although Fawley’s hearing was good and Italian the same to him as most other languages, he heard nothing. To his surprise, Berati introduced the newcomer.
“This is my secretary, Prince Patoni,” he said. “Major Fawley.”
The young man bowed and held out his hand. Fawley found it, as he had expected, as cold as ice.
“Major Fawley’s work was well known to us years ago,” he remarked a little grimly. “As a confrère he will be welcome.”
Almost immediately, in obedience to a gesture from Berati, he departed leaving behind him a sense of unreality, as though he were some phantom flitting across the stage of life rather than a real human being. But then indeed, on that first day, Berati himself seemed unreal to his visitor. The former tore open one of the packages the secretary had brought and tossed its contents across the table.
“Open that,” he directed.
Fawley obeyed. Inside was a plain platinum and gold cigarette case with six cigarettes on either side, neatly kept in place by a platinum clasp.
“Well?” Berati demanded.
“Is that a challenge?” Fawley asked.
“You may accept it as such.”
Fawley held the case with its diagonal corners between two fingers and ran the forefinger of his other hand back and forth over the hinges. Almost instantaneously a third division of the case disclosed itself. Berati’s expression remained unchanged but his eyebrows were slowly and slightly elevated.
“There are three of you alive then,” he remarked coolly. “I thought that there were now only two.”
“You happen to be right,” his visitor told him. “Joseffi died very suddenly.”
“When?”
“The day after he opened the case.”
Berati, who indulged very seldom in gestures, touched his underlip with his long firm forefinger.
“Yet—you came.”
Fawley smiled—perhaps a little sardonically.
“The men who work for you, General,” he observed, “should rid themselves of any fear of death.”
Berati nodded very slowly and very thoughtfully. He seemed to be appraising the man who stood on the other side of his desk.
“It appears to me,” he admitted, “that we may get on.”
“It is possible,” Fawley agreed. “Curiosity prompts me to ask you one question, however. When you sent for me, had you any idea that we had met in that barber’s shop at Nice?”
“I knew it perfectly well.”
“I confess that that puzzles me a little,” Fawley admitted. “I was at my worst that day. I did not show the self-control of a schoolboy. I had not even the excuse of being in a hurry. I was annoyed because you had taken my place and I showed it.”
Berati smiled.
“It was the very fact,” he pronounced, “that you were able to forget your profession on an ordinary occasion which commended you to me. Our own men—most of them, at any rate—err on the side of being too stealthy. They are too obvious in their subterfuges ever to reach the summits. You have the art—or shall I call it the genius?—of being able to display your natural feelings when you are, so to speak, in mufti. You impressed me, as you would any man, with the idea that you were a somewhat choleric, somewhat crude Englishman or American, thinking, as usual, that the better half of any deal should fall to you. I made up my mind that if you were free you were my man.”
“You had the advantage of me,” Fawley reflected.
“I never forget a face,” the other confided. “You were in Rome five years ago—some important mission—but I could recall it if I chose… To proceed. You know where to look for your identification papers if it should become necessary to show them. Your supplementary passports are in the same place—both diplomatic and social.”
“Passports,” Fawley remarked, as he disposed of the cigarette case in the inner pocket of his waistcoat, “generally indicate a journey.”
Berati’s long fingers played for a moment with the stiff collar of his uniform. He looked meaningly across his table.
“Adventure is to be found in so many of these southern cities,” he observed. “Monte Carlo is very pleasant at this time of the year and the France is an excellent hotel. A countryman of ours, I remind myself, is in charge there. There is also a German named Krust—but that will do later. Our relations with him are at present undetermined. Your first centre of activities will be within twenty kilometres of the Casino. A rivederci, Signor.”
He held out his hand. Fawley took it, but lingered for a moment.
“My instructions—” he began.
“They will arrive,” the Italian interrupted. “Have no anxiety. There will be plenty of work for you. You will begin where Joseffi left off. I wish you better fortune.”
Fawley obeyed the little wave of the hand and took his leave. In doing so, however, he made a not incomprehensible error. The room was irregular in shape, with panelled walls, and every one of the oval recesses possessed a door which matched its neighbour. His fingers closed upon the handle of the one through which he believed that he had entered. Almost at once Berati’s voice snapped out from behind him like a pistol shot.
“Not that one! The next to your right.”
Fawley did not, however, at once withdraw his hand from the beautiful piece of brass ornamentation upon which it rested.
“Where does this one lead to?” he asked with apparent irrelevance.
Berati’s voice was suddenly harsh.
“My own apartments—the Palazzo Berati. Be so good as to pass out by the adjoining door.”
Fawley remained motionless. Berati’s voice was coldly angry.
“There is perhaps some explanation—” he began ominously.
“Explanation enough,” Fawley interrupted. “Some one is holding the handle of this door on the other side. They are even now matching the strength of their fingers against mine.”
“You mean that some one is attempting to enter?”
“Obviously,” Fawley replied. “Shall I let them in?”
“In ten seconds,” Berati directed. “Count ten to yourself and then open the door.”
Fawley obeyed his new Chief literally and it was probably that instinct of self-preservation which had always been helpfully present with him in times of crisis which saved his life. He sprang to one side, sheltering himself behind the partially opened door. A bullet whistled past his ear, so that for hours afterwards he felt a singing there, as though a hot wind was stabbing at him. There was a crash from behind him in the room. Berati’s chair was empty! Down
