“‘Lost: Somewhere between Portsmouth and London or some other spot on the way, a small black leather bag containing a death certificate and some other things of no value to anybody but the owner. Finder will be liberally rewarded if all contents are returned intact to
“‘Lost: Somewhere between Portsmouth and London or some other spot on the way, a small black leather bag containing a death certificate and some other things of no value to anybody but the owner. Finder will be liberally rewarded if all contents are returned intact to
“‘D. J. O’M., 425 Savile Row, West.’
“There’s a beautiful example of English as she is advertised for you; and if—Hullo, Deland, old chap, what’s the matter with you?”
For Cleek had suddenly jumped up and, catching the Honourable Felix by the shoulder, was hurrying him out of the room.
“Just thought of something—that’s all. Got to make a run; be with you again before bedtime,” he answered evasively. But once on the other side of the door: “‘Write me down an ass,’” he quoted, turning to his host. “No, don’t ask any questions. Lend me your auto and your chauffeur. Call up both as quickly as possible. Wait up for me and keep your wife and Lady Essington and her son waiting up, too. I said to-morrow I would answer the riddle, did I not? Well, then, if I’m not the blindest bat that ever flew, I’ll give you that answer to-night.”
Then he turned round and raced upstairs for his hat andcoat, and ten minutes later was pelting off London-ward as fast as a £1,000 Panhard could carry him.
It was close to one o’clock when he came back and walked into the drawing-room of the Priory, accompanied by a sedate and bespectacled gentleman of undoubted Celtic origin whom he introduced as “Doctor James O’Malley, ladies and gentlemen, M.D., Dublin.”
Lady Essington and her son acknowledged the introduction by an inclination of the head, the Honourable Felix and Mrs. Carruthers, ditto; then her ladyship’s son spoke up in his usual blunt, outspoken way.
“I say, Deland, what’s in the wind?” he asked. “What lark are you up to now? Felix says you’ve got a clinking big surprise for us all, and here we are, dear boy, all primed and ready for it. Let’s have it, there’s a good chap.”
“Very well, so you shall,” he replied. “But first of all let me lay aside a useless mask and acknowledge that I am not an Indian army officer—I am a simple police detective sometimes called George Headland, your ladyship, and sometimes——”
“George Headland!” she broke in sharply, getting up and then sitting down again, pale and shaken. “And you came—you came after all! Oh, thank you, thank you! I know you would not confess this unless you have succeeded. Oh, you may know at last—you may know!” she added, turning upon the Honourable Felix and his wife. “I sent for him—I brought him here. I want to know and Iwillknow whose hand it is that is striking at Strathmere’s life—my child’s child—the dearest thing to me in all the world. I don’t care what I suffer, I don’t care what I lose, I don’t care if the courts award him to the veriest stranger, so that his dear little life is spared and he is put beyond all danger for good and all.”
Real love shone in her face and eyes as she said this, andit was the certainty of that which surprised Carruthers and his wife as much as the words she spoke.
“Good heavens! is this thing true!” The Honourable Felix turned to Cleek as he spoke. “Were you in her pay, too? Was she also working for the salvation of the boy?”
“Yes,” he made answer. “I entered into her service under the name of George Headland, Mr. Carruthers—the service of a good woman whom I misjudged far enough to give her a fictitious name. I entered into yours by one to which I have a better right—Hamilton Cleek!”
“Cleek!” Both her ladyship and her son were on their feet like a flash; there was a breath of silence and then: “Well, I’m dashed!” blurted out young Essington. “Cleek, eh? the great Cleek? Scotland!” And sat down again, overcome.
“Yes, Cleek, my friend; Cleek, ladies and gentlemen all. And now that the mask is off, let me tell you a short little story which—no! Pardon, Mr. Essington, don’t leave the room, please. I wish you, too, to hear.”
“Wasn’t going to leave it—only going to shut the door.”
“Ah, I see. Allow me. It is now, ladies and gentlemen, exactly fourteen days since our friend Doctor O’Malley here, coming up from Portsmouth on his motorcycle after attending a patient who that day had died, was overcome by the extreme heat and the exertion of trying to fight off a belligerent magpie which flew out of the woods and persistently attacked him, and, falling to the ground, lost consciousness. When he regained it, he was in the Charing Cross Hospital, and all that he knew of his being there was that a motorist who had picked him and his cycle up on the road had carried him there and turned him over to the authorities. He himself was unable, however, to place the exact locality in which he was travelling at the time of the accident, otherwise we should not have had that extremely interesting advertisement which Mr. Essington read out this evening. For thedoctor had lost a small black bag containing something extremely valuable, which he was carrying at the time and which supplies the solution to this interesting riddle. How, do you ask? Come with me—all of you—to Mr. Carruthers’ room, where his little lordship is sleeping, and learn that for yourselves.”
They rose at his word and followed him upstairs; and there, in a dimly lit room, the sleeping child lay with an old rag doll hugged up close to him, its painted face resting in the curve of his little neck.
“You want to know from where proceed these mysterious attacks—who and what it is that harms the child?” said Cleek as he went forward on tiptoe and, gently withdrawing the doll, held it up. “Here it is, then—this is the culprit: this thing here! You want to know how? Then by this means—look! See!” He thrust the blade of a pocket knife into the doll and with one sweep ripped it open, and dipping in his fingers drew from cotton wool and rags with which the thing was stuffed a slim, close-stoppered glass vial in which something that glowed and gave off constant sparks of light shimmered and burnt with a restless fire.
“Is this it, Doctor?” he said, holding the thing up.
“Yes! Oh, my God, yes!” he cried out as he clutched at it. “A wonder of the heavens, sure, that the child wasn’t disfigured for life or perhaps kilt forever. A half grain of it—a half grain of radium, ladies and gentlemen—enough to burn a hole through the divvle himself, if he lay long enough agin it.”
“Radium!” The word was voiced on every side, and the two women and two men crowded close to look at the thing. “Radium in the doll? Radium? I say, Deland—I mean to say, Mr. Cleek—in God’s name, who could have put the cursed thing there?”
“Your magpie, Mr. Essington,” replied Cleek, and with that brief preface told of Martha, the nurse, and of the torndoll and of the magpie that flew into the room while the girl was away.
“The wretched thing must have picked it up when the doctor fell and lost consciousness and the open bag lay unguarded,” he said. “And with its propensity for stealing and hiding things it flew with it into the nursery and hid it in the torn doll. Martha did not see it, of course, when she sewed the doll up, but the scratch she received from the magpie presented a raw surface to the action of the mineral and its effect was instant and most violent. What’s that? No, Mr. Carruthers—no one is guilty; no one has even tried to injure his lordship. Chance only is to blame—and Chance cannot be punished. As for the rest, do me a favour, dear friend, in place of any other kind of reward. Look to it that this young chap here gets enough out of the income of the estate to continue his course at Oxford and—that’s all.”
It was not, however; for while he was still speaking a strange and even startling interruption occurred.
A liveried servant, pushing the door open gently, stepped into the room bearing a small silver salver upon which a letter lay.
“Well, upon my word, Johnston, this is rather an original sort of performance, isn’t it?” exclaimed Carruthers, indignant over the intrusion.
“I beg your pardon, sir, but I did knock,” he apologized. “I knocked twice, in fact, but no one seemed to hear; and as I had been told it was a matter of more than life and death, I presumed. Letter for Lieutenant Deland, sir. A gentleman of the name of Narkom—in a motor, sir—at the door—asked me to deliver it at once and under any and all circumstances.”
Cleek looked at the letter, saw that it was enclosed in a plain unaddressed envelope, asked to be excused, and stepped out into the passage with it.
That Narkom should have come for him like this—should have risked the upsetting of a case by appearing before he knew if it was settled or, indeed, likely to be—could mean but one thing: that his errand was one of overwhelming importance, of more moment than anything else in the world.
He tore off the envelope with hands that shook, and spread open the sheet of paper it contained.
There was but one single line upon it; but that line, penned in that hand, would have called him from the world’s end.
“Come to me at once. Ailsa,” he read—and was on his way downstairs like a shot.
In the lower hall the butler stood, holding his hat and coat ready for him to jump into them at once.
“My—er—young servant—quick as you can!” said Cleek, grabbing the hat and hurrying into the coat.
“Already outside, sir—in the motor with the gentleman,” the butler gave back; then opened the door and stepped aside, holding it back for him and bowing deferentially; and the light of the hall, streaking out into the night, showed a flight of shallow steps, the blue limousine at the foot of them—with Lennard in the driver’s seat and Dollops beside him—and standing on the lowest step of all Mr. Narkom holding open the car’s door and looking curiously pale and solemn.
“What is it? Is she hurt? Has anything happened to her?” Cleek jumbled the three questions into one unbroken breath as he came running down the steps and caught at the superintendent’s arm. “Speak up! Don’t stand looking at me like a dumb thing! Is anything wrong with Miss Lorne?”
“Nothing—nothing at all.”
“Thank God! Then why? Why? For what reason has she sent for me? Where is she? Speak up!”
“In town. Waiting for you. At the Mauravanian embassy.”
“At the—Good God! How comes she to bethere?”
“I took her. You told me if anything happened to you that I thought she ought to know—Please get in and let us be off, sir—Sire—whichever it ought to be. I don’t know the proper form of address. I’ve never had any personal dealings with royalty before.”
The hand that rested on his arm tightened its grip the very instant that word royalty passed his lips. Now it relaxed suddenly, dropped away, and he scarcely recognized the voice that spoke next, so unlike to Cleek’s it was, so thick was the tremulous note that pulsated through it.
“Royalty?” it repeated. “Speak up, please. What have you found out? What do you know of me that you make use of that term?”
“What everybody in the world will know by to-morrow. Count Irma has told! Count Irma has come, as the special envoy of the people, for Queen Karma’s son! For the King they want! For you!” flung out Narkom, getting excited as he proceeded. “It’s all out at last and—I know now. Everybody does. I’m to lose you. Mauravania is to take you from me after all. A palace is to have you—not the Yard. Get in, please, sir—Sire—your Majesty. Get in. They’re waiting for you at the embassy. Get in and go! Good luck to you! God bless you! I mean that. It’s just about going to break my heart, Cleek, but I mean it every word! Mind the step, Sire. Make room for me on the seat there, you two; and then off to the embassy as fast as you can streak it, Lennard. His Majesty is all ready to start.”
“Not yet, please,” a voice said quietly; then a hand reached out from the interior of the limousine, dropped upon Mr. Narkom’s shoulder and, tightening there, drew him over the step and into the car. “Your old seat, my friend.Here beside me. My memory is not a short one and my affections not fickle. All rightnow, Lennard. Let her go!”
Then the door closed with a smack, the limousine came round with a swing, and, just as in those other days when it was the Law that called, not the trumpet-peal from a throne, the car went bounding off at the good old mile-a-minute clip on its fly-away race for London.
It ended, that race, in front of the Mauravanian embassy; and Cleek’s love for the spectacular must have come near to being surfeited that night, for the building was one blaze of light, one glamour of flags and flowers and festooned bunting; and looking up the steps, down which a crimson carpet ran across the pavement to the very kerbstone, he could see a double line of soldiers in the glittering white-and-silver of the Mauravanian Royal Guard,—plumed and helmeted—standing with swords at salute waiting to receive him; and over the arched doorway the royal arms emblazoned, and above them—picked out in winking gas-jets—a wreath of laurel surrounding the monogram M. R., which stood for Maximilian Rex, aflame against a marble background.
“Here we are at last, sir,” said Narkom as the car stopped (he had learned, by this time, that “Sire” belonged to the stage and the Middle Ages), and, alighting, held back the door that Cleek might get out.
Afterward he declared that that was the proudest moment of his life; for if it was not the proudest of Cleek’s, his looks belied him. For, as his foot touched the crimson carpet, a band within swung into the stately measure of the Mauravanian National Anthem, an escort came down the hall and down the steps and lined up on either side of him, and if ever man looked proud of his inheritance, that man was he.
He went on up the steps and down the long hall with a chorus of “Vivat Maximilian! Vivat le roi!” following him and the sound of the National Anthem ringing in his ears; then, all of a moment, the escort fell back, doors opened, he found himself in a room that blazed with lights, that echoed with the sound of many vivats, the stir of many bodies, and looking about saw that he was surrounded by a kneeling gathering and that one man in particular was at his feet, sobbing.
He looked down and saw that that man was Irma, and smiled and put out his hand.
The count bent over and touched it with his lips.
“Majesty, I never forgot! Majesty, I worked for it, fought for it ever since that night!” he said. “I would have fought for it ever if it need have been. But it was not. See, it was not. It was God’s will and it was our people’s.”
“My people’s!” Cleek repeated, his head going back, his eyes lighting with a pride and a happiness beyond all telling. “Oh, Mauravania! Dear land. Dear country. Mine again!”
But hardly had the ecstasy of that thought laid its spell upon him when there came another not less divine, and his eyes went round the gathering in quest of one who should be here—at his side—to share this glorious moment with him.
She had come for that purpose—Narkom had said so. Where was she, then? Why did she hold herself in the background at such a time as this?
He saw her at that very moment. The gathering had risen and she with them—holding aloof at the far end of the room. There was a smile on her lips, but even at that distance he could see that she was very, very pale and that there was a shadow of pain in her dear eyes.
“We both have battled for an ideal, Count,” he said, with a happy little laugh. “Here is mine. Here is what I havefought for!” and crossing the room he went straight to Ailsa, with both hands outstretched to her and his face fairly beaming.
But it needed not the little shocked breath he heard upon all sides to dash that bright look from his face and to bring him to a sudden halt. For at his coming, Ailsa had dropped the deep curtsey which is the due of royalty, and was moving away from him backward, which is royalty’s due also.
“Ailsa!” he said, moving toward her with a sharp and sudden step. “Ailsa, don’t be absurd. It is too silly to think that forms should stand with you, too. Take my hand—take it!”
“Your Majesty——”
“Take it, I tell you!” he repeated almost roughly. “Good God! do you think that this can make any difference? Take my hand! Do you hear?”
She obeyed him this time, but as her fingers rested upon his he saw that they were quite ringless—that the sign of their engagement had been removed—and caught her to him with a passionate sort of fierceness that was a reproach in itself.
“Could you think so meanly of me? Could you?” he cried. “Where is the ring?”
“In my pocket. I took it off when—I heard.”
“Put it on again. Or, no! Give it to me and let me do that myself—here, before them all. Kings must have queens, must they not? You were always mine: you are always going to be. Even the day of our wedding is not to be changed.”
“Oh, hush!” she made answer. “One’s duty to one’s country must always stand first with—kings.”
“Must it? Kings after all are only men—and a man’s first duty is to the one woman of his heart.”
“Not with kings. There is a different rule, a differentlaw. Oh, let me go—please! I know, I fully realize, it would be different with you—if it were possible. But—it is the penalty one must pay for kingship, dear. Royalty must mate with royalty, not with a woman of the people. It is the law of all kingdoms, the immutable law.”
It was. He had forgotten that; and it came upon him now with a shock of bitter recollection. For a moment he stood silent, the colour draining out of his face, the light fading slowly from his eyes; then, of a sudden, he looked over the glittering room and across its breadth at Irma.
“It would not be possible then?” he asked.
“Not as a royal consort, sir. The people’s choice in that respect would lie with the hereditary princess of Danubia. I have already explained that to Mademoiselle. But if it should be your Majesty’s pleasure to take a morganatic wife——”
“Cut that!” rapped in Cleek’s voice like the snap of a whiplash. “So, then, one is to sell one’s honour for a crown; break a woman’s life for a kingdom, and become a royal adulterer for the sake of a throne and sceptre!”
“But, Majesty, one’s duty to one’s country is a sacred thing.”
“Not so sacred as one’s redeemer, Count, and, under God, here is mine!” he threw back, heatedly. “Mauravania forgot once; she will forget again. Shemustforget! My lords and gentlemen, I decline her flattering offer. My only kingdom is here—in this dear woman’s arms. Walk with me, Ailsa—walk with me always. You said you would. Walk with me, dear, as my queenandmy wife.”
And putting his arm about her and holding her close, and setting his back to the lights and the flags and the glittering Guard, he passed, with head erect, through the murmuring gathering and went down and out with her—to the blue limousine—to the Yard’s service again—and to those better things which are the true crown of a man’s life.
At the foot of the steps Narkom and Dollops caught up with him, and the boy’s eager hand plucked at his sleeve.
“Guv’ner, Gawd love yer—Gawd love yer, sir; you’re a man, you are!” he said with a sort of sob in his voice. “I’m glad you chucked it. It was breakin’ my heart to think that I’d have to call you ‘Sire’ all the rest of my days, sir—like as if you was a bloomin’ horse!”
Transcriber's NoteSpelling and punctuation inaccuracies were silently corrected.Archaic and variable spelling is preserved.The author’s punctuation style is preserved.
Transcriber's Note
Spelling and punctuation inaccuracies were silently corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling is preserved.
The author’s punctuation style is preserved.