Chronicles of the Secret Service (11 page)

Speaking rapidly to the three men, he was answered by nods and grins. Sonia was picked up as though she had been a baby by the man she loathed so greatly. Tony was carried from the room by the other two. They were conveyed up a narrow staircase, into a back room on the first floor that contained nothing but a bedstead, on which was a heap of dirty linen and blankets, a couple of chairs and a cheap dressing table. They were deposited on the bed side by side, and Paul sat down to watch them. The other two men left the room.

The tramp had been escorted to a kitchen at the rear of the premises by the big, bearded man. He had been given a seat at a table; a glass and several bottles of beer placed before him. There seemed no doubt that Karen had developed a liking for the little man and had every intention of treating him well. The tramp’s eyes had gleamed at sight of the bottles. Without waiting for an invitation he had opened one and had proceeded to drink from it without bothering to use the glass. His escort had been greatly amused at this, and had nodded with genial approval. Apparently he spoke no English at all. Nevertheless he and the little man, with whom he presented such a striking contrast, had contrived to become quite friendly over the drinking bout that followed. By the time Karen appeared, to inform his ragged guest that he was ready to resume their game, the
bottles were empty. The tramp looked blissfully happy, though his drunkenness had not increased to any marked extent. He was obviously of the genre that, once intoxicated, can go on drinking without any appreciable difference to his degree of drunkenness. It is true his legs seemed inclined to refuse their function but, with the help of the hunchback and the other man, who turned out to be Ivan, hitherto described by Karen as his servant, he was taken back to the room where he and the Russian had already played the great game of Noughts and Crosses. Karen regarded him anxiously as he fell rather than sat in a chair.

‘I hope you are not too mooch bad to again play?’ he observed.

‘Too bad – me?’ returned the tramp. ‘Not on y’r life. I’m all ri’ – quite all ri’.’ He cast a bleary look at the couch. ‘Tha’s goo’,’ he commented, ‘dir’y aris’crats gone ’way. Goo’ rid’nce bad rub’sh. Don’ know wha’ you wan’ bring in tripe like tha’ fer.’

‘You’re quite right, my frien’. They were no good. It was stupid for me to be kind to them. Well, they have go home. Come! We will forget them and play – huh?’

‘Tha’s ri – we’ll play – an’ wha’s more, I’m goin’ beat yer – see?’

The diagram was drawn on the slate, and the two settled down solemnly to continue their absurd game. An hour passed by, and still they were at it. They had hardly spoken, except to utter exclamations or grunts of pleasure or disgust, according to the manner in which the games went. Karen continued to win the greater number though, despite his condition, the tramp proved a doughty opponent until, at last, after mumbling
drowsily and incoherently, he suddenly collapsed over the slate and fell asleep. The hunchback regarded his tousled head for a few moments then, with a sigh, rose to his feet. Crossing to the door, he summoned his confederates. They came, looking very much as though they themselves had been taking a nap. Karen addressed them in Russian.

‘It is a long time since I have had an evening so pleasant,’ he declared. ‘The leetle man plays the game like an expert. He must be marvellous, amazing, when he is sober. At last I have found a worthy opponent, only to lose him again. It is a great pity. I wish it were possible always to keep him with me. Fools that you are; why cannot you have brains, and learn to play like him?’

‘What are you going to do with him, Nicholas?’ asked the man with the broken nose, who rejoiced (or otherwise) in the name of Ilitch Gortschakoff.

‘Unfortunately, he must be returned to the streets. It would be too risky to make him a member of our brotherhood, although the sentiments he has expressed show him to be in sympathy with us. His kind talk a lot, but lack courage.’

‘Perhaps the police will make him tell about the man and woman,’ observed Ivan Keremsky. ‘They are certain to find out about him and the car and how you invited the two to come in here.’

‘He is too drunk to remember much, but what does it matter? We will not be here, and who can trace us? You will drive us to the Haven, Ivan. Afterwards, you will take the car to the other side of London, and hide it so that it cannot be found for a day or two. I would like to keep it, but alas! It would be
dangerous even to alter it. The police of this country are very clever, and we must make no stupid mistakes.’

‘What becomes of the man and woman?’ asked Gortschakoff.

Karen’s face twisted into an evil smile.

‘When we have the money, we will kill them,’ he replied. ‘It is easy at the Haven – eh?’

The others grinned. The man with the protruding teeth, however, seemed uneasy.

‘I do not quite understand this affair,’ he confessed. ‘How did you find these people and how did you know they have so much money?’

‘Did I not explain, when I told Ivan to clean the car?’ replied Karen impatiently. ‘You, Leon Turgenev, have not the brains of a mouse. I was returning here, and saw the little man enjoying himself. You know the passion I have for Noughts and Crosses! I stood watching him. I was about to address him, when along came the man and the girl. They became angry, because he was using their beautiful car for such a purpose. I soon formed the opinion that they were wealthy – it is easy to tell – and I thought it would be good if I could lure them in here, and afterwards force them to assist our depleted funds. It was less difficult than I expected, the little man unconsciously assisting me by his attitude towards them. Him I brought in, because I saw that, at last, I could enjoy my beautiful game with a worthy opponent. I greatly regret the necessity of parting from him.’

‘I think it would be safer to kill him also,’ remarked Turgenev.

Karen suddenly flew into a rage.

‘Kill that poor little man!’ he snarled. ‘Be careful, Turgenev.
I do not kill those who please me. Enough; it is time we went. Is everything packed and ready?’

He was answered in the affirmative, and ordered them to carry out to the car the baggage and other articles they intended taking with them. He also instructed them to keep a watch for the police constable on beat. Keremsky and Gortschakoff departed at once, but Leon Turgenev lingered behind.

‘I am not easy in my mind over this scheme of yours, Nicholas,’ he confided. ‘In my opinion it is perilous. I do not see how you can expect to obtain such a large sum of money from a bank without trouble.’

‘Will I not have a letter from the manager, fool? I shall represent myself as a hotel proprietor in the confidence of the young man. I will say he and the woman have run away to be married secretly, and they are hiding from their friends in my little hotel. The letter will support me. Is that not a simple plan?’

A slow smile exaggerated the perpetual grin on the other’s face.

‘You are clever, Nicholas,’ he admitted. ‘It is a good scheme.’

‘Of course it is a good scheme. Always you are full of doubts of every plan. Never was there a greater pessimist than you, Leon Turgenev. Sometimes, I feel the brotherhood might do better without you. It is fortunate we are so few, and you are necessary to us.’

His words and the tone in which he uttered them caused Turgenev’s sallow face to grow pallid. There was no mistaking the threat. Nicholas Karen, he knew, did not stop at half measures, even with his own comrades, if it suited his purpose to remove them. Without another word, Turgenev hurriedly left the room. The hunchback
smiled sardonically at the door he had closed behind him; turned once again to the sleeping tramp. Had there been an onlooker acquainted with the cold-blooded nature of the man, he would have been astonished by the expression showing now on Karen’s pain-twisted face. He regarded the dilapidated individual, snoring away in such drunken fashion, with extremely friendly, almost affectionate eyes. There was a note of genuine regret in his voice as he murmured:

‘You have given me pleasure and, for that, deserve well of me. I shall always be very sorry I had to let you go.’

He sighed; turned away, and walked towards the door.

He stood there for some moments, reflectively looking back at the tramp; then, shrugging his shoulders, went out of the room. It is difficult to explain such matters, but it is quite within the bounds of reason that his very disability was responsibility for this love of a brutal scoundrel for the very childish game of Noughts and Crosses. Obviously he was not a normal human being; nobody with a character as cruel and ruthless as his could be. Who knows but that the gibes and sneers he received as a youngster, on account of that broken back of his, had resulted in a boy who, otherwise, might have grown into a decent and kindly man, becoming embittered, and consequently developing into the monster Nicholas Karen undoubtedly was? He had been thrown back upon himself for his own amusements, and one of those, the game of Noughts and Crosses, the delight of his childhood, had developed into the passion of the man. It seems ridiculous, but the fact remains. Possibly he found something deeper, more scientific, in the
game than most people who try it. At all events, he invariably won with the greatest ease, against those whom he persuaded to match their wits against his. It is hardly to be wondered at, therefore, that, when he came upon a man who, though drunk, proved almost his equal, he conceived an affection for that man. Nicholas Karen was genuinely sorry to part from the tramp.

Several minutes went by after he had left the room, and the filthy, wretched-looking creature, sprawled in ungainly fashion over the table, continued to snore drunkenly. Then the ugly sounds ceased abruptly, the tramp raised his unkempt head, and gazed round him.

‘They told me a lot,’ he mused, ‘but not enough. There’s only one thing for it; I’ll have to follow them to this place called the Haven. The question is how!’ An expression of disgust caused the much wrinkled face to screw up ludicrously as he contemplated his ragged garments. ‘“If dirt were trumps”,’ he quoted, ‘“what a capital hand you would hold!”’

His sharp ears caught a sound outside the door, and promptly he resumed his former position, but this time did not snore. General Cousins, of the British Secret Service, was too experienced a hand to make such a mistake. Someone may have been listening, whereupon the sudden resumption of snoring would have been quite sufficient to rouse suspicion. Into the room stepped Leon Turgenev. He moved quietly, as though he were fearful of being heard. Regarding the sprawling form of the tramp for a moment, his grinning mouth looking even more repulsive than usual, on account of the sneer turning down the corners of the lips, he appeared to make up his mind. Softly crossing to the table, he caught hold of the apparently
unconscious man by the hair and, lifting the head, gazed long and searchingly at the face. The little man moved uneasily, muttered something unintelligible, but did not open his eyes. Turgenev seemed satisfied; let the head drop back on to the arms. He then commenced a rapid search of the clothing. None of the pockets were intact, but receptacles had been fashioned by the simple expedient of using safety pins to repair the deficiency. From these came a weird conglomeration of articles that had obviously been taken from dustbins. There was nothing a tramp might not be expected to possess, but everything conceivable, from a piece of string to a broken and rusty table knife, of which such an individual would make use with the ingenuity of his kind.

Turgenev did not actually suspect him to be other than a thoroughly disreputable and drunken hobo, but the Russian was an extremely cautious fellow and not so ready to accept outward impressions as his comrades. He knew that the very fact of the little man being an exponent of Karen’s beloved game was enough to unbalance the latter’s judgement. It was for that reason he had taken it upon himself to search his leader’s tattered guest. However, all he came upon was simply proof that the man was nothing more or less than his appearance proclaimed, and Turgenev was completely reassured. He replaced the articles he had taken from their receptacles, and presently departed from the room as quietly as he had come, but far more easy in mind. Nevertheless, although he never knew it, he had been within an ace of receiving most unpleasant confirmation that his search was justified. Pinned inside Cousin’s left sleeve, underneath his upper arm, was a fully loaded automatic. With his arms thrown across the table, he was
resting on it, but once when Turgenev was feeling in his garments, the Russian’s fingers reached within an inch or so of its butt. Had he found it, his suspicions would have been completely roused, but the little Englishman would never have allowed him to give the alarm. It is certain he would have destroyed him rather than that the painstaking planning and searching of weeks should have been brought to naught.

Cousins remained as he was, waiting for events to shape themselves. He knew he would soon be dismissed, when he intended, by some means or other, to accompany or follow the Russians to their other hiding place, which Karen had called the Haven. He would have liked to have searched the house in which he then was, but that could be left to others; besides, he did not anticipate that anything of an incriminating nature would be found there. Karen and his associates would naturally remove everything that might help to condemn them. The minutes went by; then abruptly the door opened again, and he heard the entry of several people.

‘There is nothing further to detain us,’ observed Karen’s voice. ‘You, Ivan and also you, Ilitch, go to Paul and help him carry the man and woman out to the car. See that they are well gagged first. They are to be placed on the floor inside and covered with a rug. You will have to wedge them in as best you can – double them up if necessary.’ He laughed cruelly. ‘I am afraid it will spoil mademoiselle’s dress, but that will not matter. Soon she will not need any dresses. Leon, go and make certain that nobody is about, then come back and help me carry the little man out to the square. It is better not to wake him. We will prop him up against the railings of the garden, and he can
continue his sleep. If he remembers anything when he rouses and is sober, he will think he has been dreaming.’

Karen was left alone with the tramp, but this time was too much occupied to indulge in a repetition of his previous distress at parting from him. He carefully inspected the room to make certain there was nothing left about that might, in any way, afford a clue to the identity of him and his companions or reveal their purpose in London. He had rented the house in a fictitious name, and had described himself as a Frenchman from Bordeaux. The other four, with the help of forged passports, had entered England under various aliases and at ports widely apart.