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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 |
