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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:34:37 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:34:37 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10496-0.txt b/10496-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..09747c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/10496-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8817 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10496 *** + +[Illustration: “_Prince Victor gave a gesture of pain and reluctance. +‘Must I tell you?_’”] + + + + +RED MASQUERADE + +_Being the Story of_ +THE LONE WOLF’S DAUGHTER + +BY LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE + +1921 + + +TO +J. PARKER READ, JR., ESQ. +THE CINEMA THAT WAS HIS + + + + +APOLOGY + + +This tale quite brazenly derives from the author’s invention for motion +pictures which Mr. J. Parker Read, Jr., produced in the autumn of 1919 +under the title of “The Lone Wolf’s Daughter.” + +It is only fair to state, however, that the author has in this version +taken as many high-handed liberties with the version used by the +photoplay director as the latter took with the original. + +The chance to get even for once was too tempting.... + +Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Company in the first instance, and then Mr. +Arthur T. Vance, editor of _The Pictorial Review_, in which the story +was published as a serial, were equally guilty of the encouragement +which results in its appearance in its present guise. + +L.J.V. + + +Westport—31 December, 1920. + + + + +Books by Louis Joseph Vance + +CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE +JOAN THURSDAY +NOBODY +NO MAN’S LAND +POOL OF FLAME +PRIVATE WAR +SHEEP’S CLOTHING +THE BANDBOX +THE BLACK BAG +THE BRASS BOWL +THE BRONZE BELL +THE DARK MIRROR +THE DAY OF DAYS +THE DESTROYING ANGEL +THE FORTUNE HUNTER +THE ROMANCE OF TERENCE O’ROURKE +TREY O’ HEARTS + +_Stories About “The Lone Wolf”_ + +THE LONE WOLF +THE FALSE FACES +RED MASQUERADE +ALIAS THE LONE WOLF + + + + +CONTENTS + + BOOK ONE: A CHAPTER FROM THE YOUTH OF MONSIEUR MICHAEL LANYARD + CHAPTER I. PLEBEIAN AND PRINCE + CHAPTER II. THE PRINCESS SOFIA + CHAPTER III. MONSIEUR QUIXOTE + CHAPTER IV. THE FOOL AND HIS MONEY + CHAPTER V. IMPOSTOR + CHAPTER VI. THÉRÈSE + CHAPTER VII. FAMILY REUNION + CHAPTER VIII. GREEK VS. GREEK + CHAPTER IX. PAID IN FULL + + BOOK TWO: THE LONE WOLF’S DAUGHTER + CHAPTER I. THE GIRL SOFIA + CHAPTER II. MASKS AND FACES + CHAPTER III. THE AGONY COLUMN + CHAPTER IV. MUTINY + CHAPTER V. HOUSE OF THE WOLF + CHAPTER VI. THE MUMMER + CHAPTER VII. THE FANTASTICS + CHAPTER VIII. COUNCIL OF THE GODLESS + CHAPTER IX. MRS. WARING + CHAPTER X. VICTOR ET AL + CHAPTER XI. HEARTBREAK + CHAPTER XII. SUSPECT + CHAPTER XIII. THE TURNIP + CHAPTER XIV. CONFERENCE OF THE DAMNED + CHAPTER XV. INTUITION + CHAPTER XVI. THE CRYSTAL + CHAPTER XVII. THE RAISED CHEQUE + CHAPTER XVIII. ORDEAL + CHAPTER XIX. UNMASKING + CHAPTER XX. THE DEVIL TO PAY + CHAPTER XXI. VENTRE À TERRE + CHAPTER XXII. THE SEVEN BRASS HINGES + + +BOOK I +A CHAPTER FROM THE YOUTH OF MONSIEUR MICHAEL LANYARD + + + + +RED MASQUERADE + + + + +I +PLEBEIAN AND PRINCE + + +The gentleman was not in the least bored who might have been and was +seen on that wintry afternoon in Nineteen hundred, lounging with one +shoulder to a wall of the dingy salesroom and idly thumbing a catalogue +of effects about to be put up at auction; but his insouciance was so +unaffected that the inevitable innocent bystander might have been +pardoned for perceiving in him a pitiable victim of the utterest ennui. + +In point of fact, he was privately relishing life with enviable gusto. +In those days he could and did: being alive was the most satisfying +pastime he could imagine, or cared to, who was a thundering success in +his own conceit and in fact as well; since all the world for whose +regard he cared a twopenny-bit admired, respected, and esteemed him in +his public status, and admired, respected, and feared him in his +private capacity, and paid him heavy tribute to boot. + +More than that, he was young, still very young indeed, barely beyond +the threshold of his chosen career. To his eagerly exploring eye the +future unrolled itself in the likeness of an endless scroll illuminated +with adventures all piquant, picturesque, and profitable. With the +happy assurance of lucky young impudence he figured the world to +himself as his oyster; and if his method of helping himself to the +succulent contents of its stubborn shell might have been thought +questionable (as unquestionably it was) he was no more conscious of a +conscience to give him qualms than he was of pangs of indigestion. +Whereas his digestive powers were superb.... + +This way of killing an empty afternoon, too, was much to his taste. The +man adored auctions. To his mind a most delectable flavour of discreet +scandal inhered in such collections of shabby properties from anonymous +homes. Nothing so piqued his imagination as some well-worn piece of +furniture—say an ancient escritoire with ink stains on its green baize +writing-bed (dried life-blood of love letters long since dead!) and all +its pigeon-holes and little drawers empty of everything but dust and +the seductive smell of secrets; or a dressing-table whose bewildered +mirror, to-day reflecting surroundings cold and strange, had once been +quick and warm to the beauty of eyes brilliant with delight or blurred +with tears; or perchance a bed.... + +And even aside from such stimuli to a lively and ingenious fancy, there +was always the chance that one might pick up some priceless treasure at +an auction sale, some rare work of art dim with desuetude and the +disrespect of ignorance: jewellery of quaintest old-time artistry; a +misprized bit of bronze; a book, it might be an overlooked copy of a +first edition inscribed by some immortal author to a forgotten love; or +even—if one were in rare luck—a picture, its pristine brilliance faded, +the signature of the artist illegible beneath the grime of years, +evidence of its origin perceptible only to the discerning eye—to such +an eye, for instance, as Michael Lanyard boasted. For paintings were +his passion. + +Already, indeed, at this early age, he was by way of being something of +a celebrity, in England and on the Continent, as a collector of the +nicest discrimination. + +And then he found unfailing human interest in the attendance attracted +by auction sales; in the dealers, gentlemen generally of pronounced +idiosyncrasies; in the auctioneers themselves, robust fellows, wielding +a sort of rugged wit singular to their calling, masters of deep guile, +endowed with intuitions which enabled them at a glance or from the mere +intonation of a voice to discriminate between the serious-minded and +those frivolous souls who bid without meaning to buy, but as a rule for +nothing more than the curious satisfaction of being able to brag that +they had been outbid. + +But it was in the ranks of the general public that one found most +amusement; seldom did a sale pass off undistinguished by at least one +incident uniquely revealing or provocative. And for such moments +Lanyard was always on the qui vive, but quietly, who knew that nothing +so quickly stifles spontaneity as self-consciousness. So, if he studied +his company closely, he was studious to do it covertly; as now, when he +seemed altogether engrossed in the catalogue, whereas his gaze was +freely roving. + +Thus far to-day a mere handful of people other than dealers had drifted +in to wait for the sale to begin—something for which the weather was +largely to blame, for the day was dismal with a clammy drizzle settling +from a low and leaden sky—and with a solitary exception these few were +commonplace folk. + +This one Lanyard had marked down midway across the room, in the +foremost row of chairs beneath the salesman’s pulpit: by his attire a +person of fashion (though his taste might have been thought a trace +florid) who carried himself with an air difficult of definition but +distinctive enough in its way. + +Whoever he was and what his quality, he was unmistakably somebody of +consequence in his own reckoning, and sufficiently well-to-do to dress +the part he chose to play in life. Certainly he had a conscientious +tailor and a busy valet, both saturate with British tradition. Yet the +man they served was no Englishman. + +Aside from his clothing, everything about him had an exotic tang, +though what precisely his racial antecedents might have been was rather +a riddle; a habit so thoroughly European went oddly with the hints of +Asiatic strain which one thought to detect in his lineaments. +Nevertheless, it were difficult otherwise to account for the faintly +indicated slant of those little black eyes, the blurred modelling of +the nose, the high cheekbones, and the thin thatch of coarse black hair +which was plastered down with abundant brilliantine above that mask of +pallid features. + +The grayish pallor of the man, indeed, was startling, so that Lanyard +for some time sought an adjective to suit it, and was content only when +he hit on the word _evil_. Indeed, evil seemed the inevitable and only +word; none other could possibly so well fit that strange personality. + +His interest thus fixed, he awaited confidently what could hardly fail +to come, a moment of self-betrayal. + +That fell more quickly than he had hoped. Of a sudden the decent quiet +of King Street, thus far accentuated rather than disturbed by the +routine grind of hansoms and four-wheelers, was enlivened by spirited +hoofs whose clatter stilled abruptly in front of the auction room. + +Turning a speciously languid eye toward the weeping window, Lanyard had +a partial view of a handsomely appointed private equipage, a pair of +spanking bays, a liveried coachman on the box. + +The carriage door slammed with a hollow clap; a footman furled an +umbrella and climbed to his place beside the driver. As the vehicle +drew away, one caught a glimpse of a crest upon the panel. + +Two women entered the auction room. + + + + +II +THE PRINCESS SOFIA + + +These ladies were young, neither much older than Lanyard, both were +very much alive, openly betraying an infatuation with existence very +like his own, and both were lovely enough to excuse the exquisite +insolence of their young vitality. + +As is frequently the case in such associations, since a pretty woman +seldom courts comparison with another of her own colouring, one was +dark, the other fair. + +With the first, Lanyard was, like all London, on terms of visual +acquaintance. The reigning beauty of the hour, her portrait was +enjoying a vogue of its own in the public prints. Furthermore, Lady +Diantha Mainwaring was moderately the talk of the town, in those prim, +remotely ante-bellum days—thanks to high spirits and a whimsical +tendency to flout the late Victorian proprieties; something which, +however, had yet to lead her into any prank perilous to her good +repute. + +The other, a girl whose hair of golden bronze was well set off by +Russian sables, Lanyard did not know at all; but he knew at sight that +she was far too charming a creature to be neglected if ever opportunity +offered to be presented to her. And though the first article of his +creed proscribed women of such disastrous attractions as deadly +dangerous to his kind, he chose without hesitation to forget all that, +and at once began to cudgel his wits for a way to scrape acquaintance +with the companion of Lady Diantha. + +Their arrival created an interesting bustle, a buzz of comment, a +craning of necks—flattery accepted by the young women with ostensible +unconcern, a cliché of their caste. As they had entered in a humour +keyed to the highest pitch of gaiety consistent with good breeding, so +with more half-stifled laughter they settled into chairs well apart +from all others but, as it happened, in a direct line between Lanyard +and the man whose repellent cast of countenance had first taken his +interest. + +Thus it was that Lanyard, after eyeing the young women unobserved as +long as he liked, lifted his glance to discover upon that face a look +that amazed him. + +It wasn’t too much to say (he thought) that the man was transfigured by +malevolence, so that he blazed with it, so that hatred fairly flowed, +an invisible yet manifest current of poisoned fire, between him and the +girl with the hair of burnished bronze. + +All the evil in him seemed to be concentrated in that glare. And yet +its object remained unconscious of it or, if at all sensitive, +dissembled superbly. The man was apparently no more present to her +perceptions than any other person there, except her companion. + +Presently, becoming sensible of Lanyard’s intrigued regard, the man +looked up, caught him in a stare and, mortally affronted, rewarded him +with a look of virulent enmity. + +Not to be outdone, Lanyard gave a fleeting smile, a bare curving of +lips together with an almost imperceptible narrowing of amused +eyes—goading the other to the last stage of exasperation—then calmly +ignored the fellow, returning indifferent attention to the progress of +the sale. + +Since nothing was being offered at the moment to draw a bid from him, +he maintained a semblance of interest solely to cover his thoughts, +meanwhile lending a civil ear to the garrulous tongue of a dealer of +his acquaintance who, having edged nearer to indulge a failing for +gossip, found a ready auditor. For when Lanyard began to heed the sense +of the other’s words, their subject was the companion of Lady Diantha +Mainwaring. + +“... Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, you know, the Russian beauty.” + +Lanyard lifted his eyebrows the fraction of an inch, meaning to say he +didn’t know but at the same time didn’t object to enlightenment. + +“But you must have heard of her! For weeks all London has been talking +about her jewels, her escapades, her unhappy marriage.” + +“Married?” Lanyard made a sympathetic mouth. “And so young! Quel +dommage!” + +“But separated from her husband.” + +“Ah!” Lanyard brightened up. “And who, may one ask, is the husband?” + +“Why, he’s here, too—over there in the front row—chap with the waxed +moustache and putty-coloured face, staring at her now.” + +“Oh, that animal! And what right has he got to look like that?” + +The buzz of the scandalmonger grew more confidential: “They say he’s +never forgiven her for leaving him—though the Lord knows she had every +reason, if half they tell is true. They say he’s mad about her still, +gives her no rest, follows her everywhere, is all the time begging her +to return to him—” + +“But who the deuce is the beast?” Lanyard interrupted, impatiently. +“You know, I don’t like his face.” + +“Prince Victor,” the whisper pursued with relish—“by-blow, they say, of +a Russian grand duke and a Manchu princess—half Russian, half Chinese, +all devil!” + +Without looking, Lanyard felt that Prince Victor’s stare had again +shifted from the women, and that the mongrel son of the alleged grand +duke was aware he had become a subject of comment. So the eminent +collector of works of art elected to dismiss the subject with a +negligent lift of one shoulder. + +“Ah, well! Daresay he can’t help his ugly make-up. All the same, he’s +spoiling my afternoon. Be a good fellow, do, and put him out.” + +The Briton chuckled a deprecating chuckle; meaning to say, he hoped +Lanyard was spoofing; but since one couldn’t be sure, one’s only wise +course was to play safe. + +“Really, Monsieur Lanyard! I’m afraid one couldn’t quite do _that_, you +know!” + + + + +III +MONSIEUR QUIXOTE + + +The sale dragged monotonously. The paintings offered were mostly of +mediocre value. The gathering was apathetic. + +Lanyard bid in two or three sketches, more out of idleness than because +he wanted them, and succeeded admirably in seeming ignorant of the +existence of the Princess Sofia and the husband whose surface of a +blackguard was so harmonious with his reputation. + +In time, however, a change was presaged by an abrupt muting of that +murmured conversation between the beautiful Russian and the almost +equally beautiful Englishwoman. An inquisitive look discovered the +princess sitting slightly forward and intently watching the auctioneer. + +The pose of an animated, delightful child, hanging breathlessly upon +the progress of some fascinating game: one’s gaze lingered approvingly +upon a bewitching profile with half-parted lips, saw that excitement +was faintly colouring the cheeks beneath shadowy and enigmatic eyes, +remarked the sweet spirit that poised that lovely head. + +And then one looked farther, and saw the prince, like the princess, +absorbed in the business at the auction block, his slack elegance of +the raffish aristocrat forgotten, all his being tense with purpose, +strung taut—as taut at least as that soft body, only half-masculine in +mould and enervated by loose living, could ever be. One thought of a +rather elderly and unfit snake, stirred by the sting of some +long-buried passion out of the lassitude of years of slothful +self-indulgence, poising to strike.... + +At the elbow of the auctioneer an attendant was placing on exhibition a +landscape that was either an excellent example of the work of Corot or +an imitation no less excellent. At that distance Lanyard felt inclined +to dub it genuine, though he knew well that Europe was sown thick with +spurious Corots, and would never have risked his judgment without +closer inspection. + +He was accordingly perplexed when, after a brief exhortation by the +auctioneer, discreetly noncommittal as to the antecedents of the +canvas—“attributed to Corot”—Prince Victor, who had been straining +forward like a hound in leash, half rose in his eagerness to offer: + +“One thousand guineas!” + +The entire company stirred as one and sat up sharply. Even the +auctioneer was momentarily stricken dumb. And for the first time the +Princess Sofia acknowledged the presence of her husband, and got from +him that look of white hatred with a sneer of triumph thrown in for +good measure. + +Though she affected indifference, Lanyard saw her slender body +transiently shaken by a shudder, it might have been of dread. But she +was quick to pull herself together, and the auctioneer had scarcely +found his tongue—“One thousand guineas for this magnificent canvas +attributed to Corot”—when her clear and youthful voice cut in: + +“Two thousand guineas!” + +This the prince capped with a monosyllable: + +“Three!” + +Stupefaction settled upon the audience. The auctioneer hesitated, +blinked astonished eyes, framed unspoken phrases with halting lips. +Prince Victor, again gave his wife the full value of his vindictive +snarl. She would not see, but it was plain that she was cruelly +dismayed, that it cost her an effort to rise to the topping bid: + +“Thirty-five hundred guineas!” + +“Four thousand!” + +“Four thousand I am offered ...” + +The auctioneer faltered, a spasm of honesty shook him, he proceeded: + +“It is only fair, ladies and gentlemen, that I should state that this +canvas is not put up as an authentic Corot. It very possibly is such, +in fact”—the seizure was passing swiftly—“it bears every evidence of +having come from the brush of the master. But we cannot guarantee it. +There is, however, a gentleman present who is amply qualified to pass +upon the merits of this work. With his permission”—his eye sought +Lanyard’s—“I venture to request the opinion of Monsieur Michael +Lanyard, the noted connoisseur!” + +Lanyard detached a deprecating smile from the pages of his catalogue, +but his contemplated response was cut short by Prince Victor. + +“I am not aware,” that one said, icily, “that the authenticity of this +painting is a material question. Nor have I any need of the opinion of +this gentleman, whatever his qualifications. I have bid four thousand +guineas, and insist that the sale proceed. If there are no further +bids, the canvas is mine.” + +The auctioneer shrugged, and offered Lanyard an apologetic bow. “I am +sorry—” he began. + +“Four thousand guineas!” snapped the prince. + +Resigned, the auctioneer resumed: + +“Four thousand guineas offered. Are there any more bids? Going—” + +“Forty-five hundred!” + +Beyond reasonable doubt the princess had spurred herself mercilessly to +find sufficient courage to make this latest bid. Lanyard saw her in a +rigour of despair, hoping against hope. Only too surely something in +the picture, some association—heaven knew what!—was more precious to +her, almost, than life, though she had gone already to the limit of her +means and perhaps a bit beyond. If this bid failed, she was lost. Her +anxiety was pitiful. + +“Five thousand!” + +In the princess something snapped: she recoiled upon herself, sat +crushed, head drooping, white-gloved hands working in her lap. One +detected an appealing quiver on her lips, and noted, or imagined, a +suspicious brightness beneath the long dark lashes that swiftly +screened her eyes. Her young bosom moved convulsively. She was beaten, +near to tears. + +“Five thousand guineas ... going ... going ...” + +The face of the prince was a mocking devil-mask in gray and black. +Lanyard found himself loathing it. Impossible to stand idle and see the +creature get the better of an unhappy girl ... + +“Five thousand one hundred guineas!” + +With his wits in a blur of amaze, Lanyard knew the echo of his own +voice. + + + + +IV +THE FOOL AND HIS MONEY + + +One reflected rather bitterly on the many and obvious oversights of a +putatively all-wise Providence, in especial on its failure so to +fashion the body of man as to enable him on occasion to discipline his +own flesh in the most ignominious manner imaginable. + +Lanyard could have kicked himself; that is to say, he wanted to, and +thought it rather a pity he couldn’t, and publicly, at that. For the +freak he had just indulged was rank quixotism, something which had as +much place in the code of a man of his calling as milk of human +kindness in the management of a pawnshop. + +On second thought, he wasn’t so sure. It might have been that quixotism +had inspired his infatuate gesture, but it might quite as conceivably +have been everyday vanity or plain cussedness: a noble impulse to serve +a pretty lady in distress, a spontaneous device to engage her interest, +or a low desire to plague a personality as antipathetic to his own as +that of a rattlesnake. + +In point of simple fact (he decided), his impelling motive had been a +mixture of all three. + +In all three respects, furthermore, it proved notably successful; in +the two last named without delay. + +The Princess Sofia at once took note of Lanyard, with wonder, some +misgivings, and a hint of admiration. For he was not only a personable +person in those days, with a suggestion of devil-may-care in his air +that measurably lifted the curse of his superficial foppishness, but he +was putting a spoke in Prince Victor’s wheel. And whosoever did that, +by chance, out of sheer voluptuousness, or with malice prepense, won +immediate title to Sofia’s favourable regard. If she couldn’t thwart +Victor herself, she would be much obliged to anybody who could and did; +and she was nothing loath to betray her bias by looking kindly upon her +self-appointed champion. + +A whispered communication from Lady Diantha did nothing to abate her +overt approbation. + +As for Victor, his face of leaden gray took on a tinge of green; he +quaked with rage, and the glare he loosed on Lanyard made that young +man wonder if he were mistaken in believing that the eyes of the prince +shone in that dusky room with something nearly akin to the +phosphorescence to be seen in the eyes of an animal at night. + +The notion was amusing: Lanyard paid it the tribute of a quiet smile, +in direct acknowledgment of which Prince Victor snarled: + +“Six thousand guineas!” + +“And a hundred,” Lanyard added. + +Brief pause prefaced a bid designed to squelch him completely: + +“Ten thousand!” + +In a fatigued voice he uttered: “One hundred more.” + +“Fifteen—!” + +This time Lanyard contented himself with nodding to the auctioneer; and +the lips of the latter had barely parted to parrot the bid when Victor +sprang to his feet, his features working, his limbs shaking so that the +legs of the chair beside him, whose back he seized, chattered on the +floor, while the high-pitched voice broke into a screech: + +“Twenty!” + +And Lanyard said: “And one.” + +“Twenty thousand one hundred guineas!” chanted the auctioneer. “Are +there any more bids? You, sir—?” He aimed a respectful bow at Prince +Victor, who snubbed him with a sign of fury. “Going—going—gone! Sold to +Monsieur Lanyard for twenty thousand and one hundred guineas!” + +And Lanyard had the satisfaction of seeing Prince Victor, after a vain +effort to master his emotion, snatch up his topper, clap it on his +head, and make for the door with footsteps whose stuttering haste was +in poor accord with the dignity of his exalted station. + +But it was debatable whether this satisfaction plus the possession of a +questionable Corot was worth its cost. And Lanyard wasn’t in the +humour, now that the heat of contest began to abate, to look to +Princess Sofia for promise of further reward. Even if he could have +been guilty of such impertinence, indeed, he must have forborne for +very shame. After all (he told himself) he hadn’t figured very +creditably, permitting petty prejudice to sway him as it had. He felt +singularly sure he had played the gratuitous ass in this affair, and he +didn’t in the least desire to see the reflection of a like conviction +in the eyes of a pretty young woman with a flair for the ridiculous. + +He dissembled his diminished self-esteem, however, most successfully, +as he proceeded to the desk of the auctioneer’s clerk, filled in a +cheque for the amount of his purchase, and gave instructions for its +delivery. + +Whether by intention or inadvertence, he was followed from the auction +room by the Princess Sofia and Lady Diantha Mainwaring; and just +outside the entrance he found Prince Victor waiting with all the air of +a gentleman impatient for a cab to happen along and pick him up out of +the drizzle. + +But in view of the fact that he made no overtures to a passing hansom, +which swerved in to the curb in response to a signal of Lanyard’s cane, +this last concluded that the prince was up to his reputedly favourite +game of waylaying his rebel wife. + +If such were the case, Lanyard had no wish to witness a public wrangle +between the two. So he stepped briskly up on the carriage-block, and +only hesitated when he saw that the prince, utterly ignoring the +presence of the princess and Lady Diantha, was edging forward and +cocking an alert ear to catch the address which Lanyard was on the +point of giving the cabby. + +Hugely diverted, the adventurer looked round with a quirk of his brows, +and amiably commented: + +“Monsieur’s interest is so flattering! If he really must know, I’m +going home now, to my rooms in Halfmoon Street. Au revoir, monsieur le +prince!” + +He beamed benignly upon that convulsed countenance, and saw crestfallen +Prince Victor slink away, to the music of smothered laughter from the +ladies in the doorway—toward which Lanyard was careful not to look. + +Then, in high feather with himself, he chirped to the driver and hopped +into the hansom. + + + + +V +IMPOSTOR + + +As Lanyard’s cab swung away, the carriage wheeled in to take up the +Princess Sofia and Lady Diantha Mainwaring. Observing this, Lanyard +poked his stick through the little trap in the roof of the hansom and +suggested that the driver pull up, climb down, adjust some imaginary +fault with the harness and, when the carriage had passed, follow it +with discretion. + +Enchanted by sight of a half-sovereign in the palm of his fare, the +cabby executed this manoeuvre to admiration; with the upshot that +Lanyard got home half an hour later than he would have had he proceeded +to his rooms direct, but with information of value to recompense him. + +It wasn’t his habit to lose time in those days of his youth. And lest +his character be misconstrued (which would be deplorable) it may as +well be stated now that he had not laid down upward of twenty thousand +good golden guineas for a colourable Corot without having a tolerably +clear notion of how he meant to reimburse himself if it should turn out +that he had paid too dear for his whistle. + +The hint imparted by his garrulous acquaintance of the auction room—to +the effect that the Princess Sofia was famous, among other things, for +the magnificence of her personal jewellery—had found a good home where +it wasn’t in danger of suffering for want of doting interest. + +And now one knew where their owner lived, and in what state ... + +Alighting at his own door, the adventurer surprised Prince Victor, +morosely ambling by, in his vast fatuity no doubt imagining that his +passage through Halfmoon Street would go unremarked in the dusk of that +early winter evening. He wasn’t at all pleased to find himself +mistaken; and though Lanyard did his best with his blandest smile to +make amends for having discomfited the prince by getting home later +than he had promised to, his good-natured effort was repaid only by a +spiteful scowl. + +So he laughed aloud, and went indoors rejoicing. + +An hour or so later the painting was delivered by a porter from the +auction room. But Lanyard was in his bath at the time and postponed +examining his doubtful prize till he had dressed for dinner. For, +though it was his whim to dine in his rooms alone, and though he had no +fixed plans for the evening, Lanyard was too thoroughly cosmopolitan +not to do in Cockaigne as the Cockneys do. + +Besides, in this uncertain life one never knows what the next hour will +bring forth; whereas if one is in evening dress after six o’clock, one +is armoured against every emergency. + +At seven he sat down to the morbid sort of a meal one gets in London +lodgings: a calm soup; a segment of vague fish smothered painlessly in +a pale pink blanket of sauce; a cut from the joint, rare and lukewarm; +potatoes boiled dead; sad sea-kale; nonconformist pudding; conservative +biscuit, and radical cheese. + +With the aid and abetment of a bottle of excellent Montrachet, however, +one contrived to worry through. + +Meanwhile, Lanyard inspected his recent purchase, which occupied a +place of honour, propped up on the arms of the chair on his right. + +It was seldom that Lanyard entertained a guest of such equivocal +character. Wagging a reproving head—“My friend,” he harangued the +canvas, “you are lucky to have been sold. Sorry I can’t say as much for +myself.” + +It was really too bad it wasn’t a bit better. It wasn’t often that one +encountered so genuine a counterfeit. The hand of an artist had painted +it, but never the hand of Corot. Everything Corot was accustomed to put +into his painting was there, except himself. The abode had been +prepared in all respects as the master would have had it, but his +spirit had not entered into it, it remained without life. + +Still, Lanyard concluded, surveying his prize through the illusioning +fumes of his cigar, while the waiter cleared away, it wasn’t so bad +after all, it wouldn’t be in the end a total loss. He could afford to +cart the thing back to Paris with him and give it room in his private +gallery; and some day, doubtless, some rich American would pay a +handsome price for it on the strength of its having found place in the +collection of Michael Lanyard, even though it lacked the cachet of his +guarantee. + +But what the devil had made it so precious to the soi-disant Prince +Victor and his charming wife? + +But for a single circumstance Lanyard would have been tempted to +believe he had been craftily rooked by an accomplished chevalier +d’industrie and his female confederate; but too much and too real +passion had been betrayed in the auction room to countenance that +suspicion. + +No: he hadn’t been rigged; at least, not by design. Something more than +its intrinsic value had rendered the canvas priceless in the esteem of +those two, something had been at stake more than mere possession of +what they might have believed to be a real Corot. + +But what? + +Perplexed, Lanyard took the picture in his hands—it was not too +unwieldy, even in its frame—and examined it with nose so close to the +painted surface that he seemed to be smelling it. Then he turned it +over and scowled at its reverse. And shook a baffled head. + +But when he tapped the face of the picture smartly with a finger-nail, +he gave a slight start, passed a hand over it with the palm pressed +flat, and suddenly assumed the humanly intelligent expression of a +hunting-dog that has hit on a warm scent. + +Strong fingers and a fruit knife quickly extracted the painting from +its frame and loosened the canvas from its stretcher, proving that the +latter held in fact two canvases instead of one. Between these had been +secreted several sheets of notepaper of two kinds, stamped with two +crests, all black with closely penned handwriting. + +Lanyard gathered them into a sheaf and scanned them cursorily, even +with distaste. True enough, it might be argued that he had bought and +paid for the right to pry into the secrets they betrayed; but it was +not a right he enjoyed exercising. A fairly thoroughgoing state of +sophistication, together with some innate instincts of delicacy, worked +to render him to a degree immune to such gratification as others might +derive from being made privy to an exotic affair of the heart. +Revelation of human weakness was no special treat to him. And if his +eyebrows mounted as he read, if the corners of his mouth drew down, if +once and again he uttered an “_Oh! oh!_” of shocked expostulation, he +was (like most of us, incurably an actor in private as well as in +public life) merely running through business which convention has +designated as appropriate to such circumstances. At bottom he was being +stimulated to thought more than to derision. + +Putting the letters aside, he bowed his head upon a hand and reflected +sagely that love was the very deuce. + +He wondered if he could or ever would love or be loved so madly. + +He rather hoped not ... + +Here, if you please, was the scion of a reigning royal family risking +as pretty a scandal as one could well imagine—and all for love! Given a +few more days of life, and he would have jeopardized his right of +succession and set half-a-dozen European chancelleries by the ears—and +all for love! But for his untimely end, that poor, pretty creature +would have joined her life to his, consummating at one stroke her +freedom from the intolerable conditions of existence with Victor and a +diplomatic convulsion which might only too easily have precipitated all +Europe into a great war—and all for lawless love! + +So once more in history Death had served well the interests of public +morality. + +After a year these letters alone survived ... + +How they had survived, what hands had collected and secreted them, and +for what purpose, intrigued the imagination no end. Lanyard inclined to +credit Princess Sofia with the indiscretion of saving these souvenirs +of a grande passion that had almost made history. There was the +sentimental motive to account for such action, and another: the +satisfaction of knowing she had concrete proof of her intention to +treat Victor as he had treated her. + +Then somehow the painting must have passed out of her possession; and +in all likelihood she had made frantic and awkward efforts to regain it +which had aroused the suspicions of Victor; with the sequel of that +afternoon.... + +Lanyard’s speculations were interrupted by the peremptory telephone. +Without premonition he picked up the combination receiver and +transmitter. But his memory was still so haunted by echoes of that +delightful voice which he had heard in the auction room, he couldn’t +entertain any doubt that he heard it now. + +“Are you there?” it said “Will you be good enough to put me through to +Monsieur Lanyard?” + +The inspiration to mischief was instantaneous: Lanyard replied promptly +in accents as much unlike his own as he could manage: + +“Sorry, ma’am; Mister Lanyard dined hout to-night. Would there be any +message, ma’am?” + +“Oh, how annoying!” + +“Sorry, ma’am.” + +“Do you know when he will be home?” + +“If this is the lidy ’e was expectin’ to call this evenin’—” + +“Yes?” the dulcet voice said, encouragingly. + +“—Mister Lanyard sed as ’ow ’e might be quite lite, but ’e’d ’urry all +’e could, ma’am, and would the lidy please wite.” + +“Thank you _so_ much.” + +“’Nk-you, ma’am.” + +Smiling, Lanyard replaced the receiver and rang for the waiter. + +When that one answered, the adventurer was hatted and coated and +opening his door. + +“I’m called out,” he said—“can’t quite say when I’ll be back. But I’m +expecting a lady to call. Will you tell the doorman to show her into my +rooms, please, and ask her to wait.” + + + + +VI +THÉRÈSE + + +Posed in a blaze of lights, the Princess Sofia contemplated captiously +the charming image reflected in her cheval-glass. One little wrinkle, +not precisely of dissatisfaction, rather of enquiry, nestled between +her delicately arched brows. A look of misgiving clouded her wide eyes +of a wondering child. The bow of an exquisitely modelled mouth, whose +single fault lay in its being perhaps a trace too wide, described a +shadowy pout. + +She was beautiful: yes. Nobody could question that. La beauté du +diable, no doubt, to Anglo-Saxon eyes, with that skin of incomparable +texture and whiteness relieved by a heavily coiled crown of living +bronze, the crimson insolence of that matchless mouth, those luminous +and changeable eyes so like the sea, whose green melted into blue with +the swiftness of thought, whose blue at times as swiftly shaded into +stormy purple-black: but however bizarre and barbaric, beauty none the +less, and under the most meticulous examination indisputable. + +But was she as radiant as she had been? + +On this her birthday she was twenty-five. Appalling age! Five years +hence she would be thirty, in ten more—forty! And woman’s beauty fades +so swiftly: everybody said so. Was the shadow of to-morrow already +dimming her loveliness? How could it be otherwise? She had lived so +long and so fully, she had begun to live so young. Six years of +marriage to Victor—that alone should have been enough, one would think, +to metamorphose the fairest face into a blasted battlefield of +passions. + +She had a little shiver of voluptuous horror, remembering what she had +endured and escaped. The sweet, true lines of her flawlessly made body +were transiently undulant within a sheath of shimmering sequins: a +daring gown, by British standards of that day, but permissible because +she was Russian; foreigners, you know, are so frightfully weird even +when they’re quite all right. + +And yet she was growing old, she was twenty-five! Though she didn’t +feel in the least like one on the threshold of middle age. Indeed, she +had never felt younger, more thrillingly instinct with the power and +the will to live extravagantly in one endless riot of youth +unquenchable.... + +Reaction, of course: the swing of the pendulum to its farthest extreme. +It was now two years since she had been forced to separate from Victor, +finding herself unable longer to countenance and suffer his many-sided +beastliness; and a year since the hand of Death had penned an +inexorable finis to the too-brief chapter of her one great romance. + +For there had never been love in her life with Victor. She had been too +young at first to appreciate what love and marriage meant, she had been +led to the altar and sacrificed upon it as an animal is led in +sacrificial rites—without premonition or understanding, only wondering +(perhaps) to find itself so groomed and garlanded, so flattered and +adored. She had hardly known Victor before she was given to him in +marriage by Imperial ukase ... to get rid of her, probably, for some +inscrutable reason related to the mysterious circumstances of her +parentage. + +And now after six years of hell with her husband and one of mourning in +solitude for her love that was lost, she was coming back to life again +... at last! + +She lifted up arms that might have been a dream of Phidias chiselled in +Parian marble, and stretched them luxuriously. She was superbly alive, +indeed—and henceforth she meant to live. Only she must be careful to +retain her looks ... If Youth must surely go, Beauty must linger and +reign long in its stead. + +A maid, a comely creature, trim and smart in black and white, with that +vividly coloured prettiness which is too often the omen of premature +decline into the fat and florid thirties, fetched a wrap and settled it +upon Sofia’s shoulders. + +Long and dark, it disguised her figure as completely as it covered her +toilette. She nodded her satisfaction, and accepted the veil which she +had desired to complete her disguise, a thing of Spanish lace, black +and ample, like a mantilla. But before donning it she delayed one +minute more before the mirror. + +“Thérèse! Am I still beautiful?” + +“Madame la princesse is always beautiful.” + +“As beautiful as I used to be?” + +“But madame la princesse grows more lovely every day.” + +“Beautiful enough to-night, to keep out of jail, do you think?” + +To the mirth in the voice of her mistress the maid responded with a +smile demure and discreet. + +“Oh, madame!” was all she said; but the manner of her saying it was +rarely eloquent. + +Sofia laughed lightly, and affectionately pinched the cheek of the +maid. + +“And you, my little one,” she said in liquid French—“you yourself are +too ravishingly pretty to keep out of trouble. Do you know that?” + +Her little one looked more than ever demure as she enquired after the +hidden meaning of madame la princesse. + +“Because you will marry too soon, Thérèse—too soon some worthless man +will persuade you to dedicate all those charms to him alone.” + +“Oh, madame!” + +“Is it not so?” + +“Who knows, madame?” said Thérèse, as who should say: “What must be, +must.” + +“Then there is a man! I suspected as much.” + +“But, madame la princesse, is there not always a man?” + +“Then beware!” + +“Madame la princesse need not fear for me,” Thérèse replied. “Me, my +head is not so easily turned. There is always some man, naturally—there +are so many men!—but when I marry, rest assured, it will be for +something more.” + +With the compressed lips of self-approbation she deftly assisted her +mistress to swathe her head in the mantilla-like veil. + +“Something more than a man?” Sofia enquired through its folds. “What +then?” + +“Independence, madame la princesse.” + +“What an idea! Marriage and independence: how do you reconcile that +paradox?” + +“Madame la princesse means love, I think, when she speaks of marriage. +But love—that is all over and done with when one marries. One is then +ready to settle down; one has put by one’s dot, and marries a worthy, +industrious man with a little fortune of his own. With such a husband +one collaborates in the maintenance of the ménage and the management of +a small business, something substantial if small. And so one ends one’s +days in comfortable companionship. That, madame la princesse, is the +marriage for Thérèse! It may not sound romantic, madame, but it has +this rare virtue—it lasts!” + + + + +VII +FAMILY REUNION + + +The London night was normal: that is to say, wet. Darkness had +transformed the streets into vast sheets of black satin shot with +golden strands and studded with lamp-posts like sturdy stems for +ethereal blooms of golden haze. Within their areas of glow the air +teemed with atoms of liquid gold. The ring of hoofs on wet pavements +was at once disturbing and inspiriting. + +Alone in her hired hansom the Princess Sofia sat with the window +raised, drinking deep of the soft damp air, finding it as heady as +strange wine. Under cover of the veil her eyes were brilliant with +awareness of her audacity, her lips were parted with the promise of a +smile. + +She loved it all, she adored this mood of London: its nights of rain +were sheer enchantment, arabesque, nights of secrecy and stealth, +mystery, and romance under the rose. On nights such as this lovers +prospered, adventures were to the venturesome, brave rewards to the +bold. + +For herself she was unafraid, she foretasted entire success. How should +it be otherwise? Consider how famously chance had prospered her +designs, playing into her hands the information that this Monsieur +Lanyard was not at home, might not return till very late, and was +expecting a call from somebody whom he desired to await his return in +his rooms! + +With such an open occasion, how could one fail? + +Sofia asked only three minutes alone with the painting.... + +And if by any mishap she were caught, still she would not be dismayed. +The letters were hers, were they not? They had been stolen from her, he +had no right title to them who had purchased only the picture which had +served as their hiding-place. By all means, let him keep that stupid +canvas; he could hardly refuse to let her have her letters, not if she +pleaded her prettiest. And even if he should prove obtuse, +ungenerous.... + +Her smile was definite and confident. She was beautiful—and Monsieur +Lanyard was aware of that. Had she not, that afternoon, in the auction +room, without his knowledge detected admiration in his eyes, a look +warm with something more than admiration only? + +He was impressionable, then. And it would be no distasteful task to +play upon his susceptibilities. He was not only personally attractive +(“magnetic” was the catch-word of the period), but if half that Lady +Diantha had hinted concerning him were true, to make a conquest of +Michael Lanyard would be a feather in the cap of any woman, to attempt +it a temptation all but irresistible to one—like Sofia—in whose veins +ran the ichor of progenitors to whom the scent of danger had been as +breath of life itself. It was hardly conceivable; even now Sofia must +smile at her friend’s amiable endeavours to identify this mysterious +monsieur with a celebrated and preposterous criminal. + +It might be true that, as Lady Diantha had declared, wherever Michael +Lanyard showed himself in open pursuit of his avowed avocation as a +collector of rare works of art—in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, or +where-not—there in due sequence the Lone Wolf would consummate one of +his fantastic coups. + +And it was indisputable that Lanyard was at present living in London, +where for some time past the Lone Wolf had been perniciously busy; or +else his bad name had been taken in vain by a baffled and exasperated +Scotland Yard. + +Again: Diantha had insisted that the Lone Wolf was by every evidence +completely woman-proof; and there might be something in her contention +that such an elusive yet spectacularly successful thief could hardly +have won the high place he held in the annals of criminology and in the +esteem of the sensation-loving public, if he were one who maintained +normal relations with his kind. + +Sooner or later (so ran Diantha’s borrowed reasoning) the criminal who +has close friends, a wife, a mistress, children, family ties of any +sort, or even body-servants, must willy-nilly repose confidence in one +of these, and then inevitably will be betrayed. Depend upon envy, +jealousy, spite, or plain venal disloyalty, if accident or inadvertence +fail, to lay the law-breaker by the heels. + +Therefore (Diantha argued) the Lone Wolf must be a confirmed solitary +and misogynist—very much like this Monsieur Lanyard, according to +reports which declared the latter to be a man who kept to himself, had +many acquaintances and not one intimate, and was positively insulated +against wiles of woman. + +But—granting all this—it was none the less true that the utmost +diligence, spurred by the pique, ill-will, and ambition of the police +of all Europe, had failed as yet to forge any link between the +supercriminal of the age and the distinguished connoisseur of art. +Other than Lady Diantha and the gossips whose arguments she was +retailing, never a soul (so far as Sofia knew) had ventured to breathe +a breath of suspicion upon the good repute of Monsieur Lanyard. + +In short, Diantha’s conjectures had been entirely second-hand, and not +even meant to be taken seriously. + +And yet the suggestion had fastened firm hold upon the imagination of +the Princess Sofia. + +If it were true ... what an adventure! + +There was unaccustomed light of daring in the eyes of the princess, +unwonted colour tinted her cheeks. + +The hansom stopped, discharged the fairest fare it had ever carried, +and rattled off, leaving Sofia just a trifle daunted and dubious, the +animation of her anticipations something dashed by the uncompromising +respectability, the self-conscious worthiness of Halfmoon Street. + +Enfolded in the very heart of Mayfair, its brief length bounded on the +north by Curzon Street (its name alone sufficient voucher for its +character), on the south by Piccadilly (hereabouts somewhat oppressive +with its hedge of stately clubs, membership in any one of which is +equivalent to two years’ unchallenged credit) Halfmoon Street is +largely given over to furnished lodgings. But it doesn’t advertise the +fact, its landlords are apt to be retired butlers to the nobility and +gentry, its lodgers English gentlemen who have brought home livers from +India, or assorted disabilities from all known quarters of the globe, +and who desire nothing better than to lead steady-paced lives within +walking distance of their favourite clubs. So Halfmoon Street remains +quietly estimable, a desirable address, and knows it, and doggedly +means to hold fast to that repute. + +A strange environment (Sofia thought) for an adventurer like the Lone +Wolf. + +But then—of course!—Diantha’s innuendoes had been based on flimsiest +hearsay. The chances were that Michael Lanyard was an utterly +uninteresting person of blameless life. + +So thinking, the Princess Sofia was sensible of a pang of regret, and +tried to be prepared against bitter disappointment as she rang the +bell. Either she would fail to obtain admittance (perhaps the lady whom +he was really expecting had forestalled her) or else Lanyard would fail +to come home in time to catch her! Quite probably it would turn out to +be a dull and depressing evening, after all.... + +The servant who admitted her in manner and appearance lent colour to +these forebodings. A creature hopelessly commonplace, resigned, and +unemotional, to her enquiry for Monsieur Lanyard he returned the +discounted response: Mister Lanyard was hout, ’e might not be ’ome till +quite lite, but ’ad left word that if a lidy called she was to be +awsked to wite. The princess indicating her desire to wite, the man +turned to the nearest door (Lanyard’s rooms were on the street level), +opened it with a pass-key, stepped inside to make a light, and when +Sofia entered silently bowed himself out. + +Now when the latch clicked behind him, the Princess Sofia forgot that +the simplicity of her success thus far was almost discouraging. Her +heart began to beat more quickly, and a little tremor shook the hands +that lifted and threw back her veil. After all, she was committing an +act of lawless trespass, she was on the errand of a thief; if caught +the penalty might prove most painful and humiliating. + +Of a sudden she lost appetite entirely for a piquant encounter with the +prepossessing tenant of these rooms. Now she desired nothing so dearly +as to consummate her business and escape with all possible expedition. + +A swift and searching survey of the living-room descried nothing that +seemed apt to hinder or detain her. A large room, unusually wide and +deep, it had two windows overlooking the street, with a curtained +doorway at the back that led (one surmised) to a bedchamber. It was +furnished in such excellent taste that one suspected Monsieur Lanyard +must have brought in his own belongings on taking possession. The +handsome rug, the well-chosen draperies, the several excellent pictures +and bronzes, were little in character with the furnished lodgings of +the London average, even with those of the better sort. + +She had no time, however, to squander on appreciation of artistic +atmosphere, however pleasing, and needed to waste none searching for +the object of her desires. It faced her, distant not six paces from the +door—that shameless little “Corot”!—resting on the arms of a +straight-backed chair. + +A low laugh of delight on her lips, she went swiftly to the chair and +laid hold of the picture by its frame. In that act she checked, +startled, transfixed, the laugh freezing into a gasp of alarm. + +Brass rings slithered on a pole supporting the portières at the back of +the room. These parted. Through them a man emerged. + +Her grasp on the picture relaxed. It struck a corner against the chair +and clattered on the floor—the canvas on its stretcher simultaneously +flying out of the frame. + +“Victor!” + +“Sweet of you to remember me!” + +He advanced slowly with that noiseless, cat-like tread of his which she +had always hated, perceiving in it a true index to his character: the +prowl of a beast of prey, furtive, cowardly, cruel. It was so: Victor +was as feline and as vicious as a jungle-cat. Watching him with this +thought in mind, one could almost credit old tales of beasts bewitched +and walking in human guise. + +Near by he paused, alertly poised, prepared to spring. The slotted +black eyes glimmered malignantly. His lips drew back in mockery from +his teeth. His hands were hidden in the pockets of his dinner-coat; but +she could guess how they were held, like claws, in that concealment, +claws itching for her throat. She dared not stir lest she feel them +there, digging deep into her soft white flesh. + +Witless, in the extremity of her terror, she stammered: “What do you +want?” + +A nod indicated the picture that lay between them, at their feet. + +“My errand,” the man said in a silken tone that gloved grimmest menace, +“is much the same as yours—quite naturally—but more fortunate; for I +shall get not only what I came for, but something more.” + +“What—?” + +“The opportunity to plead with you, face to face. I think you will +hardly refuse to listen to me now.” + +“How—how did you get in?” + +“Oh, secretly! By the window, if you must know; but quite unseen. You +see, _I_ had no invitation.” + +“I never thought you had—” + +“Nor did I think you had—till now.” + +Puzzled, she faltered: “I don’t understand—” + +“Surely you don’t wish me to believe my pretty Sofia has turned thief?” + +That stung her pride. She drew upon an unsuspected store of spirit, +confronting him bravely. + +“What is it to me, what you choose to think?” + +“I refuse to think that of you. My reason will not let me believe it.” + +She saw that he was shaking with rage; so she shrugged and drawled: +“Oh, your _reason_—!” + +“It tells me you for one did not come here to-night uninvited.” He was +rapidly losing grip on his temper. “Oh, it’s plain enough! I was a fool +not to understand, there in the auction room, when my face was slapped +with proof of your liaison with this Lanyard!” + +She said in mild expostulation: “But you are quite mad.” + +“Perhaps—but not so as to be blind to the truth. You had him there this +afternoon to bid that picture in for you if your own means failed. Why +else should the man, who knows pictures as I know you, pay twenty +thousand guineas for a footling copy of a Corot that wouldn’t deceive +a—a Royal Academician! Yes: he bid it in for you—the sorry fool!—bought +with his own money the evidence of your infatuation for his predecessor +in your affections—and expects you here to-night to receive it from him +and—pay him _his_ price! Ah, don’t try to deny it!” + +He growled like a very animal, beside himself. “Why else should you be +admitted to these rooms without question in his absence?” + +Without visible resentment, the Princess Sofia nodded thoughtfully into +those distorted features. + +“Yes,” she commented: “quite, quite mad.” + +As if she had offered without warning to strike him, Victor recoiled +and for an instant stood gibbering. And she took advantage of this +moment in one lithe bound to put the table between them. + +The manoeuvre sobered him. He did not move, but in two breaths forced +himself to cease to tremble, and subdued every symptom of his passion. +Only his face remained sinister. + +“Graceful creature!” he observed, sardonic. “Such agility! But what +good will that do you, do you think? Eh? Tell me that!” + +It was her turn to shiver, and inwardly she did, who was never quite +able to combat the fear which Victor could inspire in her by such +demonstrations of the power of his will. The self-control which he had +always at his command was something that passed her understanding; it +seemed inhuman, it terrified her. + +Nevertheless, so exigent was this strait, she continued to confront him +with a face of unflinching defiance. + +In a voice whose steadiness surprised her she declared: “The letters +are mine. You shan’t have them.” + +“Undeceive yourself: I’ll have them though you never leave this room +alive.” + +More to give herself time to think than in any hope of moving him, she +began to plead: + +“Let me have them, Victor—let me go.” + +Smiling darkly, he shook his head. + +“The letters mean nothing to you. What good—?” + +He interrupted impatiently: “I shall publish them.” + +“Impossible—!” + +“But I shall.” + +Aghast, she protested: “You can’t mean that!” + +“Why not? The world shall know your true reason for leaving me—that you +were the mistress of another man—and who that man was!” + +Staring, she uttered in a low voice: “Never!” + +“Or,” he amended, deliberately, “you may keep them, burn them, do what +you will with them—on fair terms—_my_ terms.” + +She said nothing, but her dilate eyes held fixedly to his. He moved a +pace or two nearer, his voice dropped to a lower key, the light she had +learned to loathe flickered in the depths of his eyes. + +“Come back to me, Sofia! I can’t live without you ...” + +Her lips moved to deny him, but made no sound. Now it was revealed to +her, the way. + +“Come back to me, Sofia!” + +His hand crept along the edge of the table and lifted, quivering, to +capture hers. She steeled herself to endure its touch, against +sickening repulsion she fought to achieve a smile that would carry a +suggestion of at least forgetfulness. + +“And if I do—?” she murmured. + +He gave a violent start, blood suffused his face darkly, his arms leapt +out to enfold her. She stepped back, evading him with a movement of +coquetry that served, as it was intended, to inflame him the more. + +“Wait!” she insisted. “Answer me first: If I return to you—then what?” + +“Everything shall be as you wish—everything forgotten—I will think of +nothing but how to make you happy—” + +“And I may have my letters?” + +He nodded, swallowing hard, as if the concession well-nigh choked him. + +Under his gloating gaze her flesh crawled. Only by supreme effort did +she succeed in resisting a mad impulse to risk a rush for door or +windows, and whipped her will into maintaining what seemed to be frank +response. + +“Very well,” she said; “I agree.” + +Again he offered to touch her, again she moved slightly, eluding him. + +“No,” she stipulated with an arch glance—“not yet! First prove you mean +to make good your word.” + +“How?” + +“Let me go—with my letters—and call on me to-morrow.” + +His look clouded. “Can I trust you?” He was putting the question to +himself more than to her. “Dare I?” He added in a tone colourless and +flat: “I’ve half a mind to take you at your word. Only—forgive my +doubts—appearances are against you—you seem almost too keen for the +bargain. How can I know—?” + +“What proof do you want?” + +“Something definite.... You pledge yourself to me?” A movement of her +head assented. “You will give yourself back to me?” He came nearer, but +she contrived to repeat the sign of assent. “Wholly, without reserve?” + +An invincible disgust shook her as the full sense of his insistence +struck home. Still she whipped herself to play out the scene—and win! + +“As you say, Victor, as you will....” + +He moved still nearer. She became conscious of his nearness as if a +palpable aura of vileness emanated from his person. + +“Then give me proof—here and now.” + +“How?” + +He laughed a throaty, evil laugh. “Need you ask? Not much, my Sofia ... +only a little ... something on account ...” Suddenly she could no more: +memories unspeakable rose like disturbed dregs to the surface of her +consciousness. Involuntarily, not knowing what she did, she flung out +an arm and struck down his hands. + +“You—leper!” + +The epithet was like a knout cutting through the decayed fibre of the +man and raising a livid welt on his diseased soul. Galled beyond +endurance, his countenance convulsed with fury, he struck wickedly; and +the vicious blow of his open palm across her mouth brought flecks of +blood to the lips as her teeth cut into the tender flesh. + +It did far more, it shattered at one stroke the brittle casing of +self-command with which centuries of civilization had sought to veneer +the Slav. In a trice a woman whose existence neither of them had +suspected was revealed, a fury incarnate flew at the dismayed prince, +clawing, tearing, raining blows upon his face and bosom. Overcome by +surprise, blinded, dazed, staggered, he gave ground, stumbled, caught +at a chair to steady himself. + +As abruptly as it had begun, the assault ceased. Panting and frantic, +the girl fell back, paused, renewed her grasp upon herself, gazed +momentarily in contempt on that dashed and quaking figure, then swiftly +swooped down to retrieve the picture, and madly pelted toward the door. + +In an instant, Victor was after her. His clutching fingers barely +missed her shoulder but caught a flying end of the veil that swathed +her throat and head. With finger-tips touching the door-knob Sofia was +checked and twitched back so violently that she was all but thrown off +her feet. + +She tried desperately to regain her balance, but the pressure round her +throat, tightening, bade fair to suffocate her; and reeling, while her +hands tore ineffectually at the folds of the veil, she was drawn back +and back, and tripped, falling half on, half off the table. + +Already her vision was darkening, her lungs were labouring painfully, +her head throbbed with the revolt of strangulated arteries as if sledge +hammers were seeking to smash through her skull. + +Through closing shadows she saw that savage mask which hovered over +her, moping and mowing, as Victor twisted and drew ever more tight the +murderous bindings round her throat. + +A groping hand encountered something on the table, a lump of metal, +cold and heavy. She seized and dashed it brutally into that hateful +face, saw his head jerk back and heard him grunt with pain, and struck +again, blindly, with all her might. + +Instantly the pressure upon her throat was eased. She heard a groan, a +fall ... + + + + +VIII +GREEK VS. GREEK + + +She found herself standing, partly resting upon the table. Great, +tearing sobs racked her slight young body—but at least she was +breathing, there was no more constriction of her windpipe; Her head +still ached, however, her neck felt stiff and sore, and she remained +somewhat giddy and confused. + +She eyed rather wildly her hands. One held torn and ragged folds of the +veil ripped from her throat, the other the weapon with which she had +cheated death: a bronze paperweight, probably a miniature copy of a +Barye, an elephant trumpeting. The up-flung trunk was darkly stained +and sticky.... + +With a shudder she dropped the bronze, and looked down. Victor lay at +her feet, supine, grotesquely asprawl. His face was bruised and livid; +the cheek laid open by the bronze was smeared with scarlet, +accentuating the leaden colour of his skin. His mouth was ajar; his +eyes, half closed, hideously revealed slender slits of white. More +blood discoloured his right temple, welling from under the matted, +coarse black hair. + +He was terribly motionless. If he breathed, Sofia could detect no sign +of it. + +In panic she knelt beside the body, threw back Victor’s dinner-coat, +and laid an ear above his heart. + +At first, in her mad anxiety, she could hear nothing. But presently a +beating registered, slow and harsh but steady-paced. + +With a sob of relief she sat back on her heels, and after a little +while got unsteadily to her feet. + +The house door closed with a dull bang, and from the entrance hallway +came a sound of voices. She stood petrified in dread till the voices +fell and she heard stairs creak under an ascending tread. + +Thus reminded that Lanyard’s return might occur at any moment, she made +all haste to patch up the disarray of veil and coiffure. Fortunately +her costume, protected by the cloak of heavy and sturdy stuff, was +quite undamaged. + +Not till on the point of leaving did she remember the painting. It lay +unharmed where it had fallen when Victor seized her veil. She was calm +enough now to consider herself fortunate in finding it so poorly +secured in its frame; without the latter it would be far easier to +smuggle the canvas away under her cloak. + +In the final glance she bent upon Victor’s beaten and insensible body +there was no pity, no regret, no trace of compunction. What he had +suffered he had ten times—no, a hundred, a thousand—earned. Long before +she left him Sofia had lost count of the blows she had taken at his +hands, the insults worse than blows, the lesser indignities +innumerable. + +But in those abolished days she had never once struck back, she had +been faint of heart, cowed and terrified, and had lacked what two years +of separation had given her, that spiritual independence which never +before had been able to realize itself, lift up its head, and grow +strong in the assurance of its own integrity. + +Two years ago she would not have dared to lift a hand to Victor, no +matter how sore the provocation. To-night—if she had one regret it was +that she had struck so feebly: not that she desired his death, but that +she knew it was now her life or his. She knew the man too well to +flatter herself that he would rest before he had compassed such revenge +as the baseness of his degenerate soul would deem adequate. Half the +world were not too much to put between them if she were now to sleep of +nights in comfortable consciousness of security from his quenchless +hatred. + +Callously enough she switched off the lights and left him lying there, +in darkness but for the ash-dimmed glimmer of a dying fire. + +In the entrance hallway she hesitated, coldly composed and alert. But +seemingly the noise of their struggle had not carried beyond the door. +There was no one about. + +With neither haste nor faltering, without the least misadventure, she +let herself quietly out into the empty, silent, rain-swept street, and +scurried toward the lights of Piccadilly. + +Before long a cruising four-wheeler overhauled her. In its obscure and +stuffy refuge she sat hugging her precious canvas and pondering her +plight. + +It was borne in upon her that she would do well to leave London, yes, +and England, too, before Victor recovered sufficiently to scheme and +put a watch upon her movements. + +She had need henceforth to be swift and wary and shrewd.... + +A singular elation began to colour her temper, a quickening sense of +emancipation. Necessity at a stroke had set her free. Because she must +fly and hide to save her life, society had no more hold upon her, she +need no longer fight to keep up appearances in spite of her status as a +woman living apart from her husband, little better than a divorcée—an +estate anathema to the English of those days. + +She experienced, through the play of her imagination upon this new and +startling conception of life, an intoxicating prelibation of freedom +such as she had never dreamed to savour. + +That waywardness which was a legitimate inheritance from generations of +wilful forebears, impatient of all those restraints which a fixed +environment imposes upon the individual, an impatience which had always +been hers though it slumbered in unsuspected latency, asserted itself +of a sudden, possessed her wholly, and warmed, her being like forbidden +wine. + +In this humour she was set down at her door. + +None saw her enter. In a moment of vaguely prophetic foresight she had +bidden Thérèse not to wait up for her and to tell the other servants +there was no necessity for their doing so. She might be detained, +Heaven alone knew how late she might be; but she had her latch-key and +was quite competent to undress and put herself to bed. + +And Thérèse had taken her at her word. + +She was glad of that. In event that anything should leak out and be +printed by the newspapers concerning the theft of Monsieur Lanyard’s +famous “Corot” by a strange, closely veiled woman, it was just as well +that none of the servants was about to see her come in with the canvas +clumsily hidden under her cloak. + +So she exercised much circumspection in shutting and bolting the door, +mounted the stairs without making any unnecessary stir, and at the door +of her boudoir waited, listening, for several moments, in the course of +which she heard, or fancied she heard, a slight noise on the far side +of the door which made her suspect Thérèse might after all still be up +and about. + +The sound was not repeated, but to make sure Sofia slipped out of her +cloak and wrapped it round the canvas before she went in; which last +she did sharply, with head up and eyes flashing ominously beneath +scowling brows—prepared to give Thérèse a rare taste of temper if she +found she had been disobeyed. + +But though the maid had left the lights on, she was nowhere to be seen. +Nor did she answer from the bedchamber when the princess called her. + +With a sigh of relief that ran into the chuckle of a child absorbed in +mischief, Sofia threw the cloak across a chaise-longue, and bore her +prize in triumph to the escritoire. + +It was her intention to rip the canvas off with a knife, to get at the +letters; and a long, thin-bladed Spanish dagger that now did service as +a paper-knife was actually in her hand when she noticed how slightly +the painting was tacked to its stretcher, and for the first time was +visited by premonition. + +Dropping the knife, she caught a loose edge of the canvas and with one +swift tug stripped it clear of the unpainted fabric beneath. + +The cry that disappointment wrung from her was bitter with protest and +chagrin. + +Fortune had failed her, then, the jade had tricked her heartlessly. +With success within her grasp, it had trickled like quicksilver through +her fingers. Victor had been beforehand with her, had purloined the +letters and restored the canvas to its frame. She might have suspected +as much if she had only had the wit to draw a natural inference from +the way the painting had parted company with its frame when she dropped +it. + +So the letters for which she had risked and suffered so much must be +back there, in Lanyard’s lodgings, in Victor’s possession—lost +irretrievably, since she would never find the courage to go back for +them, even if she dared assume that Victor had not yet recovered and +escaped or that Lanyard had not yet come home. + +If only she had thought to rifle Victor’s pockets ... + +“Too late,” she uttered in despair. + +“Ah, madame, never say that!” + +She swung round but, shocked as she was to the verge of stupefaction, +made no outcry. + +The intruder stood within arm’s-length, collected, amiable, debonair, +nothing threatening in his attitude, merely an easy and at the same +time quite respectful suggestion of interest. + +“Monsieur Lanyard!” + +His bow was humorous without mockery: “Madame la princesse does me much +honour.” + +She was silent another instant, in a wide stare comprehending the +incredible, the utterly impossible fact of his presence there. The one +conceivable explanation voiced itself without her volition: + +“The Lone Wolf!” + +“Oh, come now!” he remonstrated, indulgently—“that’s downright +flattery.” + +She moved aside, lifting a hand toward the bell-cord. + +“Wait!” + +Involuntarily she deferred, her arm dropped. Then, appreciating that +she had yielded where he had no right to command, she mutinied. + +“Why?” she demanded, resentfully. + +“Why ring?” he countered, smiling. + +“To call my servants—to have them call in the police.” + +“But surely madame la princesse must appreciate the police might be at +a loss to know which housebreaker to arrest.” + +He cocked an eye of mocking significance toward the purloined “Corot,” +and in sharp revulsion of feeling Sofia had need to bite her lip to +keep from laughing. She hesitated. He was right and reasonable enough, +this impudent and imperturbable young elegant. Yet she could not afford +to concede so much to him. She was quick to accept his gage. + +“Who knows,” she enquired, obliquely, “why Monsieur the Lone Wolf +brought with him this counterfeit Corot when he broke in to steal—” + +“The counterfeit jewels of a titled adventuress!” + +An interruption brusque enough to silence her; or else it was its +innuendo that struck the princess dumb with indignation. Lanyard’s +laugh offered amends for the rudeness, as if he said: “Sorry—but you +asked for it, you know.” He stepped aside, caught up a handful of her +jewels that had been left, a tempting heap, openly exposed on her +dressing-table (as much her own carelessness as anybody’s, Sofia +admitted) and tossed them lightly upon the face of the fraudulent +canvas. + +“Birds of a feather,” was his comment, whimsical; “coals to Newcastle!” + +“My jewels!” The princess gathered them up tenderly and faced him, +blazing with resentment. He returned a twisted smile, an apologetic +shrug. + +“Madame la princesse didn’t know? I’m so sorry.” + +“How dare you say they’re paste?” + +“I’m sorry,” he repeated; “but somebody seems to have taken advantage +of madame’s confidence. Excellent imitations, I grant you, but articles +de Paris none the less.” + +“It isn’t true!” she stormed, near to tears. + +“But really, you must believe me. A knowledge of jewels is one of my +hobbies: I _know!_” + +She looked down in consternation at the exquisite trinkets he had +condemned so bluntly. Then in a fit of temper she flung them from her +with all her might, threw herself upon the chaise-longue, and wept +passionately into its cushions. Then the young man proved himself +tolerably instructed in the ways of womankind. He said nothing more, +made no offer to comfort her by those futile and empty pats on the +shoulder which are instinctive with man on such occasions, but simply +sat him down and waited. + +In time the tempest passed, Sofia sat up and dabbled her eyes with a +web of lace and linen. Then she looked round with a tentative smile +that was wholly captivating. She was one of those rare women who can +afford to cry. + +“It’s so humiliating!” she protested with racial ingenuousness—one of +her most compelling charms. “But it’s ridiculous, too. I was so sure no +one would ever know.” + +“No one but an expert ever would, madame.” + +“You see”—apparently she had forgotten that Lanyard was anything but a +lifelong friend—“I needed money so badly, I had them reproduced and +sold the originals.” + +“Madame la princesse—if she will permit—commands my profound sympathy.” + +“But,” she remembered, drying her eyes, “you called me an adventuress, +too!” + +“But,” he contended, gravely, “you had already called me the Lone +Wolf.” + +“But what do you expect, monsieur, when I find you in my rooms—?” + +“But what does madame la princesse expect when I find she had been to +mine—and brought something valuable away with her, too!” + +“I had a reason—” + +“So had I.” + +“What was it?” + +“Perhaps it was to see madame la princesse alone—secretly—without +exciting the jealousy, which I understand is supernormal, of monsieur +le prince.” + +“But why should you wish to see me alone?” she demanded, with widening +eyes. + +“Perhaps to beg madame’s permission to offer her what may possibly +prove some slight consolation.” + +She weighed his words in dark distrust. What was this consolation? What +his game? His attitude remained consistently too deferential and +punctilious for one to suspect that by consolation he meant +love-making. + +“But how did you get in?” + +“By the front door, madame. I find it ajar—one assumes, through +oversight on the part of one of the servants—it opens to a touch, I +walk in—et voila!” + +His levity was infectious. In spite of herself, she smiled in sympathy. + +“And what, pray, is this wonderful consolation you would offer me?” + +He produced from a pocket a packet of papers. + +“I think madame la princesse is interested in these,” he said. “If she +will be so amiable as to accept them from me, with my compliments and +one little word of advice....” + +“Ah, monsieur!” Look and tone thanked him more than words could ever. +“You are too kind! And your advice—?” + +“They tell too much, madame, those letters. And I see you have a fire +in the grate ...” + +“Monsieur has reason....” + +She rose, went to the fireplace and, half kneeling, thrust the letters +one by one into the incandescent bed of coals. A ceremony of sentiment +at any other time, but not now: her thoughts were far from the man with +whose memory these letters were linked, they were in fact not wholly +articulate. Just what was passing through her mind she herself would +have found it hard to define; she was mainly conscious of a flooding +emotion of gratitude to Lanyard; but there was something more, a +feeling not unakin to tenderness.... + +The reaction of her vital young body from a desperate physical +conflict, the rapid play of her passions from anger and despair through +triumph and delight to gratification and content, from the bitterest +sense of frustration and peril to one of security; the uprush of those +strange instincts which had lain dormant till roused by the knowledge +that she was free at length from the maddening stupidity of social +life, together with her recent, implicit self-dedication to a life in +all things its converse: these influences were working upon her so +strongly as to render her mood more dangerous than she guessed. + +Disturbed in her formless reverie, an aimless groping through a +bewildering maze of emotions but vaguely apprehended, she started up, +faced round and saw Lanyard, topcoat over arm and hat in hand, about to +open the door. + +“Monsieur!” + +He looked back, coolly quizzical. “Madame?” + +“What are you doing?” + +“Taking my unobtrusive departure, madame la princesse, by the way I +came.” + +“But—wait—come back!” + +He shrugged agreeably, released the door-knob, and stood before her, or +rather over her—for he was the taller by a good five inches—looking +down, quietly at her service. + +“I haven’t thanked you.” + +“For what, madame? For treating myself to an amusing adventure?” + +“It has cost you dear!” + +“The fortunes of war ...” + +Her hands rose unconsciously, with an uncertain movement. Her face was +soft with an elusive bloom of unwonted feeling. Her eyes held a puzzled +look, as if she did not quite understand what was moving her so deeply. + +“You are a strange man, monsieur....” + +“And what shall one say of madame la princesse?” + +She could but laugh; and laughter rings the death-knell of constraint. + +But Lanyard remembered uneasily that somebody—Solomon or some other who +must have led an interesting life—had remarked that the lips of a +strange woman are smoother than oil. + +“None the less, monsieur, I am deeply in your debt.” + +His smile of impersonal courtesy failed. He was becoming more sensitive +than he liked to her charm and the warm sentiment she was giving out to +him. This strange access in her of haunting loveliness, the gentle +shadows that lay beneath her wide—yet languorous eyes, the almost +imperceptible tremor of her sweetly fashioned lips, all troubled him +profoundly. He exerted himself to break the spell upon his senses which +this woman, wittingly or not, was weaving. But the effort was at best +half-hearted. + +“I am well repaid,” he said a bit stiffly, “by the knowledge that the +honour of madame la princesse is safe.” + +Sofia laughed breathlessly. Somehow her hands had found the way to his. +Her glance wavered and fell. + +“But is it?” she asked in a tone so intimate that it was barely +audible. And she laughed once more. “I am not so sure ... as long as +monsieur is here.” + +Lanyard’s mouth twitched, slow colour mounted in his face, the light in +his eyes was lambent. He found himself looking deep into other eyes +that were like pools of violet shadow troubled by a deep surge and +resurge of feeling for which there was no name. Aware that they +revealed more than he ought to know, he sought to escape them by +bending his lips to Sofia’s hands. + +Sighing softly, she resigned them to his kisses. + + + + +IX +PAID IN FULL + + +It was late when Lanyard got home, but not too late: when he entered +his living-room enough life lingered in the embers in the grate to +betray to him a feline shape on all-fours creeping toward his +bedchamber door. As he switched up the lights it bounded to its feet +and dived through the portières with such celerity that he saw little +more of it than coat-tails level on the wind. + +Dropping hat and canvas, Lanyard gave chase and overhauled the marauder +as he was clambering out through the open window, where a firm hand on +his collar checked his preparations to drop half a dozen feet to the +flagged court. + +Victor swore fretfully and lashed out a random fist, which struck +Lanyard’s cheek a glancing blow that carried just enough sting to +kindle resentment. So the virtuous householder was rather more than +unceremonious about yanking the princely housebreaker inside and +lending him a foot to accelerate his return to the living-room; where +Victor brought up, on all-fours again, in almost precisely the spot +from which he had risen. + +He bounced up, however, with a surprising amount of animation and +ambition, and flew back to the offensive with flailing fists. In this +his judgment was grievously in fault. Lanyard sidestepped, nipped a +wrist, twitched it smartly up between the man’s shoulder-blades (with a +wrench that won a grunt of agony), caught the other arm from behind by +the hollow of its elbow, and held his victim helpless—though +ill-advised enough to continue to hiss and spit and squirm and kick. + +A heel that struck Lanyard’s shin earned Victor a shaking so +thoroughgoing that he felt the teeth rattle in his jaws. When it was +suspended, he was breathless but thoughtful, and offered no objection +to being searched. Lanyard relieved him of a revolver and a dirk, then +with a push sent Victor reeling to the table, where he stood panting, +quivering, and glaring murder, while his captor put the dagger away and +examined the firearm. + +“Wicked thing,” he commented—“loaded, too. Really, monsieur le prince +should be more careful. One of these fine days, if you don’t stop +playing with such weapons, one of these will go off right in your +hand—and the next high-light in your history will be when the judge +says: ‘And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!’” + +Victor confided his sentiments to a handkerchief with which he was +mopping his face. Lanyard sat down and wagged a reproving head. + +“Didn’t catch,” he said; “perhaps it’s just as well, though; sounded +like bad words. Hope I’m mistaken, of course: princes ought to set +impressionable plebeians a better pattern.” + +He cocked a critical eye. “You’re a sight, if you don’t mind my saying +so—look as if the sky had caved in on you. May one ask what happened? +Did it stub its toe and fall?” + +Victor suspended operations with the handkerchief to bend upon his +tormentor a louring, distrustful stare. His head was still heavy, hot, +and painful, his mental processes thick with lees of coma; but now he +began to appreciate, what naturally seemed apparent, that Lanyard must +be unacquainted with the cause of his injuries. + +A searching look round the room confirmed him in this error. The canvas +lay where Lanyard had dropped it on entering, not in the spot where +Victor remembered seeing it last, but where conceivably an unheeded +kick might have sent it in the course of his struggle with Sofia. She +must have forgotten it, then, when she fled from what she probably +thought was murder, and what might well have been. + +He was much too sore and shaken to be subtle; and the general trend of +his conjectures was perfectly legible to Lanyard, who without delay set +himself to conjure away any lingering suspicion of his guilelessness. + +“Not squiffy, are you, by any chance?” he enquired with the kindliest +interest. “You look as if you’d wound up a spree by picking a fight +with a bobby. Your cheek’s cut and all (shall we say, in deference to +the well-known prejudices of the dear B.P.?) ensanguined. Sit down and +pull yourself together before you try to explain to what I owe this +honour—and so forth.” + +He got up, clapped a hand on Prince Victor’s shoulder, and steered him +into an easy chair. + +“Anything more I can do to put you at your ease? Would a brandy and +soda help, do you think?” + +The suggestion was acceptable: Victor signified as much with an +ungracious mumble. Lanyard fetched glasses, a decanter, a +siphon-bottle, and supplied his guest with a liberal hand before +helping himself. + +Victor took the drink without a word of thanks and gulped it down +noisily. Lanyard drank sparingly, then crossed the room to a bell-push. +Seeing his finger on it Prince Victor started from his chair, but +Lanyard hospitably waved him back. + +“Don’t go yet,” he pleaded. “You’ve only just dropped in, we haven’t +had half a chance to chat. Besides, you mustn’t forget I’ve got your +pistol and your dirk and the upper hand and a sustaining sense of moral +superiority and no end of other advantages over you.” + +“Why,” the prince demanded, nervously—“why did you ring?” + +“To call a cab for you, of course. I don’t imagine you want to walk +home—do you?—in your present state of shocking disrepair. Of course, if +you’d rather ... But do sit down: compose yourself.” + +“Let me be,” the other snapped as Lanyard offered good-naturedly to +thrust him back into the chair. “I am—quite composed.” + +“That’s good! Excellent! Hand steady enough to write me a cheque, do +you think?” + +“What the devil!” + +“Oh, come now! Don’t go off your bat so easily. I’m only going to do +you a service—” + +“Damn your impudence! I want no services of you!” + +“Oh, yes you do!” Lanyard insisted, unabashed—“or you will when you +learn what a kind heart I’ve got. Now do be nice and stop protesting! +You see, you’ve touched my heart. I’d no idea you were so passionate +about that painting. If I had for one instant imagined you cared enough +about it to burglarize my rooms ... But now that I do understand, my +dear fellow, I wouldn’t deny you for worlds; I make you a free present +of it, at the price I paid—twenty thousand and one hundred +guineas—exacting no bonus or commission whatever. You’ll find blank +cheques in the upper right-hand drawer of my desk there; fill in one to +my order, and the Corot’s yours.” + +For a moment longer the prince stared, hate and perplexity in equal +measure tincturing his regard. Then slowly the look of doubt gave way +to the ghost of a crafty smile. + +What a blazing fool the fellow was (he thought) to accept a cheque on +which payment could be stopped before banking hours in the morning—! + +Such fatuity seemed incredible. Yet there it was, egregious, +indisputable. Why not profit by it, turn it to his own advantage? To +secure what he had sought, the letters concealed between the canvases, +and turn them against Sofia, and to play this Lanyard for a fool, all +at one stroke—the opportunity was too rich to be slighted. + +He dissembled his exultation—or plumed himself on doing so. + +“Very well,” he mumbled, sulkily. “I’ll draw the cheque.” + +“That’s the right spirit!” Lanyard declared, and escorted him to the +desk. + +A knock sounded. Lanyard called: “Come in!” A sleepy manservant, +half-dressed and warm from his bed, entered. + +“You rang, sir?” + +“Yes, Harris.” Lanyard tossed him a sovereign. “Sorry to rout you out +so late, but I need a cab. Whistle up a growler, will you?” + +“’Nk-you, sir.” + +The man retired cheerfully, rewarded for many a night of broken +slumber. Prince Victor got up from the desk and proffered Lanyard the +cheque. + +“I fancy,” he said with a leer, “you’ll find that all right.” + +Lanyard scrutinized the cheque minutely, nodded his satisfaction. + +“Thanks ever so ... No, not a word!” He forbade inflexibly a wholly +imaginary interposition on the part of Prince Victor. “You don’t know +how to thank me—do you? Then why try? I know I’m too good, but I really +can’t help it, it’s my nature—and there you are! So what’s the good of +bickering about it?... Now where did you leave your coat and hat? On my +bed, as you came in?” + +He smiled charmingly and darted through the portières, returning with +the articles in question. “Do let me help you.” + +The prince struggled into the coat and grunted an acknowledgment of the +service. Lanyard pressed the hat into his hand, picked up the canvas, +replaced it in its frame, and tucked both under the princely arm. + +Another knock: Harris returned. + +“The four-wheeler is w’iting, sir.” + +“Thanks, Harris. Half a moment: I want a word with you. You see this +gentleman?” Lanyard caught Victor’s look of angry resentment and +interrupted himself. “Don’t forget yourself, monsieur le prince. +Remember ...” + +He patted significantly the pocket which held the revolver, and turned +back to Harris. + +“This gentleman,” he said, consulting the signature to the cheque, “is +Prince Victor Vassilyevski. Please remember him. You may have to bear +witness against him in court.” + +“What insolence is this?” Victor demanded, hotly. + +“Calm yourself, monsieur le prince.” Lanyard repeated the warning +gesture. “He is a nobleman of Russia, or says he is, and—strangely +enough, Harris!—a burglar. I caught him burglarizing my rooms when I +came home just now. You may judge from his appearance what difficulty I +had in subduing him.” + +“’E do seem fair used up, sir,” Harris admitted, eyeing Victor +indignantly. “Would you wish me to call a bobby and give ’im in +charge?” + +“Thanks, no. Prince Victor and I have compromised. He doesn’t relish +going to jail, and I’ve no particular desire to send him there. But he +does want what he broke in to steal—that painting you see under his +arm—and I’ve agreed to sell it to him. Here’s the cheque he has just +given me. Providing payment is not stopped on it, Harris, you will hear +no more of this incident. But if by any chance the cheque should come +back from his bank—I may ask you to testify to what you have seen and +heard here to-night.” + +“It is a lie!” Prince Victor shrilled. “You brought me in with you, +assaulted me, blackmailed that cheque out of me! Nobody saw us—” + +“Sorry,” Lanyard cut in; “but it so happens, that the gentleman who has +the rooms immediately above came in when I did, and can testify that I +was alone. That’s all, monsieur le prince. Your carriage waits.” + +Harris opened the door. Choking with rage, the prince shuffled out, +Lanyard politely escorting him to the curb. There, with a foot lifted +to enter the four-wheeler, Prince Victor turned, shaking an impassioned +hand in Lanyard’s face. + +“You’ll pay me for this!” he spluttered. “I’ll square accounts with +you, Lanyard, if I have to follow you to the gates of hell!” + +“Better not,” Lanyard warned him fairly, “if you do, I’ll push you in +... Bon soir, monsieur le prince!” + + + + +BOOK II +THE LONE WOLF’S DAUGHTER + + + + +I +THE GIRL SOFIA + + +She sat all day long—from noon, that is, till late at night—on a high +stool behind the tall, pulpit-like desk of the caisse; flanked on one +hand by the swing door of green baize which communicated with the +kitchen, on the other by a hideous black walnut buffet on which fruits +of the season were displayed, more or less temptingly, to the taste of +Mama Thérèse. + +But for these articles of furniture, the buffet, the desk, and the door +to the kitchen quarters, uninterrupted rows of tables, square, with +composition-marble tops, lined three walls of the room. The fourth was +mainly plate-glass window, one on either side of the main entrance. + +Back of the tables were wall-seats upholstered in red plush, dusty and +threadbare; and, above, a frieze of mirrors. The floor of the +restaurant was a patternless mosaic of small hexagonal tiles, bare in +warm weather, in the winter covered by a thick but well-worn Brussels +carpet of peculiarly repulsive design. The windows wore half-curtains +of net which, after nightfall, were reinforced by ruffled draperies of +rep silk. Through the net curtains, by day, the name of the restaurant +was shadowed in reverse by plain white-enamel letters glued to the +glass: + +[Illustration] + +The girl stared so constantly at these letters, during the off hours of +the day, that she sometimes wondered if they were not indelibly stamped +upon her brain, like this: + +[Illustration] + +She gazed in the direction of the windows as a matter of habit, because +Mama Thérèse objected to her reading at the desk (all the same, +sometimes she did it on the sly) because the glimpses she caught, above +the half-curtains, of heads of passersby gave her idle imagination +something to play with, but mostly because it was difficult otherwise +to seem unconscious of the stares that converged toward her from every +table occupied by a masculine patron, whether regular or casual—unless +the patron happened to be accompanied by a lady, in which unhappy event +he had to content himself with furtive, sidelong glances, not always +furtive enough by half. + +The feminine patrons stared, too, but from quite another angle of view. + +Sofia knew why. If she hadn’t, the mirror across the room would have +enlightened even a woman without vanity; which paradox this thoroughly +human young person was not. + +She was, indeed, healthily vain; and when she wasn’t focussing +dream-dark eyes upon the windows, or verifying additions and making +change, she was as likely as not to be stealing consultations with the +mirror opposite, making sure she hadn’t, in the last few minutes, gone +off in her looks. Not that her comeliness bade fair ever to prove the +cause of any real excitement. Mama Thérèse made a first-rate dragon: +she was very much on the job of discouraging enterprising young men, +and this without respect for union hours or overtime. And when she +wasn’t functioning as the ubiquitous wet-blanket, Papa Dupont +understudied for her, and did it most efficiently, too. If anything he +was more vigilant and enthusiastic when it came to administering the +snub sufficient than even Mama Thérèse; in Sofia’s sight, indeed, he +betrayed some personal feeling in the business; he seemed to consider +alien admiration of his charge an encroachment upon his private +prerogatives, to be resented accordingly. + +Sofia understood. At eighteen—thanks to the comprehensive visual +education in the business of life which she could hardly have failed to +assimilate from a coign of vantage overlooking every table of a Soho +restaurant—there were precious few things she didn’t understand. But +her insight into Papa Dupont’s mind in respect of herself was wholly +devoid of sympathy. She was just a little bit afraid of him, and she +despised him without measure. And this contempt was founded on +something more than his weakness for taking numerous and surreptitious +nips (surreptitious, at least, until they became numerous) while +presiding over the zinc in the pantry between the restaurant proper and +the kitchen; and on something more than his reluctance to let Mama +Thérèse make an honest man of him, although these two had squabbled +openly for so many years that most of the house staff believed them to +be married hard and fast enough. + +For the matter of that, Sofia herself might have been the dupe of this +popular delusion—which Mama Thérèse did her best to encourage by never +referring to Dupont save as “mon mari”—had they been less imprudent in +recriminations which had passed between them in private when Sofia was +of an age so tender that she was presumed to be safely immature of +mind. Whereas she had always been precocious, if rather a +self-contained child. Almost from infancy she had been conversant with +many things which she knew it wouldn’t do to talk about. + +Such sympathy as Sofia wasted on the couple was all for Mama Thérèse. +What with keeping an eye on Papa Dupont that prevented his drinking +himself to death seven times per calendar week, and an eye on Sofia +that was fondly credited with being largely responsible for her failure +to run away with each and every presentable man who ogled her, and +browbeating the waiters and frustrating their attempts to cheat the +house out of its fair dues, and supervising the marketing and the +cuisine: believe it or not, Mama Thérèse led a tolerably busy life and +deserved whatever gratification she got out of it, to say nothing of +highest commendation for industry, fidelity, and frugality. But that +did nothing to prevent Sofia from not liking her. + +Her inability to play up to the relationship in which she stood to Mama +Thérèse in the manner prescribed by sentimentalists worried Sofia more +than a little. She was as hungry to give affection as to receive it; +and surely she ought to be fond of Mama Thérèse, who (Sofia was forever +being reminded) had in the goodness of her great heart adopted her as +the orphaned offspring of a cousin far-removed, and had brought her up +at her own expense, expecting no return (excepting humility, gratitude, +unquestioning affection, and uncomplaining acceptance of a life of +incessant toil at tasks uncongenial when not downright unsavoury, +without spending money or hours of untrammelled liberty in which to +spend it). + +Surely such nobility ought to be requited with nothing less than love! + +Nevertheless, the plain, and to Sofia disquieting, truth was: it +wasn’t. + +She was fond of Mama Thérèse after a fashion. No one was ever more +ready to acknowledge the woman’s good qualities. But her faults, which +included avarice, bad temper, gluttony, native cruelty of inclination, +and simple inability to give a damn for anybody but herself, forbade +satisfaction of Sofia’s yearnings to give her affections freely through +bestowing them upon the abundant and florid person of Mama Thérèse. + +Still, she made no murmur. There was more than a trace of fatalism in +the composition of her spirit. As she conceived it, in this life either +things were or they were not; and as a rule they uncompromisingly were +not: one couldn’t have everything. + +She was not happy, it would be stretching the truth to say she was +content, but she was resigned, she was patient, she waited not +altogether without confidence.... + +All the same, sometimes, as she sat, day in day out, on her high stool, +looking down on familiar aspects of life’s fermentation as it manifests +in public restaurants, or peering out of the windows to catch +tantalizing glimpses of its freer, ampler, and—alas!—more recondite +phases—sometimes Sofia wondered whether there were not grimly cynic +innuendo in those three words which the mystery of choice had affixed +to the window-panes and graven so deep into her soul. + +[Illustration] + +For surely she was in exile there, an exile from all the fun and frolic +and, fury of life, marooned in weary isolation, on a high stool, in a +frowsty table d’hôte, in the living heart of London. + + + + +II +MASKS AND FACES + + +Quite naturally she became acquainted with Faces.... + +She grew adept at a game which consisted mostly in keeping close watch +upon those who for this reason or that engaged her attention, without +giving them the slightest reason to suspect she was doing anything of +the sort. + +One could not always be staring in abstraction at nothing in particular +as it passed to and fro on the sidewalk in front of the Café des +Exiles; one could not often or for long at a time succeed in reading a +book held open in one’s lap, below the level of the cashier’s desk, +Mama Thérèse was too brisk for that; one had to do something with one’s +mind; and it was sometimes diverting to watch and speculate about +people who looked interesting. + +There were so many Faces, they came and went so constantly, like +bubbles in a tideway, that to Sofia most of them seemed +indistinguishable one from another, mere blurs of flesh colour studded +with staring eyes and slitted by apertures which automatically and +alternately gaped to receive gobbets of food and goblets of drink and +closed to gulp them down. A man needed to be remarkable for something +in his looks, not necessarily pulchritude, or for uncommon +individuality, for Sofia to favour him with more than one of her +seemingly casual glances or to remember him if he visited the café a +second time. + +But those there were who stood out from the rank and file, for whom she +watched, whom she missed if they failed to put in appearance at their +accustomed hours, about whom her idle but able imagination wove +wonderful fantasies, enduing them with histories and environments as +far removed from fact as the drab dreams of the realists are from the +picturesque commonplaces of everyday. + +And there were others who came once and never again, but whom she never +forgot. But for some of these last, indeed, she would never have +remembered some of the former. The brown-eyed youngster with the +sentimental expression and the funny little moustache, for example, +lurked in the ruck a long time before the one and only visit of a bird +of passage dignified him in the sight of the girl on the high stool. + +On the occasion of his first appearance (but that was long ago, Sofia +couldn’t remember how long) the slender young man with the soulful eyes +and the insignificant moustache had commended himself to her somewhat +derisive attention by seeming uncommonly exquisite for that atmosphere. + +The Café des Exiles was little haunted by the world of fashion; its +diner á prix fixe (2/6), although excellent, surprisingly well done for +the money, did not much seduce the clientèle of the Carlton and the +Ritz. Now and again its remoteness, promising freedom from embarrassing +encounters save through unlikely mischance, would bring it the custom +of a clandestine couple from the West End, who would for a time make it +an almost daily rendezvous, meeting nervously, sitting if possible in +the most shadowy corner, the farthest from the door, and holding hands +when they mistakenly assumed that nobody was looking—until the affair +languished or some contretemps frightened them away. + +Aside from such visitations, however, the great world coldly passed the +café by; although it couldn’t complain for lack of patronage, and in +fact prospered exceedingly if without ostentation on the half-crowns of +loyal Soho and more fickle suburbia. + +The Sohobohemian on its native heath and the City clerk on the loose, +however, were not prone to such vestments as young Mr. Karslake +affected. It wasn’t that he overdressed; even the ribald would have +hesitated to libel him with the name of a “nut”—which is Cockney for +what the United States knows as a “fancy (or swell) dresser”; it was +simply that he was always irreproachably turned out, whatever the form +of dress he thought appropriate to the time of day; and that his +wardrobe was so complete and varied that he seldom appeared twice in +the same suit of clothes—except, of course, after nightfall; though his +visits to the Café des Exiles for dinner or afterward were so +infrequent that each attained (after Sofia began to notice him at all) +the importance of an occasion. Luncheon was his time, and those empty +hours at the end of the afternoon which London fills in with tea and +Soho with drinks. + +He seemed to have a very wide and catholic acquaintance among people of +all ranks and stations in life; one could hardly call them friendships, +for he lunched or sipped an aperti not often with the same person twice +in a blue moon. And whether his companion were a curate or some ragged +wastrel of the quarter; painted young person from the chorus of the +newest revue or proper matron from Bayswater; keen adventurer from +Fleet Street or solid merchant from the City, his attitude was much the +same: easy, impersonal, unaffected, courteous, detached. He was as apt +as not (going on his facial expression) to be mooning about Sofia when +his guest was gesticulating wildly and uttering three hundred words a +minute. When he spoke it was modestly, in a voice of agreeable cadences +but pitched so low that Sofia never but twice heard anything he said; +and his manner was not characterized by brisk decision. All the same, +one noticed that he had, as a rule, the last word, that what he said +left his hearer either satisfied or pensive. + +He was unmistakably silly about Sofia; though that didn’t impress her, +too many of the regulars were just as hard hit, one more or less didn’t +count. But he never stared to the point of rudeness, and it always +seemed to make him hugely uncomfortable if she appeared in the least +aware of his adoration; and Mama Thérèse and Papa Dupont never even +noticed him, so circumspect was he. Still, Sofia saw, and sometimes +wondered, just as she wondered now and then about most of the possible +men who seemed disposed to be sentimental about her. + +For there were times when she felt she could do with a little more +first-hand experience and a little less second-hand knowledge. + +Love (she supposed) must be a very agreeable frame of mind to be in, it +was so generally vogue.... + +What first led her to think that Mr. Karslake might be an interesting +person to know, entirely aside from his admiration, happened on an +afternoon in June, a warm day for England, when a temperature of some +81 degrees was responsible for “heat-wave” broadsides issued by the +evening papers. + +At about tea time, Mr. Karslake, faultlessly arrayed, ambled in, +selected a table diagonally across the room from the caisse, exchanged +pleasantries with the waiter who served him a picon, and used a copy of +The Evening Standard & St. James’s Gazette as a cover for his wistful +admiration of Sofia. + +Presently he was joined by a gentleman twice his age, if not older, +whose conservative smartness was such that one wondered if he hadn’t +strayed out of bounds through inadvertence. One would have thought his +place was in the clubs of Piccadilly if not (at that particular hour) +at a tea table on the river terrace of the Houses of Parliament. On the +other hand, there wasn’t a trace of self-importance in his habit, it +achieved distinction solely through the unpretending dignity of a +decent self-esteem. + +Sofia tried to fix what it was that made her think him the handsomest +man she had ever seen. She failed. He wasn’t at all handsome in the +smug fashion associated with the popular interpretation of that term; +his features were engagingly irregular of conformation, but the +impression they conveyed was of a singular strength together with as +rare a fineness of spirit. A mobile and expressive face, stamped with a +history of strange ordeals; but this must not be interpreted as meaning +that it was haggard or prematurely aged; on the contrary, it had +youthful colour and was but lightly scored with wrinkles, its sole +confession of advancing years was in the gray at either temple. The +eyes, perhaps, told more than anything else of trials endured and +memories that would never rest. + +Once they had looked into hers (but that came later) Sofia was sure she +would never forget those eyes. And as she saw them then, she never did +forget them. But the next time she saw them she did not know them at +all. + +The newcomer hailed Mr. Karslake by his name (which was the first time +Sofia had heard it), sat down on the wall-seat beside him and, when the +waiter came, desired an absinthe. + +He had used two languages already, English to Karslake, French to the +waiter; Sofia understood both and spoke them to perfection. So it was +rather exasperating when, his absinthe having been served and the +customary platitudes passed on the weather and their respective states +of health, the conversation was continued in a tongue with which Sofia +was not only unacquainted but which sounded like none she had ever +heard spoken. This seemed the more annoying because there were few +people in the restaurant to drown with chatter the sound of those two +voices and because, in spite of their guarded tones, their table was +one so situated that some freak of acoustics carried every syllable +uttered at it, even though whispered, to the quick ears at the +cashier’s desk. A circumstance which had treated Sofia to many a moment +of covert entertainment and not a few that threatened to shatter what +slender illusions had survived eighteen years of Mama Thérèse. But +nobody else (with the possible exception of the last) was acquainted +with this secret of the restaurant, and Sofia was careful never to +mention it. + +Now it so happened that Mr. Karslake had never before sat at that +particular table. + +The language spoken at it to-day intrigued Sofia extravagantly. It was +rich in labials, gutturals, and odd sibilances. She was positive it was +not a European tongue, though she thought it might possibly be Russian, +because it sounded rather like Russian print looks; it might just as +well have been Arabic or Choctaw, for all Sofia could say to the +contrary. But his fluent ease in it impressed her with the notion that +young Mr. Karslake might not, after all, be as negligible a person as +he looked and as she indifferently had assumed. + +She determined to study him more attentively. + +It was rather a long confabulation, too, and one that both men seemed +to take very seriously—though its upshot was apparently quite +acceptable to both—and terminated abruptly with Mr. Karslake +announcing, in English, with every evidence of satisfaction: + +“Good! Then that’s settled.” + +To this the older man dissented tolerantly. + +“Pardon: nothing is settled; it is proposed, merely.” + +“Well,” said Karslake with a little laugh that to Sofia sounded empty, +“at all events it ought to be amusing.” + +The other lifted one eyebrow and smiled remotely. + +“You think so?” + +“To be ordering you about, sir? I should say so!” But his companion +wasn’t listening or chose purposely to ignore that accent of respect. + +“You are right, my friend,” he said, abstractedly: “it will be amusing. +But what in life is not? I fancy that is why most of us go on, because +we find the play entertaining in spite of ourselves. And even when we +think of Death ... there’s the possibility that on the other side of +the curtain, where the unseen audience sits, whose hisses and applause +we never hear ... over there it may be more entertaining still!” + +Karslake was inquisitively watching his face. + +“You would say that,” he commented, deference and admiration in his +voice. “By all accounts you’ve had a most amusing life.” + +“I have found it so.” The other nodded with glimmering eyes. “Not +always at the time, of course. But when I look back, especially at my +beginnings, at the times that seemed hardest and most intolerable ...” + +He was thoughtful for a moment, glancing interestedly round the room. + +“It takes one back.” + +“What does?” + +“This café, my friend.” + +“To your beginnings, you mean?” + +“Yes. It is very like the café at Troyon’s, at this hour especially, +when there are so few English about.” + +“Troyon’s?” + +“A restaurant in Paris. Famous in its day. Several years ago—before the +war—it burned down one night, cremating many memories. While it stood I +hated it, now I miss it; Paris without it is no more the Paris that I +knew.” + +“Why did you hate it, sir?” + +“Because I suffered there.” + +He indicated a weedy young Alsatian across the room, a depressed and +pimply creature in a waiter’s jacket and apron, who was shambling from +table to table and collecting used glasses and saucers. + +“You see that omnibus yonder? What he is to-day, that was I in +mine—omnibus, scullion, valet-de-chambre, butt and scapegoat-in-general +to the establishment, scavenger of food that no one else would eat.... +I suffered there, at Troyon’s.” + +“You, sir?” Karslake exclaimed in astonishment. “Whoever would have +thought that you ... How did you escape?” + +“It occurred to me, one day, I was less than half alive and never would +be better while I stayed on in that servitude. So I walked out—into +life.” + +“I wish you’d tell me, sir,” Karslake ventured, eagerly. + +“Some day, perhaps, when I get back. But now”—he looked at his +watch—“I’ve got just time enough to taxi to my hotel, pack, and catch +the boat train.” + +“Don’t wait for me,” Karslake suggested, signalling the waiter. + +“Perhaps it would be as well if I didn’t.” + +They shook hands, and the older man got up, secured his hat and stick, +and started out toward the door, moving leisurely, still looking about +him with the narrowed eyes and smile of reminiscence. + +Of a sudden that look was abolished utterly. He had caught sight of +Sofia. + +Her interest had been so excited by the singular confidences she had +overheard that the girl had quite forgotten herself and her +professional pose of blank neutrality. She was bending forward a +little, forearms resting on the desk, frankly staring. + +The man’s stride checked, his smile faded, his eyes grew wide and +cloudy with bewilderment. For a moment Sofia thought him on the point +of bowing, as one might on unexpectedly encountering an acquaintance +after many years: there was that hint of impulse hindered by +uncertainty. And in that moment the girl was conscious of a singular +sensation of breathlessness, as if something impended whose issue might +change all the courses of her life. A feeling quite insane and +unaccountable, to be sure; and nothing came of it whatever. With a +readiness so instant that the break in his walk must have been +imperceptible to anybody but Sofia, the man recollected himself, +composed his face, and proceeded to the door. + +Confounded with inexplicable disappointment, Sofia sat unstirring. + +In the open doorway the man turned and looked back, not at her, but at +Karslake, as if of half a mind to return and say something more to the +younger man. But he didn’t. + +He never came back. + + + + +III +THE AGONY COLUMN + + +Sofia dated from that afternoon the first stirrings of a discontent +which grew in her throughout the summer till everything related to her +lot seemed abominable in her sight. + +Even without this subjective inquietude it would have been an +unpleasant summer. All the world was at sixes and sevens, the social +unrest stirred up by the war showed no signs of subsiding, but indeed, +quite the contrary, there was trouble in the very air—ominous portents +of a storm whose dull, grim growling down the horizon could be heard +only too clearly by those who did not wilfully close their ears, grin +fatuous complacence, and bleat like brainless sheep: “All’s well!” + +High-spirited youth and witless wealth a-lust for strange new pleasures +turned from the long strain of conflict to indulgence in endless orgies +of extravagance like nothing ever witnessed by a world long since +surfeited with contemplation of weird excesses: daily that wild dance +of death attained wilder stages of saturnalia, the bands blaring ever +louder to drown the mutter of savage elemental forces working +underneath the crust. + +And ever and anon a lull would fall and the world would shudder to the +iteration of a word that spelled calamity to all things fair and sweet +and lovable in life, the word _Bolshevism_.... + +In the Café des Exiles there was endless discord and strife. + +For several reasons trade was not what it had been, even for the slack +season of summer it was poor. The cost of everything had gone up, +waiters were insubordinate and unreasonable in their demands, Mama +Thérèse had been constrained to increase the fixed price of the dinner, +old customers took umbrage at this and their patronage elsewhere. + +Mama Thérèse cultivated a temper that grew day by day more vile, Papa +Dupont displayed new artfulness in the matter of sneaking his daily +toll of drink and showed it; the two squabbled incessantly. + +One of the chefs, surmising the irregularity of their relations and +foreseeing an imminent break, sought to turn it to his own profit by +making amorous overtures to Mama Thérèse, who for reasons of her own, +probably hoping to make Papa Dupont jealous, encouraged the idiot. And, +as if this were not sickening enough, Papa Dupont, far from resenting +this menace to the pseudo-peace of the ménage, ignored if he did not +welcome it, and daily displayed new tenderness for Sofia. He kept near +her as constantly as he could, he would even interrupt a wrangle with +Mama Thérèse to favour the girl with a languishing glance or a term of +endearment; he was forever caressing her disgustingly with his eyes. + +The swing door between the café and the pantry had warped on its hinges +and would not stay quite shut. Normally it stuck in a position which +permitted whoever was at the zinc an uninterrupted view of the desk of +la dame du comptoir. Instead of having it fixed, Papa Dupont put off +that duty from day to day and developed a fond attachment for the place +at the zinc. For hours on end Sofia, on her high stool, would be +conscious of his gloating regard, his glances that lingered on the +sweet lines of her throat, the roundness of her pretty arms. + +She dared make no sign to show that she knew and resented, to do so +would be merely to draw upon herself the spite of Mama Thérèse. + +But she simmered with indignation, and contemplated futile +plans—especially in the long, empty hours of the afternoon, between +luncheon and the hour of the apertifs—countless vain plans for +abolishing these intolerable conditions. + +She thought a great deal of the strange man who had talked with young +Mr. Karslake, and wondered about him. Somehow she seemed unable to +forget him; never before had any one she didn’t know made such a +lasting impression upon her imagination. + +Sometimes she wasted time trying to explain to herself why the man had +seemed, for that brief instant, to think he knew her, only to dismiss +such speculations eventually with the assurance that she probably +resembled in moderate degree somebody whom he had once known. + +But mostly she was preoccupied with pondering the strangeness of it, +that he who seemed so brilliant and brave a figure of the great world +should, according to his own confession, have risen from beginnings as +lowly as her own. All that he had suffered in the days of his youth, in +that place in Paris which he called Troyon’s, Sofia had suffered here +and in large part continued to suffer without prospect of alleviation +or hope of escape. And remembering what he had said, that his own +trials had come to an end only when he awakened to the fact that he +was, as he had put it, “less than half alive” there at Troyon’s, and +had simply “walked out into life,” she was persuaded that the cure for +her own discomfort and discontent would never be found in any other +way. But she lacked courage to adventure it. + +To say “walk out and make an end of it” was all very well; but assuming +that she ever should muster up spirit enough to do it—what then? Which +way should she turn, once she had passed out through the doors? What +could she do? She had neither means nor friends, and she was much too +thoroughly conversant with the common way of the world with a woman +alone to imagine that, by taking her life in her own hands, she would +accomplish much more than exchange the irk of the frying pan for the +fury of the fire. + +All the same, she knew that she must one day do it and chance the +consequences. Things couldn’t go on as they were. + +And even granting that the outcome of any effort at self-assertion must +be unhappy, she grew impatient. + +Meanwhile, she did nothing, she sat quietly on her perch, looked with +stony composure over the heads of the multitude, indifferent alike to +admiration and the uncharitable esteem of her own sex, and waited with +a burning heart. + +Mr. Karslake ran true to form. He drifted in and out casually, always +idle and dégagé and elegant, he continued his irregular conferences +with ill-assorted companions, he worshipped discreetly and evidently +without the faintest hope, he seemed more than ever a trifling and +immaterial creature. Chance did not again lead him to the table where +he had sat with the man whom Sofia could not forget, and only the +memory of that conversation held any place for Karslake in the +consideration of the girl. + +Even at that she didn’t consider him seriously, she looked for him and +missed him when he didn’t appear solely because of a secret hope that +some day that other one would come back to meet him in the café. + +Why she held fast to that hope Sofia could not have said. + +Toward the middle of summer Mr. Karslake absented himself for several +weeks, and when he showed up again his visits were fewer and more +widely spaced. + +On an afternoon late in August, a hot and weary day, he sauntered in +with his habitual air of having in particular nothing to do and all the +time there was to do it in, and found a man waiting for him. + +This was a person whom Sofia had quite overlooked after one glance had +classified and pigeon-holed him. A single glance had been enough. They +do some things better in England; a man cast for any particular rôle in +life, for example, is apt to conform himself, mentally, physically, and +even as to his outer habiliments, so nicely to the mould that he is +forever unmistakably what he is even to the most casual observer. So +this man was a butler, he had been born and bred a butler, he lived by +buttling, a butler he would die; not a pompous, turkeycock butler, such +as the American stage will offer you when it takes up English +fashionable life in a serious way, but a mild-mannered, decent body, +with plain side-whiskers, chopped short on a line with the lobes of his +ears, otherwise clean-shaven, his hair pathetically dyed, a colourless +cast of countenance, eyes meek and mild. + +He was soberly dressed in black coat and waistcoat, the latter showing +a white triangle of hard-polished shirt and a black bow tie, with +indefinite gray trousers and square-toed boots by no means new. His +middle was crossed by a thick silver watch-chain, and curious, +old-fashioned buttons of agate set in square frames of gold fastened +his round stiff cuffs of yesterday. He carried a well-brushed bowler as +unfashionable as unseasonable. + +When Mr. Karslake entered, the polished pattern of a young gentleman of +means, slenderly well set-up in an exquisitely tailored brown lounge +suit, wearing a boater and carrying a slender malacca stick in one +chamois-gloved hand, the butler stood up at his table, quietly +acknowledged his greeting—“Ah, Nogam! you here already?”—and waited for +the younger man to be seated before resuming his own chair: a +stoop-shouldered symbol of self-respecting respectability, not too +intelligent, subdued by definite and unresentful acceptance of “his +place.” + +Their table was the one immediately beyond the buffet; and the café was +very quiet, with only three other patrons, two of whom were playing +chess while the third was reading an old issue of the Echo de Paris. So +Sofia could, if she had cared to eavesdrop, have overheard everything +that passed between Mr. Karslake and the man Nogam. But she didn’t; +their first few speeches failed to excite her curiosity in the least. + +She heard Mr. Karslake, who was becomingly affable to one of inferior +station, express the perfunctory hope that he hadn’t kept Nogam waiting +long, and Nogam reply to the simple effect of “Oh, not at all, sir.” To +this he added that he ’oped there had been no ’itch, he was most heager +to be installed in his new situation, and would do his best to give +satisfaction. Karslake replied airily that he was sure Nogam would do +famously, and Nogam said “Thank you, sir.” Then Karslake announced they +must bustle along, because they were expected by some person unnamed, +but just the same he meant to have a drink before he budged a foot. And +he called a waiter and requested a whiskey and soda for himself and +some beer for Nogam.... And Sofia turned her attention to other things. + +The murmur of their talk meant nothing to her after that, and she +forgot them entirely till they got up to leave, and then wasted only a +moment in wondering why Mr. Karslake, if he were, as he seemed to be, +engaging a butler for some friend or employer, should have arranged to +meet the man in a café of Soho. But it didn’t matter, and she dismissed +the incident from her mind. + +What did matter was that she was to-day more than ever galled by the +deadly circumstances of her existence. If they were to continue to +obtain, she felt, life would grow simply unendurable, and she would to +do something reckless to get a little relief from the tedium and the +ugliness of it all. + +She was fed up with everything, the shrewishness of Mama Thérèse, the +drunkenness of Papa Dupont, the hideous dullness of the café, the smell +of food, the fumes of tobacco, the reek of wines. + +She was fed up with the leers of Papa Dupont, the scowls of Mama +Thérèse, the grimaces of waiters, the stares of customers, the very +sight of herself in the mirror across the room. + +She was fed up with being fed up, she wanted to do something lunatic, +she wanted to kick and scream and drum on the floor with her heels. + +And all the while, beyond the threshold, life in the street was flowing +by, a restless stream, and the voice of it was a siren call to her +hungry heart, whispering of freedom, laughing low of love, roaring +robustly of brave adventures. + +And she sat there with folded hands, mutinous yet impotent, afraid, a +useless thing with sullen eyes ... wasted ... + +As was her custom, between six and seven, before the busy hours of the +evening, she had her dinner fetched to a table near by. + +Somebody had left a copy of a morning paper on the wall-seat. Sofia +glanced through it without much interest. None the less, when she had +finished, she took the sheet back to the caisse with her and +intermittently, as occasion offered, read snatches of it quite openly, +so bored that she didn’t care if Mama Thérèse did catch her at this +forbidden practice; a good row would be almost welcome ... anything to +break the monotony.... + +When she had digested without edification every item of news, she +devoured the advertisements of the shops, then turned to the Agony +Column, which she had saved up for a savoury. + +She read the appeal of the widow of the English army officer who wanted +some kind-hearted and soft-headed person to finance her in setting up +an establishment for “paying guests.” + +She read the card of the young gentleman of good family but +impoverished means who admitted that he had every grace and talent +heart could desire and who, in frantic effort to escape going to work +for his living, threw himself bodily upon the generosity of an unknown, +and as yet non-existent, benefactor, hinting darkly at suicide if +nothing came of this last attempt to get himself luxuriously maintained +in indolence. + +She read the advertisements of money-lenders who yearned to advance +fabulous sums to the nobility and gentry on their simple notes of hand. + +She read the thinly disguised professional cards of lonely ladies whose +unhappy lot could be mitigated only by congenial male companionship. + +She read the ingenuous matrimonial bids. + +She read the announcement of the lady of (deleted) title who was +willing, for a substantial consideration, to introduce gentlefolk of +means and their daughters to the most exclusive social circles. + +She read the naïve solicitation of the alleged ex-officer of the +B.E.F., who had won through the war with every known decoration except +the Double Cross of the Order of St. Gall and with nothing of his +anatomy left whole except his cheek, begging some great-hearted soul to +buy him a barrel organ to play in the streets. + +And then her eye was arrested by the appearance of her own name in the +text of a brief advertisement, which she read naturally, with +heightened interest: + +IF MICHAEL LANYARD will communicate privately he will hear news of +Sofia his daughter. Address Secretan & Sypher, Solicitors, Lincoln’s +Inn Fields, W.C. 3 + + + + +IV +MUTINY + + +Sofia had never heard the name of Michael Lanyard. Neither did the firm +style of Messrs. Secretan & Sypher, Solicitors, mean anything to her. +Notwithstanding, she wasted more time than she knew trying to picture +to herself a man who looked like Michael Lanyard sounded, and wishing +(no matter what his looks might be) that she were his long-lost +daughter Sofia, and that he would see the advertisement, and +communicate privately as requested, and hear news of her, and come +speeding in a Rolls-Royce to the Café des Exiles, and walk in and +humble Papa Dupont with a look of hauteur and confound Mama Thérèse +with a peremptory word, and take Sofia by the hand and lead her out and +induct her into such an environment as suited her rightful station: +said environment necessarily comprising a town house if not on Park +Lane at least nearly adjacent to it, and a country house sitting, in +the mellowed beauty of its Seventeenth Century architecture, amid +lordly acres of velvet lawn and private park. + +She hoped the country house would be within sight of the sea, and that +the family garage would run to a comfortable little town-car for her +personal use when she went shopping in Bond Street, or to pay calls or +leave cards, or to concerts and matinees.... + +At about this stage her châteaux en Espagne began to rock upon their +foundations; a seismic phenomenon due to the appearance of Mama Thérèse +and Papa Dupont, coming from zinc and kitchen for their dinner, which +meal they habitually consumed in the café when the evening rush was +over, the tables undressed, and the establishment had settled down to +drowse away the dull hours till closing time. + +Thus reminded that it was nine o’clock or thereabouts of a stuffy +evening in a stodgy world where nothing ever happened that hadn’t +wearily happened the day before and the day before that and so back to +the beginning of Time, and wasn’t scheduled tediously to continue +happening to-morrow and the day after and so on to the end of Eternity, +Sofia sighed and shook herself and put away the vanity of dreams. + +But her beauty, as she sat brooding, was as sultry as the night. + +In the rear of the room Mama Thérèse and Papa Dupont wrangled sourly +over their food; not with impassioned rancour but in the natural order +of things—as others might discuss the book of the moment or the play of +the year or scandal or Charlie Chaplin or the thundering fiasco of +Versailles—these two discussed each other’s failings with utmost +candour and freedom of expression: handling their subjects without +gloves; never hesitating to touch upon topics not commonly mentioned in +civil intercourse or to use the apt, unprintable word; never dreaming +of politely terming a damned old hoe a spade; tossing the ball of +recrimination to and fro with masterly ease. + +Their preoccupation with this pastime was so thoroughgoing that Mama +Thérèse even failed to notice the passage of the postman on his last +round of the day. Ordinarily, for reasons best known to herself and +which Sofia had never thought to question, Mama Thérèse preferred +personally to receive all letters and contrived to be on hand at the +postman’s customary hours of call. But to-night she only realized that +he had come and gone when, happening to glance toward the caisse, she +saw Sofia shuffling the half-dozen envelopes which had been left with +her. + +Immediately Mama Thérèse pushed back the table and got up, wiping chin +and moustache with her napkin as she rolled toward the desk. + +But she was too late. Already Sofia had sorted out and was staring in +blank wonder at an envelope addressed to Mama Thérèse and bearing in +its upper left-hand corner the imprint of its origin: + +_Secretan & Sypher +Solicitors +Lincoln’s Inn Fields +London, W.C. 3._ + + +As yet she was simply startled by the coincidence, her brain had not +had time to absorb its full significance—that Mama Thérèse should +receive a communication from these distinctively named solicitors on +the evening of the very day on which they advertised concerning a young +woman named Sofia!—when the letter was snatched out of her hand, a +torrent of objurgation was loosed upon her devoted head, and she looked +into the black scowl of the Frenchwoman. + +“Sneak! Spying little cat! How dare you pry into my letters?” + +“But, Mama Thérèse—!” + +“Be still, you! Has one asked you to speak? Give me those others”—Mama +Thérèse with a vast show of violence appropriated them from Sofia’s +unresisting grasp—“and after this keep your nose of a mouchard out of +what doesn’t concern you!” + +“But, Mama Thérèse!—” + +“Hold your tongue. I wish to hear nothing from you, I hear too +much—yes, and see too much, too! Oh, don’t flatter yourself I am like +that fat dolt of a Dupont, to be taken in by a pair of round eyes and +innocent ways. I know your sort, I know _you_, mam’selle, too well! Me, +I am nobody’s fool, least of all yours, young woman. What goes on under +my nose, I see; and if you imagine otherwise you are a bigger simpleton +that you take me for.” + +She snapped her fingers viciously in Sofia’s crimsoned face, uttered a +contemptuous “_Zut!_” and waddled off, shaking her head and growling to +herself. + +Sofia felt stunned. The offensive had been launched so swiftly, she was +conscious of having done so little to invite it, she had been taken +unprepared, thrown into confusion, her feeble objections silenced and +overwhelmed by that deluge of abuse, publicly disgraced.... + +Her face was burning, and tears started in her eyes; but she winked +them back, she would not let them fall. Conscious of the grins of the +handful of patrons, and the leers of the waiters, she steeled herself +to suppress every betrayal of the mortification in which her soul was +writhing, she made no sign but stared on stonily at the blackness of +the night that peered in at the open doors. + +Then indignation came to her rescue, the flaming colour ebbed from her +face and left it unnaturally white, the mists before her eyes +dissipated and their look grew fixed and hard, even her lips took on a +grim, unyielding set. Beneath the desk her hands clenched into small +fists. But she did not move. + +The sensation stirred up by the outbreak of Mama Thérèse subsided, the +domino players resumed their game, the old gentleman reading Le Rire +turned a page and read on with a knowing smile, lovers returned to +their low-voiced love-making, waiters yawned behind their hands, all +was as it had been save that, at their table (Sofia could see by the +mirror, without looking directly) Mama Thérèse and Papa Dupont seemed +to have declared an armistice and were gobbling down the rest of their +meal in silence and indecorous haste. + +Presently they got up and sought their living quarters. To do this they +had to pass the caisse and through the green baize door. Mama Thérèse +marched ahead with forbidding frown and quivering chins, with the +militant carriage of misprized and affronted rectitude. To her, it was +obvious, Sofia for the time being did not exist. At her heels Papa +Dupont shambled uneasily, hanging the head of deep thoughtfulness, +avoiding Sofia’s gaze. It was his part to pretend that all was well and +always would be; only he lacked the effrontery, just then, for his +usual smirk. + +When they had disappeared Sofia began to think. + +There was something more in this affair than mere coincidence, there +was mystery, a sinister question. + +Her countenance grew as dark as the complexion of her reverie. Athwart +the field of her abstracted vision drifted the figure of young Mr. +Karslake. She was barely conscious of it. + +He seated himself with plain premeditation directly opposite the +caisse, staring openly. But Sofia did not heed him at all. An odd smile +shadowed his lips, an expression half eager, half apprehensive; there +was a hint of puzzlement in his scrutiny. It was rather as if he had +unexpectedly found some new reason for thinking the girl an +exceptionally interesting personality. But she continued all unaware. + +Shortly after being served with a drink which he ordered but made no +offer to taste, he moved as if minded to rise and cross to Sofia, sat +up and edged forward on the wall-seat with a singular air of timidity +and embarrassment. But whatever his intention, he reconsidered and sat +back, glancing round the room to see if anybody were watching him. He +could not see that anybody was. Not even Sofia. Relieved, he settled +back, found a handsome gold case in the waistcoat of his dinner jacket, +extracted a cigarette, nipped it between his lips—and forgot to light +it. + +Of a sudden Sofia had arrived at a decision; and with every expression +of it in her manner she slipped down from the high stool and left the +caisse to take care of itself. Turning to the swing door she barged +through with a high head and fire of determination illuminating her +face. She had had enough of riddles. + +Behind the zinc an elderly and trusted waiter was nodding. The kitchen +was cold and dark for the night. Papa Dupont, then, would be upstairs, +closeted with the genius of the establishment. + +From the pantry a narrow staircase led up to the apartment above the +restaurant. Sofia mounted rapidly, with a firm tread that was +nevertheless practically noiseless, thanks to the paper-thin soles of +well-worn slippers. She could hear voices bickering above. + +At the top there was a short, dark corridor, with three doors. Two of +these were closed on sleeping-rooms; the third door, to a sort of +combination office and living-room, stood open, letting out a stream of +light. + +Sofia approached on tiptoe, though the altercation going on within had +reached a stage so acute that it was doubtful whether either of the +disputants would have heard had she stumped like a navvy. + +The point of dissension was not at first apparent, because Mama Thérèse +was speaking, and what she said had exclusively to do with her estimate +of Dupont’s character, the mettle of his spirit, the stuff of his +mentality, the authenticity of his pedigree (with especial reference to +the virtue of his maternal ancestry) and the circumstances of his +upbringing; which estimate in sum was low but by no means so low as the +terms in which Mama Thérèse was inspired to couch it. + +Papa Dupont did not seem to be greatly interested. He had heard all +this before, many a time, with insignificant phraseological variations. +Sofia, pausing unseen and unsuspected in the darkness just outside the +doorway, could see him slouching deep in his chair, to one side of the +table, his soft fat hands deep in the pockets of his trousers, his chin +sunken on his chest, something dogged in the louring frown which he was +bending upon nothing, something of genuine indifference in his passive +attitude toward the blowsy virago who was leaning across the table the +better to spit vituperation at him. + +And he waited with singular patience until she had to stop for want of +breath. Then he shrugged and said heavily: + +“Still, I don’t see what else you propose to do, my old one.” + +Apparently his old one was as poor in expedient as he. “It is for +nothing,” she said, acidly, “that one looks to you!” + +“I have said my say. If you have anything better to suggest....” He +made a rhetorical pause for reply, but Mama Thérèse was well blown and +sulky for the moment. “I am not old, not so old as you, and I have +reason to believe the girl is not indifferent to my person.” + +“Drooling old pig,” Mama Thérèse observed with reason: “if you dream +she would trouble to look twice at you—!” + +“That remains to be seen. And I, for one, fail to see how else we are +to hold her. All this money that has been coming in, paid on the dot +every quarter—that means there is more, much more to come to her. Are +you ready to give it up?” + +“Never!” Mama Thérèse thumped the table vehemently. “It is mine by +rights, I have earned it. Look at the way I have slaved for her, the +tender care I have lavished upon her, ever since she was a little one +in my arms.” + +“By all means,” Papa Dupont agreed, “look at it, but don’t talk about +it to her. She might not understand you. Also, do not depend upon her +to endorse any claim you might set up based upon such assertions.” + +“She is an ungrateful baggage!” + +“Possibly; but she is human, she has a memory—” + +“Are you going to be sentimental about her again?” Mama Thérèse +demanded. “Pitiful old goat!” + +“But I am not in the least sentimental,” Papa Dupont disclaimed. “It is +rather I who am practical, you who are sentimental. I ask you: Is there +any way we can hold on to that money unless I marry Sofia? You do not +answer. Why? Because there _is_ no other way. Then I am practical. But +you will not admit that. And why? Because we have lived together for a +number of years through force of habit, because once, very long ago, we +were lovers, you and I—so long ago that you have forgotten you ever had +a softer name for me than pig or goat. Who is the sentimentalist +now—eh?” + +“Shut your face!” Mama Thérèse growled. “You annoy me. I have a +presentiment I shall one day murder you.” + +“You would have done that long ago,” Papa Dupont pointed out, “if you +had had the courage. Enough! I am silent. But when you are tired trying +to think out another way, reflect on my solution. Meantime, let me have +another look at that accursed letter.” + +Mama Thérèse did not respond, she offered no objection when Dupont took +up the sheet of paper that lay between them, but ground the heels of +her hands into her fat cheeks and sat glowering vindictively while he +read aloud, slowly, with the labour of one to whom reading is +unaccustomed dissipation: + +DEAR MADAM: + + +Herewith we beg to enclose our cheque to your order in the sum of two +hundred and fifty pounds, being the quarterly payment in advance due +you from the estate of our deceased client, the Princess Sofia +Vassilyevski, for your care of her daughter. We further beg to advise +that, pursuant to the provisions of her will, we begin to-day, on the +eighteenth birthday of the young Princess Sofia, a search for her +father with the object of apprising him of his daughter’s existence. +Therefore we would request you to make arrangements to have the young +Princess Sofia brought to England forthwith from the convent in France +where we understand she is finishing her education. We take leave, +however, to advise that, pending the outcome of our enquiries, the +question of her father’s existence be not discussed with the young +princess. In event of his death being established or of failure to find +him within six months, the Princess Sofia is to enter without more +delay or formality into possession of her mother’s estate. + + +Papa Dupont put down the letter. “It is plain enough,” he expounded: +“if this father is found, we can whistle for our money; whereas if I +were married to Sofia, as her husband I would control—” + +He broke off sharply, and added in consternation: “One million +thunders!” + +Sofia stood between them. + +And yet she wasn’t the Sofia they knew, but another person altogether, +a transfigured and exalted Sofia, aflame with righteous wrath and +contemptuous with the pride of birth which had leaped into full being a +moment since. + +A princess, born the daughter of a princess, now she knew and looked +it. + +All thought of fear or deference was gone, she had nothing left but +scorn for these two despicable creatures, the fat harpy and her +crapulent consort who had battened so long upon her misery, who had +held her in bondage to the most menial tasks of their wretched +restaurant while they filched and hoarded the money paid them for +giving her the care and the advantages that were her due. + +And something of this new-found dignity, to which her title was so +unquestionable, which set her upon a level from which she could not but +look down on these two paltry frauds, so abashed the Frenchwoman that +the phrases of invective and vilification which gushed instinctively +from the foul springs of her temper stuck in her throat, she couldn’t +utter them, and she well-nigh choked with impotent fury and fear as the +girl spoke. + +“You swindlers!” Sofia said, deliberately. “You poor cheats! To pocket +a thousand pounds a year of my mother’s money—and make me slave for you +in your wretched café! And for eighteen years! For eighteen years you +have been robbing me of every right I had in the world, robbing me of +everything I’ve needed and longed and prayed for, everything you were +paid to give me—while I drudged for you and endured your ill-temper and +your abuse and the contamination of association with you!... Give me +that letter.” + +She possessed herself of it unopposed. But now Mama Thérèse found her +tongue. + +“What—what do you mean?” she gasped, livid with fright. Was not a +fortune slipping through her avaricious fingers? “What are you going to +do?” + +“Do?” Sofia cried. “I don’t know, more than this: I’m not going to stay +another hour under this roof, I’m going to leave to-night—now— +immediately! That’s what I’m going to do!” + +“Where are you going?” + +The question halted Sofia in the doorway. + +“To find my father—wherever he is!” + +She left the two staring at each other, dumbfounded and aghast. + +At the far end of the passage she flung open her bedchamber door, +entered, turned up the light, and snatched her cloak and hat from pegs +beneath the curtained shelf that held her scanty wardrobe. + +Adjusting these before the mirror she could hear Thérèse bawling at +Dupont to follow and stop her. Sofia had little fear he would find +heart to attempt that, none the less she hurried. Once her hat was +adjusted there was nothing to detain her; the best she had she stood +in; no sentimental associations invested that room, the tomb of her +defrauded childhood, the prison of her maltreated youth, to make her +linger there, but only hateful ones to speed her going. + +She turned and fled. + +Stumbling on the stairs, she heard Thérèse still screaming imprecations +and commands at Dupont, then the clumping of the man’s feet as, +yielding at length, he started in pursuit. + +Through the green baize door she burst into the café like a young +tornado. Every head turned her way with gaping mouths and protruding +eyes of astonishment as she stopped at the caisse and brazenly, in the +face of them all, plundered the till. + +This was a matter of necessity. Sofia had not one shilling of her own. +But those two had robbed her, what she took was not so much as a +thousandth part of the money of which they had despoiled her. Moreover, +she dared not go out penniless to face London. + +Snatching a handful of loose coin, she made for the door. But the delay +had been fatal. Dupont was now at her heels, and displaying +extraordinary agility in a man of his years of dissipation and +sedentary habits. And Thérèse was not far behind. + +Seeing coins trickling through the fingers of the fugitive and falling +to ring and spin upon the floor, the Frenchwoman raised an anguished +shriek of “_Thief! Stop thief!_”—and such part of the audience as had +remained in its seats rose up as one man. + +In the same instant Dupont’s fingers clamped down on Sofia’s shoulder. +She screamed, and he chuckled and dragged her back. Then his arm was +struck up by a deft hand, the girl slipped from his hold and darted out +through the doors. + +Roaring with rage (now that his blood was up, his heart in the chase) +Dupont turned upon the meddler. This was young Mr. Karslake. Dupont did +not know him except by sight, but that slender, boyish figure and the +semi-apologetic smile on Karslake’s lips did not inspire respect. +Blindly and with all his might Dupont swung his right to the other’s +head, only to find it wasn’t there. + +The weight of the unexpended blow carried Dupont off his feet. He fell +in a heap, and Mama Thérèse, charging wildly after Sofia, tripped on +his body and deposited fourteen stone of solid flesh squarely in the +small of Dupont’s back with a force that drove the breath out of him in +one agonized blast. + +Karslake laughed aloud: it was all as good as a cinema. Then he +followed Sofia. + +It was a dark and silent street by night, little used, a mere link +between two main thoroughfares. Sofia, running for dear life, was still +far from the nearest corner. Karslake doubled nimbly across the street +to the only vehicle in sight, an impressive Rolls-Royce town-car. +Jumping on the running-board he pointed out the fleeing shadow to the +chauffeur. + +“Lay alongside that young woman before she makes the corner, Albert!” + +Without delay the car began to move. + +Meanwhile, the Café des Exiles was erupting antic shapes, waiters, +customers, Dupont, Thérèse. The quiet hour was made hideous by their +yells. + +“_Stop thief!” “À la voleuse!” “L’arrêtez!” “À la voleuse!” “Stop +thief!_” + +An entirely superfluous bobby weathered the corner, discovered Sofia in +flight across the street, came about, and shaped a diagonal course to +cut across her bows. She saw him coming and stopped short with a gasp +of dismay. Simultaneously the Rolls-Royce slid smoothly in between them +and Karslake hopped down. Sofia uttered a small cry, more of surprise +than fright, and hung back, trying to free the arm by which he was +trying to guide her to the open door. + +“It’s our only chance,” he warned her, coolly. “We’re between two +fires. Better not delay!” + +She yielded and tumbled in. Karslake followed and slammed the door. The +car shot away and rounded into the cross street before the bobby could +collect himself enough to look at its license plate. He made after it, +but when he had reached the corner it had turned another and was lost. + +At the second turning Karslake looked round from the window with a +reassuring laugh, and settled back beside Sofia. + +“So that ends that!” + +She stared wide-eyed through the shadows. She knew him now, she was not +in the least afraid, but she was confused beyond measure. + +“Why—why—” she faltered—“what—who are you and where are you taking me?” + +“Oh, I beg your pardon!” said the young man, contritely. “I forgot. One +ought to introduce one’s self before rescuing ladies in distress—but +there really wasn’t time, you know. If you’ll overlook the informality, +my name’s Karslake, Roger Karslake, Princess Sofia, and I’m taking you +to your father.” + + + + +V +HOUSE OF THE WOLF + + +This startling announcement Sofia received without comment and with a +composure quite as surprising. The life which had made her what she +was, a young woman singularly unillusioned, well-poised, and +well-informed, had brought out in her nature a strong vein of +scepticism. She was not easily to be impressed. The more remarkable the +circumstance in question, the less inclined was she to exclaim about +it, the stronger was her propensity to look shrewdly into the matter +and find out for herself just what it was that made it seem so odd. + +She didn’t repose much faith in those striking synchronizations which +apparently unrelated influences sometimes effect with related events, +and which we are accustomed to term coincidences. She distrusted their +specious seeming of spontaneity, she suspected a deep design behind +them all. + +For example: Up to the moment of her flight from the Café des Exiles +there had been, as Sofia saw it, nothing extraordinary or inexplicable +in the chapter of happenings which had made her acquainted, as abruptly +as tardily, with certain facts concerning her parentage. + +You might, if you felt like it, call it a strange coincidence that she +should have read the advertisement of Messrs. Secretan & Sypher just +before their letter was delivered and Mama Thérèse by her intemperate +conduct warmed Sofia’s simmering suspicions to the boiling point. But +then Sofia read the Agony Column every time it came into her hands: she +would have been more surprised had she missed noticing her given name +in print, and downright ashamed of herself if she had failed to +associate the letter with the advertisement. + +If you asked her, she called it Fate, the foreordained workings of +occult forces charged with dominion over human affairs. Sooner or later +she must somehow have learned the truth about her right place in the +world; and to her way of thinking it was no more astonishing that she +should have learned it through accident supplemented by the acute +inferences of a sharply stimulated imagination, rather than through +being waited upon by a delegation of legal gentlemen commissioned with +the duty of enlightening her. And the colossal set-piece of the evening +having been duly exploded, no sequel whatever could expect anything +better than relegation to the cheerless limbo of anticlimax. + +Thus when young Mr. Karslake explained his uninvited if timely +intervention by stating that he was conducting her to the parent of +whose existence she had so recently been informed, he succeeded—not to +put too fine a point upon it—only in making it all seem a bit thick. + +So for the time being Sofia contented herself with silent study of his +face as fitfully revealed by the passing lights of Shaftesbury Avenue. + +A nice face (she thought) open and naïve, perhaps a trace too much so; +but, viewed at close quarters, by no means so child-like as she had +thought it, and by no means wanting in evidences of quiet strength if +one forgave the funny little moustache which (now one came to, observe +it seriously) was precisely what lent that possibly deceptive look of +innocence and inconsequence, positively weakening the character of what +might otherwise have been a countenance to foster confidence. + +As for Mr. Karslake, he endured this candid scrutiny with a faintly +apprehensive smile, but volunteered nothing more; so that, when the +silence in time acquired an accent of constraint, it was Sofia who had +to break it, not Mr. Karslake. + +“I’m wondering about you,” she explained quite gravely. + +“One fancied as much, Princess Sofia.” + +She liked his way of saying that; the title seemed to fall naturally +from his lips, without a trace of irony. None the less, it wouldn’t do +to be too readily influenced in his favour. + +“Do you really know my father?” + +“Rather!” said Mr. Karslake. “You see, I’m his secretary.” + +“How long—” + +“Upward of eighteen months now.” + +“And how long have you known I was his daughter?” + +Mr. Karslake, consulting a wrist-watch, permitted himself a quiet +smile. + +“Thirty-eight minutes,” he announced—“say, thirty-nine.” + +“But how did you find out—?” + +“Your father called me up—can’t say from where—said he’d just learned +you were acting as cashier at the Café des Exiles, and would I be good +enough to take you firmly by the hand and lead you home.” + +“And how did he learn—?” + +“That he didn’t say. ’Fraid you’ll have to ask him, Princess Sofia.” + +Genuinely diverted by the cross-examination, he awaited with unruffled +good humour the next question to be put by this amazingly collected and +direct young person. But Sofia hesitated. She didn’t want to be rude, +and Karslake seemed to be telling a tolerably straight story; still, +she couldn’t altogether believe in him as yet. She couldn’t help it if +his visit to the restaurant had been a shade too opportune, his account +of himself too confoundedly pat. + +No: she wasn’t in the least afraid. Even if she were being kidnapped, +she wasn’t afraid. She was so young, so absurdly confident in her +ability to take care of herself. On the other hand, intuition kept +admonishing her that in real life things simply didn’t happen like +this, so smoothly, so fortunately; somehow, somewhere, in this curious +affair, something must be wrong. + +“Please: what is my father’s name?” + +“Prince Victor Vassilyevski.” + +“You’re sure it isn’t Michael Lanyard?” + +Now Mr. Karslake was genuinely startled and showed it. Sofia remarked +that he eyed her uneasily. + +“My sainted aunt! Where did you get hold of that name?” + +“Isn’t it my father’s?” + +“Ye-es,” the young man admitted, reluctantly; at least with something +strongly resembling reluctance. “But he doesn’t use it any more.” + +“Why not?” + +Mr. Karslake was silent, thoughtful. Sofia felt that she had scored and +with determination pressed her point. + +“Do you mind telling me why he doesn’t use that name, if it’s his?” + +“See here, Princess Sofia”—Karslake slewed round to face her squarely +with his most earnest and persuasive manner—“I am merely Prince +Victor’s secretary, I’m not supposed to know all his secrets, and those +I do know I’m supposed not to talk about. I’d much rather you put that +question to Prince Victor yourself.” + +“I shall,” Sofia announced with decision. “When am I to see him? +To-night?” + +“Of course. That is, I presume you will. I mean to say, Prince Victor +wasn’t at home when I left, but if I know him he’s sure to be when we +arrive. And I’m taking you there as directly as a motor can travel in +this blessed town.” + +Sofia looked out of the window. The car, having turned down Regent +Street from Piccadilly Circus, was now traversing sedate Pall Mall; and +in another moment it swung into the passage between St. James’s Palace +and Marlborough House Chapel; and then they were in The Mall, with the +Victoria Memorial ahead, glowing against the dingy backing of +Buckingham Palace. + +Now, since all Sofia’s reading had inculcated the belief that the +enterprising kidnapper always made off with his victim by way of dark +bystreets and unsavoury neighbourhoods, she felt somewhat reassured. + +“Have we very far to go?” + +“We’re almost there now—Queen Anne’s Gate.” + +A good enough address. Though that proved nothing. There was still +plenty of time, anything might happen.... + +Sofia shrugged, and settled back to await developments. + +But there was nothing to warrant misgivings in the aspect of the +dwelling before which the car presently drew up. If it wasn’t the +palace Sofia had unconsciously been looking forward to, it owned a +solid, dull-faced dignity that suited well the town-house of a person +of quality, it measured up quite acceptably to Sofia’s notion of what +was becoming to the condition of a prince in exile—who naturally would +live quietly, in view of the recent revolution in Russia. + +Without augmented fears, then, though still on the alert for anything +that might seem questionable, and more agitated with excitement than +she let him suspect, Sofia permitted Mr. Karslake to conduct her to the +door. + +He had barely touched the bell-button when this door opened, revealing +a vista of spacious entrance-hall. + +To one side stood a manservant to whom Sofia paid no attention till the +sound of his name on Karslake’s tongue struck an echo from her memory. +“Thanks, Nogam. Prince Victor home yet?” + +“Not yet, sir.” + +“Tell him, please, when he comes in, we’re waiting in the study.” + +“’Nk-you, sir.” + +The servant was the man whom Karslake had met in the Café des Exiles +only a few hours before. Catching Sofia’s quick, questioning glance, +Nogam paused at respectful attention. And, even then, she was struck +again with his fidelity to the rôle in the social system for which Life +had cast him. In the café, that afternoon, he had cut a mildly +incongruous figure, unpretending but alien to that atmosphere; here, in +the plain evening-dress livery of his station, he blended perfectly +into the picture. + +Karslake gave his hat and stick to the man, then opened one wing of a +great double doorway, and with a bow invited Sofia to precede him. She +faltered, hazily conceiving that threshold in the guise of an +inglorious Rubicon. But she had already gone too far into this +adventure to draw back now without forfeiting her self-respect. With a +deceptively firm step she entered a room to wonder at. + +Sombre shadows masked much of its magnificent proportions, but what +Sofia could see suggested less the study of a man of everyday interests +than the private museum of an Orientalist whose wealth knew no limits. + +The air was warm and close, aromatic with the ghosts of ten thousand +perished perfumes. The quiet, when Karslake had closed the door, was +oppressive, as if some dark enchantment here had power to tame and +silence the growl of London that was never elsewhere in all the city +for an instant still. + +On a great table of black teakwood inlaid with mother of pearl burned a +solitary lamp, a curious affair in filigree of brass, furnishing what +illumination there was. Its closely shaded rays made vaguely visible +walls dark with books, tier upon tier climbing to the ceiling; chairs +of odd shape, screens of glowing lacquer; tables and stands supporting +caskets of burning cinnabar, of ivory, of gold, of kaleidoscopic +cloisonné; trays heaped high with unset jewels; cabinets crowded with +rare objects of Eastern art; squat shapes of neglected gods brandishing +weird weapons; grotesque devil masks ferociously a-grin; chests of +strange woods strangely fashioned, strangely carved, and decorated with +inlays of precious metals, banded with huge straps of black iron, from +which gushed in rainbow profusion silks and brocades stiff with +barbaric embroideries in gold- and silver-thread and precious stones. + +Confused by the impact upon her perceptions of so much that was +unexpected and bizarre, the girl looked round with an uncertain smile, +and found Karslake watching her with a manner of peculiar gravity and +concern. + +“Prince Victor is an extraordinary man,” Karslake replied to her +unspoken comment; “probably the most learned Orientalist alive. +Sometimes I think the East has never had a secret he doesn’t know.” + +He paused and drew nearer, with added earnestness in his regard. + +“Princess Sofia,” said he, diffidently, “if I may say something without +meaning to seem disrespectful—” + +Perplexed, she encouraged him with one word: “Please.” + +“I’m afraid,” Karslake ventured, “you will have many strange +experiences in this new life. Some of them, I fancy, you won’t +immediately understand, some things may seem wrong to you, you may find +yourself confronted with conditions hard to accept ...” + +He rested as if in doubt, and she fancied that he was listening +intently, almost apprehensively, for some signal of warning. But on her +part Sofia heard no sound. + +Impressed and puzzled, she uttered a prompting “Yes?” + +“I only want to say”—he employed a tone so low that she could barely +hear him—“if you don’t mind—whatever happens—I’d be awf’ly glad if +you’d think of me as one who sincerely wants to be your friend.” + +“Why,” she said in wonder—“thank you. I shall be glad—” + +She checked in astonishment: a man was approaching from the general +direction of the door by which they had entered. + +The effect was uncanny, as if the figure had materialized before her +very eyes, out of clear air, as if one of those many shadows had taken +on shape and substance while she looked. + +The man himself was nothing unusual in general aspect, of no remarkable +stature, neither tall nor small, neither robust nor slender. His +evening clothes were without fault, but as much might be said of ten +thousand men who might be seen any night in the public rendezvous of +leisured London. His carriage had special distinction only in that he +moved with a sort of feline grace. Still, something elusive made him +unlike any other man Sofia had ever met, something arresting and not +altogether prepossessing. + +As he drew nearer and his features became more clearly defined by the +light, she was sensible of gazing into a face of unique cast. Of an odd +grayish pallor accentuated by hair so black that it might have been +painted on his skull with india-ink, the skin seemed to be as soft and +smooth as a child’s, beardless and wholly without lustre. The mouth was +sensuous yet firm, with hard, full lips. Leaden pouches hung beneath +heavy-lidded eyes set at a noticeable angle. The eyes themselves were +as black as night and as lightless; the rays of the lamp struck no +gleam from them; in spite of this they were compelling, masterful, and +disconcerting. + +Karslake at once fell back, with a bow so low it was little less than +an obeisance. + +“Prince Victor!” + +The man nodded acknowledgment of this greeting without detaching +attention from the girl. His voice, slightly tremulous with emotion, +uttered her name: “Sofia?” + +She collected herself with an effort. “I am Sofia,” she replied almost +mechanically. + +“And I, your father...” + +Prince Victor lifted hands of singular delicacy, slender and tapering, +whose long fingers were dressed with many curious rings. + +A reluctance she could not understand hindered Sofia from going gladly +into those arms. She had to make herself yield. They tightened hungrily +about her. She closed her eyes and experienced a slight, invincible +shudder. + +“My child!” + +The lips that touched her forehead astonished her with their warmth. +Instinctively she had expected them to be cool, as frigid as the effect +of that strange mask of which they formed a part. + +Then, held at arm’s-length, she submitted to an inspection whose sum +was enunciated with a strange smile of gratification: + +“You are beautiful.” + +In embarrassment she murmured: “I am glad you think so—father.” + +“As beautiful as your mother—in her time the most beautiful creature in +the world—her image, a flawless reproduction, even to her colouring, +the shade of the hair, the eyes—so like the sea!” + +“I am glad,” the girl repeated, nervously. + +“And until to-night I did not know you lived!” + +She mustered up courage enough to ask: “How—?” + +The heavy lids drooped lower over the illegible eyes. “My attention was +called to a newspaper advertisement signed by a firm of solicitors. I +got in touch with them—a matter of some difficulty, since it was after +business hours—and found out where to look for you. Then, prevented +from acting as quickly as I wished, myself, I sent Karslake here to +bring you to me.” + +“But, according to their letter, the solicitors thought I was in +France, in a convent!” + +“When they advertised for me—yes. But by the time I enquired they were +better informed.” + +“But the advertisement was addressed to Michael Lanyard!” + +The thin lips formed a faint smile. “That was once my name. I no longer +use it.” + +Against a feeling that she was adopting an attitude both undutiful and +unbecoming, Sofia persisted. + +“Why?” + +Prince Victor Vassilyevski gave a gesture of pain and reluctance. + +“Must I tell you? Why not? You must know some day, as well now as +later, perhaps. Twenty years ago the name of Michael Lanyard was famous +throughout Europe—or shall I say infamous?—the name of the greatest +thief of modern times, otherwise known as ‘The Lone Wolf’.” + +Involuntarily, Sofia stepped back, as if some shape of horror had been +suddenly thrust before her face. + +“The Lone Wolf!” she echoed in a voice of dismay. “A thief! You!” + +The man who called himself her father replied with a series of slow, +affirmative nods. + +“That startles you?” he said in an indulgent voice. “Naturally. But you +will soon grow accustomed to the thought, you will condone that chapter +in my history, remembering I am no longer that man, no longer a thief, +that for many years now my record has been without reproach. You will +remember that there is more joy in Heaven over the one sinner who +repents ... You will forgive the father, if only for your mother’s +sake.” + +“For my mother’s sake—?” + +“What the Lone Wolf was in his day, your mother was in hers—the most +brilliant adventuress Europe ever knew.” + +“Oh!” cried the girl in semi-hysterical protest. “Oh, no, no! +Impossible!” + +“I assure you, it is quite true. Some day I may tell you her +history—and mine. For the present, you will do well to think no more +about what I have confessed. Repining can never mend the past. It is +to-day and to-morrow you must think of: that you are restored to me, +and that I have not only the means but a great hunger to make you +happy, to gratify your slightest whim.” + +“I want nothing!” Sofia insisted, wildly. + +“You want sleep,” Prince Victor corrected, fondly—“you want it badly. +You are nervous, overstrung, in no condition to understand the great +good fortune that has befallen you. But to-morrow you will see things +in a rosier light.” + +Apparently he had manipulated some signal unremarked by Sofia. The door +opened, framing the figure of the man Nogam. Without looking round, but +with an inscrutable smile, Prince Victor took the girl in his arms +again and held her close. + +“You rang, sir?” + +“Oh, are you there, Nogam? Is the apartment ready for the Princess +Sofia?” + +“Quite ready, sir.” + +“Be good enough to conduct her to it.” Again Prince Victor kissed +Sofia’s forehead, then let her go. “Good-night, my child.” + +Moving slowly toward the door, drooping, Sofia made inarticulate +response. She felt suddenly stupefied with fatigue. To think meant an +effort that mocked her flagging powers. A vast lassitude was weighing +upon her, body and spirit were faint in the enervation of an inexorable +disconsolation. + + + + +VI +THE MUMMER + + +Alone with his secretary, Prince Victor Vassilyevski dropped +indifferently the guise of manner with which he had clothed himself for +the benefit of the woman whom he claimed as his own child. That +semblance of shy affection coloured by regrets for the past and +modified by the native nobility of a prince in exile—so becoming in a +parent to whose bosom a daughter whom he had never seen was suddenly +restored—being of no more service for the present, was incontinently +discarded. In its stead Victor favoured Karslake with a slow smile of +understanding that broadened into an insuppressible grin of successful +malice, a grimace of crude exultation through which peered out the +impish savage mutinously imprisoned within a flimsy husk of modern +manner. + +Suspecting this self-betrayal, he erased the grin swiftly, but not so +swiftly that Karslake failed to note it. And the young man, smiling +amiably and respectfully in return, was sensible of a thrill: yet +another glimpse had been given him into the mystery that slept behind +that countenance normally so impenetrable. + +But he was studious to show nothing of his own emotion. It was his part +to be merely a mirror, to reflect rather than to feel, to be an +instrument infinitely supple and unfailing, never an independent +intelligence. Not otherwise could he count on holding his place in +Victor’s favour. + +“You were quicker than I hoped.” + +“I had no trouble, sir,” Karslake returned, cheerfully. “Things rather +played into my hands.” + +Victor dropped into a chair beside the table and lifted the lid of a +small golden casket. Helping himself to one of its store of cigarettes, +he made Karslake free of the remainder with a gracious hand. The +secretary demurred, producing his pocket case. + +“If you don’t mind, sir ...” + +Victor moved a supercilious eyebrow. “Woodbines again?” + +“Sorry, sir; I know they’re pretty awful and all that, but they were +all I could get in France, and I contracted a taste for them I can’t +seem to cure. I remember, while I lay in a hospital, hardly a whole +bone in my body, thanks to the Boche and his flying circus—it was that +lot sent me crashing, you know—the nurses used to tempt me with the +finest Turkish; but somehow I couldn’t go them; I’d beg for Woodbines.” + +Prince Victor dismissed the subject curtly. “I am waiting to hear about +Sofia.” + +“Not much to tell, sir. There seemed to be a storm of sorts brewing +when I got there. The young woman was at her desk with a face like a +thundercloud. While I was trying to make up my mind what would be my +best approach, she jumped down, flew upstairs and, I gathered, kicked +up a holy row. You see, she’d seen that advertisement of Secretan & +Sypher’s, and smelt a rat.” + +“What did she say?” + +“Nothing definite, sir: seemed to understand she was the daughter of +Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, only she objected to her father being +anybody but Michael Lanyard.” + +“Go on.” + +“After a bit she stampeded downstairs again, with the old girl and that +swine of a Dupont at her heels. I blocked him and gave Sofia a chance +to get outside. The whole establishment boiled out into the street +after us, yelling like fun, but I got the girl into the car ... and +here we are.” + +But Prince Victor seemed to have lost interest. The glow ebbing from +his face, his lips tightening, the thick lids drooping low over his +eyes, he sat in apparent abstraction, aping the impassivity of the +graven idols that graced his study. + +“I don’t mind owning, sir,” the younger man resumed, nervously, “she +had me sparring for wind when she put it to me point-blank her father’s +name was Michael Lanyard.” + +Without moving Victor enquired in a dull voice: “What did you tell +her?” + +“That it was a name you had once used, sir, but.... Well, what you told +her, all except the Lone Wolf business. Don’t mind telling you I was in +a rare funk till you capped my story so neatly.” + +He laughed and ventured with a hesitation quite boyish: “I say, Prince +Victor—if it’s not an impertinent question—was there any truth in that? +I mean about your having been the Lone Wolf twenty years ago.” + +“Not a syllable,” said Victor, dryly. + +“Then your name never was Michael Lanyard?” + +“Never, but ...” + +During a long pause the secretary fidgeted inwardly but had the wisdom +to refrain from showing further inquisitiveness. He could see that +strong passions were working in Victor: a hand, extended upon the +table, unclosed and closed with a peculiar clutching action; the +muscles contracted round mouth and eyes, moulding the face into a cast +of disquieting malevolence. The voice, when at length it resumed, was +bitter. + +“But Michael Lanyard was my enemy ... and is to-day.... He became a +lover of Sofia’s mother, he had a hand in overturning plans I had made, +he humiliated, mocked me.... And to-day he is interfering again.... But +...” + +Victor sank back in his chair. Suddenly that unholy grin of his flashed +and faded. + +“But now his impertinence fails, his insolence over-reaches itself. Now +I have the whip-hand and ... I shall use it!” + +Vindictiveness that could find relief only in action mastered the man. + +“Be good enough to take this dictation.” + +Karslake turned to the table and opened a portfolio of illuminated +Spanish leather. + +“Ready, sir,” he said, with pencil poised. + +_“To Michael Lanyard, Intelligence Division, the War Office, Whitehall. +Sir: Your daughter Sofia is now with me. Permit me to suggest that, in +consideration of this situation, you cease to meddle with my affairs. +Your own intelligence must tell you nothing could be more fatal than an +attempt to communicate with her.”_ + +“Sign on the typewriter with the initial _V_.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Type it on plain paper, use a plain envelope, be sure that neither has +a watermark, and get it off to-night without fail. Take a taxi to St. +Pancras station and post it there. If you make haste you can get it in +a pillar-box before the last collection.” + +“I shan’t lose a minute, sir.” + +Karslake straightened up, folding the paper, and made for the door. + +“One moment, Karslake.... This man, Nogam: where did you pick him up?” + +“He used to buttle for my father, sir, but got into trouble—some +domestic unpleasantness, I believe—needed money, and raised a cheque. +The old boy let him off easy; but I’ve got the cheque, and Nogam knows +it. The fellow’s perfectly trained and absolutely dependable, knows his +place and his duties and not another blessed thing. I’ll send him in if +you like.” + +Prince Victor uttered with dry accent: “Why?” + +“Thought you might care to have a talk with him, sir.” + +“I have.” + +“Oh!” Mr. Karslake exclaimed—“I didn’t know.” + +“Quite so,” commented Prince Victor. “I shan’t need you again to-night, +Karslake.” + +“Good-night, sir.” + +When the secretary had gone, Victor sat motionless, so still that his +breathing scarcely stirred his body, with a face absolutely +imperturbable, steadfastly gazing into that darkness which shrouded the +workings of his mind. + +On the doorstep a shrill whistle sounded: Nogam calling Karslake’s +taxi. Victor heard the vehicle roll in and stand panting at the curb, +then the slam of its door, the diminishing rumble of its departure. + +The house door closed, and after a little the study door opened, and +Nogam halted on the threshold. + +Unstirring Victor enquired: “What is it, Nogam?” + +“I wished to enquire would there be anything more to-night, sir.” + +“Nothing.” + +“’Nk you, sir.” + +“But Nogam: in this house, regardless of the custom which may have +obtained in other establishments where you have served, you will always +knock before entering a room, and never enter until you obtain +permission.” + +“But if I’m sure the room is empty, sir, and get no answer—?” + +“Then you may enter any room but this. Never this, unless I am here—or +Mr. Karslake is—and you get leave.” + +“’Nk you, sir.” + +“Good-night.” + +As the door closed Victor extended a thin, effeminate hand to a casket +of ivory, searched with sensitive finger-tips its exquisite tracery +until a cunningly hidden spring responded and the lid, splitting in +two, sank down into its walls. In the pocket thus revealed were many +pills, apparently hand-moulded, of a grayish-brown substance, +putty-soft. + +Slowly Victor selected three, placed one after another upon his tongue, +and swallowed them. + +He shut the casket and sat waiting. + +Slowly the keenness of his countenance became blurred, as if the hand +of an unseen sculptor were rubbing down its features, doing away the +veneer with which Europe had overlaid the primitive Asiatic, which now +showed on the surface, in every detail of coarsely modelled nose, +oblique eyes of animal cunning, pendulous lips cruel and sensual. + +By degrees a faint trace of colour began to flush Victor’s cheeks, a +smile modified the set of his mouth, the heavy-lidded eyes lost their +lustreless opacity and glimmered with uncanny light. + +He breathed deeply, evenly, with an evident relish. The action of the +opium was visibly renewing his powers. His expression, softening, +became terrible with brute tenderness and longing. Gazing into shadows +in which he saw that which he wished ardently to see, he stretched +forth his arms, and his lips moved, shaping a name: + +“Sofia!” + +As those syllables, freighted with that undying passion which consumed +the man, sounded upon the stillness, Victor turned sharply, with a +gesture of irritation, looking aside, listening. + +Instantaneously the Asiatic disappeared, thrust back into its habitual +latency within the prison of European: Prince Victor was as he had +been, as always to the world, cool, composed, and crafty, master, never +creature, of his emotions. + +A faint buzzing was audible, broken by muffled clicks. + +Rising, Victor approached a table in a corner and with a key from his +pocket ring unlocked a heavy casket of bronze. As he raised its cover a +small electric bulb illuminated the interior, focussing on the +paper-covered face of a mechanical writing device, upon which a pencil +with a broad flat lead operated by a metal arm was tracing characters +resembling the hieroglyphics of the Chinese. + +When the clicking ceased and the pencil was at rest, Victor caught an +end of the paper and pulled it forward until a blank surface again +occupied the writing-bed. Upon this with another pencil he inscribed a +reply, then closed and relocked the casket. + +Back at the table with the lamp, the message just received became crisp +black ash on a brazen tray. + +From a locked chest Victor produced an inverness and a soft hat of +black felt. Wearing these he moved quietly out of the lamp’s radius of +light, and made himself one with the shadows that crowded one another +round the walls. He did not leave by the hall door; but of a sudden the +room was untenanted. + + + + +VII +THE FANTASTICS + + +Downstream from The Pool, a little way below Shadwell, an uncouth row +of dilapidated dwellings in those days stood—or, better, squatted, like +a mute company of draggletail crones—atop a river-wall whose ancient +blocks, all ropy with the slime of centuries, peered dimly out through +groups of crazy spiles at the restless pageant of Thames-life. + +Viewed by day, say from the deck of a river steamer, the spectacle they +offered was, according to bias of mood and disposition, unlovely and +drear or colourful and romantic: Whistler might have etched these +houses, Dickens have staged therein a lowly tragedy, Thomas Burke have +made of one a frame for some vignette unforgettable of Limehouse life. + +Builded of stone or brick or both as to their landward faces, without +exception they presented to the river false backs of wooden framework +which overhung the water. Ordinarily, their windows were tight-shut, +the panes opaque with accumulated grime—many were broken and boarded. +Their look was dismal, their squalor desperate. + +Below, by day, heavy wherries swung moored to the ooze-clad spiles or, +when the tide was out, sprawled upon stinking mud-flats with a gesture +of pathetic helplessness peculiar to stranded watercraft. Seldom was +one observed in use: to all seeming they existed for purposes of +atmosphere alone. + +More seldom still did any dwelling betray evidence of inhabitation +beyond faint wisps of smoke, like ghosts of famine, drifting from the +chimneypots, or—perhaps—some unabashed exhibit of red flannel hung out +to dry with wrist or ankle-bands nipped between a window-sash and sill. + +By night, however, a stir of furtive life was to be surmised from +cryptic lights that flared and faded behind the crusted window-glass or +fell through opened floor-traps to the thick black element that swirled +about the spiles, and from guarded calls as well, inarticulate cries of +hate and love and pain, rumours of close and crude carousal. + +And ever and again the belated riverfarer would encounter one of the +wherries, its long oars swung by brawny arms and backs, stealing +secretly across the inky waters on some errand no less dark. + +On land the buildings lined a cobbled street, from dawn to dark a +thoroughfare for thundering lorries and, twice daily, in murk of early +morning and gloom of early night, scoured by a nondescript rabble +employed in the vast dockyards whose man-made forests of masts and +cordage, funnels and cranes, on either hand lifted angular black +silhouettes against the misty silver of the sky. + +Black and white and yellow and brown, men of every race and skin, they +came and went, their brief hours loud with babel of strange tongues and +a scuffling of countless feet like the sound of surf; and their goings +left the street strangely hushed, a way of sinister reticences, its +winding length ill-lighted by infrequent corner-lamps, its mephitic +glooms enlivened by windows of public houses all saffron with specious +promise of purchasable good-fellowship. + +One of these, the Red Moon, faced the row of waterfront houses, +standing at the intersection of a street which struck inland to the +pulsing heart of Limehouse. A retired bully of the prize-ring ruled +with a high hand over its several bars and many patrons, yellow men and +white girls, deck-hands and dock-workers, pugilistic and criminal +celebrities of the quarter, and their sycophants. Its revels rendered +the nights cacophonous, its portals sucked in streams of sweethearts +and more impersonal lovers of life and laughter, and spewed out sots +close-locked in embraces of maudlin affection or brutal combat. Bobbies +kept an eye on the Red Moon, a respectful one: interference with the +time-hallowed customs and prerogatives of its clientèle was something +to be adventured with extreme discretion. + +Out of the hinterland of Limehouse, a tall man came to the Red Moon +that night, walking with long, loose-jointed strides, holding his head +high and looking over the heads of all he passed with a fixed, far +gaze. He had a hatchet-face, sallow, with lantern jaws, a petulant +mouth, hot eyes that showed too much white above their pupils. A lank +black mane greased his collar. His garments, shoddy but whole, were +stained and bleached in spots, apparently the work of acids, and so +wrinkled and shapeless as to suggest that their owner slept without +undressing as a matter of habit. The pockets of his coat bulged +noticeably. + +Shouldering heedlessly into the saloon-bar, he found it deserted except +for a chinless potman: the liveliest evening trade was always plied in +the cheaper bars adjacent. + +One glance sufficed to identify him: with a surly nod the potman ducked +behind a partition to call the proprietor. Drinks were in order when +this last appeared; and a brief conference in undertones ended when, +having made careful reconnaissance, the publican nodded shortly to the +patron, a jerk of his thumb designating a small door let into the wall +to one side of the bar proper. + +Through this the tall man passed to find himself upon a dark stairway, +at the foot of which another door admitted to an underground chamber +where an apparently exclusive social gathering was in session of +Saturnalia. + +In one corner a long-suffering piano was taking cruel punishment at the +hands of a flashily dressed, sharp-faced man of horsey type. Flanking +him, two young women of the world, with that insouciance which +appertains—in Limehouse—to sweet sixteen, were chanting shrilly to his +accompaniment: both more than comfortably drunk. In the middle of the +room assorted lawbreakers gathered round a table were playing fan-tan +at the top of their lungs. At smaller tables men and women sat +consuming poisons of which they were obviously in no crying need; while +in bunks builded against one wall devotees of the pipe reclined in +various stages of beatitude. The air was hot, and foul with cigarette +smoke, sickening fumes of sizzling opium, effluvia of beer and spirits, +sour reek of sweating flesh. + +Incurious glances greeted the newcomer: none paid him more heed than an +indifferent nod. On his part, brief but comprehensive survey having +deepened the stamp of scorn upon his features, he ignored them all and, +proceeding directly to a bunk of the lowermost tier, aroused its +occupant with a smart tap on the shoulder. + +The ostensible drug-addict looked up dreamily, then opened his eyes +wide, with surprising docility rolled out and, uttering no word, +lurched to the fan-tan table. The tall man took his place, lay down, +and drew together the unclean curtains of sleazy stuff provided to +afford privacy to shrinking souls. This done, he turned on his side and +knuckled in peculiar rhythm the back of the bunk, a solid panel which +slipped smoothly to one side, permitting the man to tumble out into +still another room, a cheerless place, with floor of stone and the +smell of a vault. + +When the panel had slipped back into place, closing out the bunk, the +man stood in night absolute. But after a minute a slender beam of +golden light struck suddenly athwart the darkness and found his face. +This he endured impassively, only lifting a hand to describe an obscure +sign. Immediately the light was shut off, a door opened in the wall +opposite, dull light from behind disclosed the silhouette of a man in +Chinese robes, his head inclined in a bow of courteous dignity. + +In good English but with musical Eastern inflection a voice gave +greeting: + +“Good evening, Thirteen. You are awaited—and welcome!” + +“Good evening, Shaik Tsin,” the European replied in heavy un-English +accents. “Number One is here, yes?” + +“Not yet. But we have just received a telautographic message saying he +is on his way.” + +Nodding impatiently, Thirteen passed through the door, which the +Chinaman quickly closed and barred. + +The chamber to which one gained admittance by ways so devious and +fantastic was large—exactly how large it was difficult to guess, since +all its walls were screened by black silk panels upon which golden +dragons writhed and crawled. A thick carpet of black covered every inch +of visible floor space, a black silk canopy hid the ceiling, and all +the room was in deep shadow save the space immediately beneath a great +lamp of opalescent glass, likewise draped in black. + +Here stood an octagonal table of black teakwood, on seven sides of +which seven chairs were placed. When Thirteen had taken his seat all +these were occupied. On the eighth side an eighth chair stood empty on +a low dais, the heavy carving of its high back, its massive arms and +legs, picked out with gold. + +The six who had anticipated Thirteen at this bizarre rendezvous hailed +him as a familiar, according to their several idiosyncrasies, +brusquely, indifferently, or with some semblance of cordiality. They +made a motley crew. + +Two were Englishman in appearance, though the figure of languid +elegance in evening dress that might have graced the lounge of a West +End club had a voice soft with Celtic brogue. The other owned a gross +body clothed in loud checks and, with his mean blue eyes, his mottled +complexion, and cunning leer, would not have seemed out of place in a +betting-ring. + +Aside from these there were a moon-faced Bengali babu, a dark Italian +with flashing eyes and teeth, and a stout person of bovine Teutonic +cast—the type that is sage, shrewd, easy-going when unopposed, but +capable under provocation of exhibiting the most conscienceless +brutality. + +From this last Thirteen got his warmest welcome. + +“You are late, mine friend.” + +“In good time, however,” Thirteen responded with a nod toward the +vacant chair. “More than that, the summons was handed me only twenty +minutes ago.” + +“How was that?” the babu asked. “It was sent at six o’clock.” + +“I was at work in the laboratory and had left orders I was not to be +disturbed. But for one thing”—the petulance of Thirteen’s habitual +expression was lightened by a flash of self-gratulation, and his voice +shook a little with excitement—“I might not have received the summons +before morning.” + +“And that one thing?” + +“Success, comrades! At last—after months of experimentation—I have been +successful!” + +“’Ow?” dryly demanded the man in the checked suit. + +“I have discovered a great secret—discovered, perfected, adapted it to +common means at our command. Comrades, I tell you, to-night we hold all +England in the hollow of our hands!” + +With an incoherent exclamation and eyes afire the Russian sat forward. +Unconsciously the others imitated his action. Only the man in evening +dress made a show of remaining unimpressed. + +“It’s fine, fat words you’re after using,” he commented. “‘All England +in the hollow of our hands!’ If they mean anything at all, comrade, +they mean—” + +“Everything!” Thirteen cut in with arrogant assertiveness; “all we’ve +been waiting for, hoping for, praying for—the end of the ruling +classes, extinction of the accursed aristocrats, subjugation of the +thrice-damned bourgeois, the triumph of the proletariat, all at a +single stroke, swift, subtle, and sure! Freedom for Ireland, freedom +for India, freedom for England, the speedy spreading of that red dawn +which lights the Russian skies to-day, till all the wide world basks in +its warm radiance and acclaims us, comrades, its redeemers!” + +“Lieber Gott!” the German breathed. “Colossal!” + +“’Ear, ’ear!” the Englishman applauded, perfunctory and skeptical. +“Bli’me if you didn’t mike me forget where I was—’ad me thinking I was +in ’Yde Park, you did, listening to a bloody horator on a box.” + +“You may laugh,” Thirteen replied with a sour glance; “but when you +have heard, you will not laugh. I am not boasting—I am telling you.” + +“Not a great deal,” the Irishman suggested. “Your mouth is full of +sounds and fury, but till you tell us more you’ll have told us +nothing.” + +The face of Thirteen grew darker still, and for a moment he seemed to +meditate an angry retort; but he thought better of it, contenting +himself with an impatient movement and a mutter: “All in good time; +Number One is not here yet.” + +“W’y wyste time w’itin’ for ’im?” demanded the Englishman. “’E’s no +good, ’e’s done.” + +Thirteen’s eyes narrowed. “How so?” + +“’E’s done, Number One is—finished, counted out, napoo! ’E’s ’ad ’is +d’y, and a pretty mess ’e’s mide of it—and it’s ’igh time, I say, for +’im to step down and let a better man tike ’old.” + +Growls in chorus endorsed this declaration of mutiny; but suddenly were +stilled by a voice, sonorous and calm, from outside the circle: + +“You think so, Seven? Well—who knows?—perhaps you are right.” + + + + +VIII +COUNCIL OF THE GODLESS + + +Someone exclaimed in an accent of alarm: “Number One!” + +With a concerted turning of startled heads, a hasty thrusting back of +chairs, the gathering rose in involuntary deference. That is, five rose +as one; and, after a moment during which his spirit of insubordination +faltered and failed, the Englishman got awkwardly to his feet and stood +abashed and sullen. + +The one to remain seated was the Irishman so well turned out by Conduit +Street; who made no move more than slightly to elevate supercilious +brows and slouch a little lower in his chair, glancing from face to +face of the circle, then back to the cold countenance presented by the +author of the abrupt interruption. + +This last stood quietly beside the eighth chair, a hand on its carved +arm, one foot on the edge of the dais. A long robe of black silk +enveloped him; on its bosom a Chinese unicorn was embroidered. His +girdle clasp was of Imperial jade set with rubies. The girdle itself +was yellow. A great ruby button, nearly an inch in diameter, set in a +mounting of worked gold, crowned a hat like an inverted round bowl. His +black silk shoes were heavy with golden embroidery, and had white soles +an inch thick. Authority lent inches to his stature, so that he seemed +to dominate his company physically as well as spiritually. + +A pace or two in the rear Shaik Tsin, with impassive face and arms +folded in voluminous sleeves, waited as might a bodyguard. + +A sardonic glimmer in eyes half visible under heavy lids alone betrayed +relish of the situation, the homage commanded and the sensation created +by this inopportune and unheralded arrival: deliberately Number One +mounted the dais and posed himself in the throne-like chair. Then, as +his look read face after face, he smiled with twitching and disdainful +nostrils. + +“Gentlemen of the Council,” he said, slowly, “I bow to you all. Pray be +seated.” + +In confounded silence the six resumed their seats, while the +seventh—who had not moved—lighted a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and +through a veil of smoke continued to regard Number One with insolent +eyes. + +“I fear my arrival was ill-timed, gentlemen. Seven had the floor, and I +confess to finding what I happened to overhear extremely interesting. +If he will be good enough to continue ...” + +The Irishman gave a light, derisive laugh. Shifting uneasily in his +chair, the man in the checked suit flushed darkly, then stiffened his +spine, hardened his eyes, set his jaw, and faced Number One defiantly. + +“You ’eard ... I ’olds by w’at I said.” + +“I am to understand, then, you think it time for me to abdicate and let +another lead you in my stead?” + +The Englishman assented with an inarticulate monosyllable and a surly +nod. + +“And may one ask why?” + +“Blue’s plice in Pekin Street was r’ided this afternoon,” Seven +announced truculently. “But per’aps you didn’t know—” + +“Not until some time before the news reached you,” One replied, +pleasantly. “And what of it?” + +“Three fycers in a week, Gov’ner—anybody’ll tell you that’s comin’ it a +bit thick.” + +“Granted. What then?” + +“That’s only part of it. Tike last week: Eighteen pinched, the queer +plant in ’Igh Street pulled by the coppers—” + +“I know, I know. To your point!” + +Seven hesitated under that steely stare. “I leave it to you, Gov’ner,” +he continued to stammer at length. “S’y you was me and I was Number +One—w’at would you think?” + +“Why, quite naturally, that some superior intelligence has latterly +been collaborating with Scotland Yard.” + +“Aren’t you a bit behindhand in arriving at that conclusion?” the +Irishman suggested with an ill-dissembled sneer. + +“No, Eleven,” Number One replied, mildly, “since I arrived at it some +time since.” + +“But took no measures—” + +“You are in a position to state that as a fact?” + +Eleven shrugged lightly. “Need I be? Does not our situation speak for +itself?” + +“Since you cannot be as thoroughly acquainted as I am with the +situation, and since it seems I am required to account for my +leadership or surrender it to you, Eleven ... I believe you have +selected yourself to replace me as Number One, have you not?—that is to +say, in the improbable event of my abdication.” + +“Improbable?” repeated the Irishman. “I wouldn’t call it that.” + +“You are right,” Number One assented, gravely: “unthinkable is the +word. But you haven’t answered my question.” + +“Oh, as for that, if the Council should see fit to appoint me Number +One, I’d naturally do my best.” + +“And most noble of you, I’m sure. But rather than bring down any such +disaster upon this organization, I will say now that measures have +already been taken, and I am to-night in a position to promise you that +the new spirit in Scotland Yard will no longer be a factor in our +calculations.” + +“That wants proving,” Eleven contended. + +A spasm of anger shook the figure in the throne-like chair, but only +for an instant; immediately the iron will of the man imposed rigid +self-control; almost without pause he proceeded in level and civil +accents: + +“I think I can satisfy you and—this once—I consent to do so. But first, +a question: Have you yourself formed any theory as to the identity of +this hostile intelligence which has so hindered us of late?” + +“I’d be a raw fool if I hadn’t,” the Irishman retorted. “We know the +Lone Wolf has been hand-in-glove with the authorities ever since the +British Secret Service used him during the war.” + +“You think, then, it is Lanyard—?” + +“It’s a wise saying: ‘Set a thief to catch a thief.’ I believe there’s +no man in England but Lanyard who has the wit and vision and audacity +to fight us on our ground and win.” + +“I agree entirely. Therefore, I have this day tied the hands of the +Lone Wolf; he will not again dare to contend against us.” + +Eleven sat up with a startled gesture. + +“Are you meaning you’ve got the girl?” + +Number One indulged a remote and chilly smile. + +“Then you, too, noticed the advertisement? Accept my compliments, +Eleven. Decidedly you might prove a dangerous rival—were I in a temper +to countenance competition.... But it is true: I have the girl +Sofia—the Lone Wolf’s daughter.” + +“Where?” + +The smile faded; the man on the dais looked down loftily. + +“It is enough for you to know I have proved far-sighted and unfailing +in my fidelity to our common cause.” + +“So _you_ say ...” + +Though the Irishman winced and fell silent under the cold glare of the +other’s eyes, the voice that answered him was level and passionless. + +“I am not here to have my word challenged—or my authority. If any one +of you imagines I am even thinking of surrendering the latter, under +any conceivable circumstances, he is mad. And if any one of you doubts +my power to enforce my will, I promise him ample proof of it before the +night is ended.... Let us now proceed to business, the question held +over from our last meeting. If Comrade Four will consult his minutes”—a +nod singled out the babu, who, beaming with importance, produced a +note-book—“they will show we adjourned to consider overtures made by +the Smolny Institute of Petrograd, seeking our coöperation toward +accelerating the social revolution in England.” + +“Thatt,” the Bengali affirmed, “is true bill of factt.” + +“If the temper in which you received those proposals is fair +criterion,” Number One resumed, “there can be little doubt as to our +decision. Speaking for myself, I think it would be suicidal to reject +the overtures of the Soviet Government in Russia. Let me state why.” + +He bowed his forehead upon a hand and continued with thoughtful gaze +downcast: + +“England is ripe for revolution. The social discontent resulting from +the war has reached an acute stage. Only a spark is needed. It remains +for us to decide whether to permit Russia to bring about the explosion +or—bring it about ourselves. The soviet movement is irresistible, it +will sweep England eventually as it has swept Russia, as it is now +sweeping Germany, Hungary, Austria, Italy, as it must soon sweep France +and Spain. Our power in England is great; even so, we could hope to do +no more than delay the soviet movement were we to set ourselves against +it—we could never hope to stop it. It would seem, then, +self-preservation to set ourselves at the head of it, seize with our +own hands—in the name of the British Soviet—the symbols of power now +held by an antiquated and doddering Government. So shall we become to +England what the Smolny Institute is to Russia. Otherwise, in the end, +we must be crushed.” + +“If we adopt the indicated course, there will be an end forever to this +hole-and-corner business which so hampers us, we will be able to work +in the open, the police will become our tools rather than weapons in +the hands of our enemies; our power will be without limits, Soviet +Russia itself must bow to our dictation.” + +He paused and lifted his head, looking round the circle of intent +faces. + +“If I am wrong or too sanguine, I am ready to be corrected.” + +He heard only a murmur of admiration, never a note of dissent; and a +smile of gratification, yet half satiric, curved his thin lips. + +“I take it, then, the Council endorses my decision to proceed with the +negotiations instituted by Soviet Russia; to accept its proposals and +pledge our cooperation in every way?” + +This time there was no mistaking the accuracy with which he had gauged +the minds of his associates. + +“One thing remains to be decided: a plan of action, something which +will demand all that we have of imagination, ingenuity, common sense, +and far prevision. We can afford to waste not a single ounce of +strength: the blow, when we strike, must be sudden, sharp, +merciless—irresistible. But if Thirteen is not over-confident of the +discovery which he says he has to-day perfected, the means to deal just +such a blow is ready to our hands.... Thirteen?” + +A nod and gracious smile invited that one to speak. He rose, trembling +a little with excitement, bowed to Number One and, delving into +capacious pockets, produced a number of small tin canisters together +with three sealed bottles of brown glass. Surveying these, as he +arranged them on the teakwood table before him, he smiled a little to +himself: the stars, it seemed to him, were warring in their courses in +his behalf; this was to prove his hour of hours. + +He began to speak in a quivering voice which soon grew more steady. + +“It is true, Excellency—it is true, comrades—I have perfected a +discovery which I offer as a free gift to the cause, and by means of +which, intelligently employed, we can, if we will, make all London a +graveyard. Put the resources of this organization at my command, give +me a week to make the essential preparations, select a time of national +crisis when the Houses of Parliament are sitting and the Cabinet meets +in Downing Street with the King attending or in Buckingham Palace ...” + +He paused and held the pause with a keen feeling for dramatic effect, +his eyes seeking in turn the faces of his fellow conspirators, an +insuppressible grin of malicious exultation twisting his scornful and +mutinous mouth. + +“Let this be done,” he concluded, “and by means of these few tins and +bottles which you see before you, in one brief hour the ruling classes +will have perished almost to a man, there will be no more government of +a tyrannical bourgeoisie to grind down the proletariat, a bloodless +revolution will have made England the cradle of the new liberty!” + +“Bloodless?” the man on the dais repeated; and even he was seen +perceptibly to shudder at the prospect unfolded to the vision of his +mind. “Yes—but more terrible than the massacre of the Huguenots, more +savage than the French Revolution!” + +“But I believe,” the inventor commented, “your Excellency said we +required the means to deal a ‘blow sudden, sharp, +merciless—irresistible’.” + +“Surely now,” the Irishman suggested, mockingly—where a wiser man would +have held his tongue—“you’ll not be sticking at a small matter like +wholesale murder if it’s to make us masters of England?” + +“Of England?” the German echoed. “Herr Gott! Of the world!” + +“And you, Excellency, our master,” the inventor added, shrewdly. + +A sign at once impatient and imperative demanded silence, and for a few +minutes it obtained unbroken, while the gathering, keyed to high +tension, studied closely the face of their leader and found it +altogether illegible. + +On his part he seemed forgetful of the existence of anybody but +himself, forgetful almost of himself as well: sitting low in his great +chair, his body as stirless as it were bound by some spell of black +magic, his far gaze probing unfathomable remotenesses of thought. + +Slowly he recalled himself to his surroundings; with a suggestion of +weariness he sat up and reviewed the little company that hung so +breathlessly upon the issue of his judgment. The shadow of that satiric +smile returned. + +“If the thing be feasible,” he promised, “it shall be done. It remains +for Thirteen to be more explicit.” + +With an extravagant flourish the inventor whipped from his breastpocket +a folded paper, and spread it out face uppermost on the table. + +“A map of London,” he announced, “based on the latest Ordnance Survey +and coloured to show the districts supplied by the mains of each +individual gas depot. Thus you will observe”—what his long, bony finger +indicated—“the district supplied by the mains of the Westminster gas +works, comprising Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, the War +Office, and the Admiralty, Downing Street, the homes of hundreds of the +aristocracy. All these we can at will turn into the deadliest of death +traps.” + +A tense voice interrupted with the demand: “How?” + +“Quite easily, comrade: with the ramifications of our power throughout +London, all under the control of his Excellency”—the inventor bowed to +Number One—“it should be an easy matter to place a few trustworthy men +with the Westminster gas works.” + +“It can readily be done,” Number One affirmed. “And then—?” + +“While this is being done means must be found to smuggle other men, in +the guise of servants, into the various buildings selected, or to +corrupt those already so employed therein. At the designated hour—” + +The words dried upon his lips as somewhere a hidden bell stabbed the +quiet with short, sharp thrills of sound, a code that spelled a message +of terrifying significance. The inventor started violently, but no more +so than every man about the table. Even Number One, shocked out of his +lounging pose, grasped the arms of his throne with convulsive hands. + +Quietly and without a hint of hurry, the Chinese, Shaik Tsin, moved +back into the shadows and, unnoticed, disappeared behind a screen. + +For a moment, when the bell had ceased, nobody spoke; but pallid face +consulted face and eyes grown wide with dread sought eyes that winced +in terror. + +Then the Bengali leaped from his chair, jabbering with bloodless lips. + +“Police! Raid! We are betrayed!” + +He made an uncertain turn, as if thinking to seek safety in flight but +doubting which way to choose; and the movement struck panic into the +minds and hearts of his fellows. In a twinkling all were on their feet. +But before one could move a step the lamp in the ceiling winked out, +the room was left in darkness unrelieved, and the accents of Number One +were heard, coldly imperative. + +“Gentlemen! be good enough to resume your places—let no one move before +there is light again. We are in no immediate danger: Shaik Tsin will +show you out by a secret way long before the police can hope to find +and break into this chamber. In the meantime—” + +The infuriated voice of the Englishman interrupted: + +“And ’oo’re you to give us orders?—you ’oo talked so big about ’avin’ +tied the ’ands of the Lone Wolf and Scotland Yard! You blarsted +blow’ard! Bli’me if I don’t believe it’s you ’oo—” + +“Quietly, Seven! Have you forgotten you have a bad heart?—that +excitement may mean your sudden death?” + +The rage of the Englishman ran out in a gasp and a whisper. + +“In the meantime,” Number One resumed as if there had been no break, “I +promised that, before the night was out, you should have proof of my +ability to enforce my will.” + +A groan of agony answered him, followed by an oath of witless fear. +From a distance the voice, now thin but still sonorous, added: + +“Thirteen will hold himself ready to wait on me when I send for him +to-morrow. Gentlemen of the Council, I bow to you all.” + +Again silence held for a long minute during which no man stirred or +spoke. Then overhead the lamp burned bright again, discovering six +frightened men upon their feet and one who, still seated, did not stir, +and never would again. + +His head fallen forward, chin resting on his chest, mouth ajar, inert +arms dangling over the arms of the chair, heavy legs lax, the +Englishman sat quite dead, dead without a sign to show how death had +come to him. + +Number One had disappeared. + +There was a remote rumour of cries and shouts, the muffled sound of +axes crashing into woodwork.... + + + + +IX +MRS. WARING + + +Late in the forenoon a pencil of golden light found a chink in +jealously drawn draperies, and groped the rich dusk of the bedchamber +till it came to rest, as if happy that its search had found so lovely a +reward, upon the face of a young girl who lay sleeping in a bed whose +exquisite adornment must have flattered even the exalted person of a +princess. + +With a swift but silent movement another girl, who had been sitting +patiently on a low stool near by, rose and put herself in the way of +the sunbeam. But too late: already long lashes were a-flutter upon the +delicately modelled cheeks of the sleeper. + +A gentle sigh brushed parting lips; the sweet body stirred luxuriously; +unclouded by any shadow of misgiving, the blue eyes of the Princess +Sofia looked out upon the first day of her new world. + +Then they grew wide with wonder, comprehending the sleek, pretty face +of a Chinese girl of about her own age who, with eyes downcast, demure +mouth and folded hands, submissively awaited recognition. + +“Who are you?” Sofia demanded in a breath. + +A bob of courtesy, wholly charming, prefaced a reply pattered in +English of quaintest accent: + +“You’ handmaiden—Chou Nu is my name.” + +“My handmaiden!” + +“Les, Plincess Sofia.” + +“But I don’t understand. How—when—?” + +“Las’ night Numbe’ One he send for me, but when I come you go-sleep.” + +“Number One?” + +Surprise coloured faintly the explanation: “Plince Victo’, honol’ble +fathe’ of Plincess Sofia. You like get up now, take bath, have +blekfuss?” + +The smile was irresistibly ingratiating: Sofia could not but return it. +Delighted, Chou Nu ran to the windows, threw wide their draperies, and +darted into the bathroom. + +Autumnal sunlight kindled to burning beauty the golden-bronze tresses +coiled upon the pillows where Sofia lay unstirring, like a princess +enchanted—as indeed she was. Surely nothing less potent than magic had +wrought this metamorphosis in the fabric of her life! And whether the +magic were white or black—what matter? Its work was good. + +No more the Café des Exiles, no more the deadly tedium of daily service +at the desk of the caisse, no more the shrewish tongue of Mama Thérèse, +the odious oglings of Papa Dupont, the ceaseless cark of discontent.... + +Incredible! + +As one who moves in a dream, Sofia rose presently and bathed, then, +robed in a ravishing negligée of rare brocade, breakfasted on melon, +tea, and toast from a service of eggshell china. + +In a long mirror she saw and watched but did not know herself. Like +Goody Twoshoes of nursery fame she could have cried: Lawkamercy! this +is never I! + +The presence of Chou Nu served merely to stress the sense of unreality: +for, obviously, only the heroine of a true fairy tale could have broken +from a chrysalis stage of sordid Soho to the brilliant butterfly +existence of a Russian princess domiciled in the most aristocratic +quarter of London and attended by a Chinese maid! + +And Chou Nu proved a delight. Once satisfied she need fear neither +ill-temper nor arrogance from her new mistress, she indulged an even +and constant flow of artless high spirits, her amusing, clipped English +affording Sofia considerable entertainment together with not a little +food for thought. + +Thus one learned that the main body of the service staff was Chinese +under a major domo named Shaik Tsin—Chou Nu’s “second-uncle”—who +enjoyed Prince Victor’s completest confidence and was, second to the +latter only, the real head of the establishment, its presiding genius. +The front of the house alone was dressed with a handful of English +servants nominally under the man Nogam, but actually, like him, +answerable in the last instance to Shaik Tsin. + +Why this should be Chou Nu couldn’t say. Sofia supposed it was because +Prince Victor thought his Occidental guests would feel more at ease +with English servants; or perhaps he himself preferred them, when it +came to the question of personal attendance. + +No success rewarded efforts to extract from Chou Nu her reason for +referring to Victor as “Number One.” She stated simply that all +Chinamans in London called him that; and being pressed further added, +with as near an approach to impatience as her gentle nature could +muster, that it was obviously because Plince Victo’ _was_ Numbe’ One: +ev’-body knew _that_. + +A knock at the door interrupted Sofia’s questioning. Answering, Chou +brought back word that the honourable father of Princess Sofia +submitted his august felicitations and solicited the immediate favour +of her serene attendance in his study. + +Hasty search failed to locate the garments discarded on going to bed +and, in the indifference of depression and fatigue, left in a tumble on +the floor. All had vanished while Sofia slept; Chou Nu professed blank +ignorance of their fate; and apparently nothing had been provided in +their stead but Chinese robes, of sumptuous vestments well suited to +one of high estate. With these, then, and with Chou Nu’s guidance as to +choice and ceremonious arrangement, Sofia was obliged to make shift; +and anything but unbecoming she found them—or truly it was a shape of +dream that looked out from her mirror. + +Yet it was with reluctant feet that she left her room, descended the +broad staircase to the entrance hall, and addressed herself to the +study door. It had been so beautiful, that waking dream the sequel to +her night of dreamless sleep, too beautiful to be foregone without +regret. + +For Sofia had not forgotten, she could never forget, she had merely +been successful temporarily in banishing from mind that bitter +disillusionment which had poisoned what should have been her time of +greatest joy. + +To be told, by the father of whose dear existence one had only learned +within the hour, that one was the child of a notorious thief and an +adventuress ... + +It needed more than common fortitude to face renewed reminder of that +shame. + +Oddly enough, it seemed to help a bit, somehow to lend her courage and +assurance, to pass the man Nogam in the hall and acknowledge his bow +and smile. Sofia wondered vaguely what it was that made his smile seem +so kind; it was entirely respectful, there was nothing more in it that +she could fix on; and yet ... + +She was able to offer Victor a composed, almost a happy countenance, +and to return cheerful assurances to punctilious enquiries after her +well-being and her comfort overnight. To the real affection in which he +held her, the warmth of his embrace, and the lingering pressure of his +lips gave convincing testimony; and in time, no doubt, as she grew to +know him better, her response would become more spontaneous and true. +Indeed, she insisted, it must; she would school herself, if need be, to +remember that this strange man was the author of her being, the natural +object of her affections—deserving all her love if only because of that +nobility which had enabled him to renounce those evil ways of years +long dead. + +But to-day—and this, of course, she couldn’t understand—a slight but +invincible shiver, perceptible to herself alone, attended her +submission to paternal caresses; and the eyes were too dispassionate +with which she saw Prince Victor. Still, they found little to which +fair exception might be taken. If Life had thus far been callously +frank with Sofia as to its broader aspects, the niceties of its +technique remained measurably a mystery, she was insufficiently +instructed to perceive that Victor’s morning coat (for example) had +been cut a shade too cleverly, or that the ensemble of his raiment was +a trace ornate; and where a mind more mondain would have marked +ponderable constraint in his manner, she saw only dignity and reserve. +But for all that she recognized intuitively a lack of something in the +man, the sum of this second impression of him was formless +disappointment, she felt somehow cheated, disheartened, chilled. + +That she was able at all to dissemble this sense of dashed expectations +was thanks in the main to a third party, a stranger whose presence she +overlooked on entering, when Prince Victor met her near the door, while +the other remained aside, half hidden in the recess of a window. + +Directly, however, that Victor half turned away, saying “I have found a +friend for you, my dear,” Sofia, following his glance, discovered a +woman whose every detail of dress and deportment was unmistakably of +the fashionable world and whose face carried souvenirs of loveliness as +unmistakable. + +Smiling and offering her hands, she approached, while Victor’s voice of +heavy modulations uttered formally: + +“Sybil, permit me to present my daughter. Sofia, Mrs. Waring has +graciously offered to sponsor your introduction to Society, to guide +and instruct you and be in every way your mentor.” + +“My dear!” the woman exclaimed, holding Sofia’s hands and kissing her +cheek. And then, looking aside to Victor, “But how very like!” she +added with the air of tender reminiscence. + +“Oh!” Sofia cried, “you knew my mother?” + +“Indeed—and loved her.” Sofia never dreamed to question the woman’s +sincerity; and her charm of manner was irresistible. “You must try to +like me a little for her sake—” + +“As if one could help liking you for your own, Mrs. Waring!” + +“Prettily said, my dear. You have inherited more from your mother than +your good looks alone. Is it not so, mon prince?” + +“Much more.” Victor’s enigmatic smile gave place to a look of regret +and uneasiness. “Let us hope, however, not too much. Heredity,” he +mused in sombre mood, “is a force of such fatality in our lives....” + +He gave a gesture of solicitude and continued with characteristic +deliberation, and that preciseness of diction which he seemed never +able to forget, even though deeply moved. + +“More than ever, now that Sofia is restored to me, I could wish the +past other than what it was, that she might start life with a handicap +less cruel of inherited tendencies. But when I reflect that both her +parents—” + +“Please!” Sofia begged, piteous. “Oh, please!” + +“I am sorry, my dear.” Victor closed tender hands over those which the +girl had lifted in appeal. “It is for your own good only I give myself +this pain of warning you against your worst enemy, I mean yourself, the +self that is so strange a compound of hereditary weaknesses.... Please +remember always that, no matter what may happen, however far you may be +led into transgression of the social codes, I shall never reproach you, +on the contrary, you may count implicitly on my sympathetic +understanding. Never forget, I, too, have known, have suffered and +fought myself—and in the end won at a cost I am not yet finished +paying, nor will be, I fear, this side my grave.” + +He sighed from his heart, and bowing a stricken head, seemed to lose +himself in disconsolate reverie—but not so far as to suffer the +interruption which Sofia made to offer and which he stayed with an +eloquent hand. + +“You do not understand? But naturally. Let me explain. No: there is no +reason why Sybil—Mrs. Waring—should not hear. She is a dear friend of +long years, she understands.” + +With a quiet murmur—“Oh, quite!”—Mrs. Waring ran an affectionate arm +round Sofia’s shoulders and gently held the girl to her. + +“When I determined to forsake the bad old ways,” Victor pursued—“this +you must know, my dear—I had friends—of a sort—who resented my +defection, set themselves against my will and, when they found they +could not swerve me from my purpose, became my enemies. That was long +ago, but to this day some of them persist in their enmity—I have to be +constantly on my guard.” + +“You mean there is danger?” Sofia asked in quick anxiety. “Your life—?” + +“Always,” Victor assented, gravely. With a shrug he added: “It is +nothing; for myself, I am used to it, I do not greatly care. But for +you—that is another matter altogether. I have a great fear for you, my +child. That, indeed, is why I never tried to find you till +yesterday—believing, as I mistakenly did, you were in good hands, well +cared for, happy—lest my enemies seek to strike at me through you. But +when I saw that unfortunate advertisement I dared delay not another +hour about bringing you within the compass of my protection. Even now, +untiring as my care for you shall ever be, I know my enemies will be as +tireless in endeavours to rob me of you. You will be followed, hounded, +importuned, lied to, threatened—all without rest. If they cannot take +you from me bodily, they will seek to poison your mind against me. +Therefore, rather than keep you practically a prisoner in your home, I +feel obliged to require a promise of you.” + +Deeply stirred by the melancholy gravity that informed his pose, the +girl protested earnestly: “Anything—I will promise anything, rather +than be an anxiety to one who is so kind.” + +“Kind? To my own daughter?” Victor smiled sadly. “But I love you, +little Sofia. Nor is it much that I must ask of you: merely that you +never go out alone, but only in the company of Mrs. Waring or Mr. +Karslake or, preferably, both.” + +“Oh, I promise that—” + +“But there is more: If by any accident you should ever find yourself +left alone in public, do not let strangers speak to you, refuse to +listen to them.” + +“I promise.” + +“And finally: If anybody should ever seek to turn you against me, come +to me instantly and tell me about it.” + +“But naturally I would do that, father.” + +“Good. I rely upon your discretion and loyalty. At another time I will +explain matters in more detail. For the present—enough of an unpleasant +subject. You have a busy day before you. At my request Mrs. Waring has +arranged to have various tradespeople wait upon you this morning to +take your orders for the beginnings of a wardrobe. If you can find +something ready-made to wear you will want, no doubt, to spend the +afternoon shopping. A car will be at your disposal, and I give you +carte blanche. I wish you never to know an unsatisfied need or desire. +Still, I am selfish enough to reserve for myself the happiness of +selecting your jewels.” + +“Oh!” Sofia cried, breathlessly. Victor was holding his arms open; and +how should she deny him? “You are too good to me,” she murmured. “How +can I ever show my gratitude?” + +Holding her close, Victor smiled a singular smile. + +“Some day I may tell you. But to-day—no more. I am much preoccupied +with affairs; but Mrs. Waring will take care of you till evening, when +I promise myself the pleasure of dining with you both.” + +At the sound of a knock he put Sofia gently from him, and said in a +strong voice: + +“Enter.” + +The door opened, Nogam announced: + +“Mr. Sturm.” + +Hard on the echo of his name a man swung into the room with an air at +once nervous and aggressive—a tall man shabbily dressed, holding his +head high—and at sight of Sofia and Mrs. Waring, where he had doubtless +thought to find Prince Victor alone, stopped short, betraying +disconcertion in the way he instinctively assumed the stand of a +soldier at attention, bringing his heels together with an undeniable +click, straightening his shoulders, stiffening both arms to rigidity at +his sides. And for a bare thought his eyes rolled almost wildly in +their deep sockets. Then he bowed twice, from the hips, with mechanical +precision, profoundly to Victor, with deep respect to the women. + +Victor smothered an exclamation of annoyance. + +Unbidden, a word shaped in Sofia’s consciousness, a French monosyllable +into which the war had packed every shade and gradation of hatred and +contempt, the epithet _Boche_. + +Immediately erasing every sign of irritation, Victor greeted the man +with casual suavity. “Oh, there you are, eh, Sturm?” Then, as Sofia and +Mrs. Waring turned to go, he added quickly: “A moment, please. Since +Mr. Sturm to-day becomes a member of the household, acting as my +assistant in some research work which I am undertaking, I may as well +present him now. Mrs. Waring, permit me: Mr. Sturm. And the Princess +Sofia Vassilyevski, my daughter ...” + +Mumbling their names after Victor, the man Sturm executed two more +bows. At the same time he seemed to remind himself that his soldierly +carriage was perhaps injudicious, and forthwith abandoned it for a +studied slouch which, in Sofia’s sight, was little less than insolent. +And unmistakably there was something nearly resembling insolence in the +eyes that boldly sought hers: a look equivocal at best and, +intentionally or no, wholly offensive in essence; as if the fellow were +asserting their partnership in some secret understanding; or as if he +knew something by no means to Sofia’s credit.... + +Her acknowledgment of his salute was accordingly cool, and she was glad +when a nod from Prince Victor gave her leave to go. + + + + +X +VICTOR ET AL + + +Those first few weeks of emancipation from the ennui of existence at +the Café des Exiles were so replete with wonders that Sofia lived +largely in a beatific state of breathless excitement, devoting the best +part of her days to thoughtless flying from delight to new delight, and +going nightly to her bed so healthily tired that she slept like a top +and never once awakened to memories of disturbing dreams. + +Perhaps her pleasure burned the brighter for its dark, ambiguous +background—those many questions which Prince Victor persisted in +leaving unanswered. Sofia knew bad times of perplexity and depression, +when the price of translation from drudge to princess seemed a sore +price to pay. + +And yet, required to state the cost to her in terms explicit, she must +have hesitated lest she appear ungrateful in complaining, who hardly +needed to express a wish to have it granted, who indeed knew many a +wish realized in fact before she was fully aware of its inception in +her private thoughts. + +All those lovely material things of life which her famished girlhood +had ached for so hopelessly now were hers in abundant measure, and all +the less tangible things, too, so requisite to the happiness of women +in a worldly world—or nearly all. Frocks she had, with furs and +furbelows no end; flowers and flattery and frivolities; freedom within +limitations as yet not irksome; jewels that would have graced an +imperial diadem—everything but the single essential without which +everything is hollow nothing and life itself only the dreaming of a +dream. + +The one lack known to the Sofia of those days was the lack of Love. + +She had gone so long longing to love, questing blindly and vainly for +some human being to whom her affection would mean something vital and +dear—it seemed cruel that her longing must be still denied. As it had +been with Mama Thérèse, it was now with the romantic father so newly +self-declared. She wanted desperately and tried her best to love Victor +as his daughter should; and that he cared for her profoundly she knew +and never questioned; yet when she searched her secret heart Sofia +discovered no feeling for the man other than a singular form of fear. +His look, his tone, his manner, his presence altogether, inspired a +nameless sort of shrinking, inarticulate apprehensions, and mistrust +which the girl found at once utterly unaccountable and dismally +disappointing; so that, with every wish and will to do otherwise, she +found herself involuntarily making excuse of trivial interests to keep +out of Victor’s way and, when there was no escaping, sitting silent and +ill at ease in his society, or seizing on some slender pretext, it +didn’t matter what, to inveigle into their company a third somebody, it +didn’t matter whom—Mrs. Waring, Karslake, even the unspeakable Sturm. + +Nevertheless, there were times, far too many of them, too, when of a +sudden Victor would forsake his occult preoccupations and, +unceremoniously upsetting whatever arrangements Sofia might have made +with Mrs. Waring or Karslake, would find other pleasures of his own +invention for her to share with him alone: long motor jaunts through +the English countryside, apparently his favourite recreation; a box all +to themselves at a theatre, where Victor would sit watching the girl +with a fascination only rivalled by her fascination with the traffic of +the boards; curiously constrained little dinners à deux in fashionable +restaurants; morning rides in Rotten Row, where it oddly appeared that +Victor knew everybody, whereas not one in five hundred seemed to know +him—or to care to know him. + +Sofia, indeed, was often puzzled to account for what to her appeared to +be an almost pathetic eagerness on the part of Victor, in strange +accord with his lofty pretensions, to claim acquaintanceship with and +win the recognition even of persons of the utmost inconsequence. And +she remarked, too, that his temper was apt to be raw in sequel to their +excursions into the haunts of the well-known. But it was for other +reasons altogether that she came to dread them most. + +For one thing, Victor’s conversation was ordinarily rather dull; at +best, the reverse of exhilarating. And in spite of her unquestioning +acceptance of him as her father, he remained to Sofia actually a new +acquaintance; in effect, a strange man. And from strangers, more than +from relatives with whose minds one is presumably on terms of close +intimacy, one is warranted in expecting something in the way of mutual +stimulation through the opening of new perspectives of experience, +thought, and feeling. Whereas—with Sofia, at least—Victor seemed unable +to talk on more than two subjects, one or the other of which was +constantly uppermost in his thoughts. + +He never wearied of warning Sofia against the dangers of those moral +infirmities which he asserted were hers by legitimate inheritance; and +which, if Victor were right in his contentions, she could hardly hope +to overcome without a desperate struggle. She would have to be forever +on guard, he insisted, lest the temptation of some moment, not to be +foreseen, prove too strong for her latent weakness of character, and +commit her, through some unpremeditated act of defiance to the law—most +probably an act of theft—to the life of a social outcast. + +To do her justice, the girl was consciously not much impressed by this +alleged peril. She had never been aware of any failing such as Victor +would have endowed her with; so far as she could remember she had never +been tempted to commit more venial sins than inhered in lying to Mama +Thérèse now and then in order to escape unmerited disciplining at the +heavy hands of that industrious virago; and as for thieving, the very +thought of anything of that sort was detestable to Sofia. + +But unconsciously, no doubt, the everlasting iteration of Victor’s +admonitions had its purposed effect upon that sensitive and +impressionable spirit. + +Then, too, by degrees, but all too soon, it became manifest that the +memory of his passionate attachment for her mother possessed Victor to +the point of monomania. It was only with an effort that he could force +himself to talk to Sofia on other subjects. He thought of nothing else +while with her; if she read his eyes aright, often glimpses of weird +light flickering in their opaque depths, like heat lightning of a murky +summer’s night, fairly frightened her, and she knew a shuddering +perception of the possibility that Victor was at times in danger of +confusing the daughter with the mother. + +“Never was there such resemblance,” he once uttered, in a stare. “You +are more like her than she herself!” + +Sofia was pardonably puzzled, and looked it. + +“I mean, you re-create my vision of the woman I loved and lost—the +woman I saw in her, not the woman she was.” + +“Lost?” the girl murmured. + +The gray countenance took on an added shade of sombre passion. “She +never understood me, she treated me badly. Once, in a fit of pique, she +ran away. I did everything—everything, I tell you!—to win her back, +but—” + +He choked on bitter recollections—and Sofia was painfully reminded of +the Chinese devil-masks in Victor’s study. But the likeness faded even +as she saw it, under her gaze the twisted features were ironed back +into their accustomed cast of austerity. + +“Before I could persuade her, you were born.... Then she died.” + +Sensible though she was of the ellipsis, and afraid it would never be +filled in if she interrupted, Sofia could not help uttering a sound of +regret and pity for the lot of the mother she had never seen, whose +untimely death had ended a life accounted unendurable as Victor’s wife, +for reasons unknown but none the less, to the daughter, vaguely and +lamentably understandable. + +For Sofia by now had passed the stage of pretending to herself that she +was not happier away from her father. + +Victor mistook the nature of the feeling that swayed the girl—took to +himself the sympathy excited by his revelations. + +“But do not grieve on my account. Is not that which was lost restored +again to me? In you my old love lives once more ... little Sofia!” + +He caught and pressed a hand that rested on the cloth between them. +(They happened that night to be dining at the Ritz.) And Sofia +re-experienced that inevitable, hateful flinching with which she was +growing too familiar. + +She dropped her head that her eyes might not betray her. + +“People will see ...” + +“What if they do? Those who know us will hardly see any wrong in my +squeezing the hand of my own daughter; and the others—not that they +matter—will only think me the luckiest dog alive—as I am!” + +Chuckle and smirk both were indescribably odious, reminding Sofia of +the creature Sturm; _he_ had a laugh like that for her, on the rare +occasion when chance propinquity encouraged the Boche to begin one of +his uncouth essays in flirtation. + +Sturm’s attitude, in truth, perplexed Sofia to exasperation; that is to +say, as much as it offended her. For Victor the man seemed to entertain +an exaggerated yet deeply rooted respect, approaching actual awe, which +he tried his best to carry off with a swagger; for to hold anybody in +any degree of deference was, one judged, somehow deplorable, even +shameful, in the code of Sturm; but in Victor’s presence the fellow’s +bravado would quickly wilt into hopeless servility, he would cringe and +crawl like a dog currying the favour of a harsh master. + +Nevertheless, Victor’s daughter seemed to be no more than fair game, in +Sturm’s understanding, and a source of supercilious amusement but +thinly veiled or not at all. Alone with the girl, Sturm put on the airs +of a Prussianized pasha condescending to a new odalisque. + +Sofia held the animal in a deadly loathing which, betrayed in word or +look or gesture, animated in him only a spirit of derision. In the +absence of Victor, Sturm’s eyes were ever ironic, his bows and leers +mocking, his speeches flavoured with clumsy sarcasm; from which it +resulted that the girl never quite forgot the impression which he had +managed to convey in those few moments of their first encounter, that +Sturm knew something she ought to know but didn’t, and was meanly +jeering at her in his sleeve. + +What virtues Victor Vassilyevski perceived in the man passed +comprehension. But so did most of Victor’s whims and ways. What riddle +more obscure than that portentous business which permeated the +atmosphere of the establishment with the taint of stealth and +terror?—the famous “research work” that kept Victor closeted with Sturm +in his study daily for hours at a time, often in confabulation with +others of like ilk, men of furtive and unprepossessing cast who came +and went by appointment at all hours, but as a rule late at night! + +Into these conferences, Sofia observed, Karslake was never summoned. +She wondered why. He was, as she saw him, so unquestionably the better +man, everything that Sturm was not, open of countenance, fair of temper +and tongue, well-bred and well-mannered, light of heart and high +spirited, and at the same time dependable, with metal of sincerity and +earnestness like tempered steel in his character—or Sofia misread him +woefully. + +She had been quick to see the man behind the misleading little +moustache. And already she was beginning to count that amusement tame +which Karslake did not share. + +Mrs. Waring was undeniably a dear. Sofia could hardly be grateful +enough to the happy chance which had cast that lady for the rôle of her +chaperone; lacking her guidance the girl must have been innocently +guilty of many a gaucherie in ways new and strange to untried, +faltering feet. And it was to her alone that Sofia owed the slow but +constant widening of her social horizon. For Sybil Waring, it seemed, +quite literally “knew everybody”; and Sofia soon learned to count it an +off day when Sybil failed to present her protégée to the notice of +somebody of position and influence. + +Most of these persons were women with sounding names and the solid +backing of much money conspicuously in evidence—matrons of the younger +and more giddy generation which was just then so busily engaged in +providing material for the most hectic chapters of London’s post-war +social history. But Sofia was scarcely qualified to be critical or to +guess that they were climbers equally with herself, and that if their +footing had been of older establishment the name of Vassilyevski would +have rung sinister echoes in their memories, deafening them to the rich +allure inherent in the title of princess. + +So she was fain to accept them all at their own valuation, and thought +most of them entirely charming. And though she had hardly had time as +yet to progress beyond the introductory stages of chance meetings and +informal little teas in public, she began clearly to descry enchanting +vistas of better days to come, when the Princess Sofia Vassilyevski +would have not only teas but dinners and dances given in her honour, +and would be asked to spend gay week-ends in the country houses of the +people with whom she contracted the stronger friendships. + +But for the immediate present, and especially in the paramount business +of having a good time, Karslake was fairly a necessity. He thought of +everything and forgot nothing, was ever fertile of fresh expedient if +the pastime of a moment began to pall, and was capable of sustained +fits of irresponsible gaiety which enchanted Sofia, so well did they +chime with her own eagerness for sheer fun. + +Decidedly she would have been lost without Sybil Waring; but without +Karslake she would have been forlorn. + + + + +XI +HEARTBREAK + + +Not yet prepared to admit it even to herself, in her heart Sofia knew +she prized the companionship of Karslake for something more than the +mere amusement it afforded her: there was a deeper feeling she would +not name. For all that, her times of solitude knew dreams quick and +warm with the thought of Karslake, his words and ways, the gracious +little attentions he had accustomed her to expect of him and which his +manner subtly invested with a personal flavour inexpressibly +delightful, indispensably sweet. + +Nor did she ever quite forget how long he had worshipped with +unostentatious devotion at her lowly shrine of the caisse in the Café +des Exiles, and how shabbily she had rewarded his admiration—never +once, in those many months, with so much as a smile—and how unresentful +had been his acceptance of her half-feigned, half-real indifference to +his existence. + +But whenever her reflections took that back-turning she would recall +the man who had talked to Karslake in the café, that day so long ago, +of his own humble past as a ’bus-boy in Troyon’s in Paris, and who on +leaving had given Sofia herself that odd look of half-recognition +tempered by bewilderment. + +She tried once to draw Karslake about this acquaintance of his, but +Karslake’s memory proved unusually sluggish. + +“No-o,” he drawled after a tolerably long pause for thought—“can’t say +I place the chap you mean, can’t seem somehow to think back that far, +you know. One meets such a lot of people, first and last, they talk +such a lot of tosh—” + +“But it couldn’t have been only tosh you were talking,” the girl +persisted, “because—_I_ remember—you were so keen about keeping what +you said secret, you spoke the strangest language together most of the +time. I could hear every word”—she had already explained about the +freak acoustics of the Café des Exiles—“and not one meant anything to +me.” + +“Stupid of me, but I simply can’t think what it could have been.” + +“I can—now.” + +Karslake looked askance at Sofia. + +“Since I’ve heard so much Chinese spoken by the servants—now I come to +think of it”—Sofia’s eyes grew bright with triumph—“I’m sure it must +have been Chinese you were speaking to the man I mean.” + +“Impossible,” Karslake pronounced calmly. + +“But you do know Chinese, don’t you?” + +“Not a syllable.” + +Sofia opened her lips to protest, but delayed to study Karslake’s face +intently. He didn’t try to escape her scrutiny, he even seemed to court +it; but there was a curious, quizzical look in his eyes, those +half-smiling lips had a whimsical droop. + +“Mr. Karslake!” Sofia announced, severely, “you’re fibbing.” + +“Nice thing to say to me.” + +“You do speak Chinese—confess.” + +“My dear Princess Sofia,” Karslake protested: “if I had known one word +of Chinese I could never have landed my job with your father.” + +“Why not?” + +“He expressly stipulated that I should be ignorant of that language.” + +“What a silly condition to make!” + +“Still, I daresay Prince Victor had his reasons.” + +“I can’t imagine what ...” + +“Possibly preferred a secretary who couldn’t understand everything he +said to the servants. I’ve never pretended to know all Prince Victor’s +secrets, you know.” + +After a little pause Sofia asked gently: “Did you really need the job +so badly, Mr. Karslake?” + +“To get it meant more to me than I can tell you—almost as much as to +hold on to it does to-day.” + +Sofia turned her eyes away at this, and for the rest of the ride—they +were homeward bound from a matinée, having dropped Sybil Waring at her +flat in Mayfair—kept her thoughts to herself. + +Only the most perfunctory civilities passed between them, in fact, +until they had been ushered into the study by Nogam, who advised them +that Prince Victor had ordered tea to be served there and had promised +to be home in good time for it. + +The tea service was already set out on a little table beside the +fireplace in that room of secrets, whose normal atmosphere of brooding +gloom was now the darker for the deepening dusk. Only the tea itself +remained to be served, a special rite never performed in that household +by hands more profane than those of the major-domo, Shaik Tsin himself. +And this last could be counted upon not to put in appearance until +Nogam took him word that Victor was waiting. + +So, having laid aside her furs and satisfied herself, by a seemingly +aimless but in fact exacting survey, that the abominable Sturm was not +skulking anywhere in the shadows, Sofia established herself on a lounge +that faced the fireplace, while Karslake stood before the fire, looking +down with an expectant smile of which she was but half aware. + +“Aren’t you going to forgive me?” he asked, quietly, after a time. + +Sofia withdrew a pensive gaze from the ruddy bed of coals. + +“For what?” + +“You were kind enough to call it merely fibbing.” + +“I’m still thinking about that.” + +In fact, she had been thinking of nothing else. There was so much to be +considered. Imprimis, that Karslake had been guilty of practising a +deception upon her father. Deceit in itself was one form of treachery. +And how often had Victor stressed to her the dangers of his position, +surrounded by nameless but implacable enemies who would stick at no +infamy to compass his ruin! + +But if she told him that Karslake understood Chinese she would lose her +friend forever—no question about that. Victor would not hesitate an +instant—indeed, Sofia felt sure he was only waiting for some such +pretext to get rid of his secretary. She was anything but unobserving, +this child of Soho, whose wits had been sharpened in the sophisticated +atmosphere of a French restaurant; and more than once she had seen +Victor’s face duplicate the expression Papa Dupont’s had so often +assumed on his discovering that some patron of the café was taking too +personal an interest in the pretty young dame du comptoir. A look of +insensate jealousy ... + +To risk forfeiting the comradeship that had grown to be so dear? Or to +be constructively derelict in her duty as a daughter? + +A difficult choice to make; but Sofia made it honestly. In point of +fact, she assured herself, coldly, there was no choice, there was only +one thing she could do under the circumstances. And she hardened her +heart and eyes as she rose to face Karslake on more equal terms. + +But when she saw him waiting patiently, with that friendly smile of his +she knew so well, she hesitated long enough to permit his anticipating +her with a quiet question: + +“Well, Princess Sofia?” + +And then, amazingly, her tongue betrayed her, the phrases she had +framed so carefully vanished utterly from out her mind; and she heard +herself saying in rather tremulous accents: + +“It’s all right. I shan’t tell.” + +“About my understanding Chinese?” + +“Yes—about that.” + +“Then you do care—?” + +She was panicky with knowledge that somehow her emotions had managed to +slip their moorings and get beyond her handling. It didn’t help or mend +matters much to hear her own voice stammering: + +“Yes, of course, I—I don’t want you to—to have to go away—” + +Oh, the vanity of trying to hoodwink him who knew so well what she was +now for the first time realizing! + +“Because you like me a little, Princess Sofia?” + +“Why—yes—of course I do—” + +“Because you know I love you, dear.” + +And then she found herself clinging to Karslake; and his lips were warm +upon her hands ... + +So suddenly and at long last it came to Sofia, that Love for which all +her days had been one long weariness of waiting, Love that brimmed with +raptures what had been only aching emptiness and made the desert places +to blossom as the rose. And the joy of it proved overmastering, +sweeping her off her feet and dazing her, leaving her breathless and +thoughtless but for the all-obscuring thought—at length she loved, and +the one whom she loved loved her! + +And for a space she existed in an iridescent dream of happiness, +without sense of relation to a material world, forgetful of the flight +of time, lost to everything but her lover’s arms and voice and lips. + +It might have been five minutes, it might have been sixty, before she +became aware that Karslake was gently disengaging her hands. “Dearest, +dearest!” she heard him say. “We must be sensible. That was the front +door, I’m afraid.” + +The meaning in his insistence presently began to penetrate, if vaguely, +and she suffered him to go from her a pace or two. But, still a little +blind with the beauty of the revelation that had been granted unto her, +nothing that met her gaze seemed to be in true focus except her lover’s +face: even the countenance of Victor swam into her ken as if blurred by +veils of mist, its dour, forbidding look had no significance to her +intelligence. Victor himself, for that matter, was a figure without +real consequence other than as a symbol of the old order, the tedious +old ways of the world from which she had magically escaped. + +A ring of sarcastic apology provided the only clue she got to the +import of Victor’s words. Sobered a trifle, her mental processes +somewhat less incoherent, still she knew she would hardly regain her +poise until she was alone. And breathing an excuse, she left the room +with such dignity as she could muster. + +In the hall, with the closed door behind her, she paused to collect +herself. Then she missed furs and gloves and handbag and, remembering +that she had left them in the study, for some obscure reason imagined +she must have them before proceeding to her room. + +Much more mistress of herself by now, it never occurred to Sofia that +there could be any reason why she should hesitate about returning or +feel embarrassed before Victor. True, he had surprised them, Sofia was +not at all sure he hadn’t actually seen her in Karslake’s arms. But +what of that? Love like hers was nothing to be ashamed of; and that +Victor could reasonably object to her giving her heart to one of his +secretaries was something far from her thought just then. + +She put a hand to the knob, turned it, and swung the door open—all on +impulse—then faltered, transfixed by the tableau before the fireplace. + +The door was silent on its hinges, and Karslake’s back was to her. +Victor, on the other hand, facing both Karslake and the door, +unquestionably saw Sofia, but pretended not to, and had his say out +with Karslake in a manner bitterly cynical. + +“... sadly in error if you flatter yourself I pay you a wage to make +love to Sofia behind my back.” + +“Sorry, sir.” Karslake’s tone was level, respectful but firm. “Your +instructions were, I believe, to win her confidence. Well—I have always +found love the one sure key to a woman’s confidence. Of course, if I +had understood you cared one way or the other—” + +Sofia heard no more: unconsciously she had closed the door, at one and +the same time shutting from her sight Victor’s exultant sneer and from +her hearing the words with which the man whom she loved had damned +himself irretrievably and dashed her spirit from radiant pinnacles of +ecstasy into the profoundest black abyss of shame and despair. + +Primitive instinct bade the stricken girl seek her room and hide her +suffering there; but the shock had stunned her to the point of physical +weakness. Already a hand was pressed above her heart, that ached +cruelly; and as she moved to cross to the foot of the staircase her +knees gave under her. She clutched the newel-post for support, waiting +to find strength for the ascent. + +From the shadowed back part of the hall the man Nogam moved hastily +into view, his features twisted in a grimace of concern as he +recognized the bleak misery of Sofia’s face. His voice sounded +strangely thin and remote. + +“Is there anything the matter, miss?—anything I can do?” + +She contrived to shake her head slightly and utter an inarticulate +sound of negation, then began slowly to mount the stairs. + +Below, Nogam stood watching, in a pose of indecision, as if tempted to +follow and offer the support of an arm lest she fall, restrained only +by fear of a rebuff. But Sofia’s leaden limbs carried her safely to the +upper landing, then on to the blessed shelter of her room, where she +collapsed upon a chaise-longue and there lay in a stirless huddle, dry +of eye but deaf to the plaintive entreaties of Chou Nu and numb to all +sensation but the anguish of her humiliated heart. + + + + +XII +SUSPECT + + +Toward mid-evening the man Victor Vassilyevski and his creature Sturm +sat where the lamp of hand-wrought brass made the top of the teakwood +table an oasis of light amid a waste of shadows, their heads together +over a vast glut of books and papers—maps printed and sketched, curious +diagrams, works of reference, documents all dark with columns of +figures and cabalistic writings intelligible only to initiated eyes. + +They had the study all to themselves. Nevertheless, when they spoke it +was in the discreet pitch of those who deal in fatal secrets. At a +distance of two paces only a lip-reader could have caught the substance +of their communications, and even such a one must have failed unless +equally at home in German and in English. + +Aside from these occasional and circumspect voices, and the busy rustle +of a steel pen in the hand of Sturm, the quiet of the room had a +tolerably constant background of sound in a subdued whisper punctuated +by muffled clicks, emanating from the bronze casket that housed the +telautographic apparatus. + +From time to time, as this noise temporarily suspended, Victor would +get up, read what the mechanical stylus had inscribed, tear off the +paper, and return to his chair. + +Some of the messages thus received he made known to Sturm, who +invariably acknowledged this courtesy with effusive gratitude, +sometimes adding a few words of contented comment. Other messages +Victor chose to keep to himself, silently setting fire to them and +adding their brittle ashes to those of their predecessors on the brazen +tray provided for the purpose. At such times Sturm would bend lower +over his work. But Victor was well able to guess what resentment +glimmered in the eyes so studiously averted; and his cold, sardonic +smile more than once commented, unknown to Sturm, upon the accuracy +with which he read the mean workings of his “secretary’s” mind. + +The buzz of a muted bell presently interrupted the even tenor of their +industry, causing Sturm to start sharply, drop his pen, and slue round +in his chair, turning to Victor a livid face in which his dark eyes of +a fanatic were live embers of excitement. + +Without a sign to show he shared or even was aware of Sturm’s emotion, +Victor deliberately fished from beneath the table a telephone +instrument, unhooked the receiver, and pronounced a conventional phrase +of greeting. To this he added a short “Yes,” and after listening +quietly for some seconds, “Very good—in twenty minutes, then.” Wasting +no more time on the author of the call, he hung up, returned the +telephone to its place of concealment, and helped himself to a +cigarette before deigning to acknowledge Sturm’s persistent stare. + +Then, elevating his eyebrows in mild impatience, he made the laconic +announcement: + +“Eleven.” + +Sturm’s mouth twitched nervously, his eyes burned with a keener fire. + +“Coming here? To-night?” + +“Yes.” + +“Then”—a gaunt hand described a gesture of agitation—“the hour +strikes!” + +Victor looked bored. + +“Who knows?” he replied, as who should say: “Does it matter?” + +“But—Gott in Himmel—!” + +“Sturm,” Victor interposed, critically, “if you Bolsheviki were a +trifle more consistent, one might repose greater faith in your +sincerity. But when one hears you deny the Deity in one breath and call +on him by name in the next—!” + +“A mere mode of speech,” Sturm muttered. + +“If you must invoke a spiritual patron, why not Satan? Or don’t you +believe in the Powers of Darkness, either?” + +“I believe in you.” + +“As temporal viceroy of Lucifer? Many thanks! But you were about to +say—?” + +“Nothing. That is—I was envying your poise, Excellency. You take things +so coolly.” + +“Why not?” + +“With Eleven coming here to tell us when we are to strike?” + +“Why not?” Victor repeated. “We are prepared to strike at any hour. +What matters whether to-night or a week from to-night—since we cannot +fail?” + +“If that were only certain!” + +“It rests with you.” + +“That’s just it,” Sturm doubted moodily. “Suppose _I_ fail?” + +“Why, then—I suppose—you will die.” + +“I know. And so will all of us, Excellency.” + +“Oh, no. Undeceive yourself, my friend. I shall survive. You will +surely die, and perhaps many others with you; but I would not be Number +One if I had turned my hand to this scheme without discounting failure +first of all. My way of escape is sure.” + +“I believe you,” Sturm grumbled. + +With a languid hand Victor found and pressed a button embedded in the +table near the edge. + +“You have reason. Whatever my shortcomings, my good Sturm, they do not +include hypocrisy; I do not pretend, like your noble Bolsheviki, I am +in this business for the sake of humanity or anything but my own +selfish ends—power, plunder”—a slight wait prefaced one final word, +spoken in a key of sombre passion—“revenge.” + +“Revenge?” Sturm echoed, staring. + +“I have more than one score to pay out before I can cry even with life +... one above all!” + +Studying intently that darkened face, and misled by its look of +abstraction, Sturm was guilty of the indiscretion of his malicious +smile. + +“The Lone Wolf?” + +Victor turned weary eyes his way, and under their black and lustreless +regard the smile merged swiftly into a grin of nervous apology. + +“You are shrewd,” Victor observed, thoughtfully. “Be careful: it is a +dangerous gift.” + +The man Nogam gently opened the door and approached the table, stopping +just outside the area of illumination shed by the shaded lamp. But +since Victor continued to smoke absently, paying no attention, Nogam +resigned himself to wait with entire patience: the perfect pattern of a +servant tempered by long servitude to the erratic winds of employers’ +whims; efficient, assiduous, mute unless required to speak, +long-suffering. + +Victor addressed him suddenly, in a sharp voice that drew from Sturm a +glitter of eager spite. + +“Nogam!” + +“Yes, sir?” + +“Where is the Princess Sofia?” + +“In ’er apartment, sir.” + +“And Mr. Karslake?” + +“In ’is.” + +“Then be good enough to send Shaik Tsin to me.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And, Nogam!”—the servant checked in the act of turning—“I shan’t need +you again to-night.” + +“’Nk you, sir.” + +When Nogam had left the room, Sturm, remarking the slight frown that +knitted Victor’s brows, ventured an impertinence couched in a form of +respectful enquiry: + +“Excellency, perhaps you trust that fellow too much, hein?” + +“You think so?” + +“He is too perfect, if you ask me—never makes a false move.” + +“Either he is what he seems, in which event a false move would be +against nature; or he is not, and knows one slip would mean his death.” + +“Still, I maintain you trust him too much.” + +“With what?” + +“The freedom of your house, the opportunity to spy, to get to know who +comes to see you and when, to listen at doors.” + +“You have caught him listening at doors?” + +“Not yet. But in time—” + +“I think not. I don’t think he has to.” + +“You mean,” Sturm stammered, perturbed, “you think he knows—suspects?” + +“I think he is one thing or the other: merely Nogam, or one of the +greatest of living actors. In either case he is flawless—thus far. But +if not merely Nogam, he will have a subtler means of eavesdropping than +by listening at doors.” + +“The dictograph?” + +“Make your mind easy about that. This room is searched regularly by +Shaik Tsin. So is Nogam’s. It is certain there is neither a dictograph +installed here nor any means at Nogam’s disposal for connecting with a +dictograph installation. Indeed, so closely is Nogam watched, and by +more cunning eyes than mine—sometimes I begin to be afraid he is simply +what he seems.” + +“Then you do suspect him!” + +“My good Sturm, I suspect everybody.” + +Sturm pondered this before pressing his point again. + +“Karslake found the fellow for you,” he suggested at length. + +“True.” + +“And Karslake—” + +“Has been guilty of nothing more treacherous than falling in love with +Sofia.” + +“Your daughter, Excellency!” + +“The young woman seems content to call herself that.... Can’t say I +blame Karslake.” + +“But do you forgive him?” + +“Ah, that is another matter. Mine is not a forgiving nature, Sturm—not +even toward excessive shrewdness.” + +Victor took up a docket of papers, and Sturm, mumbling an apology, gave +himself up to jealous brooding till he forgot the broad hint he had +received. + +“If I can satisfy you that Nogam is untrustworthy—” he began, meaning +to continue: _Karslake will stand his proved accomplice_. + +But Victor would not let him finish. “Nothing could please me more,” he +interrupted. “Do so, by all means—if you can—and earn my everlasting +gratitude.” + +Sturm questioned him with puzzled eyes. + +“I ask no greater service of any man,” Victor elucidated with a smile +that made Sturm shiver, “than proof that Nogam is what I suspect him of +being.” A hand extended upon the table unclosed and closed slowly, with +fingers tensed, like a murderous claw. “I want no greater favour of +Heaven or Hell—!” + +He broke off abruptly. Having entered noiselessly in his padded shoes, +Shaik Tsin now stood before Victor, offering a low obeisance. + +“You took your time,” Victor grumbled. And Shaik Tsin smiled serenely. +“I want you to tend the door to-night,” Victor pursued. “Eleven is +expected at any moment. You need not announce him, simply show him in.” + +“Hearing is obedience.” + +“Wait”—as the Chinaman began to bow himself out—“Karslake is still in +his room, I suppose?” + +“Yes, master.” + +“And Nogam?” + +“Has just gone to his.” + +“When did you last search their quarters?” + +“During dinner.” + +“And of course found nothing?” Shaik Tsin bowed. “Make sure neither +leaves his room to-night. Set a watch outside each door.” + +“I have done so.” + +Victor gave a sign of dismissal. + + + + +XIII +THE TURNIP + + +In a spacious chamber beneath the eaves, hideously papered and +furnished with cheerless, massive relics of the early Victorian era, +the man Nogam pursued methodical preparations for bed. + +Spying eyes, had there been any—and for all Nogam knew, there +were—would have seen him follow step by step a programme from whose +order he had departed by scarcely as much as a single gesture on any +night since his first installation in the house near Queen Anne’s Gate. + +Loosening the waistcoat of his evening livery, he freed the heavy +silver watchchain from its buttonhole, drew from its pocket an +old-fashioned silver watch of that obese style which first earned the +portable timepiece its nickname of “turnip,” and opening its back +inserted a key attached to the other end of the chain. Its winding was +a laborious process, prodigiously noisy. Once finished, Nogam shut the +back with a loud click, and reverently deposited the watch on the +marble slab of the black walnut bureau. + +Then he hung coat and waistcoat over the back of a chair which stood +between the foot of his bed and the door. Sheer chance may have decreed +selection of this chair for the purpose on Nogam’s first night in the +room; whether or no, it was not in character that, having established +this precedent, Nogam should depart from it. And in any event, the +coat-draped chair effectually eclipsed a possible keyhole view of the +room. + +Notwithstanding, Nogam pursued his bedtime rites with precisely the +same deliberation and absence of perceptible self-consciousness as +before. One never knew: there might be other peepholes in the walls. + +His trousers, neatly folded, he laid out on the seat of the chair. Then +he pulled off square-toed boots with elastic inserts in their uppers, +put on a pair of worn slippers, carried the boots to the door and set +them outside, closed the door, and turned the key in its lock. + +If aware that, by so doing, he made his privacy just as secure as if he +had fastened the door with a bent hair-pin, he gave evidence of no +uneasiness in the knowledge. A clear conscience is the best of nerve +tonics. + +Throughout, his features preserved their mild, subdued, dull habit with +which the household was familiar. Nogam off duty was in no way +different from the unthinking creature of habit who performed +belowstairs the prescribed functions of his office. + +Having donned a nightshirt of coarse cotton, he knelt for several +minutes in a devout attitude by the side of his bed, then rising opened +the window, took the turnip from the bureau, and snuggled it beneath +his pillow, inserted his bare shanks between the sheets, and opened at +a marked place a Bible bound in black cloth. + +On the table by his shoulder a battered electric standard with a frayed +cord and a dingy shade remained alight long enough to permit Nogam to +spell out a short chapter. Then he put the Bible aside, yawned wearily, +and switched out the lamp. + +Profound darkness now possessed the room, immaterially modified by the +light-struck sky beyond the windows. And in this grateful obscurity +Nogam permitted himself the luxury of ceasing to be Nogam. A light +suddenly flashed upon his face would have discovered a keen and alert +intelligence transfiguring the apathetic mask of every day. Also, it +would have rendered Nogam’s probable duration of life an interesting +speculation. + +Under cover of the darkness, furthermore, he did a number of things +which Nogam, qua Nogam, would never have dreamed of doing. + +His first act was to withdraw from under his pillow the turnip, his +next to re-open the back of its silver case and then the inner +lid—something which a deft thumbnail accomplished without a sound. + +From the roomy interior of the case—whose bulky ancient works had been +replaced by a wafer-thin modern movement, leaving much useful space +back of the dial—sensitive fingers extracted a metal disk about the +size and thickness of a silver dollar. One face of this disk was +generously perforated, the other, solid, boasted a short blunt post +round which several feet of extremely fine wire had been coiled. + +Unwinding the wire and bending the free end into the form of a rude +hook, the man attached this last to the cord of his bedside lamp at a +point, located by sense of touch, where a minute section of electric +light wire had been left naked by defective insulation. + +Direct connection now being established with a microphone secreted in +the base of the brass lamp on the study table, three floors below, and +the perforated side of the microphone detector serving as an earpiece, +one could hear every word uttered by the conspirators. + +The man in bed contributed a broad smile to the kind darkness—sheer +luxury to facial muscles cramped and constrained to the cast of Nogam +for eighteen hours a day. He was now at last to reap the reward of +three months of preparation and three weeks of ingenious, but +necessarily spasmodic, and at all times desperately dangerous, +tampering with the house wiring system. + +He lay very still for a long time, listening ... + + + + +XIV +CONFERENCE OF THE DAMNED + + +An Irish voice was making the hush of the study musical with mellow +cadences. + +“This week-end sure, your Excellency—within the next three nights—the +little Welshman will be after summoning the Cabinet to sit in secret in +Downing Street, with His Most Gracious Majesty attending in person; the +emergency extraordinary being thoughtfully provided by this shindig me +amiable but spirited fellow-countrymen are kicking up across the +Channel—God bless the work!” + +The speaker laughed lightly, flashing white teeth at Prince Victor +across the width of the paper-strewn table. + +“In more Parliamentary language, by the Irish Question. But we’ll hear +no more of that, I’m thinking, once we’ve proclaimed the Soviet +Government of England.” + +Victor bowed in grave assent. + +“You have my word as to that,” he said; and after a moment of +thoughtful consideration: “You speak, no doubt, from the facts?” + +“I do that. It’s straight I’ve come from the House of Commons to bring +you the news without an hour’s delay. There’s more than one advantage +in being an Irish Member these days.” + +“On the other hand, Eleven”—Victor stressed the numeral as if to remind +the Irishman that even a Member of Parliament for Ireland held no +higher standing in his esteem than any other underling in his +association of anonymous conspirators—“even so, it appears you are +uncertain as to the night.” + +“I’m after telling you it’ll be to-morrow night or more likely +Saturday—Sunday at the latest.” A mildly impatient accent alone +betrayed resentment of the snub. “I’ll know in good time, long before +the hour appointed; and that ought to do, providing you on your part +are prepared.” + +“An hour’s notice will be ample,” Victor agreed. “We have been ready +for days, needing only the knowledge you bring us—or will, when you +have it definitely.” + +The Irishman chuckled. + +“It’s hard to believe. Not that I’d dream of doubting your statement, +sir—but yourself won’t be denying you must have worked fast to organize +England for revolution in less than three weeks.” + +“I have been busy,” Victor admitted. “But the work was not so difficult +... Seeds of revolution are easily sown in land thoroughly tilled by +forces of discontent. And what land has been better tilled? To vary the +figure: England is all seething beneath a thin crust of custom and +established habit whose integrity a conservative and reactionary +government has ever since the war been struggling desperately to +preserve. The blow we shall strike within three days will shatter that +crust in a hundred places.” + +“And let Hell loose!” the Irishman added with a nervous laugh. + +In a dry voice Victor commented: “Precisely.” + +“Omelettes,” Sturm interjected, assertively, “are not made without +breaking eggs.” + +“And all rivers, no doubt, flow to the sea? What a lot you know, Herr +Sturm! Is it the Portfolio of the Minister of Education you’ve picked +out for your very own, after the explosion comes off—if it’s a fair +question?” + +“You Irish are all mad,” the German complained, sourly—“mad about +laughing. Even me you will laugh at, while you trust your very life to +me, while you trust to my genius to make Soviet England possible and +Ireland free.” + +“Faith! you’re away off there, me friend. If it was you and your genius +I had to trust, it’s meself would turn violent reactionary and advise +Ireland to be a good dog and come to England’s heel and lick England’s +hand and live off England’s leavings. I’ll trust nobody in this black +business but himself—Number One.” + +“You have changed your tune since that night at the Red Moon,” Sturm +reminded him, angrily. + +“I had me lesson then and there,” Eleven agreed, cheerfully. “And I +don’t mind telling you, the next time I’m taken with a fancy to call me +soul me own, I’ll be after asking himself first for a license.” + +Victor put a period to the passage with a dispassionate “By your leave, +gentlemen—that will do.” To the Irishman he added: “You understand the +danger, I believe, of remaining within the condemned area—that is to +say, except in the open air?” + +“Can’t say I do, altogether.” + +“It is simple: no person in any house supplied by the mains of the +Westminster gas works will be safe for hours after the formula of +Thirteen has begun its work. My advice to you is to keep out of the +district entirely.” + +“Faith, and I’ll do that! But how about yourself in this house?” + +“I shall spend the week-end outside of London,” Victor replied, “not +too far away, of course, and”—the shadow of his satiric smile was +briefly visible—“prepared at any moment to answer the call of my +stricken country.... The few who remain here will be provided with the +essentials for their protection. Furthermore, a general warning will be +sent out to all who can be trusted.” + +“And the others—?” + +“With them it must be as Fate wills.” + +“Women and children, potential sympathizers and supporters of all +classes?” the Irishman persisted in incredulous horror—“all?” + +“All,” Victor affirmed, coldly. “We who deal in the elemental passions +that make revolutions, that is to say, in Life and Death, cannot afford +qualms and scruples. What are a few lives more or less in London? These +British breed like rabbits.” + +“I see,” said Eleven, indistinctly. He stared a moment and swallowed +hard, then glanced hastily at his watch. “I’ll be after bidding you +good-night,” he said, “and pleasant dreams. For meself, I’m a fool if I +go to bed this night sober enough to dream at all, at all!” + +Victor rang for Shaik Tsin to show him out. + +“One question more, if you won’t take it amiss,” Eleven suggested, +lingering. And Victor inclined a gracious head. “Have you thought of +failure?” + +“I have thought of everything.” + +“Well, and if we do fail—?” + +“How, for example?” + +“How do I know what hellish accident may kick our plans into a cocked +hat? Anything might happen. There’s your friend, the Lone Wolf, for +instance ...” + +“Have you not forgotten him yet?” Victor enquired in simulated +surprise. “Have you neglected to remark that since the blunderer failed +to find the Council Chamber that night, when his raid at the Red Moon +netted him only a handful of coolie gamblers and drug-addicts, he has +left us to our own devices?” + +“That’s what makes me wonder what the divvle’s up to. His sort are +never so dangerous as when apparently discouraged.” “Be reassured. I +promised you three weeks ago his interference would not continue beyond +that night. It has not. Lanyard knows I have his daughter, that any +blow aimed at me must first strike her.” + +“Doubtless yourself knows best....” + +With the Irishman gone, Prince Victor turned to Sturm. + +“You will want a good night’s sleep,” he suggested with pointed +solicitude. “Who knows but that to-morrow will bring your night of +nights, my friend?” + +He lapsed immediately into remote abstraction, sitting with chin bent +to the tips of his joined fingers, his eyes downcast, motionless. + +Disgruntled, but afraid to show it, the German cleared away the litter +of papers, assorting them into huge portfolios, and took himself off. +Shaik Tsin replaced him, moving noiselessly about the room, restoring +the reference books to the shelves and stowing the portfolios away in a +massive safe hidden behind a lacquered screen. This done, he stationed +himself before his master, awaiting his attention, a shape of affable +placidity, intelligent, at ease; his attitude not entirely lacking a +suggestion of familiarity. + +Without changing his pose by so much as the lifting of an eyelash, +Victor spoke in Chinese: + +“To-morrow afternoon, late, I shall motor down into the country with +the girl Sofia. I shall be gone three days—perhaps. I will leave a +telephone number with you, to be used only in emergency. As soon as I +have left, you will dismiss all the English servants, with a quarter’s +wage in advance in lieu of notice. Karslake will provide the money.” + +“He does not accompany you?” + +“No.” + +“And the man Nogam?” + +Victor appeared to hesitate. “What do you think?” he enquired at +length. + +“What I have always thought.” + +“That he is a spy?” + +“Yes.” + +“But with no tangible support for your suspicions?” + +“None.” + +“You have not failed to watch him closely?” + +“As a cat watches a mouse.” + +“But—nothing?” + +“Nothing.” + +“Yet I agree with you entirely, Shaik Tsin. I smell treachery.” + +“And I.” + +“Nogam shall go with me as my bodyservant. Thus I shall be able to keep +an eye on him. Let Chou Nu be prepared to accompany us as maid to the +girl Sofia. In my absence you will be guided by such further +instructions as I may leave with you. These failing, consider the man +Sturm, my personal representative. In the contingency you know of, +Sturm will warn you in time to clear the house.” + +“Of everybody?” + +“Of all servants except those whom you may need to guard the man +Karslake. These and yourself will be provided with means of +self-protection by Sturm.” + +“And Karslake?” + +“I have not yet made up my mind.” + +“Hearing is obedience.” + +Victor relapsed into another reverie which lasted so long that even the +patience of Shaik Tsin bade fair to fail. In the end the silence was +broken by two words: + +“The crystal.” + +From a cabinet at the end of the room Shaik Tsin brought a crystal ball +supported on the backs of three golden dragons standing tail to tail, +superbly wrought examples of Chinese goldsmithing. This he placed +carefully on the black teakwood surface at Victor’s elbow. + +“And now, inform the girl Sofia I wish to see her.” + +“And if she again sends her excuses?” + +“Say, in that event, I shall be obliged to come to her room.” + + + + +XV +INTUITION + + +She had not thought, of course, of going down to dinner; she had, +instead, sent Victor word simply that she begged to be excused from +joining him for that meal. Then, unable longer to endure Chou Nu’s +efforts to comfort or distract her, Sofia had stepped out of her street +frock and into a négligée and, dismissing the maid, returned to the +chaise-longue upon which, in vain hope of being able to cry out the +wretchedness of her heart, she had thrown herself on first gaining the +sanctuary of her room. + +For hours, she did not guess how many, she scarcely stirred. Neither +was the blessed boon of tears granted unto her. Alone with her immense +and immitigable misery, she lay in darkness tempered only by the dim +skyshine that filtered through the window draperies; hating life, that +had no mercy; hating the duplicity that had led Karslake into making +untrue love to her, but inexplicably not hating Karslake himself, or +the enshrined image that wore his name; hating herself for her facile +readiness to give love where all but the guise of love was lacking, and +for knowing this deep hurt where she should have felt only scorn and +anger; but hating, most of all, or rather for the first time +discovering how well she hated, him to whom unerring intuition told her +she owed this brimming measure of heartbreak and humiliation, the man +who called himself her father. + +For if Karslake had done her a cruel wrong in winning her avowal of the +love that had been growing in her heart these many weeks, while he was +merely amusing himself or serving a secret purpose—whose was the +initial blame for that? + +Who had egged Karslake on, as he had asserted, “to win her confidence,” +leaving to him the choice of means to that end? + +And—_why_? + +The formulation of this question marked the turning point in Sofia’s +descent toward the nadir of shame and anguish; from the moment its +significance was clearly apprehended (but it took her long to reach +this stage) the complexion of her thoughts took on another colour, and +the smart of chagrin was soothed even as the irritation excited by +critical examination of Victor’s conduct grew more acute. + +Why should the self-styled author of her being have thought it +necessary, or even wise or kind, to commission a paid employee to win +his daughter’s confidence? + +What had rendered the conquest of her confidence so needful in his +sight? + +What had made him think Sofia would prove loath to resign it to him, or +more likely to give it to another? + +Why had Victor hesitated to bid for her confidence with his own tongue, +on his own merits? + +One would think that, if he were her father— + +If! + +_Was_ he? + +Sofia sat up sharply, her young body as taut as her temper. Pulses and +breathing quickened, intent eyes probed the shadows as if she thought +to wrest from them a clue to the mystery of her status in the household +of Victor Vassilyevski. + +What proof had she that he was her father? + +None but his word.... Well, and Karslake’s.... None that would stand +the test of skepticism, none that either sentiment or reason could +offer and support. Certainly she resembled Prince Victor in no respect +that she could think of, not in person, not in mould of character, not +in ways of thought. From the very first she had been perplexed, and +indeed saddened, by her failure, her sheer inability, to react +emotionally to their alleged relationship. And surely there must exist +between parent and child some sort of spiritual bond or affinity, +something to draw them together—even if neither had never known the +other. Whereas she on her part had never been conscious of any sense of +sympathy with Victor, but only of timidity and reluctance which had +latterly manifested in unquestionable aversion. And then there was his +attitude toward her, raising a question so repugnant to her +understanding that never before to-night had Sofia admitted its +existence and given it the freedom of her thoughts. + +She had seen men, in the Café des Exiles, toast their mistresses with +such looks as Victor Vassilyevski reserved for the girl whom he claimed +as his child. + +What, then, if he were not her father? + +What if he had only pretended to paternal rights in furtherance of some +deep scheme of his?—perhaps thinking to use her as a pawn in that dark +plot which he was forever brewing in his study (with canaille like +Sturm for collaborators!) that mysterious “research work” that +flavoured the atmosphere of the house with a miasmatic reek of +intrigue, stealth, and fear—perhaps (more simply and terribly) +designing in his own time and way to avenge himself upon the daughter +for the admitted slights he had suffered at the hands of the mother, +that poor dead woman whose fame he never ceased to blacken while still +her memory was potent to kindle fires in those eyes otherwise so +opaque, impenetrable, and lightless! + +Now Sofia found herself unable to sit still; only through action of +some sort could she hope to win any measure of ease for brain and +nerves. A thought was shaping, claiming precedence over all others, the +thought of flight; bred of the feeling that, as long as she remained in +ignorance of the exact truth concerning their relationship, it was +impossible for her to remain longer under Victor’s roof, eating his +bread and salt, schooling herself to suffer his endearments whose good +faith she could not help challenging, who inspired in her only +antipathy, fear, and distrust. + +It seemed clear beyond dispute that she must leave his protection, this +very night, before he could guess her mind and move to check her. + +Sofia swung her feet down to the floor. One of her silken mules had +fallen off. Semi-consciously she groped for it with stockinged toes. As +the inanimate will, the mule eluded recapture with impish ease. But +beneath her foot something rustled and crackled lightly. She bent over +and picked it up: a square white envelope, sealed. + +Switching on a lamp near by, she examined her find. It carried no +address. How it could have got there she could not imagine ... unless +Chou Nu had dropped it by inadvertence, which seemed as far-fetched as +to suppose she had left it there by design; for that would mean Chou Nu +had been bribed to convey a surreptitious note to her mistress; and +Sofia knew that the Chinese girl was at once too loyal to her +“second-uncle,” and too much in awe of “Number One,” to be corruptible. + +None the less, there the envelope was; and nobody but Chou Nu had +entered the room since Sofia had come straight from the study to it, +late in the afternoon. + +It was just possible, however—Sofia’s eyes measured the distance—that a +deft hand and a strong wrist might have slipped the envelope under the +door and sent it skimming across the floor to the foot of the +chaise-longue. + +But nobody would have dared do that without a powerful motive for +wishing to communicate secretly with Sofia. + +She tore the flap and withdrew a single sheet of notepaper penned in a +hand she knew too well. Her heart leapt.... + +I implore you, of your charity, do not condemn me without a hearing +because of anything you may have overheard me say. After you left us in +the study I saw his eyes watching the door while we talked, and knew +from his look that something to please him had happened behind my back. +And in the temper he was in only one thing could possibly have pleased +him. + +I said what I said to him, dear, because I had to—or lose the right, +dearer to me than life, to be near you, to serve and protect you. I +lied to him because I loved you. But I have never lied to you about my +love—and only once, through necessity, about anything else. Perhaps you +can guess what that lie was, somehow I rather think you do; at least, I +am sure, you are beginning to wonder if I told the truth—or knew it, +then. + +If this sound cryptic, I can only beg you to be patient and charitable +until I find opportunity to clear away this one lie which stands +between us—and which is, by comparison, almost immaterial, since all +that matters is the one great truth in my life, that I love you beyond +all telling. + +R.K. + +If questions trouble your mind, I beg you do not let him know it. Your +only safety now lies in his continuing to believe that you are +unsuspicious. Above all, do your best to seem to fall in with his +wishes, however strange or unreasonable they may seem. It will be only +a few days more before I can claim you for my own, and laugh at his +pretensions. + +A curious love-letter; yet it was Sofia’s first. If it made her +thoughtful, it made her illogically happy as well. If it put the issue +to her squarely, of loyalty to Prince Victor or loyalty to Karslake, +she was unaware that she had any choice of courses. When Shaik Tsin +thumped the panels of her door, she crushed the note into the bosom of +her négligée before answering. + +When one is of an age to love, it is never the parent who gets the +benefit of a doubt. + + + + +XVI +THE CRYSTAL + + +Like some shy, sad shade summoned up by the malign genius of a haunted +chamber, a slender shape of pallor in softly flowing draperies slipped +through the silent door and, advancing a few reluctant steps into the +soundless gloom, paused and in apprehensive diffidence awaited the +welcome that was for a time withheld. + +For minutes Victor gave no sign or stir; and in all the room nothing +moved but ghostly whorls of smoke writhing slowly upward from a pungent +censer of beaten gold. + +The great lamp of brass was dark, and there was no other light than a +solitary bulb, whose hooded rays were concentrated upon the crystal +ball, so that the latter shone with a dead-white glare, somehow +baleful, like an elfin moon deeply lost in a sea of sombre enchantment. + +Bending forward in his chair, an elbow planted on the table, his +forehead resting upon the tips of long, white fingers, Victor’s gaze +was steadfast to the crystal. Refracted light sculptured with curious +shadows that saturnine face intent to immobility. + +Too young, too inexperienced and sensitive to be insusceptible to the +spell of the theatrical, the girl was conscious of a steady ebb of her +new-found store of fortitude, skepticism, and defiance, together with +an equally steady inflow of timidity and uneasiness. That sinister +figure at the table, absorbed in study of the inscrutable sphere—what +did he see there, to hold his faculties in such deep eclipse? Adept in +black arts of the Orient as he was said to be, what wizardry was he +brewing with the aid of that traditional tool of the necromancer? What +spectacle of divination was in those pellucid depths unfolding to his +rapt vision? And what had this consultation of the occult to do with +the man’s mind concerning herself? + +Sofia was shaken by a tremor of dread.... + +And as if her emotion were somehow communicated, arousing him to +knowledge of her presence, Victor started, sat back, and with a sigh +passed a hand across his eyes. When the hand fell, his face wore its +habitual look for Sofia, modified by a slightly apologetic and weary +smile. + +“My child!” he exclaimed in accents of contrite surprise, “have I kept +you waiting long?” + +“Only a few minutes. It doesn’t matter.” + +But her voice seemed sadly small and thin in comparison with Victor’s +rotund and measured intonations. + +“Forgive me.” Victor rose, nodding to indicate the shining crystal. “I +have been consulting my familiar,” he said with a light laugh. “You +have heard of crystal-gazing? A fascinating art that languishes in +undeserved neglect. The ancients were more wise, they knew there was +more in Heaven and Earth.... You are incredulous? But I assure you, I +myself, though far from proficient, have caught strange glimpses of +unborn events in the heart of that transparent enigma.” + +He took her hands and cuddled them in his own. + +She quivered irrepressibly to his touch. + +“But you are trembling!” he protested, solicitous, looking down into +her face—“you are wan and sad, my dear. Tell me you are not ill.” + +“It is nothing,” Sofia replied—again in that faint, stifled voice. She +added in determined effort to subdue her trembling and turn their talk +to essentials: “You sent for me—I am here.” + +“I am so sorry. If I had guessed ...” Enlightenment seemed to dawn all +at once. “But surely it isn’t because of that stupid business with +Karslake? Surely you didn’t take him seriously?” + +“How should I—?” + +“It is too absurd. The poor fool misconstrued my instructions to make +himself agreeable—I am so taken up with the gravest matters at present, +I didn’t want you to feel lonely or neglected—and, it appears, felt it +incumbent upon him to flirt with you as a matter of duty. I am out of +temper with him, but not unreasonable; I shan’t dispense with his +services altogether, without more provocation, but will find other work +to keep him busy and out of your way. You need fear no more annoyance +from that quarter.” + +“I was not annoyed,” Sofia found heart to contend. “I—like him.” + +“Nonsense!” Victor’s laugh was rich with derision. “Don’t ask me to +believe you were actually touched by the fellow’s play-acting. You—my +daughter—wasting emotion on a mere commoner! The thing is too +ridiculous. Oblige me by thinking no more about it. I have better +things in store for you.” + +“Better than—love?” the girl questioned with grave eyes. + +“When the time comes for that, you shall find a worthier parti than +poor Karslake, well-meaning though he may be. Moreover, you +heard—forgive me for reminding you—there was not an ounce of sincerity +in all his philandering for you to hold in sentimental recollection. +So—forget Karslake, please. It is a duty you owe your own pride and my +dignity; it is, furthermore, my wish.” + +She bowed her head, that he might not see the reflection in her face of +the glow that warmed her bosom, where Karslake’s letter nestled. But +Victor took the nod for the word of submission, and patted her shoulder +with an indulgent hand, guiding her to a chair close by his. + +“Sit down, my dear. I want to explain why I asked you to come to me at +this late hour—never dreaming my message would find you so +overwrought.... You quite see how needless it was to permit yourself to +be upset by such a trifling matter, don’t you?” + +“Oh, quite,” Sofia murmured, with gaze fixed on the interlacing fingers +in her lap. + +“That is sensible.” Offering her shoulder one last accolade of +approbation, Victor moved toward his own chair. “And now that you are +here, we may as well have our little talk out,” he continued, but broke +off to stipulate: “If, that is, you are sure you feel up to it?” + +“Yes,” Sofia assented, but without moving. + +“I am not so sure. Perhaps a glass of wine might do you good.” + +“Oh, no!” the girl protested—“I don’t need it, really.” + +But Victor wouldn’t listen; and disappearing into shadowed distances, +returned presently with a brimming goblet. + +“Drink this, dear. It will make you feel quite fit again.” + +Obediently, Sofia raised the goblet to her lips. + +“You have never tasted a wine like that,” Victor insisted, smiling down +at her. + +It was true enough, what he claimed; though it had something of +character of a sound old Madeira, this wine had more, a surpassing +richness, a fruitiness in no way cloying, a peculiarly aromatic taste +and fragrance, elusive and provoking, with a hint of bitterness never +to be analyzed by the most experienced palate. + +“What is it?” Sofia asked after her first sip. + +“You like it, eh? An old wine of China, unknown to Western Europe.” +Victor gave it a musical name in what Sofia took to be Chinese. +“Outside my cellars, I’ll wager there’s not another bottle of it this +side of Constantinople. Drink it all. It will do you good.” + +He seated himself. “And now my reason for wishing to talk with you +to-night.... A note came by the last delivery from Lady Randolph West. +You met her, I understand, through Sybil Waring, a few days ago. She +was apparently much taken with you.” + +“She is very kind.” + +Victor had found a sheet of notepaper and, bending to the light, was +searching its scrawled lines with narrowed eyes. + +“‘Too lovely,’ she calls you—and quite justly, my dear. Yes; here it +is: ‘Too lovely for words.’ And she wants me to bring my ‘charming +daughter’ down to Frampton Court for this week-end.” + +Sofia said nothing, but put her half-empty glass aside. The wine had +done her good, she thought. She felt better, stronger, mentally more +alert, and at the same time curiously soothed. + +Victor refolded the note and tapped the table with it, holding Sofia +with speculative eyes. + +“It should be amusing,” he said, thoughtfully, “a new experience for +you. Elaine—I mean Lady Randolph West, of course—is a charming hostess, +and never fails to fill Frampton Court with delightful people.” + +“I’m sure I should love it.” + +“I am sure you would. And yet ... I may have been a little premature, +since I have already written accepting the invitation.” He indicated an +addressed envelope face up on the table. “But on second thoughts, it +seemed perhaps wiser to consult you first.” + +“But if it is your wish, I must go,” Sofia replied, mindful of +Karslake’s injunction not to oppose Victor. “What have I to say—?” + +“Everything about whether we accept or do not—or if not everything, at +least the final word. I must abide by your decision.” + +“But I shall be only too glad—” + +“Think a moment. It might be wiser not to go. You alone can say.” + +“I don’t quite understand ...” + +Victor sighed. “It is a painful subject,” he said, slowly—“one I +hesitate to reopen. But we can never profit by closing our minds to +facts; I mean, to the reality of the danger which is always with us, +since it is within us.” + +“What danger?” Sofia enquired, sullenly, knowing the answer too well +before it was spoken. + +“The danger of sudden temptation to indulge the lawless appetites with +which heredity has endued us—me from the nameless forebears whom I +never knew, you directly from parents both of whom boasted criminal +records.” + +“I don’t believe it!” Sofia declared, passionately—“I can’t believe it, +I won’t! Even if you are—” + +She was going on to say “if you are my father,” but caught herself in +time. Had not Karslake warned her in his note: “_Your only safety now +lies in his continuing to believe that you are unsuspicious._” She +continued in a tempest of expostulation whose fury covered her break: + +“Even if you were once a thief and my mother—my mother!—everything +vile, as you persist in trying to make me believe—God knows why!—it is +possible I may still have failed to inherit your criminal tendencies; +and not only possible, but true, if I know myself at all. For I have +never felt the temptation to steal that you insist I must have +inherited from you—nor any other inclination toward things as mean, +contemptible, and dishonourable as they are dishonest!” + +With only his slow, forbearing smile by way of comment, Victor heard +her out, but when she paused to reassort her thoughts, lifted a +temporizing hand. + +“Not yet, perhaps,” he said, gently. “There is always the first time +with every rebel against man-made laws. But, where the predisposition +so indubitably exists, it is inevitable, soon or late it must come to +you, my dear—the time when the will is too weak, temptation too strong. +Against it we must be forever on our guard.” + +“I am not afraid,” Sofia contended. + +“Naturally; you will not be before the hour of ordeal which shall prove +your strength or your weakness, your confidence in yourself, or my +loving fears for you.” + +Sofia gave a gesture of weariness and confusion. What did it matter? If +he would have it so, let him: it couldn’t affect the issue in any way, +what he believed, or for his own purposes pretended to believe. Had not +Karslake promised ... + +She tried to recall precisely what it was that Karslake had promised, +but found her memory of a sudden singularly sluggish. In fact, her mind +seemed to have lost its marvellous clarity of those first moments after +tasting the wine of China. Small wonder, when one remembered the +emotional strain she had experienced since early evening! + +“Still,” she argued, stubbornly, “I don’t see what all this has to do +with Lady Randolph West’s invitation.” + +“Only that to accept means to expose you to the greatest temptation one +can well imagine.” + +Sofia stared blankly. Her wits were working even more slowly and +heavily than before. And the glare in her eyes from the luminous sphere +of crystal was irritating. Almost without thinking, she lifted her +glass again; when she put it down it was empty. + +“The jewels of Lady Randolph West,” Victor went on to explain without +her prompting, “are considered the most wonderful in England; always +excepting, of course, the Crown jewels.” + +“What is that to me?” + +Resentment sounded in her tone. She was thinking more readily once +more, thanks to that second magical draught, but was nevertheless +conscious of a general failing of powers drained by her great fatigue. +She wished devoutly that Victor would have done and let her go.... + +“Elaine is very careless, leaves her jewels scattered about, hardly +troubles to put them away securely at night. If you should be tempted +to appropriate anything, she might not discover her loss for days; and +then, again, she might. And if you were caught—consider what shame and +disgrace!” + +“I think I see,” the girl said, slowly, after some difficult thinking. +“You don’t want me to go.” + +“To the contrary, I do—but I want more than anything else in the world +that my daughter should be sure of herself and fall into no irreparable +error.” + +“But I am sure of myself—I have told you that.” + +“Then let us fret no more about it, but accept, and go prepared to +enjoy ourselves. I will send the letter.” + +Victor rang, and Shaik Tsin presented himself so quickly that Sofia +wondered dully where he could have been waiting. In the room with them, +perhaps? It wasn’t impossible. The Chinaman’s thick soles of felt +enabled him to move about without making the least noise. + +“Have this posted immediately.” + +Shaik Tsin bowed deeply, and backed away with the letter. Unless she +turned to watch him, Sofia could not say whether he left the room or +not. + +She offered to rise. + +“If that is all ...” + +“Not quite. There are certain details to be arranged; and I may not see +you again before we leave to-morrow afternoon. We will motor down to +Frampton Court—it’s not far, little more than an hour by train—starting +about half after four, if you can be ready.” + +“Oh, yes.” + +“Sybil Waring will tell you what to take, and Chou Nu will see to your +packing. Both, by the way, will accompany us. Sybil’s maid will follow +by train. For myself, I am taking Nogam—having found that English +servants do not take kindly to my Chinese valet.” + +“Yes ...” Sofia uttered, listlessly, wondering why this information +should be considered of interest to her. + +“And one thing more: I am forgiven? You are not cross with me?” + +“Why should I be?” + +“Because of what happened this afternoon—when I scolded Karslake for +making love to you.” + +“Oh,” said Sofia with a good show of indifference—she was so +tired—“that!” + +“Believe me, little Sofia”—Victor put out a hand to hers, and held her +eyes with a compelling gaze—“boy-and-girl romance is all very well, but +there is a greater destiny reserved for you than marriage to a hired +secretary, however amiable, personable, and well-meaning. You must +prepare yourself to move in a world beyond and above the common +hearthstone of bourgeois domesticity.” + +The girl shook a bewildered head. + +“It is a riddle?” she asked, wearily. + +“A riddle?” Victor echoed. “Why, one may safely term it that. Is not +the Future always a riddle? Nature knows the Future as the Past, but +Nature holds it secret, lest man go mad with too much knowledge. Only +to the few, the favoured, does she grant rare glimpses through media +which she has provided for the use of the initiate—such as this crystal +here, in which I was studying your future, when you came in, the high +future I plan for you.” + +“And—you won’t tell me?” + +“I may not. It is forbidden. Nature deals unkindly with those who +violate her confidence. But—who knows?” + +He checked himself as if struck by a new turn of thought, and studied +the girl’s face intently. + +“Who knows?” he repeated, as if to himself. + +“What—?” + +“It is quite within the bounds of possibility,” Victor mused, “that you +should have inherited some of the psychic power which was born in me. +Perhaps—who knows?—to you as well Nature will be supple and disclose +her secrets.... If you care to seek her favour?” + +“But—how?” + +“By consulting the crystal.” + +Sofia’s eyes sought that coldly burning stone. Her head was so heavy, +she hesitated, oppressed by misgivings without shape that she could +name, phases of formless timidity having rise in some source which she +was too tired to search out. + +But she lingered and continued to stare at the crystal. + +“Why not?” Victor’s accents were gently persuasive. “At worst, you can +only fail. And if you do not fail, it will make me happy to think that +you have been given a little insight into my dreams for you.” + +“Yes,” Sofia assented in a whisper—“why not?” + +Victor drew her forward by the hand. + +“Look,” he said “look deep! Divest your mind as nearly as you can of +all thought—let the crystal give up its message to a mind devoid of +prejudice, its receptiveness unimpaired. Think of nothing, if you can +manage it—simply look and see.” + +Automatically to a degree the girl obeyed, already in a phase of +crepuscular hypnosis, her surface senses dulled by the potent “wine of +China.” And watching her closely, Victor permitted himself a smile of +satisfaction as he noted the rapidity with which she yielded to the +hypnogenic spell of the translucent quartz; how her breathing +quickened, then took on a measured tempo like that of a sleeper; how a +faint flush warmed the unnatural pallor of her cheeks, how her dilate +eyes grew fixed in an unwinking stare, and slightly glassed.... + +Under her regard the goblin sphere took on with bewildering rapidity +changing guises. Its rotundity was first lost, it assumed the semblance +of a featureless disk of pallid light, which swiftly widened till it +obscured all else, then seemed to advance upon and envelope her bodily, +so that she became spiritually a part of it, an atom of identity +engulfed in a limpid world of glareless light, light that had had no +rays and issued from no source but was circumambient and universal. +Then in its remote heart a weird glow of rose began to burn and grow, +pulsing through all the colours of the spectrum and beyond. Toward this +she felt herself being drawn swiftly, attracted by an irresistible +magnetism, riding the wings of a great wind, whose voice boomed without +ceasing, like a heavy surf thunderously reiterating one syllable, +“_Sleep_!” ... And in this flight through illimitable space toward a +goal unattainable, consciousness grew faint and flickered out like a +candle in the wind. + +Behind her chair the placid yellow face of Shaik Tsin appeared, as if +materialized bodily out of the shadows. With folded arms he waited, +dispassionately observant. Presently Prince Victor nodded to him over +the head of the girl. Immediately the Chinaman moved round her chair +and, employing both hands, in one instant switched off the hooded bulb +and reilluminated the lamp of brass. + +As the light died out in the crystal Sofia sighed heavily, and relaxed. +Leaden eyelids closed down over her staring eyes, she sank back into +the chair, simultaneously into plumbless depths.... + +Victor made a sound of gratification. Shaik Tsin enquired briefly: + +“It is accomplished, then?” + +Victor nodded. “She yielded more quickly than I had hoped—worn out +emotionally, of course.” + +“She sleeps—” + +“In hypnosis, in absolute suspense of every faculty and function save +those concerned solely with the maintenance of existence—in a state, +that is, comparable only to the pre-natal life of a child.” + +“It is most interesting,” Shaik Tsin admitted. “But what is the use? +That is what interests me.” + +“Wait and see.” + +Bending close to the girl, Victor called in a strong voice of command: +“Sofia! Sofia! It is I, Prince Victor, your father. Waken and attend!” + +A slight spasm shook the slender body, the lips parted, respiration +became hurried and broken, the long lashes fluttered on the cheeks. + +“Do you hear me? I, Victor, command you: Waken and attend!” + +Another struggle, more brief and sharp, ended with the opening of the +eyes, which sought and remained steadfast to Victor’s, yet without +intelligence or animation. + +“Do you hear me, Sofia?” + +A voice like a sigh rustled on the parted lips, whose stir was +imperceptible: + +“I hear you....” + +“Then heed what I say. My will is your law. You know that?” + +Faintly the voice breathed: “Yes.” + +“Tell me what it is you know.” + +“Your will is my law.” + +“You will not resist my will, you cannot. Tell me that.” + +“I will not resist your will, I cannot.” + +“Good. I, Prince Victor Vassilyevski, am your father. You believe that. +Do you understand? Tell me what you believe.” + +“I believe that you, Prince Victor Vassilyevski, are my father.” + +“You will not forget these things?” + +“I shall not forget.” + +“In all things.” + +“I will obey you in all things.” + +“Without question or faltering.” + +“Without question or faltering.” + +“You recall what arrangements we made this afternoon for to-morrow?” + +“I remember.” + +“Listen carefully. Memorize my wishes with respect to our visit to +Frampton Court, remembering that I communicate my will, which you must +obey.” + +The girl remained silent, waiting. Victor took a moment to marshall his +thoughts, then proceeded: + +“After arriving at Frampton Court, you will make occasion quietly to +find out how your room is situated in relation to the boudoir of Lady +Randolph West. You will do this without knowing why you do it. You +understand?” + +“Yes.” + +“At night, on going to bed, you will go promptly to sleep. After an +hour you will wake up, put on a dressing gown and slippers, and proceed +to Lady Randolph West’s boudoir, taking care not to be observed. Is +that clear?” + +“Yes.” + +“Once in the boudoir, you will proceed to the safe where Lady Randolph +West keeps her jewels. It will not be locked, she is careless in such +matters. Having found the safe, you will open it, take whatever jewels +you find therein, and return to your room. All this you will perform +with utmost circumspection, taking all pains not to make any noise. In +your room you will hide the jewels in your dressing-case. Then you will +go back to bed and to sleep. Have you committed all this to memory?” + +The sleeping girl answered in the affirmative. Then, to the injunction, +“Tell me what you are to do to-morrow night?” she repeated in a +toneless voice every item of the programme outlined for her, while +Victor nodded in undisguised delight, and Shaik Tsin grinned blandly +over her head. + +“On waking up to-morrow morning, you will remember nothing of my +instructions, but you will carry them precisely as memorized in your +subconciousness, and you will carry them out without thought of +opposition to my will, understanding that you are without will of your +own in this matter. Finally, on waking up on the morning following your +abstraction of the jewels, you will remember nothing of the affair +until reminded of it by me, and then only this much: That in obedience +to irresistible impulse, you stole the jewels. Is that clear? Repeat +...” + +Without a mistake the woman in hypnosis iterated the commands imposed +upon her. + +The impish grin of the latent savage broke through the habitual +austerity of Victor’s countenance. + +“There is no more,” he said, “but this: Sleep now, and do not waken +before noon to-morrow—_sleep_!” + +With a quavering sigh, the girl reclosed her eyes and instantly +relapsed into the sleep of trance which was insensibly in the course of +the night to merge into natural slumber. + +Victor ironed out his grimace, and signed to Shaik Tsin. + +“Bear her back to her room. Instruct Chou Nu to put her to bed and not +to wake her up before noon.” + +“Hearing is obedience.” + +The Chinaman bent over, gathered the inert body into his arms, and +without perceptible effort stood erect. But in the act of turning away +he paused and, continuing to hold the girl as easily as if she weighed +no more than a child, interrogated the man he served. + +“You believe she will do all you have ordered?” + +“I know she will.” + +“Without error?” + +“Barring accidents, without flaw from beginning to end.” + +“And in event of accidents—discovery—?” + +“So much the better.” + +“That would please you, to have her caught?” + +“Excellently.” + +Shaik Tsin nodded in grave yet humorous comprehension. “Now I begin to +understand. If she is caught, that gives you a power over her?” + +“Precisely.” + +“And if she is not, when the robbery becomes known, your power over her +will be still more strong?” + +“And over yet another stronger still.” + +“The Lone Wolf?” + +Victor inclined his head. “To what lengths will he not go to cover up +his daughter’s shame, if it threatens to become public that she is a +thief? I do nothing without purpose, Shaik Tsin.” + +“That is to say, you have to-night taken out insurance against +punishment if this other business fails.” + +“If it fail, others may suffer, but if necessary the Lone Wolf himself +will arrange my escape from England.” + +“To serve so wise a man is an honour my unworthiness can never hope to +merit.” + +“As to that, Shaik Tsin,” Victor said without a smile, “our minds are +one. Go now. Good-night.” + + + + +XVII +THE RAISED CHEQUE + + +While the Princess Sofia, Sybil Waring, and Prince Victor motored down +from London in the lilac dusk of that dim September day, and the maid +Chou Nu accompanied them, riding in front beside a newly engaged +Chinese chauffeur, the man Nogam made the journey to Frampton Court by +train, and alone. + +Alone, at least, in the finer shading of that adjective; aside from the +usual assortment of self-contained fellow-travellers in the third-class +carriage, he had no company other than his thoughts; a gray and meagre +crew, if that pathetic face of middle-age furnished trustworthy +reflection of his mind.... So absolute was the submergence of that +ardent adventurer who, overnight, had lain awake for hours, a +dictograph receiver glued to his ear, eavesdropping upon the traffic of +those malevolent intelligences assembled in Prince Victor’s study, and +alternately chuckling and cursing beneath his breath, aflame with +indignation and chilled by inklings of atrocities unspeakable abrew! + +If he surmised that he travelled alone in appearance only, it was with +no evident concern or astonishment. If his mind was uneasy, oppressed +by a nightmarish burden of half-knowledge, guesses, and premonition, it +was not apparent to the general observer. His most eloquent gesture was +when, from time to time, he tamped an ancient wooden pipe with a +fingertip that wasn’t as calloused as he could have wished, +philosophically sucked in strangling fumes of rankest shag and, +ignoring his company in the carriage as became a British-made +manservant, returned jaded, gentle eyes to those darkling vistas of +autumnal landscape that were forever radiating away from the window +like spokes of a gigantic wheel. + +Alighting in the first dark of evening at the station for Frampton +Court, he suffered himself to be herded, with a half-score more, into +the omnibus provided for other bodyservants to arriving guests. Even to +these compeers he found little to say: a loud lot, imbued with the +rowdy spirit of the new day; whereas Nogam was hopelessly of the old +school—in the new word, he dated—though his form was admittedly +unimpeachable. And if because of this he was made fun of more or less +openly, to an extent that added shades of resignation to his +countenance, secretly he commanded considerable respect. + +Neither was Victor, with all the ill-will in the world, able to find +fault with Nogam’s services in his new office. The most finished of +self-effacing valets, he knew just what to do and did it without being +told; and when he spoke it was only because he had been spoken to or +commissioned to convey a message. + +Victor watched him from every angle, overt and covert, but had his +trouble for his pains; Nogam, observed in a mirror, when Victor’s back +was turned, went about his business with no more betrayal of personal +feeling or independent mentality than when waiting upon his master face +to face. Victor could have kicked him for sheer resentment of his +pattern virtues. When all was said and done, it _was_ damned +irritating. . . . + +In the servants’ hall he religiously kept his ears open and his mouth +shut. And, listening, he learned. For some things said in his hearing +were distinctly not pretty, and made one wonder if Prince Victor’s +deep-rooted confidence in an England mortally cankered with social +discontent were not grounded in a surprising familiarity with +backstairs morale. Other observations, again, were merely ribald, some +were humorous, while all were enlightening. + +Not a few of the company had seen domestic service in great houses +before the war; they knew what was what and—more to the point—what +wasn’t. One gathered that this pretentious country home fell within the +latter classification. Here, it was stated, anybody could buy his way +into favour: the more bounding the bounder the brighter his chances of +success at Frampton Court. + +War, the ironic, had caused this noble property to pass into the +keeping of a distant and degenerate branch of an old and honoured +house; and its present lord and lady, having failed to win the social +welcome they had counted on too confidently, were doing their silly, +shabby best to squander a princely fortune and dedicate a great name to +lasting disrepute by fraternizing with a motley riffraff of +profiteering nouveaux riches. Other than bad manners and worse morals, +the one genuine thing in the whole establishment was, it seemed, the +historic collection of family jewels. + +This information explained away much of Nogam’s perplexity on one +score. + +After dinner, when the house party began to settle into its stride, he +made occasion, aping the other servants, to peep in at a door of the +great ballroom, where an impromptu dance had been organized; and was +rewarded by sight of the Princess Sofia circling the floor in the arms +of a boldly good-looking young man whose taste was as poor in +flirtation as in self-adornment. + +To Nogam the young girl looked wan and wistful—as if she were missing +somebody. And he wondered if Mr. Karslake knew what a lucky young devil +he was. + +He wondered still more about the present whereabouts and welfare of Mr. +Karslake. Prince Victor must have contrived some devious errand to get +the young man out and away early that day; for by the time Nogam had +looked for him in the morning, Karslake was nowhere to be found; +neither had he returned when the party left for Frampton Court—a +circumstance which Nogam regretted most bitterly. Watched as he was, it +hadn’t been possible, that is to say it would have been fatally +ill-advised, to have left any sort of message or to have attempted +communication through secret channels; and all the while, hours heavy +with, it might be, the destiny of England were wasting swiftly into +history. + +Perhaps it was nervousness bred of this anxiety that, in the end, made +Nogam’s hand slip. Or perhaps the impatient nature of the man who lay +so closely secret within the husk of Nogam decided him upon a desperate +gamble. In either event, this befell: + +About the middle of the evening Prince Victor happened to look up from +an interesting tête-à-tête in the brilliant drawing-room with his +handsome and liberal-minded hostess opportunely to espy Nogam staring +at him from the remote recesses of the entrance hall. + +It was the merest of glimpses; for Victor’s casual glance had barely +identified the servant when Nogam started guiltily and in a twinkling +disappeared; but a glimpse was enough for eyes and a mind alike quick +with distrust, enough to assure Victor that Nogam’s face had worn an +indescribably furtive and hangdog expression, most unlike its ordinary +look of amiable stupidity, and widely incongruous with the veniality of +his fault. + +What the deuce, then, was the fellow up to, that he should glower and +dodge like a sleuth in a play? + +Promptly Victor became deaf, blind, and numb to the fascinations so +generously paraded by Lady Randolph West; and presently excusing +himself, left her and sought his rooms. + +As he went up the stairs, he saw the door to his bedchamber cautiously +opened far enough to permit one eye to spy out and discover his +approach. Immediately then the door swung wide, and Nogam ambled into +view with an envelope on a salver and an air of childlike innocence, an +assumption of ease so transparent, indeed, that only the vision of a +child could have been cheated by it. + +“Just coming to look for you, sir,” he announced, glibly. “Telegram, +sir—just harrived.” + +“Thanks,” said Victor, shortly, taking the envelope and marching on +into his rooms. + +His manner toward his servants was always abrupt. No need to be alarmed +by this manifestation of it. Blinking mildly, Nogam trotted at his +heels. + +Seating himself at an escritoire, Victor opened the envelope with a +display of languid interest. Curiosity about the contents of a telegram +is ordinarily acute. Victor, on the contrary, sat for a long moment +staring thoughtfully at nothing and absently turning the envelope over +and over in his hands; while Nogam with specious nonchalance found +something unimportant to do in another quarter of the room. + +The envelope was damp and warm to the touch. True: nightfall had +brought with it a thick drizzle, and Frampton Court was more than a +mile from the post-office. On the other hand, the night was as cold as +charity; and an envelope recently steamed open might be expected to +hold the heat for a few minutes. + +Victor thumbed the flap. It lifted readily, without tearing, its gum +was wet and more abundant than usual—in fact, it felt confoundedly like +library paste, a pot of which, in an ornamental holder, was among the +fittings of the escritoire. On the desk pad of blotting paper, too, +Victor detected marks of fresh paste defining the contour of the flap. + +With a countenance whose inscrutability alone was a threat, Victor took +out and conned the telegraph form. + +“CONSULTATION SET FOR MIDNIGHT TO-NIGHT TAKING YOUR ADVICE SHALL NOT +ATTEND BUT LEAVE FOR BRIGHTON ELEVEN P.M.” + +A message ostensibly so open and aboveboard that it hadn’t been thought +worth while to hide its wording under the cloak of a code. + +There was no signature—unless one were clever or wise enough to +transpose the two final letters and take them in relation to the word +immediately preceding. “Eleven, M.P.”, however, could mean nothing to +anybody but Victor—except a body clever enough to hide a dictograph +detector in a turnip. So Victor saw no reason to believe that Nogam, +although undoubtedly guilty of the sin of prying, had been able to read +the meaning below the surface of this communication. + +Nevertheless, undue inquisitiveness on the part of a servant in the pay +of Victor Vassilyevski could have but one reward. + +“Nogam!” + +“Sir?” + +“Fetch me an A-B-C.” + +“Very good, sir.” + +With Nogam out of the way, Victor enclosed the telegram in a new +envelope and addressed it simply to _“Mr. Sturm—by hand.”_ Then he took +a sheet of the stamped notepaper of Frampton Court, tore it roughly, at +the fold, and on the unstamped half inscribed several characters in +Chinese, using a pencil with a fat, soft lead for this purpose. This +message sealed into a second envelope without superscription, he +lighted a cigarette and sat smiling with anticipative relish through +its smoke, a smile swiftly abolished as the door re-opened; though +Nogam found him in what seemed to be a mood of rare sweet temper. + +Taking the railway guide, Victor ruffled its pages, and after brief +study of the proper table remarked: + +“Afraid I must ask you to run up to town for me to-night, Nogam. If you +don’t mind ...” + +“Only too glad to oblige, sir.” + +“I find I have left important papers behind. Give this to Shaik +Tsin”—he handed over the blank envelope—“and he will find them for you. +You can catch the ten-fifteen up, and return by the twelve-three from +Charing Cross.” + +“Very good, sir.” + +“Oh—and see that Mr. Sturm gets this, too, will you? If he isn’t in, +give it to Shaik Tsin to hand to him. Say it’s urgent.” + +“Quite so, sir.” + +“That is all. But don’t fail to catch the twelve-three back. I must +have the papers to-night.” + +“I shan’t fail you, sir—D.V.” + +“Deo volente? You are a religious man, Nogam?” + +“I ’umbly ’ope so, sir, and do my best to be, accordin’ to my lights.” + +“Glad to hear it. Now cut along, or you’ll miss the up train.” + +Long after Nogam had left the memory of their talk continued to afford +Victor an infinite amount of private entertainment. + +“A religious man!” he would jeer to himself. “Then—may your God help +you, Nogam!” + +Some thought of the same sort may well have troubled Nogam’s mind as he +sat in an otherwise untenanted third-class compartment blinking +owlishly over the example of Victor’s command of the intricacies of +Chinese writing. + +He was happily free of surveillance for the first time in his waking +hours of many days. The Chinese chauffeur had driven him to the +station, and had furthermore lingered to see that Nogam did not fail to +board it. And Nogam felt reasonably safe in assuming that he would not +approach the house near Queen Anne’s Gate without seeing (for the mere +trouble of looking) a second and an entirely gratuitous shadow attach +itself to him with the intention of sticking as tenaciously as that +which God had given him. But the next hour was all his own. + +His study of the Chinese phonograms at length resulted in the +transformation of his careworn face by a slowly dawning smile, the +gleeful smile of a mischief-loving child. And when he had worked for a +while on the message, touching up the skillfully drawn characters with +a pencil the mate to that which Victor had used, he sat back and +laughed aloud over the result of his labours, with some appreciation of +the glow that warms the cockles of the artist’s heart when his deft pen +has raised a cheque from tens to thousands, and he reviews a good job +well done. + +The torn envelope which had held the message to Shaik Tsin lay at his +feet. Nogam had not bothered to worry it open so carefully that it +might be resealed without inviting comment; though that need not have +been a difficult matter, thanks to the dampness of the night air. + +Of the envelope addressed to Sturm, however, he was more considerate; +to violate its integrity and seal it up again was an undertaking that +required the nicest handling. Nor was it accomplished much before the +train drew into Charing Cross. + +Outside the station taxis were few and drivers arrogant; and all the +’buses were packed to the guards with law-abiding Londoners homeward +bound from theatres and halls. So Nogam dived into the Underground, to +come to the surface again at St. James’s Park station, whence he +trotted all the way to Queen Anne’s Gate, arriving at his destination +in a phase of semi-prostration which a person of advancing years and +doddering habits might have anticipated. + +Such fidelity in characterization deserved good reward, and had in it a +rare stroke of fortune; for as he drew up to it, the door opened, and +Sturm came out, saw Nogam, and stopped short. + +“Thank ’Eaven, sir, I got ’ere in time,” the butler panted. “If I’d +missed you, Prince Victor wouldn’t ’ave been in ’arf a wax. ’E told me +I must find you to-night if I ’ad to turn all Lunnon inside out.” + +Pressing the message into Sturm’s hand, he rested wearily against the +casing of the door, his body shaken by laboured breathing, and—while +Sturm, with an exclamation of excitement, ripped open the +envelope—surveyed the dark and rain-wet street out of the corners of +his eyes. + +Across the way a slinking shadow left the sidewalk and blended +indistinguishably with the crowded shadows of an areaway. + +In a voice more than commonly rich with accent, Sturm demanded sharply: + +“What is this? I do not understand!” + +He shook in Nogam’s face the half-sheet of notepaper on which the +Chinese phonograms were drawn. + +“Sorry, sir, but I ’aven’t any hidea. Prince Victor didn’t tell me +anything except there would be no answer, and I was to ’urry right back +to Frampton Court.” Nogam peered myopically at the paper. “It might be +’Ebrew, sir,” he hazarded, helpfully—“by the looks of it, I mean. I +suppose some private message, ’e thought you’d understand.” + +“Hebrew, you fool! Damn your impudence! Do you take me for a Jew?” + +“Beg pardon, sir—no ’arm meant.” + +“No,” Sturm declared, “it’s Chinese.” + +“Then likely Prince Victor meant you to ask Shaik Tsin to translate it +for you, sir.” + +“Probably,” Sturm muttered. “I’ll see.” + +“Yes, sir. Good-night, sir.” + +Without acknowledging this civility, Sturm turned back into the house +and slammed the door. Nogam lingered another moment, then shuffled +wearily down the steps and toward the nearest corner. + +Across the street the voluntary shadow detached itself from cover in +the areaway, and skulked after him. He paid no heed. But when the +shadow rounded the corner, it saw only a dark and empty street, and +pulled up with a grunt of doubt. Simultaneously something not unlike a +thunderbolt for force and fury was launched, from the dark shelter of a +doorway near by, at its devoted head. And as if by magic the shadow +took on form and substance to receive the onslaught. A fist, that +carried twelve stone of bone and sinew jubilant with realization of the +hour for action so long deferred, found shrewdly the heel of a jawbone, +just beneath the ear. Its victim dropped without a cry, but the impact +of the blow was loud in the nocturnal stillness of that bystreet, and +was echoed in magnified volume by the crack of a skull in collision +with a convenient lamppost. + +Followed a swift patter of fugitive feet. + +Tempered by veils of mist, the lamplight fell upon a face upturned from +a murmurous gutter, a yellow face, wide and flat, with lips grinning +back from locked teeth and eyes frozen in a staring question to which +no living man has ever known the answer. + +The pattering footsteps grew faint in distance and died away, the +street was still once more, as still as Death.... + +In the study of Prince Victor Vassilyevski the man Sturm put an +impatient question: + +“Well? What you make of it—hein?” + +Shaik Tsin looked up from a paper which he had been silently examining +by the light of the brazen lamp. + +“Number One says,” he reported, smiling sweetly, while his yellow +forefinger moved from symbol to symbol of the picturesque writing: +_‘“The blow falls to-night. Proceed at once to the gas works and do +that which you know is to be done.’”_ + +“At last!” The voice of the Prussian was full and vibrant with +exultancy. He threw back his head with a loud laugh, and his arm +described a wild, dramatic gesture. + +“At last—der Tag! To-night the Fatherland shall be avenged!” + +Shaik Tsin beamed with friendliest sympathy Sturm turned to go, took +three hurried steps toward the door, and felt himself jerked back by a +silken cord which, descending from nowhere, looped his lean neck +between chin and Adam’s apple. His cry of protest was the last +articulate sound he uttered. And the last sounds he heard, as he lay +with face hideously congested and empurpled, eyeballs starting from +their deep sockets, and swollen tongue protruding, were words spoken by +Shaik Tsin as that one knelt over him, one hand holding fast the ends +of the bowstring that had cut off forever the blessed breath of life, +the other flourishing a half-sheet of notepaper. + +“Fool! Look, fool, and read what vengeance visits a fool who is fool +enough to play the spy!” + +He brandished the papers before those glazing eyeballs. + +In an eldritch cackle he translated: + +_“‘He who bears this message is a Prussian dog, police trained, a spy. +Let his death be a dog’s, cruel and swift.—Number One.’”_ + + + + +XVIII +ORDEAL + + +Reviewing the day, as she undressed and prepared for bed, Sofia told +herself she had never yet lived through one so wearing, and thought the +history of its irksome hours all too legible in the lack-lustre face +that looked back from the mirror when Chou Nu uncoifed her hair and +brushed its burnished tresses. + +Though she had slept late, in fact till noon and something after, her +sleep had been queerly haunted and unhappy, she could not remember how +or why, and she had awakened already ennuyé, with a mind incoherently +oppressed, without relish for the promise of the day—in a mood +altogether as drear as the daylight that waited upon her unclosing +eyes. + +Main strength of will had not availed to dispel these vapours, neither +did their melancholy yield to the distraction provided by first +acquaintance with ways of a world unique alike in Sofia’s esteem and +her experience. + +She who had theretofore known only in day-dreams the life of light +frivolity and fashion which found feverish and trumpery reflection at +Frampton Court, was neither equipped nor disposed to be hypercritical +in the first hours of her début there; and at any other time, in any +other temper, she knew, she must have been swept off her feet by its +exciting appeal to her innate love of luxury and sensation. But the sad +truth was, it all seemed to her unillusioned vision an elaborate sham +built up of tinsel, paste, and paint; and the warmth of her welcome at +the hands, indeed in the very arms, of Lady Randolph West, and the +success her youth and beauty scored for her—commanding in all envy, +admiration, cupidity, or jealousy, according to age, sex, and temporal +state of servitude—did nothing to mitigate the harshness of those first +impressions. + +If anything her depression grew more perversely morbid the more she was +catered to, courted, flattered, and cajoled. Something had happened, +she could never guess what, perhaps some mysterious reaction effected +through the chemistry of last night’s slumber, to turn her vivid zest +in life to ashes in her mouth, so that nothing seemed to matter any +more. + +Thoughts of Karslake as her lover, recollection of her first deep joy +in his avowal and her subsequent passion of shame and regret, +re-perusal of his note, that last night had seemed so sweet a thing, +precious beyond compare—found her indifferent to-day, and left her so. +Try as she would, she failed to recapture any sense of the reality of +those first raptures. And yet, somehow, she didn’t doubt he loved her +or that, buried deep beneath this inexplicable apathy, love for +Karslake burned on in her heart; but she knew no sort of comfort in +such confidence, their love seemed as remote and immaterial an issue as +the menu for day after to-morrow’s dinner. Nothing mattered! + +She was able even to meet Prince Victor without her customary shiver of +aversion; and when she recalled the persistence and enthusiasm with +which she had reasoned herself into believing, last night, that he +might be another than her father, she came as near to mirth as she was +to come that day; but it was mirth bitter with self-derision. Of course +he was her father, she had been a ninny ever to dream contrariwise, or +that it mattered. + +Nor had she met with more success in efforts to find a cause for this +drab humour; unless, indeed, it were simply the farthest swing of the +pendulum from yesterday’s emotional crises, a long swing out of sunlit +spaces swept by the brave winds of young romance into a gloomy zone of +brooding torpor, whose calm was false, surcharged with unseizable +disquiet, its atmosphere electrical with formless apprehensions, its +sad twilight shot with lurid gleams no sooner glimpsed than gone. + +In this state Sofia’s sensibilities were less benumbed than bound in a +palsy of suspense not wholly destitute of dread; beneath the lethargic +shallows of consciousness lay soundless deeps troubled by sinister +premonitions.... + +Now, retracing stage by stage the record of the day, Sofia became aware +that its most poignant moment for her was actually the present, with +its keen wonder that she had contrived to survive such exquisite +tedium. + +She perceived that she had moved throughout like an automaton swayed by +a will outside its own; functioning rather than living; performing +appointed business, executing prescribed gestures, uttering +foreordained observations, and making dictated responses, all without +suggestion of spontaneity, and all without meaning other than as means +to bridge an empty space of waiting. + +Waiting for what? + +Sofia could not guess.... + +She went to bed presently, hoping only to find surcease of boredom; and +her head no sooner touched the pillow than oblivion closed down upon +her faculties like a dense, dark cloud. + +Discreet and well-instructed, Chou Nu turned the night-light down to a +glimmer, placed on and under a chair adjacent to the bed a robe of +cashmere that wouldn’t rustle, and slippers of fine felt with soles of +soft leather, in which footfalls must be inaudible—and glided gently +from the room. + +For sixty minutes its deep hush was unbroken; the even respiration of +the girl made no sound, she rested without tossing, without moving a +finger. + +Then, sleep having held her for precisely one hour by the clock, Sofia +opened her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and at once sat up on the side +of the bed. + +The memory of that hour was not to leave the girl while life was in +her; nor was the question it raised ever to be answered in a fashion +satisfactory to her intelligence. When later she heard it stated with +authority, by men reputed to be versed in psychic knowledge, that a +subject in hypnosis cannot be willed to act contrary to the instincts +of his or her better nature, she held her peace, but wondered. Was +Victor right, then, and the crime he had willed her to commit in final +analysis not repugnant to her instincts? Or was it some secret faculty +of the soul, telepathy or of its kin, that roused and sent her to keep +her rendezvous with destiny? + +A riddle never to be read: Sofia only knew that, finding herself awake, +she got up, donned négligée and slippers, and set her feet upon the way +appointed without its occurring to her that the way was strange, +without stopping to question why or whether. + +If independent volition, sensible or subliminal, were absent, it could +hardly have been apparent. Sofia herself was not aware of its suspense +or supersession. She knew quite well what she was doing, her every +action was direct and decided, the goal alone remained obscure. She +only knew that somewhere, somehow, something was going wrong without +her, and her presence was required to set it right. + +Letting herself out into the corridor, she drew the door to behind her, +but left it unlatched; with what object, she did not know. But the +lateness of the hour, the stillness of the sleeping household, made it +seem quite in order that she should pause to look cautiously this way +and that and make sure that nobody else was astir to spy upon her or +challenge the purpose of this as yet aimless nocturnal flitting. + +There was nobody that she could see. + +Down the corridor, then, never asking why that way, like a ghost in +haste she sped, but as she drew near to a certain door found her pace +faltering. Sofia knew that door; through it Lady Randolph West herself +had introduced the girl to her boudoir, not two hours since, when +chance, or Fate, or the smooth working out of malicious mortal +machinations had moved the two women simultaneously to seek their +quarters for the night. And in the boudoir Sofia had spent the quarter +of an hour before going on to her own room and bed, civilly attending +to vapid chatter and admiring as in duty bound the admirable jewels of +the family. + +Now she saw the door a few inches ajar with, beyond it, a dim glow. The +circumstance seemed singular, because—now that she remembered—when +Sofia had expressed perfunctory curiosity concerning what precautions +were taken to safeguard the jewels, Lady Randolph West had airily +informed her that she considered insurance to their appraised value +plus a stout lock on the boudoir door better than any strong-box as yet +devised by the ingenuity of man. + +“There’s the safe they’re kept in, of course,” the lady had +declared—“but, my dear, a cardboard box will do as well when any +burglar who knows his business makes up his mind to get at my trinkets. +I never even trouble to lock the thing. I’d rather lose the jewels—and +collect the insurance money—than be frightened out of my wits by +hearing it blown open. No, thanks ever so: any cracksman skillful +enough to pick the lock on the door may bag his loot and go in peace +for all of me!” + +Impulse, at least she called it that, moved Sofia to approach and +cautiously open the door still wider. + +Upon the antique writing-desk that housed the safe burned a single lamp +of low candle-power. A door that led to the adjoining bedchamber was +tightly shut. Sofia’s mistrustful eyes reconnoitred every corner of the +room, and reckoned it empty. Again obedient to undisputed impulse, she +stepped inside and shut the door. The spring-latch of the American lock +found its socket with a soft click. Thereafter, silence, no sound in +the boudoir, none from the room beyond. But to Sofia the hurried +beating of her heart reverberated on the stillness like the rolling of +a drum. + +Without clear appreciation of how she had got there, she found herself +standing over the writing-desk, and discovered what the indifferent +light had till now kept hidden, that a false panel in the front of the +desk had been thrust back, exposing the face of the safe, and that this +last was not even closed. + +At the same time she grew conscious that her hands were shaking +violently, that her every limb, her whole body indeed, was agitated by +desperate trembling. And dully asked herself why this should be ... But +didn’t hesitate. + +Her actions now more than ever resembled those of an unthinking puppet, +although she knew quite well what she was doing; and her gestures might +have been the fruit of long lessoning at the hands of some master of +stage melodrama, so true were they to theatrical convention. + +With furtive, frightened glances toward both doors, Sofia dropped to +her knees before the safe.... + +When she stood up again her hands were filled with jewellery, her two +hands held a treasure of incalculable price in precious stones. + +She paused for a little, staring at them with dilate eyes dark in a +pale, rapt face. Her lips were parted, but only her quickened breathing +whispered past them. She was trembling more painfully than ever. But +she seemed unable to think of anything but the jewels, her gaze was +held in fascination by their coruscant loveliness as revealed by the +light of the little lamp. + +Hers for the taking! + +Then, without warning, a tremendous convulsion laid hold on her body +and soul, and she was racked and shaken by it, and at its crisis her +outstretched hands opened and showered the top of the desk with jewels, +then flew to her head and clutched her throbbing temples. + +She cried out in a low voice of suffering: _“No!”_ + +And of a sudden she was reeling back from the desk, toward the corridor +door, repeating over and over on an ascending scale: _“No! no! no! no! +no!”_ + +Her quaking legs blundered against a chair, her knees gave, she +tottered to fall; strong arms caught her, held her safe, a voice she +knew yet didn’t know in its guarded key muttered in her ear: “Thank +God!” + +She made no struggle, but her eyes of pain and terror sought the +speaker’s face, and saw that he was the man Nogam. In extremity of +amazement she spoke his name. He shook his head. + +“No longer Nogam,” he said in the same low accents, and smiled—“but +your father, Michael Lanyard!” + + + + +XIX +UNMASKING + + +One more instant the girl rested passive in uncomprehending +astonishment; then abruptly she exerted herself to break free from the +supporting embrace, but found the effort wasted for lack of opposition, +so that her own violence sent her reeling away half a dozen paces, to +bring up against the desk; while Lanyard, making no move more than to +drop his rejected arms, remained where she had left him, and requited +her indignant stare with a broken smile of understanding, a smile at +once tender, tolerant, and sympathetic, with a little quirk of rueful +humour for good measure. + +“My father!” Sofia repeated in a gasp of disdain—“_you!_” + +He gave a slight shrug. + +“Such, it appears, is your sad fortune.” + +“A servant!” + +“And not the proud prince you were promised? Rather a come down, one +must admit.” Lanyard laughed low, and moved nearer. “I’m sorry, I mean +I might be (for myself, too) if Nogam were less a fraud than that +pretentious mountebank, Prince Victor—or for the matter of that, if you +were as poor of spirit as you would seem on your own valuation, if you +were not at heart your mother’s daughter, and mine, my child by a woman +whom I loved well, and who long ago loved me!” + +He paused deliberately to let her grasp the full sense of his words, +then pursued: + +“It may help you get your bearings to know that I am truly the Michael +Lanyard to whom Messieurs Secretan & Sypher addressed their +advertisement—you remember—as this should prove.” + +He offered a slip of paper, and after another moment of dumb staring, +the girl took it and read aloud the message which Victor had dictated +following Sofia’s flight to him from the Café des Exiles. + +_“‘To Michael Lanyard, Intelligence Division, the War Office, +Whitehall—’”_ + +“That is to say,” Lanyard interpreted, “of the British Secret Service.” + +“You!” + +He bowed in light irony. “One regrets one is at present unable to offer +better social standing. To-morrow, it may be ... But who knows?” + +Sofia shook her head impatiently, and in a murmur of deepening +amazement resumed her reading of the note: + +_“‘Your daughter Sofia is now with me.. Your own intelligence must tell +you nothing could be more fatal than an attempt to communicate with +her’”_ + +To the interrogation eloquent in her eyes Lanyard replied: + +“Dictated by Victor to Karslake, who passed it on to me, the night he +brought you to the house from the Café des Exiles.” + +“You knew—you, who claim to be my father—yet permitted him—?” + +“You were in the house before I knew I had a daughter; Karslake had no +chance to consult me before fetching you. Furthermore, if he had +hesitated to carry out Victor’s orders just then, not only would he +have nullified all our preparations to secure evidence enough to +convict the man, or at least run him out of England—” + +“Prince Victor? What was he doing, that you should—?” + +“Dabbling in all manner of infamy, from financing a thieves’ fence to +organizing an association of common criminals to bring it business; +from maintaining a corps of agitators to foment social discontent to +fostering this last, most imbecile scheme of all, which comes to naught +to-night, an attempt to overthrow the British Empire and set up in its +stead a Soviet England, with Victor Vassilyevski in the dual rôle of +Trotsky and Lenine!” + +The girl made a sign of bewilderment and incredulity. + +“What are you telling me? Are you mad?” + +“No—but Victor is, mad with lust for power, insane with illusions of +personal aggrandizement. You don’t believe? Listen to me, then, +appreciate to what demoniac lengths he was prepared to go to flatter +his insane ambitions:” + +“Sturm has invented a new poison gas, odourless, colourless, the most +deadly known, and easily manufactured in vast quantities by adding +simple ingredients to ordinary illuminating gas. Fanatic Bolshevist +that he was, Sturm offered his formula to Victor, to be used to clear +the way for social revolution; and Victor jumped at the offer—has spent +vast sums preparing to employ it. His money paid for the recent strike +at the Westminster works of the Gas Light and Coke Company, by means of +which Victor was able to smuggle a round number of his creatures into +its service. His money has corrupted servants employed in Downing +Street, the Houses of Parliament, in the homes of the nobility, even in +Buckingham Palace itself, men ready at a given signal secretly to turn +on gas jets in remote corners and flood the buildings with the very +breath of Death itself. And that signal was to have been given +to-night. Well, it will not be.” + +“But could any scheme be more grotesquely diabolical? Do you ask more +proof of the man’s madness? Do you require more excuse for my +permitting you to be deceived by Victor for a few weeks, rather than +wreck our plans to frustrate his, when all the while Karslake and I +were near you, watching over you, learning to love you—he in his +fashion, I as your father—and both ready at all times to die in your +protection, if it had ever come to that?” + +Lanyard had drawn so near that only a few inches separated them, and +had his voice in such control that at three paces’ distance a vague and +inarticulate murmur at most might have been heard; but in Sofia’s +hearing his accents rang with passionate sincerity, persuading her +against the reason which would have rejected his indictment of Victor +as too fantastic, too imaginative, and too hopelessly overdrawn to be +given credence. She believed him, knowing in her heart that he believed +his statements to the last word; and knowing more, that he was surely +what he represented himself to be, her father. + +Inscrutable the processes of human hearts: even as from the very first +Sofia had instinctively yet unconsciously recognized the intrinsic +falsity of Victor’s pretensions, so now she perceived the integral +honesty that informed Lanyard’s every word and nuance of expression, +and accepted him without further inquisition. + +To his insistent “Have I made you understand?” she returned a wan +wraith of a smile, pitiful with entreaty, while one of her hands found +the way to his. + +“I think so,” she replied in halting apology—“at least, I believe you. +But be a little patient with me. It is all so new and strange, what you +tell me, it’s hard at first to grasp, there’s so much I must accept on +faith alone, so much I don’t understand ...” + +“I know.” Lanyard pressed her hand gently. + +“But try to have faith; I promise you it shall be fairly rewarded. Only +a little longer now, an hour or two at most, and Karslake will be here +to prove the truth of all I have asserted. You will believe him, at +least.” + +“Of course,” the girl said, simply. “I love him. You knew that?” + +“I guessed, and I am glad, glad for both of you.” + +“But he is safe?” Sofia demanded in sudden access of alarm so strong +that her voice rose above the pitch of discretion. + +“Quietly. Yes, he is safe enough.” + +“You know that for a fact? How do you know—?” + +“I’ve seen him to-night, talked with him—not two hours since.” + +“You have been in London?” she questioned—“to-night?” + +“Rather! Victor sent me.” Lanyard laughed lightly. “You didn’t know, of +course, but—well, I gave him reason to suspect me, so he sent me up to +be assassinated by Shaik Tsin. As it turned out, however, Herr Sturm +most obligingly understudied for me.... Before coming back, I looked +Karslake up. He’d been busy, playing a lone hand, ever since Victor +trumped up an errand to keep him out of your way all day. No need to go +into tedious details; I found Karslake had matters well in hand: the +gas works surrounded by a cordon of troops, the house under close +watch, and—best of all—a sworn confession from an Irish Member of +Parliament whom Victor had managed to buy with a promise to free +Ireland once Soviet England was an accomplished fact. So I left +Karslake to wind up loose ends in London, and posted back with my heart +in my mouth for fear I’d be too late.” + +“Too late?” Sofia queried with arching brows. + +“Need I remind you where we are?” + +A sweep of Lanyard’s hand indicated the boudoir; and Sofia started +sharply in perplexity and alarm. + +“Where we are!” she echoed in a frightened whisper. + +Of a sudden memory returned of what had passed in that room before +Lanyard had revealed himself to her, and knowledge of her peril so +narrowly escaped drove home like a knife to her heart. + +“What am I doing here?” she breathed in horror. “What have I done?” + +“Nothing more dreadful than prove yourself as true as you are fine, by +revolting in the end against the most powerful force known to man, the +force of suggestion implanted in hypnotism. You couldn’t know that it +was hypnotic not natural sleep you passed into last night, when Victor +tricked you with that damned crystal, or that, while you slept, he +willed you to do here to-night what, when it came to the final test, +your nature would not let you do.” + +“But he so often told me I had the instincts of a thief—!” + +“So often—_I_ know—that you were, against your will and reason, by dint +of the very iteration of it, coming to accept that lie as a truth whose +power there was no contesting. That is why, that you might prove +yourself by your own acts, I had to let you undergo your ordeal here +to-night, only standing by to make sure no ill came of it. Otherwise +you might have carried to your grave the fear instilled into your soul +by that blackguard. But now you know he lied, and will never doubt +again—or reproach your father for the dark record of his younger +years.” + +He checked, lifting hands of desolate appeal, then let them fall. + +“Dear, if you knew you would not judge me harshly. If only you could +know what I have fought up from, a foundling without a name abandoned +in a third-rate Parisian hotel, reared a scullion, butt and scapegoat, +with associates only of the lowest, scullions, beggars, pickpockets, +Apaches, and worse—!” + +“As if that mattered!” + +The girl turned a softly suffused face with shining eyes to Lanyard’s. +Now at last she knew him, now the romance of her dreams of yesterday +came true: through the mean masquerade of Nogam the man emerged, +identifying himself in her sight unmistakably with that splendid +stranger whom she had never quite forgotten since that old-time +afternoon when he had met Karslake in the Café des Exiles and talked so +intimately of his antecedents, hinting at a history of youthful years +strangely analogous with her own. + +Involuntarily her arms lifted and settled upon his shoulders. + +“I am so proud to think—” + +A shrill scream drowned out her words, a woman’s voice ranging swiftly +the staccato gamut of terror and cracking discordantly on its most +piercing note. + +Then with a bang that shook the flooring and must have been heard in +the farthest corners of the house, the bedchamber door was slammed +behind their backs. But beyond it the screaming went on in volume +imperceptibly muffled by its barrier, one ear-splitting caterwaul +following another with such continuity that the wonder was where Lady +Randolph West found breath to keep up that atrocious row, and whether +any dozen women of average lung-power could have rivalled it. + +In one sharp movement Lanyard and Sofia disengaged and fell apart, +their eyes consulting, hers in dismay, his in mixed exasperation and +remorse. + +“I ought to be shot,” he declared, bitterly—“who knew better!—to have +delayed here, exposing you to this danger—!” + +“It couldn’t be helped,” Sofia insisted; “you had to make me +understand. Besides, if I hurry back—” + +In quick strides Lanyard crossed to the corridor door, unlatched and +opened it an inch, peered out, and gave the sum of what he saw in a +gesture of finality, then leaving the door ajar turned swiftly back to +the girl. + +“Too late,” he said: “they’re swarming out into the hall like bees. In +another minute ...” + +Of a sudden he closed with Sofia, roughly clasping her body to him. + +“Struggle with me!” he pleaded—“get me by the throat, throw me back +across the desk—” + +“What do you mean? Let me go!” + +In answer to her efforts to wrench away, Lanyard only tightened his +hold and swung her toward the desk. + +“Do as I bid you! It’s the only way out. Let them think you heard a +noise, got up to investigate, found me here, rifling the safe—” + +“No,” she insisted—“no! Why should I save myself at your +expense?—betray you—my father—!” + +“Then give me the obedience of a daughter ... or let Victor succeed in +branding you a thief, the daughter of a thief!” + +He stilled the protest she would have uttered by placing fingers over +her lips. + +“Listen!” + +In the corridor an angry rumour of voices, alarmed calls and cries, +with thumps and scuffles of hasty feet, in the bedchamber the shrieks +persisting without the least hint of failing: as a damned soul might +bawl upon its bed of coals ... + +“Sofia, I implore you!” + +Still she hesitated. + +“But you—?” + +“Never fear for me, remember that I am of the Secret Service: two +minutes after I see the inside of the nearest police station, I shall +be free—and happy in the assurance that your name is without stain. +Then Karslake will come for you, bring you to me ... Now!” + +Lanyard caught the girl’s two wrists together and, throwing himself +bodily backward across the desk, carried her hands to his throat. + +With a simultaneous crash the door was flung back to the wall. Led by +Victor Vassilyevski a dozen men, guests and servants, in various stages +of dishabille, streamed into the room. + + + + +XX +THE DEVIL TO PAY + + +When it was all over, when the gravelled drive no longer crunched to +wheels that bore away the man Nogam to answer for his misdeeds, when +the household had quieted down and the most indefatigable +sensation-monger had wearied of singing the praises of the Princess +Sofia and, tossing off a final whiskey-and-soda, had paddled sleepily +back to bed, lights burned on brightly in two parts only of Frampton +Court, in the bedchambers tenanted respectively by Prince Victor +Vassilyevski and his reputed daughter. + +Alone, Prince Victor sat at the desk where he had, four hours earlier, +inscribed those characters which should have hurried Nogam into a +premature grave. That they had failed of their mission was something +that fretted Victor Vassilyevski, his mind and nerves, to a pitch of +exacerbation all but unendurable. + +What had become of that sentence to death? And what of that other, the +telegram which, forwarded by Nogam’s hand to Sturm, should long since +have set in motion the organized machinery of murder and demolition? + +Had Nogam, as he had meekly insisted on being questioned subsequent to +his subjugation, truly delivered the two messages as directed and, +miraculously escaping his fate decreed, returned to Frampton Court by +the twelve-three, likewise in strict conformance with instructions? + +This statement Nogam had neglected to amplify, and Victor had been +chary of too close questioning, lest it elicit too much in the hearing +of others. Once overpowered, Nogam had been philosophic about his bad +luck; but the eyes in his face of a stoic had held a gleam that Victor +didn’t altogether like, a light that seemed suspiciously malicious, a +suggestion of spirited humour deplorable to say the least in a +self-confessed sneak-thief caught in the very act, deplorable and +disturbing; in Victor’s sight a look constructively indicative of more +knowledge than Nogam had any right to possess. Take it any way you +pleased, something to think about ... + +Still more disquieting Victor thought the circumstance that nobody else +had seemed to notice that anomalous light in Nogam’s eyes; which of +course might mean merely that Victor had worked himself into such a +state of nerves that he was seeing things, but equally well that the +look was one reserved for Victor alone, intentionally or not holding +for him a message, if he had but had the wit to read it, of peculiarly +personal import. + +It might have implied, for example, that Victor’s half-hearted and +paltering distrust of Nogam had all along been only too well warranted. +In which case, the fat was already in the fire with a vengeance, and +Victor’s probable duration of life was dependent wholly upon the speed +with which he could quit Frampton Court and hurl his motor-car through +the night to the lower reaches of the Thames. + +Envisagement of the worst at its blackest being part of the holy duty +of self-preservation, Victor sat fully dressed, with every other +provision made for flight at the first flash of warning, only waiting +to make sure, and with what impatience was apparent in the working of +paste-coloured features, the wincing and shifting of slotted eyes, the +incessant shutting and unclosing of tensed fingers. + +All rested with the telephone that stood mockingly mute at the man’s +elbow, callous alike to his anxiety and the rancorous regard in which +he held it. His call for the house near Queen Anne’s Gate had now been +in for more than forty minutes; in that interval he had no less than +three times pleaded its urgency to the trunk-line operator. And still +the muffled bell beneath the desk was dumb. + +And the worst of it was, fatal though the delay might prove, he dared +not stir a hand to save himself until he _knew_.... + +In the taut torment of those long-drawn minutes a sound of circumspect +scratching was enough to bring Victor to his feet in one startled +bound. + +He stood for a moment, a-twitch, but intent upon the corridor door, +then composed himself with indifferent success, approached and opened +the door. The girl Chou Nu slipped in, offered a timid courtesy, and +awaited his leave to speak. + +“Well? What is it?” + +“Excellency: the Princess Sofia refuses to let me stay in the room with +her.” + +“Why? Don’t you know?” + +“I think she means to run away. She would not go back to her bed, but +walked up and down, till I ventured to urge her to take rest, when she +turned on me in a rage and bade me be gone. Then I came to you.” + +Victor took thought and finished with a dour nod. + +“You have done well. Return, keep watch, let me know if she leaves—” + +“The door is locked, Excellency: she will not let me in.” + +“Spy through the keyhole, then; or hide in one of the empty rooms +across the corridor, and watch—” + +A muted mutter from the direction of the desk dried speech on Victor’s +lips. He started hastily toward the source of the sound, midway +wheeled, and dismissed the maid with a brusque hand and +monosyllable—“Go!”—then fairly pounced upon the telephone. + +But all he heard, in the course of the ensuing five minutes, was the +voice of the trunk-line operator advising him, to begin with, that she +was ready to put him through to Westminster, then maddeningly +punctuating the buzz and whine of the empty wire with her call of a +talking doll—“Are you theah?... Are you theah?... Are you theah?” + +At length, however, the connection was established; and Victor, hearing +the falsetto of Chou Nu’s second-uncle cheerily respond to the +operator’s query, unceremoniously broke in: + +“Shaik Tsin? It is I, Number One. And the devil’s own time I’ve had +getting through. Why didn’t you answer more promptly? What’s the +matter? Has anything gone wrong?” + +“All is well, Excellency, as well as you could wish, knowing what you +know.” + +Profound relief found voice in a sigh from Victor’s heart. + +“You got my messages, then? Nogam delivered them?” + +“So I understand. I myself did not see him, Excellency. The man Sturm—” + +On that name the voice died away in what Victor fancied was a gasp that +might have been of either fright or pain. + +“Hello!” he prompted. “Are you there, Shaik Tsin? I say! Are you there? +Why don’t you answer?” + +He paused: no sound for seconds that dragged like so many minutes, then +of a sudden a deadened noise like the slam of a door heard afar—or a +pistol shot at some distance from the telephone in the study. + +Further and frantic importuning of the cold and unresponsive wire +presently was silenced by a new voice, little like that of Shaik Tsin. + +“Hello? Who’s there? I say: that you, Prince Victor?” + +Involuntarily Victor cried: “Karslake!” “What gorgeous luck! I’ve been +wanting a word with you all evening.” + +“What has happened? Why did Shaik Tsin—?” + +“Oh, most unfortunate about him—frightfully sorry, but it really +couldn’t be helped, if he hadn’t fought back we wouldn’t have had to +shoot him. You see, the old devil murdered Sturm to-night, for some +reason I daresay you understand better than I: we found a paper on the +beggar, written in Chinese, apparently an order for his assassination +signed by you. Half a mo’: I’ll read it to you ...” + +But if Karslake translated Victor’s message, as edited by the hand of +Nogam, it was to a wire as deaf as it was dumb. + + + + +XXI +VENTRE À TERRE + + +With exceeding care to avoid noise, Sofia unlocked the door and for the +second time since midnight let herself stealthily out into the darkened +corridor; but now with the difference that she did what she did in full +command of all her wits and faculties, with no subjective war of wills +to hinder and confuse her, and with a definite object clearly +visioned—a goal no less distant than the railway station. + +Lanyard had promised that Karslake should come for her within an hour +or two and take her away with him, back to London and the arms of the +father whom, although so recently revealed and accepted, she had +already begun to love; if indeed it were not true that she had in +filial sense fallen in love with Lanyard at first sight, through +intuition, that afternoon in the Café des Exiles so long, so very long +ago! + +Well: she might as well await Karslake at the station. It would be +simpler, she would be more at ease there, would breathe more freely +once she turned her back on Frampton Court and all its hateful +associations. Where Victor was, she could not rest. + +If she had feared the man before, now she hated him; but hatred had +added to her fear instead of replacing it, she remained afraid, +desperately afraid, so that even the thought of continuing under the +same roof with him was enough to make her prefer to tramp unknown roads +alone in the mirk of that storm-swept night. + +Though she went in trembling, she felt sure nobody spied upon her +going; and in this confidence crept to the great staircase, down to the +entrance hall, and on to the front doors; and a good omen it seemed to +find these not locked, but simply on the latch. And if the night into +which she peered was dark and loud with wind and rain, its countenance +seemed kindlier, more friendly far than that of the world she was +putting behind her. Without misgivings Sofia stepped out. + +It was like stepping over the edge of the universe into the eternal +night that bides beyond the stars. Neither did waiting seem to +habituate her vision to the lack of light. + +Still, the feel of gravel underfoot ought to guide her down the drive +to the great gateway; and once outside the park, clear of its +overshadowing trees, one would surely find mitigation of darkness +sufficient to show the public road. + +She took one tentative step out of the recessed doorway and into +Victor’s arms. + +That they were Victor’s she knew instantly, as much by the crawling of +her flesh as by the choking terror that stifled the scream in her +throat and froze body and limbs with its paralyzing touch. + +And then his ironic accents: + +“So good of you to spare me the trouble of coming for you!” + +Before she could reply or even think, other hands than his were busy +with her. A folded cloth was whipped over the lower half of her face, +sealing her lips, and knotted at the nape of her neck. Stout arms +clipped her knees and swung her off her feet, leaving her body helpless +in Victor’s tight embrace. And despite her tardy recovery and efforts +to struggle, she was carried swiftly away, a dozen paces or so, then +tumbled bodily in upon the floor of a motor-car. + +The door closed as she tried to pick herself up, the smooth purring of +the motor became a leonine roar while she was still on her knees, gears +clashed, and the car leaped with a jerk that drove her headlong against +the cushions of the seat. Then the dome light was switched on, and she +saw Victor with a bleak face sitting over her, an automatic pistol +naked in his hand. + +“Get up!” he said, grimly, “and if there’s any thought of fight left in +you, think better of it, remember your mother paid with her life the +price of defying me, and yours means even less to me. Up with you and +sit quietly beside me—do you hear?” + +He lent her a hand that wrenched her arm brutally and wrung a cry which +Victor mocked as Sofia fell upon the seat and cringed back into the +corner. + +For perhaps thirty seconds, while the car raced away down the drive, he +continued to hold her in the venom of her sneer; then his gaze veered +sharply, and leaning over he switched off the light. + +With the body of the car again the dwelling-place of darkness, objects +beyond its rain-gemmed glass—the heads of the Chinese maid and +chauffeur, the twin piers of the nearing gateway—attained dense relief +against the blue-white glare of two broad headlight beams, that of the +limousine boring through the gateway to intersect at right angles that +of another car approaching on the highroad but as yet hidden by the +wall of the park. + +In one breath and the same the lights of the second car swerved in +toward the gateway, and consternation seized hold of Sofia’s +intelligence and wiped it clear of all coherence. + +Already the strange lamps were staring blankly in between the piers—and +the momentum of Victor’s car was too great to be arrested within the +distance. The girl cried out, but didn’t know it, and crouched low; the +horn added a squawk of frenzy to a wild clamour of yells; all prefatory +to a scrunching, rending crash as, in the very mouth of the gateway, a +front fender of the incoming car ripped through the rear fender above +which Sofia was sitting. Thrown heavily against Victor, then instantly +back to her place, she felt the car, with brakes set fast, turn +broadside to the road, skid crabwise, and lurch sickeningly into the +ditch on the farther side. + +For an interminable time, while the ponderous fabric rocked and +toppled, threatening very instant to crash upon its side, the rear +wheels spun madly and the chain-bound tires tore in vain at greasy road +metal. + +Without clear comprehension of what was happening, Sofia heard shouts +from the other car, now at a standstill, and an oddly syncopated +popping. The window in the door on Victor’s side rang like a cracked +bell, shivered, and fell inward, clashing. With a growl of rage, Victor +bent forward and levelled an arm through the opening. From his hand +truncated tongues of orange flame, half a dozen of them, stabbed the +gloom to an accompaniment of as many short and savage barks. + +Then the chains at last bit through to a purchase, the car scrambled to +the crown of the road and lunged precipitately away; and the lights of +the other dropped astern in the space of a rest between heartbeats. + +Sitting back, Victor turned on the dome light again, and extracting an +empty magazine clip from the butt of his automatic pistol, replaced it +with another, loaded. + +From this occupation he looked up with lips curling in contempt of +Sofia’s terror. + +“Your friends,” he observed, “were a thought behindhand, eh? When you +come to know me better, my dear, you’ll find they invariably are—with +me.” + +Aftermath of fright made her tongue inarticulate; and Victor’s sneer +took on a colour of mean amusement. + +“Something on your mind?” + +She twisted her hands together till the laced fingers hurt. + +“Wha-what are you go-going to do with me?” + +“Make good use of you, dear child,” he laughed: “be sure of that!” + +“What do you mean?” + +“What do you think?” + +“I don’t know ...” + +“Really not? But there I think you do injustice to your admirable +intelligence.” + +The jeering laugh sounded as he put out the light again, in darkness +the derisive voice pursued: + +“If you must know in so many words—well, I mean to keep you by me till +the final curtain falls. As long as it lasts, yours will be an +interesting life—I give my word.” + +“And you call yourself my father!” + +“Oh, no! No, indeed: that’s all over and done with, the farce is played +out; and while I’m aware my rôle in it wasn’t heroic, I shan’t play the +purblind fool in the afterpiece—pure drama—upon which the curtain is +now rising. Neither need you. Oh, I’ll be frank with you, if you wish, +lay all my cards on the table.” + +A deliberate pause ended in a chuckle. + +“I have at present precisely two uses for my precious little Sofia: She +will serve excellently as insurance against further persecution on the +part of her accomplished and energetic father—with whom I shall deal in +my good leisure—and ... But need one be crudely explicit?” + +Sofia answered nothing to that, for a long time she said nothing, but +sat pondering.... + +And Victor was speedily provided with another interest which engrossed +him to the exclusion of further efforts to bait a victim defenseless +against his insolence. + +When for the third time after that narrow scrape at the gates the man +roused up to peer back through the rear window of the limousine, Sofia +heard a harshly sibilant intake of breath between shut teeth, and +surmised the discovery that the car which had so narrowly missed +blocking their escape had picked up the trail, and was now in hot +chase. + +Even youth, however, could distill but slender hope from this. The pace +was too terrific at which Victor’s car was thundering through the +night-bound countryside, it seemed idle to dream that another could +overhaul it, even though driven with as much skill and maniacal +recklessness. And Sofia returned to thoughts to which Victor’s innuendo +had given definite shape and colour, if with an effect far from that of +his intention. Threatened, the spirit of the girl responded much as +sane young flesh will to a cold plunge. She had forgotten to tremble, +and though still tense-strung in every fibre was able to sit still, +look steadily into the face of peril, and calculate her chances of +cheating it. + +Presently, in a tone so even it won begrudged admiration, she asked: + +“Where are you taking me?” + +“Do you really care?” + +“Enough to ask.” + +“But why should I tell you?” + +“No reason. I presume it doesn’t really matter, I’ll know soon enough.” + +“Then I don’t mind enlightening you. We’re bound for the Continent by +way of Limehouse. A launch is waiting for us in Limehouse Reach, a +yacht off Gravesend. Oh, I have forgotten nothing! By daybreak we’ll be +at sea.” + +“We?” + +“You and I.” + +“You deceive yourself, Prince Victor. I shan’t accompany you.” + +“How amusing! And is it a secret, how you propose to stand against my +will?” + +Sofia was silent for a little; then, “I can kill myself,” she said, +quietly. + +“To be sure you can! And when I tire of you, perhaps I’ll humour your +morbid inclinations—if they still exist.” + +“You are a fool,” Sofia returned, bluntly, “if you think I shall go +aboard that yacht alive.” + +“Brava!” Victor laughed, and clapped his hands. “Brava! brava!” + +He sat up for another look out of the rear window, sucked at his breath +even more sharply than before, and snatching up the speaking-tube +pronounced urgent words in Chinese. + +The head of the chauffeur, in stark silhouette against the leading +glow, bent toward the tube, and nodded rapidly. And to the +deep-throated roar of an unmuffled exhaust, the heavy car leaped, like +a spirited animal stung by whip and spur, and settled into a stride to +which what had gone before was as a preliminary canter to the +heartbreaking drive down to the home-stretch. + +Lights began to dot the roadside. Widely spaced at first, unbroken +ranks were soon streaking past the tear-blind windows. Outskirts of +London were being traversed; but neither driving sheets of rain against +which human vision failed, nor the chance of encountering belated +traffic, worked any slackening of the pace. Only when a corner had to +be negotiated did the car slow down, and then never to the point of +sanity; and the turn once rounded, its flight would again become +headlong, lunatic, suicidal. + +The stringed lamps wove a wavering luminous ribbon without end; a +breeze laden with the wet fragrance of London drove great gusts of rain +in stringing showers through the broken window. Turns and twists grew +more frequent, apparently favouring the pursuit. + +Victor now knelt constantly on the back seat, his face in the fitful +play of light and shadow uncannily resembling that of a hunted jungle +cat. On the polished steel of his pistol sinister gleams winked and +faded. From his snarling lips foul oaths fell, a steady stream, black +blasphemies spewed up from the darkest dives of the Orient—most of them +happily couched in the tongues of their origin and so unintelligible to +his one auditor. As it was, she heard and understood enough, too much. + +Nevertheless, the man was not too completely absorbed in watching the +shifting fortunes of the race to be unmindful of the girl. And when +once she sat up to ease cramped limbs, he misread her intention and, +catching her viciously by an arm, threw her back into her corner and +advised her not to play the giddy little fool. + +After that Sofia was at pains to stir as seldom as possible, and bided +her time quietly enough, but never for an instant relaxed her +watchfulness or lost heart. + +The shouldering houses that hedged their course discovered a profile, +ragged, black against a sky whose purple dimness held the first dull +presage of dawn. + +In the wild rush of a marauding tomcat the car crossed a broad public +square and sped up the graded approach to a bridge. The smell of the +Thames was unmistakable, the far-flung lamps of the Embankment were +pearls aglow upon violet velvet. + +Leaving the bridge, the limousine took a turn on two wheels, and +immediately something happened, seemingly some attempt to stop it was +made. Vociferous voices hailed it, only to induce an augmented bellow +of the exhaust with an instantaneous acceleration of impetus. Then +something was struck and tossed aside as a bull might toss a dog—a dark +shape whirling and flopping hideously; and an agonized screaming made +the girl cower, sick with horror, and cover her ears with her hands. + +Before she was able to forget those qualms many more minutes of frantic +driving had flung to the rear many a mile of silent streets. + +Of a sudden she heard an inhuman cry and, looking up, saw Victor dash +the butt of his pistol through the glass, then reversing the weapon +pour through the opening a fusillade whose effect was presumably +gratifying, for he laughed to himself when the pistol was empty, +laughed briefly but with vicious glee. + +That laugh levelled the last barrier of doubt and fear and nerved Sofia +finally to test the forlorn hope she had been nursing ever since Victor +had let her see a little way into his mind as to her fate. + +Until he could reload, only the tradition of the sexes lent him +theoretical superiority; whereas he was in fact a man well on the +thither side of middle-age, his virility sapped by long indulgence of +unbridled appetites; while Sofia was a woman in the fullest flush of +her first mature powers. + +Gathering herself together, she inched forward and made ready to +spring, bear him down, overpower him—by some or any means put him hors +de combat long enough for her to fling a door open and herself out into +the street.... + +With squealing brakes the car shaved an acute corner and slid on locked +wheels to a dead halt so unexpected that it was Sofia who plunged +floundering to the floor, while Victor only by a minor miracle escaped +catapulting through the front windows. + +The next instant, as Sofia struggled to her knees, the door behind her +was wrenched open from without and, at a sign from Victor, rough hands +laid hold of the girl and dragged her out bodily. + +In a passion of despair, she lost her senses for a time and like a +madwoman fought, shrieking, biting, kicking, clawing, scratching.... + +With returning lucidity she found herself, panting and dishevelled, +arms pinned to her sides, struggling on for all that, being hustled by +some half a dozen men across a narrow sidewalk of uneven flagstones. + +Simultaneously the shutter of perceptions snapped, photographing +permanently upon the super-sensitized film of conscious memory the +glimpsed vista of a grim, mean street whose repellent uglinesses +grinned through the boding twilight like lineaments of some monstrous +mask of evil. + +Then she tripped on a low stone step, stumbled, and was half-carried, +half-thrown into a narrow and malodorous hallway. + +Between her and the sweet liberty of the rain-washed air a door crashed +like the crack of doom. + + + + +XXII +THE SEVEN BRASS HINGES + + +Into a space perhaps four feet in width from wall to wall and seven +deep from the front door to the foot of a cramped flight of crazy +wooden stairs, some ten people were crowded, Sofia and the maid Chou Nu +in a knot of excited men. + +In the saffron glow of an ill-trimmed paraffin lamp smoking in a wall +bracket, desperate faces, yellow and brown and white, consulted one +another with rolling eyeballs and strange tongues clamorous. Sofia +heard the broken rustling of heavy respirations; she saw uncouth +gesticulations carve the shadows; her nostrils were revolted by +effluvia of unclean bodies, garments saturate with opium smoke and +curious cookery, breaths sour with alcohol. + +Two were busy at the door, under the direction of Prince Victor, +setting stout bars into iron sockets. When they had finished, Victor +elbowed them out of his way and thrust back the slide of a narrow +horizontal peephole, through which he reconnoitred. + +The tall, thin body stiffened as he looked, and without turning he +flung an open hand behind him and snapped a demand in Chinese. Somebody +slipped a revolver into his palm. Levelling it he sent a volley +crashing through the peephole. Yells responded, and in the hush that +fell upon the final shot a noise of fugitive feet scraping and +stumbling on cobbles. A bullet struck the door a sounding thump and all +but penetrated, raising a bump on the inner face of its thick oaken +panels; and Victor shut the slide and turned back. + +Subservient silence saluted him. He spoke in Chinese, issuing (Sofia +gathered) instructions for the defense of the house. One by one the men +designated dropped out of the group about her. Three shuffled off into +a room adjoining the hallway. Two others ran briskly up the stairs. A +sixth Victor directed to stand by the barred door. His chauffeur and +another Chinaman he told off for his personal attendance. + +The maid Chou Nu was left to shift for herself, and while Sofia could +see her she did not shift a finger from her pose of terror, flattened +to the wall. When Sofia came back that way, the girl had vanished, +however. Nor was she seen again alive. + +Her arms held fast, Sofia was partly led and partly dragged down the +hall, Victor herding the group on past the staircase and into a bare +room at the back of the house, where a solitary lamp burning on a deal +table discovered for all other furnishing broken chairs, coils of +tarred rope, a rack of ponderous oars and boat-hooks, a display of +shapeless oilskins and sou’westers on pegs. The windows were boarded up +from sills to lintels, the air was close and dank with the stale +flavour of foul tidal waters. + +Here Victor took charge of Sofia, the chauffeur holding the lamp to +light the other Chinaman at his labours with a trap-door in the floor, +a slab of woodwork so massive that, when its iron bolts had been drawn, +it needed every whit of the man’s strength to lift and throw it back +upon its hinges; and its crashing fall made all the timbers quake and +groan. + +Through the square opening thus discovered Sofia saw a ladder of +several slimy steps washed by black, oily waters that sucked and +swirled sluggishly round spiles green with weed and ooze. + +Down these steps the Chinaman crept gingerly, but halfway paused with a +cry, then cringed back to the head of the ladder, yellow face blanched, +slant eyes piteous with fear, as he exhibited an end of stout mooring +line whose other end was made fast to a ring bolt in one of the joists. + +With a smothered oath Victor snatched the rope’s end from the trembling +hand and examined it closely. Even Sofia could see that it had been +cleanly severed by a knife. + +Victor’s countenance was ablaze as he dropped the rope. Before the +tempest of his wrath the Chinaman bent like a reed, with faint, +protesting bleats and feebly weaving hands. + +But in full tide the tirade faltered, Victor seemed to forget his anger +or else to remind himself it was puerile in contrast with the mortal +issues that now confronted him. + +He turned to Sofia eyes of cold fire in a wintry countenance. + +“So,” he pronounced, slowly, “it appears you are to have your way, +after all, and more speedily than either of us reckoned. You are to +die, and so am I, this day—you in my arms. Well, it is time, I daresay, +when I permit myself to be duped and overreached by police spies like +your persevering father and lover. Yes; I am ready to pay the price of +my fatuity—but not until they had paid me for their victory—and dearly. +Come!” + +He motioned to the Chinese to reclose and fasten the trap-door, and +grasping Sofia’s wrist with cruel fingers hurried her back through the +hallway. + +Repeated breaks of pistol-fire guided them to the front room, a racket +echoed in diminished volume from the street. + +In an atmosphere already thick with acrid fumes of smokeless powder two +men held the windows, firing through loopholes in iron-bound blinds of +oak. At their feet a third squatted, reloading for them as occasion +required. As Sofia and Victor entered one man dropped his weapon and, +grunting, fell back from his window to nurse a shattered hand. +Releasing the girl without another word, Victor caught up the pistol +and took the vacant post. + +Instantly, on peering out, he fired once, then again. Evidently missing +both shots, he settled to await a better target, eyes intent to the +loophole. In the course of the next few minutes he changed position but +once, when, after firing several more shots, he tossed the empty weapon +to the man on the floor and received a loaded one in exchange. + +Seeing him thus employed, altogether forgetful, Sofia began to back +toward the hall, step by cautious step, keeping her attention fixed to +Victor throughout. But he seemed to be completely preoccupied with his +markmanship, and paid her no heed. + +Nevertheless, when she at length found courage to swing and dart away +through the door, Victor flung three curt words to the fellow at his +feet, who grunted, rose, and glided from the room in close chase. + +The guard at the front door was not so busy as Sofia had hoped to find +him, not too interested in the progress of siege operations outside to +note her approach and look round from his peephole with a menacing grin +of welcome; and his unmistakable readiness, as pistol in hand he took a +single step toward her, drove the girl back to the foot of the stairs. + +Then the other came swiftly after her, and Sofia swung in panic and +stumbled up the steps. There were others up above, two to her certain +knowledge, possibly many more of Victor’s creatures; but if only she +could find some sort of refuge in the uppermost fastnesses of the +rookery, perhaps ... + +Like a shape of smoke wind-driven, she sped up the first flight, then +the second, only pausing at the head of the third and last flight to +throw hunted glances right, left, and behind her. + +Overhead a skylight with dingy panes diffused a dull blue glimmer which +discovered a yawning door at her elbow, a pocket of black mystery +beyond, and on the uppermost steps of the staircase her patient yellow +shadow, his upturned eyes inscrutable but potentially revolting with +their very concealment of the intent behind them. + +Impossible that a worse thing could await her beyond that dark +threshold.... + +She crossed it in one stride, swung the door to, and set her shoulders +against it. + +Outside she heard the shuffling footfalls pause. The knob rattled. But +instead of the inward thrust against which she stood braced, there came +the least of outward pulls, as if to make sure that the latch had +caught; and after a brief pause a key grated in the lock, was +withdrawn, and the slippered feet withdrew in turn. + +When her lungs ceased to labour painfully, she took her courage in both +hands and began to explore, groping blindly through darkness, +encountering nothing till she blundered into a table which held a glass +lamp for paraffin oil, like those in use below. + +Fumbling over the top of the table, she found matches, struck one, and +set its fire to the wick. + +The flame waxed and grew steady in a crusted chimney, revealing a room +with a slant ceiling and two dormer windows, boarded; in one corner a +cot-bed with tumbled blankets, near this a low wooden stand, with a +pipe, spirit lamp, and other paraphernalia of an opium smoker—no +chairs, not another stick of furniture of any kind. + +Removing the lamp, the girl set it on the floor, and pushed the table +over against the door. By not so long as half a minute would its +reinforcement delay Victor when he made up his mind to get in. But in +such emergencies the human kind is not impatient of the most futile +expedients. + +There was nothing more she could do. She stood still, listening. The +rattle of pistol fire three floors below continued in fits and starts, +but the sound of it was oddly unreal, resembling more stammering +explosions of a string of firecrackers than snaps of the whiplash of +Death. + +She tried one of the windows without encouragement, but at the other +found a board with a loose end, which she pried aside, till through +begrimed glass she could see a ghastly, weeping sky of daybreak and, by +craning her neck, peer down into the dark gully of the street. + +At first she thought it empty; but presently her straining vision made +out two huddled shapes upon the farther sidewalk, close under the walls +of a public house whose sign she could just barely decipher: the Red +Moon. + +Then, about to draw back from the window, she saw five men, oddly +foreshortened figures from that lofty coign of view, leave the Red Moon +by one of its bar entrances, bearing between them a heavy beam of wood, +and with this improvised battering-ram aimed at the door to the +besieged house, charge awkwardly across the cobbles. + +The house spat fire from door and windows, a withering blast. In the +middle of the street the beam was abandoned, three of its fool-hardy +bearers took to their heels, each shaping an individual course, while +one lay still upon the wet black stones, and another, apparently +wounded in the legs, sought pitifully to drag himself by his arms, inch +by inch, out of the zone of fire. But presently his efforts grew +feeble, then he, too, lay stirless, prone in the sluicing rain. + +The girl shrank back from the window, hiding her eyes as if to blot out +that picture. + +The light, that is to say the absence of it in true sense, the angle of +view, and the distance, all had conspired to prevent her from making +sure that neither her father nor Karslake were of those four whose +broken bodies cluttered the street. But the fear and uncertainty were +maddening.... + +She wheeled suddenly toward the door: the ancient stairs were creaking +beneath a measured tread. She made an offer to add her weight to that +of the table, but checked and fell back immediately, seeing the folly +of sacrificing her strength, the wisdom of saving it to serve her when +finally.... + +The creaking ceased, the wards of the lock grated, the knob turned, the +door was thrust open—the table offering little hindrance if any. From +the threshold Victor eyed the girl with a twitching grin. + +“The time is at hand,” he announced with a parody of punctilio. “We +have beaten them off in the street, but they have found the tunnel from +the cellar of the Red Moon, and are attacking from the river besides. +So, my dear, it ends for us....” + +In silence, shoulders to the wall farthest from the door, Sofia watched +him unwinking. The lamp at her feet painted the tensely poised young +body and bloodless face with quaint, stagey shadows. + +Victor’s glance ranged the cheerless room. + +“I think you understand me,” he said. + +She might have been a waxwork dummy out of Madame Tussaud’s. + +A white blaze of madness transfigured Victor’s countenance. He took one +step toward Sofia. + +In movements so precisely coordinated that they seemed one and +instantaneous, the girl stooped, caught up the lamp, and threw it with +all her might. Victor ducked his head. The lamp sailed on, described a +descending curve through the open doorway into the well of the +staircase, struck, and exploded. In the clutches of the maniac, Sofia +was aware of the lurid glare, momentarily gaining strength, that filled +the rectangle of the doorway. + +In through this last, while iron hands tightened on her throat and +consciousness grew dark with closing shadows, a man’s shape passed, +then another.... + +The grip on her throat grew lax, the hands left it free. She reeled, +but somebody caught her up and bore her swiftly from the room, leaving +two who fought together like beasts on the floor, locked in each +other’s arms, rolling and squirming, rearing and flopping.... + +The scorch of flames stung her cheek, but she forgot that when their +broken light made visible the features of Karslake above the arms +wherein she lay cradled. + +Turning aside from the staircase, Karslake bore her to the ladder +leading to the skylight, whose broken glass crunched beneath his heels +at every step. + +In the open air he pulled up for a moment’s rest, but continued to hold +Sofia in his arms. The wind raved about them, buffeted them, tore their +breath away, rain pelted them like birdshot; but they clung to each +other and were unaware of reason for complaint. + +Presently, however, Karslake remembered, and anxiously endeavoured to +disengage from these tenacious arms. + +“Let me go, dearest,” he muttered. “I must go back—I left your father +to take care of Victor, and—” + +As if evoked by his very solicitude Lanyard emerged from the skylight +hatch, waved a hand in gay salute, then turned to stare down into the +flaming pit from which he had climbed. + +After a little he fell back a pace. Then slowly, with the laboured +movements of exhaustion, Victor worked head and shoulders through the +opening and dragged himself out upon the roof. + +On all fours he held in doubt, his head moving from side to side like +the head of a stricken beast, seeking his enemy with dazzled eyes. Then +he made Lanyard out and, pulling himself together for the supreme +effort, launched at his throat with the pounce of a great cat. + +Lanyard met him halfway, caught him in the middle of his bound, wound +wiry arms round the man and held him helpless. + +His voice rang clear above the crackle of flames: + +“Victor! have you forgotten how you threatened one night, twenty years +ago, to follow me to the very gates of Hell, and what I promised +you—that, if you did, I’d push you inside? Or did you think I would +forget?” + +He cast the man from him, backward, down into the hungry maw of that +inferno.... + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10496 *** diff --git a/10496-h/10496-h.htm b/10496-h/10496-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4f3f277 --- /dev/null +++ b/10496-h/10496-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,12431 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Red Masquerade, by Louis Joseph Vance</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +p.caption {font-weight: bold; + text-align: center; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10496 ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="440" height="600" alt="[Illustration]" /> +<p class="caption">“<i>Prince Victor gave a gesture of pain and reluctance. +‘Must I tell you?</i>’”</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h1>RED MASQUERADE</h1> + +<h3><i>Being the Story of</i><br/> +THE LONE WOLF’S DAUGHTER</h3> + +<h2 class="no-break">BY LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE</h2> + +<h4>1921</h4> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4>TO<br/> +J. PARKER READ, JR., ESQ.<br/> +THE CINEMA THAT WAS HIS</h4> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>APOLOGY</h2> + +<p> +This tale quite brazenly derives from the author’s invention for motion +pictures which Mr. J. Parker Read, Jr., produced in the autumn of 1919 under +the title of “The Lone Wolf’s Daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +It is only fair to state, however, that the author has in this version taken as +many high-handed liberties with the version used by the photoplay director as +the latter took with the original. +</p> + +<p> +The chance to get even for once was too tempting.... +</p> + +<p> +Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Company in the first instance, and then Mr. +Arthur T. Vance, editor of <i>The Pictorial Review</i>, in which the story was +published as a serial, were equally guilty of the encouragement which results +in its appearance in its present guise. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +L.J.V. +</p> + +<p> +Westport—31 December, 1920. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3>Books by Louis Joseph Vance</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE<br/> +JOAN THURSDAY<br/> +NOBODY<br/> +NO MAN’S LAND<br/> +POOL OF FLAME<br/> +PRIVATE WAR<br/> +SHEEP’S CLOTHING<br/> +THE BANDBOX<br/> +THE BLACK BAG<br/> +THE BRASS BOWL<br/> +THE BRONZE BELL<br/> +THE DARK MIRROR<br/> +THE DAY OF DAYS<br/> +THE DESTROYING ANGEL<br/> +THE FORTUNE HUNTER<br/> +THE ROMANCE OF TERENCE O’ROURKE<br/> +TREY O’ HEARTS +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Stories About “The Lone Wolf”</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +THE LONE WOLF<br/> +THE FALSE FACES<br/> +RED MASQUERADE<br/> +ALIAS THE LONE WOLF +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <b>BOOK ONE:</b> A CHAPTER FROM THE YOUTH OF MONSIEUR MICHAEL LANYARD</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b1ch1">CHAPTER I. PLEBEIAN AND PRINCE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b1ch2">CHAPTER II. THE PRINCESS SOFIA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b1ch3">CHAPTER III. MONSIEUR QUIXOTE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b1ch4">CHAPTER IV. THE FOOL AND HIS MONEY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b1ch5">CHAPTER V. IMPOSTOR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b1ch6">CHAPTER VI. THÉRÈSE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b1ch7">CHAPTER VII. FAMILY REUNION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b1ch8">CHAPTER VIII. GREEK VS. GREEK</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b1ch9">CHAPTER IX. PAID IN FULL</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <b>BOOK TWO:</b> THE LONE WOLF’S DAUGHTER</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch1">CHAPTER I. THE GIRL SOFIA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch2">CHAPTER II. MASKS AND FACES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch3">CHAPTER III. THE AGONY COLUMN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch4">CHAPTER IV. MUTINY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch5">CHAPTER V. HOUSE OF THE WOLF</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch6">CHAPTER VI. THE MUMMER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch7">CHAPTER VII. THE FANTASTICS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch8">CHAPTER VIII. COUNCIL OF THE GODLESS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch9">CHAPTER IX. MRS. WARING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch10">CHAPTER X. VICTOR ET AL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch11">CHAPTER XI. HEARTBREAK</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch12">CHAPTER XII. SUSPECT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch13">CHAPTER XIII. THE TURNIP</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch14">CHAPTER XIV. CONFERENCE OF THE DAMNED</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch15">CHAPTER XV. INTUITION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch16">CHAPTER XVI. THE CRYSTAL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch17">CHAPTER XVII. THE RAISED CHEQUE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch18">CHAPTER XVIII. ORDEAL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch19">CHAPTER XIX. UNMASKING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch20">CHAPTER XX. THE DEVIL TO PAY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch21">CHAPTER XXI. VENTRE À TERRE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch22">CHAPTER XXII. THE SEVEN BRASS HINGES</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>BOOK I<br/> +A CHAPTER FROM THE YOUTH OF MONSIEUR MICHAEL LANYARD</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>RED MASQUERADE</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b1ch1"></a>I<br/> +PLEBEIAN AND PRINCE</h2> + +<p> +The gentleman was not in the least bored who might have been and was seen on +that wintry afternoon in Nineteen hundred, lounging with one shoulder to a wall +of the dingy salesroom and idly thumbing a catalogue of effects about to be put +up at auction; but his insouciance was so unaffected that the inevitable +innocent bystander might have been pardoned for perceiving in him a pitiable +victim of the utterest ennui. +</p> + +<p> +In point of fact, he was privately relishing life with enviable gusto. In those +days he could and did: being alive was the most satisfying pastime he could +imagine, or cared to, who was a thundering success in his own conceit and in +fact as well; since all the world for whose regard he cared a twopenny-bit +admired, respected, and esteemed him in his public status, and admired, +respected, and feared him in his private capacity, and paid him heavy tribute +to boot. +</p> + +<p> +More than that, he was young, still very young indeed, barely beyond the +threshold of his chosen career. To his eagerly exploring eye the future +unrolled itself in the likeness of an endless scroll illuminated with +adventures all piquant, picturesque, and profitable. With the happy assurance +of lucky young impudence he figured the world to himself as his oyster; and if +his method of helping himself to the succulent contents of its stubborn shell +might have been thought questionable (as unquestionably it was) he was no more +conscious of a conscience to give him qualms than he was of pangs of +indigestion. Whereas his digestive powers were superb.... +</p> + +<p> +This way of killing an empty afternoon, too, was much to his taste. The man +adored auctions. To his mind a most delectable flavour of discreet scandal +inhered in such collections of shabby properties from anonymous homes. Nothing +so piqued his imagination as some well-worn piece of furniture—say an ancient +escritoire with ink stains on its green baize writing-bed (dried life-blood of +love letters long since dead!) and all its pigeon-holes and little drawers +empty of everything but dust and the seductive smell of secrets; or a +dressing-table whose bewildered mirror, to-day reflecting surroundings cold and +strange, had once been quick and warm to the beauty of eyes brilliant with +delight or blurred with tears; or perchance a bed.... +</p> + +<p> +And even aside from such stimuli to a lively and ingenious fancy, there was +always the chance that one might pick up some priceless treasure at an auction +sale, some rare work of art dim with desuetude and the disrespect of ignorance: +jewellery of quaintest old-time artistry; a misprized bit of bronze; a book, it +might be an overlooked copy of a first edition inscribed by some immortal +author to a forgotten love; or even—if one were in rare luck—a picture, its +pristine brilliance faded, the signature of the artist illegible beneath the +grime of years, evidence of its origin perceptible only to the discerning +eye—to such an eye, for instance, as Michael Lanyard boasted. For paintings +were his passion. +</p> + +<p> +Already, indeed, at this early age, he was by way of being something of a +celebrity, in England and on the Continent, as a collector of the nicest +discrimination. +</p> + +<p> +And then he found unfailing human interest in the attendance attracted by +auction sales; in the dealers, gentlemen generally of pronounced +idiosyncrasies; in the auctioneers themselves, robust fellows, wielding a sort +of rugged wit singular to their calling, masters of deep guile, endowed with +intuitions which enabled them at a glance or from the mere intonation of a +voice to discriminate between the serious-minded and those frivolous souls who +bid without meaning to buy, but as a rule for nothing more than the curious +satisfaction of being able to brag that they had been outbid. +</p> + +<p> +But it was in the ranks of the general public that one found most amusement; +seldom did a sale pass off undistinguished by at least one incident uniquely +revealing or provocative. And for such moments Lanyard was always on the qui +vive, but quietly, who knew that nothing so quickly stifles spontaneity as +self-consciousness. So, if he studied his company closely, he was studious to +do it covertly; as now, when he seemed altogether engrossed in the catalogue, +whereas his gaze was freely roving. +</p> + +<p> +Thus far to-day a mere handful of people other than dealers had drifted in to +wait for the sale to begin—something for which the weather was largely to +blame, for the day was dismal with a clammy drizzle settling from a low and +leaden sky—and with a solitary exception these few were commonplace folk. +</p> + +<p> +This one Lanyard had marked down midway across the room, in the foremost row of +chairs beneath the salesman’s pulpit: by his attire a person of fashion (though +his taste might have been thought a trace florid) who carried himself with an +air difficult of definition but distinctive enough in its way. +</p> + +<p> +Whoever he was and what his quality, he was unmistakably somebody of +consequence in his own reckoning, and sufficiently well-to-do to dress the part +he chose to play in life. Certainly he had a conscientious tailor and a busy +valet, both saturate with British tradition. Yet the man they served was no +Englishman. +</p> + +<p> +Aside from his clothing, everything about him had an exotic tang, though what +precisely his racial antecedents might have been was rather a riddle; a habit +so thoroughly European went oddly with the hints of Asiatic strain which one +thought to detect in his lineaments. Nevertheless, it were difficult otherwise +to account for the faintly indicated slant of those little black eyes, the +blurred modelling of the nose, the high cheekbones, and the thin thatch of +coarse black hair which was plastered down with abundant brilliantine above +that mask of pallid features. +</p> + +<p> +The grayish pallor of the man, indeed, was startling, so that Lanyard for some +time sought an adjective to suit it, and was content only when he hit on the +word <i>evil</i>. Indeed, evil seemed the inevitable and only word; none other +could possibly so well fit that strange personality. +</p> + +<p> +His interest thus fixed, he awaited confidently what could hardly fail to come, +a moment of self-betrayal. +</p> + +<p> +That fell more quickly than he had hoped. Of a sudden the decent quiet of King +Street, thus far accentuated rather than disturbed by the routine grind of +hansoms and four-wheelers, was enlivened by spirited hoofs whose clatter +stilled abruptly in front of the auction room. +</p> + +<p> +Turning a speciously languid eye toward the weeping window, Lanyard had a +partial view of a handsomely appointed private equipage, a pair of spanking +bays, a liveried coachman on the box. +</p> + +<p> +The carriage door slammed with a hollow clap; a footman furled an umbrella and +climbed to his place beside the driver. As the vehicle drew away, one caught a +glimpse of a crest upon the panel. +</p> + +<p> +Two women entered the auction room. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b1ch2"></a>II<br/> +THE PRINCESS SOFIA</h2> + +<p> +These ladies were young, neither much older than Lanyard, both were very much +alive, openly betraying an infatuation with existence very like his own, and +both were lovely enough to excuse the exquisite insolence of their young +vitality. +</p> + +<p> +As is frequently the case in such associations, since a pretty woman seldom +courts comparison with another of her own colouring, one was dark, the other +fair. +</p> + +<p> +With the first, Lanyard was, like all London, on terms of visual acquaintance. +The reigning beauty of the hour, her portrait was enjoying a vogue of its own +in the public prints. Furthermore, Lady Diantha Mainwaring was moderately the +talk of the town, in those prim, remotely ante-bellum days—thanks to high +spirits and a whimsical tendency to flout the late Victorian proprieties; +something which, however, had yet to lead her into any prank perilous to her +good repute. +</p> + +<p> +The other, a girl whose hair of golden bronze was well set off by Russian +sables, Lanyard did not know at all; but he knew at sight that she was far too +charming a creature to be neglected if ever opportunity offered to be presented +to her. And though the first article of his creed proscribed women of such +disastrous attractions as deadly dangerous to his kind, he chose without +hesitation to forget all that, and at once began to cudgel his wits for a way +to scrape acquaintance with the companion of Lady Diantha. +</p> + +<p> +Their arrival created an interesting bustle, a buzz of comment, a craning of +necks—flattery accepted by the young women with ostensible unconcern, a cliché +of their caste. As they had entered in a humour keyed to the highest pitch of +gaiety consistent with good breeding, so with more half-stifled laughter they +settled into chairs well apart from all others but, as it happened, in a direct +line between Lanyard and the man whose repellent cast of countenance had first +taken his interest. +</p> + +<p> +Thus it was that Lanyard, after eyeing the young women unobserved as long as he +liked, lifted his glance to discover upon that face a look that amazed him. +</p> + +<p> +It wasn’t too much to say (he thought) that the man was transfigured by +malevolence, so that he blazed with it, so that hatred fairly flowed, an +invisible yet manifest current of poisoned fire, between him and the girl with +the hair of burnished bronze. +</p> + +<p> +All the evil in him seemed to be concentrated in that glare. And yet its object +remained unconscious of it or, if at all sensitive, dissembled superbly. The +man was apparently no more present to her perceptions than any other person +there, except her companion. +</p> + +<p> +Presently, becoming sensible of Lanyard’s intrigued regard, the man looked up, +caught him in a stare and, mortally affronted, rewarded him with a look of +virulent enmity. +</p> + +<p> +Not to be outdone, Lanyard gave a fleeting smile, a bare curving of lips +together with an almost imperceptible narrowing of amused eyes—goading the +other to the last stage of exasperation—then calmly ignored the fellow, +returning indifferent attention to the progress of the sale. +</p> + +<p> +Since nothing was being offered at the moment to draw a bid from him, he +maintained a semblance of interest solely to cover his thoughts, meanwhile +lending a civil ear to the garrulous tongue of a dealer of his acquaintance +who, having edged nearer to indulge a failing for gossip, found a ready +auditor. For when Lanyard began to heed the sense of the other’s words, their +subject was the companion of Lady Diantha Mainwaring. +</p> + +<p> +“... Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, you know, the Russian beauty.” +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard lifted his eyebrows the fraction of an inch, meaning to say he didn’t +know but at the same time didn’t object to enlightenment. +</p> + +<p> +“But you must have heard of her! For weeks all London has been talking about +her jewels, her escapades, her unhappy marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Married?” Lanyard made a sympathetic mouth. “And so young! Quel dommage!” +</p> + +<p> +“But separated from her husband.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” Lanyard brightened up. “And who, may one ask, is the husband?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, he’s here, too—over there in the front row—chap with the waxed moustache +and putty-coloured face, staring at her now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that animal! And what right has he got to look like that?” +</p> + +<p> +The buzz of the scandalmonger grew more confidential: “They say he’s never +forgiven her for leaving him—though the Lord knows she had every reason, if +half they tell is true. They say he’s mad about her still, gives her no rest, +follows her everywhere, is all the time begging her to return to him—” +</p> + +<p> +“But who the deuce is the beast?” Lanyard interrupted, impatiently. “You know, +I don’t like his face.” +</p> + +<p> +“Prince Victor,” the whisper pursued with relish—“by-blow, they say, of a +Russian grand duke and a Manchu princess—half Russian, half Chinese, all +devil!” +</p> + +<p> +Without looking, Lanyard felt that Prince Victor’s stare had again shifted from +the women, and that the mongrel son of the alleged grand duke was aware he had +become a subject of comment. So the eminent collector of works of art elected +to dismiss the subject with a negligent lift of one shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, well! Daresay he can’t help his ugly make-up. All the same, he’s spoiling +my afternoon. Be a good fellow, do, and put him out.” +</p> + +<p> +The Briton chuckled a deprecating chuckle; meaning to say, he hoped Lanyard was +spoofing; but since one couldn’t be sure, one’s only wise course was to play +safe. +</p> + +<p> +“Really, Monsieur Lanyard! I’m afraid one couldn’t quite do <i>that</i>, you +know!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b1ch3"></a>III<br/> +MONSIEUR QUIXOTE</h2> + +<p> +The sale dragged monotonously. The paintings offered were mostly of mediocre +value. The gathering was apathetic. +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard bid in two or three sketches, more out of idleness than because he +wanted them, and succeeded admirably in seeming ignorant of the existence of +the Princess Sofia and the husband whose surface of a blackguard was so +harmonious with his reputation. +</p> + +<p> +In time, however, a change was presaged by an abrupt muting of that murmured +conversation between the beautiful Russian and the almost equally beautiful +Englishwoman. An inquisitive look discovered the princess sitting slightly +forward and intently watching the auctioneer. +</p> + +<p> +The pose of an animated, delightful child, hanging breathlessly upon the +progress of some fascinating game: one’s gaze lingered approvingly upon a +bewitching profile with half-parted lips, saw that excitement was faintly +colouring the cheeks beneath shadowy and enigmatic eyes, remarked the sweet +spirit that poised that lovely head. +</p> + +<p> +And then one looked farther, and saw the prince, like the princess, absorbed in +the business at the auction block, his slack elegance of the raffish aristocrat +forgotten, all his being tense with purpose, strung taut—as taut at least as +that soft body, only half-masculine in mould and enervated by loose living, +could ever be. One thought of a rather elderly and unfit snake, stirred by the +sting of some long-buried passion out of the lassitude of years of slothful +self-indulgence, poising to strike.... +</p> + +<p> +At the elbow of the auctioneer an attendant was placing on exhibition a +landscape that was either an excellent example of the work of Corot or an +imitation no less excellent. At that distance Lanyard felt inclined to dub it +genuine, though he knew well that Europe was sown thick with spurious Corots, +and would never have risked his judgment without closer inspection. +</p> + +<p> +He was accordingly perplexed when, after a brief exhortation by the auctioneer, +discreetly noncommittal as to the antecedents of the canvas—“attributed to +Corot”—Prince Victor, who had been straining forward like a hound in leash, +half rose in his eagerness to offer: +</p> + +<p> +“One thousand guineas!” +</p> + +<p> +The entire company stirred as one and sat up sharply. Even the auctioneer was +momentarily stricken dumb. And for the first time the Princess Sofia +acknowledged the presence of her husband, and got from him that look of white +hatred with a sneer of triumph thrown in for good measure. +</p> + +<p> +Though she affected indifference, Lanyard saw her slender body transiently +shaken by a shudder, it might have been of dread. But she was quick to pull +herself together, and the auctioneer had scarcely found his tongue—“One +thousand guineas for this magnificent canvas attributed to Corot”—when her +clear and youthful voice cut in: +</p> + +<p> +“Two thousand guineas!” +</p> + +<p> +This the prince capped with a monosyllable: +</p> + +<p> +“Three!” +</p> + +<p> +Stupefaction settled upon the audience. The auctioneer hesitated, blinked +astonished eyes, framed unspoken phrases with halting lips. Prince Victor, +again gave his wife the full value of his vindictive snarl. She would not see, +but it was plain that she was cruelly dismayed, that it cost her an effort to +rise to the topping bid: +</p> + +<p> +“Thirty-five hundred guineas!” +</p> + +<p> +“Four thousand!” +</p> + +<p> +“Four thousand I am offered ...” +</p> + +<p> +The auctioneer faltered, a spasm of honesty shook him, he proceeded: +</p> + +<p> +“It is only fair, ladies and gentlemen, that I should state that this canvas is +not put up as an authentic Corot. It very possibly is such, in fact”—the +seizure was passing swiftly—“it bears every evidence of having come from the +brush of the master. But we cannot guarantee it. There is, however, a gentleman +present who is amply qualified to pass upon the merits of this work. With his +permission”—his eye sought Lanyard’s—“I venture to request the opinion of +Monsieur Michael Lanyard, the noted connoisseur!” +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard detached a deprecating smile from the pages of his catalogue, but his +contemplated response was cut short by Prince Victor. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not aware,” that one said, icily, “that the authenticity of this painting +is a material question. Nor have I any need of the opinion of this gentleman, +whatever his qualifications. I have bid four thousand guineas, and insist that +the sale proceed. If there are no further bids, the canvas is mine.” +</p> + +<p> +The auctioneer shrugged, and offered Lanyard an apologetic bow. “I am sorry—” +he began. +</p> + +<p> +“Four thousand guineas!” snapped the prince. +</p> + +<p> +Resigned, the auctioneer resumed: +</p> + +<p> +“Four thousand guineas offered. Are there any more bids? Going—” +</p> + +<p> +“Forty-five hundred!” +</p> + +<p> +Beyond reasonable doubt the princess had spurred herself mercilessly to find +sufficient courage to make this latest bid. Lanyard saw her in a rigour of +despair, hoping against hope. Only too surely something in the picture, some +association—heaven knew what!—was more precious to her, almost, than life, +though she had gone already to the limit of her means and perhaps a bit beyond. +If this bid failed, she was lost. Her anxiety was pitiful. +</p> + +<p> +“Five thousand!” +</p> + +<p> +In the princess something snapped: she recoiled upon herself, sat crushed, head +drooping, white-gloved hands working in her lap. One detected an appealing +quiver on her lips, and noted, or imagined, a suspicious brightness beneath the +long dark lashes that swiftly screened her eyes. Her young bosom moved +convulsively. She was beaten, near to tears. +</p> + +<p> +“Five thousand guineas ... going ... going ...” +</p> + +<p> +The face of the prince was a mocking devil-mask in gray and black. Lanyard +found himself loathing it. Impossible to stand idle and see the creature get +the better of an unhappy girl ... +</p> + +<p> +“Five thousand one hundred guineas!” +</p> + +<p> +With his wits in a blur of amaze, Lanyard knew the echo of his own voice. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b1ch4"></a>IV<br/> +THE FOOL AND HIS MONEY</h2> + +<p> +One reflected rather bitterly on the many and obvious oversights of a +putatively all-wise Providence, in especial on its failure so to fashion the +body of man as to enable him on occasion to discipline his own flesh in the +most ignominious manner imaginable. +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard could have kicked himself; that is to say, he wanted to, and thought it +rather a pity he couldn’t, and publicly, at that. For the freak he had just +indulged was rank quixotism, something which had as much place in the code of a +man of his calling as milk of human kindness in the management of a pawnshop. +</p> + +<p> +On second thought, he wasn’t so sure. It might have been that quixotism had +inspired his infatuate gesture, but it might quite as conceivably have been +everyday vanity or plain cussedness: a noble impulse to serve a pretty lady in +distress, a spontaneous device to engage her interest, or a low desire to +plague a personality as antipathetic to his own as that of a rattlesnake. +</p> + +<p> +In point of simple fact (he decided), his impelling motive had been a mixture +of all three. +</p> + +<p> +In all three respects, furthermore, it proved notably successful; in the two +last named without delay. +</p> + +<p> +The Princess Sofia at once took note of Lanyard, with wonder, some misgivings, +and a hint of admiration. For he was not only a personable person in those +days, with a suggestion of devil-may-care in his air that measurably lifted the +curse of his superficial foppishness, but he was putting a spoke in Prince +Victor’s wheel. And whosoever did that, by chance, out of sheer voluptuousness, +or with malice prepense, won immediate title to Sofia’s favourable regard. If +she couldn’t thwart Victor herself, she would be much obliged to anybody who +could and did; and she was nothing loath to betray her bias by looking kindly +upon her self-appointed champion. +</p> + +<p> +A whispered communication from Lady Diantha did nothing to abate her overt +approbation. +</p> + +<p> +As for Victor, his face of leaden gray took on a tinge of green; he quaked with +rage, and the glare he loosed on Lanyard made that young man wonder if he were +mistaken in believing that the eyes of the prince shone in that dusky room with +something nearly akin to the phosphorescence to be seen in the eyes of an +animal at night. +</p> + +<p> +The notion was amusing: Lanyard paid it the tribute of a quiet smile, in direct +acknowledgment of which Prince Victor snarled: +</p> + +<p> +“Six thousand guineas!” +</p> + +<p> +“And a hundred,” Lanyard added. +</p> + +<p> +Brief pause prefaced a bid designed to squelch him completely: +</p> + +<p> +“Ten thousand!” +</p> + +<p> +In a fatigued voice he uttered: “One hundred more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fifteen—!” +</p> + +<p> +This time Lanyard contented himself with nodding to the auctioneer; and the +lips of the latter had barely parted to parrot the bid when Victor sprang to +his feet, his features working, his limbs shaking so that the legs of the chair +beside him, whose back he seized, chattered on the floor, while the +high-pitched voice broke into a screech: +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty!” +</p> + +<p> +And Lanyard said: “And one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty thousand one hundred guineas!” chanted the auctioneer. “Are there any +more bids? You, sir—?” He aimed a respectful bow at Prince Victor, who snubbed +him with a sign of fury. “Going—going—gone! Sold to Monsieur Lanyard for twenty +thousand and one hundred guineas!” +</p> + +<p> +And Lanyard had the satisfaction of seeing Prince Victor, after a vain effort +to master his emotion, snatch up his topper, clap it on his head, and make for +the door with footsteps whose stuttering haste was in poor accord with the +dignity of his exalted station. +</p> + +<p> +But it was debatable whether this satisfaction plus the possession of a +questionable Corot was worth its cost. And Lanyard wasn’t in the humour, now +that the heat of contest began to abate, to look to Princess Sofia for promise +of further reward. Even if he could have been guilty of such impertinence, +indeed, he must have forborne for very shame. After all (he told himself) he +hadn’t figured very creditably, permitting petty prejudice to sway him as it +had. He felt singularly sure he had played the gratuitous ass in this affair, +and he didn’t in the least desire to see the reflection of a like conviction in +the eyes of a pretty young woman with a flair for the ridiculous. +</p> + +<p> +He dissembled his diminished self-esteem, however, most successfully, as he +proceeded to the desk of the auctioneer’s clerk, filled in a cheque for the +amount of his purchase, and gave instructions for its delivery. +</p> + +<p> +Whether by intention or inadvertence, he was followed from the auction room by +the Princess Sofia and Lady Diantha Mainwaring; and just outside the entrance +he found Prince Victor waiting with all the air of a gentleman impatient for a +cab to happen along and pick him up out of the drizzle. +</p> + +<p> +But in view of the fact that he made no overtures to a passing hansom, which +swerved in to the curb in response to a signal of Lanyard’s cane, this last +concluded that the prince was up to his reputedly favourite game of waylaying +his rebel wife. +</p> + +<p> +If such were the case, Lanyard had no wish to witness a public wrangle between +the two. So he stepped briskly up on the carriage-block, and only hesitated +when he saw that the prince, utterly ignoring the presence of the princess and +Lady Diantha, was edging forward and cocking an alert ear to catch the address +which Lanyard was on the point of giving the cabby. +</p> + +<p> +Hugely diverted, the adventurer looked round with a quirk of his brows, and +amiably commented: +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur’s interest is so flattering! If he really must know, I’m going home +now, to my rooms in Halfmoon Street. Au revoir, monsieur le prince!” +</p> + +<p> +He beamed benignly upon that convulsed countenance, and saw crestfallen Prince +Victor slink away, to the music of smothered laughter from the ladies in the +doorway—toward which Lanyard was careful not to look. +</p> + +<p> +Then, in high feather with himself, he chirped to the driver and hopped into +the hansom. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b1ch5"></a>V<br/> +IMPOSTOR</h2> + +<p> +As Lanyard’s cab swung away, the carriage wheeled in to take up the Princess +Sofia and Lady Diantha Mainwaring. Observing this, Lanyard poked his stick +through the little trap in the roof of the hansom and suggested that the driver +pull up, climb down, adjust some imaginary fault with the harness and, when the +carriage had passed, follow it with discretion. +</p> + +<p> +Enchanted by sight of a half-sovereign in the palm of his fare, the cabby +executed this manoeuvre to admiration; with the upshot that Lanyard got home +half an hour later than he would have had he proceeded to his rooms direct, but +with information of value to recompense him. +</p> + +<p> +It wasn’t his habit to lose time in those days of his youth. And lest his +character be misconstrued (which would be deplorable) it may as well be stated +now that he had not laid down upward of twenty thousand good golden guineas for +a colourable Corot without having a tolerably clear notion of how he meant to +reimburse himself if it should turn out that he had paid too dear for his +whistle. +</p> + +<p> +The hint imparted by his garrulous acquaintance of the auction room—to the +effect that the Princess Sofia was famous, among other things, for the +magnificence of her personal jewellery—had found a good home where it wasn’t in +danger of suffering for want of doting interest. +</p> + +<p> +And now one knew where their owner lived, and in what state ... +</p> + +<p> +Alighting at his own door, the adventurer surprised Prince Victor, morosely +ambling by, in his vast fatuity no doubt imagining that his passage through +Halfmoon Street would go unremarked in the dusk of that early winter evening. +He wasn’t at all pleased to find himself mistaken; and though Lanyard did his +best with his blandest smile to make amends for having discomfited the prince +by getting home later than he had promised to, his good-natured effort was +repaid only by a spiteful scowl. +</p> + +<p> +So he laughed aloud, and went indoors rejoicing. +</p> + +<p> +An hour or so later the painting was delivered by a porter from the auction +room. But Lanyard was in his bath at the time and postponed examining his +doubtful prize till he had dressed for dinner. For, though it was his whim to +dine in his rooms alone, and though he had no fixed plans for the evening, +Lanyard was too thoroughly cosmopolitan not to do in Cockaigne as the Cockneys +do. +</p> + +<p> +Besides, in this uncertain life one never knows what the next hour will bring +forth; whereas if one is in evening dress after six o’clock, one is armoured +against every emergency. +</p> + +<p> +At seven he sat down to the morbid sort of a meal one gets in London lodgings: +a calm soup; a segment of vague fish smothered painlessly in a pale pink +blanket of sauce; a cut from the joint, rare and lukewarm; potatoes boiled +dead; sad sea-kale; nonconformist pudding; conservative biscuit, and radical +cheese. +</p> + +<p> +With the aid and abetment of a bottle of excellent Montrachet, however, one +contrived to worry through. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, Lanyard inspected his recent purchase, which occupied a place of +honour, propped up on the arms of the chair on his right. +</p> + +<p> +It was seldom that Lanyard entertained a guest of such equivocal character. +Wagging a reproving head—“My friend,” he harangued the canvas, “you are lucky +to have been sold. Sorry I can’t say as much for myself.” +</p> + +<p> +It was really too bad it wasn’t a bit better. It wasn’t often that one +encountered so genuine a counterfeit. The hand of an artist had painted it, but +never the hand of Corot. Everything Corot was accustomed to put into his +painting was there, except himself. The abode had been prepared in all respects +as the master would have had it, but his spirit had not entered into it, it +remained without life. +</p> + +<p> +Still, Lanyard concluded, surveying his prize through the illusioning fumes of +his cigar, while the waiter cleared away, it wasn’t so bad after all, it +wouldn’t be in the end a total loss. He could afford to cart the thing back to +Paris with him and give it room in his private gallery; and some day, +doubtless, some rich American would pay a handsome price for it on the strength +of its having found place in the collection of Michael Lanyard, even though it +lacked the cachet of his guarantee. +</p> + +<p> +But what the devil had made it so precious to the soi-disant Prince Victor and +his charming wife? +</p> + +<p> +But for a single circumstance Lanyard would have been tempted to believe he had +been craftily rooked by an accomplished chevalier d’industrie and his female +confederate; but too much and too real passion had been betrayed in the auction +room to countenance that suspicion. +</p> + +<p> +No: he hadn’t been rigged; at least, not by design. Something more than its +intrinsic value had rendered the canvas priceless in the esteem of those two, +something had been at stake more than mere possession of what they might have +believed to be a real Corot. +</p> + +<p> +But what? +</p> + +<p> +Perplexed, Lanyard took the picture in his hands—it was not too unwieldy, even +in its frame—and examined it with nose so close to the painted surface that he +seemed to be smelling it. Then he turned it over and scowled at its reverse. +And shook a baffled head. +</p> + +<p> +But when he tapped the face of the picture smartly with a finger-nail, he gave +a slight start, passed a hand over it with the palm pressed flat, and suddenly +assumed the humanly intelligent expression of a hunting-dog that has hit on a +warm scent. +</p> + +<p> +Strong fingers and a fruit knife quickly extracted the painting from its frame +and loosened the canvas from its stretcher, proving that the latter held in +fact two canvases instead of one. Between these had been secreted several +sheets of notepaper of two kinds, stamped with two crests, all black with +closely penned handwriting. +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard gathered them into a sheaf and scanned them cursorily, even with +distaste. True enough, it might be argued that he had bought and paid for the +right to pry into the secrets they betrayed; but it was not a right he enjoyed +exercising. A fairly thoroughgoing state of sophistication, together with some +innate instincts of delicacy, worked to render him to a degree immune to such +gratification as others might derive from being made privy to an exotic affair +of the heart. Revelation of human weakness was no special treat to him. And if +his eyebrows mounted as he read, if the corners of his mouth drew down, if once +and again he uttered an “<i>Oh! oh!</i>” of shocked expostulation, he was (like +most of us, incurably an actor in private as well as in public life) merely +running through business which convention has designated as appropriate to such +circumstances. At bottom he was being stimulated to thought more than to +derision. +</p> + +<p> +Putting the letters aside, he bowed his head upon a hand and reflected sagely +that love was the very deuce. +</p> + +<p> +He wondered if he could or ever would love or be loved so madly. +</p> + +<p> +He rather hoped not ... +</p> + +<p> +Here, if you please, was the scion of a reigning royal family risking as pretty +a scandal as one could well imagine—and all for love! Given a few more days of +life, and he would have jeopardized his right of succession and set +half-a-dozen European chancelleries by the ears—and all for love! But for his +untimely end, that poor, pretty creature would have joined her life to his, +consummating at one stroke her freedom from the intolerable conditions of +existence with Victor and a diplomatic convulsion which might only too easily +have precipitated all Europe into a great war—and all for lawless love! +</p> + +<p> +So once more in history Death had served well the interests of public morality. +</p> + +<p> +After a year these letters alone survived ... +</p> + +<p> +How they had survived, what hands had collected and secreted them, and for what +purpose, intrigued the imagination no end. Lanyard inclined to credit Princess +Sofia with the indiscretion of saving these souvenirs of a grande passion that +had almost made history. There was the sentimental motive to account for such +action, and another: the satisfaction of knowing she had concrete proof of her +intention to treat Victor as he had treated her. +</p> + +<p> +Then somehow the painting must have passed out of her possession; and in all +likelihood she had made frantic and awkward efforts to regain it which had +aroused the suspicions of Victor; with the sequel of that afternoon.... +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard’s speculations were interrupted by the peremptory telephone. Without +premonition he picked up the combination receiver and transmitter. But his +memory was still so haunted by echoes of that delightful voice which he had +heard in the auction room, he couldn’t entertain any doubt that he heard it +now. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you there?” it said “Will you be good enough to put me through to Monsieur +Lanyard?” +</p> + +<p> +The inspiration to mischief was instantaneous: Lanyard replied promptly in +accents as much unlike his own as he could manage: +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry, ma’am; Mister Lanyard dined hout to-night. Would there be any message, +ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how annoying!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know when he will be home?” +</p> + +<p> +“If this is the lidy ’e was expectin’ to call this evenin’—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” the dulcet voice said, encouragingly. +</p> + +<p> +“—Mister Lanyard sed as ’ow ’e might be quite lite, but ’e’d ’urry all ’e +could, ma’am, and would the lidy please wite.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you <i>so</i> much.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Nk-you, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +Smiling, Lanyard replaced the receiver and rang for the waiter. +</p> + +<p> +When that one answered, the adventurer was hatted and coated and opening his +door. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m called out,” he said—“can’t quite say when I’ll be back. But I’m expecting +a lady to call. Will you tell the doorman to show her into my rooms, please, +and ask her to wait.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b1ch6"></a>VI<br/> +THÉRÈSE</h2> + +<p> +Posed in a blaze of lights, the Princess Sofia contemplated captiously the +charming image reflected in her cheval-glass. One little wrinkle, not precisely +of dissatisfaction, rather of enquiry, nestled between her delicately arched +brows. A look of misgiving clouded her wide eyes of a wondering child. The bow +of an exquisitely modelled mouth, whose single fault lay in its being perhaps a +trace too wide, described a shadowy pout. +</p> + +<p> +She was beautiful: yes. Nobody could question that. La beauté du diable, no +doubt, to Anglo-Saxon eyes, with that skin of incomparable texture and +whiteness relieved by a heavily coiled crown of living bronze, the crimson +insolence of that matchless mouth, those luminous and changeable eyes so like +the sea, whose green melted into blue with the swiftness of thought, whose blue +at times as swiftly shaded into stormy purple-black: but however bizarre and +barbaric, beauty none the less, and under the most meticulous examination +indisputable. +</p> + +<p> +But was she as radiant as she had been? +</p> + +<p> +On this her birthday she was twenty-five. Appalling age! Five years hence she +would be thirty, in ten more—forty! And woman’s beauty fades so swiftly: +everybody said so. Was the shadow of to-morrow already dimming her loveliness? +How could it be otherwise? She had lived so long and so fully, she had begun to +live so young. Six years of marriage to Victor—that alone should have been +enough, one would think, to metamorphose the fairest face into a blasted +battlefield of passions. +</p> + +<p> +She had a little shiver of voluptuous horror, remembering what she had endured +and escaped. The sweet, true lines of her flawlessly made body were transiently +undulant within a sheath of shimmering sequins: a daring gown, by British +standards of that day, but permissible because she was Russian; foreigners, you +know, are so frightfully weird even when they’re quite all right. +</p> + +<p> +And yet she was growing old, she was twenty-five! Though she didn’t feel in the +least like one on the threshold of middle age. Indeed, she had never felt +younger, more thrillingly instinct with the power and the will to live +extravagantly in one endless riot of youth unquenchable.... +</p> + +<p> +Reaction, of course: the swing of the pendulum to its farthest extreme. It was +now two years since she had been forced to separate from Victor, finding +herself unable longer to countenance and suffer his many-sided beastliness; and +a year since the hand of Death had penned an inexorable finis to the too-brief +chapter of her one great romance. +</p> + +<p> +For there had never been love in her life with Victor. She had been too young +at first to appreciate what love and marriage meant, she had been led to the +altar and sacrificed upon it as an animal is led in sacrificial rites—without +premonition or understanding, only wondering (perhaps) to find itself so +groomed and garlanded, so flattered and adored. She had hardly known Victor +before she was given to him in marriage by Imperial ukase ... to get rid of +her, probably, for some inscrutable reason related to the mysterious +circumstances of her parentage. +</p> + +<p> +And now after six years of hell with her husband and one of mourning in +solitude for her love that was lost, she was coming back to life again ... at +last! +</p> + +<p> +She lifted up arms that might have been a dream of Phidias chiselled in Parian +marble, and stretched them luxuriously. She was superbly alive, indeed—and +henceforth she meant to live. Only she must be careful to retain her looks ... +If Youth must surely go, Beauty must linger and reign long in its stead. +</p> + +<p> +A maid, a comely creature, trim and smart in black and white, with that vividly +coloured prettiness which is too often the omen of premature decline into the +fat and florid thirties, fetched a wrap and settled it upon Sofia’s shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +Long and dark, it disguised her figure as completely as it covered her +toilette. She nodded her satisfaction, and accepted the veil which she had +desired to complete her disguise, a thing of Spanish lace, black and ample, +like a mantilla. But before donning it she delayed one minute more before the +mirror. +</p> + +<p> +“Thérèse! Am I still beautiful?” +</p> + +<p> +“Madame la princesse is always beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +“As beautiful as I used to be?” +</p> + +<p> +“But madame la princesse grows more lovely every day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Beautiful enough to-night, to keep out of jail, do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +To the mirth in the voice of her mistress the maid responded with a smile +demure and discreet. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, madame!” was all she said; but the manner of her saying it was rarely +eloquent. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia laughed lightly, and affectionately pinched the cheek of the maid. +</p> + +<p> +“And you, my little one,” she said in liquid French—“you yourself are too +ravishingly pretty to keep out of trouble. Do you know that?” +</p> + +<p> +Her little one looked more than ever demure as she enquired after the hidden +meaning of madame la princesse. +</p> + +<p> +“Because you will marry too soon, Thérèse—too soon some worthless man will +persuade you to dedicate all those charms to him alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, madame!” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it not so?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who knows, madame?” said Thérèse, as who should say: “What must be, must.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then there is a man! I suspected as much.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, madame la princesse, is there not always a man?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then beware!” +</p> + +<p> +“Madame la princesse need not fear for me,” Thérèse replied. “Me, my head is +not so easily turned. There is always some man, naturally—there are so many +men!—but when I marry, rest assured, it will be for something more.” +</p> + +<p> +With the compressed lips of self-approbation she deftly assisted her mistress +to swathe her head in the mantilla-like veil. +</p> + +<p> +“Something more than a man?” Sofia enquired through its folds. “What then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Independence, madame la princesse.” +</p> + +<p> +“What an idea! Marriage and independence: how do you reconcile that paradox?” +</p> + +<p> +“Madame la princesse means love, I think, when she speaks of marriage. But +love—that is all over and done with when one marries. One is then ready to +settle down; one has put by one’s dot, and marries a worthy, industrious man +with a little fortune of his own. With such a husband one collaborates in the +maintenance of the ménage and the management of a small business, something +substantial if small. And so one ends one’s days in comfortable companionship. +That, madame la princesse, is the marriage for Thérèse! It may not sound +romantic, madame, but it has this rare virtue—it lasts!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b1ch7"></a>VII<br/> +FAMILY REUNION</h2> + +<p> +The London night was normal: that is to say, wet. Darkness had transformed the +streets into vast sheets of black satin shot with golden strands and studded +with lamp-posts like sturdy stems for ethereal blooms of golden haze. Within +their areas of glow the air teemed with atoms of liquid gold. The ring of hoofs +on wet pavements was at once disturbing and inspiriting. +</p> + +<p> +Alone in her hired hansom the Princess Sofia sat with the window raised, +drinking deep of the soft damp air, finding it as heady as strange wine. Under +cover of the veil her eyes were brilliant with awareness of her audacity, her +lips were parted with the promise of a smile. +</p> + +<p> +She loved it all, she adored this mood of London: its nights of rain were sheer +enchantment, arabesque, nights of secrecy and stealth, mystery, and romance +under the rose. On nights such as this lovers prospered, adventures were to the +venturesome, brave rewards to the bold. +</p> + +<p> +For herself she was unafraid, she foretasted entire success. How should it be +otherwise? Consider how famously chance had prospered her designs, playing into +her hands the information that this Monsieur Lanyard was not at home, might not +return till very late, and was expecting a call from somebody whom he desired +to await his return in his rooms! +</p> + +<p> +With such an open occasion, how could one fail? +</p> + +<p> +Sofia asked only three minutes alone with the painting.... +</p> + +<p> +And if by any mishap she were caught, still she would not be dismayed. The +letters were hers, were they not? They had been stolen from her, he had no +right title to them who had purchased only the picture which had served as +their hiding-place. By all means, let him keep that stupid canvas; he could +hardly refuse to let her have her letters, not if she pleaded her prettiest. +And even if he should prove obtuse, ungenerous.... +</p> + +<p> +Her smile was definite and confident. She was beautiful—and Monsieur Lanyard +was aware of that. Had she not, that afternoon, in the auction room, without +his knowledge detected admiration in his eyes, a look warm with something more +than admiration only? +</p> + +<p> +He was impressionable, then. And it would be no distasteful task to play upon +his susceptibilities. He was not only personally attractive (“magnetic” was the +catch-word of the period), but if half that Lady Diantha had hinted concerning +him were true, to make a conquest of Michael Lanyard would be a feather in the +cap of any woman, to attempt it a temptation all but irresistible to one—like +Sofia—in whose veins ran the ichor of progenitors to whom the scent of danger +had been as breath of life itself. It was hardly conceivable; even now Sofia +must smile at her friend’s amiable endeavours to identify this mysterious +monsieur with a celebrated and preposterous criminal. +</p> + +<p> +It might be true that, as Lady Diantha had declared, wherever Michael Lanyard +showed himself in open pursuit of his avowed avocation as a collector of rare +works of art—in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, or where-not—there in due +sequence the Lone Wolf would consummate one of his fantastic coups. +</p> + +<p> +And it was indisputable that Lanyard was at present living in London, where for +some time past the Lone Wolf had been perniciously busy; or else his bad name +had been taken in vain by a baffled and exasperated Scotland Yard. +</p> + +<p> +Again: Diantha had insisted that the Lone Wolf was by every evidence completely +woman-proof; and there might be something in her contention that such an +elusive yet spectacularly successful thief could hardly have won the high place +he held in the annals of criminology and in the esteem of the sensation-loving +public, if he were one who maintained normal relations with his kind. +</p> + +<p> +Sooner or later (so ran Diantha’s borrowed reasoning) the criminal who has +close friends, a wife, a mistress, children, family ties of any sort, or even +body-servants, must willy-nilly repose confidence in one of these, and then +inevitably will be betrayed. Depend upon envy, jealousy, spite, or plain venal +disloyalty, if accident or inadvertence fail, to lay the law-breaker by the +heels. +</p> + +<p> +Therefore (Diantha argued) the Lone Wolf must be a confirmed solitary and +misogynist—very much like this Monsieur Lanyard, according to reports which +declared the latter to be a man who kept to himself, had many acquaintances and +not one intimate, and was positively insulated against wiles of woman. +</p> + +<p> +But—granting all this—it was none the less true that the utmost diligence, +spurred by the pique, ill-will, and ambition of the police of all Europe, had +failed as yet to forge any link between the supercriminal of the age and the +distinguished connoisseur of art. Other than Lady Diantha and the gossips whose +arguments she was retailing, never a soul (so far as Sofia knew) had ventured +to breathe a breath of suspicion upon the good repute of Monsieur Lanyard. +</p> + +<p> +In short, Diantha’s conjectures had been entirely second-hand, and not even +meant to be taken seriously. +</p> + +<p> +And yet the suggestion had fastened firm hold upon the imagination of the +Princess Sofia. +</p> + +<p> +If it were true ... what an adventure! +</p> + +<p> +There was unaccustomed light of daring in the eyes of the princess, unwonted +colour tinted her cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +The hansom stopped, discharged the fairest fare it had ever carried, and +rattled off, leaving Sofia just a trifle daunted and dubious, the animation of +her anticipations something dashed by the uncompromising respectability, the +self-conscious worthiness of Halfmoon Street. +</p> + +<p> +Enfolded in the very heart of Mayfair, its brief length bounded on the north by +Curzon Street (its name alone sufficient voucher for its character), on the +south by Piccadilly (hereabouts somewhat oppressive with its hedge of stately +clubs, membership in any one of which is equivalent to two years’ unchallenged +credit) Halfmoon Street is largely given over to furnished lodgings. But it +doesn’t advertise the fact, its landlords are apt to be retired butlers to the +nobility and gentry, its lodgers English gentlemen who have brought home livers +from India, or assorted disabilities from all known quarters of the globe, and +who desire nothing better than to lead steady-paced lives within walking +distance of their favourite clubs. So Halfmoon Street remains quietly +estimable, a desirable address, and knows it, and doggedly means to hold fast +to that repute. +</p> + +<p> +A strange environment (Sofia thought) for an adventurer like the Lone Wolf. +</p> + +<p> +But then—of course!—Diantha’s innuendoes had been based on flimsiest hearsay. +The chances were that Michael Lanyard was an utterly uninteresting person of +blameless life. +</p> + +<p> +So thinking, the Princess Sofia was sensible of a pang of regret, and tried to +be prepared against bitter disappointment as she rang the bell. Either she +would fail to obtain admittance (perhaps the lady whom he was really expecting +had forestalled her) or else Lanyard would fail to come home in time to catch +her! Quite probably it would turn out to be a dull and depressing evening, +after all.... +</p> + +<p> +The servant who admitted her in manner and appearance lent colour to these +forebodings. A creature hopelessly commonplace, resigned, and unemotional, to +her enquiry for Monsieur Lanyard he returned the discounted response: Mister +Lanyard was hout, ’e might not be ’ome till quite lite, but ’ad left word that +if a lidy called she was to be awsked to wite. The princess indicating her +desire to wite, the man turned to the nearest door (Lanyard’s rooms were on the +street level), opened it with a pass-key, stepped inside to make a light, and +when Sofia entered silently bowed himself out. +</p> + +<p> +Now when the latch clicked behind him, the Princess Sofia forgot that the +simplicity of her success thus far was almost discouraging. Her heart began to +beat more quickly, and a little tremor shook the hands that lifted and threw +back her veil. After all, she was committing an act of lawless trespass, she +was on the errand of a thief; if caught the penalty might prove most painful +and humiliating. +</p> + +<p> +Of a sudden she lost appetite entirely for a piquant encounter with the +prepossessing tenant of these rooms. Now she desired nothing so dearly as to +consummate her business and escape with all possible expedition. +</p> + +<p> +A swift and searching survey of the living-room descried nothing that seemed +apt to hinder or detain her. A large room, unusually wide and deep, it had two +windows overlooking the street, with a curtained doorway at the back that led +(one surmised) to a bedchamber. It was furnished in such excellent taste that +one suspected Monsieur Lanyard must have brought in his own belongings on +taking possession. The handsome rug, the well-chosen draperies, the several +excellent pictures and bronzes, were little in character with the furnished +lodgings of the London average, even with those of the better sort. +</p> + +<p> +She had no time, however, to squander on appreciation of artistic atmosphere, +however pleasing, and needed to waste none searching for the object of her +desires. It faced her, distant not six paces from the door—that shameless +little “Corot”!—resting on the arms of a straight-backed chair. +</p> + +<p> +A low laugh of delight on her lips, she went swiftly to the chair and laid hold +of the picture by its frame. In that act she checked, startled, transfixed, the +laugh freezing into a gasp of alarm. +</p> + +<p> +Brass rings slithered on a pole supporting the portières at the back of the +room. These parted. Through them a man emerged. +</p> + +<p> +Her grasp on the picture relaxed. It struck a corner against the chair and +clattered on the floor—the canvas on its stretcher simultaneously flying out of +the frame. +</p> + +<p> +“Victor!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sweet of you to remember me!” +</p> + +<p> +He advanced slowly with that noiseless, cat-like tread of his which she had +always hated, perceiving in it a true index to his character: the prowl of a +beast of prey, furtive, cowardly, cruel. It was so: Victor was as feline and as +vicious as a jungle-cat. Watching him with this thought in mind, one could +almost credit old tales of beasts bewitched and walking in human guise. +</p> + +<p> +Near by he paused, alertly poised, prepared to spring. The slotted black eyes +glimmered malignantly. His lips drew back in mockery from his teeth. His hands +were hidden in the pockets of his dinner-coat; but she could guess how they +were held, like claws, in that concealment, claws itching for her throat. She +dared not stir lest she feel them there, digging deep into her soft white +flesh. +</p> + +<p> +Witless, in the extremity of her terror, she stammered: “What do you want?” +</p> + +<p> +A nod indicated the picture that lay between them, at their feet. +</p> + +<p> +“My errand,” the man said in a silken tone that gloved grimmest menace, “is +much the same as yours—quite naturally—but more fortunate; for I shall get not +only what I came for, but something more.” +</p> + +<p> +“What—?” +</p> + +<p> +“The opportunity to plead with you, face to face. I think you will hardly +refuse to listen to me now.” +</p> + +<p> +“How—how did you get in?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, secretly! By the window, if you must know; but quite unseen. You see, +<i>I</i> had no invitation.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never thought you had—” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor did I think you had—till now.” +</p> + +<p> +Puzzled, she faltered: “I don’t understand—” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely you don’t wish me to believe my pretty Sofia has turned thief?” +</p> + +<p> +That stung her pride. She drew upon an unsuspected store of spirit, confronting +him bravely. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it to me, what you choose to think?” +</p> + +<p> +“I refuse to think that of you. My reason will not let me believe it.” +</p> + +<p> +She saw that he was shaking with rage; so she shrugged and drawled: “Oh, your +<i>reason</i>—!” +</p> + +<p> +“It tells me you for one did not come here to-night uninvited.” He was rapidly +losing grip on his temper. “Oh, it’s plain enough! I was a fool not to +understand, there in the auction room, when my face was slapped with proof of +your liaison with this Lanyard!” +</p> + +<p> +She said in mild expostulation: “But you are quite mad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps—but not so as to be blind to the truth. You had him there this +afternoon to bid that picture in for you if your own means failed. Why else +should the man, who knows pictures as I know you, pay twenty thousand guineas +for a footling copy of a Corot that wouldn’t deceive a—a Royal Academician! +Yes: he bid it in for you—the sorry fool!—bought with his own money the +evidence of your infatuation for his predecessor in your affections—and expects +you here to-night to receive it from him and—pay him <i>his</i> price! Ah, +don’t try to deny it!” +</p> + +<p> +He growled like a very animal, beside himself. “Why else should you be admitted +to these rooms without question in his absence?” +</p> + +<p> +Without visible resentment, the Princess Sofia nodded thoughtfully into those +distorted features. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she commented: “quite, quite mad.” +</p> + +<p> +As if she had offered without warning to strike him, Victor recoiled and for an +instant stood gibbering. And she took advantage of this moment in one lithe +bound to put the table between them. +</p> + +<p> +The manoeuvre sobered him. He did not move, but in two breaths forced himself +to cease to tremble, and subdued every symptom of his passion. Only his face +remained sinister. +</p> + +<p> +“Graceful creature!” he observed, sardonic. “Such agility! But what good will +that do you, do you think? Eh? Tell me that!” +</p> + +<p> +It was her turn to shiver, and inwardly she did, who was never quite able to +combat the fear which Victor could inspire in her by such demonstrations of the +power of his will. The self-control which he had always at his command was +something that passed her understanding; it seemed inhuman, it terrified her. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, so exigent was this strait, she continued to confront him with a +face of unflinching defiance. +</p> + +<p> +In a voice whose steadiness surprised her she declared: “The letters are mine. +You shan’t have them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Undeceive yourself: I’ll have them though you never leave this room alive.” +</p> + +<p> +More to give herself time to think than in any hope of moving him, she began to +plead: +</p> + +<p> +“Let me have them, Victor—let me go.” +</p> + +<p> +Smiling darkly, he shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“The letters mean nothing to you. What good—?” +</p> + +<p> +He interrupted impatiently: “I shall publish them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Impossible—!” +</p> + +<p> +“But I shall.” +</p> + +<p> +Aghast, she protested: “You can’t mean that!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not? The world shall know your true reason for leaving me—that you were +the mistress of another man—and who that man was!” +</p> + +<p> +Staring, she uttered in a low voice: “Never!” +</p> + +<p> +“Or,” he amended, deliberately, “you may keep them, burn them, do what you will +with them—on fair terms—<i>my</i> terms.” +</p> + +<p> +She said nothing, but her dilate eyes held fixedly to his. He moved a pace or +two nearer, his voice dropped to a lower key, the light she had learned to +loathe flickered in the depths of his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Come back to me, Sofia! I can’t live without you ...” +</p> + +<p> +Her lips moved to deny him, but made no sound. Now it was revealed to her, the +way. +</p> + +<p> +“Come back to me, Sofia!” +</p> + +<p> +His hand crept along the edge of the table and lifted, quivering, to capture +hers. She steeled herself to endure its touch, against sickening repulsion she +fought to achieve a smile that would carry a suggestion of at least +forgetfulness. +</p> + +<p> +“And if I do—?” she murmured. +</p> + +<p> +He gave a violent start, blood suffused his face darkly, his arms leapt out to +enfold her. She stepped back, evading him with a movement of coquetry that +served, as it was intended, to inflame him the more. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait!” she insisted. “Answer me first: If I return to you—then what?” +</p> + +<p> +“Everything shall be as you wish—everything forgotten—I will think of nothing +but how to make you happy—” +</p> + +<p> +“And I may have my letters?” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded, swallowing hard, as if the concession well-nigh choked him. +</p> + +<p> +Under his gloating gaze her flesh crawled. Only by supreme effort did she +succeed in resisting a mad impulse to risk a rush for door or windows, and +whipped her will into maintaining what seemed to be frank response. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” she said; “I agree.” +</p> + +<p> +Again he offered to touch her, again she moved slightly, eluding him. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she stipulated with an arch glance—“not yet! First prove you mean to make +good your word.” +</p> + +<p> +“How?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me go—with my letters—and call on me to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +His look clouded. “Can I trust you?” He was putting the question to himself +more than to her. “Dare I?” He added in a tone colourless and flat: “I’ve half +a mind to take you at your word. Only—forgive my doubts—appearances are against +you—you seem almost too keen for the bargain. How can I know—?” +</p> + +<p> +“What proof do you want?” +</p> + +<p> +“Something definite.... You pledge yourself to me?” A movement of her head +assented. “You will give yourself back to me?” He came nearer, but she +contrived to repeat the sign of assent. “Wholly, without reserve?” +</p> + +<p> +An invincible disgust shook her as the full sense of his insistence struck +home. Still she whipped herself to play out the scene—and win! +</p> + +<p> +“As you say, Victor, as you will....” +</p> + +<p> +He moved still nearer. She became conscious of his nearness as if a palpable +aura of vileness emanated from his person. +</p> + +<p> +“Then give me proof—here and now.” +</p> + +<p> +“How?” +</p> + +<p> +He laughed a throaty, evil laugh. “Need you ask? Not much, my Sofia ... only a +little ... something on account ...” Suddenly she could no more: memories +unspeakable rose like disturbed dregs to the surface of her consciousness. +Involuntarily, not knowing what she did, she flung out an arm and struck down +his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“You—leper!” +</p> + +<p> +The epithet was like a knout cutting through the decayed fibre of the man and +raising a livid welt on his diseased soul. Galled beyond endurance, his +countenance convulsed with fury, he struck wickedly; and the vicious blow of +his open palm across her mouth brought flecks of blood to the lips as her teeth +cut into the tender flesh. +</p> + +<p> +It did far more, it shattered at one stroke the brittle casing of self-command +with which centuries of civilization had sought to veneer the Slav. In a trice +a woman whose existence neither of them had suspected was revealed, a fury +incarnate flew at the dismayed prince, clawing, tearing, raining blows upon his +face and bosom. Overcome by surprise, blinded, dazed, staggered, he gave +ground, stumbled, caught at a chair to steady himself. +</p> + +<p> +As abruptly as it had begun, the assault ceased. Panting and frantic, the girl +fell back, paused, renewed her grasp upon herself, gazed momentarily in +contempt on that dashed and quaking figure, then swiftly swooped down to +retrieve the picture, and madly pelted toward the door. +</p> + +<p> +In an instant, Victor was after her. His clutching fingers barely missed her +shoulder but caught a flying end of the veil that swathed her throat and head. +With finger-tips touching the door-knob Sofia was checked and twitched back so +violently that she was all but thrown off her feet. +</p> + +<p> +She tried desperately to regain her balance, but the pressure round her throat, +tightening, bade fair to suffocate her; and reeling, while her hands tore +ineffectually at the folds of the veil, she was drawn back and back, and +tripped, falling half on, half off the table. +</p> + +<p> +Already her vision was darkening, her lungs were labouring painfully, her head +throbbed with the revolt of strangulated arteries as if sledge hammers were +seeking to smash through her skull. +</p> + +<p> +Through closing shadows she saw that savage mask which hovered over her, moping +and mowing, as Victor twisted and drew ever more tight the murderous bindings +round her throat. +</p> + +<p> +A groping hand encountered something on the table, a lump of metal, cold and +heavy. She seized and dashed it brutally into that hateful face, saw his head +jerk back and heard him grunt with pain, and struck again, blindly, with all +her might. +</p> + +<p> +Instantly the pressure upon her throat was eased. She heard a groan, a fall ... +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b1ch8"></a>VIII<br/> +GREEK VS. GREEK</h2> + +<p> +She found herself standing, partly resting upon the table. Great, tearing sobs +racked her slight young body—but at least she was breathing, there was no more +constriction of her windpipe; Her head still ached, however, her neck felt +stiff and sore, and she remained somewhat giddy and confused. +</p> + +<p> +She eyed rather wildly her hands. One held torn and ragged folds of the veil +ripped from her throat, the other the weapon with which she had cheated death: +a bronze paperweight, probably a miniature copy of a Barye, an elephant +trumpeting. The up-flung trunk was darkly stained and sticky.... +</p> + +<p> +With a shudder she dropped the bronze, and looked down. Victor lay at her feet, +supine, grotesquely asprawl. His face was bruised and livid; the cheek laid +open by the bronze was smeared with scarlet, accentuating the leaden colour of +his skin. His mouth was ajar; his eyes, half closed, hideously revealed slender +slits of white. More blood discoloured his right temple, welling from under the +matted, coarse black hair. +</p> + +<p> +He was terribly motionless. If he breathed, Sofia could detect no sign of it. +</p> + +<p> +In panic she knelt beside the body, threw back Victor’s dinner-coat, and laid +an ear above his heart. +</p> + +<p> +At first, in her mad anxiety, she could hear nothing. But presently a beating +registered, slow and harsh but steady-paced. +</p> + +<p> +With a sob of relief she sat back on her heels, and after a little while got +unsteadily to her feet. +</p> + +<p> +The house door closed with a dull bang, and from the entrance hallway came a +sound of voices. She stood petrified in dread till the voices fell and she +heard stairs creak under an ascending tread. +</p> + +<p> +Thus reminded that Lanyard’s return might occur at any moment, she made all +haste to patch up the disarray of veil and coiffure. Fortunately her costume, +protected by the cloak of heavy and sturdy stuff, was quite undamaged. +</p> + +<p> +Not till on the point of leaving did she remember the painting. It lay unharmed +where it had fallen when Victor seized her veil. She was calm enough now to +consider herself fortunate in finding it so poorly secured in its frame; +without the latter it would be far easier to smuggle the canvas away under her +cloak. +</p> + +<p> +In the final glance she bent upon Victor’s beaten and insensible body there was +no pity, no regret, no trace of compunction. What he had suffered he had ten +times—no, a hundred, a thousand—earned. Long before she left him Sofia had lost +count of the blows she had taken at his hands, the insults worse than blows, +the lesser indignities innumerable. +</p> + +<p> +But in those abolished days she had never once struck back, she had been faint +of heart, cowed and terrified, and had lacked what two years of separation had +given her, that spiritual independence which never before had been able to +realize itself, lift up its head, and grow strong in the assurance of its own +integrity. +</p> + +<p> +Two years ago she would not have dared to lift a hand to Victor, no matter how +sore the provocation. To-night—if she had one regret it was that she had struck +so feebly: not that she desired his death, but that she knew it was now her +life or his. She knew the man too well to flatter herself that he would rest +before he had compassed such revenge as the baseness of his degenerate soul +would deem adequate. Half the world were not too much to put between them if +she were now to sleep of nights in comfortable consciousness of security from +his quenchless hatred. +</p> + +<p> +Callously enough she switched off the lights and left him lying there, in +darkness but for the ash-dimmed glimmer of a dying fire. +</p> + +<p> +In the entrance hallway she hesitated, coldly composed and alert. But seemingly +the noise of their struggle had not carried beyond the door. There was no one +about. +</p> + +<p> +With neither haste nor faltering, without the least misadventure, she let +herself quietly out into the empty, silent, rain-swept street, and scurried +toward the lights of Piccadilly. +</p> + +<p> +Before long a cruising four-wheeler overhauled her. In its obscure and stuffy +refuge she sat hugging her precious canvas and pondering her plight. +</p> + +<p> +It was borne in upon her that she would do well to leave London, yes, and +England, too, before Victor recovered sufficiently to scheme and put a watch +upon her movements. +</p> + +<p> +She had need henceforth to be swift and wary and shrewd.... +</p> + +<p> +A singular elation began to colour her temper, a quickening sense of +emancipation. Necessity at a stroke had set her free. Because she must fly and +hide to save her life, society had no more hold upon her, she need no longer +fight to keep up appearances in spite of her status as a woman living apart +from her husband, little better than a divorcée—an estate anathema to the +English of those days. +</p> + +<p> +She experienced, through the play of her imagination upon this new and +startling conception of life, an intoxicating prelibation of freedom such as +she had never dreamed to savour. +</p> + +<p> +That waywardness which was a legitimate inheritance from generations of wilful +forebears, impatient of all those restraints which a fixed environment imposes +upon the individual, an impatience which had always been hers though it +slumbered in unsuspected latency, asserted itself of a sudden, possessed her +wholly, and warmed, her being like forbidden wine. +</p> + +<p> +In this humour she was set down at her door. +</p> + +<p> +None saw her enter. In a moment of vaguely prophetic foresight she had bidden +Thérèse not to wait up for her and to tell the other servants there was no +necessity for their doing so. She might be detained, Heaven alone knew how late +she might be; but she had her latch-key and was quite competent to undress and +put herself to bed. +</p> + +<p> +And Thérèse had taken her at her word. +</p> + +<p> +She was glad of that. In event that anything should leak out and be printed by +the newspapers concerning the theft of Monsieur Lanyard’s famous “Corot” by a +strange, closely veiled woman, it was just as well that none of the servants +was about to see her come in with the canvas clumsily hidden under her cloak. +</p> + +<p> +So she exercised much circumspection in shutting and bolting the door, mounted +the stairs without making any unnecessary stir, and at the door of her boudoir +waited, listening, for several moments, in the course of which she heard, or +fancied she heard, a slight noise on the far side of the door which made her +suspect Thérèse might after all still be up and about. +</p> + +<p> +The sound was not repeated, but to make sure Sofia slipped out of her cloak and +wrapped it round the canvas before she went in; which last she did sharply, +with head up and eyes flashing ominously beneath scowling brows—prepared to +give Thérèse a rare taste of temper if she found she had been disobeyed. +</p> + +<p> +But though the maid had left the lights on, she was nowhere to be seen. Nor did +she answer from the bedchamber when the princess called her. +</p> + +<p> +With a sigh of relief that ran into the chuckle of a child absorbed in +mischief, Sofia threw the cloak across a chaise-longue, and bore her prize in +triumph to the escritoire. +</p> + +<p> +It was her intention to rip the canvas off with a knife, to get at the letters; +and a long, thin-bladed Spanish dagger that now did service as a paper-knife +was actually in her hand when she noticed how slightly the painting was tacked +to its stretcher, and for the first time was visited by premonition. +</p> + +<p> +Dropping the knife, she caught a loose edge of the canvas and with one swift +tug stripped it clear of the unpainted fabric beneath. +</p> + +<p> +The cry that disappointment wrung from her was bitter with protest and chagrin. +</p> + +<p> +Fortune had failed her, then, the jade had tricked her heartlessly. With +success within her grasp, it had trickled like quicksilver through her fingers. +Victor had been beforehand with her, had purloined the letters and restored the +canvas to its frame. She might have suspected as much if she had only had the +wit to draw a natural inference from the way the painting had parted company +with its frame when she dropped it. +</p> + +<p> +So the letters for which she had risked and suffered so much must be back +there, in Lanyard’s lodgings, in Victor’s possession—lost irretrievably, since +she would never find the courage to go back for them, even if she dared assume +that Victor had not yet recovered and escaped or that Lanyard had not yet come +home. +</p> + +<p> +If only she had thought to rifle Victor’s pockets ... +</p> + +<p> +“Too late,” she uttered in despair. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, madame, never say that!” +</p> + +<p> +She swung round but, shocked as she was to the verge of stupefaction, made no +outcry. +</p> + +<p> +The intruder stood within arm’s-length, collected, amiable, debonair, nothing +threatening in his attitude, merely an easy and at the same time quite +respectful suggestion of interest. +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur Lanyard!” +</p> + +<p> +His bow was humorous without mockery: “Madame la princesse does me much +honour.” +</p> + +<p> +She was silent another instant, in a wide stare comprehending the incredible, +the utterly impossible fact of his presence there. The one conceivable +explanation voiced itself without her volition: +</p> + +<p> +“The Lone Wolf!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come now!” he remonstrated, indulgently—“that’s downright flattery.” +</p> + +<p> +She moved aside, lifting a hand toward the bell-cord. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait!” +</p> + +<p> +Involuntarily she deferred, her arm dropped. Then, appreciating that she had +yielded where he had no right to command, she mutinied. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” she demanded, resentfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Why ring?” he countered, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“To call my servants—to have them call in the police.” +</p> + +<p> +“But surely madame la princesse must appreciate the police might be at a loss +to know which housebreaker to arrest.” +</p> + +<p> +He cocked an eye of mocking significance toward the purloined “Corot,” and in +sharp revulsion of feeling Sofia had need to bite her lip to keep from +laughing. She hesitated. He was right and reasonable enough, this impudent and +imperturbable young elegant. Yet she could not afford to concede so much to +him. She was quick to accept his gage. +</p> + +<p> +“Who knows,” she enquired, obliquely, “why Monsieur the Lone Wolf brought with +him this counterfeit Corot when he broke in to steal—” +</p> + +<p> +“The counterfeit jewels of a titled adventuress!” +</p> + +<p> +An interruption brusque enough to silence her; or else it was its innuendo that +struck the princess dumb with indignation. Lanyard’s laugh offered amends for +the rudeness, as if he said: “Sorry—but you asked for it, you know.” He stepped +aside, caught up a handful of her jewels that had been left, a tempting heap, +openly exposed on her dressing-table (as much her own carelessness as +anybody’s, Sofia admitted) and tossed them lightly upon the face of the +fraudulent canvas. +</p> + +<p> +“Birds of a feather,” was his comment, whimsical; “coals to Newcastle!” +</p> + +<p> +“My jewels!” The princess gathered them up tenderly and faced him, blazing with +resentment. He returned a twisted smile, an apologetic shrug. +</p> + +<p> +“Madame la princesse didn’t know? I’m so sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +“How dare you say they’re paste?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry,” he repeated; “but somebody seems to have taken advantage of +madame’s confidence. Excellent imitations, I grant you, but articles de Paris +none the less.” +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t true!” she stormed, near to tears. +</p> + +<p> +“But really, you must believe me. A knowledge of jewels is one of my hobbies: I +<i>know!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +She looked down in consternation at the exquisite trinkets he had condemned so +bluntly. Then in a fit of temper she flung them from her with all her might, +threw herself upon the chaise-longue, and wept passionately into its cushions. +Then the young man proved himself tolerably instructed in the ways of +womankind. He said nothing more, made no offer to comfort her by those futile +and empty pats on the shoulder which are instinctive with man on such +occasions, but simply sat him down and waited. +</p> + +<p> +In time the tempest passed, Sofia sat up and dabbled her eyes with a web of +lace and linen. Then she looked round with a tentative smile that was wholly +captivating. She was one of those rare women who can afford to cry. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s so humiliating!” she protested with racial ingenuousness—one of her most +compelling charms. “But it’s ridiculous, too. I was so sure no one would ever +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“No one but an expert ever would, madame.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see”—apparently she had forgotten that Lanyard was anything but a lifelong +friend—“I needed money so badly, I had them reproduced and sold the originals.” +</p> + +<p> +“Madame la princesse—if she will permit—commands my profound sympathy.” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” she remembered, drying her eyes, “you called me an adventuress, too!” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” he contended, gravely, “you had already called me the Lone Wolf.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what do you expect, monsieur, when I find you in my rooms—?” +</p> + +<p> +“But what does madame la princesse expect when I find she had been to mine—and +brought something valuable away with her, too!” +</p> + +<p> +“I had a reason—” +</p> + +<p> +“So had I.” +</p> + +<p> +“What was it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps it was to see madame la princesse alone—secretly—without exciting the +jealousy, which I understand is supernormal, of monsieur le prince.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why should you wish to see me alone?” she demanded, with widening eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps to beg madame’s permission to offer her what may possibly prove some +slight consolation.” +</p> + +<p> +She weighed his words in dark distrust. What was this consolation? What his +game? His attitude remained consistently too deferential and punctilious for +one to suspect that by consolation he meant love-making. +</p> + +<p> +“But how did you get in?” +</p> + +<p> +“By the front door, madame. I find it ajar—one assumes, through oversight on +the part of one of the servants—it opens to a touch, I walk in—et voila!” +</p> + +<p> +His levity was infectious. In spite of herself, she smiled in sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +“And what, pray, is this wonderful consolation you would offer me?” +</p> + +<p> +He produced from a pocket a packet of papers. +</p> + +<p> +“I think madame la princesse is interested in these,” he said. “If she will be +so amiable as to accept them from me, with my compliments and one little word +of advice....” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, monsieur!” Look and tone thanked him more than words could ever. “You are +too kind! And your advice—?” +</p> + +<p> +“They tell too much, madame, those letters. And I see you have a fire in the +grate ...” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur has reason....” +</p> + +<p> +She rose, went to the fireplace and, half kneeling, thrust the letters one by +one into the incandescent bed of coals. A ceremony of sentiment at any other +time, but not now: her thoughts were far from the man with whose memory these +letters were linked, they were in fact not wholly articulate. Just what was +passing through her mind she herself would have found it hard to define; she +was mainly conscious of a flooding emotion of gratitude to Lanyard; but there +was something more, a feeling not unakin to tenderness.... +</p> + +<p> +The reaction of her vital young body from a desperate physical conflict, the +rapid play of her passions from anger and despair through triumph and delight +to gratification and content, from the bitterest sense of frustration and peril +to one of security; the uprush of those strange instincts which had lain +dormant till roused by the knowledge that she was free at length from the +maddening stupidity of social life, together with her recent, implicit +self-dedication to a life in all things its converse: these influences were +working upon her so strongly as to render her mood more dangerous than she +guessed. +</p> + +<p> +Disturbed in her formless reverie, an aimless groping through a bewildering +maze of emotions but vaguely apprehended, she started up, faced round and saw +Lanyard, topcoat over arm and hat in hand, about to open the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur!” +</p> + +<p> +He looked back, coolly quizzical. “Madame?” +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Taking my unobtrusive departure, madame la princesse, by the way I came.” +</p> + +<p> +“But—wait—come back!” +</p> + +<p> +He shrugged agreeably, released the door-knob, and stood before her, or rather +over her—for he was the taller by a good five inches—looking down, quietly at +her service. +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t thanked you.” +</p> + +<p> +“For what, madame? For treating myself to an amusing adventure?” +</p> + +<p> +“It has cost you dear!” +</p> + +<p> +“The fortunes of war ...” +</p> + +<p> +Her hands rose unconsciously, with an uncertain movement. Her face was soft +with an elusive bloom of unwonted feeling. Her eyes held a puzzled look, as if +she did not quite understand what was moving her so deeply. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a strange man, monsieur....” +</p> + +<p> +“And what shall one say of madame la princesse?” +</p> + +<p> +She could but laugh; and laughter rings the death-knell of constraint. +</p> + +<p> +But Lanyard remembered uneasily that somebody—Solomon or some other who must +have led an interesting life—had remarked that the lips of a strange woman are +smoother than oil. +</p> + +<p> +“None the less, monsieur, I am deeply in your debt.” +</p> + +<p> +His smile of impersonal courtesy failed. He was becoming more sensitive than he +liked to her charm and the warm sentiment she was giving out to him. This +strange access in her of haunting loveliness, the gentle shadows that lay +beneath her wide—yet languorous eyes, the almost imperceptible tremor of her +sweetly fashioned lips, all troubled him profoundly. He exerted himself to +break the spell upon his senses which this woman, wittingly or not, was +weaving. But the effort was at best half-hearted. +</p> + +<p> +“I am well repaid,” he said a bit stiffly, “by the knowledge that the honour of +madame la princesse is safe.” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia laughed breathlessly. Somehow her hands had found the way to his. Her +glance wavered and fell. +</p> + +<p> +“But is it?” she asked in a tone so intimate that it was barely audible. And +she laughed once more. “I am not so sure ... as long as monsieur is here.” +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard’s mouth twitched, slow colour mounted in his face, the light in his +eyes was lambent. He found himself looking deep into other eyes that were like +pools of violet shadow troubled by a deep surge and resurge of feeling for +which there was no name. Aware that they revealed more than he ought to know, +he sought to escape them by bending his lips to Sofia’s hands. +</p> + +<p> +Sighing softly, she resigned them to his kisses. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b1ch9"></a>IX<br/> +PAID IN FULL</h2> + +<p> +It was late when Lanyard got home, but not too late: when he entered his +living-room enough life lingered in the embers in the grate to betray to him a +feline shape on all-fours creeping toward his bedchamber door. As he switched +up the lights it bounded to its feet and dived through the portières with such +celerity that he saw little more of it than coat-tails level on the wind. +</p> + +<p> +Dropping hat and canvas, Lanyard gave chase and overhauled the marauder as he +was clambering out through the open window, where a firm hand on his collar +checked his preparations to drop half a dozen feet to the flagged court. +</p> + +<p> +Victor swore fretfully and lashed out a random fist, which struck Lanyard’s +cheek a glancing blow that carried just enough sting to kindle resentment. So +the virtuous householder was rather more than unceremonious about yanking the +princely housebreaker inside and lending him a foot to accelerate his return to +the living-room; where Victor brought up, on all-fours again, in almost +precisely the spot from which he had risen. +</p> + +<p> +He bounced up, however, with a surprising amount of animation and ambition, and +flew back to the offensive with flailing fists. In this his judgment was +grievously in fault. Lanyard sidestepped, nipped a wrist, twitched it smartly +up between the man’s shoulder-blades (with a wrench that won a grunt of agony), +caught the other arm from behind by the hollow of its elbow, and held his +victim helpless—though ill-advised enough to continue to hiss and spit and +squirm and kick. +</p> + +<p> +A heel that struck Lanyard’s shin earned Victor a shaking so thoroughgoing that +he felt the teeth rattle in his jaws. When it was suspended, he was breathless +but thoughtful, and offered no objection to being searched. Lanyard relieved +him of a revolver and a dirk, then with a push sent Victor reeling to the +table, where he stood panting, quivering, and glaring murder, while his captor +put the dagger away and examined the firearm. +</p> + +<p> +“Wicked thing,” he commented—“loaded, too. Really, monsieur le prince should be +more careful. One of these fine days, if you don’t stop playing with such +weapons, one of these will go off right in your hand—and the next high-light in +your history will be when the judge says: ‘And may the Lord have mercy on your +soul!’” +</p> + +<p> +Victor confided his sentiments to a handkerchief with which he was mopping his +face. Lanyard sat down and wagged a reproving head. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t catch,” he said; “perhaps it’s just as well, though; sounded like bad +words. Hope I’m mistaken, of course: princes ought to set impressionable +plebeians a better pattern.” +</p> + +<p> +He cocked a critical eye. “You’re a sight, if you don’t mind my saying so—look +as if the sky had caved in on you. May one ask what happened? Did it stub its +toe and fall?” +</p> + +<p> +Victor suspended operations with the handkerchief to bend upon his tormentor a +louring, distrustful stare. His head was still heavy, hot, and painful, his +mental processes thick with lees of coma; but now he began to appreciate, what +naturally seemed apparent, that Lanyard must be unacquainted with the cause of +his injuries. +</p> + +<p> +A searching look round the room confirmed him in this error. The canvas lay +where Lanyard had dropped it on entering, not in the spot where Victor +remembered seeing it last, but where conceivably an unheeded kick might have +sent it in the course of his struggle with Sofia. She must have forgotten it, +then, when she fled from what she probably thought was murder, and what might +well have been. +</p> + +<p> +He was much too sore and shaken to be subtle; and the general trend of his +conjectures was perfectly legible to Lanyard, who without delay set himself to +conjure away any lingering suspicion of his guilelessness. +</p> + +<p> +“Not squiffy, are you, by any chance?” he enquired with the kindliest interest. +“You look as if you’d wound up a spree by picking a fight with a bobby. Your +cheek’s cut and all (shall we say, in deference to the well-known prejudices of +the dear B.P.?) ensanguined. Sit down and pull yourself together before you try +to explain to what I owe this honour—and so forth.” +</p> + +<p> +He got up, clapped a hand on Prince Victor’s shoulder, and steered him into an +easy chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Anything more I can do to put you at your ease? Would a brandy and soda help, +do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +The suggestion was acceptable: Victor signified as much with an ungracious +mumble. Lanyard fetched glasses, a decanter, a siphon-bottle, and supplied his +guest with a liberal hand before helping himself. +</p> + +<p> +Victor took the drink without a word of thanks and gulped it down noisily. +Lanyard drank sparingly, then crossed the room to a bell-push. Seeing his +finger on it Prince Victor started from his chair, but Lanyard hospitably waved +him back. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t go yet,” he pleaded. “You’ve only just dropped in, we haven’t had half a +chance to chat. Besides, you mustn’t forget I’ve got your pistol and your dirk +and the upper hand and a sustaining sense of moral superiority and no end of +other advantages over you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” the prince demanded, nervously—“why did you ring?” +</p> + +<p> +“To call a cab for you, of course. I don’t imagine you want to walk home—do +you?—in your present state of shocking disrepair. Of course, if you’d rather +... But do sit down: compose yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me be,” the other snapped as Lanyard offered good-naturedly to thrust him +back into the chair. “I am—quite composed.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s good! Excellent! Hand steady enough to write me a cheque, do you +think?” +</p> + +<p> +“What the devil!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come now! Don’t go off your bat so easily. I’m only going to do you a +service—” +</p> + +<p> +“Damn your impudence! I want no services of you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes you do!” Lanyard insisted, unabashed—“or you will when you learn what +a kind heart I’ve got. Now do be nice and stop protesting! You see, you’ve +touched my heart. I’d no idea you were so passionate about that painting. If I +had for one instant imagined you cared enough about it to burglarize my rooms +... But now that I do understand, my dear fellow, I wouldn’t deny you for +worlds; I make you a free present of it, at the price I paid—twenty thousand +and one hundred guineas—exacting no bonus or commission whatever. You’ll find +blank cheques in the upper right-hand drawer of my desk there; fill in one to +my order, and the Corot’s yours.” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment longer the prince stared, hate and perplexity in equal measure +tincturing his regard. Then slowly the look of doubt gave way to the ghost of a +crafty smile. +</p> + +<p> +What a blazing fool the fellow was (he thought) to accept a cheque on which +payment could be stopped before banking hours in the morning—! +</p> + +<p> +Such fatuity seemed incredible. Yet there it was, egregious, indisputable. Why +not profit by it, turn it to his own advantage? To secure what he had sought, +the letters concealed between the canvases, and turn them against Sofia, and to +play this Lanyard for a fool, all at one stroke—the opportunity was too rich to +be slighted. +</p> + +<p> +He dissembled his exultation—or plumed himself on doing so. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” he mumbled, sulkily. “I’ll draw the cheque.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the right spirit!” Lanyard declared, and escorted him to the desk. +</p> + +<p> +A knock sounded. Lanyard called: “Come in!” A sleepy manservant, half-dressed +and warm from his bed, entered. +</p> + +<p> +“You rang, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Harris.” Lanyard tossed him a sovereign. “Sorry to rout you out so late, +but I need a cab. Whistle up a growler, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +“’Nk-you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The man retired cheerfully, rewarded for many a night of broken slumber. Prince +Victor got up from the desk and proffered Lanyard the cheque. +</p> + +<p> +“I fancy,” he said with a leer, “you’ll find that all right.” +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard scrutinized the cheque minutely, nodded his satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks ever so ... No, not a word!” He forbade inflexibly a wholly imaginary +interposition on the part of Prince Victor. “You don’t know how to thank me—do +you? Then why try? I know I’m too good, but I really can’t help it, it’s my +nature—and there you are! So what’s the good of bickering about it?... Now +where did you leave your coat and hat? On my bed, as you came in?” +</p> + +<p> +He smiled charmingly and darted through the portières, returning with the +articles in question. “Do let me help you.” +</p> + +<p> +The prince struggled into the coat and grunted an acknowledgment of the +service. Lanyard pressed the hat into his hand, picked up the canvas, replaced +it in its frame, and tucked both under the princely arm. +</p> + +<p> +Another knock: Harris returned. +</p> + +<p> +“The four-wheeler is w’iting, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks, Harris. Half a moment: I want a word with you. You see this +gentleman?” Lanyard caught Victor’s look of angry resentment and interrupted +himself. “Don’t forget yourself, monsieur le prince. Remember ...” +</p> + +<p> +He patted significantly the pocket which held the revolver, and turned back to +Harris. +</p> + +<p> +“This gentleman,” he said, consulting the signature to the cheque, “is Prince +Victor Vassilyevski. Please remember him. You may have to bear witness against +him in court.” +</p> + +<p> +“What insolence is this?” Victor demanded, hotly. +</p> + +<p> +“Calm yourself, monsieur le prince.” Lanyard repeated the warning gesture. “He +is a nobleman of Russia, or says he is, and—strangely enough, Harris!—a +burglar. I caught him burglarizing my rooms when I came home just now. You may +judge from his appearance what difficulty I had in subduing him.” +</p> + +<p> +“’E do seem fair used up, sir,” Harris admitted, eyeing Victor indignantly. +“Would you wish me to call a bobby and give ’im in charge?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks, no. Prince Victor and I have compromised. He doesn’t relish going to +jail, and I’ve no particular desire to send him there. But he does want what he +broke in to steal—that painting you see under his arm—and I’ve agreed to sell +it to him. Here’s the cheque he has just given me. Providing payment is not +stopped on it, Harris, you will hear no more of this incident. But if by any +chance the cheque should come back from his bank—I may ask you to testify to +what you have seen and heard here to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a lie!” Prince Victor shrilled. “You brought me in with you, assaulted +me, blackmailed that cheque out of me! Nobody saw us—” +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry,” Lanyard cut in; “but it so happens, that the gentleman who has the +rooms immediately above came in when I did, and can testify that I was alone. +That’s all, monsieur le prince. Your carriage waits.” +</p> + +<p> +Harris opened the door. Choking with rage, the prince shuffled out, Lanyard +politely escorting him to the curb. There, with a foot lifted to enter the +four-wheeler, Prince Victor turned, shaking an impassioned hand in Lanyard’s +face. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll pay me for this!” he spluttered. “I’ll square accounts with you, +Lanyard, if I have to follow you to the gates of hell!” +</p> + +<p> +“Better not,” Lanyard warned him fairly, “if you do, I’ll push you in ... Bon +soir, monsieur le prince!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>BOOK II<br/> +THE LONE WOLF’S DAUGHTER</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch1"></a>I<br/> +THE GIRL SOFIA</h2> + +<p> +She sat all day long—from noon, that is, till late at night—on a high stool +behind the tall, pulpit-like desk of the caisse; flanked on one hand by the +swing door of green baize which communicated with the kitchen, on the other by +a hideous black walnut buffet on which fruits of the season were displayed, +more or less temptingly, to the taste of Mama Thérèse. +</p> + +<p> +But for these articles of furniture, the buffet, the desk, and the door to the +kitchen quarters, uninterrupted rows of tables, square, with composition-marble +tops, lined three walls of the room. The fourth was mainly plate-glass window, +one on either side of the main entrance. +</p> + +<p> +Back of the tables were wall-seats upholstered in red plush, dusty and +threadbare; and, above, a frieze of mirrors. The floor of the restaurant was a +patternless mosaic of small hexagonal tiles, bare in warm weather, in the +winter covered by a thick but well-worn Brussels carpet of peculiarly repulsive +design. The windows wore half-curtains of net which, after nightfall, were +reinforced by ruffled draperies of rep silk. Through the net curtains, by day, +the name of the restaurant was shadowed in reverse by plain white-enamel +letters glued to the glass: +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/cafe.jpg" width="615" height="78" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<p> +The girl stared so constantly at these letters, during the off hours of the +day, that she sometimes wondered if they were not indelibly stamped upon her +brain, like this: +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/cafer.jpg" width="616" height="79" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<p> +She gazed in the direction of the windows as a matter of habit, because Mama +Thérèse objected to her reading at the desk (all the same, sometimes she did it +on the sly) because the glimpses she caught, above the half-curtains, of heads +of passersby gave her idle imagination something to play with, but mostly +because it was difficult otherwise to seem unconscious of the stares that +converged toward her from every table occupied by a masculine patron, whether +regular or casual—unless the patron happened to be accompanied by a lady, in +which unhappy event he had to content himself with furtive, sidelong glances, +not always furtive enough by half. +</p> + +<p> +The feminine patrons stared, too, but from quite another angle of view. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia knew why. If she hadn’t, the mirror across the room would have +enlightened even a woman without vanity; which paradox this thoroughly human +young person was not. +</p> + +<p> +She was, indeed, healthily vain; and when she wasn’t focussing dream-dark eyes +upon the windows, or verifying additions and making change, she was as likely +as not to be stealing consultations with the mirror opposite, making sure she +hadn’t, in the last few minutes, gone off in her looks. Not that her comeliness +bade fair ever to prove the cause of any real excitement. Mama Thérèse made a +first-rate dragon: she was very much on the job of discouraging enterprising +young men, and this without respect for union hours or overtime. And when she +wasn’t functioning as the ubiquitous wet-blanket, Papa Dupont understudied for +her, and did it most efficiently, too. If anything he was more vigilant and +enthusiastic when it came to administering the snub sufficient than even Mama +Thérèse; in Sofia’s sight, indeed, he betrayed some personal feeling in the +business; he seemed to consider alien admiration of his charge an encroachment +upon his private prerogatives, to be resented accordingly. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia understood. At eighteen—thanks to the comprehensive visual education in +the business of life which she could hardly have failed to assimilate from a +coign of vantage overlooking every table of a Soho restaurant—there were +precious few things she didn’t understand. But her insight into Papa Dupont’s +mind in respect of herself was wholly devoid of sympathy. She was just a little +bit afraid of him, and she despised him without measure. And this contempt was +founded on something more than his weakness for taking numerous and +surreptitious nips (surreptitious, at least, until they became numerous) while +presiding over the zinc in the pantry between the restaurant proper and the +kitchen; and on something more than his reluctance to let Mama Thérèse make an +honest man of him, although these two had squabbled openly for so many years +that most of the house staff believed them to be married hard and fast enough. +</p> + +<p> +For the matter of that, Sofia herself might have been the dupe of this popular +delusion—which Mama Thérèse did her best to encourage by never referring to +Dupont save as “mon mari”—had they been less imprudent in recriminations which +had passed between them in private when Sofia was of an age so tender that she +was presumed to be safely immature of mind. Whereas she had always been +precocious, if rather a self-contained child. Almost from infancy she had been +conversant with many things which she knew it wouldn’t do to talk about. +</p> + +<p> +Such sympathy as Sofia wasted on the couple was all for Mama Thérèse. What with +keeping an eye on Papa Dupont that prevented his drinking himself to death +seven times per calendar week, and an eye on Sofia that was fondly credited +with being largely responsible for her failure to run away with each and every +presentable man who ogled her, and browbeating the waiters and frustrating +their attempts to cheat the house out of its fair dues, and supervising the +marketing and the cuisine: believe it or not, Mama Thérèse led a tolerably busy +life and deserved whatever gratification she got out of it, to say nothing of +highest commendation for industry, fidelity, and frugality. But that did +nothing to prevent Sofia from not liking her. +</p> + +<p> +Her inability to play up to the relationship in which she stood to Mama Thérèse +in the manner prescribed by sentimentalists worried Sofia more than a little. +She was as hungry to give affection as to receive it; and surely she ought to +be fond of Mama Thérèse, who (Sofia was forever being reminded) had in the +goodness of her great heart adopted her as the orphaned offspring of a cousin +far-removed, and had brought her up at her own expense, expecting no return +(excepting humility, gratitude, unquestioning affection, and uncomplaining +acceptance of a life of incessant toil at tasks uncongenial when not downright +unsavoury, without spending money or hours of untrammelled liberty in which to +spend it). +</p> + +<p> +Surely such nobility ought to be requited with nothing less than love! +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, the plain, and to Sofia disquieting, truth was: it wasn’t. +</p> + +<p> +She was fond of Mama Thérèse after a fashion. No one was ever more ready to +acknowledge the woman’s good qualities. But her faults, which included avarice, +bad temper, gluttony, native cruelty of inclination, and simple inability to +give a damn for anybody but herself, forbade satisfaction of Sofia’s yearnings +to give her affections freely through bestowing them upon the abundant and +florid person of Mama Thérèse. +</p> + +<p> +Still, she made no murmur. There was more than a trace of fatalism in the +composition of her spirit. As she conceived it, in this life either things were +or they were not; and as a rule they uncompromisingly were not: one couldn’t +have everything. +</p> + +<p> +She was not happy, it would be stretching the truth to say she was content, but +she was resigned, she was patient, she waited not altogether without +confidence.... +</p> + +<p> +All the same, sometimes, as she sat, day in day out, on her high stool, looking +down on familiar aspects of life’s fermentation as it manifests in public +restaurants, or peering out of the windows to catch tantalizing glimpses of its +freer, ampler, and—alas!—more recondite phases—sometimes Sofia wondered whether +there were not grimly cynic innuendo in those three words which the mystery of +choice had affixed to the window-panes and graven so deep into her soul. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/cafe.jpg" width="615" height="78" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<p> +For surely she was in exile there, an exile from all the fun and frolic and, +fury of life, marooned in weary isolation, on a high stool, in a frowsty table +d’hôte, in the living heart of London. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch2"></a>II<br/> +MASKS AND FACES</h2> + +<p> +Quite naturally she became acquainted with Faces.... +</p> + +<p> +She grew adept at a game which consisted mostly in keeping close watch upon +those who for this reason or that engaged her attention, without giving them +the slightest reason to suspect she was doing anything of the sort. +</p> + +<p> +One could not always be staring in abstraction at nothing in particular as it +passed to and fro on the sidewalk in front of the Café des Exiles; one could +not often or for long at a time succeed in reading a book held open in one’s +lap, below the level of the cashier’s desk, Mama Thérèse was too brisk for +that; one had to do something with one’s mind; and it was sometimes diverting +to watch and speculate about people who looked interesting. +</p> + +<p> +There were so many Faces, they came and went so constantly, like bubbles in a +tideway, that to Sofia most of them seemed indistinguishable one from another, +mere blurs of flesh colour studded with staring eyes and slitted by apertures +which automatically and alternately gaped to receive gobbets of food and +goblets of drink and closed to gulp them down. A man needed to be remarkable +for something in his looks, not necessarily pulchritude, or for uncommon +individuality, for Sofia to favour him with more than one of her seemingly +casual glances or to remember him if he visited the café a second time. +</p> + +<p> +But those there were who stood out from the rank and file, for whom she +watched, whom she missed if they failed to put in appearance at their +accustomed hours, about whom her idle but able imagination wove wonderful +fantasies, enduing them with histories and environments as far removed from +fact as the drab dreams of the realists are from the picturesque commonplaces +of everyday. +</p> + +<p> +And there were others who came once and never again, but whom she never forgot. +But for some of these last, indeed, she would never have remembered some of the +former. The brown-eyed youngster with the sentimental expression and the funny +little moustache, for example, lurked in the ruck a long time before the one +and only visit of a bird of passage dignified him in the sight of the girl on +the high stool. +</p> + +<p> +On the occasion of his first appearance (but that was long ago, Sofia couldn’t +remember how long) the slender young man with the soulful eyes and the +insignificant moustache had commended himself to her somewhat derisive +attention by seeming uncommonly exquisite for that atmosphere. +</p> + +<p> +The Café des Exiles was little haunted by the world of fashion; its diner +á prix fixe (2/6), although excellent, surprisingly well done for the +money, did not much seduce the clientèle of the Carlton and the Ritz. Now and +again its remoteness, promising freedom from embarrassing encounters save +through unlikely mischance, would bring it the custom of a clandestine couple +from the West End, who would for a time make it an almost daily rendezvous, +meeting nervously, sitting if possible in the most shadowy corner, the farthest +from the door, and holding hands when they mistakenly assumed that nobody was +looking—until the affair languished or some contretemps frightened them away. +</p> + +<p> +Aside from such visitations, however, the great world coldly passed the café +by; although it couldn’t complain for lack of patronage, and in fact prospered +exceedingly if without ostentation on the half-crowns of loyal Soho and more +fickle suburbia. +</p> + +<p> +The Sohobohemian on its native heath and the City clerk on the loose, however, +were not prone to such vestments as young Mr. Karslake affected. It wasn’t that +he overdressed; even the ribald would have hesitated to libel him with the name +of a “nut”—which is Cockney for what the United States knows as a “fancy (or +swell) dresser”; it was simply that he was always irreproachably turned out, +whatever the form of dress he thought appropriate to the time of day; and that +his wardrobe was so complete and varied that he seldom appeared twice in the +same suit of clothes—except, of course, after nightfall; though his visits to +the Café des Exiles for dinner or afterward were so infrequent that each +attained (after Sofia began to notice him at all) the importance of an +occasion. Luncheon was his time, and those empty hours at the end of the +afternoon which London fills in with tea and Soho with drinks. +</p> + +<p> +He seemed to have a very wide and catholic acquaintance among people of all +ranks and stations in life; one could hardly call them friendships, for he +lunched or sipped an aperti not often with the same person twice in a blue +moon. And whether his companion were a curate or some ragged wastrel of the +quarter; painted young person from the chorus of the newest revue or proper +matron from Bayswater; keen adventurer from Fleet Street or solid merchant from +the City, his attitude was much the same: easy, impersonal, unaffected, +courteous, detached. He was as apt as not (going on his facial expression) to +be mooning about Sofia when his guest was gesticulating wildly and uttering +three hundred words a minute. When he spoke it was modestly, in a voice of +agreeable cadences but pitched so low that Sofia never but twice heard anything +he said; and his manner was not characterized by brisk decision. All the same, +one noticed that he had, as a rule, the last word, that what he said left his +hearer either satisfied or pensive. +</p> + +<p> +He was unmistakably silly about Sofia; though that didn’t impress her, too many +of the regulars were just as hard hit, one more or less didn’t count. But he +never stared to the point of rudeness, and it always seemed to make him hugely +uncomfortable if she appeared in the least aware of his adoration; and Mama +Thérèse and Papa Dupont never even noticed him, so circumspect was he. Still, +Sofia saw, and sometimes wondered, just as she wondered now and then about most +of the possible men who seemed disposed to be sentimental about her. +</p> + +<p> +For there were times when she felt she could do with a little more first-hand +experience and a little less second-hand knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +Love (she supposed) must be a very agreeable frame of mind to be in, it was so +generally vogue.... +</p> + +<p> +What first led her to think that Mr. Karslake might be an interesting person to +know, entirely aside from his admiration, happened on an afternoon in June, a +warm day for England, when a temperature of some 81 degrees was responsible for +“heat-wave” broadsides issued by the evening papers. +</p> + +<p> +At about tea time, Mr. Karslake, faultlessly arrayed, ambled in, selected a +table diagonally across the room from the caisse, exchanged pleasantries with +the waiter who served him a picon, and used a copy of The Evening Standard +& St. James’s Gazette as a cover for his wistful admiration of Sofia. +</p> + +<p> +Presently he was joined by a gentleman twice his age, if not older, whose +conservative smartness was such that one wondered if he hadn’t strayed out of +bounds through inadvertence. One would have thought his place was in the clubs +of Piccadilly if not (at that particular hour) at a tea table on the river +terrace of the Houses of Parliament. On the other hand, there wasn’t a trace of +self-importance in his habit, it achieved distinction solely through the +unpretending dignity of a decent self-esteem. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia tried to fix what it was that made her think him the handsomest man she +had ever seen. She failed. He wasn’t at all handsome in the smug fashion +associated with the popular interpretation of that term; his features were +engagingly irregular of conformation, but the impression they conveyed was of a +singular strength together with as rare a fineness of spirit. A mobile and +expressive face, stamped with a history of strange ordeals; but this must not +be interpreted as meaning that it was haggard or prematurely aged; on the +contrary, it had youthful colour and was but lightly scored with wrinkles, its +sole confession of advancing years was in the gray at either temple. The eyes, +perhaps, told more than anything else of trials endured and memories that would +never rest. +</p> + +<p> +Once they had looked into hers (but that came later) Sofia was sure she would +never forget those eyes. And as she saw them then, she never did forget them. +But the next time she saw them she did not know them at all. +</p> + +<p> +The newcomer hailed Mr. Karslake by his name (which was the first time Sofia +had heard it), sat down on the wall-seat beside him and, when the waiter came, +desired an absinthe. +</p> + +<p> +He had used two languages already, English to Karslake, French to the waiter; +Sofia understood both and spoke them to perfection. So it was rather +exasperating when, his absinthe having been served and the customary platitudes +passed on the weather and their respective states of health, the conversation +was continued in a tongue with which Sofia was not only unacquainted but which +sounded like none she had ever heard spoken. This seemed the more annoying +because there were few people in the restaurant to drown with chatter the sound +of those two voices and because, in spite of their guarded tones, their table +was one so situated that some freak of acoustics carried every syllable uttered +at it, even though whispered, to the quick ears at the cashier’s desk. A +circumstance which had treated Sofia to many a moment of covert entertainment +and not a few that threatened to shatter what slender illusions had survived +eighteen years of Mama Thérèse. But nobody else (with the possible exception of +the last) was acquainted with this secret of the restaurant, and Sofia was +careful never to mention it. +</p> + +<p> +Now it so happened that Mr. Karslake had never before sat at that particular +table. +</p> + +<p> +The language spoken at it to-day intrigued Sofia extravagantly. It was rich in +labials, gutturals, and odd sibilances. She was positive it was not a European +tongue, though she thought it might possibly be Russian, because it sounded +rather like Russian print looks; it might just as well have been Arabic or +Choctaw, for all Sofia could say to the contrary. But his fluent ease in it +impressed her with the notion that young Mr. Karslake might not, after all, be +as negligible a person as he looked and as she indifferently had assumed. +</p> + +<p> +She determined to study him more attentively. +</p> + +<p> +It was rather a long confabulation, too, and one that both men seemed to take +very seriously—though its upshot was apparently quite acceptable to both—and +terminated abruptly with Mr. Karslake announcing, in English, with every +evidence of satisfaction: +</p> + +<p> +“Good! Then that’s settled.” +</p> + +<p> +To this the older man dissented tolerantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon: nothing is settled; it is proposed, merely.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Karslake with a little laugh that to Sofia sounded empty, “at all +events it ought to be amusing.” +</p> + +<p> +The other lifted one eyebrow and smiled remotely. +</p> + +<p> +“You think so?” +</p> + +<p> +“To be ordering you about, sir? I should say so!” But his companion wasn’t +listening or chose purposely to ignore that accent of respect. +</p> + +<p> +“You are right, my friend,” he said, abstractedly: “it will be amusing. But +what in life is not? I fancy that is why most of us go on, because we find the +play entertaining in spite of ourselves. And even when we think of Death ... +there’s the possibility that on the other side of the curtain, where the unseen +audience sits, whose hisses and applause we never hear ... over there it may be +more entertaining still!” +</p> + +<p> +Karslake was inquisitively watching his face. +</p> + +<p> +“You would say that,” he commented, deference and admiration in his voice. “By +all accounts you’ve had a most amusing life.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have found it so.” The other nodded with glimmering eyes. “Not always at the +time, of course. But when I look back, especially at my beginnings, at the +times that seemed hardest and most intolerable ...” +</p> + +<p> +He was thoughtful for a moment, glancing interestedly round the room. +</p> + +<p> +“It takes one back.” +</p> + +<p> +“What does?” +</p> + +<p> +“This café, my friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“To your beginnings, you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. It is very like the café at Troyon’s, at this hour especially, when there +are so few English about.” +</p> + +<p> +“Troyon’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“A restaurant in Paris. Famous in its day. Several years ago—before the war—it +burned down one night, cremating many memories. While it stood I hated it, now +I miss it; Paris without it is no more the Paris that I knew.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you hate it, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I suffered there.” +</p> + +<p> +He indicated a weedy young Alsatian across the room, a depressed and pimply +creature in a waiter’s jacket and apron, who was shambling from table to table +and collecting used glasses and saucers. +</p> + +<p> +“You see that omnibus yonder? What he is to-day, that was I in mine—omnibus, +scullion, valet-de-chambre, butt and scapegoat-in-general to the establishment, +scavenger of food that no one else would eat.... I suffered there, at +Troyon’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“You, sir?” Karslake exclaimed in astonishment. “Whoever would have thought +that you ... How did you escape?” +</p> + +<p> +“It occurred to me, one day, I was less than half alive and never would be +better while I stayed on in that servitude. So I walked out—into life.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you’d tell me, sir,” Karslake ventured, eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +“Some day, perhaps, when I get back. But now”—he looked at his watch—“I’ve got +just time enough to taxi to my hotel, pack, and catch the boat train.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t wait for me,” Karslake suggested, signalling the waiter. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps it would be as well if I didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +They shook hands, and the older man got up, secured his hat and stick, and +started out toward the door, moving leisurely, still looking about him with the +narrowed eyes and smile of reminiscence. +</p> + +<p> +Of a sudden that look was abolished utterly. He had caught sight of Sofia. +</p> + +<p> +Her interest had been so excited by the singular confidences she had overheard +that the girl had quite forgotten herself and her professional pose of blank +neutrality. She was bending forward a little, forearms resting on the desk, +frankly staring. +</p> + +<p> +The man’s stride checked, his smile faded, his eyes grew wide and cloudy with +bewilderment. For a moment Sofia thought him on the point of bowing, as one +might on unexpectedly encountering an acquaintance after many years: there was +that hint of impulse hindered by uncertainty. And in that moment the girl was +conscious of a singular sensation of breathlessness, as if something impended +whose issue might change all the courses of her life. A feeling quite insane +and unaccountable, to be sure; and nothing came of it whatever. With a +readiness so instant that the break in his walk must have been imperceptible to +anybody but Sofia, the man recollected himself, composed his face, and +proceeded to the door. +</p> + +<p> +Confounded with inexplicable disappointment, Sofia sat unstirring. +</p> + +<p> +In the open doorway the man turned and looked back, not at her, but at +Karslake, as if of half a mind to return and say something more to the younger +man. But he didn’t. +</p> + +<p> +He never came back. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch3"></a>III<br/> +THE AGONY COLUMN</h2> + +<p> +Sofia dated from that afternoon the first stirrings of a discontent which grew +in her throughout the summer till everything related to her lot seemed +abominable in her sight. +</p> + +<p> +Even without this subjective inquietude it would have been an unpleasant +summer. All the world was at sixes and sevens, the social unrest stirred up by +the war showed no signs of subsiding, but indeed, quite the contrary, there was +trouble in the very air—ominous portents of a storm whose dull, grim growling +down the horizon could be heard only too clearly by those who did not wilfully +close their ears, grin fatuous complacence, and bleat like brainless sheep: +“All’s well!” +</p> + +<p> +High-spirited youth and witless wealth a-lust for strange new pleasures turned +from the long strain of conflict to indulgence in endless orgies of +extravagance like nothing ever witnessed by a world long since surfeited with +contemplation of weird excesses: daily that wild dance of death attained wilder +stages of saturnalia, the bands blaring ever louder to drown the mutter of +savage elemental forces working underneath the crust. +</p> + +<p> +And ever and anon a lull would fall and the world would shudder to the +iteration of a word that spelled calamity to all things fair and sweet and +lovable in life, the word <i>Bolshevism</i>.... +</p> + +<p> +In the Café des Exiles there was endless discord and strife. +</p> + +<p> +For several reasons trade was not what it had been, even for the slack season +of summer it was poor. The cost of everything had gone up, waiters were +insubordinate and unreasonable in their demands, Mama Thérèse had been +constrained to increase the fixed price of the dinner, old customers took +umbrage at this and their patronage elsewhere. +</p> + +<p> +Mama Thérèse cultivated a temper that grew day by day more vile, Papa Dupont +displayed new artfulness in the matter of sneaking his daily toll of drink and +showed it; the two squabbled incessantly. +</p> + +<p> +One of the chefs, surmising the irregularity of their relations and foreseeing +an imminent break, sought to turn it to his own profit by making amorous +overtures to Mama Thérèse, who for reasons of her own, probably hoping to make +Papa Dupont jealous, encouraged the idiot. And, as if this were not sickening +enough, Papa Dupont, far from resenting this menace to the pseudo-peace of the +ménage, ignored if he did not welcome it, and daily displayed new tenderness +for Sofia. He kept near her as constantly as he could, he would even interrupt +a wrangle with Mama Thérèse to favour the girl with a languishing glance or a +term of endearment; he was forever caressing her disgustingly with his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +The swing door between the café and the pantry had warped on its hinges and +would not stay quite shut. Normally it stuck in a position which permitted +whoever was at the zinc an uninterrupted view of the desk of la dame du +comptoir. Instead of having it fixed, Papa Dupont put off that duty from day to +day and developed a fond attachment for the place at the zinc. For hours on end +Sofia, on her high stool, would be conscious of his gloating regard, his +glances that lingered on the sweet lines of her throat, the roundness of her +pretty arms. +</p> + +<p> +She dared make no sign to show that she knew and resented, to do so would be +merely to draw upon herself the spite of Mama Thérèse. +</p> + +<p> +But she simmered with indignation, and contemplated futile plans—especially in +the long, empty hours of the afternoon, between luncheon and the hour of the +apertifs—countless vain plans for abolishing these intolerable conditions. +</p> + +<p> +She thought a great deal of the strange man who had talked with young Mr. +Karslake, and wondered about him. Somehow she seemed unable to forget him; +never before had any one she didn’t know made such a lasting impression upon +her imagination. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes she wasted time trying to explain to herself why the man had seemed, +for that brief instant, to think he knew her, only to dismiss such speculations +eventually with the assurance that she probably resembled in moderate degree +somebody whom he had once known. +</p> + +<p> +But mostly she was preoccupied with pondering the strangeness of it, that he +who seemed so brilliant and brave a figure of the great world should, according +to his own confession, have risen from beginnings as lowly as her own. All that +he had suffered in the days of his youth, in that place in Paris which he +called Troyon’s, Sofia had suffered here and in large part continued to suffer +without prospect of alleviation or hope of escape. And remembering what he had +said, that his own trials had come to an end only when he awakened to the fact +that he was, as he had put it, “less than half alive” there at Troyon’s, and +had simply “walked out into life,” she was persuaded that the cure for her own +discomfort and discontent would never be found in any other way. But she lacked +courage to adventure it. +</p> + +<p> +To say “walk out and make an end of it” was all very well; but assuming that +she ever should muster up spirit enough to do it—what then? Which way should +she turn, once she had passed out through the doors? What could she do? She had +neither means nor friends, and she was much too thoroughly conversant with the +common way of the world with a woman alone to imagine that, by taking her life +in her own hands, she would accomplish much more than exchange the irk of the +frying pan for the fury of the fire. +</p> + +<p> +All the same, she knew that she must one day do it and chance the consequences. +Things couldn’t go on as they were. +</p> + +<p> +And even granting that the outcome of any effort at self-assertion must be +unhappy, she grew impatient. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, she did nothing, she sat quietly on her perch, looked with stony +composure over the heads of the multitude, indifferent alike to admiration and +the uncharitable esteem of her own sex, and waited with a burning heart. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Karslake ran true to form. He drifted in and out casually, always idle and +dégagé and elegant, he continued his irregular conferences with ill-assorted +companions, he worshipped discreetly and evidently without the faintest hope, +he seemed more than ever a trifling and immaterial creature. Chance did not +again lead him to the table where he had sat with the man whom Sofia could not +forget, and only the memory of that conversation held any place for Karslake in +the consideration of the girl. +</p> + +<p> +Even at that she didn’t consider him seriously, she looked for him and missed +him when he didn’t appear solely because of a secret hope that some day that +other one would come back to meet him in the café. +</p> + +<p> +Why she held fast to that hope Sofia could not have said. +</p> + +<p> +Toward the middle of summer Mr. Karslake absented himself for several weeks, +and when he showed up again his visits were fewer and more widely spaced. +</p> + +<p> +On an afternoon late in August, a hot and weary day, he sauntered in with his +habitual air of having in particular nothing to do and all the time there was +to do it in, and found a man waiting for him. +</p> + +<p> +This was a person whom Sofia had quite overlooked after one glance had +classified and pigeon-holed him. A single glance had been enough. They do some +things better in England; a man cast for any particular rôle in life, for +example, is apt to conform himself, mentally, physically, and even as to his +outer habiliments, so nicely to the mould that he is forever unmistakably what +he is even to the most casual observer. So this man was a butler, he had been +born and bred a butler, he lived by buttling, a butler he would die; not a +pompous, turkeycock butler, such as the American stage will offer you when it +takes up English fashionable life in a serious way, but a mild-mannered, decent +body, with plain side-whiskers, chopped short on a line with the lobes of his +ears, otherwise clean-shaven, his hair pathetically dyed, a colourless cast of +countenance, eyes meek and mild. +</p> + +<p> +He was soberly dressed in black coat and waistcoat, the latter showing a white +triangle of hard-polished shirt and a black bow tie, with indefinite gray +trousers and square-toed boots by no means new. His middle was crossed by a +thick silver watch-chain, and curious, old-fashioned buttons of agate set in +square frames of gold fastened his round stiff cuffs of yesterday. He carried a +well-brushed bowler as unfashionable as unseasonable. +</p> + +<p> +When Mr. Karslake entered, the polished pattern of a young gentleman of means, +slenderly well set-up in an exquisitely tailored brown lounge suit, wearing a +boater and carrying a slender malacca stick in one chamois-gloved hand, the +butler stood up at his table, quietly acknowledged his greeting—“Ah, Nogam! you +here already?”—and waited for the younger man to be seated before resuming his +own chair: a stoop-shouldered symbol of self-respecting respectability, not too +intelligent, subdued by definite and unresentful acceptance of “his place.” +</p> + +<p> +Their table was the one immediately beyond the buffet; and the café was very +quiet, with only three other patrons, two of whom were playing chess while the +third was reading an old issue of the Echo de Paris. So Sofia could, if she had +cared to eavesdrop, have overheard everything that passed between Mr. Karslake +and the man Nogam. But she didn’t; their first few speeches failed to excite +her curiosity in the least. +</p> + +<p> +She heard Mr. Karslake, who was becomingly affable to one of inferior station, +express the perfunctory hope that he hadn’t kept Nogam waiting long, and Nogam +reply to the simple effect of “Oh, not at all, sir.” To this he added that he +’oped there had been no ’itch, he was most heager to be installed in his new +situation, and would do his best to give satisfaction. Karslake replied airily +that he was sure Nogam would do famously, and Nogam said “Thank you, sir.” Then +Karslake announced they must bustle along, because they were expected by some +person unnamed, but just the same he meant to have a drink before he budged a +foot. And he called a waiter and requested a whiskey and soda for himself and +some beer for Nogam.... And Sofia turned her attention to other things. +</p> + +<p> +The murmur of their talk meant nothing to her after that, and she forgot them +entirely till they got up to leave, and then wasted only a moment in wondering +why Mr. Karslake, if he were, as he seemed to be, engaging a butler for some +friend or employer, should have arranged to meet the man in a café of Soho. But +it didn’t matter, and she dismissed the incident from her mind. +</p> + +<p> +What did matter was that she was to-day more than ever galled by the deadly +circumstances of her existence. If they were to continue to obtain, she felt, +life would grow simply unendurable, and she would to do something reckless to +get a little relief from the tedium and the ugliness of it all. +</p> + +<p> +She was fed up with everything, the shrewishness of Mama Thérèse, the +drunkenness of Papa Dupont, the hideous dullness of the café, the smell of +food, the fumes of tobacco, the reek of wines. +</p> + +<p> +She was fed up with the leers of Papa Dupont, the scowls of Mama Thérèse, the +grimaces of waiters, the stares of customers, the very sight of herself in the +mirror across the room. +</p> + +<p> +She was fed up with being fed up, she wanted to do something lunatic, she +wanted to kick and scream and drum on the floor with her heels. +</p> + +<p> +And all the while, beyond the threshold, life in the street was flowing by, a +restless stream, and the voice of it was a siren call to her hungry heart, +whispering of freedom, laughing low of love, roaring robustly of brave +adventures. +</p> + +<p> +And she sat there with folded hands, mutinous yet impotent, afraid, a useless +thing with sullen eyes ... wasted ... +</p> + +<p> +As was her custom, between six and seven, before the busy hours of the evening, +she had her dinner fetched to a table near by. +</p> + +<p> +Somebody had left a copy of a morning paper on the wall-seat. Sofia glanced +through it without much interest. None the less, when she had finished, she +took the sheet back to the caisse with her and intermittently, as occasion +offered, read snatches of it quite openly, so bored that she didn’t care if +Mama Thérèse did catch her at this forbidden practice; a good row would be +almost welcome ... anything to break the monotony.... +</p> + +<p> +When she had digested without edification every item of news, she devoured the +advertisements of the shops, then turned to the Agony Column, which she had +saved up for a savoury. +</p> + +<p> +She read the appeal of the widow of the English army officer who wanted some +kind-hearted and soft-headed person to finance her in setting up an +establishment for “paying guests.” +</p> + +<p> +She read the card of the young gentleman of good family but impoverished means +who admitted that he had every grace and talent heart could desire and who, in +frantic effort to escape going to work for his living, threw himself bodily +upon the generosity of an unknown, and as yet non-existent, benefactor, hinting +darkly at suicide if nothing came of this last attempt to get himself +luxuriously maintained in indolence. +</p> + +<p> +She read the advertisements of money-lenders who yearned to advance fabulous +sums to the nobility and gentry on their simple notes of hand. +</p> + +<p> +She read the thinly disguised professional cards of lonely ladies whose unhappy +lot could be mitigated only by congenial male companionship. +</p> + +<p> +She read the ingenuous matrimonial bids. +</p> + +<p> +She read the announcement of the lady of (deleted) title who was willing, for a +substantial consideration, to introduce gentlefolk of means and their daughters +to the most exclusive social circles. +</p> + +<p> +She read the naïve solicitation of the alleged ex-officer of the B.E.F., +who had won through the war with every known decoration except the Double Cross +of the Order of St. Gall and with nothing of his anatomy left whole except his +cheek, begging some great-hearted soul to buy him a barrel organ to play in the +streets. +</p> + +<p> +And then her eye was arrested by the appearance of her own name in the text of +a brief advertisement, which she read naturally, with heightened interest: +</p> + +<p> +IF MICHAEL LANYARD will communicate privately he will hear news of Sofia his +daughter. Address Secretan & Sypher, Solicitors, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, W.C. +3 +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch4"></a>IV<br/> +MUTINY</h2> + +<p> +Sofia had never heard the name of Michael Lanyard. Neither did the firm style +of Messrs. Secretan & Sypher, Solicitors, mean anything to her. +Notwithstanding, she wasted more time than she knew trying to picture to +herself a man who looked like Michael Lanyard sounded, and wishing (no matter +what his looks might be) that she were his long-lost daughter Sofia, and that +he would see the advertisement, and communicate privately as requested, and +hear news of her, and come speeding in a Rolls-Royce to the Café des Exiles, +and walk in and humble Papa Dupont with a look of hauteur and confound Mama +Thérèse with a peremptory word, and take Sofia by the hand and lead her out and +induct her into such an environment as suited her rightful station: said +environment necessarily comprising a town house if not on Park Lane at least +nearly adjacent to it, and a country house sitting, in the mellowed beauty of +its Seventeenth Century architecture, amid lordly acres of velvet lawn and +private park. +</p> + +<p> +She hoped the country house would be within sight of the sea, and that the +family garage would run to a comfortable little town-car for her personal use +when she went shopping in Bond Street, or to pay calls or leave cards, or to +concerts and matinees.... +</p> + +<p> +At about this stage her châteaux en Espagne began to rock upon their +foundations; a seismic phenomenon due to the appearance of Mama Thérèse and +Papa Dupont, coming from zinc and kitchen for their dinner, which meal they +habitually consumed in the café when the evening rush was over, the tables +undressed, and the establishment had settled down to drowse away the dull hours +till closing time. +</p> + +<p> +Thus reminded that it was nine o’clock or thereabouts of a stuffy evening in a +stodgy world where nothing ever happened that hadn’t wearily happened the day +before and the day before that and so back to the beginning of Time, and wasn’t +scheduled tediously to continue happening to-morrow and the day after and so on +to the end of Eternity, Sofia sighed and shook herself and put away the vanity +of dreams. +</p> + +<p> +But her beauty, as she sat brooding, was as sultry as the night. +</p> + +<p> +In the rear of the room Mama Thérèse and Papa Dupont wrangled sourly over their +food; not with impassioned rancour but in the natural order of things—as others +might discuss the book of the moment or the play of the year or scandal or +Charlie Chaplin or the thundering fiasco of Versailles—these two discussed each +other’s failings with utmost candour and freedom of expression: handling their +subjects without gloves; never hesitating to touch upon topics not commonly +mentioned in civil intercourse or to use the apt, unprintable word; never +dreaming of politely terming a damned old hoe a spade; tossing the ball of +recrimination to and fro with masterly ease. +</p> + +<p> +Their preoccupation with this pastime was so thoroughgoing that Mama Thérèse +even failed to notice the passage of the postman on his last round of the day. +Ordinarily, for reasons best known to herself and which Sofia had never thought +to question, Mama Thérèse preferred personally to receive all letters and +contrived to be on hand at the postman’s customary hours of call. But to-night +she only realized that he had come and gone when, happening to glance toward +the caisse, she saw Sofia shuffling the half-dozen envelopes which had been +left with her. +</p> + +<p> +Immediately Mama Thérèse pushed back the table and got up, wiping chin and +moustache with her napkin as she rolled toward the desk. +</p> + +<p> +But she was too late. Already Sofia had sorted out and was staring in blank +wonder at an envelope addressed to Mama Thérèse and bearing in its upper +left-hand corner the imprint of its origin: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Secretan & Sypher<br/> +Solicitors<br/> +Lincoln’s Inn Fields<br/> +London, W.C. 3.</i> +</p> + +<p> +As yet she was simply startled by the coincidence, her brain had not had time +to absorb its full significance—that Mama Thérèse should receive a +communication from these distinctively named solicitors on the evening of the +very day on which they advertised concerning a young woman named Sofia!—when +the letter was snatched out of her hand, a torrent of objurgation was loosed +upon her devoted head, and she looked into the black scowl of the Frenchwoman. +</p> + +<p> +“Sneak! Spying little cat! How dare you pry into my letters?” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Mama Thérèse—!” +</p> + +<p> +“Be still, you! Has one asked you to speak? Give me those others”—Mama Thérèse +with a vast show of violence appropriated them from Sofia’s unresisting +grasp—“and after this keep your nose of a mouchard out of what doesn’t concern +you!” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Mama Thérèse!—” +</p> + +<p> +“Hold your tongue. I wish to hear nothing from you, I hear too much—yes, and +see too much, too! Oh, don’t flatter yourself I am like that fat dolt of a +Dupont, to be taken in by a pair of round eyes and innocent ways. I know your +sort, I know <i>you</i>, mam’selle, too well! Me, I am nobody’s fool, least of +all yours, young woman. What goes on under my nose, I see; and if you imagine +otherwise you are a bigger simpleton that you take me for.” +</p> + +<p> +She snapped her fingers viciously in Sofia’s crimsoned face, uttered a +contemptuous “<i>Zut!</i>” and waddled off, shaking her head and growling to +herself. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia felt stunned. The offensive had been launched so swiftly, she was +conscious of having done so little to invite it, she had been taken unprepared, +thrown into confusion, her feeble objections silenced and overwhelmed by that +deluge of abuse, publicly disgraced.... +</p> + +<p> +Her face was burning, and tears started in her eyes; but she winked them back, +she would not let them fall. Conscious of the grins of the handful of patrons, +and the leers of the waiters, she steeled herself to suppress every betrayal of +the mortification in which her soul was writhing, she made no sign but stared +on stonily at the blackness of the night that peered in at the open doors. +</p> + +<p> +Then indignation came to her rescue, the flaming colour ebbed from her face and +left it unnaturally white, the mists before her eyes dissipated and their look +grew fixed and hard, even her lips took on a grim, unyielding set. Beneath the +desk her hands clenched into small fists. But she did not move. +</p> + +<p> +The sensation stirred up by the outbreak of Mama Thérèse subsided, the domino +players resumed their game, the old gentleman reading Le Rire turned a page and +read on with a knowing smile, lovers returned to their low-voiced love-making, +waiters yawned behind their hands, all was as it had been save that, at their +table (Sofia could see by the mirror, without looking directly) Mama Thérèse +and Papa Dupont seemed to have declared an armistice and were gobbling down the +rest of their meal in silence and indecorous haste. +</p> + +<p> +Presently they got up and sought their living quarters. To do this they had to +pass the caisse and through the green baize door. Mama Thérèse marched ahead +with forbidding frown and quivering chins, with the militant carriage of +misprized and affronted rectitude. To her, it was obvious, Sofia for the time +being did not exist. At her heels Papa Dupont shambled uneasily, hanging the +head of deep thoughtfulness, avoiding Sofia’s gaze. It was his part to pretend +that all was well and always would be; only he lacked the effrontery, just +then, for his usual smirk. +</p> + +<p> +When they had disappeared Sofia began to think. +</p> + +<p> +There was something more in this affair than mere coincidence, there was +mystery, a sinister question. +</p> + +<p> +Her countenance grew as dark as the complexion of her reverie. Athwart the +field of her abstracted vision drifted the figure of young Mr. Karslake. She +was barely conscious of it. +</p> + +<p> +He seated himself with plain premeditation directly opposite the caisse, +staring openly. But Sofia did not heed him at all. An odd smile shadowed his +lips, an expression half eager, half apprehensive; there was a hint of +puzzlement in his scrutiny. It was rather as if he had unexpectedly found some +new reason for thinking the girl an exceptionally interesting personality. But +she continued all unaware. +</p> + +<p> +Shortly after being served with a drink which he ordered but made no offer to +taste, he moved as if minded to rise and cross to Sofia, sat up and edged +forward on the wall-seat with a singular air of timidity and embarrassment. But +whatever his intention, he reconsidered and sat back, glancing round the room +to see if anybody were watching him. He could not see that anybody was. Not +even Sofia. Relieved, he settled back, found a handsome gold case in the +waistcoat of his dinner jacket, extracted a cigarette, nipped it between his +lips—and forgot to light it. +</p> + +<p> +Of a sudden Sofia had arrived at a decision; and with every expression of it in +her manner she slipped down from the high stool and left the caisse to take +care of itself. Turning to the swing door she barged through with a high head +and fire of determination illuminating her face. She had had enough of riddles. +</p> + +<p> +Behind the zinc an elderly and trusted waiter was nodding. The kitchen was cold +and dark for the night. Papa Dupont, then, would be upstairs, closeted with the +genius of the establishment. +</p> + +<p> +From the pantry a narrow staircase led up to the apartment above the +restaurant. Sofia mounted rapidly, with a firm tread that was nevertheless +practically noiseless, thanks to the paper-thin soles of well-worn slippers. +She could hear voices bickering above. +</p> + +<p> +At the top there was a short, dark corridor, with three doors. Two of these +were closed on sleeping-rooms; the third door, to a sort of combination office +and living-room, stood open, letting out a stream of light. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia approached on tiptoe, though the altercation going on within had reached +a stage so acute that it was doubtful whether either of the disputants would +have heard had she stumped like a navvy. +</p> + +<p> +The point of dissension was not at first apparent, because Mama Thérèse was +speaking, and what she said had exclusively to do with her estimate of Dupont’s +character, the mettle of his spirit, the stuff of his mentality, the +authenticity of his pedigree (with especial reference to the virtue of his +maternal ancestry) and the circumstances of his upbringing; which estimate in +sum was low but by no means so low as the terms in which Mama Thérèse was +inspired to couch it. +</p> + +<p> +Papa Dupont did not seem to be greatly interested. He had heard all this +before, many a time, with insignificant phraseological variations. Sofia, +pausing unseen and unsuspected in the darkness just outside the doorway, could +see him slouching deep in his chair, to one side of the table, his soft fat +hands deep in the pockets of his trousers, his chin sunken on his chest, +something dogged in the louring frown which he was bending upon nothing, +something of genuine indifference in his passive attitude toward the blowsy +virago who was leaning across the table the better to spit vituperation at him. +</p> + +<p> +And he waited with singular patience until she had to stop for want of breath. +Then he shrugged and said heavily: +</p> + +<p> +“Still, I don’t see what else you propose to do, my old one.” +</p> + +<p> +Apparently his old one was as poor in expedient as he. “It is for nothing,” she +said, acidly, “that one looks to you!” +</p> + +<p> +“I have said my say. If you have anything better to suggest....” He made a +rhetorical pause for reply, but Mama Thérèse was well blown and sulky for the +moment. “I am not old, not so old as you, and I have reason to believe the girl +is not indifferent to my person.” +</p> + +<p> +“Drooling old pig,” Mama Thérèse observed with reason: “if you dream she would +trouble to look twice at you—!” +</p> + +<p> +“That remains to be seen. And I, for one, fail to see how else we are to hold +her. All this money that has been coming in, paid on the dot every quarter—that +means there is more, much more to come to her. Are you ready to give it up?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never!” Mama Thérèse thumped the table vehemently. “It is mine by rights, I +have earned it. Look at the way I have slaved for her, the tender care I have +lavished upon her, ever since she was a little one in my arms.” +</p> + +<p> +“By all means,” Papa Dupont agreed, “look at it, but don’t talk about it to +her. She might not understand you. Also, do not depend upon her to endorse any +claim you might set up based upon such assertions.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is an ungrateful baggage!” +</p> + +<p> +“Possibly; but she is human, she has a memory—” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you going to be sentimental about her again?” Mama Thérèse demanded. +“Pitiful old goat!” +</p> + +<p> +“But I am not in the least sentimental,” Papa Dupont disclaimed. “It is rather +I who am practical, you who are sentimental. I ask you: Is there any way we can +hold on to that money unless I marry Sofia? You do not answer. Why? Because +there <i>is</i> no other way. Then I am practical. But you will not admit that. +And why? Because we have lived together for a number of years through force of +habit, because once, very long ago, we were lovers, you and I—so long ago that +you have forgotten you ever had a softer name for me than pig or goat. Who is +the sentimentalist now—eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Shut your face!” Mama Thérèse growled. “You annoy me. I have a presentiment I +shall one day murder you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You would have done that long ago,” Papa Dupont pointed out, “if you had had +the courage. Enough! I am silent. But when you are tired trying to think out +another way, reflect on my solution. Meantime, let me have another look at that +accursed letter.” +</p> + +<p> +Mama Thérèse did not respond, she offered no objection when Dupont took up the +sheet of paper that lay between them, but ground the heels of her hands into +her fat cheeks and sat glowering vindictively while he read aloud, slowly, with +the labour of one to whom reading is unaccustomed dissipation: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +DEAR MADAM: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Herewith we beg to enclose our cheque to your order in the sum of two hundred +and fifty pounds, being the quarterly payment in advance due you from the +estate of our deceased client, the Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, for your care +of her daughter. We further beg to advise that, pursuant to the provisions of +her will, we begin to-day, on the eighteenth birthday of the young Princess +Sofia, a search for her father with the object of apprising him of his +daughter’s existence. Therefore we would request you to make arrangements to +have the young Princess Sofia brought to England forthwith from the convent in +France where we understand she is finishing her education. We take leave, +however, to advise that, pending the outcome of our enquiries, the question of +her father’s existence be not discussed with the young princess. In event of +his death being established or of failure to find him within six months, the +Princess Sofia is to enter without more delay or formality into possession of +her mother’s estate. +</p> + +<p> +Papa Dupont put down the letter. “It is plain enough,” he expounded: “if this +father is found, we can whistle for our money; whereas if I were married to +Sofia, as her husband I would control—” +</p> + +<p> +He broke off sharply, and added in consternation: “One million thunders!” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia stood between them. +</p> + +<p> +And yet she wasn’t the Sofia they knew, but another person altogether, a +transfigured and exalted Sofia, aflame with righteous wrath and contemptuous +with the pride of birth which had leaped into full being a moment since. +</p> + +<p> +A princess, born the daughter of a princess, now she knew and looked it. +</p> + +<p> +All thought of fear or deference was gone, she had nothing left but scorn for +these two despicable creatures, the fat harpy and her crapulent consort who had +battened so long upon her misery, who had held her in bondage to the most +menial tasks of their wretched restaurant while they filched and hoarded the +money paid them for giving her the care and the advantages that were her due. +</p> + +<p> +And something of this new-found dignity, to which her title was so +unquestionable, which set her upon a level from which she could not but look +down on these two paltry frauds, so abashed the Frenchwoman that the phrases of +invective and vilification which gushed instinctively from the foul springs of +her temper stuck in her throat, she couldn’t utter them, and she well-nigh +choked with impotent fury and fear as the girl spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“You swindlers!” Sofia said, deliberately. “You poor cheats! To pocket a +thousand pounds a year of my mother’s money—and make me slave for you in your +wretched café! And for eighteen years! For eighteen years you have been robbing +me of every right I had in the world, robbing me of everything I’ve needed and +longed and prayed for, everything you were paid to give me—while I drudged for +you and endured your ill-temper and your abuse and the contamination of +association with you!... Give me that letter.” +</p> + +<p> +She possessed herself of it unopposed. But now Mama Thérèse found her tongue. +</p> + +<p> +“What—what do you mean?” she gasped, livid with fright. Was not a fortune +slipping through her avaricious fingers? “What are you going to do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do?” Sofia cried. “I don’t know, more than this: I’m not going to stay another +hour under this roof, I’m going to leave to-night—now— immediately! That’s what +I’m going to do!” +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you going?” +</p> + +<p> +The question halted Sofia in the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“To find my father—wherever he is!” +</p> + +<p> +She left the two staring at each other, dumbfounded and aghast. +</p> + +<p> +At the far end of the passage she flung open her bedchamber door, entered, +turned up the light, and snatched her cloak and hat from pegs beneath the +curtained shelf that held her scanty wardrobe. +</p> + +<p> +Adjusting these before the mirror she could hear Thérèse bawling at Dupont to +follow and stop her. Sofia had little fear he would find heart to attempt that, +none the less she hurried. Once her hat was adjusted there was nothing to +detain her; the best she had she stood in; no sentimental associations invested +that room, the tomb of her defrauded childhood, the prison of her maltreated +youth, to make her linger there, but only hateful ones to speed her going. +</p> + +<p> +She turned and fled. +</p> + +<p> +Stumbling on the stairs, she heard Thérèse still screaming imprecations and +commands at Dupont, then the clumping of the man’s feet as, yielding at length, +he started in pursuit. +</p> + +<p> +Through the green baize door she burst into the café like a young tornado. +Every head turned her way with gaping mouths and protruding eyes of +astonishment as she stopped at the caisse and brazenly, in the face of them +all, plundered the till. +</p> + +<p> +This was a matter of necessity. Sofia had not one shilling of her own. But +those two had robbed her, what she took was not so much as a thousandth part of +the money of which they had despoiled her. Moreover, she dared not go out +penniless to face London. +</p> + +<p> +Snatching a handful of loose coin, she made for the door. But the delay had +been fatal. Dupont was now at her heels, and displaying extraordinary agility +in a man of his years of dissipation and sedentary habits. And Thérèse was not +far behind. +</p> + +<p> +Seeing coins trickling through the fingers of the fugitive and falling to ring +and spin upon the floor, the Frenchwoman raised an anguished shriek of +“<i>Thief! Stop thief!</i>”—and such part of the audience as had remained in +its seats rose up as one man. +</p> + +<p> +In the same instant Dupont’s fingers clamped down on Sofia’s shoulder. She +screamed, and he chuckled and dragged her back. Then his arm was struck up by a +deft hand, the girl slipped from his hold and darted out through the doors. +</p> + +<p> +Roaring with rage (now that his blood was up, his heart in the chase) Dupont +turned upon the meddler. This was young Mr. Karslake. Dupont did not know him +except by sight, but that slender, boyish figure and the semi-apologetic smile +on Karslake’s lips did not inspire respect. Blindly and with all his might +Dupont swung his right to the other’s head, only to find it wasn’t there. +</p> + +<p> +The weight of the unexpended blow carried Dupont off his feet. He fell in a +heap, and Mama Thérèse, charging wildly after Sofia, tripped on his body and +deposited fourteen stone of solid flesh squarely in the small of Dupont’s back +with a force that drove the breath out of him in one agonized blast. +</p> + +<p> +Karslake laughed aloud: it was all as good as a cinema. Then he followed Sofia. +</p> + +<p> +It was a dark and silent street by night, little used, a mere link between two +main thoroughfares. Sofia, running for dear life, was still far from the +nearest corner. Karslake doubled nimbly across the street to the only vehicle +in sight, an impressive Rolls-Royce town-car. Jumping on the running-board he +pointed out the fleeing shadow to the chauffeur. +</p> + +<p> +“Lay alongside that young woman before she makes the corner, Albert!” +</p> + +<p> +Without delay the car began to move. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, the Café des Exiles was erupting antic shapes, waiters, customers, +Dupont, Thérèse. The quiet hour was made hideous by their yells. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Stop thief!” “À la voleuse!” “L’arrêtez!” “À la voleuse!” “Stop +thief!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +An entirely superfluous bobby weathered the corner, discovered Sofia in flight +across the street, came about, and shaped a diagonal course to cut across her +bows. She saw him coming and stopped short with a gasp of dismay. +Simultaneously the Rolls-Royce slid smoothly in between them and Karslake +hopped down. Sofia uttered a small cry, more of surprise than fright, and hung +back, trying to free the arm by which he was trying to guide her to the open +door. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s our only chance,” he warned her, coolly. “We’re between two fires. Better +not delay!” +</p> + +<p> +She yielded and tumbled in. Karslake followed and slammed the door. The car +shot away and rounded into the cross street before the bobby could collect +himself enough to look at its license plate. He made after it, but when he had +reached the corner it had turned another and was lost. +</p> + +<p> +At the second turning Karslake looked round from the window with a reassuring +laugh, and settled back beside Sofia. +</p> + +<p> +“So that ends that!” +</p> + +<p> +She stared wide-eyed through the shadows. She knew him now, she was not in the +least afraid, but she was confused beyond measure. +</p> + +<p> +“Why—why—” she faltered—“what—who are you and where are you taking me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I beg your pardon!” said the young man, contritely. “I forgot. One ought +to introduce one’s self before rescuing ladies in distress—but there really +wasn’t time, you know. If you’ll overlook the informality, my name’s Karslake, +Roger Karslake, Princess Sofia, and I’m taking you to your father.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch5"></a>V<br/> +HOUSE OF THE WOLF</h2> + +<p> +This startling announcement Sofia received without comment and with a composure +quite as surprising. The life which had made her what she was, a young woman +singularly unillusioned, well-poised, and well-informed, had brought out in her +nature a strong vein of scepticism. She was not easily to be impressed. The +more remarkable the circumstance in question, the less inclined was she to +exclaim about it, the stronger was her propensity to look shrewdly into the +matter and find out for herself just what it was that made it seem so odd. +</p> + +<p> +She didn’t repose much faith in those striking synchronizations which +apparently unrelated influences sometimes effect with related events, and which +we are accustomed to term coincidences. She distrusted their specious seeming +of spontaneity, she suspected a deep design behind them all. +</p> + +<p> +For example: Up to the moment of her flight from the Café des Exiles there had +been, as Sofia saw it, nothing extraordinary or inexplicable in the chapter of +happenings which had made her acquainted, as abruptly as tardily, with certain +facts concerning her parentage. +</p> + +<p> +You might, if you felt like it, call it a strange coincidence that she should +have read the advertisement of Messrs. Secretan & Sypher just before their +letter was delivered and Mama Thérèse by her intemperate conduct warmed Sofia’s +simmering suspicions to the boiling point. But then Sofia read the Agony Column +every time it came into her hands: she would have been more surprised had she +missed noticing her given name in print, and downright ashamed of herself if +she had failed to associate the letter with the advertisement. +</p> + +<p> +If you asked her, she called it Fate, the foreordained workings of occult +forces charged with dominion over human affairs. Sooner or later she must +somehow have learned the truth about her right place in the world; and to her +way of thinking it was no more astonishing that she should have learned it +through accident supplemented by the acute inferences of a sharply stimulated +imagination, rather than through being waited upon by a delegation of legal +gentlemen commissioned with the duty of enlightening her. And the colossal +set-piece of the evening having been duly exploded, no sequel whatever could +expect anything better than relegation to the cheerless limbo of anticlimax. +</p> + +<p> +Thus when young Mr. Karslake explained his uninvited if timely intervention by +stating that he was conducting her to the parent of whose existence she had so +recently been informed, he succeeded—not to put too fine a point upon it—only +in making it all seem a bit thick. +</p> + +<p> +So for the time being Sofia contented herself with silent study of his face as +fitfully revealed by the passing lights of Shaftesbury Avenue. +</p> + +<p> +A nice face (she thought) open and naïve, perhaps a trace too much so; +but, viewed at close quarters, by no means so child-like as she had thought it, +and by no means wanting in evidences of quiet strength if one forgave the funny +little moustache which (now one came to, observe it seriously) was precisely +what lent that possibly deceptive look of innocence and inconsequence, +positively weakening the character of what might otherwise have been a +countenance to foster confidence. +</p> + +<p> +As for Mr. Karslake, he endured this candid scrutiny with a faintly +apprehensive smile, but volunteered nothing more; so that, when the silence in +time acquired an accent of constraint, it was Sofia who had to break it, not +Mr. Karslake. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m wondering about you,” she explained quite gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“One fancied as much, Princess Sofia.” +</p> + +<p> +She liked his way of saying that; the title seemed to fall naturally from his +lips, without a trace of irony. None the less, it wouldn’t do to be too readily +influenced in his favour. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you really know my father?” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather!” said Mr. Karslake. “You see, I’m his secretary.” +</p> + +<p> +“How long—” +</p> + +<p> +“Upward of eighteen months now.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how long have you known I was his daughter?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Karslake, consulting a wrist-watch, permitted himself a quiet smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Thirty-eight minutes,” he announced—“say, thirty-nine.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how did you find out—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your father called me up—can’t say from where—said he’d just learned you were +acting as cashier at the Café des Exiles, and would I be good enough to take +you firmly by the hand and lead you home.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how did he learn—?” +</p> + +<p> +“That he didn’t say. ’Fraid you’ll have to ask him, Princess Sofia.” +</p> + +<p> +Genuinely diverted by the cross-examination, he awaited with unruffled good +humour the next question to be put by this amazingly collected and direct young +person. But Sofia hesitated. She didn’t want to be rude, and Karslake seemed to +be telling a tolerably straight story; still, she couldn’t altogether believe +in him as yet. She couldn’t help it if his visit to the restaurant had been a +shade too opportune, his account of himself too confoundedly pat. +</p> + +<p> +No: she wasn’t in the least afraid. Even if she were being kidnapped, she +wasn’t afraid. She was so young, so absurdly confident in her ability to take +care of herself. On the other hand, intuition kept admonishing her that in real +life things simply didn’t happen like this, so smoothly, so fortunately; +somehow, somewhere, in this curious affair, something must be wrong. +</p> + +<p> +“Please: what is my father’s name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Prince Victor Vassilyevski.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re sure it isn’t Michael Lanyard?” +</p> + +<p> +Now Mr. Karslake was genuinely startled and showed it. Sofia remarked that he +eyed her uneasily. +</p> + +<p> +“My sainted aunt! Where did you get hold of that name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it my father’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ye-es,” the young man admitted, reluctantly; at least with something strongly +resembling reluctance. “But he doesn’t use it any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Karslake was silent, thoughtful. Sofia felt that she had scored and with +determination pressed her point. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mind telling me why he doesn’t use that name, if it’s his?” +</p> + +<p> +“See here, Princess Sofia”—Karslake slewed round to face her squarely with his +most earnest and persuasive manner—“I am merely Prince Victor’s secretary, I’m +not supposed to know all his secrets, and those I do know I’m supposed not to +talk about. I’d much rather you put that question to Prince Victor yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall,” Sofia announced with decision. “When am I to see him? To-night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course. That is, I presume you will. I mean to say, Prince Victor wasn’t at +home when I left, but if I know him he’s sure to be when we arrive. And I’m +taking you there as directly as a motor can travel in this blessed town.” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia looked out of the window. The car, having turned down Regent Street from +Piccadilly Circus, was now traversing sedate Pall Mall; and in another moment +it swung into the passage between St. James’s Palace and Marlborough House +Chapel; and then they were in The Mall, with the Victoria Memorial ahead, +glowing against the dingy backing of Buckingham Palace. +</p> + +<p> +Now, since all Sofia’s reading had inculcated the belief that the enterprising +kidnapper always made off with his victim by way of dark bystreets and +unsavoury neighbourhoods, she felt somewhat reassured. +</p> + +<p> +“Have we very far to go?” +</p> + +<p> +“We’re almost there now—Queen Anne’s Gate.” +</p> + +<p> +A good enough address. Though that proved nothing. There was still plenty of +time, anything might happen.... +</p> + +<p> +Sofia shrugged, and settled back to await developments. +</p> + +<p> +But there was nothing to warrant misgivings in the aspect of the dwelling +before which the car presently drew up. If it wasn’t the palace Sofia had +unconsciously been looking forward to, it owned a solid, dull-faced dignity +that suited well the town-house of a person of quality, it measured up quite +acceptably to Sofia’s notion of what was becoming to the condition of a prince +in exile—who naturally would live quietly, in view of the recent revolution in +Russia. +</p> + +<p> +Without augmented fears, then, though still on the alert for anything that +might seem questionable, and more agitated with excitement than she let him +suspect, Sofia permitted Mr. Karslake to conduct her to the door. +</p> + +<p> +He had barely touched the bell-button when this door opened, revealing a vista +of spacious entrance-hall. +</p> + +<p> +To one side stood a manservant to whom Sofia paid no attention till the sound +of his name on Karslake’s tongue struck an echo from her memory. “Thanks, +Nogam. Prince Victor home yet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell him, please, when he comes in, we’re waiting in the study.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Nk-you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The servant was the man whom Karslake had met in the Café des Exiles only a few +hours before. Catching Sofia’s quick, questioning glance, Nogam paused at +respectful attention. And, even then, she was struck again with his fidelity to +the rôle in the social system for which Life had cast him. In the café, that +afternoon, he had cut a mildly incongruous figure, unpretending but alien to +that atmosphere; here, in the plain evening-dress livery of his station, he +blended perfectly into the picture. +</p> + +<p> +Karslake gave his hat and stick to the man, then opened one wing of a great +double doorway, and with a bow invited Sofia to precede him. She faltered, +hazily conceiving that threshold in the guise of an inglorious Rubicon. But she +had already gone too far into this adventure to draw back now without +forfeiting her self-respect. With a deceptively firm step she entered a room to +wonder at. +</p> + +<p> +Sombre shadows masked much of its magnificent proportions, but what Sofia could +see suggested less the study of a man of everyday interests than the private +museum of an Orientalist whose wealth knew no limits. +</p> + +<p> +The air was warm and close, aromatic with the ghosts of ten thousand perished +perfumes. The quiet, when Karslake had closed the door, was oppressive, as if +some dark enchantment here had power to tame and silence the growl of London +that was never elsewhere in all the city for an instant still. +</p> + +<p> +On a great table of black teakwood inlaid with mother of pearl burned a +solitary lamp, a curious affair in filigree of brass, furnishing what +illumination there was. Its closely shaded rays made vaguely visible walls dark +with books, tier upon tier climbing to the ceiling; chairs of odd shape, +screens of glowing lacquer; tables and stands supporting caskets of burning +cinnabar, of ivory, of gold, of kaleidoscopic cloisonné; trays heaped high with +unset jewels; cabinets crowded with rare objects of Eastern art; squat shapes +of neglected gods brandishing weird weapons; grotesque devil masks ferociously +a-grin; chests of strange woods strangely fashioned, strangely carved, and +decorated with inlays of precious metals, banded with huge straps of black +iron, from which gushed in rainbow profusion silks and brocades stiff with +barbaric embroideries in gold- and silver-thread and precious stones. +</p> + +<p> +Confused by the impact upon her perceptions of so much that was unexpected and +bizarre, the girl looked round with an uncertain smile, and found Karslake +watching her with a manner of peculiar gravity and concern. +</p> + +<p> +“Prince Victor is an extraordinary man,” Karslake replied to her unspoken +comment; “probably the most learned Orientalist alive. Sometimes I think the +East has never had a secret he doesn’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused and drew nearer, with added earnestness in his regard. +</p> + +<p> +“Princess Sofia,” said he, diffidently, “if I may say something without meaning +to seem disrespectful—” +</p> + +<p> +Perplexed, she encouraged him with one word: “Please.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid,” Karslake ventured, “you will have many strange experiences in +this new life. Some of them, I fancy, you won’t immediately understand, some +things may seem wrong to you, you may find yourself confronted with conditions +hard to accept ...” +</p> + +<p> +He rested as if in doubt, and she fancied that he was listening intently, +almost apprehensively, for some signal of warning. But on her part Sofia heard +no sound. +</p> + +<p> +Impressed and puzzled, she uttered a prompting “Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“I only want to say”—he employed a tone so low that she could barely hear +him—“if you don’t mind—whatever happens—I’d be awf’ly glad if you’d think of me +as one who sincerely wants to be your friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” she said in wonder—“thank you. I shall be glad—” +</p> + +<p> +She checked in astonishment: a man was approaching from the general direction +of the door by which they had entered. +</p> + +<p> +The effect was uncanny, as if the figure had materialized before her very eyes, +out of clear air, as if one of those many shadows had taken on shape and +substance while she looked. +</p> + +<p> +The man himself was nothing unusual in general aspect, of no remarkable +stature, neither tall nor small, neither robust nor slender. His evening +clothes were without fault, but as much might be said of ten thousand men who +might be seen any night in the public rendezvous of leisured London. His +carriage had special distinction only in that he moved with a sort of feline +grace. Still, something elusive made him unlike any other man Sofia had ever +met, something arresting and not altogether prepossessing. +</p> + +<p> +As he drew nearer and his features became more clearly defined by the light, +she was sensible of gazing into a face of unique cast. Of an odd grayish pallor +accentuated by hair so black that it might have been painted on his skull with +india-ink, the skin seemed to be as soft and smooth as a child’s, beardless and +wholly without lustre. The mouth was sensuous yet firm, with hard, full lips. +Leaden pouches hung beneath heavy-lidded eyes set at a noticeable angle. The +eyes themselves were as black as night and as lightless; the rays of the lamp +struck no gleam from them; in spite of this they were compelling, masterful, +and disconcerting. +</p> + +<p> +Karslake at once fell back, with a bow so low it was little less than an +obeisance. +</p> + +<p> +“Prince Victor!” +</p> + +<p> +The man nodded acknowledgment of this greeting without detaching attention from +the girl. His voice, slightly tremulous with emotion, uttered her name: +“Sofia?” +</p> + +<p> +She collected herself with an effort. “I am Sofia,” she replied almost +mechanically. +</p> + +<p> +“And I, your father...” +</p> + +<p> +Prince Victor lifted hands of singular delicacy, slender and tapering, whose +long fingers were dressed with many curious rings. +</p> + +<p> +A reluctance she could not understand hindered Sofia from going gladly into +those arms. She had to make herself yield. They tightened hungrily about her. +She closed her eyes and experienced a slight, invincible shudder. +</p> + +<p> +“My child!” +</p> + +<p> +The lips that touched her forehead astonished her with their warmth. +Instinctively she had expected them to be cool, as frigid as the effect of that +strange mask of which they formed a part. +</p> + +<p> +Then, held at arm’s-length, she submitted to an inspection whose sum was +enunciated with a strange smile of gratification: +</p> + +<p> +“You are beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +In embarrassment she murmured: “I am glad you think so—father.” +</p> + +<p> +“As beautiful as your mother—in her time the most beautiful creature in the +world—her image, a flawless reproduction, even to her colouring, the shade of +the hair, the eyes—so like the sea!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad,” the girl repeated, nervously. +</p> + +<p> +“And until to-night I did not know you lived!” +</p> + +<p> +She mustered up courage enough to ask: “How—?” +</p> + +<p> +The heavy lids drooped lower over the illegible eyes. “My attention was called +to a newspaper advertisement signed by a firm of solicitors. I got in touch +with them—a matter of some difficulty, since it was after business hours—and +found out where to look for you. Then, prevented from acting as quickly as I +wished, myself, I sent Karslake here to bring you to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, according to their letter, the solicitors thought I was in France, in a +convent!” +</p> + +<p> +“When they advertised for me—yes. But by the time I enquired they were better +informed.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the advertisement was addressed to Michael Lanyard!” +</p> + +<p> +The thin lips formed a faint smile. “That was once my name. I no longer use +it.” +</p> + +<p> +Against a feeling that she was adopting an attitude both undutiful and +unbecoming, Sofia persisted. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +Prince Victor Vassilyevski gave a gesture of pain and reluctance. +</p> + +<p> +“Must I tell you? Why not? You must know some day, as well now as later, +perhaps. Twenty years ago the name of Michael Lanyard was famous throughout +Europe—or shall I say infamous?—the name of the greatest thief of modern times, +otherwise known as ‘The Lone Wolf’.” +</p> + +<p> +Involuntarily, Sofia stepped back, as if some shape of horror had been suddenly +thrust before her face. +</p> + +<p> +“The Lone Wolf!” she echoed in a voice of dismay. “A thief! You!” +</p> + +<p> +The man who called himself her father replied with a series of slow, +affirmative nods. +</p> + +<p> +“That startles you?” he said in an indulgent voice. “Naturally. But you will +soon grow accustomed to the thought, you will condone that chapter in my +history, remembering I am no longer that man, no longer a thief, that for many +years now my record has been without reproach. You will remember that there is +more joy in Heaven over the one sinner who repents ... You will forgive the +father, if only for your mother’s sake.” +</p> + +<p> +“For my mother’s sake—?” +</p> + +<p> +“What the Lone Wolf was in his day, your mother was in hers—the most brilliant +adventuress Europe ever knew.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” cried the girl in semi-hysterical protest. “Oh, no, no! Impossible!” +</p> + +<p> +“I assure you, it is quite true. Some day I may tell you her history—and mine. +For the present, you will do well to think no more about what I have confessed. +Repining can never mend the past. It is to-day and to-morrow you must think of: +that you are restored to me, and that I have not only the means but a great +hunger to make you happy, to gratify your slightest whim.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want nothing!” Sofia insisted, wildly. +</p> + +<p> +“You want sleep,” Prince Victor corrected, fondly—“you want it badly. You are +nervous, overstrung, in no condition to understand the great good fortune that +has befallen you. But to-morrow you will see things in a rosier light.” +</p> + +<p> +Apparently he had manipulated some signal unremarked by Sofia. The door opened, +framing the figure of the man Nogam. Without looking round, but with an +inscrutable smile, Prince Victor took the girl in his arms again and held her +close. +</p> + +<p> +“You rang, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, are you there, Nogam? Is the apartment ready for the Princess Sofia?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite ready, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be good enough to conduct her to it.” Again Prince Victor kissed Sofia’s +forehead, then let her go. “Good-night, my child.” +</p> + +<p> +Moving slowly toward the door, drooping, Sofia made inarticulate response. She +felt suddenly stupefied with fatigue. To think meant an effort that mocked her +flagging powers. A vast lassitude was weighing upon her, body and spirit were +faint in the enervation of an inexorable disconsolation. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch6"></a>VI<br/> +THE MUMMER</h2> + +<p> +Alone with his secretary, Prince Victor Vassilyevski dropped indifferently the +guise of manner with which he had clothed himself for the benefit of the woman +whom he claimed as his own child. That semblance of shy affection coloured by +regrets for the past and modified by the native nobility of a prince in +exile—so becoming in a parent to whose bosom a daughter whom he had never seen +was suddenly restored—being of no more service for the present, was +incontinently discarded. In its stead Victor favoured Karslake with a slow +smile of understanding that broadened into an insuppressible grin of successful +malice, a grimace of crude exultation through which peered out the impish +savage mutinously imprisoned within a flimsy husk of modern manner. +</p> + +<p> +Suspecting this self-betrayal, he erased the grin swiftly, but not so swiftly +that Karslake failed to note it. And the young man, smiling amiably and +respectfully in return, was sensible of a thrill: yet another glimpse had been +given him into the mystery that slept behind that countenance normally so +impenetrable. +</p> + +<p> +But he was studious to show nothing of his own emotion. It was his part to be +merely a mirror, to reflect rather than to feel, to be an instrument infinitely +supple and unfailing, never an independent intelligence. Not otherwise could he +count on holding his place in Victor’s favour. +</p> + +<p> +“You were quicker than I hoped.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had no trouble, sir,” Karslake returned, cheerfully. “Things rather played +into my hands.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor dropped into a chair beside the table and lifted the lid of a small +golden casket. Helping himself to one of its store of cigarettes, he made +Karslake free of the remainder with a gracious hand. The secretary demurred, +producing his pocket case. +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t mind, sir ...” +</p> + +<p> +Victor moved a supercilious eyebrow. “Woodbines again?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry, sir; I know they’re pretty awful and all that, but they were all I +could get in France, and I contracted a taste for them I can’t seem to cure. I +remember, while I lay in a hospital, hardly a whole bone in my body, thanks to +the Boche and his flying circus—it was that lot sent me crashing, you know—the +nurses used to tempt me with the finest Turkish; but somehow I couldn’t go +them; I’d beg for Woodbines.” +</p> + +<p> +Prince Victor dismissed the subject curtly. “I am waiting to hear about Sofia.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not much to tell, sir. There seemed to be a storm of sorts brewing when I got +there. The young woman was at her desk with a face like a thundercloud. While I +was trying to make up my mind what would be my best approach, she jumped down, +flew upstairs and, I gathered, kicked up a holy row. You see, she’d seen that +advertisement of Secretan & Sypher’s, and smelt a rat.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did she say?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing definite, sir: seemed to understand she was the daughter of Princess +Sofia Vassilyevski, only she objected to her father being anybody but Michael +Lanyard.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go on.” +</p> + +<p> +“After a bit she stampeded downstairs again, with the old girl and that swine +of a Dupont at her heels. I blocked him and gave Sofia a chance to get outside. +The whole establishment boiled out into the street after us, yelling like fun, +but I got the girl into the car ... and here we are.” +</p> + +<p> +But Prince Victor seemed to have lost interest. The glow ebbing from his face, +his lips tightening, the thick lids drooping low over his eyes, he sat in +apparent abstraction, aping the impassivity of the graven idols that graced his +study. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind owning, sir,” the younger man resumed, nervously, “she had me +sparring for wind when she put it to me point-blank her father’s name was +Michael Lanyard.” +</p> + +<p> +Without moving Victor enquired in a dull voice: “What did you tell her?” +</p> + +<p> +“That it was a name you had once used, sir, but.... Well, what you told her, +all except the Lone Wolf business. Don’t mind telling you I was in a rare funk +till you capped my story so neatly.” +</p> + +<p> +He laughed and ventured with a hesitation quite boyish: “I say, Prince +Victor—if it’s not an impertinent question—was there any truth in that? I mean +about your having been the Lone Wolf twenty years ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a syllable,” said Victor, dryly. +</p> + +<p> +“Then your name never was Michael Lanyard?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never, but ...” +</p> + +<p> +During a long pause the secretary fidgeted inwardly but had the wisdom to +refrain from showing further inquisitiveness. He could see that strong passions +were working in Victor: a hand, extended upon the table, unclosed and closed +with a peculiar clutching action; the muscles contracted round mouth and eyes, +moulding the face into a cast of disquieting malevolence. The voice, when at +length it resumed, was bitter. +</p> + +<p> +“But Michael Lanyard was my enemy ... and is to-day.... He became a lover of +Sofia’s mother, he had a hand in overturning plans I had made, he humiliated, +mocked me.... And to-day he is interfering again.... But ...” +</p> + +<p> +Victor sank back in his chair. Suddenly that unholy grin of his flashed and +faded. +</p> + +<p> +“But now his impertinence fails, his insolence over-reaches itself. Now I have +the whip-hand and ... I shall use it!” +</p> + +<p> +Vindictiveness that could find relief only in action mastered the man. +</p> + +<p> +“Be good enough to take this dictation.” +</p> + +<p> +Karslake turned to the table and opened a portfolio of illuminated Spanish +leather. +</p> + +<p> +“Ready, sir,” he said, with pencil poised. +</p> + +<p> +<i>“To Michael Lanyard, Intelligence Division, the War Office, Whitehall. Sir: +Your daughter Sofia is now with me. Permit me to suggest that, in consideration +of this situation, you cease to meddle with my affairs. Your own intelligence +must tell you nothing could be more fatal than an attempt to communicate with +her.”</i> +</p> + +<p> +“Sign on the typewriter with the initial <i>V</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Type it on plain paper, use a plain envelope, be sure that neither has a +watermark, and get it off to-night without fail. Take a taxi to St. Pancras +station and post it there. If you make haste you can get it in a pillar-box +before the last collection.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shan’t lose a minute, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Karslake straightened up, folding the paper, and made for the door. +</p> + +<p> +“One moment, Karslake.... This man, Nogam: where did you pick him up?” +</p> + +<p> +“He used to buttle for my father, sir, but got into trouble—some domestic +unpleasantness, I believe—needed money, and raised a cheque. The old boy let +him off easy; but I’ve got the cheque, and Nogam knows it. The fellow’s +perfectly trained and absolutely dependable, knows his place and his duties and +not another blessed thing. I’ll send him in if you like.” +</p> + +<p> +Prince Victor uttered with dry accent: “Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thought you might care to have a talk with him, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” Mr. Karslake exclaimed—“I didn’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite so,” commented Prince Victor. “I shan’t need you again to-night, +Karslake.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +When the secretary had gone, Victor sat motionless, so still that his breathing +scarcely stirred his body, with a face absolutely imperturbable, steadfastly +gazing into that darkness which shrouded the workings of his mind. +</p> + +<p> +On the doorstep a shrill whistle sounded: Nogam calling Karslake’s taxi. Victor +heard the vehicle roll in and stand panting at the curb, then the slam of its +door, the diminishing rumble of its departure. +</p> + +<p> +The house door closed, and after a little the study door opened, and Nogam +halted on the threshold. +</p> + +<p> +Unstirring Victor enquired: “What is it, Nogam?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wished to enquire would there be anything more to-night, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Nk you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Nogam: in this house, regardless of the custom which may have obtained in +other establishments where you have served, you will always knock before +entering a room, and never enter until you obtain permission.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if I’m sure the room is empty, sir, and get no answer—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you may enter any room but this. Never this, unless I am here—or Mr. +Karslake is—and you get leave.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Nk you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +As the door closed Victor extended a thin, effeminate hand to a casket of +ivory, searched with sensitive finger-tips its exquisite tracery until a +cunningly hidden spring responded and the lid, splitting in two, sank down into +its walls. In the pocket thus revealed were many pills, apparently +hand-moulded, of a grayish-brown substance, putty-soft. +</p> + +<p> +Slowly Victor selected three, placed one after another upon his tongue, and +swallowed them. +</p> + +<p> +He shut the casket and sat waiting. +</p> + +<p> +Slowly the keenness of his countenance became blurred, as if the hand of an +unseen sculptor were rubbing down its features, doing away the veneer with +which Europe had overlaid the primitive Asiatic, which now showed on the +surface, in every detail of coarsely modelled nose, oblique eyes of animal +cunning, pendulous lips cruel and sensual. +</p> + +<p> +By degrees a faint trace of colour began to flush Victor’s cheeks, a smile +modified the set of his mouth, the heavy-lidded eyes lost their lustreless +opacity and glimmered with uncanny light. +</p> + +<p> +He breathed deeply, evenly, with an evident relish. The action of the opium was +visibly renewing his powers. His expression, softening, became terrible with +brute tenderness and longing. Gazing into shadows in which he saw that which he +wished ardently to see, he stretched forth his arms, and his lips moved, +shaping a name: +</p> + +<p> +“Sofia!” +</p> + +<p> +As those syllables, freighted with that undying passion which consumed the man, +sounded upon the stillness, Victor turned sharply, with a gesture of +irritation, looking aside, listening. +</p> + +<p> +Instantaneously the Asiatic disappeared, thrust back into its habitual latency +within the prison of European: Prince Victor was as he had been, as always to +the world, cool, composed, and crafty, master, never creature, of his emotions. +</p> + +<p> +A faint buzzing was audible, broken by muffled clicks. +</p> + +<p> +Rising, Victor approached a table in a corner and with a key from his pocket +ring unlocked a heavy casket of bronze. As he raised its cover a small electric +bulb illuminated the interior, focussing on the paper-covered face of a +mechanical writing device, upon which a pencil with a broad flat lead operated +by a metal arm was tracing characters resembling the hieroglyphics of the +Chinese. +</p> + +<p> +When the clicking ceased and the pencil was at rest, Victor caught an end of +the paper and pulled it forward until a blank surface again occupied the +writing-bed. Upon this with another pencil he inscribed a reply, then closed +and relocked the casket. +</p> + +<p> +Back at the table with the lamp, the message just received became crisp black +ash on a brazen tray. +</p> + +<p> +From a locked chest Victor produced an inverness and a soft hat of black felt. +Wearing these he moved quietly out of the lamp’s radius of light, and made +himself one with the shadows that crowded one another round the walls. He did +not leave by the hall door; but of a sudden the room was untenanted. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch7"></a>VII<br/> +THE FANTASTICS</h2> + +<p> +Downstream from The Pool, a little way below Shadwell, an uncouth row of +dilapidated dwellings in those days stood—or, better, squatted, like a mute +company of draggletail crones—atop a river-wall whose ancient blocks, all ropy +with the slime of centuries, peered dimly out through groups of crazy spiles at +the restless pageant of Thames-life. +</p> + +<p> +Viewed by day, say from the deck of a river steamer, the spectacle they offered +was, according to bias of mood and disposition, unlovely and drear or colourful +and romantic: Whistler might have etched these houses, Dickens have staged +therein a lowly tragedy, Thomas Burke have made of one a frame for some +vignette unforgettable of Limehouse life. +</p> + +<p> +Builded of stone or brick or both as to their landward faces, without exception +they presented to the river false backs of wooden framework which overhung the +water. Ordinarily, their windows were tight-shut, the panes opaque with +accumulated grime—many were broken and boarded. Their look was dismal, their +squalor desperate. +</p> + +<p> +Below, by day, heavy wherries swung moored to the ooze-clad spiles or, when the +tide was out, sprawled upon stinking mud-flats with a gesture of pathetic +helplessness peculiar to stranded watercraft. Seldom was one observed in use: +to all seeming they existed for purposes of atmosphere alone. +</p> + +<p> +More seldom still did any dwelling betray evidence of inhabitation beyond faint +wisps of smoke, like ghosts of famine, drifting from the chimneypots, +or—perhaps—some unabashed exhibit of red flannel hung out to dry with wrist or +ankle-bands nipped between a window-sash and sill. +</p> + +<p> +By night, however, a stir of furtive life was to be surmised from cryptic +lights that flared and faded behind the crusted window-glass or fell through +opened floor-traps to the thick black element that swirled about the spiles, +and from guarded calls as well, inarticulate cries of hate and love and pain, +rumours of close and crude carousal. +</p> + +<p> +And ever and again the belated riverfarer would encounter one of the wherries, +its long oars swung by brawny arms and backs, stealing secretly across the inky +waters on some errand no less dark. +</p> + +<p> +On land the buildings lined a cobbled street, from dawn to dark a thoroughfare +for thundering lorries and, twice daily, in murk of early morning and gloom of +early night, scoured by a nondescript rabble employed in the vast dockyards +whose man-made forests of masts and cordage, funnels and cranes, on either hand +lifted angular black silhouettes against the misty silver of the sky. +</p> + +<p> +Black and white and yellow and brown, men of every race and skin, they came and +went, their brief hours loud with babel of strange tongues and a scuffling of +countless feet like the sound of surf; and their goings left the street +strangely hushed, a way of sinister reticences, its winding length ill-lighted +by infrequent corner-lamps, its mephitic glooms enlivened by windows of public +houses all saffron with specious promise of purchasable good-fellowship. +</p> + +<p> +One of these, the Red Moon, faced the row of waterfront houses, standing at the +intersection of a street which struck inland to the pulsing heart of Limehouse. +A retired bully of the prize-ring ruled with a high hand over its several bars +and many patrons, yellow men and white girls, deck-hands and dock-workers, +pugilistic and criminal celebrities of the quarter, and their sycophants. Its +revels rendered the nights cacophonous, its portals sucked in streams of +sweethearts and more impersonal lovers of life and laughter, and spewed out +sots close-locked in embraces of maudlin affection or brutal combat. Bobbies +kept an eye on the Red Moon, a respectful one: interference with the +time-hallowed customs and prerogatives of its clientèle was something to be +adventured with extreme discretion. +</p> + +<p> +Out of the hinterland of Limehouse, a tall man came to the Red Moon that night, +walking with long, loose-jointed strides, holding his head high and looking +over the heads of all he passed with a fixed, far gaze. He had a hatchet-face, +sallow, with lantern jaws, a petulant mouth, hot eyes that showed too much +white above their pupils. A lank black mane greased his collar. His garments, +shoddy but whole, were stained and bleached in spots, apparently the work of +acids, and so wrinkled and shapeless as to suggest that their owner slept +without undressing as a matter of habit. The pockets of his coat bulged +noticeably. +</p> + +<p> +Shouldering heedlessly into the saloon-bar, he found it deserted except for a +chinless potman: the liveliest evening trade was always plied in the cheaper +bars adjacent. +</p> + +<p> +One glance sufficed to identify him: with a surly nod the potman ducked behind +a partition to call the proprietor. Drinks were in order when this last +appeared; and a brief conference in undertones ended when, having made careful +reconnaissance, the publican nodded shortly to the patron, a jerk of his thumb +designating a small door let into the wall to one side of the bar proper. +</p> + +<p> +Through this the tall man passed to find himself upon a dark stairway, at the +foot of which another door admitted to an underground chamber where an +apparently exclusive social gathering was in session of Saturnalia. +</p> + +<p> +In one corner a long-suffering piano was taking cruel punishment at the hands +of a flashily dressed, sharp-faced man of horsey type. Flanking him, two young +women of the world, with that insouciance which appertains—in Limehouse—to +sweet sixteen, were chanting shrilly to his accompaniment: both more than +comfortably drunk. In the middle of the room assorted lawbreakers gathered +round a table were playing fan-tan at the top of their lungs. At smaller tables +men and women sat consuming poisons of which they were obviously in no crying +need; while in bunks builded against one wall devotees of the pipe reclined in +various stages of beatitude. The air was hot, and foul with cigarette smoke, +sickening fumes of sizzling opium, effluvia of beer and spirits, sour reek of +sweating flesh. +</p> + +<p> +Incurious glances greeted the newcomer: none paid him more heed than an +indifferent nod. On his part, brief but comprehensive survey having deepened +the stamp of scorn upon his features, he ignored them all and, proceeding +directly to a bunk of the lowermost tier, aroused its occupant with a smart tap +on the shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +The ostensible drug-addict looked up dreamily, then opened his eyes wide, with +surprising docility rolled out and, uttering no word, lurched to the fan-tan +table. The tall man took his place, lay down, and drew together the unclean +curtains of sleazy stuff provided to afford privacy to shrinking souls. This +done, he turned on his side and knuckled in peculiar rhythm the back of the +bunk, a solid panel which slipped smoothly to one side, permitting the man to +tumble out into still another room, a cheerless place, with floor of stone and +the smell of a vault. +</p> + +<p> +When the panel had slipped back into place, closing out the bunk, the man stood +in night absolute. But after a minute a slender beam of golden light struck +suddenly athwart the darkness and found his face. This he endured impassively, +only lifting a hand to describe an obscure sign. Immediately the light was shut +off, a door opened in the wall opposite, dull light from behind disclosed the +silhouette of a man in Chinese robes, his head inclined in a bow of courteous +dignity. +</p> + +<p> +In good English but with musical Eastern inflection a voice gave greeting: +</p> + +<p> +“Good evening, Thirteen. You are awaited—and welcome!” +</p> + +<p> +“Good evening, Shaik Tsin,” the European replied in heavy un-English accents. +“Number One is here, yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet. But we have just received a telautographic message saying he is on +his way.” +</p> + +<p> +Nodding impatiently, Thirteen passed through the door, which the Chinaman +quickly closed and barred. +</p> + +<p> +The chamber to which one gained admittance by ways so devious and fantastic was +large—exactly how large it was difficult to guess, since all its walls were +screened by black silk panels upon which golden dragons writhed and crawled. A +thick carpet of black covered every inch of visible floor space, a black silk +canopy hid the ceiling, and all the room was in deep shadow save the space +immediately beneath a great lamp of opalescent glass, likewise draped in black. +</p> + +<p> +Here stood an octagonal table of black teakwood, on seven sides of which seven +chairs were placed. When Thirteen had taken his seat all these were occupied. +On the eighth side an eighth chair stood empty on a low dais, the heavy carving +of its high back, its massive arms and legs, picked out with gold. +</p> + +<p> +The six who had anticipated Thirteen at this bizarre rendezvous hailed him as a +familiar, according to their several idiosyncrasies, brusquely, indifferently, +or with some semblance of cordiality. They made a motley crew. +</p> + +<p> +Two were Englishman in appearance, though the figure of languid elegance in +evening dress that might have graced the lounge of a West End club had a voice +soft with Celtic brogue. The other owned a gross body clothed in loud checks +and, with his mean blue eyes, his mottled complexion, and cunning leer, would +not have seemed out of place in a betting-ring. +</p> + +<p> +Aside from these there were a moon-faced Bengali babu, a dark Italian with +flashing eyes and teeth, and a stout person of bovine Teutonic cast—the type +that is sage, shrewd, easy-going when unopposed, but capable under provocation +of exhibiting the most conscienceless brutality. +</p> + +<p> +From this last Thirteen got his warmest welcome. +</p> + +<p> +“You are late, mine friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“In good time, however,” Thirteen responded with a nod toward the vacant chair. +“More than that, the summons was handed me only twenty minutes ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“How was that?” the babu asked. “It was sent at six o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was at work in the laboratory and had left orders I was not to be disturbed. +But for one thing”—the petulance of Thirteen’s habitual expression was +lightened by a flash of self-gratulation, and his voice shook a little with +excitement—“I might not have received the summons before morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“And that one thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Success, comrades! At last—after months of experimentation—I have been +successful!” +</p> + +<p> +“’Ow?” dryly demanded the man in the checked suit. +</p> + +<p> +“I have discovered a great secret—discovered, perfected, adapted it to common +means at our command. Comrades, I tell you, to-night we hold all England in the +hollow of our hands!” +</p> + +<p> +With an incoherent exclamation and eyes afire the Russian sat forward. +Unconsciously the others imitated his action. Only the man in evening dress +made a show of remaining unimpressed. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s fine, fat words you’re after using,” he commented. “‘All England in the +hollow of our hands!’ If they mean anything at all, comrade, they mean—” +</p> + +<p> +“Everything!” Thirteen cut in with arrogant assertiveness; “all we’ve been +waiting for, hoping for, praying for—the end of the ruling classes, extinction +of the accursed aristocrats, subjugation of the thrice-damned bourgeois, the +triumph of the proletariat, all at a single stroke, swift, subtle, and sure! +Freedom for Ireland, freedom for India, freedom for England, the speedy +spreading of that red dawn which lights the Russian skies to-day, till all the +wide world basks in its warm radiance and acclaims us, comrades, its +redeemers!” +</p> + +<p> +“Lieber Gott!” the German breathed. “Colossal!” +</p> + +<p> +“’Ear, ’ear!” the Englishman applauded, perfunctory and skeptical. “Bli’me if +you didn’t mike me forget where I was—’ad me thinking I was in ’Yde Park, you +did, listening to a bloody horator on a box.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may laugh,” Thirteen replied with a sour glance; “but when you have heard, +you will not laugh. I am not boasting—I am telling you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a great deal,” the Irishman suggested. “Your mouth is full of sounds and +fury, but till you tell us more you’ll have told us nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +The face of Thirteen grew darker still, and for a moment he seemed to meditate +an angry retort; but he thought better of it, contenting himself with an +impatient movement and a mutter: “All in good time; Number One is not here +yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“W’y wyste time w’itin’ for ’im?” demanded the Englishman. “’E’s no good, ’e’s +done.” +</p> + +<p> +Thirteen’s eyes narrowed. “How so?” +</p> + +<p> +“’E’s done, Number One is—finished, counted out, napoo! ’E’s ’ad ’is d’y, and a +pretty mess ’e’s mide of it—and it’s ’igh time, I say, for ’im to step down and +let a better man tike ’old.” +</p> + +<p> +Growls in chorus endorsed this declaration of mutiny; but suddenly were stilled +by a voice, sonorous and calm, from outside the circle: +</p> + +<p> +“You think so, Seven? Well—who knows?—perhaps you are right.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch8"></a>VIII<br/> +COUNCIL OF THE GODLESS</h2> + +<p> +Someone exclaimed in an accent of alarm: “Number One!” +</p> + +<p> +With a concerted turning of startled heads, a hasty thrusting back of chairs, +the gathering rose in involuntary deference. That is, five rose as one; and, +after a moment during which his spirit of insubordination faltered and failed, +the Englishman got awkwardly to his feet and stood abashed and sullen. +</p> + +<p> +The one to remain seated was the Irishman so well turned out by Conduit Street; +who made no move more than slightly to elevate supercilious brows and slouch a +little lower in his chair, glancing from face to face of the circle, then back +to the cold countenance presented by the author of the abrupt interruption. +</p> + +<p> +This last stood quietly beside the eighth chair, a hand on its carved arm, one +foot on the edge of the dais. A long robe of black silk enveloped him; on its +bosom a Chinese unicorn was embroidered. His girdle clasp was of Imperial jade +set with rubies. The girdle itself was yellow. A great ruby button, nearly an +inch in diameter, set in a mounting of worked gold, crowned a hat like an +inverted round bowl. His black silk shoes were heavy with golden embroidery, +and had white soles an inch thick. Authority lent inches to his stature, so +that he seemed to dominate his company physically as well as spiritually. +</p> + +<p> +A pace or two in the rear Shaik Tsin, with impassive face and arms folded in +voluminous sleeves, waited as might a bodyguard. +</p> + +<p> +A sardonic glimmer in eyes half visible under heavy lids alone betrayed relish +of the situation, the homage commanded and the sensation created by this +inopportune and unheralded arrival: deliberately Number One mounted the dais +and posed himself in the throne-like chair. Then, as his look read face after +face, he smiled with twitching and disdainful nostrils. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen of the Council,” he said, slowly, “I bow to you all. Pray be +seated.” +</p> + +<p> +In confounded silence the six resumed their seats, while the seventh—who had +not moved—lighted a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and through a veil of smoke +continued to regard Number One with insolent eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I fear my arrival was ill-timed, gentlemen. Seven had the floor, and I confess +to finding what I happened to overhear extremely interesting. If he will be +good enough to continue ...” +</p> + +<p> +The Irishman gave a light, derisive laugh. Shifting uneasily in his chair, the +man in the checked suit flushed darkly, then stiffened his spine, hardened his +eyes, set his jaw, and faced Number One defiantly. +</p> + +<p> +“You ’eard ... I ’olds by w’at I said.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am to understand, then, you think it time for me to abdicate and let another +lead you in my stead?” +</p> + +<p> +The Englishman assented with an inarticulate monosyllable and a surly nod. +</p> + +<p> +“And may one ask why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Blue’s plice in Pekin Street was r’ided this afternoon,” Seven announced +truculently. “But per’aps you didn’t know—” +</p> + +<p> +“Not until some time before the news reached you,” One replied, pleasantly. +“And what of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Three fycers in a week, Gov’ner—anybody’ll tell you that’s comin’ it a bit +thick.” +</p> + +<p> +“Granted. What then?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s only part of it. Tike last week: Eighteen pinched, the queer plant in +’Igh Street pulled by the coppers—” +</p> + +<p> +“I know, I know. To your point!” +</p> + +<p> +Seven hesitated under that steely stare. “I leave it to you, Gov’ner,” he +continued to stammer at length. “S’y you was me and I was Number One—w’at would +you think?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, quite naturally, that some superior intelligence has latterly been +collaborating with Scotland Yard.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you a bit behindhand in arriving at that conclusion?” the Irishman +suggested with an ill-dissembled sneer. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Eleven,” Number One replied, mildly, “since I arrived at it some time +since.” +</p> + +<p> +“But took no measures—” +</p> + +<p> +“You are in a position to state that as a fact?” +</p> + +<p> +Eleven shrugged lightly. “Need I be? Does not our situation speak for itself?” +</p> + +<p> +“Since you cannot be as thoroughly acquainted as I am with the situation, and +since it seems I am required to account for my leadership or surrender it to +you, Eleven ... I believe you have selected yourself to replace me as Number +One, have you not?—that is to say, in the improbable event of my abdication.” +</p> + +<p> +“Improbable?” repeated the Irishman. “I wouldn’t call it that.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are right,” Number One assented, gravely: “unthinkable is the word. But +you haven’t answered my question.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, as for that, if the Council should see fit to appoint me Number One, I’d +naturally do my best.” +</p> + +<p> +“And most noble of you, I’m sure. But rather than bring down any such disaster +upon this organization, I will say now that measures have already been taken, +and I am to-night in a position to promise you that the new spirit in Scotland +Yard will no longer be a factor in our calculations.” +</p> + +<p> +“That wants proving,” Eleven contended. +</p> + +<p> +A spasm of anger shook the figure in the throne-like chair, but only for an +instant; immediately the iron will of the man imposed rigid self-control; +almost without pause he proceeded in level and civil accents: +</p> + +<p> +“I think I can satisfy you and—this once—I consent to do so. But first, a +question: Have you yourself formed any theory as to the identity of this +hostile intelligence which has so hindered us of late?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d be a raw fool if I hadn’t,” the Irishman retorted. “We know the Lone Wolf +has been hand-in-glove with the authorities ever since the British Secret +Service used him during the war.” +</p> + +<p> +“You think, then, it is Lanyard—?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a wise saying: ‘Set a thief to catch a thief.’ I believe there’s no man +in England but Lanyard who has the wit and vision and audacity to fight us on +our ground and win.” +</p> + +<p> +“I agree entirely. Therefore, I have this day tied the hands of the Lone Wolf; +he will not again dare to contend against us.” +</p> + +<p> +Eleven sat up with a startled gesture. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you meaning you’ve got the girl?” +</p> + +<p> +Number One indulged a remote and chilly smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you, too, noticed the advertisement? Accept my compliments, Eleven. +Decidedly you might prove a dangerous rival—were I in a temper to countenance +competition.... But it is true: I have the girl Sofia—the Lone Wolf’s +daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where?” +</p> + +<p> +The smile faded; the man on the dais looked down loftily. +</p> + +<p> +“It is enough for you to know I have proved far-sighted and unfailing in my +fidelity to our common cause.” +</p> + +<p> +“So <i>you</i> say ...” +</p> + +<p> +Though the Irishman winced and fell silent under the cold glare of the other’s +eyes, the voice that answered him was level and passionless. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not here to have my word challenged—or my authority. If any one of you +imagines I am even thinking of surrendering the latter, under any conceivable +circumstances, he is mad. And if any one of you doubts my power to enforce my +will, I promise him ample proof of it before the night is ended.... Let us now +proceed to business, the question held over from our last meeting. If Comrade +Four will consult his minutes”—a nod singled out the babu, who, beaming with +importance, produced a note-book—“they will show we adjourned to consider +overtures made by the Smolny Institute of Petrograd, seeking our coöperation +toward accelerating the social revolution in England.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thatt,” the Bengali affirmed, “is true bill of factt.” +</p> + +<p> +“If the temper in which you received those proposals is fair criterion,” Number +One resumed, “there can be little doubt as to our decision. Speaking for +myself, I think it would be suicidal to reject the overtures of the Soviet +Government in Russia. Let me state why.” +</p> + +<p> +He bowed his forehead upon a hand and continued with thoughtful gaze downcast: +</p> + +<p> +“England is ripe for revolution. The social discontent resulting from the war +has reached an acute stage. Only a spark is needed. It remains for us to decide +whether to permit Russia to bring about the explosion or—bring it about +ourselves. The soviet movement is irresistible, it will sweep England +eventually as it has swept Russia, as it is now sweeping Germany, Hungary, +Austria, Italy, as it must soon sweep France and Spain. Our power in England is +great; even so, we could hope to do no more than delay the soviet movement were +we to set ourselves against it—we could never hope to stop it. It would seem, +then, self-preservation to set ourselves at the head of it, seize with our own +hands—in the name of the British Soviet—the symbols of power now held by an +antiquated and doddering Government. So shall we become to England what the +Smolny Institute is to Russia. Otherwise, in the end, we must be crushed.” +</p> + +<p> +“If we adopt the indicated course, there will be an end forever to this +hole-and-corner business which so hampers us, we will be able to work in the +open, the police will become our tools rather than weapons in the hands of our +enemies; our power will be without limits, Soviet Russia itself must bow to our +dictation.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused and lifted his head, looking round the circle of intent faces. +</p> + +<p> +“If I am wrong or too sanguine, I am ready to be corrected.” +</p> + +<p> +He heard only a murmur of admiration, never a note of dissent; and a smile of +gratification, yet half satiric, curved his thin lips. +</p> + +<p> +“I take it, then, the Council endorses my decision to proceed with the +negotiations instituted by Soviet Russia; to accept its proposals and pledge +our cooperation in every way?” +</p> + +<p> +This time there was no mistaking the accuracy with which he had gauged the +minds of his associates. +</p> + +<p> +“One thing remains to be decided: a plan of action, something which will demand +all that we have of imagination, ingenuity, common sense, and far prevision. We +can afford to waste not a single ounce of strength: the blow, when we strike, +must be sudden, sharp, merciless—irresistible. But if Thirteen is not +over-confident of the discovery which he says he has to-day perfected, the +means to deal just such a blow is ready to our hands.... Thirteen?” +</p> + +<p> +A nod and gracious smile invited that one to speak. He rose, trembling a little +with excitement, bowed to Number One and, delving into capacious pockets, +produced a number of small tin canisters together with three sealed bottles of +brown glass. Surveying these, as he arranged them on the teakwood table before +him, he smiled a little to himself: the stars, it seemed to him, were warring +in their courses in his behalf; this was to prove his hour of hours. +</p> + +<p> +He began to speak in a quivering voice which soon grew more steady. +</p> + +<p> +“It is true, Excellency—it is true, comrades—I have perfected a discovery which +I offer as a free gift to the cause, and by means of which, intelligently +employed, we can, if we will, make all London a graveyard. Put the resources of +this organization at my command, give me a week to make the essential +preparations, select a time of national crisis when the Houses of Parliament +are sitting and the Cabinet meets in Downing Street with the King attending or +in Buckingham Palace ...” +</p> + +<p> +He paused and held the pause with a keen feeling for dramatic effect, his eyes +seeking in turn the faces of his fellow conspirators, an insuppressible grin of +malicious exultation twisting his scornful and mutinous mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“Let this be done,” he concluded, “and by means of these few tins and bottles +which you see before you, in one brief hour the ruling classes will have +perished almost to a man, there will be no more government of a tyrannical +bourgeoisie to grind down the proletariat, a bloodless revolution will have +made England the cradle of the new liberty!” +</p> + +<p> +“Bloodless?” the man on the dais repeated; and even he was seen perceptibly to +shudder at the prospect unfolded to the vision of his mind. “Yes—but more +terrible than the massacre of the Huguenots, more savage than the French +Revolution!” +</p> + +<p> +“But I believe,” the inventor commented, “your Excellency said we required the +means to deal a ‘blow sudden, sharp, merciless—irresistible’.” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely now,” the Irishman suggested, mockingly—where a wiser man would have +held his tongue—“you’ll not be sticking at a small matter like wholesale murder +if it’s to make us masters of England?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of England?” the German echoed. “Herr Gott! Of the world!” +</p> + +<p> +“And you, Excellency, our master,” the inventor added, shrewdly. +</p> + +<p> +A sign at once impatient and imperative demanded silence, and for a few minutes +it obtained unbroken, while the gathering, keyed to high tension, studied +closely the face of their leader and found it altogether illegible. +</p> + +<p> +On his part he seemed forgetful of the existence of anybody but himself, +forgetful almost of himself as well: sitting low in his great chair, his body +as stirless as it were bound by some spell of black magic, his far gaze probing +unfathomable remotenesses of thought. +</p> + +<p> +Slowly he recalled himself to his surroundings; with a suggestion of weariness +he sat up and reviewed the little company that hung so breathlessly upon the +issue of his judgment. The shadow of that satiric smile returned. +</p> + +<p> +“If the thing be feasible,” he promised, “it shall be done. It remains for +Thirteen to be more explicit.” +</p> + +<p> +With an extravagant flourish the inventor whipped from his breastpocket a +folded paper, and spread it out face uppermost on the table. +</p> + +<p> +“A map of London,” he announced, “based on the latest Ordnance Survey and +coloured to show the districts supplied by the mains of each individual gas +depot. Thus you will observe”—what his long, bony finger indicated—“the +district supplied by the mains of the Westminster gas works, comprising +Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, the War Office, and the Admiralty, +Downing Street, the homes of hundreds of the aristocracy. All these we can at +will turn into the deadliest of death traps.” +</p> + +<p> +A tense voice interrupted with the demand: “How?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite easily, comrade: with the ramifications of our power throughout London, +all under the control of his Excellency”—the inventor bowed to Number One—“it +should be an easy matter to place a few trustworthy men with the Westminster +gas works.” +</p> + +<p> +“It can readily be done,” Number One affirmed. “And then—?” +</p> + +<p> +“While this is being done means must be found to smuggle other men, in the +guise of servants, into the various buildings selected, or to corrupt those +already so employed therein. At the designated hour—” +</p> + +<p> +The words dried upon his lips as somewhere a hidden bell stabbed the quiet with +short, sharp thrills of sound, a code that spelled a message of terrifying +significance. The inventor started violently, but no more so than every man +about the table. Even Number One, shocked out of his lounging pose, grasped the +arms of his throne with convulsive hands. +</p> + +<p> +Quietly and without a hint of hurry, the Chinese, Shaik Tsin, moved back into +the shadows and, unnoticed, disappeared behind a screen. +</p> + +<p> +For a moment, when the bell had ceased, nobody spoke; but pallid face consulted +face and eyes grown wide with dread sought eyes that winced in terror. +</p> + +<p> +Then the Bengali leaped from his chair, jabbering with bloodless lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Police! Raid! We are betrayed!” +</p> + +<p> +He made an uncertain turn, as if thinking to seek safety in flight but doubting +which way to choose; and the movement struck panic into the minds and hearts of +his fellows. In a twinkling all were on their feet. But before one could move a +step the lamp in the ceiling winked out, the room was left in darkness +unrelieved, and the accents of Number One were heard, coldly imperative. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen! be good enough to resume your places—let no one move before there +is light again. We are in no immediate danger: Shaik Tsin will show you out by +a secret way long before the police can hope to find and break into this +chamber. In the meantime—” +</p> + +<p> +The infuriated voice of the Englishman interrupted: +</p> + +<p> +“And ’oo’re you to give us orders?—you ’oo talked so big about ’avin’ tied the +’ands of the Lone Wolf and Scotland Yard! You blarsted blow’ard! Bli’me if I +don’t believe it’s you ’oo—” +</p> + +<p> +“Quietly, Seven! Have you forgotten you have a bad heart?—that excitement may +mean your sudden death?” +</p> + +<p> +The rage of the Englishman ran out in a gasp and a whisper. +</p> + +<p> +“In the meantime,” Number One resumed as if there had been no break, “I +promised that, before the night was out, you should have proof of my ability to +enforce my will.” +</p> + +<p> +A groan of agony answered him, followed by an oath of witless fear. From a +distance the voice, now thin but still sonorous, added: +</p> + +<p> +“Thirteen will hold himself ready to wait on me when I send for him to-morrow. +Gentlemen of the Council, I bow to you all.” +</p> + +<p> +Again silence held for a long minute during which no man stirred or spoke. Then +overhead the lamp burned bright again, discovering six frightened men upon +their feet and one who, still seated, did not stir, and never would again. +</p> + +<p> +His head fallen forward, chin resting on his chest, mouth ajar, inert arms +dangling over the arms of the chair, heavy legs lax, the Englishman sat quite +dead, dead without a sign to show how death had come to him. +</p> + +<p> +Number One had disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +There was a remote rumour of cries and shouts, the muffled sound of axes +crashing into woodwork.... +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch9"></a>IX<br/> +MRS. WARING</h2> + +<p> +Late in the forenoon a pencil of golden light found a chink in jealously drawn +draperies, and groped the rich dusk of the bedchamber till it came to rest, as +if happy that its search had found so lovely a reward, upon the face of a young +girl who lay sleeping in a bed whose exquisite adornment must have flattered +even the exalted person of a princess. +</p> + +<p> +With a swift but silent movement another girl, who had been sitting patiently +on a low stool near by, rose and put herself in the way of the sunbeam. But too +late: already long lashes were a-flutter upon the delicately modelled cheeks of +the sleeper. +</p> + +<p> +A gentle sigh brushed parting lips; the sweet body stirred luxuriously; +unclouded by any shadow of misgiving, the blue eyes of the Princess Sofia +looked out upon the first day of her new world. +</p> + +<p> +Then they grew wide with wonder, comprehending the sleek, pretty face of a +Chinese girl of about her own age who, with eyes downcast, demure mouth and +folded hands, submissively awaited recognition. +</p> + +<p> +“Who are you?” Sofia demanded in a breath. +</p> + +<p> +A bob of courtesy, wholly charming, prefaced a reply pattered in English of +quaintest accent: +</p> + +<p> +“You’ handmaiden—Chou Nu is my name.” +</p> + +<p> +“My handmaiden!” +</p> + +<p> +“Les, Plincess Sofia.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t understand. How—when—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Las’ night Numbe’ One he send for me, but when I come you go-sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +“Number One?” +</p> + +<p> +Surprise coloured faintly the explanation: “Plince Victo’, honol’ble fathe’ of +Plincess Sofia. You like get up now, take bath, have blekfuss?” +</p> + +<p> +The smile was irresistibly ingratiating: Sofia could not but return it. +Delighted, Chou Nu ran to the windows, threw wide their draperies, and darted +into the bathroom. +</p> + +<p> +Autumnal sunlight kindled to burning beauty the golden-bronze tresses coiled +upon the pillows where Sofia lay unstirring, like a princess enchanted—as +indeed she was. Surely nothing less potent than magic had wrought this +metamorphosis in the fabric of her life! And whether the magic were white or +black—what matter? Its work was good. +</p> + +<p> +No more the Café des Exiles, no more the deadly tedium of daily service at the +desk of the caisse, no more the shrewish tongue of Mama Thérèse, the odious +oglings of Papa Dupont, the ceaseless cark of discontent.... +</p> + +<p> +Incredible! +</p> + +<p> +As one who moves in a dream, Sofia rose presently and bathed, then, robed in a +ravishing negligée of rare brocade, breakfasted on melon, tea, and toast from a +service of eggshell china. +</p> + +<p> +In a long mirror she saw and watched but did not know herself. Like Goody +Twoshoes of nursery fame she could have cried: Lawkamercy! this is never I! +</p> + +<p> +The presence of Chou Nu served merely to stress the sense of unreality: for, +obviously, only the heroine of a true fairy tale could have broken from a +chrysalis stage of sordid Soho to the brilliant butterfly existence of a +Russian princess domiciled in the most aristocratic quarter of London and +attended by a Chinese maid! +</p> + +<p> +And Chou Nu proved a delight. Once satisfied she need fear neither ill-temper +nor arrogance from her new mistress, she indulged an even and constant flow of +artless high spirits, her amusing, clipped English affording Sofia considerable +entertainment together with not a little food for thought. +</p> + +<p> +Thus one learned that the main body of the service staff was Chinese under a +major domo named Shaik Tsin—Chou Nu’s “second-uncle”—who enjoyed Prince +Victor’s completest confidence and was, second to the latter only, the real +head of the establishment, its presiding genius. The front of the house alone +was dressed with a handful of English servants nominally under the man Nogam, +but actually, like him, answerable in the last instance to Shaik Tsin. +</p> + +<p> +Why this should be Chou Nu couldn’t say. Sofia supposed it was because Prince +Victor thought his Occidental guests would feel more at ease with English +servants; or perhaps he himself preferred them, when it came to the question of +personal attendance. +</p> + +<p> +No success rewarded efforts to extract from Chou Nu her reason for referring to +Victor as “Number One.” She stated simply that all Chinamans in London called +him that; and being pressed further added, with as near an approach to +impatience as her gentle nature could muster, that it was obviously because +Plince Victo’ <i>was</i> Numbe’ One: ev’-body knew <i>that</i>. +</p> + +<p> +A knock at the door interrupted Sofia’s questioning. Answering, Chou brought +back word that the honourable father of Princess Sofia submitted his august +felicitations and solicited the immediate favour of her serene attendance in +his study. +</p> + +<p> +Hasty search failed to locate the garments discarded on going to bed and, in +the indifference of depression and fatigue, left in a tumble on the floor. All +had vanished while Sofia slept; Chou Nu professed blank ignorance of their +fate; and apparently nothing had been provided in their stead but Chinese +robes, of sumptuous vestments well suited to one of high estate. With these, +then, and with Chou Nu’s guidance as to choice and ceremonious arrangement, +Sofia was obliged to make shift; and anything but unbecoming she found them—or +truly it was a shape of dream that looked out from her mirror. +</p> + +<p> +Yet it was with reluctant feet that she left her room, descended the broad +staircase to the entrance hall, and addressed herself to the study door. It had +been so beautiful, that waking dream the sequel to her night of dreamless +sleep, too beautiful to be foregone without regret. +</p> + +<p> +For Sofia had not forgotten, she could never forget, she had merely been +successful temporarily in banishing from mind that bitter disillusionment which +had poisoned what should have been her time of greatest joy. +</p> + +<p> +To be told, by the father of whose dear existence one had only learned within +the hour, that one was the child of a notorious thief and an adventuress ... +</p> + +<p> +It needed more than common fortitude to face renewed reminder of that shame. +</p> + +<p> +Oddly enough, it seemed to help a bit, somehow to lend her courage and +assurance, to pass the man Nogam in the hall and acknowledge his bow and smile. +Sofia wondered vaguely what it was that made his smile seem so kind; it was +entirely respectful, there was nothing more in it that she could fix on; and +yet ... +</p> + +<p> +She was able to offer Victor a composed, almost a happy countenance, and to +return cheerful assurances to punctilious enquiries after her well-being and +her comfort overnight. To the real affection in which he held her, the warmth +of his embrace, and the lingering pressure of his lips gave convincing +testimony; and in time, no doubt, as she grew to know him better, her response +would become more spontaneous and true. Indeed, she insisted, it must; she +would school herself, if need be, to remember that this strange man was the +author of her being, the natural object of her affections—deserving all her +love if only because of that nobility which had enabled him to renounce those +evil ways of years long dead. +</p> + +<p> +But to-day—and this, of course, she couldn’t understand—a slight but invincible +shiver, perceptible to herself alone, attended her submission to paternal +caresses; and the eyes were too dispassionate with which she saw Prince Victor. +Still, they found little to which fair exception might be taken. If Life had +thus far been callously frank with Sofia as to its broader aspects, the +niceties of its technique remained measurably a mystery, she was insufficiently +instructed to perceive that Victor’s morning coat (for example) had been cut a +shade too cleverly, or that the ensemble of his raiment was a trace ornate; and +where a mind more mondain would have marked ponderable constraint in his +manner, she saw only dignity and reserve. But for all that she recognized +intuitively a lack of something in the man, the sum of this second impression +of him was formless disappointment, she felt somehow cheated, disheartened, +chilled. +</p> + +<p> +That she was able at all to dissemble this sense of dashed expectations was +thanks in the main to a third party, a stranger whose presence she overlooked +on entering, when Prince Victor met her near the door, while the other remained +aside, half hidden in the recess of a window. +</p> + +<p> +Directly, however, that Victor half turned away, saying “I have found a friend +for you, my dear,” Sofia, following his glance, discovered a woman whose every +detail of dress and deportment was unmistakably of the fashionable world and +whose face carried souvenirs of loveliness as unmistakable. +</p> + +<p> +Smiling and offering her hands, she approached, while Victor’s voice of heavy +modulations uttered formally: +</p> + +<p> +“Sybil, permit me to present my daughter. Sofia, Mrs. Waring has graciously +offered to sponsor your introduction to Society, to guide and instruct you and +be in every way your mentor.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear!” the woman exclaimed, holding Sofia’s hands and kissing her cheek. +And then, looking aside to Victor, “But how very like!” she added with the air +of tender reminiscence. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” Sofia cried, “you knew my mother?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed—and loved her.” Sofia never dreamed to question the woman’s sincerity; +and her charm of manner was irresistible. “You must try to like me a little for +her sake—” +</p> + +<p> +“As if one could help liking you for your own, Mrs. Waring!” +</p> + +<p> +“Prettily said, my dear. You have inherited more from your mother than your +good looks alone. Is it not so, mon prince?” +</p> + +<p> +“Much more.” Victor’s enigmatic smile gave place to a look of regret and +uneasiness. “Let us hope, however, not too much. Heredity,” he mused in sombre +mood, “is a force of such fatality in our lives....” +</p> + +<p> +He gave a gesture of solicitude and continued with characteristic deliberation, +and that preciseness of diction which he seemed never able to forget, even +though deeply moved. +</p> + +<p> +“More than ever, now that Sofia is restored to me, I could wish the past other +than what it was, that she might start life with a handicap less cruel of +inherited tendencies. But when I reflect that both her parents—” +</p> + +<p> +“Please!” Sofia begged, piteous. “Oh, please!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry, my dear.” Victor closed tender hands over those which the girl had +lifted in appeal. “It is for your own good only I give myself this pain of +warning you against your worst enemy, I mean yourself, the self that is so +strange a compound of hereditary weaknesses.... Please remember always that, no +matter what may happen, however far you may be led into transgression of the +social codes, I shall never reproach you, on the contrary, you may count +implicitly on my sympathetic understanding. Never forget, I, too, have known, +have suffered and fought myself—and in the end won at a cost I am not yet +finished paying, nor will be, I fear, this side my grave.” +</p> + +<p> +He sighed from his heart, and bowing a stricken head, seemed to lose himself in +disconsolate reverie—but not so far as to suffer the interruption which Sofia +made to offer and which he stayed with an eloquent hand. +</p> + +<p> +“You do not understand? But naturally. Let me explain. No: there is no reason +why Sybil—Mrs. Waring—should not hear. She is a dear friend of long years, she +understands.” +</p> + +<p> +With a quiet murmur—“Oh, quite!”—Mrs. Waring ran an affectionate arm round +Sofia’s shoulders and gently held the girl to her. +</p> + +<p> +“When I determined to forsake the bad old ways,” Victor pursued—“this you must +know, my dear—I had friends—of a sort—who resented my defection, set themselves +against my will and, when they found they could not swerve me from my purpose, +became my enemies. That was long ago, but to this day some of them persist in +their enmity—I have to be constantly on my guard.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean there is danger?” Sofia asked in quick anxiety. “Your life—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Always,” Victor assented, gravely. With a shrug he added: “It is nothing; for +myself, I am used to it, I do not greatly care. But for you—that is another +matter altogether. I have a great fear for you, my child. That, indeed, is why +I never tried to find you till yesterday—believing, as I mistakenly did, you +were in good hands, well cared for, happy—lest my enemies seek to strike at me +through you. But when I saw that unfortunate advertisement I dared delay not +another hour about bringing you within the compass of my protection. Even now, +untiring as my care for you shall ever be, I know my enemies will be as +tireless in endeavours to rob me of you. You will be followed, hounded, +importuned, lied to, threatened—all without rest. If they cannot take you from +me bodily, they will seek to poison your mind against me. Therefore, rather +than keep you practically a prisoner in your home, I feel obliged to require a +promise of you.” +</p> + +<p> +Deeply stirred by the melancholy gravity that informed his pose, the girl +protested earnestly: “Anything—I will promise anything, rather than be an +anxiety to one who is so kind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Kind? To my own daughter?” Victor smiled sadly. “But I love you, little Sofia. +Nor is it much that I must ask of you: merely that you never go out alone, but +only in the company of Mrs. Waring or Mr. Karslake or, preferably, both.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I promise that—” +</p> + +<p> +“But there is more: If by any accident you should ever find yourself left alone +in public, do not let strangers speak to you, refuse to listen to them.” +</p> + +<p> +“I promise.” +</p> + +<p> +“And finally: If anybody should ever seek to turn you against me, come to me +instantly and tell me about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But naturally I would do that, father.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good. I rely upon your discretion and loyalty. At another time I will explain +matters in more detail. For the present—enough of an unpleasant subject. You +have a busy day before you. At my request Mrs. Waring has arranged to have +various tradespeople wait upon you this morning to take your orders for the +beginnings of a wardrobe. If you can find something ready-made to wear you will +want, no doubt, to spend the afternoon shopping. A car will be at your +disposal, and I give you carte blanche. I wish you never to know an unsatisfied +need or desire. Still, I am selfish enough to reserve for myself the happiness +of selecting your jewels.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” Sofia cried, breathlessly. Victor was holding his arms open; and how +should she deny him? “You are too good to me,” she murmured. “How can I ever +show my gratitude?” +</p> + +<p> +Holding her close, Victor smiled a singular smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Some day I may tell you. But to-day—no more. I am much preoccupied with +affairs; but Mrs. Waring will take care of you till evening, when I promise +myself the pleasure of dining with you both.” +</p> + +<p> +At the sound of a knock he put Sofia gently from him, and said in a strong +voice: +</p> + +<p> +“Enter.” +</p> + +<p> +The door opened, Nogam announced: +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Sturm.” +</p> + +<p> +Hard on the echo of his name a man swung into the room with an air at once +nervous and aggressive—a tall man shabbily dressed, holding his head high—and +at sight of Sofia and Mrs. Waring, where he had doubtless thought to find +Prince Victor alone, stopped short, betraying disconcertion in the way he +instinctively assumed the stand of a soldier at attention, bringing his heels +together with an undeniable click, straightening his shoulders, stiffening both +arms to rigidity at his sides. And for a bare thought his eyes rolled almost +wildly in their deep sockets. Then he bowed twice, from the hips, with +mechanical precision, profoundly to Victor, with deep respect to the women. +</p> + +<p> +Victor smothered an exclamation of annoyance. +</p> + +<p> +Unbidden, a word shaped in Sofia’s consciousness, a French monosyllable into +which the war had packed every shade and gradation of hatred and contempt, the +epithet <i>Boche</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Immediately erasing every sign of irritation, Victor greeted the man with +casual suavity. “Oh, there you are, eh, Sturm?” Then, as Sofia and Mrs. Waring +turned to go, he added quickly: “A moment, please. Since Mr. Sturm to-day +becomes a member of the household, acting as my assistant in some research work +which I am undertaking, I may as well present him now. Mrs. Waring, permit me: +Mr. Sturm. And the Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, my daughter ...” +</p> + +<p> +Mumbling their names after Victor, the man Sturm executed two more bows. At the +same time he seemed to remind himself that his soldierly carriage was perhaps +injudicious, and forthwith abandoned it for a studied slouch which, in Sofia’s +sight, was little less than insolent. And unmistakably there was something +nearly resembling insolence in the eyes that boldly sought hers: a look +equivocal at best and, intentionally or no, wholly offensive in essence; as if +the fellow were asserting their partnership in some secret understanding; or as +if he knew something by no means to Sofia’s credit.... +</p> + +<p> +Her acknowledgment of his salute was accordingly cool, and she was glad when a +nod from Prince Victor gave her leave to go. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch10"></a>X<br/> +VICTOR ET AL</h2> + +<p> +Those first few weeks of emancipation from the ennui of existence at the Café +des Exiles were so replete with wonders that Sofia lived largely in a beatific +state of breathless excitement, devoting the best part of her days to +thoughtless flying from delight to new delight, and going nightly to her bed so +healthily tired that she slept like a top and never once awakened to memories +of disturbing dreams. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps her pleasure burned the brighter for its dark, ambiguous +background—those many questions which Prince Victor persisted in leaving +unanswered. Sofia knew bad times of perplexity and depression, when the price +of translation from drudge to princess seemed a sore price to pay. +</p> + +<p> +And yet, required to state the cost to her in terms explicit, she must have +hesitated lest she appear ungrateful in complaining, who hardly needed to +express a wish to have it granted, who indeed knew many a wish realized in fact +before she was fully aware of its inception in her private thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +All those lovely material things of life which her famished girlhood had ached +for so hopelessly now were hers in abundant measure, and all the less tangible +things, too, so requisite to the happiness of women in a worldly world—or +nearly all. Frocks she had, with furs and furbelows no end; flowers and +flattery and frivolities; freedom within limitations as yet not irksome; jewels +that would have graced an imperial diadem—everything but the single essential +without which everything is hollow nothing and life itself only the dreaming of +a dream. +</p> + +<p> +The one lack known to the Sofia of those days was the lack of Love. +</p> + +<p> +She had gone so long longing to love, questing blindly and vainly for some +human being to whom her affection would mean something vital and dear—it seemed +cruel that her longing must be still denied. As it had been with Mama Thérèse, +it was now with the romantic father so newly self-declared. She wanted +desperately and tried her best to love Victor as his daughter should; and that +he cared for her profoundly she knew and never questioned; yet when she +searched her secret heart Sofia discovered no feeling for the man other than a +singular form of fear. His look, his tone, his manner, his presence altogether, +inspired a nameless sort of shrinking, inarticulate apprehensions, and mistrust +which the girl found at once utterly unaccountable and dismally disappointing; +so that, with every wish and will to do otherwise, she found herself +involuntarily making excuse of trivial interests to keep out of Victor’s way +and, when there was no escaping, sitting silent and ill at ease in his society, +or seizing on some slender pretext, it didn’t matter what, to inveigle into +their company a third somebody, it didn’t matter whom—Mrs. Waring, Karslake, +even the unspeakable Sturm. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, there were times, far too many of them, too, when of a sudden +Victor would forsake his occult preoccupations and, unceremoniously upsetting +whatever arrangements Sofia might have made with Mrs. Waring or Karslake, would +find other pleasures of his own invention for her to share with him alone: long +motor jaunts through the English countryside, apparently his favourite +recreation; a box all to themselves at a theatre, where Victor would sit +watching the girl with a fascination only rivalled by her fascination with the +traffic of the boards; curiously constrained little dinners à deux in +fashionable restaurants; morning rides in Rotten Row, where it oddly appeared +that Victor knew everybody, whereas not one in five hundred seemed to know +him—or to care to know him. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia, indeed, was often puzzled to account for what to her appeared to be an +almost pathetic eagerness on the part of Victor, in strange accord with his +lofty pretensions, to claim acquaintanceship with and win the recognition even +of persons of the utmost inconsequence. And she remarked, too, that his temper +was apt to be raw in sequel to their excursions into the haunts of the +well-known. But it was for other reasons altogether that she came to dread them +most. +</p> + +<p> +For one thing, Victor’s conversation was ordinarily rather dull; at best, the +reverse of exhilarating. And in spite of her unquestioning acceptance of him as +her father, he remained to Sofia actually a new acquaintance; in effect, a +strange man. And from strangers, more than from relatives with whose minds one +is presumably on terms of close intimacy, one is warranted in expecting +something in the way of mutual stimulation through the opening of new +perspectives of experience, thought, and feeling. Whereas—with Sofia, at +least—Victor seemed unable to talk on more than two subjects, one or the other +of which was constantly uppermost in his thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +He never wearied of warning Sofia against the dangers of those moral +infirmities which he asserted were hers by legitimate inheritance; and which, +if Victor were right in his contentions, she could hardly hope to overcome +without a desperate struggle. She would have to be forever on guard, he +insisted, lest the temptation of some moment, not to be foreseen, prove too +strong for her latent weakness of character, and commit her, through some +unpremeditated act of defiance to the law—most probably an act of theft—to the +life of a social outcast. +</p> + +<p> +To do her justice, the girl was consciously not much impressed by this alleged +peril. She had never been aware of any failing such as Victor would have +endowed her with; so far as she could remember she had never been tempted to +commit more venial sins than inhered in lying to Mama Thérèse now and then in +order to escape unmerited disciplining at the heavy hands of that industrious +virago; and as for thieving, the very thought of anything of that sort was +detestable to Sofia. +</p> + +<p> +But unconsciously, no doubt, the everlasting iteration of Victor’s admonitions +had its purposed effect upon that sensitive and impressionable spirit. +</p> + +<p> +Then, too, by degrees, but all too soon, it became manifest that the memory of +his passionate attachment for her mother possessed Victor to the point of +monomania. It was only with an effort that he could force himself to talk to +Sofia on other subjects. He thought of nothing else while with her; if she read +his eyes aright, often glimpses of weird light flickering in their opaque +depths, like heat lightning of a murky summer’s night, fairly frightened her, +and she knew a shuddering perception of the possibility that Victor was at +times in danger of confusing the daughter with the mother. +</p> + +<p> +“Never was there such resemblance,” he once uttered, in a stare. “You are more +like her than she herself!” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia was pardonably puzzled, and looked it. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean, you re-create my vision of the woman I loved and lost—the woman I saw +in her, not the woman she was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lost?” the girl murmured. +</p> + +<p> +The gray countenance took on an added shade of sombre passion. “She never +understood me, she treated me badly. Once, in a fit of pique, she ran away. I +did everything—everything, I tell you!—to win her back, but—” +</p> + +<p> +He choked on bitter recollections—and Sofia was painfully reminded of the +Chinese devil-masks in Victor’s study. But the likeness faded even as she saw +it, under her gaze the twisted features were ironed back into their accustomed +cast of austerity. +</p> + +<p> +“Before I could persuade her, you were born.... Then she died.” +</p> + +<p> +Sensible though she was of the ellipsis, and afraid it would never be filled in +if she interrupted, Sofia could not help uttering a sound of regret and pity +for the lot of the mother she had never seen, whose untimely death had ended a +life accounted unendurable as Victor’s wife, for reasons unknown but none the +less, to the daughter, vaguely and lamentably understandable. +</p> + +<p> +For Sofia by now had passed the stage of pretending to herself that she was not +happier away from her father. +</p> + +<p> +Victor mistook the nature of the feeling that swayed the girl—took to himself +the sympathy excited by his revelations. +</p> + +<p> +“But do not grieve on my account. Is not that which was lost restored again to +me? In you my old love lives once more ... little Sofia!” +</p> + +<p> +He caught and pressed a hand that rested on the cloth between them. (They +happened that night to be dining at the Ritz.) And Sofia re-experienced that +inevitable, hateful flinching with which she was growing too familiar. +</p> + +<p> +She dropped her head that her eyes might not betray her. +</p> + +<p> +“People will see ...” +</p> + +<p> +“What if they do? Those who know us will hardly see any wrong in my squeezing +the hand of my own daughter; and the others—not that they matter—will only +think me the luckiest dog alive—as I am!” +</p> + +<p> +Chuckle and smirk both were indescribably odious, reminding Sofia of the +creature Sturm; <i>he</i> had a laugh like that for her, on the rare occasion +when chance propinquity encouraged the Boche to begin one of his uncouth essays +in flirtation. +</p> + +<p> +Sturm’s attitude, in truth, perplexed Sofia to exasperation; that is to say, as +much as it offended her. For Victor the man seemed to entertain an exaggerated +yet deeply rooted respect, approaching actual awe, which he tried his best to +carry off with a swagger; for to hold anybody in any degree of deference was, +one judged, somehow deplorable, even shameful, in the code of Sturm; but in +Victor’s presence the fellow’s bravado would quickly wilt into hopeless +servility, he would cringe and crawl like a dog currying the favour of a harsh +master. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, Victor’s daughter seemed to be no more than fair game, in Sturm’s +understanding, and a source of supercilious amusement but thinly veiled or not +at all. Alone with the girl, Sturm put on the airs of a Prussianized pasha +condescending to a new odalisque. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia held the animal in a deadly loathing which, betrayed in word or look or +gesture, animated in him only a spirit of derision. In the absence of Victor, +Sturm’s eyes were ever ironic, his bows and leers mocking, his speeches +flavoured with clumsy sarcasm; from which it resulted that the girl never quite +forgot the impression which he had managed to convey in those few moments of +their first encounter, that Sturm knew something she ought to know but didn’t, +and was meanly jeering at her in his sleeve. +</p> + +<p> +What virtues Victor Vassilyevski perceived in the man passed comprehension. But +so did most of Victor’s whims and ways. What riddle more obscure than that +portentous business which permeated the atmosphere of the establishment with +the taint of stealth and terror?—the famous “research work” that kept Victor +closeted with Sturm in his study daily for hours at a time, often in +confabulation with others of like ilk, men of furtive and unprepossessing cast +who came and went by appointment at all hours, but as a rule late at night! +</p> + +<p> +Into these conferences, Sofia observed, Karslake was never summoned. She +wondered why. He was, as she saw him, so unquestionably the better man, +everything that Sturm was not, open of countenance, fair of temper and tongue, +well-bred and well-mannered, light of heart and high spirited, and at the same +time dependable, with metal of sincerity and earnestness like tempered steel in +his character—or Sofia misread him woefully. +</p> + +<p> +She had been quick to see the man behind the misleading little moustache. And +already she was beginning to count that amusement tame which Karslake did not +share. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Waring was undeniably a dear. Sofia could hardly be grateful enough to the +happy chance which had cast that lady for the rôle of her chaperone; lacking +her guidance the girl must have been innocently guilty of many a gaucherie in +ways new and strange to untried, faltering feet. And it was to her alone that +Sofia owed the slow but constant widening of her social horizon. For Sybil +Waring, it seemed, quite literally “knew everybody”; and Sofia soon learned to +count it an off day when Sybil failed to present her protégée to the notice of +somebody of position and influence. +</p> + +<p> +Most of these persons were women with sounding names and the solid backing of +much money conspicuously in evidence—matrons of the younger and more giddy +generation which was just then so busily engaged in providing material for the +most hectic chapters of London’s post-war social history. But Sofia was +scarcely qualified to be critical or to guess that they were climbers equally +with herself, and that if their footing had been of older establishment the +name of Vassilyevski would have rung sinister echoes in their memories, +deafening them to the rich allure inherent in the title of princess. +</p> + +<p> +So she was fain to accept them all at their own valuation, and thought most of +them entirely charming. And though she had hardly had time as yet to progress +beyond the introductory stages of chance meetings and informal little teas in +public, she began clearly to descry enchanting vistas of better days to come, +when the Princess Sofia Vassilyevski would have not only teas but dinners and +dances given in her honour, and would be asked to spend gay week-ends in the +country houses of the people with whom she contracted the stronger friendships. +</p> + +<p> +But for the immediate present, and especially in the paramount business of +having a good time, Karslake was fairly a necessity. He thought of everything +and forgot nothing, was ever fertile of fresh expedient if the pastime of a +moment began to pall, and was capable of sustained fits of irresponsible gaiety +which enchanted Sofia, so well did they chime with her own eagerness for sheer +fun. +</p> + +<p> +Decidedly she would have been lost without Sybil Waring; but without Karslake +she would have been forlorn. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch11"></a>XI<br/> +HEARTBREAK</h2> + +<p> +Not yet prepared to admit it even to herself, in her heart Sofia knew she +prized the companionship of Karslake for something more than the mere amusement +it afforded her: there was a deeper feeling she would not name. For all that, +her times of solitude knew dreams quick and warm with the thought of Karslake, +his words and ways, the gracious little attentions he had accustomed her to +expect of him and which his manner subtly invested with a personal flavour +inexpressibly delightful, indispensably sweet. +</p> + +<p> +Nor did she ever quite forget how long he had worshipped with unostentatious +devotion at her lowly shrine of the caisse in the Café des Exiles, and how +shabbily she had rewarded his admiration—never once, in those many months, with +so much as a smile—and how unresentful had been his acceptance of her +half-feigned, half-real indifference to his existence. +</p> + +<p> +But whenever her reflections took that back-turning she would recall the man +who had talked to Karslake in the café, that day so long ago, of his own humble +past as a ’bus-boy in Troyon’s in Paris, and who on leaving had given Sofia +herself that odd look of half-recognition tempered by bewilderment. +</p> + +<p> +She tried once to draw Karslake about this acquaintance of his, but Karslake’s +memory proved unusually sluggish. +</p> + +<p> +“No-o,” he drawled after a tolerably long pause for thought—“can’t say I place +the chap you mean, can’t seem somehow to think back that far, you know. One +meets such a lot of people, first and last, they talk such a lot of tosh—” +</p> + +<p> +“But it couldn’t have been only tosh you were talking,” the girl persisted, +“because—<i>I</i> remember—you were so keen about keeping what you said secret, +you spoke the strangest language together most of the time. I could hear every +word”—she had already explained about the freak acoustics of the Café des +Exiles—“and not one meant anything to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stupid of me, but I simply can’t think what it could have been.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can—now.” +</p> + +<p> +Karslake looked askance at Sofia. +</p> + +<p> +“Since I’ve heard so much Chinese spoken by the servants—now I come to think of +it”—Sofia’s eyes grew bright with triumph—“I’m sure it must have been Chinese +you were speaking to the man I mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“Impossible,” Karslake pronounced calmly. +</p> + +<p> +“But you do know Chinese, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a syllable.” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia opened her lips to protest, but delayed to study Karslake’s face +intently. He didn’t try to escape her scrutiny, he even seemed to court it; but +there was a curious, quizzical look in his eyes, those half-smiling lips had a +whimsical droop. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Karslake!” Sofia announced, severely, “you’re fibbing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nice thing to say to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You do speak Chinese—confess.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Princess Sofia,” Karslake protested: “if I had known one word of +Chinese I could never have landed my job with your father.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“He expressly stipulated that I should be ignorant of that language.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a silly condition to make!” +</p> + +<p> +“Still, I daresay Prince Victor had his reasons.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t imagine what ...” +</p> + +<p> +“Possibly preferred a secretary who couldn’t understand everything he said to +the servants. I’ve never pretended to know all Prince Victor’s secrets, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +After a little pause Sofia asked gently: “Did you really need the job so badly, +Mr. Karslake?” +</p> + +<p> +“To get it meant more to me than I can tell you—almost as much as to hold on to +it does to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia turned her eyes away at this, and for the rest of the ride—they were +homeward bound from a matinée, having dropped Sybil Waring at her flat in +Mayfair—kept her thoughts to herself. +</p> + +<p> +Only the most perfunctory civilities passed between them, in fact, until they +had been ushered into the study by Nogam, who advised them that Prince Victor +had ordered tea to be served there and had promised to be home in good time for +it. +</p> + +<p> +The tea service was already set out on a little table beside the fireplace in +that room of secrets, whose normal atmosphere of brooding gloom was now the +darker for the deepening dusk. Only the tea itself remained to be served, a +special rite never performed in that household by hands more profane than those +of the major-domo, Shaik Tsin himself. And this last could be counted upon not +to put in appearance until Nogam took him word that Victor was waiting. +</p> + +<p> +So, having laid aside her furs and satisfied herself, by a seemingly aimless +but in fact exacting survey, that the abominable Sturm was not skulking +anywhere in the shadows, Sofia established herself on a lounge that faced the +fireplace, while Karslake stood before the fire, looking down with an expectant +smile of which she was but half aware. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you going to forgive me?” he asked, quietly, after a time. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia withdrew a pensive gaze from the ruddy bed of coals. +</p> + +<p> +“For what?” +</p> + +<p> +“You were kind enough to call it merely fibbing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m still thinking about that.” +</p> + +<p> +In fact, she had been thinking of nothing else. There was so much to be +considered. Imprimis, that Karslake had been guilty of practising a deception +upon her father. Deceit in itself was one form of treachery. And how often had +Victor stressed to her the dangers of his position, surrounded by nameless but +implacable enemies who would stick at no infamy to compass his ruin! +</p> + +<p> +But if she told him that Karslake understood Chinese she would lose her friend +forever—no question about that. Victor would not hesitate an instant—indeed, +Sofia felt sure he was only waiting for some such pretext to get rid of his +secretary. She was anything but unobserving, this child of Soho, whose wits had +been sharpened in the sophisticated atmosphere of a French restaurant; and more +than once she had seen Victor’s face duplicate the expression Papa Dupont’s had +so often assumed on his discovering that some patron of the café was taking too +personal an interest in the pretty young dame du comptoir. A look of insensate +jealousy ... +</p> + +<p> +To risk forfeiting the comradeship that had grown to be so dear? Or to be +constructively derelict in her duty as a daughter? +</p> + +<p> +A difficult choice to make; but Sofia made it honestly. In point of fact, she +assured herself, coldly, there was no choice, there was only one thing she +could do under the circumstances. And she hardened her heart and eyes as she +rose to face Karslake on more equal terms. +</p> + +<p> +But when she saw him waiting patiently, with that friendly smile of his she +knew so well, she hesitated long enough to permit his anticipating her with a +quiet question: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Princess Sofia?” +</p> + +<p> +And then, amazingly, her tongue betrayed her, the phrases she had framed so +carefully vanished utterly from out her mind; and she heard herself saying in +rather tremulous accents: +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all right. I shan’t tell.” +</p> + +<p> +“About my understanding Chinese?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—about that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you do care—?” +</p> + +<p> +She was panicky with knowledge that somehow her emotions had managed to slip +their moorings and get beyond her handling. It didn’t help or mend matters much +to hear her own voice stammering: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, of course, I—I don’t want you to—to have to go away—” +</p> + +<p> +Oh, the vanity of trying to hoodwink him who knew so well what she was now for +the first time realizing! +</p> + +<p> +“Because you like me a little, Princess Sofia?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why—yes—of course I do—” +</p> + +<p> +“Because you know I love you, dear.” +</p> + +<p> +And then she found herself clinging to Karslake; and his lips were warm upon +her hands ... +</p> + +<p> +So suddenly and at long last it came to Sofia, that Love for which all her days +had been one long weariness of waiting, Love that brimmed with raptures what +had been only aching emptiness and made the desert places to blossom as the +rose. And the joy of it proved overmastering, sweeping her off her feet and +dazing her, leaving her breathless and thoughtless but for the all-obscuring +thought—at length she loved, and the one whom she loved loved her! +</p> + +<p> +And for a space she existed in an iridescent dream of happiness, without sense +of relation to a material world, forgetful of the flight of time, lost to +everything but her lover’s arms and voice and lips. +</p> + +<p> +It might have been five minutes, it might have been sixty, before she became +aware that Karslake was gently disengaging her hands. “Dearest, dearest!” she +heard him say. “We must be sensible. That was the front door, I’m afraid.” +</p> + +<p> +The meaning in his insistence presently began to penetrate, if vaguely, and she +suffered him to go from her a pace or two. But, still a little blind with the +beauty of the revelation that had been granted unto her, nothing that met her +gaze seemed to be in true focus except her lover’s face: even the countenance +of Victor swam into her ken as if blurred by veils of mist, its dour, +forbidding look had no significance to her intelligence. Victor himself, for +that matter, was a figure without real consequence other than as a symbol of +the old order, the tedious old ways of the world from which she had magically +escaped. +</p> + +<p> +A ring of sarcastic apology provided the only clue she got to the import of +Victor’s words. Sobered a trifle, her mental processes somewhat less +incoherent, still she knew she would hardly regain her poise until she was +alone. And breathing an excuse, she left the room with such dignity as she +could muster. +</p> + +<p> +In the hall, with the closed door behind her, she paused to collect herself. +Then she missed furs and gloves and handbag and, remembering that she had left +them in the study, for some obscure reason imagined she must have them before +proceeding to her room. +</p> + +<p> +Much more mistress of herself by now, it never occurred to Sofia that there +could be any reason why she should hesitate about returning or feel embarrassed +before Victor. True, he had surprised them, Sofia was not at all sure he hadn’t +actually seen her in Karslake’s arms. But what of that? Love like hers was +nothing to be ashamed of; and that Victor could reasonably object to her giving +her heart to one of his secretaries was something far from her thought just +then. +</p> + +<p> +She put a hand to the knob, turned it, and swung the door open—all on +impulse—then faltered, transfixed by the tableau before the fireplace. +</p> + +<p> +The door was silent on its hinges, and Karslake’s back was to her. Victor, on +the other hand, facing both Karslake and the door, unquestionably saw Sofia, +but pretended not to, and had his say out with Karslake in a manner bitterly +cynical. +</p> + +<p> +“... sadly in error if you flatter yourself I pay you a wage to make love to +Sofia behind my back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry, sir.” Karslake’s tone was level, respectful but firm. “Your +instructions were, I believe, to win her confidence. Well—I have always found +love the one sure key to a woman’s confidence. Of course, if I had understood +you cared one way or the other—” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia heard no more: unconsciously she had closed the door, at one and the same +time shutting from her sight Victor’s exultant sneer and from her hearing the +words with which the man whom she loved had damned himself irretrievably and +dashed her spirit from radiant pinnacles of ecstasy into the profoundest black +abyss of shame and despair. +</p> + +<p> +Primitive instinct bade the stricken girl seek her room and hide her suffering +there; but the shock had stunned her to the point of physical weakness. Already +a hand was pressed above her heart, that ached cruelly; and as she moved to +cross to the foot of the staircase her knees gave under her. She clutched the +newel-post for support, waiting to find strength for the ascent. +</p> + +<p> +From the shadowed back part of the hall the man Nogam moved hastily into view, +his features twisted in a grimace of concern as he recognized the bleak misery +of Sofia’s face. His voice sounded strangely thin and remote. +</p> + +<p> +“Is there anything the matter, miss?—anything I can do?” +</p> + +<p> +She contrived to shake her head slightly and utter an inarticulate sound of +negation, then began slowly to mount the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +Below, Nogam stood watching, in a pose of indecision, as if tempted to follow +and offer the support of an arm lest she fall, restrained only by fear of a +rebuff. But Sofia’s leaden limbs carried her safely to the upper landing, then +on to the blessed shelter of her room, where she collapsed upon a chaise-longue +and there lay in a stirless huddle, dry of eye but deaf to the plaintive +entreaties of Chou Nu and numb to all sensation but the anguish of her +humiliated heart. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch12"></a>XII<br/> +SUSPECT</h2> + +<p> +Toward mid-evening the man Victor Vassilyevski and his creature Sturm sat where +the lamp of hand-wrought brass made the top of the teakwood table an oasis of +light amid a waste of shadows, their heads together over a vast glut of books +and papers—maps printed and sketched, curious diagrams, works of reference, +documents all dark with columns of figures and cabalistic writings intelligible +only to initiated eyes. +</p> + +<p> +They had the study all to themselves. Nevertheless, when they spoke it was in +the discreet pitch of those who deal in fatal secrets. At a distance of two +paces only a lip-reader could have caught the substance of their +communications, and even such a one must have failed unless equally at home in +German and in English. +</p> + +<p> +Aside from these occasional and circumspect voices, and the busy rustle of a +steel pen in the hand of Sturm, the quiet of the room had a tolerably constant +background of sound in a subdued whisper punctuated by muffled clicks, +emanating from the bronze casket that housed the telautographic apparatus. +</p> + +<p> +From time to time, as this noise temporarily suspended, Victor would get up, +read what the mechanical stylus had inscribed, tear off the paper, and return +to his chair. +</p> + +<p> +Some of the messages thus received he made known to Sturm, who invariably +acknowledged this courtesy with effusive gratitude, sometimes adding a few +words of contented comment. Other messages Victor chose to keep to himself, +silently setting fire to them and adding their brittle ashes to those of their +predecessors on the brazen tray provided for the purpose. At such times Sturm +would bend lower over his work. But Victor was well able to guess what +resentment glimmered in the eyes so studiously averted; and his cold, sardonic +smile more than once commented, unknown to Sturm, upon the accuracy with which +he read the mean workings of his “secretary’s” mind. +</p> + +<p> +The buzz of a muted bell presently interrupted the even tenor of their +industry, causing Sturm to start sharply, drop his pen, and slue round in his +chair, turning to Victor a livid face in which his dark eyes of a fanatic were +live embers of excitement. +</p> + +<p> +Without a sign to show he shared or even was aware of Sturm’s emotion, Victor +deliberately fished from beneath the table a telephone instrument, unhooked the +receiver, and pronounced a conventional phrase of greeting. To this he added a +short “Yes,” and after listening quietly for some seconds, “Very good—in twenty +minutes, then.” Wasting no more time on the author of the call, he hung up, +returned the telephone to its place of concealment, and helped himself to a +cigarette before deigning to acknowledge Sturm’s persistent stare. +</p> + +<p> +Then, elevating his eyebrows in mild impatience, he made the laconic +announcement: +</p> + +<p> +“Eleven.” +</p> + +<p> +Sturm’s mouth twitched nervously, his eyes burned with a keener fire. +</p> + +<p> +“Coming here? To-night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then”—a gaunt hand described a gesture of agitation—“the hour strikes!” +</p> + +<p> +Victor looked bored. +</p> + +<p> +“Who knows?” he replied, as who should say: “Does it matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“But—Gott in Himmel—!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sturm,” Victor interposed, critically, “if you Bolsheviki were a trifle more +consistent, one might repose greater faith in your sincerity. But when one +hears you deny the Deity in one breath and call on him by name in the next—!” +</p> + +<p> +“A mere mode of speech,” Sturm muttered. +</p> + +<p> +“If you must invoke a spiritual patron, why not Satan? Or don’t you believe in +the Powers of Darkness, either?” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe in you.” +</p> + +<p> +“As temporal viceroy of Lucifer? Many thanks! But you were about to say—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing. That is—I was envying your poise, Excellency. You take things so +coolly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“With Eleven coming here to tell us when we are to strike?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” Victor repeated. “We are prepared to strike at any hour. What +matters whether to-night or a week from to-night—since we cannot fail?” +</p> + +<p> +“If that were only certain!” +</p> + +<p> +“It rests with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s just it,” Sturm doubted moodily. “Suppose <i>I</i> fail?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, then—I suppose—you will die.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know. And so will all of us, Excellency.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no. Undeceive yourself, my friend. I shall survive. You will surely die, +and perhaps many others with you; but I would not be Number One if I had turned +my hand to this scheme without discounting failure first of all. My way of +escape is sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe you,” Sturm grumbled. +</p> + +<p> +With a languid hand Victor found and pressed a button embedded in the table +near the edge. +</p> + +<p> +“You have reason. Whatever my shortcomings, my good Sturm, they do not include +hypocrisy; I do not pretend, like your noble Bolsheviki, I am in this business +for the sake of humanity or anything but my own selfish ends—power, plunder”—a +slight wait prefaced one final word, spoken in a key of sombre +passion—“revenge.” +</p> + +<p> +“Revenge?” Sturm echoed, staring. +</p> + +<p> +“I have more than one score to pay out before I can cry even with life ... one +above all!” +</p> + +<p> +Studying intently that darkened face, and misled by its look of abstraction, +Sturm was guilty of the indiscretion of his malicious smile. +</p> + +<p> +“The Lone Wolf?” +</p> + +<p> +Victor turned weary eyes his way, and under their black and lustreless regard +the smile merged swiftly into a grin of nervous apology. +</p> + +<p> +“You are shrewd,” Victor observed, thoughtfully. “Be careful: it is a dangerous +gift.” +</p> + +<p> +The man Nogam gently opened the door and approached the table, stopping just +outside the area of illumination shed by the shaded lamp. But since Victor +continued to smoke absently, paying no attention, Nogam resigned himself to +wait with entire patience: the perfect pattern of a servant tempered by long +servitude to the erratic winds of employers’ whims; efficient, assiduous, mute +unless required to speak, long-suffering. +</p> + +<p> +Victor addressed him suddenly, in a sharp voice that drew from Sturm a glitter +of eager spite. +</p> + +<p> +“Nogam!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is the Princess Sofia?” +</p> + +<p> +“In ’er apartment, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“And Mr. Karslake?” +</p> + +<p> +“In ’is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then be good enough to send Shaik Tsin to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“And, Nogam!”—the servant checked in the act of turning—“I shan’t need you +again to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Nk you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +When Nogam had left the room, Sturm, remarking the slight frown that knitted +Victor’s brows, ventured an impertinence couched in a form of respectful +enquiry: +</p> + +<p> +“Excellency, perhaps you trust that fellow too much, hein?” +</p> + +<p> +“You think so?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is too perfect, if you ask me—never makes a false move.” +</p> + +<p> +“Either he is what he seems, in which event a false move would be against +nature; or he is not, and knows one slip would mean his death.” +</p> + +<p> +“Still, I maintain you trust him too much.” +</p> + +<p> +“With what?” +</p> + +<p> +“The freedom of your house, the opportunity to spy, to get to know who comes to +see you and when, to listen at doors.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have caught him listening at doors?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet. But in time—” +</p> + +<p> +“I think not. I don’t think he has to.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean,” Sturm stammered, perturbed, “you think he knows—suspects?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think he is one thing or the other: merely Nogam, or one of the greatest of +living actors. In either case he is flawless—thus far. But if not merely Nogam, +he will have a subtler means of eavesdropping than by listening at doors.” +</p> + +<p> +“The dictograph?” +</p> + +<p> +“Make your mind easy about that. This room is searched regularly by Shaik Tsin. +So is Nogam’s. It is certain there is neither a dictograph installed here nor +any means at Nogam’s disposal for connecting with a dictograph installation. +Indeed, so closely is Nogam watched, and by more cunning eyes than +mine—sometimes I begin to be afraid he is simply what he seems.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you do suspect him!” +</p> + +<p> +“My good Sturm, I suspect everybody.” +</p> + +<p> +Sturm pondered this before pressing his point again. +</p> + +<p> +“Karslake found the fellow for you,” he suggested at length. +</p> + +<p> +“True.” +</p> + +<p> +“And Karslake—” +</p> + +<p> +“Has been guilty of nothing more treacherous than falling in love with Sofia.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your daughter, Excellency!” +</p> + +<p> +“The young woman seems content to call herself that.... Can’t say I blame +Karslake.” +</p> + +<p> +“But do you forgive him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, that is another matter. Mine is not a forgiving nature, Sturm—not even +toward excessive shrewdness.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor took up a docket of papers, and Sturm, mumbling an apology, gave himself +up to jealous brooding till he forgot the broad hint he had received. +</p> + +<p> +“If I can satisfy you that Nogam is untrustworthy—” he began, meaning to +continue: <i>Karslake will stand his proved accomplice</i>. +</p> + +<p> +But Victor would not let him finish. “Nothing could please me more,” he +interrupted. “Do so, by all means—if you can—and earn my everlasting +gratitude.” +</p> + +<p> +Sturm questioned him with puzzled eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I ask no greater service of any man,” Victor elucidated with a smile that made +Sturm shiver, “than proof that Nogam is what I suspect him of being.” A hand +extended upon the table unclosed and closed slowly, with fingers tensed, like a +murderous claw. “I want no greater favour of Heaven or Hell—!” +</p> + +<p> +He broke off abruptly. Having entered noiselessly in his padded shoes, Shaik +Tsin now stood before Victor, offering a low obeisance. +</p> + +<p> +“You took your time,” Victor grumbled. And Shaik Tsin smiled serenely. “I want +you to tend the door to-night,” Victor pursued. “Eleven is expected at any +moment. You need not announce him, simply show him in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hearing is obedience.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait”—as the Chinaman began to bow himself out—“Karslake is still in his room, +I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, master.” +</p> + +<p> +“And Nogam?” +</p> + +<p> +“Has just gone to his.” +</p> + +<p> +“When did you last search their quarters?” +</p> + +<p> +“During dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +“And of course found nothing?” Shaik Tsin bowed. “Make sure neither leaves his +room to-night. Set a watch outside each door.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have done so.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor gave a sign of dismissal. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch13"></a>XIII<br/> +THE TURNIP</h2> + +<p> +In a spacious chamber beneath the eaves, hideously papered and furnished with +cheerless, massive relics of the early Victorian era, the man Nogam pursued +methodical preparations for bed. +</p> + +<p> +Spying eyes, had there been any—and for all Nogam knew, there were—would have +seen him follow step by step a programme from whose order he had departed by +scarcely as much as a single gesture on any night since his first installation +in the house near Queen Anne’s Gate. +</p> + +<p> +Loosening the waistcoat of his evening livery, he freed the heavy silver +watchchain from its buttonhole, drew from its pocket an old-fashioned silver +watch of that obese style which first earned the portable timepiece its +nickname of “turnip,” and opening its back inserted a key attached to the other +end of the chain. Its winding was a laborious process, prodigiously noisy. Once +finished, Nogam shut the back with a loud click, and reverently deposited the +watch on the marble slab of the black walnut bureau. +</p> + +<p> +Then he hung coat and waistcoat over the back of a chair which stood between +the foot of his bed and the door. Sheer chance may have decreed selection of +this chair for the purpose on Nogam’s first night in the room; whether or no, +it was not in character that, having established this precedent, Nogam should +depart from it. And in any event, the coat-draped chair effectually eclipsed a +possible keyhole view of the room. +</p> + +<p> +Notwithstanding, Nogam pursued his bedtime rites with precisely the same +deliberation and absence of perceptible self-consciousness as before. One never +knew: there might be other peepholes in the walls. +</p> + +<p> +His trousers, neatly folded, he laid out on the seat of the chair. Then he +pulled off square-toed boots with elastic inserts in their uppers, put on a +pair of worn slippers, carried the boots to the door and set them outside, +closed the door, and turned the key in its lock. +</p> + +<p> +If aware that, by so doing, he made his privacy just as secure as if he had +fastened the door with a bent hair-pin, he gave evidence of no uneasiness in +the knowledge. A clear conscience is the best of nerve tonics. +</p> + +<p> +Throughout, his features preserved their mild, subdued, dull habit with which +the household was familiar. Nogam off duty was in no way different from the +unthinking creature of habit who performed belowstairs the prescribed functions +of his office. +</p> + +<p> +Having donned a nightshirt of coarse cotton, he knelt for several minutes in a +devout attitude by the side of his bed, then rising opened the window, took the +turnip from the bureau, and snuggled it beneath his pillow, inserted his bare +shanks between the sheets, and opened at a marked place a Bible bound in black +cloth. +</p> + +<p> +On the table by his shoulder a battered electric standard with a frayed cord +and a dingy shade remained alight long enough to permit Nogam to spell out a +short chapter. Then he put the Bible aside, yawned wearily, and switched out +the lamp. +</p> + +<p> +Profound darkness now possessed the room, immaterially modified by the +light-struck sky beyond the windows. And in this grateful obscurity Nogam +permitted himself the luxury of ceasing to be Nogam. A light suddenly flashed +upon his face would have discovered a keen and alert intelligence transfiguring +the apathetic mask of every day. Also, it would have rendered Nogam’s probable +duration of life an interesting speculation. +</p> + +<p> +Under cover of the darkness, furthermore, he did a number of things which +Nogam, qua Nogam, would never have dreamed of doing. +</p> + +<p> +His first act was to withdraw from under his pillow the turnip, his next to +re-open the back of its silver case and then the inner lid—something which a +deft thumbnail accomplished without a sound. +</p> + +<p> +From the roomy interior of the case—whose bulky ancient works had been replaced +by a wafer-thin modern movement, leaving much useful space back of the +dial—sensitive fingers extracted a metal disk about the size and thickness of a +silver dollar. One face of this disk was generously perforated, the other, +solid, boasted a short blunt post round which several feet of extremely fine +wire had been coiled. +</p> + +<p> +Unwinding the wire and bending the free end into the form of a rude hook, the +man attached this last to the cord of his bedside lamp at a point, located by +sense of touch, where a minute section of electric light wire had been left +naked by defective insulation. +</p> + +<p> +Direct connection now being established with a microphone secreted in the base +of the brass lamp on the study table, three floors below, and the perforated +side of the microphone detector serving as an earpiece, one could hear every +word uttered by the conspirators. +</p> + +<p> +The man in bed contributed a broad smile to the kind darkness—sheer luxury to +facial muscles cramped and constrained to the cast of Nogam for eighteen hours +a day. He was now at last to reap the reward of three months of preparation and +three weeks of ingenious, but necessarily spasmodic, and at all times +desperately dangerous, tampering with the house wiring system. +</p> + +<p> +He lay very still for a long time, listening ... +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch14"></a>XIV<br/> +CONFERENCE OF THE DAMNED</h2> + +<p> +An Irish voice was making the hush of the study musical with mellow cadences. +</p> + +<p> +“This week-end sure, your Excellency—within the next three nights—the little +Welshman will be after summoning the Cabinet to sit in secret in Downing +Street, with His Most Gracious Majesty attending in person; the emergency +extraordinary being thoughtfully provided by this shindig me amiable but +spirited fellow-countrymen are kicking up across the Channel—God bless the +work!” +</p> + +<p> +The speaker laughed lightly, flashing white teeth at Prince Victor across the +width of the paper-strewn table. +</p> + +<p> +“In more Parliamentary language, by the Irish Question. But we’ll hear no more +of that, I’m thinking, once we’ve proclaimed the Soviet Government of England.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor bowed in grave assent. +</p> + +<p> +“You have my word as to that,” he said; and after a moment of thoughtful +consideration: “You speak, no doubt, from the facts?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do that. It’s straight I’ve come from the House of Commons to bring you the +news without an hour’s delay. There’s more than one advantage in being an Irish +Member these days.” +</p> + +<p> +“On the other hand, Eleven”—Victor stressed the numeral as if to remind the +Irishman that even a Member of Parliament for Ireland held no higher standing +in his esteem than any other underling in his association of anonymous +conspirators—“even so, it appears you are uncertain as to the night.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m after telling you it’ll be to-morrow night or more likely Saturday—Sunday +at the latest.” A mildly impatient accent alone betrayed resentment of the +snub. “I’ll know in good time, long before the hour appointed; and that ought +to do, providing you on your part are prepared.” +</p> + +<p> +“An hour’s notice will be ample,” Victor agreed. “We have been ready for days, +needing only the knowledge you bring us—or will, when you have it definitely.” +</p> + +<p> +The Irishman chuckled. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s hard to believe. Not that I’d dream of doubting your statement, sir—but +yourself won’t be denying you must have worked fast to organize England for +revolution in less than three weeks.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been busy,” Victor admitted. “But the work was not so difficult ... +Seeds of revolution are easily sown in land thoroughly tilled by forces of +discontent. And what land has been better tilled? To vary the figure: England +is all seething beneath a thin crust of custom and established habit whose +integrity a conservative and reactionary government has ever since the war been +struggling desperately to preserve. The blow we shall strike within three days +will shatter that crust in a hundred places.” +</p> + +<p> +“And let Hell loose!” the Irishman added with a nervous laugh. +</p> + +<p> +In a dry voice Victor commented: “Precisely.” +</p> + +<p> +“Omelettes,” Sturm interjected, assertively, “are not made without breaking +eggs.” +</p> + +<p> +“And all rivers, no doubt, flow to the sea? What a lot you know, Herr Sturm! Is +it the Portfolio of the Minister of Education you’ve picked out for your very +own, after the explosion comes off—if it’s a fair question?” +</p> + +<p> +“You Irish are all mad,” the German complained, sourly—“mad about laughing. +Even me you will laugh at, while you trust your very life to me, while you +trust to my genius to make Soviet England possible and Ireland free.” +</p> + +<p> +“Faith! you’re away off there, me friend. If it was you and your genius I had +to trust, it’s meself would turn violent reactionary and advise Ireland to be a +good dog and come to England’s heel and lick England’s hand and live off +England’s leavings. I’ll trust nobody in this black business but himself—Number +One.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have changed your tune since that night at the Red Moon,” Sturm reminded +him, angrily. +</p> + +<p> +“I had me lesson then and there,” Eleven agreed, cheerfully. “And I don’t mind +telling you, the next time I’m taken with a fancy to call me soul me own, I’ll +be after asking himself first for a license.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor put a period to the passage with a dispassionate “By your leave, +gentlemen—that will do.” To the Irishman he added: “You understand the danger, +I believe, of remaining within the condemned area—that is to say, except in the +open air?” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t say I do, altogether.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is simple: no person in any house supplied by the mains of the Westminster +gas works will be safe for hours after the formula of Thirteen has begun its +work. My advice to you is to keep out of the district entirely.” +</p> + +<p> +“Faith, and I’ll do that! But how about yourself in this house?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall spend the week-end outside of London,” Victor replied, “not too far +away, of course, and”—the shadow of his satiric smile was briefly +visible—“prepared at any moment to answer the call of my stricken country.... +The few who remain here will be provided with the essentials for their +protection. Furthermore, a general warning will be sent out to all who can be +trusted.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the others—?” +</p> + +<p> +“With them it must be as Fate wills.” +</p> + +<p> +“Women and children, potential sympathizers and supporters of all classes?” the +Irishman persisted in incredulous horror—“all?” +</p> + +<p> +“All,” Victor affirmed, coldly. “We who deal in the elemental passions that +make revolutions, that is to say, in Life and Death, cannot afford qualms and +scruples. What are a few lives more or less in London? These British breed like +rabbits.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said Eleven, indistinctly. He stared a moment and swallowed hard, then +glanced hastily at his watch. “I’ll be after bidding you good-night,” he said, +“and pleasant dreams. For meself, I’m a fool if I go to bed this night sober +enough to dream at all, at all!” +</p> + +<p> +Victor rang for Shaik Tsin to show him out. +</p> + +<p> +“One question more, if you won’t take it amiss,” Eleven suggested, lingering. +And Victor inclined a gracious head. “Have you thought of failure?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have thought of everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, and if we do fail—?” +</p> + +<p> +“How, for example?” +</p> + +<p> +“How do I know what hellish accident may kick our plans into a cocked hat? +Anything might happen. There’s your friend, the Lone Wolf, for instance ...” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you not forgotten him yet?” Victor enquired in simulated surprise. “Have +you neglected to remark that since the blunderer failed to find the Council +Chamber that night, when his raid at the Red Moon netted him only a handful of +coolie gamblers and drug-addicts, he has left us to our own devices?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what makes me wonder what the divvle’s up to. His sort are never so +dangerous as when apparently discouraged.” “Be reassured. I promised you three +weeks ago his interference would not continue beyond that night. It has not. +Lanyard knows I have his daughter, that any blow aimed at me must first strike +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Doubtless yourself knows best....” +</p> + +<p> +With the Irishman gone, Prince Victor turned to Sturm. +</p> + +<p> +“You will want a good night’s sleep,” he suggested with pointed solicitude. +“Who knows but that to-morrow will bring your night of nights, my friend?” +</p> + +<p> +He lapsed immediately into remote abstraction, sitting with chin bent to the +tips of his joined fingers, his eyes downcast, motionless. +</p> + +<p> +Disgruntled, but afraid to show it, the German cleared away the litter of +papers, assorting them into huge portfolios, and took himself off. Shaik Tsin +replaced him, moving noiselessly about the room, restoring the reference books +to the shelves and stowing the portfolios away in a massive safe hidden behind +a lacquered screen. This done, he stationed himself before his master, awaiting +his attention, a shape of affable placidity, intelligent, at ease; his attitude +not entirely lacking a suggestion of familiarity. +</p> + +<p> +Without changing his pose by so much as the lifting of an eyelash, Victor spoke +in Chinese: +</p> + +<p> +“To-morrow afternoon, late, I shall motor down into the country with the girl +Sofia. I shall be gone three days—perhaps. I will leave a telephone number with +you, to be used only in emergency. As soon as I have left, you will dismiss all +the English servants, with a quarter’s wage in advance in lieu of notice. +Karslake will provide the money.” +</p> + +<p> +“He does not accompany you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the man Nogam?” +</p> + +<p> +Victor appeared to hesitate. “What do you think?” he enquired at length. +</p> + +<p> +“What I have always thought.” +</p> + +<p> +“That he is a spy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“But with no tangible support for your suspicions?” +</p> + +<p> +“None.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have not failed to watch him closely?” +</p> + +<p> +“As a cat watches a mouse.” +</p> + +<p> +“But—nothing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet I agree with you entirely, Shaik Tsin. I smell treachery.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nogam shall go with me as my bodyservant. Thus I shall be able to keep an eye +on him. Let Chou Nu be prepared to accompany us as maid to the girl Sofia. In +my absence you will be guided by such further instructions as I may leave with +you. These failing, consider the man Sturm, my personal representative. In the +contingency you know of, Sturm will warn you in time to clear the house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of everybody?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of all servants except those whom you may need to guard the man Karslake. +These and yourself will be provided with means of self-protection by Sturm.” +</p> + +<p> +“And Karslake?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not yet made up my mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hearing is obedience.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor relapsed into another reverie which lasted so long that even the +patience of Shaik Tsin bade fair to fail. In the end the silence was broken by +two words: +</p> + +<p> +“The crystal.” +</p> + +<p> +From a cabinet at the end of the room Shaik Tsin brought a crystal ball +supported on the backs of three golden dragons standing tail to tail, superbly +wrought examples of Chinese goldsmithing. This he placed carefully on the black +teakwood surface at Victor’s elbow. +</p> + +<p> +“And now, inform the girl Sofia I wish to see her.” +</p> + +<p> +“And if she again sends her excuses?” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, in that event, I shall be obliged to come to her room.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch15"></a>XV<br/> +INTUITION</h2> + +<p> +She had not thought, of course, of going down to dinner; she had, instead, sent +Victor word simply that she begged to be excused from joining him for that +meal. Then, unable longer to endure Chou Nu’s efforts to comfort or distract +her, Sofia had stepped out of her street frock and into a négligée and, +dismissing the maid, returned to the chaise-longue upon which, in vain hope of +being able to cry out the wretchedness of her heart, she had thrown herself on +first gaining the sanctuary of her room. +</p> + +<p> +For hours, she did not guess how many, she scarcely stirred. Neither was the +blessed boon of tears granted unto her. Alone with her immense and immitigable +misery, she lay in darkness tempered only by the dim skyshine that filtered +through the window draperies; hating life, that had no mercy; hating the +duplicity that had led Karslake into making untrue love to her, but +inexplicably not hating Karslake himself, or the enshrined image that wore his +name; hating herself for her facile readiness to give love where all but the +guise of love was lacking, and for knowing this deep hurt where she should have +felt only scorn and anger; but hating, most of all, or rather for the first +time discovering how well she hated, him to whom unerring intuition told her +she owed this brimming measure of heartbreak and humiliation, the man who +called himself her father. +</p> + +<p> +For if Karslake had done her a cruel wrong in winning her avowal of the love +that had been growing in her heart these many weeks, while he was merely +amusing himself or serving a secret purpose—whose was the initial blame for +that? +</p> + +<p> +Who had egged Karslake on, as he had asserted, “to win her confidence,” leaving +to him the choice of means to that end? +</p> + +<p> +And—<i>why</i>? +</p> + +<p> +The formulation of this question marked the turning point in Sofia’s descent +toward the nadir of shame and anguish; from the moment its significance was +clearly apprehended (but it took her long to reach this stage) the complexion +of her thoughts took on another colour, and the smart of chagrin was soothed +even as the irritation excited by critical examination of Victor’s conduct grew +more acute. +</p> + +<p> +Why should the self-styled author of her being have thought it necessary, or +even wise or kind, to commission a paid employee to win his daughter’s +confidence? +</p> + +<p> +What had rendered the conquest of her confidence so needful in his sight? +</p> + +<p> +What had made him think Sofia would prove loath to resign it to him, or more +likely to give it to another? +</p> + +<p> +Why had Victor hesitated to bid for her confidence with his own tongue, on his +own merits? +</p> + +<p> +One would think that, if he were her father— +</p> + +<p> +If! +</p> + +<p> +<i>Was</i> he? +</p> + +<p> +Sofia sat up sharply, her young body as taut as her temper. Pulses and +breathing quickened, intent eyes probed the shadows as if she thought to wrest +from them a clue to the mystery of her status in the household of Victor +Vassilyevski. +</p> + +<p> +What proof had she that he was her father? +</p> + +<p> +None but his word.... Well, and Karslake’s.... None that would stand the test +of skepticism, none that either sentiment or reason could offer and support. +Certainly she resembled Prince Victor in no respect that she could think of, +not in person, not in mould of character, not in ways of thought. From the very +first she had been perplexed, and indeed saddened, by her failure, her sheer +inability, to react emotionally to their alleged relationship. And surely there +must exist between parent and child some sort of spiritual bond or affinity, +something to draw them together—even if neither had never known the other. +Whereas she on her part had never been conscious of any sense of sympathy with +Victor, but only of timidity and reluctance which had latterly manifested in +unquestionable aversion. And then there was his attitude toward her, raising a +question so repugnant to her understanding that never before to-night had Sofia +admitted its existence and given it the freedom of her thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +She had seen men, in the Café des Exiles, toast their mistresses with such +looks as Victor Vassilyevski reserved for the girl whom he claimed as his +child. +</p> + +<p> +What, then, if he were not her father? +</p> + +<p> +What if he had only pretended to paternal rights in furtherance of some deep +scheme of his?—perhaps thinking to use her as a pawn in that dark plot which he +was forever brewing in his study (with canaille like Sturm for collaborators!) +that mysterious “research work” that flavoured the atmosphere of the house with +a miasmatic reek of intrigue, stealth, and fear—perhaps (more simply and +terribly) designing in his own time and way to avenge himself upon the daughter +for the admitted slights he had suffered at the hands of the mother, that poor +dead woman whose fame he never ceased to blacken while still her memory was +potent to kindle fires in those eyes otherwise so opaque, impenetrable, and +lightless! +</p> + +<p> +Now Sofia found herself unable to sit still; only through action of some sort +could she hope to win any measure of ease for brain and nerves. A thought was +shaping, claiming precedence over all others, the thought of flight; bred of +the feeling that, as long as she remained in ignorance of the exact truth +concerning their relationship, it was impossible for her to remain longer under +Victor’s roof, eating his bread and salt, schooling herself to suffer his +endearments whose good faith she could not help challenging, who inspired in +her only antipathy, fear, and distrust. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed clear beyond dispute that she must leave his protection, this very +night, before he could guess her mind and move to check her. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia swung her feet down to the floor. One of her silken mules had fallen off. +Semi-consciously she groped for it with stockinged toes. As the inanimate will, +the mule eluded recapture with impish ease. But beneath her foot something +rustled and crackled lightly. She bent over and picked it up: a square white +envelope, sealed. +</p> + +<p> +Switching on a lamp near by, she examined her find. It carried no address. How +it could have got there she could not imagine ... unless Chou Nu had dropped it +by inadvertence, which seemed as far-fetched as to suppose she had left it +there by design; for that would mean Chou Nu had been bribed to convey a +surreptitious note to her mistress; and Sofia knew that the Chinese girl was at +once too loyal to her “second-uncle,” and too much in awe of “Number One,” to +be corruptible. +</p> + +<p> +None the less, there the envelope was; and nobody but Chou Nu had entered the +room since Sofia had come straight from the study to it, late in the afternoon. +</p> + +<p> +It was just possible, however—Sofia’s eyes measured the distance—that a deft +hand and a strong wrist might have slipped the envelope under the door and sent +it skimming across the floor to the foot of the chaise-longue. +</p> + +<p> +But nobody would have dared do that without a powerful motive for wishing to +communicate secretly with Sofia. +</p> + +<p> +She tore the flap and withdrew a single sheet of notepaper penned in a hand she +knew too well. Her heart leapt.... +</p> + +<p> +I implore you, of your charity, do not condemn me without a hearing because of +anything you may have overheard me say. After you left us in the study I saw +his eyes watching the door while we talked, and knew from his look that +something to please him had happened behind my back. And in the temper he was +in only one thing could possibly have pleased him. +</p> + +<p> +I said what I said to him, dear, because I had to—or lose the right, dearer to +me than life, to be near you, to serve and protect you. I lied to him because I +loved you. But I have never lied to you about my love—and only once, through +necessity, about anything else. Perhaps you can guess what that lie was, +somehow I rather think you do; at least, I am sure, you are beginning to wonder +if I told the truth—or knew it, then. +</p> + +<p> +If this sound cryptic, I can only beg you to be patient and charitable until I +find opportunity to clear away this one lie which stands between us—and which +is, by comparison, almost immaterial, since all that matters is the one great +truth in my life, that I love you beyond all telling. +</p> + +<p> +R.K. +</p> + +<p> +If questions trouble your mind, I beg you do not let him know it. Your only +safety now lies in his continuing to believe that you are unsuspicious. Above +all, do your best to seem to fall in with his wishes, however strange or +unreasonable they may seem. It will be only a few days more before I can claim +you for my own, and laugh at his pretensions. +</p> + +<p> +A curious love-letter; yet it was Sofia’s first. If it made her thoughtful, it +made her illogically happy as well. If it put the issue to her squarely, of +loyalty to Prince Victor or loyalty to Karslake, she was unaware that she had +any choice of courses. When Shaik Tsin thumped the panels of her door, she +crushed the note into the bosom of her négligée before answering. +</p> + +<p> +When one is of an age to love, it is never the parent who gets the benefit of a +doubt. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch16"></a>XVI<br/> +THE CRYSTAL</h2> + +<p> +Like some shy, sad shade summoned up by the malign genius of a haunted chamber, +a slender shape of pallor in softly flowing draperies slipped through the +silent door and, advancing a few reluctant steps into the soundless gloom, +paused and in apprehensive diffidence awaited the welcome that was for a time +withheld. +</p> + +<p> +For minutes Victor gave no sign or stir; and in all the room nothing moved but +ghostly whorls of smoke writhing slowly upward from a pungent censer of beaten +gold. +</p> + +<p> +The great lamp of brass was dark, and there was no other light than a solitary +bulb, whose hooded rays were concentrated upon the crystal ball, so that the +latter shone with a dead-white glare, somehow baleful, like an elfin moon +deeply lost in a sea of sombre enchantment. +</p> + +<p> +Bending forward in his chair, an elbow planted on the table, his forehead +resting upon the tips of long, white fingers, Victor’s gaze was steadfast to +the crystal. Refracted light sculptured with curious shadows that saturnine +face intent to immobility. +</p> + +<p> +Too young, too inexperienced and sensitive to be insusceptible to the spell of +the theatrical, the girl was conscious of a steady ebb of her new-found store +of fortitude, skepticism, and defiance, together with an equally steady inflow +of timidity and uneasiness. That sinister figure at the table, absorbed in +study of the inscrutable sphere—what did he see there, to hold his faculties in +such deep eclipse? Adept in black arts of the Orient as he was said to be, what +wizardry was he brewing with the aid of that traditional tool of the +necromancer? What spectacle of divination was in those pellucid depths +unfolding to his rapt vision? And what had this consultation of the occult to +do with the man’s mind concerning herself? +</p> + +<p> +Sofia was shaken by a tremor of dread.... +</p> + +<p> +And as if her emotion were somehow communicated, arousing him to knowledge of +her presence, Victor started, sat back, and with a sigh passed a hand across +his eyes. When the hand fell, his face wore its habitual look for Sofia, +modified by a slightly apologetic and weary smile. +</p> + +<p> +“My child!” he exclaimed in accents of contrite surprise, “have I kept you +waiting long?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only a few minutes. It doesn’t matter.” +</p> + +<p> +But her voice seemed sadly small and thin in comparison with Victor’s rotund +and measured intonations. +</p> + +<p> +“Forgive me.” Victor rose, nodding to indicate the shining crystal. “I have +been consulting my familiar,” he said with a light laugh. “You have heard of +crystal-gazing? A fascinating art that languishes in undeserved neglect. The +ancients were more wise, they knew there was more in Heaven and Earth.... You +are incredulous? But I assure you, I myself, though far from proficient, have +caught strange glimpses of unborn events in the heart of that transparent +enigma.” +</p> + +<p> +He took her hands and cuddled them in his own. +</p> + +<p> +She quivered irrepressibly to his touch. +</p> + +<p> +“But you are trembling!” he protested, solicitous, looking down into her +face—“you are wan and sad, my dear. Tell me you are not ill.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is nothing,” Sofia replied—again in that faint, stifled voice. She added in +determined effort to subdue her trembling and turn their talk to essentials: +“You sent for me—I am here.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am so sorry. If I had guessed ...” Enlightenment seemed to dawn all at once. +“But surely it isn’t because of that stupid business with Karslake? Surely you +didn’t take him seriously?” +</p> + +<p> +“How should I—?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is too absurd. The poor fool misconstrued my instructions to make himself +agreeable—I am so taken up with the gravest matters at present, I didn’t want +you to feel lonely or neglected—and, it appears, felt it incumbent upon him to +flirt with you as a matter of duty. I am out of temper with him, but not +unreasonable; I shan’t dispense with his services altogether, without more +provocation, but will find other work to keep him busy and out of your way. You +need fear no more annoyance from that quarter.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was not annoyed,” Sofia found heart to contend. “I—like him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense!” Victor’s laugh was rich with derision. “Don’t ask me to believe you +were actually touched by the fellow’s play-acting. You—my daughter—wasting +emotion on a mere commoner! The thing is too ridiculous. Oblige me by thinking +no more about it. I have better things in store for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Better than—love?” the girl questioned with grave eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“When the time comes for that, you shall find a worthier parti than poor +Karslake, well-meaning though he may be. Moreover, you heard—forgive me for +reminding you—there was not an ounce of sincerity in all his philandering for +you to hold in sentimental recollection. So—forget Karslake, please. It is a +duty you owe your own pride and my dignity; it is, furthermore, my wish.” +</p> + +<p> +She bowed her head, that he might not see the reflection in her face of the +glow that warmed her bosom, where Karslake’s letter nestled. But Victor took +the nod for the word of submission, and patted her shoulder with an indulgent +hand, guiding her to a chair close by his. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down, my dear. I want to explain why I asked you to come to me at this +late hour—never dreaming my message would find you so overwrought.... You quite +see how needless it was to permit yourself to be upset by such a trifling +matter, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, quite,” Sofia murmured, with gaze fixed on the interlacing fingers in her +lap. +</p> + +<p> +“That is sensible.” Offering her shoulder one last accolade of approbation, +Victor moved toward his own chair. “And now that you are here, we may as well +have our little talk out,” he continued, but broke off to stipulate: “If, that +is, you are sure you feel up to it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” Sofia assented, but without moving. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not so sure. Perhaps a glass of wine might do you good.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no!” the girl protested—“I don’t need it, really.” +</p> + +<p> +But Victor wouldn’t listen; and disappearing into shadowed distances, returned +presently with a brimming goblet. +</p> + +<p> +“Drink this, dear. It will make you feel quite fit again.” +</p> + +<p> +Obediently, Sofia raised the goblet to her lips. +</p> + +<p> +“You have never tasted a wine like that,” Victor insisted, smiling down at her. +</p> + +<p> +It was true enough, what he claimed; though it had something of character of a +sound old Madeira, this wine had more, a surpassing richness, a fruitiness in +no way cloying, a peculiarly aromatic taste and fragrance, elusive and +provoking, with a hint of bitterness never to be analyzed by the most +experienced palate. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” Sofia asked after her first sip. +</p> + +<p> +“You like it, eh? An old wine of China, unknown to Western Europe.” Victor gave +it a musical name in what Sofia took to be Chinese. “Outside my cellars, I’ll +wager there’s not another bottle of it this side of Constantinople. Drink it +all. It will do you good.” +</p> + +<p> +He seated himself. “And now my reason for wishing to talk with you to-night.... +A note came by the last delivery from Lady Randolph West. You met her, I +understand, through Sybil Waring, a few days ago. She was apparently much taken +with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is very kind.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor had found a sheet of notepaper and, bending to the light, was searching +its scrawled lines with narrowed eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Too lovely,’ she calls you—and quite justly, my dear. Yes; here it is: ‘Too +lovely for words.’ And she wants me to bring my ‘charming daughter’ down to +Frampton Court for this week-end.” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia said nothing, but put her half-empty glass aside. The wine had done her +good, she thought. She felt better, stronger, mentally more alert, and at the +same time curiously soothed. +</p> + +<p> +Victor refolded the note and tapped the table with it, holding Sofia with +speculative eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“It should be amusing,” he said, thoughtfully, “a new experience for you. +Elaine—I mean Lady Randolph West, of course—is a charming hostess, and never +fails to fill Frampton Court with delightful people.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure I should love it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure you would. And yet ... I may have been a little premature, since I +have already written accepting the invitation.” He indicated an addressed +envelope face up on the table. “But on second thoughts, it seemed perhaps wiser +to consult you first.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if it is your wish, I must go,” Sofia replied, mindful of Karslake’s +injunction not to oppose Victor. “What have I to say—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Everything about whether we accept or do not—or if not everything, at least +the final word. I must abide by your decision.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I shall be only too glad—” +</p> + +<p> +“Think a moment. It might be wiser not to go. You alone can say.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t quite understand ...” +</p> + +<p> +Victor sighed. “It is a painful subject,” he said, slowly—“one I hesitate to +reopen. But we can never profit by closing our minds to facts; I mean, to the +reality of the danger which is always with us, since it is within us.” +</p> + +<p> +“What danger?” Sofia enquired, sullenly, knowing the answer too well before it +was spoken. +</p> + +<p> +“The danger of sudden temptation to indulge the lawless appetites with which +heredity has endued us—me from the nameless forebears whom I never knew, you +directly from parents both of whom boasted criminal records.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe it!” Sofia declared, passionately—“I can’t believe it, I +won’t! Even if you are—” +</p> + +<p> +She was going on to say “if you are my father,” but caught herself in time. Had +not Karslake warned her in his note: “<i>Your only safety now lies in his +continuing to believe that you are unsuspicious.</i>” She continued in a +tempest of expostulation whose fury covered her break: +</p> + +<p> +“Even if you were once a thief and my mother—my mother!—everything vile, as you +persist in trying to make me believe—God knows why!—it is possible I may still +have failed to inherit your criminal tendencies; and not only possible, but +true, if I know myself at all. For I have never felt the temptation to steal +that you insist I must have inherited from you—nor any other inclination toward +things as mean, contemptible, and dishonourable as they are dishonest!” +</p> + +<p> +With only his slow, forbearing smile by way of comment, Victor heard her out, +but when she paused to reassort her thoughts, lifted a temporizing hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet, perhaps,” he said, gently. “There is always the first time with every +rebel against man-made laws. But, where the predisposition so indubitably +exists, it is inevitable, soon or late it must come to you, my dear—the time +when the will is too weak, temptation too strong. Against it we must be forever +on our guard.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not afraid,” Sofia contended. +</p> + +<p> +“Naturally; you will not be before the hour of ordeal which shall prove your +strength or your weakness, your confidence in yourself, or my loving fears for +you.” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia gave a gesture of weariness and confusion. What did it matter? If he +would have it so, let him: it couldn’t affect the issue in any way, what he +believed, or for his own purposes pretended to believe. Had not Karslake +promised ... +</p> + +<p> +She tried to recall precisely what it was that Karslake had promised, but found +her memory of a sudden singularly sluggish. In fact, her mind seemed to have +lost its marvellous clarity of those first moments after tasting the wine of +China. Small wonder, when one remembered the emotional strain she had +experienced since early evening! +</p> + +<p> +“Still,” she argued, stubbornly, “I don’t see what all this has to do with Lady +Randolph West’s invitation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only that to accept means to expose you to the greatest temptation one can +well imagine.” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia stared blankly. Her wits were working even more slowly and heavily than +before. And the glare in her eyes from the luminous sphere of crystal was +irritating. Almost without thinking, she lifted her glass again; when she put +it down it was empty. +</p> + +<p> +“The jewels of Lady Randolph West,” Victor went on to explain without her +prompting, “are considered the most wonderful in England; always excepting, of +course, the Crown jewels.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is that to me?” +</p> + +<p> +Resentment sounded in her tone. She was thinking more readily once more, thanks +to that second magical draught, but was nevertheless conscious of a general +failing of powers drained by her great fatigue. She wished devoutly that Victor +would have done and let her go.... +</p> + +<p> +“Elaine is very careless, leaves her jewels scattered about, hardly troubles to +put them away securely at night. If you should be tempted to appropriate +anything, she might not discover her loss for days; and then, again, she might. +And if you were caught—consider what shame and disgrace!” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I see,” the girl said, slowly, after some difficult thinking. “You +don’t want me to go.” +</p> + +<p> +“To the contrary, I do—but I want more than anything else in the world that my +daughter should be sure of herself and fall into no irreparable error.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I am sure of myself—I have told you that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then let us fret no more about it, but accept, and go prepared to enjoy +ourselves. I will send the letter.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor rang, and Shaik Tsin presented himself so quickly that Sofia wondered +dully where he could have been waiting. In the room with them, perhaps? It +wasn’t impossible. The Chinaman’s thick soles of felt enabled him to move about +without making the least noise. +</p> + +<p> +“Have this posted immediately.” +</p> + +<p> +Shaik Tsin bowed deeply, and backed away with the letter. Unless she turned to +watch him, Sofia could not say whether he left the room or not. +</p> + +<p> +She offered to rise. +</p> + +<p> +“If that is all ...” +</p> + +<p> +“Not quite. There are certain details to be arranged; and I may not see you +again before we leave to-morrow afternoon. We will motor down to Frampton +Court—it’s not far, little more than an hour by train—starting about half after +four, if you can be ready.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sybil Waring will tell you what to take, and Chou Nu will see to your packing. +Both, by the way, will accompany us. Sybil’s maid will follow by train. For +myself, I am taking Nogam—having found that English servants do not take kindly +to my Chinese valet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes ...” Sofia uttered, listlessly, wondering why this information should be +considered of interest to her. +</p> + +<p> +“And one thing more: I am forgiven? You are not cross with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should I be?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because of what happened this afternoon—when I scolded Karslake for making +love to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Sofia with a good show of indifference—she was so tired—“that!” +</p> + +<p> +“Believe me, little Sofia”—Victor put out a hand to hers, and held her eyes +with a compelling gaze—“boy-and-girl romance is all very well, but there is a +greater destiny reserved for you than marriage to a hired secretary, however +amiable, personable, and well-meaning. You must prepare yourself to move in a +world beyond and above the common hearthstone of bourgeois domesticity.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl shook a bewildered head. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a riddle?” she asked, wearily. +</p> + +<p> +“A riddle?” Victor echoed. “Why, one may safely term it that. Is not the Future +always a riddle? Nature knows the Future as the Past, but Nature holds it +secret, lest man go mad with too much knowledge. Only to the few, the favoured, +does she grant rare glimpses through media which she has provided for the use +of the initiate—such as this crystal here, in which I was studying your future, +when you came in, the high future I plan for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“And—you won’t tell me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I may not. It is forbidden. Nature deals unkindly with those who violate her +confidence. But—who knows?” +</p> + +<p> +He checked himself as if struck by a new turn of thought, and studied the +girl’s face intently. +</p> + +<p> +“Who knows?” he repeated, as if to himself. +</p> + +<p> +“What—?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is quite within the bounds of possibility,” Victor mused, “that you should +have inherited some of the psychic power which was born in me. Perhaps—who +knows?—to you as well Nature will be supple and disclose her secrets.... If you +care to seek her favour?” +</p> + +<p> +“But—how?” +</p> + +<p> +“By consulting the crystal.” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia’s eyes sought that coldly burning stone. Her head was so heavy, she +hesitated, oppressed by misgivings without shape that she could name, phases of +formless timidity having rise in some source which she was too tired to search +out. +</p> + +<p> +But she lingered and continued to stare at the crystal. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” Victor’s accents were gently persuasive. “At worst, you can only +fail. And if you do not fail, it will make me happy to think that you have been +given a little insight into my dreams for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” Sofia assented in a whisper—“why not?” +</p> + +<p> +Victor drew her forward by the hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Look,” he said “look deep! Divest your mind as nearly as you can of all +thought—let the crystal give up its message to a mind devoid of prejudice, its +receptiveness unimpaired. Think of nothing, if you can manage it—simply look +and see.” +</p> + +<p> +Automatically to a degree the girl obeyed, already in a phase of crepuscular +hypnosis, her surface senses dulled by the potent “wine of China.” And watching +her closely, Victor permitted himself a smile of satisfaction as he noted the +rapidity with which she yielded to the hypnogenic spell of the translucent +quartz; how her breathing quickened, then took on a measured tempo like that of +a sleeper; how a faint flush warmed the unnatural pallor of her cheeks, how her +dilate eyes grew fixed in an unwinking stare, and slightly glassed.... +</p> + +<p> +Under her regard the goblin sphere took on with bewildering rapidity changing +guises. Its rotundity was first lost, it assumed the semblance of a featureless +disk of pallid light, which swiftly widened till it obscured all else, then +seemed to advance upon and envelope her bodily, so that she became spiritually +a part of it, an atom of identity engulfed in a limpid world of glareless +light, light that had had no rays and issued from no source but was +circumambient and universal. Then in its remote heart a weird glow of rose +began to burn and grow, pulsing through all the colours of the spectrum and +beyond. Toward this she felt herself being drawn swiftly, attracted by an +irresistible magnetism, riding the wings of a great wind, whose voice boomed +without ceasing, like a heavy surf thunderously reiterating one syllable, +“<i>Sleep</i>!” ... And in this flight through illimitable space toward a goal +unattainable, consciousness grew faint and flickered out like a candle in the +wind. +</p> + +<p> +Behind her chair the placid yellow face of Shaik Tsin appeared, as if +materialized bodily out of the shadows. With folded arms he waited, +dispassionately observant. Presently Prince Victor nodded to him over the head +of the girl. Immediately the Chinaman moved round her chair and, employing both +hands, in one instant switched off the hooded bulb and reilluminated the lamp +of brass. +</p> + +<p> +As the light died out in the crystal Sofia sighed heavily, and relaxed. Leaden +eyelids closed down over her staring eyes, she sank back into the chair, +simultaneously into plumbless depths.... +</p> + +<p> +Victor made a sound of gratification. Shaik Tsin enquired briefly: +</p> + +<p> +“It is accomplished, then?” +</p> + +<p> +Victor nodded. “She yielded more quickly than I had hoped—worn out emotionally, +of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“She sleeps—” +</p> + +<p> +“In hypnosis, in absolute suspense of every faculty and function save those +concerned solely with the maintenance of existence—in a state, that is, +comparable only to the pre-natal life of a child.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is most interesting,” Shaik Tsin admitted. “But what is the use? That is +what interests me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait and see.” +</p> + +<p> +Bending close to the girl, Victor called in a strong voice of command: “Sofia! +Sofia! It is I, Prince Victor, your father. Waken and attend!” +</p> + +<p> +A slight spasm shook the slender body, the lips parted, respiration became +hurried and broken, the long lashes fluttered on the cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you hear me? I, Victor, command you: Waken and attend!” +</p> + +<p> +Another struggle, more brief and sharp, ended with the opening of the eyes, +which sought and remained steadfast to Victor’s, yet without intelligence or +animation. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you hear me, Sofia?” +</p> + +<p> +A voice like a sigh rustled on the parted lips, whose stir was imperceptible: +</p> + +<p> +“I hear you....” +</p> + +<p> +“Then heed what I say. My will is your law. You know that?” +</p> + +<p> +Faintly the voice breathed: “Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me what it is you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your will is my law.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will not resist my will, you cannot. Tell me that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will not resist your will, I cannot.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good. I, Prince Victor Vassilyevski, am your father. You believe that. Do you +understand? Tell me what you believe.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe that you, Prince Victor Vassilyevski, are my father.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will not forget these things?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not forget.” +</p> + +<p> +“In all things.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will obey you in all things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Without question or faltering.” +</p> + +<p> +“Without question or faltering.” +</p> + +<p> +“You recall what arrangements we made this afternoon for to-morrow?” +</p> + +<p> +“I remember.” +</p> + +<p> +“Listen carefully. Memorize my wishes with respect to our visit to Frampton +Court, remembering that I communicate my will, which you must obey.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl remained silent, waiting. Victor took a moment to marshall his +thoughts, then proceeded: +</p> + +<p> +“After arriving at Frampton Court, you will make occasion quietly to find out +how your room is situated in relation to the boudoir of Lady Randolph West. You +will do this without knowing why you do it. You understand?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“At night, on going to bed, you will go promptly to sleep. After an hour you +will wake up, put on a dressing gown and slippers, and proceed to Lady Randolph +West’s boudoir, taking care not to be observed. Is that clear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Once in the boudoir, you will proceed to the safe where Lady Randolph West +keeps her jewels. It will not be locked, she is careless in such matters. +Having found the safe, you will open it, take whatever jewels you find therein, +and return to your room. All this you will perform with utmost circumspection, +taking all pains not to make any noise. In your room you will hide the jewels +in your dressing-case. Then you will go back to bed and to sleep. Have you +committed all this to memory?” +</p> + +<p> +The sleeping girl answered in the affirmative. Then, to the injunction, “Tell +me what you are to do to-morrow night?” she repeated in a toneless voice every +item of the programme outlined for her, while Victor nodded in undisguised +delight, and Shaik Tsin grinned blandly over her head. +</p> + +<p> +“On waking up to-morrow morning, you will remember nothing of my instructions, +but you will carry them precisely as memorized in your subconciousness, and you +will carry them out without thought of opposition to my will, understanding +that you are without will of your own in this matter. Finally, on waking up on +the morning following your abstraction of the jewels, you will remember nothing +of the affair until reminded of it by me, and then only this much: That in +obedience to irresistible impulse, you stole the jewels. Is that clear? Repeat +...” +</p> + +<p> +Without a mistake the woman in hypnosis iterated the commands imposed upon her. +</p> + +<p> +The impish grin of the latent savage broke through the habitual austerity of +Victor’s countenance. +</p> + +<p> +“There is no more,” he said, “but this: Sleep now, and do not waken before noon +to-morrow—<i>sleep</i>!” +</p> + +<p> +With a quavering sigh, the girl reclosed her eyes and instantly relapsed into +the sleep of trance which was insensibly in the course of the night to merge +into natural slumber. +</p> + +<p> +Victor ironed out his grimace, and signed to Shaik Tsin. +</p> + +<p> +“Bear her back to her room. Instruct Chou Nu to put her to bed and not to wake +her up before noon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hearing is obedience.” +</p> + +<p> +The Chinaman bent over, gathered the inert body into his arms, and without +perceptible effort stood erect. But in the act of turning away he paused and, +continuing to hold the girl as easily as if she weighed no more than a child, +interrogated the man he served. +</p> + +<p> +“You believe she will do all you have ordered?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know she will.” +</p> + +<p> +“Without error?” +</p> + +<p> +“Barring accidents, without flaw from beginning to end.” +</p> + +<p> +“And in event of accidents—discovery—?” +</p> + +<p> +“So much the better.” +</p> + +<p> +“That would please you, to have her caught?” +</p> + +<p> +“Excellently.” +</p> + +<p> +Shaik Tsin nodded in grave yet humorous comprehension. “Now I begin to +understand. If she is caught, that gives you a power over her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely.” +</p> + +<p> +“And if she is not, when the robbery becomes known, your power over her will be +still more strong?” +</p> + +<p> +“And over yet another stronger still.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Lone Wolf?” +</p> + +<p> +Victor inclined his head. “To what lengths will he not go to cover up his +daughter’s shame, if it threatens to become public that she is a thief? I do +nothing without purpose, Shaik Tsin.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is to say, you have to-night taken out insurance against punishment if +this other business fails.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it fail, others may suffer, but if necessary the Lone Wolf himself will +arrange my escape from England.” +</p> + +<p> +“To serve so wise a man is an honour my unworthiness can never hope to merit.” +</p> + +<p> +“As to that, Shaik Tsin,” Victor said without a smile, “our minds are one. Go +now. Good-night.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch17"></a>XVII<br/> +THE RAISED CHEQUE</h2> + +<p> +While the Princess Sofia, Sybil Waring, and Prince Victor motored down from +London in the lilac dusk of that dim September day, and the maid Chou Nu +accompanied them, riding in front beside a newly engaged Chinese chauffeur, the +man Nogam made the journey to Frampton Court by train, and alone. +</p> + +<p> +Alone, at least, in the finer shading of that adjective; aside from the usual +assortment of self-contained fellow-travellers in the third-class carriage, he +had no company other than his thoughts; a gray and meagre crew, if that +pathetic face of middle-age furnished trustworthy reflection of his mind.... So +absolute was the submergence of that ardent adventurer who, overnight, had lain +awake for hours, a dictograph receiver glued to his ear, eavesdropping upon the +traffic of those malevolent intelligences assembled in Prince Victor’s study, +and alternately chuckling and cursing beneath his breath, aflame with +indignation and chilled by inklings of atrocities unspeakable abrew! +</p> + +<p> +If he surmised that he travelled alone in appearance only, it was with no +evident concern or astonishment. If his mind was uneasy, oppressed by a +nightmarish burden of half-knowledge, guesses, and premonition, it was not +apparent to the general observer. His most eloquent gesture was when, from time +to time, he tamped an ancient wooden pipe with a fingertip that wasn’t as +calloused as he could have wished, philosophically sucked in strangling fumes +of rankest shag and, ignoring his company in the carriage as became a +British-made manservant, returned jaded, gentle eyes to those darkling vistas +of autumnal landscape that were forever radiating away from the window like +spokes of a gigantic wheel. +</p> + +<p> +Alighting in the first dark of evening at the station for Frampton Court, he +suffered himself to be herded, with a half-score more, into the omnibus +provided for other bodyservants to arriving guests. Even to these compeers he +found little to say: a loud lot, imbued with the rowdy spirit of the new day; +whereas Nogam was hopelessly of the old school—in the new word, he dated—though +his form was admittedly unimpeachable. And if because of this he was made fun +of more or less openly, to an extent that added shades of resignation to his +countenance, secretly he commanded considerable respect. +</p> + +<p> +Neither was Victor, with all the ill-will in the world, able to find fault with +Nogam’s services in his new office. The most finished of self-effacing valets, +he knew just what to do and did it without being told; and when he spoke it was +only because he had been spoken to or commissioned to convey a message. +</p> + +<p> +Victor watched him from every angle, overt and covert, but had his trouble for +his pains; Nogam, observed in a mirror, when Victor’s back was turned, went +about his business with no more betrayal of personal feeling or independent +mentality than when waiting upon his master face to face. Victor could have +kicked him for sheer resentment of his pattern virtues. When all was said and +done, it <i>was</i> damned irritating. . . . +</p> + +<p> +In the servants’ hall he religiously kept his ears open and his mouth shut. +And, listening, he learned. For some things said in his hearing were distinctly +not pretty, and made one wonder if Prince Victor’s deep-rooted confidence in an +England mortally cankered with social discontent were not grounded in a +surprising familiarity with backstairs morale. Other observations, again, were +merely ribald, some were humorous, while all were enlightening. +</p> + +<p> +Not a few of the company had seen domestic service in great houses before the +war; they knew what was what and—more to the point—what wasn’t. One gathered +that this pretentious country home fell within the latter classification. Here, +it was stated, anybody could buy his way into favour: the more bounding the +bounder the brighter his chances of success at Frampton Court. +</p> + +<p> +War, the ironic, had caused this noble property to pass into the keeping of a +distant and degenerate branch of an old and honoured house; and its present +lord and lady, having failed to win the social welcome they had counted on too +confidently, were doing their silly, shabby best to squander a princely fortune +and dedicate a great name to lasting disrepute by fraternizing with a motley +riffraff of profiteering nouveaux riches. Other than bad manners and worse +morals, the one genuine thing in the whole establishment was, it seemed, the +historic collection of family jewels. +</p> + +<p> +This information explained away much of Nogam’s perplexity on one score. +</p> + +<p> +After dinner, when the house party began to settle into its stride, he made +occasion, aping the other servants, to peep in at a door of the great ballroom, +where an impromptu dance had been organized; and was rewarded by sight of the +Princess Sofia circling the floor in the arms of a boldly good-looking young +man whose taste was as poor in flirtation as in self-adornment. +</p> + +<p> +To Nogam the young girl looked wan and wistful—as if she were missing somebody. +And he wondered if Mr. Karslake knew what a lucky young devil he was. +</p> + +<p> +He wondered still more about the present whereabouts and welfare of Mr. +Karslake. Prince Victor must have contrived some devious errand to get the +young man out and away early that day; for by the time Nogam had looked for him +in the morning, Karslake was nowhere to be found; neither had he returned when +the party left for Frampton Court—a circumstance which Nogam regretted most +bitterly. Watched as he was, it hadn’t been possible, that is to say it would +have been fatally ill-advised, to have left any sort of message or to have +attempted communication through secret channels; and all the while, hours heavy +with, it might be, the destiny of England were wasting swiftly into history. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps it was nervousness bred of this anxiety that, in the end, made Nogam’s +hand slip. Or perhaps the impatient nature of the man who lay so closely secret +within the husk of Nogam decided him upon a desperate gamble. In either event, +this befell: +</p> + +<p> +About the middle of the evening Prince Victor happened to look up from an +interesting tête-à-tête in the brilliant drawing-room with his +handsome and liberal-minded hostess opportunely to espy Nogam staring at him +from the remote recesses of the entrance hall. +</p> + +<p> +It was the merest of glimpses; for Victor’s casual glance had barely identified +the servant when Nogam started guiltily and in a twinkling disappeared; but a +glimpse was enough for eyes and a mind alike quick with distrust, enough to +assure Victor that Nogam’s face had worn an indescribably furtive and hangdog +expression, most unlike its ordinary look of amiable stupidity, and widely +incongruous with the veniality of his fault. +</p> + +<p> +What the deuce, then, was the fellow up to, that he should glower and dodge +like a sleuth in a play? +</p> + +<p> +Promptly Victor became deaf, blind, and numb to the fascinations so generously +paraded by Lady Randolph West; and presently excusing himself, left her and +sought his rooms. +</p> + +<p> +As he went up the stairs, he saw the door to his bedchamber cautiously opened +far enough to permit one eye to spy out and discover his approach. Immediately +then the door swung wide, and Nogam ambled into view with an envelope on a +salver and an air of childlike innocence, an assumption of ease so transparent, +indeed, that only the vision of a child could have been cheated by it. +</p> + +<p> +“Just coming to look for you, sir,” he announced, glibly. “Telegram, sir—just +harrived.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks,” said Victor, shortly, taking the envelope and marching on into his +rooms. +</p> + +<p> +His manner toward his servants was always abrupt. No need to be alarmed by this +manifestation of it. Blinking mildly, Nogam trotted at his heels. +</p> + +<p> +Seating himself at an escritoire, Victor opened the envelope with a display of +languid interest. Curiosity about the contents of a telegram is ordinarily +acute. Victor, on the contrary, sat for a long moment staring thoughtfully at +nothing and absently turning the envelope over and over in his hands; while +Nogam with specious nonchalance found something unimportant to do in another +quarter of the room. +</p> + +<p> +The envelope was damp and warm to the touch. True: nightfall had brought with +it a thick drizzle, and Frampton Court was more than a mile from the +post-office. On the other hand, the night was as cold as charity; and an +envelope recently steamed open might be expected to hold the heat for a few +minutes. +</p> + +<p> +Victor thumbed the flap. It lifted readily, without tearing, its gum was wet +and more abundant than usual—in fact, it felt confoundedly like library paste, +a pot of which, in an ornamental holder, was among the fittings of the +escritoire. On the desk pad of blotting paper, too, Victor detected marks of +fresh paste defining the contour of the flap. +</p> + +<p> +With a countenance whose inscrutability alone was a threat, Victor took out and +conned the telegraph form. +</p> + +<p> +“CONSULTATION SET FOR MIDNIGHT TO-NIGHT TAKING YOUR ADVICE SHALL NOT ATTEND BUT +LEAVE FOR BRIGHTON ELEVEN P.M.” +</p> + +<p> +A message ostensibly so open and aboveboard that it hadn’t been thought worth +while to hide its wording under the cloak of a code. +</p> + +<p> +There was no signature—unless one were clever or wise enough to transpose the +two final letters and take them in relation to the word immediately preceding. +“Eleven, M.P.”, however, could mean nothing to anybody but Victor—except a body +clever enough to hide a dictograph detector in a turnip. So Victor saw no +reason to believe that Nogam, although undoubtedly guilty of the sin of prying, +had been able to read the meaning below the surface of this communication. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, undue inquisitiveness on the part of a servant in the pay of +Victor Vassilyevski could have but one reward. +</p> + +<p> +“Nogam!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fetch me an A-B-C.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +With Nogam out of the way, Victor enclosed the telegram in a new envelope and +addressed it simply to <i>“Mr. Sturm—by hand.”</i> Then he took a sheet of the +stamped notepaper of Frampton Court, tore it roughly, at the fold, and on the +unstamped half inscribed several characters in Chinese, using a pencil with a +fat, soft lead for this purpose. This message sealed into a second envelope +without superscription, he lighted a cigarette and sat smiling with +anticipative relish through its smoke, a smile swiftly abolished as the door +re-opened; though Nogam found him in what seemed to be a mood of rare sweet +temper. +</p> + +<p> +Taking the railway guide, Victor ruffled its pages, and after brief study of +the proper table remarked: +</p> + +<p> +“Afraid I must ask you to run up to town for me to-night, Nogam. If you don’t +mind ...” +</p> + +<p> +“Only too glad to oblige, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“I find I have left important papers behind. Give this to Shaik Tsin”—he handed +over the blank envelope—“and he will find them for you. You can catch the +ten-fifteen up, and return by the twelve-three from Charing Cross.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—and see that Mr. Sturm gets this, too, will you? If he isn’t in, give it to +Shaik Tsin to hand to him. Say it’s urgent.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite so, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is all. But don’t fail to catch the twelve-three back. I must have the +papers to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shan’t fail you, sir—D.V.” +</p> + +<p> +“Deo volente? You are a religious man, Nogam?” +</p> + +<p> +“I ’umbly ’ope so, sir, and do my best to be, accordin’ to my lights.” +</p> + +<p> +“Glad to hear it. Now cut along, or you’ll miss the up train.” +</p> + +<p> +Long after Nogam had left the memory of their talk continued to afford Victor +an infinite amount of private entertainment. +</p> + +<p> +“A religious man!” he would jeer to himself. “Then—may your God help you, +Nogam!” +</p> + +<p> +Some thought of the same sort may well have troubled Nogam’s mind as he sat in +an otherwise untenanted third-class compartment blinking owlishly over the +example of Victor’s command of the intricacies of Chinese writing. +</p> + +<p> +He was happily free of surveillance for the first time in his waking hours of +many days. The Chinese chauffeur had driven him to the station, and had +furthermore lingered to see that Nogam did not fail to board it. And Nogam felt +reasonably safe in assuming that he would not approach the house near Queen +Anne’s Gate without seeing (for the mere trouble of looking) a second and an +entirely gratuitous shadow attach itself to him with the intention of sticking +as tenaciously as that which God had given him. But the next hour was all his +own. +</p> + +<p> +His study of the Chinese phonograms at length resulted in the transformation of +his careworn face by a slowly dawning smile, the gleeful smile of a +mischief-loving child. And when he had worked for a while on the message, +touching up the skillfully drawn characters with a pencil the mate to that +which Victor had used, he sat back and laughed aloud over the result of his +labours, with some appreciation of the glow that warms the cockles of the +artist’s heart when his deft pen has raised a cheque from tens to thousands, +and he reviews a good job well done. +</p> + +<p> +The torn envelope which had held the message to Shaik Tsin lay at his feet. +Nogam had not bothered to worry it open so carefully that it might be resealed +without inviting comment; though that need not have been a difficult matter, +thanks to the dampness of the night air. +</p> + +<p> +Of the envelope addressed to Sturm, however, he was more considerate; to +violate its integrity and seal it up again was an undertaking that required the +nicest handling. Nor was it accomplished much before the train drew into +Charing Cross. +</p> + +<p> +Outside the station taxis were few and drivers arrogant; and all the ’buses +were packed to the guards with law-abiding Londoners homeward bound from +theatres and halls. So Nogam dived into the Underground, to come to the surface +again at St. James’s Park station, whence he trotted all the way to Queen +Anne’s Gate, arriving at his destination in a phase of semi-prostration which a +person of advancing years and doddering habits might have anticipated. +</p> + +<p> +Such fidelity in characterization deserved good reward, and had in it a rare +stroke of fortune; for as he drew up to it, the door opened, and Sturm came +out, saw Nogam, and stopped short. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank ’Eaven, sir, I got ’ere in time,” the butler panted. “If I’d missed you, +Prince Victor wouldn’t ’ave been in ’arf a wax. ’E told me I must find you +to-night if I ’ad to turn all Lunnon inside out.” +</p> + +<p> +Pressing the message into Sturm’s hand, he rested wearily against the casing of +the door, his body shaken by laboured breathing, and—while Sturm, with an +exclamation of excitement, ripped open the envelope—surveyed the dark and +rain-wet street out of the corners of his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Across the way a slinking shadow left the sidewalk and blended +indistinguishably with the crowded shadows of an areaway. +</p> + +<p> +In a voice more than commonly rich with accent, Sturm demanded sharply: +</p> + +<p> +“What is this? I do not understand!” +</p> + +<p> +He shook in Nogam’s face the half-sheet of notepaper on which the Chinese +phonograms were drawn. +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry, sir, but I ’aven’t any hidea. Prince Victor didn’t tell me anything +except there would be no answer, and I was to ’urry right back to Frampton +Court.” Nogam peered myopically at the paper. “It might be ’Ebrew, sir,” he +hazarded, helpfully—“by the looks of it, I mean. I suppose some private +message, ’e thought you’d understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hebrew, you fool! Damn your impudence! Do you take me for a Jew?” +</p> + +<p> +“Beg pardon, sir—no ’arm meant.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” Sturm declared, “it’s Chinese.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then likely Prince Victor meant you to ask Shaik Tsin to translate it for you, +sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Probably,” Sturm muttered. “I’ll see.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir. Good-night, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Without acknowledging this civility, Sturm turned back into the house and +slammed the door. Nogam lingered another moment, then shuffled wearily down the +steps and toward the nearest corner. +</p> + +<p> +Across the street the voluntary shadow detached itself from cover in the +areaway, and skulked after him. He paid no heed. But when the shadow rounded +the corner, it saw only a dark and empty street, and pulled up with a grunt of +doubt. Simultaneously something not unlike a thunderbolt for force and fury was +launched, from the dark shelter of a doorway near by, at its devoted head. And +as if by magic the shadow took on form and substance to receive the onslaught. +A fist, that carried twelve stone of bone and sinew jubilant with realization +of the hour for action so long deferred, found shrewdly the heel of a jawbone, +just beneath the ear. Its victim dropped without a cry, but the impact of the +blow was loud in the nocturnal stillness of that bystreet, and was echoed in +magnified volume by the crack of a skull in collision with a convenient +lamppost. +</p> + +<p> +Followed a swift patter of fugitive feet. +</p> + +<p> +Tempered by veils of mist, the lamplight fell upon a face upturned from a +murmurous gutter, a yellow face, wide and flat, with lips grinning back from +locked teeth and eyes frozen in a staring question to which no living man has +ever known the answer. +</p> + +<p> +The pattering footsteps grew faint in distance and died away, the street was +still once more, as still as Death.... +</p> + +<p> +In the study of Prince Victor Vassilyevski the man Sturm put an impatient +question: +</p> + +<p> +“Well? What you make of it—hein?” +</p> + +<p> +Shaik Tsin looked up from a paper which he had been silently examining by the +light of the brazen lamp. +</p> + +<p> +“Number One says,” he reported, smiling sweetly, while his yellow forefinger +moved from symbol to symbol of the picturesque writing: <i>‘“The blow falls +to-night. Proceed at once to the gas works and do that which you know is to be +done.’”</i> +</p> + +<p> +“At last!” The voice of the Prussian was full and vibrant with exultancy. He +threw back his head with a loud laugh, and his arm described a wild, dramatic +gesture. +</p> + +<p> +“At last—der Tag! To-night the Fatherland shall be avenged!” +</p> + +<p> +Shaik Tsin beamed with friendliest sympathy Sturm turned to go, took three +hurried steps toward the door, and felt himself jerked back by a silken cord +which, descending from nowhere, looped his lean neck between chin and Adam’s +apple. His cry of protest was the last articulate sound he uttered. And the +last sounds he heard, as he lay with face hideously congested and empurpled, +eyeballs starting from their deep sockets, and swollen tongue protruding, were +words spoken by Shaik Tsin as that one knelt over him, one hand holding fast +the ends of the bowstring that had cut off forever the blessed breath of life, +the other flourishing a half-sheet of notepaper. +</p> + +<p> +“Fool! Look, fool, and read what vengeance visits a fool who is fool enough to +play the spy!” +</p> + +<p> +He brandished the papers before those glazing eyeballs. +</p> + +<p> +In an eldritch cackle he translated: +</p> + +<p> +<i>“‘He who bears this message is a Prussian dog, police trained, a spy. Let +his death be a dog’s, cruel and swift.—Number One.’”</i> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch18"></a>XVIII<br/> +ORDEAL</h2> + +<p> +Reviewing the day, as she undressed and prepared for bed, Sofia told herself +she had never yet lived through one so wearing, and thought the history of its +irksome hours all too legible in the lack-lustre face that looked back from the +mirror when Chou Nu uncoifed her hair and brushed its burnished tresses. +</p> + +<p> +Though she had slept late, in fact till noon and something after, her sleep had +been queerly haunted and unhappy, she could not remember how or why, and she +had awakened already ennuyé, with a mind incoherently oppressed, without relish +for the promise of the day—in a mood altogether as drear as the daylight that +waited upon her unclosing eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Main strength of will had not availed to dispel these vapours, neither did +their melancholy yield to the distraction provided by first acquaintance with +ways of a world unique alike in Sofia’s esteem and her experience. +</p> + +<p> +She who had theretofore known only in day-dreams the life of light frivolity +and fashion which found feverish and trumpery reflection at Frampton Court, was +neither equipped nor disposed to be hypercritical in the first hours of her +début there; and at any other time, in any other temper, she knew, she must +have been swept off her feet by its exciting appeal to her innate love of +luxury and sensation. But the sad truth was, it all seemed to her unillusioned +vision an elaborate sham built up of tinsel, paste, and paint; and the warmth +of her welcome at the hands, indeed in the very arms, of Lady Randolph West, +and the success her youth and beauty scored for her—commanding in all envy, +admiration, cupidity, or jealousy, according to age, sex, and temporal state of +servitude—did nothing to mitigate the harshness of those first impressions. +</p> + +<p> +If anything her depression grew more perversely morbid the more she was catered +to, courted, flattered, and cajoled. Something had happened, she could never +guess what, perhaps some mysterious reaction effected through the chemistry of +last night’s slumber, to turn her vivid zest in life to ashes in her mouth, so +that nothing seemed to matter any more. +</p> + +<p> +Thoughts of Karslake as her lover, recollection of her first deep joy in his +avowal and her subsequent passion of shame and regret, re-perusal of his note, +that last night had seemed so sweet a thing, precious beyond compare—found her +indifferent to-day, and left her so. Try as she would, she failed to recapture +any sense of the reality of those first raptures. And yet, somehow, she didn’t +doubt he loved her or that, buried deep beneath this inexplicable apathy, love +for Karslake burned on in her heart; but she knew no sort of comfort in such +confidence, their love seemed as remote and immaterial an issue as the menu for +day after to-morrow’s dinner. Nothing mattered! +</p> + +<p> +She was able even to meet Prince Victor without her customary shiver of +aversion; and when she recalled the persistence and enthusiasm with which she +had reasoned herself into believing, last night, that he might be another than +her father, she came as near to mirth as she was to come that day; but it was +mirth bitter with self-derision. Of course he was her father, she had been a +ninny ever to dream contrariwise, or that it mattered. +</p> + +<p> +Nor had she met with more success in efforts to find a cause for this drab +humour; unless, indeed, it were simply the farthest swing of the pendulum from +yesterday’s emotional crises, a long swing out of sunlit spaces swept by the +brave winds of young romance into a gloomy zone of brooding torpor, whose calm +was false, surcharged with unseizable disquiet, its atmosphere electrical with +formless apprehensions, its sad twilight shot with lurid gleams no sooner +glimpsed than gone. +</p> + +<p> +In this state Sofia’s sensibilities were less benumbed than bound in a palsy of +suspense not wholly destitute of dread; beneath the lethargic shallows of +consciousness lay soundless deeps troubled by sinister premonitions.... +</p> + +<p> +Now, retracing stage by stage the record of the day, Sofia became aware that +its most poignant moment for her was actually the present, with its keen wonder +that she had contrived to survive such exquisite tedium. +</p> + +<p> +She perceived that she had moved throughout like an automaton swayed by a will +outside its own; functioning rather than living; performing appointed business, +executing prescribed gestures, uttering foreordained observations, and making +dictated responses, all without suggestion of spontaneity, and all without +meaning other than as means to bridge an empty space of waiting. +</p> + +<p> +Waiting for what? +</p> + +<p> +Sofia could not guess.... +</p> + +<p> +She went to bed presently, hoping only to find surcease of boredom; and her +head no sooner touched the pillow than oblivion closed down upon her faculties +like a dense, dark cloud. +</p> + +<p> +Discreet and well-instructed, Chou Nu turned the night-light down to a glimmer, +placed on and under a chair adjacent to the bed a robe of cashmere that +wouldn’t rustle, and slippers of fine felt with soles of soft leather, in which +footfalls must be inaudible—and glided gently from the room. +</p> + +<p> +For sixty minutes its deep hush was unbroken; the even respiration of the girl +made no sound, she rested without tossing, without moving a finger. +</p> + +<p> +Then, sleep having held her for precisely one hour by the clock, Sofia opened +her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and at once sat up on the side of the bed. +</p> + +<p> +The memory of that hour was not to leave the girl while life was in her; nor +was the question it raised ever to be answered in a fashion satisfactory to her +intelligence. When later she heard it stated with authority, by men reputed to +be versed in psychic knowledge, that a subject in hypnosis cannot be willed to +act contrary to the instincts of his or her better nature, she held her peace, +but wondered. Was Victor right, then, and the crime he had willed her to commit +in final analysis not repugnant to her instincts? Or was it some secret faculty +of the soul, telepathy or of its kin, that roused and sent her to keep her +rendezvous with destiny? +</p> + +<p> +A riddle never to be read: Sofia only knew that, finding herself awake, she got +up, donned négligée and slippers, and set her feet upon the way appointed +without its occurring to her that the way was strange, without stopping to +question why or whether. +</p> + +<p> +If independent volition, sensible or subliminal, were absent, it could hardly +have been apparent. Sofia herself was not aware of its suspense or +supersession. She knew quite well what she was doing, her every action was +direct and decided, the goal alone remained obscure. She only knew that +somewhere, somehow, something was going wrong without her, and her presence was +required to set it right. +</p> + +<p> +Letting herself out into the corridor, she drew the door to behind her, but +left it unlatched; with what object, she did not know. But the lateness of the +hour, the stillness of the sleeping household, made it seem quite in order that +she should pause to look cautiously this way and that and make sure that nobody +else was astir to spy upon her or challenge the purpose of this as yet aimless +nocturnal flitting. +</p> + +<p> +There was nobody that she could see. +</p> + +<p> +Down the corridor, then, never asking why that way, like a ghost in haste she +sped, but as she drew near to a certain door found her pace faltering. Sofia +knew that door; through it Lady Randolph West herself had introduced the girl +to her boudoir, not two hours since, when chance, or Fate, or the smooth +working out of malicious mortal machinations had moved the two women +simultaneously to seek their quarters for the night. And in the boudoir Sofia +had spent the quarter of an hour before going on to her own room and bed, +civilly attending to vapid chatter and admiring as in duty bound the admirable +jewels of the family. +</p> + +<p> +Now she saw the door a few inches ajar with, beyond it, a dim glow. The +circumstance seemed singular, because—now that she remembered—when Sofia had +expressed perfunctory curiosity concerning what precautions were taken to +safeguard the jewels, Lady Randolph West had airily informed her that she +considered insurance to their appraised value plus a stout lock on the boudoir +door better than any strong-box as yet devised by the ingenuity of man. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s the safe they’re kept in, of course,” the lady had declared—“but, my +dear, a cardboard box will do as well when any burglar who knows his business +makes up his mind to get at my trinkets. I never even trouble to lock the +thing. I’d rather lose the jewels—and collect the insurance money—than be +frightened out of my wits by hearing it blown open. No, thanks ever so: any +cracksman skillful enough to pick the lock on the door may bag his loot and go +in peace for all of me!” +</p> + +<p> +Impulse, at least she called it that, moved Sofia to approach and cautiously +open the door still wider. +</p> + +<p> +Upon the antique writing-desk that housed the safe burned a single lamp of low +candle-power. A door that led to the adjoining bedchamber was tightly shut. +Sofia’s mistrustful eyes reconnoitred every corner of the room, and reckoned it +empty. Again obedient to undisputed impulse, she stepped inside and shut the +door. The spring-latch of the American lock found its socket with a soft click. +Thereafter, silence, no sound in the boudoir, none from the room beyond. But to +Sofia the hurried beating of her heart reverberated on the stillness like the +rolling of a drum. +</p> + +<p> +Without clear appreciation of how she had got there, she found herself standing +over the writing-desk, and discovered what the indifferent light had till now +kept hidden, that a false panel in the front of the desk had been thrust back, +exposing the face of the safe, and that this last was not even closed. +</p> + +<p> +At the same time she grew conscious that her hands were shaking violently, that +her every limb, her whole body indeed, was agitated by desperate trembling. And +dully asked herself why this should be ... But didn’t hesitate. +</p> + +<p> +Her actions now more than ever resembled those of an unthinking puppet, +although she knew quite well what she was doing; and her gestures might have +been the fruit of long lessoning at the hands of some master of stage +melodrama, so true were they to theatrical convention. +</p> + +<p> +With furtive, frightened glances toward both doors, Sofia dropped to her knees +before the safe.... +</p> + +<p> +When she stood up again her hands were filled with jewellery, her two hands +held a treasure of incalculable price in precious stones. +</p> + +<p> +She paused for a little, staring at them with dilate eyes dark in a pale, rapt +face. Her lips were parted, but only her quickened breathing whispered past +them. She was trembling more painfully than ever. But she seemed unable to +think of anything but the jewels, her gaze was held in fascination by their +coruscant loveliness as revealed by the light of the little lamp. +</p> + +<p> +Hers for the taking! +</p> + +<p> +Then, without warning, a tremendous convulsion laid hold on her body and soul, +and she was racked and shaken by it, and at its crisis her outstretched hands +opened and showered the top of the desk with jewels, then flew to her head and +clutched her throbbing temples. +</p> + +<p> +She cried out in a low voice of suffering: <i>“No!”</i> +</p> + +<p> +And of a sudden she was reeling back from the desk, toward the corridor door, +repeating over and over on an ascending scale: <i>“No! no! no! no! no!”</i> +</p> + +<p> +Her quaking legs blundered against a chair, her knees gave, she tottered to +fall; strong arms caught her, held her safe, a voice she knew yet didn’t know +in its guarded key muttered in her ear: “Thank God!” +</p> + +<p> +She made no struggle, but her eyes of pain and terror sought the speaker’s +face, and saw that he was the man Nogam. In extremity of amazement she spoke +his name. He shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“No longer Nogam,” he said in the same low accents, and smiled—“but your +father, Michael Lanyard!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch19"></a>XIX<br/> +UNMASKING</h2> + +<p> +One more instant the girl rested passive in uncomprehending astonishment; then +abruptly she exerted herself to break free from the supporting embrace, but +found the effort wasted for lack of opposition, so that her own violence sent +her reeling away half a dozen paces, to bring up against the desk; while +Lanyard, making no move more than to drop his rejected arms, remained where she +had left him, and requited her indignant stare with a broken smile of +understanding, a smile at once tender, tolerant, and sympathetic, with a little +quirk of rueful humour for good measure. +</p> + +<p> +“My father!” Sofia repeated in a gasp of disdain—“<i>you!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +He gave a slight shrug. +</p> + +<p> +“Such, it appears, is your sad fortune.” +</p> + +<p> +“A servant!” +</p> + +<p> +“And not the proud prince you were promised? Rather a come down, one must +admit.” Lanyard laughed low, and moved nearer. “I’m sorry, I mean I might be +(for myself, too) if Nogam were less a fraud than that pretentious mountebank, +Prince Victor—or for the matter of that, if you were as poor of spirit as you +would seem on your own valuation, if you were not at heart your mother’s +daughter, and mine, my child by a woman whom I loved well, and who long ago +loved me!” +</p> + +<p> +He paused deliberately to let her grasp the full sense of his words, then +pursued: +</p> + +<p> +“It may help you get your bearings to know that I am truly the Michael Lanyard +to whom Messieurs Secretan & Sypher addressed their advertisement—you +remember—as this should prove.” +</p> + +<p> +He offered a slip of paper, and after another moment of dumb staring, the girl +took it and read aloud the message which Victor had dictated following Sofia’s +flight to him from the Café des Exiles. +</p> + +<p> +<i>“‘To Michael Lanyard, Intelligence Division, the War Office, +Whitehall—’”</i> +</p> + +<p> +“That is to say,” Lanyard interpreted, “of the British Secret Service.” +</p> + +<p> +“You!” +</p> + +<p> +He bowed in light irony. “One regrets one is at present unable to offer better +social standing. To-morrow, it may be ... But who knows?” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia shook her head impatiently, and in a murmur of deepening amazement +resumed her reading of the note: +</p> + +<p> +<i>“‘Your daughter Sofia is now with me.. Your own intelligence must tell you +nothing could be more fatal than an attempt to communicate with her’”</i> +</p> + +<p> +To the interrogation eloquent in her eyes Lanyard replied: +</p> + +<p> +“Dictated by Victor to Karslake, who passed it on to me, the night he brought +you to the house from the Café des Exiles.” +</p> + +<p> +“You knew—you, who claim to be my father—yet permitted him—?” +</p> + +<p> +“You were in the house before I knew I had a daughter; Karslake had no chance +to consult me before fetching you. Furthermore, if he had hesitated to carry +out Victor’s orders just then, not only would he have nullified all our +preparations to secure evidence enough to convict the man, or at least run him +out of England—” +</p> + +<p> +“Prince Victor? What was he doing, that you should—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dabbling in all manner of infamy, from financing a thieves’ fence to +organizing an association of common criminals to bring it business; from +maintaining a corps of agitators to foment social discontent to fostering this +last, most imbecile scheme of all, which comes to naught to-night, an attempt +to overthrow the British Empire and set up in its stead a Soviet England, with +Victor Vassilyevski in the dual rôle of Trotsky and Lenine!” +</p> + +<p> +The girl made a sign of bewilderment and incredulity. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you telling me? Are you mad?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—but Victor is, mad with lust for power, insane with illusions of personal +aggrandizement. You don’t believe? Listen to me, then, appreciate to what +demoniac lengths he was prepared to go to flatter his insane ambitions:” +</p> + +<p> +“Sturm has invented a new poison gas, odourless, colourless, the most deadly +known, and easily manufactured in vast quantities by adding simple ingredients +to ordinary illuminating gas. Fanatic Bolshevist that he was, Sturm offered his +formula to Victor, to be used to clear the way for social revolution; and +Victor jumped at the offer—has spent vast sums preparing to employ it. His +money paid for the recent strike at the Westminster works of the Gas Light and +Coke Company, by means of which Victor was able to smuggle a round number of +his creatures into its service. His money has corrupted servants employed in +Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament, in the homes of the nobility, even in +Buckingham Palace itself, men ready at a given signal secretly to turn on gas +jets in remote corners and flood the buildings with the very breath of Death +itself. And that signal was to have been given to-night. Well, it will not be.” +</p> + +<p> +“But could any scheme be more grotesquely diabolical? Do you ask more proof of +the man’s madness? Do you require more excuse for my permitting you to be +deceived by Victor for a few weeks, rather than wreck our plans to frustrate +his, when all the while Karslake and I were near you, watching over you, +learning to love you—he in his fashion, I as your father—and both ready at all +times to die in your protection, if it had ever come to that?” +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard had drawn so near that only a few inches separated them, and had his +voice in such control that at three paces’ distance a vague and inarticulate +murmur at most might have been heard; but in Sofia’s hearing his accents rang +with passionate sincerity, persuading her against the reason which would have +rejected his indictment of Victor as too fantastic, too imaginative, and too +hopelessly overdrawn to be given credence. She believed him, knowing in her +heart that he believed his statements to the last word; and knowing more, that +he was surely what he represented himself to be, her father. +</p> + +<p> +Inscrutable the processes of human hearts: even as from the very first Sofia +had instinctively yet unconsciously recognized the intrinsic falsity of +Victor’s pretensions, so now she perceived the integral honesty that informed +Lanyard’s every word and nuance of expression, and accepted him without further +inquisition. +</p> + +<p> +To his insistent “Have I made you understand?” she returned a wan wraith of a +smile, pitiful with entreaty, while one of her hands found the way to his. +</p> + +<p> +“I think so,” she replied in halting apology—“at least, I believe you. But be a +little patient with me. It is all so new and strange, what you tell me, it’s +hard at first to grasp, there’s so much I must accept on faith alone, so much I +don’t understand ...” +</p> + +<p> +“I know.” Lanyard pressed her hand gently. +</p> + +<p> +“But try to have faith; I promise you it shall be fairly rewarded. Only a +little longer now, an hour or two at most, and Karslake will be here to prove +the truth of all I have asserted. You will believe him, at least.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” the girl said, simply. “I love him. You knew that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I guessed, and I am glad, glad for both of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But he is safe?” Sofia demanded in sudden access of alarm so strong that her +voice rose above the pitch of discretion. +</p> + +<p> +“Quietly. Yes, he is safe enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know that for a fact? How do you know—?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve seen him to-night, talked with him—not two hours since.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have been in London?” she questioned—“to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather! Victor sent me.” Lanyard laughed lightly. “You didn’t know, of course, +but—well, I gave him reason to suspect me, so he sent me up to be assassinated +by Shaik Tsin. As it turned out, however, Herr Sturm most obligingly +understudied for me.... Before coming back, I looked Karslake up. He’d been +busy, playing a lone hand, ever since Victor trumped up an errand to keep him +out of your way all day. No need to go into tedious details; I found Karslake +had matters well in hand: the gas works surrounded by a cordon of troops, the +house under close watch, and—best of all—a sworn confession from an Irish +Member of Parliament whom Victor had managed to buy with a promise to free +Ireland once Soviet England was an accomplished fact. So I left Karslake to +wind up loose ends in London, and posted back with my heart in my mouth for +fear I’d be too late.” +</p> + +<p> +“Too late?” Sofia queried with arching brows. +</p> + +<p> +“Need I remind you where we are?” +</p> + +<p> +A sweep of Lanyard’s hand indicated the boudoir; and Sofia started sharply in +perplexity and alarm. +</p> + +<p> +“Where we are!” she echoed in a frightened whisper. +</p> + +<p> +Of a sudden memory returned of what had passed in that room before Lanyard had +revealed himself to her, and knowledge of her peril so narrowly escaped drove +home like a knife to her heart. +</p> + +<p> +“What am I doing here?” she breathed in horror. “What have I done?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing more dreadful than prove yourself as true as you are fine, by +revolting in the end against the most powerful force known to man, the force of +suggestion implanted in hypnotism. You couldn’t know that it was hypnotic not +natural sleep you passed into last night, when Victor tricked you with that +damned crystal, or that, while you slept, he willed you to do here to-night +what, when it came to the final test, your nature would not let you do.” +</p> + +<p> +“But he so often told me I had the instincts of a thief—!” +</p> + +<p> +“So often—<i>I</i> know—that you were, against your will and reason, by dint of +the very iteration of it, coming to accept that lie as a truth whose power +there was no contesting. That is why, that you might prove yourself by your own +acts, I had to let you undergo your ordeal here to-night, only standing by to +make sure no ill came of it. Otherwise you might have carried to your grave the +fear instilled into your soul by that blackguard. But now you know he lied, and +will never doubt again—or reproach your father for the dark record of his +younger years.” +</p> + +<p> +He checked, lifting hands of desolate appeal, then let them fall. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear, if you knew you would not judge me harshly. If only you could know what +I have fought up from, a foundling without a name abandoned in a third-rate +Parisian hotel, reared a scullion, butt and scapegoat, with associates only of +the lowest, scullions, beggars, pickpockets, Apaches, and worse—!” +</p> + +<p> +“As if that mattered!” +</p> + +<p> +The girl turned a softly suffused face with shining eyes to Lanyard’s. Now at +last she knew him, now the romance of her dreams of yesterday came true: +through the mean masquerade of Nogam the man emerged, identifying himself in +her sight unmistakably with that splendid stranger whom she had never quite +forgotten since that old-time afternoon when he had met Karslake in the Café +des Exiles and talked so intimately of his antecedents, hinting at a history of +youthful years strangely analogous with her own. +</p> + +<p> +Involuntarily her arms lifted and settled upon his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“I am so proud to think—” +</p> + +<p> +A shrill scream drowned out her words, a woman’s voice ranging swiftly the +staccato gamut of terror and cracking discordantly on its most piercing note. +</p> + +<p> +Then with a bang that shook the flooring and must have been heard in the +farthest corners of the house, the bedchamber door was slammed behind their +backs. But beyond it the screaming went on in volume imperceptibly muffled by +its barrier, one ear-splitting caterwaul following another with such continuity +that the wonder was where Lady Randolph West found breath to keep up that +atrocious row, and whether any dozen women of average lung-power could have +rivalled it. +</p> + +<p> +In one sharp movement Lanyard and Sofia disengaged and fell apart, their eyes +consulting, hers in dismay, his in mixed exasperation and remorse. +</p> + +<p> +“I ought to be shot,” he declared, bitterly—“who knew better!—to have delayed +here, exposing you to this danger—!” +</p> + +<p> +“It couldn’t be helped,” Sofia insisted; “you had to make me understand. +Besides, if I hurry back—” +</p> + +<p> +In quick strides Lanyard crossed to the corridor door, unlatched and opened it +an inch, peered out, and gave the sum of what he saw in a gesture of finality, +then leaving the door ajar turned swiftly back to the girl. +</p> + +<p> +“Too late,” he said: “they’re swarming out into the hall like bees. In another +minute ...” +</p> + +<p> +Of a sudden he closed with Sofia, roughly clasping her body to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Struggle with me!” he pleaded—“get me by the throat, throw me back across the +desk—” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean? Let me go!” +</p> + +<p> +In answer to her efforts to wrench away, Lanyard only tightened his hold and +swung her toward the desk. +</p> + +<p> +“Do as I bid you! It’s the only way out. Let them think you heard a noise, got +up to investigate, found me here, rifling the safe—” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she insisted—“no! Why should I save myself at your expense?—betray you—my +father—!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then give me the obedience of a daughter ... or let Victor succeed in branding +you a thief, the daughter of a thief!” +</p> + +<p> +He stilled the protest she would have uttered by placing fingers over her lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Listen!” +</p> + +<p> +In the corridor an angry rumour of voices, alarmed calls and cries, with thumps +and scuffles of hasty feet, in the bedchamber the shrieks persisting without +the least hint of failing: as a damned soul might bawl upon its bed of coals +... +</p> + +<p> +“Sofia, I implore you!” +</p> + +<p> +Still she hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“But you—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never fear for me, remember that I am of the Secret Service: two minutes after +I see the inside of the nearest police station, I shall be free—and happy in +the assurance that your name is without stain. Then Karslake will come for you, +bring you to me ... Now!” +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard caught the girl’s two wrists together and, throwing himself bodily +backward across the desk, carried her hands to his throat. +</p> + +<p> +With a simultaneous crash the door was flung back to the wall. Led by Victor +Vassilyevski a dozen men, guests and servants, in various stages of dishabille, +streamed into the room. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch20"></a>XX<br/> +THE DEVIL TO PAY</h2> + +<p> +When it was all over, when the gravelled drive no longer crunched to wheels +that bore away the man Nogam to answer for his misdeeds, when the household had +quieted down and the most indefatigable sensation-monger had wearied of singing +the praises of the Princess Sofia and, tossing off a final whiskey-and-soda, +had paddled sleepily back to bed, lights burned on brightly in two parts only +of Frampton Court, in the bedchambers tenanted respectively by Prince Victor +Vassilyevski and his reputed daughter. +</p> + +<p> +Alone, Prince Victor sat at the desk where he had, four hours earlier, +inscribed those characters which should have hurried Nogam into a premature +grave. That they had failed of their mission was something that fretted Victor +Vassilyevski, his mind and nerves, to a pitch of exacerbation all but +unendurable. +</p> + +<p> +What had become of that sentence to death? And what of that other, the telegram +which, forwarded by Nogam’s hand to Sturm, should long since have set in motion +the organized machinery of murder and demolition? +</p> + +<p> +Had Nogam, as he had meekly insisted on being questioned subsequent to his +subjugation, truly delivered the two messages as directed and, miraculously +escaping his fate decreed, returned to Frampton Court by the twelve-three, +likewise in strict conformance with instructions? +</p> + +<p> +This statement Nogam had neglected to amplify, and Victor had been chary of too +close questioning, lest it elicit too much in the hearing of others. Once +overpowered, Nogam had been philosophic about his bad luck; but the eyes in his +face of a stoic had held a gleam that Victor didn’t altogether like, a light +that seemed suspiciously malicious, a suggestion of spirited humour deplorable +to say the least in a self-confessed sneak-thief caught in the very act, +deplorable and disturbing; in Victor’s sight a look constructively indicative +of more knowledge than Nogam had any right to possess. Take it any way you +pleased, something to think about ... +</p> + +<p> +Still more disquieting Victor thought the circumstance that nobody else had +seemed to notice that anomalous light in Nogam’s eyes; which of course might +mean merely that Victor had worked himself into such a state of nerves that he +was seeing things, but equally well that the look was one reserved for Victor +alone, intentionally or not holding for him a message, if he had but had the +wit to read it, of peculiarly personal import. +</p> + +<p> +It might have implied, for example, that Victor’s half-hearted and paltering +distrust of Nogam had all along been only too well warranted. In which case, +the fat was already in the fire with a vengeance, and Victor’s probable +duration of life was dependent wholly upon the speed with which he could quit +Frampton Court and hurl his motor-car through the night to the lower reaches of +the Thames. +</p> + +<p> +Envisagement of the worst at its blackest being part of the holy duty of +self-preservation, Victor sat fully dressed, with every other provision made +for flight at the first flash of warning, only waiting to make sure, and with +what impatience was apparent in the working of paste-coloured features, the +wincing and shifting of slotted eyes, the incessant shutting and unclosing of +tensed fingers. +</p> + +<p> +All rested with the telephone that stood mockingly mute at the man’s elbow, +callous alike to his anxiety and the rancorous regard in which he held it. His +call for the house near Queen Anne’s Gate had now been in for more than forty +minutes; in that interval he had no less than three times pleaded its urgency +to the trunk-line operator. And still the muffled bell beneath the desk was +dumb. +</p> + +<p> +And the worst of it was, fatal though the delay might prove, he dared not stir +a hand to save himself until he <i>knew</i>.... +</p> + +<p> +In the taut torment of those long-drawn minutes a sound of circumspect +scratching was enough to bring Victor to his feet in one startled bound. +</p> + +<p> +He stood for a moment, a-twitch, but intent upon the corridor door, then +composed himself with indifferent success, approached and opened the door. The +girl Chou Nu slipped in, offered a timid courtesy, and awaited his leave to +speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Well? What is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Excellency: the Princess Sofia refuses to let me stay in the room with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why? Don’t you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think she means to run away. She would not go back to her bed, but walked up +and down, till I ventured to urge her to take rest, when she turned on me in a +rage and bade me be gone. Then I came to you.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor took thought and finished with a dour nod. +</p> + +<p> +“You have done well. Return, keep watch, let me know if she leaves—” +</p> + +<p> +“The door is locked, Excellency: she will not let me in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Spy through the keyhole, then; or hide in one of the empty rooms across the +corridor, and watch—” +</p> + +<p> +A muted mutter from the direction of the desk dried speech on Victor’s lips. He +started hastily toward the source of the sound, midway wheeled, and dismissed +the maid with a brusque hand and monosyllable—“Go!”—then fairly pounced upon +the telephone. +</p> + +<p> +But all he heard, in the course of the ensuing five minutes, was the voice of +the trunk-line operator advising him, to begin with, that she was ready to put +him through to Westminster, then maddeningly punctuating the buzz and whine of +the empty wire with her call of a talking doll—“Are you theah?... Are you +theah?... Are you theah?” +</p> + +<p> +At length, however, the connection was established; and Victor, hearing the +falsetto of Chou Nu’s second-uncle cheerily respond to the operator’s query, +unceremoniously broke in: +</p> + +<p> +“Shaik Tsin? It is I, Number One. And the devil’s own time I’ve had getting +through. Why didn’t you answer more promptly? What’s the matter? Has anything +gone wrong?” +</p> + +<p> +“All is well, Excellency, as well as you could wish, knowing what you know.” +</p> + +<p> +Profound relief found voice in a sigh from Victor’s heart. +</p> + +<p> +“You got my messages, then? Nogam delivered them?” +</p> + +<p> +“So I understand. I myself did not see him, Excellency. The man Sturm—” +</p> + +<p> +On that name the voice died away in what Victor fancied was a gasp that might +have been of either fright or pain. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello!” he prompted. “Are you there, Shaik Tsin? I say! Are you there? Why +don’t you answer?” +</p> + +<p> +He paused: no sound for seconds that dragged like so many minutes, then of a +sudden a deadened noise like the slam of a door heard afar—or a pistol shot at +some distance from the telephone in the study. +</p> + +<p> +Further and frantic importuning of the cold and unresponsive wire presently was +silenced by a new voice, little like that of Shaik Tsin. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello? Who’s there? I say: that you, Prince Victor?” +</p> + +<p> +Involuntarily Victor cried: “Karslake!” “What gorgeous luck! I’ve been wanting +a word with you all evening.” +</p> + +<p> +“What has happened? Why did Shaik Tsin—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, most unfortunate about him—frightfully sorry, but it really couldn’t be +helped, if he hadn’t fought back we wouldn’t have had to shoot him. You see, +the old devil murdered Sturm to-night, for some reason I daresay you understand +better than I: we found a paper on the beggar, written in Chinese, apparently +an order for his assassination signed by you. Half a mo’: I’ll read it to you +...” +</p> + +<p> +But if Karslake translated Victor’s message, as edited by the hand of Nogam, it +was to a wire as deaf as it was dumb. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch21"></a>XXI<br/> +VENTRE À TERRE</h2> + +<p> +With exceeding care to avoid noise, Sofia unlocked the door and for the second +time since midnight let herself stealthily out into the darkened corridor; but +now with the difference that she did what she did in full command of all her +wits and faculties, with no subjective war of wills to hinder and confuse her, +and with a definite object clearly visioned—a goal no less distant than the +railway station. +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard had promised that Karslake should come for her within an hour or two +and take her away with him, back to London and the arms of the father whom, +although so recently revealed and accepted, she had already begun to love; if +indeed it were not true that she had in filial sense fallen in love with +Lanyard at first sight, through intuition, that afternoon in the Café des +Exiles so long, so very long ago! +</p> + +<p> +Well: she might as well await Karslake at the station. It would be simpler, she +would be more at ease there, would breathe more freely once she turned her back +on Frampton Court and all its hateful associations. Where Victor was, she could +not rest. +</p> + +<p> +If she had feared the man before, now she hated him; but hatred had added to +her fear instead of replacing it, she remained afraid, desperately afraid, so +that even the thought of continuing under the same roof with him was enough to +make her prefer to tramp unknown roads alone in the mirk of that storm-swept +night. +</p> + +<p> +Though she went in trembling, she felt sure nobody spied upon her going; and in +this confidence crept to the great staircase, down to the entrance hall, and on +to the front doors; and a good omen it seemed to find these not locked, but +simply on the latch. And if the night into which she peered was dark and loud +with wind and rain, its countenance seemed kindlier, more friendly far than +that of the world she was putting behind her. Without misgivings Sofia stepped +out. +</p> + +<p> +It was like stepping over the edge of the universe into the eternal night that +bides beyond the stars. Neither did waiting seem to habituate her vision to the +lack of light. +</p> + +<p> +Still, the feel of gravel underfoot ought to guide her down the drive to the +great gateway; and once outside the park, clear of its overshadowing trees, one +would surely find mitigation of darkness sufficient to show the public road. +</p> + +<p> +She took one tentative step out of the recessed doorway and into Victor’s arms. +</p> + +<p> +That they were Victor’s she knew instantly, as much by the crawling of her +flesh as by the choking terror that stifled the scream in her throat and froze +body and limbs with its paralyzing touch. +</p> + +<p> +And then his ironic accents: +</p> + +<p> +“So good of you to spare me the trouble of coming for you!” +</p> + +<p> +Before she could reply or even think, other hands than his were busy with her. +A folded cloth was whipped over the lower half of her face, sealing her lips, +and knotted at the nape of her neck. Stout arms clipped her knees and swung her +off her feet, leaving her body helpless in Victor’s tight embrace. And despite +her tardy recovery and efforts to struggle, she was carried swiftly away, a +dozen paces or so, then tumbled bodily in upon the floor of a motor-car. +</p> + +<p> +The door closed as she tried to pick herself up, the smooth purring of the +motor became a leonine roar while she was still on her knees, gears clashed, +and the car leaped with a jerk that drove her headlong against the cushions of +the seat. Then the dome light was switched on, and she saw Victor with a bleak +face sitting over her, an automatic pistol naked in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Get up!” he said, grimly, “and if there’s any thought of fight left in you, +think better of it, remember your mother paid with her life the price of +defying me, and yours means even less to me. Up with you and sit quietly beside +me—do you hear?” +</p> + +<p> +He lent her a hand that wrenched her arm brutally and wrung a cry which Victor +mocked as Sofia fell upon the seat and cringed back into the corner. +</p> + +<p> +For perhaps thirty seconds, while the car raced away down the drive, he +continued to hold her in the venom of her sneer; then his gaze veered sharply, +and leaning over he switched off the light. +</p> + +<p> +With the body of the car again the dwelling-place of darkness, objects beyond +its rain-gemmed glass—the heads of the Chinese maid and chauffeur, the twin +piers of the nearing gateway—attained dense relief against the blue-white glare +of two broad headlight beams, that of the limousine boring through the gateway +to intersect at right angles that of another car approaching on the highroad +but as yet hidden by the wall of the park. +</p> + +<p> +In one breath and the same the lights of the second car swerved in toward the +gateway, and consternation seized hold of Sofia’s intelligence and wiped it +clear of all coherence. +</p> + +<p> +Already the strange lamps were staring blankly in between the piers—and the +momentum of Victor’s car was too great to be arrested within the distance. The +girl cried out, but didn’t know it, and crouched low; the horn added a squawk +of frenzy to a wild clamour of yells; all prefatory to a scrunching, rending +crash as, in the very mouth of the gateway, a front fender of the incoming car +ripped through the rear fender above which Sofia was sitting. Thrown heavily +against Victor, then instantly back to her place, she felt the car, with brakes +set fast, turn broadside to the road, skid crabwise, and lurch sickeningly into +the ditch on the farther side. +</p> + +<p> +For an interminable time, while the ponderous fabric rocked and toppled, +threatening very instant to crash upon its side, the rear wheels spun madly and +the chain-bound tires tore in vain at greasy road metal. +</p> + +<p> +Without clear comprehension of what was happening, Sofia heard shouts from the +other car, now at a standstill, and an oddly syncopated popping. The window in +the door on Victor’s side rang like a cracked bell, shivered, and fell inward, +clashing. With a growl of rage, Victor bent forward and levelled an arm through +the opening. From his hand truncated tongues of orange flame, half a dozen of +them, stabbed the gloom to an accompaniment of as many short and savage barks. +</p> + +<p> +Then the chains at last bit through to a purchase, the car scrambled to the +crown of the road and lunged precipitately away; and the lights of the other +dropped astern in the space of a rest between heartbeats. +</p> + +<p> +Sitting back, Victor turned on the dome light again, and extracting an empty +magazine clip from the butt of his automatic pistol, replaced it with another, +loaded. +</p> + +<p> +From this occupation he looked up with lips curling in contempt of Sofia’s +terror. +</p> + +<p> +“Your friends,” he observed, “were a thought behindhand, eh? When you come to +know me better, my dear, you’ll find they invariably are—with me.” +</p> + +<p> +Aftermath of fright made her tongue inarticulate; and Victor’s sneer took on a +colour of mean amusement. +</p> + +<p> +“Something on your mind?” +</p> + +<p> +She twisted her hands together till the laced fingers hurt. +</p> + +<p> +“Wha-what are you go-going to do with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Make good use of you, dear child,” he laughed: “be sure of that!” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know ...” +</p> + +<p> +“Really not? But there I think you do injustice to your admirable +intelligence.” +</p> + +<p> +The jeering laugh sounded as he put out the light again, in darkness the +derisive voice pursued: +</p> + +<p> +“If you must know in so many words—well, I mean to keep you by me till the +final curtain falls. As long as it lasts, yours will be an interesting life—I +give my word.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you call yourself my father!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no! No, indeed: that’s all over and done with, the farce is played out; +and while I’m aware my rôle in it wasn’t heroic, I shan’t play the purblind +fool in the afterpiece—pure drama—upon which the curtain is now rising. Neither +need you. Oh, I’ll be frank with you, if you wish, lay all my cards on the +table.” +</p> + +<p> +A deliberate pause ended in a chuckle. +</p> + +<p> +“I have at present precisely two uses for my precious little Sofia: She will +serve excellently as insurance against further persecution on the part of her +accomplished and energetic father—with whom I shall deal in my good leisure—and +... But need one be crudely explicit?” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia answered nothing to that, for a long time she said nothing, but sat +pondering.... +</p> + +<p> +And Victor was speedily provided with another interest which engrossed him to +the exclusion of further efforts to bait a victim defenseless against his +insolence. +</p> + +<p> +When for the third time after that narrow scrape at the gates the man roused up +to peer back through the rear window of the limousine, Sofia heard a harshly +sibilant intake of breath between shut teeth, and surmised the discovery that +the car which had so narrowly missed blocking their escape had picked up the +trail, and was now in hot chase. +</p> + +<p> +Even youth, however, could distill but slender hope from this. The pace was too +terrific at which Victor’s car was thundering through the night-bound +countryside, it seemed idle to dream that another could overhaul it, even +though driven with as much skill and maniacal recklessness. And Sofia returned +to thoughts to which Victor’s innuendo had given definite shape and colour, if +with an effect far from that of his intention. Threatened, the spirit of the +girl responded much as sane young flesh will to a cold plunge. She had +forgotten to tremble, and though still tense-strung in every fibre was able to +sit still, look steadily into the face of peril, and calculate her chances of +cheating it. +</p> + +<p> +Presently, in a tone so even it won begrudged admiration, she asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you taking me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you really care?” +</p> + +<p> +“Enough to ask.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why should I tell you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No reason. I presume it doesn’t really matter, I’ll know soon enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I don’t mind enlightening you. We’re bound for the Continent by way of +Limehouse. A launch is waiting for us in Limehouse Reach, a yacht off +Gravesend. Oh, I have forgotten nothing! By daybreak we’ll be at sea.” +</p> + +<p> +“We?” +</p> + +<p> +“You and I.” +</p> + +<p> +“You deceive yourself, Prince Victor. I shan’t accompany you.” +</p> + +<p> +“How amusing! And is it a secret, how you propose to stand against my will?” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia was silent for a little; then, “I can kill myself,” she said, quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“To be sure you can! And when I tire of you, perhaps I’ll humour your morbid +inclinations—if they still exist.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a fool,” Sofia returned, bluntly, “if you think I shall go aboard that +yacht alive.” +</p> + +<p> +“Brava!” Victor laughed, and clapped his hands. “Brava! brava!” +</p> + +<p> +He sat up for another look out of the rear window, sucked at his breath even +more sharply than before, and snatching up the speaking-tube pronounced urgent +words in Chinese. +</p> + +<p> +The head of the chauffeur, in stark silhouette against the leading glow, bent +toward the tube, and nodded rapidly. And to the deep-throated roar of an +unmuffled exhaust, the heavy car leaped, like a spirited animal stung by whip +and spur, and settled into a stride to which what had gone before was as a +preliminary canter to the heartbreaking drive down to the home-stretch. +</p> + +<p> +Lights began to dot the roadside. Widely spaced at first, unbroken ranks were +soon streaking past the tear-blind windows. Outskirts of London were being +traversed; but neither driving sheets of rain against which human vision +failed, nor the chance of encountering belated traffic, worked any slackening +of the pace. Only when a corner had to be negotiated did the car slow down, and +then never to the point of sanity; and the turn once rounded, its flight would +again become headlong, lunatic, suicidal. +</p> + +<p> +The stringed lamps wove a wavering luminous ribbon without end; a breeze laden +with the wet fragrance of London drove great gusts of rain in stringing showers +through the broken window. Turns and twists grew more frequent, apparently +favouring the pursuit. +</p> + +<p> +Victor now knelt constantly on the back seat, his face in the fitful play of +light and shadow uncannily resembling that of a hunted jungle cat. On the +polished steel of his pistol sinister gleams winked and faded. From his +snarling lips foul oaths fell, a steady stream, black blasphemies spewed up +from the darkest dives of the Orient—most of them happily couched in the +tongues of their origin and so unintelligible to his one auditor. As it was, +she heard and understood enough, too much. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, the man was not too completely absorbed in watching the shifting +fortunes of the race to be unmindful of the girl. And when once she sat up to +ease cramped limbs, he misread her intention and, catching her viciously by an +arm, threw her back into her corner and advised her not to play the giddy +little fool. +</p> + +<p> +After that Sofia was at pains to stir as seldom as possible, and bided her time +quietly enough, but never for an instant relaxed her watchfulness or lost +heart. +</p> + +<p> +The shouldering houses that hedged their course discovered a profile, ragged, +black against a sky whose purple dimness held the first dull presage of dawn. +</p> + +<p> +In the wild rush of a marauding tomcat the car crossed a broad public square +and sped up the graded approach to a bridge. The smell of the Thames was +unmistakable, the far-flung lamps of the Embankment were pearls aglow upon +violet velvet. +</p> + +<p> +Leaving the bridge, the limousine took a turn on two wheels, and immediately +something happened, seemingly some attempt to stop it was made. Vociferous +voices hailed it, only to induce an augmented bellow of the exhaust with an +instantaneous acceleration of impetus. Then something was struck and tossed +aside as a bull might toss a dog—a dark shape whirling and flopping hideously; +and an agonized screaming made the girl cower, sick with horror, and cover her +ears with her hands. +</p> + +<p> +Before she was able to forget those qualms many more minutes of frantic driving +had flung to the rear many a mile of silent streets. +</p> + +<p> +Of a sudden she heard an inhuman cry and, looking up, saw Victor dash the butt +of his pistol through the glass, then reversing the weapon pour through the +opening a fusillade whose effect was presumably gratifying, for he laughed to +himself when the pistol was empty, laughed briefly but with vicious glee. +</p> + +<p> +That laugh levelled the last barrier of doubt and fear and nerved Sofia finally +to test the forlorn hope she had been nursing ever since Victor had let her see +a little way into his mind as to her fate. +</p> + +<p> +Until he could reload, only the tradition of the sexes lent him theoretical +superiority; whereas he was in fact a man well on the thither side of +middle-age, his virility sapped by long indulgence of unbridled appetites; +while Sofia was a woman in the fullest flush of her first mature powers. +</p> + +<p> +Gathering herself together, she inched forward and made ready to spring, bear +him down, overpower him—by some or any means put him hors de combat long enough +for her to fling a door open and herself out into the street.... +</p> + +<p> +With squealing brakes the car shaved an acute corner and slid on locked wheels +to a dead halt so unexpected that it was Sofia who plunged floundering to the +floor, while Victor only by a minor miracle escaped catapulting through the +front windows. +</p> + +<p> +The next instant, as Sofia struggled to her knees, the door behind her was +wrenched open from without and, at a sign from Victor, rough hands laid hold of +the girl and dragged her out bodily. +</p> + +<p> +In a passion of despair, she lost her senses for a time and like a madwoman +fought, shrieking, biting, kicking, clawing, scratching.... +</p> + +<p> +With returning lucidity she found herself, panting and dishevelled, arms pinned +to her sides, struggling on for all that, being hustled by some half a dozen +men across a narrow sidewalk of uneven flagstones. +</p> + +<p> +Simultaneously the shutter of perceptions snapped, photographing permanently +upon the super-sensitized film of conscious memory the glimpsed vista of a +grim, mean street whose repellent uglinesses grinned through the boding +twilight like lineaments of some monstrous mask of evil. +</p> + +<p> +Then she tripped on a low stone step, stumbled, and was half-carried, +half-thrown into a narrow and malodorous hallway. +</p> + +<p> +Between her and the sweet liberty of the rain-washed air a door crashed like +the crack of doom. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch22"></a>XXII<br/> +THE SEVEN BRASS HINGES</h2> + +<p> +Into a space perhaps four feet in width from wall to wall and seven deep from +the front door to the foot of a cramped flight of crazy wooden stairs, some ten +people were crowded, Sofia and the maid Chou Nu in a knot of excited men. +</p> + +<p> +In the saffron glow of an ill-trimmed paraffin lamp smoking in a wall bracket, +desperate faces, yellow and brown and white, consulted one another with rolling +eyeballs and strange tongues clamorous. Sofia heard the broken rustling of +heavy respirations; she saw uncouth gesticulations carve the shadows; her +nostrils were revolted by effluvia of unclean bodies, garments saturate with +opium smoke and curious cookery, breaths sour with alcohol. +</p> + +<p> +Two were busy at the door, under the direction of Prince Victor, setting stout +bars into iron sockets. When they had finished, Victor elbowed them out of his +way and thrust back the slide of a narrow horizontal peephole, through which he +reconnoitred. +</p> + +<p> +The tall, thin body stiffened as he looked, and without turning he flung an +open hand behind him and snapped a demand in Chinese. Somebody slipped a +revolver into his palm. Levelling it he sent a volley crashing through the +peephole. Yells responded, and in the hush that fell upon the final shot a +noise of fugitive feet scraping and stumbling on cobbles. A bullet struck the +door a sounding thump and all but penetrated, raising a bump on the inner face +of its thick oaken panels; and Victor shut the slide and turned back. +</p> + +<p> +Subservient silence saluted him. He spoke in Chinese, issuing (Sofia gathered) +instructions for the defense of the house. One by one the men designated +dropped out of the group about her. Three shuffled off into a room adjoining +the hallway. Two others ran briskly up the stairs. A sixth Victor directed to +stand by the barred door. His chauffeur and another Chinaman he told off for +his personal attendance. +</p> + +<p> +The maid Chou Nu was left to shift for herself, and while Sofia could see her +she did not shift a finger from her pose of terror, flattened to the wall. When +Sofia came back that way, the girl had vanished, however. Nor was she seen +again alive. +</p> + +<p> +Her arms held fast, Sofia was partly led and partly dragged down the hall, +Victor herding the group on past the staircase and into a bare room at the back +of the house, where a solitary lamp burning on a deal table discovered for all +other furnishing broken chairs, coils of tarred rope, a rack of ponderous oars +and boat-hooks, a display of shapeless oilskins and sou’westers on pegs. The +windows were boarded up from sills to lintels, the air was close and dank with +the stale flavour of foul tidal waters. +</p> + +<p> +Here Victor took charge of Sofia, the chauffeur holding the lamp to light the +other Chinaman at his labours with a trap-door in the floor, a slab of woodwork +so massive that, when its iron bolts had been drawn, it needed every whit of +the man’s strength to lift and throw it back upon its hinges; and its crashing +fall made all the timbers quake and groan. +</p> + +<p> +Through the square opening thus discovered Sofia saw a ladder of several slimy +steps washed by black, oily waters that sucked and swirled sluggishly round +spiles green with weed and ooze. +</p> + +<p> +Down these steps the Chinaman crept gingerly, but halfway paused with a cry, +then cringed back to the head of the ladder, yellow face blanched, slant eyes +piteous with fear, as he exhibited an end of stout mooring line whose other end +was made fast to a ring bolt in one of the joists. +</p> + +<p> +With a smothered oath Victor snatched the rope’s end from the trembling hand +and examined it closely. Even Sofia could see that it had been cleanly severed +by a knife. +</p> + +<p> +Victor’s countenance was ablaze as he dropped the rope. Before the tempest of +his wrath the Chinaman bent like a reed, with faint, protesting bleats and +feebly weaving hands. +</p> + +<p> +But in full tide the tirade faltered, Victor seemed to forget his anger or else +to remind himself it was puerile in contrast with the mortal issues that now +confronted him. +</p> + +<p> +He turned to Sofia eyes of cold fire in a wintry countenance. +</p> + +<p> +“So,” he pronounced, slowly, “it appears you are to have your way, after all, +and more speedily than either of us reckoned. You are to die, and so am I, this +day—you in my arms. Well, it is time, I daresay, when I permit myself to be +duped and overreached by police spies like your persevering father and lover. +Yes; I am ready to pay the price of my fatuity—but not until they had paid me +for their victory—and dearly. Come!” +</p> + +<p> +He motioned to the Chinese to reclose and fasten the trap-door, and grasping +Sofia’s wrist with cruel fingers hurried her back through the hallway. +</p> + +<p> +Repeated breaks of pistol-fire guided them to the front room, a racket echoed +in diminished volume from the street. +</p> + +<p> +In an atmosphere already thick with acrid fumes of smokeless powder two men +held the windows, firing through loopholes in iron-bound blinds of oak. At +their feet a third squatted, reloading for them as occasion required. As Sofia +and Victor entered one man dropped his weapon and, grunting, fell back from his +window to nurse a shattered hand. Releasing the girl without another word, +Victor caught up the pistol and took the vacant post. +</p> + +<p> +Instantly, on peering out, he fired once, then again. Evidently missing both +shots, he settled to await a better target, eyes intent to the loophole. In the +course of the next few minutes he changed position but once, when, after firing +several more shots, he tossed the empty weapon to the man on the floor and +received a loaded one in exchange. +</p> + +<p> +Seeing him thus employed, altogether forgetful, Sofia began to back toward the +hall, step by cautious step, keeping her attention fixed to Victor throughout. +But he seemed to be completely preoccupied with his markmanship, and paid her +no heed. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, when she at length found courage to swing and dart away through +the door, Victor flung three curt words to the fellow at his feet, who grunted, +rose, and glided from the room in close chase. +</p> + +<p> +The guard at the front door was not so busy as Sofia had hoped to find him, not +too interested in the progress of siege operations outside to note her approach +and look round from his peephole with a menacing grin of welcome; and his +unmistakable readiness, as pistol in hand he took a single step toward her, +drove the girl back to the foot of the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +Then the other came swiftly after her, and Sofia swung in panic and stumbled up +the steps. There were others up above, two to her certain knowledge, possibly +many more of Victor’s creatures; but if only she could find some sort of refuge +in the uppermost fastnesses of the rookery, perhaps ... +</p> + +<p> +Like a shape of smoke wind-driven, she sped up the first flight, then the +second, only pausing at the head of the third and last flight to throw hunted +glances right, left, and behind her. +</p> + +<p> +Overhead a skylight with dingy panes diffused a dull blue glimmer which +discovered a yawning door at her elbow, a pocket of black mystery beyond, and +on the uppermost steps of the staircase her patient yellow shadow, his upturned +eyes inscrutable but potentially revolting with their very concealment of the +intent behind them. +</p> + +<p> +Impossible that a worse thing could await her beyond that dark threshold.... +</p> + +<p> +She crossed it in one stride, swung the door to, and set her shoulders against +it. +</p> + +<p> +Outside she heard the shuffling footfalls pause. The knob rattled. But instead +of the inward thrust against which she stood braced, there came the least of +outward pulls, as if to make sure that the latch had caught; and after a brief +pause a key grated in the lock, was withdrawn, and the slippered feet withdrew +in turn. +</p> + +<p> +When her lungs ceased to labour painfully, she took her courage in both hands +and began to explore, groping blindly through darkness, encountering nothing +till she blundered into a table which held a glass lamp for paraffin oil, like +those in use below. +</p> + +<p> +Fumbling over the top of the table, she found matches, struck one, and set its +fire to the wick. +</p> + +<p> +The flame waxed and grew steady in a crusted chimney, revealing a room with a +slant ceiling and two dormer windows, boarded; in one corner a cot-bed with +tumbled blankets, near this a low wooden stand, with a pipe, spirit lamp, and +other paraphernalia of an opium smoker—no chairs, not another stick of +furniture of any kind. +</p> + +<p> +Removing the lamp, the girl set it on the floor, and pushed the table over +against the door. By not so long as half a minute would its reinforcement delay +Victor when he made up his mind to get in. But in such emergencies the human +kind is not impatient of the most futile expedients. +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing more she could do. She stood still, listening. The rattle of +pistol fire three floors below continued in fits and starts, but the sound of +it was oddly unreal, resembling more stammering explosions of a string of +firecrackers than snaps of the whiplash of Death. +</p> + +<p> +She tried one of the windows without encouragement, but at the other found a +board with a loose end, which she pried aside, till through begrimed glass she +could see a ghastly, weeping sky of daybreak and, by craning her neck, peer +down into the dark gully of the street. +</p> + +<p> +At first she thought it empty; but presently her straining vision made out two +huddled shapes upon the farther sidewalk, close under the walls of a public +house whose sign she could just barely decipher: the Red Moon. +</p> + +<p> +Then, about to draw back from the window, she saw five men, oddly foreshortened +figures from that lofty coign of view, leave the Red Moon by one of its bar +entrances, bearing between them a heavy beam of wood, and with this improvised +battering-ram aimed at the door to the besieged house, charge awkwardly across +the cobbles. +</p> + +<p> +The house spat fire from door and windows, a withering blast. In the middle of +the street the beam was abandoned, three of its fool-hardy bearers took to +their heels, each shaping an individual course, while one lay still upon the +wet black stones, and another, apparently wounded in the legs, sought pitifully +to drag himself by his arms, inch by inch, out of the zone of fire. But +presently his efforts grew feeble, then he, too, lay stirless, prone in the +sluicing rain. +</p> + +<p> +The girl shrank back from the window, hiding her eyes as if to blot out that +picture. +</p> + +<p> +The light, that is to say the absence of it in true sense, the angle of view, +and the distance, all had conspired to prevent her from making sure that +neither her father nor Karslake were of those four whose broken bodies +cluttered the street. But the fear and uncertainty were maddening.... +</p> + +<p> +She wheeled suddenly toward the door: the ancient stairs were creaking beneath +a measured tread. She made an offer to add her weight to that of the table, but +checked and fell back immediately, seeing the folly of sacrificing her +strength, the wisdom of saving it to serve her when finally.... +</p> + +<p> +The creaking ceased, the wards of the lock grated, the knob turned, the door +was thrust open—the table offering little hindrance if any. From the threshold +Victor eyed the girl with a twitching grin. +</p> + +<p> +“The time is at hand,” he announced with a parody of punctilio. “We have beaten +them off in the street, but they have found the tunnel from the cellar of the +Red Moon, and are attacking from the river besides. So, my dear, it ends for +us....” +</p> + +<p> +In silence, shoulders to the wall farthest from the door, Sofia watched him +unwinking. The lamp at her feet painted the tensely poised young body and +bloodless face with quaint, stagey shadows. +</p> + +<p> +Victor’s glance ranged the cheerless room. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you understand me,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She might have been a waxwork dummy out of Madame Tussaud’s. +</p> + +<p> +A white blaze of madness transfigured Victor’s countenance. He took one step +toward Sofia. +</p> + +<p> +In movements so precisely coordinated that they seemed one and instantaneous, +the girl stooped, caught up the lamp, and threw it with all her might. Victor +ducked his head. The lamp sailed on, described a descending curve through the +open doorway into the well of the staircase, struck, and exploded. In the +clutches of the maniac, Sofia was aware of the lurid glare, momentarily gaining +strength, that filled the rectangle of the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +In through this last, while iron hands tightened on her throat and +consciousness grew dark with closing shadows, a man’s shape passed, then +another.... +</p> + +<p> +The grip on her throat grew lax, the hands left it free. She reeled, but +somebody caught her up and bore her swiftly from the room, leaving two who +fought together like beasts on the floor, locked in each other’s arms, rolling +and squirming, rearing and flopping.... +</p> + +<p> +The scorch of flames stung her cheek, but she forgot that when their broken +light made visible the features of Karslake above the arms wherein she lay +cradled. +</p> + +<p> +Turning aside from the staircase, Karslake bore her to the ladder leading to +the skylight, whose broken glass crunched beneath his heels at every step. +</p> + +<p> +In the open air he pulled up for a moment’s rest, but continued to hold Sofia +in his arms. The wind raved about them, buffeted them, tore their breath away, +rain pelted them like birdshot; but they clung to each other and were unaware +of reason for complaint. +</p> + +<p> +Presently, however, Karslake remembered, and anxiously endeavoured to disengage +from these tenacious arms. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me go, dearest,” he muttered. “I must go back—I left your father to take +care of Victor, and—” +</p> + +<p> +As if evoked by his very solicitude Lanyard emerged from the skylight hatch, +waved a hand in gay salute, then turned to stare down into the flaming pit from +which he had climbed. +</p> + +<p> +After a little he fell back a pace. Then slowly, with the laboured movements of +exhaustion, Victor worked head and shoulders through the opening and dragged +himself out upon the roof. +</p> + +<p> +On all fours he held in doubt, his head moving from side to side like the head +of a stricken beast, seeking his enemy with dazzled eyes. Then he made Lanyard +out and, pulling himself together for the supreme effort, launched at his +throat with the pounce of a great cat. +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard met him halfway, caught him in the middle of his bound, wound wiry arms +round the man and held him helpless. +</p> + +<p> +His voice rang clear above the crackle of flames: +</p> + +<p> +“Victor! have you forgotten how you threatened one night, twenty years ago, to +follow me to the very gates of Hell, and what I promised you—that, if you did, +I’d push you inside? Or did you think I would forget?” +</p> + +<p> +He cast the man from him, backward, down into the hungry maw of that +inferno.... +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10496 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/10496-h/images/cafe.jpg b/10496-h/images/cafe.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fa8822e --- /dev/null +++ b/10496-h/images/cafe.jpg diff --git a/10496-h/images/cafer.jpg b/10496-h/images/cafer.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d105f21 --- /dev/null +++ b/10496-h/images/cafer.jpg diff --git a/10496-h/images/frontis.jpg b/10496-h/images/frontis.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cefc547 --- /dev/null +++ b/10496-h/images/frontis.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a9f31fe --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10496 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10496) diff --git a/old/10496-0.txt b/old/10496-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f97aacc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10496-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9193 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Red Masquerade, by Louis Joseph Vance + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Red Masquerade + +Author: Louis Joseph Vance + +Release Date: December 18, 2003 [eBook #10496] +[Most recently updated: November 28, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Suzanne Shell, Elaine Walker and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED MASQUERADE *** + + + + +[Illustration: “_Prince Victor gave a gesture of pain and reluctance. +‘Must I tell you?_’”] + + + + +RED MASQUERADE + +_Being the Story of_ +THE LONE WOLF’S DAUGHTER + +BY LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE + +1921 + + +TO +J. PARKER READ, JR., ESQ. +THE CINEMA THAT WAS HIS + + + + +APOLOGY + + +This tale quite brazenly derives from the author’s invention for motion +pictures which Mr. J. Parker Read, Jr., produced in the autumn of 1919 +under the title of “The Lone Wolf’s Daughter.” + +It is only fair to state, however, that the author has in this version +taken as many high-handed liberties with the version used by the +photoplay director as the latter took with the original. + +The chance to get even for once was too tempting.... + +Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Company in the first instance, and then Mr. +Arthur T. Vance, editor of _The Pictorial Review_, in which the story +was published as a serial, were equally guilty of the encouragement +which results in its appearance in its present guise. + +L.J.V. + + +Westport—31 December, 1920. + + + + +Books by Louis Joseph Vance + +CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE +JOAN THURSDAY +NOBODY +NO MAN’S LAND +POOL OF FLAME +PRIVATE WAR +SHEEP’S CLOTHING +THE BANDBOX +THE BLACK BAG +THE BRASS BOWL +THE BRONZE BELL +THE DARK MIRROR +THE DAY OF DAYS +THE DESTROYING ANGEL +THE FORTUNE HUNTER +THE ROMANCE OF TERENCE O’ROURKE +TREY O’ HEARTS + +_Stories About “The Lone Wolf”_ + +THE LONE WOLF +THE FALSE FACES +RED MASQUERADE +ALIAS THE LONE WOLF + + + + +CONTENTS + + BOOK ONE: A CHAPTER FROM THE YOUTH OF MONSIEUR MICHAEL LANYARD + CHAPTER I. PLEBEIAN AND PRINCE + CHAPTER II. THE PRINCESS SOFIA + CHAPTER III. MONSIEUR QUIXOTE + CHAPTER IV. THE FOOL AND HIS MONEY + CHAPTER V. IMPOSTOR + CHAPTER VI. THÉRÈSE + CHAPTER VII. FAMILY REUNION + CHAPTER VIII. GREEK VS. GREEK + CHAPTER IX. PAID IN FULL + + BOOK TWO: THE LONE WOLF’S DAUGHTER + CHAPTER I. THE GIRL SOFIA + CHAPTER II. MASKS AND FACES + CHAPTER III. THE AGONY COLUMN + CHAPTER IV. MUTINY + CHAPTER V. HOUSE OF THE WOLF + CHAPTER VI. THE MUMMER + CHAPTER VII. THE FANTASTICS + CHAPTER VIII. COUNCIL OF THE GODLESS + CHAPTER IX. MRS. WARING + CHAPTER X. VICTOR ET AL + CHAPTER XI. HEARTBREAK + CHAPTER XII. SUSPECT + CHAPTER XIII. THE TURNIP + CHAPTER XIV. CONFERENCE OF THE DAMNED + CHAPTER XV. INTUITION + CHAPTER XVI. THE CRYSTAL + CHAPTER XVII. THE RAISED CHEQUE + CHAPTER XVIII. ORDEAL + CHAPTER XIX. UNMASKING + CHAPTER XX. THE DEVIL TO PAY + CHAPTER XXI. VENTRE À TERRE + CHAPTER XXII. THE SEVEN BRASS HINGES + + +BOOK I +A CHAPTER FROM THE YOUTH OF MONSIEUR MICHAEL LANYARD + + + + +RED MASQUERADE + + + + +I +PLEBEIAN AND PRINCE + + +The gentleman was not in the least bored who might have been and was +seen on that wintry afternoon in Nineteen hundred, lounging with one +shoulder to a wall of the dingy salesroom and idly thumbing a catalogue +of effects about to be put up at auction; but his insouciance was so +unaffected that the inevitable innocent bystander might have been +pardoned for perceiving in him a pitiable victim of the utterest ennui. + +In point of fact, he was privately relishing life with enviable gusto. +In those days he could and did: being alive was the most satisfying +pastime he could imagine, or cared to, who was a thundering success in +his own conceit and in fact as well; since all the world for whose +regard he cared a twopenny-bit admired, respected, and esteemed him in +his public status, and admired, respected, and feared him in his +private capacity, and paid him heavy tribute to boot. + +More than that, he was young, still very young indeed, barely beyond +the threshold of his chosen career. To his eagerly exploring eye the +future unrolled itself in the likeness of an endless scroll illuminated +with adventures all piquant, picturesque, and profitable. With the +happy assurance of lucky young impudence he figured the world to +himself as his oyster; and if his method of helping himself to the +succulent contents of its stubborn shell might have been thought +questionable (as unquestionably it was) he was no more conscious of a +conscience to give him qualms than he was of pangs of indigestion. +Whereas his digestive powers were superb.... + +This way of killing an empty afternoon, too, was much to his taste. The +man adored auctions. To his mind a most delectable flavour of discreet +scandal inhered in such collections of shabby properties from anonymous +homes. Nothing so piqued his imagination as some well-worn piece of +furniture—say an ancient escritoire with ink stains on its green baize +writing-bed (dried life-blood of love letters long since dead!) and all +its pigeon-holes and little drawers empty of everything but dust and +the seductive smell of secrets; or a dressing-table whose bewildered +mirror, to-day reflecting surroundings cold and strange, had once been +quick and warm to the beauty of eyes brilliant with delight or blurred +with tears; or perchance a bed.... + +And even aside from such stimuli to a lively and ingenious fancy, there +was always the chance that one might pick up some priceless treasure at +an auction sale, some rare work of art dim with desuetude and the +disrespect of ignorance: jewellery of quaintest old-time artistry; a +misprized bit of bronze; a book, it might be an overlooked copy of a +first edition inscribed by some immortal author to a forgotten love; or +even—if one were in rare luck—a picture, its pristine brilliance faded, +the signature of the artist illegible beneath the grime of years, +evidence of its origin perceptible only to the discerning eye—to such +an eye, for instance, as Michael Lanyard boasted. For paintings were +his passion. + +Already, indeed, at this early age, he was by way of being something of +a celebrity, in England and on the Continent, as a collector of the +nicest discrimination. + +And then he found unfailing human interest in the attendance attracted +by auction sales; in the dealers, gentlemen generally of pronounced +idiosyncrasies; in the auctioneers themselves, robust fellows, wielding +a sort of rugged wit singular to their calling, masters of deep guile, +endowed with intuitions which enabled them at a glance or from the mere +intonation of a voice to discriminate between the serious-minded and +those frivolous souls who bid without meaning to buy, but as a rule for +nothing more than the curious satisfaction of being able to brag that +they had been outbid. + +But it was in the ranks of the general public that one found most +amusement; seldom did a sale pass off undistinguished by at least one +incident uniquely revealing or provocative. And for such moments +Lanyard was always on the qui vive, but quietly, who knew that nothing +so quickly stifles spontaneity as self-consciousness. So, if he studied +his company closely, he was studious to do it covertly; as now, when he +seemed altogether engrossed in the catalogue, whereas his gaze was +freely roving. + +Thus far to-day a mere handful of people other than dealers had drifted +in to wait for the sale to begin—something for which the weather was +largely to blame, for the day was dismal with a clammy drizzle settling +from a low and leaden sky—and with a solitary exception these few were +commonplace folk. + +This one Lanyard had marked down midway across the room, in the +foremost row of chairs beneath the salesman’s pulpit: by his attire a +person of fashion (though his taste might have been thought a trace +florid) who carried himself with an air difficult of definition but +distinctive enough in its way. + +Whoever he was and what his quality, he was unmistakably somebody of +consequence in his own reckoning, and sufficiently well-to-do to dress +the part he chose to play in life. Certainly he had a conscientious +tailor and a busy valet, both saturate with British tradition. Yet the +man they served was no Englishman. + +Aside from his clothing, everything about him had an exotic tang, +though what precisely his racial antecedents might have been was rather +a riddle; a habit so thoroughly European went oddly with the hints of +Asiatic strain which one thought to detect in his lineaments. +Nevertheless, it were difficult otherwise to account for the faintly +indicated slant of those little black eyes, the blurred modelling of +the nose, the high cheekbones, and the thin thatch of coarse black hair +which was plastered down with abundant brilliantine above that mask of +pallid features. + +The grayish pallor of the man, indeed, was startling, so that Lanyard +for some time sought an adjective to suit it, and was content only when +he hit on the word _evil_. Indeed, evil seemed the inevitable and only +word; none other could possibly so well fit that strange personality. + +His interest thus fixed, he awaited confidently what could hardly fail +to come, a moment of self-betrayal. + +That fell more quickly than he had hoped. Of a sudden the decent quiet +of King Street, thus far accentuated rather than disturbed by the +routine grind of hansoms and four-wheelers, was enlivened by spirited +hoofs whose clatter stilled abruptly in front of the auction room. + +Turning a speciously languid eye toward the weeping window, Lanyard had +a partial view of a handsomely appointed private equipage, a pair of +spanking bays, a liveried coachman on the box. + +The carriage door slammed with a hollow clap; a footman furled an +umbrella and climbed to his place beside the driver. As the vehicle +drew away, one caught a glimpse of a crest upon the panel. + +Two women entered the auction room. + + + + +II +THE PRINCESS SOFIA + + +These ladies were young, neither much older than Lanyard, both were +very much alive, openly betraying an infatuation with existence very +like his own, and both were lovely enough to excuse the exquisite +insolence of their young vitality. + +As is frequently the case in such associations, since a pretty woman +seldom courts comparison with another of her own colouring, one was +dark, the other fair. + +With the first, Lanyard was, like all London, on terms of visual +acquaintance. The reigning beauty of the hour, her portrait was +enjoying a vogue of its own in the public prints. Furthermore, Lady +Diantha Mainwaring was moderately the talk of the town, in those prim, +remotely ante-bellum days—thanks to high spirits and a whimsical +tendency to flout the late Victorian proprieties; something which, +however, had yet to lead her into any prank perilous to her good +repute. + +The other, a girl whose hair of golden bronze was well set off by +Russian sables, Lanyard did not know at all; but he knew at sight that +she was far too charming a creature to be neglected if ever opportunity +offered to be presented to her. And though the first article of his +creed proscribed women of such disastrous attractions as deadly +dangerous to his kind, he chose without hesitation to forget all that, +and at once began to cudgel his wits for a way to scrape acquaintance +with the companion of Lady Diantha. + +Their arrival created an interesting bustle, a buzz of comment, a +craning of necks—flattery accepted by the young women with ostensible +unconcern, a cliché of their caste. As they had entered in a humour +keyed to the highest pitch of gaiety consistent with good breeding, so +with more half-stifled laughter they settled into chairs well apart +from all others but, as it happened, in a direct line between Lanyard +and the man whose repellent cast of countenance had first taken his +interest. + +Thus it was that Lanyard, after eyeing the young women unobserved as +long as he liked, lifted his glance to discover upon that face a look +that amazed him. + +It wasn’t too much to say (he thought) that the man was transfigured by +malevolence, so that he blazed with it, so that hatred fairly flowed, +an invisible yet manifest current of poisoned fire, between him and the +girl with the hair of burnished bronze. + +All the evil in him seemed to be concentrated in that glare. And yet +its object remained unconscious of it or, if at all sensitive, +dissembled superbly. The man was apparently no more present to her +perceptions than any other person there, except her companion. + +Presently, becoming sensible of Lanyard’s intrigued regard, the man +looked up, caught him in a stare and, mortally affronted, rewarded him +with a look of virulent enmity. + +Not to be outdone, Lanyard gave a fleeting smile, a bare curving of +lips together with an almost imperceptible narrowing of amused +eyes—goading the other to the last stage of exasperation—then calmly +ignored the fellow, returning indifferent attention to the progress of +the sale. + +Since nothing was being offered at the moment to draw a bid from him, +he maintained a semblance of interest solely to cover his thoughts, +meanwhile lending a civil ear to the garrulous tongue of a dealer of +his acquaintance who, having edged nearer to indulge a failing for +gossip, found a ready auditor. For when Lanyard began to heed the sense +of the other’s words, their subject was the companion of Lady Diantha +Mainwaring. + +“... Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, you know, the Russian beauty.” + +Lanyard lifted his eyebrows the fraction of an inch, meaning to say he +didn’t know but at the same time didn’t object to enlightenment. + +“But you must have heard of her! For weeks all London has been talking +about her jewels, her escapades, her unhappy marriage.” + +“Married?” Lanyard made a sympathetic mouth. “And so young! Quel +dommage!” + +“But separated from her husband.” + +“Ah!” Lanyard brightened up. “And who, may one ask, is the husband?” + +“Why, he’s here, too—over there in the front row—chap with the waxed +moustache and putty-coloured face, staring at her now.” + +“Oh, that animal! And what right has he got to look like that?” + +The buzz of the scandalmonger grew more confidential: “They say he’s +never forgiven her for leaving him—though the Lord knows she had every +reason, if half they tell is true. They say he’s mad about her still, +gives her no rest, follows her everywhere, is all the time begging her +to return to him—” + +“But who the deuce is the beast?” Lanyard interrupted, impatiently. +“You know, I don’t like his face.” + +“Prince Victor,” the whisper pursued with relish—“by-blow, they say, of +a Russian grand duke and a Manchu princess—half Russian, half Chinese, +all devil!” + +Without looking, Lanyard felt that Prince Victor’s stare had again +shifted from the women, and that the mongrel son of the alleged grand +duke was aware he had become a subject of comment. So the eminent +collector of works of art elected to dismiss the subject with a +negligent lift of one shoulder. + +“Ah, well! Daresay he can’t help his ugly make-up. All the same, he’s +spoiling my afternoon. Be a good fellow, do, and put him out.” + +The Briton chuckled a deprecating chuckle; meaning to say, he hoped +Lanyard was spoofing; but since one couldn’t be sure, one’s only wise +course was to play safe. + +“Really, Monsieur Lanyard! I’m afraid one couldn’t quite do _that_, you +know!” + + + + +III +MONSIEUR QUIXOTE + + +The sale dragged monotonously. The paintings offered were mostly of +mediocre value. The gathering was apathetic. + +Lanyard bid in two or three sketches, more out of idleness than because +he wanted them, and succeeded admirably in seeming ignorant of the +existence of the Princess Sofia and the husband whose surface of a +blackguard was so harmonious with his reputation. + +In time, however, a change was presaged by an abrupt muting of that +murmured conversation between the beautiful Russian and the almost +equally beautiful Englishwoman. An inquisitive look discovered the +princess sitting slightly forward and intently watching the auctioneer. + +The pose of an animated, delightful child, hanging breathlessly upon +the progress of some fascinating game: one’s gaze lingered approvingly +upon a bewitching profile with half-parted lips, saw that excitement +was faintly colouring the cheeks beneath shadowy and enigmatic eyes, +remarked the sweet spirit that poised that lovely head. + +And then one looked farther, and saw the prince, like the princess, +absorbed in the business at the auction block, his slack elegance of +the raffish aristocrat forgotten, all his being tense with purpose, +strung taut—as taut at least as that soft body, only half-masculine in +mould and enervated by loose living, could ever be. One thought of a +rather elderly and unfit snake, stirred by the sting of some +long-buried passion out of the lassitude of years of slothful +self-indulgence, poising to strike.... + +At the elbow of the auctioneer an attendant was placing on exhibition a +landscape that was either an excellent example of the work of Corot or +an imitation no less excellent. At that distance Lanyard felt inclined +to dub it genuine, though he knew well that Europe was sown thick with +spurious Corots, and would never have risked his judgment without +closer inspection. + +He was accordingly perplexed when, after a brief exhortation by the +auctioneer, discreetly noncommittal as to the antecedents of the +canvas—“attributed to Corot”—Prince Victor, who had been straining +forward like a hound in leash, half rose in his eagerness to offer: + +“One thousand guineas!” + +The entire company stirred as one and sat up sharply. Even the +auctioneer was momentarily stricken dumb. And for the first time the +Princess Sofia acknowledged the presence of her husband, and got from +him that look of white hatred with a sneer of triumph thrown in for +good measure. + +Though she affected indifference, Lanyard saw her slender body +transiently shaken by a shudder, it might have been of dread. But she +was quick to pull herself together, and the auctioneer had scarcely +found his tongue—“One thousand guineas for this magnificent canvas +attributed to Corot”—when her clear and youthful voice cut in: + +“Two thousand guineas!” + +This the prince capped with a monosyllable: + +“Three!” + +Stupefaction settled upon the audience. The auctioneer hesitated, +blinked astonished eyes, framed unspoken phrases with halting lips. +Prince Victor, again gave his wife the full value of his vindictive +snarl. She would not see, but it was plain that she was cruelly +dismayed, that it cost her an effort to rise to the topping bid: + +“Thirty-five hundred guineas!” + +“Four thousand!” + +“Four thousand I am offered ...” + +The auctioneer faltered, a spasm of honesty shook him, he proceeded: + +“It is only fair, ladies and gentlemen, that I should state that this +canvas is not put up as an authentic Corot. It very possibly is such, +in fact”—the seizure was passing swiftly—“it bears every evidence of +having come from the brush of the master. But we cannot guarantee it. +There is, however, a gentleman present who is amply qualified to pass +upon the merits of this work. With his permission”—his eye sought +Lanyard’s—“I venture to request the opinion of Monsieur Michael +Lanyard, the noted connoisseur!” + +Lanyard detached a deprecating smile from the pages of his catalogue, +but his contemplated response was cut short by Prince Victor. + +“I am not aware,” that one said, icily, “that the authenticity of this +painting is a material question. Nor have I any need of the opinion of +this gentleman, whatever his qualifications. I have bid four thousand +guineas, and insist that the sale proceed. If there are no further +bids, the canvas is mine.” + +The auctioneer shrugged, and offered Lanyard an apologetic bow. “I am +sorry—” he began. + +“Four thousand guineas!” snapped the prince. + +Resigned, the auctioneer resumed: + +“Four thousand guineas offered. Are there any more bids? Going—” + +“Forty-five hundred!” + +Beyond reasonable doubt the princess had spurred herself mercilessly to +find sufficient courage to make this latest bid. Lanyard saw her in a +rigour of despair, hoping against hope. Only too surely something in +the picture, some association—heaven knew what!—was more precious to +her, almost, than life, though she had gone already to the limit of her +means and perhaps a bit beyond. If this bid failed, she was lost. Her +anxiety was pitiful. + +“Five thousand!” + +In the princess something snapped: she recoiled upon herself, sat +crushed, head drooping, white-gloved hands working in her lap. One +detected an appealing quiver on her lips, and noted, or imagined, a +suspicious brightness beneath the long dark lashes that swiftly +screened her eyes. Her young bosom moved convulsively. She was beaten, +near to tears. + +“Five thousand guineas ... going ... going ...” + +The face of the prince was a mocking devil-mask in gray and black. +Lanyard found himself loathing it. Impossible to stand idle and see the +creature get the better of an unhappy girl ... + +“Five thousand one hundred guineas!” + +With his wits in a blur of amaze, Lanyard knew the echo of his own +voice. + + + + +IV +THE FOOL AND HIS MONEY + + +One reflected rather bitterly on the many and obvious oversights of a +putatively all-wise Providence, in especial on its failure so to +fashion the body of man as to enable him on occasion to discipline his +own flesh in the most ignominious manner imaginable. + +Lanyard could have kicked himself; that is to say, he wanted to, and +thought it rather a pity he couldn’t, and publicly, at that. For the +freak he had just indulged was rank quixotism, something which had as +much place in the code of a man of his calling as milk of human +kindness in the management of a pawnshop. + +On second thought, he wasn’t so sure. It might have been that quixotism +had inspired his infatuate gesture, but it might quite as conceivably +have been everyday vanity or plain cussedness: a noble impulse to serve +a pretty lady in distress, a spontaneous device to engage her interest, +or a low desire to plague a personality as antipathetic to his own as +that of a rattlesnake. + +In point of simple fact (he decided), his impelling motive had been a +mixture of all three. + +In all three respects, furthermore, it proved notably successful; in +the two last named without delay. + +The Princess Sofia at once took note of Lanyard, with wonder, some +misgivings, and a hint of admiration. For he was not only a personable +person in those days, with a suggestion of devil-may-care in his air +that measurably lifted the curse of his superficial foppishness, but he +was putting a spoke in Prince Victor’s wheel. And whosoever did that, +by chance, out of sheer voluptuousness, or with malice prepense, won +immediate title to Sofia’s favourable regard. If she couldn’t thwart +Victor herself, she would be much obliged to anybody who could and did; +and she was nothing loath to betray her bias by looking kindly upon her +self-appointed champion. + +A whispered communication from Lady Diantha did nothing to abate her +overt approbation. + +As for Victor, his face of leaden gray took on a tinge of green; he +quaked with rage, and the glare he loosed on Lanyard made that young +man wonder if he were mistaken in believing that the eyes of the prince +shone in that dusky room with something nearly akin to the +phosphorescence to be seen in the eyes of an animal at night. + +The notion was amusing: Lanyard paid it the tribute of a quiet smile, +in direct acknowledgment of which Prince Victor snarled: + +“Six thousand guineas!” + +“And a hundred,” Lanyard added. + +Brief pause prefaced a bid designed to squelch him completely: + +“Ten thousand!” + +In a fatigued voice he uttered: “One hundred more.” + +“Fifteen—!” + +This time Lanyard contented himself with nodding to the auctioneer; and +the lips of the latter had barely parted to parrot the bid when Victor +sprang to his feet, his features working, his limbs shaking so that the +legs of the chair beside him, whose back he seized, chattered on the +floor, while the high-pitched voice broke into a screech: + +“Twenty!” + +And Lanyard said: “And one.” + +“Twenty thousand one hundred guineas!” chanted the auctioneer. “Are +there any more bids? You, sir—?” He aimed a respectful bow at Prince +Victor, who snubbed him with a sign of fury. “Going—going—gone! Sold to +Monsieur Lanyard for twenty thousand and one hundred guineas!” + +And Lanyard had the satisfaction of seeing Prince Victor, after a vain +effort to master his emotion, snatch up his topper, clap it on his +head, and make for the door with footsteps whose stuttering haste was +in poor accord with the dignity of his exalted station. + +But it was debatable whether this satisfaction plus the possession of a +questionable Corot was worth its cost. And Lanyard wasn’t in the +humour, now that the heat of contest began to abate, to look to +Princess Sofia for promise of further reward. Even if he could have +been guilty of such impertinence, indeed, he must have forborne for +very shame. After all (he told himself) he hadn’t figured very +creditably, permitting petty prejudice to sway him as it had. He felt +singularly sure he had played the gratuitous ass in this affair, and he +didn’t in the least desire to see the reflection of a like conviction +in the eyes of a pretty young woman with a flair for the ridiculous. + +He dissembled his diminished self-esteem, however, most successfully, +as he proceeded to the desk of the auctioneer’s clerk, filled in a +cheque for the amount of his purchase, and gave instructions for its +delivery. + +Whether by intention or inadvertence, he was followed from the auction +room by the Princess Sofia and Lady Diantha Mainwaring; and just +outside the entrance he found Prince Victor waiting with all the air of +a gentleman impatient for a cab to happen along and pick him up out of +the drizzle. + +But in view of the fact that he made no overtures to a passing hansom, +which swerved in to the curb in response to a signal of Lanyard’s cane, +this last concluded that the prince was up to his reputedly favourite +game of waylaying his rebel wife. + +If such were the case, Lanyard had no wish to witness a public wrangle +between the two. So he stepped briskly up on the carriage-block, and +only hesitated when he saw that the prince, utterly ignoring the +presence of the princess and Lady Diantha, was edging forward and +cocking an alert ear to catch the address which Lanyard was on the +point of giving the cabby. + +Hugely diverted, the adventurer looked round with a quirk of his brows, +and amiably commented: + +“Monsieur’s interest is so flattering! If he really must know, I’m +going home now, to my rooms in Halfmoon Street. Au revoir, monsieur le +prince!” + +He beamed benignly upon that convulsed countenance, and saw crestfallen +Prince Victor slink away, to the music of smothered laughter from the +ladies in the doorway—toward which Lanyard was careful not to look. + +Then, in high feather with himself, he chirped to the driver and hopped +into the hansom. + + + + +V +IMPOSTOR + + +As Lanyard’s cab swung away, the carriage wheeled in to take up the +Princess Sofia and Lady Diantha Mainwaring. Observing this, Lanyard +poked his stick through the little trap in the roof of the hansom and +suggested that the driver pull up, climb down, adjust some imaginary +fault with the harness and, when the carriage had passed, follow it +with discretion. + +Enchanted by sight of a half-sovereign in the palm of his fare, the +cabby executed this manoeuvre to admiration; with the upshot that +Lanyard got home half an hour later than he would have had he proceeded +to his rooms direct, but with information of value to recompense him. + +It wasn’t his habit to lose time in those days of his youth. And lest +his character be misconstrued (which would be deplorable) it may as +well be stated now that he had not laid down upward of twenty thousand +good golden guineas for a colourable Corot without having a tolerably +clear notion of how he meant to reimburse himself if it should turn out +that he had paid too dear for his whistle. + +The hint imparted by his garrulous acquaintance of the auction room—to +the effect that the Princess Sofia was famous, among other things, for +the magnificence of her personal jewellery—had found a good home where +it wasn’t in danger of suffering for want of doting interest. + +And now one knew where their owner lived, and in what state ... + +Alighting at his own door, the adventurer surprised Prince Victor, +morosely ambling by, in his vast fatuity no doubt imagining that his +passage through Halfmoon Street would go unremarked in the dusk of that +early winter evening. He wasn’t at all pleased to find himself +mistaken; and though Lanyard did his best with his blandest smile to +make amends for having discomfited the prince by getting home later +than he had promised to, his good-natured effort was repaid only by a +spiteful scowl. + +So he laughed aloud, and went indoors rejoicing. + +An hour or so later the painting was delivered by a porter from the +auction room. But Lanyard was in his bath at the time and postponed +examining his doubtful prize till he had dressed for dinner. For, +though it was his whim to dine in his rooms alone, and though he had no +fixed plans for the evening, Lanyard was too thoroughly cosmopolitan +not to do in Cockaigne as the Cockneys do. + +Besides, in this uncertain life one never knows what the next hour will +bring forth; whereas if one is in evening dress after six o’clock, one +is armoured against every emergency. + +At seven he sat down to the morbid sort of a meal one gets in London +lodgings: a calm soup; a segment of vague fish smothered painlessly in +a pale pink blanket of sauce; a cut from the joint, rare and lukewarm; +potatoes boiled dead; sad sea-kale; nonconformist pudding; conservative +biscuit, and radical cheese. + +With the aid and abetment of a bottle of excellent Montrachet, however, +one contrived to worry through. + +Meanwhile, Lanyard inspected his recent purchase, which occupied a +place of honour, propped up on the arms of the chair on his right. + +It was seldom that Lanyard entertained a guest of such equivocal +character. Wagging a reproving head—“My friend,” he harangued the +canvas, “you are lucky to have been sold. Sorry I can’t say as much for +myself.” + +It was really too bad it wasn’t a bit better. It wasn’t often that one +encountered so genuine a counterfeit. The hand of an artist had painted +it, but never the hand of Corot. Everything Corot was accustomed to put +into his painting was there, except himself. The abode had been +prepared in all respects as the master would have had it, but his +spirit had not entered into it, it remained without life. + +Still, Lanyard concluded, surveying his prize through the illusioning +fumes of his cigar, while the waiter cleared away, it wasn’t so bad +after all, it wouldn’t be in the end a total loss. He could afford to +cart the thing back to Paris with him and give it room in his private +gallery; and some day, doubtless, some rich American would pay a +handsome price for it on the strength of its having found place in the +collection of Michael Lanyard, even though it lacked the cachet of his +guarantee. + +But what the devil had made it so precious to the soi-disant Prince +Victor and his charming wife? + +But for a single circumstance Lanyard would have been tempted to +believe he had been craftily rooked by an accomplished chevalier +d’industrie and his female confederate; but too much and too real +passion had been betrayed in the auction room to countenance that +suspicion. + +No: he hadn’t been rigged; at least, not by design. Something more than +its intrinsic value had rendered the canvas priceless in the esteem of +those two, something had been at stake more than mere possession of +what they might have believed to be a real Corot. + +But what? + +Perplexed, Lanyard took the picture in his hands—it was not too +unwieldy, even in its frame—and examined it with nose so close to the +painted surface that he seemed to be smelling it. Then he turned it +over and scowled at its reverse. And shook a baffled head. + +But when he tapped the face of the picture smartly with a finger-nail, +he gave a slight start, passed a hand over it with the palm pressed +flat, and suddenly assumed the humanly intelligent expression of a +hunting-dog that has hit on a warm scent. + +Strong fingers and a fruit knife quickly extracted the painting from +its frame and loosened the canvas from its stretcher, proving that the +latter held in fact two canvases instead of one. Between these had been +secreted several sheets of notepaper of two kinds, stamped with two +crests, all black with closely penned handwriting. + +Lanyard gathered them into a sheaf and scanned them cursorily, even +with distaste. True enough, it might be argued that he had bought and +paid for the right to pry into the secrets they betrayed; but it was +not a right he enjoyed exercising. A fairly thoroughgoing state of +sophistication, together with some innate instincts of delicacy, worked +to render him to a degree immune to such gratification as others might +derive from being made privy to an exotic affair of the heart. +Revelation of human weakness was no special treat to him. And if his +eyebrows mounted as he read, if the corners of his mouth drew down, if +once and again he uttered an “_Oh! oh!_” of shocked expostulation, he +was (like most of us, incurably an actor in private as well as in +public life) merely running through business which convention has +designated as appropriate to such circumstances. At bottom he was being +stimulated to thought more than to derision. + +Putting the letters aside, he bowed his head upon a hand and reflected +sagely that love was the very deuce. + +He wondered if he could or ever would love or be loved so madly. + +He rather hoped not ... + +Here, if you please, was the scion of a reigning royal family risking +as pretty a scandal as one could well imagine—and all for love! Given a +few more days of life, and he would have jeopardized his right of +succession and set half-a-dozen European chancelleries by the ears—and +all for love! But for his untimely end, that poor, pretty creature +would have joined her life to his, consummating at one stroke her +freedom from the intolerable conditions of existence with Victor and a +diplomatic convulsion which might only too easily have precipitated all +Europe into a great war—and all for lawless love! + +So once more in history Death had served well the interests of public +morality. + +After a year these letters alone survived ... + +How they had survived, what hands had collected and secreted them, and +for what purpose, intrigued the imagination no end. Lanyard inclined to +credit Princess Sofia with the indiscretion of saving these souvenirs +of a grande passion that had almost made history. There was the +sentimental motive to account for such action, and another: the +satisfaction of knowing she had concrete proof of her intention to +treat Victor as he had treated her. + +Then somehow the painting must have passed out of her possession; and +in all likelihood she had made frantic and awkward efforts to regain it +which had aroused the suspicions of Victor; with the sequel of that +afternoon.... + +Lanyard’s speculations were interrupted by the peremptory telephone. +Without premonition he picked up the combination receiver and +transmitter. But his memory was still so haunted by echoes of that +delightful voice which he had heard in the auction room, he couldn’t +entertain any doubt that he heard it now. + +“Are you there?” it said “Will you be good enough to put me through to +Monsieur Lanyard?” + +The inspiration to mischief was instantaneous: Lanyard replied promptly +in accents as much unlike his own as he could manage: + +“Sorry, ma’am; Mister Lanyard dined hout to-night. Would there be any +message, ma’am?” + +“Oh, how annoying!” + +“Sorry, ma’am.” + +“Do you know when he will be home?” + +“If this is the lidy ’e was expectin’ to call this evenin’—” + +“Yes?” the dulcet voice said, encouragingly. + +“—Mister Lanyard sed as ’ow ’e might be quite lite, but ’e’d ’urry all +’e could, ma’am, and would the lidy please wite.” + +“Thank you _so_ much.” + +“’Nk-you, ma’am.” + +Smiling, Lanyard replaced the receiver and rang for the waiter. + +When that one answered, the adventurer was hatted and coated and +opening his door. + +“I’m called out,” he said—“can’t quite say when I’ll be back. But I’m +expecting a lady to call. Will you tell the doorman to show her into my +rooms, please, and ask her to wait.” + + + + +VI +THÉRÈSE + + +Posed in a blaze of lights, the Princess Sofia contemplated captiously +the charming image reflected in her cheval-glass. One little wrinkle, +not precisely of dissatisfaction, rather of enquiry, nestled between +her delicately arched brows. A look of misgiving clouded her wide eyes +of a wondering child. The bow of an exquisitely modelled mouth, whose +single fault lay in its being perhaps a trace too wide, described a +shadowy pout. + +She was beautiful: yes. Nobody could question that. La beauté du +diable, no doubt, to Anglo-Saxon eyes, with that skin of incomparable +texture and whiteness relieved by a heavily coiled crown of living +bronze, the crimson insolence of that matchless mouth, those luminous +and changeable eyes so like the sea, whose green melted into blue with +the swiftness of thought, whose blue at times as swiftly shaded into +stormy purple-black: but however bizarre and barbaric, beauty none the +less, and under the most meticulous examination indisputable. + +But was she as radiant as she had been? + +On this her birthday she was twenty-five. Appalling age! Five years +hence she would be thirty, in ten more—forty! And woman’s beauty fades +so swiftly: everybody said so. Was the shadow of to-morrow already +dimming her loveliness? How could it be otherwise? She had lived so +long and so fully, she had begun to live so young. Six years of +marriage to Victor—that alone should have been enough, one would think, +to metamorphose the fairest face into a blasted battlefield of +passions. + +She had a little shiver of voluptuous horror, remembering what she had +endured and escaped. The sweet, true lines of her flawlessly made body +were transiently undulant within a sheath of shimmering sequins: a +daring gown, by British standards of that day, but permissible because +she was Russian; foreigners, you know, are so frightfully weird even +when they’re quite all right. + +And yet she was growing old, she was twenty-five! Though she didn’t +feel in the least like one on the threshold of middle age. Indeed, she +had never felt younger, more thrillingly instinct with the power and +the will to live extravagantly in one endless riot of youth +unquenchable.... + +Reaction, of course: the swing of the pendulum to its farthest extreme. +It was now two years since she had been forced to separate from Victor, +finding herself unable longer to countenance and suffer his many-sided +beastliness; and a year since the hand of Death had penned an +inexorable finis to the too-brief chapter of her one great romance. + +For there had never been love in her life with Victor. She had been too +young at first to appreciate what love and marriage meant, she had been +led to the altar and sacrificed upon it as an animal is led in +sacrificial rites—without premonition or understanding, only wondering +(perhaps) to find itself so groomed and garlanded, so flattered and +adored. She had hardly known Victor before she was given to him in +marriage by Imperial ukase ... to get rid of her, probably, for some +inscrutable reason related to the mysterious circumstances of her +parentage. + +And now after six years of hell with her husband and one of mourning in +solitude for her love that was lost, she was coming back to life again +... at last! + +She lifted up arms that might have been a dream of Phidias chiselled in +Parian marble, and stretched them luxuriously. She was superbly alive, +indeed—and henceforth she meant to live. Only she must be careful to +retain her looks ... If Youth must surely go, Beauty must linger and +reign long in its stead. + +A maid, a comely creature, trim and smart in black and white, with that +vividly coloured prettiness which is too often the omen of premature +decline into the fat and florid thirties, fetched a wrap and settled it +upon Sofia’s shoulders. + +Long and dark, it disguised her figure as completely as it covered her +toilette. She nodded her satisfaction, and accepted the veil which she +had desired to complete her disguise, a thing of Spanish lace, black +and ample, like a mantilla. But before donning it she delayed one +minute more before the mirror. + +“Thérèse! Am I still beautiful?” + +“Madame la princesse is always beautiful.” + +“As beautiful as I used to be?” + +“But madame la princesse grows more lovely every day.” + +“Beautiful enough to-night, to keep out of jail, do you think?” + +To the mirth in the voice of her mistress the maid responded with a +smile demure and discreet. + +“Oh, madame!” was all she said; but the manner of her saying it was +rarely eloquent. + +Sofia laughed lightly, and affectionately pinched the cheek of the +maid. + +“And you, my little one,” she said in liquid French—“you yourself are +too ravishingly pretty to keep out of trouble. Do you know that?” + +Her little one looked more than ever demure as she enquired after the +hidden meaning of madame la princesse. + +“Because you will marry too soon, Thérèse—too soon some worthless man +will persuade you to dedicate all those charms to him alone.” + +“Oh, madame!” + +“Is it not so?” + +“Who knows, madame?” said Thérèse, as who should say: “What must be, +must.” + +“Then there is a man! I suspected as much.” + +“But, madame la princesse, is there not always a man?” + +“Then beware!” + +“Madame la princesse need not fear for me,” Thérèse replied. “Me, my +head is not so easily turned. There is always some man, naturally—there +are so many men!—but when I marry, rest assured, it will be for +something more.” + +With the compressed lips of self-approbation she deftly assisted her +mistress to swathe her head in the mantilla-like veil. + +“Something more than a man?” Sofia enquired through its folds. “What +then?” + +“Independence, madame la princesse.” + +“What an idea! Marriage and independence: how do you reconcile that +paradox?” + +“Madame la princesse means love, I think, when she speaks of marriage. +But love—that is all over and done with when one marries. One is then +ready to settle down; one has put by one’s dot, and marries a worthy, +industrious man with a little fortune of his own. With such a husband +one collaborates in the maintenance of the ménage and the management of +a small business, something substantial if small. And so one ends one’s +days in comfortable companionship. That, madame la princesse, is the +marriage for Thérèse! It may not sound romantic, madame, but it has +this rare virtue—it lasts!” + + + + +VII +FAMILY REUNION + + +The London night was normal: that is to say, wet. Darkness had +transformed the streets into vast sheets of black satin shot with +golden strands and studded with lamp-posts like sturdy stems for +ethereal blooms of golden haze. Within their areas of glow the air +teemed with atoms of liquid gold. The ring of hoofs on wet pavements +was at once disturbing and inspiriting. + +Alone in her hired hansom the Princess Sofia sat with the window +raised, drinking deep of the soft damp air, finding it as heady as +strange wine. Under cover of the veil her eyes were brilliant with +awareness of her audacity, her lips were parted with the promise of a +smile. + +She loved it all, she adored this mood of London: its nights of rain +were sheer enchantment, arabesque, nights of secrecy and stealth, +mystery, and romance under the rose. On nights such as this lovers +prospered, adventures were to the venturesome, brave rewards to the +bold. + +For herself she was unafraid, she foretasted entire success. How should +it be otherwise? Consider how famously chance had prospered her +designs, playing into her hands the information that this Monsieur +Lanyard was not at home, might not return till very late, and was +expecting a call from somebody whom he desired to await his return in +his rooms! + +With such an open occasion, how could one fail? + +Sofia asked only three minutes alone with the painting.... + +And if by any mishap she were caught, still she would not be dismayed. +The letters were hers, were they not? They had been stolen from her, he +had no right title to them who had purchased only the picture which had +served as their hiding-place. By all means, let him keep that stupid +canvas; he could hardly refuse to let her have her letters, not if she +pleaded her prettiest. And even if he should prove obtuse, +ungenerous.... + +Her smile was definite and confident. She was beautiful—and Monsieur +Lanyard was aware of that. Had she not, that afternoon, in the auction +room, without his knowledge detected admiration in his eyes, a look +warm with something more than admiration only? + +He was impressionable, then. And it would be no distasteful task to +play upon his susceptibilities. He was not only personally attractive +(“magnetic” was the catch-word of the period), but if half that Lady +Diantha had hinted concerning him were true, to make a conquest of +Michael Lanyard would be a feather in the cap of any woman, to attempt +it a temptation all but irresistible to one—like Sofia—in whose veins +ran the ichor of progenitors to whom the scent of danger had been as +breath of life itself. It was hardly conceivable; even now Sofia must +smile at her friend’s amiable endeavours to identify this mysterious +monsieur with a celebrated and preposterous criminal. + +It might be true that, as Lady Diantha had declared, wherever Michael +Lanyard showed himself in open pursuit of his avowed avocation as a +collector of rare works of art—in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, or +where-not—there in due sequence the Lone Wolf would consummate one of +his fantastic coups. + +And it was indisputable that Lanyard was at present living in London, +where for some time past the Lone Wolf had been perniciously busy; or +else his bad name had been taken in vain by a baffled and exasperated +Scotland Yard. + +Again: Diantha had insisted that the Lone Wolf was by every evidence +completely woman-proof; and there might be something in her contention +that such an elusive yet spectacularly successful thief could hardly +have won the high place he held in the annals of criminology and in the +esteem of the sensation-loving public, if he were one who maintained +normal relations with his kind. + +Sooner or later (so ran Diantha’s borrowed reasoning) the criminal who +has close friends, a wife, a mistress, children, family ties of any +sort, or even body-servants, must willy-nilly repose confidence in one +of these, and then inevitably will be betrayed. Depend upon envy, +jealousy, spite, or plain venal disloyalty, if accident or inadvertence +fail, to lay the law-breaker by the heels. + +Therefore (Diantha argued) the Lone Wolf must be a confirmed solitary +and misogynist—very much like this Monsieur Lanyard, according to +reports which declared the latter to be a man who kept to himself, had +many acquaintances and not one intimate, and was positively insulated +against wiles of woman. + +But—granting all this—it was none the less true that the utmost +diligence, spurred by the pique, ill-will, and ambition of the police +of all Europe, had failed as yet to forge any link between the +supercriminal of the age and the distinguished connoisseur of art. +Other than Lady Diantha and the gossips whose arguments she was +retailing, never a soul (so far as Sofia knew) had ventured to breathe +a breath of suspicion upon the good repute of Monsieur Lanyard. + +In short, Diantha’s conjectures had been entirely second-hand, and not +even meant to be taken seriously. + +And yet the suggestion had fastened firm hold upon the imagination of +the Princess Sofia. + +If it were true ... what an adventure! + +There was unaccustomed light of daring in the eyes of the princess, +unwonted colour tinted her cheeks. + +The hansom stopped, discharged the fairest fare it had ever carried, +and rattled off, leaving Sofia just a trifle daunted and dubious, the +animation of her anticipations something dashed by the uncompromising +respectability, the self-conscious worthiness of Halfmoon Street. + +Enfolded in the very heart of Mayfair, its brief length bounded on the +north by Curzon Street (its name alone sufficient voucher for its +character), on the south by Piccadilly (hereabouts somewhat oppressive +with its hedge of stately clubs, membership in any one of which is +equivalent to two years’ unchallenged credit) Halfmoon Street is +largely given over to furnished lodgings. But it doesn’t advertise the +fact, its landlords are apt to be retired butlers to the nobility and +gentry, its lodgers English gentlemen who have brought home livers from +India, or assorted disabilities from all known quarters of the globe, +and who desire nothing better than to lead steady-paced lives within +walking distance of their favourite clubs. So Halfmoon Street remains +quietly estimable, a desirable address, and knows it, and doggedly +means to hold fast to that repute. + +A strange environment (Sofia thought) for an adventurer like the Lone +Wolf. + +But then—of course!—Diantha’s innuendoes had been based on flimsiest +hearsay. The chances were that Michael Lanyard was an utterly +uninteresting person of blameless life. + +So thinking, the Princess Sofia was sensible of a pang of regret, and +tried to be prepared against bitter disappointment as she rang the +bell. Either she would fail to obtain admittance (perhaps the lady whom +he was really expecting had forestalled her) or else Lanyard would fail +to come home in time to catch her! Quite probably it would turn out to +be a dull and depressing evening, after all.... + +The servant who admitted her in manner and appearance lent colour to +these forebodings. A creature hopelessly commonplace, resigned, and +unemotional, to her enquiry for Monsieur Lanyard he returned the +discounted response: Mister Lanyard was hout, ’e might not be ’ome till +quite lite, but ’ad left word that if a lidy called she was to be +awsked to wite. The princess indicating her desire to wite, the man +turned to the nearest door (Lanyard’s rooms were on the street level), +opened it with a pass-key, stepped inside to make a light, and when +Sofia entered silently bowed himself out. + +Now when the latch clicked behind him, the Princess Sofia forgot that +the simplicity of her success thus far was almost discouraging. Her +heart began to beat more quickly, and a little tremor shook the hands +that lifted and threw back her veil. After all, she was committing an +act of lawless trespass, she was on the errand of a thief; if caught +the penalty might prove most painful and humiliating. + +Of a sudden she lost appetite entirely for a piquant encounter with the +prepossessing tenant of these rooms. Now she desired nothing so dearly +as to consummate her business and escape with all possible expedition. + +A swift and searching survey of the living-room descried nothing that +seemed apt to hinder or detain her. A large room, unusually wide and +deep, it had two windows overlooking the street, with a curtained +doorway at the back that led (one surmised) to a bedchamber. It was +furnished in such excellent taste that one suspected Monsieur Lanyard +must have brought in his own belongings on taking possession. The +handsome rug, the well-chosen draperies, the several excellent pictures +and bronzes, were little in character with the furnished lodgings of +the London average, even with those of the better sort. + +She had no time, however, to squander on appreciation of artistic +atmosphere, however pleasing, and needed to waste none searching for +the object of her desires. It faced her, distant not six paces from the +door—that shameless little “Corot”!—resting on the arms of a +straight-backed chair. + +A low laugh of delight on her lips, she went swiftly to the chair and +laid hold of the picture by its frame. In that act she checked, +startled, transfixed, the laugh freezing into a gasp of alarm. + +Brass rings slithered on a pole supporting the portières at the back of +the room. These parted. Through them a man emerged. + +Her grasp on the picture relaxed. It struck a corner against the chair +and clattered on the floor—the canvas on its stretcher simultaneously +flying out of the frame. + +“Victor!” + +“Sweet of you to remember me!” + +He advanced slowly with that noiseless, cat-like tread of his which she +had always hated, perceiving in it a true index to his character: the +prowl of a beast of prey, furtive, cowardly, cruel. It was so: Victor +was as feline and as vicious as a jungle-cat. Watching him with this +thought in mind, one could almost credit old tales of beasts bewitched +and walking in human guise. + +Near by he paused, alertly poised, prepared to spring. The slotted +black eyes glimmered malignantly. His lips drew back in mockery from +his teeth. His hands were hidden in the pockets of his dinner-coat; but +she could guess how they were held, like claws, in that concealment, +claws itching for her throat. She dared not stir lest she feel them +there, digging deep into her soft white flesh. + +Witless, in the extremity of her terror, she stammered: “What do you +want?” + +A nod indicated the picture that lay between them, at their feet. + +“My errand,” the man said in a silken tone that gloved grimmest menace, +“is much the same as yours—quite naturally—but more fortunate; for I +shall get not only what I came for, but something more.” + +“What—?” + +“The opportunity to plead with you, face to face. I think you will +hardly refuse to listen to me now.” + +“How—how did you get in?” + +“Oh, secretly! By the window, if you must know; but quite unseen. You +see, _I_ had no invitation.” + +“I never thought you had—” + +“Nor did I think you had—till now.” + +Puzzled, she faltered: “I don’t understand—” + +“Surely you don’t wish me to believe my pretty Sofia has turned thief?” + +That stung her pride. She drew upon an unsuspected store of spirit, +confronting him bravely. + +“What is it to me, what you choose to think?” + +“I refuse to think that of you. My reason will not let me believe it.” + +She saw that he was shaking with rage; so she shrugged and drawled: +“Oh, your _reason_—!” + +“It tells me you for one did not come here to-night uninvited.” He was +rapidly losing grip on his temper. “Oh, it’s plain enough! I was a fool +not to understand, there in the auction room, when my face was slapped +with proof of your liaison with this Lanyard!” + +She said in mild expostulation: “But you are quite mad.” + +“Perhaps—but not so as to be blind to the truth. You had him there this +afternoon to bid that picture in for you if your own means failed. Why +else should the man, who knows pictures as I know you, pay twenty +thousand guineas for a footling copy of a Corot that wouldn’t deceive +a—a Royal Academician! Yes: he bid it in for you—the sorry fool!—bought +with his own money the evidence of your infatuation for his predecessor +in your affections—and expects you here to-night to receive it from him +and—pay him _his_ price! Ah, don’t try to deny it!” + +He growled like a very animal, beside himself. “Why else should you be +admitted to these rooms without question in his absence?” + +Without visible resentment, the Princess Sofia nodded thoughtfully into +those distorted features. + +“Yes,” she commented: “quite, quite mad.” + +As if she had offered without warning to strike him, Victor recoiled +and for an instant stood gibbering. And she took advantage of this +moment in one lithe bound to put the table between them. + +The manoeuvre sobered him. He did not move, but in two breaths forced +himself to cease to tremble, and subdued every symptom of his passion. +Only his face remained sinister. + +“Graceful creature!” he observed, sardonic. “Such agility! But what +good will that do you, do you think? Eh? Tell me that!” + +It was her turn to shiver, and inwardly she did, who was never quite +able to combat the fear which Victor could inspire in her by such +demonstrations of the power of his will. The self-control which he had +always at his command was something that passed her understanding; it +seemed inhuman, it terrified her. + +Nevertheless, so exigent was this strait, she continued to confront him +with a face of unflinching defiance. + +In a voice whose steadiness surprised her she declared: “The letters +are mine. You shan’t have them.” + +“Undeceive yourself: I’ll have them though you never leave this room +alive.” + +More to give herself time to think than in any hope of moving him, she +began to plead: + +“Let me have them, Victor—let me go.” + +Smiling darkly, he shook his head. + +“The letters mean nothing to you. What good—?” + +He interrupted impatiently: “I shall publish them.” + +“Impossible—!” + +“But I shall.” + +Aghast, she protested: “You can’t mean that!” + +“Why not? The world shall know your true reason for leaving me—that you +were the mistress of another man—and who that man was!” + +Staring, she uttered in a low voice: “Never!” + +“Or,” he amended, deliberately, “you may keep them, burn them, do what +you will with them—on fair terms—_my_ terms.” + +She said nothing, but her dilate eyes held fixedly to his. He moved a +pace or two nearer, his voice dropped to a lower key, the light she had +learned to loathe flickered in the depths of his eyes. + +“Come back to me, Sofia! I can’t live without you ...” + +Her lips moved to deny him, but made no sound. Now it was revealed to +her, the way. + +“Come back to me, Sofia!” + +His hand crept along the edge of the table and lifted, quivering, to +capture hers. She steeled herself to endure its touch, against +sickening repulsion she fought to achieve a smile that would carry a +suggestion of at least forgetfulness. + +“And if I do—?” she murmured. + +He gave a violent start, blood suffused his face darkly, his arms leapt +out to enfold her. She stepped back, evading him with a movement of +coquetry that served, as it was intended, to inflame him the more. + +“Wait!” she insisted. “Answer me first: If I return to you—then what?” + +“Everything shall be as you wish—everything forgotten—I will think of +nothing but how to make you happy—” + +“And I may have my letters?” + +He nodded, swallowing hard, as if the concession well-nigh choked him. + +Under his gloating gaze her flesh crawled. Only by supreme effort did +she succeed in resisting a mad impulse to risk a rush for door or +windows, and whipped her will into maintaining what seemed to be frank +response. + +“Very well,” she said; “I agree.” + +Again he offered to touch her, again she moved slightly, eluding him. + +“No,” she stipulated with an arch glance—“not yet! First prove you mean +to make good your word.” + +“How?” + +“Let me go—with my letters—and call on me to-morrow.” + +His look clouded. “Can I trust you?” He was putting the question to +himself more than to her. “Dare I?” He added in a tone colourless and +flat: “I’ve half a mind to take you at your word. Only—forgive my +doubts—appearances are against you—you seem almost too keen for the +bargain. How can I know—?” + +“What proof do you want?” + +“Something definite.... You pledge yourself to me?” A movement of her +head assented. “You will give yourself back to me?” He came nearer, but +she contrived to repeat the sign of assent. “Wholly, without reserve?” + +An invincible disgust shook her as the full sense of his insistence +struck home. Still she whipped herself to play out the scene—and win! + +“As you say, Victor, as you will....” + +He moved still nearer. She became conscious of his nearness as if a +palpable aura of vileness emanated from his person. + +“Then give me proof—here and now.” + +“How?” + +He laughed a throaty, evil laugh. “Need you ask? Not much, my Sofia ... +only a little ... something on account ...” Suddenly she could no more: +memories unspeakable rose like disturbed dregs to the surface of her +consciousness. Involuntarily, not knowing what she did, she flung out +an arm and struck down his hands. + +“You—leper!” + +The epithet was like a knout cutting through the decayed fibre of the +man and raising a livid welt on his diseased soul. Galled beyond +endurance, his countenance convulsed with fury, he struck wickedly; and +the vicious blow of his open palm across her mouth brought flecks of +blood to the lips as her teeth cut into the tender flesh. + +It did far more, it shattered at one stroke the brittle casing of +self-command with which centuries of civilization had sought to veneer +the Slav. In a trice a woman whose existence neither of them had +suspected was revealed, a fury incarnate flew at the dismayed prince, +clawing, tearing, raining blows upon his face and bosom. Overcome by +surprise, blinded, dazed, staggered, he gave ground, stumbled, caught +at a chair to steady himself. + +As abruptly as it had begun, the assault ceased. Panting and frantic, +the girl fell back, paused, renewed her grasp upon herself, gazed +momentarily in contempt on that dashed and quaking figure, then swiftly +swooped down to retrieve the picture, and madly pelted toward the door. + +In an instant, Victor was after her. His clutching fingers barely +missed her shoulder but caught a flying end of the veil that swathed +her throat and head. With finger-tips touching the door-knob Sofia was +checked and twitched back so violently that she was all but thrown off +her feet. + +She tried desperately to regain her balance, but the pressure round her +throat, tightening, bade fair to suffocate her; and reeling, while her +hands tore ineffectually at the folds of the veil, she was drawn back +and back, and tripped, falling half on, half off the table. + +Already her vision was darkening, her lungs were labouring painfully, +her head throbbed with the revolt of strangulated arteries as if sledge +hammers were seeking to smash through her skull. + +Through closing shadows she saw that savage mask which hovered over +her, moping and mowing, as Victor twisted and drew ever more tight the +murderous bindings round her throat. + +A groping hand encountered something on the table, a lump of metal, +cold and heavy. She seized and dashed it brutally into that hateful +face, saw his head jerk back and heard him grunt with pain, and struck +again, blindly, with all her might. + +Instantly the pressure upon her throat was eased. She heard a groan, a +fall ... + + + + +VIII +GREEK VS. GREEK + + +She found herself standing, partly resting upon the table. Great, +tearing sobs racked her slight young body—but at least she was +breathing, there was no more constriction of her windpipe; Her head +still ached, however, her neck felt stiff and sore, and she remained +somewhat giddy and confused. + +She eyed rather wildly her hands. One held torn and ragged folds of the +veil ripped from her throat, the other the weapon with which she had +cheated death: a bronze paperweight, probably a miniature copy of a +Barye, an elephant trumpeting. The up-flung trunk was darkly stained +and sticky.... + +With a shudder she dropped the bronze, and looked down. Victor lay at +her feet, supine, grotesquely asprawl. His face was bruised and livid; +the cheek laid open by the bronze was smeared with scarlet, +accentuating the leaden colour of his skin. His mouth was ajar; his +eyes, half closed, hideously revealed slender slits of white. More +blood discoloured his right temple, welling from under the matted, +coarse black hair. + +He was terribly motionless. If he breathed, Sofia could detect no sign +of it. + +In panic she knelt beside the body, threw back Victor’s dinner-coat, +and laid an ear above his heart. + +At first, in her mad anxiety, she could hear nothing. But presently a +beating registered, slow and harsh but steady-paced. + +With a sob of relief she sat back on her heels, and after a little +while got unsteadily to her feet. + +The house door closed with a dull bang, and from the entrance hallway +came a sound of voices. She stood petrified in dread till the voices +fell and she heard stairs creak under an ascending tread. + +Thus reminded that Lanyard’s return might occur at any moment, she made +all haste to patch up the disarray of veil and coiffure. Fortunately +her costume, protected by the cloak of heavy and sturdy stuff, was +quite undamaged. + +Not till on the point of leaving did she remember the painting. It lay +unharmed where it had fallen when Victor seized her veil. She was calm +enough now to consider herself fortunate in finding it so poorly +secured in its frame; without the latter it would be far easier to +smuggle the canvas away under her cloak. + +In the final glance she bent upon Victor’s beaten and insensible body +there was no pity, no regret, no trace of compunction. What he had +suffered he had ten times—no, a hundred, a thousand—earned. Long before +she left him Sofia had lost count of the blows she had taken at his +hands, the insults worse than blows, the lesser indignities +innumerable. + +But in those abolished days she had never once struck back, she had +been faint of heart, cowed and terrified, and had lacked what two years +of separation had given her, that spiritual independence which never +before had been able to realize itself, lift up its head, and grow +strong in the assurance of its own integrity. + +Two years ago she would not have dared to lift a hand to Victor, no +matter how sore the provocation. To-night—if she had one regret it was +that she had struck so feebly: not that she desired his death, but that +she knew it was now her life or his. She knew the man too well to +flatter herself that he would rest before he had compassed such revenge +as the baseness of his degenerate soul would deem adequate. Half the +world were not too much to put between them if she were now to sleep of +nights in comfortable consciousness of security from his quenchless +hatred. + +Callously enough she switched off the lights and left him lying there, +in darkness but for the ash-dimmed glimmer of a dying fire. + +In the entrance hallway she hesitated, coldly composed and alert. But +seemingly the noise of their struggle had not carried beyond the door. +There was no one about. + +With neither haste nor faltering, without the least misadventure, she +let herself quietly out into the empty, silent, rain-swept street, and +scurried toward the lights of Piccadilly. + +Before long a cruising four-wheeler overhauled her. In its obscure and +stuffy refuge she sat hugging her precious canvas and pondering her +plight. + +It was borne in upon her that she would do well to leave London, yes, +and England, too, before Victor recovered sufficiently to scheme and +put a watch upon her movements. + +She had need henceforth to be swift and wary and shrewd.... + +A singular elation began to colour her temper, a quickening sense of +emancipation. Necessity at a stroke had set her free. Because she must +fly and hide to save her life, society had no more hold upon her, she +need no longer fight to keep up appearances in spite of her status as a +woman living apart from her husband, little better than a divorcée—an +estate anathema to the English of those days. + +She experienced, through the play of her imagination upon this new and +startling conception of life, an intoxicating prelibation of freedom +such as she had never dreamed to savour. + +That waywardness which was a legitimate inheritance from generations of +wilful forebears, impatient of all those restraints which a fixed +environment imposes upon the individual, an impatience which had always +been hers though it slumbered in unsuspected latency, asserted itself +of a sudden, possessed her wholly, and warmed, her being like forbidden +wine. + +In this humour she was set down at her door. + +None saw her enter. In a moment of vaguely prophetic foresight she had +bidden Thérèse not to wait up for her and to tell the other servants +there was no necessity for their doing so. She might be detained, +Heaven alone knew how late she might be; but she had her latch-key and +was quite competent to undress and put herself to bed. + +And Thérèse had taken her at her word. + +She was glad of that. In event that anything should leak out and be +printed by the newspapers concerning the theft of Monsieur Lanyard’s +famous “Corot” by a strange, closely veiled woman, it was just as well +that none of the servants was about to see her come in with the canvas +clumsily hidden under her cloak. + +So she exercised much circumspection in shutting and bolting the door, +mounted the stairs without making any unnecessary stir, and at the door +of her boudoir waited, listening, for several moments, in the course of +which she heard, or fancied she heard, a slight noise on the far side +of the door which made her suspect Thérèse might after all still be up +and about. + +The sound was not repeated, but to make sure Sofia slipped out of her +cloak and wrapped it round the canvas before she went in; which last +she did sharply, with head up and eyes flashing ominously beneath +scowling brows—prepared to give Thérèse a rare taste of temper if she +found she had been disobeyed. + +But though the maid had left the lights on, she was nowhere to be seen. +Nor did she answer from the bedchamber when the princess called her. + +With a sigh of relief that ran into the chuckle of a child absorbed in +mischief, Sofia threw the cloak across a chaise-longue, and bore her +prize in triumph to the escritoire. + +It was her intention to rip the canvas off with a knife, to get at the +letters; and a long, thin-bladed Spanish dagger that now did service as +a paper-knife was actually in her hand when she noticed how slightly +the painting was tacked to its stretcher, and for the first time was +visited by premonition. + +Dropping the knife, she caught a loose edge of the canvas and with one +swift tug stripped it clear of the unpainted fabric beneath. + +The cry that disappointment wrung from her was bitter with protest and +chagrin. + +Fortune had failed her, then, the jade had tricked her heartlessly. +With success within her grasp, it had trickled like quicksilver through +her fingers. Victor had been beforehand with her, had purloined the +letters and restored the canvas to its frame. She might have suspected +as much if she had only had the wit to draw a natural inference from +the way the painting had parted company with its frame when she dropped +it. + +So the letters for which she had risked and suffered so much must be +back there, in Lanyard’s lodgings, in Victor’s possession—lost +irretrievably, since she would never find the courage to go back for +them, even if she dared assume that Victor had not yet recovered and +escaped or that Lanyard had not yet come home. + +If only she had thought to rifle Victor’s pockets ... + +“Too late,” she uttered in despair. + +“Ah, madame, never say that!” + +She swung round but, shocked as she was to the verge of stupefaction, +made no outcry. + +The intruder stood within arm’s-length, collected, amiable, debonair, +nothing threatening in his attitude, merely an easy and at the same +time quite respectful suggestion of interest. + +“Monsieur Lanyard!” + +His bow was humorous without mockery: “Madame la princesse does me much +honour.” + +She was silent another instant, in a wide stare comprehending the +incredible, the utterly impossible fact of his presence there. The one +conceivable explanation voiced itself without her volition: + +“The Lone Wolf!” + +“Oh, come now!” he remonstrated, indulgently—“that’s downright +flattery.” + +She moved aside, lifting a hand toward the bell-cord. + +“Wait!” + +Involuntarily she deferred, her arm dropped. Then, appreciating that +she had yielded where he had no right to command, she mutinied. + +“Why?” she demanded, resentfully. + +“Why ring?” he countered, smiling. + +“To call my servants—to have them call in the police.” + +“But surely madame la princesse must appreciate the police might be at +a loss to know which housebreaker to arrest.” + +He cocked an eye of mocking significance toward the purloined “Corot,” +and in sharp revulsion of feeling Sofia had need to bite her lip to +keep from laughing. She hesitated. He was right and reasonable enough, +this impudent and imperturbable young elegant. Yet she could not afford +to concede so much to him. She was quick to accept his gage. + +“Who knows,” she enquired, obliquely, “why Monsieur the Lone Wolf +brought with him this counterfeit Corot when he broke in to steal—” + +“The counterfeit jewels of a titled adventuress!” + +An interruption brusque enough to silence her; or else it was its +innuendo that struck the princess dumb with indignation. Lanyard’s +laugh offered amends for the rudeness, as if he said: “Sorry—but you +asked for it, you know.” He stepped aside, caught up a handful of her +jewels that had been left, a tempting heap, openly exposed on her +dressing-table (as much her own carelessness as anybody’s, Sofia +admitted) and tossed them lightly upon the face of the fraudulent +canvas. + +“Birds of a feather,” was his comment, whimsical; “coals to Newcastle!” + +“My jewels!” The princess gathered them up tenderly and faced him, +blazing with resentment. He returned a twisted smile, an apologetic +shrug. + +“Madame la princesse didn’t know? I’m so sorry.” + +“How dare you say they’re paste?” + +“I’m sorry,” he repeated; “but somebody seems to have taken advantage +of madame’s confidence. Excellent imitations, I grant you, but articles +de Paris none the less.” + +“It isn’t true!” she stormed, near to tears. + +“But really, you must believe me. A knowledge of jewels is one of my +hobbies: I _know!_” + +She looked down in consternation at the exquisite trinkets he had +condemned so bluntly. Then in a fit of temper she flung them from her +with all her might, threw herself upon the chaise-longue, and wept +passionately into its cushions. Then the young man proved himself +tolerably instructed in the ways of womankind. He said nothing more, +made no offer to comfort her by those futile and empty pats on the +shoulder which are instinctive with man on such occasions, but simply +sat him down and waited. + +In time the tempest passed, Sofia sat up and dabbled her eyes with a +web of lace and linen. Then she looked round with a tentative smile +that was wholly captivating. She was one of those rare women who can +afford to cry. + +“It’s so humiliating!” she protested with racial ingenuousness—one of +her most compelling charms. “But it’s ridiculous, too. I was so sure no +one would ever know.” + +“No one but an expert ever would, madame.” + +“You see”—apparently she had forgotten that Lanyard was anything but a +lifelong friend—“I needed money so badly, I had them reproduced and +sold the originals.” + +“Madame la princesse—if she will permit—commands my profound sympathy.” + +“But,” she remembered, drying her eyes, “you called me an adventuress, +too!” + +“But,” he contended, gravely, “you had already called me the Lone +Wolf.” + +“But what do you expect, monsieur, when I find you in my rooms—?” + +“But what does madame la princesse expect when I find she had been to +mine—and brought something valuable away with her, too!” + +“I had a reason—” + +“So had I.” + +“What was it?” + +“Perhaps it was to see madame la princesse alone—secretly—without +exciting the jealousy, which I understand is supernormal, of monsieur +le prince.” + +“But why should you wish to see me alone?” she demanded, with widening +eyes. + +“Perhaps to beg madame’s permission to offer her what may possibly +prove some slight consolation.” + +She weighed his words in dark distrust. What was this consolation? What +his game? His attitude remained consistently too deferential and +punctilious for one to suspect that by consolation he meant +love-making. + +“But how did you get in?” + +“By the front door, madame. I find it ajar—one assumes, through +oversight on the part of one of the servants—it opens to a touch, I +walk in—et voila!” + +His levity was infectious. In spite of herself, she smiled in sympathy. + +“And what, pray, is this wonderful consolation you would offer me?” + +He produced from a pocket a packet of papers. + +“I think madame la princesse is interested in these,” he said. “If she +will be so amiable as to accept them from me, with my compliments and +one little word of advice....” + +“Ah, monsieur!” Look and tone thanked him more than words could ever. +“You are too kind! And your advice—?” + +“They tell too much, madame, those letters. And I see you have a fire +in the grate ...” + +“Monsieur has reason....” + +She rose, went to the fireplace and, half kneeling, thrust the letters +one by one into the incandescent bed of coals. A ceremony of sentiment +at any other time, but not now: her thoughts were far from the man with +whose memory these letters were linked, they were in fact not wholly +articulate. Just what was passing through her mind she herself would +have found it hard to define; she was mainly conscious of a flooding +emotion of gratitude to Lanyard; but there was something more, a +feeling not unakin to tenderness.... + +The reaction of her vital young body from a desperate physical +conflict, the rapid play of her passions from anger and despair through +triumph and delight to gratification and content, from the bitterest +sense of frustration and peril to one of security; the uprush of those +strange instincts which had lain dormant till roused by the knowledge +that she was free at length from the maddening stupidity of social +life, together with her recent, implicit self-dedication to a life in +all things its converse: these influences were working upon her so +strongly as to render her mood more dangerous than she guessed. + +Disturbed in her formless reverie, an aimless groping through a +bewildering maze of emotions but vaguely apprehended, she started up, +faced round and saw Lanyard, topcoat over arm and hat in hand, about to +open the door. + +“Monsieur!” + +He looked back, coolly quizzical. “Madame?” + +“What are you doing?” + +“Taking my unobtrusive departure, madame la princesse, by the way I +came.” + +“But—wait—come back!” + +He shrugged agreeably, released the door-knob, and stood before her, or +rather over her—for he was the taller by a good five inches—looking +down, quietly at her service. + +“I haven’t thanked you.” + +“For what, madame? For treating myself to an amusing adventure?” + +“It has cost you dear!” + +“The fortunes of war ...” + +Her hands rose unconsciously, with an uncertain movement. Her face was +soft with an elusive bloom of unwonted feeling. Her eyes held a puzzled +look, as if she did not quite understand what was moving her so deeply. + +“You are a strange man, monsieur....” + +“And what shall one say of madame la princesse?” + +She could but laugh; and laughter rings the death-knell of constraint. + +But Lanyard remembered uneasily that somebody—Solomon or some other who +must have led an interesting life—had remarked that the lips of a +strange woman are smoother than oil. + +“None the less, monsieur, I am deeply in your debt.” + +His smile of impersonal courtesy failed. He was becoming more sensitive +than he liked to her charm and the warm sentiment she was giving out to +him. This strange access in her of haunting loveliness, the gentle +shadows that lay beneath her wide—yet languorous eyes, the almost +imperceptible tremor of her sweetly fashioned lips, all troubled him +profoundly. He exerted himself to break the spell upon his senses which +this woman, wittingly or not, was weaving. But the effort was at best +half-hearted. + +“I am well repaid,” he said a bit stiffly, “by the knowledge that the +honour of madame la princesse is safe.” + +Sofia laughed breathlessly. Somehow her hands had found the way to his. +Her glance wavered and fell. + +“But is it?” she asked in a tone so intimate that it was barely +audible. And she laughed once more. “I am not so sure ... as long as +monsieur is here.” + +Lanyard’s mouth twitched, slow colour mounted in his face, the light in +his eyes was lambent. He found himself looking deep into other eyes +that were like pools of violet shadow troubled by a deep surge and +resurge of feeling for which there was no name. Aware that they +revealed more than he ought to know, he sought to escape them by +bending his lips to Sofia’s hands. + +Sighing softly, she resigned them to his kisses. + + + + +IX +PAID IN FULL + + +It was late when Lanyard got home, but not too late: when he entered +his living-room enough life lingered in the embers in the grate to +betray to him a feline shape on all-fours creeping toward his +bedchamber door. As he switched up the lights it bounded to its feet +and dived through the portières with such celerity that he saw little +more of it than coat-tails level on the wind. + +Dropping hat and canvas, Lanyard gave chase and overhauled the marauder +as he was clambering out through the open window, where a firm hand on +his collar checked his preparations to drop half a dozen feet to the +flagged court. + +Victor swore fretfully and lashed out a random fist, which struck +Lanyard’s cheek a glancing blow that carried just enough sting to +kindle resentment. So the virtuous householder was rather more than +unceremonious about yanking the princely housebreaker inside and +lending him a foot to accelerate his return to the living-room; where +Victor brought up, on all-fours again, in almost precisely the spot +from which he had risen. + +He bounced up, however, with a surprising amount of animation and +ambition, and flew back to the offensive with flailing fists. In this +his judgment was grievously in fault. Lanyard sidestepped, nipped a +wrist, twitched it smartly up between the man’s shoulder-blades (with a +wrench that won a grunt of agony), caught the other arm from behind by +the hollow of its elbow, and held his victim helpless—though +ill-advised enough to continue to hiss and spit and squirm and kick. + +A heel that struck Lanyard’s shin earned Victor a shaking so +thoroughgoing that he felt the teeth rattle in his jaws. When it was +suspended, he was breathless but thoughtful, and offered no objection +to being searched. Lanyard relieved him of a revolver and a dirk, then +with a push sent Victor reeling to the table, where he stood panting, +quivering, and glaring murder, while his captor put the dagger away and +examined the firearm. + +“Wicked thing,” he commented—“loaded, too. Really, monsieur le prince +should be more careful. One of these fine days, if you don’t stop +playing with such weapons, one of these will go off right in your +hand—and the next high-light in your history will be when the judge +says: ‘And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!’” + +Victor confided his sentiments to a handkerchief with which he was +mopping his face. Lanyard sat down and wagged a reproving head. + +“Didn’t catch,” he said; “perhaps it’s just as well, though; sounded +like bad words. Hope I’m mistaken, of course: princes ought to set +impressionable plebeians a better pattern.” + +He cocked a critical eye. “You’re a sight, if you don’t mind my saying +so—look as if the sky had caved in on you. May one ask what happened? +Did it stub its toe and fall?” + +Victor suspended operations with the handkerchief to bend upon his +tormentor a louring, distrustful stare. His head was still heavy, hot, +and painful, his mental processes thick with lees of coma; but now he +began to appreciate, what naturally seemed apparent, that Lanyard must +be unacquainted with the cause of his injuries. + +A searching look round the room confirmed him in this error. The canvas +lay where Lanyard had dropped it on entering, not in the spot where +Victor remembered seeing it last, but where conceivably an unheeded +kick might have sent it in the course of his struggle with Sofia. She +must have forgotten it, then, when she fled from what she probably +thought was murder, and what might well have been. + +He was much too sore and shaken to be subtle; and the general trend of +his conjectures was perfectly legible to Lanyard, who without delay set +himself to conjure away any lingering suspicion of his guilelessness. + +“Not squiffy, are you, by any chance?” he enquired with the kindliest +interest. “You look as if you’d wound up a spree by picking a fight +with a bobby. Your cheek’s cut and all (shall we say, in deference to +the well-known prejudices of the dear B.P.?) ensanguined. Sit down and +pull yourself together before you try to explain to what I owe this +honour—and so forth.” + +He got up, clapped a hand on Prince Victor’s shoulder, and steered him +into an easy chair. + +“Anything more I can do to put you at your ease? Would a brandy and +soda help, do you think?” + +The suggestion was acceptable: Victor signified as much with an +ungracious mumble. Lanyard fetched glasses, a decanter, a +siphon-bottle, and supplied his guest with a liberal hand before +helping himself. + +Victor took the drink without a word of thanks and gulped it down +noisily. Lanyard drank sparingly, then crossed the room to a bell-push. +Seeing his finger on it Prince Victor started from his chair, but +Lanyard hospitably waved him back. + +“Don’t go yet,” he pleaded. “You’ve only just dropped in, we haven’t +had half a chance to chat. Besides, you mustn’t forget I’ve got your +pistol and your dirk and the upper hand and a sustaining sense of moral +superiority and no end of other advantages over you.” + +“Why,” the prince demanded, nervously—“why did you ring?” + +“To call a cab for you, of course. I don’t imagine you want to walk +home—do you?—in your present state of shocking disrepair. Of course, if +you’d rather ... But do sit down: compose yourself.” + +“Let me be,” the other snapped as Lanyard offered good-naturedly to +thrust him back into the chair. “I am—quite composed.” + +“That’s good! Excellent! Hand steady enough to write me a cheque, do +you think?” + +“What the devil!” + +“Oh, come now! Don’t go off your bat so easily. I’m only going to do +you a service—” + +“Damn your impudence! I want no services of you!” + +“Oh, yes you do!” Lanyard insisted, unabashed—“or you will when you +learn what a kind heart I’ve got. Now do be nice and stop protesting! +You see, you’ve touched my heart. I’d no idea you were so passionate +about that painting. If I had for one instant imagined you cared enough +about it to burglarize my rooms ... But now that I do understand, my +dear fellow, I wouldn’t deny you for worlds; I make you a free present +of it, at the price I paid—twenty thousand and one hundred +guineas—exacting no bonus or commission whatever. You’ll find blank +cheques in the upper right-hand drawer of my desk there; fill in one to +my order, and the Corot’s yours.” + +For a moment longer the prince stared, hate and perplexity in equal +measure tincturing his regard. Then slowly the look of doubt gave way +to the ghost of a crafty smile. + +What a blazing fool the fellow was (he thought) to accept a cheque on +which payment could be stopped before banking hours in the morning—! + +Such fatuity seemed incredible. Yet there it was, egregious, +indisputable. Why not profit by it, turn it to his own advantage? To +secure what he had sought, the letters concealed between the canvases, +and turn them against Sofia, and to play this Lanyard for a fool, all +at one stroke—the opportunity was too rich to be slighted. + +He dissembled his exultation—or plumed himself on doing so. + +“Very well,” he mumbled, sulkily. “I’ll draw the cheque.” + +“That’s the right spirit!” Lanyard declared, and escorted him to the +desk. + +A knock sounded. Lanyard called: “Come in!” A sleepy manservant, +half-dressed and warm from his bed, entered. + +“You rang, sir?” + +“Yes, Harris.” Lanyard tossed him a sovereign. “Sorry to rout you out +so late, but I need a cab. Whistle up a growler, will you?” + +“’Nk-you, sir.” + +The man retired cheerfully, rewarded for many a night of broken +slumber. Prince Victor got up from the desk and proffered Lanyard the +cheque. + +“I fancy,” he said with a leer, “you’ll find that all right.” + +Lanyard scrutinized the cheque minutely, nodded his satisfaction. + +“Thanks ever so ... No, not a word!” He forbade inflexibly a wholly +imaginary interposition on the part of Prince Victor. “You don’t know +how to thank me—do you? Then why try? I know I’m too good, but I really +can’t help it, it’s my nature—and there you are! So what’s the good of +bickering about it?... Now where did you leave your coat and hat? On my +bed, as you came in?” + +He smiled charmingly and darted through the portières, returning with +the articles in question. “Do let me help you.” + +The prince struggled into the coat and grunted an acknowledgment of the +service. Lanyard pressed the hat into his hand, picked up the canvas, +replaced it in its frame, and tucked both under the princely arm. + +Another knock: Harris returned. + +“The four-wheeler is w’iting, sir.” + +“Thanks, Harris. Half a moment: I want a word with you. You see this +gentleman?” Lanyard caught Victor’s look of angry resentment and +interrupted himself. “Don’t forget yourself, monsieur le prince. +Remember ...” + +He patted significantly the pocket which held the revolver, and turned +back to Harris. + +“This gentleman,” he said, consulting the signature to the cheque, “is +Prince Victor Vassilyevski. Please remember him. You may have to bear +witness against him in court.” + +“What insolence is this?” Victor demanded, hotly. + +“Calm yourself, monsieur le prince.” Lanyard repeated the warning +gesture. “He is a nobleman of Russia, or says he is, and—strangely +enough, Harris!—a burglar. I caught him burglarizing my rooms when I +came home just now. You may judge from his appearance what difficulty I +had in subduing him.” + +“’E do seem fair used up, sir,” Harris admitted, eyeing Victor +indignantly. “Would you wish me to call a bobby and give ’im in +charge?” + +“Thanks, no. Prince Victor and I have compromised. He doesn’t relish +going to jail, and I’ve no particular desire to send him there. But he +does want what he broke in to steal—that painting you see under his +arm—and I’ve agreed to sell it to him. Here’s the cheque he has just +given me. Providing payment is not stopped on it, Harris, you will hear +no more of this incident. But if by any chance the cheque should come +back from his bank—I may ask you to testify to what you have seen and +heard here to-night.” + +“It is a lie!” Prince Victor shrilled. “You brought me in with you, +assaulted me, blackmailed that cheque out of me! Nobody saw us—” + +“Sorry,” Lanyard cut in; “but it so happens, that the gentleman who has +the rooms immediately above came in when I did, and can testify that I +was alone. That’s all, monsieur le prince. Your carriage waits.” + +Harris opened the door. Choking with rage, the prince shuffled out, +Lanyard politely escorting him to the curb. There, with a foot lifted +to enter the four-wheeler, Prince Victor turned, shaking an impassioned +hand in Lanyard’s face. + +“You’ll pay me for this!” he spluttered. “I’ll square accounts with +you, Lanyard, if I have to follow you to the gates of hell!” + +“Better not,” Lanyard warned him fairly, “if you do, I’ll push you in +... Bon soir, monsieur le prince!” + + + + +BOOK II +THE LONE WOLF’S DAUGHTER + + + + +I +THE GIRL SOFIA + + +She sat all day long—from noon, that is, till late at night—on a high +stool behind the tall, pulpit-like desk of the caisse; flanked on one +hand by the swing door of green baize which communicated with the +kitchen, on the other by a hideous black walnut buffet on which fruits +of the season were displayed, more or less temptingly, to the taste of +Mama Thérèse. + +But for these articles of furniture, the buffet, the desk, and the door +to the kitchen quarters, uninterrupted rows of tables, square, with +composition-marble tops, lined three walls of the room. The fourth was +mainly plate-glass window, one on either side of the main entrance. + +Back of the tables were wall-seats upholstered in red plush, dusty and +threadbare; and, above, a frieze of mirrors. The floor of the +restaurant was a patternless mosaic of small hexagonal tiles, bare in +warm weather, in the winter covered by a thick but well-worn Brussels +carpet of peculiarly repulsive design. The windows wore half-curtains +of net which, after nightfall, were reinforced by ruffled draperies of +rep silk. Through the net curtains, by day, the name of the restaurant +was shadowed in reverse by plain white-enamel letters glued to the +glass: + +[Illustration] + +The girl stared so constantly at these letters, during the off hours of +the day, that she sometimes wondered if they were not indelibly stamped +upon her brain, like this: + +[Illustration] + +She gazed in the direction of the windows as a matter of habit, because +Mama Thérèse objected to her reading at the desk (all the same, +sometimes she did it on the sly) because the glimpses she caught, above +the half-curtains, of heads of passersby gave her idle imagination +something to play with, but mostly because it was difficult otherwise +to seem unconscious of the stares that converged toward her from every +table occupied by a masculine patron, whether regular or casual—unless +the patron happened to be accompanied by a lady, in which unhappy event +he had to content himself with furtive, sidelong glances, not always +furtive enough by half. + +The feminine patrons stared, too, but from quite another angle of view. + +Sofia knew why. If she hadn’t, the mirror across the room would have +enlightened even a woman without vanity; which paradox this thoroughly +human young person was not. + +She was, indeed, healthily vain; and when she wasn’t focussing +dream-dark eyes upon the windows, or verifying additions and making +change, she was as likely as not to be stealing consultations with the +mirror opposite, making sure she hadn’t, in the last few minutes, gone +off in her looks. Not that her comeliness bade fair ever to prove the +cause of any real excitement. Mama Thérèse made a first-rate dragon: +she was very much on the job of discouraging enterprising young men, +and this without respect for union hours or overtime. And when she +wasn’t functioning as the ubiquitous wet-blanket, Papa Dupont +understudied for her, and did it most efficiently, too. If anything he +was more vigilant and enthusiastic when it came to administering the +snub sufficient than even Mama Thérèse; in Sofia’s sight, indeed, he +betrayed some personal feeling in the business; he seemed to consider +alien admiration of his charge an encroachment upon his private +prerogatives, to be resented accordingly. + +Sofia understood. At eighteen—thanks to the comprehensive visual +education in the business of life which she could hardly have failed to +assimilate from a coign of vantage overlooking every table of a Soho +restaurant—there were precious few things she didn’t understand. But +her insight into Papa Dupont’s mind in respect of herself was wholly +devoid of sympathy. She was just a little bit afraid of him, and she +despised him without measure. And this contempt was founded on +something more than his weakness for taking numerous and surreptitious +nips (surreptitious, at least, until they became numerous) while +presiding over the zinc in the pantry between the restaurant proper and +the kitchen; and on something more than his reluctance to let Mama +Thérèse make an honest man of him, although these two had squabbled +openly for so many years that most of the house staff believed them to +be married hard and fast enough. + +For the matter of that, Sofia herself might have been the dupe of this +popular delusion—which Mama Thérèse did her best to encourage by never +referring to Dupont save as “mon mari”—had they been less imprudent in +recriminations which had passed between them in private when Sofia was +of an age so tender that she was presumed to be safely immature of +mind. Whereas she had always been precocious, if rather a +self-contained child. Almost from infancy she had been conversant with +many things which she knew it wouldn’t do to talk about. + +Such sympathy as Sofia wasted on the couple was all for Mama Thérèse. +What with keeping an eye on Papa Dupont that prevented his drinking +himself to death seven times per calendar week, and an eye on Sofia +that was fondly credited with being largely responsible for her failure +to run away with each and every presentable man who ogled her, and +browbeating the waiters and frustrating their attempts to cheat the +house out of its fair dues, and supervising the marketing and the +cuisine: believe it or not, Mama Thérèse led a tolerably busy life and +deserved whatever gratification she got out of it, to say nothing of +highest commendation for industry, fidelity, and frugality. But that +did nothing to prevent Sofia from not liking her. + +Her inability to play up to the relationship in which she stood to Mama +Thérèse in the manner prescribed by sentimentalists worried Sofia more +than a little. She was as hungry to give affection as to receive it; +and surely she ought to be fond of Mama Thérèse, who (Sofia was forever +being reminded) had in the goodness of her great heart adopted her as +the orphaned offspring of a cousin far-removed, and had brought her up +at her own expense, expecting no return (excepting humility, gratitude, +unquestioning affection, and uncomplaining acceptance of a life of +incessant toil at tasks uncongenial when not downright unsavoury, +without spending money or hours of untrammelled liberty in which to +spend it). + +Surely such nobility ought to be requited with nothing less than love! + +Nevertheless, the plain, and to Sofia disquieting, truth was: it +wasn’t. + +She was fond of Mama Thérèse after a fashion. No one was ever more +ready to acknowledge the woman’s good qualities. But her faults, which +included avarice, bad temper, gluttony, native cruelty of inclination, +and simple inability to give a damn for anybody but herself, forbade +satisfaction of Sofia’s yearnings to give her affections freely through +bestowing them upon the abundant and florid person of Mama Thérèse. + +Still, she made no murmur. There was more than a trace of fatalism in +the composition of her spirit. As she conceived it, in this life either +things were or they were not; and as a rule they uncompromisingly were +not: one couldn’t have everything. + +She was not happy, it would be stretching the truth to say she was +content, but she was resigned, she was patient, she waited not +altogether without confidence.... + +All the same, sometimes, as she sat, day in day out, on her high stool, +looking down on familiar aspects of life’s fermentation as it manifests +in public restaurants, or peering out of the windows to catch +tantalizing glimpses of its freer, ampler, and—alas!—more recondite +phases—sometimes Sofia wondered whether there were not grimly cynic +innuendo in those three words which the mystery of choice had affixed +to the window-panes and graven so deep into her soul. + +[Illustration] + +For surely she was in exile there, an exile from all the fun and frolic +and, fury of life, marooned in weary isolation, on a high stool, in a +frowsty table d’hôte, in the living heart of London. + + + + +II +MASKS AND FACES + + +Quite naturally she became acquainted with Faces.... + +She grew adept at a game which consisted mostly in keeping close watch +upon those who for this reason or that engaged her attention, without +giving them the slightest reason to suspect she was doing anything of +the sort. + +One could not always be staring in abstraction at nothing in particular +as it passed to and fro on the sidewalk in front of the Café des +Exiles; one could not often or for long at a time succeed in reading a +book held open in one’s lap, below the level of the cashier’s desk, +Mama Thérèse was too brisk for that; one had to do something with one’s +mind; and it was sometimes diverting to watch and speculate about +people who looked interesting. + +There were so many Faces, they came and went so constantly, like +bubbles in a tideway, that to Sofia most of them seemed +indistinguishable one from another, mere blurs of flesh colour studded +with staring eyes and slitted by apertures which automatically and +alternately gaped to receive gobbets of food and goblets of drink and +closed to gulp them down. A man needed to be remarkable for something +in his looks, not necessarily pulchritude, or for uncommon +individuality, for Sofia to favour him with more than one of her +seemingly casual glances or to remember him if he visited the café a +second time. + +But those there were who stood out from the rank and file, for whom she +watched, whom she missed if they failed to put in appearance at their +accustomed hours, about whom her idle but able imagination wove +wonderful fantasies, enduing them with histories and environments as +far removed from fact as the drab dreams of the realists are from the +picturesque commonplaces of everyday. + +And there were others who came once and never again, but whom she never +forgot. But for some of these last, indeed, she would never have +remembered some of the former. The brown-eyed youngster with the +sentimental expression and the funny little moustache, for example, +lurked in the ruck a long time before the one and only visit of a bird +of passage dignified him in the sight of the girl on the high stool. + +On the occasion of his first appearance (but that was long ago, Sofia +couldn’t remember how long) the slender young man with the soulful eyes +and the insignificant moustache had commended himself to her somewhat +derisive attention by seeming uncommonly exquisite for that atmosphere. + +The Café des Exiles was little haunted by the world of fashion; its +diner á prix fixe (2/6), although excellent, surprisingly well done for +the money, did not much seduce the clientèle of the Carlton and the +Ritz. Now and again its remoteness, promising freedom from embarrassing +encounters save through unlikely mischance, would bring it the custom +of a clandestine couple from the West End, who would for a time make it +an almost daily rendezvous, meeting nervously, sitting if possible in +the most shadowy corner, the farthest from the door, and holding hands +when they mistakenly assumed that nobody was looking—until the affair +languished or some contretemps frightened them away. + +Aside from such visitations, however, the great world coldly passed the +café by; although it couldn’t complain for lack of patronage, and in +fact prospered exceedingly if without ostentation on the half-crowns of +loyal Soho and more fickle suburbia. + +The Sohobohemian on its native heath and the City clerk on the loose, +however, were not prone to such vestments as young Mr. Karslake +affected. It wasn’t that he overdressed; even the ribald would have +hesitated to libel him with the name of a “nut”—which is Cockney for +what the United States knows as a “fancy (or swell) dresser”; it was +simply that he was always irreproachably turned out, whatever the form +of dress he thought appropriate to the time of day; and that his +wardrobe was so complete and varied that he seldom appeared twice in +the same suit of clothes—except, of course, after nightfall; though his +visits to the Café des Exiles for dinner or afterward were so +infrequent that each attained (after Sofia began to notice him at all) +the importance of an occasion. Luncheon was his time, and those empty +hours at the end of the afternoon which London fills in with tea and +Soho with drinks. + +He seemed to have a very wide and catholic acquaintance among people of +all ranks and stations in life; one could hardly call them friendships, +for he lunched or sipped an aperti not often with the same person twice +in a blue moon. And whether his companion were a curate or some ragged +wastrel of the quarter; painted young person from the chorus of the +newest revue or proper matron from Bayswater; keen adventurer from +Fleet Street or solid merchant from the City, his attitude was much the +same: easy, impersonal, unaffected, courteous, detached. He was as apt +as not (going on his facial expression) to be mooning about Sofia when +his guest was gesticulating wildly and uttering three hundred words a +minute. When he spoke it was modestly, in a voice of agreeable cadences +but pitched so low that Sofia never but twice heard anything he said; +and his manner was not characterized by brisk decision. All the same, +one noticed that he had, as a rule, the last word, that what he said +left his hearer either satisfied or pensive. + +He was unmistakably silly about Sofia; though that didn’t impress her, +too many of the regulars were just as hard hit, one more or less didn’t +count. But he never stared to the point of rudeness, and it always +seemed to make him hugely uncomfortable if she appeared in the least +aware of his adoration; and Mama Thérèse and Papa Dupont never even +noticed him, so circumspect was he. Still, Sofia saw, and sometimes +wondered, just as she wondered now and then about most of the possible +men who seemed disposed to be sentimental about her. + +For there were times when she felt she could do with a little more +first-hand experience and a little less second-hand knowledge. + +Love (she supposed) must be a very agreeable frame of mind to be in, it +was so generally vogue.... + +What first led her to think that Mr. Karslake might be an interesting +person to know, entirely aside from his admiration, happened on an +afternoon in June, a warm day for England, when a temperature of some +81 degrees was responsible for “heat-wave” broadsides issued by the +evening papers. + +At about tea time, Mr. Karslake, faultlessly arrayed, ambled in, +selected a table diagonally across the room from the caisse, exchanged +pleasantries with the waiter who served him a picon, and used a copy of +The Evening Standard & St. James’s Gazette as a cover for his wistful +admiration of Sofia. + +Presently he was joined by a gentleman twice his age, if not older, +whose conservative smartness was such that one wondered if he hadn’t +strayed out of bounds through inadvertence. One would have thought his +place was in the clubs of Piccadilly if not (at that particular hour) +at a tea table on the river terrace of the Houses of Parliament. On the +other hand, there wasn’t a trace of self-importance in his habit, it +achieved distinction solely through the unpretending dignity of a +decent self-esteem. + +Sofia tried to fix what it was that made her think him the handsomest +man she had ever seen. She failed. He wasn’t at all handsome in the +smug fashion associated with the popular interpretation of that term; +his features were engagingly irregular of conformation, but the +impression they conveyed was of a singular strength together with as +rare a fineness of spirit. A mobile and expressive face, stamped with a +history of strange ordeals; but this must not be interpreted as meaning +that it was haggard or prematurely aged; on the contrary, it had +youthful colour and was but lightly scored with wrinkles, its sole +confession of advancing years was in the gray at either temple. The +eyes, perhaps, told more than anything else of trials endured and +memories that would never rest. + +Once they had looked into hers (but that came later) Sofia was sure she +would never forget those eyes. And as she saw them then, she never did +forget them. But the next time she saw them she did not know them at +all. + +The newcomer hailed Mr. Karslake by his name (which was the first time +Sofia had heard it), sat down on the wall-seat beside him and, when the +waiter came, desired an absinthe. + +He had used two languages already, English to Karslake, French to the +waiter; Sofia understood both and spoke them to perfection. So it was +rather exasperating when, his absinthe having been served and the +customary platitudes passed on the weather and their respective states +of health, the conversation was continued in a tongue with which Sofia +was not only unacquainted but which sounded like none she had ever +heard spoken. This seemed the more annoying because there were few +people in the restaurant to drown with chatter the sound of those two +voices and because, in spite of their guarded tones, their table was +one so situated that some freak of acoustics carried every syllable +uttered at it, even though whispered, to the quick ears at the +cashier’s desk. A circumstance which had treated Sofia to many a moment +of covert entertainment and not a few that threatened to shatter what +slender illusions had survived eighteen years of Mama Thérèse. But +nobody else (with the possible exception of the last) was acquainted +with this secret of the restaurant, and Sofia was careful never to +mention it. + +Now it so happened that Mr. Karslake had never before sat at that +particular table. + +The language spoken at it to-day intrigued Sofia extravagantly. It was +rich in labials, gutturals, and odd sibilances. She was positive it was +not a European tongue, though she thought it might possibly be Russian, +because it sounded rather like Russian print looks; it might just as +well have been Arabic or Choctaw, for all Sofia could say to the +contrary. But his fluent ease in it impressed her with the notion that +young Mr. Karslake might not, after all, be as negligible a person as +he looked and as she indifferently had assumed. + +She determined to study him more attentively. + +It was rather a long confabulation, too, and one that both men seemed +to take very seriously—though its upshot was apparently quite +acceptable to both—and terminated abruptly with Mr. Karslake +announcing, in English, with every evidence of satisfaction: + +“Good! Then that’s settled.” + +To this the older man dissented tolerantly. + +“Pardon: nothing is settled; it is proposed, merely.” + +“Well,” said Karslake with a little laugh that to Sofia sounded empty, +“at all events it ought to be amusing.” + +The other lifted one eyebrow and smiled remotely. + +“You think so?” + +“To be ordering you about, sir? I should say so!” But his companion +wasn’t listening or chose purposely to ignore that accent of respect. + +“You are right, my friend,” he said, abstractedly: “it will be amusing. +But what in life is not? I fancy that is why most of us go on, because +we find the play entertaining in spite of ourselves. And even when we +think of Death ... there’s the possibility that on the other side of +the curtain, where the unseen audience sits, whose hisses and applause +we never hear ... over there it may be more entertaining still!” + +Karslake was inquisitively watching his face. + +“You would say that,” he commented, deference and admiration in his +voice. “By all accounts you’ve had a most amusing life.” + +“I have found it so.” The other nodded with glimmering eyes. “Not +always at the time, of course. But when I look back, especially at my +beginnings, at the times that seemed hardest and most intolerable ...” + +He was thoughtful for a moment, glancing interestedly round the room. + +“It takes one back.” + +“What does?” + +“This café, my friend.” + +“To your beginnings, you mean?” + +“Yes. It is very like the café at Troyon’s, at this hour especially, +when there are so few English about.” + +“Troyon’s?” + +“A restaurant in Paris. Famous in its day. Several years ago—before the +war—it burned down one night, cremating many memories. While it stood I +hated it, now I miss it; Paris without it is no more the Paris that I +knew.” + +“Why did you hate it, sir?” + +“Because I suffered there.” + +He indicated a weedy young Alsatian across the room, a depressed and +pimply creature in a waiter’s jacket and apron, who was shambling from +table to table and collecting used glasses and saucers. + +“You see that omnibus yonder? What he is to-day, that was I in +mine—omnibus, scullion, valet-de-chambre, butt and scapegoat-in-general +to the establishment, scavenger of food that no one else would eat.... +I suffered there, at Troyon’s.” + +“You, sir?” Karslake exclaimed in astonishment. “Whoever would have +thought that you ... How did you escape?” + +“It occurred to me, one day, I was less than half alive and never would +be better while I stayed on in that servitude. So I walked out—into +life.” + +“I wish you’d tell me, sir,” Karslake ventured, eagerly. + +“Some day, perhaps, when I get back. But now”—he looked at his +watch—“I’ve got just time enough to taxi to my hotel, pack, and catch +the boat train.” + +“Don’t wait for me,” Karslake suggested, signalling the waiter. + +“Perhaps it would be as well if I didn’t.” + +They shook hands, and the older man got up, secured his hat and stick, +and started out toward the door, moving leisurely, still looking about +him with the narrowed eyes and smile of reminiscence. + +Of a sudden that look was abolished utterly. He had caught sight of +Sofia. + +Her interest had been so excited by the singular confidences she had +overheard that the girl had quite forgotten herself and her +professional pose of blank neutrality. She was bending forward a +little, forearms resting on the desk, frankly staring. + +The man’s stride checked, his smile faded, his eyes grew wide and +cloudy with bewilderment. For a moment Sofia thought him on the point +of bowing, as one might on unexpectedly encountering an acquaintance +after many years: there was that hint of impulse hindered by +uncertainty. And in that moment the girl was conscious of a singular +sensation of breathlessness, as if something impended whose issue might +change all the courses of her life. A feeling quite insane and +unaccountable, to be sure; and nothing came of it whatever. With a +readiness so instant that the break in his walk must have been +imperceptible to anybody but Sofia, the man recollected himself, +composed his face, and proceeded to the door. + +Confounded with inexplicable disappointment, Sofia sat unstirring. + +In the open doorway the man turned and looked back, not at her, but at +Karslake, as if of half a mind to return and say something more to the +younger man. But he didn’t. + +He never came back. + + + + +III +THE AGONY COLUMN + + +Sofia dated from that afternoon the first stirrings of a discontent +which grew in her throughout the summer till everything related to her +lot seemed abominable in her sight. + +Even without this subjective inquietude it would have been an +unpleasant summer. All the world was at sixes and sevens, the social +unrest stirred up by the war showed no signs of subsiding, but indeed, +quite the contrary, there was trouble in the very air—ominous portents +of a storm whose dull, grim growling down the horizon could be heard +only too clearly by those who did not wilfully close their ears, grin +fatuous complacence, and bleat like brainless sheep: “All’s well!” + +High-spirited youth and witless wealth a-lust for strange new pleasures +turned from the long strain of conflict to indulgence in endless orgies +of extravagance like nothing ever witnessed by a world long since +surfeited with contemplation of weird excesses: daily that wild dance +of death attained wilder stages of saturnalia, the bands blaring ever +louder to drown the mutter of savage elemental forces working +underneath the crust. + +And ever and anon a lull would fall and the world would shudder to the +iteration of a word that spelled calamity to all things fair and sweet +and lovable in life, the word _Bolshevism_.... + +In the Café des Exiles there was endless discord and strife. + +For several reasons trade was not what it had been, even for the slack +season of summer it was poor. The cost of everything had gone up, +waiters were insubordinate and unreasonable in their demands, Mama +Thérèse had been constrained to increase the fixed price of the dinner, +old customers took umbrage at this and their patronage elsewhere. + +Mama Thérèse cultivated a temper that grew day by day more vile, Papa +Dupont displayed new artfulness in the matter of sneaking his daily +toll of drink and showed it; the two squabbled incessantly. + +One of the chefs, surmising the irregularity of their relations and +foreseeing an imminent break, sought to turn it to his own profit by +making amorous overtures to Mama Thérèse, who for reasons of her own, +probably hoping to make Papa Dupont jealous, encouraged the idiot. And, +as if this were not sickening enough, Papa Dupont, far from resenting +this menace to the pseudo-peace of the ménage, ignored if he did not +welcome it, and daily displayed new tenderness for Sofia. He kept near +her as constantly as he could, he would even interrupt a wrangle with +Mama Thérèse to favour the girl with a languishing glance or a term of +endearment; he was forever caressing her disgustingly with his eyes. + +The swing door between the café and the pantry had warped on its hinges +and would not stay quite shut. Normally it stuck in a position which +permitted whoever was at the zinc an uninterrupted view of the desk of +la dame du comptoir. Instead of having it fixed, Papa Dupont put off +that duty from day to day and developed a fond attachment for the place +at the zinc. For hours on end Sofia, on her high stool, would be +conscious of his gloating regard, his glances that lingered on the +sweet lines of her throat, the roundness of her pretty arms. + +She dared make no sign to show that she knew and resented, to do so +would be merely to draw upon herself the spite of Mama Thérèse. + +But she simmered with indignation, and contemplated futile +plans—especially in the long, empty hours of the afternoon, between +luncheon and the hour of the apertifs—countless vain plans for +abolishing these intolerable conditions. + +She thought a great deal of the strange man who had talked with young +Mr. Karslake, and wondered about him. Somehow she seemed unable to +forget him; never before had any one she didn’t know made such a +lasting impression upon her imagination. + +Sometimes she wasted time trying to explain to herself why the man had +seemed, for that brief instant, to think he knew her, only to dismiss +such speculations eventually with the assurance that she probably +resembled in moderate degree somebody whom he had once known. + +But mostly she was preoccupied with pondering the strangeness of it, +that he who seemed so brilliant and brave a figure of the great world +should, according to his own confession, have risen from beginnings as +lowly as her own. All that he had suffered in the days of his youth, in +that place in Paris which he called Troyon’s, Sofia had suffered here +and in large part continued to suffer without prospect of alleviation +or hope of escape. And remembering what he had said, that his own +trials had come to an end only when he awakened to the fact that he +was, as he had put it, “less than half alive” there at Troyon’s, and +had simply “walked out into life,” she was persuaded that the cure for +her own discomfort and discontent would never be found in any other +way. But she lacked courage to adventure it. + +To say “walk out and make an end of it” was all very well; but assuming +that she ever should muster up spirit enough to do it—what then? Which +way should she turn, once she had passed out through the doors? What +could she do? She had neither means nor friends, and she was much too +thoroughly conversant with the common way of the world with a woman +alone to imagine that, by taking her life in her own hands, she would +accomplish much more than exchange the irk of the frying pan for the +fury of the fire. + +All the same, she knew that she must one day do it and chance the +consequences. Things couldn’t go on as they were. + +And even granting that the outcome of any effort at self-assertion must +be unhappy, she grew impatient. + +Meanwhile, she did nothing, she sat quietly on her perch, looked with +stony composure over the heads of the multitude, indifferent alike to +admiration and the uncharitable esteem of her own sex, and waited with +a burning heart. + +Mr. Karslake ran true to form. He drifted in and out casually, always +idle and dégagé and elegant, he continued his irregular conferences +with ill-assorted companions, he worshipped discreetly and evidently +without the faintest hope, he seemed more than ever a trifling and +immaterial creature. Chance did not again lead him to the table where +he had sat with the man whom Sofia could not forget, and only the +memory of that conversation held any place for Karslake in the +consideration of the girl. + +Even at that she didn’t consider him seriously, she looked for him and +missed him when he didn’t appear solely because of a secret hope that +some day that other one would come back to meet him in the café. + +Why she held fast to that hope Sofia could not have said. + +Toward the middle of summer Mr. Karslake absented himself for several +weeks, and when he showed up again his visits were fewer and more +widely spaced. + +On an afternoon late in August, a hot and weary day, he sauntered in +with his habitual air of having in particular nothing to do and all the +time there was to do it in, and found a man waiting for him. + +This was a person whom Sofia had quite overlooked after one glance had +classified and pigeon-holed him. A single glance had been enough. They +do some things better in England; a man cast for any particular rôle in +life, for example, is apt to conform himself, mentally, physically, and +even as to his outer habiliments, so nicely to the mould that he is +forever unmistakably what he is even to the most casual observer. So +this man was a butler, he had been born and bred a butler, he lived by +buttling, a butler he would die; not a pompous, turkeycock butler, such +as the American stage will offer you when it takes up English +fashionable life in a serious way, but a mild-mannered, decent body, +with plain side-whiskers, chopped short on a line with the lobes of his +ears, otherwise clean-shaven, his hair pathetically dyed, a colourless +cast of countenance, eyes meek and mild. + +He was soberly dressed in black coat and waistcoat, the latter showing +a white triangle of hard-polished shirt and a black bow tie, with +indefinite gray trousers and square-toed boots by no means new. His +middle was crossed by a thick silver watch-chain, and curious, +old-fashioned buttons of agate set in square frames of gold fastened +his round stiff cuffs of yesterday. He carried a well-brushed bowler as +unfashionable as unseasonable. + +When Mr. Karslake entered, the polished pattern of a young gentleman of +means, slenderly well set-up in an exquisitely tailored brown lounge +suit, wearing a boater and carrying a slender malacca stick in one +chamois-gloved hand, the butler stood up at his table, quietly +acknowledged his greeting—“Ah, Nogam! you here already?”—and waited for +the younger man to be seated before resuming his own chair: a +stoop-shouldered symbol of self-respecting respectability, not too +intelligent, subdued by definite and unresentful acceptance of “his +place.” + +Their table was the one immediately beyond the buffet; and the café was +very quiet, with only three other patrons, two of whom were playing +chess while the third was reading an old issue of the Echo de Paris. So +Sofia could, if she had cared to eavesdrop, have overheard everything +that passed between Mr. Karslake and the man Nogam. But she didn’t; +their first few speeches failed to excite her curiosity in the least. + +She heard Mr. Karslake, who was becomingly affable to one of inferior +station, express the perfunctory hope that he hadn’t kept Nogam waiting +long, and Nogam reply to the simple effect of “Oh, not at all, sir.” To +this he added that he ’oped there had been no ’itch, he was most heager +to be installed in his new situation, and would do his best to give +satisfaction. Karslake replied airily that he was sure Nogam would do +famously, and Nogam said “Thank you, sir.” Then Karslake announced they +must bustle along, because they were expected by some person unnamed, +but just the same he meant to have a drink before he budged a foot. And +he called a waiter and requested a whiskey and soda for himself and +some beer for Nogam.... And Sofia turned her attention to other things. + +The murmur of their talk meant nothing to her after that, and she +forgot them entirely till they got up to leave, and then wasted only a +moment in wondering why Mr. Karslake, if he were, as he seemed to be, +engaging a butler for some friend or employer, should have arranged to +meet the man in a café of Soho. But it didn’t matter, and she dismissed +the incident from her mind. + +What did matter was that she was to-day more than ever galled by the +deadly circumstances of her existence. If they were to continue to +obtain, she felt, life would grow simply unendurable, and she would to +do something reckless to get a little relief from the tedium and the +ugliness of it all. + +She was fed up with everything, the shrewishness of Mama Thérèse, the +drunkenness of Papa Dupont, the hideous dullness of the café, the smell +of food, the fumes of tobacco, the reek of wines. + +She was fed up with the leers of Papa Dupont, the scowls of Mama +Thérèse, the grimaces of waiters, the stares of customers, the very +sight of herself in the mirror across the room. + +She was fed up with being fed up, she wanted to do something lunatic, +she wanted to kick and scream and drum on the floor with her heels. + +And all the while, beyond the threshold, life in the street was flowing +by, a restless stream, and the voice of it was a siren call to her +hungry heart, whispering of freedom, laughing low of love, roaring +robustly of brave adventures. + +And she sat there with folded hands, mutinous yet impotent, afraid, a +useless thing with sullen eyes ... wasted ... + +As was her custom, between six and seven, before the busy hours of the +evening, she had her dinner fetched to a table near by. + +Somebody had left a copy of a morning paper on the wall-seat. Sofia +glanced through it without much interest. None the less, when she had +finished, she took the sheet back to the caisse with her and +intermittently, as occasion offered, read snatches of it quite openly, +so bored that she didn’t care if Mama Thérèse did catch her at this +forbidden practice; a good row would be almost welcome ... anything to +break the monotony.... + +When she had digested without edification every item of news, she +devoured the advertisements of the shops, then turned to the Agony +Column, which she had saved up for a savoury. + +She read the appeal of the widow of the English army officer who wanted +some kind-hearted and soft-headed person to finance her in setting up +an establishment for “paying guests.” + +She read the card of the young gentleman of good family but +impoverished means who admitted that he had every grace and talent +heart could desire and who, in frantic effort to escape going to work +for his living, threw himself bodily upon the generosity of an unknown, +and as yet non-existent, benefactor, hinting darkly at suicide if +nothing came of this last attempt to get himself luxuriously maintained +in indolence. + +She read the advertisements of money-lenders who yearned to advance +fabulous sums to the nobility and gentry on their simple notes of hand. + +She read the thinly disguised professional cards of lonely ladies whose +unhappy lot could be mitigated only by congenial male companionship. + +She read the ingenuous matrimonial bids. + +She read the announcement of the lady of (deleted) title who was +willing, for a substantial consideration, to introduce gentlefolk of +means and their daughters to the most exclusive social circles. + +She read the naïve solicitation of the alleged ex-officer of the +B.E.F., who had won through the war with every known decoration except +the Double Cross of the Order of St. Gall and with nothing of his +anatomy left whole except his cheek, begging some great-hearted soul to +buy him a barrel organ to play in the streets. + +And then her eye was arrested by the appearance of her own name in the +text of a brief advertisement, which she read naturally, with +heightened interest: + +IF MICHAEL LANYARD will communicate privately he will hear news of +Sofia his daughter. Address Secretan & Sypher, Solicitors, Lincoln’s +Inn Fields, W.C. 3 + + + + +IV +MUTINY + + +Sofia had never heard the name of Michael Lanyard. Neither did the firm +style of Messrs. Secretan & Sypher, Solicitors, mean anything to her. +Notwithstanding, she wasted more time than she knew trying to picture +to herself a man who looked like Michael Lanyard sounded, and wishing +(no matter what his looks might be) that she were his long-lost +daughter Sofia, and that he would see the advertisement, and +communicate privately as requested, and hear news of her, and come +speeding in a Rolls-Royce to the Café des Exiles, and walk in and +humble Papa Dupont with a look of hauteur and confound Mama Thérèse +with a peremptory word, and take Sofia by the hand and lead her out and +induct her into such an environment as suited her rightful station: +said environment necessarily comprising a town house if not on Park +Lane at least nearly adjacent to it, and a country house sitting, in +the mellowed beauty of its Seventeenth Century architecture, amid +lordly acres of velvet lawn and private park. + +She hoped the country house would be within sight of the sea, and that +the family garage would run to a comfortable little town-car for her +personal use when she went shopping in Bond Street, or to pay calls or +leave cards, or to concerts and matinees.... + +At about this stage her châteaux en Espagne began to rock upon their +foundations; a seismic phenomenon due to the appearance of Mama Thérèse +and Papa Dupont, coming from zinc and kitchen for their dinner, which +meal they habitually consumed in the café when the evening rush was +over, the tables undressed, and the establishment had settled down to +drowse away the dull hours till closing time. + +Thus reminded that it was nine o’clock or thereabouts of a stuffy +evening in a stodgy world where nothing ever happened that hadn’t +wearily happened the day before and the day before that and so back to +the beginning of Time, and wasn’t scheduled tediously to continue +happening to-morrow and the day after and so on to the end of Eternity, +Sofia sighed and shook herself and put away the vanity of dreams. + +But her beauty, as she sat brooding, was as sultry as the night. + +In the rear of the room Mama Thérèse and Papa Dupont wrangled sourly +over their food; not with impassioned rancour but in the natural order +of things—as others might discuss the book of the moment or the play of +the year or scandal or Charlie Chaplin or the thundering fiasco of +Versailles—these two discussed each other’s failings with utmost +candour and freedom of expression: handling their subjects without +gloves; never hesitating to touch upon topics not commonly mentioned in +civil intercourse or to use the apt, unprintable word; never dreaming +of politely terming a damned old hoe a spade; tossing the ball of +recrimination to and fro with masterly ease. + +Their preoccupation with this pastime was so thoroughgoing that Mama +Thérèse even failed to notice the passage of the postman on his last +round of the day. Ordinarily, for reasons best known to herself and +which Sofia had never thought to question, Mama Thérèse preferred +personally to receive all letters and contrived to be on hand at the +postman’s customary hours of call. But to-night she only realized that +he had come and gone when, happening to glance toward the caisse, she +saw Sofia shuffling the half-dozen envelopes which had been left with +her. + +Immediately Mama Thérèse pushed back the table and got up, wiping chin +and moustache with her napkin as she rolled toward the desk. + +But she was too late. Already Sofia had sorted out and was staring in +blank wonder at an envelope addressed to Mama Thérèse and bearing in +its upper left-hand corner the imprint of its origin: + +_Secretan & Sypher +Solicitors +Lincoln’s Inn Fields +London, W.C. 3._ + + +As yet she was simply startled by the coincidence, her brain had not +had time to absorb its full significance—that Mama Thérèse should +receive a communication from these distinctively named solicitors on +the evening of the very day on which they advertised concerning a young +woman named Sofia!—when the letter was snatched out of her hand, a +torrent of objurgation was loosed upon her devoted head, and she looked +into the black scowl of the Frenchwoman. + +“Sneak! Spying little cat! How dare you pry into my letters?” + +“But, Mama Thérèse—!” + +“Be still, you! Has one asked you to speak? Give me those others”—Mama +Thérèse with a vast show of violence appropriated them from Sofia’s +unresisting grasp—“and after this keep your nose of a mouchard out of +what doesn’t concern you!” + +“But, Mama Thérèse!—” + +“Hold your tongue. I wish to hear nothing from you, I hear too +much—yes, and see too much, too! Oh, don’t flatter yourself I am like +that fat dolt of a Dupont, to be taken in by a pair of round eyes and +innocent ways. I know your sort, I know _you_, mam’selle, too well! Me, +I am nobody’s fool, least of all yours, young woman. What goes on under +my nose, I see; and if you imagine otherwise you are a bigger simpleton +that you take me for.” + +She snapped her fingers viciously in Sofia’s crimsoned face, uttered a +contemptuous “_Zut!_” and waddled off, shaking her head and growling to +herself. + +Sofia felt stunned. The offensive had been launched so swiftly, she was +conscious of having done so little to invite it, she had been taken +unprepared, thrown into confusion, her feeble objections silenced and +overwhelmed by that deluge of abuse, publicly disgraced.... + +Her face was burning, and tears started in her eyes; but she winked +them back, she would not let them fall. Conscious of the grins of the +handful of patrons, and the leers of the waiters, she steeled herself +to suppress every betrayal of the mortification in which her soul was +writhing, she made no sign but stared on stonily at the blackness of +the night that peered in at the open doors. + +Then indignation came to her rescue, the flaming colour ebbed from her +face and left it unnaturally white, the mists before her eyes +dissipated and their look grew fixed and hard, even her lips took on a +grim, unyielding set. Beneath the desk her hands clenched into small +fists. But she did not move. + +The sensation stirred up by the outbreak of Mama Thérèse subsided, the +domino players resumed their game, the old gentleman reading Le Rire +turned a page and read on with a knowing smile, lovers returned to +their low-voiced love-making, waiters yawned behind their hands, all +was as it had been save that, at their table (Sofia could see by the +mirror, without looking directly) Mama Thérèse and Papa Dupont seemed +to have declared an armistice and were gobbling down the rest of their +meal in silence and indecorous haste. + +Presently they got up and sought their living quarters. To do this they +had to pass the caisse and through the green baize door. Mama Thérèse +marched ahead with forbidding frown and quivering chins, with the +militant carriage of misprized and affronted rectitude. To her, it was +obvious, Sofia for the time being did not exist. At her heels Papa +Dupont shambled uneasily, hanging the head of deep thoughtfulness, +avoiding Sofia’s gaze. It was his part to pretend that all was well and +always would be; only he lacked the effrontery, just then, for his +usual smirk. + +When they had disappeared Sofia began to think. + +There was something more in this affair than mere coincidence, there +was mystery, a sinister question. + +Her countenance grew as dark as the complexion of her reverie. Athwart +the field of her abstracted vision drifted the figure of young Mr. +Karslake. She was barely conscious of it. + +He seated himself with plain premeditation directly opposite the +caisse, staring openly. But Sofia did not heed him at all. An odd smile +shadowed his lips, an expression half eager, half apprehensive; there +was a hint of puzzlement in his scrutiny. It was rather as if he had +unexpectedly found some new reason for thinking the girl an +exceptionally interesting personality. But she continued all unaware. + +Shortly after being served with a drink which he ordered but made no +offer to taste, he moved as if minded to rise and cross to Sofia, sat +up and edged forward on the wall-seat with a singular air of timidity +and embarrassment. But whatever his intention, he reconsidered and sat +back, glancing round the room to see if anybody were watching him. He +could not see that anybody was. Not even Sofia. Relieved, he settled +back, found a handsome gold case in the waistcoat of his dinner jacket, +extracted a cigarette, nipped it between his lips—and forgot to light +it. + +Of a sudden Sofia had arrived at a decision; and with every expression +of it in her manner she slipped down from the high stool and left the +caisse to take care of itself. Turning to the swing door she barged +through with a high head and fire of determination illuminating her +face. She had had enough of riddles. + +Behind the zinc an elderly and trusted waiter was nodding. The kitchen +was cold and dark for the night. Papa Dupont, then, would be upstairs, +closeted with the genius of the establishment. + +From the pantry a narrow staircase led up to the apartment above the +restaurant. Sofia mounted rapidly, with a firm tread that was +nevertheless practically noiseless, thanks to the paper-thin soles of +well-worn slippers. She could hear voices bickering above. + +At the top there was a short, dark corridor, with three doors. Two of +these were closed on sleeping-rooms; the third door, to a sort of +combination office and living-room, stood open, letting out a stream of +light. + +Sofia approached on tiptoe, though the altercation going on within had +reached a stage so acute that it was doubtful whether either of the +disputants would have heard had she stumped like a navvy. + +The point of dissension was not at first apparent, because Mama Thérèse +was speaking, and what she said had exclusively to do with her estimate +of Dupont’s character, the mettle of his spirit, the stuff of his +mentality, the authenticity of his pedigree (with especial reference to +the virtue of his maternal ancestry) and the circumstances of his +upbringing; which estimate in sum was low but by no means so low as the +terms in which Mama Thérèse was inspired to couch it. + +Papa Dupont did not seem to be greatly interested. He had heard all +this before, many a time, with insignificant phraseological variations. +Sofia, pausing unseen and unsuspected in the darkness just outside the +doorway, could see him slouching deep in his chair, to one side of the +table, his soft fat hands deep in the pockets of his trousers, his chin +sunken on his chest, something dogged in the louring frown which he was +bending upon nothing, something of genuine indifference in his passive +attitude toward the blowsy virago who was leaning across the table the +better to spit vituperation at him. + +And he waited with singular patience until she had to stop for want of +breath. Then he shrugged and said heavily: + +“Still, I don’t see what else you propose to do, my old one.” + +Apparently his old one was as poor in expedient as he. “It is for +nothing,” she said, acidly, “that one looks to you!” + +“I have said my say. If you have anything better to suggest....” He +made a rhetorical pause for reply, but Mama Thérèse was well blown and +sulky for the moment. “I am not old, not so old as you, and I have +reason to believe the girl is not indifferent to my person.” + +“Drooling old pig,” Mama Thérèse observed with reason: “if you dream +she would trouble to look twice at you—!” + +“That remains to be seen. And I, for one, fail to see how else we are +to hold her. All this money that has been coming in, paid on the dot +every quarter—that means there is more, much more to come to her. Are +you ready to give it up?” + +“Never!” Mama Thérèse thumped the table vehemently. “It is mine by +rights, I have earned it. Look at the way I have slaved for her, the +tender care I have lavished upon her, ever since she was a little one +in my arms.” + +“By all means,” Papa Dupont agreed, “look at it, but don’t talk about +it to her. She might not understand you. Also, do not depend upon her +to endorse any claim you might set up based upon such assertions.” + +“She is an ungrateful baggage!” + +“Possibly; but she is human, she has a memory—” + +“Are you going to be sentimental about her again?” Mama Thérèse +demanded. “Pitiful old goat!” + +“But I am not in the least sentimental,” Papa Dupont disclaimed. “It is +rather I who am practical, you who are sentimental. I ask you: Is there +any way we can hold on to that money unless I marry Sofia? You do not +answer. Why? Because there _is_ no other way. Then I am practical. But +you will not admit that. And why? Because we have lived together for a +number of years through force of habit, because once, very long ago, we +were lovers, you and I—so long ago that you have forgotten you ever had +a softer name for me than pig or goat. Who is the sentimentalist +now—eh?” + +“Shut your face!” Mama Thérèse growled. “You annoy me. I have a +presentiment I shall one day murder you.” + +“You would have done that long ago,” Papa Dupont pointed out, “if you +had had the courage. Enough! I am silent. But when you are tired trying +to think out another way, reflect on my solution. Meantime, let me have +another look at that accursed letter.” + +Mama Thérèse did not respond, she offered no objection when Dupont took +up the sheet of paper that lay between them, but ground the heels of +her hands into her fat cheeks and sat glowering vindictively while he +read aloud, slowly, with the labour of one to whom reading is +unaccustomed dissipation: + +DEAR MADAM: + + +Herewith we beg to enclose our cheque to your order in the sum of two +hundred and fifty pounds, being the quarterly payment in advance due +you from the estate of our deceased client, the Princess Sofia +Vassilyevski, for your care of her daughter. We further beg to advise +that, pursuant to the provisions of her will, we begin to-day, on the +eighteenth birthday of the young Princess Sofia, a search for her +father with the object of apprising him of his daughter’s existence. +Therefore we would request you to make arrangements to have the young +Princess Sofia brought to England forthwith from the convent in France +where we understand she is finishing her education. We take leave, +however, to advise that, pending the outcome of our enquiries, the +question of her father’s existence be not discussed with the young +princess. In event of his death being established or of failure to find +him within six months, the Princess Sofia is to enter without more +delay or formality into possession of her mother’s estate. + + +Papa Dupont put down the letter. “It is plain enough,” he expounded: +“if this father is found, we can whistle for our money; whereas if I +were married to Sofia, as her husband I would control—” + +He broke off sharply, and added in consternation: “One million +thunders!” + +Sofia stood between them. + +And yet she wasn’t the Sofia they knew, but another person altogether, +a transfigured and exalted Sofia, aflame with righteous wrath and +contemptuous with the pride of birth which had leaped into full being a +moment since. + +A princess, born the daughter of a princess, now she knew and looked +it. + +All thought of fear or deference was gone, she had nothing left but +scorn for these two despicable creatures, the fat harpy and her +crapulent consort who had battened so long upon her misery, who had +held her in bondage to the most menial tasks of their wretched +restaurant while they filched and hoarded the money paid them for +giving her the care and the advantages that were her due. + +And something of this new-found dignity, to which her title was so +unquestionable, which set her upon a level from which she could not but +look down on these two paltry frauds, so abashed the Frenchwoman that +the phrases of invective and vilification which gushed instinctively +from the foul springs of her temper stuck in her throat, she couldn’t +utter them, and she well-nigh choked with impotent fury and fear as the +girl spoke. + +“You swindlers!” Sofia said, deliberately. “You poor cheats! To pocket +a thousand pounds a year of my mother’s money—and make me slave for you +in your wretched café! And for eighteen years! For eighteen years you +have been robbing me of every right I had in the world, robbing me of +everything I’ve needed and longed and prayed for, everything you were +paid to give me—while I drudged for you and endured your ill-temper and +your abuse and the contamination of association with you!... Give me +that letter.” + +She possessed herself of it unopposed. But now Mama Thérèse found her +tongue. + +“What—what do you mean?” she gasped, livid with fright. Was not a +fortune slipping through her avaricious fingers? “What are you going to +do?” + +“Do?” Sofia cried. “I don’t know, more than this: I’m not going to stay +another hour under this roof, I’m going to leave to-night—now— +immediately! That’s what I’m going to do!” + +“Where are you going?” + +The question halted Sofia in the doorway. + +“To find my father—wherever he is!” + +She left the two staring at each other, dumbfounded and aghast. + +At the far end of the passage she flung open her bedchamber door, +entered, turned up the light, and snatched her cloak and hat from pegs +beneath the curtained shelf that held her scanty wardrobe. + +Adjusting these before the mirror she could hear Thérèse bawling at +Dupont to follow and stop her. Sofia had little fear he would find +heart to attempt that, none the less she hurried. Once her hat was +adjusted there was nothing to detain her; the best she had she stood +in; no sentimental associations invested that room, the tomb of her +defrauded childhood, the prison of her maltreated youth, to make her +linger there, but only hateful ones to speed her going. + +She turned and fled. + +Stumbling on the stairs, she heard Thérèse still screaming imprecations +and commands at Dupont, then the clumping of the man’s feet as, +yielding at length, he started in pursuit. + +Through the green baize door she burst into the café like a young +tornado. Every head turned her way with gaping mouths and protruding +eyes of astonishment as she stopped at the caisse and brazenly, in the +face of them all, plundered the till. + +This was a matter of necessity. Sofia had not one shilling of her own. +But those two had robbed her, what she took was not so much as a +thousandth part of the money of which they had despoiled her. Moreover, +she dared not go out penniless to face London. + +Snatching a handful of loose coin, she made for the door. But the delay +had been fatal. Dupont was now at her heels, and displaying +extraordinary agility in a man of his years of dissipation and +sedentary habits. And Thérèse was not far behind. + +Seeing coins trickling through the fingers of the fugitive and falling +to ring and spin upon the floor, the Frenchwoman raised an anguished +shriek of “_Thief! Stop thief!_”—and such part of the audience as had +remained in its seats rose up as one man. + +In the same instant Dupont’s fingers clamped down on Sofia’s shoulder. +She screamed, and he chuckled and dragged her back. Then his arm was +struck up by a deft hand, the girl slipped from his hold and darted out +through the doors. + +Roaring with rage (now that his blood was up, his heart in the chase) +Dupont turned upon the meddler. This was young Mr. Karslake. Dupont did +not know him except by sight, but that slender, boyish figure and the +semi-apologetic smile on Karslake’s lips did not inspire respect. +Blindly and with all his might Dupont swung his right to the other’s +head, only to find it wasn’t there. + +The weight of the unexpended blow carried Dupont off his feet. He fell +in a heap, and Mama Thérèse, charging wildly after Sofia, tripped on +his body and deposited fourteen stone of solid flesh squarely in the +small of Dupont’s back with a force that drove the breath out of him in +one agonized blast. + +Karslake laughed aloud: it was all as good as a cinema. Then he +followed Sofia. + +It was a dark and silent street by night, little used, a mere link +between two main thoroughfares. Sofia, running for dear life, was still +far from the nearest corner. Karslake doubled nimbly across the street +to the only vehicle in sight, an impressive Rolls-Royce town-car. +Jumping on the running-board he pointed out the fleeing shadow to the +chauffeur. + +“Lay alongside that young woman before she makes the corner, Albert!” + +Without delay the car began to move. + +Meanwhile, the Café des Exiles was erupting antic shapes, waiters, +customers, Dupont, Thérèse. The quiet hour was made hideous by their +yells. + +“_Stop thief!” “À la voleuse!” “L’arrêtez!” “À la voleuse!” “Stop +thief!_” + +An entirely superfluous bobby weathered the corner, discovered Sofia in +flight across the street, came about, and shaped a diagonal course to +cut across her bows. She saw him coming and stopped short with a gasp +of dismay. Simultaneously the Rolls-Royce slid smoothly in between them +and Karslake hopped down. Sofia uttered a small cry, more of surprise +than fright, and hung back, trying to free the arm by which he was +trying to guide her to the open door. + +“It’s our only chance,” he warned her, coolly. “We’re between two +fires. Better not delay!” + +She yielded and tumbled in. Karslake followed and slammed the door. The +car shot away and rounded into the cross street before the bobby could +collect himself enough to look at its license plate. He made after it, +but when he had reached the corner it had turned another and was lost. + +At the second turning Karslake looked round from the window with a +reassuring laugh, and settled back beside Sofia. + +“So that ends that!” + +She stared wide-eyed through the shadows. She knew him now, she was not +in the least afraid, but she was confused beyond measure. + +“Why—why—” she faltered—“what—who are you and where are you taking me?” + +“Oh, I beg your pardon!” said the young man, contritely. “I forgot. One +ought to introduce one’s self before rescuing ladies in distress—but +there really wasn’t time, you know. If you’ll overlook the informality, +my name’s Karslake, Roger Karslake, Princess Sofia, and I’m taking you +to your father.” + + + + +V +HOUSE OF THE WOLF + + +This startling announcement Sofia received without comment and with a +composure quite as surprising. The life which had made her what she +was, a young woman singularly unillusioned, well-poised, and +well-informed, had brought out in her nature a strong vein of +scepticism. She was not easily to be impressed. The more remarkable the +circumstance in question, the less inclined was she to exclaim about +it, the stronger was her propensity to look shrewdly into the matter +and find out for herself just what it was that made it seem so odd. + +She didn’t repose much faith in those striking synchronizations which +apparently unrelated influences sometimes effect with related events, +and which we are accustomed to term coincidences. She distrusted their +specious seeming of spontaneity, she suspected a deep design behind +them all. + +For example: Up to the moment of her flight from the Café des Exiles +there had been, as Sofia saw it, nothing extraordinary or inexplicable +in the chapter of happenings which had made her acquainted, as abruptly +as tardily, with certain facts concerning her parentage. + +You might, if you felt like it, call it a strange coincidence that she +should have read the advertisement of Messrs. Secretan & Sypher just +before their letter was delivered and Mama Thérèse by her intemperate +conduct warmed Sofia’s simmering suspicions to the boiling point. But +then Sofia read the Agony Column every time it came into her hands: she +would have been more surprised had she missed noticing her given name +in print, and downright ashamed of herself if she had failed to +associate the letter with the advertisement. + +If you asked her, she called it Fate, the foreordained workings of +occult forces charged with dominion over human affairs. Sooner or later +she must somehow have learned the truth about her right place in the +world; and to her way of thinking it was no more astonishing that she +should have learned it through accident supplemented by the acute +inferences of a sharply stimulated imagination, rather than through +being waited upon by a delegation of legal gentlemen commissioned with +the duty of enlightening her. And the colossal set-piece of the evening +having been duly exploded, no sequel whatever could expect anything +better than relegation to the cheerless limbo of anticlimax. + +Thus when young Mr. Karslake explained his uninvited if timely +intervention by stating that he was conducting her to the parent of +whose existence she had so recently been informed, he succeeded—not to +put too fine a point upon it—only in making it all seem a bit thick. + +So for the time being Sofia contented herself with silent study of his +face as fitfully revealed by the passing lights of Shaftesbury Avenue. + +A nice face (she thought) open and naïve, perhaps a trace too much so; +but, viewed at close quarters, by no means so child-like as she had +thought it, and by no means wanting in evidences of quiet strength if +one forgave the funny little moustache which (now one came to, observe +it seriously) was precisely what lent that possibly deceptive look of +innocence and inconsequence, positively weakening the character of what +might otherwise have been a countenance to foster confidence. + +As for Mr. Karslake, he endured this candid scrutiny with a faintly +apprehensive smile, but volunteered nothing more; so that, when the +silence in time acquired an accent of constraint, it was Sofia who had +to break it, not Mr. Karslake. + +“I’m wondering about you,” she explained quite gravely. + +“One fancied as much, Princess Sofia.” + +She liked his way of saying that; the title seemed to fall naturally +from his lips, without a trace of irony. None the less, it wouldn’t do +to be too readily influenced in his favour. + +“Do you really know my father?” + +“Rather!” said Mr. Karslake. “You see, I’m his secretary.” + +“How long—” + +“Upward of eighteen months now.” + +“And how long have you known I was his daughter?” + +Mr. Karslake, consulting a wrist-watch, permitted himself a quiet +smile. + +“Thirty-eight minutes,” he announced—“say, thirty-nine.” + +“But how did you find out—?” + +“Your father called me up—can’t say from where—said he’d just learned +you were acting as cashier at the Café des Exiles, and would I be good +enough to take you firmly by the hand and lead you home.” + +“And how did he learn—?” + +“That he didn’t say. ’Fraid you’ll have to ask him, Princess Sofia.” + +Genuinely diverted by the cross-examination, he awaited with unruffled +good humour the next question to be put by this amazingly collected and +direct young person. But Sofia hesitated. She didn’t want to be rude, +and Karslake seemed to be telling a tolerably straight story; still, +she couldn’t altogether believe in him as yet. She couldn’t help it if +his visit to the restaurant had been a shade too opportune, his account +of himself too confoundedly pat. + +No: she wasn’t in the least afraid. Even if she were being kidnapped, +she wasn’t afraid. She was so young, so absurdly confident in her +ability to take care of herself. On the other hand, intuition kept +admonishing her that in real life things simply didn’t happen like +this, so smoothly, so fortunately; somehow, somewhere, in this curious +affair, something must be wrong. + +“Please: what is my father’s name?” + +“Prince Victor Vassilyevski.” + +“You’re sure it isn’t Michael Lanyard?” + +Now Mr. Karslake was genuinely startled and showed it. Sofia remarked +that he eyed her uneasily. + +“My sainted aunt! Where did you get hold of that name?” + +“Isn’t it my father’s?” + +“Ye-es,” the young man admitted, reluctantly; at least with something +strongly resembling reluctance. “But he doesn’t use it any more.” + +“Why not?” + +Mr. Karslake was silent, thoughtful. Sofia felt that she had scored and +with determination pressed her point. + +“Do you mind telling me why he doesn’t use that name, if it’s his?” + +“See here, Princess Sofia”—Karslake slewed round to face her squarely +with his most earnest and persuasive manner—“I am merely Prince +Victor’s secretary, I’m not supposed to know all his secrets, and those +I do know I’m supposed not to talk about. I’d much rather you put that +question to Prince Victor yourself.” + +“I shall,” Sofia announced with decision. “When am I to see him? +To-night?” + +“Of course. That is, I presume you will. I mean to say, Prince Victor +wasn’t at home when I left, but if I know him he’s sure to be when we +arrive. And I’m taking you there as directly as a motor can travel in +this blessed town.” + +Sofia looked out of the window. The car, having turned down Regent +Street from Piccadilly Circus, was now traversing sedate Pall Mall; and +in another moment it swung into the passage between St. James’s Palace +and Marlborough House Chapel; and then they were in The Mall, with the +Victoria Memorial ahead, glowing against the dingy backing of +Buckingham Palace. + +Now, since all Sofia’s reading had inculcated the belief that the +enterprising kidnapper always made off with his victim by way of dark +bystreets and unsavoury neighbourhoods, she felt somewhat reassured. + +“Have we very far to go?” + +“We’re almost there now—Queen Anne’s Gate.” + +A good enough address. Though that proved nothing. There was still +plenty of time, anything might happen.... + +Sofia shrugged, and settled back to await developments. + +But there was nothing to warrant misgivings in the aspect of the +dwelling before which the car presently drew up. If it wasn’t the +palace Sofia had unconsciously been looking forward to, it owned a +solid, dull-faced dignity that suited well the town-house of a person +of quality, it measured up quite acceptably to Sofia’s notion of what +was becoming to the condition of a prince in exile—who naturally would +live quietly, in view of the recent revolution in Russia. + +Without augmented fears, then, though still on the alert for anything +that might seem questionable, and more agitated with excitement than +she let him suspect, Sofia permitted Mr. Karslake to conduct her to the +door. + +He had barely touched the bell-button when this door opened, revealing +a vista of spacious entrance-hall. + +To one side stood a manservant to whom Sofia paid no attention till the +sound of his name on Karslake’s tongue struck an echo from her memory. +“Thanks, Nogam. Prince Victor home yet?” + +“Not yet, sir.” + +“Tell him, please, when he comes in, we’re waiting in the study.” + +“’Nk-you, sir.” + +The servant was the man whom Karslake had met in the Café des Exiles +only a few hours before. Catching Sofia’s quick, questioning glance, +Nogam paused at respectful attention. And, even then, she was struck +again with his fidelity to the rôle in the social system for which Life +had cast him. In the café, that afternoon, he had cut a mildly +incongruous figure, unpretending but alien to that atmosphere; here, in +the plain evening-dress livery of his station, he blended perfectly +into the picture. + +Karslake gave his hat and stick to the man, then opened one wing of a +great double doorway, and with a bow invited Sofia to precede him. She +faltered, hazily conceiving that threshold in the guise of an +inglorious Rubicon. But she had already gone too far into this +adventure to draw back now without forfeiting her self-respect. With a +deceptively firm step she entered a room to wonder at. + +Sombre shadows masked much of its magnificent proportions, but what +Sofia could see suggested less the study of a man of everyday interests +than the private museum of an Orientalist whose wealth knew no limits. + +The air was warm and close, aromatic with the ghosts of ten thousand +perished perfumes. The quiet, when Karslake had closed the door, was +oppressive, as if some dark enchantment here had power to tame and +silence the growl of London that was never elsewhere in all the city +for an instant still. + +On a great table of black teakwood inlaid with mother of pearl burned a +solitary lamp, a curious affair in filigree of brass, furnishing what +illumination there was. Its closely shaded rays made vaguely visible +walls dark with books, tier upon tier climbing to the ceiling; chairs +of odd shape, screens of glowing lacquer; tables and stands supporting +caskets of burning cinnabar, of ivory, of gold, of kaleidoscopic +cloisonné; trays heaped high with unset jewels; cabinets crowded with +rare objects of Eastern art; squat shapes of neglected gods brandishing +weird weapons; grotesque devil masks ferociously a-grin; chests of +strange woods strangely fashioned, strangely carved, and decorated with +inlays of precious metals, banded with huge straps of black iron, from +which gushed in rainbow profusion silks and brocades stiff with +barbaric embroideries in gold- and silver-thread and precious stones. + +Confused by the impact upon her perceptions of so much that was +unexpected and bizarre, the girl looked round with an uncertain smile, +and found Karslake watching her with a manner of peculiar gravity and +concern. + +“Prince Victor is an extraordinary man,” Karslake replied to her +unspoken comment; “probably the most learned Orientalist alive. +Sometimes I think the East has never had a secret he doesn’t know.” + +He paused and drew nearer, with added earnestness in his regard. + +“Princess Sofia,” said he, diffidently, “if I may say something without +meaning to seem disrespectful—” + +Perplexed, she encouraged him with one word: “Please.” + +“I’m afraid,” Karslake ventured, “you will have many strange +experiences in this new life. Some of them, I fancy, you won’t +immediately understand, some things may seem wrong to you, you may find +yourself confronted with conditions hard to accept ...” + +He rested as if in doubt, and she fancied that he was listening +intently, almost apprehensively, for some signal of warning. But on her +part Sofia heard no sound. + +Impressed and puzzled, she uttered a prompting “Yes?” + +“I only want to say”—he employed a tone so low that she could barely +hear him—“if you don’t mind—whatever happens—I’d be awf’ly glad if +you’d think of me as one who sincerely wants to be your friend.” + +“Why,” she said in wonder—“thank you. I shall be glad—” + +She checked in astonishment: a man was approaching from the general +direction of the door by which they had entered. + +The effect was uncanny, as if the figure had materialized before her +very eyes, out of clear air, as if one of those many shadows had taken +on shape and substance while she looked. + +The man himself was nothing unusual in general aspect, of no remarkable +stature, neither tall nor small, neither robust nor slender. His +evening clothes were without fault, but as much might be said of ten +thousand men who might be seen any night in the public rendezvous of +leisured London. His carriage had special distinction only in that he +moved with a sort of feline grace. Still, something elusive made him +unlike any other man Sofia had ever met, something arresting and not +altogether prepossessing. + +As he drew nearer and his features became more clearly defined by the +light, she was sensible of gazing into a face of unique cast. Of an odd +grayish pallor accentuated by hair so black that it might have been +painted on his skull with india-ink, the skin seemed to be as soft and +smooth as a child’s, beardless and wholly without lustre. The mouth was +sensuous yet firm, with hard, full lips. Leaden pouches hung beneath +heavy-lidded eyes set at a noticeable angle. The eyes themselves were +as black as night and as lightless; the rays of the lamp struck no +gleam from them; in spite of this they were compelling, masterful, and +disconcerting. + +Karslake at once fell back, with a bow so low it was little less than +an obeisance. + +“Prince Victor!” + +The man nodded acknowledgment of this greeting without detaching +attention from the girl. His voice, slightly tremulous with emotion, +uttered her name: “Sofia?” + +She collected herself with an effort. “I am Sofia,” she replied almost +mechanically. + +“And I, your father...” + +Prince Victor lifted hands of singular delicacy, slender and tapering, +whose long fingers were dressed with many curious rings. + +A reluctance she could not understand hindered Sofia from going gladly +into those arms. She had to make herself yield. They tightened hungrily +about her. She closed her eyes and experienced a slight, invincible +shudder. + +“My child!” + +The lips that touched her forehead astonished her with their warmth. +Instinctively she had expected them to be cool, as frigid as the effect +of that strange mask of which they formed a part. + +Then, held at arm’s-length, she submitted to an inspection whose sum +was enunciated with a strange smile of gratification: + +“You are beautiful.” + +In embarrassment she murmured: “I am glad you think so—father.” + +“As beautiful as your mother—in her time the most beautiful creature in +the world—her image, a flawless reproduction, even to her colouring, +the shade of the hair, the eyes—so like the sea!” + +“I am glad,” the girl repeated, nervously. + +“And until to-night I did not know you lived!” + +She mustered up courage enough to ask: “How—?” + +The heavy lids drooped lower over the illegible eyes. “My attention was +called to a newspaper advertisement signed by a firm of solicitors. I +got in touch with them—a matter of some difficulty, since it was after +business hours—and found out where to look for you. Then, prevented +from acting as quickly as I wished, myself, I sent Karslake here to +bring you to me.” + +“But, according to their letter, the solicitors thought I was in +France, in a convent!” + +“When they advertised for me—yes. But by the time I enquired they were +better informed.” + +“But the advertisement was addressed to Michael Lanyard!” + +The thin lips formed a faint smile. “That was once my name. I no longer +use it.” + +Against a feeling that she was adopting an attitude both undutiful and +unbecoming, Sofia persisted. + +“Why?” + +Prince Victor Vassilyevski gave a gesture of pain and reluctance. + +“Must I tell you? Why not? You must know some day, as well now as +later, perhaps. Twenty years ago the name of Michael Lanyard was famous +throughout Europe—or shall I say infamous?—the name of the greatest +thief of modern times, otherwise known as ‘The Lone Wolf’.” + +Involuntarily, Sofia stepped back, as if some shape of horror had been +suddenly thrust before her face. + +“The Lone Wolf!” she echoed in a voice of dismay. “A thief! You!” + +The man who called himself her father replied with a series of slow, +affirmative nods. + +“That startles you?” he said in an indulgent voice. “Naturally. But you +will soon grow accustomed to the thought, you will condone that chapter +in my history, remembering I am no longer that man, no longer a thief, +that for many years now my record has been without reproach. You will +remember that there is more joy in Heaven over the one sinner who +repents ... You will forgive the father, if only for your mother’s +sake.” + +“For my mother’s sake—?” + +“What the Lone Wolf was in his day, your mother was in hers—the most +brilliant adventuress Europe ever knew.” + +“Oh!” cried the girl in semi-hysterical protest. “Oh, no, no! +Impossible!” + +“I assure you, it is quite true. Some day I may tell you her +history—and mine. For the present, you will do well to think no more +about what I have confessed. Repining can never mend the past. It is +to-day and to-morrow you must think of: that you are restored to me, +and that I have not only the means but a great hunger to make you +happy, to gratify your slightest whim.” + +“I want nothing!” Sofia insisted, wildly. + +“You want sleep,” Prince Victor corrected, fondly—“you want it badly. +You are nervous, overstrung, in no condition to understand the great +good fortune that has befallen you. But to-morrow you will see things +in a rosier light.” + +Apparently he had manipulated some signal unremarked by Sofia. The door +opened, framing the figure of the man Nogam. Without looking round, but +with an inscrutable smile, Prince Victor took the girl in his arms +again and held her close. + +“You rang, sir?” + +“Oh, are you there, Nogam? Is the apartment ready for the Princess +Sofia?” + +“Quite ready, sir.” + +“Be good enough to conduct her to it.” Again Prince Victor kissed +Sofia’s forehead, then let her go. “Good-night, my child.” + +Moving slowly toward the door, drooping, Sofia made inarticulate +response. She felt suddenly stupefied with fatigue. To think meant an +effort that mocked her flagging powers. A vast lassitude was weighing +upon her, body and spirit were faint in the enervation of an inexorable +disconsolation. + + + + +VI +THE MUMMER + + +Alone with his secretary, Prince Victor Vassilyevski dropped +indifferently the guise of manner with which he had clothed himself for +the benefit of the woman whom he claimed as his own child. That +semblance of shy affection coloured by regrets for the past and +modified by the native nobility of a prince in exile—so becoming in a +parent to whose bosom a daughter whom he had never seen was suddenly +restored—being of no more service for the present, was incontinently +discarded. In its stead Victor favoured Karslake with a slow smile of +understanding that broadened into an insuppressible grin of successful +malice, a grimace of crude exultation through which peered out the +impish savage mutinously imprisoned within a flimsy husk of modern +manner. + +Suspecting this self-betrayal, he erased the grin swiftly, but not so +swiftly that Karslake failed to note it. And the young man, smiling +amiably and respectfully in return, was sensible of a thrill: yet +another glimpse had been given him into the mystery that slept behind +that countenance normally so impenetrable. + +But he was studious to show nothing of his own emotion. It was his part +to be merely a mirror, to reflect rather than to feel, to be an +instrument infinitely supple and unfailing, never an independent +intelligence. Not otherwise could he count on holding his place in +Victor’s favour. + +“You were quicker than I hoped.” + +“I had no trouble, sir,” Karslake returned, cheerfully. “Things rather +played into my hands.” + +Victor dropped into a chair beside the table and lifted the lid of a +small golden casket. Helping himself to one of its store of cigarettes, +he made Karslake free of the remainder with a gracious hand. The +secretary demurred, producing his pocket case. + +“If you don’t mind, sir ...” + +Victor moved a supercilious eyebrow. “Woodbines again?” + +“Sorry, sir; I know they’re pretty awful and all that, but they were +all I could get in France, and I contracted a taste for them I can’t +seem to cure. I remember, while I lay in a hospital, hardly a whole +bone in my body, thanks to the Boche and his flying circus—it was that +lot sent me crashing, you know—the nurses used to tempt me with the +finest Turkish; but somehow I couldn’t go them; I’d beg for Woodbines.” + +Prince Victor dismissed the subject curtly. “I am waiting to hear about +Sofia.” + +“Not much to tell, sir. There seemed to be a storm of sorts brewing +when I got there. The young woman was at her desk with a face like a +thundercloud. While I was trying to make up my mind what would be my +best approach, she jumped down, flew upstairs and, I gathered, kicked +up a holy row. You see, she’d seen that advertisement of Secretan & +Sypher’s, and smelt a rat.” + +“What did she say?” + +“Nothing definite, sir: seemed to understand she was the daughter of +Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, only she objected to her father being +anybody but Michael Lanyard.” + +“Go on.” + +“After a bit she stampeded downstairs again, with the old girl and that +swine of a Dupont at her heels. I blocked him and gave Sofia a chance +to get outside. The whole establishment boiled out into the street +after us, yelling like fun, but I got the girl into the car ... and +here we are.” + +But Prince Victor seemed to have lost interest. The glow ebbing from +his face, his lips tightening, the thick lids drooping low over his +eyes, he sat in apparent abstraction, aping the impassivity of the +graven idols that graced his study. + +“I don’t mind owning, sir,” the younger man resumed, nervously, “she +had me sparring for wind when she put it to me point-blank her father’s +name was Michael Lanyard.” + +Without moving Victor enquired in a dull voice: “What did you tell +her?” + +“That it was a name you had once used, sir, but.... Well, what you told +her, all except the Lone Wolf business. Don’t mind telling you I was in +a rare funk till you capped my story so neatly.” + +He laughed and ventured with a hesitation quite boyish: “I say, Prince +Victor—if it’s not an impertinent question—was there any truth in that? +I mean about your having been the Lone Wolf twenty years ago.” + +“Not a syllable,” said Victor, dryly. + +“Then your name never was Michael Lanyard?” + +“Never, but ...” + +During a long pause the secretary fidgeted inwardly but had the wisdom +to refrain from showing further inquisitiveness. He could see that +strong passions were working in Victor: a hand, extended upon the +table, unclosed and closed with a peculiar clutching action; the +muscles contracted round mouth and eyes, moulding the face into a cast +of disquieting malevolence. The voice, when at length it resumed, was +bitter. + +“But Michael Lanyard was my enemy ... and is to-day.... He became a +lover of Sofia’s mother, he had a hand in overturning plans I had made, +he humiliated, mocked me.... And to-day he is interfering again.... But +...” + +Victor sank back in his chair. Suddenly that unholy grin of his flashed +and faded. + +“But now his impertinence fails, his insolence over-reaches itself. Now +I have the whip-hand and ... I shall use it!” + +Vindictiveness that could find relief only in action mastered the man. + +“Be good enough to take this dictation.” + +Karslake turned to the table and opened a portfolio of illuminated +Spanish leather. + +“Ready, sir,” he said, with pencil poised. + +_“To Michael Lanyard, Intelligence Division, the War Office, Whitehall. +Sir: Your daughter Sofia is now with me. Permit me to suggest that, in +consideration of this situation, you cease to meddle with my affairs. +Your own intelligence must tell you nothing could be more fatal than an +attempt to communicate with her.”_ + +“Sign on the typewriter with the initial _V_.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Type it on plain paper, use a plain envelope, be sure that neither has +a watermark, and get it off to-night without fail. Take a taxi to St. +Pancras station and post it there. If you make haste you can get it in +a pillar-box before the last collection.” + +“I shan’t lose a minute, sir.” + +Karslake straightened up, folding the paper, and made for the door. + +“One moment, Karslake.... This man, Nogam: where did you pick him up?” + +“He used to buttle for my father, sir, but got into trouble—some +domestic unpleasantness, I believe—needed money, and raised a cheque. +The old boy let him off easy; but I’ve got the cheque, and Nogam knows +it. The fellow’s perfectly trained and absolutely dependable, knows his +place and his duties and not another blessed thing. I’ll send him in if +you like.” + +Prince Victor uttered with dry accent: “Why?” + +“Thought you might care to have a talk with him, sir.” + +“I have.” + +“Oh!” Mr. Karslake exclaimed—“I didn’t know.” + +“Quite so,” commented Prince Victor. “I shan’t need you again to-night, +Karslake.” + +“Good-night, sir.” + +When the secretary had gone, Victor sat motionless, so still that his +breathing scarcely stirred his body, with a face absolutely +imperturbable, steadfastly gazing into that darkness which shrouded the +workings of his mind. + +On the doorstep a shrill whistle sounded: Nogam calling Karslake’s +taxi. Victor heard the vehicle roll in and stand panting at the curb, +then the slam of its door, the diminishing rumble of its departure. + +The house door closed, and after a little the study door opened, and +Nogam halted on the threshold. + +Unstirring Victor enquired: “What is it, Nogam?” + +“I wished to enquire would there be anything more to-night, sir.” + +“Nothing.” + +“’Nk you, sir.” + +“But Nogam: in this house, regardless of the custom which may have +obtained in other establishments where you have served, you will always +knock before entering a room, and never enter until you obtain +permission.” + +“But if I’m sure the room is empty, sir, and get no answer—?” + +“Then you may enter any room but this. Never this, unless I am here—or +Mr. Karslake is—and you get leave.” + +“’Nk you, sir.” + +“Good-night.” + +As the door closed Victor extended a thin, effeminate hand to a casket +of ivory, searched with sensitive finger-tips its exquisite tracery +until a cunningly hidden spring responded and the lid, splitting in +two, sank down into its walls. In the pocket thus revealed were many +pills, apparently hand-moulded, of a grayish-brown substance, +putty-soft. + +Slowly Victor selected three, placed one after another upon his tongue, +and swallowed them. + +He shut the casket and sat waiting. + +Slowly the keenness of his countenance became blurred, as if the hand +of an unseen sculptor were rubbing down its features, doing away the +veneer with which Europe had overlaid the primitive Asiatic, which now +showed on the surface, in every detail of coarsely modelled nose, +oblique eyes of animal cunning, pendulous lips cruel and sensual. + +By degrees a faint trace of colour began to flush Victor’s cheeks, a +smile modified the set of his mouth, the heavy-lidded eyes lost their +lustreless opacity and glimmered with uncanny light. + +He breathed deeply, evenly, with an evident relish. The action of the +opium was visibly renewing his powers. His expression, softening, +became terrible with brute tenderness and longing. Gazing into shadows +in which he saw that which he wished ardently to see, he stretched +forth his arms, and his lips moved, shaping a name: + +“Sofia!” + +As those syllables, freighted with that undying passion which consumed +the man, sounded upon the stillness, Victor turned sharply, with a +gesture of irritation, looking aside, listening. + +Instantaneously the Asiatic disappeared, thrust back into its habitual +latency within the prison of European: Prince Victor was as he had +been, as always to the world, cool, composed, and crafty, master, never +creature, of his emotions. + +A faint buzzing was audible, broken by muffled clicks. + +Rising, Victor approached a table in a corner and with a key from his +pocket ring unlocked a heavy casket of bronze. As he raised its cover a +small electric bulb illuminated the interior, focussing on the +paper-covered face of a mechanical writing device, upon which a pencil +with a broad flat lead operated by a metal arm was tracing characters +resembling the hieroglyphics of the Chinese. + +When the clicking ceased and the pencil was at rest, Victor caught an +end of the paper and pulled it forward until a blank surface again +occupied the writing-bed. Upon this with another pencil he inscribed a +reply, then closed and relocked the casket. + +Back at the table with the lamp, the message just received became crisp +black ash on a brazen tray. + +From a locked chest Victor produced an inverness and a soft hat of +black felt. Wearing these he moved quietly out of the lamp’s radius of +light, and made himself one with the shadows that crowded one another +round the walls. He did not leave by the hall door; but of a sudden the +room was untenanted. + + + + +VII +THE FANTASTICS + + +Downstream from The Pool, a little way below Shadwell, an uncouth row +of dilapidated dwellings in those days stood—or, better, squatted, like +a mute company of draggletail crones—atop a river-wall whose ancient +blocks, all ropy with the slime of centuries, peered dimly out through +groups of crazy spiles at the restless pageant of Thames-life. + +Viewed by day, say from the deck of a river steamer, the spectacle they +offered was, according to bias of mood and disposition, unlovely and +drear or colourful and romantic: Whistler might have etched these +houses, Dickens have staged therein a lowly tragedy, Thomas Burke have +made of one a frame for some vignette unforgettable of Limehouse life. + +Builded of stone or brick or both as to their landward faces, without +exception they presented to the river false backs of wooden framework +which overhung the water. Ordinarily, their windows were tight-shut, +the panes opaque with accumulated grime—many were broken and boarded. +Their look was dismal, their squalor desperate. + +Below, by day, heavy wherries swung moored to the ooze-clad spiles or, +when the tide was out, sprawled upon stinking mud-flats with a gesture +of pathetic helplessness peculiar to stranded watercraft. Seldom was +one observed in use: to all seeming they existed for purposes of +atmosphere alone. + +More seldom still did any dwelling betray evidence of inhabitation +beyond faint wisps of smoke, like ghosts of famine, drifting from the +chimneypots, or—perhaps—some unabashed exhibit of red flannel hung out +to dry with wrist or ankle-bands nipped between a window-sash and sill. + +By night, however, a stir of furtive life was to be surmised from +cryptic lights that flared and faded behind the crusted window-glass or +fell through opened floor-traps to the thick black element that swirled +about the spiles, and from guarded calls as well, inarticulate cries of +hate and love and pain, rumours of close and crude carousal. + +And ever and again the belated riverfarer would encounter one of the +wherries, its long oars swung by brawny arms and backs, stealing +secretly across the inky waters on some errand no less dark. + +On land the buildings lined a cobbled street, from dawn to dark a +thoroughfare for thundering lorries and, twice daily, in murk of early +morning and gloom of early night, scoured by a nondescript rabble +employed in the vast dockyards whose man-made forests of masts and +cordage, funnels and cranes, on either hand lifted angular black +silhouettes against the misty silver of the sky. + +Black and white and yellow and brown, men of every race and skin, they +came and went, their brief hours loud with babel of strange tongues and +a scuffling of countless feet like the sound of surf; and their goings +left the street strangely hushed, a way of sinister reticences, its +winding length ill-lighted by infrequent corner-lamps, its mephitic +glooms enlivened by windows of public houses all saffron with specious +promise of purchasable good-fellowship. + +One of these, the Red Moon, faced the row of waterfront houses, +standing at the intersection of a street which struck inland to the +pulsing heart of Limehouse. A retired bully of the prize-ring ruled +with a high hand over its several bars and many patrons, yellow men and +white girls, deck-hands and dock-workers, pugilistic and criminal +celebrities of the quarter, and their sycophants. Its revels rendered +the nights cacophonous, its portals sucked in streams of sweethearts +and more impersonal lovers of life and laughter, and spewed out sots +close-locked in embraces of maudlin affection or brutal combat. Bobbies +kept an eye on the Red Moon, a respectful one: interference with the +time-hallowed customs and prerogatives of its clientèle was something +to be adventured with extreme discretion. + +Out of the hinterland of Limehouse, a tall man came to the Red Moon +that night, walking with long, loose-jointed strides, holding his head +high and looking over the heads of all he passed with a fixed, far +gaze. He had a hatchet-face, sallow, with lantern jaws, a petulant +mouth, hot eyes that showed too much white above their pupils. A lank +black mane greased his collar. His garments, shoddy but whole, were +stained and bleached in spots, apparently the work of acids, and so +wrinkled and shapeless as to suggest that their owner slept without +undressing as a matter of habit. The pockets of his coat bulged +noticeably. + +Shouldering heedlessly into the saloon-bar, he found it deserted except +for a chinless potman: the liveliest evening trade was always plied in +the cheaper bars adjacent. + +One glance sufficed to identify him: with a surly nod the potman ducked +behind a partition to call the proprietor. Drinks were in order when +this last appeared; and a brief conference in undertones ended when, +having made careful reconnaissance, the publican nodded shortly to the +patron, a jerk of his thumb designating a small door let into the wall +to one side of the bar proper. + +Through this the tall man passed to find himself upon a dark stairway, +at the foot of which another door admitted to an underground chamber +where an apparently exclusive social gathering was in session of +Saturnalia. + +In one corner a long-suffering piano was taking cruel punishment at the +hands of a flashily dressed, sharp-faced man of horsey type. Flanking +him, two young women of the world, with that insouciance which +appertains—in Limehouse—to sweet sixteen, were chanting shrilly to his +accompaniment: both more than comfortably drunk. In the middle of the +room assorted lawbreakers gathered round a table were playing fan-tan +at the top of their lungs. At smaller tables men and women sat +consuming poisons of which they were obviously in no crying need; while +in bunks builded against one wall devotees of the pipe reclined in +various stages of beatitude. The air was hot, and foul with cigarette +smoke, sickening fumes of sizzling opium, effluvia of beer and spirits, +sour reek of sweating flesh. + +Incurious glances greeted the newcomer: none paid him more heed than an +indifferent nod. On his part, brief but comprehensive survey having +deepened the stamp of scorn upon his features, he ignored them all and, +proceeding directly to a bunk of the lowermost tier, aroused its +occupant with a smart tap on the shoulder. + +The ostensible drug-addict looked up dreamily, then opened his eyes +wide, with surprising docility rolled out and, uttering no word, +lurched to the fan-tan table. The tall man took his place, lay down, +and drew together the unclean curtains of sleazy stuff provided to +afford privacy to shrinking souls. This done, he turned on his side and +knuckled in peculiar rhythm the back of the bunk, a solid panel which +slipped smoothly to one side, permitting the man to tumble out into +still another room, a cheerless place, with floor of stone and the +smell of a vault. + +When the panel had slipped back into place, closing out the bunk, the +man stood in night absolute. But after a minute a slender beam of +golden light struck suddenly athwart the darkness and found his face. +This he endured impassively, only lifting a hand to describe an obscure +sign. Immediately the light was shut off, a door opened in the wall +opposite, dull light from behind disclosed the silhouette of a man in +Chinese robes, his head inclined in a bow of courteous dignity. + +In good English but with musical Eastern inflection a voice gave +greeting: + +“Good evening, Thirteen. You are awaited—and welcome!” + +“Good evening, Shaik Tsin,” the European replied in heavy un-English +accents. “Number One is here, yes?” + +“Not yet. But we have just received a telautographic message saying he +is on his way.” + +Nodding impatiently, Thirteen passed through the door, which the +Chinaman quickly closed and barred. + +The chamber to which one gained admittance by ways so devious and +fantastic was large—exactly how large it was difficult to guess, since +all its walls were screened by black silk panels upon which golden +dragons writhed and crawled. A thick carpet of black covered every inch +of visible floor space, a black silk canopy hid the ceiling, and all +the room was in deep shadow save the space immediately beneath a great +lamp of opalescent glass, likewise draped in black. + +Here stood an octagonal table of black teakwood, on seven sides of +which seven chairs were placed. When Thirteen had taken his seat all +these were occupied. On the eighth side an eighth chair stood empty on +a low dais, the heavy carving of its high back, its massive arms and +legs, picked out with gold. + +The six who had anticipated Thirteen at this bizarre rendezvous hailed +him as a familiar, according to their several idiosyncrasies, +brusquely, indifferently, or with some semblance of cordiality. They +made a motley crew. + +Two were Englishman in appearance, though the figure of languid +elegance in evening dress that might have graced the lounge of a West +End club had a voice soft with Celtic brogue. The other owned a gross +body clothed in loud checks and, with his mean blue eyes, his mottled +complexion, and cunning leer, would not have seemed out of place in a +betting-ring. + +Aside from these there were a moon-faced Bengali babu, a dark Italian +with flashing eyes and teeth, and a stout person of bovine Teutonic +cast—the type that is sage, shrewd, easy-going when unopposed, but +capable under provocation of exhibiting the most conscienceless +brutality. + +From this last Thirteen got his warmest welcome. + +“You are late, mine friend.” + +“In good time, however,” Thirteen responded with a nod toward the +vacant chair. “More than that, the summons was handed me only twenty +minutes ago.” + +“How was that?” the babu asked. “It was sent at six o’clock.” + +“I was at work in the laboratory and had left orders I was not to be +disturbed. But for one thing”—the petulance of Thirteen’s habitual +expression was lightened by a flash of self-gratulation, and his voice +shook a little with excitement—“I might not have received the summons +before morning.” + +“And that one thing?” + +“Success, comrades! At last—after months of experimentation—I have been +successful!” + +“’Ow?” dryly demanded the man in the checked suit. + +“I have discovered a great secret—discovered, perfected, adapted it to +common means at our command. Comrades, I tell you, to-night we hold all +England in the hollow of our hands!” + +With an incoherent exclamation and eyes afire the Russian sat forward. +Unconsciously the others imitated his action. Only the man in evening +dress made a show of remaining unimpressed. + +“It’s fine, fat words you’re after using,” he commented. “‘All England +in the hollow of our hands!’ If they mean anything at all, comrade, +they mean—” + +“Everything!” Thirteen cut in with arrogant assertiveness; “all we’ve +been waiting for, hoping for, praying for—the end of the ruling +classes, extinction of the accursed aristocrats, subjugation of the +thrice-damned bourgeois, the triumph of the proletariat, all at a +single stroke, swift, subtle, and sure! Freedom for Ireland, freedom +for India, freedom for England, the speedy spreading of that red dawn +which lights the Russian skies to-day, till all the wide world basks in +its warm radiance and acclaims us, comrades, its redeemers!” + +“Lieber Gott!” the German breathed. “Colossal!” + +“’Ear, ’ear!” the Englishman applauded, perfunctory and skeptical. +“Bli’me if you didn’t mike me forget where I was—’ad me thinking I was +in ’Yde Park, you did, listening to a bloody horator on a box.” + +“You may laugh,” Thirteen replied with a sour glance; “but when you +have heard, you will not laugh. I am not boasting—I am telling you.” + +“Not a great deal,” the Irishman suggested. “Your mouth is full of +sounds and fury, but till you tell us more you’ll have told us +nothing.” + +The face of Thirteen grew darker still, and for a moment he seemed to +meditate an angry retort; but he thought better of it, contenting +himself with an impatient movement and a mutter: “All in good time; +Number One is not here yet.” + +“W’y wyste time w’itin’ for ’im?” demanded the Englishman. “’E’s no +good, ’e’s done.” + +Thirteen’s eyes narrowed. “How so?” + +“’E’s done, Number One is—finished, counted out, napoo! ’E’s ’ad ’is +d’y, and a pretty mess ’e’s mide of it—and it’s ’igh time, I say, for +’im to step down and let a better man tike ’old.” + +Growls in chorus endorsed this declaration of mutiny; but suddenly were +stilled by a voice, sonorous and calm, from outside the circle: + +“You think so, Seven? Well—who knows?—perhaps you are right.” + + + + +VIII +COUNCIL OF THE GODLESS + + +Someone exclaimed in an accent of alarm: “Number One!” + +With a concerted turning of startled heads, a hasty thrusting back of +chairs, the gathering rose in involuntary deference. That is, five rose +as one; and, after a moment during which his spirit of insubordination +faltered and failed, the Englishman got awkwardly to his feet and stood +abashed and sullen. + +The one to remain seated was the Irishman so well turned out by Conduit +Street; who made no move more than slightly to elevate supercilious +brows and slouch a little lower in his chair, glancing from face to +face of the circle, then back to the cold countenance presented by the +author of the abrupt interruption. + +This last stood quietly beside the eighth chair, a hand on its carved +arm, one foot on the edge of the dais. A long robe of black silk +enveloped him; on its bosom a Chinese unicorn was embroidered. His +girdle clasp was of Imperial jade set with rubies. The girdle itself +was yellow. A great ruby button, nearly an inch in diameter, set in a +mounting of worked gold, crowned a hat like an inverted round bowl. His +black silk shoes were heavy with golden embroidery, and had white soles +an inch thick. Authority lent inches to his stature, so that he seemed +to dominate his company physically as well as spiritually. + +A pace or two in the rear Shaik Tsin, with impassive face and arms +folded in voluminous sleeves, waited as might a bodyguard. + +A sardonic glimmer in eyes half visible under heavy lids alone betrayed +relish of the situation, the homage commanded and the sensation created +by this inopportune and unheralded arrival: deliberately Number One +mounted the dais and posed himself in the throne-like chair. Then, as +his look read face after face, he smiled with twitching and disdainful +nostrils. + +“Gentlemen of the Council,” he said, slowly, “I bow to you all. Pray be +seated.” + +In confounded silence the six resumed their seats, while the +seventh—who had not moved—lighted a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and +through a veil of smoke continued to regard Number One with insolent +eyes. + +“I fear my arrival was ill-timed, gentlemen. Seven had the floor, and I +confess to finding what I happened to overhear extremely interesting. +If he will be good enough to continue ...” + +The Irishman gave a light, derisive laugh. Shifting uneasily in his +chair, the man in the checked suit flushed darkly, then stiffened his +spine, hardened his eyes, set his jaw, and faced Number One defiantly. + +“You ’eard ... I ’olds by w’at I said.” + +“I am to understand, then, you think it time for me to abdicate and let +another lead you in my stead?” + +The Englishman assented with an inarticulate monosyllable and a surly +nod. + +“And may one ask why?” + +“Blue’s plice in Pekin Street was r’ided this afternoon,” Seven +announced truculently. “But per’aps you didn’t know—” + +“Not until some time before the news reached you,” One replied, +pleasantly. “And what of it?” + +“Three fycers in a week, Gov’ner—anybody’ll tell you that’s comin’ it a +bit thick.” + +“Granted. What then?” + +“That’s only part of it. Tike last week: Eighteen pinched, the queer +plant in ’Igh Street pulled by the coppers—” + +“I know, I know. To your point!” + +Seven hesitated under that steely stare. “I leave it to you, Gov’ner,” +he continued to stammer at length. “S’y you was me and I was Number +One—w’at would you think?” + +“Why, quite naturally, that some superior intelligence has latterly +been collaborating with Scotland Yard.” + +“Aren’t you a bit behindhand in arriving at that conclusion?” the +Irishman suggested with an ill-dissembled sneer. + +“No, Eleven,” Number One replied, mildly, “since I arrived at it some +time since.” + +“But took no measures—” + +“You are in a position to state that as a fact?” + +Eleven shrugged lightly. “Need I be? Does not our situation speak for +itself?” + +“Since you cannot be as thoroughly acquainted as I am with the +situation, and since it seems I am required to account for my +leadership or surrender it to you, Eleven ... I believe you have +selected yourself to replace me as Number One, have you not?—that is to +say, in the improbable event of my abdication.” + +“Improbable?” repeated the Irishman. “I wouldn’t call it that.” + +“You are right,” Number One assented, gravely: “unthinkable is the +word. But you haven’t answered my question.” + +“Oh, as for that, if the Council should see fit to appoint me Number +One, I’d naturally do my best.” + +“And most noble of you, I’m sure. But rather than bring down any such +disaster upon this organization, I will say now that measures have +already been taken, and I am to-night in a position to promise you that +the new spirit in Scotland Yard will no longer be a factor in our +calculations.” + +“That wants proving,” Eleven contended. + +A spasm of anger shook the figure in the throne-like chair, but only +for an instant; immediately the iron will of the man imposed rigid +self-control; almost without pause he proceeded in level and civil +accents: + +“I think I can satisfy you and—this once—I consent to do so. But first, +a question: Have you yourself formed any theory as to the identity of +this hostile intelligence which has so hindered us of late?” + +“I’d be a raw fool if I hadn’t,” the Irishman retorted. “We know the +Lone Wolf has been hand-in-glove with the authorities ever since the +British Secret Service used him during the war.” + +“You think, then, it is Lanyard—?” + +“It’s a wise saying: ‘Set a thief to catch a thief.’ I believe there’s +no man in England but Lanyard who has the wit and vision and audacity +to fight us on our ground and win.” + +“I agree entirely. Therefore, I have this day tied the hands of the +Lone Wolf; he will not again dare to contend against us.” + +Eleven sat up with a startled gesture. + +“Are you meaning you’ve got the girl?” + +Number One indulged a remote and chilly smile. + +“Then you, too, noticed the advertisement? Accept my compliments, +Eleven. Decidedly you might prove a dangerous rival—were I in a temper +to countenance competition.... But it is true: I have the girl +Sofia—the Lone Wolf’s daughter.” + +“Where?” + +The smile faded; the man on the dais looked down loftily. + +“It is enough for you to know I have proved far-sighted and unfailing +in my fidelity to our common cause.” + +“So _you_ say ...” + +Though the Irishman winced and fell silent under the cold glare of the +other’s eyes, the voice that answered him was level and passionless. + +“I am not here to have my word challenged—or my authority. If any one +of you imagines I am even thinking of surrendering the latter, under +any conceivable circumstances, he is mad. And if any one of you doubts +my power to enforce my will, I promise him ample proof of it before the +night is ended.... Let us now proceed to business, the question held +over from our last meeting. If Comrade Four will consult his minutes”—a +nod singled out the babu, who, beaming with importance, produced a +note-book—“they will show we adjourned to consider overtures made by +the Smolny Institute of Petrograd, seeking our coöperation toward +accelerating the social revolution in England.” + +“Thatt,” the Bengali affirmed, “is true bill of factt.” + +“If the temper in which you received those proposals is fair +criterion,” Number One resumed, “there can be little doubt as to our +decision. Speaking for myself, I think it would be suicidal to reject +the overtures of the Soviet Government in Russia. Let me state why.” + +He bowed his forehead upon a hand and continued with thoughtful gaze +downcast: + +“England is ripe for revolution. The social discontent resulting from +the war has reached an acute stage. Only a spark is needed. It remains +for us to decide whether to permit Russia to bring about the explosion +or—bring it about ourselves. The soviet movement is irresistible, it +will sweep England eventually as it has swept Russia, as it is now +sweeping Germany, Hungary, Austria, Italy, as it must soon sweep France +and Spain. Our power in England is great; even so, we could hope to do +no more than delay the soviet movement were we to set ourselves against +it—we could never hope to stop it. It would seem, then, +self-preservation to set ourselves at the head of it, seize with our +own hands—in the name of the British Soviet—the symbols of power now +held by an antiquated and doddering Government. So shall we become to +England what the Smolny Institute is to Russia. Otherwise, in the end, +we must be crushed.” + +“If we adopt the indicated course, there will be an end forever to this +hole-and-corner business which so hampers us, we will be able to work +in the open, the police will become our tools rather than weapons in +the hands of our enemies; our power will be without limits, Soviet +Russia itself must bow to our dictation.” + +He paused and lifted his head, looking round the circle of intent +faces. + +“If I am wrong or too sanguine, I am ready to be corrected.” + +He heard only a murmur of admiration, never a note of dissent; and a +smile of gratification, yet half satiric, curved his thin lips. + +“I take it, then, the Council endorses my decision to proceed with the +negotiations instituted by Soviet Russia; to accept its proposals and +pledge our cooperation in every way?” + +This time there was no mistaking the accuracy with which he had gauged +the minds of his associates. + +“One thing remains to be decided: a plan of action, something which +will demand all that we have of imagination, ingenuity, common sense, +and far prevision. We can afford to waste not a single ounce of +strength: the blow, when we strike, must be sudden, sharp, +merciless—irresistible. But if Thirteen is not over-confident of the +discovery which he says he has to-day perfected, the means to deal just +such a blow is ready to our hands.... Thirteen?” + +A nod and gracious smile invited that one to speak. He rose, trembling +a little with excitement, bowed to Number One and, delving into +capacious pockets, produced a number of small tin canisters together +with three sealed bottles of brown glass. Surveying these, as he +arranged them on the teakwood table before him, he smiled a little to +himself: the stars, it seemed to him, were warring in their courses in +his behalf; this was to prove his hour of hours. + +He began to speak in a quivering voice which soon grew more steady. + +“It is true, Excellency—it is true, comrades—I have perfected a +discovery which I offer as a free gift to the cause, and by means of +which, intelligently employed, we can, if we will, make all London a +graveyard. Put the resources of this organization at my command, give +me a week to make the essential preparations, select a time of national +crisis when the Houses of Parliament are sitting and the Cabinet meets +in Downing Street with the King attending or in Buckingham Palace ...” + +He paused and held the pause with a keen feeling for dramatic effect, +his eyes seeking in turn the faces of his fellow conspirators, an +insuppressible grin of malicious exultation twisting his scornful and +mutinous mouth. + +“Let this be done,” he concluded, “and by means of these few tins and +bottles which you see before you, in one brief hour the ruling classes +will have perished almost to a man, there will be no more government of +a tyrannical bourgeoisie to grind down the proletariat, a bloodless +revolution will have made England the cradle of the new liberty!” + +“Bloodless?” the man on the dais repeated; and even he was seen +perceptibly to shudder at the prospect unfolded to the vision of his +mind. “Yes—but more terrible than the massacre of the Huguenots, more +savage than the French Revolution!” + +“But I believe,” the inventor commented, “your Excellency said we +required the means to deal a ‘blow sudden, sharp, +merciless—irresistible’.” + +“Surely now,” the Irishman suggested, mockingly—where a wiser man would +have held his tongue—“you’ll not be sticking at a small matter like +wholesale murder if it’s to make us masters of England?” + +“Of England?” the German echoed. “Herr Gott! Of the world!” + +“And you, Excellency, our master,” the inventor added, shrewdly. + +A sign at once impatient and imperative demanded silence, and for a few +minutes it obtained unbroken, while the gathering, keyed to high +tension, studied closely the face of their leader and found it +altogether illegible. + +On his part he seemed forgetful of the existence of anybody but +himself, forgetful almost of himself as well: sitting low in his great +chair, his body as stirless as it were bound by some spell of black +magic, his far gaze probing unfathomable remotenesses of thought. + +Slowly he recalled himself to his surroundings; with a suggestion of +weariness he sat up and reviewed the little company that hung so +breathlessly upon the issue of his judgment. The shadow of that satiric +smile returned. + +“If the thing be feasible,” he promised, “it shall be done. It remains +for Thirteen to be more explicit.” + +With an extravagant flourish the inventor whipped from his breastpocket +a folded paper, and spread it out face uppermost on the table. + +“A map of London,” he announced, “based on the latest Ordnance Survey +and coloured to show the districts supplied by the mains of each +individual gas depot. Thus you will observe”—what his long, bony finger +indicated—“the district supplied by the mains of the Westminster gas +works, comprising Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, the War +Office, and the Admiralty, Downing Street, the homes of hundreds of the +aristocracy. All these we can at will turn into the deadliest of death +traps.” + +A tense voice interrupted with the demand: “How?” + +“Quite easily, comrade: with the ramifications of our power throughout +London, all under the control of his Excellency”—the inventor bowed to +Number One—“it should be an easy matter to place a few trustworthy men +with the Westminster gas works.” + +“It can readily be done,” Number One affirmed. “And then—?” + +“While this is being done means must be found to smuggle other men, in +the guise of servants, into the various buildings selected, or to +corrupt those already so employed therein. At the designated hour—” + +The words dried upon his lips as somewhere a hidden bell stabbed the +quiet with short, sharp thrills of sound, a code that spelled a message +of terrifying significance. The inventor started violently, but no more +so than every man about the table. Even Number One, shocked out of his +lounging pose, grasped the arms of his throne with convulsive hands. + +Quietly and without a hint of hurry, the Chinese, Shaik Tsin, moved +back into the shadows and, unnoticed, disappeared behind a screen. + +For a moment, when the bell had ceased, nobody spoke; but pallid face +consulted face and eyes grown wide with dread sought eyes that winced +in terror. + +Then the Bengali leaped from his chair, jabbering with bloodless lips. + +“Police! Raid! We are betrayed!” + +He made an uncertain turn, as if thinking to seek safety in flight but +doubting which way to choose; and the movement struck panic into the +minds and hearts of his fellows. In a twinkling all were on their feet. +But before one could move a step the lamp in the ceiling winked out, +the room was left in darkness unrelieved, and the accents of Number One +were heard, coldly imperative. + +“Gentlemen! be good enough to resume your places—let no one move before +there is light again. We are in no immediate danger: Shaik Tsin will +show you out by a secret way long before the police can hope to find +and break into this chamber. In the meantime—” + +The infuriated voice of the Englishman interrupted: + +“And ’oo’re you to give us orders?—you ’oo talked so big about ’avin’ +tied the ’ands of the Lone Wolf and Scotland Yard! You blarsted +blow’ard! Bli’me if I don’t believe it’s you ’oo—” + +“Quietly, Seven! Have you forgotten you have a bad heart?—that +excitement may mean your sudden death?” + +The rage of the Englishman ran out in a gasp and a whisper. + +“In the meantime,” Number One resumed as if there had been no break, “I +promised that, before the night was out, you should have proof of my +ability to enforce my will.” + +A groan of agony answered him, followed by an oath of witless fear. +From a distance the voice, now thin but still sonorous, added: + +“Thirteen will hold himself ready to wait on me when I send for him +to-morrow. Gentlemen of the Council, I bow to you all.” + +Again silence held for a long minute during which no man stirred or +spoke. Then overhead the lamp burned bright again, discovering six +frightened men upon their feet and one who, still seated, did not stir, +and never would again. + +His head fallen forward, chin resting on his chest, mouth ajar, inert +arms dangling over the arms of the chair, heavy legs lax, the +Englishman sat quite dead, dead without a sign to show how death had +come to him. + +Number One had disappeared. + +There was a remote rumour of cries and shouts, the muffled sound of +axes crashing into woodwork.... + + + + +IX +MRS. WARING + + +Late in the forenoon a pencil of golden light found a chink in +jealously drawn draperies, and groped the rich dusk of the bedchamber +till it came to rest, as if happy that its search had found so lovely a +reward, upon the face of a young girl who lay sleeping in a bed whose +exquisite adornment must have flattered even the exalted person of a +princess. + +With a swift but silent movement another girl, who had been sitting +patiently on a low stool near by, rose and put herself in the way of +the sunbeam. But too late: already long lashes were a-flutter upon the +delicately modelled cheeks of the sleeper. + +A gentle sigh brushed parting lips; the sweet body stirred luxuriously; +unclouded by any shadow of misgiving, the blue eyes of the Princess +Sofia looked out upon the first day of her new world. + +Then they grew wide with wonder, comprehending the sleek, pretty face +of a Chinese girl of about her own age who, with eyes downcast, demure +mouth and folded hands, submissively awaited recognition. + +“Who are you?” Sofia demanded in a breath. + +A bob of courtesy, wholly charming, prefaced a reply pattered in +English of quaintest accent: + +“You’ handmaiden—Chou Nu is my name.” + +“My handmaiden!” + +“Les, Plincess Sofia.” + +“But I don’t understand. How—when—?” + +“Las’ night Numbe’ One he send for me, but when I come you go-sleep.” + +“Number One?” + +Surprise coloured faintly the explanation: “Plince Victo’, honol’ble +fathe’ of Plincess Sofia. You like get up now, take bath, have +blekfuss?” + +The smile was irresistibly ingratiating: Sofia could not but return it. +Delighted, Chou Nu ran to the windows, threw wide their draperies, and +darted into the bathroom. + +Autumnal sunlight kindled to burning beauty the golden-bronze tresses +coiled upon the pillows where Sofia lay unstirring, like a princess +enchanted—as indeed she was. Surely nothing less potent than magic had +wrought this metamorphosis in the fabric of her life! And whether the +magic were white or black—what matter? Its work was good. + +No more the Café des Exiles, no more the deadly tedium of daily service +at the desk of the caisse, no more the shrewish tongue of Mama Thérèse, +the odious oglings of Papa Dupont, the ceaseless cark of discontent.... + +Incredible! + +As one who moves in a dream, Sofia rose presently and bathed, then, +robed in a ravishing negligée of rare brocade, breakfasted on melon, +tea, and toast from a service of eggshell china. + +In a long mirror she saw and watched but did not know herself. Like +Goody Twoshoes of nursery fame she could have cried: Lawkamercy! this +is never I! + +The presence of Chou Nu served merely to stress the sense of unreality: +for, obviously, only the heroine of a true fairy tale could have broken +from a chrysalis stage of sordid Soho to the brilliant butterfly +existence of a Russian princess domiciled in the most aristocratic +quarter of London and attended by a Chinese maid! + +And Chou Nu proved a delight. Once satisfied she need fear neither +ill-temper nor arrogance from her new mistress, she indulged an even +and constant flow of artless high spirits, her amusing, clipped English +affording Sofia considerable entertainment together with not a little +food for thought. + +Thus one learned that the main body of the service staff was Chinese +under a major domo named Shaik Tsin—Chou Nu’s “second-uncle”—who +enjoyed Prince Victor’s completest confidence and was, second to the +latter only, the real head of the establishment, its presiding genius. +The front of the house alone was dressed with a handful of English +servants nominally under the man Nogam, but actually, like him, +answerable in the last instance to Shaik Tsin. + +Why this should be Chou Nu couldn’t say. Sofia supposed it was because +Prince Victor thought his Occidental guests would feel more at ease +with English servants; or perhaps he himself preferred them, when it +came to the question of personal attendance. + +No success rewarded efforts to extract from Chou Nu her reason for +referring to Victor as “Number One.” She stated simply that all +Chinamans in London called him that; and being pressed further added, +with as near an approach to impatience as her gentle nature could +muster, that it was obviously because Plince Victo’ _was_ Numbe’ One: +ev’-body knew _that_. + +A knock at the door interrupted Sofia’s questioning. Answering, Chou +brought back word that the honourable father of Princess Sofia +submitted his august felicitations and solicited the immediate favour +of her serene attendance in his study. + +Hasty search failed to locate the garments discarded on going to bed +and, in the indifference of depression and fatigue, left in a tumble on +the floor. All had vanished while Sofia slept; Chou Nu professed blank +ignorance of their fate; and apparently nothing had been provided in +their stead but Chinese robes, of sumptuous vestments well suited to +one of high estate. With these, then, and with Chou Nu’s guidance as to +choice and ceremonious arrangement, Sofia was obliged to make shift; +and anything but unbecoming she found them—or truly it was a shape of +dream that looked out from her mirror. + +Yet it was with reluctant feet that she left her room, descended the +broad staircase to the entrance hall, and addressed herself to the +study door. It had been so beautiful, that waking dream the sequel to +her night of dreamless sleep, too beautiful to be foregone without +regret. + +For Sofia had not forgotten, she could never forget, she had merely +been successful temporarily in banishing from mind that bitter +disillusionment which had poisoned what should have been her time of +greatest joy. + +To be told, by the father of whose dear existence one had only learned +within the hour, that one was the child of a notorious thief and an +adventuress ... + +It needed more than common fortitude to face renewed reminder of that +shame. + +Oddly enough, it seemed to help a bit, somehow to lend her courage and +assurance, to pass the man Nogam in the hall and acknowledge his bow +and smile. Sofia wondered vaguely what it was that made his smile seem +so kind; it was entirely respectful, there was nothing more in it that +she could fix on; and yet ... + +She was able to offer Victor a composed, almost a happy countenance, +and to return cheerful assurances to punctilious enquiries after her +well-being and her comfort overnight. To the real affection in which he +held her, the warmth of his embrace, and the lingering pressure of his +lips gave convincing testimony; and in time, no doubt, as she grew to +know him better, her response would become more spontaneous and true. +Indeed, she insisted, it must; she would school herself, if need be, to +remember that this strange man was the author of her being, the natural +object of her affections—deserving all her love if only because of that +nobility which had enabled him to renounce those evil ways of years +long dead. + +But to-day—and this, of course, she couldn’t understand—a slight but +invincible shiver, perceptible to herself alone, attended her +submission to paternal caresses; and the eyes were too dispassionate +with which she saw Prince Victor. Still, they found little to which +fair exception might be taken. If Life had thus far been callously +frank with Sofia as to its broader aspects, the niceties of its +technique remained measurably a mystery, she was insufficiently +instructed to perceive that Victor’s morning coat (for example) had +been cut a shade too cleverly, or that the ensemble of his raiment was +a trace ornate; and where a mind more mondain would have marked +ponderable constraint in his manner, she saw only dignity and reserve. +But for all that she recognized intuitively a lack of something in the +man, the sum of this second impression of him was formless +disappointment, she felt somehow cheated, disheartened, chilled. + +That she was able at all to dissemble this sense of dashed expectations +was thanks in the main to a third party, a stranger whose presence she +overlooked on entering, when Prince Victor met her near the door, while +the other remained aside, half hidden in the recess of a window. + +Directly, however, that Victor half turned away, saying “I have found a +friend for you, my dear,” Sofia, following his glance, discovered a +woman whose every detail of dress and deportment was unmistakably of +the fashionable world and whose face carried souvenirs of loveliness as +unmistakable. + +Smiling and offering her hands, she approached, while Victor’s voice of +heavy modulations uttered formally: + +“Sybil, permit me to present my daughter. Sofia, Mrs. Waring has +graciously offered to sponsor your introduction to Society, to guide +and instruct you and be in every way your mentor.” + +“My dear!” the woman exclaimed, holding Sofia’s hands and kissing her +cheek. And then, looking aside to Victor, “But how very like!” she +added with the air of tender reminiscence. + +“Oh!” Sofia cried, “you knew my mother?” + +“Indeed—and loved her.” Sofia never dreamed to question the woman’s +sincerity; and her charm of manner was irresistible. “You must try to +like me a little for her sake—” + +“As if one could help liking you for your own, Mrs. Waring!” + +“Prettily said, my dear. You have inherited more from your mother than +your good looks alone. Is it not so, mon prince?” + +“Much more.” Victor’s enigmatic smile gave place to a look of regret +and uneasiness. “Let us hope, however, not too much. Heredity,” he +mused in sombre mood, “is a force of such fatality in our lives....” + +He gave a gesture of solicitude and continued with characteristic +deliberation, and that preciseness of diction which he seemed never +able to forget, even though deeply moved. + +“More than ever, now that Sofia is restored to me, I could wish the +past other than what it was, that she might start life with a handicap +less cruel of inherited tendencies. But when I reflect that both her +parents—” + +“Please!” Sofia begged, piteous. “Oh, please!” + +“I am sorry, my dear.” Victor closed tender hands over those which the +girl had lifted in appeal. “It is for your own good only I give myself +this pain of warning you against your worst enemy, I mean yourself, the +self that is so strange a compound of hereditary weaknesses.... Please +remember always that, no matter what may happen, however far you may be +led into transgression of the social codes, I shall never reproach you, +on the contrary, you may count implicitly on my sympathetic +understanding. Never forget, I, too, have known, have suffered and +fought myself—and in the end won at a cost I am not yet finished +paying, nor will be, I fear, this side my grave.” + +He sighed from his heart, and bowing a stricken head, seemed to lose +himself in disconsolate reverie—but not so far as to suffer the +interruption which Sofia made to offer and which he stayed with an +eloquent hand. + +“You do not understand? But naturally. Let me explain. No: there is no +reason why Sybil—Mrs. Waring—should not hear. She is a dear friend of +long years, she understands.” + +With a quiet murmur—“Oh, quite!”—Mrs. Waring ran an affectionate arm +round Sofia’s shoulders and gently held the girl to her. + +“When I determined to forsake the bad old ways,” Victor pursued—“this +you must know, my dear—I had friends—of a sort—who resented my +defection, set themselves against my will and, when they found they +could not swerve me from my purpose, became my enemies. That was long +ago, but to this day some of them persist in their enmity—I have to be +constantly on my guard.” + +“You mean there is danger?” Sofia asked in quick anxiety. “Your life—?” + +“Always,” Victor assented, gravely. With a shrug he added: “It is +nothing; for myself, I am used to it, I do not greatly care. But for +you—that is another matter altogether. I have a great fear for you, my +child. That, indeed, is why I never tried to find you till +yesterday—believing, as I mistakenly did, you were in good hands, well +cared for, happy—lest my enemies seek to strike at me through you. But +when I saw that unfortunate advertisement I dared delay not another +hour about bringing you within the compass of my protection. Even now, +untiring as my care for you shall ever be, I know my enemies will be as +tireless in endeavours to rob me of you. You will be followed, hounded, +importuned, lied to, threatened—all without rest. If they cannot take +you from me bodily, they will seek to poison your mind against me. +Therefore, rather than keep you practically a prisoner in your home, I +feel obliged to require a promise of you.” + +Deeply stirred by the melancholy gravity that informed his pose, the +girl protested earnestly: “Anything—I will promise anything, rather +than be an anxiety to one who is so kind.” + +“Kind? To my own daughter?” Victor smiled sadly. “But I love you, +little Sofia. Nor is it much that I must ask of you: merely that you +never go out alone, but only in the company of Mrs. Waring or Mr. +Karslake or, preferably, both.” + +“Oh, I promise that—” + +“But there is more: If by any accident you should ever find yourself +left alone in public, do not let strangers speak to you, refuse to +listen to them.” + +“I promise.” + +“And finally: If anybody should ever seek to turn you against me, come +to me instantly and tell me about it.” + +“But naturally I would do that, father.” + +“Good. I rely upon your discretion and loyalty. At another time I will +explain matters in more detail. For the present—enough of an unpleasant +subject. You have a busy day before you. At my request Mrs. Waring has +arranged to have various tradespeople wait upon you this morning to +take your orders for the beginnings of a wardrobe. If you can find +something ready-made to wear you will want, no doubt, to spend the +afternoon shopping. A car will be at your disposal, and I give you +carte blanche. I wish you never to know an unsatisfied need or desire. +Still, I am selfish enough to reserve for myself the happiness of +selecting your jewels.” + +“Oh!” Sofia cried, breathlessly. Victor was holding his arms open; and +how should she deny him? “You are too good to me,” she murmured. “How +can I ever show my gratitude?” + +Holding her close, Victor smiled a singular smile. + +“Some day I may tell you. But to-day—no more. I am much preoccupied +with affairs; but Mrs. Waring will take care of you till evening, when +I promise myself the pleasure of dining with you both.” + +At the sound of a knock he put Sofia gently from him, and said in a +strong voice: + +“Enter.” + +The door opened, Nogam announced: + +“Mr. Sturm.” + +Hard on the echo of his name a man swung into the room with an air at +once nervous and aggressive—a tall man shabbily dressed, holding his +head high—and at sight of Sofia and Mrs. Waring, where he had doubtless +thought to find Prince Victor alone, stopped short, betraying +disconcertion in the way he instinctively assumed the stand of a +soldier at attention, bringing his heels together with an undeniable +click, straightening his shoulders, stiffening both arms to rigidity at +his sides. And for a bare thought his eyes rolled almost wildly in +their deep sockets. Then he bowed twice, from the hips, with mechanical +precision, profoundly to Victor, with deep respect to the women. + +Victor smothered an exclamation of annoyance. + +Unbidden, a word shaped in Sofia’s consciousness, a French monosyllable +into which the war had packed every shade and gradation of hatred and +contempt, the epithet _Boche_. + +Immediately erasing every sign of irritation, Victor greeted the man +with casual suavity. “Oh, there you are, eh, Sturm?” Then, as Sofia and +Mrs. Waring turned to go, he added quickly: “A moment, please. Since +Mr. Sturm to-day becomes a member of the household, acting as my +assistant in some research work which I am undertaking, I may as well +present him now. Mrs. Waring, permit me: Mr. Sturm. And the Princess +Sofia Vassilyevski, my daughter ...” + +Mumbling their names after Victor, the man Sturm executed two more +bows. At the same time he seemed to remind himself that his soldierly +carriage was perhaps injudicious, and forthwith abandoned it for a +studied slouch which, in Sofia’s sight, was little less than insolent. +And unmistakably there was something nearly resembling insolence in the +eyes that boldly sought hers: a look equivocal at best and, +intentionally or no, wholly offensive in essence; as if the fellow were +asserting their partnership in some secret understanding; or as if he +knew something by no means to Sofia’s credit.... + +Her acknowledgment of his salute was accordingly cool, and she was glad +when a nod from Prince Victor gave her leave to go. + + + + +X +VICTOR ET AL + + +Those first few weeks of emancipation from the ennui of existence at +the Café des Exiles were so replete with wonders that Sofia lived +largely in a beatific state of breathless excitement, devoting the best +part of her days to thoughtless flying from delight to new delight, and +going nightly to her bed so healthily tired that she slept like a top +and never once awakened to memories of disturbing dreams. + +Perhaps her pleasure burned the brighter for its dark, ambiguous +background—those many questions which Prince Victor persisted in +leaving unanswered. Sofia knew bad times of perplexity and depression, +when the price of translation from drudge to princess seemed a sore +price to pay. + +And yet, required to state the cost to her in terms explicit, she must +have hesitated lest she appear ungrateful in complaining, who hardly +needed to express a wish to have it granted, who indeed knew many a +wish realized in fact before she was fully aware of its inception in +her private thoughts. + +All those lovely material things of life which her famished girlhood +had ached for so hopelessly now were hers in abundant measure, and all +the less tangible things, too, so requisite to the happiness of women +in a worldly world—or nearly all. Frocks she had, with furs and +furbelows no end; flowers and flattery and frivolities; freedom within +limitations as yet not irksome; jewels that would have graced an +imperial diadem—everything but the single essential without which +everything is hollow nothing and life itself only the dreaming of a +dream. + +The one lack known to the Sofia of those days was the lack of Love. + +She had gone so long longing to love, questing blindly and vainly for +some human being to whom her affection would mean something vital and +dear—it seemed cruel that her longing must be still denied. As it had +been with Mama Thérèse, it was now with the romantic father so newly +self-declared. She wanted desperately and tried her best to love Victor +as his daughter should; and that he cared for her profoundly she knew +and never questioned; yet when she searched her secret heart Sofia +discovered no feeling for the man other than a singular form of fear. +His look, his tone, his manner, his presence altogether, inspired a +nameless sort of shrinking, inarticulate apprehensions, and mistrust +which the girl found at once utterly unaccountable and dismally +disappointing; so that, with every wish and will to do otherwise, she +found herself involuntarily making excuse of trivial interests to keep +out of Victor’s way and, when there was no escaping, sitting silent and +ill at ease in his society, or seizing on some slender pretext, it +didn’t matter what, to inveigle into their company a third somebody, it +didn’t matter whom—Mrs. Waring, Karslake, even the unspeakable Sturm. + +Nevertheless, there were times, far too many of them, too, when of a +sudden Victor would forsake his occult preoccupations and, +unceremoniously upsetting whatever arrangements Sofia might have made +with Mrs. Waring or Karslake, would find other pleasures of his own +invention for her to share with him alone: long motor jaunts through +the English countryside, apparently his favourite recreation; a box all +to themselves at a theatre, where Victor would sit watching the girl +with a fascination only rivalled by her fascination with the traffic of +the boards; curiously constrained little dinners à deux in fashionable +restaurants; morning rides in Rotten Row, where it oddly appeared that +Victor knew everybody, whereas not one in five hundred seemed to know +him—or to care to know him. + +Sofia, indeed, was often puzzled to account for what to her appeared to +be an almost pathetic eagerness on the part of Victor, in strange +accord with his lofty pretensions, to claim acquaintanceship with and +win the recognition even of persons of the utmost inconsequence. And +she remarked, too, that his temper was apt to be raw in sequel to their +excursions into the haunts of the well-known. But it was for other +reasons altogether that she came to dread them most. + +For one thing, Victor’s conversation was ordinarily rather dull; at +best, the reverse of exhilarating. And in spite of her unquestioning +acceptance of him as her father, he remained to Sofia actually a new +acquaintance; in effect, a strange man. And from strangers, more than +from relatives with whose minds one is presumably on terms of close +intimacy, one is warranted in expecting something in the way of mutual +stimulation through the opening of new perspectives of experience, +thought, and feeling. Whereas—with Sofia, at least—Victor seemed unable +to talk on more than two subjects, one or the other of which was +constantly uppermost in his thoughts. + +He never wearied of warning Sofia against the dangers of those moral +infirmities which he asserted were hers by legitimate inheritance; and +which, if Victor were right in his contentions, she could hardly hope +to overcome without a desperate struggle. She would have to be forever +on guard, he insisted, lest the temptation of some moment, not to be +foreseen, prove too strong for her latent weakness of character, and +commit her, through some unpremeditated act of defiance to the law—most +probably an act of theft—to the life of a social outcast. + +To do her justice, the girl was consciously not much impressed by this +alleged peril. She had never been aware of any failing such as Victor +would have endowed her with; so far as she could remember she had never +been tempted to commit more venial sins than inhered in lying to Mama +Thérèse now and then in order to escape unmerited disciplining at the +heavy hands of that industrious virago; and as for thieving, the very +thought of anything of that sort was detestable to Sofia. + +But unconsciously, no doubt, the everlasting iteration of Victor’s +admonitions had its purposed effect upon that sensitive and +impressionable spirit. + +Then, too, by degrees, but all too soon, it became manifest that the +memory of his passionate attachment for her mother possessed Victor to +the point of monomania. It was only with an effort that he could force +himself to talk to Sofia on other subjects. He thought of nothing else +while with her; if she read his eyes aright, often glimpses of weird +light flickering in their opaque depths, like heat lightning of a murky +summer’s night, fairly frightened her, and she knew a shuddering +perception of the possibility that Victor was at times in danger of +confusing the daughter with the mother. + +“Never was there such resemblance,” he once uttered, in a stare. “You +are more like her than she herself!” + +Sofia was pardonably puzzled, and looked it. + +“I mean, you re-create my vision of the woman I loved and lost—the +woman I saw in her, not the woman she was.” + +“Lost?” the girl murmured. + +The gray countenance took on an added shade of sombre passion. “She +never understood me, she treated me badly. Once, in a fit of pique, she +ran away. I did everything—everything, I tell you!—to win her back, +but—” + +He choked on bitter recollections—and Sofia was painfully reminded of +the Chinese devil-masks in Victor’s study. But the likeness faded even +as she saw it, under her gaze the twisted features were ironed back +into their accustomed cast of austerity. + +“Before I could persuade her, you were born.... Then she died.” + +Sensible though she was of the ellipsis, and afraid it would never be +filled in if she interrupted, Sofia could not help uttering a sound of +regret and pity for the lot of the mother she had never seen, whose +untimely death had ended a life accounted unendurable as Victor’s wife, +for reasons unknown but none the less, to the daughter, vaguely and +lamentably understandable. + +For Sofia by now had passed the stage of pretending to herself that she +was not happier away from her father. + +Victor mistook the nature of the feeling that swayed the girl—took to +himself the sympathy excited by his revelations. + +“But do not grieve on my account. Is not that which was lost restored +again to me? In you my old love lives once more ... little Sofia!” + +He caught and pressed a hand that rested on the cloth between them. +(They happened that night to be dining at the Ritz.) And Sofia +re-experienced that inevitable, hateful flinching with which she was +growing too familiar. + +She dropped her head that her eyes might not betray her. + +“People will see ...” + +“What if they do? Those who know us will hardly see any wrong in my +squeezing the hand of my own daughter; and the others—not that they +matter—will only think me the luckiest dog alive—as I am!” + +Chuckle and smirk both were indescribably odious, reminding Sofia of +the creature Sturm; _he_ had a laugh like that for her, on the rare +occasion when chance propinquity encouraged the Boche to begin one of +his uncouth essays in flirtation. + +Sturm’s attitude, in truth, perplexed Sofia to exasperation; that is to +say, as much as it offended her. For Victor the man seemed to entertain +an exaggerated yet deeply rooted respect, approaching actual awe, which +he tried his best to carry off with a swagger; for to hold anybody in +any degree of deference was, one judged, somehow deplorable, even +shameful, in the code of Sturm; but in Victor’s presence the fellow’s +bravado would quickly wilt into hopeless servility, he would cringe and +crawl like a dog currying the favour of a harsh master. + +Nevertheless, Victor’s daughter seemed to be no more than fair game, in +Sturm’s understanding, and a source of supercilious amusement but +thinly veiled or not at all. Alone with the girl, Sturm put on the airs +of a Prussianized pasha condescending to a new odalisque. + +Sofia held the animal in a deadly loathing which, betrayed in word or +look or gesture, animated in him only a spirit of derision. In the +absence of Victor, Sturm’s eyes were ever ironic, his bows and leers +mocking, his speeches flavoured with clumsy sarcasm; from which it +resulted that the girl never quite forgot the impression which he had +managed to convey in those few moments of their first encounter, that +Sturm knew something she ought to know but didn’t, and was meanly +jeering at her in his sleeve. + +What virtues Victor Vassilyevski perceived in the man passed +comprehension. But so did most of Victor’s whims and ways. What riddle +more obscure than that portentous business which permeated the +atmosphere of the establishment with the taint of stealth and +terror?—the famous “research work” that kept Victor closeted with Sturm +in his study daily for hours at a time, often in confabulation with +others of like ilk, men of furtive and unprepossessing cast who came +and went by appointment at all hours, but as a rule late at night! + +Into these conferences, Sofia observed, Karslake was never summoned. +She wondered why. He was, as she saw him, so unquestionably the better +man, everything that Sturm was not, open of countenance, fair of temper +and tongue, well-bred and well-mannered, light of heart and high +spirited, and at the same time dependable, with metal of sincerity and +earnestness like tempered steel in his character—or Sofia misread him +woefully. + +She had been quick to see the man behind the misleading little +moustache. And already she was beginning to count that amusement tame +which Karslake did not share. + +Mrs. Waring was undeniably a dear. Sofia could hardly be grateful +enough to the happy chance which had cast that lady for the rôle of her +chaperone; lacking her guidance the girl must have been innocently +guilty of many a gaucherie in ways new and strange to untried, +faltering feet. And it was to her alone that Sofia owed the slow but +constant widening of her social horizon. For Sybil Waring, it seemed, +quite literally “knew everybody”; and Sofia soon learned to count it an +off day when Sybil failed to present her protégée to the notice of +somebody of position and influence. + +Most of these persons were women with sounding names and the solid +backing of much money conspicuously in evidence—matrons of the younger +and more giddy generation which was just then so busily engaged in +providing material for the most hectic chapters of London’s post-war +social history. But Sofia was scarcely qualified to be critical or to +guess that they were climbers equally with herself, and that if their +footing had been of older establishment the name of Vassilyevski would +have rung sinister echoes in their memories, deafening them to the rich +allure inherent in the title of princess. + +So she was fain to accept them all at their own valuation, and thought +most of them entirely charming. And though she had hardly had time as +yet to progress beyond the introductory stages of chance meetings and +informal little teas in public, she began clearly to descry enchanting +vistas of better days to come, when the Princess Sofia Vassilyevski +would have not only teas but dinners and dances given in her honour, +and would be asked to spend gay week-ends in the country houses of the +people with whom she contracted the stronger friendships. + +But for the immediate present, and especially in the paramount business +of having a good time, Karslake was fairly a necessity. He thought of +everything and forgot nothing, was ever fertile of fresh expedient if +the pastime of a moment began to pall, and was capable of sustained +fits of irresponsible gaiety which enchanted Sofia, so well did they +chime with her own eagerness for sheer fun. + +Decidedly she would have been lost without Sybil Waring; but without +Karslake she would have been forlorn. + + + + +XI +HEARTBREAK + + +Not yet prepared to admit it even to herself, in her heart Sofia knew +she prized the companionship of Karslake for something more than the +mere amusement it afforded her: there was a deeper feeling she would +not name. For all that, her times of solitude knew dreams quick and +warm with the thought of Karslake, his words and ways, the gracious +little attentions he had accustomed her to expect of him and which his +manner subtly invested with a personal flavour inexpressibly +delightful, indispensably sweet. + +Nor did she ever quite forget how long he had worshipped with +unostentatious devotion at her lowly shrine of the caisse in the Café +des Exiles, and how shabbily she had rewarded his admiration—never +once, in those many months, with so much as a smile—and how unresentful +had been his acceptance of her half-feigned, half-real indifference to +his existence. + +But whenever her reflections took that back-turning she would recall +the man who had talked to Karslake in the café, that day so long ago, +of his own humble past as a ’bus-boy in Troyon’s in Paris, and who on +leaving had given Sofia herself that odd look of half-recognition +tempered by bewilderment. + +She tried once to draw Karslake about this acquaintance of his, but +Karslake’s memory proved unusually sluggish. + +“No-o,” he drawled after a tolerably long pause for thought—“can’t say +I place the chap you mean, can’t seem somehow to think back that far, +you know. One meets such a lot of people, first and last, they talk +such a lot of tosh—” + +“But it couldn’t have been only tosh you were talking,” the girl +persisted, “because—_I_ remember—you were so keen about keeping what +you said secret, you spoke the strangest language together most of the +time. I could hear every word”—she had already explained about the +freak acoustics of the Café des Exiles—“and not one meant anything to +me.” + +“Stupid of me, but I simply can’t think what it could have been.” + +“I can—now.” + +Karslake looked askance at Sofia. + +“Since I’ve heard so much Chinese spoken by the servants—now I come to +think of it”—Sofia’s eyes grew bright with triumph—“I’m sure it must +have been Chinese you were speaking to the man I mean.” + +“Impossible,” Karslake pronounced calmly. + +“But you do know Chinese, don’t you?” + +“Not a syllable.” + +Sofia opened her lips to protest, but delayed to study Karslake’s face +intently. He didn’t try to escape her scrutiny, he even seemed to court +it; but there was a curious, quizzical look in his eyes, those +half-smiling lips had a whimsical droop. + +“Mr. Karslake!” Sofia announced, severely, “you’re fibbing.” + +“Nice thing to say to me.” + +“You do speak Chinese—confess.” + +“My dear Princess Sofia,” Karslake protested: “if I had known one word +of Chinese I could never have landed my job with your father.” + +“Why not?” + +“He expressly stipulated that I should be ignorant of that language.” + +“What a silly condition to make!” + +“Still, I daresay Prince Victor had his reasons.” + +“I can’t imagine what ...” + +“Possibly preferred a secretary who couldn’t understand everything he +said to the servants. I’ve never pretended to know all Prince Victor’s +secrets, you know.” + +After a little pause Sofia asked gently: “Did you really need the job +so badly, Mr. Karslake?” + +“To get it meant more to me than I can tell you—almost as much as to +hold on to it does to-day.” + +Sofia turned her eyes away at this, and for the rest of the ride—they +were homeward bound from a matinée, having dropped Sybil Waring at her +flat in Mayfair—kept her thoughts to herself. + +Only the most perfunctory civilities passed between them, in fact, +until they had been ushered into the study by Nogam, who advised them +that Prince Victor had ordered tea to be served there and had promised +to be home in good time for it. + +The tea service was already set out on a little table beside the +fireplace in that room of secrets, whose normal atmosphere of brooding +gloom was now the darker for the deepening dusk. Only the tea itself +remained to be served, a special rite never performed in that household +by hands more profane than those of the major-domo, Shaik Tsin himself. +And this last could be counted upon not to put in appearance until +Nogam took him word that Victor was waiting. + +So, having laid aside her furs and satisfied herself, by a seemingly +aimless but in fact exacting survey, that the abominable Sturm was not +skulking anywhere in the shadows, Sofia established herself on a lounge +that faced the fireplace, while Karslake stood before the fire, looking +down with an expectant smile of which she was but half aware. + +“Aren’t you going to forgive me?” he asked, quietly, after a time. + +Sofia withdrew a pensive gaze from the ruddy bed of coals. + +“For what?” + +“You were kind enough to call it merely fibbing.” + +“I’m still thinking about that.” + +In fact, she had been thinking of nothing else. There was so much to be +considered. Imprimis, that Karslake had been guilty of practising a +deception upon her father. Deceit in itself was one form of treachery. +And how often had Victor stressed to her the dangers of his position, +surrounded by nameless but implacable enemies who would stick at no +infamy to compass his ruin! + +But if she told him that Karslake understood Chinese she would lose her +friend forever—no question about that. Victor would not hesitate an +instant—indeed, Sofia felt sure he was only waiting for some such +pretext to get rid of his secretary. She was anything but unobserving, +this child of Soho, whose wits had been sharpened in the sophisticated +atmosphere of a French restaurant; and more than once she had seen +Victor’s face duplicate the expression Papa Dupont’s had so often +assumed on his discovering that some patron of the café was taking too +personal an interest in the pretty young dame du comptoir. A look of +insensate jealousy ... + +To risk forfeiting the comradeship that had grown to be so dear? Or to +be constructively derelict in her duty as a daughter? + +A difficult choice to make; but Sofia made it honestly. In point of +fact, she assured herself, coldly, there was no choice, there was only +one thing she could do under the circumstances. And she hardened her +heart and eyes as she rose to face Karslake on more equal terms. + +But when she saw him waiting patiently, with that friendly smile of his +she knew so well, she hesitated long enough to permit his anticipating +her with a quiet question: + +“Well, Princess Sofia?” + +And then, amazingly, her tongue betrayed her, the phrases she had +framed so carefully vanished utterly from out her mind; and she heard +herself saying in rather tremulous accents: + +“It’s all right. I shan’t tell.” + +“About my understanding Chinese?” + +“Yes—about that.” + +“Then you do care—?” + +She was panicky with knowledge that somehow her emotions had managed to +slip their moorings and get beyond her handling. It didn’t help or mend +matters much to hear her own voice stammering: + +“Yes, of course, I—I don’t want you to—to have to go away—” + +Oh, the vanity of trying to hoodwink him who knew so well what she was +now for the first time realizing! + +“Because you like me a little, Princess Sofia?” + +“Why—yes—of course I do—” + +“Because you know I love you, dear.” + +And then she found herself clinging to Karslake; and his lips were warm +upon her hands ... + +So suddenly and at long last it came to Sofia, that Love for which all +her days had been one long weariness of waiting, Love that brimmed with +raptures what had been only aching emptiness and made the desert places +to blossom as the rose. And the joy of it proved overmastering, +sweeping her off her feet and dazing her, leaving her breathless and +thoughtless but for the all-obscuring thought—at length she loved, and +the one whom she loved loved her! + +And for a space she existed in an iridescent dream of happiness, +without sense of relation to a material world, forgetful of the flight +of time, lost to everything but her lover’s arms and voice and lips. + +It might have been five minutes, it might have been sixty, before she +became aware that Karslake was gently disengaging her hands. “Dearest, +dearest!” she heard him say. “We must be sensible. That was the front +door, I’m afraid.” + +The meaning in his insistence presently began to penetrate, if vaguely, +and she suffered him to go from her a pace or two. But, still a little +blind with the beauty of the revelation that had been granted unto her, +nothing that met her gaze seemed to be in true focus except her lover’s +face: even the countenance of Victor swam into her ken as if blurred by +veils of mist, its dour, forbidding look had no significance to her +intelligence. Victor himself, for that matter, was a figure without +real consequence other than as a symbol of the old order, the tedious +old ways of the world from which she had magically escaped. + +A ring of sarcastic apology provided the only clue she got to the +import of Victor’s words. Sobered a trifle, her mental processes +somewhat less incoherent, still she knew she would hardly regain her +poise until she was alone. And breathing an excuse, she left the room +with such dignity as she could muster. + +In the hall, with the closed door behind her, she paused to collect +herself. Then she missed furs and gloves and handbag and, remembering +that she had left them in the study, for some obscure reason imagined +she must have them before proceeding to her room. + +Much more mistress of herself by now, it never occurred to Sofia that +there could be any reason why she should hesitate about returning or +feel embarrassed before Victor. True, he had surprised them, Sofia was +not at all sure he hadn’t actually seen her in Karslake’s arms. But +what of that? Love like hers was nothing to be ashamed of; and that +Victor could reasonably object to her giving her heart to one of his +secretaries was something far from her thought just then. + +She put a hand to the knob, turned it, and swung the door open—all on +impulse—then faltered, transfixed by the tableau before the fireplace. + +The door was silent on its hinges, and Karslake’s back was to her. +Victor, on the other hand, facing both Karslake and the door, +unquestionably saw Sofia, but pretended not to, and had his say out +with Karslake in a manner bitterly cynical. + +“... sadly in error if you flatter yourself I pay you a wage to make +love to Sofia behind my back.” + +“Sorry, sir.” Karslake’s tone was level, respectful but firm. “Your +instructions were, I believe, to win her confidence. Well—I have always +found love the one sure key to a woman’s confidence. Of course, if I +had understood you cared one way or the other—” + +Sofia heard no more: unconsciously she had closed the door, at one and +the same time shutting from her sight Victor’s exultant sneer and from +her hearing the words with which the man whom she loved had damned +himself irretrievably and dashed her spirit from radiant pinnacles of +ecstasy into the profoundest black abyss of shame and despair. + +Primitive instinct bade the stricken girl seek her room and hide her +suffering there; but the shock had stunned her to the point of physical +weakness. Already a hand was pressed above her heart, that ached +cruelly; and as she moved to cross to the foot of the staircase her +knees gave under her. She clutched the newel-post for support, waiting +to find strength for the ascent. + +From the shadowed back part of the hall the man Nogam moved hastily +into view, his features twisted in a grimace of concern as he +recognized the bleak misery of Sofia’s face. His voice sounded +strangely thin and remote. + +“Is there anything the matter, miss?—anything I can do?” + +She contrived to shake her head slightly and utter an inarticulate +sound of negation, then began slowly to mount the stairs. + +Below, Nogam stood watching, in a pose of indecision, as if tempted to +follow and offer the support of an arm lest she fall, restrained only +by fear of a rebuff. But Sofia’s leaden limbs carried her safely to the +upper landing, then on to the blessed shelter of her room, where she +collapsed upon a chaise-longue and there lay in a stirless huddle, dry +of eye but deaf to the plaintive entreaties of Chou Nu and numb to all +sensation but the anguish of her humiliated heart. + + + + +XII +SUSPECT + + +Toward mid-evening the man Victor Vassilyevski and his creature Sturm +sat where the lamp of hand-wrought brass made the top of the teakwood +table an oasis of light amid a waste of shadows, their heads together +over a vast glut of books and papers—maps printed and sketched, curious +diagrams, works of reference, documents all dark with columns of +figures and cabalistic writings intelligible only to initiated eyes. + +They had the study all to themselves. Nevertheless, when they spoke it +was in the discreet pitch of those who deal in fatal secrets. At a +distance of two paces only a lip-reader could have caught the substance +of their communications, and even such a one must have failed unless +equally at home in German and in English. + +Aside from these occasional and circumspect voices, and the busy rustle +of a steel pen in the hand of Sturm, the quiet of the room had a +tolerably constant background of sound in a subdued whisper punctuated +by muffled clicks, emanating from the bronze casket that housed the +telautographic apparatus. + +From time to time, as this noise temporarily suspended, Victor would +get up, read what the mechanical stylus had inscribed, tear off the +paper, and return to his chair. + +Some of the messages thus received he made known to Sturm, who +invariably acknowledged this courtesy with effusive gratitude, +sometimes adding a few words of contented comment. Other messages +Victor chose to keep to himself, silently setting fire to them and +adding their brittle ashes to those of their predecessors on the brazen +tray provided for the purpose. At such times Sturm would bend lower +over his work. But Victor was well able to guess what resentment +glimmered in the eyes so studiously averted; and his cold, sardonic +smile more than once commented, unknown to Sturm, upon the accuracy +with which he read the mean workings of his “secretary’s” mind. + +The buzz of a muted bell presently interrupted the even tenor of their +industry, causing Sturm to start sharply, drop his pen, and slue round +in his chair, turning to Victor a livid face in which his dark eyes of +a fanatic were live embers of excitement. + +Without a sign to show he shared or even was aware of Sturm’s emotion, +Victor deliberately fished from beneath the table a telephone +instrument, unhooked the receiver, and pronounced a conventional phrase +of greeting. To this he added a short “Yes,” and after listening +quietly for some seconds, “Very good—in twenty minutes, then.” Wasting +no more time on the author of the call, he hung up, returned the +telephone to its place of concealment, and helped himself to a +cigarette before deigning to acknowledge Sturm’s persistent stare. + +Then, elevating his eyebrows in mild impatience, he made the laconic +announcement: + +“Eleven.” + +Sturm’s mouth twitched nervously, his eyes burned with a keener fire. + +“Coming here? To-night?” + +“Yes.” + +“Then”—a gaunt hand described a gesture of agitation—“the hour +strikes!” + +Victor looked bored. + +“Who knows?” he replied, as who should say: “Does it matter?” + +“But—Gott in Himmel—!” + +“Sturm,” Victor interposed, critically, “if you Bolsheviki were a +trifle more consistent, one might repose greater faith in your +sincerity. But when one hears you deny the Deity in one breath and call +on him by name in the next—!” + +“A mere mode of speech,” Sturm muttered. + +“If you must invoke a spiritual patron, why not Satan? Or don’t you +believe in the Powers of Darkness, either?” + +“I believe in you.” + +“As temporal viceroy of Lucifer? Many thanks! But you were about to +say—?” + +“Nothing. That is—I was envying your poise, Excellency. You take things +so coolly.” + +“Why not?” + +“With Eleven coming here to tell us when we are to strike?” + +“Why not?” Victor repeated. “We are prepared to strike at any hour. +What matters whether to-night or a week from to-night—since we cannot +fail?” + +“If that were only certain!” + +“It rests with you.” + +“That’s just it,” Sturm doubted moodily. “Suppose _I_ fail?” + +“Why, then—I suppose—you will die.” + +“I know. And so will all of us, Excellency.” + +“Oh, no. Undeceive yourself, my friend. I shall survive. You will +surely die, and perhaps many others with you; but I would not be Number +One if I had turned my hand to this scheme without discounting failure +first of all. My way of escape is sure.” + +“I believe you,” Sturm grumbled. + +With a languid hand Victor found and pressed a button embedded in the +table near the edge. + +“You have reason. Whatever my shortcomings, my good Sturm, they do not +include hypocrisy; I do not pretend, like your noble Bolsheviki, I am +in this business for the sake of humanity or anything but my own +selfish ends—power, plunder”—a slight wait prefaced one final word, +spoken in a key of sombre passion—“revenge.” + +“Revenge?” Sturm echoed, staring. + +“I have more than one score to pay out before I can cry even with life +... one above all!” + +Studying intently that darkened face, and misled by its look of +abstraction, Sturm was guilty of the indiscretion of his malicious +smile. + +“The Lone Wolf?” + +Victor turned weary eyes his way, and under their black and lustreless +regard the smile merged swiftly into a grin of nervous apology. + +“You are shrewd,” Victor observed, thoughtfully. “Be careful: it is a +dangerous gift.” + +The man Nogam gently opened the door and approached the table, stopping +just outside the area of illumination shed by the shaded lamp. But +since Victor continued to smoke absently, paying no attention, Nogam +resigned himself to wait with entire patience: the perfect pattern of a +servant tempered by long servitude to the erratic winds of employers’ +whims; efficient, assiduous, mute unless required to speak, +long-suffering. + +Victor addressed him suddenly, in a sharp voice that drew from Sturm a +glitter of eager spite. + +“Nogam!” + +“Yes, sir?” + +“Where is the Princess Sofia?” + +“In ’er apartment, sir.” + +“And Mr. Karslake?” + +“In ’is.” + +“Then be good enough to send Shaik Tsin to me.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And, Nogam!”—the servant checked in the act of turning—“I shan’t need +you again to-night.” + +“’Nk you, sir.” + +When Nogam had left the room, Sturm, remarking the slight frown that +knitted Victor’s brows, ventured an impertinence couched in a form of +respectful enquiry: + +“Excellency, perhaps you trust that fellow too much, hein?” + +“You think so?” + +“He is too perfect, if you ask me—never makes a false move.” + +“Either he is what he seems, in which event a false move would be +against nature; or he is not, and knows one slip would mean his death.” + +“Still, I maintain you trust him too much.” + +“With what?” + +“The freedom of your house, the opportunity to spy, to get to know who +comes to see you and when, to listen at doors.” + +“You have caught him listening at doors?” + +“Not yet. But in time—” + +“I think not. I don’t think he has to.” + +“You mean,” Sturm stammered, perturbed, “you think he knows—suspects?” + +“I think he is one thing or the other: merely Nogam, or one of the +greatest of living actors. In either case he is flawless—thus far. But +if not merely Nogam, he will have a subtler means of eavesdropping than +by listening at doors.” + +“The dictograph?” + +“Make your mind easy about that. This room is searched regularly by +Shaik Tsin. So is Nogam’s. It is certain there is neither a dictograph +installed here nor any means at Nogam’s disposal for connecting with a +dictograph installation. Indeed, so closely is Nogam watched, and by +more cunning eyes than mine—sometimes I begin to be afraid he is simply +what he seems.” + +“Then you do suspect him!” + +“My good Sturm, I suspect everybody.” + +Sturm pondered this before pressing his point again. + +“Karslake found the fellow for you,” he suggested at length. + +“True.” + +“And Karslake—” + +“Has been guilty of nothing more treacherous than falling in love with +Sofia.” + +“Your daughter, Excellency!” + +“The young woman seems content to call herself that.... Can’t say I +blame Karslake.” + +“But do you forgive him?” + +“Ah, that is another matter. Mine is not a forgiving nature, Sturm—not +even toward excessive shrewdness.” + +Victor took up a docket of papers, and Sturm, mumbling an apology, gave +himself up to jealous brooding till he forgot the broad hint he had +received. + +“If I can satisfy you that Nogam is untrustworthy—” he began, meaning +to continue: _Karslake will stand his proved accomplice_. + +But Victor would not let him finish. “Nothing could please me more,” he +interrupted. “Do so, by all means—if you can—and earn my everlasting +gratitude.” + +Sturm questioned him with puzzled eyes. + +“I ask no greater service of any man,” Victor elucidated with a smile +that made Sturm shiver, “than proof that Nogam is what I suspect him of +being.” A hand extended upon the table unclosed and closed slowly, with +fingers tensed, like a murderous claw. “I want no greater favour of +Heaven or Hell—!” + +He broke off abruptly. Having entered noiselessly in his padded shoes, +Shaik Tsin now stood before Victor, offering a low obeisance. + +“You took your time,” Victor grumbled. And Shaik Tsin smiled serenely. +“I want you to tend the door to-night,” Victor pursued. “Eleven is +expected at any moment. You need not announce him, simply show him in.” + +“Hearing is obedience.” + +“Wait”—as the Chinaman began to bow himself out—“Karslake is still in +his room, I suppose?” + +“Yes, master.” + +“And Nogam?” + +“Has just gone to his.” + +“When did you last search their quarters?” + +“During dinner.” + +“And of course found nothing?” Shaik Tsin bowed. “Make sure neither +leaves his room to-night. Set a watch outside each door.” + +“I have done so.” + +Victor gave a sign of dismissal. + + + + +XIII +THE TURNIP + + +In a spacious chamber beneath the eaves, hideously papered and +furnished with cheerless, massive relics of the early Victorian era, +the man Nogam pursued methodical preparations for bed. + +Spying eyes, had there been any—and for all Nogam knew, there +were—would have seen him follow step by step a programme from whose +order he had departed by scarcely as much as a single gesture on any +night since his first installation in the house near Queen Anne’s Gate. + +Loosening the waistcoat of his evening livery, he freed the heavy +silver watchchain from its buttonhole, drew from its pocket an +old-fashioned silver watch of that obese style which first earned the +portable timepiece its nickname of “turnip,” and opening its back +inserted a key attached to the other end of the chain. Its winding was +a laborious process, prodigiously noisy. Once finished, Nogam shut the +back with a loud click, and reverently deposited the watch on the +marble slab of the black walnut bureau. + +Then he hung coat and waistcoat over the back of a chair which stood +between the foot of his bed and the door. Sheer chance may have decreed +selection of this chair for the purpose on Nogam’s first night in the +room; whether or no, it was not in character that, having established +this precedent, Nogam should depart from it. And in any event, the +coat-draped chair effectually eclipsed a possible keyhole view of the +room. + +Notwithstanding, Nogam pursued his bedtime rites with precisely the +same deliberation and absence of perceptible self-consciousness as +before. One never knew: there might be other peepholes in the walls. + +His trousers, neatly folded, he laid out on the seat of the chair. Then +he pulled off square-toed boots with elastic inserts in their uppers, +put on a pair of worn slippers, carried the boots to the door and set +them outside, closed the door, and turned the key in its lock. + +If aware that, by so doing, he made his privacy just as secure as if he +had fastened the door with a bent hair-pin, he gave evidence of no +uneasiness in the knowledge. A clear conscience is the best of nerve +tonics. + +Throughout, his features preserved their mild, subdued, dull habit with +which the household was familiar. Nogam off duty was in no way +different from the unthinking creature of habit who performed +belowstairs the prescribed functions of his office. + +Having donned a nightshirt of coarse cotton, he knelt for several +minutes in a devout attitude by the side of his bed, then rising opened +the window, took the turnip from the bureau, and snuggled it beneath +his pillow, inserted his bare shanks between the sheets, and opened at +a marked place a Bible bound in black cloth. + +On the table by his shoulder a battered electric standard with a frayed +cord and a dingy shade remained alight long enough to permit Nogam to +spell out a short chapter. Then he put the Bible aside, yawned wearily, +and switched out the lamp. + +Profound darkness now possessed the room, immaterially modified by the +light-struck sky beyond the windows. And in this grateful obscurity +Nogam permitted himself the luxury of ceasing to be Nogam. A light +suddenly flashed upon his face would have discovered a keen and alert +intelligence transfiguring the apathetic mask of every day. Also, it +would have rendered Nogam’s probable duration of life an interesting +speculation. + +Under cover of the darkness, furthermore, he did a number of things +which Nogam, qua Nogam, would never have dreamed of doing. + +His first act was to withdraw from under his pillow the turnip, his +next to re-open the back of its silver case and then the inner +lid—something which a deft thumbnail accomplished without a sound. + +From the roomy interior of the case—whose bulky ancient works had been +replaced by a wafer-thin modern movement, leaving much useful space +back of the dial—sensitive fingers extracted a metal disk about the +size and thickness of a silver dollar. One face of this disk was +generously perforated, the other, solid, boasted a short blunt post +round which several feet of extremely fine wire had been coiled. + +Unwinding the wire and bending the free end into the form of a rude +hook, the man attached this last to the cord of his bedside lamp at a +point, located by sense of touch, where a minute section of electric +light wire had been left naked by defective insulation. + +Direct connection now being established with a microphone secreted in +the base of the brass lamp on the study table, three floors below, and +the perforated side of the microphone detector serving as an earpiece, +one could hear every word uttered by the conspirators. + +The man in bed contributed a broad smile to the kind darkness—sheer +luxury to facial muscles cramped and constrained to the cast of Nogam +for eighteen hours a day. He was now at last to reap the reward of +three months of preparation and three weeks of ingenious, but +necessarily spasmodic, and at all times desperately dangerous, +tampering with the house wiring system. + +He lay very still for a long time, listening ... + + + + +XIV +CONFERENCE OF THE DAMNED + + +An Irish voice was making the hush of the study musical with mellow +cadences. + +“This week-end sure, your Excellency—within the next three nights—the +little Welshman will be after summoning the Cabinet to sit in secret in +Downing Street, with His Most Gracious Majesty attending in person; the +emergency extraordinary being thoughtfully provided by this shindig me +amiable but spirited fellow-countrymen are kicking up across the +Channel—God bless the work!” + +The speaker laughed lightly, flashing white teeth at Prince Victor +across the width of the paper-strewn table. + +“In more Parliamentary language, by the Irish Question. But we’ll hear +no more of that, I’m thinking, once we’ve proclaimed the Soviet +Government of England.” + +Victor bowed in grave assent. + +“You have my word as to that,” he said; and after a moment of +thoughtful consideration: “You speak, no doubt, from the facts?” + +“I do that. It’s straight I’ve come from the House of Commons to bring +you the news without an hour’s delay. There’s more than one advantage +in being an Irish Member these days.” + +“On the other hand, Eleven”—Victor stressed the numeral as if to remind +the Irishman that even a Member of Parliament for Ireland held no +higher standing in his esteem than any other underling in his +association of anonymous conspirators—“even so, it appears you are +uncertain as to the night.” + +“I’m after telling you it’ll be to-morrow night or more likely +Saturday—Sunday at the latest.” A mildly impatient accent alone +betrayed resentment of the snub. “I’ll know in good time, long before +the hour appointed; and that ought to do, providing you on your part +are prepared.” + +“An hour’s notice will be ample,” Victor agreed. “We have been ready +for days, needing only the knowledge you bring us—or will, when you +have it definitely.” + +The Irishman chuckled. + +“It’s hard to believe. Not that I’d dream of doubting your statement, +sir—but yourself won’t be denying you must have worked fast to organize +England for revolution in less than three weeks.” + +“I have been busy,” Victor admitted. “But the work was not so difficult +... Seeds of revolution are easily sown in land thoroughly tilled by +forces of discontent. And what land has been better tilled? To vary the +figure: England is all seething beneath a thin crust of custom and +established habit whose integrity a conservative and reactionary +government has ever since the war been struggling desperately to +preserve. The blow we shall strike within three days will shatter that +crust in a hundred places.” + +“And let Hell loose!” the Irishman added with a nervous laugh. + +In a dry voice Victor commented: “Precisely.” + +“Omelettes,” Sturm interjected, assertively, “are not made without +breaking eggs.” + +“And all rivers, no doubt, flow to the sea? What a lot you know, Herr +Sturm! Is it the Portfolio of the Minister of Education you’ve picked +out for your very own, after the explosion comes off—if it’s a fair +question?” + +“You Irish are all mad,” the German complained, sourly—“mad about +laughing. Even me you will laugh at, while you trust your very life to +me, while you trust to my genius to make Soviet England possible and +Ireland free.” + +“Faith! you’re away off there, me friend. If it was you and your genius +I had to trust, it’s meself would turn violent reactionary and advise +Ireland to be a good dog and come to England’s heel and lick England’s +hand and live off England’s leavings. I’ll trust nobody in this black +business but himself—Number One.” + +“You have changed your tune since that night at the Red Moon,” Sturm +reminded him, angrily. + +“I had me lesson then and there,” Eleven agreed, cheerfully. “And I +don’t mind telling you, the next time I’m taken with a fancy to call me +soul me own, I’ll be after asking himself first for a license.” + +Victor put a period to the passage with a dispassionate “By your leave, +gentlemen—that will do.” To the Irishman he added: “You understand the +danger, I believe, of remaining within the condemned area—that is to +say, except in the open air?” + +“Can’t say I do, altogether.” + +“It is simple: no person in any house supplied by the mains of the +Westminster gas works will be safe for hours after the formula of +Thirteen has begun its work. My advice to you is to keep out of the +district entirely.” + +“Faith, and I’ll do that! But how about yourself in this house?” + +“I shall spend the week-end outside of London,” Victor replied, “not +too far away, of course, and”—the shadow of his satiric smile was +briefly visible—“prepared at any moment to answer the call of my +stricken country.... The few who remain here will be provided with the +essentials for their protection. Furthermore, a general warning will be +sent out to all who can be trusted.” + +“And the others—?” + +“With them it must be as Fate wills.” + +“Women and children, potential sympathizers and supporters of all +classes?” the Irishman persisted in incredulous horror—“all?” + +“All,” Victor affirmed, coldly. “We who deal in the elemental passions +that make revolutions, that is to say, in Life and Death, cannot afford +qualms and scruples. What are a few lives more or less in London? These +British breed like rabbits.” + +“I see,” said Eleven, indistinctly. He stared a moment and swallowed +hard, then glanced hastily at his watch. “I’ll be after bidding you +good-night,” he said, “and pleasant dreams. For meself, I’m a fool if I +go to bed this night sober enough to dream at all, at all!” + +Victor rang for Shaik Tsin to show him out. + +“One question more, if you won’t take it amiss,” Eleven suggested, +lingering. And Victor inclined a gracious head. “Have you thought of +failure?” + +“I have thought of everything.” + +“Well, and if we do fail—?” + +“How, for example?” + +“How do I know what hellish accident may kick our plans into a cocked +hat? Anything might happen. There’s your friend, the Lone Wolf, for +instance ...” + +“Have you not forgotten him yet?” Victor enquired in simulated +surprise. “Have you neglected to remark that since the blunderer failed +to find the Council Chamber that night, when his raid at the Red Moon +netted him only a handful of coolie gamblers and drug-addicts, he has +left us to our own devices?” + +“That’s what makes me wonder what the divvle’s up to. His sort are +never so dangerous as when apparently discouraged.” “Be reassured. I +promised you three weeks ago his interference would not continue beyond +that night. It has not. Lanyard knows I have his daughter, that any +blow aimed at me must first strike her.” + +“Doubtless yourself knows best....” + +With the Irishman gone, Prince Victor turned to Sturm. + +“You will want a good night’s sleep,” he suggested with pointed +solicitude. “Who knows but that to-morrow will bring your night of +nights, my friend?” + +He lapsed immediately into remote abstraction, sitting with chin bent +to the tips of his joined fingers, his eyes downcast, motionless. + +Disgruntled, but afraid to show it, the German cleared away the litter +of papers, assorting them into huge portfolios, and took himself off. +Shaik Tsin replaced him, moving noiselessly about the room, restoring +the reference books to the shelves and stowing the portfolios away in a +massive safe hidden behind a lacquered screen. This done, he stationed +himself before his master, awaiting his attention, a shape of affable +placidity, intelligent, at ease; his attitude not entirely lacking a +suggestion of familiarity. + +Without changing his pose by so much as the lifting of an eyelash, +Victor spoke in Chinese: + +“To-morrow afternoon, late, I shall motor down into the country with +the girl Sofia. I shall be gone three days—perhaps. I will leave a +telephone number with you, to be used only in emergency. As soon as I +have left, you will dismiss all the English servants, with a quarter’s +wage in advance in lieu of notice. Karslake will provide the money.” + +“He does not accompany you?” + +“No.” + +“And the man Nogam?” + +Victor appeared to hesitate. “What do you think?” he enquired at +length. + +“What I have always thought.” + +“That he is a spy?” + +“Yes.” + +“But with no tangible support for your suspicions?” + +“None.” + +“You have not failed to watch him closely?” + +“As a cat watches a mouse.” + +“But—nothing?” + +“Nothing.” + +“Yet I agree with you entirely, Shaik Tsin. I smell treachery.” + +“And I.” + +“Nogam shall go with me as my bodyservant. Thus I shall be able to keep +an eye on him. Let Chou Nu be prepared to accompany us as maid to the +girl Sofia. In my absence you will be guided by such further +instructions as I may leave with you. These failing, consider the man +Sturm, my personal representative. In the contingency you know of, +Sturm will warn you in time to clear the house.” + +“Of everybody?” + +“Of all servants except those whom you may need to guard the man +Karslake. These and yourself will be provided with means of +self-protection by Sturm.” + +“And Karslake?” + +“I have not yet made up my mind.” + +“Hearing is obedience.” + +Victor relapsed into another reverie which lasted so long that even the +patience of Shaik Tsin bade fair to fail. In the end the silence was +broken by two words: + +“The crystal.” + +From a cabinet at the end of the room Shaik Tsin brought a crystal ball +supported on the backs of three golden dragons standing tail to tail, +superbly wrought examples of Chinese goldsmithing. This he placed +carefully on the black teakwood surface at Victor’s elbow. + +“And now, inform the girl Sofia I wish to see her.” + +“And if she again sends her excuses?” + +“Say, in that event, I shall be obliged to come to her room.” + + + + +XV +INTUITION + + +She had not thought, of course, of going down to dinner; she had, +instead, sent Victor word simply that she begged to be excused from +joining him for that meal. Then, unable longer to endure Chou Nu’s +efforts to comfort or distract her, Sofia had stepped out of her street +frock and into a négligée and, dismissing the maid, returned to the +chaise-longue upon which, in vain hope of being able to cry out the +wretchedness of her heart, she had thrown herself on first gaining the +sanctuary of her room. + +For hours, she did not guess how many, she scarcely stirred. Neither +was the blessed boon of tears granted unto her. Alone with her immense +and immitigable misery, she lay in darkness tempered only by the dim +skyshine that filtered through the window draperies; hating life, that +had no mercy; hating the duplicity that had led Karslake into making +untrue love to her, but inexplicably not hating Karslake himself, or +the enshrined image that wore his name; hating herself for her facile +readiness to give love where all but the guise of love was lacking, and +for knowing this deep hurt where she should have felt only scorn and +anger; but hating, most of all, or rather for the first time +discovering how well she hated, him to whom unerring intuition told her +she owed this brimming measure of heartbreak and humiliation, the man +who called himself her father. + +For if Karslake had done her a cruel wrong in winning her avowal of the +love that had been growing in her heart these many weeks, while he was +merely amusing himself or serving a secret purpose—whose was the +initial blame for that? + +Who had egged Karslake on, as he had asserted, “to win her confidence,” +leaving to him the choice of means to that end? + +And—_why_? + +The formulation of this question marked the turning point in Sofia’s +descent toward the nadir of shame and anguish; from the moment its +significance was clearly apprehended (but it took her long to reach +this stage) the complexion of her thoughts took on another colour, and +the smart of chagrin was soothed even as the irritation excited by +critical examination of Victor’s conduct grew more acute. + +Why should the self-styled author of her being have thought it +necessary, or even wise or kind, to commission a paid employee to win +his daughter’s confidence? + +What had rendered the conquest of her confidence so needful in his +sight? + +What had made him think Sofia would prove loath to resign it to him, or +more likely to give it to another? + +Why had Victor hesitated to bid for her confidence with his own tongue, +on his own merits? + +One would think that, if he were her father— + +If! + +_Was_ he? + +Sofia sat up sharply, her young body as taut as her temper. Pulses and +breathing quickened, intent eyes probed the shadows as if she thought +to wrest from them a clue to the mystery of her status in the household +of Victor Vassilyevski. + +What proof had she that he was her father? + +None but his word.... Well, and Karslake’s.... None that would stand +the test of skepticism, none that either sentiment or reason could +offer and support. Certainly she resembled Prince Victor in no respect +that she could think of, not in person, not in mould of character, not +in ways of thought. From the very first she had been perplexed, and +indeed saddened, by her failure, her sheer inability, to react +emotionally to their alleged relationship. And surely there must exist +between parent and child some sort of spiritual bond or affinity, +something to draw them together—even if neither had never known the +other. Whereas she on her part had never been conscious of any sense of +sympathy with Victor, but only of timidity and reluctance which had +latterly manifested in unquestionable aversion. And then there was his +attitude toward her, raising a question so repugnant to her +understanding that never before to-night had Sofia admitted its +existence and given it the freedom of her thoughts. + +She had seen men, in the Café des Exiles, toast their mistresses with +such looks as Victor Vassilyevski reserved for the girl whom he claimed +as his child. + +What, then, if he were not her father? + +What if he had only pretended to paternal rights in furtherance of some +deep scheme of his?—perhaps thinking to use her as a pawn in that dark +plot which he was forever brewing in his study (with canaille like +Sturm for collaborators!) that mysterious “research work” that +flavoured the atmosphere of the house with a miasmatic reek of +intrigue, stealth, and fear—perhaps (more simply and terribly) +designing in his own time and way to avenge himself upon the daughter +for the admitted slights he had suffered at the hands of the mother, +that poor dead woman whose fame he never ceased to blacken while still +her memory was potent to kindle fires in those eyes otherwise so +opaque, impenetrable, and lightless! + +Now Sofia found herself unable to sit still; only through action of +some sort could she hope to win any measure of ease for brain and +nerves. A thought was shaping, claiming precedence over all others, the +thought of flight; bred of the feeling that, as long as she remained in +ignorance of the exact truth concerning their relationship, it was +impossible for her to remain longer under Victor’s roof, eating his +bread and salt, schooling herself to suffer his endearments whose good +faith she could not help challenging, who inspired in her only +antipathy, fear, and distrust. + +It seemed clear beyond dispute that she must leave his protection, this +very night, before he could guess her mind and move to check her. + +Sofia swung her feet down to the floor. One of her silken mules had +fallen off. Semi-consciously she groped for it with stockinged toes. As +the inanimate will, the mule eluded recapture with impish ease. But +beneath her foot something rustled and crackled lightly. She bent over +and picked it up: a square white envelope, sealed. + +Switching on a lamp near by, she examined her find. It carried no +address. How it could have got there she could not imagine ... unless +Chou Nu had dropped it by inadvertence, which seemed as far-fetched as +to suppose she had left it there by design; for that would mean Chou Nu +had been bribed to convey a surreptitious note to her mistress; and +Sofia knew that the Chinese girl was at once too loyal to her +“second-uncle,” and too much in awe of “Number One,” to be corruptible. + +None the less, there the envelope was; and nobody but Chou Nu had +entered the room since Sofia had come straight from the study to it, +late in the afternoon. + +It was just possible, however—Sofia’s eyes measured the distance—that a +deft hand and a strong wrist might have slipped the envelope under the +door and sent it skimming across the floor to the foot of the +chaise-longue. + +But nobody would have dared do that without a powerful motive for +wishing to communicate secretly with Sofia. + +She tore the flap and withdrew a single sheet of notepaper penned in a +hand she knew too well. Her heart leapt.... + +I implore you, of your charity, do not condemn me without a hearing +because of anything you may have overheard me say. After you left us in +the study I saw his eyes watching the door while we talked, and knew +from his look that something to please him had happened behind my back. +And in the temper he was in only one thing could possibly have pleased +him. + +I said what I said to him, dear, because I had to—or lose the right, +dearer to me than life, to be near you, to serve and protect you. I +lied to him because I loved you. But I have never lied to you about my +love—and only once, through necessity, about anything else. Perhaps you +can guess what that lie was, somehow I rather think you do; at least, I +am sure, you are beginning to wonder if I told the truth—or knew it, +then. + +If this sound cryptic, I can only beg you to be patient and charitable +until I find opportunity to clear away this one lie which stands +between us—and which is, by comparison, almost immaterial, since all +that matters is the one great truth in my life, that I love you beyond +all telling. + +R.K. + +If questions trouble your mind, I beg you do not let him know it. Your +only safety now lies in his continuing to believe that you are +unsuspicious. Above all, do your best to seem to fall in with his +wishes, however strange or unreasonable they may seem. It will be only +a few days more before I can claim you for my own, and laugh at his +pretensions. + +A curious love-letter; yet it was Sofia’s first. If it made her +thoughtful, it made her illogically happy as well. If it put the issue +to her squarely, of loyalty to Prince Victor or loyalty to Karslake, +she was unaware that she had any choice of courses. When Shaik Tsin +thumped the panels of her door, she crushed the note into the bosom of +her négligée before answering. + +When one is of an age to love, it is never the parent who gets the +benefit of a doubt. + + + + +XVI +THE CRYSTAL + + +Like some shy, sad shade summoned up by the malign genius of a haunted +chamber, a slender shape of pallor in softly flowing draperies slipped +through the silent door and, advancing a few reluctant steps into the +soundless gloom, paused and in apprehensive diffidence awaited the +welcome that was for a time withheld. + +For minutes Victor gave no sign or stir; and in all the room nothing +moved but ghostly whorls of smoke writhing slowly upward from a pungent +censer of beaten gold. + +The great lamp of brass was dark, and there was no other light than a +solitary bulb, whose hooded rays were concentrated upon the crystal +ball, so that the latter shone with a dead-white glare, somehow +baleful, like an elfin moon deeply lost in a sea of sombre enchantment. + +Bending forward in his chair, an elbow planted on the table, his +forehead resting upon the tips of long, white fingers, Victor’s gaze +was steadfast to the crystal. Refracted light sculptured with curious +shadows that saturnine face intent to immobility. + +Too young, too inexperienced and sensitive to be insusceptible to the +spell of the theatrical, the girl was conscious of a steady ebb of her +new-found store of fortitude, skepticism, and defiance, together with +an equally steady inflow of timidity and uneasiness. That sinister +figure at the table, absorbed in study of the inscrutable sphere—what +did he see there, to hold his faculties in such deep eclipse? Adept in +black arts of the Orient as he was said to be, what wizardry was he +brewing with the aid of that traditional tool of the necromancer? What +spectacle of divination was in those pellucid depths unfolding to his +rapt vision? And what had this consultation of the occult to do with +the man’s mind concerning herself? + +Sofia was shaken by a tremor of dread.... + +And as if her emotion were somehow communicated, arousing him to +knowledge of her presence, Victor started, sat back, and with a sigh +passed a hand across his eyes. When the hand fell, his face wore its +habitual look for Sofia, modified by a slightly apologetic and weary +smile. + +“My child!” he exclaimed in accents of contrite surprise, “have I kept +you waiting long?” + +“Only a few minutes. It doesn’t matter.” + +But her voice seemed sadly small and thin in comparison with Victor’s +rotund and measured intonations. + +“Forgive me.” Victor rose, nodding to indicate the shining crystal. “I +have been consulting my familiar,” he said with a light laugh. “You +have heard of crystal-gazing? A fascinating art that languishes in +undeserved neglect. The ancients were more wise, they knew there was +more in Heaven and Earth.... You are incredulous? But I assure you, I +myself, though far from proficient, have caught strange glimpses of +unborn events in the heart of that transparent enigma.” + +He took her hands and cuddled them in his own. + +She quivered irrepressibly to his touch. + +“But you are trembling!” he protested, solicitous, looking down into +her face—“you are wan and sad, my dear. Tell me you are not ill.” + +“It is nothing,” Sofia replied—again in that faint, stifled voice. She +added in determined effort to subdue her trembling and turn their talk +to essentials: “You sent for me—I am here.” + +“I am so sorry. If I had guessed ...” Enlightenment seemed to dawn all +at once. “But surely it isn’t because of that stupid business with +Karslake? Surely you didn’t take him seriously?” + +“How should I—?” + +“It is too absurd. The poor fool misconstrued my instructions to make +himself agreeable—I am so taken up with the gravest matters at present, +I didn’t want you to feel lonely or neglected—and, it appears, felt it +incumbent upon him to flirt with you as a matter of duty. I am out of +temper with him, but not unreasonable; I shan’t dispense with his +services altogether, without more provocation, but will find other work +to keep him busy and out of your way. You need fear no more annoyance +from that quarter.” + +“I was not annoyed,” Sofia found heart to contend. “I—like him.” + +“Nonsense!” Victor’s laugh was rich with derision. “Don’t ask me to +believe you were actually touched by the fellow’s play-acting. You—my +daughter—wasting emotion on a mere commoner! The thing is too +ridiculous. Oblige me by thinking no more about it. I have better +things in store for you.” + +“Better than—love?” the girl questioned with grave eyes. + +“When the time comes for that, you shall find a worthier parti than +poor Karslake, well-meaning though he may be. Moreover, you +heard—forgive me for reminding you—there was not an ounce of sincerity +in all his philandering for you to hold in sentimental recollection. +So—forget Karslake, please. It is a duty you owe your own pride and my +dignity; it is, furthermore, my wish.” + +She bowed her head, that he might not see the reflection in her face of +the glow that warmed her bosom, where Karslake’s letter nestled. But +Victor took the nod for the word of submission, and patted her shoulder +with an indulgent hand, guiding her to a chair close by his. + +“Sit down, my dear. I want to explain why I asked you to come to me at +this late hour—never dreaming my message would find you so +overwrought.... You quite see how needless it was to permit yourself to +be upset by such a trifling matter, don’t you?” + +“Oh, quite,” Sofia murmured, with gaze fixed on the interlacing fingers +in her lap. + +“That is sensible.” Offering her shoulder one last accolade of +approbation, Victor moved toward his own chair. “And now that you are +here, we may as well have our little talk out,” he continued, but broke +off to stipulate: “If, that is, you are sure you feel up to it?” + +“Yes,” Sofia assented, but without moving. + +“I am not so sure. Perhaps a glass of wine might do you good.” + +“Oh, no!” the girl protested—“I don’t need it, really.” + +But Victor wouldn’t listen; and disappearing into shadowed distances, +returned presently with a brimming goblet. + +“Drink this, dear. It will make you feel quite fit again.” + +Obediently, Sofia raised the goblet to her lips. + +“You have never tasted a wine like that,” Victor insisted, smiling down +at her. + +It was true enough, what he claimed; though it had something of +character of a sound old Madeira, this wine had more, a surpassing +richness, a fruitiness in no way cloying, a peculiarly aromatic taste +and fragrance, elusive and provoking, with a hint of bitterness never +to be analyzed by the most experienced palate. + +“What is it?” Sofia asked after her first sip. + +“You like it, eh? An old wine of China, unknown to Western Europe.” +Victor gave it a musical name in what Sofia took to be Chinese. +“Outside my cellars, I’ll wager there’s not another bottle of it this +side of Constantinople. Drink it all. It will do you good.” + +He seated himself. “And now my reason for wishing to talk with you +to-night.... A note came by the last delivery from Lady Randolph West. +You met her, I understand, through Sybil Waring, a few days ago. She +was apparently much taken with you.” + +“She is very kind.” + +Victor had found a sheet of notepaper and, bending to the light, was +searching its scrawled lines with narrowed eyes. + +“‘Too lovely,’ she calls you—and quite justly, my dear. Yes; here it +is: ‘Too lovely for words.’ And she wants me to bring my ‘charming +daughter’ down to Frampton Court for this week-end.” + +Sofia said nothing, but put her half-empty glass aside. The wine had +done her good, she thought. She felt better, stronger, mentally more +alert, and at the same time curiously soothed. + +Victor refolded the note and tapped the table with it, holding Sofia +with speculative eyes. + +“It should be amusing,” he said, thoughtfully, “a new experience for +you. Elaine—I mean Lady Randolph West, of course—is a charming hostess, +and never fails to fill Frampton Court with delightful people.” + +“I’m sure I should love it.” + +“I am sure you would. And yet ... I may have been a little premature, +since I have already written accepting the invitation.” He indicated an +addressed envelope face up on the table. “But on second thoughts, it +seemed perhaps wiser to consult you first.” + +“But if it is your wish, I must go,” Sofia replied, mindful of +Karslake’s injunction not to oppose Victor. “What have I to say—?” + +“Everything about whether we accept or do not—or if not everything, at +least the final word. I must abide by your decision.” + +“But I shall be only too glad—” + +“Think a moment. It might be wiser not to go. You alone can say.” + +“I don’t quite understand ...” + +Victor sighed. “It is a painful subject,” he said, slowly—“one I +hesitate to reopen. But we can never profit by closing our minds to +facts; I mean, to the reality of the danger which is always with us, +since it is within us.” + +“What danger?” Sofia enquired, sullenly, knowing the answer too well +before it was spoken. + +“The danger of sudden temptation to indulge the lawless appetites with +which heredity has endued us—me from the nameless forebears whom I +never knew, you directly from parents both of whom boasted criminal +records.” + +“I don’t believe it!” Sofia declared, passionately—“I can’t believe it, +I won’t! Even if you are—” + +She was going on to say “if you are my father,” but caught herself in +time. Had not Karslake warned her in his note: “_Your only safety now +lies in his continuing to believe that you are unsuspicious._” She +continued in a tempest of expostulation whose fury covered her break: + +“Even if you were once a thief and my mother—my mother!—everything +vile, as you persist in trying to make me believe—God knows why!—it is +possible I may still have failed to inherit your criminal tendencies; +and not only possible, but true, if I know myself at all. For I have +never felt the temptation to steal that you insist I must have +inherited from you—nor any other inclination toward things as mean, +contemptible, and dishonourable as they are dishonest!” + +With only his slow, forbearing smile by way of comment, Victor heard +her out, but when she paused to reassort her thoughts, lifted a +temporizing hand. + +“Not yet, perhaps,” he said, gently. “There is always the first time +with every rebel against man-made laws. But, where the predisposition +so indubitably exists, it is inevitable, soon or late it must come to +you, my dear—the time when the will is too weak, temptation too strong. +Against it we must be forever on our guard.” + +“I am not afraid,” Sofia contended. + +“Naturally; you will not be before the hour of ordeal which shall prove +your strength or your weakness, your confidence in yourself, or my +loving fears for you.” + +Sofia gave a gesture of weariness and confusion. What did it matter? If +he would have it so, let him: it couldn’t affect the issue in any way, +what he believed, or for his own purposes pretended to believe. Had not +Karslake promised ... + +She tried to recall precisely what it was that Karslake had promised, +but found her memory of a sudden singularly sluggish. In fact, her mind +seemed to have lost its marvellous clarity of those first moments after +tasting the wine of China. Small wonder, when one remembered the +emotional strain she had experienced since early evening! + +“Still,” she argued, stubbornly, “I don’t see what all this has to do +with Lady Randolph West’s invitation.” + +“Only that to accept means to expose you to the greatest temptation one +can well imagine.” + +Sofia stared blankly. Her wits were working even more slowly and +heavily than before. And the glare in her eyes from the luminous sphere +of crystal was irritating. Almost without thinking, she lifted her +glass again; when she put it down it was empty. + +“The jewels of Lady Randolph West,” Victor went on to explain without +her prompting, “are considered the most wonderful in England; always +excepting, of course, the Crown jewels.” + +“What is that to me?” + +Resentment sounded in her tone. She was thinking more readily once +more, thanks to that second magical draught, but was nevertheless +conscious of a general failing of powers drained by her great fatigue. +She wished devoutly that Victor would have done and let her go.... + +“Elaine is very careless, leaves her jewels scattered about, hardly +troubles to put them away securely at night. If you should be tempted +to appropriate anything, she might not discover her loss for days; and +then, again, she might. And if you were caught—consider what shame and +disgrace!” + +“I think I see,” the girl said, slowly, after some difficult thinking. +“You don’t want me to go.” + +“To the contrary, I do—but I want more than anything else in the world +that my daughter should be sure of herself and fall into no irreparable +error.” + +“But I am sure of myself—I have told you that.” + +“Then let us fret no more about it, but accept, and go prepared to +enjoy ourselves. I will send the letter.” + +Victor rang, and Shaik Tsin presented himself so quickly that Sofia +wondered dully where he could have been waiting. In the room with them, +perhaps? It wasn’t impossible. The Chinaman’s thick soles of felt +enabled him to move about without making the least noise. + +“Have this posted immediately.” + +Shaik Tsin bowed deeply, and backed away with the letter. Unless she +turned to watch him, Sofia could not say whether he left the room or +not. + +She offered to rise. + +“If that is all ...” + +“Not quite. There are certain details to be arranged; and I may not see +you again before we leave to-morrow afternoon. We will motor down to +Frampton Court—it’s not far, little more than an hour by train—starting +about half after four, if you can be ready.” + +“Oh, yes.” + +“Sybil Waring will tell you what to take, and Chou Nu will see to your +packing. Both, by the way, will accompany us. Sybil’s maid will follow +by train. For myself, I am taking Nogam—having found that English +servants do not take kindly to my Chinese valet.” + +“Yes ...” Sofia uttered, listlessly, wondering why this information +should be considered of interest to her. + +“And one thing more: I am forgiven? You are not cross with me?” + +“Why should I be?” + +“Because of what happened this afternoon—when I scolded Karslake for +making love to you.” + +“Oh,” said Sofia with a good show of indifference—she was so +tired—“that!” + +“Believe me, little Sofia”—Victor put out a hand to hers, and held her +eyes with a compelling gaze—“boy-and-girl romance is all very well, but +there is a greater destiny reserved for you than marriage to a hired +secretary, however amiable, personable, and well-meaning. You must +prepare yourself to move in a world beyond and above the common +hearthstone of bourgeois domesticity.” + +The girl shook a bewildered head. + +“It is a riddle?” she asked, wearily. + +“A riddle?” Victor echoed. “Why, one may safely term it that. Is not +the Future always a riddle? Nature knows the Future as the Past, but +Nature holds it secret, lest man go mad with too much knowledge. Only +to the few, the favoured, does she grant rare glimpses through media +which she has provided for the use of the initiate—such as this crystal +here, in which I was studying your future, when you came in, the high +future I plan for you.” + +“And—you won’t tell me?” + +“I may not. It is forbidden. Nature deals unkindly with those who +violate her confidence. But—who knows?” + +He checked himself as if struck by a new turn of thought, and studied +the girl’s face intently. + +“Who knows?” he repeated, as if to himself. + +“What—?” + +“It is quite within the bounds of possibility,” Victor mused, “that you +should have inherited some of the psychic power which was born in me. +Perhaps—who knows?—to you as well Nature will be supple and disclose +her secrets.... If you care to seek her favour?” + +“But—how?” + +“By consulting the crystal.” + +Sofia’s eyes sought that coldly burning stone. Her head was so heavy, +she hesitated, oppressed by misgivings without shape that she could +name, phases of formless timidity having rise in some source which she +was too tired to search out. + +But she lingered and continued to stare at the crystal. + +“Why not?” Victor’s accents were gently persuasive. “At worst, you can +only fail. And if you do not fail, it will make me happy to think that +you have been given a little insight into my dreams for you.” + +“Yes,” Sofia assented in a whisper—“why not?” + +Victor drew her forward by the hand. + +“Look,” he said “look deep! Divest your mind as nearly as you can of +all thought—let the crystal give up its message to a mind devoid of +prejudice, its receptiveness unimpaired. Think of nothing, if you can +manage it—simply look and see.” + +Automatically to a degree the girl obeyed, already in a phase of +crepuscular hypnosis, her surface senses dulled by the potent “wine of +China.” And watching her closely, Victor permitted himself a smile of +satisfaction as he noted the rapidity with which she yielded to the +hypnogenic spell of the translucent quartz; how her breathing +quickened, then took on a measured tempo like that of a sleeper; how a +faint flush warmed the unnatural pallor of her cheeks, how her dilate +eyes grew fixed in an unwinking stare, and slightly glassed.... + +Under her regard the goblin sphere took on with bewildering rapidity +changing guises. Its rotundity was first lost, it assumed the semblance +of a featureless disk of pallid light, which swiftly widened till it +obscured all else, then seemed to advance upon and envelope her bodily, +so that she became spiritually a part of it, an atom of identity +engulfed in a limpid world of glareless light, light that had had no +rays and issued from no source but was circumambient and universal. +Then in its remote heart a weird glow of rose began to burn and grow, +pulsing through all the colours of the spectrum and beyond. Toward this +she felt herself being drawn swiftly, attracted by an irresistible +magnetism, riding the wings of a great wind, whose voice boomed without +ceasing, like a heavy surf thunderously reiterating one syllable, +“_Sleep_!” ... And in this flight through illimitable space toward a +goal unattainable, consciousness grew faint and flickered out like a +candle in the wind. + +Behind her chair the placid yellow face of Shaik Tsin appeared, as if +materialized bodily out of the shadows. With folded arms he waited, +dispassionately observant. Presently Prince Victor nodded to him over +the head of the girl. Immediately the Chinaman moved round her chair +and, employing both hands, in one instant switched off the hooded bulb +and reilluminated the lamp of brass. + +As the light died out in the crystal Sofia sighed heavily, and relaxed. +Leaden eyelids closed down over her staring eyes, she sank back into +the chair, simultaneously into plumbless depths.... + +Victor made a sound of gratification. Shaik Tsin enquired briefly: + +“It is accomplished, then?” + +Victor nodded. “She yielded more quickly than I had hoped—worn out +emotionally, of course.” + +“She sleeps—” + +“In hypnosis, in absolute suspense of every faculty and function save +those concerned solely with the maintenance of existence—in a state, +that is, comparable only to the pre-natal life of a child.” + +“It is most interesting,” Shaik Tsin admitted. “But what is the use? +That is what interests me.” + +“Wait and see.” + +Bending close to the girl, Victor called in a strong voice of command: +“Sofia! Sofia! It is I, Prince Victor, your father. Waken and attend!” + +A slight spasm shook the slender body, the lips parted, respiration +became hurried and broken, the long lashes fluttered on the cheeks. + +“Do you hear me? I, Victor, command you: Waken and attend!” + +Another struggle, more brief and sharp, ended with the opening of the +eyes, which sought and remained steadfast to Victor’s, yet without +intelligence or animation. + +“Do you hear me, Sofia?” + +A voice like a sigh rustled on the parted lips, whose stir was +imperceptible: + +“I hear you....” + +“Then heed what I say. My will is your law. You know that?” + +Faintly the voice breathed: “Yes.” + +“Tell me what it is you know.” + +“Your will is my law.” + +“You will not resist my will, you cannot. Tell me that.” + +“I will not resist your will, I cannot.” + +“Good. I, Prince Victor Vassilyevski, am your father. You believe that. +Do you understand? Tell me what you believe.” + +“I believe that you, Prince Victor Vassilyevski, are my father.” + +“You will not forget these things?” + +“I shall not forget.” + +“In all things.” + +“I will obey you in all things.” + +“Without question or faltering.” + +“Without question or faltering.” + +“You recall what arrangements we made this afternoon for to-morrow?” + +“I remember.” + +“Listen carefully. Memorize my wishes with respect to our visit to +Frampton Court, remembering that I communicate my will, which you must +obey.” + +The girl remained silent, waiting. Victor took a moment to marshall his +thoughts, then proceeded: + +“After arriving at Frampton Court, you will make occasion quietly to +find out how your room is situated in relation to the boudoir of Lady +Randolph West. You will do this without knowing why you do it. You +understand?” + +“Yes.” + +“At night, on going to bed, you will go promptly to sleep. After an +hour you will wake up, put on a dressing gown and slippers, and proceed +to Lady Randolph West’s boudoir, taking care not to be observed. Is +that clear?” + +“Yes.” + +“Once in the boudoir, you will proceed to the safe where Lady Randolph +West keeps her jewels. It will not be locked, she is careless in such +matters. Having found the safe, you will open it, take whatever jewels +you find therein, and return to your room. All this you will perform +with utmost circumspection, taking all pains not to make any noise. In +your room you will hide the jewels in your dressing-case. Then you will +go back to bed and to sleep. Have you committed all this to memory?” + +The sleeping girl answered in the affirmative. Then, to the injunction, +“Tell me what you are to do to-morrow night?” she repeated in a +toneless voice every item of the programme outlined for her, while +Victor nodded in undisguised delight, and Shaik Tsin grinned blandly +over her head. + +“On waking up to-morrow morning, you will remember nothing of my +instructions, but you will carry them precisely as memorized in your +subconciousness, and you will carry them out without thought of +opposition to my will, understanding that you are without will of your +own in this matter. Finally, on waking up on the morning following your +abstraction of the jewels, you will remember nothing of the affair +until reminded of it by me, and then only this much: That in obedience +to irresistible impulse, you stole the jewels. Is that clear? Repeat +...” + +Without a mistake the woman in hypnosis iterated the commands imposed +upon her. + +The impish grin of the latent savage broke through the habitual +austerity of Victor’s countenance. + +“There is no more,” he said, “but this: Sleep now, and do not waken +before noon to-morrow—_sleep_!” + +With a quavering sigh, the girl reclosed her eyes and instantly +relapsed into the sleep of trance which was insensibly in the course of +the night to merge into natural slumber. + +Victor ironed out his grimace, and signed to Shaik Tsin. + +“Bear her back to her room. Instruct Chou Nu to put her to bed and not +to wake her up before noon.” + +“Hearing is obedience.” + +The Chinaman bent over, gathered the inert body into his arms, and +without perceptible effort stood erect. But in the act of turning away +he paused and, continuing to hold the girl as easily as if she weighed +no more than a child, interrogated the man he served. + +“You believe she will do all you have ordered?” + +“I know she will.” + +“Without error?” + +“Barring accidents, without flaw from beginning to end.” + +“And in event of accidents—discovery—?” + +“So much the better.” + +“That would please you, to have her caught?” + +“Excellently.” + +Shaik Tsin nodded in grave yet humorous comprehension. “Now I begin to +understand. If she is caught, that gives you a power over her?” + +“Precisely.” + +“And if she is not, when the robbery becomes known, your power over her +will be still more strong?” + +“And over yet another stronger still.” + +“The Lone Wolf?” + +Victor inclined his head. “To what lengths will he not go to cover up +his daughter’s shame, if it threatens to become public that she is a +thief? I do nothing without purpose, Shaik Tsin.” + +“That is to say, you have to-night taken out insurance against +punishment if this other business fails.” + +“If it fail, others may suffer, but if necessary the Lone Wolf himself +will arrange my escape from England.” + +“To serve so wise a man is an honour my unworthiness can never hope to +merit.” + +“As to that, Shaik Tsin,” Victor said without a smile, “our minds are +one. Go now. Good-night.” + + + + +XVII +THE RAISED CHEQUE + + +While the Princess Sofia, Sybil Waring, and Prince Victor motored down +from London in the lilac dusk of that dim September day, and the maid +Chou Nu accompanied them, riding in front beside a newly engaged +Chinese chauffeur, the man Nogam made the journey to Frampton Court by +train, and alone. + +Alone, at least, in the finer shading of that adjective; aside from the +usual assortment of self-contained fellow-travellers in the third-class +carriage, he had no company other than his thoughts; a gray and meagre +crew, if that pathetic face of middle-age furnished trustworthy +reflection of his mind.... So absolute was the submergence of that +ardent adventurer who, overnight, had lain awake for hours, a +dictograph receiver glued to his ear, eavesdropping upon the traffic of +those malevolent intelligences assembled in Prince Victor’s study, and +alternately chuckling and cursing beneath his breath, aflame with +indignation and chilled by inklings of atrocities unspeakable abrew! + +If he surmised that he travelled alone in appearance only, it was with +no evident concern or astonishment. If his mind was uneasy, oppressed +by a nightmarish burden of half-knowledge, guesses, and premonition, it +was not apparent to the general observer. His most eloquent gesture was +when, from time to time, he tamped an ancient wooden pipe with a +fingertip that wasn’t as calloused as he could have wished, +philosophically sucked in strangling fumes of rankest shag and, +ignoring his company in the carriage as became a British-made +manservant, returned jaded, gentle eyes to those darkling vistas of +autumnal landscape that were forever radiating away from the window +like spokes of a gigantic wheel. + +Alighting in the first dark of evening at the station for Frampton +Court, he suffered himself to be herded, with a half-score more, into +the omnibus provided for other bodyservants to arriving guests. Even to +these compeers he found little to say: a loud lot, imbued with the +rowdy spirit of the new day; whereas Nogam was hopelessly of the old +school—in the new word, he dated—though his form was admittedly +unimpeachable. And if because of this he was made fun of more or less +openly, to an extent that added shades of resignation to his +countenance, secretly he commanded considerable respect. + +Neither was Victor, with all the ill-will in the world, able to find +fault with Nogam’s services in his new office. The most finished of +self-effacing valets, he knew just what to do and did it without being +told; and when he spoke it was only because he had been spoken to or +commissioned to convey a message. + +Victor watched him from every angle, overt and covert, but had his +trouble for his pains; Nogam, observed in a mirror, when Victor’s back +was turned, went about his business with no more betrayal of personal +feeling or independent mentality than when waiting upon his master face +to face. Victor could have kicked him for sheer resentment of his +pattern virtues. When all was said and done, it _was_ damned +irritating. . . . + +In the servants’ hall he religiously kept his ears open and his mouth +shut. And, listening, he learned. For some things said in his hearing +were distinctly not pretty, and made one wonder if Prince Victor’s +deep-rooted confidence in an England mortally cankered with social +discontent were not grounded in a surprising familiarity with +backstairs morale. Other observations, again, were merely ribald, some +were humorous, while all were enlightening. + +Not a few of the company had seen domestic service in great houses +before the war; they knew what was what and—more to the point—what +wasn’t. One gathered that this pretentious country home fell within the +latter classification. Here, it was stated, anybody could buy his way +into favour: the more bounding the bounder the brighter his chances of +success at Frampton Court. + +War, the ironic, had caused this noble property to pass into the +keeping of a distant and degenerate branch of an old and honoured +house; and its present lord and lady, having failed to win the social +welcome they had counted on too confidently, were doing their silly, +shabby best to squander a princely fortune and dedicate a great name to +lasting disrepute by fraternizing with a motley riffraff of +profiteering nouveaux riches. Other than bad manners and worse morals, +the one genuine thing in the whole establishment was, it seemed, the +historic collection of family jewels. + +This information explained away much of Nogam’s perplexity on one +score. + +After dinner, when the house party began to settle into its stride, he +made occasion, aping the other servants, to peep in at a door of the +great ballroom, where an impromptu dance had been organized; and was +rewarded by sight of the Princess Sofia circling the floor in the arms +of a boldly good-looking young man whose taste was as poor in +flirtation as in self-adornment. + +To Nogam the young girl looked wan and wistful—as if she were missing +somebody. And he wondered if Mr. Karslake knew what a lucky young devil +he was. + +He wondered still more about the present whereabouts and welfare of Mr. +Karslake. Prince Victor must have contrived some devious errand to get +the young man out and away early that day; for by the time Nogam had +looked for him in the morning, Karslake was nowhere to be found; +neither had he returned when the party left for Frampton Court—a +circumstance which Nogam regretted most bitterly. Watched as he was, it +hadn’t been possible, that is to say it would have been fatally +ill-advised, to have left any sort of message or to have attempted +communication through secret channels; and all the while, hours heavy +with, it might be, the destiny of England were wasting swiftly into +history. + +Perhaps it was nervousness bred of this anxiety that, in the end, made +Nogam’s hand slip. Or perhaps the impatient nature of the man who lay +so closely secret within the husk of Nogam decided him upon a desperate +gamble. In either event, this befell: + +About the middle of the evening Prince Victor happened to look up from +an interesting tête-à-tête in the brilliant drawing-room with his +handsome and liberal-minded hostess opportunely to espy Nogam staring +at him from the remote recesses of the entrance hall. + +It was the merest of glimpses; for Victor’s casual glance had barely +identified the servant when Nogam started guiltily and in a twinkling +disappeared; but a glimpse was enough for eyes and a mind alike quick +with distrust, enough to assure Victor that Nogam’s face had worn an +indescribably furtive and hangdog expression, most unlike its ordinary +look of amiable stupidity, and widely incongruous with the veniality of +his fault. + +What the deuce, then, was the fellow up to, that he should glower and +dodge like a sleuth in a play? + +Promptly Victor became deaf, blind, and numb to the fascinations so +generously paraded by Lady Randolph West; and presently excusing +himself, left her and sought his rooms. + +As he went up the stairs, he saw the door to his bedchamber cautiously +opened far enough to permit one eye to spy out and discover his +approach. Immediately then the door swung wide, and Nogam ambled into +view with an envelope on a salver and an air of childlike innocence, an +assumption of ease so transparent, indeed, that only the vision of a +child could have been cheated by it. + +“Just coming to look for you, sir,” he announced, glibly. “Telegram, +sir—just harrived.” + +“Thanks,” said Victor, shortly, taking the envelope and marching on +into his rooms. + +His manner toward his servants was always abrupt. No need to be alarmed +by this manifestation of it. Blinking mildly, Nogam trotted at his +heels. + +Seating himself at an escritoire, Victor opened the envelope with a +display of languid interest. Curiosity about the contents of a telegram +is ordinarily acute. Victor, on the contrary, sat for a long moment +staring thoughtfully at nothing and absently turning the envelope over +and over in his hands; while Nogam with specious nonchalance found +something unimportant to do in another quarter of the room. + +The envelope was damp and warm to the touch. True: nightfall had +brought with it a thick drizzle, and Frampton Court was more than a +mile from the post-office. On the other hand, the night was as cold as +charity; and an envelope recently steamed open might be expected to +hold the heat for a few minutes. + +Victor thumbed the flap. It lifted readily, without tearing, its gum +was wet and more abundant than usual—in fact, it felt confoundedly like +library paste, a pot of which, in an ornamental holder, was among the +fittings of the escritoire. On the desk pad of blotting paper, too, +Victor detected marks of fresh paste defining the contour of the flap. + +With a countenance whose inscrutability alone was a threat, Victor took +out and conned the telegraph form. + +“CONSULTATION SET FOR MIDNIGHT TO-NIGHT TAKING YOUR ADVICE SHALL NOT +ATTEND BUT LEAVE FOR BRIGHTON ELEVEN P.M.” + +A message ostensibly so open and aboveboard that it hadn’t been thought +worth while to hide its wording under the cloak of a code. + +There was no signature—unless one were clever or wise enough to +transpose the two final letters and take them in relation to the word +immediately preceding. “Eleven, M.P.”, however, could mean nothing to +anybody but Victor—except a body clever enough to hide a dictograph +detector in a turnip. So Victor saw no reason to believe that Nogam, +although undoubtedly guilty of the sin of prying, had been able to read +the meaning below the surface of this communication. + +Nevertheless, undue inquisitiveness on the part of a servant in the pay +of Victor Vassilyevski could have but one reward. + +“Nogam!” + +“Sir?” + +“Fetch me an A-B-C.” + +“Very good, sir.” + +With Nogam out of the way, Victor enclosed the telegram in a new +envelope and addressed it simply to _“Mr. Sturm—by hand.”_ Then he took +a sheet of the stamped notepaper of Frampton Court, tore it roughly, at +the fold, and on the unstamped half inscribed several characters in +Chinese, using a pencil with a fat, soft lead for this purpose. This +message sealed into a second envelope without superscription, he +lighted a cigarette and sat smiling with anticipative relish through +its smoke, a smile swiftly abolished as the door re-opened; though +Nogam found him in what seemed to be a mood of rare sweet temper. + +Taking the railway guide, Victor ruffled its pages, and after brief +study of the proper table remarked: + +“Afraid I must ask you to run up to town for me to-night, Nogam. If you +don’t mind ...” + +“Only too glad to oblige, sir.” + +“I find I have left important papers behind. Give this to Shaik +Tsin”—he handed over the blank envelope—“and he will find them for you. +You can catch the ten-fifteen up, and return by the twelve-three from +Charing Cross.” + +“Very good, sir.” + +“Oh—and see that Mr. Sturm gets this, too, will you? If he isn’t in, +give it to Shaik Tsin to hand to him. Say it’s urgent.” + +“Quite so, sir.” + +“That is all. But don’t fail to catch the twelve-three back. I must +have the papers to-night.” + +“I shan’t fail you, sir—D.V.” + +“Deo volente? You are a religious man, Nogam?” + +“I ’umbly ’ope so, sir, and do my best to be, accordin’ to my lights.” + +“Glad to hear it. Now cut along, or you’ll miss the up train.” + +Long after Nogam had left the memory of their talk continued to afford +Victor an infinite amount of private entertainment. + +“A religious man!” he would jeer to himself. “Then—may your God help +you, Nogam!” + +Some thought of the same sort may well have troubled Nogam’s mind as he +sat in an otherwise untenanted third-class compartment blinking +owlishly over the example of Victor’s command of the intricacies of +Chinese writing. + +He was happily free of surveillance for the first time in his waking +hours of many days. The Chinese chauffeur had driven him to the +station, and had furthermore lingered to see that Nogam did not fail to +board it. And Nogam felt reasonably safe in assuming that he would not +approach the house near Queen Anne’s Gate without seeing (for the mere +trouble of looking) a second and an entirely gratuitous shadow attach +itself to him with the intention of sticking as tenaciously as that +which God had given him. But the next hour was all his own. + +His study of the Chinese phonograms at length resulted in the +transformation of his careworn face by a slowly dawning smile, the +gleeful smile of a mischief-loving child. And when he had worked for a +while on the message, touching up the skillfully drawn characters with +a pencil the mate to that which Victor had used, he sat back and +laughed aloud over the result of his labours, with some appreciation of +the glow that warms the cockles of the artist’s heart when his deft pen +has raised a cheque from tens to thousands, and he reviews a good job +well done. + +The torn envelope which had held the message to Shaik Tsin lay at his +feet. Nogam had not bothered to worry it open so carefully that it +might be resealed without inviting comment; though that need not have +been a difficult matter, thanks to the dampness of the night air. + +Of the envelope addressed to Sturm, however, he was more considerate; +to violate its integrity and seal it up again was an undertaking that +required the nicest handling. Nor was it accomplished much before the +train drew into Charing Cross. + +Outside the station taxis were few and drivers arrogant; and all the +’buses were packed to the guards with law-abiding Londoners homeward +bound from theatres and halls. So Nogam dived into the Underground, to +come to the surface again at St. James’s Park station, whence he +trotted all the way to Queen Anne’s Gate, arriving at his destination +in a phase of semi-prostration which a person of advancing years and +doddering habits might have anticipated. + +Such fidelity in characterization deserved good reward, and had in it a +rare stroke of fortune; for as he drew up to it, the door opened, and +Sturm came out, saw Nogam, and stopped short. + +“Thank ’Eaven, sir, I got ’ere in time,” the butler panted. “If I’d +missed you, Prince Victor wouldn’t ’ave been in ’arf a wax. ’E told me +I must find you to-night if I ’ad to turn all Lunnon inside out.” + +Pressing the message into Sturm’s hand, he rested wearily against the +casing of the door, his body shaken by laboured breathing, and—while +Sturm, with an exclamation of excitement, ripped open the +envelope—surveyed the dark and rain-wet street out of the corners of +his eyes. + +Across the way a slinking shadow left the sidewalk and blended +indistinguishably with the crowded shadows of an areaway. + +In a voice more than commonly rich with accent, Sturm demanded sharply: + +“What is this? I do not understand!” + +He shook in Nogam’s face the half-sheet of notepaper on which the +Chinese phonograms were drawn. + +“Sorry, sir, but I ’aven’t any hidea. Prince Victor didn’t tell me +anything except there would be no answer, and I was to ’urry right back +to Frampton Court.” Nogam peered myopically at the paper. “It might be +’Ebrew, sir,” he hazarded, helpfully—“by the looks of it, I mean. I +suppose some private message, ’e thought you’d understand.” + +“Hebrew, you fool! Damn your impudence! Do you take me for a Jew?” + +“Beg pardon, sir—no ’arm meant.” + +“No,” Sturm declared, “it’s Chinese.” + +“Then likely Prince Victor meant you to ask Shaik Tsin to translate it +for you, sir.” + +“Probably,” Sturm muttered. “I’ll see.” + +“Yes, sir. Good-night, sir.” + +Without acknowledging this civility, Sturm turned back into the house +and slammed the door. Nogam lingered another moment, then shuffled +wearily down the steps and toward the nearest corner. + +Across the street the voluntary shadow detached itself from cover in +the areaway, and skulked after him. He paid no heed. But when the +shadow rounded the corner, it saw only a dark and empty street, and +pulled up with a grunt of doubt. Simultaneously something not unlike a +thunderbolt for force and fury was launched, from the dark shelter of a +doorway near by, at its devoted head. And as if by magic the shadow +took on form and substance to receive the onslaught. A fist, that +carried twelve stone of bone and sinew jubilant with realization of the +hour for action so long deferred, found shrewdly the heel of a jawbone, +just beneath the ear. Its victim dropped without a cry, but the impact +of the blow was loud in the nocturnal stillness of that bystreet, and +was echoed in magnified volume by the crack of a skull in collision +with a convenient lamppost. + +Followed a swift patter of fugitive feet. + +Tempered by veils of mist, the lamplight fell upon a face upturned from +a murmurous gutter, a yellow face, wide and flat, with lips grinning +back from locked teeth and eyes frozen in a staring question to which +no living man has ever known the answer. + +The pattering footsteps grew faint in distance and died away, the +street was still once more, as still as Death.... + +In the study of Prince Victor Vassilyevski the man Sturm put an +impatient question: + +“Well? What you make of it—hein?” + +Shaik Tsin looked up from a paper which he had been silently examining +by the light of the brazen lamp. + +“Number One says,” he reported, smiling sweetly, while his yellow +forefinger moved from symbol to symbol of the picturesque writing: +_‘“The blow falls to-night. Proceed at once to the gas works and do +that which you know is to be done.’”_ + +“At last!” The voice of the Prussian was full and vibrant with +exultancy. He threw back his head with a loud laugh, and his arm +described a wild, dramatic gesture. + +“At last—der Tag! To-night the Fatherland shall be avenged!” + +Shaik Tsin beamed with friendliest sympathy Sturm turned to go, took +three hurried steps toward the door, and felt himself jerked back by a +silken cord which, descending from nowhere, looped his lean neck +between chin and Adam’s apple. His cry of protest was the last +articulate sound he uttered. And the last sounds he heard, as he lay +with face hideously congested and empurpled, eyeballs starting from +their deep sockets, and swollen tongue protruding, were words spoken by +Shaik Tsin as that one knelt over him, one hand holding fast the ends +of the bowstring that had cut off forever the blessed breath of life, +the other flourishing a half-sheet of notepaper. + +“Fool! Look, fool, and read what vengeance visits a fool who is fool +enough to play the spy!” + +He brandished the papers before those glazing eyeballs. + +In an eldritch cackle he translated: + +_“‘He who bears this message is a Prussian dog, police trained, a spy. +Let his death be a dog’s, cruel and swift.—Number One.’”_ + + + + +XVIII +ORDEAL + + +Reviewing the day, as she undressed and prepared for bed, Sofia told +herself she had never yet lived through one so wearing, and thought the +history of its irksome hours all too legible in the lack-lustre face +that looked back from the mirror when Chou Nu uncoifed her hair and +brushed its burnished tresses. + +Though she had slept late, in fact till noon and something after, her +sleep had been queerly haunted and unhappy, she could not remember how +or why, and she had awakened already ennuyé, with a mind incoherently +oppressed, without relish for the promise of the day—in a mood +altogether as drear as the daylight that waited upon her unclosing +eyes. + +Main strength of will had not availed to dispel these vapours, neither +did their melancholy yield to the distraction provided by first +acquaintance with ways of a world unique alike in Sofia’s esteem and +her experience. + +She who had theretofore known only in day-dreams the life of light +frivolity and fashion which found feverish and trumpery reflection at +Frampton Court, was neither equipped nor disposed to be hypercritical +in the first hours of her début there; and at any other time, in any +other temper, she knew, she must have been swept off her feet by its +exciting appeal to her innate love of luxury and sensation. But the sad +truth was, it all seemed to her unillusioned vision an elaborate sham +built up of tinsel, paste, and paint; and the warmth of her welcome at +the hands, indeed in the very arms, of Lady Randolph West, and the +success her youth and beauty scored for her—commanding in all envy, +admiration, cupidity, or jealousy, according to age, sex, and temporal +state of servitude—did nothing to mitigate the harshness of those first +impressions. + +If anything her depression grew more perversely morbid the more she was +catered to, courted, flattered, and cajoled. Something had happened, +she could never guess what, perhaps some mysterious reaction effected +through the chemistry of last night’s slumber, to turn her vivid zest +in life to ashes in her mouth, so that nothing seemed to matter any +more. + +Thoughts of Karslake as her lover, recollection of her first deep joy +in his avowal and her subsequent passion of shame and regret, +re-perusal of his note, that last night had seemed so sweet a thing, +precious beyond compare—found her indifferent to-day, and left her so. +Try as she would, she failed to recapture any sense of the reality of +those first raptures. And yet, somehow, she didn’t doubt he loved her +or that, buried deep beneath this inexplicable apathy, love for +Karslake burned on in her heart; but she knew no sort of comfort in +such confidence, their love seemed as remote and immaterial an issue as +the menu for day after to-morrow’s dinner. Nothing mattered! + +She was able even to meet Prince Victor without her customary shiver of +aversion; and when she recalled the persistence and enthusiasm with +which she had reasoned herself into believing, last night, that he +might be another than her father, she came as near to mirth as she was +to come that day; but it was mirth bitter with self-derision. Of course +he was her father, she had been a ninny ever to dream contrariwise, or +that it mattered. + +Nor had she met with more success in efforts to find a cause for this +drab humour; unless, indeed, it were simply the farthest swing of the +pendulum from yesterday’s emotional crises, a long swing out of sunlit +spaces swept by the brave winds of young romance into a gloomy zone of +brooding torpor, whose calm was false, surcharged with unseizable +disquiet, its atmosphere electrical with formless apprehensions, its +sad twilight shot with lurid gleams no sooner glimpsed than gone. + +In this state Sofia’s sensibilities were less benumbed than bound in a +palsy of suspense not wholly destitute of dread; beneath the lethargic +shallows of consciousness lay soundless deeps troubled by sinister +premonitions.... + +Now, retracing stage by stage the record of the day, Sofia became aware +that its most poignant moment for her was actually the present, with +its keen wonder that she had contrived to survive such exquisite +tedium. + +She perceived that she had moved throughout like an automaton swayed by +a will outside its own; functioning rather than living; performing +appointed business, executing prescribed gestures, uttering +foreordained observations, and making dictated responses, all without +suggestion of spontaneity, and all without meaning other than as means +to bridge an empty space of waiting. + +Waiting for what? + +Sofia could not guess.... + +She went to bed presently, hoping only to find surcease of boredom; and +her head no sooner touched the pillow than oblivion closed down upon +her faculties like a dense, dark cloud. + +Discreet and well-instructed, Chou Nu turned the night-light down to a +glimmer, placed on and under a chair adjacent to the bed a robe of +cashmere that wouldn’t rustle, and slippers of fine felt with soles of +soft leather, in which footfalls must be inaudible—and glided gently +from the room. + +For sixty minutes its deep hush was unbroken; the even respiration of +the girl made no sound, she rested without tossing, without moving a +finger. + +Then, sleep having held her for precisely one hour by the clock, Sofia +opened her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and at once sat up on the side +of the bed. + +The memory of that hour was not to leave the girl while life was in +her; nor was the question it raised ever to be answered in a fashion +satisfactory to her intelligence. When later she heard it stated with +authority, by men reputed to be versed in psychic knowledge, that a +subject in hypnosis cannot be willed to act contrary to the instincts +of his or her better nature, she held her peace, but wondered. Was +Victor right, then, and the crime he had willed her to commit in final +analysis not repugnant to her instincts? Or was it some secret faculty +of the soul, telepathy or of its kin, that roused and sent her to keep +her rendezvous with destiny? + +A riddle never to be read: Sofia only knew that, finding herself awake, +she got up, donned négligée and slippers, and set her feet upon the way +appointed without its occurring to her that the way was strange, +without stopping to question why or whether. + +If independent volition, sensible or subliminal, were absent, it could +hardly have been apparent. Sofia herself was not aware of its suspense +or supersession. She knew quite well what she was doing, her every +action was direct and decided, the goal alone remained obscure. She +only knew that somewhere, somehow, something was going wrong without +her, and her presence was required to set it right. + +Letting herself out into the corridor, she drew the door to behind her, +but left it unlatched; with what object, she did not know. But the +lateness of the hour, the stillness of the sleeping household, made it +seem quite in order that she should pause to look cautiously this way +and that and make sure that nobody else was astir to spy upon her or +challenge the purpose of this as yet aimless nocturnal flitting. + +There was nobody that she could see. + +Down the corridor, then, never asking why that way, like a ghost in +haste she sped, but as she drew near to a certain door found her pace +faltering. Sofia knew that door; through it Lady Randolph West herself +had introduced the girl to her boudoir, not two hours since, when +chance, or Fate, or the smooth working out of malicious mortal +machinations had moved the two women simultaneously to seek their +quarters for the night. And in the boudoir Sofia had spent the quarter +of an hour before going on to her own room and bed, civilly attending +to vapid chatter and admiring as in duty bound the admirable jewels of +the family. + +Now she saw the door a few inches ajar with, beyond it, a dim glow. The +circumstance seemed singular, because—now that she remembered—when +Sofia had expressed perfunctory curiosity concerning what precautions +were taken to safeguard the jewels, Lady Randolph West had airily +informed her that she considered insurance to their appraised value +plus a stout lock on the boudoir door better than any strong-box as yet +devised by the ingenuity of man. + +“There’s the safe they’re kept in, of course,” the lady had +declared—“but, my dear, a cardboard box will do as well when any +burglar who knows his business makes up his mind to get at my trinkets. +I never even trouble to lock the thing. I’d rather lose the jewels—and +collect the insurance money—than be frightened out of my wits by +hearing it blown open. No, thanks ever so: any cracksman skillful +enough to pick the lock on the door may bag his loot and go in peace +for all of me!” + +Impulse, at least she called it that, moved Sofia to approach and +cautiously open the door still wider. + +Upon the antique writing-desk that housed the safe burned a single lamp +of low candle-power. A door that led to the adjoining bedchamber was +tightly shut. Sofia’s mistrustful eyes reconnoitred every corner of the +room, and reckoned it empty. Again obedient to undisputed impulse, she +stepped inside and shut the door. The spring-latch of the American lock +found its socket with a soft click. Thereafter, silence, no sound in +the boudoir, none from the room beyond. But to Sofia the hurried +beating of her heart reverberated on the stillness like the rolling of +a drum. + +Without clear appreciation of how she had got there, she found herself +standing over the writing-desk, and discovered what the indifferent +light had till now kept hidden, that a false panel in the front of the +desk had been thrust back, exposing the face of the safe, and that this +last was not even closed. + +At the same time she grew conscious that her hands were shaking +violently, that her every limb, her whole body indeed, was agitated by +desperate trembling. And dully asked herself why this should be ... But +didn’t hesitate. + +Her actions now more than ever resembled those of an unthinking puppet, +although she knew quite well what she was doing; and her gestures might +have been the fruit of long lessoning at the hands of some master of +stage melodrama, so true were they to theatrical convention. + +With furtive, frightened glances toward both doors, Sofia dropped to +her knees before the safe.... + +When she stood up again her hands were filled with jewellery, her two +hands held a treasure of incalculable price in precious stones. + +She paused for a little, staring at them with dilate eyes dark in a +pale, rapt face. Her lips were parted, but only her quickened breathing +whispered past them. She was trembling more painfully than ever. But +she seemed unable to think of anything but the jewels, her gaze was +held in fascination by their coruscant loveliness as revealed by the +light of the little lamp. + +Hers for the taking! + +Then, without warning, a tremendous convulsion laid hold on her body +and soul, and she was racked and shaken by it, and at its crisis her +outstretched hands opened and showered the top of the desk with jewels, +then flew to her head and clutched her throbbing temples. + +She cried out in a low voice of suffering: _“No!”_ + +And of a sudden she was reeling back from the desk, toward the corridor +door, repeating over and over on an ascending scale: _“No! no! no! no! +no!”_ + +Her quaking legs blundered against a chair, her knees gave, she +tottered to fall; strong arms caught her, held her safe, a voice she +knew yet didn’t know in its guarded key muttered in her ear: “Thank +God!” + +She made no struggle, but her eyes of pain and terror sought the +speaker’s face, and saw that he was the man Nogam. In extremity of +amazement she spoke his name. He shook his head. + +“No longer Nogam,” he said in the same low accents, and smiled—“but +your father, Michael Lanyard!” + + + + +XIX +UNMASKING + + +One more instant the girl rested passive in uncomprehending +astonishment; then abruptly she exerted herself to break free from the +supporting embrace, but found the effort wasted for lack of opposition, +so that her own violence sent her reeling away half a dozen paces, to +bring up against the desk; while Lanyard, making no move more than to +drop his rejected arms, remained where she had left him, and requited +her indignant stare with a broken smile of understanding, a smile at +once tender, tolerant, and sympathetic, with a little quirk of rueful +humour for good measure. + +“My father!” Sofia repeated in a gasp of disdain—“_you!_” + +He gave a slight shrug. + +“Such, it appears, is your sad fortune.” + +“A servant!” + +“And not the proud prince you were promised? Rather a come down, one +must admit.” Lanyard laughed low, and moved nearer. “I’m sorry, I mean +I might be (for myself, too) if Nogam were less a fraud than that +pretentious mountebank, Prince Victor—or for the matter of that, if you +were as poor of spirit as you would seem on your own valuation, if you +were not at heart your mother’s daughter, and mine, my child by a woman +whom I loved well, and who long ago loved me!” + +He paused deliberately to let her grasp the full sense of his words, +then pursued: + +“It may help you get your bearings to know that I am truly the Michael +Lanyard to whom Messieurs Secretan & Sypher addressed their +advertisement—you remember—as this should prove.” + +He offered a slip of paper, and after another moment of dumb staring, +the girl took it and read aloud the message which Victor had dictated +following Sofia’s flight to him from the Café des Exiles. + +_“‘To Michael Lanyard, Intelligence Division, the War Office, +Whitehall—’”_ + +“That is to say,” Lanyard interpreted, “of the British Secret Service.” + +“You!” + +He bowed in light irony. “One regrets one is at present unable to offer +better social standing. To-morrow, it may be ... But who knows?” + +Sofia shook her head impatiently, and in a murmur of deepening +amazement resumed her reading of the note: + +_“‘Your daughter Sofia is now with me.. Your own intelligence must tell +you nothing could be more fatal than an attempt to communicate with +her’”_ + +To the interrogation eloquent in her eyes Lanyard replied: + +“Dictated by Victor to Karslake, who passed it on to me, the night he +brought you to the house from the Café des Exiles.” + +“You knew—you, who claim to be my father—yet permitted him—?” + +“You were in the house before I knew I had a daughter; Karslake had no +chance to consult me before fetching you. Furthermore, if he had +hesitated to carry out Victor’s orders just then, not only would he +have nullified all our preparations to secure evidence enough to +convict the man, or at least run him out of England—” + +“Prince Victor? What was he doing, that you should—?” + +“Dabbling in all manner of infamy, from financing a thieves’ fence to +organizing an association of common criminals to bring it business; +from maintaining a corps of agitators to foment social discontent to +fostering this last, most imbecile scheme of all, which comes to naught +to-night, an attempt to overthrow the British Empire and set up in its +stead a Soviet England, with Victor Vassilyevski in the dual rôle of +Trotsky and Lenine!” + +The girl made a sign of bewilderment and incredulity. + +“What are you telling me? Are you mad?” + +“No—but Victor is, mad with lust for power, insane with illusions of +personal aggrandizement. You don’t believe? Listen to me, then, +appreciate to what demoniac lengths he was prepared to go to flatter +his insane ambitions:” + +“Sturm has invented a new poison gas, odourless, colourless, the most +deadly known, and easily manufactured in vast quantities by adding +simple ingredients to ordinary illuminating gas. Fanatic Bolshevist +that he was, Sturm offered his formula to Victor, to be used to clear +the way for social revolution; and Victor jumped at the offer—has spent +vast sums preparing to employ it. His money paid for the recent strike +at the Westminster works of the Gas Light and Coke Company, by means of +which Victor was able to smuggle a round number of his creatures into +its service. His money has corrupted servants employed in Downing +Street, the Houses of Parliament, in the homes of the nobility, even in +Buckingham Palace itself, men ready at a given signal secretly to turn +on gas jets in remote corners and flood the buildings with the very +breath of Death itself. And that signal was to have been given +to-night. Well, it will not be.” + +“But could any scheme be more grotesquely diabolical? Do you ask more +proof of the man’s madness? Do you require more excuse for my +permitting you to be deceived by Victor for a few weeks, rather than +wreck our plans to frustrate his, when all the while Karslake and I +were near you, watching over you, learning to love you—he in his +fashion, I as your father—and both ready at all times to die in your +protection, if it had ever come to that?” + +Lanyard had drawn so near that only a few inches separated them, and +had his voice in such control that at three paces’ distance a vague and +inarticulate murmur at most might have been heard; but in Sofia’s +hearing his accents rang with passionate sincerity, persuading her +against the reason which would have rejected his indictment of Victor +as too fantastic, too imaginative, and too hopelessly overdrawn to be +given credence. She believed him, knowing in her heart that he believed +his statements to the last word; and knowing more, that he was surely +what he represented himself to be, her father. + +Inscrutable the processes of human hearts: even as from the very first +Sofia had instinctively yet unconsciously recognized the intrinsic +falsity of Victor’s pretensions, so now she perceived the integral +honesty that informed Lanyard’s every word and nuance of expression, +and accepted him without further inquisition. + +To his insistent “Have I made you understand?” she returned a wan +wraith of a smile, pitiful with entreaty, while one of her hands found +the way to his. + +“I think so,” she replied in halting apology—“at least, I believe you. +But be a little patient with me. It is all so new and strange, what you +tell me, it’s hard at first to grasp, there’s so much I must accept on +faith alone, so much I don’t understand ...” + +“I know.” Lanyard pressed her hand gently. + +“But try to have faith; I promise you it shall be fairly rewarded. Only +a little longer now, an hour or two at most, and Karslake will be here +to prove the truth of all I have asserted. You will believe him, at +least.” + +“Of course,” the girl said, simply. “I love him. You knew that?” + +“I guessed, and I am glad, glad for both of you.” + +“But he is safe?” Sofia demanded in sudden access of alarm so strong +that her voice rose above the pitch of discretion. + +“Quietly. Yes, he is safe enough.” + +“You know that for a fact? How do you know—?” + +“I’ve seen him to-night, talked with him—not two hours since.” + +“You have been in London?” she questioned—“to-night?” + +“Rather! Victor sent me.” Lanyard laughed lightly. “You didn’t know, of +course, but—well, I gave him reason to suspect me, so he sent me up to +be assassinated by Shaik Tsin. As it turned out, however, Herr Sturm +most obligingly understudied for me.... Before coming back, I looked +Karslake up. He’d been busy, playing a lone hand, ever since Victor +trumped up an errand to keep him out of your way all day. No need to go +into tedious details; I found Karslake had matters well in hand: the +gas works surrounded by a cordon of troops, the house under close +watch, and—best of all—a sworn confession from an Irish Member of +Parliament whom Victor had managed to buy with a promise to free +Ireland once Soviet England was an accomplished fact. So I left +Karslake to wind up loose ends in London, and posted back with my heart +in my mouth for fear I’d be too late.” + +“Too late?” Sofia queried with arching brows. + +“Need I remind you where we are?” + +A sweep of Lanyard’s hand indicated the boudoir; and Sofia started +sharply in perplexity and alarm. + +“Where we are!” she echoed in a frightened whisper. + +Of a sudden memory returned of what had passed in that room before +Lanyard had revealed himself to her, and knowledge of her peril so +narrowly escaped drove home like a knife to her heart. + +“What am I doing here?” she breathed in horror. “What have I done?” + +“Nothing more dreadful than prove yourself as true as you are fine, by +revolting in the end against the most powerful force known to man, the +force of suggestion implanted in hypnotism. You couldn’t know that it +was hypnotic not natural sleep you passed into last night, when Victor +tricked you with that damned crystal, or that, while you slept, he +willed you to do here to-night what, when it came to the final test, +your nature would not let you do.” + +“But he so often told me I had the instincts of a thief—!” + +“So often—_I_ know—that you were, against your will and reason, by dint +of the very iteration of it, coming to accept that lie as a truth whose +power there was no contesting. That is why, that you might prove +yourself by your own acts, I had to let you undergo your ordeal here +to-night, only standing by to make sure no ill came of it. Otherwise +you might have carried to your grave the fear instilled into your soul +by that blackguard. But now you know he lied, and will never doubt +again—or reproach your father for the dark record of his younger +years.” + +He checked, lifting hands of desolate appeal, then let them fall. + +“Dear, if you knew you would not judge me harshly. If only you could +know what I have fought up from, a foundling without a name abandoned +in a third-rate Parisian hotel, reared a scullion, butt and scapegoat, +with associates only of the lowest, scullions, beggars, pickpockets, +Apaches, and worse—!” + +“As if that mattered!” + +The girl turned a softly suffused face with shining eyes to Lanyard’s. +Now at last she knew him, now the romance of her dreams of yesterday +came true: through the mean masquerade of Nogam the man emerged, +identifying himself in her sight unmistakably with that splendid +stranger whom she had never quite forgotten since that old-time +afternoon when he had met Karslake in the Café des Exiles and talked so +intimately of his antecedents, hinting at a history of youthful years +strangely analogous with her own. + +Involuntarily her arms lifted and settled upon his shoulders. + +“I am so proud to think—” + +A shrill scream drowned out her words, a woman’s voice ranging swiftly +the staccato gamut of terror and cracking discordantly on its most +piercing note. + +Then with a bang that shook the flooring and must have been heard in +the farthest corners of the house, the bedchamber door was slammed +behind their backs. But beyond it the screaming went on in volume +imperceptibly muffled by its barrier, one ear-splitting caterwaul +following another with such continuity that the wonder was where Lady +Randolph West found breath to keep up that atrocious row, and whether +any dozen women of average lung-power could have rivalled it. + +In one sharp movement Lanyard and Sofia disengaged and fell apart, +their eyes consulting, hers in dismay, his in mixed exasperation and +remorse. + +“I ought to be shot,” he declared, bitterly—“who knew better!—to have +delayed here, exposing you to this danger—!” + +“It couldn’t be helped,” Sofia insisted; “you had to make me +understand. Besides, if I hurry back—” + +In quick strides Lanyard crossed to the corridor door, unlatched and +opened it an inch, peered out, and gave the sum of what he saw in a +gesture of finality, then leaving the door ajar turned swiftly back to +the girl. + +“Too late,” he said: “they’re swarming out into the hall like bees. In +another minute ...” + +Of a sudden he closed with Sofia, roughly clasping her body to him. + +“Struggle with me!” he pleaded—“get me by the throat, throw me back +across the desk—” + +“What do you mean? Let me go!” + +In answer to her efforts to wrench away, Lanyard only tightened his +hold and swung her toward the desk. + +“Do as I bid you! It’s the only way out. Let them think you heard a +noise, got up to investigate, found me here, rifling the safe—” + +“No,” she insisted—“no! Why should I save myself at your +expense?—betray you—my father—!” + +“Then give me the obedience of a daughter ... or let Victor succeed in +branding you a thief, the daughter of a thief!” + +He stilled the protest she would have uttered by placing fingers over +her lips. + +“Listen!” + +In the corridor an angry rumour of voices, alarmed calls and cries, +with thumps and scuffles of hasty feet, in the bedchamber the shrieks +persisting without the least hint of failing: as a damned soul might +bawl upon its bed of coals ... + +“Sofia, I implore you!” + +Still she hesitated. + +“But you—?” + +“Never fear for me, remember that I am of the Secret Service: two +minutes after I see the inside of the nearest police station, I shall +be free—and happy in the assurance that your name is without stain. +Then Karslake will come for you, bring you to me ... Now!” + +Lanyard caught the girl’s two wrists together and, throwing himself +bodily backward across the desk, carried her hands to his throat. + +With a simultaneous crash the door was flung back to the wall. Led by +Victor Vassilyevski a dozen men, guests and servants, in various stages +of dishabille, streamed into the room. + + + + +XX +THE DEVIL TO PAY + + +When it was all over, when the gravelled drive no longer crunched to +wheels that bore away the man Nogam to answer for his misdeeds, when +the household had quieted down and the most indefatigable +sensation-monger had wearied of singing the praises of the Princess +Sofia and, tossing off a final whiskey-and-soda, had paddled sleepily +back to bed, lights burned on brightly in two parts only of Frampton +Court, in the bedchambers tenanted respectively by Prince Victor +Vassilyevski and his reputed daughter. + +Alone, Prince Victor sat at the desk where he had, four hours earlier, +inscribed those characters which should have hurried Nogam into a +premature grave. That they had failed of their mission was something +that fretted Victor Vassilyevski, his mind and nerves, to a pitch of +exacerbation all but unendurable. + +What had become of that sentence to death? And what of that other, the +telegram which, forwarded by Nogam’s hand to Sturm, should long since +have set in motion the organized machinery of murder and demolition? + +Had Nogam, as he had meekly insisted on being questioned subsequent to +his subjugation, truly delivered the two messages as directed and, +miraculously escaping his fate decreed, returned to Frampton Court by +the twelve-three, likewise in strict conformance with instructions? + +This statement Nogam had neglected to amplify, and Victor had been +chary of too close questioning, lest it elicit too much in the hearing +of others. Once overpowered, Nogam had been philosophic about his bad +luck; but the eyes in his face of a stoic had held a gleam that Victor +didn’t altogether like, a light that seemed suspiciously malicious, a +suggestion of spirited humour deplorable to say the least in a +self-confessed sneak-thief caught in the very act, deplorable and +disturbing; in Victor’s sight a look constructively indicative of more +knowledge than Nogam had any right to possess. Take it any way you +pleased, something to think about ... + +Still more disquieting Victor thought the circumstance that nobody else +had seemed to notice that anomalous light in Nogam’s eyes; which of +course might mean merely that Victor had worked himself into such a +state of nerves that he was seeing things, but equally well that the +look was one reserved for Victor alone, intentionally or not holding +for him a message, if he had but had the wit to read it, of peculiarly +personal import. + +It might have implied, for example, that Victor’s half-hearted and +paltering distrust of Nogam had all along been only too well warranted. +In which case, the fat was already in the fire with a vengeance, and +Victor’s probable duration of life was dependent wholly upon the speed +with which he could quit Frampton Court and hurl his motor-car through +the night to the lower reaches of the Thames. + +Envisagement of the worst at its blackest being part of the holy duty +of self-preservation, Victor sat fully dressed, with every other +provision made for flight at the first flash of warning, only waiting +to make sure, and with what impatience was apparent in the working of +paste-coloured features, the wincing and shifting of slotted eyes, the +incessant shutting and unclosing of tensed fingers. + +All rested with the telephone that stood mockingly mute at the man’s +elbow, callous alike to his anxiety and the rancorous regard in which +he held it. His call for the house near Queen Anne’s Gate had now been +in for more than forty minutes; in that interval he had no less than +three times pleaded its urgency to the trunk-line operator. And still +the muffled bell beneath the desk was dumb. + +And the worst of it was, fatal though the delay might prove, he dared +not stir a hand to save himself until he _knew_.... + +In the taut torment of those long-drawn minutes a sound of circumspect +scratching was enough to bring Victor to his feet in one startled +bound. + +He stood for a moment, a-twitch, but intent upon the corridor door, +then composed himself with indifferent success, approached and opened +the door. The girl Chou Nu slipped in, offered a timid courtesy, and +awaited his leave to speak. + +“Well? What is it?” + +“Excellency: the Princess Sofia refuses to let me stay in the room with +her.” + +“Why? Don’t you know?” + +“I think she means to run away. She would not go back to her bed, but +walked up and down, till I ventured to urge her to take rest, when she +turned on me in a rage and bade me be gone. Then I came to you.” + +Victor took thought and finished with a dour nod. + +“You have done well. Return, keep watch, let me know if she leaves—” + +“The door is locked, Excellency: she will not let me in.” + +“Spy through the keyhole, then; or hide in one of the empty rooms +across the corridor, and watch—” + +A muted mutter from the direction of the desk dried speech on Victor’s +lips. He started hastily toward the source of the sound, midway +wheeled, and dismissed the maid with a brusque hand and +monosyllable—“Go!”—then fairly pounced upon the telephone. + +But all he heard, in the course of the ensuing five minutes, was the +voice of the trunk-line operator advising him, to begin with, that she +was ready to put him through to Westminster, then maddeningly +punctuating the buzz and whine of the empty wire with her call of a +talking doll—“Are you theah?... Are you theah?... Are you theah?” + +At length, however, the connection was established; and Victor, hearing +the falsetto of Chou Nu’s second-uncle cheerily respond to the +operator’s query, unceremoniously broke in: + +“Shaik Tsin? It is I, Number One. And the devil’s own time I’ve had +getting through. Why didn’t you answer more promptly? What’s the +matter? Has anything gone wrong?” + +“All is well, Excellency, as well as you could wish, knowing what you +know.” + +Profound relief found voice in a sigh from Victor’s heart. + +“You got my messages, then? Nogam delivered them?” + +“So I understand. I myself did not see him, Excellency. The man Sturm—” + +On that name the voice died away in what Victor fancied was a gasp that +might have been of either fright or pain. + +“Hello!” he prompted. “Are you there, Shaik Tsin? I say! Are you there? +Why don’t you answer?” + +He paused: no sound for seconds that dragged like so many minutes, then +of a sudden a deadened noise like the slam of a door heard afar—or a +pistol shot at some distance from the telephone in the study. + +Further and frantic importuning of the cold and unresponsive wire +presently was silenced by a new voice, little like that of Shaik Tsin. + +“Hello? Who’s there? I say: that you, Prince Victor?” + +Involuntarily Victor cried: “Karslake!” “What gorgeous luck! I’ve been +wanting a word with you all evening.” + +“What has happened? Why did Shaik Tsin—?” + +“Oh, most unfortunate about him—frightfully sorry, but it really +couldn’t be helped, if he hadn’t fought back we wouldn’t have had to +shoot him. You see, the old devil murdered Sturm to-night, for some +reason I daresay you understand better than I: we found a paper on the +beggar, written in Chinese, apparently an order for his assassination +signed by you. Half a mo’: I’ll read it to you ...” + +But if Karslake translated Victor’s message, as edited by the hand of +Nogam, it was to a wire as deaf as it was dumb. + + + + +XXI +VENTRE À TERRE + + +With exceeding care to avoid noise, Sofia unlocked the door and for the +second time since midnight let herself stealthily out into the darkened +corridor; but now with the difference that she did what she did in full +command of all her wits and faculties, with no subjective war of wills +to hinder and confuse her, and with a definite object clearly +visioned—a goal no less distant than the railway station. + +Lanyard had promised that Karslake should come for her within an hour +or two and take her away with him, back to London and the arms of the +father whom, although so recently revealed and accepted, she had +already begun to love; if indeed it were not true that she had in +filial sense fallen in love with Lanyard at first sight, through +intuition, that afternoon in the Café des Exiles so long, so very long +ago! + +Well: she might as well await Karslake at the station. It would be +simpler, she would be more at ease there, would breathe more freely +once she turned her back on Frampton Court and all its hateful +associations. Where Victor was, she could not rest. + +If she had feared the man before, now she hated him; but hatred had +added to her fear instead of replacing it, she remained afraid, +desperately afraid, so that even the thought of continuing under the +same roof with him was enough to make her prefer to tramp unknown roads +alone in the mirk of that storm-swept night. + +Though she went in trembling, she felt sure nobody spied upon her +going; and in this confidence crept to the great staircase, down to the +entrance hall, and on to the front doors; and a good omen it seemed to +find these not locked, but simply on the latch. And if the night into +which she peered was dark and loud with wind and rain, its countenance +seemed kindlier, more friendly far than that of the world she was +putting behind her. Without misgivings Sofia stepped out. + +It was like stepping over the edge of the universe into the eternal +night that bides beyond the stars. Neither did waiting seem to +habituate her vision to the lack of light. + +Still, the feel of gravel underfoot ought to guide her down the drive +to the great gateway; and once outside the park, clear of its +overshadowing trees, one would surely find mitigation of darkness +sufficient to show the public road. + +She took one tentative step out of the recessed doorway and into +Victor’s arms. + +That they were Victor’s she knew instantly, as much by the crawling of +her flesh as by the choking terror that stifled the scream in her +throat and froze body and limbs with its paralyzing touch. + +And then his ironic accents: + +“So good of you to spare me the trouble of coming for you!” + +Before she could reply or even think, other hands than his were busy +with her. A folded cloth was whipped over the lower half of her face, +sealing her lips, and knotted at the nape of her neck. Stout arms +clipped her knees and swung her off her feet, leaving her body helpless +in Victor’s tight embrace. And despite her tardy recovery and efforts +to struggle, she was carried swiftly away, a dozen paces or so, then +tumbled bodily in upon the floor of a motor-car. + +The door closed as she tried to pick herself up, the smooth purring of +the motor became a leonine roar while she was still on her knees, gears +clashed, and the car leaped with a jerk that drove her headlong against +the cushions of the seat. Then the dome light was switched on, and she +saw Victor with a bleak face sitting over her, an automatic pistol +naked in his hand. + +“Get up!” he said, grimly, “and if there’s any thought of fight left in +you, think better of it, remember your mother paid with her life the +price of defying me, and yours means even less to me. Up with you and +sit quietly beside me—do you hear?” + +He lent her a hand that wrenched her arm brutally and wrung a cry which +Victor mocked as Sofia fell upon the seat and cringed back into the +corner. + +For perhaps thirty seconds, while the car raced away down the drive, he +continued to hold her in the venom of her sneer; then his gaze veered +sharply, and leaning over he switched off the light. + +With the body of the car again the dwelling-place of darkness, objects +beyond its rain-gemmed glass—the heads of the Chinese maid and +chauffeur, the twin piers of the nearing gateway—attained dense relief +against the blue-white glare of two broad headlight beams, that of the +limousine boring through the gateway to intersect at right angles that +of another car approaching on the highroad but as yet hidden by the +wall of the park. + +In one breath and the same the lights of the second car swerved in +toward the gateway, and consternation seized hold of Sofia’s +intelligence and wiped it clear of all coherence. + +Already the strange lamps were staring blankly in between the piers—and +the momentum of Victor’s car was too great to be arrested within the +distance. The girl cried out, but didn’t know it, and crouched low; the +horn added a squawk of frenzy to a wild clamour of yells; all prefatory +to a scrunching, rending crash as, in the very mouth of the gateway, a +front fender of the incoming car ripped through the rear fender above +which Sofia was sitting. Thrown heavily against Victor, then instantly +back to her place, she felt the car, with brakes set fast, turn +broadside to the road, skid crabwise, and lurch sickeningly into the +ditch on the farther side. + +For an interminable time, while the ponderous fabric rocked and +toppled, threatening very instant to crash upon its side, the rear +wheels spun madly and the chain-bound tires tore in vain at greasy road +metal. + +Without clear comprehension of what was happening, Sofia heard shouts +from the other car, now at a standstill, and an oddly syncopated +popping. The window in the door on Victor’s side rang like a cracked +bell, shivered, and fell inward, clashing. With a growl of rage, Victor +bent forward and levelled an arm through the opening. From his hand +truncated tongues of orange flame, half a dozen of them, stabbed the +gloom to an accompaniment of as many short and savage barks. + +Then the chains at last bit through to a purchase, the car scrambled to +the crown of the road and lunged precipitately away; and the lights of +the other dropped astern in the space of a rest between heartbeats. + +Sitting back, Victor turned on the dome light again, and extracting an +empty magazine clip from the butt of his automatic pistol, replaced it +with another, loaded. + +From this occupation he looked up with lips curling in contempt of +Sofia’s terror. + +“Your friends,” he observed, “were a thought behindhand, eh? When you +come to know me better, my dear, you’ll find they invariably are—with +me.” + +Aftermath of fright made her tongue inarticulate; and Victor’s sneer +took on a colour of mean amusement. + +“Something on your mind?” + +She twisted her hands together till the laced fingers hurt. + +“Wha-what are you go-going to do with me?” + +“Make good use of you, dear child,” he laughed: “be sure of that!” + +“What do you mean?” + +“What do you think?” + +“I don’t know ...” + +“Really not? But there I think you do injustice to your admirable +intelligence.” + +The jeering laugh sounded as he put out the light again, in darkness +the derisive voice pursued: + +“If you must know in so many words—well, I mean to keep you by me till +the final curtain falls. As long as it lasts, yours will be an +interesting life—I give my word.” + +“And you call yourself my father!” + +“Oh, no! No, indeed: that’s all over and done with, the farce is played +out; and while I’m aware my rôle in it wasn’t heroic, I shan’t play the +purblind fool in the afterpiece—pure drama—upon which the curtain is +now rising. Neither need you. Oh, I’ll be frank with you, if you wish, +lay all my cards on the table.” + +A deliberate pause ended in a chuckle. + +“I have at present precisely two uses for my precious little Sofia: She +will serve excellently as insurance against further persecution on the +part of her accomplished and energetic father—with whom I shall deal in +my good leisure—and ... But need one be crudely explicit?” + +Sofia answered nothing to that, for a long time she said nothing, but +sat pondering.... + +And Victor was speedily provided with another interest which engrossed +him to the exclusion of further efforts to bait a victim defenseless +against his insolence. + +When for the third time after that narrow scrape at the gates the man +roused up to peer back through the rear window of the limousine, Sofia +heard a harshly sibilant intake of breath between shut teeth, and +surmised the discovery that the car which had so narrowly missed +blocking their escape had picked up the trail, and was now in hot +chase. + +Even youth, however, could distill but slender hope from this. The pace +was too terrific at which Victor’s car was thundering through the +night-bound countryside, it seemed idle to dream that another could +overhaul it, even though driven with as much skill and maniacal +recklessness. And Sofia returned to thoughts to which Victor’s innuendo +had given definite shape and colour, if with an effect far from that of +his intention. Threatened, the spirit of the girl responded much as +sane young flesh will to a cold plunge. She had forgotten to tremble, +and though still tense-strung in every fibre was able to sit still, +look steadily into the face of peril, and calculate her chances of +cheating it. + +Presently, in a tone so even it won begrudged admiration, she asked: + +“Where are you taking me?” + +“Do you really care?” + +“Enough to ask.” + +“But why should I tell you?” + +“No reason. I presume it doesn’t really matter, I’ll know soon enough.” + +“Then I don’t mind enlightening you. We’re bound for the Continent by +way of Limehouse. A launch is waiting for us in Limehouse Reach, a +yacht off Gravesend. Oh, I have forgotten nothing! By daybreak we’ll be +at sea.” + +“We?” + +“You and I.” + +“You deceive yourself, Prince Victor. I shan’t accompany you.” + +“How amusing! And is it a secret, how you propose to stand against my +will?” + +Sofia was silent for a little; then, “I can kill myself,” she said, +quietly. + +“To be sure you can! And when I tire of you, perhaps I’ll humour your +morbid inclinations—if they still exist.” + +“You are a fool,” Sofia returned, bluntly, “if you think I shall go +aboard that yacht alive.” + +“Brava!” Victor laughed, and clapped his hands. “Brava! brava!” + +He sat up for another look out of the rear window, sucked at his breath +even more sharply than before, and snatching up the speaking-tube +pronounced urgent words in Chinese. + +The head of the chauffeur, in stark silhouette against the leading +glow, bent toward the tube, and nodded rapidly. And to the +deep-throated roar of an unmuffled exhaust, the heavy car leaped, like +a spirited animal stung by whip and spur, and settled into a stride to +which what had gone before was as a preliminary canter to the +heartbreaking drive down to the home-stretch. + +Lights began to dot the roadside. Widely spaced at first, unbroken +ranks were soon streaking past the tear-blind windows. Outskirts of +London were being traversed; but neither driving sheets of rain against +which human vision failed, nor the chance of encountering belated +traffic, worked any slackening of the pace. Only when a corner had to +be negotiated did the car slow down, and then never to the point of +sanity; and the turn once rounded, its flight would again become +headlong, lunatic, suicidal. + +The stringed lamps wove a wavering luminous ribbon without end; a +breeze laden with the wet fragrance of London drove great gusts of rain +in stringing showers through the broken window. Turns and twists grew +more frequent, apparently favouring the pursuit. + +Victor now knelt constantly on the back seat, his face in the fitful +play of light and shadow uncannily resembling that of a hunted jungle +cat. On the polished steel of his pistol sinister gleams winked and +faded. From his snarling lips foul oaths fell, a steady stream, black +blasphemies spewed up from the darkest dives of the Orient—most of them +happily couched in the tongues of their origin and so unintelligible to +his one auditor. As it was, she heard and understood enough, too much. + +Nevertheless, the man was not too completely absorbed in watching the +shifting fortunes of the race to be unmindful of the girl. And when +once she sat up to ease cramped limbs, he misread her intention and, +catching her viciously by an arm, threw her back into her corner and +advised her not to play the giddy little fool. + +After that Sofia was at pains to stir as seldom as possible, and bided +her time quietly enough, but never for an instant relaxed her +watchfulness or lost heart. + +The shouldering houses that hedged their course discovered a profile, +ragged, black against a sky whose purple dimness held the first dull +presage of dawn. + +In the wild rush of a marauding tomcat the car crossed a broad public +square and sped up the graded approach to a bridge. The smell of the +Thames was unmistakable, the far-flung lamps of the Embankment were +pearls aglow upon violet velvet. + +Leaving the bridge, the limousine took a turn on two wheels, and +immediately something happened, seemingly some attempt to stop it was +made. Vociferous voices hailed it, only to induce an augmented bellow +of the exhaust with an instantaneous acceleration of impetus. Then +something was struck and tossed aside as a bull might toss a dog—a dark +shape whirling and flopping hideously; and an agonized screaming made +the girl cower, sick with horror, and cover her ears with her hands. + +Before she was able to forget those qualms many more minutes of frantic +driving had flung to the rear many a mile of silent streets. + +Of a sudden she heard an inhuman cry and, looking up, saw Victor dash +the butt of his pistol through the glass, then reversing the weapon +pour through the opening a fusillade whose effect was presumably +gratifying, for he laughed to himself when the pistol was empty, +laughed briefly but with vicious glee. + +That laugh levelled the last barrier of doubt and fear and nerved Sofia +finally to test the forlorn hope she had been nursing ever since Victor +had let her see a little way into his mind as to her fate. + +Until he could reload, only the tradition of the sexes lent him +theoretical superiority; whereas he was in fact a man well on the +thither side of middle-age, his virility sapped by long indulgence of +unbridled appetites; while Sofia was a woman in the fullest flush of +her first mature powers. + +Gathering herself together, she inched forward and made ready to +spring, bear him down, overpower him—by some or any means put him hors +de combat long enough for her to fling a door open and herself out into +the street.... + +With squealing brakes the car shaved an acute corner and slid on locked +wheels to a dead halt so unexpected that it was Sofia who plunged +floundering to the floor, while Victor only by a minor miracle escaped +catapulting through the front windows. + +The next instant, as Sofia struggled to her knees, the door behind her +was wrenched open from without and, at a sign from Victor, rough hands +laid hold of the girl and dragged her out bodily. + +In a passion of despair, she lost her senses for a time and like a +madwoman fought, shrieking, biting, kicking, clawing, scratching.... + +With returning lucidity she found herself, panting and dishevelled, +arms pinned to her sides, struggling on for all that, being hustled by +some half a dozen men across a narrow sidewalk of uneven flagstones. + +Simultaneously the shutter of perceptions snapped, photographing +permanently upon the super-sensitized film of conscious memory the +glimpsed vista of a grim, mean street whose repellent uglinesses +grinned through the boding twilight like lineaments of some monstrous +mask of evil. + +Then she tripped on a low stone step, stumbled, and was half-carried, +half-thrown into a narrow and malodorous hallway. + +Between her and the sweet liberty of the rain-washed air a door crashed +like the crack of doom. + + + + +XXII +THE SEVEN BRASS HINGES + + +Into a space perhaps four feet in width from wall to wall and seven +deep from the front door to the foot of a cramped flight of crazy +wooden stairs, some ten people were crowded, Sofia and the maid Chou Nu +in a knot of excited men. + +In the saffron glow of an ill-trimmed paraffin lamp smoking in a wall +bracket, desperate faces, yellow and brown and white, consulted one +another with rolling eyeballs and strange tongues clamorous. Sofia +heard the broken rustling of heavy respirations; she saw uncouth +gesticulations carve the shadows; her nostrils were revolted by +effluvia of unclean bodies, garments saturate with opium smoke and +curious cookery, breaths sour with alcohol. + +Two were busy at the door, under the direction of Prince Victor, +setting stout bars into iron sockets. When they had finished, Victor +elbowed them out of his way and thrust back the slide of a narrow +horizontal peephole, through which he reconnoitred. + +The tall, thin body stiffened as he looked, and without turning he +flung an open hand behind him and snapped a demand in Chinese. Somebody +slipped a revolver into his palm. Levelling it he sent a volley +crashing through the peephole. Yells responded, and in the hush that +fell upon the final shot a noise of fugitive feet scraping and +stumbling on cobbles. A bullet struck the door a sounding thump and all +but penetrated, raising a bump on the inner face of its thick oaken +panels; and Victor shut the slide and turned back. + +Subservient silence saluted him. He spoke in Chinese, issuing (Sofia +gathered) instructions for the defense of the house. One by one the men +designated dropped out of the group about her. Three shuffled off into +a room adjoining the hallway. Two others ran briskly up the stairs. A +sixth Victor directed to stand by the barred door. His chauffeur and +another Chinaman he told off for his personal attendance. + +The maid Chou Nu was left to shift for herself, and while Sofia could +see her she did not shift a finger from her pose of terror, flattened +to the wall. When Sofia came back that way, the girl had vanished, +however. Nor was she seen again alive. + +Her arms held fast, Sofia was partly led and partly dragged down the +hall, Victor herding the group on past the staircase and into a bare +room at the back of the house, where a solitary lamp burning on a deal +table discovered for all other furnishing broken chairs, coils of +tarred rope, a rack of ponderous oars and boat-hooks, a display of +shapeless oilskins and sou’westers on pegs. The windows were boarded up +from sills to lintels, the air was close and dank with the stale +flavour of foul tidal waters. + +Here Victor took charge of Sofia, the chauffeur holding the lamp to +light the other Chinaman at his labours with a trap-door in the floor, +a slab of woodwork so massive that, when its iron bolts had been drawn, +it needed every whit of the man’s strength to lift and throw it back +upon its hinges; and its crashing fall made all the timbers quake and +groan. + +Through the square opening thus discovered Sofia saw a ladder of +several slimy steps washed by black, oily waters that sucked and +swirled sluggishly round spiles green with weed and ooze. + +Down these steps the Chinaman crept gingerly, but halfway paused with a +cry, then cringed back to the head of the ladder, yellow face blanched, +slant eyes piteous with fear, as he exhibited an end of stout mooring +line whose other end was made fast to a ring bolt in one of the joists. + +With a smothered oath Victor snatched the rope’s end from the trembling +hand and examined it closely. Even Sofia could see that it had been +cleanly severed by a knife. + +Victor’s countenance was ablaze as he dropped the rope. Before the +tempest of his wrath the Chinaman bent like a reed, with faint, +protesting bleats and feebly weaving hands. + +But in full tide the tirade faltered, Victor seemed to forget his anger +or else to remind himself it was puerile in contrast with the mortal +issues that now confronted him. + +He turned to Sofia eyes of cold fire in a wintry countenance. + +“So,” he pronounced, slowly, “it appears you are to have your way, +after all, and more speedily than either of us reckoned. You are to +die, and so am I, this day—you in my arms. Well, it is time, I daresay, +when I permit myself to be duped and overreached by police spies like +your persevering father and lover. Yes; I am ready to pay the price of +my fatuity—but not until they had paid me for their victory—and dearly. +Come!” + +He motioned to the Chinese to reclose and fasten the trap-door, and +grasping Sofia’s wrist with cruel fingers hurried her back through the +hallway. + +Repeated breaks of pistol-fire guided them to the front room, a racket +echoed in diminished volume from the street. + +In an atmosphere already thick with acrid fumes of smokeless powder two +men held the windows, firing through loopholes in iron-bound blinds of +oak. At their feet a third squatted, reloading for them as occasion +required. As Sofia and Victor entered one man dropped his weapon and, +grunting, fell back from his window to nurse a shattered hand. +Releasing the girl without another word, Victor caught up the pistol +and took the vacant post. + +Instantly, on peering out, he fired once, then again. Evidently missing +both shots, he settled to await a better target, eyes intent to the +loophole. In the course of the next few minutes he changed position but +once, when, after firing several more shots, he tossed the empty weapon +to the man on the floor and received a loaded one in exchange. + +Seeing him thus employed, altogether forgetful, Sofia began to back +toward the hall, step by cautious step, keeping her attention fixed to +Victor throughout. But he seemed to be completely preoccupied with his +markmanship, and paid her no heed. + +Nevertheless, when she at length found courage to swing and dart away +through the door, Victor flung three curt words to the fellow at his +feet, who grunted, rose, and glided from the room in close chase. + +The guard at the front door was not so busy as Sofia had hoped to find +him, not too interested in the progress of siege operations outside to +note her approach and look round from his peephole with a menacing grin +of welcome; and his unmistakable readiness, as pistol in hand he took a +single step toward her, drove the girl back to the foot of the stairs. + +Then the other came swiftly after her, and Sofia swung in panic and +stumbled up the steps. There were others up above, two to her certain +knowledge, possibly many more of Victor’s creatures; but if only she +could find some sort of refuge in the uppermost fastnesses of the +rookery, perhaps ... + +Like a shape of smoke wind-driven, she sped up the first flight, then +the second, only pausing at the head of the third and last flight to +throw hunted glances right, left, and behind her. + +Overhead a skylight with dingy panes diffused a dull blue glimmer which +discovered a yawning door at her elbow, a pocket of black mystery +beyond, and on the uppermost steps of the staircase her patient yellow +shadow, his upturned eyes inscrutable but potentially revolting with +their very concealment of the intent behind them. + +Impossible that a worse thing could await her beyond that dark +threshold.... + +She crossed it in one stride, swung the door to, and set her shoulders +against it. + +Outside she heard the shuffling footfalls pause. The knob rattled. But +instead of the inward thrust against which she stood braced, there came +the least of outward pulls, as if to make sure that the latch had +caught; and after a brief pause a key grated in the lock, was +withdrawn, and the slippered feet withdrew in turn. + +When her lungs ceased to labour painfully, she took her courage in both +hands and began to explore, groping blindly through darkness, +encountering nothing till she blundered into a table which held a glass +lamp for paraffin oil, like those in use below. + +Fumbling over the top of the table, she found matches, struck one, and +set its fire to the wick. + +The flame waxed and grew steady in a crusted chimney, revealing a room +with a slant ceiling and two dormer windows, boarded; in one corner a +cot-bed with tumbled blankets, near this a low wooden stand, with a +pipe, spirit lamp, and other paraphernalia of an opium smoker—no +chairs, not another stick of furniture of any kind. + +Removing the lamp, the girl set it on the floor, and pushed the table +over against the door. By not so long as half a minute would its +reinforcement delay Victor when he made up his mind to get in. But in +such emergencies the human kind is not impatient of the most futile +expedients. + +There was nothing more she could do. She stood still, listening. The +rattle of pistol fire three floors below continued in fits and starts, +but the sound of it was oddly unreal, resembling more stammering +explosions of a string of firecrackers than snaps of the whiplash of +Death. + +She tried one of the windows without encouragement, but at the other +found a board with a loose end, which she pried aside, till through +begrimed glass she could see a ghastly, weeping sky of daybreak and, by +craning her neck, peer down into the dark gully of the street. + +At first she thought it empty; but presently her straining vision made +out two huddled shapes upon the farther sidewalk, close under the walls +of a public house whose sign she could just barely decipher: the Red +Moon. + +Then, about to draw back from the window, she saw five men, oddly +foreshortened figures from that lofty coign of view, leave the Red Moon +by one of its bar entrances, bearing between them a heavy beam of wood, +and with this improvised battering-ram aimed at the door to the +besieged house, charge awkwardly across the cobbles. + +The house spat fire from door and windows, a withering blast. In the +middle of the street the beam was abandoned, three of its fool-hardy +bearers took to their heels, each shaping an individual course, while +one lay still upon the wet black stones, and another, apparently +wounded in the legs, sought pitifully to drag himself by his arms, inch +by inch, out of the zone of fire. But presently his efforts grew +feeble, then he, too, lay stirless, prone in the sluicing rain. + +The girl shrank back from the window, hiding her eyes as if to blot out +that picture. + +The light, that is to say the absence of it in true sense, the angle of +view, and the distance, all had conspired to prevent her from making +sure that neither her father nor Karslake were of those four whose +broken bodies cluttered the street. But the fear and uncertainty were +maddening.... + +She wheeled suddenly toward the door: the ancient stairs were creaking +beneath a measured tread. She made an offer to add her weight to that +of the table, but checked and fell back immediately, seeing the folly +of sacrificing her strength, the wisdom of saving it to serve her when +finally.... + +The creaking ceased, the wards of the lock grated, the knob turned, the +door was thrust open—the table offering little hindrance if any. From +the threshold Victor eyed the girl with a twitching grin. + +“The time is at hand,” he announced with a parody of punctilio. “We +have beaten them off in the street, but they have found the tunnel from +the cellar of the Red Moon, and are attacking from the river besides. +So, my dear, it ends for us....” + +In silence, shoulders to the wall farthest from the door, Sofia watched +him unwinking. The lamp at her feet painted the tensely poised young +body and bloodless face with quaint, stagey shadows. + +Victor’s glance ranged the cheerless room. + +“I think you understand me,” he said. + +She might have been a waxwork dummy out of Madame Tussaud’s. + +A white blaze of madness transfigured Victor’s countenance. He took one +step toward Sofia. + +In movements so precisely coordinated that they seemed one and +instantaneous, the girl stooped, caught up the lamp, and threw it with +all her might. Victor ducked his head. The lamp sailed on, described a +descending curve through the open doorway into the well of the +staircase, struck, and exploded. In the clutches of the maniac, Sofia +was aware of the lurid glare, momentarily gaining strength, that filled +the rectangle of the doorway. + +In through this last, while iron hands tightened on her throat and +consciousness grew dark with closing shadows, a man’s shape passed, +then another.... + +The grip on her throat grew lax, the hands left it free. She reeled, +but somebody caught her up and bore her swiftly from the room, leaving +two who fought together like beasts on the floor, locked in each +other’s arms, rolling and squirming, rearing and flopping.... + +The scorch of flames stung her cheek, but she forgot that when their +broken light made visible the features of Karslake above the arms +wherein she lay cradled. + +Turning aside from the staircase, Karslake bore her to the ladder +leading to the skylight, whose broken glass crunched beneath his heels +at every step. + +In the open air he pulled up for a moment’s rest, but continued to hold +Sofia in his arms. The wind raved about them, buffeted them, tore their +breath away, rain pelted them like birdshot; but they clung to each +other and were unaware of reason for complaint. + +Presently, however, Karslake remembered, and anxiously endeavoured to +disengage from these tenacious arms. + +“Let me go, dearest,” he muttered. “I must go back—I left your father +to take care of Victor, and—” + +As if evoked by his very solicitude Lanyard emerged from the skylight +hatch, waved a hand in gay salute, then turned to stare down into the +flaming pit from which he had climbed. + +After a little he fell back a pace. Then slowly, with the laboured +movements of exhaustion, Victor worked head and shoulders through the +opening and dragged himself out upon the roof. + +On all fours he held in doubt, his head moving from side to side like +the head of a stricken beast, seeking his enemy with dazzled eyes. Then +he made Lanyard out and, pulling himself together for the supreme +effort, launched at his throat with the pounce of a great cat. + +Lanyard met him halfway, caught him in the middle of his bound, wound +wiry arms round the man and held him helpless. + +His voice rang clear above the crackle of flames: + +“Victor! have you forgotten how you threatened one night, twenty years +ago, to follow me to the very gates of Hell, and what I promised +you—that, if you did, I’d push you inside? Or did you think I would +forget?” + +He cast the man from him, backward, down into the hungry maw of that +inferno.... + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED MASQUERADE *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Red Masquerade</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Louis Joseph Vance</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 18, 2003 [eBook #10496]<br /> +[Most recently updated: November 28, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Suzanne Shell, Elaine Walker and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED MASQUERADE ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="440" height="600" alt="[Illustration]" /> +<p class="caption">“<i>Prince Victor gave a gesture of pain and reluctance. +‘Must I tell you?</i>’”</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h1>RED MASQUERADE</h1> + +<h3><i>Being the Story of</i><br/> +THE LONE WOLF’S DAUGHTER</h3> + +<h2 class="no-break">BY LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE</h2> + +<h4>1921</h4> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4>TO<br/> +J. PARKER READ, JR., ESQ.<br/> +THE CINEMA THAT WAS HIS</h4> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>APOLOGY</h2> + +<p> +This tale quite brazenly derives from the author’s invention for motion +pictures which Mr. J. Parker Read, Jr., produced in the autumn of 1919 under +the title of “The Lone Wolf’s Daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +It is only fair to state, however, that the author has in this version taken as +many high-handed liberties with the version used by the photoplay director as +the latter took with the original. +</p> + +<p> +The chance to get even for once was too tempting.... +</p> + +<p> +Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Company in the first instance, and then Mr. +Arthur T. Vance, editor of <i>The Pictorial Review</i>, in which the story was +published as a serial, were equally guilty of the encouragement which results +in its appearance in its present guise. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +L.J.V. +</p> + +<p> +Westport—31 December, 1920. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3>Books by Louis Joseph Vance</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE<br/> +JOAN THURSDAY<br/> +NOBODY<br/> +NO MAN’S LAND<br/> +POOL OF FLAME<br/> +PRIVATE WAR<br/> +SHEEP’S CLOTHING<br/> +THE BANDBOX<br/> +THE BLACK BAG<br/> +THE BRASS BOWL<br/> +THE BRONZE BELL<br/> +THE DARK MIRROR<br/> +THE DAY OF DAYS<br/> +THE DESTROYING ANGEL<br/> +THE FORTUNE HUNTER<br/> +THE ROMANCE OF TERENCE O’ROURKE<br/> +TREY O’ HEARTS +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Stories About “The Lone Wolf”</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +THE LONE WOLF<br/> +THE FALSE FACES<br/> +RED MASQUERADE<br/> +ALIAS THE LONE WOLF +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <b>BOOK ONE:</b> A CHAPTER FROM THE YOUTH OF MONSIEUR MICHAEL LANYARD</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b1ch1">CHAPTER I. PLEBEIAN AND PRINCE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b1ch2">CHAPTER II. THE PRINCESS SOFIA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b1ch3">CHAPTER III. MONSIEUR QUIXOTE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b1ch4">CHAPTER IV. THE FOOL AND HIS MONEY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b1ch5">CHAPTER V. IMPOSTOR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b1ch6">CHAPTER VI. THÉRÈSE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b1ch7">CHAPTER VII. FAMILY REUNION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b1ch8">CHAPTER VIII. GREEK VS. GREEK</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b1ch9">CHAPTER IX. PAID IN FULL</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <b>BOOK TWO:</b> THE LONE WOLF’S DAUGHTER</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch1">CHAPTER I. THE GIRL SOFIA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch2">CHAPTER II. MASKS AND FACES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch3">CHAPTER III. THE AGONY COLUMN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch4">CHAPTER IV. MUTINY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch5">CHAPTER V. HOUSE OF THE WOLF</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch6">CHAPTER VI. THE MUMMER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch7">CHAPTER VII. THE FANTASTICS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch8">CHAPTER VIII. COUNCIL OF THE GODLESS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch9">CHAPTER IX. MRS. WARING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch10">CHAPTER X. VICTOR ET AL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch11">CHAPTER XI. HEARTBREAK</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch12">CHAPTER XII. SUSPECT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch13">CHAPTER XIII. THE TURNIP</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch14">CHAPTER XIV. CONFERENCE OF THE DAMNED</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch15">CHAPTER XV. INTUITION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch16">CHAPTER XVI. THE CRYSTAL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch17">CHAPTER XVII. THE RAISED CHEQUE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch18">CHAPTER XVIII. ORDEAL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch19">CHAPTER XIX. UNMASKING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch20">CHAPTER XX. THE DEVIL TO PAY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch21">CHAPTER XXI. VENTRE À TERRE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#b2ch22">CHAPTER XXII. THE SEVEN BRASS HINGES</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>BOOK I<br/> +A CHAPTER FROM THE YOUTH OF MONSIEUR MICHAEL LANYARD</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>RED MASQUERADE</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b1ch1"></a>I<br/> +PLEBEIAN AND PRINCE</h2> + +<p> +The gentleman was not in the least bored who might have been and was seen on +that wintry afternoon in Nineteen hundred, lounging with one shoulder to a wall +of the dingy salesroom and idly thumbing a catalogue of effects about to be put +up at auction; but his insouciance was so unaffected that the inevitable +innocent bystander might have been pardoned for perceiving in him a pitiable +victim of the utterest ennui. +</p> + +<p> +In point of fact, he was privately relishing life with enviable gusto. In those +days he could and did: being alive was the most satisfying pastime he could +imagine, or cared to, who was a thundering success in his own conceit and in +fact as well; since all the world for whose regard he cared a twopenny-bit +admired, respected, and esteemed him in his public status, and admired, +respected, and feared him in his private capacity, and paid him heavy tribute +to boot. +</p> + +<p> +More than that, he was young, still very young indeed, barely beyond the +threshold of his chosen career. To his eagerly exploring eye the future +unrolled itself in the likeness of an endless scroll illuminated with +adventures all piquant, picturesque, and profitable. With the happy assurance +of lucky young impudence he figured the world to himself as his oyster; and if +his method of helping himself to the succulent contents of its stubborn shell +might have been thought questionable (as unquestionably it was) he was no more +conscious of a conscience to give him qualms than he was of pangs of +indigestion. Whereas his digestive powers were superb.... +</p> + +<p> +This way of killing an empty afternoon, too, was much to his taste. The man +adored auctions. To his mind a most delectable flavour of discreet scandal +inhered in such collections of shabby properties from anonymous homes. Nothing +so piqued his imagination as some well-worn piece of furniture—say an ancient +escritoire with ink stains on its green baize writing-bed (dried life-blood of +love letters long since dead!) and all its pigeon-holes and little drawers +empty of everything but dust and the seductive smell of secrets; or a +dressing-table whose bewildered mirror, to-day reflecting surroundings cold and +strange, had once been quick and warm to the beauty of eyes brilliant with +delight or blurred with tears; or perchance a bed.... +</p> + +<p> +And even aside from such stimuli to a lively and ingenious fancy, there was +always the chance that one might pick up some priceless treasure at an auction +sale, some rare work of art dim with desuetude and the disrespect of ignorance: +jewellery of quaintest old-time artistry; a misprized bit of bronze; a book, it +might be an overlooked copy of a first edition inscribed by some immortal +author to a forgotten love; or even—if one were in rare luck—a picture, its +pristine brilliance faded, the signature of the artist illegible beneath the +grime of years, evidence of its origin perceptible only to the discerning +eye—to such an eye, for instance, as Michael Lanyard boasted. For paintings +were his passion. +</p> + +<p> +Already, indeed, at this early age, he was by way of being something of a +celebrity, in England and on the Continent, as a collector of the nicest +discrimination. +</p> + +<p> +And then he found unfailing human interest in the attendance attracted by +auction sales; in the dealers, gentlemen generally of pronounced +idiosyncrasies; in the auctioneers themselves, robust fellows, wielding a sort +of rugged wit singular to their calling, masters of deep guile, endowed with +intuitions which enabled them at a glance or from the mere intonation of a +voice to discriminate between the serious-minded and those frivolous souls who +bid without meaning to buy, but as a rule for nothing more than the curious +satisfaction of being able to brag that they had been outbid. +</p> + +<p> +But it was in the ranks of the general public that one found most amusement; +seldom did a sale pass off undistinguished by at least one incident uniquely +revealing or provocative. And for such moments Lanyard was always on the qui +vive, but quietly, who knew that nothing so quickly stifles spontaneity as +self-consciousness. So, if he studied his company closely, he was studious to +do it covertly; as now, when he seemed altogether engrossed in the catalogue, +whereas his gaze was freely roving. +</p> + +<p> +Thus far to-day a mere handful of people other than dealers had drifted in to +wait for the sale to begin—something for which the weather was largely to +blame, for the day was dismal with a clammy drizzle settling from a low and +leaden sky—and with a solitary exception these few were commonplace folk. +</p> + +<p> +This one Lanyard had marked down midway across the room, in the foremost row of +chairs beneath the salesman’s pulpit: by his attire a person of fashion (though +his taste might have been thought a trace florid) who carried himself with an +air difficult of definition but distinctive enough in its way. +</p> + +<p> +Whoever he was and what his quality, he was unmistakably somebody of +consequence in his own reckoning, and sufficiently well-to-do to dress the part +he chose to play in life. Certainly he had a conscientious tailor and a busy +valet, both saturate with British tradition. Yet the man they served was no +Englishman. +</p> + +<p> +Aside from his clothing, everything about him had an exotic tang, though what +precisely his racial antecedents might have been was rather a riddle; a habit +so thoroughly European went oddly with the hints of Asiatic strain which one +thought to detect in his lineaments. Nevertheless, it were difficult otherwise +to account for the faintly indicated slant of those little black eyes, the +blurred modelling of the nose, the high cheekbones, and the thin thatch of +coarse black hair which was plastered down with abundant brilliantine above +that mask of pallid features. +</p> + +<p> +The grayish pallor of the man, indeed, was startling, so that Lanyard for some +time sought an adjective to suit it, and was content only when he hit on the +word <i>evil</i>. Indeed, evil seemed the inevitable and only word; none other +could possibly so well fit that strange personality. +</p> + +<p> +His interest thus fixed, he awaited confidently what could hardly fail to come, +a moment of self-betrayal. +</p> + +<p> +That fell more quickly than he had hoped. Of a sudden the decent quiet of King +Street, thus far accentuated rather than disturbed by the routine grind of +hansoms and four-wheelers, was enlivened by spirited hoofs whose clatter +stilled abruptly in front of the auction room. +</p> + +<p> +Turning a speciously languid eye toward the weeping window, Lanyard had a +partial view of a handsomely appointed private equipage, a pair of spanking +bays, a liveried coachman on the box. +</p> + +<p> +The carriage door slammed with a hollow clap; a footman furled an umbrella and +climbed to his place beside the driver. As the vehicle drew away, one caught a +glimpse of a crest upon the panel. +</p> + +<p> +Two women entered the auction room. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b1ch2"></a>II<br/> +THE PRINCESS SOFIA</h2> + +<p> +These ladies were young, neither much older than Lanyard, both were very much +alive, openly betraying an infatuation with existence very like his own, and +both were lovely enough to excuse the exquisite insolence of their young +vitality. +</p> + +<p> +As is frequently the case in such associations, since a pretty woman seldom +courts comparison with another of her own colouring, one was dark, the other +fair. +</p> + +<p> +With the first, Lanyard was, like all London, on terms of visual acquaintance. +The reigning beauty of the hour, her portrait was enjoying a vogue of its own +in the public prints. Furthermore, Lady Diantha Mainwaring was moderately the +talk of the town, in those prim, remotely ante-bellum days—thanks to high +spirits and a whimsical tendency to flout the late Victorian proprieties; +something which, however, had yet to lead her into any prank perilous to her +good repute. +</p> + +<p> +The other, a girl whose hair of golden bronze was well set off by Russian +sables, Lanyard did not know at all; but he knew at sight that she was far too +charming a creature to be neglected if ever opportunity offered to be presented +to her. And though the first article of his creed proscribed women of such +disastrous attractions as deadly dangerous to his kind, he chose without +hesitation to forget all that, and at once began to cudgel his wits for a way +to scrape acquaintance with the companion of Lady Diantha. +</p> + +<p> +Their arrival created an interesting bustle, a buzz of comment, a craning of +necks—flattery accepted by the young women with ostensible unconcern, a cliché +of their caste. As they had entered in a humour keyed to the highest pitch of +gaiety consistent with good breeding, so with more half-stifled laughter they +settled into chairs well apart from all others but, as it happened, in a direct +line between Lanyard and the man whose repellent cast of countenance had first +taken his interest. +</p> + +<p> +Thus it was that Lanyard, after eyeing the young women unobserved as long as he +liked, lifted his glance to discover upon that face a look that amazed him. +</p> + +<p> +It wasn’t too much to say (he thought) that the man was transfigured by +malevolence, so that he blazed with it, so that hatred fairly flowed, an +invisible yet manifest current of poisoned fire, between him and the girl with +the hair of burnished bronze. +</p> + +<p> +All the evil in him seemed to be concentrated in that glare. And yet its object +remained unconscious of it or, if at all sensitive, dissembled superbly. The +man was apparently no more present to her perceptions than any other person +there, except her companion. +</p> + +<p> +Presently, becoming sensible of Lanyard’s intrigued regard, the man looked up, +caught him in a stare and, mortally affronted, rewarded him with a look of +virulent enmity. +</p> + +<p> +Not to be outdone, Lanyard gave a fleeting smile, a bare curving of lips +together with an almost imperceptible narrowing of amused eyes—goading the +other to the last stage of exasperation—then calmly ignored the fellow, +returning indifferent attention to the progress of the sale. +</p> + +<p> +Since nothing was being offered at the moment to draw a bid from him, he +maintained a semblance of interest solely to cover his thoughts, meanwhile +lending a civil ear to the garrulous tongue of a dealer of his acquaintance +who, having edged nearer to indulge a failing for gossip, found a ready +auditor. For when Lanyard began to heed the sense of the other’s words, their +subject was the companion of Lady Diantha Mainwaring. +</p> + +<p> +“... Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, you know, the Russian beauty.” +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard lifted his eyebrows the fraction of an inch, meaning to say he didn’t +know but at the same time didn’t object to enlightenment. +</p> + +<p> +“But you must have heard of her! For weeks all London has been talking about +her jewels, her escapades, her unhappy marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Married?” Lanyard made a sympathetic mouth. “And so young! Quel dommage!” +</p> + +<p> +“But separated from her husband.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” Lanyard brightened up. “And who, may one ask, is the husband?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, he’s here, too—over there in the front row—chap with the waxed moustache +and putty-coloured face, staring at her now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that animal! And what right has he got to look like that?” +</p> + +<p> +The buzz of the scandalmonger grew more confidential: “They say he’s never +forgiven her for leaving him—though the Lord knows she had every reason, if +half they tell is true. They say he’s mad about her still, gives her no rest, +follows her everywhere, is all the time begging her to return to him—” +</p> + +<p> +“But who the deuce is the beast?” Lanyard interrupted, impatiently. “You know, +I don’t like his face.” +</p> + +<p> +“Prince Victor,” the whisper pursued with relish—“by-blow, they say, of a +Russian grand duke and a Manchu princess—half Russian, half Chinese, all +devil!” +</p> + +<p> +Without looking, Lanyard felt that Prince Victor’s stare had again shifted from +the women, and that the mongrel son of the alleged grand duke was aware he had +become a subject of comment. So the eminent collector of works of art elected +to dismiss the subject with a negligent lift of one shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, well! Daresay he can’t help his ugly make-up. All the same, he’s spoiling +my afternoon. Be a good fellow, do, and put him out.” +</p> + +<p> +The Briton chuckled a deprecating chuckle; meaning to say, he hoped Lanyard was +spoofing; but since one couldn’t be sure, one’s only wise course was to play +safe. +</p> + +<p> +“Really, Monsieur Lanyard! I’m afraid one couldn’t quite do <i>that</i>, you +know!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b1ch3"></a>III<br/> +MONSIEUR QUIXOTE</h2> + +<p> +The sale dragged monotonously. The paintings offered were mostly of mediocre +value. The gathering was apathetic. +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard bid in two or three sketches, more out of idleness than because he +wanted them, and succeeded admirably in seeming ignorant of the existence of +the Princess Sofia and the husband whose surface of a blackguard was so +harmonious with his reputation. +</p> + +<p> +In time, however, a change was presaged by an abrupt muting of that murmured +conversation between the beautiful Russian and the almost equally beautiful +Englishwoman. An inquisitive look discovered the princess sitting slightly +forward and intently watching the auctioneer. +</p> + +<p> +The pose of an animated, delightful child, hanging breathlessly upon the +progress of some fascinating game: one’s gaze lingered approvingly upon a +bewitching profile with half-parted lips, saw that excitement was faintly +colouring the cheeks beneath shadowy and enigmatic eyes, remarked the sweet +spirit that poised that lovely head. +</p> + +<p> +And then one looked farther, and saw the prince, like the princess, absorbed in +the business at the auction block, his slack elegance of the raffish aristocrat +forgotten, all his being tense with purpose, strung taut—as taut at least as +that soft body, only half-masculine in mould and enervated by loose living, +could ever be. One thought of a rather elderly and unfit snake, stirred by the +sting of some long-buried passion out of the lassitude of years of slothful +self-indulgence, poising to strike.... +</p> + +<p> +At the elbow of the auctioneer an attendant was placing on exhibition a +landscape that was either an excellent example of the work of Corot or an +imitation no less excellent. At that distance Lanyard felt inclined to dub it +genuine, though he knew well that Europe was sown thick with spurious Corots, +and would never have risked his judgment without closer inspection. +</p> + +<p> +He was accordingly perplexed when, after a brief exhortation by the auctioneer, +discreetly noncommittal as to the antecedents of the canvas—“attributed to +Corot”—Prince Victor, who had been straining forward like a hound in leash, +half rose in his eagerness to offer: +</p> + +<p> +“One thousand guineas!” +</p> + +<p> +The entire company stirred as one and sat up sharply. Even the auctioneer was +momentarily stricken dumb. And for the first time the Princess Sofia +acknowledged the presence of her husband, and got from him that look of white +hatred with a sneer of triumph thrown in for good measure. +</p> + +<p> +Though she affected indifference, Lanyard saw her slender body transiently +shaken by a shudder, it might have been of dread. But she was quick to pull +herself together, and the auctioneer had scarcely found his tongue—“One +thousand guineas for this magnificent canvas attributed to Corot”—when her +clear and youthful voice cut in: +</p> + +<p> +“Two thousand guineas!” +</p> + +<p> +This the prince capped with a monosyllable: +</p> + +<p> +“Three!” +</p> + +<p> +Stupefaction settled upon the audience. The auctioneer hesitated, blinked +astonished eyes, framed unspoken phrases with halting lips. Prince Victor, +again gave his wife the full value of his vindictive snarl. She would not see, +but it was plain that she was cruelly dismayed, that it cost her an effort to +rise to the topping bid: +</p> + +<p> +“Thirty-five hundred guineas!” +</p> + +<p> +“Four thousand!” +</p> + +<p> +“Four thousand I am offered ...” +</p> + +<p> +The auctioneer faltered, a spasm of honesty shook him, he proceeded: +</p> + +<p> +“It is only fair, ladies and gentlemen, that I should state that this canvas is +not put up as an authentic Corot. It very possibly is such, in fact”—the +seizure was passing swiftly—“it bears every evidence of having come from the +brush of the master. But we cannot guarantee it. There is, however, a gentleman +present who is amply qualified to pass upon the merits of this work. With his +permission”—his eye sought Lanyard’s—“I venture to request the opinion of +Monsieur Michael Lanyard, the noted connoisseur!” +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard detached a deprecating smile from the pages of his catalogue, but his +contemplated response was cut short by Prince Victor. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not aware,” that one said, icily, “that the authenticity of this painting +is a material question. Nor have I any need of the opinion of this gentleman, +whatever his qualifications. I have bid four thousand guineas, and insist that +the sale proceed. If there are no further bids, the canvas is mine.” +</p> + +<p> +The auctioneer shrugged, and offered Lanyard an apologetic bow. “I am sorry—” +he began. +</p> + +<p> +“Four thousand guineas!” snapped the prince. +</p> + +<p> +Resigned, the auctioneer resumed: +</p> + +<p> +“Four thousand guineas offered. Are there any more bids? Going—” +</p> + +<p> +“Forty-five hundred!” +</p> + +<p> +Beyond reasonable doubt the princess had spurred herself mercilessly to find +sufficient courage to make this latest bid. Lanyard saw her in a rigour of +despair, hoping against hope. Only too surely something in the picture, some +association—heaven knew what!—was more precious to her, almost, than life, +though she had gone already to the limit of her means and perhaps a bit beyond. +If this bid failed, she was lost. Her anxiety was pitiful. +</p> + +<p> +“Five thousand!” +</p> + +<p> +In the princess something snapped: she recoiled upon herself, sat crushed, head +drooping, white-gloved hands working in her lap. One detected an appealing +quiver on her lips, and noted, or imagined, a suspicious brightness beneath the +long dark lashes that swiftly screened her eyes. Her young bosom moved +convulsively. She was beaten, near to tears. +</p> + +<p> +“Five thousand guineas ... going ... going ...” +</p> + +<p> +The face of the prince was a mocking devil-mask in gray and black. Lanyard +found himself loathing it. Impossible to stand idle and see the creature get +the better of an unhappy girl ... +</p> + +<p> +“Five thousand one hundred guineas!” +</p> + +<p> +With his wits in a blur of amaze, Lanyard knew the echo of his own voice. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b1ch4"></a>IV<br/> +THE FOOL AND HIS MONEY</h2> + +<p> +One reflected rather bitterly on the many and obvious oversights of a +putatively all-wise Providence, in especial on its failure so to fashion the +body of man as to enable him on occasion to discipline his own flesh in the +most ignominious manner imaginable. +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard could have kicked himself; that is to say, he wanted to, and thought it +rather a pity he couldn’t, and publicly, at that. For the freak he had just +indulged was rank quixotism, something which had as much place in the code of a +man of his calling as milk of human kindness in the management of a pawnshop. +</p> + +<p> +On second thought, he wasn’t so sure. It might have been that quixotism had +inspired his infatuate gesture, but it might quite as conceivably have been +everyday vanity or plain cussedness: a noble impulse to serve a pretty lady in +distress, a spontaneous device to engage her interest, or a low desire to +plague a personality as antipathetic to his own as that of a rattlesnake. +</p> + +<p> +In point of simple fact (he decided), his impelling motive had been a mixture +of all three. +</p> + +<p> +In all three respects, furthermore, it proved notably successful; in the two +last named without delay. +</p> + +<p> +The Princess Sofia at once took note of Lanyard, with wonder, some misgivings, +and a hint of admiration. For he was not only a personable person in those +days, with a suggestion of devil-may-care in his air that measurably lifted the +curse of his superficial foppishness, but he was putting a spoke in Prince +Victor’s wheel. And whosoever did that, by chance, out of sheer voluptuousness, +or with malice prepense, won immediate title to Sofia’s favourable regard. If +she couldn’t thwart Victor herself, she would be much obliged to anybody who +could and did; and she was nothing loath to betray her bias by looking kindly +upon her self-appointed champion. +</p> + +<p> +A whispered communication from Lady Diantha did nothing to abate her overt +approbation. +</p> + +<p> +As for Victor, his face of leaden gray took on a tinge of green; he quaked with +rage, and the glare he loosed on Lanyard made that young man wonder if he were +mistaken in believing that the eyes of the prince shone in that dusky room with +something nearly akin to the phosphorescence to be seen in the eyes of an +animal at night. +</p> + +<p> +The notion was amusing: Lanyard paid it the tribute of a quiet smile, in direct +acknowledgment of which Prince Victor snarled: +</p> + +<p> +“Six thousand guineas!” +</p> + +<p> +“And a hundred,” Lanyard added. +</p> + +<p> +Brief pause prefaced a bid designed to squelch him completely: +</p> + +<p> +“Ten thousand!” +</p> + +<p> +In a fatigued voice he uttered: “One hundred more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fifteen—!” +</p> + +<p> +This time Lanyard contented himself with nodding to the auctioneer; and the +lips of the latter had barely parted to parrot the bid when Victor sprang to +his feet, his features working, his limbs shaking so that the legs of the chair +beside him, whose back he seized, chattered on the floor, while the +high-pitched voice broke into a screech: +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty!” +</p> + +<p> +And Lanyard said: “And one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty thousand one hundred guineas!” chanted the auctioneer. “Are there any +more bids? You, sir—?” He aimed a respectful bow at Prince Victor, who snubbed +him with a sign of fury. “Going—going—gone! Sold to Monsieur Lanyard for twenty +thousand and one hundred guineas!” +</p> + +<p> +And Lanyard had the satisfaction of seeing Prince Victor, after a vain effort +to master his emotion, snatch up his topper, clap it on his head, and make for +the door with footsteps whose stuttering haste was in poor accord with the +dignity of his exalted station. +</p> + +<p> +But it was debatable whether this satisfaction plus the possession of a +questionable Corot was worth its cost. And Lanyard wasn’t in the humour, now +that the heat of contest began to abate, to look to Princess Sofia for promise +of further reward. Even if he could have been guilty of such impertinence, +indeed, he must have forborne for very shame. After all (he told himself) he +hadn’t figured very creditably, permitting petty prejudice to sway him as it +had. He felt singularly sure he had played the gratuitous ass in this affair, +and he didn’t in the least desire to see the reflection of a like conviction in +the eyes of a pretty young woman with a flair for the ridiculous. +</p> + +<p> +He dissembled his diminished self-esteem, however, most successfully, as he +proceeded to the desk of the auctioneer’s clerk, filled in a cheque for the +amount of his purchase, and gave instructions for its delivery. +</p> + +<p> +Whether by intention or inadvertence, he was followed from the auction room by +the Princess Sofia and Lady Diantha Mainwaring; and just outside the entrance +he found Prince Victor waiting with all the air of a gentleman impatient for a +cab to happen along and pick him up out of the drizzle. +</p> + +<p> +But in view of the fact that he made no overtures to a passing hansom, which +swerved in to the curb in response to a signal of Lanyard’s cane, this last +concluded that the prince was up to his reputedly favourite game of waylaying +his rebel wife. +</p> + +<p> +If such were the case, Lanyard had no wish to witness a public wrangle between +the two. So he stepped briskly up on the carriage-block, and only hesitated +when he saw that the prince, utterly ignoring the presence of the princess and +Lady Diantha, was edging forward and cocking an alert ear to catch the address +which Lanyard was on the point of giving the cabby. +</p> + +<p> +Hugely diverted, the adventurer looked round with a quirk of his brows, and +amiably commented: +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur’s interest is so flattering! If he really must know, I’m going home +now, to my rooms in Halfmoon Street. Au revoir, monsieur le prince!” +</p> + +<p> +He beamed benignly upon that convulsed countenance, and saw crestfallen Prince +Victor slink away, to the music of smothered laughter from the ladies in the +doorway—toward which Lanyard was careful not to look. +</p> + +<p> +Then, in high feather with himself, he chirped to the driver and hopped into +the hansom. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b1ch5"></a>V<br/> +IMPOSTOR</h2> + +<p> +As Lanyard’s cab swung away, the carriage wheeled in to take up the Princess +Sofia and Lady Diantha Mainwaring. Observing this, Lanyard poked his stick +through the little trap in the roof of the hansom and suggested that the driver +pull up, climb down, adjust some imaginary fault with the harness and, when the +carriage had passed, follow it with discretion. +</p> + +<p> +Enchanted by sight of a half-sovereign in the palm of his fare, the cabby +executed this manoeuvre to admiration; with the upshot that Lanyard got home +half an hour later than he would have had he proceeded to his rooms direct, but +with information of value to recompense him. +</p> + +<p> +It wasn’t his habit to lose time in those days of his youth. And lest his +character be misconstrued (which would be deplorable) it may as well be stated +now that he had not laid down upward of twenty thousand good golden guineas for +a colourable Corot without having a tolerably clear notion of how he meant to +reimburse himself if it should turn out that he had paid too dear for his +whistle. +</p> + +<p> +The hint imparted by his garrulous acquaintance of the auction room—to the +effect that the Princess Sofia was famous, among other things, for the +magnificence of her personal jewellery—had found a good home where it wasn’t in +danger of suffering for want of doting interest. +</p> + +<p> +And now one knew where their owner lived, and in what state ... +</p> + +<p> +Alighting at his own door, the adventurer surprised Prince Victor, morosely +ambling by, in his vast fatuity no doubt imagining that his passage through +Halfmoon Street would go unremarked in the dusk of that early winter evening. +He wasn’t at all pleased to find himself mistaken; and though Lanyard did his +best with his blandest smile to make amends for having discomfited the prince +by getting home later than he had promised to, his good-natured effort was +repaid only by a spiteful scowl. +</p> + +<p> +So he laughed aloud, and went indoors rejoicing. +</p> + +<p> +An hour or so later the painting was delivered by a porter from the auction +room. But Lanyard was in his bath at the time and postponed examining his +doubtful prize till he had dressed for dinner. For, though it was his whim to +dine in his rooms alone, and though he had no fixed plans for the evening, +Lanyard was too thoroughly cosmopolitan not to do in Cockaigne as the Cockneys +do. +</p> + +<p> +Besides, in this uncertain life one never knows what the next hour will bring +forth; whereas if one is in evening dress after six o’clock, one is armoured +against every emergency. +</p> + +<p> +At seven he sat down to the morbid sort of a meal one gets in London lodgings: +a calm soup; a segment of vague fish smothered painlessly in a pale pink +blanket of sauce; a cut from the joint, rare and lukewarm; potatoes boiled +dead; sad sea-kale; nonconformist pudding; conservative biscuit, and radical +cheese. +</p> + +<p> +With the aid and abetment of a bottle of excellent Montrachet, however, one +contrived to worry through. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, Lanyard inspected his recent purchase, which occupied a place of +honour, propped up on the arms of the chair on his right. +</p> + +<p> +It was seldom that Lanyard entertained a guest of such equivocal character. +Wagging a reproving head—“My friend,” he harangued the canvas, “you are lucky +to have been sold. Sorry I can’t say as much for myself.” +</p> + +<p> +It was really too bad it wasn’t a bit better. It wasn’t often that one +encountered so genuine a counterfeit. The hand of an artist had painted it, but +never the hand of Corot. Everything Corot was accustomed to put into his +painting was there, except himself. The abode had been prepared in all respects +as the master would have had it, but his spirit had not entered into it, it +remained without life. +</p> + +<p> +Still, Lanyard concluded, surveying his prize through the illusioning fumes of +his cigar, while the waiter cleared away, it wasn’t so bad after all, it +wouldn’t be in the end a total loss. He could afford to cart the thing back to +Paris with him and give it room in his private gallery; and some day, +doubtless, some rich American would pay a handsome price for it on the strength +of its having found place in the collection of Michael Lanyard, even though it +lacked the cachet of his guarantee. +</p> + +<p> +But what the devil had made it so precious to the soi-disant Prince Victor and +his charming wife? +</p> + +<p> +But for a single circumstance Lanyard would have been tempted to believe he had +been craftily rooked by an accomplished chevalier d’industrie and his female +confederate; but too much and too real passion had been betrayed in the auction +room to countenance that suspicion. +</p> + +<p> +No: he hadn’t been rigged; at least, not by design. Something more than its +intrinsic value had rendered the canvas priceless in the esteem of those two, +something had been at stake more than mere possession of what they might have +believed to be a real Corot. +</p> + +<p> +But what? +</p> + +<p> +Perplexed, Lanyard took the picture in his hands—it was not too unwieldy, even +in its frame—and examined it with nose so close to the painted surface that he +seemed to be smelling it. Then he turned it over and scowled at its reverse. +And shook a baffled head. +</p> + +<p> +But when he tapped the face of the picture smartly with a finger-nail, he gave +a slight start, passed a hand over it with the palm pressed flat, and suddenly +assumed the humanly intelligent expression of a hunting-dog that has hit on a +warm scent. +</p> + +<p> +Strong fingers and a fruit knife quickly extracted the painting from its frame +and loosened the canvas from its stretcher, proving that the latter held in +fact two canvases instead of one. Between these had been secreted several +sheets of notepaper of two kinds, stamped with two crests, all black with +closely penned handwriting. +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard gathered them into a sheaf and scanned them cursorily, even with +distaste. True enough, it might be argued that he had bought and paid for the +right to pry into the secrets they betrayed; but it was not a right he enjoyed +exercising. A fairly thoroughgoing state of sophistication, together with some +innate instincts of delicacy, worked to render him to a degree immune to such +gratification as others might derive from being made privy to an exotic affair +of the heart. Revelation of human weakness was no special treat to him. And if +his eyebrows mounted as he read, if the corners of his mouth drew down, if once +and again he uttered an “<i>Oh! oh!</i>” of shocked expostulation, he was (like +most of us, incurably an actor in private as well as in public life) merely +running through business which convention has designated as appropriate to such +circumstances. At bottom he was being stimulated to thought more than to +derision. +</p> + +<p> +Putting the letters aside, he bowed his head upon a hand and reflected sagely +that love was the very deuce. +</p> + +<p> +He wondered if he could or ever would love or be loved so madly. +</p> + +<p> +He rather hoped not ... +</p> + +<p> +Here, if you please, was the scion of a reigning royal family risking as pretty +a scandal as one could well imagine—and all for love! Given a few more days of +life, and he would have jeopardized his right of succession and set +half-a-dozen European chancelleries by the ears—and all for love! But for his +untimely end, that poor, pretty creature would have joined her life to his, +consummating at one stroke her freedom from the intolerable conditions of +existence with Victor and a diplomatic convulsion which might only too easily +have precipitated all Europe into a great war—and all for lawless love! +</p> + +<p> +So once more in history Death had served well the interests of public morality. +</p> + +<p> +After a year these letters alone survived ... +</p> + +<p> +How they had survived, what hands had collected and secreted them, and for what +purpose, intrigued the imagination no end. Lanyard inclined to credit Princess +Sofia with the indiscretion of saving these souvenirs of a grande passion that +had almost made history. There was the sentimental motive to account for such +action, and another: the satisfaction of knowing she had concrete proof of her +intention to treat Victor as he had treated her. +</p> + +<p> +Then somehow the painting must have passed out of her possession; and in all +likelihood she had made frantic and awkward efforts to regain it which had +aroused the suspicions of Victor; with the sequel of that afternoon.... +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard’s speculations were interrupted by the peremptory telephone. Without +premonition he picked up the combination receiver and transmitter. But his +memory was still so haunted by echoes of that delightful voice which he had +heard in the auction room, he couldn’t entertain any doubt that he heard it +now. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you there?” it said “Will you be good enough to put me through to Monsieur +Lanyard?” +</p> + +<p> +The inspiration to mischief was instantaneous: Lanyard replied promptly in +accents as much unlike his own as he could manage: +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry, ma’am; Mister Lanyard dined hout to-night. Would there be any message, +ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how annoying!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know when he will be home?” +</p> + +<p> +“If this is the lidy ’e was expectin’ to call this evenin’—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” the dulcet voice said, encouragingly. +</p> + +<p> +“—Mister Lanyard sed as ’ow ’e might be quite lite, but ’e’d ’urry all ’e +could, ma’am, and would the lidy please wite.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you <i>so</i> much.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Nk-you, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +Smiling, Lanyard replaced the receiver and rang for the waiter. +</p> + +<p> +When that one answered, the adventurer was hatted and coated and opening his +door. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m called out,” he said—“can’t quite say when I’ll be back. But I’m expecting +a lady to call. Will you tell the doorman to show her into my rooms, please, +and ask her to wait.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b1ch6"></a>VI<br/> +THÉRÈSE</h2> + +<p> +Posed in a blaze of lights, the Princess Sofia contemplated captiously the +charming image reflected in her cheval-glass. One little wrinkle, not precisely +of dissatisfaction, rather of enquiry, nestled between her delicately arched +brows. A look of misgiving clouded her wide eyes of a wondering child. The bow +of an exquisitely modelled mouth, whose single fault lay in its being perhaps a +trace too wide, described a shadowy pout. +</p> + +<p> +She was beautiful: yes. Nobody could question that. La beauté du diable, no +doubt, to Anglo-Saxon eyes, with that skin of incomparable texture and +whiteness relieved by a heavily coiled crown of living bronze, the crimson +insolence of that matchless mouth, those luminous and changeable eyes so like +the sea, whose green melted into blue with the swiftness of thought, whose blue +at times as swiftly shaded into stormy purple-black: but however bizarre and +barbaric, beauty none the less, and under the most meticulous examination +indisputable. +</p> + +<p> +But was she as radiant as she had been? +</p> + +<p> +On this her birthday she was twenty-five. Appalling age! Five years hence she +would be thirty, in ten more—forty! And woman’s beauty fades so swiftly: +everybody said so. Was the shadow of to-morrow already dimming her loveliness? +How could it be otherwise? She had lived so long and so fully, she had begun to +live so young. Six years of marriage to Victor—that alone should have been +enough, one would think, to metamorphose the fairest face into a blasted +battlefield of passions. +</p> + +<p> +She had a little shiver of voluptuous horror, remembering what she had endured +and escaped. The sweet, true lines of her flawlessly made body were transiently +undulant within a sheath of shimmering sequins: a daring gown, by British +standards of that day, but permissible because she was Russian; foreigners, you +know, are so frightfully weird even when they’re quite all right. +</p> + +<p> +And yet she was growing old, she was twenty-five! Though she didn’t feel in the +least like one on the threshold of middle age. Indeed, she had never felt +younger, more thrillingly instinct with the power and the will to live +extravagantly in one endless riot of youth unquenchable.... +</p> + +<p> +Reaction, of course: the swing of the pendulum to its farthest extreme. It was +now two years since she had been forced to separate from Victor, finding +herself unable longer to countenance and suffer his many-sided beastliness; and +a year since the hand of Death had penned an inexorable finis to the too-brief +chapter of her one great romance. +</p> + +<p> +For there had never been love in her life with Victor. She had been too young +at first to appreciate what love and marriage meant, she had been led to the +altar and sacrificed upon it as an animal is led in sacrificial rites—without +premonition or understanding, only wondering (perhaps) to find itself so +groomed and garlanded, so flattered and adored. She had hardly known Victor +before she was given to him in marriage by Imperial ukase ... to get rid of +her, probably, for some inscrutable reason related to the mysterious +circumstances of her parentage. +</p> + +<p> +And now after six years of hell with her husband and one of mourning in +solitude for her love that was lost, she was coming back to life again ... at +last! +</p> + +<p> +She lifted up arms that might have been a dream of Phidias chiselled in Parian +marble, and stretched them luxuriously. She was superbly alive, indeed—and +henceforth she meant to live. Only she must be careful to retain her looks ... +If Youth must surely go, Beauty must linger and reign long in its stead. +</p> + +<p> +A maid, a comely creature, trim and smart in black and white, with that vividly +coloured prettiness which is too often the omen of premature decline into the +fat and florid thirties, fetched a wrap and settled it upon Sofia’s shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +Long and dark, it disguised her figure as completely as it covered her +toilette. She nodded her satisfaction, and accepted the veil which she had +desired to complete her disguise, a thing of Spanish lace, black and ample, +like a mantilla. But before donning it she delayed one minute more before the +mirror. +</p> + +<p> +“Thérèse! Am I still beautiful?” +</p> + +<p> +“Madame la princesse is always beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +“As beautiful as I used to be?” +</p> + +<p> +“But madame la princesse grows more lovely every day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Beautiful enough to-night, to keep out of jail, do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +To the mirth in the voice of her mistress the maid responded with a smile +demure and discreet. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, madame!” was all she said; but the manner of her saying it was rarely +eloquent. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia laughed lightly, and affectionately pinched the cheek of the maid. +</p> + +<p> +“And you, my little one,” she said in liquid French—“you yourself are too +ravishingly pretty to keep out of trouble. Do you know that?” +</p> + +<p> +Her little one looked more than ever demure as she enquired after the hidden +meaning of madame la princesse. +</p> + +<p> +“Because you will marry too soon, Thérèse—too soon some worthless man will +persuade you to dedicate all those charms to him alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, madame!” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it not so?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who knows, madame?” said Thérèse, as who should say: “What must be, must.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then there is a man! I suspected as much.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, madame la princesse, is there not always a man?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then beware!” +</p> + +<p> +“Madame la princesse need not fear for me,” Thérèse replied. “Me, my head is +not so easily turned. There is always some man, naturally—there are so many +men!—but when I marry, rest assured, it will be for something more.” +</p> + +<p> +With the compressed lips of self-approbation she deftly assisted her mistress +to swathe her head in the mantilla-like veil. +</p> + +<p> +“Something more than a man?” Sofia enquired through its folds. “What then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Independence, madame la princesse.” +</p> + +<p> +“What an idea! Marriage and independence: how do you reconcile that paradox?” +</p> + +<p> +“Madame la princesse means love, I think, when she speaks of marriage. But +love—that is all over and done with when one marries. One is then ready to +settle down; one has put by one’s dot, and marries a worthy, industrious man +with a little fortune of his own. With such a husband one collaborates in the +maintenance of the ménage and the management of a small business, something +substantial if small. And so one ends one’s days in comfortable companionship. +That, madame la princesse, is the marriage for Thérèse! It may not sound +romantic, madame, but it has this rare virtue—it lasts!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b1ch7"></a>VII<br/> +FAMILY REUNION</h2> + +<p> +The London night was normal: that is to say, wet. Darkness had transformed the +streets into vast sheets of black satin shot with golden strands and studded +with lamp-posts like sturdy stems for ethereal blooms of golden haze. Within +their areas of glow the air teemed with atoms of liquid gold. The ring of hoofs +on wet pavements was at once disturbing and inspiriting. +</p> + +<p> +Alone in her hired hansom the Princess Sofia sat with the window raised, +drinking deep of the soft damp air, finding it as heady as strange wine. Under +cover of the veil her eyes were brilliant with awareness of her audacity, her +lips were parted with the promise of a smile. +</p> + +<p> +She loved it all, she adored this mood of London: its nights of rain were sheer +enchantment, arabesque, nights of secrecy and stealth, mystery, and romance +under the rose. On nights such as this lovers prospered, adventures were to the +venturesome, brave rewards to the bold. +</p> + +<p> +For herself she was unafraid, she foretasted entire success. How should it be +otherwise? Consider how famously chance had prospered her designs, playing into +her hands the information that this Monsieur Lanyard was not at home, might not +return till very late, and was expecting a call from somebody whom he desired +to await his return in his rooms! +</p> + +<p> +With such an open occasion, how could one fail? +</p> + +<p> +Sofia asked only three minutes alone with the painting.... +</p> + +<p> +And if by any mishap she were caught, still she would not be dismayed. The +letters were hers, were they not? They had been stolen from her, he had no +right title to them who had purchased only the picture which had served as +their hiding-place. By all means, let him keep that stupid canvas; he could +hardly refuse to let her have her letters, not if she pleaded her prettiest. +And even if he should prove obtuse, ungenerous.... +</p> + +<p> +Her smile was definite and confident. She was beautiful—and Monsieur Lanyard +was aware of that. Had she not, that afternoon, in the auction room, without +his knowledge detected admiration in his eyes, a look warm with something more +than admiration only? +</p> + +<p> +He was impressionable, then. And it would be no distasteful task to play upon +his susceptibilities. He was not only personally attractive (“magnetic” was the +catch-word of the period), but if half that Lady Diantha had hinted concerning +him were true, to make a conquest of Michael Lanyard would be a feather in the +cap of any woman, to attempt it a temptation all but irresistible to one—like +Sofia—in whose veins ran the ichor of progenitors to whom the scent of danger +had been as breath of life itself. It was hardly conceivable; even now Sofia +must smile at her friend’s amiable endeavours to identify this mysterious +monsieur with a celebrated and preposterous criminal. +</p> + +<p> +It might be true that, as Lady Diantha had declared, wherever Michael Lanyard +showed himself in open pursuit of his avowed avocation as a collector of rare +works of art—in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, or where-not—there in due +sequence the Lone Wolf would consummate one of his fantastic coups. +</p> + +<p> +And it was indisputable that Lanyard was at present living in London, where for +some time past the Lone Wolf had been perniciously busy; or else his bad name +had been taken in vain by a baffled and exasperated Scotland Yard. +</p> + +<p> +Again: Diantha had insisted that the Lone Wolf was by every evidence completely +woman-proof; and there might be something in her contention that such an +elusive yet spectacularly successful thief could hardly have won the high place +he held in the annals of criminology and in the esteem of the sensation-loving +public, if he were one who maintained normal relations with his kind. +</p> + +<p> +Sooner or later (so ran Diantha’s borrowed reasoning) the criminal who has +close friends, a wife, a mistress, children, family ties of any sort, or even +body-servants, must willy-nilly repose confidence in one of these, and then +inevitably will be betrayed. Depend upon envy, jealousy, spite, or plain venal +disloyalty, if accident or inadvertence fail, to lay the law-breaker by the +heels. +</p> + +<p> +Therefore (Diantha argued) the Lone Wolf must be a confirmed solitary and +misogynist—very much like this Monsieur Lanyard, according to reports which +declared the latter to be a man who kept to himself, had many acquaintances and +not one intimate, and was positively insulated against wiles of woman. +</p> + +<p> +But—granting all this—it was none the less true that the utmost diligence, +spurred by the pique, ill-will, and ambition of the police of all Europe, had +failed as yet to forge any link between the supercriminal of the age and the +distinguished connoisseur of art. Other than Lady Diantha and the gossips whose +arguments she was retailing, never a soul (so far as Sofia knew) had ventured +to breathe a breath of suspicion upon the good repute of Monsieur Lanyard. +</p> + +<p> +In short, Diantha’s conjectures had been entirely second-hand, and not even +meant to be taken seriously. +</p> + +<p> +And yet the suggestion had fastened firm hold upon the imagination of the +Princess Sofia. +</p> + +<p> +If it were true ... what an adventure! +</p> + +<p> +There was unaccustomed light of daring in the eyes of the princess, unwonted +colour tinted her cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +The hansom stopped, discharged the fairest fare it had ever carried, and +rattled off, leaving Sofia just a trifle daunted and dubious, the animation of +her anticipations something dashed by the uncompromising respectability, the +self-conscious worthiness of Halfmoon Street. +</p> + +<p> +Enfolded in the very heart of Mayfair, its brief length bounded on the north by +Curzon Street (its name alone sufficient voucher for its character), on the +south by Piccadilly (hereabouts somewhat oppressive with its hedge of stately +clubs, membership in any one of which is equivalent to two years’ unchallenged +credit) Halfmoon Street is largely given over to furnished lodgings. But it +doesn’t advertise the fact, its landlords are apt to be retired butlers to the +nobility and gentry, its lodgers English gentlemen who have brought home livers +from India, or assorted disabilities from all known quarters of the globe, and +who desire nothing better than to lead steady-paced lives within walking +distance of their favourite clubs. So Halfmoon Street remains quietly +estimable, a desirable address, and knows it, and doggedly means to hold fast +to that repute. +</p> + +<p> +A strange environment (Sofia thought) for an adventurer like the Lone Wolf. +</p> + +<p> +But then—of course!—Diantha’s innuendoes had been based on flimsiest hearsay. +The chances were that Michael Lanyard was an utterly uninteresting person of +blameless life. +</p> + +<p> +So thinking, the Princess Sofia was sensible of a pang of regret, and tried to +be prepared against bitter disappointment as she rang the bell. Either she +would fail to obtain admittance (perhaps the lady whom he was really expecting +had forestalled her) or else Lanyard would fail to come home in time to catch +her! Quite probably it would turn out to be a dull and depressing evening, +after all.... +</p> + +<p> +The servant who admitted her in manner and appearance lent colour to these +forebodings. A creature hopelessly commonplace, resigned, and unemotional, to +her enquiry for Monsieur Lanyard he returned the discounted response: Mister +Lanyard was hout, ’e might not be ’ome till quite lite, but ’ad left word that +if a lidy called she was to be awsked to wite. The princess indicating her +desire to wite, the man turned to the nearest door (Lanyard’s rooms were on the +street level), opened it with a pass-key, stepped inside to make a light, and +when Sofia entered silently bowed himself out. +</p> + +<p> +Now when the latch clicked behind him, the Princess Sofia forgot that the +simplicity of her success thus far was almost discouraging. Her heart began to +beat more quickly, and a little tremor shook the hands that lifted and threw +back her veil. After all, she was committing an act of lawless trespass, she +was on the errand of a thief; if caught the penalty might prove most painful +and humiliating. +</p> + +<p> +Of a sudden she lost appetite entirely for a piquant encounter with the +prepossessing tenant of these rooms. Now she desired nothing so dearly as to +consummate her business and escape with all possible expedition. +</p> + +<p> +A swift and searching survey of the living-room descried nothing that seemed +apt to hinder or detain her. A large room, unusually wide and deep, it had two +windows overlooking the street, with a curtained doorway at the back that led +(one surmised) to a bedchamber. It was furnished in such excellent taste that +one suspected Monsieur Lanyard must have brought in his own belongings on +taking possession. The handsome rug, the well-chosen draperies, the several +excellent pictures and bronzes, were little in character with the furnished +lodgings of the London average, even with those of the better sort. +</p> + +<p> +She had no time, however, to squander on appreciation of artistic atmosphere, +however pleasing, and needed to waste none searching for the object of her +desires. It faced her, distant not six paces from the door—that shameless +little “Corot”!—resting on the arms of a straight-backed chair. +</p> + +<p> +A low laugh of delight on her lips, she went swiftly to the chair and laid hold +of the picture by its frame. In that act she checked, startled, transfixed, the +laugh freezing into a gasp of alarm. +</p> + +<p> +Brass rings slithered on a pole supporting the portières at the back of the +room. These parted. Through them a man emerged. +</p> + +<p> +Her grasp on the picture relaxed. It struck a corner against the chair and +clattered on the floor—the canvas on its stretcher simultaneously flying out of +the frame. +</p> + +<p> +“Victor!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sweet of you to remember me!” +</p> + +<p> +He advanced slowly with that noiseless, cat-like tread of his which she had +always hated, perceiving in it a true index to his character: the prowl of a +beast of prey, furtive, cowardly, cruel. It was so: Victor was as feline and as +vicious as a jungle-cat. Watching him with this thought in mind, one could +almost credit old tales of beasts bewitched and walking in human guise. +</p> + +<p> +Near by he paused, alertly poised, prepared to spring. The slotted black eyes +glimmered malignantly. His lips drew back in mockery from his teeth. His hands +were hidden in the pockets of his dinner-coat; but she could guess how they +were held, like claws, in that concealment, claws itching for her throat. She +dared not stir lest she feel them there, digging deep into her soft white +flesh. +</p> + +<p> +Witless, in the extremity of her terror, she stammered: “What do you want?” +</p> + +<p> +A nod indicated the picture that lay between them, at their feet. +</p> + +<p> +“My errand,” the man said in a silken tone that gloved grimmest menace, “is +much the same as yours—quite naturally—but more fortunate; for I shall get not +only what I came for, but something more.” +</p> + +<p> +“What—?” +</p> + +<p> +“The opportunity to plead with you, face to face. I think you will hardly +refuse to listen to me now.” +</p> + +<p> +“How—how did you get in?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, secretly! By the window, if you must know; but quite unseen. You see, +<i>I</i> had no invitation.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never thought you had—” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor did I think you had—till now.” +</p> + +<p> +Puzzled, she faltered: “I don’t understand—” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely you don’t wish me to believe my pretty Sofia has turned thief?” +</p> + +<p> +That stung her pride. She drew upon an unsuspected store of spirit, confronting +him bravely. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it to me, what you choose to think?” +</p> + +<p> +“I refuse to think that of you. My reason will not let me believe it.” +</p> + +<p> +She saw that he was shaking with rage; so she shrugged and drawled: “Oh, your +<i>reason</i>—!” +</p> + +<p> +“It tells me you for one did not come here to-night uninvited.” He was rapidly +losing grip on his temper. “Oh, it’s plain enough! I was a fool not to +understand, there in the auction room, when my face was slapped with proof of +your liaison with this Lanyard!” +</p> + +<p> +She said in mild expostulation: “But you are quite mad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps—but not so as to be blind to the truth. You had him there this +afternoon to bid that picture in for you if your own means failed. Why else +should the man, who knows pictures as I know you, pay twenty thousand guineas +for a footling copy of a Corot that wouldn’t deceive a—a Royal Academician! +Yes: he bid it in for you—the sorry fool!—bought with his own money the +evidence of your infatuation for his predecessor in your affections—and expects +you here to-night to receive it from him and—pay him <i>his</i> price! Ah, +don’t try to deny it!” +</p> + +<p> +He growled like a very animal, beside himself. “Why else should you be admitted +to these rooms without question in his absence?” +</p> + +<p> +Without visible resentment, the Princess Sofia nodded thoughtfully into those +distorted features. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she commented: “quite, quite mad.” +</p> + +<p> +As if she had offered without warning to strike him, Victor recoiled and for an +instant stood gibbering. And she took advantage of this moment in one lithe +bound to put the table between them. +</p> + +<p> +The manoeuvre sobered him. He did not move, but in two breaths forced himself +to cease to tremble, and subdued every symptom of his passion. Only his face +remained sinister. +</p> + +<p> +“Graceful creature!” he observed, sardonic. “Such agility! But what good will +that do you, do you think? Eh? Tell me that!” +</p> + +<p> +It was her turn to shiver, and inwardly she did, who was never quite able to +combat the fear which Victor could inspire in her by such demonstrations of the +power of his will. The self-control which he had always at his command was +something that passed her understanding; it seemed inhuman, it terrified her. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, so exigent was this strait, she continued to confront him with a +face of unflinching defiance. +</p> + +<p> +In a voice whose steadiness surprised her she declared: “The letters are mine. +You shan’t have them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Undeceive yourself: I’ll have them though you never leave this room alive.” +</p> + +<p> +More to give herself time to think than in any hope of moving him, she began to +plead: +</p> + +<p> +“Let me have them, Victor—let me go.” +</p> + +<p> +Smiling darkly, he shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“The letters mean nothing to you. What good—?” +</p> + +<p> +He interrupted impatiently: “I shall publish them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Impossible—!” +</p> + +<p> +“But I shall.” +</p> + +<p> +Aghast, she protested: “You can’t mean that!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not? The world shall know your true reason for leaving me—that you were +the mistress of another man—and who that man was!” +</p> + +<p> +Staring, she uttered in a low voice: “Never!” +</p> + +<p> +“Or,” he amended, deliberately, “you may keep them, burn them, do what you will +with them—on fair terms—<i>my</i> terms.” +</p> + +<p> +She said nothing, but her dilate eyes held fixedly to his. He moved a pace or +two nearer, his voice dropped to a lower key, the light she had learned to +loathe flickered in the depths of his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Come back to me, Sofia! I can’t live without you ...” +</p> + +<p> +Her lips moved to deny him, but made no sound. Now it was revealed to her, the +way. +</p> + +<p> +“Come back to me, Sofia!” +</p> + +<p> +His hand crept along the edge of the table and lifted, quivering, to capture +hers. She steeled herself to endure its touch, against sickening repulsion she +fought to achieve a smile that would carry a suggestion of at least +forgetfulness. +</p> + +<p> +“And if I do—?” she murmured. +</p> + +<p> +He gave a violent start, blood suffused his face darkly, his arms leapt out to +enfold her. She stepped back, evading him with a movement of coquetry that +served, as it was intended, to inflame him the more. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait!” she insisted. “Answer me first: If I return to you—then what?” +</p> + +<p> +“Everything shall be as you wish—everything forgotten—I will think of nothing +but how to make you happy—” +</p> + +<p> +“And I may have my letters?” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded, swallowing hard, as if the concession well-nigh choked him. +</p> + +<p> +Under his gloating gaze her flesh crawled. Only by supreme effort did she +succeed in resisting a mad impulse to risk a rush for door or windows, and +whipped her will into maintaining what seemed to be frank response. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” she said; “I agree.” +</p> + +<p> +Again he offered to touch her, again she moved slightly, eluding him. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she stipulated with an arch glance—“not yet! First prove you mean to make +good your word.” +</p> + +<p> +“How?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me go—with my letters—and call on me to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +His look clouded. “Can I trust you?” He was putting the question to himself +more than to her. “Dare I?” He added in a tone colourless and flat: “I’ve half +a mind to take you at your word. Only—forgive my doubts—appearances are against +you—you seem almost too keen for the bargain. How can I know—?” +</p> + +<p> +“What proof do you want?” +</p> + +<p> +“Something definite.... You pledge yourself to me?” A movement of her head +assented. “You will give yourself back to me?” He came nearer, but she +contrived to repeat the sign of assent. “Wholly, without reserve?” +</p> + +<p> +An invincible disgust shook her as the full sense of his insistence struck +home. Still she whipped herself to play out the scene—and win! +</p> + +<p> +“As you say, Victor, as you will....” +</p> + +<p> +He moved still nearer. She became conscious of his nearness as if a palpable +aura of vileness emanated from his person. +</p> + +<p> +“Then give me proof—here and now.” +</p> + +<p> +“How?” +</p> + +<p> +He laughed a throaty, evil laugh. “Need you ask? Not much, my Sofia ... only a +little ... something on account ...” Suddenly she could no more: memories +unspeakable rose like disturbed dregs to the surface of her consciousness. +Involuntarily, not knowing what she did, she flung out an arm and struck down +his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“You—leper!” +</p> + +<p> +The epithet was like a knout cutting through the decayed fibre of the man and +raising a livid welt on his diseased soul. Galled beyond endurance, his +countenance convulsed with fury, he struck wickedly; and the vicious blow of +his open palm across her mouth brought flecks of blood to the lips as her teeth +cut into the tender flesh. +</p> + +<p> +It did far more, it shattered at one stroke the brittle casing of self-command +with which centuries of civilization had sought to veneer the Slav. In a trice +a woman whose existence neither of them had suspected was revealed, a fury +incarnate flew at the dismayed prince, clawing, tearing, raining blows upon his +face and bosom. Overcome by surprise, blinded, dazed, staggered, he gave +ground, stumbled, caught at a chair to steady himself. +</p> + +<p> +As abruptly as it had begun, the assault ceased. Panting and frantic, the girl +fell back, paused, renewed her grasp upon herself, gazed momentarily in +contempt on that dashed and quaking figure, then swiftly swooped down to +retrieve the picture, and madly pelted toward the door. +</p> + +<p> +In an instant, Victor was after her. His clutching fingers barely missed her +shoulder but caught a flying end of the veil that swathed her throat and head. +With finger-tips touching the door-knob Sofia was checked and twitched back so +violently that she was all but thrown off her feet. +</p> + +<p> +She tried desperately to regain her balance, but the pressure round her throat, +tightening, bade fair to suffocate her; and reeling, while her hands tore +ineffectually at the folds of the veil, she was drawn back and back, and +tripped, falling half on, half off the table. +</p> + +<p> +Already her vision was darkening, her lungs were labouring painfully, her head +throbbed with the revolt of strangulated arteries as if sledge hammers were +seeking to smash through her skull. +</p> + +<p> +Through closing shadows she saw that savage mask which hovered over her, moping +and mowing, as Victor twisted and drew ever more tight the murderous bindings +round her throat. +</p> + +<p> +A groping hand encountered something on the table, a lump of metal, cold and +heavy. She seized and dashed it brutally into that hateful face, saw his head +jerk back and heard him grunt with pain, and struck again, blindly, with all +her might. +</p> + +<p> +Instantly the pressure upon her throat was eased. She heard a groan, a fall ... +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b1ch8"></a>VIII<br/> +GREEK VS. GREEK</h2> + +<p> +She found herself standing, partly resting upon the table. Great, tearing sobs +racked her slight young body—but at least she was breathing, there was no more +constriction of her windpipe; Her head still ached, however, her neck felt +stiff and sore, and she remained somewhat giddy and confused. +</p> + +<p> +She eyed rather wildly her hands. One held torn and ragged folds of the veil +ripped from her throat, the other the weapon with which she had cheated death: +a bronze paperweight, probably a miniature copy of a Barye, an elephant +trumpeting. The up-flung trunk was darkly stained and sticky.... +</p> + +<p> +With a shudder she dropped the bronze, and looked down. Victor lay at her feet, +supine, grotesquely asprawl. His face was bruised and livid; the cheek laid +open by the bronze was smeared with scarlet, accentuating the leaden colour of +his skin. His mouth was ajar; his eyes, half closed, hideously revealed slender +slits of white. More blood discoloured his right temple, welling from under the +matted, coarse black hair. +</p> + +<p> +He was terribly motionless. If he breathed, Sofia could detect no sign of it. +</p> + +<p> +In panic she knelt beside the body, threw back Victor’s dinner-coat, and laid +an ear above his heart. +</p> + +<p> +At first, in her mad anxiety, she could hear nothing. But presently a beating +registered, slow and harsh but steady-paced. +</p> + +<p> +With a sob of relief she sat back on her heels, and after a little while got +unsteadily to her feet. +</p> + +<p> +The house door closed with a dull bang, and from the entrance hallway came a +sound of voices. She stood petrified in dread till the voices fell and she +heard stairs creak under an ascending tread. +</p> + +<p> +Thus reminded that Lanyard’s return might occur at any moment, she made all +haste to patch up the disarray of veil and coiffure. Fortunately her costume, +protected by the cloak of heavy and sturdy stuff, was quite undamaged. +</p> + +<p> +Not till on the point of leaving did she remember the painting. It lay unharmed +where it had fallen when Victor seized her veil. She was calm enough now to +consider herself fortunate in finding it so poorly secured in its frame; +without the latter it would be far easier to smuggle the canvas away under her +cloak. +</p> + +<p> +In the final glance she bent upon Victor’s beaten and insensible body there was +no pity, no regret, no trace of compunction. What he had suffered he had ten +times—no, a hundred, a thousand—earned. Long before she left him Sofia had lost +count of the blows she had taken at his hands, the insults worse than blows, +the lesser indignities innumerable. +</p> + +<p> +But in those abolished days she had never once struck back, she had been faint +of heart, cowed and terrified, and had lacked what two years of separation had +given her, that spiritual independence which never before had been able to +realize itself, lift up its head, and grow strong in the assurance of its own +integrity. +</p> + +<p> +Two years ago she would not have dared to lift a hand to Victor, no matter how +sore the provocation. To-night—if she had one regret it was that she had struck +so feebly: not that she desired his death, but that she knew it was now her +life or his. She knew the man too well to flatter herself that he would rest +before he had compassed such revenge as the baseness of his degenerate soul +would deem adequate. Half the world were not too much to put between them if +she were now to sleep of nights in comfortable consciousness of security from +his quenchless hatred. +</p> + +<p> +Callously enough she switched off the lights and left him lying there, in +darkness but for the ash-dimmed glimmer of a dying fire. +</p> + +<p> +In the entrance hallway she hesitated, coldly composed and alert. But seemingly +the noise of their struggle had not carried beyond the door. There was no one +about. +</p> + +<p> +With neither haste nor faltering, without the least misadventure, she let +herself quietly out into the empty, silent, rain-swept street, and scurried +toward the lights of Piccadilly. +</p> + +<p> +Before long a cruising four-wheeler overhauled her. In its obscure and stuffy +refuge she sat hugging her precious canvas and pondering her plight. +</p> + +<p> +It was borne in upon her that she would do well to leave London, yes, and +England, too, before Victor recovered sufficiently to scheme and put a watch +upon her movements. +</p> + +<p> +She had need henceforth to be swift and wary and shrewd.... +</p> + +<p> +A singular elation began to colour her temper, a quickening sense of +emancipation. Necessity at a stroke had set her free. Because she must fly and +hide to save her life, society had no more hold upon her, she need no longer +fight to keep up appearances in spite of her status as a woman living apart +from her husband, little better than a divorcée—an estate anathema to the +English of those days. +</p> + +<p> +She experienced, through the play of her imagination upon this new and +startling conception of life, an intoxicating prelibation of freedom such as +she had never dreamed to savour. +</p> + +<p> +That waywardness which was a legitimate inheritance from generations of wilful +forebears, impatient of all those restraints which a fixed environment imposes +upon the individual, an impatience which had always been hers though it +slumbered in unsuspected latency, asserted itself of a sudden, possessed her +wholly, and warmed, her being like forbidden wine. +</p> + +<p> +In this humour she was set down at her door. +</p> + +<p> +None saw her enter. In a moment of vaguely prophetic foresight she had bidden +Thérèse not to wait up for her and to tell the other servants there was no +necessity for their doing so. She might be detained, Heaven alone knew how late +she might be; but she had her latch-key and was quite competent to undress and +put herself to bed. +</p> + +<p> +And Thérèse had taken her at her word. +</p> + +<p> +She was glad of that. In event that anything should leak out and be printed by +the newspapers concerning the theft of Monsieur Lanyard’s famous “Corot” by a +strange, closely veiled woman, it was just as well that none of the servants +was about to see her come in with the canvas clumsily hidden under her cloak. +</p> + +<p> +So she exercised much circumspection in shutting and bolting the door, mounted +the stairs without making any unnecessary stir, and at the door of her boudoir +waited, listening, for several moments, in the course of which she heard, or +fancied she heard, a slight noise on the far side of the door which made her +suspect Thérèse might after all still be up and about. +</p> + +<p> +The sound was not repeated, but to make sure Sofia slipped out of her cloak and +wrapped it round the canvas before she went in; which last she did sharply, +with head up and eyes flashing ominously beneath scowling brows—prepared to +give Thérèse a rare taste of temper if she found she had been disobeyed. +</p> + +<p> +But though the maid had left the lights on, she was nowhere to be seen. Nor did +she answer from the bedchamber when the princess called her. +</p> + +<p> +With a sigh of relief that ran into the chuckle of a child absorbed in +mischief, Sofia threw the cloak across a chaise-longue, and bore her prize in +triumph to the escritoire. +</p> + +<p> +It was her intention to rip the canvas off with a knife, to get at the letters; +and a long, thin-bladed Spanish dagger that now did service as a paper-knife +was actually in her hand when she noticed how slightly the painting was tacked +to its stretcher, and for the first time was visited by premonition. +</p> + +<p> +Dropping the knife, she caught a loose edge of the canvas and with one swift +tug stripped it clear of the unpainted fabric beneath. +</p> + +<p> +The cry that disappointment wrung from her was bitter with protest and chagrin. +</p> + +<p> +Fortune had failed her, then, the jade had tricked her heartlessly. With +success within her grasp, it had trickled like quicksilver through her fingers. +Victor had been beforehand with her, had purloined the letters and restored the +canvas to its frame. She might have suspected as much if she had only had the +wit to draw a natural inference from the way the painting had parted company +with its frame when she dropped it. +</p> + +<p> +So the letters for which she had risked and suffered so much must be back +there, in Lanyard’s lodgings, in Victor’s possession—lost irretrievably, since +she would never find the courage to go back for them, even if she dared assume +that Victor had not yet recovered and escaped or that Lanyard had not yet come +home. +</p> + +<p> +If only she had thought to rifle Victor’s pockets ... +</p> + +<p> +“Too late,” she uttered in despair. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, madame, never say that!” +</p> + +<p> +She swung round but, shocked as she was to the verge of stupefaction, made no +outcry. +</p> + +<p> +The intruder stood within arm’s-length, collected, amiable, debonair, nothing +threatening in his attitude, merely an easy and at the same time quite +respectful suggestion of interest. +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur Lanyard!” +</p> + +<p> +His bow was humorous without mockery: “Madame la princesse does me much +honour.” +</p> + +<p> +She was silent another instant, in a wide stare comprehending the incredible, +the utterly impossible fact of his presence there. The one conceivable +explanation voiced itself without her volition: +</p> + +<p> +“The Lone Wolf!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come now!” he remonstrated, indulgently—“that’s downright flattery.” +</p> + +<p> +She moved aside, lifting a hand toward the bell-cord. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait!” +</p> + +<p> +Involuntarily she deferred, her arm dropped. Then, appreciating that she had +yielded where he had no right to command, she mutinied. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” she demanded, resentfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Why ring?” he countered, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“To call my servants—to have them call in the police.” +</p> + +<p> +“But surely madame la princesse must appreciate the police might be at a loss +to know which housebreaker to arrest.” +</p> + +<p> +He cocked an eye of mocking significance toward the purloined “Corot,” and in +sharp revulsion of feeling Sofia had need to bite her lip to keep from +laughing. She hesitated. He was right and reasonable enough, this impudent and +imperturbable young elegant. Yet she could not afford to concede so much to +him. She was quick to accept his gage. +</p> + +<p> +“Who knows,” she enquired, obliquely, “why Monsieur the Lone Wolf brought with +him this counterfeit Corot when he broke in to steal—” +</p> + +<p> +“The counterfeit jewels of a titled adventuress!” +</p> + +<p> +An interruption brusque enough to silence her; or else it was its innuendo that +struck the princess dumb with indignation. Lanyard’s laugh offered amends for +the rudeness, as if he said: “Sorry—but you asked for it, you know.” He stepped +aside, caught up a handful of her jewels that had been left, a tempting heap, +openly exposed on her dressing-table (as much her own carelessness as +anybody’s, Sofia admitted) and tossed them lightly upon the face of the +fraudulent canvas. +</p> + +<p> +“Birds of a feather,” was his comment, whimsical; “coals to Newcastle!” +</p> + +<p> +“My jewels!” The princess gathered them up tenderly and faced him, blazing with +resentment. He returned a twisted smile, an apologetic shrug. +</p> + +<p> +“Madame la princesse didn’t know? I’m so sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +“How dare you say they’re paste?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry,” he repeated; “but somebody seems to have taken advantage of +madame’s confidence. Excellent imitations, I grant you, but articles de Paris +none the less.” +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t true!” she stormed, near to tears. +</p> + +<p> +“But really, you must believe me. A knowledge of jewels is one of my hobbies: I +<i>know!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +She looked down in consternation at the exquisite trinkets he had condemned so +bluntly. Then in a fit of temper she flung them from her with all her might, +threw herself upon the chaise-longue, and wept passionately into its cushions. +Then the young man proved himself tolerably instructed in the ways of +womankind. He said nothing more, made no offer to comfort her by those futile +and empty pats on the shoulder which are instinctive with man on such +occasions, but simply sat him down and waited. +</p> + +<p> +In time the tempest passed, Sofia sat up and dabbled her eyes with a web of +lace and linen. Then she looked round with a tentative smile that was wholly +captivating. She was one of those rare women who can afford to cry. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s so humiliating!” she protested with racial ingenuousness—one of her most +compelling charms. “But it’s ridiculous, too. I was so sure no one would ever +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“No one but an expert ever would, madame.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see”—apparently she had forgotten that Lanyard was anything but a lifelong +friend—“I needed money so badly, I had them reproduced and sold the originals.” +</p> + +<p> +“Madame la princesse—if she will permit—commands my profound sympathy.” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” she remembered, drying her eyes, “you called me an adventuress, too!” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” he contended, gravely, “you had already called me the Lone Wolf.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what do you expect, monsieur, when I find you in my rooms—?” +</p> + +<p> +“But what does madame la princesse expect when I find she had been to mine—and +brought something valuable away with her, too!” +</p> + +<p> +“I had a reason—” +</p> + +<p> +“So had I.” +</p> + +<p> +“What was it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps it was to see madame la princesse alone—secretly—without exciting the +jealousy, which I understand is supernormal, of monsieur le prince.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why should you wish to see me alone?” she demanded, with widening eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps to beg madame’s permission to offer her what may possibly prove some +slight consolation.” +</p> + +<p> +She weighed his words in dark distrust. What was this consolation? What his +game? His attitude remained consistently too deferential and punctilious for +one to suspect that by consolation he meant love-making. +</p> + +<p> +“But how did you get in?” +</p> + +<p> +“By the front door, madame. I find it ajar—one assumes, through oversight on +the part of one of the servants—it opens to a touch, I walk in—et voila!” +</p> + +<p> +His levity was infectious. In spite of herself, she smiled in sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +“And what, pray, is this wonderful consolation you would offer me?” +</p> + +<p> +He produced from a pocket a packet of papers. +</p> + +<p> +“I think madame la princesse is interested in these,” he said. “If she will be +so amiable as to accept them from me, with my compliments and one little word +of advice....” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, monsieur!” Look and tone thanked him more than words could ever. “You are +too kind! And your advice—?” +</p> + +<p> +“They tell too much, madame, those letters. And I see you have a fire in the +grate ...” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur has reason....” +</p> + +<p> +She rose, went to the fireplace and, half kneeling, thrust the letters one by +one into the incandescent bed of coals. A ceremony of sentiment at any other +time, but not now: her thoughts were far from the man with whose memory these +letters were linked, they were in fact not wholly articulate. Just what was +passing through her mind she herself would have found it hard to define; she +was mainly conscious of a flooding emotion of gratitude to Lanyard; but there +was something more, a feeling not unakin to tenderness.... +</p> + +<p> +The reaction of her vital young body from a desperate physical conflict, the +rapid play of her passions from anger and despair through triumph and delight +to gratification and content, from the bitterest sense of frustration and peril +to one of security; the uprush of those strange instincts which had lain +dormant till roused by the knowledge that she was free at length from the +maddening stupidity of social life, together with her recent, implicit +self-dedication to a life in all things its converse: these influences were +working upon her so strongly as to render her mood more dangerous than she +guessed. +</p> + +<p> +Disturbed in her formless reverie, an aimless groping through a bewildering +maze of emotions but vaguely apprehended, she started up, faced round and saw +Lanyard, topcoat over arm and hat in hand, about to open the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur!” +</p> + +<p> +He looked back, coolly quizzical. “Madame?” +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Taking my unobtrusive departure, madame la princesse, by the way I came.” +</p> + +<p> +“But—wait—come back!” +</p> + +<p> +He shrugged agreeably, released the door-knob, and stood before her, or rather +over her—for he was the taller by a good five inches—looking down, quietly at +her service. +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t thanked you.” +</p> + +<p> +“For what, madame? For treating myself to an amusing adventure?” +</p> + +<p> +“It has cost you dear!” +</p> + +<p> +“The fortunes of war ...” +</p> + +<p> +Her hands rose unconsciously, with an uncertain movement. Her face was soft +with an elusive bloom of unwonted feeling. Her eyes held a puzzled look, as if +she did not quite understand what was moving her so deeply. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a strange man, monsieur....” +</p> + +<p> +“And what shall one say of madame la princesse?” +</p> + +<p> +She could but laugh; and laughter rings the death-knell of constraint. +</p> + +<p> +But Lanyard remembered uneasily that somebody—Solomon or some other who must +have led an interesting life—had remarked that the lips of a strange woman are +smoother than oil. +</p> + +<p> +“None the less, monsieur, I am deeply in your debt.” +</p> + +<p> +His smile of impersonal courtesy failed. He was becoming more sensitive than he +liked to her charm and the warm sentiment she was giving out to him. This +strange access in her of haunting loveliness, the gentle shadows that lay +beneath her wide—yet languorous eyes, the almost imperceptible tremor of her +sweetly fashioned lips, all troubled him profoundly. He exerted himself to +break the spell upon his senses which this woman, wittingly or not, was +weaving. But the effort was at best half-hearted. +</p> + +<p> +“I am well repaid,” he said a bit stiffly, “by the knowledge that the honour of +madame la princesse is safe.” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia laughed breathlessly. Somehow her hands had found the way to his. Her +glance wavered and fell. +</p> + +<p> +“But is it?” she asked in a tone so intimate that it was barely audible. And +she laughed once more. “I am not so sure ... as long as monsieur is here.” +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard’s mouth twitched, slow colour mounted in his face, the light in his +eyes was lambent. He found himself looking deep into other eyes that were like +pools of violet shadow troubled by a deep surge and resurge of feeling for +which there was no name. Aware that they revealed more than he ought to know, +he sought to escape them by bending his lips to Sofia’s hands. +</p> + +<p> +Sighing softly, she resigned them to his kisses. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b1ch9"></a>IX<br/> +PAID IN FULL</h2> + +<p> +It was late when Lanyard got home, but not too late: when he entered his +living-room enough life lingered in the embers in the grate to betray to him a +feline shape on all-fours creeping toward his bedchamber door. As he switched +up the lights it bounded to its feet and dived through the portières with such +celerity that he saw little more of it than coat-tails level on the wind. +</p> + +<p> +Dropping hat and canvas, Lanyard gave chase and overhauled the marauder as he +was clambering out through the open window, where a firm hand on his collar +checked his preparations to drop half a dozen feet to the flagged court. +</p> + +<p> +Victor swore fretfully and lashed out a random fist, which struck Lanyard’s +cheek a glancing blow that carried just enough sting to kindle resentment. So +the virtuous householder was rather more than unceremonious about yanking the +princely housebreaker inside and lending him a foot to accelerate his return to +the living-room; where Victor brought up, on all-fours again, in almost +precisely the spot from which he had risen. +</p> + +<p> +He bounced up, however, with a surprising amount of animation and ambition, and +flew back to the offensive with flailing fists. In this his judgment was +grievously in fault. Lanyard sidestepped, nipped a wrist, twitched it smartly +up between the man’s shoulder-blades (with a wrench that won a grunt of agony), +caught the other arm from behind by the hollow of its elbow, and held his +victim helpless—though ill-advised enough to continue to hiss and spit and +squirm and kick. +</p> + +<p> +A heel that struck Lanyard’s shin earned Victor a shaking so thoroughgoing that +he felt the teeth rattle in his jaws. When it was suspended, he was breathless +but thoughtful, and offered no objection to being searched. Lanyard relieved +him of a revolver and a dirk, then with a push sent Victor reeling to the +table, where he stood panting, quivering, and glaring murder, while his captor +put the dagger away and examined the firearm. +</p> + +<p> +“Wicked thing,” he commented—“loaded, too. Really, monsieur le prince should be +more careful. One of these fine days, if you don’t stop playing with such +weapons, one of these will go off right in your hand—and the next high-light in +your history will be when the judge says: ‘And may the Lord have mercy on your +soul!’” +</p> + +<p> +Victor confided his sentiments to a handkerchief with which he was mopping his +face. Lanyard sat down and wagged a reproving head. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t catch,” he said; “perhaps it’s just as well, though; sounded like bad +words. Hope I’m mistaken, of course: princes ought to set impressionable +plebeians a better pattern.” +</p> + +<p> +He cocked a critical eye. “You’re a sight, if you don’t mind my saying so—look +as if the sky had caved in on you. May one ask what happened? Did it stub its +toe and fall?” +</p> + +<p> +Victor suspended operations with the handkerchief to bend upon his tormentor a +louring, distrustful stare. His head was still heavy, hot, and painful, his +mental processes thick with lees of coma; but now he began to appreciate, what +naturally seemed apparent, that Lanyard must be unacquainted with the cause of +his injuries. +</p> + +<p> +A searching look round the room confirmed him in this error. The canvas lay +where Lanyard had dropped it on entering, not in the spot where Victor +remembered seeing it last, but where conceivably an unheeded kick might have +sent it in the course of his struggle with Sofia. She must have forgotten it, +then, when she fled from what she probably thought was murder, and what might +well have been. +</p> + +<p> +He was much too sore and shaken to be subtle; and the general trend of his +conjectures was perfectly legible to Lanyard, who without delay set himself to +conjure away any lingering suspicion of his guilelessness. +</p> + +<p> +“Not squiffy, are you, by any chance?” he enquired with the kindliest interest. +“You look as if you’d wound up a spree by picking a fight with a bobby. Your +cheek’s cut and all (shall we say, in deference to the well-known prejudices of +the dear B.P.?) ensanguined. Sit down and pull yourself together before you try +to explain to what I owe this honour—and so forth.” +</p> + +<p> +He got up, clapped a hand on Prince Victor’s shoulder, and steered him into an +easy chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Anything more I can do to put you at your ease? Would a brandy and soda help, +do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +The suggestion was acceptable: Victor signified as much with an ungracious +mumble. Lanyard fetched glasses, a decanter, a siphon-bottle, and supplied his +guest with a liberal hand before helping himself. +</p> + +<p> +Victor took the drink without a word of thanks and gulped it down noisily. +Lanyard drank sparingly, then crossed the room to a bell-push. Seeing his +finger on it Prince Victor started from his chair, but Lanyard hospitably waved +him back. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t go yet,” he pleaded. “You’ve only just dropped in, we haven’t had half a +chance to chat. Besides, you mustn’t forget I’ve got your pistol and your dirk +and the upper hand and a sustaining sense of moral superiority and no end of +other advantages over you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” the prince demanded, nervously—“why did you ring?” +</p> + +<p> +“To call a cab for you, of course. I don’t imagine you want to walk home—do +you?—in your present state of shocking disrepair. Of course, if you’d rather +... But do sit down: compose yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me be,” the other snapped as Lanyard offered good-naturedly to thrust him +back into the chair. “I am—quite composed.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s good! Excellent! Hand steady enough to write me a cheque, do you +think?” +</p> + +<p> +“What the devil!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come now! Don’t go off your bat so easily. I’m only going to do you a +service—” +</p> + +<p> +“Damn your impudence! I want no services of you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes you do!” Lanyard insisted, unabashed—“or you will when you learn what +a kind heart I’ve got. Now do be nice and stop protesting! You see, you’ve +touched my heart. I’d no idea you were so passionate about that painting. If I +had for one instant imagined you cared enough about it to burglarize my rooms +... But now that I do understand, my dear fellow, I wouldn’t deny you for +worlds; I make you a free present of it, at the price I paid—twenty thousand +and one hundred guineas—exacting no bonus or commission whatever. You’ll find +blank cheques in the upper right-hand drawer of my desk there; fill in one to +my order, and the Corot’s yours.” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment longer the prince stared, hate and perplexity in equal measure +tincturing his regard. Then slowly the look of doubt gave way to the ghost of a +crafty smile. +</p> + +<p> +What a blazing fool the fellow was (he thought) to accept a cheque on which +payment could be stopped before banking hours in the morning—! +</p> + +<p> +Such fatuity seemed incredible. Yet there it was, egregious, indisputable. Why +not profit by it, turn it to his own advantage? To secure what he had sought, +the letters concealed between the canvases, and turn them against Sofia, and to +play this Lanyard for a fool, all at one stroke—the opportunity was too rich to +be slighted. +</p> + +<p> +He dissembled his exultation—or plumed himself on doing so. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” he mumbled, sulkily. “I’ll draw the cheque.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the right spirit!” Lanyard declared, and escorted him to the desk. +</p> + +<p> +A knock sounded. Lanyard called: “Come in!” A sleepy manservant, half-dressed +and warm from his bed, entered. +</p> + +<p> +“You rang, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Harris.” Lanyard tossed him a sovereign. “Sorry to rout you out so late, +but I need a cab. Whistle up a growler, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +“’Nk-you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The man retired cheerfully, rewarded for many a night of broken slumber. Prince +Victor got up from the desk and proffered Lanyard the cheque. +</p> + +<p> +“I fancy,” he said with a leer, “you’ll find that all right.” +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard scrutinized the cheque minutely, nodded his satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks ever so ... No, not a word!” He forbade inflexibly a wholly imaginary +interposition on the part of Prince Victor. “You don’t know how to thank me—do +you? Then why try? I know I’m too good, but I really can’t help it, it’s my +nature—and there you are! So what’s the good of bickering about it?... Now +where did you leave your coat and hat? On my bed, as you came in?” +</p> + +<p> +He smiled charmingly and darted through the portières, returning with the +articles in question. “Do let me help you.” +</p> + +<p> +The prince struggled into the coat and grunted an acknowledgment of the +service. Lanyard pressed the hat into his hand, picked up the canvas, replaced +it in its frame, and tucked both under the princely arm. +</p> + +<p> +Another knock: Harris returned. +</p> + +<p> +“The four-wheeler is w’iting, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks, Harris. Half a moment: I want a word with you. You see this +gentleman?” Lanyard caught Victor’s look of angry resentment and interrupted +himself. “Don’t forget yourself, monsieur le prince. Remember ...” +</p> + +<p> +He patted significantly the pocket which held the revolver, and turned back to +Harris. +</p> + +<p> +“This gentleman,” he said, consulting the signature to the cheque, “is Prince +Victor Vassilyevski. Please remember him. You may have to bear witness against +him in court.” +</p> + +<p> +“What insolence is this?” Victor demanded, hotly. +</p> + +<p> +“Calm yourself, monsieur le prince.” Lanyard repeated the warning gesture. “He +is a nobleman of Russia, or says he is, and—strangely enough, Harris!—a +burglar. I caught him burglarizing my rooms when I came home just now. You may +judge from his appearance what difficulty I had in subduing him.” +</p> + +<p> +“’E do seem fair used up, sir,” Harris admitted, eyeing Victor indignantly. +“Would you wish me to call a bobby and give ’im in charge?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks, no. Prince Victor and I have compromised. He doesn’t relish going to +jail, and I’ve no particular desire to send him there. But he does want what he +broke in to steal—that painting you see under his arm—and I’ve agreed to sell +it to him. Here’s the cheque he has just given me. Providing payment is not +stopped on it, Harris, you will hear no more of this incident. But if by any +chance the cheque should come back from his bank—I may ask you to testify to +what you have seen and heard here to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a lie!” Prince Victor shrilled. “You brought me in with you, assaulted +me, blackmailed that cheque out of me! Nobody saw us—” +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry,” Lanyard cut in; “but it so happens, that the gentleman who has the +rooms immediately above came in when I did, and can testify that I was alone. +That’s all, monsieur le prince. Your carriage waits.” +</p> + +<p> +Harris opened the door. Choking with rage, the prince shuffled out, Lanyard +politely escorting him to the curb. There, with a foot lifted to enter the +four-wheeler, Prince Victor turned, shaking an impassioned hand in Lanyard’s +face. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll pay me for this!” he spluttered. “I’ll square accounts with you, +Lanyard, if I have to follow you to the gates of hell!” +</p> + +<p> +“Better not,” Lanyard warned him fairly, “if you do, I’ll push you in ... Bon +soir, monsieur le prince!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>BOOK II<br/> +THE LONE WOLF’S DAUGHTER</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch1"></a>I<br/> +THE GIRL SOFIA</h2> + +<p> +She sat all day long—from noon, that is, till late at night—on a high stool +behind the tall, pulpit-like desk of the caisse; flanked on one hand by the +swing door of green baize which communicated with the kitchen, on the other by +a hideous black walnut buffet on which fruits of the season were displayed, +more or less temptingly, to the taste of Mama Thérèse. +</p> + +<p> +But for these articles of furniture, the buffet, the desk, and the door to the +kitchen quarters, uninterrupted rows of tables, square, with composition-marble +tops, lined three walls of the room. The fourth was mainly plate-glass window, +one on either side of the main entrance. +</p> + +<p> +Back of the tables were wall-seats upholstered in red plush, dusty and +threadbare; and, above, a frieze of mirrors. The floor of the restaurant was a +patternless mosaic of small hexagonal tiles, bare in warm weather, in the +winter covered by a thick but well-worn Brussels carpet of peculiarly repulsive +design. The windows wore half-curtains of net which, after nightfall, were +reinforced by ruffled draperies of rep silk. Through the net curtains, by day, +the name of the restaurant was shadowed in reverse by plain white-enamel +letters glued to the glass: +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/cafe.jpg" width="615" height="78" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<p> +The girl stared so constantly at these letters, during the off hours of the +day, that she sometimes wondered if they were not indelibly stamped upon her +brain, like this: +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/cafer.jpg" width="616" height="79" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<p> +She gazed in the direction of the windows as a matter of habit, because Mama +Thérèse objected to her reading at the desk (all the same, sometimes she did it +on the sly) because the glimpses she caught, above the half-curtains, of heads +of passersby gave her idle imagination something to play with, but mostly +because it was difficult otherwise to seem unconscious of the stares that +converged toward her from every table occupied by a masculine patron, whether +regular or casual—unless the patron happened to be accompanied by a lady, in +which unhappy event he had to content himself with furtive, sidelong glances, +not always furtive enough by half. +</p> + +<p> +The feminine patrons stared, too, but from quite another angle of view. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia knew why. If she hadn’t, the mirror across the room would have +enlightened even a woman without vanity; which paradox this thoroughly human +young person was not. +</p> + +<p> +She was, indeed, healthily vain; and when she wasn’t focussing dream-dark eyes +upon the windows, or verifying additions and making change, she was as likely +as not to be stealing consultations with the mirror opposite, making sure she +hadn’t, in the last few minutes, gone off in her looks. Not that her comeliness +bade fair ever to prove the cause of any real excitement. Mama Thérèse made a +first-rate dragon: she was very much on the job of discouraging enterprising +young men, and this without respect for union hours or overtime. And when she +wasn’t functioning as the ubiquitous wet-blanket, Papa Dupont understudied for +her, and did it most efficiently, too. If anything he was more vigilant and +enthusiastic when it came to administering the snub sufficient than even Mama +Thérèse; in Sofia’s sight, indeed, he betrayed some personal feeling in the +business; he seemed to consider alien admiration of his charge an encroachment +upon his private prerogatives, to be resented accordingly. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia understood. At eighteen—thanks to the comprehensive visual education in +the business of life which she could hardly have failed to assimilate from a +coign of vantage overlooking every table of a Soho restaurant—there were +precious few things she didn’t understand. But her insight into Papa Dupont’s +mind in respect of herself was wholly devoid of sympathy. She was just a little +bit afraid of him, and she despised him without measure. And this contempt was +founded on something more than his weakness for taking numerous and +surreptitious nips (surreptitious, at least, until they became numerous) while +presiding over the zinc in the pantry between the restaurant proper and the +kitchen; and on something more than his reluctance to let Mama Thérèse make an +honest man of him, although these two had squabbled openly for so many years +that most of the house staff believed them to be married hard and fast enough. +</p> + +<p> +For the matter of that, Sofia herself might have been the dupe of this popular +delusion—which Mama Thérèse did her best to encourage by never referring to +Dupont save as “mon mari”—had they been less imprudent in recriminations which +had passed between them in private when Sofia was of an age so tender that she +was presumed to be safely immature of mind. Whereas she had always been +precocious, if rather a self-contained child. Almost from infancy she had been +conversant with many things which she knew it wouldn’t do to talk about. +</p> + +<p> +Such sympathy as Sofia wasted on the couple was all for Mama Thérèse. What with +keeping an eye on Papa Dupont that prevented his drinking himself to death +seven times per calendar week, and an eye on Sofia that was fondly credited +with being largely responsible for her failure to run away with each and every +presentable man who ogled her, and browbeating the waiters and frustrating +their attempts to cheat the house out of its fair dues, and supervising the +marketing and the cuisine: believe it or not, Mama Thérèse led a tolerably busy +life and deserved whatever gratification she got out of it, to say nothing of +highest commendation for industry, fidelity, and frugality. But that did +nothing to prevent Sofia from not liking her. +</p> + +<p> +Her inability to play up to the relationship in which she stood to Mama Thérèse +in the manner prescribed by sentimentalists worried Sofia more than a little. +She was as hungry to give affection as to receive it; and surely she ought to +be fond of Mama Thérèse, who (Sofia was forever being reminded) had in the +goodness of her great heart adopted her as the orphaned offspring of a cousin +far-removed, and had brought her up at her own expense, expecting no return +(excepting humility, gratitude, unquestioning affection, and uncomplaining +acceptance of a life of incessant toil at tasks uncongenial when not downright +unsavoury, without spending money or hours of untrammelled liberty in which to +spend it). +</p> + +<p> +Surely such nobility ought to be requited with nothing less than love! +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, the plain, and to Sofia disquieting, truth was: it wasn’t. +</p> + +<p> +She was fond of Mama Thérèse after a fashion. No one was ever more ready to +acknowledge the woman’s good qualities. But her faults, which included avarice, +bad temper, gluttony, native cruelty of inclination, and simple inability to +give a damn for anybody but herself, forbade satisfaction of Sofia’s yearnings +to give her affections freely through bestowing them upon the abundant and +florid person of Mama Thérèse. +</p> + +<p> +Still, she made no murmur. There was more than a trace of fatalism in the +composition of her spirit. As she conceived it, in this life either things were +or they were not; and as a rule they uncompromisingly were not: one couldn’t +have everything. +</p> + +<p> +She was not happy, it would be stretching the truth to say she was content, but +she was resigned, she was patient, she waited not altogether without +confidence.... +</p> + +<p> +All the same, sometimes, as she sat, day in day out, on her high stool, looking +down on familiar aspects of life’s fermentation as it manifests in public +restaurants, or peering out of the windows to catch tantalizing glimpses of its +freer, ampler, and—alas!—more recondite phases—sometimes Sofia wondered whether +there were not grimly cynic innuendo in those three words which the mystery of +choice had affixed to the window-panes and graven so deep into her soul. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/cafe.jpg" width="615" height="78" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<p> +For surely she was in exile there, an exile from all the fun and frolic and, +fury of life, marooned in weary isolation, on a high stool, in a frowsty table +d’hôte, in the living heart of London. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch2"></a>II<br/> +MASKS AND FACES</h2> + +<p> +Quite naturally she became acquainted with Faces.... +</p> + +<p> +She grew adept at a game which consisted mostly in keeping close watch upon +those who for this reason or that engaged her attention, without giving them +the slightest reason to suspect she was doing anything of the sort. +</p> + +<p> +One could not always be staring in abstraction at nothing in particular as it +passed to and fro on the sidewalk in front of the Café des Exiles; one could +not often or for long at a time succeed in reading a book held open in one’s +lap, below the level of the cashier’s desk, Mama Thérèse was too brisk for +that; one had to do something with one’s mind; and it was sometimes diverting +to watch and speculate about people who looked interesting. +</p> + +<p> +There were so many Faces, they came and went so constantly, like bubbles in a +tideway, that to Sofia most of them seemed indistinguishable one from another, +mere blurs of flesh colour studded with staring eyes and slitted by apertures +which automatically and alternately gaped to receive gobbets of food and +goblets of drink and closed to gulp them down. A man needed to be remarkable +for something in his looks, not necessarily pulchritude, or for uncommon +individuality, for Sofia to favour him with more than one of her seemingly +casual glances or to remember him if he visited the café a second time. +</p> + +<p> +But those there were who stood out from the rank and file, for whom she +watched, whom she missed if they failed to put in appearance at their +accustomed hours, about whom her idle but able imagination wove wonderful +fantasies, enduing them with histories and environments as far removed from +fact as the drab dreams of the realists are from the picturesque commonplaces +of everyday. +</p> + +<p> +And there were others who came once and never again, but whom she never forgot. +But for some of these last, indeed, she would never have remembered some of the +former. The brown-eyed youngster with the sentimental expression and the funny +little moustache, for example, lurked in the ruck a long time before the one +and only visit of a bird of passage dignified him in the sight of the girl on +the high stool. +</p> + +<p> +On the occasion of his first appearance (but that was long ago, Sofia couldn’t +remember how long) the slender young man with the soulful eyes and the +insignificant moustache had commended himself to her somewhat derisive +attention by seeming uncommonly exquisite for that atmosphere. +</p> + +<p> +The Café des Exiles was little haunted by the world of fashion; its diner +á prix fixe (2/6), although excellent, surprisingly well done for the +money, did not much seduce the clientèle of the Carlton and the Ritz. Now and +again its remoteness, promising freedom from embarrassing encounters save +through unlikely mischance, would bring it the custom of a clandestine couple +from the West End, who would for a time make it an almost daily rendezvous, +meeting nervously, sitting if possible in the most shadowy corner, the farthest +from the door, and holding hands when they mistakenly assumed that nobody was +looking—until the affair languished or some contretemps frightened them away. +</p> + +<p> +Aside from such visitations, however, the great world coldly passed the café +by; although it couldn’t complain for lack of patronage, and in fact prospered +exceedingly if without ostentation on the half-crowns of loyal Soho and more +fickle suburbia. +</p> + +<p> +The Sohobohemian on its native heath and the City clerk on the loose, however, +were not prone to such vestments as young Mr. Karslake affected. It wasn’t that +he overdressed; even the ribald would have hesitated to libel him with the name +of a “nut”—which is Cockney for what the United States knows as a “fancy (or +swell) dresser”; it was simply that he was always irreproachably turned out, +whatever the form of dress he thought appropriate to the time of day; and that +his wardrobe was so complete and varied that he seldom appeared twice in the +same suit of clothes—except, of course, after nightfall; though his visits to +the Café des Exiles for dinner or afterward were so infrequent that each +attained (after Sofia began to notice him at all) the importance of an +occasion. Luncheon was his time, and those empty hours at the end of the +afternoon which London fills in with tea and Soho with drinks. +</p> + +<p> +He seemed to have a very wide and catholic acquaintance among people of all +ranks and stations in life; one could hardly call them friendships, for he +lunched or sipped an aperti not often with the same person twice in a blue +moon. And whether his companion were a curate or some ragged wastrel of the +quarter; painted young person from the chorus of the newest revue or proper +matron from Bayswater; keen adventurer from Fleet Street or solid merchant from +the City, his attitude was much the same: easy, impersonal, unaffected, +courteous, detached. He was as apt as not (going on his facial expression) to +be mooning about Sofia when his guest was gesticulating wildly and uttering +three hundred words a minute. When he spoke it was modestly, in a voice of +agreeable cadences but pitched so low that Sofia never but twice heard anything +he said; and his manner was not characterized by brisk decision. All the same, +one noticed that he had, as a rule, the last word, that what he said left his +hearer either satisfied or pensive. +</p> + +<p> +He was unmistakably silly about Sofia; though that didn’t impress her, too many +of the regulars were just as hard hit, one more or less didn’t count. But he +never stared to the point of rudeness, and it always seemed to make him hugely +uncomfortable if she appeared in the least aware of his adoration; and Mama +Thérèse and Papa Dupont never even noticed him, so circumspect was he. Still, +Sofia saw, and sometimes wondered, just as she wondered now and then about most +of the possible men who seemed disposed to be sentimental about her. +</p> + +<p> +For there were times when she felt she could do with a little more first-hand +experience and a little less second-hand knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +Love (she supposed) must be a very agreeable frame of mind to be in, it was so +generally vogue.... +</p> + +<p> +What first led her to think that Mr. Karslake might be an interesting person to +know, entirely aside from his admiration, happened on an afternoon in June, a +warm day for England, when a temperature of some 81 degrees was responsible for +“heat-wave” broadsides issued by the evening papers. +</p> + +<p> +At about tea time, Mr. Karslake, faultlessly arrayed, ambled in, selected a +table diagonally across the room from the caisse, exchanged pleasantries with +the waiter who served him a picon, and used a copy of The Evening Standard +& St. James’s Gazette as a cover for his wistful admiration of Sofia. +</p> + +<p> +Presently he was joined by a gentleman twice his age, if not older, whose +conservative smartness was such that one wondered if he hadn’t strayed out of +bounds through inadvertence. One would have thought his place was in the clubs +of Piccadilly if not (at that particular hour) at a tea table on the river +terrace of the Houses of Parliament. On the other hand, there wasn’t a trace of +self-importance in his habit, it achieved distinction solely through the +unpretending dignity of a decent self-esteem. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia tried to fix what it was that made her think him the handsomest man she +had ever seen. She failed. He wasn’t at all handsome in the smug fashion +associated with the popular interpretation of that term; his features were +engagingly irregular of conformation, but the impression they conveyed was of a +singular strength together with as rare a fineness of spirit. A mobile and +expressive face, stamped with a history of strange ordeals; but this must not +be interpreted as meaning that it was haggard or prematurely aged; on the +contrary, it had youthful colour and was but lightly scored with wrinkles, its +sole confession of advancing years was in the gray at either temple. The eyes, +perhaps, told more than anything else of trials endured and memories that would +never rest. +</p> + +<p> +Once they had looked into hers (but that came later) Sofia was sure she would +never forget those eyes. And as she saw them then, she never did forget them. +But the next time she saw them she did not know them at all. +</p> + +<p> +The newcomer hailed Mr. Karslake by his name (which was the first time Sofia +had heard it), sat down on the wall-seat beside him and, when the waiter came, +desired an absinthe. +</p> + +<p> +He had used two languages already, English to Karslake, French to the waiter; +Sofia understood both and spoke them to perfection. So it was rather +exasperating when, his absinthe having been served and the customary platitudes +passed on the weather and their respective states of health, the conversation +was continued in a tongue with which Sofia was not only unacquainted but which +sounded like none she had ever heard spoken. This seemed the more annoying +because there were few people in the restaurant to drown with chatter the sound +of those two voices and because, in spite of their guarded tones, their table +was one so situated that some freak of acoustics carried every syllable uttered +at it, even though whispered, to the quick ears at the cashier’s desk. A +circumstance which had treated Sofia to many a moment of covert entertainment +and not a few that threatened to shatter what slender illusions had survived +eighteen years of Mama Thérèse. But nobody else (with the possible exception of +the last) was acquainted with this secret of the restaurant, and Sofia was +careful never to mention it. +</p> + +<p> +Now it so happened that Mr. Karslake had never before sat at that particular +table. +</p> + +<p> +The language spoken at it to-day intrigued Sofia extravagantly. It was rich in +labials, gutturals, and odd sibilances. She was positive it was not a European +tongue, though she thought it might possibly be Russian, because it sounded +rather like Russian print looks; it might just as well have been Arabic or +Choctaw, for all Sofia could say to the contrary. But his fluent ease in it +impressed her with the notion that young Mr. Karslake might not, after all, be +as negligible a person as he looked and as she indifferently had assumed. +</p> + +<p> +She determined to study him more attentively. +</p> + +<p> +It was rather a long confabulation, too, and one that both men seemed to take +very seriously—though its upshot was apparently quite acceptable to both—and +terminated abruptly with Mr. Karslake announcing, in English, with every +evidence of satisfaction: +</p> + +<p> +“Good! Then that’s settled.” +</p> + +<p> +To this the older man dissented tolerantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon: nothing is settled; it is proposed, merely.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Karslake with a little laugh that to Sofia sounded empty, “at all +events it ought to be amusing.” +</p> + +<p> +The other lifted one eyebrow and smiled remotely. +</p> + +<p> +“You think so?” +</p> + +<p> +“To be ordering you about, sir? I should say so!” But his companion wasn’t +listening or chose purposely to ignore that accent of respect. +</p> + +<p> +“You are right, my friend,” he said, abstractedly: “it will be amusing. But +what in life is not? I fancy that is why most of us go on, because we find the +play entertaining in spite of ourselves. And even when we think of Death ... +there’s the possibility that on the other side of the curtain, where the unseen +audience sits, whose hisses and applause we never hear ... over there it may be +more entertaining still!” +</p> + +<p> +Karslake was inquisitively watching his face. +</p> + +<p> +“You would say that,” he commented, deference and admiration in his voice. “By +all accounts you’ve had a most amusing life.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have found it so.” The other nodded with glimmering eyes. “Not always at the +time, of course. But when I look back, especially at my beginnings, at the +times that seemed hardest and most intolerable ...” +</p> + +<p> +He was thoughtful for a moment, glancing interestedly round the room. +</p> + +<p> +“It takes one back.” +</p> + +<p> +“What does?” +</p> + +<p> +“This café, my friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“To your beginnings, you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. It is very like the café at Troyon’s, at this hour especially, when there +are so few English about.” +</p> + +<p> +“Troyon’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“A restaurant in Paris. Famous in its day. Several years ago—before the war—it +burned down one night, cremating many memories. While it stood I hated it, now +I miss it; Paris without it is no more the Paris that I knew.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you hate it, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I suffered there.” +</p> + +<p> +He indicated a weedy young Alsatian across the room, a depressed and pimply +creature in a waiter’s jacket and apron, who was shambling from table to table +and collecting used glasses and saucers. +</p> + +<p> +“You see that omnibus yonder? What he is to-day, that was I in mine—omnibus, +scullion, valet-de-chambre, butt and scapegoat-in-general to the establishment, +scavenger of food that no one else would eat.... I suffered there, at +Troyon’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“You, sir?” Karslake exclaimed in astonishment. “Whoever would have thought +that you ... How did you escape?” +</p> + +<p> +“It occurred to me, one day, I was less than half alive and never would be +better while I stayed on in that servitude. So I walked out—into life.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you’d tell me, sir,” Karslake ventured, eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +“Some day, perhaps, when I get back. But now”—he looked at his watch—“I’ve got +just time enough to taxi to my hotel, pack, and catch the boat train.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t wait for me,” Karslake suggested, signalling the waiter. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps it would be as well if I didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +They shook hands, and the older man got up, secured his hat and stick, and +started out toward the door, moving leisurely, still looking about him with the +narrowed eyes and smile of reminiscence. +</p> + +<p> +Of a sudden that look was abolished utterly. He had caught sight of Sofia. +</p> + +<p> +Her interest had been so excited by the singular confidences she had overheard +that the girl had quite forgotten herself and her professional pose of blank +neutrality. She was bending forward a little, forearms resting on the desk, +frankly staring. +</p> + +<p> +The man’s stride checked, his smile faded, his eyes grew wide and cloudy with +bewilderment. For a moment Sofia thought him on the point of bowing, as one +might on unexpectedly encountering an acquaintance after many years: there was +that hint of impulse hindered by uncertainty. And in that moment the girl was +conscious of a singular sensation of breathlessness, as if something impended +whose issue might change all the courses of her life. A feeling quite insane +and unaccountable, to be sure; and nothing came of it whatever. With a +readiness so instant that the break in his walk must have been imperceptible to +anybody but Sofia, the man recollected himself, composed his face, and +proceeded to the door. +</p> + +<p> +Confounded with inexplicable disappointment, Sofia sat unstirring. +</p> + +<p> +In the open doorway the man turned and looked back, not at her, but at +Karslake, as if of half a mind to return and say something more to the younger +man. But he didn’t. +</p> + +<p> +He never came back. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch3"></a>III<br/> +THE AGONY COLUMN</h2> + +<p> +Sofia dated from that afternoon the first stirrings of a discontent which grew +in her throughout the summer till everything related to her lot seemed +abominable in her sight. +</p> + +<p> +Even without this subjective inquietude it would have been an unpleasant +summer. All the world was at sixes and sevens, the social unrest stirred up by +the war showed no signs of subsiding, but indeed, quite the contrary, there was +trouble in the very air—ominous portents of a storm whose dull, grim growling +down the horizon could be heard only too clearly by those who did not wilfully +close their ears, grin fatuous complacence, and bleat like brainless sheep: +“All’s well!” +</p> + +<p> +High-spirited youth and witless wealth a-lust for strange new pleasures turned +from the long strain of conflict to indulgence in endless orgies of +extravagance like nothing ever witnessed by a world long since surfeited with +contemplation of weird excesses: daily that wild dance of death attained wilder +stages of saturnalia, the bands blaring ever louder to drown the mutter of +savage elemental forces working underneath the crust. +</p> + +<p> +And ever and anon a lull would fall and the world would shudder to the +iteration of a word that spelled calamity to all things fair and sweet and +lovable in life, the word <i>Bolshevism</i>.... +</p> + +<p> +In the Café des Exiles there was endless discord and strife. +</p> + +<p> +For several reasons trade was not what it had been, even for the slack season +of summer it was poor. The cost of everything had gone up, waiters were +insubordinate and unreasonable in their demands, Mama Thérèse had been +constrained to increase the fixed price of the dinner, old customers took +umbrage at this and their patronage elsewhere. +</p> + +<p> +Mama Thérèse cultivated a temper that grew day by day more vile, Papa Dupont +displayed new artfulness in the matter of sneaking his daily toll of drink and +showed it; the two squabbled incessantly. +</p> + +<p> +One of the chefs, surmising the irregularity of their relations and foreseeing +an imminent break, sought to turn it to his own profit by making amorous +overtures to Mama Thérèse, who for reasons of her own, probably hoping to make +Papa Dupont jealous, encouraged the idiot. And, as if this were not sickening +enough, Papa Dupont, far from resenting this menace to the pseudo-peace of the +ménage, ignored if he did not welcome it, and daily displayed new tenderness +for Sofia. He kept near her as constantly as he could, he would even interrupt +a wrangle with Mama Thérèse to favour the girl with a languishing glance or a +term of endearment; he was forever caressing her disgustingly with his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +The swing door between the café and the pantry had warped on its hinges and +would not stay quite shut. Normally it stuck in a position which permitted +whoever was at the zinc an uninterrupted view of the desk of la dame du +comptoir. Instead of having it fixed, Papa Dupont put off that duty from day to +day and developed a fond attachment for the place at the zinc. For hours on end +Sofia, on her high stool, would be conscious of his gloating regard, his +glances that lingered on the sweet lines of her throat, the roundness of her +pretty arms. +</p> + +<p> +She dared make no sign to show that she knew and resented, to do so would be +merely to draw upon herself the spite of Mama Thérèse. +</p> + +<p> +But she simmered with indignation, and contemplated futile plans—especially in +the long, empty hours of the afternoon, between luncheon and the hour of the +apertifs—countless vain plans for abolishing these intolerable conditions. +</p> + +<p> +She thought a great deal of the strange man who had talked with young Mr. +Karslake, and wondered about him. Somehow she seemed unable to forget him; +never before had any one she didn’t know made such a lasting impression upon +her imagination. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes she wasted time trying to explain to herself why the man had seemed, +for that brief instant, to think he knew her, only to dismiss such speculations +eventually with the assurance that she probably resembled in moderate degree +somebody whom he had once known. +</p> + +<p> +But mostly she was preoccupied with pondering the strangeness of it, that he +who seemed so brilliant and brave a figure of the great world should, according +to his own confession, have risen from beginnings as lowly as her own. All that +he had suffered in the days of his youth, in that place in Paris which he +called Troyon’s, Sofia had suffered here and in large part continued to suffer +without prospect of alleviation or hope of escape. And remembering what he had +said, that his own trials had come to an end only when he awakened to the fact +that he was, as he had put it, “less than half alive” there at Troyon’s, and +had simply “walked out into life,” she was persuaded that the cure for her own +discomfort and discontent would never be found in any other way. But she lacked +courage to adventure it. +</p> + +<p> +To say “walk out and make an end of it” was all very well; but assuming that +she ever should muster up spirit enough to do it—what then? Which way should +she turn, once she had passed out through the doors? What could she do? She had +neither means nor friends, and she was much too thoroughly conversant with the +common way of the world with a woman alone to imagine that, by taking her life +in her own hands, she would accomplish much more than exchange the irk of the +frying pan for the fury of the fire. +</p> + +<p> +All the same, she knew that she must one day do it and chance the consequences. +Things couldn’t go on as they were. +</p> + +<p> +And even granting that the outcome of any effort at self-assertion must be +unhappy, she grew impatient. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, she did nothing, she sat quietly on her perch, looked with stony +composure over the heads of the multitude, indifferent alike to admiration and +the uncharitable esteem of her own sex, and waited with a burning heart. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Karslake ran true to form. He drifted in and out casually, always idle and +dégagé and elegant, he continued his irregular conferences with ill-assorted +companions, he worshipped discreetly and evidently without the faintest hope, +he seemed more than ever a trifling and immaterial creature. Chance did not +again lead him to the table where he had sat with the man whom Sofia could not +forget, and only the memory of that conversation held any place for Karslake in +the consideration of the girl. +</p> + +<p> +Even at that she didn’t consider him seriously, she looked for him and missed +him when he didn’t appear solely because of a secret hope that some day that +other one would come back to meet him in the café. +</p> + +<p> +Why she held fast to that hope Sofia could not have said. +</p> + +<p> +Toward the middle of summer Mr. Karslake absented himself for several weeks, +and when he showed up again his visits were fewer and more widely spaced. +</p> + +<p> +On an afternoon late in August, a hot and weary day, he sauntered in with his +habitual air of having in particular nothing to do and all the time there was +to do it in, and found a man waiting for him. +</p> + +<p> +This was a person whom Sofia had quite overlooked after one glance had +classified and pigeon-holed him. A single glance had been enough. They do some +things better in England; a man cast for any particular rôle in life, for +example, is apt to conform himself, mentally, physically, and even as to his +outer habiliments, so nicely to the mould that he is forever unmistakably what +he is even to the most casual observer. So this man was a butler, he had been +born and bred a butler, he lived by buttling, a butler he would die; not a +pompous, turkeycock butler, such as the American stage will offer you when it +takes up English fashionable life in a serious way, but a mild-mannered, decent +body, with plain side-whiskers, chopped short on a line with the lobes of his +ears, otherwise clean-shaven, his hair pathetically dyed, a colourless cast of +countenance, eyes meek and mild. +</p> + +<p> +He was soberly dressed in black coat and waistcoat, the latter showing a white +triangle of hard-polished shirt and a black bow tie, with indefinite gray +trousers and square-toed boots by no means new. His middle was crossed by a +thick silver watch-chain, and curious, old-fashioned buttons of agate set in +square frames of gold fastened his round stiff cuffs of yesterday. He carried a +well-brushed bowler as unfashionable as unseasonable. +</p> + +<p> +When Mr. Karslake entered, the polished pattern of a young gentleman of means, +slenderly well set-up in an exquisitely tailored brown lounge suit, wearing a +boater and carrying a slender malacca stick in one chamois-gloved hand, the +butler stood up at his table, quietly acknowledged his greeting—“Ah, Nogam! you +here already?”—and waited for the younger man to be seated before resuming his +own chair: a stoop-shouldered symbol of self-respecting respectability, not too +intelligent, subdued by definite and unresentful acceptance of “his place.” +</p> + +<p> +Their table was the one immediately beyond the buffet; and the café was very +quiet, with only three other patrons, two of whom were playing chess while the +third was reading an old issue of the Echo de Paris. So Sofia could, if she had +cared to eavesdrop, have overheard everything that passed between Mr. Karslake +and the man Nogam. But she didn’t; their first few speeches failed to excite +her curiosity in the least. +</p> + +<p> +She heard Mr. Karslake, who was becomingly affable to one of inferior station, +express the perfunctory hope that he hadn’t kept Nogam waiting long, and Nogam +reply to the simple effect of “Oh, not at all, sir.” To this he added that he +’oped there had been no ’itch, he was most heager to be installed in his new +situation, and would do his best to give satisfaction. Karslake replied airily +that he was sure Nogam would do famously, and Nogam said “Thank you, sir.” Then +Karslake announced they must bustle along, because they were expected by some +person unnamed, but just the same he meant to have a drink before he budged a +foot. And he called a waiter and requested a whiskey and soda for himself and +some beer for Nogam.... And Sofia turned her attention to other things. +</p> + +<p> +The murmur of their talk meant nothing to her after that, and she forgot them +entirely till they got up to leave, and then wasted only a moment in wondering +why Mr. Karslake, if he were, as he seemed to be, engaging a butler for some +friend or employer, should have arranged to meet the man in a café of Soho. But +it didn’t matter, and she dismissed the incident from her mind. +</p> + +<p> +What did matter was that she was to-day more than ever galled by the deadly +circumstances of her existence. If they were to continue to obtain, she felt, +life would grow simply unendurable, and she would to do something reckless to +get a little relief from the tedium and the ugliness of it all. +</p> + +<p> +She was fed up with everything, the shrewishness of Mama Thérèse, the +drunkenness of Papa Dupont, the hideous dullness of the café, the smell of +food, the fumes of tobacco, the reek of wines. +</p> + +<p> +She was fed up with the leers of Papa Dupont, the scowls of Mama Thérèse, the +grimaces of waiters, the stares of customers, the very sight of herself in the +mirror across the room. +</p> + +<p> +She was fed up with being fed up, she wanted to do something lunatic, she +wanted to kick and scream and drum on the floor with her heels. +</p> + +<p> +And all the while, beyond the threshold, life in the street was flowing by, a +restless stream, and the voice of it was a siren call to her hungry heart, +whispering of freedom, laughing low of love, roaring robustly of brave +adventures. +</p> + +<p> +And she sat there with folded hands, mutinous yet impotent, afraid, a useless +thing with sullen eyes ... wasted ... +</p> + +<p> +As was her custom, between six and seven, before the busy hours of the evening, +she had her dinner fetched to a table near by. +</p> + +<p> +Somebody had left a copy of a morning paper on the wall-seat. Sofia glanced +through it without much interest. None the less, when she had finished, she +took the sheet back to the caisse with her and intermittently, as occasion +offered, read snatches of it quite openly, so bored that she didn’t care if +Mama Thérèse did catch her at this forbidden practice; a good row would be +almost welcome ... anything to break the monotony.... +</p> + +<p> +When she had digested without edification every item of news, she devoured the +advertisements of the shops, then turned to the Agony Column, which she had +saved up for a savoury. +</p> + +<p> +She read the appeal of the widow of the English army officer who wanted some +kind-hearted and soft-headed person to finance her in setting up an +establishment for “paying guests.” +</p> + +<p> +She read the card of the young gentleman of good family but impoverished means +who admitted that he had every grace and talent heart could desire and who, in +frantic effort to escape going to work for his living, threw himself bodily +upon the generosity of an unknown, and as yet non-existent, benefactor, hinting +darkly at suicide if nothing came of this last attempt to get himself +luxuriously maintained in indolence. +</p> + +<p> +She read the advertisements of money-lenders who yearned to advance fabulous +sums to the nobility and gentry on their simple notes of hand. +</p> + +<p> +She read the thinly disguised professional cards of lonely ladies whose unhappy +lot could be mitigated only by congenial male companionship. +</p> + +<p> +She read the ingenuous matrimonial bids. +</p> + +<p> +She read the announcement of the lady of (deleted) title who was willing, for a +substantial consideration, to introduce gentlefolk of means and their daughters +to the most exclusive social circles. +</p> + +<p> +She read the naïve solicitation of the alleged ex-officer of the B.E.F., +who had won through the war with every known decoration except the Double Cross +of the Order of St. Gall and with nothing of his anatomy left whole except his +cheek, begging some great-hearted soul to buy him a barrel organ to play in the +streets. +</p> + +<p> +And then her eye was arrested by the appearance of her own name in the text of +a brief advertisement, which she read naturally, with heightened interest: +</p> + +<p> +IF MICHAEL LANYARD will communicate privately he will hear news of Sofia his +daughter. Address Secretan & Sypher, Solicitors, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, W.C. +3 +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch4"></a>IV<br/> +MUTINY</h2> + +<p> +Sofia had never heard the name of Michael Lanyard. Neither did the firm style +of Messrs. Secretan & Sypher, Solicitors, mean anything to her. +Notwithstanding, she wasted more time than she knew trying to picture to +herself a man who looked like Michael Lanyard sounded, and wishing (no matter +what his looks might be) that she were his long-lost daughter Sofia, and that +he would see the advertisement, and communicate privately as requested, and +hear news of her, and come speeding in a Rolls-Royce to the Café des Exiles, +and walk in and humble Papa Dupont with a look of hauteur and confound Mama +Thérèse with a peremptory word, and take Sofia by the hand and lead her out and +induct her into such an environment as suited her rightful station: said +environment necessarily comprising a town house if not on Park Lane at least +nearly adjacent to it, and a country house sitting, in the mellowed beauty of +its Seventeenth Century architecture, amid lordly acres of velvet lawn and +private park. +</p> + +<p> +She hoped the country house would be within sight of the sea, and that the +family garage would run to a comfortable little town-car for her personal use +when she went shopping in Bond Street, or to pay calls or leave cards, or to +concerts and matinees.... +</p> + +<p> +At about this stage her châteaux en Espagne began to rock upon their +foundations; a seismic phenomenon due to the appearance of Mama Thérèse and +Papa Dupont, coming from zinc and kitchen for their dinner, which meal they +habitually consumed in the café when the evening rush was over, the tables +undressed, and the establishment had settled down to drowse away the dull hours +till closing time. +</p> + +<p> +Thus reminded that it was nine o’clock or thereabouts of a stuffy evening in a +stodgy world where nothing ever happened that hadn’t wearily happened the day +before and the day before that and so back to the beginning of Time, and wasn’t +scheduled tediously to continue happening to-morrow and the day after and so on +to the end of Eternity, Sofia sighed and shook herself and put away the vanity +of dreams. +</p> + +<p> +But her beauty, as she sat brooding, was as sultry as the night. +</p> + +<p> +In the rear of the room Mama Thérèse and Papa Dupont wrangled sourly over their +food; not with impassioned rancour but in the natural order of things—as others +might discuss the book of the moment or the play of the year or scandal or +Charlie Chaplin or the thundering fiasco of Versailles—these two discussed each +other’s failings with utmost candour and freedom of expression: handling their +subjects without gloves; never hesitating to touch upon topics not commonly +mentioned in civil intercourse or to use the apt, unprintable word; never +dreaming of politely terming a damned old hoe a spade; tossing the ball of +recrimination to and fro with masterly ease. +</p> + +<p> +Their preoccupation with this pastime was so thoroughgoing that Mama Thérèse +even failed to notice the passage of the postman on his last round of the day. +Ordinarily, for reasons best known to herself and which Sofia had never thought +to question, Mama Thérèse preferred personally to receive all letters and +contrived to be on hand at the postman’s customary hours of call. But to-night +she only realized that he had come and gone when, happening to glance toward +the caisse, she saw Sofia shuffling the half-dozen envelopes which had been +left with her. +</p> + +<p> +Immediately Mama Thérèse pushed back the table and got up, wiping chin and +moustache with her napkin as she rolled toward the desk. +</p> + +<p> +But she was too late. Already Sofia had sorted out and was staring in blank +wonder at an envelope addressed to Mama Thérèse and bearing in its upper +left-hand corner the imprint of its origin: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Secretan & Sypher<br/> +Solicitors<br/> +Lincoln’s Inn Fields<br/> +London, W.C. 3.</i> +</p> + +<p> +As yet she was simply startled by the coincidence, her brain had not had time +to absorb its full significance—that Mama Thérèse should receive a +communication from these distinctively named solicitors on the evening of the +very day on which they advertised concerning a young woman named Sofia!—when +the letter was snatched out of her hand, a torrent of objurgation was loosed +upon her devoted head, and she looked into the black scowl of the Frenchwoman. +</p> + +<p> +“Sneak! Spying little cat! How dare you pry into my letters?” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Mama Thérèse—!” +</p> + +<p> +“Be still, you! Has one asked you to speak? Give me those others”—Mama Thérèse +with a vast show of violence appropriated them from Sofia’s unresisting +grasp—“and after this keep your nose of a mouchard out of what doesn’t concern +you!” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Mama Thérèse!—” +</p> + +<p> +“Hold your tongue. I wish to hear nothing from you, I hear too much—yes, and +see too much, too! Oh, don’t flatter yourself I am like that fat dolt of a +Dupont, to be taken in by a pair of round eyes and innocent ways. I know your +sort, I know <i>you</i>, mam’selle, too well! Me, I am nobody’s fool, least of +all yours, young woman. What goes on under my nose, I see; and if you imagine +otherwise you are a bigger simpleton that you take me for.” +</p> + +<p> +She snapped her fingers viciously in Sofia’s crimsoned face, uttered a +contemptuous “<i>Zut!</i>” and waddled off, shaking her head and growling to +herself. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia felt stunned. The offensive had been launched so swiftly, she was +conscious of having done so little to invite it, she had been taken unprepared, +thrown into confusion, her feeble objections silenced and overwhelmed by that +deluge of abuse, publicly disgraced.... +</p> + +<p> +Her face was burning, and tears started in her eyes; but she winked them back, +she would not let them fall. Conscious of the grins of the handful of patrons, +and the leers of the waiters, she steeled herself to suppress every betrayal of +the mortification in which her soul was writhing, she made no sign but stared +on stonily at the blackness of the night that peered in at the open doors. +</p> + +<p> +Then indignation came to her rescue, the flaming colour ebbed from her face and +left it unnaturally white, the mists before her eyes dissipated and their look +grew fixed and hard, even her lips took on a grim, unyielding set. Beneath the +desk her hands clenched into small fists. But she did not move. +</p> + +<p> +The sensation stirred up by the outbreak of Mama Thérèse subsided, the domino +players resumed their game, the old gentleman reading Le Rire turned a page and +read on with a knowing smile, lovers returned to their low-voiced love-making, +waiters yawned behind their hands, all was as it had been save that, at their +table (Sofia could see by the mirror, without looking directly) Mama Thérèse +and Papa Dupont seemed to have declared an armistice and were gobbling down the +rest of their meal in silence and indecorous haste. +</p> + +<p> +Presently they got up and sought their living quarters. To do this they had to +pass the caisse and through the green baize door. Mama Thérèse marched ahead +with forbidding frown and quivering chins, with the militant carriage of +misprized and affronted rectitude. To her, it was obvious, Sofia for the time +being did not exist. At her heels Papa Dupont shambled uneasily, hanging the +head of deep thoughtfulness, avoiding Sofia’s gaze. It was his part to pretend +that all was well and always would be; only he lacked the effrontery, just +then, for his usual smirk. +</p> + +<p> +When they had disappeared Sofia began to think. +</p> + +<p> +There was something more in this affair than mere coincidence, there was +mystery, a sinister question. +</p> + +<p> +Her countenance grew as dark as the complexion of her reverie. Athwart the +field of her abstracted vision drifted the figure of young Mr. Karslake. She +was barely conscious of it. +</p> + +<p> +He seated himself with plain premeditation directly opposite the caisse, +staring openly. But Sofia did not heed him at all. An odd smile shadowed his +lips, an expression half eager, half apprehensive; there was a hint of +puzzlement in his scrutiny. It was rather as if he had unexpectedly found some +new reason for thinking the girl an exceptionally interesting personality. But +she continued all unaware. +</p> + +<p> +Shortly after being served with a drink which he ordered but made no offer to +taste, he moved as if minded to rise and cross to Sofia, sat up and edged +forward on the wall-seat with a singular air of timidity and embarrassment. But +whatever his intention, he reconsidered and sat back, glancing round the room +to see if anybody were watching him. He could not see that anybody was. Not +even Sofia. Relieved, he settled back, found a handsome gold case in the +waistcoat of his dinner jacket, extracted a cigarette, nipped it between his +lips—and forgot to light it. +</p> + +<p> +Of a sudden Sofia had arrived at a decision; and with every expression of it in +her manner she slipped down from the high stool and left the caisse to take +care of itself. Turning to the swing door she barged through with a high head +and fire of determination illuminating her face. She had had enough of riddles. +</p> + +<p> +Behind the zinc an elderly and trusted waiter was nodding. The kitchen was cold +and dark for the night. Papa Dupont, then, would be upstairs, closeted with the +genius of the establishment. +</p> + +<p> +From the pantry a narrow staircase led up to the apartment above the +restaurant. Sofia mounted rapidly, with a firm tread that was nevertheless +practically noiseless, thanks to the paper-thin soles of well-worn slippers. +She could hear voices bickering above. +</p> + +<p> +At the top there was a short, dark corridor, with three doors. Two of these +were closed on sleeping-rooms; the third door, to a sort of combination office +and living-room, stood open, letting out a stream of light. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia approached on tiptoe, though the altercation going on within had reached +a stage so acute that it was doubtful whether either of the disputants would +have heard had she stumped like a navvy. +</p> + +<p> +The point of dissension was not at first apparent, because Mama Thérèse was +speaking, and what she said had exclusively to do with her estimate of Dupont’s +character, the mettle of his spirit, the stuff of his mentality, the +authenticity of his pedigree (with especial reference to the virtue of his +maternal ancestry) and the circumstances of his upbringing; which estimate in +sum was low but by no means so low as the terms in which Mama Thérèse was +inspired to couch it. +</p> + +<p> +Papa Dupont did not seem to be greatly interested. He had heard all this +before, many a time, with insignificant phraseological variations. Sofia, +pausing unseen and unsuspected in the darkness just outside the doorway, could +see him slouching deep in his chair, to one side of the table, his soft fat +hands deep in the pockets of his trousers, his chin sunken on his chest, +something dogged in the louring frown which he was bending upon nothing, +something of genuine indifference in his passive attitude toward the blowsy +virago who was leaning across the table the better to spit vituperation at him. +</p> + +<p> +And he waited with singular patience until she had to stop for want of breath. +Then he shrugged and said heavily: +</p> + +<p> +“Still, I don’t see what else you propose to do, my old one.” +</p> + +<p> +Apparently his old one was as poor in expedient as he. “It is for nothing,” she +said, acidly, “that one looks to you!” +</p> + +<p> +“I have said my say. If you have anything better to suggest....” He made a +rhetorical pause for reply, but Mama Thérèse was well blown and sulky for the +moment. “I am not old, not so old as you, and I have reason to believe the girl +is not indifferent to my person.” +</p> + +<p> +“Drooling old pig,” Mama Thérèse observed with reason: “if you dream she would +trouble to look twice at you—!” +</p> + +<p> +“That remains to be seen. And I, for one, fail to see how else we are to hold +her. All this money that has been coming in, paid on the dot every quarter—that +means there is more, much more to come to her. Are you ready to give it up?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never!” Mama Thérèse thumped the table vehemently. “It is mine by rights, I +have earned it. Look at the way I have slaved for her, the tender care I have +lavished upon her, ever since she was a little one in my arms.” +</p> + +<p> +“By all means,” Papa Dupont agreed, “look at it, but don’t talk about it to +her. She might not understand you. Also, do not depend upon her to endorse any +claim you might set up based upon such assertions.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is an ungrateful baggage!” +</p> + +<p> +“Possibly; but she is human, she has a memory—” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you going to be sentimental about her again?” Mama Thérèse demanded. +“Pitiful old goat!” +</p> + +<p> +“But I am not in the least sentimental,” Papa Dupont disclaimed. “It is rather +I who am practical, you who are sentimental. I ask you: Is there any way we can +hold on to that money unless I marry Sofia? You do not answer. Why? Because +there <i>is</i> no other way. Then I am practical. But you will not admit that. +And why? Because we have lived together for a number of years through force of +habit, because once, very long ago, we were lovers, you and I—so long ago that +you have forgotten you ever had a softer name for me than pig or goat. Who is +the sentimentalist now—eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Shut your face!” Mama Thérèse growled. “You annoy me. I have a presentiment I +shall one day murder you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You would have done that long ago,” Papa Dupont pointed out, “if you had had +the courage. Enough! I am silent. But when you are tired trying to think out +another way, reflect on my solution. Meantime, let me have another look at that +accursed letter.” +</p> + +<p> +Mama Thérèse did not respond, she offered no objection when Dupont took up the +sheet of paper that lay between them, but ground the heels of her hands into +her fat cheeks and sat glowering vindictively while he read aloud, slowly, with +the labour of one to whom reading is unaccustomed dissipation: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +DEAR MADAM: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Herewith we beg to enclose our cheque to your order in the sum of two hundred +and fifty pounds, being the quarterly payment in advance due you from the +estate of our deceased client, the Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, for your care +of her daughter. We further beg to advise that, pursuant to the provisions of +her will, we begin to-day, on the eighteenth birthday of the young Princess +Sofia, a search for her father with the object of apprising him of his +daughter’s existence. Therefore we would request you to make arrangements to +have the young Princess Sofia brought to England forthwith from the convent in +France where we understand she is finishing her education. We take leave, +however, to advise that, pending the outcome of our enquiries, the question of +her father’s existence be not discussed with the young princess. In event of +his death being established or of failure to find him within six months, the +Princess Sofia is to enter without more delay or formality into possession of +her mother’s estate. +</p> + +<p> +Papa Dupont put down the letter. “It is plain enough,” he expounded: “if this +father is found, we can whistle for our money; whereas if I were married to +Sofia, as her husband I would control—” +</p> + +<p> +He broke off sharply, and added in consternation: “One million thunders!” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia stood between them. +</p> + +<p> +And yet she wasn’t the Sofia they knew, but another person altogether, a +transfigured and exalted Sofia, aflame with righteous wrath and contemptuous +with the pride of birth which had leaped into full being a moment since. +</p> + +<p> +A princess, born the daughter of a princess, now she knew and looked it. +</p> + +<p> +All thought of fear or deference was gone, she had nothing left but scorn for +these two despicable creatures, the fat harpy and her crapulent consort who had +battened so long upon her misery, who had held her in bondage to the most +menial tasks of their wretched restaurant while they filched and hoarded the +money paid them for giving her the care and the advantages that were her due. +</p> + +<p> +And something of this new-found dignity, to which her title was so +unquestionable, which set her upon a level from which she could not but look +down on these two paltry frauds, so abashed the Frenchwoman that the phrases of +invective and vilification which gushed instinctively from the foul springs of +her temper stuck in her throat, she couldn’t utter them, and she well-nigh +choked with impotent fury and fear as the girl spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“You swindlers!” Sofia said, deliberately. “You poor cheats! To pocket a +thousand pounds a year of my mother’s money—and make me slave for you in your +wretched café! And for eighteen years! For eighteen years you have been robbing +me of every right I had in the world, robbing me of everything I’ve needed and +longed and prayed for, everything you were paid to give me—while I drudged for +you and endured your ill-temper and your abuse and the contamination of +association with you!... Give me that letter.” +</p> + +<p> +She possessed herself of it unopposed. But now Mama Thérèse found her tongue. +</p> + +<p> +“What—what do you mean?” she gasped, livid with fright. Was not a fortune +slipping through her avaricious fingers? “What are you going to do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do?” Sofia cried. “I don’t know, more than this: I’m not going to stay another +hour under this roof, I’m going to leave to-night—now— immediately! That’s what +I’m going to do!” +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you going?” +</p> + +<p> +The question halted Sofia in the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“To find my father—wherever he is!” +</p> + +<p> +She left the two staring at each other, dumbfounded and aghast. +</p> + +<p> +At the far end of the passage she flung open her bedchamber door, entered, +turned up the light, and snatched her cloak and hat from pegs beneath the +curtained shelf that held her scanty wardrobe. +</p> + +<p> +Adjusting these before the mirror she could hear Thérèse bawling at Dupont to +follow and stop her. Sofia had little fear he would find heart to attempt that, +none the less she hurried. Once her hat was adjusted there was nothing to +detain her; the best she had she stood in; no sentimental associations invested +that room, the tomb of her defrauded childhood, the prison of her maltreated +youth, to make her linger there, but only hateful ones to speed her going. +</p> + +<p> +She turned and fled. +</p> + +<p> +Stumbling on the stairs, she heard Thérèse still screaming imprecations and +commands at Dupont, then the clumping of the man’s feet as, yielding at length, +he started in pursuit. +</p> + +<p> +Through the green baize door she burst into the café like a young tornado. +Every head turned her way with gaping mouths and protruding eyes of +astonishment as she stopped at the caisse and brazenly, in the face of them +all, plundered the till. +</p> + +<p> +This was a matter of necessity. Sofia had not one shilling of her own. But +those two had robbed her, what she took was not so much as a thousandth part of +the money of which they had despoiled her. Moreover, she dared not go out +penniless to face London. +</p> + +<p> +Snatching a handful of loose coin, she made for the door. But the delay had +been fatal. Dupont was now at her heels, and displaying extraordinary agility +in a man of his years of dissipation and sedentary habits. And Thérèse was not +far behind. +</p> + +<p> +Seeing coins trickling through the fingers of the fugitive and falling to ring +and spin upon the floor, the Frenchwoman raised an anguished shriek of +“<i>Thief! Stop thief!</i>”—and such part of the audience as had remained in +its seats rose up as one man. +</p> + +<p> +In the same instant Dupont’s fingers clamped down on Sofia’s shoulder. She +screamed, and he chuckled and dragged her back. Then his arm was struck up by a +deft hand, the girl slipped from his hold and darted out through the doors. +</p> + +<p> +Roaring with rage (now that his blood was up, his heart in the chase) Dupont +turned upon the meddler. This was young Mr. Karslake. Dupont did not know him +except by sight, but that slender, boyish figure and the semi-apologetic smile +on Karslake’s lips did not inspire respect. Blindly and with all his might +Dupont swung his right to the other’s head, only to find it wasn’t there. +</p> + +<p> +The weight of the unexpended blow carried Dupont off his feet. He fell in a +heap, and Mama Thérèse, charging wildly after Sofia, tripped on his body and +deposited fourteen stone of solid flesh squarely in the small of Dupont’s back +with a force that drove the breath out of him in one agonized blast. +</p> + +<p> +Karslake laughed aloud: it was all as good as a cinema. Then he followed Sofia. +</p> + +<p> +It was a dark and silent street by night, little used, a mere link between two +main thoroughfares. Sofia, running for dear life, was still far from the +nearest corner. Karslake doubled nimbly across the street to the only vehicle +in sight, an impressive Rolls-Royce town-car. Jumping on the running-board he +pointed out the fleeing shadow to the chauffeur. +</p> + +<p> +“Lay alongside that young woman before she makes the corner, Albert!” +</p> + +<p> +Without delay the car began to move. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, the Café des Exiles was erupting antic shapes, waiters, customers, +Dupont, Thérèse. The quiet hour was made hideous by their yells. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Stop thief!” “À la voleuse!” “L’arrêtez!” “À la voleuse!” “Stop +thief!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +An entirely superfluous bobby weathered the corner, discovered Sofia in flight +across the street, came about, and shaped a diagonal course to cut across her +bows. She saw him coming and stopped short with a gasp of dismay. +Simultaneously the Rolls-Royce slid smoothly in between them and Karslake +hopped down. Sofia uttered a small cry, more of surprise than fright, and hung +back, trying to free the arm by which he was trying to guide her to the open +door. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s our only chance,” he warned her, coolly. “We’re between two fires. Better +not delay!” +</p> + +<p> +She yielded and tumbled in. Karslake followed and slammed the door. The car +shot away and rounded into the cross street before the bobby could collect +himself enough to look at its license plate. He made after it, but when he had +reached the corner it had turned another and was lost. +</p> + +<p> +At the second turning Karslake looked round from the window with a reassuring +laugh, and settled back beside Sofia. +</p> + +<p> +“So that ends that!” +</p> + +<p> +She stared wide-eyed through the shadows. She knew him now, she was not in the +least afraid, but she was confused beyond measure. +</p> + +<p> +“Why—why—” she faltered—“what—who are you and where are you taking me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I beg your pardon!” said the young man, contritely. “I forgot. One ought +to introduce one’s self before rescuing ladies in distress—but there really +wasn’t time, you know. If you’ll overlook the informality, my name’s Karslake, +Roger Karslake, Princess Sofia, and I’m taking you to your father.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch5"></a>V<br/> +HOUSE OF THE WOLF</h2> + +<p> +This startling announcement Sofia received without comment and with a composure +quite as surprising. The life which had made her what she was, a young woman +singularly unillusioned, well-poised, and well-informed, had brought out in her +nature a strong vein of scepticism. She was not easily to be impressed. The +more remarkable the circumstance in question, the less inclined was she to +exclaim about it, the stronger was her propensity to look shrewdly into the +matter and find out for herself just what it was that made it seem so odd. +</p> + +<p> +She didn’t repose much faith in those striking synchronizations which +apparently unrelated influences sometimes effect with related events, and which +we are accustomed to term coincidences. She distrusted their specious seeming +of spontaneity, she suspected a deep design behind them all. +</p> + +<p> +For example: Up to the moment of her flight from the Café des Exiles there had +been, as Sofia saw it, nothing extraordinary or inexplicable in the chapter of +happenings which had made her acquainted, as abruptly as tardily, with certain +facts concerning her parentage. +</p> + +<p> +You might, if you felt like it, call it a strange coincidence that she should +have read the advertisement of Messrs. Secretan & Sypher just before their +letter was delivered and Mama Thérèse by her intemperate conduct warmed Sofia’s +simmering suspicions to the boiling point. But then Sofia read the Agony Column +every time it came into her hands: she would have been more surprised had she +missed noticing her given name in print, and downright ashamed of herself if +she had failed to associate the letter with the advertisement. +</p> + +<p> +If you asked her, she called it Fate, the foreordained workings of occult +forces charged with dominion over human affairs. Sooner or later she must +somehow have learned the truth about her right place in the world; and to her +way of thinking it was no more astonishing that she should have learned it +through accident supplemented by the acute inferences of a sharply stimulated +imagination, rather than through being waited upon by a delegation of legal +gentlemen commissioned with the duty of enlightening her. And the colossal +set-piece of the evening having been duly exploded, no sequel whatever could +expect anything better than relegation to the cheerless limbo of anticlimax. +</p> + +<p> +Thus when young Mr. Karslake explained his uninvited if timely intervention by +stating that he was conducting her to the parent of whose existence she had so +recently been informed, he succeeded—not to put too fine a point upon it—only +in making it all seem a bit thick. +</p> + +<p> +So for the time being Sofia contented herself with silent study of his face as +fitfully revealed by the passing lights of Shaftesbury Avenue. +</p> + +<p> +A nice face (she thought) open and naïve, perhaps a trace too much so; +but, viewed at close quarters, by no means so child-like as she had thought it, +and by no means wanting in evidences of quiet strength if one forgave the funny +little moustache which (now one came to, observe it seriously) was precisely +what lent that possibly deceptive look of innocence and inconsequence, +positively weakening the character of what might otherwise have been a +countenance to foster confidence. +</p> + +<p> +As for Mr. Karslake, he endured this candid scrutiny with a faintly +apprehensive smile, but volunteered nothing more; so that, when the silence in +time acquired an accent of constraint, it was Sofia who had to break it, not +Mr. Karslake. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m wondering about you,” she explained quite gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“One fancied as much, Princess Sofia.” +</p> + +<p> +She liked his way of saying that; the title seemed to fall naturally from his +lips, without a trace of irony. None the less, it wouldn’t do to be too readily +influenced in his favour. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you really know my father?” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather!” said Mr. Karslake. “You see, I’m his secretary.” +</p> + +<p> +“How long—” +</p> + +<p> +“Upward of eighteen months now.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how long have you known I was his daughter?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Karslake, consulting a wrist-watch, permitted himself a quiet smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Thirty-eight minutes,” he announced—“say, thirty-nine.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how did you find out—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your father called me up—can’t say from where—said he’d just learned you were +acting as cashier at the Café des Exiles, and would I be good enough to take +you firmly by the hand and lead you home.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how did he learn—?” +</p> + +<p> +“That he didn’t say. ’Fraid you’ll have to ask him, Princess Sofia.” +</p> + +<p> +Genuinely diverted by the cross-examination, he awaited with unruffled good +humour the next question to be put by this amazingly collected and direct young +person. But Sofia hesitated. She didn’t want to be rude, and Karslake seemed to +be telling a tolerably straight story; still, she couldn’t altogether believe +in him as yet. She couldn’t help it if his visit to the restaurant had been a +shade too opportune, his account of himself too confoundedly pat. +</p> + +<p> +No: she wasn’t in the least afraid. Even if she were being kidnapped, she +wasn’t afraid. She was so young, so absurdly confident in her ability to take +care of herself. On the other hand, intuition kept admonishing her that in real +life things simply didn’t happen like this, so smoothly, so fortunately; +somehow, somewhere, in this curious affair, something must be wrong. +</p> + +<p> +“Please: what is my father’s name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Prince Victor Vassilyevski.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re sure it isn’t Michael Lanyard?” +</p> + +<p> +Now Mr. Karslake was genuinely startled and showed it. Sofia remarked that he +eyed her uneasily. +</p> + +<p> +“My sainted aunt! Where did you get hold of that name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it my father’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ye-es,” the young man admitted, reluctantly; at least with something strongly +resembling reluctance. “But he doesn’t use it any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Karslake was silent, thoughtful. Sofia felt that she had scored and with +determination pressed her point. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mind telling me why he doesn’t use that name, if it’s his?” +</p> + +<p> +“See here, Princess Sofia”—Karslake slewed round to face her squarely with his +most earnest and persuasive manner—“I am merely Prince Victor’s secretary, I’m +not supposed to know all his secrets, and those I do know I’m supposed not to +talk about. I’d much rather you put that question to Prince Victor yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall,” Sofia announced with decision. “When am I to see him? To-night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course. That is, I presume you will. I mean to say, Prince Victor wasn’t at +home when I left, but if I know him he’s sure to be when we arrive. And I’m +taking you there as directly as a motor can travel in this blessed town.” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia looked out of the window. The car, having turned down Regent Street from +Piccadilly Circus, was now traversing sedate Pall Mall; and in another moment +it swung into the passage between St. James’s Palace and Marlborough House +Chapel; and then they were in The Mall, with the Victoria Memorial ahead, +glowing against the dingy backing of Buckingham Palace. +</p> + +<p> +Now, since all Sofia’s reading had inculcated the belief that the enterprising +kidnapper always made off with his victim by way of dark bystreets and +unsavoury neighbourhoods, she felt somewhat reassured. +</p> + +<p> +“Have we very far to go?” +</p> + +<p> +“We’re almost there now—Queen Anne’s Gate.” +</p> + +<p> +A good enough address. Though that proved nothing. There was still plenty of +time, anything might happen.... +</p> + +<p> +Sofia shrugged, and settled back to await developments. +</p> + +<p> +But there was nothing to warrant misgivings in the aspect of the dwelling +before which the car presently drew up. If it wasn’t the palace Sofia had +unconsciously been looking forward to, it owned a solid, dull-faced dignity +that suited well the town-house of a person of quality, it measured up quite +acceptably to Sofia’s notion of what was becoming to the condition of a prince +in exile—who naturally would live quietly, in view of the recent revolution in +Russia. +</p> + +<p> +Without augmented fears, then, though still on the alert for anything that +might seem questionable, and more agitated with excitement than she let him +suspect, Sofia permitted Mr. Karslake to conduct her to the door. +</p> + +<p> +He had barely touched the bell-button when this door opened, revealing a vista +of spacious entrance-hall. +</p> + +<p> +To one side stood a manservant to whom Sofia paid no attention till the sound +of his name on Karslake’s tongue struck an echo from her memory. “Thanks, +Nogam. Prince Victor home yet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell him, please, when he comes in, we’re waiting in the study.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Nk-you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The servant was the man whom Karslake had met in the Café des Exiles only a few +hours before. Catching Sofia’s quick, questioning glance, Nogam paused at +respectful attention. And, even then, she was struck again with his fidelity to +the rôle in the social system for which Life had cast him. In the café, that +afternoon, he had cut a mildly incongruous figure, unpretending but alien to +that atmosphere; here, in the plain evening-dress livery of his station, he +blended perfectly into the picture. +</p> + +<p> +Karslake gave his hat and stick to the man, then opened one wing of a great +double doorway, and with a bow invited Sofia to precede him. She faltered, +hazily conceiving that threshold in the guise of an inglorious Rubicon. But she +had already gone too far into this adventure to draw back now without +forfeiting her self-respect. With a deceptively firm step she entered a room to +wonder at. +</p> + +<p> +Sombre shadows masked much of its magnificent proportions, but what Sofia could +see suggested less the study of a man of everyday interests than the private +museum of an Orientalist whose wealth knew no limits. +</p> + +<p> +The air was warm and close, aromatic with the ghosts of ten thousand perished +perfumes. The quiet, when Karslake had closed the door, was oppressive, as if +some dark enchantment here had power to tame and silence the growl of London +that was never elsewhere in all the city for an instant still. +</p> + +<p> +On a great table of black teakwood inlaid with mother of pearl burned a +solitary lamp, a curious affair in filigree of brass, furnishing what +illumination there was. Its closely shaded rays made vaguely visible walls dark +with books, tier upon tier climbing to the ceiling; chairs of odd shape, +screens of glowing lacquer; tables and stands supporting caskets of burning +cinnabar, of ivory, of gold, of kaleidoscopic cloisonné; trays heaped high with +unset jewels; cabinets crowded with rare objects of Eastern art; squat shapes +of neglected gods brandishing weird weapons; grotesque devil masks ferociously +a-grin; chests of strange woods strangely fashioned, strangely carved, and +decorated with inlays of precious metals, banded with huge straps of black +iron, from which gushed in rainbow profusion silks and brocades stiff with +barbaric embroideries in gold- and silver-thread and precious stones. +</p> + +<p> +Confused by the impact upon her perceptions of so much that was unexpected and +bizarre, the girl looked round with an uncertain smile, and found Karslake +watching her with a manner of peculiar gravity and concern. +</p> + +<p> +“Prince Victor is an extraordinary man,” Karslake replied to her unspoken +comment; “probably the most learned Orientalist alive. Sometimes I think the +East has never had a secret he doesn’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused and drew nearer, with added earnestness in his regard. +</p> + +<p> +“Princess Sofia,” said he, diffidently, “if I may say something without meaning +to seem disrespectful—” +</p> + +<p> +Perplexed, she encouraged him with one word: “Please.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid,” Karslake ventured, “you will have many strange experiences in +this new life. Some of them, I fancy, you won’t immediately understand, some +things may seem wrong to you, you may find yourself confronted with conditions +hard to accept ...” +</p> + +<p> +He rested as if in doubt, and she fancied that he was listening intently, +almost apprehensively, for some signal of warning. But on her part Sofia heard +no sound. +</p> + +<p> +Impressed and puzzled, she uttered a prompting “Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“I only want to say”—he employed a tone so low that she could barely hear +him—“if you don’t mind—whatever happens—I’d be awf’ly glad if you’d think of me +as one who sincerely wants to be your friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” she said in wonder—“thank you. I shall be glad—” +</p> + +<p> +She checked in astonishment: a man was approaching from the general direction +of the door by which they had entered. +</p> + +<p> +The effect was uncanny, as if the figure had materialized before her very eyes, +out of clear air, as if one of those many shadows had taken on shape and +substance while she looked. +</p> + +<p> +The man himself was nothing unusual in general aspect, of no remarkable +stature, neither tall nor small, neither robust nor slender. His evening +clothes were without fault, but as much might be said of ten thousand men who +might be seen any night in the public rendezvous of leisured London. His +carriage had special distinction only in that he moved with a sort of feline +grace. Still, something elusive made him unlike any other man Sofia had ever +met, something arresting and not altogether prepossessing. +</p> + +<p> +As he drew nearer and his features became more clearly defined by the light, +she was sensible of gazing into a face of unique cast. Of an odd grayish pallor +accentuated by hair so black that it might have been painted on his skull with +india-ink, the skin seemed to be as soft and smooth as a child’s, beardless and +wholly without lustre. The mouth was sensuous yet firm, with hard, full lips. +Leaden pouches hung beneath heavy-lidded eyes set at a noticeable angle. The +eyes themselves were as black as night and as lightless; the rays of the lamp +struck no gleam from them; in spite of this they were compelling, masterful, +and disconcerting. +</p> + +<p> +Karslake at once fell back, with a bow so low it was little less than an +obeisance. +</p> + +<p> +“Prince Victor!” +</p> + +<p> +The man nodded acknowledgment of this greeting without detaching attention from +the girl. His voice, slightly tremulous with emotion, uttered her name: +“Sofia?” +</p> + +<p> +She collected herself with an effort. “I am Sofia,” she replied almost +mechanically. +</p> + +<p> +“And I, your father...” +</p> + +<p> +Prince Victor lifted hands of singular delicacy, slender and tapering, whose +long fingers were dressed with many curious rings. +</p> + +<p> +A reluctance she could not understand hindered Sofia from going gladly into +those arms. She had to make herself yield. They tightened hungrily about her. +She closed her eyes and experienced a slight, invincible shudder. +</p> + +<p> +“My child!” +</p> + +<p> +The lips that touched her forehead astonished her with their warmth. +Instinctively she had expected them to be cool, as frigid as the effect of that +strange mask of which they formed a part. +</p> + +<p> +Then, held at arm’s-length, she submitted to an inspection whose sum was +enunciated with a strange smile of gratification: +</p> + +<p> +“You are beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +In embarrassment she murmured: “I am glad you think so—father.” +</p> + +<p> +“As beautiful as your mother—in her time the most beautiful creature in the +world—her image, a flawless reproduction, even to her colouring, the shade of +the hair, the eyes—so like the sea!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad,” the girl repeated, nervously. +</p> + +<p> +“And until to-night I did not know you lived!” +</p> + +<p> +She mustered up courage enough to ask: “How—?” +</p> + +<p> +The heavy lids drooped lower over the illegible eyes. “My attention was called +to a newspaper advertisement signed by a firm of solicitors. I got in touch +with them—a matter of some difficulty, since it was after business hours—and +found out where to look for you. Then, prevented from acting as quickly as I +wished, myself, I sent Karslake here to bring you to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, according to their letter, the solicitors thought I was in France, in a +convent!” +</p> + +<p> +“When they advertised for me—yes. But by the time I enquired they were better +informed.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the advertisement was addressed to Michael Lanyard!” +</p> + +<p> +The thin lips formed a faint smile. “That was once my name. I no longer use +it.” +</p> + +<p> +Against a feeling that she was adopting an attitude both undutiful and +unbecoming, Sofia persisted. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +Prince Victor Vassilyevski gave a gesture of pain and reluctance. +</p> + +<p> +“Must I tell you? Why not? You must know some day, as well now as later, +perhaps. Twenty years ago the name of Michael Lanyard was famous throughout +Europe—or shall I say infamous?—the name of the greatest thief of modern times, +otherwise known as ‘The Lone Wolf’.” +</p> + +<p> +Involuntarily, Sofia stepped back, as if some shape of horror had been suddenly +thrust before her face. +</p> + +<p> +“The Lone Wolf!” she echoed in a voice of dismay. “A thief! You!” +</p> + +<p> +The man who called himself her father replied with a series of slow, +affirmative nods. +</p> + +<p> +“That startles you?” he said in an indulgent voice. “Naturally. But you will +soon grow accustomed to the thought, you will condone that chapter in my +history, remembering I am no longer that man, no longer a thief, that for many +years now my record has been without reproach. You will remember that there is +more joy in Heaven over the one sinner who repents ... You will forgive the +father, if only for your mother’s sake.” +</p> + +<p> +“For my mother’s sake—?” +</p> + +<p> +“What the Lone Wolf was in his day, your mother was in hers—the most brilliant +adventuress Europe ever knew.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” cried the girl in semi-hysterical protest. “Oh, no, no! Impossible!” +</p> + +<p> +“I assure you, it is quite true. Some day I may tell you her history—and mine. +For the present, you will do well to think no more about what I have confessed. +Repining can never mend the past. It is to-day and to-morrow you must think of: +that you are restored to me, and that I have not only the means but a great +hunger to make you happy, to gratify your slightest whim.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want nothing!” Sofia insisted, wildly. +</p> + +<p> +“You want sleep,” Prince Victor corrected, fondly—“you want it badly. You are +nervous, overstrung, in no condition to understand the great good fortune that +has befallen you. But to-morrow you will see things in a rosier light.” +</p> + +<p> +Apparently he had manipulated some signal unremarked by Sofia. The door opened, +framing the figure of the man Nogam. Without looking round, but with an +inscrutable smile, Prince Victor took the girl in his arms again and held her +close. +</p> + +<p> +“You rang, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, are you there, Nogam? Is the apartment ready for the Princess Sofia?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite ready, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be good enough to conduct her to it.” Again Prince Victor kissed Sofia’s +forehead, then let her go. “Good-night, my child.” +</p> + +<p> +Moving slowly toward the door, drooping, Sofia made inarticulate response. She +felt suddenly stupefied with fatigue. To think meant an effort that mocked her +flagging powers. A vast lassitude was weighing upon her, body and spirit were +faint in the enervation of an inexorable disconsolation. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch6"></a>VI<br/> +THE MUMMER</h2> + +<p> +Alone with his secretary, Prince Victor Vassilyevski dropped indifferently the +guise of manner with which he had clothed himself for the benefit of the woman +whom he claimed as his own child. That semblance of shy affection coloured by +regrets for the past and modified by the native nobility of a prince in +exile—so becoming in a parent to whose bosom a daughter whom he had never seen +was suddenly restored—being of no more service for the present, was +incontinently discarded. In its stead Victor favoured Karslake with a slow +smile of understanding that broadened into an insuppressible grin of successful +malice, a grimace of crude exultation through which peered out the impish +savage mutinously imprisoned within a flimsy husk of modern manner. +</p> + +<p> +Suspecting this self-betrayal, he erased the grin swiftly, but not so swiftly +that Karslake failed to note it. And the young man, smiling amiably and +respectfully in return, was sensible of a thrill: yet another glimpse had been +given him into the mystery that slept behind that countenance normally so +impenetrable. +</p> + +<p> +But he was studious to show nothing of his own emotion. It was his part to be +merely a mirror, to reflect rather than to feel, to be an instrument infinitely +supple and unfailing, never an independent intelligence. Not otherwise could he +count on holding his place in Victor’s favour. +</p> + +<p> +“You were quicker than I hoped.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had no trouble, sir,” Karslake returned, cheerfully. “Things rather played +into my hands.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor dropped into a chair beside the table and lifted the lid of a small +golden casket. Helping himself to one of its store of cigarettes, he made +Karslake free of the remainder with a gracious hand. The secretary demurred, +producing his pocket case. +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t mind, sir ...” +</p> + +<p> +Victor moved a supercilious eyebrow. “Woodbines again?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry, sir; I know they’re pretty awful and all that, but they were all I +could get in France, and I contracted a taste for them I can’t seem to cure. I +remember, while I lay in a hospital, hardly a whole bone in my body, thanks to +the Boche and his flying circus—it was that lot sent me crashing, you know—the +nurses used to tempt me with the finest Turkish; but somehow I couldn’t go +them; I’d beg for Woodbines.” +</p> + +<p> +Prince Victor dismissed the subject curtly. “I am waiting to hear about Sofia.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not much to tell, sir. There seemed to be a storm of sorts brewing when I got +there. The young woman was at her desk with a face like a thundercloud. While I +was trying to make up my mind what would be my best approach, she jumped down, +flew upstairs and, I gathered, kicked up a holy row. You see, she’d seen that +advertisement of Secretan & Sypher’s, and smelt a rat.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did she say?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing definite, sir: seemed to understand she was the daughter of Princess +Sofia Vassilyevski, only she objected to her father being anybody but Michael +Lanyard.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go on.” +</p> + +<p> +“After a bit she stampeded downstairs again, with the old girl and that swine +of a Dupont at her heels. I blocked him and gave Sofia a chance to get outside. +The whole establishment boiled out into the street after us, yelling like fun, +but I got the girl into the car ... and here we are.” +</p> + +<p> +But Prince Victor seemed to have lost interest. The glow ebbing from his face, +his lips tightening, the thick lids drooping low over his eyes, he sat in +apparent abstraction, aping the impassivity of the graven idols that graced his +study. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind owning, sir,” the younger man resumed, nervously, “she had me +sparring for wind when she put it to me point-blank her father’s name was +Michael Lanyard.” +</p> + +<p> +Without moving Victor enquired in a dull voice: “What did you tell her?” +</p> + +<p> +“That it was a name you had once used, sir, but.... Well, what you told her, +all except the Lone Wolf business. Don’t mind telling you I was in a rare funk +till you capped my story so neatly.” +</p> + +<p> +He laughed and ventured with a hesitation quite boyish: “I say, Prince +Victor—if it’s not an impertinent question—was there any truth in that? I mean +about your having been the Lone Wolf twenty years ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a syllable,” said Victor, dryly. +</p> + +<p> +“Then your name never was Michael Lanyard?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never, but ...” +</p> + +<p> +During a long pause the secretary fidgeted inwardly but had the wisdom to +refrain from showing further inquisitiveness. He could see that strong passions +were working in Victor: a hand, extended upon the table, unclosed and closed +with a peculiar clutching action; the muscles contracted round mouth and eyes, +moulding the face into a cast of disquieting malevolence. The voice, when at +length it resumed, was bitter. +</p> + +<p> +“But Michael Lanyard was my enemy ... and is to-day.... He became a lover of +Sofia’s mother, he had a hand in overturning plans I had made, he humiliated, +mocked me.... And to-day he is interfering again.... But ...” +</p> + +<p> +Victor sank back in his chair. Suddenly that unholy grin of his flashed and +faded. +</p> + +<p> +“But now his impertinence fails, his insolence over-reaches itself. Now I have +the whip-hand and ... I shall use it!” +</p> + +<p> +Vindictiveness that could find relief only in action mastered the man. +</p> + +<p> +“Be good enough to take this dictation.” +</p> + +<p> +Karslake turned to the table and opened a portfolio of illuminated Spanish +leather. +</p> + +<p> +“Ready, sir,” he said, with pencil poised. +</p> + +<p> +<i>“To Michael Lanyard, Intelligence Division, the War Office, Whitehall. Sir: +Your daughter Sofia is now with me. Permit me to suggest that, in consideration +of this situation, you cease to meddle with my affairs. Your own intelligence +must tell you nothing could be more fatal than an attempt to communicate with +her.”</i> +</p> + +<p> +“Sign on the typewriter with the initial <i>V</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Type it on plain paper, use a plain envelope, be sure that neither has a +watermark, and get it off to-night without fail. Take a taxi to St. Pancras +station and post it there. If you make haste you can get it in a pillar-box +before the last collection.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shan’t lose a minute, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Karslake straightened up, folding the paper, and made for the door. +</p> + +<p> +“One moment, Karslake.... This man, Nogam: where did you pick him up?” +</p> + +<p> +“He used to buttle for my father, sir, but got into trouble—some domestic +unpleasantness, I believe—needed money, and raised a cheque. The old boy let +him off easy; but I’ve got the cheque, and Nogam knows it. The fellow’s +perfectly trained and absolutely dependable, knows his place and his duties and +not another blessed thing. I’ll send him in if you like.” +</p> + +<p> +Prince Victor uttered with dry accent: “Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thought you might care to have a talk with him, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” Mr. Karslake exclaimed—“I didn’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite so,” commented Prince Victor. “I shan’t need you again to-night, +Karslake.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +When the secretary had gone, Victor sat motionless, so still that his breathing +scarcely stirred his body, with a face absolutely imperturbable, steadfastly +gazing into that darkness which shrouded the workings of his mind. +</p> + +<p> +On the doorstep a shrill whistle sounded: Nogam calling Karslake’s taxi. Victor +heard the vehicle roll in and stand panting at the curb, then the slam of its +door, the diminishing rumble of its departure. +</p> + +<p> +The house door closed, and after a little the study door opened, and Nogam +halted on the threshold. +</p> + +<p> +Unstirring Victor enquired: “What is it, Nogam?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wished to enquire would there be anything more to-night, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Nk you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Nogam: in this house, regardless of the custom which may have obtained in +other establishments where you have served, you will always knock before +entering a room, and never enter until you obtain permission.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if I’m sure the room is empty, sir, and get no answer—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you may enter any room but this. Never this, unless I am here—or Mr. +Karslake is—and you get leave.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Nk you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +As the door closed Victor extended a thin, effeminate hand to a casket of +ivory, searched with sensitive finger-tips its exquisite tracery until a +cunningly hidden spring responded and the lid, splitting in two, sank down into +its walls. In the pocket thus revealed were many pills, apparently +hand-moulded, of a grayish-brown substance, putty-soft. +</p> + +<p> +Slowly Victor selected three, placed one after another upon his tongue, and +swallowed them. +</p> + +<p> +He shut the casket and sat waiting. +</p> + +<p> +Slowly the keenness of his countenance became blurred, as if the hand of an +unseen sculptor were rubbing down its features, doing away the veneer with +which Europe had overlaid the primitive Asiatic, which now showed on the +surface, in every detail of coarsely modelled nose, oblique eyes of animal +cunning, pendulous lips cruel and sensual. +</p> + +<p> +By degrees a faint trace of colour began to flush Victor’s cheeks, a smile +modified the set of his mouth, the heavy-lidded eyes lost their lustreless +opacity and glimmered with uncanny light. +</p> + +<p> +He breathed deeply, evenly, with an evident relish. The action of the opium was +visibly renewing his powers. His expression, softening, became terrible with +brute tenderness and longing. Gazing into shadows in which he saw that which he +wished ardently to see, he stretched forth his arms, and his lips moved, +shaping a name: +</p> + +<p> +“Sofia!” +</p> + +<p> +As those syllables, freighted with that undying passion which consumed the man, +sounded upon the stillness, Victor turned sharply, with a gesture of +irritation, looking aside, listening. +</p> + +<p> +Instantaneously the Asiatic disappeared, thrust back into its habitual latency +within the prison of European: Prince Victor was as he had been, as always to +the world, cool, composed, and crafty, master, never creature, of his emotions. +</p> + +<p> +A faint buzzing was audible, broken by muffled clicks. +</p> + +<p> +Rising, Victor approached a table in a corner and with a key from his pocket +ring unlocked a heavy casket of bronze. As he raised its cover a small electric +bulb illuminated the interior, focussing on the paper-covered face of a +mechanical writing device, upon which a pencil with a broad flat lead operated +by a metal arm was tracing characters resembling the hieroglyphics of the +Chinese. +</p> + +<p> +When the clicking ceased and the pencil was at rest, Victor caught an end of +the paper and pulled it forward until a blank surface again occupied the +writing-bed. Upon this with another pencil he inscribed a reply, then closed +and relocked the casket. +</p> + +<p> +Back at the table with the lamp, the message just received became crisp black +ash on a brazen tray. +</p> + +<p> +From a locked chest Victor produced an inverness and a soft hat of black felt. +Wearing these he moved quietly out of the lamp’s radius of light, and made +himself one with the shadows that crowded one another round the walls. He did +not leave by the hall door; but of a sudden the room was untenanted. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch7"></a>VII<br/> +THE FANTASTICS</h2> + +<p> +Downstream from The Pool, a little way below Shadwell, an uncouth row of +dilapidated dwellings in those days stood—or, better, squatted, like a mute +company of draggletail crones—atop a river-wall whose ancient blocks, all ropy +with the slime of centuries, peered dimly out through groups of crazy spiles at +the restless pageant of Thames-life. +</p> + +<p> +Viewed by day, say from the deck of a river steamer, the spectacle they offered +was, according to bias of mood and disposition, unlovely and drear or colourful +and romantic: Whistler might have etched these houses, Dickens have staged +therein a lowly tragedy, Thomas Burke have made of one a frame for some +vignette unforgettable of Limehouse life. +</p> + +<p> +Builded of stone or brick or both as to their landward faces, without exception +they presented to the river false backs of wooden framework which overhung the +water. Ordinarily, their windows were tight-shut, the panes opaque with +accumulated grime—many were broken and boarded. Their look was dismal, their +squalor desperate. +</p> + +<p> +Below, by day, heavy wherries swung moored to the ooze-clad spiles or, when the +tide was out, sprawled upon stinking mud-flats with a gesture of pathetic +helplessness peculiar to stranded watercraft. Seldom was one observed in use: +to all seeming they existed for purposes of atmosphere alone. +</p> + +<p> +More seldom still did any dwelling betray evidence of inhabitation beyond faint +wisps of smoke, like ghosts of famine, drifting from the chimneypots, +or—perhaps—some unabashed exhibit of red flannel hung out to dry with wrist or +ankle-bands nipped between a window-sash and sill. +</p> + +<p> +By night, however, a stir of furtive life was to be surmised from cryptic +lights that flared and faded behind the crusted window-glass or fell through +opened floor-traps to the thick black element that swirled about the spiles, +and from guarded calls as well, inarticulate cries of hate and love and pain, +rumours of close and crude carousal. +</p> + +<p> +And ever and again the belated riverfarer would encounter one of the wherries, +its long oars swung by brawny arms and backs, stealing secretly across the inky +waters on some errand no less dark. +</p> + +<p> +On land the buildings lined a cobbled street, from dawn to dark a thoroughfare +for thundering lorries and, twice daily, in murk of early morning and gloom of +early night, scoured by a nondescript rabble employed in the vast dockyards +whose man-made forests of masts and cordage, funnels and cranes, on either hand +lifted angular black silhouettes against the misty silver of the sky. +</p> + +<p> +Black and white and yellow and brown, men of every race and skin, they came and +went, their brief hours loud with babel of strange tongues and a scuffling of +countless feet like the sound of surf; and their goings left the street +strangely hushed, a way of sinister reticences, its winding length ill-lighted +by infrequent corner-lamps, its mephitic glooms enlivened by windows of public +houses all saffron with specious promise of purchasable good-fellowship. +</p> + +<p> +One of these, the Red Moon, faced the row of waterfront houses, standing at the +intersection of a street which struck inland to the pulsing heart of Limehouse. +A retired bully of the prize-ring ruled with a high hand over its several bars +and many patrons, yellow men and white girls, deck-hands and dock-workers, +pugilistic and criminal celebrities of the quarter, and their sycophants. Its +revels rendered the nights cacophonous, its portals sucked in streams of +sweethearts and more impersonal lovers of life and laughter, and spewed out +sots close-locked in embraces of maudlin affection or brutal combat. Bobbies +kept an eye on the Red Moon, a respectful one: interference with the +time-hallowed customs and prerogatives of its clientèle was something to be +adventured with extreme discretion. +</p> + +<p> +Out of the hinterland of Limehouse, a tall man came to the Red Moon that night, +walking with long, loose-jointed strides, holding his head high and looking +over the heads of all he passed with a fixed, far gaze. He had a hatchet-face, +sallow, with lantern jaws, a petulant mouth, hot eyes that showed too much +white above their pupils. A lank black mane greased his collar. His garments, +shoddy but whole, were stained and bleached in spots, apparently the work of +acids, and so wrinkled and shapeless as to suggest that their owner slept +without undressing as a matter of habit. The pockets of his coat bulged +noticeably. +</p> + +<p> +Shouldering heedlessly into the saloon-bar, he found it deserted except for a +chinless potman: the liveliest evening trade was always plied in the cheaper +bars adjacent. +</p> + +<p> +One glance sufficed to identify him: with a surly nod the potman ducked behind +a partition to call the proprietor. Drinks were in order when this last +appeared; and a brief conference in undertones ended when, having made careful +reconnaissance, the publican nodded shortly to the patron, a jerk of his thumb +designating a small door let into the wall to one side of the bar proper. +</p> + +<p> +Through this the tall man passed to find himself upon a dark stairway, at the +foot of which another door admitted to an underground chamber where an +apparently exclusive social gathering was in session of Saturnalia. +</p> + +<p> +In one corner a long-suffering piano was taking cruel punishment at the hands +of a flashily dressed, sharp-faced man of horsey type. Flanking him, two young +women of the world, with that insouciance which appertains—in Limehouse—to +sweet sixteen, were chanting shrilly to his accompaniment: both more than +comfortably drunk. In the middle of the room assorted lawbreakers gathered +round a table were playing fan-tan at the top of their lungs. At smaller tables +men and women sat consuming poisons of which they were obviously in no crying +need; while in bunks builded against one wall devotees of the pipe reclined in +various stages of beatitude. The air was hot, and foul with cigarette smoke, +sickening fumes of sizzling opium, effluvia of beer and spirits, sour reek of +sweating flesh. +</p> + +<p> +Incurious glances greeted the newcomer: none paid him more heed than an +indifferent nod. On his part, brief but comprehensive survey having deepened +the stamp of scorn upon his features, he ignored them all and, proceeding +directly to a bunk of the lowermost tier, aroused its occupant with a smart tap +on the shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +The ostensible drug-addict looked up dreamily, then opened his eyes wide, with +surprising docility rolled out and, uttering no word, lurched to the fan-tan +table. The tall man took his place, lay down, and drew together the unclean +curtains of sleazy stuff provided to afford privacy to shrinking souls. This +done, he turned on his side and knuckled in peculiar rhythm the back of the +bunk, a solid panel which slipped smoothly to one side, permitting the man to +tumble out into still another room, a cheerless place, with floor of stone and +the smell of a vault. +</p> + +<p> +When the panel had slipped back into place, closing out the bunk, the man stood +in night absolute. But after a minute a slender beam of golden light struck +suddenly athwart the darkness and found his face. This he endured impassively, +only lifting a hand to describe an obscure sign. Immediately the light was shut +off, a door opened in the wall opposite, dull light from behind disclosed the +silhouette of a man in Chinese robes, his head inclined in a bow of courteous +dignity. +</p> + +<p> +In good English but with musical Eastern inflection a voice gave greeting: +</p> + +<p> +“Good evening, Thirteen. You are awaited—and welcome!” +</p> + +<p> +“Good evening, Shaik Tsin,” the European replied in heavy un-English accents. +“Number One is here, yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet. But we have just received a telautographic message saying he is on +his way.” +</p> + +<p> +Nodding impatiently, Thirteen passed through the door, which the Chinaman +quickly closed and barred. +</p> + +<p> +The chamber to which one gained admittance by ways so devious and fantastic was +large—exactly how large it was difficult to guess, since all its walls were +screened by black silk panels upon which golden dragons writhed and crawled. A +thick carpet of black covered every inch of visible floor space, a black silk +canopy hid the ceiling, and all the room was in deep shadow save the space +immediately beneath a great lamp of opalescent glass, likewise draped in black. +</p> + +<p> +Here stood an octagonal table of black teakwood, on seven sides of which seven +chairs were placed. When Thirteen had taken his seat all these were occupied. +On the eighth side an eighth chair stood empty on a low dais, the heavy carving +of its high back, its massive arms and legs, picked out with gold. +</p> + +<p> +The six who had anticipated Thirteen at this bizarre rendezvous hailed him as a +familiar, according to their several idiosyncrasies, brusquely, indifferently, +or with some semblance of cordiality. They made a motley crew. +</p> + +<p> +Two were Englishman in appearance, though the figure of languid elegance in +evening dress that might have graced the lounge of a West End club had a voice +soft with Celtic brogue. The other owned a gross body clothed in loud checks +and, with his mean blue eyes, his mottled complexion, and cunning leer, would +not have seemed out of place in a betting-ring. +</p> + +<p> +Aside from these there were a moon-faced Bengali babu, a dark Italian with +flashing eyes and teeth, and a stout person of bovine Teutonic cast—the type +that is sage, shrewd, easy-going when unopposed, but capable under provocation +of exhibiting the most conscienceless brutality. +</p> + +<p> +From this last Thirteen got his warmest welcome. +</p> + +<p> +“You are late, mine friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“In good time, however,” Thirteen responded with a nod toward the vacant chair. +“More than that, the summons was handed me only twenty minutes ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“How was that?” the babu asked. “It was sent at six o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was at work in the laboratory and had left orders I was not to be disturbed. +But for one thing”—the petulance of Thirteen’s habitual expression was +lightened by a flash of self-gratulation, and his voice shook a little with +excitement—“I might not have received the summons before morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“And that one thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Success, comrades! At last—after months of experimentation—I have been +successful!” +</p> + +<p> +“’Ow?” dryly demanded the man in the checked suit. +</p> + +<p> +“I have discovered a great secret—discovered, perfected, adapted it to common +means at our command. Comrades, I tell you, to-night we hold all England in the +hollow of our hands!” +</p> + +<p> +With an incoherent exclamation and eyes afire the Russian sat forward. +Unconsciously the others imitated his action. Only the man in evening dress +made a show of remaining unimpressed. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s fine, fat words you’re after using,” he commented. “‘All England in the +hollow of our hands!’ If they mean anything at all, comrade, they mean—” +</p> + +<p> +“Everything!” Thirteen cut in with arrogant assertiveness; “all we’ve been +waiting for, hoping for, praying for—the end of the ruling classes, extinction +of the accursed aristocrats, subjugation of the thrice-damned bourgeois, the +triumph of the proletariat, all at a single stroke, swift, subtle, and sure! +Freedom for Ireland, freedom for India, freedom for England, the speedy +spreading of that red dawn which lights the Russian skies to-day, till all the +wide world basks in its warm radiance and acclaims us, comrades, its +redeemers!” +</p> + +<p> +“Lieber Gott!” the German breathed. “Colossal!” +</p> + +<p> +“’Ear, ’ear!” the Englishman applauded, perfunctory and skeptical. “Bli’me if +you didn’t mike me forget where I was—’ad me thinking I was in ’Yde Park, you +did, listening to a bloody horator on a box.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may laugh,” Thirteen replied with a sour glance; “but when you have heard, +you will not laugh. I am not boasting—I am telling you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a great deal,” the Irishman suggested. “Your mouth is full of sounds and +fury, but till you tell us more you’ll have told us nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +The face of Thirteen grew darker still, and for a moment he seemed to meditate +an angry retort; but he thought better of it, contenting himself with an +impatient movement and a mutter: “All in good time; Number One is not here +yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“W’y wyste time w’itin’ for ’im?” demanded the Englishman. “’E’s no good, ’e’s +done.” +</p> + +<p> +Thirteen’s eyes narrowed. “How so?” +</p> + +<p> +“’E’s done, Number One is—finished, counted out, napoo! ’E’s ’ad ’is d’y, and a +pretty mess ’e’s mide of it—and it’s ’igh time, I say, for ’im to step down and +let a better man tike ’old.” +</p> + +<p> +Growls in chorus endorsed this declaration of mutiny; but suddenly were stilled +by a voice, sonorous and calm, from outside the circle: +</p> + +<p> +“You think so, Seven? Well—who knows?—perhaps you are right.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch8"></a>VIII<br/> +COUNCIL OF THE GODLESS</h2> + +<p> +Someone exclaimed in an accent of alarm: “Number One!” +</p> + +<p> +With a concerted turning of startled heads, a hasty thrusting back of chairs, +the gathering rose in involuntary deference. That is, five rose as one; and, +after a moment during which his spirit of insubordination faltered and failed, +the Englishman got awkwardly to his feet and stood abashed and sullen. +</p> + +<p> +The one to remain seated was the Irishman so well turned out by Conduit Street; +who made no move more than slightly to elevate supercilious brows and slouch a +little lower in his chair, glancing from face to face of the circle, then back +to the cold countenance presented by the author of the abrupt interruption. +</p> + +<p> +This last stood quietly beside the eighth chair, a hand on its carved arm, one +foot on the edge of the dais. A long robe of black silk enveloped him; on its +bosom a Chinese unicorn was embroidered. His girdle clasp was of Imperial jade +set with rubies. The girdle itself was yellow. A great ruby button, nearly an +inch in diameter, set in a mounting of worked gold, crowned a hat like an +inverted round bowl. His black silk shoes were heavy with golden embroidery, +and had white soles an inch thick. Authority lent inches to his stature, so +that he seemed to dominate his company physically as well as spiritually. +</p> + +<p> +A pace or two in the rear Shaik Tsin, with impassive face and arms folded in +voluminous sleeves, waited as might a bodyguard. +</p> + +<p> +A sardonic glimmer in eyes half visible under heavy lids alone betrayed relish +of the situation, the homage commanded and the sensation created by this +inopportune and unheralded arrival: deliberately Number One mounted the dais +and posed himself in the throne-like chair. Then, as his look read face after +face, he smiled with twitching and disdainful nostrils. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen of the Council,” he said, slowly, “I bow to you all. Pray be +seated.” +</p> + +<p> +In confounded silence the six resumed their seats, while the seventh—who had +not moved—lighted a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and through a veil of smoke +continued to regard Number One with insolent eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I fear my arrival was ill-timed, gentlemen. Seven had the floor, and I confess +to finding what I happened to overhear extremely interesting. If he will be +good enough to continue ...” +</p> + +<p> +The Irishman gave a light, derisive laugh. Shifting uneasily in his chair, the +man in the checked suit flushed darkly, then stiffened his spine, hardened his +eyes, set his jaw, and faced Number One defiantly. +</p> + +<p> +“You ’eard ... I ’olds by w’at I said.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am to understand, then, you think it time for me to abdicate and let another +lead you in my stead?” +</p> + +<p> +The Englishman assented with an inarticulate monosyllable and a surly nod. +</p> + +<p> +“And may one ask why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Blue’s plice in Pekin Street was r’ided this afternoon,” Seven announced +truculently. “But per’aps you didn’t know—” +</p> + +<p> +“Not until some time before the news reached you,” One replied, pleasantly. +“And what of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Three fycers in a week, Gov’ner—anybody’ll tell you that’s comin’ it a bit +thick.” +</p> + +<p> +“Granted. What then?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s only part of it. Tike last week: Eighteen pinched, the queer plant in +’Igh Street pulled by the coppers—” +</p> + +<p> +“I know, I know. To your point!” +</p> + +<p> +Seven hesitated under that steely stare. “I leave it to you, Gov’ner,” he +continued to stammer at length. “S’y you was me and I was Number One—w’at would +you think?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, quite naturally, that some superior intelligence has latterly been +collaborating with Scotland Yard.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you a bit behindhand in arriving at that conclusion?” the Irishman +suggested with an ill-dissembled sneer. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Eleven,” Number One replied, mildly, “since I arrived at it some time +since.” +</p> + +<p> +“But took no measures—” +</p> + +<p> +“You are in a position to state that as a fact?” +</p> + +<p> +Eleven shrugged lightly. “Need I be? Does not our situation speak for itself?” +</p> + +<p> +“Since you cannot be as thoroughly acquainted as I am with the situation, and +since it seems I am required to account for my leadership or surrender it to +you, Eleven ... I believe you have selected yourself to replace me as Number +One, have you not?—that is to say, in the improbable event of my abdication.” +</p> + +<p> +“Improbable?” repeated the Irishman. “I wouldn’t call it that.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are right,” Number One assented, gravely: “unthinkable is the word. But +you haven’t answered my question.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, as for that, if the Council should see fit to appoint me Number One, I’d +naturally do my best.” +</p> + +<p> +“And most noble of you, I’m sure. But rather than bring down any such disaster +upon this organization, I will say now that measures have already been taken, +and I am to-night in a position to promise you that the new spirit in Scotland +Yard will no longer be a factor in our calculations.” +</p> + +<p> +“That wants proving,” Eleven contended. +</p> + +<p> +A spasm of anger shook the figure in the throne-like chair, but only for an +instant; immediately the iron will of the man imposed rigid self-control; +almost without pause he proceeded in level and civil accents: +</p> + +<p> +“I think I can satisfy you and—this once—I consent to do so. But first, a +question: Have you yourself formed any theory as to the identity of this +hostile intelligence which has so hindered us of late?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d be a raw fool if I hadn’t,” the Irishman retorted. “We know the Lone Wolf +has been hand-in-glove with the authorities ever since the British Secret +Service used him during the war.” +</p> + +<p> +“You think, then, it is Lanyard—?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a wise saying: ‘Set a thief to catch a thief.’ I believe there’s no man +in England but Lanyard who has the wit and vision and audacity to fight us on +our ground and win.” +</p> + +<p> +“I agree entirely. Therefore, I have this day tied the hands of the Lone Wolf; +he will not again dare to contend against us.” +</p> + +<p> +Eleven sat up with a startled gesture. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you meaning you’ve got the girl?” +</p> + +<p> +Number One indulged a remote and chilly smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you, too, noticed the advertisement? Accept my compliments, Eleven. +Decidedly you might prove a dangerous rival—were I in a temper to countenance +competition.... But it is true: I have the girl Sofia—the Lone Wolf’s +daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where?” +</p> + +<p> +The smile faded; the man on the dais looked down loftily. +</p> + +<p> +“It is enough for you to know I have proved far-sighted and unfailing in my +fidelity to our common cause.” +</p> + +<p> +“So <i>you</i> say ...” +</p> + +<p> +Though the Irishman winced and fell silent under the cold glare of the other’s +eyes, the voice that answered him was level and passionless. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not here to have my word challenged—or my authority. If any one of you +imagines I am even thinking of surrendering the latter, under any conceivable +circumstances, he is mad. And if any one of you doubts my power to enforce my +will, I promise him ample proof of it before the night is ended.... Let us now +proceed to business, the question held over from our last meeting. If Comrade +Four will consult his minutes”—a nod singled out the babu, who, beaming with +importance, produced a note-book—“they will show we adjourned to consider +overtures made by the Smolny Institute of Petrograd, seeking our coöperation +toward accelerating the social revolution in England.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thatt,” the Bengali affirmed, “is true bill of factt.” +</p> + +<p> +“If the temper in which you received those proposals is fair criterion,” Number +One resumed, “there can be little doubt as to our decision. Speaking for +myself, I think it would be suicidal to reject the overtures of the Soviet +Government in Russia. Let me state why.” +</p> + +<p> +He bowed his forehead upon a hand and continued with thoughtful gaze downcast: +</p> + +<p> +“England is ripe for revolution. The social discontent resulting from the war +has reached an acute stage. Only a spark is needed. It remains for us to decide +whether to permit Russia to bring about the explosion or—bring it about +ourselves. The soviet movement is irresistible, it will sweep England +eventually as it has swept Russia, as it is now sweeping Germany, Hungary, +Austria, Italy, as it must soon sweep France and Spain. Our power in England is +great; even so, we could hope to do no more than delay the soviet movement were +we to set ourselves against it—we could never hope to stop it. It would seem, +then, self-preservation to set ourselves at the head of it, seize with our own +hands—in the name of the British Soviet—the symbols of power now held by an +antiquated and doddering Government. So shall we become to England what the +Smolny Institute is to Russia. Otherwise, in the end, we must be crushed.” +</p> + +<p> +“If we adopt the indicated course, there will be an end forever to this +hole-and-corner business which so hampers us, we will be able to work in the +open, the police will become our tools rather than weapons in the hands of our +enemies; our power will be without limits, Soviet Russia itself must bow to our +dictation.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused and lifted his head, looking round the circle of intent faces. +</p> + +<p> +“If I am wrong or too sanguine, I am ready to be corrected.” +</p> + +<p> +He heard only a murmur of admiration, never a note of dissent; and a smile of +gratification, yet half satiric, curved his thin lips. +</p> + +<p> +“I take it, then, the Council endorses my decision to proceed with the +negotiations instituted by Soviet Russia; to accept its proposals and pledge +our cooperation in every way?” +</p> + +<p> +This time there was no mistaking the accuracy with which he had gauged the +minds of his associates. +</p> + +<p> +“One thing remains to be decided: a plan of action, something which will demand +all that we have of imagination, ingenuity, common sense, and far prevision. We +can afford to waste not a single ounce of strength: the blow, when we strike, +must be sudden, sharp, merciless—irresistible. But if Thirteen is not +over-confident of the discovery which he says he has to-day perfected, the +means to deal just such a blow is ready to our hands.... Thirteen?” +</p> + +<p> +A nod and gracious smile invited that one to speak. He rose, trembling a little +with excitement, bowed to Number One and, delving into capacious pockets, +produced a number of small tin canisters together with three sealed bottles of +brown glass. Surveying these, as he arranged them on the teakwood table before +him, he smiled a little to himself: the stars, it seemed to him, were warring +in their courses in his behalf; this was to prove his hour of hours. +</p> + +<p> +He began to speak in a quivering voice which soon grew more steady. +</p> + +<p> +“It is true, Excellency—it is true, comrades—I have perfected a discovery which +I offer as a free gift to the cause, and by means of which, intelligently +employed, we can, if we will, make all London a graveyard. Put the resources of +this organization at my command, give me a week to make the essential +preparations, select a time of national crisis when the Houses of Parliament +are sitting and the Cabinet meets in Downing Street with the King attending or +in Buckingham Palace ...” +</p> + +<p> +He paused and held the pause with a keen feeling for dramatic effect, his eyes +seeking in turn the faces of his fellow conspirators, an insuppressible grin of +malicious exultation twisting his scornful and mutinous mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“Let this be done,” he concluded, “and by means of these few tins and bottles +which you see before you, in one brief hour the ruling classes will have +perished almost to a man, there will be no more government of a tyrannical +bourgeoisie to grind down the proletariat, a bloodless revolution will have +made England the cradle of the new liberty!” +</p> + +<p> +“Bloodless?” the man on the dais repeated; and even he was seen perceptibly to +shudder at the prospect unfolded to the vision of his mind. “Yes—but more +terrible than the massacre of the Huguenots, more savage than the French +Revolution!” +</p> + +<p> +“But I believe,” the inventor commented, “your Excellency said we required the +means to deal a ‘blow sudden, sharp, merciless—irresistible’.” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely now,” the Irishman suggested, mockingly—where a wiser man would have +held his tongue—“you’ll not be sticking at a small matter like wholesale murder +if it’s to make us masters of England?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of England?” the German echoed. “Herr Gott! Of the world!” +</p> + +<p> +“And you, Excellency, our master,” the inventor added, shrewdly. +</p> + +<p> +A sign at once impatient and imperative demanded silence, and for a few minutes +it obtained unbroken, while the gathering, keyed to high tension, studied +closely the face of their leader and found it altogether illegible. +</p> + +<p> +On his part he seemed forgetful of the existence of anybody but himself, +forgetful almost of himself as well: sitting low in his great chair, his body +as stirless as it were bound by some spell of black magic, his far gaze probing +unfathomable remotenesses of thought. +</p> + +<p> +Slowly he recalled himself to his surroundings; with a suggestion of weariness +he sat up and reviewed the little company that hung so breathlessly upon the +issue of his judgment. The shadow of that satiric smile returned. +</p> + +<p> +“If the thing be feasible,” he promised, “it shall be done. It remains for +Thirteen to be more explicit.” +</p> + +<p> +With an extravagant flourish the inventor whipped from his breastpocket a +folded paper, and spread it out face uppermost on the table. +</p> + +<p> +“A map of London,” he announced, “based on the latest Ordnance Survey and +coloured to show the districts supplied by the mains of each individual gas +depot. Thus you will observe”—what his long, bony finger indicated—“the +district supplied by the mains of the Westminster gas works, comprising +Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, the War Office, and the Admiralty, +Downing Street, the homes of hundreds of the aristocracy. All these we can at +will turn into the deadliest of death traps.” +</p> + +<p> +A tense voice interrupted with the demand: “How?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite easily, comrade: with the ramifications of our power throughout London, +all under the control of his Excellency”—the inventor bowed to Number One—“it +should be an easy matter to place a few trustworthy men with the Westminster +gas works.” +</p> + +<p> +“It can readily be done,” Number One affirmed. “And then—?” +</p> + +<p> +“While this is being done means must be found to smuggle other men, in the +guise of servants, into the various buildings selected, or to corrupt those +already so employed therein. At the designated hour—” +</p> + +<p> +The words dried upon his lips as somewhere a hidden bell stabbed the quiet with +short, sharp thrills of sound, a code that spelled a message of terrifying +significance. The inventor started violently, but no more so than every man +about the table. Even Number One, shocked out of his lounging pose, grasped the +arms of his throne with convulsive hands. +</p> + +<p> +Quietly and without a hint of hurry, the Chinese, Shaik Tsin, moved back into +the shadows and, unnoticed, disappeared behind a screen. +</p> + +<p> +For a moment, when the bell had ceased, nobody spoke; but pallid face consulted +face and eyes grown wide with dread sought eyes that winced in terror. +</p> + +<p> +Then the Bengali leaped from his chair, jabbering with bloodless lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Police! Raid! We are betrayed!” +</p> + +<p> +He made an uncertain turn, as if thinking to seek safety in flight but doubting +which way to choose; and the movement struck panic into the minds and hearts of +his fellows. In a twinkling all were on their feet. But before one could move a +step the lamp in the ceiling winked out, the room was left in darkness +unrelieved, and the accents of Number One were heard, coldly imperative. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen! be good enough to resume your places—let no one move before there +is light again. We are in no immediate danger: Shaik Tsin will show you out by +a secret way long before the police can hope to find and break into this +chamber. In the meantime—” +</p> + +<p> +The infuriated voice of the Englishman interrupted: +</p> + +<p> +“And ’oo’re you to give us orders?—you ’oo talked so big about ’avin’ tied the +’ands of the Lone Wolf and Scotland Yard! You blarsted blow’ard! Bli’me if I +don’t believe it’s you ’oo—” +</p> + +<p> +“Quietly, Seven! Have you forgotten you have a bad heart?—that excitement may +mean your sudden death?” +</p> + +<p> +The rage of the Englishman ran out in a gasp and a whisper. +</p> + +<p> +“In the meantime,” Number One resumed as if there had been no break, “I +promised that, before the night was out, you should have proof of my ability to +enforce my will.” +</p> + +<p> +A groan of agony answered him, followed by an oath of witless fear. From a +distance the voice, now thin but still sonorous, added: +</p> + +<p> +“Thirteen will hold himself ready to wait on me when I send for him to-morrow. +Gentlemen of the Council, I bow to you all.” +</p> + +<p> +Again silence held for a long minute during which no man stirred or spoke. Then +overhead the lamp burned bright again, discovering six frightened men upon +their feet and one who, still seated, did not stir, and never would again. +</p> + +<p> +His head fallen forward, chin resting on his chest, mouth ajar, inert arms +dangling over the arms of the chair, heavy legs lax, the Englishman sat quite +dead, dead without a sign to show how death had come to him. +</p> + +<p> +Number One had disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +There was a remote rumour of cries and shouts, the muffled sound of axes +crashing into woodwork.... +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch9"></a>IX<br/> +MRS. WARING</h2> + +<p> +Late in the forenoon a pencil of golden light found a chink in jealously drawn +draperies, and groped the rich dusk of the bedchamber till it came to rest, as +if happy that its search had found so lovely a reward, upon the face of a young +girl who lay sleeping in a bed whose exquisite adornment must have flattered +even the exalted person of a princess. +</p> + +<p> +With a swift but silent movement another girl, who had been sitting patiently +on a low stool near by, rose and put herself in the way of the sunbeam. But too +late: already long lashes were a-flutter upon the delicately modelled cheeks of +the sleeper. +</p> + +<p> +A gentle sigh brushed parting lips; the sweet body stirred luxuriously; +unclouded by any shadow of misgiving, the blue eyes of the Princess Sofia +looked out upon the first day of her new world. +</p> + +<p> +Then they grew wide with wonder, comprehending the sleek, pretty face of a +Chinese girl of about her own age who, with eyes downcast, demure mouth and +folded hands, submissively awaited recognition. +</p> + +<p> +“Who are you?” Sofia demanded in a breath. +</p> + +<p> +A bob of courtesy, wholly charming, prefaced a reply pattered in English of +quaintest accent: +</p> + +<p> +“You’ handmaiden—Chou Nu is my name.” +</p> + +<p> +“My handmaiden!” +</p> + +<p> +“Les, Plincess Sofia.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t understand. How—when—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Las’ night Numbe’ One he send for me, but when I come you go-sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +“Number One?” +</p> + +<p> +Surprise coloured faintly the explanation: “Plince Victo’, honol’ble fathe’ of +Plincess Sofia. You like get up now, take bath, have blekfuss?” +</p> + +<p> +The smile was irresistibly ingratiating: Sofia could not but return it. +Delighted, Chou Nu ran to the windows, threw wide their draperies, and darted +into the bathroom. +</p> + +<p> +Autumnal sunlight kindled to burning beauty the golden-bronze tresses coiled +upon the pillows where Sofia lay unstirring, like a princess enchanted—as +indeed she was. Surely nothing less potent than magic had wrought this +metamorphosis in the fabric of her life! And whether the magic were white or +black—what matter? Its work was good. +</p> + +<p> +No more the Café des Exiles, no more the deadly tedium of daily service at the +desk of the caisse, no more the shrewish tongue of Mama Thérèse, the odious +oglings of Papa Dupont, the ceaseless cark of discontent.... +</p> + +<p> +Incredible! +</p> + +<p> +As one who moves in a dream, Sofia rose presently and bathed, then, robed in a +ravishing negligée of rare brocade, breakfasted on melon, tea, and toast from a +service of eggshell china. +</p> + +<p> +In a long mirror she saw and watched but did not know herself. Like Goody +Twoshoes of nursery fame she could have cried: Lawkamercy! this is never I! +</p> + +<p> +The presence of Chou Nu served merely to stress the sense of unreality: for, +obviously, only the heroine of a true fairy tale could have broken from a +chrysalis stage of sordid Soho to the brilliant butterfly existence of a +Russian princess domiciled in the most aristocratic quarter of London and +attended by a Chinese maid! +</p> + +<p> +And Chou Nu proved a delight. Once satisfied she need fear neither ill-temper +nor arrogance from her new mistress, she indulged an even and constant flow of +artless high spirits, her amusing, clipped English affording Sofia considerable +entertainment together with not a little food for thought. +</p> + +<p> +Thus one learned that the main body of the service staff was Chinese under a +major domo named Shaik Tsin—Chou Nu’s “second-uncle”—who enjoyed Prince +Victor’s completest confidence and was, second to the latter only, the real +head of the establishment, its presiding genius. The front of the house alone +was dressed with a handful of English servants nominally under the man Nogam, +but actually, like him, answerable in the last instance to Shaik Tsin. +</p> + +<p> +Why this should be Chou Nu couldn’t say. Sofia supposed it was because Prince +Victor thought his Occidental guests would feel more at ease with English +servants; or perhaps he himself preferred them, when it came to the question of +personal attendance. +</p> + +<p> +No success rewarded efforts to extract from Chou Nu her reason for referring to +Victor as “Number One.” She stated simply that all Chinamans in London called +him that; and being pressed further added, with as near an approach to +impatience as her gentle nature could muster, that it was obviously because +Plince Victo’ <i>was</i> Numbe’ One: ev’-body knew <i>that</i>. +</p> + +<p> +A knock at the door interrupted Sofia’s questioning. Answering, Chou brought +back word that the honourable father of Princess Sofia submitted his august +felicitations and solicited the immediate favour of her serene attendance in +his study. +</p> + +<p> +Hasty search failed to locate the garments discarded on going to bed and, in +the indifference of depression and fatigue, left in a tumble on the floor. All +had vanished while Sofia slept; Chou Nu professed blank ignorance of their +fate; and apparently nothing had been provided in their stead but Chinese +robes, of sumptuous vestments well suited to one of high estate. With these, +then, and with Chou Nu’s guidance as to choice and ceremonious arrangement, +Sofia was obliged to make shift; and anything but unbecoming she found them—or +truly it was a shape of dream that looked out from her mirror. +</p> + +<p> +Yet it was with reluctant feet that she left her room, descended the broad +staircase to the entrance hall, and addressed herself to the study door. It had +been so beautiful, that waking dream the sequel to her night of dreamless +sleep, too beautiful to be foregone without regret. +</p> + +<p> +For Sofia had not forgotten, she could never forget, she had merely been +successful temporarily in banishing from mind that bitter disillusionment which +had poisoned what should have been her time of greatest joy. +</p> + +<p> +To be told, by the father of whose dear existence one had only learned within +the hour, that one was the child of a notorious thief and an adventuress ... +</p> + +<p> +It needed more than common fortitude to face renewed reminder of that shame. +</p> + +<p> +Oddly enough, it seemed to help a bit, somehow to lend her courage and +assurance, to pass the man Nogam in the hall and acknowledge his bow and smile. +Sofia wondered vaguely what it was that made his smile seem so kind; it was +entirely respectful, there was nothing more in it that she could fix on; and +yet ... +</p> + +<p> +She was able to offer Victor a composed, almost a happy countenance, and to +return cheerful assurances to punctilious enquiries after her well-being and +her comfort overnight. To the real affection in which he held her, the warmth +of his embrace, and the lingering pressure of his lips gave convincing +testimony; and in time, no doubt, as she grew to know him better, her response +would become more spontaneous and true. Indeed, she insisted, it must; she +would school herself, if need be, to remember that this strange man was the +author of her being, the natural object of her affections—deserving all her +love if only because of that nobility which had enabled him to renounce those +evil ways of years long dead. +</p> + +<p> +But to-day—and this, of course, she couldn’t understand—a slight but invincible +shiver, perceptible to herself alone, attended her submission to paternal +caresses; and the eyes were too dispassionate with which she saw Prince Victor. +Still, they found little to which fair exception might be taken. If Life had +thus far been callously frank with Sofia as to its broader aspects, the +niceties of its technique remained measurably a mystery, she was insufficiently +instructed to perceive that Victor’s morning coat (for example) had been cut a +shade too cleverly, or that the ensemble of his raiment was a trace ornate; and +where a mind more mondain would have marked ponderable constraint in his +manner, she saw only dignity and reserve. But for all that she recognized +intuitively a lack of something in the man, the sum of this second impression +of him was formless disappointment, she felt somehow cheated, disheartened, +chilled. +</p> + +<p> +That she was able at all to dissemble this sense of dashed expectations was +thanks in the main to a third party, a stranger whose presence she overlooked +on entering, when Prince Victor met her near the door, while the other remained +aside, half hidden in the recess of a window. +</p> + +<p> +Directly, however, that Victor half turned away, saying “I have found a friend +for you, my dear,” Sofia, following his glance, discovered a woman whose every +detail of dress and deportment was unmistakably of the fashionable world and +whose face carried souvenirs of loveliness as unmistakable. +</p> + +<p> +Smiling and offering her hands, she approached, while Victor’s voice of heavy +modulations uttered formally: +</p> + +<p> +“Sybil, permit me to present my daughter. Sofia, Mrs. Waring has graciously +offered to sponsor your introduction to Society, to guide and instruct you and +be in every way your mentor.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear!” the woman exclaimed, holding Sofia’s hands and kissing her cheek. +And then, looking aside to Victor, “But how very like!” she added with the air +of tender reminiscence. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” Sofia cried, “you knew my mother?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed—and loved her.” Sofia never dreamed to question the woman’s sincerity; +and her charm of manner was irresistible. “You must try to like me a little for +her sake—” +</p> + +<p> +“As if one could help liking you for your own, Mrs. Waring!” +</p> + +<p> +“Prettily said, my dear. You have inherited more from your mother than your +good looks alone. Is it not so, mon prince?” +</p> + +<p> +“Much more.” Victor’s enigmatic smile gave place to a look of regret and +uneasiness. “Let us hope, however, not too much. Heredity,” he mused in sombre +mood, “is a force of such fatality in our lives....” +</p> + +<p> +He gave a gesture of solicitude and continued with characteristic deliberation, +and that preciseness of diction which he seemed never able to forget, even +though deeply moved. +</p> + +<p> +“More than ever, now that Sofia is restored to me, I could wish the past other +than what it was, that she might start life with a handicap less cruel of +inherited tendencies. But when I reflect that both her parents—” +</p> + +<p> +“Please!” Sofia begged, piteous. “Oh, please!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry, my dear.” Victor closed tender hands over those which the girl had +lifted in appeal. “It is for your own good only I give myself this pain of +warning you against your worst enemy, I mean yourself, the self that is so +strange a compound of hereditary weaknesses.... Please remember always that, no +matter what may happen, however far you may be led into transgression of the +social codes, I shall never reproach you, on the contrary, you may count +implicitly on my sympathetic understanding. Never forget, I, too, have known, +have suffered and fought myself—and in the end won at a cost I am not yet +finished paying, nor will be, I fear, this side my grave.” +</p> + +<p> +He sighed from his heart, and bowing a stricken head, seemed to lose himself in +disconsolate reverie—but not so far as to suffer the interruption which Sofia +made to offer and which he stayed with an eloquent hand. +</p> + +<p> +“You do not understand? But naturally. Let me explain. No: there is no reason +why Sybil—Mrs. Waring—should not hear. She is a dear friend of long years, she +understands.” +</p> + +<p> +With a quiet murmur—“Oh, quite!”—Mrs. Waring ran an affectionate arm round +Sofia’s shoulders and gently held the girl to her. +</p> + +<p> +“When I determined to forsake the bad old ways,” Victor pursued—“this you must +know, my dear—I had friends—of a sort—who resented my defection, set themselves +against my will and, when they found they could not swerve me from my purpose, +became my enemies. That was long ago, but to this day some of them persist in +their enmity—I have to be constantly on my guard.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean there is danger?” Sofia asked in quick anxiety. “Your life—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Always,” Victor assented, gravely. With a shrug he added: “It is nothing; for +myself, I am used to it, I do not greatly care. But for you—that is another +matter altogether. I have a great fear for you, my child. That, indeed, is why +I never tried to find you till yesterday—believing, as I mistakenly did, you +were in good hands, well cared for, happy—lest my enemies seek to strike at me +through you. But when I saw that unfortunate advertisement I dared delay not +another hour about bringing you within the compass of my protection. Even now, +untiring as my care for you shall ever be, I know my enemies will be as +tireless in endeavours to rob me of you. You will be followed, hounded, +importuned, lied to, threatened—all without rest. If they cannot take you from +me bodily, they will seek to poison your mind against me. Therefore, rather +than keep you practically a prisoner in your home, I feel obliged to require a +promise of you.” +</p> + +<p> +Deeply stirred by the melancholy gravity that informed his pose, the girl +protested earnestly: “Anything—I will promise anything, rather than be an +anxiety to one who is so kind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Kind? To my own daughter?” Victor smiled sadly. “But I love you, little Sofia. +Nor is it much that I must ask of you: merely that you never go out alone, but +only in the company of Mrs. Waring or Mr. Karslake or, preferably, both.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I promise that—” +</p> + +<p> +“But there is more: If by any accident you should ever find yourself left alone +in public, do not let strangers speak to you, refuse to listen to them.” +</p> + +<p> +“I promise.” +</p> + +<p> +“And finally: If anybody should ever seek to turn you against me, come to me +instantly and tell me about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But naturally I would do that, father.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good. I rely upon your discretion and loyalty. At another time I will explain +matters in more detail. For the present—enough of an unpleasant subject. You +have a busy day before you. At my request Mrs. Waring has arranged to have +various tradespeople wait upon you this morning to take your orders for the +beginnings of a wardrobe. If you can find something ready-made to wear you will +want, no doubt, to spend the afternoon shopping. A car will be at your +disposal, and I give you carte blanche. I wish you never to know an unsatisfied +need or desire. Still, I am selfish enough to reserve for myself the happiness +of selecting your jewels.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” Sofia cried, breathlessly. Victor was holding his arms open; and how +should she deny him? “You are too good to me,” she murmured. “How can I ever +show my gratitude?” +</p> + +<p> +Holding her close, Victor smiled a singular smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Some day I may tell you. But to-day—no more. I am much preoccupied with +affairs; but Mrs. Waring will take care of you till evening, when I promise +myself the pleasure of dining with you both.” +</p> + +<p> +At the sound of a knock he put Sofia gently from him, and said in a strong +voice: +</p> + +<p> +“Enter.” +</p> + +<p> +The door opened, Nogam announced: +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Sturm.” +</p> + +<p> +Hard on the echo of his name a man swung into the room with an air at once +nervous and aggressive—a tall man shabbily dressed, holding his head high—and +at sight of Sofia and Mrs. Waring, where he had doubtless thought to find +Prince Victor alone, stopped short, betraying disconcertion in the way he +instinctively assumed the stand of a soldier at attention, bringing his heels +together with an undeniable click, straightening his shoulders, stiffening both +arms to rigidity at his sides. And for a bare thought his eyes rolled almost +wildly in their deep sockets. Then he bowed twice, from the hips, with +mechanical precision, profoundly to Victor, with deep respect to the women. +</p> + +<p> +Victor smothered an exclamation of annoyance. +</p> + +<p> +Unbidden, a word shaped in Sofia’s consciousness, a French monosyllable into +which the war had packed every shade and gradation of hatred and contempt, the +epithet <i>Boche</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Immediately erasing every sign of irritation, Victor greeted the man with +casual suavity. “Oh, there you are, eh, Sturm?” Then, as Sofia and Mrs. Waring +turned to go, he added quickly: “A moment, please. Since Mr. Sturm to-day +becomes a member of the household, acting as my assistant in some research work +which I am undertaking, I may as well present him now. Mrs. Waring, permit me: +Mr. Sturm. And the Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, my daughter ...” +</p> + +<p> +Mumbling their names after Victor, the man Sturm executed two more bows. At the +same time he seemed to remind himself that his soldierly carriage was perhaps +injudicious, and forthwith abandoned it for a studied slouch which, in Sofia’s +sight, was little less than insolent. And unmistakably there was something +nearly resembling insolence in the eyes that boldly sought hers: a look +equivocal at best and, intentionally or no, wholly offensive in essence; as if +the fellow were asserting their partnership in some secret understanding; or as +if he knew something by no means to Sofia’s credit.... +</p> + +<p> +Her acknowledgment of his salute was accordingly cool, and she was glad when a +nod from Prince Victor gave her leave to go. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch10"></a>X<br/> +VICTOR ET AL</h2> + +<p> +Those first few weeks of emancipation from the ennui of existence at the Café +des Exiles were so replete with wonders that Sofia lived largely in a beatific +state of breathless excitement, devoting the best part of her days to +thoughtless flying from delight to new delight, and going nightly to her bed so +healthily tired that she slept like a top and never once awakened to memories +of disturbing dreams. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps her pleasure burned the brighter for its dark, ambiguous +background—those many questions which Prince Victor persisted in leaving +unanswered. Sofia knew bad times of perplexity and depression, when the price +of translation from drudge to princess seemed a sore price to pay. +</p> + +<p> +And yet, required to state the cost to her in terms explicit, she must have +hesitated lest she appear ungrateful in complaining, who hardly needed to +express a wish to have it granted, who indeed knew many a wish realized in fact +before she was fully aware of its inception in her private thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +All those lovely material things of life which her famished girlhood had ached +for so hopelessly now were hers in abundant measure, and all the less tangible +things, too, so requisite to the happiness of women in a worldly world—or +nearly all. Frocks she had, with furs and furbelows no end; flowers and +flattery and frivolities; freedom within limitations as yet not irksome; jewels +that would have graced an imperial diadem—everything but the single essential +without which everything is hollow nothing and life itself only the dreaming of +a dream. +</p> + +<p> +The one lack known to the Sofia of those days was the lack of Love. +</p> + +<p> +She had gone so long longing to love, questing blindly and vainly for some +human being to whom her affection would mean something vital and dear—it seemed +cruel that her longing must be still denied. As it had been with Mama Thérèse, +it was now with the romantic father so newly self-declared. She wanted +desperately and tried her best to love Victor as his daughter should; and that +he cared for her profoundly she knew and never questioned; yet when she +searched her secret heart Sofia discovered no feeling for the man other than a +singular form of fear. His look, his tone, his manner, his presence altogether, +inspired a nameless sort of shrinking, inarticulate apprehensions, and mistrust +which the girl found at once utterly unaccountable and dismally disappointing; +so that, with every wish and will to do otherwise, she found herself +involuntarily making excuse of trivial interests to keep out of Victor’s way +and, when there was no escaping, sitting silent and ill at ease in his society, +or seizing on some slender pretext, it didn’t matter what, to inveigle into +their company a third somebody, it didn’t matter whom—Mrs. Waring, Karslake, +even the unspeakable Sturm. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, there were times, far too many of them, too, when of a sudden +Victor would forsake his occult preoccupations and, unceremoniously upsetting +whatever arrangements Sofia might have made with Mrs. Waring or Karslake, would +find other pleasures of his own invention for her to share with him alone: long +motor jaunts through the English countryside, apparently his favourite +recreation; a box all to themselves at a theatre, where Victor would sit +watching the girl with a fascination only rivalled by her fascination with the +traffic of the boards; curiously constrained little dinners à deux in +fashionable restaurants; morning rides in Rotten Row, where it oddly appeared +that Victor knew everybody, whereas not one in five hundred seemed to know +him—or to care to know him. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia, indeed, was often puzzled to account for what to her appeared to be an +almost pathetic eagerness on the part of Victor, in strange accord with his +lofty pretensions, to claim acquaintanceship with and win the recognition even +of persons of the utmost inconsequence. And she remarked, too, that his temper +was apt to be raw in sequel to their excursions into the haunts of the +well-known. But it was for other reasons altogether that she came to dread them +most. +</p> + +<p> +For one thing, Victor’s conversation was ordinarily rather dull; at best, the +reverse of exhilarating. And in spite of her unquestioning acceptance of him as +her father, he remained to Sofia actually a new acquaintance; in effect, a +strange man. And from strangers, more than from relatives with whose minds one +is presumably on terms of close intimacy, one is warranted in expecting +something in the way of mutual stimulation through the opening of new +perspectives of experience, thought, and feeling. Whereas—with Sofia, at +least—Victor seemed unable to talk on more than two subjects, one or the other +of which was constantly uppermost in his thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +He never wearied of warning Sofia against the dangers of those moral +infirmities which he asserted were hers by legitimate inheritance; and which, +if Victor were right in his contentions, she could hardly hope to overcome +without a desperate struggle. She would have to be forever on guard, he +insisted, lest the temptation of some moment, not to be foreseen, prove too +strong for her latent weakness of character, and commit her, through some +unpremeditated act of defiance to the law—most probably an act of theft—to the +life of a social outcast. +</p> + +<p> +To do her justice, the girl was consciously not much impressed by this alleged +peril. She had never been aware of any failing such as Victor would have +endowed her with; so far as she could remember she had never been tempted to +commit more venial sins than inhered in lying to Mama Thérèse now and then in +order to escape unmerited disciplining at the heavy hands of that industrious +virago; and as for thieving, the very thought of anything of that sort was +detestable to Sofia. +</p> + +<p> +But unconsciously, no doubt, the everlasting iteration of Victor’s admonitions +had its purposed effect upon that sensitive and impressionable spirit. +</p> + +<p> +Then, too, by degrees, but all too soon, it became manifest that the memory of +his passionate attachment for her mother possessed Victor to the point of +monomania. It was only with an effort that he could force himself to talk to +Sofia on other subjects. He thought of nothing else while with her; if she read +his eyes aright, often glimpses of weird light flickering in their opaque +depths, like heat lightning of a murky summer’s night, fairly frightened her, +and she knew a shuddering perception of the possibility that Victor was at +times in danger of confusing the daughter with the mother. +</p> + +<p> +“Never was there such resemblance,” he once uttered, in a stare. “You are more +like her than she herself!” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia was pardonably puzzled, and looked it. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean, you re-create my vision of the woman I loved and lost—the woman I saw +in her, not the woman she was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lost?” the girl murmured. +</p> + +<p> +The gray countenance took on an added shade of sombre passion. “She never +understood me, she treated me badly. Once, in a fit of pique, she ran away. I +did everything—everything, I tell you!—to win her back, but—” +</p> + +<p> +He choked on bitter recollections—and Sofia was painfully reminded of the +Chinese devil-masks in Victor’s study. But the likeness faded even as she saw +it, under her gaze the twisted features were ironed back into their accustomed +cast of austerity. +</p> + +<p> +“Before I could persuade her, you were born.... Then she died.” +</p> + +<p> +Sensible though she was of the ellipsis, and afraid it would never be filled in +if she interrupted, Sofia could not help uttering a sound of regret and pity +for the lot of the mother she had never seen, whose untimely death had ended a +life accounted unendurable as Victor’s wife, for reasons unknown but none the +less, to the daughter, vaguely and lamentably understandable. +</p> + +<p> +For Sofia by now had passed the stage of pretending to herself that she was not +happier away from her father. +</p> + +<p> +Victor mistook the nature of the feeling that swayed the girl—took to himself +the sympathy excited by his revelations. +</p> + +<p> +“But do not grieve on my account. Is not that which was lost restored again to +me? In you my old love lives once more ... little Sofia!” +</p> + +<p> +He caught and pressed a hand that rested on the cloth between them. (They +happened that night to be dining at the Ritz.) And Sofia re-experienced that +inevitable, hateful flinching with which she was growing too familiar. +</p> + +<p> +She dropped her head that her eyes might not betray her. +</p> + +<p> +“People will see ...” +</p> + +<p> +“What if they do? Those who know us will hardly see any wrong in my squeezing +the hand of my own daughter; and the others—not that they matter—will only +think me the luckiest dog alive—as I am!” +</p> + +<p> +Chuckle and smirk both were indescribably odious, reminding Sofia of the +creature Sturm; <i>he</i> had a laugh like that for her, on the rare occasion +when chance propinquity encouraged the Boche to begin one of his uncouth essays +in flirtation. +</p> + +<p> +Sturm’s attitude, in truth, perplexed Sofia to exasperation; that is to say, as +much as it offended her. For Victor the man seemed to entertain an exaggerated +yet deeply rooted respect, approaching actual awe, which he tried his best to +carry off with a swagger; for to hold anybody in any degree of deference was, +one judged, somehow deplorable, even shameful, in the code of Sturm; but in +Victor’s presence the fellow’s bravado would quickly wilt into hopeless +servility, he would cringe and crawl like a dog currying the favour of a harsh +master. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, Victor’s daughter seemed to be no more than fair game, in Sturm’s +understanding, and a source of supercilious amusement but thinly veiled or not +at all. Alone with the girl, Sturm put on the airs of a Prussianized pasha +condescending to a new odalisque. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia held the animal in a deadly loathing which, betrayed in word or look or +gesture, animated in him only a spirit of derision. In the absence of Victor, +Sturm’s eyes were ever ironic, his bows and leers mocking, his speeches +flavoured with clumsy sarcasm; from which it resulted that the girl never quite +forgot the impression which he had managed to convey in those few moments of +their first encounter, that Sturm knew something she ought to know but didn’t, +and was meanly jeering at her in his sleeve. +</p> + +<p> +What virtues Victor Vassilyevski perceived in the man passed comprehension. But +so did most of Victor’s whims and ways. What riddle more obscure than that +portentous business which permeated the atmosphere of the establishment with +the taint of stealth and terror?—the famous “research work” that kept Victor +closeted with Sturm in his study daily for hours at a time, often in +confabulation with others of like ilk, men of furtive and unprepossessing cast +who came and went by appointment at all hours, but as a rule late at night! +</p> + +<p> +Into these conferences, Sofia observed, Karslake was never summoned. She +wondered why. He was, as she saw him, so unquestionably the better man, +everything that Sturm was not, open of countenance, fair of temper and tongue, +well-bred and well-mannered, light of heart and high spirited, and at the same +time dependable, with metal of sincerity and earnestness like tempered steel in +his character—or Sofia misread him woefully. +</p> + +<p> +She had been quick to see the man behind the misleading little moustache. And +already she was beginning to count that amusement tame which Karslake did not +share. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Waring was undeniably a dear. Sofia could hardly be grateful enough to the +happy chance which had cast that lady for the rôle of her chaperone; lacking +her guidance the girl must have been innocently guilty of many a gaucherie in +ways new and strange to untried, faltering feet. And it was to her alone that +Sofia owed the slow but constant widening of her social horizon. For Sybil +Waring, it seemed, quite literally “knew everybody”; and Sofia soon learned to +count it an off day when Sybil failed to present her protégée to the notice of +somebody of position and influence. +</p> + +<p> +Most of these persons were women with sounding names and the solid backing of +much money conspicuously in evidence—matrons of the younger and more giddy +generation which was just then so busily engaged in providing material for the +most hectic chapters of London’s post-war social history. But Sofia was +scarcely qualified to be critical or to guess that they were climbers equally +with herself, and that if their footing had been of older establishment the +name of Vassilyevski would have rung sinister echoes in their memories, +deafening them to the rich allure inherent in the title of princess. +</p> + +<p> +So she was fain to accept them all at their own valuation, and thought most of +them entirely charming. And though she had hardly had time as yet to progress +beyond the introductory stages of chance meetings and informal little teas in +public, she began clearly to descry enchanting vistas of better days to come, +when the Princess Sofia Vassilyevski would have not only teas but dinners and +dances given in her honour, and would be asked to spend gay week-ends in the +country houses of the people with whom she contracted the stronger friendships. +</p> + +<p> +But for the immediate present, and especially in the paramount business of +having a good time, Karslake was fairly a necessity. He thought of everything +and forgot nothing, was ever fertile of fresh expedient if the pastime of a +moment began to pall, and was capable of sustained fits of irresponsible gaiety +which enchanted Sofia, so well did they chime with her own eagerness for sheer +fun. +</p> + +<p> +Decidedly she would have been lost without Sybil Waring; but without Karslake +she would have been forlorn. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch11"></a>XI<br/> +HEARTBREAK</h2> + +<p> +Not yet prepared to admit it even to herself, in her heart Sofia knew she +prized the companionship of Karslake for something more than the mere amusement +it afforded her: there was a deeper feeling she would not name. For all that, +her times of solitude knew dreams quick and warm with the thought of Karslake, +his words and ways, the gracious little attentions he had accustomed her to +expect of him and which his manner subtly invested with a personal flavour +inexpressibly delightful, indispensably sweet. +</p> + +<p> +Nor did she ever quite forget how long he had worshipped with unostentatious +devotion at her lowly shrine of the caisse in the Café des Exiles, and how +shabbily she had rewarded his admiration—never once, in those many months, with +so much as a smile—and how unresentful had been his acceptance of her +half-feigned, half-real indifference to his existence. +</p> + +<p> +But whenever her reflections took that back-turning she would recall the man +who had talked to Karslake in the café, that day so long ago, of his own humble +past as a ’bus-boy in Troyon’s in Paris, and who on leaving had given Sofia +herself that odd look of half-recognition tempered by bewilderment. +</p> + +<p> +She tried once to draw Karslake about this acquaintance of his, but Karslake’s +memory proved unusually sluggish. +</p> + +<p> +“No-o,” he drawled after a tolerably long pause for thought—“can’t say I place +the chap you mean, can’t seem somehow to think back that far, you know. One +meets such a lot of people, first and last, they talk such a lot of tosh—” +</p> + +<p> +“But it couldn’t have been only tosh you were talking,” the girl persisted, +“because—<i>I</i> remember—you were so keen about keeping what you said secret, +you spoke the strangest language together most of the time. I could hear every +word”—she had already explained about the freak acoustics of the Café des +Exiles—“and not one meant anything to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stupid of me, but I simply can’t think what it could have been.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can—now.” +</p> + +<p> +Karslake looked askance at Sofia. +</p> + +<p> +“Since I’ve heard so much Chinese spoken by the servants—now I come to think of +it”—Sofia’s eyes grew bright with triumph—“I’m sure it must have been Chinese +you were speaking to the man I mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“Impossible,” Karslake pronounced calmly. +</p> + +<p> +“But you do know Chinese, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a syllable.” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia opened her lips to protest, but delayed to study Karslake’s face +intently. He didn’t try to escape her scrutiny, he even seemed to court it; but +there was a curious, quizzical look in his eyes, those half-smiling lips had a +whimsical droop. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Karslake!” Sofia announced, severely, “you’re fibbing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nice thing to say to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You do speak Chinese—confess.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Princess Sofia,” Karslake protested: “if I had known one word of +Chinese I could never have landed my job with your father.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“He expressly stipulated that I should be ignorant of that language.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a silly condition to make!” +</p> + +<p> +“Still, I daresay Prince Victor had his reasons.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t imagine what ...” +</p> + +<p> +“Possibly preferred a secretary who couldn’t understand everything he said to +the servants. I’ve never pretended to know all Prince Victor’s secrets, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +After a little pause Sofia asked gently: “Did you really need the job so badly, +Mr. Karslake?” +</p> + +<p> +“To get it meant more to me than I can tell you—almost as much as to hold on to +it does to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia turned her eyes away at this, and for the rest of the ride—they were +homeward bound from a matinée, having dropped Sybil Waring at her flat in +Mayfair—kept her thoughts to herself. +</p> + +<p> +Only the most perfunctory civilities passed between them, in fact, until they +had been ushered into the study by Nogam, who advised them that Prince Victor +had ordered tea to be served there and had promised to be home in good time for +it. +</p> + +<p> +The tea service was already set out on a little table beside the fireplace in +that room of secrets, whose normal atmosphere of brooding gloom was now the +darker for the deepening dusk. Only the tea itself remained to be served, a +special rite never performed in that household by hands more profane than those +of the major-domo, Shaik Tsin himself. And this last could be counted upon not +to put in appearance until Nogam took him word that Victor was waiting. +</p> + +<p> +So, having laid aside her furs and satisfied herself, by a seemingly aimless +but in fact exacting survey, that the abominable Sturm was not skulking +anywhere in the shadows, Sofia established herself on a lounge that faced the +fireplace, while Karslake stood before the fire, looking down with an expectant +smile of which she was but half aware. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you going to forgive me?” he asked, quietly, after a time. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia withdrew a pensive gaze from the ruddy bed of coals. +</p> + +<p> +“For what?” +</p> + +<p> +“You were kind enough to call it merely fibbing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m still thinking about that.” +</p> + +<p> +In fact, she had been thinking of nothing else. There was so much to be +considered. Imprimis, that Karslake had been guilty of practising a deception +upon her father. Deceit in itself was one form of treachery. And how often had +Victor stressed to her the dangers of his position, surrounded by nameless but +implacable enemies who would stick at no infamy to compass his ruin! +</p> + +<p> +But if she told him that Karslake understood Chinese she would lose her friend +forever—no question about that. Victor would not hesitate an instant—indeed, +Sofia felt sure he was only waiting for some such pretext to get rid of his +secretary. She was anything but unobserving, this child of Soho, whose wits had +been sharpened in the sophisticated atmosphere of a French restaurant; and more +than once she had seen Victor’s face duplicate the expression Papa Dupont’s had +so often assumed on his discovering that some patron of the café was taking too +personal an interest in the pretty young dame du comptoir. A look of insensate +jealousy ... +</p> + +<p> +To risk forfeiting the comradeship that had grown to be so dear? Or to be +constructively derelict in her duty as a daughter? +</p> + +<p> +A difficult choice to make; but Sofia made it honestly. In point of fact, she +assured herself, coldly, there was no choice, there was only one thing she +could do under the circumstances. And she hardened her heart and eyes as she +rose to face Karslake on more equal terms. +</p> + +<p> +But when she saw him waiting patiently, with that friendly smile of his she +knew so well, she hesitated long enough to permit his anticipating her with a +quiet question: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Princess Sofia?” +</p> + +<p> +And then, amazingly, her tongue betrayed her, the phrases she had framed so +carefully vanished utterly from out her mind; and she heard herself saying in +rather tremulous accents: +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all right. I shan’t tell.” +</p> + +<p> +“About my understanding Chinese?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—about that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you do care—?” +</p> + +<p> +She was panicky with knowledge that somehow her emotions had managed to slip +their moorings and get beyond her handling. It didn’t help or mend matters much +to hear her own voice stammering: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, of course, I—I don’t want you to—to have to go away—” +</p> + +<p> +Oh, the vanity of trying to hoodwink him who knew so well what she was now for +the first time realizing! +</p> + +<p> +“Because you like me a little, Princess Sofia?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why—yes—of course I do—” +</p> + +<p> +“Because you know I love you, dear.” +</p> + +<p> +And then she found herself clinging to Karslake; and his lips were warm upon +her hands ... +</p> + +<p> +So suddenly and at long last it came to Sofia, that Love for which all her days +had been one long weariness of waiting, Love that brimmed with raptures what +had been only aching emptiness and made the desert places to blossom as the +rose. And the joy of it proved overmastering, sweeping her off her feet and +dazing her, leaving her breathless and thoughtless but for the all-obscuring +thought—at length she loved, and the one whom she loved loved her! +</p> + +<p> +And for a space she existed in an iridescent dream of happiness, without sense +of relation to a material world, forgetful of the flight of time, lost to +everything but her lover’s arms and voice and lips. +</p> + +<p> +It might have been five minutes, it might have been sixty, before she became +aware that Karslake was gently disengaging her hands. “Dearest, dearest!” she +heard him say. “We must be sensible. That was the front door, I’m afraid.” +</p> + +<p> +The meaning in his insistence presently began to penetrate, if vaguely, and she +suffered him to go from her a pace or two. But, still a little blind with the +beauty of the revelation that had been granted unto her, nothing that met her +gaze seemed to be in true focus except her lover’s face: even the countenance +of Victor swam into her ken as if blurred by veils of mist, its dour, +forbidding look had no significance to her intelligence. Victor himself, for +that matter, was a figure without real consequence other than as a symbol of +the old order, the tedious old ways of the world from which she had magically +escaped. +</p> + +<p> +A ring of sarcastic apology provided the only clue she got to the import of +Victor’s words. Sobered a trifle, her mental processes somewhat less +incoherent, still she knew she would hardly regain her poise until she was +alone. And breathing an excuse, she left the room with such dignity as she +could muster. +</p> + +<p> +In the hall, with the closed door behind her, she paused to collect herself. +Then she missed furs and gloves and handbag and, remembering that she had left +them in the study, for some obscure reason imagined she must have them before +proceeding to her room. +</p> + +<p> +Much more mistress of herself by now, it never occurred to Sofia that there +could be any reason why she should hesitate about returning or feel embarrassed +before Victor. True, he had surprised them, Sofia was not at all sure he hadn’t +actually seen her in Karslake’s arms. But what of that? Love like hers was +nothing to be ashamed of; and that Victor could reasonably object to her giving +her heart to one of his secretaries was something far from her thought just +then. +</p> + +<p> +She put a hand to the knob, turned it, and swung the door open—all on +impulse—then faltered, transfixed by the tableau before the fireplace. +</p> + +<p> +The door was silent on its hinges, and Karslake’s back was to her. Victor, on +the other hand, facing both Karslake and the door, unquestionably saw Sofia, +but pretended not to, and had his say out with Karslake in a manner bitterly +cynical. +</p> + +<p> +“... sadly in error if you flatter yourself I pay you a wage to make love to +Sofia behind my back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry, sir.” Karslake’s tone was level, respectful but firm. “Your +instructions were, I believe, to win her confidence. Well—I have always found +love the one sure key to a woman’s confidence. Of course, if I had understood +you cared one way or the other—” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia heard no more: unconsciously she had closed the door, at one and the same +time shutting from her sight Victor’s exultant sneer and from her hearing the +words with which the man whom she loved had damned himself irretrievably and +dashed her spirit from radiant pinnacles of ecstasy into the profoundest black +abyss of shame and despair. +</p> + +<p> +Primitive instinct bade the stricken girl seek her room and hide her suffering +there; but the shock had stunned her to the point of physical weakness. Already +a hand was pressed above her heart, that ached cruelly; and as she moved to +cross to the foot of the staircase her knees gave under her. She clutched the +newel-post for support, waiting to find strength for the ascent. +</p> + +<p> +From the shadowed back part of the hall the man Nogam moved hastily into view, +his features twisted in a grimace of concern as he recognized the bleak misery +of Sofia’s face. His voice sounded strangely thin and remote. +</p> + +<p> +“Is there anything the matter, miss?—anything I can do?” +</p> + +<p> +She contrived to shake her head slightly and utter an inarticulate sound of +negation, then began slowly to mount the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +Below, Nogam stood watching, in a pose of indecision, as if tempted to follow +and offer the support of an arm lest she fall, restrained only by fear of a +rebuff. But Sofia’s leaden limbs carried her safely to the upper landing, then +on to the blessed shelter of her room, where she collapsed upon a chaise-longue +and there lay in a stirless huddle, dry of eye but deaf to the plaintive +entreaties of Chou Nu and numb to all sensation but the anguish of her +humiliated heart. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch12"></a>XII<br/> +SUSPECT</h2> + +<p> +Toward mid-evening the man Victor Vassilyevski and his creature Sturm sat where +the lamp of hand-wrought brass made the top of the teakwood table an oasis of +light amid a waste of shadows, their heads together over a vast glut of books +and papers—maps printed and sketched, curious diagrams, works of reference, +documents all dark with columns of figures and cabalistic writings intelligible +only to initiated eyes. +</p> + +<p> +They had the study all to themselves. Nevertheless, when they spoke it was in +the discreet pitch of those who deal in fatal secrets. At a distance of two +paces only a lip-reader could have caught the substance of their +communications, and even such a one must have failed unless equally at home in +German and in English. +</p> + +<p> +Aside from these occasional and circumspect voices, and the busy rustle of a +steel pen in the hand of Sturm, the quiet of the room had a tolerably constant +background of sound in a subdued whisper punctuated by muffled clicks, +emanating from the bronze casket that housed the telautographic apparatus. +</p> + +<p> +From time to time, as this noise temporarily suspended, Victor would get up, +read what the mechanical stylus had inscribed, tear off the paper, and return +to his chair. +</p> + +<p> +Some of the messages thus received he made known to Sturm, who invariably +acknowledged this courtesy with effusive gratitude, sometimes adding a few +words of contented comment. Other messages Victor chose to keep to himself, +silently setting fire to them and adding their brittle ashes to those of their +predecessors on the brazen tray provided for the purpose. At such times Sturm +would bend lower over his work. But Victor was well able to guess what +resentment glimmered in the eyes so studiously averted; and his cold, sardonic +smile more than once commented, unknown to Sturm, upon the accuracy with which +he read the mean workings of his “secretary’s” mind. +</p> + +<p> +The buzz of a muted bell presently interrupted the even tenor of their +industry, causing Sturm to start sharply, drop his pen, and slue round in his +chair, turning to Victor a livid face in which his dark eyes of a fanatic were +live embers of excitement. +</p> + +<p> +Without a sign to show he shared or even was aware of Sturm’s emotion, Victor +deliberately fished from beneath the table a telephone instrument, unhooked the +receiver, and pronounced a conventional phrase of greeting. To this he added a +short “Yes,” and after listening quietly for some seconds, “Very good—in twenty +minutes, then.” Wasting no more time on the author of the call, he hung up, +returned the telephone to its place of concealment, and helped himself to a +cigarette before deigning to acknowledge Sturm’s persistent stare. +</p> + +<p> +Then, elevating his eyebrows in mild impatience, he made the laconic +announcement: +</p> + +<p> +“Eleven.” +</p> + +<p> +Sturm’s mouth twitched nervously, his eyes burned with a keener fire. +</p> + +<p> +“Coming here? To-night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then”—a gaunt hand described a gesture of agitation—“the hour strikes!” +</p> + +<p> +Victor looked bored. +</p> + +<p> +“Who knows?” he replied, as who should say: “Does it matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“But—Gott in Himmel—!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sturm,” Victor interposed, critically, “if you Bolsheviki were a trifle more +consistent, one might repose greater faith in your sincerity. But when one +hears you deny the Deity in one breath and call on him by name in the next—!” +</p> + +<p> +“A mere mode of speech,” Sturm muttered. +</p> + +<p> +“If you must invoke a spiritual patron, why not Satan? Or don’t you believe in +the Powers of Darkness, either?” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe in you.” +</p> + +<p> +“As temporal viceroy of Lucifer? Many thanks! But you were about to say—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing. That is—I was envying your poise, Excellency. You take things so +coolly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“With Eleven coming here to tell us when we are to strike?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” Victor repeated. “We are prepared to strike at any hour. What +matters whether to-night or a week from to-night—since we cannot fail?” +</p> + +<p> +“If that were only certain!” +</p> + +<p> +“It rests with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s just it,” Sturm doubted moodily. “Suppose <i>I</i> fail?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, then—I suppose—you will die.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know. And so will all of us, Excellency.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no. Undeceive yourself, my friend. I shall survive. You will surely die, +and perhaps many others with you; but I would not be Number One if I had turned +my hand to this scheme without discounting failure first of all. My way of +escape is sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe you,” Sturm grumbled. +</p> + +<p> +With a languid hand Victor found and pressed a button embedded in the table +near the edge. +</p> + +<p> +“You have reason. Whatever my shortcomings, my good Sturm, they do not include +hypocrisy; I do not pretend, like your noble Bolsheviki, I am in this business +for the sake of humanity or anything but my own selfish ends—power, plunder”—a +slight wait prefaced one final word, spoken in a key of sombre +passion—“revenge.” +</p> + +<p> +“Revenge?” Sturm echoed, staring. +</p> + +<p> +“I have more than one score to pay out before I can cry even with life ... one +above all!” +</p> + +<p> +Studying intently that darkened face, and misled by its look of abstraction, +Sturm was guilty of the indiscretion of his malicious smile. +</p> + +<p> +“The Lone Wolf?” +</p> + +<p> +Victor turned weary eyes his way, and under their black and lustreless regard +the smile merged swiftly into a grin of nervous apology. +</p> + +<p> +“You are shrewd,” Victor observed, thoughtfully. “Be careful: it is a dangerous +gift.” +</p> + +<p> +The man Nogam gently opened the door and approached the table, stopping just +outside the area of illumination shed by the shaded lamp. But since Victor +continued to smoke absently, paying no attention, Nogam resigned himself to +wait with entire patience: the perfect pattern of a servant tempered by long +servitude to the erratic winds of employers’ whims; efficient, assiduous, mute +unless required to speak, long-suffering. +</p> + +<p> +Victor addressed him suddenly, in a sharp voice that drew from Sturm a glitter +of eager spite. +</p> + +<p> +“Nogam!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is the Princess Sofia?” +</p> + +<p> +“In ’er apartment, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“And Mr. Karslake?” +</p> + +<p> +“In ’is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then be good enough to send Shaik Tsin to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“And, Nogam!”—the servant checked in the act of turning—“I shan’t need you +again to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Nk you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +When Nogam had left the room, Sturm, remarking the slight frown that knitted +Victor’s brows, ventured an impertinence couched in a form of respectful +enquiry: +</p> + +<p> +“Excellency, perhaps you trust that fellow too much, hein?” +</p> + +<p> +“You think so?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is too perfect, if you ask me—never makes a false move.” +</p> + +<p> +“Either he is what he seems, in which event a false move would be against +nature; or he is not, and knows one slip would mean his death.” +</p> + +<p> +“Still, I maintain you trust him too much.” +</p> + +<p> +“With what?” +</p> + +<p> +“The freedom of your house, the opportunity to spy, to get to know who comes to +see you and when, to listen at doors.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have caught him listening at doors?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet. But in time—” +</p> + +<p> +“I think not. I don’t think he has to.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean,” Sturm stammered, perturbed, “you think he knows—suspects?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think he is one thing or the other: merely Nogam, or one of the greatest of +living actors. In either case he is flawless—thus far. But if not merely Nogam, +he will have a subtler means of eavesdropping than by listening at doors.” +</p> + +<p> +“The dictograph?” +</p> + +<p> +“Make your mind easy about that. This room is searched regularly by Shaik Tsin. +So is Nogam’s. It is certain there is neither a dictograph installed here nor +any means at Nogam’s disposal for connecting with a dictograph installation. +Indeed, so closely is Nogam watched, and by more cunning eyes than +mine—sometimes I begin to be afraid he is simply what he seems.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you do suspect him!” +</p> + +<p> +“My good Sturm, I suspect everybody.” +</p> + +<p> +Sturm pondered this before pressing his point again. +</p> + +<p> +“Karslake found the fellow for you,” he suggested at length. +</p> + +<p> +“True.” +</p> + +<p> +“And Karslake—” +</p> + +<p> +“Has been guilty of nothing more treacherous than falling in love with Sofia.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your daughter, Excellency!” +</p> + +<p> +“The young woman seems content to call herself that.... Can’t say I blame +Karslake.” +</p> + +<p> +“But do you forgive him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, that is another matter. Mine is not a forgiving nature, Sturm—not even +toward excessive shrewdness.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor took up a docket of papers, and Sturm, mumbling an apology, gave himself +up to jealous brooding till he forgot the broad hint he had received. +</p> + +<p> +“If I can satisfy you that Nogam is untrustworthy—” he began, meaning to +continue: <i>Karslake will stand his proved accomplice</i>. +</p> + +<p> +But Victor would not let him finish. “Nothing could please me more,” he +interrupted. “Do so, by all means—if you can—and earn my everlasting +gratitude.” +</p> + +<p> +Sturm questioned him with puzzled eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I ask no greater service of any man,” Victor elucidated with a smile that made +Sturm shiver, “than proof that Nogam is what I suspect him of being.” A hand +extended upon the table unclosed and closed slowly, with fingers tensed, like a +murderous claw. “I want no greater favour of Heaven or Hell—!” +</p> + +<p> +He broke off abruptly. Having entered noiselessly in his padded shoes, Shaik +Tsin now stood before Victor, offering a low obeisance. +</p> + +<p> +“You took your time,” Victor grumbled. And Shaik Tsin smiled serenely. “I want +you to tend the door to-night,” Victor pursued. “Eleven is expected at any +moment. You need not announce him, simply show him in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hearing is obedience.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait”—as the Chinaman began to bow himself out—“Karslake is still in his room, +I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, master.” +</p> + +<p> +“And Nogam?” +</p> + +<p> +“Has just gone to his.” +</p> + +<p> +“When did you last search their quarters?” +</p> + +<p> +“During dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +“And of course found nothing?” Shaik Tsin bowed. “Make sure neither leaves his +room to-night. Set a watch outside each door.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have done so.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor gave a sign of dismissal. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch13"></a>XIII<br/> +THE TURNIP</h2> + +<p> +In a spacious chamber beneath the eaves, hideously papered and furnished with +cheerless, massive relics of the early Victorian era, the man Nogam pursued +methodical preparations for bed. +</p> + +<p> +Spying eyes, had there been any—and for all Nogam knew, there were—would have +seen him follow step by step a programme from whose order he had departed by +scarcely as much as a single gesture on any night since his first installation +in the house near Queen Anne’s Gate. +</p> + +<p> +Loosening the waistcoat of his evening livery, he freed the heavy silver +watchchain from its buttonhole, drew from its pocket an old-fashioned silver +watch of that obese style which first earned the portable timepiece its +nickname of “turnip,” and opening its back inserted a key attached to the other +end of the chain. Its winding was a laborious process, prodigiously noisy. Once +finished, Nogam shut the back with a loud click, and reverently deposited the +watch on the marble slab of the black walnut bureau. +</p> + +<p> +Then he hung coat and waistcoat over the back of a chair which stood between +the foot of his bed and the door. Sheer chance may have decreed selection of +this chair for the purpose on Nogam’s first night in the room; whether or no, +it was not in character that, having established this precedent, Nogam should +depart from it. And in any event, the coat-draped chair effectually eclipsed a +possible keyhole view of the room. +</p> + +<p> +Notwithstanding, Nogam pursued his bedtime rites with precisely the same +deliberation and absence of perceptible self-consciousness as before. One never +knew: there might be other peepholes in the walls. +</p> + +<p> +His trousers, neatly folded, he laid out on the seat of the chair. Then he +pulled off square-toed boots with elastic inserts in their uppers, put on a +pair of worn slippers, carried the boots to the door and set them outside, +closed the door, and turned the key in its lock. +</p> + +<p> +If aware that, by so doing, he made his privacy just as secure as if he had +fastened the door with a bent hair-pin, he gave evidence of no uneasiness in +the knowledge. A clear conscience is the best of nerve tonics. +</p> + +<p> +Throughout, his features preserved their mild, subdued, dull habit with which +the household was familiar. Nogam off duty was in no way different from the +unthinking creature of habit who performed belowstairs the prescribed functions +of his office. +</p> + +<p> +Having donned a nightshirt of coarse cotton, he knelt for several minutes in a +devout attitude by the side of his bed, then rising opened the window, took the +turnip from the bureau, and snuggled it beneath his pillow, inserted his bare +shanks between the sheets, and opened at a marked place a Bible bound in black +cloth. +</p> + +<p> +On the table by his shoulder a battered electric standard with a frayed cord +and a dingy shade remained alight long enough to permit Nogam to spell out a +short chapter. Then he put the Bible aside, yawned wearily, and switched out +the lamp. +</p> + +<p> +Profound darkness now possessed the room, immaterially modified by the +light-struck sky beyond the windows. And in this grateful obscurity Nogam +permitted himself the luxury of ceasing to be Nogam. A light suddenly flashed +upon his face would have discovered a keen and alert intelligence transfiguring +the apathetic mask of every day. Also, it would have rendered Nogam’s probable +duration of life an interesting speculation. +</p> + +<p> +Under cover of the darkness, furthermore, he did a number of things which +Nogam, qua Nogam, would never have dreamed of doing. +</p> + +<p> +His first act was to withdraw from under his pillow the turnip, his next to +re-open the back of its silver case and then the inner lid—something which a +deft thumbnail accomplished without a sound. +</p> + +<p> +From the roomy interior of the case—whose bulky ancient works had been replaced +by a wafer-thin modern movement, leaving much useful space back of the +dial—sensitive fingers extracted a metal disk about the size and thickness of a +silver dollar. One face of this disk was generously perforated, the other, +solid, boasted a short blunt post round which several feet of extremely fine +wire had been coiled. +</p> + +<p> +Unwinding the wire and bending the free end into the form of a rude hook, the +man attached this last to the cord of his bedside lamp at a point, located by +sense of touch, where a minute section of electric light wire had been left +naked by defective insulation. +</p> + +<p> +Direct connection now being established with a microphone secreted in the base +of the brass lamp on the study table, three floors below, and the perforated +side of the microphone detector serving as an earpiece, one could hear every +word uttered by the conspirators. +</p> + +<p> +The man in bed contributed a broad smile to the kind darkness—sheer luxury to +facial muscles cramped and constrained to the cast of Nogam for eighteen hours +a day. He was now at last to reap the reward of three months of preparation and +three weeks of ingenious, but necessarily spasmodic, and at all times +desperately dangerous, tampering with the house wiring system. +</p> + +<p> +He lay very still for a long time, listening ... +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch14"></a>XIV<br/> +CONFERENCE OF THE DAMNED</h2> + +<p> +An Irish voice was making the hush of the study musical with mellow cadences. +</p> + +<p> +“This week-end sure, your Excellency—within the next three nights—the little +Welshman will be after summoning the Cabinet to sit in secret in Downing +Street, with His Most Gracious Majesty attending in person; the emergency +extraordinary being thoughtfully provided by this shindig me amiable but +spirited fellow-countrymen are kicking up across the Channel—God bless the +work!” +</p> + +<p> +The speaker laughed lightly, flashing white teeth at Prince Victor across the +width of the paper-strewn table. +</p> + +<p> +“In more Parliamentary language, by the Irish Question. But we’ll hear no more +of that, I’m thinking, once we’ve proclaimed the Soviet Government of England.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor bowed in grave assent. +</p> + +<p> +“You have my word as to that,” he said; and after a moment of thoughtful +consideration: “You speak, no doubt, from the facts?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do that. It’s straight I’ve come from the House of Commons to bring you the +news without an hour’s delay. There’s more than one advantage in being an Irish +Member these days.” +</p> + +<p> +“On the other hand, Eleven”—Victor stressed the numeral as if to remind the +Irishman that even a Member of Parliament for Ireland held no higher standing +in his esteem than any other underling in his association of anonymous +conspirators—“even so, it appears you are uncertain as to the night.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m after telling you it’ll be to-morrow night or more likely Saturday—Sunday +at the latest.” A mildly impatient accent alone betrayed resentment of the +snub. “I’ll know in good time, long before the hour appointed; and that ought +to do, providing you on your part are prepared.” +</p> + +<p> +“An hour’s notice will be ample,” Victor agreed. “We have been ready for days, +needing only the knowledge you bring us—or will, when you have it definitely.” +</p> + +<p> +The Irishman chuckled. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s hard to believe. Not that I’d dream of doubting your statement, sir—but +yourself won’t be denying you must have worked fast to organize England for +revolution in less than three weeks.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been busy,” Victor admitted. “But the work was not so difficult ... +Seeds of revolution are easily sown in land thoroughly tilled by forces of +discontent. And what land has been better tilled? To vary the figure: England +is all seething beneath a thin crust of custom and established habit whose +integrity a conservative and reactionary government has ever since the war been +struggling desperately to preserve. The blow we shall strike within three days +will shatter that crust in a hundred places.” +</p> + +<p> +“And let Hell loose!” the Irishman added with a nervous laugh. +</p> + +<p> +In a dry voice Victor commented: “Precisely.” +</p> + +<p> +“Omelettes,” Sturm interjected, assertively, “are not made without breaking +eggs.” +</p> + +<p> +“And all rivers, no doubt, flow to the sea? What a lot you know, Herr Sturm! Is +it the Portfolio of the Minister of Education you’ve picked out for your very +own, after the explosion comes off—if it’s a fair question?” +</p> + +<p> +“You Irish are all mad,” the German complained, sourly—“mad about laughing. +Even me you will laugh at, while you trust your very life to me, while you +trust to my genius to make Soviet England possible and Ireland free.” +</p> + +<p> +“Faith! you’re away off there, me friend. If it was you and your genius I had +to trust, it’s meself would turn violent reactionary and advise Ireland to be a +good dog and come to England’s heel and lick England’s hand and live off +England’s leavings. I’ll trust nobody in this black business but himself—Number +One.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have changed your tune since that night at the Red Moon,” Sturm reminded +him, angrily. +</p> + +<p> +“I had me lesson then and there,” Eleven agreed, cheerfully. “And I don’t mind +telling you, the next time I’m taken with a fancy to call me soul me own, I’ll +be after asking himself first for a license.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor put a period to the passage with a dispassionate “By your leave, +gentlemen—that will do.” To the Irishman he added: “You understand the danger, +I believe, of remaining within the condemned area—that is to say, except in the +open air?” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t say I do, altogether.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is simple: no person in any house supplied by the mains of the Westminster +gas works will be safe for hours after the formula of Thirteen has begun its +work. My advice to you is to keep out of the district entirely.” +</p> + +<p> +“Faith, and I’ll do that! But how about yourself in this house?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall spend the week-end outside of London,” Victor replied, “not too far +away, of course, and”—the shadow of his satiric smile was briefly +visible—“prepared at any moment to answer the call of my stricken country.... +The few who remain here will be provided with the essentials for their +protection. Furthermore, a general warning will be sent out to all who can be +trusted.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the others—?” +</p> + +<p> +“With them it must be as Fate wills.” +</p> + +<p> +“Women and children, potential sympathizers and supporters of all classes?” the +Irishman persisted in incredulous horror—“all?” +</p> + +<p> +“All,” Victor affirmed, coldly. “We who deal in the elemental passions that +make revolutions, that is to say, in Life and Death, cannot afford qualms and +scruples. What are a few lives more or less in London? These British breed like +rabbits.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said Eleven, indistinctly. He stared a moment and swallowed hard, then +glanced hastily at his watch. “I’ll be after bidding you good-night,” he said, +“and pleasant dreams. For meself, I’m a fool if I go to bed this night sober +enough to dream at all, at all!” +</p> + +<p> +Victor rang for Shaik Tsin to show him out. +</p> + +<p> +“One question more, if you won’t take it amiss,” Eleven suggested, lingering. +And Victor inclined a gracious head. “Have you thought of failure?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have thought of everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, and if we do fail—?” +</p> + +<p> +“How, for example?” +</p> + +<p> +“How do I know what hellish accident may kick our plans into a cocked hat? +Anything might happen. There’s your friend, the Lone Wolf, for instance ...” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you not forgotten him yet?” Victor enquired in simulated surprise. “Have +you neglected to remark that since the blunderer failed to find the Council +Chamber that night, when his raid at the Red Moon netted him only a handful of +coolie gamblers and drug-addicts, he has left us to our own devices?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what makes me wonder what the divvle’s up to. His sort are never so +dangerous as when apparently discouraged.” “Be reassured. I promised you three +weeks ago his interference would not continue beyond that night. It has not. +Lanyard knows I have his daughter, that any blow aimed at me must first strike +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Doubtless yourself knows best....” +</p> + +<p> +With the Irishman gone, Prince Victor turned to Sturm. +</p> + +<p> +“You will want a good night’s sleep,” he suggested with pointed solicitude. +“Who knows but that to-morrow will bring your night of nights, my friend?” +</p> + +<p> +He lapsed immediately into remote abstraction, sitting with chin bent to the +tips of his joined fingers, his eyes downcast, motionless. +</p> + +<p> +Disgruntled, but afraid to show it, the German cleared away the litter of +papers, assorting them into huge portfolios, and took himself off. Shaik Tsin +replaced him, moving noiselessly about the room, restoring the reference books +to the shelves and stowing the portfolios away in a massive safe hidden behind +a lacquered screen. This done, he stationed himself before his master, awaiting +his attention, a shape of affable placidity, intelligent, at ease; his attitude +not entirely lacking a suggestion of familiarity. +</p> + +<p> +Without changing his pose by so much as the lifting of an eyelash, Victor spoke +in Chinese: +</p> + +<p> +“To-morrow afternoon, late, I shall motor down into the country with the girl +Sofia. I shall be gone three days—perhaps. I will leave a telephone number with +you, to be used only in emergency. As soon as I have left, you will dismiss all +the English servants, with a quarter’s wage in advance in lieu of notice. +Karslake will provide the money.” +</p> + +<p> +“He does not accompany you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the man Nogam?” +</p> + +<p> +Victor appeared to hesitate. “What do you think?” he enquired at length. +</p> + +<p> +“What I have always thought.” +</p> + +<p> +“That he is a spy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“But with no tangible support for your suspicions?” +</p> + +<p> +“None.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have not failed to watch him closely?” +</p> + +<p> +“As a cat watches a mouse.” +</p> + +<p> +“But—nothing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet I agree with you entirely, Shaik Tsin. I smell treachery.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nogam shall go with me as my bodyservant. Thus I shall be able to keep an eye +on him. Let Chou Nu be prepared to accompany us as maid to the girl Sofia. In +my absence you will be guided by such further instructions as I may leave with +you. These failing, consider the man Sturm, my personal representative. In the +contingency you know of, Sturm will warn you in time to clear the house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of everybody?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of all servants except those whom you may need to guard the man Karslake. +These and yourself will be provided with means of self-protection by Sturm.” +</p> + +<p> +“And Karslake?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not yet made up my mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hearing is obedience.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor relapsed into another reverie which lasted so long that even the +patience of Shaik Tsin bade fair to fail. In the end the silence was broken by +two words: +</p> + +<p> +“The crystal.” +</p> + +<p> +From a cabinet at the end of the room Shaik Tsin brought a crystal ball +supported on the backs of three golden dragons standing tail to tail, superbly +wrought examples of Chinese goldsmithing. This he placed carefully on the black +teakwood surface at Victor’s elbow. +</p> + +<p> +“And now, inform the girl Sofia I wish to see her.” +</p> + +<p> +“And if she again sends her excuses?” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, in that event, I shall be obliged to come to her room.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch15"></a>XV<br/> +INTUITION</h2> + +<p> +She had not thought, of course, of going down to dinner; she had, instead, sent +Victor word simply that she begged to be excused from joining him for that +meal. Then, unable longer to endure Chou Nu’s efforts to comfort or distract +her, Sofia had stepped out of her street frock and into a négligée and, +dismissing the maid, returned to the chaise-longue upon which, in vain hope of +being able to cry out the wretchedness of her heart, she had thrown herself on +first gaining the sanctuary of her room. +</p> + +<p> +For hours, she did not guess how many, she scarcely stirred. Neither was the +blessed boon of tears granted unto her. Alone with her immense and immitigable +misery, she lay in darkness tempered only by the dim skyshine that filtered +through the window draperies; hating life, that had no mercy; hating the +duplicity that had led Karslake into making untrue love to her, but +inexplicably not hating Karslake himself, or the enshrined image that wore his +name; hating herself for her facile readiness to give love where all but the +guise of love was lacking, and for knowing this deep hurt where she should have +felt only scorn and anger; but hating, most of all, or rather for the first +time discovering how well she hated, him to whom unerring intuition told her +she owed this brimming measure of heartbreak and humiliation, the man who +called himself her father. +</p> + +<p> +For if Karslake had done her a cruel wrong in winning her avowal of the love +that had been growing in her heart these many weeks, while he was merely +amusing himself or serving a secret purpose—whose was the initial blame for +that? +</p> + +<p> +Who had egged Karslake on, as he had asserted, “to win her confidence,” leaving +to him the choice of means to that end? +</p> + +<p> +And—<i>why</i>? +</p> + +<p> +The formulation of this question marked the turning point in Sofia’s descent +toward the nadir of shame and anguish; from the moment its significance was +clearly apprehended (but it took her long to reach this stage) the complexion +of her thoughts took on another colour, and the smart of chagrin was soothed +even as the irritation excited by critical examination of Victor’s conduct grew +more acute. +</p> + +<p> +Why should the self-styled author of her being have thought it necessary, or +even wise or kind, to commission a paid employee to win his daughter’s +confidence? +</p> + +<p> +What had rendered the conquest of her confidence so needful in his sight? +</p> + +<p> +What had made him think Sofia would prove loath to resign it to him, or more +likely to give it to another? +</p> + +<p> +Why had Victor hesitated to bid for her confidence with his own tongue, on his +own merits? +</p> + +<p> +One would think that, if he were her father— +</p> + +<p> +If! +</p> + +<p> +<i>Was</i> he? +</p> + +<p> +Sofia sat up sharply, her young body as taut as her temper. Pulses and +breathing quickened, intent eyes probed the shadows as if she thought to wrest +from them a clue to the mystery of her status in the household of Victor +Vassilyevski. +</p> + +<p> +What proof had she that he was her father? +</p> + +<p> +None but his word.... Well, and Karslake’s.... None that would stand the test +of skepticism, none that either sentiment or reason could offer and support. +Certainly she resembled Prince Victor in no respect that she could think of, +not in person, not in mould of character, not in ways of thought. From the very +first she had been perplexed, and indeed saddened, by her failure, her sheer +inability, to react emotionally to their alleged relationship. And surely there +must exist between parent and child some sort of spiritual bond or affinity, +something to draw them together—even if neither had never known the other. +Whereas she on her part had never been conscious of any sense of sympathy with +Victor, but only of timidity and reluctance which had latterly manifested in +unquestionable aversion. And then there was his attitude toward her, raising a +question so repugnant to her understanding that never before to-night had Sofia +admitted its existence and given it the freedom of her thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +She had seen men, in the Café des Exiles, toast their mistresses with such +looks as Victor Vassilyevski reserved for the girl whom he claimed as his +child. +</p> + +<p> +What, then, if he were not her father? +</p> + +<p> +What if he had only pretended to paternal rights in furtherance of some deep +scheme of his?—perhaps thinking to use her as a pawn in that dark plot which he +was forever brewing in his study (with canaille like Sturm for collaborators!) +that mysterious “research work” that flavoured the atmosphere of the house with +a miasmatic reek of intrigue, stealth, and fear—perhaps (more simply and +terribly) designing in his own time and way to avenge himself upon the daughter +for the admitted slights he had suffered at the hands of the mother, that poor +dead woman whose fame he never ceased to blacken while still her memory was +potent to kindle fires in those eyes otherwise so opaque, impenetrable, and +lightless! +</p> + +<p> +Now Sofia found herself unable to sit still; only through action of some sort +could she hope to win any measure of ease for brain and nerves. A thought was +shaping, claiming precedence over all others, the thought of flight; bred of +the feeling that, as long as she remained in ignorance of the exact truth +concerning their relationship, it was impossible for her to remain longer under +Victor’s roof, eating his bread and salt, schooling herself to suffer his +endearments whose good faith she could not help challenging, who inspired in +her only antipathy, fear, and distrust. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed clear beyond dispute that she must leave his protection, this very +night, before he could guess her mind and move to check her. +</p> + +<p> +Sofia swung her feet down to the floor. One of her silken mules had fallen off. +Semi-consciously she groped for it with stockinged toes. As the inanimate will, +the mule eluded recapture with impish ease. But beneath her foot something +rustled and crackled lightly. She bent over and picked it up: a square white +envelope, sealed. +</p> + +<p> +Switching on a lamp near by, she examined her find. It carried no address. How +it could have got there she could not imagine ... unless Chou Nu had dropped it +by inadvertence, which seemed as far-fetched as to suppose she had left it +there by design; for that would mean Chou Nu had been bribed to convey a +surreptitious note to her mistress; and Sofia knew that the Chinese girl was at +once too loyal to her “second-uncle,” and too much in awe of “Number One,” to +be corruptible. +</p> + +<p> +None the less, there the envelope was; and nobody but Chou Nu had entered the +room since Sofia had come straight from the study to it, late in the afternoon. +</p> + +<p> +It was just possible, however—Sofia’s eyes measured the distance—that a deft +hand and a strong wrist might have slipped the envelope under the door and sent +it skimming across the floor to the foot of the chaise-longue. +</p> + +<p> +But nobody would have dared do that without a powerful motive for wishing to +communicate secretly with Sofia. +</p> + +<p> +She tore the flap and withdrew a single sheet of notepaper penned in a hand she +knew too well. Her heart leapt.... +</p> + +<p> +I implore you, of your charity, do not condemn me without a hearing because of +anything you may have overheard me say. After you left us in the study I saw +his eyes watching the door while we talked, and knew from his look that +something to please him had happened behind my back. And in the temper he was +in only one thing could possibly have pleased him. +</p> + +<p> +I said what I said to him, dear, because I had to—or lose the right, dearer to +me than life, to be near you, to serve and protect you. I lied to him because I +loved you. But I have never lied to you about my love—and only once, through +necessity, about anything else. Perhaps you can guess what that lie was, +somehow I rather think you do; at least, I am sure, you are beginning to wonder +if I told the truth—or knew it, then. +</p> + +<p> +If this sound cryptic, I can only beg you to be patient and charitable until I +find opportunity to clear away this one lie which stands between us—and which +is, by comparison, almost immaterial, since all that matters is the one great +truth in my life, that I love you beyond all telling. +</p> + +<p> +R.K. +</p> + +<p> +If questions trouble your mind, I beg you do not let him know it. Your only +safety now lies in his continuing to believe that you are unsuspicious. Above +all, do your best to seem to fall in with his wishes, however strange or +unreasonable they may seem. It will be only a few days more before I can claim +you for my own, and laugh at his pretensions. +</p> + +<p> +A curious love-letter; yet it was Sofia’s first. If it made her thoughtful, it +made her illogically happy as well. If it put the issue to her squarely, of +loyalty to Prince Victor or loyalty to Karslake, she was unaware that she had +any choice of courses. When Shaik Tsin thumped the panels of her door, she +crushed the note into the bosom of her négligée before answering. +</p> + +<p> +When one is of an age to love, it is never the parent who gets the benefit of a +doubt. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch16"></a>XVI<br/> +THE CRYSTAL</h2> + +<p> +Like some shy, sad shade summoned up by the malign genius of a haunted chamber, +a slender shape of pallor in softly flowing draperies slipped through the +silent door and, advancing a few reluctant steps into the soundless gloom, +paused and in apprehensive diffidence awaited the welcome that was for a time +withheld. +</p> + +<p> +For minutes Victor gave no sign or stir; and in all the room nothing moved but +ghostly whorls of smoke writhing slowly upward from a pungent censer of beaten +gold. +</p> + +<p> +The great lamp of brass was dark, and there was no other light than a solitary +bulb, whose hooded rays were concentrated upon the crystal ball, so that the +latter shone with a dead-white glare, somehow baleful, like an elfin moon +deeply lost in a sea of sombre enchantment. +</p> + +<p> +Bending forward in his chair, an elbow planted on the table, his forehead +resting upon the tips of long, white fingers, Victor’s gaze was steadfast to +the crystal. Refracted light sculptured with curious shadows that saturnine +face intent to immobility. +</p> + +<p> +Too young, too inexperienced and sensitive to be insusceptible to the spell of +the theatrical, the girl was conscious of a steady ebb of her new-found store +of fortitude, skepticism, and defiance, together with an equally steady inflow +of timidity and uneasiness. That sinister figure at the table, absorbed in +study of the inscrutable sphere—what did he see there, to hold his faculties in +such deep eclipse? Adept in black arts of the Orient as he was said to be, what +wizardry was he brewing with the aid of that traditional tool of the +necromancer? What spectacle of divination was in those pellucid depths +unfolding to his rapt vision? And what had this consultation of the occult to +do with the man’s mind concerning herself? +</p> + +<p> +Sofia was shaken by a tremor of dread.... +</p> + +<p> +And as if her emotion were somehow communicated, arousing him to knowledge of +her presence, Victor started, sat back, and with a sigh passed a hand across +his eyes. When the hand fell, his face wore its habitual look for Sofia, +modified by a slightly apologetic and weary smile. +</p> + +<p> +“My child!” he exclaimed in accents of contrite surprise, “have I kept you +waiting long?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only a few minutes. It doesn’t matter.” +</p> + +<p> +But her voice seemed sadly small and thin in comparison with Victor’s rotund +and measured intonations. +</p> + +<p> +“Forgive me.” Victor rose, nodding to indicate the shining crystal. “I have +been consulting my familiar,” he said with a light laugh. “You have heard of +crystal-gazing? A fascinating art that languishes in undeserved neglect. The +ancients were more wise, they knew there was more in Heaven and Earth.... You +are incredulous? But I assure you, I myself, though far from proficient, have +caught strange glimpses of unborn events in the heart of that transparent +enigma.” +</p> + +<p> +He took her hands and cuddled them in his own. +</p> + +<p> +She quivered irrepressibly to his touch. +</p> + +<p> +“But you are trembling!” he protested, solicitous, looking down into her +face—“you are wan and sad, my dear. Tell me you are not ill.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is nothing,” Sofia replied—again in that faint, stifled voice. She added in +determined effort to subdue her trembling and turn their talk to essentials: +“You sent for me—I am here.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am so sorry. If I had guessed ...” Enlightenment seemed to dawn all at once. +“But surely it isn’t because of that stupid business with Karslake? Surely you +didn’t take him seriously?” +</p> + +<p> +“How should I—?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is too absurd. The poor fool misconstrued my instructions to make himself +agreeable—I am so taken up with the gravest matters at present, I didn’t want +you to feel lonely or neglected—and, it appears, felt it incumbent upon him to +flirt with you as a matter of duty. I am out of temper with him, but not +unreasonable; I shan’t dispense with his services altogether, without more +provocation, but will find other work to keep him busy and out of your way. You +need fear no more annoyance from that quarter.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was not annoyed,” Sofia found heart to contend. “I—like him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense!” Victor’s laugh was rich with derision. “Don’t ask me to believe you +were actually touched by the fellow’s play-acting. You—my daughter—wasting +emotion on a mere commoner! The thing is too ridiculous. Oblige me by thinking +no more about it. I have better things in store for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Better than—love?” the girl questioned with grave eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“When the time comes for that, you shall find a worthier parti than poor +Karslake, well-meaning though he may be. Moreover, you heard—forgive me for +reminding you—there was not an ounce of sincerity in all his philandering for +you to hold in sentimental recollection. So—forget Karslake, please. It is a +duty you owe your own pride and my dignity; it is, furthermore, my wish.” +</p> + +<p> +She bowed her head, that he might not see the reflection in her face of the +glow that warmed her bosom, where Karslake’s letter nestled. But Victor took +the nod for the word of submission, and patted her shoulder with an indulgent +hand, guiding her to a chair close by his. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down, my dear. I want to explain why I asked you to come to me at this +late hour—never dreaming my message would find you so overwrought.... You quite +see how needless it was to permit yourself to be upset by such a trifling +matter, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, quite,” Sofia murmured, with gaze fixed on the interlacing fingers in her +lap. +</p> + +<p> +“That is sensible.” Offering her shoulder one last accolade of approbation, +Victor moved toward his own chair. “And now that you are here, we may as well +have our little talk out,” he continued, but broke off to stipulate: “If, that +is, you are sure you feel up to it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” Sofia assented, but without moving. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not so sure. Perhaps a glass of wine might do you good.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no!” the girl protested—“I don’t need it, really.” +</p> + +<p> +But Victor wouldn’t listen; and disappearing into shadowed distances, returned +presently with a brimming goblet. +</p> + +<p> +“Drink this, dear. It will make you feel quite fit again.” +</p> + +<p> +Obediently, Sofia raised the goblet to her lips. +</p> + +<p> +“You have never tasted a wine like that,” Victor insisted, smiling down at her. +</p> + +<p> +It was true enough, what he claimed; though it had something of character of a +sound old Madeira, this wine had more, a surpassing richness, a fruitiness in +no way cloying, a peculiarly aromatic taste and fragrance, elusive and +provoking, with a hint of bitterness never to be analyzed by the most +experienced palate. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” Sofia asked after her first sip. +</p> + +<p> +“You like it, eh? An old wine of China, unknown to Western Europe.” Victor gave +it a musical name in what Sofia took to be Chinese. “Outside my cellars, I’ll +wager there’s not another bottle of it this side of Constantinople. Drink it +all. It will do you good.” +</p> + +<p> +He seated himself. “And now my reason for wishing to talk with you to-night.... +A note came by the last delivery from Lady Randolph West. You met her, I +understand, through Sybil Waring, a few days ago. She was apparently much taken +with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is very kind.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor had found a sheet of notepaper and, bending to the light, was searching +its scrawled lines with narrowed eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Too lovely,’ she calls you—and quite justly, my dear. Yes; here it is: ‘Too +lovely for words.’ And she wants me to bring my ‘charming daughter’ down to +Frampton Court for this week-end.” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia said nothing, but put her half-empty glass aside. The wine had done her +good, she thought. She felt better, stronger, mentally more alert, and at the +same time curiously soothed. +</p> + +<p> +Victor refolded the note and tapped the table with it, holding Sofia with +speculative eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“It should be amusing,” he said, thoughtfully, “a new experience for you. +Elaine—I mean Lady Randolph West, of course—is a charming hostess, and never +fails to fill Frampton Court with delightful people.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure I should love it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure you would. And yet ... I may have been a little premature, since I +have already written accepting the invitation.” He indicated an addressed +envelope face up on the table. “But on second thoughts, it seemed perhaps wiser +to consult you first.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if it is your wish, I must go,” Sofia replied, mindful of Karslake’s +injunction not to oppose Victor. “What have I to say—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Everything about whether we accept or do not—or if not everything, at least +the final word. I must abide by your decision.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I shall be only too glad—” +</p> + +<p> +“Think a moment. It might be wiser not to go. You alone can say.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t quite understand ...” +</p> + +<p> +Victor sighed. “It is a painful subject,” he said, slowly—“one I hesitate to +reopen. But we can never profit by closing our minds to facts; I mean, to the +reality of the danger which is always with us, since it is within us.” +</p> + +<p> +“What danger?” Sofia enquired, sullenly, knowing the answer too well before it +was spoken. +</p> + +<p> +“The danger of sudden temptation to indulge the lawless appetites with which +heredity has endued us—me from the nameless forebears whom I never knew, you +directly from parents both of whom boasted criminal records.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe it!” Sofia declared, passionately—“I can’t believe it, I +won’t! Even if you are—” +</p> + +<p> +She was going on to say “if you are my father,” but caught herself in time. Had +not Karslake warned her in his note: “<i>Your only safety now lies in his +continuing to believe that you are unsuspicious.</i>” She continued in a +tempest of expostulation whose fury covered her break: +</p> + +<p> +“Even if you were once a thief and my mother—my mother!—everything vile, as you +persist in trying to make me believe—God knows why!—it is possible I may still +have failed to inherit your criminal tendencies; and not only possible, but +true, if I know myself at all. For I have never felt the temptation to steal +that you insist I must have inherited from you—nor any other inclination toward +things as mean, contemptible, and dishonourable as they are dishonest!” +</p> + +<p> +With only his slow, forbearing smile by way of comment, Victor heard her out, +but when she paused to reassort her thoughts, lifted a temporizing hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet, perhaps,” he said, gently. “There is always the first time with every +rebel against man-made laws. But, where the predisposition so indubitably +exists, it is inevitable, soon or late it must come to you, my dear—the time +when the will is too weak, temptation too strong. Against it we must be forever +on our guard.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not afraid,” Sofia contended. +</p> + +<p> +“Naturally; you will not be before the hour of ordeal which shall prove your +strength or your weakness, your confidence in yourself, or my loving fears for +you.” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia gave a gesture of weariness and confusion. What did it matter? If he +would have it so, let him: it couldn’t affect the issue in any way, what he +believed, or for his own purposes pretended to believe. Had not Karslake +promised ... +</p> + +<p> +She tried to recall precisely what it was that Karslake had promised, but found +her memory of a sudden singularly sluggish. In fact, her mind seemed to have +lost its marvellous clarity of those first moments after tasting the wine of +China. Small wonder, when one remembered the emotional strain she had +experienced since early evening! +</p> + +<p> +“Still,” she argued, stubbornly, “I don’t see what all this has to do with Lady +Randolph West’s invitation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only that to accept means to expose you to the greatest temptation one can +well imagine.” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia stared blankly. Her wits were working even more slowly and heavily than +before. And the glare in her eyes from the luminous sphere of crystal was +irritating. Almost without thinking, she lifted her glass again; when she put +it down it was empty. +</p> + +<p> +“The jewels of Lady Randolph West,” Victor went on to explain without her +prompting, “are considered the most wonderful in England; always excepting, of +course, the Crown jewels.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is that to me?” +</p> + +<p> +Resentment sounded in her tone. She was thinking more readily once more, thanks +to that second magical draught, but was nevertheless conscious of a general +failing of powers drained by her great fatigue. She wished devoutly that Victor +would have done and let her go.... +</p> + +<p> +“Elaine is very careless, leaves her jewels scattered about, hardly troubles to +put them away securely at night. If you should be tempted to appropriate +anything, she might not discover her loss for days; and then, again, she might. +And if you were caught—consider what shame and disgrace!” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I see,” the girl said, slowly, after some difficult thinking. “You +don’t want me to go.” +</p> + +<p> +“To the contrary, I do—but I want more than anything else in the world that my +daughter should be sure of herself and fall into no irreparable error.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I am sure of myself—I have told you that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then let us fret no more about it, but accept, and go prepared to enjoy +ourselves. I will send the letter.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor rang, and Shaik Tsin presented himself so quickly that Sofia wondered +dully where he could have been waiting. In the room with them, perhaps? It +wasn’t impossible. The Chinaman’s thick soles of felt enabled him to move about +without making the least noise. +</p> + +<p> +“Have this posted immediately.” +</p> + +<p> +Shaik Tsin bowed deeply, and backed away with the letter. Unless she turned to +watch him, Sofia could not say whether he left the room or not. +</p> + +<p> +She offered to rise. +</p> + +<p> +“If that is all ...” +</p> + +<p> +“Not quite. There are certain details to be arranged; and I may not see you +again before we leave to-morrow afternoon. We will motor down to Frampton +Court—it’s not far, little more than an hour by train—starting about half after +four, if you can be ready.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sybil Waring will tell you what to take, and Chou Nu will see to your packing. +Both, by the way, will accompany us. Sybil’s maid will follow by train. For +myself, I am taking Nogam—having found that English servants do not take kindly +to my Chinese valet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes ...” Sofia uttered, listlessly, wondering why this information should be +considered of interest to her. +</p> + +<p> +“And one thing more: I am forgiven? You are not cross with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should I be?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because of what happened this afternoon—when I scolded Karslake for making +love to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Sofia with a good show of indifference—she was so tired—“that!” +</p> + +<p> +“Believe me, little Sofia”—Victor put out a hand to hers, and held her eyes +with a compelling gaze—“boy-and-girl romance is all very well, but there is a +greater destiny reserved for you than marriage to a hired secretary, however +amiable, personable, and well-meaning. You must prepare yourself to move in a +world beyond and above the common hearthstone of bourgeois domesticity.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl shook a bewildered head. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a riddle?” she asked, wearily. +</p> + +<p> +“A riddle?” Victor echoed. “Why, one may safely term it that. Is not the Future +always a riddle? Nature knows the Future as the Past, but Nature holds it +secret, lest man go mad with too much knowledge. Only to the few, the favoured, +does she grant rare glimpses through media which she has provided for the use +of the initiate—such as this crystal here, in which I was studying your future, +when you came in, the high future I plan for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“And—you won’t tell me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I may not. It is forbidden. Nature deals unkindly with those who violate her +confidence. But—who knows?” +</p> + +<p> +He checked himself as if struck by a new turn of thought, and studied the +girl’s face intently. +</p> + +<p> +“Who knows?” he repeated, as if to himself. +</p> + +<p> +“What—?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is quite within the bounds of possibility,” Victor mused, “that you should +have inherited some of the psychic power which was born in me. Perhaps—who +knows?—to you as well Nature will be supple and disclose her secrets.... If you +care to seek her favour?” +</p> + +<p> +“But—how?” +</p> + +<p> +“By consulting the crystal.” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia’s eyes sought that coldly burning stone. Her head was so heavy, she +hesitated, oppressed by misgivings without shape that she could name, phases of +formless timidity having rise in some source which she was too tired to search +out. +</p> + +<p> +But she lingered and continued to stare at the crystal. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” Victor’s accents were gently persuasive. “At worst, you can only +fail. And if you do not fail, it will make me happy to think that you have been +given a little insight into my dreams for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” Sofia assented in a whisper—“why not?” +</p> + +<p> +Victor drew her forward by the hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Look,” he said “look deep! Divest your mind as nearly as you can of all +thought—let the crystal give up its message to a mind devoid of prejudice, its +receptiveness unimpaired. Think of nothing, if you can manage it—simply look +and see.” +</p> + +<p> +Automatically to a degree the girl obeyed, already in a phase of crepuscular +hypnosis, her surface senses dulled by the potent “wine of China.” And watching +her closely, Victor permitted himself a smile of satisfaction as he noted the +rapidity with which she yielded to the hypnogenic spell of the translucent +quartz; how her breathing quickened, then took on a measured tempo like that of +a sleeper; how a faint flush warmed the unnatural pallor of her cheeks, how her +dilate eyes grew fixed in an unwinking stare, and slightly glassed.... +</p> + +<p> +Under her regard the goblin sphere took on with bewildering rapidity changing +guises. Its rotundity was first lost, it assumed the semblance of a featureless +disk of pallid light, which swiftly widened till it obscured all else, then +seemed to advance upon and envelope her bodily, so that she became spiritually +a part of it, an atom of identity engulfed in a limpid world of glareless +light, light that had had no rays and issued from no source but was +circumambient and universal. Then in its remote heart a weird glow of rose +began to burn and grow, pulsing through all the colours of the spectrum and +beyond. Toward this she felt herself being drawn swiftly, attracted by an +irresistible magnetism, riding the wings of a great wind, whose voice boomed +without ceasing, like a heavy surf thunderously reiterating one syllable, +“<i>Sleep</i>!” ... And in this flight through illimitable space toward a goal +unattainable, consciousness grew faint and flickered out like a candle in the +wind. +</p> + +<p> +Behind her chair the placid yellow face of Shaik Tsin appeared, as if +materialized bodily out of the shadows. With folded arms he waited, +dispassionately observant. Presently Prince Victor nodded to him over the head +of the girl. Immediately the Chinaman moved round her chair and, employing both +hands, in one instant switched off the hooded bulb and reilluminated the lamp +of brass. +</p> + +<p> +As the light died out in the crystal Sofia sighed heavily, and relaxed. Leaden +eyelids closed down over her staring eyes, she sank back into the chair, +simultaneously into plumbless depths.... +</p> + +<p> +Victor made a sound of gratification. Shaik Tsin enquired briefly: +</p> + +<p> +“It is accomplished, then?” +</p> + +<p> +Victor nodded. “She yielded more quickly than I had hoped—worn out emotionally, +of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“She sleeps—” +</p> + +<p> +“In hypnosis, in absolute suspense of every faculty and function save those +concerned solely with the maintenance of existence—in a state, that is, +comparable only to the pre-natal life of a child.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is most interesting,” Shaik Tsin admitted. “But what is the use? That is +what interests me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait and see.” +</p> + +<p> +Bending close to the girl, Victor called in a strong voice of command: “Sofia! +Sofia! It is I, Prince Victor, your father. Waken and attend!” +</p> + +<p> +A slight spasm shook the slender body, the lips parted, respiration became +hurried and broken, the long lashes fluttered on the cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you hear me? I, Victor, command you: Waken and attend!” +</p> + +<p> +Another struggle, more brief and sharp, ended with the opening of the eyes, +which sought and remained steadfast to Victor’s, yet without intelligence or +animation. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you hear me, Sofia?” +</p> + +<p> +A voice like a sigh rustled on the parted lips, whose stir was imperceptible: +</p> + +<p> +“I hear you....” +</p> + +<p> +“Then heed what I say. My will is your law. You know that?” +</p> + +<p> +Faintly the voice breathed: “Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me what it is you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your will is my law.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will not resist my will, you cannot. Tell me that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will not resist your will, I cannot.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good. I, Prince Victor Vassilyevski, am your father. You believe that. Do you +understand? Tell me what you believe.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe that you, Prince Victor Vassilyevski, are my father.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will not forget these things?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not forget.” +</p> + +<p> +“In all things.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will obey you in all things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Without question or faltering.” +</p> + +<p> +“Without question or faltering.” +</p> + +<p> +“You recall what arrangements we made this afternoon for to-morrow?” +</p> + +<p> +“I remember.” +</p> + +<p> +“Listen carefully. Memorize my wishes with respect to our visit to Frampton +Court, remembering that I communicate my will, which you must obey.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl remained silent, waiting. Victor took a moment to marshall his +thoughts, then proceeded: +</p> + +<p> +“After arriving at Frampton Court, you will make occasion quietly to find out +how your room is situated in relation to the boudoir of Lady Randolph West. You +will do this without knowing why you do it. You understand?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“At night, on going to bed, you will go promptly to sleep. After an hour you +will wake up, put on a dressing gown and slippers, and proceed to Lady Randolph +West’s boudoir, taking care not to be observed. Is that clear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Once in the boudoir, you will proceed to the safe where Lady Randolph West +keeps her jewels. It will not be locked, she is careless in such matters. +Having found the safe, you will open it, take whatever jewels you find therein, +and return to your room. All this you will perform with utmost circumspection, +taking all pains not to make any noise. In your room you will hide the jewels +in your dressing-case. Then you will go back to bed and to sleep. Have you +committed all this to memory?” +</p> + +<p> +The sleeping girl answered in the affirmative. Then, to the injunction, “Tell +me what you are to do to-morrow night?” she repeated in a toneless voice every +item of the programme outlined for her, while Victor nodded in undisguised +delight, and Shaik Tsin grinned blandly over her head. +</p> + +<p> +“On waking up to-morrow morning, you will remember nothing of my instructions, +but you will carry them precisely as memorized in your subconciousness, and you +will carry them out without thought of opposition to my will, understanding +that you are without will of your own in this matter. Finally, on waking up on +the morning following your abstraction of the jewels, you will remember nothing +of the affair until reminded of it by me, and then only this much: That in +obedience to irresistible impulse, you stole the jewels. Is that clear? Repeat +...” +</p> + +<p> +Without a mistake the woman in hypnosis iterated the commands imposed upon her. +</p> + +<p> +The impish grin of the latent savage broke through the habitual austerity of +Victor’s countenance. +</p> + +<p> +“There is no more,” he said, “but this: Sleep now, and do not waken before noon +to-morrow—<i>sleep</i>!” +</p> + +<p> +With a quavering sigh, the girl reclosed her eyes and instantly relapsed into +the sleep of trance which was insensibly in the course of the night to merge +into natural slumber. +</p> + +<p> +Victor ironed out his grimace, and signed to Shaik Tsin. +</p> + +<p> +“Bear her back to her room. Instruct Chou Nu to put her to bed and not to wake +her up before noon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hearing is obedience.” +</p> + +<p> +The Chinaman bent over, gathered the inert body into his arms, and without +perceptible effort stood erect. But in the act of turning away he paused and, +continuing to hold the girl as easily as if she weighed no more than a child, +interrogated the man he served. +</p> + +<p> +“You believe she will do all you have ordered?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know she will.” +</p> + +<p> +“Without error?” +</p> + +<p> +“Barring accidents, without flaw from beginning to end.” +</p> + +<p> +“And in event of accidents—discovery—?” +</p> + +<p> +“So much the better.” +</p> + +<p> +“That would please you, to have her caught?” +</p> + +<p> +“Excellently.” +</p> + +<p> +Shaik Tsin nodded in grave yet humorous comprehension. “Now I begin to +understand. If she is caught, that gives you a power over her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely.” +</p> + +<p> +“And if she is not, when the robbery becomes known, your power over her will be +still more strong?” +</p> + +<p> +“And over yet another stronger still.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Lone Wolf?” +</p> + +<p> +Victor inclined his head. “To what lengths will he not go to cover up his +daughter’s shame, if it threatens to become public that she is a thief? I do +nothing without purpose, Shaik Tsin.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is to say, you have to-night taken out insurance against punishment if +this other business fails.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it fail, others may suffer, but if necessary the Lone Wolf himself will +arrange my escape from England.” +</p> + +<p> +“To serve so wise a man is an honour my unworthiness can never hope to merit.” +</p> + +<p> +“As to that, Shaik Tsin,” Victor said without a smile, “our minds are one. Go +now. Good-night.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch17"></a>XVII<br/> +THE RAISED CHEQUE</h2> + +<p> +While the Princess Sofia, Sybil Waring, and Prince Victor motored down from +London in the lilac dusk of that dim September day, and the maid Chou Nu +accompanied them, riding in front beside a newly engaged Chinese chauffeur, the +man Nogam made the journey to Frampton Court by train, and alone. +</p> + +<p> +Alone, at least, in the finer shading of that adjective; aside from the usual +assortment of self-contained fellow-travellers in the third-class carriage, he +had no company other than his thoughts; a gray and meagre crew, if that +pathetic face of middle-age furnished trustworthy reflection of his mind.... So +absolute was the submergence of that ardent adventurer who, overnight, had lain +awake for hours, a dictograph receiver glued to his ear, eavesdropping upon the +traffic of those malevolent intelligences assembled in Prince Victor’s study, +and alternately chuckling and cursing beneath his breath, aflame with +indignation and chilled by inklings of atrocities unspeakable abrew! +</p> + +<p> +If he surmised that he travelled alone in appearance only, it was with no +evident concern or astonishment. If his mind was uneasy, oppressed by a +nightmarish burden of half-knowledge, guesses, and premonition, it was not +apparent to the general observer. His most eloquent gesture was when, from time +to time, he tamped an ancient wooden pipe with a fingertip that wasn’t as +calloused as he could have wished, philosophically sucked in strangling fumes +of rankest shag and, ignoring his company in the carriage as became a +British-made manservant, returned jaded, gentle eyes to those darkling vistas +of autumnal landscape that were forever radiating away from the window like +spokes of a gigantic wheel. +</p> + +<p> +Alighting in the first dark of evening at the station for Frampton Court, he +suffered himself to be herded, with a half-score more, into the omnibus +provided for other bodyservants to arriving guests. Even to these compeers he +found little to say: a loud lot, imbued with the rowdy spirit of the new day; +whereas Nogam was hopelessly of the old school—in the new word, he dated—though +his form was admittedly unimpeachable. And if because of this he was made fun +of more or less openly, to an extent that added shades of resignation to his +countenance, secretly he commanded considerable respect. +</p> + +<p> +Neither was Victor, with all the ill-will in the world, able to find fault with +Nogam’s services in his new office. The most finished of self-effacing valets, +he knew just what to do and did it without being told; and when he spoke it was +only because he had been spoken to or commissioned to convey a message. +</p> + +<p> +Victor watched him from every angle, overt and covert, but had his trouble for +his pains; Nogam, observed in a mirror, when Victor’s back was turned, went +about his business with no more betrayal of personal feeling or independent +mentality than when waiting upon his master face to face. Victor could have +kicked him for sheer resentment of his pattern virtues. When all was said and +done, it <i>was</i> damned irritating. . . . +</p> + +<p> +In the servants’ hall he religiously kept his ears open and his mouth shut. +And, listening, he learned. For some things said in his hearing were distinctly +not pretty, and made one wonder if Prince Victor’s deep-rooted confidence in an +England mortally cankered with social discontent were not grounded in a +surprising familiarity with backstairs morale. Other observations, again, were +merely ribald, some were humorous, while all were enlightening. +</p> + +<p> +Not a few of the company had seen domestic service in great houses before the +war; they knew what was what and—more to the point—what wasn’t. One gathered +that this pretentious country home fell within the latter classification. Here, +it was stated, anybody could buy his way into favour: the more bounding the +bounder the brighter his chances of success at Frampton Court. +</p> + +<p> +War, the ironic, had caused this noble property to pass into the keeping of a +distant and degenerate branch of an old and honoured house; and its present +lord and lady, having failed to win the social welcome they had counted on too +confidently, were doing their silly, shabby best to squander a princely fortune +and dedicate a great name to lasting disrepute by fraternizing with a motley +riffraff of profiteering nouveaux riches. Other than bad manners and worse +morals, the one genuine thing in the whole establishment was, it seemed, the +historic collection of family jewels. +</p> + +<p> +This information explained away much of Nogam’s perplexity on one score. +</p> + +<p> +After dinner, when the house party began to settle into its stride, he made +occasion, aping the other servants, to peep in at a door of the great ballroom, +where an impromptu dance had been organized; and was rewarded by sight of the +Princess Sofia circling the floor in the arms of a boldly good-looking young +man whose taste was as poor in flirtation as in self-adornment. +</p> + +<p> +To Nogam the young girl looked wan and wistful—as if she were missing somebody. +And he wondered if Mr. Karslake knew what a lucky young devil he was. +</p> + +<p> +He wondered still more about the present whereabouts and welfare of Mr. +Karslake. Prince Victor must have contrived some devious errand to get the +young man out and away early that day; for by the time Nogam had looked for him +in the morning, Karslake was nowhere to be found; neither had he returned when +the party left for Frampton Court—a circumstance which Nogam regretted most +bitterly. Watched as he was, it hadn’t been possible, that is to say it would +have been fatally ill-advised, to have left any sort of message or to have +attempted communication through secret channels; and all the while, hours heavy +with, it might be, the destiny of England were wasting swiftly into history. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps it was nervousness bred of this anxiety that, in the end, made Nogam’s +hand slip. Or perhaps the impatient nature of the man who lay so closely secret +within the husk of Nogam decided him upon a desperate gamble. In either event, +this befell: +</p> + +<p> +About the middle of the evening Prince Victor happened to look up from an +interesting tête-à-tête in the brilliant drawing-room with his +handsome and liberal-minded hostess opportunely to espy Nogam staring at him +from the remote recesses of the entrance hall. +</p> + +<p> +It was the merest of glimpses; for Victor’s casual glance had barely identified +the servant when Nogam started guiltily and in a twinkling disappeared; but a +glimpse was enough for eyes and a mind alike quick with distrust, enough to +assure Victor that Nogam’s face had worn an indescribably furtive and hangdog +expression, most unlike its ordinary look of amiable stupidity, and widely +incongruous with the veniality of his fault. +</p> + +<p> +What the deuce, then, was the fellow up to, that he should glower and dodge +like a sleuth in a play? +</p> + +<p> +Promptly Victor became deaf, blind, and numb to the fascinations so generously +paraded by Lady Randolph West; and presently excusing himself, left her and +sought his rooms. +</p> + +<p> +As he went up the stairs, he saw the door to his bedchamber cautiously opened +far enough to permit one eye to spy out and discover his approach. Immediately +then the door swung wide, and Nogam ambled into view with an envelope on a +salver and an air of childlike innocence, an assumption of ease so transparent, +indeed, that only the vision of a child could have been cheated by it. +</p> + +<p> +“Just coming to look for you, sir,” he announced, glibly. “Telegram, sir—just +harrived.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks,” said Victor, shortly, taking the envelope and marching on into his +rooms. +</p> + +<p> +His manner toward his servants was always abrupt. No need to be alarmed by this +manifestation of it. Blinking mildly, Nogam trotted at his heels. +</p> + +<p> +Seating himself at an escritoire, Victor opened the envelope with a display of +languid interest. Curiosity about the contents of a telegram is ordinarily +acute. Victor, on the contrary, sat for a long moment staring thoughtfully at +nothing and absently turning the envelope over and over in his hands; while +Nogam with specious nonchalance found something unimportant to do in another +quarter of the room. +</p> + +<p> +The envelope was damp and warm to the touch. True: nightfall had brought with +it a thick drizzle, and Frampton Court was more than a mile from the +post-office. On the other hand, the night was as cold as charity; and an +envelope recently steamed open might be expected to hold the heat for a few +minutes. +</p> + +<p> +Victor thumbed the flap. It lifted readily, without tearing, its gum was wet +and more abundant than usual—in fact, it felt confoundedly like library paste, +a pot of which, in an ornamental holder, was among the fittings of the +escritoire. On the desk pad of blotting paper, too, Victor detected marks of +fresh paste defining the contour of the flap. +</p> + +<p> +With a countenance whose inscrutability alone was a threat, Victor took out and +conned the telegraph form. +</p> + +<p> +“CONSULTATION SET FOR MIDNIGHT TO-NIGHT TAKING YOUR ADVICE SHALL NOT ATTEND BUT +LEAVE FOR BRIGHTON ELEVEN P.M.” +</p> + +<p> +A message ostensibly so open and aboveboard that it hadn’t been thought worth +while to hide its wording under the cloak of a code. +</p> + +<p> +There was no signature—unless one were clever or wise enough to transpose the +two final letters and take them in relation to the word immediately preceding. +“Eleven, M.P.”, however, could mean nothing to anybody but Victor—except a body +clever enough to hide a dictograph detector in a turnip. So Victor saw no +reason to believe that Nogam, although undoubtedly guilty of the sin of prying, +had been able to read the meaning below the surface of this communication. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, undue inquisitiveness on the part of a servant in the pay of +Victor Vassilyevski could have but one reward. +</p> + +<p> +“Nogam!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fetch me an A-B-C.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +With Nogam out of the way, Victor enclosed the telegram in a new envelope and +addressed it simply to <i>“Mr. Sturm—by hand.”</i> Then he took a sheet of the +stamped notepaper of Frampton Court, tore it roughly, at the fold, and on the +unstamped half inscribed several characters in Chinese, using a pencil with a +fat, soft lead for this purpose. This message sealed into a second envelope +without superscription, he lighted a cigarette and sat smiling with +anticipative relish through its smoke, a smile swiftly abolished as the door +re-opened; though Nogam found him in what seemed to be a mood of rare sweet +temper. +</p> + +<p> +Taking the railway guide, Victor ruffled its pages, and after brief study of +the proper table remarked: +</p> + +<p> +“Afraid I must ask you to run up to town for me to-night, Nogam. If you don’t +mind ...” +</p> + +<p> +“Only too glad to oblige, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“I find I have left important papers behind. Give this to Shaik Tsin”—he handed +over the blank envelope—“and he will find them for you. You can catch the +ten-fifteen up, and return by the twelve-three from Charing Cross.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—and see that Mr. Sturm gets this, too, will you? If he isn’t in, give it to +Shaik Tsin to hand to him. Say it’s urgent.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite so, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is all. But don’t fail to catch the twelve-three back. I must have the +papers to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shan’t fail you, sir—D.V.” +</p> + +<p> +“Deo volente? You are a religious man, Nogam?” +</p> + +<p> +“I ’umbly ’ope so, sir, and do my best to be, accordin’ to my lights.” +</p> + +<p> +“Glad to hear it. Now cut along, or you’ll miss the up train.” +</p> + +<p> +Long after Nogam had left the memory of their talk continued to afford Victor +an infinite amount of private entertainment. +</p> + +<p> +“A religious man!” he would jeer to himself. “Then—may your God help you, +Nogam!” +</p> + +<p> +Some thought of the same sort may well have troubled Nogam’s mind as he sat in +an otherwise untenanted third-class compartment blinking owlishly over the +example of Victor’s command of the intricacies of Chinese writing. +</p> + +<p> +He was happily free of surveillance for the first time in his waking hours of +many days. The Chinese chauffeur had driven him to the station, and had +furthermore lingered to see that Nogam did not fail to board it. And Nogam felt +reasonably safe in assuming that he would not approach the house near Queen +Anne’s Gate without seeing (for the mere trouble of looking) a second and an +entirely gratuitous shadow attach itself to him with the intention of sticking +as tenaciously as that which God had given him. But the next hour was all his +own. +</p> + +<p> +His study of the Chinese phonograms at length resulted in the transformation of +his careworn face by a slowly dawning smile, the gleeful smile of a +mischief-loving child. And when he had worked for a while on the message, +touching up the skillfully drawn characters with a pencil the mate to that +which Victor had used, he sat back and laughed aloud over the result of his +labours, with some appreciation of the glow that warms the cockles of the +artist’s heart when his deft pen has raised a cheque from tens to thousands, +and he reviews a good job well done. +</p> + +<p> +The torn envelope which had held the message to Shaik Tsin lay at his feet. +Nogam had not bothered to worry it open so carefully that it might be resealed +without inviting comment; though that need not have been a difficult matter, +thanks to the dampness of the night air. +</p> + +<p> +Of the envelope addressed to Sturm, however, he was more considerate; to +violate its integrity and seal it up again was an undertaking that required the +nicest handling. Nor was it accomplished much before the train drew into +Charing Cross. +</p> + +<p> +Outside the station taxis were few and drivers arrogant; and all the ’buses +were packed to the guards with law-abiding Londoners homeward bound from +theatres and halls. So Nogam dived into the Underground, to come to the surface +again at St. James’s Park station, whence he trotted all the way to Queen +Anne’s Gate, arriving at his destination in a phase of semi-prostration which a +person of advancing years and doddering habits might have anticipated. +</p> + +<p> +Such fidelity in characterization deserved good reward, and had in it a rare +stroke of fortune; for as he drew up to it, the door opened, and Sturm came +out, saw Nogam, and stopped short. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank ’Eaven, sir, I got ’ere in time,” the butler panted. “If I’d missed you, +Prince Victor wouldn’t ’ave been in ’arf a wax. ’E told me I must find you +to-night if I ’ad to turn all Lunnon inside out.” +</p> + +<p> +Pressing the message into Sturm’s hand, he rested wearily against the casing of +the door, his body shaken by laboured breathing, and—while Sturm, with an +exclamation of excitement, ripped open the envelope—surveyed the dark and +rain-wet street out of the corners of his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Across the way a slinking shadow left the sidewalk and blended +indistinguishably with the crowded shadows of an areaway. +</p> + +<p> +In a voice more than commonly rich with accent, Sturm demanded sharply: +</p> + +<p> +“What is this? I do not understand!” +</p> + +<p> +He shook in Nogam’s face the half-sheet of notepaper on which the Chinese +phonograms were drawn. +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry, sir, but I ’aven’t any hidea. Prince Victor didn’t tell me anything +except there would be no answer, and I was to ’urry right back to Frampton +Court.” Nogam peered myopically at the paper. “It might be ’Ebrew, sir,” he +hazarded, helpfully—“by the looks of it, I mean. I suppose some private +message, ’e thought you’d understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hebrew, you fool! Damn your impudence! Do you take me for a Jew?” +</p> + +<p> +“Beg pardon, sir—no ’arm meant.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” Sturm declared, “it’s Chinese.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then likely Prince Victor meant you to ask Shaik Tsin to translate it for you, +sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Probably,” Sturm muttered. “I’ll see.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir. Good-night, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Without acknowledging this civility, Sturm turned back into the house and +slammed the door. Nogam lingered another moment, then shuffled wearily down the +steps and toward the nearest corner. +</p> + +<p> +Across the street the voluntary shadow detached itself from cover in the +areaway, and skulked after him. He paid no heed. But when the shadow rounded +the corner, it saw only a dark and empty street, and pulled up with a grunt of +doubt. Simultaneously something not unlike a thunderbolt for force and fury was +launched, from the dark shelter of a doorway near by, at its devoted head. And +as if by magic the shadow took on form and substance to receive the onslaught. +A fist, that carried twelve stone of bone and sinew jubilant with realization +of the hour for action so long deferred, found shrewdly the heel of a jawbone, +just beneath the ear. Its victim dropped without a cry, but the impact of the +blow was loud in the nocturnal stillness of that bystreet, and was echoed in +magnified volume by the crack of a skull in collision with a convenient +lamppost. +</p> + +<p> +Followed a swift patter of fugitive feet. +</p> + +<p> +Tempered by veils of mist, the lamplight fell upon a face upturned from a +murmurous gutter, a yellow face, wide and flat, with lips grinning back from +locked teeth and eyes frozen in a staring question to which no living man has +ever known the answer. +</p> + +<p> +The pattering footsteps grew faint in distance and died away, the street was +still once more, as still as Death.... +</p> + +<p> +In the study of Prince Victor Vassilyevski the man Sturm put an impatient +question: +</p> + +<p> +“Well? What you make of it—hein?” +</p> + +<p> +Shaik Tsin looked up from a paper which he had been silently examining by the +light of the brazen lamp. +</p> + +<p> +“Number One says,” he reported, smiling sweetly, while his yellow forefinger +moved from symbol to symbol of the picturesque writing: <i>‘“The blow falls +to-night. Proceed at once to the gas works and do that which you know is to be +done.’”</i> +</p> + +<p> +“At last!” The voice of the Prussian was full and vibrant with exultancy. He +threw back his head with a loud laugh, and his arm described a wild, dramatic +gesture. +</p> + +<p> +“At last—der Tag! To-night the Fatherland shall be avenged!” +</p> + +<p> +Shaik Tsin beamed with friendliest sympathy Sturm turned to go, took three +hurried steps toward the door, and felt himself jerked back by a silken cord +which, descending from nowhere, looped his lean neck between chin and Adam’s +apple. His cry of protest was the last articulate sound he uttered. And the +last sounds he heard, as he lay with face hideously congested and empurpled, +eyeballs starting from their deep sockets, and swollen tongue protruding, were +words spoken by Shaik Tsin as that one knelt over him, one hand holding fast +the ends of the bowstring that had cut off forever the blessed breath of life, +the other flourishing a half-sheet of notepaper. +</p> + +<p> +“Fool! Look, fool, and read what vengeance visits a fool who is fool enough to +play the spy!” +</p> + +<p> +He brandished the papers before those glazing eyeballs. +</p> + +<p> +In an eldritch cackle he translated: +</p> + +<p> +<i>“‘He who bears this message is a Prussian dog, police trained, a spy. Let +his death be a dog’s, cruel and swift.—Number One.’”</i> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch18"></a>XVIII<br/> +ORDEAL</h2> + +<p> +Reviewing the day, as she undressed and prepared for bed, Sofia told herself +she had never yet lived through one so wearing, and thought the history of its +irksome hours all too legible in the lack-lustre face that looked back from the +mirror when Chou Nu uncoifed her hair and brushed its burnished tresses. +</p> + +<p> +Though she had slept late, in fact till noon and something after, her sleep had +been queerly haunted and unhappy, she could not remember how or why, and she +had awakened already ennuyé, with a mind incoherently oppressed, without relish +for the promise of the day—in a mood altogether as drear as the daylight that +waited upon her unclosing eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Main strength of will had not availed to dispel these vapours, neither did +their melancholy yield to the distraction provided by first acquaintance with +ways of a world unique alike in Sofia’s esteem and her experience. +</p> + +<p> +She who had theretofore known only in day-dreams the life of light frivolity +and fashion which found feverish and trumpery reflection at Frampton Court, was +neither equipped nor disposed to be hypercritical in the first hours of her +début there; and at any other time, in any other temper, she knew, she must +have been swept off her feet by its exciting appeal to her innate love of +luxury and sensation. But the sad truth was, it all seemed to her unillusioned +vision an elaborate sham built up of tinsel, paste, and paint; and the warmth +of her welcome at the hands, indeed in the very arms, of Lady Randolph West, +and the success her youth and beauty scored for her—commanding in all envy, +admiration, cupidity, or jealousy, according to age, sex, and temporal state of +servitude—did nothing to mitigate the harshness of those first impressions. +</p> + +<p> +If anything her depression grew more perversely morbid the more she was catered +to, courted, flattered, and cajoled. Something had happened, she could never +guess what, perhaps some mysterious reaction effected through the chemistry of +last night’s slumber, to turn her vivid zest in life to ashes in her mouth, so +that nothing seemed to matter any more. +</p> + +<p> +Thoughts of Karslake as her lover, recollection of her first deep joy in his +avowal and her subsequent passion of shame and regret, re-perusal of his note, +that last night had seemed so sweet a thing, precious beyond compare—found her +indifferent to-day, and left her so. Try as she would, she failed to recapture +any sense of the reality of those first raptures. And yet, somehow, she didn’t +doubt he loved her or that, buried deep beneath this inexplicable apathy, love +for Karslake burned on in her heart; but she knew no sort of comfort in such +confidence, their love seemed as remote and immaterial an issue as the menu for +day after to-morrow’s dinner. Nothing mattered! +</p> + +<p> +She was able even to meet Prince Victor without her customary shiver of +aversion; and when she recalled the persistence and enthusiasm with which she +had reasoned herself into believing, last night, that he might be another than +her father, she came as near to mirth as she was to come that day; but it was +mirth bitter with self-derision. Of course he was her father, she had been a +ninny ever to dream contrariwise, or that it mattered. +</p> + +<p> +Nor had she met with more success in efforts to find a cause for this drab +humour; unless, indeed, it were simply the farthest swing of the pendulum from +yesterday’s emotional crises, a long swing out of sunlit spaces swept by the +brave winds of young romance into a gloomy zone of brooding torpor, whose calm +was false, surcharged with unseizable disquiet, its atmosphere electrical with +formless apprehensions, its sad twilight shot with lurid gleams no sooner +glimpsed than gone. +</p> + +<p> +In this state Sofia’s sensibilities were less benumbed than bound in a palsy of +suspense not wholly destitute of dread; beneath the lethargic shallows of +consciousness lay soundless deeps troubled by sinister premonitions.... +</p> + +<p> +Now, retracing stage by stage the record of the day, Sofia became aware that +its most poignant moment for her was actually the present, with its keen wonder +that she had contrived to survive such exquisite tedium. +</p> + +<p> +She perceived that she had moved throughout like an automaton swayed by a will +outside its own; functioning rather than living; performing appointed business, +executing prescribed gestures, uttering foreordained observations, and making +dictated responses, all without suggestion of spontaneity, and all without +meaning other than as means to bridge an empty space of waiting. +</p> + +<p> +Waiting for what? +</p> + +<p> +Sofia could not guess.... +</p> + +<p> +She went to bed presently, hoping only to find surcease of boredom; and her +head no sooner touched the pillow than oblivion closed down upon her faculties +like a dense, dark cloud. +</p> + +<p> +Discreet and well-instructed, Chou Nu turned the night-light down to a glimmer, +placed on and under a chair adjacent to the bed a robe of cashmere that +wouldn’t rustle, and slippers of fine felt with soles of soft leather, in which +footfalls must be inaudible—and glided gently from the room. +</p> + +<p> +For sixty minutes its deep hush was unbroken; the even respiration of the girl +made no sound, she rested without tossing, without moving a finger. +</p> + +<p> +Then, sleep having held her for precisely one hour by the clock, Sofia opened +her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and at once sat up on the side of the bed. +</p> + +<p> +The memory of that hour was not to leave the girl while life was in her; nor +was the question it raised ever to be answered in a fashion satisfactory to her +intelligence. When later she heard it stated with authority, by men reputed to +be versed in psychic knowledge, that a subject in hypnosis cannot be willed to +act contrary to the instincts of his or her better nature, she held her peace, +but wondered. Was Victor right, then, and the crime he had willed her to commit +in final analysis not repugnant to her instincts? Or was it some secret faculty +of the soul, telepathy or of its kin, that roused and sent her to keep her +rendezvous with destiny? +</p> + +<p> +A riddle never to be read: Sofia only knew that, finding herself awake, she got +up, donned négligée and slippers, and set her feet upon the way appointed +without its occurring to her that the way was strange, without stopping to +question why or whether. +</p> + +<p> +If independent volition, sensible or subliminal, were absent, it could hardly +have been apparent. Sofia herself was not aware of its suspense or +supersession. She knew quite well what she was doing, her every action was +direct and decided, the goal alone remained obscure. She only knew that +somewhere, somehow, something was going wrong without her, and her presence was +required to set it right. +</p> + +<p> +Letting herself out into the corridor, she drew the door to behind her, but +left it unlatched; with what object, she did not know. But the lateness of the +hour, the stillness of the sleeping household, made it seem quite in order that +she should pause to look cautiously this way and that and make sure that nobody +else was astir to spy upon her or challenge the purpose of this as yet aimless +nocturnal flitting. +</p> + +<p> +There was nobody that she could see. +</p> + +<p> +Down the corridor, then, never asking why that way, like a ghost in haste she +sped, but as she drew near to a certain door found her pace faltering. Sofia +knew that door; through it Lady Randolph West herself had introduced the girl +to her boudoir, not two hours since, when chance, or Fate, or the smooth +working out of malicious mortal machinations had moved the two women +simultaneously to seek their quarters for the night. And in the boudoir Sofia +had spent the quarter of an hour before going on to her own room and bed, +civilly attending to vapid chatter and admiring as in duty bound the admirable +jewels of the family. +</p> + +<p> +Now she saw the door a few inches ajar with, beyond it, a dim glow. The +circumstance seemed singular, because—now that she remembered—when Sofia had +expressed perfunctory curiosity concerning what precautions were taken to +safeguard the jewels, Lady Randolph West had airily informed her that she +considered insurance to their appraised value plus a stout lock on the boudoir +door better than any strong-box as yet devised by the ingenuity of man. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s the safe they’re kept in, of course,” the lady had declared—“but, my +dear, a cardboard box will do as well when any burglar who knows his business +makes up his mind to get at my trinkets. I never even trouble to lock the +thing. I’d rather lose the jewels—and collect the insurance money—than be +frightened out of my wits by hearing it blown open. No, thanks ever so: any +cracksman skillful enough to pick the lock on the door may bag his loot and go +in peace for all of me!” +</p> + +<p> +Impulse, at least she called it that, moved Sofia to approach and cautiously +open the door still wider. +</p> + +<p> +Upon the antique writing-desk that housed the safe burned a single lamp of low +candle-power. A door that led to the adjoining bedchamber was tightly shut. +Sofia’s mistrustful eyes reconnoitred every corner of the room, and reckoned it +empty. Again obedient to undisputed impulse, she stepped inside and shut the +door. The spring-latch of the American lock found its socket with a soft click. +Thereafter, silence, no sound in the boudoir, none from the room beyond. But to +Sofia the hurried beating of her heart reverberated on the stillness like the +rolling of a drum. +</p> + +<p> +Without clear appreciation of how she had got there, she found herself standing +over the writing-desk, and discovered what the indifferent light had till now +kept hidden, that a false panel in the front of the desk had been thrust back, +exposing the face of the safe, and that this last was not even closed. +</p> + +<p> +At the same time she grew conscious that her hands were shaking violently, that +her every limb, her whole body indeed, was agitated by desperate trembling. And +dully asked herself why this should be ... But didn’t hesitate. +</p> + +<p> +Her actions now more than ever resembled those of an unthinking puppet, +although she knew quite well what she was doing; and her gestures might have +been the fruit of long lessoning at the hands of some master of stage +melodrama, so true were they to theatrical convention. +</p> + +<p> +With furtive, frightened glances toward both doors, Sofia dropped to her knees +before the safe.... +</p> + +<p> +When she stood up again her hands were filled with jewellery, her two hands +held a treasure of incalculable price in precious stones. +</p> + +<p> +She paused for a little, staring at them with dilate eyes dark in a pale, rapt +face. Her lips were parted, but only her quickened breathing whispered past +them. She was trembling more painfully than ever. But she seemed unable to +think of anything but the jewels, her gaze was held in fascination by their +coruscant loveliness as revealed by the light of the little lamp. +</p> + +<p> +Hers for the taking! +</p> + +<p> +Then, without warning, a tremendous convulsion laid hold on her body and soul, +and she was racked and shaken by it, and at its crisis her outstretched hands +opened and showered the top of the desk with jewels, then flew to her head and +clutched her throbbing temples. +</p> + +<p> +She cried out in a low voice of suffering: <i>“No!”</i> +</p> + +<p> +And of a sudden she was reeling back from the desk, toward the corridor door, +repeating over and over on an ascending scale: <i>“No! no! no! no! no!”</i> +</p> + +<p> +Her quaking legs blundered against a chair, her knees gave, she tottered to +fall; strong arms caught her, held her safe, a voice she knew yet didn’t know +in its guarded key muttered in her ear: “Thank God!” +</p> + +<p> +She made no struggle, but her eyes of pain and terror sought the speaker’s +face, and saw that he was the man Nogam. In extremity of amazement she spoke +his name. He shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“No longer Nogam,” he said in the same low accents, and smiled—“but your +father, Michael Lanyard!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch19"></a>XIX<br/> +UNMASKING</h2> + +<p> +One more instant the girl rested passive in uncomprehending astonishment; then +abruptly she exerted herself to break free from the supporting embrace, but +found the effort wasted for lack of opposition, so that her own violence sent +her reeling away half a dozen paces, to bring up against the desk; while +Lanyard, making no move more than to drop his rejected arms, remained where she +had left him, and requited her indignant stare with a broken smile of +understanding, a smile at once tender, tolerant, and sympathetic, with a little +quirk of rueful humour for good measure. +</p> + +<p> +“My father!” Sofia repeated in a gasp of disdain—“<i>you!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +He gave a slight shrug. +</p> + +<p> +“Such, it appears, is your sad fortune.” +</p> + +<p> +“A servant!” +</p> + +<p> +“And not the proud prince you were promised? Rather a come down, one must +admit.” Lanyard laughed low, and moved nearer. “I’m sorry, I mean I might be +(for myself, too) if Nogam were less a fraud than that pretentious mountebank, +Prince Victor—or for the matter of that, if you were as poor of spirit as you +would seem on your own valuation, if you were not at heart your mother’s +daughter, and mine, my child by a woman whom I loved well, and who long ago +loved me!” +</p> + +<p> +He paused deliberately to let her grasp the full sense of his words, then +pursued: +</p> + +<p> +“It may help you get your bearings to know that I am truly the Michael Lanyard +to whom Messieurs Secretan & Sypher addressed their advertisement—you +remember—as this should prove.” +</p> + +<p> +He offered a slip of paper, and after another moment of dumb staring, the girl +took it and read aloud the message which Victor had dictated following Sofia’s +flight to him from the Café des Exiles. +</p> + +<p> +<i>“‘To Michael Lanyard, Intelligence Division, the War Office, +Whitehall—’”</i> +</p> + +<p> +“That is to say,” Lanyard interpreted, “of the British Secret Service.” +</p> + +<p> +“You!” +</p> + +<p> +He bowed in light irony. “One regrets one is at present unable to offer better +social standing. To-morrow, it may be ... But who knows?” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia shook her head impatiently, and in a murmur of deepening amazement +resumed her reading of the note: +</p> + +<p> +<i>“‘Your daughter Sofia is now with me.. Your own intelligence must tell you +nothing could be more fatal than an attempt to communicate with her’”</i> +</p> + +<p> +To the interrogation eloquent in her eyes Lanyard replied: +</p> + +<p> +“Dictated by Victor to Karslake, who passed it on to me, the night he brought +you to the house from the Café des Exiles.” +</p> + +<p> +“You knew—you, who claim to be my father—yet permitted him—?” +</p> + +<p> +“You were in the house before I knew I had a daughter; Karslake had no chance +to consult me before fetching you. Furthermore, if he had hesitated to carry +out Victor’s orders just then, not only would he have nullified all our +preparations to secure evidence enough to convict the man, or at least run him +out of England—” +</p> + +<p> +“Prince Victor? What was he doing, that you should—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dabbling in all manner of infamy, from financing a thieves’ fence to +organizing an association of common criminals to bring it business; from +maintaining a corps of agitators to foment social discontent to fostering this +last, most imbecile scheme of all, which comes to naught to-night, an attempt +to overthrow the British Empire and set up in its stead a Soviet England, with +Victor Vassilyevski in the dual rôle of Trotsky and Lenine!” +</p> + +<p> +The girl made a sign of bewilderment and incredulity. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you telling me? Are you mad?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—but Victor is, mad with lust for power, insane with illusions of personal +aggrandizement. You don’t believe? Listen to me, then, appreciate to what +demoniac lengths he was prepared to go to flatter his insane ambitions:” +</p> + +<p> +“Sturm has invented a new poison gas, odourless, colourless, the most deadly +known, and easily manufactured in vast quantities by adding simple ingredients +to ordinary illuminating gas. Fanatic Bolshevist that he was, Sturm offered his +formula to Victor, to be used to clear the way for social revolution; and +Victor jumped at the offer—has spent vast sums preparing to employ it. His +money paid for the recent strike at the Westminster works of the Gas Light and +Coke Company, by means of which Victor was able to smuggle a round number of +his creatures into its service. His money has corrupted servants employed in +Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament, in the homes of the nobility, even in +Buckingham Palace itself, men ready at a given signal secretly to turn on gas +jets in remote corners and flood the buildings with the very breath of Death +itself. And that signal was to have been given to-night. Well, it will not be.” +</p> + +<p> +“But could any scheme be more grotesquely diabolical? Do you ask more proof of +the man’s madness? Do you require more excuse for my permitting you to be +deceived by Victor for a few weeks, rather than wreck our plans to frustrate +his, when all the while Karslake and I were near you, watching over you, +learning to love you—he in his fashion, I as your father—and both ready at all +times to die in your protection, if it had ever come to that?” +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard had drawn so near that only a few inches separated them, and had his +voice in such control that at three paces’ distance a vague and inarticulate +murmur at most might have been heard; but in Sofia’s hearing his accents rang +with passionate sincerity, persuading her against the reason which would have +rejected his indictment of Victor as too fantastic, too imaginative, and too +hopelessly overdrawn to be given credence. She believed him, knowing in her +heart that he believed his statements to the last word; and knowing more, that +he was surely what he represented himself to be, her father. +</p> + +<p> +Inscrutable the processes of human hearts: even as from the very first Sofia +had instinctively yet unconsciously recognized the intrinsic falsity of +Victor’s pretensions, so now she perceived the integral honesty that informed +Lanyard’s every word and nuance of expression, and accepted him without further +inquisition. +</p> + +<p> +To his insistent “Have I made you understand?” she returned a wan wraith of a +smile, pitiful with entreaty, while one of her hands found the way to his. +</p> + +<p> +“I think so,” she replied in halting apology—“at least, I believe you. But be a +little patient with me. It is all so new and strange, what you tell me, it’s +hard at first to grasp, there’s so much I must accept on faith alone, so much I +don’t understand ...” +</p> + +<p> +“I know.” Lanyard pressed her hand gently. +</p> + +<p> +“But try to have faith; I promise you it shall be fairly rewarded. Only a +little longer now, an hour or two at most, and Karslake will be here to prove +the truth of all I have asserted. You will believe him, at least.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” the girl said, simply. “I love him. You knew that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I guessed, and I am glad, glad for both of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But he is safe?” Sofia demanded in sudden access of alarm so strong that her +voice rose above the pitch of discretion. +</p> + +<p> +“Quietly. Yes, he is safe enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know that for a fact? How do you know—?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve seen him to-night, talked with him—not two hours since.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have been in London?” she questioned—“to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather! Victor sent me.” Lanyard laughed lightly. “You didn’t know, of course, +but—well, I gave him reason to suspect me, so he sent me up to be assassinated +by Shaik Tsin. As it turned out, however, Herr Sturm most obligingly +understudied for me.... Before coming back, I looked Karslake up. He’d been +busy, playing a lone hand, ever since Victor trumped up an errand to keep him +out of your way all day. No need to go into tedious details; I found Karslake +had matters well in hand: the gas works surrounded by a cordon of troops, the +house under close watch, and—best of all—a sworn confession from an Irish +Member of Parliament whom Victor had managed to buy with a promise to free +Ireland once Soviet England was an accomplished fact. So I left Karslake to +wind up loose ends in London, and posted back with my heart in my mouth for +fear I’d be too late.” +</p> + +<p> +“Too late?” Sofia queried with arching brows. +</p> + +<p> +“Need I remind you where we are?” +</p> + +<p> +A sweep of Lanyard’s hand indicated the boudoir; and Sofia started sharply in +perplexity and alarm. +</p> + +<p> +“Where we are!” she echoed in a frightened whisper. +</p> + +<p> +Of a sudden memory returned of what had passed in that room before Lanyard had +revealed himself to her, and knowledge of her peril so narrowly escaped drove +home like a knife to her heart. +</p> + +<p> +“What am I doing here?” she breathed in horror. “What have I done?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing more dreadful than prove yourself as true as you are fine, by +revolting in the end against the most powerful force known to man, the force of +suggestion implanted in hypnotism. You couldn’t know that it was hypnotic not +natural sleep you passed into last night, when Victor tricked you with that +damned crystal, or that, while you slept, he willed you to do here to-night +what, when it came to the final test, your nature would not let you do.” +</p> + +<p> +“But he so often told me I had the instincts of a thief—!” +</p> + +<p> +“So often—<i>I</i> know—that you were, against your will and reason, by dint of +the very iteration of it, coming to accept that lie as a truth whose power +there was no contesting. That is why, that you might prove yourself by your own +acts, I had to let you undergo your ordeal here to-night, only standing by to +make sure no ill came of it. Otherwise you might have carried to your grave the +fear instilled into your soul by that blackguard. But now you know he lied, and +will never doubt again—or reproach your father for the dark record of his +younger years.” +</p> + +<p> +He checked, lifting hands of desolate appeal, then let them fall. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear, if you knew you would not judge me harshly. If only you could know what +I have fought up from, a foundling without a name abandoned in a third-rate +Parisian hotel, reared a scullion, butt and scapegoat, with associates only of +the lowest, scullions, beggars, pickpockets, Apaches, and worse—!” +</p> + +<p> +“As if that mattered!” +</p> + +<p> +The girl turned a softly suffused face with shining eyes to Lanyard’s. Now at +last she knew him, now the romance of her dreams of yesterday came true: +through the mean masquerade of Nogam the man emerged, identifying himself in +her sight unmistakably with that splendid stranger whom she had never quite +forgotten since that old-time afternoon when he had met Karslake in the Café +des Exiles and talked so intimately of his antecedents, hinting at a history of +youthful years strangely analogous with her own. +</p> + +<p> +Involuntarily her arms lifted and settled upon his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“I am so proud to think—” +</p> + +<p> +A shrill scream drowned out her words, a woman’s voice ranging swiftly the +staccato gamut of terror and cracking discordantly on its most piercing note. +</p> + +<p> +Then with a bang that shook the flooring and must have been heard in the +farthest corners of the house, the bedchamber door was slammed behind their +backs. But beyond it the screaming went on in volume imperceptibly muffled by +its barrier, one ear-splitting caterwaul following another with such continuity +that the wonder was where Lady Randolph West found breath to keep up that +atrocious row, and whether any dozen women of average lung-power could have +rivalled it. +</p> + +<p> +In one sharp movement Lanyard and Sofia disengaged and fell apart, their eyes +consulting, hers in dismay, his in mixed exasperation and remorse. +</p> + +<p> +“I ought to be shot,” he declared, bitterly—“who knew better!—to have delayed +here, exposing you to this danger—!” +</p> + +<p> +“It couldn’t be helped,” Sofia insisted; “you had to make me understand. +Besides, if I hurry back—” +</p> + +<p> +In quick strides Lanyard crossed to the corridor door, unlatched and opened it +an inch, peered out, and gave the sum of what he saw in a gesture of finality, +then leaving the door ajar turned swiftly back to the girl. +</p> + +<p> +“Too late,” he said: “they’re swarming out into the hall like bees. In another +minute ...” +</p> + +<p> +Of a sudden he closed with Sofia, roughly clasping her body to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Struggle with me!” he pleaded—“get me by the throat, throw me back across the +desk—” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean? Let me go!” +</p> + +<p> +In answer to her efforts to wrench away, Lanyard only tightened his hold and +swung her toward the desk. +</p> + +<p> +“Do as I bid you! It’s the only way out. Let them think you heard a noise, got +up to investigate, found me here, rifling the safe—” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she insisted—“no! Why should I save myself at your expense?—betray you—my +father—!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then give me the obedience of a daughter ... or let Victor succeed in branding +you a thief, the daughter of a thief!” +</p> + +<p> +He stilled the protest she would have uttered by placing fingers over her lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Listen!” +</p> + +<p> +In the corridor an angry rumour of voices, alarmed calls and cries, with thumps +and scuffles of hasty feet, in the bedchamber the shrieks persisting without +the least hint of failing: as a damned soul might bawl upon its bed of coals +... +</p> + +<p> +“Sofia, I implore you!” +</p> + +<p> +Still she hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“But you—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never fear for me, remember that I am of the Secret Service: two minutes after +I see the inside of the nearest police station, I shall be free—and happy in +the assurance that your name is without stain. Then Karslake will come for you, +bring you to me ... Now!” +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard caught the girl’s two wrists together and, throwing himself bodily +backward across the desk, carried her hands to his throat. +</p> + +<p> +With a simultaneous crash the door was flung back to the wall. Led by Victor +Vassilyevski a dozen men, guests and servants, in various stages of dishabille, +streamed into the room. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch20"></a>XX<br/> +THE DEVIL TO PAY</h2> + +<p> +When it was all over, when the gravelled drive no longer crunched to wheels +that bore away the man Nogam to answer for his misdeeds, when the household had +quieted down and the most indefatigable sensation-monger had wearied of singing +the praises of the Princess Sofia and, tossing off a final whiskey-and-soda, +had paddled sleepily back to bed, lights burned on brightly in two parts only +of Frampton Court, in the bedchambers tenanted respectively by Prince Victor +Vassilyevski and his reputed daughter. +</p> + +<p> +Alone, Prince Victor sat at the desk where he had, four hours earlier, +inscribed those characters which should have hurried Nogam into a premature +grave. That they had failed of their mission was something that fretted Victor +Vassilyevski, his mind and nerves, to a pitch of exacerbation all but +unendurable. +</p> + +<p> +What had become of that sentence to death? And what of that other, the telegram +which, forwarded by Nogam’s hand to Sturm, should long since have set in motion +the organized machinery of murder and demolition? +</p> + +<p> +Had Nogam, as he had meekly insisted on being questioned subsequent to his +subjugation, truly delivered the two messages as directed and, miraculously +escaping his fate decreed, returned to Frampton Court by the twelve-three, +likewise in strict conformance with instructions? +</p> + +<p> +This statement Nogam had neglected to amplify, and Victor had been chary of too +close questioning, lest it elicit too much in the hearing of others. Once +overpowered, Nogam had been philosophic about his bad luck; but the eyes in his +face of a stoic had held a gleam that Victor didn’t altogether like, a light +that seemed suspiciously malicious, a suggestion of spirited humour deplorable +to say the least in a self-confessed sneak-thief caught in the very act, +deplorable and disturbing; in Victor’s sight a look constructively indicative +of more knowledge than Nogam had any right to possess. Take it any way you +pleased, something to think about ... +</p> + +<p> +Still more disquieting Victor thought the circumstance that nobody else had +seemed to notice that anomalous light in Nogam’s eyes; which of course might +mean merely that Victor had worked himself into such a state of nerves that he +was seeing things, but equally well that the look was one reserved for Victor +alone, intentionally or not holding for him a message, if he had but had the +wit to read it, of peculiarly personal import. +</p> + +<p> +It might have implied, for example, that Victor’s half-hearted and paltering +distrust of Nogam had all along been only too well warranted. In which case, +the fat was already in the fire with a vengeance, and Victor’s probable +duration of life was dependent wholly upon the speed with which he could quit +Frampton Court and hurl his motor-car through the night to the lower reaches of +the Thames. +</p> + +<p> +Envisagement of the worst at its blackest being part of the holy duty of +self-preservation, Victor sat fully dressed, with every other provision made +for flight at the first flash of warning, only waiting to make sure, and with +what impatience was apparent in the working of paste-coloured features, the +wincing and shifting of slotted eyes, the incessant shutting and unclosing of +tensed fingers. +</p> + +<p> +All rested with the telephone that stood mockingly mute at the man’s elbow, +callous alike to his anxiety and the rancorous regard in which he held it. His +call for the house near Queen Anne’s Gate had now been in for more than forty +minutes; in that interval he had no less than three times pleaded its urgency +to the trunk-line operator. And still the muffled bell beneath the desk was +dumb. +</p> + +<p> +And the worst of it was, fatal though the delay might prove, he dared not stir +a hand to save himself until he <i>knew</i>.... +</p> + +<p> +In the taut torment of those long-drawn minutes a sound of circumspect +scratching was enough to bring Victor to his feet in one startled bound. +</p> + +<p> +He stood for a moment, a-twitch, but intent upon the corridor door, then +composed himself with indifferent success, approached and opened the door. The +girl Chou Nu slipped in, offered a timid courtesy, and awaited his leave to +speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Well? What is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Excellency: the Princess Sofia refuses to let me stay in the room with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why? Don’t you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think she means to run away. She would not go back to her bed, but walked up +and down, till I ventured to urge her to take rest, when she turned on me in a +rage and bade me be gone. Then I came to you.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor took thought and finished with a dour nod. +</p> + +<p> +“You have done well. Return, keep watch, let me know if she leaves—” +</p> + +<p> +“The door is locked, Excellency: she will not let me in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Spy through the keyhole, then; or hide in one of the empty rooms across the +corridor, and watch—” +</p> + +<p> +A muted mutter from the direction of the desk dried speech on Victor’s lips. He +started hastily toward the source of the sound, midway wheeled, and dismissed +the maid with a brusque hand and monosyllable—“Go!”—then fairly pounced upon +the telephone. +</p> + +<p> +But all he heard, in the course of the ensuing five minutes, was the voice of +the trunk-line operator advising him, to begin with, that she was ready to put +him through to Westminster, then maddeningly punctuating the buzz and whine of +the empty wire with her call of a talking doll—“Are you theah?... Are you +theah?... Are you theah?” +</p> + +<p> +At length, however, the connection was established; and Victor, hearing the +falsetto of Chou Nu’s second-uncle cheerily respond to the operator’s query, +unceremoniously broke in: +</p> + +<p> +“Shaik Tsin? It is I, Number One. And the devil’s own time I’ve had getting +through. Why didn’t you answer more promptly? What’s the matter? Has anything +gone wrong?” +</p> + +<p> +“All is well, Excellency, as well as you could wish, knowing what you know.” +</p> + +<p> +Profound relief found voice in a sigh from Victor’s heart. +</p> + +<p> +“You got my messages, then? Nogam delivered them?” +</p> + +<p> +“So I understand. I myself did not see him, Excellency. The man Sturm—” +</p> + +<p> +On that name the voice died away in what Victor fancied was a gasp that might +have been of either fright or pain. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello!” he prompted. “Are you there, Shaik Tsin? I say! Are you there? Why +don’t you answer?” +</p> + +<p> +He paused: no sound for seconds that dragged like so many minutes, then of a +sudden a deadened noise like the slam of a door heard afar—or a pistol shot at +some distance from the telephone in the study. +</p> + +<p> +Further and frantic importuning of the cold and unresponsive wire presently was +silenced by a new voice, little like that of Shaik Tsin. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello? Who’s there? I say: that you, Prince Victor?” +</p> + +<p> +Involuntarily Victor cried: “Karslake!” “What gorgeous luck! I’ve been wanting +a word with you all evening.” +</p> + +<p> +“What has happened? Why did Shaik Tsin—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, most unfortunate about him—frightfully sorry, but it really couldn’t be +helped, if he hadn’t fought back we wouldn’t have had to shoot him. You see, +the old devil murdered Sturm to-night, for some reason I daresay you understand +better than I: we found a paper on the beggar, written in Chinese, apparently +an order for his assassination signed by you. Half a mo’: I’ll read it to you +...” +</p> + +<p> +But if Karslake translated Victor’s message, as edited by the hand of Nogam, it +was to a wire as deaf as it was dumb. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch21"></a>XXI<br/> +VENTRE À TERRE</h2> + +<p> +With exceeding care to avoid noise, Sofia unlocked the door and for the second +time since midnight let herself stealthily out into the darkened corridor; but +now with the difference that she did what she did in full command of all her +wits and faculties, with no subjective war of wills to hinder and confuse her, +and with a definite object clearly visioned—a goal no less distant than the +railway station. +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard had promised that Karslake should come for her within an hour or two +and take her away with him, back to London and the arms of the father whom, +although so recently revealed and accepted, she had already begun to love; if +indeed it were not true that she had in filial sense fallen in love with +Lanyard at first sight, through intuition, that afternoon in the Café des +Exiles so long, so very long ago! +</p> + +<p> +Well: she might as well await Karslake at the station. It would be simpler, she +would be more at ease there, would breathe more freely once she turned her back +on Frampton Court and all its hateful associations. Where Victor was, she could +not rest. +</p> + +<p> +If she had feared the man before, now she hated him; but hatred had added to +her fear instead of replacing it, she remained afraid, desperately afraid, so +that even the thought of continuing under the same roof with him was enough to +make her prefer to tramp unknown roads alone in the mirk of that storm-swept +night. +</p> + +<p> +Though she went in trembling, she felt sure nobody spied upon her going; and in +this confidence crept to the great staircase, down to the entrance hall, and on +to the front doors; and a good omen it seemed to find these not locked, but +simply on the latch. And if the night into which she peered was dark and loud +with wind and rain, its countenance seemed kindlier, more friendly far than +that of the world she was putting behind her. Without misgivings Sofia stepped +out. +</p> + +<p> +It was like stepping over the edge of the universe into the eternal night that +bides beyond the stars. Neither did waiting seem to habituate her vision to the +lack of light. +</p> + +<p> +Still, the feel of gravel underfoot ought to guide her down the drive to the +great gateway; and once outside the park, clear of its overshadowing trees, one +would surely find mitigation of darkness sufficient to show the public road. +</p> + +<p> +She took one tentative step out of the recessed doorway and into Victor’s arms. +</p> + +<p> +That they were Victor’s she knew instantly, as much by the crawling of her +flesh as by the choking terror that stifled the scream in her throat and froze +body and limbs with its paralyzing touch. +</p> + +<p> +And then his ironic accents: +</p> + +<p> +“So good of you to spare me the trouble of coming for you!” +</p> + +<p> +Before she could reply or even think, other hands than his were busy with her. +A folded cloth was whipped over the lower half of her face, sealing her lips, +and knotted at the nape of her neck. Stout arms clipped her knees and swung her +off her feet, leaving her body helpless in Victor’s tight embrace. And despite +her tardy recovery and efforts to struggle, she was carried swiftly away, a +dozen paces or so, then tumbled bodily in upon the floor of a motor-car. +</p> + +<p> +The door closed as she tried to pick herself up, the smooth purring of the +motor became a leonine roar while she was still on her knees, gears clashed, +and the car leaped with a jerk that drove her headlong against the cushions of +the seat. Then the dome light was switched on, and she saw Victor with a bleak +face sitting over her, an automatic pistol naked in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Get up!” he said, grimly, “and if there’s any thought of fight left in you, +think better of it, remember your mother paid with her life the price of +defying me, and yours means even less to me. Up with you and sit quietly beside +me—do you hear?” +</p> + +<p> +He lent her a hand that wrenched her arm brutally and wrung a cry which Victor +mocked as Sofia fell upon the seat and cringed back into the corner. +</p> + +<p> +For perhaps thirty seconds, while the car raced away down the drive, he +continued to hold her in the venom of her sneer; then his gaze veered sharply, +and leaning over he switched off the light. +</p> + +<p> +With the body of the car again the dwelling-place of darkness, objects beyond +its rain-gemmed glass—the heads of the Chinese maid and chauffeur, the twin +piers of the nearing gateway—attained dense relief against the blue-white glare +of two broad headlight beams, that of the limousine boring through the gateway +to intersect at right angles that of another car approaching on the highroad +but as yet hidden by the wall of the park. +</p> + +<p> +In one breath and the same the lights of the second car swerved in toward the +gateway, and consternation seized hold of Sofia’s intelligence and wiped it +clear of all coherence. +</p> + +<p> +Already the strange lamps were staring blankly in between the piers—and the +momentum of Victor’s car was too great to be arrested within the distance. The +girl cried out, but didn’t know it, and crouched low; the horn added a squawk +of frenzy to a wild clamour of yells; all prefatory to a scrunching, rending +crash as, in the very mouth of the gateway, a front fender of the incoming car +ripped through the rear fender above which Sofia was sitting. Thrown heavily +against Victor, then instantly back to her place, she felt the car, with brakes +set fast, turn broadside to the road, skid crabwise, and lurch sickeningly into +the ditch on the farther side. +</p> + +<p> +For an interminable time, while the ponderous fabric rocked and toppled, +threatening very instant to crash upon its side, the rear wheels spun madly and +the chain-bound tires tore in vain at greasy road metal. +</p> + +<p> +Without clear comprehension of what was happening, Sofia heard shouts from the +other car, now at a standstill, and an oddly syncopated popping. The window in +the door on Victor’s side rang like a cracked bell, shivered, and fell inward, +clashing. With a growl of rage, Victor bent forward and levelled an arm through +the opening. From his hand truncated tongues of orange flame, half a dozen of +them, stabbed the gloom to an accompaniment of as many short and savage barks. +</p> + +<p> +Then the chains at last bit through to a purchase, the car scrambled to the +crown of the road and lunged precipitately away; and the lights of the other +dropped astern in the space of a rest between heartbeats. +</p> + +<p> +Sitting back, Victor turned on the dome light again, and extracting an empty +magazine clip from the butt of his automatic pistol, replaced it with another, +loaded. +</p> + +<p> +From this occupation he looked up with lips curling in contempt of Sofia’s +terror. +</p> + +<p> +“Your friends,” he observed, “were a thought behindhand, eh? When you come to +know me better, my dear, you’ll find they invariably are—with me.” +</p> + +<p> +Aftermath of fright made her tongue inarticulate; and Victor’s sneer took on a +colour of mean amusement. +</p> + +<p> +“Something on your mind?” +</p> + +<p> +She twisted her hands together till the laced fingers hurt. +</p> + +<p> +“Wha-what are you go-going to do with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Make good use of you, dear child,” he laughed: “be sure of that!” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know ...” +</p> + +<p> +“Really not? But there I think you do injustice to your admirable +intelligence.” +</p> + +<p> +The jeering laugh sounded as he put out the light again, in darkness the +derisive voice pursued: +</p> + +<p> +“If you must know in so many words—well, I mean to keep you by me till the +final curtain falls. As long as it lasts, yours will be an interesting life—I +give my word.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you call yourself my father!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no! No, indeed: that’s all over and done with, the farce is played out; +and while I’m aware my rôle in it wasn’t heroic, I shan’t play the purblind +fool in the afterpiece—pure drama—upon which the curtain is now rising. Neither +need you. Oh, I’ll be frank with you, if you wish, lay all my cards on the +table.” +</p> + +<p> +A deliberate pause ended in a chuckle. +</p> + +<p> +“I have at present precisely two uses for my precious little Sofia: She will +serve excellently as insurance against further persecution on the part of her +accomplished and energetic father—with whom I shall deal in my good leisure—and +... But need one be crudely explicit?” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia answered nothing to that, for a long time she said nothing, but sat +pondering.... +</p> + +<p> +And Victor was speedily provided with another interest which engrossed him to +the exclusion of further efforts to bait a victim defenseless against his +insolence. +</p> + +<p> +When for the third time after that narrow scrape at the gates the man roused up +to peer back through the rear window of the limousine, Sofia heard a harshly +sibilant intake of breath between shut teeth, and surmised the discovery that +the car which had so narrowly missed blocking their escape had picked up the +trail, and was now in hot chase. +</p> + +<p> +Even youth, however, could distill but slender hope from this. The pace was too +terrific at which Victor’s car was thundering through the night-bound +countryside, it seemed idle to dream that another could overhaul it, even +though driven with as much skill and maniacal recklessness. And Sofia returned +to thoughts to which Victor’s innuendo had given definite shape and colour, if +with an effect far from that of his intention. Threatened, the spirit of the +girl responded much as sane young flesh will to a cold plunge. She had +forgotten to tremble, and though still tense-strung in every fibre was able to +sit still, look steadily into the face of peril, and calculate her chances of +cheating it. +</p> + +<p> +Presently, in a tone so even it won begrudged admiration, she asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you taking me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you really care?” +</p> + +<p> +“Enough to ask.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why should I tell you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No reason. I presume it doesn’t really matter, I’ll know soon enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I don’t mind enlightening you. We’re bound for the Continent by way of +Limehouse. A launch is waiting for us in Limehouse Reach, a yacht off +Gravesend. Oh, I have forgotten nothing! By daybreak we’ll be at sea.” +</p> + +<p> +“We?” +</p> + +<p> +“You and I.” +</p> + +<p> +“You deceive yourself, Prince Victor. I shan’t accompany you.” +</p> + +<p> +“How amusing! And is it a secret, how you propose to stand against my will?” +</p> + +<p> +Sofia was silent for a little; then, “I can kill myself,” she said, quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“To be sure you can! And when I tire of you, perhaps I’ll humour your morbid +inclinations—if they still exist.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a fool,” Sofia returned, bluntly, “if you think I shall go aboard that +yacht alive.” +</p> + +<p> +“Brava!” Victor laughed, and clapped his hands. “Brava! brava!” +</p> + +<p> +He sat up for another look out of the rear window, sucked at his breath even +more sharply than before, and snatching up the speaking-tube pronounced urgent +words in Chinese. +</p> + +<p> +The head of the chauffeur, in stark silhouette against the leading glow, bent +toward the tube, and nodded rapidly. And to the deep-throated roar of an +unmuffled exhaust, the heavy car leaped, like a spirited animal stung by whip +and spur, and settled into a stride to which what had gone before was as a +preliminary canter to the heartbreaking drive down to the home-stretch. +</p> + +<p> +Lights began to dot the roadside. Widely spaced at first, unbroken ranks were +soon streaking past the tear-blind windows. Outskirts of London were being +traversed; but neither driving sheets of rain against which human vision +failed, nor the chance of encountering belated traffic, worked any slackening +of the pace. Only when a corner had to be negotiated did the car slow down, and +then never to the point of sanity; and the turn once rounded, its flight would +again become headlong, lunatic, suicidal. +</p> + +<p> +The stringed lamps wove a wavering luminous ribbon without end; a breeze laden +with the wet fragrance of London drove great gusts of rain in stringing showers +through the broken window. Turns and twists grew more frequent, apparently +favouring the pursuit. +</p> + +<p> +Victor now knelt constantly on the back seat, his face in the fitful play of +light and shadow uncannily resembling that of a hunted jungle cat. On the +polished steel of his pistol sinister gleams winked and faded. From his +snarling lips foul oaths fell, a steady stream, black blasphemies spewed up +from the darkest dives of the Orient—most of them happily couched in the +tongues of their origin and so unintelligible to his one auditor. As it was, +she heard and understood enough, too much. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, the man was not too completely absorbed in watching the shifting +fortunes of the race to be unmindful of the girl. And when once she sat up to +ease cramped limbs, he misread her intention and, catching her viciously by an +arm, threw her back into her corner and advised her not to play the giddy +little fool. +</p> + +<p> +After that Sofia was at pains to stir as seldom as possible, and bided her time +quietly enough, but never for an instant relaxed her watchfulness or lost +heart. +</p> + +<p> +The shouldering houses that hedged their course discovered a profile, ragged, +black against a sky whose purple dimness held the first dull presage of dawn. +</p> + +<p> +In the wild rush of a marauding tomcat the car crossed a broad public square +and sped up the graded approach to a bridge. The smell of the Thames was +unmistakable, the far-flung lamps of the Embankment were pearls aglow upon +violet velvet. +</p> + +<p> +Leaving the bridge, the limousine took a turn on two wheels, and immediately +something happened, seemingly some attempt to stop it was made. Vociferous +voices hailed it, only to induce an augmented bellow of the exhaust with an +instantaneous acceleration of impetus. Then something was struck and tossed +aside as a bull might toss a dog—a dark shape whirling and flopping hideously; +and an agonized screaming made the girl cower, sick with horror, and cover her +ears with her hands. +</p> + +<p> +Before she was able to forget those qualms many more minutes of frantic driving +had flung to the rear many a mile of silent streets. +</p> + +<p> +Of a sudden she heard an inhuman cry and, looking up, saw Victor dash the butt +of his pistol through the glass, then reversing the weapon pour through the +opening a fusillade whose effect was presumably gratifying, for he laughed to +himself when the pistol was empty, laughed briefly but with vicious glee. +</p> + +<p> +That laugh levelled the last barrier of doubt and fear and nerved Sofia finally +to test the forlorn hope she had been nursing ever since Victor had let her see +a little way into his mind as to her fate. +</p> + +<p> +Until he could reload, only the tradition of the sexes lent him theoretical +superiority; whereas he was in fact a man well on the thither side of +middle-age, his virility sapped by long indulgence of unbridled appetites; +while Sofia was a woman in the fullest flush of her first mature powers. +</p> + +<p> +Gathering herself together, she inched forward and made ready to spring, bear +him down, overpower him—by some or any means put him hors de combat long enough +for her to fling a door open and herself out into the street.... +</p> + +<p> +With squealing brakes the car shaved an acute corner and slid on locked wheels +to a dead halt so unexpected that it was Sofia who plunged floundering to the +floor, while Victor only by a minor miracle escaped catapulting through the +front windows. +</p> + +<p> +The next instant, as Sofia struggled to her knees, the door behind her was +wrenched open from without and, at a sign from Victor, rough hands laid hold of +the girl and dragged her out bodily. +</p> + +<p> +In a passion of despair, she lost her senses for a time and like a madwoman +fought, shrieking, biting, kicking, clawing, scratching.... +</p> + +<p> +With returning lucidity she found herself, panting and dishevelled, arms pinned +to her sides, struggling on for all that, being hustled by some half a dozen +men across a narrow sidewalk of uneven flagstones. +</p> + +<p> +Simultaneously the shutter of perceptions snapped, photographing permanently +upon the super-sensitized film of conscious memory the glimpsed vista of a +grim, mean street whose repellent uglinesses grinned through the boding +twilight like lineaments of some monstrous mask of evil. +</p> + +<p> +Then she tripped on a low stone step, stumbled, and was half-carried, +half-thrown into a narrow and malodorous hallway. +</p> + +<p> +Between her and the sweet liberty of the rain-washed air a door crashed like +the crack of doom. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="b2ch22"></a>XXII<br/> +THE SEVEN BRASS HINGES</h2> + +<p> +Into a space perhaps four feet in width from wall to wall and seven deep from +the front door to the foot of a cramped flight of crazy wooden stairs, some ten +people were crowded, Sofia and the maid Chou Nu in a knot of excited men. +</p> + +<p> +In the saffron glow of an ill-trimmed paraffin lamp smoking in a wall bracket, +desperate faces, yellow and brown and white, consulted one another with rolling +eyeballs and strange tongues clamorous. Sofia heard the broken rustling of +heavy respirations; she saw uncouth gesticulations carve the shadows; her +nostrils were revolted by effluvia of unclean bodies, garments saturate with +opium smoke and curious cookery, breaths sour with alcohol. +</p> + +<p> +Two were busy at the door, under the direction of Prince Victor, setting stout +bars into iron sockets. When they had finished, Victor elbowed them out of his +way and thrust back the slide of a narrow horizontal peephole, through which he +reconnoitred. +</p> + +<p> +The tall, thin body stiffened as he looked, and without turning he flung an +open hand behind him and snapped a demand in Chinese. Somebody slipped a +revolver into his palm. Levelling it he sent a volley crashing through the +peephole. Yells responded, and in the hush that fell upon the final shot a +noise of fugitive feet scraping and stumbling on cobbles. A bullet struck the +door a sounding thump and all but penetrated, raising a bump on the inner face +of its thick oaken panels; and Victor shut the slide and turned back. +</p> + +<p> +Subservient silence saluted him. He spoke in Chinese, issuing (Sofia gathered) +instructions for the defense of the house. One by one the men designated +dropped out of the group about her. Three shuffled off into a room adjoining +the hallway. Two others ran briskly up the stairs. A sixth Victor directed to +stand by the barred door. His chauffeur and another Chinaman he told off for +his personal attendance. +</p> + +<p> +The maid Chou Nu was left to shift for herself, and while Sofia could see her +she did not shift a finger from her pose of terror, flattened to the wall. When +Sofia came back that way, the girl had vanished, however. Nor was she seen +again alive. +</p> + +<p> +Her arms held fast, Sofia was partly led and partly dragged down the hall, +Victor herding the group on past the staircase and into a bare room at the back +of the house, where a solitary lamp burning on a deal table discovered for all +other furnishing broken chairs, coils of tarred rope, a rack of ponderous oars +and boat-hooks, a display of shapeless oilskins and sou’westers on pegs. The +windows were boarded up from sills to lintels, the air was close and dank with +the stale flavour of foul tidal waters. +</p> + +<p> +Here Victor took charge of Sofia, the chauffeur holding the lamp to light the +other Chinaman at his labours with a trap-door in the floor, a slab of woodwork +so massive that, when its iron bolts had been drawn, it needed every whit of +the man’s strength to lift and throw it back upon its hinges; and its crashing +fall made all the timbers quake and groan. +</p> + +<p> +Through the square opening thus discovered Sofia saw a ladder of several slimy +steps washed by black, oily waters that sucked and swirled sluggishly round +spiles green with weed and ooze. +</p> + +<p> +Down these steps the Chinaman crept gingerly, but halfway paused with a cry, +then cringed back to the head of the ladder, yellow face blanched, slant eyes +piteous with fear, as he exhibited an end of stout mooring line whose other end +was made fast to a ring bolt in one of the joists. +</p> + +<p> +With a smothered oath Victor snatched the rope’s end from the trembling hand +and examined it closely. Even Sofia could see that it had been cleanly severed +by a knife. +</p> + +<p> +Victor’s countenance was ablaze as he dropped the rope. Before the tempest of +his wrath the Chinaman bent like a reed, with faint, protesting bleats and +feebly weaving hands. +</p> + +<p> +But in full tide the tirade faltered, Victor seemed to forget his anger or else +to remind himself it was puerile in contrast with the mortal issues that now +confronted him. +</p> + +<p> +He turned to Sofia eyes of cold fire in a wintry countenance. +</p> + +<p> +“So,” he pronounced, slowly, “it appears you are to have your way, after all, +and more speedily than either of us reckoned. You are to die, and so am I, this +day—you in my arms. Well, it is time, I daresay, when I permit myself to be +duped and overreached by police spies like your persevering father and lover. +Yes; I am ready to pay the price of my fatuity—but not until they had paid me +for their victory—and dearly. Come!” +</p> + +<p> +He motioned to the Chinese to reclose and fasten the trap-door, and grasping +Sofia’s wrist with cruel fingers hurried her back through the hallway. +</p> + +<p> +Repeated breaks of pistol-fire guided them to the front room, a racket echoed +in diminished volume from the street. +</p> + +<p> +In an atmosphere already thick with acrid fumes of smokeless powder two men +held the windows, firing through loopholes in iron-bound blinds of oak. At +their feet a third squatted, reloading for them as occasion required. As Sofia +and Victor entered one man dropped his weapon and, grunting, fell back from his +window to nurse a shattered hand. Releasing the girl without another word, +Victor caught up the pistol and took the vacant post. +</p> + +<p> +Instantly, on peering out, he fired once, then again. Evidently missing both +shots, he settled to await a better target, eyes intent to the loophole. In the +course of the next few minutes he changed position but once, when, after firing +several more shots, he tossed the empty weapon to the man on the floor and +received a loaded one in exchange. +</p> + +<p> +Seeing him thus employed, altogether forgetful, Sofia began to back toward the +hall, step by cautious step, keeping her attention fixed to Victor throughout. +But he seemed to be completely preoccupied with his markmanship, and paid her +no heed. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, when she at length found courage to swing and dart away through +the door, Victor flung three curt words to the fellow at his feet, who grunted, +rose, and glided from the room in close chase. +</p> + +<p> +The guard at the front door was not so busy as Sofia had hoped to find him, not +too interested in the progress of siege operations outside to note her approach +and look round from his peephole with a menacing grin of welcome; and his +unmistakable readiness, as pistol in hand he took a single step toward her, +drove the girl back to the foot of the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +Then the other came swiftly after her, and Sofia swung in panic and stumbled up +the steps. There were others up above, two to her certain knowledge, possibly +many more of Victor’s creatures; but if only she could find some sort of refuge +in the uppermost fastnesses of the rookery, perhaps ... +</p> + +<p> +Like a shape of smoke wind-driven, she sped up the first flight, then the +second, only pausing at the head of the third and last flight to throw hunted +glances right, left, and behind her. +</p> + +<p> +Overhead a skylight with dingy panes diffused a dull blue glimmer which +discovered a yawning door at her elbow, a pocket of black mystery beyond, and +on the uppermost steps of the staircase her patient yellow shadow, his upturned +eyes inscrutable but potentially revolting with their very concealment of the +intent behind them. +</p> + +<p> +Impossible that a worse thing could await her beyond that dark threshold.... +</p> + +<p> +She crossed it in one stride, swung the door to, and set her shoulders against +it. +</p> + +<p> +Outside she heard the shuffling footfalls pause. The knob rattled. But instead +of the inward thrust against which she stood braced, there came the least of +outward pulls, as if to make sure that the latch had caught; and after a brief +pause a key grated in the lock, was withdrawn, and the slippered feet withdrew +in turn. +</p> + +<p> +When her lungs ceased to labour painfully, she took her courage in both hands +and began to explore, groping blindly through darkness, encountering nothing +till she blundered into a table which held a glass lamp for paraffin oil, like +those in use below. +</p> + +<p> +Fumbling over the top of the table, she found matches, struck one, and set its +fire to the wick. +</p> + +<p> +The flame waxed and grew steady in a crusted chimney, revealing a room with a +slant ceiling and two dormer windows, boarded; in one corner a cot-bed with +tumbled blankets, near this a low wooden stand, with a pipe, spirit lamp, and +other paraphernalia of an opium smoker—no chairs, not another stick of +furniture of any kind. +</p> + +<p> +Removing the lamp, the girl set it on the floor, and pushed the table over +against the door. By not so long as half a minute would its reinforcement delay +Victor when he made up his mind to get in. But in such emergencies the human +kind is not impatient of the most futile expedients. +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing more she could do. She stood still, listening. The rattle of +pistol fire three floors below continued in fits and starts, but the sound of +it was oddly unreal, resembling more stammering explosions of a string of +firecrackers than snaps of the whiplash of Death. +</p> + +<p> +She tried one of the windows without encouragement, but at the other found a +board with a loose end, which she pried aside, till through begrimed glass she +could see a ghastly, weeping sky of daybreak and, by craning her neck, peer +down into the dark gully of the street. +</p> + +<p> +At first she thought it empty; but presently her straining vision made out two +huddled shapes upon the farther sidewalk, close under the walls of a public +house whose sign she could just barely decipher: the Red Moon. +</p> + +<p> +Then, about to draw back from the window, she saw five men, oddly foreshortened +figures from that lofty coign of view, leave the Red Moon by one of its bar +entrances, bearing between them a heavy beam of wood, and with this improvised +battering-ram aimed at the door to the besieged house, charge awkwardly across +the cobbles. +</p> + +<p> +The house spat fire from door and windows, a withering blast. In the middle of +the street the beam was abandoned, three of its fool-hardy bearers took to +their heels, each shaping an individual course, while one lay still upon the +wet black stones, and another, apparently wounded in the legs, sought pitifully +to drag himself by his arms, inch by inch, out of the zone of fire. But +presently his efforts grew feeble, then he, too, lay stirless, prone in the +sluicing rain. +</p> + +<p> +The girl shrank back from the window, hiding her eyes as if to blot out that +picture. +</p> + +<p> +The light, that is to say the absence of it in true sense, the angle of view, +and the distance, all had conspired to prevent her from making sure that +neither her father nor Karslake were of those four whose broken bodies +cluttered the street. But the fear and uncertainty were maddening.... +</p> + +<p> +She wheeled suddenly toward the door: the ancient stairs were creaking beneath +a measured tread. She made an offer to add her weight to that of the table, but +checked and fell back immediately, seeing the folly of sacrificing her +strength, the wisdom of saving it to serve her when finally.... +</p> + +<p> +The creaking ceased, the wards of the lock grated, the knob turned, the door +was thrust open—the table offering little hindrance if any. From the threshold +Victor eyed the girl with a twitching grin. +</p> + +<p> +“The time is at hand,” he announced with a parody of punctilio. “We have beaten +them off in the street, but they have found the tunnel from the cellar of the +Red Moon, and are attacking from the river besides. So, my dear, it ends for +us....” +</p> + +<p> +In silence, shoulders to the wall farthest from the door, Sofia watched him +unwinking. The lamp at her feet painted the tensely poised young body and +bloodless face with quaint, stagey shadows. +</p> + +<p> +Victor’s glance ranged the cheerless room. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you understand me,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She might have been a waxwork dummy out of Madame Tussaud’s. +</p> + +<p> +A white blaze of madness transfigured Victor’s countenance. He took one step +toward Sofia. +</p> + +<p> +In movements so precisely coordinated that they seemed one and instantaneous, +the girl stooped, caught up the lamp, and threw it with all her might. Victor +ducked his head. The lamp sailed on, described a descending curve through the +open doorway into the well of the staircase, struck, and exploded. In the +clutches of the maniac, Sofia was aware of the lurid glare, momentarily gaining +strength, that filled the rectangle of the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +In through this last, while iron hands tightened on her throat and +consciousness grew dark with closing shadows, a man’s shape passed, then +another.... +</p> + +<p> +The grip on her throat grew lax, the hands left it free. She reeled, but +somebody caught her up and bore her swiftly from the room, leaving two who +fought together like beasts on the floor, locked in each other’s arms, rolling +and squirming, rearing and flopping.... +</p> + +<p> +The scorch of flames stung her cheek, but she forgot that when their broken +light made visible the features of Karslake above the arms wherein she lay +cradled. +</p> + +<p> +Turning aside from the staircase, Karslake bore her to the ladder leading to +the skylight, whose broken glass crunched beneath his heels at every step. +</p> + +<p> +In the open air he pulled up for a moment’s rest, but continued to hold Sofia +in his arms. The wind raved about them, buffeted them, tore their breath away, +rain pelted them like birdshot; but they clung to each other and were unaware +of reason for complaint. +</p> + +<p> +Presently, however, Karslake remembered, and anxiously endeavoured to disengage +from these tenacious arms. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me go, dearest,” he muttered. “I must go back—I left your father to take +care of Victor, and—” +</p> + +<p> +As if evoked by his very solicitude Lanyard emerged from the skylight hatch, +waved a hand in gay salute, then turned to stare down into the flaming pit from +which he had climbed. +</p> + +<p> +After a little he fell back a pace. Then slowly, with the laboured movements of +exhaustion, Victor worked head and shoulders through the opening and dragged +himself out upon the roof. +</p> + +<p> +On all fours he held in doubt, his head moving from side to side like the head +of a stricken beast, seeking his enemy with dazzled eyes. Then he made Lanyard +out and, pulling himself together for the supreme effort, launched at his +throat with the pounce of a great cat. +</p> + +<p> +Lanyard met him halfway, caught him in the middle of his bound, wound wiry arms +round the man and held him helpless. +</p> + +<p> +His voice rang clear above the crackle of flames: +</p> + +<p> +“Victor! have you forgotten how you threatened one night, twenty years ago, to +follow me to the very gates of Hell, and what I promised you—that, if you did, +I’d push you inside? Or did you think I would forget?” +</p> + +<p> +He cast the man from him, backward, down into the hungry maw of that +inferno.... +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED MASQUERADE ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + + + + +Title: Red Masquerade + +Author: Louis Joseph Vance + +Release Date: December 18, 2003 [eBook #10496] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: iso-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED MASQUERADE*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Elaine Walker, and Project Gutenberg +Distributed Proofreaders + + + +RED MASQUERADE + +Being the Story of THE LONE WOLF'S DAUGHTER + +BY + +LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE + +1921 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: "_Prince Victor gave a gesture of pain and reluctance. 'Must +I tell you?_'"] + + + + +TO J. PARKER READ, JR., ESQ. THE CINEMA THAT WAS HIS + + + +APOLOGY + + +This tale quite brazenly derives from the author's invention for motion +pictures which Mr. J. Parker Read, Jr., produced in the autumn of 1919 +under the title of "The Lone Wolf's Daughter." + +It is only fair to state, however, that the author has in this version +taken as many high-handed liberties with the version used by the photoplay +director as the latter took with the original. + +The chance to get even for once was too tempting.... + +Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Company in the first instance, and then Mr. +Arthur T. Vance, editor of _The Pictorial Review_, in which the story was +published as a serial, were equally guilty of the encouragement which +results in its appearance in its present guise. + +L.J.V. + +Westport--31 December, 1920. + + + +Books by Louis Joseph Vance + +CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE + +JOAN THURSDAY + +NOBODY + +NO MAN'S LAND + +POOL OF FLAME + +PRIVATE WAR + +SHEEP'S CLOTHING + +THE BANDBOX + +THE BLACK BAG + +THE BRASS BOWL + +THE BRONZE BELL + +THE DARK MIRROR + +THE DAY OF DAYS + +THE DESTROYING ANGEL + +THE FORTUNE HUNTER + +THE ROMANCE OF TERENCE O'ROURKE + +TREY O' HEARTS + +_Stories About "The Lone Wolf"_ + +THE LONE WOLF + +THE FALSE FACES + +RED MASQUERADE + +ALIAS THE LONE WOLF + + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK ONE: A CHAPTER FROM THE YOUTH OF MONSIEUR MICHAEL LANYARD + + I PLEBEIAN AND PRINCE + + II THE PRINCESS SOFIA + + III MONSIEUR QUIXOTE + + IV THE FOOL AND HIS MONEY + + V IMPOSTOR + + VI THRSE + + VII FAMILY REUNION + + VIII GREEK VS. GREEK + + IX PAID IN FULL + + +BOOK TWO: THE LONE WOLF'S DAUGHTER + + I THE GIRL SOFIA + + II MASKS AND FACES + + III THE AGONY COLUMN + + IV MUTINY + + V HOUSE OF THE WOLF + + VI THE MUMMER + + VII THE FANTASTICS + + VIII COUNCIL OF THE GODLESS + + IX MRS. WARING + + X VICTOR ET AL + + XI HEARTBREAK + + XII SUSPECT + + XIII THE TURNIP + + XIV CONFERENCE OF THE DAMNED + + XV INTUITION + + XVI THE CRYSTAL + + XVII THE RAISED CHEQUE + +XVIII ORDEAL + + XIX UNMASKING + + XX THE DEVIL TO PAY + + XXI VENTRE TERRE + + XXII THE SEVEN BRASS HINGES + + + + +BOOK I + + +A CHAPTER FROM THE YOUTH OF MONSIEUR MICHAEL LANYARD + + + +RED MASQUERADE + + + +I + +PLEBEIAN AND PRINCE + + +The gentleman was not in the least bored who might have been and was seen +on that wintry afternoon in Nineteen hundred, lounging with one shoulder to +a wall of the dingy salesroom and idly thumbing a catalogue of effects +about to be put up at auction; but his insouciance was so unaffected that +the inevitable innocent bystander might have been pardoned for perceiving +in him a pitiable victim of the utterest ennui. + +In point of fact, he was privately relishing life with enviable gusto. In +those days he could and did: being alive was the most satisfying pastime he +could imagine, or cared to, who was a thundering success in his own conceit +and in fact as well; since all the world for whose regard he cared a +twopenny-bit admired, respected, and esteemed him in his public status, and +admired, respected, and feared him in his private capacity, and paid him +heavy tribute to boot. + +More than that, he was young, still very young indeed, barely beyond the +threshold of his chosen career. To his eagerly exploring eye the future +unrolled itself in the likeness of an endless scroll illuminated with +adventures all piquant, picturesque, and profitable. With the happy +assurance of lucky young impudence he figured the world to himself as his +oyster; and if his method of helping himself to the succulent contents of +its stubborn shell might have been thought questionable (as unquestionably +it was) he was no more conscious of a conscience to give him qualms than he +was of pangs of indigestion. Whereas his digestive powers were superb.... + +This way of killing an empty afternoon, too, was much to his taste. The man +adored auctions. To his mind a most delectable flavour of discreet scandal +inhered in such collections of shabby properties from anonymous homes. +Nothing so piqued his imagination as some well-worn piece of furniture--say +an ancient escritoire with ink stains on its green baize writing-bed (dried +life-blood of love letters long since dead!) and all its pigeon-holes and +little drawers empty of everything but dust and the seductive smell of +secrets; or a dressing-table whose bewildered mirror, to-day reflecting +surroundings cold and strange, had once been quick and warm to the beauty +of eyes brilliant with delight or blurred with tears; or perchance a +bed.... + +And even aside from such stimuli to a lively and ingenious fancy, there was +always the chance that one might pick up some priceless treasure at an +auction sale, some rare work of art dim with desuetude and the disrespect +of ignorance: jewellery of quaintest old-time artistry; a misprized bit of +bronze; a book, it might be an overlooked copy of a first edition inscribed +by some immortal author to a forgotten love; or even--if one were in rare +luck--a picture, its pristine brilliance faded, the signature of the artist +illegible beneath the grime of years, evidence of its origin perceptible +only to the discerning eye--to such an eye, for instance, as Michael +Lanyard boasted. For paintings were his passion. + +Already, indeed, at this early age, he was by way of being something of a +celebrity, in England and on the Continent, as a collector of the nicest +discrimination. + +And then he found unfailing human interest in the attendance attracted by +auction sales; in the dealers, gentlemen generally of pronounced +idiosyncrasies; in the auctioneers themselves, robust fellows, wielding a +sort of rugged wit singular to their calling, masters of deep guile, +endowed with intuitions which enabled them at a glance or from the mere +intonation of a voice to discriminate between the serious-minded and those +frivolous souls who bid without meaning to buy, but as a rule for nothing +more than the curious satisfaction of being able to brag that they had been +outbid. + +But it was in the ranks of the general public that one found most +amusement; seldom did a sale pass off undistinguished by at least one +incident uniquely revealing or provocative. And for such moments Lanyard +was always on the qui vive, but quietly, who knew that nothing so quickly +stifles spontaneity as self-consciousness. So, if he studied his company +closely, he was studious to do it covertly; as now, when he seemed +altogether engrossed in the catalogue, whereas his gaze was freely roving. + +Thus far to-day a mere handful of people other than dealers had drifted in +to wait for the sale to begin--something for which the weather was largely +to blame, for the day was dismal with a clammy drizzle settling from a low +and leaden sky--and with a solitary exception these few were commonplace +folk. + +This one Lanyard had marked down midway across the room, in the foremost +row of chairs beneath the salesman's pulpit: by his attire a person of +fashion (though his taste might have been thought a trace florid) who +carried himself with an air difficult of definition but distinctive enough +in its way. + +Whoever he was and what his quality, he was unmistakably somebody of +consequence in his own reckoning, and sufficiently well-to-do to dress the +part he chose to play in life. Certainly he had a conscientious tailor and +a busy valet, both saturate with British tradition. Yet the man they served +was no Englishman. + +Aside from his clothing, everything about him had an exotic tang, though +what precisely his racial antecedents might have been was rather a riddle; +a habit so thoroughly European went oddly with the hints of Asiatic strain +which one thought to detect in his lineaments. Nevertheless, it were +difficult otherwise to account for the faintly indicated slant of those +little black eyes, the blurred modelling of the nose, the high cheekbones, +and the thin thatch of coarse black hair which was plastered down with +abundant brilliantine above that mask of pallid features. + +The grayish pallor of the man, indeed, was startling, so that Lanyard for +some time sought an adjective to suit it, and was content only when he hit +on the word _evil_. Indeed, evil seemed the inevitable and only word; none +other could possibly so well fit that strange personality. + +His interest thus fixed, he awaited confidently what could hardly fail to +come, a moment of self-betrayal. + +That fell more quickly than he had hoped. Of a sudden the decent quiet of +King Street, thus far accentuated rather than disturbed by the routine +grind of hansoms and four-wheelers, was enlivened by spirited hoofs whose +clatter stilled abruptly in front of the auction room. + +Turning a speciously languid eye toward the weeping window, Lanyard had a +partial view of a handsomely appointed private equipage, a pair of spanking +bays, a liveried coachman on the box. + +The carriage door slammed with a hollow clap; a footman furled an umbrella +and climbed to his place beside the driver. As the vehicle drew away, one +caught a glimpse of a crest upon the panel. + +Two women entered the auction room. + + + +II + +THE PRINCESS SOFIA + + +These ladies were young, neither much older than Lanyard, both were very +much alive, openly betraying an infatuation with existence very like his +own, and both were lovely enough to excuse the exquisite insolence of their +young vitality. + +As is frequently the case in such associations, since a pretty woman seldom +courts comparison with another of her own colouring, one was dark, the +other fair. + +With the first, Lanyard was, like all London, on terms of visual +acquaintance. The reigning beauty of the hour, her portrait was enjoying a +vogue of its own in the public prints. Furthermore, Lady Diantha Mainwaring +was moderately the talk of the town, in those prim, remotely ante-bellum +days--thanks to high spirits and a whimsical tendency to flout the late +Victorian proprieties; something which, however, had yet to lead her into +any prank perilous to her good repute. + +The other, a girl whose hair of golden bronze was well set off by Russian +sables, Lanyard did not know at all; but he knew at sight that she was far +too charming a creature to be neglected if ever opportunity offered to be +presented to her. And though the first article of his creed proscribed +women of such disastrous attractions as deadly dangerous to his kind, he +chose without hesitation to forget all that, and at once began to cudgel +his wits for a way to scrape acquaintance with the companion of Lady +Diantha. + +Their arrival created an interesting bustle, a buzz of comment, a craning +of necks--flattery accepted by the young women with ostensible unconcern, a +clich of their caste. As they had entered in a humour keyed to the highest +pitch of gaiety consistent with good breeding, so with more half-stifled +laughter they settled into chairs well apart from all others but, as it +happened, in a direct line between Lanyard and the man whose repellent cast +of countenance had first taken his interest. + +Thus it was that Lanyard, after eyeing the young women unobserved as long +as he liked, lifted his glance to discover upon that face a look that +amazed him. + +It wasn't too much to say (he thought) that the man was transfigured by +malevolence, so that he blazed with it, so that hatred fairly flowed, an +invisible yet manifest current of poisoned fire, between him and the girl +with the hair of burnished bronze. + +All the evil in him seemed to be concentrated in that glare. And yet its +object remained unconscious of it or, if at all sensitive, dissembled +superbly. The man was apparently no more present to her perceptions than +any other person there, except her companion. + +Presently, becoming sensible of Lanyard's intrigued regard, the man looked +up, caught him in a stare and, mortally affronted, rewarded him with a look +of virulent enmity. + +Not to be outdone, Lanyard gave a fleeting smile, a bare curving of lips +together with an almost imperceptible narrowing of amused eyes--goading the +other to the last stage of exasperation--then calmly ignored the fellow, +returning indifferent attention to the progress of the sale. + +Since nothing was being offered at the moment to draw a bid from him, he +maintained a semblance of interest solely to cover his thoughts, meanwhile +lending a civil ear to the garrulous tongue of a dealer of his acquaintance +who, having edged nearer to indulge a failing for gossip, found a ready +auditor. For when Lanyard began to heed the sense of the other's words, +their subject was the companion of Lady Diantha Mainwaring. + +"... Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, you know, the Russian beauty." + +Lanyard lifted his eyebrows the fraction of an inch, meaning to say he +didn't know but at the same time didn't object to enlightenment. + +"But you must have heard of her! For weeks all London has been talking +about her jewels, her escapades, her unhappy marriage." + +"Married?" Lanyard made a sympathetic mouth. "And so young! Quel dommage!" + +"But separated from her husband." + +"Ah!" Lanyard brightened up. "And who, may one ask, is the husband?" + +"Why, he's here, too--over there in the front row--chap with the waxed +moustache and putty-coloured face, staring at her now." + +"Oh, that animal! And what right has he got to look like that?" + +The buzz of the scandalmonger grew more confidential: "They say he's never +forgiven her for leaving him--though the Lord knows she had every reason, +if half they tell is true. They say he's mad about her still, gives her no +rest, follows her everywhere, is all the time begging her to return to +him--" + +"But who the deuce is the beast?" Lanyard interrupted, impatiently. "You +know, I don't like his face." + +"Prince Victor," the whisper pursued with relish--"by-blow, they say, of a +Russian grand duke and a Manchu princess--half Russian, half Chinese, all +devil!" + +Without looking, Lanyard felt that Prince Victor's stare had again shifted +from the women, and that the mongrel son of the alleged grand duke was +aware he had become a subject of comment. So the eminent collector of works +of art elected to dismiss the subject with a negligent lift of one +shoulder. + +"Ah, well! Daresay he can't help his ugly make-up. All the same, he's +spoiling my afternoon. Be a good fellow, do, and put him out." + +The Briton chuckled a deprecating chuckle; meaning to say, he hoped Lanyard +was spoofing; but since one couldn't be sure, one's only wise course was to +play safe. + +"Really, Monsieur Lanyard! I'm afraid one couldn't quite do _that_, you +know!" + + + +III + +MONSIEUR QUIXOTE + + +The sale dragged monotonously. The paintings offered were mostly of +mediocre value. The gathering was apathetic. + +Lanyard bid in two or three sketches, more out of idleness than because he +wanted them, and succeeded admirably in seeming ignorant of the existence +of the Princess Sofia and the husband whose surface of a blackguard was so +harmonious with his reputation. + +In time, however, a change was presaged by an abrupt muting of that +murmured conversation between the beautiful Russian and the almost equally +beautiful Englishwoman. An inquisitive look discovered the princess sitting +slightly forward and intently watching the auctioneer. + +The pose of an animated, delightful child, hanging breathlessly upon the +progress of some fascinating game: one's gaze lingered approvingly upon a +bewitching profile with half-parted lips, saw that excitement was faintly +colouring the cheeks beneath shadowy and enigmatic eyes, remarked the sweet +spirit that poised that lovely head. + +And then one looked farther, and saw the prince, like the princess, +absorbed in the business at the auction block, his slack elegance of the +raffish aristocrat forgotten, all his being tense with purpose, strung +taut--as taut at least as that soft body, only half-masculine in mould and +enervated by loose living, could ever be. One thought of a rather elderly +and unfit snake, stirred by the sting of some long-buried passion out of +the lassitude of years of slothful self-indulgence, poising to strike.... + +At the elbow of the auctioneer an attendant was placing on exhibition a +landscape that was either an excellent example of the work of Corot or an +imitation no less excellent. At that distance Lanyard felt inclined to dub +it genuine, though he knew well that Europe was sown thick with spurious +Corots, and would never have risked his judgment without closer inspection. + +He was accordingly perplexed when, after a brief exhortation by the +auctioneer, discreetly noncommittal as to the antecedents of the +canvas--"attributed to Corot"--Prince Victor, who had been straining +forward like a hound in leash, half rose in his eagerness to offer: + +"One thousand guineas!" + +The entire company stirred as one and sat up sharply. Even the auctioneer +was momentarily stricken dumb. And for the first time the Princess Sofia +acknowledged the presence of her husband, and got from him that look of +white hatred with a sneer of triumph thrown in for good measure. + +Though she affected indifference, Lanyard saw her slender body transiently +shaken by a shudder, it might have been of dread. But she was quick to pull +herself together, and the auctioneer had scarcely found his tongue--"One +thousand guineas for this magnificent canvas attributed to Corot"--when her +clear and youthful voice cut in: + +"Two thousand guineas!" + +This the prince capped with a monosyllable: + +"Three!" + +Stupefaction settled upon the audience. The auctioneer hesitated, blinked +astonished eyes, framed unspoken phrases with halting lips. Prince Victor, +again gave his wife the full value of his vindictive snarl. She would not +see, but it was plain that she was cruelly dismayed, that it cost her an +effort to rise to the topping bid: + +"Thirty-five hundred guineas!" + +"Four thousand!" + +"Four thousand I am offered ..." + +The auctioneer faltered, a spasm of honesty shook him, he proceeded: + +"It is only fair, ladies and gentlemen, that I should state that this +canvas is not put up as an authentic Corot. It very possibly is such, in +fact"--the seizure was passing swiftly--"it bears every evidence of having +come from the brush of the master. But we cannot guarantee it. There is, +however, a gentleman present who is amply qualified to pass upon the merits +of this work. With his permission"--his eye sought Lanyard's--"I venture to +request the opinion of Monsieur Michael Lanyard, the noted connoisseur!" + +Lanyard detached a deprecating smile from the pages of his catalogue, but +his contemplated response was cut short by Prince Victor. + +"I am not aware," that one said, icily, "that the authenticity of this +painting is a material question. Nor have I any need of the opinion of this +gentleman, whatever his qualifications. I have bid four thousand guineas, +and insist that the sale proceed. If there are no further bids, the canvas +is mine." + +The auctioneer shrugged, and offered Lanyard an apologetic bow. "I am +sorry--" he began. + +"Four thousand guineas!" snapped the prince. + +Resigned, the auctioneer resumed: + +"Four thousand guineas offered. Are there any more bids? Going--" + +"Forty-five hundred!" + +Beyond reasonable doubt the princess had spurred herself mercilessly to +find sufficient courage to make this latest bid. Lanyard saw her in a +rigour of despair, hoping against hope. Only too surely something in the +picture, some association--heaven knew what!--was more precious to her, +almost, than life, though she had gone already to the limit of her means +and perhaps a bit beyond. If this bid failed, she was lost. Her anxiety was +pitiful. + +"Five thousand!" + +In the princess something snapped: she recoiled upon herself, sat crushed, +head drooping, white-gloved hands working in her lap. One detected an +appealing quiver on her lips, and noted, or imagined, a suspicious +brightness beneath the long dark lashes that swiftly screened her eyes. Her +young bosom moved convulsively. She was beaten, near to tears. + +"Five thousand guineas ... going ... going ..." + +The face of the prince was a mocking devil-mask in gray and black. Lanyard +found himself loathing it. Impossible to stand idle and see the creature +get the better of an unhappy girl ... + +"Five thousand one hundred guineas!" + +With his wits in a blur of amaze, Lanyard knew the echo of his own voice. + + + +IV + +THE FOOL AND HIS MONEY + + +One reflected rather bitterly on the many and obvious oversights of a +putatively all-wise Providence, in especial on its failure so to fashion +the body of man as to enable him on occasion to discipline his own flesh in +the most ignominious manner imaginable. + +Lanyard could have kicked himself; that is to say, he wanted to, and +thought it rather a pity he couldn't, and publicly, at that. For the freak +he had just indulged was rank quixotism, something which had as much place +in the code of a man of his calling as milk of human kindness in the +management of a pawnshop. + +On second thought, he wasn't so sure. It might have been that quixotism had +inspired his infatuate gesture, but it might quite as conceivably have been +everyday vanity or plain cussedness: a noble impulse to serve a pretty lady +in distress, a spontaneous device to engage her interest, or a low desire +to plague a personality as antipathetic to his own as that of a +rattlesnake. + +In point of simple fact (he decided), his impelling motive had been a +mixture of all three. + +In all three respects, furthermore, it proved notably successful; in the +two last named without delay. + +The Princess Sofia at once took note of Lanyard, with wonder, some +misgivings, and a hint of admiration. For he was not only a personable +person in those days, with a suggestion of devil-may-care in his air that +measurably lifted the curse of his superficial foppishness, but he was +putting a spoke in Prince Victor's wheel. And whosoever did that, by +chance, out of sheer voluptuousness, or with malice prepense, won immediate +title to Sofia's favourable regard. If she couldn't thwart Victor herself, +she would be much obliged to anybody who could and did; and she was nothing +loath to betray her bias by looking kindly upon her self-appointed +champion. + +A whispered communication from Lady Diantha did nothing to abate her overt +approbation. + +As for Victor, his face of leaden gray took on a tinge of green; he quaked +with rage, and the glare he loosed on Lanyard made that young man wonder if +he were mistaken in believing that the eyes of the prince shone in that +dusky room with something nearly akin to the phosphorescence to be seen in +the eyes of an animal at night. + +The notion was amusing: Lanyard paid it the tribute of a quiet smile, in +direct acknowledgment of which Prince Victor snarled: + +"Six thousand guineas!" + +"And a hundred," Lanyard added. + +Brief pause prefaced a bid designed to squelch him completely: + +"Ten thousand!" + +In a fatigued voice he uttered: "One hundred more." + +"Fifteen--!" + +This time Lanyard contented himself with nodding to the auctioneer; and the +lips of the latter had barely parted to parrot the bid when Victor sprang +to his feet, his features working, his limbs shaking so that the legs of +the chair beside him, whose back he seized, chattered on the floor, while +the high-pitched voice broke into a screech: + +"Twenty!" + +And Lanyard said: "And one." + +"Twenty thousand one hundred guineas!" chanted the auctioneer. "Are there +any more bids? You, sir--?" He aimed a respectful bow at Prince Victor, who +snubbed him with a sign of fury. "Going--going--gone! Sold to Monsieur +Lanyard for twenty thousand and one hundred guineas!" + +And Lanyard had the satisfaction of seeing Prince Victor, after a vain +effort to master his emotion, snatch up his topper, clap it on his head, +and make for the door with footsteps whose stuttering haste was in poor +accord with the dignity of his exalted station. + +But it was debatable whether this satisfaction plus the possession of a +questionable Corot was worth its cost. And Lanyard wasn't in the humour, +now that the heat of contest began to abate, to look to Princess Sofia for +promise of further reward. Even if he could have been guilty of such +impertinence, indeed, he must have forborne for very shame. After all (he +told himself) he hadn't figured very creditably, permitting petty prejudice +to sway him as it had. He felt singularly sure he had played the gratuitous +ass in this affair, and he didn't in the least desire to see the reflection +of a like conviction in the eyes of a pretty young woman with a flair for +the ridiculous. + +He dissembled his diminished self-esteem, however, most successfully, as he +proceeded to the desk of the auctioneer's clerk, filled in a cheque for the +amount of his purchase, and gave instructions for its delivery. + +Whether by intention or inadvertence, he was followed from the auction room +by the Princess Sofia and Lady Diantha Mainwaring; and just outside the +entrance he found Prince Victor waiting with all the air of a gentleman +impatient for a cab to happen along and pick him up out of the drizzle. + +But in view of the fact that he made no overtures to a passing hansom, +which swerved in to the curb in response to a signal of Lanyard's cane, +this last concluded that the prince was up to his reputedly favourite game +of waylaying his rebel wife. + +If such were the case, Lanyard had no wish to witness a public wrangle +between the two. So he stepped briskly up on the carriage-block, and only +hesitated when he saw that the prince, utterly ignoring the presence of the +princess and Lady Diantha, was edging forward and cocking an alert ear to +catch the address which Lanyard was on the point of giving the cabby. + +Hugely diverted, the adventurer looked round with a quirk of his brows, and +amiably commented: + +"Monsieur's interest is so flattering! If he really must know, I'm going +home now, to my rooms in Halfmoon Street. Au revoir, monsieur le prince!" + +He beamed benignly upon that convulsed countenance, and saw crestfallen +Prince Victor slink away, to the music of smothered laughter from the +ladies in the doorway--toward which Lanyard was careful not to look. + +Then, in high feather with himself, he chirped to the driver and hopped +into the hansom. + + + +V + +IMPOSTOR + + +As Lanyard's cab swung away, the carriage wheeled in to take up the +Princess Sofia and Lady Diantha Mainwaring. Observing this, Lanyard poked +his stick through the little trap in the roof of the hansom and suggested +that the driver pull up, climb down, adjust some imaginary fault with the +harness and, when the carriage had passed, follow it with discretion. + +Enchanted by sight of a half-sovereign in the palm of his fare, the cabby +executed this manoeuvre to admiration; with the upshot that Lanyard got +home half an hour later than he would have had he proceeded to his rooms +direct, but with information of value to recompense him. + +It wasn't his habit to lose time in those days of his youth. And lest his +character be misconstrued (which would be deplorable) it may as well be +stated now that he had not laid down upward of twenty thousand good golden +guineas for a colourable Corot without having a tolerably clear notion of +how he meant to reimburse himself if it should turn out that he had paid +too dear for his whistle. + +The hint imparted by his garrulous acquaintance of the auction room--to the +effect that the Princess Sofia was famous, among other things, for the +magnificence of her personal jewellery--had found a good home where it +wasn't in danger of suffering for want of doting interest. + +And now one knew where their owner lived, and in what state ... + +Alighting at his own door, the adventurer surprised Prince Victor, morosely +ambling by, in his vast fatuity no doubt imagining that his passage through +Halfmoon Street would go unremarked in the dusk of that early winter +evening. He wasn't at all pleased to find himself mistaken; and though +Lanyard did his best with his blandest smile to make amends for having +discomfited the prince by getting home later than he had promised to, his +good-natured effort was repaid only by a spiteful scowl. + +So he laughed aloud, and went indoors rejoicing. + +An hour or so later the painting was delivered by a porter from the auction +room. But Lanyard was in his bath at the time and postponed examining his +doubtful prize till he had dressed for dinner. For, though it was his whim +to dine in his rooms alone, and though he had no fixed plans for the +evening, Lanyard was too thoroughly cosmopolitan not to do in Cockaigne as +the Cockneys do. + +Besides, in this uncertain life one never knows what the next hour will +bring forth; whereas if one is in evening dress after six o'clock, one is +armoured against every emergency. + +At seven he sat down to the morbid sort of a meal one gets in London +lodgings: a calm soup; a segment of vague fish smothered painlessly in a +pale pink blanket of sauce; a cut from the joint, rare and lukewarm; +potatoes boiled dead; sad sea-kale; nonconformist pudding; conservative +biscuit, and radical cheese. + +With the aid and abetment of a bottle of excellent Montrachet, however, one +contrived to worry through. + +Meanwhile, Lanyard inspected his recent purchase, which occupied a place of +honour, propped up on the arms of the chair on his right. + +It was seldom that Lanyard entertained a guest of such equivocal character. +Wagging a reproving head--"My friend," he harangued the canvas, "you are +lucky to have been sold. Sorry I can't say as much for myself." + +It was really too bad it wasn't a bit better. It wasn't often that one +encountered so genuine a counterfeit. The hand of an artist had painted it, +but never the hand of Corot. Everything Corot was accustomed to put into +his painting was there, except himself. The abode had been prepared in all +respects as the master would have had it, but his spirit had not entered +into it, it remained without life. + +Still, Lanyard concluded, surveying his prize through the illusioning fumes +of his cigar, while the waiter cleared away, it wasn't so bad after all, it +wouldn't be in the end a total loss. He could afford to cart the thing back +to Paris with him and give it room in his private gallery; and some day, +doubtless, some rich American would pay a handsome price for it on the +strength of its having found place in the collection of Michael Lanyard, +even though it lacked the cachet of his guarantee. + +But what the devil had made it so precious to the soi-disant Prince Victor +and his charming wife? + +But for a single circumstance Lanyard would have been tempted to believe he +had been craftily rooked by an accomplished chevalier d'industrie and his +female confederate; but too much and too real passion had been betrayed in +the auction room to countenance that suspicion. + +No: he hadn't been rigged; at least, not by design. Something more than its +intrinsic value had rendered the canvas priceless in the esteem of those +two, something had been at stake more than mere possession of what they +might have believed to be a real Corot. + +But what? + +Perplexed, Lanyard took the picture in his hands--it was not too unwieldy, +even in its frame--and examined it with nose so close to the painted +surface that he seemed to be smelling it. Then he turned it over and +scowled at its reverse. And shook a baffled head. + +But when he tapped the face of the picture smartly with a finger-nail, he +gave a slight start, passed a hand over it with the palm pressed flat, and +suddenly assumed the humanly intelligent expression of a hunting-dog that +has hit on a warm scent. + +Strong fingers and a fruit knife quickly extracted the painting from its +frame and loosened the canvas from its stretcher, proving that the latter +held in fact two canvases instead of one. Between these had been secreted +several sheets of notepaper of two kinds, stamped with two crests, all +black with closely penned handwriting. + +Lanyard gathered them into a sheaf and scanned them cursorily, even with +distaste. True enough, it might be argued that he had bought and paid for +the right to pry into the secrets they betrayed; but it was not a right he +enjoyed exercising. A fairly thoroughgoing state of sophistication, +together with some innate instincts of delicacy, worked to render him to a +degree immune to such gratification as others might derive from being made +privy to an exotic affair of the heart. Revelation of human weakness was no +special treat to him. And if his eyebrows mounted as he read, if the +corners of his mouth drew down, if once and again he uttered an "_Oh! oh!_" +of shocked expostulation, he was (like most of us, incurably an actor in +private as well as in public life) merely running through business which +convention has designated as appropriate to such circumstances. At bottom +he was being stimulated to thought more than to derision. + +Putting the letters aside, he bowed his head upon a hand and reflected +sagely that love was the very deuce. + +He wondered if he could or ever would love or be loved so madly. + +He rather hoped not ... + +Here, if you please, was the scion of a reigning royal family risking as +pretty a scandal as one could well imagine--and all for love! Given a few +more days of life, and he would have jeopardized his right of succession +and set half-a-dozen European chancelleries by the ears--and all for love! +But for his untimely end, that poor, pretty creature would have joined her +life to his, consummating at one stroke her freedom from the intolerable +conditions of existence with Victor and a diplomatic convulsion which might +only too easily have precipitated all Europe into a great war--and all for +lawless love! + +So once more in history Death had served well the interests of public +morality. + +After a year these letters alone survived ... + +How they had survived, what hands had collected and secreted them, and for +what purpose, intrigued the imagination no end. Lanyard inclined to credit +Princess Sofia with the indiscretion of saving these souvenirs of a grande +passion that had almost made history. There was the sentimental motive to +account for such action, and another: the satisfaction of knowing she had +concrete proof of her intention to treat Victor as he had treated her. + +Then somehow the painting must have passed out of her possession; and in +all likelihood she had made frantic and awkward efforts to regain it which +had aroused the suspicions of Victor; with the sequel of that afternoon.... + +Lanyard's speculations were interrupted by the peremptory telephone. +Without premonition he picked up the combination receiver and transmitter. +But his memory was still so haunted by echoes of that delightful voice +which he had heard in the auction room, he couldn't entertain any doubt +that he heard it now. + +"Are you there?" it said "Will you be good enough to put me through to +Monsieur Lanyard?" + +The inspiration to mischief was instantaneous: Lanyard replied promptly in +accents as much unlike his own as he could manage: + +"Sorry, ma'am; Mister Lanyard dined hout to-night. Would there be any +message, ma'am?" + +"Oh, how annoying!" + +"Sorry, ma'am." + +"Do you know when he will be home?" + +"If this is the lidy 'e was expectin' to call this evenin'--" + +"Yes?" the dulcet voice said, encouragingly. + +"--Mister Lanyard sed as 'ow 'e might be quite lite, but 'e'd 'urry all 'e +could, ma'am, and would the lidy please wite." + +"Thank you _so_ much." + +"'Nk-you, ma'am." + +Smiling, Lanyard replaced the receiver and rang for the waiter. + +When that one answered, the adventurer was hatted and coated and opening +his door. + +"I'm called out," he said--"can't quite say when I'll be back. But I'm +expecting a lady to call. Will you tell the doorman to show her into my +rooms, please, and ask her to wait." + + + +VI + +THRSE + + +Posed in a blaze of lights, the Princess Sofia contemplated captiously the +charming image reflected in her cheval-glass. One little wrinkle, not +precisely of dissatisfaction, rather of enquiry, nestled between her +delicately arched brows. A look of misgiving clouded her wide eyes of a +wondering child. The bow of an exquisitely modelled mouth, whose single +fault lay in its being perhaps a trace too wide, described a shadowy pout. + +She was beautiful: yes. Nobody could question that. La beaut du diable, no +doubt, to Anglo-Saxon eyes, with that skin of incomparable texture and +whiteness relieved by a heavily coiled crown of living bronze, the crimson +insolence of that matchless mouth, those luminous and changeable eyes so +like the sea, whose green melted into blue with the swiftness of thought, +whose blue at times as swiftly shaded into stormy purple-black: but however +bizarre and barbaric, beauty none the less, and under the most meticulous +examination indisputable. + +But was she as radiant as she had been? + +On this her birthday she was twenty-five. Appalling age! Five years hence +she would be thirty, in ten more--forty! And woman's beauty fades so +swiftly: everybody said so. Was the shadow of to-morrow already dimming her +loveliness? How could it be otherwise? She had lived so long and so fully, +she had begun to live so young. Six years of marriage to Victor--that alone +should have been enough, one would think, to metamorphose the fairest face +into a blasted battlefield of passions. + +She had a little shiver of voluptuous horror, remembering what she had +endured and escaped. The sweet, true lines of her flawlessly made body were +transiently undulant within a sheath of shimmering sequins: a daring gown, +by British standards of that day, but permissible because she was Russian; +foreigners, you know, are so frightfully weird even when they're quite all +right. + +And yet she was growing old, she was twenty-five! Though she didn't feel in +the least like one on the threshold of middle age. Indeed, she had never +felt younger, more thrillingly instinct with the power and the will to live +extravagantly in one endless riot of youth unquenchable.... + +Reaction, of course: the swing of the pendulum to its farthest extreme. It +was now two years since she had been forced to separate from Victor, +finding herself unable longer to countenance and suffer his many-sided +beastliness; and a year since the hand of Death had penned an inexorable +finis to the too-brief chapter of her one great romance. + +For there had never been love in her life with Victor. She had been too +young at first to appreciate what love and marriage meant, she had been led +to the altar and sacrificed upon it as an animal is led in sacrificial +rites--without premonition or understanding, only wondering (perhaps) to +find itself so groomed and garlanded, so flattered and adored. She had +hardly known Victor before she was given to him in marriage by Imperial +ukase ... to get rid of her, probably, for some inscrutable reason related +to the mysterious circumstances of her parentage. + +And now after six years of hell with her husband and one of mourning in +solitude for her love that was lost, she was coming back to life again ... +at last! + +She lifted up arms that might have been a dream of Phidias chiselled in +Parian marble, and stretched them luxuriously. She was superbly alive, +indeed--and henceforth she meant to live. Only she must be careful to +retain her looks ... If Youth must surely go, Beauty must linger and reign +long in its stead. + +A maid, a comely creature, trim and smart in black and white, with that +vividly coloured prettiness which is too often the omen of premature +decline into the fat and florid thirties, fetched a wrap and settled it +upon Sofia's shoulders. + +Long and dark, it disguised her figure as completely as it covered her +toilette. She nodded her satisfaction, and accepted the veil which she had +desired to complete her disguise, a thing of Spanish lace, black and ample, +like a mantilla. But before donning it she delayed one minute more before +the mirror. + +"Thrse! Am I still beautiful?" + +"Madame la princesse is always beautiful." + +"As beautiful as I used to be?" + +"But madame la princesse grows more lovely every day." + +"Beautiful enough to-night, to keep out of jail, do you think?" + +To the mirth in the voice of her mistress the maid responded with a smile +demure and discreet. + +"Oh, madame!" was all she said; but the manner of her saying it was rarely +eloquent. + +Sofia laughed lightly, and affectionately pinched the cheek of the maid. + +"And you, my little one," she said in liquid French--"you yourself are too +ravishingly pretty to keep out of trouble. Do you know that?" + +Her little one looked more than ever demure as she enquired after the +hidden meaning of madame la princesse. + +"Because you will marry too soon, Thrse--too soon some worthless man will +persuade you to dedicate all those charms to him alone." + +"Oh, madame!" + +"Is it not so?" + +"Who knows, madame?" said Thrse, as who should say: "What must be, must." + +"Then there is a man! I suspected as much." + +"But, madame la princesse, is there not always a man?" + +"Then beware!" + +"Madame la princesse need not fear for me," Thrse replied. "Me, my head +is not so easily turned. There is always some man, naturally--there are so +many men!--but when I marry, rest assured, it will be for something more." + +With the compressed lips of self-approbation she deftly assisted her +mistress to swathe her head in the mantilla-like veil. + +"Something more than a man?" Sofia enquired through its folds. "What then?" + +"Independence, madame la princesse." + +"What an idea! Marriage and independence: how do you reconcile that +paradox?" + +"Madame la princesse means love, I think, when she speaks of marriage. But +love--that is all over and done with when one marries. One is then ready to +settle down; one has put by one's dot, and marries a worthy, industrious +man with a little fortune of his own. With such a husband one collaborates +in the maintenance of the mnage and the management of a small business, +something substantial if small. And so one ends one's days in comfortable +companionship. That, madame la princesse, is the marriage for Thrse! It +may not sound romantic, madame, but it has this rare virtue--it lasts!" + + + +VII + +FAMILY REUNION + + +The London night was normal: that is to say, wet. Darkness had transformed +the streets into vast sheets of black satin shot with golden strands and +studded with lamp-posts like sturdy stems for ethereal blooms of golden +haze. Within their areas of glow the air teemed with atoms of liquid gold. +The ring of hoofs on wet pavements was at once disturbing and inspiriting. + +Alone in her hired hansom the Princess Sofia sat with the window raised, +drinking deep of the soft damp air, finding it as heady as strange wine. +Under cover of the veil her eyes were brilliant with awareness of her +audacity, her lips were parted with the promise of a smile. + +She loved it all, she adored this mood of London: its nights of rain were +sheer enchantment, arabesque, nights of secrecy and stealth, mystery, and +romance under the rose. On nights such as this lovers prospered, adventures +were to the venturesome, brave rewards to the bold. + +For herself she was unafraid, she foretasted entire success. How should it +be otherwise? Consider how famously chance had prospered her designs, +playing into her hands the information that this Monsieur Lanyard was not +at home, might not return till very late, and was expecting a call from +somebody whom he desired to await his return in his rooms! + +With such an open occasion, how could one fail? + +Sofia asked only three minutes alone with the painting.... + +And if by any mishap she were caught, still she would not be dismayed. The +letters were hers, were they not? They had been stolen from her, he had no +right title to them who had purchased only the picture which had served as +their hiding-place. By all means, let him keep that stupid canvas; he could +hardly refuse to let her have her letters, not if she pleaded her +prettiest. And even if he should prove obtuse, ungenerous.... + +Her smile was definite and confident. She was beautiful--and Monsieur +Lanyard was aware of that. Had she not, that afternoon, in the auction +room, without his knowledge detected admiration in his eyes, a look warm +with something more than admiration only? + +He was impressionable, then. And it would be no distasteful task to play +upon his susceptibilities. He was not only personally attractive +("magnetic" was the catch-word of the period), but if half that Lady +Diantha had hinted concerning him were true, to make a conquest of Michael +Lanyard would be a feather in the cap of any woman, to attempt it a +temptation all but irresistible to one--like Sofia--in whose veins ran the +ichor of progenitors to whom the scent of danger had been as breath of life +itself. It was hardly conceivable; even now Sofia must smile at her +friend's amiable endeavours to identify this mysterious monsieur with a +celebrated and preposterous criminal. + +It might be true that, as Lady Diantha had declared, wherever Michael +Lanyard showed himself in open pursuit of his avowed avocation as a +collector of rare works of art--in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, or +where-not--there in due sequence the Lone Wolf would consummate one of his +fantastic coups. + +And it was indisputable that Lanyard was at present living in London, where +for some time past the Lone Wolf had been perniciously busy; or else his +bad name had been taken in vain by a baffled and exasperated Scotland Yard. + +Again: Diantha had insisted that the Lone Wolf was by every evidence +completely woman-proof; and there might be something in her contention that +such an elusive yet spectacularly successful thief could hardly have won +the high place he held in the annals of criminology and in the esteem of +the sensation-loving public, if he were one who maintained normal relations +with his kind. + +Sooner or later (so ran Diantha's borrowed reasoning) the criminal who has +close friends, a wife, a mistress, children, family ties of any sort, or +even body-servants, must willy-nilly repose confidence in one of these, and +then inevitably will be betrayed. Depend upon envy, jealousy, spite, or +plain venal disloyalty, if accident or inadvertence fail, to lay the +law-breaker by the heels. + +Therefore (Diantha argued) the Lone Wolf must be a confirmed solitary and +misogynist--very much like this Monsieur Lanyard, according to reports +which declared the latter to be a man who kept to himself, had many +acquaintances and not one intimate, and was positively insulated against +wiles of woman. + +But--granting all this--it was none the less true that the utmost +diligence, spurred by the pique, ill-will, and ambition of the police of +all Europe, had failed as yet to forge any link between the supercriminal +of the age and the distinguished connoisseur of art. Other than Lady +Diantha and the gossips whose arguments she was retailing, never a soul (so +far as Sofia knew) had ventured to breathe a breath of suspicion upon the +good repute of Monsieur Lanyard. + +In short, Diantha's conjectures had been entirely second-hand, and not even +meant to be taken seriously. + +And yet the suggestion had fastened firm hold upon the imagination of the +Princess Sofia. + +If it were true ... what an adventure! + +There was unaccustomed light of daring in the eyes of the princess, +unwonted colour tinted her cheeks. + +The hansom stopped, discharged the fairest fare it had ever carried, and +rattled off, leaving Sofia just a trifle daunted and dubious, the animation +of her anticipations something dashed by the uncompromising respectability, +the self-conscious worthiness of Halfmoon Street. + +Enfolded in the very heart of Mayfair, its brief length bounded on the +north by Curzon Street (its name alone sufficient voucher for its +character), on the south by Piccadilly (hereabouts somewhat oppressive with +its hedge of stately clubs, membership in any one of which is equivalent to +two years' unchallenged credit) Halfmoon Street is largely given over to +furnished lodgings. But it doesn't advertise the fact, its landlords are +apt to be retired butlers to the nobility and gentry, its lodgers English +gentlemen who have brought home livers from India, or assorted disabilities +from all known quarters of the globe, and who desire nothing better than to +lead steady-paced lives within walking distance of their favourite clubs. +So Halfmoon Street remains quietly estimable, a desirable address, and +knows it, and doggedly means to hold fast to that repute. + +A strange environment (Sofia thought) for an adventurer like the Lone Wolf. + +But then--of course!--Diantha's innuendoes had been based on flimsiest +hearsay. The chances were that Michael Lanyard was an utterly uninteresting +person of blameless life. + +So thinking, the Princess Sofia was sensible of a pang of regret, and tried +to be prepared against bitter disappointment as she rang the bell. Either +she would fail to obtain admittance (perhaps the lady whom he was really +expecting had forestalled her) or else Lanyard would fail to come home in +time to catch her! Quite probably it would turn out to be a dull and +depressing evening, after all.... + +The servant who admitted her in manner and appearance lent colour to these +forebodings. A creature hopelessly commonplace, resigned, and unemotional, +to her enquiry for Monsieur Lanyard he returned the discounted response: +Mister Lanyard was hout, 'e might not be 'ome till quite lite, but 'ad left +word that if a lidy called she was to be awsked to wite. The princess +indicating her desire to wite, the man turned to the nearest door +(Lanyard's rooms were on the street level), opened it with a pass-key, +stepped inside to make a light, and when Sofia entered silently bowed +himself out. + +Now when the latch clicked behind him, the Princess Sofia forgot that the +simplicity of her success thus far was almost discouraging. Her heart began +to beat more quickly, and a little tremor shook the hands that lifted and +threw back her veil. After all, she was committing an act of lawless +trespass, she was on the errand of a thief; if caught the penalty might +prove most painful and humiliating. + +Of a sudden she lost appetite entirely for a piquant encounter with the +prepossessing tenant of these rooms. Now she desired nothing so dearly as +to consummate her business and escape with all possible expedition. + +A swift and searching survey of the living-room descried nothing that +seemed apt to hinder or detain her. A large room, unusually wide and deep, +it had two windows overlooking the street, with a curtained doorway at the +back that led (one surmised) to a bedchamber. It was furnished in such +excellent taste that one suspected Monsieur Lanyard must have brought in +his own belongings on taking possession. The handsome rug, the well-chosen +draperies, the several excellent pictures and bronzes, were little in +character with the furnished lodgings of the London average, even with +those of the better sort. + +She had no time, however, to squander on appreciation of artistic +atmosphere, however pleasing, and needed to waste none searching for the +object of her desires. It faced her, distant not six paces from the +door--that shameless little "Corot"!--resting on the arms of a +straight-backed chair. + +A low laugh of delight on her lips, she went swiftly to the chair and laid +hold of the picture by its frame. In that act she checked, startled, +transfixed, the laugh freezing into a gasp of alarm. + +Brass rings slithered on a pole supporting the portires at the back of the +room. These parted. Through them a man emerged. + +Her grasp on the picture relaxed. It struck a corner against the chair and +clattered on the floor--the canvas on its stretcher simultaneously flying +out of the frame. + +"Victor!" + +"Sweet of you to remember me!" + +He advanced slowly with that noiseless, cat-like tread of his which she had +always hated, perceiving in it a true index to his character: the prowl of +a beast of prey, furtive, cowardly, cruel. It was so: Victor was as feline +and as vicious as a jungle-cat. Watching him with this thought in mind, one +could almost credit old tales of beasts bewitched and walking in human +guise. + +Near by he paused, alertly poised, prepared to spring. The slotted black +eyes glimmered malignantly. His lips drew back in mockery from his teeth. +His hands were hidden in the pockets of his dinner-coat; but she could +guess how they were held, like claws, in that concealment, claws itching +for her throat. She dared not stir lest she feel them there, digging deep +into her soft white flesh. + +Witless, in the extremity of her terror, she stammered: "What do you want?" + +A nod indicated the picture that lay between them, at their feet. + +"My errand," the man said in a silken tone that gloved grimmest menace, "is +much the same as yours--quite naturally--but more fortunate; for I shall +get not only what I came for, but something more." + +"What--?" + +"The opportunity to plead with you, face to face. I think you will hardly +refuse to listen to me now." + +"How--how did you get in?" + +"Oh, secretly! By the window, if you must know; but quite unseen. You see, +_I_ had no invitation." + +"I never thought you had--" + +"Nor did I think you had--till now." + +Puzzled, she faltered: "I don't understand--" + +"Surely you don't wish me to believe my pretty Sofia has turned thief?" + +That stung her pride. She drew upon an unsuspected store of spirit, +confronting him bravely. + +"What is it to me, what you choose to think?" + +"I refuse to think that of you. My reason will not let me believe it." + +She saw that he was shaking with rage; so she shrugged and drawled: "Oh, +your _reason_--!" + +"It tells me you for one did not come here to-night uninvited." He was +rapidly losing grip on his temper. "Oh, it's plain enough! I was a fool not +to understand, there in the auction room, when my face was slapped with +proof of your liaison with this Lanyard!" + +She said in mild expostulation: "But you are quite mad." + +"Perhaps--but not so as to be blind to the truth. You had him there this +afternoon to bid that picture in for you if your own means failed. Why else +should the man, who knows pictures as I know you, pay twenty thousand +guineas for a footling copy of a Corot that wouldn't deceive a--a Royal +Academician! Yes: he bid it in for you--the sorry fool!--bought with his +own money the evidence of your infatuation for his predecessor in your +affections--and expects you here to-night to receive it from him and--pay +him _his_ price! Ah, don't try to deny it!" + +He growled like a very animal, beside himself. "Why else should you be +admitted to these rooms without question in his absence?" + +Without visible resentment, the Princess Sofia nodded thoughtfully into +those distorted features. + +"Yes," she commented: "quite, quite mad." + +As if she had offered without warning to strike him, Victor recoiled and +for an instant stood gibbering. And she took advantage of this moment in +one lithe bound to put the table between them. + +The manoeuvre sobered him. He did not move, but in two breaths forced +himself to cease to tremble, and subdued every symptom of his passion. Only +his face remained sinister. + +"Graceful creature!" he observed, sardonic. "Such agility! But what good +will that do you, do you think? Eh? Tell me that!" + +It was her turn to shiver, and inwardly she did, who was never quite able +to combat the fear which Victor could inspire in her by such demonstrations +of the power of his will. The self-control which he had always at his +command was something that passed her understanding; it seemed inhuman, it +terrified her. + +Nevertheless, so exigent was this strait, she continued to confront him +with a face of unflinching defiance. + +In a voice whose steadiness surprised her she declared: "The letters are +mine. You shan't have them." + +"Undeceive yourself: I'll have them though you never leave this room +alive." + +More to give herself time to think than in any hope of moving him, she +began to plead: + +"Let me have them, Victor--let me go." + +Smiling darkly, he shook his head. + +"The letters mean nothing to you. What good--?" + +He interrupted impatiently: "I shall publish them." + +"Impossible--!" + +"But I shall." + +Aghast, she protested: "You can't mean that!" + +"Why not? The world shall know your true reason for leaving me--that you +were the mistress of another man--and who that man was!" + +Staring, she uttered in a low voice: "Never!" + +"Or," he amended, deliberately, "you may keep them, burn them, do what you +will with them--on fair terms--_my_ terms." + +She said nothing, but her dilate eyes held fixedly to his. He moved a pace +or two nearer, his voice dropped to a lower key, the light she had learned +to loathe flickered in the depths of his eyes. + +"Come back to me, Sofia! I can't live without you ..." + +Her lips moved to deny him, but made no sound. Now it was revealed to her, +the way. + +"Come back to me, Sofia!" + +His hand crept along the edge of the table and lifted, quivering, to +capture hers. She steeled herself to endure its touch, against sickening +repulsion she fought to achieve a smile that would carry a suggestion of at +least forgetfulness. + +"And if I do--?" she murmured. + +He gave a violent start, blood suffused his face darkly, his arms leapt out +to enfold her. She stepped back, evading him with a movement of coquetry +that served, as it was intended, to inflame him the more. + +"Wait!" she insisted. "Answer me first: If I return to you--then what?" + +"Everything shall be as you wish--everything forgotten--I will think of +nothing but how to make you happy--" + +"And I may have my letters?" + +He nodded, swallowing hard, as if the concession well-nigh choked him. + +Under his gloating gaze her flesh crawled. Only by supreme effort did she +succeed in resisting a mad impulse to risk a rush for door or windows, and +whipped her will into maintaining what seemed to be frank response. + +"Very well," she said; "I agree." + +Again he offered to touch her, again she moved slightly, eluding him. + +"No," she stipulated with an arch glance--"not yet! First prove you mean to +make good your word." + +"How?" + +"Let me go--with my letters--and call on me to-morrow." + +His look clouded. "Can I trust you?" He was putting the question to himself +more than to her. "Dare I?" He added in a tone colourless and flat: "I've +half a mind to take you at your word. Only--forgive my doubts--appearances +are against you--you seem almost too keen for the bargain. How can I +know--?" + +"What proof do you want?" + +"Something definite.... You pledge yourself to me?" A movement of her head +assented. "You will give yourself back to me?" He came nearer, but she +contrived to repeat the sign of assent. "Wholly, without reserve?" + +An invincible disgust shook her as the full sense of his insistence struck +home. Still she whipped herself to play out the scene--and win! + +"As you say, Victor, as you will...." + +He moved still nearer. She became conscious of his nearness as if a +palpable aura of vileness emanated from his person. + +"Then give me proof--here and now." + +"How?" + +He laughed a throaty, evil laugh. "Need you ask? Not much, my Sofia ... +only a little ... something on account..." Suddenly she could no more: +memories unspeakable rose like disturbed dregs to the surface of her +consciousness. Involuntarily, not knowing what she did, she flung out an +arm and struck down his hands. + +"You--leper!" + +The epithet was like a knout cutting through the decayed fibre of the man +and raising a livid welt on his diseased soul. Galled beyond endurance, his +countenance convulsed with fury, he struck wickedly; and the vicious blow +of his open palm across her mouth brought flecks of blood to the lips as +her teeth cut into the tender flesh. + +It did far more, it shattered at one stroke the brittle casing of +self-command with which centuries of civilization had sought to veneer the +Slav. In a trice a woman whose existence neither of them had suspected was +revealed, a fury incarnate flew at the dismayed prince, clawing, tearing, +raining blows upon his face and bosom. Overcome by surprise, blinded, +dazed, staggered, he gave ground, stumbled, caught at a chair to steady +himself. + +As abruptly as it had begun, the assault ceased. Panting and frantic, the +girl fell back, paused, renewed her grasp upon herself, gazed momentarily +in contempt on that dashed and quaking figure, then swiftly swooped down to +retrieve the picture, and madly pelted toward the door. + +In an instant, Victor was after her. His clutching fingers barely missed +her shoulder but caught a flying end of the veil that swathed her throat +and head. With finger-tips touching the door-knob Sofia was checked and +twitched back so violently that she was all but thrown off her feet. + +She tried desperately to regain her balance, but the pressure round her +throat, tightening, bade fair to suffocate her; and reeling, while her +hands tore ineffectually at the folds of the veil, she was drawn back and +back, and tripped, falling half on, half off the table. + +Already her vision was darkening, her lungs were labouring painfully, her +head throbbed with the revolt of strangulated arteries as if sledge hammers +were seeking to smash through her skull. + +Through closing shadows she saw that savage mask which hovered over her, +moping and mowing, as Victor twisted and drew ever more tight the murderous +bindings round her throat. + +A groping hand encountered something on the table, a lump of metal, cold +and heavy. She seized and dashed it brutally into that hateful face, saw +his head jerk back and heard him grunt with pain, and struck again, +blindly, with all her might. + +Instantly the pressure upon her throat was eased. She heard a groan, a +fall ... + + + +VIII + +GREEK VS. GREEK + + +She found herself standing, partly resting upon the table. Great, tearing +sobs racked her slight young body--but at least she was breathing, there +was no more constriction of her windpipe; Her head still ached, however, +her neck felt stiff and sore, and she remained somewhat giddy and confused. + +She eyed rather wildly her hands. One held torn and ragged folds of the +veil ripped from her throat, the other the weapon with which she had +cheated death: a bronze paperweight, probably a miniature copy of a Barye, +an elephant trumpeting. The up-flung trunk was darkly stained and +sticky.... + +With a shudder she dropped the bronze, and looked down. Victor lay at her +feet, supine, grotesquely asprawl. His face was bruised and livid; the +cheek laid open by the bronze was smeared with scarlet, accentuating the +leaden colour of his skin. His mouth was ajar; his eyes, half closed, +hideously revealed slender slits of white. More blood discoloured his right +temple, welling from under the matted, coarse black hair. + +He was terribly motionless. If he breathed, Sofia could detect no sign of +it. + +In panic she knelt beside the body, threw back Victor's dinner-coat, and +laid an ear above his heart. + +At first, in her mad anxiety, she could hear nothing. But presently a +beating registered, slow and harsh but steady-paced. + +With a sob of relief she sat back on her heels, and after a little while +got unsteadily to her feet. + +The house door closed with a dull bang, and from the entrance hallway came +a sound of voices. She stood petrified in dread till the voices fell and +she heard stairs creak under an ascending tread. + +Thus reminded that Lanyard's return might occur at any moment, she made all +haste to patch up the disarray of veil and coiffure. Fortunately her +costume, protected by the cloak of heavy and sturdy stuff, was quite +undamaged. + +Not till on the point of leaving did she remember the painting. It lay +unharmed where it had fallen when Victor seized her veil. She was calm +enough now to consider herself fortunate in finding it so poorly secured in +its frame; without the latter it would be far easier to smuggle the canvas +away under her cloak. + +In the final glance she bent upon Victor's beaten and insensible body there +was no pity, no regret, no trace of compunction. What he had suffered he +had ten times--no, a hundred, a thousand--earned. Long before she left him +Sofia had lost count of the blows she had taken at his hands, the insults +worse than blows, the lesser indignities innumerable. + +But in those abolished days she had never once struck back, she had been +faint of heart, cowed and terrified, and had lacked what two years of +separation had given her, that spiritual independence which never before +had been able to realize itself, lift up its head, and grow strong in the +assurance of its own integrity. + +Two years ago she would not have dared to lift a hand to Victor, no matter +how sore the provocation. To-night--if she had one regret it was that she +had struck so feebly: not that she desired his death, but that she knew it +was now her life or his. She knew the man too well to flatter herself that +he would rest before he had compassed such revenge as the baseness of his +degenerate soul would deem adequate. Half the world were not too much to +put between them if she were now to sleep of nights in comfortable +consciousness of security from his quenchless hatred. + +Callously enough she switched off the lights and left him lying there, in +darkness but for the ash-dimmed glimmer of a dying fire. + +In the entrance hallway she hesitated, coldly composed and alert. But +seemingly the noise of their struggle had not carried beyond the door. +There was no one about. + +With neither haste nor faltering, without the least misadventure, she let +herself quietly out into the empty, silent, rain-swept street, and scurried +toward the lights of Piccadilly. + +Before long a cruising four-wheeler overhauled her. In its obscure and +stuffy refuge she sat hugging her precious canvas and pondering her plight. + +It was borne in upon her that she would do well to leave London, yes, and +England, too, before Victor recovered sufficiently to scheme and put a +watch upon her movements. + +She had need henceforth to be swift and wary and shrewd.... + +A singular elation began to colour her temper, a quickening sense of +emancipation. Necessity at a stroke had set her free. Because she must fly +and hide to save her life, society had no more hold upon her, she need no +longer fight to keep up appearances in spite of her status as a woman +living apart from her husband, little better than a divorce--an estate +anathema to the English of those days. + +She experienced, through the play of her imagination upon this new and +startling conception of life, an intoxicating prelibation of freedom such +as she had never dreamed to savour. + +That waywardness which was a legitimate inheritance from generations of +wilful forebears, impatient of all those restraints which a fixed +environment imposes upon the individual, an impatience which had always +been hers though it slumbered in unsuspected latency, asserted itself of a +sudden, possessed her wholly, and warmed, her being like forbidden wine. + +In this humour she was set down at her door. + +None saw her enter. In a moment of vaguely prophetic foresight she had +bidden Thrse not to wait up for her and to tell the other servants there +was no necessity for their doing so. She might be detained, Heaven alone +knew how late she might be; but she had her latch-key and was quite +competent to undress and put herself to bed. + +And Thrse had taken her at her word. + +She was glad of that. In event that anything should leak out and be printed +by the newspapers concerning the theft of Monsieur Lanyard's famous "Corot" +by a strange, closely veiled woman, it was just as well that none of the +servants was about to see her come in with the canvas clumsily hidden under +her cloak. + +So she exercised much circumspection in shutting and bolting the door, +mounted the stairs without making any unnecessary stir, and at the door of +her boudoir waited, listening, for several moments, in the course of which +she heard, or fancied she heard, a slight noise on the far side of the door +which made her suspect Thrse might after all still be up and about. + +The sound was not repeated, but to make sure Sofia slipped out of her cloak +and wrapped it round the canvas before she went in; which last she did +sharply, with head up and eyes flashing ominously beneath scowling +brows--prepared to give Thrse a rare taste of temper if she found she had +been disobeyed. + +But though the maid had left the lights on, she was nowhere to be seen. Nor +did she answer from the bedchamber when the princess called her. + +With a sigh of relief that ran into the chuckle of a child absorbed in +mischief, Sofia threw the cloak across a chaise-longue, and bore her prize +in triumph to the escritoire. + +It was her intention to rip the canvas off with a knife, to get at the +letters; and a long, thin-bladed Spanish dagger that now did service as a +paper-knife was actually in her hand when she noticed how slightly the +painting was tacked to its stretcher, and for the first time was visited by +premonition. + +Dropping the knife, she caught a loose edge of the canvas and with one +swift tug stripped it clear of the unpainted fabric beneath. + +The cry that disappointment wrung from her was bitter with protest and +chagrin. + +Fortune had failed her, then, the jade had tricked her heartlessly. With +success within her grasp, it had trickled like quicksilver through her +fingers. Victor had been beforehand with her, had purloined the letters and +restored the canvas to its frame. She might have suspected as much if she +had only had the wit to draw a natural inference from the way the painting +had parted company with its frame when she dropped it. + +So the letters for which she had risked and suffered so much must be back +there, in Lanyard's lodgings, in Victor's possession--lost irretrievably, +since she would never find the courage to go back for them, even if she +dared assume that Victor had not yet recovered and escaped or that Lanyard +had not yet come home. + +If only she had thought to rifle Victor's pockets ... + +"Too late," she uttered in despair. + +"Ah, madame, never say that!" + +She swung round but, shocked as she was to the verge of stupefaction, made +no outcry. + +The intruder stood within arm's-length, collected, amiable, debonair, +nothing threatening in his attitude, merely an easy and at the same time +quite respectful suggestion of interest. + +"Monsieur Lanyard!" + +His bow was humorous without mockery: "Madame la princesse does me much +honour." + +She was silent another instant, in a wide stare comprehending the +incredible, the utterly impossible fact of his presence there. The one +conceivable explanation voiced itself without her volition: + +"The Lone Wolf!" + +"Oh, come now!" he remonstrated, indulgently--"that's downright flattery." + +She moved aside, lifting a hand toward the bell-cord. + +"Wait!" + +Involuntarily she deferred, her arm dropped. Then, appreciating that she +had yielded where he had no right to command, she mutinied. + +"Why?" she demanded, resentfully. + +"Why ring?" he countered, smiling. + +"To call my servants--to have them call in the police." + +"But surely madame la princesse must appreciate the police might be at a +loss to know which housebreaker to arrest." + +He cocked an eye of mocking significance toward the purloined "Corot," and +in sharp revulsion of feeling Sofia had need to bite her lip to keep from +laughing. She hesitated. He was right and reasonable enough, this impudent +and imperturbable young elegant. Yet she could not afford to concede so +much to him. She was quick to accept his gage. + +"Who knows," she enquired, obliquely, "why Monsieur the Lone Wolf brought +with him this counterfeit Corot when he broke in to steal--" + +"The counterfeit jewels of a titled adventuress!" + +An interruption brusque enough to silence her; or else it was its innuendo +that struck the princess dumb with indignation. Lanyard's laugh offered +amends for the rudeness, as if he said: "Sorry--but you asked for it, you +know." He stepped aside, caught up a handful of her jewels that had been +left, a tempting heap, openly exposed on her dressing-table (as much her +own carelessness as anybody's, Sofia admitted) and tossed them lightly upon +the face of the fraudulent canvas. + +"Birds of a feather," was his comment, whimsical; "coals to Newcastle!" + +"My jewels!" The princess gathered them up tenderly and faced him, blazing +with resentment. He returned a twisted smile, an apologetic shrug. + +"Madame la princesse didn't know? I'm so sorry." + +"How dare you say they're paste?" + +"I'm sorry," he repeated; "but somebody seems to have taken advantage of +madame's confidence. Excellent imitations, I grant you, but articles de +Paris none the less." + +"It isn't true!" she stormed, near to tears. + +"But really, you must believe me. A knowledge of jewels is one of my +hobbies: I _know!_" + +She looked down in consternation at the exquisite trinkets he had condemned +so bluntly. Then in a fit of temper she flung them from her with all her +might, threw herself upon the chaise-longue, and wept passionately into its +cushions. Then the young man proved himself tolerably instructed in the +ways of womankind. He said nothing more, made no offer to comfort her by +those futile and empty pats on the shoulder which are instinctive with man +on such occasions, but simply sat him down and waited. + +In time the tempest passed, Sofia sat up and dabbled her eyes with a web of +lace and linen. Then she looked round with a tentative smile that was +wholly captivating. She was one of those rare women who can afford to cry. + +"It's so humiliating!" she protested with racial ingenuousness--one of her +most compelling charms. "But it's ridiculous, too. I was so sure no one +would ever know." + +"No one but an expert ever would, madame." + +"You see"--apparently she had forgotten that Lanyard was anything but a +lifelong friend--"I needed money so badly, I had them reproduced and sold +the originals." + +"Madame la princesse--if she will permit--commands my profound sympathy." + +"But," she remembered, drying her eyes, "you called me an adventuress, +too!" + +"But," he contended, gravely, "you had already called me the Lone Wolf." + +"But what do you expect, monsieur, when I find you in my rooms--?" + +"But what does madame la princesse expect when I find she had been to +mine--and brought something valuable away with her, too!" + +"I had a reason--" + +"So had I." + +"What was it?" + +"Perhaps it was to see madame la princesse alone--secretly--without +exciting the jealousy, which I understand is supernormal, of monsieur le +prince." + +"But why should you wish to see me alone?" she demanded, with widening +eyes. + +"Perhaps to beg madame's permission to offer her what may possibly prove +some slight consolation." + +She weighed his words in dark distrust. What was this consolation? What his +game? His attitude remained consistently too deferential and punctilious +for one to suspect that by consolation he meant love-making. + +"But how did you get in?" + +"By the front door, madame. I find it ajar--one assumes, through oversight +on the part of one of the servants--it opens to a touch, I walk in--et +voila!" + +His levity was infectious. In spite of herself, she smiled in sympathy. + +"And what, pray, is this wonderful consolation you would offer me?" + +He produced from a pocket a packet of papers. + +"I think madame la princesse is interested in these," he said. "If she will +be so amiable as to accept them from me, with my compliments and one little +word of advice...." + +"Ah, monsieur!" Look and tone thanked him more than words could ever. "You +are too kind! And your advice--?" + +"They tell too much, madame, those letters. And I see you have a fire in +the grate ..." + +"Monsieur has reason...." + +She rose, went to the fireplace and, half kneeling, thrust the letters one +by one into the incandescent bed of coals. A ceremony of sentiment at any +other time, but not now: her thoughts were far from the man with whose +memory these letters were linked, they were in fact not wholly articulate. +Just what was passing through her mind she herself would have found it hard +to define; she was mainly conscious of a flooding emotion of gratitude +to Lanyard; but there was something more, a feeling not unakin to +tenderness.... + +The reaction of her vital young body from a desperate physical conflict, +the rapid play of her passions from anger and despair through triumph and +delight to gratification and content, from the bitterest sense of +frustration and peril to one of security; the uprush of those strange +instincts which had lain dormant till roused by the knowledge that she was +free at length from the maddening stupidity of social life, together with +her recent, implicit self-dedication to a life in all things its converse: +these influences were working upon her so strongly as to render her mood +more dangerous than she guessed. + +Disturbed in her formless reverie, an aimless groping through a bewildering +maze of emotions but vaguely apprehended, she started up, faced round and +saw Lanyard, topcoat over arm and hat in hand, about to open the door. + +"Monsieur!" + +He looked back, coolly quizzical. "Madame?" + +"What are you doing?" + +"Taking my unobtrusive departure, madame la princesse, by the way I came." + +"But--wait--come back!" + +He shrugged agreeably, released the door-knob, and stood before her, or +rather over her--for he was the taller by a good five inches--looking down, +quietly at her service. + +"I haven't thanked you." + +"For what, madame? For treating myself to an amusing adventure?" + +"It has cost you dear!" + +"The fortunes of war ..." + +Her hands rose unconsciously, with an uncertain movement. Her face was soft +with an elusive bloom of unwonted feeling. Her eyes held a puzzled look, as +if she did not quite understand what was moving her so deeply. + +"You are a strange man, monsieur...." + +"And what shall one say of madame la princesse?" + +She could but laugh; and laughter rings the death-knell of constraint. + +But Lanyard remembered uneasily that somebody--Solomon or some other who +must have led an interesting life--had remarked that the lips of a strange +woman are smoother than oil. + +"None the less, monsieur, I am deeply in your debt." + +His smile of impersonal courtesy failed. He was becoming more sensitive +than he liked to her charm and the warm sentiment she was giving out to +him. This strange access in her of haunting loveliness, the gentle shadows +that lay beneath her wide--yet languorous eyes, the almost imperceptible +tremor of her sweetly fashioned lips, all troubled him profoundly. He +exerted himself to break the spell upon his senses which this woman, +wittingly or not, was weaving. But the effort was at best half-hearted. + +"I am well repaid," he said a bit stiffly, "by the knowledge that the +honour of madame la princesse is safe." + +Sofia laughed breathlessly. Somehow her hands had found the way to his. Her +glance wavered and fell. + +"But is it?" she asked in a tone so intimate that it was barely audible. +And she laughed once more. "I am not so sure ... as long as monsieur is +here." + +Lanyard's mouth twitched, slow colour mounted in his face, the light in his +eyes was lambent. He found himself looking deep into other eyes that were +like pools of violet shadow troubled by a deep surge and resurge of feeling +for which there was no name. Aware that they revealed more than he ought to +know, he sought to escape them by bending his lips to Sofia's hands. + +Sighing softly, she resigned them to his kisses. + + + +IX + +PAID IN FULL + + +It was late when Lanyard got home, but not too late: when he entered his +living-room enough life lingered in the embers in the grate to betray to +him a feline shape on all-fours creeping toward his bedchamber door. As he +switched up the lights it bounded to its feet and dived through the +portires with such celerity that he saw little more of it than coat-tails +level on the wind. + +Dropping hat and canvas, Lanyard gave chase and overhauled the marauder as +he was clambering out through the open window, where a firm hand on his +collar checked his preparations to drop half a dozen feet to the flagged +court. + +Victor swore fretfully and lashed out a random fist, which struck Lanyard's +cheek a glancing blow that carried just enough sting to kindle resentment. +So the virtuous householder was rather more than unceremonious about +yanking the princely housebreaker inside and lending him a foot to +accelerate his return to the living-room; where Victor brought up, on +all-fours again, in almost precisely the spot from which he had risen. + +He bounced up, however, with a surprising amount of animation and ambition, +and flew back to the offensive with flailing fists. In this his judgment +was grievously in fault. Lanyard sidestepped, nipped a wrist, twitched it +smartly up between the man's shoulder-blades (with a wrench that won a +grunt of agony), caught the other arm from behind by the hollow of its +elbow, and held his victim helpless--though ill-advised enough to continue +to hiss and spit and squirm and kick. + +A heel that struck Lanyard's shin earned Victor a shaking so thoroughgoing +that he felt the teeth rattle in his jaws. When it was suspended, he was +breathless but thoughtful, and offered no objection to being searched. +Lanyard relieved him of a revolver and a dirk, then with a push sent Victor +reeling to the table, where he stood panting, quivering, and glaring +murder, while his captor put the dagger away and examined the firearm. + +"Wicked thing," he commented--"loaded, too. Really, monsieur le prince +should be more careful. One of these fine days, if you don't stop playing +with such weapons, one of these will go off right in your hand--and the +next high-light in your history will be when the judge says: 'And may the +Lord have mercy on your soul!'" + +Victor confided his sentiments to a handkerchief with which he was mopping +his face. Lanyard sat down and wagged a reproving head. + +"Didn't catch," he said; "perhaps it's just as well, though; sounded +like bad words. Hope I'm mistaken, of course: princes ought to set +impressionable plebeians a better pattern." + +He cocked a critical eye. "You're a sight, if you don't mind my saying +so--look as if the sky had caved in on you. May one ask what happened? Did +it stub its toe and fall?" + +Victor suspended operations with the handkerchief to bend upon his +tormentor a louring, distrustful stare. His head was still heavy, hot, and +painful, his mental processes thick with lees of coma; but now he began to +appreciate, what naturally seemed apparent, that Lanyard must be +unacquainted with the cause of his injuries. + +A searching look round the room confirmed him in this error. The canvas lay +where Lanyard had dropped it on entering, not in the spot where Victor +remembered seeing it last, but where conceivably an unheeded kick might +have sent it in the course of his struggle with Sofia. She must have +forgotten it, then, when she fled from what she probably thought was +murder, and what might well have been. + +He was much too sore and shaken to be subtle; and the general trend of his +conjectures was perfectly legible to Lanyard, who without delay set himself +to conjure away any lingering suspicion of his guilelessness. + +"Not squiffy, are you, by any chance?" he enquired with the kindliest +interest. "You look as if you'd wound up a spree by picking a fight with a +bobby. Your cheek's cut and all (shall we say, in deference to the +well-known prejudices of the dear B.P.?) ensanguined. Sit down and pull +yourself together before you try to explain to what I owe this honour--and +so forth." + +He got up, clapped a hand on Prince Victor's shoulder, and steered him into +an easy chair. + +"Anything more I can do to put you at your ease? Would a brandy and soda +help, do you think?" + +The suggestion was acceptable: Victor signified as much with an ungracious +mumble. Lanyard fetched glasses, a decanter, a siphon-bottle, and supplied +his guest with a liberal hand before helping himself. + +Victor took the drink without a word of thanks and gulped it down noisily. +Lanyard drank sparingly, then crossed the room to a bell-push. Seeing his +finger on it Prince Victor started from his chair, but Lanyard hospitably +waved him back. + +"Don't go yet," he pleaded. "You've only just dropped in, we haven't had +half a chance to chat. Besides, you mustn't forget I've got your pistol and +your dirk and the upper hand and a sustaining sense of moral superiority +and no end of other advantages over you." + +"Why," the prince demanded, nervously--"why did you ring?" + +"To call a cab for you, of course. I don't imagine you want to walk +home--do you?--in your present state of shocking disrepair. Of course, if +you'd rather ... But do sit down: compose yourself." + +"Let me be," the other snapped as Lanyard offered good-naturedly to thrust +him back into the chair. "I am--quite composed." + +"That's good! Excellent! Hand steady enough to write me a cheque, do you +think?" + +"What the devil!" + +"Oh, come now! Don't go off your bat so easily. I'm only going to do you a +service--" + +"Damn your impudence! I want no services of you!" + +"Oh, yes you do!" Lanyard insisted, unabashed--"or you will when you learn +what a kind heart I've got. Now do be nice and stop protesting! You see, +you've touched my heart. I'd no idea you were so passionate about that +painting. If I had for one instant imagined you cared enough about it to +burglarize my rooms ... But now that I do understand, my dear fellow, I +wouldn't deny you for worlds; I make you a free present of it, at the price +I paid--twenty thousand and one hundred guineas--exacting no bonus or +commission whatever. You'll find blank cheques in the upper right-hand +drawer of my desk there; fill in one to my order, and the Corot's yours." + +For a moment longer the prince stared, hate and perplexity in equal measure +tincturing his regard. Then slowly the look of doubt gave way to the ghost +of a crafty smile. + +What a blazing fool the fellow was (he thought) to accept a cheque on which +payment could be stopped before banking hours in the morning--! + +Such fatuity seemed incredible. Yet there it was, egregious, indisputable. +Why not profit by it, turn it to his own advantage? To secure what he had +sought, the letters concealed between the canvases, and turn them against +Sofia, and to play this Lanyard for a fool, all at one stroke--the +opportunity was too rich to be slighted. + +He dissembled his exultation--or plumed himself on doing so. + +"Very well," he mumbled, sulkily. "I'll draw the cheque." + +"That's the right spirit!" Lanyard declared, and escorted him to the desk. + +A knock sounded. Lanyard called: "Come in!" A sleepy manservant, +half-dressed and warm from his bed, entered. + +"You rang, sir?" + +"Yes, Harris." Lanyard tossed him a sovereign. "Sorry to rout you out so +late, but I need a cab. Whistle up a growler, will you?" + +"'Nk-you, sir." + +The man retired cheerfully, rewarded for many a night of broken slumber. +Prince Victor got up from the desk and proffered Lanyard the cheque. + +"I fancy," he said with a leer, "you'll find that all right." + +Lanyard scrutinized the cheque minutely, nodded his satisfaction. + +"Thanks ever so ... No, not a word!" He forbade inflexibly a wholly +imaginary interposition on the part of Prince Victor. "You don't know how +to thank me--do you? Then why try? I know I'm too good, but I really can't +help it, it's my nature--and there you are! So what's the good of bickering +about it?... Now where did you leave your coat and hat? On my bed, as you +came in?" + +He smiled charmingly and darted through the portires, returning with the +articles in question. "Do let me help you." + +The prince struggled into the coat and grunted an acknowledgment of the +service. Lanyard pressed the hat into his hand, picked up the canvas, +replaced it in its frame, and tucked both under the princely arm. + +Another knock: Harris returned. + +"The four-wheeler is w'iting, sir." + +"Thanks, Harris. Half a moment: I want a word with you. You see this +gentleman?" Lanyard caught Victor's look of angry resentment and +interrupted himself. "Don't forget yourself, monsieur le prince. +Remember ..." + +He patted significantly the pocket which held the revolver, and turned back +to Harris. + +"This gentleman," he said, consulting the signature to the cheque, "is +Prince Victor Vassilyevski. Please remember him. You may have to bear +witness against him in court." + +"What insolence is this?" Victor demanded, hotly. + +"Calm yourself, monsieur le prince." Lanyard repeated the warning gesture. +"He is a nobleman of Russia, or says he is, and--strangely enough, +Harris!--a burglar. I caught him burglarizing my rooms when I came home +just now. You may judge from his appearance what difficulty I had in +subduing him." + +"'E do seem fair used up, sir," Harris admitted, eyeing Victor indignantly. +"Would you wish me to call a bobby and give 'im in charge?" + +"Thanks, no. Prince Victor and I have compromised. He doesn't relish going +to jail, and I've no particular desire to send him there. But he does want +what he broke in to steal--that painting you see under his arm--and I've +agreed to sell it to him. Here's the cheque he has just given me. Providing +payment is not stopped on it, Harris, you will hear no more of this +incident. But if by any chance the cheque should come back from his bank--I +may ask you to testify to what you have seen and heard here to-night." + +"It is a lie!" Prince Victor shrilled. "You brought me in with you, +assaulted me, blackmailed that cheque out of me! Nobody saw us--" + +"Sorry," Lanyard cut in; "but it so happens, that the gentleman who has the +rooms immediately above came in when I did, and can testify that I was +alone. That's all, monsieur le prince. Your carriage waits." + +Harris opened the door. Choking with rage, the prince shuffled out, Lanyard +politely escorting him to the curb. There, with a foot lifted to enter the +four-wheeler, Prince Victor turned, shaking an impassioned hand in +Lanyard's face. + +"You'll pay me for this!" he spluttered. "I'll square accounts with you, +Lanyard, if I have to follow you to the gates of hell!" + +"Better not," Lanyard warned him fairly, "if you do, I'll push you in ... +Bon soir, monsieur le prince!" + + + + +BOOK II + + +THE LONE WOLF'S DAUGHTER + + + +I + +THE GIRL SOFIA + + +She sat all day long--from noon, that is, till late at night--on a high +stool behind the tall, pulpit-like desk of the caisse; flanked on one hand +by the swing door of green baize which communicated with the kitchen, on +the other by a hideous black walnut buffet on which fruits of the season +were displayed, more or less temptingly, to the taste of Mama Thrse. + +But for these articles of furniture, the buffet, the desk, and the door to +the kitchen quarters, uninterrupted rows of tables, square, with +composition-marble tops, lined three walls of the room. The fourth was +mainly plate-glass window, one on either side of the main entrance. + +Back of the tables were wall-seats upholstered in red plush, dusty and +threadbare; and, above, a frieze of mirrors. The floor of the restaurant +was a patternless mosaic of small hexagonal tiles, bare in warm weather, in +the winter covered by a thick but well-worn Brussels carpet of peculiarly +repulsive design. The windows wore half-curtains of net which, after +nightfall, were reinforced by ruffled draperies of rep silk. Through the +net curtains, by day, the name of the restaurant was shadowed in reverse by +plain white-enamel letters glued to the glass: + +CAF DES EXILES + +The girl stared so constantly at these letters, during the off hours of the +day, that she sometimes wondered if they were not indelibly stamped upon +her brain, like this: + +[Reverse: CAF DES EXILES] + +She gazed in the direction of the windows as a matter of habit, because +Mama Thrse objected to her reading at the desk (all the same, sometimes +she did it on the sly) because the glimpses she caught, above the +half-curtains, of heads of passersby gave her idle imagination something to +play with, but mostly because it was difficult otherwise to seem +unconscious of the stares that converged toward her from every table +occupied by a masculine patron, whether regular or casual--unless the +patron happened to be accompanied by a lady, in which unhappy event he had +to content himself with furtive, sidelong glances, not always furtive +enough by half. + +The feminine patrons stared, too, but from quite another angle of view. + +Sofia knew why. If she hadn't, the mirror across the room would have +enlightened even a woman without vanity; which paradox this thoroughly +human young person was not. + +She was, indeed, healthily vain; and when she wasn't focussing dream-dark +eyes upon the windows, or verifying additions and making change, she was as +likely as not to be stealing consultations with the mirror opposite, making +sure she hadn't, in the last few minutes, gone off in her looks. Not that +her comeliness bade fair ever to prove the cause of any real excitement. +Mama Thrse made a first-rate dragon: she was very much on the job of +discouraging enterprising young men, and this without respect for union +hours or overtime. And when she wasn't functioning as the ubiquitous +wet-blanket, Papa Dupont understudied for her, and did it most efficiently, +too. If anything he was more vigilant and enthusiastic when it came to +administering the snub sufficient than even Mama Thrse; in Sofia's sight, +indeed, he betrayed some personal feeling in the business; he seemed to +consider alien admiration of his charge an encroachment upon his private +prerogatives, to be resented accordingly. + +Sofia understood. At eighteen--thanks to the comprehensive visual education +in the business of life which she could hardly have failed to assimilate +from a coign of vantage overlooking every table of a Soho restaurant--there +were precious few things she didn't understand. But her insight into Papa +Dupont's mind in respect of herself was wholly devoid of sympathy. She was +just a little bit afraid of him, and she despised him without measure. And +this contempt was founded on something more than his weakness for taking +numerous and surreptitious nips (surreptitious, at least, until they became +numerous) while presiding over the zinc in the pantry between the +restaurant proper and the kitchen; and on something more than his +reluctance to let Mama Thrse make an honest man of him, although these +two had squabbled openly for so many years that most of the house staff +believed them to be married hard and fast enough. + +For the matter of that, Sofia herself might have been the dupe of this +popular delusion--which Mama Thrse did her best to encourage by never +referring to Dupont save as "mon mari"--had they been less imprudent in +recriminations which had passed between them in private when Sofia was of +an age so tender that she was presumed to be safely immature of mind. +Whereas she had always been precocious, if rather a self-contained child. +Almost from infancy she had been conversant with many things which she knew +it wouldn't do to talk about. + +Such sympathy as Sofia wasted on the couple was all for Mama Thrse. What +with keeping an eye on Papa Dupont that prevented his drinking himself to +death seven times per calendar week, and an eye on Sofia that was fondly +credited with being largely responsible for her failure to run away with +each and every presentable man who ogled her, and browbeating the waiters +and frustrating their attempts to cheat the house out of its fair dues, and +supervising the marketing and the cuisine: believe it or not, Mama Thrse +led a tolerably busy life and deserved whatever gratification she got out +of it, to say nothing of highest commendation for industry, fidelity, and +frugality. But that did nothing to prevent Sofia from not liking her. + +Her inability to play up to the relationship in which she stood to Mama +Thrse in the manner prescribed by sentimentalists worried Sofia more than +a little. She was as hungry to give affection as to receive it; and surely +she ought to be fond of Mama Thrse, who (Sofia was forever being +reminded) had in the goodness of her great heart adopted her as the +orphaned offspring of a cousin far-removed, and had brought her up at her +own expense, expecting no return (excepting humility, gratitude, +unquestioning affection, and uncomplaining acceptance of a life of +incessant toil at tasks uncongenial when not downright unsavoury, without +spending money or hours of untrammelled liberty in which to spend it). + +Surely such nobility ought to be requited with nothing less than love! + +Nevertheless, the plain, and to Sofia disquieting, truth was: it wasn't. + +She was fond of Mama Thrse after a fashion. No one was ever more ready to +acknowledge the woman's good qualities. But her faults, which included +avarice, bad temper, gluttony, native cruelty of inclination, and simple +inability to give a damn for anybody but herself, forbade satisfaction of +Sofia's yearnings to give her affections freely through bestowing them upon +the abundant and florid person of Mama Thrse. + +Still, she made no murmur. There was more than a trace of fatalism in the +composition of her spirit. As she conceived it, in this life either things +were or they were not; and as a rule they uncompromisingly were not: one +couldn't have everything. + +She was not happy, it would be stretching the truth to say she was content, +but she was resigned, she was patient, she waited not altogether without +confidence.... + +All the same, sometimes, as she sat, day in day out, on her high stool, +looking down on familiar aspects of life's fermentation as it manifests in +public restaurants, or peering out of the windows to catch tantalizing +glimpses of its freer, ampler, and--alas!--more recondite phases--sometimes +Sofia wondered whether there were not grimly cynic innuendo in those three +words which the mystery of choice had affixed to the window-panes and +graven so deep into her soul. + +CAF DES EXILES + +For surely she was in exile there, an exile from all the fun and frolic +and, fury of life, marooned in weary isolation, on a high stool, in a +frowsty table d'hte, in the living heart of London. + + + +II + +MASKS AND FACES + + +Quite naturally she became acquainted with Faces.... + +She grew adept at a game which consisted mostly in keeping close watch upon +those who for this reason or that engaged her attention, without giving +them the slightest reason to suspect she was doing anything of the sort. + +One could not always be staring in abstraction at nothing in particular as +it passed to and fro on the sidewalk in front of the Caf des Exiles; one +could not often or for long at a time succeed in reading a book held open +in one's lap, below the level of the cashier's desk, Mama Thrse was too +brisk for that; one had to do something with one's mind; and it was +sometimes diverting to watch and speculate about people who looked +interesting. + +There were so many Faces, they came and went so constantly, like bubbles in +a tideway, that to Sofia most of them seemed indistinguishable one from +another, mere blurs of flesh colour studded with staring eyes and slitted +by apertures which automatically and alternately gaped to receive gobbets +of food and goblets of drink and closed to gulp them down. A man needed to +be remarkable for something in his looks, not necessarily pulchritude, or +for uncommon individuality, for Sofia to favour him with more than one of +her seemingly casual glances or to remember him if he visited the caf a +second time. + +But those there were who stood out from the rank and file, for whom she +watched, whom she missed if they failed to put in appearance at their +accustomed hours, about whom her idle but able imagination wove wonderful +fantasies, enduing them with histories and environments as far removed from +fact as the drab dreams of the realists are from the picturesque +commonplaces of everyday. + +And there were others who came once and never again, but whom she never +forgot. But for some of these last, indeed, she would never have remembered +some of the former. The brown-eyed youngster with the sentimental +expression and the funny little moustache, for example, lurked in the ruck +a long time before the one and only visit of a bird of passage dignified +him in the sight of the girl on the high stool. + +On the occasion of his first appearance (but that was long ago, Sofia +couldn't remember how long) the slender young man with the soulful eyes and +the insignificant moustache had commended himself to her somewhat derisive +attention by seeming uncommonly exquisite for that atmosphere. + +The Caf des Exiles was little haunted by the world of fashion; its diner +prix fixe (2/6), although excellent, surprisingly well done for the money, +did not much seduce the clientle of the Carlton and the Ritz. Now and +again its remoteness, promising freedom from embarrassing encounters save +through unlikely mischance, would bring it the custom of a clandestine +couple from the West End, who would for a time make it an almost daily +rendezvous, meeting nervously, sitting if possible in the most shadowy +corner, the farthest from the door, and holding hands when they mistakenly +assumed that nobody was looking--until the affair languished or some +contretemps frightened them away. + +Aside from such visitations, however, the great world coldly passed the +caf by; although it couldn't complain for lack of patronage, and in fact +prospered exceedingly if without ostentation on the half-crowns of loyal +Soho and more fickle suburbia. + +The Sohobohemian on its native heath and the City clerk on the loose, +however, were not prone to such vestments as young Mr. Karslake affected. +It wasn't that he overdressed; even the ribald would have hesitated to +libel him with the name of a "nut"--which is Cockney for what the United +States knows as a "fancy (or swell) dresser"; it was simply that he was +always irreproachably turned out, whatever the form of dress he thought +appropriate to the time of day; and that his wardrobe was so complete and +varied that he seldom appeared twice in the same suit of clothes--except, +of course, after nightfall; though his visits to the Caf des Exiles for +dinner or afterward were so infrequent that each attained (after Sofia +began to notice him at all) the importance of an occasion. Luncheon was his +time, and those empty hours at the end of the afternoon which London fills +in with tea and Soho with drinks. + +He seemed to have a very wide and catholic acquaintance among people of all +ranks and stations in life; one could hardly call them friendships, for he +lunched or sipped an aperti not often with the same person twice in a blue +moon. And whether his companion were a curate or some ragged wastrel of the +quarter; painted young person from the chorus of the newest revue or proper +matron from Bayswater; keen adventurer from Fleet Street or solid merchant +from the City, his attitude was much the same: easy, impersonal, +unaffected, courteous, detached. He was as apt as not (going on his facial +expression) to be mooning about Sofia when his guest was gesticulating +wildly and uttering three hundred words a minute. When he spoke it was +modestly, in a voice of agreeable cadences but pitched so low that Sofia +never but twice heard anything he said; and his manner was not +characterized by brisk decision. All the same, one noticed that he had, as +a rule, the last word, that what he said left his hearer either satisfied +or pensive. + +He was unmistakably silly about Sofia; though that didn't impress her, too +many of the regulars were just as hard hit, one more or less didn't count. +But he never stared to the point of rudeness, and it always seemed to make +him hugely uncomfortable if she appeared in the least aware of his +adoration; and Mama Thrse and Papa Dupont never even noticed him, so +circumspect was he. Still, Sofia saw, and sometimes wondered, just as she +wondered now and then about most of the possible men who seemed disposed to +be sentimental about her. + +For there were times when she felt she could do with a little more +first-hand experience and a little less second-hand knowledge. + +Love (she supposed) must be a very agreeable frame of mind to be in, it was +so generally vogue.... + +What first led her to think that Mr. Karslake might be an interesting +person to know, entirely aside from his admiration, happened on an +afternoon in June, a warm day for England, when a temperature of some 81 +degrees was responsible for "heat-wave" broadsides issued by the evening +papers. + +At about tea time, Mr. Karslake, faultlessly arrayed, ambled in, selected a +table diagonally across the room from the caisse, exchanged pleasantries +with the waiter who served him a picon, and used a copy of The Evening +Standard & St. James's Gazette as a cover for his wistful admiration of +Sofia. + +Presently he was joined by a gentleman twice his age, if not older, whose +conservative smartness was such that one wondered if he hadn't strayed out +of bounds through inadvertence. One would have thought his place was in the +clubs of Piccadilly if not (at that particular hour) at a tea table on the +river terrace of the Houses of Parliament. On the other hand, there wasn't +a trace of self-importance in his habit, it achieved distinction solely +through the unpretending dignity of a decent self-esteem. + +Sofia tried to fix what it was that made her think him the handsomest man +she had ever seen. She failed. He wasn't at all handsome in the smug +fashion associated with the popular interpretation of that term; his +features were engagingly irregular of conformation, but the impression they +conveyed was of a singular strength together with as rare a fineness of +spirit. A mobile and expressive face, stamped with a history of strange +ordeals; but this must not be interpreted as meaning that it was haggard or +prematurely aged; on the contrary, it had youthful colour and was but +lightly scored with wrinkles, its sole confession of advancing years was in +the gray at either temple. The eyes, perhaps, told more than anything else +of trials endured and memories that would never rest. + +Once they had looked into hers (but that came later) Sofia was sure she +would never forget those eyes. And as she saw them then, she never did +forget them. But the next time she saw them she did not know them at all. + +The newcomer hailed Mr. Karslake by his name (which was the first time +Sofia had heard it), sat down on the wall-seat beside him and, when the +waiter came, desired an absinthe. + +He had used two languages already, English to Karslake, French to the +waiter; Sofia understood both and spoke them to perfection. So it was +rather exasperating when, his absinthe having been served and the customary +platitudes passed on the weather and their respective states of health, the +conversation was continued in a tongue with which Sofia was not only +unacquainted but which sounded like none she had ever heard spoken. This +seemed the more annoying because there were few people in the restaurant to +drown with chatter the sound of those two voices and because, in spite of +their guarded tones, their table was one so situated that some freak of +acoustics carried every syllable uttered at it, even though whispered, to +the quick ears at the cashier's desk. A circumstance which had treated +Sofia to many a moment of covert entertainment and not a few that +threatened to shatter what slender illusions had survived eighteen years of +Mama Thrse. But nobody else (with the possible exception of the last) was +acquainted with this secret of the restaurant, and Sofia was careful never +to mention it. + +Now it so happened that Mr. Karslake had never before sat at that +particular table. + +The language spoken at it to-day intrigued Sofia extravagantly. It was rich +in labials, gutturals, and odd sibilances. She was positive it was not a +European tongue, though she thought it might possibly be Russian, because +it sounded rather like Russian print looks; it might just as well have been +Arabic or Choctaw, for all Sofia could say to the contrary. But his fluent +ease in it impressed her with the notion that young Mr. Karslake might not, +after all, be as negligible a person as he looked and as she indifferently +had assumed. + +She determined to study him more attentively. + +It was rather a long confabulation, too, and one that both men seemed to +take very seriously--though its upshot was apparently quite acceptable to +both--and terminated abruptly with Mr. Karslake announcing, in English, +with every evidence of satisfaction: + +"Good! Then that's settled." + +To this the older man dissented tolerantly. + +"Pardon: nothing is settled; it is proposed, merely." + +"Well," said Karslake with a little laugh that to Sofia sounded empty, "at +all events it ought to be amusing." + +The other lifted one eyebrow and smiled remotely. + +"You think so?" + +"To be ordering you about, sir? I should say so!" But his companion wasn't +listening or chose purposely to ignore that accent of respect. + +"You are right, my friend," he said, abstractedly: "it will be amusing. But +what in life is not? I fancy that is why most of us go on, because we find +the play entertaining in spite of ourselves. And even when we think of +Death ... there's the possibility that on the other side of the curtain, +where the unseen audience sits, whose hisses and applause we never hear ... +over there it may be more entertaining still!" + +Karslake was inquisitively watching his face. + +"You would say that," he commented, deference and admiration in his voice. +"By all accounts you've had a most amusing life." + +"I have found it so." The other nodded with glimmering eyes. "Not always at +the time, of course. But when I look back, especially at my beginnings, at +the times that seemed hardest and most intolerable ..." + +He was thoughtful for a moment, glancing interestedly round the room. + +"It takes one back." + +"What does?" + +"This caf, my friend." + +"To your beginnings, you mean?" + +"Yes. It is very like the caf at Troyon's, at this hour especially, when +there are so few English about." + +"Troyon's?" + +"A restaurant in Paris. Famous in its day. Several years ago--before the +war--it burned down one night, cremating many memories. While it stood I +hated it, now I miss it; Paris without it is no more the Paris that I +knew." + +"Why did you hate it, sir?" + +"Because I suffered there." + +He indicated a weedy young Alsatian across the room, a depressed and pimply +creature in a waiter's jacket and apron, who was shambling from table to +table and collecting used glasses and saucers. + +"You see that omnibus yonder? What he is to-day, that was I in +mine--omnibus, scullion, valet-de-chambre, butt and scapegoat-in-general to +the establishment, scavenger of food that no one else would eat.... I +suffered there, at Troyon's." + +"You, sir?" Karslake exclaimed in astonishment. "Whoever would have thought +that you ... How did you escape?" + +"It occurred to me, one day, I was less than half alive and never would be +better while I stayed on in that servitude. So I walked out--into life." + +"I wish you'd tell me, sir," Karslake ventured, eagerly. + +"Some day, perhaps, when I get back. But now"--he looked at his +watch--"I've got just time enough to taxi to my hotel, pack, and catch the +boat train." + +"Don't wait for me," Karslake suggested, signalling the waiter. + +"Perhaps it would be as well if I didn't." + +They shook hands, and the older man got up, secured his hat and stick, and +started out toward the door, moving leisurely, still looking about him with +the narrowed eyes and smile of reminiscence. + +Of a sudden that look was abolished utterly. He had caught sight of Sofia. + +Her interest had been so excited by the singular confidences she had +overheard that the girl had quite forgotten herself and her professional +pose of blank neutrality. She was bending forward a little, forearms +resting on the desk, frankly staring. + +The man's stride checked, his smile faded, his eyes grew wide and cloudy +with bewilderment. For a moment Sofia thought him on the point of bowing, +as one might on unexpectedly encountering an acquaintance after many years: +there was that hint of impulse hindered by uncertainty. And in that moment +the girl was conscious of a singular sensation of breathlessness, as if +something impended whose issue might change all the courses of her life. A +feeling quite insane and unaccountable, to be sure; and nothing came of it +whatever. With a readiness so instant that the break in his walk must have +been imperceptible to anybody but Sofia, the man recollected himself, +composed his face, and proceeded to the door. + +Confounded with inexplicable disappointment, Sofia sat unstirring. + +In the open doorway the man turned and looked back, not at her, but at +Karslake, as if of half a mind to return and say something more to the +younger man. But he didn't. + +He never came back. + + + +III + +THE AGONY COLUMN + + +Sofia dated from that afternoon the first stirrings of a discontent which +grew in her throughout the summer till everything related to her lot seemed +abominable in her sight. + +Even without this subjective inquietude it would have been an unpleasant +summer. All the world was at sixes and sevens, the social unrest stirred up +by the war showed no signs of subsiding, but indeed, quite the contrary, +there was trouble in the very air--ominous portents of a storm whose dull, +grim growling down the horizon could be heard only too clearly by those who +did not wilfully close their ears, grin fatuous complacence, and bleat like +brainless sheep: "All's well!" + +High-spirited youth and witless wealth a-lust for strange new pleasures +turned from the long strain of conflict to indulgence in endless orgies of +extravagance like nothing ever witnessed by a world long since surfeited +with contemplation of weird excesses: daily that wild dance of death +attained wilder stages of saturnalia, the bands blaring ever louder to +drown the mutter of savage elemental forces working underneath the crust. + +And ever and anon a lull would fall and the world would shudder to the +iteration of a word that spelled calamity to all things fair and sweet and +lovable in life, the word _Bolshevism_.... + +In the Caf des Exiles there was endless discord and strife. + +For several reasons trade was not what it had been, even for the slack +season of summer it was poor. The cost of everything had gone up, waiters +were insubordinate and unreasonable in their demands, Mama Thrse had been +constrained to increase the fixed price of the dinner, old customers took +umbrage at this and their patronage elsewhere. + +Mama Thrse cultivated a temper that grew day by day more vile, Papa +Dupont displayed new artfulness in the matter of sneaking his daily toll of +drink and showed it; the two squabbled incessantly. + +One of the chefs, surmising the irregularity of their relations and +foreseeing an imminent break, sought to turn it to his own profit by making +amorous overtures to Mama Thrse, who for reasons of her own, probably +hoping to make Papa Dupont jealous, encouraged the idiot. And, as if this +were not sickening enough, Papa Dupont, far from resenting this menace to +the pseudo-peace of the mnage, ignored if he did not welcome it, and daily +displayed new tenderness for Sofia. He kept near her as constantly as he +could, he would even interrupt a wrangle with Mama Thrse to favour the +girl with a languishing glance or a term of endearment; he was forever +caressing her disgustingly with his eyes. + +The swing door between the caf and the pantry had warped on its hinges and +would not stay quite shut. Normally it stuck in a position which permitted +whoever was at the zinc an uninterrupted view of the desk of la dame du +comptoir. Instead of having it fixed, Papa Dupont put off that duty from +day to day and developed a fond attachment for the place at the zinc. For +hours on end Sofia, on her high stool, would be conscious of his gloating +regard, his glances that lingered on the sweet lines of her throat, the +roundness of her pretty arms. + +She dared make no sign to show that she knew and resented, to do so would +be merely to draw upon herself the spite of Mama Thrse. + +But she simmered with indignation, and contemplated futile +plans--especially in the long, empty hours of the afternoon, between +luncheon and the hour of the apertifs--countless vain plans for abolishing +these intolerable conditions. + +She thought a great deal of the strange man who had talked with young Mr. +Karslake, and wondered about him. Somehow she seemed unable to forget him; +never before had any one she didn't know made such a lasting impression +upon her imagination. + +Sometimes she wasted time trying to explain to herself why the man had +seemed, for that brief instant, to think he knew her, only to dismiss such +speculations eventually with the assurance that she probably resembled in +moderate degree somebody whom he had once known. + +But mostly she was preoccupied with pondering the strangeness of it, that +he who seemed so brilliant and brave a figure of the great world should, +according to his own confession, have risen from beginnings as lowly as her +own. All that he had suffered in the days of his youth, in that place in +Paris which he called Troyon's, Sofia had suffered here and in large part +continued to suffer without prospect of alleviation or hope of escape. And +remembering what he had said, that his own trials had come to an end only +when he awakened to the fact that he was, as he had put it, "less than half +alive" there at Troyon's, and had simply "walked out into life," she was +persuaded that the cure for her own discomfort and discontent would never +be found in any other way. But she lacked courage to adventure it. + +To say "walk out and make an end of it" was all very well; but assuming +that she ever should muster up spirit enough to do it--what then? Which way +should she turn, once she had passed out through the doors? What could she +do? She had neither means nor friends, and she was much too thoroughly +conversant with the common way of the world with a woman alone to imagine +that, by taking her life in her own hands, she would accomplish much more +than exchange the irk of the frying pan for the fury of the fire. + +All the same, she knew that she must one day do it and chance the +consequences. Things couldn't go on as they were. + +And even granting that the outcome of any effort at self-assertion must be +unhappy, she grew impatient. + +Meanwhile, she did nothing, she sat quietly on her perch, looked with stony +composure over the heads of the multitude, indifferent alike to admiration +and the uncharitable esteem of her own sex, and waited with a burning +heart. + +Mr. Karslake ran true to form. He drifted in and out casually, always idle +and dgag and elegant, he continued his irregular conferences with +ill-assorted companions, he worshipped discreetly and evidently without the +faintest hope, he seemed more than ever a trifling and immaterial creature. +Chance did not again lead him to the table where he had sat with the man +whom Sofia could not forget, and only the memory of that conversation held +any place for Karslake in the consideration of the girl. + +Even at that she didn't consider him seriously, she looked for him and +missed him when he didn't appear solely because of a secret hope that some +day that other one would come back to meet him in the caf. + +Why she held fast to that hope Sofia could not have said. + +Toward the middle of summer Mr. Karslake absented himself for several +weeks, and when he showed up again his visits were fewer and more widely +spaced. + +On an afternoon late in August, a hot and weary day, he sauntered in with +his habitual air of having in particular nothing to do and all the time +there was to do it in, and found a man waiting for him. + +This was a person whom Sofia had quite overlooked after one glance had +classified and pigeon-holed him. A single glance had been enough. They do +some things better in England; a man cast for any particular rle in life, +for example, is apt to conform himself, mentally, physically, and even as +to his outer habiliments, so nicely to the mould that he is forever +unmistakably what he is even to the most casual observer. So this man was a +butler, he had been born and bred a butler, he lived by buttling, a butler +he would die; not a pompous, turkeycock butler, such as the American stage +will offer you when it takes up English fashionable life in a serious way, +but a mild-mannered, decent body, with plain side-whiskers, chopped short +on a line with the lobes of his ears, otherwise clean-shaven, his hair +pathetically dyed, a colourless cast of countenance, eyes meek and mild. + +He was soberly dressed in black coat and waistcoat, the latter showing a +white triangle of hard-polished shirt and a black bow tie, with indefinite +gray trousers and square-toed boots by no means new. His middle was crossed +by a thick silver watch-chain, and curious, old-fashioned buttons of agate +set in square frames of gold fastened his round stiff cuffs of yesterday. +He carried a well-brushed bowler as unfashionable as unseasonable. + +When Mr. Karslake entered, the polished pattern of a young gentleman of +means, slenderly well set-up in an exquisitely tailored brown lounge suit, +wearing a boater and carrying a slender malacca stick in one chamois-gloved +hand, the butler stood up at his table, quietly acknowledged his +greeting--"Ah, Nogam! you here already?"--and waited for the younger man to +be seated before resuming his own chair: a stoop-shouldered symbol of +self-respecting respectability, not too intelligent, subdued by definite +and unresentful acceptance of "his place." + +Their table was the one immediately beyond the buffet; and the caf was +very quiet, with only three other patrons, two of whom were playing chess +while the third was reading an old issue of the Echo de Paris. So Sofia +could, if she had cared to eavesdrop, have overheard everything that passed +between Mr. Karslake and the man Nogam. But she didn't; their first few +speeches failed to excite her curiosity in the least. + +She heard Mr. Karslake, who was becomingly affable to one of inferior +station, express the perfunctory hope that he hadn't kept Nogam waiting +long, and Nogam reply to the simple effect of "Oh, not at all, sir." To +this he added that he 'oped there had been no 'itch, he was most heager to +be installed in his new situation, and would do his best to give +satisfaction. Karslake replied airily that he was sure Nogam would do +famously, and Nogam said "Thank you, sir." Then Karslake announced they +must bustle along, because they were expected by some person unnamed, but +just the same he meant to have a drink before he budged a foot. And he +called a waiter and requested a whiskey and soda for himself and some beer +for Nogam.... And Sofia turned her attention to other things. + +The murmur of their talk meant nothing to her after that, and she forgot +them entirely till they got up to leave, and then wasted only a moment in +wondering why Mr. Karslake, if he were, as he seemed to be, engaging a +butler for some friend or employer, should have arranged to meet the man in +a caf of Soho. But it didn't matter, and she dismissed the incident from +her mind. + +What did matter was that she was to-day more than ever galled by the deadly +circumstances of her existence. If they were to continue to obtain, she +felt, life would grow simply unendurable, and she would to do something +reckless to get a little relief from the tedium and the ugliness of it all. + +She was fed up with everything, the shrewishness of Mama Thrse, the +drunkenness of Papa Dupont, the hideous dullness of the caf, the smell of +food, the fumes of tobacco, the reek of wines. + +She was fed up with the leers of Papa Dupont, the scowls of Mama Thrse, +the grimaces of waiters, the stares of customers, the very sight of herself +in the mirror across the room. + +She was fed up with being fed up, she wanted to do something lunatic, she +wanted to kick and scream and drum on the floor with her heels. + +And all the while, beyond the threshold, life in the street was flowing by, +a restless stream, and the voice of it was a siren call to her hungry +heart, whispering of freedom, laughing low of love, roaring robustly of +brave adventures. + +And she sat there with folded hands, mutinous yet impotent, afraid, a +useless thing with sullen eyes ... wasted ... + +As was her custom, between six and seven, before the busy hours of the +evening, she had her dinner fetched to a table near by. + +Somebody had left a copy of a morning paper on the wall-seat. Sofia glanced +through it without much interest. None the less, when she had finished, she +took the sheet back to the caisse with her and intermittently, as occasion +offered, read snatches of it quite openly, so bored that she didn't care if +Mama Thrse did catch her at this forbidden practice; a good row would be +almost welcome ... anything to break the monotony.... + +When she had digested without edification every item of news, she devoured +the advertisements of the shops, then turned to the Agony Column, which she +had saved up for a savoury. + +She read the appeal of the widow of the English army officer who wanted +some kind-hearted and soft-headed person to finance her in setting up an +establishment for "paying guests." + +She read the card of the young gentleman of good family but impoverished +means who admitted that he had every grace and talent heart could desire +and who, in frantic effort to escape going to work for his living, threw +himself bodily upon the generosity of an unknown, and as yet non-existent, +benefactor, hinting darkly at suicide if nothing came of this last attempt +to get himself luxuriously maintained in indolence. + +She read the advertisements of money-lenders who yearned to advance +fabulous sums to the nobility and gentry on their simple notes of hand. + +She read the thinly disguised professional cards of lonely ladies whose +unhappy lot could be mitigated only by congenial male companionship. + +She read the ingenuous matrimonial bids. + +She read the announcement of the lady of (deleted) title who was willing, +for a substantial consideration, to introduce gentlefolk of means and their +daughters to the most exclusive social circles. + +She read the nave solicitation of the alleged ex-officer of the B.E.F., +who had won through the war with every known decoration except the Double +Cross of the Order of St. Gall and with nothing of his anatomy left whole +except his cheek, begging some great-hearted soul to buy him a barrel organ +to play in the streets. + +And then her eye was arrested by the appearance of her own name in the text +of a brief advertisement, which she read naturally, with heightened +interest: + +IF MICHAEL LANYARD will communicate privately he will hear news of Sofia +his daughter. Address Secretan & Sypher, Solicitors, Lincoln's Inn Fields, +W.C. 3 + + + +IV + +MUTINY + + +Sofia had never heard the name of Michael Lanyard. Neither did the firm +style of Messrs. Secretan & Sypher, Solicitors, mean anything to her. +Notwithstanding, she wasted more time than she knew trying to picture to +herself a man who looked like Michael Lanyard sounded, and wishing (no +matter what his looks might be) that she were his long-lost daughter Sofia, +and that he would see the advertisement, and communicate privately as +requested, and hear news of her, and come speeding in a Rolls-Royce to the +Caf des Exiles, and walk in and humble Papa Dupont with a look of hauteur +and confound Mama Thrse with a peremptory word, and take Sofia by the +hand and lead her out and induct her into such an environment as suited her +rightful station: said environment necessarily comprising a town house if +not on Park Lane at least nearly adjacent to it, and a country house +sitting, in the mellowed beauty of its Seventeenth Century architecture, +amid lordly acres of velvet lawn and private park. + +She hoped the country house would be within sight of the sea, and that the +family garage would run to a comfortable little town-car for her personal +use when she went shopping in Bond Street, or to pay calls or leave cards, +or to concerts and matinees.... + +At about this stage her chteaux en Espagne began to rock upon their +foundations; a seismic phenomenon due to the appearance of Mama Thrse and +Papa Dupont, coming from zinc and kitchen for their dinner, which meal they +habitually consumed in the caf when the evening rush was over, the tables +undressed, and the establishment had settled down to drowse away the dull +hours till closing time. + +Thus reminded that it was nine o'clock or thereabouts of a stuffy evening +in a stodgy world where nothing ever happened that hadn't wearily happened +the day before and the day before that and so back to the beginning of +Time, and wasn't scheduled tediously to continue happening to-morrow and +the day after and so on to the end of Eternity, Sofia sighed and shook +herself and put away the vanity of dreams. + +But her beauty, as she sat brooding, was as sultry as the night. + +In the rear of the room Mama Thrse and Papa Dupont wrangled sourly over +their food; not with impassioned rancour but in the natural order of +things--as others might discuss the book of the moment or the play of the +year or scandal or Charlie Chaplin or the thundering fiasco of +Versailles--these two discussed each other's failings with utmost candour +and freedom of expression: handling their subjects without gloves; never +hesitating to touch upon topics not commonly mentioned in civil intercourse +or to use the apt, unprintable word; never dreaming of politely terming a +damned old hoe a spade; tossing the ball of recrimination to and fro with +masterly ease. + +Their preoccupation with this pastime was so thoroughgoing that Mama +Thrse even failed to notice the passage of the postman on his last round +of the day. Ordinarily, for reasons best known to herself and which Sofia +had never thought to question, Mama Thrse preferred personally to receive +all letters and contrived to be on hand at the postman's customary hours of +call. But to-night she only realized that he had come and gone when, +happening to glance toward the caisse, she saw Sofia shuffling the +half-dozen envelopes which had been left with her. + +Immediately Mama Thrse pushed back the table and got up, wiping chin and +moustache with her napkin as she rolled toward the desk. + +But she was too late. Already Sofia had sorted out and was staring in blank +wonder at an envelope addressed to Mama Thrse and bearing in its upper +left-hand corner the imprint of its origin: + +_Secretan & Sypher +Solicitors +Lincoln's Inn +Fields London, W.C. 3._ + +As yet she was simply startled by the coincidence, her brain had not had +time to absorb its full significance--that Mama Thrse should receive a +communication from these distinctively named solicitors on the evening of +the very day on which they advertised concerning a young woman named +Sofia!--when the letter was snatched out of her hand, a torrent of +objurgation was loosed upon her devoted head, and she looked into the black +scowl of the Frenchwoman. + +"Sneak! Spying little cat! How dare you pry into my letters?" + +"But, Mama Thrse--!" + +"Be still, you! Has one asked you to speak? Give me those others"--Mama +Thrse with a vast show of violence appropriated them from Sofia's +unresisting grasp--"and after this keep your nose of a mouchard out of what +doesn't concern you!" + +"But, Mama Thrse!--" + +"Hold your tongue. I wish to hear nothing from you, I hear too much--yes, +and see too much, too! Oh, don't flatter yourself I am like that fat dolt +of a Dupont, to be taken in by a pair of round eyes and innocent ways. I +know your sort, I know _you_, mam'selle, too well! Me, I am nobody's fool, +least of all yours, young woman. What goes on under my nose, I see; and if +you imagine otherwise you are a bigger simpleton that you take me for." + +She snapped her fingers viciously in Sofia's crimsoned face, uttered a +contemptuous "_Zut_!" and waddled off, shaking her head and growling to +herself. + +Sofia felt stunned. The offensive had been launched so swiftly, she was +conscious of having done so little to invite it, she had been taken +unprepared, thrown into confusion, her feeble objections silenced and +overwhelmed by that deluge of abuse, publicly disgraced.... + +Her face was burning, and tears started in her eyes; but she winked them +back, she would not let them fall. Conscious of the grins of the handful of +patrons, and the leers of the waiters, she steeled herself to suppress +every betrayal of the mortification in which her soul was writhing, she +made no sign but stared on stonily at the blackness of the night that +peered in at the open doors. + +Then indignation came to her rescue, the flaming colour ebbed from her face +and left it unnaturally white, the mists before her eyes dissipated and +their look grew fixed and hard, even her lips took on a grim, unyielding +set. Beneath the desk her hands clenched into small fists. But she did not +move. + +The sensation stirred up by the outbreak of Mama Thrse subsided, the +domino players resumed their game, the old gentleman reading Le Rire turned +a page and read on with a knowing smile, lovers returned to their +low-voiced love-making, waiters yawned behind their hands, all was as it +had been save that, at their table (Sofia could see by the mirror, without +looking directly) Mama Thrse and Papa Dupont seemed to have declared an +armistice and were gobbling down the rest of their meal in silence and +indecorous haste. + +Presently they got up and sought their living quarters. To do this they had +to pass the caisse and through the green baize door. Mama Thrse marched +ahead with forbidding frown and quivering chins, with the militant carriage +of misprized and affronted rectitude. To her, it was obvious, Sofia for the +time being did not exist. At her heels Papa Dupont shambled uneasily, +hanging the head of deep thoughtfulness, avoiding Sofia's gaze. It was his +part to pretend that all was well and always would be; only he lacked the +effrontery, just then, for his usual smirk. + +When they had disappeared Sofia began to think. + +There was something more in this affair than mere coincidence, there was +mystery, a sinister question. + +Her countenance grew as dark as the complexion of her reverie. Athwart the +field of her abstracted vision drifted the figure of young Mr. Karslake. +She was barely conscious of it. + +He seated himself with plain premeditation directly opposite the caisse, +staring openly. But Sofia did not heed him at all. An odd smile shadowed +his lips, an expression half eager, half apprehensive; there was a hint of +puzzlement in his scrutiny. It was rather as if he had unexpectedly found +some new reason for thinking the girl an exceptionally interesting +personality. But she continued all unaware. + +Shortly after being served with a drink which he ordered but made no offer +to taste, he moved as if minded to rise and cross to Sofia, sat up and +edged forward on the wall-seat with a singular air of timidity and +embarrassment. But whatever his intention, he reconsidered and sat back, +glancing round the room to see if anybody were watching him. He could not +see that anybody was. Not even Sofia. Relieved, he settled back, found a +handsome gold case in the waistcoat of his dinner jacket, extracted a +cigarette, nipped it between his lips--and forgot to light it. + +Of a sudden Sofia had arrived at a decision; and with every expression of +it in her manner she slipped down from the high stool and left the caisse +to take care of itself. Turning to the swing door she barged through with a +high head and fire of determination illuminating her face. She had had +enough of riddles. + +Behind the zinc an elderly and trusted waiter was nodding. The kitchen was +cold and dark for the night. Papa Dupont, then, would be upstairs, closeted +with the genius of the establishment. + +From the pantry a narrow staircase led up to the apartment above the +restaurant. Sofia mounted rapidly, with a firm tread that was nevertheless +practically noiseless, thanks to the paper-thin soles of well-worn +slippers. She could hear voices bickering above. + +At the top there was a short, dark corridor, with three doors. Two of these +were closed on sleeping-rooms; the third door, to a sort of combination +office and living-room, stood open, letting out a stream of light. + +Sofia approached on tiptoe, though the altercation going on within had +reached a stage so acute that it was doubtful whether either of the +disputants would have heard had she stumped like a navvy. + +The point of dissension was not at first apparent, because Mama Thrse was +speaking, and what she said had exclusively to do with her estimate of +Dupont's character, the mettle of his spirit, the stuff of his mentality, +the authenticity of his pedigree (with especial reference to the virtue of +his maternal ancestry) and the circumstances of his upbringing; which +estimate in sum was low but by no means so low as the terms in which Mama +Thrse was inspired to couch it. + +Papa Dupont did not seem to be greatly interested. He had heard all this +before, many a time, with insignificant phraseological variations. Sofia, +pausing unseen and unsuspected in the darkness just outside the doorway, +could see him slouching deep in his chair, to one side of the table, his +soft fat hands deep in the pockets of his trousers, his chin sunken on his +chest, something dogged in the louring frown which he was bending upon +nothing, something of genuine indifference in his passive attitude toward +the blowsy virago who was leaning across the table the better to spit +vituperation at him. + +And he waited with singular patience until she had to stop for want of +breath. Then he shrugged and said heavily: + +"Still, I don't see what else you propose to do, my old one." + +Apparently his old one was as poor in expedient as he. "It is for nothing," +she said, acidly, "that one looks to you!" + +"I have said my say. If you have anything better to suggest...." He made a +rhetorical pause for reply, but Mama Thrse was well blown and sulky for +the moment. "I am not old, not so old as you, and I have reason to believe +the girl is not indifferent to my person." + +"Drooling old pig," Mama Thrse observed with reason: "if you dream she +would trouble to look twice at you--!" + +"That remains to be seen. And I, for one, fail to see how else we are to +hold her. All this money that has been coming in, paid on the dot every +quarter--that means there is more, much more to come to her. Are you ready +to give it up?" + +"Never!" Mama Thrse thumped the table vehemently. "It is mine by rights, +I have earned it. Look at the way I have slaved for her, the tender care I +have lavished upon her, ever since she was a little one in my arms." + +"By all means," Papa Dupont agreed, "look at it, but don't talk about it to +her. She might not understand you. Also, do not depend upon her to endorse +any claim you might set up based upon such assertions." + +"She is an ungrateful baggage!" + +"Possibly; but she is human, she has a memory--" + +"Are you going to be sentimental about her again?" Mama Thrse demanded. +"Pitiful old goat!" + +"But I am not in the least sentimental," Papa Dupont disclaimed. "It is +rather I who am practical, you who are sentimental. I ask you: Is there any +way we can hold on to that money unless I marry Sofia? You do not answer. +Why? Because there _is_ no other way. Then I am practical. But you will not +admit that. And why? Because we have lived together for a number of years +through force of habit, because once, very long ago, we were lovers, you +and I--so long ago that you have forgotten you ever had a softer name for +me than pig or goat. Who is the sentimentalist now--eh?" + +"Shut your face!" Mama Thrse growled. "You annoy me. I have a +presentiment I shall one day murder you." + +"You would have done that long ago," Papa Dupont pointed out, "if you had +had the courage. Enough! I am silent. But when you are tired trying to +think out another way, reflect on my solution. Meantime, let me have +another look at that accursed letter." + +Mama Thrse did not respond, she offered no objection when Dupont took up +the sheet of paper that lay between them, but ground the heels of her hands +into her fat cheeks and sat glowering vindictively while he read aloud, +slowly, with the labour of one to whom reading is unaccustomed dissipation: + +DEAR MADAM: + +Herewith we beg to enclose our cheque to your order in the sum of two +hundred and fifty pounds, being the quarterly payment in advance due you +from the estate of our deceased client, the Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, +for your care of her daughter. We further beg to advise that, pursuant to +the provisions of her will, we begin to-day, on the eighteenth birthday of +the young Princess Sofia, a search for her father with the object of +apprising him of his daughter's existence. Therefore we would request you +to make arrangements to have the young Princess Sofia brought to England +forthwith from the convent in France where we understand she is finishing +her education. We take leave, however, to advise that, pending the outcome +of our enquiries, the question of her father's existence be not discussed +with the young princess. In event of his death being established or of +failure to find him within six months, the Princess Sofia is to enter +without more delay or formality into possession of her mother's estate. + + +Papa Dupont put down the letter. "It is plain enough," he expounded: "if +this father is found, we can whistle for our money; whereas if I were +married to Sofia, as her husband I would control--" + +He broke off sharply, and added in consternation: "One million thunders!" + +Sofia stood between them. + +And yet she wasn't the Sofia they knew, but another person altogether, a +transfigured and exalted Sofia, aflame with righteous wrath and +contemptuous with the pride of birth which had leaped into full being a +moment since. + +A princess, born the daughter of a princess, now she knew and looked it. + +All thought of fear or deference was gone, she had nothing left but scorn +for these two despicable creatures, the fat harpy and her crapulent consort +who had battened so long upon her misery, who had held her in bondage to +the most menial tasks of their wretched restaurant while they filched and +hoarded the money paid them for giving her the care and the advantages that +were her due. + +And something of this new-found dignity, to which her title was so +unquestionable, which set her upon a level from which she could not but +look down on these two paltry frauds, so abashed the Frenchwoman that the +phrases of invective and vilification which gushed instinctively from the +foul springs of her temper stuck in her throat, she couldn't utter them, +and she well-nigh choked with impotent fury and fear as the girl spoke. + +"You swindlers!" Sofia said, deliberately. "You poor cheats! To pocket a +thousand pounds a year of my mother's money--and make me slave for you in +your wretched caf! And for eighteen years! For eighteen years you have +been robbing me of every right I had in the world, robbing me of everything +I've needed and longed and prayed for, everything you were paid to give +me--while I drudged for you and endured your ill-temper and your abuse and +the contamination of association with you!... Give me that letter." + +She possessed herself of it unopposed. But now Mama Thrse found her +tongue. + +"What--what do you mean?" she gasped, livid with fright. Was not a fortune +slipping through her avaricious fingers? "What are you going to do?" + +"Do?" Sofia cried. "I don't know, more than this: I'm not going to +stay another hour under this roof, I'm going to leave to-night--now-- +immediately! That's what I'm going to do!" + +"Where are you going?" + +The question halted Sofia in the doorway. + +"To find my father--wherever he is!" + +She left the two staring at each other, dumbfounded and aghast. + +At the far end of the passage she flung open her bedchamber door, entered, +turned up the light, and snatched her cloak and hat from pegs beneath the +curtained shelf that held her scanty wardrobe. + +Adjusting these before the mirror she could hear Thrse bawling at Dupont +to follow and stop her. Sofia had little fear he would find heart to +attempt that, none the less she hurried. Once her hat was adjusted there +was nothing to detain her; the best she had she stood in; no sentimental +associations invested that room, the tomb of her defrauded childhood, the +prison of her maltreated youth, to make her linger there, but only hateful +ones to speed her going. + +She turned and fled. + +Stumbling on the stairs, she heard Thrse still screaming imprecations and +commands at Dupont, then the clumping of the man's feet as, yielding at +length, he started in pursuit. + +Through the green baize door she burst into the caf like a young tornado. +Every head turned her way with gaping mouths and protruding eyes of +astonishment as she stopped at the caisse and brazenly, in the face of them +all, plundered the till. + +This was a matter of necessity. Sofia had not one shilling of her own. But +those two had robbed her, what she took was not so much as a thousandth +part of the money of which they had despoiled her. Moreover, she dared not +go out penniless to face London. + +Snatching a handful of loose coin, she made for the door. But the delay had +been fatal. Dupont was now at her heels, and displaying extraordinary +agility in a man of his years of dissipation and sedentary habits. And +Thrse was not far behind. + +Seeing coins trickling through the fingers of the fugitive and falling to +ring and spin upon the floor, the Frenchwoman raised an anguished shriek of +"_Thief! Stop thief!_"--and such part of the audience as had remained in +its seats rose up as one man. + +In the same instant Dupont's fingers clamped down on Sofia's shoulder. She +screamed, and he chuckled and dragged her back. Then his arm was struck up +by a deft hand, the girl slipped from his hold and darted out through the +doors. + +Roaring with rage (now that his blood was up, his heart in the chase) +Dupont turned upon the meddler. This was young Mr. Karslake. Dupont did not +know him except by sight, but that slender, boyish figure and the +semi-apologetic smile on Karslake's lips did not inspire respect. Blindly +and with all his might Dupont swung his right to the other's head, only to +find it wasn't there. + +The weight of the unexpended blow carried Dupont off his feet. He fell in a +heap, and Mama Thrse, charging wildly after Sofia, tripped on his body +and deposited fourteen stone of solid flesh squarely in the small of +Dupont's back with a force that drove the breath out of him in one agonized +blast. + +Karslake laughed aloud: it was all as good as a cinema. Then he followed +Sofia. + +It was a dark and silent street by night, little used, a mere link between +two main thoroughfares. Sofia, running for dear life, was still far from +the nearest corner. Karslake doubled nimbly across the street to the only +vehicle in sight, an impressive Rolls-Royce town-car. Jumping on the +running-board he pointed out the fleeing shadow to the chauffeur. + +"Lay alongside that young woman before she makes the corner, Albert!" + +Without delay the car began to move. + +Meanwhile, the Caf des Exiles was erupting antic shapes, waiters, +customers, Dupont, Thrse. The quiet hour was made hideous by their yells. + +"_Stop thief!" " la voleuse!" "L'arrtez!" " la voleuse!" "Stop thief!_" + +An entirely superfluous bobby weathered the corner, discovered Sofia in +flight across the street, came about, and shaped a diagonal course to cut +across her bows. She saw him coming and stopped short with a gasp of +dismay. Simultaneously the Rolls-Royce slid smoothly in between them and +Karslake hopped down. Sofia uttered a small cry, more of surprise than +fright, and hung back, trying to free the arm by which he was trying to +guide her to the open door. + +"It's our only chance," he warned her, coolly. "We're between two fires. +Better not delay!" + +She yielded and tumbled in. Karslake followed and slammed the door. The car +shot away and rounded into the cross street before the bobby could collect +himself enough to look at its license plate. He made after it, but when he +had reached the corner it had turned another and was lost. + +At the second turning Karslake looked round from the window with a +reassuring laugh, and settled back beside Sofia. + +"So that ends that!" + +She stared wide-eyed through the shadows. She knew him now, she was not in +the least afraid, but she was confused beyond measure. + +"Why--why--" she faltered--"what--who are you and where are you taking me?" + +"Oh, I beg your pardon!" said the young man, contritely. "I forgot. One +ought to introduce one's self before rescuing ladies in distress--but there +really wasn't time, you know. If you'll overlook the informality, my name's +Karslake, Roger Karslake, Princess Sofia, and I'm taking you to your +father." + + + +V + +HOUSE OF THE WOLF + + +This startling announcement Sofia received without comment and with a +composure quite as surprising. The life which had made her what she was, a +young woman singularly unillusioned, well-poised, and well-informed, had +brought out in her nature a strong vein of scepticism. She was not easily +to be impressed. The more remarkable the circumstance in question, the less +inclined was she to exclaim about it, the stronger was her propensity to +look shrewdly into the matter and find out for herself just what it was +that made it seem so odd. + +She didn't repose much faith in those striking synchronizations which +apparently unrelated influences sometimes effect with related events, and +which we are accustomed to term coincidences. She distrusted their specious +seeming of spontaneity, she suspected a deep design behind them all. + +For example: Up to the moment of her flight from the Caf des Exiles there +had been, as Sofia saw it, nothing extraordinary or inexplicable in the +chapter of happenings which had made her acquainted, as abruptly as +tardily, with certain facts concerning her parentage. + +You might, if you felt like it, call it a strange coincidence that she +should have read the advertisement of Messrs. Secretan & Sypher just before +their letter was delivered and Mama Thrse by her intemperate conduct +warmed Sofia's simmering suspicions to the boiling point. But then Sofia +read the Agony Column every time it came into her hands: she would have +been more surprised had she missed noticing her given name in print, and +downright ashamed of herself if she had failed to associate the letter with +the advertisement. + +If you asked her, she called it Fate, the foreordained workings of occult +forces charged with dominion over human affairs. Sooner or later she must +somehow have learned the truth about her right place in the world; and to +her way of thinking it was no more astonishing that she should have learned +it through accident supplemented by the acute inferences of a sharply +stimulated imagination, rather than through being waited upon by a +delegation of legal gentlemen commissioned with the duty of enlightening +her. And the colossal set-piece of the evening having been duly exploded, +no sequel whatever could expect anything better than relegation to the +cheerless limbo of anticlimax. + +Thus when young Mr. Karslake explained his uninvited if timely intervention +by stating that he was conducting her to the parent of whose existence she +had so recently been informed, he succeeded--not to put too fine a point +upon it--only in making it all seem a bit thick. + +So for the time being Sofia contented herself with silent study of his face +as fitfully revealed by the passing lights of Shaftesbury Avenue. + +A nice face (she thought) open and nave, perhaps a trace too much so; but, +viewed at close quarters, by no means so child-like as she had thought it, +and by no means wanting in evidences of quiet strength if one forgave the +funny little moustache which (now one came to, observe it seriously) was +precisely what lent that possibly deceptive look of innocence and +inconsequence, positively weakening the character of what might otherwise +have been a countenance to foster confidence. + +As for Mr. Karslake, he endured this candid scrutiny with a faintly +apprehensive smile, but volunteered nothing more; so that, when the silence +in time acquired an accent of constraint, it was Sofia who had to break it, +not Mr. Karslake. + +"I'm wondering about you," she explained quite gravely. + +"One fancied as much, Princess Sofia." + +She liked his way of saying that; the title seemed to fall naturally from +his lips, without a trace of irony. None the less, it wouldn't do to be too +readily influenced in his favour. + +"Do you really know my father?" + +"Rather!" said Mr. Karslake. "You see, I'm his secretary." + +"How long--" + +"Upward of eighteen months now." + +"And how long have you known I was his daughter?" + +Mr. Karslake, consulting a wrist-watch, permitted himself a quiet smile. + +"Thirty-eight minutes," he announced--"say, thirty-nine." + +"But how did you find out--?" + +"Your father called me up--can't say from where--said he'd just learned you +were acting as cashier at the Caf des Exiles, and would I be good enough +to take you firmly by the hand and lead you home." + +"And how did he learn--?" + +"That he didn't say. 'Fraid you'll have to ask him, Princess Sofia." + +Genuinely diverted by the cross-examination, he awaited with unruffled good +humour the next question to be put by this amazingly collected and direct +young person. But Sofia hesitated. She didn't want to be rude, and Karslake +seemed to be telling a tolerably straight story; still, she couldn't +altogether believe in him as yet. She couldn't help it if his visit to the +restaurant had been a shade too opportune, his account of himself too +confoundedly pat. + +No: she wasn't in the least afraid. Even if she were being kidnapped, she +wasn't afraid. She was so young, so absurdly confident in her ability to +take care of herself. On the other hand, intuition kept admonishing her +that in real life things simply didn't happen like this, so smoothly, so +fortunately; somehow, somewhere, in this curious affair, something must be +wrong. + +"Please: what is my father's name?" + +"Prince Victor Vassilyevski." + +"You're sure it isn't Michael Lanyard?" + +Now Mr. Karslake was genuinely startled and showed it. Sofia remarked that +he eyed her uneasily. + +"My sainted aunt! Where did you get hold of that name?" + +"Isn't it my father's?" + +"Ye-es," the young man admitted, reluctantly; at least with something +strongly resembling reluctance. "But he doesn't use it any more." + +"Why not?" + +Mr. Karslake was silent, thoughtful. Sofia felt that she had scored and +with determination pressed her point. + +"Do you mind telling me why he doesn't use that name, if it's his?" + +"See here, Princess Sofia"--Karslake slewed round to face her squarely with +his most earnest and persuasive manner--"I am merely Prince Victor's +secretary, I'm not supposed to know all his secrets, and those I do know +I'm supposed not to talk about. I'd much rather you put that question to +Prince Victor yourself." + +"I shall," Sofia announced with decision. "When am I to see him? To-night?" + +"Of course. That is, I presume you will. I mean to say, Prince Victor +wasn't at home when I left, but if I know him he's sure to be when we +arrive. And I'm taking you there as directly as a motor can travel in this +blessed town." + +Sofia looked out of the window. The car, having turned down Regent Street +from Piccadilly Circus, was now traversing sedate Pall Mall; and in another +moment it swung into the passage between St. James's Palace and Marlborough +House Chapel; and then they were in The Mall, with the Victoria Memorial +ahead, glowing against the dingy backing of Buckingham Palace. + +Now, since all Sofia's reading had inculcated the belief that the +enterprising kidnapper always made off with his victim by way of dark +bystreets and unsavoury neighbourhoods, she felt somewhat reassured. + +"Have we very far to go?" + +"We're almost there now--Queen Anne's Gate." + +A good enough address. Though that proved nothing. There was still plenty +of time, anything might happen.... + +Sofia shrugged, and settled back to await developments. + +But there was nothing to warrant misgivings in the aspect of the dwelling +before which the car presently drew up. If it wasn't the palace Sofia had +unconsciously been looking forward to, it owned a solid, dull-faced dignity +that suited well the town-house of a person of quality, it measured up +quite acceptably to Sofia's notion of what was becoming to the condition of +a prince in exile--who naturally would live quietly, in view of the recent +revolution in Russia. + +Without augmented fears, then, though still on the alert for anything that +might seem questionable, and more agitated with excitement than she let him +suspect, Sofia permitted Mr. Karslake to conduct her to the door. + +He had barely touched the bell-button when this door opened, revealing a +vista of spacious entrance-hall. + +To one side stood a manservant to whom Sofia paid no attention till the +sound of his name on Karslake's tongue struck an echo from her memory. +"Thanks, Nogam. Prince Victor home yet?" + +"Not yet, sir." + +"Tell him, please, when he comes in, we're waiting in the study." + +"'Nk-you, sir." + +The servant was the man whom Karslake had met in the Caf des Exiles only a +few hours before. Catching Sofia's quick, questioning glance, Nogam paused +at respectful attention. And, even then, she was struck again with his +fidelity to the rle in the social system for which Life had cast him. In +the caf, that afternoon, he had cut a mildly incongruous figure, +unpretending but alien to that atmosphere; here, in the plain evening-dress +livery of his station, he blended perfectly into the picture. + +Karslake gave his hat and stick to the man, then opened one wing of a great +double doorway, and with a bow invited Sofia to precede him. She faltered, +hazily conceiving that threshold in the guise of an inglorious Rubicon. But +she had already gone too far into this adventure to draw back now without +forfeiting her self-respect. With a deceptively firm step she entered a +room to wonder at. + +Sombre shadows masked much of its magnificent proportions, but what Sofia +could see suggested less the study of a man of everyday interests than the +private museum of an Orientalist whose wealth knew no limits. + +The air was warm and close, aromatic with the ghosts of ten thousand +perished perfumes. The quiet, when Karslake had closed the door, was +oppressive, as if some dark enchantment here had power to tame and silence +the growl of London that was never elsewhere in all the city for an instant +still. + +On a great table of black teakwood inlaid with mother of pearl burned a +solitary lamp, a curious affair in filigree of brass, furnishing what +illumination there was. Its closely shaded rays made vaguely visible walls +dark with books, tier upon tier climbing to the ceiling; chairs of odd +shape, screens of glowing lacquer; tables and stands supporting caskets of +burning cinnabar, of ivory, of gold, of kaleidoscopic cloisonn; trays +heaped high with unset jewels; cabinets crowded with rare objects of +Eastern art; squat shapes of neglected gods brandishing weird weapons; +grotesque devil masks ferociously a-grin; chests of strange woods strangely +fashioned, strangely carved, and decorated with inlays of precious metals, +banded with huge straps of black iron, from which gushed in rainbow +profusion silks and brocades stiff with barbaric embroideries in gold- and +silver-thread and precious stones. + +Confused by the impact upon her perceptions of so much that was unexpected +and bizarre, the girl looked round with an uncertain smile, and found +Karslake watching her with a manner of peculiar gravity and concern. + +"Prince Victor is an extraordinary man," Karslake replied to her unspoken +comment; "probably the most learned Orientalist alive. Sometimes I think +the East has never had a secret he doesn't know." + +He paused and drew nearer, with added earnestness in his regard. + +"Princess Sofia," said he, diffidently, "if I may say something without +meaning to seem disrespectful--" + +Perplexed, she encouraged him with one word: "Please." + +"I'm afraid," Karslake ventured, "you will have many strange experiences in +this new life. Some of them, I fancy, you won't immediately understand, +some things may seem wrong to you, you may find yourself confronted with +conditions hard to accept ..." + +He rested as if in doubt, and she fancied that he was listening intently, +almost apprehensively, for some signal of warning. But on her part Sofia +heard no sound. + +Impressed and puzzled, she uttered a prompting "Yes?" + +"I only want to say"--he employed a tone so low that she could barely hear +him--"if you don't mind--whatever happens--I'd be awf'ly glad if you'd +think of me as one who sincerely wants to be your friend." + +"Why," she said in wonder--"thank you. I shall be glad--" + +She checked in astonishment: a man was approaching from the general +direction of the door by which they had entered. + +The effect was uncanny, as if the figure had materialized before her very +eyes, out of clear air, as if one of those many shadows had taken on shape +and substance while she looked. + +The man himself was nothing unusual in general aspect, of no remarkable +stature, neither tall nor small, neither robust nor slender. His evening +clothes were without fault, but as much might be said of ten thousand men +who might be seen any night in the public rendezvous of leisured London. +His carriage had special distinction only in that he moved with a sort of +feline grace. Still, something elusive made him unlike any other man Sofia +had ever met, something arresting and not altogether prepossessing. + +As he drew nearer and his features became more clearly defined by the +light, she was sensible of gazing into a face of unique cast. Of an odd +grayish pallor accentuated by hair so black that it might have been painted +on his skull with india-ink, the skin seemed to be as soft and smooth as a +child's, beardless and wholly without lustre. The mouth was sensuous yet +firm, with hard, full lips. Leaden pouches hung beneath heavy-lidded eyes +set at a noticeable angle. The eyes themselves were as black as night and +as lightless; the rays of the lamp struck no gleam from them; in spite of +this they were compelling, masterful, and disconcerting. + +Karslake at once fell back, with a bow so low it was little less than an +obeisance. + +"Prince Victor!" + +The man nodded acknowledgment of this greeting without detaching attention +from the girl. His voice, slightly tremulous with emotion, uttered her +name: "Sofia?" + +She collected herself with an effort. "I am Sofia," she replied almost +mechanically. + +"And I, your father ..." + +Prince Victor lifted hands of singular delicacy, slender and tapering, +whose long fingers were dressed with many curious rings. + +A reluctance she could not understand hindered Sofia from going gladly into +those arms. She had to make herself yield. They tightened hungrily about +her. She closed her eyes and experienced a slight, invincible shudder. + +"My child!" + +The lips that touched her forehead astonished her with their warmth. +Instinctively she had expected them to be cool, as frigid as the effect of +that strange mask of which they formed a part. + +Then, held at arm's-length, she submitted to an inspection whose sum was +enunciated with a strange smile of gratification: + +"You are beautiful." + +In embarrassment she murmured: "I am glad you think so--father." + +"As beautiful as your mother--in her time the most beautiful creature in +the world--her image, a flawless reproduction, even to her colouring, the +shade of the hair, the eyes--so like the sea!" + +"I am glad," the girl repeated, nervously. + +"And until to-night I did not know you lived!" + +She mustered up courage enough to ask: "How--?" + +The heavy lids drooped lower over the illegible eyes. "My attention was +called to a newspaper advertisement signed by a firm of solicitors. I got +in touch with them--a matter of some difficulty, since it was after +business hours--and found out where to look for you. Then, prevented from +acting as quickly as I wished, myself, I sent Karslake here to bring you to +me." + +"But, according to their letter, the solicitors thought I was in France, in +a convent!" + +"When they advertised for me--yes. But by the time I enquired they were +better informed." + +"But the advertisement was addressed to Michael Lanyard!" + +The thin lips formed a faint smile. "That was once my name. I no longer use +it." + +Against a feeling that she was adopting an attitude both undutiful and +unbecoming, Sofia persisted. + +"Why?" + +Prince Victor Vassilyevski gave a gesture of pain and reluctance. + +"Must I tell you? Why not? You must know some day, as well now as later, +perhaps. Twenty years ago the name of Michael Lanyard was famous throughout +Europe--or shall I say infamous?--the name of the greatest thief of modern +times, otherwise known as 'The Lone Wolf'." + +Involuntarily, Sofia stepped back, as if some shape of horror had been +suddenly thrust before her face. + +"The Lone Wolf!" she echoed in a voice of dismay. "A thief! You!" + +The man who called himself her father replied with a series of slow, +affirmative nods. + +"That startles you?" he said in an indulgent voice. "Naturally. But you +will soon grow accustomed to the thought, you will condone that chapter in +my history, remembering I am no longer that man, no longer a thief, that +for many years now my record has been without reproach. You will remember +that there is more joy in Heaven over the one sinner who repents ... You +will forgive the father, if only for your mother's sake." + +"For my mother's sake--?" + +"What the Lone Wolf was in his day, your mother was in hers--the most +brilliant adventuress Europe ever knew." + +"Oh!" cried the girl in semi-hysterical protest. "Oh, no, no! Impossible!" + +"I assure you, it is quite true. Some day I may tell you her history--and +mine. For the present, you will do well to think no more about what I have +confessed. Repining can never mend the past. It is to-day and to-morrow you +must think of: that you are restored to me, and that I have not only the +means but a great hunger to make you happy, to gratify your slightest +whim." + +"I want nothing!" Sofia insisted, wildly. + +"You want sleep," Prince Victor corrected, fondly--"you want it badly. You +are nervous, overstrung, in no condition to understand the great good +fortune that has befallen you. But to-morrow you will see things in a +rosier light." + +Apparently he had manipulated some signal unremarked by Sofia. The door +opened, framing the figure of the man Nogam. Without looking round, but +with an inscrutable smile, Prince Victor took the girl in his arms again +and held her close. + +"You rang, sir?" + +"Oh, are you there, Nogam? Is the apartment ready for the Princess Sofia?" + +"Quite ready, sir." + +"Be good enough to conduct her to it." Again Prince Victor kissed Sofia's +forehead, then let her go. "Good-night, my child." + +Moving slowly toward the door, drooping, Sofia made inarticulate response. +She felt suddenly stupefied with fatigue. To think meant an effort that +mocked her flagging powers. A vast lassitude was weighing upon her, body +and spirit were faint in the enervation of an inexorable disconsolation. + + + +VI + +THE MUMMER + + +Alone with his secretary, Prince Victor Vassilyevski dropped indifferently +the guise of manner with which he had clothed himself for the benefit of +the woman whom he claimed as his own child. That semblance of shy affection +coloured by regrets for the past and modified by the native nobility of a +prince in exile--so becoming in a parent to whose bosom a daughter whom he +had never seen was suddenly restored--being of no more service for the +present, was incontinently discarded. In its stead Victor favoured Karslake +with a slow smile of understanding that broadened into an insuppressible +grin of successful malice, a grimace of crude exultation through which +peered out the impish savage mutinously imprisoned within a flimsy husk of +modern manner. + +Suspecting this self-betrayal, he erased the grin swiftly, but not so +swiftly that Karslake failed to note it. And the young man, smiling amiably +and respectfully in return, was sensible of a thrill: yet another glimpse +had been given him into the mystery that slept behind that countenance +normally so impenetrable. + +But he was studious to show nothing of his own emotion. It was his part to +be merely a mirror, to reflect rather than to feel, to be an instrument +infinitely supple and unfailing, never an independent intelligence. Not +otherwise could he count on holding his place in Victor's favour. + +"You were quicker than I hoped." + +"I had no trouble, sir," Karslake returned, cheerfully. "Things rather +played into my hands." + +Victor dropped into a chair beside the table and lifted the lid of a small +golden casket. Helping himself to one of its store of cigarettes, he made +Karslake free of the remainder with a gracious hand. The secretary +demurred, producing his pocket case. + +"If you don't mind, sir ..." + +Victor moved a supercilious eyebrow. "Woodbines again?" + +"Sorry, sir; I know they're pretty awful and all that, but they were all I +could get in France, and I contracted a taste for them I can't seem to +cure. I remember, while I lay in a hospital, hardly a whole bone in my +body, thanks to the Boche and his flying circus--it was that lot sent me +crashing, you know--the nurses used to tempt me with the finest Turkish; +but somehow I couldn't go them; I'd beg for Woodbines." + +Prince Victor dismissed the subject curtly. "I am waiting to hear about +Sofia." + +"Not much to tell, sir. There seemed to be a storm of sorts brewing when I +got there. The young woman was at her desk with a face like a thundercloud. +While I was trying to make up my mind what would be my best approach, she +jumped down, flew upstairs and, I gathered, kicked up a holy row. You see, +she'd seen that advertisement of Secretan & Sypher's, and smelt a rat." + +"What did she say?" + +"Nothing definite, sir: seemed to understand she was the daughter of +Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, only she objected to her father being anybody +but Michael Lanyard." + +"Go on." + +"After a bit she stampeded downstairs again, with the old girl and that +swine of a Dupont at her heels. I blocked him and gave Sofia a chance to +get outside. The whole establishment boiled out into the street after us, +yelling like fun, but I got the girl into the car ... and here we are." + +But Prince Victor seemed to have lost interest. The glow ebbing from his +face, his lips tightening, the thick lids drooping low over his eyes, he +sat in apparent abstraction, aping the impassivity of the graven idols that +graced his study. + +"I don't mind owning, sir," the younger man resumed, nervously, "she had me +sparring for wind when she put it to me point-blank her father's name was +Michael Lanyard." + +Without moving Victor enquired in a dull voice: "What did you tell her?" + +"That it was a name you had once used, sir, but.... Well, what you told +her, all except the Lone Wolf business. Don't mind telling you I was in a +rare funk till you capped my story so neatly." + +He laughed and ventured with a hesitation quite boyish: "I say, Prince +Victor--if it's not an impertinent question--was there any truth in that? I +mean about your having been the Lone Wolf twenty years ago." + +"Not a syllable," said Victor, dryly. + +"Then your name never was Michael Lanyard?" + +"Never, but ..." + +During a long pause the secretary fidgeted inwardly but had the wisdom to +refrain from showing further inquisitiveness. He could see that strong +passions were working in Victor: a hand, extended upon the table, unclosed +and closed with a peculiar clutching action; the muscles contracted round +mouth and eyes, moulding the face into a cast of disquieting malevolence. +The voice, when at length it resumed, was bitter. + +"But Michael Lanyard was my enemy ... and is to-day.... He became a lover +of Sofia's mother, he had a hand in overturning plans I had made, he +humiliated, mocked me.... And to-day he is interfering again.... But ..." + +Victor sank back in his chair. Suddenly that unholy grin of his flashed and +faded. + +"But now his impertinence fails, his insolence over-reaches itself. Now I +have the whip-hand and ... I shall use it!" + +Vindictiveness that could find relief only in action mastered the man. + +"Be good enough to take this dictation." + +Karslake turned to the table and opened a portfolio of illuminated Spanish +leather. + +"Ready, sir," he said, with pencil poised. + +_"To Michael Lanyard, Intelligence Division, the War Office, Whitehall. +Sir: Your daughter Sofia is now with me. Permit me to suggest that, in +consideration of this situation, you cease to meddle with my affairs. Your +own intelligence must tell you nothing could be more fatal than an attempt +to communicate with her._" + +"Sign on the typewriter with the initial _V_." + +"Yes, sir." + +"Type it on plain paper, use a plain envelope, be sure that neither has a +watermark, and get it off to-night without fail. Take a taxi to St. Pancras +station and post it there. If you make haste you can get it in a pillar-box +before the last collection." + +"I shan't lose a minute, sir." + +Karslake straightened up, folding the paper, and made for the door. + +"One moment, Karslake.... This man, Nogam: where did you pick him up?" + +"He used to buttle for my father, sir, but got into trouble--some domestic +unpleasantness, I believe--needed money, and raised a cheque. The old boy +let him off easy; but I've got the cheque, and Nogam knows it. The fellow's +perfectly trained and absolutely dependable, knows his place and his duties +and not another blessed thing. I'll send him in if you like." + +Prince Victor uttered with dry accent: "Why?" + +"Thought you might care to have a talk with him, sir." + +"I have." + +"Oh!" Mr. Karslake exclaimed--"I didn't know." + +"Quite so," commented Prince Victor. "I shan't need you again to-night, +Karslake." + +"Good-night, sir." + +When the secretary had gone, Victor sat motionless, so still that his +breathing scarcely stirred his body, with a face absolutely imperturbable, +steadfastly gazing into that darkness which shrouded the workings of his +mind. + +On the doorstep a shrill whistle sounded: Nogam calling Karslake's taxi. +Victor heard the vehicle roll in and stand panting at the curb, then the +slam of its door, the diminishing rumble of its departure. + +The house door closed, and after a little the study door opened, and Nogam +halted on the threshold. + +Unstirring Victor enquired: "What is it, Nogam?" + +"I wished to enquire would there be anything more to-night, sir." + +"Nothing." + +"'Nk you, sir." + +"But Nogam: in this house, regardless of the custom which may have obtained +in other establishments where you have served, you will always knock before +entering a room, and never enter until you obtain permission." + +"But if I'm sure the room is empty, sir, and get no answer--?" + +"Then you may enter any room but this. Never this, unless I am here--or Mr. +Karslake is--and you get leave." + +"'Nk you, sir." + +"Good-night." + +As the door closed Victor extended a thin, effeminate hand to a casket of +ivory, searched with sensitive finger-tips its exquisite tracery until a +cunningly hidden spring responded and the lid, splitting in two, sank down +into its walls. In the pocket thus revealed were many pills, apparently +hand-moulded, of a grayish-brown substance, putty-soft. + +Slowly Victor selected three, placed one after another upon his tongue, and +swallowed them. + +He shut the casket and sat waiting. + +Slowly the keenness of his countenance became blurred, as if the hand of an +unseen sculptor were rubbing down its features, doing away the veneer with +which Europe had overlaid the primitive Asiatic, which now showed on the +surface, in every detail of coarsely modelled nose, oblique eyes of animal +cunning, pendulous lips cruel and sensual. + +By degrees a faint trace of colour began to flush Victor's cheeks, a smile +modified the set of his mouth, the heavy-lidded eyes lost their lustreless +opacity and glimmered with uncanny light. + +He breathed deeply, evenly, with an evident relish. The action of the opium +was visibly renewing his powers. His expression, softening, became terrible +with brute tenderness and longing. Gazing into shadows in which he saw that +which he wished ardently to see, he stretched forth his arms, and his lips +moved, shaping a name: + +"Sofia!" + +As those syllables, freighted with that undying passion which consumed the +man, sounded upon the stillness, Victor turned sharply, with a gesture of +irritation, looking aside, listening. + +Instantaneously the Asiatic disappeared, thrust back into its habitual +latency within the prison of European: Prince Victor was as he had been, as +always to the world, cool, composed, and crafty, master, never creature, of +his emotions. + +A faint buzzing was audible, broken by muffled clicks. + +Rising, Victor approached a table in a corner and with a key from his +pocket ring unlocked a heavy casket of bronze. As he raised its cover a +small electric bulb illuminated the interior, focussing on the +paper-covered face of a mechanical writing device, upon which a pencil with +a broad flat lead operated by a metal arm was tracing characters resembling +the hieroglyphics of the Chinese. + +When the clicking ceased and the pencil was at rest, Victor caught an end +of the paper and pulled it forward until a blank surface again occupied the +writing-bed. Upon this with another pencil he inscribed a reply, then +closed and relocked the casket. + +Back at the table with the lamp, the message just received became crisp +black ash on a brazen tray. + +From a locked chest Victor produced an inverness and a soft hat of black +felt. Wearing these he moved quietly out of the lamp's radius of light, and +made himself one with the shadows that crowded one another round the walls. +He did not leave by the hall door; but of a sudden the room was untenanted. + + + +VII + +THE FANTASTICS + + +Downstream from The Pool, a little way below Shadwell, an uncouth row of +dilapidated dwellings in those days stood--or, better, squatted, like a +mute company of draggletail crones--atop a river-wall whose ancient blocks, +all ropy with the slime of centuries, peered dimly out through groups of +crazy spiles at the restless pageant of Thames-life. + +Viewed by day, say from the deck of a river steamer, the spectacle they +offered was, according to bias of mood and disposition, unlovely and drear +or colourful and romantic: Whistler might have etched these houses, Dickens +have staged therein a lowly tragedy, Thomas Burke have made of one a frame +for some vignette unforgettable of Limehouse life. + +Builded of stone or brick or both as to their landward faces, without +exception they presented to the river false backs of wooden framework which +overhung the water. Ordinarily, their windows were tight-shut, the panes +opaque with accumulated grime--many were broken and boarded. Their look was +dismal, their squalor desperate. + +Below, by day, heavy wherries swung moored to the ooze-clad spiles or, when +the tide was out, sprawled upon stinking mud-flats with a gesture of +pathetic helplessness peculiar to stranded watercraft. Seldom was one +observed in use: to all seeming they existed for purposes of atmosphere +alone. + +More seldom still did any dwelling betray evidence of inhabitation beyond +faint wisps of smoke, like ghosts of famine, drifting from the chimneypots, +or--perhaps--some unabashed exhibit of red flannel hung out to dry with +wrist or ankle-bands nipped between a window-sash and sill. + +By night, however, a stir of furtive life was to be surmised from cryptic +lights that flared and faded behind the crusted window-glass or fell +through opened floor-traps to the thick black element that swirled about +the spiles, and from guarded calls as well, inarticulate cries of hate and +love and pain, rumours of close and crude carousal. + +And ever and again the belated riverfarer would encounter one of the +wherries, its long oars swung by brawny arms and backs, stealing secretly +across the inky waters on some errand no less dark. + +On land the buildings lined a cobbled street, from dawn to dark a +thoroughfare for thundering lorries and, twice daily, in murk of early +morning and gloom of early night, scoured by a nondescript rabble employed +in the vast dockyards whose man-made forests of masts and cordage, funnels +and cranes, on either hand lifted angular black silhouettes against the +misty silver of the sky. + +Black and white and yellow and brown, men of every race and skin, they came +and went, their brief hours loud with babel of strange tongues and a +scuffling of countless feet like the sound of surf; and their goings left +the street strangely hushed, a way of sinister reticences, its winding +length ill-lighted by infrequent corner-lamps, its mephitic glooms +enlivened by windows of public houses all saffron with specious promise of +purchasable good-fellowship. + +One of these, the Red Moon, faced the row of waterfront houses, standing at +the intersection of a street which struck inland to the pulsing heart of +Limehouse. A retired bully of the prize-ring ruled with a high hand over +its several bars and many patrons, yellow men and white girls, deck-hands +and dock-workers, pugilistic and criminal celebrities of the quarter, and +their sycophants. Its revels rendered the nights cacophonous, its portals +sucked in streams of sweethearts and more impersonal lovers of life and +laughter, and spewed out sots close-locked in embraces of maudlin affection +or brutal combat. Bobbies kept an eye on the Red Moon, a respectful one: +interference with the time-hallowed customs and prerogatives of its +clientle was something to be adventured with extreme discretion. + +Out of the hinterland of Limehouse, a tall man came to the Red Moon that +night, walking with long, loose-jointed strides, holding his head high and +looking over the heads of all he passed with a fixed, far gaze. He had a +hatchet-face, sallow, with lantern jaws, a petulant mouth, hot eyes that +showed too much white above their pupils. A lank black mane greased his +collar. His garments, shoddy but whole, were stained and bleached in spots, +apparently the work of acids, and so wrinkled and shapeless as to suggest +that their owner slept without undressing as a matter of habit. The pockets +of his coat bulged noticeably. + +Shouldering heedlessly into the saloon-bar, he found it deserted except for +a chinless potman: the liveliest evening trade was always plied in the +cheaper bars adjacent. + +One glance sufficed to identify him: with a surly nod the potman ducked +behind a partition to call the proprietor. Drinks were in order when this +last appeared; and a brief conference in undertones ended when, having made +careful reconnaissance, the publican nodded shortly to the patron, a jerk +of his thumb designating a small door let into the wall to one side of the +bar proper. + +Through this the tall man passed to find himself upon a dark stairway, at +the foot of which another door admitted to an underground chamber where an +apparently exclusive social gathering was in session of Saturnalia. + +In one corner a long-suffering piano was taking cruel punishment at the +hands of a flashily dressed, sharp-faced man of horsey type. Flanking him, +two young women of the world, with that insouciance which appertains--in +Limehouse--to sweet sixteen, were chanting shrilly to his accompaniment: +both more than comfortably drunk. In the middle of the room assorted +lawbreakers gathered round a table were playing fan-tan at the top of their +lungs. At smaller tables men and women sat consuming poisons of which they +were obviously in no crying need; while in bunks builded against one wall +devotees of the pipe reclined in various stages of beatitude. The air was +hot, and foul with cigarette smoke, sickening fumes of sizzling opium, +effluvia of beer and spirits, sour reek of sweating flesh. + +Incurious glances greeted the newcomer: none paid him more heed than an +indifferent nod. On his part, brief but comprehensive survey having +deepened the stamp of scorn upon his features, he ignored them all and, +proceeding directly to a bunk of the lowermost tier, aroused its occupant +with a smart tap on the shoulder. + +The ostensible drug-addict looked up dreamily, then opened his eyes wide, +with surprising docility rolled out and, uttering no word, lurched to the +fan-tan table. The tall man took his place, lay down, and drew together the +unclean curtains of sleazy stuff provided to afford privacy to shrinking +souls. This done, he turned on his side and knuckled in peculiar rhythm the +back of the bunk, a solid panel which slipped smoothly to one side, +permitting the man to tumble out into still another room, a cheerless +place, with floor of stone and the smell of a vault. + +When the panel had slipped back into place, closing out the bunk, the man +stood in night absolute. But after a minute a slender beam of golden light +struck suddenly athwart the darkness and found his face. This he endured +impassively, only lifting a hand to describe an obscure sign. Immediately +the light was shut off, a door opened in the wall opposite, dull light from +behind disclosed the silhouette of a man in Chinese robes, his head +inclined in a bow of courteous dignity. + +In good English but with musical Eastern inflection a voice gave greeting: + +"Good evening, Thirteen. You are awaited--and welcome!" + +"Good evening, Shaik Tsin," the European replied in heavy un-English +accents. "Number One is here, yes?" + +"Not yet. But we have just received a telautographic message saying he is +on his way." + +Nodding impatiently, Thirteen passed through the door, which the Chinaman +quickly closed and barred. + +The chamber to which one gained admittance by ways so devious and fantastic +was large--exactly how large it was difficult to guess, since all its walls +were screened by black silk panels upon which golden dragons writhed and +crawled. A thick carpet of black covered every inch of visible floor space, +a black silk canopy hid the ceiling, and all the room was in deep shadow +save the space immediately beneath a great lamp of opalescent glass, +likewise draped in black. + +Here stood an octagonal table of black teakwood, on seven sides of which +seven chairs were placed. When Thirteen had taken his seat all these were +occupied. On the eighth side an eighth chair stood empty on a low dais, the +heavy carving of its high back, its massive arms and legs, picked out with +gold. + +The six who had anticipated Thirteen at this bizarre rendezvous hailed him +as a familiar, according to their several idiosyncrasies, brusquely, +indifferently, or with some semblance of cordiality. They made a motley +crew. + +Two were Englishman in appearance, though the figure of languid elegance in +evening dress that might have graced the lounge of a West End club had a +voice soft with Celtic brogue. The other owned a gross body clothed in loud +checks and, with his mean blue eyes, his mottled complexion, and cunning +leer, would not have seemed out of place in a betting-ring. + +Aside from these there were a moon-faced Bengali babu, a dark Italian with +flashing eyes and teeth, and a stout person of bovine Teutonic cast--the +type that is sage, shrewd, easy-going when unopposed, but capable under +provocation of exhibiting the most conscienceless brutality. + +From this last Thirteen got his warmest welcome. + +"You are late, mine friend." + +"In good time, however," Thirteen responded with a nod toward the vacant +chair. "More than that, the summons was handed me only twenty minutes ago." + +"How was that?" the babu asked. "It was sent at six o'clock." + +"I was at work in the laboratory and had left orders I was not to be +disturbed. But for one thing"--the petulance of Thirteen's habitual +expression was lightened by a flash of self-gratulation, and his voice +shook a little with excitement--"I might not have received the summons +before morning." + +"And that one thing?" + +"Success, comrades! At last--after months of experimentation--I have been +successful!" + +"'Ow?" dryly demanded the man in the checked suit. + +"I have discovered a great secret--discovered, perfected, adapted it to +common means at our command. Comrades, I tell you, to-night we hold all +England in the hollow of our hands!" + +With an incoherent exclamation and eyes afire the Russian sat forward. +Unconsciously the others imitated his action. Only the man in evening dress +made a show of remaining unimpressed. + +"It's fine, fat words you're after using," he commented. "'All England in +the hollow of our hands!' If they mean anything at all, comrade, they +mean--" + +"Everything!" Thirteen cut in with arrogant assertiveness; "all we've been +waiting for, hoping for, praying for--the end of the ruling classes, +extinction of the accursed aristocrats, subjugation of the thrice-damned +bourgeois, the triumph of the proletariat, all at a single stroke, swift, +subtle, and sure! Freedom for Ireland, freedom for India, freedom for +England, the speedy spreading of that red dawn which lights the Russian +skies to-day, till all the wide world basks in its warm radiance and +acclaims us, comrades, its redeemers!" + +"Lieber Gott!" the German breathed. "Colossal!" + +"'Ear, 'ear!" the Englishman applauded, perfunctory and skeptical. "Bli'me +if you didn't mike me forget where I was--'ad me thinking I was in 'Yde +Park, you did, listening to a bloody horator on a box." + +"You may laugh," Thirteen replied with a sour glance; "but when you have +heard, you will not laugh. I am not boasting--I am telling you." + +"Not a great deal," the Irishman suggested. "Your mouth is full of sounds +and fury, but till you tell us more you'll have told us nothing." + +The face of Thirteen grew darker still, and for a moment he seemed to +meditate an angry retort; but he thought better of it, contenting himself +with an impatient movement and a mutter: "All in good time; Number One is +not here yet." + +"W'y wyste time w'itin' for 'im?" demanded the Englishman. "'E's no good, +'e's done." + +Thirteen's eyes narrowed. "How so?" + +"'E's done, Number One is--finished, counted out, napoo! 'E's 'ad 'is d'y, +and a pretty mess 'e's mide of it--and it's 'igh time, I say, for 'im to +step down and let a better man tike 'old." + +Growls in chorus endorsed this declaration of mutiny; but suddenly were +stilled by a voice, sonorous and calm, from outside the circle: + +"You think so, Seven? Well--who knows?--perhaps you are right." + + + +VIII + +COUNCIL OF THE GODLESS + + +Someone exclaimed in an accent of alarm: "Number One!" + +With a concerted turning of startled heads, a hasty thrusting back of +chairs, the gathering rose in involuntary deference. That is, five rose as +one; and, after a moment during which his spirit of insubordination +faltered and failed, the Englishman got awkwardly to his feet and stood +abashed and sullen. + +The one to remain seated was the Irishman so well turned out by Conduit +Street; who made no move more than slightly to elevate supercilious brows +and slouch a little lower in his chair, glancing from face to face of the +circle, then back to the cold countenance presented by the author of the +abrupt interruption. + +This last stood quietly beside the eighth chair, a hand on its carved arm, +one foot on the edge of the dais. A long robe of black silk enveloped him; +on its bosom a Chinese unicorn was embroidered. His girdle clasp was of +Imperial jade set with rubies. The girdle itself was yellow. A great ruby +button, nearly an inch in diameter, set in a mounting of worked gold, +crowned a hat like an inverted round bowl. His black silk shoes were heavy +with golden embroidery, and had white soles an inch thick. Authority lent +inches to his stature, so that he seemed to dominate his company physically +as well as spiritually. + +A pace or two in the rear Shaik Tsin, with impassive face and arms folded +in voluminous sleeves, waited as might a bodyguard. + +A sardonic glimmer in eyes half visible under heavy lids alone betrayed +relish of the situation, the homage commanded and the sensation created by +this inopportune and unheralded arrival: deliberately Number One mounted +the dais and posed himself in the throne-like chair. Then, as his look read +face after face, he smiled with twitching and disdainful nostrils. + +"Gentlemen of the Council," he said, slowly, "I bow to you all. Pray be +seated." + +In confounded silence the six resumed their seats, while the seventh--who +had not moved--lighted a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and through a veil of +smoke continued to regard Number One with insolent eyes. + +"I fear my arrival was ill-timed, gentlemen. Seven had the floor, and I +confess to finding what I happened to overhear extremely interesting. If he +will be good enough to continue ..." + +The Irishman gave a light, derisive laugh. Shifting uneasily in his chair, +the man in the checked suit flushed darkly, then stiffened his spine, +hardened his eyes, set his jaw, and faced Number One defiantly. + +"You 'eard ... I 'olds by w'at I said." + +"I am to understand, then, you think it time for me to abdicate and let +another lead you in my stead?" + +The Englishman assented with an inarticulate monosyllable and a surly nod. + +"And may one ask why?" + +"Blue's plice in Pekin Street was r'ided this afternoon," Seven announced +truculently. "But per'aps you didn't know--" + +"Not until some time before the news reached you," One replied, pleasantly. +"And what of it?" + +"Three fycers in a week, Gov'ner--anybody'll tell you that's comin' it a +bit thick." + +"Granted. What then?" + +"That's only part of it. Tike last week: Eighteen pinched, the queer plant +in 'Igh Street pulled by the coppers--" + +"I know, I know. To your point!" + +Seven hesitated under that steely stare. "I leave it to you, Gov'ner," he +continued to stammer at length. "S'y you was me and I was Number One--w'at +would you think?" + +"Why, quite naturally, that some superior intelligence has latterly been +collaborating with Scotland Yard." + +"Aren't you a bit behindhand in arriving at that conclusion?" the Irishman +suggested with an ill-dissembled sneer. + +"No, Eleven," Number One replied, mildly, "since I arrived at it some time +since." + +"But took no measures--" + +"You are in a position to state that as a fact?" + +Eleven shrugged lightly. "Need I be? Does not our situation speak for +itself?" + +"Since you cannot be as thoroughly acquainted as I am with the situation, +and since it seems I am required to account for my leadership or surrender +it to you, Eleven ... I believe you have selected yourself to replace me as +Number One, have you not?--that is to say, in the improbable event of my +abdication." + +"Improbable?" repeated the Irishman. "I wouldn't call it that." + +"You are right," Number One assented, gravely: "unthinkable is the word. +But you haven't answered my question." + +"Oh, as for that, if the Council should see fit to appoint me Number One, +I'd naturally do my best." + +"And most noble of you, I'm sure. But rather than bring down any such +disaster upon this organization, I will say now that measures have already +been taken, and I am to-night in a position to promise you that the new +spirit in Scotland Yard will no longer be a factor in our calculations." + +"That wants proving," Eleven contended. + +A spasm of anger shook the figure in the throne-like chair, but only for +an instant; immediately the iron will of the man imposed rigid +self-control; almost without pause he proceeded in level and civil accents: + +"I think I can satisfy you and--this once--I consent to do so. But first, a +question: Have you yourself formed any theory as to the identity of this +hostile intelligence which has so hindered us of late?" + +"I'd be a raw fool if I hadn't," the Irishman retorted. "We know the Lone +Wolf has been hand-in-glove with the authorities ever since the British +Secret Service used him during the war." + +"You think, then, it is Lanyard--?" + +"It's a wise saying: 'Set a thief to catch a thief.' I believe there's no +man in England but Lanyard who has the wit and vision and audacity to fight +us on our ground and win." + +"I agree entirely. Therefore, I have this day tied the hands of the Lone +Wolf; he will not again dare to contend against us." + +Eleven sat up with a startled gesture. + +"Are you meaning you've got the girl?" + +Number One indulged a remote and chilly smile. + +"Then you, too, noticed the advertisement? Accept my compliments, Eleven. +Decidedly you might prove a dangerous rival--were I in a temper to +countenance competition.... But it is true: I have the girl Sofia--the Lone +Wolf's daughter." + +"Where?" + +The smile faded; the man on the dais looked down loftily. + +"It is enough for you to know I have proved far-sighted and unfailing in my +fidelity to our common cause." + +"So _you_ say ..." + +Though the Irishman winced and fell silent under the cold glare of the +other's eyes, the voice that answered him was level and passionless. + +"I am not here to have my word challenged--or my authority. If any one of +you imagines I am even thinking of surrendering the latter, under any +conceivable circumstances, he is mad. And if any one of you doubts my power +to enforce my will, I promise him ample proof of it before the night is +ended.... Let us now proceed to business, the question held over from our +last meeting. If Comrade Four will consult his minutes"--a nod singled out +the babu, who, beaming with importance, produced a note-book--"they will +show we adjourned to consider overtures made by the Smolny Institute of +Petrograd, seeking our coperation toward accelerating the social +revolution in England." + +"Thatt," the Bengali affirmed, "is true bill of factt." + +"If the temper in which you received those proposals is fair criterion," +Number One resumed, "there can be little doubt as to our decision. Speaking +for myself, I think it would be suicidal to reject the overtures of the +Soviet Government in Russia. Let me state why." + +He bowed his forehead upon a hand and continued with thoughtful gaze +downcast: + +"England is ripe for revolution. The social discontent resulting from the +war has reached an acute stage. Only a spark is needed. It remains for us +to decide whether to permit Russia to bring about the explosion or--bring +it about ourselves. The soviet movement is irresistible, it will sweep +England eventually as it has swept Russia, as it is now sweeping Germany, +Hungary, Austria, Italy, as it must soon sweep France and Spain. Our power +in England is great; even so, we could hope to do no more than delay the +soviet movement were we to set ourselves against it--we could never hope to +stop it. It would seem, then, self-preservation to set ourselves at the +head of it, seize with our own hands--in the name of the British +Soviet--the symbols of power now held by an antiquated and doddering +Government. So shall we become to England what the Smolny Institute is to +Russia. Otherwise, in the end, we must be crushed." + +"If we adopt the indicated course, there will be an end forever to this +hole-and-corner business which so hampers us, we will be able to work in +the open, the police will become our tools rather than weapons in the hands +of our enemies; our power will be without limits, Soviet Russia itself must +bow to our dictation." + +He paused and lifted his head, looking round the circle of intent faces. + +"If I am wrong or too sanguine, I am ready to be corrected." + +He heard only a murmur of admiration, never a note of dissent; and a smile +of gratification, yet half satiric, curved his thin lips. + +"I take it, then, the Council endorses my decision to proceed with the +negotiations instituted by Soviet Russia; to accept its proposals and +pledge our cooperation in every way?" + +This time there was no mistaking the accuracy with which he had gauged the +minds of his associates. + +"One thing remains to be decided: a plan of action, something which will +demand all that we have of imagination, ingenuity, common sense, and far +prevision. We can afford to waste not a single ounce of strength: the blow, +when we strike, must be sudden, sharp, merciless--irresistible. But if +Thirteen is not over-confident of the discovery which he says he has to-day +perfected, the means to deal just such a blow is ready to our hands.... +Thirteen?" + +A nod and gracious smile invited that one to speak. He rose, trembling a +little with excitement, bowed to Number One and, delving into capacious +pockets, produced a number of small tin canisters together with three +sealed bottles of brown glass. Surveying these, as he arranged them on the +teakwood table before him, he smiled a little to himself: the stars, it +seemed to him, were warring in their courses in his behalf; this was to +prove his hour of hours. + +He began to speak in a quivering voice which soon grew more steady. + +"It is true, Excellency--it is true, comrades--I have perfected a discovery +which I offer as a free gift to the cause, and by means of which, +intelligently employed, we can, if we will, make all London a graveyard. +Put the resources of this organization at my command, give me a week to +make the essential preparations, select a time of national crisis when the +Houses of Parliament are sitting and the Cabinet meets in Downing Street +with the King attending or in Buckingham Palace ..." + +He paused and held the pause with a keen feeling for dramatic effect, his +eyes seeking in turn the faces of his fellow conspirators, an +insuppressible grin of malicious exultation twisting his scornful and +mutinous mouth. + +"Let this be done," he concluded, "and by means of these few tins and +bottles which you see before you, in one brief hour the ruling classes will +have perished almost to a man, there will be no more government of a +tyrannical bourgeoisie to grind down the proletariat, a bloodless +revolution will have made England the cradle of the new liberty!" + +"Bloodless?" the man on the dais repeated; and even he was seen perceptibly +to shudder at the prospect unfolded to the vision of his mind. "Yes--but +more terrible than the massacre of the Huguenots, more savage than the +French Revolution!" + +"But I believe," the inventor commented, "your Excellency said we required +the means to deal a 'blow sudden, sharp, merciless--irresistible'." + +"Surely now," the Irishman suggested, mockingly--where a wiser man would +have held his tongue--"you'll not be sticking at a small matter like +wholesale murder if it's to make us masters of England?" + +"Of England?" the German echoed. "Herr Gott! Of the world!" + +"And you, Excellency, our master," the inventor added, shrewdly. + +A sign at once impatient and imperative demanded silence, and for a few +minutes it obtained unbroken, while the gathering, keyed to high tension, +studied closely the face of their leader and found it altogether illegible. + +On his part he seemed forgetful of the existence of anybody but himself, +forgetful almost of himself as well: sitting low in his great chair, his +body as stirless as it were bound by some spell of black magic, his far +gaze probing unfathomable remotenesses of thought. + +Slowly he recalled himself to his surroundings; with a suggestion of +weariness he sat up and reviewed the little company that hung so +breathlessly upon the issue of his judgment. The shadow of that satiric +smile returned. + +"If the thing be feasible," he promised, "it shall be done. It remains for +Thirteen to be more explicit." + +With an extravagant flourish the inventor whipped from his breastpocket a +folded paper, and spread it out face uppermost on the table. + +"A map of London," he announced, "based on the latest Ordnance Survey and +coloured to show the districts supplied by the mains of each individual gas +depot. Thus you will observe"--what his long, bony finger indicated--"the +district supplied by the mains of the Westminster gas works, comprising +Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, the War Office, and the +Admiralty, Downing Street, the homes of hundreds of the aristocracy. All +these we can at will turn into the deadliest of death traps." + +A tense voice interrupted with the demand: "How?" + +"Quite easily, comrade: with the ramifications of our power throughout +London, all under the control of his Excellency"--the inventor bowed to +Number One--"it should be an easy matter to place a few trustworthy men +with the Westminster gas works." + +"It can readily be done," Number One affirmed. "And then--?" + +"While this is being done means must be found to smuggle other men, in the +guise of servants, into the various buildings selected, or to corrupt those +already so employed therein. At the designated hour--" + +The words dried upon his lips as somewhere a hidden bell stabbed the quiet +with short, sharp thrills of sound, a code that spelled a message of +terrifying significance. The inventor started violently, but no more so +than every man about the table. Even Number One, shocked out of his +lounging pose, grasped the arms of his throne with convulsive hands. + +Quietly and without a hint of hurry, the Chinese, Shaik Tsin, moved back +into the shadows and, unnoticed, disappeared behind a screen. + +For a moment, when the bell had ceased, nobody spoke; but pallid face +consulted face and eyes grown wide with dread sought eyes that winced in +terror. + +Then the Bengali leaped from his chair, jabbering with bloodless lips. + +"Police! Raid! We are betrayed!" + +He made an uncertain turn, as if thinking to seek safety in flight but +doubting which way to choose; and the movement struck panic into the minds +and hearts of his fellows. In a twinkling all were on their feet. But +before one could move a step the lamp in the ceiling winked out, the room +was left in darkness unrelieved, and the accents of Number One were heard, +coldly imperative. + +"Gentlemen! be good enough to resume your places--let no one move before +there is light again. We are in no immediate danger: Shaik Tsin will show +you out by a secret way long before the police can hope to find and break +into this chamber. In the meantime--" + +The infuriated voice of the Englishman interrupted: + +"And 'oo're you to give us orders?--you 'oo talked so big about 'avin' tied +the 'ands of the Lone Wolf and Scotland Yard! You blarsted blow'ard! Bli'me +if I don't believe it's you 'oo--" + +"Quietly, Seven! Have you forgotten you have a bad heart?--that excitement +may mean your sudden death?" + +The rage of the Englishman ran out in a gasp and a whisper. + +"In the meantime," Number One resumed as if there had been no break, "I +promised that, before the night was out, you should have proof of my +ability to enforce my will." + +A groan of agony answered him, followed by an oath of witless fear. From a +distance the voice, now thin but still sonorous, added: + +"Thirteen will hold himself ready to wait on me when I send for him +to-morrow. Gentlemen of the Council, I bow to you all." + +Again silence held for a long minute during which no man stirred or spoke. +Then overhead the lamp burned bright again, discovering six frightened men +upon their feet and one who, still seated, did not stir, and never would +again. + +His head fallen forward, chin resting on his chest, mouth ajar, inert arms +dangling over the arms of the chair, heavy legs lax, the Englishman sat +quite dead, dead without a sign to show how death had come to him. + +Number One had disappeared. + +There was a remote rumour of cries and shouts, the muffled sound of axes +crashing into woodwork.... + + + +IX + +MRS. WARING + + +Late in the forenoon a pencil of golden light found a chink in jealously +drawn draperies, and groped the rich dusk of the bedchamber till it came to +rest, as if happy that its search had found so lovely a reward, upon the +face of a young girl who lay sleeping in a bed whose exquisite adornment +must have flattered even the exalted person of a princess. + +With a swift but silent movement another girl, who had been sitting +patiently on a low stool near by, rose and put herself in the way of the +sunbeam. But too late: already long lashes were a-flutter upon the +delicately modelled cheeks of the sleeper. + +A gentle sigh brushed parting lips; the sweet body stirred luxuriously; +unclouded by any shadow of misgiving, the blue eyes of the Princess Sofia +looked out upon the first day of her new world. + +Then they grew wide with wonder, comprehending the sleek, pretty face of a +Chinese girl of about her own age who, with eyes downcast, demure mouth and +folded hands, submissively awaited recognition. + +"Who are you?" Sofia demanded in a breath. + +A bob of courtesy, wholly charming, prefaced a reply pattered in English +of quaintest accent: + +"You' handmaiden--Chou Nu is my name." + +"My handmaiden!" + +"Les, Plincess Sofia." + +"But I don't understand. How--when--?" + +"Las' night Numbe' One he send for me, but when I come you go-sleep." + +"Number One?" + +Surprise coloured faintly the explanation: "Plince Victo', honol'ble fathe' +of Plincess Sofia. You like get up now, take bath, have blekfuss?" + +The smile was irresistibly ingratiating: Sofia could not but return it. +Delighted, Chou Nu ran to the windows, threw wide their draperies, and +darted into the bathroom. + +Autumnal sunlight kindled to burning beauty the golden-bronze tresses +coiled upon the pillows where Sofia lay unstirring, like a princess +enchanted--as indeed she was. Surely nothing less potent than magic had +wrought this metamorphosis in the fabric of her life! And whether the magic +were white or black--what matter? Its work was good. + +No more the Caf des Exiles, no more the deadly tedium of daily service at +the desk of the caisse, no more the shrewish tongue of Mama Thrse, the +odious oglings of Papa Dupont, the ceaseless cark of discontent.... + +Incredible! + +As one who moves in a dream, Sofia rose presently and bathed, then, robed +in a ravishing neglige of rare brocade, breakfasted on melon, tea, and +toast from a service of eggshell china. + +In a long mirror she saw and watched but did not know herself. Like Goody +Twoshoes of nursery fame she could have cried: Lawkamercy! this is never I! + +The presence of Chou Nu served merely to stress the sense of unreality: +for, obviously, only the heroine of a true fairy tale could have broken +from a chrysalis stage of sordid Soho to the brilliant butterfly existence +of a Russian princess domiciled in the most aristocratic quarter of London +and attended by a Chinese maid! + +And Chou Nu proved a delight. Once satisfied she need fear neither +ill-temper nor arrogance from her new mistress, she indulged an even and +constant flow of artless high spirits, her amusing, clipped English +affording Sofia considerable entertainment together with not a little food +for thought. + +Thus one learned that the main body of the service staff was Chinese under +a major domo named Shaik Tsin--Chou Nu's "second-uncle"--who enjoyed Prince +Victor's completest confidence and was, second to the latter only, the real +head of the establishment, its presiding genius. The front of the house +alone was dressed with a handful of English servants nominally under the +man Nogam, but actually, like him, answerable in the last instance to Shaik +Tsin. + +Why this should be Chou Nu couldn't say. Sofia supposed it was because +Prince Victor thought his Occidental guests would feel more at ease with +English servants; or perhaps he himself preferred them, when it came to the +question of personal attendance. + +No success rewarded efforts to extract from Chou Nu her reason for +referring to Victor as "Number One." She stated simply that all Chinamans +in London called him that; and being pressed further added, with as near an +approach to impatience as her gentle nature could muster, that it was +obviously because Plince Victo' _was_ Numbe' One: ev'-body knew _that_. + +A knock at the door interrupted Sofia's questioning. Answering, Chou +brought back word that the honourable father of Princess Sofia submitted +his august felicitations and solicited the immediate favour of her serene +attendance in his study. + +Hasty search failed to locate the garments discarded on going to bed and, +in the indifference of depression and fatigue, left in a tumble on the +floor. All had vanished while Sofia slept; Chou Nu professed blank +ignorance of their fate; and apparently nothing had been provided in their +stead but Chinese robes, of sumptuous vestments well suited to one of high +estate. With these, then, and with Chou Nu's guidance as to choice and +ceremonious arrangement, Sofia was obliged to make shift; and anything but +unbecoming she found them--or truly it was a shape of dream that looked +out from her mirror. + +Yet it was with reluctant feet that she left her room, descended the broad +staircase to the entrance hall, and addressed herself to the study door. It +had been so beautiful, that waking dream the sequel to her night of +dreamless sleep, too beautiful to be foregone without regret. + +For Sofia had not forgotten, she could never forget, she had merely been +successful temporarily in banishing from mind that bitter disillusionment +which had poisoned what should have been her time of greatest joy. + +To be told, by the father of whose dear existence one had only learned +within the hour, that one was the child of a notorious thief and an +adventuress ... + +It needed more than common fortitude to face renewed reminder of that +shame. + +Oddly enough, it seemed to help a bit, somehow to lend her courage and +assurance, to pass the man Nogam in the hall and acknowledge his bow and +smile. Sofia wondered vaguely what it was that made his smile seem so kind; +it was entirely respectful, there was nothing more in it that she could fix +on; and yet ... + +She was able to offer Victor a composed, almost a happy countenance, and to +return cheerful assurances to punctilious enquiries after her well-being +and her comfort overnight. To the real affection in which he held her, the +warmth of his embrace, and the lingering pressure of his lips gave +convincing testimony; and in time, no doubt, as she grew to know him +better, her response would become more spontaneous and true. Indeed, she +insisted, it must; she would school herself, if need be, to remember that +this strange man was the author of her being, the natural object of her +affections--deserving all her love if only because of that nobility which +had enabled him to renounce those evil ways of years long dead. + +But to-day--and this, of course, she couldn't understand--a slight but +invincible shiver, perceptible to herself alone, attended her submission to +paternal caresses; and the eyes were too dispassionate with which she saw +Prince Victor. Still, they found little to which fair exception might be +taken. If Life had thus far been callously frank with Sofia as to its +broader aspects, the niceties of its technique remained measurably a +mystery, she was insufficiently instructed to perceive that Victor's +morning coat (for example) had been cut a shade too cleverly, or that the +ensemble of his raiment was a trace ornate; and where a mind more mondain +would have marked ponderable constraint in his manner, she saw only dignity +and reserve. But for all that she recognized intuitively a lack of +something in the man, the sum of this second impression of him was formless +disappointment, she felt somehow cheated, disheartened, chilled. + +That she was able at all to dissemble this sense of dashed expectations +was thanks in the main to a third party, a stranger whose presence she +overlooked on entering, when Prince Victor met her near the door, while the +other remained aside, half hidden in the recess of a window. + +Directly, however, that Victor half turned away, saying "I have found a +friend for you, my dear," Sofia, following his glance, discovered a woman +whose every detail of dress and deportment was unmistakably of the +fashionable world and whose face carried souvenirs of loveliness as +unmistakable. + +Smiling and offering her hands, she approached, while Victor's voice of +heavy modulations uttered formally: + +"Sybil, permit me to present my daughter. Sofia, Mrs. Waring has graciously +offered to sponsor your introduction to Society, to guide and instruct you +and be in every way your mentor." + +"My dear!" the woman exclaimed, holding Sofia's hands and kissing her +cheek. And then, looking aside to Victor, "But how very like!" she added +with the air of tender reminiscence. + +"Oh!" Sofia cried, "you knew my mother?" + +"Indeed--and loved her." Sofia never dreamed to question the woman's +sincerity; and her charm of manner was irresistible. "You must try to like +me a little for her sake--" + +"As if one could help liking you for your own, Mrs. Waring!" + +"Prettily said, my dear. You have inherited more from your mother than +your good looks alone. Is it not so, mon prince?" + +"Much more." Victor's enigmatic smile gave place to a look of regret and +uneasiness. "Let us hope, however, not too much. Heredity," he mused in +sombre mood, "is a force of such fatality in our lives...." + +He gave a gesture of solicitude and continued with characteristic +deliberation, and that preciseness of diction which he seemed never able to +forget, even though deeply moved. + +"More than ever, now that Sofia is restored to me, I could wish the past +other than what it was, that she might start life with a handicap less +cruel of inherited tendencies. But when I reflect that both her parents--" + +"Please!" Sofia begged, piteous. "Oh, please!" + +"I am sorry, my dear." Victor closed tender hands over those which the girl +had lifted in appeal. "It is for your own good only I give myself this pain +of warning you against your worst enemy, I mean yourself, the self that is +so strange a compound of hereditary weaknesses.... Please remember always +that, no matter what may happen, however far you may be led into +transgression of the social codes, I shall never reproach you, on the +contrary, you may count implicitly on my sympathetic understanding. Never +forget, I, too, have known, have suffered and fought myself--and in the end +won at a cost I am not yet finished paying, nor will be, I fear, this side +my grave." + +He sighed from his heart, and bowing a stricken head, seemed to lose +himself in disconsolate reverie--but not so far as to suffer the +interruption which Sofia made to offer and which he stayed with an eloquent +hand. + +"You do not understand? But naturally. Let me explain. No: there is no +reason why Sybil--Mrs. Waring--should not hear. She is a dear friend of +long years, she understands." + +With a quiet murmur--"Oh, quite!"--Mrs. Waring ran an affectionate arm +round Sofia's shoulders and gently held the girl to her. + +"When I determined to forsake the bad old ways," Victor pursued--"this you +must know, my dear--I had friends--of a sort--who resented my defection, +set themselves against my will and, when they found they could not swerve +me from my purpose, became my enemies. That was long ago, but to this day +some of them persist in their enmity--I have to be constantly on my guard." + +"You mean there is danger?" Sofia asked in quick anxiety. "Your life--?" + +"Always," Victor assented, gravely. With a shrug he added: "It is nothing; +for myself, I am used to it, I do not greatly care. But for you--that is +another matter altogether. I have a great fear for you, my child. That, +indeed, is why I never tried to find you till yesterday--believing, as I +mistakenly did, you were in good hands, well cared for, happy--lest my +enemies seek to strike at me through you. But when I saw that unfortunate +advertisement I dared delay not another hour about bringing you within the +compass of my protection. Even now, untiring as my care for you shall ever +be, I know my enemies will be as tireless in endeavours to rob me of you. +You will be followed, hounded, importuned, lied to, threatened--all without +rest. If they cannot take you from me bodily, they will seek to poison your +mind against me. Therefore, rather than keep you practically a prisoner in +your home, I feel obliged to require a promise of you." + +Deeply stirred by the melancholy gravity that informed his pose, the girl +protested earnestly: "Anything--I will promise anything, rather than be an +anxiety to one who is so kind." + +"Kind? To my own daughter?" Victor smiled sadly. "But I love you, little +Sofia. Nor is it much that I must ask of you: merely that you never go out +alone, but only in the company of Mrs. Waring or Mr. Karslake or, +preferably, both." + +"Oh, I promise that--" + +"But there is more: If by any accident you should ever find yourself left +alone in public, do not let strangers speak to you, refuse to listen to +them." + +"I promise." + +"And finally: If anybody should ever seek to turn you against me, come to +me instantly and tell me about it." + +"But naturally I would do that, father." + +"Good. I rely upon your discretion and loyalty. At another time I will +explain matters in more detail. For the present--enough of an unpleasant +subject. You have a busy day before you. At my request Mrs. Waring has +arranged to have various tradespeople wait upon you this morning to take +your orders for the beginnings of a wardrobe. If you can find something +ready-made to wear you will want, no doubt, to spend the afternoon +shopping. A car will be at your disposal, and I give you carte blanche. I +wish you never to know an unsatisfied need or desire. Still, I am selfish +enough to reserve for myself the happiness of selecting your jewels." + +"Oh!" Sofia cried, breathlessly. Victor was holding his arms open; and how +should she deny him? "You are too good to me," she murmured. "How can I +ever show my gratitude?" + +Holding her close, Victor smiled a singular smile. + +"Some day I may tell you. But to-day--no more. I am much preoccupied with +affairs; but Mrs. Waring will take care of you till evening, when I promise +myself the pleasure of dining with you both." + +At the sound of a knock he put Sofia gently from him, and said in a strong +voice: + +"Enter." + +The door opened, Nogam announced: + +"Mr. Sturm." + +Hard on the echo of his name a man swung into the room with an air at once +nervous and aggressive--a tall man shabbily dressed, holding his head +high--and at sight of Sofia and Mrs. Waring, where he had doubtless thought +to find Prince Victor alone, stopped short, betraying disconcertion in the +way he instinctively assumed the stand of a soldier at attention, bringing +his heels together with an undeniable click, straightening his shoulders, +stiffening both arms to rigidity at his sides. And for a bare thought his +eyes rolled almost wildly in their deep sockets. Then he bowed twice, from +the hips, with mechanical precision, profoundly to Victor, with deep +respect to the women. + +Victor smothered an exclamation of annoyance. + +Unbidden, a word shaped in Sofia's consciousness, a French monosyllable +into which the war had packed every shade and gradation of hatred and +contempt, the epithet _Boche_. + +Immediately erasing every sign of irritation, Victor greeted the man with +casual suavity. "Oh, there you are, eh, Sturm?" Then, as Sofia and Mrs. +Waring turned to go, he added quickly: "A moment, please. Since Mr. Sturm +to-day becomes a member of the household, acting as my assistant in some +research work which I am undertaking, I may as well present him now. Mrs. +Waring, permit me: Mr. Sturm. And the Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, my +daughter ..." + +Mumbling their names after Victor, the man Sturm executed two more bows. At +the same time he seemed to remind himself that his soldierly carriage was +perhaps injudicious, and forthwith abandoned it for a studied slouch which, +in Sofia's sight, was little less than insolent. And unmistakably there was +something nearly resembling insolence in the eyes that boldly sought hers: +a look equivocal at best and, intentionally or no, wholly offensive in +essence; as if the fellow were asserting their partnership in some secret +understanding; or as if he knew something by no means to Sofia's credit.... + +Her acknowledgment of his salute was accordingly cool, and she was glad +when a nod from Prince Victor gave her leave to go. + + + +X + +VICTOR ET AL + + +Those first few weeks of emancipation from the ennui of existence at the +Caf des Exiles were so replete with wonders that Sofia lived largely in a +beatific state of breathless excitement, devoting the best part of her days +to thoughtless flying from delight to new delight, and going nightly to her +bed so healthily tired that she slept like a top and never once awakened to +memories of disturbing dreams. + +Perhaps her pleasure burned the brighter for its dark, ambiguous +background--those many questions which Prince Victor persisted in leaving +unanswered. Sofia knew bad times of perplexity and depression, when the +price of translation from drudge to princess seemed a sore price to pay. + +And yet, required to state the cost to her in terms explicit, she must have +hesitated lest she appear ungrateful in complaining, who hardly needed to +express a wish to have it granted, who indeed knew many a wish realized in +fact before she was fully aware of its inception in her private thoughts. + +All those lovely material things of life which her famished girlhood had +ached for so hopelessly now were hers in abundant measure, and all the less +tangible things, too, so requisite to the happiness of women in a worldly +world--or nearly all. Frocks she had, with furs and furbelows no end; +flowers and flattery and frivolities; freedom within limitations as yet not +irksome; jewels that would have graced an imperial diadem--everything but +the single essential without which everything is hollow nothing and life +itself only the dreaming of a dream. + +The one lack known to the Sofia of those days was the lack of Love. + +She had gone so long longing to love, questing blindly and vainly for some +human being to whom her affection would mean something vital and dear--it +seemed cruel that her longing must be still denied. As it had been with +Mama Thrse, it was now with the romantic father so newly self-declared. +She wanted desperately and tried her best to love Victor as his daughter +should; and that he cared for her profoundly she knew and never questioned; +yet when she searched her secret heart Sofia discovered no feeling for the +man other than a singular form of fear. His look, his tone, his manner, his +presence altogether, inspired a nameless sort of shrinking, inarticulate +apprehensions, and mistrust which the girl found at once utterly +unaccountable and dismally disappointing; so that, with every wish and will +to do otherwise, she found herself involuntarily making excuse of trivial +interests to keep out of Victor's way and, when there was no escaping, +sitting silent and ill at ease in his society, or seizing on some slender +pretext, it didn't matter what, to inveigle into their company a third +somebody, it didn't matter whom--Mrs. Waring, Karslake, even the +unspeakable Sturm. + +Nevertheless, there were times, far too many of them, too, when of a sudden +Victor would forsake his occult preoccupations and, unceremoniously +upsetting whatever arrangements Sofia might have made with Mrs. Waring or +Karslake, would find other pleasures of his own invention for her to share +with him alone: long motor jaunts through the English countryside, +apparently his favourite recreation; a box all to themselves at a theatre, +where Victor would sit watching the girl with a fascination only rivalled +by her fascination with the traffic of the boards; curiously constrained +little dinners deux in fashionable restaurants; morning rides in Rotten +Row, where it oddly appeared that Victor knew everybody, whereas not one in +five hundred seemed to know him--or to care to know him. + +Sofia, indeed, was often puzzled to account for what to her appeared to be +an almost pathetic eagerness on the part of Victor, in strange accord with +his lofty pretensions, to claim acquaintanceship with and win the +recognition even of persons of the utmost inconsequence. And she remarked, +too, that his temper was apt to be raw in sequel to their excursions into +the haunts of the well-known. But it was for other reasons altogether that +she came to dread them most. + +For one thing, Victor's conversation was ordinarily rather dull; at best, +the reverse of exhilarating. And in spite of her unquestioning acceptance +of him as her father, he remained to Sofia actually a new acquaintance; in +effect, a strange man. And from strangers, more than from relatives with +whose minds one is presumably on terms of close intimacy, one is warranted +in expecting something in the way of mutual stimulation through the opening +of new perspectives of experience, thought, and feeling. Whereas--with +Sofia, at least--Victor seemed unable to talk on more than two subjects, +one or the other of which was constantly uppermost in his thoughts. + +He never wearied of warning Sofia against the dangers of those moral +infirmities which he asserted were hers by legitimate inheritance; and +which, if Victor were right in his contentions, she could hardly hope to +overcome without a desperate struggle. She would have to be forever on +guard, he insisted, lest the temptation of some moment, not to be foreseen, +prove too strong for her latent weakness of character, and commit her, +through some unpremeditated act of defiance to the law--most probably an +act of theft--to the life of a social outcast. + +To do her justice, the girl was consciously not much impressed by this +alleged peril. She had never been aware of any failing such as Victor would +have endowed her with; so far as she could remember she had never been +tempted to commit more venial sins than inhered in lying to Mama Thrse +now and then in order to escape unmerited disciplining at the heavy hands +of that industrious virago; and as for thieving, the very thought of +anything of that sort was detestable to Sofia. + +But unconsciously, no doubt, the everlasting iteration of Victor's +admonitions had its purposed effect upon that sensitive and impressionable +spirit. + +Then, too, by degrees, but all too soon, it became manifest that the memory +of his passionate attachment for her mother possessed Victor to the point +of monomania. It was only with an effort that he could force himself to +talk to Sofia on other subjects. He thought of nothing else while with her; +if she read his eyes aright, often glimpses of weird light flickering in +their opaque depths, like heat lightning of a murky summer's night, fairly +frightened her, and she knew a shuddering perception of the possibility +that Victor was at times in danger of confusing the daughter with the +mother. + +"Never was there such resemblance," he once uttered, in a stare. "You are +more like her than she herself!" + +Sofia was pardonably puzzled, and looked it. + +"I mean, you re-create my vision of the woman I loved and lost--the woman I +saw in her, not the woman she was." + +"Lost?" the girl murmured. + +The gray countenance took on an added shade of sombre passion. "She never +understood me, she treated me badly. Once, in a fit of pique, she ran away. +I did everything--everything, I tell you!--to win her back, but--" + +He choked on bitter recollections--and Sofia was painfully reminded of the +Chinese devil-masks in Victor's study. But the likeness faded even as she +saw it, under her gaze the twisted features were ironed back into their +accustomed cast of austerity. + +"Before I could persuade her, you were born.... Then she died." + +Sensible though she was of the ellipsis, and afraid it would never be +filled in if she interrupted, Sofia could not help uttering a sound of +regret and pity for the lot of the mother she had never seen, whose +untimely death had ended a life accounted unendurable as Victor's wife, for +reasons unknown but none the less, to the daughter, vaguely and lamentably +understandable. + +For Sofia by now had passed the stage of pretending to herself that she was +not happier away from her father. + +Victor mistook the nature of the feeling that swayed the girl--took to +himself the sympathy excited by his revelations. + +"But do not grieve on my account. Is not that which was lost restored again +to me? In you my old love lives once more ... little Sofia!" + +He caught and pressed a hand that rested on the cloth between them. (They +happened that night to be dining at the Ritz.) And Sofia re-experienced +that inevitable, hateful flinching with which she was growing too familiar. + +She dropped her head that her eyes might not betray her. + +"People will see ..." + +"What if they do? Those who know us will hardly see any wrong in my +squeezing the hand of my own daughter; and the others--not that they +matter--will only think me the luckiest dog alive--as I am!" + +Chuckle and smirk both were indescribably odious, reminding Sofia of the +creature Sturm; _he_ had a laugh like that for her, on the rare occasion +when chance propinquity encouraged the Boche to begin one of his uncouth +essays in flirtation. + +Sturm's attitude, in truth, perplexed Sofia to exasperation; that is to +say, as much as it offended her. For Victor the man seemed to entertain an +exaggerated yet deeply rooted respect, approaching actual awe, which he +tried his best to carry off with a swagger; for to hold anybody in any +degree of deference was, one judged, somehow deplorable, even shameful, in +the code of Sturm; but in Victor's presence the fellow's bravado would +quickly wilt into hopeless servility, he would cringe and crawl like a dog +currying the favour of a harsh master. + +Nevertheless, Victor's daughter seemed to be no more than fair game, in +Sturm's understanding, and a source of supercilious amusement but thinly +veiled or not at all. Alone with the girl, Sturm put on the airs of a +Prussianized pasha condescending to a new odalisque. + +Sofia held the animal in a deadly loathing which, betrayed in word or look +or gesture, animated in him only a spirit of derision. In the absence of +Victor, Sturm's eyes were ever ironic, his bows and leers mocking, his +speeches flavoured with clumsy sarcasm; from which it resulted that the +girl never quite forgot the impression which he had managed to convey in +those few moments of their first encounter, that Sturm knew something she +ought to know but didn't, and was meanly jeering at her in his sleeve. + +What virtues Victor Vassilyevski perceived in the man passed comprehension. +But so did most of Victor's whims and ways. What riddle more obscure than +that portentous business which permeated the atmosphere of the +establishment with the taint of stealth and terror?--the famous "research +work" that kept Victor closeted with Sturm in his study daily for hours at +a time, often in confabulation with others of like ilk, men of furtive and +unprepossessing cast who came and went by appointment at all hours, but as +a rule late at night! + +Into these conferences, Sofia observed, Karslake was never summoned. She +wondered why. He was, as she saw him, so unquestionably the better man, +everything that Sturm was not, open of countenance, fair of temper and +tongue, well-bred and well-mannered, light of heart and high spirited, and +at the same time dependable, with metal of sincerity and earnestness like +tempered steel in his character--or Sofia misread him woefully. + +She had been quick to see the man behind the misleading little moustache. +And already she was beginning to count that amusement tame which Karslake +did not share. + +Mrs. Waring was undeniably a dear. Sofia could hardly be grateful enough to +the happy chance which had cast that lady for the rle of her chaperone; +lacking her guidance the girl must have been innocently guilty of many a +gaucherie in ways new and strange to untried, faltering feet. And it was to +her alone that Sofia owed the slow but constant widening of her social +horizon. For Sybil Waring, it seemed, quite literally "knew everybody"; and +Sofia soon learned to count it an off day when Sybil failed to present her +protge to the notice of somebody of position and influence. + +Most of these persons were women with sounding names and the solid backing +of much money conspicuously in evidence--matrons of the younger and more +giddy generation which was just then so busily engaged in providing +material for the most hectic chapters of London's post-war social history. +But Sofia was scarcely qualified to be critical or to guess that they were +climbers equally with herself, and that if their footing had been of older +establishment the name of Vassilyevski would have rung sinister echoes in +their memories, deafening them to the rich allure inherent in the title of +princess. + +So she was fain to accept them all at their own valuation, and thought most +of them entirely charming. And though she had hardly had time as yet to +progress beyond the introductory stages of chance meetings and informal +little teas in public, she began clearly to descry enchanting vistas of +better days to come, when the Princess Sofia Vassilyevski would have not +only teas but dinners and dances given in her honour, and would be asked to +spend gay week-ends in the country houses of the people with whom she +contracted the stronger friendships. + +But for the immediate present, and especially in the paramount business of +having a good time, Karslake was fairly a necessity. He thought of +everything and forgot nothing, was ever fertile of fresh expedient if the +pastime of a moment began to pall, and was capable of sustained fits of +irresponsible gaiety which enchanted Sofia, so well did they chime with her +own eagerness for sheer fun. + +Decidedly she would have been lost without Sybil Waring; but without +Karslake she would have been forlorn. + + + +XI + +HEARTBREAK + + +Not yet prepared to admit it even to herself, in her heart Sofia knew she +prized the companionship of Karslake for something more than the mere +amusement it afforded her: there was a deeper feeling she would not name. +For all that, her times of solitude knew dreams quick and warm with the +thought of Karslake, his words and ways, the gracious little attentions he +had accustomed her to expect of him and which his manner subtly invested +with a personal flavour inexpressibly delightful, indispensably sweet. + +Nor did she ever quite forget how long he had worshipped with +unostentatious devotion at her lowly shrine of the caisse in the Caf des +Exiles, and how shabbily she had rewarded his admiration--never once, in +those many months, with so much as a smile--and how unresentful had been +his acceptance of her half-feigned, half-real indifference to his +existence. + +But whenever her reflections took that back-turning she would recall the +man who had talked to Karslake in the caf, that day so long ago, of his +own humble past as a 'bus-boy in Troyon's in Paris, and who on leaving had +given Sofia herself that odd look of half-recognition tempered by +bewilderment. + +She tried once to draw Karslake about this acquaintance of his, but +Karslake's memory proved unusually sluggish. + +"No-o," he drawled after a tolerably long pause for thought--"can't say I +place the chap you mean, can't seem somehow to think back that far, you +know. One meets such a lot of people, first and last, they talk such a lot +of tosh--" + +"But it couldn't have been only tosh you were talking," the girl persisted, +"because--_I_ remember--you were so keen about keeping what you said +secret, you spoke the strangest language together most of the time. I could +hear every word"--she had already explained about the freak acoustics of +the Caf des Exiles--"and not one meant anything to me." + +"Stupid of me, but I simply can't think what it could have been." + +"I can--now." + +Karslake looked askance at Sofia. + +"Since I've heard so much Chinese spoken by the servants--now I come to +think of it"--Sofia's eyes grew bright with triumph--"I'm sure it must have +been Chinese you were speaking to the man I mean." + +"Impossible," Karslake pronounced calmly. + +"But you do know Chinese, don't you?" + +"Not a syllable." + +Sofia opened her lips to protest, but delayed to study Karslake's face +intently. He didn't try to escape her scrutiny, he even seemed to court it; +but there was a curious, quizzical look in his eyes, those half-smiling +lips had a whimsical droop. + +"Mr. Karslake!" Sofia announced, severely, "you're fibbing." + +"Nice thing to say to me." + +"You do speak Chinese--confess." + +"My dear Princess Sofia," Karslake protested: "if I had known one word of +Chinese I could never have landed my job with your father." + +"Why not?" + +"He expressly stipulated that I should be ignorant of that language." + +"What a silly condition to make!" + +"Still, I daresay Prince Victor had his reasons." + +"I can't imagine what ..." + +"Possibly preferred a secretary who couldn't understand everything he said +to the servants. I've never pretended to know all Prince Victor's secrets, +you know." + +After a little pause Sofia asked gently: "Did you really need the job so +badly, Mr. Karslake?" + +"To get it meant more to me than I can tell you--almost as much as to hold +on to it does to-day." + +Sofia turned her eyes away at this, and for the rest of the ride--they were +homeward bound from a matine, having dropped Sybil Waring at her flat in +Mayfair--kept her thoughts to herself. + +Only the most perfunctory civilities passed between them, in fact, until +they had been ushered into the study by Nogam, who advised them that Prince +Victor had ordered tea to be served there and had promised to be home in +good time for it. + +The tea service was already set out on a little table beside the fireplace +in that room of secrets, whose normal atmosphere of brooding gloom was now +the darker for the deepening dusk. Only the tea itself remained to be +served, a special rite never performed in that household by hands more +profane than those of the major-domo, Shaik Tsin himself. And this last +could be counted upon not to put in appearance until Nogam took him word +that Victor was waiting. + +So, having laid aside her furs and satisfied herself, by a seemingly +aimless but in fact exacting survey, that the abominable Sturm was not +skulking anywhere in the shadows, Sofia established herself on a lounge +that faced the fireplace, while Karslake stood before the fire, looking +down with an expectant smile of which she was but half aware. + +"Aren't you going to forgive me?" he asked, quietly, after a time. + +Sofia withdrew a pensive gaze from the ruddy bed of coals. + +"For what?" + +"You were kind enough to call it merely fibbing." + +"I'm still thinking about that." + +In fact, she had been thinking of nothing else. There was so much to be +considered. Imprimis, that Karslake had been guilty of practising a +deception upon her father. Deceit in itself was one form of treachery. And +how often had Victor stressed to her the dangers of his position, +surrounded by nameless but implacable enemies who would stick at no infamy +to compass his ruin! + +But if she told him that Karslake understood Chinese she would lose her +friend forever--no question about that. Victor would not hesitate an +instant--indeed, Sofia felt sure he was only waiting for some such pretext +to get rid of his secretary. She was anything but unobserving, this child +of Soho, whose wits had been sharpened in the sophisticated atmosphere of a +French restaurant; and more than once she had seen Victor's face duplicate +the expression Papa Dupont's had so often assumed on his discovering that +some patron of the caf was taking too personal an interest in the pretty +young dame du comptoir. A look of insensate jealousy ... + +To risk forfeiting the comradeship that had grown to be so dear? Or to be +constructively derelict in her duty as a daughter? + +A difficult choice to make; but Sofia made it honestly. In point of fact, +she assured herself, coldly, there was no choice, there was only one thing +she could do under the circumstances. And she hardened her heart and eyes +as she rose to face Karslake on more equal terms. + +But when she saw him waiting patiently, with that friendly smile of his she +knew so well, she hesitated long enough to permit his anticipating her with +a quiet question: + +"Well, Princess Sofia?" + +And then, amazingly, her tongue betrayed her, the phrases she had framed so +carefully vanished utterly from out her mind; and she heard herself saying +in rather tremulous accents: + +"It's all right. I shan't tell." + +"About my understanding Chinese?" + +"Yes--about that." + +"Then you do care--?" + +She was panicky with knowledge that somehow her emotions had managed to +slip their moorings and get beyond her handling. It didn't help or mend +matters much to hear her own voice stammering: + +"Yes, of course, I--I don't want you to--to have to go away--" + +Oh, the vanity of trying to hoodwink him who knew so well what she was now +for the first time realizing! + +"Because you like me a little, Princess Sofia?" + +"Why--yes--of course I do--" + +"Because you know I love you, dear." + +And then she found herself clinging to Karslake; and his lips were warm +upon her hands ... + +So suddenly and at long last it came to Sofia, that Love for which all her +days had been one long weariness of waiting, Love that brimmed with +raptures what had been only aching emptiness and made the desert places to +blossom as the rose. And the joy of it proved overmastering, sweeping her +off her feet and dazing her, leaving her breathless and thoughtless but for +the all-obscuring thought--at length she loved, and the one whom she loved +loved her! + +And for a space she existed in an iridescent dream of happiness, without +sense of relation to a material world, forgetful of the flight of time, +lost to everything but her lover's arms and voice and lips. + +It might have been five minutes, it might have been sixty, before she +became aware that Karslake was gently disengaging her hands. "Dearest, +dearest!" she heard him say. "We must be sensible. That was the front door, +I'm afraid." + +The meaning in his insistence presently began to penetrate, if vaguely, and +she suffered him to go from her a pace or two. But, still a little blind +with the beauty of the revelation that had been granted unto her, nothing +that met her gaze seemed to be in true focus except her lover's face: even +the countenance of Victor swam into her ken as if blurred by veils of mist, +its dour, forbidding look had no significance to her intelligence. Victor +himself, for that matter, was a figure without real consequence other than +as a symbol of the old order, the tedious old ways of the world from which +she had magically escaped. + +A ring of sarcastic apology provided the only clue she got to the import +of Victor's words. Sobered a trifle, her mental processes somewhat less +incoherent, still she knew she would hardly regain her poise until she was +alone. And breathing an excuse, she left the room with such dignity as she +could muster. + +In the hall, with the closed door behind her, she paused to collect +herself. Then she missed furs and gloves and handbag and, remembering that +she had left them in the study, for some obscure reason imagined she must +have them before proceeding to her room. + +Much more mistress of herself by now, it never occurred to Sofia that there +could be any reason why she should hesitate about returning or feel +embarrassed before Victor. True, he had surprised them, Sofia was not at +all sure he hadn't actually seen her in Karslake's arms. But what of that? +Love like hers was nothing to be ashamed of; and that Victor could +reasonably object to her giving her heart to one of his secretaries was +something far from her thought just then. + +She put a hand to the knob, turned it, and swung the door open--all on +impulse--then faltered, transfixed by the tableau before the fireplace. + +The door was silent on its hinges, and Karslake's back was to her. Victor, +on the other hand, facing both Karslake and the door, unquestionably saw +Sofia, but pretended not to, and had his say out with Karslake in a manner +bitterly cynical. + +"... sadly in error if you flatter yourself I pay you a wage to make love +to Sofia behind my back." + +"Sorry, sir." Karslake's tone was level, respectful but firm. "Your +instructions were, I believe, to win her confidence. Well--I have always +found love the one sure key to a woman's confidence. Of course, if I had +understood you cared one way or the other--" + +Sofia heard no more: unconsciously she had closed the door, at one and the +same time shutting from her sight Victor's exultant sneer and from her +hearing the words with which the man whom she loved had damned himself +irretrievably and dashed her spirit from radiant pinnacles of ecstasy into +the profoundest black abyss of shame and despair. + +Primitive instinct bade the stricken girl seek her room and hide her +suffering there; but the shock had stunned her to the point of physical +weakness. Already a hand was pressed above her heart, that ached cruelly; +and as she moved to cross to the foot of the staircase her knees gave under +her. She clutched the newel-post for support, waiting to find strength for +the ascent. + +From the shadowed back part of the hall the man Nogam moved hastily into +view, his features twisted in a grimace of concern as he recognized the +bleak misery of Sofia's face. His voice sounded strangely thin and remote. + +"Is there anything the matter, miss?--anything I can do?" + +She contrived to shake her head slightly and utter an inarticulate sound +of negation, then began slowly to mount the stairs. + +Below, Nogam stood watching, in a pose of indecision, as if tempted to +follow and offer the support of an arm lest she fall, restrained only by +fear of a rebuff. But Sofia's leaden limbs carried her safely to the upper +landing, then on to the blessed shelter of her room, where she collapsed +upon a chaise-longue and there lay in a stirless huddle, dry of eye but +deaf to the plaintive entreaties of Chou Nu and numb to all sensation but +the anguish of her humiliated heart. + + + +XII + +SUSPECT + + +Toward mid-evening the man Victor Vassilyevski and his creature Sturm sat +where the lamp of hand-wrought brass made the top of the teakwood table an +oasis of light amid a waste of shadows, their heads together over a vast +glut of books and papers--maps printed and sketched, curious diagrams, +works of reference, documents all dark with columns of figures and +cabalistic writings intelligible only to initiated eyes. + +They had the study all to themselves. Nevertheless, when they spoke it was +in the discreet pitch of those who deal in fatal secrets. At a distance of +two paces only a lip-reader could have caught the substance of their +communications, and even such a one must have failed unless equally at home +in German and in English. + +Aside from these occasional and circumspect voices, and the busy rustle of +a steel pen in the hand of Sturm, the quiet of the room had a tolerably +constant background of sound in a subdued whisper punctuated by muffled +clicks, emanating from the bronze casket that housed the telautographic +apparatus. + +From time to time, as this noise temporarily suspended, Victor would get +up, read what the mechanical stylus had inscribed, tear off the paper, and +return to his chair. + +Some of the messages thus received he made known to Sturm, who invariably +acknowledged this courtesy with effusive gratitude, sometimes adding a few +words of contented comment. Other messages Victor chose to keep to himself, +silently setting fire to them and adding their brittle ashes to those of +their predecessors on the brazen tray provided for the purpose. At such +times Sturm would bend lower over his work. But Victor was well able to +guess what resentment glimmered in the eyes so studiously averted; and his +cold, sardonic smile more than once commented, unknown to Sturm, upon the +accuracy with which he read the mean workings of his "secretary's" mind. + +The buzz of a muted bell presently interrupted the even tenor of their +industry, causing Sturm to start sharply, drop his pen, and slue round in +his chair, turning to Victor a livid face in which his dark eyes of a +fanatic were live embers of excitement. + +Without a sign to show he shared or even was aware of Sturm's emotion, +Victor deliberately fished from beneath the table a telephone instrument, +unhooked the receiver, and pronounced a conventional phrase of greeting. To +this he added a short "Yes," and after listening quietly for some seconds, +"Very good--in twenty minutes, then." Wasting no more time on the author +of the call, he hung up, returned the telephone to its place of +concealment, and helped himself to a cigarette before deigning to +acknowledge Sturm's persistent stare. + +Then, elevating his eyebrows in mild impatience, he made the laconic +announcement: + +"Eleven." + +Sturm's mouth twitched nervously, his eyes burned with a keener fire. + +"Coming here? To-night?" + +"Yes." + +"Then"--a gaunt hand described a gesture of agitation--"the hour strikes!" + +Victor looked bored. + +"Who knows?" he replied, as who should say: "Does it matter?" + +"But--Gott in Himmel--!" + +"Sturm," Victor interposed, critically, "if you Bolsheviki were a trifle +more consistent, one might repose greater faith in your sincerity. But when +one hears you deny the Deity in one breath and call on him by name in the +next--!" + +"A mere mode of speech," Sturm muttered. + +"If you must invoke a spiritual patron, why not Satan? Or don't you believe +in the Powers of Darkness, either?" + +"I believe in you." + +"As temporal viceroy of Lucifer? Many thanks! But you were about to say--?" + +"Nothing. That is--I was envying your poise, Excellency. You take things +so coolly." + +"Why not?" + +"With Eleven coming here to tell us when we are to strike?" + +"Why not?" Victor repeated. "We are prepared to strike at any hour. What +matters whether to-night or a week from to-night--since we cannot fail?" + +"If that were only certain!" + +"It rests with you." + +"That's just it," Sturm doubted moodily. "Suppose _I_ fail?" + +"Why, then--I suppose--you will die." + +"I know. And so will all of us, Excellency." + +"Oh, no. Undeceive yourself, my friend. I shall survive. You will surely +die, and perhaps many others with you; but I would not be Number One if I +had turned my hand to this scheme without discounting failure first of all. +My way of escape is sure." + +"I believe you," Sturm grumbled. + +With a languid hand Victor found and pressed a button embedded in the table +near the edge. + +"You have reason. Whatever my shortcomings, my good Sturm, they do not +include hypocrisy; I do not pretend, like your noble Bolsheviki, I am in +this business for the sake of humanity or anything but my own selfish +ends--power, plunder"--a slight wait prefaced one final word, spoken in a +key of sombre passion--"revenge." + +"Revenge?" Sturm echoed, staring. + +"I have more than one score to pay out before I can cry even with life ... +one above all!" + +Studying intently that darkened face, and misled by its look of +abstraction, Sturm was guilty of the indiscretion of his malicious smile. + +"The Lone Wolf?" + +Victor turned weary eyes his way, and under their black and lustreless +regard the smile merged swiftly into a grin of nervous apology. + +"You are shrewd," Victor observed, thoughtfully. "Be careful: it is a +dangerous gift." + +The man Nogam gently opened the door and approached the table, stopping +just outside the area of illumination shed by the shaded lamp. But since +Victor continued to smoke absently, paying no attention, Nogam resigned +himself to wait with entire patience: the perfect pattern of a servant +tempered by long servitude to the erratic winds of employers' whims; +efficient, assiduous, mute unless required to speak, long-suffering. + +Victor addressed him suddenly, in a sharp voice that drew from Sturm a +glitter of eager spite. + +"Nogam!" + +"Yes, sir?" + +"Where is the Princess Sofia?" + +"In 'er apartment, sir." + +"And Mr. Karslake?" + +"In 'is." + +"Then be good enough to send Shaik Tsin to me." + +"Yes, sir." + +"And, Nogam!"--the servant checked in the act of turning--"I shan't need +you again to-night." + +"'Nk you, sir." + +When Nogam had left the room, Sturm, remarking the slight frown that +knitted Victor's brows, ventured an impertinence couched in a form of +respectful enquiry: + +"Excellency, perhaps you trust that fellow too much, hein?" + +"You think so?" + +"He is too perfect, if you ask me--never makes a false move." + +"Either he is what he seems, in which event a false move would be against +nature; or he is not, and knows one slip would mean his death." + +"Still, I maintain you trust him too much." + +"With what?" + +"The freedom of your house, the opportunity to spy, to get to know who +comes to see you and when, to listen at doors." + +"You have caught him listening at doors?" + +"Not yet. But in time--" + +"I think not. I don't think he has to." + +"You mean," Sturm stammered, perturbed, "you think he knows--suspects?" + +"I think he is one thing or the other: merely Nogam, or one of the greatest +of living actors. In either case he is flawless--thus far. But if not +merely Nogam, he will have a subtler means of eavesdropping than by +listening at doors." + +"The dictograph?" + +"Make your mind easy about that. This room is searched regularly by Shaik +Tsin. So is Nogam's. It is certain there is neither a dictograph installed +here nor any means at Nogam's disposal for connecting with a dictograph +installation. Indeed, so closely is Nogam watched, and by more cunning eyes +than mine--sometimes I begin to be afraid he is simply what he seems." + +"Then you do suspect him!" + +"My good Sturm, I suspect everybody." + +Sturm pondered this before pressing his point again. + +"Karslake found the fellow for you," he suggested at length. + +"True." + +"And Karslake--" + +"Has been guilty of nothing more treacherous than falling in love with +Sofia." + +"Your daughter, Excellency!" + +"The young woman seems content to call herself that.... Can't say I blame +Karslake." + +"But do you forgive him?" + +"Ah, that is another matter. Mine is not a forgiving nature, Sturm--not +even toward excessive shrewdness." + +Victor took up a docket of papers, and Sturm, mumbling an apology, gave +himself up to jealous brooding till he forgot the broad hint he had +received. + +"If I can satisfy you that Nogam is untrustworthy--" he began, meaning to +continue: _Karslake will stand his proved accomplice_. + +But Victor would not let him finish. "Nothing could please me more," he +interrupted. "Do so, by all means--if you can--and earn my everlasting +gratitude." + +Sturm questioned him with puzzled eyes. + +"I ask no greater service of any man," Victor elucidated with a smile that +made Sturm shiver, "than proof that Nogam is what I suspect him of being." +A hand extended upon the table unclosed and closed slowly, with fingers +tensed, like a murderous claw. "I want no greater favour of Heaven or +Hell--!" + +He broke off abruptly. Having entered noiselessly in his padded shoes, +Shaik Tsin now stood before Victor, offering a low obeisance. + +"You took your time," Victor grumbled. And Shaik Tsin smiled serenely. "I +want you to tend the door to-night," Victor pursued. "Eleven is expected at +any moment. You need not announce him, simply show him in." + +"Hearing is obedience." + +"Wait"--as the Chinaman began to bow himself out--"Karslake is still in his +room, I suppose?" + +"Yes, master." + +"And Nogam?" + +"Has just gone to his." + +"When did you last search their quarters?" + +"During dinner." + +"And of course found nothing?" Shaik Tsin bowed. "Make sure neither leaves +his room to-night. Set a watch outside each door." + +"I have done so." + +Victor gave a sign of dismissal. + + + +XIII + +THE TURNIP + + +In a spacious chamber beneath the eaves, hideously papered and furnished +with cheerless, massive relics of the early Victorian era, the man Nogam +pursued methodical preparations for bed. + +Spying eyes, had there been any--and for all Nogam knew, there were--would +have seen him follow step by step a programme from whose order he had +departed by scarcely as much as a single gesture on any night since his +first installation in the house near Queen Anne's Gate. + +Loosening the waistcoat of his evening livery, he freed the heavy silver +watchchain from its buttonhole, drew from its pocket an old-fashioned +silver watch of that obese style which first earned the portable timepiece +its nickname of "turnip," and opening its back inserted a key attached to +the other end of the chain. Its winding was a laborious process, +prodigiously noisy. Once finished, Nogam shut the back with a loud click, +and reverently deposited the watch on the marble slab of the black walnut +bureau. + +Then he hung coat and waistcoat over the back of a chair which stood +between the foot of his bed and the door. Sheer chance may have decreed +selection of this chair for the purpose on Nogam's first night in the room; +whether or no, it was not in character that, having established this +precedent, Nogam should depart from it. And in any event, the coat-draped +chair effectually eclipsed a possible keyhole view of the room. + +Notwithstanding, Nogam pursued his bedtime rites with precisely the same +deliberation and absence of perceptible self-consciousness as before. One +never knew: there might be other peepholes in the walls. + +His trousers, neatly folded, he laid out on the seat of the chair. Then he +pulled off square-toed boots with elastic inserts in their uppers, put on a +pair of worn slippers, carried the boots to the door and set them outside, +closed the door, and turned the key in its lock. + +If aware that, by so doing, he made his privacy just as secure as if he had +fastened the door with a bent hair-pin, he gave evidence of no uneasiness +in the knowledge. A clear conscience is the best of nerve tonics. + +Throughout, his features preserved their mild, subdued, dull habit with +which the household was familiar. Nogam off duty was in no way different +from the unthinking creature of habit who performed belowstairs the +prescribed functions of his office. + +Having donned a nightshirt of coarse cotton, he knelt for several minutes +in a devout attitude by the side of his bed, then rising opened the window, +took the turnip from the bureau, and snuggled it beneath his pillow, +inserted his bare shanks between the sheets, and opened at a marked place a +Bible bound in black cloth. + +On the table by his shoulder a battered electric standard with a frayed +cord and a dingy shade remained alight long enough to permit Nogam to spell +out a short chapter. Then he put the Bible aside, yawned wearily, and +switched out the lamp. + +Profound darkness now possessed the room, immaterially modified by the +light-struck sky beyond the windows. And in this grateful obscurity Nogam +permitted himself the luxury of ceasing to be Nogam. A light suddenly +flashed upon his face would have discovered a keen and alert intelligence +transfiguring the apathetic mask of every day. Also, it would have rendered +Nogam's probable duration of life an interesting speculation. + +Under cover of the darkness, furthermore, he did a number of things which +Nogam, qua Nogam, would never have dreamed of doing. + +His first act was to withdraw from under his pillow the turnip, his next to +re-open the back of its silver case and then the inner lid--something which +a deft thumbnail accomplished without a sound. + +From the roomy interior of the case--whose bulky ancient works had been +replaced by a wafer-thin modern movement, leaving much useful space back +of the dial--sensitive fingers extracted a metal disk about the size and +thickness of a silver dollar. One face of this disk was generously +perforated, the other, solid, boasted a short blunt post round which +several feet of extremely fine wire had been coiled. + +Unwinding the wire and bending the free end into the form of a rude hook, +the man attached this last to the cord of his bedside lamp at a point, +located by sense of touch, where a minute section of electric light wire +had been left naked by defective insulation. + +Direct connection now being established with a microphone secreted in the +base of the brass lamp on the study table, three floors below, and the +perforated side of the microphone detector serving as an earpiece, one +could hear every word uttered by the conspirators. + +The man in bed contributed a broad smile to the kind darkness--sheer luxury +to facial muscles cramped and constrained to the cast of Nogam for eighteen +hours a day. He was now at last to reap the reward of three months of +preparation and three weeks of ingenious, but necessarily spasmodic, and at +all times desperately dangerous, tampering with the house wiring system. + +He lay very still for a long time, listening ... + + + +XIV + +CONFERENCE OF THE DAMNED + + +An Irish voice was making the hush of the study musical with mellow +cadences. + +"This week-end sure, your Excellency--within the next three nights--the +little Welshman will be after summoning the Cabinet to sit in secret in +Downing Street, with His Most Gracious Majesty attending in person; the +emergency extraordinary being thoughtfully provided by this shindig me +amiable but spirited fellow-countrymen are kicking up across the +Channel--God bless the work!" + +The speaker laughed lightly, flashing white teeth at Prince Victor across +the width of the paper-strewn table. + +"In more Parliamentary language, by the Irish Question. But we'll hear no +more of that, I'm thinking, once we've proclaimed the Soviet Government of +England." + +Victor bowed in grave assent. + +"You have my word as to that," he said; and after a moment of thoughtful +consideration: "You speak, no doubt, from the facts?" + +"I do that. It's straight I've come from the House of Commons to bring you +the news without an hour's delay. There's more than one advantage in being +an Irish Member these days." + +"On the other hand, Eleven"--Victor stressed the numeral as if to remind +the Irishman that even a Member of Parliament for Ireland held no higher +standing in his esteem than any other underling in his association of +anonymous conspirators--"even so, it appears you are uncertain as to the +night." + +"I'm after telling you it'll be to-morrow night or more likely +Saturday--Sunday at the latest." A mildly impatient accent alone betrayed +resentment of the snub. "I'll know in good time, long before the hour +appointed; and that ought to do, providing you on your part are prepared." + +"An hour's notice will be ample," Victor agreed. "We have been ready for +days, needing only the knowledge you bring us--or will, when you have it +definitely." + +The Irishman chuckled. + +"It's hard to believe. Not that I'd dream of doubting your statement, +sir--but yourself won't be denying you must have worked fast to organize +England for revolution in less than three weeks." + +"I have been busy," Victor admitted. "But the work was not so difficult ... +Seeds of revolution are easily sown in land thoroughly tilled by forces of +discontent. And what land has been better tilled? To vary the figure: +England is all seething beneath a thin crust of custom and established +habit whose integrity a conservative and reactionary government has ever +since the war been struggling desperately to preserve. The blow we shall +strike within three days will shatter that crust in a hundred places." + +"And let Hell loose!" the Irishman added with a nervous laugh. + +In a dry voice Victor commented: "Precisely." + +"Omelettes," Sturm interjected, assertively, "are not made without breaking +eggs." + +"And all rivers, no doubt, flow to the sea? What a lot you know, Herr +Sturm! Is it the Portfolio of the Minister of Education you've picked out +for your very own, after the explosion comes off--if it's a fair question?" + +"You Irish are all mad," the German complained, sourly--"mad about +laughing. Even me you will laugh at, while you trust your very life to me, +while you trust to my genius to make Soviet England possible and Ireland +free." + +"Faith! you're away off there, me friend. If it was you and your genius I +had to trust, it's meself would turn violent reactionary and advise Ireland +to be a good dog and come to England's heel and lick England's hand and +live off England's leavings. I'll trust nobody in this black business but +himself--Number One." + +"You have changed your tune since that night at the Red Moon," Sturm +reminded him, angrily. + +"I had me lesson then and there," Eleven agreed, cheerfully. "And I don't +mind telling you, the next time I'm taken with a fancy to call me soul me +own, I'll be after asking himself first for a license." + +Victor put a period to the passage with a dispassionate "By your leave, +gentlemen--that will do." To the Irishman he added: "You understand the +danger, I believe, of remaining within the condemned area--that is to say, +except in the open air?" + +"Can't say I do, altogether." + +"It is simple: no person in any house supplied by the mains of the +Westminster gas works will be safe for hours after the formula of Thirteen +has begun its work. My advice to you is to keep out of the district +entirely." + +"Faith, and I'll do that! But how about yourself in this house?" + +"I shall spend the week-end outside of London," Victor replied, "not too +far away, of course, and"--the shadow of his satiric smile was briefly +visible--"prepared at any moment to answer the call of my stricken +country.... The few who remain here will be provided with the essentials +for their protection. Furthermore, a general warning will be sent out to +all who can be trusted." + +"And the others--?" + +"With them it must be as Fate wills." + +"Women and children, potential sympathizers and supporters of all classes?" +the Irishman persisted in incredulous horror--"all?" + +"All," Victor affirmed, coldly. "We who deal in the elemental passions +that make revolutions, that is to say, in Life and Death, cannot afford +qualms and scruples. What are a few lives more or less in London? These +British breed like rabbits." + +"I see," said Eleven, indistinctly. He stared a moment and swallowed hard, +then glanced hastily at his watch. "I'll be after bidding you good-night," +he said, "and pleasant dreams. For meself, I'm a fool if I go to bed this +night sober enough to dream at all, at all!" + +Victor rang for Shaik Tsin to show him out. + +"One question more, if you won't take it amiss," Eleven suggested, +lingering. And Victor inclined a gracious head. "Have you thought of +failure?" + +"I have thought of everything." + +"Well, and if we do fail--?" + +"How, for example?" + +"How do I know what hellish accident may kick our plans into a cocked hat? +Anything might happen. There's your friend, the Lone Wolf, for +instance ..." + +"Have you not forgotten him yet?" Victor enquired in simulated surprise. +"Have you neglected to remark that since the blunderer failed to find the +Council Chamber that night, when his raid at the Red Moon netted him only a +handful of coolie gamblers and drug-addicts, he has left us to our own +devices?" + +"That's what makes me wonder what the divvle's up to. His sort are never so +dangerous as when apparently discouraged." "Be reassured. I promised you +three weeks ago his interference would not continue beyond that night. It +has not. Lanyard knows I have his daughter, that any blow aimed at me must +first strike her." + +"Doubtless yourself knows best...." + +With the Irishman gone, Prince Victor turned to Sturm. + +"You will want a good night's sleep," he suggested with pointed solicitude. +"Who knows but that to-morrow will bring your night of nights, my friend?" + +He lapsed immediately into remote abstraction, sitting with chin bent to +the tips of his joined fingers, his eyes downcast, motionless. + +Disgruntled, but afraid to show it, the German cleared away the litter of +papers, assorting them into huge portfolios, and took himself off. Shaik +Tsin replaced him, moving noiselessly about the room, restoring the +reference books to the shelves and stowing the portfolios away in a massive +safe hidden behind a lacquered screen. This done, he stationed himself +before his master, awaiting his attention, a shape of affable placidity, +intelligent, at ease; his attitude not entirely lacking a suggestion of +familiarity. + +Without changing his pose by so much as the lifting of an eyelash, Victor +spoke in Chinese: + +"To-morrow afternoon, late, I shall motor down into the country with the +girl Sofia. I shall be gone three days--perhaps. I will leave a telephone +number with you, to be used only in emergency. As soon as I have left, you +will dismiss all the English servants, with a quarter's wage in advance in +lieu of notice. Karslake will provide the money." + +"He does not accompany you?" + +"No." + +"And the man Nogam?" + +Victor appeared to hesitate. "What do you think?" he enquired at length. + +"What I have always thought." + +"That he is a spy?" + +"Yes." + +"But with no tangible support for your suspicions?" + +"None." + +"You have not failed to watch him closely?" + +"As a cat watches a mouse." + +"But--nothing?" + +"Nothing." + +"Yet I agree with you entirely, Shaik Tsin. I smell treachery." + +"And I." + +"Nogam shall go with me as my bodyservant. Thus I shall be able to keep an +eye on him. Let Chou Nu be prepared to accompany us as maid to the girl +Sofia. In my absence you will be guided by such further instructions as I +may leave with you. These failing, consider the man Sturm, my personal +representative. In the contingency you know of, Sturm will warn you in time +to clear the house." + +"Of everybody?" + +"Of all servants except those whom you may need to guard the man Karslake. +These and yourself will be provided with means of self-protection by +Sturm." + +"And Karslake?" + +"I have not yet made up my mind." + +"Hearing is obedience." + +Victor relapsed into another reverie which lasted so long that even the +patience of Shaik Tsin bade fair to fail. In the end the silence was broken +by two words: + +"The crystal." + +From a cabinet at the end of the room Shaik Tsin brought a crystal ball +supported on the backs of three golden dragons standing tail to tail, +superbly wrought examples of Chinese goldsmithing. This he placed carefully +on the black teakwood surface at Victor's elbow. + +"And now, inform the girl Sofia I wish to see her." + +"And if she again sends her excuses?" + +"Say, in that event, I shall be obliged to come to her room." + + + +XV + +INTUITION + + +She had not thought, of course, of going down to dinner; she had, instead, +sent Victor word simply that she begged to be excused from joining him for +that meal. Then, unable longer to endure Chou Nu's efforts to comfort or +distract her, Sofia had stepped out of her street frock and into a nglige +and, dismissing the maid, returned to the chaise-longue upon which, in vain +hope of being able to cry out the wretchedness of her heart, she had thrown +herself on first gaining the sanctuary of her room. + +For hours, she did not guess how many, she scarcely stirred. Neither was +the blessed boon of tears granted unto her. Alone with her immense and +immitigable misery, she lay in darkness tempered only by the dim skyshine +that filtered through the window draperies; hating life, that had no mercy; +hating the duplicity that had led Karslake into making untrue love to her, +but inexplicably not hating Karslake himself, or the enshrined image that +wore his name; hating herself for her facile readiness to give love where +all but the guise of love was lacking, and for knowing this deep hurt +where she should have felt only scorn and anger; but hating, most of all, +or rather for the first time discovering how well she hated, him to whom +unerring intuition told her she owed this brimming measure of heartbreak +and humiliation, the man who called himself her father. + +For if Karslake had done her a cruel wrong in winning her avowal of the +love that had been growing in her heart these many weeks, while he was +merely amusing himself or serving a secret purpose--whose was the initial +blame for that? + +Who had egged Karslake on, as he had asserted, "to win her confidence," +leaving to him the choice of means to that end? + +And--_why_? + +The formulation of this question marked the turning point in Sofia's +descent toward the nadir of shame and anguish; from the moment its +significance was clearly apprehended (but it took her long to reach this +stage) the complexion of her thoughts took on another colour, and the smart +of chagrin was soothed even as the irritation excited by critical +examination of Victor's conduct grew more acute. + +Why should the self-styled author of her being have thought it necessary, +or even wise or kind, to commission a paid employee to win his daughter's +confidence? + +What had rendered the conquest of her confidence so needful in his sight? + +What had made him think Sofia would prove loath to resign it to him, or +more likely to give it to another? + +Why had Victor hesitated to bid for her confidence with his own tongue, on +his own merits? + +One would think that, if he were her father-- + +If! + +_Was_ he? + +Sofia sat up sharply, her young body as taut as her temper. Pulses and +breathing quickened, intent eyes probed the shadows as if she thought to +wrest from them a clue to the mystery of her status in the household of +Victor Vassilyevski. + +What proof had she that he was her father? + +None but his word.... Well, and Karslake's.... None that would stand the +test of skepticism, none that either sentiment or reason could offer and +support. Certainly she resembled Prince Victor in no respect that she could +think of, not in person, not in mould of character, not in ways of thought. +From the very first she had been perplexed, and indeed saddened, by her +failure, her sheer inability, to react emotionally to their alleged +relationship. And surely there must exist between parent and child some +sort of spiritual bond or affinity, something to draw them together--even +if neither had never known the other. Whereas she on her part had never +been conscious of any sense of sympathy with Victor, but only of timidity +and reluctance which had latterly manifested in unquestionable aversion. +And then there was his attitude toward her, raising a question so +repugnant to her understanding that never before to-night had Sofia +admitted its existence and given it the freedom of her thoughts. + +She had seen men, in the Caf des Exiles, toast their mistresses with such +looks as Victor Vassilyevski reserved for the girl whom he claimed as his +child. + +What, then, if he were not her father? + +What if he had only pretended to paternal rights in furtherance of some +deep scheme of his?--perhaps thinking to use her as a pawn in that dark +plot which he was forever brewing in his study (with canaille like Sturm +for collaborators!) that mysterious "research work" that flavoured the +atmosphere of the house with a miasmatic reek of intrigue, stealth, and +fear--perhaps (more simply and terribly) designing in his own time and way +to avenge himself upon the daughter for the admitted slights he had +suffered at the hands of the mother, that poor dead woman whose fame he +never ceased to blacken while still her memory was potent to kindle fires +in those eyes otherwise so opaque, impenetrable, and lightless! + +Now Sofia found herself unable to sit still; only through action of some +sort could she hope to win any measure of ease for brain and nerves. A +thought was shaping, claiming precedence over all others, the thought of +flight; bred of the feeling that, as long as she remained in ignorance of +the exact truth concerning their relationship, it was impossible for her to +remain longer under Victor's roof, eating his bread and salt, schooling +herself to suffer his endearments whose good faith she could not help +challenging, who inspired in her only antipathy, fear, and distrust. + +It seemed clear beyond dispute that she must leave his protection, this +very night, before he could guess her mind and move to check her. + +Sofia swung her feet down to the floor. One of her silken mules had fallen +off. Semi-consciously she groped for it with stockinged toes. As the +inanimate will, the mule eluded recapture with impish ease. But beneath her +foot something rustled and crackled lightly. She bent over and picked it +up: a square white envelope, sealed. + +Switching on a lamp near by, she examined her find. It carried no address. +How it could have got there she could not imagine ... unless Chou Nu had +dropped it by inadvertence, which seemed as far-fetched as to suppose she +had left it there by design; for that would mean Chou Nu had been bribed to +convey a surreptitious note to her mistress; and Sofia knew that the +Chinese girl was at once too loyal to her "second-uncle," and too much in +awe of "Number One," to be corruptible. + +None the less, there the envelope was; and nobody but Chou Nu had entered +the room since Sofia had come straight from the study to it, late in the +afternoon. + +It was just possible, however--Sofia's eyes measured the distance--that a +deft hand and a strong wrist might have slipped the envelope under the +door and sent it skimming across the floor to the foot of the +chaise-longue. + +But nobody would have dared do that without a powerful motive for wishing +to communicate secretly with Sofia. + +She tore the flap and withdrew a single sheet of notepaper penned in a hand +she knew too well. Her heart leapt.... + +I implore you, of your charity, do not condemn me without a hearing because +of anything you may have overheard me say. After you left us in the study I +saw his eyes watching the door while we talked, and knew from his look that +something to please him had happened behind my back. And in the temper he +was in only one thing could possibly have pleased him. + +I said what I said to him, dear, because I had to--or lose the right, +dearer to me than life, to be near you, to serve and protect you. I lied to +him because I loved you. But I have never lied to you about my love--and +only once, through necessity, about anything else. Perhaps you can guess +what that lie was, somehow I rather think you do; at least, I am sure, you +are beginning to wonder if I told the truth--or knew it, then. + +If this sound cryptic, I can only beg you to be patient and charitable +until I find opportunity to clear away this one lie which stands between +us--and which is, by comparison, almost immaterial, since all that matters +is the one great truth in my life, that I love you beyond all telling. + +R.K. + +If questions trouble your mind, I beg you do not let him know it. Your only +safety now lies in his continuing to believe that you are unsuspicious. +Above all, do your best to seem to fall in with his wishes, however strange +or unreasonable they may seem. It will be only a few days more before I can +claim you for my own, and laugh at his pretensions. + +A curious love-letter; yet it was Sofia's first. If it made her +thoughtful, it made her illogically happy as well. If it put the issue to +her squarely, of loyalty to Prince Victor or loyalty to Karslake, she was +unaware that she had any choice of courses. When Shaik Tsin thumped the +panels of her door, she crushed the note into the bosom of her nglige +before answering. + +When one is of an age to love, it is never the parent who gets the benefit +of a doubt. + + + +XVI + +THE CRYSTAL + + +Like some shy, sad shade summoned up by the malign genius of a haunted +chamber, a slender shape of pallor in softly flowing draperies slipped +through the silent door and, advancing a few reluctant steps into the +soundless gloom, paused and in apprehensive diffidence awaited the welcome +that was for a time withheld. + +For minutes Victor gave no sign or stir; and in all the room nothing moved +but ghostly whorls of smoke writhing slowly upward from a pungent censer of +beaten gold. + +The great lamp of brass was dark, and there was no other light than a +solitary bulb, whose hooded rays were concentrated upon the crystal ball, +so that the latter shone with a dead-white glare, somehow baleful, like an +elfin moon deeply lost in a sea of sombre enchantment. + +Bending forward in his chair, an elbow planted on the table, his forehead +resting upon the tips of long, white fingers, Victor's gaze was steadfast +to the crystal. Refracted light sculptured with curious shadows that +saturnine face intent to immobility. + +Too young, too inexperienced and sensitive to be insusceptible to the +spell of the theatrical, the girl was conscious of a steady ebb of her +new-found store of fortitude, skepticism, and defiance, together with an +equally steady inflow of timidity and uneasiness. That sinister figure at +the table, absorbed in study of the inscrutable sphere--what did he see +there, to hold his faculties in such deep eclipse? Adept in black arts of +the Orient as he was said to be, what wizardry was he brewing with the aid +of that traditional tool of the necromancer? What spectacle of divination +was in those pellucid depths unfolding to his rapt vision? And what had +this consultation of the occult to do with the man's mind concerning +herself? + +Sofia was shaken by a tremor of dread.... + +And as if her emotion were somehow communicated, arousing him to knowledge +of her presence, Victor started, sat back, and with a sigh passed a hand +across his eyes. When the hand fell, his face wore its habitual look for +Sofia, modified by a slightly apologetic and weary smile. + +"My child!" he exclaimed in accents of contrite surprise, "have I kept you +waiting long?" + +"Only a few minutes. It doesn't matter." + +But her voice seemed sadly small and thin in comparison with Victor's +rotund and measured intonations. + +"Forgive me." Victor rose, nodding to indicate the shining crystal. "I have +been consulting my familiar," he said with a light laugh. "You have heard +of crystal-gazing? A fascinating art that languishes in undeserved neglect. +The ancients were more wise, they knew there was more in Heaven and +Earth.... You are incredulous? But I assure you, I myself, though far from +proficient, have caught strange glimpses of unborn events in the heart of +that transparent enigma." + +He took her hands and cuddled them in his own. + +She quivered irrepressibly to his touch. + +"But you are trembling!" he protested, solicitous, looking down into her +face--"you are wan and sad, my dear. Tell me you are not ill." + +"It is nothing," Sofia replied--again in that faint, stifled voice. She +added in determined effort to subdue her trembling and turn their talk to +essentials: "You sent for me--I am here." + +"I am so sorry. If I had guessed ..." Enlightenment seemed to dawn all at +once. "But surely it isn't because of that stupid business with Karslake? +Surely you didn't take him seriously?" + +"How should I--?" + +"It is too absurd. The poor fool misconstrued my instructions to make +himself agreeable--I am so taken up with the gravest matters at present, I +didn't want you to feel lonely or neglected--and, it appears, felt it +incumbent upon him to flirt with you as a matter of duty. I am out of +temper with him, but not unreasonable; I shan't dispense with his services +altogether, without more provocation, but will find other work to keep him +busy and out of your way. You need fear no more annoyance from that +quarter." + +"I was not annoyed," Sofia found heart to contend. "I--like him." + +"Nonsense!" Victor's laugh was rich with derision. "Don't ask me to believe +you were actually touched by the fellow's play-acting. You--my +daughter--wasting emotion on a mere commoner! The thing is too ridiculous. +Oblige me by thinking no more about it. I have better things in store for +you." + +"Better than--love?" the girl questioned with grave eyes. + +"When the time comes for that, you shall find a worthier parti than poor +Karslake, well-meaning though he may be. Moreover, you heard--forgive me +for reminding you--there was not an ounce of sincerity in all his +philandering for you to hold in sentimental recollection. So--forget +Karslake, please. It is a duty you owe your own pride and my dignity; it +is, furthermore, my wish." + +She bowed her head, that he might not see the reflection in her face of the +glow that warmed her bosom, where Karslake's letter nestled. But Victor +took the nod for the word of submission, and patted her shoulder with an +indulgent hand, guiding her to a chair close by his. + +"Sit down, my dear. I want to explain why I asked you to come to me at this +late hour--never dreaming my message would find you so overwrought.... You +quite see how needless it was to permit yourself to be upset by such a +trifling matter, don't you?" + +"Oh, quite," Sofia murmured, with gaze fixed on the interlacing fingers in +her lap. + +"That is sensible." Offering her shoulder one last accolade of approbation, +Victor moved toward his own chair. "And now that you are here, we may as +well have our little talk out," he continued, but broke off to stipulate: +"If, that is, you are sure you feel up to it?" + +"Yes," Sofia assented, but without moving. + +"I am not so sure. Perhaps a glass of wine might do you good." + +"Oh, no!" the girl protested--"I don't need it, really." + +But Victor wouldn't listen; and disappearing into shadowed distances, +returned presently with a brimming goblet. + +"Drink this, dear. It will make you feel quite fit again." + +Obediently, Sofia raised the goblet to her lips. + +"You have never tasted a wine like that," Victor insisted, smiling down at +her. + +It was true enough, what he claimed; though it had something of character +of a sound old Madeira, this wine had more, a surpassing richness, a +fruitiness in no way cloying, a peculiarly aromatic taste and fragrance, +elusive and provoking, with a hint of bitterness never to be analyzed by +the most experienced palate. + +"What is it?" Sofia asked after her first sip. + +"You like it, eh? An old wine of China, unknown to Western Europe." Victor +gave it a musical name in what Sofia took to be Chinese. "Outside my +cellars, I'll wager there's not another bottle of it this side of +Constantinople. Drink it all. It will do you good." + +He seated himself. "And now my reason for wishing to talk with you +to-night.... A note came by the last delivery from Lady Randolph West. You +met her, I understand, through Sybil Waring, a few days ago. She was +apparently much taken with you." + +"She is very kind." + +Victor had found a sheet of notepaper and, bending to the light, was +searching its scrawled lines with narrowed eyes. + +"'Too lovely,' she calls you--and quite justly, my dear. Yes; here it is: +'Too lovely for words.' And she wants me to bring my 'charming daughter' +down to Frampton Court for this week-end." + +Sofia said nothing, but put her half-empty glass aside. The wine had done +her good, she thought. She felt better, stronger, mentally more alert, and +at the same time curiously soothed. + +Victor refolded the note and tapped the table with it, holding Sofia with +speculative eyes. + +"It should be amusing," he said, thoughtfully, "a new experience for you. +Elaine--I mean Lady Randolph West, of course--is a charming hostess, and +never fails to fill Frampton Court with delightful people." + +"I'm sure I should love it." + +"I am sure you would. And yet ... I may have been a little premature, since +I have already written accepting the invitation." He indicated an addressed +envelope face up on the table. "But on second thoughts, it seemed perhaps +wiser to consult you first." + +"But if it is your wish, I must go," Sofia replied, mindful of Karslake's +injunction not to oppose Victor. "What have I to say--?" + +"Everything about whether we accept or do not--or if not everything, at +least the final word. I must abide by your decision." + +"But I shall be only too glad--" + +"Think a moment. It might be wiser not to go. You alone can say." + +"I don't quite understand ..." + +Victor sighed. "It is a painful subject," he said, slowly--"one I hesitate +to reopen. But we can never profit by closing our minds to facts; I mean, +to the reality of the danger which is always with us, since it is within +us." + +"What danger?" Sofia enquired, sullenly, knowing the answer too well before +it was spoken. + +"The danger of sudden temptation to indulge the lawless appetites with +which heredity has endued us--me from the nameless forebears whom I never +knew, you directly from parents both of whom boasted criminal records." + +"I don't believe it!" Sofia declared, passionately--"I can't believe it, I +won't! Even if you are--" + +She was going on to say "if you are my father," but caught herself in time. +Had not Karslake warned her in his note: "_Your only safety now lies in his +continuing to believe that you are unsuspicious._" She continued in a +tempest of expostulation whose fury covered her break: + +"Even if you were once a thief and my mother--my mother!--everything vile, +as you persist in trying to make me believe--God knows why!--it is possible +I may still have failed to inherit your criminal tendencies; and not only +possible, but true, if I know myself at all. For I have never felt the +temptation to steal that you insist I must have inherited from you--nor any +other inclination toward things as mean, contemptible, and dishonourable as +they are dishonest!" + +With only his slow, forbearing smile by way of comment, Victor heard her +out, but when she paused to reassort her thoughts, lifted a temporizing +hand. + +"Not yet, perhaps," he said, gently. "There is always the first time with +every rebel against man-made laws. But, where the predisposition so +indubitably exists, it is inevitable, soon or late it must come to you, my +dear--the time when the will is too weak, temptation too strong. Against +it we must be forever on our guard." + +"I am not afraid," Sofia contended. + +"Naturally; you will not be before the hour of ordeal which shall prove +your strength or your weakness, your confidence in yourself, or my loving +fears for you." + +Sofia gave a gesture of weariness and confusion. What did it matter? If he +would have it so, let him: it couldn't affect the issue in any way, what he +believed, or for his own purposes pretended to believe. Had not Karslake +promised ... + +She tried to recall precisely what it was that Karslake had promised, but +found her memory of a sudden singularly sluggish. In fact, her mind seemed +to have lost its marvellous clarity of those first moments after tasting +the wine of China. Small wonder, when one remembered the emotional strain +she had experienced since early evening! + +"Still," she argued, stubbornly, "I don't see what all this has to do with +Lady Randolph West's invitation." + +"Only that to accept means to expose you to the greatest temptation one can +well imagine." + +Sofia stared blankly. Her wits were working even more slowly and heavily +than before. And the glare in her eyes from the luminous sphere of crystal +was irritating. Almost without thinking, she lifted her glass again; when +she put it down it was empty. + +"The jewels of Lady Randolph West," Victor went on to explain without her +prompting, "are considered the most wonderful in England; always excepting, +of course, the Crown jewels." + +"What is that to me?" + +Resentment sounded in her tone. She was thinking more readily once more, +thanks to that second magical draught, but was nevertheless conscious of a +general failing of powers drained by her great fatigue. She wished devoutly +that Victor would have done and let her go.... + +"Elaine is very careless, leaves her jewels scattered about, hardly +troubles to put them away securely at night. If you should be tempted to +appropriate anything, she might not discover her loss for days; and then, +again, she might. And if you were caught--consider what shame and +disgrace!" + +"I think I see," the girl said, slowly, after some difficult thinking. "You +don't want me to go." + +"To the contrary, I do--but I want more than anything else in the world +that my daughter should be sure of herself and fall into no irreparable +error." + +"But I am sure of myself--I have told you that." + +"Then let us fret no more about it, but accept, and go prepared to enjoy +ourselves. I will send the letter." + +Victor rang, and Shaik Tsin presented himself so quickly that Sofia +wondered dully where he could have been waiting. In the room with them, +perhaps? It wasn't impossible. The Chinaman's thick soles of felt enabled +him to move about without making the least noise. + +"Have this posted immediately." + +Shaik Tsin bowed deeply, and backed away with the letter. Unless she turned +to watch him, Sofia could not say whether he left the room or not. + +She offered to rise. + +"If that is all ..." + +"Not quite. There are certain details to be arranged; and I may not see you +again before we leave to-morrow afternoon. We will motor down to Frampton +Court--it's not far, little more than an hour by train--starting about half +after four, if you can be ready." + +"Oh, yes." + +"Sybil Waring will tell you what to take, and Chou Nu will see to your +packing. Both, by the way, will accompany us. Sybil's maid will follow by +train. For myself, I am taking Nogam--having found that English servants do +not take kindly to my Chinese valet." + +"Yes ..." Sofia uttered, listlessly, wondering why this information should +be considered of interest to her. + +"And one thing more: I am forgiven? You are not cross with me?" + +"Why should I be?" + +"Because of what happened this afternoon--when I scolded Karslake for +making love to you." + +"Oh," said Sofia with a good show of indifference--she was so +tired--"that!" + +"Believe me, little Sofia"--Victor put out a hand to hers, and held her +eyes with a compelling gaze--"boy-and-girl romance is all very well, but +there is a greater destiny reserved for you than marriage to a hired +secretary, however amiable, personable, and well-meaning. You must prepare +yourself to move in a world beyond and above the common hearthstone of +bourgeois domesticity." + +The girl shook a bewildered head. + +"It is a riddle?" she asked, wearily. + +"A riddle?" Victor echoed. "Why, one may safely term it that. Is not the +Future always a riddle? Nature knows the Future as the Past, but Nature +holds it secret, lest man go mad with too much knowledge. Only to the few, +the favoured, does she grant rare glimpses through media which she has +provided for the use of the initiate--such as this crystal here, in which I +was studying your future, when you came in, the high future I plan for +you." + +"And--you won't tell me?" + +"I may not. It is forbidden. Nature deals unkindly with those who violate +her confidence. But--who knows?" + +He checked himself as if struck by a new turn of thought, and studied the +girl's face intently. + +"Who knows?" he repeated, as if to himself. + +"What--?" + +"It is quite within the bounds of possibility," Victor mused, "that you +should have inherited some of the psychic power which was born in me. +Perhaps--who knows?--to you as well Nature will be supple and disclose her +secrets.... If you care to seek her favour?" + +"But--how?" + +"By consulting the crystal." + +Sofia's eyes sought that coldly burning stone. Her head was so heavy, she +hesitated, oppressed by misgivings without shape that she could name, +phases of formless timidity having rise in some source which she was too +tired to search out. + +But she lingered and continued to stare at the crystal. + +"Why not?" Victor's accents were gently persuasive. "At worst, you can only +fail. And if you do not fail, it will make me happy to think that you have +been given a little insight into my dreams for you." + +"Yes," Sofia assented in a whisper--"why not?" + +Victor drew her forward by the hand. + +"Look," he said "look deep! Divest your mind as nearly as you can of all +thought--let the crystal give up its message to a mind devoid of prejudice, +its receptiveness unimpaired. Think of nothing, if you can manage +it--simply look and see." + +Automatically to a degree the girl obeyed, already in a phase of +crepuscular hypnosis, her surface senses dulled by the potent "wine of +China." And watching her closely, Victor permitted himself a smile of +satisfaction as he noted the rapidity with which she yielded to the +hypnogenic spell of the translucent quartz; how her breathing quickened, +then took on a measured tempo like that of a sleeper; how a faint flush +warmed the unnatural pallor of her cheeks, how her dilate eyes grew fixed +in an unwinking stare, and slightly glassed.... + +Under her regard the goblin sphere took on with bewildering rapidity +changing guises. Its rotundity was first lost, it assumed the semblance of +a featureless disk of pallid light, which swiftly widened till it obscured +all else, then seemed to advance upon and envelope her bodily, so that she +became spiritually a part of it, an atom of identity engulfed in a limpid +world of glareless light, light that had had no rays and issued from no +source but was circumambient and universal. Then in its remote heart a +weird glow of rose began to burn and grow, pulsing through all the colours +of the spectrum and beyond. Toward this she felt herself being drawn +swiftly, attracted by an irresistible magnetism, riding the wings of a +great wind, whose voice boomed without ceasing, like a heavy surf +thunderously reiterating one syllable, "_Sleep!_" ... And in this flight +through illimitable space toward a goal unattainable, consciousness grew +faint and flickered out like a candle in the wind. + +Behind her chair the placid yellow face of Shaik Tsin appeared, as if +materialized bodily out of the shadows. With folded arms he waited, +dispassionately observant. Presently Prince Victor nodded to him over the +head of the girl. Immediately the Chinaman moved round her chair and, +employing both hands, in one instant switched off the hooded bulb and +reilluminated the lamp of brass. + +As the light died out in the crystal Sofia sighed heavily, and relaxed. +Leaden eyelids closed down over her staring eyes, she sank back into the +chair, simultaneously into plumbless depths.... + +Victor made a sound of gratification. Shaik Tsin enquired briefly: + +"It is accomplished, then?" + +Victor nodded. "She yielded more quickly than I had hoped--worn out +emotionally, of course." + +"She sleeps--" + +"In hypnosis, in absolute suspense of every faculty and function save those +concerned solely with the maintenance of existence--in a state, that is, +comparable only to the pre-natal life of a child." + +"It is most interesting," Shaik Tsin admitted. "But what is the use? That +is what interests me." + +"Wait and see." + +Bending close to the girl, Victor called in a strong voice of command: +"Sofia! Sofia! It is I, Prince Victor, your father. Waken and attend!" + +A slight spasm shook the slender body, the lips parted, respiration became +hurried and broken, the long lashes fluttered on the cheeks. + +"Do you hear me? I, Victor, command you: Waken and attend!" + +Another struggle, more brief and sharp, ended with the opening of the +eyes, which sought and remained steadfast to Victor's, yet without +intelligence or animation. + +"Do you hear me, Sofia?" + +A voice like a sigh rustled on the parted lips, whose stir was +imperceptible: + +"I hear you...." + +"Then heed what I say. My will is your law. You know that?" + +Faintly the voice breathed: "Yes." + +"Tell me what it is you know." + +"Your will is my law." + +"You will not resist my will, you cannot. Tell me that." + +"I will not resist your will, I cannot." + +"Good. I, Prince Victor Vassilyevski, am your father. You believe that. Do +you understand? Tell me what you believe." + +"I believe that you, Prince Victor Vassilyevski, are my father." + +"You will not forget these things?" + +"I shall not forget." + +"In all things." + +"I will obey you in all things." + +"Without question or faltering." + +"Without question or faltering." + +"You recall what arrangements we made this afternoon for to-morrow?" + +"I remember." + +"Listen carefully. Memorize my wishes with respect to our visit to +Frampton Court, remembering that I communicate my will, which you must +obey." + +The girl remained silent, waiting. Victor took a moment to marshall his +thoughts, then proceeded: + +"After arriving at Frampton Court, you will make occasion quietly to find +out how your room is situated in relation to the boudoir of Lady Randolph +West. You will do this without knowing why you do it. You understand?" + +"Yes." + +"At night, on going to bed, you will go promptly to sleep. After an hour +you will wake up, put on a dressing gown and slippers, and proceed to Lady +Randolph West's boudoir, taking care not to be observed. Is that clear?" + +"Yes." + +"Once in the boudoir, you will proceed to the safe where Lady Randolph West +keeps her jewels. It will not be locked, she is careless in such matters. +Having found the safe, you will open it, take whatever jewels you find +therein, and return to your room. All this you will perform with utmost +circumspection, taking all pains not to make any noise. In your room you +will hide the jewels in your dressing-case. Then you will go back to bed +and to sleep. Have you committed all this to memory?" + +The sleeping girl answered in the affirmative. Then, to the injunction, +"Tell me what you are to do to-morrow night?" she repeated in a toneless +voice every item of the programme outlined for her, while Victor nodded in +undisguised delight, and Shaik Tsin grinned blandly over her head. + +"On waking up to-morrow morning, you will remember nothing of my +instructions, but you will carry them precisely as memorized in your +subconciousness, and you will carry them out without thought of opposition +to my will, understanding that you are without will of your own in this +matter. Finally, on waking up on the morning following your abstraction of +the jewels, you will remember nothing of the affair until reminded of it by +me, and then only this much: That in obedience to irresistible impulse, you +stole the jewels. Is that clear? Repeat ..." + +Without a mistake the woman in hypnosis iterated the commands imposed upon +her. + +The impish grin of the latent savage broke through the habitual austerity +of Victor's countenance. + +"There is no more," he said, "but this: Sleep now, and do not waken before +noon to-morrow--_sleep!_" + +With a quavering sigh, the girl reclosed her eyes and instantly relapsed +into the sleep of trance which was insensibly in the course of the night to +merge into natural slumber. + +Victor ironed out his grimace, and signed to Shaik Tsin. + +"Bear her back to her room. Instruct Chou Nu to put her to bed and not to +wake her up before noon." + +"Hearing is obedience." + +The Chinaman bent over, gathered the inert body into his arms, and without +perceptible effort stood erect. But in the act of turning away he paused +and, continuing to hold the girl as easily as if she weighed no more than a +child, interrogated the man he served. + +"You believe she will do all you have ordered?" + +"I know she will." + +"Without error?" + +"Barring accidents, without flaw from beginning to end." + +"And in event of accidents--discovery--?" + +"So much the better." + +"That would please you, to have her caught?" + +"Excellently." + +Shaik Tsin nodded in grave yet humorous comprehension. "Now I begin to +understand. If she is caught, that gives you a power over her?" + +"Precisely." + +"And if she is not, when the robbery becomes known, your power over her +will be still more strong?" + +"And over yet another stronger still." + +"The Lone Wolf?" + +Victor inclined his head. "To what lengths will he not go to cover up his +daughter's shame, if it threatens to become public that she is a thief? I +do nothing without purpose, Shaik Tsin." + +"That is to say, you have to-night taken out insurance against punishment +if this other business fails." + +"If it fail, others may suffer, but if necessary the Lone Wolf himself +will arrange my escape from England." + +"To serve so wise a man is an honour my unworthiness can never hope to +merit." + +"As to that, Shaik Tsin," Victor said without a smile, "our minds are one. +Go now. Good-night." + + + +XVII + +THE RAISED CHEQUE + + +While the Princess Sofia, Sybil Waring, and Prince Victor motored down from +London in the lilac dusk of that dim September day, and the maid Chou Nu +accompanied them, riding in front beside a newly engaged Chinese chauffeur, +the man Nogam made the journey to Frampton Court by train, and alone. + +Alone, at least, in the finer shading of that adjective; aside from the +usual assortment of self-contained fellow-travellers in the third-class +carriage, he had no company other than his thoughts; a gray and meagre +crew, if that pathetic face of middle-age furnished trustworthy reflection +of his mind.... So absolute was the submergence of that ardent adventurer +who, overnight, had lain awake for hours, a dictograph receiver glued to +his ear, eavesdropping upon the traffic of those malevolent intelligences +assembled in Prince Victor's study, and alternately chuckling and cursing +beneath his breath, aflame with indignation and chilled by inklings of +atrocities unspeakable abrew! + +If he surmised that he travelled alone in appearance only, it was with no +evident concern or astonishment. If his mind was uneasy, oppressed by a +nightmarish burden of half-knowledge, guesses, and premonition, it was not +apparent to the general observer. His most eloquent gesture was when, from +time to time, he tamped an ancient wooden pipe with a fingertip that wasn't +as calloused as he could have wished, philosophically sucked in strangling +fumes of rankest shag and, ignoring his company in the carriage as became a +British-made manservant, returned jaded, gentle eyes to those darkling +vistas of autumnal landscape that were forever radiating away from the +window like spokes of a gigantic wheel. + +Alighting in the first dark of evening at the station for Frampton Court, +he suffered himself to be herded, with a half-score more, into the omnibus +provided for other bodyservants to arriving guests. Even to these compeers +he found little to say: a loud lot, imbued with the rowdy spirit of the new +day; whereas Nogam was hopelessly of the old school--in the new word, he +dated--though his form was admittedly unimpeachable. And if because of this +he was made fun of more or less openly, to an extent that added shades of +resignation to his countenance, secretly he commanded considerable respect. + +Neither was Victor, with all the ill-will in the world, able to find fault +with Nogam's services in his new office. The most finished of self-effacing +valets, he knew just what to do and did it without being told; and when he +spoke it was only because he had been spoken to or commissioned to convey +a message. + +Victor watched him from every angle, overt and covert, but had his trouble +for his pains; Nogam, observed in a mirror, when Victor's back was turned, +went about his business with no more betrayal of personal feeling or +independent mentality than when waiting upon his master face to face. +Victor could have kicked him for sheer resentment of his pattern virtues. +When all was said and done, it _was_ damned irritating. . . . + +In the servants' hall he religiously kept his ears open and his mouth shut. +And, listening, he learned. For some things said in his hearing were +distinctly not pretty, and made one wonder if Prince Victor's deep-rooted +confidence in an England mortally cankered with social discontent were not +grounded in a surprising familiarity with backstairs morale. Other +observations, again, were merely ribald, some were humorous, while all were +enlightening. + +Not a few of the company had seen domestic service in great houses before +the war; they knew what was what and--more to the point--what wasn't. One +gathered that this pretentious country home fell within the latter +classification. Here, it was stated, anybody could buy his way into favour: +the more bounding the bounder the brighter his chances of success at +Frampton Court. + +War, the ironic, had caused this noble property to pass into the keeping of +a distant and degenerate branch of an old and honoured house; and its +present lord and lady, having failed to win the social welcome they had +counted on too confidently, were doing their silly, shabby best to squander +a princely fortune and dedicate a great name to lasting disrepute by +fraternizing with a motley riffraff of profiteering nouveaux riches. Other +than bad manners and worse morals, the one genuine thing in the whole +establishment was, it seemed, the historic collection of family jewels. + +This information explained away much of Nogam's perplexity on one score. + +After dinner, when the house party began to settle into its stride, he made +occasion, aping the other servants, to peep in at a door of the great +ballroom, where an impromptu dance had been organized; and was rewarded by +sight of the Princess Sofia circling the floor in the arms of a boldly +good-looking young man whose taste was as poor in flirtation as in +self-adornment. + +To Nogam the young girl looked wan and wistful--as if she were missing +somebody. And he wondered if Mr. Karslake knew what a lucky young devil he +was. + +He wondered still more about the present whereabouts and welfare of Mr. +Karslake. Prince Victor must have contrived some devious errand to get the +young man out and away early that day; for by the time Nogam had looked for +him in the morning, Karslake was nowhere to be found; neither had he +returned when the party left for Frampton Court--a circumstance which +Nogam regretted most bitterly. Watched as he was, it hadn't been possible, +that is to say it would have been fatally ill-advised, to have left any +sort of message or to have attempted communication through secret channels; +and all the while, hours heavy with, it might be, the destiny of England +were wasting swiftly into history. + +Perhaps it was nervousness bred of this anxiety that, in the end, made +Nogam's hand slip. Or perhaps the impatient nature of the man who lay so +closely secret within the husk of Nogam decided him upon a desperate +gamble. In either event, this befell: + +About the middle of the evening Prince Victor happened to look up from an +interesting tte--tte in the brilliant drawing-room with his handsome and +liberal-minded hostess opportunely to espy Nogam staring at him from the +remote recesses of the entrance hall. + +It was the merest of glimpses; for Victor's casual glance had barely +identified the servant when Nogam started guiltily and in a twinkling +disappeared; but a glimpse was enough for eyes and a mind alike quick with +distrust, enough to assure Victor that Nogam's face had worn an +indescribably furtive and hangdog expression, most unlike its ordinary look +of amiable stupidity, and widely incongruous with the veniality of his +fault. + +What the deuce, then, was the fellow up to, that he should glower and dodge +like a sleuth in a play? + +Promptly Victor became deaf, blind, and numb to the fascinations so +generously paraded by Lady Randolph West; and presently excusing himself, +left her and sought his rooms. + +As he went up the stairs, he saw the door to his bedchamber cautiously +opened far enough to permit one eye to spy out and discover his approach. +Immediately then the door swung wide, and Nogam ambled into view with an +envelope on a salver and an air of childlike innocence, an assumption of +ease so transparent, indeed, that only the vision of a child could have +been cheated by it. + +"Just coming to look for you, sir," he announced, glibly. "Telegram, +sir--just harrived." + +"Thanks," said Victor, shortly, taking the envelope and marching on into +his rooms. + +His manner toward his servants was always abrupt. No need to be alarmed by +this manifestation of it. Blinking mildly, Nogam trotted at his heels. + +Seating himself at an escritoire, Victor opened the envelope with a display +of languid interest. Curiosity about the contents of a telegram is +ordinarily acute. Victor, on the contrary, sat for a long moment staring +thoughtfully at nothing and absently turning the envelope over and over in +his hands; while Nogam with specious nonchalance found something +unimportant to do in another quarter of the room. + +The envelope was damp and warm to the touch. True: nightfall had brought +with it a thick drizzle, and Frampton Court was more than a mile from the +post-office. On the other hand, the night was as cold as charity; and an +envelope recently steamed open might be expected to hold the heat for a few +minutes. + +Victor thumbed the flap. It lifted readily, without tearing, its gum was +wet and more abundant than usual--in fact, it felt confoundedly like +library paste, a pot of which, in an ornamental holder, was among the +fittings of the escritoire. On the desk pad of blotting paper, too, Victor +detected marks of fresh paste defining the contour of the flap. + +With a countenance whose inscrutability alone was a threat, Victor took out +and conned the telegraph form. + +"CONSULTATION SET FOR MIDNIGHT TO-NIGHT TAKING YOUR ADVICE SHALL NOT ATTEND +BUT LEAVE FOR BRIGHTON ELEVEN P.M." + +A message ostensibly so open and aboveboard that it hadn't been thought +worth while to hide its wording under the cloak of a code. + +There was no signature--unless one were clever or wise enough to transpose +the two final letters and take them in relation to the word immediately +preceding. "Eleven, M.P.", however, could mean nothing to anybody but +Victor--except a body clever enough to hide a dictograph detector in a +turnip. So Victor saw no reason to believe that Nogam, although +undoubtedly guilty of the sin of prying, had been able to read the meaning +below the surface of this communication. + +Nevertheless, undue inquisitiveness on the part of a servant in the pay of +Victor Vassilyevski could have but one reward. + +"Nogam!" + +"Sir?" + +"Fetch me an A-B-C." + +"Very good, sir." + +With Nogam out of the way, Victor enclosed the telegram in a new envelope +and addressed it simply to _"Mr. Sturm--by hand."_ Then he took a sheet of +the stamped notepaper of Frampton Court, tore it roughly, at the fold, and +on the unstamped half inscribed several characters in Chinese, using a +pencil with a fat, soft lead for this purpose. This message sealed into a +second envelope without superscription, he lighted a cigarette and sat +smiling with anticipative relish through its smoke, a smile swiftly +abolished as the door re-opened; though Nogam found him in what seemed to +be a mood of rare sweet temper. + +Taking the railway guide, Victor ruffled its pages, and after brief study +of the proper table remarked: + +"Afraid I must ask you to run up to town for me to-night, Nogam. If you +don't mind ..." + +"Only too glad to oblige, sir." + +"I find I have left important papers behind. Give this to Shaik Tsin"--he +handed over the blank envelope--"and he will find them for you. You can +catch the ten-fifteen up, and return by the twelve-three from Charing +Cross." + +"Very good, sir." + +"Oh--and see that Mr. Sturm gets this, too, will you? If he isn't in, give +it to Shaik Tsin to hand to him. Say it's urgent." + +"Quite so, sir." + +"That is all. But don't fail to catch the twelve-three back. I must have +the papers to-night." + +"I shan't fail you, sir--D.V." + +"Deo volente? You are a religious man, Nogam?" + +"I 'umbly 'ope so, sir, and do my best to be, accordin' to my lights." + +"Glad to hear it. Now cut along, or you'll miss the up train." + +Long after Nogam had left the memory of their talk continued to afford +Victor an infinite amount of private entertainment. + +"A religious man!" he would jeer to himself. "Then--may your God help you, +Nogam!" + +Some thought of the same sort may well have troubled Nogam's mind as he sat +in an otherwise untenanted third-class compartment blinking owlishly over +the example of Victor's command of the intricacies of Chinese writing. + +He was happily free of surveillance for the first time in his waking hours +of many days. The Chinese chauffeur had driven him to the station, and had +furthermore lingered to see that Nogam did not fail to board it. And Nogam +felt reasonably safe in assuming that he would not approach the house near +Queen Anne's Gate without seeing (for the mere trouble of looking) a second +and an entirely gratuitous shadow attach itself to him with the intention +of sticking as tenaciously as that which God had given him. But the next +hour was all his own. + +His study of the Chinese phonograms at length resulted in the +transformation of his careworn face by a slowly dawning smile, the gleeful +smile of a mischief-loving child. And when he had worked for a while on the +message, touching up the skillfully drawn characters with a pencil the mate +to that which Victor had used, he sat back and laughed aloud over the +result of his labours, with some appreciation of the glow that warms the +cockles of the artist's heart when his deft pen has raised a cheque from +tens to thousands, and he reviews a good job well done. + +The torn envelope which had held the message to Shaik Tsin lay at his feet. +Nogam had not bothered to worry it open so carefully that it might be +resealed without inviting comment; though that need not have been a +difficult matter, thanks to the dampness of the night air. + +Of the envelope addressed to Sturm, however, he was more considerate; to +violate its integrity and seal it up again was an undertaking that required +the nicest handling. Nor was it accomplished much before the train drew +into Charing Cross. + +Outside the station taxis were few and drivers arrogant; and all the +'buses were packed to the guards with law-abiding Londoners homeward bound +from theatres and halls. So Nogam dived into the Underground, to come to +the surface again at St. James's Park station, whence he trotted all the +way to Queen Anne's Gate, arriving at his destination in a phase of +semi-prostration which a person of advancing years and doddering habits +might have anticipated. + +Such fidelity in characterization deserved good reward, and had in it a +rare stroke of fortune; for as he drew up to it, the door opened, and Sturm +came out, saw Nogam, and stopped short. + +"Thank 'Eaven, sir, I got 'ere in time," the butler panted. "If I'd missed +you, Prince Victor wouldn't 'ave been in 'arf a wax. 'E told me I must find +you to-night if I 'ad to turn all Lunnon inside out." + +Pressing the message into Sturm's hand, he rested wearily against the +casing of the door, his body shaken by laboured breathing, and--while +Sturm, with an exclamation of excitement, ripped open the +envelope--surveyed the dark and rain-wet street out of the corners of his +eyes. + +Across the way a slinking shadow left the sidewalk and blended +indistinguishably with the crowded shadows of an areaway. + +In a voice more than commonly rich with accent, Sturm demanded sharply: + +"What is this? I do not understand!" + +He shook in Nogam's face the half-sheet of notepaper on which the Chinese +phonograms were drawn. + +"Sorry, sir, but I 'aven't any hidea. Prince Victor didn't tell me anything +except there would be no answer, and I was to 'urry right back to Frampton +Court." Nogam peered myopically at the paper. "It might be 'Ebrew, sir," he +hazarded, helpfully--"by the looks of it, I mean. I suppose some private +message, 'e thought you'd understand." + +"Hebrew, you fool! Damn your impudence! Do you take me for a Jew?" + +"Beg pardon, sir--no 'arm meant." + +"No," Sturm declared, "it's Chinese." + +"Then likely Prince Victor meant you to ask Shaik Tsin to translate it for +you, sir." + +"Probably," Sturm muttered. "I'll see." + +"Yes, sir. Good-night, sir." + +Without acknowledging this civility, Sturm turned back into the house and +slammed the door. Nogam lingered another moment, then shuffled wearily down +the steps and toward the nearest corner. + +Across the street the voluntary shadow detached itself from cover in the +areaway, and skulked after him. He paid no heed. But when the shadow +rounded the corner, it saw only a dark and empty street, and pulled up with +a grunt of doubt. Simultaneously something not unlike a thunderbolt for +force and fury was launched, from the dark shelter of a doorway near by, at +its devoted head. And as if by magic the shadow took on form and substance +to receive the onslaught. A fist, that carried twelve stone of bone and +sinew jubilant with realization of the hour for action so long deferred, +found shrewdly the heel of a jawbone, just beneath the ear. Its victim +dropped without a cry, but the impact of the blow was loud in the nocturnal +stillness of that bystreet, and was echoed in magnified volume by the crack +of a skull in collision with a convenient lamppost. + +Followed a swift patter of fugitive feet. + +Tempered by veils of mist, the lamplight fell upon a face upturned from a +murmurous gutter, a yellow face, wide and flat, with lips grinning back +from locked teeth and eyes frozen in a staring question to which no living +man has ever known the answer. + +The pattering footsteps grew faint in distance and died away, the street +was still once more, as still as Death.... + +In the study of Prince Victor Vassilyevski the man Sturm put an impatient +question: + +"Well? What you make of it--hein?" + +Shaik Tsin looked up from a paper which he had been silently examining by +the light of the brazen lamp. + +"Number One says," he reported, smiling sweetly, while his yellow +forefinger moved from symbol to symbol of the picturesque writing: _'"The +blow falls to-night. Proceed at once to the gas works and do that which you +know is to be done.'"_ + +"At last!" The voice of the Prussian was full and vibrant with exultancy. +He threw back his head with a loud laugh, and his arm described a wild, +dramatic gesture. + +"At last--der Tag! To-night the Fatherland shall be avenged!" + +Shaik Tsin beamed with friendliest sympathy Sturm turned to go, took three +hurried steps toward the door, and felt himself jerked back by a silken +cord which, descending from nowhere, looped his lean neck between chin and +Adam's apple. His cry of protest was the last articulate sound he uttered. +And the last sounds he heard, as he lay with face hideously congested and +empurpled, eyeballs starting from their deep sockets, and swollen tongue +protruding, were words spoken by Shaik Tsin as that one knelt over him, one +hand holding fast the ends of the bowstring that had cut off forever the +blessed breath of life, the other flourishing a half-sheet of notepaper. + +"Fool! Look, fool, and read what vengeance visits a fool who is fool enough +to play the spy!" + +He brandished the papers before those glazing eyeballs. + +In an eldritch cackle he translated: + +_"'He who bears this message is a Prussian dog, police trained, a spy. Let +his death be a dog's, cruel and swift.--Number One.'"_ + + + +XVIII + +ORDEAL + + +Reviewing the day, as she undressed and prepared for bed, Sofia told +herself she had never yet lived through one so wearing, and thought the +history of its irksome hours all too legible in the lack-lustre face that +looked back from the mirror when Chou Nu uncoifed her hair and brushed its +burnished tresses. + +Though she had slept late, in fact till noon and something after, her sleep +had been queerly haunted and unhappy, she could not remember how or why, +and she had awakened already ennuy, with a mind incoherently oppressed, +without relish for the promise of the day--in a mood altogether as drear as +the daylight that waited upon her unclosing eyes. + +Main strength of will had not availed to dispel these vapours, neither did +their melancholy yield to the distraction provided by first acquaintance +with ways of a world unique alike in Sofia's esteem and her experience. + +She who had theretofore known only in day-dreams the life of light +frivolity and fashion which found feverish and trumpery reflection at +Frampton Court, was neither equipped nor disposed to be hypercritical in +the first hours of her dbut there; and at any other time, in any other +temper, she knew, she must have been swept off her feet by its exciting +appeal to her innate love of luxury and sensation. But the sad truth was, +it all seemed to her unillusioned vision an elaborate sham built up of +tinsel, paste, and paint; and the warmth of her welcome at the hands, +indeed in the very arms, of Lady Randolph West, and the success her youth +and beauty scored for her--commanding in all envy, admiration, cupidity, or +jealousy, according to age, sex, and temporal state of servitude--did +nothing to mitigate the harshness of those first impressions. + +If anything her depression grew more perversely morbid the more she was +catered to, courted, flattered, and cajoled. Something had happened, she +could never guess what, perhaps some mysterious reaction effected through +the chemistry of last night's slumber, to turn her vivid zest in life to +ashes in her mouth, so that nothing seemed to matter any more. + +Thoughts of Karslake as her lover, recollection of her first deep joy in +his avowal and her subsequent passion of shame and regret, re-perusal of +his note, that last night had seemed so sweet a thing, precious beyond +compare--found her indifferent to-day, and left her so. Try as she would, +she failed to recapture any sense of the reality of those first raptures. +And yet, somehow, she didn't doubt he loved her or that, buried deep +beneath this inexplicable apathy, love for Karslake burned on in her heart; +but she knew no sort of comfort in such confidence, their love seemed as +remote and immaterial an issue as the menu for day after to-morrow's +dinner. Nothing mattered! + +She was able even to meet Prince Victor without her customary shiver of +aversion; and when she recalled the persistence and enthusiasm with which +she had reasoned herself into believing, last night, that he might be +another than her father, she came as near to mirth as she was to come that +day; but it was mirth bitter with self-derision. Of course he was her +father, she had been a ninny ever to dream contrariwise, or that it +mattered. + +Nor had she met with more success in efforts to find a cause for this drab +humour; unless, indeed, it were simply the farthest swing of the pendulum +from yesterday's emotional crises, a long swing out of sunlit spaces swept +by the brave winds of young romance into a gloomy zone of brooding torpor, +whose calm was false, surcharged with unseizable disquiet, its atmosphere +electrical with formless apprehensions, its sad twilight shot with lurid +gleams no sooner glimpsed than gone. + +In this state Sofia's sensibilities were less benumbed than bound in a +palsy of suspense not wholly destitute of dread; beneath the lethargic +shallows of consciousness lay soundless deeps troubled by sinister +premonitions.... + +Now, retracing stage by stage the record of the day, Sofia became aware +that its most poignant moment for her was actually the present, with its +keen wonder that she had contrived to survive such exquisite tedium. + +She perceived that she had moved throughout like an automaton swayed by a +will outside its own; functioning rather than living; performing appointed +business, executing prescribed gestures, uttering foreordained +observations, and making dictated responses, all without suggestion of +spontaneity, and all without meaning other than as means to bridge an empty +space of waiting. + +Waiting for what? + +Sofia could not guess.... + +She went to bed presently, hoping only to find surcease of boredom; and her +head no sooner touched the pillow than oblivion closed down upon her +faculties like a dense, dark cloud. + +Discreet and well-instructed, Chou Nu turned the night-light down to a +glimmer, placed on and under a chair adjacent to the bed a robe of cashmere +that wouldn't rustle, and slippers of fine felt with soles of soft leather, +in which footfalls must be inaudible--and glided gently from the room. + +For sixty minutes its deep hush was unbroken; the even respiration of the +girl made no sound, she rested without tossing, without moving a finger. + +Then, sleep having held her for precisely one hour by the clock, Sofia +opened her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and at once sat up on the side of +the bed. + +The memory of that hour was not to leave the girl while life was in her; +nor was the question it raised ever to be answered in a fashion +satisfactory to her intelligence. When later she heard it stated with +authority, by men reputed to be versed in psychic knowledge, that a subject +in hypnosis cannot be willed to act contrary to the instincts of his or her +better nature, she held her peace, but wondered. Was Victor right, then, +and the crime he had willed her to commit in final analysis not repugnant +to her instincts? Or was it some secret faculty of the soul, telepathy or +of its kin, that roused and sent her to keep her rendezvous with destiny? + +A riddle never to be read: Sofia only knew that, finding herself awake, she +got up, donned nglige and slippers, and set her feet upon the way +appointed without its occurring to her that the way was strange, without +stopping to question why or whether. + +If independent volition, sensible or subliminal, were absent, it could +hardly have been apparent. Sofia herself was not aware of its suspense or +supersession. She knew quite well what she was doing, her every action was +direct and decided, the goal alone remained obscure. She only knew that +somewhere, somehow, something was going wrong without her, and her presence +was required to set it right. + +Letting herself out into the corridor, she drew the door to behind her, but +left it unlatched; with what object, she did not know. But the lateness of +the hour, the stillness of the sleeping household, made it seem quite in +order that she should pause to look cautiously this way and that and make +sure that nobody else was astir to spy upon her or challenge the purpose of +this as yet aimless nocturnal flitting. + +There was nobody that she could see. + +Down the corridor, then, never asking why that way, like a ghost in haste +she sped, but as she drew near to a certain door found her pace faltering. +Sofia knew that door; through it Lady Randolph West herself had introduced +the girl to her boudoir, not two hours since, when chance, or Fate, or the +smooth working out of malicious mortal machinations had moved the two women +simultaneously to seek their quarters for the night. And in the boudoir +Sofia had spent the quarter of an hour before going on to her own room and +bed, civilly attending to vapid chatter and admiring as in duty bound the +admirable jewels of the family. + +Now she saw the door a few inches ajar with, beyond it, a dim glow. The +circumstance seemed singular, because--now that she remembered--when Sofia +had expressed perfunctory curiosity concerning what precautions were taken +to safeguard the jewels, Lady Randolph West had airily informed her that +she considered insurance to their appraised value plus a stout lock on the +boudoir door better than any strong-box as yet devised by the ingenuity of +man. + +"There's the safe they're kept in, of course," the lady had +declared--"but, my dear, a cardboard box will do as well when any burglar +who knows his business makes up his mind to get at my trinkets. I never +even trouble to lock the thing. I'd rather lose the jewels--and collect the +insurance money--than be frightened out of my wits by hearing it blown +open. No, thanks ever so: any cracksman skillful enough to pick the lock on +the door may bag his loot and go in peace for all of me!" + +Impulse, at least she called it that, moved Sofia to approach and +cautiously open the door still wider. + +Upon the antique writing-desk that housed the safe burned a single lamp of +low candle-power. A door that led to the adjoining bedchamber was tightly +shut. Sofia's mistrustful eyes reconnoitred every corner of the room, and +reckoned it empty. Again obedient to undisputed impulse, she stepped inside +and shut the door. The spring-latch of the American lock found its socket +with a soft click. Thereafter, silence, no sound in the boudoir, none from +the room beyond. But to Sofia the hurried beating of her heart reverberated +on the stillness like the rolling of a drum. + +Without clear appreciation of how she had got there, she found herself +standing over the writing-desk, and discovered what the indifferent light +had till now kept hidden, that a false panel in the front of the desk had +been thrust back, exposing the face of the safe, and that this last was not +even closed. + +At the same time she grew conscious that her hands were shaking violently, +that her every limb, her whole body indeed, was agitated by desperate +trembling. And dully asked herself why this should be ... But didn't +hesitate. + +Her actions now more than ever resembled those of an unthinking puppet, +although she knew quite well what she was doing; and her gestures might +have been the fruit of long lessoning at the hands of some master of stage +melodrama, so true were they to theatrical convention. + +With furtive, frightened glances toward both doors, Sofia dropped to her +knees before the safe.... + +When she stood up again her hands were filled with jewellery, her two hands +held a treasure of incalculable price in precious stones. + +She paused for a little, staring at them with dilate eyes dark in a pale, +rapt face. Her lips were parted, but only her quickened breathing whispered +past them. She was trembling more painfully than ever. But she seemed +unable to think of anything but the jewels, her gaze was held in +fascination by their coruscant loveliness as revealed by the light of the +little lamp. + +Hers for the taking! + +Then, without warning, a tremendous convulsion laid hold on her body and +soul, and she was racked and shaken by it, and at its crisis her +outstretched hands opened and showered the top of the desk with jewels, +then flew to her head and clutched her throbbing temples. + +She cried out in a low voice of suffering: _"No!"_ + +And of a sudden she was reeling back from the desk, toward the corridor +door, repeating over and over on an ascending scale: _"No! no! no! no! +no!"_ + +Her quaking legs blundered against a chair, her knees gave, she tottered to +fall; strong arms caught her, held her safe, a voice she knew yet didn't +know in its guarded key muttered in her ear: "Thank God!" + +She made no struggle, but her eyes of pain and terror sought the speaker's +face, and saw that he was the man Nogam. In extremity of amazement she +spoke his name. He shook his head. + +"No longer Nogam," he said in the same low accents, and smiled--"but your +father, Michael Lanyard!" + + + +XIX + +UNMASKING + + +One more instant the girl rested passive in uncomprehending astonishment; +then abruptly she exerted herself to break free from the supporting +embrace, but found the effort wasted for lack of opposition, so that her +own violence sent her reeling away half a dozen paces, to bring up against +the desk; while Lanyard, making no move more than to drop his rejected +arms, remained where she had left him, and requited her indignant stare +with a broken smile of understanding, a smile at once tender, tolerant, and +sympathetic, with a little quirk of rueful humour for good measure. + +"My father!" Sofia repeated in a gasp of disdain--"_you!_" + +He gave a slight shrug. + +"Such, it appears, is your sad fortune." + +"A servant!" + +"And not the proud prince you were promised? Rather a come down, one must +admit." Lanyard laughed low, and moved nearer. "I'm sorry, I mean I might +be (for myself, too) if Nogam were less a fraud than that pretentious +mountebank, Prince Victor--or for the matter of that, if you were as poor +of spirit as you would seem on your own valuation, if you were not at heart +your mother's daughter, and mine, my child by a woman whom I loved well, +and who long ago loved me!" + +He paused deliberately to let her grasp the full sense of his words, then +pursued: + +"It may help you get your bearings to know that I am truly the Michael +Lanyard to whom Messieurs Secretan & Sypher addressed their +advertisement--you remember--as this should prove." + +He offered a slip of paper, and after another moment of dumb staring, the +girl took it and read aloud the message which Victor had dictated following +Sofia's flight to him from the Caf des Exiles. + +_"'To Michael Lanyard, Intelligence Division, the War Office, +Whitehall--'"_ + +"That is to say," Lanyard interpreted, "of the British Secret Service." + +"You!" + +He bowed in light irony. "One regrets one is at present unable to offer +better social standing. To-morrow, it may be ... But who knows?" + +Sofia shook her head impatiently, and in a murmur of deepening amazement +resumed her reading of the note: + +_"'Your daughter Sofia is now with me.. Your own intelligence must tell you +nothing could be more fatal than an attempt to communicate with her'"_ + +To the interrogation eloquent in her eyes Lanyard replied: + +"Dictated by Victor to Karslake, who passed it on to me, the night he +brought you to the house from the Caf des Exiles." + +"You knew--you, who claim to be my father--yet permitted him--?" + +"You were in the house before I knew I had a daughter; Karslake had no +chance to consult me before fetching you. Furthermore, if he had hesitated +to carry out Victor's orders just then, not only would he have nullified +all our preparations to secure evidence enough to convict the man, or at +least run him out of England--" + +"Prince Victor? What was he doing, that you should--?" + +"Dabbling in all manner of infamy, from financing a thieves' fence to +organizing an association of common criminals to bring it business; from +maintaining a corps of agitators to foment social discontent to fostering +this last, most imbecile scheme of all, which comes to naught to-night, an +attempt to overthrow the British Empire and set up in its stead a Soviet +England, with Victor Vassilyevski in the dual rle of Trotsky and Lenine!" + +The girl made a sign of bewilderment and incredulity. + +"What are you telling me? Are you mad?" + +"No--but Victor is, mad with lust for power, insane with illusions of +personal aggrandizement. You don't believe? Listen to me, then, appreciate +to what demoniac lengths he was prepared to go to flatter his insane +ambitions:" + +"Sturm has invented a new poison gas, odourless, colourless, the most +deadly known, and easily manufactured in vast quantities by adding simple +ingredients to ordinary illuminating gas. Fanatic Bolshevist that he was, +Sturm offered his formula to Victor, to be used to clear the way for social +revolution; and Victor jumped at the offer--has spent vast sums preparing +to employ it. His money paid for the recent strike at the Westminster works +of the Gas Light and Coke Company, by means of which Victor was able to +smuggle a round number of his creatures into its service. His money has +corrupted servants employed in Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament, in +the homes of the nobility, even in Buckingham Palace itself, men ready at a +given signal secretly to turn on gas jets in remote corners and flood the +buildings with the very breath of Death itself. And that signal was to have +been given to-night. Well, it will not be." + +"But could any scheme be more grotesquely diabolical? Do you ask more proof +of the man's madness? Do you require more excuse for my permitting you to +be deceived by Victor for a few weeks, rather than wreck our plans to +frustrate his, when all the while Karslake and I were near you, watching +over you, learning to love you--he in his fashion, I as your father--and +both ready at all times to die in your protection, if it had ever come to +that?" + +Lanyard had drawn so near that only a few inches separated them, and had +his voice in such control that at three paces' distance a vague and +inarticulate murmur at most might have been heard; but in Sofia's hearing +his accents rang with passionate sincerity, persuading her against the +reason which would have rejected his indictment of Victor as too fantastic, +too imaginative, and too hopelessly overdrawn to be given credence. She +believed him, knowing in her heart that he believed his statements to the +last word; and knowing more, that he was surely what he represented himself +to be, her father. + +Inscrutable the processes of human hearts: even as from the very first +Sofia had instinctively yet unconsciously recognized the intrinsic falsity +of Victor's pretensions, so now she perceived the integral honesty that +informed Lanyard's every word and nuance of expression, and accepted him +without further inquisition. + +To his insistent "Have I made you understand?" she returned a wan wraith of +a smile, pitiful with entreaty, while one of her hands found the way to +his. + +"I think so," she replied in halting apology--"at least, I believe you. But +be a little patient with me. It is all so new and strange, what you tell +me, it's hard at first to grasp, there's so much I must accept on faith +alone, so much I don't understand ..." + +"I know." Lanyard pressed her hand gently. + +"But try to have faith; I promise you it shall be fairly rewarded. Only a +little longer now, an hour or two at most, and Karslake will be here to +prove the truth of all I have asserted. You will believe him, at least." + +"Of course," the girl said, simply. "I love him. You knew that?" + +"I guessed, and I am glad, glad for both of you." + +"But he is safe?" Sofia demanded in sudden access of alarm so strong that +her voice rose above the pitch of discretion. + +"Quietly. Yes, he is safe enough." + +"You know that for a fact? How do you know--?" + +"I've seen him to-night, talked with him--not two hours since." + +"You have been in London?" she questioned--"to-night?" + +"Rather! Victor sent me." Lanyard laughed lightly. "You didn't know, of +course, but--well, I gave him reason to suspect me, so he sent me up to be +assassinated by Shaik Tsin. As it turned out, however, Herr Sturm most +obligingly understudied for me.... Before coming back, I looked Karslake +up. He'd been busy, playing a lone hand, ever since Victor trumped up an +errand to keep him out of your way all day. No need to go into tedious +details; I found Karslake had matters well in hand: the gas works +surrounded by a cordon of troops, the house under close watch, and--best +of all--a sworn confession from an Irish Member of Parliament whom Victor +had managed to buy with a promise to free Ireland once Soviet England was +an accomplished fact. So I left Karslake to wind up loose ends in London, +and posted back with my heart in my mouth for fear I'd be too late." + +"Too late?" Sofia queried with arching brows. + +"Need I remind you where we are?" + +A sweep of Lanyard's hand indicated the boudoir; and Sofia started sharply +in perplexity and alarm. + +"Where we are!" she echoed in a frightened whisper. + +Of a sudden memory returned of what had passed in that room before Lanyard +had revealed himself to her, and knowledge of her peril so narrowly escaped +drove home like a knife to her heart. + +"What am I doing here?" she breathed in horror. "What have I done?" + +"Nothing more dreadful than prove yourself as true as you are fine, by +revolting in the end against the most powerful force known to man, the +force of suggestion implanted in hypnotism. You couldn't know that it was +hypnotic not natural sleep you passed into last night, when Victor tricked +you with that damned crystal, or that, while you slept, he willed you to do +here to-night what, when it came to the final test, your nature would not +let you do." + +"But he so often told me I had the instincts of a thief--!" + +"So often--_I_ know--that you were, against your will and reason, by dint +of the very iteration of it, coming to accept that lie as a truth whose +power there was no contesting. That is why, that you might prove yourself +by your own acts, I had to let you undergo your ordeal here to-night, only +standing by to make sure no ill came of it. Otherwise you might have +carried to your grave the fear instilled into your soul by that blackguard. +But now you know he lied, and will never doubt again--or reproach your +father for the dark record of his younger years." + +He checked, lifting hands of desolate appeal, then let them fall. + +"Dear, if you knew you would not judge me harshly. If only you could know +what I have fought up from, a foundling without a name abandoned in a +third-rate Parisian hotel, reared a scullion, butt and scapegoat, with +associates only of the lowest, scullions, beggars, pickpockets, Apaches, +and worse--!" + +"As if that mattered!" + +The girl turned a softly suffused face with shining eyes to Lanyard's. Now +at last she knew him, now the romance of her dreams of yesterday came true: +through the mean masquerade of Nogam the man emerged, identifying himself +in her sight unmistakably with that splendid stranger whom she had never +quite forgotten since that old-time afternoon when he had met Karslake in +the Caf des Exiles and talked so intimately of his antecedents, hinting +at a history of youthful years strangely analogous with her own. + +Involuntarily her arms lifted and settled upon his shoulders. + +"I am so proud to think--" + +A shrill scream drowned out her words, a woman's voice ranging swiftly the +staccato gamut of terror and cracking discordantly on its most piercing +note. + +Then with a bang that shook the flooring and must have been heard in the +farthest corners of the house, the bedchamber door was slammed behind their +backs. But beyond it the screaming went on in volume imperceptibly muffled +by its barrier, one ear-splitting caterwaul following another with such +continuity that the wonder was where Lady Randolph West found breath to +keep up that atrocious row, and whether any dozen women of average +lung-power could have rivalled it. + +In one sharp movement Lanyard and Sofia disengaged and fell apart, their +eyes consulting, hers in dismay, his in mixed exasperation and remorse. + +"I ought to be shot," he declared, bitterly--"who knew better!--to have +delayed here, exposing you to this danger--!" + +"It couldn't be helped," Sofia insisted; "you had to make me understand. +Besides, if I hurry back--" + +In quick strides Lanyard crossed to the corridor door, unlatched and opened +it an inch, peered out, and gave the sum of what he saw in a gesture of +finality, then leaving the door ajar turned swiftly back to the girl. + +"Too late," he said: "they're swarming out into the hall like bees. In +another minute ..." + +Of a sudden he closed with Sofia, roughly clasping her body to him. + +"Struggle with me!" he pleaded--"get me by the throat, throw me back across +the desk--" + +"What do you mean? Let me go!" + +In answer to her efforts to wrench away, Lanyard only tightened his hold +and swung her toward the desk. + +"Do as I bid you! It's the only way out. Let them think you heard a noise, +got up to investigate, found me here, rifling the safe--" + +"No," she insisted--"no! Why should I save myself at your expense?--betray +you--my father--!" + +"Then give me the obedience of a daughter ... or let Victor succeed in +branding you a thief, the daughter of a thief!" + +He stilled the protest she would have uttered by placing fingers over her +lips. + +"Listen!" + +In the corridor an angry rumour of voices, alarmed calls and cries, with +thumps and scuffles of hasty feet, in the bedchamber the shrieks persisting +without the least hint of failing: as a damned soul might bawl upon its bed +of coals ... + +"Sofia, I implore you!" + +Still she hesitated. + +"But you--?" + +"Never fear for me, remember that I am of the Secret Service: two minutes +after I see the inside of the nearest police station, I shall be free--and +happy in the assurance that your name is without stain. Then Karslake will +come for you, bring you to me ... Now!" + +Lanyard caught the girl's two wrists together and, throwing himself bodily +backward across the desk, carried her hands to his throat. + +With a simultaneous crash the door was flung back to the wall. Led by +Victor Vassilyevski a dozen men, guests and servants, in various stages of +dishabille, streamed into the room. + + + +XX + +THE DEVIL TO PAY + + +When it was all over, when the gravelled drive no longer crunched to wheels +that bore away the man Nogam to answer for his misdeeds, when the household +had quieted down and the most indefatigable sensation-monger had wearied of +singing the praises of the Princess Sofia and, tossing off a final +whiskey-and-soda, had paddled sleepily back to bed, lights burned on +brightly in two parts only of Frampton Court, in the bedchambers tenanted +respectively by Prince Victor Vassilyevski and his reputed daughter. + +Alone, Prince Victor sat at the desk where he had, four hours earlier, +inscribed those characters which should have hurried Nogam into a premature +grave. That they had failed of their mission was something that fretted +Victor Vassilyevski, his mind and nerves, to a pitch of exacerbation all +but unendurable. + +What had become of that sentence to death? And what of that other, the +telegram which, forwarded by Nogam's hand to Sturm, should long since have +set in motion the organized machinery of murder and demolition? + +Had Nogam, as he had meekly insisted on being questioned subsequent to his +subjugation, truly delivered the two messages as directed and, miraculously +escaping his fate decreed, returned to Frampton Court by the twelve-three, +likewise in strict conformance with instructions? + +This statement Nogam had neglected to amplify, and Victor had been chary of +too close questioning, lest it elicit too much in the hearing of others. +Once overpowered, Nogam had been philosophic about his bad luck; but the +eyes in his face of a stoic had held a gleam that Victor didn't altogether +like, a light that seemed suspiciously malicious, a suggestion of spirited +humour deplorable to say the least in a self-confessed sneak-thief caught +in the very act, deplorable and disturbing; in Victor's sight a look +constructively indicative of more knowledge than Nogam had any right to +possess. Take it any way you pleased, something to think about ... + +Still more disquieting Victor thought the circumstance that nobody else had +seemed to notice that anomalous light in Nogam's eyes; which of course +might mean merely that Victor had worked himself into such a state of +nerves that he was seeing things, but equally well that the look was one +reserved for Victor alone, intentionally or not holding for him a message, +if he had but had the wit to read it, of peculiarly personal import. + +It might have implied, for example, that Victor's half-hearted and +paltering distrust of Nogam had all along been only too well warranted. In +which case, the fat was already in the fire with a vengeance, and Victor's +probable duration of life was dependent wholly upon the speed with which he +could quit Frampton Court and hurl his motor-car through the night to the +lower reaches of the Thames. + +Envisagement of the worst at its blackest being part of the holy duty of +self-preservation, Victor sat fully dressed, with every other provision +made for flight at the first flash of warning, only waiting to make sure, +and with what impatience was apparent in the working of paste-coloured +features, the wincing and shifting of slotted eyes, the incessant shutting +and unclosing of tensed fingers. + +All rested with the telephone that stood mockingly mute at the man's elbow, +callous alike to his anxiety and the rancorous regard in which he held it. +His call for the house near Queen Anne's Gate had now been in for more than +forty minutes; in that interval he had no less than three times pleaded its +urgency to the trunk-line operator. And still the muffled bell beneath the +desk was dumb. + +And the worst of it was, fatal though the delay might prove, he dared not +stir a hand to save himself until he _knew_.... + +In the taut torment of those long-drawn minutes a sound of circumspect +scratching was enough to bring Victor to his feet in one startled bound. + +He stood for a moment, a-twitch, but intent upon the corridor door, then +composed himself with indifferent success, approached and opened the door. +The girl Chou Nu slipped in, offered a timid courtesy, and awaited his +leave to speak. + +"Well? What is it?" + +"Excellency: the Princess Sofia refuses to let me stay in the room with +her." + +"Why? Don't you know?" + +"I think she means to run away. She would not go back to her bed, but +walked up and down, till I ventured to urge her to take rest, when she +turned on me in a rage and bade me be gone. Then I came to you." + +Victor took thought and finished with a dour nod. + +"You have done well. Return, keep watch, let me know if she leaves--" + +"The door is locked, Excellency: she will not let me in." + +"Spy through the keyhole, then; or hide in one of the empty rooms across +the corridor, and watch--" + +A muted mutter from the direction of the desk dried speech on Victor's +lips. He started hastily toward the source of the sound, midway wheeled, +and dismissed the maid with a brusque hand and monosyllable--"Go!"--then +fairly pounced upon the telephone. + +But all he heard, in the course of the ensuing five minutes, was the voice +of the trunk-line operator advising him, to begin with, that she was ready +to put him through to Westminster, then maddeningly punctuating the buzz +and whine of the empty wire with her call of a talking doll--"Are you +theah?... Are you theah?... Are you theah?" + +At length, however, the connection was established; and Victor, hearing the +falsetto of Chou Nu's second-uncle cheerily respond to the operator's +query, unceremoniously broke in: + +"Shaik Tsin? It is I, Number One. And the devil's own time I've had getting +through. Why didn't you answer more promptly? What's the matter? Has +anything gone wrong?" + +"All is well, Excellency, as well as you could wish, knowing what you +know." + +Profound relief found voice in a sigh from Victor's heart. + +"You got my messages, then? Nogam delivered them?" + +"So I understand. I myself did not see him, Excellency. The man Sturm--" + +On that name the voice died away in what Victor fancied was a gasp that +might have been of either fright or pain. + +"Hello!" he prompted. "Are you there, Shaik Tsin? I say! Are you there? Why +don't you answer?" + +He paused: no sound for seconds that dragged like so many minutes, then of +a sudden a deadened noise like the slam of a door heard afar--or a pistol +shot at some distance from the telephone in the study. + +Further and frantic importuning of the cold and unresponsive wire +presently was silenced by a new voice, little like that of Shaik Tsin. + +"Hello? Who's there? I say: that you, Prince Victor?" + +Involuntarily Victor cried: "Karslake!" "What gorgeous luck! I've been +wanting a word with you all evening." + +"What has happened? Why did Shaik Tsin--?" + +"Oh, most unfortunate about him--frightfully sorry, but it really couldn't +be helped, if he hadn't fought back we wouldn't have had to shoot him. You +see, the old devil murdered Sturm to-night, for some reason I daresay you +understand better than I: we found a paper on the beggar, written in +Chinese, apparently an order for his assassination signed by you. Half a +mo': I'll read it to you ..." + +But if Karslake translated Victor's message, as edited by the hand of +Nogam, it was to a wire as deaf as it was dumb. + + + +XXI + +VENTRE TERRE + + +With exceeding care to avoid noise, Sofia unlocked the door and for the +second time since midnight let herself stealthily out into the darkened +corridor; but now with the difference that she did what she did in full +command of all her wits and faculties, with no subjective war of wills to +hinder and confuse her, and with a definite object clearly visioned--a goal +no less distant than the railway station. + +Lanyard had promised that Karslake should come for her within an hour or +two and take her away with him, back to London and the arms of the father +whom, although so recently revealed and accepted, she had already begun to +love; if indeed it were not true that she had in filial sense fallen in +love with Lanyard at first sight, through intuition, that afternoon in the +Caf des Exiles so long, so very long ago! + +Well: she might as well await Karslake at the station. It would be simpler, +she would be more at ease there, would breathe more freely once she turned +her back on Frampton Court and all its hateful associations. Where Victor +was, she could not rest. + +If she had feared the man before, now she hated him; but hatred had added +to her fear instead of replacing it, she remained afraid, desperately +afraid, so that even the thought of continuing under the same roof with him +was enough to make her prefer to tramp unknown roads alone in the mirk of +that storm-swept night. + +Though she went in trembling, she felt sure nobody spied upon her going; +and in this confidence crept to the great staircase, down to the entrance +hall, and on to the front doors; and a good omen it seemed to find these +not locked, but simply on the latch. And if the night into which she peered +was dark and loud with wind and rain, its countenance seemed kindlier, more +friendly far than that of the world she was putting behind her. Without +misgivings Sofia stepped out. + +It was like stepping over the edge of the universe into the eternal night +that bides beyond the stars. Neither did waiting seem to habituate her +vision to the lack of light. + +Still, the feel of gravel underfoot ought to guide her down the drive to +the great gateway; and once outside the park, clear of its overshadowing +trees, one would surely find mitigation of darkness sufficient to show the +public road. + +She took one tentative step out of the recessed doorway and into Victor's +arms. + +That they were Victor's she knew instantly, as much by the crawling of her +flesh as by the choking terror that stifled the scream in her throat and +froze body and limbs with its paralyzing touch. + +And then his ironic accents: + +"So good of you to spare me the trouble of coming for you!" + +Before she could reply or even think, other hands than his were busy with +her. A folded cloth was whipped over the lower half of her face, sealing +her lips, and knotted at the nape of her neck. Stout arms clipped her knees +and swung her off her feet, leaving her body helpless in Victor's tight +embrace. And despite her tardy recovery and efforts to struggle, she was +carried swiftly away, a dozen paces or so, then tumbled bodily in upon the +floor of a motor-car. + +The door closed as she tried to pick herself up, the smooth purring of the +motor became a leonine roar while she was still on her knees, gears +clashed, and the car leaped with a jerk that drove her headlong against the +cushions of the seat. Then the dome light was switched on, and she saw +Victor with a bleak face sitting over her, an automatic pistol naked in his +hand. + +"Get up!" he said, grimly, "and if there's any thought of fight left in +you, think better of it, remember your mother paid with her life the price +of defying me, and yours means even less to me. Up with you and sit quietly +beside me--do you hear?" + +He lent her a hand that wrenched her arm brutally and wrung a cry which +Victor mocked as Sofia fell upon the seat and cringed back into the corner. + +For perhaps thirty seconds, while the car raced away down the drive, he +continued to hold her in the venom of her sneer; then his gaze veered +sharply, and leaning over he switched off the light. + +With the body of the car again the dwelling-place of darkness, objects +beyond its rain-gemmed glass--the heads of the Chinese maid and chauffeur, +the twin piers of the nearing gateway--attained dense relief against the +blue-white glare of two broad headlight beams, that of the limousine boring +through the gateway to intersect at right angles that of another car +approaching on the highroad but as yet hidden by the wall of the park. + +In one breath and the same the lights of the second car swerved in toward +the gateway, and consternation seized hold of Sofia's intelligence and +wiped it clear of all coherence. + +Already the strange lamps were staring blankly in between the piers--and +the momentum of Victor's car was too great to be arrested within the +distance. The girl cried out, but didn't know it, and crouched low; the +horn added a squawk of frenzy to a wild clamour of yells; all prefatory to +a scrunching, rending crash as, in the very mouth of the gateway, a front +fender of the incoming car ripped through the rear fender above which Sofia +was sitting. Thrown heavily against Victor, then instantly back to her +place, she felt the car, with brakes set fast, turn broadside to the road, +skid crabwise, and lurch sickeningly into the ditch on the farther side. + +For an interminable time, while the ponderous fabric rocked and toppled, +threatening very instant to crash upon its side, the rear wheels spun madly +and the chain-bound tires tore in vain at greasy road metal. + +Without clear comprehension of what was happening, Sofia heard shouts from +the other car, now at a standstill, and an oddly syncopated popping. The +window in the door on Victor's side rang like a cracked bell, shivered, and +fell inward, clashing. With a growl of rage, Victor bent forward and +levelled an arm through the opening. From his hand truncated tongues of +orange flame, half a dozen of them, stabbed the gloom to an accompaniment +of as many short and savage barks. + +Then the chains at last bit through to a purchase, the car scrambled to the +crown of the road and lunged precipitately away; and the lights of the +other dropped astern in the space of a rest between heartbeats. + +Sitting back, Victor turned on the dome light again, and extracting an +empty magazine clip from the butt of his automatic pistol, replaced it with +another, loaded. + +From this occupation he looked up with lips curling in contempt of Sofia's +terror. + +"Your friends," he observed, "were a thought behindhand, eh? When you come +to know me better, my dear, you'll find they invariably are--with me." + +Aftermath of fright made her tongue inarticulate; and Victor's sneer took +on a colour of mean amusement. + +"Something on your mind?" + +She twisted her hands together till the laced fingers hurt. + +"Wha-what are you go-going to do with me?" + +"Make good use of you, dear child," he laughed: "be sure of that!" + +"What do you mean?" + +"What do you think?" + +"I don't know ..." + +"Really not? But there I think you do injustice to your admirable +intelligence." + +The jeering laugh sounded as he put out the light again, in darkness the +derisive voice pursued: + +"If you must know in so many words--well, I mean to keep you by me till the +final curtain falls. As long as it lasts, yours will be an interesting +life--I give my word." + +"And you call yourself my father!" + +"Oh, no! No, indeed: that's all over and done with, the farce is played +out; and while I'm aware my rle in it wasn't heroic, I shan't play the +purblind fool in the afterpiece--pure drama--upon which the curtain is now +rising. Neither need you. Oh, I'll be frank with you, if you wish, lay all +my cards on the table." + +A deliberate pause ended in a chuckle. + +"I have at present precisely two uses for my precious little Sofia: She +will serve excellently as insurance against further persecution on the part +of her accomplished and energetic father--with whom I shall deal in my good +leisure--and ... But need one be crudely explicit?" + +Sofia answered nothing to that, for a long time she said nothing, but sat +pondering.... + +And Victor was speedily provided with another interest which engrossed him +to the exclusion of further efforts to bait a victim defenseless against +his insolence. + +When for the third time after that narrow scrape at the gates the man +roused up to peer back through the rear window of the limousine, Sofia +heard a harshly sibilant intake of breath between shut teeth, and surmised +the discovery that the car which had so narrowly missed blocking their +escape had picked up the trail, and was now in hot chase. + +Even youth, however, could distill but slender hope from this. The pace was +too terrific at which Victor's car was thundering through the night-bound +countryside, it seemed idle to dream that another could overhaul it, even +though driven with as much skill and maniacal recklessness. And Sofia +returned to thoughts to which Victor's innuendo had given definite shape +and colour, if with an effect far from that of his intention. Threatened, +the spirit of the girl responded much as sane young flesh will to a cold +plunge. She had forgotten to tremble, and though still tense-strung in +every fibre was able to sit still, look steadily into the face of peril, +and calculate her chances of cheating it. + +Presently, in a tone so even it won begrudged admiration, she asked: + +"Where are you taking me?" + +"Do you really care?" + +"Enough to ask." + +"But why should I tell you?" + +"No reason. I presume it doesn't really matter, I'll know soon enough." + +"Then I don't mind enlightening you. We're bound for the Continent by way +of Limehouse. A launch is waiting for us in Limehouse Reach, a yacht off +Gravesend. Oh, I have forgotten nothing! By daybreak we'll be at sea." + +"We?" + +"You and I." + +"You deceive yourself, Prince Victor. I shan't accompany you." + +"How amusing! And is it a secret, how you propose to stand against my +will?" + +Sofia was silent for a little; then, "I can kill myself," she said, +quietly. + +"To be sure you can! And when I tire of you, perhaps I'll humour your +morbid inclinations--if they still exist." + +"You are a fool," Sofia returned, bluntly, "if you think I shall go aboard +that yacht alive." + +"Brava!" Victor laughed, and clapped his hands. "Brava! brava!" + +He sat up for another look out of the rear window, sucked at his breath +even more sharply than before, and snatching up the speaking-tube +pronounced urgent words in Chinese. + +The head of the chauffeur, in stark silhouette against the leading glow, +bent toward the tube, and nodded rapidly. And to the deep-throated roar of +an unmuffled exhaust, the heavy car leaped, like a spirited animal stung by +whip and spur, and settled into a stride to which what had gone before was +as a preliminary canter to the heartbreaking drive down to the +home-stretch. + +Lights began to dot the roadside. Widely spaced at first, unbroken ranks +were soon streaking past the tear-blind windows. Outskirts of London were +being traversed; but neither driving sheets of rain against which human +vision failed, nor the chance of encountering belated traffic, worked any +slackening of the pace. Only when a corner had to be negotiated did the car +slow down, and then never to the point of sanity; and the turn once +rounded, its flight would again become headlong, lunatic, suicidal. + +The stringed lamps wove a wavering luminous ribbon without end; a breeze +laden with the wet fragrance of London drove great gusts of rain in +stringing showers through the broken window. Turns and twists grew more +frequent, apparently favouring the pursuit. + +Victor now knelt constantly on the back seat, his face in the fitful play +of light and shadow uncannily resembling that of a hunted jungle cat. On +the polished steel of his pistol sinister gleams winked and faded. From his +snarling lips foul oaths fell, a steady stream, black blasphemies spewed up +from the darkest dives of the Orient--most of them happily couched in the +tongues of their origin and so unintelligible to his one auditor. As it +was, she heard and understood enough, too much. + +Nevertheless, the man was not too completely absorbed in watching the +shifting fortunes of the race to be unmindful of the girl. And when once +she sat up to ease cramped limbs, he misread her intention and, catching +her viciously by an arm, threw her back into her corner and advised her not +to play the giddy little fool. + +After that Sofia was at pains to stir as seldom as possible, and bided her +time quietly enough, but never for an instant relaxed her watchfulness or +lost heart. + +The shouldering houses that hedged their course discovered a profile, +ragged, black against a sky whose purple dimness held the first dull +presage of dawn. + +In the wild rush of a marauding tomcat the car crossed a broad public +square and sped up the graded approach to a bridge. The smell of the Thames +was unmistakable, the far-flung lamps of the Embankment were pearls aglow +upon violet velvet. + +Leaving the bridge, the limousine took a turn on two wheels, and +immediately something happened, seemingly some attempt to stop it was made. +Vociferous voices hailed it, only to induce an augmented bellow of the +exhaust with an instantaneous acceleration of impetus. Then something was +struck and tossed aside as a bull might toss a dog--a dark shape whirling +and flopping hideously; and an agonized screaming made the girl cower, sick +with horror, and cover her ears with her hands. + +Before she was able to forget those qualms many more minutes of frantic +driving had flung to the rear many a mile of silent streets. + +Of a sudden she heard an inhuman cry and, looking up, saw Victor dash the +butt of his pistol through the glass, then reversing the weapon pour +through the opening a fusillade whose effect was presumably gratifying, for +he laughed to himself when the pistol was empty, laughed briefly but with +vicious glee. + +That laugh levelled the last barrier of doubt and fear and nerved Sofia +finally to test the forlorn hope she had been nursing ever since Victor had +let her see a little way into his mind as to her fate. + +Until he could reload, only the tradition of the sexes lent him theoretical +superiority; whereas he was in fact a man well on the thither side of +middle-age, his virility sapped by long indulgence of unbridled appetites; +while Sofia was a woman in the fullest flush of her first mature powers. + +Gathering herself together, she inched forward and made ready to spring, +bear him down, overpower him--by some or any means put him hors de combat +long enough for her to fling a door open and herself out into the +street.... + +With squealing brakes the car shaved an acute corner and slid on locked +wheels to a dead halt so unexpected that it was Sofia who plunged +floundering to the floor, while Victor only by a minor miracle escaped +catapulting through the front windows. + +The next instant, as Sofia struggled to her knees, the door behind her was +wrenched open from without and, at a sign from Victor, rough hands laid +hold of the girl and dragged her out bodily. + +In a passion of despair, she lost her senses for a time and like a madwoman +fought, shrieking, biting, kicking, clawing, scratching.... + +With returning lucidity she found herself, panting and dishevelled, arms +pinned to her sides, struggling on for all that, being hustled by some half +a dozen men across a narrow sidewalk of uneven flagstones. + +Simultaneously the shutter of perceptions snapped, photographing +permanently upon the super-sensitized film of conscious memory the glimpsed +vista of a grim, mean street whose repellent uglinesses grinned through the +boding twilight like lineaments of some monstrous mask of evil. + +Then she tripped on a low stone step, stumbled, and was half-carried, +half-thrown into a narrow and malodorous hallway. + +Between her and the sweet liberty of the rain-washed air a door crashed +like the crack of doom. + + + +XXII + +THE SEVEN BRASS HINGES + + +Into a space perhaps four feet in width from wall to wall and seven deep +from the front door to the foot of a cramped flight of crazy wooden stairs, +some ten people were crowded, Sofia and the maid Chou Nu in a knot of +excited men. + +In the saffron glow of an ill-trimmed paraffin lamp smoking in a wall +bracket, desperate faces, yellow and brown and white, consulted one another +with rolling eyeballs and strange tongues clamorous. Sofia heard the broken +rustling of heavy respirations; she saw uncouth gesticulations carve the +shadows; her nostrils were revolted by effluvia of unclean bodies, garments +saturate with opium smoke and curious cookery, breaths sour with alcohol. + +Two were busy at the door, under the direction of Prince Victor, setting +stout bars into iron sockets. When they had finished, Victor elbowed them +out of his way and thrust back the slide of a narrow horizontal peephole, +through which he reconnoitred. + +The tall, thin body stiffened as he looked, and without turning he flung an +open hand behind him and snapped a demand in Chinese. Somebody slipped a +revolver into his palm. Levelling it he sent a volley crashing through the +peephole. Yells responded, and in the hush that fell upon the final shot a +noise of fugitive feet scraping and stumbling on cobbles. A bullet struck +the door a sounding thump and all but penetrated, raising a bump on the +inner face of its thick oaken panels; and Victor shut the slide and turned +back. + +Subservient silence saluted him. He spoke in Chinese, issuing (Sofia +gathered) instructions for the defense of the house. One by one the men +designated dropped out of the group about her. Three shuffled off into a +room adjoining the hallway. Two others ran briskly up the stairs. A sixth +Victor directed to stand by the barred door. His chauffeur and another +Chinaman he told off for his personal attendance. + +The maid Chou Nu was left to shift for herself, and while Sofia could see +her she did not shift a finger from her pose of terror, flattened to the +wall. When Sofia came back that way, the girl had vanished, however. Nor +was she seen again alive. + +Her arms held fast, Sofia was partly led and partly dragged down the hall, +Victor herding the group on past the staircase and into a bare room at the +back of the house, where a solitary lamp burning on a deal table discovered +for all other furnishing broken chairs, coils of tarred rope, a rack of +ponderous oars and boat-hooks, a display of shapeless oilskins and +sou'westers on pegs. The windows were boarded up from sills to lintels, +the air was close and dank with the stale flavour of foul tidal waters. + +Here Victor took charge of Sofia, the chauffeur holding the lamp to light +the other Chinaman at his labours with a trap-door in the floor, a slab of +woodwork so massive that, when its iron bolts had been drawn, it needed +every whit of the man's strength to lift and throw it back upon its hinges; +and its crashing fall made all the timbers quake and groan. + +Through the square opening thus discovered Sofia saw a ladder of several +slimy steps washed by black, oily waters that sucked and swirled sluggishly +round spiles green with weed and ooze. + +Down these steps the Chinaman crept gingerly, but halfway paused with a +cry, then cringed back to the head of the ladder, yellow face blanched, +slant eyes piteous with fear, as he exhibited an end of stout mooring line +whose other end was made fast to a ring bolt in one of the joists. + +With a smothered oath Victor snatched the rope's end from the trembling +hand and examined it closely. Even Sofia could see that it had been cleanly +severed by a knife. + +Victor's countenance was ablaze as he dropped the rope. Before the tempest +of his wrath the Chinaman bent like a reed, with faint, protesting bleats +and feebly weaving hands. + +But in full tide the tirade faltered, Victor seemed to forget his anger or +else to remind himself it was puerile in contrast with the mortal issues +that now confronted him. + +He turned to Sofia eyes of cold fire in a wintry countenance. + +"So," he pronounced, slowly, "it appears you are to have your way, after +all, and more speedily than either of us reckoned. You are to die, and so +am I, this day--you in my arms. Well, it is time, I daresay, when I permit +myself to be duped and overreached by police spies like your persevering +father and lover. Yes; I am ready to pay the price of my fatuity--but not +until they had paid me for their victory--and dearly. Come!" + +He motioned to the Chinese to reclose and fasten the trap-door, and +grasping Sofia's wrist with cruel fingers hurried her back through the +hallway. + +Repeated breaks of pistol-fire guided them to the front room, a racket +echoed in diminished volume from the street. + +In an atmosphere already thick with acrid fumes of smokeless powder two men +held the windows, firing through loopholes in iron-bound blinds of oak. At +their feet a third squatted, reloading for them as occasion required. As +Sofia and Victor entered one man dropped his weapon and, grunting, fell +back from his window to nurse a shattered hand. Releasing the girl without +another word, Victor caught up the pistol and took the vacant post. + +Instantly, on peering out, he fired once, then again. Evidently missing +both shots, he settled to await a better target, eyes intent to the +loophole. In the course of the next few minutes he changed position but +once, when, after firing several more shots, he tossed the empty weapon to +the man on the floor and received a loaded one in exchange. + +Seeing him thus employed, altogether forgetful, Sofia began to back toward +the hall, step by cautious step, keeping her attention fixed to Victor +throughout. But he seemed to be completely preoccupied with his +markmanship, and paid her no heed. + +Nevertheless, when she at length found courage to swing and dart away +through the door, Victor flung three curt words to the fellow at his feet, +who grunted, rose, and glided from the room in close chase. + +The guard at the front door was not so busy as Sofia had hoped to find him, +not too interested in the progress of siege operations outside to note her +approach and look round from his peephole with a menacing grin of welcome; +and his unmistakable readiness, as pistol in hand he took a single step +toward her, drove the girl back to the foot of the stairs. + +Then the other came swiftly after her, and Sofia swung in panic and +stumbled up the steps. There were others up above, two to her certain +knowledge, possibly many more of Victor's creatures; but if only she could +find some sort of refuge in the uppermost fastnesses of the rookery, +perhaps ... + +Like a shape of smoke wind-driven, she sped up the first flight, then the +second, only pausing at the head of the third and last flight to throw +hunted glances right, left, and behind her. + +Overhead a skylight with dingy panes diffused a dull blue glimmer which +discovered a yawning door at her elbow, a pocket of black mystery beyond, +and on the uppermost steps of the staircase her patient yellow shadow, his +upturned eyes inscrutable but potentially revolting with their very +concealment of the intent behind them. + +Impossible that a worse thing could await her beyond that dark +threshold.... + +She crossed it in one stride, swung the door to, and set her shoulders +against it. + +Outside she heard the shuffling footfalls pause. The knob rattled. But +instead of the inward thrust against which she stood braced, there came the +least of outward pulls, as if to make sure that the latch had caught; and +after a brief pause a key grated in the lock, was withdrawn, and the +slippered feet withdrew in turn. + +When her lungs ceased to labour painfully, she took her courage in both +hands and began to explore, groping blindly through darkness, encountering +nothing till she blundered into a table which held a glass lamp for +paraffin oil, like those in use below. + +Fumbling over the top of the table, she found matches, struck one, and set +its fire to the wick. + +The flame waxed and grew steady in a crusted chimney, revealing a room with +a slant ceiling and two dormer windows, boarded; in one corner a cot-bed +with tumbled blankets, near this a low wooden stand, with a pipe, spirit +lamp, and other paraphernalia of an opium smoker--no chairs, not another +stick of furniture of any kind. + +Removing the lamp, the girl set it on the floor, and pushed the table over +against the door. By not so long as half a minute would its reinforcement +delay Victor when he made up his mind to get in. But in such emergencies +the human kind is not impatient of the most futile expedients. + +There was nothing more she could do. She stood still, listening. The rattle +of pistol fire three floors below continued in fits and starts, but the +sound of it was oddly unreal, resembling more stammering explosions of a +string of firecrackers than snaps of the whiplash of Death. + +She tried one of the windows without encouragement, but at the other found +a board with a loose end, which she pried aside, till through begrimed +glass she could see a ghastly, weeping sky of daybreak and, by craning her +neck, peer down into the dark gully of the street. + +At first she thought it empty; but presently her straining vision made out +two huddled shapes upon the farther sidewalk, close under the walls of a +public house whose sign she could just barely decipher: the Red Moon. + +Then, about to draw back from the window, she saw five men, oddly +foreshortened figures from that lofty coign of view, leave the Red Moon by +one of its bar entrances, bearing between them a heavy beam of wood, and +with this improvised battering-ram aimed at the door to the besieged house, +charge awkwardly across the cobbles. + +The house spat fire from door and windows, a withering blast. In the middle +of the street the beam was abandoned, three of its fool-hardy bearers took +to their heels, each shaping an individual course, while one lay still upon +the wet black stones, and another, apparently wounded in the legs, sought +pitifully to drag himself by his arms, inch by inch, out of the zone of +fire. But presently his efforts grew feeble, then he, too, lay stirless, +prone in the sluicing rain. + +The girl shrank back from the window, hiding her eyes as if to blot out +that picture. + +The light, that is to say the absence of it in true sense, the angle of +view, and the distance, all had conspired to prevent her from making sure +that neither her father nor Karslake were of those four whose broken bodies +cluttered the street. But the fear and uncertainty were maddening.... + +She wheeled suddenly toward the door: the ancient stairs were creaking +beneath a measured tread. She made an offer to add her weight to that of +the table, but checked and fell back immediately, seeing the folly of +sacrificing her strength, the wisdom of saving it to serve her when +finally.... + +The creaking ceased, the wards of the lock grated, the knob turned, the +door was thrust open--the table offering little hindrance if any. From the +threshold Victor eyed the girl with a twitching grin. + +"The time is at hand," he announced with a parody of punctilio. "We have +beaten them off in the street, but they have found the tunnel from the +cellar of the Red Moon, and are attacking from the river besides. So, my +dear, it ends for us...." + +In silence, shoulders to the wall farthest from the door, Sofia watched him +unwinking. The lamp at her feet painted the tensely poised young body and +bloodless face with quaint, stagey shadows. + +Victor's glance ranged the cheerless room. + +"I think you understand me," he said. + +She might have been a waxwork dummy out of Madame Tussaud's. + +A white blaze of madness transfigured Victor's countenance. He took one +step toward Sofia. + +In movements so precisely coordinated that they seemed one and +instantaneous, the girl stooped, caught up the lamp, and threw it with all +her might. Victor ducked his head. The lamp sailed on, described a +descending curve through the open doorway into the well of the staircase, +struck, and exploded. In the clutches of the maniac, Sofia was aware of the +lurid glare, momentarily gaining strength, that filled the rectangle of the +doorway. + +In through this last, while iron hands tightened on her throat and +consciousness grew dark with closing shadows, a man's shape passed, then +another.... + +The grip on her throat grew lax, the hands left it free. She reeled, but +somebody caught her up and bore her swiftly from the room, leaving two who +fought together like beasts on the floor, locked in each other's arms, +rolling and squirming, rearing and flopping.... + +The scorch of flames stung her cheek, but she forgot that when their broken +light made visible the features of Karslake above the arms wherein she lay +cradled. + +Turning aside from the staircase, Karslake bore her to the ladder leading +to the skylight, whose broken glass crunched beneath his heels at every +step. + +In the open air he pulled up for a moment's rest, but continued to hold +Sofia in his arms. The wind raved about them, buffeted them, tore their +breath away, rain pelted them like birdshot; but they clung to each other +and were unaware of reason for complaint. + +Presently, however, Karslake remembered, and anxiously endeavoured to +disengage from these tenacious arms. + +"Let me go, dearest," he muttered. "I must go back--I left your father to +take care of Victor, and--" + +As if evoked by his very solicitude Lanyard emerged from the skylight +hatch, waved a hand in gay salute, then turned to stare down into the +flaming pit from which he had climbed. + +After a little he fell back a pace. Then slowly, with the laboured +movements of exhaustion, Victor worked head and shoulders through the +opening and dragged himself out upon the roof. + +On all fours he held in doubt, his head moving from side to side like the +head of a stricken beast, seeking his enemy with dazzled eyes. Then he made +Lanyard out and, pulling himself together for the supreme effort, launched +at his throat with the pounce of a great cat. + +Lanyard met him halfway, caught him in the middle of his bound, wound wiry +arms round the man and held him helpless. + +His voice rang clear above the crackle of flames: + +"Victor! have you forgotten how you threatened one night, twenty years ago, +to follow me to the very gates of Hell, and what I promised you--that, if +you did, I'd push you inside? Or did you think I would forget?" + +He cast the man from him, backward, down into the hungry maw of that +inferno.... + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED MASQUERADE*** + + +******* This file should be named 10496-8.txt or 10496-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/9/10496 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** diff --git a/old/old/10496-8.zip b/old/old/10496-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b6ec264 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/10496-8.zip diff --git a/old/old/10496.txt b/old/old/10496.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f1b246b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/10496.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9014 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Red Masquerade, by Louis Joseph Vance + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + + + + +Title: Red Masquerade + +Author: Louis Joseph Vance + +Release Date: December 18, 2003 [eBook #10496] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED MASQUERADE*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Elaine Walker, and Project Gutenberg +Distributed Proofreaders + + + +RED MASQUERADE + +Being the Story of THE LONE WOLF'S DAUGHTER + +BY + +LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE + +1921 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: "_Prince Victor gave a gesture of pain and reluctance. 'Must +I tell you?_'"] + + + + +TO J. PARKER READ, JR., ESQ. THE CINEMA THAT WAS HIS + + + +APOLOGY + + +This tale quite brazenly derives from the author's invention for motion +pictures which Mr. J. Parker Read, Jr., produced in the autumn of 1919 +under the title of "The Lone Wolf's Daughter." + +It is only fair to state, however, that the author has in this version +taken as many high-handed liberties with the version used by the photoplay +director as the latter took with the original. + +The chance to get even for once was too tempting.... + +Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Company in the first instance, and then Mr. +Arthur T. Vance, editor of _The Pictorial Review_, in which the story was +published as a serial, were equally guilty of the encouragement which +results in its appearance in its present guise. + +L.J.V. + +Westport--31 December, 1920. + + + +Books by Louis Joseph Vance + +CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE + +JOAN THURSDAY + +NOBODY + +NO MAN'S LAND + +POOL OF FLAME + +PRIVATE WAR + +SHEEP'S CLOTHING + +THE BANDBOX + +THE BLACK BAG + +THE BRASS BOWL + +THE BRONZE BELL + +THE DARK MIRROR + +THE DAY OF DAYS + +THE DESTROYING ANGEL + +THE FORTUNE HUNTER + +THE ROMANCE OF TERENCE O'ROURKE + +TREY O' HEARTS + +_Stories About "The Lone Wolf"_ + +THE LONE WOLF + +THE FALSE FACES + +RED MASQUERADE + +ALIAS THE LONE WOLF + + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK ONE: A CHAPTER FROM THE YOUTH OF MONSIEUR MICHAEL LANYARD + + I PLEBEIAN AND PRINCE + + II THE PRINCESS SOFIA + + III MONSIEUR QUIXOTE + + IV THE FOOL AND HIS MONEY + + V IMPOSTOR + + VI THERESE + + VII FAMILY REUNION + + VIII GREEK VS. GREEK + + IX PAID IN FULL + + +BOOK TWO: THE LONE WOLF'S DAUGHTER + + I THE GIRL SOFIA + + II MASKS AND FACES + + III THE AGONY COLUMN + + IV MUTINY + + V HOUSE OF THE WOLF + + VI THE MUMMER + + VII THE FANTASTICS + + VIII COUNCIL OF THE GODLESS + + IX MRS. WARING + + X VICTOR ET AL + + XI HEARTBREAK + + XII SUSPECT + + XIII THE TURNIP + + XIV CONFERENCE OF THE DAMNED + + XV INTUITION + + XVI THE CRYSTAL + + XVII THE RAISED CHEQUE + +XVIII ORDEAL + + XIX UNMASKING + + XX THE DEVIL TO PAY + + XXI VENTRE A TERRE + + XXII THE SEVEN BRASS HINGES + + + + +BOOK I + + +A CHAPTER FROM THE YOUTH OF MONSIEUR MICHAEL LANYARD + + + +RED MASQUERADE + + + +I + +PLEBEIAN AND PRINCE + + +The gentleman was not in the least bored who might have been and was seen +on that wintry afternoon in Nineteen hundred, lounging with one shoulder to +a wall of the dingy salesroom and idly thumbing a catalogue of effects +about to be put up at auction; but his insouciance was so unaffected that +the inevitable innocent bystander might have been pardoned for perceiving +in him a pitiable victim of the utterest ennui. + +In point of fact, he was privately relishing life with enviable gusto. In +those days he could and did: being alive was the most satisfying pastime he +could imagine, or cared to, who was a thundering success in his own conceit +and in fact as well; since all the world for whose regard he cared a +twopenny-bit admired, respected, and esteemed him in his public status, and +admired, respected, and feared him in his private capacity, and paid him +heavy tribute to boot. + +More than that, he was young, still very young indeed, barely beyond the +threshold of his chosen career. To his eagerly exploring eye the future +unrolled itself in the likeness of an endless scroll illuminated with +adventures all piquant, picturesque, and profitable. With the happy +assurance of lucky young impudence he figured the world to himself as his +oyster; and if his method of helping himself to the succulent contents of +its stubborn shell might have been thought questionable (as unquestionably +it was) he was no more conscious of a conscience to give him qualms than he +was of pangs of indigestion. Whereas his digestive powers were superb.... + +This way of killing an empty afternoon, too, was much to his taste. The man +adored auctions. To his mind a most delectable flavour of discreet scandal +inhered in such collections of shabby properties from anonymous homes. +Nothing so piqued his imagination as some well-worn piece of furniture--say +an ancient escritoire with ink stains on its green baize writing-bed (dried +life-blood of love letters long since dead!) and all its pigeon-holes and +little drawers empty of everything but dust and the seductive smell of +secrets; or a dressing-table whose bewildered mirror, to-day reflecting +surroundings cold and strange, had once been quick and warm to the beauty +of eyes brilliant with delight or blurred with tears; or perchance a +bed.... + +And even aside from such stimuli to a lively and ingenious fancy, there was +always the chance that one might pick up some priceless treasure at an +auction sale, some rare work of art dim with desuetude and the disrespect +of ignorance: jewellery of quaintest old-time artistry; a misprized bit of +bronze; a book, it might be an overlooked copy of a first edition inscribed +by some immortal author to a forgotten love; or even--if one were in rare +luck--a picture, its pristine brilliance faded, the signature of the artist +illegible beneath the grime of years, evidence of its origin perceptible +only to the discerning eye--to such an eye, for instance, as Michael +Lanyard boasted. For paintings were his passion. + +Already, indeed, at this early age, he was by way of being something of a +celebrity, in England and on the Continent, as a collector of the nicest +discrimination. + +And then he found unfailing human interest in the attendance attracted by +auction sales; in the dealers, gentlemen generally of pronounced +idiosyncrasies; in the auctioneers themselves, robust fellows, wielding a +sort of rugged wit singular to their calling, masters of deep guile, +endowed with intuitions which enabled them at a glance or from the mere +intonation of a voice to discriminate between the serious-minded and those +frivolous souls who bid without meaning to buy, but as a rule for nothing +more than the curious satisfaction of being able to brag that they had been +outbid. + +But it was in the ranks of the general public that one found most +amusement; seldom did a sale pass off undistinguished by at least one +incident uniquely revealing or provocative. And for such moments Lanyard +was always on the qui vive, but quietly, who knew that nothing so quickly +stifles spontaneity as self-consciousness. So, if he studied his company +closely, he was studious to do it covertly; as now, when he seemed +altogether engrossed in the catalogue, whereas his gaze was freely roving. + +Thus far to-day a mere handful of people other than dealers had drifted in +to wait for the sale to begin--something for which the weather was largely +to blame, for the day was dismal with a clammy drizzle settling from a low +and leaden sky--and with a solitary exception these few were commonplace +folk. + +This one Lanyard had marked down midway across the room, in the foremost +row of chairs beneath the salesman's pulpit: by his attire a person of +fashion (though his taste might have been thought a trace florid) who +carried himself with an air difficult of definition but distinctive enough +in its way. + +Whoever he was and what his quality, he was unmistakably somebody of +consequence in his own reckoning, and sufficiently well-to-do to dress the +part he chose to play in life. Certainly he had a conscientious tailor and +a busy valet, both saturate with British tradition. Yet the man they served +was no Englishman. + +Aside from his clothing, everything about him had an exotic tang, though +what precisely his racial antecedents might have been was rather a riddle; +a habit so thoroughly European went oddly with the hints of Asiatic strain +which one thought to detect in his lineaments. Nevertheless, it were +difficult otherwise to account for the faintly indicated slant of those +little black eyes, the blurred modelling of the nose, the high cheekbones, +and the thin thatch of coarse black hair which was plastered down with +abundant brilliantine above that mask of pallid features. + +The grayish pallor of the man, indeed, was startling, so that Lanyard for +some time sought an adjective to suit it, and was content only when he hit +on the word _evil_. Indeed, evil seemed the inevitable and only word; none +other could possibly so well fit that strange personality. + +His interest thus fixed, he awaited confidently what could hardly fail to +come, a moment of self-betrayal. + +That fell more quickly than he had hoped. Of a sudden the decent quiet of +King Street, thus far accentuated rather than disturbed by the routine +grind of hansoms and four-wheelers, was enlivened by spirited hoofs whose +clatter stilled abruptly in front of the auction room. + +Turning a speciously languid eye toward the weeping window, Lanyard had a +partial view of a handsomely appointed private equipage, a pair of spanking +bays, a liveried coachman on the box. + +The carriage door slammed with a hollow clap; a footman furled an umbrella +and climbed to his place beside the driver. As the vehicle drew away, one +caught a glimpse of a crest upon the panel. + +Two women entered the auction room. + + + +II + +THE PRINCESS SOFIA + + +These ladies were young, neither much older than Lanyard, both were very +much alive, openly betraying an infatuation with existence very like his +own, and both were lovely enough to excuse the exquisite insolence of their +young vitality. + +As is frequently the case in such associations, since a pretty woman seldom +courts comparison with another of her own colouring, one was dark, the +other fair. + +With the first, Lanyard was, like all London, on terms of visual +acquaintance. The reigning beauty of the hour, her portrait was enjoying a +vogue of its own in the public prints. Furthermore, Lady Diantha Mainwaring +was moderately the talk of the town, in those prim, remotely ante-bellum +days--thanks to high spirits and a whimsical tendency to flout the late +Victorian proprieties; something which, however, had yet to lead her into +any prank perilous to her good repute. + +The other, a girl whose hair of golden bronze was well set off by Russian +sables, Lanyard did not know at all; but he knew at sight that she was far +too charming a creature to be neglected if ever opportunity offered to be +presented to her. And though the first article of his creed proscribed +women of such disastrous attractions as deadly dangerous to his kind, he +chose without hesitation to forget all that, and at once began to cudgel +his wits for a way to scrape acquaintance with the companion of Lady +Diantha. + +Their arrival created an interesting bustle, a buzz of comment, a craning +of necks--flattery accepted by the young women with ostensible unconcern, a +cliche of their caste. As they had entered in a humour keyed to the highest +pitch of gaiety consistent with good breeding, so with more half-stifled +laughter they settled into chairs well apart from all others but, as it +happened, in a direct line between Lanyard and the man whose repellent cast +of countenance had first taken his interest. + +Thus it was that Lanyard, after eyeing the young women unobserved as long +as he liked, lifted his glance to discover upon that face a look that +amazed him. + +It wasn't too much to say (he thought) that the man was transfigured by +malevolence, so that he blazed with it, so that hatred fairly flowed, an +invisible yet manifest current of poisoned fire, between him and the girl +with the hair of burnished bronze. + +All the evil in him seemed to be concentrated in that glare. And yet its +object remained unconscious of it or, if at all sensitive, dissembled +superbly. The man was apparently no more present to her perceptions than +any other person there, except her companion. + +Presently, becoming sensible of Lanyard's intrigued regard, the man looked +up, caught him in a stare and, mortally affronted, rewarded him with a look +of virulent enmity. + +Not to be outdone, Lanyard gave a fleeting smile, a bare curving of lips +together with an almost imperceptible narrowing of amused eyes--goading the +other to the last stage of exasperation--then calmly ignored the fellow, +returning indifferent attention to the progress of the sale. + +Since nothing was being offered at the moment to draw a bid from him, he +maintained a semblance of interest solely to cover his thoughts, meanwhile +lending a civil ear to the garrulous tongue of a dealer of his acquaintance +who, having edged nearer to indulge a failing for gossip, found a ready +auditor. For when Lanyard began to heed the sense of the other's words, +their subject was the companion of Lady Diantha Mainwaring. + +"... Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, you know, the Russian beauty." + +Lanyard lifted his eyebrows the fraction of an inch, meaning to say he +didn't know but at the same time didn't object to enlightenment. + +"But you must have heard of her! For weeks all London has been talking +about her jewels, her escapades, her unhappy marriage." + +"Married?" Lanyard made a sympathetic mouth. "And so young! Quel dommage!" + +"But separated from her husband." + +"Ah!" Lanyard brightened up. "And who, may one ask, is the husband?" + +"Why, he's here, too--over there in the front row--chap with the waxed +moustache and putty-coloured face, staring at her now." + +"Oh, that animal! And what right has he got to look like that?" + +The buzz of the scandalmonger grew more confidential: "They say he's never +forgiven her for leaving him--though the Lord knows she had every reason, +if half they tell is true. They say he's mad about her still, gives her no +rest, follows her everywhere, is all the time begging her to return to +him--" + +"But who the deuce is the beast?" Lanyard interrupted, impatiently. "You +know, I don't like his face." + +"Prince Victor," the whisper pursued with relish--"by-blow, they say, of a +Russian grand duke and a Manchu princess--half Russian, half Chinese, all +devil!" + +Without looking, Lanyard felt that Prince Victor's stare had again shifted +from the women, and that the mongrel son of the alleged grand duke was +aware he had become a subject of comment. So the eminent collector of works +of art elected to dismiss the subject with a negligent lift of one +shoulder. + +"Ah, well! Daresay he can't help his ugly make-up. All the same, he's +spoiling my afternoon. Be a good fellow, do, and put him out." + +The Briton chuckled a deprecating chuckle; meaning to say, he hoped Lanyard +was spoofing; but since one couldn't be sure, one's only wise course was to +play safe. + +"Really, Monsieur Lanyard! I'm afraid one couldn't quite do _that_, you +know!" + + + +III + +MONSIEUR QUIXOTE + + +The sale dragged monotonously. The paintings offered were mostly of +mediocre value. The gathering was apathetic. + +Lanyard bid in two or three sketches, more out of idleness than because he +wanted them, and succeeded admirably in seeming ignorant of the existence +of the Princess Sofia and the husband whose surface of a blackguard was so +harmonious with his reputation. + +In time, however, a change was presaged by an abrupt muting of that +murmured conversation between the beautiful Russian and the almost equally +beautiful Englishwoman. An inquisitive look discovered the princess sitting +slightly forward and intently watching the auctioneer. + +The pose of an animated, delightful child, hanging breathlessly upon the +progress of some fascinating game: one's gaze lingered approvingly upon a +bewitching profile with half-parted lips, saw that excitement was faintly +colouring the cheeks beneath shadowy and enigmatic eyes, remarked the sweet +spirit that poised that lovely head. + +And then one looked farther, and saw the prince, like the princess, +absorbed in the business at the auction block, his slack elegance of the +raffish aristocrat forgotten, all his being tense with purpose, strung +taut--as taut at least as that soft body, only half-masculine in mould and +enervated by loose living, could ever be. One thought of a rather elderly +and unfit snake, stirred by the sting of some long-buried passion out of +the lassitude of years of slothful self-indulgence, poising to strike.... + +At the elbow of the auctioneer an attendant was placing on exhibition a +landscape that was either an excellent example of the work of Corot or an +imitation no less excellent. At that distance Lanyard felt inclined to dub +it genuine, though he knew well that Europe was sown thick with spurious +Corots, and would never have risked his judgment without closer inspection. + +He was accordingly perplexed when, after a brief exhortation by the +auctioneer, discreetly noncommittal as to the antecedents of the +canvas--"attributed to Corot"--Prince Victor, who had been straining +forward like a hound in leash, half rose in his eagerness to offer: + +"One thousand guineas!" + +The entire company stirred as one and sat up sharply. Even the auctioneer +was momentarily stricken dumb. And for the first time the Princess Sofia +acknowledged the presence of her husband, and got from him that look of +white hatred with a sneer of triumph thrown in for good measure. + +Though she affected indifference, Lanyard saw her slender body transiently +shaken by a shudder, it might have been of dread. But she was quick to pull +herself together, and the auctioneer had scarcely found his tongue--"One +thousand guineas for this magnificent canvas attributed to Corot"--when her +clear and youthful voice cut in: + +"Two thousand guineas!" + +This the prince capped with a monosyllable: + +"Three!" + +Stupefaction settled upon the audience. The auctioneer hesitated, blinked +astonished eyes, framed unspoken phrases with halting lips. Prince Victor, +again gave his wife the full value of his vindictive snarl. She would not +see, but it was plain that she was cruelly dismayed, that it cost her an +effort to rise to the topping bid: + +"Thirty-five hundred guineas!" + +"Four thousand!" + +"Four thousand I am offered ..." + +The auctioneer faltered, a spasm of honesty shook him, he proceeded: + +"It is only fair, ladies and gentlemen, that I should state that this +canvas is not put up as an authentic Corot. It very possibly is such, in +fact"--the seizure was passing swiftly--"it bears every evidence of having +come from the brush of the master. But we cannot guarantee it. There is, +however, a gentleman present who is amply qualified to pass upon the merits +of this work. With his permission"--his eye sought Lanyard's--"I venture to +request the opinion of Monsieur Michael Lanyard, the noted connoisseur!" + +Lanyard detached a deprecating smile from the pages of his catalogue, but +his contemplated response was cut short by Prince Victor. + +"I am not aware," that one said, icily, "that the authenticity of this +painting is a material question. Nor have I any need of the opinion of this +gentleman, whatever his qualifications. I have bid four thousand guineas, +and insist that the sale proceed. If there are no further bids, the canvas +is mine." + +The auctioneer shrugged, and offered Lanyard an apologetic bow. "I am +sorry--" he began. + +"Four thousand guineas!" snapped the prince. + +Resigned, the auctioneer resumed: + +"Four thousand guineas offered. Are there any more bids? Going--" + +"Forty-five hundred!" + +Beyond reasonable doubt the princess had spurred herself mercilessly to +find sufficient courage to make this latest bid. Lanyard saw her in a +rigour of despair, hoping against hope. Only too surely something in the +picture, some association--heaven knew what!--was more precious to her, +almost, than life, though she had gone already to the limit of her means +and perhaps a bit beyond. If this bid failed, she was lost. Her anxiety was +pitiful. + +"Five thousand!" + +In the princess something snapped: she recoiled upon herself, sat crushed, +head drooping, white-gloved hands working in her lap. One detected an +appealing quiver on her lips, and noted, or imagined, a suspicious +brightness beneath the long dark lashes that swiftly screened her eyes. Her +young bosom moved convulsively. She was beaten, near to tears. + +"Five thousand guineas ... going ... going ..." + +The face of the prince was a mocking devil-mask in gray and black. Lanyard +found himself loathing it. Impossible to stand idle and see the creature +get the better of an unhappy girl ... + +"Five thousand one hundred guineas!" + +With his wits in a blur of amaze, Lanyard knew the echo of his own voice. + + + +IV + +THE FOOL AND HIS MONEY + + +One reflected rather bitterly on the many and obvious oversights of a +putatively all-wise Providence, in especial on its failure so to fashion +the body of man as to enable him on occasion to discipline his own flesh in +the most ignominious manner imaginable. + +Lanyard could have kicked himself; that is to say, he wanted to, and +thought it rather a pity he couldn't, and publicly, at that. For the freak +he had just indulged was rank quixotism, something which had as much place +in the code of a man of his calling as milk of human kindness in the +management of a pawnshop. + +On second thought, he wasn't so sure. It might have been that quixotism had +inspired his infatuate gesture, but it might quite as conceivably have been +everyday vanity or plain cussedness: a noble impulse to serve a pretty lady +in distress, a spontaneous device to engage her interest, or a low desire +to plague a personality as antipathetic to his own as that of a +rattlesnake. + +In point of simple fact (he decided), his impelling motive had been a +mixture of all three. + +In all three respects, furthermore, it proved notably successful; in the +two last named without delay. + +The Princess Sofia at once took note of Lanyard, with wonder, some +misgivings, and a hint of admiration. For he was not only a personable +person in those days, with a suggestion of devil-may-care in his air that +measurably lifted the curse of his superficial foppishness, but he was +putting a spoke in Prince Victor's wheel. And whosoever did that, by +chance, out of sheer voluptuousness, or with malice prepense, won immediate +title to Sofia's favourable regard. If she couldn't thwart Victor herself, +she would be much obliged to anybody who could and did; and she was nothing +loath to betray her bias by looking kindly upon her self-appointed +champion. + +A whispered communication from Lady Diantha did nothing to abate her overt +approbation. + +As for Victor, his face of leaden gray took on a tinge of green; he quaked +with rage, and the glare he loosed on Lanyard made that young man wonder if +he were mistaken in believing that the eyes of the prince shone in that +dusky room with something nearly akin to the phosphorescence to be seen in +the eyes of an animal at night. + +The notion was amusing: Lanyard paid it the tribute of a quiet smile, in +direct acknowledgment of which Prince Victor snarled: + +"Six thousand guineas!" + +"And a hundred," Lanyard added. + +Brief pause prefaced a bid designed to squelch him completely: + +"Ten thousand!" + +In a fatigued voice he uttered: "One hundred more." + +"Fifteen--!" + +This time Lanyard contented himself with nodding to the auctioneer; and the +lips of the latter had barely parted to parrot the bid when Victor sprang +to his feet, his features working, his limbs shaking so that the legs of +the chair beside him, whose back he seized, chattered on the floor, while +the high-pitched voice broke into a screech: + +"Twenty!" + +And Lanyard said: "And one." + +"Twenty thousand one hundred guineas!" chanted the auctioneer. "Are there +any more bids? You, sir--?" He aimed a respectful bow at Prince Victor, who +snubbed him with a sign of fury. "Going--going--gone! Sold to Monsieur +Lanyard for twenty thousand and one hundred guineas!" + +And Lanyard had the satisfaction of seeing Prince Victor, after a vain +effort to master his emotion, snatch up his topper, clap it on his head, +and make for the door with footsteps whose stuttering haste was in poor +accord with the dignity of his exalted station. + +But it was debatable whether this satisfaction plus the possession of a +questionable Corot was worth its cost. And Lanyard wasn't in the humour, +now that the heat of contest began to abate, to look to Princess Sofia for +promise of further reward. Even if he could have been guilty of such +impertinence, indeed, he must have forborne for very shame. After all (he +told himself) he hadn't figured very creditably, permitting petty prejudice +to sway him as it had. He felt singularly sure he had played the gratuitous +ass in this affair, and he didn't in the least desire to see the reflection +of a like conviction in the eyes of a pretty young woman with a flair for +the ridiculous. + +He dissembled his diminished self-esteem, however, most successfully, as he +proceeded to the desk of the auctioneer's clerk, filled in a cheque for the +amount of his purchase, and gave instructions for its delivery. + +Whether by intention or inadvertence, he was followed from the auction room +by the Princess Sofia and Lady Diantha Mainwaring; and just outside the +entrance he found Prince Victor waiting with all the air of a gentleman +impatient for a cab to happen along and pick him up out of the drizzle. + +But in view of the fact that he made no overtures to a passing hansom, +which swerved in to the curb in response to a signal of Lanyard's cane, +this last concluded that the prince was up to his reputedly favourite game +of waylaying his rebel wife. + +If such were the case, Lanyard had no wish to witness a public wrangle +between the two. So he stepped briskly up on the carriage-block, and only +hesitated when he saw that the prince, utterly ignoring the presence of the +princess and Lady Diantha, was edging forward and cocking an alert ear to +catch the address which Lanyard was on the point of giving the cabby. + +Hugely diverted, the adventurer looked round with a quirk of his brows, and +amiably commented: + +"Monsieur's interest is so flattering! If he really must know, I'm going +home now, to my rooms in Halfmoon Street. Au revoir, monsieur le prince!" + +He beamed benignly upon that convulsed countenance, and saw crestfallen +Prince Victor slink away, to the music of smothered laughter from the +ladies in the doorway--toward which Lanyard was careful not to look. + +Then, in high feather with himself, he chirped to the driver and hopped +into the hansom. + + + +V + +IMPOSTOR + + +As Lanyard's cab swung away, the carriage wheeled in to take up the +Princess Sofia and Lady Diantha Mainwaring. Observing this, Lanyard poked +his stick through the little trap in the roof of the hansom and suggested +that the driver pull up, climb down, adjust some imaginary fault with the +harness and, when the carriage had passed, follow it with discretion. + +Enchanted by sight of a half-sovereign in the palm of his fare, the cabby +executed this manoeuvre to admiration; with the upshot that Lanyard got +home half an hour later than he would have had he proceeded to his rooms +direct, but with information of value to recompense him. + +It wasn't his habit to lose time in those days of his youth. And lest his +character be misconstrued (which would be deplorable) it may as well be +stated now that he had not laid down upward of twenty thousand good golden +guineas for a colourable Corot without having a tolerably clear notion of +how he meant to reimburse himself if it should turn out that he had paid +too dear for his whistle. + +The hint imparted by his garrulous acquaintance of the auction room--to the +effect that the Princess Sofia was famous, among other things, for the +magnificence of her personal jewellery--had found a good home where it +wasn't in danger of suffering for want of doting interest. + +And now one knew where their owner lived, and in what state ... + +Alighting at his own door, the adventurer surprised Prince Victor, morosely +ambling by, in his vast fatuity no doubt imagining that his passage through +Halfmoon Street would go unremarked in the dusk of that early winter +evening. He wasn't at all pleased to find himself mistaken; and though +Lanyard did his best with his blandest smile to make amends for having +discomfited the prince by getting home later than he had promised to, his +good-natured effort was repaid only by a spiteful scowl. + +So he laughed aloud, and went indoors rejoicing. + +An hour or so later the painting was delivered by a porter from the auction +room. But Lanyard was in his bath at the time and postponed examining his +doubtful prize till he had dressed for dinner. For, though it was his whim +to dine in his rooms alone, and though he had no fixed plans for the +evening, Lanyard was too thoroughly cosmopolitan not to do in Cockaigne as +the Cockneys do. + +Besides, in this uncertain life one never knows what the next hour will +bring forth; whereas if one is in evening dress after six o'clock, one is +armoured against every emergency. + +At seven he sat down to the morbid sort of a meal one gets in London +lodgings: a calm soup; a segment of vague fish smothered painlessly in a +pale pink blanket of sauce; a cut from the joint, rare and lukewarm; +potatoes boiled dead; sad sea-kale; nonconformist pudding; conservative +biscuit, and radical cheese. + +With the aid and abetment of a bottle of excellent Montrachet, however, one +contrived to worry through. + +Meanwhile, Lanyard inspected his recent purchase, which occupied a place of +honour, propped up on the arms of the chair on his right. + +It was seldom that Lanyard entertained a guest of such equivocal character. +Wagging a reproving head--"My friend," he harangued the canvas, "you are +lucky to have been sold. Sorry I can't say as much for myself." + +It was really too bad it wasn't a bit better. It wasn't often that one +encountered so genuine a counterfeit. The hand of an artist had painted it, +but never the hand of Corot. Everything Corot was accustomed to put into +his painting was there, except himself. The abode had been prepared in all +respects as the master would have had it, but his spirit had not entered +into it, it remained without life. + +Still, Lanyard concluded, surveying his prize through the illusioning fumes +of his cigar, while the waiter cleared away, it wasn't so bad after all, it +wouldn't be in the end a total loss. He could afford to cart the thing back +to Paris with him and give it room in his private gallery; and some day, +doubtless, some rich American would pay a handsome price for it on the +strength of its having found place in the collection of Michael Lanyard, +even though it lacked the cachet of his guarantee. + +But what the devil had made it so precious to the soi-disant Prince Victor +and his charming wife? + +But for a single circumstance Lanyard would have been tempted to believe he +had been craftily rooked by an accomplished chevalier d'industrie and his +female confederate; but too much and too real passion had been betrayed in +the auction room to countenance that suspicion. + +No: he hadn't been rigged; at least, not by design. Something more than its +intrinsic value had rendered the canvas priceless in the esteem of those +two, something had been at stake more than mere possession of what they +might have believed to be a real Corot. + +But what? + +Perplexed, Lanyard took the picture in his hands--it was not too unwieldy, +even in its frame--and examined it with nose so close to the painted +surface that he seemed to be smelling it. Then he turned it over and +scowled at its reverse. And shook a baffled head. + +But when he tapped the face of the picture smartly with a finger-nail, he +gave a slight start, passed a hand over it with the palm pressed flat, and +suddenly assumed the humanly intelligent expression of a hunting-dog that +has hit on a warm scent. + +Strong fingers and a fruit knife quickly extracted the painting from its +frame and loosened the canvas from its stretcher, proving that the latter +held in fact two canvases instead of one. Between these had been secreted +several sheets of notepaper of two kinds, stamped with two crests, all +black with closely penned handwriting. + +Lanyard gathered them into a sheaf and scanned them cursorily, even with +distaste. True enough, it might be argued that he had bought and paid for +the right to pry into the secrets they betrayed; but it was not a right he +enjoyed exercising. A fairly thoroughgoing state of sophistication, +together with some innate instincts of delicacy, worked to render him to a +degree immune to such gratification as others might derive from being made +privy to an exotic affair of the heart. Revelation of human weakness was no +special treat to him. And if his eyebrows mounted as he read, if the +corners of his mouth drew down, if once and again he uttered an "_Oh! oh!_" +of shocked expostulation, he was (like most of us, incurably an actor in +private as well as in public life) merely running through business which +convention has designated as appropriate to such circumstances. At bottom +he was being stimulated to thought more than to derision. + +Putting the letters aside, he bowed his head upon a hand and reflected +sagely that love was the very deuce. + +He wondered if he could or ever would love or be loved so madly. + +He rather hoped not ... + +Here, if you please, was the scion of a reigning royal family risking as +pretty a scandal as one could well imagine--and all for love! Given a few +more days of life, and he would have jeopardized his right of succession +and set half-a-dozen European chancelleries by the ears--and all for love! +But for his untimely end, that poor, pretty creature would have joined her +life to his, consummating at one stroke her freedom from the intolerable +conditions of existence with Victor and a diplomatic convulsion which might +only too easily have precipitated all Europe into a great war--and all for +lawless love! + +So once more in history Death had served well the interests of public +morality. + +After a year these letters alone survived ... + +How they had survived, what hands had collected and secreted them, and for +what purpose, intrigued the imagination no end. Lanyard inclined to credit +Princess Sofia with the indiscretion of saving these souvenirs of a grande +passion that had almost made history. There was the sentimental motive to +account for such action, and another: the satisfaction of knowing she had +concrete proof of her intention to treat Victor as he had treated her. + +Then somehow the painting must have passed out of her possession; and in +all likelihood she had made frantic and awkward efforts to regain it which +had aroused the suspicions of Victor; with the sequel of that afternoon.... + +Lanyard's speculations were interrupted by the peremptory telephone. +Without premonition he picked up the combination receiver and transmitter. +But his memory was still so haunted by echoes of that delightful voice +which he had heard in the auction room, he couldn't entertain any doubt +that he heard it now. + +"Are you there?" it said "Will you be good enough to put me through to +Monsieur Lanyard?" + +The inspiration to mischief was instantaneous: Lanyard replied promptly in +accents as much unlike his own as he could manage: + +"Sorry, ma'am; Mister Lanyard dined hout to-night. Would there be any +message, ma'am?" + +"Oh, how annoying!" + +"Sorry, ma'am." + +"Do you know when he will be home?" + +"If this is the lidy 'e was expectin' to call this evenin'--" + +"Yes?" the dulcet voice said, encouragingly. + +"--Mister Lanyard sed as 'ow 'e might be quite lite, but 'e'd 'urry all 'e +could, ma'am, and would the lidy please wite." + +"Thank you _so_ much." + +"'Nk-you, ma'am." + +Smiling, Lanyard replaced the receiver and rang for the waiter. + +When that one answered, the adventurer was hatted and coated and opening +his door. + +"I'm called out," he said--"can't quite say when I'll be back. But I'm +expecting a lady to call. Will you tell the doorman to show her into my +rooms, please, and ask her to wait." + + + +VI + +THERESE + + +Posed in a blaze of lights, the Princess Sofia contemplated captiously the +charming image reflected in her cheval-glass. One little wrinkle, not +precisely of dissatisfaction, rather of enquiry, nestled between her +delicately arched brows. A look of misgiving clouded her wide eyes of a +wondering child. The bow of an exquisitely modelled mouth, whose single +fault lay in its being perhaps a trace too wide, described a shadowy pout. + +She was beautiful: yes. Nobody could question that. La beaute du diable, no +doubt, to Anglo-Saxon eyes, with that skin of incomparable texture and +whiteness relieved by a heavily coiled crown of living bronze, the crimson +insolence of that matchless mouth, those luminous and changeable eyes so +like the sea, whose green melted into blue with the swiftness of thought, +whose blue at times as swiftly shaded into stormy purple-black: but however +bizarre and barbaric, beauty none the less, and under the most meticulous +examination indisputable. + +But was she as radiant as she had been? + +On this her birthday she was twenty-five. Appalling age! Five years hence +she would be thirty, in ten more--forty! And woman's beauty fades so +swiftly: everybody said so. Was the shadow of to-morrow already dimming her +loveliness? How could it be otherwise? She had lived so long and so fully, +she had begun to live so young. Six years of marriage to Victor--that alone +should have been enough, one would think, to metamorphose the fairest face +into a blasted battlefield of passions. + +She had a little shiver of voluptuous horror, remembering what she had +endured and escaped. The sweet, true lines of her flawlessly made body were +transiently undulant within a sheath of shimmering sequins: a daring gown, +by British standards of that day, but permissible because she was Russian; +foreigners, you know, are so frightfully weird even when they're quite all +right. + +And yet she was growing old, she was twenty-five! Though she didn't feel in +the least like one on the threshold of middle age. Indeed, she had never +felt younger, more thrillingly instinct with the power and the will to live +extravagantly in one endless riot of youth unquenchable.... + +Reaction, of course: the swing of the pendulum to its farthest extreme. It +was now two years since she had been forced to separate from Victor, +finding herself unable longer to countenance and suffer his many-sided +beastliness; and a year since the hand of Death had penned an inexorable +finis to the too-brief chapter of her one great romance. + +For there had never been love in her life with Victor. She had been too +young at first to appreciate what love and marriage meant, she had been led +to the altar and sacrificed upon it as an animal is led in sacrificial +rites--without premonition or understanding, only wondering (perhaps) to +find itself so groomed and garlanded, so flattered and adored. She had +hardly known Victor before she was given to him in marriage by Imperial +ukase ... to get rid of her, probably, for some inscrutable reason related +to the mysterious circumstances of her parentage. + +And now after six years of hell with her husband and one of mourning in +solitude for her love that was lost, she was coming back to life again ... +at last! + +She lifted up arms that might have been a dream of Phidias chiselled in +Parian marble, and stretched them luxuriously. She was superbly alive, +indeed--and henceforth she meant to live. Only she must be careful to +retain her looks ... If Youth must surely go, Beauty must linger and reign +long in its stead. + +A maid, a comely creature, trim and smart in black and white, with that +vividly coloured prettiness which is too often the omen of premature +decline into the fat and florid thirties, fetched a wrap and settled it +upon Sofia's shoulders. + +Long and dark, it disguised her figure as completely as it covered her +toilette. She nodded her satisfaction, and accepted the veil which she had +desired to complete her disguise, a thing of Spanish lace, black and ample, +like a mantilla. But before donning it she delayed one minute more before +the mirror. + +"Therese! Am I still beautiful?" + +"Madame la princesse is always beautiful." + +"As beautiful as I used to be?" + +"But madame la princesse grows more lovely every day." + +"Beautiful enough to-night, to keep out of jail, do you think?" + +To the mirth in the voice of her mistress the maid responded with a smile +demure and discreet. + +"Oh, madame!" was all she said; but the manner of her saying it was rarely +eloquent. + +Sofia laughed lightly, and affectionately pinched the cheek of the maid. + +"And you, my little one," she said in liquid French--"you yourself are too +ravishingly pretty to keep out of trouble. Do you know that?" + +Her little one looked more than ever demure as she enquired after the +hidden meaning of madame la princesse. + +"Because you will marry too soon, Therese--too soon some worthless man will +persuade you to dedicate all those charms to him alone." + +"Oh, madame!" + +"Is it not so?" + +"Who knows, madame?" said Therese, as who should say: "What must be, must." + +"Then there is a man! I suspected as much." + +"But, madame la princesse, is there not always a man?" + +"Then beware!" + +"Madame la princesse need not fear for me," Therese replied. "Me, my head +is not so easily turned. There is always some man, naturally--there are so +many men!--but when I marry, rest assured, it will be for something more." + +With the compressed lips of self-approbation she deftly assisted her +mistress to swathe her head in the mantilla-like veil. + +"Something more than a man?" Sofia enquired through its folds. "What then?" + +"Independence, madame la princesse." + +"What an idea! Marriage and independence: how do you reconcile that +paradox?" + +"Madame la princesse means love, I think, when she speaks of marriage. But +love--that is all over and done with when one marries. One is then ready to +settle down; one has put by one's dot, and marries a worthy, industrious +man with a little fortune of his own. With such a husband one collaborates +in the maintenance of the menage and the management of a small business, +something substantial if small. And so one ends one's days in comfortable +companionship. That, madame la princesse, is the marriage for Therese! It +may not sound romantic, madame, but it has this rare virtue--it lasts!" + + + +VII + +FAMILY REUNION + + +The London night was normal: that is to say, wet. Darkness had transformed +the streets into vast sheets of black satin shot with golden strands and +studded with lamp-posts like sturdy stems for ethereal blooms of golden +haze. Within their areas of glow the air teemed with atoms of liquid gold. +The ring of hoofs on wet pavements was at once disturbing and inspiriting. + +Alone in her hired hansom the Princess Sofia sat with the window raised, +drinking deep of the soft damp air, finding it as heady as strange wine. +Under cover of the veil her eyes were brilliant with awareness of her +audacity, her lips were parted with the promise of a smile. + +She loved it all, she adored this mood of London: its nights of rain were +sheer enchantment, arabesque, nights of secrecy and stealth, mystery, and +romance under the rose. On nights such as this lovers prospered, adventures +were to the venturesome, brave rewards to the bold. + +For herself she was unafraid, she foretasted entire success. How should it +be otherwise? Consider how famously chance had prospered her designs, +playing into her hands the information that this Monsieur Lanyard was not +at home, might not return till very late, and was expecting a call from +somebody whom he desired to await his return in his rooms! + +With such an open occasion, how could one fail? + +Sofia asked only three minutes alone with the painting.... + +And if by any mishap she were caught, still she would not be dismayed. The +letters were hers, were they not? They had been stolen from her, he had no +right title to them who had purchased only the picture which had served as +their hiding-place. By all means, let him keep that stupid canvas; he could +hardly refuse to let her have her letters, not if she pleaded her +prettiest. And even if he should prove obtuse, ungenerous.... + +Her smile was definite and confident. She was beautiful--and Monsieur +Lanyard was aware of that. Had she not, that afternoon, in the auction +room, without his knowledge detected admiration in his eyes, a look warm +with something more than admiration only? + +He was impressionable, then. And it would be no distasteful task to play +upon his susceptibilities. He was not only personally attractive +("magnetic" was the catch-word of the period), but if half that Lady +Diantha had hinted concerning him were true, to make a conquest of Michael +Lanyard would be a feather in the cap of any woman, to attempt it a +temptation all but irresistible to one--like Sofia--in whose veins ran the +ichor of progenitors to whom the scent of danger had been as breath of life +itself. It was hardly conceivable; even now Sofia must smile at her +friend's amiable endeavours to identify this mysterious monsieur with a +celebrated and preposterous criminal. + +It might be true that, as Lady Diantha had declared, wherever Michael +Lanyard showed himself in open pursuit of his avowed avocation as a +collector of rare works of art--in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, or +where-not--there in due sequence the Lone Wolf would consummate one of his +fantastic coups. + +And it was indisputable that Lanyard was at present living in London, where +for some time past the Lone Wolf had been perniciously busy; or else his +bad name had been taken in vain by a baffled and exasperated Scotland Yard. + +Again: Diantha had insisted that the Lone Wolf was by every evidence +completely woman-proof; and there might be something in her contention that +such an elusive yet spectacularly successful thief could hardly have won +the high place he held in the annals of criminology and in the esteem of +the sensation-loving public, if he were one who maintained normal relations +with his kind. + +Sooner or later (so ran Diantha's borrowed reasoning) the criminal who has +close friends, a wife, a mistress, children, family ties of any sort, or +even body-servants, must willy-nilly repose confidence in one of these, and +then inevitably will be betrayed. Depend upon envy, jealousy, spite, or +plain venal disloyalty, if accident or inadvertence fail, to lay the +law-breaker by the heels. + +Therefore (Diantha argued) the Lone Wolf must be a confirmed solitary and +misogynist--very much like this Monsieur Lanyard, according to reports +which declared the latter to be a man who kept to himself, had many +acquaintances and not one intimate, and was positively insulated against +wiles of woman. + +But--granting all this--it was none the less true that the utmost +diligence, spurred by the pique, ill-will, and ambition of the police of +all Europe, had failed as yet to forge any link between the supercriminal +of the age and the distinguished connoisseur of art. Other than Lady +Diantha and the gossips whose arguments she was retailing, never a soul (so +far as Sofia knew) had ventured to breathe a breath of suspicion upon the +good repute of Monsieur Lanyard. + +In short, Diantha's conjectures had been entirely second-hand, and not even +meant to be taken seriously. + +And yet the suggestion had fastened firm hold upon the imagination of the +Princess Sofia. + +If it were true ... what an adventure! + +There was unaccustomed light of daring in the eyes of the princess, +unwonted colour tinted her cheeks. + +The hansom stopped, discharged the fairest fare it had ever carried, and +rattled off, leaving Sofia just a trifle daunted and dubious, the animation +of her anticipations something dashed by the uncompromising respectability, +the self-conscious worthiness of Halfmoon Street. + +Enfolded in the very heart of Mayfair, its brief length bounded on the +north by Curzon Street (its name alone sufficient voucher for its +character), on the south by Piccadilly (hereabouts somewhat oppressive with +its hedge of stately clubs, membership in any one of which is equivalent to +two years' unchallenged credit) Halfmoon Street is largely given over to +furnished lodgings. But it doesn't advertise the fact, its landlords are +apt to be retired butlers to the nobility and gentry, its lodgers English +gentlemen who have brought home livers from India, or assorted disabilities +from all known quarters of the globe, and who desire nothing better than to +lead steady-paced lives within walking distance of their favourite clubs. +So Halfmoon Street remains quietly estimable, a desirable address, and +knows it, and doggedly means to hold fast to that repute. + +A strange environment (Sofia thought) for an adventurer like the Lone Wolf. + +But then--of course!--Diantha's innuendoes had been based on flimsiest +hearsay. The chances were that Michael Lanyard was an utterly uninteresting +person of blameless life. + +So thinking, the Princess Sofia was sensible of a pang of regret, and tried +to be prepared against bitter disappointment as she rang the bell. Either +she would fail to obtain admittance (perhaps the lady whom he was really +expecting had forestalled her) or else Lanyard would fail to come home in +time to catch her! Quite probably it would turn out to be a dull and +depressing evening, after all.... + +The servant who admitted her in manner and appearance lent colour to these +forebodings. A creature hopelessly commonplace, resigned, and unemotional, +to her enquiry for Monsieur Lanyard he returned the discounted response: +Mister Lanyard was hout, 'e might not be 'ome till quite lite, but 'ad left +word that if a lidy called she was to be awsked to wite. The princess +indicating her desire to wite, the man turned to the nearest door +(Lanyard's rooms were on the street level), opened it with a pass-key, +stepped inside to make a light, and when Sofia entered silently bowed +himself out. + +Now when the latch clicked behind him, the Princess Sofia forgot that the +simplicity of her success thus far was almost discouraging. Her heart began +to beat more quickly, and a little tremor shook the hands that lifted and +threw back her veil. After all, she was committing an act of lawless +trespass, she was on the errand of a thief; if caught the penalty might +prove most painful and humiliating. + +Of a sudden she lost appetite entirely for a piquant encounter with the +prepossessing tenant of these rooms. Now she desired nothing so dearly as +to consummate her business and escape with all possible expedition. + +A swift and searching survey of the living-room descried nothing that +seemed apt to hinder or detain her. A large room, unusually wide and deep, +it had two windows overlooking the street, with a curtained doorway at the +back that led (one surmised) to a bedchamber. It was furnished in such +excellent taste that one suspected Monsieur Lanyard must have brought in +his own belongings on taking possession. The handsome rug, the well-chosen +draperies, the several excellent pictures and bronzes, were little in +character with the furnished lodgings of the London average, even with +those of the better sort. + +She had no time, however, to squander on appreciation of artistic +atmosphere, however pleasing, and needed to waste none searching for the +object of her desires. It faced her, distant not six paces from the +door--that shameless little "Corot"!--resting on the arms of a +straight-backed chair. + +A low laugh of delight on her lips, she went swiftly to the chair and laid +hold of the picture by its frame. In that act she checked, startled, +transfixed, the laugh freezing into a gasp of alarm. + +Brass rings slithered on a pole supporting the portieres at the back of the +room. These parted. Through them a man emerged. + +Her grasp on the picture relaxed. It struck a corner against the chair and +clattered on the floor--the canvas on its stretcher simultaneously flying +out of the frame. + +"Victor!" + +"Sweet of you to remember me!" + +He advanced slowly with that noiseless, cat-like tread of his which she had +always hated, perceiving in it a true index to his character: the prowl of +a beast of prey, furtive, cowardly, cruel. It was so: Victor was as feline +and as vicious as a jungle-cat. Watching him with this thought in mind, one +could almost credit old tales of beasts bewitched and walking in human +guise. + +Near by he paused, alertly poised, prepared to spring. The slotted black +eyes glimmered malignantly. His lips drew back in mockery from his teeth. +His hands were hidden in the pockets of his dinner-coat; but she could +guess how they were held, like claws, in that concealment, claws itching +for her throat. She dared not stir lest she feel them there, digging deep +into her soft white flesh. + +Witless, in the extremity of her terror, she stammered: "What do you want?" + +A nod indicated the picture that lay between them, at their feet. + +"My errand," the man said in a silken tone that gloved grimmest menace, "is +much the same as yours--quite naturally--but more fortunate; for I shall +get not only what I came for, but something more." + +"What--?" + +"The opportunity to plead with you, face to face. I think you will hardly +refuse to listen to me now." + +"How--how did you get in?" + +"Oh, secretly! By the window, if you must know; but quite unseen. You see, +_I_ had no invitation." + +"I never thought you had--" + +"Nor did I think you had--till now." + +Puzzled, she faltered: "I don't understand--" + +"Surely you don't wish me to believe my pretty Sofia has turned thief?" + +That stung her pride. She drew upon an unsuspected store of spirit, +confronting him bravely. + +"What is it to me, what you choose to think?" + +"I refuse to think that of you. My reason will not let me believe it." + +She saw that he was shaking with rage; so she shrugged and drawled: "Oh, +your _reason_--!" + +"It tells me you for one did not come here to-night uninvited." He was +rapidly losing grip on his temper. "Oh, it's plain enough! I was a fool not +to understand, there in the auction room, when my face was slapped with +proof of your liaison with this Lanyard!" + +She said in mild expostulation: "But you are quite mad." + +"Perhaps--but not so as to be blind to the truth. You had him there this +afternoon to bid that picture in for you if your own means failed. Why else +should the man, who knows pictures as I know you, pay twenty thousand +guineas for a footling copy of a Corot that wouldn't deceive a--a Royal +Academician! Yes: he bid it in for you--the sorry fool!--bought with his +own money the evidence of your infatuation for his predecessor in your +affections--and expects you here to-night to receive it from him and--pay +him _his_ price! Ah, don't try to deny it!" + +He growled like a very animal, beside himself. "Why else should you be +admitted to these rooms without question in his absence?" + +Without visible resentment, the Princess Sofia nodded thoughtfully into +those distorted features. + +"Yes," she commented: "quite, quite mad." + +As if she had offered without warning to strike him, Victor recoiled and +for an instant stood gibbering. And she took advantage of this moment in +one lithe bound to put the table between them. + +The manoeuvre sobered him. He did not move, but in two breaths forced +himself to cease to tremble, and subdued every symptom of his passion. Only +his face remained sinister. + +"Graceful creature!" he observed, sardonic. "Such agility! But what good +will that do you, do you think? Eh? Tell me that!" + +It was her turn to shiver, and inwardly she did, who was never quite able +to combat the fear which Victor could inspire in her by such demonstrations +of the power of his will. The self-control which he had always at his +command was something that passed her understanding; it seemed inhuman, it +terrified her. + +Nevertheless, so exigent was this strait, she continued to confront him +with a face of unflinching defiance. + +In a voice whose steadiness surprised her she declared: "The letters are +mine. You shan't have them." + +"Undeceive yourself: I'll have them though you never leave this room +alive." + +More to give herself time to think than in any hope of moving him, she +began to plead: + +"Let me have them, Victor--let me go." + +Smiling darkly, he shook his head. + +"The letters mean nothing to you. What good--?" + +He interrupted impatiently: "I shall publish them." + +"Impossible--!" + +"But I shall." + +Aghast, she protested: "You can't mean that!" + +"Why not? The world shall know your true reason for leaving me--that you +were the mistress of another man--and who that man was!" + +Staring, she uttered in a low voice: "Never!" + +"Or," he amended, deliberately, "you may keep them, burn them, do what you +will with them--on fair terms--_my_ terms." + +She said nothing, but her dilate eyes held fixedly to his. He moved a pace +or two nearer, his voice dropped to a lower key, the light she had learned +to loathe flickered in the depths of his eyes. + +"Come back to me, Sofia! I can't live without you ..." + +Her lips moved to deny him, but made no sound. Now it was revealed to her, +the way. + +"Come back to me, Sofia!" + +His hand crept along the edge of the table and lifted, quivering, to +capture hers. She steeled herself to endure its touch, against sickening +repulsion she fought to achieve a smile that would carry a suggestion of at +least forgetfulness. + +"And if I do--?" she murmured. + +He gave a violent start, blood suffused his face darkly, his arms leapt out +to enfold her. She stepped back, evading him with a movement of coquetry +that served, as it was intended, to inflame him the more. + +"Wait!" she insisted. "Answer me first: If I return to you--then what?" + +"Everything shall be as you wish--everything forgotten--I will think of +nothing but how to make you happy--" + +"And I may have my letters?" + +He nodded, swallowing hard, as if the concession well-nigh choked him. + +Under his gloating gaze her flesh crawled. Only by supreme effort did she +succeed in resisting a mad impulse to risk a rush for door or windows, and +whipped her will into maintaining what seemed to be frank response. + +"Very well," she said; "I agree." + +Again he offered to touch her, again she moved slightly, eluding him. + +"No," she stipulated with an arch glance--"not yet! First prove you mean to +make good your word." + +"How?" + +"Let me go--with my letters--and call on me to-morrow." + +His look clouded. "Can I trust you?" He was putting the question to himself +more than to her. "Dare I?" He added in a tone colourless and flat: "I've +half a mind to take you at your word. Only--forgive my doubts--appearances +are against you--you seem almost too keen for the bargain. How can I +know--?" + +"What proof do you want?" + +"Something definite.... You pledge yourself to me?" A movement of her head +assented. "You will give yourself back to me?" He came nearer, but she +contrived to repeat the sign of assent. "Wholly, without reserve?" + +An invincible disgust shook her as the full sense of his insistence struck +home. Still she whipped herself to play out the scene--and win! + +"As you say, Victor, as you will...." + +He moved still nearer. She became conscious of his nearness as if a +palpable aura of vileness emanated from his person. + +"Then give me proof--here and now." + +"How?" + +He laughed a throaty, evil laugh. "Need you ask? Not much, my Sofia ... +only a little ... something on account..." Suddenly she could no more: +memories unspeakable rose like disturbed dregs to the surface of her +consciousness. Involuntarily, not knowing what she did, she flung out an +arm and struck down his hands. + +"You--leper!" + +The epithet was like a knout cutting through the decayed fibre of the man +and raising a livid welt on his diseased soul. Galled beyond endurance, his +countenance convulsed with fury, he struck wickedly; and the vicious blow +of his open palm across her mouth brought flecks of blood to the lips as +her teeth cut into the tender flesh. + +It did far more, it shattered at one stroke the brittle casing of +self-command with which centuries of civilization had sought to veneer the +Slav. In a trice a woman whose existence neither of them had suspected was +revealed, a fury incarnate flew at the dismayed prince, clawing, tearing, +raining blows upon his face and bosom. Overcome by surprise, blinded, +dazed, staggered, he gave ground, stumbled, caught at a chair to steady +himself. + +As abruptly as it had begun, the assault ceased. Panting and frantic, the +girl fell back, paused, renewed her grasp upon herself, gazed momentarily +in contempt on that dashed and quaking figure, then swiftly swooped down to +retrieve the picture, and madly pelted toward the door. + +In an instant, Victor was after her. His clutching fingers barely missed +her shoulder but caught a flying end of the veil that swathed her throat +and head. With finger-tips touching the door-knob Sofia was checked and +twitched back so violently that she was all but thrown off her feet. + +She tried desperately to regain her balance, but the pressure round her +throat, tightening, bade fair to suffocate her; and reeling, while her +hands tore ineffectually at the folds of the veil, she was drawn back and +back, and tripped, falling half on, half off the table. + +Already her vision was darkening, her lungs were labouring painfully, her +head throbbed with the revolt of strangulated arteries as if sledge hammers +were seeking to smash through her skull. + +Through closing shadows she saw that savage mask which hovered over her, +moping and mowing, as Victor twisted and drew ever more tight the murderous +bindings round her throat. + +A groping hand encountered something on the table, a lump of metal, cold +and heavy. She seized and dashed it brutally into that hateful face, saw +his head jerk back and heard him grunt with pain, and struck again, +blindly, with all her might. + +Instantly the pressure upon her throat was eased. She heard a groan, a +fall ... + + + +VIII + +GREEK VS. GREEK + + +She found herself standing, partly resting upon the table. Great, tearing +sobs racked her slight young body--but at least she was breathing, there +was no more constriction of her windpipe; Her head still ached, however, +her neck felt stiff and sore, and she remained somewhat giddy and confused. + +She eyed rather wildly her hands. One held torn and ragged folds of the +veil ripped from her throat, the other the weapon with which she had +cheated death: a bronze paperweight, probably a miniature copy of a Barye, +an elephant trumpeting. The up-flung trunk was darkly stained and +sticky.... + +With a shudder she dropped the bronze, and looked down. Victor lay at her +feet, supine, grotesquely asprawl. His face was bruised and livid; the +cheek laid open by the bronze was smeared with scarlet, accentuating the +leaden colour of his skin. His mouth was ajar; his eyes, half closed, +hideously revealed slender slits of white. More blood discoloured his right +temple, welling from under the matted, coarse black hair. + +He was terribly motionless. If he breathed, Sofia could detect no sign of +it. + +In panic she knelt beside the body, threw back Victor's dinner-coat, and +laid an ear above his heart. + +At first, in her mad anxiety, she could hear nothing. But presently a +beating registered, slow and harsh but steady-paced. + +With a sob of relief she sat back on her heels, and after a little while +got unsteadily to her feet. + +The house door closed with a dull bang, and from the entrance hallway came +a sound of voices. She stood petrified in dread till the voices fell and +she heard stairs creak under an ascending tread. + +Thus reminded that Lanyard's return might occur at any moment, she made all +haste to patch up the disarray of veil and coiffure. Fortunately her +costume, protected by the cloak of heavy and sturdy stuff, was quite +undamaged. + +Not till on the point of leaving did she remember the painting. It lay +unharmed where it had fallen when Victor seized her veil. She was calm +enough now to consider herself fortunate in finding it so poorly secured in +its frame; without the latter it would be far easier to smuggle the canvas +away under her cloak. + +In the final glance she bent upon Victor's beaten and insensible body there +was no pity, no regret, no trace of compunction. What he had suffered he +had ten times--no, a hundred, a thousand--earned. Long before she left him +Sofia had lost count of the blows she had taken at his hands, the insults +worse than blows, the lesser indignities innumerable. + +But in those abolished days she had never once struck back, she had been +faint of heart, cowed and terrified, and had lacked what two years of +separation had given her, that spiritual independence which never before +had been able to realize itself, lift up its head, and grow strong in the +assurance of its own integrity. + +Two years ago she would not have dared to lift a hand to Victor, no matter +how sore the provocation. To-night--if she had one regret it was that she +had struck so feebly: not that she desired his death, but that she knew it +was now her life or his. She knew the man too well to flatter herself that +he would rest before he had compassed such revenge as the baseness of his +degenerate soul would deem adequate. Half the world were not too much to +put between them if she were now to sleep of nights in comfortable +consciousness of security from his quenchless hatred. + +Callously enough she switched off the lights and left him lying there, in +darkness but for the ash-dimmed glimmer of a dying fire. + +In the entrance hallway she hesitated, coldly composed and alert. But +seemingly the noise of their struggle had not carried beyond the door. +There was no one about. + +With neither haste nor faltering, without the least misadventure, she let +herself quietly out into the empty, silent, rain-swept street, and scurried +toward the lights of Piccadilly. + +Before long a cruising four-wheeler overhauled her. In its obscure and +stuffy refuge she sat hugging her precious canvas and pondering her plight. + +It was borne in upon her that she would do well to leave London, yes, and +England, too, before Victor recovered sufficiently to scheme and put a +watch upon her movements. + +She had need henceforth to be swift and wary and shrewd.... + +A singular elation began to colour her temper, a quickening sense of +emancipation. Necessity at a stroke had set her free. Because she must fly +and hide to save her life, society had no more hold upon her, she need no +longer fight to keep up appearances in spite of her status as a woman +living apart from her husband, little better than a divorcee--an estate +anathema to the English of those days. + +She experienced, through the play of her imagination upon this new and +startling conception of life, an intoxicating prelibation of freedom such +as she had never dreamed to savour. + +That waywardness which was a legitimate inheritance from generations of +wilful forebears, impatient of all those restraints which a fixed +environment imposes upon the individual, an impatience which had always +been hers though it slumbered in unsuspected latency, asserted itself of a +sudden, possessed her wholly, and warmed, her being like forbidden wine. + +In this humour she was set down at her door. + +None saw her enter. In a moment of vaguely prophetic foresight she had +bidden Therese not to wait up for her and to tell the other servants there +was no necessity for their doing so. She might be detained, Heaven alone +knew how late she might be; but she had her latch-key and was quite +competent to undress and put herself to bed. + +And Therese had taken her at her word. + +She was glad of that. In event that anything should leak out and be printed +by the newspapers concerning the theft of Monsieur Lanyard's famous "Corot" +by a strange, closely veiled woman, it was just as well that none of the +servants was about to see her come in with the canvas clumsily hidden under +her cloak. + +So she exercised much circumspection in shutting and bolting the door, +mounted the stairs without making any unnecessary stir, and at the door of +her boudoir waited, listening, for several moments, in the course of which +she heard, or fancied she heard, a slight noise on the far side of the door +which made her suspect Therese might after all still be up and about. + +The sound was not repeated, but to make sure Sofia slipped out of her cloak +and wrapped it round the canvas before she went in; which last she did +sharply, with head up and eyes flashing ominously beneath scowling +brows--prepared to give Therese a rare taste of temper if she found she had +been disobeyed. + +But though the maid had left the lights on, she was nowhere to be seen. Nor +did she answer from the bedchamber when the princess called her. + +With a sigh of relief that ran into the chuckle of a child absorbed in +mischief, Sofia threw the cloak across a chaise-longue, and bore her prize +in triumph to the escritoire. + +It was her intention to rip the canvas off with a knife, to get at the +letters; and a long, thin-bladed Spanish dagger that now did service as a +paper-knife was actually in her hand when she noticed how slightly the +painting was tacked to its stretcher, and for the first time was visited by +premonition. + +Dropping the knife, she caught a loose edge of the canvas and with one +swift tug stripped it clear of the unpainted fabric beneath. + +The cry that disappointment wrung from her was bitter with protest and +chagrin. + +Fortune had failed her, then, the jade had tricked her heartlessly. With +success within her grasp, it had trickled like quicksilver through her +fingers. Victor had been beforehand with her, had purloined the letters and +restored the canvas to its frame. She might have suspected as much if she +had only had the wit to draw a natural inference from the way the painting +had parted company with its frame when she dropped it. + +So the letters for which she had risked and suffered so much must be back +there, in Lanyard's lodgings, in Victor's possession--lost irretrievably, +since she would never find the courage to go back for them, even if she +dared assume that Victor had not yet recovered and escaped or that Lanyard +had not yet come home. + +If only she had thought to rifle Victor's pockets ... + +"Too late," she uttered in despair. + +"Ah, madame, never say that!" + +She swung round but, shocked as she was to the verge of stupefaction, made +no outcry. + +The intruder stood within arm's-length, collected, amiable, debonair, +nothing threatening in his attitude, merely an easy and at the same time +quite respectful suggestion of interest. + +"Monsieur Lanyard!" + +His bow was humorous without mockery: "Madame la princesse does me much +honour." + +She was silent another instant, in a wide stare comprehending the +incredible, the utterly impossible fact of his presence there. The one +conceivable explanation voiced itself without her volition: + +"The Lone Wolf!" + +"Oh, come now!" he remonstrated, indulgently--"that's downright flattery." + +She moved aside, lifting a hand toward the bell-cord. + +"Wait!" + +Involuntarily she deferred, her arm dropped. Then, appreciating that she +had yielded where he had no right to command, she mutinied. + +"Why?" she demanded, resentfully. + +"Why ring?" he countered, smiling. + +"To call my servants--to have them call in the police." + +"But surely madame la princesse must appreciate the police might be at a +loss to know which housebreaker to arrest." + +He cocked an eye of mocking significance toward the purloined "Corot," and +in sharp revulsion of feeling Sofia had need to bite her lip to keep from +laughing. She hesitated. He was right and reasonable enough, this impudent +and imperturbable young elegant. Yet she could not afford to concede so +much to him. She was quick to accept his gage. + +"Who knows," she enquired, obliquely, "why Monsieur the Lone Wolf brought +with him this counterfeit Corot when he broke in to steal--" + +"The counterfeit jewels of a titled adventuress!" + +An interruption brusque enough to silence her; or else it was its innuendo +that struck the princess dumb with indignation. Lanyard's laugh offered +amends for the rudeness, as if he said: "Sorry--but you asked for it, you +know." He stepped aside, caught up a handful of her jewels that had been +left, a tempting heap, openly exposed on her dressing-table (as much her +own carelessness as anybody's, Sofia admitted) and tossed them lightly upon +the face of the fraudulent canvas. + +"Birds of a feather," was his comment, whimsical; "coals to Newcastle!" + +"My jewels!" The princess gathered them up tenderly and faced him, blazing +with resentment. He returned a twisted smile, an apologetic shrug. + +"Madame la princesse didn't know? I'm so sorry." + +"How dare you say they're paste?" + +"I'm sorry," he repeated; "but somebody seems to have taken advantage of +madame's confidence. Excellent imitations, I grant you, but articles de +Paris none the less." + +"It isn't true!" she stormed, near to tears. + +"But really, you must believe me. A knowledge of jewels is one of my +hobbies: I _know!_" + +She looked down in consternation at the exquisite trinkets he had condemned +so bluntly. Then in a fit of temper she flung them from her with all her +might, threw herself upon the chaise-longue, and wept passionately into its +cushions. Then the young man proved himself tolerably instructed in the +ways of womankind. He said nothing more, made no offer to comfort her by +those futile and empty pats on the shoulder which are instinctive with man +on such occasions, but simply sat him down and waited. + +In time the tempest passed, Sofia sat up and dabbled her eyes with a web of +lace and linen. Then she looked round with a tentative smile that was +wholly captivating. She was one of those rare women who can afford to cry. + +"It's so humiliating!" she protested with racial ingenuousness--one of her +most compelling charms. "But it's ridiculous, too. I was so sure no one +would ever know." + +"No one but an expert ever would, madame." + +"You see"--apparently she had forgotten that Lanyard was anything but a +lifelong friend--"I needed money so badly, I had them reproduced and sold +the originals." + +"Madame la princesse--if she will permit--commands my profound sympathy." + +"But," she remembered, drying her eyes, "you called me an adventuress, +too!" + +"But," he contended, gravely, "you had already called me the Lone Wolf." + +"But what do you expect, monsieur, when I find you in my rooms--?" + +"But what does madame la princesse expect when I find she had been to +mine--and brought something valuable away with her, too!" + +"I had a reason--" + +"So had I." + +"What was it?" + +"Perhaps it was to see madame la princesse alone--secretly--without +exciting the jealousy, which I understand is supernormal, of monsieur le +prince." + +"But why should you wish to see me alone?" she demanded, with widening +eyes. + +"Perhaps to beg madame's permission to offer her what may possibly prove +some slight consolation." + +She weighed his words in dark distrust. What was this consolation? What his +game? His attitude remained consistently too deferential and punctilious +for one to suspect that by consolation he meant love-making. + +"But how did you get in?" + +"By the front door, madame. I find it ajar--one assumes, through oversight +on the part of one of the servants--it opens to a touch, I walk in--et +voila!" + +His levity was infectious. In spite of herself, she smiled in sympathy. + +"And what, pray, is this wonderful consolation you would offer me?" + +He produced from a pocket a packet of papers. + +"I think madame la princesse is interested in these," he said. "If she will +be so amiable as to accept them from me, with my compliments and one little +word of advice...." + +"Ah, monsieur!" Look and tone thanked him more than words could ever. "You +are too kind! And your advice--?" + +"They tell too much, madame, those letters. And I see you have a fire in +the grate ..." + +"Monsieur has reason...." + +She rose, went to the fireplace and, half kneeling, thrust the letters one +by one into the incandescent bed of coals. A ceremony of sentiment at any +other time, but not now: her thoughts were far from the man with whose +memory these letters were linked, they were in fact not wholly articulate. +Just what was passing through her mind she herself would have found it hard +to define; she was mainly conscious of a flooding emotion of gratitude +to Lanyard; but there was something more, a feeling not unakin to +tenderness.... + +The reaction of her vital young body from a desperate physical conflict, +the rapid play of her passions from anger and despair through triumph and +delight to gratification and content, from the bitterest sense of +frustration and peril to one of security; the uprush of those strange +instincts which had lain dormant till roused by the knowledge that she was +free at length from the maddening stupidity of social life, together with +her recent, implicit self-dedication to a life in all things its converse: +these influences were working upon her so strongly as to render her mood +more dangerous than she guessed. + +Disturbed in her formless reverie, an aimless groping through a bewildering +maze of emotions but vaguely apprehended, she started up, faced round and +saw Lanyard, topcoat over arm and hat in hand, about to open the door. + +"Monsieur!" + +He looked back, coolly quizzical. "Madame?" + +"What are you doing?" + +"Taking my unobtrusive departure, madame la princesse, by the way I came." + +"But--wait--come back!" + +He shrugged agreeably, released the door-knob, and stood before her, or +rather over her--for he was the taller by a good five inches--looking down, +quietly at her service. + +"I haven't thanked you." + +"For what, madame? For treating myself to an amusing adventure?" + +"It has cost you dear!" + +"The fortunes of war ..." + +Her hands rose unconsciously, with an uncertain movement. Her face was soft +with an elusive bloom of unwonted feeling. Her eyes held a puzzled look, as +if she did not quite understand what was moving her so deeply. + +"You are a strange man, monsieur...." + +"And what shall one say of madame la princesse?" + +She could but laugh; and laughter rings the death-knell of constraint. + +But Lanyard remembered uneasily that somebody--Solomon or some other who +must have led an interesting life--had remarked that the lips of a strange +woman are smoother than oil. + +"None the less, monsieur, I am deeply in your debt." + +His smile of impersonal courtesy failed. He was becoming more sensitive +than he liked to her charm and the warm sentiment she was giving out to +him. This strange access in her of haunting loveliness, the gentle shadows +that lay beneath her wide--yet languorous eyes, the almost imperceptible +tremor of her sweetly fashioned lips, all troubled him profoundly. He +exerted himself to break the spell upon his senses which this woman, +wittingly or not, was weaving. But the effort was at best half-hearted. + +"I am well repaid," he said a bit stiffly, "by the knowledge that the +honour of madame la princesse is safe." + +Sofia laughed breathlessly. Somehow her hands had found the way to his. Her +glance wavered and fell. + +"But is it?" she asked in a tone so intimate that it was barely audible. +And she laughed once more. "I am not so sure ... as long as monsieur is +here." + +Lanyard's mouth twitched, slow colour mounted in his face, the light in his +eyes was lambent. He found himself looking deep into other eyes that were +like pools of violet shadow troubled by a deep surge and resurge of feeling +for which there was no name. Aware that they revealed more than he ought to +know, he sought to escape them by bending his lips to Sofia's hands. + +Sighing softly, she resigned them to his kisses. + + + +IX + +PAID IN FULL + + +It was late when Lanyard got home, but not too late: when he entered his +living-room enough life lingered in the embers in the grate to betray to +him a feline shape on all-fours creeping toward his bedchamber door. As he +switched up the lights it bounded to its feet and dived through the +portieres with such celerity that he saw little more of it than coat-tails +level on the wind. + +Dropping hat and canvas, Lanyard gave chase and overhauled the marauder as +he was clambering out through the open window, where a firm hand on his +collar checked his preparations to drop half a dozen feet to the flagged +court. + +Victor swore fretfully and lashed out a random fist, which struck Lanyard's +cheek a glancing blow that carried just enough sting to kindle resentment. +So the virtuous householder was rather more than unceremonious about +yanking the princely housebreaker inside and lending him a foot to +accelerate his return to the living-room; where Victor brought up, on +all-fours again, in almost precisely the spot from which he had risen. + +He bounced up, however, with a surprising amount of animation and ambition, +and flew back to the offensive with flailing fists. In this his judgment +was grievously in fault. Lanyard sidestepped, nipped a wrist, twitched it +smartly up between the man's shoulder-blades (with a wrench that won a +grunt of agony), caught the other arm from behind by the hollow of its +elbow, and held his victim helpless--though ill-advised enough to continue +to hiss and spit and squirm and kick. + +A heel that struck Lanyard's shin earned Victor a shaking so thoroughgoing +that he felt the teeth rattle in his jaws. When it was suspended, he was +breathless but thoughtful, and offered no objection to being searched. +Lanyard relieved him of a revolver and a dirk, then with a push sent Victor +reeling to the table, where he stood panting, quivering, and glaring +murder, while his captor put the dagger away and examined the firearm. + +"Wicked thing," he commented--"loaded, too. Really, monsieur le prince +should be more careful. One of these fine days, if you don't stop playing +with such weapons, one of these will go off right in your hand--and the +next high-light in your history will be when the judge says: 'And may the +Lord have mercy on your soul!'" + +Victor confided his sentiments to a handkerchief with which he was mopping +his face. Lanyard sat down and wagged a reproving head. + +"Didn't catch," he said; "perhaps it's just as well, though; sounded +like bad words. Hope I'm mistaken, of course: princes ought to set +impressionable plebeians a better pattern." + +He cocked a critical eye. "You're a sight, if you don't mind my saying +so--look as if the sky had caved in on you. May one ask what happened? Did +it stub its toe and fall?" + +Victor suspended operations with the handkerchief to bend upon his +tormentor a louring, distrustful stare. His head was still heavy, hot, and +painful, his mental processes thick with lees of coma; but now he began to +appreciate, what naturally seemed apparent, that Lanyard must be +unacquainted with the cause of his injuries. + +A searching look round the room confirmed him in this error. The canvas lay +where Lanyard had dropped it on entering, not in the spot where Victor +remembered seeing it last, but where conceivably an unheeded kick might +have sent it in the course of his struggle with Sofia. She must have +forgotten it, then, when she fled from what she probably thought was +murder, and what might well have been. + +He was much too sore and shaken to be subtle; and the general trend of his +conjectures was perfectly legible to Lanyard, who without delay set himself +to conjure away any lingering suspicion of his guilelessness. + +"Not squiffy, are you, by any chance?" he enquired with the kindliest +interest. "You look as if you'd wound up a spree by picking a fight with a +bobby. Your cheek's cut and all (shall we say, in deference to the +well-known prejudices of the dear B.P.?) ensanguined. Sit down and pull +yourself together before you try to explain to what I owe this honour--and +so forth." + +He got up, clapped a hand on Prince Victor's shoulder, and steered him into +an easy chair. + +"Anything more I can do to put you at your ease? Would a brandy and soda +help, do you think?" + +The suggestion was acceptable: Victor signified as much with an ungracious +mumble. Lanyard fetched glasses, a decanter, a siphon-bottle, and supplied +his guest with a liberal hand before helping himself. + +Victor took the drink without a word of thanks and gulped it down noisily. +Lanyard drank sparingly, then crossed the room to a bell-push. Seeing his +finger on it Prince Victor started from his chair, but Lanyard hospitably +waved him back. + +"Don't go yet," he pleaded. "You've only just dropped in, we haven't had +half a chance to chat. Besides, you mustn't forget I've got your pistol and +your dirk and the upper hand and a sustaining sense of moral superiority +and no end of other advantages over you." + +"Why," the prince demanded, nervously--"why did you ring?" + +"To call a cab for you, of course. I don't imagine you want to walk +home--do you?--in your present state of shocking disrepair. Of course, if +you'd rather ... But do sit down: compose yourself." + +"Let me be," the other snapped as Lanyard offered good-naturedly to thrust +him back into the chair. "I am--quite composed." + +"That's good! Excellent! Hand steady enough to write me a cheque, do you +think?" + +"What the devil!" + +"Oh, come now! Don't go off your bat so easily. I'm only going to do you a +service--" + +"Damn your impudence! I want no services of you!" + +"Oh, yes you do!" Lanyard insisted, unabashed--"or you will when you learn +what a kind heart I've got. Now do be nice and stop protesting! You see, +you've touched my heart. I'd no idea you were so passionate about that +painting. If I had for one instant imagined you cared enough about it to +burglarize my rooms ... But now that I do understand, my dear fellow, I +wouldn't deny you for worlds; I make you a free present of it, at the price +I paid--twenty thousand and one hundred guineas--exacting no bonus or +commission whatever. You'll find blank cheques in the upper right-hand +drawer of my desk there; fill in one to my order, and the Corot's yours." + +For a moment longer the prince stared, hate and perplexity in equal measure +tincturing his regard. Then slowly the look of doubt gave way to the ghost +of a crafty smile. + +What a blazing fool the fellow was (he thought) to accept a cheque on which +payment could be stopped before banking hours in the morning--! + +Such fatuity seemed incredible. Yet there it was, egregious, indisputable. +Why not profit by it, turn it to his own advantage? To secure what he had +sought, the letters concealed between the canvases, and turn them against +Sofia, and to play this Lanyard for a fool, all at one stroke--the +opportunity was too rich to be slighted. + +He dissembled his exultation--or plumed himself on doing so. + +"Very well," he mumbled, sulkily. "I'll draw the cheque." + +"That's the right spirit!" Lanyard declared, and escorted him to the desk. + +A knock sounded. Lanyard called: "Come in!" A sleepy manservant, +half-dressed and warm from his bed, entered. + +"You rang, sir?" + +"Yes, Harris." Lanyard tossed him a sovereign. "Sorry to rout you out so +late, but I need a cab. Whistle up a growler, will you?" + +"'Nk-you, sir." + +The man retired cheerfully, rewarded for many a night of broken slumber. +Prince Victor got up from the desk and proffered Lanyard the cheque. + +"I fancy," he said with a leer, "you'll find that all right." + +Lanyard scrutinized the cheque minutely, nodded his satisfaction. + +"Thanks ever so ... No, not a word!" He forbade inflexibly a wholly +imaginary interposition on the part of Prince Victor. "You don't know how +to thank me--do you? Then why try? I know I'm too good, but I really can't +help it, it's my nature--and there you are! So what's the good of bickering +about it?... Now where did you leave your coat and hat? On my bed, as you +came in?" + +He smiled charmingly and darted through the portieres, returning with the +articles in question. "Do let me help you." + +The prince struggled into the coat and grunted an acknowledgment of the +service. Lanyard pressed the hat into his hand, picked up the canvas, +replaced it in its frame, and tucked both under the princely arm. + +Another knock: Harris returned. + +"The four-wheeler is w'iting, sir." + +"Thanks, Harris. Half a moment: I want a word with you. You see this +gentleman?" Lanyard caught Victor's look of angry resentment and +interrupted himself. "Don't forget yourself, monsieur le prince. +Remember ..." + +He patted significantly the pocket which held the revolver, and turned back +to Harris. + +"This gentleman," he said, consulting the signature to the cheque, "is +Prince Victor Vassilyevski. Please remember him. You may have to bear +witness against him in court." + +"What insolence is this?" Victor demanded, hotly. + +"Calm yourself, monsieur le prince." Lanyard repeated the warning gesture. +"He is a nobleman of Russia, or says he is, and--strangely enough, +Harris!--a burglar. I caught him burglarizing my rooms when I came home +just now. You may judge from his appearance what difficulty I had in +subduing him." + +"'E do seem fair used up, sir," Harris admitted, eyeing Victor indignantly. +"Would you wish me to call a bobby and give 'im in charge?" + +"Thanks, no. Prince Victor and I have compromised. He doesn't relish going +to jail, and I've no particular desire to send him there. But he does want +what he broke in to steal--that painting you see under his arm--and I've +agreed to sell it to him. Here's the cheque he has just given me. Providing +payment is not stopped on it, Harris, you will hear no more of this +incident. But if by any chance the cheque should come back from his bank--I +may ask you to testify to what you have seen and heard here to-night." + +"It is a lie!" Prince Victor shrilled. "You brought me in with you, +assaulted me, blackmailed that cheque out of me! Nobody saw us--" + +"Sorry," Lanyard cut in; "but it so happens, that the gentleman who has the +rooms immediately above came in when I did, and can testify that I was +alone. That's all, monsieur le prince. Your carriage waits." + +Harris opened the door. Choking with rage, the prince shuffled out, Lanyard +politely escorting him to the curb. There, with a foot lifted to enter the +four-wheeler, Prince Victor turned, shaking an impassioned hand in +Lanyard's face. + +"You'll pay me for this!" he spluttered. "I'll square accounts with you, +Lanyard, if I have to follow you to the gates of hell!" + +"Better not," Lanyard warned him fairly, "if you do, I'll push you in ... +Bon soir, monsieur le prince!" + + + + +BOOK II + + +THE LONE WOLF'S DAUGHTER + + + +I + +THE GIRL SOFIA + + +She sat all day long--from noon, that is, till late at night--on a high +stool behind the tall, pulpit-like desk of the caisse; flanked on one hand +by the swing door of green baize which communicated with the kitchen, on +the other by a hideous black walnut buffet on which fruits of the season +were displayed, more or less temptingly, to the taste of Mama Therese. + +But for these articles of furniture, the buffet, the desk, and the door to +the kitchen quarters, uninterrupted rows of tables, square, with +composition-marble tops, lined three walls of the room. The fourth was +mainly plate-glass window, one on either side of the main entrance. + +Back of the tables were wall-seats upholstered in red plush, dusty and +threadbare; and, above, a frieze of mirrors. The floor of the restaurant +was a patternless mosaic of small hexagonal tiles, bare in warm weather, in +the winter covered by a thick but well-worn Brussels carpet of peculiarly +repulsive design. The windows wore half-curtains of net which, after +nightfall, were reinforced by ruffled draperies of rep silk. Through the +net curtains, by day, the name of the restaurant was shadowed in reverse by +plain white-enamel letters glued to the glass: + +CAFE DES EXILES + +The girl stared so constantly at these letters, during the off hours of the +day, that she sometimes wondered if they were not indelibly stamped upon +her brain, like this: + +[Reverse: CAFE DES EXILES] + +She gazed in the direction of the windows as a matter of habit, because +Mama Therese objected to her reading at the desk (all the same, sometimes +she did it on the sly) because the glimpses she caught, above the +half-curtains, of heads of passersby gave her idle imagination something to +play with, but mostly because it was difficult otherwise to seem +unconscious of the stares that converged toward her from every table +occupied by a masculine patron, whether regular or casual--unless the +patron happened to be accompanied by a lady, in which unhappy event he had +to content himself with furtive, sidelong glances, not always furtive +enough by half. + +The feminine patrons stared, too, but from quite another angle of view. + +Sofia knew why. If she hadn't, the mirror across the room would have +enlightened even a woman without vanity; which paradox this thoroughly +human young person was not. + +She was, indeed, healthily vain; and when she wasn't focussing dream-dark +eyes upon the windows, or verifying additions and making change, she was as +likely as not to be stealing consultations with the mirror opposite, making +sure she hadn't, in the last few minutes, gone off in her looks. Not that +her comeliness bade fair ever to prove the cause of any real excitement. +Mama Therese made a first-rate dragon: she was very much on the job of +discouraging enterprising young men, and this without respect for union +hours or overtime. And when she wasn't functioning as the ubiquitous +wet-blanket, Papa Dupont understudied for her, and did it most efficiently, +too. If anything he was more vigilant and enthusiastic when it came to +administering the snub sufficient than even Mama Therese; in Sofia's sight, +indeed, he betrayed some personal feeling in the business; he seemed to +consider alien admiration of his charge an encroachment upon his private +prerogatives, to be resented accordingly. + +Sofia understood. At eighteen--thanks to the comprehensive visual education +in the business of life which she could hardly have failed to assimilate +from a coign of vantage overlooking every table of a Soho restaurant--there +were precious few things she didn't understand. But her insight into Papa +Dupont's mind in respect of herself was wholly devoid of sympathy. She was +just a little bit afraid of him, and she despised him without measure. And +this contempt was founded on something more than his weakness for taking +numerous and surreptitious nips (surreptitious, at least, until they became +numerous) while presiding over the zinc in the pantry between the +restaurant proper and the kitchen; and on something more than his +reluctance to let Mama Therese make an honest man of him, although these +two had squabbled openly for so many years that most of the house staff +believed them to be married hard and fast enough. + +For the matter of that, Sofia herself might have been the dupe of this +popular delusion--which Mama Therese did her best to encourage by never +referring to Dupont save as "mon mari"--had they been less imprudent in +recriminations which had passed between them in private when Sofia was of +an age so tender that she was presumed to be safely immature of mind. +Whereas she had always been precocious, if rather a self-contained child. +Almost from infancy she had been conversant with many things which she knew +it wouldn't do to talk about. + +Such sympathy as Sofia wasted on the couple was all for Mama Therese. What +with keeping an eye on Papa Dupont that prevented his drinking himself to +death seven times per calendar week, and an eye on Sofia that was fondly +credited with being largely responsible for her failure to run away with +each and every presentable man who ogled her, and browbeating the waiters +and frustrating their attempts to cheat the house out of its fair dues, and +supervising the marketing and the cuisine: believe it or not, Mama Therese +led a tolerably busy life and deserved whatever gratification she got out +of it, to say nothing of highest commendation for industry, fidelity, and +frugality. But that did nothing to prevent Sofia from not liking her. + +Her inability to play up to the relationship in which she stood to Mama +Therese in the manner prescribed by sentimentalists worried Sofia more than +a little. She was as hungry to give affection as to receive it; and surely +she ought to be fond of Mama Therese, who (Sofia was forever being +reminded) had in the goodness of her great heart adopted her as the +orphaned offspring of a cousin far-removed, and had brought her up at her +own expense, expecting no return (excepting humility, gratitude, +unquestioning affection, and uncomplaining acceptance of a life of +incessant toil at tasks uncongenial when not downright unsavoury, without +spending money or hours of untrammelled liberty in which to spend it). + +Surely such nobility ought to be requited with nothing less than love! + +Nevertheless, the plain, and to Sofia disquieting, truth was: it wasn't. + +She was fond of Mama Therese after a fashion. No one was ever more ready to +acknowledge the woman's good qualities. But her faults, which included +avarice, bad temper, gluttony, native cruelty of inclination, and simple +inability to give a damn for anybody but herself, forbade satisfaction of +Sofia's yearnings to give her affections freely through bestowing them upon +the abundant and florid person of Mama Therese. + +Still, she made no murmur. There was more than a trace of fatalism in the +composition of her spirit. As she conceived it, in this life either things +were or they were not; and as a rule they uncompromisingly were not: one +couldn't have everything. + +She was not happy, it would be stretching the truth to say she was content, +but she was resigned, she was patient, she waited not altogether without +confidence.... + +All the same, sometimes, as she sat, day in day out, on her high stool, +looking down on familiar aspects of life's fermentation as it manifests in +public restaurants, or peering out of the windows to catch tantalizing +glimpses of its freer, ampler, and--alas!--more recondite phases--sometimes +Sofia wondered whether there were not grimly cynic innuendo in those three +words which the mystery of choice had affixed to the window-panes and +graven so deep into her soul. + +CAFE DES EXILES + +For surely she was in exile there, an exile from all the fun and frolic +and, fury of life, marooned in weary isolation, on a high stool, in a +frowsty table d'hote, in the living heart of London. + + + +II + +MASKS AND FACES + + +Quite naturally she became acquainted with Faces.... + +She grew adept at a game which consisted mostly in keeping close watch upon +those who for this reason or that engaged her attention, without giving +them the slightest reason to suspect she was doing anything of the sort. + +One could not always be staring in abstraction at nothing in particular as +it passed to and fro on the sidewalk in front of the Cafe des Exiles; one +could not often or for long at a time succeed in reading a book held open +in one's lap, below the level of the cashier's desk, Mama Therese was too +brisk for that; one had to do something with one's mind; and it was +sometimes diverting to watch and speculate about people who looked +interesting. + +There were so many Faces, they came and went so constantly, like bubbles in +a tideway, that to Sofia most of them seemed indistinguishable one from +another, mere blurs of flesh colour studded with staring eyes and slitted +by apertures which automatically and alternately gaped to receive gobbets +of food and goblets of drink and closed to gulp them down. A man needed to +be remarkable for something in his looks, not necessarily pulchritude, or +for uncommon individuality, for Sofia to favour him with more than one of +her seemingly casual glances or to remember him if he visited the cafe a +second time. + +But those there were who stood out from the rank and file, for whom she +watched, whom she missed if they failed to put in appearance at their +accustomed hours, about whom her idle but able imagination wove wonderful +fantasies, enduing them with histories and environments as far removed from +fact as the drab dreams of the realists are from the picturesque +commonplaces of everyday. + +And there were others who came once and never again, but whom she never +forgot. But for some of these last, indeed, she would never have remembered +some of the former. The brown-eyed youngster with the sentimental +expression and the funny little moustache, for example, lurked in the ruck +a long time before the one and only visit of a bird of passage dignified +him in the sight of the girl on the high stool. + +On the occasion of his first appearance (but that was long ago, Sofia +couldn't remember how long) the slender young man with the soulful eyes and +the insignificant moustache had commended himself to her somewhat derisive +attention by seeming uncommonly exquisite for that atmosphere. + +The Cafe des Exiles was little haunted by the world of fashion; its diner a +prix fixe (2/6), although excellent, surprisingly well done for the money, +did not much seduce the clientele of the Carlton and the Ritz. Now and +again its remoteness, promising freedom from embarrassing encounters save +through unlikely mischance, would bring it the custom of a clandestine +couple from the West End, who would for a time make it an almost daily +rendezvous, meeting nervously, sitting if possible in the most shadowy +corner, the farthest from the door, and holding hands when they mistakenly +assumed that nobody was looking--until the affair languished or some +contretemps frightened them away. + +Aside from such visitations, however, the great world coldly passed the +cafe by; although it couldn't complain for lack of patronage, and in fact +prospered exceedingly if without ostentation on the half-crowns of loyal +Soho and more fickle suburbia. + +The Sohobohemian on its native heath and the City clerk on the loose, +however, were not prone to such vestments as young Mr. Karslake affected. +It wasn't that he overdressed; even the ribald would have hesitated to +libel him with the name of a "nut"--which is Cockney for what the United +States knows as a "fancy (or swell) dresser"; it was simply that he was +always irreproachably turned out, whatever the form of dress he thought +appropriate to the time of day; and that his wardrobe was so complete and +varied that he seldom appeared twice in the same suit of clothes--except, +of course, after nightfall; though his visits to the Cafe des Exiles for +dinner or afterward were so infrequent that each attained (after Sofia +began to notice him at all) the importance of an occasion. Luncheon was his +time, and those empty hours at the end of the afternoon which London fills +in with tea and Soho with drinks. + +He seemed to have a very wide and catholic acquaintance among people of all +ranks and stations in life; one could hardly call them friendships, for he +lunched or sipped an aperti not often with the same person twice in a blue +moon. And whether his companion were a curate or some ragged wastrel of the +quarter; painted young person from the chorus of the newest revue or proper +matron from Bayswater; keen adventurer from Fleet Street or solid merchant +from the City, his attitude was much the same: easy, impersonal, +unaffected, courteous, detached. He was as apt as not (going on his facial +expression) to be mooning about Sofia when his guest was gesticulating +wildly and uttering three hundred words a minute. When he spoke it was +modestly, in a voice of agreeable cadences but pitched so low that Sofia +never but twice heard anything he said; and his manner was not +characterized by brisk decision. All the same, one noticed that he had, as +a rule, the last word, that what he said left his hearer either satisfied +or pensive. + +He was unmistakably silly about Sofia; though that didn't impress her, too +many of the regulars were just as hard hit, one more or less didn't count. +But he never stared to the point of rudeness, and it always seemed to make +him hugely uncomfortable if she appeared in the least aware of his +adoration; and Mama Therese and Papa Dupont never even noticed him, so +circumspect was he. Still, Sofia saw, and sometimes wondered, just as she +wondered now and then about most of the possible men who seemed disposed to +be sentimental about her. + +For there were times when she felt she could do with a little more +first-hand experience and a little less second-hand knowledge. + +Love (she supposed) must be a very agreeable frame of mind to be in, it was +so generally vogue.... + +What first led her to think that Mr. Karslake might be an interesting +person to know, entirely aside from his admiration, happened on an +afternoon in June, a warm day for England, when a temperature of some 81 +degrees was responsible for "heat-wave" broadsides issued by the evening +papers. + +At about tea time, Mr. Karslake, faultlessly arrayed, ambled in, selected a +table diagonally across the room from the caisse, exchanged pleasantries +with the waiter who served him a picon, and used a copy of The Evening +Standard & St. James's Gazette as a cover for his wistful admiration of +Sofia. + +Presently he was joined by a gentleman twice his age, if not older, whose +conservative smartness was such that one wondered if he hadn't strayed out +of bounds through inadvertence. One would have thought his place was in the +clubs of Piccadilly if not (at that particular hour) at a tea table on the +river terrace of the Houses of Parliament. On the other hand, there wasn't +a trace of self-importance in his habit, it achieved distinction solely +through the unpretending dignity of a decent self-esteem. + +Sofia tried to fix what it was that made her think him the handsomest man +she had ever seen. She failed. He wasn't at all handsome in the smug +fashion associated with the popular interpretation of that term; his +features were engagingly irregular of conformation, but the impression they +conveyed was of a singular strength together with as rare a fineness of +spirit. A mobile and expressive face, stamped with a history of strange +ordeals; but this must not be interpreted as meaning that it was haggard or +prematurely aged; on the contrary, it had youthful colour and was but +lightly scored with wrinkles, its sole confession of advancing years was in +the gray at either temple. The eyes, perhaps, told more than anything else +of trials endured and memories that would never rest. + +Once they had looked into hers (but that came later) Sofia was sure she +would never forget those eyes. And as she saw them then, she never did +forget them. But the next time she saw them she did not know them at all. + +The newcomer hailed Mr. Karslake by his name (which was the first time +Sofia had heard it), sat down on the wall-seat beside him and, when the +waiter came, desired an absinthe. + +He had used two languages already, English to Karslake, French to the +waiter; Sofia understood both and spoke them to perfection. So it was +rather exasperating when, his absinthe having been served and the customary +platitudes passed on the weather and their respective states of health, the +conversation was continued in a tongue with which Sofia was not only +unacquainted but which sounded like none she had ever heard spoken. This +seemed the more annoying because there were few people in the restaurant to +drown with chatter the sound of those two voices and because, in spite of +their guarded tones, their table was one so situated that some freak of +acoustics carried every syllable uttered at it, even though whispered, to +the quick ears at the cashier's desk. A circumstance which had treated +Sofia to many a moment of covert entertainment and not a few that +threatened to shatter what slender illusions had survived eighteen years of +Mama Therese. But nobody else (with the possible exception of the last) was +acquainted with this secret of the restaurant, and Sofia was careful never +to mention it. + +Now it so happened that Mr. Karslake had never before sat at that +particular table. + +The language spoken at it to-day intrigued Sofia extravagantly. It was rich +in labials, gutturals, and odd sibilances. She was positive it was not a +European tongue, though she thought it might possibly be Russian, because +it sounded rather like Russian print looks; it might just as well have been +Arabic or Choctaw, for all Sofia could say to the contrary. But his fluent +ease in it impressed her with the notion that young Mr. Karslake might not, +after all, be as negligible a person as he looked and as she indifferently +had assumed. + +She determined to study him more attentively. + +It was rather a long confabulation, too, and one that both men seemed to +take very seriously--though its upshot was apparently quite acceptable to +both--and terminated abruptly with Mr. Karslake announcing, in English, +with every evidence of satisfaction: + +"Good! Then that's settled." + +To this the older man dissented tolerantly. + +"Pardon: nothing is settled; it is proposed, merely." + +"Well," said Karslake with a little laugh that to Sofia sounded empty, "at +all events it ought to be amusing." + +The other lifted one eyebrow and smiled remotely. + +"You think so?" + +"To be ordering you about, sir? I should say so!" But his companion wasn't +listening or chose purposely to ignore that accent of respect. + +"You are right, my friend," he said, abstractedly: "it will be amusing. But +what in life is not? I fancy that is why most of us go on, because we find +the play entertaining in spite of ourselves. And even when we think of +Death ... there's the possibility that on the other side of the curtain, +where the unseen audience sits, whose hisses and applause we never hear ... +over there it may be more entertaining still!" + +Karslake was inquisitively watching his face. + +"You would say that," he commented, deference and admiration in his voice. +"By all accounts you've had a most amusing life." + +"I have found it so." The other nodded with glimmering eyes. "Not always at +the time, of course. But when I look back, especially at my beginnings, at +the times that seemed hardest and most intolerable ..." + +He was thoughtful for a moment, glancing interestedly round the room. + +"It takes one back." + +"What does?" + +"This cafe, my friend." + +"To your beginnings, you mean?" + +"Yes. It is very like the cafe at Troyon's, at this hour especially, when +there are so few English about." + +"Troyon's?" + +"A restaurant in Paris. Famous in its day. Several years ago--before the +war--it burned down one night, cremating many memories. While it stood I +hated it, now I miss it; Paris without it is no more the Paris that I +knew." + +"Why did you hate it, sir?" + +"Because I suffered there." + +He indicated a weedy young Alsatian across the room, a depressed and pimply +creature in a waiter's jacket and apron, who was shambling from table to +table and collecting used glasses and saucers. + +"You see that omnibus yonder? What he is to-day, that was I in +mine--omnibus, scullion, valet-de-chambre, butt and scapegoat-in-general to +the establishment, scavenger of food that no one else would eat.... I +suffered there, at Troyon's." + +"You, sir?" Karslake exclaimed in astonishment. "Whoever would have thought +that you ... How did you escape?" + +"It occurred to me, one day, I was less than half alive and never would be +better while I stayed on in that servitude. So I walked out--into life." + +"I wish you'd tell me, sir," Karslake ventured, eagerly. + +"Some day, perhaps, when I get back. But now"--he looked at his +watch--"I've got just time enough to taxi to my hotel, pack, and catch the +boat train." + +"Don't wait for me," Karslake suggested, signalling the waiter. + +"Perhaps it would be as well if I didn't." + +They shook hands, and the older man got up, secured his hat and stick, and +started out toward the door, moving leisurely, still looking about him with +the narrowed eyes and smile of reminiscence. + +Of a sudden that look was abolished utterly. He had caught sight of Sofia. + +Her interest had been so excited by the singular confidences she had +overheard that the girl had quite forgotten herself and her professional +pose of blank neutrality. She was bending forward a little, forearms +resting on the desk, frankly staring. + +The man's stride checked, his smile faded, his eyes grew wide and cloudy +with bewilderment. For a moment Sofia thought him on the point of bowing, +as one might on unexpectedly encountering an acquaintance after many years: +there was that hint of impulse hindered by uncertainty. And in that moment +the girl was conscious of a singular sensation of breathlessness, as if +something impended whose issue might change all the courses of her life. A +feeling quite insane and unaccountable, to be sure; and nothing came of it +whatever. With a readiness so instant that the break in his walk must have +been imperceptible to anybody but Sofia, the man recollected himself, +composed his face, and proceeded to the door. + +Confounded with inexplicable disappointment, Sofia sat unstirring. + +In the open doorway the man turned and looked back, not at her, but at +Karslake, as if of half a mind to return and say something more to the +younger man. But he didn't. + +He never came back. + + + +III + +THE AGONY COLUMN + + +Sofia dated from that afternoon the first stirrings of a discontent which +grew in her throughout the summer till everything related to her lot seemed +abominable in her sight. + +Even without this subjective inquietude it would have been an unpleasant +summer. All the world was at sixes and sevens, the social unrest stirred up +by the war showed no signs of subsiding, but indeed, quite the contrary, +there was trouble in the very air--ominous portents of a storm whose dull, +grim growling down the horizon could be heard only too clearly by those who +did not wilfully close their ears, grin fatuous complacence, and bleat like +brainless sheep: "All's well!" + +High-spirited youth and witless wealth a-lust for strange new pleasures +turned from the long strain of conflict to indulgence in endless orgies of +extravagance like nothing ever witnessed by a world long since surfeited +with contemplation of weird excesses: daily that wild dance of death +attained wilder stages of saturnalia, the bands blaring ever louder to +drown the mutter of savage elemental forces working underneath the crust. + +And ever and anon a lull would fall and the world would shudder to the +iteration of a word that spelled calamity to all things fair and sweet and +lovable in life, the word _Bolshevism_.... + +In the Cafe des Exiles there was endless discord and strife. + +For several reasons trade was not what it had been, even for the slack +season of summer it was poor. The cost of everything had gone up, waiters +were insubordinate and unreasonable in their demands, Mama Therese had been +constrained to increase the fixed price of the dinner, old customers took +umbrage at this and their patronage elsewhere. + +Mama Therese cultivated a temper that grew day by day more vile, Papa +Dupont displayed new artfulness in the matter of sneaking his daily toll of +drink and showed it; the two squabbled incessantly. + +One of the chefs, surmising the irregularity of their relations and +foreseeing an imminent break, sought to turn it to his own profit by making +amorous overtures to Mama Therese, who for reasons of her own, probably +hoping to make Papa Dupont jealous, encouraged the idiot. And, as if this +were not sickening enough, Papa Dupont, far from resenting this menace to +the pseudo-peace of the menage, ignored if he did not welcome it, and daily +displayed new tenderness for Sofia. He kept near her as constantly as he +could, he would even interrupt a wrangle with Mama Therese to favour the +girl with a languishing glance or a term of endearment; he was forever +caressing her disgustingly with his eyes. + +The swing door between the cafe and the pantry had warped on its hinges and +would not stay quite shut. Normally it stuck in a position which permitted +whoever was at the zinc an uninterrupted view of the desk of la dame du +comptoir. Instead of having it fixed, Papa Dupont put off that duty from +day to day and developed a fond attachment for the place at the zinc. For +hours on end Sofia, on her high stool, would be conscious of his gloating +regard, his glances that lingered on the sweet lines of her throat, the +roundness of her pretty arms. + +She dared make no sign to show that she knew and resented, to do so would +be merely to draw upon herself the spite of Mama Therese. + +But she simmered with indignation, and contemplated futile +plans--especially in the long, empty hours of the afternoon, between +luncheon and the hour of the apertifs--countless vain plans for abolishing +these intolerable conditions. + +She thought a great deal of the strange man who had talked with young Mr. +Karslake, and wondered about him. Somehow she seemed unable to forget him; +never before had any one she didn't know made such a lasting impression +upon her imagination. + +Sometimes she wasted time trying to explain to herself why the man had +seemed, for that brief instant, to think he knew her, only to dismiss such +speculations eventually with the assurance that she probably resembled in +moderate degree somebody whom he had once known. + +But mostly she was preoccupied with pondering the strangeness of it, that +he who seemed so brilliant and brave a figure of the great world should, +according to his own confession, have risen from beginnings as lowly as her +own. All that he had suffered in the days of his youth, in that place in +Paris which he called Troyon's, Sofia had suffered here and in large part +continued to suffer without prospect of alleviation or hope of escape. And +remembering what he had said, that his own trials had come to an end only +when he awakened to the fact that he was, as he had put it, "less than half +alive" there at Troyon's, and had simply "walked out into life," she was +persuaded that the cure for her own discomfort and discontent would never +be found in any other way. But she lacked courage to adventure it. + +To say "walk out and make an end of it" was all very well; but assuming +that she ever should muster up spirit enough to do it--what then? Which way +should she turn, once she had passed out through the doors? What could she +do? She had neither means nor friends, and she was much too thoroughly +conversant with the common way of the world with a woman alone to imagine +that, by taking her life in her own hands, she would accomplish much more +than exchange the irk of the frying pan for the fury of the fire. + +All the same, she knew that she must one day do it and chance the +consequences. Things couldn't go on as they were. + +And even granting that the outcome of any effort at self-assertion must be +unhappy, she grew impatient. + +Meanwhile, she did nothing, she sat quietly on her perch, looked with stony +composure over the heads of the multitude, indifferent alike to admiration +and the uncharitable esteem of her own sex, and waited with a burning +heart. + +Mr. Karslake ran true to form. He drifted in and out casually, always idle +and degage and elegant, he continued his irregular conferences with +ill-assorted companions, he worshipped discreetly and evidently without the +faintest hope, he seemed more than ever a trifling and immaterial creature. +Chance did not again lead him to the table where he had sat with the man +whom Sofia could not forget, and only the memory of that conversation held +any place for Karslake in the consideration of the girl. + +Even at that she didn't consider him seriously, she looked for him and +missed him when he didn't appear solely because of a secret hope that some +day that other one would come back to meet him in the cafe. + +Why she held fast to that hope Sofia could not have said. + +Toward the middle of summer Mr. Karslake absented himself for several +weeks, and when he showed up again his visits were fewer and more widely +spaced. + +On an afternoon late in August, a hot and weary day, he sauntered in with +his habitual air of having in particular nothing to do and all the time +there was to do it in, and found a man waiting for him. + +This was a person whom Sofia had quite overlooked after one glance had +classified and pigeon-holed him. A single glance had been enough. They do +some things better in England; a man cast for any particular role in life, +for example, is apt to conform himself, mentally, physically, and even as +to his outer habiliments, so nicely to the mould that he is forever +unmistakably what he is even to the most casual observer. So this man was a +butler, he had been born and bred a butler, he lived by buttling, a butler +he would die; not a pompous, turkeycock butler, such as the American stage +will offer you when it takes up English fashionable life in a serious way, +but a mild-mannered, decent body, with plain side-whiskers, chopped short +on a line with the lobes of his ears, otherwise clean-shaven, his hair +pathetically dyed, a colourless cast of countenance, eyes meek and mild. + +He was soberly dressed in black coat and waistcoat, the latter showing a +white triangle of hard-polished shirt and a black bow tie, with indefinite +gray trousers and square-toed boots by no means new. His middle was crossed +by a thick silver watch-chain, and curious, old-fashioned buttons of agate +set in square frames of gold fastened his round stiff cuffs of yesterday. +He carried a well-brushed bowler as unfashionable as unseasonable. + +When Mr. Karslake entered, the polished pattern of a young gentleman of +means, slenderly well set-up in an exquisitely tailored brown lounge suit, +wearing a boater and carrying a slender malacca stick in one chamois-gloved +hand, the butler stood up at his table, quietly acknowledged his +greeting--"Ah, Nogam! you here already?"--and waited for the younger man to +be seated before resuming his own chair: a stoop-shouldered symbol of +self-respecting respectability, not too intelligent, subdued by definite +and unresentful acceptance of "his place." + +Their table was the one immediately beyond the buffet; and the cafe was +very quiet, with only three other patrons, two of whom were playing chess +while the third was reading an old issue of the Echo de Paris. So Sofia +could, if she had cared to eavesdrop, have overheard everything that passed +between Mr. Karslake and the man Nogam. But she didn't; their first few +speeches failed to excite her curiosity in the least. + +She heard Mr. Karslake, who was becomingly affable to one of inferior +station, express the perfunctory hope that he hadn't kept Nogam waiting +long, and Nogam reply to the simple effect of "Oh, not at all, sir." To +this he added that he 'oped there had been no 'itch, he was most heager to +be installed in his new situation, and would do his best to give +satisfaction. Karslake replied airily that he was sure Nogam would do +famously, and Nogam said "Thank you, sir." Then Karslake announced they +must bustle along, because they were expected by some person unnamed, but +just the same he meant to have a drink before he budged a foot. And he +called a waiter and requested a whiskey and soda for himself and some beer +for Nogam.... And Sofia turned her attention to other things. + +The murmur of their talk meant nothing to her after that, and she forgot +them entirely till they got up to leave, and then wasted only a moment in +wondering why Mr. Karslake, if he were, as he seemed to be, engaging a +butler for some friend or employer, should have arranged to meet the man in +a cafe of Soho. But it didn't matter, and she dismissed the incident from +her mind. + +What did matter was that she was to-day more than ever galled by the deadly +circumstances of her existence. If they were to continue to obtain, she +felt, life would grow simply unendurable, and she would to do something +reckless to get a little relief from the tedium and the ugliness of it all. + +She was fed up with everything, the shrewishness of Mama Therese, the +drunkenness of Papa Dupont, the hideous dullness of the cafe, the smell of +food, the fumes of tobacco, the reek of wines. + +She was fed up with the leers of Papa Dupont, the scowls of Mama Therese, +the grimaces of waiters, the stares of customers, the very sight of herself +in the mirror across the room. + +She was fed up with being fed up, she wanted to do something lunatic, she +wanted to kick and scream and drum on the floor with her heels. + +And all the while, beyond the threshold, life in the street was flowing by, +a restless stream, and the voice of it was a siren call to her hungry +heart, whispering of freedom, laughing low of love, roaring robustly of +brave adventures. + +And she sat there with folded hands, mutinous yet impotent, afraid, a +useless thing with sullen eyes ... wasted ... + +As was her custom, between six and seven, before the busy hours of the +evening, she had her dinner fetched to a table near by. + +Somebody had left a copy of a morning paper on the wall-seat. Sofia glanced +through it without much interest. None the less, when she had finished, she +took the sheet back to the caisse with her and intermittently, as occasion +offered, read snatches of it quite openly, so bored that she didn't care if +Mama Therese did catch her at this forbidden practice; a good row would be +almost welcome ... anything to break the monotony.... + +When she had digested without edification every item of news, she devoured +the advertisements of the shops, then turned to the Agony Column, which she +had saved up for a savoury. + +She read the appeal of the widow of the English army officer who wanted +some kind-hearted and soft-headed person to finance her in setting up an +establishment for "paying guests." + +She read the card of the young gentleman of good family but impoverished +means who admitted that he had every grace and talent heart could desire +and who, in frantic effort to escape going to work for his living, threw +himself bodily upon the generosity of an unknown, and as yet non-existent, +benefactor, hinting darkly at suicide if nothing came of this last attempt +to get himself luxuriously maintained in indolence. + +She read the advertisements of money-lenders who yearned to advance +fabulous sums to the nobility and gentry on their simple notes of hand. + +She read the thinly disguised professional cards of lonely ladies whose +unhappy lot could be mitigated only by congenial male companionship. + +She read the ingenuous matrimonial bids. + +She read the announcement of the lady of (deleted) title who was willing, +for a substantial consideration, to introduce gentlefolk of means and their +daughters to the most exclusive social circles. + +She read the naive solicitation of the alleged ex-officer of the B.E.F., +who had won through the war with every known decoration except the Double +Cross of the Order of St. Gall and with nothing of his anatomy left whole +except his cheek, begging some great-hearted soul to buy him a barrel organ +to play in the streets. + +And then her eye was arrested by the appearance of her own name in the text +of a brief advertisement, which she read naturally, with heightened +interest: + +IF MICHAEL LANYARD will communicate privately he will hear news of Sofia +his daughter. Address Secretan & Sypher, Solicitors, Lincoln's Inn Fields, +W.C. 3 + + + +IV + +MUTINY + + +Sofia had never heard the name of Michael Lanyard. Neither did the firm +style of Messrs. Secretan & Sypher, Solicitors, mean anything to her. +Notwithstanding, she wasted more time than she knew trying to picture to +herself a man who looked like Michael Lanyard sounded, and wishing (no +matter what his looks might be) that she were his long-lost daughter Sofia, +and that he would see the advertisement, and communicate privately as +requested, and hear news of her, and come speeding in a Rolls-Royce to the +Cafe des Exiles, and walk in and humble Papa Dupont with a look of hauteur +and confound Mama Therese with a peremptory word, and take Sofia by the +hand and lead her out and induct her into such an environment as suited her +rightful station: said environment necessarily comprising a town house if +not on Park Lane at least nearly adjacent to it, and a country house +sitting, in the mellowed beauty of its Seventeenth Century architecture, +amid lordly acres of velvet lawn and private park. + +She hoped the country house would be within sight of the sea, and that the +family garage would run to a comfortable little town-car for her personal +use when she went shopping in Bond Street, or to pay calls or leave cards, +or to concerts and matinees.... + +At about this stage her chateaux en Espagne began to rock upon their +foundations; a seismic phenomenon due to the appearance of Mama Therese and +Papa Dupont, coming from zinc and kitchen for their dinner, which meal they +habitually consumed in the cafe when the evening rush was over, the tables +undressed, and the establishment had settled down to drowse away the dull +hours till closing time. + +Thus reminded that it was nine o'clock or thereabouts of a stuffy evening +in a stodgy world where nothing ever happened that hadn't wearily happened +the day before and the day before that and so back to the beginning of +Time, and wasn't scheduled tediously to continue happening to-morrow and +the day after and so on to the end of Eternity, Sofia sighed and shook +herself and put away the vanity of dreams. + +But her beauty, as she sat brooding, was as sultry as the night. + +In the rear of the room Mama Therese and Papa Dupont wrangled sourly over +their food; not with impassioned rancour but in the natural order of +things--as others might discuss the book of the moment or the play of the +year or scandal or Charlie Chaplin or the thundering fiasco of +Versailles--these two discussed each other's failings with utmost candour +and freedom of expression: handling their subjects without gloves; never +hesitating to touch upon topics not commonly mentioned in civil intercourse +or to use the apt, unprintable word; never dreaming of politely terming a +damned old hoe a spade; tossing the ball of recrimination to and fro with +masterly ease. + +Their preoccupation with this pastime was so thoroughgoing that Mama +Therese even failed to notice the passage of the postman on his last round +of the day. Ordinarily, for reasons best known to herself and which Sofia +had never thought to question, Mama Therese preferred personally to receive +all letters and contrived to be on hand at the postman's customary hours of +call. But to-night she only realized that he had come and gone when, +happening to glance toward the caisse, she saw Sofia shuffling the +half-dozen envelopes which had been left with her. + +Immediately Mama Therese pushed back the table and got up, wiping chin and +moustache with her napkin as she rolled toward the desk. + +But she was too late. Already Sofia had sorted out and was staring in blank +wonder at an envelope addressed to Mama Therese and bearing in its upper +left-hand corner the imprint of its origin: + +_Secretan & Sypher +Solicitors +Lincoln's Inn +Fields London, W.C. 3._ + +As yet she was simply startled by the coincidence, her brain had not had +time to absorb its full significance--that Mama Therese should receive a +communication from these distinctively named solicitors on the evening of +the very day on which they advertised concerning a young woman named +Sofia!--when the letter was snatched out of her hand, a torrent of +objurgation was loosed upon her devoted head, and she looked into the black +scowl of the Frenchwoman. + +"Sneak! Spying little cat! How dare you pry into my letters?" + +"But, Mama Therese--!" + +"Be still, you! Has one asked you to speak? Give me those others"--Mama +Therese with a vast show of violence appropriated them from Sofia's +unresisting grasp--"and after this keep your nose of a mouchard out of what +doesn't concern you!" + +"But, Mama Therese!--" + +"Hold your tongue. I wish to hear nothing from you, I hear too much--yes, +and see too much, too! Oh, don't flatter yourself I am like that fat dolt +of a Dupont, to be taken in by a pair of round eyes and innocent ways. I +know your sort, I know _you_, mam'selle, too well! Me, I am nobody's fool, +least of all yours, young woman. What goes on under my nose, I see; and if +you imagine otherwise you are a bigger simpleton that you take me for." + +She snapped her fingers viciously in Sofia's crimsoned face, uttered a +contemptuous "_Zut_!" and waddled off, shaking her head and growling to +herself. + +Sofia felt stunned. The offensive had been launched so swiftly, she was +conscious of having done so little to invite it, she had been taken +unprepared, thrown into confusion, her feeble objections silenced and +overwhelmed by that deluge of abuse, publicly disgraced.... + +Her face was burning, and tears started in her eyes; but she winked them +back, she would not let them fall. Conscious of the grins of the handful of +patrons, and the leers of the waiters, she steeled herself to suppress +every betrayal of the mortification in which her soul was writhing, she +made no sign but stared on stonily at the blackness of the night that +peered in at the open doors. + +Then indignation came to her rescue, the flaming colour ebbed from her face +and left it unnaturally white, the mists before her eyes dissipated and +their look grew fixed and hard, even her lips took on a grim, unyielding +set. Beneath the desk her hands clenched into small fists. But she did not +move. + +The sensation stirred up by the outbreak of Mama Therese subsided, the +domino players resumed their game, the old gentleman reading Le Rire turned +a page and read on with a knowing smile, lovers returned to their +low-voiced love-making, waiters yawned behind their hands, all was as it +had been save that, at their table (Sofia could see by the mirror, without +looking directly) Mama Therese and Papa Dupont seemed to have declared an +armistice and were gobbling down the rest of their meal in silence and +indecorous haste. + +Presently they got up and sought their living quarters. To do this they had +to pass the caisse and through the green baize door. Mama Therese marched +ahead with forbidding frown and quivering chins, with the militant carriage +of misprized and affronted rectitude. To her, it was obvious, Sofia for the +time being did not exist. At her heels Papa Dupont shambled uneasily, +hanging the head of deep thoughtfulness, avoiding Sofia's gaze. It was his +part to pretend that all was well and always would be; only he lacked the +effrontery, just then, for his usual smirk. + +When they had disappeared Sofia began to think. + +There was something more in this affair than mere coincidence, there was +mystery, a sinister question. + +Her countenance grew as dark as the complexion of her reverie. Athwart the +field of her abstracted vision drifted the figure of young Mr. Karslake. +She was barely conscious of it. + +He seated himself with plain premeditation directly opposite the caisse, +staring openly. But Sofia did not heed him at all. An odd smile shadowed +his lips, an expression half eager, half apprehensive; there was a hint of +puzzlement in his scrutiny. It was rather as if he had unexpectedly found +some new reason for thinking the girl an exceptionally interesting +personality. But she continued all unaware. + +Shortly after being served with a drink which he ordered but made no offer +to taste, he moved as if minded to rise and cross to Sofia, sat up and +edged forward on the wall-seat with a singular air of timidity and +embarrassment. But whatever his intention, he reconsidered and sat back, +glancing round the room to see if anybody were watching him. He could not +see that anybody was. Not even Sofia. Relieved, he settled back, found a +handsome gold case in the waistcoat of his dinner jacket, extracted a +cigarette, nipped it between his lips--and forgot to light it. + +Of a sudden Sofia had arrived at a decision; and with every expression of +it in her manner she slipped down from the high stool and left the caisse +to take care of itself. Turning to the swing door she barged through with a +high head and fire of determination illuminating her face. She had had +enough of riddles. + +Behind the zinc an elderly and trusted waiter was nodding. The kitchen was +cold and dark for the night. Papa Dupont, then, would be upstairs, closeted +with the genius of the establishment. + +From the pantry a narrow staircase led up to the apartment above the +restaurant. Sofia mounted rapidly, with a firm tread that was nevertheless +practically noiseless, thanks to the paper-thin soles of well-worn +slippers. She could hear voices bickering above. + +At the top there was a short, dark corridor, with three doors. Two of these +were closed on sleeping-rooms; the third door, to a sort of combination +office and living-room, stood open, letting out a stream of light. + +Sofia approached on tiptoe, though the altercation going on within had +reached a stage so acute that it was doubtful whether either of the +disputants would have heard had she stumped like a navvy. + +The point of dissension was not at first apparent, because Mama Therese was +speaking, and what she said had exclusively to do with her estimate of +Dupont's character, the mettle of his spirit, the stuff of his mentality, +the authenticity of his pedigree (with especial reference to the virtue of +his maternal ancestry) and the circumstances of his upbringing; which +estimate in sum was low but by no means so low as the terms in which Mama +Therese was inspired to couch it. + +Papa Dupont did not seem to be greatly interested. He had heard all this +before, many a time, with insignificant phraseological variations. Sofia, +pausing unseen and unsuspected in the darkness just outside the doorway, +could see him slouching deep in his chair, to one side of the table, his +soft fat hands deep in the pockets of his trousers, his chin sunken on his +chest, something dogged in the louring frown which he was bending upon +nothing, something of genuine indifference in his passive attitude toward +the blowsy virago who was leaning across the table the better to spit +vituperation at him. + +And he waited with singular patience until she had to stop for want of +breath. Then he shrugged and said heavily: + +"Still, I don't see what else you propose to do, my old one." + +Apparently his old one was as poor in expedient as he. "It is for nothing," +she said, acidly, "that one looks to you!" + +"I have said my say. If you have anything better to suggest...." He made a +rhetorical pause for reply, but Mama Therese was well blown and sulky for +the moment. "I am not old, not so old as you, and I have reason to believe +the girl is not indifferent to my person." + +"Drooling old pig," Mama Therese observed with reason: "if you dream she +would trouble to look twice at you--!" + +"That remains to be seen. And I, for one, fail to see how else we are to +hold her. All this money that has been coming in, paid on the dot every +quarter--that means there is more, much more to come to her. Are you ready +to give it up?" + +"Never!" Mama Therese thumped the table vehemently. "It is mine by rights, +I have earned it. Look at the way I have slaved for her, the tender care I +have lavished upon her, ever since she was a little one in my arms." + +"By all means," Papa Dupont agreed, "look at it, but don't talk about it to +her. She might not understand you. Also, do not depend upon her to endorse +any claim you might set up based upon such assertions." + +"She is an ungrateful baggage!" + +"Possibly; but she is human, she has a memory--" + +"Are you going to be sentimental about her again?" Mama Therese demanded. +"Pitiful old goat!" + +"But I am not in the least sentimental," Papa Dupont disclaimed. "It is +rather I who am practical, you who are sentimental. I ask you: Is there any +way we can hold on to that money unless I marry Sofia? You do not answer. +Why? Because there _is_ no other way. Then I am practical. But you will not +admit that. And why? Because we have lived together for a number of years +through force of habit, because once, very long ago, we were lovers, you +and I--so long ago that you have forgotten you ever had a softer name for +me than pig or goat. Who is the sentimentalist now--eh?" + +"Shut your face!" Mama Therese growled. "You annoy me. I have a +presentiment I shall one day murder you." + +"You would have done that long ago," Papa Dupont pointed out, "if you had +had the courage. Enough! I am silent. But when you are tired trying to +think out another way, reflect on my solution. Meantime, let me have +another look at that accursed letter." + +Mama Therese did not respond, she offered no objection when Dupont took up +the sheet of paper that lay between them, but ground the heels of her hands +into her fat cheeks and sat glowering vindictively while he read aloud, +slowly, with the labour of one to whom reading is unaccustomed dissipation: + +DEAR MADAM: + +Herewith we beg to enclose our cheque to your order in the sum of two +hundred and fifty pounds, being the quarterly payment in advance due you +from the estate of our deceased client, the Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, +for your care of her daughter. We further beg to advise that, pursuant to +the provisions of her will, we begin to-day, on the eighteenth birthday of +the young Princess Sofia, a search for her father with the object of +apprising him of his daughter's existence. Therefore we would request you +to make arrangements to have the young Princess Sofia brought to England +forthwith from the convent in France where we understand she is finishing +her education. We take leave, however, to advise that, pending the outcome +of our enquiries, the question of her father's existence be not discussed +with the young princess. In event of his death being established or of +failure to find him within six months, the Princess Sofia is to enter +without more delay or formality into possession of her mother's estate. + + +Papa Dupont put down the letter. "It is plain enough," he expounded: "if +this father is found, we can whistle for our money; whereas if I were +married to Sofia, as her husband I would control--" + +He broke off sharply, and added in consternation: "One million thunders!" + +Sofia stood between them. + +And yet she wasn't the Sofia they knew, but another person altogether, a +transfigured and exalted Sofia, aflame with righteous wrath and +contemptuous with the pride of birth which had leaped into full being a +moment since. + +A princess, born the daughter of a princess, now she knew and looked it. + +All thought of fear or deference was gone, she had nothing left but scorn +for these two despicable creatures, the fat harpy and her crapulent consort +who had battened so long upon her misery, who had held her in bondage to +the most menial tasks of their wretched restaurant while they filched and +hoarded the money paid them for giving her the care and the advantages that +were her due. + +And something of this new-found dignity, to which her title was so +unquestionable, which set her upon a level from which she could not but +look down on these two paltry frauds, so abashed the Frenchwoman that the +phrases of invective and vilification which gushed instinctively from the +foul springs of her temper stuck in her throat, she couldn't utter them, +and she well-nigh choked with impotent fury and fear as the girl spoke. + +"You swindlers!" Sofia said, deliberately. "You poor cheats! To pocket a +thousand pounds a year of my mother's money--and make me slave for you in +your wretched cafe! And for eighteen years! For eighteen years you have +been robbing me of every right I had in the world, robbing me of everything +I've needed and longed and prayed for, everything you were paid to give +me--while I drudged for you and endured your ill-temper and your abuse and +the contamination of association with you!... Give me that letter." + +She possessed herself of it unopposed. But now Mama Therese found her +tongue. + +"What--what do you mean?" she gasped, livid with fright. Was not a fortune +slipping through her avaricious fingers? "What are you going to do?" + +"Do?" Sofia cried. "I don't know, more than this: I'm not going to +stay another hour under this roof, I'm going to leave to-night--now-- +immediately! That's what I'm going to do!" + +"Where are you going?" + +The question halted Sofia in the doorway. + +"To find my father--wherever he is!" + +She left the two staring at each other, dumbfounded and aghast. + +At the far end of the passage she flung open her bedchamber door, entered, +turned up the light, and snatched her cloak and hat from pegs beneath the +curtained shelf that held her scanty wardrobe. + +Adjusting these before the mirror she could hear Therese bawling at Dupont +to follow and stop her. Sofia had little fear he would find heart to +attempt that, none the less she hurried. Once her hat was adjusted there +was nothing to detain her; the best she had she stood in; no sentimental +associations invested that room, the tomb of her defrauded childhood, the +prison of her maltreated youth, to make her linger there, but only hateful +ones to speed her going. + +She turned and fled. + +Stumbling on the stairs, she heard Therese still screaming imprecations and +commands at Dupont, then the clumping of the man's feet as, yielding at +length, he started in pursuit. + +Through the green baize door she burst into the cafe like a young tornado. +Every head turned her way with gaping mouths and protruding eyes of +astonishment as she stopped at the caisse and brazenly, in the face of them +all, plundered the till. + +This was a matter of necessity. Sofia had not one shilling of her own. But +those two had robbed her, what she took was not so much as a thousandth +part of the money of which they had despoiled her. Moreover, she dared not +go out penniless to face London. + +Snatching a handful of loose coin, she made for the door. But the delay had +been fatal. Dupont was now at her heels, and displaying extraordinary +agility in a man of his years of dissipation and sedentary habits. And +Therese was not far behind. + +Seeing coins trickling through the fingers of the fugitive and falling to +ring and spin upon the floor, the Frenchwoman raised an anguished shriek of +"_Thief! Stop thief!_"--and such part of the audience as had remained in +its seats rose up as one man. + +In the same instant Dupont's fingers clamped down on Sofia's shoulder. She +screamed, and he chuckled and dragged her back. Then his arm was struck up +by a deft hand, the girl slipped from his hold and darted out through the +doors. + +Roaring with rage (now that his blood was up, his heart in the chase) +Dupont turned upon the meddler. This was young Mr. Karslake. Dupont did not +know him except by sight, but that slender, boyish figure and the +semi-apologetic smile on Karslake's lips did not inspire respect. Blindly +and with all his might Dupont swung his right to the other's head, only to +find it wasn't there. + +The weight of the unexpended blow carried Dupont off his feet. He fell in a +heap, and Mama Therese, charging wildly after Sofia, tripped on his body +and deposited fourteen stone of solid flesh squarely in the small of +Dupont's back with a force that drove the breath out of him in one agonized +blast. + +Karslake laughed aloud: it was all as good as a cinema. Then he followed +Sofia. + +It was a dark and silent street by night, little used, a mere link between +two main thoroughfares. Sofia, running for dear life, was still far from +the nearest corner. Karslake doubled nimbly across the street to the only +vehicle in sight, an impressive Rolls-Royce town-car. Jumping on the +running-board he pointed out the fleeing shadow to the chauffeur. + +"Lay alongside that young woman before she makes the corner, Albert!" + +Without delay the car began to move. + +Meanwhile, the Cafe des Exiles was erupting antic shapes, waiters, +customers, Dupont, Therese. The quiet hour was made hideous by their yells. + +"_Stop thief!" "A la voleuse!" "L'arretez!" "A la voleuse!" "Stop thief!_" + +An entirely superfluous bobby weathered the corner, discovered Sofia in +flight across the street, came about, and shaped a diagonal course to cut +across her bows. She saw him coming and stopped short with a gasp of +dismay. Simultaneously the Rolls-Royce slid smoothly in between them and +Karslake hopped down. Sofia uttered a small cry, more of surprise than +fright, and hung back, trying to free the arm by which he was trying to +guide her to the open door. + +"It's our only chance," he warned her, coolly. "We're between two fires. +Better not delay!" + +She yielded and tumbled in. Karslake followed and slammed the door. The car +shot away and rounded into the cross street before the bobby could collect +himself enough to look at its license plate. He made after it, but when he +had reached the corner it had turned another and was lost. + +At the second turning Karslake looked round from the window with a +reassuring laugh, and settled back beside Sofia. + +"So that ends that!" + +She stared wide-eyed through the shadows. She knew him now, she was not in +the least afraid, but she was confused beyond measure. + +"Why--why--" she faltered--"what--who are you and where are you taking me?" + +"Oh, I beg your pardon!" said the young man, contritely. "I forgot. One +ought to introduce one's self before rescuing ladies in distress--but there +really wasn't time, you know. If you'll overlook the informality, my name's +Karslake, Roger Karslake, Princess Sofia, and I'm taking you to your +father." + + + +V + +HOUSE OF THE WOLF + + +This startling announcement Sofia received without comment and with a +composure quite as surprising. The life which had made her what she was, a +young woman singularly unillusioned, well-poised, and well-informed, had +brought out in her nature a strong vein of scepticism. She was not easily +to be impressed. The more remarkable the circumstance in question, the less +inclined was she to exclaim about it, the stronger was her propensity to +look shrewdly into the matter and find out for herself just what it was +that made it seem so odd. + +She didn't repose much faith in those striking synchronizations which +apparently unrelated influences sometimes effect with related events, and +which we are accustomed to term coincidences. She distrusted their specious +seeming of spontaneity, she suspected a deep design behind them all. + +For example: Up to the moment of her flight from the Cafe des Exiles there +had been, as Sofia saw it, nothing extraordinary or inexplicable in the +chapter of happenings which had made her acquainted, as abruptly as +tardily, with certain facts concerning her parentage. + +You might, if you felt like it, call it a strange coincidence that she +should have read the advertisement of Messrs. Secretan & Sypher just before +their letter was delivered and Mama Therese by her intemperate conduct +warmed Sofia's simmering suspicions to the boiling point. But then Sofia +read the Agony Column every time it came into her hands: she would have +been more surprised had she missed noticing her given name in print, and +downright ashamed of herself if she had failed to associate the letter with +the advertisement. + +If you asked her, she called it Fate, the foreordained workings of occult +forces charged with dominion over human affairs. Sooner or later she must +somehow have learned the truth about her right place in the world; and to +her way of thinking it was no more astonishing that she should have learned +it through accident supplemented by the acute inferences of a sharply +stimulated imagination, rather than through being waited upon by a +delegation of legal gentlemen commissioned with the duty of enlightening +her. And the colossal set-piece of the evening having been duly exploded, +no sequel whatever could expect anything better than relegation to the +cheerless limbo of anticlimax. + +Thus when young Mr. Karslake explained his uninvited if timely intervention +by stating that he was conducting her to the parent of whose existence she +had so recently been informed, he succeeded--not to put too fine a point +upon it--only in making it all seem a bit thick. + +So for the time being Sofia contented herself with silent study of his face +as fitfully revealed by the passing lights of Shaftesbury Avenue. + +A nice face (she thought) open and naive, perhaps a trace too much so; but, +viewed at close quarters, by no means so child-like as she had thought it, +and by no means wanting in evidences of quiet strength if one forgave the +funny little moustache which (now one came to, observe it seriously) was +precisely what lent that possibly deceptive look of innocence and +inconsequence, positively weakening the character of what might otherwise +have been a countenance to foster confidence. + +As for Mr. Karslake, he endured this candid scrutiny with a faintly +apprehensive smile, but volunteered nothing more; so that, when the silence +in time acquired an accent of constraint, it was Sofia who had to break it, +not Mr. Karslake. + +"I'm wondering about you," she explained quite gravely. + +"One fancied as much, Princess Sofia." + +She liked his way of saying that; the title seemed to fall naturally from +his lips, without a trace of irony. None the less, it wouldn't do to be too +readily influenced in his favour. + +"Do you really know my father?" + +"Rather!" said Mr. Karslake. "You see, I'm his secretary." + +"How long--" + +"Upward of eighteen months now." + +"And how long have you known I was his daughter?" + +Mr. Karslake, consulting a wrist-watch, permitted himself a quiet smile. + +"Thirty-eight minutes," he announced--"say, thirty-nine." + +"But how did you find out--?" + +"Your father called me up--can't say from where--said he'd just learned you +were acting as cashier at the Cafe des Exiles, and would I be good enough +to take you firmly by the hand and lead you home." + +"And how did he learn--?" + +"That he didn't say. 'Fraid you'll have to ask him, Princess Sofia." + +Genuinely diverted by the cross-examination, he awaited with unruffled good +humour the next question to be put by this amazingly collected and direct +young person. But Sofia hesitated. She didn't want to be rude, and Karslake +seemed to be telling a tolerably straight story; still, she couldn't +altogether believe in him as yet. She couldn't help it if his visit to the +restaurant had been a shade too opportune, his account of himself too +confoundedly pat. + +No: she wasn't in the least afraid. Even if she were being kidnapped, she +wasn't afraid. She was so young, so absurdly confident in her ability to +take care of herself. On the other hand, intuition kept admonishing her +that in real life things simply didn't happen like this, so smoothly, so +fortunately; somehow, somewhere, in this curious affair, something must be +wrong. + +"Please: what is my father's name?" + +"Prince Victor Vassilyevski." + +"You're sure it isn't Michael Lanyard?" + +Now Mr. Karslake was genuinely startled and showed it. Sofia remarked that +he eyed her uneasily. + +"My sainted aunt! Where did you get hold of that name?" + +"Isn't it my father's?" + +"Ye-es," the young man admitted, reluctantly; at least with something +strongly resembling reluctance. "But he doesn't use it any more." + +"Why not?" + +Mr. Karslake was silent, thoughtful. Sofia felt that she had scored and +with determination pressed her point. + +"Do you mind telling me why he doesn't use that name, if it's his?" + +"See here, Princess Sofia"--Karslake slewed round to face her squarely with +his most earnest and persuasive manner--"I am merely Prince Victor's +secretary, I'm not supposed to know all his secrets, and those I do know +I'm supposed not to talk about. I'd much rather you put that question to +Prince Victor yourself." + +"I shall," Sofia announced with decision. "When am I to see him? To-night?" + +"Of course. That is, I presume you will. I mean to say, Prince Victor +wasn't at home when I left, but if I know him he's sure to be when we +arrive. And I'm taking you there as directly as a motor can travel in this +blessed town." + +Sofia looked out of the window. The car, having turned down Regent Street +from Piccadilly Circus, was now traversing sedate Pall Mall; and in another +moment it swung into the passage between St. James's Palace and Marlborough +House Chapel; and then they were in The Mall, with the Victoria Memorial +ahead, glowing against the dingy backing of Buckingham Palace. + +Now, since all Sofia's reading had inculcated the belief that the +enterprising kidnapper always made off with his victim by way of dark +bystreets and unsavoury neighbourhoods, she felt somewhat reassured. + +"Have we very far to go?" + +"We're almost there now--Queen Anne's Gate." + +A good enough address. Though that proved nothing. There was still plenty +of time, anything might happen.... + +Sofia shrugged, and settled back to await developments. + +But there was nothing to warrant misgivings in the aspect of the dwelling +before which the car presently drew up. If it wasn't the palace Sofia had +unconsciously been looking forward to, it owned a solid, dull-faced dignity +that suited well the town-house of a person of quality, it measured up +quite acceptably to Sofia's notion of what was becoming to the condition of +a prince in exile--who naturally would live quietly, in view of the recent +revolution in Russia. + +Without augmented fears, then, though still on the alert for anything that +might seem questionable, and more agitated with excitement than she let him +suspect, Sofia permitted Mr. Karslake to conduct her to the door. + +He had barely touched the bell-button when this door opened, revealing a +vista of spacious entrance-hall. + +To one side stood a manservant to whom Sofia paid no attention till the +sound of his name on Karslake's tongue struck an echo from her memory. +"Thanks, Nogam. Prince Victor home yet?" + +"Not yet, sir." + +"Tell him, please, when he comes in, we're waiting in the study." + +"'Nk-you, sir." + +The servant was the man whom Karslake had met in the Cafe des Exiles only a +few hours before. Catching Sofia's quick, questioning glance, Nogam paused +at respectful attention. And, even then, she was struck again with his +fidelity to the role in the social system for which Life had cast him. In +the cafe, that afternoon, he had cut a mildly incongruous figure, +unpretending but alien to that atmosphere; here, in the plain evening-dress +livery of his station, he blended perfectly into the picture. + +Karslake gave his hat and stick to the man, then opened one wing of a great +double doorway, and with a bow invited Sofia to precede him. She faltered, +hazily conceiving that threshold in the guise of an inglorious Rubicon. But +she had already gone too far into this adventure to draw back now without +forfeiting her self-respect. With a deceptively firm step she entered a +room to wonder at. + +Sombre shadows masked much of its magnificent proportions, but what Sofia +could see suggested less the study of a man of everyday interests than the +private museum of an Orientalist whose wealth knew no limits. + +The air was warm and close, aromatic with the ghosts of ten thousand +perished perfumes. The quiet, when Karslake had closed the door, was +oppressive, as if some dark enchantment here had power to tame and silence +the growl of London that was never elsewhere in all the city for an instant +still. + +On a great table of black teakwood inlaid with mother of pearl burned a +solitary lamp, a curious affair in filigree of brass, furnishing what +illumination there was. Its closely shaded rays made vaguely visible walls +dark with books, tier upon tier climbing to the ceiling; chairs of odd +shape, screens of glowing lacquer; tables and stands supporting caskets of +burning cinnabar, of ivory, of gold, of kaleidoscopic cloisonne; trays +heaped high with unset jewels; cabinets crowded with rare objects of +Eastern art; squat shapes of neglected gods brandishing weird weapons; +grotesque devil masks ferociously a-grin; chests of strange woods strangely +fashioned, strangely carved, and decorated with inlays of precious metals, +banded with huge straps of black iron, from which gushed in rainbow +profusion silks and brocades stiff with barbaric embroideries in gold- and +silver-thread and precious stones. + +Confused by the impact upon her perceptions of so much that was unexpected +and bizarre, the girl looked round with an uncertain smile, and found +Karslake watching her with a manner of peculiar gravity and concern. + +"Prince Victor is an extraordinary man," Karslake replied to her unspoken +comment; "probably the most learned Orientalist alive. Sometimes I think +the East has never had a secret he doesn't know." + +He paused and drew nearer, with added earnestness in his regard. + +"Princess Sofia," said he, diffidently, "if I may say something without +meaning to seem disrespectful--" + +Perplexed, she encouraged him with one word: "Please." + +"I'm afraid," Karslake ventured, "you will have many strange experiences in +this new life. Some of them, I fancy, you won't immediately understand, +some things may seem wrong to you, you may find yourself confronted with +conditions hard to accept ..." + +He rested as if in doubt, and she fancied that he was listening intently, +almost apprehensively, for some signal of warning. But on her part Sofia +heard no sound. + +Impressed and puzzled, she uttered a prompting "Yes?" + +"I only want to say"--he employed a tone so low that she could barely hear +him--"if you don't mind--whatever happens--I'd be awf'ly glad if you'd +think of me as one who sincerely wants to be your friend." + +"Why," she said in wonder--"thank you. I shall be glad--" + +She checked in astonishment: a man was approaching from the general +direction of the door by which they had entered. + +The effect was uncanny, as if the figure had materialized before her very +eyes, out of clear air, as if one of those many shadows had taken on shape +and substance while she looked. + +The man himself was nothing unusual in general aspect, of no remarkable +stature, neither tall nor small, neither robust nor slender. His evening +clothes were without fault, but as much might be said of ten thousand men +who might be seen any night in the public rendezvous of leisured London. +His carriage had special distinction only in that he moved with a sort of +feline grace. Still, something elusive made him unlike any other man Sofia +had ever met, something arresting and not altogether prepossessing. + +As he drew nearer and his features became more clearly defined by the +light, she was sensible of gazing into a face of unique cast. Of an odd +grayish pallor accentuated by hair so black that it might have been painted +on his skull with india-ink, the skin seemed to be as soft and smooth as a +child's, beardless and wholly without lustre. The mouth was sensuous yet +firm, with hard, full lips. Leaden pouches hung beneath heavy-lidded eyes +set at a noticeable angle. The eyes themselves were as black as night and +as lightless; the rays of the lamp struck no gleam from them; in spite of +this they were compelling, masterful, and disconcerting. + +Karslake at once fell back, with a bow so low it was little less than an +obeisance. + +"Prince Victor!" + +The man nodded acknowledgment of this greeting without detaching attention +from the girl. His voice, slightly tremulous with emotion, uttered her +name: "Sofia?" + +She collected herself with an effort. "I am Sofia," she replied almost +mechanically. + +"And I, your father ..." + +Prince Victor lifted hands of singular delicacy, slender and tapering, +whose long fingers were dressed with many curious rings. + +A reluctance she could not understand hindered Sofia from going gladly into +those arms. She had to make herself yield. They tightened hungrily about +her. She closed her eyes and experienced a slight, invincible shudder. + +"My child!" + +The lips that touched her forehead astonished her with their warmth. +Instinctively she had expected them to be cool, as frigid as the effect of +that strange mask of which they formed a part. + +Then, held at arm's-length, she submitted to an inspection whose sum was +enunciated with a strange smile of gratification: + +"You are beautiful." + +In embarrassment she murmured: "I am glad you think so--father." + +"As beautiful as your mother--in her time the most beautiful creature in +the world--her image, a flawless reproduction, even to her colouring, the +shade of the hair, the eyes--so like the sea!" + +"I am glad," the girl repeated, nervously. + +"And until to-night I did not know you lived!" + +She mustered up courage enough to ask: "How--?" + +The heavy lids drooped lower over the illegible eyes. "My attention was +called to a newspaper advertisement signed by a firm of solicitors. I got +in touch with them--a matter of some difficulty, since it was after +business hours--and found out where to look for you. Then, prevented from +acting as quickly as I wished, myself, I sent Karslake here to bring you to +me." + +"But, according to their letter, the solicitors thought I was in France, in +a convent!" + +"When they advertised for me--yes. But by the time I enquired they were +better informed." + +"But the advertisement was addressed to Michael Lanyard!" + +The thin lips formed a faint smile. "That was once my name. I no longer use +it." + +Against a feeling that she was adopting an attitude both undutiful and +unbecoming, Sofia persisted. + +"Why?" + +Prince Victor Vassilyevski gave a gesture of pain and reluctance. + +"Must I tell you? Why not? You must know some day, as well now as later, +perhaps. Twenty years ago the name of Michael Lanyard was famous throughout +Europe--or shall I say infamous?--the name of the greatest thief of modern +times, otherwise known as 'The Lone Wolf'." + +Involuntarily, Sofia stepped back, as if some shape of horror had been +suddenly thrust before her face. + +"The Lone Wolf!" she echoed in a voice of dismay. "A thief! You!" + +The man who called himself her father replied with a series of slow, +affirmative nods. + +"That startles you?" he said in an indulgent voice. "Naturally. But you +will soon grow accustomed to the thought, you will condone that chapter in +my history, remembering I am no longer that man, no longer a thief, that +for many years now my record has been without reproach. You will remember +that there is more joy in Heaven over the one sinner who repents ... You +will forgive the father, if only for your mother's sake." + +"For my mother's sake--?" + +"What the Lone Wolf was in his day, your mother was in hers--the most +brilliant adventuress Europe ever knew." + +"Oh!" cried the girl in semi-hysterical protest. "Oh, no, no! Impossible!" + +"I assure you, it is quite true. Some day I may tell you her history--and +mine. For the present, you will do well to think no more about what I have +confessed. Repining can never mend the past. It is to-day and to-morrow you +must think of: that you are restored to me, and that I have not only the +means but a great hunger to make you happy, to gratify your slightest +whim." + +"I want nothing!" Sofia insisted, wildly. + +"You want sleep," Prince Victor corrected, fondly--"you want it badly. You +are nervous, overstrung, in no condition to understand the great good +fortune that has befallen you. But to-morrow you will see things in a +rosier light." + +Apparently he had manipulated some signal unremarked by Sofia. The door +opened, framing the figure of the man Nogam. Without looking round, but +with an inscrutable smile, Prince Victor took the girl in his arms again +and held her close. + +"You rang, sir?" + +"Oh, are you there, Nogam? Is the apartment ready for the Princess Sofia?" + +"Quite ready, sir." + +"Be good enough to conduct her to it." Again Prince Victor kissed Sofia's +forehead, then let her go. "Good-night, my child." + +Moving slowly toward the door, drooping, Sofia made inarticulate response. +She felt suddenly stupefied with fatigue. To think meant an effort that +mocked her flagging powers. A vast lassitude was weighing upon her, body +and spirit were faint in the enervation of an inexorable disconsolation. + + + +VI + +THE MUMMER + + +Alone with his secretary, Prince Victor Vassilyevski dropped indifferently +the guise of manner with which he had clothed himself for the benefit of +the woman whom he claimed as his own child. That semblance of shy affection +coloured by regrets for the past and modified by the native nobility of a +prince in exile--so becoming in a parent to whose bosom a daughter whom he +had never seen was suddenly restored--being of no more service for the +present, was incontinently discarded. In its stead Victor favoured Karslake +with a slow smile of understanding that broadened into an insuppressible +grin of successful malice, a grimace of crude exultation through which +peered out the impish savage mutinously imprisoned within a flimsy husk of +modern manner. + +Suspecting this self-betrayal, he erased the grin swiftly, but not so +swiftly that Karslake failed to note it. And the young man, smiling amiably +and respectfully in return, was sensible of a thrill: yet another glimpse +had been given him into the mystery that slept behind that countenance +normally so impenetrable. + +But he was studious to show nothing of his own emotion. It was his part to +be merely a mirror, to reflect rather than to feel, to be an instrument +infinitely supple and unfailing, never an independent intelligence. Not +otherwise could he count on holding his place in Victor's favour. + +"You were quicker than I hoped." + +"I had no trouble, sir," Karslake returned, cheerfully. "Things rather +played into my hands." + +Victor dropped into a chair beside the table and lifted the lid of a small +golden casket. Helping himself to one of its store of cigarettes, he made +Karslake free of the remainder with a gracious hand. The secretary +demurred, producing his pocket case. + +"If you don't mind, sir ..." + +Victor moved a supercilious eyebrow. "Woodbines again?" + +"Sorry, sir; I know they're pretty awful and all that, but they were all I +could get in France, and I contracted a taste for them I can't seem to +cure. I remember, while I lay in a hospital, hardly a whole bone in my +body, thanks to the Boche and his flying circus--it was that lot sent me +crashing, you know--the nurses used to tempt me with the finest Turkish; +but somehow I couldn't go them; I'd beg for Woodbines." + +Prince Victor dismissed the subject curtly. "I am waiting to hear about +Sofia." + +"Not much to tell, sir. There seemed to be a storm of sorts brewing when I +got there. The young woman was at her desk with a face like a thundercloud. +While I was trying to make up my mind what would be my best approach, she +jumped down, flew upstairs and, I gathered, kicked up a holy row. You see, +she'd seen that advertisement of Secretan & Sypher's, and smelt a rat." + +"What did she say?" + +"Nothing definite, sir: seemed to understand she was the daughter of +Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, only she objected to her father being anybody +but Michael Lanyard." + +"Go on." + +"After a bit she stampeded downstairs again, with the old girl and that +swine of a Dupont at her heels. I blocked him and gave Sofia a chance to +get outside. The whole establishment boiled out into the street after us, +yelling like fun, but I got the girl into the car ... and here we are." + +But Prince Victor seemed to have lost interest. The glow ebbing from his +face, his lips tightening, the thick lids drooping low over his eyes, he +sat in apparent abstraction, aping the impassivity of the graven idols that +graced his study. + +"I don't mind owning, sir," the younger man resumed, nervously, "she had me +sparring for wind when she put it to me point-blank her father's name was +Michael Lanyard." + +Without moving Victor enquired in a dull voice: "What did you tell her?" + +"That it was a name you had once used, sir, but.... Well, what you told +her, all except the Lone Wolf business. Don't mind telling you I was in a +rare funk till you capped my story so neatly." + +He laughed and ventured with a hesitation quite boyish: "I say, Prince +Victor--if it's not an impertinent question--was there any truth in that? I +mean about your having been the Lone Wolf twenty years ago." + +"Not a syllable," said Victor, dryly. + +"Then your name never was Michael Lanyard?" + +"Never, but ..." + +During a long pause the secretary fidgeted inwardly but had the wisdom to +refrain from showing further inquisitiveness. He could see that strong +passions were working in Victor: a hand, extended upon the table, unclosed +and closed with a peculiar clutching action; the muscles contracted round +mouth and eyes, moulding the face into a cast of disquieting malevolence. +The voice, when at length it resumed, was bitter. + +"But Michael Lanyard was my enemy ... and is to-day.... He became a lover +of Sofia's mother, he had a hand in overturning plans I had made, he +humiliated, mocked me.... And to-day he is interfering again.... But ..." + +Victor sank back in his chair. Suddenly that unholy grin of his flashed and +faded. + +"But now his impertinence fails, his insolence over-reaches itself. Now I +have the whip-hand and ... I shall use it!" + +Vindictiveness that could find relief only in action mastered the man. + +"Be good enough to take this dictation." + +Karslake turned to the table and opened a portfolio of illuminated Spanish +leather. + +"Ready, sir," he said, with pencil poised. + +_"To Michael Lanyard, Intelligence Division, the War Office, Whitehall. +Sir: Your daughter Sofia is now with me. Permit me to suggest that, in +consideration of this situation, you cease to meddle with my affairs. Your +own intelligence must tell you nothing could be more fatal than an attempt +to communicate with her._" + +"Sign on the typewriter with the initial _V_." + +"Yes, sir." + +"Type it on plain paper, use a plain envelope, be sure that neither has a +watermark, and get it off to-night without fail. Take a taxi to St. Pancras +station and post it there. If you make haste you can get it in a pillar-box +before the last collection." + +"I shan't lose a minute, sir." + +Karslake straightened up, folding the paper, and made for the door. + +"One moment, Karslake.... This man, Nogam: where did you pick him up?" + +"He used to buttle for my father, sir, but got into trouble--some domestic +unpleasantness, I believe--needed money, and raised a cheque. The old boy +let him off easy; but I've got the cheque, and Nogam knows it. The fellow's +perfectly trained and absolutely dependable, knows his place and his duties +and not another blessed thing. I'll send him in if you like." + +Prince Victor uttered with dry accent: "Why?" + +"Thought you might care to have a talk with him, sir." + +"I have." + +"Oh!" Mr. Karslake exclaimed--"I didn't know." + +"Quite so," commented Prince Victor. "I shan't need you again to-night, +Karslake." + +"Good-night, sir." + +When the secretary had gone, Victor sat motionless, so still that his +breathing scarcely stirred his body, with a face absolutely imperturbable, +steadfastly gazing into that darkness which shrouded the workings of his +mind. + +On the doorstep a shrill whistle sounded: Nogam calling Karslake's taxi. +Victor heard the vehicle roll in and stand panting at the curb, then the +slam of its door, the diminishing rumble of its departure. + +The house door closed, and after a little the study door opened, and Nogam +halted on the threshold. + +Unstirring Victor enquired: "What is it, Nogam?" + +"I wished to enquire would there be anything more to-night, sir." + +"Nothing." + +"'Nk you, sir." + +"But Nogam: in this house, regardless of the custom which may have obtained +in other establishments where you have served, you will always knock before +entering a room, and never enter until you obtain permission." + +"But if I'm sure the room is empty, sir, and get no answer--?" + +"Then you may enter any room but this. Never this, unless I am here--or Mr. +Karslake is--and you get leave." + +"'Nk you, sir." + +"Good-night." + +As the door closed Victor extended a thin, effeminate hand to a casket of +ivory, searched with sensitive finger-tips its exquisite tracery until a +cunningly hidden spring responded and the lid, splitting in two, sank down +into its walls. In the pocket thus revealed were many pills, apparently +hand-moulded, of a grayish-brown substance, putty-soft. + +Slowly Victor selected three, placed one after another upon his tongue, and +swallowed them. + +He shut the casket and sat waiting. + +Slowly the keenness of his countenance became blurred, as if the hand of an +unseen sculptor were rubbing down its features, doing away the veneer with +which Europe had overlaid the primitive Asiatic, which now showed on the +surface, in every detail of coarsely modelled nose, oblique eyes of animal +cunning, pendulous lips cruel and sensual. + +By degrees a faint trace of colour began to flush Victor's cheeks, a smile +modified the set of his mouth, the heavy-lidded eyes lost their lustreless +opacity and glimmered with uncanny light. + +He breathed deeply, evenly, with an evident relish. The action of the opium +was visibly renewing his powers. His expression, softening, became terrible +with brute tenderness and longing. Gazing into shadows in which he saw that +which he wished ardently to see, he stretched forth his arms, and his lips +moved, shaping a name: + +"Sofia!" + +As those syllables, freighted with that undying passion which consumed the +man, sounded upon the stillness, Victor turned sharply, with a gesture of +irritation, looking aside, listening. + +Instantaneously the Asiatic disappeared, thrust back into its habitual +latency within the prison of European: Prince Victor was as he had been, as +always to the world, cool, composed, and crafty, master, never creature, of +his emotions. + +A faint buzzing was audible, broken by muffled clicks. + +Rising, Victor approached a table in a corner and with a key from his +pocket ring unlocked a heavy casket of bronze. As he raised its cover a +small electric bulb illuminated the interior, focussing on the +paper-covered face of a mechanical writing device, upon which a pencil with +a broad flat lead operated by a metal arm was tracing characters resembling +the hieroglyphics of the Chinese. + +When the clicking ceased and the pencil was at rest, Victor caught an end +of the paper and pulled it forward until a blank surface again occupied the +writing-bed. Upon this with another pencil he inscribed a reply, then +closed and relocked the casket. + +Back at the table with the lamp, the message just received became crisp +black ash on a brazen tray. + +From a locked chest Victor produced an inverness and a soft hat of black +felt. Wearing these he moved quietly out of the lamp's radius of light, and +made himself one with the shadows that crowded one another round the walls. +He did not leave by the hall door; but of a sudden the room was untenanted. + + + +VII + +THE FANTASTICS + + +Downstream from The Pool, a little way below Shadwell, an uncouth row of +dilapidated dwellings in those days stood--or, better, squatted, like a +mute company of draggletail crones--atop a river-wall whose ancient blocks, +all ropy with the slime of centuries, peered dimly out through groups of +crazy spiles at the restless pageant of Thames-life. + +Viewed by day, say from the deck of a river steamer, the spectacle they +offered was, according to bias of mood and disposition, unlovely and drear +or colourful and romantic: Whistler might have etched these houses, Dickens +have staged therein a lowly tragedy, Thomas Burke have made of one a frame +for some vignette unforgettable of Limehouse life. + +Builded of stone or brick or both as to their landward faces, without +exception they presented to the river false backs of wooden framework which +overhung the water. Ordinarily, their windows were tight-shut, the panes +opaque with accumulated grime--many were broken and boarded. Their look was +dismal, their squalor desperate. + +Below, by day, heavy wherries swung moored to the ooze-clad spiles or, when +the tide was out, sprawled upon stinking mud-flats with a gesture of +pathetic helplessness peculiar to stranded watercraft. Seldom was one +observed in use: to all seeming they existed for purposes of atmosphere +alone. + +More seldom still did any dwelling betray evidence of inhabitation beyond +faint wisps of smoke, like ghosts of famine, drifting from the chimneypots, +or--perhaps--some unabashed exhibit of red flannel hung out to dry with +wrist or ankle-bands nipped between a window-sash and sill. + +By night, however, a stir of furtive life was to be surmised from cryptic +lights that flared and faded behind the crusted window-glass or fell +through opened floor-traps to the thick black element that swirled about +the spiles, and from guarded calls as well, inarticulate cries of hate and +love and pain, rumours of close and crude carousal. + +And ever and again the belated riverfarer would encounter one of the +wherries, its long oars swung by brawny arms and backs, stealing secretly +across the inky waters on some errand no less dark. + +On land the buildings lined a cobbled street, from dawn to dark a +thoroughfare for thundering lorries and, twice daily, in murk of early +morning and gloom of early night, scoured by a nondescript rabble employed +in the vast dockyards whose man-made forests of masts and cordage, funnels +and cranes, on either hand lifted angular black silhouettes against the +misty silver of the sky. + +Black and white and yellow and brown, men of every race and skin, they came +and went, their brief hours loud with babel of strange tongues and a +scuffling of countless feet like the sound of surf; and their goings left +the street strangely hushed, a way of sinister reticences, its winding +length ill-lighted by infrequent corner-lamps, its mephitic glooms +enlivened by windows of public houses all saffron with specious promise of +purchasable good-fellowship. + +One of these, the Red Moon, faced the row of waterfront houses, standing at +the intersection of a street which struck inland to the pulsing heart of +Limehouse. A retired bully of the prize-ring ruled with a high hand over +its several bars and many patrons, yellow men and white girls, deck-hands +and dock-workers, pugilistic and criminal celebrities of the quarter, and +their sycophants. Its revels rendered the nights cacophonous, its portals +sucked in streams of sweethearts and more impersonal lovers of life and +laughter, and spewed out sots close-locked in embraces of maudlin affection +or brutal combat. Bobbies kept an eye on the Red Moon, a respectful one: +interference with the time-hallowed customs and prerogatives of its +clientele was something to be adventured with extreme discretion. + +Out of the hinterland of Limehouse, a tall man came to the Red Moon that +night, walking with long, loose-jointed strides, holding his head high and +looking over the heads of all he passed with a fixed, far gaze. He had a +hatchet-face, sallow, with lantern jaws, a petulant mouth, hot eyes that +showed too much white above their pupils. A lank black mane greased his +collar. His garments, shoddy but whole, were stained and bleached in spots, +apparently the work of acids, and so wrinkled and shapeless as to suggest +that their owner slept without undressing as a matter of habit. The pockets +of his coat bulged noticeably. + +Shouldering heedlessly into the saloon-bar, he found it deserted except for +a chinless potman: the liveliest evening trade was always plied in the +cheaper bars adjacent. + +One glance sufficed to identify him: with a surly nod the potman ducked +behind a partition to call the proprietor. Drinks were in order when this +last appeared; and a brief conference in undertones ended when, having made +careful reconnaissance, the publican nodded shortly to the patron, a jerk +of his thumb designating a small door let into the wall to one side of the +bar proper. + +Through this the tall man passed to find himself upon a dark stairway, at +the foot of which another door admitted to an underground chamber where an +apparently exclusive social gathering was in session of Saturnalia. + +In one corner a long-suffering piano was taking cruel punishment at the +hands of a flashily dressed, sharp-faced man of horsey type. Flanking him, +two young women of the world, with that insouciance which appertains--in +Limehouse--to sweet sixteen, were chanting shrilly to his accompaniment: +both more than comfortably drunk. In the middle of the room assorted +lawbreakers gathered round a table were playing fan-tan at the top of their +lungs. At smaller tables men and women sat consuming poisons of which they +were obviously in no crying need; while in bunks builded against one wall +devotees of the pipe reclined in various stages of beatitude. The air was +hot, and foul with cigarette smoke, sickening fumes of sizzling opium, +effluvia of beer and spirits, sour reek of sweating flesh. + +Incurious glances greeted the newcomer: none paid him more heed than an +indifferent nod. On his part, brief but comprehensive survey having +deepened the stamp of scorn upon his features, he ignored them all and, +proceeding directly to a bunk of the lowermost tier, aroused its occupant +with a smart tap on the shoulder. + +The ostensible drug-addict looked up dreamily, then opened his eyes wide, +with surprising docility rolled out and, uttering no word, lurched to the +fan-tan table. The tall man took his place, lay down, and drew together the +unclean curtains of sleazy stuff provided to afford privacy to shrinking +souls. This done, he turned on his side and knuckled in peculiar rhythm the +back of the bunk, a solid panel which slipped smoothly to one side, +permitting the man to tumble out into still another room, a cheerless +place, with floor of stone and the smell of a vault. + +When the panel had slipped back into place, closing out the bunk, the man +stood in night absolute. But after a minute a slender beam of golden light +struck suddenly athwart the darkness and found his face. This he endured +impassively, only lifting a hand to describe an obscure sign. Immediately +the light was shut off, a door opened in the wall opposite, dull light from +behind disclosed the silhouette of a man in Chinese robes, his head +inclined in a bow of courteous dignity. + +In good English but with musical Eastern inflection a voice gave greeting: + +"Good evening, Thirteen. You are awaited--and welcome!" + +"Good evening, Shaik Tsin," the European replied in heavy un-English +accents. "Number One is here, yes?" + +"Not yet. But we have just received a telautographic message saying he is +on his way." + +Nodding impatiently, Thirteen passed through the door, which the Chinaman +quickly closed and barred. + +The chamber to which one gained admittance by ways so devious and fantastic +was large--exactly how large it was difficult to guess, since all its walls +were screened by black silk panels upon which golden dragons writhed and +crawled. A thick carpet of black covered every inch of visible floor space, +a black silk canopy hid the ceiling, and all the room was in deep shadow +save the space immediately beneath a great lamp of opalescent glass, +likewise draped in black. + +Here stood an octagonal table of black teakwood, on seven sides of which +seven chairs were placed. When Thirteen had taken his seat all these were +occupied. On the eighth side an eighth chair stood empty on a low dais, the +heavy carving of its high back, its massive arms and legs, picked out with +gold. + +The six who had anticipated Thirteen at this bizarre rendezvous hailed him +as a familiar, according to their several idiosyncrasies, brusquely, +indifferently, or with some semblance of cordiality. They made a motley +crew. + +Two were Englishman in appearance, though the figure of languid elegance in +evening dress that might have graced the lounge of a West End club had a +voice soft with Celtic brogue. The other owned a gross body clothed in loud +checks and, with his mean blue eyes, his mottled complexion, and cunning +leer, would not have seemed out of place in a betting-ring. + +Aside from these there were a moon-faced Bengali babu, a dark Italian with +flashing eyes and teeth, and a stout person of bovine Teutonic cast--the +type that is sage, shrewd, easy-going when unopposed, but capable under +provocation of exhibiting the most conscienceless brutality. + +From this last Thirteen got his warmest welcome. + +"You are late, mine friend." + +"In good time, however," Thirteen responded with a nod toward the vacant +chair. "More than that, the summons was handed me only twenty minutes ago." + +"How was that?" the babu asked. "It was sent at six o'clock." + +"I was at work in the laboratory and had left orders I was not to be +disturbed. But for one thing"--the petulance of Thirteen's habitual +expression was lightened by a flash of self-gratulation, and his voice +shook a little with excitement--"I might not have received the summons +before morning." + +"And that one thing?" + +"Success, comrades! At last--after months of experimentation--I have been +successful!" + +"'Ow?" dryly demanded the man in the checked suit. + +"I have discovered a great secret--discovered, perfected, adapted it to +common means at our command. Comrades, I tell you, to-night we hold all +England in the hollow of our hands!" + +With an incoherent exclamation and eyes afire the Russian sat forward. +Unconsciously the others imitated his action. Only the man in evening dress +made a show of remaining unimpressed. + +"It's fine, fat words you're after using," he commented. "'All England in +the hollow of our hands!' If they mean anything at all, comrade, they +mean--" + +"Everything!" Thirteen cut in with arrogant assertiveness; "all we've been +waiting for, hoping for, praying for--the end of the ruling classes, +extinction of the accursed aristocrats, subjugation of the thrice-damned +bourgeois, the triumph of the proletariat, all at a single stroke, swift, +subtle, and sure! Freedom for Ireland, freedom for India, freedom for +England, the speedy spreading of that red dawn which lights the Russian +skies to-day, till all the wide world basks in its warm radiance and +acclaims us, comrades, its redeemers!" + +"Lieber Gott!" the German breathed. "Colossal!" + +"'Ear, 'ear!" the Englishman applauded, perfunctory and skeptical. "Bli'me +if you didn't mike me forget where I was--'ad me thinking I was in 'Yde +Park, you did, listening to a bloody horator on a box." + +"You may laugh," Thirteen replied with a sour glance; "but when you have +heard, you will not laugh. I am not boasting--I am telling you." + +"Not a great deal," the Irishman suggested. "Your mouth is full of sounds +and fury, but till you tell us more you'll have told us nothing." + +The face of Thirteen grew darker still, and for a moment he seemed to +meditate an angry retort; but he thought better of it, contenting himself +with an impatient movement and a mutter: "All in good time; Number One is +not here yet." + +"W'y wyste time w'itin' for 'im?" demanded the Englishman. "'E's no good, +'e's done." + +Thirteen's eyes narrowed. "How so?" + +"'E's done, Number One is--finished, counted out, napoo! 'E's 'ad 'is d'y, +and a pretty mess 'e's mide of it--and it's 'igh time, I say, for 'im to +step down and let a better man tike 'old." + +Growls in chorus endorsed this declaration of mutiny; but suddenly were +stilled by a voice, sonorous and calm, from outside the circle: + +"You think so, Seven? Well--who knows?--perhaps you are right." + + + +VIII + +COUNCIL OF THE GODLESS + + +Someone exclaimed in an accent of alarm: "Number One!" + +With a concerted turning of startled heads, a hasty thrusting back of +chairs, the gathering rose in involuntary deference. That is, five rose as +one; and, after a moment during which his spirit of insubordination +faltered and failed, the Englishman got awkwardly to his feet and stood +abashed and sullen. + +The one to remain seated was the Irishman so well turned out by Conduit +Street; who made no move more than slightly to elevate supercilious brows +and slouch a little lower in his chair, glancing from face to face of the +circle, then back to the cold countenance presented by the author of the +abrupt interruption. + +This last stood quietly beside the eighth chair, a hand on its carved arm, +one foot on the edge of the dais. A long robe of black silk enveloped him; +on its bosom a Chinese unicorn was embroidered. His girdle clasp was of +Imperial jade set with rubies. The girdle itself was yellow. A great ruby +button, nearly an inch in diameter, set in a mounting of worked gold, +crowned a hat like an inverted round bowl. His black silk shoes were heavy +with golden embroidery, and had white soles an inch thick. Authority lent +inches to his stature, so that he seemed to dominate his company physically +as well as spiritually. + +A pace or two in the rear Shaik Tsin, with impassive face and arms folded +in voluminous sleeves, waited as might a bodyguard. + +A sardonic glimmer in eyes half visible under heavy lids alone betrayed +relish of the situation, the homage commanded and the sensation created by +this inopportune and unheralded arrival: deliberately Number One mounted +the dais and posed himself in the throne-like chair. Then, as his look read +face after face, he smiled with twitching and disdainful nostrils. + +"Gentlemen of the Council," he said, slowly, "I bow to you all. Pray be +seated." + +In confounded silence the six resumed their seats, while the seventh--who +had not moved--lighted a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and through a veil of +smoke continued to regard Number One with insolent eyes. + +"I fear my arrival was ill-timed, gentlemen. Seven had the floor, and I +confess to finding what I happened to overhear extremely interesting. If he +will be good enough to continue ..." + +The Irishman gave a light, derisive laugh. Shifting uneasily in his chair, +the man in the checked suit flushed darkly, then stiffened his spine, +hardened his eyes, set his jaw, and faced Number One defiantly. + +"You 'eard ... I 'olds by w'at I said." + +"I am to understand, then, you think it time for me to abdicate and let +another lead you in my stead?" + +The Englishman assented with an inarticulate monosyllable and a surly nod. + +"And may one ask why?" + +"Blue's plice in Pekin Street was r'ided this afternoon," Seven announced +truculently. "But per'aps you didn't know--" + +"Not until some time before the news reached you," One replied, pleasantly. +"And what of it?" + +"Three fycers in a week, Gov'ner--anybody'll tell you that's comin' it a +bit thick." + +"Granted. What then?" + +"That's only part of it. Tike last week: Eighteen pinched, the queer plant +in 'Igh Street pulled by the coppers--" + +"I know, I know. To your point!" + +Seven hesitated under that steely stare. "I leave it to you, Gov'ner," he +continued to stammer at length. "S'y you was me and I was Number One--w'at +would you think?" + +"Why, quite naturally, that some superior intelligence has latterly been +collaborating with Scotland Yard." + +"Aren't you a bit behindhand in arriving at that conclusion?" the Irishman +suggested with an ill-dissembled sneer. + +"No, Eleven," Number One replied, mildly, "since I arrived at it some time +since." + +"But took no measures--" + +"You are in a position to state that as a fact?" + +Eleven shrugged lightly. "Need I be? Does not our situation speak for +itself?" + +"Since you cannot be as thoroughly acquainted as I am with the situation, +and since it seems I am required to account for my leadership or surrender +it to you, Eleven ... I believe you have selected yourself to replace me as +Number One, have you not?--that is to say, in the improbable event of my +abdication." + +"Improbable?" repeated the Irishman. "I wouldn't call it that." + +"You are right," Number One assented, gravely: "unthinkable is the word. +But you haven't answered my question." + +"Oh, as for that, if the Council should see fit to appoint me Number One, +I'd naturally do my best." + +"And most noble of you, I'm sure. But rather than bring down any such +disaster upon this organization, I will say now that measures have already +been taken, and I am to-night in a position to promise you that the new +spirit in Scotland Yard will no longer be a factor in our calculations." + +"That wants proving," Eleven contended. + +A spasm of anger shook the figure in the throne-like chair, but only for +an instant; immediately the iron will of the man imposed rigid +self-control; almost without pause he proceeded in level and civil accents: + +"I think I can satisfy you and--this once--I consent to do so. But first, a +question: Have you yourself formed any theory as to the identity of this +hostile intelligence which has so hindered us of late?" + +"I'd be a raw fool if I hadn't," the Irishman retorted. "We know the Lone +Wolf has been hand-in-glove with the authorities ever since the British +Secret Service used him during the war." + +"You think, then, it is Lanyard--?" + +"It's a wise saying: 'Set a thief to catch a thief.' I believe there's no +man in England but Lanyard who has the wit and vision and audacity to fight +us on our ground and win." + +"I agree entirely. Therefore, I have this day tied the hands of the Lone +Wolf; he will not again dare to contend against us." + +Eleven sat up with a startled gesture. + +"Are you meaning you've got the girl?" + +Number One indulged a remote and chilly smile. + +"Then you, too, noticed the advertisement? Accept my compliments, Eleven. +Decidedly you might prove a dangerous rival--were I in a temper to +countenance competition.... But it is true: I have the girl Sofia--the Lone +Wolf's daughter." + +"Where?" + +The smile faded; the man on the dais looked down loftily. + +"It is enough for you to know I have proved far-sighted and unfailing in my +fidelity to our common cause." + +"So _you_ say ..." + +Though the Irishman winced and fell silent under the cold glare of the +other's eyes, the voice that answered him was level and passionless. + +"I am not here to have my word challenged--or my authority. If any one of +you imagines I am even thinking of surrendering the latter, under any +conceivable circumstances, he is mad. And if any one of you doubts my power +to enforce my will, I promise him ample proof of it before the night is +ended.... Let us now proceed to business, the question held over from our +last meeting. If Comrade Four will consult his minutes"--a nod singled out +the babu, who, beaming with importance, produced a note-book--"they will +show we adjourned to consider overtures made by the Smolny Institute of +Petrograd, seeking our cooeperation toward accelerating the social +revolution in England." + +"Thatt," the Bengali affirmed, "is true bill of factt." + +"If the temper in which you received those proposals is fair criterion," +Number One resumed, "there can be little doubt as to our decision. Speaking +for myself, I think it would be suicidal to reject the overtures of the +Soviet Government in Russia. Let me state why." + +He bowed his forehead upon a hand and continued with thoughtful gaze +downcast: + +"England is ripe for revolution. The social discontent resulting from the +war has reached an acute stage. Only a spark is needed. It remains for us +to decide whether to permit Russia to bring about the explosion or--bring +it about ourselves. The soviet movement is irresistible, it will sweep +England eventually as it has swept Russia, as it is now sweeping Germany, +Hungary, Austria, Italy, as it must soon sweep France and Spain. Our power +in England is great; even so, we could hope to do no more than delay the +soviet movement were we to set ourselves against it--we could never hope to +stop it. It would seem, then, self-preservation to set ourselves at the +head of it, seize with our own hands--in the name of the British +Soviet--the symbols of power now held by an antiquated and doddering +Government. So shall we become to England what the Smolny Institute is to +Russia. Otherwise, in the end, we must be crushed." + +"If we adopt the indicated course, there will be an end forever to this +hole-and-corner business which so hampers us, we will be able to work in +the open, the police will become our tools rather than weapons in the hands +of our enemies; our power will be without limits, Soviet Russia itself must +bow to our dictation." + +He paused and lifted his head, looking round the circle of intent faces. + +"If I am wrong or too sanguine, I am ready to be corrected." + +He heard only a murmur of admiration, never a note of dissent; and a smile +of gratification, yet half satiric, curved his thin lips. + +"I take it, then, the Council endorses my decision to proceed with the +negotiations instituted by Soviet Russia; to accept its proposals and +pledge our cooperation in every way?" + +This time there was no mistaking the accuracy with which he had gauged the +minds of his associates. + +"One thing remains to be decided: a plan of action, something which will +demand all that we have of imagination, ingenuity, common sense, and far +prevision. We can afford to waste not a single ounce of strength: the blow, +when we strike, must be sudden, sharp, merciless--irresistible. But if +Thirteen is not over-confident of the discovery which he says he has to-day +perfected, the means to deal just such a blow is ready to our hands.... +Thirteen?" + +A nod and gracious smile invited that one to speak. He rose, trembling a +little with excitement, bowed to Number One and, delving into capacious +pockets, produced a number of small tin canisters together with three +sealed bottles of brown glass. Surveying these, as he arranged them on the +teakwood table before him, he smiled a little to himself: the stars, it +seemed to him, were warring in their courses in his behalf; this was to +prove his hour of hours. + +He began to speak in a quivering voice which soon grew more steady. + +"It is true, Excellency--it is true, comrades--I have perfected a discovery +which I offer as a free gift to the cause, and by means of which, +intelligently employed, we can, if we will, make all London a graveyard. +Put the resources of this organization at my command, give me a week to +make the essential preparations, select a time of national crisis when the +Houses of Parliament are sitting and the Cabinet meets in Downing Street +with the King attending or in Buckingham Palace ..." + +He paused and held the pause with a keen feeling for dramatic effect, his +eyes seeking in turn the faces of his fellow conspirators, an +insuppressible grin of malicious exultation twisting his scornful and +mutinous mouth. + +"Let this be done," he concluded, "and by means of these few tins and +bottles which you see before you, in one brief hour the ruling classes will +have perished almost to a man, there will be no more government of a +tyrannical bourgeoisie to grind down the proletariat, a bloodless +revolution will have made England the cradle of the new liberty!" + +"Bloodless?" the man on the dais repeated; and even he was seen perceptibly +to shudder at the prospect unfolded to the vision of his mind. "Yes--but +more terrible than the massacre of the Huguenots, more savage than the +French Revolution!" + +"But I believe," the inventor commented, "your Excellency said we required +the means to deal a 'blow sudden, sharp, merciless--irresistible'." + +"Surely now," the Irishman suggested, mockingly--where a wiser man would +have held his tongue--"you'll not be sticking at a small matter like +wholesale murder if it's to make us masters of England?" + +"Of England?" the German echoed. "Herr Gott! Of the world!" + +"And you, Excellency, our master," the inventor added, shrewdly. + +A sign at once impatient and imperative demanded silence, and for a few +minutes it obtained unbroken, while the gathering, keyed to high tension, +studied closely the face of their leader and found it altogether illegible. + +On his part he seemed forgetful of the existence of anybody but himself, +forgetful almost of himself as well: sitting low in his great chair, his +body as stirless as it were bound by some spell of black magic, his far +gaze probing unfathomable remotenesses of thought. + +Slowly he recalled himself to his surroundings; with a suggestion of +weariness he sat up and reviewed the little company that hung so +breathlessly upon the issue of his judgment. The shadow of that satiric +smile returned. + +"If the thing be feasible," he promised, "it shall be done. It remains for +Thirteen to be more explicit." + +With an extravagant flourish the inventor whipped from his breastpocket a +folded paper, and spread it out face uppermost on the table. + +"A map of London," he announced, "based on the latest Ordnance Survey and +coloured to show the districts supplied by the mains of each individual gas +depot. Thus you will observe"--what his long, bony finger indicated--"the +district supplied by the mains of the Westminster gas works, comprising +Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, the War Office, and the +Admiralty, Downing Street, the homes of hundreds of the aristocracy. All +these we can at will turn into the deadliest of death traps." + +A tense voice interrupted with the demand: "How?" + +"Quite easily, comrade: with the ramifications of our power throughout +London, all under the control of his Excellency"--the inventor bowed to +Number One--"it should be an easy matter to place a few trustworthy men +with the Westminster gas works." + +"It can readily be done," Number One affirmed. "And then--?" + +"While this is being done means must be found to smuggle other men, in the +guise of servants, into the various buildings selected, or to corrupt those +already so employed therein. At the designated hour--" + +The words dried upon his lips as somewhere a hidden bell stabbed the quiet +with short, sharp thrills of sound, a code that spelled a message of +terrifying significance. The inventor started violently, but no more so +than every man about the table. Even Number One, shocked out of his +lounging pose, grasped the arms of his throne with convulsive hands. + +Quietly and without a hint of hurry, the Chinese, Shaik Tsin, moved back +into the shadows and, unnoticed, disappeared behind a screen. + +For a moment, when the bell had ceased, nobody spoke; but pallid face +consulted face and eyes grown wide with dread sought eyes that winced in +terror. + +Then the Bengali leaped from his chair, jabbering with bloodless lips. + +"Police! Raid! We are betrayed!" + +He made an uncertain turn, as if thinking to seek safety in flight but +doubting which way to choose; and the movement struck panic into the minds +and hearts of his fellows. In a twinkling all were on their feet. But +before one could move a step the lamp in the ceiling winked out, the room +was left in darkness unrelieved, and the accents of Number One were heard, +coldly imperative. + +"Gentlemen! be good enough to resume your places--let no one move before +there is light again. We are in no immediate danger: Shaik Tsin will show +you out by a secret way long before the police can hope to find and break +into this chamber. In the meantime--" + +The infuriated voice of the Englishman interrupted: + +"And 'oo're you to give us orders?--you 'oo talked so big about 'avin' tied +the 'ands of the Lone Wolf and Scotland Yard! You blarsted blow'ard! Bli'me +if I don't believe it's you 'oo--" + +"Quietly, Seven! Have you forgotten you have a bad heart?--that excitement +may mean your sudden death?" + +The rage of the Englishman ran out in a gasp and a whisper. + +"In the meantime," Number One resumed as if there had been no break, "I +promised that, before the night was out, you should have proof of my +ability to enforce my will." + +A groan of agony answered him, followed by an oath of witless fear. From a +distance the voice, now thin but still sonorous, added: + +"Thirteen will hold himself ready to wait on me when I send for him +to-morrow. Gentlemen of the Council, I bow to you all." + +Again silence held for a long minute during which no man stirred or spoke. +Then overhead the lamp burned bright again, discovering six frightened men +upon their feet and one who, still seated, did not stir, and never would +again. + +His head fallen forward, chin resting on his chest, mouth ajar, inert arms +dangling over the arms of the chair, heavy legs lax, the Englishman sat +quite dead, dead without a sign to show how death had come to him. + +Number One had disappeared. + +There was a remote rumour of cries and shouts, the muffled sound of axes +crashing into woodwork.... + + + +IX + +MRS. WARING + + +Late in the forenoon a pencil of golden light found a chink in jealously +drawn draperies, and groped the rich dusk of the bedchamber till it came to +rest, as if happy that its search had found so lovely a reward, upon the +face of a young girl who lay sleeping in a bed whose exquisite adornment +must have flattered even the exalted person of a princess. + +With a swift but silent movement another girl, who had been sitting +patiently on a low stool near by, rose and put herself in the way of the +sunbeam. But too late: already long lashes were a-flutter upon the +delicately modelled cheeks of the sleeper. + +A gentle sigh brushed parting lips; the sweet body stirred luxuriously; +unclouded by any shadow of misgiving, the blue eyes of the Princess Sofia +looked out upon the first day of her new world. + +Then they grew wide with wonder, comprehending the sleek, pretty face of a +Chinese girl of about her own age who, with eyes downcast, demure mouth and +folded hands, submissively awaited recognition. + +"Who are you?" Sofia demanded in a breath. + +A bob of courtesy, wholly charming, prefaced a reply pattered in English +of quaintest accent: + +"You' handmaiden--Chou Nu is my name." + +"My handmaiden!" + +"Les, Plincess Sofia." + +"But I don't understand. How--when--?" + +"Las' night Numbe' One he send for me, but when I come you go-sleep." + +"Number One?" + +Surprise coloured faintly the explanation: "Plince Victo', honol'ble fathe' +of Plincess Sofia. You like get up now, take bath, have blekfuss?" + +The smile was irresistibly ingratiating: Sofia could not but return it. +Delighted, Chou Nu ran to the windows, threw wide their draperies, and +darted into the bathroom. + +Autumnal sunlight kindled to burning beauty the golden-bronze tresses +coiled upon the pillows where Sofia lay unstirring, like a princess +enchanted--as indeed she was. Surely nothing less potent than magic had +wrought this metamorphosis in the fabric of her life! And whether the magic +were white or black--what matter? Its work was good. + +No more the Cafe des Exiles, no more the deadly tedium of daily service at +the desk of the caisse, no more the shrewish tongue of Mama Therese, the +odious oglings of Papa Dupont, the ceaseless cark of discontent.... + +Incredible! + +As one who moves in a dream, Sofia rose presently and bathed, then, robed +in a ravishing negligee of rare brocade, breakfasted on melon, tea, and +toast from a service of eggshell china. + +In a long mirror she saw and watched but did not know herself. Like Goody +Twoshoes of nursery fame she could have cried: Lawkamercy! this is never I! + +The presence of Chou Nu served merely to stress the sense of unreality: +for, obviously, only the heroine of a true fairy tale could have broken +from a chrysalis stage of sordid Soho to the brilliant butterfly existence +of a Russian princess domiciled in the most aristocratic quarter of London +and attended by a Chinese maid! + +And Chou Nu proved a delight. Once satisfied she need fear neither +ill-temper nor arrogance from her new mistress, she indulged an even and +constant flow of artless high spirits, her amusing, clipped English +affording Sofia considerable entertainment together with not a little food +for thought. + +Thus one learned that the main body of the service staff was Chinese under +a major domo named Shaik Tsin--Chou Nu's "second-uncle"--who enjoyed Prince +Victor's completest confidence and was, second to the latter only, the real +head of the establishment, its presiding genius. The front of the house +alone was dressed with a handful of English servants nominally under the +man Nogam, but actually, like him, answerable in the last instance to Shaik +Tsin. + +Why this should be Chou Nu couldn't say. Sofia supposed it was because +Prince Victor thought his Occidental guests would feel more at ease with +English servants; or perhaps he himself preferred them, when it came to the +question of personal attendance. + +No success rewarded efforts to extract from Chou Nu her reason for +referring to Victor as "Number One." She stated simply that all Chinamans +in London called him that; and being pressed further added, with as near an +approach to impatience as her gentle nature could muster, that it was +obviously because Plince Victo' _was_ Numbe' One: ev'-body knew _that_. + +A knock at the door interrupted Sofia's questioning. Answering, Chou +brought back word that the honourable father of Princess Sofia submitted +his august felicitations and solicited the immediate favour of her serene +attendance in his study. + +Hasty search failed to locate the garments discarded on going to bed and, +in the indifference of depression and fatigue, left in a tumble on the +floor. All had vanished while Sofia slept; Chou Nu professed blank +ignorance of their fate; and apparently nothing had been provided in their +stead but Chinese robes, of sumptuous vestments well suited to one of high +estate. With these, then, and with Chou Nu's guidance as to choice and +ceremonious arrangement, Sofia was obliged to make shift; and anything but +unbecoming she found them--or truly it was a shape of dream that looked +out from her mirror. + +Yet it was with reluctant feet that she left her room, descended the broad +staircase to the entrance hall, and addressed herself to the study door. It +had been so beautiful, that waking dream the sequel to her night of +dreamless sleep, too beautiful to be foregone without regret. + +For Sofia had not forgotten, she could never forget, she had merely been +successful temporarily in banishing from mind that bitter disillusionment +which had poisoned what should have been her time of greatest joy. + +To be told, by the father of whose dear existence one had only learned +within the hour, that one was the child of a notorious thief and an +adventuress ... + +It needed more than common fortitude to face renewed reminder of that +shame. + +Oddly enough, it seemed to help a bit, somehow to lend her courage and +assurance, to pass the man Nogam in the hall and acknowledge his bow and +smile. Sofia wondered vaguely what it was that made his smile seem so kind; +it was entirely respectful, there was nothing more in it that she could fix +on; and yet ... + +She was able to offer Victor a composed, almost a happy countenance, and to +return cheerful assurances to punctilious enquiries after her well-being +and her comfort overnight. To the real affection in which he held her, the +warmth of his embrace, and the lingering pressure of his lips gave +convincing testimony; and in time, no doubt, as she grew to know him +better, her response would become more spontaneous and true. Indeed, she +insisted, it must; she would school herself, if need be, to remember that +this strange man was the author of her being, the natural object of her +affections--deserving all her love if only because of that nobility which +had enabled him to renounce those evil ways of years long dead. + +But to-day--and this, of course, she couldn't understand--a slight but +invincible shiver, perceptible to herself alone, attended her submission to +paternal caresses; and the eyes were too dispassionate with which she saw +Prince Victor. Still, they found little to which fair exception might be +taken. If Life had thus far been callously frank with Sofia as to its +broader aspects, the niceties of its technique remained measurably a +mystery, she was insufficiently instructed to perceive that Victor's +morning coat (for example) had been cut a shade too cleverly, or that the +ensemble of his raiment was a trace ornate; and where a mind more mondain +would have marked ponderable constraint in his manner, she saw only dignity +and reserve. But for all that she recognized intuitively a lack of +something in the man, the sum of this second impression of him was formless +disappointment, she felt somehow cheated, disheartened, chilled. + +That she was able at all to dissemble this sense of dashed expectations +was thanks in the main to a third party, a stranger whose presence she +overlooked on entering, when Prince Victor met her near the door, while the +other remained aside, half hidden in the recess of a window. + +Directly, however, that Victor half turned away, saying "I have found a +friend for you, my dear," Sofia, following his glance, discovered a woman +whose every detail of dress and deportment was unmistakably of the +fashionable world and whose face carried souvenirs of loveliness as +unmistakable. + +Smiling and offering her hands, she approached, while Victor's voice of +heavy modulations uttered formally: + +"Sybil, permit me to present my daughter. Sofia, Mrs. Waring has graciously +offered to sponsor your introduction to Society, to guide and instruct you +and be in every way your mentor." + +"My dear!" the woman exclaimed, holding Sofia's hands and kissing her +cheek. And then, looking aside to Victor, "But how very like!" she added +with the air of tender reminiscence. + +"Oh!" Sofia cried, "you knew my mother?" + +"Indeed--and loved her." Sofia never dreamed to question the woman's +sincerity; and her charm of manner was irresistible. "You must try to like +me a little for her sake--" + +"As if one could help liking you for your own, Mrs. Waring!" + +"Prettily said, my dear. You have inherited more from your mother than +your good looks alone. Is it not so, mon prince?" + +"Much more." Victor's enigmatic smile gave place to a look of regret and +uneasiness. "Let us hope, however, not too much. Heredity," he mused in +sombre mood, "is a force of such fatality in our lives...." + +He gave a gesture of solicitude and continued with characteristic +deliberation, and that preciseness of diction which he seemed never able to +forget, even though deeply moved. + +"More than ever, now that Sofia is restored to me, I could wish the past +other than what it was, that she might start life with a handicap less +cruel of inherited tendencies. But when I reflect that both her parents--" + +"Please!" Sofia begged, piteous. "Oh, please!" + +"I am sorry, my dear." Victor closed tender hands over those which the girl +had lifted in appeal. "It is for your own good only I give myself this pain +of warning you against your worst enemy, I mean yourself, the self that is +so strange a compound of hereditary weaknesses.... Please remember always +that, no matter what may happen, however far you may be led into +transgression of the social codes, I shall never reproach you, on the +contrary, you may count implicitly on my sympathetic understanding. Never +forget, I, too, have known, have suffered and fought myself--and in the end +won at a cost I am not yet finished paying, nor will be, I fear, this side +my grave." + +He sighed from his heart, and bowing a stricken head, seemed to lose +himself in disconsolate reverie--but not so far as to suffer the +interruption which Sofia made to offer and which he stayed with an eloquent +hand. + +"You do not understand? But naturally. Let me explain. No: there is no +reason why Sybil--Mrs. Waring--should not hear. She is a dear friend of +long years, she understands." + +With a quiet murmur--"Oh, quite!"--Mrs. Waring ran an affectionate arm +round Sofia's shoulders and gently held the girl to her. + +"When I determined to forsake the bad old ways," Victor pursued--"this you +must know, my dear--I had friends--of a sort--who resented my defection, +set themselves against my will and, when they found they could not swerve +me from my purpose, became my enemies. That was long ago, but to this day +some of them persist in their enmity--I have to be constantly on my guard." + +"You mean there is danger?" Sofia asked in quick anxiety. "Your life--?" + +"Always," Victor assented, gravely. With a shrug he added: "It is nothing; +for myself, I am used to it, I do not greatly care. But for you--that is +another matter altogether. I have a great fear for you, my child. That, +indeed, is why I never tried to find you till yesterday--believing, as I +mistakenly did, you were in good hands, well cared for, happy--lest my +enemies seek to strike at me through you. But when I saw that unfortunate +advertisement I dared delay not another hour about bringing you within the +compass of my protection. Even now, untiring as my care for you shall ever +be, I know my enemies will be as tireless in endeavours to rob me of you. +You will be followed, hounded, importuned, lied to, threatened--all without +rest. If they cannot take you from me bodily, they will seek to poison your +mind against me. Therefore, rather than keep you practically a prisoner in +your home, I feel obliged to require a promise of you." + +Deeply stirred by the melancholy gravity that informed his pose, the girl +protested earnestly: "Anything--I will promise anything, rather than be an +anxiety to one who is so kind." + +"Kind? To my own daughter?" Victor smiled sadly. "But I love you, little +Sofia. Nor is it much that I must ask of you: merely that you never go out +alone, but only in the company of Mrs. Waring or Mr. Karslake or, +preferably, both." + +"Oh, I promise that--" + +"But there is more: If by any accident you should ever find yourself left +alone in public, do not let strangers speak to you, refuse to listen to +them." + +"I promise." + +"And finally: If anybody should ever seek to turn you against me, come to +me instantly and tell me about it." + +"But naturally I would do that, father." + +"Good. I rely upon your discretion and loyalty. At another time I will +explain matters in more detail. For the present--enough of an unpleasant +subject. You have a busy day before you. At my request Mrs. Waring has +arranged to have various tradespeople wait upon you this morning to take +your orders for the beginnings of a wardrobe. If you can find something +ready-made to wear you will want, no doubt, to spend the afternoon +shopping. A car will be at your disposal, and I give you carte blanche. I +wish you never to know an unsatisfied need or desire. Still, I am selfish +enough to reserve for myself the happiness of selecting your jewels." + +"Oh!" Sofia cried, breathlessly. Victor was holding his arms open; and how +should she deny him? "You are too good to me," she murmured. "How can I +ever show my gratitude?" + +Holding her close, Victor smiled a singular smile. + +"Some day I may tell you. But to-day--no more. I am much preoccupied with +affairs; but Mrs. Waring will take care of you till evening, when I promise +myself the pleasure of dining with you both." + +At the sound of a knock he put Sofia gently from him, and said in a strong +voice: + +"Enter." + +The door opened, Nogam announced: + +"Mr. Sturm." + +Hard on the echo of his name a man swung into the room with an air at once +nervous and aggressive--a tall man shabbily dressed, holding his head +high--and at sight of Sofia and Mrs. Waring, where he had doubtless thought +to find Prince Victor alone, stopped short, betraying disconcertion in the +way he instinctively assumed the stand of a soldier at attention, bringing +his heels together with an undeniable click, straightening his shoulders, +stiffening both arms to rigidity at his sides. And for a bare thought his +eyes rolled almost wildly in their deep sockets. Then he bowed twice, from +the hips, with mechanical precision, profoundly to Victor, with deep +respect to the women. + +Victor smothered an exclamation of annoyance. + +Unbidden, a word shaped in Sofia's consciousness, a French monosyllable +into which the war had packed every shade and gradation of hatred and +contempt, the epithet _Boche_. + +Immediately erasing every sign of irritation, Victor greeted the man with +casual suavity. "Oh, there you are, eh, Sturm?" Then, as Sofia and Mrs. +Waring turned to go, he added quickly: "A moment, please. Since Mr. Sturm +to-day becomes a member of the household, acting as my assistant in some +research work which I am undertaking, I may as well present him now. Mrs. +Waring, permit me: Mr. Sturm. And the Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, my +daughter ..." + +Mumbling their names after Victor, the man Sturm executed two more bows. At +the same time he seemed to remind himself that his soldierly carriage was +perhaps injudicious, and forthwith abandoned it for a studied slouch which, +in Sofia's sight, was little less than insolent. And unmistakably there was +something nearly resembling insolence in the eyes that boldly sought hers: +a look equivocal at best and, intentionally or no, wholly offensive in +essence; as if the fellow were asserting their partnership in some secret +understanding; or as if he knew something by no means to Sofia's credit.... + +Her acknowledgment of his salute was accordingly cool, and she was glad +when a nod from Prince Victor gave her leave to go. + + + +X + +VICTOR ET AL + + +Those first few weeks of emancipation from the ennui of existence at the +Cafe des Exiles were so replete with wonders that Sofia lived largely in a +beatific state of breathless excitement, devoting the best part of her days +to thoughtless flying from delight to new delight, and going nightly to her +bed so healthily tired that she slept like a top and never once awakened to +memories of disturbing dreams. + +Perhaps her pleasure burned the brighter for its dark, ambiguous +background--those many questions which Prince Victor persisted in leaving +unanswered. Sofia knew bad times of perplexity and depression, when the +price of translation from drudge to princess seemed a sore price to pay. + +And yet, required to state the cost to her in terms explicit, she must have +hesitated lest she appear ungrateful in complaining, who hardly needed to +express a wish to have it granted, who indeed knew many a wish realized in +fact before she was fully aware of its inception in her private thoughts. + +All those lovely material things of life which her famished girlhood had +ached for so hopelessly now were hers in abundant measure, and all the less +tangible things, too, so requisite to the happiness of women in a worldly +world--or nearly all. Frocks she had, with furs and furbelows no end; +flowers and flattery and frivolities; freedom within limitations as yet not +irksome; jewels that would have graced an imperial diadem--everything but +the single essential without which everything is hollow nothing and life +itself only the dreaming of a dream. + +The one lack known to the Sofia of those days was the lack of Love. + +She had gone so long longing to love, questing blindly and vainly for some +human being to whom her affection would mean something vital and dear--it +seemed cruel that her longing must be still denied. As it had been with +Mama Therese, it was now with the romantic father so newly self-declared. +She wanted desperately and tried her best to love Victor as his daughter +should; and that he cared for her profoundly she knew and never questioned; +yet when she searched her secret heart Sofia discovered no feeling for the +man other than a singular form of fear. His look, his tone, his manner, his +presence altogether, inspired a nameless sort of shrinking, inarticulate +apprehensions, and mistrust which the girl found at once utterly +unaccountable and dismally disappointing; so that, with every wish and will +to do otherwise, she found herself involuntarily making excuse of trivial +interests to keep out of Victor's way and, when there was no escaping, +sitting silent and ill at ease in his society, or seizing on some slender +pretext, it didn't matter what, to inveigle into their company a third +somebody, it didn't matter whom--Mrs. Waring, Karslake, even the +unspeakable Sturm. + +Nevertheless, there were times, far too many of them, too, when of a sudden +Victor would forsake his occult preoccupations and, unceremoniously +upsetting whatever arrangements Sofia might have made with Mrs. Waring or +Karslake, would find other pleasures of his own invention for her to share +with him alone: long motor jaunts through the English countryside, +apparently his favourite recreation; a box all to themselves at a theatre, +where Victor would sit watching the girl with a fascination only rivalled +by her fascination with the traffic of the boards; curiously constrained +little dinners a deux in fashionable restaurants; morning rides in Rotten +Row, where it oddly appeared that Victor knew everybody, whereas not one in +five hundred seemed to know him--or to care to know him. + +Sofia, indeed, was often puzzled to account for what to her appeared to be +an almost pathetic eagerness on the part of Victor, in strange accord with +his lofty pretensions, to claim acquaintanceship with and win the +recognition even of persons of the utmost inconsequence. And she remarked, +too, that his temper was apt to be raw in sequel to their excursions into +the haunts of the well-known. But it was for other reasons altogether that +she came to dread them most. + +For one thing, Victor's conversation was ordinarily rather dull; at best, +the reverse of exhilarating. And in spite of her unquestioning acceptance +of him as her father, he remained to Sofia actually a new acquaintance; in +effect, a strange man. And from strangers, more than from relatives with +whose minds one is presumably on terms of close intimacy, one is warranted +in expecting something in the way of mutual stimulation through the opening +of new perspectives of experience, thought, and feeling. Whereas--with +Sofia, at least--Victor seemed unable to talk on more than two subjects, +one or the other of which was constantly uppermost in his thoughts. + +He never wearied of warning Sofia against the dangers of those moral +infirmities which he asserted were hers by legitimate inheritance; and +which, if Victor were right in his contentions, she could hardly hope to +overcome without a desperate struggle. She would have to be forever on +guard, he insisted, lest the temptation of some moment, not to be foreseen, +prove too strong for her latent weakness of character, and commit her, +through some unpremeditated act of defiance to the law--most probably an +act of theft--to the life of a social outcast. + +To do her justice, the girl was consciously not much impressed by this +alleged peril. She had never been aware of any failing such as Victor would +have endowed her with; so far as she could remember she had never been +tempted to commit more venial sins than inhered in lying to Mama Therese +now and then in order to escape unmerited disciplining at the heavy hands +of that industrious virago; and as for thieving, the very thought of +anything of that sort was detestable to Sofia. + +But unconsciously, no doubt, the everlasting iteration of Victor's +admonitions had its purposed effect upon that sensitive and impressionable +spirit. + +Then, too, by degrees, but all too soon, it became manifest that the memory +of his passionate attachment for her mother possessed Victor to the point +of monomania. It was only with an effort that he could force himself to +talk to Sofia on other subjects. He thought of nothing else while with her; +if she read his eyes aright, often glimpses of weird light flickering in +their opaque depths, like heat lightning of a murky summer's night, fairly +frightened her, and she knew a shuddering perception of the possibility +that Victor was at times in danger of confusing the daughter with the +mother. + +"Never was there such resemblance," he once uttered, in a stare. "You are +more like her than she herself!" + +Sofia was pardonably puzzled, and looked it. + +"I mean, you re-create my vision of the woman I loved and lost--the woman I +saw in her, not the woman she was." + +"Lost?" the girl murmured. + +The gray countenance took on an added shade of sombre passion. "She never +understood me, she treated me badly. Once, in a fit of pique, she ran away. +I did everything--everything, I tell you!--to win her back, but--" + +He choked on bitter recollections--and Sofia was painfully reminded of the +Chinese devil-masks in Victor's study. But the likeness faded even as she +saw it, under her gaze the twisted features were ironed back into their +accustomed cast of austerity. + +"Before I could persuade her, you were born.... Then she died." + +Sensible though she was of the ellipsis, and afraid it would never be +filled in if she interrupted, Sofia could not help uttering a sound of +regret and pity for the lot of the mother she had never seen, whose +untimely death had ended a life accounted unendurable as Victor's wife, for +reasons unknown but none the less, to the daughter, vaguely and lamentably +understandable. + +For Sofia by now had passed the stage of pretending to herself that she was +not happier away from her father. + +Victor mistook the nature of the feeling that swayed the girl--took to +himself the sympathy excited by his revelations. + +"But do not grieve on my account. Is not that which was lost restored again +to me? In you my old love lives once more ... little Sofia!" + +He caught and pressed a hand that rested on the cloth between them. (They +happened that night to be dining at the Ritz.) And Sofia re-experienced +that inevitable, hateful flinching with which she was growing too familiar. + +She dropped her head that her eyes might not betray her. + +"People will see ..." + +"What if they do? Those who know us will hardly see any wrong in my +squeezing the hand of my own daughter; and the others--not that they +matter--will only think me the luckiest dog alive--as I am!" + +Chuckle and smirk both were indescribably odious, reminding Sofia of the +creature Sturm; _he_ had a laugh like that for her, on the rare occasion +when chance propinquity encouraged the Boche to begin one of his uncouth +essays in flirtation. + +Sturm's attitude, in truth, perplexed Sofia to exasperation; that is to +say, as much as it offended her. For Victor the man seemed to entertain an +exaggerated yet deeply rooted respect, approaching actual awe, which he +tried his best to carry off with a swagger; for to hold anybody in any +degree of deference was, one judged, somehow deplorable, even shameful, in +the code of Sturm; but in Victor's presence the fellow's bravado would +quickly wilt into hopeless servility, he would cringe and crawl like a dog +currying the favour of a harsh master. + +Nevertheless, Victor's daughter seemed to be no more than fair game, in +Sturm's understanding, and a source of supercilious amusement but thinly +veiled or not at all. Alone with the girl, Sturm put on the airs of a +Prussianized pasha condescending to a new odalisque. + +Sofia held the animal in a deadly loathing which, betrayed in word or look +or gesture, animated in him only a spirit of derision. In the absence of +Victor, Sturm's eyes were ever ironic, his bows and leers mocking, his +speeches flavoured with clumsy sarcasm; from which it resulted that the +girl never quite forgot the impression which he had managed to convey in +those few moments of their first encounter, that Sturm knew something she +ought to know but didn't, and was meanly jeering at her in his sleeve. + +What virtues Victor Vassilyevski perceived in the man passed comprehension. +But so did most of Victor's whims and ways. What riddle more obscure than +that portentous business which permeated the atmosphere of the +establishment with the taint of stealth and terror?--the famous "research +work" that kept Victor closeted with Sturm in his study daily for hours at +a time, often in confabulation with others of like ilk, men of furtive and +unprepossessing cast who came and went by appointment at all hours, but as +a rule late at night! + +Into these conferences, Sofia observed, Karslake was never summoned. She +wondered why. He was, as she saw him, so unquestionably the better man, +everything that Sturm was not, open of countenance, fair of temper and +tongue, well-bred and well-mannered, light of heart and high spirited, and +at the same time dependable, with metal of sincerity and earnestness like +tempered steel in his character--or Sofia misread him woefully. + +She had been quick to see the man behind the misleading little moustache. +And already she was beginning to count that amusement tame which Karslake +did not share. + +Mrs. Waring was undeniably a dear. Sofia could hardly be grateful enough to +the happy chance which had cast that lady for the role of her chaperone; +lacking her guidance the girl must have been innocently guilty of many a +gaucherie in ways new and strange to untried, faltering feet. And it was to +her alone that Sofia owed the slow but constant widening of her social +horizon. For Sybil Waring, it seemed, quite literally "knew everybody"; and +Sofia soon learned to count it an off day when Sybil failed to present her +protegee to the notice of somebody of position and influence. + +Most of these persons were women with sounding names and the solid backing +of much money conspicuously in evidence--matrons of the younger and more +giddy generation which was just then so busily engaged in providing +material for the most hectic chapters of London's post-war social history. +But Sofia was scarcely qualified to be critical or to guess that they were +climbers equally with herself, and that if their footing had been of older +establishment the name of Vassilyevski would have rung sinister echoes in +their memories, deafening them to the rich allure inherent in the title of +princess. + +So she was fain to accept them all at their own valuation, and thought most +of them entirely charming. And though she had hardly had time as yet to +progress beyond the introductory stages of chance meetings and informal +little teas in public, she began clearly to descry enchanting vistas of +better days to come, when the Princess Sofia Vassilyevski would have not +only teas but dinners and dances given in her honour, and would be asked to +spend gay week-ends in the country houses of the people with whom she +contracted the stronger friendships. + +But for the immediate present, and especially in the paramount business of +having a good time, Karslake was fairly a necessity. He thought of +everything and forgot nothing, was ever fertile of fresh expedient if the +pastime of a moment began to pall, and was capable of sustained fits of +irresponsible gaiety which enchanted Sofia, so well did they chime with her +own eagerness for sheer fun. + +Decidedly she would have been lost without Sybil Waring; but without +Karslake she would have been forlorn. + + + +XI + +HEARTBREAK + + +Not yet prepared to admit it even to herself, in her heart Sofia knew she +prized the companionship of Karslake for something more than the mere +amusement it afforded her: there was a deeper feeling she would not name. +For all that, her times of solitude knew dreams quick and warm with the +thought of Karslake, his words and ways, the gracious little attentions he +had accustomed her to expect of him and which his manner subtly invested +with a personal flavour inexpressibly delightful, indispensably sweet. + +Nor did she ever quite forget how long he had worshipped with +unostentatious devotion at her lowly shrine of the caisse in the Cafe des +Exiles, and how shabbily she had rewarded his admiration--never once, in +those many months, with so much as a smile--and how unresentful had been +his acceptance of her half-feigned, half-real indifference to his +existence. + +But whenever her reflections took that back-turning she would recall the +man who had talked to Karslake in the cafe, that day so long ago, of his +own humble past as a 'bus-boy in Troyon's in Paris, and who on leaving had +given Sofia herself that odd look of half-recognition tempered by +bewilderment. + +She tried once to draw Karslake about this acquaintance of his, but +Karslake's memory proved unusually sluggish. + +"No-o," he drawled after a tolerably long pause for thought--"can't say I +place the chap you mean, can't seem somehow to think back that far, you +know. One meets such a lot of people, first and last, they talk such a lot +of tosh--" + +"But it couldn't have been only tosh you were talking," the girl persisted, +"because--_I_ remember--you were so keen about keeping what you said +secret, you spoke the strangest language together most of the time. I could +hear every word"--she had already explained about the freak acoustics of +the Cafe des Exiles--"and not one meant anything to me." + +"Stupid of me, but I simply can't think what it could have been." + +"I can--now." + +Karslake looked askance at Sofia. + +"Since I've heard so much Chinese spoken by the servants--now I come to +think of it"--Sofia's eyes grew bright with triumph--"I'm sure it must have +been Chinese you were speaking to the man I mean." + +"Impossible," Karslake pronounced calmly. + +"But you do know Chinese, don't you?" + +"Not a syllable." + +Sofia opened her lips to protest, but delayed to study Karslake's face +intently. He didn't try to escape her scrutiny, he even seemed to court it; +but there was a curious, quizzical look in his eyes, those half-smiling +lips had a whimsical droop. + +"Mr. Karslake!" Sofia announced, severely, "you're fibbing." + +"Nice thing to say to me." + +"You do speak Chinese--confess." + +"My dear Princess Sofia," Karslake protested: "if I had known one word of +Chinese I could never have landed my job with your father." + +"Why not?" + +"He expressly stipulated that I should be ignorant of that language." + +"What a silly condition to make!" + +"Still, I daresay Prince Victor had his reasons." + +"I can't imagine what ..." + +"Possibly preferred a secretary who couldn't understand everything he said +to the servants. I've never pretended to know all Prince Victor's secrets, +you know." + +After a little pause Sofia asked gently: "Did you really need the job so +badly, Mr. Karslake?" + +"To get it meant more to me than I can tell you--almost as much as to hold +on to it does to-day." + +Sofia turned her eyes away at this, and for the rest of the ride--they were +homeward bound from a matinee, having dropped Sybil Waring at her flat in +Mayfair--kept her thoughts to herself. + +Only the most perfunctory civilities passed between them, in fact, until +they had been ushered into the study by Nogam, who advised them that Prince +Victor had ordered tea to be served there and had promised to be home in +good time for it. + +The tea service was already set out on a little table beside the fireplace +in that room of secrets, whose normal atmosphere of brooding gloom was now +the darker for the deepening dusk. Only the tea itself remained to be +served, a special rite never performed in that household by hands more +profane than those of the major-domo, Shaik Tsin himself. And this last +could be counted upon not to put in appearance until Nogam took him word +that Victor was waiting. + +So, having laid aside her furs and satisfied herself, by a seemingly +aimless but in fact exacting survey, that the abominable Sturm was not +skulking anywhere in the shadows, Sofia established herself on a lounge +that faced the fireplace, while Karslake stood before the fire, looking +down with an expectant smile of which she was but half aware. + +"Aren't you going to forgive me?" he asked, quietly, after a time. + +Sofia withdrew a pensive gaze from the ruddy bed of coals. + +"For what?" + +"You were kind enough to call it merely fibbing." + +"I'm still thinking about that." + +In fact, she had been thinking of nothing else. There was so much to be +considered. Imprimis, that Karslake had been guilty of practising a +deception upon her father. Deceit in itself was one form of treachery. And +how often had Victor stressed to her the dangers of his position, +surrounded by nameless but implacable enemies who would stick at no infamy +to compass his ruin! + +But if she told him that Karslake understood Chinese she would lose her +friend forever--no question about that. Victor would not hesitate an +instant--indeed, Sofia felt sure he was only waiting for some such pretext +to get rid of his secretary. She was anything but unobserving, this child +of Soho, whose wits had been sharpened in the sophisticated atmosphere of a +French restaurant; and more than once she had seen Victor's face duplicate +the expression Papa Dupont's had so often assumed on his discovering that +some patron of the cafe was taking too personal an interest in the pretty +young dame du comptoir. A look of insensate jealousy ... + +To risk forfeiting the comradeship that had grown to be so dear? Or to be +constructively derelict in her duty as a daughter? + +A difficult choice to make; but Sofia made it honestly. In point of fact, +she assured herself, coldly, there was no choice, there was only one thing +she could do under the circumstances. And she hardened her heart and eyes +as she rose to face Karslake on more equal terms. + +But when she saw him waiting patiently, with that friendly smile of his she +knew so well, she hesitated long enough to permit his anticipating her with +a quiet question: + +"Well, Princess Sofia?" + +And then, amazingly, her tongue betrayed her, the phrases she had framed so +carefully vanished utterly from out her mind; and she heard herself saying +in rather tremulous accents: + +"It's all right. I shan't tell." + +"About my understanding Chinese?" + +"Yes--about that." + +"Then you do care--?" + +She was panicky with knowledge that somehow her emotions had managed to +slip their moorings and get beyond her handling. It didn't help or mend +matters much to hear her own voice stammering: + +"Yes, of course, I--I don't want you to--to have to go away--" + +Oh, the vanity of trying to hoodwink him who knew so well what she was now +for the first time realizing! + +"Because you like me a little, Princess Sofia?" + +"Why--yes--of course I do--" + +"Because you know I love you, dear." + +And then she found herself clinging to Karslake; and his lips were warm +upon her hands ... + +So suddenly and at long last it came to Sofia, that Love for which all her +days had been one long weariness of waiting, Love that brimmed with +raptures what had been only aching emptiness and made the desert places to +blossom as the rose. And the joy of it proved overmastering, sweeping her +off her feet and dazing her, leaving her breathless and thoughtless but for +the all-obscuring thought--at length she loved, and the one whom she loved +loved her! + +And for a space she existed in an iridescent dream of happiness, without +sense of relation to a material world, forgetful of the flight of time, +lost to everything but her lover's arms and voice and lips. + +It might have been five minutes, it might have been sixty, before she +became aware that Karslake was gently disengaging her hands. "Dearest, +dearest!" she heard him say. "We must be sensible. That was the front door, +I'm afraid." + +The meaning in his insistence presently began to penetrate, if vaguely, and +she suffered him to go from her a pace or two. But, still a little blind +with the beauty of the revelation that had been granted unto her, nothing +that met her gaze seemed to be in true focus except her lover's face: even +the countenance of Victor swam into her ken as if blurred by veils of mist, +its dour, forbidding look had no significance to her intelligence. Victor +himself, for that matter, was a figure without real consequence other than +as a symbol of the old order, the tedious old ways of the world from which +she had magically escaped. + +A ring of sarcastic apology provided the only clue she got to the import +of Victor's words. Sobered a trifle, her mental processes somewhat less +incoherent, still she knew she would hardly regain her poise until she was +alone. And breathing an excuse, she left the room with such dignity as she +could muster. + +In the hall, with the closed door behind her, she paused to collect +herself. Then she missed furs and gloves and handbag and, remembering that +she had left them in the study, for some obscure reason imagined she must +have them before proceeding to her room. + +Much more mistress of herself by now, it never occurred to Sofia that there +could be any reason why she should hesitate about returning or feel +embarrassed before Victor. True, he had surprised them, Sofia was not at +all sure he hadn't actually seen her in Karslake's arms. But what of that? +Love like hers was nothing to be ashamed of; and that Victor could +reasonably object to her giving her heart to one of his secretaries was +something far from her thought just then. + +She put a hand to the knob, turned it, and swung the door open--all on +impulse--then faltered, transfixed by the tableau before the fireplace. + +The door was silent on its hinges, and Karslake's back was to her. Victor, +on the other hand, facing both Karslake and the door, unquestionably saw +Sofia, but pretended not to, and had his say out with Karslake in a manner +bitterly cynical. + +"... sadly in error if you flatter yourself I pay you a wage to make love +to Sofia behind my back." + +"Sorry, sir." Karslake's tone was level, respectful but firm. "Your +instructions were, I believe, to win her confidence. Well--I have always +found love the one sure key to a woman's confidence. Of course, if I had +understood you cared one way or the other--" + +Sofia heard no more: unconsciously she had closed the door, at one and the +same time shutting from her sight Victor's exultant sneer and from her +hearing the words with which the man whom she loved had damned himself +irretrievably and dashed her spirit from radiant pinnacles of ecstasy into +the profoundest black abyss of shame and despair. + +Primitive instinct bade the stricken girl seek her room and hide her +suffering there; but the shock had stunned her to the point of physical +weakness. Already a hand was pressed above her heart, that ached cruelly; +and as she moved to cross to the foot of the staircase her knees gave under +her. She clutched the newel-post for support, waiting to find strength for +the ascent. + +From the shadowed back part of the hall the man Nogam moved hastily into +view, his features twisted in a grimace of concern as he recognized the +bleak misery of Sofia's face. His voice sounded strangely thin and remote. + +"Is there anything the matter, miss?--anything I can do?" + +She contrived to shake her head slightly and utter an inarticulate sound +of negation, then began slowly to mount the stairs. + +Below, Nogam stood watching, in a pose of indecision, as if tempted to +follow and offer the support of an arm lest she fall, restrained only by +fear of a rebuff. But Sofia's leaden limbs carried her safely to the upper +landing, then on to the blessed shelter of her room, where she collapsed +upon a chaise-longue and there lay in a stirless huddle, dry of eye but +deaf to the plaintive entreaties of Chou Nu and numb to all sensation but +the anguish of her humiliated heart. + + + +XII + +SUSPECT + + +Toward mid-evening the man Victor Vassilyevski and his creature Sturm sat +where the lamp of hand-wrought brass made the top of the teakwood table an +oasis of light amid a waste of shadows, their heads together over a vast +glut of books and papers--maps printed and sketched, curious diagrams, +works of reference, documents all dark with columns of figures and +cabalistic writings intelligible only to initiated eyes. + +They had the study all to themselves. Nevertheless, when they spoke it was +in the discreet pitch of those who deal in fatal secrets. At a distance of +two paces only a lip-reader could have caught the substance of their +communications, and even such a one must have failed unless equally at home +in German and in English. + +Aside from these occasional and circumspect voices, and the busy rustle of +a steel pen in the hand of Sturm, the quiet of the room had a tolerably +constant background of sound in a subdued whisper punctuated by muffled +clicks, emanating from the bronze casket that housed the telautographic +apparatus. + +From time to time, as this noise temporarily suspended, Victor would get +up, read what the mechanical stylus had inscribed, tear off the paper, and +return to his chair. + +Some of the messages thus received he made known to Sturm, who invariably +acknowledged this courtesy with effusive gratitude, sometimes adding a few +words of contented comment. Other messages Victor chose to keep to himself, +silently setting fire to them and adding their brittle ashes to those of +their predecessors on the brazen tray provided for the purpose. At such +times Sturm would bend lower over his work. But Victor was well able to +guess what resentment glimmered in the eyes so studiously averted; and his +cold, sardonic smile more than once commented, unknown to Sturm, upon the +accuracy with which he read the mean workings of his "secretary's" mind. + +The buzz of a muted bell presently interrupted the even tenor of their +industry, causing Sturm to start sharply, drop his pen, and slue round in +his chair, turning to Victor a livid face in which his dark eyes of a +fanatic were live embers of excitement. + +Without a sign to show he shared or even was aware of Sturm's emotion, +Victor deliberately fished from beneath the table a telephone instrument, +unhooked the receiver, and pronounced a conventional phrase of greeting. To +this he added a short "Yes," and after listening quietly for some seconds, +"Very good--in twenty minutes, then." Wasting no more time on the author +of the call, he hung up, returned the telephone to its place of +concealment, and helped himself to a cigarette before deigning to +acknowledge Sturm's persistent stare. + +Then, elevating his eyebrows in mild impatience, he made the laconic +announcement: + +"Eleven." + +Sturm's mouth twitched nervously, his eyes burned with a keener fire. + +"Coming here? To-night?" + +"Yes." + +"Then"--a gaunt hand described a gesture of agitation--"the hour strikes!" + +Victor looked bored. + +"Who knows?" he replied, as who should say: "Does it matter?" + +"But--Gott in Himmel--!" + +"Sturm," Victor interposed, critically, "if you Bolsheviki were a trifle +more consistent, one might repose greater faith in your sincerity. But when +one hears you deny the Deity in one breath and call on him by name in the +next--!" + +"A mere mode of speech," Sturm muttered. + +"If you must invoke a spiritual patron, why not Satan? Or don't you believe +in the Powers of Darkness, either?" + +"I believe in you." + +"As temporal viceroy of Lucifer? Many thanks! But you were about to say--?" + +"Nothing. That is--I was envying your poise, Excellency. You take things +so coolly." + +"Why not?" + +"With Eleven coming here to tell us when we are to strike?" + +"Why not?" Victor repeated. "We are prepared to strike at any hour. What +matters whether to-night or a week from to-night--since we cannot fail?" + +"If that were only certain!" + +"It rests with you." + +"That's just it," Sturm doubted moodily. "Suppose _I_ fail?" + +"Why, then--I suppose--you will die." + +"I know. And so will all of us, Excellency." + +"Oh, no. Undeceive yourself, my friend. I shall survive. You will surely +die, and perhaps many others with you; but I would not be Number One if I +had turned my hand to this scheme without discounting failure first of all. +My way of escape is sure." + +"I believe you," Sturm grumbled. + +With a languid hand Victor found and pressed a button embedded in the table +near the edge. + +"You have reason. Whatever my shortcomings, my good Sturm, they do not +include hypocrisy; I do not pretend, like your noble Bolsheviki, I am in +this business for the sake of humanity or anything but my own selfish +ends--power, plunder"--a slight wait prefaced one final word, spoken in a +key of sombre passion--"revenge." + +"Revenge?" Sturm echoed, staring. + +"I have more than one score to pay out before I can cry even with life ... +one above all!" + +Studying intently that darkened face, and misled by its look of +abstraction, Sturm was guilty of the indiscretion of his malicious smile. + +"The Lone Wolf?" + +Victor turned weary eyes his way, and under their black and lustreless +regard the smile merged swiftly into a grin of nervous apology. + +"You are shrewd," Victor observed, thoughtfully. "Be careful: it is a +dangerous gift." + +The man Nogam gently opened the door and approached the table, stopping +just outside the area of illumination shed by the shaded lamp. But since +Victor continued to smoke absently, paying no attention, Nogam resigned +himself to wait with entire patience: the perfect pattern of a servant +tempered by long servitude to the erratic winds of employers' whims; +efficient, assiduous, mute unless required to speak, long-suffering. + +Victor addressed him suddenly, in a sharp voice that drew from Sturm a +glitter of eager spite. + +"Nogam!" + +"Yes, sir?" + +"Where is the Princess Sofia?" + +"In 'er apartment, sir." + +"And Mr. Karslake?" + +"In 'is." + +"Then be good enough to send Shaik Tsin to me." + +"Yes, sir." + +"And, Nogam!"--the servant checked in the act of turning--"I shan't need +you again to-night." + +"'Nk you, sir." + +When Nogam had left the room, Sturm, remarking the slight frown that +knitted Victor's brows, ventured an impertinence couched in a form of +respectful enquiry: + +"Excellency, perhaps you trust that fellow too much, hein?" + +"You think so?" + +"He is too perfect, if you ask me--never makes a false move." + +"Either he is what he seems, in which event a false move would be against +nature; or he is not, and knows one slip would mean his death." + +"Still, I maintain you trust him too much." + +"With what?" + +"The freedom of your house, the opportunity to spy, to get to know who +comes to see you and when, to listen at doors." + +"You have caught him listening at doors?" + +"Not yet. But in time--" + +"I think not. I don't think he has to." + +"You mean," Sturm stammered, perturbed, "you think he knows--suspects?" + +"I think he is one thing or the other: merely Nogam, or one of the greatest +of living actors. In either case he is flawless--thus far. But if not +merely Nogam, he will have a subtler means of eavesdropping than by +listening at doors." + +"The dictograph?" + +"Make your mind easy about that. This room is searched regularly by Shaik +Tsin. So is Nogam's. It is certain there is neither a dictograph installed +here nor any means at Nogam's disposal for connecting with a dictograph +installation. Indeed, so closely is Nogam watched, and by more cunning eyes +than mine--sometimes I begin to be afraid he is simply what he seems." + +"Then you do suspect him!" + +"My good Sturm, I suspect everybody." + +Sturm pondered this before pressing his point again. + +"Karslake found the fellow for you," he suggested at length. + +"True." + +"And Karslake--" + +"Has been guilty of nothing more treacherous than falling in love with +Sofia." + +"Your daughter, Excellency!" + +"The young woman seems content to call herself that.... Can't say I blame +Karslake." + +"But do you forgive him?" + +"Ah, that is another matter. Mine is not a forgiving nature, Sturm--not +even toward excessive shrewdness." + +Victor took up a docket of papers, and Sturm, mumbling an apology, gave +himself up to jealous brooding till he forgot the broad hint he had +received. + +"If I can satisfy you that Nogam is untrustworthy--" he began, meaning to +continue: _Karslake will stand his proved accomplice_. + +But Victor would not let him finish. "Nothing could please me more," he +interrupted. "Do so, by all means--if you can--and earn my everlasting +gratitude." + +Sturm questioned him with puzzled eyes. + +"I ask no greater service of any man," Victor elucidated with a smile that +made Sturm shiver, "than proof that Nogam is what I suspect him of being." +A hand extended upon the table unclosed and closed slowly, with fingers +tensed, like a murderous claw. "I want no greater favour of Heaven or +Hell--!" + +He broke off abruptly. Having entered noiselessly in his padded shoes, +Shaik Tsin now stood before Victor, offering a low obeisance. + +"You took your time," Victor grumbled. And Shaik Tsin smiled serenely. "I +want you to tend the door to-night," Victor pursued. "Eleven is expected at +any moment. You need not announce him, simply show him in." + +"Hearing is obedience." + +"Wait"--as the Chinaman began to bow himself out--"Karslake is still in his +room, I suppose?" + +"Yes, master." + +"And Nogam?" + +"Has just gone to his." + +"When did you last search their quarters?" + +"During dinner." + +"And of course found nothing?" Shaik Tsin bowed. "Make sure neither leaves +his room to-night. Set a watch outside each door." + +"I have done so." + +Victor gave a sign of dismissal. + + + +XIII + +THE TURNIP + + +In a spacious chamber beneath the eaves, hideously papered and furnished +with cheerless, massive relics of the early Victorian era, the man Nogam +pursued methodical preparations for bed. + +Spying eyes, had there been any--and for all Nogam knew, there were--would +have seen him follow step by step a programme from whose order he had +departed by scarcely as much as a single gesture on any night since his +first installation in the house near Queen Anne's Gate. + +Loosening the waistcoat of his evening livery, he freed the heavy silver +watchchain from its buttonhole, drew from its pocket an old-fashioned +silver watch of that obese style which first earned the portable timepiece +its nickname of "turnip," and opening its back inserted a key attached to +the other end of the chain. Its winding was a laborious process, +prodigiously noisy. Once finished, Nogam shut the back with a loud click, +and reverently deposited the watch on the marble slab of the black walnut +bureau. + +Then he hung coat and waistcoat over the back of a chair which stood +between the foot of his bed and the door. Sheer chance may have decreed +selection of this chair for the purpose on Nogam's first night in the room; +whether or no, it was not in character that, having established this +precedent, Nogam should depart from it. And in any event, the coat-draped +chair effectually eclipsed a possible keyhole view of the room. + +Notwithstanding, Nogam pursued his bedtime rites with precisely the same +deliberation and absence of perceptible self-consciousness as before. One +never knew: there might be other peepholes in the walls. + +His trousers, neatly folded, he laid out on the seat of the chair. Then he +pulled off square-toed boots with elastic inserts in their uppers, put on a +pair of worn slippers, carried the boots to the door and set them outside, +closed the door, and turned the key in its lock. + +If aware that, by so doing, he made his privacy just as secure as if he had +fastened the door with a bent hair-pin, he gave evidence of no uneasiness +in the knowledge. A clear conscience is the best of nerve tonics. + +Throughout, his features preserved their mild, subdued, dull habit with +which the household was familiar. Nogam off duty was in no way different +from the unthinking creature of habit who performed belowstairs the +prescribed functions of his office. + +Having donned a nightshirt of coarse cotton, he knelt for several minutes +in a devout attitude by the side of his bed, then rising opened the window, +took the turnip from the bureau, and snuggled it beneath his pillow, +inserted his bare shanks between the sheets, and opened at a marked place a +Bible bound in black cloth. + +On the table by his shoulder a battered electric standard with a frayed +cord and a dingy shade remained alight long enough to permit Nogam to spell +out a short chapter. Then he put the Bible aside, yawned wearily, and +switched out the lamp. + +Profound darkness now possessed the room, immaterially modified by the +light-struck sky beyond the windows. And in this grateful obscurity Nogam +permitted himself the luxury of ceasing to be Nogam. A light suddenly +flashed upon his face would have discovered a keen and alert intelligence +transfiguring the apathetic mask of every day. Also, it would have rendered +Nogam's probable duration of life an interesting speculation. + +Under cover of the darkness, furthermore, he did a number of things which +Nogam, qua Nogam, would never have dreamed of doing. + +His first act was to withdraw from under his pillow the turnip, his next to +re-open the back of its silver case and then the inner lid--something which +a deft thumbnail accomplished without a sound. + +From the roomy interior of the case--whose bulky ancient works had been +replaced by a wafer-thin modern movement, leaving much useful space back +of the dial--sensitive fingers extracted a metal disk about the size and +thickness of a silver dollar. One face of this disk was generously +perforated, the other, solid, boasted a short blunt post round which +several feet of extremely fine wire had been coiled. + +Unwinding the wire and bending the free end into the form of a rude hook, +the man attached this last to the cord of his bedside lamp at a point, +located by sense of touch, where a minute section of electric light wire +had been left naked by defective insulation. + +Direct connection now being established with a microphone secreted in the +base of the brass lamp on the study table, three floors below, and the +perforated side of the microphone detector serving as an earpiece, one +could hear every word uttered by the conspirators. + +The man in bed contributed a broad smile to the kind darkness--sheer luxury +to facial muscles cramped and constrained to the cast of Nogam for eighteen +hours a day. He was now at last to reap the reward of three months of +preparation and three weeks of ingenious, but necessarily spasmodic, and at +all times desperately dangerous, tampering with the house wiring system. + +He lay very still for a long time, listening ... + + + +XIV + +CONFERENCE OF THE DAMNED + + +An Irish voice was making the hush of the study musical with mellow +cadences. + +"This week-end sure, your Excellency--within the next three nights--the +little Welshman will be after summoning the Cabinet to sit in secret in +Downing Street, with His Most Gracious Majesty attending in person; the +emergency extraordinary being thoughtfully provided by this shindig me +amiable but spirited fellow-countrymen are kicking up across the +Channel--God bless the work!" + +The speaker laughed lightly, flashing white teeth at Prince Victor across +the width of the paper-strewn table. + +"In more Parliamentary language, by the Irish Question. But we'll hear no +more of that, I'm thinking, once we've proclaimed the Soviet Government of +England." + +Victor bowed in grave assent. + +"You have my word as to that," he said; and after a moment of thoughtful +consideration: "You speak, no doubt, from the facts?" + +"I do that. It's straight I've come from the House of Commons to bring you +the news without an hour's delay. There's more than one advantage in being +an Irish Member these days." + +"On the other hand, Eleven"--Victor stressed the numeral as if to remind +the Irishman that even a Member of Parliament for Ireland held no higher +standing in his esteem than any other underling in his association of +anonymous conspirators--"even so, it appears you are uncertain as to the +night." + +"I'm after telling you it'll be to-morrow night or more likely +Saturday--Sunday at the latest." A mildly impatient accent alone betrayed +resentment of the snub. "I'll know in good time, long before the hour +appointed; and that ought to do, providing you on your part are prepared." + +"An hour's notice will be ample," Victor agreed. "We have been ready for +days, needing only the knowledge you bring us--or will, when you have it +definitely." + +The Irishman chuckled. + +"It's hard to believe. Not that I'd dream of doubting your statement, +sir--but yourself won't be denying you must have worked fast to organize +England for revolution in less than three weeks." + +"I have been busy," Victor admitted. "But the work was not so difficult ... +Seeds of revolution are easily sown in land thoroughly tilled by forces of +discontent. And what land has been better tilled? To vary the figure: +England is all seething beneath a thin crust of custom and established +habit whose integrity a conservative and reactionary government has ever +since the war been struggling desperately to preserve. The blow we shall +strike within three days will shatter that crust in a hundred places." + +"And let Hell loose!" the Irishman added with a nervous laugh. + +In a dry voice Victor commented: "Precisely." + +"Omelettes," Sturm interjected, assertively, "are not made without breaking +eggs." + +"And all rivers, no doubt, flow to the sea? What a lot you know, Herr +Sturm! Is it the Portfolio of the Minister of Education you've picked out +for your very own, after the explosion comes off--if it's a fair question?" + +"You Irish are all mad," the German complained, sourly--"mad about +laughing. Even me you will laugh at, while you trust your very life to me, +while you trust to my genius to make Soviet England possible and Ireland +free." + +"Faith! you're away off there, me friend. If it was you and your genius I +had to trust, it's meself would turn violent reactionary and advise Ireland +to be a good dog and come to England's heel and lick England's hand and +live off England's leavings. I'll trust nobody in this black business but +himself--Number One." + +"You have changed your tune since that night at the Red Moon," Sturm +reminded him, angrily. + +"I had me lesson then and there," Eleven agreed, cheerfully. "And I don't +mind telling you, the next time I'm taken with a fancy to call me soul me +own, I'll be after asking himself first for a license." + +Victor put a period to the passage with a dispassionate "By your leave, +gentlemen--that will do." To the Irishman he added: "You understand the +danger, I believe, of remaining within the condemned area--that is to say, +except in the open air?" + +"Can't say I do, altogether." + +"It is simple: no person in any house supplied by the mains of the +Westminster gas works will be safe for hours after the formula of Thirteen +has begun its work. My advice to you is to keep out of the district +entirely." + +"Faith, and I'll do that! But how about yourself in this house?" + +"I shall spend the week-end outside of London," Victor replied, "not too +far away, of course, and"--the shadow of his satiric smile was briefly +visible--"prepared at any moment to answer the call of my stricken +country.... The few who remain here will be provided with the essentials +for their protection. Furthermore, a general warning will be sent out to +all who can be trusted." + +"And the others--?" + +"With them it must be as Fate wills." + +"Women and children, potential sympathizers and supporters of all classes?" +the Irishman persisted in incredulous horror--"all?" + +"All," Victor affirmed, coldly. "We who deal in the elemental passions +that make revolutions, that is to say, in Life and Death, cannot afford +qualms and scruples. What are a few lives more or less in London? These +British breed like rabbits." + +"I see," said Eleven, indistinctly. He stared a moment and swallowed hard, +then glanced hastily at his watch. "I'll be after bidding you good-night," +he said, "and pleasant dreams. For meself, I'm a fool if I go to bed this +night sober enough to dream at all, at all!" + +Victor rang for Shaik Tsin to show him out. + +"One question more, if you won't take it amiss," Eleven suggested, +lingering. And Victor inclined a gracious head. "Have you thought of +failure?" + +"I have thought of everything." + +"Well, and if we do fail--?" + +"How, for example?" + +"How do I know what hellish accident may kick our plans into a cocked hat? +Anything might happen. There's your friend, the Lone Wolf, for +instance ..." + +"Have you not forgotten him yet?" Victor enquired in simulated surprise. +"Have you neglected to remark that since the blunderer failed to find the +Council Chamber that night, when his raid at the Red Moon netted him only a +handful of coolie gamblers and drug-addicts, he has left us to our own +devices?" + +"That's what makes me wonder what the divvle's up to. His sort are never so +dangerous as when apparently discouraged." "Be reassured. I promised you +three weeks ago his interference would not continue beyond that night. It +has not. Lanyard knows I have his daughter, that any blow aimed at me must +first strike her." + +"Doubtless yourself knows best...." + +With the Irishman gone, Prince Victor turned to Sturm. + +"You will want a good night's sleep," he suggested with pointed solicitude. +"Who knows but that to-morrow will bring your night of nights, my friend?" + +He lapsed immediately into remote abstraction, sitting with chin bent to +the tips of his joined fingers, his eyes downcast, motionless. + +Disgruntled, but afraid to show it, the German cleared away the litter of +papers, assorting them into huge portfolios, and took himself off. Shaik +Tsin replaced him, moving noiselessly about the room, restoring the +reference books to the shelves and stowing the portfolios away in a massive +safe hidden behind a lacquered screen. This done, he stationed himself +before his master, awaiting his attention, a shape of affable placidity, +intelligent, at ease; his attitude not entirely lacking a suggestion of +familiarity. + +Without changing his pose by so much as the lifting of an eyelash, Victor +spoke in Chinese: + +"To-morrow afternoon, late, I shall motor down into the country with the +girl Sofia. I shall be gone three days--perhaps. I will leave a telephone +number with you, to be used only in emergency. As soon as I have left, you +will dismiss all the English servants, with a quarter's wage in advance in +lieu of notice. Karslake will provide the money." + +"He does not accompany you?" + +"No." + +"And the man Nogam?" + +Victor appeared to hesitate. "What do you think?" he enquired at length. + +"What I have always thought." + +"That he is a spy?" + +"Yes." + +"But with no tangible support for your suspicions?" + +"None." + +"You have not failed to watch him closely?" + +"As a cat watches a mouse." + +"But--nothing?" + +"Nothing." + +"Yet I agree with you entirely, Shaik Tsin. I smell treachery." + +"And I." + +"Nogam shall go with me as my bodyservant. Thus I shall be able to keep an +eye on him. Let Chou Nu be prepared to accompany us as maid to the girl +Sofia. In my absence you will be guided by such further instructions as I +may leave with you. These failing, consider the man Sturm, my personal +representative. In the contingency you know of, Sturm will warn you in time +to clear the house." + +"Of everybody?" + +"Of all servants except those whom you may need to guard the man Karslake. +These and yourself will be provided with means of self-protection by +Sturm." + +"And Karslake?" + +"I have not yet made up my mind." + +"Hearing is obedience." + +Victor relapsed into another reverie which lasted so long that even the +patience of Shaik Tsin bade fair to fail. In the end the silence was broken +by two words: + +"The crystal." + +From a cabinet at the end of the room Shaik Tsin brought a crystal ball +supported on the backs of three golden dragons standing tail to tail, +superbly wrought examples of Chinese goldsmithing. This he placed carefully +on the black teakwood surface at Victor's elbow. + +"And now, inform the girl Sofia I wish to see her." + +"And if she again sends her excuses?" + +"Say, in that event, I shall be obliged to come to her room." + + + +XV + +INTUITION + + +She had not thought, of course, of going down to dinner; she had, instead, +sent Victor word simply that she begged to be excused from joining him for +that meal. Then, unable longer to endure Chou Nu's efforts to comfort or +distract her, Sofia had stepped out of her street frock and into a negligee +and, dismissing the maid, returned to the chaise-longue upon which, in vain +hope of being able to cry out the wretchedness of her heart, she had thrown +herself on first gaining the sanctuary of her room. + +For hours, she did not guess how many, she scarcely stirred. Neither was +the blessed boon of tears granted unto her. Alone with her immense and +immitigable misery, she lay in darkness tempered only by the dim skyshine +that filtered through the window draperies; hating life, that had no mercy; +hating the duplicity that had led Karslake into making untrue love to her, +but inexplicably not hating Karslake himself, or the enshrined image that +wore his name; hating herself for her facile readiness to give love where +all but the guise of love was lacking, and for knowing this deep hurt +where she should have felt only scorn and anger; but hating, most of all, +or rather for the first time discovering how well she hated, him to whom +unerring intuition told her she owed this brimming measure of heartbreak +and humiliation, the man who called himself her father. + +For if Karslake had done her a cruel wrong in winning her avowal of the +love that had been growing in her heart these many weeks, while he was +merely amusing himself or serving a secret purpose--whose was the initial +blame for that? + +Who had egged Karslake on, as he had asserted, "to win her confidence," +leaving to him the choice of means to that end? + +And--_why_? + +The formulation of this question marked the turning point in Sofia's +descent toward the nadir of shame and anguish; from the moment its +significance was clearly apprehended (but it took her long to reach this +stage) the complexion of her thoughts took on another colour, and the smart +of chagrin was soothed even as the irritation excited by critical +examination of Victor's conduct grew more acute. + +Why should the self-styled author of her being have thought it necessary, +or even wise or kind, to commission a paid employee to win his daughter's +confidence? + +What had rendered the conquest of her confidence so needful in his sight? + +What had made him think Sofia would prove loath to resign it to him, or +more likely to give it to another? + +Why had Victor hesitated to bid for her confidence with his own tongue, on +his own merits? + +One would think that, if he were her father-- + +If! + +_Was_ he? + +Sofia sat up sharply, her young body as taut as her temper. Pulses and +breathing quickened, intent eyes probed the shadows as if she thought to +wrest from them a clue to the mystery of her status in the household of +Victor Vassilyevski. + +What proof had she that he was her father? + +None but his word.... Well, and Karslake's.... None that would stand the +test of skepticism, none that either sentiment or reason could offer and +support. Certainly she resembled Prince Victor in no respect that she could +think of, not in person, not in mould of character, not in ways of thought. +From the very first she had been perplexed, and indeed saddened, by her +failure, her sheer inability, to react emotionally to their alleged +relationship. And surely there must exist between parent and child some +sort of spiritual bond or affinity, something to draw them together--even +if neither had never known the other. Whereas she on her part had never +been conscious of any sense of sympathy with Victor, but only of timidity +and reluctance which had latterly manifested in unquestionable aversion. +And then there was his attitude toward her, raising a question so +repugnant to her understanding that never before to-night had Sofia +admitted its existence and given it the freedom of her thoughts. + +She had seen men, in the Cafe des Exiles, toast their mistresses with such +looks as Victor Vassilyevski reserved for the girl whom he claimed as his +child. + +What, then, if he were not her father? + +What if he had only pretended to paternal rights in furtherance of some +deep scheme of his?--perhaps thinking to use her as a pawn in that dark +plot which he was forever brewing in his study (with canaille like Sturm +for collaborators!) that mysterious "research work" that flavoured the +atmosphere of the house with a miasmatic reek of intrigue, stealth, and +fear--perhaps (more simply and terribly) designing in his own time and way +to avenge himself upon the daughter for the admitted slights he had +suffered at the hands of the mother, that poor dead woman whose fame he +never ceased to blacken while still her memory was potent to kindle fires +in those eyes otherwise so opaque, impenetrable, and lightless! + +Now Sofia found herself unable to sit still; only through action of some +sort could she hope to win any measure of ease for brain and nerves. A +thought was shaping, claiming precedence over all others, the thought of +flight; bred of the feeling that, as long as she remained in ignorance of +the exact truth concerning their relationship, it was impossible for her to +remain longer under Victor's roof, eating his bread and salt, schooling +herself to suffer his endearments whose good faith she could not help +challenging, who inspired in her only antipathy, fear, and distrust. + +It seemed clear beyond dispute that she must leave his protection, this +very night, before he could guess her mind and move to check her. + +Sofia swung her feet down to the floor. One of her silken mules had fallen +off. Semi-consciously she groped for it with stockinged toes. As the +inanimate will, the mule eluded recapture with impish ease. But beneath her +foot something rustled and crackled lightly. She bent over and picked it +up: a square white envelope, sealed. + +Switching on a lamp near by, she examined her find. It carried no address. +How it could have got there she could not imagine ... unless Chou Nu had +dropped it by inadvertence, which seemed as far-fetched as to suppose she +had left it there by design; for that would mean Chou Nu had been bribed to +convey a surreptitious note to her mistress; and Sofia knew that the +Chinese girl was at once too loyal to her "second-uncle," and too much in +awe of "Number One," to be corruptible. + +None the less, there the envelope was; and nobody but Chou Nu had entered +the room since Sofia had come straight from the study to it, late in the +afternoon. + +It was just possible, however--Sofia's eyes measured the distance--that a +deft hand and a strong wrist might have slipped the envelope under the +door and sent it skimming across the floor to the foot of the +chaise-longue. + +But nobody would have dared do that without a powerful motive for wishing +to communicate secretly with Sofia. + +She tore the flap and withdrew a single sheet of notepaper penned in a hand +she knew too well. Her heart leapt.... + +I implore you, of your charity, do not condemn me without a hearing because +of anything you may have overheard me say. After you left us in the study I +saw his eyes watching the door while we talked, and knew from his look that +something to please him had happened behind my back. And in the temper he +was in only one thing could possibly have pleased him. + +I said what I said to him, dear, because I had to--or lose the right, +dearer to me than life, to be near you, to serve and protect you. I lied to +him because I loved you. But I have never lied to you about my love--and +only once, through necessity, about anything else. Perhaps you can guess +what that lie was, somehow I rather think you do; at least, I am sure, you +are beginning to wonder if I told the truth--or knew it, then. + +If this sound cryptic, I can only beg you to be patient and charitable +until I find opportunity to clear away this one lie which stands between +us--and which is, by comparison, almost immaterial, since all that matters +is the one great truth in my life, that I love you beyond all telling. + +R.K. + +If questions trouble your mind, I beg you do not let him know it. Your only +safety now lies in his continuing to believe that you are unsuspicious. +Above all, do your best to seem to fall in with his wishes, however strange +or unreasonable they may seem. It will be only a few days more before I can +claim you for my own, and laugh at his pretensions. + +A curious love-letter; yet it was Sofia's first. If it made her +thoughtful, it made her illogically happy as well. If it put the issue to +her squarely, of loyalty to Prince Victor or loyalty to Karslake, she was +unaware that she had any choice of courses. When Shaik Tsin thumped the +panels of her door, she crushed the note into the bosom of her negligee +before answering. + +When one is of an age to love, it is never the parent who gets the benefit +of a doubt. + + + +XVI + +THE CRYSTAL + + +Like some shy, sad shade summoned up by the malign genius of a haunted +chamber, a slender shape of pallor in softly flowing draperies slipped +through the silent door and, advancing a few reluctant steps into the +soundless gloom, paused and in apprehensive diffidence awaited the welcome +that was for a time withheld. + +For minutes Victor gave no sign or stir; and in all the room nothing moved +but ghostly whorls of smoke writhing slowly upward from a pungent censer of +beaten gold. + +The great lamp of brass was dark, and there was no other light than a +solitary bulb, whose hooded rays were concentrated upon the crystal ball, +so that the latter shone with a dead-white glare, somehow baleful, like an +elfin moon deeply lost in a sea of sombre enchantment. + +Bending forward in his chair, an elbow planted on the table, his forehead +resting upon the tips of long, white fingers, Victor's gaze was steadfast +to the crystal. Refracted light sculptured with curious shadows that +saturnine face intent to immobility. + +Too young, too inexperienced and sensitive to be insusceptible to the +spell of the theatrical, the girl was conscious of a steady ebb of her +new-found store of fortitude, skepticism, and defiance, together with an +equally steady inflow of timidity and uneasiness. That sinister figure at +the table, absorbed in study of the inscrutable sphere--what did he see +there, to hold his faculties in such deep eclipse? Adept in black arts of +the Orient as he was said to be, what wizardry was he brewing with the aid +of that traditional tool of the necromancer? What spectacle of divination +was in those pellucid depths unfolding to his rapt vision? And what had +this consultation of the occult to do with the man's mind concerning +herself? + +Sofia was shaken by a tremor of dread.... + +And as if her emotion were somehow communicated, arousing him to knowledge +of her presence, Victor started, sat back, and with a sigh passed a hand +across his eyes. When the hand fell, his face wore its habitual look for +Sofia, modified by a slightly apologetic and weary smile. + +"My child!" he exclaimed in accents of contrite surprise, "have I kept you +waiting long?" + +"Only a few minutes. It doesn't matter." + +But her voice seemed sadly small and thin in comparison with Victor's +rotund and measured intonations. + +"Forgive me." Victor rose, nodding to indicate the shining crystal. "I have +been consulting my familiar," he said with a light laugh. "You have heard +of crystal-gazing? A fascinating art that languishes in undeserved neglect. +The ancients were more wise, they knew there was more in Heaven and +Earth.... You are incredulous? But I assure you, I myself, though far from +proficient, have caught strange glimpses of unborn events in the heart of +that transparent enigma." + +He took her hands and cuddled them in his own. + +She quivered irrepressibly to his touch. + +"But you are trembling!" he protested, solicitous, looking down into her +face--"you are wan and sad, my dear. Tell me you are not ill." + +"It is nothing," Sofia replied--again in that faint, stifled voice. She +added in determined effort to subdue her trembling and turn their talk to +essentials: "You sent for me--I am here." + +"I am so sorry. If I had guessed ..." Enlightenment seemed to dawn all at +once. "But surely it isn't because of that stupid business with Karslake? +Surely you didn't take him seriously?" + +"How should I--?" + +"It is too absurd. The poor fool misconstrued my instructions to make +himself agreeable--I am so taken up with the gravest matters at present, I +didn't want you to feel lonely or neglected--and, it appears, felt it +incumbent upon him to flirt with you as a matter of duty. I am out of +temper with him, but not unreasonable; I shan't dispense with his services +altogether, without more provocation, but will find other work to keep him +busy and out of your way. You need fear no more annoyance from that +quarter." + +"I was not annoyed," Sofia found heart to contend. "I--like him." + +"Nonsense!" Victor's laugh was rich with derision. "Don't ask me to believe +you were actually touched by the fellow's play-acting. You--my +daughter--wasting emotion on a mere commoner! The thing is too ridiculous. +Oblige me by thinking no more about it. I have better things in store for +you." + +"Better than--love?" the girl questioned with grave eyes. + +"When the time comes for that, you shall find a worthier parti than poor +Karslake, well-meaning though he may be. Moreover, you heard--forgive me +for reminding you--there was not an ounce of sincerity in all his +philandering for you to hold in sentimental recollection. So--forget +Karslake, please. It is a duty you owe your own pride and my dignity; it +is, furthermore, my wish." + +She bowed her head, that he might not see the reflection in her face of the +glow that warmed her bosom, where Karslake's letter nestled. But Victor +took the nod for the word of submission, and patted her shoulder with an +indulgent hand, guiding her to a chair close by his. + +"Sit down, my dear. I want to explain why I asked you to come to me at this +late hour--never dreaming my message would find you so overwrought.... You +quite see how needless it was to permit yourself to be upset by such a +trifling matter, don't you?" + +"Oh, quite," Sofia murmured, with gaze fixed on the interlacing fingers in +her lap. + +"That is sensible." Offering her shoulder one last accolade of approbation, +Victor moved toward his own chair. "And now that you are here, we may as +well have our little talk out," he continued, but broke off to stipulate: +"If, that is, you are sure you feel up to it?" + +"Yes," Sofia assented, but without moving. + +"I am not so sure. Perhaps a glass of wine might do you good." + +"Oh, no!" the girl protested--"I don't need it, really." + +But Victor wouldn't listen; and disappearing into shadowed distances, +returned presently with a brimming goblet. + +"Drink this, dear. It will make you feel quite fit again." + +Obediently, Sofia raised the goblet to her lips. + +"You have never tasted a wine like that," Victor insisted, smiling down at +her. + +It was true enough, what he claimed; though it had something of character +of a sound old Madeira, this wine had more, a surpassing richness, a +fruitiness in no way cloying, a peculiarly aromatic taste and fragrance, +elusive and provoking, with a hint of bitterness never to be analyzed by +the most experienced palate. + +"What is it?" Sofia asked after her first sip. + +"You like it, eh? An old wine of China, unknown to Western Europe." Victor +gave it a musical name in what Sofia took to be Chinese. "Outside my +cellars, I'll wager there's not another bottle of it this side of +Constantinople. Drink it all. It will do you good." + +He seated himself. "And now my reason for wishing to talk with you +to-night.... A note came by the last delivery from Lady Randolph West. You +met her, I understand, through Sybil Waring, a few days ago. She was +apparently much taken with you." + +"She is very kind." + +Victor had found a sheet of notepaper and, bending to the light, was +searching its scrawled lines with narrowed eyes. + +"'Too lovely,' she calls you--and quite justly, my dear. Yes; here it is: +'Too lovely for words.' And she wants me to bring my 'charming daughter' +down to Frampton Court for this week-end." + +Sofia said nothing, but put her half-empty glass aside. The wine had done +her good, she thought. She felt better, stronger, mentally more alert, and +at the same time curiously soothed. + +Victor refolded the note and tapped the table with it, holding Sofia with +speculative eyes. + +"It should be amusing," he said, thoughtfully, "a new experience for you. +Elaine--I mean Lady Randolph West, of course--is a charming hostess, and +never fails to fill Frampton Court with delightful people." + +"I'm sure I should love it." + +"I am sure you would. And yet ... I may have been a little premature, since +I have already written accepting the invitation." He indicated an addressed +envelope face up on the table. "But on second thoughts, it seemed perhaps +wiser to consult you first." + +"But if it is your wish, I must go," Sofia replied, mindful of Karslake's +injunction not to oppose Victor. "What have I to say--?" + +"Everything about whether we accept or do not--or if not everything, at +least the final word. I must abide by your decision." + +"But I shall be only too glad--" + +"Think a moment. It might be wiser not to go. You alone can say." + +"I don't quite understand ..." + +Victor sighed. "It is a painful subject," he said, slowly--"one I hesitate +to reopen. But we can never profit by closing our minds to facts; I mean, +to the reality of the danger which is always with us, since it is within +us." + +"What danger?" Sofia enquired, sullenly, knowing the answer too well before +it was spoken. + +"The danger of sudden temptation to indulge the lawless appetites with +which heredity has endued us--me from the nameless forebears whom I never +knew, you directly from parents both of whom boasted criminal records." + +"I don't believe it!" Sofia declared, passionately--"I can't believe it, I +won't! Even if you are--" + +She was going on to say "if you are my father," but caught herself in time. +Had not Karslake warned her in his note: "_Your only safety now lies in his +continuing to believe that you are unsuspicious._" She continued in a +tempest of expostulation whose fury covered her break: + +"Even if you were once a thief and my mother--my mother!--everything vile, +as you persist in trying to make me believe--God knows why!--it is possible +I may still have failed to inherit your criminal tendencies; and not only +possible, but true, if I know myself at all. For I have never felt the +temptation to steal that you insist I must have inherited from you--nor any +other inclination toward things as mean, contemptible, and dishonourable as +they are dishonest!" + +With only his slow, forbearing smile by way of comment, Victor heard her +out, but when she paused to reassort her thoughts, lifted a temporizing +hand. + +"Not yet, perhaps," he said, gently. "There is always the first time with +every rebel against man-made laws. But, where the predisposition so +indubitably exists, it is inevitable, soon or late it must come to you, my +dear--the time when the will is too weak, temptation too strong. Against +it we must be forever on our guard." + +"I am not afraid," Sofia contended. + +"Naturally; you will not be before the hour of ordeal which shall prove +your strength or your weakness, your confidence in yourself, or my loving +fears for you." + +Sofia gave a gesture of weariness and confusion. What did it matter? If he +would have it so, let him: it couldn't affect the issue in any way, what he +believed, or for his own purposes pretended to believe. Had not Karslake +promised ... + +She tried to recall precisely what it was that Karslake had promised, but +found her memory of a sudden singularly sluggish. In fact, her mind seemed +to have lost its marvellous clarity of those first moments after tasting +the wine of China. Small wonder, when one remembered the emotional strain +she had experienced since early evening! + +"Still," she argued, stubbornly, "I don't see what all this has to do with +Lady Randolph West's invitation." + +"Only that to accept means to expose you to the greatest temptation one can +well imagine." + +Sofia stared blankly. Her wits were working even more slowly and heavily +than before. And the glare in her eyes from the luminous sphere of crystal +was irritating. Almost without thinking, she lifted her glass again; when +she put it down it was empty. + +"The jewels of Lady Randolph West," Victor went on to explain without her +prompting, "are considered the most wonderful in England; always excepting, +of course, the Crown jewels." + +"What is that to me?" + +Resentment sounded in her tone. She was thinking more readily once more, +thanks to that second magical draught, but was nevertheless conscious of a +general failing of powers drained by her great fatigue. She wished devoutly +that Victor would have done and let her go.... + +"Elaine is very careless, leaves her jewels scattered about, hardly +troubles to put them away securely at night. If you should be tempted to +appropriate anything, she might not discover her loss for days; and then, +again, she might. And if you were caught--consider what shame and +disgrace!" + +"I think I see," the girl said, slowly, after some difficult thinking. "You +don't want me to go." + +"To the contrary, I do--but I want more than anything else in the world +that my daughter should be sure of herself and fall into no irreparable +error." + +"But I am sure of myself--I have told you that." + +"Then let us fret no more about it, but accept, and go prepared to enjoy +ourselves. I will send the letter." + +Victor rang, and Shaik Tsin presented himself so quickly that Sofia +wondered dully where he could have been waiting. In the room with them, +perhaps? It wasn't impossible. The Chinaman's thick soles of felt enabled +him to move about without making the least noise. + +"Have this posted immediately." + +Shaik Tsin bowed deeply, and backed away with the letter. Unless she turned +to watch him, Sofia could not say whether he left the room or not. + +She offered to rise. + +"If that is all ..." + +"Not quite. There are certain details to be arranged; and I may not see you +again before we leave to-morrow afternoon. We will motor down to Frampton +Court--it's not far, little more than an hour by train--starting about half +after four, if you can be ready." + +"Oh, yes." + +"Sybil Waring will tell you what to take, and Chou Nu will see to your +packing. Both, by the way, will accompany us. Sybil's maid will follow by +train. For myself, I am taking Nogam--having found that English servants do +not take kindly to my Chinese valet." + +"Yes ..." Sofia uttered, listlessly, wondering why this information should +be considered of interest to her. + +"And one thing more: I am forgiven? You are not cross with me?" + +"Why should I be?" + +"Because of what happened this afternoon--when I scolded Karslake for +making love to you." + +"Oh," said Sofia with a good show of indifference--she was so +tired--"that!" + +"Believe me, little Sofia"--Victor put out a hand to hers, and held her +eyes with a compelling gaze--"boy-and-girl romance is all very well, but +there is a greater destiny reserved for you than marriage to a hired +secretary, however amiable, personable, and well-meaning. You must prepare +yourself to move in a world beyond and above the common hearthstone of +bourgeois domesticity." + +The girl shook a bewildered head. + +"It is a riddle?" she asked, wearily. + +"A riddle?" Victor echoed. "Why, one may safely term it that. Is not the +Future always a riddle? Nature knows the Future as the Past, but Nature +holds it secret, lest man go mad with too much knowledge. Only to the few, +the favoured, does she grant rare glimpses through media which she has +provided for the use of the initiate--such as this crystal here, in which I +was studying your future, when you came in, the high future I plan for +you." + +"And--you won't tell me?" + +"I may not. It is forbidden. Nature deals unkindly with those who violate +her confidence. But--who knows?" + +He checked himself as if struck by a new turn of thought, and studied the +girl's face intently. + +"Who knows?" he repeated, as if to himself. + +"What--?" + +"It is quite within the bounds of possibility," Victor mused, "that you +should have inherited some of the psychic power which was born in me. +Perhaps--who knows?--to you as well Nature will be supple and disclose her +secrets.... If you care to seek her favour?" + +"But--how?" + +"By consulting the crystal." + +Sofia's eyes sought that coldly burning stone. Her head was so heavy, she +hesitated, oppressed by misgivings without shape that she could name, +phases of formless timidity having rise in some source which she was too +tired to search out. + +But she lingered and continued to stare at the crystal. + +"Why not?" Victor's accents were gently persuasive. "At worst, you can only +fail. And if you do not fail, it will make me happy to think that you have +been given a little insight into my dreams for you." + +"Yes," Sofia assented in a whisper--"why not?" + +Victor drew her forward by the hand. + +"Look," he said "look deep! Divest your mind as nearly as you can of all +thought--let the crystal give up its message to a mind devoid of prejudice, +its receptiveness unimpaired. Think of nothing, if you can manage +it--simply look and see." + +Automatically to a degree the girl obeyed, already in a phase of +crepuscular hypnosis, her surface senses dulled by the potent "wine of +China." And watching her closely, Victor permitted himself a smile of +satisfaction as he noted the rapidity with which she yielded to the +hypnogenic spell of the translucent quartz; how her breathing quickened, +then took on a measured tempo like that of a sleeper; how a faint flush +warmed the unnatural pallor of her cheeks, how her dilate eyes grew fixed +in an unwinking stare, and slightly glassed.... + +Under her regard the goblin sphere took on with bewildering rapidity +changing guises. Its rotundity was first lost, it assumed the semblance of +a featureless disk of pallid light, which swiftly widened till it obscured +all else, then seemed to advance upon and envelope her bodily, so that she +became spiritually a part of it, an atom of identity engulfed in a limpid +world of glareless light, light that had had no rays and issued from no +source but was circumambient and universal. Then in its remote heart a +weird glow of rose began to burn and grow, pulsing through all the colours +of the spectrum and beyond. Toward this she felt herself being drawn +swiftly, attracted by an irresistible magnetism, riding the wings of a +great wind, whose voice boomed without ceasing, like a heavy surf +thunderously reiterating one syllable, "_Sleep!_" ... And in this flight +through illimitable space toward a goal unattainable, consciousness grew +faint and flickered out like a candle in the wind. + +Behind her chair the placid yellow face of Shaik Tsin appeared, as if +materialized bodily out of the shadows. With folded arms he waited, +dispassionately observant. Presently Prince Victor nodded to him over the +head of the girl. Immediately the Chinaman moved round her chair and, +employing both hands, in one instant switched off the hooded bulb and +reilluminated the lamp of brass. + +As the light died out in the crystal Sofia sighed heavily, and relaxed. +Leaden eyelids closed down over her staring eyes, she sank back into the +chair, simultaneously into plumbless depths.... + +Victor made a sound of gratification. Shaik Tsin enquired briefly: + +"It is accomplished, then?" + +Victor nodded. "She yielded more quickly than I had hoped--worn out +emotionally, of course." + +"She sleeps--" + +"In hypnosis, in absolute suspense of every faculty and function save those +concerned solely with the maintenance of existence--in a state, that is, +comparable only to the pre-natal life of a child." + +"It is most interesting," Shaik Tsin admitted. "But what is the use? That +is what interests me." + +"Wait and see." + +Bending close to the girl, Victor called in a strong voice of command: +"Sofia! Sofia! It is I, Prince Victor, your father. Waken and attend!" + +A slight spasm shook the slender body, the lips parted, respiration became +hurried and broken, the long lashes fluttered on the cheeks. + +"Do you hear me? I, Victor, command you: Waken and attend!" + +Another struggle, more brief and sharp, ended with the opening of the +eyes, which sought and remained steadfast to Victor's, yet without +intelligence or animation. + +"Do you hear me, Sofia?" + +A voice like a sigh rustled on the parted lips, whose stir was +imperceptible: + +"I hear you...." + +"Then heed what I say. My will is your law. You know that?" + +Faintly the voice breathed: "Yes." + +"Tell me what it is you know." + +"Your will is my law." + +"You will not resist my will, you cannot. Tell me that." + +"I will not resist your will, I cannot." + +"Good. I, Prince Victor Vassilyevski, am your father. You believe that. Do +you understand? Tell me what you believe." + +"I believe that you, Prince Victor Vassilyevski, are my father." + +"You will not forget these things?" + +"I shall not forget." + +"In all things." + +"I will obey you in all things." + +"Without question or faltering." + +"Without question or faltering." + +"You recall what arrangements we made this afternoon for to-morrow?" + +"I remember." + +"Listen carefully. Memorize my wishes with respect to our visit to +Frampton Court, remembering that I communicate my will, which you must +obey." + +The girl remained silent, waiting. Victor took a moment to marshall his +thoughts, then proceeded: + +"After arriving at Frampton Court, you will make occasion quietly to find +out how your room is situated in relation to the boudoir of Lady Randolph +West. You will do this without knowing why you do it. You understand?" + +"Yes." + +"At night, on going to bed, you will go promptly to sleep. After an hour +you will wake up, put on a dressing gown and slippers, and proceed to Lady +Randolph West's boudoir, taking care not to be observed. Is that clear?" + +"Yes." + +"Once in the boudoir, you will proceed to the safe where Lady Randolph West +keeps her jewels. It will not be locked, she is careless in such matters. +Having found the safe, you will open it, take whatever jewels you find +therein, and return to your room. All this you will perform with utmost +circumspection, taking all pains not to make any noise. In your room you +will hide the jewels in your dressing-case. Then you will go back to bed +and to sleep. Have you committed all this to memory?" + +The sleeping girl answered in the affirmative. Then, to the injunction, +"Tell me what you are to do to-morrow night?" she repeated in a toneless +voice every item of the programme outlined for her, while Victor nodded in +undisguised delight, and Shaik Tsin grinned blandly over her head. + +"On waking up to-morrow morning, you will remember nothing of my +instructions, but you will carry them precisely as memorized in your +subconciousness, and you will carry them out without thought of opposition +to my will, understanding that you are without will of your own in this +matter. Finally, on waking up on the morning following your abstraction of +the jewels, you will remember nothing of the affair until reminded of it by +me, and then only this much: That in obedience to irresistible impulse, you +stole the jewels. Is that clear? Repeat ..." + +Without a mistake the woman in hypnosis iterated the commands imposed upon +her. + +The impish grin of the latent savage broke through the habitual austerity +of Victor's countenance. + +"There is no more," he said, "but this: Sleep now, and do not waken before +noon to-morrow--_sleep!_" + +With a quavering sigh, the girl reclosed her eyes and instantly relapsed +into the sleep of trance which was insensibly in the course of the night to +merge into natural slumber. + +Victor ironed out his grimace, and signed to Shaik Tsin. + +"Bear her back to her room. Instruct Chou Nu to put her to bed and not to +wake her up before noon." + +"Hearing is obedience." + +The Chinaman bent over, gathered the inert body into his arms, and without +perceptible effort stood erect. But in the act of turning away he paused +and, continuing to hold the girl as easily as if she weighed no more than a +child, interrogated the man he served. + +"You believe she will do all you have ordered?" + +"I know she will." + +"Without error?" + +"Barring accidents, without flaw from beginning to end." + +"And in event of accidents--discovery--?" + +"So much the better." + +"That would please you, to have her caught?" + +"Excellently." + +Shaik Tsin nodded in grave yet humorous comprehension. "Now I begin to +understand. If she is caught, that gives you a power over her?" + +"Precisely." + +"And if she is not, when the robbery becomes known, your power over her +will be still more strong?" + +"And over yet another stronger still." + +"The Lone Wolf?" + +Victor inclined his head. "To what lengths will he not go to cover up his +daughter's shame, if it threatens to become public that she is a thief? I +do nothing without purpose, Shaik Tsin." + +"That is to say, you have to-night taken out insurance against punishment +if this other business fails." + +"If it fail, others may suffer, but if necessary the Lone Wolf himself +will arrange my escape from England." + +"To serve so wise a man is an honour my unworthiness can never hope to +merit." + +"As to that, Shaik Tsin," Victor said without a smile, "our minds are one. +Go now. Good-night." + + + +XVII + +THE RAISED CHEQUE + + +While the Princess Sofia, Sybil Waring, and Prince Victor motored down from +London in the lilac dusk of that dim September day, and the maid Chou Nu +accompanied them, riding in front beside a newly engaged Chinese chauffeur, +the man Nogam made the journey to Frampton Court by train, and alone. + +Alone, at least, in the finer shading of that adjective; aside from the +usual assortment of self-contained fellow-travellers in the third-class +carriage, he had no company other than his thoughts; a gray and meagre +crew, if that pathetic face of middle-age furnished trustworthy reflection +of his mind.... So absolute was the submergence of that ardent adventurer +who, overnight, had lain awake for hours, a dictograph receiver glued to +his ear, eavesdropping upon the traffic of those malevolent intelligences +assembled in Prince Victor's study, and alternately chuckling and cursing +beneath his breath, aflame with indignation and chilled by inklings of +atrocities unspeakable abrew! + +If he surmised that he travelled alone in appearance only, it was with no +evident concern or astonishment. If his mind was uneasy, oppressed by a +nightmarish burden of half-knowledge, guesses, and premonition, it was not +apparent to the general observer. His most eloquent gesture was when, from +time to time, he tamped an ancient wooden pipe with a fingertip that wasn't +as calloused as he could have wished, philosophically sucked in strangling +fumes of rankest shag and, ignoring his company in the carriage as became a +British-made manservant, returned jaded, gentle eyes to those darkling +vistas of autumnal landscape that were forever radiating away from the +window like spokes of a gigantic wheel. + +Alighting in the first dark of evening at the station for Frampton Court, +he suffered himself to be herded, with a half-score more, into the omnibus +provided for other bodyservants to arriving guests. Even to these compeers +he found little to say: a loud lot, imbued with the rowdy spirit of the new +day; whereas Nogam was hopelessly of the old school--in the new word, he +dated--though his form was admittedly unimpeachable. And if because of this +he was made fun of more or less openly, to an extent that added shades of +resignation to his countenance, secretly he commanded considerable respect. + +Neither was Victor, with all the ill-will in the world, able to find fault +with Nogam's services in his new office. The most finished of self-effacing +valets, he knew just what to do and did it without being told; and when he +spoke it was only because he had been spoken to or commissioned to convey +a message. + +Victor watched him from every angle, overt and covert, but had his trouble +for his pains; Nogam, observed in a mirror, when Victor's back was turned, +went about his business with no more betrayal of personal feeling or +independent mentality than when waiting upon his master face to face. +Victor could have kicked him for sheer resentment of his pattern virtues. +When all was said and done, it _was_ damned irritating. . . . + +In the servants' hall he religiously kept his ears open and his mouth shut. +And, listening, he learned. For some things said in his hearing were +distinctly not pretty, and made one wonder if Prince Victor's deep-rooted +confidence in an England mortally cankered with social discontent were not +grounded in a surprising familiarity with backstairs morale. Other +observations, again, were merely ribald, some were humorous, while all were +enlightening. + +Not a few of the company had seen domestic service in great houses before +the war; they knew what was what and--more to the point--what wasn't. One +gathered that this pretentious country home fell within the latter +classification. Here, it was stated, anybody could buy his way into favour: +the more bounding the bounder the brighter his chances of success at +Frampton Court. + +War, the ironic, had caused this noble property to pass into the keeping of +a distant and degenerate branch of an old and honoured house; and its +present lord and lady, having failed to win the social welcome they had +counted on too confidently, were doing their silly, shabby best to squander +a princely fortune and dedicate a great name to lasting disrepute by +fraternizing with a motley riffraff of profiteering nouveaux riches. Other +than bad manners and worse morals, the one genuine thing in the whole +establishment was, it seemed, the historic collection of family jewels. + +This information explained away much of Nogam's perplexity on one score. + +After dinner, when the house party began to settle into its stride, he made +occasion, aping the other servants, to peep in at a door of the great +ballroom, where an impromptu dance had been organized; and was rewarded by +sight of the Princess Sofia circling the floor in the arms of a boldly +good-looking young man whose taste was as poor in flirtation as in +self-adornment. + +To Nogam the young girl looked wan and wistful--as if she were missing +somebody. And he wondered if Mr. Karslake knew what a lucky young devil he +was. + +He wondered still more about the present whereabouts and welfare of Mr. +Karslake. Prince Victor must have contrived some devious errand to get the +young man out and away early that day; for by the time Nogam had looked for +him in the morning, Karslake was nowhere to be found; neither had he +returned when the party left for Frampton Court--a circumstance which +Nogam regretted most bitterly. Watched as he was, it hadn't been possible, +that is to say it would have been fatally ill-advised, to have left any +sort of message or to have attempted communication through secret channels; +and all the while, hours heavy with, it might be, the destiny of England +were wasting swiftly into history. + +Perhaps it was nervousness bred of this anxiety that, in the end, made +Nogam's hand slip. Or perhaps the impatient nature of the man who lay so +closely secret within the husk of Nogam decided him upon a desperate +gamble. In either event, this befell: + +About the middle of the evening Prince Victor happened to look up from an +interesting tete-a-tete in the brilliant drawing-room with his handsome and +liberal-minded hostess opportunely to espy Nogam staring at him from the +remote recesses of the entrance hall. + +It was the merest of glimpses; for Victor's casual glance had barely +identified the servant when Nogam started guiltily and in a twinkling +disappeared; but a glimpse was enough for eyes and a mind alike quick with +distrust, enough to assure Victor that Nogam's face had worn an +indescribably furtive and hangdog expression, most unlike its ordinary look +of amiable stupidity, and widely incongruous with the veniality of his +fault. + +What the deuce, then, was the fellow up to, that he should glower and dodge +like a sleuth in a play? + +Promptly Victor became deaf, blind, and numb to the fascinations so +generously paraded by Lady Randolph West; and presently excusing himself, +left her and sought his rooms. + +As he went up the stairs, he saw the door to his bedchamber cautiously +opened far enough to permit one eye to spy out and discover his approach. +Immediately then the door swung wide, and Nogam ambled into view with an +envelope on a salver and an air of childlike innocence, an assumption of +ease so transparent, indeed, that only the vision of a child could have +been cheated by it. + +"Just coming to look for you, sir," he announced, glibly. "Telegram, +sir--just harrived." + +"Thanks," said Victor, shortly, taking the envelope and marching on into +his rooms. + +His manner toward his servants was always abrupt. No need to be alarmed by +this manifestation of it. Blinking mildly, Nogam trotted at his heels. + +Seating himself at an escritoire, Victor opened the envelope with a display +of languid interest. Curiosity about the contents of a telegram is +ordinarily acute. Victor, on the contrary, sat for a long moment staring +thoughtfully at nothing and absently turning the envelope over and over in +his hands; while Nogam with specious nonchalance found something +unimportant to do in another quarter of the room. + +The envelope was damp and warm to the touch. True: nightfall had brought +with it a thick drizzle, and Frampton Court was more than a mile from the +post-office. On the other hand, the night was as cold as charity; and an +envelope recently steamed open might be expected to hold the heat for a few +minutes. + +Victor thumbed the flap. It lifted readily, without tearing, its gum was +wet and more abundant than usual--in fact, it felt confoundedly like +library paste, a pot of which, in an ornamental holder, was among the +fittings of the escritoire. On the desk pad of blotting paper, too, Victor +detected marks of fresh paste defining the contour of the flap. + +With a countenance whose inscrutability alone was a threat, Victor took out +and conned the telegraph form. + +"CONSULTATION SET FOR MIDNIGHT TO-NIGHT TAKING YOUR ADVICE SHALL NOT ATTEND +BUT LEAVE FOR BRIGHTON ELEVEN P.M." + +A message ostensibly so open and aboveboard that it hadn't been thought +worth while to hide its wording under the cloak of a code. + +There was no signature--unless one were clever or wise enough to transpose +the two final letters and take them in relation to the word immediately +preceding. "Eleven, M.P.", however, could mean nothing to anybody but +Victor--except a body clever enough to hide a dictograph detector in a +turnip. So Victor saw no reason to believe that Nogam, although +undoubtedly guilty of the sin of prying, had been able to read the meaning +below the surface of this communication. + +Nevertheless, undue inquisitiveness on the part of a servant in the pay of +Victor Vassilyevski could have but one reward. + +"Nogam!" + +"Sir?" + +"Fetch me an A-B-C." + +"Very good, sir." + +With Nogam out of the way, Victor enclosed the telegram in a new envelope +and addressed it simply to _"Mr. Sturm--by hand."_ Then he took a sheet of +the stamped notepaper of Frampton Court, tore it roughly, at the fold, and +on the unstamped half inscribed several characters in Chinese, using a +pencil with a fat, soft lead for this purpose. This message sealed into a +second envelope without superscription, he lighted a cigarette and sat +smiling with anticipative relish through its smoke, a smile swiftly +abolished as the door re-opened; though Nogam found him in what seemed to +be a mood of rare sweet temper. + +Taking the railway guide, Victor ruffled its pages, and after brief study +of the proper table remarked: + +"Afraid I must ask you to run up to town for me to-night, Nogam. If you +don't mind ..." + +"Only too glad to oblige, sir." + +"I find I have left important papers behind. Give this to Shaik Tsin"--he +handed over the blank envelope--"and he will find them for you. You can +catch the ten-fifteen up, and return by the twelve-three from Charing +Cross." + +"Very good, sir." + +"Oh--and see that Mr. Sturm gets this, too, will you? If he isn't in, give +it to Shaik Tsin to hand to him. Say it's urgent." + +"Quite so, sir." + +"That is all. But don't fail to catch the twelve-three back. I must have +the papers to-night." + +"I shan't fail you, sir--D.V." + +"Deo volente? You are a religious man, Nogam?" + +"I 'umbly 'ope so, sir, and do my best to be, accordin' to my lights." + +"Glad to hear it. Now cut along, or you'll miss the up train." + +Long after Nogam had left the memory of their talk continued to afford +Victor an infinite amount of private entertainment. + +"A religious man!" he would jeer to himself. "Then--may your God help you, +Nogam!" + +Some thought of the same sort may well have troubled Nogam's mind as he sat +in an otherwise untenanted third-class compartment blinking owlishly over +the example of Victor's command of the intricacies of Chinese writing. + +He was happily free of surveillance for the first time in his waking hours +of many days. The Chinese chauffeur had driven him to the station, and had +furthermore lingered to see that Nogam did not fail to board it. And Nogam +felt reasonably safe in assuming that he would not approach the house near +Queen Anne's Gate without seeing (for the mere trouble of looking) a second +and an entirely gratuitous shadow attach itself to him with the intention +of sticking as tenaciously as that which God had given him. But the next +hour was all his own. + +His study of the Chinese phonograms at length resulted in the +transformation of his careworn face by a slowly dawning smile, the gleeful +smile of a mischief-loving child. And when he had worked for a while on the +message, touching up the skillfully drawn characters with a pencil the mate +to that which Victor had used, he sat back and laughed aloud over the +result of his labours, with some appreciation of the glow that warms the +cockles of the artist's heart when his deft pen has raised a cheque from +tens to thousands, and he reviews a good job well done. + +The torn envelope which had held the message to Shaik Tsin lay at his feet. +Nogam had not bothered to worry it open so carefully that it might be +resealed without inviting comment; though that need not have been a +difficult matter, thanks to the dampness of the night air. + +Of the envelope addressed to Sturm, however, he was more considerate; to +violate its integrity and seal it up again was an undertaking that required +the nicest handling. Nor was it accomplished much before the train drew +into Charing Cross. + +Outside the station taxis were few and drivers arrogant; and all the +'buses were packed to the guards with law-abiding Londoners homeward bound +from theatres and halls. So Nogam dived into the Underground, to come to +the surface again at St. James's Park station, whence he trotted all the +way to Queen Anne's Gate, arriving at his destination in a phase of +semi-prostration which a person of advancing years and doddering habits +might have anticipated. + +Such fidelity in characterization deserved good reward, and had in it a +rare stroke of fortune; for as he drew up to it, the door opened, and Sturm +came out, saw Nogam, and stopped short. + +"Thank 'Eaven, sir, I got 'ere in time," the butler panted. "If I'd missed +you, Prince Victor wouldn't 'ave been in 'arf a wax. 'E told me I must find +you to-night if I 'ad to turn all Lunnon inside out." + +Pressing the message into Sturm's hand, he rested wearily against the +casing of the door, his body shaken by laboured breathing, and--while +Sturm, with an exclamation of excitement, ripped open the +envelope--surveyed the dark and rain-wet street out of the corners of his +eyes. + +Across the way a slinking shadow left the sidewalk and blended +indistinguishably with the crowded shadows of an areaway. + +In a voice more than commonly rich with accent, Sturm demanded sharply: + +"What is this? I do not understand!" + +He shook in Nogam's face the half-sheet of notepaper on which the Chinese +phonograms were drawn. + +"Sorry, sir, but I 'aven't any hidea. Prince Victor didn't tell me anything +except there would be no answer, and I was to 'urry right back to Frampton +Court." Nogam peered myopically at the paper. "It might be 'Ebrew, sir," he +hazarded, helpfully--"by the looks of it, I mean. I suppose some private +message, 'e thought you'd understand." + +"Hebrew, you fool! Damn your impudence! Do you take me for a Jew?" + +"Beg pardon, sir--no 'arm meant." + +"No," Sturm declared, "it's Chinese." + +"Then likely Prince Victor meant you to ask Shaik Tsin to translate it for +you, sir." + +"Probably," Sturm muttered. "I'll see." + +"Yes, sir. Good-night, sir." + +Without acknowledging this civility, Sturm turned back into the house and +slammed the door. Nogam lingered another moment, then shuffled wearily down +the steps and toward the nearest corner. + +Across the street the voluntary shadow detached itself from cover in the +areaway, and skulked after him. He paid no heed. But when the shadow +rounded the corner, it saw only a dark and empty street, and pulled up with +a grunt of doubt. Simultaneously something not unlike a thunderbolt for +force and fury was launched, from the dark shelter of a doorway near by, at +its devoted head. And as if by magic the shadow took on form and substance +to receive the onslaught. A fist, that carried twelve stone of bone and +sinew jubilant with realization of the hour for action so long deferred, +found shrewdly the heel of a jawbone, just beneath the ear. Its victim +dropped without a cry, but the impact of the blow was loud in the nocturnal +stillness of that bystreet, and was echoed in magnified volume by the crack +of a skull in collision with a convenient lamppost. + +Followed a swift patter of fugitive feet. + +Tempered by veils of mist, the lamplight fell upon a face upturned from a +murmurous gutter, a yellow face, wide and flat, with lips grinning back +from locked teeth and eyes frozen in a staring question to which no living +man has ever known the answer. + +The pattering footsteps grew faint in distance and died away, the street +was still once more, as still as Death.... + +In the study of Prince Victor Vassilyevski the man Sturm put an impatient +question: + +"Well? What you make of it--hein?" + +Shaik Tsin looked up from a paper which he had been silently examining by +the light of the brazen lamp. + +"Number One says," he reported, smiling sweetly, while his yellow +forefinger moved from symbol to symbol of the picturesque writing: _'"The +blow falls to-night. Proceed at once to the gas works and do that which you +know is to be done.'"_ + +"At last!" The voice of the Prussian was full and vibrant with exultancy. +He threw back his head with a loud laugh, and his arm described a wild, +dramatic gesture. + +"At last--der Tag! To-night the Fatherland shall be avenged!" + +Shaik Tsin beamed with friendliest sympathy Sturm turned to go, took three +hurried steps toward the door, and felt himself jerked back by a silken +cord which, descending from nowhere, looped his lean neck between chin and +Adam's apple. His cry of protest was the last articulate sound he uttered. +And the last sounds he heard, as he lay with face hideously congested and +empurpled, eyeballs starting from their deep sockets, and swollen tongue +protruding, were words spoken by Shaik Tsin as that one knelt over him, one +hand holding fast the ends of the bowstring that had cut off forever the +blessed breath of life, the other flourishing a half-sheet of notepaper. + +"Fool! Look, fool, and read what vengeance visits a fool who is fool enough +to play the spy!" + +He brandished the papers before those glazing eyeballs. + +In an eldritch cackle he translated: + +_"'He who bears this message is a Prussian dog, police trained, a spy. Let +his death be a dog's, cruel and swift.--Number One.'"_ + + + +XVIII + +ORDEAL + + +Reviewing the day, as she undressed and prepared for bed, Sofia told +herself she had never yet lived through one so wearing, and thought the +history of its irksome hours all too legible in the lack-lustre face that +looked back from the mirror when Chou Nu uncoifed her hair and brushed its +burnished tresses. + +Though she had slept late, in fact till noon and something after, her sleep +had been queerly haunted and unhappy, she could not remember how or why, +and she had awakened already ennuye, with a mind incoherently oppressed, +without relish for the promise of the day--in a mood altogether as drear as +the daylight that waited upon her unclosing eyes. + +Main strength of will had not availed to dispel these vapours, neither did +their melancholy yield to the distraction provided by first acquaintance +with ways of a world unique alike in Sofia's esteem and her experience. + +She who had theretofore known only in day-dreams the life of light +frivolity and fashion which found feverish and trumpery reflection at +Frampton Court, was neither equipped nor disposed to be hypercritical in +the first hours of her debut there; and at any other time, in any other +temper, she knew, she must have been swept off her feet by its exciting +appeal to her innate love of luxury and sensation. But the sad truth was, +it all seemed to her unillusioned vision an elaborate sham built up of +tinsel, paste, and paint; and the warmth of her welcome at the hands, +indeed in the very arms, of Lady Randolph West, and the success her youth +and beauty scored for her--commanding in all envy, admiration, cupidity, or +jealousy, according to age, sex, and temporal state of servitude--did +nothing to mitigate the harshness of those first impressions. + +If anything her depression grew more perversely morbid the more she was +catered to, courted, flattered, and cajoled. Something had happened, she +could never guess what, perhaps some mysterious reaction effected through +the chemistry of last night's slumber, to turn her vivid zest in life to +ashes in her mouth, so that nothing seemed to matter any more. + +Thoughts of Karslake as her lover, recollection of her first deep joy in +his avowal and her subsequent passion of shame and regret, re-perusal of +his note, that last night had seemed so sweet a thing, precious beyond +compare--found her indifferent to-day, and left her so. Try as she would, +she failed to recapture any sense of the reality of those first raptures. +And yet, somehow, she didn't doubt he loved her or that, buried deep +beneath this inexplicable apathy, love for Karslake burned on in her heart; +but she knew no sort of comfort in such confidence, their love seemed as +remote and immaterial an issue as the menu for day after to-morrow's +dinner. Nothing mattered! + +She was able even to meet Prince Victor without her customary shiver of +aversion; and when she recalled the persistence and enthusiasm with which +she had reasoned herself into believing, last night, that he might be +another than her father, she came as near to mirth as she was to come that +day; but it was mirth bitter with self-derision. Of course he was her +father, she had been a ninny ever to dream contrariwise, or that it +mattered. + +Nor had she met with more success in efforts to find a cause for this drab +humour; unless, indeed, it were simply the farthest swing of the pendulum +from yesterday's emotional crises, a long swing out of sunlit spaces swept +by the brave winds of young romance into a gloomy zone of brooding torpor, +whose calm was false, surcharged with unseizable disquiet, its atmosphere +electrical with formless apprehensions, its sad twilight shot with lurid +gleams no sooner glimpsed than gone. + +In this state Sofia's sensibilities were less benumbed than bound in a +palsy of suspense not wholly destitute of dread; beneath the lethargic +shallows of consciousness lay soundless deeps troubled by sinister +premonitions.... + +Now, retracing stage by stage the record of the day, Sofia became aware +that its most poignant moment for her was actually the present, with its +keen wonder that she had contrived to survive such exquisite tedium. + +She perceived that she had moved throughout like an automaton swayed by a +will outside its own; functioning rather than living; performing appointed +business, executing prescribed gestures, uttering foreordained +observations, and making dictated responses, all without suggestion of +spontaneity, and all without meaning other than as means to bridge an empty +space of waiting. + +Waiting for what? + +Sofia could not guess.... + +She went to bed presently, hoping only to find surcease of boredom; and her +head no sooner touched the pillow than oblivion closed down upon her +faculties like a dense, dark cloud. + +Discreet and well-instructed, Chou Nu turned the night-light down to a +glimmer, placed on and under a chair adjacent to the bed a robe of cashmere +that wouldn't rustle, and slippers of fine felt with soles of soft leather, +in which footfalls must be inaudible--and glided gently from the room. + +For sixty minutes its deep hush was unbroken; the even respiration of the +girl made no sound, she rested without tossing, without moving a finger. + +Then, sleep having held her for precisely one hour by the clock, Sofia +opened her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and at once sat up on the side of +the bed. + +The memory of that hour was not to leave the girl while life was in her; +nor was the question it raised ever to be answered in a fashion +satisfactory to her intelligence. When later she heard it stated with +authority, by men reputed to be versed in psychic knowledge, that a subject +in hypnosis cannot be willed to act contrary to the instincts of his or her +better nature, she held her peace, but wondered. Was Victor right, then, +and the crime he had willed her to commit in final analysis not repugnant +to her instincts? Or was it some secret faculty of the soul, telepathy or +of its kin, that roused and sent her to keep her rendezvous with destiny? + +A riddle never to be read: Sofia only knew that, finding herself awake, she +got up, donned negligee and slippers, and set her feet upon the way +appointed without its occurring to her that the way was strange, without +stopping to question why or whether. + +If independent volition, sensible or subliminal, were absent, it could +hardly have been apparent. Sofia herself was not aware of its suspense or +supersession. She knew quite well what she was doing, her every action was +direct and decided, the goal alone remained obscure. She only knew that +somewhere, somehow, something was going wrong without her, and her presence +was required to set it right. + +Letting herself out into the corridor, she drew the door to behind her, but +left it unlatched; with what object, she did not know. But the lateness of +the hour, the stillness of the sleeping household, made it seem quite in +order that she should pause to look cautiously this way and that and make +sure that nobody else was astir to spy upon her or challenge the purpose of +this as yet aimless nocturnal flitting. + +There was nobody that she could see. + +Down the corridor, then, never asking why that way, like a ghost in haste +she sped, but as she drew near to a certain door found her pace faltering. +Sofia knew that door; through it Lady Randolph West herself had introduced +the girl to her boudoir, not two hours since, when chance, or Fate, or the +smooth working out of malicious mortal machinations had moved the two women +simultaneously to seek their quarters for the night. And in the boudoir +Sofia had spent the quarter of an hour before going on to her own room and +bed, civilly attending to vapid chatter and admiring as in duty bound the +admirable jewels of the family. + +Now she saw the door a few inches ajar with, beyond it, a dim glow. The +circumstance seemed singular, because--now that she remembered--when Sofia +had expressed perfunctory curiosity concerning what precautions were taken +to safeguard the jewels, Lady Randolph West had airily informed her that +she considered insurance to their appraised value plus a stout lock on the +boudoir door better than any strong-box as yet devised by the ingenuity of +man. + +"There's the safe they're kept in, of course," the lady had +declared--"but, my dear, a cardboard box will do as well when any burglar +who knows his business makes up his mind to get at my trinkets. I never +even trouble to lock the thing. I'd rather lose the jewels--and collect the +insurance money--than be frightened out of my wits by hearing it blown +open. No, thanks ever so: any cracksman skillful enough to pick the lock on +the door may bag his loot and go in peace for all of me!" + +Impulse, at least she called it that, moved Sofia to approach and +cautiously open the door still wider. + +Upon the antique writing-desk that housed the safe burned a single lamp of +low candle-power. A door that led to the adjoining bedchamber was tightly +shut. Sofia's mistrustful eyes reconnoitred every corner of the room, and +reckoned it empty. Again obedient to undisputed impulse, she stepped inside +and shut the door. The spring-latch of the American lock found its socket +with a soft click. Thereafter, silence, no sound in the boudoir, none from +the room beyond. But to Sofia the hurried beating of her heart reverberated +on the stillness like the rolling of a drum. + +Without clear appreciation of how she had got there, she found herself +standing over the writing-desk, and discovered what the indifferent light +had till now kept hidden, that a false panel in the front of the desk had +been thrust back, exposing the face of the safe, and that this last was not +even closed. + +At the same time she grew conscious that her hands were shaking violently, +that her every limb, her whole body indeed, was agitated by desperate +trembling. And dully asked herself why this should be ... But didn't +hesitate. + +Her actions now more than ever resembled those of an unthinking puppet, +although she knew quite well what she was doing; and her gestures might +have been the fruit of long lessoning at the hands of some master of stage +melodrama, so true were they to theatrical convention. + +With furtive, frightened glances toward both doors, Sofia dropped to her +knees before the safe.... + +When she stood up again her hands were filled with jewellery, her two hands +held a treasure of incalculable price in precious stones. + +She paused for a little, staring at them with dilate eyes dark in a pale, +rapt face. Her lips were parted, but only her quickened breathing whispered +past them. She was trembling more painfully than ever. But she seemed +unable to think of anything but the jewels, her gaze was held in +fascination by their coruscant loveliness as revealed by the light of the +little lamp. + +Hers for the taking! + +Then, without warning, a tremendous convulsion laid hold on her body and +soul, and she was racked and shaken by it, and at its crisis her +outstretched hands opened and showered the top of the desk with jewels, +then flew to her head and clutched her throbbing temples. + +She cried out in a low voice of suffering: _"No!"_ + +And of a sudden she was reeling back from the desk, toward the corridor +door, repeating over and over on an ascending scale: _"No! no! no! no! +no!"_ + +Her quaking legs blundered against a chair, her knees gave, she tottered to +fall; strong arms caught her, held her safe, a voice she knew yet didn't +know in its guarded key muttered in her ear: "Thank God!" + +She made no struggle, but her eyes of pain and terror sought the speaker's +face, and saw that he was the man Nogam. In extremity of amazement she +spoke his name. He shook his head. + +"No longer Nogam," he said in the same low accents, and smiled--"but your +father, Michael Lanyard!" + + + +XIX + +UNMASKING + + +One more instant the girl rested passive in uncomprehending astonishment; +then abruptly she exerted herself to break free from the supporting +embrace, but found the effort wasted for lack of opposition, so that her +own violence sent her reeling away half a dozen paces, to bring up against +the desk; while Lanyard, making no move more than to drop his rejected +arms, remained where she had left him, and requited her indignant stare +with a broken smile of understanding, a smile at once tender, tolerant, and +sympathetic, with a little quirk of rueful humour for good measure. + +"My father!" Sofia repeated in a gasp of disdain--"_you!_" + +He gave a slight shrug. + +"Such, it appears, is your sad fortune." + +"A servant!" + +"And not the proud prince you were promised? Rather a come down, one must +admit." Lanyard laughed low, and moved nearer. "I'm sorry, I mean I might +be (for myself, too) if Nogam were less a fraud than that pretentious +mountebank, Prince Victor--or for the matter of that, if you were as poor +of spirit as you would seem on your own valuation, if you were not at heart +your mother's daughter, and mine, my child by a woman whom I loved well, +and who long ago loved me!" + +He paused deliberately to let her grasp the full sense of his words, then +pursued: + +"It may help you get your bearings to know that I am truly the Michael +Lanyard to whom Messieurs Secretan & Sypher addressed their +advertisement--you remember--as this should prove." + +He offered a slip of paper, and after another moment of dumb staring, the +girl took it and read aloud the message which Victor had dictated following +Sofia's flight to him from the Cafe des Exiles. + +_"'To Michael Lanyard, Intelligence Division, the War Office, +Whitehall--'"_ + +"That is to say," Lanyard interpreted, "of the British Secret Service." + +"You!" + +He bowed in light irony. "One regrets one is at present unable to offer +better social standing. To-morrow, it may be ... But who knows?" + +Sofia shook her head impatiently, and in a murmur of deepening amazement +resumed her reading of the note: + +_"'Your daughter Sofia is now with me.. Your own intelligence must tell you +nothing could be more fatal than an attempt to communicate with her'"_ + +To the interrogation eloquent in her eyes Lanyard replied: + +"Dictated by Victor to Karslake, who passed it on to me, the night he +brought you to the house from the Cafe des Exiles." + +"You knew--you, who claim to be my father--yet permitted him--?" + +"You were in the house before I knew I had a daughter; Karslake had no +chance to consult me before fetching you. Furthermore, if he had hesitated +to carry out Victor's orders just then, not only would he have nullified +all our preparations to secure evidence enough to convict the man, or at +least run him out of England--" + +"Prince Victor? What was he doing, that you should--?" + +"Dabbling in all manner of infamy, from financing a thieves' fence to +organizing an association of common criminals to bring it business; from +maintaining a corps of agitators to foment social discontent to fostering +this last, most imbecile scheme of all, which comes to naught to-night, an +attempt to overthrow the British Empire and set up in its stead a Soviet +England, with Victor Vassilyevski in the dual role of Trotsky and Lenine!" + +The girl made a sign of bewilderment and incredulity. + +"What are you telling me? Are you mad?" + +"No--but Victor is, mad with lust for power, insane with illusions of +personal aggrandizement. You don't believe? Listen to me, then, appreciate +to what demoniac lengths he was prepared to go to flatter his insane +ambitions:" + +"Sturm has invented a new poison gas, odourless, colourless, the most +deadly known, and easily manufactured in vast quantities by adding simple +ingredients to ordinary illuminating gas. Fanatic Bolshevist that he was, +Sturm offered his formula to Victor, to be used to clear the way for social +revolution; and Victor jumped at the offer--has spent vast sums preparing +to employ it. His money paid for the recent strike at the Westminster works +of the Gas Light and Coke Company, by means of which Victor was able to +smuggle a round number of his creatures into its service. His money has +corrupted servants employed in Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament, in +the homes of the nobility, even in Buckingham Palace itself, men ready at a +given signal secretly to turn on gas jets in remote corners and flood the +buildings with the very breath of Death itself. And that signal was to have +been given to-night. Well, it will not be." + +"But could any scheme be more grotesquely diabolical? Do you ask more proof +of the man's madness? Do you require more excuse for my permitting you to +be deceived by Victor for a few weeks, rather than wreck our plans to +frustrate his, when all the while Karslake and I were near you, watching +over you, learning to love you--he in his fashion, I as your father--and +both ready at all times to die in your protection, if it had ever come to +that?" + +Lanyard had drawn so near that only a few inches separated them, and had +his voice in such control that at three paces' distance a vague and +inarticulate murmur at most might have been heard; but in Sofia's hearing +his accents rang with passionate sincerity, persuading her against the +reason which would have rejected his indictment of Victor as too fantastic, +too imaginative, and too hopelessly overdrawn to be given credence. She +believed him, knowing in her heart that he believed his statements to the +last word; and knowing more, that he was surely what he represented himself +to be, her father. + +Inscrutable the processes of human hearts: even as from the very first +Sofia had instinctively yet unconsciously recognized the intrinsic falsity +of Victor's pretensions, so now she perceived the integral honesty that +informed Lanyard's every word and nuance of expression, and accepted him +without further inquisition. + +To his insistent "Have I made you understand?" she returned a wan wraith of +a smile, pitiful with entreaty, while one of her hands found the way to +his. + +"I think so," she replied in halting apology--"at least, I believe you. But +be a little patient with me. It is all so new and strange, what you tell +me, it's hard at first to grasp, there's so much I must accept on faith +alone, so much I don't understand ..." + +"I know." Lanyard pressed her hand gently. + +"But try to have faith; I promise you it shall be fairly rewarded. Only a +little longer now, an hour or two at most, and Karslake will be here to +prove the truth of all I have asserted. You will believe him, at least." + +"Of course," the girl said, simply. "I love him. You knew that?" + +"I guessed, and I am glad, glad for both of you." + +"But he is safe?" Sofia demanded in sudden access of alarm so strong that +her voice rose above the pitch of discretion. + +"Quietly. Yes, he is safe enough." + +"You know that for a fact? How do you know--?" + +"I've seen him to-night, talked with him--not two hours since." + +"You have been in London?" she questioned--"to-night?" + +"Rather! Victor sent me." Lanyard laughed lightly. "You didn't know, of +course, but--well, I gave him reason to suspect me, so he sent me up to be +assassinated by Shaik Tsin. As it turned out, however, Herr Sturm most +obligingly understudied for me.... Before coming back, I looked Karslake +up. He'd been busy, playing a lone hand, ever since Victor trumped up an +errand to keep him out of your way all day. No need to go into tedious +details; I found Karslake had matters well in hand: the gas works +surrounded by a cordon of troops, the house under close watch, and--best +of all--a sworn confession from an Irish Member of Parliament whom Victor +had managed to buy with a promise to free Ireland once Soviet England was +an accomplished fact. So I left Karslake to wind up loose ends in London, +and posted back with my heart in my mouth for fear I'd be too late." + +"Too late?" Sofia queried with arching brows. + +"Need I remind you where we are?" + +A sweep of Lanyard's hand indicated the boudoir; and Sofia started sharply +in perplexity and alarm. + +"Where we are!" she echoed in a frightened whisper. + +Of a sudden memory returned of what had passed in that room before Lanyard +had revealed himself to her, and knowledge of her peril so narrowly escaped +drove home like a knife to her heart. + +"What am I doing here?" she breathed in horror. "What have I done?" + +"Nothing more dreadful than prove yourself as true as you are fine, by +revolting in the end against the most powerful force known to man, the +force of suggestion implanted in hypnotism. You couldn't know that it was +hypnotic not natural sleep you passed into last night, when Victor tricked +you with that damned crystal, or that, while you slept, he willed you to do +here to-night what, when it came to the final test, your nature would not +let you do." + +"But he so often told me I had the instincts of a thief--!" + +"So often--_I_ know--that you were, against your will and reason, by dint +of the very iteration of it, coming to accept that lie as a truth whose +power there was no contesting. That is why, that you might prove yourself +by your own acts, I had to let you undergo your ordeal here to-night, only +standing by to make sure no ill came of it. Otherwise you might have +carried to your grave the fear instilled into your soul by that blackguard. +But now you know he lied, and will never doubt again--or reproach your +father for the dark record of his younger years." + +He checked, lifting hands of desolate appeal, then let them fall. + +"Dear, if you knew you would not judge me harshly. If only you could know +what I have fought up from, a foundling without a name abandoned in a +third-rate Parisian hotel, reared a scullion, butt and scapegoat, with +associates only of the lowest, scullions, beggars, pickpockets, Apaches, +and worse--!" + +"As if that mattered!" + +The girl turned a softly suffused face with shining eyes to Lanyard's. Now +at last she knew him, now the romance of her dreams of yesterday came true: +through the mean masquerade of Nogam the man emerged, identifying himself +in her sight unmistakably with that splendid stranger whom she had never +quite forgotten since that old-time afternoon when he had met Karslake in +the Cafe des Exiles and talked so intimately of his antecedents, hinting +at a history of youthful years strangely analogous with her own. + +Involuntarily her arms lifted and settled upon his shoulders. + +"I am so proud to think--" + +A shrill scream drowned out her words, a woman's voice ranging swiftly the +staccato gamut of terror and cracking discordantly on its most piercing +note. + +Then with a bang that shook the flooring and must have been heard in the +farthest corners of the house, the bedchamber door was slammed behind their +backs. But beyond it the screaming went on in volume imperceptibly muffled +by its barrier, one ear-splitting caterwaul following another with such +continuity that the wonder was where Lady Randolph West found breath to +keep up that atrocious row, and whether any dozen women of average +lung-power could have rivalled it. + +In one sharp movement Lanyard and Sofia disengaged and fell apart, their +eyes consulting, hers in dismay, his in mixed exasperation and remorse. + +"I ought to be shot," he declared, bitterly--"who knew better!--to have +delayed here, exposing you to this danger--!" + +"It couldn't be helped," Sofia insisted; "you had to make me understand. +Besides, if I hurry back--" + +In quick strides Lanyard crossed to the corridor door, unlatched and opened +it an inch, peered out, and gave the sum of what he saw in a gesture of +finality, then leaving the door ajar turned swiftly back to the girl. + +"Too late," he said: "they're swarming out into the hall like bees. In +another minute ..." + +Of a sudden he closed with Sofia, roughly clasping her body to him. + +"Struggle with me!" he pleaded--"get me by the throat, throw me back across +the desk--" + +"What do you mean? Let me go!" + +In answer to her efforts to wrench away, Lanyard only tightened his hold +and swung her toward the desk. + +"Do as I bid you! It's the only way out. Let them think you heard a noise, +got up to investigate, found me here, rifling the safe--" + +"No," she insisted--"no! Why should I save myself at your expense?--betray +you--my father--!" + +"Then give me the obedience of a daughter ... or let Victor succeed in +branding you a thief, the daughter of a thief!" + +He stilled the protest she would have uttered by placing fingers over her +lips. + +"Listen!" + +In the corridor an angry rumour of voices, alarmed calls and cries, with +thumps and scuffles of hasty feet, in the bedchamber the shrieks persisting +without the least hint of failing: as a damned soul might bawl upon its bed +of coals ... + +"Sofia, I implore you!" + +Still she hesitated. + +"But you--?" + +"Never fear for me, remember that I am of the Secret Service: two minutes +after I see the inside of the nearest police station, I shall be free--and +happy in the assurance that your name is without stain. Then Karslake will +come for you, bring you to me ... Now!" + +Lanyard caught the girl's two wrists together and, throwing himself bodily +backward across the desk, carried her hands to his throat. + +With a simultaneous crash the door was flung back to the wall. Led by +Victor Vassilyevski a dozen men, guests and servants, in various stages of +dishabille, streamed into the room. + + + +XX + +THE DEVIL TO PAY + + +When it was all over, when the gravelled drive no longer crunched to wheels +that bore away the man Nogam to answer for his misdeeds, when the household +had quieted down and the most indefatigable sensation-monger had wearied of +singing the praises of the Princess Sofia and, tossing off a final +whiskey-and-soda, had paddled sleepily back to bed, lights burned on +brightly in two parts only of Frampton Court, in the bedchambers tenanted +respectively by Prince Victor Vassilyevski and his reputed daughter. + +Alone, Prince Victor sat at the desk where he had, four hours earlier, +inscribed those characters which should have hurried Nogam into a premature +grave. That they had failed of their mission was something that fretted +Victor Vassilyevski, his mind and nerves, to a pitch of exacerbation all +but unendurable. + +What had become of that sentence to death? And what of that other, the +telegram which, forwarded by Nogam's hand to Sturm, should long since have +set in motion the organized machinery of murder and demolition? + +Had Nogam, as he had meekly insisted on being questioned subsequent to his +subjugation, truly delivered the two messages as directed and, miraculously +escaping his fate decreed, returned to Frampton Court by the twelve-three, +likewise in strict conformance with instructions? + +This statement Nogam had neglected to amplify, and Victor had been chary of +too close questioning, lest it elicit too much in the hearing of others. +Once overpowered, Nogam had been philosophic about his bad luck; but the +eyes in his face of a stoic had held a gleam that Victor didn't altogether +like, a light that seemed suspiciously malicious, a suggestion of spirited +humour deplorable to say the least in a self-confessed sneak-thief caught +in the very act, deplorable and disturbing; in Victor's sight a look +constructively indicative of more knowledge than Nogam had any right to +possess. Take it any way you pleased, something to think about ... + +Still more disquieting Victor thought the circumstance that nobody else had +seemed to notice that anomalous light in Nogam's eyes; which of course +might mean merely that Victor had worked himself into such a state of +nerves that he was seeing things, but equally well that the look was one +reserved for Victor alone, intentionally or not holding for him a message, +if he had but had the wit to read it, of peculiarly personal import. + +It might have implied, for example, that Victor's half-hearted and +paltering distrust of Nogam had all along been only too well warranted. In +which case, the fat was already in the fire with a vengeance, and Victor's +probable duration of life was dependent wholly upon the speed with which he +could quit Frampton Court and hurl his motor-car through the night to the +lower reaches of the Thames. + +Envisagement of the worst at its blackest being part of the holy duty of +self-preservation, Victor sat fully dressed, with every other provision +made for flight at the first flash of warning, only waiting to make sure, +and with what impatience was apparent in the working of paste-coloured +features, the wincing and shifting of slotted eyes, the incessant shutting +and unclosing of tensed fingers. + +All rested with the telephone that stood mockingly mute at the man's elbow, +callous alike to his anxiety and the rancorous regard in which he held it. +His call for the house near Queen Anne's Gate had now been in for more than +forty minutes; in that interval he had no less than three times pleaded its +urgency to the trunk-line operator. And still the muffled bell beneath the +desk was dumb. + +And the worst of it was, fatal though the delay might prove, he dared not +stir a hand to save himself until he _knew_.... + +In the taut torment of those long-drawn minutes a sound of circumspect +scratching was enough to bring Victor to his feet in one startled bound. + +He stood for a moment, a-twitch, but intent upon the corridor door, then +composed himself with indifferent success, approached and opened the door. +The girl Chou Nu slipped in, offered a timid courtesy, and awaited his +leave to speak. + +"Well? What is it?" + +"Excellency: the Princess Sofia refuses to let me stay in the room with +her." + +"Why? Don't you know?" + +"I think she means to run away. She would not go back to her bed, but +walked up and down, till I ventured to urge her to take rest, when she +turned on me in a rage and bade me be gone. Then I came to you." + +Victor took thought and finished with a dour nod. + +"You have done well. Return, keep watch, let me know if she leaves--" + +"The door is locked, Excellency: she will not let me in." + +"Spy through the keyhole, then; or hide in one of the empty rooms across +the corridor, and watch--" + +A muted mutter from the direction of the desk dried speech on Victor's +lips. He started hastily toward the source of the sound, midway wheeled, +and dismissed the maid with a brusque hand and monosyllable--"Go!"--then +fairly pounced upon the telephone. + +But all he heard, in the course of the ensuing five minutes, was the voice +of the trunk-line operator advising him, to begin with, that she was ready +to put him through to Westminster, then maddeningly punctuating the buzz +and whine of the empty wire with her call of a talking doll--"Are you +theah?... Are you theah?... Are you theah?" + +At length, however, the connection was established; and Victor, hearing the +falsetto of Chou Nu's second-uncle cheerily respond to the operator's +query, unceremoniously broke in: + +"Shaik Tsin? It is I, Number One. And the devil's own time I've had getting +through. Why didn't you answer more promptly? What's the matter? Has +anything gone wrong?" + +"All is well, Excellency, as well as you could wish, knowing what you +know." + +Profound relief found voice in a sigh from Victor's heart. + +"You got my messages, then? Nogam delivered them?" + +"So I understand. I myself did not see him, Excellency. The man Sturm--" + +On that name the voice died away in what Victor fancied was a gasp that +might have been of either fright or pain. + +"Hello!" he prompted. "Are you there, Shaik Tsin? I say! Are you there? Why +don't you answer?" + +He paused: no sound for seconds that dragged like so many minutes, then of +a sudden a deadened noise like the slam of a door heard afar--or a pistol +shot at some distance from the telephone in the study. + +Further and frantic importuning of the cold and unresponsive wire +presently was silenced by a new voice, little like that of Shaik Tsin. + +"Hello? Who's there? I say: that you, Prince Victor?" + +Involuntarily Victor cried: "Karslake!" "What gorgeous luck! I've been +wanting a word with you all evening." + +"What has happened? Why did Shaik Tsin--?" + +"Oh, most unfortunate about him--frightfully sorry, but it really couldn't +be helped, if he hadn't fought back we wouldn't have had to shoot him. You +see, the old devil murdered Sturm to-night, for some reason I daresay you +understand better than I: we found a paper on the beggar, written in +Chinese, apparently an order for his assassination signed by you. Half a +mo': I'll read it to you ..." + +But if Karslake translated Victor's message, as edited by the hand of +Nogam, it was to a wire as deaf as it was dumb. + + + +XXI + +VENTRE A TERRE + + +With exceeding care to avoid noise, Sofia unlocked the door and for the +second time since midnight let herself stealthily out into the darkened +corridor; but now with the difference that she did what she did in full +command of all her wits and faculties, with no subjective war of wills to +hinder and confuse her, and with a definite object clearly visioned--a goal +no less distant than the railway station. + +Lanyard had promised that Karslake should come for her within an hour or +two and take her away with him, back to London and the arms of the father +whom, although so recently revealed and accepted, she had already begun to +love; if indeed it were not true that she had in filial sense fallen in +love with Lanyard at first sight, through intuition, that afternoon in the +Cafe des Exiles so long, so very long ago! + +Well: she might as well await Karslake at the station. It would be simpler, +she would be more at ease there, would breathe more freely once she turned +her back on Frampton Court and all its hateful associations. Where Victor +was, she could not rest. + +If she had feared the man before, now she hated him; but hatred had added +to her fear instead of replacing it, she remained afraid, desperately +afraid, so that even the thought of continuing under the same roof with him +was enough to make her prefer to tramp unknown roads alone in the mirk of +that storm-swept night. + +Though she went in trembling, she felt sure nobody spied upon her going; +and in this confidence crept to the great staircase, down to the entrance +hall, and on to the front doors; and a good omen it seemed to find these +not locked, but simply on the latch. And if the night into which she peered +was dark and loud with wind and rain, its countenance seemed kindlier, more +friendly far than that of the world she was putting behind her. Without +misgivings Sofia stepped out. + +It was like stepping over the edge of the universe into the eternal night +that bides beyond the stars. Neither did waiting seem to habituate her +vision to the lack of light. + +Still, the feel of gravel underfoot ought to guide her down the drive to +the great gateway; and once outside the park, clear of its overshadowing +trees, one would surely find mitigation of darkness sufficient to show the +public road. + +She took one tentative step out of the recessed doorway and into Victor's +arms. + +That they were Victor's she knew instantly, as much by the crawling of her +flesh as by the choking terror that stifled the scream in her throat and +froze body and limbs with its paralyzing touch. + +And then his ironic accents: + +"So good of you to spare me the trouble of coming for you!" + +Before she could reply or even think, other hands than his were busy with +her. A folded cloth was whipped over the lower half of her face, sealing +her lips, and knotted at the nape of her neck. Stout arms clipped her knees +and swung her off her feet, leaving her body helpless in Victor's tight +embrace. And despite her tardy recovery and efforts to struggle, she was +carried swiftly away, a dozen paces or so, then tumbled bodily in upon the +floor of a motor-car. + +The door closed as she tried to pick herself up, the smooth purring of the +motor became a leonine roar while she was still on her knees, gears +clashed, and the car leaped with a jerk that drove her headlong against the +cushions of the seat. Then the dome light was switched on, and she saw +Victor with a bleak face sitting over her, an automatic pistol naked in his +hand. + +"Get up!" he said, grimly, "and if there's any thought of fight left in +you, think better of it, remember your mother paid with her life the price +of defying me, and yours means even less to me. Up with you and sit quietly +beside me--do you hear?" + +He lent her a hand that wrenched her arm brutally and wrung a cry which +Victor mocked as Sofia fell upon the seat and cringed back into the corner. + +For perhaps thirty seconds, while the car raced away down the drive, he +continued to hold her in the venom of her sneer; then his gaze veered +sharply, and leaning over he switched off the light. + +With the body of the car again the dwelling-place of darkness, objects +beyond its rain-gemmed glass--the heads of the Chinese maid and chauffeur, +the twin piers of the nearing gateway--attained dense relief against the +blue-white glare of two broad headlight beams, that of the limousine boring +through the gateway to intersect at right angles that of another car +approaching on the highroad but as yet hidden by the wall of the park. + +In one breath and the same the lights of the second car swerved in toward +the gateway, and consternation seized hold of Sofia's intelligence and +wiped it clear of all coherence. + +Already the strange lamps were staring blankly in between the piers--and +the momentum of Victor's car was too great to be arrested within the +distance. The girl cried out, but didn't know it, and crouched low; the +horn added a squawk of frenzy to a wild clamour of yells; all prefatory to +a scrunching, rending crash as, in the very mouth of the gateway, a front +fender of the incoming car ripped through the rear fender above which Sofia +was sitting. Thrown heavily against Victor, then instantly back to her +place, she felt the car, with brakes set fast, turn broadside to the road, +skid crabwise, and lurch sickeningly into the ditch on the farther side. + +For an interminable time, while the ponderous fabric rocked and toppled, +threatening very instant to crash upon its side, the rear wheels spun madly +and the chain-bound tires tore in vain at greasy road metal. + +Without clear comprehension of what was happening, Sofia heard shouts from +the other car, now at a standstill, and an oddly syncopated popping. The +window in the door on Victor's side rang like a cracked bell, shivered, and +fell inward, clashing. With a growl of rage, Victor bent forward and +levelled an arm through the opening. From his hand truncated tongues of +orange flame, half a dozen of them, stabbed the gloom to an accompaniment +of as many short and savage barks. + +Then the chains at last bit through to a purchase, the car scrambled to the +crown of the road and lunged precipitately away; and the lights of the +other dropped astern in the space of a rest between heartbeats. + +Sitting back, Victor turned on the dome light again, and extracting an +empty magazine clip from the butt of his automatic pistol, replaced it with +another, loaded. + +From this occupation he looked up with lips curling in contempt of Sofia's +terror. + +"Your friends," he observed, "were a thought behindhand, eh? When you come +to know me better, my dear, you'll find they invariably are--with me." + +Aftermath of fright made her tongue inarticulate; and Victor's sneer took +on a colour of mean amusement. + +"Something on your mind?" + +She twisted her hands together till the laced fingers hurt. + +"Wha-what are you go-going to do with me?" + +"Make good use of you, dear child," he laughed: "be sure of that!" + +"What do you mean?" + +"What do you think?" + +"I don't know ..." + +"Really not? But there I think you do injustice to your admirable +intelligence." + +The jeering laugh sounded as he put out the light again, in darkness the +derisive voice pursued: + +"If you must know in so many words--well, I mean to keep you by me till the +final curtain falls. As long as it lasts, yours will be an interesting +life--I give my word." + +"And you call yourself my father!" + +"Oh, no! No, indeed: that's all over and done with, the farce is played +out; and while I'm aware my role in it wasn't heroic, I shan't play the +purblind fool in the afterpiece--pure drama--upon which the curtain is now +rising. Neither need you. Oh, I'll be frank with you, if you wish, lay all +my cards on the table." + +A deliberate pause ended in a chuckle. + +"I have at present precisely two uses for my precious little Sofia: She +will serve excellently as insurance against further persecution on the part +of her accomplished and energetic father--with whom I shall deal in my good +leisure--and ... But need one be crudely explicit?" + +Sofia answered nothing to that, for a long time she said nothing, but sat +pondering.... + +And Victor was speedily provided with another interest which engrossed him +to the exclusion of further efforts to bait a victim defenseless against +his insolence. + +When for the third time after that narrow scrape at the gates the man +roused up to peer back through the rear window of the limousine, Sofia +heard a harshly sibilant intake of breath between shut teeth, and surmised +the discovery that the car which had so narrowly missed blocking their +escape had picked up the trail, and was now in hot chase. + +Even youth, however, could distill but slender hope from this. The pace was +too terrific at which Victor's car was thundering through the night-bound +countryside, it seemed idle to dream that another could overhaul it, even +though driven with as much skill and maniacal recklessness. And Sofia +returned to thoughts to which Victor's innuendo had given definite shape +and colour, if with an effect far from that of his intention. Threatened, +the spirit of the girl responded much as sane young flesh will to a cold +plunge. She had forgotten to tremble, and though still tense-strung in +every fibre was able to sit still, look steadily into the face of peril, +and calculate her chances of cheating it. + +Presently, in a tone so even it won begrudged admiration, she asked: + +"Where are you taking me?" + +"Do you really care?" + +"Enough to ask." + +"But why should I tell you?" + +"No reason. I presume it doesn't really matter, I'll know soon enough." + +"Then I don't mind enlightening you. We're bound for the Continent by way +of Limehouse. A launch is waiting for us in Limehouse Reach, a yacht off +Gravesend. Oh, I have forgotten nothing! By daybreak we'll be at sea." + +"We?" + +"You and I." + +"You deceive yourself, Prince Victor. I shan't accompany you." + +"How amusing! And is it a secret, how you propose to stand against my +will?" + +Sofia was silent for a little; then, "I can kill myself," she said, +quietly. + +"To be sure you can! And when I tire of you, perhaps I'll humour your +morbid inclinations--if they still exist." + +"You are a fool," Sofia returned, bluntly, "if you think I shall go aboard +that yacht alive." + +"Brava!" Victor laughed, and clapped his hands. "Brava! brava!" + +He sat up for another look out of the rear window, sucked at his breath +even more sharply than before, and snatching up the speaking-tube +pronounced urgent words in Chinese. + +The head of the chauffeur, in stark silhouette against the leading glow, +bent toward the tube, and nodded rapidly. And to the deep-throated roar of +an unmuffled exhaust, the heavy car leaped, like a spirited animal stung by +whip and spur, and settled into a stride to which what had gone before was +as a preliminary canter to the heartbreaking drive down to the +home-stretch. + +Lights began to dot the roadside. Widely spaced at first, unbroken ranks +were soon streaking past the tear-blind windows. Outskirts of London were +being traversed; but neither driving sheets of rain against which human +vision failed, nor the chance of encountering belated traffic, worked any +slackening of the pace. Only when a corner had to be negotiated did the car +slow down, and then never to the point of sanity; and the turn once +rounded, its flight would again become headlong, lunatic, suicidal. + +The stringed lamps wove a wavering luminous ribbon without end; a breeze +laden with the wet fragrance of London drove great gusts of rain in +stringing showers through the broken window. Turns and twists grew more +frequent, apparently favouring the pursuit. + +Victor now knelt constantly on the back seat, his face in the fitful play +of light and shadow uncannily resembling that of a hunted jungle cat. On +the polished steel of his pistol sinister gleams winked and faded. From his +snarling lips foul oaths fell, a steady stream, black blasphemies spewed up +from the darkest dives of the Orient--most of them happily couched in the +tongues of their origin and so unintelligible to his one auditor. As it +was, she heard and understood enough, too much. + +Nevertheless, the man was not too completely absorbed in watching the +shifting fortunes of the race to be unmindful of the girl. And when once +she sat up to ease cramped limbs, he misread her intention and, catching +her viciously by an arm, threw her back into her corner and advised her not +to play the giddy little fool. + +After that Sofia was at pains to stir as seldom as possible, and bided her +time quietly enough, but never for an instant relaxed her watchfulness or +lost heart. + +The shouldering houses that hedged their course discovered a profile, +ragged, black against a sky whose purple dimness held the first dull +presage of dawn. + +In the wild rush of a marauding tomcat the car crossed a broad public +square and sped up the graded approach to a bridge. The smell of the Thames +was unmistakable, the far-flung lamps of the Embankment were pearls aglow +upon violet velvet. + +Leaving the bridge, the limousine took a turn on two wheels, and +immediately something happened, seemingly some attempt to stop it was made. +Vociferous voices hailed it, only to induce an augmented bellow of the +exhaust with an instantaneous acceleration of impetus. Then something was +struck and tossed aside as a bull might toss a dog--a dark shape whirling +and flopping hideously; and an agonized screaming made the girl cower, sick +with horror, and cover her ears with her hands. + +Before she was able to forget those qualms many more minutes of frantic +driving had flung to the rear many a mile of silent streets. + +Of a sudden she heard an inhuman cry and, looking up, saw Victor dash the +butt of his pistol through the glass, then reversing the weapon pour +through the opening a fusillade whose effect was presumably gratifying, for +he laughed to himself when the pistol was empty, laughed briefly but with +vicious glee. + +That laugh levelled the last barrier of doubt and fear and nerved Sofia +finally to test the forlorn hope she had been nursing ever since Victor had +let her see a little way into his mind as to her fate. + +Until he could reload, only the tradition of the sexes lent him theoretical +superiority; whereas he was in fact a man well on the thither side of +middle-age, his virility sapped by long indulgence of unbridled appetites; +while Sofia was a woman in the fullest flush of her first mature powers. + +Gathering herself together, she inched forward and made ready to spring, +bear him down, overpower him--by some or any means put him hors de combat +long enough for her to fling a door open and herself out into the +street.... + +With squealing brakes the car shaved an acute corner and slid on locked +wheels to a dead halt so unexpected that it was Sofia who plunged +floundering to the floor, while Victor only by a minor miracle escaped +catapulting through the front windows. + +The next instant, as Sofia struggled to her knees, the door behind her was +wrenched open from without and, at a sign from Victor, rough hands laid +hold of the girl and dragged her out bodily. + +In a passion of despair, she lost her senses for a time and like a madwoman +fought, shrieking, biting, kicking, clawing, scratching.... + +With returning lucidity she found herself, panting and dishevelled, arms +pinned to her sides, struggling on for all that, being hustled by some half +a dozen men across a narrow sidewalk of uneven flagstones. + +Simultaneously the shutter of perceptions snapped, photographing +permanently upon the super-sensitized film of conscious memory the glimpsed +vista of a grim, mean street whose repellent uglinesses grinned through the +boding twilight like lineaments of some monstrous mask of evil. + +Then she tripped on a low stone step, stumbled, and was half-carried, +half-thrown into a narrow and malodorous hallway. + +Between her and the sweet liberty of the rain-washed air a door crashed +like the crack of doom. + + + +XXII + +THE SEVEN BRASS HINGES + + +Into a space perhaps four feet in width from wall to wall and seven deep +from the front door to the foot of a cramped flight of crazy wooden stairs, +some ten people were crowded, Sofia and the maid Chou Nu in a knot of +excited men. + +In the saffron glow of an ill-trimmed paraffin lamp smoking in a wall +bracket, desperate faces, yellow and brown and white, consulted one another +with rolling eyeballs and strange tongues clamorous. Sofia heard the broken +rustling of heavy respirations; she saw uncouth gesticulations carve the +shadows; her nostrils were revolted by effluvia of unclean bodies, garments +saturate with opium smoke and curious cookery, breaths sour with alcohol. + +Two were busy at the door, under the direction of Prince Victor, setting +stout bars into iron sockets. When they had finished, Victor elbowed them +out of his way and thrust back the slide of a narrow horizontal peephole, +through which he reconnoitred. + +The tall, thin body stiffened as he looked, and without turning he flung an +open hand behind him and snapped a demand in Chinese. Somebody slipped a +revolver into his palm. Levelling it he sent a volley crashing through the +peephole. Yells responded, and in the hush that fell upon the final shot a +noise of fugitive feet scraping and stumbling on cobbles. A bullet struck +the door a sounding thump and all but penetrated, raising a bump on the +inner face of its thick oaken panels; and Victor shut the slide and turned +back. + +Subservient silence saluted him. He spoke in Chinese, issuing (Sofia +gathered) instructions for the defense of the house. One by one the men +designated dropped out of the group about her. Three shuffled off into a +room adjoining the hallway. Two others ran briskly up the stairs. A sixth +Victor directed to stand by the barred door. His chauffeur and another +Chinaman he told off for his personal attendance. + +The maid Chou Nu was left to shift for herself, and while Sofia could see +her she did not shift a finger from her pose of terror, flattened to the +wall. When Sofia came back that way, the girl had vanished, however. Nor +was she seen again alive. + +Her arms held fast, Sofia was partly led and partly dragged down the hall, +Victor herding the group on past the staircase and into a bare room at the +back of the house, where a solitary lamp burning on a deal table discovered +for all other furnishing broken chairs, coils of tarred rope, a rack of +ponderous oars and boat-hooks, a display of shapeless oilskins and +sou'westers on pegs. The windows were boarded up from sills to lintels, +the air was close and dank with the stale flavour of foul tidal waters. + +Here Victor took charge of Sofia, the chauffeur holding the lamp to light +the other Chinaman at his labours with a trap-door in the floor, a slab of +woodwork so massive that, when its iron bolts had been drawn, it needed +every whit of the man's strength to lift and throw it back upon its hinges; +and its crashing fall made all the timbers quake and groan. + +Through the square opening thus discovered Sofia saw a ladder of several +slimy steps washed by black, oily waters that sucked and swirled sluggishly +round spiles green with weed and ooze. + +Down these steps the Chinaman crept gingerly, but halfway paused with a +cry, then cringed back to the head of the ladder, yellow face blanched, +slant eyes piteous with fear, as he exhibited an end of stout mooring line +whose other end was made fast to a ring bolt in one of the joists. + +With a smothered oath Victor snatched the rope's end from the trembling +hand and examined it closely. Even Sofia could see that it had been cleanly +severed by a knife. + +Victor's countenance was ablaze as he dropped the rope. Before the tempest +of his wrath the Chinaman bent like a reed, with faint, protesting bleats +and feebly weaving hands. + +But in full tide the tirade faltered, Victor seemed to forget his anger or +else to remind himself it was puerile in contrast with the mortal issues +that now confronted him. + +He turned to Sofia eyes of cold fire in a wintry countenance. + +"So," he pronounced, slowly, "it appears you are to have your way, after +all, and more speedily than either of us reckoned. You are to die, and so +am I, this day--you in my arms. Well, it is time, I daresay, when I permit +myself to be duped and overreached by police spies like your persevering +father and lover. Yes; I am ready to pay the price of my fatuity--but not +until they had paid me for their victory--and dearly. Come!" + +He motioned to the Chinese to reclose and fasten the trap-door, and +grasping Sofia's wrist with cruel fingers hurried her back through the +hallway. + +Repeated breaks of pistol-fire guided them to the front room, a racket +echoed in diminished volume from the street. + +In an atmosphere already thick with acrid fumes of smokeless powder two men +held the windows, firing through loopholes in iron-bound blinds of oak. At +their feet a third squatted, reloading for them as occasion required. As +Sofia and Victor entered one man dropped his weapon and, grunting, fell +back from his window to nurse a shattered hand. Releasing the girl without +another word, Victor caught up the pistol and took the vacant post. + +Instantly, on peering out, he fired once, then again. Evidently missing +both shots, he settled to await a better target, eyes intent to the +loophole. In the course of the next few minutes he changed position but +once, when, after firing several more shots, he tossed the empty weapon to +the man on the floor and received a loaded one in exchange. + +Seeing him thus employed, altogether forgetful, Sofia began to back toward +the hall, step by cautious step, keeping her attention fixed to Victor +throughout. But he seemed to be completely preoccupied with his +markmanship, and paid her no heed. + +Nevertheless, when she at length found courage to swing and dart away +through the door, Victor flung three curt words to the fellow at his feet, +who grunted, rose, and glided from the room in close chase. + +The guard at the front door was not so busy as Sofia had hoped to find him, +not too interested in the progress of siege operations outside to note her +approach and look round from his peephole with a menacing grin of welcome; +and his unmistakable readiness, as pistol in hand he took a single step +toward her, drove the girl back to the foot of the stairs. + +Then the other came swiftly after her, and Sofia swung in panic and +stumbled up the steps. There were others up above, two to her certain +knowledge, possibly many more of Victor's creatures; but if only she could +find some sort of refuge in the uppermost fastnesses of the rookery, +perhaps ... + +Like a shape of smoke wind-driven, she sped up the first flight, then the +second, only pausing at the head of the third and last flight to throw +hunted glances right, left, and behind her. + +Overhead a skylight with dingy panes diffused a dull blue glimmer which +discovered a yawning door at her elbow, a pocket of black mystery beyond, +and on the uppermost steps of the staircase her patient yellow shadow, his +upturned eyes inscrutable but potentially revolting with their very +concealment of the intent behind them. + +Impossible that a worse thing could await her beyond that dark +threshold.... + +She crossed it in one stride, swung the door to, and set her shoulders +against it. + +Outside she heard the shuffling footfalls pause. The knob rattled. But +instead of the inward thrust against which she stood braced, there came the +least of outward pulls, as if to make sure that the latch had caught; and +after a brief pause a key grated in the lock, was withdrawn, and the +slippered feet withdrew in turn. + +When her lungs ceased to labour painfully, she took her courage in both +hands and began to explore, groping blindly through darkness, encountering +nothing till she blundered into a table which held a glass lamp for +paraffin oil, like those in use below. + +Fumbling over the top of the table, she found matches, struck one, and set +its fire to the wick. + +The flame waxed and grew steady in a crusted chimney, revealing a room with +a slant ceiling and two dormer windows, boarded; in one corner a cot-bed +with tumbled blankets, near this a low wooden stand, with a pipe, spirit +lamp, and other paraphernalia of an opium smoker--no chairs, not another +stick of furniture of any kind. + +Removing the lamp, the girl set it on the floor, and pushed the table over +against the door. By not so long as half a minute would its reinforcement +delay Victor when he made up his mind to get in. But in such emergencies +the human kind is not impatient of the most futile expedients. + +There was nothing more she could do. She stood still, listening. The rattle +of pistol fire three floors below continued in fits and starts, but the +sound of it was oddly unreal, resembling more stammering explosions of a +string of firecrackers than snaps of the whiplash of Death. + +She tried one of the windows without encouragement, but at the other found +a board with a loose end, which she pried aside, till through begrimed +glass she could see a ghastly, weeping sky of daybreak and, by craning her +neck, peer down into the dark gully of the street. + +At first she thought it empty; but presently her straining vision made out +two huddled shapes upon the farther sidewalk, close under the walls of a +public house whose sign she could just barely decipher: the Red Moon. + +Then, about to draw back from the window, she saw five men, oddly +foreshortened figures from that lofty coign of view, leave the Red Moon by +one of its bar entrances, bearing between them a heavy beam of wood, and +with this improvised battering-ram aimed at the door to the besieged house, +charge awkwardly across the cobbles. + +The house spat fire from door and windows, a withering blast. In the middle +of the street the beam was abandoned, three of its fool-hardy bearers took +to their heels, each shaping an individual course, while one lay still upon +the wet black stones, and another, apparently wounded in the legs, sought +pitifully to drag himself by his arms, inch by inch, out of the zone of +fire. But presently his efforts grew feeble, then he, too, lay stirless, +prone in the sluicing rain. + +The girl shrank back from the window, hiding her eyes as if to blot out +that picture. + +The light, that is to say the absence of it in true sense, the angle of +view, and the distance, all had conspired to prevent her from making sure +that neither her father nor Karslake were of those four whose broken bodies +cluttered the street. But the fear and uncertainty were maddening.... + +She wheeled suddenly toward the door: the ancient stairs were creaking +beneath a measured tread. She made an offer to add her weight to that of +the table, but checked and fell back immediately, seeing the folly of +sacrificing her strength, the wisdom of saving it to serve her when +finally.... + +The creaking ceased, the wards of the lock grated, the knob turned, the +door was thrust open--the table offering little hindrance if any. From the +threshold Victor eyed the girl with a twitching grin. + +"The time is at hand," he announced with a parody of punctilio. "We have +beaten them off in the street, but they have found the tunnel from the +cellar of the Red Moon, and are attacking from the river besides. So, my +dear, it ends for us...." + +In silence, shoulders to the wall farthest from the door, Sofia watched him +unwinking. The lamp at her feet painted the tensely poised young body and +bloodless face with quaint, stagey shadows. + +Victor's glance ranged the cheerless room. + +"I think you understand me," he said. + +She might have been a waxwork dummy out of Madame Tussaud's. + +A white blaze of madness transfigured Victor's countenance. He took one +step toward Sofia. + +In movements so precisely coordinated that they seemed one and +instantaneous, the girl stooped, caught up the lamp, and threw it with all +her might. Victor ducked his head. The lamp sailed on, described a +descending curve through the open doorway into the well of the staircase, +struck, and exploded. In the clutches of the maniac, Sofia was aware of the +lurid glare, momentarily gaining strength, that filled the rectangle of the +doorway. + +In through this last, while iron hands tightened on her throat and +consciousness grew dark with closing shadows, a man's shape passed, then +another.... + +The grip on her throat grew lax, the hands left it free. She reeled, but +somebody caught her up and bore her swiftly from the room, leaving two who +fought together like beasts on the floor, locked in each other's arms, +rolling and squirming, rearing and flopping.... + +The scorch of flames stung her cheek, but she forgot that when their broken +light made visible the features of Karslake above the arms wherein she lay +cradled. + +Turning aside from the staircase, Karslake bore her to the ladder leading +to the skylight, whose broken glass crunched beneath his heels at every +step. + +In the open air he pulled up for a moment's rest, but continued to hold +Sofia in his arms. The wind raved about them, buffeted them, tore their +breath away, rain pelted them like birdshot; but they clung to each other +and were unaware of reason for complaint. + +Presently, however, Karslake remembered, and anxiously endeavoured to +disengage from these tenacious arms. + +"Let me go, dearest," he muttered. "I must go back--I left your father to +take care of Victor, and--" + +As if evoked by his very solicitude Lanyard emerged from the skylight +hatch, waved a hand in gay salute, then turned to stare down into the +flaming pit from which he had climbed. + +After a little he fell back a pace. Then slowly, with the laboured +movements of exhaustion, Victor worked head and shoulders through the +opening and dragged himself out upon the roof. + +On all fours he held in doubt, his head moving from side to side like the +head of a stricken beast, seeking his enemy with dazzled eyes. Then he made +Lanyard out and, pulling himself together for the supreme effort, launched +at his throat with the pounce of a great cat. + +Lanyard met him halfway, caught him in the middle of his bound, wound wiry +arms round the man and held him helpless. + +His voice rang clear above the crackle of flames: + +"Victor! have you forgotten how you threatened one night, twenty years ago, +to follow me to the very gates of Hell, and what I promised you--that, if +you did, I'd push you inside? Or did you think I would forget?" + +He cast the man from him, backward, down into the hungry maw of that +inferno.... + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED MASQUERADE*** + + +******* This file should be named 10496.txt or 10496.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/9/10496 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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