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The Secret of the Silver Car

by Wyndham Martyn · English · Gutenberg #40372 · 409,103 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Secret of the Silver Car

Author: Wyndham Martyn


        
Release date: July 30, 2012 [eBook #40372]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET OF THE SILVER CAR ***

THE SECRET OF
THE SILVER CAR




WYNDHAM MARTYN
IS ALSO THE AUTHOR OF
"ANTHONY TRENT, MASTER CRIMINAL"
"ALL THE WORLD TO NOTHING"
"THE MAN OUTSIDE"




THE SECRET OF
THE SILVER CAR

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF ANTHONY
TRENT, MASTER CRIMINAL


BY
WYNDHAM MARTYN

AUTHOR OF
THE MAN OUTSIDE; ALL THE WORLD TO NOTHING;
ANTHONY TRENT, MASTER CRIMINAL; ETC.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration]

       *       *       *       *       *

NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
1920




COPYRIGHT, 1920
BY MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY




THEIR FATHER
DEDICATES THESE FURTHER
ADVENTURES OF ANTHONY TRENT TO
PHYLLIS AND CYNTHIA
BUT NOT WITHOUT A GUILTY FEELING THAT THERE
MUST HAVE BEEN SOMETHING
LACKING
IN THE ETHICAL TRAINING OF THESE
ESTIMABLE CHILDREN
SINCE THEY TAKE SUCH INTEREST IN THE
CAREER
OF A MASTER CRIMINAL




CONTENTS

  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
     I THE PUZZLING PASSENGER                                          1
    II THE MAN IN THE DARK                                            14
   III THE BEGINNING OF THE SEARCH                                    25
    IV A LADY INTERRUPTS                                              63
     V THE MAN WHO DENIED                                             80
    VI FRESH FIELDS                                                  101
   VII THE SENTENCE OF BANISHMENT                                    119
  VIII COUNT MICHÆL TEMESVAR                                         133
    IX PAULINE                                                       146
     X THE GREATER GAME                                              174
    XI ANTHONY PLAYS HIS HAND                                        186
   XII SAINT ANTHONY                                                 214
  XIII DOWN TO THE SEA                                               236
   XIV THE CABINET MEETING                                           266
    XV ANTHONY THE TRIUMPHANT                                        277




CHAPTER ONE

_THE PUZZLING PASSENGER_


"Stop him," the second officer yelled, "he's going to jump overboard!"

The man who dashed past him and through a group of passengers waving
hands at friends on the deck below, was too quick for those who sought
to stay him. He balanced himself for a moment on the rail and then
jumped ten feet down to the pier.

The gangplanks had already been withdrawn and the great liner bound for
New York was too mighty a piece of momentum to pause now. Furthermore
her commander was going down the river on a favoring tide and nothing
short of a signal from the port authorities would have made him put back
for a passenger who had chosen such a singular moment for a leap into
the dark.

An hour or so later in the smoking room the disappearance was discussed
with fervor. A collar manufacturer of Troy, named Colliver, was holding
his group for the reason he had been standing by the rail when the young
man jumped and had even sought to restrain him.

"He was too quick for me," Colliver declared. "I surely thought he'd
hurt himself jumping ten feet down."

"What did he do after he jumped?" a man demanded.

"Picked himself up and looked around as if he expected to see someone.
The last I saw of him was going from group to group of people asking
something I couldn't hear."

"Very mysterious," another passenger commented. "I don't believe he was
crazy. I believe he jumped off just at the right moment--for him. I
believe we shall find he took some loot with him. The purser is making
an investigation now."

"I've got a theory," another smoker asserted. "I was just going to ask
him for a light when he began that run down the deck to the rail and
believe me he can sprint. Just as I was about to open my mouth I saw his
face suddenly change. Evidently he had seen or heard something that
frightened him."

"So he ran away from danger?" Colliver added. "That might be. I tell you
on a big boat like this we are surrounded by crooks, male and female,
and they look on us as their lawful prey. He might have been a gambler
who spotted a victim he was afraid of."

"Or a murderer," a Harvard theologian replied nervously. "I never feel
really safe on a great liner like this. We all have to take one another
on trust. I have been introduced to you gentlemen as a professor of
pastoral theology. I may be a professional murderer for all you know.
Mr. Colliver here isn't known to me personally and he may be a really
high class bank robber for all I can tell."

Mr. Colliver took the suggestion sourly.

"Everybody in Troy knows me," he replied with dignity.

"Exactly," the theologian answered. "But Troy is not on the ship's
passenger lists to any such extent as to corroborate your statement.
There may be Harvard men on board who know me by name but for all they
know I may be made up to represent Professor Sedgely so as to gain your
confidence and rob you."

"My collars encircle the necks of more men than those of any other
maker," said Colliver quoting one of his advertisements. "My name is
known everywhere. No man is perfectly dressed without my collars. I
presented a swimming pool to Troy and there isn't a man or woman in the
city but would resent any slur on me."

"My dear sir," said the professor smiling, "I am not attacking your good
name or your city's fame. I am only saying that if you were crossing
with the idea of making a killing at games of chance I should not
benefit because you assumed the name of one who ornaments the cervical
vertebræ of perfectly dressed men. I only meant that anything can take
place on a ship such as this is and that this man who escaped tonight
may have done so to avoid capture and possible imprisonment or even
death."

"The purser had a wireless sent to the company's office and no doubt
has a reply by this time," another passenger broke in.

"He is probably in prison now," Professor Sedgely remarked.

"You certainly have a cheerful mind," Colliver commented.

"I read for mental relaxation the lightest forms of fiction," the
professor answered, "and I am prepared for anything. I maintain that
every passenger on a fast ship like this is regarded as a possible
victim by the cleverest criminals in existence. For myself I have
nothing of value, being poorly paid, but our friend there who has so
finely benefitted his home city wears a diamond pin of great value.
Furthermore there is a sapphire set in platinum on his finger which
might well tempt the professional robber."

"Say," said Colliver a little uneasily, "you're observant all right.
Anything else you saw?"

"That you have a gold cigar case with initials in emeralds. I have," the
professor said modestly, "trained my powers of observation. I do it to
protect myself."

He rose from his chair and bowed a courteous goodnight to the immediate
group and then went on deck.

"I don't trust that man," said the manufacturer. "I never trust any man
on a ship who wears smoked glasses. He wanted to conceal his eyes. I'll
bet he never saw Harvard except on a picture postal. Damn it!" Colliver
cried peevishly, "Why can't a man wear a passable ring and stickpin
without it attracting the attention of other people?"

The Harvard theologian had sown seeds of suspicion. Colliver, as amiable
a manufacturer of collars as any in Troy, looked over at Myers Irving
who ran an advertising agency in New York and suspected him of being a
confidence man.

"It's a pretty good looking ring," Irving said heartily. He wished he
had one like it. Now that he knew who Colliver was he thirsted after his
account. His overtures were accepted with marked reserve and a gloom
fell upon the party until the entrance of the genial purser.

"Who was the mysterious man?" Colliver asked.

"His name was Anthony Trent," said the purser.

A man in the uniform of a captain in the United States army who had been
playing solitaire and had taken no part in this talk, looked up with
such sudden interest at the name that the purser turned to him.

"Do you know Anthony Trent?" he demanded.

"Yes," said Captain Sutton, "I do."

"Can you think of any reason why he should jump ashore just as we were
starting for the Hudson River?"

"He might have been saying goodbye to his best girl and taken no heed of
the warning to go ashore."

"That won't do," the purser declared. "All his kit is in his stateroom
and he had already seen his table steward and arranged about his seat.
He went off on the impulse of the moment and I'd like to know what that
impulse was."

"Has anyone missed anything?" Colliver asked.

"Don't know," the purser said. "Haven't heard of anything so far. I
wirelessed the office and the pier superintendent and they have lost all
trace of him. The last they heard of him was that he was seen offering a
taxicab driver double fare to drive fast."

"He saw someone on the ship he was afraid of," Colliver said with the
air of one called upon to solve a deep mystery.

The purser was determined not to let Captain Sutton get back to his
solitaire.

"I'm afraid I'll have to ask you more about your friend," he said
smiling, "the whole thing is so unusual that the old man wants a
thorough investigation. In confidence, is there anything fishy about
this Anthony Trent?"

"In confidence, I may tell you," Captain Sutton answered, "but my
confidence will be in the captain's cabin and not here."

"Do you think we'd say anything to anyone about it?" Colliver demanded.
He feared he was to be robbed of interesting details.

"I'm a lawyer by profession," Captain Sutton returned, "and I know how
people talk even when they mean to be silent. Anthony Trent is a friend
of mine and I shall constitute myself his counsel. He served under me in
the war, was recommended for a commission, and won the _Croix de
Guerre_. He is an American with enough money to play golf and flyfish
for trout all he wants to. He was in a hospital in the Isle of Wight for
three months after being wounded and I had a letter from him saying he
would come over on this ship. I came by Liverpool just because I wanted
to see him; and when I didn't see him at dinner I thought he had changed
his plans. I can give no reason why he should have left the boat in the
manner he did but as a lawyer I can assure the company that it is his
affair and not theirs."

The purser was skilled in the ways of human beings. He had not
straightened out difficulties for his company on half a thousand trips
across the Atlantic for nothing. He could see plainly enough that
Captain Sutton knew something about Anthony Trent that he would not tell
the captain or anyone else unless process of law compelled. There had
been a quick look of fear on his face when he realized Trent was the man
of whom the group about him had been speaking. Whether Captain Sutton
knew the reason why his friend had leapt from the ship's rail was
doubtful; but that the act had conjured up sudden fear gave the purser
food for thought.

"The company certainly does not want to bring suit against a passenger
who has paid for a high priced state room and a number of excellent
meals and refuses to benefit by them. The old man was annoyed that
everyone was talking about it at his table and he wasn't able to get off
his little crop of chestnuts as usual. He'd appreciate it if you would
tell him what you know about Mr. Trent."

"If I see him it will be as Mr. Trent's lawyer," Sutton retorted.

The purser looked at him keenly.

"So you admit," he said genially, "that this mysterious Anthony Trent
needs a defender?"

"I admit nothing of the sort," Sutton replied quickly. But he felt he
had not conducted the affair with his usual skill. "There's been a lot
of hot air talked about crimes on board ship and I'm not going to have
my friend's name linked with that sort of thing."

"Of course not," the purser agreed. "I can understand why you come to
the rescue; still there is bound to be some misunderstanding about a man
who leaves all his baggage behind and takes a desperate jump as he did."

"He saw someone on this ship he was afraid of," Colliver insisted. "It
might have been you for all I know."

"What do you mean by that?" Sutton demanded and flushed dusky red.

Colliver was amazed at the sudden heat. The purser was more interested
than ever. He would have been even more amazed if he had known that
Captain Sutton honestly believed that it was because Anthony Trent had
seen him face to face that he had escaped. The letter of which he had
spoken was non-existent. He had lied because of the man whom he had, for
the first time, claimed as his friend.

Sutton had been the officer; Trent the enlisted man and the discipline
of the service prevented a friendship that would have been possible in
other days and, now war was finished, might again become practicable.
The space of an hour was the time the officer had been with the man and
yet he was determined to fight for his interests. And he suddenly
realized that he had begun his fight by antagonizing a very shrewd
purser.

"My dear sir," the purser said gently, "I am sure you are taking this
too much to heart. Nobody is accusing your client of anything more
serious than risking a broken leg which, after all, is more his affair
than even his counsel's. Captain Kingscote will ask you a few questions
which you must understand, as a lawyer, a ship's commander ought to ask.
There is such a thing as a log and it has to be written correctly.
Tomorrow morning perhaps? You will be offered an excellent cigar and a
drink that you can't get in all the length and breadth of your native
land."

"Any time at all," Sutton answered with an effort to be as genial as the
purser. "I only resented the idle chatter that centred around a man who
fought very gallantly."

"If you mean me by that reference," Colliver said angrily, "I'd like to
say that I have as much right to talk as anyone on board."

"Certainly," said Myers Irving, "and I can't see why anyone wants to get
excited about it. It was that professor who began it. Mr. Colliver what
do you say to a little smile?"

Colliver looked at the card Irving handed to him. He did not like
advertising men as a rule but he felt this debonair head of a big agency
was an exception. He had come to the aid of big business.

"It must be the salt in the air," he confessed, "I don't mind if I do."

Left to himself Sutton closed his eyes and lived over again those
moments in France when Anthony Trent had been brought before him as
adjutant on extraordinary charges.

Once or twice he had seen Private Trent and had been vaguely reminded of
a forgotten face. It was only when Anthony Trent had been recommended
for promotion and had declined it that he remembered the name. Trent had
been the Dartmouth football captain in that historic year when Harvard
was humbled. Sutton, a graduate of ten years previously, had shouted
himself hoarse at the great run by which Trent had passed the crimson
score.

Private Trent had been chosen on very dangerous business and the
adjutant had no chance to speak to him as he had determined to do.
Anthony Trent was one of those who volunteered to clean up machine gun
nests left behind to harass the advancing troops of the Allies. He had
done so well that Captain Sutton was proud of him for the sake of the
old college in Hanover.

He remembered the shock he had when Lieutenant Devlin, a former
detective in New York and a man to whom he was not drawn, declared that
this same Anthony Trent was the most famous criminal of the day, a
master craftsman who had never been in police toils.

Sutton laughed at the very suggestion. It was absurd. Devlin's answer to
this made the soldier-lawyer less confident. Devlin said that Dr. Trent
had left his son but a few hundred dollars and a rambling mortgaged home
among New Hampshire hills. Young Trent had come to New York and settled
down to writing detective and criminal stories for the lesser magazines.
Then, suddenly, an Australian relative had died and left him a fortune.
This was a lie, Devlin declared. There was no such relation. It was done
to explain his sudden giving up of writing and living in a far better
style.

Trent owned, so the detective asserted, a beautiful camp on Kennebago
Lake in Maine, two automobiles and sundry other aids to a comfortable
existence which his writings would never have gained for him.

Still disbelieving, Captain Sutton was shown the dying depositions of an
English soldier who had been butler to a New York millionaire whose
house had been robbed. Austin, the butler, had seen Trent and assumed
him to be a friend of his employer. He had recognized him when British
and American troops were brigaded side by side and had told only Devlin
a detective who had worked on the case.

Evidence at last seemed conclusive. Devlin, dying in hospital wished for
the downfall of a man who had beaten him in three big cases. The
adjutant remembered well one case when the Dangerfield ruby worth almost
two hundred thousand dollars was taken.

Private Trent seemed quite calm. He assured his officer that these
charges were preposterous. "What else could they be?" he had asked.

"They might be the truth," Sutton had said gravely.

He remembered the visit to the hospital where Devlin lay dying but eager
to sign the testimony he had woven about his enemy. The ending of the
incident was very curious. It made him like Devlin after all. When
Devlin knew his end was come and the last rites of his church had been
administered he had given up his plans for revenge. He had looked into
the fearless eyes of the master criminal and he had seen there an
unconquerable spirit which he admired. And so, with his last effort he
had torn up the written evidence and declared that Anthony Trent was not
the man; that it was all a mistake.

Sutton remembered the relief with which he had put his hand on the
shoulder of the younger man and that he had said, "Trent, you were in
luck this time. Don't take a chance again."

After the signing of peace he had determined to look up the old athlete
and see if he could not offer him such opportunities that he could go
straight. Sutton was a man of immense wealth and had mining properties
in South America which needed supervision.

And now to find that Trent was aboard the ship and at the last moment
had risked a broken limb in order to escape. It was not likely that a
man who feared detection so much dare rely on the generosity of a man
who knew his secret. There were probably rewards for his capture which,
in the aggregate, offered immense inducement to deliver Anthony Trent
to justice. How was Trent to know that Sutton the adjutant was
financially secure enough to make the sacrifice? Undoubtedly he had seen
Sutton and made the desperate leap.

Sutton determined to safeguard his interests. The baggage for instance,
that should not be searched. There might be in it evidence as damaging
as that which the brothers of Joseph put into the younger's sack. It
would be far better to see the captain and make a friend of him. Why had
not Trent been a better reader of character and recognized that in
Captain Sutton he had a friend?

Sutton did not know that long ago Trent had seen that in the rich lawyer
there was one whom he need not fear. Few were more skilled than the
master criminal in the reading of those signs by which men reveal for a
second or so the depths of their natures.

Anthony Trent had not jumped from the rails of the big ship because he
had seen Sutton. He had no idea his old adjutant was on board. He had
not jumped ashore because of any person on the liner. He took his
reckless leap because among those who waited on the pier he heard the
voice of the one man he feared, the man he had been trying to find since
that day in France when death seemed at last to have claimed him.




CHAPTER TWO

_THE MAN IN THE DARK_


One day late in October when the Allies were moving with such speed
against the enemy Private Trent had been struck with a piece of
shrapnel. There was the recognized noise of the flying fragments and
then a sudden flaming pain in his left arm followed by black
unconsciousness.

He came back very slowly to the realization that he was not seriously
hurt. His wounded arm was bandaged. He was still rather weak and lay
back for some moments before opening his eyes. Then he opened them to
meet only a wall of unrelieved night. "I'm blind!" he thought.

Groping about him he felt dank earth, the earth he had been accustomed
to in the trenches, slimy, sweating clay. With his undamaged hand he
felt the bandages that were about his head. There was no wound near his
eyes; but that would not be necessary, for he had seen so many cases of
blindness due to the bursting of high explosives. It might be temporary
blindness or it might be permanent.

There was a great silence about him. Gone were the myriad sounds of war
that had enveloped him before his injury. Perhaps he was deaf, too. "My
God!" he groaned thinking of this new infliction and then grew a little
less miserable when he recognized the sound of his own voice. Well,
blindness was enough! Never again to see the green earth or the morning
sun stealing down the lake where his home was. At a little past thirty
to see only through the eyes of others. No more golf, no more hunting
and fishing trips, and of course no more of those taut-nerved nights
when he, a single human being, pitted his strength and intelligence
against the forces of organized society--and won. There was small
consolation in thinking that now, at all events, Anthony Trent, master
criminal would not be caught. He would go down in police history as the
most mysterious of those criminals who have set the detectives by the
heels.

A little later he told himself he would rather be caught, sentenced to a
term of life imprisonment if only he might see a tiny ribbon of blue sky
from his cell window, than condemned to this eternal blackness.

Then the miracle happened. A few yards from him came a scratching sound
and then a sudden flame. And in that moment he could see the profile of
a man bending over a cigarette. He was not blind!

"Who are you?" Anthony Trent cried not yet able to comprehend this
lifting of what he felt was a sentence imposed. "Where am I?"

The man who answered spoke with one of those cultivated English voices
which Trent had once believed to be the mark of decadence or
effeminacy, a belief the bloody fields of France had swept from him.

"Well," said the man slowly, "I really don't see that it matters much
now to anyone what my name may be."

"The only thing that matters to me," Trent cried with almost hysterical
fervor, "is that I'm not blind as I thought I was."

The answer of the unknown man was singular; but Trent, who was not far
from hysteria on account of bodily pain and the mental anguish through
which he had been, did not take note of it.

"I don't think that matters much either," the voice of the man in the
dark commented.

"Then where are we?" Trent demanded.

"There again I can't help you much," the unknown answered. "This _was_ a
common or garden dug-out."

"_Was_," Trent repeated, "What is it now?"

"A tomb," the stranger told him puffing at his cigarette. "I found you
bleeding to death and I bandaged your arm. I was knocked out myself and
your men and mine had gone on and there was never a Red Cross man or
anyone else in sight so I carried you into this dug-out. All of a sudden
some damned H. E. blocked up the opening. When the dust settled I
explored with my few matches. Our tomb is sealed up--absolutely. I've
often heard of it happening before. It looks as if a house had been
lifted up and planted right on this dug-out."

"So that's why you said it didn't matter much if I could see or not?"

"Does it?" the man asked shortly.

"Have you another match?" Trent asked presently. "I'd like to explore."

"No good," the other retorted. "I've been all round the damned place and
there isn't a chance, except that the thing may collapse and bury us."

"Then we are to starve to death without an effort?"

"We shall asphyxiate, we shan't starve. Don't you notice how heavy the
air is? Presently we shall get drowsy. Already I feel light headed and
inclined to talk."

"Then talk," Trent said, "Anything is better than sitting here and
waiting. The air is heavy; I notice it now. I suppose I'm going to be
delirious. Talk, damn you, talk. Why not tell me your name? What
difference can it make to you now? Are you afraid? Have you done things
you're ashamed of? Why let that worry you since it only proves you're
human."

"I'm not ashamed of what I've done," the other drawled, "it's my family
which persists in saying I've disgraced it."

Anthony Trent was in a strange mood. Ordinarily secretive to a degree
and fearful always of dropping a hint that might draw suspicion to his
ways of life, he found himself laughing in a good humored way that this
English soldier should imagine he must conceal his name for fear of
disgrace. Why the man was a child, a pigmy compared with Anthony Trent.
He had perhaps disobeyed an autocrat father or possibly married a chorus
girl instead of a blue blooded maiden.

"You've probably done nothing," said Trent. "It may be you were expelled
from school or university and that makes you think you are a desperate
character."

There was silence for a moment or so.

"As it happens," the unknown said, "I was expelled from Harrow and
kicked out of Trinity but it isn't for that. I'm known in the army as
Private William Smith of the 78th Battalion, City of London Regiment."

"I thought you were an officer," Trent said. Private Smith had the kind
of voice which Trent associated with the aristocracy.

"I'm just a plain private like you," Smith said, "although the lowly
rank is mine for probably far different reasons."

"I'm not so sure of that," Trent said, a trifle nettled. "I could have
had a commission if I wanted it."

"I did have one," Smith returned, "but I didn't mean what I said
offensively. I meant only that I dare not accept a commission."

Anthony Trent waited a moment before he answered.

"I'm not so sure of that," he said again.

The reasons for which Trent declined his commission and thereby endured
certain hardships not unconnected with sleeping quarters and noisy
companionship were entirely to his credit. Always with the fear of
exposure before his eyes he did not want to place odium on the status of
the American officer as he would have done had screaming headlines in
the papers spoken of the capture by police authorities of Lieutenant
Anthony Trent the cleverest of modern crooks. But he could not bring
himself to speak of this even in his present unusual mood.

"It doesn't matter now very much," Smith said laughing a little, "we
shall both be called missing and the prison camps will be searched for
us. In the end my family may revere my memory and yours call you its
chief glory."

"I haven't a family," Trent said. "I used to be sorry for it. I'm glad
now." He stopped suddenly. "Do you know," he said later, "you were
laughing just now. You're either crazy or else you must have your nerve
with you still."

"I may be crazy," returned Private Smith, "but I usually make my living
by having my nerve with me as you call it. It has been my downfall. If I
had been a good, moral child, amenable to discipline I might have
commanded a regiment instead of being a 'tommy' and I might be repenting
now. By the way you don't seem as depressed as one might expect. Why?"

"After a year of this war one doesn't easily lose the habit of laughing
at death."

"I've had four years of it," Smith said. "I was a ranker when it broke
out and saw the whole show from August 1914. On the whole what is
coming will be a rest. I don't know how they manage these things in
your country but in England when a man has been, well call it unwise,
there is always a chance of feeling a heavy hand on one's shoulder and
hearing a voice saying in one's ear, 'I arrest you in the King's name!'
Very dramatic and impressive and all that sort of thing, but wearing on
the nerves--very." Private Smith laughed gently, "I'm afraid you are
dying in rather bad company."

"We have something in common perhaps," Trent said. He grinned to himself
in the covering blackness as he said it. "Tell me, did you ever hear of
Anthony Trent?"

"Never," Private Smith returned quickly. "Sorry! I suppose I ought to
know all about him. What has he done?"

"He wrote stories of super-crookdom for one thing."

"That explains it," Smith asserted, "You see those stories rather bore
me. I read them when I was young and innocent but now I know how
extremely fictional they are; written for the greater part, I'm
informed, by blameless women in boarding houses. I like reading the real
thing."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Reports of actual crimes as set forth in the newspapers.
Cross-examinations of witnesses and all that, summing up of the judges
and coroners' inquests. Was this Trent person really good?"

"You shall judge," said the American. "He wrote of crimes and criminals
from what such actual practitioners had told him. He was for a time a
police reporter on a big New York paper and had to hang around Mulberry
Street. After that he tried the magazines but as editors are so remote
as a rule from actual knowledge of the world's play and work, he didn't
make much money at it. Finally his pet editor--a man with some human
attributes--said in effect, 'I can't raise your rates; the publisher
won't stand for it. If I paid decent prices he couldn't buy champagne
and entertain his favorites.' This was in the era before prohibition.
The human editor went on giving advice and wound up by saying, 'Why
don't you do what your super-crook character does and relieve the
dishonest rich of their stolen bonds? Conway Parker gets away with it,
why shouldn't you?'"

"Of course he was rotting?" Private Smith asked.

"Yes," the American said, "He didn't really mean it but the thought
germs fell into the right sort of broth. Anthony Trent wasn't naturally
a crook but he hated having to live in a cheap boarding house and eat
badly cooked meals and play on a hard-mouthed, hired, upright piano.
Some ancestor had dowered him with a love of beautiful things, rugs,
pictures, pottery, bronzes, music and a rather secluded life. Also he
had dreams about being a great composer. He was a queer mixture. On the
whole rather unbalanced I suppose. His father died and left him almost
nothing. All he could do was newspaper work at first."

"You mean he actually followed the editor's advice?"

"Yes. He had certain natural gifts to aid him. He was a first rate
mimic. It's a sort of gift I suppose. He had gone in for amateur
theatricals at his college and done rather well. He pulled off his first
job successfully but the butler saw him and did not forget. That was the
trouble the butler remembered. It wasn't a big affair. It didn't make
any such stir as for example as when he took the Mount Aubyn Ruby."

"I read of that," Smith returned eagerly. "He knocked out a millionaire
surrounded with detectives and got away in an airplane."

"He got away but not in an airplane," replied Anthony Trent. "On the
whole the unknown aviator was rather useful to him but was absolutely
blameless. Then there was the case of the Apthorpe emerald. Did you hear
of that?"

"Haven't I told you," Smith returned impatiently, "that I read all about
things of that sort? How could I have missed that even though I was in
the trenches when it happened. It was the delight of my hospital life to
read about it in Reynolds Journal. It was said a woman murdered old
Apthorpe for it."

"She did," Trent admitted, "and she took the emerald but Anthony Trent
got it from her and fooled them all. His last big job before the United
States got into the war was getting the blue-white diamond that was
known as the Nizam's Diamond."

"A hundred carat stone," Smith said reverently. "By Jove, what a master!
As I never heard of him of course he was never caught. They are all
caught in the end, though. His day will come."

For a moment the thought that Anthony Trent's life was coming to an end
before many hours had passed took the narrator from his mood of triumph
into a state of depression. To have to give up everything and die in the
darkness. Exit Anthony Trent for all time! And as he thought of his
enemies the police toiling for the rich rewards that they would never
get for apprehending him his black mood passed and Smith heard him
chuckle.

"They all get caught in the end," Smith repeated, "the best of them. The
doctrine of averages is against them. Your Anthony Trent is one lone man
fighting against so many. He may have the luck with him so far but
there's only one end to it. They got Captain Despard and he was a
top-hole marauder. They got our estimable Charles Peace and they
electrocuted Regan in your own country only last month and he was
clever, God knows. I think I'd back your Trent man against any single
opponent, but the odds are too great. The pack will pull him down and
break him up some day."

Again Private Smith of the City of London regiment heard the man he had
rescued from danger to present him with death, laugh a curious
triumphant laugh. He had seen so much of war's terror that he supposed
the man was going mad. It would perhaps be a more merciful end.

"No," said the American. "Anthony Trent will never be discovered. He
will be the one great criminal who will escape to the confusion of the
detectives of New York and London. _I am Anthony Trent._"




CHAPTER THREE

_THE BEGINNING OF THE SEARCH_


"You?" cried Private Smith. "Ye Gods! And I haven't even a match left so
I can see you before we go. I die in better company than I know." Trent
could hear that he raised himself slowly and painfully to his feet. Then
he heard the soldier's heels click smartly together. "Ave Cæsar--" he
began. But the immortal speech of those gladiators being about to die
was not finished.

There broke on Trent's astonished gaze a flash of sunlight that made him
blink painfully. And the terrifying noise of high explosive hurt his
ears and that swift dreadful sucking of the air that followed such
explosions was about him again in its intensity. He had been dug out of
his tomb for what?

The doctors thought him a very bad case. Of course he was delirious. He
stuck to a ridiculous story that he was imprisoned in a tomb with one
William Smith, a private in the 78th Battalion of the City of London
Regiment and that H. E. had mysteriously disinterred him. H. E. did
perform marvels that were seemingly against known natural laws but
Private Trent was obviously suffering from shell shock.

When he was better and had been removed to a hospital far from the area
of fighting he still kept to his story. One of the doctors who liked him
explained that the delusion must be banished. He spoke very
convincingly. He explained by latest methods that the unreal becomes
real unless the patient gets a grip on himself. He said that Trent was
likely to go through life trying to find a non-existent friend and
ruining his prospects in the doing of it. "I'll admit," he said at the
end of his harangue, "that you choose your friend's name well."

"Why do you say that?" Trent asked.

"Because the muster roll of the 78th shows no fewer than twenty-seven
William Smiths and they're all of 'em dead. That battalion got into the
thick of every scrap that started."

Trent said no more but made investigations on his own behalf.
Unfortunately there was none to help him. The ambulance that picked him
up was shelled and he had been taken from its bloody interior the only
living soul of the crew and passengers. None lived who could tell him
what became of his companion, the man to whom he had revealed his
identity, the man who possessed his secret to the full.

When he was discharged from the service and was convalescing in
Bournemouth he satisfied himself that the unknown Smith had died. Again
luck was with Anthony Trent. The one man--with the exception of Sutton
whose lips he was sure were sealed--who could make a clear hundred
thousand dollars reward for his capture was removed from the chance of
doing it even as the knowledge was offered him. The words that he would
have spoken, "Hail Cæsar, I, being about to die, salute thee!" had come
true in that blinding flash that had brought Anthony Trent back to the
world.

But even with this last narrow escape to sober him Trent was not certain
whether the old excitement would call and send him out to pit himself
against society. He had no grievance against wealthy men as such. What
he had wanted of theirs he had taken. He was now well enough off to
indulge in the life, as a writer, he had wanted. He had taken his part
in the great war as a patriot should and was returning to his native
land decorated by two governments. Again and again as he sat at the
balcony of his room at the Royal Bath Hotel and looked over the bay to
the cliffs of Swanage he asked himself this question--was he through
with the old life or not? He could not answer. But he noticed that when
he boarded the giant Cunarder he looked about him with the old keenness,
the professional scrutiny, the eagerness of other days.

He tipped the head steward heavily and then consulted the passenger list
and elected to sit next to a Mrs. Colliver wife of a Troy millionaire.
She was a dull lady and one who lived to eat, but he had heard her
boasting to a friend on the boat train that her husband had purchased a
diamond tiara in Bond Street which would eclipse anything Troy had to
offer. Mrs. Colliver dreaded to think of the duty that would have to be
paid especially as during the war less collars were used than in normal
times.

It was with a feeling of content that Anthony Trent paced the deck as
the liner began her voyage home. Two years was a long time to be away
and he felt that a long lazy month in his Maine camp would be the
nearest thing to the perfect state that he could dream of when he heard,
distinctly, without a chance of being mistaken, the voice of Private
William Smith shouting a goodbye from the pier.

Trent had a curiously sensitive ear. He had never, for example, failed
to recognize a voice even distorted over telephone wires. William Smith
had one of those distinctive voices of the same timbre and inflection of
those of his caste but with a certain quality, that Trent could not now
stop to analyze, which stamped it as different.

All Trent's old caution returned to him. It was possible that the man
whom he had supposed dead had come to see the Cunarder off without
knowing Anthony Trent was aboard. But the passenger lists could be
inspected and even now the law might have been set in motion that would
take him handcuffed from the vessel at quarantine to be locked up in a
prison. He was worth a hundred thousand dollars to any informant and he
could not doubt that the so-called Smith had gone wrong because of the
lust for money to pay his extravagances. It was inevitably the reason in
men of the class of Smith and Despard.

He was obsessed with the determination to find out. He would track the
man he had known as Smith and find out without letting him be any the
wiser. A hundred ideas of disguise flashed across the quick-working
brain. He tried to tell himself that it was likely that the voice might
have proceeded from an utter stranger. But this was false comfort he
knew. It was Smith of the 78th City of London regiment who was on the
pier already growing inch by inch farther away.

The second officer tried to stop him and a passenger grasped him by the
arm as he climbed the rails but they tried vainly. He dropped as lightly
as he could and picked himself up a little dazed and looked around. He
could see a hundred faces peering down at him from the moving decks
overhead. He could see a crowd of people streaming down the pier to the
city. And among them was the man he sought.

"One moment, sir," said a policeman restraining him, "what's the meaning
of this?"

"Just come ashore," Trent smiled. The policeman loomed over him huge,
stolid, ominous. The man looked from Trent in evening dress and without
hat or overcoat, to the shadowy ship now on her thousand league voyage
and he shook his head. It was an irregular procedure, he told himself
and as such open to grave suspicion. But he was courteous. Trent was a
gentleman and no look of fear came to his face when the officer spoke.
The man remained close to Trent when he approached the few groups of
people still on the pier. To every man in the groups the stranger
contrived to ask a question. Of one he asked the time, of another the
best hotel in Liverpool.

"It may seem very strange," said Trent pleasantly to the perplexed
policeman, "but I did an unaccountable thing. I thought I saw a man who
was in the trenches with me in France during the war and saved my life
and I sprang over the side to find him and now he's gone."

The policeman waved a white gloved hand to the people who had already
left the landing stage.

"Your friend may be there, sir," he said.

"You don't want to detain me, then?" Trent cried.

"It's dark, sir," said the policeman, "and I could hardly be expected to
remember which way you went."

At the end of the short pier was a taxicab stand and a space where
private machines might park. Anthony Trent arrived in time to see a huge
limousine driven by a liveried chauffeur with a footman by his side
begin to climb the step grade to the street. As it passed him he could
swear he heard Smith's voice from within, saying, "It's the most rotten
luck that I should be a younger son and not get the chances Geoffrey
does."

Trent could not see the number plate of the big machine. He could note
only a coat of arms on the door surmounted by a coronet. He had no time
to ask if any of the dock laborers knew the occupants. He sprang into
the sole taxi that occupied the stand and commanded the driver to
overtake the larger car. So eager was the man to earn the double fare
that he was halted by a policeman outside the Atlantic Riverside
Station. The time taken up by explanations permitted the coronetted
limousine to escape.

In so big a city as Liverpool a car could be lost easily but the
sanguine taxi driver, certain at least of getting his fare, persisted in
driving all over the city and its suburbs until he landed his passenger
tired and disappointed at the Midland Hotel.

On the whole Anthony Trent had rarely spent such unprofitable hours. He
had paid a premium for his state room on a fast boat and was now
stranded in a strange city without baggage. And of course he was
worried. He had believed himself alone to have been rescued when the
high explosive had taken the roof from his tomb. Now it seemed probable
that the British soldier, Smith, had also made his escape.

Although it was quite possible Trent was following a stranger whose
voice was like that of Private Smith, he had yet to find that stranger
and make sure of it. Trent was not one to run away from danger.

As he sat in the easy chair before the window he told himself again and
again that it was probable the voice he identified with the unknown
Smith was like that of a thousand other men of his class. He had acted
stupidly in jumping from a ship's rails and risking his limbs. And how
much more unwisely had he acted in that black silence when he was led to
cast aside his habitual silence and talk freely to a stranger. In effect
he had put himself in the keeping of another man without receiving any
confidence in return. He blamed the wound, the shock and a thousand
physical causes for it but the fact was not to be banished by that.
Smith knew Anthony Trent as a master criminal while Anthony Trent only
knew that Smith has enlisted under another name because he had disgraced
his own. It might easily be that this unknown Smith was like a hundred
other "gentlemen rankers" who could only be accused of idleness and
instability. But Anthony Trent stirred uneasily when he recalled the
eagerness with which Smith spoke of some of those crimes Anthony Trent
had committed. Smith knew about them, admired the man who planned them.
Trent on thinking it over for the hundredth time believed Smith was
indeed a crook and as such dangerous to him.

Few men believe in intuition, guess work or "hunches" as do those who
work outside the law. Again and again Anthony Trent had found his
"hunches" were correct. Once or twice he had saved himself by implicitly
acting on them in apparent defiance of reason. At the end of many hours
during which he tried to tell himself he was mistaken and this voice
owned by someone else, he gave it up. He knew it was Smith.

To find out by what name the Smith of the dug-out went by in his own
country must be the first step. The second would be to shadow him,
observe his way of life and go through his papers. So far all he had to
go upon was a quick glance at an automobile of unknown make upon whose
panels a coat of arms was emblazoned surmounted by a crown. Had he
possessed a knowledge of heraldry he could have told at a glance whether
the coronet was that of a baron, viscount, earl, marquis or duke and so
narrowed down the search. And had he observed the coat of arms and motto
he could have made certain, for all armorial bearings are taxable and
registered.

To try to comb the counties of Lancashire and Cheshire for the occupants
of an unknown car would take time and might lead to police interest in
his activities.

Before he retired to his bed a courteous agent of the Cunard Company had
called upon him to inquire at what he was dissatisfied that he left the
ship so suddenly. To this agent he told the same story--the true
one--that he had told the policeman.

The purser was able to inform the group in the smoking room ere it
retired.

"I don't believe that for a moment," Colliver declared.

"Why not?" asked the Harvard professor, "don't you know that truth in
the mouth of an habitual liar is often a potent and confounding weapon?"

"Maybe," Colliver said dryly, "but I'm an honest man and I'd like to
know why you think that man Trent was an habitual liar."

"I don't know," the professor answered amiably. "I always think in terms
of crime on board ship."

"There's no need to on this ship," the purser said testily.

"I hope not," said the professor, "but coming back from the far East
last year on another line I made friends with a man much of the build of
Mr. Colliver here. I did not like him very much. He had only prejudices
and no opinions. A typical successful man of business I presume."

"Thank you," said Mr. Colliver finding one of his own neck adornments
growing tight.

"He was murdered," the theologian went on, "because he carried some
diamonds for his wife in a pocket. Some thieves found it out."

"What thieves?" Colliver demanded.

"It is one of the undiscovered murders on the high seas," the professor
said placidly.

"Mighty awkward for you," Colliver said, still angry.

"Fortunately I had an alibi," said the other, "I was violently ill of
_mal de mer_."

"Mighty convenient," Colliver commented.

Later he asked the purser's private opinion of the professor. Myers
Irving joined with Colliver in resenting the professor's attack on
business men.

"Ordinarily," Colliver said, "I don't like advertising men, but you're
different. They're like vultures after my account as a rule."

"You'd have to force your account on me," said Myers Irving seriously.
"I'm not an ordinary business or advertising man. Primarily I'm a
business builder. I leave nothing to underlings. I direct everything
personally. I take few accounts. If my clients don't make good on their
end of it I give them up. I make money for my clients. I have no other
ambition. I believe in advertising. It might be that fellow Trent jumped
ashore for some publicity stunt. Supposing he said he did it because he
forgot to order some special dish at the Adelphi or Midland? Such a dish
would get more publicity than you could shake a stick at. But I'm not
here to talk shop."

Colliver watched the trim advertising man saunter off.

"A bright boy," commented the Troy magnate, "maybe he'll be surprised
before this trip is over. Maybe he'll have to talk shop."

Captain Sutton listened to the purser's explanation as though they were
entirely reasonable. But all the time he said to himself, "why need he
have been afraid of me?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Anthony Trent bought himself a suit of clothes in the city and set out
for London on the ten o'clock train. An Army List showed him the names
of the officers of the City of London Regiment. He decided to call upon
the adjutant, a Captain Edgell. It took him little time to find out that
Edgell had resumed his former occupation of stock broker and was living
with his family at Banstead in Surrey.

Edgell was a golfer of distinction and before the war had been a scratch
man at the club on the Downs. Five years absence had sent his handicap
up a bit but he was engaged in pulling it down when a golfing stranger
from the United States giving the name of Trent who had the club's
privileges for the day asked him if he could introduce him to a member
for a round of golf. It so happened that most of the men waiting to play
were ruddy faced gentlemen with handicaps of from twelve up to
twenty-four. They did not excite Edgell.

"Glad to," he said heartily. He had been brigaded with Americans and
liked them. "Do you play a strong game?"

"I have a two handicap at Wykasol," Trent said.

"Good business," cried Edgell, "we'll play together."

They played. They became intimate during the game and Edgell learned
with regret that Trent was not one of the many American business men
engaged in their work in London. Trent beat the stockbroker on the
twenty-third hole.

"If I could only putt like that," said Edgell, "I'd have a chance for
the open championship."

"I wish I could drive a ball the length you do," Trent said not to be
outdone.

"Of course you'll have dinner with us," the stockbroker said. "We don't
dress for it any more since the war so you've no excuse. I learned to
make cocktails from some of your fellows in France so you ought to feel
at home."

"As home used to be," Trent corrected. "I'd love to come if I'm not
putting you out."

Edgell's home was a half-timbered house standing in an acre of lawn and
flower garden. It was thoroughly comfortable. There seemed to be a
number of children but they did not obtrude. Trent could see them
playing in different parts of the garden, the little ones with their
nurse and the elder playing clock golf on a perfect green in front of
the house. Always the quiet secure atmosphere of a home such as this
brought to Anthony Trent a vision of what he had lost or rather of what
he could never obtain.

Little six-year old Marjorie Edgell liked Trent on sight and liking him
announced it openly. She told him what a great man her father was and
how he had medals and things. Finally she asked the visitor whether he
would not like to have medals. It was the opportunity for which Trent
had been looking. Ordinarily averse to talking of himself, he wanted to
get on to the subject of the war with the late adjutant of the
seventy-eighth.

"I have," he told little Marjorie.

"Daddy," she shrieked in excitement, "Mr. Trent has medals too."

"So you were in the big thing?" Edgell asked. "Honestly wouldn't you
rather play golf? I can get all the excitement I want on the Stock
Exchange to last me the rest of my life. I enlisted in a city regiment
as a private and I left it as adjutant after four years and I'm all for
the piping ways of peace. My battalion was the 78th and we always had
the luck with us. Whenever we got anywhere something started."

"The seventy-eighth battalion," Trent commented, "I had a pal in your
battalion, a pal who saved my life. I'm going to look him up next week.
Curious that I should be talking to his adjutant. William Smith was his
name. I wonder if you knew him?"

"I wonder if you know how many William Smiths and John Smiths are lying
in France and Flanders with little wooden crosses over them?"

"This one came through all right," Trent said.

"At least ten William Smiths came through," Edgell asserted. "I think I
remember them all. Which was your man? Describe him."

Trent lighted his cigarette very deliberately. To be asked to describe a
man he had claimed as a pal and yet had never seen face to face was not
easy.

"I think you would recognize my William Smith," Trent answered, "if I
told you he was not really William Smith at all but a man who had
assumed that name as a disguise."

"I understand," Edgell exclaimed, "a slight blond man very erect and
rather supercilious with what the other men called a lah-de-dah voice. I
remember him well. I had him up before me for punishment many times.
Little infractions of discipline which he constantly committed. Used to
rile me by his superior airs. Quite a mysterious person. Saved your life
did he? Well, he had all the pluck a man need have."

"I want to thank him for it," Trent said, "but I've only known him as
William Smith. The War Office people tell me he was demobilized three
months back and they have no address. If you'll tell me, in confidence,
his real name I can find him out."

"But my dear chap," said Captain Edgell, "I don't know it. None of us
knew it. My sergeant-major swore he'd been a regular and an officer but
that's mere conjecture. He _was_ a regular now I come to think of it and
sent to us when his own regiment was wiped out in the Autumn of 1914."

"Who would be able to tell me?" Trent asked eagerly.

"The colonel knew," Edgell declared, "I sent him up to the old man for
punishment once. The colonel looked at him as if he could not believe
his eyes. 'You are down here as William Smith,' he said."

"'That is my name, sir,' said Smith."

"Then the colonel knew him?" Trent asked.

"Undoubtedly. I was told to leave them alone. I should like to have
asked Colonel Langley but he is one of those men it's hard to approach.
Doesn't mean to be standoffish but gives that impression. One of those
very tall men who seem to be looking through you and taking no interest
whatsoever in the proceeding."

"I want to find out," Trent said, "could you give me a letter of
introduction?"

"Glad to," Edgell replied, "but he's like that native song bird of
yours, the clam. He is a silent fighter. The men respected him and went
to their deaths for him but they would have felt it disrespectful to
love him. He lives at a place called Dereham Old Hall in Norfolk. A
great county swell with magnificent shooting. One of those places
royalty stays every year for a week at the partridges. Always thought
it a funny thing he was given the command of a lot of cockneys
considering he was Sandhurst and Tenth Hussars till he married and
chucked the service, but he made good as you fellows say."

While Captain Edgell was writing the letter Trent had leisure to reflect
that the identity of Private William Smith might remain permanently
veiled in obscurity if Colonel Langley refused to talk. If the colonel
was not to be lured to disclose what Trent needed to know, the American
would be left in a very unpleasant position. Until he knew whether his
"hunch" was right or wrong he could never again sleep in peace with the
name Anthony Trent as his own. He was in danger every minute. Smith
might have tracked him to the liner to have him arrested in America.
That he had left the boat might easily be known. Therefore in order to
win twenty thousand sovereigns English money, or a half million francs
in the coinage of the country where the two had spent weary months,
Smith had only to start the hue and cry in England. The ports would be
watched. In the end they would get him.

There was no escape over the borders to Mexico or dash to safety over
the Canadian frontier as he had planned to do under similar conditions
of peril in his own country. Here on an island they had got him. He was
weaving evidence that could be used against him by making this display
of interest in Private Smith. Captain Edgell could give testimony that
would not help his case.

"Here you are," said Edgell genially, "I've taken the liberty of calling
you an old golfing pal. I've done all I could but Colonel Langley is not
easy of approach. I'm not at all hopeful."

"It isn't really serious," Trent explained after thanking him, "but I'd
like to see him again. He did undoubtedly save my life and carried me
into safety. Quite a physical feat for one of his weight. What do you
suppose he weighs?"

"About ten stone seven," the other answered.

That was one hundred and forty-seven pounds. Trent was gradually
building up a portrait of the man he feared.

"And about five feet seven in height?" he hinted.

"That's the man," Edgell asserted. "Quite a good looking chap, too, if
you care for the type. Rather too effeminate for me although, God knows,
he is a man."

It was not easy to see Colonel Langley, D.S.O. Trent knew that county
magnates such as he was did not see everyone who desired an interview.
He stayed at a good hotel in Norwich and enclosed Captain Edgell's
letter in one of his own.

The answer came back in the third person. It was favorable and
punctiliously polite. Colonel Langley would be happy to see Mr. Anthony
Trent at eleven o'clock on a certain morning. Dereham Old Hall was a
dozen miles from Norwich, city of gardens, city of Norman cathedrals and
many quaintly named parish churches. Trent hired a motor car and drove
through the leafy Norfolk lanes.

Colonel Langley's residence was the work of Inigo Jones and a perfect
example of the Renaissance style. It stood at least a mile from the high
road. The lodge keeper telephoned to the house and Trent's driver was
permitted to drive through the deer park and pull up before the great
front doors.

The room in which Anthony Trent waited for the colonel was evidently a
sort of smoking room. Trophies of the chase adorned the walls. It was
evident Langley was a hunter of great game and had shot in all parts of
the globe from Alaska to Africa.

He was a man of six feet four in height, grizzled and wore a small
clipped military moustache. It was not a hard face, Trent noted, but
that of a man who had always been removed from pursuits or people who
wearied him. There was a sense of power in the face and that inevitable
keenness of eye which a man who commanded a regiment could not fail to
have acquired.

He bowed his visitor to a seat. He did not offer to shake hands.

"You have come," he said politely, "from my former adjutant to ask a
question concerning the regiment which he writes he could not tell you.
I can think of nothing to which this would apply. He had every thread of
the business in his hands."

"Captain Edgell could not tell me the real name of one of his men who
enlisted under the name of William Smith."

There was no change of expression on the rather cold face of the lord of
broad acres.

"And what made Captain Edgell assume I could help you, sir?"

"I don't know all the particulars but he was certain you knew his real
identity."

"If I do," Colonel Langley returned, "I shall keep that knowledge to
myself. I regret that you have had this trouble for nothing."

"William Smith," Trent told the other, "saved my life. I want to thank
him for it. Is there anything odd in that? You alone can help me so I
come to you. I want to help William Smith. I have money which I should
not have been able to enjoy but for him."

"You imagine, then, that William Smith is penniless, is that it?"

"He told me he was," Trent answered promptly. "I can offer him an
opportunity to make good money in New York."

He looked at Colonel Langley as he said it. If Smith was indeed of a
great family the idea of being offered money and a job must amuse the
one who knew his real name and estate. Sure enough a flicker of a smile
passed over the landowner's face.

"I am happy to inform you," he said, "that Mr. Smith is living at home
with his family financially secure enough not to need your aid."

"That," said Trent deliberately, "is more than you can say."

"I am not in the habit of hearing my word doubted," the older man said
acidly.

"I am not doubting it," Trent said suavely, "I mean merely to remind
you that he may need my aid although it may not be monetary aid. You
will remember that there have been passages in Mr. Smith's life which
have not been entirely creditable."

"Are you claiming to be friend or accomplice?" Langley snapped.

"Let us say friend and confidant," Trent smiled. "Perhaps he made
certain confessions to me--"

"To you also?" Langley cried.

In that moment he had said too much. During that hour when Edgell left
the private alone with his commanding officer the officer had obtained
his confidence and very likely a confession. He saw the soldier throw a
quick glance at one of those old safes which disguised themselves as
necessary articles of furniture. Trent's eyes dwelt on it no longer than
the owner's did, but he saw enough. Colonel Langley had told him plainly
that the confession was locked in the safe which looked like a black oak
sideboard on which decanters and a humidor were arranged.

"To me also," Trent repeated, "and it is because of it that I knew he
did what he did for the reason he needed more money than a younger son
could expect. Colonel Langley, I only want his real name. I want to help
him. That's why I spoke of offering him money."

"You will be glad to know," the colonel answered, "that Mr. Smith is at
present in no need of money."

"You mean," Trent said sharply, "that you will not give me his real name
and address?"

"I cannot tell you," Colonel Langley answered. "If you like I will write
and say you have called and give him the opportunity to do as he
pleases."

Trent reflected for a moment. If Smith were not already aware of his
presence in England it would be very unwise to advertise it. He was
beginning to see he had been less than cautious in calling upon Edgell
and Colonel Langley under his own name.

"I need not trouble you to do that," he said, "if you wish to conceal
his name it is no doubt your privilege and he will do well enough
without my thanks."

       *       *       *       *       *

He made his chauffeur drive home at a temperate speed. The man knew all
about the Langleys and was glad to tell the affable stranger. As they
passed through the gates several carriages laden with men and some
station carts filled with baggage passed into the gravelled drive.

"Gentlemen come for the shooting," the chauffeur volunteered. "Tomorrow
is September the first when partridge shooting commences. The colonel is
a great shot and the King comes here often and the German Emperor has
shot over those turnips in the old days. This is supposed to be the best
partridge shoot in the kingdom and the birds are fine and strong this
year--not too much rain in the Spring."

"I suppose there'll be a regular banquet tonight," said Trent.

"Tomorrow night's the night," said the chauffeur grinning, "tonight
they all go to bed early so as to be up to an early breakfast and have
their shooting eyes. The colonel's terrible man if any of the guns only
wound their birds. They've got to shoot well tomorrow if they want to
come here again. I know because my uncle is one of the keepers."

The man was surprised at the tip his American passenger handed him when
they reached the Maids' Head Hotel, and charmed with his affability. He
told his fellows that Trent was a real gentleman. He did not know that
his unsolicited confidence had given the American a hint upon which he
would be quick to act.

As Trent had been driven along the Dereham Road approach to Norwich he
had seen a little cycle shop where gasoline was sold and repairs made.
The war had sent English people of moderate circumstances back to the
bicycle again and only the wealthy could keep cars or buy petrol at
seventy-five cents a gallon. In his drive he had seen several people of
seemingly good position pedalling cheerfully through the lanes. The
chauffeur had touched his hat to one and spoken of him as rector of a
nearby parish. Cycles were to be hired everywhere and the prevailing
rate seemed to be sixpence an hour or three and six for the day.

After dinner Anthony Trent found his way back to the little shop in the
Dereham Road. "The Wensum Garage" it proudly called itself. Here he said
he wished to hire a bicycle for a day. As dusk fell he was pedalling
along to Dereham Old Hall. Few people were about and those he passed
evinced no curiosity. Avoiding the main road which passed in front of
the lodge and gates by which he had entered, he hid his wheel between
two hay stacks which almost touched. Then he made his way through the
kitchen gardens to the rear of the house. It was now ten o'clock and the
servants' part of the big house seemed deserted. Already the lights in
the upper stories were evidence that some guests were retiring to rest
well before the "glorious first."

From the shelter of the rose garden he could see a half score of men and
women on the great terrace in front of the splendid house. He could see
that they were all in evening dress. In a mosquitoless country this
habit of walking up and down the long stone terraces was a common
practice after dinner. Trent came so near to the guests that he could
hear them talking. The conversation was mainly about to-morrow's
prospects. He learned there was little disease among the birds, that
they were phenomenally strong on the wing and hadn't been shot over to
any extent since 1914. Some guests deplored the fact that dancing was
taboo on this night of nights but it was the Langley tradition and they
must bend to it.

"Think of it," he heard a woman say, laughing, "lights out at twelve!
How primitive and delightful." She yawned a little. "I'm looking forward
to it; we all stay up too late."

"Good night, Duchess," he heard the man say. "Sleep well and pray I may
be in form."

"Duchess!" In the old days Anthony Trent would have thrilled at the
title for it meant invariably jewels of price and the gathering of the
very rich. But he was waiting outside the masterpiece of Inigo Jones not
for any of those precious glittering stones for which he had sacrificed
all his prospects of fame and honor but for the documents which he
believed were hidden in the iron box, that ridiculous "pete" covered
with black English oak. It was another of the "hunches" which had come
to him. He had never been more excited about any of the many jobs he had
undertaken.

As he sat among the roses waiting for time to pass he reflected that the
few failures that had been his had not been attended by any danger. He
had lost the pearls that were wont to encircle the throat of a great
opera singer because her maid had chosen an awkward hour to prosecute
her amour with a chauffeur. The diamonds of the Mexican millionaire's
lady were lost to him because the house took fire while he was examining
the combination of the safe. But they would wait. He would yet have them
both. The booty for which he had come tonight was more precious than
anything he had ever tried for. It was probably the key to safety that
he sought. Trent did not doubt that there was a document in the safe
which would enable him to hold something over the head of Private
William Smith.

He waited until twelve had struck from the stable clock and the terrace
had been deserted a half-hour. To open the doors leading from the
terrace was simple. Anthony Trent always carried with him on business
bent two strips of tool steel with a key-blade at each end. With these
two "T" and "V" patterns he could open the world's locks. A nine inch
jimmy was easy to secrete. This was of the highest quality of steel and
looked to the uninitiated very much like a chisel. But it differed from
a chisel by having at its other end two brass plates set at right angles
to one another. These could be adjusted to what angles were needed by
turning countersunk screw bolts. It was the ideal tool for yale spring
locks.

He did not need it here. The doors opened at will with the "V" pattern
skeleton key. Great oriental rugs deadened sound and the boards of the
house were old, seasoned and silent. He found his way to the room in
which the colonel had received him with little difficulty. First of all
he opened the window and saw that he could spring clear out of it at a
bound and land in a bed of flowers only three feet below. Then he came
to the antiquated safe. The combinations were ridiculously easy. His
trained ear caught the faint sounds as he turned the lever easily. These
told him exactly the secret of the combination. It was not two minutes
work to open the doors. An inner sheeting of steel confronted him but
was opened by his jimmy. It was not safe to turn on the electric lights.
In so big an establishment with so many outdoor servants there might be
many to remark an unexpected illumination. His little torch showed him
all he wanted to know.

Colonel Langley had the soldiers' neatness. There were few valuables in
the safe. They would be presumably in his banker's strong boxes. There
were packets of letters tied up and one long envelope. On it was
inscribed, "Not to be Opened. In case of my death this must be destroyed
by my heir, Reginald Langley." On the envelope was the date, July 27,
1918, and the single word, "Ladigny."

Ladigny was a little village in France forever memorable by the heroic
stand of the City of London regiment when it lost so terribly and
refused to retreat. Trent opened the envelope in such a way that no
trace of the operation was seen. Then for ten minutes he read steadily.
Almost a half hour was expended in copying part of it in a note book.
Then the envelope was resealed and the safe closed. As he had worn
gloves there was no fear of incriminating finger prints. He did not
think anyone would notice that a jimmy had been used. Then he closed the
safe and its outer doors of black oak.

He permitted himself the luxury of a cigarette. He had done a good
night's work. If Private William Smith had sufficient evidence to place
Anthony Trent behind the bars the master criminal had sufficient certain
knowledge now to shut the mouth of the man he was tracking. Who would
have thought a man reared in such a family would have fallen so low! It
is a human failure to make comparisons whereby others invariably shine
with a very weak light, but Anthony Trent was saying no more than the
truth when he told himself that with Smith's opportunities he would
never have taken to his present calling.

With Smith's opportunities he would be sitting in a big room like this
and sitting in it without fear of interruption. The strain of the last
few days had not been agreeable and this strain must grow in intensity
as he grew older. It was always in such peaceful surroundings as these
that Trent felt the bitterness of crime even when successful.

He stopped suddenly short in his musing and crushed the bright tip of
his cigarette into blackness beneath his foot. Someone was fumbling with
the doorhandle, very quietly as though anxious not to disturb him. He
cursed the carelessness that had allowed him to leave it unlocked. He
had not behaved in a professional way at all. Very cautiously he rose to
his feet, meaning to leave by the open window when the door opened.
Trent sank back into the shadow of the big chair. To make a dash for the
window would mean certain detection. To stay motionless might mean he
could escape later. Similar immobility had saved him ere this.

The intruder closed the door and his sharp ears told him it was locked.
Then a soft-treading form moved slowly through the dim light and closed
the window, shut off his avenue of escape, and pulled across it two
curtains which shut out all light. There were two other high windows in
the room and across each one was pulled the light-excluding curtains.
Then there was a click and the room sprang into brilliance.

Anthony Trent saw the intruder at the same moment the intruder stared
into his face.

It was a girl in evening dress, a beautiful girl with chestnut hair and
a delicious profile. She wore an elaborate evening gown of a delicate
blue and carried in her hand a fan made of a single long ostrich plume.
Her hair was elaborately coiffured. She was, in fine, a woman of the
_beau monde_, a fitting guest in such a house as this. But what was she
doing in this room at one o'clock at night when the rest of the
household had long been abed?

The girl saw a slender but strongly built man of something over thirty
with a pale, clean-shaven face, shrewd almost hard eyes and a masterful
nose. He looked like a rising English barrister certain at some time to
be a judge or at the least a King's Counsel. He was dressed in a well
cut suit of dark blue with a pin stripe. He wore brown shoes and silk
socks. She noted he had long slender hands perfectly kept.

He rose to his feet and smiled at her a little quizzically.

"Really," he said, "you almost frightened me. I was sitting in the dark
making plans for the glorious 'first,' which has been here almost an
hour, when I heard you trying to open the door."

There was no doubt in her mind but that he was one of the guests who had
arrived from London on the late train and had not changed to evening
dress. There was a train due at Thorpe station at half past ten and the
motor trip would take forty minutes more.

"I had no idea anyone was here," she said truthfully, "or I shouldn't
have come. You see one can't sleep early even if one is sent to bed as
we all were tonight." She glanced at the clock. "I'm not shooting
tomorrow but if you are why don't you turn in? You know Colonel Langley
is a fearful martinet where the shooting is concerned and insists that
every bird is killed cleanly."

It was plain that she wished to get rid of him. Trent was frankly
puzzled. The girl had shown no fear or nervousness. Ordinarily the
conventions would have had their innings and she would have hesitated at
the possibility of being found alone with a good looking man at such an
hour. She would have excused herself and left him in the belief that he
was a guest she would meet tomorrow at dinner and dance with after it.
But she showed no such intention. He knew enough about women to see that
she had no intention of waiting for the pleasure of a friendly chat. She
had rather a haughty type of face and spoke with that quick imperious
manner which he had observed in British women of rank or social
importance.

"I have neuralgia," he said amiably, "and I prefer to sit here than go
to bed. Perhaps you left something here? Can I help you to find it?"

"I came for a book. Colonel Langley was talking about some African
hunting story your Mr. Roosevelt wrote."

So she knew him for an American. Well, she would find the American not
easily to be gulled. There came to him the memory of another night in
Fifth Avenue when a woman who seemed to be of fashion and position had
so completely fooled him and had been left in possession of a large sum
of currency.

He moved toward a bookcase in which were a collection of books on
fishing and shooting.

"'African Game Trails,'" he said, "here it is."

There was no doubt in his mind that the look she threw at him was not
one of complete amiability. She wanted him to go. He asked himself why.
It would have been easy for her to go and leave him, and the best way
out of the difficulty, unless she had come for one specific purpose. If
she had come for something concealed in the room and needed it badly
enough she would try and wait until he went. Trent was certain she had
no suspicion as to his own mission. In so big a house as Dereham Old
Hall fifty guests could be entertained easily and it was unlikely she
should know even half of them. He had observed that it was not the
fashion in England to introduce indiscriminately as in his own country.
Guests were introduced to their immediate neighbors; but that appalling
custom whereby one unfortunate is expected to memorize the names of all
present at a gulp was not popular. Because she did not know him would
not lead to suspicion. He was in no danger. Even a servant coming in
would see in him only a friend of his employer.

"Thank you," she said, taking the book with an appearance of interest.
"Do you know I never thought to see Americans at Dereham Old Hall with
the single exception of Reginald's old friend Conington Warren. Colonel
Langley is so conservative but the war has broadened everyone hasn't it
and stupid national prejudices are breaking down."

"Conington Warren here?" he asked.

"He lives in England now," she told him, "his physicians warned him that
prohibition would kill him so they simply prescribed a country where he
could still take this cocktail. You know him of course?"

"A little," he said; she wondered why he smiled so curiously. He
wondered what this beautiful girl would say if she knew it was at
Conington Warren's mansion in Fifth avenue that he had started his
career as a criminal. So that great sportsman, owner of thoroughbreds
and undeniable shot, was in this very house! After all it was not a
strange coincidence. The well known Americans who love horse and hound
with the passion of the true sportsman are to be seen in the great
houses of England more readily than the mushroom financier.

"What other people are there here you know?" she demanded.

"I can't tell you till tomorrow," he returned, "I only said a word or
two to the Duchess. She deplored having to go to bed so early and was
disappointed at not being able to dance."

"She is one of my dearest friends," the girl answered.

"Which means you see her every fault," he laughed.

"Isn't your neuralgia better?" she asked after a pause.

Anthony Trent shook his head.

"I shan't sleep all night," he said despondently. "Going to bed would
only make it worse."

She was obviously put out at this statement.

"Then you'll stop here all night?"

"At all events until it gets light. It's only two o'clock now. If you
are keen on big game hunting you won't sleep if you begin that book."

"You'll frighten the servants in the morning," she said later.

"I'll tip them into confidence," he assured her.

The girl was growing nervous. There were a hundred symptoms from the
tapping of her little feet on the rug to the fidgeting with the book and
the meaningless play with her fan. She started when a distant dog bayed
the moon and dropped her book. It rolled under a table and Trent picked
it up. But when he handed it back to her there was an air of excitement
about him, an atmosphere of triumph which puzzled her.

"You look as though you enjoyed hunting for books under tables."

"I enjoy any hunting when I get a reward for my trouble."

"And what did you find?" she asked "a little mouse under the chair?"

"I found a key," he said.

"Someone must have dropped it," she said idly.

"Not a door key," he returned, "but the key to a mystery. Being a woman
you are interested in mysteries that have a beautiful society girl as
their heroine of course?"

"I really must disappoint you," she said rather coldly, "and I don't
quite understand why you are not quick to take the many hints I have
dropped. Can't you see I want to sit here alone and think? Your own room
will be just as comfortably furnished. In a sense this is a sort of
second home to me. Mrs. Langley and I are related and this room is an
old and favorite haunt when I'm depressed. Is it asking very much that
you leave me here alone?"

"Under ordinary conditions no," he said suavely.

"These are ordinary conditions," she persisted.

"I'm not sure," he retorted. "Tell me this if you dare. Why have you the
combination to a safe written on a little piece of mauve paper and
concealed in the book on your lap?"

She turned very pale and the look she gave him turned his suspicion into
a desire to protect her. The woman of the world air dropped from her and
she looked a frightened pathetic and extraordinarily lovely child.

"What shall I do?" she cried helplessly. "You are a detective?"

"Not yet," he said smiling, "although later I intend to be. But I'm not
here even as a great amateur. Consider me merely a notoriously good shot
suffering equally from neuralgia and curiosity. You have the combination
of a safe concealed in this room and you want me to go to bed so that
you may take out wads of bank notes and pay your bridge debts. Is that
right so far?"

"You are absolutely wrong," she cried with spirit. "I need no money and
have no debts. There are no jewels in the safe."

"Letters of course," he said easily.

She did not speak for a moment. He could see she was wondering what she
dare tell him. She could not guess that he knew of the three packages of
letters each tied with green ribbon. It was, he supposed, the old story
of compromising letters. Innocent enough, but letters that would spell
evil tidings to the jealous fiancé. They might have been written to
Colonel Langley. Men of that heroic stamp often appealed to sentimental
school girls and the colonel was undeniably handsome in his cold
superior way. His heart ached for her. She was suffering. What had
seemed so easy was now become a task of the greatest difficulty.

"Yes," she said deliberately, "letters. Letters I must have."

"Do you suppose I can stand by and see my host robbed?"

"If you have any generosity about you you can in this instance. I only
want to destroy one letter because if it should ever be discovered it
will hurt the man I love most in the world."

Anthony Trent groaned. He had guessed aright. There was some man of her
own class and station who did not love her well enough to overlook some
little silly affectionate note sent to the _beau sabreur_ Langley
perhaps a half dozen years before. It was a rotten thing to keep such
letters. He looked at the girl again and cursed his luck that she was
already engaged. Then he sighed and remembered that even were she free
it could never be his lot to marry unless he confessed all. And he knew
that to a woman of the type he wanted to marry this confession would
mean the end of confidence the beginning of despair.

"I shall not stop you," he said.

She looked at him eagerly.

"And you'll never tell?"

"Not if they put me through the third degree."

"But ... oughtn't you to tell?" she asked.

"Of course," he admitted, "but I won't. I can see you are wondering why.
I'll tell you. I've been in just such a position--and I did what you are
going to do."

Without another word she went swiftly to the concealed safe and began to
manipulate the lock. For five minutes she tried and then turned to him
miserably.

"It won't open," she wailed.

"I'll have a shot at it," he said gaily, and went down on his knees by
her side. He soon found out why it remained immovable. It was an old
combination. She did not understand his moves as he went through the
same procedure which had opened it before. She only saw that the doors
swung back. She did not see him pry the iron sheathing back with the
jimmy. It was miraculously easy.

Then he crossed the room to his chair and lighted another cigarette.
"Help yourself," he cried and picked up the book which had held the
combination.

The girl's back was to him and he could not see what she was doing. He
heard the scratch of a match being lighted and saw her stooping over the
stone fireplace. She was burning her past. Then he heard her sigh with
relief.

"I shall never forget what you have done for me," she said holding out
her hand.

"It was little enough," he said earnestly.

"You don't know just how much it was," the girl returned, "or how
grateful I shall always be to you. If I hadn't got that letter! I
shouldn't have got it but for you. And to think that tomorrow we shall
be introduced as one stranger to another. I'm rather glad I don't know
your name or you mine. It will be rather fun won't it, being introduced
and pretending we've never met before. If you are not very careful the
Duchess will suspect we share some dreadful secret."

"The Duchess is rather that way inclined, isn't she?" he said.

He held the hand she offered him almost uncomfortably long a time. She
would look for him tomorrow in vain. He supposed she would begin by
asking if there were any other Americans there except Conington Warren.
After a time she would find he was not a guest of the Langleys. She
would come at last to know what he was. And with this knowledge there
would come contempt and a deliberate wiping his image from her mind.
Anthony Trent had no sentimental excuses to offer. He had chosen his own
line of country.

He looked at her again. It would be the last time. Perhaps there was a
dangerously magnetic quality about his glance for the girl dropped her
eyes.

"Faustus," he said abruptly, "sold his soul for a future. I think I'd be
willing to barter mine for a past."

"_Au revoir_," she said softly.

When she had closed the door he walked across the room to shut the safe.
What secrets of hers, he wondered, had been shut up there so long. He
found himself in a new and strange frame of mind. Why should he be
jealous of what she might have written in the letter that was now ashes?
She had probably thought hero-worship was love. She had a splendid face
he told himself. High courage, loyalty and breeding were mirrored in it.
He wondered what sort of a man it was who had won her.

He looked at the neatly-tied bundle of letters. It seemed as though they
had hardly been touched. Suddenly he turned to the compartment where the
long letter had lain, the letter from which he had made so many
extracts, the letter it was imperative Colonel Langley should believe to
be intact.

It was gone. In the hearth there were still some burned pages. He could
recognize the watermark.

Anthony Trent had amiably assisted an unknown girl to destroy a letter
whose safety meant a great deal to him. If Colonel Langley were to
discover the loss it would be easy enough to put the blame upon the
bicycle-riding American who had pretended to be a friend of Private
William Smith.

As he thought it over Anthony Trent saw that the girl in blue had not
lied to him, had not sought to entrap him by gaining his sympathy as the
"Countess" had succeeded in doing before another open safe in New York.
He had assumed one thing and she had meant another.

What was William Smith to this unknown beauty? Trent gritted his teeth.
He was going to find out. At all events he now knew the real name of the
private soldier who had shared the dug-out with him. The next thing was
to find out where he lived.




CHAPTER FOUR

_A LADY INTERRUPTS_


Anthony Trent told the obliging manager of the Maids' Head Hotel that he
was interested mainly in the study of cathedral churches and since he
had now studied the magnificent Norwich cathedral would push on to Ely.

He found England an exceedingly easy place to shake off pursuers despite
its small size. There were always junctions where he could change from
one line to another without incurring suspicion. He started for Ely but
was soon lost among the summer crowds which thronged the university city
of Cambridge. The convenient system of merely claiming one's baggage and
ordering a porter to take it to car or taxi rendered the tracking of it
by baggage checks almost impossible.

While it was true he was not pursued, so far as he knew, he wanted to be
careful. It was not likely Langley would charge him with the theft of
the Ladigny confession but it was quite probable that the Colonel might
suspect the writer of the confession. He might think that Smith had
hired a clever American safe breaker to win for him what was very
necessary for his freedom of action. And Smith, if he did not already
know it, would find the man over whom he held many years in American
prisons almost within his clutches.

It was necessary that Anthony Trent should see Smith first and make a
bargain with him. It was imperative that he meet the man alone and where
he could place the cards on the table and talk freely.

In a room of the quaint half-timbered hostelry in Norwich Trent had come
across some useful books of reference. There were, for example, such
guides to knowledge as "Crockford's Clerical Directory"; "Hart's Army
List"; the "Court Directory of London" and "Lodge's Peerage and
Baronetage." The name for which Trent sought diligently was that of
Arthur Spencer Jerningham Grenvil. By these names Private William Smith
had the legal right to be known. By these names he had signed a
confession.

A. S. J. Grenvil had admitted forging a check for two hundred pounds.
The signature he had skilfully imitated was that of Reginald Langley of
Dereham Old Hall in the county of Norfolk.

There was a copy of a letter written by Colonel Langley to Grenvil dated
six years before. On the whole it was a letter which impressed Trent
favorably. It was written from rather a lofty altitude by a man to whom
family honor and the motto _noblesse oblige_ meant a whole code of
chivalry.

"Until you went to Sandhurst you were a credit to your name and the
great family from which you spring," he read. "Suddenly, without any
warning, your habits altered and you became a gambler. Well, many of
your race have gambled, but at least they played fair and paid what they
owed. You did not even do that. It was with great difficulty that your
father was able to get you your commission in my old regiment. We hoped
you would feel that in the presence of so many men of birth and breeding
that you must alter your habits and wear with credit your sovereign's
uniform. And now you are a common forger. Of course the signature you
forged will be honored. But I require this of you: that you will confess
to me your guilt; that you will leave the regiment; that you will do
some honest work and re-establish yourself in my eyes. I will see to it
that work of a not unpleasing kind is found for you in Australia. On my
part I will undertake to keep your secret so long as you keep away from
England. Remember, Arthur, there are other discreditable things I could
bring to your notice if I chose. I am anxious that my kinsman, your
father, should not suffer any more from your escapades. On receipt of
this letter proceed to my lawyers whose address you know. They have
instructions what to do."

It was plain that the father of the man he had known as William Smith
was of rank. The fact that he was a kinsman of Colonel Langley might be
explained by reference to the fifth book on the shelf at the Maids'
Head--"Debrett's Landed Gentry of Gt. Britain."

He turned to Langley of Dereham Old Hall. Langley's mother, it seemed,
was the Lady Dorothea Grenvil daughter of the ninth, and sister of the
present Earl of Rosecarrel. Grenvil, therefore, was the family name of
the Earls of Rosecarrel.

In the peerage all the particulars concerning the Grenvils were laid
bare. The tenth earl, who had been British Ambassador to Turkey, was a
Knight of the Garter, etc., etc., had married Elizabeth only daughter of
Admiral, Lord Arthur Jerningham and had issue:

First the heir, Viscount St. Just, major in the Royal Horse Guards,
V.C.G.C.B. Second and third, two sons killed in the great war. Fourth,
Arthur Spencer Jerningham Grenvil of whom no particulars were given.
Fifth came the Lady Rhona Elizabeth Onslow married to the Duke of
Ontarlier in the peerage of France and last the Lady Daphne Villiers
Grenvil, unmarried. Trent reckoned out that she would be a girl of
twenty-one. Private Smith would be twenty-six.

The town house of the Earls of Rosecarrel was in Grosvenor Place and
their country seats were Alderwood Hall in Cambridgeshire and Rosecarrel
Castle in Cornwall.

Alderwood Hall was six miles from the university city and the house
could be seen on one of the small hills to the west of the town. A guide
book informed Trent that the house was thrown open to visitors on
Thursdays at a small fee which went to the local hospital. There were to
be seen some notable examples of the "Norwich School" works by Crome,
Cotman, Vincent and Stark.

The butler was distressed by the heat of early September and dismissed
the visitors as soon as possible. But he regarded the American tourist
in a different light for Trent had slipped him a half sovereign.

"I want to take my time," said Trent, "I like pictures and I want to
examine these more closely."

"Certainly, sir," said the butler. "Anything I can do to help you I
shall be proud to do."

Anthony Trent, who had a wide knowledge of paintings of the outdoors and
possessed one of the world's missing masterpieces, none other than _The
Venetian Masque_ of Giorgione which he had taken from a vulgar and
unappreciative millionaire, looked at the fresh, simple landscapes with
joy.

"Is the family in residence?" he asked when he had finished.

"The Earl always spends the summer at Rosecarrel," the man answered. "He
keeps his yacht in Fowey Harbour. I'm afraid his lordship is failing.
You see the loss of Master Gervase and Master Bevil was a terrible
shock. We lost seven out of our twelve gardeners here and two of them
that came back won't ever be much good."

"What about Mr. Arthur Grenvil?" Trent asked idly. "I used to know him."

"He's back," the butler said. But the look of affection which the old
family servant had shown when he spoke of the two who had fallen was
gone. "I'll say this for Master Arthur, he fought too and got wounded.
There's none that can say aught against his pluck."

"He is cool enough," Trent said, and thought of the scene in the
dug-out when he and Arthur Grenvil waited for death and did not give way
to terror. "He's down in Cornwall with the Earl, I suppose?"

"And Lady Daphne," the butler added. "Since the death of the Countess
she looks after everything."

Trent visualized one of those managing domineering young women who rule
tenants relentlessly but after all exercise benevolent despotism in
bucolic matters.

"Was he badly hurt?" Trent asked before he left.

"I hardly knew him," the butler said. "I give you my word I was fair
shocked at the difference; isn't for the likes of me to question the
ways of Providence but why Mr. Arthur was left and the others taken I
don't understand."

Anthony Trent wondered, too. It would have saved him a great deal of
worry if things had been reversed. On the whole this _mauvais sujet_, of
an ancient family was a consistent trouble maker.

       *       *       *       *       *

A Bradshaw's time table showed Trent that as Lord Rosecarrel's yacht was
at Fowey he would be wise to make a trip to the Delectable Duchy, as a
Fowey author has termed Cornwall, and disguise himself as a tourist and
thus pave the way for a meeting with Private William Smith.

He purchased a large scale automobile map of Cornwall and when he
reached the quaint seaport had a fair idea of the locality. Rosecarrel
Castle lay some ten miles away on the moorland. The local guidebook
told him all about it. It was the great house of the neighbourhood, a
granite built fastness which had suffered siege many times. The Grenvils
were a Cornish family of distinction and happier in their own West
Countree than on the Cambridge estates.

Trent had always found the consultation of local newspapers a great help
toward knowledge of a community and he immediately solaced himself with
what Fowey had to offer. A perusal of the advertising columns gave him a
good idea of what he could do to pass his time in a manner that would
seem logical to the countryfolk. Since he was not a painter, and Fowey
had no golf links, his occupation in the absence of a sailing or power
boat was merely that of a sightseer and he felt out of his element in
this innocent guise.

The local paper showed him that there were several "rough shootings"
that he might rent for the season. These were tracts of farm and
moorland where partridges, hares, woodcock and an occasional pheasant
might be found. One in the parish of St. Breward on the moors
particularly attracted him. The local agent commended him on his wisdom.
He did not know Anthony Trent had selected this desolate tract of
granite strewn moor because Rosecarrel Castle was but a half dozen miles
distant.

Trent had been less than a week in Cornwall when he was installed in a
farmhouse, the owner of a spaniel of great local repute, and regarded
simply as one of those sportsmen who took the shooting every year and
as such was above suspicion. Mr. Nicholls, the loquacious agent who had
rented him the shooting and had driven him over to view it, talked a
great deal of the great Earl of Rosecarrel. He regretted that since the
death of the Countess few guests stayed within the castle. There had
been brave days a few years back when Lord St. Just the son and heir had
been master of the North Cornwall Foxhounds.

"But there's only the Honourable Arthur Grenvil there now," said
Nicholls, "and Lady Daphne. Lord St. Just is military attaché at
Washington."

"Since when?" Trent demanded.

"Within a few weeks," said the agent.

That was the reason why the younger brother had been to see him off at
Liverpool. It was quite likely that Private Smith assumed Anthony Trent
to be dead. Or he might have thought him boasting of another's deeds.
But Trent was going to find out if possible. This time he had materials
for a compromise. Suddenly Nicholls pointed out a figure on horseback
fully a half mile distant.

"Like enough," said the agent, "that's the Honourable Arthur. He rides
about on the moors a lot. All this land as far as you can see belongs to
the Earl."

Trent could see that the rider was cantering along narrow paths
inaccessible to vehicles. Well, the meeting would wait. Some morning he
would rein in his horse beside that of Private Smith and see recognition
dawn in the eye of the man when the visitor announced himself as
Anthony Trent. Then covetousness would follow and the thought of rich
reward hearten the ex-private. Trent chuckled to himself as he thought
of how the man's face would fall when he outlined his past history and
showed him he was in possession of secrets which, once public, must
bring him into the clutches of the inexorable, passionless law of the
realm.

"Where can I get a horse?" he asked Nicholls.

"John Treleaven over to St. Kew has a good hunting horse he wants to
sell. It will be a bargain at sixty pounds Mr. Trent. I'll tell him to
ride it over tomorrow if you like."

"All right," Trent said, "and I want saddle and bridle and so on."

So Anthony Trent added Treleaven's stout horse to his possessions and
when he was not shooting, rode over the moorlands purple with Cornish
heather and yellow with gorse.

Nearly always he rode near the castle of Rosecarrel and was often
annoyed to find his pilgrimage shared by archæologists and other
visitors. Rosecarrel Castle had begun as a fortress; when cannon
rendered masonry useless it had become a castellated mansion and now it
showed the slow changes of the long centuries and was a delightful
residence. The moat was a flower garden and the keeps were now green
with grass and bright with roses.

Admission was by presentation of a visiting card on a certain day. It
was no part of Trent's purpose to send the name in which might remind
Arthur Grenvil of that memorable talk in the dark. When he disclosed
himself it would be man to man and he was not able yet to satisfy his
curiosity about the great building.

He was gratified to find that the river Camel running through part of
the shooting he rented was a notable salmon and trout stream. The trout
were small but the sea-run salmon went as high as thirty pounds. In
Kennebago where his Maine camp was the land-locked variety seldom went
to more than seven pounds. Directly he had secured his license, and the
equipment he wired to London for had arrived, he clambered down the
steep hill side to the river. But he fished very little that afternoon
for as he climbed over one of the granite stiles he came face to face
with two other anglers, a man and girl.

The girl was none other than the mysterious lady in blue for whom he had
opened Colonel Langley's safe. She came forward hand outstretched when
she saw him.

That she was a little confused he was certain, and perhaps a trifle
fearful that he might make some allusion to the oddity of the
circumstances under which they had first met. The man was almost a
hundred feet from her. He was casting and too interested to look at
anything but the deep pool in which salmon were wont to lie.

"I was never able to thank you for that, that night at Dereham," she
began, "but my father had one of his attacks and I had to leave the very
next day just before luncheon. I hope you had good sport."

"Unusually good," he said. It was a great piece of luck that she still
assumed him to be of the house party. But what was she doing here? When
he asked she said, "We live near here." She looked around to see her
companion coming toward her and the stranger.

"This is my brother," she said, "Arthur Grenvil. Arthur this gentleman
was staying at Dereham Old Hall when I was there. Mr.?" She looked at
him pleadingly, "I'm so stupid about names."

The stranger seemed to be looking at her when he answered, but his eyes
were upon Arthur Grenvil.

"Anthony Trent," he said urbanely.

"How do you do," Grenvil said without betraying any emotion. "Had any
luck?"

"Not yet," Anthony Trent said still looking hard at him. Things were
happening rather more quickly than he liked. Too many discoveries were
disconcerting. First this girl was of course Lady Daphne Grenvil. And
she had not any other motive in view in abstracting the confession than
of helping her renegade brother. Anthony Trent felt himself absurdly
pleased to know that. He had thought of her constantly and pitied her
because he assumed her to be under the domination of a handsome
heartless scamp like the Honourable Arthur.

It was Grenvil's attitude which puzzled the American. The name had
apparently aroused no suspicion. It proved the man was more dangerous
than he supposed if he were able to master his emotions with such ease.
As they stood there chatting about flies and the size of the salmon
Anthony Trent had time to study Grenvil's appearance. Assuredly he
differed from the mental picture he had formed of him.

To begin with there seemed nothing vicious about him. He was a very
handsome man with small regular features, finely formed nose and
engaging blue eyes. Anthony Trent thought of the confession he had seen
and remembered the talk in the dug-out. He called to mind the hints that
the Alderbrook butler had let drop and the lack of enthusiasm the agent
Nicholls had shown in speaking of him. From all accounts Arthur Spencer
Jerningham Grenvil should be a very highly polished scoundrel but
coarsened somewhat from his experiences in the ranks for so many years.

And here he was with a sister he plainly adored, looking with a sort of
shy good nature at the stranger.

"It's so jolly to meet another keen fisherman," he said amiably, "I know
the Camel so well that I can show you the best pools if you'd care about
it."

"That would be very kind of you," Anthony Trent returned. He did not
know what to make of the man he had first known as Private Smith. There
might be a mistake and yet, if there had been, why should Lady Daphne
have risked disgrace in breaking open a safe for his sake. And the
voice, the unmistakable voice, was that of the man to whom he had
confided all his dangerous, deadly secrets. "I haven't fished the river
for almost seven years," the younger man went on.

"My brother has been in the army for more than five years," the girl
said, "and he hadn't much chance then. He was badly wounded and we are
making him well again."

"I'm being horribly spoiled, Mr. Trent," Grenvil smiled, "and I rather
like it. Did you get in the big show by any chance?"

"As long as I could be after my country declared war," Trent said
looking at him hard. "We must exchange experiences."

"Please don't," the girl begged, "Arthur's nerves can't stand it. The
doctors say he must live outdoors and forget everything."

"And are you able to forget--everything?" Trent asked him.

Arthur Grenvil frowned a little. It was as though the memory of
something unpleasing had lingered for a moment.

"Most things," said the other.

"Is it wise?" Trent demanded. This refusing even by a look or a smile to
acknowledge that he remembered the memorable talk was disturbing.

"Perhaps not," Grenvil admitted, "but wisdom and I never got on very
well together."

The sound of a motor horn broke the silence.

"The car," said Arthur Grenvil to his sister. "We have to run away
because people are coming over from the barracks to lunch. I hope I
shall meet you again Mr. Trent." He nodded pleasantly. "Come on
Daphne."

"Goodbye, Mr. Trent," she said brightly. "I hope you'll land a monster
fish."

Anthony Trent flung himself on the grass at the edge of the pool and
lighted his pipe. Lordly salmon were no temptation to him at the moment.
Private William Smith had beaten him so far. Private Smith had looked as
innocent as a babe. He had been polite and gracious but had refused to
acknowledge any former acquaintance. Again and again in the few minutes
Trent had telegraphed to him plainly, "Well, here I am, the master
criminal you were proud to know, what are you going to do?" And every
time Private Smith had said, "I do not know you. I never saw you
before." It was well enough to postpone the conversation until they were
alone, but Trent resented the utter indifference of the younger man to
his appeal. A man dare only do that who had no fear. That must be the
reason. Grenvil had made only general statements in his half confession,
statements which could not convict him. He felt he held the whip hand
over the master. There would be a different expression on his face when
Trent dropped a hint as to the dangers of forging.

At the farm house where he was living Trent had little difficulty in
getting side lights on the Grenvil family. He had never heard such
disapprobation showered on a single member of any family as was the case
with the farmer and his wife when they spoke of Arthur Grenvil.

They said his scandalous life had killed his mother. It was all bad
companionship and drink, Mrs. Bassett the farmer's wife contended. He
was all right till he left school to go into the army. He was cruel to
animals and false to his friends.

"He doesn't look it," Trent said slowly.

"The devil gives his own a mask to fool the righteous," Mrs. Bassett
contended. She was a pious soul. "I ought to know. I was a nursemaid at
the castle before I married John Bassett."

Never in all his career as a breaker of laws and an abstractor of the
valuable property of others had Trent been so apprehensive as he was in
quiet, beautiful Cornwall far from cities. In New York he had schooled
himself to look unconcerned at the police he met on every corner. Here
there seemed to be no police and yet he looked anxiously at every
stranger who passed by the moorland farm. He told himself it was the
effect of his war hardships, his wounds and shell shock. But he knew his
nerves were steady, his muscles strong as ever and his health
magnificent. He was forced to admit that he was on edge because of this
meeting with Arthur Grenvil.

"This has got to end," he said after breakfast next morning, "I've had
enough uncertainty."

A few minutes later he was on horseback and on his way to Rosecarrel
Castle. It might not be easy to see Grenvil in his home surrounded by
servants but he would make the attempt. He had no reasonable excuse for
infringing the etiquette of the occasion. He had not been invited to
call and he knew no common friends of the family. It would be a business
call. He would send in his card and say he desired to see Mr. Arthur
Grenvil on a matter of importance.

He was within two miles of the castle when he saw the man he had come to
see mounted on a chestnut polo pony cantering along and driving a white
polo ball over the stretch of firm turf.

Grenvil pulled up as he saw the American.

"Trying to get my eye back," he said smiling. "Corking game, polo, ever
play it, Mr. Trent?"

"I've had to work too hard," Trent snapped.

"Much better for you I've no doubt," said Grenvil idly, "If one may ask
it, what sort of work did you do?"

"You've no idea I suppose?"

Grenvil looked at him mildly.

"How can I have any idea?" he asked.

Anthony Trent from his bigger horse looked down at the man on the polo
pony sourly. There was that bland look of irritating innocence that
would have convinced any judge and jury. But it did not sway him.

In just such a pleasantly modulated voice, and with no doubt just such
an ingratiating smile Private Smith had feared Anthony Trent was dying
in very bad company.

"You said you were not able to forget everything. I supposed that my
work might be one of the things you still remembered."

At length Trent was able to observe that Arthur Grenvil looked less
confident.

"I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean, Mr. Trent."

"The name Anthony Trent calls nothing to mind?"

"Sorry," Grenvil retorted, "I suppose I ought to know all about you."

"That's what you said before!" Trent exclaimed.

"Before?" There was no doubt now as to Grenvil's perturbation.

"Cut that out," Trent commanded angrily. "You did it very well, but I'm
sick and tired of fencing. What are you going to do about it?"

He was sure now that the other was frightened. That the emotion of fear
did not bring anger in its train amazed Trent.

"Leave you to realize your mistake," Grenvil said after a pause. Then
with a sharp stroke he sent the willow root ball spinning in the
direction of the castle, and followed it on his swift mount.

The horse that Trent had bought from John Treleaven the farmer was a
half bred, a good, weight-carrying nag, a fine jumper, but not equal to
the task of overtaking the chestnut thoroughbred. There was nothing to
do but pursue Grenvil into the castle grounds or give up the chase.
Angry because he could not judge in what degree of peril if any, he
stood, Anthony Trent rode back to the farm.




CHAPTER FIVE

_THE MAN WHO DENIED_


Thinking things over that night as he walked along the Camel banks and
disturbed the otters at play, Anthony Trent determined to call upon
Arthur Grenvil and force him to acknowledge that he had not forgotten
the conversation, the confidence that was so fully given, in the
dug-out.

Footmen and a butler barred his ingress. They were polite and filled
with regrets but the facts remained that Mr. Arthur Grenvil by doctor's
orders saw none. The Lady Daphne was engaged. The men-servants could
offer him no hope. He was able to see at close range some advantages of
the many servants the rich were able to employ to hedge them about with
privacy. The Rosecarrel butler was less urbane than his brother at
Alderwood and the opportunity for private conversation was lacking.
Trent saw in this rebuff another move in the subtle game Private Arthur
Smith was playing.

The next two days were spent in riding over the moors but not a glimpse
of Lady Daphne or her brother did he get. He was certain they were
avoiding him deliberately. The idea possessed Trent that Arthur Grenvil
was not satisfied to obtain merely the rewards that were offered for his
apprehension. If he followed the great thefts of the world he would
know that four of its most famous stones were still missing. And from
Trent's confession he would guess the master criminal still held them.
They were even now in Trent's Maine camp ornamenting a brass Benares
lamp as though they were merely the original pieces of glass that had
occupied the spaces when Trent purchased it. Trent could sell through
discreet sources the loot that was hidden in Kennebago for not less than
half a million dollars. If Arthur Grenvil chose to command him to do so
and share the proceeds what could he do? The hold he had on the other
man was slight. Langley might have extorted the confession more as a
warning than an instrument to use against a relative. In the two other
cases to which Arthur Grenvil had confessed his creditors were those who
had been his friends. He had embezzled the mess funds of his regiment.
It was unlikely that a cavalry regiment which had fought from Dettingen
to Mons would like a story of that sort to get abroad.

On the morning of the third day after his rebuff at the hands of the
footmen Trent made up his mind. He would see Arthur Grenvil and see him
at once. "If he thinks he can keep me out," said Trent his mouth
tightening to a narrow line, "he holds me too cheap."

       *       *       *       *       *

It happened that Arthur Grenvil knew nothing of the attempt of Anthony
Trent to see him. The doctors had indeed ordered him rest. Lady Daphne
when she heard of Trent's insistence said nothing but wondered why it
was that he should make the attempt. She still thought uneasily of that
night at Dereham when he had discovered her with the combination to her
host's safe. There was such a thing as blackmail and, after all what did
she know of the American except that he had been a guest of the
Langleys. In itself this should have been enough to vouch for his
position in life.

She found herself more interested in Anthony Trent than in any man she
had ever met. And it was because of this concern that in a letter to
Alicia Langley she asked about him.

Alicia's letter was astonishing. "I can't imagine, my dear Daphne to
whom you refer. There was no Anthony Trent here on the first. The only
American was Mr. Conington Warren who was wafted to our shores
permanently on the waves of prohibition. I think you knew personally
every other man except the Duke of Valladolida. He is, of course, a
grandee of Spain, short, slight and bald, but a first rate shot,
Reginald says, and plays polo for the Madrid team. Certainly there was
no tall, clean-shaven, good-looking man here whom you don't know quite
well." Alicia Langley invariably added postscripts. This time it
interested the reader more than the letter. "I showed your letter to
Reginald and he was almost excited. He said an Anthony Trent had motored
over from Norwich and wanted to learn particulars of a private in his
regiment. As the private in question was Arthur you may draw your own
inferences if you can. Reginald refused to speak so this Trent man of
yours doesn't know Arthur's _nom de guerre_ from anything he has learned
here. Reginald wants you to tell him where you met the man. Please do as
he seems to think it very serious."

While Lady Daphne read this communication, not without agitation, her
brother was dressing for dinner. Some people were coming over from
Pencarrow. He occupied two splendid rooms facing west and was looking
over the moorland to the sea when the handle of the room leading to a
large upper hall was opened noiselessly and admitted Anthony Trent. When
Grenvil remembered he had not long to make the change from flannels into
evening dress, he turned about to see the American sitting in a
comfortable chair.

"Please don't try and ring for the servants," Trent advised smoothly,
"because I am nearest to the bell and I shall not permit it."

If he expected an outbreak of anger he was disappointed. Instead there
was that puzzled expression which could only arise from innocence of
Trent's identity or the most finished art.

"Don't think I am a housebreaker," Trent went on equably, "I am not.
This is visitors day if you remember and after paying my shilling I
looked at the state rooms, pictures and autograph letters and fell
asleep. When I woke up I entered this room by mistake."

"And you want to find your way out?" Grenvil returned. "If you will
ring the bell I will have you shown."

"Not until I have had the opportunity of talking a little to you. In our
first conversation I was indiscreet. You will admit that, won't you?"

"Were you?" Grenvil answered vaguely. "I really don't remember Mr.
Trent."

"Then you deny ever having seen me until we met by the salmon pool a few
days ago?" Trent looked at him like a hawk.

"I do," Grenvil retorted.

"Then if you do, why don't you resent my butting in like this? Why don't
you call some men-servants and have me flung out for a damned nuisance?
Say I threatened you, say anything an innocent man could and would say.
Your attitude doesn't fool me in the least. You are playing a deep game
but I can play a deeper."

Grenvil shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of weariness. "There are
many things I cannot explain," he said.

"You are going to begin right now," Trent said. He was not in a mood to
be trifled with. He firmly believed that this man was planning to send
him to gaol for a period of years so long that he would come out a
whitehaired broken man.

He looked round frowning as steps sounded along the corridor and a tap
came on the door.

"Let me in Arthur," he heard Lady Daphne say, "I've had a most
extraordinary letter from Aunt Alicia. I must see you about it."

She rattled the locked door impatiently. Her brother walked over to it.
Trent could offer no objection. He was confused and annoyed that at a
moment such as this the girl must interrupt. To Anthony Trent she was as
one above and apart. There was no use in concealing that he himself was
a crook no matter how differently he pursued the profession from the
lesser lights whom he despised. And Arthur Grenvil was as crooked as he
with less excuse for it.

Lady Daphne stopped short when she saw Trent rise from his chair and
bow. Her greeting was so wholly different from the friendly manner she
had shown ere this, that he was at loss to understand it. He did not
know that Mrs. Langley was the Aunt Alicia. He could only suppose her
brother had hinted that he was not what he seemed.

"I was not told you were here," she said.

"I'm glad you've come," Arthur Grenvil said. Trent could see that he
only spoke the truth. From what did he expect his sister to protect him.
"Mr. Trent here has an idea I'm deliberately pretending not to know who
he is."

"I assure Mr. Trent," she said haughtily, "that at all events I know
what _he_ is."

Trent looked at her a little quizzically.

"I wonder if you really do," he commented.

"I shall be very glad to prove it," she answered, "but I am not anxious
that my brother should have to listen. I hoped you understood that he is
under the doctors' orders and must not be worried. As dinner is almost
ready and I have several things to do will you be kind enough to put
this discussion off until tomorrow morning?"

"Just as you please," he said. "When and where?"

"You are staying at the Bassetts I think. Very well I will drive over
there tomorrow at half past ten."

He flushed. The inference was plain. He was not permitted to meet her
within the castle. The servant who showed him out seemed to feel
differently today. He felt outcast.

       *       *       *       *       *

There was a little apple orchard behind the Bassetts' stone built barns
where each day Anthony Trent used to practise short approaches with a
favorite mashie. He held it as an axiom that if a golfer kept his hand
in with short mashie practise he would never be off his game. He was
industriously trying to approach over a tall spreading tree when he
heard the sound of wheels outside. It was not yet time for his
appointment with Lady Daphne but he could see from the higher ground of
the orchard that it was she. She was driving a dashing pair of chestnuts
to a mail phaeton. By her side sat a man with a powerful unscrupulous
face who was evidently amusing her by his conversation. Trent supposed
he was a guest at the castle, some man who had the right to meet her by
reason of being on the right side of the law.

Almost jealously Anthony Trent saw him help her to alight. He was a
heavily built man but not an ungraceful one and he was exceedingly well
dressed. Trent judged him to be five and forty and used to dominating
men. He had noticed often that men most ruthless with their fellows have
the most charming ways with women.

"I shan't be very long," Lady Daphne said laughing, "You will be able to
smoke just two cigarettes, Mr. Castoon."

Castoon. Of course it was Rudolph Castoon the banker, the English born
member of the great continental firm of bankers and financiers. One of
the brothers was a leader among New York capitalists. It was said that
each Castoon was loyal to the country where it had been arranged he
should be born.

It was in the sweet smelling sitting room of the Bassetts that Trent
found her. She was standing up and refused to be seated. Her enmity now
was hardly concealed.

"I find," she began, "that you have deceived me. You claimed to be one
of the guns at Colonel Langley's shoot."

"I permitted you to assume it," he corrected, "but that is not an
excuse."

"Colonel Langley is very anxious to know where it was I saw you and
under what circumstances."

"You will hardly inform him as to that," said Trent smiling.

"If it becomes necessary I shall," she replied. "At all events I was in
the house of a relative while you were there--"

"As a thief in the night. Thank you."

"You were there as a detective."

She had never seen him lose his calm before. He flushed red and a look
of hatred came over his face.

"A detective! I? If you knew how I loathed them you would never suspect
me of being that."

"If not why are you down here hounding my brother?"

"Hasn't he told you?"

"He says you persist in pretending to know him."

"Lady Daphne," Trent said earnestly. "Was your brother a Private William
Smith, a gentleman ranker in the seventy-eighth battalion of the City of
London Regiment?"

"Yes," she answered.

"And wasn't this same man under his own name expelled from Harrow School
and Trinity College, Cambridge."

"Then you are a detective!" she cried.

"On my honor, no," he exclaimed. "Lady Daphne, your brother saved my
life, and when I wanted to speak about the very terrible and unusual
experience he denied knowing me."

"You are not telling me everything," she said after a pause, "I am glad
you are not a detective even though you may be not what I thought you,
but is it reasonable you should try to force yourself on a man who quite
evidently wants to be alone with his thoughts just to thank him for
doing something every soldier was glad to do for any other allied
soldier?"

"There was something else," he admitted. "I may as well tell you what.
We were, as we had every reason to think, dying. We told each other part
of our past lives. Why I don't pretend to understand. Nerves I suppose
and the feeling that nothing mattered in the least. I told him part of
my past which in effect put a club in his hand to use over me. When I
got better I assumed he was killed. I found he wasn't and followed him
here to ask what he was going to do with his knowledge. You wondered
what errand I had at Dereham Old Hall. It was to read through the
confession which you burned. I had read it and replaced it before you
came in."

"Then you know all about him?" she gasped.

"I know what was written there," he answered. "I wanted to know so that
I could tell him I, too, had a weapon with which to fight. I am not his
enemy, far from it."

"You mean you don't want to threaten him or hold your knowledge of what
he did over us?"

He looked at her gloomily. To think that this was the impression she had
of him hurt.

"So that's what you think of me," he said slowly.

"Indeed it isn't," she answered quickly. "I didn't think it in the
beginning and I don't want to do so now, but what was one to think?"

"It was your brother's behaviour that puzzled me," he said, "and still
puzzles me. Don't you see I only want to be sure that he won't use what
I told him?"

Lady Daphne looked at him curiously. Here was a man whose manners were
perfect, who seemed to have the same sports and occupation of the kind
of men she knew hinting that he had done things of whose consequence he
was afraid. She supposed there were many temptations into which a man
might fall, lapses of which he might repent and still go in fear of
discovery.

"I don't wonder you were bewildered," she said presently, "and I
understand far better than you how it was. Mr. Trent you need never be
afraid that the man who was Private Smith will ever say a word to any
living souls of what you said to him."

"How can I be certain?" he demanded. "You don't know the rewards that a
man might gain for speaking the truth about me."

"Private William Smith and my brother Arthur are two different people."

He looked at her in astonishment. Was the weary chase, the long
uncertainty to begin again? There was never a doubt in his mind but that
what she told him was true even if it was hard to be believed.

"Then where is Private Smith?" he asked. "Where is the man who knows the
real me?"

"At the castle," she said.

He made a gesture of despair.

"It is incomprehensible."

"I am going to tell you about them--about the two utterly different
men." She said nothing for a full minute. Then she went to the door and
called Mrs. Bassett into the room. "Please tell Mr. Castoon I shall have
to keep him waiting rather longer than I thought."

"Certainly, my Lady," Mrs. Bassett said. Later she told her husband that
Mr. Castoon looked very black at the news. "He's not the kind to like
being kept waiting," she explained.

"Princes of the Blood ought to be glad to wait for Lady Daphne," the
tenant farmer cried.

"You learned somehow that Arthur was expelled from Harrow. It is true.
He managed to get into Trinity but lasted only a term. Then came
Sandhurst and a commission finally and black disgrace. Mr. Rudolph
Castoon who is a friend of my eldest brother took pity on him and made
him one of his secretaries--he's in Parliament you know--but even he
couldn't do anything. Then a little while in Australia and failure
there. The last thing he did was to enlist just before the war broke
out. Colonel Langley was given the command of a London regiment and
found Arthur under the name you knew."

"But you said he wasn't Private Smith," Trent broke in eagerly.

"You will see later what I mean. How did you meet him?"

Trent explained in a few words. But what confessions or boasts he had
been betrayed into making he said nothing about.

"My brother was expelled from Harrow when he was eighteen. Until he was
seventeen he was one of the sweetest natured boys you could imagine. He
was full of fun and mischief but all his tutors loved him and there
wasn't a particle of vice in him. Suddenly he seemed possessed of
devils. He drank, he gambled--and cheated--he was insolent to his
teachers. It broke my mother's heart. It helped to make my father the
silent broken man he is today. It was the same when he went up to
Trinity and the same when he was at Sandhurst...." There was a long
pause. Trent could see she was struggling against tears. There welled up
in him an almost divine pity. He wanted to soothe her, comfort her and
let her cry on his shoulder.

It was in this moment that Anthony Trent knew he loved her and would
always love her. Those passing affections of adolescence were pale, wan
emotions compared with this. And it was an hour of grief to him. He
realized that his ways of life had cut him off irremediably from
marriage with such a woman as this.

"What happened," she said at last, "when you came to after being blown
from that dug-out?"

"I was badly hurt," he answered, wonderingly, "those high explosives
play the strangest tricks with one."

"This is what happened to my brother. He was unconscious for a very long
time and his head was fearfully mangled. When he came out of ether he
said very distinctly. 'Oh Bingo, how rottenly clumsy of you.'"

"Who was Bingo?" Trent asked.

"At the time nobody knew. Arthur's uniform was torn off in the explosion
and his regiment unknown."

"He could have told them," Trent asserted.

She shook her head.

"You are mistaken. He could not tell them. They thought he was, what's
the word, malingering. They thought he wanted to be sent back and get
out of the fighting. Then he complained of the dreadful noise. By
degrees they found that he did not even know of the war. They thought of
course he was pretending. My father heard of the wound and although he
had disowned him he had him brought to our house in Grosvenor Place. We
had specialists, those new sorts of doctors who don't depend on
medicines. Arthur thought he was still at Harrow eight years or more
ago. Then I remembered a boy who shared a study with him there, a boy
who had stayed here, a son of Sir Willoughby Hosken who has a place near
Penzance. Bingo was somewhere in the Struma valley with his battery and
in answer to a letter said that the only act of clumsiness he could call
to mind was when he accidentally hit Arthur with an Indian club in the
gym at school.

"One of the doctors went over to Harrow and found Arthur had been hit
like this and was in the infirmary for three days. Mr. Trent, it was
after that accident he altered entirely."

"I've heard of such cases," Trent said quickly. "Pressure of some sort
on the brain they call it. There was quite an epidemic of such incidents
in America a few years ago. It was supposed to be a cure for bad boys.
Then you think--"

"I know," she said emphatically. "He is now exactly as he was when he
was a boy, gentle, thoughtful and clean. Our specialists saw the army
surgeons and they supposed that in dressing his dreadful wounds they
removed the portions of depressed bone and so made this extraordinary
cure. They say the war has proved this sort of thing again and again."

The news which spelled salvation to Anthony Trent seemed too tremendous
to believe. There was no miracle about it. It was a simple fact
demonstrated by surgery and accepted now by the laity. The years in
which Arthur Grenvil had sown wild oats and disrupted friendships and
relationships was wiped from his consciousness. Trent now understood the
half diffident, almost shy manner so inexplicable in a man of the type
William Smith had been.

"My father thinks," the girl went on, "that as he will have to find out
some of the things he did it will be as well to prepare him for it and
shield him against consequences."

"Consequences?" he hazarded.

"I'm afraid," she said gravely, "that it will not be easy. His creditors
for example have learned that my father has forgiven him and they are
coming down on him. Fortunately my father can afford to pay but there is
always the dread of some adventurer turning up and letting us into some
dreadful secrets."

"Men like me," he asked.

"You know I didn't mean that," she said. "I think it most wonderful that
you are here, because you will be able to tell him something about the
good part of his life you know. He is always hoping that his memory will
come back but the doctors say it won't." She hesitated a little. "Poor
Arthur is very much depressed at times. Could you try and remember as
much about him as possible?"

"Surely," said Anthony Trent. "As it happens I met a man out there who
knew him well and said he was a good soldier."

"I wish my father could know that," she said. "I'm going to ask you to
luncheon tomorrow and to meet a man whose life Arthur saved would cheer
him enormously. We shall be alone." She frowned. "I'd forgotten Mr.
Castoon who is probably furious at being kept waiting. I promised him
I'd be back in two cigarettes time. I was going to drive in to Camelford
but I don't think I will. I feel almost that I want to cry." She held
out her hand impulsively. "Forgive me for what I thought about you and
come to luncheon at one tomorrow."

"You don't know how I'd like to," he said wistfully, "but you have
forgotten about my past; and I had no such excuse as your brother."

"You are exaggerating it," she said more brightly. "Anyhow it's all
over."

Exaggerating! And even were it all over, which he doubted, a blacker
past remained than ever she dreamed of.

"I don't want Mr. Castoon to see that I've got tears in my eyes. Please
tell him to wait a little longer while I talk to Mrs. Bassett. _Au
revoir._"

Anthony Trent watched her go and then sighed. And he told himself that
had he met her ten years before he would have had the strength to win a
fortune honestly and not take the lower road.

He went outside to where Rudolph Castoon was sitting in the phaeton. The
two horses were champing at their bits, a little groom at their heads
trying to soothe their high tempers. He approached the financier with no
personal feeling of any sort. In the beginning he expected to admire the
man as he did all such forceful characters. He often suspected there was
more kinship between him and the ruthless financier type that Castoon
represented than the world comprehended.

Rudolph Castoon looked at him sourly.

"Well?" he snapped.

Anthony Trent looked at him and knew instantly that he would always
share the hate he saw in the capitalist's face. For a moment he was at a
loss to understand the reason. Then he saw that it was jealousy,
furious, dynamic jealousy. Lady Daphne had come to see Mrs. Bassett.
Instead Castoon found she had come to see a younger and better looking
man. Trent did not fall into the error of underrating Castoon. In the
event of a contest of any kind between them he would walk warily. But he
never expected to see the man again and his peremptory way of speaking
angered him.

"Well?" Castoon demanded again.

"Thank you," said Trent urbanely, "I find the air of these moorlands of
great benefit to me. Formerly I slept poorly but now I sleep as soon as
my head touches the pillow. And my appetite is better. I eat three eggs
for breakfast every morning. Do you sleep well?"

"I did not come here to sleep," Castoon frowned.

"But if you are here for long you must," Trent said pleasantly.

"I am not in the least interested in your health or how many eggs you
can eat for breakfast." Castoon's manner was frankly rude. "I want to
know where Lady Daphne Grenvil is."

"She said she had forgotten you," Trent answered, "she also said you
would probably be furious at being kept waiting."

"I am," Castoon asserted. "Would it be too much to ask the reason?"

"I expected you to," Trent said affably. The time he took to select a
cigarette from his case and the meticulous manner in which he lighted it
added to the other man's ill temper just as Anthony Trent intended it
should.

"If you are quite finished, sir," Castoon cried, "I should be glad to
hear."

"As an American," Trent began airily, "I like the old family servant
tradition. Lady Daphne is talking over her childhood days with Mrs.
Bassett. My mother was from the Southern states and I suppose I inherit
a liking for that sort of thing."

"Will you come to the point, sir?" Castoon exclaimed.

"I thought I told you that Lady Daphne was talking over nursery
reminisences with an old servant."

"She may be doing that now, but what was she doing before? I'll tell
you; she was talking to you. Do you deny it?"

"My dear man," Trent cried in apparent surprise, "Deny it? I boast about
it! It is the only thing I hope will be printed in my obituary notices."

"I'm not sure I should be desolated at reading your obituary notices,"
Castoon said keeping his temper back. He could say no more for Lady
Daphne came hurrying along the hydrangea-bordered path to the gate.

"I'm dreadfully sorry, Mr. Castoon," she cried.

"I can forget everything now that you are here," he returned gallantly,
"even the humour of this young man whose name I don't know."

"Mr. Anthony Trent of New York," she told him. "You'll meet him at
luncheon tomorrow."

"That will make it a very pleasant function," the financier said grimly.
He could say no more because the horses reared impatiently and for a
moment there was danger.

"That off horse nearly came over backward," Castoon said when the team
had settled down a little and the farm was a half mile behind.

"But it didn't," Lady Daphne said calmly, "so why worry?"

"It would have been his fault," Castoon said venomously.

"You don't seem to like him," she said smiling.

"I hate any man who looks at you as he does."

"How does he look?" she asked with an air of innocence.

"He looks at you as if he was in love with you, and I hate any man to do
that."

"You have no right to resent it Mr. Castoon," she said coldly. "I have
told you a hundred times that you concern yourself far too much with my
affairs."

"I'm going to marry you," he said doggedly. "I never fail. Look at my
life history and see where I have been beaten. I know you don't care for
me yet. You'll have to later."

"My father doesn't care for you either."

Rudolph Castoon sniffed impatiently.

"His type is dying out. He still remains ignorant that money has
displaced birth."

"It's the one thing money won't buy, though," she reminded him.

"Birth can't buy power," the financier said quickly, "and money means
power. Your father has had both. It would have been easier for me to
marry Daphne, daughter of the Earl of Rosecarrel, Viscount St. Just,
Baron Wadebridge, Knight of the Garter, and Ambassador to Turkey, and
all the rest of it, than it will be to marry you now your father has
abandoned his career."

"That sounds merely silly to me," she exclaimed.

"Someday I will explain to you how very sensible it is. You will
understand exactly."

"Do you mean you are so inordinately vain you would rather marry an
ambassador's daughter than the daughter of a man who isn't a power
politically any more?"

"At least I can say I don't mean that. I am vain, that's true, but I
wish you were one of the daughters of a tenant farmer on these purple
moors instead of being an earl's daughter." He sighed a little. Then the
recollection of Anthony Trent came back. "Who is this man Trent?" he
demanded.

"A delightful man," she said, "an American who knows how to behave. I
met him at a houseparty somewhere or other. He used to know Arthur."

Castoon could not keep back a sneer.

"That vouches for him of course."

"At least he wouldn't say anything as underbred as that," she cried
angrily, and touched one of her high-mettled chestnuts with a lash.
Castoon hung on to the seat as the pair tried to get away.

"You'll kill yourself some day driving such horses as these," he said
later. He was not a coward; but unnecessary risk always seemed a
childish thing to create and he believed himself heir to a great
destiny.




CHAPTER SIX

_FRESH FIELDS_


If Anthony Trent thought he was to be the guest at a small luncheon
party where he could meet Arthur under friendlier circumstances and talk
to Daphne intimately, he was mistaken.

Castoon was staying at the castle and a number of people motored over
from Falmouth as well as the owner of a big yacht lying for the time in
the Fowey river.

Lord Rosecarrel was very amiable. He seemed intensely grateful that
Trent gave up a morning's shooting to attend a luncheon. There was no
trace of suspicion about him. He had been told that Mr. Trent, an
American of means, had been a guest at Dereham Old Hall. His daughter
had not informed him of Alicia Langley's letter.

But he was most interested to know that his son had saved the visitor's
life. It was the one good act in the black years which had given him so
much sorrow.

Also Daphne had told him that Arthur liked Trent and would be a good
companion. The physicians who were watching Arthur's case recommended
that he should be kept interested. They desired that the apathy which
threatened to take hold on him should be banished. The Earl was growing
more and more to leave things to the girl. The death of his two sons had
been a terrible blow and he was beginning to find in solitary yachting
and fishing trips a certain refreshing solace.

From the deference that most of the people paid to Rudolph Castoon it
was evident that he was a man of great influence and promise.

Trent sat next to a rather pretty dark girl, a Miss Barham, who had come
over from her father's yacht.

"Everybody seems to hang on his words," he said. "Why?"

"He's phenomenally rich," she answered, "and he has a career. He'll
probably be Chancellor of the Exchequer in the next cabinet. Finance is
bred in the bone of his sort. Hasn't he a brother in your country?"

"A great power in Wall Street," Trent told her, "but we suspect a
capitalist; and while Rudolph may get a title and much honor, Alfred in
America couldn't get a job as dog catcher."

"Of course you've seen he's simply mad about Daphne?" Miss Barham said
later.

"I've seen his side of it," Trent said frowning a little, "but what
about Lady Daphne?"

"Power is always attractive," Miss Barham said wisely, "and we English
women love politics. One can never tell. I think the earl would be
furious but Daphne always gets her way and after all Mr. Castoon is a
great catch whichever way you look at it. There's nothing financially
shady about him and if Daphne should ever get bitten with the idea of
making a _salon_, he's the man to marry."

"What a brutal way to look at it," he said gloomily.

"Are you young enough to believe in those delightful love matches, Mr.
Trent?" the girl asked. "I did till I was almost fifteen."

Anthony Trent should have been amused to find himself on the side of the
angels. As a rule life had provoked cynicism in him and here he was
fighting for ideals.

"I talked like that until I was fifteen," he smiled, "and I meant it."

Ada Barham turned her dark brilliant eyes on him. She rather envied the
girl who had captured him. She felt it was a lover talking.

"Of course you are in love," she retorted. "I always meet the really
nice men too late. Dare you confess it?"

"I admit it," he said a little confused.

"American girls are very charming," Miss Barham declared. "I stayed at
Newport a month last year. Of course you know Newport?"

"Fairly well," he admitted.

Oddly enough the recollection of his Newport triumphs was not as
pleasing as usual. He had made some of his richest hauls in the Rhode
Island city.

What an amazing thing, he reflected, that he was here as a guests among
people on whom, as a class, he had looked as his lawful prey. Castoon
with his millions was the sort of man he would like to measure his wit
against. When Castoon looked across the table at him with a kind of
innocent stare he decided that it would be a delightful duel.

He knew English women wore little jewelry during the day so he could not
estimate the value of what they owned at a luncheon, but he was certain
Miss Barham's mother, who was addressed as Lady Harriet, had family
jewels worth the risk of seeking to get. A woman whose husband owned a
two-hundred feet steam yacht was distinctly among those whom in former
days he had been professionally eager to meet.

Before the luncheon Lady Daphne had explained that her brother would not
be at the table. The family was anxious that he should not be subjected
to the confusion of professing ignorance of some man or event which he
ought to know. By degrees he was getting his bearings and reading
through files of old newspapers the main events of the years that had
been wiped from his mind.

Anthony Trent was taken to the big room by a footman, the same room he
had entered unannounced.

"You must have thought me awfully rude," Arthur Grenvil said cordially,
"but my sister had told you the reason. She says I used to know you."
Grenvil looked at him wistfully, "I think she said I had saved your
life."

"You did," Trent answered promptly. And then, because he was sorry for
the ex-"Tommy" but more because he loved the other's sister, he plunged
into a stirring account of the incident omitting the part of the
exchange of confidences.

"Apparently," said Grenvil, "it was the only decent thing I did during
those dreadful forgotten years. If you knew the agony of not knowing
what I did and dreading every day to learn something more of my career
you'd pity me. I couldn't meet Castoon. They say I was a sort of
secretary to him for six months and he had to send me away. All I
remember of him is that he was my father's private secretary when I was
a small boy of ten and my father ambassador at Constantinople. I'm
afraid to see any of the people who come here."

"That will pass," Trent said reassuringly, "you'll get a grip on
yourself as your health improves."

"That's what Daphne says," Arthur answered, "Isn't she splendid?"

"Indeed she is," Trent said not daring to put the fervor in his voice
that he felt. There was almost an uncanny feeling in talking with this
new Arthur Grenvil. As a judge of men, and as a man who had met a great
number of criminals and could estimate them accurately, Trent had known
even in the darkness of the dug-out that Private William Smith was bad.

Despite the absence of coarseness from the speech of the unseen man
Trent had felt that he was evil and dangerous, a man to watch carefully.
And this same man stripped of his mantle of black deeds was now sitting
talking to him with the deferential air of the junior listening with
respect to his superior in years and his superior in knowledge.

What a _rôle_ for Anthony Trent, master criminal! But he played it as
well as any of the parts he had set himself to enact. He became the
elder brother, the sage counsellor, the arbiter, the physical trainer
and the constant companion. In the beginning he cheerfully set out to
play the part in order to win Daphne's approval. Later he really liked
Arthur. He taught him to drive the high powered Lion car that was seldom
used by the earl's chauffeurs and discovered in him an aptitude for
mechanics which delighted his father.

"You have done more for my son than I imagined could be done by anyone,"
Lord Rosecarrel said gratefully.

"I owe him no small debt," Anthony Trent retorted, "and it's a very
pleasant way of trying to pay it."

It was not often that he saw the earl. Occasionally they played a game
of billiards after dinner but the elder man was constantly occupied with
reading when he was not aboard his boat. Since he had come to Cornwall,
Trent had discovered what an important personage Lord Rosecarrel had
been in the political life of his country until his sudden resignation a
year before the war. Every now and then Trent would see regret expressed
in a London paper or weekly review that he would not place his vast
knowledge of the near East at his country's disposal.

There was still considerable trouble centering about the Balkans; and
since the earl had been minister or ambassador at Belgrade, Bucharest
and Constantinople he knew the country as few could hope to do without
his experience.

The prime minister himself, snatching a few days of golf at Newquay,
motored over to the castle to lunch and asked his host personally to
come from his retirement. It happened that Trent was lunching at the
castle and heard the earl's decision not to leave private life. There
was an incident in connection with this which made a curious impression
on the American.

When he had declined to represent his country finally, Lord Rosecarrel
looked over the table at his son who was talking gaily and did not
observe the glance. It was a look almost of hate that the earl flashed
at him. Then it passed and was succeeded by the melancholy which the old
aristocrat's face habitually wore. Trent was certain none had seen but
he and he had never seen an evidence of it before.

He reflected that Arthur was never wholly at ease in his father's
company. Again and again he had caught a certain shamed look when the
earl was speaking. Of course it was the knowledge of how in the
forgotten years he had disgraced an honored name. That was
understandable. But why should the father who knew all and had forgiven
suddenly throw this look of hate over the table at the unconscious son?

"Arthur," said Trent one day to Lady Daphne, "looks as if he were still
begging forgiveness. Why?"

"It must be fancy on your part," she said and changed the subject
instantly.

He supposed it was some other skeleton, from that full closet, whose
rattling bones had not been buried yet. There was something which still
rankled in the earl's memory. He knew he would never find its origin
from Daphne.

His intimacy with the Grenvils began to alarm him. It was a fellowship
which must sooner or later come to an end. He was utterly without vanity
when it came to his relationship with Lady Daphne; but his love for her
gave him such an insight and sympathy with her that he could not but be
conscious that of late a softer mood had come to her when they were
alone together.

He knew that she looked for his presence where before she had been
indifferent. Sometimes when they touched hands at parting there was the
faint, lingering hold which said more than looks or spoken words. It
distressed him to hear that she had defended him valiantly when the wife
of a nearby landowner had referred to him as an American adventurer and
fortune hunter. Daphne had sprung to his rescue in a flash. Half the
country gossiped about it. It was very loyal of her, he felt, but also
very unwise.

The earl had heard of it and was displeased. But he trusted his daughter
and Trent was working amazing changes with Arthur. It was only when the
prime minister spoke of the American that Lord Rosecarrel knew he must
not ignore the thing any longer.

"And who is the good looking lad upon whose words your daughter hangs?"

"A delightful fellow," the earl said, "I don't know what Arthur would
have done without him. He is reconstructing the poor boy."

And indeed the earl was fond of the stranger. But his daughter must
marry into her own station in life. His other girl's home was in France
and he wanted Daphne to remain in England. It occurred to him as very
strange that he had made so few inquiries into Trent's antecedents. He
supposed it was the man's personal charm and the fact that he was
himself not in good health that had allowed him to be careless. One day
at a dinner that came in the week after the prime minister's visit, a
dinner to which Trent alone was bidden, he said:

"We shall miss you very much when you have to go, Mr. Trent, but I
suppose your affairs in America call you imperatively."

Anthony Trent made no answer for the moment. It was as though sentence
of death had been passed upon him. He could only admit that this was the
logical if long-delayed end to the pleasantest days of his life. He had
brought it on himself by his own weakness. For all his strength he was
in some ways deplorably weak. He had been weak to leave the ways of
honest men. Primarily he had none of those grudges against organized
society which drive some men to crime. He had fallen because he was
tired of narrow ways of life and a toil which offered few high rewards.

And, more than all, he had been weak in that he had encouraged an
intimacy with a family of this type. The Lady Daphne was not for him. He
called to mind a phrase that Miss Barham had said about Castoon at this
very table. She had said there was nothing financially shady about him
which might prevent marriage between him and Daphne. No matter how much
Anthony Trent sought to deceive himself about his way of crime and
comfort himself with the reflection he never despoiled the poor or
worthy but inevitably set himself against the rich and undeserving, he
knew he stood condemned in the eyes of decent men and women. He was
aware that Daphne and Arthur were listening for his answer. Daphne's
face was white.

"I shall miss you all, sir," he said, "more than I can say."

"You are not really going?" Arthur cried.

"I must," he said. "My affairs at home need looking after and I have
lingered on here forgetting everything."

Lady Daphne said nothing. He did not dare to look at her. He knew she
was thinking that but for her father's mention of his leaving she might
not have known until he chose to tell; and he had told another first.

Because he was grateful that Trent had been quick to take the hint the
Earl of Rosecarrel was particularly gracious to his guest and proposed
a game of billiards.

It was while the old nobleman was making a break that Daphne dropped
into a chair at Trent's side.

"Are you really going?" she asked.

"I ought never to have stayed so long," he answered.

"Do you want to go?"

"You know I don't," he said passionately.

"And is your business so important?"

"Wait," he said rising to his feet when his opponent had finished a
break of fifty-three. "It's my turn."

"I have never," said the earl, chalking his cue, "seen you miss that
particular shot before."

Anthony Trent came to the girl's side.

"We can't talk here," he whispered. "The hounds meet at Michaelstowe
tomorrow and draw the Trenewth covers. Will you be out?"

"Yes," she said, "but what chance shall we have to talk there?"

"We can lose the field," he said, "and ride back over the moors alone."

       *       *       *       *       *

Arthur Grenvil had taken the mastership of the North Cornwall Foxhounds
and persuaded Trent to follow them. The American had added a couple of
better-bred faster horses to his hack and now enjoyed the gallop after a
fox as much as any hardened foxhunter of them all.

A fox was discovered almost immediately when the Trenewth covers were
drawn and got well away making in a westerly direction for the
Wadebridge road. Daphne and Trent made a pretense of following but soon
drew apart from the rest. The music of hounds became fainter and they
turned back to the moors.

"You might have told me," she said reproachfully.

"I didn't know," he answered, "I only realized when your father spoke
that it was more or less a command."

"My father may be the lord-lieutenant of the county," she said, "but he
has no power to send a man away if the man doesn't want to go."

"Can you think I want to go?" he demanded.

"I only know you are not going to stay."

She touched her horse lightly on the shoulder and put him to a canter.
Trent saw that she was heading for Rough Tor, one of the two mountains
guarding the moorlands. Once or twice they had ridden to its rocky top
and looked at the hamlets through whose chimneys the peat smoke rose,
and those strange hut circles of a prehistoric people. The path along
which she went was too narrow to permit him to ride by her side and he
was forced to ride in silence for almost an hour.

When she dismounted at Rough Tor and he tethered the horses to a short
wind shorn tree he could see she was not the same cheerful girl of
yesterday.

"Why did you stay here so long?" she asked presently.

"Because I love you," he answered.

"Why do you go away?"

"Because I love you better than I knew."

She looked at him with a faint smile.

"That is very hard to understand, Tony."

It was the first time she had ever called him by the name her brother
used. He took one of her gauntleted hands and kissed it.

"My dear," he said tenderly, "it is crucifixion for me."

She looked at him still with the little wistful smile on her face.

"And are you the only one to suffer?"

The knowledge that she cared as much as he did brought a look of misery
to his face where only triumph should have reigned.

"Ada Barham told me about the girl in America," she continued. "Of
course I imagined there would be a girl somewhere whom you cared for but
I think you might have confided in me. Weren't we good friends enough
for that?"

"There is no girl anywhere," he said. "I told Miss Barham that because I
didn't want her to suspect it was you."

"Then why must you go away?" There was almost a wail in her voice.

"I have told you," he answered, trying desperately to keep his voice
even, "I must go because I love you better than anything else in life."

She laughed a little bitterly.

"And so that is how men behave when they are in love!"

"When a man really loves a girl he should think first of her happiness."

She looked at him simply. There was none of the false shame that lesser
natures might feel in avowing love.

"Don't you understand," she said in a low voice, "that you are my
happiness?"

For a moment the devil tempted him even as the Son of Man had been
tempted upon a mountain top. Why should he think of the future when
today was so sweet? In the big Lion car in the castle garage he could
make Southampton in time enough for the White Star liner which went out
tomorrow. They could be married on board or at any rate directly they
reached America. Then with the money he had saved they could be happy.
She was the woman he wanted, the woman he worshipped.

Then the other side of the picture presented itself. He saw them married
on board and radiantly happy as they approached the land that was to be
her home. Then the hard-faced men who showed official badges and
informed him he was wanted for a series of crimes which would keep him
away from wife and home and liberty until she was an old woman. One
ending to the trip was just as likely as the other. Situated as he was
he could never be certain of safety. This period in quiet Cornwall was
the first time since he had taken to crime that he had become almost
careless. He would break Daphne's heart for she was of the kind who
would never love another man. And the disgrace he would bring upon this
kindly family of hers which had suffered enough already. The screeching
headlines in the press of the earl's daughter who married a crook. It
was not to be thought of.

"Dear," he said softly, "if there were any obstacles which could be
removed by human effort I should not say goodbye like this. Please don't
ask me to tell you anything more."

"You said at Dereham that you felt you could sell your soul for a past.
Is that it?"

"That is the irrevocable thing," he told her.

"Pasts can be lived down," she whispered.

"Not mine," he said dismally. "Daphne I have not been here all this time
without knowing you and the sort of people from whom you spring. It is
because of your tradition of honor that you felt Arthur's misfortunes so
much. I can bring upon you and yours a greater disgrace than he could."

"I won't believe it," she cried.

"I don't want you to," he said gratefully. "I remember the thing said
about your family, 'the Grenvils for Loyalty' and I love you for it, but
Lady Polruan was right when she called me an unknown adventurer from
America. The other countrymen of mine you meet here, like Conington
Warren for instance, have their place at home. I haven't. I am without
the pale. They don't know me and I can't know them. There is that great
gulf fixed which you can never understand. I want to go away leaving you
still my friend. If you ask me questions about myself and I answer them
truly I may have to carry away with me the picture of your scorn. Be
kind, Daphne and don't ask any more."

"I should never scorn you," she cried.

He put his arms about her and kissed her.

"My dear," he whispered, "my sweet, believe always that there is
something God himself could not alter or I would never give you up like
this."

"It is very hard," she said presently, "to have found love and then to
know it must only be a little dream that passes."

"It is my just punishment," he answered.

"When do you go?"

"Tomorrow."

She put her arms about his neck and looked him full in the eyes.

"Darling," she said, "I shall never love anybody but you. Girls always
say that, I know, but I have always been a little afraid of love and its
exactions and the sorrow it brings. You see I was right in being afraid
for directly I find you I must lose you." She leaned forward, one elbow
on her knee, and looked at the countryside spread out at her feet. "I
shall probably live here to be an old woman and look after other old
women and see they have tea and warm wraps for the bad weather, and give
the old men tobacco. That's all I look forward to. Tony, Tony, why is it
one can't die on the day when one is killed?"

He sat in silence. Bitterly as he regretted his past which had risen to
prevent happiness, he regretted his staying here in Cornwall even more.
If he alone had suffered it were well enough, part indeed of the
punishment he merited. But to have dragged this girl into it and to have
made her love a man who could never marry her was the blackest of all.
Perhaps she suspected it for she turned to him and put her hand on his.

"Poor Tony," she said caressingly, "it's no good blaming yourself. It
had to be. I think I've always loved you. Before it is too late and you
are gone away, are you sure this thing that stands between us cannot be
banished or atoned or paid for in money? You know I have a large fortune
of my own and it is all yours if you need it. Don't let any little thing
stand between us. Where one loves wholly one can forgive all. I shall
not ask you again; but, my dear, if any human agency can give you to me
let me know."

Anthony Trent thought of the view he once had of a great penitentiary in
which a man he used to know was serving a life sentence. The prison was
set among arid country in sandy plains. Along the top of the stone walls
sentries were placed at intervals, men with sawed-off shot guns waiting
the opportunity to kill such as sought to escape the dreary days and
dreadful nights. His friend made the desperate attempt and died as
warders crowded about him and congratulated the guard on his
markmanship. It was this place which might at any moment receive the
person of Anthony Trent.

He could not think of the law as a human agency. That was one of the
differences between the Anthony Trent, writer and Anthony Trent, crook.
The writer regarded the law and its officers with a certain meed of
respect but the criminal hated them.

"There is nothing that can help me," he said.

There was silence for a little; then she rose to her feet and pointed
out scarlet coated men in the distance and galloping horses. Arthur's
hounds had lost their fox in Tregenna woods and had found another stout
dog fox headed for his earth on the moors.

"We can follow after all," she said, with an attempt to be cheerful.

They kissed silently and then remounted the impatient hunters. By
devious ways they joined the field again. The moorland was a dangerous
country to ride. Great stone walls divided small fields and there were
sunken roads and paths by which, thousands of years before, the
Phoenicians had taken their way.

It was observed with what recklessness the American rode.

"He'll break his neck if he isn't careful," said a rosy faced old
"hunting parson," as Trent set his horse at a great granite barrier.

He was not to know that Anthony Trent would have welcomed just such an
end.




CHAPTER SEVEN

_THE SENTENCE OF BANISHMENT_


Lord Rosecarrel who was out with the hounds that day was riding ahead of
his daughter when she and her escort joined the field. He was a finely
built man and looked exceedingly well in hunting costume. He wore a
closely trimmed beard, now almost white, and seemed, so Trent thought,
more than his sixty-five years. It was a fine, sensitive face, and the
earl had all his days until this strange retirement mixed with the great
of the earth and taken part in the councils of nations. This mystery
connected with his withdrawal from public affairs intrigued the
American. He believed Daphne knew. He was wondering what it was when the
earl reined in his horse.

"I am told you leave no later than tomorrow, Mr. Trent, I hope you will
dine with us tonight."

Anthony Trent hesitated a moment before answering.

"Thank you," he said, "I should like to."

He knew it would only reopen old wounds but the temptation to see Daphne
again was not to be resisted.

It would have been a dull dinner but for the earl. Whether or not he saw
Daphne's depression, the disappointment of his son and the
disinclination of the visitor to talk, he was entertaining and witty. He
asked a number of questions about the United States where his son and
heir was. While he played billiards with Arthur, Trent and the girl
watched them. In truth they paid little attention to the scores or
strokes.

It was not easy to get back to the intimacy of the morning. There was a
certain reserve in the girl's manner, and a look of sadness that
immeasurably distressed Trent.

"Ours is a tragic family," she said, when he tried to bring her to a
brighter mood. "We used to be so happy. My mother was wonderful. She is
gone, my two brothers are dead, St. Just is away and my father simply
pining away of a dreadful thing that wasn't his fault."

"I wish you would tell me what it is," he said.

"Impossible," she said decisively. "It poisons his whole life."

"It was Arthur's fault, wasn't it?" he demanded.

"What makes you say that?" she returned.

"I know it," he said emphatically, "and whatever he did can be undone
and if it's humanly possible I can do it. Is someone blackmailing him?"

He could see she was startled. He must have hit on something not far
removed from the truth.

"Not that," she said, looking at where her father was standing
apprehensively. "And I'm sure you could do nothing."

"I can try," he said earnestly. "Listen to me, Daphne. I feel that
there is nothing in life for me but the memory of you. I want more than
anything else to do something for you to prove my love. I have nothing
in all life to lose. I have no relations, no friends to speak of. My
life has been made up of," he hesitated, "of adventures where I pitted
myself against the world and won."

She thought of that night in Dereham. Was that one of his adventures?
Certainly he had given her the impression of great strength and
resolution. Of all the men she met Rudolph Castoon and Anthony Trent
most radiated this uncommon quality.

She looked across the big room to her father. Arthur was making a big
break and the earl was not watching him; she knew he was not thinking of
the game. He was thinking of that insuperable obstacle which barred him
from the work he loved, the work in which he was needed. He looked a
sad, broken man and reminded Trent of the portrait of Julius the second,
by Raphael, which he had seen in Florence.

"I dare not tell," she said. "It touches big things and would involve
many names and would lead you into great peril."

"It would not be the peril for me that you think," he insisted. "I shall
know when my hour is to strike. Darling, let me try to do something for
the woman I love, for the family where I found such happiness and such
sorrow. I have brought so much trouble on you that I want to feel I did
something to atone."

He felt for a fleeting moment the warm clasp of her hand.

"You have often been in danger?" she asked.

"It has been my life," he said simply.

"I am afraid to tell my father," she confessed.

"Must he know?" Trent asked.

"Yes. I know the whole hideous thing only in the barest outline."

"I shall broach the subject," he said confidently, "after all I have
nothing to lose. I go tomorrow anyway."

She hesitated a moment.

"My father may think you are doing it at a price."

"Instead of which I am offering to help you as atonement."

The light died from her eyes and the hope left her heart. Nothing could
alter his decision, nothing apparently blot out the past that held them
asunder.

The Earl of Rosecarrel heard Anthony Trent's request for a private
interview with a rather troubled mind. He had no doubt it had to do with
his daughter. He told himself he had been very careless.

"By all means my dear fellow," he said cordially, "come to my library
where we shall be quite alone."

Never had Trent been bidden to this great book lined chamber. It was
open neither to those who came on visitors' day nor to the casual guest.
It was here the earl and the prime minister were closeted for several
hours.

"My lord," Trent began, "I am going to say something that will first of
all astonish you and then probably make you angry at what seems
presumption."

"I hardly think you will do that," the other said urbanely. He was sure
now it had to do with Lady Daphne.

"You have said," Trent went on, "that you are grateful to me for my help
to your son, Arthur."

"I am profoundly grateful," the earl said quickly, "you have made a new
man of him."

"Then promise me you will not interrupt me by ringing for a servant to
show me out."

"I will promise that blindly," smiled the nobleman.

"I owe a debt to your family. Arthur saved my life and I am still a
debtor. Since I have been here I have found out a great deal about your
life work. I found out also that at a moment when the Empire most needed
you you retired. I know at the present moment your name is being
mentioned everywhere as the most suitable for one of the highest offices
under the crown. I know the prime minister made a golfing trip to
Newquay the excuse to call on you personally. I know that in this very
room you refused a request from your sovereign."

There was no doubting the agitation this statement produced in the
ex-ambassador. But he was mindful of his promise.

"I know," the inexorable Trent went on, "that your refusal has something
to do with what your son did when he was irresponsible. I saw you throw
a terrible glance at him during the prime minister's talk over the
luncheon table. It told me plainly that remotely or not it was because
of something he did that you remain here eating your heart out.
Afterwards you were especially kind to him. It was as though you
repented your momentary anger. My lord, am I right so far?"

"I do not pretend to understand how you have learned these facts," the
earl said slowly, "but you have made no error. What happened is over,
dead and done with."

"I'm not so sure," Trent cried. "Perhaps because there was a day when I
wrote stories of a rather lurid type I can think of half a hundred
things that might seem final to you but which would yield to my type of
mind. Nothing is final to us Americans."

Lord Rosecarrel looked at him shrewdly.

"What you say is preposterous, Mr. Trent, but nevertheless it interests
me. What causes could this fertile mind of yours suggest?"

"Blackmail first of all," Trent said. Lord Rosecarrel did not give any
indication whether the shot told or not. "Blackmail can be sub-divided
into many heads."

"And is there a remedy for blackmail, then?" the earl asked blandly.

"A remedy can always be found for things," Trent said confidently.

"It amounts to this," the diplomat continued calmly as though he were
discussing an interesting phase in another man's life, "that you suppose
I am held inactive here because of the hold some man or government has
on me. Admitting for a moment that this is true, do you not suppose that
I should have strained every nerve, called upon my every resource to
remove the obstacle which you admit has a remedy?"

"I think you have tried and failed," Trent said.

"It is curious," said the earl still impersonally, "how fiction of the
type you used to write has taken possession of the public mind."

"I should not fail," Trent said steadily.

"You still persist in making the imaginary real," the earl said good
humouredly.

"Why do you fence with me at a time like this?" Trent said making a
gesture of despair. "Can't you see I am in earnest?"

"You rate your powers so highly then?"

"You employed amateurs, my lord, I am a professional adventurer."

"What are you doing in my house?"

"Living honest hours and learning that a past can't be undone. I know
very well that you thought I wanted to see you because I love your
daughter. It is true. I do love her. And it is because I love her that I
am going. And it is because I want to prove that I am only truthful when
I say that, I offer to undertake anything that may help you."

"But the reward?"

"To have done something for her is the reward."

The earl was silent for a minute. Then he paced the room. Trent watched
his tall, bent form wondering what was to be the outcome.

"Mr. Trent," said the earl pausing before him, "you are either a
scoundrel or else the most chivalrous gentleman I have ever known. For
the moment I hardly know what to think, or say, or do. If I give you my
confidence and you abuse it the public will share the knowledge of a
disgrace which now only my enemy knows. If you set me free from my
bondage you put me under an obligation that I can never pay. If I let
you make the attempt in which two men have given their lives and you
fail I shall never forgive myself."

"But my lord," Trent reminded him, "I am a professional. I have never
failed. I detest a brawl but I love danger, and life means less to me
than you might suppose. If I fail you will never be compromised. I shall
want no help nor send any plea for assistance. I work alone--always."

The earl did not answer him directly.

"The hounds met at Michaelstowe this morning," he said, "and I took the
opportunity of sending off a wire in reply to this post card which came
last night."

Trent looked at it. It was in a language unknown to him.

"It is in Hungarian," Lord Rosecarrel told him, "and it says, 'Please
let me know that the report in today's Times that you have accepted
office is incorrect.' The telegram I sent to the writer said: 'The
report is wrong. I have refused.' There you have my secret. The man who
sent the post card, in effect, threatened me with exposure if I came out
of retirement."

"Then it is blackmail," Trent breathed.

"I am going to trust you," the earl said suddenly. "I am going to think
of you as the chivalrous gentleman. The man who wrote the post card is a
very big figure in the politics of what used to be called _mittel
Europa_. Our interests clashed. He was on one side and I on the other.
It happened that I was usually able to out manoeuvre him because my
training had been such that no man in public life knew the Balkans as I
did, and do still, the wheels within wheels, the inner hidden things
that make national sentiment so dangerous at times or so valuable as the
case may be. In time he came to think me the one man who could
comprehend his activities and check them. He set out to ruin me. He
believed his ends justified other methods than I used. I was shot at on
the _Ferencz Jozsef rakpart_ for example and a companion killed."

"Do you still seem a menace to him?" Trent asked.

"More than ever if I take the position offered me in the near East. You
see the rumour in the Times brings instant recognition. I knew he was in
London."

Trent looked at the speaker and wondered what it could be which kept him
from the work his country demanded of him. Assuredly it was not lack of
courage.

"He was in London when he obtained the hold over me that keeps me buried
here. Arthur was at the moment a secretary of Rudolph Castoon. One
night he opened a strong box of mine and took some bank notes to pay a
racing debt. It was a terrible blow to think he had fallen so low, but I
was more alarmed to find a tentative draft of a treaty which was never
made effective, a document in my own writing, had disappeared. At the
time it might have incensed a country since allied with us almost to the
point of a declaration of war. Arthur told me it was gibberish to him
and he had thrown it on the fire. A month later I was summoned to a
cabinet meeting. A friend told me I was to be asked to produce the
treaty draft. I called Arthur to see me. I told him my honor was
involved and that if he had not destroyed it or was holding it to sell
another power I must know. He gave me his solemn word of honor, uttered
in the most convincing manner, that he had thrown it into the open fire.

"When the prime minister asked for the draft I told him I had destroyed
it thinking its value gone and fearful of the danger of having it at my
house in Grosvenor Place. At the moment I was absolutely convinced that
my son had been honest with me. It was obvious I could not tell the
cabinet I had caught him stealing money or that he had torn up the
draft. I gave the cabinet my word of honor that it was destroyed and I
allowed them to assume that I did it. It was a lie and I do not justify
its use, but first and foremost my son's protection seemed necessary. It
was less than three months later that I received a visit from the man
who wrote that post card.

"It was in Paris where I was staying with my daughter. He said that at
last he had a weapon which would wound me. Arthur had sold him the
draft. He had it concealed where none could get it. Unless I retired
from public life and activities he would show it to the same cabinet
which had heard me swear I had destroyed it with my own hands. The
inference would be that I had sold it. It was known that I had lost
money through the failure of a London bank. No matter what the cabinet
thought my honor was smirched and I should rightly be considered unfit
for high office. There, Mr. Trent, is the real reason."

"Do you know where the draft of the treaty is hidden?"

"In his almost inaccessible castle in Croatia."

"You are certain?"

"Two men have died so that the knowledge might be mine."

"I should imagine he would keep it in the deposit box of a bank where he
could get at it quickly."

"Banks can be broken into easier far than his strong room. He lives,
despite the changes wrought by the war, in a style almost feudal. He
owns and controls twenty square miles of the country where his home is.
What chance, I ask you, has a stranger of getting near without incurring
suspicion. There are many men who can speak German or French like
natives but Hungarian is a different matter, a non-Aryan tongue."

"It should be done from the inside," Trent mused.

"One of them was," the earl told him, "the man who tried was skillful,
adroit and courageous. He had flirted with death a hundred times, just
as you have done Mr. Trent, but they set a trap for him there which a
fool would have passed by; a trap so skillfully baited that only a
clever man would have tried to use it to further his cause. Yet he
failed. You have no idea of the household at that fantastic castle in
the mountains. You have no idea of the imperious temper and power of the
man who owns it, the multitude of servitors who would kill did he but
suggest it, the motley company he entertains there."

This mention of many visitors interested Trent.

"He entertains a great deal then?"

"Only those he knows, men and women. The life there as reported to me
reads like a chronicle of medieval days."

"The other man who failed--what did he go as?"

"A steeple chase jockey. The count kept a great stud and raced all over
Continental Europe. He owned Daliborka the great horse which won the
_Grand Prix_."

"The horse that was stolen?"

"Exactly. Daliborka and three other thoroughbreds were missing from the
stables. The man who pretended to be a jockey and was instead a man of
lineage and wealth secreted the horses at intervals along the forest
road that runs from the castle to the coast. It was his idea when he had
obtained the draft to make his way by relays to the nearest harbour.
The poor fellows never had the opportunity to throw a leg across any of
them. You see, Mr. Trent, there is no chance at all."

"I will make one," the American said confidently, "I am going to enjoy
this."

"After what I have said you still persist?"

"Because of it," laughed Anthony Trent. He had forgotten everything but
the prospect of coming danger, the duel that was to be fought between
him and this fabulous magnate. It was characteristic of Trent that he
swept aside all other possible inmates of the lonely castle as beneath
his notice. His business was with the superior.

"How do you know he is still in London?" Trent demanded.

"I keep myself informed," the earl said. "A newspaper clipping concern
sends me every notice of him."

"I want them," the younger man observed, "I want everything that will
help me."

He read through the brief notices eagerly and wished English papers
discussed personalities with the detail American periodicals employed.
The only item that interested him deeply was a notice that Count Michæl
Temesvar had visited the automobile show at the Crystal Palace and
seemed interested in the new twelve cylinder Lion car.

"Rather humorous in its way," the earl said smiling, "since I own a
great deal of stock in that company. That's why I have that
inordinately high powered car in the garage which you and Arthur seem
to like."

"Humorous!" Trent repeated, "I don't know that it isn't more humorous
than you know. Do you think he has any idea you are interested in the
company?"

"Few know it," the earl said, "and I don't see why he should when even
my friends are ignorant."

"How much of it do you own?" Trent asked eagerly.

"More probably than any one stockholder."

"And a letter from you to the manager would make me solid." He explained
the slang, "I mean if you wrote a letter to the manager asking that I be
given certain powers would he honor it?"

"Most certainly," the earl answered. "There can be no doubt about it."




CHAPTER EIGHT

_COUNT MICHÆL TEMESVAR_


Count Michæl Temesvar, when he left behind him the great estate where he
ruled as absolute and tyrannical master and came to the fashionable,
pleasure-loving London, was a different man.

In London he paid due regard to the conventions and was entertained at
great houses and in return offered very splendid receptions to his
hosts. Meanwhile he kept a skilled finger on the hardening arteries of
new international affairs.

He knew very well that he was suspected of intriguing for monarchial
restoration and the confusion of the country where he was so pleasantly
entertained, by such men as the Earl of Rosecarrel. But for the main
part England still clung to her habit of disbelieving that a man who
could be so charming in society would commit the _betise_ of plotting
where he had played.

He was particularly interested in the Spring Automobile Show at the
Crystal Palace. He had heard a great deal of late of the Lion motor and
he wanted one. On his first visit to the show he told the manager that
the silver model there exhibited was the one that he would buy. He was
annoyed that the firm's representative would not allow it to be taken
away until the show finished.

On his second visit he was irritated to find that the manager raised
objections about selling it at all.

"You see, sir," said the manager, "a car like this demands careful
driving and constant attention. Our ordinary model would suit you
better."

"I want this because it is said to be the fastest car in the world,"
Count Michæl returned. "To me the price is nothing."

"It isn't that at all, sir," the manager said. "In confidence it
wouldn't do us any good if your own mechanics got it in such a condition
it couldn't do its best work. Bad advertisement you understand."

"You think I should have a special chauffeur then? Good. Send me one.
Send three if necessary but send me a man who has the nerve to drive
along my mountain roads by day or night at any speed I choose."

"That's a tall order, sir," the manager returned.

"But I pay. I always pay better than others because I want better work."

Count Michæl Temesvar beheld a blue-clad mechanic working under a car.
He struck him a sharp blow on the leg with his cane. A grimy-faced man
emerged rubbing the bruised limb.

"You," said the count peremptorily, "can you drive a car like this
Lion?"

The man grinned. The idea seemed to tickle him. He spoke with the
cockney accent of his kind.

"Me drive a Lion?" he said. "Ask Mr. King 'ere what I can do."

"I couldn't let him go," said Mr. King quickly. "He is my best
demonstrator and a wonder at tuning up an engine."

Count Michæl ignored the protesting manager.

"What is your wage?"

"I get five pound a week."

"I give you ten. You are my man. You leave for my place in Croatia when
the show is over. My secretary will see you are looked after. Serve me
well and you will never regret it. I am generous, when I am pleased." He
turned to his companion. "See that all arrangements are made. If he has
a wife and children bring them if he desires it. If he will be happier
without them let them remain here. I must have him. He has intelligence
and industry. Look you, he has gone back to his work. He loves his
engine as a good groom does his horse."

The mechanic had indeed crawled again under the huge car. The count
could have added that he was cautious for he drew his legs well into
cover.

The count and the secretary went off. The secretary was to call at the
office next day and arrange things. The manager was deferential, but
when they had left the glass-roofed hall he permitted himself to laugh.
Then he crossed to the car and bent down.

"It's all right, Mr. Trent," he said, "they've gone now; you can come
out."

Anthony Trent looked up at him and grinned.

"You can always get a job as an actor," he said.

"Your accent is a bit of all right," the manager returned, gratified.

"If it's etiquette for a manager to have a drink with a mere oil-stained
mechanic as I am, lead on to the nearest place."

"Well," said the manager later, "what do you think of him?"

Anthony Trent rubbed his leg.

"He struck me," said Trent in a curious, musing way. There was something
in his tone which made the manager look at him quickly. Anthony Trent's
face was grim and set.

"I don't think he meant it that way," Mr. King replied. He had visions
of assault and battery.

"Some day I shall give him the opportunity to apologize," said the
American.

Mr. King had received personal instructions from the chairman of the
Lion Motor, Ltd., to obey Mr. Anthony Trent in every particular. Mr.
Trent was to be allowed to have the run of the shops and the most expert
mechanics in the firm were to put all they knew at his disposal.

Anthony Trent started by giving the manager the best dinner he had ever
eaten. Then he coached him in the _rôle_ of a manager anxious not to
lose his best demonstrator. King was delighted that Count Michæl walked
into the trap set for him eagerly. He liked Trent but thought poorly of
his chances in a tussle with this big girthed foreigner.

"Must be fifty inches round the chest," he observed, sipping his drink
delicately, "and most of it muscle. One of the most powerful men I've
ever laid eyes on, Mr. Trent. Built like a wrestler. About five feet
ten I judge, a couple of inches less than you but five stone heavier."

"What was the big car on the aisle opposite us at the show?" Trent
asked, as King thought, irrelevantly.

"The 'Amazon,'" King answered scornfully. "All varnish and silver plate
and upholstery with a motor that isn't worth a tinker's dam."

"That's like the count," Trent smiled, "champagne, high living and
general dissipation have made a shell of him. He looks well enough to
the eye, like that Amazon car, but call on the motor and you'll see 'em
both hang out distress signals."

"Maybe," King conceded, "I'll put my bet on the Lion," he smiled in a
friendly fashion at the other, "and the Eagle."

They fell to talking technicalities and kept it up till the hour when
Michæl, Count Temesvar went to dine at a house in Bruton street. He told
his host that as a compliment to this country, his second home, he had
just bought an English car and engaged an English chauffeur. The other
guests thought it so broad-minded of him. He further endeared himself to
his company by deploring the retirement of his old adversary, that
eminent diplomat, the Earl of Rosecarrel.

His old adversary's occupation at the moment would have surprised him.
The earl was devising an ingenious cipher code having, it would seem to
the uninitiated, the various parts of a Lion motor which might need
replacing by telegram to the London factory. Anthony Trent would take a
copy with him, carefully concealed, and any telegram sent by him to the
works would instantly be forwarded to the code's inventor.

"What makes you so cheerful?" his daughter asked as she bade him
goodnight.

"That amazing American of yours," he answered.

"'Of mine,'" she repeated. But even in the grip of her unhappiness she
was not sure that the dim future did not hold some alleviation.

       *       *       *       *       *

Few people were more careful of appearances than Anthony Trent. He was
always dressed with quiet distinction. In the early days of a profession
where it is not well to be too prominent, he chafed at this restraint.
Later he saw that it was the sign of sartorial eminence.

On assuming the name and characteristics of Alfred Anthony he also had
to dress the part and talk the part. From the men in the Lion shop he
had, with his mimic's cleverness, taken on their peculiar intonations
and slang until he certainly could deceive a foreigner. And since he was
thorough he forced himself to smoke the part.

He accompanied his great silver car across the channel to Ostend dressed
as the men in the shop dressed. And he moved with their brisk, perky
quickness and he alternated between shag in a bull-dog pipe and Woodbine
cigarettes. He was glad that Mr. Hentzi, the count's secretary observed
his altercation at the Belgian port with a customs official who made
him pay duty on an excess number of cigarettes.

"Ah," said Mr. Hentzi with condescension, "the cigarette of the Briteesh
Tommee!"

At Ostend, Trent superintended the despatch of his charge by fast
freight and then took the trans-continental express to Budapest. He was
to wait for the car and drive it to its new home. During the few days he
was forced to idle in the Hungarian capital he deplored the fact that
new status prevented him from going to the Bristol or the Grand Hotel
Royal. He stayed, instead, at an hotel of the second class and
encountered little friendliness. English or Americans, it seemed, were
still regarded as enemies.

He was saved from any violence by Hentzi's announcement that he must be
fitted for the Temesvar livery. It was no use to rebel. With incredible
swiftness the tailor turned it out. Trent looked at himself in the glass
with the utmost distaste. The color scheme was maroon and canary yellow.
He likened himself to those who stood before the fashionable stores on
Fifth avenue and opened limousine doors.

"With that livery," Hentzi said impressively, "you will be safe; you
will be respected."

Anthony Trent was too much overwhelmed to answer him. Certainly the
Anthony Trent who stared back at him from the mirror was a stranger. He
was wearing his hair longer than usual and a small moustache was already
sprouting. The hawklike look was not evident. He wore, instead, an air
of innocence that was Chaplinesque. Hentzi took this look of scrutiny to
be one of pride.

"You must have your photograph taken and send it to your best girl," he
laughed, "she will make all the other ones jealous."

"Yes," said the man who suddenly remembered he was Alfred Anthony of
Vauxhall Bridge Road, "she'll be fair crazy about it. Just like me."

But he did not wear it much. He preferred the chance of a row with the
populace to his unwished for splendor. The days of delay gave him
leisure to think over coming difficulties. He conceded he had been led
away by emotion and enthusiasm when he was betrayed into boasting of his
prowess. The two men who had failed had been good men no doubt and they
were dead.

Such a man as Temesvar must know that the brain who originated the
attempt at recovery of the draft was still scheming. The count must
constantly be on the watch. And if so, why had he engaged Alfred Anthony
with so little investigation? Like most high grade criminals, Anthony
Trent was apt to suspect simple actions when performed by men of the
Temesvar type and impute to them subtle motives. He wished he had been
able to take a longer look at the count instead of his momentary talk.

He reminded Trent very much of the celebrated painting of Francis the
First, that sensual monarch who was devoted to the chase, masquerades,
jewelry and the pursuit of the fair. But Francis, for all his
accomplishments, was weak and frivolous while Temesvar was ruthless and
a power, if Lord Rosecarrel was to be believed.

Before he left London Trent had secured what road maps he could of
Hungary and particularly the Adriatic coast of Dalmatia and Croatia. At
his hotel he spread them out on the table and spent hours poring over
them.

He ventured to ask Mr. Hentzi some particulars of the place, and why
Count Michæl had gone to the expense of importing the chauffeur and the
car when he had many machines in his garage and so many men at his
command.

Hentzi told him the count needed a clear-eyed, temperate man who could
make great speed and make it safely.

"Most of our men," Hentzi declared, "drink _shlivovitza_, a brandy made
of plums, and there are people who visit the count whose lives must not
be imperilled by recklessness."

"What about the roads?" Trent asked thinking of the weight of the Lion
and its tremendous wheel-base.

"From Karlstadt to Fiume runs the Maria Louise road which is superb. It
is one over which you will pass many times. Then there is the Josephina
road from Zengg and many fine highways built not for the Croatian
peasants but for strategic purposes. You have seen in this war which is
passed what good roads mean, eh?"

"You 'it it on the 'ed, Guv'ner," Trent said cheerfully. "What do I go
down to Fiume for?"

"To meet passengers from the steamers or from the count's yacht. It is
one hundred and twenty miles from Fiume to Radna Castle. What could you
do that distance in? The road down the mountain to Karlstadt is good but
narrow."

Alfred Anthony spat meditatively.

"The old girl will do it in three hours," he said, "she'll shake 'em up
a bit inside but if there aren't no traffic cops or big towns I can do
it in three hours or bit more."

"No. No," Hentzi cried nervously, "that is suicide. We have been
satisfied to take six hours."

"With 'orses?" Alfred Anthony demanded, "pretty good time with 'orses,
but this is a Lion."

Hentzi sat on the front seat during the long drive and pointed out the
path. On the whole he was a good natured man but he did not permit the
count's chauffeur to forget that he was talking to the count's
secretary. Hentzi had formerly been a clerk in the estate office of the
Temesvar family and had been promoted to his present position because he
was faithful and a good linguist.

He was afraid of the count. Trent could detect a fear of him whenever
the name was mentioned. When Hentzi warned the new chauffeur to be
careful if his employer was in an angry mood the American demanded the
reason.

"If I do my duty," said the pseudo mechanic, "he can't hurt me."

"You talk as a child talks," Hentzi laughed. "He will do as he likes and
as the devils that are in him at the moment. He fears neither God, man,
nor devil. Pauline only may mock when he rages."

"Who is Pauline?" Trent asked, "the missus?"

"The Countess," Hentzi said with dignity, "is in perpetual retreat with
the Ursuline sisters near Vienna."

"Is Pauline the daughter?"

"His daughters are married." Hentzi laughed, "Castle Radna is not a
place where it is wise to ask questions. You think because his
excellency was cheerful when you last saw him he is like that always? I
tell you if Pauline has been unkind he may visit it on you. I prefer
that he does. I am tired of his humours and you are younger and
stronger."

"You don't mean he might hit me?" Trent cried.

Hentzi seemed to find Trent's anxious manner amusing.

"Most certainly he will," the secretary assured him, "but you need not
be alarmed. He will fling you gold when his temper has spent itself."

"I'm not going to let any man strike me," Trent said doggedly. "It would
raise the devil in me and I might be sorry for it."

"You would," Hentzi said thinking that the chauffeur meant he might lose
his job.

Anthony Trent, instead, was thinking that he might, in order to succeed
in his venture, have to submit to indignities that would be torture to
one of his temperament. It would not be wise to let the secretary know
this so he turned the subject to the woman who dare laugh when the count
was angry.

"Who is Pauline?" he asked.

"She was a skater from the Winter Palace in Berlin. She is beautiful or
she would not be at Castle Radna; she is clever or she could not control
Count Michæl who has broken many women's hearts. She is bad or she would
not have driven the countess from her home. For myself I hate her and
the men and women with whom she fills the place."

"So they keep a lot of company up there?"

"Company!" Hentzi replied, "there is no such castle in Europe. I have
seen life in Buda and Vienna but up there! You may be sure when the
master drinks champagne the servants will drink _shlivovitza_. But do
not think they are all Pauline's friends. No. No. The great of the world
come there too and Pauline's friends are banished. You will drive great
personages up from Fiume and you will not know who they are or what
their errand."

"Is the count a politician?"

Hentzi laughed with good natured contempt at such a naïve query. Not to
know Michæl, Count Temesvar's reputation in the field of world politics
was to admit ignorance of all the troubled currents which worried kings
and presidents.

He was rudely brought back from his lofty attitude by the sudden
stopping of the car. He was almost thrown from his seat.

"Look!" Trent cried, pointing to a piece of close cropped turf, "a golf
green as I live."

"What of it?" Hentzi snapped, "what do you know of golf?"

"I used to be a caddie," Trent lied glibly. "Who plays there?"

"The count because his doctor tells him to. I because I hate it, and
Pauline that her figure may remain seductive. Thank God there are but
nine holes! It encourages our master to have one man who always plays
worse than he. Look, that is the castle."

Almost under the shadows of Mount Sljeme the rugged building lay. Around
it, nestling at its gates were many other lesser stone buildings which
Hentzi told him were stables, dwellings and out-houses. It was situated
in the _Zagorje_ or land beyond the hills and had, despite its fine
gardens and the green turf of the links a forbidding air.

When the Lion was run into its garage Hentzi introduced the new
chauffeur to the man with whom he was to live, a man who with his wife
had one of the cottages outside the castle wall. Peter Sissek, the man,
was unfriendly from the start. He resented the importation of a
chauffeur with the new car as a slight to his own skill. But as he spoke
only Croatian and Hungarian, and Trent understood neither tongue, his
grievances were not voluble.




CHAPTER NINE

_PAULINE_


Anthony Trent met Pauline in rather a curious way. He had been a week at
Castle Radna and had not been commanded to drive the count. Then Hentzi
had informed him Count Michæl was sick of a bad cold. Sissek by virtue
of being senior in the Temesvar service tried to get the new man to help
him with his own cars but Trent absolutely declined.

He had assumed a certain post in order to carry out a design but his
duties lay with the Lion car and h

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