THE TRENCH DAYS: The Collected War Tales of William Le Queux (WW1 Adventure Sagas, Espionage Thrillers & Action Classics). William Le Queux

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       À l’autre amant

       Je me livre et me donne.

       Qu’à lui je m’abandonne.

       Le coeur pâmé,

       O cher aimé,

       C’est à toi que s’adresse

       Ma sublime caresse!

      Elise, who spoke French excellently, was extremely fond of the French chansonette, and knew a great many. Her lover spoke French quite well also, and very frequently when they were together in the “tube” or train they conversed in that language so that the every-day person around them should not understand.

      To speak a foreign language amid the open mouths of the ignorant is always secretly amusing, but not so amusing as to the one person who unfortunately sits opposite and who knows that language even more perfectly than the speaker — I was about to write “swanker.”

      In that drawing-room of the red-brick Hampstead residence — where the road is so steep that the vulgar London County Council Tramways have never attempted to invade it, and consequently it is a “desirable residential neighbourhood” according to the house-agents’ advertisements — Jack and Elise remained after Mrs Shearman had risen and left. For another quarter of an hour they chatted and kissed wholeheartedly, for they loved each other fondly and dearly. Then, at ten o’clock, Jack rose to go. It was his hour, and he never overstepped the bounds of propriety. From the first he had felt himself a mere clerk on the forbidden ground of the successful manufacturer’s home. Dan Shearman, honest, outspoken and square, had achieved Hampstead as a stepping-stone to Mayfair or Belgravia. To Jack Sainsbury — the man of the fine old yeoman stock — the refinement of the red-brick and laurels of Hampstead was synonymous with taste and breeding. To him the dull aristocracy of the London squares was unknown, and therefore unregarded.

      How the people born in society laugh at Tom, Dick and Harry, with their feminine folk, who, in our world of make-believe, are struggling and fighting with one another to be regarded by the world as geniuses. Money can bring everything — all the thousand attributes this world can give — all except breeding and brains.

      Breed, even in the idiot, and brains in the pauper’s child, will always tell.

      When Jack Sainsbury descended the steps into Fitzjohn’s Avenue and strode down the hill to Swiss Cottage station, he was full of grave and bitter thoughts.

      As an Englishman and a patriot, what was his line of action? That was the sole thought which filled his mind. He loved Elise with every fibre of his being, yet, on that evening, greater and even more serious thoughts occupied his mind — the safety of the British Empire.

      To whom should he go? In whom dare he confide?

      As he crossed from the Avenue to the station, another thought arose within him. Would anybody in whom he confided really believe what he could tell them?

      Lewin Rodwell and Sir Boyle Huntley were national heroes — men against whom no breath of suspicion as traitors had ever arisen. It was the habit of the day to laugh at any suspicion of Britain’s betrayal — an attitude which the Government had carefully cultivated ever since the outbreak of war. On that day the Chief of the Military Operations Department of the War Office — in other words our Secret Service — had been — for reasons which will one day be revealed — promoted and sent to the front, leaving the Department in the hands of others fresh to the work.

      Such, alas! was the British Intelligence Department — an organisation laughed at by the Secret Services of each of our Allies.

      The folly of it all was really pathetic.

      Jack Sainsbury knew much of this. He had, indeed, been, through Dr Jerome Jerrold, a friend of his, behind the scenes. Like all the world, he had read the optimistic, hide-the-truth newspapers. Often he had smiled in disbelief. Yet, on that afternoon, his worst fears had in a single instant been confirmed. He knew the volcano upon the edge of which Great Britain was seated.

      What should he do? How should he act?

      In the narrow booking-office of Swiss Cottage station he stood for a moment, hesitating to take his ticket.

      Of a sudden an idea crossed his mind. He knew a certain man — his intimate friend. Could he help him? Dare he reveal his suspicions without being laughed at for his pains?

      Yes. He would risk being derided, because the safety of the Empire was now at stake.

      After all, he — Jack Sainsbury — was a well-bred Briton, without a strain of the hated Teutonic blood in his veins.

      He would speak the truth, and expose that man who was so cleverly luring the Empire to its doom.

      He passed before the little pigeonhole of the booking-office and took his ticket — an action which was destined to have a greater bearing upon our national defence than any person even with knowledge of the facts could ever dream.

      Chapter Three

       The House in Wimpole Street

       Table of Contents

      Just before eleven o’clock that night Jack Sainsbury stopped at a large, rather severe house half-way up Wimpole Street — a house the door of which could be seen in the daytime to be painted a royal blue, thus distinguishing it from its rather dingy green-painted neighbours.

      In response to his ring at the visitors’ bell, a tall, middle-aged, round-faced manservant opened the door.

      “Is Dr Jerrold in?” Jack inquired.

      “Yes, sir,” was the man’s quick reply; and then, as Sainsbury entered, he added politely: “Nice evening, sir.”

      “Very,” responded the visitor, laying-down his hat and stick and taking off his overcoat in the wide, old-fashioned hall.

      Dr Jerome Jerrold, though still a young man, was a consulting physician of considerable eminence, and, in addition, was Jack’s most intimate friend. Their fathers had been friends, living in the same remote country village, and, in consequence, ever since his boyhood he had known the doctor.

      Jack was a frequent visitor at the doctor’s house, Jerrold always being at home to him whenever he called. The place was big and solidly furnished, a gloomy abode for a bachelor without any thought of marrying. It had belonged to Jerrold’s aunt, who had left it to him by her will, together with a comfortable income; hence her nephew had found it, situated as it was in the centre of the medical quarter of London, a most convenient, if dull, place of abode.

      On the ground floor was the usual depressing waiting-room, with its big round table littered with illustrated papers and magazines; behind it the consulting-room, with its businesslike writing-table — whereon many a good man’s death-warrant had been written in that open case-book — its heavy leather-covered furniture, and its thick Turkey carpet, upon which the patient trod noiselessly.

      Above, in the big room on the first floor, Jerome Jerrold had his cosy library — for he was essentially a studious man, his literary mind having a bent for history, his “History of the Cinquecento” СКАЧАТЬ