"The Ghost Counts Ten"

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 256, 30 October 1939, Page 11

"The Ghost Counts Ten"

Serial Story

(By

RALPH TREVOR)

tTHAPTEH I. Bick Ferring’ leaned back with an lie of eminent satisfaction against the , yielding upholstery of a first-class railway carriage, and lit a cigarette. He felt that not only was it good Io be back again in England after an absence of ten months, but that when a fellow has been “roughing it” around Europe he is entitled to the extravagance of first-class travel and flic comfort it brings to a jaded anatomy. Moro than that, Ferring realised right from the start of his journey from the Gare du Nord at Paris that his trip to England was not likely to be much of a holiday, despite the Jact that some people who knew rather intimately the nature of his job chided him with having one long vacation. “So nice to have a free hand to roam around Europe” they said, for ostensibly that \Vas Dick Ferring's job. No one ever knew where he would turn up next—Budapest, Constantinople, Leningrad, Marseilles or Madrid. He look them all in his rather lanky stride. Sometimes he visited these places as Dick Ferring; at others he xvas I here in the form of a quite different personality. At Budapest, for instance, he was known in a charmingly select circle as Monsieur Julcep. a Frenchman with a scientific twist to his tastes; in Constantinople tlkpre wore those who knew him as the g.minl Steffanoff who in the twilight of subterranean cafes whispered thickly about armaments and the price he was willing to pay, -while in Madrid he was The Honourable Stephen Gommer’nach the fascinating yet reputed wastrel son of a well-known English family. Always well supplied- with funds he moved around with a negligent air and somewhat foolish mein entertaining enchanting and often dangerous senorit.as to coffee and liqueurs, laughing and joking, hut always with ears tuned to receive those scraps of information for which he so patiently waited. Ferring was a tall, good-looking specimen of British manhood with lair, curly hair, and blue eyes that laughed at you out of a richly bronzed face. As he sat now in the corner of his railway carriage he looked what he was, the typical young Englishman without a care in the whole wide world. But if you could have peeped just a little below the surface you would have been surprised to discover that Dick Ferring’s mind was not so complacent as you might have supposed. In fact Dick Ferring was definitely worried. . . . worried because he had slipped up somewhere about a fortnight ago in a remote town in Central Europe, where he had been interested in the movements of a certain gentleman well-known to those whose business It is to watch those shadowy figures of international intrigue- who do not take the stage and the limelight as it were, but who move softfooted behind the scenes, holding ihr, wires that control the actors in a dozen, dramas of world-wide importance. The gentleman who had given Dick Ferring “the slip” was none other, than Ferdinand Bolz, the man who w;is : known in a dozen European Chancel- ’ lories as “the Man with a Hundred ■ Aliases.” All that Ferring now knew was that Bolz had gone to England,: and since for the past three years Fer- i ring had never been more than "no move behind Bolz, he was not a little; alarmed at the. nows that the man had i crossed to Englandimmcuiaiciy on receipt or mis mtormation Dick Ferring had hastily packed his bags, sent a short, message ‘n code to his Chief in Whitehall, and taken the first available train to Baris. During the journey Ferring's mind dwelt almost, exclusively on friend Bolz, and he told himself that Bolz H England meant that something ro.dly big was afoot, for Bolz was too big a man personally to make his own inquiries in any nf the matters .in which he was intereslcd. unless It- was going lo prove something of more than ordinary importance. But for the life ■>f him Ferring could not undcrsmnd Hie reason for Bolz coming In England, lie. could appreciate the significance nf Bolz appearing in Madrid or Belgrade or even Paris, because in all these places were Io be found people who were eminently useful to this man who was. it was well known, the cmi'rnlling influence behind one of Ihe l-iggcst, f-s)-i onngp organisations postwar Europe lias ever known. Beside the organisation Bolz had built up willi painslaking thoroughness the smaller secret service bureaux of the European Powers were of comparative little account. Bolz was comprehensive, he was in a. position In dictate his own terms to those Powers always plotting their coups d'etat, who desired to avail themselves of his services. It was natural that Bolz should lie feared especially by some of Hie smaller Powers who could not afford to pay Ids demands: it was natural, 100. Hint Britain should regard Ferdinand Bolz as. if not. exactly menace, at. least a disturbing factor in the background of an already sufTi-,-icntlv disturbed Europe, and from Hie reporls that Hick Ferring had been in Hie habit of sending regularly from Europe, it. had long been felt, that Bolz was coneerned at some point with nearlv all the upheavals that had distressed the objectively complacent mind of the British Foreign Office. Now Bolz was in England, and Forring. like the good agent he was, had tel no grass grow under his feet, in getting on the trail once more. Arrived in London, Dick Ferring went straightway to the little hotel in Bloomsbury where lie had something in the nature of a perpetual option on a room, and where he was known in the register as Henry Vanstittert. '• tie Febrnary day on which lie had chosen to inflict London with his belated presence, was as unlike a February day as it Is possible to Imagine." The sun shone like it sometimes does in April, spilling little pools of gold all along the Embankment, and Hashing fleetingly here and there over the breadth of the lazy river. Ferring felt it was good to be alive, for it had been unconscionably dull and grey in Paris that morning: grey and cold, with a throat nf drizzle, and even too pigeons in the Place de la Contjord had been huddled under the architraves of the equally grey building. From his hotel. Ferring strolled with his usual negligent air down lo

Whitehall, and on the way down he glanced at Hie theatre announcements, promising himself half a dozen shows before returning once more to the steaming and seething cauldron of Europe, where everyone was so mysterious and so serious in high places, and only the proletariat—the. Hower sellers, the shopgirls, and the street vendors, appeared to enjoy life. It was much the same in London. The people with whom he rubbed shoulders in the streets cared—or appeared to care—nothing at all about the diplomatic tribulations of Europe. They were self-contained, thes*' people, a characteristic he had noticed among Hie English he had met abroad. They were content lo leave diplomatic intrigue to those who had a fancy for It; for them it meant nothing. Half-way along Whitehall lie paused to light another cigarette. The action was a perfectly natural one lo th-? casual observer, but lo Dick Ferring it was something more than a commonplace ritual. It enabled him through his cupped hands to glance around him. Those blue eyes scrutinised each passing and following figure. It was a. habit he had cultivated with considerable finesse. Satisfied that- there were no familiar faces, he. turned carelessly into an open doorway and walked into an electric elevator. The gates closed behind him and the lift zoomed, upwards. CHAPTER IL Sir Mark Freeland sucked at a cigar, tapped the rubber end of a lead pencil on the glass top of his desk, and watched a small green light in a pane! on the opposite wall winking like an evil eye. His straight white hair gave Sir Mark an appearance of benevolent distinction, but the alert look in his intensely blue eyes belied any suggestion of advancing age. The features, too, were not those of a man suffering in Hie least from any form of physical decay or mental deterioration. His cheeks were pleasantly pink, and his long straight nose preceded a closely clipped grey moustache which immediately suggested military associations. The lips were ncitlier thin nor full. They were firm and purposeful. The room in which he sat al his modest looking desk was not large. t»n the wall immediately below' the electric Indicator hung a map of Europe. It was by no means an ordinary map. The cartographer, it appeared, had committed himself to a much greater detail than Is usual in such projections, and dotted here and there across its linen face was a num-| her of tiny coloured flags, each bearing a number furnishing the suggestion that it was a relic of the Great War and that the flags denoted the disposition of opposing armies. To the uniformed observer such a suggestion, had it occurred to him, would have only been partly true. Britain was not at war in the generally accepted sense of the term, but here in that obscure room in the building in Whitehall, Sir Mark could tell at a glance at any moment of the day or night where precisely were the agents of Hie British Secret Service. The map was kept scrupulously up to date on reports which were received, and Sir Mark, being the pulse of the Service ho directed, supplied also the energy that had made Department “Z v ; the most, efficient organisation of it« kind in the world. bciow mm 111 me sireci men turn I aonicn were hurrying on their respec,ive ways, going about their businesses, reading their newspapers; commenting ■.hi wliat they were pleased generally !o call “the European situation” and wondering perhaps whether Hie British Lion was only half awake. They did jot realise that five stories above them sal. a man who knew more about international intrigue than any oilier .nr, man in London. Orlainly more than Hie members of His Britanic Majesty’s cabinet knew. To him the map nf Europe, the Near and Fai East, was a gigantic chess boarc across which he moved his men. ant always witli a checkmate in mind. The green light in the electric pane had ceased to flicker and remainec stationary. Immediately the man a’ the desk depressed willi the thirC finger of his right hand a button or his desk. The door of Hie room opened slowly and silently. Dick Ferring stood on the threshold hat ir hand. Sir Mark greeted Agent Number 51 willi that cordiality witli which he was famous. He grasped the younj man's hand and held it for a moment in the vice of his own. “Sit down. Ferring! Had a pleasan: journey. !■ hope?” “Excellent, sir! It is good to be back in London again.’’ “I don’t know why you fellows always seem lo prefer London,” musec Sir Mark, pushing a silver cigarette box in Ferring’s direction across the desk top. “Now, for myself, I car think of a dozen places I prefer with considerably more zesl. I don’t know why it should be, but I alwayi contrive to feel more lonely in London than I do anywhere else. It's « complex I've never succeeded in defeating. However, I’ve an idea that you’ll be busily engaged on this side of Hie Channel for some little time. I've a. job for you.” A wry smile twisted the corners ol Dick Ferring's mouth. Whatever illusions he may have possessed initially about the Service had Jong since evaporated. He sensed from The Chief's tone that his recall tc London was not for vacation purposes. Still, lie thought, there were ways and means of combining business with pleasure, and while lie still enjoyed his work, he knew that whatever Hie job in front of him, he would contrive to make the most of his English journey. “You mean friend Bolz?” inquired Ferring, quietly. Sir Mark nodded. “Bolz arrived two days ago. I gave orders that he was not to be stopped. Bolz is an interesting character, don’t you think, Ferring, and I’m sufficiently vain tc imagine that Bolz has honoured us with his visit. We've nothing against him, of course,” continued Sir .Mark k (To be continued).