E. Phillips Oppenheim - 21 Greatest Spy Thrillers in One Premium Edition (Mystery & Espionage Series)

“The frontier is over that way,” Krust remarked cheerfully.

“What? Into Italy?” Greta demanded.

“Into Italy,” Fawley replied. “A strange but not altogether barbarous country. Have you ever visited it?”

She indulged in a little grimace.

“Don’t try to be superior, please,” she begged. “Americans and English people are always like that. I studied in Milan for two years.”

“I was only chaffing, of course,” Fawley apologised.

“And I,” Nina confided, tugging at Krust’s arm, “have worked in Florence. This dear uncle of mine sent me there.”

A warning shout from behind sent them on to the tee. In due course the match was finished and Fawley tasted the sweets of defeat.

“I think,” he told his companion good-humouredly, “that you are the most remarkable golfer I have ever seen.”

Krust smiled all over his face.

“With a figure like mine,” he demanded, “what would you do? I have watched others. I have seen how little the body counts. Only the arms and wrists. I turn my body into a monument. I never move my head or my feet. If I do, I fail. It is an idea—yes? All the same, it is not a great amusement. I get stiff with the monotony of playing. I miss the exercise of twisting my body. Now you pay me the price of a ball and I stand drinks for everybody and lunch to follow.”

“The loser pays for lunch,” Fawley declared cheerfully. “I accept the cocktails, warning you that I am going to drink two.”

“And I also,” Greta remarked. “I must console myself for my partner’s defeat!”

Luncheon was a pleasant meal. They sat in the bald undecorated restaurant with its high windows, out of which they seemed in incredibly close touch with the glorious panorama of snow-capped hills rolling away to the mists.

“There is no worse golf course in the world,” Krust declared enthusiastically, “but there is none set in more beautiful surroundings. My heart is heavy these days, but the air here makes me feel like a boy. I make of life a failure—I come here with the disappointed cry of the people I love in my ears and I can forget.”

“We help,” Nina pleaded softly, laying her hand upon his sleeve.

“Yes, you help,” he admitted, with a curiously clouded look in his blue eyes. “Youth can always help middle age. Still, it remains a terrible thing for a man of action to remain idle. Would it break your hearts, my two little beams of sunshine, if we packed our trunks and sailed away northwards?”

“It would break mine,” Greta declared, touching Fawley’s hand as though by accident.

“And mine,” Nina echoed.

That was the last of serious conversation until they descended some short time after luncheon into the Principality. In the hall of the hotel Fawley handed his golf clubs to the porter and took his leave somewhat abruptly. He had scarcely reached his room, however, before there was a knock at the door. Krust entered. Fawley welcomed him a little grudgingly.

“Sorry if I hurried away,” he apologised, “but I really have work to do.”

“Five minutes,” Krust begged. “I understand something of your profession, Major Fawley. I passed some time in our own Foreign Office. For the moment, though, it happens that I must disregard it. I have not the temperament that brooks too long delay. Answer me, please. Our friend in Rome spoke to you of my presence here? Did he give you any message, any word as to his decision?”

“None whatever,” Fawley replied cautiously. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know what you are talking about.”

A flaming light shone for a moment in the cold blue eyes.

“That is Berati—the Italian of him—the over-subtlety! The world is ours if he will make up his mind, and he hesitates between me—who have more real power in Germany than any other man—and one who must be nameless even between us; but if he leans to him our whole great scheme will go ‘pop’ like an exploded shell. Were you to make reports upon me? To give an opinion of my capacity?”

“I had other work to do here,” Fawley said calmly. “I was simply told to cultivate your acquaintance. The rest I thought would come later.”

“It may come too late,” Krust declared. “Berati cannot trifle and twiddle his thumbs forever. Listen, Major Fawley. How much do you know of what is on the carpet?”

“Something,” Fawley admitted. “Broad ideas. That’s all. No details. Nothing certain. I am working from hand to mouth.”

“Listen,” Krust insisted. “There is a scheme. It was Berati’s, I admit that, although it came perhaps from a brain greater than his—some one who stands in the shadows behind him. It called for a swift alliance between Germany and Italy. An Anglo-Saxon neutrality. Swift action. Africa for Italy. A non-military Germany but a Germany which would soon easily rule the world. And when the moment comes to strike, Berati is hesitating! He hesitates only with whom to deal in Germany. He dares to hesitate between one who has the confidence of the whole German nation, and a man who has been cast aside like a pricked bladder, whose late adherents are swarming into my camp, and the man whose name, were it once pronounced, would be the ruin of our scheme. And he cannot decide! I have had enough. I am forbidden to approach Berati—courteously, firmly. Very well. By to-morrow morning I come back to you with the truth.”

Fawley was mystified. He knew very well that his companion was moved by a rare passion but exactly what had provoked it was hard to tell.

“Look here, Herr Krust—” he began.

It was useless. The man seemed to have lost control of himself. He stamped up and down the room. He passed through the inner and the outer doors leading into the corridor. A few moments later Fawley, from his balcony, saw the huge car in which they had driven up to Mont Agel circle round by the Casino and turn northwards…Fawley, with a constitution as nearly as possible perfect for his thirty-seven years, felt a sense of not altogether unpleasant weariness as he turned away from the window. His night of strenuous endeavour, physical and mental, his golf that morning in the marvellous atmosphere of Mont Agel, had their effect. He was suddenly weary. He discarded his golf clothes, took a shower, put on an old smoking suit and threw himself upon the bed. In five minutes he was asleep. When he awoke, the sunshine had changed to twilight, a twilight that was almost darkness. He glanced at his watch. It was seven o’clock. He had slept for three hours and a half. He swung himself off the bed and suddenly paused to listen. There was a light shining through the chink of the door leading into his salon. He listened again for a moment, then he opened the first door softly and tried the handle of the second only to find it locked against him. Some one was in his salon surreptitiously, some one who had dared to turn his own key against him! His first impulse was to smile at the ingenuousness of such a proceeding. He thrust on a dressing gown, took a small automatic from one of the drawers of his bureau, stole out into the corridor and knocked at the door of the sitting room. For a moment or two there was silence. Whoever was inside had evidently not taken the

trouble to prepare against outside callers. A sound like the crumpling of paper had ceased. The light went out and was then turned on again. The door was opened. Greta stood there, taken utterly by surprise.

“A flank movement,” he remarked coolly, closing the door behind him. “Now, young lady, please tell me what you are doing in my sitting room and why you locked the door against me.”

She was speechless for a moment. Fawley crossed the room and stood on the other side of the table behind which she had retreated. His eyes travelled swiftly round the apartment. A large despatch box of formidable appearance had been disturbed but apparently not opened. One of the drawers of his writing desk had been pulled out.