-stricken prayer for some minutes. He and his aide had both known the girl well
and had been very fond of her, though neither had known that she had been a member of the British Secret Service. The corporal, with great tact, left the room, indicating to Major Hastings before he went that he would be within call if required. Stevenson rose from his knees; faced Shannon with a white, haggard face. He seemed suddenly to have aged.

‘In God’s name,’ he muttered, ‘what has happened?’

‘First of all,’ replied Shannon, ‘in order that you may understand more easily, it is necessary to tell you that Miss Havelock was one of us.’

His two companions looked startled.

‘You mean,’ asked the governor, ‘that she was a member of the Intelligence Service?’

‘Yes; she was the resident agent in Cyprus.’

Shannon swayed slightly, and both men showed immediate concern. They started forward to his assistance, but he waved them impatiently, almost roughly away; refused the offer of Stevenson to send for a doctor; declined scornfully the chair pushed forward by Hastings. He would not sit down in the presence of the dead girl. Standing there, swaying occasionally, his voice utterly toneless, the expression on his face never altering, he told them the whole story. It took some time in the telling, for he related nearly every incident that had happened from the moment he had called at the school and introduced himself, until he had killed Madame Malampos and her companion, and driven from the scene of the tragedy. Sir Gordon Stevenson and Major Hastings did not interrupt; in fact they hardly moved, only turning occasionally to cast pitying, tender glances at the form lying so pathetically still on the couch. At the conclusion of the recital, they regarded Shannon with something approaching awe. He had said very little about his own part in the
desperate attempt to defeat the Cypriots and save the girl, but he had, of necessity, to speak of the numbers that had attacked them and, judging from his condition, and the fact that he mentioned that seven or eight had been left lying there dead or wounded, it was not difficult to visualise what he had done.

‘We shall have to get in touch with the police at once,’ declared the governor. ‘The question is, Shannon, how much of this must we keep to ourselves?’

‘There must be no mention that Barbara and I have any connection with the Secret Service, of course,’ returned the other. ‘The affair must be given the appearance of an attempt at kidnapping by a gang of bandits. Why, it doesn’t matter. I simply have no knowledge of the reason, that is all, and Barbara is dead. The car was obtained for us in the ordinary way by the porter of the hotel – the driver must have been watching and awaiting such a summons. I don’t think the porter was in on the plot, but, no doubt, he will be questioned. If I may presume to advise, I suggest that the Chief Commandant of Police be taken into your confidence, and instructed to act accordingly.’

The governor stood thinking deeply for some time, his chin sunk on his breast.

‘I daresay it can be arranged as you advise,’ he declared at length. ‘It is most unlikely that any of the survivors captured will speak. If they know anything, and I doubt whether it will be much, they are not likely to give away the conspiracy. The thing that bothers me most is the position of the woman you shot. The fact that she was housekeeper at Miss Havelock’s school, and took part in the attempt against her and you, is bound to cause endless complications.’

‘If I may make a suggestion, sir,’ put in Hastings, ‘I think I see a
way by which that can be got over and which will enable us to keep Shannon out of the affair altogether.’

‘What is it?’ asked Stevenson eagerly.

‘It is that Madame Malampos and her companion, who were, we know, at the dance in the hotel, or at least were in the grounds, took Miss Havelock home. That is to say, Shannon’s car overtook them, and he offered them a lift, whereupon Miss Havelock told him it was not necessary for him to go on with them, as she would be with Madame Malampos and her companion. Shannon then left the car, and it went on. It was stopped near the Phaneromene Market, which is a lonely spot at night, by a gang of bandits in two cars who forced them to accompany them to the spot where the tragic affair took place. There a quarrel arose between the bandits, during which some were killed and others wounded and, in attempting to escape, the three were killed.’

‘Yes,’ nodded Stevenson; ‘I believe you have thought of the solution.’

‘Good God, man!’ burst out Shannon, breaking from his icy, dreadful calm for the first time since he had entered the room, ‘do you realise that you are whitewashing that fiend of a woman, making her appear a martyr like that poor girl lying there.’

‘I know,’ agreed Hastings, ‘and I understand how you feel about it. I feel the same, so does Sir Gordon. But for the sake of your job, we have to keep you out of this thing as far as possible.’

Shannon, of course, saw the necessity of that himself. The idea, however, that Mrs Malampos, who, he felt, had engineered the whole appalling crime, should be placed on the same pedestal of murdered innocence, as that occupied by Barbara Havelock, was repugnant to him. He was compelled to think of the Service, though; his own feelings, no matter how bitter they might be, must be suppressed. He agreed, therefore, and details were discussed.
Hastings went off telephone to the Chief Commandant of Police, and request him to drive to Government House immediately on a matter of extreme urgency. Stevenson’s own body servant bathed and bandaged Shannon’s wounds. He had been slashed in more than a dozen places, but none of the cuts were serious, though some were quite deep. He had lost a considerable amount of blood, however, which had weakened even his giant frame. He was glad to sit down in the governor’s bedroom, and drink the brandy the latter insisted on his taking. Hastings returned after an absence of ten minutes. He regarded the Secret Service man curiously.

‘How did that fellow get jammed in the roof of the car?’ he asked.

‘Two or three of them climbed on top,’ replied Shannon wearily, ‘and commenced to smash their way in with an axe. I caught hold of him, and pulled him through the hole he had made, fixing him in it in order to block up the opening, while Barbara and I got out.’

Hastings whistled softly.

‘The roof practically had to be demolished to enable the men to extricate him. They have only just succeeded in getting him out. He is dead. A sharp, jagged piece of the broken structure was forced into his body. I suppose his struggles to get away drove it further in.’

A gleam of pitiless joy showed for an instant in Shannon’s eyes.

‘Another of them,’ he muttered. ‘Thank God for it.’

Stevenson and Hastings glanced significantly at each other. They understood how the big man was feeling and, if the truth were told, were inclined to reciprocate his sentiments, callous as they might have seemed.

‘I have spoken to the men,’ Hastings informed the governor, ‘and instructed them to keep silent about what they have seen tonight. The corporal will answer for them. Perhaps you will hint
to the two indoor servants about the necessity of forgetting all they have seen or heard here tonight, sir. Your word will have greater weight than mine.’

Stevenson nodded.

‘They are quite reliable,’ he asserted. ‘I will speak to them. What are you proposing to do with the man the guard found dead?’

‘The corporal himself will drive the car back to the place where the horrible business happened, deposit the body, and leave the car there. He is going to take his bicycle with him, so that he won’t have to walk back.’

‘He had better take some men with him in case he is attacked.’

‘I have told him to go armed, sir. I think it might be injudicious to let too many eyes view the scene before the police get there.’

‘Hastings is right, sir,’ put in Shannon. ‘Besides, there is little danger. I should think the uninjured and wounded have left the place long ago. They are not likely to remain there with the prospect of being arrested hanging over them.’

‘I hope you turn out to be correct, Shannon,’ returned the governor. ‘It would be far better not to have prisoners on our hands. But,’ his face grew tense, grimly determined, ‘things are going be tightened up in this colony from now on. I’d proclaim martial law, if it were not for the fact that the profession of you and Miss Havelock must run no risk of becoming publicly known.’

‘It will be known or, at least, suspected by the people who should not know it,’ retorted Shannon bitterly. ‘But the pretence must be kept up, I suppose. I think I’d better be smuggled away when I leave. Has there been any reply yet from Constantinople to my cable, sir?’

‘Yes. This terrible affair drove it out of my mind until now.’ He left the bedroom, returning a few minutes later with a sealed
envelope, which he handed to Shannon. ‘I hope they haven’t escaped you,’ he observed anxiously.

Shannon extracted the sheet of flimsy paper and, with the aid of a pencil, spent some minutes decoding the message. At length he looked up, his eyes gleaming.

‘They have not disembarked at Constantinople,’ he proclaimed. ‘I’ll meet them at Naples, and go on with them to Marseilles. God grant,’ he added, between his clenched teeth, ‘that I succeed in getting to the bottom of the infernal plot, and wipe them out. I owe it not only to the country, but to the service and Barbara Havelock. I could not save her life; perhaps I can avenge her fully by bringing to a successful conclusion the investigation she started.’

He was conveyed to a spot not far from his hotel in the car in which he and Barbara had been trapped. It was not a very difficult matter to reach his room unobserved. It was on the ground floor at the side of the building facing the gardens. Dawn had not yet broken, though its coming was imminent, and darkness reigned supreme. There was not a light to be seen anywhere, though no doubt the night porter and the watchman were about. Inside his comfortable apartment, Shannon drew the thick curtains well across the windows before switching on the light. He quickly disrobed, and packed away his ruined clothing at the bottom of a bag, after which he spent nearly an hour writing a report in cypher for Sir Leonard of all that had happened. That done, he threw himself on the bed with no expectation of being able to find solace in slumber. But the weakness caused by loss of blood, combined with the mental and physical strain he had undergone, came to the rescue. In less than five minutes his eyes had closed, and he slept the sleep of utter exhaustion.

He awoke to find the curtains drawn back, one of the French windows wide open, the sun streaming gloriously into the room. The deep perfume of violets, allied with a more elusive but equally attractive scent, pervaded the atmosphere. From outside came the glorious song of the birds raised joyfully, as though in praise to heaven. But there was no response to their bliss in the heart of Hugh Shannon. With his awakening had come a vision of Barbara Havelock standing in the lounge the evening before, looking so fresh and exquisitely dainty in her rose pink dress, a delightful smile upon her face, her blue eyes sparkling with enjoyment. Then the vision faded to give place to another of that same face, white with the pallor of death, a terrible crimson stain mocking at the delicate pink of the dress. Involuntarily he groaned. Almost at once a hotel valet appeared from the dressing room. Obviously a Frenchman, he had the gay, debonair aspect of the Parisian.

‘Good morning, m’sieu,’ he bowed. ‘It is a delightful morning, this – a morning made for the happiness. Monsieur has slept late, but no doubt he found the dance tiring. I have laid out your clothes,
and will now prepare your bath, if monsieur permits.’

‘Yes, yes, get it ready at once,’ returned Shannon, who was in no mood to listen to gay chatter.

The valet’s eyes opened a little wider than usual, the brows were raised slightly. These Englishmen, he thought, drank too much of the spirits. It caused them to be heavy, lethargic, and irritable in the early morning. Now if they confined themselves to the light wines of his beloved France, or even of this island of Cyprus, all would be well with them.

‘Monsieur will take coffee?’

Monsieur would, and the Frenchman hastened away to give the order. Relieved to be alone, Shannon sprang out of bed. He was annoyed with himself for having slept so late. It was close to nine o’clock. He strolled to the window, and gazed out on the trim, well-kept lawns, the flower beds a riot of delicious colour, the little wicker tables and chairs dotted about in the distance. From where he stood he could see the table at which he and Barbara had sat. What a delightful companion she had proved! What a friend she would have made for his own Helen! A deep sigh, redolent of the sorrow and bitterness which filled him, broke from his lips, and he stood there stiffly erect, paying a little tribute of silence to the memory of a brave, uncomplaining soul and a fellow member of the British Secret Service. The coniferous tree with dark foliage shading the table at which he and she had sat caught his eye. He recognised it as a Cypress, and started slightly. Was not a branch of such a tree regarded as a symbol of mourning? How tragically significant! But he had work to do, vital, exigent work; there was no time for sorrow in his life.

He turned from the window, drank the coffee brought to him by an attentive waiter, and proceeded with his bathing and shaving.
The valet was dismissed before he commenced to dress. Shannon had no desire for the man to catch sight of the numerous bandages on his arms and body. He had almost finished a meagre breakfast, when a message was brought to him that Colonel Cummings, the Chief Commandant of Police, and Major Hastings, the governor’s ADC, wished to see him. He found them awaiting him in the lounge, two grave-faced, bronzed, soldierly-looking men. Major Hastings quickly performed the introduction.

‘Colonel Cummings has received the entire confidence of His Excellency,’ he told Shannon in a low voice, ‘and everything has passed off as we arranged. There is a place over there where we can talk without being overheard.’

He indicated a lounge seat standing in a remote corner of the large hall in the midst of a group of palms in pots.

‘Wouldn’t you rather come to my room?’ asked the Secret Service man.

‘No; it is better to remain here. Our conversation will not be heard, and it will not have an appearance of secrecy. The news has got about and, of course, it is known here that you dined and danced with Miss Havelock last night.’

Shannon noticed, as they strolled to the seat, that curious glances were cast at them by the members of the hotel staff present in the lounge and some of the guests.

‘Would you mind giving a display of startled surprise as we talk to you?’ suggested Colonel Cummings, as they sat down. ‘We want those who are watching to get the impression, Shannon, that you are hearing the news for the first time.’ The young man nodded. ‘By the way,’ pursued the colonel, ‘how do you feel today? I understand you were pretty badly injured.’

‘Oh, I’m all right, sir,’ was the response.

‘You’ll have to have those wounds properly dressed,’ put in Hastings. ‘Sir Gordon has directed me to tell you that he insists on it. The Chief MO has been requested to call at Government House at eleven for the purpose.’

‘Very well,’ acquiesced Shannon impatiently, ‘but it wasn’t necessary. As I tell you, I’m quite all right. May I know what has been done?’

Colonel Cummings nodded. He at once proceeded to tell Shannon that, after he had been made acquainted with the facts by the governor, he had called out the Senior Superintendent of Police and a body of men, and had driven to the scene of the tragedy. There they had found the car with the damaged roof. Inside it lay Miss Havelock – Hastings had followed the corporal of the guard in his own car, conveying the poor girl back to the place where she had met her death. After placing her in the vehicle which had originally taken her there, he had driven back. Close by lay the man who had died while jammed in it and, in various spots in the vicinity, lay four men and the woman also dead. Four had been shot, the fifth had a broken neck. A short distance away, not far from a group of bushes, was another man who apparently had died of strangulation, though several bones in his body were also broken. As he announced this item, the colonel and Major Hastings both looked at Shannon as though tremendously impressed.

‘I gather,’ declared the former, ‘from the medical evidence, that he lost his life very much as though he had been hanged. You told Sir Gordon and Hastings that you used a man to clear a space by swinging him round you. Have you any clear idea how you grasped him?’

‘Not very,’ admitted Shannon, who had not had any difficulty in obeying the injunction to look startled and horrified as the colonel
spoke. The tragedy of Barbara’s death had still too real a grip on his mind. ‘I think I went a little mad when I heard the cry which told me she had been hurt. I grabbed the fellow by the shoulders and neck I believe.’

Colonel Cummings nodded.

‘That would account for it,’ he agreed. ‘His neck had certainly been held in a terrible grip. God! I shouldn’t like to be on the opposite side to you in a fight.’

‘Was there no one left alive?’ demanded the Secret Service man.

‘No; not there. Somebody survived, of course, as the two cars had one when we reached the place. The man with the broken neck turned out to be the fellow who had driven you and Miss Havelock. He wasn’t – er – quite dead when we picked him up! I have his dying confession here.’ He looked significantly at Shannon as he spoke. ‘Would you like to see it?’

The young man nodded, and accepted from the commandant a sheet of foolscap paper. On it was penned the following:

The document was signed in scrawly, practically undecipherable letters. Shannon shuddered as he handed it back.

‘Do you know if that is anything like the fellow’s signature?’ he asked.

‘No, and it hardly matters,’ replied the colonel. ‘A man with a broken neck could not be expected to write legibly. His hand would
have to be guided. Nobody is likely to come forward and dispute either the statement or the signature.’

Shannon bent forward, and covered his face with his hands for a few moments. Here was no acting. For the time being he was genuinely overcome at the necessity for such subterfuge.

‘It’s all so horrible,’ he groaned. Then he looked up. ‘Tell me the rest,’ he urged.

‘The bodies of the six men were removed to the mortuary,’ the colonel told him. ‘Those of Miss Havelock and the woman Malampos were conveyed to the school and, after the news had been broken to Miss Pritchard, the headmistress, were taken in and left there. You are entirely out of the affair, Shannon. The story will appear in full in the papers with a reproduction of the statement made by Doberinas. It is quite natural that I should interview you, as you spent the evening with the girl. I have already questioned the porter who called the car. I am convinced he was not in the plot. He, of course, said you had gone with Miss Havelock, but I let him know that you left the car, when Madame Malampos was invited to enter it, and returned to the hotel.’

Shannon clenched his hands until the knuckles gleamed white.

‘God!’ he ejaculated in a low, fierce undertone. ‘I’d give almost anything if the necessity hadn’t arisen to make that woman appear an innocent victim.’

Colonel Cummings gave a short, grim laugh that had nothing of mirth in it.

‘I don’t think she’ll appear innocent for long,’ he commented.

‘What do you mean?’ demanded Shannon eagerly.

‘The man Stanislas Mowitz was the fellow she introduced to you as her brother. It was known that she was at the dance with him. It is also believed that he was her lover – you probably guessed
the brother yarn was – well, just a yarn. Do you imagine she will be regarded as innocent, when the whole story, as we tell it, is out? Why, even a child will suspect that she was only kidnapped by necessity, because she happened to be in the car with poor Barbara. Mowitz would hardly want to take along his mistress, when he was abducting a girl he proposed to make his wife. A good many people will decide in their own minds that she started the supposed row. Quite a number will believe that Doberinas, either by accident or by design, made a misstatement, and that actually she stabbed Barbara herself in a fit of jealousy. What is believed matters nothing to us. We have got to the bottom of the business as far as all practicable purposes are concerned, and the police will endeavour to find the scoundrels who got away. We won’t find them, and don’t want to, but nobody knows that but the superintendent and I. Like you, I also hope her name becomes anathema.’ He rose, and held out his hand. ‘That’s all there is to the business as far as you are concerned, Shannon. All that remains for me to do is to wish you – good hunting!’

‘Thank you, sir,’ returned Shannon gratefully, giving the commandant’s hand a grip that caused the colonel to wince.

‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed the latter, ‘I thought that arm was pretty badly cut about.’

‘So it is,’ Hastings put in. ‘It seemed to me to be almost in ribbons.’

‘Well, I hope I don’t have to shake hands with Shannon when it’s fit.’

He nodded, and marched briskly across the lounge, and out of the hotel. The manager was standing a few yards away. Major Hastings caught his eye, and beckoned to him. The immaculately attired and popular man hastened up to them.

‘Mr Shannon,’ the aide-de-camp told him, ‘has had a very bad shock, as you, no doubt, will have gathered. He is a friend of Miss Havelock’s relations, and only called at Cyprus to convey their greetings and get to know her. It is rather early, I know, but I think a good stiff dose of your best brandy will help to steady his nerves.’

‘I’ll give orders myself, Major Hastings,’ the manager assured him, and added to Shannon: ‘Please accept the very deep sympathy of myself and my staff, Mr Shannon. We all knew and liked Miss Havelock, and the affair has been a tragic shock to us.’

The Secret Service man thanked him, and he hurried away to give orders for the brandy.

‘That completes everything I think,’ murmured Hastings. ‘I don’t see how you can now figure in the matter at all, except very incidentally.’

Shannon expressed his gratitude for the manner in which anything suggestive of political intrigue or Secret Service work had been entirely eradicated from the tragic affair. He drank the brandy when it arrived, afterwards driving to Government House with the ADC. There his wounds were dressed, it being found necessary to insert stitches in several. The medical officer, who had been admitted to the governor’s confidence, was rather doubtful about the wisdom of allowing his patient to travel for a day or two.