“It is certain that Brian Merrick Junior is ignorant of my purpose?”
A dull, mechanical voice replied: “There is no evidence to the contrary.”
“You have not answered my question.”
“His behaviour gives cause for confidence, Excellency.”
“Explain your meaning.”
“He lunched at Senator Merrick’s club.”
“He was closely covered?”
“It was difficult. But an agent of The Order waited upon their table. He was, of course, very attentive.”
“Their conversation?”
“Chiefly concerned Sir Denis Nayland Smith.”
“It was satisfactory?”
“Entirely.”
“And after lunch?”
“Brian Merrick Junior saw his father off. The Senator was joined by two Air Force officers, who had lunched with Sir Denis at the Babylon-Lido.”
“Retain all contacts. Report hourly.”
The Si-Fan was watching . . .
* * *
When Brian returned to the suite in the Babylon-Lido (of which he had a key) he was in a queer frame of mind. Sir Denis sat writing; looking up, nodded.
“Decent lunch, Merrick? Don’t think too well of the catering at these University clubs, myself.”
“The lunch was all right. But I didn’t like the waiter.”
Nayland Smith laid his pen down. “Why not? Did he upset your soup?”
Brian grinned, but not happily. “No. He listened to everything I said to my father!”
“Hullo!” Sir Denis stood up quickly. “So the Reds have agents in the best clubs! I warned you, Merrick. What were you talking about?”
“Well—I tried to keep my father off the topic of Dr. Hessian’s invention. But, of course, he never seemed to suspect that a club servant might be a spy.”
“No. I see the difficulty. You’re pretty sure the man was listening?”
“Dead sure!”
Nayland Smith began to walk about in his restless way.
“The climax is so near. And we have two enemies, not one:
the Reds and the Si-Fan! It’s a formidable combination, Merrick. I’m backed by two governments, but I doubt if my double backing’s as good as Dr. Fu Manchu’s! We have worked like beavers to keep Hessian’s presence here a secret. We have failed.”
Brian thought for a minute. “It seems to me that it wasn’t to be expected we could do that, Sir Denis. As I see it, all we have to do is to make sure he’s safe. And on that point I have something to say.”
Nayland Smith checked in his promenade, darted one of his swift glances at Brian.
“What is it?” he snapped.
“Just this. Sometimes, when I’ve been alone here, I have heard someone being admitted through the penthouse door. I’m sure of it. And I hear all sorts of footsteps above. If this suite is supposed to be a sort of guard-room, and we’re responsible for Dr. Hessian’s safety, shouldn’t we be advised of who is being allowed to go up?”
Nayland Smith knocked out his pipe, then produced the old pouch. He began to stuff tobacco into the cracked briar bowl.
“Point a good one,” he snapped. “We are responsible. But the F.B.I, operative attached to Hessian has authority to admit visitors whose identity we don’t know. I’m not disputing his integrity. Fact remains, responsibility is ours. I’ll see to this, Merrick. You’re right.”
Sir Denis lighted his pipe and walked out.
But, when he had gone, Brian remained uncomfortably ill at ease. Up to the time of their arrival at the Babylon-Lido, Nayland Smith had seemed to be so firmly in charge of operations. Now, something was lacking.
Had his phenomenal success in smuggling the German scientist through the Iron Curtain, in getting him from Cairo to New York, induced Sir Denis to relax—too soon? It didn’t seem to fit in with the man’s dynamic character. Surely, now was the crucial hour—in fact, he had said so. What was wrong?
In his very bones, Brian had a foreboding that something pended which he didn’t understand. He was conscious of a longing to talk it all over with some reliable and sympathetic friend, someone he could trust.
Lola was both reliable and sympathetic . . . But he was bound to secrecy!
Brian walked about for some time in an unhappy frame of mind; smoked countless cigarettes. Once, hearing faint footsteps in the corridor, which seemed to pause at the far end, he crossed the lobby and quietly opened the door; looked out.
He was just in time to see the door to the penthouse stair closing!
“Damn!” he muttered—for he had caught not even a glimpse of the person who had gone in.
Listening intently, he detected the unmistakable click of a key being turned in a lock.
This irritated him unreasonably. His job, so far as he could see, remained that of an attendant; a sort of paid companion for Nayland Smith. Plots and counter-plots involving the security of the United States seethed around him, but he had no part to play.
Never once had he entered the penthouse since Dr. Hessian had taken up residence there; nor once set eyes upon him from the time of their arrival to the present moment.
It was a humiliating position—or so it seemed to him, now.
The phone on the big desk buzzed.
“Hullo!” he called.
“Oh, Brian, I’m so glad I caught you!” . . . Lola’. “When do you expect to be free? I can be in the Paris Bar around cocktail time. Any hope?”
“Where are you now, Lola?”
“At Michel’s. But for mercy’s sake don’t call me back, here! I’ll wait downstairs until seven, Brian. Do try!”
And she hung up.
Brian glanced at his watch. Five o’clock. Then he stood quite still, listening. French windows opened on a balcony were partly open. . . . and he could hear voices from above. Someone was talking on the terrace of the penthouse.
He opened the windows fully, but silently, and stepped out.
A strange voice, alternately guttural and sibilant, spoke slowly, with impressive pauses. Something in this voice touched a chord of memory, but so faintly that no idea of the speaker’s identity was conjured up. It bore a vague resemblance to the rarely-heard speech of Dr. Hessian. But the language was neither German nor English. It was a language which Brian knew he had never heard before.
There were occasional replies; monosyllables in the same tongue.
Once, Brian was almost sure, the name “Nayland Smith” was introduced into the otherwise unintelligible jargon. But he knew he might be mistaken, for if it had in fact been that name, it was so mispronounced as to be barely recognizable.
The conversation ended abruptly. He heard a shuffle of footsteps, and knew that the speakers had gone in. ...
* * *
“You made it, Brian!” Lola stood up to greet him as he hurried into the Paris Bar. “I nearly gave up hope. This is my second cocktail! Did the Big Chief have a heart, after all?”
Brian dropped into a chair facing her. He longed to have her in his arms; but this was not the time. And he felt oddly dispirited.
“When at last he came in, I told him about one or two queer things that had happened, and he said boredom was getting on my nerves and ordered me to forget the job and play a while.”
He looked up at a waiter who had just appeared and ordered two more cocktails.
Lola checked him. “Not another for me, Brian. I’ll finish on this one.”
Brian didn’t argue. He knew Lola. And when the waiter went off:
“Surely you’re through for the day, Lola?” he asked.
“Yes.” She was watching him, smiling. “But I like to stay sober all the same. What were these queer things that happened, Brian?”
“Oh!” He lighted a cigarette. Lola already was smoking. “We seem to have some curious neighbours up above us in the penthouse. I overheard somebody talking in a queer sort of jargon and mentioned it to Sir Denis.”