The Secret of the Silver Car - Wyndham Martyn (red white royal blue txt) 📗

high explosives or electric arc were useless here. It was the last word of a safemaking firm which had been in the business for more than a century. Trent did not doubt, as he gazed at it, that there would be developed by the need of it craftsmen who could open even this. But the time was not yet.

Count Michael Temesvar had been wise in buying the only safe in the world whose patent had been extended by the Privy Council of Great Britain. With his gloved hands Trent touched the thing lightly. The millionth chance that it might not be locked was against him. He was wasting his time. Quickly he made a methodical search of the room but found nothing that interested him.

On his own bed he sat for an hour wondering what to do. He had been so certain when speaking to Lord Rosecarrel that his professional skill would accomplish what others had failed to do that this disappointment was bitter indeed.

He had wondered why the count had taken so little caution in permitting a foreigner of the same supposed nationality as Lord Rosecarrel to live in Castle Radna. It was, plainly, because the count knew perfectly well that the Chubbwood safe preserved his treasures inviolate.

Probably no living crook could break into it even, though he had a year in which to work. It was undrillable, unscathed by fire and could repose at the bottom of the sea without its contents becoming damaged.

Trent’s first thought of compelling the count to give up the combination by force promised an unhappy ending. Surrounded by servants and friends he would assuredly be interrupted before he could be forced to give up his secret.

Hentzi would never be entrusted with the combination. None would know it but Count Michael. For a moment he wondered if Pauline might be dragged into it to exercise her Delilah arts on her protector.

“There must be some way out of it,” Trent murmured a hundred times as he sat on his bed’s edge.

Dawn was breaking as he closed his eyes. His expression was calm and untroubled. He had found his solution.

ANTHONY PLAYS HIS HAND

Lord Rosecarrel opened his town house in Grosvenor Place at the beginning of May for the London season. Lady Daphne observed that he had shaken off the gloom and apathy which had engulfed him for the last few years. He began to take a more vivid interest in the international situations which grew out of the Peace Conference. He began to talk to the girl again about the aims of nations with respect to Persia and indirectly with the future of India.

The earl was waiting impatiently for her one night when she came back from an opera party given in her honor by Rudolph Castoon.

“Daphne,” he began abruptly, “Do you believe absolutely in the bona fides of Anthony Trent?”

The girl felt herself coloring.

“Absolutely,” she said steadily, “Why?”

“I have had a long cable from him,” he returned. “A cable so extraordinary that I can hardly believe he sent it. Here it is. It is only partly in cipher for the reason the cipher code I made was not intended for a message such as this. What you would not understand I have decoded.

The girl took the slip of paper eagerly.

“At once,” she read, “allow papers to announce you have decided to come from retirement and accept public office. If

Temesvar wires for confirmation persist in

your statement. If he threatens tell him he

has not got treaty. Tell him if he has it to

bring it to the prime minister. Follow these

instructions implicitly otherwise I can

never succeed.”

“And will you?” Daphne demanded breathlessly.

“I don’t know,” the earl said slowly. “It seems rather a desperate thing to do. You must have heard rumors that I have been offered the enormously important position of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the cabinet that will be formed when the present government goes out of office. There will be two men there who are my enemies. There is, for instance, Rudolph Castoon whose guest you have been tonight and Buchanan who will be Home Secretary. Castoon knows I do not trust him wholly. There is always a danger in making a man of his kind Chancellor of the Exchequer. He has a brother in every great country and some of them have been our bitter enemies in the past. Buchanan, of course, exercises enormous influence through his newspapers and seems to feel a personal grievance against me.”

“It was because you never would invite him here or to the castle,” she answered, “although he was forever spelling for an invitation. Those nouveaux riches are very sensitive.”

“If I accepted office,” the earl went on slowly, “I should have these two men against me. And if by any ill chance it should become known that I did not destroy the draft of a treaty which was entrusted to me Buchanan would see his opportunity and use his wretched papers to the full. I should be forced out of public life. I have always been intolerant of breaches of faith and that would be remembered against me as a mark of hypocrisy.”

“But Mr. Trent says Count Michael Temesvar hasn’t got the treaty,” she cried, “and that means he has it.”

Her father shook his head.

“That’s just what it doesn’t mean,” he returned. “Mr. Trent says I am to tell Count Michael he has not the treaty. If Trent had it he would have told me so. I am to do this risky thing in order that he may ultimately succeed. You see, Daphne, my statement to the press that I have decided to take office is part of a move in the game that another man is playing.”

“But he’s playing it for you,” she cried.

The earl smiled.

“Is he?” he returned, “I’ll admit at all events that I am the one most to be benefited if he succeeds.”

“But he will succeed,” she persisted “Does he look like the kind of man to be beaten?”

“Did Captain Hardcastle look the kind of man either?” Lord Rosecarrel asked, “And you remember;poor Piers Edgcomb the best fencer in Europe, a man with nerves of steel? I firmly believe some of the count’s men killed him.”

It cost the girl an effort to say what she did.

“But, dad,” she reminded him, “they had no experience at, at that sort of thing.”

“And this one has? That, alone, comforts me. But the odds are so tremendously against him.”

“He went there knowing it.”

“I am not sure that it would not be safer for you for Arthur and for me if I did go back permanently to private life. If Mr. Trent should fail—”

“You won’t be implicated,” she reminded him. “He has gone just as a cockney chauffeur.”

“But don’t you see,” the earl said patiently, “that I am here invited to throw down the gauntlet to the man who has in his power what can disgrace me? Hardcastle and Sir Piers failed but their failure did not drag me into it as this scheme will do.”

“Who will be foreign secretary if you refuse it?” Daphne asked.

“That impossible nonconformist person Muir who has never been farther afield than Paris and has no knowledge of Eastern affairs at all. He will undo everything I have striven for. He will play into Count Michael’s hands as a child might.”

“Then isn’t the chance worth taking?” Daphne asked, pointing to the cable.

“I’ve taken it already,” the earl said, “I wanted you to reassure me. I felt a confidence utterly without logical foundation as to the ability of your Anthony Trent.”

“That’s splendid,” she cried.

“I am not so sure,” her father returned, “Daphne, you know what I mean when I say I hope Arthur’s action in saving his life was not like those other actions of the poor lad which have brought dire trouble to us all. You must know that there can be no attachment between you and him.”

“You’d better know it,” she said quietly, “but there is what you call an attachment. As to marriage—he says like you it is impossible so I suppose it is. That’s all over.” She patted his gray hair affectionately, “I’m not going to marry anyone. I shall have my hands full in looking after the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.”

“My dear,” he said, “you are taking this wonderfully well. I’m grateful. I ought never to have let the thing drift along as I did. I blame myself.”

“I’m glad,” she whispered, “You couldn’t possibly understand it, but even if I never see him again I shall always be thankful to have known him.”

The earl looked at her and sighed. His daughter was one of the loveliest girls in England, highly accomplished, allied to some of the great families of her own land and continental Europe and had been sought after since her coming out ball. He had hoped to see her married to some honorable man of her own class and instead she had fallen in love with an adventurer whose past—according to his own admission—made a marriage impossible.

Of late he had suffered much. The death of his wife, the loss of two sons, the many troubles Arthur’s past had brought, his enforced retirement and now Daphne’s hopeless attachment. The only thing that offered him any relaxation was the possibility of getting into harness again. And that would only be attainable if Anthony Trent, that mysterious American he had grown to like, succeeded in a forlorn hope. At least he must do his part. A little wearily he took up the telephone and called a number in Downing Street where was the official residence of the prime minister, the man primarily in’ charge of the destinies of a great empire.

There was no telephone in Castle Radna. Every morning some one of Count Michel’s men went to Agram and brought back letters and telegrams. It fell to Anthony Trent to fetch the mail that came twenty-four hours after the conversation over the telephone with the prime minister. Among the many pieces which the postmaster placed in the double locked mail bag was a transcontinental telegram. It was the function of this big letter pouch to guard its contents from the inquisitive by locks to which only the postmaster and Hentzi had keys.

When once Trent had established this he came by night to the room where the secretary snored and made impressions of the keys and so was able to open the pouch without any forcing of the locks.

Instead of going on to Radna direct Trent turned his car into a byroad of the oak forest and steamed open the wire. It was as he feared, in code which he might be able to decipher after long study. But if the language should be Croatian or Hungarian he would still be in the dark.

It chanced that the count was near the garage as he drove in. It was a frequent habit of Count Michael’s to walk over to the great stables where formerly his thoroughbreds had been housed and now only a few riding horses remained. He greeted “Arlfrit” with the manner that proved him to be in a good temper. Hentzi was at his side and opened the mail pouch. Instantly he passed the telegram to his master. Tinkering at some pretended indisposition of his engines Trent watched the count’s face as he read.

The man fell into a sudden and roaring rage. He gesticulated, he swore and he pummelled the cringing Hentzi. His talk was in Croatian but his meaning was plain. Suddenly he turned on Trent.

“Do not put your car away,” he ordered him, “You