THE WHITE PAPER PACKAGE
A taxi was waiting in Pall Mall outside the club and Desmond hailed it,
though secretly wondering what the driver would think of taking him out
to Seven Kings. Rather to his surprise, the man was quite affable, took
the address of the house where Barbara was staying with her friends and
bade Desmond “hop in.” Presently, for the second time that day, he was
heading for the Mile End Road.
As they zigzagged in and out of the traffic, Desmond’s thoughts were
busy with the extraordinary mission entrusted to him. So he was to sink
his own identity and don that of an Anglo-German business man, his
appearance, accent, habits, everything. The difficulties of the task
positively made him cold with fear. The man must have relations,
friends, business acquaintances who would be sufficiently familiar with
his appearance and manner to penetrate, at any rate in the long run,
the most effective disguise. What did Bellward look like? Where did he
live? How was he, Desmond, to disguise himself to resemble him? And,
above all, when this knotty problem of make-up had been settled, how
was he to proceed? What should be his first step to pick out from among
all the millions of London’s teeming populace the one obscure
individual who headed and directed this gang of spies?
Why hadn’t he asked the Chief all these questions? What an annoying man
the Chief was to deal with to be sure! All said and done, what had he
actually told Desmond? That there was a German Secret service
organization spying on the movements of troops to France, that this
man, Basil Bellward, who had been arrested, was one of the gang and
that the dancer, Nur-el-Din, was in some way implicated in the affair!
And that was the extent of his confidence! On the top of all this fog
of obscurity rested the dense cloud surrounding the murder of old
Mackwayte with the unexplained, the fantastic, clue of that single hair
pointing back to Nur-el-Din.
Desmond consoled himself finally by saying that he would be able too
get some light on his mission from Barbara Mackwayte, whom he judged to
be in the Chief’s confidence. But here he was doomed to disappointment.
Barbara could tell him practically nothing save what he already knew,
that they were to work together in this affair. Like him, she was
waiting for her instructions.
Barbara received him in a neat little suburban drawing-room in the
house of her friends, who lived a few streets away from the Mackwaytes.
She was wearing a plainly-made black crêpe de chine dress which served
to accentuate the extreme pallor of her face, the only outward
indication of the great shock she had sustained. She was perfectly calm
and collected, otherwise, and she stopped Desmond who would have
murmured some phrases of condolence.
“Ah, no, please,” she said, “I don’t think I can speak about it yet.”
She pulled a chair over for him and began to talk about the Chief.
“There’s not the least need for you to worry,” she said with a little
woeful smile, like a sun-ray piercing a rain-cloud, “if the Chief says
‘Go back to France and wait for instructions,’ you may be sure that
everything is arranged, and you will receive your orders in due course.
So shall I. That’s the Chief all over. Until you know him, you think he
loves mystery for mystery’s sake. It isn’t that at all. He just doesn’t
trust us. He trusts nobody!”
“But that hardly seems fair to us...” began Desmond.
“It’s merely a precaution,” replied Barbara, “the Chief takes no risks.
I’ve not the least doubt that he has decided to tell you nothing
whatsoever about your part until you are firmly settled in your new
role. I’m perfectly certain that every detail of your part has already
been worked out.”
“Oh, that’s not possible,” said Desmond. “Why, he didn’t know until an
hour ago that I was going to take on this job.”
Barbara laughed.
“The Chief has taught me a lot about judging men by their looks,” she
said: “Personally, if I’d been in the Chief’s places I should have gone
ahead without consulting you, too.”
The girl spoke with such directness that there was not the least
suggestion of a compliment in her remark, but Desmond blushed to the
roots of his hair. Barbara noticed it and added hastily:
“I’m not trying to pay you a compliment: I’m just judging by your type.
I believe I can always tell the man that will take on any job, however
dangerous, and carry it through to the end.”
Desmond blushed more furiously than ever.
He made haste to divert the conversation into a safer channel.
“Well,” he said slowly, “seeing that you and I were intended to work
together, it seems to me to be a most extraordinary coincidence our
meeting like that last night...”
“It was more than a coincidence,” said Barbara, shaking her dark brown
head. “Forty-eight hours ago I’d never heard of you, then the Chief
gave me a telegram to send to your Divisional General summoning you
home, after that he told me that we were to work together, and a few
hours later I run into you in Nur-el-Din’s dressing-room...”
She broke off suddenly, her gray eyes big with fear. She darted across
the room to an ormolu table on which her handbag was lying. With
astonishment, Desmond watched her unceremoniously spill out the
contents on to the table and rake hastily amongst the collection of
articles which a pretty girl carries round in her bag.
Presently she raised herself erect and turning, faced the officer. She
was trembling as though with cold and when she spoke, her voice was low
and husky.
“Gone!” she whispered.
“Have you lost anything” Desmond asked anxiously.
“How could I have forgotten it?” she went on as though he had not
spoken, “how could I have forgotten it? Nearly twelve hours wasted, and
it explains everything. What will the Chief think of me!”
Slowly she sank down on the sofa where she had been sitting, then,
without any warning, dropped her head into her hands and burst into
tears.
Desmond went over to her.
“Please don’t cry,” he said gently, “you have borne up so bravely
against this terrible blow; you must try and not let it overwhelm you.”
All her business-like calm had disappeared now she was that most
distracting of all pictures of woman, a pretty girl overwhelmed with
grief. She crouched curled upon the sofa, with shoulders heaving,
sobbing as though her heart would break.
“Perhaps you would like me to leave you?” Desmond asked. “Let me ring
for your friends... I am sure you would rather be alone!”
She raised a tear-stained face to his, her long lashes glittering.
“No, no,” she said, “don’t go, don’t go! I want your help. This is such
a dark and dreadful business, more than I ever realized. Oh, my poor
daddy, my poor daddy!”
Again she hid her face in her hands and cried whilst Desmond stood
erect by her aide, compassionate but very helpless.
After a little, she dabbed her eyes with a tiny square of cambric, and
sitting up, surveyed the other.
“I must go to the Chief at once,” she said, “it is most urgent. Would
you ring and ask the maid to telephone for a taxi?”
“I have one outside,” answered Desmond. “But won’t you tell me what has
happened?”
“Why,” said Barbara, “it has only just dawned on me why our house was
broken into last night and poor daddy so cruelly murdered! Whoever
robbed the house did not come after our poor little bits of silver or
daddy’s savings in the desk in the dining room. They came after
something that I had!”
“And what was that” asked Desmond.
Then Barbara told him of her talk with Nur-el-Din in the dancer’s
dressing-room on the previous evening and of the package which
Nur-el-Din had entrusted to her care.
“This terrible business put it completely out of my head,” said
Barbara. “In the presence of the police this morning, I looked over my
bedroom and even searched my hand-bag which the police sent back to me
this afternoon without finding that the burglars had stolen anything.
It was only just now, when we were talking about our meeting in
Nur-el-Din’s room last night, that her little package suddenly flashed
across my mind. And then I looked through my handbag again and
convinced myself that it was not there.”
“But are you sure the police haven’t taken it?”
“Absolutely certain,” was the reply. “I remember perfectly what was in
my hand-bag this morning when I went through it, and the same things
are on that table over there now.”
“Do you know what was in this package!” said Desmond.
“Just a small silver box, oblong and quite plain, about so big,” she
indicated the size with her hands, “about as large as a cigarette-box.
Nur-el-Din said it was a treasured family possession of hers, and she
was afraid of losing it as she traveled about so much. She asked me to
say nothing about it and to keep it until the war was over or until she
asked me for it.”
“Then,” said Desmond, “this clears Nur-el-Din!”
“What do you mean,” said Barbara, looking up.
“Simply that she wouldn’t have broken into your place and killed your
father in order to recover her own package...”
“But why on earth should Nur-el-Din be suspected of such a thing?”
“Have you heard nothing about this young lady from the Chief?”
“Nothing. I had not thought anything about her until daddy discovered
an old friend in her last night and introduced me.”
The Chief’s infernal caution again! thought Desmond, secretly admiring
the care with which that remarkable man, in his own phrase, “sealed
both ends of every connection.”
“If I’m to work with this girl,” said Desmond to himself, “I’m going to
have all the cards on the table here and now,” so forthwith he told her
of the Chief’s suspicions of the dancer, the letter recommending her to
Bellward found when the cheese merchant had been arrested, and lastly
of the black hair which had been discovered on the thongs with which
Barbara had been fastened.
“And now,” Desmond concluded, “the very next thing we must do is to go
to the Chief and tell him about this package of Nur-el-Din’s that is
missing.” Barbara interposed quickly.
“It’s no use your coming,” she said. “The Chief won’t see you. When he
has sent a man on his mission, he refuses to see him again until the
work has been done. If he wishes to send for you or communicate with
you, he will. But it’s useless for you to try and see him yourself. You
can drop me at the office!”
Desmond was inclined to agree with her on this point and said so.
“There is one thing especially that puzzles me, Miss Mackwayte,”
Desmond observed as they drove westward again, “and that is, how anyone
could have known about your having this box of Nur-el-Din’s. Was there
anybody else in the room when she gave you the package?”
“No,” said Barbara, “I don’t think so. Wait a minute, though,
Nur-el-Din’s maid must have come in very shortly after for I remember
the opened the door when Captain Strangwise came to tell me daddy was
waiting to take me home.”
“Do you remember if Nur-el-Din actually mentioned the package in the
presence of the maid!”
“As far as I can recollect just as the maid opened the door to Captain
Strangwise, Nur-el-Din was impressing on me again to take great care of
the package. I don’t think she actually mentioned the box but I
remember her pointing at my bag where I had put the package.”
“The maid didn’t see Nur-el-Din give you the box?”
“No, I’m sure of that. The room was empty save for us two. It was only
just before Captain Strangwise knocked that I noticed Marie arranging
Nur-el-Din’s dresses. She must have come in afterwards without my
seeing her.”
“Well then, this girl, Marie, didn’t see the dancer give you the box
but she heard her refer to it. Is that right?”
“Yes, and, of course, Captain Strangwise...”
“What about him?”
“He must have heard what Nur-el-Din was saying, too!”
Desmond rubbed his chin.
“I say, you aren’t going to implicate old Strangwise, too, are you?” he
asked.
Barbara did not reflect his smile.
“He seems to know Nur-el-Din pretty well,” she said, “and I’ll tell you
something else, that woman’s afraid of your friend, the Captain!”
“What do you mean?” asked Desmond.
“I was watching her in the glass last night as he was talking to her
while you and I and daddy were chatting in the corner. I don’t know
what he said to her, but she glanced over her shoulder with a look of
terror in her eyes. I was watching her face in the glass. She looked
positively _hunted!_”
The taxi stopped. Desmond jumped out and helped his companion to
alight.
“_Au revoir_,” she said to him, “never fear, you and I will meet very
soon again!”
With that she was gone. Desmond looked at his watch. It pointed to a
quarter to six.
“Now I wonder what time the leave-train starts tonight,” he said aloud,
one foot on the sideboard of the taxi.
“At 7.45, sir,” said a voice.
“Desmond glanced round him. Then he saw it was the taxi-driver who had
spoken.
“7.45, eh?” said Desmond. “From Victoria, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir,” said the taxi-man.
“By Jove, I haven’t much time,” ejaculated the officer “and there are
some things I want to get before I go back across the Channel. And I
shall have to see the Railway Transport Officer about my pass.”
“That’s all right, sir,” said the taxi-man, “I have your papers here”;
he handed Desmond a couple of slips of paper which he took from his
coat-pocket; “those will take you back to France all right, I think
you’ll find!”
Desmond looked at the papers: they were quite in order and correctly
filled up with his name, rank and regiment, and date.
The taxi-man cut short any further question by saying:
“If you’ll get into the cab again, sir, I’ll drive you where you want
to go, and then wait while you have your dinner and take you to the
station. By the way, your dinner’s ordered too!”
“But who the devil are you?” asked Desmond in amazement.
“On special service, the same as you, sir!” said the man with a grin
and Desmond understood.
Really, the Chief was extremely thorough.
They went to the stores in the Haymarket, to Fortnum and Mason’s, and
lastly, to a small, grubby shop at the back of Mayfair where Desmond
and his brother had bought their cigarettes for years past. Desmond
purchased a hundred of their favored brand, the Dionysus, as a reserve
for his journey back to France, and stood chatting over old times with
the fat, oily-faced Greek manager as the latter tied up his cigarettes
into a clean white paper parcel, neatly sealed up with red sealing wax.
Then Desmond drove back to the Nineveh Hotel where he left his
taxi-driving colleague in the courtyard on the understanding that at
7.25 the taxi would be waiting to drive him to the station.
Desmond went straight upstairs to his room to put his kit together. In
the strong, firmly woven web spread by the Chief, he felt as helpless
as a fly caught in a spider’s mesh. He had no idea of what his plans
were. He only knew that he was going back to France, and that it was
his business to get on the leave-boat that night.
As he passed along the thickly carpeted, silent corridor to his room,
he saw the door of Strangwise’s room standing ajar. He pushed open the
door and walked in unceremoniously. A suitcase stood open on the floor
with Strangwise bending over it. At his elbow was a table crowded with
various parcels, a case of razors, different articles of kit, and some
books. Desmond halted at the door, his box of cigarettes dangling from
his finger.
“Hullo, Maurice,” he said, “are you off, too?”
Strangwise spun round sharply. The blood had rushed to his face,
staining it with a dark, angry flush.
“My God, how you startled me!” he exclaimed rather testily. “I never
heard you come in!”
He turned rather abruptly and went on with his packing. He struck
Desmond as being rather annoyed at the intrusion; the latter had never
seen him out of temper before.
“Sorry if I butted in,” said Desmond, sliding his box of cigarettes off
his finger on to the littered table and sitting down on a chair. “I
came in to say good-bye. I’m going back to France to-night!”
Maurice looked round quickly. He appeared to be quite his old self
again and was all smiles now.
“So soon?” he said. “Why, I thought you were getting a job at the War
Office!”
Desmond shook his head.
“Not good enough,” he replied, “it’s back to the sandbags for mine. But
where are you off to?”
“Got a bit of leave; the Intelligence folk seem to be through with me
at last, so they’ve given me six weeks!”
“Going to the country” asked Desmond.
Strangwise nodded.
“Yep,” he said, “down to Essex to see if I can get a few duck or snipe
on the fens. I wish you were coming with me!”
“So do I, old man,” echoed Desmond heartily. Then he added in a serious
voice:
“By the way, I haven’t seen you since last night. What a shocking
affair this is about old Mackwayte, isn’t it? Are there any
developments, do you know?”
Strangwise very deliberately fished a cigarette out of his case which
was lying open on the table and lit it before replying.
“A very dark affair,” he said, blowing out a cloud of smoke and
flicking the match into the grate. “You are discreet, I know, Okewood.
The Intelligence people had me up this morning... to take my
evidence...”
Strangwise’s surmise about Desmond’s discretion was perfectly correct.
With Desmond Okewood discretion was second nature, and therefore he
answered with feigned surprise: “Your evidence about what? About our
meeting the Mackwaytes last night?”
After he had spoken he realized he had blundered. Surely, after all,
the Chief would have told Strangwise about their investigations at
Seven Kings. Still...
“No,” replied Strangwise, “but about Nur-el-Din!”
The Chief had kept his own counsel about their morning’s work. Desmond
was glad now that he had dissimulated.
“You see, I know her pretty well,” Strangwise continued, “between
ourselves, I got rather struck on the lady when she was touring in
Canada some years ago, and in fact I spent so much more money than I
could afford on her that I had to discontinue the acquaintance. Then I
met her here when I got away from Germany a month ago; she was lonely,
so I took her about a bit. Okewood, I’m afraid I was rather
indiscreet.”
“How do you mean?” Desmond asked innocently.
“Well,” said Strangwise slowly, contemplating the end of his cigarette,
“it appears that the lady is involved in certain activities which
considerably interest our Intelligence. But there, I mustn’t say any
more!”
“But how on earth is Nur-el-what’s her name concerned in this murder,
Maurice?”
Strangwise shrugged his shoulders.
“Ah, you’d better ask the police. But I tell you she’ll be getting into
trouble if she’s not careful!”
Throughout this conversation Desmond seemed to hear in his ears
Barbara’s words: “That woman’s afraid of your friend!” He divined that
for some reason or other, Strangwise wanted to create a bad impression
in his mind about the dancer. He scanned Maurice’s face narrowly. Its
impenetrability was absolute. There was nothing to be gleaned from
those careless, smiling features.
“Well,” said Desmond, getting up, “_nous verrons_. I shall have to make
a bolt for it now if I don’t want to miss my train. Good-bye, Maurice,
and I hope you’ll get some birds!”
“Thanks, old man. Au revoir, and take care of yourself. My salaams to
the General!”.
They shook hands warmly, then Desmond grabbed his box of cigarettes in
its neat white wrapper with the bold red seals and hurried off to his
room.
Strangwise stood for a moment gazing after him. He was no longer the
frank, smiling companion of a minute before. His mouth was set hard and
his chin stuck out at a defiant angle.
He bent over the table and picked up a white paper package sealed with
bold red seals. He poised it for a moment in his hands while a flicker
of a smile stole into the narrow eyes and played for an instant round
the thin lips. Then, with a quick movement, he thrust the little
package into the side pocket of his tunic and buttoned the flap.
Whistling a little tune, he went on with his packing.