Oblivious of the voices in the room below, Desmond stood with his face pressed against the glass of the window. Was Strangwise staying at "The Dyke Inn"? Nothing was more probable; for the latter had told him that he was going to spend his leave shooting in Essex, and Morstead Fen must abound in snipe and duck.
But he and Strangwise must not meet. Desmond was chary of submitting his disguise to the other's keen, shrewd eyes. Strangwise knew Nur-el-Din: indeed, the dancer might have come to the inn to be with him. If he recognized Desmond and imparted his suspicions to the dancer, the game world be up; on the other hand, Desmond could not take him aside and disclose his identity; for that would be breaking faith with the Chief. There was nothing for it, he decided, but flight.
Yet how could he get away unobserved? There was no exit from the staircase by the door into the tap-room where Nur-el-Din was, and to go through the tap-room was to risk coming face to face with Strangwise.
So Desmond remained where he was by the window and watched. Presently, the woman turned and began to cross the yard, Strangwise, carrying his gun, following her. Desmond waited until he heard a door open somewhere below and then he acted.
Beside the window ran an old lead water-pipe which drained the roof above his head. On a level with the sill of the landing below, this pipe took a sharp turn to the left and ran diagonally down to a tall covered-in water-butt that stood on the fiat roof of an outhouse in the little yard.
Desmond raised the window very gently and tested the pipe with his hand. It seemed rather insecure and shook under his pressure. With his eye he measured the distance from the sill to the pipe; it was about four feet. Desmond reckoned that, if the pipe would hold, by getting out of the window and hanging on to the sill, he might, by a pendulum-like motion, gain sufficient impulse to swing his legs across the diagonally-running pipe, then transfer his hands and so slide down to the outhouse roof.
He wasted no time in debating the chances of the pipe collapsing under his weight. All his life it had been his practice to take a risk, for such is the Irish temperament--if the object to be attained in any way justified it; and he was determined to avoid at all costs the chance of a meeting with Strangwise. The latter had probably read the name of Okewood in that morning's casualty list, but Desmond felt more than ever that he distrusted the man, and his continued presence in the neighborhood of Nur-el-Din gravely preoccupied him.
He stood a moment by the open window and listened. The murmur of voices went on in the taproom, but from another part of the house he heard a deep laugh and knew it to be Strangwise's. Trusting to Providence that the roof of the outhouse would be out of sight of the yard door, Desmond swung his right leg over the window-sill and followed it with the other, turning his back on the yard. The next moment he was dangling over the side of the house.
Then from the yard below he heard Strangwise call:
"Rufus! Rufus!"
A heavy footstep sounded on the flags. Desmond remained perfectly still. The strain on his arms was tremendous. If Strangwise should go as far as the gate, so as to get clear of the yard, he must infallibly see that figure clinging to the window-sill.
"Where the devil is that doggy" said Strangwise. Then he whistled, and called again:
"Rufus! Rufus!"
Desmond made a supreme effort to support the strain on his muscles. The veins stood out at his temples and he felt the blood singing in his ears. Another minute and he knew he must drop. He no longer had the power to swing himself up to the window ledge again.
A bark rang out in the courtyard, followed by the patter of feet. Desmond heard Strangwise speak to the dog and reenter the house. Then silence fell again. With a tremendous effort Desmond swung his legs athwart the pipe, gripped it with his right hand, then his left, and very gently commenced to let himself down. The pipe quivered beneath his weight, but it held fast and in a minute he was standing on the roof of the outhouse, cautiously peering through the dank fog that hung about the yard.
Screening himself from view behind the tall waterbutt, he reconnoitred the back of the inn. The upper part of the house was shrouded in darkness, but a broad beam of light from a half-open door and a tall window on the ground floor cleft the pall of fog. The window showed a snug little bar with Strangwise standing by the counter, a glass in his hand. As Desmond watched him, he heard a muffled scream from somewhere within the house. Strangwise heard it too, for Desmond saw him put his glass down on the bar and raise his head sharply. There followed a dull crash from the interior of the inn and the next moment the yellow-faced man, whom Desmond judged to be Rass, stepped into the circle of light inside the window. He said something to Strangwise with thumb jerked behind him, whereupon the latter clapped him, as though in approval, on the shoulder, and both hurried out together.
Puzzled though he was by the scene he had just witnessed, Desmond did not dare to tarry longer. The roof of the outhouse was only some ten feet from the ground, an easy drop. He let himself noiselessly down and landing on his feet without mishap, darted out of the yard gate. As he did so, he heard the inn door open and Strangwise's voice cry out:
"Who's that?"
But Desmond heeded not. He dashed out upon the fen. Before he had gone a dozen paces the fog had swallowed up inn and all. Out of the white pall behind him he heard confused shouts as he skirted swiftly round the house and reached the road.
Once he had gained the freedom of the highway; Desmond breathed again. The dense fog that enveloped him, the hard road beneath his feet, gave him a sense of security that he had missed as long as he was in the atmosphere of that lonely, sinister place. He struck out at a good pace for home, intent upon one thing, namely, to send an immediate summons for help to surround the Dyke Inn and all within it. Nur-el-Din, it was clear, whether a spy or no (and Desmond believed her story), was the only person who could throw any light on the mysterious circumstances surrounding old Mackwayte's murder. Besides, her arrest would safeguard her against further machinations on the part of Mortimer, though Desmond suspected that the latter, now that he had secured the jewel, would leave the dancer in peace. As for Strangwise, it would be for him to explain as best he could his continued association with a woman for whose arrest a warrant had been issued.
Desmond let himself in with his key. The housekeeper had returned and was laying the dinner-table. In the library the curtains were drawn and a fire burned brightly in the grate. The room looked very snug and cosy by contrast with the raw weather outside.
Desmond shut and locked the door and then went to the telephone at the desk. "Ring up 700 Stanning"--he repeated his instructions to himself "and ask for Mr. Elias. Assistance'll be with you within fifteen minutes afterwards."
By the clock on the mantelpiece it was a quarter to seven. If aid arrived promptly, with a car they could be at the Dyke Inn by a quarter past seven.
The telephone gave no sign of life. Desmond impatiently jerked the receiver hook up and down. This time, at least, he would not fail, he told himself. Before he went to bed that night Nur-el-Din, her maid, Rass, and if needs be, Strangwise (who needed a lesson to teach him discretion), should be in custody.
Still no reply.
"Hullo! Hullo!" cried Desmond, depressing the hook repeatedly. "Hullo, Exchange!"
But there was no answer. Then it struck Desmond that the line was dead: his ear detected none of that busy whirr which is heard in the telephone when one is waiting to get a number.
He spent five minutes in vain attempts to obtain a reply, then abandoned the endeavor in disgust.
"I shall have to take the motor-bike and go over to Stunning," he said to himself, "how I shall find my way there in this fog, the Lord only knows! And I don't know whom to apply to when I get there. The police-station, I suppose!"
He unlocked the door and rang for Martha.
"I have to go over to Stunning, Martha," he said, "I will try and be back for dinner at eight!"
He had no intention of accompanying the party to the Dyke Inn. He must preserve his incognito until Mortimer, the main quarry, had been run down.
He filled his case from the box of cigarettes on the table and thrust a box of matches into his pocket to light his head-lamp. Then, taking a cap from the hat-stand, he opened the front door. Even as he did so a big open car slowed down throbbing outside the porch. A man sprang out and advanced into the light streaming from the front door into the eddying mist. It was Mortimer.
"Fortune," thought Desmond, "has broken her rule. She has given me a second chance! "
"Well met, Bellward!" cried Mortimer, blinking at the other through his thick glasses. "Tut, tut! What a night! You were never going out, I swear."
Already Desmond had decided in his mind the course of action he would pursue. For the moment he must let the party at the Dyke Inn slide in favor of the bigger catch. He must slip away later and have another try at the telephone and if it were still out of order, he must endeavor to overpower Mortimer and then go for assistance himself. On a night like this it was useless to think of employing a half-blind old dolt like Martha to take a message. As for the odd man, he lived at Wakefield, and went away at dusk every evening.
So Desmond muttered some plausible lie about wanting to have a look at the weather and cordially invited Mortimer in.
"You will stay for dinner" he said.
"Gladly," replied the other, sinking with aunt into the settee. "And I should be glad if we might dine early."
Desmond raised his eyebrows.
"... Because," Mortimer resumed, "I have ventured to ask a few friends round here to... to have an evening at bridge. Doubtless, you have cards, eh?"
Desmond pointed to a card-table standing in the corner with several packs of cards and markers. Then he rang and told the housekeeper that they would dine as soon as possible.
"The coming fortnight," said Mortimer, tucking his napkin into his collar as they sat at the dinner table, "is pregnant with great events. No less than ten divisions are, I understand, to be transferred to the other side. I have waited to communicate with you until I had confirmation of this report. But now that the matter has been decided, it only remains for us to perfect our arrangements for communicating these plans to our friends beyond the North Sea. Therefore, I thought a friendly bridge evening at the hospitable home of our dear colleague Bellward would be in place."
He smiled affably and bent over his soup-plate.
"I shall be delighted to receive our friends," Desmond replied, "a glass of sherry?"
"Thank you," said Mortimer.
"I shall have to provide a few refreshments," said Desmond. "May I ask how many guests I may expect?"
Mortimer reckoned on his fingers.
"Let's see," he answered, "there's Max, that's one, and Madame Malplaquet, that's two. No. 13 and Behrend makes four and myself, five!"
"And Madame Nur-el-Din?" queried Desmond innocently, but inwardly quaking at his rashness.
Mortimer genially shook a finger at him.
"Sly dog!" he chuckled, "you're one too many for me in that quarter, I see! I know all about your tete-a-tete with our charming young friend this afternoon!"
Desmond felt the blood rush to his face. He thought of Nur-el-Din's words: "Mortimer sees and knows all." He picked up his sherry glass and drained it to cover his confusion.
"... It was hardly gallant of you to bolt so suddenly and leave the lady!" Mortimer added.
How much did this uncanny creature know?
Without waiting for him to reply, Mortimer went on.
"I suppose she told you a long story of my persecution, eh, Bellward? You needn't shake your head. I taxed her with it and she admitted as much."
"I had no idea that you were staying at the Dyke Inn!" said Desmond at a venture.
"My friend," replied Mortimer, lowering his voice, "your fair charmer is showing a decided inclination to make a nuisance of herself. I have had to keep an eye on her. It's been a very serious inconvenience to my plans, I can assure you. But you haven't answered my question. What sent you away in such a hurry this afternoon? and in so romantic a fashion? By the window, was it not?"
Through sheer apprehension, Desmond was now keyed up to a kind of desperate audacity. The truth is sometimes a very effective weapon in the game of bluff, and Desmond determined to employ it.
"I saw someone I didn't want to meet," he replied.
"Ah!" said Mortimer, "who was that, I wonder? The Dyke Inn could hardly be described as a frequented resort, I imagine!"
The entry of old Martha to change the plates prevented Desmond from replying. He used the brief respite to review the situation. He would tell Mortimer the truth. They were man to man now and he cared nothing even if the other should discover the fraud that had been practised upon him. Come what might, Mortimer, dead or alive, should be delivered up to justice that night.
The housekeeper left the room and Desmond spoke.
"I saw an officer I knew in the courtyard," he said.
"Oh, Strangwise, I suppose!" said Mortimer carelessly. "There's nothing to fear from him, Bellward. He's of the beef and beer and no brains stamp of British officer. But how do you know Strangwise?"
"I met him at the Nineveh Hotel in town one night," replied Desmond. "I don't care about meeting officers, however, and that's a fact!"
Mortimer looked at him keenly for a brief instant. "What prudence!" he cried. "Bellward, you are the very model of what a secret agent should be! This pheasant is delicious!"
He turned the conversation into a different channel but Desmond could not forget that brief searching look. His mind was in a turmoil of half-digested facts, of semi-completed deductions. He wanted to go away somewhere alone and think out this mystery and disentangle each separate web of this baffling skein of intrigue.
He must focus his attention on Mortimer and Nur-el-Din. If Mortimer and Strangwise were both staying at the Dyke Inn, then they were probably acquainted. Strangwise knew Nur-el-Din, too, knew her well; for Desmond remembered how familiarly they had conversed together that night in the dancer's dressing-room at the Palaceum. Strangwise knew Barbara Mackwayte also. Nur-el-Din had introduced them, Desmond remembered, on that fateful night when he had accompanied Strangwise to the Palaceum. Strange, how he was beginning to encounter the man Strangwise at every turn in this sinister affair.
And then, with a shock that struck him like a blow in the face, Desmond recalled Barbara's parting words to him in the taxi. He remembered how she had told him of seeing Nur-el-Din's face in the mirror as the dancer was talking to Strangwise that night at the Palaceum, and of the look of terror in the girl's eyes. Nur-el-Din was terrified of Mortimer; for so much she had admitted to Desmond that very afternoon; she was terrified of Strangwise, too, it seemed, of this Strangwise who, like Mortimer, kept appearing at every stage of this bewildering affair. What confession had been on Nur-el-Din's lips when she had broken off that afternoon with the cry:
"Already I have said too much!"
Thereafter Desmond's eyes were never long absent from Mortimer's face, scrutinizing each feature in turn, the eyes, set rather close together, grotesquely shielded by the thick spectacles, the narrow cheeks, the rather cynical mouth half hidden by the heavy, drooping moustache, the broad forehead broken by a long lock of dark hair brushed out flat in a downward direction from an untidy, unkempt crop.
They talked no more of Strangwise or of Nur-el-Din. The rest of dinner was passed in conversation of a general order in which Mr. Mortimer showed himself to great advantage. He appeared to be a widely traveled, well-read man, with a fund of dry, often rather grim humor. And all the time Desmond watched, watched, unobtrusively but unceasingly, looking out for something he was confident of detecting through the suave, immobile mask of this brilliant conversationalist.
Skillfully, almost imperceptibly, Desmond edged the talk on to the war. In this domain, too, Mortimer showed himself a man of broad views, of big, comprehensive ideas. Towards the strategy and tactics of the two sides, he adopted the attitude of an impartial onlooker, but in his comments he proved himself to have a thorough grasp of the military situation. He talked freely and ably of such things as tanks, the limited objective in the attack and the decentralization of responsibility in the field.
Encouraged by his volubility, for he was a man who delighted in conversation, Desmond gradually gave the talk a personal turn. But willing as Mortimer showed himself to discuss the war generally, about his personal share he was as mute as a fish. Try as he would Desmond could get nothing out of him. Again and again, he brought the conversation round to personal topics; but every time his companion contrived to switch it back to general lines.
At last Desmond risked a direct question. By this time a pint of Pommery and Greno was tingling in his veins and he felt he didn't care if the roof fell in.
"Ever since Nur-el-Din told me yon were of the Crown Prince's personal service," he said, "I have been devoured with curiosity to know what you were doing before you came to England. Were you at Metz with his Imperial Highness? Did you see the assault at Verdun? Were you present at the capture of the Fort of Douaumont?" '
Mortimer shook his head, laughing, and held up a deprecating hand.
"Professional discretion, my dear fellow, professional discretion!" he retorted. "You know what it is!"
Then lowering his voice, he added:
"Between ourselves the less said about my connection with Master Willie the better. Our colleagues are already restless at what they consider my neglect of my professional work. They attribute it to the wiles of Nur-el-Din. They may if they like and I don't propose to disillusion them. You understand, Bellward?"
His voice was commanding and he bent his brows at Desmond, who hastened to protest that his discretion in the matter would be absolute.
When they had had their coffee and Mortimer was contentedly puffing one of Bellward's excellent double Coronas, Desmond rose from the table.
"If you will excuse me a minute," he said, "I will just go across to the library and see if my housekeeper has put all in order for our guests!"
Instantly Mortimer got up from the table.
"By all means," he said, and emptied his glass of brandy, "so, I will come with you!"
Mortimer meant to stick to him, thought Desmond; that was evident. Then an idea struck him. Why should he not telephone in Mortimer's presence? To ask for Mr. Elias was in no way incriminating and if help came promptly, Mortimer could be secured and the other spies pounced upon in their turn as they arrived.
Therefore, as soon as they reached the library, Desmond walked over to the desk and picked up the telephone receiver from its hook.
"Excuse me," he said to Mortimer, "I had forgotten I had to ring up Stanning!"
"Oh, dear," said Mortimer from his place on the hearth rug where he was warming his coat tails in front of the fire, "isn't that unfortunate? I wish I had known! Tut, tut, how annoying for you!"
The telephone seemed quite dead.
"I don't understand!" said Desmond to Mortimer. "What's annoying?"
"The telephone, my dear Bellward,"--Mortimer spoke in a pompous voice--"the telephone is the symbol of the age in which we live, the age of publicity but also of indiscretion. It is almost as indiscreet to have a telephone in your house as to keep a diary. Therefore, in view of our little party here this evening, to prevent us from being disturbed in any way, I took the liberty of... of severing the connection... temporarily, mind you, only temporarily; it shall be restored as soon as we break up. I have some small acquaintance with electrical engineering."
Desmond was silent. Disappointment had deprived him for the moment of the power of speech. It was to be man to man then, after all. If he was to secure Mortimer and the rest of the gang that night, he must do it on his own. He could not hope for aid. The prospect did not affright him. If Mortimer could have seen the other's eyes at that moment he might have remarked a light dancing in them that was not solely of Messrs. Pommery and Greno's manufacture.
"If I had known you wanted to use the instrument, my dear fellow," Mortimer continued in his bland voice, "I should certainly have waited until you had done your business!"
"Pray don't mention it," replied Desmond, "you do well to be prudent, Mr. Mortimer!"
Mortimer shot a sudden glance at him. Desmond met it with a frank, easy smile.
"I'm a devil for prudence myself!" he observed brightly.