CHAPTER XVI.THE STAR OF POLAND

CHAPTER XVI.THE STAR OF POLANDThe room in which Desmond found Nur-el-Din was obviously the parlor of the house. Everything in it spoke of that dreary period in art, the middle years of the reign of Victoria the Good. The wall-paper, much mildewed in places, was an ugly shade of green and there were dusty and faded red curtains at the windows and draping the fireplace. Down one side of the room ran a hideous mahogany sideboard, almost as big as a railway station buffet, with a very dirty tablecloth. The chairs were of mahogany, upholstered in worn black horsehair and there were two pairs of fly-blown steel engravings of the largest size on the wall. In the centre of the apartment stood a small round table, covered with a much stained red tablecloth and there was a door in the corner.The dainty beauty of Nur-el-Din made a very forlorn picture amid the unmatched savagery of this English interior. The dancer, who was wearing the same becoming gray tweed suit in which Desmond had last seen her, was sitting sorrowfully at the table when Desmond entered. At the sight of him she sprang up and ran to meet him with outstretched hands.“Ah!” she cried, “comme je suis heureuse de vous voir!It is good of you to come!”And then, without any warning, she burst into tears and putting her hands on the man’s shoulders, hid her head against his chest and sobbed bitterly.Desmond took one of her hands, small and soft and warm, and gently disengaged her. His mind was working clearly and rapidly. He felt sure of himself, sure of his disguise; if this were an exhibition of woman’s wiles, it would find him proof; on that he was resolved. Yet, dissolved in tears as she was, with her long lashes glistening and her mouth twitching pitifully, the dancer seemed to touch a chord deep down in his heart.“Come, come,” said Desmond gutturally, with a touch ofbonhomiein his voice in keeping with his ample girth, “you mustn’t give way like this, my child! What’s amiss? Come, sit down here and tell me what’s the matter.”He made her resume her seat by the table and pulled up one of the horsehair chairs for himself. Nur-el-Din wiped her eyes on a tiny lace handkerchief, but continued to sob and shudder at intervals.“Marie, my maid,” she said in French in a broken voice, “joined me here to-day. She has told me of this dreadful murder!”Desmond stiffened to attention. His mind swiftly reverted to the last woman he had seen cry, to Barbara Mackwayte discovering the loss of the package entrusted to her charge by the woman who sat before him.“What murder?” he asked, striving to banish any trace of interest from his voice. He loathed the part he had to play. The dancer’s distress struck him as genuine.“The murder of Monsieur Mackwayte,” said Nur-el-Din, and her tears broke forth anew.“I have read of this in the newspapers,” said Desmond. “I remember you told me he was a friend of yours.”Briefly, with many sobs, the dancer told him of the silver box which she had entrusted to Barbara Mackwayte’s charge.“And now,” she sobbed, “it is lost and all my sacrifice, all my precautions, have been in vain!”“But how?” asked Desmond. “Why should you think this box should have been taken? From what I remember reading of this case in the English newspapers there was a burglary at the house, but the thief has been arrested and the property restored. You have only to ask this Miss—what was the name? ah! yes, Mackwayte for your box and she will restore it!”“No, no!” Nur-el-Din answered wearily, “you don’t understand. This was no burglary. The man who murdered Monsieur Arthur murdered him to get my silver box.”“But,” objected Desmond, “a silver box! What value has a trifling object like that? My dear young lady, murder is not done for a silver box!”“No, no,” Nur-el-Din repeated, “you don’t understand! You don’t know what that box contained!”Then she relapsed into silence, plucking idly at the shred of cambric she held between her fingers.Already dusk was falling and the room was full of shadows. The golden radiance of the afternoon had died and eerie wraiths of fog were peering-in at the window.Desmond held his peace. He felt he was on the threshold of a confession that might rend the veil of mystery surrounding the murder at Seven Kings. He stared fixedly at the ugly red tablecloth, conscious that the big eyes of the girl were searching his face.“You have honest eyes,” she said presently. “I told you that once before... that night we met at your house... do you remember? Your eyes are English. But you are a German,hein?”“My mother was Irish,” said Desmond and felt a momentary relief that, for once, he had been able to speak the truth.“I want a friend,” the girl resumed wearily, “someone that I can trust. But I look around and I find no one. You serve the German Empire, do you not?”Desmond bowed.“But not the House of Hohenzollern?” the girl cried, her voice trembling with passion.“I am not of the Emperor’s personal service, if that is what you mean, madame,” Desmond returned coldly.“Then, since you are not altogether an iron Prussian,” Nur-el-Din resumed eagerly, “you can differentiate. You can understand that there is a difference between working for the cause of Germany and for the personal business of her princes.”“But certainly,” answered Desmond, “I am not an errand boy nor yet a detective. I regard myself as a German officer doing his duty on the front. We have many fronts besides the Western and the Eastern. England is one.“Ah,” exclaimed the girl, clasping her hands together and looking at him with enraptured eyes, “I see you understand! My friend, I am much tempted to make a confidant of you!”Desmond looked at her but did not speak. Again he felt that silence was now his only role. He tried hard to fix his mind on his duty; but the man in him was occupied with the woman who looked so appealingly at him.“... but if I do,” the girl went on and her voice was hurried and anxious, “you must swear to me that you will respect my confidence, that you will not betray me to the others and that you will, if need be, protect me.”Seeing that Desmond remained silent, she hastened to add:“Believe me, what I ask you to do is not in opposition to your duty. My friend, for all my surroundings, I am not what I seem. Fate has drawn me into the system of which you form part; but, believe me, I know nothing of the service to which you and Mortimer and the rest belong!”She spoke with painful earnestness and in a tone so mournful that Desmond felt himself profoundly moved. “If only she is not acting!” he thought, and sought to shake himself free from the spell which this girl seemed able to cast about him at will.“Promise me that you will respect my confidence and help me!” she said and held out her hand.Desmond’s big hand closed about hers and he felt an odd thrill of sympathy with her as their hands met.“I promise!” he said and murmured to himself something very like a prayer that he might not be called upon to redeem his word.She let her eyes rest for a moment on his.“Be careful!” she urged warningly, while the ghost of a smile flitted across her face. “Very soon I may call upon you to make good your words!”“I promise!” he repeated—and his eyes never left hers.“Then,” she cried passionately, “find out who has stolen for the Crown Prince the Star of Poland at the price of the life of a harmless old man!”“The Star of Poland!” repeated Desmond. “What is the Star of Poland?”The girl drew herself up proudly and there was a certain dignity about her manner as she answered.“I am a Pole,” she said, “and to us Poles, the Star of Poland has stood for centuries as a pledge of the restoration of our long-lost kingdom. It was the principal jewel of the Polish Coronation sword which vanished many hundreds of years ago—in the thirteenth century, one of my compatriots once told me—and it was one of the most treasured national possessions in the Château of our great king, John Sobieski at Villanoff, outside Warsaw. My friend, I am not religious, and since my childhood I have renounced the ancient faith of my fathers, but, when I think of the extraordinary chain of circumstances by which this treasure came into my possession, I almost believe that God has chosen me to restore this gem to the King of an independent Poland.“Four years ago I was in the United States, a very humble dancer in vaudeville of the third or fourth class. When I was appearing at Columbus, Ohio, I met a German, a man who had been an officer in the Prussian Guard but had come to grief and had been forced to emigrate.“This man’s name was Hans von Schornbeek. Like so many German officers who go to America, in his time he had been everything—waiter, lift-man, engine-driver and heaven knows what else, but when I met him he was apparently well-off. It was only later on that I knew he was one of your principal secret agents in America.“He praised my talents highly and offered to furnish the capital to start me as an Oriental dancer with a large company of my own. There was only one condition attaching to his offer, a condition,ma foi!which was not disagreeable to me. It was that, after six months tour in the States and Canada, I should go to Brussels and settle down there in a house that Herr von Schornbeek would present me with.“Mon ami, in those days, I understood nothing at all of diplomacy. I knew only that I was often hungry and that I had a little talent which, were it given a chance, might keep me from want. Herr von Schornbeek fulfilled his promises to me. I had my company, I did my tour of America and Canada with great success and finally I came to Europe and made my debut at Brussels.“I knew Brussels already from the old days. As a half-starved, unhappy child with a troupe of acrobats, I had often appeared there. But now I came to Brussels as a conqueror. A beautiful villa in the suburb of Laeken was ready to receive me and I found that a large credit had been opened in my name at one of the principal banks so that I could keep open house.“I think I scarcely realized then the rôle that I was destined to fill by the German Secret Service. In all my life before, I had never been happy, I had never ceased to struggle for my bare existence, I had never had pretty clothes to wear, and motor-cars and servants of my own.”She paused and glanced around her. The room was almost dark; the fog outside hung like a veil before the window.“Light the lamp!” she begged, “I do not like the dark!”Desmond struck a match and kindled an oil lamp, which stood on the sideboard.“Ah! my friend,” the girl resumed. “I took my fill of life with both hands. The year was 1913. Now I know that I was one of the German agents for the penetration of Belgium in preparation of what was coming. My mission was to make friends among the Belgians and the French and the cosmopolitan society of Brussels generally, and invite them to my house where your people were waiting to deal with them.“My pretty villa became the rendezvous for half the rascals of Europe, men and women, who used to meet there with all kinds of mysterious Germans. Sometimes there was a scandal. Once a Belgian Colonel was found shot in the billiard-room; they said it was suicide and the thing was hushed up, butdame!now that I know what I know...“Enfin!I shut my eyes to it all... it was none of my business... and I revelled in myrobes, my dancing, my new life of luxury!“And then the war came. I was at Laeken, resting after a visit to Rome. There was a lot of talk about the war amongst the people who came to my house, but I did not see how it could affect me, anartiste, and I never read the newspapers. My German friends assured me that, in a little while, the German army would be at Brussels; that, if I remained quietly at home, all would be well. They were very elated and confident, these German friends of mine. And rightly; for within a few weeks the Germans entered the city and a General quartered himself in my villa. It was he who brought the Crown Prince to see me.“Mon cher, you know this young man and his reputation. I am not excusing myself; but all my life had been spent up to then in thebas-fondsof society. I had never known what it was to be courted and admired by one who had the world at his feet.Parbleu!one does not meet a future Emperor every day!“Enfin!the Prince carried me with him back to Metz, where he had his headquarters. He was veryépriswith me, but you know his temperament! No woman can hold him for more than a few weeks, vain and weak and arrogant as he is. Butpardon!I was forgetting that you are a good German. I fear I offend your susceptibilities...”Desmond laughed drily.“Madame,” he said, “I hope I have preserved sufficient liberty of judgment to have formed my own opinion about our future sovereign. Most Germans have...”“Alors,” she broke in fiercely, her voice shaking with passion, “you know what an ignoblecanailleis this young man, without even enough decency of feeling to respect the troops of whom he has demanded such bloody sacrifices. At Metz we were near enough to the fighting to realize the blood and tears of this war. But the Prince thought of nothing, but his own amusement. To live as he did, within sound of the guns, with parties every night, women and dancing and roulette and champagne suppers—bah!c’était trop fort!It awakened in me the love of country which lies dormant in all of us. I wanted to help my country, lest I might sink as low as he...”“One day the Prince brought a young officer friend of his to dine with me. This officer had come from the Eastern front and had been present at the capture of Warsaw. After dinner he took a leather case out of his pocket and said to the Prince: ‘I have brought your Imperial Highness a little souvenir from Poland!’ As he spoke he touched a spring and the case flew open, displaying an enormous diamond, nearly as big as the great Orloff diamond which I have seen at Petrograd, surrounded by five other brilliants, the whole set like a star.“‘The Star of Poland,’ said the young officer (the Prince called him ‘Erich;’ I never heard his full name), ‘it comes from the long-lost Coronation sword of the Polish kings. I took it for your Imperial Highness from the Château of John Sobieski at Villanoff.“I could not take my eyes off the gem. As the Prince held it down under the lamp to study it, it shone like an electric light. I had met many of my fellow countrymen in America and I had often heard of this jewel, famous in our unhappy history.“The Prince, who was gay with champagne, laughed and said:“‘These lousy Poles will have no further use for this pretty trinket, thanks to our stout German blows, will they, Erich?’“And his friend replied:“‘We’ll give them a nice new German constitution instead, your Imperial Highness!’“The Prince, as I have said, was very merry that night. He let me take the jewel from its case and hold it in my hands. Then I fastened it in my hair before the mirror and turned to show myself to the Prince and his companion.“‘Donnerwetter!said Willie. ‘It looks wonderful in your hair, Marcelle!’“Then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he cried:“‘Erich! What do you say, Marcelle is a Pole. She shall have the Star of Poland and wear it in memory of me!’“The other thought this a famous idea, and so the jewel passed into my hands. That same evening I resolved that it should be a sacred duty on my part to keep it in safety until I could hand it back to the lawful sovereign of an independent Poland.“I was very unhappy at Metz until the Star of Poland came to comfort me. When I was alone, I used to take it from its case and feast my eyes upon it. I made many attempts to get away, but the Prince would never let me go, though he had long since tired of me and I was merely one of his harem of women.Pfui!”She gave an exclamation of disgust.“It was the Crown Princess who eventually came to my rescue,” she continued. “Long-suffering wife as she is, the stories that came to her ears from Metz were such that she went to the Emperor and declared that she would insist upon a divorce. There was a great scandal. The Prince’s headquarters were moved and at length I got my release.“I had no money. This was a detail which the Prince overlooked. But I wanted to resume my stage work, so, with great difficulty, through the influence of the Prince, I obtained a passport to Holland and from there got across to England.“I had hoped to turn my back once and for all on my connection with the Prince. But your German Secret Service had been warned about me. The Imperial Authorities were obviously afraid that I might tell tales out of school. Scarcely had I arrived in London when a man who called himself Bryan Mowbury, but who looked and spoke like a German, came to see me and said he had been instructed to ‘look after me.’ What that meant, I was soon to discover. In a very few days I found that I was under the supervision of your Secret Service here. In fact, Mowbury gave me to understand that any indiscretion on my part as to my stay at Metz would result in my immediate denunciation to the English police as a spy.“My friend, I had no alternative. I am not German; I am not English; I am a Pole. I have good friends in Germany, I have good friends in England, and their quarrels are not mine. I held my peace about the past and submitted to the incessant watch which Mowbury and his friends kept on my movements.“And then one day I had a letter. It was from Count Plettenbach, the Crown Prince’s aide-de-camp, as I knew by the hand-writing, for it was signed with an assumed name. In this letter the Count, ‘on behalf of a mutual friend,’ as he put it, requested me to hand back to a certain Mr. Mortimer, his accredited representative, ‘Erich’s present.’ There were cogent reasons, it was added, for this unusual request.“I sent no reply to that letter, although an address in Switzerland was given to which an answer might be despatched. I was resolved, come what may, not to part with the Star of Poland. When Mortimer came, five days later, I told him the jewel was not mine to hand over, that it was part of the regalia of Poland and that I would never give it up.“Mortimer replied that the German and Austrian Governments had decided to restore the independence of Poland, that probably an Austrian Archduke would be made king and that it was essential that the Star of Poland should be restored in order to include it in the regalia for the Coronation. But I knew what this Austro-German kingdom of Poland was to be, a serf state with not a shadow of that liberty for which every Pole is longing. Since I have been in England, I have kept in touch with the Polish political organizations in this country. Rass, as he calls himself, the landlord of this inn, is one of the most prominent of the Polish leaders in England.“Mortimer reasoned with me in vain and finally went away empty-handed. But he did not abandon hope. Four successive attempts were made to get the jewel away from me. Twice my apartments at the Nineveh Hotel were rifled; once my dressing-room at the theatre was entered and searched whilst I was on the stage. But I wore the jewel day and night in a little bag suspended by a chain from my neck and they never got it from me.“Two days before I came down to your house—it was the day before the murder—I was hustled by a group of men as I came out of the theatre. Fortunately the stage-door keeper came up unexpectedly and the men made off. But the encounter frightened me, and I resolved to break my contract with the Palaceum and bury myself down here in the country.“But somehow Mortimer learnt of my intention. The next night—it was the night of the murder—he came to the theatre and warned me against trying to elude his vigilance by flight. I have never forgotten his words.“‘I can afford to wait,’ he said, ‘for I shall get what I want: I always do. But you have chosen to set yourself against me and you will bitterly repent it!”As though the recollection proved too much for her, Nur-el-Din broke off her narrative and covered her face with her hands.“And do you think that Mortimer did this murder?” asked Desmond gently.Wearily the girl raised her head.“Either he or one of his accomplices, of whom this girl is one!” she answered.“But why not have put the jewel in a bank or one of the safe deposits? Surely it was risky to have entrusted it to a girl of whom you knew nothing?”“My friend,”, said the dancer, “I was desperate. Mortimer sees and knows all. This unexpected meeting with the daughter of my old friend seemed at the moment like a heaven-sent chance to place the jewel, unknown to him, in safe hands. I felt that as long as I carried it on me, my life was in constant danger. It was only to-day, when I heard of the murder, that it dawned on me how indiscreet I had been. I might have guessed, since Miss Mackwayte knew Mortimer—”“Miss Mackwayte knows Mortimer?” echoed Desmond in stupefaction.“But certainly,” replied Nur-el-Din. “Was it not I myself—” She broke off suddenly with terror in her eyes.“Ah, no!” she whispered. “It is enough. Already I have said too much...”Desmond was about to speak when the door opened and a foreign-looking maid, whom Desmond remembered to have seen in the dancer’s dressing-room, came in. She went swiftly to her mistress and whispered something in her ear.The dancer sprang to her feet.“A little moment... you will excuse me...” she cried to Desmond and ran from the room. The maid followed her, leaving Desmond alone.Presently, the sound of Nur-el-Din’s voice raised high in anger struck on his ears. He stole softly to the door and opened it. Before him lay the staircase deserted. He tiptoed down the stairs to the first landing and listened. The murmur of voices reached him indistinctly from the room below. Then he heard Nur-el-Din crying out again in anger.He craned his ear over the well of the staircase, turning his face to the window which stood on the landing. The window gave on a small yard with a gate over which a lamp was suspended and beyond it the fen now swathed in fog. The dancer’s maid stood beneath the lamp in earnest conversation with a man in rough shooting clothes who held a gun under his arm. As Desmond looked the man turned his head so that the rays of the lamp fell full upon his face. To his unspeakable consternation and amazement, Desmond recognized Strangwise.

The room in which Desmond found Nur-el-Din was obviously the parlor of the house. Everything in it spoke of that dreary period in art, the middle years of the reign of Victoria the Good. The wall-paper, much mildewed in places, was an ugly shade of green and there were dusty and faded red curtains at the windows and draping the fireplace. Down one side of the room ran a hideous mahogany sideboard, almost as big as a railway station buffet, with a very dirty tablecloth. The chairs were of mahogany, upholstered in worn black horsehair and there were two pairs of fly-blown steel engravings of the largest size on the wall. In the centre of the apartment stood a small round table, covered with a much stained red tablecloth and there was a door in the corner.

The dainty beauty of Nur-el-Din made a very forlorn picture amid the unmatched savagery of this English interior. The dancer, who was wearing the same becoming gray tweed suit in which Desmond had last seen her, was sitting sorrowfully at the table when Desmond entered. At the sight of him she sprang up and ran to meet him with outstretched hands.

“Ah!” she cried, “comme je suis heureuse de vous voir!It is good of you to come!”

And then, without any warning, she burst into tears and putting her hands on the man’s shoulders, hid her head against his chest and sobbed bitterly.

Desmond took one of her hands, small and soft and warm, and gently disengaged her. His mind was working clearly and rapidly. He felt sure of himself, sure of his disguise; if this were an exhibition of woman’s wiles, it would find him proof; on that he was resolved. Yet, dissolved in tears as she was, with her long lashes glistening and her mouth twitching pitifully, the dancer seemed to touch a chord deep down in his heart.

“Come, come,” said Desmond gutturally, with a touch ofbonhomiein his voice in keeping with his ample girth, “you mustn’t give way like this, my child! What’s amiss? Come, sit down here and tell me what’s the matter.”

He made her resume her seat by the table and pulled up one of the horsehair chairs for himself. Nur-el-Din wiped her eyes on a tiny lace handkerchief, but continued to sob and shudder at intervals.

“Marie, my maid,” she said in French in a broken voice, “joined me here to-day. She has told me of this dreadful murder!”

Desmond stiffened to attention. His mind swiftly reverted to the last woman he had seen cry, to Barbara Mackwayte discovering the loss of the package entrusted to her charge by the woman who sat before him.

“What murder?” he asked, striving to banish any trace of interest from his voice. He loathed the part he had to play. The dancer’s distress struck him as genuine.

“The murder of Monsieur Mackwayte,” said Nur-el-Din, and her tears broke forth anew.

“I have read of this in the newspapers,” said Desmond. “I remember you told me he was a friend of yours.”

Briefly, with many sobs, the dancer told him of the silver box which she had entrusted to Barbara Mackwayte’s charge.

“And now,” she sobbed, “it is lost and all my sacrifice, all my precautions, have been in vain!”

“But how?” asked Desmond. “Why should you think this box should have been taken? From what I remember reading of this case in the English newspapers there was a burglary at the house, but the thief has been arrested and the property restored. You have only to ask this Miss—what was the name? ah! yes, Mackwayte for your box and she will restore it!”

“No, no!” Nur-el-Din answered wearily, “you don’t understand. This was no burglary. The man who murdered Monsieur Arthur murdered him to get my silver box.”

“But,” objected Desmond, “a silver box! What value has a trifling object like that? My dear young lady, murder is not done for a silver box!”

“No, no,” Nur-el-Din repeated, “you don’t understand! You don’t know what that box contained!”

Then she relapsed into silence, plucking idly at the shred of cambric she held between her fingers.

Already dusk was falling and the room was full of shadows. The golden radiance of the afternoon had died and eerie wraiths of fog were peering-in at the window.

Desmond held his peace. He felt he was on the threshold of a confession that might rend the veil of mystery surrounding the murder at Seven Kings. He stared fixedly at the ugly red tablecloth, conscious that the big eyes of the girl were searching his face.

“You have honest eyes,” she said presently. “I told you that once before... that night we met at your house... do you remember? Your eyes are English. But you are a German,hein?”

“My mother was Irish,” said Desmond and felt a momentary relief that, for once, he had been able to speak the truth.

“I want a friend,” the girl resumed wearily, “someone that I can trust. But I look around and I find no one. You serve the German Empire, do you not?”

Desmond bowed.

“But not the House of Hohenzollern?” the girl cried, her voice trembling with passion.

“I am not of the Emperor’s personal service, if that is what you mean, madame,” Desmond returned coldly.

“Then, since you are not altogether an iron Prussian,” Nur-el-Din resumed eagerly, “you can differentiate. You can understand that there is a difference between working for the cause of Germany and for the personal business of her princes.”

“But certainly,” answered Desmond, “I am not an errand boy nor yet a detective. I regard myself as a German officer doing his duty on the front. We have many fronts besides the Western and the Eastern. England is one.

“Ah,” exclaimed the girl, clasping her hands together and looking at him with enraptured eyes, “I see you understand! My friend, I am much tempted to make a confidant of you!”

Desmond looked at her but did not speak. Again he felt that silence was now his only role. He tried hard to fix his mind on his duty; but the man in him was occupied with the woman who looked so appealingly at him.

“... but if I do,” the girl went on and her voice was hurried and anxious, “you must swear to me that you will respect my confidence, that you will not betray me to the others and that you will, if need be, protect me.”

Seeing that Desmond remained silent, she hastened to add:

“Believe me, what I ask you to do is not in opposition to your duty. My friend, for all my surroundings, I am not what I seem. Fate has drawn me into the system of which you form part; but, believe me, I know nothing of the service to which you and Mortimer and the rest belong!”

She spoke with painful earnestness and in a tone so mournful that Desmond felt himself profoundly moved. “If only she is not acting!” he thought, and sought to shake himself free from the spell which this girl seemed able to cast about him at will.

“Promise me that you will respect my confidence and help me!” she said and held out her hand.

Desmond’s big hand closed about hers and he felt an odd thrill of sympathy with her as their hands met.

“I promise!” he said and murmured to himself something very like a prayer that he might not be called upon to redeem his word.

She let her eyes rest for a moment on his.

“Be careful!” she urged warningly, while the ghost of a smile flitted across her face. “Very soon I may call upon you to make good your words!”

“I promise!” he repeated—and his eyes never left hers.

“Then,” she cried passionately, “find out who has stolen for the Crown Prince the Star of Poland at the price of the life of a harmless old man!”

“The Star of Poland!” repeated Desmond. “What is the Star of Poland?”

The girl drew herself up proudly and there was a certain dignity about her manner as she answered.

“I am a Pole,” she said, “and to us Poles, the Star of Poland has stood for centuries as a pledge of the restoration of our long-lost kingdom. It was the principal jewel of the Polish Coronation sword which vanished many hundreds of years ago—in the thirteenth century, one of my compatriots once told me—and it was one of the most treasured national possessions in the Château of our great king, John Sobieski at Villanoff, outside Warsaw. My friend, I am not religious, and since my childhood I have renounced the ancient faith of my fathers, but, when I think of the extraordinary chain of circumstances by which this treasure came into my possession, I almost believe that God has chosen me to restore this gem to the King of an independent Poland.

“Four years ago I was in the United States, a very humble dancer in vaudeville of the third or fourth class. When I was appearing at Columbus, Ohio, I met a German, a man who had been an officer in the Prussian Guard but had come to grief and had been forced to emigrate.

“This man’s name was Hans von Schornbeek. Like so many German officers who go to America, in his time he had been everything—waiter, lift-man, engine-driver and heaven knows what else, but when I met him he was apparently well-off. It was only later on that I knew he was one of your principal secret agents in America.

“He praised my talents highly and offered to furnish the capital to start me as an Oriental dancer with a large company of my own. There was only one condition attaching to his offer, a condition,ma foi!which was not disagreeable to me. It was that, after six months tour in the States and Canada, I should go to Brussels and settle down there in a house that Herr von Schornbeek would present me with.

“Mon ami, in those days, I understood nothing at all of diplomacy. I knew only that I was often hungry and that I had a little talent which, were it given a chance, might keep me from want. Herr von Schornbeek fulfilled his promises to me. I had my company, I did my tour of America and Canada with great success and finally I came to Europe and made my debut at Brussels.

“I knew Brussels already from the old days. As a half-starved, unhappy child with a troupe of acrobats, I had often appeared there. But now I came to Brussels as a conqueror. A beautiful villa in the suburb of Laeken was ready to receive me and I found that a large credit had been opened in my name at one of the principal banks so that I could keep open house.

“I think I scarcely realized then the rôle that I was destined to fill by the German Secret Service. In all my life before, I had never been happy, I had never ceased to struggle for my bare existence, I had never had pretty clothes to wear, and motor-cars and servants of my own.”

She paused and glanced around her. The room was almost dark; the fog outside hung like a veil before the window.

“Light the lamp!” she begged, “I do not like the dark!”

Desmond struck a match and kindled an oil lamp, which stood on the sideboard.

“Ah! my friend,” the girl resumed. “I took my fill of life with both hands. The year was 1913. Now I know that I was one of the German agents for the penetration of Belgium in preparation of what was coming. My mission was to make friends among the Belgians and the French and the cosmopolitan society of Brussels generally, and invite them to my house where your people were waiting to deal with them.

“My pretty villa became the rendezvous for half the rascals of Europe, men and women, who used to meet there with all kinds of mysterious Germans. Sometimes there was a scandal. Once a Belgian Colonel was found shot in the billiard-room; they said it was suicide and the thing was hushed up, butdame!now that I know what I know...

“Enfin!I shut my eyes to it all... it was none of my business... and I revelled in myrobes, my dancing, my new life of luxury!

“And then the war came. I was at Laeken, resting after a visit to Rome. There was a lot of talk about the war amongst the people who came to my house, but I did not see how it could affect me, anartiste, and I never read the newspapers. My German friends assured me that, in a little while, the German army would be at Brussels; that, if I remained quietly at home, all would be well. They were very elated and confident, these German friends of mine. And rightly; for within a few weeks the Germans entered the city and a General quartered himself in my villa. It was he who brought the Crown Prince to see me.

“Mon cher, you know this young man and his reputation. I am not excusing myself; but all my life had been spent up to then in thebas-fondsof society. I had never known what it was to be courted and admired by one who had the world at his feet.Parbleu!one does not meet a future Emperor every day!

“Enfin!the Prince carried me with him back to Metz, where he had his headquarters. He was veryépriswith me, but you know his temperament! No woman can hold him for more than a few weeks, vain and weak and arrogant as he is. Butpardon!I was forgetting that you are a good German. I fear I offend your susceptibilities...”

Desmond laughed drily.

“Madame,” he said, “I hope I have preserved sufficient liberty of judgment to have formed my own opinion about our future sovereign. Most Germans have...”

“Alors,” she broke in fiercely, her voice shaking with passion, “you know what an ignoblecanailleis this young man, without even enough decency of feeling to respect the troops of whom he has demanded such bloody sacrifices. At Metz we were near enough to the fighting to realize the blood and tears of this war. But the Prince thought of nothing, but his own amusement. To live as he did, within sound of the guns, with parties every night, women and dancing and roulette and champagne suppers—bah!c’était trop fort!It awakened in me the love of country which lies dormant in all of us. I wanted to help my country, lest I might sink as low as he...”

“One day the Prince brought a young officer friend of his to dine with me. This officer had come from the Eastern front and had been present at the capture of Warsaw. After dinner he took a leather case out of his pocket and said to the Prince: ‘I have brought your Imperial Highness a little souvenir from Poland!’ As he spoke he touched a spring and the case flew open, displaying an enormous diamond, nearly as big as the great Orloff diamond which I have seen at Petrograd, surrounded by five other brilliants, the whole set like a star.

“‘The Star of Poland,’ said the young officer (the Prince called him ‘Erich;’ I never heard his full name), ‘it comes from the long-lost Coronation sword of the Polish kings. I took it for your Imperial Highness from the Château of John Sobieski at Villanoff.

“I could not take my eyes off the gem. As the Prince held it down under the lamp to study it, it shone like an electric light. I had met many of my fellow countrymen in America and I had often heard of this jewel, famous in our unhappy history.

“The Prince, who was gay with champagne, laughed and said:

“‘These lousy Poles will have no further use for this pretty trinket, thanks to our stout German blows, will they, Erich?’

“And his friend replied:

“‘We’ll give them a nice new German constitution instead, your Imperial Highness!’

“The Prince, as I have said, was very merry that night. He let me take the jewel from its case and hold it in my hands. Then I fastened it in my hair before the mirror and turned to show myself to the Prince and his companion.

“‘Donnerwetter!said Willie. ‘It looks wonderful in your hair, Marcelle!’

“Then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he cried:

“‘Erich! What do you say, Marcelle is a Pole. She shall have the Star of Poland and wear it in memory of me!’

“The other thought this a famous idea, and so the jewel passed into my hands. That same evening I resolved that it should be a sacred duty on my part to keep it in safety until I could hand it back to the lawful sovereign of an independent Poland.

“I was very unhappy at Metz until the Star of Poland came to comfort me. When I was alone, I used to take it from its case and feast my eyes upon it. I made many attempts to get away, but the Prince would never let me go, though he had long since tired of me and I was merely one of his harem of women.Pfui!”

She gave an exclamation of disgust.

“It was the Crown Princess who eventually came to my rescue,” she continued. “Long-suffering wife as she is, the stories that came to her ears from Metz were such that she went to the Emperor and declared that she would insist upon a divorce. There was a great scandal. The Prince’s headquarters were moved and at length I got my release.

“I had no money. This was a detail which the Prince overlooked. But I wanted to resume my stage work, so, with great difficulty, through the influence of the Prince, I obtained a passport to Holland and from there got across to England.

“I had hoped to turn my back once and for all on my connection with the Prince. But your German Secret Service had been warned about me. The Imperial Authorities were obviously afraid that I might tell tales out of school. Scarcely had I arrived in London when a man who called himself Bryan Mowbury, but who looked and spoke like a German, came to see me and said he had been instructed to ‘look after me.’ What that meant, I was soon to discover. In a very few days I found that I was under the supervision of your Secret Service here. In fact, Mowbury gave me to understand that any indiscretion on my part as to my stay at Metz would result in my immediate denunciation to the English police as a spy.

“My friend, I had no alternative. I am not German; I am not English; I am a Pole. I have good friends in Germany, I have good friends in England, and their quarrels are not mine. I held my peace about the past and submitted to the incessant watch which Mowbury and his friends kept on my movements.

“And then one day I had a letter. It was from Count Plettenbach, the Crown Prince’s aide-de-camp, as I knew by the hand-writing, for it was signed with an assumed name. In this letter the Count, ‘on behalf of a mutual friend,’ as he put it, requested me to hand back to a certain Mr. Mortimer, his accredited representative, ‘Erich’s present.’ There were cogent reasons, it was added, for this unusual request.

“I sent no reply to that letter, although an address in Switzerland was given to which an answer might be despatched. I was resolved, come what may, not to part with the Star of Poland. When Mortimer came, five days later, I told him the jewel was not mine to hand over, that it was part of the regalia of Poland and that I would never give it up.

“Mortimer replied that the German and Austrian Governments had decided to restore the independence of Poland, that probably an Austrian Archduke would be made king and that it was essential that the Star of Poland should be restored in order to include it in the regalia for the Coronation. But I knew what this Austro-German kingdom of Poland was to be, a serf state with not a shadow of that liberty for which every Pole is longing. Since I have been in England, I have kept in touch with the Polish political organizations in this country. Rass, as he calls himself, the landlord of this inn, is one of the most prominent of the Polish leaders in England.

“Mortimer reasoned with me in vain and finally went away empty-handed. But he did not abandon hope. Four successive attempts were made to get the jewel away from me. Twice my apartments at the Nineveh Hotel were rifled; once my dressing-room at the theatre was entered and searched whilst I was on the stage. But I wore the jewel day and night in a little bag suspended by a chain from my neck and they never got it from me.

“Two days before I came down to your house—it was the day before the murder—I was hustled by a group of men as I came out of the theatre. Fortunately the stage-door keeper came up unexpectedly and the men made off. But the encounter frightened me, and I resolved to break my contract with the Palaceum and bury myself down here in the country.

“But somehow Mortimer learnt of my intention. The next night—it was the night of the murder—he came to the theatre and warned me against trying to elude his vigilance by flight. I have never forgotten his words.

“‘I can afford to wait,’ he said, ‘for I shall get what I want: I always do. But you have chosen to set yourself against me and you will bitterly repent it!”

As though the recollection proved too much for her, Nur-el-Din broke off her narrative and covered her face with her hands.

“And do you think that Mortimer did this murder?” asked Desmond gently.

Wearily the girl raised her head.

“Either he or one of his accomplices, of whom this girl is one!” she answered.

“But why not have put the jewel in a bank or one of the safe deposits? Surely it was risky to have entrusted it to a girl of whom you knew nothing?”

“My friend,”, said the dancer, “I was desperate. Mortimer sees and knows all. This unexpected meeting with the daughter of my old friend seemed at the moment like a heaven-sent chance to place the jewel, unknown to him, in safe hands. I felt that as long as I carried it on me, my life was in constant danger. It was only to-day, when I heard of the murder, that it dawned on me how indiscreet I had been. I might have guessed, since Miss Mackwayte knew Mortimer—”

“Miss Mackwayte knows Mortimer?” echoed Desmond in stupefaction.

“But certainly,” replied Nur-el-Din. “Was it not I myself—” She broke off suddenly with terror in her eyes.

“Ah, no!” she whispered. “It is enough. Already I have said too much...”

Desmond was about to speak when the door opened and a foreign-looking maid, whom Desmond remembered to have seen in the dancer’s dressing-room, came in. She went swiftly to her mistress and whispered something in her ear.

The dancer sprang to her feet.

“A little moment... you will excuse me...” she cried to Desmond and ran from the room. The maid followed her, leaving Desmond alone.

Presently, the sound of Nur-el-Din’s voice raised high in anger struck on his ears. He stole softly to the door and opened it. Before him lay the staircase deserted. He tiptoed down the stairs to the first landing and listened. The murmur of voices reached him indistinctly from the room below. Then he heard Nur-el-Din crying out again in anger.

He craned his ear over the well of the staircase, turning his face to the window which stood on the landing. The window gave on a small yard with a gate over which a lamp was suspended and beyond it the fen now swathed in fog. The dancer’s maid stood beneath the lamp in earnest conversation with a man in rough shooting clothes who held a gun under his arm. As Desmond looked the man turned his head so that the rays of the lamp fell full upon his face. To his unspeakable consternation and amazement, Desmond recognized Strangwise.

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