"Go to the police, _mon cher ami_, and tell them what you will," he laughed defiantly. "Straus, the chief of police here, is my friend. You would not be the first person who has tried to secure my arrest and failed."
His words confounded me. I saw that I alone was in peril, and that he, by reason of his personal friendship with the chief of police, was immune from arrest.
I had walked deliberately, and with eyes wide open, into the trap!
"You see," he laughed, pointing to the telephone instrument on the little writing-table, "I have only to take that and call up the police office, and your British Government will lose the services of one of its shrewdest agents."
"So that is your revenge, eh?" I asked, realising how utterly helpless I now was in the hands of my bitterest enemy--the man who had turned a traitor. I could see no way out.
"Bah!" he laughed in my face. "The power of your wonderful old country--so old that it has become worm-eaten--is already at an end. In a month you will have German soldiers swarming upon your shores, while America will seize Canada and Australia, and Russia will advance into India. You will be crushed, beaten, humiliated--and the German eagle will fly over your proud London. The John Bull bladder is to be pricked!" he laughed.
"That is not exactly news to me, M'sieur Pierron," I answered quite coolly. "The danger of my country is equally a danger to yours. With England crushed, France, too, must fall."
"We have an army--a brave army--while you have only the skeleton that your great Haldane has left to you," he sneered. "But enough! I have long desired this interview, and am pleased that it has taken place here in Berlin," and he deliberately walked across to the telephone.
I tried to snatch the transmitter from his hand, but though we struggled, he succeeded in inquiring for a number--the number of the police head-quarters.
I was caught like a rat in a trap, fool that I was to have come there at risk of my liberty--I who was always so wary and so circumspect!
I sprang at his throat, to prevent him speaking further.
"You shall not do this!" I cried.
But his reply was only a hoarse laugh of triumph.
He was asking for somebody--his friend, the chief of police! Then turning to me with a laugh, he said:
"Straus will undoubtedly be pleased to arrest such big game as yourself."
As he uttered the words there sounded a low tap upon the door, and next second it opened, revealing the neat figure in pale blue.
Pierron turned quickly, but in an instant his face was blanched.
"_Dieu! Suzette!_" he gasped, staring at her, while she stood upon the threshold, a strange look overspreading her countenance as she recognised him.
"Ah! Look, M'sieur Jacox!" she shrieked a second later. "Yes--yes, it is that man!" she went on, pointing her finger at him. "At last! Thank God!
I have found him!"
"What do you mean?" I demanded. "This is M'sieur Pierron."
"I tell you," she cried, "that is the man whom I saw at the Rue de Royat--the man who strangled poor Madame Levitsky!"
"You lie!" he cried, stepping towards her. "I--I've never seen you before!"
"And yet you have just uttered mademoiselle's name, m'sieur," I remarked quietly.
"He knows that I was present at the time of the tragedy," exclaimed Suzette quickly, "and that he was the paid assassin of Henry Banfield.
He killed the unfortunate woman for two reasons: first, in order to obtain her husband's papers, which had both political and financial importance; and secondly, to obtain her jewellery, which was of very considerable value. And upon me, because I was defenceless, the guilt was placed. They said I was jealous of her."
"Suzette," I said slowly, "leave this man to me."
Then, glancing towards him, I saw what a terrible effect her denunciation had had upon him. Pale to the lips, he stood cowed, even trembling, for before him was the living witness of his crime.
I stood with my back to the door, barring his escape.
"Now," I said, "what is your defence?"
He was silent.
I repeated my question in a hard, distinct voice.
"Let's cry quits," he said in a low, hoarse tone. "I will preserve your secret--if you will keep mine. Will you not accept terms?"
"Not those," I replied promptly. "Suzette has been accused by Banfield, and by you, of the crime which you committed. She shall therefore name her own terms."
Realising that, by the fortunate discovery of the assassin of Madame Levitsky, she had at once freed herself from the trammels cast about her by Banfield, it was not surprising that the girl should stipulate as a condition of allowing the spy his freedom that he should hand over to me all the copies of the secret diplomatic correspondence which he possessed.
At first he loudly protested that he had none, but I compelled him to hand me the key of his despatch-box, and accompanying him to his room at the further end of the corridor, we searched and there found within the steel box a file of papers which he held ready to hand over to the Quai d'Orsay--the actual information of which I had been in such active search.
The German inducements were all set out clearly and concisely, the copies being in the neat hand of the traitorous clerk in the Treaty Department.
Pierron, the tables thus turned upon him, begged me to allow him at least to have copies. This I refused, triumphantly taking possession of the whole file and bidding him good-night.
In an hour we had both left the German capital, and next day I had the satisfaction of handing the copy of the German proposals and the whole correspondence to the Minister for Foreign Affairs at Downing Street.
An extraordinary meeting of the Cabinet was held, and cipher instructions at once sent to each of His Majesty's Ambassadors abroad--instructions which had the result of successfully combating the intrigue at Berlin, and for the time being breaking up the proposed powerful combination against us.
The bitter chagrin of the German Chancellor is well known in diplomatic circles, yet to Suzette Darbour our kid-gloved _coup_ meant her freedom.
In my presence she openly defied Henry Banfield and cut herself adrift from him, while Charles Pierron, after his ignominious failure in Berlin, and possibly on account of certain allegations made by the rich American, who wished to get rid of him, was dismissed from the French Secret Service and disappeared, while the pretty Suzette, three months afterwards, married Armand Thomas.
I was present at the quiet wedding out at Melun in the first days of 1909, being the bearer of a costly present in the form of a pretty diamond pendant, as well as a dozen pairs of sixteen-button-length kid gloves from an anonymous donor.
She alone knew that the pendant had been sent to her as a mark of gratitude by the grave-faced old peer, the confirmed woman-hater, who was Minister for Foreign Affairs of His Majesty King Edward the Seventh.
More than once lately I have been a welcome visitor at the bright little apartment within a stone's-throw of the etoile.
CHAPTER IX
THE SECRET OF OUR NEW GUN
Ray and I were in Newcastle-on-Tyne a few weeks after our success in frustrating the German plot against England.
Certain observations we had kept had led us to believe that a frantic endeavour was being made to obtain certain details of a new type of gun, of enormous power and range, which at that moment was under construction at the Armstrong Works at Elswick.