“Yes,” admitted Jane. “It’s absurd—but I can’t help it.”
Sir James nodded again.
“You feel—as we all feel—THE PRESENCE OF MR. BROWN. Yes”—as Tuppence made a movement—“not a doubt of it—MR. BROWN IS HERE… .”
“In this house?”
“In this room… . You don’t understand? I AM MR. BROWN… .”
Stupefied, unbelieving, they stared at him. The very lines of his face had changed. It was a different man who stood before them. He smiled a slow cruel smile.
“Neither of you will leave this room alive! You said just now we had succeeded. I have succeeded! The draft treaty is mine.” His smile grew wider as he looked at Tuppence. “Shall I tell you how it will be? Sooner or later the police will break in, and they will find three victims of Mr. Brown—three, not two, you understand, but fortunately the third will not be dead, only wounded, and will be able to describe the attack with a wealth of detail! The treaty? It is in the hands of Mr. Brown. So no one will think of searching the pockets of Sir James Peel Edgerton!”
He turned to Jane.
“You outwitted me. I make my acknowledgments. But you will not do it again.”
There was a faint sound behind him, but, intoxicated with success, he did not turn his head.
He slipped his hand into his pocket.
“Checkmate to the Young Adventurers,” he said, and slowly raised the big automatic.
But, even as he did so, he felt himself seized from behind in a grip of iron. The revolver was wrenched from his hand, and the voice of Julius Hersheimmer said drawlingly:
“I guess you’re caught redhanded with the goods upon you.”
The blood rushed to the K.C.‘s face, but his self-control was marvellous, as he looked from one to the other of his two captors. He looked longest at Tommy.
“You,” he said beneath his breath. “YOU! I might have known.”
Seeing that he was disposed to offer no resistance, their grip slackened. Quick as a flash his left hand, the hand which bore the big signet ring, was raised to his lips… .
” ‘Ave, Caesar! te morituri salutant,’ ” he said, still looking at Tommy.
Then his face changed, and with a long convulsive shudder he fell forward in a crumpled heap, whilst an odour of bitter almonds filled the air.
Chapter 27
A Supper Party at the Savoy
THE supper party given by Mr. Julius Hersheimmer to a few friends on the evening of the 30th will long be remembered in catering circles. It took place in a private room, and Mr. Hersheimmer’s orders were brief and forcible. He gave carte blanche—and when a millionaire gives carte blanche he usually gets it!
Every delicacy out of season was duly provided. Waiters carried bottles of ancient and royal vintage with loving care. The floral decorations defied the seasons, and fruits of the earth as far apart as May and November found themselves miraculously side by side. The list of guests was small and select. The American Ambassador, Mr. Carter, who had taken the liberty, he said, of bringing an old friend, Sir William Beresford, with him, Archdeacon Cowley, Dr. Hall, those two youthful adventurers, Miss Prudence Cowley and Mr. Thomas Beresford, and last, but not least, as guest of honour, Miss Jane Finn.
Julius had spared no pains to make Jane’s appearance a success. A mysterious knock had brought Tuppence to the door of the apartment she was sharing with the American girl. It was Julius. In his hand he held a cheque.
“Say, Tuppence,” he began, “will you do me a good turn? Take this, and get Jane regularly togged up for this evening. You’re all coming to supper with me at the Savoy. See? Spare no expense. You get me?”
“Sure thing,” mimicked Tuppence. “We shall enjoy ourselves. It will be a pleasure dressing Jane. She’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“That’s so,” agreed Mr. Hersheimmer fervently.
His fervour brought a momentary twinkle to Tuppence’s eye.
“By the way, Julius,” she remarked demurely, “I—haven’t given you my answer yet.”
“Answer?” said Julius. His face paled.
“You know—when you asked me to—marry you,” faltered Tuppence, her eyes downcast in the true manner of the early Victorian heroine, “and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I’ve thought it well over——”
“Yes?” said Julius. The perspiration stood on his forehead.
Tuppence relented suddenly.
“You great idiot!” she said. “What on earth induced you to do it? I could see at the time you didn’t care a twopenny dip for me!”
“Not at all. I had—and still have—the highest sentiments of esteem and respect—and admiration for you——”
“H’m!” said Tuppence. “Those are the kind of sentiments that very soon go to the wall when the other sentiment comes along! Don’t they, old thing?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Julius stiffly, but a large and burning blush overspread his countenance.
“Shucks!” retorted Tuppence. She laughed, and closed the door, reopening it to add with dignity: “Morally, I shall always consider I have been jilted!”
“What was it?” asked Jane as Tuppence rejoined her.
“Julius.”
“What did he want?”
“Really, I think, he wanted to see you, but I wasn’t going to let him. Not until to-night, when you’re going to burst upon every one like King Solomon in his glory! Come on! WE’RE GOING TO SHOP!”
To most people the 29th, the much-heralded “Labour Day,” had passed much as any other day. Speeches were made in the Park and Trafalgar Square. Straggling processions, singing the Red Flag, wandered through the streets in a more or less aimless manner. Newspapers which had hinted at a general strike, and the inauguration of a reign of terror, were forced to hide their diminished heads. The bolder and more astute among them sought to prove that peace had been effected by following their counsels. In the Sunday papers a brief notice of the sudden death of Sir James Peel Edgerton, the famous K.C., had appeared. Monday’s paper dealt appreciatively with the dead man’s career. The exact manner of his sudden death was never made public.
Tommy had been right in his forecast of the situation. It had been a one-man show. Deprived of their chief, the organization fell to pieces. Kramenin had made a precipitate return to Russia, leaving England early on Sunday morning. The gang had fled from Astley Priors in a panic, leaving behind, in their haste, various damaging documents which compromised them hopelessly. With these proofs of conspiracy in their hands, aided further by a small brown diary taken from the pocket of the dead man which had contained a full and damning resume of the whole plot, the Government had called an eleventh-hour conference. The Labour leaders were forced to recognize that they had been used as a cat’s paw. Certain concessions were made by the Government, and were eagerly accepted. It was to be Peace, not War!
But the Cabinet knew by how narrow a margin they had escaped utter disaster. And burnt in on Mr. Carter’s brain was the strange scene which had taken place in the house in Soho the night before.
He had entered the squalid room to find that great man, the friend of a lifetime, dead—betrayed out of his own mouth. From the dead man’s pocket-book he had retrieved the ill-omened draft treaty, and then