Part 4 (1/2)
”Luckily Edestone invited me to dine with him tonight before I had a chance to invite him,” he said, ”but I will persuade him to come here and dine with me.”
”So, Mr. Bombiadi,” he turned to the proprietor, ”I shall want dinner here for four at 8:30. See to it yourself, will you, that my guests are brought through my private entrance, and one especially--you know who--who will be incognito, must not be recognized. Not that there could be any objection to these men dining with me here--a common rich American, who loves to spend his money on princes and things--but by tonight this man Edestone will be watched by at least twenty men from Scotland Yard, and they suspect anyone of being a German spy, be he prince or pauper.”
Their conversation was interrupted at this point by the arrival of Smith, who came in very much excited. Sniffling and rubbing his nose with the back of his forefinger, like a nervous cocaine fiend, he broke out agitatedly:
”Mr. Rebener, I'm getting sick of this job. When I undertook to find out for you what was going on at the Little Place in the Country, I was working for Germany as against the world, and anything that I can do for her I am glad and proud to do, but that Hottenroth talks like a d.a.m.n fool. Excuse me, Mr. Rebener, but he don't want to stop at anything. He says that if he pulls off this thing the Emperor, when he gets to London, will make him Duke of Westminster, or something, and six months from now he will appoint me Governor-General of North America. I tell you, Mr. Rebener, that fellow is plumb nutty.”
”Pardon me, Mr. Rebener,” interposed the proprietor, ”it is true that Hottenroth is excitable, but he is faithful to the Fatherland and an humble servant to His Imperial Majesty. He has been in charge of a fixed post in London for fifteen years. He was one of the very first to be sent here, and he was in Paris before that. He would die willingly for the Fatherland, as would I, and if this Schmidt, I mean Smith, thinks there is any sin too great to be committed for the Fatherland, he is not worthy of a place among us, and the sooner we get rid of him the better.” And he looked at the unfortunate Smith in a way that showed he was willing to do this at any moment.
But Rebener, who had lived all his life in America, and like Smith did not thoroughly agree with the philosophy of German militarism--before which everything must bow--hurriedly raised his hand.
”Come, come, you are both getting unnecessarily excited. Don't let us try to cross our bridges until we get to them. What did von Hottenroth have to report?”
”It was not very satisfactory, to tell you the truth, Mr. Rebener,”
said Smith; ”they searched through all of his things and they found nothing but a drawing of a Zeppelin of our 29-M type, with some slight changes, which Hottenroth said don't amount to anything, and some photographs of Mr. Edestone himself, doing some juggling tricks with heavy dumb-bells and weights, but we learned afterwards from the porter that an expressman had left two large and heavy trunks marked, 'A. M. Black and P. S. Stanton,' at No. 4141 Grosvenor Square East.”
”Well what is the report,” demanded Bombiadi, ”on No. 4141 Grosvenor Square?”
Smith read from a memorandum book: ”Lord Lindenberry, who is a widower, lives there with his mother, the Dowager. The old lady is now up at their country place, in Yorks.h.i.+re, and the Marquis went on to Aldershot last night after having dined with Edestone at Brooks's and dropping him at Claridge's at 12:15 A.M. The house is only partially opened; there are only a few of the old servants there.”
”And do you think these trunks contain the instrument which you reported to us from America was always kept in the safe at the Little Place in the Country?” snapped the hotel proprietor.
”I don't know,” whined Smith. ”Mr. Edestone probably has it with him.”
”Well, we must get hold of it before he shows it to Underhill,”
frowned the proprietor, ”that is, if it has not been shown already, and in that case we must get hold of Edestone himself.”
”Now that is exactly what is troubling me,” Smith's voice rose hysterically. ”I'm not going to stand for any of that rough stuff, Mr. Rebener. Mr. Edestone and his father have both been mighty good to me, and if anything happens to him I'll blow on the whole lot of you.”
”So?” The proprietor's pale fat face was convulsed with a look of hatred and contempt. ”Then we are to understand, Smith, that if we find it necessary to do away with Edestone you wish to go first? You dirty little half-breed,” he growled in an undertone. ”Your mother must have been an English woman.”
”Here, here, you two fools!” Rebener broke in with sharp authority, ”there is no question of 'doing away' with Edestone, as you call it. What we're after is the invention and not the man himself, and we'll not get it by 'doing away' with him. I am, like Smith here, opposed to murder, even for the Fatherland.”
”But it is not murder, Mr. Rebener,” interrupted the proprietor, ”if thereby we are instrumental in saving thousands of the sons of the Fatherland.”
”That would not only not save the sons of the Fatherland, but would put an end to our usefulness, both here in London and in America, especially if Edestone has already turned the whole thing over to England. The very first thing for us to do is to find out how the matter stands. If the Ministry knows nothing, we must work to get him to Berlin, and then even you fire-eaters may safely trust it to the Wilhelmstra.s.se. If it should happen, however, that the British Government has the invention, His Royal Highness tonight will try to get enough out of Edestone to enlighten Berlin, and in that way we shall at least get an even break. That is, always provided that Edestone has not a lot of the completed articles, whatever they may be, at the Little Place in the Country. That would put us in bad again, and it will be up to Count Bernstoff to attend to it from the New York end.”
”Of course, Mr. Rebener,” said the proprietor, ”we can do nothing until we hear from His Royal Highness, but I am satisfied that he will say Edestone must not be allowed to go to Downing Street tomorrow to continue his negotiations, unless in some way we can get hold of this secret tonight.”
”Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned if I'll--!” started Rebener angrily, when he was interrupted by the proprietor, who holding his finger to his lip, said:
”Please, Mr. Rebener, please! Always remember that the service on which we are engaged has no soul and a very long arm.” Then dropping into the persuasive and servile tone of the _maitre d'hotel_: ”I propose, Mr. Rebener, that you allow me to send you up a nice little lunch, some melon, say, a _salmon mayonnaise_ or a _filet du sole au vin blanc_ and a _noisette d'agneau_ and a nice little sweet, and you must try a bottle of our Steinberger Auslese '84.
”And Smith,” he turned to the humbler agent, ”you had better get in touch with 4782, who is reporting to His Royal Highness every hour.
His last message was that Edestone is still with Underhill, so you get down to the Admiralty and report to me here as often as you can.
Edestone will probably lunch quietly alone somewhere, as I know that all of his friends are at the front, but don't lose him until you turn him over to Mr. Rebener tonight at 8 o'clock.” His eyes narrowed as they followed the skulking figure of the architect out of the room.