Alias | Page 2

if it promised to keep him out of the way long enough for the Smolny Institute to forget him."
"Since the said Smolny inconsiderately persists in failing to collapse, as per the daily predictions of the hopeful."
"Just so."
"But aren't you forgetting you yourself have given that Smolny lot the same and quite as much reason for holding your name anathema?"
"Ah!" Duchemin growled--"as for me, I can take care of myself, thank you. My trouble is, I want somebody else to take care of. I had a daughter once, for a few weeks, long enough to make me strangely fond of the responsibilities of a father; and then Karslake took her away, leaving me nothing to do with my life but twiddle futile thumbs and contemplate the approach of middle age." "Middle age? Why flatter yourself? With a daughter married, too!"
"Sonia's only eighteen..."
"She was born when you were twenty. That makes you nearly forty, and that's next door to second childhood, Man!" the Englishman declared solemnly--"you're superannuated."
"I know; and so long as I feel my years, even you can abuse me with impunity."
But Wertheimer would not hear him. "Odd," he mused, "I never thought of it before, that you were growing old. And I've been wondering, too, what it was that has been making you so precious slow and cautious and cranky of late. You're just doddering--and I thought you were simply tired out and needed a holiday."
"Perhaps I am and do," said Duchemin patiently. "One feels one has earned a holiday, if ever anybody did in your blessed S. S."
"Ah! You think so?"
"You'd think so if you'd been mucking round the East End all Winter with your life in your hands."
"Still--at your age--I'd be thinking about retiring instead of asking for a rest."
Although Duchemin knew very well that he was merely being ragged in that way of deadly seriousness which so often amuses the English, he chose to suggest sourly: "My resignation is at your disposal any time you wish it."
"Accepted," said Wertheimer airily, "to take effect at once."
To this Duchemin merely grunted, as who should say he didn't consider this turn of conversation desperately amusing. And Wertheimer resuming his chair, the two remained for some moments in silence, a silence so doggedly maintained on both sides that Duchemin was presently aware of dull gnawings of curiosity. It occurred to him that his caller should have found plenty to do in his bureau in the War Office....
"And to what," he enquired with the tedious irony of ennui, "is one indebted for this unexpected honour on the part of the First Under-Secretary of the British Secret Service? Or whatever your high-sounding official title is..."
"Oh!" Wertheimer replied lazily--and knocked out his pipe--"I merely dropped in to say good-bye."
Duchemin discovered symptoms of more animation.
"Hello! Where are you off to?"
"Nowhere--worse luck! I mean I'm here to bid you farewell and Godspeed and what not on the eve of your departure from the British Isles."
"And where, pray, am I going?"
"That's for you to say."
Monsieur Duchemin meditated briefly. "I see," he announced: "I'm to have a roving commission."
"Worse than that: none at all."
Duchemin opened his eyes wide.
"'The wind bloweth where it listeth,'" Wertheimer affirmed. "How do I know whither you'll blow, now you're a free agent again, entirely on your own? I've got no control over your movements."
"The S. S. has."
"Never no more. Didn't you tender me your resignation a moment ago? Wasn't it promptly accepted?"
"Look here: What the devil----!"
"Well, if you must know," the Englishman interrupted hastily, "my instructions were to give you your walking papers if you refused to resign. So your connection with the S. S. is from this hour severed. And if you ain't out of England within twenty-four hours, we'll jolly well deport you. And that's that."
"One perceives one has served England not wisely but too well."
"Shrewd lad!" Wertheimer laughed. "You see, old soul, we admire you no end, and we're determined to save your life. Word has leaked through from Petrograd that your name has been triple-starred on the Smolny's Index Expurgatorius. Karslake's too. An honour legitimately earned by your pernicious collaboration in the Vassilyevski bust. Karslake's already taken care of, but you're still in the limelight, and that makes you a public nuisance. If you linger here much longer the verdict will undoubtedly be: Violent death at the hands of some person or persons unknown. So here are passports and a goodish bit of money. If you run through all of it before this blows over, we'll find a way, of course, to get more to you. You understand: No price too high that buys good riddance of you. And there will be a destroyer waiting at Portsmouth to-night with instructions to put ashore secretly anywhere you like across the Channel. After that--as far as the British Empire is concerned--your