Wallace of the Secret Service Read Online Free PDF Page A

what to do with them himself. If he roused the hotel, and caused them to be handed over to justice, it would mean that his own identity would be made public, and, although he was known apparently to the people he had hoped to deceive, he still had no desire to be mixed up in a trial. After all, Egypt was now an independent kingdom, and he might as well go back to England as allow his name and profession to be broadcast throughout Cairo. He decided to find out what he could about Henderson, then let his four adversaries go. As he made up his mind, the composure of the Egyptian broke.
    ‘You may have obtained the upper hand this time,’ he snarled, ‘but you won’t win again. You can do what you like with us, but there are others – hundreds of them – and they will get you.’
    ‘Thanks for the information,’ acknowledged Wallace cheerfully. ‘But my private opinion of you is that you are the world’s worst bunglers. First you try to get me into your power by means of an expedient that a child would have suspected, then you come to a hotel, where the slightest noise would have meant your discovery, with the intention of murdering me. A pretty lot of conspirators you are, to be sure. Why wasn’t Madame entrusted with a dagger? She would have had a fairly good chance of stabbing me when I was almost persuaded into believing in her.’
    ‘Our women are incapable of that sort of thing,’ declared the fellow, a note almost of pride in his voice.
    ‘So are the rest of you from the look of it,’ retorted Sir Leonard. ‘Sit down, Madame, and you also, Mr – er – Conspirator, and tell that pair of beauties to squat in the corner over there so that I can keep my eye on them.’ His orders were obeyed. ‘I want to ask you a few questions,’ he went on.
    ‘You will get no information from me,’ began the Egyptian.
    Wallace waved his hand airily.
    ‘I am not going to ask you anything about the secret plans and intrigues of your party,’ he observed. ‘I know all I want to know about them already.’ Both the man and woman started violently, and exchanged dismayed glances. ‘I simply wish you to tell me,’ went on Sir Leonard, ‘what you have done with Mr Henderson.’
    ‘Henderson!’ exclaimed the Egyptian. ‘I do not know any one of that name.’
    ‘Try again!’ encouraged the Englishman. ‘A little reflection may help you to remember.’
    But the fellow persisted in maintaining a pretence of ignorance, and at last Wallace desisted from attempting to obtain information. A better idea had occurred to him. Still covering them with his revolver, he strode round the bed, and stood looking down at them.
    ‘Listen to me carefully,’ he enjoined sternly. ‘I know very well that Mr Henderson is in your power, or perhaps I should say, in the power of the political party of which you are a member. You and your wife and those two cut-throats over there are, on the other hand, in my power. I am going to make a bargain with you. Obtain the release of Henderson before sunrise, and you all go free. If he is not in this room by then, you will be handed over to the authorities, and will have to stand your trial for attempted murder.’
    ‘How is it possible for me to obtain the release of this man, if I am detained here as your prisoner?’
    ‘So you admit that you do know where Henderson is?’
    ‘I admit nothing.’
    ‘You’d better. Your liberty and that of the lady with you depend upon your obtaining Henderson’s release.’
    ‘You do not mean to say you would allow my wife to be arrested?’
    ‘Most certainly. She is a party to the conspiracy and, though I regret that the whole story would be made public including the fact that she, an Egyptian lady of high degree, spent over half an hour in a man’s bedroom after midnight, nevertheless there is no option unless, as I have already stated, you obtain Mr Henderson’s release.’
    The face of the woman had gone deadly pale, the man’s sickly yellow.