“We all liked what you did to Frenchie,” a perky-faced and dainty hotel maid with an attractive Southern accent told Belle Boyd as they met on the stairs leading to the second floor of the Grand Republic Hotel as she was making for her suite. “He’s been asking for it for a long time, him and his wandering hands.”
“And I won’t miss with the kick if he tries anything like it again,” the Rebel Spy stated with a smile. “You can tell him that from me if you’re so minded.”
“That’s real good of you-all, and I’ll do it first time I see him!” the Southern maid enthused, then looked harder at Belle and went on. “Hey, I don’t remember seeing you around here before—what did you say your name is?”
On her return from visiting Albert Higgins, without taking the time to change from the disguise she had adopted for doing so, the Rebel Spy had reported to General Philo Handiman what she had learned. He had said he would pass on what she told him, without of course disclosing the source from which it came, to the detective lieutenant of the Washington, D.C., Police Department assigned to the case. He had been successful in fending off suggestions from the Bureau of Foreign Affairs—passed to him through the usual channels employed to prevent his more important capacity from becoming too widely known—that his organization should take over the investigation of the crime, despite its already being in the hands of the civic authorities, as a means of assuaging possible complaints from the Russian government over what had happened to one of its extremely wealthy nationals while visiting the United States.
After commenting that she was pleased that her superior had been able to prevent their department from being given extra work, on learning that Horatio A. Darren had not checked in from searching for the safe-deposit box to which the number of the key she had obtained belonged, Belle had said she would resume being “Betty Hardin,” then go and try to help locate it. However, arriving at the Grand Republic Hotel, she was still attired in a manner that would not allow her to go to the second floor in the elevator. Taking the servants’ stairs, she had met the Southern maid and a question she had hoped to avoid was directed at her.
“I only got here this morning,” the Rebel Spy lied, having said her name was “Daisy” and being told to call the young woman she was addressing “Dixie.”
“The agency sent me to work for Miss Hardin, and she told me to do an errand for her.”
“What’s she like to work for, Daisy?” the hotel maid inquired, as she would to any other servant she met.
“I think she’s the nicest lady I’ve ever took on with,” Belle claimed without hesitation, and although she spoke so as to be able to tell Darren about how highly she regarded her alter ego later, the words paid an immediate dividend. “I don’t think she’s ever had a maid afore and, well, you know how it is working for one like that.”
“I do, and you’re lucky!” the genuine maid declared vehemently. “The Old Hag put me in for that foreign Countess or whatever she is. You know, I shouldn’t say this with her dead ’n’ all, but I bet that li’l ole Froggie gal Michele as was murdered last night would think she’d had a merciful release getting away from Her high-toned High-Up-Iness.”
“She’s a bit of a slave driver, then, huh?” the Rebel Spy inquired, considering a comment of that sort would be expected from her.
“A bit’s only halfway there, Daisy, if that close,” Dixie answered. “She’s had me on the go ever since I got to her, and nothing’s ever done right enough for her. I bet she’ll say it’s my fault if the cab she said for me to have the doorman get waiting for her in three-quarters of an hour’s not there right on time.”
“Then I’d best let you get to doing it,” Belle asserted. “And I want to let Miss Hardin know I’m back.”
Parting from Dixie with a promise that they would try to get together for a night out later, the Rebel Spy hurried to her suite. Once there, she swiftly removed the attire suitable for a maid and, retaining the black blouse, riding breeches, and boots she had on instead of conventional underwear, she selected a specially adapted outfit she felt sure Countess Olga Simonouski had not seen “Betty Hardin” wearing. With the garments on, she added an elegantly coiffured wig of a red color suggestive of having been acquired through the use of henna and a style different from the blond one in which her alter ego always appeared.
Keeping her eye on the wall clock, she next applied makeup to her face in a way that implied doing so was not a usual event. Satisfied with the difference she created, feeling thankful—and not for the first time—for having received an assignment allowing her to bring along a variety of items with which to alter her appearance, Belle collected a small and garishly embroidered reticule and a dainty-looking tightly rolled parasol that clashed with the rest of her costume.
With everything ready, including a sum of money that she hoped would prove sufficient for her needs in the reticule, the Rebel Spy went to open the front door of the suite just wide enough to let her keep an unnoticeable watch on the passage from the gap. Her wait was not protracted to any great extent. Having been transferred to fresh accommodation, fortunately still on the same floor, the Countess emerged from it and walked in the direction of the elevator. On reaching it, she glanced around as the Rebel Spy came out of the suite and turned her way.
“Well, ‘bye now, you-all, Betty honey!” Belle called in a strident voice to which she contrived to apply the accent of a Texan with less education and upbringing than the girl she was supposedly addressing. “I’m dashing off to spend some of that lovely money pappy gets for his cattle on buying up a whole swatch of fancy jewelry like your’n to go with these high-toned duds I’ve got on.”
Entering the elevator before its attendant could close the doors, Belle had behaved as she felt was correct for the kind of person she was portraying by trying to engage the Countess in conversation. Watching carefully, she could detect no suggestion that the Russian woman had pierced her disguise and derived not a little satisfaction over the way in which her attempts to be “friendly” were received. Failing to have an opportunity to do more than inject a grudging “yes” or “no” into the flow of comments about life in such “a big and fancy city,” the Countess was obviously relieved when they reached the ground floor and she could emerge to hurry through the main entrance. On reaching the sidewalk, she discovered that—having come to be aware of her impatience and bad temper when things went wrong—the doorman had a cabriolet waiting. Helping her inside, knowing better than to expect the gratuity most people availing themselves of the service presented, he stood back with a less-than-amiable expression on his rugged face.
“Hey, mister!” Belle said, coming from the hotel as the vehicle carrying the Russian woman was moving off.
“Yes, ma’am?” the doorman queried, noticing that the “redhead” had taken a five-dollar bill from her reticule and held it forward.
“Get me one of them fancy buggies real fast!” the Rebel Spy instructed, deciding against saying “pronto”—although it would have been in keeping with the persona she was creating—because it might not be understood. “That painted foreign hussy’s been making sheep’s eyes at my wealthy pappy and’s headed to meet up with him now. I’m a-headed after her to make good ’n’ sure she don’t try to have her wicked ways with him.”
One problem that Belle had envisaged about leaving the hotel looking as she did had failed to materialize. Although she had noticed the desk clerk and one of the house detectives glancing at her in the way they did everybody who went by, they had decided she was there on justifiable grounds—probably to meet a guest—and made no attempt to stop her for questioning. Nor did the doorman offer to make any inquiries. Instead, having deftly pocketed the bill—a larger sum than usually came his way so early in the day and for so simple a service—he had signaled to another cabriolet before the explanation was concluded. Climbing aboard and repeating her reason for what she wanted to do, along with the promise of a sizable tip if successful in keeping the other “buggy” in view without its occupant knowing, she was carried off at a reasonable pace.
While traveling along and watching her request being carried out to her satisfaction, the Rebel Spy thought impishly of what whoever in the department of the Secret Service that monitored all aspects of its expenditure was checking the list of expenses she had incurred would say when he reached the item “Riding in cabriolet—” and the sum she intended to hand over at the successful conclusion of the journey. It was more than the mere cost of hiring the vehicle would warrant, and the bureaucrats without whom no government organization was permitted to function were noted for having a penny-pinching outlook that would have shamed the stereotype the supposedly parsimonious Scot pretended to be.
After traveling for a short time, Belle found that the cabriolet was brought to a stop. Looking a short distance ahead, she discovered that the vehicle they had followed was halted in front of the First National Bank and its occupant was descending. Directing a knowing wink her way, the driver informed her that he reckoned she would not want to be too close in case the “foreign woman” should notice her and avoid going to the rendezvous with “her pappy.” Agreeing that the suggestion was correct, she handed the man ten dollars to ensure the bureaucrats had something to complain about when they heard of this. Just as surely, General Handiman would insist the full amount she claimed be refunded, even though he would probably chide her in an amused fashion over her extravagance.
While moving forward, noticing that the cabriolet did not move away after the Countess emerged, Belle was ready to pretend to be looking into whichever window she was passing if the other should glance her way. Then the Rebel Spy saw a young man dressed after the fashion of a junior teller or something similar in the area coming from the bank. As he was approaching the Russian woman, having stiffened and paused for a moment as if receiving a surprise, he swept off his derby hat in a gesture closer to shielding his bespectacled face than merely doffing it to her. Nor, Belle realized when the Countess had gone by and the hat was replaced, was the impression she had formed regarding the gesture incorrect.
“Why howdy, you-all,” the Rebel Spy said after advancing until close enough for the words to reach the ears of the man. “I just bet you’re a real good friend of my good friend, Betty Hardin.”
“Well, I’ll be damned!” Horatio A. Darren exclaimed, staring at Belle.
“I don’t doubt that in the least,” the Rebel Spy replied in her normal voice. “If it’s not an answer improper for a li’l ole Southron gal like me to hear, what brings you here?”
“The same as you, most likely,” the male Secret Service agent answered. “Trying to find a safe-deposit box with the number you gave us.”
“And you think it could be in there?” Belle asked in tones that implied she considered the contingency remote and noted the lens of the spectacles were made of plain glass.
“I don’t just think,” Darren asserted. “I know it is!”
“It’s nice to know,” the Rebel Spy drawled, with a well-simulated suggestion of cynicism. “So now we’ll have to wait and see whether my expenses for coming by a cab were justified.”
“The moneymen will query them no matter how little and justified they might strike us as being,” Darren said dryly, yet successfully conveying the impression of being indifferent as he was not directly concerned. “You’ll just have to hope something worthwhile comes of this.”
“Now that is what I call a piece of greatly deserved luck,” Belle stated after about five minutes. She and Darren were now seated in a cabriolet—which he had collected and kept waiting for the purpose—and were now watching the Countess coming from the front entrance to the bank carrying a black-leather document case with a coat of arms in gold on its front.
“Nonsense,” the male secret agent denied in an apparently sober fashion as the statement was made. He continued in a mock modest tone, “It was all achieved by the three P’s—perseverance, persistence, and plodding attention to detail. And by the kind of coincidence you’d never believe if you read it in one of Ned Buntline’s books—having been in the same fraternity at college as one of the clerks. We Alpha Beta Kappa sworn brothers in blood are always willing to help one another, particularly when one is able to get the other an introduction to a lady of the theater upon whom he wished to devote his—he assures me—honorable intentions.”
“I’ll believe you, although many wouldn’t,” the Rebel Spy declared when the vehicle was set into motion at her orders. “You can keep your promise to your friend, can’t you?”
“One has one’s connections,” Darren declared, oozing false modesty. “But, knowing our luck, all she’s got are some indiscreet letters she wants to get rid of before her husband finds them.”
“She’s not going to the Grand Republic to do the destroying,” Belle pointed out. “If that is all there is to it.”
“Or the Russian Embassy,” Darren supplemented, knowing the layout of the city better than his companion. “Which I’m relieved about if she should have something about the new-model Gatling’s modification, or the way to get hold of one, in the case. We wouldn’t have a chance of getting whatever it might be out of there.”
“I’ll go with you on that,” the Rebel Spy admitted, and started to tell what she had learned from Higgins.
“Hmm, looks like she’s there,” Darren exclaimed before the explanation was completed. “Although it’s the last place I would have expected her to be going.”
“It doesn’t look so bad a place she wouldn’t deign to call in,” Belle remarked, studying the front of Hoffmeister’s Hauf Brau and noticing that it was in a most respectable part of the city.
“It’s not,” Darren confirmed. “In fact, I’d go there myself if I could pay the tab on expenses. But she’ll be more likely to meet Germans than Russians here.”
“I’d say she seems to be expected,” the Rebel Spy estimated, watching through the window as a fat and Germanic man dressed in a better fashion than the waiters was taking the Countess through a door at the rear. “Shall we go in?”
“We may as well,” Darren agreed, having removed the spectacles as being no longer necessary. However, glancing at his garments, he went on, “Only, I don’t look like what a customer for a place like this is known to be.”
“Then it’s right lucky you-all’re with a rich li’l ole Texas gal who’ll pick up the tab for you,” Belle replied. “Only, we’ve got to try to see where she’s gone and who she’s meeting. Do you know what’s back there?”
“Sure,” Darren replied. “Some private dining rooms.”
“Then we’ll just have to make out like we want to use one,” the Rebel Spy stated. “Come on, as my good friend Dusty Fog says, let’s get her done.” viii
“By all means,” Darren agreed, and took out money to pay the driver.
“Me ’n’ my sweetie here wants to use one of them fancy back rooms of your’n I’ve heard tell of so much ‘round the Grand Republic Hotel, which’s where I’m staying while in town,” Belle informed the burly man who had shown the Countess from the main dining area on entering the Hauf Brau, waving a handful of currency.
“Don’t waste our time, Otto!” Darren barked when the maitre de began what was intended as a refusal. He produced an official-looking card with his photographs on it and alleging he was a captain in the Provost Marshal’s Department and continued, “That woman who just went in the back’s a known confidence trickster and wanted for rooking one of our generals. So, unless you want more trouble than your bosses will stand for, you’d best let me and this lady operative of the Pinkerton’s go to her.”
“Very well,” Otto Dieterle said sullenly. “But I don’t think the Col—gentleman she has come to meet will be any too pleased.”
“I’ll take a chance on that and see there’s no comeback for you,” Darren promised. “Let’s go and get her done, Miss Smith.”
“You might at least have made me a ‘Smythe’ for shame,” Belle said sotto voce as she and her companion went through the door into the appropriate rear portion of the restaurant. “ ‘Smith’ indeed.”
Even while speaking, on entering a wide passage the Rebel Spy and Darren found that, with one exception, all the doors on either side were open to show small and intimate-looking rooms. What was more, they were not alone. Two large men with close-cropped blond hair and a Teutonic cast of features was standing almost at attention on either side of the closed door. Despite being in plain clothes of a quality suggesting they were not paying customers, they had the bearing frequently acquired by German soldiers, especially those of one particular part of that country.
“What you want?” demanded the taller of the men in an accent giving further support to his place of origin. “We told him in there nobody was allowed to enter.”
“Could be he’s hard of hearing,” Darren replied, although he did not know how he could enforce his will upon the pair and felt sure no display of his supposed status would suffice to do so. “But we have to see in that room.”
“And you can’t do it!” claimed the shorter man, which still made him larger than the male agent. Watching the pair moving forward, Darren wished he were carrying a revolver with which to make them halt.
But the matter was resolved before there was a need for any form of masculine action to be taken.
Sending her left hand to its specially adapted waistband, Belle caused it to open and the skirt slid rapidly downwards. Coming to a halt, the two burly man watched its descent with a lascivious interest. However, what came into view was not any kind of feminine undergarments. Instead, they found themselves gazing without comprehension at the riding breeches and boots that came into view. Nor was either granted an opportunity to recover from the surprise.
Gliding forward while her left hand joined the right on the parasol and subjected it to a twisting motion, the slender young woman sent her right leg upward in a swift yet clearly power-packed kind of kick only the very skilled exponent of savate she had become before commencing her career as a spy could have employed. Passing between the thighs of the taller man with the same kind of precision employed when she was dealing with “Frenchie” at the hotel—except this time she did not make it miss—the toe of her boot took him full in the base of his trousers. Such was the potent effect of the attack upon the most vulnerable portion of his masculine anatomy, he was sent back a couple of paces and, with hands clasping at the stricken area, collapsed to his knees.
Nor was the second man any better able to avoid what befell him. Already surprised by the unexpected turn of events, his discipline-dulled wits were unable to keep pace with what followed. Nor was the equally startled Darren any better able to realize what was taking place, it happened with such rapidity. The parasol held by the Rebel Spy came into two portions and, knowing what kind of person she was up against, she did not hesitate in taking steps to halt the threat he posed. Swinging the handle segment around in a slightly upward arc, she caused its concealed secret to come into play. Sliding out, a steel ball on a telescoping coil spring whipped around to strike the man at the side of the jaw. There was a crack of breaking bone and he crumpled across his retching, helpless companion like a rag doll from which the stuffing had suddenly been removed.
“I’ve heard about your savate and that!” Darren gasped, staring from the men to the dismembered parasol as if unable to believe the evidence of his eyes. “Now I see everything about them both was true.”
“I’ve always found it pays to be prepared,” Belle answered, stepping forward and thrusting open the door. As she stepped across the threshold closely followed by her companion, she took in the sight awaiting them and said, “Bad luck, Countess. We’ve caught you being a very naughty lady.”
“What the—!” snarled a militarily smart-dressed, big cropped-haired man, whose hard features bore the dueling scars de rigueur with members of his class in Germany, starting to rise from where he was sharing the table with the Russian woman. Although startled into employing his native tongue, he went on in accent-free English. “And what the devil are you doing?”
“Coming to take those documents back where they belong, Colonel von Diegelmann,” Darren answered, recognizing the speaker as the senior military attaché at the German Embassy, a man suspected of running its Secret Service organization.
“And I’d advise you to give them up peacefully,” Belle went on, bringing a Remington Double Derringer from where it had been concealed in the lower segment of the parasol. “I doubt whether your government would approve of your being accused of buying them knowing they must have been stolen. And as for you, Countess, I don’t think Colonel Riabouchinska will be enamored of your trying to sell them instead of turning them over to him. I’ve heard he’s had people sent to Siberia for less.”
A look of horror came to the beautiful yet suddenly haggard face of the Russian woman. All her hopes of acquiring a sufficient sum of money to pay off some heavy and pressing gambling debts had come to nothing. What was more, she was all too aware of the power wielded by the man named by Belle and how he had had members of the aristocracy placed far higher than herself sent into exile or worse. Therefore, she did not feel the slender woman she still failed to recognize as “Betty Hardin” was exaggerating what her fate would be when word of her attempted betrayal reached his ears.