Wallace at Bay

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Authors: Alexander Wilson
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assistant handy.’
     
    King Peter duly paid his visit to England. It passed off without an untoward incident of any kind. Although the royal visitor was quite unaware of the fact, extraordinary precautions were taken to safeguard his person. The three would-be assassins, who had travelled from Vienna for the purpose of murdering His Majesty, were dead, it is true, but their deaths had notbeen kept secret – that had been an impossibility. There was a chance, therefore, that the organisation which had been behind them would despatch other men to accomplish the deed; not that such a contingency was very likely. Wallace thought there was hardly time for adequate preparations to be made. Still, he took no risks. Everywhere that King Peter went he was guarded with the greatest care, while numbers of men of the Secret Service and Special Branch, as well as plain-clothes officers of the CID, mingled with the crowds anywhere in the vicinity of the king, watching keenly for any sign that assassins were lurking in them.
    It was after King Peter had departed for his own country that Sir Leonard made his preparations to commence the investigations that he hoped would end in the extermination of the anarchist organisation. He first had an interview with the foreign secretary, which left that statesman considerably shaken. Knowing the Chief of the Secret Service very well indeed, the cabinet minister wasted no time in expressing disbelief that a plot could exist, the aim of which was to assassinate members of the British royal family. He knew Sir Leonard was no alarmist, and that his insistence that the matter should be discussed by the cabinet in secret and steps taken to guard the royal family more adequately, was actuated by a very real sense that grave danger existed. Wallace gave him a copy of the list of names and addresses of men in the various capitals whom he believed to be spies or agents of the organisation; urged him to hint to the governments concerned that they were possibly members of an anarchic society, and should be watched. The foreign secretary received the information with encouraging gravity; promised to ask for a meeting of the cabinet at once.
    On Sir Leonard’s return to his office after his interview with the statesman, he found Brien awaiting him with every appearance of impatience.
    ‘Hullo, Bill,’ he remarked, ‘you look agitated. What’s the trouble?’
    ‘I’m not agitated,’ was the reply, ‘but an idea has occurred to me. Has it struck you that the people who sent Haeckel and company to London will possibly be rather alarmed at the deaths of the whole bunch – including Casaroli?’
    Sir Leonard removed his overcoat and hat, walked across to his chair, and sat down.
    ‘It has,’ he nodded. ‘What of it?’
    Brien pushed some documents away, and planted himself on the edge of the great oak desk.
    ‘Isn’t it likely,’ he asked, ‘that they may be worried in case information concerning them will have fallen into the hands of the authorities?’ Wallace nodded again. ‘Well,’ went on Brien, ‘I am wondering if they have sent a representative over here in order to obtain information; that is, to try and find out what is known about them, and what we intend to do about it.’
    Sir Leonard sat up, and eyed his friend with approval.
    ‘By Jove, Bill!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s a notion. It’s the very thing they would do. If they have, and we could find the fellow, he might be trailed when he returns, and lead me to their headquarters. The trouble will be to find him among seven and a half million people.’
    Major Brien smiled triumphantly. It was not often that he was able to point the way to his chief.
    ‘I don’t think there will be much difficulty in it,’ he declared, ‘providing, of course, a man has come to London. The messengerwho conveyed instructions to Pestalozzi stayed at the Canute Hotel, in Waterloo Road. It is fairly safe to assume that another emissary would put up

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