"Delighted!" Laverick a.s.sented.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

MISS LENEVEU'S MESSAGE

The two men stepped back into the hotel. The cashier had returned to his desk, and the incident which had just transpired seemed to have pa.s.sed unnoticed. Nevertheless, Laverick felt that the studied indifference of his companion's manner had its significance, and he endeavored to imitate it.

"Shall we go through into the bar?" he asked. "There's very seldom any one there at this time."

"Anywhere you say," Bellamy answered. "It's years since we had a drink together."

They pa.s.sed into the inner room and, finding it empty, drew two chairs into the further corner. Bellamy summoned the waiter.

"Two whiskies and sodas quick, Tim," he ordered. "Now, Laverick, listen to me," he added, as the waiter turned away. "We are alone for the moment but it won't be for long. You know very well that it wasn't to renew our schoolboy acquaintance that I've asked you to come in here with me."

Laverick drew a little breath.

"Please go on," he said. "I am as anxious as you can be to grasp this affair properly."

"When we left school," Bellamy remarked, "you were destined for the Stock Exchange. I went first to Magdalen. Did you ever hear what became of me afterwards?"

"I always understood," Laverick answered, "that you went into one of the Government offices."

"Quite right," Bellamy a.s.sented. "I did. At this moment I have the honor to serve His Majesty."

"Two thousand a year and two hours work a day," Laverick laughed.

"I know the sort of thing."

"You evidently don't," Bellamy answered. "I often work twenty hours a day, I don't get half two thousand a year, and most of the time I carry my life in my hands. When I am working--and I am working now--I am never sure of the morrow."

Laverick looked at him incredulously.

"You're not joking, Bellamy?" he asked.

"Not by any manner of means. I have the honor to be a humble member of His Majesty's Secret Service."

Laverick glanced at his companion wonderingly.

"I really didn't know," he said, "that such a service had any actual existence except in novels."

"I am a proof to the contrary," Bellamy declared grimly. "Abroad, I run always the risk of being dubbed a spy and treated like one.

At home, I am simply the head of the A2 Branch of the Secret Service.

Here come our drinks."

Laverick raised his whiskey and soda to his lips mechanically.

"Here's luck!" he exclaimed. "Now go on, Bellamy," he continued.

"The waiter can't overhear."

Bellamy smiled.

"Tim is one of the few persons in the place," he said, "whom one can trust. As a matter of fact, he has been very useful to me more than once. Now listen to me attentively, Laverick. I am going to speak to you as one man to another."

Laverick nodded.

"I am ready," he said.

"Last Monday," Bellamy went on, leaning forward and speaking in a soft but very distinct undertone, "a man was murdered late at night in the heart of the city--within one hundred yards of the Stock Exchange. The papers called it a mysterious murder. No one knows who the man was, or who committed the crime, or why. You and I, Laverick, both know a little more than the rest of the world."

"Well?"

"The murder," Bellamy continued, with a strange light in his eyes, "was accomplished only a stone's throw from your office."

Laverick lit a cigarette and threw the match away.

"Horrible affair it was," he remarked.

Bellamy glanced toward the door,--a man had looked in and departed.

"Enough of this fencing, Laverick," he said. "A theft was committed from the person of that murdered man, of which the general public knows nothing. A pocketbook was stolen from him containing twenty thousand pounds and a sealed doc.u.ment. As to who murdered the man, I want you to understand that that is not my affair. As to what has become of that twenty thousand pounds, I have not the slightest curiosity. I want the doc.u.ment."

"What claim have you to it?" Laverick asked quickly.

"I might retort, but I will not," Bellamy replied. "Time is too short. I will answer you by explaining who the man was and what that doc.u.ment consists of. The man's name was Von Behrling, and he was a trusted agent of the Austrian Secret Service. The doc.u.ment of which he was robbed contains a verbatim report of the conference which recently took place at Vienna between the Emperor of Germany, the Emperor of Austria, and the Czar of Russia. It contains the details of a plot against this country and the undertakings entered into by those several Powers. I want that doc.u.ment, Laverick. Have I established my claim?"

"You have," Laverick answered. "Why on earth Didn't you come to me before? Don't you believe that I should have listened to you as readily as to Mademoiselle Idiale?"

"I wish that I had come," Bellamy admitted, "and yet, here is the truth, Laverick, because the truth is best. Twenty-two years lie between us and the time when we knew anything of one another. To me, therefore, you are a stranger. I had my spies following Von Behrling that night. I know that you took the pocket-book from his dead body. If you did not murder him yourself, the deed was done by an accomplice of yours. How was I to trust you? We are speaking naked words, my friend. We are dealing with naked truths. To me you were a murderer and a thief. A word from me and you would have realized the value of that doc.u.ment. I tell you frankly that Austria would give you almost any sum for it to-day."

Laverick, strong man though he was, was conscious of a sudden weakness. He raised his hand to his forehead and drew it away--wet.

He struggled desperately for self-control.

"Bellamy," he said, "here's truth for truth. I am not on my trial before you. Believe me, man, for G.o.d's sake!"

"I'll try," Bellamy promised. "Go on."

"That night I stayed at my office late because I saw ruin before me on the morrow. I left it meaning to go straight home. I lit a cigarette near that entry, and by the light of a match, as I was throwing it away, I saw the murdered man. I think for a time I was paralyzed. The pocket-book was half dragged out from his pocket.

Why I looked inside it I don't know. I had some sort of wild idea that I must find out who he was. Mind you, though, I should have given the alarm at once, but there wasn't a soul in the street.

There was a man lurking in the entry and I chased him, unsuccessfully.

When I came back, the body was still there and the street empty. I looked inside that pocket-book, which would have been in the possession of his murderer but for my unexpected appearance. I saw the notes there. Once more I went out into the street. I gave no alarm,--I am not attempting to explain why. I was like a man made suddenly mad. I went back to my office and shut myself in."

Bellamy pointed to the gla.s.ses silently. The waiter came forward and refilled them.

"Bellamy," Laverick continued, "your career and mine lie far apart, and yet, at their backbone, as there is at the backbone of every man's life, there must be something of the same sort of ambition.

My grandfather lived and died a member of the Stock Exchange, honored and well thought of. My father followed in his footsteps. I, too, was there. Without becoming wealthy, the name I bear has become known and respected. Failure, whatever one may say, means a broken life and a broken honor. I sat in my office and I knew that the use of those notes for a few days might save me from disgrace, might keep the name, which my father and grandfather had guarded so jealously, free from shame. I would have paid any price for the use of them. I would have paid with my life, if that had been possible.