The White Lie
The Earl was silent for a long time, thoughtfully stroking his moustache.
“But all this betrays our weakness to Germany!” he exclaimed at last. “It is astounding – incredible!”
“But it is, nevertheless, true,” remarked Darnborough. “The security of the country is in gravest danger. Why, only a few days ago the Post Office allowed Germany to lay another cable across the North Sea from Mundesley, in Norfolk, to the Island of Nordeney.”
“Mundesley?” repeated the Earl. “Why, that was where poor Harborne went on the day he lost his life.”
“Yes. He had been in that neighbourhood for some time – upon a secret mission, poor fellow! – a mission which he had not lived to fulfil.”
A silence fell between the two men.
“The situation is, I see, one of the utmost gravity. Steps must be taken at once to reassure the public in case rumours should be published regarding the truth. The Opposition will certainly not spare the Government the facts, and must, if disclosed, give an impetus to the campaign for universal service, which would be very inconvenient to us at the present time. And more than that – Germany now actually knows the rottenness of our defences!”
“That, unfortunately, is the case.”
The Earl of Bracondale bit his under lip. A Cabinet Council had been summoned for the next afternoon, and he must place the true situation before it. All the clever diplomacy he had exercised with the Powers during the past five years had now been nullified, and England stood exposed in all her vulnerability. The inflated bubble of the strong, invincible British Navy had been pricked and burst.
Black days had, alas! fallen upon our nation, and a grave peril hourly threatened. Germany had hitherto hesitated to attack England because of the uncertainty regarding our true strength. Our land defences were known to Germany, even to the most minute detail, all reported accurately and methodically by the enemy’s spies living amongst us. But our naval secrets had all been well preserved, so that the British Fleet had always been regarded as able to repel invasion and make reprisals.
Now, however, its failure to prevent an armed raid was known to our friends across the North Sea, and most certainly they would seek to take advantage of the valuable knowledge they had gained.
Suddenly the Earl, turning to where Darnborough stood, exclaimed:
“You spoke of poor Harborne. He was a smart agent, I believe?”
“The best I ever had. He was clever, ingenious, utterly fearless, and devoted to the service. You will recollect how he obtained the accurate clauses of the secret Japanese treaty, and how he brought to us news of the secret French agreement over the Morocco question.”
“I recollect,” replied the Foreign Minister. “When he told me I would not believe it. Yet his information proved correct.”
“Harborne’s death is to be deeply regretted,” Darnborough said. “I attended the inquest. Of course, to the public, the motive is a mystery.”
“Not to you – eh, Darnborough?”
“No. If Richard Harborne had lived, Germany would never have learnt the truth regarding the recent naval manœuvres,” was the reply of the Chief of the Secret Service.
“You said something about a woman. Is she known?”
“No. I have suspicions that an indiscretion was committed – a grave indiscretion, which cost poor Harborne his life. Yet what is one man’s life to his enemies when such a secret is at stake?”
“But who was the woman?”
“A friend of Harborne’s. She had been, I believe, useful to him in certain negotiations regarding the purchase of copies of plans of the new Krupp aerial gun, and in several other matters.”
“Any suspicion regarding her?” asked the Earl quickly.
“None. She is, of course, in ignorance of the truth, and probably unaware who killed the man with whom she was so friendly. I am endeavouring to trace her.”
“Is she a lady?”
“No. A French milliner, I understand.”
“A little romance of Harborne’s which has ended fatally?”
“Yes – poor Harborne!” sighed the grey-faced man, in whose keeping were the secrets of the Empire, and who knew more of the political undercurrents of Europe than any other living person. “His loss is very great to us, for he was a fine specimen of the true-hearted, patriotic Englishman,” he added, pulling hard at his cigar. “His place will be hard to fill – very hard.”
“I know, Darnborough,” remarked Lord Bracondale gravely. “To such a man the country ought to erect a monument, for he has laid down his life for his country. But, alas! our country recognises no heroes of the Secret Service!”
And as the Cabinet Minister spoke the telephone-bell rang. He crossed to his writing-table, took up the instrument, and responded to an urgent call from the House of Commons in London, where an important and heated debate regarding our foreign relations was in progress.
CHAPTER VI.
THE SAFE-BREAKERS
The day had been hot and stifling in London – one of those blazing days when the tar on the roadway perfumes the air, the dry pavements reflect back the heat into one’s face, and the straw-hatted Metropolis – or the portion of it that is still in town – gasps and longs for the country or the sea.
The warm weather was nearly at an end, and most holiday-makers were back again. London’s workers had had their annual fortnight long ago, and had nearly forgotten it, and now only principals were away golfing, taking waters at Harrogate, Woodhall Spa, or in the Scotch hydros, or perhaps travelling on the Continent.
From the high-up windows in Shaftesbury Avenue, close to Piccadilly Circus, Ralph Ansell looked down upon the busy traffic of motor-buses, taxis, and cars, the dark-red after-glow shining full upon his keen, clean-shaven face.
He was already dressed to go out to dinner, and as he stood in his cosy bachelor rooms – a pleasant, artistic little place with soft crimson carpet, big, comfortable, leather arm-chairs, and a profusion of photographs, mostly of the fair sex, decorating mantelshelf and walls – his brows were narrowed and he blew big clouds of cigarette smoke from his lips.
Suddenly the door opened and a man, shorter and rather thick-set, also in evening clothes, entered. He was evidently French, and possessed neither the good looks nor the elegance of Ansell.
“Ah! my dear Adolphe!” Ralph cried in French, springing forward to welcome him. “I hardly expected you yet. Your train from Paris was not late – eh? Well, how goes it?”
“Infernally hard up – as usual,” was his visitor’s reply, as he tossed his black overcoat on to the couch, flung his soft felt hat after it, and then sank into a chair. “Why all this emergency – eh?”
The man who spoke was of low type, with black, rather curly hair, sharp, shrewd eyes like his friend’s, ears that lay slightly away from his head, and a large, rather loose, clean-shaven mouth. Between his eyes were three straight lines, for his brow wore a constant look of care and anxiety. He did not possess that careless, easy, gentlemanly air of Ansell, but was of a coarser and commoner French type, the type one meets every day in the Montmartre, which was, indeed, the home of Adolphe Carlier.
Ansell walked to the door, opened it as if to ascertain there was no eavesdropper, and, closing and locking it, returned to his friend’s side.
“I sent for you, my dear friend, because I want you,” he said, in a low voice, gazing straight at him.
“Anything good?” asked the other, stretching out his legs and placing his clasped hands behind his head wearily.
“Yes, an easy job. The usual game.”
“A jeweller’s?”
Ansell nodded in the affirmative.
“Where?”
“Not far from here.”
“Much stuff?”
“A lot of good stones.”
“And the safe?”
“Easy enough with the jet,” Ansell answered. “You’ve brought over all the things, I suppose?”
“Yes. But it was infernally risky. I was afraid the Customs might open them at Charing Cross,” Carlier replied.
“You never need fear. They never open anything here. This is not like Calais or Boulogne.”
“I shan’t take them back.”
“You won’t require to, my dear Adolphe,” laughed Ansell, who, though in London he posed as a young man of means, was well known in a certain criminal set in Paris as “The American,” because of his daring exploits in burglary and robbery with violence.
A year before, this exemplary young man, together with Adolphe Carlier, known as “Fil-en-Quatre,” or “The Eel,” had been members of the famous Bonnemain gang, to whose credit stood some of the greatest and most daring jewel robberies in France. For several years the police had tried to bring their crimes home to them, but without avail, until the great robbery at Louis Verrier’s, in the Rue des Petit-Champs, when a clerk in the employ of the well-known diamond dealer was shot dead by Paul Bonnemain. The latter was arrested, tried for murder, and executed, the gang being afterwards broken up.
The malefactors had numbered eight, six of whom, including Bonnemain himself, had been arrested, the only ones escaping being Carlier, who had fled to Bordeaux, where he had worked at the docks till the affair had blown over, while Ansell, whose dossier showed a very bad record, had sought refuge in England.
The pair had not met since the memorable evening nine months before, when Ansell had been sitting in the Grand Café, and Carlier had slipped in to warn him that the police had arrested Bonnemain and the rest, and had already been to his lodgings. Two hours later, without baggage or any encumbrance, he had reached Melun in a hired motor-car, and had thence left it at midnight for Lyons, after which he doubled his tracks and travelled by way of Cherbourg across to Southampton, while Carlier had, on that same night, fled to Orleans.
Part of the proceeds of the robbery at the diamond merchants had been divided up by the gang prior to Bonnemain’s arrest – or rather the fifty thousand francs advanced by the Jew broker from Amsterdam to whom they always sold their booty. Therefore both men had been possessed of funds. Like others of their profession, they made large gains, but spent freely, and were continually short of money. Old Bonnemain, however, had brought burglary to a fine art, and from the proceeds of each coup he used to keep back a certain amount out of which to assist the needy among his accomplices.
Ansell, in addition, had a second source of revenue, inasmuch as he was on friendly terms with a certain Belgian Baron, who, though living in affluence in Paris, was nevertheless a high official of the German Secret Service. It was, indeed, his habit to undertake for the Baron certain disagreeable little duties which he did not care to perform himself, and for such services he was usually highly paid. Hence, when he fled to London, it was not long before a German secret agent called upon him and put before him a certain proposal, the acceptance of which had resulted in the death of Dick Harborne.
The young adventurer threw himself into the arm-chair opposite to where Adolphe Carlier was seated, and in the twilight unfolded his scheme for a coup at a well-known jeweller’s in Bond Street, at which he was already a customer and had thoroughly surveyed the premises.
“I expected that you had some new scheme in hand,” Carlier said at last, in French, after listening attentively to the details of the proposition, every one of which had been most carefully thought out by the pupil of the notorious Bonnemain. “On arrival this afternoon I put up at the Charing Cross Hotel – so as to be handy if we have to get out quickly.”
“Good. Probably we shall be compelled to move pretty slick,” Ansell said, in English. Then, after a few moments’ pause, he added: “Do you know, my dear Adolphe, I have some news for you.”
“News?”
“Yes. I’m going to be married in November.”
“Married!” echoed Carlier, staring at his friend. “Who’s the lucky girl?”
“She’s French; lives here in London; smart, sweet – a perfect peach,” was his answer. “She’ll be a lot of use to us in future.”
Carlier was silent for a few moments.
“Does she know anything?” he asked in a low, serious voice.
“Nothing.”
“What will she say when she knows?”
“What can she say?” asked Ansell, with a grin.
“She’s not one of us, I suppose?”
“One of us? Why, no, my dear fellow. I’ll introduce you to-morrow. You must dine with us – dine before we go out and do the job. But she must not suspect anything – you understand?”
“Of course,” replied the young Frenchman. “I’ll be delighted to meet her, Ralph, but – but I’m thinking it is rather dangerous for you to marry an honourable girl.”
“What?” cried the other, angry in an instant. “Do you insinuate that I’m not worthy to have a decent, well-brought-up girl for a wife?”
“Ah! you misunderstand me, mon vieux. I insinuate nothing,” replied Carlier. “I scent danger, that is all. She may turn from you when – well – when she knows what we really are.”
Ansell’s mouth hardened.
“When she knows she’ll have to grin and bear it,” was the answer.
“She might give us away.”
“No, she won’t do that, I can assure you. The little fool loves me too well.”
“Is that the way you speak of her?”
“Every girl who loves a man blindly is, in my estimation, a fool.”
“Then your estimation of woman is far poorer than I believed, Ralph,” responded Carlier. “If a girl loves a man truly and well, as apparently this young lady loves you, then surely she ought not to be sneered at. We have, all of us, loved at one time or other in our lives.”
“You’re always a sentimental fool where women are concerned, Adolphe,” laughed his companion.
“I may be,” answered the other. “And I can assure you that I would never dare to marry while leading the life I do.”
“And what better life can you ever hope to lead, pray? Do we not get excitement, adventure, money, pleasure – everything that makes life worth living? Neither you nor I could ever settle down to the humdrum existence of so-called respectability. But are these people who pose as being so highly respectable really any more honest than we are? No, my dear friend. The sharks on the Bourse and the sharp men of business are just as dishonest. They are thieves like ourselves under a more euphonious name.”
Carlier smiled at his friend’s philosophy. Yet he was thinking of the future of the girl with whom he was, as yet, unacquainted – the girl who had chosen to link her life with that of the merry, careless, but unscrupulous young fellow before him. They were bosom friends, it was true, yet he knew, alas! how utterly callous Ralph Ansell was where women were concerned, and he recollected certain ugly rumours he had heard, even in their own undesirable circle.
They spoke of Jean again, and Ralph told him her name.
“We will dine there to-morrow night,” he added. “Then we will come on here, and go forth to Bond Street at half-past eleven. I’ve watched the police for the past week, and know their exact beat. Better bring round the things you’ve brought from Paris in a taxi to-morrow morning.”
The “things” referred to were an oxy-acetylene gas-jet, and a number of the latest inventions of burglarious tools – indeed, all the equipment of the expert safe-breaker.
That night the pair went forth and dined at the Café Royal in Regent Street, and afterwards went to the Palace Theatre, finishing up at a night club in Wardour Street. Then, on the following morning, Carlier returned, bringing with him the heavy but unsuspicious-looking travelling trunk he had conveyed from Paris.
In the evening Ralph and he went to the Provence Restaurant, but, to their disappointment, Jean was not there. She had been home, but had left half an hour later to go to Balham to visit one of her fellow-assistants at the Maison Collette who was dangerously ill. She had taken with her some fruit and flowers.
Annoyed at her absence, Ralph had suggested the Trocadero for dinner.
“It’s better than in this wretched little hole,” he added to Carlier, in an undertone. “And we’ll want a good dinner before we get to business,” he added, with a sinister grin.
So they had wished old Libert a merry bon soir, and were driven in a taxi along to the Trocadero grill-room, where, amid the clatter of plates, the chatter, and the accompanying orchestra, they found themselves in their own element.
At half-past ten they ascended to Ansell’s flat, and each had a stiff brandy-and-soda and a cigar.
Both men were expert thieves, therefore it was not surprising that, by half-past two o’clock next morning, wearing cotton gloves and dark spectacles to hide the glare from the jet, they stood together before the great safe at the back of Matheson and Wilson’s, the well-known jewellers, and while Ansell put up his hand and cleared shelf after shelf of magnificent ornaments, Adolphe expertly packed them away into the small black canvas bag he held open.
Those were breathless, exciting moments. The jet had done its work. It had gone through the hardened steel plates like a knife through butter, and the door, believed to be burglar-proof, stood open, displaying wonderful diamond tiaras in cases, ropes of pearls and paper packets containing uncut gems worth a huge amount.
The haul was a magnificent one, and though they had not yet succeeded in getting clear, both men were gloating over their booty – a triumphant satisfaction that no burglar can repress.
The scene was a weird one. The glaring light thrown by the jet had been extinguished, but the steel still glowed with heat, and Ansell blistered his fingers when they had accidentally touched the edge. The only light now was a small electric torch which threw direct rays in a small zone. But of a sudden, both men heard a noise – the distinct footsteps of a man crossing the shop!
They straightened their backs, and, for a second, looked at each other in alarm.
Next instant a big, burly night-watchman dashed in upon them, crying:
“What do you fellows want ’ere – eh?”
“Nothing. Take that!” replied Ansell, as he raised his hand and dashed something into the man’s face.
But too late. The man raised his revolver and fired.
Though the bullet went wide, the report was deafening in that small inner room, and both intruders knew that the alarm was raised. Not a second was to be lost. The police-constable on duty outside would hear it!
Without hesitation, Ralph Ansell raised his arm and instantly fired, point blank, at the man defending the property of his master.
A second report rang out, and the unfortunate night-watchman fell back into the darkness. There was a sound of muffled footsteps.
Then all was silence.
CHAPTER VII.
THE DOWNWARD PATH
A year had gone by.
Since that memorable night when Ansell and Carlier had so narrowly escaped capture in Bond Street, and had been compelled to fly and leave their booty behind, things had gone badly with both of them.
With Bonnemain executed, and their other companions in penal servitude at Cayenne, a cloud of misfortune seemed to have settled upon them.
Of the tragedy on the Norwich road no more had been heard. The police had relinquished their inquiries, the affair had been placed upon the long list of unsolved mysteries, and it had passed out of the public mind. Only to the British Cabinet had the matter caused great suspense and serious consideration, while it had cost the Earl of Bracondale, as Foreign Minister, the greatest efforts of the most delicate diplomacy to hold his own in defiance to the German intentions. For two whole months the Foreign Office had lived in daily expectation of sudden hostilities. In the Wilhelmstrasse the advisability of a raid upon our shores had been seriously discussed, and the War Council were nearly unanimous in favour of crossing swords with England.
Only by the clever and ingenious efforts of British secret agents in Berlin, who kept Darnborough informed of all in progress, was Lord Bracondale able to stem the tide and guide the ship of state into the smooth waters of peace.
And of all this the British public had remained in blissful ignorance. The reader of the morning paper was assured that never in this decade had the European outlook been so peaceful, and that our relations with our friends in Berlin were of the most cordial nature. Indeed, there was some talk of an entente.
The reader was, however, in ignorance that for weeks on end the British fleet had been kept in the vicinity of the North Sea, and that the destroyer flotillas were lying in the East Coast harbours with steam up, ready to proceed to sea at a moment’s notice.
Nevertheless, the peril had passed once again, thanks to the firm, fearless attitude adopted by Lord Bracondale, and though the secret of England’s weakness was known and freely commented upon in Government circles in Berlin, yet the clamorous demands of the war party were not acceded to. The British lion had shown his teeth, and Germany had again hesitated.
Ralph Ansell and Adolphe Carlier, after the failure of their plot to rob Matheson and Wilson’s, in Bond Street, had fled next day to Belgium, and thence had returned to France.
Ralph had seen Jean for a few moments before his flight, explaining that his sudden departure was due to the death of his uncle, a landowner near Valence, in whose estate he was interested, and she, of course, believed him.
So cleverly, indeed, did he deceive her that it was not surprising that old Libert and his daughter should meet the young adventurer at the Hotel Terminus at Lyons one day in November, and that three days later Ralph and Jean were married at the Mairie. Then while the old restaurateur returned to London, the happy pair went South to Nice for their honeymoon.
While there Adolphe Carlier called one day at their hotel – a modest one near the station – and was introduced to Jean.
From the first moment they met, Adolphe’s heart went forth to her in pity and sympathy. Though a thief bred and born, and the son of a man who had spent the greater part of his life in prison, Carlier was ever chivalrous, even considerate, towards a woman. He was coarser, and outwardly more brutal than Ralph Ansell, whose veneer of polish she, in her ignorance of life, found so attractive, yet at heart, though an expert burglar, and utterly unscrupulous towards his fellows, he was, nevertheless, always honourable towards a woman.
When their hands clasped and their eyes met upon their introduction, she instantly lowered hers, for, with a woman’s intuition, she knew that in this companion of her husband’s she had a true friend. And he, on his part, became filled with admiration of her great beauty, her wonderful eyes, and her soft, musical voice.
And he turned away, affecting unconcern, although in secret he sighed for her and for her future. She was far too good to be the wife of such a man as Ralph Ansell.
Months went on, and to Jean the mystery surrounding Ralph became more and more obscure.
At first they had lived quietly near Bordeaux, now and then receiving visits from Adolphe. On such occasions the two men would be closeted together for hours, talking confidentially in undertones. Then, two months after their marriage, came a telegram one day, stating that her father had died suddenly. Both went at once to London, only to find that poor old Libert had died deeply in debt. Indeed, there remained insufficient money to pay for the funeral.
Therefore, having seen her father buried at Highgate, Jean returned with Ralph to Paris, where they first took a small, cosy apartment of five rooms in the Austerlitz quarter; but as funds decreased, they were forced to economise and sink lower in the social scale – to the Montmartre.
To Jean, who had believed Ralph to be possessed of ample means, all this came as a gradual disillusionment. Her husband began quickly to neglect her, to spend his days in the cafés, often in Adolphe’s company, while the men he brought to their rooms were, though well-dressed, of a very different class to those with whom she had been in the habit of associating in London.
But the girl never complained. She loved Ralph with a fond, silent passion, and even the poor circumstances in which already, after ten months of married life, she now found herself, did not trouble her so long as her husband treated her with consideration.
