CHAPTER X--BROKEN THREADS
On returning to his headquarters, some eight miles west of the town, Pariset asked permission of his commandant to convey Kenneth to Ostend. He met with a peremptory refusal; he could not be spared.
"You'll have to go by train," he said to Kenneth. "It will take you a long time, the railway is so congested with troops and refugees. Must you go?"
"What else can I do?"
"Well, we're short of men. I'd like to keep you. If I get you a sort of appointment, will you stay?"
"Rather! It might be months before I got a job at home."
"Then I'll see the commandant again and try to arrange it."
When he returned half-an-hour later, Kenneth knew by his expression that he had been successful.
"It was easier than I expected," he said. "He was good enough to say that you're just the man we want. He told me, too, that we have already accepted the services of two English airmen who have volunteered, so everything is quite in order. We'll go into Liége and get you a suit of overalls. I am delighted."
After the necessary purchases had been made, they went into the Hôtel de l'Europe for dinner. The dining-room was crowded, and Kenneth, as he entered, glanced somewhat confusedly around the tables. Suddenly he heard his name, uttered in a low tone, and turning round in surprise, saw Granger beckoning him to a small table at which he sat alone.
"There's room here for you both, at a squeeze," he said. "I'm glad to see you again."
"It's all right, then?" asked Kenneth as they sat down.
"Oh yes! They got a reassuring telegram from my chief this morning. What's more, I am to stay in Liége for the present; I am lent to the Belgians."
"That's capital. I have lent myself."
"'Loan oft loses both itself and friend.' I hope it won't be so in our case! Well, what have you been doing?"
Kenneth plunged into an account of the affair at the mill. Granger interrupted him when the waiter came for orders, and again when the man returned with the dishes. At the conclusion of the story, which Kenneth gave only in outline, Granger said:
"Hellwig is in Liége. My own stay here is not unconnected with him. He is one of the most resourceful, ingenious and dangerous of the thousands of spies in the German service.... They were all County Kerry men, and when they stood at attention you might have heard a pin drop."
His companions stared at him in amazement. His last sentence, apparently unconnected with what had gone before, had been spoken without change of voice or expression, and he imperturbably sucked his lemon squash through a straw before he went on:
"He has a marvellous command of languages; is Protean in his disguises; and in nimbleness of wit outdoes any other German I have ever come across.... They mixed the salad with engine oil, and when Lady Barbara took a mouthful of it, she swallowed it without blinking, and remarked to me, 'The chef is a perfect marvel in inventing new flavours.' ... Waiter!"
"Monsieur?" said the waiter, smiling and bowing.
"Another lemon squash."
When the waiter had gone, Granger said:
"I must have that fellow arrested."
"What on earth for?" asked Pariset.
"And what are you driving at, with your County Kerries and your Lady Barbaras?" said Kenneth.
"The waiter has been hovering round a little more closely than the most officious garçon need do. You didn't notice him, perhaps? He speaks pretty good French, with a strong Belgian accent. Did you see what happened when I called him?"
"What was it?" asked Kenneth.
"I put something of the parade ground tone into my voice, and the fellow brought his heels together in the correct German style. One could almost hear the click. Well greased as his hair is, you can see it trying to rise en brosse, and I caught him just now twirling an invisible moustache."
"A spy?"
"Unless my instinct and my judgment are equally at fault. But here he comes; don't be surprised if I break off into irrelevancies; answer in kind."
The waiter placed the glass on the table, and withdrew, to attend to a man at the next table.
"As I was saying," Granger went on, "Hellwig is here, in what shape I don't know, but I hope to catch him yet. Your friend Finkelstein, by the way, has been arrested in Cologne and thrown into prison."
"Good heavens! Not through me, I hope," said Kenneth.
"On a charge of espionage, at any rate. I have no doubt he owes that to ... Yes, it was a very dark night, and he didn't recognise me until I was as near to him as I am to you. Then ... he owes it to Hellwig."
"But what can his motive be? He's his cousin."
"The nearer the bone ... Finkelstein has a daughter, I believe?"
"Yes."
"Well, what more natural than that Hellwig should be appointed trustee to his cousin's daughter and manager of the business?"
"I did suspect that he wants to marry Frieda."
"Ah! Motive enough! ... Waiter!"
The others watched the man. His manner was a strange compound of two servilities--the waiter's and the German private's.
"Monsieur?"
"Bring coffee."
The waiter departed.
"I must certainly have him arrested," said Granger. "So you see, my dear fellow, that if I manage to lay Hellwig by the heels I shall perhaps be able to make you some return for what I owe you."
"But that won't release Max Finkelstein."
"I confess I was at that moment thinking of the daughter," said Granger with a whimsical look at Kenneth. Pariset glanced at his friend and smiled.
"The idea of her marrying that cur!" said Kenneth.
"It won't bear thinking of, will it?" said Granger. "That fellow is rather long with the coffee."
They waited, discussing the probable course of the war. After a while Granger summoned the head waiter.
"Our waiter has been over long fetching our coffee," he said. "Will you stir him up?"
In a minute or two the head waiter returned, carrying the coffee himself.
"Pardon, messieurs," he said. "Gustave was suddenly taken sick, and is not able to serve at present."
"I have lost this trick," said Granger ruefully, when they were again alone. "While I had my eye on the German, he evidently had his eye on me. And for once the German was the quicker to act. Well, we all have our ups and downs--I might have said our exits and our entrances: exit spy, enter staff-officer, who is looking for you, Monsieur Pariset, if I am not mistaken."
A Belgian captain was threading his way across the room, looking quickly from table to table, here and there acknowledging or returning a greeting, but briefly, in the manner of one preoccupied. His glance suddenly falling on Pariset, he smiled, and came directly towards him.
"I heard that you were here," he said. "Have you finished?"
"Yes."
"Then give me a minute privately."
His eyes rested for a moment on Kenneth and Granger, whom he did not know.
"Certainly," said Pariset. "Let me introduce my friends."
The introduction made, the officer's manner changed.
"Let us all go into the smoking-room together," he said. "The matter I've to speak about need be no secret among us four."
"You'll excuse me," said Granger, whose tact never failed. "I have one or two things to attend to; I hope I may have the pleasure some other time."
He left the others, and they made their way to the smoking-room.