Microbes of Power (Wallace of the Secret Service Series) Page 3
Wallace laughed.
‘Don’t apologise, Masterson. I suppose my conduct did seem a little cool. Now will you go along to the colonial secretary’s room, and start a discussion with him about something that sounds important but isn’t. I hope to catch the delinquent red-handed.’
The undersecretary nodded, and obeyed. Sir Leonard and Shannon made a further study of the plan, ascertaining the exact position on the roof where the ventilating shaft commenced. They then made their way up the stairs, preferring not to use the lift. On the top floor were two ladders, one at each end of the corridor, connecting with the roof above. They chose that which they had calculated would be farther from the man, if indeed there was anybody up there listening in to the colonial secretary’s room. Sir Leonard went first. He raised the trapdoor very gently and, cautiously lifting his head through the opening, surveyed the scene. Close by was a chimney stack, a little farther away was another, in fact it would not be very much exaggerated to describe the roof as a forest of chimney pots, so many were there. He saw no sign of a man or men and, stepping through, motioned to Shannon to follow him.
Presently they stood hidden behind the stack; then, taking advantage of all the cover afforded them, went softly towards the spot where Wallace calculated their quarry should be situated. They caught sight of him at the same time. He was leaning on one of the chimneys in an attitude of ease. On his head was fastened a pair of earphones, the wires connecting them with the microphone below, running into the mouth of a ventilator. He was a big fellow wearing the regulation government uniform. Shannon sighed softly to himself as his eyes fell on him; he was hoping, it must be confessed, that the man would make a fight of it. Something appeared to alarm him, for suddenly he straightened himself and looked round. A cry of astonishment and fear broke from him and, snatching off the earphones, he dashed them on to the roof, and made a desperate rush for the other trapdoor, convinced without doubt that it would be useless to stay and attempt to bluff out the situation. Shannon was after him like a greyhound. Anticipating his intentions, the Secret Service man went straight for the trapdoor; succeeded in cutting the fellow off from his objective. Then commenced a regular game of hide-and-seek round the chimney stacks. Sir Leonard stood and watched, content to bar any attempt the man might make to reach the other descent.
For a while Shannon was quite cleverly baulked. Once or twice they approached perilously near to the edge of the roof, and Wallace was impelled to shout a warning to his assistant. At length the latter feinted to go one way, promptly went the other and, throwing himself forward, tackled his quarry in rugby fashion. He caught and brought him down with a crash, but the fellow had no intention of giving in without a struggle. He resisted desperately with a pluck that was worthy of a better cause; but, although a big man himself, he was not the equal of the young man whose strength was the admiration of his colleagues and the fear of opponents who had, to their great regret, attempted to measure theirs against his. Before long Shannon had rendered his antagonist helpless and very nearly lifeless. He took him by the collar of his coat, and dragged him along to Sir Leonard, depositing him at the latter’s feet in the manner of a dog that has retrieved a stick for its master. Wallace looked down at the purple countenance of the gasping victim of a Shannon hug, and sighed.
‘Isn’t it a pity to think,’ he commented, ‘that there are, among our own people, a number who are ready to sell their country and their souls for paltry gain. Thank God there are not many of them! This fellow was probably once a soldier with a good record, otherwise he wouldn’t have been given a government job. He’s allowed himself to be tempted, no doubt, by a worm of a dago, and thrown everything away – pension, job, all. Good work, Shannon.’
‘It might have been more interesting, sir,’ returned that burly individual. ‘Still it wasn’t a bad spot of bother, everything considered.’
The man still lay breathing painfully. He was obviously in poor condition, and the treatment he had received had taken all the stuffing out of him. Shannon dragged him to the trapdoor and, letting him down at the full length of his arms, dropped him unceremoniously through. The Secret Service man followed; stood guard over him until Sir Leonard joined him. The chief had stayed behind to examine the earphones and detach the wire. The sound of Shannon’s captive being loudly deposited on the floor had brought several clerks, both male and female, from their rooms. Their exclamations and remarks told Shannon that the man’s name was Wright, and that he was one of the night watchmen. On Sir Leonard’s arrival, he sent the congregation, as Shannon described them, back to their rooms, with the exception of a young man who was dispatched to find a couple of orderlies. The latter, who knew Sir Leonard by sight, choked back the astonished ejaculations that rose to their lips, and lifting Wright between them, at his command, helped the man to a lift, thence along to the room of the Secretary of State. Leaving Shannon outside in charge of the prisoner, Sir Leonard arrived. The statesman and the undersecretary eyed him eagerly as he entered.
‘Have you been successful?’ asked the former.
Wallace nodded.
‘We were lucky enough to catch him at it,’ he informed them. ‘He is one of your night watchmen, a man named Wright.’
‘Good heavens!’ ejaculated Masterson. ‘He has been here for a considerable time, and I would have said he was a most reliable man. He came to the Colonial Office from the army, having served during the War in the tenth Hants.’
‘I thought he probably had,’ nodded Sir Leonard. ‘He looks like an ex-soldier.’
‘What has he to say for himself?’ demanded the colonial secretary sternly.
‘Nothing at present,’ smiled Wallace. ‘I am afraid he came up against one of the most powerful men in London, and is taking a little time to recover in consequence.’
Sir Edwin Spencer, who knew Shannon quite well, laughed quietly.
‘Do you mean to say,’ he asked, ‘that he tried conclusions with Shannon?’
‘Well, it would hardly be correct to say that he tried conclusions. As a matter of fact, he made desperate efforts to avoid him; they played quite an interesting little game round the chimney pots before Shannon caught him, but Shannon is not only extraordinarily powerful, he is quite the fittest man I know.’
‘All you fellows are as hard as nails I should imagine,’ commented the statesman. ‘I suppose you have to be in your job.’
‘We wouldn’t last long, if we were not,’ returned Sir Leonard a trifle grimly; ‘but Shannon surpasses everyone for sheer physical fitness. In fact, he is so fit and strong that it is positively necessary for him to let off energy every now and again. Well, I suppose Wright has recovered sufficiently by now to answer questions. Would you like to hear what he has to say for himself, or will you leave it to me?’
‘No; I’d like to know why he has been such a fool. Is he married, Masterson?’
The undersecretary nodded.
‘He is,’ he sighed, ‘and has a fairly large family, I believe.’
‘God help them! Why do men do such foolish things when they have families depending on them? He had a good post, with the promise of a pension to follow, and now –’ He shrugged his shoulders, and turned to Sir Leonard. ‘Tell me, Wallace,’ he urged; ‘how in the name of all that’s wonderful did you know there was a microphone behind that painting?’
‘It wasn’t very difficult,’ replied Sir Leonard. ‘Sometimes when a microphone is in an enclosed space or there is something in front of it, sound comes back at one. Have you never noticed it?’ Both his companions shook their heads. ‘While I was talking to you it seemed to me that there was a faint echo. It puzzled me at first until I realised what was causing it. If you listen carefully now, you will hear it. Are you listening, Sir Edwin?’ he went on, speaking with great distinctness, ‘and you, Masterson?’
Sure enough, a faint echo of his voice reached their ears.
‘I would never have noticed it,’ confessed the Secretary of State, ‘if you had not
drawn my attention to it.’
‘Which goes to prove,’ smiled Wallace, ‘that you are not observant.’ He sank into a chair, and commenced to fill his pipe, using his single hand with almost fascinating celerity and skill. ‘Do you mind telling Shannon to bring in Wright?’ he asked Sir James Masterson.
The night watchman presently stood, a great, hulking figure, with bent head, before the Secretary of State. Sir Edwin regarded him very sternly, but on the face of Sir James Masterson, who had sunk into a chair on the minister’s left, could be seen a certain amount of pity. Sir Leonard Wallace, lounging in an armchair on the other side of the desk, seemed to be the least interested of the three, but his eyes were keenly studying the man.
‘I think,’ remarked the statesman, ‘that your best course, Wright, will be to make a clean breast of everything.’
There was silence for a few seconds; then the fellow raised his head. He looked abjectly miserable.
‘I suppose it ain’t much good saying I’m sorry, sir,’ he muttered huskily, ‘but I am. I – I’d never have done it only – only – Well, you see, it was like this; I’ve always been a – an inquisitive kind of chap, and, when I saw a microphone and headphones in a shop cheap, I bought ’em and set ’em up in various places for fun like. I used to listen in to what other people were saying, not for any bad purpose, as you might say, but out of curiosity. It interested me to use the things and—’
‘You are not trying to persuade us into believing that you were operating in the cause of science?’ murmured Sir Edwin sarcastically.
Wright looked at him for a moment as though not quite certain how to take the remark, lowered his eyes again and, licking his lips as though they were dry, continued:
‘No, sir. I don’t know nothing about science, but I’m keen on wireless and loudspeakers and such. I didn’t mean no harm. I found out that there was a ventilating shaft running down from the roof to this room, and one night, when I was on duty, I fixed the microphone in here. I only had to take out a couple of bricks what had been put in to close up the hole in the wall and plastered over. I thought I’d like to hear what you gentlemen talk about. I – I’d often wondered. I wasn’t going to repeat what I heard.’
‘Are you quite sure?’ asked Sir James Masterson, who seemed inclined to believe the man.
Wright looked at him eagerly.
‘Take my oath, sir,’ he replied. ‘I would rather have me tongue cut out than give any information to – to unauthorised people about what went on in here.’
‘Quite forgetful of the fact,’ drawled the Secretary of State, ‘that you yourself were an unauthorised person and were committing a very serious breach of discipline as well as betraying trust. You were selected for your post here because your record and character were considered good enough to merit reliance being placed on you. You have repaid the confidence of those who selected you by a rank display of misconduct which merits severe punishment. I have nothing to do with selections or dismissals, but I presume that Sir James Masterson will give the necessary orders regarding your case to your direct superiors. All I wish to say is that you have rendered yourself liable to prosecution under the Official Secrets Act, and, if you are merely summarily dismissed, you can regard yourself as extremely fortunate.’
‘I think,’ observed the soft-hearted undersecretary, ‘that since he has made a clean breast of his – er – unprincipled curiosity, we may waive any consideration of prosecution we would otherwise have had. In losing his post as, of course, he must, without references and no hope of pension, he is perhaps being sufficiently punished.’
Shannon, who was standing behind Wright, caught the expression on his chief’s face, and smiled slightly. Sir Leonard removed the pipe from his mouth; rose to his feet languidly.
‘I presume, gentlemen,’ he remarked, ‘that, as you have made up your minds regarding this fellow, there is no more to be said. I will leave him to you.’
‘Just a minute, Sir Leonard,’ begged the Secretary of State. ‘We should like to know, of course, if you have any objection to the procedure Sir James Masterson has suggested.’
A fleeting smile passed quickly across Sir Leonard’s face. Abruptly he placed himself directly in front of Wright; his steel-grey eyes bored deeply into those of the night watchman, causing them to drop in confusion, or perhaps it was fear.
‘Do you repeat,’ he demanded, ‘that you bought and fixed up the microphone of your own accord?’
‘I do, sir,’ came huskily from the other, after a moment of hesitation.
‘You were not persuaded, bribed, coerced, or forced to take such an action?’
‘No, sir.’
‘A certain man or men did not come to you, give you the microphone, and ask you to listen in to conversations held in this room?’
‘N-no, sir.’
‘You are quite certain that your memory is not misleading you? You did not have a conversation yesterday or the day before with a foreigner who persuaded you into doing this thing? You did not take advantage of the fact that yesterday was Sunday to install the microphone?’
The Secretary of State, Sir James Masterson, and Captain Shannon listened to the battery of questions with great interest. The first two noticed that Wright’s face had gone a sickly white. The watchman was visibly agitated; he looked a very much frightened man.
‘I tell you,’ he persisted, but in a voice that could hardly be heard, ‘that I bought the microphone myself, and only put it in because I was inquisitive like, and wanted to hear what was being talked about.’
‘Where did you purchase the microphone?’
‘In – in a shop in – in Lambeth.’
Sir Leonard looked him up and down, an expression of the greatest contempt on his face. ‘You’re a liar!’ came in scornful, biting words from his lips. He turned to Sir Edwin Spencer. ‘I might have been disposed to believe his story,’ he added. ‘I say “might”, because it is unlikely, but, as it happens, I do not believe a word of it. The headphones he was using on the roof are stamped with the name of a firm in Athens. They came from Greece!’
CHAPTER THREE
The Tale of a Microphone
Sir Leonard’s announcement was received in varying ways by the men in the room. The colonial secretary’s face became harsh and full of contempt as he gazed at the culprit, Masterson appeared shocked, Shannon showed no particular emotion, but edged closer to Wright as though anticipating that the fellow might make a sudden break for freedom. He did nothing of the sort, however; seemed utterly crushed. Wallace eyed his drooping form for some seconds in silence. Then at last he spoke again.
‘Do you still hold to the same story?’ he asked. There was no answer. ‘A few minutes ago,’ went on the Chief of the Intelligence Department, ‘Sir Edwin Spencer advised you to make a clean breast of everything. You will be wise, if you take the opportunity I am giving you now of renouncing your lies and telling the truth.’ Wright continued to maintain a stubborn silence. Sir Leonard slightly shrugged his shoulders. ‘Very well, there is nothing for it but trial for you under the Official Secrets Act, with, of course, imprisonment to follow.’
At that the fellow looked up at the slim, upright man facing him.
‘Not that, sir,’ he pleaded hoarsely; ‘for God’s sake don’t send me to prison. Until now I’ve been straight, and—’
‘Are you prepared to confess?’
Wright was silent for a little while; then he slowly nodded his head.
‘Yes,’ he muttered, ‘if – if you promise not to send me to jail.’
‘I make no conditions,’ returned Sir Leonard sternly. ‘What is done with you is entirely at the discretion of Sir James Masterson, but, if you present us with another bundle of falsehoods, I shall advise your prosecution most emphatically. On the other hand, if I feel you have told the truth, I shall make no objection if he decides to take no further steps against you.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ muttered Wright. ‘What do you want to know?’
The apparently irrelevant question surprised Spencer and Masterson. Wright, however, did not appear to regard it as inconsequent. He had reached the conclusion that the man examining him had a deadly brain that seemed capable of ferreting out even one’s innermost thoughts; it would be useless to attempt to deceive him. He told Wallace, therefore, that he had served in Salonika.
‘I thought so,’ nodded the Chief of the Secret Service. ‘I knew, of course, that your battalion was there. Did you, by any chance, meet your wife there?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Ah! That explains a lot. It was through your wife then, I presume, who is a Greek woman, that you met the man or men who have succeeded in plunging you into this unpleasant situation?’ Wright was silent for so long that Sir Leonard repeated the question, adding: ‘It is no use your hesitating. Either make a clean breast of the whole business or prepare to stand your trial, when you must expect everything to be dragged from you in open court.’
Wright appeared to have a great fear of imprisonment. The idea of being tried by a judge and jury with perhaps two or three year’s hard labour to follow dismayed him. He told the whole story now of his fall from the path of rectitude without faltering. In fact he spoke so quickly that Sir Leonard, who had returned to his chair, had on two or three occasions to pull him up. It appeared that, on his marriage, his wife had presented him with several hundred pounds with which he had bought a house and furnished it. Unfortunately, with the unkind practise peculiar to some women, she had never allowed him to forget the fact that her money had provided the home? As she was also in the habit of inviting compatriots of hers, who happened to be visiting England, to stay at the house during their sojourn, Wright had quickly found that he was more of a lodger, and not a very popular one at that, than anything else.
During the previous year, the house had been visited on several occasions by two men, one of whom was a Greek and the other a Cypriot, who appeared to have a considerable amount of somewhat mysterious business in London. They had arrived again on Saturday evening. Before Wright had started off for his nightly duty, they had taken him into a public house, and had insisted on treating him, behaving altogether as though they were bosom friends of his instead of comparative strangers. The ex-soldier, far from suspecting ulterior designs, was flattered by their attentions, which they had continued on Sunday morning. It was then that they asked him if it were possible for him to listen to conferences or discussions held in the room of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. He had, according to his own story, replied that it was not, and had vehemently asserted that he would not attempt anything of that nature even if it were possible. They had plied him with drink after drink; then had asked him if he could install a microphone in the room, and listen in to conversations from a place where he would be perfectly safe. If he would oblige them in that manner for a week or two, they would pay him three hundred pounds. At this point in his narrative, Wright took pains to make it appear to his listeners that he had time after time resisted the temptation. He had only fallen when the drink and the thought of possessing three hundred pounds, which would mean independence, as he expressed it, from his wife’s hold over him, had proved too much for him. He did not explain in what manner the possession of three hundred pounds would render him independent of the woman. Sir Leonard did not trouble to inquire, curtly cutting short the man’s efforts to show how he had at first resisted their insidious temptations, and bidding him to continue his story.