Inside the Lines (Biggers and Ritchie)/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX
ROOM D
WOODHOUSE hurried to Jane Gerson's side and began to speak swiftly and earnestly:
"You are from the States?"
A shrug was her answer. The girl's face was averted, and in the defiant set of her shoulders Woodhouse found little promise of pardon for the incident of the minute before. He persisted:
"This war means nothing to you—one side or the other?"
"I have equal pity for them both," she answered in a low voice.
"We are living in dangerous times," he continued earnestly. "I tell you frankly, were the fact that you and I had met before to become known here on the Rock the consequences would be most—inconvenient—for me." Jane turned and looked searchingly into his face. Something in the tone rather than the words roused her quick sympathy. Woodhouse kept on:
"I am sorry I had to deny that former meeting just now—that meeting which has been with me in such vivid memory. I regret that were you to allude to it again I would have to deny it still more emphatically."
"I'm sure I shan't mention it again," the girl broke in shortly.
"Perhaps since it means so little to you—your silence—perhaps you will do me that favor, Miss Gerson."
"Certainly." Woodhouse could see that anger still tinged her speech.
"May I go further—and ask you to—promise?" A shadow of annoyance creased her brow, but she nodded.
"That is very good of you," he thanked her. "Shall you be long on the Rock?"
"No longer than I have to. I'm sailing on the first boat for the States," she answered.
"Then I am in luck—to-night." Woodhouse tried to speak easily, though Jane Gerson's attitude was distant. "Meeting you again—that's luck."
"To judge by what you have just said it just be instead a great misfortune," she retorted, with a slow smile.
"That is not fair. You know what I mean. Don't imagine I've really forgotten our first meeting under happier conditions than these. I know I'm not clever—I can't make it sound as I would—but I've thought a great deal of you. Miss Gerson—wondering how you were making it in this great war. Perhaps"
Aimer returned at this juncture with the change, which he handed to Woodhouse. He was followed in by Lady Crandall, who assured Jane her hampers were securely strapped to the dog-cart. Jane attempted an introduction.
"This gentleman has just done me a service, Lady Crandall. May I present"
"So sorry. You don't know my name. My clumsiness. Captain Woodhouse." The man bridged the dangerous gap hurriedly. Lady Crandall acknowledged the introduction with a gracious smile.
"Your husband is Sir George" he began.
"Yes, Sir George Crandall, Governor-general of the Rock. And you"
"Quite a recent comer. Transferred from the Nile country here. Report to-morrow."
"All of the new officers have to report to the governor's wife as well," Lady Crandall rallied, with a glance at Jane. "You must come and see me—and Miss Gerson, who will be with me until her boat sails."
Woodhouse caught his breath. Jane Gerson, who knew him, at the governor's home! But he mastered himself in a second and bowed his thanks. Lady Crandall was moving toward the door. Her ward turned and held out a hand to Woodhouse.
"So good of you to have straightened out my finances," she said, with a smile in which the man hoped he read full forgiveness for his denial of a few minutes before. "If you're ever in America I hope" He looked up quickly. "I hope somebody will be as nice to you. Good night."
Woodhouse and Almer were alone in the mongrel reception room. The hour was late. Almer began sliding folding wooden shutters across the back of the street windows. Woodhouse lingered over the excuse of a final cigarette, knowing the moment for his rapprochement with his fellow Wilhelmstrasse spy was at hand. He was more distraught than he cared to admit even to himself. The day's developments had been startling. First the stunning encounter with Capper there on the very Rock that was to be the scene of his delicate operations—Capper, whom he had thought sunk in the oblivion of some Alexandrian wine shop, but who had followed him on the Princess Mary. The fellow had deliberately cast himself into' his notice, Woodhouse reflected; there had been menace and insolent hint of a power to harm in his sneering objurgation that Woodhouse should remember his name against a second meeting. "Capper—never heard the name in Alexandria, eh?" What could he mean by that if not that somehow the little ferret had learned of his visit to the home of Doctor Koch? And that meant—why, Capper in Gibraltar was as dangerous as a coiled cobra!
Then the unexpected meeting with Jane Gerson, the little American he had mourned as lost in the fury of the war. Ah, that was a joy not unmixed with regrets! What did she think of him? First, he had been forced coldly to deny the acquaintance that had meant much to him in moments of recollection; then, he had attempted a lame explanation, which explained nothing and must have left her more mystified than before. In fact, he had frankly thrown himself on the mercy of a girl on whom he had not the shadow of claim beyond the poor equity of a chance friendship—an incident she might consider as merely one of a day's travel as far as he could know. He had stood before her caught in a deceit, for on the occasion of that never-to-be-forgotten ride from Calais to Paris he had represented himself as hurrying back to Egypt, and here she found him still out of uniform and in a hotel in Gibraltar.
Beyond all this, Jane Gerson was going to the governor's house as a guest. She, whom he had forced, ever so cavalierly, into a promise to keep secret her half knowledge of the double game he was playing, was going to be on the intimate ground of associatiton with the one man in Gibraltar who by a crook of his finger could end suspicion by a firing squad. This breezy little baggage from New York carried his life balanced on the rosy tip of her tongue. She could be careless or she could be indifferent; in either case it would be bandaged eyes and the click of shells going home for him.
It was Almer who interrupted Woodhouse's troubled train of thought.
"Captain Woodhouse will report for signal duty on the Rock to-morrow, I suppose?" he insinuated, coming down to where Woodhouse was standing before the fireplace. He made a show of tidying up the scattered magazines and folders on the table.
"Report for signal duty?" the other echoed coldly. "How did you know I was to report for signal duty here?"
"In the press a few weeks ago," the hotel keeper hastily explained. "Your transfer from the Nile country was announced. We poor people here in Gibraltar, we have so little to think about, even such small details of news"
"Ah, yes. Quite so." Woodhouse tapped back a yawn.
"Your journey here from your station on the Nile—it was without incident?" Almer eyed his guest closely. The latter permitted his eyes to rest on Almer's for a minute before replying.
"Quite." Woodhouse threw his cigarette in the fireplace and started for the stairs.
"Ah, most unusual—such a long journey without incident of any kind in this time of universal war, with all Europe gone mad." Almer was twiddling the combination of a small safe set in the wall by the fireplace, and his chatter seemed only incidental to the absorbing work he had at hand. "How will the madness end. Captain Woodhouse? What will be the boundary lines of Europe's nations in—say, 1932?"
Almer rose as he said this and turned to look squarely into the other's face. Woodhouse met his gaze steadily and without betraying the slightest emotion.
"In 1932—I wonder," he mused, and into his speech unconsciously appeared that throaty intonation of the Teutonic tongue.
"Don't go yet. Captain Woodhouse. Before you retire I want you to sample some of this brandy." He brought out of the safe a short squat bottle and glasses. "See, I keep it in the safe, so precious it is. Drink with me. Captain, to the monarch you have come to Gibraltar to serve—to his majesty, King George the Fifth!"
Almer lifted his glass, but Woodhouse appeared wrapped in thought; his hand did not go up.
"I see you do not drink to that toast. Captain."
"No—I was thinking—of 1932."
"So?" Quick as a flash Almer caught him up. "Then perhaps I had better say, drink to the greatest monarch in Europe."
"To the greatest monarch in Europe!" Woodhouse lifted his glass and drained it.
Almer leaned suddenly across the table and spoke tensely: "You have—something maybe—I would like to see. Some little relic of Alexandria, let us say."
Woodhouse swept a quick glance around, then reached for the pin in his tie.
"A scarab; that's all."
In the space of a breath Almer had seen what lay in the back of the stone beetle. He gripped Woodhouse's hand fervently.
"Yes—yes. Nineteen Thirty-two! They have told me of your coming. A cablegram from Koch only this afternoon said you would be on the Princess Mary. The other—the real Woodhouse—there will be no slips; he will not"
"He is as good as a dead man for many months," Woodhouse interrupted. "Not a chance of a mistake." He slipped easily into German. "Everything depends on us now, Herr Almer."
"Perhaps the fate of our fatherland," Almer replied, cleaving to English. Woodhouse stepped suddenly away from the side of the table, against which he had been leaning, and his right hand jerked back to a concealed holster on his hip. His eyes were hot with suspicion.
"You do not answer in German; why not? Answer me in German or by"
"Ach! What need to become excited?" Almer drew back hastily, and his tongue speedily switched to German. "German is dangerous here on the Rock, Captain. Only yesterday they shot a man against a wall because he spoke German too well. Do you wonder I try to forget our native tongue?"
Woodhouse was mollified, and he smiled apologetically. Almer forgave him out of admiration for his discretion.
"No need to suspect me—Almer. They will tell you in Berlin how for twenty years I have served the Wilhelmstrasse. But never before such an opportunity—such an opportunity. Stupendous!" Woodhouse nodded enthusiastic affirmation. "But to business, Nineteen Thirty-two. This Captain Woodhouse some seven years ago was stationed here on the Rock for just three months."
"So I know."
"You, as Woodhouse, will be expected to have some knowledge of the signal tower, to which you will have access." Almer climbed a chair on the opposite side of the room, threw open the face of the old Dutch clock there, and removed from its interior a thin roll of blue drafting paper. He put it in Woodhouse's hands. "Here are a few plans of the interior of the signal tower—the best I could get. You will study them to-night; but give me your word to burn them before you sleep."
"Very good." Woodhouse slipped the roll into the breast pocket of his coat. Almer leaned forward in a gust of excitement, and, bringing his mouth close to the other's ear, whispered hoarsely:
"England's Mediterranean fleet—twenty-two dreadnaughts, with cruisers and destroyers—nearly a half of Britain's navy, will be here any day, hurrying back to guard the Channel. They will anchor in the straits. Our big moment—it will be here then! Listen! Room D in the signal tower—that is the room. All the electric switches are there. From Room D every mine in the harbor can be exploded in ten seconds."
"Yes, but how to get to Room D?" Woodhouse queried.
"Simple. Two doors to Room D, Captain; an outer door like any other; an inner door of steel, protected by a combination lock like a vault's door. Two men on the Rock have that combination: Major Bishop, chief signal officer, he has in it his head; the governor-general of the Rock, he has it in his safe."
"We can get it out of the safe easier than from Major Bishop's head," Woodhouse put in, with a smile.
"Right. We have a friend—in the governor's own house—a man with a number from the Wilhelmstrasse like you and me. At any moment in the last two months he could have laid a hand on that combination. But we thought it better to wait until necessity came. When the fleet arrives you will have that combination; you will go with it to Room D, and after that"
"The deluge," the other finished.
"Yes—yes! Our country master of the sea at last, and by the work of the Wilhelmstrasse—despised spies who are shot like dogs when they're caught, but die heroes' deaths." The hotel proprietor checked himself in the midst of his rhapsody, and came back to more practical details:
"But this afternoon—that man from Alexandria who called you by name. That looked bad—very bad. He knows something?"
Woodhouse, who had been expecting the question, and who preferred not to share an anxiety he felt himself best fitted to cope with alone, turned the other's question aside:
"Never met him before in my life to my best recollection. My name he picked up on the Princess Mary, of course; I won a pool one day, and he may have heard some one mention it. Simply a drunken brawler who didn't know what he was doing."
Almer seemed satisfied, but raised another point:
"But the girl who has just left here; am I to have no explanation of her?"
"What explanation do you want?" the captain demanded curtly.
"She recognized you. Who is she? What is she?"
"Devilish unfortunate," Woodhouse admitted. "We met a few weeks ago on a train, while I was on my way to Egypt, you know. Chatted together—oh, very informally. She is a capable young woman from the States—a 'buyer' she calls herself. But I don't think we need fear complications from that score; she's bent only on getting home."
"The situation is dangerous," urged Almer, wagging his head. "She is stopping at the governor's house; any reference she might make about meeting you on a train on the Continent when you were supposed to be at Wady Haifa on the Nile"
"I have her promise she will not mention that meeting to anybody."
"Ach! A woman's promise!" Almer's eyes invoked Heaven to witness a futile thing. "She seemed rather glad to see you again; I"
"Really?" Woodhouse's eyes lighted.
The Splendide's proprietor was pacing the floor as fast as his fat legs would let him. "Something must be done," he muttered again and again. He halted abruptly before Woodhouse, and launched a thick forefinger at him like a torpedo.
"You must make love to that girl. Woodhouse, to keep her on our side," was his ultimatum.
Woodhouse regarded him quizzically, leaned forward, and whispered significantly.
"I'm already doing it," he said.