Wallace of the Secret Service (36 page)

‘We meet once more, signor,’ greeted Wallace, bowing courteously, and still speaking in Italian. ‘Our last meeting, if you remember, was rather unfortunately interrupted.’

Luis de Correa recovered from his astonishment with a great effort and, rising from the stool, carefully closed the top of the piano.

‘Am I to understand,’ he asked in English, ‘that you have come all the way from London to my little retreat here to – to continue the conversation you commenced in the Ritz Hotel?’

‘More or less,’ smiled Wallace, and looked significantly at the manservant, who still lingered.

Luis de Correa took the hint.

‘Leave us, Guiseppe,’ he ordered. ‘Will you be seated, sir,’ he added politely, reverting to English.

Sir Leonard accepted a chair, and the Spaniard sank into another.

‘This time,’ commenced the former briskly, ‘there will no beating about the bush. Señor de Correa, I have come for the plans, stolen from the British Admiralty, which you have in your possession. You have probably discovered already that a warrant is out for your arrest in England. It would be easy enough for me to give information to the authorities here, and cause you to be
apprehended to await extradition. However, I have no intention of doing that, if you will return the documents to me.’

The good-looking Spaniard smiled slightly. He had quite recovered from his surprise, and there was no trace of uneasiness noticeable in his face.

‘That is very good of you,’ he remarked, ‘but what if I do not admit that the plans, of which you speak, are in my possession?’

‘Such an attitude would be a useless waste of time,’ Wallace assured him. ‘I know you have them. They were handed to you by a man named Shaw in your room in the Metropole Hotel, London. You paid him a sum of money, and gave him a promissory note for £2,500, the balance of your agreement, to be paid on the twenty-fourth of May.’

For a few moments de Correa sat quite still.

‘You seem to be well-informed,’ he murmured at last. ‘I will admit, therefore, that I had those plans. You cannot expect, though, that I still have them.’

‘I do,’ returned the other. ‘Since you descended from the air liner at Le Bourget you have been under constant surveillance, and it is known that you did not part with them.’

‘So. Now I understand how you discovered I was here. You are very clever, señor.’

‘It would have been perfectly easy to have taken the plans from you,’ went on Sir Leonard, ‘long before you arrived in Naples.’

‘Why did you not make the attempt?’

‘Because I wished to interview you personally, and ask you to hand them over to me without trouble.’

‘You mean,’ retorted the Spaniard coolly, ‘that you feared the police of France or Italy might interfere and obtain possession of them. I am not a fool, my friend. I very much regret the necessity
that made me squirt ammonia into your face in London. It was very distasteful of me, but I obtained those plans at considerable expense, and I intended to leave London without giving them up. I succeeded, and I assure you my intentions remain the same. If you wish, you can call in the police of Capri; you can have me extradited to London, but you will not obtain those very precious documents.’

‘And why not?’

‘Because I intend to sell them, and enrich myself.’

‘At the expense of my country?’

Luis de Correa shrugged his shoulders.

‘Your country is nothing to me,’ he remarked. ‘If they were plans belonging to Spain it would be a different matter – perhaps.’

‘Listen to me,’ persisted Wallace earnestly. ‘If you go to England under arrest, it will not only be the charge of having in your possession stolen property that will hang over you, as you are probably thinking. You are a man wanted by the police of almost every European nation. A long list of charges, which at present only lack certain links of evidence, might easily be substantiated once you were under restraint. Think of that, de Correa. The result might very well be that you would spend most of the remaining years of your life in penal servitude.’

There was no doubt that the Spaniard was affected. His face paled perceptibly, while those astonishingly frank eyes of his became troubled.

‘That would be most unpleasant,’ he said slowly. ‘The humiliation, the bars, the animal existence – ugh! I could not stand that.’ Then he laughed. ‘Your threats sound dreadful, señor,’ he went on, ‘but, after all, they do not worry me. As you say, the police, for some strange reason, want me in their power, but they
have never had me yet and, I assure you, I do not intend that they shall.’

‘Then hand over the plans and, as far as I am concerned, no further steps will be taken against you.’

The Spanish crook shook his head.

‘No,’ he decided; ‘I will not. And in case you really intend to carry out your threat, let me tell you that you can search the whole of this villa and garden, and you will not find them. I do not think having me under arrest would be sufficient to console you for their loss, so what are you going to do?’

‘You are a very foolish man, de Correa. I should imagine that, with your apparently vast experience of breaking the law, you would understand when you have undertaken something that is too big for you.’

Luis de Correa took no notice of the observation, instead:

‘I suppose it was the man Shaw who gave me away; am I not right? He is now in jail, no?’

‘No, but he soon will be.’

‘He is very foolish that one. Still he helped me by sending warning to me in the aeroplane by wireless. That was good of him. You know that?’

‘Yes; I know a warning was sent, but it wasn’t from Shaw. It was at my instigation, because I knew the French would be on the watch for you. Afterwards my agent saved you from being too closely scrutinised, otherwise you would even now be in a French prison.’

An unmistakable gleam of admiration showed in the Spaniard’s eyes as he studied his visitor.

‘Now I have again met you,’ he remarked, ‘and am beginning to know you better, I am more sorry than ever that I used means
so violent to escape from you in London. It is not my nature to do that sort of thing, because I abhor force. But, alas! What else could I do after my friend so fortuitously informed me who you were?’

‘Ah!’ exclaimed Wallace. ‘I guessed that the American had something to do with it. You are a very lucky man, de Correa.’

The Spaniard showed a perfect set of white teeth in a smile.

‘I admit it, señor,’ he nodded. ‘All my life have I been lucky.’ He leant forward. ‘Since you want to take back to London the plans,’ he suggested, ‘let us make the bargain.’

‘What kind of a bargain?’ demanded Sir Leonard.

‘I admit to you that the plans are yet in my possession. It would be useless to say otherwise, since you know so much. But they are hidden where neither you nor any other would find them. It was my intention to dispose of them to the nation which offered the best price. I will sell them to you, señor, for less than I would take from others, because you have been frank with me, and you are a man for whom I have conceived a deep respect.’

The Chief of the British Secret Service smiled.

‘And what is your price?’ he asked.

‘My lowest price to other countries would be £100,000,’ was the immediate answer; ‘to you I will give them for £75,000. What do you say?’

‘No,’ declared Wallace. ‘I will not even give you £100. They belong to England, and to England they will be returned for nothing.’

Luis de Correa shrugged his shoulders.

‘It is ended then,’ he remarked. ‘I suppose you will call the police, and England will no more see the plans. It is a pity. Will you take some refreshment, señor?’

‘No, thanks.’

At that moment there came the sound of a commotion outside. The crook looked a trifle startled, but Wallace merely smiled.

‘It is my assistants,’ he explained. ‘I told them to come to me after half an hour. I suppose your servant is endeavouring to prevent their entrance.’

The handsome Spaniard sat as though speculating a moment; then rose from his chair.

‘Since it is your wish that they should join you,’ he said, ‘I will bring them to you.’

Sir Leonard’s eyes gleamed, and de Correa caught the look, promptly misunderstanding it.

‘You think I will take the opportunity to escape?’ he surmised. ‘You are wrong, señor. You have my word that I will return and bring your men with me.’

Wallace slightly inclined his head.

‘I accept your word,’ he stated gravely.

Luis de Correa went out. He found Lalére and Kendal arguing with his manservant, and invited them to enter. They promptly accepted the invitation.

‘Another has gone to the back,’ said the Italian menial sullenly.

‘Then he also shall be admitted,’ was his master’s reply.

Asking the newcomers to wait, he hurried to the rear of the house, and brought in Digby, who was becoming exasperated by the uncompromising refusal of a woman servant to let him enter. They joined Sir Leonard in the salon. He was still occupying his seat, but rose when they entered.

‘We will return to Capri,’ he announced. ‘I am sorry, de Correa, that you refuse to listen to reason. Perhaps you will change your mind?’

‘I will change my mind for £75,000, señor – no less,’ was the reply.

Wallace turned to the others.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We can do no good by staying here.’

Lalére and Digby looked at him inquiringly, Kendal began to ask a question, but thought better of it.

‘And the police?’ asked de Correa.

‘I have come to the conclusion that I can do no good by calling in the police – yet,’ replied Sir Leonard. ‘It is a great pity that you have even caused me to think of such a step. You would be a very decent fellow to know, de Correa, if you were not a crook.’

‘I am myself tired of the profession,’ admitted the Spaniard. ‘It was my intention to settle down here, if I were permitted.’

‘There would be nothing to prevent you, if you had handed back the plans. It would also have been a gesture proving you really intended to live honestly in future.’

‘It must remain my final coup as a crook,’ laughed de Correa.

He accompanied his unwelcome guests to the door, and watched them walk down the path. There was a puzzled frown on his face.

‘He has some scheme in his head,’ he muttered in his own language, ‘otherwise he would not have gone so easily. I wonder what it is!’

He returned to the salon deeply thoughtful; then, with true Southern gaiety, smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

‘What does it matter?’ he exclaimed. ‘I have the plans. He little knew that, all the time he was sitting with me, they were right under his nose.’

Closing the door he walked across to the piano, lightly humming a tune, and lifted the lid. He then bent over the top, and stretched his arm inside. The next moment his face had paled, and his song changed to a string of startled oaths. Drawing out a
small slip of paper, that looked as though it had been torn from a notebook, he gazed at it with incredulous eyes, and slowly and bitterly read:

Sir Leonard Wallace, the famous chief of the Secret Service, finds that the peace of Europe is threatened by a gang engaged in the theft and sale of national secrets. Wallace gets busy, and is assisted by the gang-leader’s own fear of him and his anxiety to get the Englishman into his power.

Wallace’s investigations, his startling discoveries and his escapes from death make this one of the most exciting books in Alexander Wilson’s espionage thriller series.

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A
LEXANDER
W
ILSON
was a writer, spy and secret service officer. He served in the First World War before moving to India to teach as a Professor of English Literature and eventually became Principal of Islamia College at the University of Punjab in Lahore. He began writing spy novels whilst in India and he enjoyed great success in the 1930s with reviews in the
Telegraph, Observer
and the
Times Literary Supplement
amongst others. Wilson also worked as an intelligence agent and his characters are based on his own fascinating and largely unknown career in the Secret Intelligence Service. He passed away in 1963.