Number 70, Berlin.
by William Le Queux.
CHAPTER ONE.
THE MAN OF THE MOMENT.
"That man knows too much!"
"Do you really think he overheard?"
"He may not have done. But we must take no risks, my dear fellow.
Remember we are at war! With people who know too much there"s but one way--dismissal," declared Lewin Rodwell, the tall, well-groomed middle-aged man, in morning-coat and grey trousers, who stood in the panelled boardroom with his chairman, Sir Boyle Huntley, the other directors having left after the weekly meeting of the board.
"He might talk--eh?" Sir Boyle remarked in a low, apprehensive tone.
"He would probably fear the law of libel," said Lewin Rodwell, fair-haired, sleek, rather refined, who, at the moment, was one of the most popular and patriotic figures in London--a man whose praises were sung constantly in the halfpenny press, and who numbered peers, Cabinet Ministers and diplomats among his friends.
His companion, ten years his senior, was of a different type--a somewhat uncouth man, with a reddish, bloated face, dark hair tinged with grey, deep-set crafty eyes, and a voice which betrayed his c.o.c.kney birth and breeding, which even his Birthday baronetcy could not disguise.
Both men, of humble origin, had won considerable fortune in the City and had worked together on the boards of many companies more or less prosperous. They were "keen business men"--which, in these days, seems to be the accepted description of those who are not above descending to sharp practices--and indeed, if the truth be told, had been guilty of certain financial juggling which would have looked very ugly against them if placed before a court of law.
Yet what they had done had been done within the law, and their hands were, consequently, just as clean as those of hundreds of other company-directors in the City of London.
Rodwell, with his back to the fire--for it was a cold, dark November afternoon in the year 1914--slowly lit a good cigar which he took from his case, while Sir Boyle fidgeted uneasily with some papers at the table.
"How shall you get rid of that unnecessary fellow?" he asked his friend at last. "If he were dismissed now, he"d at once guess the reason, and might become our enemy."
"Enemy! Bosh!" laughed Lewin Rodwell, scornfully. "There"s no fear of that, my dear chap. Leave him to me. I shall do nothing till after our meeting next Thursday. Then we can call in Charlesworth and tell him that the fellow--Sainsbury is his name, I believe--is a slacker, and ought to join the army. Owing to the war we must cut down expenditure-- you know. He must go, and several others too--in order to give our economy a flavour of truth."
"Charles worth has always spoken very highly of him. He"ll certainly urge us to keep him," the chairman remarked, looking blankly into the fire. "Only a fortnight ago his name was on the list of employees to be retained throughout the war."
"I know. But if Sainsbury has overheard what I said, then he"s better outside this building than in it," Rodwell declared emphatically, drawing heavily at his cigar.
"You were a confounded fool to speak of such matters outside your own room at home, Lewin. It was most indiscreet. It isn"t like you."
"I know. I was a confounded fool," the other admitted. "But I had no idea anyone had entered. He wears those infernal rubber things on his heels. But leave it to me. I"ll clear him out all right."
"It must be done most delicately. He mustn"t, for a single moment, suspect the reason of his dismissal."
Lewin Rodwell reflected for a second, and then, as though in his active, clever brain a sudden suggestion had arisen, he laughed and replied:
"There are more ways than one by which to crush an enemy, my dear Boyle--as you yourself know. Leave all to me, and I can guarantee that we shall have nothing to fear from this young prig, Sainsbury. So set your mind at ease at once over it."
"Very well, Lewin. I know how clever you always are in avoiding trouble," laughed Sir Boyle Huntley. "Had it not been for you we"d both have more than once been in a very tight corner. As it is we"ve prospered famously, and--well, I suppose the world thinks quite a lot of us--especially of you--the man who does so much good and charitable work without any thought of reward--purely as a patriotic Briton."
Lewin Rodwell winked knowingly, and both men laughed aloud.
Rodwell"s eye caught the clock. It was half-past four.
"By Jove! I must fly!" he cried. "I promised to be at Lady Betty"s soon after four. Trustram, of the Admiralty, will be there, and I particularly want to meet him. I"ve got my car. Can I drop you anywhere?"
"Yes. At the Const.i.tutional. I"m meeting a man there."
So the pair, leaving the room, were helped on with their overcoats by an obsequious liveried servant and, descending in the lift, pa.s.sed through the handsome set of offices where a hundred clerks were working beneath the electric-light, and out into Gracechurch Street, where Rodwell"s fine limousine was awaiting him; the footman standing with the fur rug ready to throw over his master"s knees.
On their way through the City the elder man reverted to the subject they had discussed in the boardroom of The Ochrida Copper Corporation--one of the greatest copper concerns in the world--and, drawing a long breath, he said:
"I really do hope that young fellow heard nothing. What if he knew-- eh?"
"Of course he heard," was his co-director"s reply. "But whether he understood is quite another thing."
"I fear he did understand."
"Why?"
"Because, as he left the room, I watched his face, and saw both suspicion and surprise upon it."
"Bah! My dear Boyle, don"t let that worry you for a second longer,"
Rodwell laughed, as the car sped silently along Queen Victoria Street and across to the Embankment. "Even if he does suspect he"ll soon be rendered quite harmless. When Lewin Rodwell makes up his mind to sweep an enemy from his path, you know that the enemy always disappears."
"I know that," replied the Baronet, with a slight hardening at the corners of his flabby mouth. Perhaps he recollected the fate of certain other enemies. He well knew the callous unscrupulousness of his friend and a.s.sociate in his determined efforts to get rich quickly. Indeed, they had both got rich very quickly--more especially Rodwell--during the past four or five years by methods which would never bear investigation.
Yet, as in so many other cases in our great complex London, the world regarded him as a perfectly honest and trustworthy man--a true Briton, who was ever ready to place both his valuable time and his money at the disposal of the British cause against her barbaric enemy.
"Sainsbury will never trouble us, I a.s.sure you," he repeated, as at last Sir Boyle alighted in Northumberland Avenue, and he waved him a cheery good-bye as he went up the steps of the club.
Then, as the car re-started off to Upper Brook Street, Lewin Rodwell sat back, his hands resting idly on the fur rug, his cold, round blue eyes staring straight before him, the skin drawn rather tightly over his cheek-bones, giving him a look haggard and quite unusual.
"Yes," he exclaimed to himself, drawing a long breath, "Boyle is quite right. That young man suspects--curse him! Phew! I must close his mouth somehow. But how? That"s the question. In these days, with the Government deceiving the people and lulling them into a false sense of security, the very least breath of suspicion quickly becomes magnified into an open scandal. And scandal, as far as I am concerned, would mean that I should be compelled to invite investigation. Could I bear such a test?" he asked. "Gad! no!" he gasped.
He set his lips firmly, and his eyes narrowed. He tossed his cigar angrily out into the roadway. It tasted bitter.
As the car went up the Haymarket, boys were crying the evening papers.
Upon the contents-bill he noticed that the British were fighting gallantly at the Yser, stemming the tide of the Devil"s sp.a.w.n, who were endeavouring to strike a death-blow at French"s little army and get through to Calais.
He smiled at his own strange thoughts, and then sank back into the soft cushions, again reflecting. That _contretemps_ in the boardroom had really unnerved him. It unnerved him so much, indeed, that from Piccadilly Circus he drove to his club and swallowed a stiff brandy-and-soda--an action quite unusual to him--and then he went along to Upper Brook Street.
When the rather pompous elderly butler announced him at the door of the large drawing-room, Lady Betty Kenworthy, a tall, middle-aged woman, rose, greeting the great man affably, and then she introduced him to the dozen or so of her friends who were gossiping over their teacups--the names of most of them being household words both to those in society and the readers of the halfpenny picture-papers out of it.
Lady Betty, a well-preserved, good-looking woman, whose boy was at the front, was one of those leaders of society who, at the outbreak of war, for want of something more exciting, had become the leader of a movement. In London, after the first few months of war, the majority of society women took up one movement or another: red cross, Serbian relief, socks for the troops, comforts for mine-sweepers, huts for soldiers, work for women, hose-extensions for Highlanders, or one or other of the thousand-and-one "movements" which cropped up and duly found their places in the advertis.e.m.e.nt columns of the _Times_.
Lady Betty Kenworthy"s particular movement was the Anti-Teuton Alliance--an a.s.sociation formed by a few patriotic enthusiasts who bound themselves to take action against the hated German in every way--to expose and intern the enemy in our midst, to free the country from the baneful German influence which has spread into every sphere of our national life, to purchase no goods of German origin, to ban the German language, and to discover the existence of the pro-German sentiment, German intrigue, and the expenditure of German gold--"palm-oil" one distinguished writer has called it--in official and Parliamentary circles.
The programme was, to say the least, a wide and laudable one, and afforded ample scope to the thousands of members who had enrolled themselves.
In Lady Betty"s drawing-room that afternoon the committee of the movement had a.s.sembled, eager to meet Mr Lewin Rodwell, who had shown such patriotism that even Cabinet Ministers had publicly bestowed great praise upon his ceaseless and self-denying efforts.
There were present, first of all, the usual set of society women of uncertain age, dressed in the latest French models, which gave them an air of youth, yet, at the same time, accentuated their angularity and unnatural freshness; two or three elderly men, led there against their will by their strong-minded spouses, a pretty girl or two from nowhere, and one or two male enthusiasts, including two good-looking and merry-going peers who were loud in their condemnation of the whole Government--from the Prime Minister downwards.