WHAT SHAKESPEARE'S COMEDIES REVEALED
In a very depressed frame of mind, Desmond turned into the library. As he crossed the hall, he noticed how cheerless the house was. Again there came to him that odor of mustiness--of all smells the most eerie and drear--which he had noticed on his arrival. Somehow, as long as Nur-el-Din had been there, he had not remarked the appalling loneliness of the place.
A big log fire was blazing cheerfully in the grate, throwing out a bright glow into the room which, despite the early hour, was already wreathed in shadows. Wearily Desmond pulled a big armchair up to the blaze and sat down. He told himself that he must devote every minute of his spare time to going over in his mind the particulars he had memorized of Mr. Bellward's habits and acquaintanceships. He took the list of Bellward's friends from his pocket-book.
But this afternoon he found it difficult to concentrate his attention. His gaze kept wandering back to the fire, in whose glowing depths he fancied he could see a perfect oval face with pleading eyes and dazzling teeth looking appealingly at him.
Nur-el-Din! What an entrancing creature she was! What passion lurked in those black eyes of hers, in her moods, swiftly changing from gusts of fierce imperiousness to gentle airs of feminine charm! What a frail little thing she was to have fought her way alone up the ladder from the lowest rung to the very top!
She must have character and grit, Desmond decided, for he was a young man who adored efficiency: to him efficiency spelled success.
But a spy needs grit, he reflected, and Nur-el-Din had many qualities which would enable her to win the confidence of men.
Hadn't she half-captivated him, the would-be spy-catcher, already?
Desmond laughed ruefully to himself. Indeed, he mused, things looked that way. What would the Chief say if he could see his prize young man, his white-headed boy, sitting sentimentalizing by the fire over a woman who was, by her own confession, practically an accredited German agent? Desmond thrust his chin out and shook himself together. He would put the feminine side of Nur-el-Din out of his head. He must think of her henceforth only as a member of the band that was spotting targets for those sneaking, callous brutes of U-boat commanders.
He went back to the study of the list of Mr. Bellward's friends.
But he found it impossible to focus his mind upon it. Do what he would, he could not rid himself of the sensation that he had failed at the very outset of his mission. He was, indeed, he told himself, the veriest tyro at the game. Here he had had under his hand in turn Nur-el-Din and Mortimer (who, he made no doubt, was the leader of the gang which was so sorely troubling the Chief), and he had let both get away without eliciting from either even as much as their address. By the use of a little tact, he had counted on penetrating something of the mystery enveloping the dancer and her relationship with the gang; for he thought he divined that Nur-el-Din was inclined to make him her confidant.
With the information thus procured, he had hoped to get on to the track of the leader of the band.
But that ugly brute; Mortimer, with his goggle eyes, had spoiled everything. His appearance had taken Desmond completely by surprise: to tell the truth, it had thrown our young man rather off his guard. " If only I might have had a little longer acquaintance with my part," he reflected bitterly as $e sat by the fire, "I should have been better able to deal with that pompous ass!"Afterwards, when thinking over the opening events of this extraordinary episode of his career, Desmond rather wondered why he had not followed Mortimer out of the house that afternoon and tracked him down to his hiding place. But, as a matter of fact, the idea did not occur to him at the time. His orders were positive not to leave the house, and he never even thought of breaking them--at any rate, not then.
His orders, also, it is true, were to report to headquarters any communication that might be made to him; but these instructions, at least as far as Nur-el-Din's and Mortimer's visits were concerned, he resolved to ignore.
For one thing, he felt angry with the Chief who, he argued rather irrationally, ought to have foreseen and prevented Mortimer thus taking him by surprise. The Chief liked secrets--well, for a change, he should be kept in the dark and the laugh would be on Desmond's side. For a few minutes after Mortimer's departure, Desmond had felt strongly inclined to go to the telephone which stood on the desk in the library and ring up Mr. Elias, as he should have done, but he resisted this impulse. Now, thinking things over in the firelight, he was glad he had refrained. He would ferret out for himself the exact part that Nur-el-Din and Mortimer were playing in this band of spies. Nothing definite had come of his interviews with them as yet. It would be time enough to communicate with Headquarters when he had something positive to report.
Then Desmond thrust the paper he had been studying back in his pocket-book and jumped up. He felt that the inaction was stifling him. He determined to go for a walk round the garden. That, at least, was in the spirit of his orders.
Remembering that he was supposed to be suffering from a chill he donned a heavy Ulster of Bellward's which was hanging in the hall and wound a muffler round his neck. Then cramming a soft cap on his head (he noted with satisfaction that Bellward's hats fitted him remarkably well) he opened the front door and stepped outside.
The rain had stopped, but the whole atmosphere reeled of moisture. Angry-looking, dirty-brown clouds chased each other across the lowering sky, and there was a constant sound of water, trickling and gurgling and splashing, in his ears.