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Havoc

by E. Phillips Oppenheim · English · Gutenberg #2287 · 490,040 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Havoc

Author: E. Phillips Oppenheim


        
Release date: August 1, 2000 [eBook #2287]
                Most recently updated: May 20, 2021

Language: English

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Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer. HTML version by Al Haines.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HAVOC ***

[Illustration]




Havoc

by E. Phillips Oppenheim


Contents

 Chapter I CROWNED HEADS MEET
 Chapter II ARTHUR DORWARD’S “SCOOP”
 Chapter III “OURS IS A STRANGE COURTSHIP”
 Chapter IV THE NIGHT TRAIN FROM VIENNA
 Chapter V “VON BEHRLING HAS THE PACKET”
 Chapter VI VON BEHRLING IS TEMPTED
 Chapter VII “WE PLAY FOR GREAT STAKES”
 Chapter VIII THE HAND OF MISFORTUNE
 Chapter IX ROBBING THE DEAD
 Chapter X BELLAMY IS OUTWITTED
 Chapter XI VON BEHRLING’S FATE
 Chapter XII BARON DE STREUSS’ PROPOSAL
 Chapter XIII STEPHEN LAVERICK’S CONSCIENCE
 Chapter XIV ARTHUR MORRISON’S COLLAPSE
 Chapter XV LAVERICK’S PARTNER FLEES
 Chapter XVI THE WAITER AT THE "BLACK POST"
 Chapter XVII THE PRICE OF SILENCE
 Chapter XVIII THE LONELY CHORUS GIRL
 Chapter XIX MYSTERIOUS INQUIRIES
 Chapter XX LAVERICK IS CROSS EXAMINED
 Chapter XXI MADEMOISELLE IDIALE’S VISIT
 Chapter XXII ACTIVITY OF AUSTRIAN SPIES
 Chapter XXIII LAVERICK AT THE OPERA
 Chapter XXIV A SUPPER PARTY AT LUIGI’S
 Chapter XXV JIM SHEPHERD’S SCARE
 Chapter XXVI THE DOCUMENT DISCOVERED
 Chapter XXVII PENETRATING A MYSTERY
 Chapter XXVIII LAVERICK’S NARROW ESCAPE
 Chapter XXIX LASSEN’S TREACHERY DISCOVERED
 Chapter XXX THE CONTEST FOR THE PAPERS
 Chapter XXXI MISS LENEVEU’S MESSAGE
 Chapter XXXII MORRISON IS DESPERATE
 Chapter XXXIII LAVERICK’S ARREST
 Chapter XXXIV MORRISON’S DISCLOSURE
 Chapter XXXV BELLAMY’S SUCCESS
 Chapter XXXVI LAVERICK ACQUITTED
 Chapter XXXVII THE PLOT TEAT FAILED
 Chapter XXXVIII A FAREWELL APPEARANCE


Illustrations

 Laverick, with a single bound, was upon his assailant.
 “Tell me, are they afraid of me, your friends?”
 There was no doubt about her beauty
 Zoe had fallen asleep in a small, uncomfortable easy-chair




CHAPTER I CROWNED HEADS MEET


Bellamy, King’s Spy, and Dorward, journalist, known to fame in every
English-speaking country, stood before the double window of their
spacious sitting-room, looking down upon the thoroughfare beneath. Both
men were laboring under a bitter sense of failure. Bellamy’s face was
dark with forebodings; Dorward was irritated and nervous. Failure was a
new thing to him—a thing which those behind the great journals which he
represented understood less, even, than he. Bellamy loved his country,
and fear was gnawing at his heart.

Below, the crowds which had been waiting patiently for many hours broke
into a tumult of welcoming voices. Down their thickly-packed lines the
volume of sound arose and grew, a faint murmur at first, swelling and
growing to a thunderous roar. Myriads of hats were suddenly torn from
the heads of the excited multitude, handkerchiefs waved from every
window. It was a wonderful greeting, this.

“The Czar on his way to the railway station,” Bellamy remarked.

The broad avenue was suddenly thronged with a mass of
soldiery—guardsmen of the most famous of Austrian regiments, brilliant
in their white uniforms, their flashing helmets. The small brougham
with its great black horses was almost hidden within a ring of naked
steel. Dorward, an American to the backbone and a bitter democrat,
thrust out his under-lip.

“The Anointed of the Lord!” he muttered.

Far away from some other quarter came the same roar of voices, muffled
yet insistent, charged with that faint, exciting timbre which seems
always to live in the cry of the multitude.

“The Emperor,” declared Bellamy. “He goes to the West station.”

The commotion had passed. The crowds in the street below were on the
move, melting away now with a muffled trampling of feet and a murmur of
voices. The two men turned from their window back into the room.
Dorward commenced to roll a cigarette with yellow-stained, nervous
fingers, while Bellamy threw himself into an easy-chair with a gesture
of depression.

“So it is over, this long-talked-of meeting,” he said, half to himself,
half to Dorward. “It is over, and Europe is left to wonder.”

“They were together for scarcely more than an hour,” Dorward murmured.

“Long enough,” Bellamy answered. “That little room in the Palace, my
friend, may yet become famous.”

“If you and I could buy its secrets,” Dorward remarked, finally shaping
a cigarette and lighting it, “we should be big bidders, I think. I’d
give fifty thousand dollars myself to be able to cable even a hundred
words of their conversation.”

“For the truth,” Bellamy said, “the whole truth, there could be no
price sufficient. We made our effort in different directions, both of
us. With infinite pains I planted—I may tell you this now that the
thing is over—seven spies in the Palace. They have been of as much use
as rabbits. I don’t believe that a single one of them got any further
than the kitchens.”

Dorward nodded gloomily.

“I guess they weren’t taking any chances up there,” he remarked. “There
wasn’t a secretary in the room. Carstairs was nearly thrown out, and he
had a permit to enter the Palace. The great staircase was held with
soldiers, and Dick swore that there were Maxims in the corridors.”

Bellamy sighed.

“We shall hear the roar of bigger guns before we are many months older,
Dorward,” he declared.

The journalist glanced at his friend keenly. “You believe that?”

Bellamy shrugged his shoulders.

“Do you suppose that this meeting is for nothing?” he asked. “When
Austria, Germany and Russia stand whispering in a corner, can’t you
believe it is across the North Sea that they point? Things have been
shaping that way for years, and the time is almost ripe.”

“You English are too nervous to live, nowadays,” Dorward declared
impatiently. “I’d just like to know what they said about America.”

Bellamy smiled with faint but delicate irony.

“Without a doubt, the Prince will tell you,” he said. “He can scarcely
do more to show his regard for your country. He is giving you a special
interview—you alone out of about two hundred journalists. Very likely
he will give you an exact account of everything that transpired. First
of all, he will assure you that this meeting has been brought about in
the interests of peace. He will tell you that the welfare of your dear
country is foremost in the thoughts of his master. He will assure you—”

“Say, you’re jealous, my friend,” Dorward interrupted calmly. “I wonder
what you’d give me for my ten minutes alone with the Chancellor, eh?”

“If he told me the truth,” Bellamy asserted, “I’d give my life for it.
For the sort of stuff you’re going to hear, I’d give nothing. Can’t you
realize that for yourself, Dorward? You know the man—false as Hell but
with the tongue of a serpent. He will grasp your hand; he will declare
himself glad to speak through you to the great Anglo-Saxon races—to
England and to his dear friends the Americans. He is only too pleased
to have the opportunity of expressing himself candidly and openly.
Peace is to be the watchword of the future. The white doves have
hovered over the Palace. The rulers of the earth have met that the
crash of arms may be stilled and that this terrible unrest which broods
over Europe shall finally be broken up. They have pledged themselves
hand in hand to work together for this object,—Russia, broken and
humiliated, but with an immense army still available, whose only chance
of holding her place among the nations is another and a successful war;
Austria, on fire for the seaboard—Austria, to whom war would give the
desire of her existence; Germany, with Bismarck’s last but secret words
written in letters of fire on the walls of her palaces, in the hearts
of her rulers, in the brain of her great Emperor. Colonies! Expansion!
Empire! Whose colonies, I wonder? Whose empire? Will he tell you that,
my friend Dorward?”

The journalist shrugged his shoulders and glanced at the clock.

“I guess he’ll tell me what he chooses and I shall print it,” he
answered indifferently. “It’s all part of the game, of course. I am not
exactly chicken enough to expect the truth. All the same, my message
will come from the lips of the Chancellor immediately after this
wonderful meeting.”

“He makes use of you,” Bellamy declared, “to throw dust into our eyes
and yours.”

“Even so,” Dorward admitted, “I don’t care so long as I get the copy.
It’s good-bye, I suppose?”

Bellamy nodded.

“I shall go on to Berlin, perhaps, to-morrow,” he said. “I can do no
more good here. And you?”

“After I’ve sent my cable I’m off to Belgrade for a week, at any rate,”
Dorward answered. “I hear the women are forming rifle clubs all through
Servia.”

Bellamy smiled thoughtfully.

“I know one who’ll want a place among the leaders,” he murmured.

“Mademoiselle Idiale, I suppose?”

Bellamy assented.

“It’s a queer position hers, if you like,” he said. “All Vienna raves
about her. They throng the Opera House every night to hear her sing,
and they pay her the biggest salary which has ever been known here.
Three parts of it she sends to Belgrade to the Chief of the Committee
for National Defence. The jewels that are sent her anonymously go to
the same place, all to buy arms to fight these people who worship her.
I tell you, Dorward,” he added, rising to his feet and walking to the
window, “the patriotism of these people is something we colder races
scarcely understand. Perhaps it is because we have never dwelt under
the shadow of a conqueror. If ever Austria is given a free hand, it
will be no mere war upon which she enters,—it will be a carnage, an
extermination!”

Dorward looked once more at the clock and rose slowly to his feet.

“Well,” he said, “I mustn’t keep His Excellency waiting. Good-bye, and
cheer up, Bellamy! Your old country isn’t going to turn up her heels
yet.”

Out he went—long, lank, uncouth, with yellow-stained fingers and
hatchet-shaped, gray face—a strange figure but yet a power. Bellamy
remained. For a while he seemed doubtful how to pass the time. He stood
in front of the window, watching the dispersal of the crowds and the
marching by of a regiment of soldiers, whose movements he followed with
critical interest, for he, too, had been in the service. He had still a
military bearing,—tall, and with complexion inclined to be dusky, a
small black moustache, dark eyes, a silent mouth,—a man of many
reserves. Even his intimates knew little of him. Nevertheless, his was
the reticence which befitted well his profession.

After a time he sat down and wrote some letters. He had just finished
when there came a sharp tap at the door. Before he could open his lips
some one had entered. He heard the soft swirl of draperies and turned
sharply round, then sprang to his feet and held out both his hands.
There was expression in his face now—as much as he ever suffered to
appear there.

“Louise!” he exclaimed. “What good fortune!”

She held his fingers for a moment in a manner which betokened a more
than common intimacy. Then she threw herself into an easy-chair and
raised her thick veil. Bellamy looked at her for a moment in sorrowful
silence. There were violet lines underneath her beautiful eyes, her
cheeks were destitute of any color. There was an abandonment of grief
about her attitude which moved him. She sat as one broken-spirited, in
whom the power of resistance was dead.

“It is over, then,” she said softly, “this meeting. The word has been
spoken.”

He came and stood by her side.

“As yet,” he reminded her, “we do not know what that word may be.”

She shook her head mournfully.

“Who can doubt?” she exclaimed. “For myself, I feel it in the air! I
can see it in the faces of the people who throng the city! I can hear
it in the peals of those awful bells! You know nothing? You have heard
nothing?”

Bellamy shook his head.

“I did all that was humanly possible,” he said, dropping his voice. “An
Englishman in Vienna to-day has very little opportunity. I filled the
Palace with spies, but they hadn’t a dog’s chance. There wasn’t even a
secretary present. The Czar, the two Emperors and the Chancellor,—not
another soul was in the room.”

“If only Von Behrling had been taken!” she exclaimed. “He was there in
reserve, I know, as stenographer. I have but to lift my hand and it is
enough. I would have had the truth from him, whatever it cost me.”

Bellamy looked at her thoughtfully. It was not for nothing that the
Press of every European nation had called her the most beautiful woman
in the world. He frowned slightly at her last words, for he loved her.

“Von Behrling was not even allowed to cross the threshold,” he said
sharply.

She moved her head and looked up at him. She was leaning a little
forward now, her chin resting upon her hands. Something about the lines
of her long, supple body suggested to him the savage animal crouching
for a spring. She was quiet, but her bosom was heaving, and he could
guess at the passion within. With purpose he spoke to set it loose.

“You sing to-night?” he asked.

“Before God, no!” she answered, the anger blazing out of her eyes,
shaking in her voice. “I sing no more in this accursed city!”

“There will be a revolution,” Bellamy remarked. “I see that the whole
city is placarded with notices. It is to be a gala night at the Opera.
The royal party is to be present.”

Her body seemed to quiver like a tree shaken by the wind.

“What do I care—I—I—for their gala night! If I were like Samson, if I
could pull down the pillars of their Opera House and bury them all in
its ruins, I would do it!”

He took her hand and smoothed it in his.

“Dear Louise, it is useless, this. You do everything that can be done
for your country.”

Her eyes were streaming and her fingers sought his.

“My friend David,” she said, “you do not understand. None of you
English yet can understand what it is to crouch in the shadow of this
black fear, to feel a tyrant’s hand come creeping out, to know that
your life-blood and the life-blood of all your people must be shed, and
shed in vain. To rob a nation of their liberty, ah! it is worse, this,
than murder,—a worse crime than his who stains the soul of a poor
innocent girl! It is a sin against nature herself!”

She was sobbing now, and she clutched his hands passionately.

“Forgive me,” she murmured, “I am overwrought. I have borne up against
this thing so long. I can do no more good here. I come to tell you that
I go away till the time comes. I go to your London. They want me to
sing for them there. I shall do it.”

“You will break your engagement?”

She laughed at him scornfully.

“I am Idiale,” she declared. “I keep no engagement if I do not choose.
I will sing no more to this people whom I hate. My friend David, I have
suffered enough. Their applause I loathe—their covetous eyes as they
watch me move about the stage—oh, I could strike them all dead! They
come to me, these young Austrian noblemen, as though I were already one
of a conquered race. I keep their diamonds but I destroy their
messages. Their jewels go to my chorus girls or to arm my people. But
no one of them has had a kind word from me save where there has been
something to be gained. Even Von Behrling I have fooled with promises.
No Austrian shall ever touch my lips—I have sworn it!”

Bellamy nodded.

“Yes,” he assented, “they call you cold here in the capital! Even in
the Palace—”

She held out her hand.

“It is finished!” she declared. “I sing no more. I have sent word to
the Opera House. I came here to be in hiding for a while. They will
search for me everywhere. To-night or to-morrow I leave for England.”

Bellamy stood thoughtfully silent.

“I am not sure that you are wise,” he said. “You take it too much for
granted that the end has come.”

“And do you not yourself believe it?” she demanded. He hesitated.

“As yet there is no proof,” he reminded her.

“Proof!”

She sat upright in her chair. Her hands thrust him from her, her bosom
heaved, a spot of color flared in her cheeks.

“Proof!” she cried. “What do you suppose, then, that these wolves have
plotted for? What else do you suppose could be Austria’s share of the
feast? Couldn’t you hear our fate in the thunder of their voices when
that miserable monarch rode back to his captivity? We are
doomed—betrayed! You remember the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, a
blood-stained page of history for all time. The world would tell you
that we have outlived the age of such barbarous doings. It is not true.
My friend David, it is not true. It is a more terrible thing, this
which is coming. Body and soul we are to perish.”

He came over to her side once more and laid his hand soothingly on
hers. It was heart-rending to witness the agony of the woman he loved.

“Dear Louise,” he said, “after all, this is profitless. There may yet
be compromises.”

She suffered her hand to remain in his, but the bitterness did not pass
out of her face or tone.

“Compromises!” she repeated. “Do you believe, then, that we are like
those ancient races who felt the presence of a conqueror because their
hosts were scattered in battle, and who suffered themselves passively
to be led into captivity? My country can be conquered in one way, and
one way only,—not until her sons, ay, and her daughters too, have
perished, can these people rule. They will come to an empty and a
stricken country—a country red with blood, desolate, with blackened
houses and empty cities. The horror of it! Think, my friend David, the
horror of it!”

Bellamy threw his head back with a sudden gesture of impatience.

“You take too much for granted,” he declared. “England, at any rate, is
not yet a conquered race. And there is France—Italy, too, if she is
wise, will never suffer this thing from her ancient enemy.”

“It is the might of the world which threatens,” she murmured. “Your
country may defend herself, but here she is powerless. Already it has
been proved. Last year you declared yourself our friend—you and even
Russia. Of what avail was it? Word came from Berlin and you were
powerless.”

Then tragedy broke into the room, tragedy in the shape of a man
demented. For fifteen years Bellamy had known Arthur Dorward, but this
man was surely a stranger! He was hatless, dishevelled, wild. A dull
streak of color had mounted almost to his forehead, his eyes were on
fire.

“Bellamy!” he cried. “Bellamy!”

Words failed him suddenly. He leaned against the table, breathless,
panting heavily.

“For God’s sake, man,” Bellamy began,—

“Alone!” Dorward interrupted. “I must see you alone! I have news!”

Mademoiselle Idiale rose. She touched Bellamy on the shoulder.

“You will come to me, or telephone,” she whispered. “So?”

Bellamy opened the door and she passed out, with a farewell pressure of
his fingers. Then he closed it firmly and came back.




CHAPTER II ARTHUR DORWARD’S “SCOOP”


“What’s wrong, old man?” Bellamy asked quickly.

Dorward from a side table had seized the bottle of whiskey and a
siphon, and was mixing himself a drink with trembling fingers. He
tossed it off before he spoke a word. Then he turned around and faced
his companion. “Bellamy,” he ordered, “lock the door.”

Bellamy obeyed. He had no doubt now but that Dorward had lost his head
in the Chancellor’s presence—had made some absurd attempt to gain the
knowledge which they both craved, and had failed.

“Bellamy,” Dorward exclaimed, speaking hoarsely and still a little out
of breath, “I guess I’ve had the biggest slice of luck that was ever
dealt out to a human being. If only I can get safe out of this city, I
tell you I’ve got the greatest scoop that living man ever handled.”

“You don’t mean that—”

Dorward wiped his forehead and interrupted.

“It’s the most amazing thing that ever happened,” he declared, “but
I’ve got it here in my pocket, got it in black and white, in the
Chancellor’s own handwriting.”

“Got what?”

“Why, what you and I, an hour ago, would have given a million for,”
Dorward replied.

Bellamy’s expression was one of blank but wondering incredulity.

“You can’t mean this, Dorward!” he exclaimed. “You may have
something—just what the Chancellor wants you to print. You’re not
supposing for an instant that you’ve got the whole truth?”

Dorward’s smile was the smile of certainty, his face that of a
conqueror.

“Here in my pocket,” he declared, striking his chest, “in the
Chancellor’s own handwriting. I tell you I’ve got the original verbatim
copy of everything that passed and was resolved upon this afternoon
between the Czar of Russia, the Emperor of Austria and the Emperor of
Germany. I’ve got it word for word as the Chancellor took it down. I’ve
got their decision. I’ve got their several undertakings.”

Bellamy for a moment was stricken dumb. He looked toward the door and
back into his friend’s face aglow with triumph. Then his power of
speech returned.

“Do you mean to say that you stole it?”

Dorward struck the table with his fist.

“Not I! I tell you that the Chancellor gave it to me, gave it to me
with his own hands, willingly,—pressed it upon me. No, don’t scoff!” he
went on quickly. “Listen! This is a genuine thing. The Chancellor’s
mad. He was lying in a fit when I left the Palace. It will be in all
the evening papers. You will hear the boys shouting it in the streets
within a few minutes. Don’t interrupt and I’ll tell you the whole
truth. You can believe me or not, as you like. It makes no odds. I
arrived punctually and was shown up into the anteroom. Even from there
I could hear loud voices in the inner chamber and I knew that something
was up. Presently a little fellow came out to me—a dark-bearded chap
with gold-rimmed glasses. He was very polite, introduced himself as the
Chancellor’s physician, regretted exceedingly that the Chancellor was
unwell and could see no one,—the excitement and hard work of the last
few days had knocked him out. Well, I stood there arguing as pleasantly
as I could about it, and then all of a sudden the door of the inner
room was thrown open. The Chancellor himself stood on the threshold.
There was no doubt about his being ill; his face was as pale as
parchment, his eyes were simply wild, and his hair was all ruffled as
though he had been standing upon his head. He began to talk to the
physician in German. I didn’t understand him until he began to
swear,—then it was wonderful! In the end he brushed them all away and,
taking me by the arm, led me right into the inner room. For a long time
he went on jabbering away half to himself, and I was wondering how on
earth to bring the conversation round to the things I wanted to know
about. Then, all of a sudden, he turned to me and seemed to remember
who I was and what I wanted. ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘you are Dorward, the
American journalist. I remember you now. Lock the door.’ I obeyed him
pretty quick, for I had noticed they were mighty uneasy outside, and I
was afraid they’d be disturbing us every moment. ‘Come and sit down,’
he ordered. I did so at once. ‘You’re a sensible fellow,’ he declared.
‘To-day every one is worrying me. They think that I am not well. It is
foolish. I am quite well. Who would not be well on such a day as this?’
I told him that I had never seen him looking better in my life, and he
nodded and seemed pleased. ‘You have come to hear the truth about the
meeting of my master with the Czar and the Emperor of Germany?’ he
asked. ‘That’s so,’ I told him. ‘America’s more than a little
interested in these things, and I want to know what to tell her.’ Then
he leaned across the table. ‘My young friend,’ he said, ‘I like you.
You are straightforward. You speak plainly and you do not worry me. It
is good. You shall tell your country what it is that we have planned,
what the things are that are coming. Yours is a great and wise country.
When they know the truth, they will remember that Europe is a long way
off and that the things which happen there are really no concern of
theirs.’ ‘You are right,’ I assured him,—‘dead right. Treat us openly,
that’s all we ask.’ ‘Shall I not do that, my young friend?’ he
answered. ‘Now look, I give you this.’ He fumbled through all his
pockets and at last he drew out a long envelope, sealed at both ends
with black sealing wax on which was printed a coat of arms with two
tigers facing each other. He looked toward the door cautiously, and
there was just that gleam in his eyes which madmen always have. ‘Here
it is,’ he whispered, ‘written with my own hand. This will tell you
exactly what passed this afternoon. It will tell you our plans. It will
tell you of the share which my master and the other two are taking.
Button it up safely,’ he said, ‘and, whatever you do, do not let them
know outside that you have got it. Between you and me,’ he went on,
leaning across the table, ‘something seems to have happened to them all
to-day. There’s my old doctor there. He is worrying all the time, but
he himself is not well. I can see it whenever he comes near me.’ I
nodded as though I understood and the Chancellor tapped his forehead
and grinned. Then I got up as casually as I could, for I was terribly
afraid that he wouldn’t let me go. We shook hands, and I tell you his
fingers were like pieces of burning coal. Just as I was moving, some
one knocked at the door. Then he began to storm again, kicked his chair
over, threw a paperweight at the window, and talked such nonsense that
I couldn’t follow him. I unlocked the door myself and found the doctor
there. I contrived to look as frightened as possible. ‘His Highness is
not well enough to talk to me,’ I whispered. ‘You had better look after
him.’ I heard a shout behind and a heavy fall. Then I closed the door
and slipped away as quietly as I could—and here I am.”

Bellamy drew a long breath.

“My God, but this is wonderful!” he muttered. “How long is it since you
left the Palace?”

“About ten minutes or a quarter of an hour,” Dorward answered.

“They’ll find it out at once,” declared the other. “They’ll miss the
paper. Perhaps he’ll tell them himself that he has given it to you.
Don’t let us run any risks, Dorward. Tear it open. Let us know the
truth, at any rate. If you have to part with the document, we can
remember its contents. Out with it, man, quick! They may be here at any
moment.”

Dorward drew a few steps back. Then he shook his head.

“I guess not,” he said firmly.

Bellamy regarded his friend in blank and uncomprehending amazement.

“What do you mean?” he exclaimed. “You’re not going to keep it to
yourself? You know what it means to me—to England?”

“Your old country can look after herself pretty well,” Dorward
declared. “Anyhow, she’ll have to take her chance. I am not here as a
philanthropist. I am an American journalist, and I’ll part to nobody
with the biggest thing that’s ever come into any man’s bands.”

Bellamy, with a tremendous effort, maintained his self-control.

“What are you going to do with it?” he asked quickly.

“I tell you I’m off out of the country to-night,” Dorward declared. “I
shall head for England. Pearce is there himself, and I tell you it will
be just the greatest day of my life when I put this packet in his hand.
We’ll make New York hum, I can promise you, and Europe too.”

Bellamy’s manner was perfectly quiet—too quiet to be altogether
natural. His hand was straying towards his pocket.

“Dorward,” he said, speaking rapidly, and keeping his back to the door,
“you don’t realize what you’re up against. This sort of thing is new to
you. You haven’t a dog’s chance of leaving Vienna alive with that in
your pocket. If you trust yourself in the Orient Express to-night,
you’ll never be allowed to cross the frontier. By this time they know
that the packet is missing; they know, too, that you are the only man
who could have it, whether the Chancellor has told them the truth or
not. Open it at once so that we get some good out of it. Then we’ll go
round to the Embassy. We can slip out by the back way, perhaps.
Remember I have spent my life in the service, and I tell you that
there’s no other place in the city where your life is worth a snap of
the fingers but at your Embassy or mine. Open the packet, man.”

“I think not,” Dorward answered firmly. “I am an American citizen. I
have broken no laws and done no one any harm. If there’s any
slaughtering about, I guess they’ll hesitate before they begin with
Arthur Dorward.... Don’t be a fool, man!”

He took a quick step backward,—he was looking into the muzzle of
Bellamy’s revolver.

“Dorward,” the latter exclaimed, “I can’t help it! Yours is only a
personal ambition—I stand for my country. Share the knowledge of that
packet with me or I shall shoot.”

“Then shoot and be d—d to you!” Dorward declared fiercely. “This is my
show, not yours. You and your country can go to—”

He broke off without finishing his sentence. There was a thunderous
knocking at the door. The two men looked at one another for a moment,
speechless. Then Bellamy, with a smothered oath, replaced the revolver
in his pocket.

“You’ve thrown away our chance,” he said bitterly.

The knocking was repeated. When Bellamy with a shrug of the shoulders
answered the summons, three men in plain clothes entered. They saluted
Bellamy, but their eyes were traveling around the room.

“We are seeking Herr Dorward, the American journalist!” one exclaimed.
“He was here but a moment ago.”

Bellamy pointed to the inner door. He had had too much experience in
such matters to attempt any prevarication. The three men crossed the
room quickly and Bellamy followed in the rear. He heard a cry of
disappointment from the foremost as he opened the door. The inner room
was empty!




CHAPTER III “OURS IS A STRANGE COURTSHIP”


Louise looked up eagerly as he entered.

“There is news!” she exclaimed. “I can see it in your face.”

“Yes,” Bellamy answered, “there is news! That is why I have come. Where
can we talk?”

She rose to her feet. Before them the open French windows led on to a
smooth green lawn. She took his arm.

“Come outside with me,” she said. “I am shut up here because I will not
see the doctors whom they send, or any one from the Opera House. An
envoy from the Palace has been and I have sent him away.”

“You mean to keep your word, then?”

“Have I ever broken it? Never again will I sing in this City. It is
so.”

Bellamy looked around. The garden of the villa was enclosed by high
gray stone walls. They were secure here, at least, from eavesdroppers.
She rested her fingers lightly upon his arm, holding up the skirts of
her loose gown with her other hand.

“I have spoken to you,” he said, “of Dorward, the American journalist.”

She nodded.

“Of course,” she assented. “You told me that the Chancellor had
promised him an interview for to-day.”

“Well, he went to the Palace and the Chancellor saw him.”

She looked at him with upraised eyebrows.

“The newspapers are full of lies as usual, then, I suppose. The latest
telegrams say that the Chancellor is dangerously ill.”

“It is quite true,” Bellamy declared. “What I am going to tell you is
surprising, but I had it from Dorward himself. When he reached the
Palace, the Chancellor was practically insane. His doctors were trying
to persuade him to go to his room and lie down, but he heard Dorward’s
voice and insisted upon seeing him. The man was mad—on the verge of a
collapse—and he handed over to Dorward his notes, and a verbatim report
of all that passed at the Palace this morning.”

She looked at him incredulously.

“My dear David!” she exclaimed.

“It is amazing,” he admitted, “but it is the truth. I know it for a
fact. The man was absolutely beside himself, he had no idea what he was
doing.”

“Where is it?” she asked quickly. “You have seen it?”

“Dorward would not give it up,” he said bitterly. “While we argued in
our sitting-room at the hotel the police arrived. Dorward escaped
through the bedroom and down the service stairs. He spoke of trying to
catch the Orient Express to-night, but I doubt if they will ever let
him leave the city.”

“It is wonderful, this,” she murmured softly. “What are you going to
do?”

“Louise, you and I have few secrets from each other. I would have
killed Dorward to obtain that sealed envelope, because I believe that
the knowledge of its contents in London to-day would save us from
disaster. To know how far each is pledged, and from which direction the
first blow is to come, would be our salvation.”

“I cannot understand,” she said, “why he should have refused to share
his knowledge with you. He is an American—it is almost the same thing
as being an Englishman. And you are friends,—I am sure that you have
helped him often.”

“It was a matter of vanity—simply cursed vanity,” Bellamy answered. “It
would have been the greatest journalistic success of modern times for
him to have printed that document, word for word, in his paper. He
fights for his own hand alone.”

“And you?” she whispered.

“He will have to reckon with me,” Bellamy declared. “I know that he is
going to try and leave Vienna to-night, and if he does I shall be at
his heels.”

She nodded her head thoughtfully.

“I, too,” she announced. “I come with you, my friend. I do no more good
here, and they worry my life out all the time. I come to sing in London
at Covent Garden. I have agreements there which only await my
signature. We will go together; is it not so?”

“Very well,” he answered, “only remember that my movements must depend
very largely upon Dorward’s. The train leaves at eight o’clock, station
time. I have already a coupe reserved.”

“I come with you,” she murmured. “I am very weary of this city.”

They walked on for a few paces in silence. Bellamy looked around the
gardens, brilliant with flowering shrubs and rose trees, with here and
there some delicate piece of statuary half-hidden amongst the wealth of
foliage. The villa had once belonged to a royal favorite, and the
grounds had been its chief glory. They reached a sheltered seat and sat
down. A few yards away a tiny waterfall came tumbling over the rocks
into a deep pool. They were hidden from the windows of the villa by the
boughs of a drooping chestnut tree. Bellamy stooped and kissed her upon
the lips.

“Ours is a strange courtship, Louise,” he whispered softly.

She took his hand in hers and smoothed it. She had returned his kiss,
but she drew a little further away from him.

“Ah! my dear friend,” looking at him with sorrow in her eyes,
“courtship is scarcely the word, is it? For you and me there is nothing
to hope for, nothing beyond.”

He leaned towards her.

“Never believe that,” he begged. “These days are dark enough, Heaven
knows, yet the work of every one has its goal. Even our turn may come.”

Something flickered for a moment in her face, something which seemed to
make a different woman of her. Bellamy saw it, and hardened though he
was he felt the slow stirring of his own pulses. He kissed her hand
passionately and she shivered.

“We must not talk of these things,” she said. “We must not think of
them. At least our friendship has been wonderful. Now I must go in. I
must tell my maid and arrange to steal away to-night.”

They stood up, and he held her in his arms for a moment. Though her
lips met his freely enough, he was very conscious of the reserve with
which she yielded herself to him, conscious of it and thankful, too.
They walked up the path together, and as they went she plucked a red
rose and thrust it through his buttonhole.

“If we had no dreams,” she said softly, “life would not be possible.
Perhaps some day even we may pluck roses together.”

He raised her fingers to his lips. It was not often that they lapsed
into sentiment. When she spoke again it was finished.

“You had better leave,” she told him, “by the garden gate. There are
the usual crowd in my anteroom, and it is well that you and I are not
seen too much together.”

“Till this evening,” he whispered, as he turned away. “I shall be at
the station early. If Dorward is taken, I shall still leave Vienna. If
he goes, it may be an eventful journey.”




CHAPTER IV THE NIGHT TRAIN FROM VIENNA


Dorward, whistling softly to himself, sat in a corner of his coupe
rolling innumerable cigarettes. He was a man of unbounded courage and
wonderful resource, but with a slightly exaggerated idea as to the
sanctity of an American citizen. He had served his apprenticeship in
his own country, and his name had become a household word owing to his
brilliant success as war correspondent in the Russo-Japanese War. His
experience of European countries, however, was limited. After the more
obvious dangers with which he had grappled and which he had overcome
during his adventurous career, he was disposed to be a little
contemptuous of the subtler perils at which his friend Bellamy had
plainly hinted. He had made his escape from the hotel without any very
serious difficulty, and since that time, although he had taken no
particular precautions, he had remained unmolested. From his own point
of view, therefore, it was perhaps only reasonable that he should no
longer have any misgiving as to his personal safety. Arrest as a thief
was the worst which he had feared. Even that he seemed now to have
evaded.

The coupe was exceedingly comfortable and, after all, he had had a
somewhat exciting day. He lit a cigarette and stretched himself out
with a murmur of immense satisfaction. He was close upon the great
triumph of his life. He was perfectly content to lie there and look out
upon the flying landscape, upon which the shadows were now fast
descending. He was safe, absolutely safe, he assured himself.
Nevertheless, when the door of his coupe was opened, he started almost
like a guilty man. The relief in his face as he recognized his visitor
was obvious. It was Bellamy who entered and dropped into a seat by his
side.

“Wasting your time, aren’t you?” the latter remarked, pointing to the
growing heap of cigarettes.

“Well, I guess not,” Dorward answered. “I can smoke this lot before we
reach London.”

Bellamy smiled enigmatically.

“I don’t think that you will,” he said.

“Why not?”

“You are such a sanguine person,” Bellamy sighed. “Personally, I do not
think that there is the slightest chance of your reaching London at
all.”

Dorward laughed scornfully.

“And why not?” he asked.

Bellamy merely shrugged his shoulders. Dorward seemed to find the
gesture irritating.

“You’ve got espionage on the brain, my dear friend,” he declared dryly.
“I suppose it’s the result of your profession. I may not know so much
about Europe as you do, but I am inclined to think that an American
citizen traveling with his passport on a train like this is moderately
safe, especially when he’s not above a scrap by way of taking care of
himself.”

“You’re a plucky fellow,” remarked Bellamy.

“I don’t see any pluck about it. In Vienna, I must admit, I shouldn’t
have been surprised if they’d tried to fake up some sort of charge
against me, but anyhow they didn’t. Guess they’d find it a pretty tall
order trying to interfere with an American citizen.”

Bellamy looked at his friend curiously.

“I suppose you’re not bluffing, by any chance, Dorward?” he said. “You
really believe what you say?”

“Why in thunder shouldn’t I?” Dorward asked.

Bellamy sighed.

“My dear Dorward,” he said, “it is amazing to me that a man of your
experience should talk and behave like a baby. You’ve taken some notice
of your fellow-passengers, I suppose?”

“I’ve seen a few of them,” Dorward answered carelessly. “What about
them?”

“Nothing much,” Bellamy declared, “except that there are, to my certain
knowledge, three high officials of the Secret Police of Austria in the
next coupe but one, and at least four or five of their subordinates
somewhere on board the train.”

Dorward withdrew his cigarette from his mouth and looked at his friend
keenly.

“I guess you’re trying to scare me, Bellamy,” he remarked.

But Bellamy was suddenly grave. There had come into his face an utterly
altered expression. His tone, when he spoke, was almost solemn.

“Dorward,” he said, “upon my honor, I assure you that what I have told
you is the truth. I cannot seem to make you realize the seriousness of
your position. When you left the Palace with that paper in your pocket,
you were, to all intents and purposes, a doomed man. Your passport and
your American citizenship count for absolutely nothing. I have come in
to warn you that if you have any last messages to leave, you had better
give them to me now.”

“This is a pretty good bluff you’re putting up!” Dorward exclaimed
contemptuously. “The long and short of it is, I suppose, that you want
me to break the seal of this document and let you read it.”

Bellamy shook his head.

“It is too late for that, Dorward,” he said. “If the seal were broken,
they’d very soon guess where I came in, and it wouldn’t help the work I
have in hand for me to be picked up with a bullet in my forehead on the
railway track.”

Dorward frowned uneasily.

“What are you here for, anyway, then?” he asked.

“Well, frankly, not to argue with you,” Bellamy answered. “As a matter
of fact, you are of no use to me any longer. I am sorry, old man. You
can’t say that I didn’t give you good advice. I am bound to play for my
own hand, though, in this matter, and if I get any benefit at all out
of my journey, it will be after some regrettable accident has happened
to you.”

“Say, ring the bell for drinks and chuck this!” Dorward exclaimed.
“I’ve had about enough of it. I am not denying anything you say, but if
these fellows really are on board, they’ll think twice before they
meddle with me.”

“On the contrary,” Bellamy assured him, “they will not take the trouble
to think at all. Their minds are perfectly made up as to what they are
going to do. However, that’s finished. I have nothing more to say.”

Dorward gazed for a minute or two fixedly out of the window.

“Look here, Bellamy,” he said, turning abruptly round, “supposing I
change my mind, supposing I open this precious document and let you
read it over with me?”

Bellamy rose hastily to his feet.

“You must not think of it!” he exclaimed. “You would simply write my
death-warrant. Don’t allude to that matter again. I have risked enough
in coming in here to sit with you.”

“Then, for Heaven’s sake, don’t stop any longer!” Dorward said
irritably. “You get on my nerves with all this foolish talk. In an
hour’s time I am going to bolt my door and go to sleep. We’ll breakfast
together in the morning, if you like.”

Bellamy said nothing. The steward had brought them the whiskies and
sodas which Dorward had ordered. Bellamy raised his tumbler to his lips
and set it down again.

“Forgive me,” he said, “I do not think that I am thirsty.”

Dorward drank his off at a gulp. Almost immediately he closed his eyes.
Bellamy, with a little shrug of the shoulders, left him alone. As he
passed along to his own coupe, he met Louise in the corridor.

“You have seen Von Behrling?” he whispered. She nodded.

“He is in that coupe, number 7, alone,” she said. “I invited him to
come in with me but he seemed embarrassed. It is his companions who
watch him all the time. He has promised to talk with me later.”

In the middle of the night, Louise opened her eyes to find Bellamy
bending over her.

“Louise,” he whispered, “it is Von Behrling who will take possession of
the packet. They have been discussing whether it will not be safer to
go on to London instead of doubling back. See Von Behrling again. Do
all you can to persuade him to come to London,—all you can, Louise,
remember.”

“So!” she whispered. “I shall put on my dressing-gown and sit in the
corridor. It is hot here.”

Bellamy glided out, closing the door softly behind him. The train was
rushing on now through the blackness of an unusually dark night. For
some time he sat in his own compartment, listening. The voices whose
muttered conversation he had overheard were silent now, but once he
fancied that he heard shuffling footsteps and a little cry. In his
heart he knew well that before morning Dorward would have disappeared.
The man within him was hard to subdue. He longed to make his way to
Dorward’s side, to interfere in this terribly unequal struggle, yet he
made no movement. Dorward was a man and a friend, but what was a life
more or less? It was to a greater cause that he was pledged. Towards
three o’clock he lay down on his bed and slept....

The train attendant brought him his coffee soon after daylight. The
man’s hands were trembling.

“Where are we?” Bellamy asked sleepily.

“Near Munich, Monsieur,” the man answered. “Monsieur noticed, perhaps,
that we stopped for some time in the night?”

Bellamy shook his head.

“I sleep soundly,” he said. “I heard nothing.”

“There has been an accident,” the man declared. “An American gentleman
who got in at Vienna was drinking whiskey all night and became very
drunk. In a tunnel he threw himself out upon the line.”

Bellamy shuddered a little. He had been prepared, but none the less it
was an awful thing, this.

“You are sure that he is dead?” he asked.

The man was very sure indeed.

“There is a doctor from Vienna upon the train, sir,” he said. “He
examined him at once, but death must have been instantaneous.”

Bellamy drew a long breath and commenced to put on his clothes. The
next move was for him.




CHAPTER V “VON BEHRLING HAS THE PACKET”


Bellamy stole along the half-lit corridors of the train until he came
to the coupé which had been reserved for Mademoiselle Idiale. Assured
that he was not watched, he softly turned the handle of the door and
entered. Louise was sitting up in her dressing-gown, drinking her
coffee. He held up his finger and she greeted him only with a nod.

“Forgive me, Louise,” he whispered, “I dared not knock, and I was
obliged to see you at once.”

She smiled.

“It is of no consequence,” she said. “One is always prepared here. The
porter, the ticket-man, and at the customs—they all enter. Is anything
wrong?”

“It has happened,” he answered.

She shivered a little and her face became grave.

“Poor fellow!” she murmured.

“He simply sat still and asked for it,” Bellamy declared, still
speaking in a cautious undertone. “He would not be warned. I could have
saved him, if any one could, but he would not hear reason.”

“He was what you call pig-headed,” she remarked.

“He has paid the penalty,” Bellamy continued. “Now listen to me,
Louise. I got into that small coupe next to Von Behrling’s, and I feel
sure, from what I overheard, that they will go on to London, all three
of them.”

“Who is there on the train?” she demanded.

“Baron Streuss, who is head of the Secret Police, Von Behrling and
Adolf Kahn,” Bellamy answered. “Then there are four or five Secret
Service men of the rank and file, but they are all traveling
separately. Von Behrling has the packet. The others form a sort of
cordon around him.”

“But why,” she asked, “does he go on to London? Why not return to
Vienna?”

“For one thing,” Bellamy replied, with a grim smile, “they are afraid
of me. Then you must remember that this affair of Dorward will be
talked about. They do not want to seem in any way implicated. To return
from any one of these stations down the line would create suspicion.”

She nodded.

“Well?”

“I am going to leave the train at the next stop,” he continued. “I find
that I shall just catch the Northern Express to Berlin. From there I
shall come on to London as quickly as I can. You know the address of my
rooms?”

She nodded.

“15, Fitzroy Street.”

“When I get there, let me have a line waiting to tell me where I can
see you. While I am on the train you will find Von Behrling almost
inaccessible. Directly I have gone it will be different. Play with him
carefully. He should not be difficult. To tell you the truth, I am
rather surprised that he has been trusted upon a mission like this. He
was in disgrace with the Chancellor a short while ago, and I know that
he was hurt at not being allowed to attend the conference. The others
will watch him closely, but they cannot overhear everything that passes
between you two. Von Behrling is a poor man. You will know how to make
him wish he were rich.”

Very slowly her eyebrows rose up. She looked at him doubtfully.

“It is a slender chance, David,” she remarked. “Von Behrling is a
little wild, I know, and he pretends to be very much in love with me,
but I do not think that he would sell his country. Then, too, see how
he will be watched. I do not suppose that they will leave us alone for
a moment.”

Bellamy took her hands in his, gripping them with almost unnatural
force.

“Louise,” he declared earnestly, “you don’t quite realize Von
Behrling’s special weakness and your extraordinary strength. You know
that you are beautiful, I suppose, but you do not quite know what that
means. I have heard men talk about you till one would think that they
were children. You have something of that art or guile—call it what you
will—which passes from you through a man’s blood to his brain, and
carries him indeed to Heaven—but carries him there mad. Louise, don’t
be angry with me for what I say. Remember that I know my sex. I know
you, too, and I trust you, but you can turn Von Behrling from a sane,
honorable man into what you will, without suffering even his lips to
touch your fingers. Von Behrling has that packet in his possession.
When I come to see you in London, I will bring you twenty thousand
pounds in Bank of England notes. With that Von Behrling might fancy
himself on his way to America—with you.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. Perhaps she wished to keep hidden
from him the thoughts which chased one another through her brain. He
wished to make use of her—of her, the woman whom he loved. Then she
remembered that it was for her country and his, and the anger passed.

“But I am afraid,” she said softly, “that the moment they reach London
this document will be taken to the Austrian Embassy.”

“Before then,” Bellamy declared, “Von Behrling must not know whether he
is in heaven or upon earth. It will not be opened in London. He can
make up another packet to resemble precisely the one of which he robbed
Dorward. Oh! it is a difficult game, I know, but it is worth playing.
Remember, Louise, that we are not petty conspirators. It is your
country’s very existence that is threatened. It is for her sake as well
as for England.”

“I shall do my best,” she murmured, looking into his face. “Oh, you may
be sure that I shall do my best!”

Bellamy raised her fingers to his lips and stole away. The electric
lamps had been turned out, but the morning was cloudy and the light
dim. Back in his own berth, he put his things together, ready to leave
at Munich. Then he rang for the porter.

“I am getting out at the next stop,” he announced.

“Very good, Monsieur,” the man answered.

Bellamy looked at him closely.

“You are a Frenchman?”

“It is so, Monsieur!”

“I may be wrong,” Bellamy continued slowly, “but I believe that if I
asked you a question and it concerned some Germans and Austrians you
would tell me the truth.”

The man’s gesture was inimitable. Englishmen to him were obviously the
salt of the earth. Germans and Austrians—why, they existed as the
cattle in the fields—nothing more. Bellamy gave him a sovereign.

“There were three Austrians who got in at Vienna,” he said. “They are
in numbers ten and eleven.”

“But yes, Monsieur!” the man assented. “As yet I think they are fast
asleep. Not one of them has rung for his coffee.”

“Where are they booked for?”

“For London, Monsieur.”

“You do not happen,” Bellamy continued, “to have heard them say
anything about leaving the train before then?”

“On the contrary, sir,” the porter answered, “two of the gentlemen have
been inquiring about the boat across to Dover. They were very anxious
to travel by a turbine.”

Bellamy nodded.

“Thank you very much. You will be so discreet as to forget that I have
asked you any questions concerning them. As for me, if one would know,
I am on my way to Berlin.”

The bell rang. The man looked outside and put his head once more in
Bellamy’s coupe.

“It is one of the gentleman who has rung,” he declared. “If anything is
said about leaving the train, I shall report it at once to Monsieur.”

“You will do well,” Bellamy answered.

The porter returned in a few moments.

“Two of the gentlemen, sir,” he announced, “are undressed and in their
pyjamas. They have ordered their breakfast to be served after we leave
Munich.”

Bellamy nodded.

“Further, sir,” the man continued, coming a little closer, “one of them
asked me whether the English gentleman—meaning you—was going through to
London or not. I told them that you were getting out at the next
station and that I thought you were going to Berlin.”

“Quite right,” Bellamy said. “If they ask any more questions, let me
know.”

Mademoiselle Idiale, with the aid of one of the two maids who were
traveling with her, was able to make a sufficiently effective toilette.
At a few minutes before the time for luncheon, she walked down the
corridor and recognized Von Behrling, who was sitting with his
companions in one of the compartments.

“Ah, it is indeed you, then!” she exclaimed, smiling at him.

He rose to his feet and came out. Tall, with a fair moustache and blue
eyes, he was often taken for an Englishman and was inclined to be proud
of the fact.

“You have rested well, I trust, Mademoiselle?” he asked, bowing low
over her fingers.

“Excellently,” replied Louise. “Will you not take me in to luncheon?
The car is full of men and I am not comfortable alone. It is not
pleasant, either, to eat with one’s maids.”

“I am honored,” he declared. “Will you permit me for one moment?”

He turned and spoke to his companions. Louise saw at once that they
were protesting vigorously. She saw, too, that Von Behrling only became
more obstinate and that he was very nearly angry. She moved a few steps
on down the corridor, and stood looking out of the window. He joined
her almost immediately.

“Come,” he said, “they will be serving luncheon in five minutes. We
will go and take a good place.”

“Your friends, I am afraid,” she remarked, “did not like your leaving
them. They are not very gallant.”

“To me it is indifferent,” he answered, fiercely twirling his
moustache. “Streuss there is an old fool. He has always some fancy in
his brain.”

Louise raised her eyebrows slightly.

“You are your own master, I suppose,” she said. “The Baron is used to
command his policemen, and sometimes he forgets. There are many people
who find him too autocratic.”

“He means well,” Von Behrling asserted. “It is his manner only which is
against him.”

They found a comfortable table, and she sat smiling at him across the
white cloth.

“If this is not Sachers,” she said, “it is at least more pleasant than
lunching alone.”

“I can assure you, Mademoiselle,” he declared, with a vigorous twirl of
his moustache, “that I find it so.”

“Always gallant,” she murmured. “Tell me, is it true of you—the news
which I heard just before I left Vienna? Have you really resigned your
post with the Chancellor?”

“You heard that?” he asked slowly.

She hesitated for a moment.

“I heard something of the sort,” she admitted. “To be quite candid with
you, I think it was reported that the Chancellor was making a change on
his own account.”

“So that is what they say, is it? What do they know about it—these
gossipers?”

“You were not allowed at the conference yesterday,” she remarked.

“No one was allowed there, so that goes for nothing.”

“Ah! well,” she said, looking meditatively out upon the landscape, “a
year ago the thought of that conference would have driven me wild. I
should not have been content until I had learned somehow or other what
had transpired. Lately, I am afraid, my interest in my country seems to
have grown a trifle cold. Perhaps because I have lived in Vienna I have
learned to look at things from your point of view. Then, too, the world
is a selfish place, and our own little careers are, after all, the most
important part of it.”

Von Behrling eyed her curiously.

“It seems strange to hear you talk like this,” he remarked.

She looked out of the window for a moment.

“Oh! I still love my country, in a way,” she answered, “and I still
hate all Austrians, in a way, but it is not as it used to be with me, I
must admit. If we had two lives, I would give one to my country and
keep one for myself. Since we have only one, I am afraid, after all,
that I am human, and I want to taste some of its pleasures.”

“Some of its pleasures,” Von Behrling repeated, a little gloomily. “Ah,
that is easy enough for you, Mademoiselle!”

“Not so easy as it may appear,” she answered. “One needs many things to
get the best out of life. One needs wealth and one needs love, and one
needs them while one is young, while one can enjoy.”

“It is true,” Von Behrling admitted,—“quite true.”

“If one is not careful,” she continued, “one lets the years slip by.
They can never come again. If one does not live while one is young,
there is no other chance.”

Von Behrling assented with renewed gloom. He was twenty-five years old,
and his income barely paid for his uniforms. Of late, this fact had
materially interfered with his enjoyments.

“It is strange,” he said, “that you should talk like this. You have the
world at your feet, Mademoiselle. You have only to throw the
handkerchief.”

Her lips parted in a dazzling smile. The bluest eyes in the world grew
softer as they looked into his. Von Behrling felt his cheeks burn.

“My friend, it is not so easy,” she murmured. “Tell me,” she continued,
“why it is that you have so little self-confidence. Is it because you
are poor?”

“I am a beggar,”—bitterly.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Well,” she said, glancing down the menu which the waiter had brought,
“if you are poor and content to remain so, one must presume that you
have compensations.”

“But I have none!” he declared. “You should know that—you,
Mademoiselle. Life for me means one thing and one thing only!”

She looked at him, for a moment, and down upon the tablecloth. Von
Behrling shook like a man in the throes of some great passion.

“We talk too intimately,” she whispered, as the people began to file in
to take their places. “After luncheon we will take our coffee in my
coupe. Then, if you like, we will speak of these matters. I have a
headache. Will you order me some champagne? It is a terrible thing, I
know, to drink wine in the morning, but when one travels, what can one
do? Here come your bodyguard. They look at me as though I had stolen
you away. Remember we take our coffee together afterwards. I am bored
with so much traveling, and I look to you to amuse me.”

Von Behrling’s journey was, after all, marked with sharp contrasts. The
kindness of the woman whom he adored was sufficient in itself to have
transported him into a seventh heaven. On the other hand, he had
trouble with his friends. Streuss drew him on one side at Ostend, and
talked to him plainly.

“Von Behrling,” he said, “I speak to you on behalf of Kahn and myself.
Wine and women and pleasure are good things. We two, we love them,
perhaps, as you do, but there is a place and a time for them, and it is
not now. Our mission is too serious.”

“Well, well!” Von Behrling exclaimed impatiently, “what is all this?
What do I do wrong? What have you to say against me? If I talk with
Mademoiselle Idiale, it is because it is the natural thing for me to
do. Would you have us three—you and Kahn and myself—travel arm in arm
and speak never a word to our fellow passengers? Would you have us
proclaim to all the world that we are on a secret mission, carrying a
secret document, to obtain which we have already committed a crime?
These are old-fashioned methods, Streuss. It is better that we behave
like ordinary mortals. You talk foolishly, Streuss!”

“It is you,” the older man declared, “who play the fool, and we will
not have it! Mademoiselle Idiale is a Servian and a patriot. She is the
friend, too, of Bellamy, the Englishman. She and he were together last
night.”

“Bellamy is not even on the train,” Von Behrling protested. “He went
north to Berlin. That itself is the proof that they know nothing. If he
had had the merest suspicion, do you not think that he would have
stayed with us?”

“Bellamy is very clever,” Streuss answered. “There are too many of us
to deal with,—he knew that. Mademoiselle Idiale is clever, too.
Remember that half the trouble in life has come about through false
women.

“What is it that you want?” Von Behrling demanded.

“That you travel the rest of the way with us, and speak no more with
Mademoiselle.”

Von Behrling drew himself up. After all, it was he who was noble;
Streuss was little more than a policeman.

“I refuse!” he exclaimed. “Let me remind you, Streuss, that I am in
charge of this expedition. It was I who planned it. It was I”—he
dropped his voice and touched his chest—“who struck the first blow for
its success. I think that we need talk no more,” he went on. “I welcome
your companionship. It makes for strength that we travel together. But
for the rest, the enterprise has been mine, the success so far has been
mine, and the termination of it shall be mine. Watch me, if you like.
Stay with me and see that I am not robbed, if you fear that I am not
able to take care of myself, but do not ask me to behave like an
idiot.”

Von Behrling stepped away quickly. The siren was already blowing from
the steamer.




CHAPTER VI VON BEHRLING IS TEMPTED


The night was dark but fine, and the crossing smooth. Louise, wrapped
in furs, abandoned her private cabin directly they had left the harbor,
and had a chair placed on the upper deck. Von Behrling found her there,
but not before they were nearly half-way across. She beckoned him to
her side. Her eyes glowed at him through the darkness.

“You are not looking after me, my friend,” she declared. “By myself I
had to find this place.”

Von Behrling was ruffled. He was also humbly apologetic.

“It is those idiots who are with me,” he said. “All the time they
worry.”

She laughed and drew him down so that she could whisper in his ear.

“I know what it is,” she said. “You have secrets which you are taking
to London, and they are afraid of me because I am a Servian. Tell me,
is it not so? Perhaps, even, they think that I am a spy.”

Von Behrling hesitated. She drew him closer towards her.

“Sit down on the deck,” she continued, “and lean against the rail. You
are too big to talk to up there. So! Now you can come underneath my
rug. Tell me, are they afraid of me, your friends?”

[Illustration]

“Is it without reason?” he asked. “Would not any one be afraid of
you—if, indeed, they believed that you wished to know our secrets? I
wonder if there is a man alive whom you could not turn round your
little finger.”

She laughed at him softly.

“Ah, no!” she said. “Men are not like that, nowadays. They talk and
they talk, but it is not much they would do for a woman’s sake.”

“You believe that?” he asked, in a low tone.

“I do, indeed. One reads love-stories—no, I do not mean romances, but
memoirs—memoirs of the French and Austrian Courts—memoirs, even,
written by Englishmen. Men were different a generation ago. Honor was
dear to them then, honor and position and wealth, and yet there were
many, very many then who were willing to give all these things for the
love of a woman.

“And do you think there are none now?” he whispered hoarsely.

“My friend,” she answered, looking down at him, “I think that there are
very few.”

She heard his breath come fast between his teeth, and she realized his
state of excitement.

“Mademoiselle Louise,” he said, “my love for you has made me a
laughing-stock in the clubs of Vienna. I—the poverty-stricken, who have
nothing but a noble name, nothing to offer you—have dared to show
others what I think, have dared to place you in my heart above all the
women on earth.”

“It is very nice of you,” she murmured. “Why do you tell me this now?”

“Why, indeed?” he answered. “What have I to hope for?”

She looked along the deck. Not a dozen yards away, two cigar ends
burned red through the gloom. She knew very well that those cigar ends
belonged to Streuss and his friend. She laughed softly and once more
she bent her head.

“How they watch you, those men!” she said. “Listen, my friend Rudolph.
Supposing their fears were true, supposing I were really a spy,
supposing I offered you wealth and with it whatever else you might
claim from me, for the secret which you carry to England!”

“How do you know that I am carrying a secret?” he asked hoarsely.

She laughed.

“My friend,” she said, “with your two absurd companions shadowing you
all the time and glowering at me, how could one possibly doubt it? The
Baron Streuss is, I believe, the Chief of your Secret Service
Department, is he not? To me he seems the most obvious policeman I ever
saw dressed as a gentleman.”

“You don’t mean it!” he muttered. “You can’t mean what you said just
now!”

She was silent for a few moments. Some one passing struck a match, and
she caught a glimpse of the white face of the man who sat by her
side—strained now and curiously intense.

“Supposing I did!”

“You must be mad!” he declared. “You must not talk to me like this,
Mademoiselle. I have no secret. It is your humor, I know, but it is
dangerous.”

“There is no danger,” she murmured, “for we are alone. I say again,
Rudolph, supposing this were true?”

His hand passed across his forehead. She fancied that he made a motion
as though to rise to his feet, but she laid her hand upon his.

“Stay here,” she whispered. “No, I do not wish to drive you away. Now
you are here you shall listen to me.”

“But you are not in earnest!” he faltered. “Don’t tell me that you are
in earnest. It is treason. I am Rudolph Von Behrling, Secretary to the
Chancellor.”

Again she leaned towards him so that he could see into her eyes.

“Rudolph,” she said, “you are indeed Rudolph Von Behrling, you are
indeed the Chancellor’s secretary. What do you gain from it? A
pittance! Many hours work a day and a pittance. What have you to look
forward to? A little official life, a stupid official position.
Rudolph, here am I, and there is the world. Do I not represent other
things?”

“God knows you do!” he muttered.

“I, too, am weary of singing. I want a long rest—a long rest and a
better name than my own. Don’t shrink away from me. It isn’t so
wonderful, after all. Bellamy, the Englishman, came to me a few hours
ago. He was Dorward’s friend. He knew well what Dorward carried. It was
not his affair, he told me, and interposition from him was hopeless,
but he knew that you and I were friends.”

“You must stop!” Von Behrling declared. “You must stop! I must not
listen to this!”

“He offered me twenty thousand pounds,” she went on, “for the packet in
your pocket. Think of that, my friend. It would be a start in life,
would it not? I am an extravagant woman. Even if I would, I dared not
think of a poor man. But twenty thousand pounds is sufficient. When I
reach London, I am going to a flat which has been waiting for me for
weeks—15, Dover Street. If you bring that packet to me instead of
taking it to the Austrian Embassy, there will be twenty thousand pounds
and—”

Her fingers suddenly held his. She could almost hear his heart beating.
Her eyes, by now accustomed to the gloom, could see the tumult which
was passing within the man, reflected in his face. She whispered a
warning under her breath. The two cigar ends had moved nearer. The
forms of the two men were now distinct. One was leaning over the side
of the ship by Von Behrling’s side. The other stood a few feet away,
gazing at the lights of Dover. Von Behrling staggered to his feet. He
said something in an angry undertone to Streuss. Louise rose and shook
out her furs.

“My friend,” she said, turning to Von Behrling, “if your friends can
spare you so long, will you fetch one of my maids? You will find them
both in my cabin, number three. I wish to walk for a few moments before
we arrive.”

Von Behrling turned away like a man in a dream. Mademoiselle Idiale
followed him slowly, and behind her came Von Behrling’s companions.

The details of the great singer’s journey had been most carefully
planned by an excited manager who had received the telegram announcing
her journey to London. There was an engaged carriage at Dover, into
which she was duly escorted by a representative of the Opera Syndicate,
who had been sent down from London to receive her. Von Behrling seemed
to be missing. She had seen nothing of him since he had descended to
summon her maids. But just as the train was starting, she heard the
sound of angry voices, and a moment later his white face was pressed
through the open window of the carriage.

“Louise,” he muttered, “I am on fire! I cannot talk to you! I fear that
they suspect something. They have told me that if I travel with you
they will force their way in. Even now, Streuss comes. Listen for your
telephone to-night or whenever I can. I must think—I must think!”

He passed on, and Louise, leaning back in her seat, closed her eyes.




CHAPTER VII “WE PLAY FOR GREAT STAKES”


Bellamy, travel-stained and weary, arrived at his rooms at two o’clock
on the following afternoon to find amongst a pile of correspondence a
penciled message awaiting him in a handwriting he knew well. He tore
open the envelope.

DAVID DEAR,—I have just arrived and I am sending you these few lines at
once. As to what progress I have made, I cannot say for certain, but
there is a chance. You had better get the money ready and come to me
here. If R. could only escape from Streuss and those who watch him all
the time, I should be quite sure, but they are suspicious. What may
happen I cannot tell. I do my best and I have hated it. Get the money
ready and come to me.


LOUISE.


Bellamy drew a little breath and tore the note into pieces. Then he
rang for his servant. “A bath and some clean clothes quickly,” he
ordered. “While I am changing, ring up Downing Street and see if Sir
James is there. If not, find out exactly where he is. I must see him
within half an hour. Afterwards, get me a taxicab.”

The man obeyed with the swift efficiency of the thoroughly trained
servant. In rather less than the time which he had stated, Bellamy had
left his rooms. Before four o’clock he had arrived at the address which
Louise had given him. A commissionaire telephoned his name to the first
floor, and in a very few moments a pale-faced French man-servant, in
sombre black livery, descended and bowed to Bellamy.

“Monsieur will be so good as to come this way,” he directed.

Bellamy followed him into the lift, which stopped at the first floor.
He was ushered into a small boudoir, already smothered with roses.

“Mademoiselle will be here immediately,” the man announced. “She is
engaged with a gentleman from the Opera, but she will leave him to
receive Monsieur.”

Bellamy nodded.

“Pray let Mademoiselle understand,” he said, “that I am entirely at her
service. My time is of no consequence.”

The man bowed and withdrew. Louise came to him almost directly from an
inner chamber. She was wearing a loose gown, but the fatigue of her
journey seemed already to have passed away. Her eyes were bright, and a
faint color glowed in her cheeks.

“David,” she exclaimed, “thank Heaven that you are here!”

She took both his hands and held them for a moment. Then she walked to
the door, made sure that it was securely fastened, and stood there
listening for a moment.

“I suppose I am foolish,” she said, coming back to him, “and yet I
cannot help fancying that I am being watched on every side since we
landed in England. I detest my new manager, and I don’t trust any of
the servants he has engaged for me. You got my note?”

“Yes,” he answered, “I had your note—and I am here.”

The restraint of his manner was obvious. He was standing a little away
from her. She came suddenly up to him, her hands fell upon his
shoulders, her face was upturned to his. Even then he made no motion to
embrace her.

“David,” she whispered softly, “what I am doing—what I have done—was at
your suggestion. I do it for you, I do it for my country, I do it
against every natural feeling I possess. I hate and loathe the lies I
tell. Are you remembering that? Is it in your heart at this moment?”

He stooped and kissed her.

“Forgive me,” he said, “it is I who am to blame, but I am only human.
We play for great stakes, Louise, but sometimes one forgets.”

“As I live,” she murmured, “the kiss you gave me last is still upon my
lips. What I have promised goes for nothing. What he has promised is
this—the papers to-night.”

“Unopened?”

“Unopened,” she repeated, softly.

“But how is it to be done?” Bellamy asked. “He must have arrived in
London when you did last night. How is it they are not already at the
Embassy?”

“The Ambassador was commanded to Cowes,” she explained. “He cannot be
back until late to-night. No one else has a key to the treaty safe, and
Von Behrling declined to give up the document to any one save the
Ambassador himself.”

Bellamy nodded.

“What about Streuss?”

“Streuss and the others are all furious,” Louise said. “Yet, after all,
Behrling has a certain measure of right on his side. His orders were to
see with his own eyes this envelope deposited in the safe by the
Ambassador himself.”

“He returns to-night!” Bellamy exclaimed quickly.

She nodded.

“Before he comes,” she declared, “I think that the document will be in
your hands.”

“How is it to be done?”

“The report is written,” she explained, “on five pages of foolscap.
They are contained in a long envelope, scaled with the Chancellor’s
crest. Von Behrling, being one of the family, has the same crest. He
has prepared another envelope, the same size and weight, and signed it
with his seal. It is this which he will hand over to the Ambassador if
he should return unexpectedly. The real one he has concealed.”

“Is he here?” Bellamy inquired.

“Thank Heavens, no!” she answered. “My dear David, what are you
thinking of? He is not here and he dare not come here. You are to go to
your rooms,” she added, glancing at the clock, “and between five and
six o’clock this evening you will be rung up on the telephone. A
rendezvous will be given you for later on to-night. You must take the
money there and receive the packet. Von Behrling will be disguised and
prepared for flight.”

Bellamy’s eyes glowed.

“You believe this?” he exclaimed.

“I believe it,” she replied. “He is going to do it. After he has seen
you, he will make his way to Plymouth. I have promised—don’t look at
me, David—I have promised to join him there.”

Bellamy was grave.

“There will be trouble,” he said. “He will come back. He will want to
shoot you. He may be slow-witted in some things, but he is passionate.”

“Am I a coward?” she asked, with a scornful laugh. “Have I ever shown
fear of my life? No, David! It is not that of which I am afraid. It is
the memory of the man’s touch, it is the look which was in your face
when you came into the room. These are the things I fear—not death.”

Bellamy drew her into his arms and kissed her.

“Forgive me,” he begged. “At such times a man is a weak thing—a weak
and selfish thing. I am ashamed of myself. I should have known better
than to have doubted you for a moment. I know you so well, Louise. I
know what you are.”

She smiled.

“Dear,” she said, “you have made me happy. And now you must go away.
Remember that these few minutes are only an interlude. Over here I am
Mademoiselle Idiale who sings to-night at Covent Garden. See my roses.
There are two rooms full of reporters and photographers in the place
now. The leader of the orchestra is in my bedroom, and two of the
directors are drinking whiskies and sodas with this new manager of mine
in the dining-room. Between five and six o’clock this afternoon you
will get the message. It is somewhere, I think, in the city that you
will have to go. There will be no trouble about the money? Nothing but
notes or gold will be of any use.”

“I have it in my pocket,” he answered. “I have it in notes, but he need
never fear that they will be traced. The numbers of notes given for
Secret Service purposes are expunged from every one’s memory.”

She drew a little sigh.

“It is a great sum,” she said. “After all, he should be grateful to me.
If only he would be sensible and get away to the United States or to
South America! He could live there like a prince, poor fellow. He would
be far happier.”

“I only hope that he will go,” Bellamy agreed. “There is one thing to
be remembered. If he does not go, if he stays for twenty-four hours in
this country, I do not believe that he will live to do you harm. The
men who are with him are not the sort to stop short at trifles. Besides
Streuss and Kahn, they have a regular army of spies at their bidding
here. If they find out that he has tricked them, they will hunt him
down, and before long.”

Louise shivered.

“Oh, I hope,” she exclaimed, “that he gets away! He is a traitor, of
course, but he is a traitor to a hateful cause, and, after all, I think
it is less for the money than for my sake that he does it. That sounds
very conceited, I suppose,” she added, with a faint smile. “Ah! well,
you see, for five years so many have been trying to turn my head. No
wonder if I begin to believe some of their stories. David, I must go. I
must not keep Dr. Henschell waiting any longer.”

“To-morrow,” he said, “to-morrow early I shall come. I am afraid I
shall miss your first appearance in England, Louise.”

The sound of a violin came floating out from the inner room.

“That is my signal,” she declared smiling. “Dr. Henschell was almost
beside himself that I came away. I come, Doctor,” she called out.
“David, good fortune!” she added, giving him her hands. “Now go, dear.”




CHAPTER VIII THE HAND OF MISFORTUNE


Between the two men, seated opposite each other in the large but
somewhat barely furnished office, the radical differences, both in
appearance and mannerisms, perhaps, also, in disposition, had never
been more strongly evident. They were partners in business and face to
face with ruin. Stephen Laverick, senior member of the firm, although
an air of steadfast gloom had settled upon his clean-cut, powerful
countenance, retained even in despair something of that dogged
composure, temperamental and wholly British, which had served him well
along the road to fortune. Arthur Morrison, the man who sat on the
other side of the table, a Jew to his finger-tips notwithstanding his
altered name, sat like a broken thing, with tears in his terrified
eyes, disordered hair, and parchment-pale face. Words had flown from
his lips in a continual stream. He floundered in his misery, sobbed
about it like a child. The hand of misfortune had stripped him naked,
and one man, at least, saw him as he really was.

“I can’t stand it, Laverick,—I couldn’t face them all. It’s too
cruel—too horrible! Eighteen thousand pounds gone in one week, forty
thousand in a month! Forty thousand pounds! Oh, my God!”

He writhed in agony. The man on the other side of the table said
nothing.

“If we could only have held on a little longer! ‘Unions’ must turn!
They will turn! Laverick, have you tried all your friends? Think! Have
you tried them all? Twenty thousand pounds would see us through it. We
should get our own money back—I am sure of it. There’s Rendell,
Laverick. He’d do anything for you. You’re always shooting or playing
cricket with him. Have you asked him, Laverick? He’d never miss the
money.”

“You and I see things differently, Morrison,” Laverick answered.
“Nothing would induce me to borrow money from a friend.”

“But at a time like this,” Morrison pleaded passionately. “Every one
does it sometimes. He’d be glad to help you. I know he would. Have you
ever thought what it will be like, Laverick, to be hammered?”

“I have,” Laverick admitted wearily. “God knows it seems as terrible a
thing to me as it can to you! But if we go down, we must go down with
clean hands. I’ve no faith in your infernal market, and not one penny
will I borrow from a friend.”

The Jew’s face was almost piteous. He stretched himself across the
table. There were genuine tears in his eyes.

“Laverick,” he said, “old man, you’re wrong. I know you think I’ve been
led away. I’ve taken you out of our depth, but the only trouble has
been that we haven’t had enough capital, and no backing. Those who
stand up will win. They will make money.”

“Unfortunately,” Laverick remarked, “we cannot stand up. Please
understand that I will not discuss this matter with you in any way. I
will not borrow money from Rendell or any friend. I have asked the bank
and I have asked Pages, who will be our largest creditors. To help us
would simply be a business proposition, so far as they are concerned.
As you know, they have refused. If you see any hope in that direction,
why don’t you try some of your own friends? For every one man I know in
the House, you have seemed to be bosom friends with at least twenty.”

Morrison groaned.

“Those I know are not that sort of friend,” he answered. “They will
drink with you and spend a night out or a week-end at Brighton, but
they do not lend money. If they would, do you think I would mind
asking? Why, I would go on my knees to any man who would lend us the
money. I would even kiss his feet. I cannot bear it, Laverick! I
cannot! I cannot!”

Laverick said nothing. Words were useless things, wasted upon such a
creature. He eyed his partner with a contempt which he took no pains to
conceal. This, then, was the smart young fellow recommended to him on
all sides, a few years ago, as one of the shrewdest young men in his
own particular department, a person bound to succeed, a money-maker if
ever there was one! Laverick thought of him as he appeared at the
office day by day, glossy and immaculately dressed, with a flower in
his buttonhole, boots that were a trifle too shiny, hat and coat,
gloves and manner, all imitation but all very near the real thing. What
a collapse!

“You’re going to stay and see it through?” he whined across the table.

“Certainly,” Laverick answered.

The young man buried his face in his hands.

“I can’t! I can’t!” he moaned. “I couldn’t bear seeing all the fellows,
hearing them whisper things—oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!... Laverick, we’ve a
few hundreds left. Give me something and let me out of it. You’re a
stronger sort of man than I am. You can face it,—I can’t! Give me
enough to get abroad with, and if ever I do any good I’ll remember it,
I will indeed.”

Laverick was silent for a moment. His companion watched his face
eagerly. After all, why not let him go? He was no help, no comfort. The
very sight of him was contemptible.

“I have paid no money into the bank for several days,” Laverick said
slowly. “When they refused to help us, it was, of course, obvious that
they guessed how things were.”

“Quite right, quite right!” the young man interrupted feverishly. “They
would have stuck to it against the overdraft. How much have we got in
the safe?”

“This afternoon,” Laverick continued, “I changed all our cheques. You
can count the proceeds for yourself. There are, I think, eleven hundred
pounds. You can take two hundred and fifty, and you can take them with
you—to any place you like.”

The young man was already at the safe. The notes were between them, on
the table. He counted quickly with the fingers of a born manipulator of
money. When he had gathered up two hundred and fifty pounds, Laverick’s
hand fell upon his.

“No more,” he ordered sternly.

“But, my dear fellow,” Morrison protested, “half of eleven hundred is
five hundred and fifty. Why should we not go halves? That is only fair,
Laverick. It is little enough. We ought to have had a great deal more.”

Laverick pushed him contemptuously away and locked up the remainder of
the notes.

“I am letting you take two hundred and fifty pounds of this money,” he
said, “for various reasons. For one, I can bear this thing better
alone. As for the rest of the money, it remains there for the
accountant who liquidates our affairs. I do not propose to touch a
penny of it.”

The young man buttoned up his coat with an hysterical little laugh.
Such ways were not his ways. They were not, indeed, within the limit of
his understanding. But of his partner he had learned one thing, at
least. The word of Stephen Laverick was the word of truth. He shambled
toward the door. On the whole, he was lucky to have got the two hundred
and fifty pounds.

“So long, Laverick,” he said from the door. “I’m—I’m sorry.”

It was characteristic of him that he did not venture to offer his hand.
Laverick nodded, not unkindly. After all, this young man was as he had
been made.

“I wish you good luck, Morrison,” he said. “Try South Africa.”




CHAPTER IX ROBBING THE DEAD


The roar of the day was long since over. The rattle of vehicles, the
tinkling of hansom bells, the tooting of horns from motor-cars and
cabs, the ceaseless tramp of footsteps, all had died away. Outside, the
streets were almost deserted. An occasional wayfarer passed along the
flagged pavement with speedy footsteps. Here and there a few lights
glimmered at the windows of some of the larger blocks of offices. The
bustle of the day was finished. There is no place in London so
strangely quiet as the narrow thoroughfares of the city proper when the
hour approaches midnight.

Laverick, who since his partner’s departure had been studying with
infinite care his private ledger, closed it at last with a little snap
and leaned back in his chair. After all, save that he had got rid of
Morrison, it had been a wasted evening. Not even he, whose financial
astuteness no man had ever questioned, could raise from those piles of
figures any other answer save the one inevitable one, the knowledge of
which had been like a black nightmare stalking by his side for the last
thirty-six hours. One by one during the evening his clerks had left
him, and it was a proof not only of his wonderful self-control but also
of the confidence which he invariably inspired, that not a single one
of them had the slightest idea how things were. Not a soul knew that
the firm of Laverick & Morrison was already practically derelict, that
they had on the morrow twenty-five thousand pounds to find, neither
credit nor balance at their bankers, and eight hundred and fifty pounds
in the safe.

Laverick, haggard from his long vigil, locked up his books at last,
turned out the lights, and locking the doors behind him walked into the
silent street. Instinctively he turned his steps westwards. This might
well be the last night on which he would care to show himself in his
accustomed haunts, the last night on which he could mix with his
fellows freely, and without that terrible sense of consciousness which
follows upon disaster. Already there was little enough left of it. It
was too late to change and go to his club. The places of amusement were
already closed. To-morrow night, both club and theatres would lie
outside his world. He walked slowly, yet he had scarcely taken, in
fact, a dozen steps when, with a purely mechanical impulse, he paused
by a stone-flagged entry to light a cigarette. It was a passage, almost
a tunnel for a few yards, leading to an open space, on one side of
which was an old churchyard—strange survival in such a part—and on the
other the offices of several firms of stockbrokers, a Russian banker,
an actuary. It was the barest of impulses which led him to glance up
the entry before he blew out the match. Then he gave a quick start and
became for a moment paralyzed. Within a few feet of him something was
lying on the ground—a dark mass, black and soft—the body of a man,
perhaps. Just above it, a pair of eyes gleamed at him through the
semi-darkness.

Laverick at first had no thought of tragedy. It might be a tramp or a
drunkard, perhaps,—a fight, or a man taken ill. Then something sinister
about the light of those burning eyes set his heart beating faster. He
struck another match with firm fingers, and bent forward. What he saw
upon the ground made him feel a little sick. What he saw racing away
down the passage prompted him to swift pursuit. Down the arched court
into the open space he ran, himself an athlete, but mocked by the
swiftness of the shadowlike form which he pursued. At the end was
another street—empty. He looked up and down, seeking in vain for any
signs of life. There was nothing to tell him which way to turn.
Opposite was a very labyrinth of courts and turnings. There was not
even the sound of a footfall to guide him. Slowly he retraced his
steps, lit another match, and leaned over the prostrate figure. Then he
knew that it was a tragedy indeed upon which he had stumbled.

The man was dead, and he had met with his death by unusual means. These
were the first two things of which Laverick assured himself. Without
any doubt, a savage and a terrible crime had been committed. A
hornhandled knife of unusual length had been driven up to the hilt
through the heart of the murdered man. There had been other blows,
notably about the head. There was not much blood, but the position of
the knife alone told its ugly story. Laverick, though his nerves were
of the strongest, felt his head swim as he looked. He rose to his feet
and walked to the opening of the passage, gasping. The street was no
longer empty.

About thirty yards away, looking westwards, a man was standing in the
middle of the road. The light from the lamp-post escaped his face.
Laverick could only see that he was slim, of medium height, dressed in
dark clothes, with his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. To all
appearance, he was watching the entry. Laverick took a step towards
him—the man as deliberately took a step further away. Laverick held up
his hand.

“Hullo!” he called out, and beckoned.

The person addressed took no notice. Laverick advanced another two or
three steps—the man retreated a similar distance. Laverick changed his
tactics and made a sudden spring forward. The man hesitated no
longer—he turned and ran as though for his life. In a few minutes he
was round the corner of the street and out of sight. Laverick returned
slowly to the entry.

A distant clock struck midnight. A couple of clerks came along the
pavement on the other side, their hands and arms full of letters.
Laverick hesitated. He was never afterwards able to account for the
impulse which prevented his calling out to them. Instead he lurked in
the shadows and watched them go by. When he was sure that they had
disappeared, he bent once more over the body of the murdered man.
Already that huddled-up heap was beginning to exercise a nameless and
terrible fascination for him. His first feelings of horror were mingled
now with an insatiable curiosity. What manner of man was he? He was
tall and strongly built; fair—of almost florid complexion. His clothes
were very shabby and apparently ready-made. His moustache was upturned,
and his hair was trimmed closer than is the custom amongst Englishmen.
Laverick stooped lower and lower until he found himself almost on his
knees. There was something projecting from the man’s pocket as though
it had been half snatched out—a large portfolio of brown leather,
almost the size of a satchel. Laverick drew it out, holding it in one
hand whilst with firm fingers he struck another match. Then, for the
first time, a little cry broke from his lips. Both sides of the
pocket-book were filled with bank-notes. As his match flickered out, he
caught a glimpse of the figures in the left-hand corner—500
pounds!—great rolls of them! Laverick rose gasping to his feet. It was
a new Arabian Nights, this!—a dream!—a continuation of the nightmare
which had threatened him all day! Or was it, perhaps, the madness
coming—the madness which he had begun only an hour or so ago to fear!

He walked into the gaslit streets and looked up and down. The
mysterious stranger had vanished. There was not a soul in sight. He
clutched the rough stone wall with his hands, he kicked the pavement
with his heels. There was no doubt about it—everything around him was
real. Most real of all was the fact that within a few feet of him lay a
murdered man, and that in his hands was that brown leather pocket-book
with its miraculous contents. For the last time Laverick retraced his
steps and bent over that huddled-up shape. One by one he went through
the other pockets. There was a packet of Russian cigarettes; an empty
card-case of chased silver, and obviously of foreign workmanship; a
cigarette holder stained with much use, but of the finest amber, with
rich gold mountings. There was nothing else upon the dead man, no means
of identification of any sort. Laverick stood up, giddy, half terrified
with the thoughts that went tearing through his brain. The pocket-book
began to burn his hand; he felt the perspiration breaking out anew upon
his forehead. Yet he never hesitated. He walked like a man in a dream,
but his footsteps were steady and short. Deliberately, and without any
sign of hurry, he made his way towards his offices. If a policeman had
come in sight up or down the street, he had decided to call him and to
acquaint him with what had happened. It was the one chance he held
against himself,—the gambler’s method of decision, perhaps,
unconsciously arrived at. As it turned out, there was still not a soul
in sight. Laverick opened the outer door with his latchkey, let himself
in and closed it. Then he groped his way through the clerk’s office
into his own room, switched on the electric light and once more sat
down before his desk.

He drew his shaded writing lamp towards him and looked around with a
nervousness wholly unfamiliar. Then he opened the pocket-book, drew out
the roll of bank-notes and counted them. It was curious that he felt no
surprise at their value. Bank-notes for five hundred pounds are not
exactly common, and yet he proceeded with his task without the
slightest instinct of surprise. Then he leaned back in his chair.
Twenty thousand pounds in Bank of England notes! There they lay on the
table before him. A man had died for their sake,—another must go
through all the days with the price of blood upon his head—a murderer—a
haunted creature for the rest of his life. And there on the table were
the spoils. Laverick tried to think the matter out dispassionately. He
was a man of average moral fibre—that is to say, he was honest in his
dealings with other men because his father and his grandfather before
him had been honest, and because the penalty for dishonesty was
shameful. Here, however, he was face to face with an altogether unusual
problem. These notes belonged, without a doubt, to the dead man. Save
for his own interference, they would have been in the hands of his
murderer. The use of them for a few days could do no one any harm. Such
risk as there was he took himself. That it was a risk he knew and fully
realized. Laverick had sat in his place unmoved when his partner had
poured out his wail of fear and misery. Yet of the two men it was
probable that Laverick himself had felt their position the more keenly.
He was a man of some social standing, with a large circle of friends; a
sportsman, and with many interests outside the daily routine of his
city life. To him failure meant more than the loss of money; it would
rob him of everything in life worth having. The days to come had been
emptied of all promise. He had held himself stubbornly because he was a
man, because he had strength enough to refuse to let his mind dwell
upon the indignities and humiliation to come. And here before him was
possible salvation. There was a price to be paid, of course, a risk to
be run in making use even for an hour of this money. Yet from the first
he had known that he meant to do it.

Quite cool now, he opened his private safe, thrust the pocket-book into
one of the drawers, and locked it up. Then he lit a cigarette, finally
shut up the office and walked down the street. As he passed the entry
he turned his head slowly. Apparently no one had been there, nothing
had been disturbed. Straining his eyes through the darkness, he could
even see that dark shape still lying huddled up on the ground. Then he
walked on. He had burned his boats now and was prepared for all
emergencies. At the corner he met a policeman, to whom he wished a
cheery good-night. He told himself that the thing which he had done was
for the best. He owed it to himself. He owed it to those who had
trusted him. After all, it was the chief part of his life—his city
career. It was here that his friends lived. It was here that his
ambitions flourished. Disgrace here was eternal disgrace. His father
and his grandfather before him had been men honored and respected in
this same circle. Disgrace to him, such disgrace as that with which he
had stood face to face a few hours ago, would have been, in a certain
sense, a reflection upon their memories. The names upon the brass
plates to right and to left of him were the names of men he knew, men
with whom he desired to stand well, whose friendship or contempt made
life worth living or the reverse. It was worth a great risk—this effort
of his to keep his place. His one mistake—this association with
Morrison—had been such an unparalleled stroke of bad luck. He was rid
of the fellow now. For the future there should be no more partners. He
had his life to live. It was not reasonable that he should allow
himself to be dragged down into the mire by such a creature. He found
an empty taxicab at the corner of Queen Victoria Street, and hailed it.

“Whitehall Court,” he told the driver.




CHAPTER X BELLAMY IS OUTWITTED


Bellamy was a man used to all hazards, whose supreme effort of life it
was to meet success and disaster with unvarying mien. But this was
disaster too appalling even for his self-control. He felt his knees
shake so that he caught at the edge of the table before which he was
standing. There was no possible doubt about it, he had been tricked.
Von Behrling, after all,—Von Behrling, whom he had looked upon merely
as a stupid, infatuated Austrian, ready to sell his country for the
sake of a woman, had fooled him utterly!

The man who sat at the head of the table—the only other occupant of the
room—was in Court dress, with many orders upon his coat. He had just
been attending a Court function, from which Bellamy’s message had
summoned him. Before him on the table was an envelope, hastily torn
open, and several sheets of blank paper. It was upon these that
Bellamy’s eyes were fixed with an expression of mingled horror and
amazement. The Cabinet Minister had already pushed them away with a
little gesture of contempt.

“Bellamy,” he said gravely, “it is not like you to make so serious an
error.

“I hope not, sir,” Bellamy answered. “I—yes, I have been deceived.”

The Minister glanced at the clock.

“What is to be done?” he asked.

Bellamy, with an effort, pulled himself together. He caught up the
envelope, looked once more inside, held up the blank sheets of paper to
the lamp and laid them down. Then with clenched fists he walked to the
other side of the room and returned. He was himself again.

“Sir James, I will not waste your time by saying that I am sorry. Only
an hour ago I met Von Behrling in a little restaurant in the city, and
gave him twenty thousand pounds for that envelope.”

“You paid him the money,” the Minister remarked slowly, “without
opening the envelope.”

Bellamy admitted it.

“In such transactions as these,” he declared, “great risks are almost
inevitable. I took what must seem to you now to be an absurd risk. To
tell you the honest truth, sir, and I have had experience in these
things, I thought it no risk at all when I handed over the money. Von
Behrling was there in disguise. The men with whom he came to this
country are furious with him. To all appearance, he seemed to have
broken with them absolutely. Even now—

“Well?”

“Even now,” Bellamy said slowly, with his eyes fixed upon the wall of
the room, and a dawning light growing stronger every moment in his
face, “even now I believe that Von Behrling made a mistake. An envelope
such as this had been arranged for him to show the others or leave at
the Austrian Embassy in case of emergency. He had it with him in his
pocket-book. He even told me so. God in Heaven, he gave me the wrong
one!”

The Minister glanced once more at the clock.

“In that case,” he said, “perhaps he would not go to the Embassy
to-night, especially if he was in disguise. You may still be able to
find him and repair the error.

“I will try,” answered Bellamy. “Thank Heaven!” he added, with a sudden
gleam of satisfaction, “my watchers are still dogging his footsteps. I
can find out before morning where he went when he left our rendezvous.
There is another way, too. Mademoiselle—this man Von Behrling believed
that she was leaving the country with him. She was to have had a
message within the next few hours.”

The Minister nodded thoughtfully.

“Bellamy, I have been your friend and you have done us good service
often. The Secret Service estimates, as you know, are above
supervision, but twenty thousand pounds is a great deal of money to
have paid for this.”

He touched the sheets of blank paper with his forefinger. Bellamy’s
teeth were clenched.

“The money shall be returned, sir.

“Do not misunderstand me,” Sir James went on, speaking a little more
kindly. “The money, after all, in comparison with what it was destined
to purchase, is nothing. We might even count it a fair risk if it was
lost.”

“It shall not be lost,” Bellamy promised. “If Von Behrling has played
the traitor to us, then he will go back to his country. In that case, I
will have the money from him without a doubt. If, on the other hand, he
was honest to us and a traitor to his country, as I firmly believe, it
may not yet be too late.”

“Let us hope not,” Sir James declared. “Bellamy,” he continued, a note
of agitation trembling in his tone, “I need not tell you, I am sure,
how important this matter is. You work like a mole in the dark, yet you
have brains,—you understand. Let me tell you how things are with us. A
certain amount of confidence is due to you, if to any one. I may tell
you that at the Cabinet Council to-day a very serious tone prevailed.
We do not understand in the least the attitude of several of the
European Powers. It can be understood only under certain assumptions. A
note of ours sent through the Ambassador to Vienna has remained
unanswered for two days. The German Ambassador has left unexpectedly
for Berlin on urgent business. We have just heard, too, that a secret
mission from Russia left St. Petersburg last night for Paris. Side by
side with all this,” Sir James continued, “the Czar is trying to evade
his promised visit here. The note we have received speaks of his
health. Well, we know all about that. We know, I may tell you, that his
health has never been better than at the present moment.”

“It all means one thing and one thing only,” Bellamy affirmed. “In
Vienna and Berlin to-day they look at an Englishman and smile. Even the
man in the street seems to know what is coming.”

Sir James leaned a little back in his seat. His hands were tightly
clenched, and there was a fierce light in his hollow eyes. Those who
were intimate with him knew that he had aged many years during the last
few weeks.

“The cruel part is,” he said softly, “that it should have come in my
administration, when for ten years I have prayed from the Opposition
benches for the one thing which would have made us safe to-day.”

“An army,” murmured Bellamy.

“The days are coming,” Sir James continued, “when those who prated of
militarism and the security of our island walls will see with their own
eyes the ruin they have brought upon us. Secretly we are mobilizing all
that we have to mobilize,” he added, with a little sigh. “At the very
best, however, our position is pitiful. Even if we are prepared to
defend, I am afraid that we shall see things on the Continent in which
we shall be driven to interfere, or else suffer the greatest blow which
our prestige has ever known. If we could only tell what was coming!” he
wound up, looking once more at those empty sheets of paper. “It is this
darkness which is so alarming!”

Bellamy turned toward the door.

“You have the telephone in your bedroom, sir?” he asked.

“Yes, ring me up at any time in the night or morning, if you have
news.”

Bellamy drove at once to Dover Street. It was half-past one, but he had
no fear of not being admitted. Louise’s French maid answered the bell.

“Madame has not retired?” Bellamy inquired.

“But no, sir,” the woman assured him, with a welcoming smile. “It is
only a few minutes ago that she has returned.”

Bellamy was ushered at once into her room. She was gorgeous in blue
satin and pearls. Her other maid was taking off her jewels. She
dismissed both the women abruptly.

“I absolutely couldn’t avoid a supper-party,” she said, holding out her
hands. “You expected that, of course. You were not at the Opera House?”

He shook his head, and walking to the door tried the handle. It was
securely closed. He came back slowly to her side. Her eyes were
questioning him fiercely.

“Well?” she exclaimed. “Well?”

“Have you heard from Von Behrling?”

“No,” she answered. “He knew that I must sing to-night. I have been
expecting him to telephone every moment since I got home. You have seen
him?”

“I have seen him,” Bellamy admitted. “Either he has deceived us both,
or the most unfortunate mistake in the world has happened. Listen. I
met him where he appointed. He was there, disguised, almost
unrecognizable. He was nervous and desperate; he had the air of a man
who has cut himself adrift from the world. I gave him the money,—twenty
thousand pounds in Bank of England notes, Louise,—and he gave me the
papers, or what we thought were the papers. He told me that he was
keeping a false duplicate upon him for a little time, in case he was
seized, but that he was going to Liverpool Street station to wait, and
would telephone you from the hotel there later on. You have not heard
yet, then?”

She shook her head.

“There has been no message, but go on.”

“He gave me the wrong document—the wrong envelope,” continued Bellamy.
“When I took it to—to Downing Street, it was full of blank paper.”

The color slowly left her cheeks. She looked at him with horror in her
face.

“Do you think that he meant to do it?” she exclaimed.

“We cannot tell,” Bellamy answered. “My own impression is that he did
not. We must find out at once what has become of him. He might even, if
he fancies himself safe, destroy the envelope he has, believing it to
be the duplicate. He is sure to telephone you. The moment you hear you
must let me know.”

“You had better stay here,” she declared. “There are plenty of rooms.
You will be on the spot then.”

Bellamy shook his head.

“The joke of it is that I, too, am being watched whereever I go. That
fellow Streuss has spies everywhere. That is one reason why I believe
that Von Behrling was serious.

“Oh, he was serious!” Louise repeated.

“You are sure?” Bellamy asked. “You have never had even any doubt about
him?”

“Never,” she answered firmly. “David, I had not meant to tell you this.
You know that I saw him for a moment this morning. He was in deadly
earnest. He gave me a ring—a trifle—but it had belonged to his mother.
He would not have done this if he had been playing us false.”

Bellamy sprang to his feet.

“You are right, Louise!” he exclaimed. “I shall go back to my rooms at
once. Fortunately, I had a man shadowing Von Behrling, and there may be
a report for me. If anything comes here, you will telephone at once?”

“Of course,” she assented.

“You do not think it possible,” he asked slowly, “that he would attempt
to see you here?”

Louise shuddered for a moment.

“I absolutely forbade it, so I am sure there is no chance of that.”

“Very well, then,” he decided, “we will wait. Dear,” he added, in an
altered tone, “how splendid you look!”

Her face suddenly softened.

“Ah, David!” she murmured, “to hear you speak naturally even for a
moment—it makes everything seem so different!”

He held out his arms and she came to him with a little sigh of
satisfaction.

“Louise,” he said, “some day the time may come when we shall be able to
give up this life of anxiety and terrors. But it cannot be yet—not for
your country’s sake or mine.”

She kissed him fondly.

“So long as there is hope!” she whispered.




CHAPTER XI VON BEHRLING’S FATE


It seemed to Louise that she had scarcely been in bed an hour when the
more confidential of her maids—Annette, the Frenchwoman—woke her with a
light touch of the arm. She sat up in bed sleepily.

“What is it, Annette?” she asked. “Surely it is not mid-day yet? Why do
you disturb me?”

“It is barely nine o’clock, Mademoiselle, but Monsieur
Bellamy—Mademoiselle told me that she wished to receive him whenever he
came. He is in the boudoir now, and very impatient.”

“Did he send any message?”

“Only that his business was of the most urgent,” the maid replied.

Louise sighed,—she was really very sleepy. Then, as the thoughts began
to crowd into her brain, she began also to remember. Some part of the
excitement of a few hours ago returned.

“My bath, Annette, and a dressing-gown,” she ordered. “Tell Monsieur
Bellamy that I hurry. I will be with him in twenty minutes.”

To Bellamy, the twenty minutes were minutes of purgatory. She came at
last, however, fresh and eager; her hair tied up with ribbon, she
herself clad in a pink dressing-gown and pink slippers.

“David!” she cried,—“my dear David—!”

Then she broke off.

“What is it?” she asked, in a different tone.

He showed her the headlines of the newspaper he was carrying.

“Tragedy!” he answered hoarsely. “Von Behrling was true, after all,—at
least, it seems so.”

“What has happened?” she demanded.

Bellamy pointed once more to the newspaper.

“He was murdered last night, within fifty yards of the place of our
rendezvous.”

A little exclamation broke from Louise’s lips. She sat down suddenly.
The color called into her cheeks by the exercise of her bath was
rapidly fading away.

“David,” she murmured, “is this true?”

“It is indeed,” Bellamy assured her. “Not only that, but there is no
mention of his pocket-book in the account of his murder. It must have
been engineered by Streuss and the others, and they have got away with
the pocket-book and the money.”

“What can we do?” she asked.

“There is nothing to be done,” Bellamy declared calmly. “We are
defeated. The thing is quite apparent. Von Behrling never succeeded,
after all, in shaking off the espionage of the men who were watching
him. They tracked him to our rendezvous, they waited about while I met
him. Afterwards, he had to pass along a narrow passage. It was there
that he was found murdered.”

“But, David, I don’t understand! Why did they wait until after he had
seen you? How did they know that he had not parted with the paper in
the restaurant? To all intents and purposes he ought to have done so.”

“I cannot understand that myself,” Bellamy admitted. “In fact, it is
inexplicable.”

She took up the newspaper and glanced at the report. Then, “You are
sure, I suppose, that this does refer to Von Behrling? He is quite
unidentified, you see.”

“There is no doubt about it,” Bellamy declared. “I have been to the
Mortuary. It is certainly he. All our work has been in vain—just as I
thought, too, that we had made a splendid success of it.”

She looked at him compassionately.

“It is hard lines, dear,” she admitted. “You are tired, too. You look
as though you had been up all night.”

“Yes, I am tired,” he answered, sinking into a chair. “I am worse than
tired. This has been the grossest failure of my career, and I am afraid
that it is the end of everything. I have lost twenty thousand pounds of
Secret Service money; I have lost the one chance which might have saved
England. They will never trust me again.”

“You did your best,” she said, coming over and sitting on the arm of
his chair. “You did your best, David.”

She laid her hands upon his forehead, her cheek against his—smooth and
cold—exquisitely refreshing it seemed to his jaded nerves.

“Ah, Louise!” he murmured, “life is getting a little too strenuous.
Perhaps we have given too much of it up to others. What do you think?”

She shook her head.

“Dear, I have felt like that sometimes, yet what can we do? Could we be
happy, you and I, in exile, if the things which we dread were coming to
pass? Could I go away and hide while my countrymen were being butchered
out of existence?— And you—you are not the sort of man to be content
with an ignoble peace. No, it isn’t possible. Our work may not be over
yet—”

There was a knock at the door, and Annette entered with many apologies.

“Mademoiselle,” she explained, “a thousand pardons, and to Monsieur
also, but there is a gentleman here who says that his business is of
the most urgent importance, and that he must see you at once. I have
done all that I can, but he will not go away. He knows that Monsieur
Bellamy is here, too,” she added, turning to him, “and he says his
business has to do with Monsieur as well as Mademoiselle.”

Bellamy almost snatched the card from the girl’s fingers. He read out
the name in blank amazement.

“Baron de Streuss!”

There was a moment’s silence. Louise and he exchanged wondering
glances.

“What can this mean?” she asked hoarsely.

“Heaven knows!” he answered. “Let us see him together. After all—after
all—”

“You can show the gentleman in, Annette,” her mistress ordered.

“If he has the papers,” Bellamy continued slowly, “why does he come to
us? It is not like these men to be vindictive. Diplomacy to them is
nothing—a game of chess. I do not understand.”

The door opened. Annette announced their visitor. Streuss bowed low to
Louise—he bowed, also, to Bellamy.

“I need not introduce myself,” he said. “With Mr. Bellamy I have the
honor to be well acquainted. Madame is known to all the world.”

Louise nodded, somewhat coldly.

“We can dispense with an introduction, I think, Monsieur le Baron,” she
said. “At the same time, you will perhaps explain to what I owe this
somewhat unexpected pleasure?”

“Mademoiselle, an explanation there must certainly be. I know that it
is an impossible hour. I know, too, that to have forced my presence
upon you in this manner may seem discourteous. Yet the urgency of the
matter, I am convinced, justifies me.”

Louise motioned him to a chair, but he declined with a little bow of
thanks.

“Mademoiselle,” he said, “and you, Mr. Bellamy, we need not waste
words. We have played a game of chess together. You, Mademoiselle, and
Mr. Bellamy on the one side—I and my friends upon the other. The honor
of Rudolph Von Behrling was the pawn for which we fought. The victory
remains with you.”

Bellamy never moved a muscle. Louise, on the contrary, could not help a
slight start.

“Under the circumstances,” the Baron continued smoothly, “the struggle
was uneven. I do myself the justice to remember that from the first I
realized that we played a losing game. Mademoiselle,” he added, “from
the days of Cleopatra—ay, and throughout those shadowy days which lie
beyond—the diplomats of the world have been powerless when matched
against your sex. Rudolph Von Behrling was an honest fellow enough
until he looked into your eyes. Mademoiselle, you have gifts which
might, perhaps, have driven from his senses a stronger man.”

Louise smiled, but there was no suggestion of mirth in the curl of her
lips. Her eyes all the time sought his questioningly. She did not
understand.

“You flatter me, Baron,” she murmured.

“No, I do not flatter you, I speak the truth. This plain talking is
pleasant enough when the time comes that one may indulge in it. That
time, I think, is now. Rudolph Von Behrling, against my advice, but
because he was the Chancellor’s nephew, was associated with me in a
certain enterprise, the nature of which is no secret to you,
Mademoiselle, or to Mr. Bellamy here. We followed a man who, by some
strange chance, was in possession of a few sheets of foolscap, the
contents of which were alike priceless to my country and priceless to
yours. The subsequent history of those papers should have been
automatic. The first step was fulfilled readily enough. The man
disappeared—the papers were ours. Von Behrling was the man who secured
them, and Von Behrling it was who retained them. If my advice had been
followed, I admit frankly that we should have ignored all possible
comment and returned with them at once to Vienna. The others thought
differently. They ruled that we should come on to London and deposit
the packet with our Ambassador here. In a weak moment I consented. It
was your opportunity, Mademoiselle, an opportunity of which you have
splendidly availed yourself.”

This time Louise held herself with composure. Bellamy’s brain was in a
whirl but he remained silent.

“I come to you both,” the Baron continued, “with my hands open. I
come—I make no secret of it—I come to make terms. But first of all I
must know whether I am in time. There is one question which I must ask.
I address it, sir, to you,” he added, turning to Bellamy. “Have you yet
placed in the hands of your Government the papers which you obtained
from Von Behrling?”

Bellamy shook his head.

The Baron drew a long breath of relief. Though he had maintained his
savoir faire perfectly, the fingers which for a moment played with his
tie, as though to rearrange it, were trembling.

“Well, then, I am in time. Will you see my hand?”

“Mademoiselle and I,” answered Bellamy, “are at least ready to listen
to anything you may have to say.”

“You know quite well,” the Baron continued, “what it is that I have
come to say, yet I want you to remember this. I do not come to bribe
you in any ordinary manner. The things which are to come will happen;
they must happen, if not this year, next,—if not next year, within half
a decade of years. History is an absolute science. The future as well
as the past can be read by those who know the signs. The thing which
has been resolved upon is certain. The knowledge of the contents of
those papers by your Government might delay the final catastrophe for a
short while; it could do no more. In the long run, it would be better
for your country, Mr. Bellamy, in every way, that the end come soon.
Therefore, I ask you to perform no traitorous deed. I ask you to do
that which is simply reasonable for all of us, which is, indeed, for
the advantage of all of us. restore those papers to me instead of
handing them to your Government, and I will pay you for them the sum of
one hundred thousand pounds!”

“One hundred thousand pounds,” Bellamy repeated.

“One hundred thousand pounds!” murmured Louise.

There was a brief, intense pause. Louise waited, warned by the
expression in Bellamy’s face. Silence, she felt, was safest, and it was
Bellamy who spoke.

“Baron,” said he, “your visit and your proposal are both a little
amazing. Forgive me if I speak alone with Mademoiselle for a moment.”

“Most certainly,” the Baron agreed. “I go away and leave you—out of the
room, if you will.”

“It is not necessary,” Bellamy replied. “Louise!” The Baron withdrew to
the window, and Bellamy led Louise into the furthest corner of the
room.

“What can it mean?” he whispered. “What do you suppose has happened?”

“I cannot imagine. My brain is in a whirl.”

“If they have not got the pocket-book,” Bellamy muttered, “it must have
gone with Von Behrling to the Mortuary. If so, there is a chance.
Louise, say nothing; leave this to me.”

“As you will,” she assented. “I have no wish to interfere. I only hope
that he does not ask me any questions.”

They came once more into the middle of the room, and the Baron turned
to meet them.

“You must forgive Mademoiselle,” said Bellamy, “if she is a little
upset this morning. She knows, of course, as I know and you know, that
Von Behrling was playing a desperate game, and that he carried his life
in his hands. Yet his death has been a shock—has been a shock, I may
say, to both of us. From your point of view,” Bellamy went on, “it was
doubtless deserved, but—”

“What, in God’s name, is this that you say?” the Baron interrupted. “I
do not understand at all! You speak of Von Behrling’s death! What do
you mean?”

Bellamy looked at him as one who listens to strange words.

“Baron,” he said, “between us who know so much there is surely no need
for you to play a part. Von Behrling knew that you were watching him.
Your spies were shadowing him as they have done me. He knew that he was
running terrible risks. He was not unprepared and he has paid. It is
not for us—”

“Now, in God’s name, tell me the truth!” Baron de Streuss interrupted
once more. “What is it that you are saying about Von Behrling’s death?”

Bellamy drew a little breath between his teeth. He leaned forward with
his hands resting upon the table.

“Do you mean to say that you do not know?”

“Upon my soul, no!” replied the Baron.

Bellamy threw open the newspaper before him.

“Von Behrling was murdered last night, ten minutes after our
interview.”




CHAPTER XII BARON DE STREUSS’ PROPOSAL


The Baron adjusted his eyeglass with shaking fingers. His face now was
waxen-white as he spread out the newspaper upon the table and read the
paragraph word by word.

TERRIBLE CRIME IN THE CITY


Early this morning the body of a man was discovered in a narrow
passageway leading from Crooked Friars to Royal Street, under
circumstances which leave little doubt but that the man’s death was
owing to foul play. The deceased had apparently been stabbed, and had
received several severe blows about the head. He was shabbily dressed
but was well supplied with money, and he was wearing a gold watch and
chain when he was found.


LATER


There appears to be no further doubt but that the man found in the
entry leading from Crooked Friars had been the victim of a particularly
murderous assault. Neither his clothes nor his linen bore any mark by
means of which he could be identified. The body has been removed to the
nearest mortuary, and an inquest will shortly be held.


Streuss looked up from the newspaper and the reality of his surprise
was apparent. He had all the appearance of a man shaken with emotion.
While he looked at his two companions wonderingly, strange thoughts
were forming in his mind.

“Von Behrling dead!” he muttered. “But who—who could have done this?”

“Until this moment,” Bellamy answered dryly, “it was not a matter
concerning which we had any doubt. The only wonder to us was that it
should have been done too late.”

“You mean,” Streuss said slowly, “that he was murdered after he had
completed his bargain with you?”

“Naturally.”

“I suppose,” the Baron continued, “there is no question but that it was
done afterwards? You smile,” he exclaimed, “but what am I to think?
Neither I nor my people had any hand in this deed. How about yours?”

Bellamy shook his head.

“We do not fight that way,” he replied. “I had bought Von Behrling. He
was of no further interest to me. I did not care whether he lived or
died.”

“There is something very strange about this,” the Baron said. “If
neither you nor I were responsible for his death, who was?”

“That I can’t tell you. Perhaps later in the day we shall hear from the
police. It is scarcely the sort of murder which would remain long
undetected, especially as he was robbed of a large sum in bank-notes.”

“Supplied by His Majesty’s Government, I presume?” Streuss remarked.

“Precisely,” Bellamy assented, “and paid to him by me.”

“At any rate,” Streuss said grimly, “we have now no more secrets from
one another. I will ask you one last question. Where is that packet at
the present moment?”

Bellamy raised his eyebrows.

“It is a question,” he declared, “which you could scarcely expect me to
answer.”

“I will put it another way,” Streuss continued. “Supposing you decide
to accept my offer, how long will it be before the packet can be placed
in my hands?”

“If we decide to accept,” Bellamy answered, “there is no reason why
there should be any delay at all.”

Streuss was silent for several moments. His hands were thrust deep down
into the pockets of his overcoat. With eyes fixed upon the tablecloth,
he seemed to be thinking deeply, till presently he raised his head and
looked steadily at Bellamy.

“You are sure that Von Behrling has not fooled you? You are sure that
you have that identical packet?”

“I am absolutely certain that I have,” Bellamy answered, without
flinching.

“Then accept my price and have done with this matter,” Streuss begged.
“I will sign a draft for you here, and I will undertake to bring you
the money, or honor it wherever you say, within twenty-four hours.”

“I cannot decide so quickly,” said Bellamy, shaking his head.
“Mademoiselle Idiale and I must talk together first. I am not sure,” he
added, “whether I might not find a higher bidder.”

Streuss laughed mirthlessly.

“There is little fear of that,” he said. “The papers are of no use
except to us and to England. To England, I will admit that the
foreknowledge of what is to come would be worth much, although the
eventful result would be the same. It is for that reason that I am
here, for that reason that I have made you this offer.”

“Mademoiselle and I must discuss it,” Bellamy declared. “It is not a
matter to be decided upon off-hand. Remember that it is not only the
packet which you are offering to buy, but also my career and my honor.”

“One hundred thousand pounds,” Streuss said slowly. “From your own side
you get nothing—nothing but your beggarly salary and an occasional
reprimand. One hundred thousand pounds is not immense wealth, but it is
something.”

“Your offer is a generous one,” admitted Bellamy, “there is no doubt
about that. On the other hand, I cannot decide without further
consideration. It is a big thing for us, remember. I have worked very
hard for the contents of that packet.”

Once more Streuss felt an uneasy pang of incredulity. After all, was
this Englishman playing with him? So he asked: “You are quite sure that
you have it?”

“There is no means of convincing you of which I care to make use. You
must be content with my word. I have the packet. I paid Von Behrling
for it and he gave it to me with his own hands.”

“I must accept your word,” Streuss declared. “I give you three days for
reflection. Before I go, Mr. Bellamy, forgive me if I refer once more
to this,”—touching the newspaper which still lay upon the table.
“Remember that Rudolph Von Behrling moved about a marked man. Your
spies and mine were most of the time upon his heels. Yet in the end
some third person seems to have intervened. Are you quite sure that you
know nothing of this?”

“Upon my honor,” Bellamy replied, “I have not the slightest information
concerning Von Behrling’s death beyond what you can read there. It was
as great a surprise to me as to you.”

“It is incomprehensible,” Streuss murmured.

“One can only conclude,” Bellamy remarked thoughtfully, “that someone
must have seen him with those notes. There were people moving about in
the little restaurant where we met. The rustle of bank-notes has cost
more than one man his life.

“For the present,” Streuss said, “we must believe that it was so.
Listen to me, both of you. You will be wiser if you do not delay. You
are young people, and the world is before you. With money one can do
everything. Without it, life is but a slavery. The world is full of
beautiful dwelling-places for those who have the means to choose.
Remember, too, that not a soul will ever know of this transaction, if
you should decide to accept my offer.”

“We shall remember all those things,” Bellamy assured him.

Streuss took up his hat and gloves.

“With your permission, then, Mademoiselle,” he concluded, turning to
Louise, “I go. I must try and understand for myself the meaning of this
thing which has happened to Von Behrling.”

“Do not forget,” Bellamy said, “that if you discover anything, we are
equally interested.”...

They heard him go out. Bellamy purposely held the door open until he
saw the lift descend. Then he closed it firmly and came back into the
room. Louise and he looked at each other, their faces full of anxious
questioning.

“What does it mean?” Louise cried. “What can it mean?”

“Heaven alone knows!” Bellamy answered. “There is not a gleam of
daylight. My people are absolutely innocent of any attempt upon Von
Behrling. If Streuss tells the truth, and I believe he does, his people
are in the same position. Who, then, in the name of all that is
miraculous, can have murdered and robbed Von Behrling?”

“In London, too,” Louise murmured. “It is not Vienna, this, or
Belgrade.”

“You are right,” Bellamy agreed. “London is one of the most law-abiding
cities in Europe. Besides, the quarter where the murder occurred is
entirely unfrequented by the criminal classes. It is simply a region of
great banks and the offices of merchant princes.

“Is it possible that there is some one else who knew about that
document?” Louise asked,—“some one else who has been watching Von
Behrling?”

Bellamy shook his head.

“How can that be? Besides, if any one else were really on his track,
they must have believed that he had parted with it to me. I shall go
back now to Downing Street to ask for a letter to the Chief of Scotland
Yard. If anything comes out, I must have plenty of warning.”

“And I,” she said, with an approving nod, “shall go back to bed again.
These days are too strenuous for me. Won’t you stay and take your
coffee with me?”

Bellamy held her hand for a moment in his.

“Dear,” he said, “I would stay, but you understand, don’t you, what a
maze this is into which we have wandered. Von Behrling has been
murdered by some person who seems to have dropped from the skies.
Whoever they may be, they have in their possession my twenty thousand
pounds and the packet which should have been mine. I must trace them if
I can, Louise. It is a poor chance, but I must do my best. I myself am
of the opinion that Von Behrling was murdered for the money, and for
the money only. If so, that packet may be in the hands of people who
have no idea what use to make of it. They may even destroy it. If
Streuss returns and you are forced to see him, be careful. Remember, we
have the document—we are hesitating. So long as he believes that it is
in our possession, he will not look elsewhere.”

“I will be careful,” Louise promised, with her arms around his neck.
“And, dear, take care. When I think of poor Rudolph Von Behrling, I
tremble, also, for you. It seems to me that your danger is no less than
his.”

“I do not go about with twenty thousand pounds in my pocket-book,” with
a smile.

She shook her head.

“No, but Streuss believes that you have the document which he is
pledged to recover. Be careful that they do not lead you into a trap.
They are not above anything, these men. I heard once of a Bulgarian in
Vienna who was tortured—tortured almost to death—before he spoke. Then
they thrust him into a lunatic asylum. Remember, dear, they have no
consciences and no pity.”

“We are in London,” he reminded her.

“So was Von Behrling,” she answered quickly,—“not only in London but in
a safe part of London. Yet he is dead.”

“It was not their doing,” he declared. “In their own country, they have
the whole machinery of their wonderful police system at their backs,
and no fear of the law in their hearts. Here they must needs go
cautiously. I don’t think you need be afraid,” he added, smiling, as he
opened the door. “I think I can promise you that if you will do me the
honor we will sup together to-night.”

“You must fetch me from the Opera House,” Louise insisted. “It is a
bargain. I have suffered enough neglect at your hands. One thing,
David,—where do you go first from here?”

“To find the man,” Bellamy answered gravely, “who was watching Von
Behrling when he left me. If any man in England knows anything of the
murder, it must be he. He should be at my rooms by now.”




CHAPTER XIII STEPHEN LAVERICK’S CONSCIENCE


Stephen Laverick was a bachelor—his friends called him an incorrigible
one. He had a small but pleasantly situated suite of rooms in Whitehall
Court, looking out upon the river. His habits were almost monotonous in
their regularity, and the morning following his late night in the city
was no exception to the general rule. At eight o’clock, the valet
attached to the suite knocked at his door and informed him that his
bath was ready. He awoke at once from a sound sleep, sat up in bed, and
remembered the events of the preceding evening.

At first he was inclined to doubt that slowly stirring effort of
memory. He was a man of unromantic temperament, unimaginative, and by
no means of an adventurous turn of mind. He sought naturally for the
most reasonable explanation of this strange picture, which no effort of
his will could dismiss from his memory. It was a dream, of course. But
the dream did not fade. Slowly it spread itself out so that he could no
longer doubt. He knew very well as he sat there on the edge of his bed
that the thing was truth. He, Stephen Laverick, a man hitherto of
upright character, with a reputation of which unconsciously he was
proud, had robbed a dead man, had looked into the burning eyes of his
murderer, had stolen away with twenty thousand pounds of someone else’s
money. Morally, at any rate,—probably legally as well,—he was a thief.
A glimpse inside his safe on the part of an astute detective might very
easily bring him under the grave suspicion of being a criminal of
altogether deeper dye.

Stephen Laverick was, in his way, something of a philosopher. In the
cold daylight, with the sound of the water running into his bath, this
deed which he had done seemed to him foolish and reprehensible.
Nevertheless, he realized the absolute finality of his action. The
thing was done; he must make the best of it. Behaving in every way like
a sensible man, he did not send for the newspapers and search
hysterically for their account of last night’s tragedy, but took his
bath as usual, dressed with more than ordinary care, and sat down to
his breakfast before he even unfolded the paper. The item for which he
searched occupied by no means so prominent a position as he had
expected. It appeared under one of the leading headlines, but it
consisted of only a few words. He read them with interest but without
emotion. Afterwards he turned to the Stock Exchange quotations and made
notes of a few prices in which he was interested.

He completed in leisurely fashion an excellent breakfast and followed
his usual custom of walking along the Embankment as far as the Royal
Hotel, where he called a taxicab and drove to his offices. A little
crowd had gathered around the end of the passage which led from Crooked
Friars, and Laverick himself leaned forward and looked curiously at the
spot where the body of the murdered man had lain. It seemed hard to him
to reconstruct last night’s scene in his mind now that the narrow
street was filled with hurrying men and a stream of vehicles blocked
every inch of the roadway. In his early morning mood the thing was
impossible. In a moment or two he paid his driver and dismissed him.

He fancied that a certain relief was visible among his clerks when he
opened the door at precisely his usual time and with a cheerful
“Good-morning!” made his way into the private office. He lit his
customary cigarette and dealt rapidly with the correspondence which was
brought in to him by his head-clerk. Afterwards, as soon as he was
alone, he opened the safe, thrust the contents of that inner drawer
into his breast-pocket, and took up once more his hat and gloves.

“I am going around to the bank,” he told his clerk as he passed out. “I
shall be back in half-an-hour—perhaps less.”

“Very good, sir,” the man answered. “Will Mr. Morrison be here this
morning?”

Laverick hesitated.

“No, Mr. Morrison will not be here to-day.”

It was only a few steps to his bankers, and his request for an
interview with the manager was immediately granted. The latter received
him kindly but with a certain restraint. There are not many secrets in
the city, and Morrison’s big plunge on a particular mining share,
notwithstanding its steady drop, had been freely commented upon.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Laverick?” the banker asked.

“I am not sure,” answered Laverick. “To tell you the truth, I am in a
somewhat singular position.”

The banker nodded. He had not a doubt but that he understood exactly
what that position was.

“You have perhaps heard,” Laverick continued slowly, “that my late
partner, Mr. Morrison,—”

“Late partner?” the manager interrupted.

Laverick assented.

“We had a few words last night,” he explained “and Mr. Morrison left
the office with an understanding between us that he should not return.
You will receive a formal intimation of that during the course of the
next day or so. We will revert to the matter presently, if you wish. My
immediate business with you is to discuss the fact that I have to
provide something like twenty thousand pounds to-day if I decide to
take up the purchases of stock which Morrison has made.”

“You understand the position, of course, Mr. Laverick, if you fail to
do so?” the manager remarked gravely.

“Naturally,” Laverick answered. “I am quite aware of the fact that
Morrison acted on behalf of the firm and that I am responsible for his
transactions. He has plunged pretty deeply, though, a great deal more
deeply than our capital warranted. I may add that I had not the
slightest idea as to the extent of his dealings.”

The bank manager adopted a sympathetic but serious attitude.

“Twenty thousand pounds,” he declared, “is a great deal of money, Mr.
Laverick.”

“It is a great deal of money,” Laverick admitted. “I am here to ask you
to lend it to me.”

The bank manager raised his eyebrows.

“My dear Mr. Laverick!” he exclaimed reproachfully.

“Upon unimpeachable security,” Laverick continued. The bank manager was
conscious that he had allowed a little start of surprise to escape him,
and bit his lip with annoyance. It was entirely contrary to his tenets
to display at any time during office hours any sort of emotion.

“Unimpeachable security,” he repeated. “Of course, if you have that to
offer, Mr. Laverick, although the sum is a large one, it is our
business to see what we can do for you.”

“My security is of the best,” Laverick declared grimly. “I have
bank-notes here, Mr. Fenwick, for twenty thousand pounds.”

The bank manager was again guilty of an unprofessional action. He
whistled softly under his breath. A very respectable client he had
always considered Mr. Stephen Laverick, but he had certainly never
suspected him of being able to produce at a pinch such evidence of
means. Laverick smoothed out the notes and laid them upon the table.

“Mr. Fenwick,” he said, “I believe I am right in assuming that when one
comes to one’s bankers, one enters, as it were, into a confessional. I
feel convinced that nothing which I say to you will be repeated outside
this office, or will be allowed to dwell in your own mind except with
reference to this particular transaction between you and me. I have the
right, have I not, to take that for granted?”

“Most certainly,” the banker agreed.

“From a strictly ethical point of view,” Laverick went on, “this money
is not mine. I hold it in trust for its owner, but I hold it without
any conditions. I have power to make what use I wish of it, and I
choose to-day to use it on my own behalf. Whether I am justified or not
is scarcely a matter, I presume, which concerns this excellent banking
establishment over which you preside so ably. I do not pay these
bank-notes in to my account and ask you to credit me with twenty
thousand pounds. I ask you to allow me to deposit them here for seven
days as security against an overdraft. You can then advance me enough
money to meet my engagements of to-day.”

The banker took up the notes and looked them through, one by one. They
were very crisp, very new, and absolutely genuine.

“This is somewhat an extraordinary proceeding, Mr. Laverick,” he said.

“I have no doubt that it must seem so to you,” Laverick admitted. “At
the same time, there the money is. You can run no risk. If I am
exceeding my moral right in making use of these notes, it is I who will
have to pay. Will you do as I ask?”

The banker hesitated. The transaction was somewhat a peculiar one, but
on the face of it there could be no possible risk. At the same time,
there was something about it which he could not understand.

“Your wish, Mr. Laverick,” he remarked, looking at him thoughtfully,
“seems to be to keep these notes out of circulation.”

Laverick returned his gaze without flinching.

“In a sense, that is so,” he assented.

“On the whole,” the banker declared, “I should prefer to credit them to
your account in the usual way.”

“I am sorry,” Laverick answered, “but I have a sentimental feeling
about it. I prefer to keep the notes intact. If you cannot follow out
my suggestion, I must remove my account at once. This isn’t a threat,
Mr. Fenwick,—you will understand that, I am sure. It is simply a matter
of business, and owing to Morrison’s speculations I have no time for
arguments. I am quite satisfied to remain in your hands, but my feeling
in the matter is exactly as I have stated, and I cannot change. If you
are to retain my account, my engagements for to-day must be met
precisely in the way I have pointed out.”

The banker excused himself and left the room for a few moments. When he
returned, he shrugged his shoulders with the air of one who is giving
in to an unreasonable client.

“It shall be as you say, Mr. Laverick,” he announced. “The notes are
placed upon deposit. Your engagements to-day up to twenty thousand
pounds shall be duly honored.”

Laverick shook hands with him, talked for a moment or two about
indifferent matters, and strolled back towards his office. He had
rather the sense of a man who moves in a dream, who is living, somehow,
in a life which doesn’t belong to him. He was doing the impossible. He
knew very well that his name was in every one’s mouth. People were
looking at him sympathetically, wondering how he could have been such a
fool as to become the victim of an irresponsible speculator. No one
ever imagined that he would be able to keep his engagements. And he had
done it. The price might be a great one, but he was prepared to pay. At
any moment the sensational news might be upon the placards, and the
whole world might know that the man who had been murdered in Crooked
Friars last night had first been robbed of twenty thousand pounds. So
far he had felt himself curiously free from anything in the shape of
direct apprehensions. Already, however, the shadow was beginning to
fall. Even as he entered his office, the sight of a stranger offering
office files for sale made him start. He half expected to feel a hand
upon his shoulder, a few words whispered in his ear. He set his teeth
tight. This was his risk and he must take it.

For several hours he remained in his office, engaged in a scheme for
the redirection of its policy. With the absence of Morrison, too, there
were other changes to be made,—changes in the nature of the business
they were prepared to handle, limits to be fixed. It was not until
nearly luncheon time that the telephone, the simultaneous arrival of
several clients, and the breathless entry of his own head-clerk rushing
in from the house, told him what was going on.

“‘Unions’ have taken their turn at last!” the clerk announced, in an
excited tone. “They sagged a little this morning, but since eleven they
have been going steadily up. Just now there seems to be a boom.
Listen.”

Laverick heard the roar of voices in the street, and nodded. He was
prepared to be surprised at nothing.

“They were bound to go within a day or two,” he remarked. “Morrison
wasn’t an absolute idiot.”

The luncheon hour passed. The excitement in the city grew. By three
o’clock, ten thousand pounds would have covered all of Laverick’s
engagements. Just before closing-time, it was even doubtful whether he
might not have borrowed every penny without security at all. He took it
all quite calmly and as a matter of course. He left the office a little
earlier than usual, and every man whom he met stopped to slap him on
the back and chaff him. He escaped as soon as he could, bought the
evening papers, found a taxicab, and as soon as he had started spread
them open. It was a remarkable proof of the man’s self-restraint that
at no time during the afternoon had he sent out for one of these early
editions. He turned them over now with firm fingers. There was
absolutely no fresh news. No one had come forward with any suggestion
as to the identity of the murdered man. All day long the body had lain
in the Mortuary, visited by a constant stream of the curious, but
presumably unrecognized. Laverick could scarcely believe the words he
read. The thing seemed ludicrously impossible. The twenty thousand
pounds must have come from some one. Why did they keep silence? What
was the mystery about it? Could it be that they were not in a position
to disclose the fact? Curiously enough, this unnatural absence of news
inspired him with something which was almost fear. He had taken his
risks boldly enough. Now that Fate was playing him this unexpectedly
good turn, he was conscious of a growing nervousness. Who could he have
been, this man? Whence could he have derived this great sum? One person
at least must know that he had been robbed—the man who murdered him
must know it. A cold shiver passed through Laverick’s veins at the
thought. Somewhere in London there must be a man thirsting for his
blood, a man who had committed a murder in vain and been robbed of his
spoil.

Laverick had no engagements for that evening, but instead of going to
his club he drove straight to his rooms, meaning to change a little
early for dinner and go to a theatre. He found there, however, a small
boy waiting for him with a note in his hand. It was addressed in pencil
only, and his name was printed upon it.

Laverick tore it open with a haste which he only imperfectly concealed.
There was something ominous to him in those printed characters. Its
contents, however, were short enough.

   DEAR LAVERICK,
   I must see you. Come the moment you get this. Come without fail, for
   your own sake and mine. A. M.

Laverick looked at the boy. His fingers were trembling, but it was with
relief. The note was from Morrison.

“There is no address here,” he remarked.

“The gent said as I was to take you back with me,” the boy answered.

“Is it far?” Laverick asked.

“Close to Red Lion Square,” the boy declared. “Not more nor five
minutes in one of them taxicabs. The gent said we was to take one. He
is in a great hurry to see you.”

Laverick did not hesitate a moment.

“Very well,” he said, “we’ll start at once.”

He put on his hat again and waited while the commissionaire called them
a taxicab.

“What address?” he asked.

“Number 7, Theobald Square,” the boy said. Laverick nodded and repeated
the address to the driver.

“What the dickens can Morrison be doing in a part like that!” he
thought, as they passed up Northumberland Avenue.




CHAPTER XIV ARTHUR MORRISON’S COLLAPSE


The Square was a small one, and in a particularly unsavory
neighborhood. Laverick, who had once visited his partner’s somewhat
extensive suite of rooms in Jermyn Street, rang the bell doubtfully.
The door was opened almost at once, not by a servant but by a young
lady who was obviously expecting him. Before he could open his lips to
frame an inquiry, she had closed the door behind him.

“Will you please come this way?” she said timidly.

Laverick found himself in a small sitting-room, unexpectedly neat, and
with the plainness of its furniture relieved by certain undeniable
traces of some cultured presence. The girl who had followed him stood
with her back to the door, a little out of breath. Laverick
contemplated her in surprise. She was under medium height, with small
pale face and wonderful dark eyes. Her brown hair was parted in the
middle and arranged low down, so that at first, taking into account her
obvious nervousness, he thought that she was a child. When she spoke,
however, he knew that for some reason she was afraid. Her voice was
soft and low, but it was the voice of a woman.

“It is Mr. Laverick, is it not?” she asked, looking at him eagerly.

“My name is Stephen Laverick,” he admitted. “I understood that I should
find Mr. Arthur Morrison here.”

“Yes,” the girl answered, “he sent for you. The note was from him. He
is here.”

She made no movement to summon him. She still stood, in fact, with her
back to the door. Laverick was distinctly puzzled. He felt himself
unable to place this timid, childlike woman, with her terrified face
and beautiful eyes. He had never heard Morrison speak of having any
relations. His presence in such a locality, indeed, was hard to
understand unless he had met with an accident. Morrison was one of
those young men who would have chosen Hell with a “W” rather than
Heaven E. C.

“I am afraid,” Laverick said, “that for some reason or other you are
afraid of me. I can assure you that I am quite harmless,” he added
smiling. “Won’t you sit down and tell me what is the matter? Is Mr.
Morrison in any trouble?”

“Yes,” she answered, “he is. As for me, I am terrified.”

She came a little away from the door. Laverick was a man who inspired
trust. His tone, too, was unusually kind. He had the protective
instinct of a big man toward a small woman.

“Come and tell me all about it,” he suggested. “I expected to hear that
he had gone abroad.”

“Mr. Laverick,” she said, looking up at him tremulously. “I was hoping
that you could have told me what it was that had come to him.”

“Well, that rather depends,” Laverick answered. “We certainly had a
terribly anxious time yesterday. Our business has been most
unfortunate—”

“Yes, yes!” the girl interrupted. “Please go on. There have been
business troubles, then.”

“Rather,” Laverick continued. “Last night they reached such a pitch
that I gave Morrison some money and it was agreed that he should leave
the firm and try his luck somewhere else. I quite understood that he
was going abroad.”

The girl seemed, for some reason, relieved.

“There was something, then,” she said, half to herself. “There was
something. Oh, I am glad of that! You were angry with him, perhaps, Mr.
Laverick?”

Laverick stood with his back to the little fireplace and with his hands
behind him—a commanding figure in the tiny room full of feminine
trifles. He looked a great deal more at his ease than he really was.

“Perhaps I was inclined to be short-tempered,” he admitted. “You see,
to be frank with you, the department of our business that was going
wrong was the one over which Morrison has had sole control. He had
entered into certain speculations which I considered unjustifiable.
To-day, however, matters took an unexpected turn for the better.”

Almost as he spoke his face clouded. Morrison, of course, would be
triumphant. Perhaps he would even expect to be reinstated. For many
reasons, this was a thing which Laverick did not desire.

“Now tell me,” he continued, “what is the matter with Morrison, and why
has he sent for me, and, if you will pardon my saying so, why is he
here instead of in his own rooms?”

“I will explain,” she began softly.

“You will please explain sitting down,” he said firmly. “And don’t look
so terrified,” he added, with a little laugh. “I can assure you that I
am not going to eat you, or anything of that sort. You make me feel
quite uncomfortable.”

She smiled for the first time, and Laverick thought that he had never
seen anything so wonderful as the change in her features. The strained
rigidity passed away. An altogether softer light gleamed in her
wonderful eyes. She was certainly by far the prettiest child he had
ever seen. As yet he could not take her altogether seriously.

“Thank you,” she said, sinking down upon the arm of an easy-chair.
“first of all, then, Arthur is here because he is my brother.”

“Your brother!” Laverick repeated wonderingly.

Somehow or other, he had never associated Morrison with relations.
Besides, this meant that she must be of his race. There was nothing in
her face to denote it except the darkness of her eyes, and that
nameless charm of manner, a sort of ultra-sensitiveness, which belongs
sometimes to the highest type of Jews. It was not a quality, Laverick
thought, which he should have associated with Morrison’s sister.

“My brother, in a way,” she resumed. “Arthur’s father was a widower and
my mother was a widow when they were married. You are surprised?”

“There is no reason why I should be,” he answered, curiously relieved
at her last statement. “Your brother and I have been connected in
business for some years. We have seen very little of one another
outside.”

“I dare say,” she continued, still timidly, “that Arthur’s friends
would not be your friends, and that he wouldn’t care for the same sort
of things. You see, my mother is dead and also his father, and as we
aren’t really related at all, I cannot expect that he would come to see
me very often. Last night, though, quite late—long after I had gone to
bed—he rang the bell here. I was frightened, for just now I am all
alone, and my servant only comes in the morning. So I looked out of the
window and I saw him on the pavement, huddled up against the door. I
hurried down and let him in. Mr. Laverick,” she went on, with an
appealing glance at him, “I have never seen any one look like it. He
was terrified to death. Something seemed to have happened which had
taken away from him even the power of speech. He pushed past me into
this room, threw himself into that chair,” she added, pointing across
the room, “and he sobbed and beat his hands upon his knees as though he
were a woman in a fit of hysterics. His clothes were all untidy, he was
as pale as death, and his eyes looked as though they were ready to
start out of his head.”

“You must indeed have been frightened,” Laverick said softly.

“Frightened! I shall never forget it! I did not sleep all night. He
would tell me nothing—he has scarcely spoken a sensible word. Early
this morning I persuaded him to go upstairs, and made him lie down. He
has taken two draughts which I bought from the chemist, but he has not
slept. Every now and then he tries to get up, but in a minute or two he
throws himself down on the bed again and hides his face. If any one
rings at the bell, he shrieks. If he hears a footfall in the street,
even, he calls out for me. Mr. Laverick, I have never been so
frightened in my life. I didn’t know whom to send for or what to do.
When he wrote that note to you I was so relieved. You can’t imagine how
glad I am to think you have come!”

Laverick’s eyes were full of sympathy. One could see that the scene of
last night had risen up again before her eyes. She was shrinking back,
and the terror was upon her once more. He moved over to her side, and
with an impulse which, when he thought of it afterwards, amazed him,
laid his hand gently upon her shoulder.

“Don’t worry yourself thinking about it,” he said. “I will talk to your
brother. We did have words, I’ll admit, last night, but there wasn’t
the slightest reason why it should have upset him in this way. Things
in the city were shocking yesterday, but they have improved a great
deal to-day. Let me go upstairs and I’ll try and pump some courage into
him.”

“You are so kind,” she murmured, suddenly dropping her hands from
before her face and looking up at him with shining eyes, “so very kind.
Will you come, then?”

She rose and he followed her out of the room, up the stairs, and into a
tiny bedroom. Laverick had no time to look around, but it seemed to
him, notwithstanding the cheap white furniture and very ordinary
appointments, that the same note of dainty femininity pervaded this
little apartment as the one below.

“It is my room,” she said shyly. “There is no other properly furnished,
and I thought that he might sleep upon the bed.”

“Perhaps he is asleep now,” Laverick whispered.

Even as he spoke, the dark figure stretched upon the sheets sprang into
a sitting posture. Laverick was conscious of a distinct shock. It was
Morrison, still wearing the clothes in which he had left the office,
his collar crushed out of all shape, his tie vanished. His black hair,
usually so shiny and perfectly arranged, was all disordered. Out of his
staring eyes flashed an expression which one sees seldom in life,—an
expression of real and mortal terror.

“Who is it?” he cried out, and even his voice was unrecognizable. “Who
is that? What do you want?”

“It is I—Laverick,” Laverick answered. “What on earth is the matter
with you, man?”

Morrison drew a quick breath. Some part of the terror seemed to leave
his face, but he was still an alarming-looking object. Laverick quietly
opened the door and laid his hand upon the girl’s shoulder.

“Will you leave us alone?” he asked. “I will come and talk to you
afterwards, if I may.”

She nodded understandingly, and passed out. Laverick closed the door
and came up to the bedside.

“What in the name of thunder has come over you, Morrison?” he said.
“Are you ill, or what is it?”

Morrison opened his lips—opened them twice—without any sort of sound
issuing.

“This is absurd!” Laverick exclaimed protestingly. “I have been feeling
worried myself, but there’s nothing so terrifying in losing one’s
money, after all. As a matter of fact, things are altogether better in
the city to-day. You made a big mistake in taking us out of our depth,
but we are going to pull through, after all. ‘Unions’ have been going
up all day.”

Laverick’s presence, and the sound of his even, matter-of-fact tone,
seemed to act like a tonic upon his late partner. He made no reference,
however, to Laverick’s words.

“You got my note?” he asked hoarsely.

“Naturally I got it,” Laverick answered impatiently, “and I came at
once. Try and pull yourself together. Sit up and tell me what you are
doing here, frightening your sister out of her life.”

Morrison groaned.

“I came here,” he muttered, “because I dared not go to my own rooms. I
was afraid!”

Laverick struggled with the contempt he felt.

“Man alive,” he exclaimed, “what was there to be afraid of?”

“You don’t know!” Morrison faltered. “You don’t know!”

Then, for the first time, it occurred to Laverick that perhaps the
financial crisis in their affairs was not the only thing which had
reduced his late partner to this hopeless state. He looked at him
narrowly.

“Where did you go last night,” he asked, “when you left me?”

“Nowhere,” Morrison gasped. “I came here.”

Laverick made a space for himself at the end of the bed, and sat down.

“Look here,” he said, “it’s no use sending for me unless you mean to
tell me everything. Have you been getting yourself into any trouble
apart from our affairs, or is there anything in connection with them
which I don’t know?”

Again Morrison opened his lips, and again, for some reason or other, he
remained speechless. Then a certain fear came also upon Laverick. There
was something in Morrison’s state which was in itself terrifying.

“You had better tell me all about it,” Laverick persisted, “whatever it
is. I will help you if I can.”

Morrison shook his head. There was a glass of water by his side. He
thrust his finger into it and passed it across his lips. They were dry,
almost cracking.

“Look here,” he said, “I’ve got a breakdown—that’s what’s the matter
with me. My nerves were never good. I’m afraid of going mad. The
anxiety of the last few weeks has been too much for me. I want to get
out of the country quickly, and I don’t know how to manage it. I can’t
think. Directly I try to think my head goes round.”

“There is nothing in the world to prevent your going away,” Laverick
answered. “It is the simplest matter possible. Even if we had gone
under to-day, no one could have stopped your going wherever you chose
to go. Ruin, even if it had been ruin,—and I told you just now that
business was better,—is not a crime. Pull yourself together, for
Heaven’s sake, man! You should be ashamed to come here and frighten
that poor little girl downstairs almost to death.”

Morrison gripped his partner’s arm.

“You must do as I ask,” he declared hoarsely. “It doesn’t matter about
prices being better. I want to get away. You must help me.”

Laverick looked at him steadily. Morrison was an ordinary young man of
his type, something of a swaggerer, probably at heart a coward. But
this was no ordinary fear—not even the ordinary fear of a coward.
Laverick’s face became graver. There was something else, then!

“I will get you out of the country if I can,” said he. “There is no
difficulty about it at all unless you are concealing something from me.
You can catch a fast steamer to-morrow, either for South Africa or New
York, but before I make any definite plans, hadn’t you better tell me
exactly what happened last night?”

Once more Morrison’s lips parted without the ability to frame words.
Then a feeble moan escaped him. He threw up his hands and his head fell
back. The ghastliness of his face spread almost to his lips, and he
sank back among the pillows. Laverick strode across the room to the
door.

“Are you anywhere about?” he called out.

The girl was by his side in a moment.

“There is nothing to be alarmed at,” he said, “but your brother has
fainted. Bring me some sal volatile if you have it, and I think that
you had better run out and get a doctor. I will stay with him. I know
exactly what to do.”

She pointed to the dressing-table, where a little bottle was standing,
and ran downstairs without a word. Laverick mixed some of the spirit,
and moved over to the side of the fainting man.




CHAPTER XV LAVERICK’s PARTNER FLEES


The doctor, a grave, incurious person, arrived within a few minutes to
find Morrison already conscious but absolutely exhausted. He felt his
patient’s pulse, prescribed a draught, and followed Laverick down into
the sitting room.

“An ordinary case of nervous exhaustion,” he pronounced. “The patient
appears to have had a very severe shock lately. He will be all right
with proper diet and treatment, and a complete rest. I will call again
to-morrow.”

He accepted the fee which Laverick slipped into his hand, and took his
departure. Once more Laverick was alone with the girl, who had followed
them downstairs.

“There is nothing to be alarmed at, you see,” he remarked.

“It is not his health which frightens me. I am sure—I am quite sure
that he has something upon his mind. Did he tell you nothing?”

“Nothing at all,” Laverick answered, with an inward sense of
thankfulness. “To tell you the truth, though, I am afraid you are right
and that he did get into some sort of trouble last night. He was just
about to tell me something when he fainted.”

Upstairs they could hear him moaning. The girl listened with pitiful
face.

“What am I to do?” she asked. “I cannot leave him like this, and if I
am not at the theatre in twenty minutes, I shall be fined.”

“The theatre?” Laverick repeated.

She nodded.

“I am on the stage,” she said,—“only a chorus girl at the Universal,
worse luck. Still, they don’t allow us to stay away, and I can’t afford
to lose my place.”

“Do you mean to say that you have been keeping yourself here, then?”
Laverick asked bluntly.

“Of course,” she answered. “I do not like to be a burden on any one,
and after all, you see, Arthur and I are really not related at all. He
has always told me, too, that times have been so bad lately.”

Laverick was on the point of telling her that bad though they had been
Arthur Morrison had never drawn less than fifteen hundred a year, but
he checked himself. It was not his business to interfere.

“I think,” he said, “that your brother ought to have provided for you.
He could have done so with very little effort.”

“But what am I to do now?” she asked him. “If I am absent, I shall lose
my place.”

Laverick thought for a moment.

“If you went round there and told them,” he suggested, “would that make
any difference? I could stay until you came back.”

“Do you mind?” she asked eagerly. “It would be so kind of you.”

“Not at all,” he answered. “Perhaps you would be good enough to bring a
taxicab back, and I could take it on to my rooms. Take one from here,
if you can find it. There are always some at the corner.”

“I’d love to,” she answered. “I must run upstairs and get my hat and
coat.”

He watched her go up on tiptoe for fear of disturbing her brother. Her
feet seemed almost unearthly in the lightness of their pressure. Not a
board creaked. She seemed to float down to him in a most becoming
little hat but a shockingly shabby jacket, of whose deficiencies she
seemed wholly unaware. Her lips were parted once more in a smile.

“He is fast asleep and breathing quite regularly,” she announced. “It
is nice of you to stay.”

He looked at her almost jealously.

“Do you know,” he said, “you ought not to go about alone?”

She laughed, softly but heartily.

“Have you any idea how old I am?”

“I took you for fourteen when I came inside,” he answered. “Afterwards
I thought you might be sixteen. Later on, it seemed to me possible that
you were eighteen. I am absolutely certain that you are not more than
nineteen.”

“That shows how little you know about it. I am twenty, and I am quite
used to going about alone. Will you sit upstairs or here? I am so sorry
that I have nothing to offer you.”

“Thanks, I need nothing. I think I will sit upstairs in case he wakes.”

She nodded and stole out, closing the door behind her noiselessly.
Laverick watched her from the window until she was out of sight, moving
without any appearance of haste, yet with an incredible swiftness. When
she had turned the corner, he went slowly upstairs and into the room
where Morrison still lay asleep. He drew a chair to the bedside and
leaning forward opened out the evening paper. The events of the last
hour or so had completely blotted out from his mind, for the time
being, his own expedition into the world of tragical happenings. He
glanced at the sleeping man, then opened his paper. There was very
little fresh news except that this time the fact was mentioned that
upon the body of the murdered man was discovered a sum larger than was
at first supposed. It seemed doubtful, therefore, whether robbery,
after all, was the motive of the crime, especially as it took place in
a neighborhood which was by no means infested with criminals. There was
a suggestion of political motive, a reference to the “Black Hand,”
concerning whose doings the papers had been full since the murder of a
well-known detective a few weeks ago. But apart from this there was
nothing fresh.

Laverick folded up the paper and leaned back in his chair. The strain
of the last twenty-four hours was beginning to tell even upon his
robust constitution. The atmosphere of the room, too, was close. He
leaned back in his chair and was suddenly weary. Perhaps he dozed. At
any rate, the whisper which called him back to realization of where he
was, came to him so unexpectedly that he sat up with a sudden start.

Morrison’s eyes were open, he had raised himself on his elbow, his lips
were parted. His manner was quieter, but there were black lines deep
engraven under his eyes, in which there still shone something of that
haunting fear.

“Laverick!” he repeated hoarsely.

Laverick, fully awakened now, leaned towards him.

“Hullo,” he said, “are you feeling more like yourself?”

Morrison nodded.

“Yes,” he admitted, “I am feeling—better. How did you come here? I
can’t remember anything.”

“You sent for me,” Laverick answered. “I arrived to find you pretty
well in a state of collapse. Your sister has gone round to the theatre
to ask them to excuse her this evening.”

“I remember now that I sent for you,” Morrison continued. “Tell me, has
any one been around at the office asking after me?”

“No one particular,” Laverick answered,—“no one at all that I can think
of. There were one or two inquiries through the telephone, but they
were all ordinary business matters.”

The man on the bed drew a little breath which sounded like a sigh of
relief.

“I have made a fool of myself, Laverick,” he said hoarsely.

“You are making a worse one of yourself by lying here and giving way,”
Laverick declared, “besides frightening your sister half to death.”

Morrison passed his hand across his forehead.

“We talked—some time ago,” he went on, “about my getting away. You
promised that you would help me. You said that I could get off to
Africa or America to-morrow.”

“Not the slightest difficulty about that,” Laverick answered. “There
are half-a-dozen steamers sailing, at least. At the same time, I
suppose I ought to remind you that the firm is going to pull through.
Mind—don’t take this unkindly but the truth is best—I will not have you
back again. There may have to be a more definite readjustment of our
affairs now, but the old business is finished with.”

“I don’t want to come back,” Morrison murmured. “I have had enough of
the city for the rest of my life. I’d rather get away somewhere and
make a fresh start. You’ll help me, Laverick, won’t you?”

“Yes, I will help you,” Laverick promised.

“You were always a good sort,” Morrison continued, “much too good for
me. It was a rotten partnership for you. We could never have pulled
together.”

“Let that go,” Laverick interrupted. “If you really mean getting away,
that simplifies matters, of course. Have you made any plans at all?
Where do you want to go?”

“To New York,” answered Morrison; “New York would suit me best. There
is money to be made there if one has something to make a start with.”

“There will be some more money to come to you,” Laverick answered,
“probably a great deal more. I shall place our affairs in the hands of
an accountant, and shall have an estimate drawn up to yesterday. You
shall have every penny that is due to you. You have quite enough,
however, to get there with. I will see to your ticket to-night, if
possible. When you’ve arrived you can cable me your address, or you can
decide where you will stay before you leave, and I will send you a
further remittance.”

“You’re a good sort, Laverick,” Morrison mumbled.

“You’d better give me the key of your rooms,” Laverick continued, “and
I will go back and put together some of your things. I suppose you will
not want much to go away with. The rest can be sent on afterwards. And
what about your letters?”

Morrison, with a sudden movement, threw himself almost out of the bed.
He clutched at Laverick’s shoulder frantically.

“Don’t go near my rooms, Laverick!” he begged. “Promise me that you
won’t! I don’t want any letters! I don’t want any of my things!”

Laverick was dumfounded.

“You mean you want to go away without—”

“I mean just what I have said,” Morrison continued hysterically. “If
you go there they will watch you, they will follow you, they will find
out where I am. I should be there now but for that.”

Laverick was silent for a moment. The matter was becoming serious.

“Very well,” he said, “I will do as you say. I will not go near your
rooms. I will get you a few things somewhere to start with.”

Morrison sank back upon his pillow.

“Thank you, Laverick,” he said; “thank you. I wish—I wish—”

His voice seemed to die away. Laverick glanced towards him, wondering
at the unfinished sentence. Once again the man’s face seemed to be
convulsed with horror. He flung himself face downward upon the bed and
tore at the sheets with both his hands.

“Don’t be a fool,” Laverick said sternly. “If you’ve anything on your
mind apart from business, tell me about it and I’ll do what I can to
help you.”

Morrison made no reply. He was sobbing now like a child. Laverick rose
to his feet and went to the window. What was to be done with such a
creature! When he got back, Morrison had raised himself once more into
a sitting posture. His appearance was absolutely spectral.

“Laverick,” he said feebly, “there is something else, but I cannot tell
you—I cannot tell any one.”

“Just as you please, of course,” Laverick answered. “I am simply
anxious to help you.”

“You can do that as it is!” Morrison exclaimed feverishly. “You must
promise me something—promise that if any one asks for me to-morrow
before I get away, you will not tell them where I am. Say you suppose
that I am at my rooms, or that I have gone into the country for a few
days. Say that you are expecting me back. Don’t let any one know that I
have gone abroad, until I am safely away. And then don’t tell a soul
where I have gone.”

“Have you been up to any tricks with your friends?” Laverick asked
sternly.

“I haven’t—I swear that I haven’t,” Morrison declared. “It’s something
quite outside business—quite outside business altogether.”

“Very well,” answered Laverick, “I will promise what you have asked,
then. Listen—here is your sister back again,” he added, as he heard the
taxicab stop outside. “Pull yourself together and don’t frighten her so
much. I am going down to meet her. I shall tell her that you are
better. Try and buck up when she comes in to see you.”

“I’ll do my best,” Morrison said humbly. “If you knew! If you only
knew!”

He began to sob again. Laverick left the room and, descending the
stairs, met the girl in the hall. Her white face questioned him before
her lips had time to frame the speech.

“Your brother is very much better,” Laverick said. “I am sure that you
need not be anxious about him.”

“I am so glad,” she murmured. “They let me off but I had to pay a fine.
I had no idea before that I was so important. Shall I go to him now?”

“One moment,” Laverick answered, holding open the door of the
sitting-room. “Miss Morrison,” he went on,—

“Miss Leneveu is my name,” she interrupted.

“I beg your pardon. Your brother evidently has something on his mind
apart from business. I am afraid that he has been getting into some
sort of trouble. I don’t think there is any object in bothering him
about it, but the great thing is to get him away.”

“You will help?” she begged.

“I will help, certainly,” Laverick answered. “I have promised to. You
must see that he is ready to leave here at seven o’clock to-morrow
morning. He wants to go to New York, and the special to catch the
German boat will leave Waterloo somewhere about eight to eight-thirty.”

“But his clothes!” she cried. “How can he be ready by then?”

“Your brother does not wish me or any one to go near his rooms or to
send him any of his belongings,” Laverick continued quietly.

“But how strange!” the girl exclaimed. “Do you mean to say, then, that
he is going without anything?”

“I am afraid,” Laverick said kindly, “that we must take it for granted
that your brother has got mixed up in some undesirable business or
other. He is nervously anxious to keep his whereabouts an entire
secret. He has been asking me whether any one has been to the office to
inquire for him. Under the circumstances, I think the best thing we can
do is to humor him. I shall buy him before to-morrow morning a cheap
dressing-case and a ready-made suit of clothes, and a few things for
the voyage. Then I shall send a cab for you both at seven o’clock and
meet you at the station.

“You are very kind,” she murmured. “What should I have done without
you? Oh, I cannot think!”

The protective instinct in the man was suddenly strong. Naturally
unaffectionate, he was conscious of an almost overmastering desire to
take her hands in his, even to lift her up and kiss away the tears
which shone in her deep, childlike eyes. He reminded himself that she
was a stranger, that her appearance of youth was a delusion, that she
could only construe such an action as a liberty, an impertinence,
offered under circumstances for which there could be no possible
excuse.

He moved away towards the door.

“Naturally,” he said, “I am glad to be of use to your brother. You
see,” he explained, a little awkwardly, “after all, we have been
partners in business.”

He caught a look upon her face and smiled.

“Naturally, too,” he continued, “it has been a great pleasure for me to
do anything to relieve your anxiety.”

She gave him her hands then of her own accord. The gratitude which
shone out of her swimming eyes seemed mingled with something which was
almost invitation. Laverick was suddenly swept off his feet. Something
had come into his life—something absurd, uncounted upon,
incomprehensible. The atmosphere of the room seemed electrified. In a
moment, he had done what only a second or two before he had told
himself would be the action of a cad. He had taken her, unresisting, up
into his arms, kissed her eyes and lips. Afterwards, he was never able
to remember those few moments clearly, only it seemed to him that she
had accepted his caress almost without hesitation, with the effortless
serenity of a child receiving a natural consolation in a time of
trouble. But Laverick was conscious of other feelings as he leaned hard
back in the corner of his taxicab and was driven swiftly away.




CHAPTER XVI THE WAITER AT THE “BLACK POST”


Laverick, notwithstanding that the hour was becoming late, found an
outfitter’s shop in the Strand still open, and made such purchases as
he could on Morrison’s behalf. Then, with the bag ready packed, he
returned to his rooms. Time had passed quickly during the last three
hours. It was nearly nine o’clock when he stepped out of the lift and
opened the door of his small suite of rooms with the latchkey which
hung from his chain. He began to change his clothes mechanically, and
he had nearly finished when the telephone bell upon his table rang.

“Who’s that?” he asked, taking up the receiver.

“Hall-porter, sir,” was the answer. “Person here wishes to see you
particularly.”

“A person!” Laverick repeated. “Man or woman?”

“Man, sir.

“Better send him up,” Laverick ordered.

“He’s a seedy-looking lot, sir,” the porter explained “I told him that
I scarcely thought you’d see him.”

“Never mind,” Laverick answered. “I can soon get rid of the fellow if
he’s cadging.”

He went back to his room and finished fastening his tie. His own
affairs had sunk a little into the background lately, but the
announcement of this unusual visitor brought them back into his mind
with a rush. Notwithstanding his iron nerves, his fingers shook as he
drew on his dinner-jacket and walked out to the passageway to answer
the bell which rang a few seconds later. A man stood outside, dressed
in shabby black clothes, whose face somehow was familiar to him,
although he could not, for the moment, place it.

“Do you want to see me?” Laverick asked.

“If you please, Mr. Laverick,” the man replied, “if you could spare me
just a moment.”

“You had better come inside, then,” Laverick said, closing the door and
preceding the way into the sitting-room. At any rate, there was nothing
threatening about the appearance of this visitor—nor anything official.

“I have taken the liberty of coming, sir,” the man announced, “to ask
you if you can tell me where I can find Mr. Arthur Morrison.”

Laverick’s face showed no sign of his relief. What he felt he succeeded
in keeping to himself.

“You mean Morrison—my partner, I suppose?” he answered.

“If you please, sir,” the man admitted. “I wanted a word or two with
him most particular. I found out his address from the caretaker of your
office, but he don’t seem to have been home to his rooms at all last
night, and they know nothing about him there.”

“Your face seems familiar to me,” Laverick remarked. “Where do you come
from?”

The man hesitated.

“I am the waiter, sir, at the ‘Black Post,’—little bar and restaurant,
you know,” he added, “just behind your offices, sir, at the end of
Crooked Friars’ Alley. You’ve been in once or twice, Mr. Laverick, I
think. Mr. Morrison’s a regular customer. He comes in for a drink most
mornings.”

Laverick nodded.

“I knew I’d seen your face somewhere,” he said. “What do you want with
Mr. Morrison?”

The man was silent. He twirled his hat and looked embarrassed.

“It’s a matter I shouldn’t like to mention to any one except Mr.
Morrison himself, sir,” he declared finally. “If you could put me in
the way of seeing him, I’d be glad. I may say that it would be to his
advantage, too.”

Laverick was thoughtful for a moment.

“As it happens, that’s a little difficult,” he explained. “Mr. Morrison
and I disagreed on a matter of business last night. I undertook certain
responsibilities which he should have shared, and he arranged to leave
the firm and the country at once. We parted—well, not exactly the best
of friends. I am afraid I cannot give you any information.”

“You haven’t seen him since then, sir?” the man asked.

Laverick lied promptly but he lied badly. His visitor was not in the
least convinced.

“I am afraid I haven’t made myself quite plain, sir,” he said. “It’s to
do him a bit o’ good that I’m here. I’m not wishing him any harm at
all. On the contrary, it’s a great deal more to his advantage to see me
than it will be mine to find him.”

“I think,” Laverick suggested, “that you had better be frank with me.
Supposing I knew where to catch Morrison before he left the country, I
could easily deal with you on his behalf.”

The man looked doubtful.

“You see, sir,” he replied awkwardly, “it’s a matter I wouldn’t like to
breathe a word about to any one but Mr. Morrison himself. It’s—it’s a
bit serious.”

The man’s face gave weight to his words. Curiously enough, the gleam of
terror which Laverick caught in his white face reminded him of a
similar look which he had seen in Morrison’s eyes barely an hour ago.
To gain time, Laverick moved across the room, took a cigarette from a
box and lit it. A conviction was forming itself in his mind. There was
something definite behind these hysterical paroxysms of his late
partner, something of which this man had an inkling.

“Look here,” he said, throwing himself into an easychair, “I think you
had better be frank with me. I must know more than I know at present
before I help you to find Morrison, even if he is to be found. We
didn’t part very good friends, but I’m his friend enough—for the sake
of others,” he added, after a moment’s hesitation, “to do all that I
could to help him out of any difficulty he may have stumbled into. So
you see that so far as anything you may have to say to him is
concerned, I think you might as well say it to me.”

“You couldn’t see your way, then, sir,” the man continued doggedly, “to
tell me where I could find Mr. Morrison himself?”

“No, I couldn’t,” Laverick decided. “Even if I knew exactly where he
was—and I’m not admitting that—I couldn’t put you in touch with him
unless I knew what your business was.”

The man’s eyes gleamed. He was a typical waiter—pasty-faced,
unwholesome-looking—but he had small eyes of a greenish cast, and they
were expressive.

“I think, sir,” he said, “you’ve some idea yourself, then, that Mr.
Morrison has been getting into a bit of trouble.”

“We won’t discuss that,” Laverick answered. “You must either go
away—it’s past nine o’clock and I haven’t had my dinner yet—or you must
treat me as you would Mr. Morrison.”

The man looked upon the carpet for several moments.

“Very well, sir,” he said, “there’s no great reason why I should put
myself out about this at all. The only thing is—”

He hesitated.

“Well, go on,” Laverick said encouragingly.

“I think,” the man continued, “that Mr. Morrison—knowing, as I well do,
sir, the sort of gent he is—would be more likely to talk common sense
with me about this matter than you, sir.”

“I’ll imagine I’m Morrison, for the moment,” Laverick said smiling,
“especially as I’m acting for him.”

The man looked around the room. The door behind had been left ajar. He
stepped backward and closed it.

“You’ll pardon the liberty, sir,” he said, “but this is a serious
matter I’m going to speak about. I’ll just tell you a little thing and
you can form your own conclusions. Last night we was open late at the
‘Black Post.’ We keep open, sir, as you know, when you gentlemen at the
Stock Exchange are busy. About nine o’clock there was a strange
customer came in. He had two drinks and he sat as though he were
waiting. In about ’arf-an-hour another gent came in, and they went into
a corner together and seemed to be doing some sort of business.
Anyways, there was papers passed between them. I was fairly busy about
then, as there were one or two more customers in the place, but I
noticed these two talking together, and I noticed the dark gentleman
leave. The others went out a few minutes afterwards, and the gent who
had come first was alone in the place. He sat in the corner and he had
a pocket-book on the table before him. I had a sort of casual glance at
it when I brought him a drink, and it seemed to me that it was full of
bank-notes. He sat there just like a man extra deep in thought. Just
after eleven, in came Mr. Morrison. I could see he was rare and put
out, for he was white, and shaking all over. ‘Give me a drink, Jim,’ he
said,—‘a big brandy and soda, big as you make ’em.’”

The man paused for a moment as though to collect himself. Laverick was
suddenly conscious of a strange thrill creeping through his pulses.

“Go on,” he said. “That was after he left me. Go on.”

“He was quite close to the other gent, Mr. Morrison was,” the waiter
continued, “but they didn’t say nowt to each other. All of a sudden I
see Mr. Morrison set down his glass and stare at the other chap as
though he’d seen something that had given him a turn. I leaned over the
counter and had a look, too. There he sat—this tall, fair chap who had
been in the place so long—with his big pocket-book on the table in
front of him, and even from where I was I could see that there was a
great pile of bank-notes sticking out from it. All of a sudden he looks
up and sees Mr. Morrison a-watching him and me from behind the counter.
Back he whisks the pocket-book into his pocket, calls me for my bill,
gives me two mouldy pennies for a tip, buttons up his coat and walks
out.”

“You know who he was?” Laverick inquired.

Again the waiter paused for a moment before he answered—paused and
looked nervously around the room. His voice shook.

“He was the man as was murdered about a hundred yards off the ‘Black
Post’ last night, sir,” he said.

“How do you know?” Laverick asked.

“I got an hour off to-day,” the waiter continued, “and went down to the
Mortuary. There was no doubt about it. There he was—same chap, same
clothes. I could swear to him anywhere, and I reckon I’ll have to at
the inquest.”

Laverick’s cigarette burned away between his fingers. It seemed to him
that he was no longer in the room. He was listening to Big Ben striking
the hour, he was back again in that tiny little bedroom with its
spotless sheets and lace curtains. The man on the bed was looking at
him. Laverick remembered the look and shivered.

“What has this to do with Morrison?” he demanded.

Once more the waiter looked around in that half mysterious, half
terrified way.

“Mr. Morrison, sir,” he said, dropping his voice to a hoarse whisper,
“he followed the other chap out within thirty seconds. A sort of queer
look he’d got in his face too, and he went out without paying me. I’ve
read the papers pretty careful, sir,” the man went on, “but I ain’t
seen no word of that pocket-book of bank-notes being found on the man
as was murdered.”

Laverick threw the end of his burning cigarette away. He walked to the
window, keeping his back deliberately turned on his visitor. His eyes
followed the glittering arc of lights which fringed the Thames
Embankment, were caught by the flaring sky-sign on the other side of
the river. He felt his heart beating with unaccustomed vigor. Was this,
then, the secret of Morrison’s terror? He wondered no longer at his
collapse. The terror was upon him, too. He felt his forehead, and his
hand, when he drew it away, was wet. It was not Morrison alone but he
himself who might be implicated in this man’s knowledge. The thoughts
flitted through his brain like parts of a nightmare. He saw Morrison
arrested, he saw the whole story of the missing pocket-book in the
papers, he imagined his bank manager reading it and thinking of that
parcel of mysterious bank-notes deposited in his keeping on the morning
after the tragedy... Laverick was a strong man, and his moment of
weakness, poignant though it had been, passed. This was no new thing
with which he was confronted. All the time he had known that the
probabilities were in favor of such a discovery. He set his teeth and
turned to face his visitor.

“This is a very serious thing which you have told me,” he said. “Have
you spoken about it to any one else?”

“Not a soul, sir,” the man answered. “I thought it best to have a word
or two first with Mr. Morrison.”

“You were thinking of attending the inquest,” Laverick said
thoughtfully. “The police would thank you for your evidence, and there,
I suppose, the matter would end.”

“You’ve hit it precisely, sir,” the man admitted. “There the matter
would end.”

“On the other hand,” Laverick continued, speaking as though he were
reasoning this matter out to himself, “supposing you decided not to
meddle in an affair which does not concern you, supposing you were not
sure as to the identity of your customer last night, and being a little
tired you could not rightly remember whether Mr. Morrison called in for
a drink or not, and so, to cut the matter short, you dismissed the
whole matter from your mind and let the inquest take its own
course,—”

Laverick paused. His visitor scratched the side of his chin and nodded.

“You’ve put this matter plainly, sir,” he said, “in what I call an
understandable, straightforward way. I’m a poor man—I’ve been a poor
man all my life—and I’ve never seed a chance before of getting away
from it. I see one now.”

“You want to do the best you can for yourself?”

“So ’elp me God, sir, I do!” the man agreed.

Laverick nodded.

“You have done a remarkably wise thing,” he said, “in coming to me and
in telling me about this affair. The idea of connecting Mr. Morrison
with the murder would, of course, be ridiculous, but, on the other
hand, it would be very disagreeable to him to have his name mentioned
in connection with it. You have behaved discreetly, and you have done
Mr. Morrison a service in trying to find him out. You will do him a
further service by adopting the second course I suggested with regard
to the inquest. What do you consider that service is worth?”

“It depends, sir,” the man answered quietly, “at what price Mr.
Morrison values his life!”




CHAPTER XVII THE PRICE OF SILENCE


The man’s manner was expressive. Laverick repeated his phrase,
frowning.

“His life!”

“Yes, sir!”

Laverick shrugged his shoulders.

“Come,” he declared, “you must not go too far with this thing. I have
admitted, so as to clear the way for anything you have to say, that Mr.
Morrison would not care to have his name mentioned in connection with
this affair. But because he left your bar a few minutes after the
murdered man, it is sheer folly to assume that therefore he is
necessarily implicated in his death. I cannot conceive anything more
unlikely.”

The man smiled—a slow, uncomfortable smile which suggested mirth less
than anything in the world.

“There are a few other things, sir,” he remarked,—“one in especial.”

“Well?” Laverick inquired. “Let’s have it. You had better tell me
everything that is in your mind.”

“The man was stabbed with a horn-handled knife.”

“I remember reading that,” Laverick admitted.

“Well?”

“The knife was mine,” his visitor affirmed, dropping his voice once
more to a whisper. “It lay on the edge of the counter, close to where
Mr. Morrison was leaning, and as soon as he’d gone I missed it.”

Laverick was silent. What was there to be said?

“Horn-handled knives,” he muttered, “are not rare not uncommon things.”

“One don’t possess a knife for a matter of eight or nine years without
being able to swear to it,” the other remarked dryly.

“Is there anything more?”

“There don’t need to be,” was the quiet reply. “You know that, sir. So
do I. There don’t need to be any more evidence than mine to send Mr.
Morrison to the gallows.”

“We will waive that point,” Laverick declared. “The jury sometimes are
very hard to convince by circumstantial evidence alone. However, as I
have said, let us waive that point. Your position is clear enough. You
go to the inquest, you tell all you know, and you get nothing. You are
a poor man, you have worked hard all your life. The chance has come in
your way to do yourself a little good. Now take my advice. Don’t spoil
it all by asking for anything ridiculous. It won’t do for you to come
into a fortune a few days after this affair, especially if it ever
comes out that the murdered man was in your place. I am here to act for
Mr. Morrison. What is it that you want?”

“You are talking like a gent, sir,” the man said,—“like a sensible
gent, too. I’d have to keep it quiet, of course, that I’d come into a
bit of money,—just at present, at any rate. I could easy find an excuse
for changing my job—perhaps get away from London altogether. I’ve got a
few pounds saved and I’ve always wanted to open a banking account. A
gent like you, perhaps, could put me in the way of doing it.”

“How much do you consider would be a satisfactory balance to commence
with?” Laverick asked.

“I was thinking of a thousand pounds, sir.”

Laverick was thoughtful for a few moments.

“By the way, what is your name?” he inquired at last.

“James Shepherd, sir,” the man answered,—“generally called Jim, sir.”

“Well, you see, Shepherd,” Laverick continued, “the difficulty is, in
your case, as in all similar ones, that one never knows where the thing
will end. A thousand pounds is a considerable sum, but in four amounts,
with three months interval between each, it could be arranged. This
would be better for you, in any case. Two hundred and fifty pounds is
not an unheard-of sum for you to have saved or got together. After that
your investments would be my lookout, and they would produce, as I have
said, another seven hundred and fifty pounds. But what security have
I—has Mr. Morrison, let us say—that you will be content with this sum?”

“He hasn’t any, sir,” the man admitted at once. “He couldn’t have any.
I’m a modest-living man, and I’ve no desire to go shouting around that
I’m independent all of a sudden. That wouldn’t do nohow. A thousand
pounds would bring me in near enough a pound a week if I invested it,
or two pounds a week for an annuity, my health being none too good.
I’ve no wife or children, sir. I was thinking of an annuity. With two
pounds a week I’d have no cause to trouble any one again.”

Laverick considered.

“It shall be done,” he said. “To-morrow I shall buy shares for you to
the extent of two hundred and fifty pounds. They will be deposited in a
bank. Some day you can look in and see me, and I will take you round
there. You are my client who has speculated under my instructions
successfully, and you will sign your name and become a customer. After
that, you will speculate again. When your thousand pounds has been
made, I will show you how to buy an annuity. Keep your mouth shut, and
last night will be the luckiest night of your life. Do you drink?”

“A drop or two, sir,” the man admitted. “If I didn’t, I guess I’d go
off my chump.”

“Do you talk when you’re drunk?” Laverick asked.

“Never, sir,” the man declared. “I’ve a way of getting a drop too much
when I’m by myself. Then I tumbles off to sleep and that’s the end of
it. I’ve no fancy for company at such times.”

“It’s a good thing,” Laverick remarked, thrusting his hand into his
pocket. “Here’s a five-pound note on account. I daresay you can manage
to keep sober to-night, at any rate. That’s all, isn’t it?”

“That’s all, sir,” the man answered, “unless I might make so bold as to
ask whether Mr. Morrison has really hooked it?”

“Mr. Morrison had decided to hook it, as you graphically say, before he
came in for that drink to your bar, Shepherd,” Laverick affirmed.
“Business had been none too good with us, and we had had a
disagreement.”

The man nodded.

“I see, sir,” he said, taking up his hat. “Good night, sir!”

“Good night!” Laverick answered. “You can find your way down?”

“Quite well, sir, and thank you,” declared Mr. Shepherd, closing the
door softly behind him.

Laverick sat down in his chair. He had forgotten that he was hungry. He
was faced now with a new tragedy.




CHAPTER XVIII THE LONELY CHORUS GIRL


They stood together upon the platform watching the receding train. The
girl’s eyes were filled with tears, but Laverick was conscious of a
sense of immense relief. Morrison had been at the station some time
before the train was due to leave, and, although a physical wreck, he
seemed only too anxious to depart. He had all the appearance of a
broken-spirited man. He looked about him on the platform, and even from
the carriage, in the furtive way of a criminal expecting apprehension
at any moment. The whistle of the train had been a relief as great to
him as to Laverick.

“We’ll write you to New York, care of Barclays,” Laverick called out.
“Good luck, Morrison! Pull yourself together and make a fresh start.”

Morrison’s only reply was a somewhat feeble nod. Laverick had not
attempted to shake hands. He felt himself at the last moment, stirred
almost to anger by the perfunctory farewell which was all this man had
offered to the girl he had treated so inconsiderately. His thoughts
were engrossed upon himself and his own danger. He would not even have
kissed her if she had not drawn his face down to hers and whispered a
reassuring little message. Laverick turned away. For some reason or
other he felt himself shuddering. Conversation during those last few
moments had been increasingly difficult. The train was off at last,
however, and they were alone.

The girl drew a long breath, which might very well have been one of
relief. They turned silently toward the exit.

“Are you going back home?” Laverick asked.

“Yes,” she answered listlessly. “There is nothing else to do.”

“Isn’t it rather sad for you there by yourself?”

She nodded.

“It is the first time,” she said. “Another girl and her mother have
lived with me always. They started off last week, touring. They are
paying a little toward the house or I should have to go into rooms. As
it is, I think that it would be more comfortable.”

Laverick looked at her wonderingly.

“You seem such a child,” he said, “to be left all alone in the world
like this.”

“But I am not a child actually, you see,” she answered, with an effort
at lightness. “Somehow, though, I do miss Arthur’s going. His father
was always very good to me, and made him promise that he would do what
he could. I didn’t see much of him, but one felt always that there was
somebody. It’s different now. It makes one feel very lonely.”

“I, too,” Laverick said, with commendable mendacity, “am rather a
lonely person. You must let me see something of you now and then.”

She looked up at him quickly. Her gaze was altogether disingenuous, but
her eyes—those wonderful eyes—spoke volumes.

“If you really mean it,” she

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