THE SECRET OF THE IKON
She must have dropped the telephone receiver, for a clatter sounded
dully in her ears. The strange and baleful glare of the man at the table
held her gaze. The blood seemed to drain away from her heart as she met
the cruel menace of those blackly bitter eyes. The bushy dark beard had
vanished and the fleshy scarlet lips pressed together in a hard line
were clearly visible above the squarely massive chin. But she knew her
visitor again immediately. It was as though she recognized the
extraordinary air of authority that his presence exhaled without
requiring the additional aid to identification that the heavy misshapen
boot presented.
She felt as though she must scream. The mute telephone, the unanswered
bell, the sudden appearance of this frightening, apelike creature in the
room, above all, his forbidding, ominous silence, produced a culminating
effect of terror upon her. And, though she wilted before the fixed stare
of those burning eyes beneath the bristling black eyebrows, she could
not look away.
Suddenly there came an interruption. Two men emerged from the bedroom
door and took up their position behind the stranger. One was a
narrow-chested youth whose pointed nose and snarling mouth had something
of the rodent about them, his sallow cheek slashed by a long white scar.
The other was a gross and burly fellow with a bullet neck, close-cropped
hair, and small pig eyes.
“Niemand da?” asked the clubfooted stranger.
“Kein Mensch, Herr Doktor!” replied the youth with the scarred face.
The voices broke the spell that had seemed to bind her. Her eager
American vitality came to her aid. She began to study with interest this
man of whom Francis Okewood had told her. “Strong as an ox, brave as a
lion, cunning as a rogue elephant,” he had called him. And cautious as a
cat, she told herself as she watched him peering about the room with
quick, suspicious glances, his gaze always returning to the door as
though he feared interruption.
He gave a curt order in German to the men behind him, then removed his
black wide-awake hat, displaying a glistening mass of iron-grey stubble.
“Miss Maxwell,” he said with a fawning civility that struck chill upon
her, “I have come to fetch the ikon!”
This time he spoke in English, harshly, with a thick guttural accent.
She clasped her hands tightly together. They were as cold as ice.
“I—I have not got it,” she faltered.
A deep furrow appeared between the cripple’s bushy eyebrows.
“I advise you not to play with me,” he said. He took a step forward. The
thud of his heavy boot shook the floor. “Where is it?” he cried
hoarsely.
“I . . . I left it . . . at home!” stammered the girl.
His great arm shot out. A huge hairy paw, hot and soft, clamped itself
with a vice-like grip about her wrist. Of a sudden his face was
distorted with fury, so that his heavy sallow cheeks trembled beneath
their thatch of loose black hairs. He might have been a huge man-ape
chattering with passion as he shook her in that iron grasp.
“You lie! You lie!” he spat at her. “You brought it here to the spy,
Okewood. That ikon is here, you understand me? Donnerwetter, are you
going to give it up?” With a supreme effort he regained his
self-control. But he did not relax his grasp on her hand. “If you
refuse, I have the means to make you!”
“Herr Doktor,” said a suave voice from the other side of the room,
“won’t you let go Miss Maxwell’s wrist? I’m afraid you’re hurting her!”
With a roar Clubfoot swung round. A large automatic was in his hand. His
two companions had likewise drawn and covered Desmond Okewood, who,
dapper and unruffled as ever, his hat on the back of his head, stood in
the bedroom door, a brown paper parcel under his arm. Clubfoot laughed,
a harsh and grating laugh. “Put your hands up, my friend!” he said
menacingly.
Desmond wavered. “But I shall drop my little parcel . . .” he began.
“Put ’em up, zum Teufel nochmal!” roared the cripple, his tufted
nostrils twitching with rage.
Desmond hesitated for an instant. He shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m sorry, Miss Maxwell,” he said. “If only Francis had been
here . . .”
And, pitching his parcel on the table, he slowly raised his hands above
his head.
“Keep him covered, Jungens!” cried Clubfoot and flung himself upon the
parcel. “Francis, indeed!” he exclaimed. “He had an important telephone
summons just now, didn’t he, Miss Maxwell?” And he chuckled noisily.
But the American did not heed him. With a pink flush on her cheeks she
was staring fixedly at Desmond.
The young man sought to avoid her gaze. “It’s three to one,” he
muttered, abashed. “I’d no idea they’d be able to get in here! I should
never have brought it back if I’d dreamed of . . . this!”
But now, with a shout of joy, Clubfoot had drawn from its paper wrapping
the ikon with its blackened silver sheath. With a rapid motion he thrust
the little picture into the capacious pocket of his overcoat. Then he
turned to Desmond.
“Lieber junger Herr”—he spoke in German now—“if on this occasion I
should neglect to settle the debt which has for so long been outstanding
between us, believe me it is because other considerations take
precedence. Do not delude yourself, however! When I want you, I have
only to stretch out my hand”—he raised his long prehensile arm with
clutching fingers—“and crush you like an egg! Heinrich, Max, vorwärts!
Miss Maxwell! Ich habe die Ehre!” He broke into English. “It would have
been wiser to have accepted my offer of this morning, or, better still,
from this poor Süsslein’s point of view, to have listened to reason last
night!”
He bowed to the American and, with head erect, stumped out into the
hall.
Hardly had the door closed upon him than Patricia Maxwell turned on
Desmond.
“You . . . you quitter!” she exclaimed with withering contempt in her
voice. “Are you going to let him beat you to it all along the line? Are
there no _men_ in this town?”
But Desmond held up his hand. He had altogether discarded his rather
abashed air. Now his eyes sparkled and a little smile played about his
lips.
“Give me five minutes’ grace,” he said, “and I’ll explain everything!”
“There’s nothing to explain!” cried Patricia hotly. “He’s got my ikon,
hasn’t he? What’s there to explain about that, I’d like to know!”
But Desmond Okewood had dashed out into the hall. She heard him rattling
loudly at the front door. In a moment he was back in the sitting-room.
“They’ve wedged up the front door!” he cried and snatched the telephone
receiver.
“The wire’s cut!” said Patricia coldly. “And your man doesn’t answer the
bell!”
“Damnation!” exclaimed the young man. “I might have known he’d come here
after you! And there’s no time to get out by the roof! To think that
he’s walking calmly down Saint James’s Street . . .!”
Again he tore out into the hall. The little flat rang to the din of his
frantic assault on the front door. Presently the noise ceased. She heard
the voice of Francis outside.
“. . . Decoyed me away with a bogus message from the Chief,” he was
saying, “and Batts is imprisoned in the lift with the cable cut. What’s
happened to Patricia?”
He came into the room.
“Thank God, you’re all right!” he exclaimed. “Desmond rushed downstairs
like a madman. What’s happened, Patricia?”
She surveyed him coldly. “Nothing, only your clubfooted friend came here
to fetch the ikon . . . my ikon. And your brother had the . . . the
presence of mind to give it to him!”
“Desmond gave it to him?” Francis Okewood seemed dazed.
She nodded.
Desmond Okewood reappeared, panting. Without speaking he crossed the
sitting-room and went into the bedroom.
“Are you sure?” asked Francis.
“Didn’t I see it with my own eyes?” said the girl impatiently. “Without
the least show of fight!” she added contemptuously. She gathered her
furs around her. “Do you think I could get a taxi?” she asked.
But Francis was staring past her. “Des.!”
There was such unbounded amazement in his exclamation that,
involuntarily, the girl turned round. Desmond Okewood stood behind them.
And on the table before him lay the ikon. In the doorway of the bedroom
appeared a little yellow-faced man muffled up to the eyes in an ulster
and scarf.
Desmond’s eyes twinkled. “Let me introduce Professor Krilenko, the
celebrated Russian art connoisseur,” he said. “Although he is crippled
with lumbago he came roof-climbing with me to-night to help me get the
better of old Clubfoot. There’s friendship for you!”
The Professor bowed and groaned piteously, snatching at his back. “What
a man!” he said.
Patricia Maxwell stared in silence at the pair. But her eyes were
softer.
Desmond turned to the Professor. “Tell them about it!” he said.
Krilenko picked up the ikon. “Fate has placed in your hands, Madame,” he
said in fluent English, “one of the most revered treasures of the
Russian Church, none other than the miraculous ikon of Our Lady of
Smolensk, smuggled out of Russia at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution
to save it from desecration at the hands of the Reds. It is probably a
thousand years old, but the tradition is that it was painted by the
evangelist Luke himself.
“Major Okewood, who knows this man Grundt, doubted whether religious or
artistic fervour had anything to do with his determination to acquire
the ikon. With a perspicacity which I can only ascribe as astounding, he
insisted that there was something about the picture which enhanced its
artistic or intrinsic value . . .”
So saying he turned the ikon over on its face. Four screws loosely set
held the stout wooden backing of the frame. He removed the screws and
lifted out the back. In four slots sunk in the wood four little grey
metal tubes were visible. Round one of them a slip of paper was wrapped.
“He suggested that we should remove the back,” the Professor resumed,
“if we could do so without damaging the ikon. We scraped the back and at
length laid bare the screws. Their presence had been very skilfully
concealed first beneath a layer of . . .”
The Russian was evidently, like most experts, a prosy person, but
imperiously Patricia stopped him before he could launch out into
technicalities.
“What are those little bits of lead?” she asked.
“Radium!” Desmond replied. “Translate the letter, Krilenko!”
He detached the slip of paper that was rolled about one of the cases and
handed it to the Professor.
I, Vladimir Lemuroff [Krilenko read out], Professor of Chemistry in
the University of Moscow, being in imminent danger of arrest by the
Tcheka [“the Extraordinary Commission of the Soviet Government,”
Krilenko explained], have in the presence of Bishop Tchergeroff, whose
signature is here appended, concealed for safe custody in the blessed
ikon of Our Lady of Smolensk the four grammes of radium, the property
of the Moscow Chemical Institute, which I took with me in my flight to
save them for science from the ruthless vandalism of the wild beasts
who are destroying Holy Russia.
(Signed) Lemuroff
(Witness) Tchergeroff
Smolensk, 13/26, July, 1919
“By Jove!” ejaculated Francis. “Four grammes of radium! Let’s see!—the
market price stands somewhere about £12,000 a gramme, I think. That
makes these four little tubes worth something like £50,000. No wonder
old Clubfoot wanted that picture, Des.!”
“But,” remarked Patricia, perplexed, “I _saw_ you give the ikon to the
man Grundt!”
Desmond laughed. “I had to finesse him,” he said. “Old Clubfoot never
lets the grass grow under his feet, and I wanted to gain time to get
your ikon into a safe place before he could seize it by force. Directly
I found out from Krilenko here that this was one of the famous
miraculous ikons, I knew, from my experience of Russia, that thousands
of copies must be in existence, for most of the ikons you find in
Russian churches and homes are copies of these wonder-working pictures.
Krilenko, who has been a perfect trump all through, routed up a Russian
pope he knows who remembered that there was a copy of the Madonna of
Smolensk in one of the Russian churches in London. It was nice and
grimy, as it had hung there for years.
“Krilenko and the priest did the rest. My intention was to hang up the
copy in your boudoir for Clubfoot to steal, for I was virtually certain
that your house would be broken into to-night. But, when we were
scrambling over the roofs just now, I heard old Grundt’s voice coming up
through the skylight and I just couldn’t resist the chance of bluffing
him. My word, I could hardly keep my face straight!”
He glanced humorously at Patricia. She held out her hand.
“I feel just terribly!” she said. “I’m sorry I was so rude! But, oh!
what an actor!”
Desmond grinned. “It wasn’t bad, was it? Especially the pathetic bit
about their being three to one . . .”
They all laughed.
“In the mean time Grundt is off again!” observed Francis ruefully.
“He’s a clever devil!” said Desmond with real admiration in his voice.
“He simply bunged up the front door and walked out, knowing that one
minute’s grace would be enough to allow him, lame as he is, to get away
in the London crowd. Directly you opened the door I bolted down to the
street. But I knew it was too late. We’ve just got to wait for him to
come back . . .”
“He might have shot you!” remarked Francis.
“Not he! Clubfoot knows that you can commit almost any crime in London
as long as you act normally. But a shot would have aroused the whole
block. Besides, he’s a single-minded person. To-day he was after the
ikon. Next time it may be you or me. I don’t worry about losing his
trail, Francis. He’s coming back after us . . .”
He chuckled with infinite relish.
“Des.,” said his brother, “tell us the joke!”
“Well,” Desmond replied slowly, “when we were weighting that duplicate
ikon, I couldn’t resist slipping in a note for Clubfoot. I was just
thinking of his face when he reads it!”
And he chuckled again.
By Patricia Maxwell’s direction the radium, duly tested and found to be
genuine, was handed over to the Russian Refugees’ Fund. The ikon of Our
Lady of Smolensk went to take the place of the copy in the Russian
church, where, night and day, a great candle burns before it in memory
of the donor.
As for Clubfoot, the evening traffic of Saint James’s swallowed up him
and his companions, and the unremitting vigilance of the Secret Service,
assisted by Scotland Yard, threw no light on their whereabouts. But, two
days after the encounter in his flat, Desmond Okewood found in his mail
a postcard, unsigned, with this epigrammatic message:
_A sense of humour is a dangerous thing!_