XXIII—Caught
“Mrs. Spencer and her friend have reached some sort of an understanding,” Mrs. Clephane remarked. “She just smiled at him significantly and pressed his foot.”
“I noticed the smile but not the foot business,” Harleston chuckled. “It’s something quite personal to them, I take it!”
“Exactly; but what’s the effect on the matter in hand? Does not this personal understanding signify that the delivery of the formula has been arranged, maybe even effected.”
Harleston nodded. With Madeline Spencer it was, he knew, business first and personal matters afterward.
“I think we shall see the end of the affair of your cipher letter and its ramifications before the afternoon is over,” he replied.
“What about the French Embassy?” she asked.
“The Marquis has been advised that we have the translation. He will keep his hands off, you may believe.”
“You think either that Captain Snodgrass has the document in his possession, or that he has given it to Mrs. Spencer?”
“Or that it will come into his possession before they leave the Rataplan, and be transferred to her here or in the taxi on their way back to town,” he added.
“What if he transferred it to her on their way here?”
“Then she still has it—once she gets it in her possession she won’t part with it, even in her sleep, until she places it in the hands of the official who sent her to America.”
“And Mr. Carpenter was here to watch until you came?”
“Yes—and afterward; you see one of us might be called away. From the time she and Snodgrass met at the Chateau this morning, they have not been out of espionage and close espionage. So long as they are in a taxi, or at the Rataplan, there is no danger of the document getting away if either of them has it; but until we are certain that they have it, we won’t detain them; we want the document to aid us in running down the traitor. I’m not at all sure that Snodgrass is aware of the character of the document. He probably stipulated not to know; he will be content with a division of the money—and with a chance to spend some of it on Spencer; which spending she is quite ready to facilitate, as witness the pleasant understanding they seem to have arrived at during luncheon.”
“What are you going to do, Mr. Harleston?” Mrs. Clephane asked.
“I think you will enjoy it better if you’re not wise, little lady!” he smiled. “Moreover, it depends on circumstances just how it’s to be gone about—except that it ends in the office of the Secretary of State.—Hush!”
“The Secretary of State!” she exclaimed low.
“I’ve an appointment to take Mrs. Spencer to meet his Excellency at four o’clock.”
“And what are you going to do with me, Mr. Harleston?” she smiled.
“You mean at four o’clock, or permanently?”
“At four o’clock, sir,” with a charming lilt of the head.
“Take you along.”
“With that woman? Thank you!”
“No, with me.”
“Didn’t you say you had an appointment to take Mrs. Spencer?”
“I did!”
“You intend to keep the appointment?”
“I do!”
“Surely, sir, you don’t imagine for a moment that I would go anywhere with Mrs. Spencer!”
“No more than you imagine that I would ask it of you!” he smiled.
“It seems to me your meaning is somewhat obscure,” she retorted. “However, whether you don’t mean it, or do mean it, I’ll trust myself to you because it’s you, Mr. Harleston.”
“Permanently, my lady?”
“Certainly not, sir. I refer only to this afternoon; I want to be in at the end of the game.”
“For me,” said Harleston slowly, “it’s been a very fortunate game.”
“Games are uncertain and sometimes costly,” she shrugged.
“When played with Spencer, they are both and then some,” he replied.
At that moment Carpenter pushed back his chair and arose, nodded pleasantly to Mrs. Clephane and Harleston as he passed, and went out.
“Will Mr. Carpenter be at the finish?” Mrs. Clephane asked.
“Probably; but he’ll be in the lobby when we go through.”
“They are going!” she whispered. “And they’re coming this way.”
As Mrs. Spencer and Snodgrass went by, the former with an intimate little look at Harleston, said confidentially:
“I’ll be ready at half-past three, Guy.”
“Very good!” Harleston answered promptly—when she was past, he looked at Mrs. Clephane.
“The cat!” she muttered; then smiled quizzically. “Such a pleasant air of proprietorship,” she observed.
“Too pleasant,” he returned. “I’ve something to tell you as to it and her, when the present matter is ended.”
“Will it keep?”
He nodded. “I can tell it better then—and have more time for the telling.”
The headwaiter approached casually, as though surveying the table.
“Well!” said Harleston.
“He went to the private mail boxes; she’s waiting in the lobby,” the man replied. “He received a small letter, which he opened; it enclosed only another envelope, which he put in his pocket without opening. He returned to the lobby and they left the Club-House.”
Harleston nodded. “It’s time for us to be moving,” said he to Mrs. Clephane. “Will you trust me?” he asked as they passed into the lobby, at the far end of which Carpenter was sitting absorbed in his cigar.
“Absolutely!” she replied.
“And will you go with Carpenter; he understands? I’ll be with you shortly. I must act quickly now.”
Carpenter arose as they neared.
“Just started,” said he, and bowed to Mrs. Clephane.
“Mrs. Clephane understands,” Harleston explained “I confide her to your care. À bientôt.”
He hurried out. A taxi, waiting with power on, sped up; he sprang aboard and it raced away.
As it neared the Connecticut Avenue bridge, the taxi slowed down a trifle and the driver half-faced around.
“The other car is just ahead, sir,” he reported.
“Very good,” said Harleston. “Does the driver know we’re behind him?”
“I’ve signalled, sir, and he’s answered.”
“Maintain the distance,” Harleston directed.
“Yes sir,” said the man.
Keeping about a hundred yards apart—the two cars sped down the hill and around Dupont Circle to Massachusetts Avenue, thence by it and Sixteenth Street to H. The one in the lead continued on toward Fourteenth. Harleston’s shot down Fifteenth, flashed over the tracks at Pennsylvania Avenue, swung into F Street, and drew in at the Chateau just as the other came around the Fourteenth Street corner, and rolled slowly up to the curb.
As Snodgrass was assisting Madeline Spencer to alight—and taking his time about it—Harleston glanced at his watch, sprang from his car, and hastened over.
“This is fortunate, Mrs. Spencer!” he exclaimed. “Just after you left the Rataplan the Secretary of State telephoned that he was summoned to the White House at four, and I should bring you an hour earlier. On the chance of overtaking you, I beat it after you. Now if Captain Snodgrass will permit you, we have just time to get over to the Department.”
“Will you excuse me, Captain Snodgrass?” she asked, with her compelling smile.
“A Secretary of State may not be denied,” Snodgrass replied. “In this instance in particular I would I were his Excellency.”
“Come and dine with me at eight,” giving him her hand.... “Now, Mr. Harleston, I am ready.”
“What did you do with Mrs. Clephane?” she asked, when they were started.
“I left her at the Rataplan,” he replied.
“Alone?”
“Oh no—with Carpenter, who chanced to be handy.”
“The bald-headed chap, who spoke to you in the dining-room?”
“Exactly!”
“Carpenter is the chief of the Cipher Division, I believe you said.”
“I don’t recall that I said it, Madeline, but your information is correct.”
“I think I’ll ask the Secretary for the letter,” she remarked.
“Ask him anything you’ve a mind to!” Harleston laughed. “You’ve a very winning pair of black eyes et cetera, my lady.”
“I’ve never seen the Secretary!” she smiled.
“Small matter. He’ll see you, all right.”
“I’ll make an impression, you think?”
“If you don’t, it will be the first failure of the sort you’ve ever registered.”
“Except with you,” she murmured.
“Good Lord!” he exclaimed. “You’ve had me going many times.”
“Yes, Guy—but not now,” she whispered.
“Now, I’m strong!” he laughed, bluntly declining the overture.
“Hence you are willing that I try my smiles on the Secretary,” she retorted.
“We are fellow diplomats,” he countered. “You did me a good turn in the Du Plesis affair; I’m trying now to show my appreciation. Moreover, it will give Snodgrass an opportunity to reflect on your beauty and fascinating ways—and to look forward to eight o’clock.”
“It is pleasant to have something agreeable to look forward to,” she replied, ironically suggestive.
“Isn’t it?” he approved. “I don’t know anything more pleasant—unless it is the finishing stroke of an affaire Diplomatique.”
“Do you anticipate the finishing stroke to the present affair?”
“In due time.”
“Due time?” she inflected.
“Whatever is necessary in the premises,” he explained.
“It hasn’t then gotten beyond the premises?”
“No, it hasn’t gotten beyond the premises,” he replied—with an inward chuckle.
There was no occasion to explain that, by the latter premises, he meant herself. His whole scheme was dependent on her having the traitorous letter in her possession. He was quite sure Snodgrass had received it by mail at the Rataplan; and why had he put the unopened envelope in his pocket unless to give it to her on their way to the Chateau. And as he (Harleston) had caught her as she alighted from the taxi, and had hurried her off to the State Department, she must still have it. Of course, there was the possibility that Snodgrass had not yet delivered it; so Snodgrass was being looked after by others.
“Won’t you give me a line on his Excellency, Guy?” she asked. “Is he easy, or difficult, or neither?”
“I may not betray the weak points of my chief!” Harleston smiled. “Moreover, here we are,” as the taxi came to a stop on the Seventeenth Street side of an atrociously ugly, and miserably inadequate building that partially houses three Departments of the great American Government.
“Am I to be left alone with the great one?” she asked, as they went up the steps from the sidewalk.
“What do you wish me to do?” he inquired.
“Wait until I signal!”
“And if his Excellency signals first?”
“It will be for me to influence that signal,” she replied.
They took the private elevator to the next floor. The old negro messenger was waiting at the door of the reception room and he bowed to the floor—a portion of the bow was for Harleston, but by far the larger portion was for Madeline Spencer.
“De Sec’eta’y, seh, am waiting for you all at onct, Mars Ha’lison,” he said; and ushering them across the big room to the Secretary’s private office he swung back the heavy door and bowed them into the Presence.
As she passed the threshold, Mrs. Spencer caught her breath sharply, and straightened her shoulders just a trifle. She saw where she stood, and what was coming. Very well—she would defeat them yet.