第30章

D. O. R. A. IS BAFFLED

When Barbara reached the Chief's ante-room she found it full of people. Mr. Marigold was there, chatting with Captain Strangwise who seemed to be just taking his leave; there was a short, fat, Jewish-looking man, very resplendently dressed with a large diamond pin in his cravat and a small, insignificant looking gentleman with a gray moustache and the red rosette of the Legion of Honor in his button-hole. Matthews came out of the Chief's room as Barbara entered the outer office.

"Miss Mackwayte," he said, "we are all so shocked and so very, sorry...""Mr. Matthews," she said hastily in a low voice, "never mind about that now. I must see the Chief at once. It is most urgent."Matthews gesticulated with his arm round the room.

"All these people, excepting the officer there, are waiting to see him, Miss, and he's got a dinner engagement at eight...""It is urgent, Mr. Matthews, I tell you. If you won't take my name in, I shall go in myself!""Miss Mackwayte, I daren't interrupt him now. Do you know who's with him...?"Strangwise crossed the room to where Barbara was standing.

"I can guess what brings you here, Miss Mackwayte," he said gently. "I hope you will allow me to express my condolences'...?"The girl shrank back, almost imperceptibly, yet Strangwise, whose eyes were fixed on her pale face, noticed the spontaneous recoil.

The sunshine seemed to fade out of his debonair countenance, and for a moment Barbara Mackwayte saw Maurice Strangwise as very few people had ever seen him, stern and cold and hard, without a vestige of his constant smile. But the shadow lifted as quickly as it had fallen. His face had resumed its habitually engaging expression as he murmured:

"Believe me, I am truly sorry for you!"

"Thank you, thank you!" Barbara said hastily and brushed past him. She walked straight across the room to the door of the Chief's room, turned the handle and walked in.

The room was in darkness save for an electric reading lamp on the desk which threw a beam of light on the faces of two men thrust close together in eager conversation. One was the Chief, the other a face that Barbara knew well from the illustrated papers.

At the sound of the door opening, the Chief sprang to his feet.

"Oh, it's Miss Mackwayte," he said, and added something in a low voice to the other man who had risen to his feet. "My dear," he continued aloud to Barbara, "I will see you immediately; we must not be disturbed now. Matthews should have told you.""Chief," cried Barbara, her hands clasped convulsively together, "you must hear me now. What I have to say cannot wait. Oh, you must hear me!"The Chief looked as embarrassed as a man usually looks when he is appealed to in a busy moment by an extremely attractive girl.

"Miss Mackwayte," he said firmly but with great courtesy, "you must wait outside. I know how unnerved you are by all that you have gone through, but I am engaged just now. I shall be free presently.""It is about my father, Chief," Barbara said in a trembling voice, "I have found out what they came to get!""Ah!" said the Chief and the other man simultaneously.

"We had better hear what she has to say!" said the other man, "but won't you introduce me first?""This is Sir Bristowe Marr, the First Sea Lord," said the Chief, bringing up a chair for Barbara, "Miss Mackwayte, my secretary, Admiral!"Then in a low impassioned voice Barbara told her tale of the package entrusted to her by Nur-el-Din and its disappearance from her bedroom on the night of the murder. As she proceeded a deep furrow appeared between the Chief's bushy eyebrows and he stared absently at the blotting-pad in front of him. When the girl had finished her story, the Chief said:

"Lambelet ought to hear this, sir: he's the head of the French Intelligence, you know. He's outside now. Shall we have him in?

Miss Mackwayte shall tell her story, and you can then hear what Lambelet has to say about this versatile young dancer."Without waiting for further permission, he pressed a bell on the desk and presently Matthews ushered in the small man with the Legion of Honor whom Barbara had seen in the ante-room.

The Chief introduced the Frenchman and in a few words explained the situation to him. Then he turned to Barbara:

"Colonel Lambelet speaks English perfectly," he said, "so fire away and don't be nervous!"When she had finished, the Chief said, addressing Lambelet:

"What do you make of it, Colonel?"

The little Frenchman made an expressive gesture.

"Madame has become aware of the interest you have been taking in her movements, mon cher. She seized the opportunity of this meeting with the daughter of her old friend to get rid of something compromising, a code or something of the kind, qui sait? Perhaps this robbery and its attendant murder was only an elaborate device to pass on some particularly important report of the movements of your ships... qui sait?""Then you are convinced in your own mind, Colonel, that this woman is a spy?" The clear-cut voice of the First Sea Lord rang out of the darkness of the room outside the circle of light on the desk.

"Mail certainement!" replied the Frenchman quietly. "Listen and you shall hear! By birth she is a Pole, from Warsaw, of good, perhaps, even, of noble family. I cannot tell you, for her real name we have not been able to ascertain... parbleu, it is impossible, with the Boches at Warsaw, hein? We know, however, that at a very early age, under the name of la petite Marcelle, she was a member of a troupe of acrobats who called themselves The Seven Duponts. With this troupe she toured all over Europe.