The Further Adventures of Romney Pringle - ebook

I. THE SUBMARINE BOAT

First published in _Cassell’s Magazine_, June 1903

_TRIC-TRAC! tric-trac!_went the black and white discs as the players moved them over the backgammon board in expressive justification of the French term for the game. _Tric-trac!_They are indeed a nation of poets, reflected Mr Pringle. Was not _Teuf-teuf!_for the motor-car a veritable inspiration? And as he smoked, the not unmusical clatter of the enormous wooden discs filled the atmosphere.

In these days of cookery not entirely based upon air-tights–to use the expressive Americanism for tinned meats–it is no longer necessary for the man who wishes to dine, as distinguished from the mere feeding animal, to furtively seek some restaurant in remote Soho, jealously guarding its secret from his fellows. But Mr Pringle, in his favourite study of human nature, was an occasional visitor to the ‘Poissonière’ in Gerrard Street, and, the better to pursue his researches, had always denied familiarity with the foreign tongues he heard around him. The restaurant was distinctly close–indeed, some might have called it stuffy–and Pringle, though near a ventilator, thoughtfully provided by the management, was fast being lulled into drowsiness, when a man who had taken his seat with a companion at the next table leaned across the intervening gulf and addressed him.

_‘Nous ne vous dérangeons pas, monsieur?’_

Pringle, with a smile of fatuous uncomprehending, bowed, but said never a word.

_‘Cochon d’Anglais, n’entendez-vous pas?’_

‘I’m afraid I do not understand,’ returned Pringle, shaking his head hopelessly, but still smiling.

_‘Canaille! Faut-il que je vous tire le nez?’_persisted the Frenchman, as, apparently still sceptical of Pringle’s assurance, he added threats to abuse.

‘I have known the English gentleman a long time, and without a doubt he does not understand French,’ testified the waiter who had now come forward for orders. Satisfied by this corroboration of Pringle’s innocence, the Frenchman bowed and smiled sweetly to him, and, ordering a bottle of Clos de Vougeot, commenced an earnest conversation with his neighbour.

By the time this little incident had closed, Pringle’s drowsiness had given place to an intense feeling of curiosity. For what purpose could the Frenchman have been so insistent in disbelieving his expressed ignorance of the language? Why, too, had he striven to make Pringle betray himself by resenting the insults showered upon him? In a Parisian restaurant, as he knew, far more trivial affronts had ended in meetings in the Bois de Boulogne. Besides, _cochon_was an actionable term of opprobrium in France. The Frenchman and his companion had seated themselves at the only vacant table, also it was in a corner; Pringle, at the next, was the single person within ear-shot, and the Frenchman’s extraordinary behaviour could only be due to a consuming thirst for privacy. Settling himself in an easy position, Pringle closed his eyes, and while appearing to resume his slumber, strained every nerve to discern the lightest word that passed at the next table. Dressed in the choicest mode of Piccadilly, the Frenchman bore himself with all the intolerable self-consciousness of the _Boulevardier_; but there was no trace of good-natured levity in the dark aquiline features, and the evil glint of the eyes recalled visions of an operatic Mephistopheles. His guest was unmistakably an Englishman of the bank-clerk type, who contributed his share of the conversation in halting Anglo-French, punctuated by nervous laughter as, with agonising pains, he dredged his memory for elusive colloquialisms.

Freely translated, this was what Pringle heard:

‘So your people have really decided to take up the submarine, after all?’

‘Yes; I am working out the details of some drawings in small-scale.’

‘But are they from headquarters?’

‘Certainly! Duly initialled and passed by the chief constructor.’

‘And you are making–’

‘Full working drawings.’

‘There will be no code or other secret about them?’

‘What I am doing can be understood by any naval architect.’

‘Ah, an English one!’

‘The measurements of course, are English, but they are easily convertible.’

‘You could do that?’

‘Too dangerous! Suppose a copy in metric scale were found in my possession! Besides, any draughtsman could reduce them in an hour or two.’

‘And when can you let me have it?’

‘In about two weeks.’

‘Impossible! I shall not be here.’

‘Unless something happens to let me get on with it quickly, I don’t see how I can do it even then. I am never sufficiently free from interruption to take tracings; there are far too many eyes upon me. The only chance I have is to spoil the thing as soon as I have the salient points worked out on it, and after I have pretended to destroy it, smuggle it home; then I shall have to take elaborate notes every day and work out the details from them in the evening. It is simply impossible for me to attempt to take a finished drawing out of the yard, and, as it is, I don’t quite see my way to getting the spoilt one out–they look so sharply after spoilt drawings.’

‘Two weeks you say, then?’

‘Yes; and I shall have to sit up most nights copying the day’s work from my notes to do it.’

‘Listen! In a week I must attend at the Ministry of Marine in Paris, but our military _attaché_is my friend. I can trust him; he shall come down to you.’

‘What, at Chatham? Do you wish to ruin me?’ A smile from the Frenchman. ‘No; it must be in London, where no one knows me.’

‘Admirable! My friend will be better able to meet you.’

‘Very well, as soon as I am ready I will telegraph to you.’

‘Might not the address of the embassy be remarked by the telegraph officials? Your English post-office is charmingly unsuspicious, but we must not risk anything.’

‘Ah, perhaps so. Well, I will come up to London and telegraph to you from here. But your representative–will he be prepared for it?’

‘I will warn him to expect it in fourteen days.’ He made an entry in his pocket-book. ‘How will you sign the message?’

‘Gustave Zédé,’ suggested the Englishman, sniggering for the first and only time.

‘Too suggestive. Sign yourself “Pauline”, and simply add the time.’

‘“Pauline”, then. Where shall the rendezvous be?’

‘The most public place we can find.’

‘Public?’

‘Certainly. Some place where everyone will be too much occupied with his own affairs to notice you. What say you to your Nelson’s Column? There you can wait in a way we shall agree upon.’

‘It would be a difficult thing for me to wear a disguise.’

‘All disguises are clumsy unless one is an expert. Listen! You shall be gazing at the statue with one hand in your breast–so.’

‘Yes; and I might hold a _Baedeker_in my other hand.’

‘Admirable, my friend! You have the true spirit of an artist,’ sneered the Frenchman.

‘Your representative will advance and say to me, “Pauline”, and the exchange can be made without another word.’

‘Exchange?’

‘I presume your Government is prepared to pay me handsomely for the very heavy risks I am running in this matter,’ said the Englishman stiffly.

‘Pardon, my friend! How imbecile of me! I am authorised to offer you ten thousand francs.’

A pause, during which the Englishman made a calculation on the back of an envelope.

‘That is four hundred pounds,’ he remarked, tearing the envelope into carefully minute fragments. ‘Far too little for such a risk.’

‘Permit me to remind you, my friend, that you came in search of me, or rather of those I represent. You have something to sell? Good! But it is customary for the merchant to display his wares first.’

‘I pledge myself to give you copies of the working drawings made for the use of the artificers themselves. I have already met you oftener than is prudent. As I say, you offer too little.’

‘Should the drawings prove useless to us, we should, of course, return them to your Admiralty, explaining how they came into our possession.’ There was an unpleasant smile beneath the Frenchman’s waxed moustache as he spoke. ‘What sum do you ask?’

‘Five hundred pounds in small notes–say, five pounds each.’

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