L.P.M. : The End of The Great War Part 12

"To Claridge's." The Colonel saluted in return.

The carriage started, and the troopers, clattering out of the courtyard, closed up about it in a fas.h.i.+on which showed that they were going to take no chances with their valuable charge.

Edestone laughed at himself with his high hat and frock-coat as a centre for all this military panoply. It recalled to him an old-fas.h.i.+oned print he had seen when a boy, representing Abraham Lincoln at the front.

"You don't mean to tell me that you really consider this necessary?"

he chaffed his companion.

Colonel Stewart nodded gravely. "They will make no attempt on your life, Mr. Edestone," he added rea.s.suringly, "except as a last resort; but they are determined to have your secret. They prefer to get it with your co-operation and a.s.sent. If not, they want it anyhow.

Finally, they stand ready to accomplish its destruction and your own rather than permit England to obtain it."

Arriving at the hotel, the soldiers were drawn up in line while he entered the door. To his surprise, moreover, the Colonel and two of the cavalry-men accompanied him to the door of his apartment.

"Mr. Edestone," said the Royal Equerry, "I am sorry, but my orders are to place a sentry at your door. You are not of course to consider yourself in any sense a prisoner, but an honoured guest whose safety is of paramount importance. Should you at any time wish to leave your apartment, notify Captain Bright by telephone at the hotel office where he will be stationed, and he will act as your escort. My advice, however, is that you remain in the hotel." Giving a military salute, he retired, leaving the two soldiers posted in the corridor.

A moment later, Edestone was summoned to the door to find that the sentries had halted Black and Stanton whom he had directed to report to him immediately on his return to the hotel.

A word from him proved sufficient to secure the admission of his moving-picture experts; nevertheless, the three gazed at one another uneasily as they stood within the room.

"What is it, Mr. Edestone?" Black's eyes rounded up. "They haven't placed you under arrest, have they?"

Edestone shook his head. "Apparently not. At least they tell me I am under no restraint, and, as they might say to a little boy about to be spanked, that this is all for my own good. Whether or not this is merely a polite subterfuge, and they intend to postpone my departure from London from time to time in a way that can give no offence to our Government, yet would spoil all my plans, I am still uncertain."

"By Jove, it might be worth while trying to find out," flared up Stanton, bristling at the very suggestion of an indignity to his adored chief. "If they've got anything of that kind up their sleeves, we could soon show them that----"

"No." Edestone spoke up a trifle sharply. "I have decided to let the situation develop itself."

His manner indicated that he wished the subject dropped; but, after he had given the two men the orders for which he had summoned them, and dismissed them, he fell into a rather perturbed reverie.

After all, might it not be well, as Stanton had urged, to a.s.sure himself in regard to John Bull's honourable intentions? His mind reverted to an expedient which he had already considered and cast aside. It was to communicate with the American Amba.s.sador, get his pa.s.sports, and start for Paris at once. Then, if he were halted, the purpose of the British Government would be made plain and its hypocrisy exposed.

But, to tell the truth, he rather shrank from such a revelation.

Suppose he forced their hand in this way, and they should retaliate, either by attempting to detain him in England, or insisting upon his return to his own country? Was he prepared to----?

As Underhill had said, blood is thicker than water; and there were in his nature many ties that bound him to the mother-country.

No, he concluded; if there was cause to worry, he would meet the emergency when it arose. Anyhow, he was not of the worrying kind. He threw himself down upon the sofa, since even for him it had been a rather strenuous day, and soon was fast asleep.

He was awakened by James. "It is 7:30, sir, and you are dining at 8 o'clock." Then with a perfectly stolid face: "I beg pardon, sir, what clothes will you take to the Tower, sir? The hall porter says, sir, that with all these soldiers around, they are certainly going to stand you up before a firing squad. And Hottenroth, the barber, says as how every American that comes to London is more or less a German spy. But he is a kind of a foreigner himself, sir. A Welshman, he says he is, and he talks in a very funny way."

"No, they are not going to stand me up before a firing squad,"

Edestone halted this flood of intelligence, as he sprang up from the sofa; "but I shall turn myself into one, and fire the whole lot of you, if you don't stop talking so much. Now hurry up, and get me dressed. I don't want to keep Mr. Rebener waiting."

Yet even with James's adept a.s.sistance, he found the time scant for the careful toilet upon which he always insisted; and it was almost on the stroke of the hour when at last he was ready.

s.n.a.t.c.hing his hat and cane from James, he started hurriedly out of the door, but found himself abruptly challenged by the sentry just outside whose presence he had for the moment completely forgotten.

"Excuse me, sir," the soldier saluted, "but my orders are to notify Captain Bright, if you wish to leave your rooms."

He blew a whistle, summoning a comrade who suddenly appeared from nowhere.

"Notify Captain Bright," he directed; then, in response to Edestone's good-humoured but slightly sarcastic protests: "I'm sorry, sir, but those are my orders."

"Has England declared war on the United States?" said Edestone.

"I don't know, sir," the sentry grinned. "We seem to be taking on all comers." Then standing at attention, he waited until the soldier, who had returned from telephoning, came forward to announce that the Captain presented his apologies and would be right up.

A moment later Captain Bright himself came panting down the corridor.

He expressed profound regret that any inconvenience should have been caused, but explained, as Colonel Stewart had already done, that he was held personally responsible for Edestone's safety, and had instructions to accompany him wherever he might go.

"Very well, Captain; I bow to the inevitable. May I trouble you to conduct me to the dining-room?" And he strolled toward the lift at the side of the tall cavalryman.

But in the office they encountered Rebener himself writing a note on the back of his card.

"Oh, there you are, Jack?" he hailed Edestone. "I was just sending you a note asking you if you wouldn't come and dine with me at the Britz instead of here. It is too d.a.m.n stupid here. Not that it's very bright anywhere in London at present, but at least there's a little bit more life at the Britz."

"Who is stopping here anyhow? Royalty?" he interrupted himself. "There are soldiers all over the place."

"Yes; I am the recipient of that little attention," laughed the young American. "Let me introduce Captain Bright here, who is acting as my especial chaperon."

"What? You surely haven't run afoul of the War Department?" Rebener rolled his eyes. "That sounds more like our friends, the barbarians, than Englishmen. But, say, you are joking of course; you're not really in trouble? Seriously is there anything you want me to do for you? I have quite a little pull over at the War Offices, you know."

"No, thank you; I am leaving for Paris tomorrow." He looked straight into Rebener's eyes, without giving the slightest hint in his expression of the disclosure which had been made to him by the unfortunate Smith. "It is simply that Captain Bright thinks there are some people who might do something to me. I don't know exactly what it is, but he insists on preventing them anyhow; so there you are. How about it, Captain? Am I permitted to dine with Mr. Rebener at the Britz? I think the Britz is a perfectly safe place for two American business men."

"As you please, Mr. Edestone." The Captain drew himself up. "My orders are to escort you, though, wherever you go." He raised his hand toward a sergeant who was standing just inside the door.

"What! You are not going to take all the 'Tommies' along too?"

expostulated Rebener. "Oh, I say; you come along yourself, Captain, and dine with us, but leave the men behind. I will see that Edestone doesn't come to any grief."

"Sorry." The officer's tone ended any further argument. "I shall keep my men as much out of sight as possible; but it will be necessary for them to accompany us."

"You see." Edestone smiled somewhat ruefully. "I can't even go out to buy a paper, without turning it into a sort of Fourth of July parade."

On going to the door they found that one of the royal carriages was waiting for them, and after the two men were seated, and the Captain had given the directions to the coachman, they dashed off in the midst of a cavalcade.

"By the way," Rebener vouchsafed as they drove along, "I have taken the liberty of inviting Lord Denton and Mr. Karlbeck, two friends of mine, to dine with us tonight, and as Lord Denton is in mourning, he has asked that I have dinner in my apartment. I hope that is all right?"

"Certainly," a.s.sented Edestone. "Lord Denton, you say? I don't think I have ever met him, have I? And isn't he just a little supersensitive to raise a scruple of that sort? It seems to me that practically everybody over here is in mourning. Fact is, I don't feel like going to a ball myself." His face saddened, as he thought of the many good fellows he had met on former visits to London who now lay underneath the sod of Northern France and Belgium.

But by this time they were at the Britz and the proprietor was bowing them inside, apparently so accustomed to receiving men of distinction with military escort that he did not even notice the lines of trim cavalrymen which drew themselves up on either side of his entrance.

"Will you gentlemen dine in the public restaurant?" asked Captain Bright, stepping up to Edestone.

"No," Rebener took it upon himself to answer. "We are going to have a little _partie carree_ in my apartment."

"In that case," said the Captain, "I regret that I shall have to station men on that floor."

Rebener frowned as if he were about to voice a protest, but at that moment the proprietor called him over to consult with him in regard to the menu.