Tales of Mystery & Suspense: 25+ Thrillers in One Edition. E. Phillips Oppenheim

bottle of Moselle, filled two very beautiful glasses, passed one to his companion and raised the other.

      “To the Fatherland!” he said.

      “To the Fatherland!” Dominey repeated.

      They set down their glasses, empty. The Kaiser threw back the grey military cloak which he was wearing, displaying a long row of medals and decorations. His fingers still toyed with the stem of his wineglass. He seemed for a moment to lose himself in thought. His hard and somewhat cruel mouth was tightly closed; there was a slight frown upon his forehead. He was sitting upright, taking no advantage of the cushioned back of his easy-chair, his eyes a little screwed up, the frown deepening. For quite five minutes there was complete silence. One might have gathered that, turning aside from great matters, he had been devoting himself entirely to the scheme in which Dominey was concerned.

      “Von Ragastein,” he said at last, “I have sent for you to have a few words concerning your habitation in England. I wish you to receive your impressions of your mission from my own lips.”

      “Your Majesty does me great honour,” Dominey murmured.

      “I wish you to consider yourself,” the Kaiser continued, “as entirely removed from the limits, the authority and the duties of my espionage system. From you I look for other things. I desire you to enter into the spirit of your assumed position. As a typical English country gentleman I desire you to study the labour question, the Irish question, the progress of this National Service scheme, and other social movements of which you will receive notice in due time. I desire a list compiled of those writers who, in the Reviews, or by means of fiction, are encouraging the suspicions which I am inclined to fancy England has begun to entertain towards the Fatherland. These things are all on the fringe of your real mission. That, I believe, our admirable friend Seaman has already confided to you. It is to seek the friendship, if possible the intimacy, of Prince Terniloff.”

      The Kaiser paused, and once more his eyes wandered to the landscape which rolled away from the plate-glass windows of the car. They were certainly not the eyes of a dreamer, and yet in those moments they seemed filled with brooding pictures.

      “The Princess has already received me graciously,” Dominey confided.

      “Terniloff is the dove of peace,” the Kaiser pronounced. “He carries the sprig of olive in his mouth. My statesmen and counsellors would have sent to London an ambassador with sterner qualities. I preferred not. Terniloff is the man to gull fools, because he is a fool himself. He is a fit ambassador for a country which has not the wit to arm itself on land as well as by sea, when it sees a nation, mightier, more cultured, more splendidly led than its own, creeping closer every day.”

      “The English appear to put their whole trust in their navy, your Majesty,” Dominey observed tentatively.

      The eyes of his companion flashed. His lips curled contemptuously.

      “Fools!” he exclaimed. “Of what use will their navy be when my sword is once drawn, when I hold the coast towns of Calais and Boulogne, when my cannon command the Straits of Dover! The days of insular nations are passed, passed as surely as the days of England’s arrogant supremacy upon the seas.”

      The Kaiser refilled his glass and Dominey’s.

      “In some months’ time, Von Ragastein,” he continued, “you will understand why you have been enjoined to become the friend and companion of Terniloff. You will understand your mission a little more clearly than you do now. Its exact nature waits upon developments. You can at all times trust Seaman.”

      Dominey bowed and remained silent. His companion continued after another brief spell of silent brooding.

      “Von Ragastein,” he said, “my decree of banishment against you was a just one. The morals of my people are as sacred to me as my oath to win for them a mightier empire. You first of all betrayed the wife of one of the most influential noblemen of a State allied to my own, and then, in the duel that followed, you slew him.”

      “It was an accident, your Majesty,” Dominey pleaded. “I had no intention of even wounding the Prince.”

      The Kaiser frowned. All manner of excuses were loathsome to him.

      “The accident should have happened the other way,” he rejoined sharply. “I should have lost a valuable servant, but it was your life which was forfeit, and not his. Still, they tell me that your work in Africa was well and thoroughly done. I give you this one great chance of rehabilitation. If your work in England commends itself to me, the sentence of exile under which you suffer shall be rescinded.”

      “Your Majesty is too good,” Dominey murmured. “The work, for its own sake, will command my every effort, even without the hope of reward.”

      “That,” the Kaiser said, “is well spoken. It is the spirit, I believe, with which every son of my Empire regards the future. I think that they, too, more especially those who surround my person, have felt something of that divine message which has come to me. For many years I have, for the sake of my people, willed peace. Now that the time draws near when Heaven has shown me another duty, I have no fear but that every loyal German will bow his head before the lightnings which will play around my sword and share with me the iron will to wield it. Your audience is finished, Baron Von Ragastein. You will take your place with the gentlemen of my suite in the retiring-room. We shall proceed within a few minutes and leave you at the Belgian frontier.”

      Dominey rose, bowed stiffly and backed down the carpeted way. The Kaiser was already bending once more over the map. Seaman, who was waiting outside the door of the anteroom, called him in and introduced him to several members of the suite. One, a young man with a fixed monocle, scars upon his face, and a queer, puppet-like carriage, looked at him a little strangely.

      “We met some years ago in Munich, Baron,” he remarked.

      “I acknowledge no former meetings with any one in this country,” Dominey replied stiffly. “I obey the orders of my Imperial master when I wipe from my mind every episode or reminiscence of my former days.”

      The young man’s face cleared, and Seaman, by his side, who had knitted his brows thoughtfully, nodded understandingly.

      “You are certainly a good actor, Baron,” he declared. “Even your German has become a little English. Sit down and join us in a glass of beer. Luncheon will be served to us here in a few minutes. You will not be recalled to the Presence until we set you down.”

      Dominey bowed stiffly and took his place with the others. The train had already started. Dominey gazed thoughtfully out of the window. Seaman, who was waiting about for his audience, patted him on the arm.

      “Dear friend,” he said, “I sympathise with you. You sorrow because your back is now to Berlin. Still, remember this, that the day is not far off when the sentence of exile against you will be annulled. You will have expiated that crime which, believe me, although I do not venture to claim a place amongst them, none of your friends and equals have ever regarded in the same light as His Imperial Majesty.”

      A smiling steward, in black livery with white facings, made his appearance and served them with beer in tall glasses. The senior officer there, who had now seated himself opposite to Dominey, raised his glass and bowed.

      “To the Baron Von Ragastein,” he said, “whose acquaintance I regret not having made before to-day. May we soon welcome him back, a brother in arms, a companion in great deeds! Hoch!”

      CHAPTER XV

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      Sir Everard Dominey, Baronet, the latest and most popular recruit to Norfolk sporting society, stood one afternoon, some months after his return from Germany, at the corner of the long wood which stretched from the ridge of hills behind almost to the kitchen gardens of the Hall. At a reasonable distance on his left, four other guns were posted. On one side of him stood Middleton, leaning on