THE MACHINATIONS OF MR. COURLANDER
Lavendale glanced at his thin gold watch and replaced it in his
waistcoat pocket.
'Three minutes past eight,' he remarked. 'Half a dozen pairs of gloves
for me, I think. Shall I go in and see about a table or would you
rather dine somewhere else?'
Suzanne made a little grimace. They were in the foyer of the Ritz
Hotel, and she was wearing a wonderful new gown.
'It is most disappointing,' she declared. 'I had made up my mind to
conquest.'
'I am very impressionable,' Lavendale assured her.
She shook her head petulantly.
'It is not you whom I wish to subjugate.'
'I am too easy a victim, I suppose,' Lavendale sighed. 'I am afraid
that to-night, however, you will have to be content with me.'
Her face suddenly changed, a brilliant smile parted her lips, she
glanced at him triumphantly. Lavendale looked over his shoulder. Mr.
Kessner was crossing the lounge towards them with outstretched hand.
'You've lost your gloves,' Suzanne murmured under her breath.
Mr. Kessner greeted his two guests in the most matter-of-fact fashion.
'I must apologize for being a few moments late,' he said. 'It is
rather crowded here to-night, and I thought it best to go and see that
no mistake had been made about my table. I should like, if I may, to
introduce to you Mr. Courlander, a friend of mine from New York. Mr.
Courlander is dining with us.'
The two young people murmured something suitable. Mr. Courlander
turned out to be a dark, heavy-browed man, clean-shaven, and of a
taciturn disposition. The little party made their way in to dinner.
They were ushered to a small round table in the best quarter of the
room, a table lavishly arranged with flowers and flanked with a couple
of ice-pails, from which gold-foiled bottles were protruding. Suzanne
gave a little sigh of content as she sank into her chair, and looked
around her appreciatively.
'I have always observed,' she said softly, 'that the men of your
country, Mr. Kessner, know so well how to entertain.'
'And also,' Mr. Kessner remarked, blinking slightly, 'how to select
their guests.'
The service of dinner proceeded. Mr. Kessner, in his dress-suit, which
seemed several sizes too large for him, appeared somehow to have become
a more insignificant person than ever. In this ultra-fashionable
restaurant, full of well-set-up men and soldiers in uniform, he seemed
almost like some by-product, something not altogether human. His very
insignificance compelled a certain amount of notice; conferred upon
him, perhaps, an air of distinctiveness if not of distinction. He was
Kessner, the multi-millionaire, probably over to secure contracts from
the Government. The aroma of wealth hovered around his table. The
term 'German-American' was unused--to few people there did it convey
any significance. The little party talked of every subject under the
sun except the war. Mr. Courlander, notwithstanding his heavy
appearance, was an excellent raconteur. Dinner was more than half-way
through before their host changed his attitude.
'You two young people did not, by any chance, expect me to break my
appointment for this evening, did you?' he asked.
'We had a bet about it,' Suzanne admitted.
'Tell me who wagered in my favour and I will tell you which is the
cleverer of the two?' he offered.
Suzanne laughed.
'It was I who thought that you would come,' she declared.
He bowed.
'After all,' he argued, 'why not? Listen,' he went on, leaning across
the table. 'Courlander here does not count. He is in my confidence.
He was, indeed, at one time my private secretary. To the world I am an
American. To our young friend here,' he went on, indicating Lavendale,
'who appears to have partly discarded his diplomatic career for an
excursion into the secret service of his country, I am a
German-American. He follows me to Germany. He knows that I have a
conference with the Kaiser. He is all agog with the importance of it.
He comes back. He consults with you, my dear young lady, and with
marvellous subtlety he asks me to lunch and exposes me most unfairly to
the trial of your charms. I succumb--what more natural?'
He leaned back in his chair while a portly _maîtres d'hôtel_
superintended the filling of their glasses with champagne and explained
to him the mysteries of the course which was being served. Neither
Suzanne nor Lavendale found it easy to continue their meal unmoved.
Their eyes were fixed upon this insignificant little man who spoke with
such deliberation, such a queer little curl of the lips, such obvious
enjoyment of his own thoughts.
'Your deep-laid scheme,' he went on, 'was crowned with complete
success. The poor little American was robbed of his secret. By this
time it is probably known in Washington. There is only one little fly
in the ointment. A private intimation has already been given through
our ambassador in Washington to the American Government, that unless
America at once abandons her position of favouring the Allies at the
expense of Germany and Austria, Germany will refuse now and for always
henceforth to respect and accept the Monroe Doctrine.'
There was a moment's breathless silence. Then Lavendale drained his
glass.
'You mean that that pronouncement has already been made?' he murmured.
'It has already been made,' Mr. Kessner assented. 'Further, you can
understand quite easily, I am sure, that the exact locality in which
this break should take place, although interesting, is not of vital
importance. I do not wish to dispirit you. Yours was, without doubt,
an excellent stroke of work, and I, the poor victim, am compelled to
droop a diminished head. Yet I offer you this explanation so that you
can see the reason why I am able to accept my defeat gracefully, to
welcome you both here as my guests, to raise my glass to your beautiful
eyes, mademoiselle, and to wish you, Mr. Lavendale, the further success
in your profession which such subtlety and finesse demand.'
'Say, he's eloquent to-night, isn't he?' Mr. Courlander remarked.
'Quite an epic little meeting, this. I can assure you all that I
consider it an immense privilege to have been asked to join your little
party this evening.'
'My subtle friend,' Mr. Kessner continued, setting his glass down
empty, 'is now wondering why you were asked to join it.'
'Not at all,' Lavendale replied. 'The fame of Mr. Courlander is well
known to me.'
Their host for a single moment seemed disturbed. He recovered himself,
however, almost immediately.
'Mr. Courlander,' he went on, 'as I have told you was once my
secretary. Since then, for a brief space of time, he became a
criminologist. Disgusted with the coarse tendencies of crime as
practised in more modern cities he abandoned that profession to become
what I might call a diplomatic detective. He is the terror of our
loose-living public men and our ambitious but dishonest politicians.'
'Our friend's career in America,' Lavendale remarked dryly, 'must of
necessity be a strenuous one!'
Mr. Kessner for a moment smiled. There was no effort of humour about
the gesture. It was simply a slow, sideways parting of the lips, an
index of thoughts travelling backwards along a road lined with
grotesque memories. He drew a heavy gold pencil from his pocket and
signed the bill. Then he rose to his feet.
'We will take our coffee outside,' he suggested. 'Afterwards, if it
meets with your approval, I have a box at one of the music halls--I am
not sure which.'
They lingered only a few minutes over their coffee. While they sat
there, however, Mr. Kessner's secretary, a middle-aged man with gold
spectacles and abstracted manner, brought in a note. Mr. Kessner
opened it, read it carefully and tore it into small pieces. He rose, a
few minutes later, joined his secretary, who was waiting on the
outskirts of the little group, and walked with him twice down the
entrance hall. Then he returned.
'The car is waiting,' he announced, 'if you are ready. Won't you, my
Machiavellian young friend,' he added, glancing at the scraps of paper
which he had left upon the coffee table, 'try and put those fragments
together? I promise that you would find them interesting--more
intrigue, and a very interesting one, I can assure you.'
Lavendale found it hard to forgive himself later for the impulse which
prompted his answer. The temptation, however, was irresistible.
'I have no need to put them together to know the source of your
message,' he replied.
'No?' Mr. Kessner remarked politely, as he lingered for a moment over
adjusting Suzanne's coat. 'There are a good many millions of people in
London, are there not? Shall I give you a hundred thousand to one
against naming the writer?'
'In dollars, if you like,' Lavendale replied carelessly. 'I won't take
your money, but I'll start, then, with Baron Niko Komashi.'
Mr. Kessner, who had half turned away, watching the result of his
attentions to Suzanne, became suddenly motionless. His lips were a
little parted, he seemed almost paralysed. When he turned slowly
around there was a new look in his eyes. Courlander, on the other
hand, did not attempt to restrain an exclamation of wonder.
'Baron Niko Komashi,' Kessner repeated. 'Who is he?'
Lavendale laughed easily. He was already bitterly regretting his
momentary lapse.
'Heaven knows!' he exclaimed. 'The odds dazzled me.'
They walked out to the car almost in silence. A new spirit seemed to
have come to Kessner. He looked and talked differently throughout the
rest of the evening's entertainment. He seemed somehow to have lost
his air of half bantering confidence. When the time came for
farewells, he looked long and earnestly into Lavendale's face.
'We must know one another better, young man,' was all he said....
On their way back to her rooms, Suzanne gripped Lavendale by the arm
and asked him a question.
'What does it all mean?' she demanded. 'Why did you guess Niko? Why
were they both so thunderstruck?'
'Because,' he replied, 'Niko happened to be the writer of that little
epistle.'
Her large eyes gleamed at him through the semi-darkness, filled with
wonder.
'But how could you possibly know that?'
He smiled.
'It is your responsibility,' he explained. 'I noticed the perfume
directly he drew the note from the envelope.'
She laughed softly--softly at first and then heartily.
'Why, it is most amusing!' she exclaimed. 'He thinks you a
necromancer. He is, I believe, a little afraid of you. And that other
man, all through the performance he scarcely took his eyes off you.'
'At any rate,' Lavendale observed, 'it has given me something to think
about.'
II
Lavendale found his way to the American Embassy early on the following
morning, and interviewed his friend Mr. Washburn.
'Anything from Washington?' he inquired.
'I have only had a formal acknowledgment,' Mr. Washburn replied,
'except that they added a code word they don't often make use of, and
which I take to indicate a pat on the back for you.'
'Is it true,' Lavendale continued, dragging a chair up to the side of
Mr. Washburn's desk, 'that Berlin has given Washington to understand
that unless she changes her attitude toward the Allies and withdraws
her objection to submarine warfare, she will no longer respect the
Monroe Doctrine?'
'_Pourparlers_ to that effect,' Mr. Washburn confessed, 'have passed.
How did you come to hear of them?'
Lavendale smiled a little grimly, yet with some self-satisfaction.
'I am getting on the track of something else which promises to be even
more interesting,' he went on. 'Tell me, how do we stand with Japan
just now?'
Mr. Washburn knitted his brows.
'Still friction--always friction,' he admitted. 'The whole thing is
too ridiculous. Personally, I consider our Western States are very
much to blame. We have never before raised the cry 'America for the
Americans only,' and it's too late to do it now. And the fact of it is
you see, the Western States simply decline to fall in with Washington
Policy. Then the trouble comes. Any particular reason for asking?'
'I don't know yet,' Lavendale replied. 'There's a Japanese fellow
named Komashi in my line of business, seems to be very busy just
lately. I only caught on to it last night, though. Chief well?'
'We are all overworked,' Washburn replied. 'We have had to send
Barclay over to Berlin to get a personal report about the prisoners'
camps there. Then we get enough questions from Germany ourselves,
about their prisoners here, to swamp the place.'
Lavendale took up his hat.
'I'll see you later,' he promised.
He walked down the steps from Spring Gardens into St. James's Park and
sat for a time upon a seat. Exactly in front of him, the upper floors
of one of the big houses in Carlton Terrace had been turned into a
hospital, and he could see the soldiers lying about in long chairs, a
few of them entertaining guests. Behind him was the long row of huts
built by the Admiralty. A troop of soldiers swung along the broad
road, a loudly playing band heralded the approach of a little company
of recruits. Save for these things, London seemed as usual. From
where he sat, the hum and the roar of the great city came as
insistently as ever to his ears. His thoughts had travelled back to
New York. How long, he wondered? ...
It was one of the chances of a lifetime which brought Lavendale face to
face that afternoon with Baron Niko Komashi in a quiet street near St.
James's Square. Niko would have passed on without even a sign of
recognition but Lavendale stopped him.
'Good afternoon!' he said.
'Good afternoon!' the other replied gravely.
'I should like a few minutes' conversation with you,' Lavendale
proceeded.
Niko was perplexed but acquiescent.
'If it pleases,' he answered a little vaguely.
Lavendale marched him along the street.
'There is a little bridge club to which I belong, close at hand,' he
said. 'Come into the sitting-room there for a few moments. We shall
be quite alone at this hour of the afternoon.'
Niko suffered himself to be passively led in the direction which his
companion indicated. In a few moments they were seated in the
comfortable parlour of a well-known bridge club. They were quite alone
and Lavendale closed the door.
'Well,' he asked, 'how goes it with your new ally?'
Niko's face betrayed nothing but mild wonder. Lavendale smiled.
'Listen,' he said, 'I may be making a mistake about you. I do not
think that I am. I think that you represent for your country what I do
for mine. You are intensely patriotic. So am I. You realize the need
for a certain amount of diplomatic insight into the workings of her
constitution and her future. So do I. The only trouble is that you
are for Japan and I am for America.'
Niko assented very gravely. His soft brown eyes were watching
Lavendale's lips as though they would read upon them even the unuttered
words. His finger-tips, soft and pliant as velvet, were pressed
together.
'You are not to be bought, my friend,' Lavendale went on. 'Neither am
I. When we walk together, you hedge yourself around with restraint
because you believe that I am one of those who could bear your country
ill-will. That is where you are wrong. That is where there is a cloud
between us which ought to be driven away. Japan and America naturally,
industrially and geographically, should be friends, not enemies.'
'The causes of ill-feeling which lie between us,' Niko observed
suavely, 'are not of our making.'
'Nor of ours--not of the true American,' Lavendale answered promptly.
'It is the desire of Washington, official Washington, that the sons of
your country who come to us should be treated as our own sons. What we
have to contend with, and you, is local feeling. The only sentiment
that exists against Japan in my country is that local feeling, and the
people who have shown themselves most virulently possessed of it are
the compatriots of the man who only within the last few weeks has
sought to pave the way for a disgraceful compact with your country.'
Niko's face was a little whiter, his eyes were filled with wonder.
Slowly he nodded his head.
'You surprise me with your knowledge of things which I had imagined
secret,' he said. 'Secret they have remained so far as I am concerned.
Such information as you have gained can have come but from one source,
so I will speak thus far. The sword of Japan shall be drawn in defence
of her honour, and for no other cause. The alliance which you suggest
would be hateful and dishonouring to my country. Nor,' he concluded,
'would Japan at any time commence a war with a treasonable ally.'
'What answer have you made to Kessner?' Lavendale asked bluntly.
His companion gently raised his eyebrows.
'Who is that gentleman--Mr. Kessner?' he inquired.
Lavendale shrugged his shoulders.
'Ah! I forgot,' he said. 'Those would not be your methods. Yet we
know quite well that the person whose name I have mentioned has made
overtures to you which could not, under present circumstances, emanate
from Berlin. Japan from the west, and Germany on the east, might well
embarrass a country so criminally unprepared for war as mine. I take
it, however, that that combination is not to be feared.'
Niko rose from his place. He had a habit of ending a discussion
exactly at the period he chose.
'Not in your time or mine,' he answered simply....
Lavendale, notwithstanding a nervous system almost unexampled, was
possessed of curiously sensitive instincts. Before he reached Pall
Mall, he was obsessed with an idea that he was being followed. He
turned rather abruptly around. A tall, broad-shouldered man in dark
clothes, wearing a Homburg hat and with a cigar in the corner of his
mouth, waved his stick in friendly greeting.
'This is Mr. Lavendale, isn't it?' he remarked. 'Kind of forgotten me,
perhaps? My name's Courlander. Met you with Mr. Kessner the other
night.'
'I remember you perfectly,' Lavendale acknowledged. 'Very pleasant
dinner we had.'
Mr. Courlander fell into step with his companion, who had turned
eastwards.
'There are few things in the world that Ludwig Kessner doesn't
understand,' he continued, 'from the placing of a loan to the ordering
of a dinner. He isn't much use at eating it, poor fellow, but that's
the fault of his digestion. Too much ice-water, I tell him.'
Lavendale nodded affably. He had no objection whatever to discussing
Mr. Kessner.
'Kind of misunderstood over here, the boss,' Courlander went on.
'People think because he's of German extraction that his sympathies are
altogether that way. As a matter of fact, I can tell you, Mr.
Lavendale, that people are dead wrong. At the present moment--I
wouldn't have every one know this, but you're an American, too--Mr.
Kessner is making proposals for a very large purchase of British War
Loan.'
'Is he indeed!' Lavendale observed, in a tone as colourless as he could
make it.
Courlander glanced at him curiously. They were passing the Carlton and
he drew his arm through Lavendale's.
'Just one cocktail,' he suggested.
Lavendale hesitated for a moment, inspired by an instinctive dislike of
his companion. Policy, however, intervened. He accepted the
invitation and followed Courlander into the smoke-room. They found two
easy-chairs and the latter gave the order.
'I was talking about the boss,' he went on. 'There are others besides
you who have misunderstood him some, but they'll learn the truth before
the war's over.'
'When is Mr. Kessner returning to America?' Lavendale asked.
'As soon as he can find a safe steamer,' Courlander replied. 'He is a
trifle nervous about the Atlantic. Say, that tastes good!'
Mr. Courlander leaned back and sipped his cocktail. Lavendale, with a
word of excuse, rose to his feet and strolled across the room to speak
to an acquaintance. He returned in less than a minute. Mr. Courlander
was leaning back in his chair, American from tip to toe. He wore a
dark grey suit of some smooth material. His square-toed boots, the
little flag in his buttonhole, his prim tie, his air of genial
confidence, were all eloquently and convincingly typical of his
nationality. Lavendale was followed by a waiter bearing two more
glasses upon a tray.
'Try my sort,' he invited.
Mr. Courlander glanced at Lavendale's glass, which was still
three-quarters full.
'You haven't finished your first one yet,' he remarked.
'A little too dry for me,' Lavendale replied, placing it upon the tray
and taking the full glass. 'Here's luck!'
The two men looked at one another. In Courlander's hard brown eyes, a
little narrowed by his drooping eyebrows, there was an air of fierce
though latent questioning. Then with an abrupt gesture he took the
glass from the tray and drank off its contents.
'You'll forgive me if I hurry away,' Lavendale went on. 'We shall meet
again, I dare say, before Mr. Kessner leaves.'
'Sure!' Mr. Courlander murmured, as he picked up his hat. 'I am
generally to be found round about the Milan. Like to have you come and
dine with me one night.'
The two men parted at the hotel entrance. Lavendale got into a taxi
and drove to his rooms. As he changed his clothes, he glanced through
his correspondence. There was a note from Suzanne which he read over
twice:--
'_Dear Friend,--_
'_I want to see you at once. I shall be in from seven till eight.
Please call._'
Lavendale glanced at the clock, hurried with his toilet, and found
himself ringing the bell at the entrance door of Suzanne's suite at
half-past seven. She admitted him herself and ushered him into the
little sitting-room, which had been transformed almost into a bower of
deep red roses.
'Mr. Kessner,' she exclaimed, pointing around, 'with a carte de visite!
You see what he says?--'"From a forgiving enemy!"'
Lavendale glanced at them with a frown upon his forehead.
'I'd like to throw them out of the window,' he declared frankly.
'Do not be foolish,' she laughed. 'Listen. You are dining somewhere?'
'At our own shop,' he replied. 'They ask me about once in every two
months, to fill up.'
'I wanted to speak to you about that man Courlander,' she went on.
'Well?'
'Lawrence Dowell--the American newspapers woman, you know--was in here
yesterday and stayed to lunch. We saw Mr. Courlander in the distance
and she told me about him. Do you know that he was convicted of
murder?--that it was only through Mr. Kessner's influence that he was
taken out of Sing-Sing? He was a police-sergeant and his name was
Drayton. They say that there were several cases against him of having
men put out of the way who had made themselves obnoxious to Tammany
Hall. The sentence against him was quite clear, yet Mr. Kessner not
only managed to have him released but made him his private secretary.'
Lavendale stood for a moment looking out of the window with his hands
in his pockets. Then he turned slowly around.
'About an hour ago,' he said, 'this fellow Courlander tried to doctor a
cocktail I was drinking in the Carlton smoking-room.'
'What?' she exclaimed.
'I met him at the corner of St. James's Street,' he went on. 'I had
been in the club with Niko Komashi, and I am perfectly certain that he
had been dogging me. We walked along Pall Mall and he pressed me to go
in and have a cocktail. I happened to cross the room to speak to
Willoughby and on the way glanced into the mirror. I saw Courlander's
hand suddenly flash over my glass. It was so quick that even though I
saw it myself, I could scarcely believe it, and I'm certain that no one
else in the room could have noticed it. When I got back, I made some
excuse and ordered another cocktail.'
She seemed suddenly to lose some part of that serenity which as yet he
had never seen even ruffled. She was distinctly paler.
'You must be careful--please promise that you will be careful,' she
begged.
'This isn't New York,' he reminded her.
'But that man is a perfect devil,' she persisted earnestly. 'He is a
professional murderer. He has no feeling, no mercy, and he is so
cunning. And behind him there is Kessner and all his millions.'
Lavendale shrugged his shoulders.
'All the millions that were ever owned,' he said, 'wouldn't help a man
over here against the law. I am not afraid of Courlander. There is
nothing he could try which I am not prepared for, and if it comes to a
hand-to-hand struggle, I don't think I have anything to fear from him.'
'I don't like it,' she told him frankly. 'You will be on your guard,
won't you?'
His voice softened.
'Of course I will, but, Miss de Freyne--Suzanne--why don't you like it?
Why do you worry about me at all?'
She was silent for a moment. She had turned a little towards the
window, her eyes had lost their usual directness. He took a step
forward.
'It isn't because you care a little about me, by any chance, is it?' he
asked.
She gave him her hand. Then she turned around and he saw that her eyes
were soft with tears.
'Suzanne!' he faltered.
She turned towards him. There was something very sweet about her
little gesture, something yielding and yet restraining.
'Won't you please forget all this for just a little time?' she pleaded.
'To tell you the truth, I feel almost like a traitress when I even let
myself think of such things now that my country is in such agony, when
everything that is dear to me in life seems imperilled. You have your
work, too, and I have mine. Perhaps the end may be happy.'
He raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them.
'I will obey,' he promised, turning towards the door.
'And you will be careful--please be careful,' she begged, as she let
him out and squeezed his arm for a moment. 'There! Now you must go to
your dinner. You look very nice, and I am sure you will sit next some
one altogether charming, and perhaps you will forget. But I shall like
to think of this evening.' ...
Practical, hard-headed, and with a sound hold upon the every-day
episodes of life, Lavendale nevertheless passed through the remainder
of that evening with his head in the clouds. He was vaguely conscious
of the other twenty-three guests who shared with him the hospitality of
the Ambassador--a few diplomats, a professor from Harvard University
and his wife, two other distinguished Americans, with a sprinkling of
their English connections. He sat next a distant relative of his own,
an American girl who had married an Englishman, and his abstraction was
perhaps ministered to by the fact that conversation from him was
entirely unlooked for. In the reception rooms afterwards he found
himself able to speak for a moment with Washburn.
'Have you seen anything of Mr. Kessner?' he asked.
The other made a little grimace.
'Very little,' he replied. 'The Chief and he don't exactly hit it off.
I heard a rumour the other day that he might be going back to Germany.'
Lavendale played a couple of rubbers of bridge and was invited to take
a cigar in the library before he left. It was shortly after one
o'clock before he stepped into the taxicab which a servant had summoned
for him.
'17 Sackville Street,' Lavendale directed.
He threw himself back in the corner of the vehicle, and they glided
off. A drizzling rain was falling and the streets were almost empty.
He leaned forward in his place to light a cigarette. That fact and his
habits of observation probably saved his life. He realized suddenly
that this was no ordinary taxicab in which he was travelling. It
conformed to none of the usual types. The cushions were more
luxurious, the appointments unusual. He sat for a moment thinking.
The chauffeur was driving at a fair pace, but he had taken a somewhat
circuitous route. Lavendale tried the doors, first on one side, then
on the other. They were both fast, secured with some sort of spring
lock. Suddenly alert, he rose softly to his feet, crouched for a
moment upon the back seat and thrust his head and shoulders through the
window. It was easy enough to wriggle out, to descend and allow the
vehicle to proceed to its destination, wherever that might be, without
its passenger, but the love of adventure was upon him. He set his
teeth, sank back once more in his corner, half closed his eyes. To all
appearance he might have been a tired diner-out prematurely asleep. As
a matter of fact, every nerve and sense was keenly on the alert, and
his right fingers were locked around the butt of a small revolver.
Without protest or comment, he saw himself conducted by a roundabout
way into a maze of quiet streets. Then, with a little thrill of
anticipation, he saw a man who had been loitering near an entry turn
and follow the vehicle, which at his coming had slackened speed. The
man was wearing some sort of rubber-soled shoes and his footsteps upon
the street were noiseless. Through his half-closed eyes, Lavendale was
nevertheless conscious of his approach, realized his soft spring on to
the footboard of the car, was more than prepared for the sudden flick
in his face of a sodden towel, reeking with chloroform. His right fist
shot out, the figure on the footboard went reeling back into the
street. Even then, prepared though he had been, Lavendale for a moment
gasped for breath. The car, with a sudden grinding of the brakes, came
to a standstill. They were at the top of a darkly-lit street and not a
soul was in sight. Lavendale thrust his foot through the glass in
front of him, shattering it all around the driver. The man half sprang
to his feet, but Lavendale's swift speech arrested him.
'Sit where you are,' he ordered. 'Never mind about that other fellow.
Drive me to the Milan Hotel. You know the way, so do I. If you go a
yard out of it, feel this!'
He suddenly dug the muzzle of his revolver into the man's neck. The
man, with an oath, crouched forward.
'Do as I tell you,' Lavendale thundered, 'or I'll shoot you where you
sit! Remember you're not in New York. Do as I tell you.'
Once more the car glided off. They turned almost immediately into
Piccadilly, across Leicester Square, passed up the Strand and drew up
at the Milan. Lavendale put his head through the window as the porter
came out from the Court entrance.
'I can't open this door,' he said. 'Ask the fellow in front how to do
it.'
The porter stared with surprise at the shattered glass. The driver
slipped down, touched a spring on the outside and the door flew open.
He had pulled his cap deeper over his face. Lavendale looked at him
for a moment steadfastly.
'Wait for me,' he ordered.
He walked into the Court, rang for the lift and ascended to the fourth
floor. He stepped out and rang the bell at number seventy-four. For a
moment there was no answer. He rang it again. Then a light suddenly
flashed up in the room and Mr. Kessner, fully dressed, stood upon the
threshold. He gazed, speechless, at Lavendale, who pushed forward
across the threshold, holding the door open with one hand.
'Mr. Kessner,' he said, 'your thug with the chloroform is lying on his
back somewhere near Sackville Street. I shouldn't wonder if his spine
wasn't broken. Your sham chauffeur is downstairs with his sham
taxicab. I made him bring me here. You understand?'
The tip of Mr. Kessner's tongue had moistened his lips. His lined
yellow face seemed more than ever like the face of some noxious animal.
'You are drunk, young man,' he said.
Lavendale raised his arm and Mr. Kessner stepped back.
'Don't be afraid,' Lavendale went on scornfully. 'I am not going to
shoot you. When the day of reckoning comes between you and me, if ever
it does, I shall take you by the throat and wring the life out of your
body. But I am here now to tell you this. Before I sleep, a full
account of this night's adventure, instigated by you and your assassin
Courlander, will be written down and deposited in a safe place. If
anything happens to me, if I disappear even for a dozen hours, that
paper will be opened. You may get me, even now, you and Courlander
between you, only you'll have to pay the price. See? In England it's
a damned ugly price!'
Mr. Kessner sucked the breath in between his teeth. Then, as though
with some super-human effort, he recovered himself.
'Say, young fellow, won't you come in and talk this out?' he invited.
Lavendale laughed dryly.
'"Won't you walk into my parlour?"' he quoted mockingly. 'No, thank
you, Mr. Kessner! You know where we stand now. Let me give you a word
of warning. London isn't New York. A very little of this sort of
thing and you'll find the hand of a law that can't be bought or bribed
or evaded in any way, tapping upon your shoulders. You understand?'
Mr. Kessner yawned.
'You are a foolish young man,' he said, 'and you've been reading a
little too much modern fiction.'
He slammed the door and Lavendale descended to the street. The
courtyard was empty.
'The car didn't wait for me, I suppose?' he inquired of the porter.
'The fellow drove off directly you went upstairs, sir. I shouted after
him but he took no notice. Shall I get you a taxi, sir?'
Lavendale fumbled in his pocket, found a cigarette and lit it.
'Thank you,' he replied, 'I think I'll walk.'