“But the girl Austin? What of her?”
“I admit that she might instantly give us away if one of these days her lover was found mysteriously dead. Nevertheless, if the situation becomes acute, well, we must resort to a desperate remedy, that’s all.”
I smiled within myself. Happily I had overheard this extremely interesting conversation, and should now be on my guard against both spies and assassins. It was lucky for me that they feared Edith; otherwise murder would have been a mere nothing to them. That they were not discussing an impossibility I well knew, for during my career as a diplomatist I had known of at least half a dozen cases where persons had been found dead under mysterious circumstances; and also that the crime of murder had actually been brought home to the members of the secret service of the various Powers. They are unscrupulous gentlemen, these spies, and hesitate at nothing in their feverish desire to do the bidding of their masters and obtain the rewards so temptingly offered to them.
The men dropped their voices so low that for a few minutes I could distinguish nothing, while another vulgar-looking, ruffianly fellow opened the door suddenly and emerged. As long as I heard their voices in consultation I felt secure from discovery. I determined to remain there in the doorway calmly smoking, as though awaiting the arrival of a friend.
“And how is everything at Feltham?” I heard Wolf inquire presently.
“All works splendidly. Everything is complete.” To what did they refer? I wondered. Where was Feltham? and what were the arrangements which worked so satisfactorily?
Again the Italian spoke, laughing low and contentedly, but I could not catch what he said, for my attention at that moment was distracted by the approach of a fiacre, which pulled up before the door of the café. The hood was up, and within the vehicle I saw the figure of a woman, who at once descended, and, as I moved into the shadow, walked straight into the place with the air of one who had entered there before. She was well-dressed in a dark tailor-made gown, and wore a close-fitting hat with a veil. She passed me by within a few feet, but, standing as I was in the deep shadow beyond the lamps of the cab, which, no doubt, dazzled her, she did not recognise me. But no second glance was necessary to tell me that the woman who had come there at midnight to meet the two spies was their associate and assistant, Edith Austin.