"That man is dangerous, d.i.c.k," whispered Yvette when he had gone. "We shall have to be most careful. I wish I knew how much he knows, or suspects."
They were soon to learn how acute this visitor really was!
Shortly after, d.i.c.k, smoking an exquisite cigarette such as can only be bought in Langengrad, a dark coat thrown over his evening dress, left the hotel quite openly, but keenly on the alert. He suspected he might be followed, a premonition that was to prove useful.
He strolled idly through the broad Kossowska agog with evening life, gradually working his way towards the rendezvous, and keeping a sharp look out. Soon he picked out the figure of a man who always seemed to be about fifty yards behind him. A few turns through side streets confirmed his suspicions; clearly, he was being "shadowed!"
d.i.c.k Manton"s brain always worked rapidly in a crisis. Obviously the man must be got rid of. So he speedily formed a plan.
Strolling down the alley behind the old storehouse, d.i.c.k marked the exact locality of the clematis-grown doorway, pa.s.sed it and then turned, so timing his movement that he and his pursuer met exactly outside the door. It was the agent of political police who had interrogated him after dinner!
Further pretence was useless, and d.i.c.k came straight to the point.
"To what am I indebted for Monsieur"s very polite attentions?" he demanded bluntly.
The stranger shrugged his shoulders insolently.
"Langengrad at night is not too healthy for foreigners," he replied with an obvious sneer, "and of course we feel responsible for--"
He got no further. d.i.c.k"s clenched fist jerked upward with every ounce of his strength and skill behind it. Taken utterly by surprise the police agent was caught squarely on the point of the jaw and went down like a log.
d.i.c.k tapped at the door, which was instantly opened by Fedor, and together they dragged the unconscious officer inside. A moment later he was securely bound, gagged and blindfolded.
d.i.c.k was now thoroughly alarmed about Yvette. Would she be followed, and if so, could she win clear?
Here fortune favoured them. Apparently the police official, whatever his suspicions were, had meant to make sure of d.i.c.k, knowing that Yvette alone could not escape him. A few minutes later they heard her knock, and soon all three were in the house.
"Safe enough now," said Fedor laconically as he led the way through piles of stored goods to an upper room at the top of the building.
The room was faintly illuminated by a gleam of moonlight which came through a skylight in the roof, and when a small lamp was turned on d.i.c.k looked around him with keen interest. Filthily dirty, and apparently unused for years, the room was crammed with a heterogeneous ma.s.s of canvas packages and wooden boxes. The only window was covered with shutters through which circular holes had been bored to admit light, but these were covered over with flaps of felt. The dust of years lay thick everywhere.
d.i.c.k"s attention was instantly centred on a large, square table in the middle of the room.
Upon the table stood what appeared to be a big camera, its lens pointing to the window, with a screen of ground gla.s.s at the back of the camera exposed. A few feet behind, on a tripod, stood a small cinema apparatus with the lens aperture directed at the ground gla.s.s plate of the camera.
To each ran electric wires from a bracket on the wall of the room. The whole of the electrical apparatus was weird and complicated.
There were also on the table two head telephones connected by wires to the horn of what looked like a large phonograph.
"Now, Mr Manton," said Fedor in a low, intense voice, "I will show you my new apparatus. Mademoiselle Pasquet knows about it."
d.i.c.k was breathless with excitement. Yvette"s story of Fedor"s wonderful invention had filled him with keenest curiosity.
"If you will look through one of the holes in this shutter," Fedor went on, "you will see, directly opposite, the window of Mestich"s dining-room. The curtains are drawn, but you will see the room is lighted inside. He and his friends have been there for some time; apparently they have been awaiting Horst." d.i.c.k looked through the hole and saw the lighted window. "Now, come and look at the screen," urged the Count.
As he spoke he touched an electric switch. Immediately a soft purring noise came from the camera and on the screen there showed a vivid well-focused picture of a room with about a dozen men seated round a long table. The interior of the closed room was revealed by the new invention. At the head of the table, facing the camera, sat a big, soldierly man whom d.i.c.k at once recognised, from his published photographs, as General Mestich.
Fedor rapidly named the others--Bausch, Horst, Colonel Federvany, leader of the Parliamentary Opposition, several officials of the Galdavian Government and War Office, and two or three Jew financiers, one of whom named Mendelssohn d.i.c.k knew to be of international reputation.
The marvellous picture was framed in a solid black outline. It gave a curious effect, just as though one were looking from the darkness into a fiercely lighted cave.
d.i.c.k was almost stupefied with astonishment.
"Do you mean to say that that is the room in the house on the opposite side of the road?" he asked.
"Certainly I do," said Fedor with a grim smile.
"But how is it done?" demanded d.i.c.k, aghast. "The shutters are closed here and the curtains drawn on the other side."
"It"s a new electric ray I stumbled upon quite by accident," Fedor explained. "I was experimenting, and found it. It pa.s.ses quite readily through wood, fibre and fabric, in fact through almost anything except stone, mica, and metal. That is why you see only part of the room; the walls cut off everything except the s.p.a.ce directly behind the window.
If the table were in the corner of the room they would be safe enough-- if they only knew!"
"Marvellous!" d.i.c.k e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.
"This new ray is projected from these two rods of silenium," the Count went on, "and for some reason which I cannot explain it follows the direction of the longitudinal axis of the metal. Thus any object at which the rods are pointed is rendered luminous by the ray on the screen, which is coated with the barium sulphate used in X-ray work. It can be photographed by the cinema and we shall have evidence enough to hang the lot."
Then he paused for a few seconds.
"Now we must begin," he said suddenly. "They are just about to start.
Hold the telephone receivers to your ear. Mademoiselle will look after the cinema."
Picking up the receiver, d.i.c.k heard a voice speaking clearly and earnestly. It was evidently that of General Mestich, who, as he saw by the screen, was on his feet and speaking. The language, of course, he did not understand, but Fedor, who was also listening, became excited and snapped on a switch which started the phonograph. In the meantime Yvette was turning the handle of the cinema camera.
"Here it comes," Fedor e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed a moment later, and d.i.c.k saw General Mestich take from his pocket a big blue doc.u.ment which he unfolded and spread on the table before him. Bausch at the same time produced a similar paper.
Then Bausch got to his feet and also spoke briefly. Immediately after the doc.u.ments were pa.s.sed round and signed by all present. The treaty was made! But every action of the plotters had been caught by the eye of the camera, and every word they uttered was recorded by the phonograph! The evidence was complete!
"Now, Manton," said Fedor, "we have all we want except Mestich"s copy of the treaty which will be signed by the German Secretary of State, as well as Bausch and Horst. To get that and get away is your work. I have to stay in Langengrad and I dare not risk being seen and identified. You understand?"
"Of course," answered d.i.c.k. "You have done wonders--absolute wonders!
But just tell me how this telephone works."
"That is Mademoiselle Pasquet"s invention," replied Fedor. "It is really a secret change-over switch which projects an electric ray which sets the General"s transmitter working even when the receiver is on the hook and the instrument would in the ordinary way be `dead." It can be put in in three minutes; as a matter of fact I slipped it in one day when I called to see the General and was kept waiting. The main wire from the General"s "phone to the Exchange pa.s.ses over the house and it was easy enough to `tap" it with a fine wire that can be pulled away so as to leave no cause for suspicion. I shall do that now; we shall not want it again."
Soon after, the party opposite began to break up and finally, on the screen, they saw the General standing alone, the treaty in his hand, and a look of triumph and elation on his handsome face. It was the picture of a man who had very nearly reached the summit of his ambitions. A moment later he crossed to the big, high stove, lifted a heavy picture, and slid aside a small door in the panelling of the wall. This disclosed a recess in which the treaty was deposited, the slide was closed, and the picture replaced.
"Clever," said d.i.c.k, "but easy now we know. I thought he would put it in a safe. But how are we going to get it?"
Yvette, who had been silent, interposed.
"I think the General"s house might unexpectedly catch fire," she said quietly. "That will give d.i.c.k a chance to make a dash for the treaty in the confusion."
"I don"t see any better plan," Fedor agreed. "It can easily be managed.
I have plenty of petrol here, and there is a small leaded window on the ground floor that can be pushed in without making too much noise."
"Excellent!" exclaimed d.i.c.k. "I"ll manage that. I"ll see there"s plenty of confusion."
"Very well, that is settled," answered Fedor. "Now I will take Mademoiselle to your car and have everything ready for you to start. It will be touch and go. Here is the phonograph record, with the cinema film rolled up inside it. Take care of them; they are priceless. The film must be developed in Paris."
Then Fedor produced a can of petrol and thoroughly soaked the room.