The First Dispatch

by Edgar Wallace

THE FIRST DISPATCH

By EDGAR WALLACE

THE Marquis of Pelborough was not a very earnest student of the newspapers, except of those pages devoted to sport, and more especially to the fistic art. There was probably no greater authority in England on the relative merits of light- and feather-weights than this mild young man, of whom the great "Kid" Steel had said, in his own simple way: "Dat guy's gotta foot like a fairy an' a punch like de kick of a broncho."

Chick, as a rule, merely glimpsed the pages containing the troubles of the hour (and "news," as it is understood in Fleet Street, is only trouble in some form or other), but one morning his attention was arrested by a "scare-line" to a long paragraph, and he read:

"Following upon the arrest by Inspector Fuller of a number of men who are believed to be a dangerous gang of international burglars, a widespread conspiracy, having as its object the issue of forged French and Belgian bank-notes, has been brought to light.

"The headquarters of the forgers is in Brussels, and the police have forwarded to the Foreign Office a number of original documents which leave no doubt as to the existence of the plot. The names of the chief movers in this conspiracy are not the least important of the discoveries made by Inspector Fuller."

"Gosh!" said Chick. "I wonder who they are?"

He was beginning to identify himself with the Foreign Office, and the fact that the incriminating documents were actually within the walls of that building gave the news vital importance in his eyes. Did he but know, he was to be almost as interesting a figure to the leaders of this easy-money movement as they were to him.

There are certain features of English public life which have been for all time an insoluble mystery to the foreigner. Few, indeed, are they who can appreciate the subtle difference between the accolade of knighthood and the patent of baronetcy. The older titles of the aristocracy have their exact significance, however. A marquis is a marquis all the world over, as a certain M. Lilinfelt knew.

There is a pretty little hotel situated on the boulevard of the Botanical Gardens (to Anglicise the cumbersome title of that thoroughfare) and very near to the Rue Pierre, and in this hotel lived, in comfort, this same M. August Lilinfelt. He had no apparent occupation, and was associated with none of those Government services which President Lincoln once described as "livings for which one does not work."

He was a tall, broad man, with a large bushy beard, and he wore in the lapel of his invariable frock-coat a splurge of crimson which was generally believed to indicate his possession of the Order of Leopold, but which, in point of fact, suggested no more than that he had at one period of his chequered career earned the gratitude of a Balkan Prime Minister, who had bestowed upon him the most minor of the least considerable decorations which the Bulgarian Government award for small services rendered.

One day there came to him, in his ornate sitting-room, a code telegram from London, which took the colour out of his face and made the big hands that held the telegram shake a little. For an hour he sat stroking his beard and staring at the disturbing message, and then he rose and, telephoning for his hired car, drove into Brussels.

He descended at the flower-decked portals of a famous café, and, although the day was warm enough to invite him to a table in the open, he strode into the dark and somewhat musty interior and, choosing a place at the far end of the room, ordered an apértif.

He was joined a few minutes later by Monsieur Bilet, a small thin man with fierce moustachios, and they talked of the weather and the opening of the racing season, and of the new opera, until the waiter had satisfied their needs, and then Monsieur Lilinfelt, without a word of preliminary, produced the telegram from his pocket and placed it on the table.

Monsieur Bilet read and understood.

"Apparently Henri was not content with making two thousand good francs a week," said Monsieur Lilinfelt, without heat, "and he must have mixed himself up with those American people he wrote to us about."

Monsieur Bilet nodded and twisted his ferocious moustachios.

"I always felt Fertelot was the better of the two," he said, tapping the cablegram, the sender of which, it was clear, was that same Fertelot. "What shall we do?" he asked. "Is it to be Germany?"

The bearded man shook his head.

"There is time yet, and the Brussels police will not act until all the documents are placed in their possession."

To be a successful breaker of the law requires just that amount of calm and sense of diplomatic values which Monsieur Lilinfelt possessed.

"Suppose they communicate by telegram?"

Monsieur Lilinfelt stroked his beard and smiled.

"In that case, my dear Bilet, the railway stations will be watched, and we at this moment are under police observation."

He cast his eyes round carelessly. From where he sat he could see through the big open windows the whole length of the pavement before the café.

"No," he said, "we must rest." He beckoned the waiter, who evidently knew him. "Philip," he said, "are there any telegrams for me?"

"I will see, m'sieur."

He came back in a few minutes with a blue paper.

"I thought so," said Monsieur Lilinfelt, when the waiter had gone. "I telegraphed to Fertelot to communicate with me here."

He opened the paper.

"All documents are to go to Minister of Interior by Messenger, either to-day or to-morrow," ran the dispatch.

Lilinfelt put the telegram away.

"Fertelot is admirable," he said. "I agree with you, Bilet, he is the man who should have been in control. Henri is a beast and a fool."

At one o'clock the next morning he was awakened from a dreamless sleep—for men of his calibre practise, for the comfort of themselves, the doctrine of fatalism—and when he had read the third telegram, he dressed, left the hotel quietly and went in person to Monsieur Bilet, who lived, in a more magnificent style than he, at another hotel.

It was not unusual for Monsieur Lilinfelt to call, even in the middle of the night, and the porter took him up in the elevator to the fifth floor.

Monsieur Bilet, after a little persuasion, opened the door and received him, revolver in hand.

"I have to be careful," he explained, as he locked the door behind the visitor and put back the revolver under his pillow. "What has happened?"

"Read this."

Monsieur Bilet blinked himself awake and read the telegram with an impassive face.

"The Foreign Office Messenger leaves for Brussels to-morrow afternoon. The Marquis of Pelborough has been warned for the service."

"The Marquis of Pelborough?" said Monsieur Lilinfelt thoughtfully. "Then the Government regard this dispatch as of the highest importance, if they choose a member of their aristocracy as its bearer."

They looked at one another.

"Who is he?"

Monsieur Lilinfelt shrugged his shoulders.

"He is an aristocrat," he said, "and the English aristocracy is different to ours, Jules. At the moment we are safe. I called on my friend at the Bureau of Police this evening——"

"Yesterday evening," corrected Monsieur Bilet, who was a stickler for accuracy. "Well?"

"From his attitude and his manner I am sure that no telegram has been received. He even discussed with me the news of the conspiracy," said M. Lilinfelt. "You remember the particulars of this arrest in London ware published in the Indépendance."

He sat down in the big armchair at the end of the bed and pondered silently.

"It is worth the risk," he said at last.

"What is worth the risk?" asked Monsieur Bilet impatiently. "It seems to me that our course is indicated, my dear Lilinfelt. There is a train for Cologne in the morning, and from Cologne it would be simple to work our way to Bavaria and so to Switzerland. It will be necessary that you should sacrifice your beard, though it pains me to suggest as much."

Monsieur Lilinfelt rose.

"There is also a train for Ostend in the morning," he said significantly, "and there we have six industrious friends, who have no more desire to spend the rest of their lives in prison than you or I, and, believe me, my dear Jules, your talk of beards and Switzerland is so much nonsense, for they would find us and bring us back. We can only be convicted if the personal letters, as I presume they are, written by me to Henri are not covered."

They looked at one another.

"Very well," said Bilet, after a while. "I am in your hands."

On the boat that left Dover for Ostend on the following afternoon was a very happy little party of three. Chick, the proud bearer of his first dispatch, would never have dreamt of inviting Gwenda Maynard and her chaperon to share his adventure, but when he had gone to his chief's room to receive the precious packet (so covered with red sealing-wax that it was little short of miraculous that space had been found to write the address), Sir John Welson had made the suggestion himself.

"You can take your time with this, Lord Pelborough," he said. "We shan't want you for two or three days. Why don't you take your sister across—that pretty lady I saw you with in Piccadilly the other day?"

"She's not my sister, sir"—Chick blushed to the roots of his hair "and, besides, when I'm on duty——"

"Don't worry about that," smiled Sir John. "You follow my advice, and take your sister, or aunt, or whoever the lady is. You will find Brussels delightful."

It is not customary for the head of a great Government Department to proffer such advice, but Sir John Welson had learnt from Lord Mansar something of the young man's story. He had previously read in a newspaper, but in a casual, uninterested way, about this insurance clerk who had inherited an empty title, but now Chick was becoming a real person to him.

The doors of a diplomatic career were, of course, closed to him, and the opportunities which the Foreign Office offered were very few. What could be done for this impecunious Marquis puzzled Sir John, and it puzzled his chief, the Foreign Minister, to whom the story had been told. Chick, did he but know, had been the subject of an informal discussion at a Cabinet meeting, one of those talks which arise when the serious business has been disposed of, and the members linger to gossip before they go their several ways.

In complete ignorance of his growing importance, no less than the sense of hopelessness that the discussion of his career aroused, Chick, with his portfolio under his arm, made his way to the nearest telephone and called up the house in Doughty Street. His flat was not connected, but the tenants in the flat below, who were in telephonic communication, had kindly offered the use of their 'phone whenever an emergency arose, and this seemed to be such a case. Fortunately Gwenda was home, and she listened in astonishment to Chick's proposals.

"Go to Brussels?" she said. "How could we, Chick? There isn't time to get ready. Besides——"

"I want Mrs. Phibbs to come, too," said Chick's eager voice. "Sir John Welson told me that I could take you, that it would be a good opportunity——"

In the end Gwenda succumbed, and there followed a rush period of packing and preparation which eventually resulted in the appearance of that happy little trio on the broad deck of the Princess Clementine.

Mrs. Phibbs, who had the gift of accommodating herself to all circumstances, might have been preparing for such a trip for years. But Gwenda was frankly excited. She was like a child in her eager interest, for she had not crossed the sea before.

"It is all too wonderful, Chick. I feel as if I am dreaming."

Chick beamed. A queer figure he made, and an object of curiosity to the other passengers, for he had clung literally and figuratively to his polished silk hat and his smart swallow-tail coat, and Gwenda, who had a dim idea that this was the conventional uniform of Government officials, had not even questioned the propriety of his making a sea-voyage in that garb.

Never before probably had a King's Messenger, wearing the silver chain and the silver greyhound of his office—he had tucked this out of sight inside his waistcoat—escorted so happy a party.

Their united capital totalled twenty-five pounds; it seemed a great deal of money to Chick.

His eyes were fixed on the sea, his heart was peaceful and contented, for he felt that he was on the way to achievement. The future troubled him also, and there was some elusive thing which, amidst the chaos of uncertainty, worried him more than anything else.

"What is the dispatch you are carrying——" began Gwenda, and checked herself. "Oh, Chick, I'm so sorry! I ought not to ask that question."

Chick beamed again. He had no doubt about the contents of that precious package.

"I don't know for sure, Gwenda." He dropped his voice lest the secret should be carried, by the south-westerly breeze that followed them, to the unconscious criminals. "It is about the bank-note forgeries, I think."

She nodded, having read the newspaper account of certain arrests.

An hour later they made Ostend. Chick's passport spared him the formality of a Customs inspection.

"The train for Brussels, milor," said an obsequious official, "is on the left. It will leave in half an hour."

"Thank you, sir," said Chick, rather awed by the sight of so much gold lace.

He found a carriage and put Gwenda and Mrs. Phibbs inside, stacked their limited baggage on the rack, and went to the buffet in search of tea for them. He was trying to push his way through the crowd before the counter, when a hand touched him lightly on the shoulder, and he turned to meet a smartly-dressed young man, who removed his hat deferentially.

"Pardon me, milor," said the newcomer in perfect English, "you are Lord Pelborough, aren't you?"

"Yes," said Chick, in surprise.

"I have been sent by the Minister of Finance to meet you. I am the Baron von Ried."

"Awfully glad to meet you," said Chick awkwardly. "If you can tell me how I can get some tea——"

The young man smiled.

"Don't worry about that, please," he said. "We have tea prepared for you at the Hotel Splendide."

"In Ostend?" said Chick, in surprise.

"Yes. The Minister is in Ostend; he asked me to intercept you and bring you along. He is most anxious to receive your dispatch without delay."

Chick scratched his chin.

"I'm glad I met you," he said. "I have some friends here; if you don't mind, I'll tell them."

"We have already notified them," said the Baron. "They have gone on to the Splendide."

Chick looked at him dubiously.

"I think you are mistaken," he said, and accompanied the other back to the carriage where he had left Gwenda. To his amazement, she had disappeared, with Mrs. Phibbs and the baggage.

"Do you see?" smiled the Baron.

"I see," said Chick, relieved.

Hugging his precious portfolio, he stepped into the taxi-cab by the side of his conductor, and the little car bumped and bobbed across the cobbled roadways about the station and reached the smoother streets of Ostend.

They sped quickly through the town.

"Isn't that the Splendide?" said Chick. He thought he had seen the name on a great white building.

"Oh, no, that is the Ostend Splendide. We are at the Mariakerke Splendide," explained the other. "It is not such a magnificent building."

The cab was following the road which runs past the racecourse toward Nieuport, and presently it stopped at an isolated building.

It did not look like an Hotel Splendide; indeed, it looked very much like what it was—the hastily-patched wreckage of a house which had been sadly damaged by British guns in the course of the War.

Chick stepped out and looked at the unprepossessing building with amazement.

"This way, milor," said the Baron, and, after a moment's hesitation. Chick followed him into an untidy passage. The street door was slammed behind him, and the Baron opened a second door.

"Will you step in?"

"Wait a moment," said Chick quietly. "What is the game?"

"Will you step in?" said the other, and his voice was no longer suave.

"I think I'll step out," said Chick, and turned.

In a minute the man was on him, his arms flung round him, but Chick was a past-master in avoiding a clinch. He shook the astonished assailant from him. Once, twice he struck, and the Baron tumbled on the floor, but before Chick could reach the door, he was overwhelmed by four men, who rushed into the room and flung themselves upon him.

In the meantime Gwenda had had an adventure of her own. Chick had scarcely left the carriage before an amiable-looking man, with a large moustache, had opened the door. He took off his hat, and his tone was of the utmost humility.

"Are you accompanying the Marquis of Pelborough, madame?" he asked.

"Yes," said Gwenda, in surprise.

"He has met the Minister and has gone to the Hotel Splendide, and he sent me along to bring you after him," said the man.

"He has gone?" said Gwenda incredulously.

"Yes, madame."

Monsieur Bilet's eyes had seen the wedding-ring on the girl's finger.

He beckoned a porter.

"Place madame's baggage in the car," he said.

Gwenda was in a dilemma. She realised that if Chick had met the Minister, she would be an embarrassment to them, and it was quite feasible that he had gone off, though it was hardly like Chick to go without an explanation.

She left the carriage, and was driving from the station at the very moment when Chick had come back with the Baron to discover she was gone.

The man with the large moustache gave the driver directions, and the taxi was turned in the direction of Knocke, which is in the opposite direction to Ostend.

Fortunately Gwenda had a strong bump of locality. As the boat came in, she had noticed that Ostend lay to the south of the harbour, and a passenger had pointed out the hotels on the front. To reach the Splendide they must turn to the right and not to the left.

She tapped at the window, and the driver stopped.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"To Knocke, madame," he said.

"I want to go to the Splendide," she said, and he seemed surprised.

"Monsieur told me to take you to the Grand Hotel, Knocke," he said. And then, with a shrug of his shoulders and a "Madame knows best," he turned his car.

As he did so, she caught a fleeting glimpse of Chick and a sallow-faced smiling young man flash past the end of the road, and again she leant out of the window.

"You can follow that cab," she said. She was amazed when the cab did not stop at the very obvious entrance of the Splendide, but continued.

Her driver would have turned into the hotel, but she stopped him.

"Continue following that cab," she said, and the philosophical chauffeur, who in his life had had many strange commissions, kept in the track of Chick's car. The taxi, however, was much slower than the car which carried Chick which was soon out of sight. Here, however, the trailing presented no difficulty, because there was only one road and, except in the little villages through which they passed, no side-roads.

They came out of Mariakerke and saw the car standing in front of a dilapidated house. At once the girl knew that something was wrong. Chick was carrying dispatches, she realised, and dispatches which might mean the exposure of men who certainly were desperate, and assuredly would not hesitate to take the most extreme measures to prevent their falling into the hands of the authorities. Again she leant out of the window, and this time her voice Was urgent.

"Do not stop," she said, in a low voice. "Pass that cab and continue until the road turns."

"It is as madame desires," said the chauffeur, who scented a romance and saw in "Madame" an ill-used wife who was dogging the footsteps of her erring husband.

The road took a turn and the cab stopped.

"Where are you going, Gwenda?" asked the older woman. "If there is any trouble, I'd like to be in it, too."

Gwenda shook her head.

"No. If we both go, there will be nobody to carry a message to the police. I want you to go straight back, find a police station, and tell the police what has happened. I'm quite sure Chick has been abducted."

"What are you going to do?" asked the woman.

"I'll watch," said Gwenda.

She waited until the taxi had turned out of sight, and then followed on foot. She saw that the car that had been waiting before the house had also turned, and arrived at the bend in time to see Mrs. Phibbs pass it. Presently three men came out of the house, closing the door behind them. One she recognised as the man who had invited her to leave the carriage and go to the hotel, the other was a tall, bearded man, and the third was one who had evidently been in an accident, for he kept a handkerchief to his eye, and he walked with a limp.

She stood in the shadow of a broken wall and watched them. And then her heart leapt, for one man carried in his hand the familiar brown-leather portfolio. He stood for a moment by the side of the car, trying to fit it into an inside pocket, but the case was too large. He said something to the man with the big moustache, and they looked at the case. Then the man with the damaged eye went back into the house and came out with a bag, which he opened. Into this the portfolio was thrust, and then the car drove off.

She waited until the car was a speck in the distance on the long white road, and then she made her cautious way to the house.

At some time or other it had been the villa of a prosperous member of the Belgian bourgeoisie, and the garden, like those of so many such villas, was small and was enclosed in a brick wall, breast-high. She picked her way over a chaos of brick and battered stonework, for she trod the site of another villa which had almost entirely disappeared under gunfire. The back of the house was, if anything, more ugly than the front. The "garden" was a mass of weeds, and the one door leading to the kitchen was closed, and probably locked.

She looked round to see if she was observed, and then, lifting her skirt, she climbed the wall and moved toward the house. The door, she found, was fastened, but the window, looking into a neglected kitchen, which had evidently not been used since pre-War days, was wide open. With some difficulty—for she was not dressed for such violent exercise—she climbed through the window into the room. There was no sound, and she opened a door leading to a gloomy passage. She heard two men talking, and crept along the passage until she came opposite the door of the room whence the sound emanated.

Very carefully she turned the handle and opened the door a few inches. The two men, who were standing in the centre of the room, had their backs to her, but Chick, a dishevelled figure, his battered top-hat still on his head—it had probably been thrust there by his derisive captors—sat in a corner on the floor, his arms and his legs tied, and a stick of wood between his teeth, the ends being tied behind his head.

Chick saw her and raised his eyes, and at that moment one of the men turned. He looked at the girl and gasped.

Before she could speak, the two men were on her, a big hand was laid on her mouth, and she was flung violently against the wall. Chick grew apoplectic in his attempt to release his hands, but apparently they did not intend treating her as they had served him.

"Madame will sit down," said the shorter of the men. He spoke in French, with the guttural intonation of a Flamand. "If madame makes a noise, I will put something in her mouth to stop her," he added.

Gwenda was cool now. "Take the gag out of that gentleman's mouth," she said. "If you don't, I will scream! Quick! It is choking him!"

The man hesitated, then, bending over the helpless Messenger, he broke the string that held the gag.

"What has happened. Chick?" she asked.

"They have taken my portfolio," groaned Chick. "Oh, Gwenda, I'm such a fool!"

"You will not speak," said the short custodian sharply; he was evidently the person in authority, "unless you speak in French."

"What are they going to do?" she asked in that language,

"Madame, we are keeping you here for one hour, and then we shall say au revoir," said the other man. "You will not be hurt, you understand, but if you give trouble or if you scream, I shall cut your throat."

He said this pleasantly, as one who was promising a favour.

"They have the dispatch?" she asked. She dared not revert to English, for instinctively she knew he would have no hesitation in keeping his promise.

"Where is Mrs. Phibbs?" asked Chick, and she hesitated.

"She is waiting for me," she said at last, and then in French: "Chick, do you remember that song in Gilbert's opera about the man whose life was not a happy one?"

He frowned.

"Do you mean the pol——" He stopped himself and murmured "Good!"

This conversation had not escaped the notice of the goalers. There was a short whispered consultation, and suddenly they made a move toward the girl.

"If you scream, we shall kill you," said the man who had previously made this threat, and she submitted to the binding process. "Now, my dear," he said, with a leer, "we must stop that little trap of yours."

First he replaced the gag in Chick's mouth, and with a handkerchief, which he took from Chick's pocket, he gagged the girl.

They whispered together. Chick saw them looking at the girl, and heard one use a phrase which turned his blood cold, and then they were silent, listening to the heavy rumble of a motor-car which passed the shuttered window. When the sound had died away, they talked together again, but this time not so secretly.

What their plan was, he was not to discover. There came the sound of a heavy footfall in the passage, the door was kicked open violently, and a man strode in, and at the sight of the brass buttons and the long-barrelled revolver in the police commissary's hand, Chick uttered a prayer of thankfulness.

Later Chick, a little dishevelled, had a consultation with the Chief of the Police.

"I fear that by this time they are on their way to Brussels," said the policeman, shaking his head. "We could overtake them in an aeroplane, but we haven't an aeroplane. We could stop the train and arrest them, but there, again, how shall we know your lordship's dispatches are intact?"

Nevertheless, a wireless was sent to Ghent on the off-chance.

Messrs. Lilinfelt and Bilet, accompanied by the chief of their Ostend office—it was afterwards discovered that Ostend was the distributing centre for forged bank-notes, and not Brussels—were examining the locked wallet as the train drew into Ghent. Their attempt to cut out the lock with the simple means at their disposal had not been successful.

"It does not matter," said M. Lilinfelt. "Perhaps it would be better if we disposed of the portfolio and the papers at one and the same time. We shall be in Brussels before our friends are released."

"What of Vazyl and Miguiet?" asked the damaged Baron. "And what of me, Lilinfelt?" He pointed to his injured eye.

"You shall be rewarded, my friend," said M. Lilinfelt.

At that moment the train stopped and the carriage door was opened.

M. Lilinfelt, to whose credit it must be said that he was the first to recognise the inevitable, put up his hands. "There is no necessity for violence, m'sieur," he said to the chief of the waiting policemen.

It was late at night when Chick, with his precious packet, hacked with the ineffective knives of the conspirators, reached the house of the Minister of Finance, a magnificent palace-like châlet on the outskirts of Brussels, and the sympathetic Minister himself came down the steps to welcome the Messenger.

"You have been treated monstrously, milor," he said. "These villains shall pay. It is an act the most abominable!"

Chick unlocked the portfolio and handed the heavily-sealed package to the Minister, and that worthy gentleman examined it with a puzzled frown.

"And yet, milor," said he, "I cannot understand why these men should have taken the trouble, for they are not farmers. And if they were farmers, how could they be interested in swine fever?"

"Swine fever?" gasped Chick, and the Minister was equally astonished.

"Yes, m'sieur," he said. "It is a copy of your new regulations for dealing with the importation of hogs into Belgium."

Chick's jaw dropped.

"I—I thought it had to do with the forged bank-notes," he stammered, and the eyebrows of the Financial Minister rose.

"No, no, m'sieur," he said gently. "As to that, we received the particulars by post this morning. Your assailants were captured. We shall also capture the gentleman—this Monsieur Lilinfelt—who is the organiser of the forgeries."

Chick smiled slowly. "I think you've caught them both, sir," he said.