“NAME O’BARNEY”
“Miss Mackwayte telephoned to ask if I could go and see her,” said the
Chief to Desmond as they motored back to White hall, “Marigold gave me
the message just as we were coming out. She asked if I could come this
afternoon. I’m going to send you in my place, Okewood. I’ve got a
conference with the head of the French Intelligence at three, and the
Lord knows when I shall get away. I’ve a notion that you and Miss
Mackwayte will work very well together.”
“Certainly,” said Desmond, “she struck me as being a very charming and
clever girl. Now I know the source of your information about my
movements last night!”
“That you certainly don’t!” answered the Chief promptly, “if I thought
you did Duff and No.39 should be sacked on the spot!”
“Then it wasn’t Miss Mackwayte who told you?”
“I haven’t seen or heard from Miss Mackwayte since she left my office
yesterday evening. You were followed!”
“But why?”
“I’ll tell you all about it at, lunch!”
Bated once more, Desmond retired into his shell. By this he was
convinced of the utter impossibility of making the Chief vouchsafe any
information except voluntarily.
Mr. Marigold had evidently announced their coming to Scotland Yard, for
a very urbane and delightful official met them at the entrance and
conducted them to a room where the prisoner was already awaiting them
in charge of a plain clothes man. There the official excused himself
and retired, leaving them alone with the prisoner and his escort.
Barney proved to be a squat, podgy, middle-aged Jew of the familiar
East End Polish or Russian type. He had little black beady eyes, a
round fat white face, and a broad squabby Mongol nose. His clothes were
exceedingly seedy, and the police had confiscated his collar and tie.
This absence of neckwear, coupled with the fact that the lower part of
his face was sprouting with a heavy growth of beard, gave him a
peculiarly villainous appearance:
He was seated on a chair, his head sunk on his breast. His eyes were
hollow, and his face overspread with a horrible sickly greenish pallor,
the hue of the last stage of fear. His hands, resting on his knees,
twisted and fiddled continually. Every now and then convulsive shudders
shook him. The man was quite obviously on the verge of a collapse.
As the Chief and Desmond advanced into the room, the Jew looked up in
panic. Then he sprang to his feet with a scream and flung himself on
his knees, crying:
“Ah, no! Don’t take me away! I ain’t done no ’arm, gentlemen! S’welp
me, gentlemen, I ain’t a murderer! I swear...”
“Get him up!” said the Chief in disgust, “and, look here, can’t you
give him a drink? I want to speak to him. He’s not fit to talk
rationally in this state!”
The detective pushed a bell in the wall, a policeman answered it, and
presently the prisoner was handed a stiff glass of whiskey and water.
After Barney had swallowed it, the Chief said:
“Now, look here, my man, I want you to tell me exactly what happened
last night. No fairy tales, remember! I know what you told the police,
and if I catch you spinning me any yarns on to it, well, it’ll only be
the worse for you. I don’t mind telling you, you’re in a pretty bad
mess!”
The prisoner put down the glass wearily and wiped his forehead with the
back of his hand. Though the room was bitterly cold, the perspiration
stood out in beads on his brow.
“I have told the trewth, sir,” he said hoarsely, “and it goes against
me, don’t it? Hafen’t I not gif myself op to the policeman? Couldn’t I
not haf drop the svag and ron away? For sure! And vy didn’t I not do
it? For vy, because of vot I seen in that house. I’ve ’ad my bit of
trobble mit the police and vy should I tell them how I vos op to a game
last night if I vas not a-telling the trewth, eh! I’ve been on the
crook, gentlemen, I say it, ja, but I ain’t no murderer, God choke me I
ain’t!
“I’ve earned gut monney in my time on the ’alls but life is very ’ardt,
and I’ve been alvays hongry these days. Yesterday I meet old Mac wot I
used to meet about the ’alls I vos workin’ along o’ my boss... at the
agent’s it vos were I vos lookin’ for a shop! The perfesh always makes
a splash about its salaries, gentlemen, and Mac ’e vos telling me vot a
lot o’ monney he make on the Samuel Circuit and ’ow ’e ’ad it at home
all ready to put into var savings certif’kits. I never done a job like
this von before, gentlemen, but I vos hardt pushed for money, s’welp me
I vos!
“I left it till late last night because of these air raids... I vanted
to be sure that ole Mac and ’is daughter should be asleep. I god in
from the back of the louse, oi, oi, bot it vos dead easy! through the
scollery vindow. I cleared op a bagful of stuff in the dining-room...
there vosn’t, anything vorth snatching outer the parlor... and
sixty-five quid out of an old cigar-box in the desk. The police ’as got
it... I give it all back! I say I haf stolen, but murder? No!” He
paused.
“Go on,” said the Chief.
The prisoner looked about him in a frightened way.
“I vos jus’ thinking I had better be getting avay, he continued in his
hoarse, gutteral voice, ’ven snick.!... I hears a key in the front
door. I vos, standing by the staircase... I had no time to get out by
the vay I had kom so I vent opstairs to the landing vere there vos a
curtain. I shlip behind the curtain and vait! I dare not look out but I
listen, I listen.. I hear some one go into the dining-room and move
about. I open the curtain a little way... so!... because I think I vill
shlip downstairs vile the other party is in the dining-room... and
there I sees ole Mac in his dressing-gown just coming down from the
first floor. The same moment I hear a step in the front hall.
“I see ole Mac start but he does not stop. He kom right downstairs, and
I step back behind the curtain ontil I find a door vich I push. I dare
not svitch on my light but presently I feel the cold edge of a bath
with my hands. I stay there and vait. Oi, oi, oi, how shall you belief
vot I tell?”
He broke off trembling.
“Go on, Barney,” said the detective, “can’t you see the gentlemen are
waiting?”
The Jew resumed, his voice sinking almost to a whisper.
“It vos quite dark behind the curtain but from the bathroom, through
the open door, I could just see ole Mac standing with his back to me,
a-holding the curtain. He must haf shlip in there to watch the other
who vos komming opstairs. Then... then... I hear a step on the stair...
a little, soft step... then ole Mac he open the curtain and cry ‘Who
are you?’ Bang! the... the... other on the stairs he fire a shot. I see
the red flash and I smell the... the powder not? The other, he does not
vait... he just go on opstairs and ole Mac is lying there on his back
with the blood a-trickling out on the oil-cloth. And I, vith my bag on
my back, I creep downstair and out by the back again, and I ron and ron
and then I valks. Gott! how I haf walked! I vos so frightened! And
then, at last, I go to a policeman and gif ‘myself op!”
Barney stopped. The tears burst from his eyes and laying his grimy face
on his arm, he sobbed.
The detective patted him on the back.
“Pull yourself together, man!” he said encouragingly.
“This man on the stairs,” queried the Chief, “did you see him?”
“Ach was!” replied the prisoner, turning a tearstained face towards
him, “I haf seen nothing, except old Mac’s back vich vos right in vront
of me, it vos so dark!”
“But couldn’t you see the other person at all, not even the outline”
persisted the Chief.
The prisoner made a gesture of despair.
“It vos so dark, I say! Nothing haf I seen! I haf heard only his step!”
“What sort of step? Was it heavy or light or what? Did this person seem
in a hurry?”
“A little light tread... so! won, two! won, two!, and qvick like ’e
think ’e sneak opstairs vithout nobody seeing!”
“Did he make much noise”
“Ach was! hardly at all... the tread, ’e vos so light like a
woman’s...”
“Like a woman’s, eh!”, repeated the Chief, as if talking to himself,
“Why do you think that?”
“Because for vy it vos so gentle! The’ staircase, she haf not sqveak as
she haf sqveak when I haf creep away!”
The Chief turned to the plain clothes man.
“You can take him away now, officer,” he said.
Barney sprang up trembling.
“Not back to the cell,” he cried imploringly, “I cannot be alone. Oh,
gentlemen, you vill speak for me! I haf not had trobble vith the police
this long time! My vife’s cousin, he is an elder of the Shool he vill
tell you ’ow poor ve haf been...”
But the Chief crossed the room to the door and the detective hustled
the prisoner away.
Then the official whom they had seen before came in.
“Glad I caught you,” he said. “I thought you would care to see the post
mortem report. The doctor has just handed it in.”
The chief waved him off.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt about the cause of death,” he replied,
“we saw the body ourselves...”
“Quite so,” replied the other, “but there is something interesting
about this report all the same. They were able to extract the bullet!”
“Oh,” said the Chief, “that ought to tell us something!”
“It does,” answered the official. “We’ve submitted it to our small arms
expert, and he pronounces it to be a bullet fired by an automatic
pistol of unusually large calibre.”
The Chief looked at Desmond.
“You were right there,” he said.
“And,” the official went on, “our man says, further, that, as far as he
knows, there is only one type of automatic pistol that fires a bullet
as big as this one!”
“And that is?” asked the Chief.
“An improved pattern of the German Mauser pistol,” was the other’s
startling reply.
The Chief tapped a cigarette meditatively on the back of his hand.
“Okewood,” he said, “you are the very model of discretion. I have put
your reticence to a pretty severe test this morning, and you have stood
it very well. But I can see that you are bristling with questions like
a porcupine with quills. Zero hour has arrived. You may fire away!”
They were sitting in the smoking-room of the United Service Club. “The
Senior,” as men call it, is the very parliament of Britain’s
professional navy and army. Even in these days when war has flung wide
the portals of the two services to all-comers, it retains a touch of
rigidity. Famous generals and admirals look down from the lofty walls
in silent testimony of wars that have been. Of the war that is, you
will hear in every cluster of men round the little tables. Every day in
the hour after luncheon battles are fought over again, personalities
criticized, and decisions weighed with all the vigorous freedom of
ward-room or the mess ante-room.
And so to-day, as he sat in his padded leather chair, surveying the
Chief’s quizzing face across the little table where their coffee was
steaming, Desmond felt the oddness of the contrast between the direct,
matter-of-fact personalities all around them, and the extraordinary web
of intrigue which seemed to have spun itself round the little house at
Seven Kings.
Before he answered the Chief’s question, he studied him for a moment
under cover of lighting a cigarette. How very little, to be sure,
escaped that swift and silent mind! At luncheon the Chief had
scrupulously avoided making, the slightest allusion to the thoughts
with which Desmond’s mind was seething. Instead he had told, with the
gusto of the born raconteur, a string of extremely droll yarns about
“double crosses,” that is, obliging gentlemen who will spy for both
sides simultaneously, he had come into contact with during his long and
varied career. Desmond had played up to him and repressed the questions
which kept rising to his lips. Hence the Chief’s unexpected tribute to
him in the smoking room.
“Well,” said Desmond slowly, “there _are_ one or two things I should
like to know. What am I here for? Why did you have me followed last
night? How did you know, before we ever went to Seven Kings, that
Barney did not murder old Mackwayte? And lastly...”
He paused, fearing to be rash; then he risked it:
“And lastly, Nur-el-Din?”
The Chief leant back in his chair and laughed.
“I’m sure you feel much better now,” he said. Then his face grew grave
and he added:
“Your last question answers all the others!”
“Meaning Nur-el-Din?” asked Desmond.
The Chief nodded.
“Nur-el-Din,” he repeated. “That’s why you’re here, that’s why I had
you followed last night, that’s why I...” he hesitated for the word,
“let’s say, _presumed_ (one knows for certain so little in our work)
that our friend Barney had nothing to do with the violent death of poor
old Mackwayte. Nur-el-Din in the center, the kernel, the hub of
everything!”
The Chief leant across the table and Desmond pulled his chair closer.
“There’s only one other man in the world can handle this job, except
you,” he began, “and that’s your brother Francis. Do you know where he
is, Okewood?”
“He wrote to me last from Athens,” answered Desmond, “but that must be
nearly two months ago.”
The Chief laughed.
“His present address is not Athens,” he said, “if you want to know,
he’s serving on a German Staff somewhere at the back of Jerusalem the
Golden. Frankly, I know you don’t care about our work, and I did my
best to get your brother. He has had his instructions and as soon as he
can get away he will. That was not soon enough for me. It had to be him
or you. So I sent for you.”
He stopped and cleared his throat. Desmond stared at him. He could
hardly believe his eyes. This quiet, deliberate man was actually
embarrassed.
“Okewood,” the Chief went on, “you know I like plain speaking, and
therefore you won’t make the mistake of thinking I’m trying to flatter
you.”
Desmond made a gesture.
“Wait a moment and hear me out,” the Chief went on. “What is required
for this job is a man of great courage and steady nerve. Yes, we have
plenty of fellows like that. But the man I am looking for must, in
addition to possessing those qualities, know German and the Germans
thoroughly, and when I say thoroughly I mean to the very core so that,
if needs be, he may be a German, think German, act German. I have men
in my service who know German perfectly and can get themselves up to
look the part to the life. But they have never been put to the real,
the searching test. Not one of them has done what you and your brother
successfully accomplished. The first time I came across you, you had
just come out of Germany after fetching your brother away. To have
lived for weeks in Germany in wartime and to have got clear away is a
feat which shows that both you and he can be trusted to make a success
of one of the most difficult and critical missions I have ever had to
propose. Francis is not here. That’s why I want you.”
The Chief paused as if weighing something in his mind.
“It’s not the custom of either service, Okewood,” he said, “to send a
man to certain death. You’re not in this creepy, crawly business of
ours. You’re a pukka soldier and keen on your job. So I want you to
know that you are free to turn down this offer of mine here and now,
and go back to France without my thinking a bit the worse of you.”
“Would you tell me something about it?” asked Desmond.
“I’m sorry I can’t,” replied the other. “There must be only two men in
this secret, myself and the fellow who undertakes the mission. Of
course, it’s not certain death. If you take this thing on, you’ll have
a sporting chance for your life, but that’s all. It’s going to be a
desperate game played against a desperate opponent. Now do you
understand why I didn’t want you to think I was flattering you? You’ve
got your head screwed on right, I know, but I should hate to feel
afterwards, if anything went wrong, that you thought I had buttered you
up in order to entice you into taking the job on!”
Desmond took two or three deep puffs of his cigarette and dropped it
into the ash-tray.
“I’ll see you!” he said.
The Chief grinned with delight.
“By Jove!” he exclaimed, “I knew you were my man!”