32 QUEEN'S TERRACE
Many a long starlit hour alone on the deck of the _Castle Claire_
Captain Woodhouse found himself tortured by a persistent vision. Far
back over the northern horizon lay Europe, trembling and breathless
before the imminent disaster--a great field of grain, each stalk
bearing for its head the helmeted head of a man. Out of the east came
a glow, which spread from boundary to boundary, waxed stronger in the
wind of hate. Finally the fire, devastating, insensate, began its
sweep through the close-standing mazes of the grain. Somewhere in this
fire-glow and swift leveling under the scythe of the flame was a girl,
alone, appalled. Woodhouse could see her as plainly as though a cinema
was unreeling swift pictures before him--the girl caught in this vast
acreage of fire, in the standing grain, with destruction drawing nearer
in incredible strides. He saw her wide eyes, her streaming hair--saw
her running through the grain, whose heads were the helmeted heads of
men. Her hands groped blindly and she was calling--calling, with none
to come in aid. Jane Gerson alone in the face of Europe's burning!
Strive as he would, Woodhouse could not screen this picture from his
eyes. He tried to hope that ere this, discretion had conquered her
resolution to "make good," and that she had fled from Paris, one of the
great army of refugees who had already begun to pour out of the gates
of France when he passed through the war-stunned capital a few days
before. But, no; there was no mistaking the determination he had read
in those brown eyes that day on the express from Calais. "I couldn't
go scampering back to New York just because somebody starts a war over
here." Brave, yes; but hers was the bravery of ignorance. This little
person from the States, on her first venture into the complex life of
the Continent, could not know what war there would mean; the terror and
magnitude of it. And now where was she? In Paris, caught in its
hysteria of patriotism and darkling fear of what the morrow would bring
forth? Or had she started for England, and become wedged in the jam of
terrified thousands battling for place on the Channel steamers? Was
her fine self-reliance upholding her, or had the crisis sapped her
courage and thrown her back on the common helplessness of women before
disaster?
Captain Woodhouse, the self-sufficient and aloof, whose training had
been all toward suppression of every instinct save that in the line of
duty, was surprised at himself. That a little American inconnu--a
"business person," he would have styled her under conditions less
personal--should have come into his life in this definite way was, to
say the least, highly irregular. The man tried to swing his reason as
a club against his heart--and failed miserably. No, the fine brave
spirit that looked out of those big brown eyes would not be argued out
of court. Jane Gerson was a girl who was _different_, and that very
difference was altogether alluring. Woodhouse caught himself going
over the incidents of their meeting. Fondly he reviewed scraps of
their conversation on the train, lingering on the pat slang she used so
unconsciously.
Was it possible Jane Gerson ever had a thought for Captain Woodhouse?
The man winced a little at this speculation. Had it been fair of him
when he so glibly practised a deception on her? If she knew what his
present business was, would she understand; would she approve? Could
this little American ever know, or believe, that some sorts of service
were honorable?
Just before the _Castle Claire_ raised the breakwater of Alexandria
came a wireless, which was posted at the head of the saloon
companionway:
"Germany declares war on Russia. German flying column reported moving
through Luxemburg on Belgium."
The fire was set to the grain.
Upon landing, Captain Woodhouse's first business was to go to a hotel
on the Grand Square, which is the favorite stopping place of officers
coming down from the Nile country. He fought his way through the
predatory hordes of yelling donkey boys and obsequious dragomans at the
door, and entered the palm-shaded court, which served as office and
lounge. Woodhouse paused for a second behind a screen of palm leaves
and cast a quick eye around the court. None of the loungers there was
known to him. He strode to the desk.
"Ah, sir, a room with bath, overlooking the gardens on the north
side--very cool." The Greek clerk behind the desk smiled a welcome.
"Perhaps," Woodhouse answered shortly, and he turned the register
around to read the names of the recent comers. On the first page he
found nothing to interest him; but among the arrivals of the day before
he saw this entry: "C. G. Woodhouse, Capt. Sig. Service; Wady Halfa."
After it was entered the room number: "210."
Woodhouse read right over the name and turned another page a bit
impatiently. This he scanned with seeming eagerness, while the clerk
stood with pen poised.
"Um! When is the first boat out for Gibraltar?" Woodhouse asked.
"Well, sir, the _Princess Mary_ is due to sail at dawn day after
to-morrow," the Greek answered judiciously. "She is reported at Port
Said to-day, but, of course, the war----"
Woodhouse turned away.
"But you wish a room, sir--nice room, with bath, overlooking----"
"No."
"You expected to find a friend, then?"
"Not here," Woodhouse returned bruskly, and passed out into the
blinding square.
He strode swiftly around the statue of Mehemet Ali and plunged into the
bedlam crowd filling a side street. With sure sense of direction, he
threaded the narrow alleyways and by-streets until he had come to the
higher part of the mongrel city, near the Rosetta Gate. There he
turned into a little French hotel, situated far from the disordered
pulse of the city's heart; a sort of pension, it was, known only to the
occasional discriminating tourist. Maitre Mouquère was proud of the
anonymity his house preserved, and abhorred poor, driven Cook's slaves
as he would a plague. In his Cap de Liberté one was lost to all the
world of Alexandria.
Thither the captain's baggage had been sent direct from the steamer.
After a glass with Maitre Mouquère and a half hour's discussion of the
day's great news, Woodhouse pleaded a touch of the sun, and went to his
room. There he remained, until the gold of sunset had faded from the
Mosque of Omar's great dome and all the city from Pharos and its harbor
hedge of masts to El Meks winked with lights. Then he took carriage to
the railroad station and entrained for Ramleh. What South Kensington
is to London and the Oranges are to New York, Ramleh is to
Alexandria--the suburb of homes. There pretty villas lie in the lap of
the delta's greenery, skirted by canals, cooled by the winds off
Aboukir Bay and shaded by great palms--the one beauty spot in all the
hybrid product of East and West that is the present city of Alexander.
Remembering directions he had received in Berlin, Woodhouse threaded
shaded streets until he paused before a stone gateway set in a high
wall. On one of the pillars a small brass plate was inset. By the
light of a near-by arc, Woodhouse read the inscription on it:
EMIL KOCH, M.D.,
32 Queen's Terrace.
He threw back his shoulders with a sudden gesture, which might have
been taken for that of a man about to make a plunge, and rang the bell.
The heavy wooden gate, filling all the space of the arch, was opened by
a tall Numidian in house livery of white. He nodded an affirmative to
Woodhouse's question, and led the way through an avenue of flaming
hibiscus to a house, set far back under heavy shadow of acacias. On
every hand were gardens, rank foliage shutting off this walled yard
from the street and neighboring dwellings. The heavy gate closed
behind the visitor with a sharp snap. One might have said that Doctor
Koch lived in pretty secure isolation.
Woodhouse was shown into a small room off the main hall, by its
furnishings and position evidently a waiting-room for the doctor's
patients. The Numidian bowed, and disappeared. Alone, Woodhouse rose
and strolled aimlessly about the room, flipped the covers of magazines
on the table, picked up and hefted the bronze Buddha on the onyx
mantel, noted, with a careless glance, the position of the two windows
in relation to the entrance door and the folding doors, now shut, which
doubtless gave on the consultation room. As he was regarding these
doors they rolled back and a short thickset man, with a heavy mane of
iron-gray hair and black brush of beard, stood between them. He looked
at Woodhouse through thick-lensed glasses, which gave to his stare a
curiously intent bent.
"My office hours are from two to four, afternoons," Doctor Koch said.
He spoke in English, but his speech was burred by a slight heaviness on
the aspirants, reminiscent of his mother tongue. The doctor did not
ask Woodhouse to enter the consultation room, but continued standing
between the folding doors, staring fixedly through his thick lenses.
"I know that, Doctor," Woodhouse began apologetically, following the
physician's lead and turning his tongue to English. "But, you see, in
a case like mine I have to intrude"--it was "haf" and "indrude" as
Woodhouse gave these words--"because I could not be here during your
office hours. You will pardon?"
Doctor Koch's eyes widened just perceptibly at the hint of a Germanic
strain in his visitor's speech--just a hint quickly glossed over. But
still he remained standing in his former attitude of annoyance.
"Was the sun, then, too hot to bermit you to come to my house during
regular office hours? At nights I see no batients--bositively none."
"The sun--perhaps," Woodhouse replied guardedly. "But as I happened
just to arrive to-day from Marseilles, and your name was strongly
recommended to me as one to consult in a case such as mine----"
"Where was my name recommended to you, and by whom?" Doctor Koch
interrupted in sudden interest.
Woodhouse looked at him steadily. "In Berlin--and by a friend of
yours," he answered.
"Indeed?" The doctor stepped back from the doors, and motioned his
visitor into the consultation room.
Woodhouse stepped into a large room lighted by a single green-shaded
reading lamp, which threw a white circle of light straight down upon a
litter of thin-bladed scalpels in a glass dish of disinfectant on a
table. The shadowy outlines of an operating chair, of high-shouldered
bookcases, and the dull glint of instruments in a long glass case were
almost imperceptible because of the centering of all light upon the
glass dish of knives. Doctor Koch dragged a chair out from the
shadows, and, carelessly enough, placed it in the area of radiance; he
motioned Woodhouse to sit. The physician leaned carelessly against an
arm of the operating chair; his face was in the shadow save where
reflected light shone from his glasses, giving them the aspect of
detached eyes.
"So, a friend--a friend in Berlin told you to consult me, eh? Berlin
is a long way from Ramleh--especially in these times. Greater
physicians than I live in Berlin. Why----"
"My friend in Berlin told me you were the only physician who could help
me in my peculiar trouble." Imperceptibly the accenting of the
aspirants in Woodhouse's speech grew more marked; his voice took on a
throaty character. "By some specialists my life even has been set to
end in a certain year, so sure is fate for those afflicted like myself."
"So? What year is it, then, you die?" Doctor Koch's strangely
detached eyes--those eyes of glass glowing dimly in the shadow--seemed
to flicker palely with a light all their own. Captain Woodhouse,
sitting under the white spray of the shaded incandescent, looked up
carelessly to meet the stare.
"Why, they give me plenty of time to enjoy myself," he answered, with a
light laugh. "They say in 1932----"
"Nineteen thirty-two!" Doctor Koch stepped lightly to the closed
folding doors, trundled them back an inch to assure himself nobody was
in the waiting-room, then closed and locked them. He did similarly by
a hidden door on the opposite side of the room, which Woodhouse had not
seen. After that he pulled a chair close to his visitor and sat down,
his knees almost touching the other's. He spoke very low, in German:
"If your trouble is so serious that you will die--in 1932, I must, of
course, examine you for--symptoms."
For half a minute the two men looked fixedly at each other.
Woodhouse's right hand went slowly to the big green scarab stuck in his
cravat. He pulled the pin out, turned it over in his fingers, and by
pressure caused the scarab to pop out of the gold-backed setting
holding it. The bit of green stone lay in the palm of his left hand,
its back exposed. In the hollowed back of the beetle was a small
square of paper, folded minutely. This Woodhouse removed, unfolded and
passed to the physician. The latter seized it avidly, holding it close
to his spectacled eyes, and then spreading it against the light as if
to read a secret water mark. A smile struggled through the jungle of
his beard. He found Woodhouse's hand and grasped it warmly.
"Your symptom tallies with my diagnosis, Nineteen Thirty-two," he began
rapidly. "Five days ago we heard from--the Wilhelmstrasse--you would
come. We have expected you each day, now. Already we have got word
through to our friends at Gibraltar of the plan; they are waiting for
you."
"Good!" Woodhouse commented. He was busy refolding the thin slip of
paper that had been his talisman, and fitting it into the back of the
scarab. "Woodhouse--he is already at the Hotel Khedive; saw his name
on the register when I landed from the Castle this morning." Now the
captain was talking in familiar German.
"Quite so," Doctor Koch put in. "Woodhouse came down from Wady Halfa
yesterday. Our man up there had advised of the time of his arrival in
Alexandria to the minute. The captain has his ticket for the _Princess
Mary_, which sails for Gibraltar day after to-morrow at dawn."
Number Nineteen Thirty-two listened to Doctor Koch's outlining of the
plot with set features; only his eyes showed that he was acutely alive
to every detail. Said he:
"But Woodhouse--this British captain who's being transferred from the
Nile country to the Rock; has he ever served there before? If he has,
why, when I get there--when I am Captain Woodhouse, of the signal
service--I will be embarrassed if I do not know the ropes."
"Seven years ago Woodhouse was there for a very short time," Doctor
Koch explained. "New governor since then--changes all around in the
personnel of the staff, I don't doubt. You'll have no trouble."
Silence between them for a minute, broken by the captain:
"Our friends at Gib--who are they, and how will I know them?"
The doctor bent a sudden glance of suspicion upon the lean face before
him. His thick lips clapped together stubbornly.
"Aha, my dear friend; you are asking questions. In my time at Berlin
the Wilhelmstrasse taught that all orders and information came from
above--and from there only. Why----"
"I suppose in default of other information I may ask the governor to
point out the Wilhelmstrasse men," Woodhouse answered, with a shrug.
"I was told at Berlin I would learn all that was necessary to me as I
went along, therefore, I supposed----"
"Come--come!" Doctor Koch patted the other's shoulder, with a heavy
joviality. "So you will. When you arrive at Gib, put up at the Hotel
Splendide, and you will not be long learning who your friends are. I,
for instance, did not hesitate overmuch to recognize you, and I am
under the eyes of the English here at every turn, even though I am a
naturalized English citizen--and of undoubted loyalty." He finished
with a booming laugh.
"But Woodhouse; you have arranged a way to have him drop out of sight
before the _Princess Mary_ sails? There will be no confusion--no
slip-up?"
"Do not fear," the physician reassured. "Everything will be arranged.
His baggage will leave the Hotel Khedive for the dock to-morrow night;
but it will not reach the dock. Yours----"
"Will be awaiting the transfer of tags at the Cap de
Liberté--Mouquère's little place," the captain finished. "But the man
himself--you're not thinking of mur----"
"My dear Nineteen Thirty-two," Doctor Koch interrupted, lifting
protesting hands; "we do not use such crude methods; they are
dangerous. The real Captain Woodhouse will not leave Alexandria--by
sea, let us say--for many months. Although I have no doubt he will not
be found in Alexandria the hour the _Princess Mary_ sails. The papers
he carries--the papers of identity and of transfer from Wady Halfa to
Gibraltar--will be in your hands in plenty of time. You----"
The doctor stopped abruptly. A hidden electric buzzer somewhere in the
shadowed room was clucking an alarm. Koch pressed a button at the side
of the operating chair. There was a sound beyond closed doors of some
one passing through a hallway; the front door opened and closed.
"Some one at the gate," Doctor Koch explained. "Cæsar, my playful
little Numidian--and an artist with the Bedouin dagger is Cæsar--he
goes to answer."
Their talk was desultory during the next minutes. The doctor seemed
restless under the suspense of a pending announcement as to the late
visitor. Finally came a soft tapping on the hidden door behind
Woodhouse. The latter heard the doctor exchange whispers with the
Numidian in the hallway. Finally, "Show him into the waiting-room,"
Koch ordered. He came back to where the captain was sitting, a puzzled
frown between his eyes.
"An Englishman, Cæsar says--an Englishman, who insists on seeing
me--very important." Koch bit the end of one stubby thumb in hurried
thought. He suddenly whipped open the door of one of the instrument
cases, pulled out a stethoscope, and hooked the two little black
receivers into his ears. Then he turned to Woodhouse.
"Quick! Off with your coat and open your shirt. You are a patient; I
am just examining you when interrupted. This may be one of these
clumsy English secret-service men, and I might need your alibi." The
sound of an opening door beyond the folding doors and of footsteps in
the adjoining room.
"You say you are sleepless at night?" Doctor Koch was talking English.
"And you have a temperature on arising? Hm'm! This under your tongue,
if you please"--he thrust a clinical thermometer between Woodhouse's
lips; the latter already had his coat off, and was unbuttoning his
shirt. Koch gave him a meaning glance, and disappeared between the
folding doors, closing them behind him.
The captain, feeling much like a fool with the tiny glass tube
sprouting from his lips, yet with all his faculties strained to
alertness, awaited developments. If Doctor Koch's hazard should prove
correct and this was an English secret-service man come to arrest him,
wouldn't suspicion also fall on whomever was found a visitor in the
German spy's house? Arrest and search; examination of his scarab
pin--that would not be pleasant.
He tried to hear what was being said beyond the folding doors, but
could catch nothing save the deep rumble of the doctor's occasional
bass and a higher, querulous voice raised in what might be argument.
Had he dared, Woodhouse would have drawn closer to the crack in the
folding doors so that he could hear what was passing; every instinct of
self-preservation in him made his ears yearn to dissect this murmur
into sense. But if Doctor Koch should catch him eavesdropping,
embarrassment fatal to his plans might follow; besides, he had a
feeling that eyes he could not see--perhaps the unwinking eyes of the
Numidian, avid for an excuse to put into practise his dexterity with
the Bedouin dagger--were on him.
Minutes slipped by. The captain still nursed the clinical thermometer.
The mumble and muttering continued to sound through the closed doors.
Suddenly the high whine of the unseen visitor was raised in excitement.
Came clearly through to Woodhouse's ears his passionate declaration:
"But I tell you you've got to recognize me. My number's Nineteen
Thirty-two. My ticket was stolen out of the head of my cane somewhere
between Paris and Alexandria. But I got it all right--got it from the
Wilhelmstrasse direct, with orders to report to Doctor Emil Koch, in
Alexandria!"
Capper! Capper, who was to be betrayed to the firing squad in Malta,
after his Wilhelmstrasse ticket had passed from his possession. Capper
on the job!
Woodhouse hurled every foot pound of his will to hear into his ears.
He caught Koch's gruff answer:
"Young man, you're talking madness. You're talking to a loyal British
subject. I know nothing about your Wilhelmstrasse or your number. If
I did not think you were drunk I'd have you held here, to be turned
over to the military as a spy. Now, go before I change my mind."
Again the querulous protestation of Capper, met by the doctor's
peremptory order. The captain heard the front door close. A long
wait, and Doctor Koch's black beard, with the surmounting eyes of thick
glass, appeared at a parting of the folding doors. Woodhouse, the tiny
thermometer still sticking absurdly from his mouth, met the basilisk
stare of those two ovals of glass with a coldly casual glance. He
removed the thermometer from between his lips and read it, with a
smile, as if that were part of playing a game. Still the ghastly stare
from the glass eyes over the bristling beard, searching--searching.
"Well," Woodhouse said lightly, "no need of an alibi evidently."
Doctor Koch stepped into the room with the lightness of a cat, walked
to a desk drawer at one side, and fumbled there a second, his back to
his guest. When he turned he held a short-barreled automatic at his
hip; the muzzle covered the shirt-sleeved man in the chair.
"Much need--for an alibi--from you!" Doctor Koch croaked, his voice dry
and flat with rage. "Much need, Mister Nineteen Thirty-two. Commence
your explanation immediately, for this minute my temptation is
strong--very strong--to shoot you for the dog you are."
"Is this--ah, customary?" Woodhouse twiddled the tiny mercury tube
between his fingers and looked unflinchingly at the small round mouth
of the automatic. "Do you make a practise of consulting a--friend with
a revolver at your hip?"
"You heard--what was said in there!" Koch's forehead was curiously
ridged and flushed with much blood.
"Did you ask me to listen? Surely, my dear Doctor, you have provided
doors that are sound-proof. If I may suggest, isn't it about time that
you explain this--this melodrama?" The captain's voice was cold; his
lips were drawn to a thin line. Koch's big head moved from side to
side with a gesture curiously like that of a bull about to charge, but
knowing not where his enemy stands. He blurted out:
"For your information, if you did not overhear: An Englishman comes
just now to address me familiarly as of the Wilhelmstrasse. He comes
to say he was sent to report to me; that his number in the
Wilhelmstrasse is nineteen thirty-two--nineteen thirty-two, remember;
and I am to give him orders. Please explain that before I pull this
trigger."
"He showed you his number--his ticket, then?" Woodhouse added this
parenthetically.
"The man said his ticket had been stolen from him some time after he
left Paris--stolen from the head of his cane, where he had it
concealed. But the number was nineteen thirty-two." The doctor voiced
this last doggedly.
"You have, of course, had this man followed," the other put in. "You
have not let him leave this house alone."
"Cæsar was after him before he left the garden gate--naturally.
But----"
Woodhouse held up an interrupting hand.
"Pardon me, Doctor Koch; did you get this fellow's name?"
"He refused to give it--said I wouldn't know him, anyway."
"Was he an undersized man, very thin, sparse hair, and a face showing
dissipation?" Woodhouse went on. "Nervous, jerky way of
talking--fingers to his mouth, as if to feel his words as they come
out--brandy or wine breath? Can't you guess who he was?"
"I guess nothing."
"The _target_!"
At the word Louisa had used in describing Capper to Woodhouse, Koch's
face underwent a change. He lowered his pistol.
"Ach!" he said. "The man they are to arrest. And you have the number."
"That was Capper--Capper, formerly of the Belgian office--kicked out
for drunkenness. One time he sold out Downing Street in the matter of
the Lord Fisher letters; you remember the scandal when they came to
light--his majesty, the kaiser's, Kiel speech referring to them. He is
a good stalking horse."
Koch's suspicion had left him. Still gripping the automatic, he sat
down on the edge of the operating chair, regarding the other man
respectfully.
"Come--come, Doctor Koch; you and I can not continue longer at
cross-purposes." The captain spoke with terse displeasure. "This man
Capper showed you nothing to prove his claims, yet you come back to
this room and threaten my life on the strength of a drunkard's bare
word. What his mission is you know; how he got that number, which is
the number I have shown you on my ticket from the Wilhelmstrasse--you
understand how such things are managed. I happen to know, however,
because it was my business to know, that Capper left Marseilles for
Malta aboard _La Vendée_ four days ago; he was not expected to go
beyond Malta."
Koch caught him up: "But the fellow told me his boat didn't stop at
Malta--was warned by wireless to proceed at all speed to Alexandria,
for fear of the _Breslau_, known to be in the Adriatic." Woodhouse
spread out his hands with a gesture of finality.
"There you are! Capper finds himself stranded in Alexandria, knows
somehow of your position as a man of the Wilhelmstrasse--such things
can not be hid from the underground workers; comes here to explain
himself to you and excuse himself for the loss of his number. Is there
anything more to be said except that we must keep a close watch on him?"
The physician rose and paced the room, his hands clasped behind his
back. The automatic bobbed against the tails of his long coat as he
walked. After a minute's restless striding, he broke his step before
the desk, jerked open the drawer, and dropped the weapon in it. Back
to where Woodhouse was sitting he stalked and held out his right hand
stiffly.
"Your pardon, Number Nineteen Thirty-two! For my suspicion I
apologize. But, you see my position--a very delicate one." Woodhouse
rose, grasped the doctor's hand, and wrung it heartily.
"And now," he said, "to keep this fellow Capper in sight until the
_Princess Mary_ sails and I aboard her as Captain Woodhouse, of Wady
Halfa. The man might trip us all up."
"He will not; be sure of that," Koch growled, helping Woodhouse into
his coat and leading the way to the folding doors. "I will have Cæsar
attend to him the minute he comes back to report where Capper is
stopping."
"Until when?" the captain asked, pausing at the gate, to which Koch had
escorted him.
"Here to-morrow night at nine," the doctor answered, and the gate shut
behind him. Captain Woodhouse, alone under the shadowing trees of
Queen's Terrace, drew in a long breath, shook his shoulders and started
for the station and the midnight train to Alexandria.