The Great Secret Part 44

"I am not inclined to sell," Guest said. "One hundred, or two hundred, or five hundred won't tempt me now that my mind is made up."

Kauffman left the restaurant without a word. Guest called the waiter to him.

"Karl," he said, "do you wish to stay here as head-waiter?"

"Certainly, sir," the man answered, a little nervously. "I know most of the customers. But I fear they will not stay."

"We shall see," Guest answered. "I am not in a great hurry to make money.

I want them to be satisfied, and I want my nephew to be learning the business. You shall do what you can to keep them, Karl, and it will mean money to you. Now about this club! They spend money these members, eh?"

"Not much," Karl answered dubiously.

"That is bad," Guest declared; "but they must spend more. We will give them good things cheap. What nights do they meet?"

"No one knows," Karl answered. "The room is always ready. They pay a small sum for it, and they come when they choose."

"H'm!" Guest remarked. "Doesn't sound very profitable. What do they do--sing, talk, or is it business?"

"I think," Karl answered slowly, "that it is business."

"Well, well!" Guest said, "we are not inquisitive--my nephew and I. Can one see the room?"

Karl shook his head.

"Not at present," he answered. "Mr. Kauffman has a key, but he is gone."

"Ah, well!" Guest remarked, "another time. The bill, Karl! For this morning I shall call myself a guest. This afternoon we will take possession--my nephew and I!"

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE "WAITERS' UNION"

Guest and I had taken small rooms not a hundred yards from the Cafe Suisse, as the restaurant was called. We made our way there immediately after we had settled with our friend Karl, and Guest locked the door of our tiny sitting-room behind us. He first of all walked round the room and felt the wall carefully. Then he seated himself in front of the table and motioned me to draw my chair up almost to his side.

"My young friend," he said, "we have now reached the most difficult part of our enterprise. For several days we have not spoken together confidentially. I have not even told you the little I was able to discover in Hamburg. Shall I go on?"

"Of course," I answered.

"Take off your gloves," Guest said. "You cannot wear them in the restaurant. Good! Now, first of all, have you seen the morning papers?"

"No!" I answered.

He produced one from his pocket, and, placing it before me, pointed to a paragraph.

"Read," he said, "your obituary notice."

This is what I read:

"TRAGIC DEATH OF AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN IN THE ROCKIES

"Yesterday, whilst Mr. Charles Urnans and a party of friends from New York were returning to their camp near Mount Phoenix, they came across the body of a man in a deserted gorge half-way down the mountain. He had apparently been shot through the heart by a rifle bullet, and must have been dead for some weeks. From papers and other belongings found in his possesion, the deceased gentleman appears to have been a Mr. Hardross Courage of England."

_LATER_

"The body found this morning by Mr. Charles Urnans of New York has been identified as that of Mr. Hardross Courage, the famous English cricketer and well-known sportsman. Mr. Courage is known to have left New York some months ago, for a hunting trip in the Rockies, and nothing has been heard of him for some time. No trace has been discovered of his guides, although his camp and outfit were found close at hand. As no money or valuables were discovered on the body of the deceased, it is feared that he has met with foul play."

I think that no man can read his own obituary notice without a s.h.i.+ver.

For a moment I lost my nerve. I cursed the moment when I had met Guest, I felt an intense, sick hatred of my present occupation and everything connected with it. I felt myself guilty of this man's death. Guest listened to my incoherent words gravely. When I had finished he laid his hand upon nine.

"Gently, Courage," he said. "I knew that this must be a shock to you, but you must not lose your sense of proportion. Think of the men who have sacrificed their lives for just causes, remember that you and I to-day, and from to-day onward, can never be sure that each moment is not our last. Remember that we are working to save our country from ruin, to save Europe from a war in which not one life, but a hundred thousand might perish. Remember that you and I alone are struggling to frustrate the greatest, the most subtle, the most far-reaching plot which the mind of man ever conceived. That poor fellow who lies out on the Rockies with a bullet in his heart, is only a tiny link in the great chain: you or I may share his fate at any moment. Be a man, Courage. We have no time for sentiment."

"You are right," I answered. "Go on."

"We are now," Guest declared, "in this position. In Hamburg I discovered the meeting-place of the No. 1 Branch of the Waiters' Union, and the place itself is now under our control. In that room at the Cafe Suisse will be woven the final threads of the great scheme. How are we to get there? How are we to penetrate its secrets?"

"We must see the room first," I remarked.

"And then there is the question of ourselves," Guest continued. "We are both nominally dead men. But none the less, our friends leave little to chance. You may not have noticed it, but I knew very well that we were followed home to-day from the cafe. Every moment of ours will be spied upon. Is the change in our appearance sufficient?"

I looked at myself in the little gilt mirror over the mantel-piece.

Perhaps because I looked, thinking of myself as I had been in the days before these strange happenings had come into my life, I answered his question promptly.

"I cannot believe," I said, "that any one would know me for Hardross Courage. I am perfectly certain, too, that I should not recognize in you to-day the Leslie Guest who--died at Saxby."

"I believe that you are right," Guest admitted. "At any rate, it is one of those matters which we must leave no chance. Only keep your ident.i.ty always before you. At the Cafe Suisse we shall be watched every moment of the day. Remember that you are a German-American of humble birth.

Remember that always."

I nodded.

"I am not an impulsive person," I answered. "I am used to think before I speak. I shall remember. But there is one thing I am afraid of, Guest. It must also have occurred to you. Now that the Cafe Suisse is in the hands of strangers, will not your friends change their meeting-place?"

"I think not," Guest answered slowly. "I know a little already about that room. It has a hidden exit, by way of the cellar, into a court, every house of which is occupied by foreigners. A surprise on either side would be exceedingly difficult. I do not think that our friends will be anxious to give up the place, unless their suspicions are aroused concerning us.

You see their time is very close at hand now. This, at any rate, is another of the risks which we must run."

"Very well," I answered, "You see the time?"

Guest nodded.

"I am going to explain to you exactly," he said, "what you have to do."

"Right," I answered.

"The parcel on the sofa there," he said, "contains a second-hand suit of dress clothes. You will put them on, over them your old black overcoat which we bought at Hamburg, and your bowler hat. At four o'clock precisely you will call at the offices of the German Waiters' Union, at No. 13, Old Compton Street, and ask for Mr. Hirsch. Your name is Paul Schmidt. You were born in Offenbach, but went to America at the age of four. You were back in Germany for two years at the age of nineteen, and you have served your time at Mayence. You have come to England with an uncle, who has taken a small restaurant in Soho, and who proposes to engage you as head-waiter. You will be enrolled as a member of the Waiters' Union, as a matter of course; but when that has been arranged you write on a slip of paper these words, and pa.s.s them to Mr.

Hirsch--'I, too, have a rifle'!"