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

ascertained. Give me your best attention, Meyer. Here is again an important commission for you. Within the next few days, hire an automobile and visit the rising country eastwards from Antwerp. At some spot between six and eight miles from the city, on a slight incline and commanding the River Scheldt, we desire to purchase an acre of land for the erection of a factory. You can say that we have purchased the concession for making an American safety razor. The land is wanted, and urgently. See to this yourself and send plans and price to me in London. On my return I shall call and inspect the sites and close the bargain.”

      “And the Antwerp forts?”

      The other pursed his lips.

      “Pooh! Was it not the glorious firm of Krupp who fitted the guns there? Do you think the men who undertook that task were idle? I tell you that our plans of the Antwerp fortifications are more carefully worked out in detail than the plans held by the Belgians themselves. Here is good work for you to do, friend Meyer. That and the particulars from Brussels which you know of, will keep you busy until we meet again.”

      Herr Selingman began to collect his papers, but was suddenly thrown back into his seat by the rocking of the train, which came, a few moments later, to a standstill. The sound of the opening of windows from the other side of the corridor was heard all down the train. Selingman and his companion followed the general example, opening the door of the carriage and the window opposite. A draught blew through the compartment. One of the small folded slips of paper from Selingman’s pocket-book fluttered along the seat. It came within reach of Norgate. Cautiously he stretched out his fingers and gripped it. In a moment it was in his pocket. He sat up in his place. Selingman had turned around.

      “Anything the matter?” Norgate asked sleepily.

      “Not that one can gather,” Selingman replied. “You have slept well. I am glad that our conversation has not disturbed you. This is my agent from Brussels—Mr. Meyer. He sells our crockery in that city—not so much as he should sell, perhaps, but still he does his best.”

      Mr. Meyer was a dark little man who wore gold-rimmed spectacles, neat clothes, and a timid smile. Norgate nodded to him good-humouredly.

      “You should get Herr Selingman to come oftener and help you,” he remarked, yawning. “I can imagine that he would be able to sell anything he tried to.”

      “It is what I often tell him, sir,” Mr. Meyer replied, “but he is too fond of the English trade.”

      “English money is no better than Belgian,” Herr Selingman declared, “but there is more of it. Let us go round to the restaurant car and drink a bottle of wine together while the beds are prepared.”

      “Certainly,” Norgate assented, stretching himself. “By-the-by, you had better look after your papers there, Herr Selingman. Just as I woke up I saw a small slip fluttering along the seat. You made a most infernal draught by opening that door, and I almost fancy it went out of the window.”

      Herr Selingman’s face became suddenly grave. He went through the papers one by one, and finally locked them up in his bag.

      “Nothing missing, I hope?” Norgate asked.

      Herr Selingman’s face was troubled.

      “I am not sure,” he said. “It is my belief that I had with me here a list of my agents in England. I cannot find it. In a sense it is unimportant, yet if a rival firm should obtain possession of it, there might be trouble.”

      Norgate looked out into the night and smiled.

      “Considering that it is blowing half a hurricane and commencing to rain,” he remarked, “the slip of paper which I saw blowing about will be of no use to any one when it is picked up.”

      They called the attendant and ordered him to prepare the sleeping berths. Then they made their way down to the buffet car, and Herr Selingman ordered a bottle of wine.

      “We will drink,” he proposed, “to our three countries. In our way we represent, I think, the industrial forces of the world—Belgium, England, and Germany. We are the three countries who stand for commerce and peace. We will drink prosperity to ourselves and to each other.”

      Norgate threw off, with apparent effort, his sleepiness.

      “What you have said about our three countries is very true,” he remarked. “Perhaps as you, Mr. Meyer, are a Belgian, and you, Mr. Selingman, know Belgium well and have connections with it, you can tell me one thing which has always puzzled me. Why is it that Belgium, which is, as you say, a commercial and peace-loving country, whose neutrality is absolutely guaranteed by three of the greatest Powers in Europe, should find it necessary to have spent such large sums upon fortifications?”

      “In which direction do you mean?” Selingman asked, his eyes narrowing a little as he looked across at Norgate.

      “The forts of Liege and Namur,” Norgate replied, “and Antwerp. I know nothing more about it than I gathered from an article which I read not long ago in a magazine. I had always looked upon Belgium as being outside the pale of possible warfare, yet according to this article it seems to be bristling to the teeth with armaments.”

      Herr Selingman cleared his throat.

      “I will tell you the reason,” he said. “You have come to the right man to know. I am a civilian, but there are few things in connection with my country which I do not understand. Mr. Meyer here, who is a citizen of Brussels, will bear me out. It is the book of a clever, intelligent, but misguided German writer which has been responsible for Belgium’s unrest—Bernhardi’s Germany and the Next War—that and articles of a similar tenor which preceded it.”

      “Never read any of them,” Norgate remarked.

      “It was erroneously supposed,” Selingman continued, “that Bernhardi represented the dominant military opinion of Germany when he wrote that if Germany ever again invaded France, it would be, notwithstanding her guarantees of neutrality, through Belgium. Bernhardi was a clever writer, but he was a soldier, and soldiers do not understand the world policy of a great nation such as Germany. Germany will make no war upon any one, save commercially. She will never again invade France except under the bitterest provocation, and if ever she should be driven to defend herself, it will assuredly not be at the expense of her broken pledges. The forts of Belgium might just as well be converted into apple-orchards. They stand there to-day as the proof of a certain lack of faith in Germany on the part of Belgium, ministered to by that King of the Jingoes, as you would say in English, Bernhardi. How often it is that a nation suffers most from her own patriots!”

      “Herr Selingman has expressed the situation admirably,” Mr. Meyer declared approvingly.

      “Very interesting, I’m sure,” Norgate murmured. “There is one thing about you foreigners,” he added, with an envious sigh. “The way you all speak the languages of other countries is wonderful. Are you a Belgian, Mr. Meyer?”

      “Half Belgian and half French.”

      “But you speak English almost without accent,” Norgate remarked.

      “In commerce,” Herr Selingman insisted, “that is necessary. All my agents speak four languages.”

      “You deserve to capture our trade,” Norgate sighed.

      “To a certain extent, my young friend,” Selingman declared, “we mean to do it. We are doing it. And yet there is enough for us both. There is trade enough for your millions and for mine. So long as Germany and England remain friends, they can divide the commerce of the world between them. It is our greatest happiness, we who have a business relying upon the good-will of the two nations, to think that year by year the clouds of discord are rolling away from between us. Young sir, as a German citizen, I will drink a toast with you, an English one. I drink to everlasting peace between my country and yours!”

      Norgate drained his glass. Selingman threw back his head as he followed suit, and smacked his lips appreciatively.

      “And now,” the former remarked, rising to his feet, “I