The Devil's Cocktail

The famous chief of the British Intelligence Department leant back in his chair, and looked thoughtful. The pattering of the rain on his office window, and the subdued noise of the traffic in the street below appeared to have a soothing effect upon him, and to be conducive to deep reflection, for he sat without movement for nearly ten minutes. At length he looked at his companion, and taking a pipe from his pocket proceeded to fill it from a pouch which lay on his desk.

‘It may be a waste of time and the loss of a good man for a considerable period,' he said, when his pipe was going to his satisfaction, ‘but I have decided to send Shannon to India.'

The fair-haired, good-looking man, seated on the opposite side of the desk, nodded.

‘In what capacity will he go out?' he asked.

For answer the other handed him a copy of
The Times
opened at the advertisement page, and indicated a paragraph in the appointments' column.

‘Shannon appears to have all the qualifications necessary for the post,' he said, ‘and really nothing could be more ideal for our purpose.'

‘But this is for three years!' exclaimed the almost equally renowned Deputy Chief. ‘Surely you don't intend him to be out there all that time?'

‘Why not? In three years a lot may be accomplished, and I want a lot to be done. On the other hand, of course, Shannon may fail, but we must risk that.'

‘I don't think he will fail. He is a pretty good fellow, and as keen as mustard. But do you think it is any good sending him to take up a position like this where he'll be tied down most of the year?'

‘Yes; he'll be right on the spot in Lahore, and besides he will, no doubt, have endless opportunities for getting about to other districts during the vacations, and they get pretty lengthy ones in the colleges in India. Altogether I don't think anything could have suited our purpose better than this.' He tapped the paper, which his companion had handed back to him. ‘It remains now for him to be appointed.'

‘Yes; and that is not going to be easy. Probably there will be a host of applications.'

‘No doubt, but with his qualifications, and the references we can give him, he should get the job.' He rang a bell on his desk. ‘He ought to be in the building somewhere – I'll have him in at once.'

A secretary appeared.

‘Find out if Captain Shannon is here,' said the Chief, ‘and if so send him up to me!'

‘Very well, sir,' said the secretary, and departed.

After a few minutes there was a knock, and, in response to the Chief's invitation to enter, a young man came into the room, and stood respectfully by the door.

‘You sent for me, sir?' he enquired.

‘Yes! Sit down, and help yourself to a cigarette!'

The young man did as he was bidden. The Chief regarded him seriously for a moment, then:

‘You made rather a name for yourself at Oxford, didn't you? Got a fellowship and half a dozen other things?' he asked.

The other smiled.

‘I didn't do badly, sir,' he replied.

‘And you had a double “Blue”, which is a great advantage in an appointment of the nature I am going to put before you, Shannon.'

The faintest look of surprise passed across the young man's face.

‘Altogether you are eminently suitable to take up the Chair of English Literature at a university college,' went on the Chief, ‘and so I wish you to apply at once for this post.'

He handed
The Times
to Shannon, and showed him the advertisement in question. Without attempting to conceal his interest, the latter read the following:

Captain Shannon read the advertisement twice before handing the paper back, and it was a very astonished young man who looked to his Chief for enlightenment. The latter smiled, and knocked out the ashes of his pipe into an ashtray.

‘I want you to get that post, Shannon,' he said, ‘you'll probably find it most congenial.'

‘You have your reasons, sir?' said the other.

‘I have! Very little is done in this department without a reason. Now listen carefully to what I have to say!' He rose from his chair and strolled across the room to the fireplace, where he stood with his back resting against the mantelpiece, and confronted the young officer.

‘India is a strange country,' he said, ‘and there are things going on there which this country knows nothing about. The time has come, however, when Great Britain must be cognisant of all that occurs, in order not only to safeguard herself, but also to ensure the safety of the Indian Empire. As you are aware, my colleague and I practically succeeded last year in routing out the Bolshevik element in India, but from information received, I believe that representatives of the Russian Soviet have recommenced their activities. Apart from that there is an undercurrent of unrest and distrust and various latent disorders which must be inquired into. Lahore appears to be the centre of the trouble, and it is to Lahore that I wish you to go. India possesses a very fine police force, but there is no Intelligence Department worth the name. In taking up the appointment of Professor of English Literature in this college, you will have endless opportunities to get to the bottom of things. Nobody will suspect that you are a member of the Secret Service – nobody must suspect! Something is going on, and I want you to find out what that something is. You have a big job before you, and it will require infinite tact, patience and resource. I have chosen you because of your knowledge of Hindustani, and because I have found you to be a reliable man. You have no time to think the matter over; your application for this appointment must go in today – either accept or refuse! Which is it to be?'

Captain Shannon looked at his Chief with sparkling eyes. This was
an opportunity for which he had longed ever since he had joined the Intelligence Service. Without the slightest sign of hesitation, he spoke.

‘Of course I accept, sir!' he said.

‘Good,' said the Chief nonchalantly, and returned to his seat at the desk. ‘Now you had better write your application at once, and in order to ensure your getting the post, you must have a splendid list of referees. No doubt you can get any number from your college, and so on. Add to them these three—' He mentioned three names which were household words in England. ‘I'll see that these gentlemen respond without any suspicion arising that you are a member of the Intelligence Department. And now you had better get busy at once. Remember that if you are appointed, you are in no way to neglect your duty to your employers, but, of course, your first responsibility will be to us.'

He rose, and held out his hand. Captain Shannon grasped it eagerly.

‘I'm jolly grateful to you for giving me this chance, sir,' he said boyishly.

‘Well, make the most of it! A lot depends upon you; perhaps more than any of us can say at present. The main thing now is to get the post; everything will be done to help you, and before you sail we shall have a further interview at which all details will be discussed, and your final instructions given to you.'

The Deputy Chief walked with Shannon to the door.

‘You
must
get the post!' he said. ‘We are relying on you more than we have ever relied upon anybody before. If you succeed in the job that has been assigned to you, you are a made man, if you fail—' He shrugged his shoulders, and held out his hand.

‘I shall not fail, sir,' said Shannon, and departed.

Hugh Shannon lost no time in applying for the post of Professor of English Literature of Sheranwala College in Lahore. He was a modest young man, and he found it rather difficult to do himself justice without appearing to be, as he put it, ‘a conceited idiot.' However, he had a duty to perform, and he did it. The letter of application, with copies of his testimonials – and he had many – was duly despatched. Thereafter he spent two days of anxiety, wondering if he would receive a reply.

Captain Shannon had had a short though distinguished career in the Indian Army, and had left it to take up a post in the Foreign Office, whence he had been attached to the Intelligence Department. He had quickly come under the notice of the astute Chief, who had given him duties which required great resource and tact to carry out, as well as a masterly knowledge of languages. Thus, in two years, he had become one of the most trusted men in the service, and gave promise of rising very rapidly in his chosen profession.

At this time about thirty years of age, he was a splendidly built specimen of English manhood. Nearly six feet in height, he looked shorter on account of his breadth of shoulder and powerful frame. He was not handsome, but his clean-shaven face, with its humorous mouth, steely grey eyes, determined chin and high forehead, surmounted by a mass of curly brown hair, gave him an attractive appearance, which appealed very much to most people he met. Added to this he possessed a happy-go-lucky nature, a great love for sport of all descriptions, a fearless disposition, and a fondness for getting to the bottom of things; and, therefore, in the Secret Service he had discovered the one job which attracted him above all others. Both parents being dead, he and an only sister lived in a small flat opposite Kensington Gardens, where they were in the midst of a wide circle of friends.

On the morning of the third day after he had sent off his letter of application, he was seated at breakfast with his morning newspaper propped up in front of him. His sister, who had been to a dance the night before, was late in making her appearance, and he had nearly finished his meal when at last she came in.

‘Oh, you pig!' she exclaimed by way of greeting. ‘You might have waited for me.'

‘My dear girl,' he replied, as he arranged her chair for her, ‘I am a busy man, and there is a certain matter of daily bread to be earned.'

‘Daily bread!' she scoffed. ‘Why we have enough money between us to live perfectly happily, and in spite of that you delude yourself into imagining that you are keeping us on the paltry £500 a year the Foreign Office pay you.'

He smiled.

‘Would you have me loaf my way through life, Joan?'

‘No; but I cannot understand what you find to do in that musty
old office. Now if they made you a King's Messenger there would be some sense in it. I think there must be something mysterious about your work. Sometimes you appear to have nothing to do, and at other times you disappear for weeks on end, and when you come back you are frightfully vague about where you have been, and what you have been doing. You've become a most unsatisfactory person lately, Hugh.'

She poured herself out some coffee, while he sat back in his chair, and watched her. Very few people were aware of Hugh Shannon's real position, and even his sister thought he was merely an ornamental member of the staff at the Foreign Office, though occasionally she wondered why he was so often called upon to make sudden journeys out of England.

‘I wish you had stopped in the Army,' she went on, ‘I should love to have lived in India for a few years, and kept house for you, and now I shall probably never have the opportunity.'

‘You may,' he said quietly; ‘in fact there is quite a possibility.'

She jumped up in her excitement.

‘Oh, Hugh, do you really mean that? Are you going back to the Army?'

He shook his head.

‘No; but I have applied for a post in a college out there.'

She stared at him in astonishment.

‘You've what?' she demanded. ‘What sort of a post?'

‘Professor of English Literature,' he said with a half-defiant note in his voice.

She continued to gaze at him in amazement for a minute or two, and then burst into peal after peal of such infectious laughter that he was compelled to join in with her.

‘Do you really mean that, Hugh?' she asked, when her merriment had subsided.

‘Of course!'

‘But, my dear brother,' she said, with the air of a mother gently chiding her child, ‘don't you realise that to become a professor of literature one must devote years and years to study? Besides you don't look like one.'

‘Why not?'

‘All the professors I ever knew were old and wore glasses and sniffed – you don't, and you're not old. You'd have to be
absent-minded
too, and you're the very opposite to that.'

‘Well, I've applied for the job anyway, and if there's any chance of my obtaining it, I should get a letter today or tomorrow appointing an interview.'

‘But, dear,' she said, ‘that will mean your leaving the Foreign Office, and I thought you were very happy there.'

‘So I am, but this post rather appeals to me – and I'd like to get back to India for a few years.'

She was silent for a little while.

‘I don't think I have ever been so surprised in my life,' she said, at last. ‘Fancy you, a born soldier, devoting yourself to the teaching of literature. I don't know that I like the idea much, though I want to go to India. You'll take me with you, of course?' she asked.

‘I haven't got the job yet,' he said.

‘Oh you'll get it. You always get everything you set out for.'

‘Thank you!' He rose and bowed with mock gratitude.

‘But, Hugh dear, won't you be awfully bored?'

‘Not a bit. You see they lay particular stress upon requiring a sportsman, so there should be some fun.'

‘That makes a big difference,' she nodded. ‘The fact that they want a sportsman makes the whole proposition infinitely more attractive.'

At that moment the maid brought in some letters on a salver.
Hugh took them, and handing three or four to his sister, glanced quickly at the rest. One, bearing the superscription in an unknown hand, he rapidly tore open, extracted the single sheet of notepaper it contained and looked at the address.

‘Ah!' he ejaculated, and Joan glanced across at him eagerly.

‘Is it the one?' she asked.

He nodded. The letter was addressed from the Savoy Hotel.

With a sigh of relief Hugh handed the letter to Joan.

‘I think I'll get it,' he said.

She read the note and handed it back.

‘Hugh, you are an astonishing person,' she said. ‘It certainly looks as though I shall have to see about getting an outfit ready for the tropics.'

He smiled as he rose from the table.

‘You are determined to come?' he asked.

‘Of course! How on earth could you get on without me? You'd be lost!'

‘I believe I would,' he said gently, as he bent and kissed her, and then strolled out of the room.

Joan sat gazing at her plate for some time, with a very thoughtful expression on her face. She presented an exquisite picture of young
womanhood as she sat there, with the rays of the early morning sun streaming through the wide-open window and shining on the chestnut glory of her shingled hair. She was seven years her brother's junior and, unlike him, was rather small. Her eyes were almost unnaturally large and of a deep blue colour; her mouth was small and delicately shaped, and when she smiled could be seen a most perfect set of pearly white teeth; her nose was daintily set upon a face with the healthy complexion of the outdoor girl. But what impressed one most was the beauty of her hands and feet, which had caused several artists to go into raptures of admiration. Joan Shannon was a girl who was adored by hundreds, but she had never had a love affair, all her affection being given to her big, burly brother, whom she loved and admired as very few sisters do.

Presently she rose and, crossing to the window, looked out on to the park.

‘I wonder why Hugh is so keen on going to India,' she murmured. ‘I don't believe he has given up his work at the Foreign Office, he is too fond of it.' She sighed. ‘I wish I knew what is behind it all.'