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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
In "The Councillors Of Falconhoe," Fred M. White crafts a gripping narrative set against the backdrop of Victorian England, where intrigue and moral complexity intertwine. This work exemplifies White's adept use of intricate character development and suspenseful plotting, revealing the inner machinations of a council tasked with governing a fictitious town. Rich in social commentary, the novel explores themes of power, ambition, and the ethical dilemmas faced by its characters, positioning it within the broader tradition of social realism that emerged during the late 19th century. Fred M. White, a prolific English author known for his varied contributions to literature, was also deeply influenced by the cultural and political dynamics of his time. His experiences in journalism and theater enriched his narrative style, as seen in this book, allowing him to deftly weave tension and drama into the fabric of his storytelling. White'Äôs work often questions human nature and societal norms, showcasing a keen observation of the complexities of human relationships and governance. This compelling novel holds a mirror to society, making it an essential read for those interested in the intricacies of human psychology and the consequences of ambition. Scholars and casual readers alike will find "The Councillors Of Falconhoe" a thought-provoking exploration of the nuances of power and morality, making it a noteworthy addition to any literary collection.
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The Councillors Of Falconhoe
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
Secret service did not end with the close of the Great War, and some alluring adventures in the highway and byways of diplomacy are narrated in "The Councillors of Falconhoe," the new serial story by Mr. Fred. M. White, publication of which will begin in the columns of the "Herald" on Friday. The story opens in the cardroom of the Mars and Jupiter Club, London, where a few diplomatists are enjoying a quiet rubber of bridge, and the reader's interest is held from the start in an atmosphere of excitement. Hilary Jelicorse, the central figure in the story, after exciting adventures in the war, is unable to settle down to the comparatively peaceful routine of the Foreign Office. He prefers to work through other channels for the Foreign Secretary, and in the book is engaged thrillingly in countering the machinations of those who would throw Europe further towards the abyss. With him are a miscellaneous assortment of people, also unable to adjust themselves to humdrum life after the hectic years of war adventure. The Ladies Peggy and Joan Pevensey, twin daughters of the Duke of Fairbourne, after thrilling exploits in Serbia, are anxious to assist him. Then there is the impecunious nobleman, Nelson, compelled by circumstances arising out of the war to act as a waiter in the Hotel Agincourt. Mingling with them, and all involved in the exciting plot, are prima donnas, Spanish grandees, German plotters chafing under defeat, and others.
Falconhoe is an old manor house on the high cliffs, not far from the lovely village of Lynton, in North Devon. It is a secluded and romantic spot of England, and here Jelicorse has started, with his associates, as a sort of international detective agency, with branches all over Europe, private service of aeroplanes, and wireless to Berlin, Vienna, and Rome. A beautiful ancient emerald, won by the opera singer, Inez Salviati, has an important bearing upon the story. A fascinating woman is this Salviati, with her slim, graceful figure, dark, intelligent eyes, and smile that is both mocking and elusive. She has worked on secret missions with Jelicorse in Mexico City and elsewhere, and she plays a large part in the present adventure. Readers of the story will probably agree that its subject matter has a perennial fascination, that the plot is excitingly developed, and that Europe, as always still offers superb attractions to the man of adventurous imagination.
—The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 August 1922
I - A PINK CARNATION
It was drawing near to the dinner hour and the bridge players in the smaller cardroom of the Mars and Jupiter Club had fined down to one table, and there the rubber was in its final stage.
"Your call, I think, Marquis," the man on the left or dealer suggested. "What, an original call of three spades?"
"Even so, Colonel," the Marquis of Navarro smiled blandly. "The time passes, and dinner draws near. So I take the risk."
"'Fraid I shall have to double you," Colonel Philip Enderby, late of the British army, drawled.
"Not a free double," his partner, Major George Farncombe, once of the Army Intelligence, hinted. "However—"
The fourth man at the table regarded his companions serenely through his monocle. This was Hilary Jelicorse, lately attached to the Foreign Office and gently squeezed out some time after the peace celebrations. He described himself whimsically as one of the unemployed who was unhappily precluded from accepting the dole. And there is many a true word spoken in jest.
"Don't redouble, Marquis," he implored. "If you do and it comes off, I am a ruined community."
"But that is precisely what I am going to do," the Marquis of el Navarro laughed. "Look at my hand, partner."
They were old friends these, who had seen much service and shared many perils in the hectic years 1914-18, though the Marquis was a Spanish grandee and presumedly neutral. And even now, in the year of grace 1922, there was much to be done, and el Navarro had come over to London to discuss a matter that had a sinister bearing on the future peace and prosperity of Europe. What that project was he had yet to learn, nor was he disposed to make much of it.
He made his contract with one overtrick, and took up his winnings as the others rose from the table. The big clock on the Adams mantelpiece drowsily proclaimed the half-hour after 7 on a drift of silver bells. The Marquis still had a few minutes to spare.
"I am very curious to know why you Falconhoe Councillors summoned me from the seclusion of my palazzo in Madrid," he said "I am dining to-night with the Spanish Ambassador, so must be moving shortly. Give me a hint, Jelicorse. Is it trouble in Russia or Germany? But that would seem to be impossible."
"Why?" Jelicorse asked. "Suppose I told you that there was danger from both—in league together. I am just back from Germany, and I know what I know. I have in my mind's eye a fine old castle near Findsburg, in Prussia, where there are concealed many heavy howitzers and where the employees on the estate are camouflaged units of the once famous Iron Division of Brandenburg. Multiply that little lot by ten thousand and then ask yourself questions. And then imagine those infuriated Junkers in accord with Russia, with a perfect understanding with Lenin and his fellow-fanatic Trotsky. They were at Brest-Lovitsk and afterwards. What then, Marquis?"
The dark eyes of the Marquis gleamed. Despite his age, the old spirit of adventure was deep in his breast. Moreover, he knew the men he was talking to intimately. Neutral as he was supposed to be, he had done his share and more in the cause of freedom on behalf of democracy. Meanwhile time was drifting on.
"It sounds promising," he murmured; "I mean it sounds sinister. But in a few days I go with you to your stronghold at Falconhoe, and there you shall tell me everything. For the moment au revoir."
"I must be off, too," Jelicorse remarked when the Marquis had departed. "What a linguist that chap is! His English is as good as ours at least. Are you two going to dine here? You are? Good! Then I can get you on the 'phone if I need you. So long."
An hour later Hilary Jelicorse lounged into the palm room of the Agincourt, and took his place at a small table which had evidently been reserved for him. He dropped into his seat and surveyed the big throng of diners seated round the small tables under the shaded lamps and half hidden by banks of flowers. With the ripples of laughter and the half lights on colour and glittering gems it was as if there were no such things as trouble and care and hardship in the world.
But Jelicorse had not come there to indulge in any cheap philosophy of that kind, though his own poverty since the Great Upheaval had been bitter enough. And both Enderby and Farncombe were in similar sorry case. The country that was to be such a paradise for heroes to live in had proved, for the present at any rate, a sorry land for Jelicorse and his peers.
But Jelicorse was here to-night with a stern definite object, and he put such thoughts resolutely from his mind. And then as the dinner moved on he realised that his quarry was not coming that night. Once he had come to this conclusion he turned his mind to what was going on around him. And as he did so his attention suddenly froze and concentrated on a table a little way off—a table where three people were seated, a women and two men.
The woman was young, not more than twenty-five at the most. A slim, graceful woman, with a figure as perfect as that of the Venus of Milo, but tall and willowy, and with features as regular as those of the earlier Greeks. Very dark she was, dark eyes full of fine intelligence and intellect, and a smile both mocking and elusive She was laughing with almost childlike vivacity and enjoyment when her face first riveted Jelicorse's attention.
One of the men with her was young, with the subtle suggestiveness of birth, and high breeding. There was a certain haughtiness about his clean-shaven face which spoke of one born to the purple and in the habit of being obeyed. Spaniard or Italian beyond doubt. Then he turned slightly and Jelicorse recognised the young Duke of Lombaso, a Spanish grandee with royal blood in his veins.
It had been part of his business during the strenuous years to know all sorts and conditions of men, especially those who counted in the councils of Europe, and so the features of the young Duke of Lombaso were more or less familiar. His mother had been a princess, and her son had inherited her beauty. He was an attractive figure enough in his pride of manhood and race, though now he was laughing and smiling as if his fair companion was the one thing in the world that counted. Educated at Eton and Christ Church, his English was perfect, and his knowledge of English ways and sports complete.
The third person of the party was big and bluff, with a certain coarse arrogance that suggested the Prussian type as the world knew it at its best, or worse, before Armageddon. There was something cruel and sinister in his thick features and the insolent upward brushing of his thick reddish moustache, after the manner of Wilhelm before he fell, like Lucifer, never to rise again.
"Oh, oh," Jelicorse murmured to himself, "Count Andra Barrados, what are you doing in that galley? If it comes to that, what are you doing in London at all? If necessary, I will have you deported, my half-bred Prussian. But not yet, not yet."
For quite a long time Jelicorse watched the triangular dining party as if he were a spectator in the stalls studying a problem play. Then with a quiet gesture he summoned a waiter hovering near, and more or less disengaged, and ostensibly laid a ten-shilling note by the side of his plate.
"Alphonse or Carl, as the case may be, though I hope not Carl, do you feel any wild desire to earn that interesting scrap of paper?"
He spoke softly without looking up, and the waiter smiled. It might even be said that he grinned. He was a quite nice-looking waiter, with clear blue eyes and the trim, erect figure of one who has known the stern discipline of the barrack square. He looked far more like a gentleman than half the men guests dining there.
"What is it that you want, sir?" he asked.
"You see the lady over there dining with those two gentlemen. Will you find out for me if she is staying in the hotel? That's all."
The note and the waiter vanished simultaneously. In a few minutes the waiter was back again. He glided up to Jelicorse's chair, absorbed apparently in his duties and quite in the best manner of his tribe. He spoke in a bare whisper.
"Signorina Inez Salviati is staying in the hotel, sir," he said. "And alone, save for her maid. She is here to fulfil an engagement at Covent Garden Opera. If there is anything else, sir—"
"Good man," Jelicorse murmured. "There is one little thing more. At the next table whence the festive diners have departed I notice a little arrangement of pink carnations. Could you hypothecate one and bring it here without unnecessary ostentation?"
The waiter thought that he could and did. Jelicorse removed the flimsy laced rag and his finger bowl from his unused dessert plate, and stripping four petals from the beautiful hot-house bloom laid them in a sort of square in the centre of the plate.
"Rather neat, Alphonse, what?" he smiled. "A new idea in table decorative art. Now I want you to take this plate and exchange it for the one in front of the lady yonder. Just as it is without disturbing my pattern. Not difficult, Alphonse, I think, because—. I am afraid that you are not listening, Alphonse."
"Why, good Lord, sir—" the waiter began. Jelicorse looked up swiftly and as quickly down again. But in that fraction of time he had seen all he wanted.
"This is a strange world, Niel, otherwise Alphonse," he murmured with the same absent air. "And I'm not sure that Wilhelm did not remodel it after all. But what is Sir Niel Nelson, Bart., doing in the guise of a waiter at the Agincourt?"
"Broke," the man addressed as Niel Nelson snapped. "Poor enough before the big trouble. Joined up, as you know, in the early days, and kept hanging about Mespot till lately. Now money all gone, stocks eating their heads off, and no dividends in the garden. Old place mortgaged to the crest tiles, and with this infernal taxation, glad to part for enough to put me square. Brought up to do nothing, and not sponging on friends. Managed to get a billet here, but no worse off than thousands of sound chaps. Recognised you when you came in and didn't look at me. Should have said nothing if you hadn't asked me to work the old secret sign dodge you put me up to when we had that little adventure together in Constantinople in 1916. Couldn't help crying out for the life of me."
Jelicorse listened with head bent over his plate.
"Rotton hard luck," he murmured. "But if you are good for one of the old stunts I think I can make an opening for you. Meanwhile we are wasting time. Get on with it."
From under his brows Jelicorse watched the progress of events at the table where the three people were dining. He could see the girl laughing and chatting gaily, and catch some or the sallies that came from the Duke. The man with the hard, cynical face and the aggressive, upturned moustache smiled in his sinister fashion, but seemed more intent on weighing up his companions than entering into their sparkling discourse. He had the furtive watchful air of one who half expects to be detected in some crime.
The waiter stopped by the table and dexterously shifted the dessert plate for the one he carried behind him and displayed the four petals to the view of the one to whom obviously they were intended to convey either a message or a warning. Jelicorse intently watching, saw her stop in the midst of some gay remark and change colour. Then before her younger companion could gather anything as to the cause of her confusion she had swept away the pink petals and was her smiling self again. At the same time those wonderful alluring eyes of hers swept the dining room slowly until at length they rested on Jelicorse for a fleeting instant and a message was flashed back to him, a message that he perfectly understood.
The girl turned with perfect composure to her companions.
"Mes amis," she murmured with a regretful droop of the exquisite lips, "this evening so delightful must end."
"End!" the Duke cried. "I had hoped that it was just beginning. Surely you would not be so cruel—"
"But, alas, it is not in my hands," Inez Salviati replied. "I am but the slave of my public, for, behold, we singers are not our own masters. For some time now Monsieur Bragand of the Grand Opera House, Paris, has been regarding me reproachfully from his corner seat and waiting for the business interview I promised him. I beg you to leave me here, dear friends. As I am staying here in the hotel there is no need for your escorts."
Jelicorse watched the little comedy from out the corner of his eye. Almost he could hear the words spoken. Then he turned to the handsome young waiter by his side. He took a card from his case and slipped it across the table.
"Call at the address about midday to-morrow," he said. "You will not be on duty at that hour. There are big things about to happen, Niel Nelson, and there may be a place in the ring for you. At any rate, I think I can promise you a better job than this."
The other man murmured his thanks, but Jelicorse was not paying the least attention—he was too busy watching the trio at the table on the far side of the gangway. He saw the young Duke of Lombaso bending over the hand of the singer as he murmured his regretful adieux: he saw the Prussian Count swagger insolently as he nodded familiarly to the girl, and swaggered still more aggressively as he glanced at the rest of the diners there with a deep hatred in his heart for everything that savoured of things English. The freedom of London was his again after the lapse of the bloodstained years, for we are a long-suffering, forgiving race, but the best clubs, the exclusive circles, the royal enclosures of Ascot and Goodwood, would never be his again. And deep down in that black heart of his, Count Andra Barrados hated the Anglo-Saxon conqueror more than ever. It was all so different to what he and his congeners had planned. But for the stress of dire circumstance he had never shown his face in the proud city on the Thames again.
He was gone at last and his companion with him, and the swinging door had closed behind them before Jelicorse moved from his place and crossed over to where Inez Salviati was now seated alone. She welcomed him to her side with a smile that went to his head like so much wine. There was something intoxicating about her dazzling, compelling beauty. In a flame-coloured dress relieved only by one uncut emerald at her breast, she stood out from the rest as a thing apart. The marvellous regularity of her features might have been almost too perfect had it not been for the expression, that almost indescribable charm which is more alluring than the artistic conception of the perfect in human loveliness. There was a soul shining behind that smile and a rare intelligence in the dark liquid eyes. There was something more, too, but Jelicorse was too pleased to see Inez once more to think of personal things.
"Four years," he murmured as he took his seat. "And, behold, the lovely bud has opened into the perfect blossom. A strange contrast, my dear Inez, to our last meeting."
"Say our last parting," Inez cried with her most dazzling smile and a warm welcome in her dark eyes. "We were at the crisis of the world's affairs then. The fate of freedom was trembling in the balance. It looked as if America had come in too late. Would she have come in at all but for you and me? You have not forgotten the good work we did together in Mexico City. An English gentleman and a mere girl who had one ambition—to sing before the great ones of the earth. The contralto in a travelling opera company. And now I am on the threshold of my triumph."
She spoke with but the trace of a foreign accent, and her English was as pure as that of her companion.
"And since that eventful night in the gardens of the Plazo we have never met," she went on. "Not even to shake hands over our good work. Why did you so disappear, amico?"
"Alas, I was snatched away at a moment's notice," Jelicorse explained. "You remember how it was with us, a sign, a whisper, a nod in the street and five minutes later we were off across the far side of the globe. The sign came, Inez, and I had no time even to write a line, and even that might have been dangerous. Until chance brought me here tonight I had lost sight of you. And now, judging by the company you keep, little Inez Salviati is famous or on the way."
"Then you have not heard? You have been too busy perhaps. Behold, I am made. My world tour has been a triumph. Soon I go to Madrid as prima donna. If I please them there all is plain before me."
"And the old days are forgotten, perhaps," Jelicorse sighed.
"But never. Ah, I was happy then despite the danger."
Jelicorse looked up swiftly.
"You are on a tour of Europe," he said. "It may be that you go to Berlin and Munich and Vienna?"
"To all three, my dear Hilary. If there is anything I can do for the sake of old times I am ready to—"
"Then listen. But, no, one cannot talk here. I must see you elsewhere. Inez, the peace of Europe stands in dire peril, though most people would scoff at the idea. And you can help to save it. None will suspect, you can move freely down the world because you are, as they will think, just a singer. What a chance? I can't tell you yet, perhaps not for weeks, but when you are in Berlin—my dear girl, where did you get that uncut emerald from?"
Inez flushed almost indignantly. The question so abruptly flung at her fair head seemed to sting her.
"Does it matter?" she shrugged. "Is it that you have any right to ask? You are my good friend, but—"
"Well, of all the meetings!" a gay voice broke in. "Inez Salviati, what on earth are you doing here? And Mr. Jelicorse too. I am going to insist on an explanation. Come on, Peggy. They don't seem glad to see us, but you never know."
II - "TELL ENGLAND"
The angry colour of Inez's cheeks bred of Jelicorse's pointed question died away and a pleased delighted surprise lighted her eyes.
"Peggy Pevensey," she cried. "And Joan, too. Ah, how the sight of you brings it all back."
Two girls stood smiling there, two girls exactly alike save for the fact that one was fair with blue eyes and the other of a darker hue with hazel hair and eyes to match. They were rather small, with slender figures, smiling in an audacious way like schoolboys on some adventure, but proclaiming breed and blood in every line of them. The fine, dainty features clean cut, the little mouths and the short upper lips carried their own conviction. They carried with perfect naturalness the easy self-possession of caste, despite their detached air of aloofness and the fact that the hair of each was bobbed. There was something almost smacking of the convent about their plain black evening dresses, which were absolutely devoid of ornament, but the cut was there, the cachet of Paris which transforms hopsacking or the discarded sails of Thames barges into "clothes." Thus Lady Peggy and Lady Joan Pevensey, the famous twin daughters of his Grace the Duke of Fairbourne, aged twenty-four years.
"Well," Lady Peggy cried, "this is a meeting. The last time we three were together was at Ushkub in 1918. Ah, those were days. And our adventures in Serbia! There was some sort of fun in motor driving those days. And now you are a celebrity, Inez. Already the darling of a hundred opera-houses. Have you come to London to charm the ears of society? I should just love to hear you sing as you did at nights in that dreadful place, but unless you give me a free pass I shall never find the cash to pay."
With this open confession Lady Peggy dropped into a chair and helped herself deliberately to the contents of Jelicorse's cigarette case. She might have belonged to some detached world where trouble and anxiety had no being. In another chair opposite her sister smiled benignly, also with one of the man's cigarettes between her dainty lips. Nothing seemed to worry this smiling, inconsequent pair.
"Now you know all about our monetary affairs," she said in a tone that might have reached the ears of a dozen diners. "We are poor Amazons broke in the wars. Now how much do you think his grace of Fairbourne has to live on. And keep us in the style we have been accustomed to? Four thousand a year! Not a bean more. With taxes and all that sort of tosh that is all that is left. My dear Hilary, what do I care if the proletariat does hear? All the world knows it. No doubt it will all come right in the course of half a century or so, but where shall we two be then, poor things?"
"It's true, Hilary," Lady Peggy smiled as if the family cataclysm were some exquisite joke. "There is a gathering of the family clans going on in a private sitting-room upstairs from which Joan and self escaped. So we came down here to see if there was any fun moving, and fell into the hands of you two darlings. Hilary, can't you give us some sort of a Foreign Office job? Something in the spy or secret service line. Our French is perfect, and for three years just previous to 1914 we were at school in Bonne. Then nearly three years with the forces in Serbia. Be a little gentleman, Hilary, and help us, or necessity will throw us to the profiteers who made fortunes out of our calamities. I don't want to advertise myself as a girl of old ducal family, young, fair, and cultured, willing to exchange hearts with some presentable war profiteer with a million made for choice in the bacon trade. Hilary, it's very serious."
There was a certain amount of meaning behind Jelicorse's smile. He knew, nobody better, that great events were in the scale of the anguished nations, events which might never be recorded in the newspapers of the day, but which, if not checked, might set weary Europe in a blaze once more. He knew these laughing girls, too, and the fine things they had done in the past, and what high courage and daring they concealed under the mask of Comus. And he knew also what a woman might accomplish when it came to the matching of wits with a set of men fighting with their backs to the wall for all that was left of their old power and prestige and glory.
"The thing is not impossible," he murmured thoughtfully. "We are not out of the wood yet by any means. But what would his grace say to you two being sent to Austria, for instance, on some mission by no means beyond the personal danger mark?"
"My dear Hilary," Lady Joan drawled. "We are no longer in the dark ages when girls called their fathers 'papa' and spoke only when addressed. The war killed all that. Honestly, there is nothing left to Peggy and myself but bonnets and teashops. I mean as business propositions. I did have a lovely dream once of an old Tudor house in a hunting country, with some few thousand acres of shooting, with a perfectly-fitting husband to match, but what has become of him I haven't the faintest notion. If you think—"
She broke off suddenly and gripped Jelicorse by the arm.
"That man over there," she gasped. "The handsome waiter with the sad Russian eyes. Call him over here, Hilary."
The dining-room of the Agincourt was practically deserted now. It being the slack hour when most dinners were over and the tide of supper parties not as yet due. As Lady Joan pointed to the unfortunate Niel Nelson, Jelicorse understood.
"Better not worry him," he murmured. "Rather embarrassing in the circumstances. Besides, I promise you a chance of speaking to Niel Nelson in more fitting surroundings. Yes, it's poor old Niel right enough. Everything gone, no money left, no profession, and—"
"Call him over here," Lady Joan commanded imperatively.
"Oh, all right," Jelicorse shrugged. "But he won't like it. Don't forget that though he was once a baronet living in an old Tudor house in good hunting country and-er-fond of a certain lady, shall we say Ermyntrude? he is a waiter at this moment and likely to be prosaically sacked if he is detected in the act of chatting with the hotel customers. Don't be selfish, Joan."
"But, my dear man, if one isn't selfish these times, how is one going to live? Look at that poor boy with his melancholy Slav eyes, his mother's eyes, and weep for him and his class. Oh, I know that the late Lady Nelson was not of the blood, but she was a Russian princess and a darling. Come here, Niel."
Niel Nelson came eagerly and yet with lagging footsteps. He had the fear of the head waiter no longer before his eyes, in fact he had forgotten that omnipotent functionary altogether.
"Queer sort of a meeting, isn't it?" he laughed unsteadily.
Lady Joan regarded him with a watery smile. Perhaps she was thinking of the old Tudor house and the misty mornings when the scent was breast high and Niel was piloting her over a big grass country in the days which seemingly were gone for ever. And Jelicorse watched with a real sympathy for the dead romance.
There were big things coming and great chances in the near future for those who knew how to grasp the golden opportunity. Only he and one or two others knew how big the prospects were. And here was the help that the Councillors of Falconhoe needed. Jelicorse knew that he could count on Niel Nelson for one, he was sure of Inez Salviati for another. But what about these girls? The woman in international intrigue was a tradition and a sheer necessity, and the Pevensey twins had proved themselves a score of times. Were they not through the Serbian campaigns? Had they not faced worse than death over and over again without flinching? And their French and German were beyond reproach. Yes, they would do, but what would the Duke of Fairbourne have to say about it? It was at that very moment that Lady Peggy answered the question for him.
"We are so glad to see you again, Niel," she said. "So glad to mingle our patrician tears with yours, old thing. In the spacious days we went to the block together, at least our ancestors did, now we go to the workhouse together instead. Joan and myself had arranged to go chicken farming in—in Timbuctoo, wasn't it, Joan?—but Hilary Jelicorse has a better 'ole than that, or so he declares. I do hope that you are coming along."
It was all frivolous nonsense, of course, but there was a deal of feeling behind it, as Jelicorse knew, only too well.
"Pretty rotten, isn't it?" Nelson laughed. "But one has to live, and I flatter myself that I look quite nice in my waiter's kit."
"You don't," Lady Joan cried. "A blind man could see that you are a gentleman. It's a crying shame after your war record."
"Tell England," Lady Peggy interposed. "Tell England."
"I have," Nelson said. "I was telling England for four years and about ten millions of us formed the chorus. But it seems to me that Britannia is a little deaf."
"The yelling of the politicians and the screams of those wonderful journalists who could rule the world single-handed has destroyed the old lady's sense of hearing," Jelicorse remarked sarcastically. "But we are all in the same boat, Niel. And things are going to happen before long if our rulers are not wise to the signs on the political horizon. We shall want men and women to help or I am altogether wrong in my calculations. Inez will help, I know."
"That I will," Inez cried. "But for my career and those professional engagements which I have contracted—"
"I would not have those cancelled for a moment," Jelicorse interrupted. "They will help, they will throw dust in the eyes of the new foe. Sounds mysterious, but I will make it plain presently. But what will his Grace of Fairbourne say?"
"He won't say anything," Lady Joan laughed. "He is too busy scheming how to keep his dear old ducal head above water. Besides, you can't order Dames of the British Empire about like mere dutiful offspring. And, really, Hilary, you can't appreciate how bad things are with us at present. It's different with you."
"Oh, is it!" Jelicorse said grimly. "I have had to let my place for five years and the same remark applies to both Enderby and Farncombe. We have pooled resources and taken an old manor house on the high cliffs not far from the lovely village of Lynton in North Devon. Place called Falconhoe Manor House. Most secluded and romantic spot in England. There we have started as a sort of international detective agency with branches all over Europe. Parties waited upon by our own line of 'planes. Wireless to Berlin and Vienna and Rome. Our wireless must be seen to be believed."
"I'd love to," Lady Peggy cried.
"You shall," Jelicorse promised, "but not yet. Niel is coming down there, as I can find a job for him. You three might make arrangements to stay for a short time at the Windy Bay post office where they let rooms in the summer. Ideal spot and fine bathing. As we have no chaperon at the Falconhoe house we can't offer you all that hospitality. And if things go as I expect they will, there will be some well-paid posts going before long. Adventures on the continent, thrilling episodes after the manner of the creap Press, intrigues to solve, in fact the whole gamut of the sensational novel. Come in with us and prevent another European war. It's a great deal nearer than you imagine, as Count Andra Barrados could have told Inez just now if it had been worth his while."
"You mean that, Hilary?" Inez asked eagerly,
"I do indeed. That man is one of the most infernal scamps in Europe, and he is in the conspiracy up to his neck. But more of this at another time. The place is filling up with the supper crowd, and Niel will be getting into trouble. Now, if you ladles will be so good as to clear out and get back to your tents I shall be grateful. Inez is staying in the hotel, and she will follow in a few minutes. Niel, the head waiter is scowling at you."
Niel Nelson vanished discreetly, and the ladies Pevensey followed close behind. Jelicorse detained Inez for a moment.
"I asked you a question just now," he whispered. "I wanted to know where you got that emerald from. Won't you tell me?"
"Indeed not," Inez said with cold dignity. "You have no right to ask. Old friends as we are, there are limits—"
She swept past him without another word.
III - FAIRBOURNE CASTLE
In a fold of the hills not far from Plymouth and overlooking the famous Sound stood the main seat of his grace the Duke of Fairbourne. There the race had been cradled since the days of Warwick the Kingmaker, and there they might have flourished prosperous and undisturbed for many more centuries had it not been for the ambition of a monarch who mistook his vocation and realised too late that every man who rules a great kingdom and has a weakness for playing at soldiers is not necessarily a Napoleon.
All the same, he had a sort of left-handed revenge upon the titular rulers of the country which he hated most and which brought his pride tumbling in the dust. The ravages of the Great War hit them almost as much as they had bankrupted his beloved junkers, and nobody had felt it more than the Duke of Fairbourne.
It is, of course, a very pleasant and soothing thing to have an income of 100,000 pounds a year and half a dozen palaces in various parts of the country, but when the aforesaid income is reduced to about a third by a crushing income tax, plus land burdens in a like proportion, then the palaces may become a source of loss and anxiety instead of a thing of pride and joy. And no member of the House of Peers had suffered more in this respect than the duke in question.
For the moment, at any rate, he was making the most of his time at Fairbourne Castle. He had had a series of interviews with his trustees, and Lady Peggy had not been very far wrong when she told Jelicorse that her father had not more than five thousand a year to call his own. Some of the other houses had been let, and no doubt, before long, the same fate would overtake Fairbourne. It was impossible, of course, to deal with any of the magnificent family treasures, because those were heirlooms, and could not be disposed of. Perhaps in the course of time things would right themselves, but for a good many years to come the head of the noble clan would be hard put to it to keep his head above water. Unless his only son, who, however, does not come into the story, married a rich American, or the daughter of some gilt-edged profiteer, he would be likely to share the general blight. And when Lady Peggy informed Jelicorse that she and her sister Joan were faced with the necessity for getting their own livings, she had not been very far from the truth.
Meanwhile, Fairbourne lay sleeping in the sunshine, a long, low, rambling house, partly of mediaeval structure and partly Georgian, fronted by a noble stone terrace and below that the gardens, and then again the sweeping expanse of park almost overlooking the sea. It was the sort of place that required an army of retainers, gardeners, and the like to preserve it in anything like dignity, or even ordinary neatness. There was nothing about it, at any rate at present, to suggest the canker that was eating into the bud of this beautiful flower.
A couple of deck chairs at the bottom of the stops leading to the rose garden were occupied by Lady Peggy and Lady Joan, who were more or less busy discussing their future prospects. There certainly had been something alluring in the possibilities of the scheme which Jelicorse had foreshadowed in the course of the meeting in the dining room of the Agincourt. He had only hinted very vaguely at what might happen, but he had certainly suggested secrecy and danger, and to two girls who had seen and endured so much during the Great War this had been almost entrancing.
