The Secret War

7

Into the lions den

'And now,' Lovelace insisted when they had finished their meal, `we must face facts. Even to have allowed Valerie to land us here was an abominable risk. It connects the three of us together, and if you, Christopher, succeed in what you're out to do, the police will start hunting for her directly they find out you came in on her plane. If she's determined to stay we can at least separate. She'd better take a room here in the airport hotel while we get fixed up somewhere in the city although I'd rather she flew back to Italy this afternoon.'

'How shockingly ungallant you are.' The dimple in Valerie's cheek deepened as she smiled at him.

`Honestly!' he raised a grin, ` “we don't want to lose you but we think you ought to go,” as the war song had it.'

`The worst the police could do is to hold me as a witness.'

'Yes, the police perhaps; but you may run into far greater danger from another quarter if you remain with us.'

'Well, I'm remaining until . , .' she laughed rather shakily, 'until the deed is done, but I'll take a room here if you like.'

She registered at the hotel and then they all drove into the town together. Athens was hot, dusty, airless. Its streets of shoddy modern shops proved disappointing to Christopher, who had never visited it before, and had always visualised it as still the Pearl of the Aegean. Nothing but the ruins of the Parthenon, dominating the city, remained to testify to its ancient glory, and the arid, treeless wastes on the outskirts of the town shattered his dream image of a palm decked southern capital. He was glad to get out of the sun glare into a cool courtyard at the hotel Lovelace selected for them.

Valerie dealt tactfully with him, as she always did when these moods of depression were upon him, and they agreed to remain where they were until Lovelace returned when he left them to drive out to Zarrif’s house in the heat of the afternoon.

He found it to be a walled property some way outside the town, and its only entrance a pair of rusty iron gates. Telling his cabman to wait, he jerked the old fashioned bell-​pull. A dismal clang sounded inside the porter's lodge, and a surly looking fellow came out to peer at him between the bars.

When he gave the name of Jeremiah Green the porter unlocked the big padlock that secured the gate and let him through. Having fastened the gate again behind the visitor the man accompanied him up the short drive to the house.

The garden was a dismal sight. Some withered palms, olives and cypresses struggled for existence in the stony soil. Ragged cacti, aloes, and myrtle bushes formed a jungle on either side. There were no flowers except upon the semi wild creepers which straggled across the grass-​grown paths.

The house, by contrast, was in good repair, but all the ground floor windows were shuttered, as Lovelace had expected. At the front door the porter rang another bell; a grille was lifted and two eyes peered out at them. Lovelace gave Green's name again and the door was unlocked upon which the porter left him. A second man, whose hip pocket displayed a bulge which suggested a large calibre pistol, relocked the door and led the way upstairs. On the first floor landing a third guardian sat reading a newspaper; after being given the visitor's name he opened the door which Lovelace knew led to the secretary's room,

A thin man with shiny black hair sat there behind a desk. His quick eyes searched Lovelace's face as he bowed. `Mr. Green, I was expecting you. Please to sit down.'

He spoke in English, but from his accent and appearance Lovelace judged him to be French.

`You have a letter for Mr. Zirrif,' he went on. `May I see it?'

`The letter is personal, I'm afraid,' Lovelace replied, settling himself in the nearest chair. `Perhaps you'd be good enough to let Mr. Zirrif know I'm here.'

The dark man smiled. 'Certainly in a little moment but first I must see the letter, please. I have knowledge of all Mr. Zarrif’s affairs, and no one sees him before I have, er what you would call vetted them, first.'

Without further argument Lovelace produced the stolen letter.

The secretary scanned it quickly and returned it with a flourish. `That is quite satisfactory. Now your passport, please, Mr. Green.'

Lovelace was almost caught unawares, but he was pokerfaced by habit and managed to mask his dismay as he said lightly: "Fraid I left that in my dispatch box at the hotel.'

The black eyes on the far side of the desk showed sudden suspicion. `How am I to know then that you are Mr. Jeremiah Green? That letter might have been lost or stolen. You must return to your hotel and produce your passport before I can allow you to see Mr. Zirrif.'

Lovelace knew he was up against it. If he once confessed that he was unable to produce the passport he would never get as far as the secretary's room again, let alone penetrate to Paxito Zarrif’s sanctum.

He screwed his mouth into a rueful grin ; `I'd go back with pleasure but for the fact that I'm a pretty sick man. Dysentery, you know. That's what Abyssinia does for you. I'm as weak as a rat, and the jolting of the taxi on these rotten roads gave me positive hell coming out here. A return trip to the city and back would about lay me out, I think. Isn't there any other way you can satisfy yourself about my identity?'

The secretary considered for a moment. 'Tell me how you left Ras Desoum and his children,' he said.

`He has none,' Lovelace answered at once. He was gambling on the Ras not having married in the last few years, and his memory of him as a tall effeminate man with many vices but no love of women.

After that the secretary fired questions at him with the rapidity of a machine gun. It was a gruelling experience, and Lovelace had to think like lightning while expecting to be caught out every moment in some hopeless blunder. He would never have come through it but for the knowledge acquired during his Abyssinian visit, and if Christopher had been in his shoes, as was originally planned, the young American would not have survived the ordeal for two minutes.

At last the man behind the desk appeared satisfied. He smiled again, `Forgive, please, the little traps I set for you, Mr. Green, but there are certain people most dangerous who seek to gain entry here. We have to be very careful of our visitors.'

`So I have observed,' replied Lovelace dryly.

The man on the landing was then called in to keep him silent company while the secretary disappeared into the inner room. About three minutes later he reappeared with the announcement: 'Mr. Zirrif will see you now.'

The curtains of the bigger room were drawn, and it was only lit by a single desk lamp, the shade of which had recently been adjusted so that the light shone full upon the visitor. Paxito Zirrif sat still and silent behind it, a presence rather than a man, almost invisible in the heavy shadows.

At first Lovelace could see nothing but his eyes, green, searching, vital; then the presence spoke in a thin, sharp voice, and the substance of the man became clearer. He was smallish in stature with narrow shoulders; a thin bridged, beaky nose, and a much fairer skin than Lovelace would have expected in an Armenian. His forehead was broad and lofty; his hair grey, and a little goatee beard decorated his angular chin.

He glanced at the letter Lovelace handed him and plunged at once into a series of rapid questions on the state of affairs in Addis Ababa. The secretary's cross examination had been difficult enough to deal with, but Mr. Paxito Zarrif’s was ‘infinitely more so.

His brain moved from subject to subject with the speed of a prairie fire, yet devoured every scrap of information on each before passing to the next.

Lovelace felt his forehead grow damp as the interview progressed, from the double strain of faking up plausible particulars about the progress of the war, of which he knew nothing except what he had learnt from the papers, and at the same time inventing an excuse which would enable him to secure a second interview. Suddenly the thought of his pretended illness have him a line. He gasped, leaned forward, and gripped his sides with both hands.

Zirrif ceased questioning him for a moment. The perspiration on his forehead now served a useful purpose it was obvious that he was ill. He groaned again and muttered something about having gone down with dysentery in Africa.

`You should have told me of this before.' Zirrif spoke now in a softer tone; he seemed all at once to have become quite human. `Give me your arm. This way. I have suffered myself. It is an agony.' He led Lovelace towards the further door beyond which lay the bath and valets' rooms.

When Lovelace returned the older man was busy with some papers. `You had best go back to your hotel now,' he said kindly, `but there is much which I still wish to ask you. Do you think you will be well enough to come out here again this evening?'

Lovelace leaned heavily on the table. `Yes. I haven't had a bout like this for some days now. It must have been something I ate for lunch, I think, that started it up again, but I'll be all right in an hour or two. What time d'you wish to see me?'

`Nine o'clock. If you are too ill, telephone, and we will appoint a time tomorrow morning. It must not be later, as I leave here in the afternoon.' Zirrif touched a bell upon his desk and the secretary appeared.

Promising to be back at nine, Lovelace gave the impression of making an effort to pull himself together. Heartily glad to escape further questioning, he allowed himself to be led downstairs and escorted off the premises.

Outside the gates he found a tall thin man talking to the porter. The man glanced at Lovelace, who noticed that he had deep, sad eyes set in a delicate, aristocratic face, which was marked by a heavy scar running from the corner of his mouth down to the left side of his chin.

Slumping into his taxi with a groan, Lovelace let himself be driven away, but after he had gone half a mile he stopped the cab, got out, and walked back to make a more careful survey of Zarrif’s property. Both the porter and the tall man had disappeared.

The road curved round the garden and ran up a hill at the back of the house. Two hundred yards from it he had no difficulty in seeing over the wall and picking out the first floor windows of the rooms he had visited. The wall was not a high one and a man could scale it easily by standing on another's shoulders, but a wire, which glinted faintly in the late afternoon sunlight, ran along it about six inches from the top; an electric alarm evidently. If it were cut, depressed, or pulled in scrambling over, bells would rouse the guards into instant activity.

Having found out all he could about Zarrif’s defences, Lovelace walked back to his waiting taxi and was driven into the city.

On his way back he thought over the situation. If Zirrif was leaving Athens the following day, the coming night was virtually the only opportunity Christopher would have in which to get him. They must act at once, and Lovelace thought he could see a way in which the business could be done.

He visited a wireless store and then an oil shop, at both of which he made certain purchases, and packing most of these into a kit bag he had bought for the purpose, he took it to a garage near his hotel, where he arranged with the proprietor for the hire of a car. By six o'clock his preparations were completed and he rejoined his friends.

`I saw the old boy and I'm going out there again tonight,' he told them. D'you really mean to go through with this, Christopher?'

`I do.' The young American's dark eyes lit up with almost savage determination.

'All right. I think I can give you your chance. How does that ether pistol of yours work?'

'It contains little cylinders of highly poisonous gas. They are smashed and the puff of gas ejected with tremendous force by compressed air. One breath of it is enough to kill almost instantly.'

`Good. I'm glad it's to be a painless business. It must be done silently too, if you're to stand any chance at all of getting out alive yourself, because the whole place is lousy with gunmen.'

`There's no chance of getting him away from the house, then?'

`Not an earthly. I had the devil of a job even to get in. You'll have to do it in the house, or not at all that's certain.' Both of them listened intently as Lovelace told of his experiences that afternoon.

'It seems almost impossible for me to get at him at all then,' Christopher said gloomily. `How d'you propose that I should set about it?'

`Let's leave that till after dinner shall we?'

They dined early, and Lovelace thought he had never sat through a more trying meal. Christopher displayed alternate moods of pessimism and gaiety. Although almost a teetotaller, he ordered a magnum of champagne and began to talk of his last wishes in the event of his being caught and killed by Zarrif’s men. Valerie grew paler and paler as the meal dragged on until Lovelace feared that she would faint at the table; but with almost superhuman pluck she managed to keep her end up and laugh with Christopher during his outbursts of forced hilarity.

When at last coffee was served, Lovelace produced a small map of Athens and its environs. Passing it to Christopher, he explained to him the route he must take to reach Zarrif’s house. It was not difficult, being a straight main road except for the last quarter mile, and, as the house stood alone on the slope of the hill, Christopher agreed that he would have no trouble in finding it.

`Right, then,' Lovelace went on. `I shall have to leave you in a few minutes now, to keep my appointment, but I want you to follow me in a private car which I've hired for you from the Delphic garage. It'll be handed over to you here by their man at a quarter to nine. In it there's a pair of folding steps and a kit bag containing various other things we'll need. You will drive yourself out, but you're not to stop at the house; go straight on round the bend at the back and up the hill for about two hundred yards. Stop then, and wait until I join you there. I've ordered your car a bit early to make certain of it arriving up to time; but don't start before nine, because I don't want you hanging about there longer than necessary. I hope to be out of the house by half past, but in any case I'll manage to be with you, somehow, before a quarter to ten.' He turned to Valerie: `Could you fly the Adriatic by night if need be?'

'Oh, yes,' she nodded; `I've done far more difficult trips than that.'

`Then I want you to return to the airport when Christopher sets off. See that your plane's in readiness, then wait at the hotel. If you don't hear from us by eleven o'clock you're to leave at once for Brindisi. Is that all clear?'

As the others nodded he lifted his glass of champagne. 'Well, here's lots of luck to all of us,' he said briefly. Finishing his wine, he stood up and left them.

On his second visit to Zarrif’s house he paid off his taxi. The guards made no difficulty about letting him through, and the secretary, who was still at work, led him at once into the inner room.

Zirrif inquired courteously if he was better, and on learning that although still shaky he was fairly fit, settled down to bombard him with a fresh series of questions. Lovelace dealt with them to the best of his ability, but one almost took him off guard. It was a sudden inquiry. 'Do you know anything about the Millers of God?'

For a moment he feared that his imposture had been discovered, and that Zirrif had only been playing with him; but his one hope lay in keeping up his part.

'Yes,' he said slowly. 'It's a sort of society, isn't it, which threatens people who speculate in currencies to such an extent that nations are forced into a corner and driven off gold.'

'It threatens those and others. What more do you know of it?' Zarrif’s piercing eyes seemed to probe the deepest corners of his visitor's mind.

'Nothing only rumours picked up in travelling here and there.'

`I see. You have nothing definite you can give me, Well . . .' The wizened old man's questions switched to another subject, and Lovelace breathed again.

A few moments later he pretended to be seized with another attack. Zirrif showed no surprise, but treated him with the same consideration as before.

When Lovelace returned to the big, gloomy room he apologised and said: 'If there's any more Information you want I'll come out tomorrow morning. I'll be all right again by then.'

Zirrif nodded. There is still much that I wish to hear. If you are free to return to Abyssinia I should like to have you with me. It is always of great value to be able to consult a man who has been so recently at the scene of action.'

Lovelace hesitated a moment.

'You will not find it necessary to work for a long time afterwards if you do as I suggest,' Zirrif went on quietly. `I pay my people well, as anyone who has been in my service will tell you.'

'All right I'm game,' Lovelace replied, simulating a stab of pain. 'What time do we start?'

'My secretary, Cassalis, will meet you by the bookstall at the airport at one thirty tomorrow. We shall leave shortly after. Good night.'

Zirrif pressed the bell upon his table, and three minutes later Lovelace heard the iron gates of the house clang to behind him.

He found the hired car up on the hillside. It was partly concealed by a group of cypresses. The moon had risen and showed the plain below almost as clearly as in daylight, but it showed something else as well. Valerie was seated in the driver's seat beside Christopher.

`What the hell are you doing here?' Lovelace snapped at her angrily. `Didn't I tell you.

'Never mind what you told me,' she cut him short as she got out. 'I'm my own mistress and I take orders from no one. I'm only here to mind the car and get you away more quickly.'

For a second he was minded to call off the whole business, but Christopher was beside him now, trembling with excitement and urging him to give his orders. No such opportunity to get Zirrif might ever occur again. With sudden decision he gripped Christopher by the arm.

`You see the left end of the house. The last three windows on the first floor are those of Zarrif’s bedroom. The next is the bathroom, and the fifth the lavatory. If you look carefully you'll see a dark streak running down from it. That's the two ends of a rope I bought this afternoon, took in round my waist, and threw out of the window a few minutes ago after passing it behind the pipe that runs up to the cistern. It'll bear you easily and it's not difficult to climb.'

'Yes!' breathed Christopher. 'Yes!'

Lovelace pulled the step ladder and bag out of the back of the car. `Come on,' he said, and led the way off the road down the rocky slope.

Christopher had Valerie in his arms. With feverish lips he was kissing her all over her face. Suddenly he thrust her from him and scrambled after Lovelace down to the wall.

Lovelace was already getting his kit out of the big bag. It consisted of a large screw hook, a pair of rubber gloves, a length of electric wire, a roll of insulating tape, a pair of wire cutters, and another length of rope.

Propping the steps against a near by tree, he screwed the hook into the trunk about ten feet up, level with the wall top, then, passing the length of wire through it, he drew on his rubber gloves and, moving the steps, attached one end of it to the alarm wire above the wall. Next, he shifted the steps fifteen feet along, drew the loose wire taut through the hook, and performed the even more delicate operation of attaching its free end so that it would carry the current round the V and take the strain without sounding the alarm. Moving the steps again, he set them up half way between the two joins.

`Be ready to run,' he whispered, glancing over his shoulder. With a set face he cut the alarm wire where it now formed the base of the triangle he had erected.

They held their breath for a second, fearing to hear the electric gongs shatter the silent night, but no sound broke the stillness,

'It's all right,' Lovelace muttered. 'Pass me the rope.'

When Christopher handed it to him he threw one end of it over the wall in the centre of the gap where the wire had been a moment before, ran down the steps, and attached the other to the lower portion of the tree.

Christopher already had one foot on the steps. Lovelace caught him by the elbow. 'Go canny when you reach the sill in case they've spotted the rope and are waiting for you. If they are, you'll have to drop and run. If all goes well, pull the rope by one end when you reach the ground again and bring it back with you. If you can do that they'll never know how you got in. We'll be waiting for you at the car. Up you go now and good luck to you!'

`Thanks,' Christopher gasped, `thanks,' and running up the steps he slipped noiselessly over the top of the wall into the garden.

Lovelace turned and scrambled up the hill. He found Valerie leaning against the car.

`Why did you come?' he panted. 'Why the devil couldn't you keep out of this?'

'How how could I leave him to come alone?' she whispered. Then he realised that she had given way at last and was weeping unrestrainedly.

He put his arm round her shoulders, muttering little phrases of comfort and encouragement as he fought to regain his breath. Her sobbing became a little less passionate. It faded to a whisper of quick drawn gasps. All his anger with her for adding to his responsibilities by appearing on the scene had evaporated. She was in love with Christopher, that insane or was he terribly sane? idealist who was now struggling through the bushes towards the house. Lovelace's heart ached for her, but he could do nothing; only hold her closer and watch the section of the moonlit garden that he could see across the wall.

`Anthony, I'm frightened,' she gasped suddenly. `I wish I wish I hadn't come.'

She had never before called him by his first name. `I wish to God I'd succeeded in persuading you not to,' he said huskily.

`You're all against this, really, aren't you? It may be justice in the sight of God as Christopher says but actually its horrible to think about.'

`Yes,' he said slowly, `and whatever misery Zirrif may be plotting to bring on the world, he seems a decent sort. He was darned decent to me when I shammed illness so that I could fix that rope for Christopher to get into the house. I've never hated anything quite so much as giving him this chance tonight.'

`Oh, Anthony, Anthony, I feel just the same but what else could we do?' She suddenly pressed against him and he held her tighter yet while her shoulders shook with a fresh burst of sobs.

`I ought to have gone in with him, although I never promised that,' he muttered. `He's such a boy. I had half a mind to, but well, as you turned up I felt I couldn't leave you in case things go wrong.'

`I'm glad I came, then after all. This isn't your show. He must see it through himself . . .' She broke off suddenly. `Look! There he is, going up the rope. He's nearly reached the window.'

Christopher was swarming up the double rope hand over hand. Another moment and he gripped the window sill. Cautiously he raised his head. The moon gave sufficient light for him to see that the room was empty. Heaving himself up, he wormed his way over.

Once inside the house he paused only long enough to get his pistol out of his pocket. He gripped the butt firmly in his right hand and advanced on tiptoe his left hand outstretched to grasp the shadowy protuberance of the door knob. It turned noiselessly under his touch; the door swung open and he stepped cautiously through it. From the plan of the house he knew that he was now in the small hallway. The valet's room must be opposite him, a few paces away, and Zarrif’s bedroom to his left. The moonlight which silvered the bathroom behind him hardly penetrated sufficiently to lessen the close, heavy darkness. The gloom was only broken by a thin pale ribbon of light on the floor to the right; indicating the door of the room in which Lovelace had faced the grey, elderly Armenian less than a quarter of an hour before. Christopher passed his tongue over his dry lips and tried to still his breathing. It sounded like a rushing wind, which must alarm the household if he could not control it, as he stood there with the sweat streaming down his forehead. Nerving himself for the final effort, he ran his finger tips lightly down the door until he found the handle, gave it a sudden twist, and flung it open.

Zirrif was seated quietly writing at his desk. As Christopher entered he swung round; his hand shot out towards his desk bell; but Christopher was quicker, and Zirrif withdrew his arm at the whispered caution when he saw the big black pistol, with its thick attachment like a silencer, pointed at his head.

`What do you want?' he challenged huskily, coming to his feet. `What do you want?'

`Your life!' whispered Christopher, his black eyes blazing in his thin, dead white face. He stepped forward and thrust his weapon to within a yard of Zirrif 's mouth. `You've forfeited it by your proved attempts to promote mass murder. I am a Miller of God, sent to execute justice upon you.'

For a second Paxito Zarrif’s green eyes flickered towards his bell again; but now it was beyond his reach. He drew himself up and his voice held a contemptuous ring as he answered: `I have had a long life and an interesting one. Shoot, then, if you wish assassin!'