The Quest of Julian Day (2 page)

It is unnecessary to give particulars of the way in which I thought I was leading him on while all the time he had my measure and was only using me as a pawn. He is a strange creature, not particularly attractive to look at; tall, thin, with wavy, grey-white hair that looks rather like a wig; small, quick eyes that flash behind pince-nez, a lean chin and a hard rat-trap of a mouth. But he is immensely erudite and one of the most fascinating people to talk to that I have ever met. When I was away from him I disliked him intensely, but each time I met him again for one of the many evenings we spent together, I
immediately fell under the spell of his intellect.

As with many clever people vanity was his weak spot and evidently he was so contemptuous of my power to do him any serious harm that he allowed himself the luxury of impressing me with the secret power he wielded by boastful hints thrown out from time to time. Bit by bit I learnt that he was a very big fish indeed in the muddy waters of international intrigue and one of the seven men who controlled a vast organisation which had ramifications in every corner of the globe. How, exactly, it operated he would never actually specify, but from one thing and another I gathered that they had a hand in practically every rotten game; espionage, I.D.B., organised blackmail, dope-running and even white-slave trafficking.

It may sound as if he were crazy to talk of such things to any presumably decent person; but he appeared to regard me as a disciple and when he got worked up he was really capable of making one forget the dirt that lay underneath it all. He always spoke of the intense excitement of the game in a way that distorted true perspective, and of the immense kick to be derived from pulling off a big
coup
as a result of pitting one's wits against the whole force of the Law.

Piling up profits did not seem to interest him; probably because he had everything money could buy already. His house in Brussels was beautifully equipped, and staffed with the sort of servant whom one hardly notices because he is so efficient; yet that was only one of many properties I had reason to believe he owned, although he was careful never to give me the actual addresses of the others.

This cat-and-mouse game went on for about three months and then O'Kieff told me one night that the rest of the Big Seven were due to arrive the following week for their annual conference, which was to be held that year in Brussels. I thought the time had come to get in someone more experienced than myself and confided in our First Secretary, Tom Carruthers.

Carruthers cursed me up hill and down dale for meddling in a matter that was completely outside the sphere of a promising young diplomat, but all the same he could not help showing that he was impressed by the magnitude of the thing. More, he thought that I was too deeply involved for the Secret
Service people, whose real job it was, to take over from me. Like the conceited young fool I was, I imagined that I had bluffed O'Kieff and, obviously, if we were to attempt to net the Big Seven, the time before their meeting was much too short for anyone to take my place and win their confidence.

It was, I am sure, far more with a view to keeping a fatherly eye upon me than for any other reason that Carruthers eventually consented to allow me to introduce him to O'Kieff, when I pleaded with him to allow me to do so in order that he could size up the situation for himself. Later I was to realise with bitterness and grief that by drawing Carruthers into it I had done the very thing that O'Kieff was playing for; he wasn't interested in small fry like myself.

There is no point in going into details about what followed. It was the talk of every Chancellery in Europe for months afterwards and everyone in my world has heard some garbled version of it, causing them to regard me as a figure of ridicule or a dirty little crook who had sold his country's secrets.

We met the Big Seven; Zakri, Lord Gavin, the Jap and the rest of that unholy crew. Every one of them had a name to conjure with and was far above the strata in which the police ordinarily look for criminals. They were the real Lords of the Underworld, living in affluence and power, all unsuspected by the intellectual cream of European Society into which they had been accepted on account of their wealth and dominating personalities.

On the night that O'Kieff sprung his trap I very nearly lost my life. My function as an admiring audience was ended and the fact that he had disclosed the names of the Big Seven to me was more than enough to decide him that the time had come to put me out of the way. It was only by pure chance that I did not swallow all the dope he gave me and, as it was, the doctor had to fight for my life for days.

What they did to Carruthers no one will ever know, but the Portuguese or O'Kieff hypnotised him, I think. That is the only possible explanation. He actually took several of them back to the Embassy with him on the Sunday night that he and I dined with them alone, and opened up the safe so that they could inspect all the documents that were in it.

Sir George Hogan, the Ambassador, was away for the week-end
and as there were certain very important negotiations pending, the latest instructions from the F.O. were lying in the safe awaiting his return. As one of the senior members of the staff, Carruthers was always aware of the combination which unlocked the safe and, apparently, he gave them free access to it.

The nightwatchman, noticing a light in the Chancellery at such an unusual hour, went in to investigate but seeing the First Secretary with, presumably, a group of friends whom he had taken to his room half and hour before, assumed they were engaged on urgent business and walked out again.

Nothing was stolen, so they could not be charged with theft afterwards but, of course, they were able to learn a number of the most jealously guarded Diplomatic secrets regarding Great Britain's latest policy and intentions.

Everything was put back in the safe in apple-pie order and apart from my being picked up half-dead by the Belgian police in a disreputable quarter of the city next morning, which at first did not seem to have any bearing on the affair, the whole episode might have passed off without investigation if it hadn't happened that Lady Hogan was an interfering old busybody who let a ready ear to ever sort of tittle-tattle. The night-porter's wife remarked to Lady Hogan's maid that Mr. Carruthers had been sitting up till all hours with a queer lot of people in the Chancellery the night before; the maid passed it on to her gossip-loving mistress, and Lady Hogan duly asked Sir George who the queer friends were that Carruthers had been entertaining over the week-end. When Carruthers was questioned he remembered absolutely nothing about it. The night-porter was called in and described the men he had seen sitting with Carruthers round the open safe; upon which the poor fellow quietly walked upstairs and shot himself.

The scene between myself and my Chief which ensued when I had recovered and was called on to render certain explanations can well be imagined. For all our good intentions neither Carruthers nor I had succeeded in finding out one single fact which could be used against O'Kieff, and obviously no case could be brought against him. If the First Secretary of the Embassy cared to bring a number of strangers into the Chancellery in the middle of the night and disclose our secrets
to them, the case was against him, not them, and by that time he, poor fellow, was dead and buried.

I was packed off on the next boat to England, and visited the Foreign Office for, I suppose, the last time in my life.

After questioning me at considerable length about the details of the affair, Sir Roger Thistlethwaite said in that quiet, rather over-cultured voice of his:

‘I am prepared to accept your statement that you acted in perfectly good faith, but you'll appreciate that there is no course open to us than to dismiss you from the Service. It's a sad pity, you know—a sad pity. Quite a number of us here had looked on you as having—er—almost brilliant prospects.

‘Quite, sir,' I replied, although I thought it a little unnecessary for him to rub it in. With my Double-First and my flair for languages, together with the facts that I am a presentable-looking person, the heir to a baronetcy, the best man with an épée in my year at Oxford and quite a useful shot, all sorts of fine things had been prophesied for me. It was a foregone conclusion that I would get good posts and I myself had even begun to dream of one day averting another world war as Britain's youngest yet most brilliant Ambassador.

‘What do you intend to do?' Sir Roger asked after a moment.

‘I hardly know what to do, sir,' I replied.

‘I fear all Government posts will be closed to you after this,' he said, ‘and you'll need all your courage to live this scandal down; but you must try not to let your broken career embitter you. You're still very young, and if you take my advice, you'll fling yourself heart and soul into something else at once. Your uncle's getting on in life and you're the heir to that place of his in Gloucestershire. How about settling down there and taking the running of it off his hands?'

‘I'm not particularly interested in estate management and knowing Uncle Herbert, I rather doubt if he'll ever have me in the house again when he hears about this.'

‘He can't cut you off, can he?'

‘No, fortunately the place is entailed, so he can't stop its coming to me on his death; and as I inherited my father's money when I was twenty-one I'm all right for cash.'

‘How about going into commerce?' he suggested. ‘Lots of people do these days and you've got plenty of brains.'

‘D'you think any decent firm would take me? Once this business gets out my name's going to stink like mud.'

Sir Roger tapped his desk thoughtfully with an ivory paperknife. ‘No, that's just the rub. We have given a new orientation to our policy, of course; always have an alternative ready for just such an emergency, and we've been working like stevedores to repair, as far as possible, the damage that has been done. But that meant communicating with every Embassy and Legation on the list and we couldn't conceal the reason for such an upheaval from the senior members of the Service. Such matters are highly confidential, but even so, there's bound to be a certain amount of talk, and it is inevitable that your name will be linked with Carruthers' suicide.'

‘Naturally,' I agreed glumly. ‘They'll all assume that Carruthers and I sold these secrets to foreign agents between us and that he did the decent thing by committing suicide whereas I hadn't the guts. I've got to face it, sir. My name is going to stink in the Service for generations and as the story gradually becomes common property everyone outside the Service is going to regard me as a leper too.'

‘If settling down at Queen's Acres is impracticable, perhaps it would be wisest for you to travel for a bit.'

‘That's what I had in mind.'

Sir Roger hesitated for a moment and then went on softly, ‘Have you thought at all what line you mean to take if you run up against O'Kieff or any of his friends again?'

‘I've hardly had time to consider that yet, sir.'

‘You may, you know, if you propose to travel. In fact as you have money and—er almost unlimited time at your disposal, you certainly could, if you felt so inclined.'

‘Are you suggesting that I should endeavour to do so?' I asked.

He stared at his blotting pad. ‘I suggest nothing. It only occurred to me that you might quite reasonably feel a certain animus against these people for wrecking your career. God knows, you've plenty of cause; and I think the Government would owe a considerable debt of gratitude to anyone who succeeded in breaking up their organisation.'

‘Are you inferring, sir, that if I could do so, the Government would reinstate me in the Service?'

He shook his head. ‘Hardly that, I'm afraid; but it is not altogether outside the bounds of possibility that they might consider conferring a decoration on you for services rendered; which, in itself, would be quite sufficient to wipe out the stigma that is bound to attach to you as the result of this affair.'

‘With help from the Secret Service it might be done,' I said impulsively.

He dropped his eyes for a moment. ‘It distresses me very much to have to say so but while I, personally, believe in your integrity, others may not be quite so willing to do so; therefore any such tie-up is out of the question. You would have to act on your own.'

‘In that case I doubt if I should stand much chance of securing evidence against them.'

‘If you could secure evidence, well and good; but that is not essential. From our point of view it would, perhaps, be even better if they—er ceased to exist.'

‘You mean…' I hesitated.

‘I am not given to looseness of speech, young man, and I mean exactly what I said.' He seemed quite annoyed that I should question his words, yet it made me positively gasp to believe that this quiet, grey-haired English gentleman was actually suggesting that I should go out and commit murder.

I stared at him almost doubting that I had heard aright, but his mild blue eyes were now quite unwavering and he went on smoothly, ‘You would have to be careful, of course, to avoid being caught; since, if you were, we could not give you any official protection.'

‘I see,' I said slowly.

Sir Roger stood up. ‘I need hardly stress the fact that I should, if necessary, categorically deny any suggestion that this conversation had ever taken place. But, as you know, I am one of those whose duty it is to guard the interests of the Empire, and these people are a menace not only to Britain but to law and order throughout the world. Sometimes, when such people are too clever for us to catch in the ordinary way, we have to take certain steps which we all deplore; but there it is. I don't want you to say yes or no. Just think it over, my boy, and good luck to you, whatever you decide.'

I did think it over, but it seemed a hopeless task to pit my
wits against such a vast organisation as O'Kieff's, and although I might have succeeded in tracking down and killing one or more of the Big Seven I had no desire to be hanged for murder. There had not been sufficient time for bitterness really to eat into my soul. That only came later. My brain was numbed by the catastrophe which had shattered every interest I had in life, and my one craving was to get away from everyone to some solitude where I could not be reminded of the past and could endeavour to blot the whole horrible business from my memory.