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

occupations of which you speak?”

      “And in a general way,” Mr. Tyritt assented, smiling, “they are perfectly welcome to write home to their friends and relations each week and tell them everything they see happening about them, everything they know about us.”

      Norgate rose reluctantly to his feet.

      “I won’t trouble you any longer,” he decided. “I presume that if I make a few investigations on my own account, and bring you absolute proof that any one of these people whose names are upon my list are in traitorous communication with Germany, you will view the matter differently?”

      “Without a doubt,” Mr. Tyritt promised. “Is that your list? Will you allow me to glance through it?”

      “I brought it here to leave in your hands,” Norgate replied, passing it over. “Your attitude, however, seems to render that course useless.”

      Mr. Tyritt adjusted his eyeglasses and glanced benevolently at the document. A sharp ejaculation broke from his lips. As his eyes wandered downwards, his first expression of incredulity gave way to one of suppressed amusement.

      “Why, Mr. Norgate,” he exclaimed, as he laid it down, “do you mean to seriously accuse these people of being engaged in any sort of league against us?”

      “Most certainly I do,” Norgate insisted.

      “But the thing is ridiculous!” Mr. Tyritt declared. “There are names here of princes, of bankers, of society women, many of them wholly and entirely English, some of them household names. You expect me to believe that these people are all linked together in what amounts to a conspiracy to further the cause of Germany at the expense of the country in which they live, to which they belong?”

      Norgate picked up his hat.

      “I expect you to believe nothing, Mr. Tyritt,” he said drily. “Sorry I troubled you.”

      “Not at all,” Mr. Tyritt protested, the slight irritation passing from his manner. “Such a visit as yours is an agreeable break in my routine work. I feel as though I might be a character in a great modern romance. The names of your amateur criminals are still tingling in my memory.”

      Norgate turned back from the door.

      “Remember them, if you can, Mr. Tyritt,” he advised, “You may have cause to, some day.”

      CHAPTER VII

       Table of Contents

      Norgate sat, the following afternoon, upon the leather- stuffed fender of a fashionable mixed bridge club in the neighbourhood of Berkeley Square, exchanging greetings with such of the members as were disposed to find time for social amenities. A smartly-dressed woman of dark complexion and slightly foreign appearance, who had just cut out of a rubber, came over and seated herself by his side. She took a cigarette from her case and accepted a match from Norgate.

      “So you are really back again!” she murmured. “It scarcely seems possible.”

      “I am just beginning to realise it myself,” he replied. “You haven’t altered, Bertha.”

      “My dear man,” she protested, “you did not expect me to age in a month, did you? It can scarcely be more than that since you left for Berlin. Are you not back again sooner than you expected?”

      Norgate nodded.

      “Very much sooner,” he admitted. “I came in for some unexpected leave, which I haven’t the slightest intention of spending abroad, so here I am.”

      “Not, apparently, in love with Berlin,” the lady, whose name was Mrs. Paston Benedek, remarked.

      Norgate’s air of complete candour was very well assumed.

      “I shall never be a success as a diplomatist,” he confessed. “When I dislike a place or a person, every one knows it. I hated Berlin. I hate the thought of going back again.”

      The woman by his side smiled enigmatically.

      “Perhaps,” she murmured, “you may get an exchange.”

      “Perhaps,” Norgate assented. “Meanwhile, even a month away from London seems to have brought a fresh set of people here. Who is the tall, thin young man with the sunburnt face? He seems familiar, somehow, but I can’t place him.”

      “He is a sailor,” she told him. “Captain Baring his name is.”

      “Friend of yours?”

      She looked at him sidewise.

      “Why do you ask?”

      “Jealousy,” Norgate sighed, “makes one observant. You were lunching with him in the Carlton Grill. You came in with him to the club this afternoon.”

      “Sherlock Holmes!” she murmured. “There are other men in the club with whom I lunch—even dine.”

      Norgate glanced across the room. Baring was playing bridge at a table close at hand, but his attention seemed to be abstracted. He looked often towards where Mrs. Benedek sat. There was a restlessness about his manner scarcely in keeping with the rest of his appearance.

      “One misses a great deal,” Norgate regretted, “through being only an occasional visitor here.”

      “As, for instance?”

      “The privilege of being one of those fortunate few.”

      She laughed at him. Her eyes were full of challenge. She leaned a little closer and whispered in his ear: “There is still a vacant place.”

      “For to-night or to-morrow?” he asked eagerly.

      “For to-morrow,” she replied. “You may telephone—3702 Mayfair—at ten o’clock.”

      He scribbled down the number. Then he put his pocket-book away with a sigh.

      “I’m afraid you are treating that poor sailor-man badly,” he declared.

      “Sometimes,” she confided, “he bores me. He is so very much in earnest. Tell me about Berlin and your work there?”

      “I didn’t take to Germany,” Norgate confessed, “and Germany didn’t take to me. Between ourselves—I shouldn’t like another soul in the club to know it—I think it is very doubtful if I go back there.”

      “That little contretemps with the Prince,” she murmured under her breath.

      He stiffened at once.

      “But how do you know of it?”

      She bit her lip. For a moment a frown of annoyance clouded her face. She had said more than she intended.

      “I have correspondents in Berlin,” she explained. “They tell me of everything. I have a friend, in fact, who was in the restaurant that night.”

      “What a coincidence!” he exclaimed.

      She nodded and selected a fresh cigarette.

      “Isn’t it! But that table is up. I promised to cut in there. Captain Baring likes me to play at the same table, and he is here for such a short time that one tries to be kind. It is indeed kindness,” she added, taking up her gold purse and belongings, “for he plays so badly.”

      She moved towards the table. It happened to be Baring who cut out, and he and Norgate drifted together. They exchanged a few remarks.

      “I met you at Marseilles once,” Norgate reminded him. “You were with the Mediterranean Squadron, commanding the Leicester, I believe.”

      “Thought I’d seen you somewhere before,” was the prompt acknowledgment. “You’re in the Diplomatic Service, aren’t you?”

      Norgate