Part 34 (1/2)
”Make it twenty-five pounds,” said Donovan. ”I'd be ashamed to offer less to a Tammany boss.”
”Very good, sir, just as you please, sir.”
”Right,” said Donovan. ”And now we've got that settled, and we've three-quarters of an hour to spare, before the bombardment is timed to begin. There are one or two points I'd like to have cleared up. But I wish you'd sit down, Smith, and take a cigar. As head of the Intelligence Department of this kingdom----”
”If you're quite sure, sir, that there isn't anything you want me to fetch. A drink, sir?”
”Not for me,” said Donovan. ”I want to talk.”
Smith sat down, stretched himself comfortably in a deep chair and lit a cigar.
”What's the Emperor's game?” said Donovan. ”What's he after? What the h.e.l.l does he mean by monkeying round this island ever since I bought it?”
”Well,” said Smith, ”I haven't got what you could call official knowledge of the Emperor's plans. My orders came to me through Steinwitz, and Steinwitz doesn't talk unnecessarily.”
The servant manner and the c.o.c.kney accent disappeared when Smith sat down. He talked to Donovan as one man of the world to another.
”Still,” said Donovan, ”you've got some sort of idea.”
”Last December,” said Smith, ”I was in London keeping an eye on King Konrad Karl. The Emperor liked to know what he was doing. One day I got orders to take delivery of some large cisterns from a firm in Germany, paying for them by cheque drawn on my own account. They were consigned to me as water cisterns. My business was to s.h.i.+p them to Hamburg and hand them over to Captain von Moll. That's all I was told.
But I happened to find out what von Moll's orders were. He was to land those cisterns in Salissa. I satisfied myself that they were here as soon as I arrived with you on the _Ida_. Von Moll concealed them very well; but he was a bit careless in other ways. He seems to have lived in the palace while he was here and he left some papers lying about, torn up but not burnt. One of them was a letter from Steinwitz.
Phillips, the officer of the _Ida_, had his eye on those papers. I swept them up and destroyed them.”
”And the cisterns?” said Donovan. ”What are they for?”
”If you consider the geographical position of Salissa, you'll see in a moment. The island lies a bit off the main steamer route between Ma.r.s.eilles and the Suez Ca.n.a.l; but not too far off. Now I happen to know that the Emperor places great reliance on submarines. In the event of a war with England he depends on submarines to cut the trade routes and sink transports. But submarines operating in the Mediterranean require bases of supply.”
”Petrol?” said Gorman.
”And spare parts,” said Smith. ”That was the idea, I think. So long as the island was under the Crown of Megalia there was no difficulty.
Megalia wasn't in a position to interfere with the Emperor's plans.”
”The Megalian navy certainly isn't first-rate,” said Donovan.
”But when you purchased the island,” Smith went on, ”things were different. You might object to the use the Emperor proposed to make of it. Your Government might have backed you up. How far do you think your Government will back you?”
”Darned little,” said Donovan.
”So Steinwitz seemed to think. But the Emperor wasn't taking any unnecessary risks. He preferred that the island should return to the Crown of Megalia. I think that's the whole story so far as I know it.
Perhaps now I ought to be getting off to see that admiral.”
”You can make sure of managing him, I suppose,” said Donovan.
”Oh, yes. But it may take a little time. He'll want to talk and I must consider his self-respect.”
”Quite so,” said Donovan. ”We all like to keep our self-respect, even admirals.”