door. Fawley followed his guide up the broad steps and into the hall.
CHAPTER XXVI
Fawley found his reception by the Minister who in those days was controlling the destinies of France chilling in the extreme. Monsieur Fleuriot, a man of some presence but with a tired expression and an ominous sagging of flesh under his eyes, rose from his chair as Fawley was ushered in but made no attempt to shake hands. He indicated a chair in cursory fashion.
“It is very good of you to receive me, sir,” Fawley remarked.
“I do so,” was the cold reply, “with the utmost reluctance. I can refuse no request from the representative of a friendly nation, especially as Monsieur Willoughby Johns is a personal friend of mine, and I believe a friend of France. I must confess, however, that it would have appeared to me a more fitting thing to have found you a prisoner in a French fortress than to be receiving you here.”
Fawley smiled deprecatingly.
“I can quite understand your sentiments, sir,” he said. “I am only hoping that my explanation may alter your views.”
“My views as to spies, especially partially successful ones who are working against my country, are unchangeable.”
“But I hope to convince you, sir,” Fawley argued earnestly, “that even during the enterprise of which you have, of course, been made acquainted, I was never an enemy of France. I am not an enemy of any nation. If any man could—to borrow the modern shibboleth—call himself an internationalist, it is I.”
“To avoid a confusion of ideas, sir,” Monsieur Fleuriot said, “I beg that you will proceed with the business which has procured for you this extraordinary letter of introduction. It is the first time in history, I should think, that the leader of a great nation has been asked to receive any one in your position.”
“The world has reached a point,” Fawley remarked, “when the old conditions must fall away. Have I your permission to speak plainly?”
“By all means.”
“Amongst the great nations of the world,” Fawley continued, “France is to-day the most important military power. I do not believe that it is in any way a natural instinct of the French people to crave bloodshed and disruption and all the horrible things that follow in the wake of war. I believe it is because you have a deep and unchangeable conviction that your country stands in peril.”
“You may be right,” Monsieur Fleuriot observed drily. “And then?”
“France, if peace were assured,” Fawley went on, “would take the same place amongst the nations of the world in culture and power as she possesses now in military supremacy. She would be a happier and a freer country without this burden of apprehension.”
“France fears nobody.”
“For a dictum, that is excellent,” Fawley replied; “but in its greatest significance, I deny it. France must fear the reopening of the bloody days of ‘14. She must fear the loss again of millions of her subjects. I want you to believe this if you can, Monsieur Fleuriot. I have been working as a Secret Service agent for the last five years and I have worked with no country’s interests at heart. I have worked solely and simply for peace.”
“You imagine,” Monsieur Fleuriot demanded incredulously, “that you are working in the cause of peace when you steal into the defences of our frontiers and discover our military secrets?”
“I do indeed,” Fawley asserted earnestly. “If you think that I behaved like a traitor to France, what then about Italy? But for my efforts, I firmly believe—and I can bring forward a great deal of evidence in support of what I say—that a treaty would have been signed before now between Italy and Germany, and it would have been signed by the chief of the Monarchist Party in Germany; and on the day after its signature she would have pledged herself to the restoration of the Hohenzollern régime. That treaty now will, I hope, never be signed. Behrling will not sign it if he knows the truth, which I can tell him. Italy will not offer to share in it, if you will adopt my views and do as I beg. Now, if I may, I am going to speak more bluntly.”
“Proceed,” Fleuriot directed.
“France believes herself practically secure,” Fawley continued. “Her spies have been well informed. She knew a year ago that Italy was collecting aeroplanes, not only of her own manufacture but from every nation in the world who had skill enough to build them. Even the Soviet Government of Russia contributed, I believe, something like two hundred.”
Fawley paused but his listener gave no sign. The former continued.
“France knew very well the Italian scheme—to launch an attack of a thousand aeroplanes which would pass the frontier with ease and which would lay Nice, Toulon and Marseilles in ruins, and the greater portion of the French fleet at the bottom of the sea. Meanwhile, the Italian land forces would have joined the German and attacked across the western frontier. I will not say that France has waited for the day with equanimity, but at any rate she has awaited it without despair. I know the reason why, Monsieur Fleuriot, and it is a secret which should have cost me my life a dozen times over. As it is, the fact that my espionage on your frontier was successful may save the world. You see, I know why you are calm. You have there as well as the guns, as well as all the ordinary defences, you have there an example of the greatest scientific invention which the world of destruction has ever known. You know very well that the hellnotter on the Sospel slopes could destroy by itself, without the help of a single gun, every one of those thousand aeroplanes, whether they passed in the clouds directly overhead or a hundred miles out at sea.”
Monsieur Fleuriot had half risen to his feet. He sat down again, breathing quickly. There were little beads of perspiration upon his forehead.
“Mon Dieu!” he muttered.
He dabbed his face with a highly perfumed handkerchief. Fawley paused for a moment.
“I am now going to propose to you, Monsieur Fleuriot,” he said, “the most unusual, the most striking gesture which has ever been made in the history of warfare. I am going to suggest to you that you put France in the place of honour amongst the nations of the world as the country who ensured peace. You may sit quiet, you may destroy this scheme at the cost of thousands of lives, you may send a thrill of horror throughout the world, but you can do something more. You can invite representatives of the Italian Army to witness the demonstration of what your diabolical machine will do in friendly fashion upon your frontier. If you will do that, there will be no war. Italy would never face the destruction of her aeroplanes. She will abandon her enterprise and the treaty between Behrling and Italy will never be signed.”
“It seems to me that you are raving, Major Fawley,” the Minister declared.
“What I am saying is the simplest of common sense, Monsieur Fleuriot,” Fawley answered. “I will tell you why. You have been deceived by your great professor. You believe that you possess the only constructed hellnotter in the world. You are wrong. Germany has one completed at Salzburg. I have seen it with my own eyes.”
“It is incredible,” Fleuriot exclaimed.
“It is the truth,” was the impressive assurance. “And I will tell you this. Von Salzenburg
