The Secret War

2

Murder?

As Penn and Lovelace left the warmth and security of he Union Club, the outer world seemed doubly grim by contrast.

Manhattan Island was still in the grip of winter. spring might be on the way, but the towering blocks of steel and concrete flung their pinnacles towards a grey and lowering sky. An icy wind bent the tree tops in ,Central Park and howled down the man made canyons, pausing the down town crowd to draw their wraps more closely round them as they hurried homewards from their offices.

During the forty mile drive the two men hardly spoke. Penn, at the wheel of his long low car, was intent on the swift moving traffic as it hurtled towards them, while Lovelace, naturally a rather silent man, was busy with his own thoughts.

The car swung right after passing through Bayshore and turned in through a pair of tall gates with a lodge on one side. The drive wound through ancient trees, and ended in a wide sweep before a long, low, rambling louse. Lovelace saw just enough of its front, as the headlights swept the porch and balconies, to realise that it was old, creeper covered and mellowed by time. actually it was the original home of Christopher's branch of the Penn family, and except that its big stables were now garages and the house had all the additional comforts that modern science could supply, it was little altered from what it had been when Abraham Lincoln was a boy.

As a servant came out to take over the car, the deafening roar of an aeroplane engine sounded overhead,

'That chap's flying pretty low,' remarked Lovelace.

`It's not a chap; it's Valerie, I expect. Her people are our nearest neighbours. Have been for generations. She's my fiancé, you know.'

Lovelace looked at the young American with some surprise as they passed into the house. He could well understand any girl falling for such a handsome fellow. Women would be certain to find his black eyes beneath their curling lashes 'romantic,' and his unusual pallor 'interesting.' Yet he did not strike the Englishman as a woman's man at all. It was difficult to imagine him making love. He seemed such a spiritual type almost as though he lived in a world apart.

'Hardly flying weather, particularly for a girl,' Lovelace added after a moment.

'Oh, Valerie's all right.' The reply was casual. 'She can fly as well as most men, or better, and anyhow, she'll have landed and be safe at home by now, Come along in.'

He led the way into a square, book lined room and pushed a couple of arm chairs up to an old fashioned open hearth, upon which a bright fire was burning. 'You'll excuse me for a moment while I give some orders, won't you? There are the drinks and cigarettes. Help yourself. I shan't be long.'

`Thanks.' Lovelace poured himself a drink and sat down, thrusting his feet forward to the blaze, but a moment later he drew them sharply up again and leaned forward to peer at a solitary photograph which occupied a prominent position on the mantelpiece.

It was that of a girl, and he judged her to be about twenty five. The style of hairdressing showed that it was quite a recent portrait, but it was difficult to guess if her hair were golden or brown. The eyes were large, but rather pale in the photograph, which gave them an almost magnetic look and made Lovelace suspect that they were grey. They were set under dead straight brows, giving the young face a look of tremendous personality and determination. It would have been almost forbidding had it not been for the mobile mouth and for an enormous, but somehow quite incongruous dimple under the curve of the left cheek.

Certain in his own mind that he knew the original of the portrait, he stood up to examine it more closely, but he searched his memory in vain for a clue. He was still gazing at it when his host returned.

`Sorry,' Lovelace apologised. `You must think me an ill mannered fellow staring at your friend.'

`Oh, no. That's Valerie, the girl we were talking about just now.'

'Yes, I think I guessed that; but the strange thing is I'm sure I've met her, and for the life of me I can't think where.'

Penn laughed. `That's easily explained: she's Valerie Lorne, the flying ace, and she holds all sorts of records. You must have seen photographs of her in the Press a hundred times.'

`Of course, how stupid of me!' Lovelace shrugged. Yet although he had never seen the famous air woman in the flesh he was certain now that her hair was not fair, but chestnut, and that those compelling eyes were grey. He could not account for the queer impression that he had been face to face with her on some occasion.

Half an hour later the two men sat down to dinner the mahogany was of an earlier period than the house, and the chairs were of the broad seated comfortable a memory of more spacious days when people liked ample elbow room and men sat long over their wine. The Georgian silver was no purchase from an auction room, but had come to the family straight from its maker in the hold of a sailing ship, when steam transport was still undreamt of.

An elderly butler and one footman waited on them; they served elderly meal that was good but unpretentious. Christopher Penn drank only water, but Lovelace found the Burgundy, which was served with the duck, excellent and chambre to a nicety. The port, too, was a pre prohibition vintage, which had lain undisturbed, steadily approaching maturity, during the years that the Volstead Act had been in force. Yet there was not the least suggestion of glitter and display in the quiet room, and Lovelace felt that he might have been enjoying a pleasant dinner with one of his less well off friends at home, rather than with a young man who controlled enormous vested interests and was several times a millionaire.

During the latter part of the meal the two discovered a mutual interest in fishing, and talked of flies, tackle, and of the red letter days on which they had made their best catches.

The heat, the dust, the rains of Abyssinia all had faded from the Englishman's mind, and he was thinking of the brown trout which frequented a pool he knew on the Findhorn, when he realised with a little shock that, unobserved by him, the servants had left the room, and that his host was speaking.

`I want to talk to you seriously, Lovelace, about the real possibilities of stopping war.'

`Yes; this society, the Millers of God, eh? I'd be most interested to hear more of that, if you care to tell me. It was taking a bit of a risk though, wasn't it? To admit you're a member, seeing that I'm, well a comparative stranger.'

Penn shook his dark head. `I don't think so. You see, I've rather a gift for sizing people up, and I felt I could trust you all along. When you said that about chucking the easy life to go out and make things just a shade less terrible for the innocent who suffer in every war, I was certain that, even if you didn't approve our methods, you wouldn't give me away in a thousand years.'

`That's so, of course. Has your society been operating for long?'

'It started at Oxford just after the Great War. Quite a lot of men went up there to take their degrees. Who should have gone up years before. Many of them were broken and bitter. You know how it was; they'd been through it all and come out three parts wrecked, in mind and body. There were others, too, who hadn't seen the fighting but spent the war years at their public schools. Half starved, poor devils, and deprived of all the natural fun which goes with boyhood. They had listened on Sundays, week after week, to all those long lists read out in chapel;` fathers, jolly uncles, chaps who had been in the eleven or fifteen a few terms before ', cousins and friends; one by one posted as dead, casualties, or missing.'

Lovelace sighed. 'Yes, it was pretty grim.'

'Well, some of 'em got together. They watched the Versailles Treaty in the making. Like a few of the more intelligent diplomats of the old school, who weren't allowed to have a say, they felt that it was an instrument of vengeance which must lead to further war instead of a step towards a permanent peace. They had no faith in Governments, either Democratic or run by some big political boss. They'd been let down too badly, and they saw the best of Governments were only puppets pushed and tricked into acting on the will of ignorant multitudes. The people; who are swayed first one way and then another. A dozen of those embittered men met constantly. In private they surveyed the whole situation with the logical cynicism engendered by their wrecked lives and cheated youth. They came to the conclusion that there was only one way to stop future wars: to declare war themselves on the men who stir the multitudes to demand that their Government shall take action: the men who sit behind it all and reap the benefits of war'

'But surely you're too young to have been at Oxford just after the after; ' Lovelace cut in with a puzzled frown.

`Oh yes. I was only speaking of the origin of the society. There are branches of it in a dozen Universities now. It's become international, and I became a recruit, through my tutor, at Yale.'

`I see, and what have the Millers of God done so far?'

`Well, the Mills of God grind slowly, you know, even if they grind exceeding small. Still, we've a certain amount to show. Each of us is prepared to use every penny we possess, if necessary, and all the influence we've got, to preserve peace. The Neutrality Bill has been put through in this country largely through our efforts. There's not a great deal in that. It's only an example which we hope other nations will follow. Then, much more important, there is the new law that all armament factories are to become the property of the State. That is a great step forward because it cuts the throat of the munitions racket at all events here.

'Yes, and there is a real hope that other countries may follow your lead there, even if their obligations prevent them going permanently neutral. There's nothing to stop them controlling armaments, except the armament people.'

'Ah, there you have it. That brings me to the grimmer side of our organization. If, after due investigation has been made, it's proved beyond doubt that a certain individual is actively working against the maintenance of peace, sentence is passed on him, and one of us undertakes the execution of that sentence.'

`Have there . . .' Lovelace hesitated a second 'have there been many cases like that?'

`Quite a number. The first was Eberheim, the nickel man. He played a big part behind the scenes in inciting the Greeks to try and mop up all that was left of Turkey after the Armistice. One day he disappeared from his headquarters in Smyrna and he's never been heard of since. Then there was a fellow called Pirradow. He was in oil, and he died suddenly on the way out to make new contracts with the Bolivians during their scrap with

Paraguay after he'd been warned to stay at home.' Christopher Penn fiddled nervously with the stem of his glass as he spoke. It held only water yet, judging from his flushed face, he might well have been drinking heavily of the potent wine. His dark eyes glittered like those of a fanatic as he went on. 'Rechmanitz was another. One of his own hand grenades went off unexpectedly, just as he was getting in his car one day to go off and do a demonstration for the benefit of a Japanese buyer whose employers were anxious to blow the guts out of a few more poor devils in China. Verdino is supposed to have broken his neck in a fall. Dowling was found dead in his bath. Olagnoff was drowned at sea.'

`I must confess,' Lovelace interrupted, `that I've never heard of any of these people.'

The younger man shrugged. `That's hardly surprising. The enemy work together you know. In a loose sort of way theirs is an organization as well, and their power over the world Press is enormous. They suppress all but the barest mention of these “accidents”, as far as they can. They're getting a bit rattled now, though, and we're picking off the worst of them one by one.'

Lovelace thoughtfully fingered his little moustache. 'Then what it comes to is this. Your organization is actually perpetrating a series of murders. It is murder. You can't get away from that.'

`Well, what if it is?' Christopher Penn suddenly stood up. `That's the fault of our law which executes a poor devil who's too drunk to know what he's doing when he kills another in a brawl, and yet gives these arch murderers, who deliberately ferment mass slaughter, its protection. Call it murder if you like, but no executions according to the law of any state have ever been ordered for the protection of human life with more justice.'

`My dear fellow, I agree with you in theory. It's the practical part which revolts me personally. That's against all reason, perhaps, but it s a fact, and as a decent man f believe at heart you must feel the same. l understand your using all your influence to support your organization's political moves, and even issuing warnings or threats on their behalf, as you did a few hours ago to that man Benyon, but if they actually picked on you to hunt a man down and kill him, I don't believe your conscience would allow you to go through with it

'It would. If I failed to carry out my pledge, and all the others failed too, new wars would break out that would take either us or our children. We've got to stop it somehow! Isolation's no good. The League’s no good. Ours is the only way, and we must not falter.' Penn's mouth tightened for a moment and then he suddenly cried: 'I had my notification yesterday. It’s horrible, isn't it? Horrible, but I’ve got to commit murder

The door had opened. The girl of the photo stood on its threshold. Her eyes were wide and staring. You commit murder she stammered `Oh. Christopher what do you mean.