Next morning Maurice left the house at half-past nine, and walked through the village to the station, carrying his black bag. Seeing Count Slavianski and his secretary on the bench in front of the hotel, he saluted them with a shade less coolness than usual, fully expecting to hear the motor-car behind him before he was half-way to the station. To his surprise, however, none of the foreigners arrived in time for the train, and he supposed that he was to be allowed for once to make the journey to London unshadowed. This idea was dispelled as soon as he reached Sunbury. When the train drew up, he saw the Count and his secretary on the platform. They entered a compartment some little distance away.
At Waterloo he stood at the bookstall for a few moments, looking out for the Russians with sidelong glances. He saw nothing of them. Hailing a taxi-cab, he was driven to the Foreign Office, which he reached at a quarter-past eleven. On entering, he was taken this time to the Under-Secretary’s room.
“Good morning, Mr. Buckland,” said the official; “I am sorry to say that the despatch is not yet ready. News came early this morning which caused the Secretary to modify his instructions to your chief. He has drafted a new despatch, which is in course of being translated into cipher. I am afraid it will not be ready for a couple of hours yet.”
“That will give me time to make a few purchases,” said Buckland. “I shall be able to catch the two-twenty?”
“I hope so. It will be a pity to lose half a day.”
“I will leave my bag with you, then, and return in good time. By the way, you don’t happen to have heard of a gang of Austrian spies in London?”
“Not a word. Why do you ask?”
“A number of foreigners have been living at Shepperton for a week or two, and I’ve an idea they may be shadowing me. The chief of them passes as a Count Slavianski.”
“I never heard of him. Wait a minute.”
He touched a bell, and a clerk appeared.
“Ask Mr. Rowlands if he knows anything of a Count Slavianski, now lodging at Shepperton.”
The clerk soon returned.
“Mr. Rowlands heard of the Count this morning, sir,” he said, “and has sent Williams down to inquire.”
“Thank you.” The clerk disappeared. “We shall know more presently. Perhaps you had better have a detective or two with you, as far as Dover at any rate.”
“I think not. They would only draw attention to me and show the importance of my journey. These fellows, if they are spies, no doubt have agents abroad, and would put them on the qui vive. I had better go quietly, and try to find some means of throwing them off the scent.”
“Just as you please,” said the Under-Secretary, with a smile.
Buckland went up Whitehall into the Strand, made his purchases, and started back again to the National Club. There was no sign of the foreigners. He took an early lunch, and returned to the Foreign Office at half-past one. The despatch still not being ready, he sat down to wait. While so doing an idea struck him. He got some Foreign Office paper, and amused himself by writing an imaginary despatch in the usual cipher, jotting down the first words that came into his head. This he sealed up in a long envelope like those that were ordinarily used, but took the precaution to make a small mark on it, by which he would be able to distinguish it from the real despatch.
The minutes flew by. Two o’clock came. Holding his watch in his hand, he began to doubt his chance of catching the Paris train. At a quarter past he gave it up. It was half-past before he was summoned to the Secretary’s room.
“You have lost the train,” said the Minister. “It was unavoidable, and is perhaps not altogether unfortunate. The police have just reported a number of suspicious characters hanging about the termini.”
“I fancy I have been shadowed this morning, sir,” said Buckland. “A Count Slavianski has been living at Shepperton for some weeks, with a suite. A detective has been sent down to make inquiries.”
“Indeed! Then it will certainly be inadvisable to charter a special train and hold up the boat at Dover. We must do nothing to attract attention. I leave the route entirely to your discretion. A torpedo-boat will be at Brindisi on Friday, but should circumstances render it necessary for you to choose some other route, you are perfectly at liberty to do so. One thing is essential: that you should lose no time.”
“Might I have an Admiralty launch to put me across the Channel?” asked Buckland.
“Certainly. What is your idea?”
“To dodge these fellows, if I can, and join the slow train to Dover at some little station down the line. Then I could slip out at Dover Town station, and cut off to the launch.”
“That sounds promising. I will telephone to the Admiralty at once.”
The arrangement was quickly made. Buckland shook hands with the Secretary, locked the despatch in his bag, and left the building.
Glancing down Whitehall, he saw one of Count Slavianski’s underlings forty or fifty yards away on the opposite side of the street. He began to walk in the other direction towards Trafalgar Square, and was not much astonished to see another of the foreigners hanging about, in an apparently aimless manner, nearly the same distance away. As he went slowly towards the Grand Hotel, this man moved on also. Buckland crossed the road, and halted to look in at a bookseller’s window. A glance to the left showed him that the other man had followed him at about the same pace. There was no longer the least room for doubt. He was being dogged.
He went on, and glanced down Northumberland Avenue, on arriving at the corner. At the entrance of the Victoria Hotel stood a large racing motor-car, with a yellow body. It was empty, and neither Count Slavianski nor any of his party was to be seen. But Buckland felt certain that it was the Count’s car. “A very keen lot,” he thought. Keeping a careful guard over himself so that he should not betray any sign of consciousness that he was surrounded by watchers, he walked into the hall of the Grand Hotel.
“I thought you were never coming,” said George, springing up to meet him. “I’ve been here hours. You have lost the train.”
“Yes. Speak low, and don’t look towards the door. I’ll tell you all about it.”
They seated themselves on chairs, placing them where there was no danger of being overheard. Buckland lit a cigarette.
“I had to wait while a new despatch was ciphered,” he said. “There’s no doubt that I’m being shadowed, George. The Count and his secretary got in at Sunbury; their car’s outside; and I’ve just seen two of their men in Whitehall.”
“By gum! the two others are somewhere about. I drove across country to Richmond, but I believe I saw the yellow car behind me as I came through Putney. It was a good way behind, and I couldn’t be sure of it. I had enough to do to steer clear of the traffic from Putney on; but, you may depend on it, they had their eye on me, and they know I’ve got your baggage.”
“Well, it’s pretty clear that they mean business. They’re bent on intercepting my despatch. We know there are six of them; how many more we can’t tell; but it looks as if they’ve made their plans on a pretty large scale.”
“It must cost a heap of money,” said George.
“That’s a small matter compared with the value of the information they hope to get. For every hundred they spend in obtaining news they may save a million. They mean by hook or crook to find out what England’s next move is to be, and when they take a matter of that sort in hand they don’t do things by halves. I’m certain they have made very complete arrangements to shadow and run down any one passing between the Foreign Office and our agency at Sofia.”
“By Jove!” was all that George could utter for a moment. His notion of it’s being what he had called a “lark” had quite vanished. “What will you do, old man?” he asked at length.
“I think I had better slip out by the back entrance in Craven Street, and make a dash in a taxi for Herne Hill. You stay here till I ’phone you from the station; then send the porter with my valise to Charing Cross and tell him to book it through to Paris by the 9 o’clock. I’ll wait at Herne Hill for the next Dover train.”
“That sounds all right. But did they see you come in?”
“You may be sure they did.”
“Well, they’ll watch for you to come out again.”
“They may not know of the back entrance. I’ll go and see.”
He rose and left the hall. In less than five minutes he was back again.
“One of the fellows is standing at the corner of Craven Street and the Strand,” he said quietly. “There’s another, whom I don’t recognise, strolling a little way down the street, and near him there’s a taxi with its flag down.”
“Just what you might have expected. You can’t get away without being seen, that’s clear.”
“Well, I must simply go openly, and take my chance. Where’s the gyro-car, by the way?”
“In the garage.”
“Then this is what we’ll do. I’ll engage a taxi, and tell the chauffeur to drive northward, and zigzag for a quarter of an hour or so through the streets between here and Oxford Street. If he’s up to his work, it will be impossible for the Count’s motor to keep the taxi in sight. When we’re clear, we’ll drive straight to Herne Hill. You must get away as soon as you can without attracting attention; then run out and make for Herne Hill too. You’ll get along faster than any ordinary motor, because you can squeeze through the traffic. I hope that I shall draw them all off, so that they won’t trouble about you; but if they see you, you must come on as fast as you can, with due regard to the speed limit. Pick me up at Herne Hill, and run me down to Dover; an Admiralty launch will be waiting for me there. Have you plenty of petrol?”
“Enough to drive from here to Edinburgh. This is going to be great sport after all.”
Maurice beckoned the hall porter and asked him to call a taxi. In half a minute it was at the door. Maurice walked out slowly, threw the end of his cigarette away, and, as he stepped in, told the chauffeur to drive to 73, Cavendish Square, the first number and address that came into his head.
“Beg pardon, sir, there is no number 73,” said the driver.
“Oh no! Thirty-seven. Drive slowly.”
At a glance towards the Victoria Hotel, Buckland saw that the yellow car was no longer there, but he caught sight of it in a moment drawn up on the south side of Trafalgar Square, opposite the offices of the Hamburg-American Line. Looking over the lowered tilt of the taxi-cab he failed to see the car in pursuit, but on reaching the Haymarket he noticed another taxi-cab about forty yards behind, and behind that, rapidly overhauling it, a small private motor-car. He was not sure that these were on his track, and determined to put it to the test.
“Driver,” he said through the speaking tube, “I think that taxi behind is following me, and I want to shake it off. Take all the side streets you come to; never mind about Cavendish Square; a sovereign if you do it.”
The cabman winked. He ran up the Haymarket, was checked by a policeman at Coventry Street; then, when the traffic was parted, cut across into Windmill Street, swept round into Brewer Street, turned the corner into Golden Square at a speed that caused an old gentleman to shake his stick and call for the police, and so by Beak Street into Regent Street and presently into Savile Row. Long before this the taxi-cab which had followed was lost in the traffic.
“Well done,” said Buckland. “Now turn back and hurry to Blackfriars Bridge, and then to Herne Hill. Choose the quietest streets.”
He sat well back in the cab, congratulating himself on the success of his stratagem. The driver made his way by a roundabout course to the Strand, down Arundel Street to the Temple, and along the Embankment. At the entrance to De Keyser’s Hotel Buckland noticed a man standing with his hands in his pockets beside a stationary taxi-cab. No sooner had Buckland passed than the man darted towards the cab, and said a few words to a person inside. The vehicle instantly started in pursuit across the bridge, the man who had given the alarm dashing into the hotel.
“Well I’m hanged!” said Buckland to himself; he had watched these movements intently. The pursuers had evidently guessed that he might make for one of the southern stations, and had set a watch probably at all the bridges. He had no doubt that the man who had run into the hotel was now telephoning to his friends, and the taxi-cab following close behind would keep him in view. The number of his own cab had almost certainly been noted as soon as he entered it.
The affair promised to become even more serious than he had expected. Considering the best course to follow, he decided that there was nothing better than to make all speed to Herne Hill, and then get George to drive him straight to Dover. The Admiralty launch would be there awaiting him. He could cross the Channel at once, while the pursuers would have to wait for a boat.
The chances of the traffic, and the eagerness of the cabman, enabled him to outstrip the pursuing cab as soon as he had passed the Elephant and Castle, and it was not in sight when he reached Herne Hill. There the gyro-car was awaiting him. It was surrounded by an admiring crowd, and Buckland wished that he could have chosen a less conspicuous vehicle. Having paid and tipped his driver he sprang into the car.
“Straight for Dover, George!” he cried.
“Right. I have kept the gyroscopes working, in case anything happened. Are they on your track?”
“Yes. There’s a taxi after me: there it is, not a hundred yards away.”
“Well, they can’t interfere with you openly. There’s no hurry. They’ll be sold when they find that you are not going into the station. Couldn’t we have them arrested?”
“There’s no time. I should be wanted as a witness. Besides, there’s no policeman. Now for Dover: you know the road?”
“Yes. We’ll give them a run, at any rate.”
The taxi-cab had by this time pulled up, but no one had as yet alighted from it. George started the gyro-car, and the crowd gave a cheer as it ran forward at ten miles an hour. The occupant of the pursuing cab had now stepped out, and stood on the pavement watching the departing car with ill-concealed chagrin. He was a foreigner, but not one of those whom the Bucklands had previously seen in the suite of Count Slavianski.
“He sees he is no match for us,” said George gleefully. “I think we are safe now.”
The suburbs were soon left behind, and as soon as the gyro-car came into the main Dover Road, away from the bewildering traffic of London, he increased the speed to twenty miles an hour.
“Remember the limit,” said Maurice warningly. “We don’t want to be held up.”
“We’ll chance it,” replied George. “In any case, they’ll only take our name and address, and the Government won’t mind paying the fine, I fancy.”
The gyro-car ran with much less noise than a motor-cycle, and being also much less cumbersome than an ordinary motor-car, it was able to travel at a high speed without attracting too much attention. Its unusual shape did indeed arouse a certain curiosity and excitement among pedestrians and carmen, but they were more interested in the vehicle itself than in any calculation of its speed. There might, of course, be police traps on the road, but it was probable that before the police became aware of the approach of a car at excessive speed, it would have shot past them.
When they had passed through Gravesend, George ventured to increase the speed to thirty-five miles.
“I can get eighty or more out of it, if you like,” he said, and in truth he was itching to put it to its maximum speed, in defiance of all regulations.
“I am quite satisfied as it is,” said Maurice with a smile. “We are going faster than the ordinary train, and there’s no pursuit.”
Here and there the speed had to be reduced in order to avoid the traffic, but the narrowness of the vehicle enabled it to pass with much less delay than a motor-car.
“We’re nearly halfway,” said George, as he slowed down on approaching Sittingbourne. “I say, old man, why shouldn’t I take you all the way to Brindisi?”
“My dear fellow——”
“Oh, I mean it. I can send a wire to Aunt, and get some pyjamas and a toothbrush in Paris. It would be the jolliest thing out.”
This suggestion, which Maurice was at first inclined to scout, started a train of thought. There was very little doubt that Count Slavianski would take the first train to Dover, in the expectation of crossing the Channel by the ordinary boat with Buckland. Having made such elaborate arrangements, he would not stick at trifles to gain his end. On the 9 o’clock train from Charing Cross there would probably be the Count himself and several of his men. They would cling to his track as he journeyed across France, and not until he joined the torpedo-boat at Brindisi could he feel safe.
Moreover, when he remembered the outrages that had been committed with impunity on the continental trains, he could not doubt that he would meet with his greatest dangers on the other side of the Channel. Three or four desperate men could certainly find or make an opportunity of attacking him during the long and tedious journey to Brindisi, especially on the Italian portion of it, when the train, as he well knew, crawled along for twenty-two hours at an average speed of twenty miles. He had his revolver, but that would avail him little if the attack were of the nature of a surprise, as it assuredly would be. If the train journey could by any means be avoided, he would have a much better chance of eluding the trackers, keeping a whole skin, and ensuring the safety of his despatch.
“I don’t see why we shouldn’t try it,” he said after a minute’s consideration.
“Good man!” cried George, delighted.
“Don’t be in a hurry,” proceeded Maurice. “Your licence doesn’t run in France.”
“Of course it doesn’t; but don’t you remember I spent the Easter holiday in Normandy on a motor-bicycle? I wrote you, didn’t I? I’ve got my licence for that in my pocket-book, and we’ll make that do.”
“I foresee the necessity for a little diplomacy,” said Maurice, laughing. “But you haven’t any licence at all for Italy.”
“That’s true, but the Italians will do anything for a tip, won’t they? I hope you’ve got plenty of money with you: there’ll be import and octroi duties to pay.”
“I think I can manage them. As for the licence, we shall see.”
“Yes, and I shall say you are not fit for your job if you can’t manage a trifle like that. It will be great fun. With luck we should get to Brindisi as soon as the train: and if you’re game to do without sleep, or take turns with me at snatching a nap, we’ll beat the train.”
“The roads in south Italy are pretty bad, you know.”
“So are the railways, I’ll go bail. Besides, we don’t want such a good road as the ordinary motor. I’m sure we can do it.”
“Very well; I’m game, as you put it. There’s this advantage, that if we come to grief——”
“My dear chap, we shan’t come to grief; that is, unless we are smashed up by some scorching motorist.”
“I wasn’t thinking of a smash-up. We may find ourselves held up for want of a licence, you know, and have no end of trouble. What I was going to say was that we can join the train anywhere en route. If they find we don’t leave Paris by it, they’ll not travel by it themselves. We’ve several hours’ start of them, allowing for the Admiralty launch, and if we go straight ahead we shall be a good many miles on our way before the train starts, even; the Turin train doesn’t leave Paris until 2.10 to-morrow afternoon. We shall have time for a rest in Paris, and even then start several hours ahead.”
“Ripping, old man. This will be better sport than going to Scotland with Aunt Muriel. Here’s Harbledown; we shall be in Dover in another three-quarters of an hour.”
It was a quarter to four when they left Herne Hill. At twenty minutes past six they arrived at Dover. They ran straight down to the Admiralty harbour, where the launch, with steam up, was awaiting them. It was a temporarily awkward matter, getting the gyro-car on to the launch, for no preparations had been made for that. But British tars are handy fellows. At a word from the lieutenant ten men, five on each side, lifted the vehicle bodily and carried it on to the deck. Maurice gave a hurried explanation to the officer, and scribbled a telegram to Mrs. Courtenay-Greene to say that George would not be home for a few days. He handed this to one of the harbour men, the vessel cast off, and the two brothers mounted to the bridge at the lieutenant’s invitation.
Just as the launch was getting under way, George suddenly called Maurice’s attention to a large motor-car dashing down the hill above at a somewhat dangerous speed. It was coloured yellow.
“Hanged if old Slavianski isn’t on our tracks already!” he cried. “By Jove! I wonder how many policemen he has knocked over!”
The car ran straight on to the quay and pulled up.
“Can you lend me a telescope?” asked Maurice of the officer.
In a few moments a seaman brought a glass from below. Looking through it, Maurice saw Count Slavianski, his secretary, and two other men standing beside the car, and speaking to a policeman, whose right arm was outstretched towards the launch.
“It’s rather a joke to think of these foreigners applying to a British bobby for information about us,” said Maurice, handing the glass to his brother.
Next moment the men sprang into the car again, and drove quickly in the direction of the inner harbour.
“I hope we’ve seen the last of them,” said George.
“You may be sure we haven’t,” replied Maurice, who more fully realised the seriousness of this headlong pursuit. “We must make the most of our start. The Calais boat lands passengers in time for the train that reaches Paris at 5.50 in the morning. We shan’t have more than a couple of hours at the most.”
“What’s in the wind?” asked the lieutenant, whose curiosity had been aroused by the appearance of the odd-looking gyro-car and the evident interest of his passengers in the proceedings on shore. And Maurice Buckland told him as much as he thought proper of the story.