I
Tony McKeigh might have enjoyed his swift transition from New York to
Florida, if every hour's flight hadn't taken him further away from any
chance of seeing Viola again.
He tried to become resigned to his fate. He had fallen in love for
the first time in his carefree life, and he would have to forget it.
Such things had happened to other men, thousands of them. They had
managed to live it down, and so must he. He forced himself to think of
something else.
The facts about Mark Donovan were mysterious and vaguely horrifying.
Drake Roscoe clearly believed that Sumuru had designs on the little
girl. Tony didn't know what precautions Roscoe had taken, but he knew
that he planned to pay the Donovans another visit.
Fixed up in an unobtrusive hotel, where a reservation had been made
for him, McKeigh established contacts, arranged by Roscoe, which would
enable him to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Charles Madderley—reputed
to be Steve Mason's mistress. (In fact, the only person in Lauderdale
who didn't seem to know this would appear to be Charles Madderley.)
He then reported back to Drake Roscoe.
“Any rumour that Steve Mason is in town?” Roscoe asked.
“Not a thing, so far. But the affair is common property around here.
Is husband-Charles complaisant or blind?”
“Don't know anything about it, Mac. That's your pidgin.”
“There's a party at the Madderley home to-morrow night. I'm going.”
“H'm! a party? That doesn't seem to add up. Standby, all the same. My
information can't be wrong.”
“Any developments at your end?” Only one. William Obershaw has had
another letter from Sally! She asks him and her mother to forgive her
for all the anxiety she has caused them and says she can explain when
she sees them.”
“Good Lord! Cool damsel. Where did this letter come from?”
“From Chateau Carron in the Rhone Valley—the country home of the Duc
de Severac! Mac! I made a fool of myself that night aboard the Ile
de France—again! I never troubled to ask how many were in the
Duchesse's party! I learn from the company that she had a secretary
with her. That 'secretary' was Sally Obershaw!”
II
“A peaceful world is an idle dream. When the insects whose
catacombs—we call them coral—on which we stand now, were alive and
working, the world was at war. Many thousands of years have passed. But
the world is still at war.”
“Trite, but true,” Tony McKeigh commented.
Mrs. Madderley's party was in full swing. He had stepped out for a
breath of cool night air and had found this attractive fellow-guest
similarly employed. He didn't recall having seen her before.
His glance swept over her. She looked taller than, in fact, she was.
Her slenderness appeared reedlike, graceful and pliant without
angularity. A scarf tied over her hair disguised its true shade—and
she wore tinted sunglasses. As the breeze was quite light he wondered
if she might be a film actress—for studio lights make the eyes very
sensitive. But her shoulders gleamed like ivory in the moonlight. No
trace of sun-tan there. As if conscious of his scrutiny, she replaced a
stole of snow mink which had slipped slightly.
The radio had begun to play again. Sounds of laughter reached their
ears from the house.
“Are you going back to dance?” she asked.
“No.” He shook his head. “I'm not properly dressed—and I didn't come
to dance.”
“Why did you come—to meet someone?”
“Not exactly.”
“Perhaps you are sorry you came?”
Her voice was exquisite, possessing most haunting cadences.
“On the contrary. I'm glad. But perhaps you want to dance?”
She laughed softly.
“If I were to tell you how long it is since I did, I doubt if you
would believe me.”
“Why?”
“Reporters are so sceptical.”
“What makes you think I'm a reporter?”
“You have the hungry look of a news-hound baulked of an inky bone.”
He laughed. His suspicions were confirmed. That Steve Mason had gone
to earth in this small town, Drake Roscoe was almost certain. Very
well. Tony had learned a lot about Steve's way of life. His
acquaintance was one of Mason's show-pieces. He had been spotted, and
she had been detailed to put him off the scent! Clever work, but
wasted.
That musical voice breathed softly:
“No—I am not out of Mr. Mason's aviary.”
For one magnetic moment the implication of those words missed him.
Then he stopped, stared at her. He was really startled. He saw a
profile like that of an El Greco virgin, and forced himself to speak.
“Who suggested that you were?”
“You. It was crude. His women are so vulgar.”
“I never spoke.”
“How queer,” she murmured.
They had been pacing slowly along palm-bordered streets and had come
to one which led to the ocean. It showed empty from end to end. Strains
of the radio had faded long since, grown inaudible. She had not halted
when he did, but had merely slackened her pace. He walked on again
beside her.
At a point where a waterway gleamed bladelike between two bungalows,
and a clump of royal palms framed a crescent moon, he found himself
spiritually transported to Ismailia in Egypt, where he had been
stationed for a time. There were royal palms everywhere. He knew he
must always associate this woman with royal palms. Then, out from the
next home—a miniature hacienda—a remark in ripe Pennsylvanian beetled
through the night to remind him that he was in Florida, in the real
estate belt.
A small plane with a curiously noiseless engine circled over-head, a
man-made night-hawk. Flowers, like flames, burned in the hedges. The
air, when the breeze dropped, was hot and humid. Suddenly, his
companion laughed her soft, trilling laugh.
“You must really get out of the habit of thinking aloud,” she said.
“I assure you I have no such motives. I am not interested in local
scandal, and I'm not in the employ of the F.B.I.”
He had been considering all these possibilities—silently! Now, he
was becoming fascinated, puzzled—and resentful. He was about to speak,
when:
“Why are you hunting Steve Mason?” she asked, casually.
“I wanted to find out why he went into hiding.” (Difficult to fence
with this woman!)
“He has many enemies.”
“But plenty of protection.”
“The members of his bodyguard recently disappeared. Did you know
that?”
“It was rumoured, but not confirmed.”
“Surely such a thing was enough to frighten even a big labour boss?”
“But, as you're not a friend of said boss, where, might I ask, did
you pick up this news item?”
“I have an acquaintance in a well-known detective agency. Steve Mason
retained their services some time ago.”
“H'm! Have they formed any theory?”
“Nothing definite. But they thought it pointed to a pending attack on
his life. Perhaps you have a theory of your own?”
He shook his head. “The mantle of the lamented Sherlock H. hasn't
fallen upon me, I fear.”
“Ah!” It was a soft, an appealing sigh. “One power alone can save the
world from the greed, the lust, and the stupidity of the men who rule
it.”
“What power is that?”
“The power of genius. Genius alone can hope to build a new world on
the wreckage of the old one.” She flashed him a swift smile, then
turned her head aside. “We have fallen far below Plato's ideal with our
so-called civilization. So far below that only drastic measures can
save mankind from total destruction. Labour strikes, international
disorders, even world wars, are not brought about by the masses who
suffer by them, who die in their millions because of them. Each of
these catastrophes is brought about by a small group of warped ugly
men. Sometimes, by one man alone—a man such as Steve Mason.”
McKeigh remained silent. He was wondering.
“Great armies cannot avert war. It is necessary only to deal with
those who dream of employing them; those who devise space-rockets to
carry atomic warheads, lethal gas to destroy whole populations, plans
to seize lands which don't belong to them, or strikes to paralyse
honest industry—”
McKeigh found his voice. “What would you do about it—murder these
lads?”
“Murder them?” She flashed him another of her dazzling smiles.
“Really, Mr. McKeigh!”
He was now so tensed up, so well accustomed to this woman's uncanny
power to hear unspoken thoughts, that her use of his name passed almost
unnoticed.
“When an officer of the Army, or the Navy, orders fire to be
concentrated on a point held by the enemy, and all the defenders are
killed, do you say that he has murdered them? No—I should simply
propose to remove the leprous source of such—shall we say,
haemorrhages?—before it can spread and corrupt whole nations. Such
warfare would be intensive—a war to end war.”
McKeigh pulled up short. This strange, alluring woman was beginning
to frighten him. He experienced a chilly sensation in the spine. But
all he managed to say was, “Shall we turn back?”
They stood at the brink of the highway. Below, the sea glittered,
corrugated by tidal ripples. She faced him now for a moment, and
laughed—that bell-like caressing music.
“Turning back is sometimes so difficult,” she murmured.
And something in her voice—a memory of a perfect profile glimpsed
outside the Savoy Babylon and of words spoken by Drake Roscoe—combined
to form a frightful conviction.
He was talking to Sumuru—
Came a sudden urgent rush of soft-shod feet, pad-like, as of a
baboon. McKeigh twisted about in a flash—but still too late.
He divined, rather than saw, a black-clad figure looming over him.
He saw, he heard, no more....
III
Several hours earlier, a curious incident had occurred in far-away
Connecticut.
Mark Donovan always experienced a sense of relief when Claudette II
was safe in bed for the night. The growing alarm of her nurse, Anna,
which the girl was unable to hide, had had its effect on Claudette's
overstrained nerves. Twice again, Anna swore to having seen “the ghost”
shadowing her when she had been out with Detty.
Claudette was becoming desperately anxious.
“I think we should report it to the police,” she told Mark.
He gave her a reassuring grin.
“Drake Roscoe knows all the facts, cherie. I called him some
time back and told him about this mysterious prowler. I have never
caught a glimpse of him, myself, but if I do, he'll prowl no more!”
“Mark!” Claudette's pretty accent became pronounced in her agitation.
“Take care! If it is one of her men, he will be very dangerous.”
On this particular occasion, Claudette was upstairs telling her small
daughter a goodnight story. Detty had developed a habit of demanding
that the “booful lady” should be a character in such stories, but
Claudette had quite failed to learn from the child what the beautiful
lady should look like.
Anna had retired to her own quarters. The coloured help had gone.
Mark slipped out quietly through the kitchen, and immediately took
cover in a clump of rhododendrons just outside the door. It was a
cloudy evening and very still. He crept cautiously along, around an
angle of the house, and paused just under the window of the nursery. He
could see light shining out over his head. It touched the trunks of a
clump of silver birches which grew on the edge of the lawn,
transforming them to phantoms.
Claudette's clear voice reached him:
“The poor little girl, all alone with her friend the white rabbit
knew she was lost in the wood. When—what do you think she saw coming
through the trees?”
“Booful lady!” came Detty's eager response.
Mark quietly passed along. Although he pretended to treat it lightly,
this queer obsession of the child worried him as much as it worried
Claudette. Anna assured him that they had never met such a person
during their regular daily outings that she was completely at a loss to
account for the idea.
Making his way by a detour, under cover, to the other side of the
grass, Mark stood listening for any sound which might betray the
presence of a hidden watcher. He had to suppose that “the ghost's”
attention would be focused on Detty.
Not a sound came from the thicket. He turned and looked up at the
lighted window. It was protected by an iron grille. In any event, he
felt sure that direct attack was not characteristic of Sumuru. More
subtle methods were to be feared.
He resumed his silent patrol, drawing close to the house again.
He saw a light in Anna's room on the ground floor, and the window was
partly open. A low hedge bordered the path before the window, and from
where he stood, hidden in shrubbery, he thought, at first glance, that
it seemed more dense at one point, but concluded that this was due to
some effect of shadow.
Faintly, the nurse's voice became audible. She must be talking on the
phone.
Then—the patch of dense shadow moved slightly!
Someone was crouching under the window.
Mark's hand slid to his hip pocket. He had not admitted the fact to
Claudette, but her warning about Sumuru's men being dangerous, added to
his own experience, suggested taking no chances.
In three bounds he crossed the space between and jabbed the rim of a
cold barrel right between the eyes of a man who stared up at him from
behind the hedge.
Don't make a row! Don't try anything. Just step over, hands up, and
do as I tell you.”
Silently, the prowler obeyed.
He was a thickset, capable looking character, square-jawed and tough.
His eyes never flinched.
Mark dropped the barrel to cover the man's ribs.
“Turn around and walk ahead.”
“There's no need for this stuff, Mr. Donovan—”
“Keep going!”
“I am. I know when to take orders. But you're making a mistake—”
“Maybe. In here.”
Mark pushed the prisoner into the kitchen, and without removing the
gun from his back, bolted the door behind them.
“Straight ahead. Don't make any noise.”
His workroom reached, Mark locked the door and, clumsily, went over
his captive for arms.
“Under my left arm, Mr. Donovan. There's nothing else.”
And, by reason of his unruffled impudence, Mark Donovan became
convinced that he had to deal with an agent of Sumuru. He had met
others.
He put the man's small automatic down, behind him, and sat on the
edge of his desk.
“Turn around now. Let me have a good look at you.”
The prisoner obeyed. He was smiling wryly.
“I'm ashamed of myself, Mr. Donovan. But this was a tough assignment.
It would have needed one of the old Sioux Indians to shadow that dame
in this kind of country!”
When he smiled, the man's grim face lost its roughness. He might have
passed for a decent and genial citizen.
“You seem mighty sure of yourself.”
“I'm sure of one thing. We're wasting precious time.”
Came the sound of a car racing around the drive-way. It pulled up
sharply, just outside the study window. Noise of running footsteps
followed. Someone was ringing the bell.
Mark glanced from his prisoner to the locked door.
“Go ahead, sir. I won't stir!”
Claudette was coming downstairs.
“Mark! Mark! Someone at the door!”
“Don't go!” he shouted. “Wait for me!”
But he was too late. Claudette had pulled the bolt.
“Stay right where you are. I'm keeping you covered.” Mark warned.
He ran to the door, unlocked it and glanced out into the lobby—just
as Drake Roscoe stepped in!
IV
“What's all this?” Roscoe snapped, looking from Mark Donovan, raised
automatic in hand, to the man he was covering.
“Prisoner, Mr. Roscoe! Just caught him!”
Claudette stifled a cry. Drake Roscoe turned to her, took her arm and
drew her forward.
“I'm to blame, Mrs. Donovan, for causing you so much unnecessary
anxiety,” he assured her. “My excuse—my only excuse—is that I was
afraid one of you would give the facts away, unknowingly, to the enemy.
Put that gun in your pocket, Donovan!”
“What!”
Mark stared at the face of the man he had captured. The prisoner
looked hot and embarrassed.
“This is Kendal Coburn, one of the best agents in the Bureau! He's
here on my instructions—has been ever since my first visit!”
“I'm sorry, Mr. Roscoe!” Coburn declared. “That woman spotted me soon
after I started. I reported this, you remember? She's as cunning as a
weasel. And there's no harder job than tailing in open country.”
Claudette reached for Mark's hand, struggling to grasp this totally
unexpected new angle.
“Are you talking about—Anna?” she asked, her voice hushed.
“I am, ma'am,” Coburn acknowledged. “In the beginning, I was covering
the little girl. But when, first time, that attractive nurse of yours
threw me off the scent, and kept a date with somebody in a
Hispano-Suiza—”
“Haven't traced it yet,” Roscoe interrupted. “The Duchesse de Severac
used a Hispano-Suiza, we have found out, but I suspect it belonged to
Miss Finelander. Go ahead, Coburn.'
“Yes, please go on!” Claudette whispered.
“Well—I caught up only just in time to see a woman wearing a long,
cream-coloured fur coat, talking to your little daughter!”
“Good God!” Mark Donovan grasped his wife's hand tightly.
“Snow mink,” Claudette murmured. “She always wore mink.”
“I watched until this woman stooped and picked the little girl up in
her arms. I was all set to run in, when she kissed her and put her back
again in her push-car. The Hispano was away before I had a chance to
see the plate. There was a second meeting, I believe, but I can't be
sure. That foxy Anna of yours doubled on me again. She stuck to a long,
straight road and I couldn't find any way to overtake her. When she
turned off, I ran to the nearest opening and crossed a field.”
He paused, shaking his head.
“Yes, yes, Mr. Coburn?” Claudette prompted.
“I heard a car coming, along the side road. There was a piece of
broken wall. I managed to look through. It was the Hispano. I nearly
broke cover—for I thought the kid might be in it. Just then, I saw
Anna. The baby was with her, laughing and all excited.
Unfortunately”—he glanced at Drake Roscoe—“Anna saw me.”
“But what happened this evening?” Mark wanted to know.
“I found out, Mr. Donovan, that Anna seemed to get a call—which she
took in her own room—every evening after she went off duty.”
“I know,” Claudette said. “But that was natural enough.”
“Quite so, Mrs. Donovan, but I wanted to know more about it. And so,
as Mr. Roscoe will tell you, we've been checking all calls in and out
of here for some time past. I knew your husband patrolled around
sundown, but I thought I could lie behind that hedge and listen to
Anna's conversation, as her window was open—”
“What did you hear?”
Claudette's voice was only just audible.
“She was talking to someone she called Caspar. She said she was sure,
now, that a police officer or a Federal agent was covering her. And she
asked for instructions!”
“Go upstairs, cherie,” Mark whispered, “and make sure Detty's
all right.”
Claudette turned and ran out. She was very pale.
“Of course, Roscoe, this call will be traced?” Mark asked.
Drake Roscoe smiled, sourly.
“An earlier one was traced, Donovan. It came from the office of the
League of International Fraternity in the Ironstone Building!”
“League of International Fraternity,” Mark muttered. “But that's a
sort of charity, isn't it?”
“It is. As we're dealing with people who leave few traces, the later
calls have been made from Midtown drug-stores! But my time is short.
When Mrs. Donovan comes down, ask her to go to Anna's room and invite
Anna to take her stockings off! She will know what to look for.”
“We have been blind,” Mark Donovan groaned. “We had completely
dismissed any idea of Sumuru when we came out here. Thought she
belonged in Europe. Anna had the highest references—
“She would have!”
“And Claudette dislikes ugly people about her. So Anna, who is of
course a really pretty girl, got the job right away. I must say, she's
a model nursemaid. Patient, intelligent, and highly cultured.” He
clenched his fists. “Good God! how blind we've been!”
“You realize,” Roscoe said, “that it will be impossible to arrest
this girl? We have nothing on her whatever! But she must leave at once,
and I'll see that she's covered to wherever she goes. Now that you know
one another, I should be glad if you could find a shakedown for Coburn.
I want him to stay in the house until I return.”
“Shall you be gone long?” Donovan asked anxiously.
“Probably not. I'm flying to Miami by special plane tonight. Ah!
here's your wife.”
Claudette came in, a bewildered expression on her beautiful face.
“Is Detty all right?” Mark asked.
“Yes, dear. I found her dozing off quite peacefully. When I kissed
her, she whispered 'booful lady' and went sound asleep. But—”
“We want you,” Mark spoke urgently, “to go along to Anna's room—”
“I have been!”
“What's that?” Drake Roscoe rapped out the words.
“It's what I came to tell you—Anna has gone!”
“Gone?”
“The drawers are all turned out, but she can't have taken half her
things. And the kitchen door is wide open.”
Drake Roscoe and Coburn exchanged glances.
“Too late!” Roscoe said. “A thousand to a peanut she received her
'instructions' right after Mr. Donovan interrupted you. They knew she
was spotted before she reported it. A car will be standing by to get
her away.” He glanced at his watch. “I must be off. Keep a sharp
lookout, Coburn.”