“La plus grande punition infligée à l'homme, c'est fairesouffrir ce qu'il aime, en voulant frapper ce qu'il hait.”
Cornish had, as he told Mrs. Vansittart, been living a week at Scheveningen in one of the quiet little inns in the fishing-town, where a couple of apples are displayed before lace curtains in the window of the restaurant as a modest promise of entertainment within. Knowing no Dutch, he was saved the necessity of satisfying the curiosity of a garrulous landlady, who, after many futile questions which he understood perfectly, came to the conclusion that Cornish was in hiding, and might at any moment fall into the hands of the police.
There are, it appears, few human actions that attract more curiosity for a short time than the act of colonization. But no change is in the long run so apathetically accepted as the presence of a colony of aliens. Cornish soon learnt that the malgamite works were already accepted at Scheveningen as a fact of small local importance. One or two fish-sellers took their wares there instead of going direct to The Hague. A few of the malgamite workers were seen at times, when they could get leave, on the Digue, or outside the smallercafés. Inoffensive, stricken men these appeared to be, and the big-limbed, hardy fishermen looked on them with mingled contempt and pity. No one knew what the works were, and no one cared. Some thought that fireworks were manufactured within the high fence; others imagined it to be a gunpowder factory. All were content with the knowledge that the establishment belonged to an English company employing no outside labour.
Cornish spent his days unobtrusively walking on the dunes or writing letters in his modest rooms. His evenings he usually passed at the Café de l'Europe, where an occasional truant malgamite worker would indulge in a mild carouse. From these grim revelers Cornish elicited a good deal of information. He was not actually, as his landlady suspected, in hiding, but desired to withhold as long as possible from Von Holzen and Roden the fact that he was in Holland. None of the malgamite workers recognized him; indeed, he saw none of those whom he had brought across to The Hague, and he did not care to ask too many questions. At length, as we have seen, he arrived at the conclusion that Von Holzen's schemes had been too deeply laid to allow of attack by subtler means, and as a preliminary to further action called on Mrs. Vansittart.
The following morning he happened to take his walk within sight of the Villa des Dunes, although far enough away to avoid risk of recognition, and saw Percy Roden leave the house shortly after nine to proceed towards the works. Then Tony Cornish lighted a cigarette, and sat down to wait. He knew that Dorothy usually walked to The Hague before the heat of the day to do her shopping there and household business. He had not long to wait. Dorothy quitted the little house half an hour after her brother. But she did not go towards The Hague, turning to the right instead, across the open dunes towards the sea. It was a cool morning after many hot days, and a fresh, invigorating breeze swept over the sand hills from the sea. It was to be presumed that Dorothy, having leisure, was going to the edge of the sea for a breath of the brisk air there.
Cornish rose and followed her. He was essentially a practical man—among the leaders of a practical generation. The day, moreover, was conducive to practical thoughts and not to dreams, for it was grey and yet of a light air which came bowling in from a grey sea whose shores have assuredly been trodden by the most energetic of the races of the world. For all around the North Sea and on its bosom have risen races of men to conquer the universe again and again.
Cornish had come with the intention of seeing Dorothy and speaking with her. He had quite clearly in his mind what he intended to say to her. It is not claimed for Tony Cornish that he had a great mind, and that this was now made up. But his thoughts, like all else about him, were neat and compact, wherein he had the advantage of cleverer men, who blundered along under the burden of vast ideas, which they could not put into portable shape, and over which they constantly stumbled.
He followed Dorothy, who walked briskly over the sand hills, upright, trim, and strong. She carried a stick, which she planted firmly enough in the sand as she walked. As he approached, he could see her lifting her head to look for the sea; for the highest hills are on the shore here, and stand in the form of a great barrier between the waves and the low-lying plains. She swung along at the pace which Mrs. Vansittart had envied her, without exertion, with that ease which only comes from perfect proportions and strength.
Cornish was quite close to her before she heard his step, and turned sharply. She recognized him at once, and he saw the colour slowly rise to her face. She gave no cry of surprise, however, was in no foolish feminine flutter, but came towards him quietly.
“I did not know you were in Holland,” she said.
He shook hands without answering. All that he had prepared in his mind had suddenly vanished, leaving not a blank, but a hundred other things which he had not intended to say, and which now, at the sight of her face, seemed inevitable.
“Yes,” he said, looking into her steady grey eyes, “I am in Holland—because I cannot stay away—because I cannot live without you. I have pretended to myself and to everybody else that I come to The Hague because of the Malgamite; but it is not that. It is because you are here. Wherever you are I must be; wherever you go I must follow you. The world is not big enough for you to get away from me. It is so big that I feel I must always be near you—for fear something should happen to you—to watch over you and take care of you. You know what my life has been....”
She turned away with a little shrug of the shoulders and a shake of the head. For a woman may read a man's life in his face—in the twinkling of an eye—as in an open book.
“All the world knows that....” he continued, with a sceptical laugh. “Is it not written ... in the society papers? But it has always been aboveboard—and harmless enough....”
Dorothy smiled as she looked out across the grey sea. He was, it appeared, telling her nothing that she did not know. For she was wise and shrewd—of that pure leaven of womankind which leaveneth all the rest. And she knew that a man must not be judged by his life—not even by outward appearance, upon which the world pins so much faith—but by that occasional glimpse of the soul of him, which may live on, pure through all impurity, or may be foul beneath the whitest covering.
“Of course,” he continued, “I have wasted my time horribly—I have never done any good in the world. But—great is the extenuating circumstance! I never knew what life was until I saw it ... in your eyes.”
Still she stood with her back half turned towards him, looking out across the sea. The sun had mastered the clouds and all the surface of the water glittered. A few boats on the horizon seemed to dream and sleep there. Beneath the dunes, the sand stretched away north and south in an unbroken plain. The wind whispered through the waving grass, and, far across the sands, the sea sang its eternal song. Dorothy and Cornish seemed to be alone in this world of sea and sand. So far as the eye could see, there were no signs of human life but the boats dreaming on the horizon.
“Are you quite sure?” said Dorothy, without turning her head.
“Of what...?”
“Of what you say.”
“Yes; I am quite sure.”
“Because,” she said, with a little laugh that suddenly opened the gates of Paradise and bade one more poor human-being enter in—“because it is a serious matter ... for me.”
Then, because he was a practical man and knew that happiness, like all else in this life, must be dealt with practically if aught is to be made of it, he told her why he had come. For happiness must not be rushed at and seized with wild eyes and grasping hands, but must be quickly taken when the chance offers, and delicately handled so that it be not ruined by over haste or too much confidence. It is a gift that is rarely offered, and it is only fair to say that the majority of men and women are quite unfit to have it. Even a little prosperity (which is usually mistaken for happiness) often proves too much for the mental equilibrium, and one trembles to think what the recipient would do with real happiness.
“I did not come here intending to tell you that,” said Cornish, after a pause.
They were seated now on the dry and driven sand, among the inequalities of the tufted grass.
Dorothy glanced at him gravely, for his voice had been grave.
“I think I knew,” she answered, with a sort of quiet exultation. Happiness is the quietest of human states.
Cornish turned to look at her, and after a moment she met his eyes—for an instant only.
“I came to tell you a very different story,” he said, “and one which at the moment seems to present insuperable difficulties. I can only show you that I care for you by bringing trouble into your life—which is not even original.”
He broke off with a little, puzzled laugh. For he did not know how best to tell her that her brother was a scoundrel. He sat making idle holes in the sand with his stick.
“I am in a difficulty,” he said at length—“so great a difficulty that there seems to be only one way out of it. You must forget what I have told you to-day, for I never meant to tell you until afterwards, if ever. Forget it for some months until the malgamite works have ceased to exist, and then, if I have the good fortune to be given an opportunity, I will”—he paused—“I will mention myself again,” he concluded steadily.
Dorothy's lips quivered, but she said nothing. It seemed that she was content to accept his judgment without comment as superior to her own. For the wisest woman is she who suspects that men are wiser.
“It is quite clear,” said Cornish, “that the Malgamite scheme is a fraud. It is worse than that; it is a murderous fraud. For Von Holzen's new system of making malgamite is not new at all, but an old system revived, which was set aside many years ago as too deadly. If it is not this identical system, it is a variation of it. They are producing the stuff for almost nothing at the cost of men's lives. In plain English, it is murder, and it must be stopped at any cost. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“I must stop it whatever it may cost me.”
“Yes,” she answered again.
“I am going to the works to-night to have it out with Von Holzen and your brother. It is impossible to say how matters really stand—how much your brother knows, I mean—for Von Holzen is clever. He is a cold, calculating man, who rules all who come near him. Your brother has only to do with the money part of it. They are making a great fortune. I am told that financially it is splendidly managed. I am a duffer at such things, but I understand better now how it has all been done, and I see how clever it is. They produce the stuff for almost nothing, they sell it at a great price, and they have a monopoly. And the world thinks it is a charity. It is not; it is murder.”
He spoke quietly, tapping the ground with his stick, and emphasizing his words with a deeper thrust into the sand. The habit of touching life lightly had become second nature with him, and even now he did not seem quite serious. He was, at all events, free from that deadly earnestness which blinds the eye to all save one side of a question. The very soil that he tapped could have risen up to speak in favour of such as he; for William the Silent, it is said, loved a jest, and never seemed to be quite serious during the long years of the greatest struggle the modern world has seen.
“It seems probable,” went on Cornish, “that your brother has been gradually drawn into it; that he did not know when he first joined Von Holzen what the thing really was—the system of manufacture, I mean. As for the financial side of it, I am afraid he must have known of that all along; but the older one gets the less desirous one is of judging one's neighbour. In financial matters so much seems to depend, in the formation of a judgment, whether one is a loser or a gainer by the transaction. There is a great fortune in malgamite, and a fortune is a temptation to be avoided. Others besides your brother have been tempted. I should probably have succumbed myself if it had not been—for you.”
She smiled again in a sort of derision; as if she could have told him more about himself than he could tell her. He saw the smile, and it brought a flash of light to his eyes. Deeper than fear of damnation, higher than the creeds, stronger than any motive in a man's life, is the absolute confidence placed in him by a woman.
“I went into the thing thoughtlessly,” he continued, “because it was the fashion at the time to be concerned in some large charity. And I am not sorry. It was the luckiest move I ever made. And now the thing will have to be gone through with, and there will be trouble.”
But he laughed as he spoke; for there was no trouble in their hearts, neither could anything appall them.
“Beware equally of a sudden friend and a slow enemy.”
Roden and Von Holzen were at work in the little office of the malgamite works. The sun had just set, and the soft pearly twilight was creeping over the sand hills. The day's work was over, and the factories were all locked up for the night. In the stillness that seems to settle over earth and sea at sunset, the sound of the little waves could be heard—a distant, constant babbling from the west. The workers had gone to their huts. They were not a noisy body of men. It was their custom to creep quietly home when their work was done, and to sit in their doorways if the evening was warm, or with closed doors if the north wind was astir, and silently, steadily assuage their deadly thirst. Those who sought to harvest their days, who fondly imagined they were going to make a fight for it, drank milk according to advice handed down to them from their sickly forefathers. The others, more reckless, or wiser, perhaps, in their brief generation, took stronger drink to make glad their hearts and for their many infirmities.
They had merely to ask, and that which they asked for was given to them without comment.
“Yes,” said Uncle Ben to the new-comers, “you has a slap-up time—while it lasts.”
For Uncle Ben was a strong man, and waxed garrulous in his cups. He had made malgamite all his life and nothing would kill him, not even drink. Von Holzen watched Uncle Ben, and did not like him. It was Uncle Ben who played the concertina at the door of his hut in the evening. He sprang from the class whose soul takes delight in the music of a concertina, and rises on bank holidays to that height of gaiety which can only be expressed by an interchange of hats. He came from the slums of London, where they breed a race of men, small, ill-formed, disease-stricken, hard to kill.
The north wind was blowing this evening, and the huts were all closed. The sound of Uncle Ben's concertina could be dimly heard in what purported to be a popular air—a sort of nightmare of a tune such as a barrel-organist must suffer after bad beer. Otherwise, there was nothing stirring within the enclosure. There was, indeed, a hush over the whole place, such as Nature sometimes lays over certain spots like a quiet veil, as one might lay a cloth over the result of an accident, and say, “There is something wrong here; go away.”
Cornish, having tried the main entrance gate, found it locked, and no bell with which to summon those within. He went round to the northern end of the enclosure, where the sand had drifted against the high corrugated iron fencing, and where there were empty barrels on the inner side, as Uncle Ben had told him.
“After all, I am a managing director of this concern,” said Cornish to himself, with a grim laugh, as he clambered over the fence.
He walked down the row of huts very slowly. Some of them were empty. The door of one stood ajar, and a sudden smell of disinfectant made him stop and look in. There was something lying on a bed covered by a grimy sheet.
“Um—m,” muttered Cornish, and walked on.
There had been another visitor to the malgamite works that day. Then Cornish paused for a moment near Uncle Ben's hut, and listened to “Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay.” He bit his lips, restraining a sudden desire to laugh without any mirth in his heart, and went towards Von Holzen's office, where a light gleamed through the ill-closed curtains. For these men were working night and day now—making their fortunes. He caught, as he passed the window, a glimpse of Roden bending over a great ledger which lay open before him on the table, while Von Holzen, at another desk, was writing letters in his neat German hand.
Then Cornish went to the door, opened it, and passing in, closed it behind him.
“Good evening,” he said, with just a slight exaggeration of his usual suave politeness.
“Halloa!” exclaimed Roden, with a startled look, and instinctively closing his ledger.
He looked hastily towards Von Holzen, who turned, pen in hand. Von Holzen bowed rather coldly.
“Good evening,” he answered, without looking at Roden. Indeed, he crossed the room, and placed himself in front of his companion.
“Just come across?” inquired Roden, putting together his papers with his usual leisureliness.
“No; I have been here some time.”
Cornish turned and met Von Holzen's eyes with a ready audacity. He was not afraid of this silent scientist, and had been trained in a social world where nerve and daring are highly cultivated. Von Holzen looked at him with a measuring eye, and remembered some warning words spoken by Roden months before. This was a cleverer man than they had thought him. This was the one mistake they had made in their careful scheme.
“I have been looking into things,” said Cornish, in a final voice. He took off his hat and laid it aside.
Von Holzen went slowly back to his desk, which was a high one. He stood there close by Roden, leaning his elbow on the letters that he had been writing. The two men were thus together facing Cornish, who stood at the other side of the table.
“I have been looking into things,” he repeated, “and—the game is up.”
Roden, whose face was quite colourless, shrugged his shoulders with a sneering smile. Von Holzen slowly moistened his lips, and Cornish, meeting his glance, felt his heart leap upward to his throat. His way had been the way of peace. He had never seen that look in a man's eyes before, but there was no mistaking it. There are two things that none can mistake—an earthquake, and murder shining in a man's eyes. But there was good blood in Cornish's veins, and good blood never fails. His muscles tightened, and he smiled in Von Holzen's face.
“When you were over in London a fortnight ago,” he said, “you saw my uncle, and squared him. But I am not Lord Ferriby, and I am not to be squared. As to the financial part of this business”—he paused, and glanced at the ledgers—“that seems to be of secondary importance at the moment. Besides, I do not understand finance.”
Roden's tired eyes flickered at the way in which the word was spoken.
“I propose to deal with the more vital questions,” Cornish continued, looking straight at Von Holzen. “I want details of the new process—the prescription, in fact.”
“Then you want much,” answered Von Holzen, with his slight accent.
“Oh, I want more than that,” was the retort; “I want a list of your deaths—not necessarily for publication. If the public were to hear of it, they would pull the place down about your ears, and probably hang you on your own water-tower.”
Von Holzen laughed. “Ah, my fine gentleman, if there is any hanging up to be done, you are in it, too,” he said. Then he broke into a good-humoured laugh, and waved the question aside with his hand. “But why should we quarrel? It is mere foolishness. We are not schoolboys, but men of the world, who are reasonable, I hope. I cannot give you the prescription because it is a trade secret. You would not understand it without expert assistance, and the expert would turn his knowledge to account. We chemists, you see, do not trust each other. No; but I can make malgamite here before your eyes—to show you that it is harmless—what?” He spoke easily, with a certain fascination of manner, as a man to whom speech was easy enough—who was perhaps silent with a set purpose—because silence is safe. “But it is a long process,” he added, holding up one finger, “I warn you. It will take me two hours. And you, who have perhaps not dined, and this Roden, who is tired out—”
“Roden can go home—if he is tired,” said Cornish.
“Well,” answered Von Holzen, with outspread hands, “it is as you like. Will you have it now and here?”
“Yes—now and here.”
Roden was slowly folding away his papers and closing his books. He glanced curiously at Von Holzen, as if he were displaying a hitherto unknown side to his character. Von Holzen, too, was collecting the papers scattered on his desk, with a patient air and a half-suppressed sigh of weariness, as if he were entering upon a work of supererogation.
“As to the deaths,” he said, “I can demonstrate that as we go along. You will see where the dangers lie, and how criminally neglectful these people are. It is a curious thing, that carelessness of life. I am told the Russian soldiers have it.”
It seemed that in his way Herr von Holzen was a philosopher, having in his mind a store of odd human items. He certainly had the power of arousing curiosity and making his hearers wish him to continue speaking, which is rare. Most men are uninteresting because they talk too much.
“Then I think I will go,” said Roden, rising. He looked from one to the other, and received no answer. “Good night,” he added, and walked to the door with dragging feet.
“Good night,” said Cornish. And he was left alone for the first time in his life with Von Holzen, who was clearing the table and making his preparations with a silent deftness of touch acquired by the handling of delicate instruments, the mixing of dangerous drugs.
“Then our good friend Lord Ferriby does not know that you are here?” he inquired, without much interest, as if acknowledging the necessity of conversation of some sort.
“No,” answered Cornish.
“When I have shown you this experiment,” pursued Von Holzen, setting the lamp on a side-table, “we must have a little talk about his lordship. With all modesty, you and I have the clearest heads of all concerned in this invention.” He looked at Cornish with his sudden, pleasant smile. “You will excuse me,” he said, “if while I am doing this I do not talk much. It is a difficult thing to keep in one's head, and all the attention is required in order to avoid a mistake or a mishap.”
He had already assumed an air of unconscious command, which was probably habitual with him, as if there were no question between them as to who was the stronger man. Cornish sat, pleasantly silent and acquiescent, but he felt in no way dominated. It is one thing to assume authority, and another to possess it.
“I have a little laboratory in the factory where I usually work, but not at night. We do not allow lights in there. Excuse me, I will fetch my crucible and lamp.”
And he went out, leaving Cornish alone. There was only one door to the room, leading straight out into the open. The office, it appeared, was built in the form of an annex to one of the storehouses, which stood detached from all other buildings.
In a few minutes Von Holzen returned, laden with bottles and jars. One large wicker-covered bottle with a screw top he set carefully on the table.
“I had to find them in the dark,” he explained absent-mindedly, as if his thoughts were all absorbed by the work in hand. “And one must be careful not to jar or break any of these. Please do not touch them in my absence.” As he spoke, he again examined the stoppers to see that all was secure. “I come again,” he said, making sure that the large basket-covered bottle was safe. Then he walked quickly out of the room and closed the door behind him.
Almost immediately Cornish was conscious of a bitter taste in his mouth, though he could smell nothing. The lamp suddenly burnt blue and instantly went out.
Cornish stood up, groping in the dark, his head swimming, a deadlynumbness dragging at his limbs. He had no pain, only a strangesensation of being drawn upwards. Then his head bumped against thedoor, and the remaining glimmer of consciousness shaped itself into theknowledge that this was death. He seemed to swing backwards andforwards between life and death—between sleep and consciousness. Thenhe felt a cooler air on his lips. He had fallen against the door, whichdid not fit against the threshold, and a draught of fresh air whistledthrough upon his face. “Carbonic acid gas,” he muttered, with shakinglips. “Carbonic acid gas.” He repeated the words over and over again,as a man in delirium repeats that which has fixed itself in hiswandering brain. Then, with a great effort, he brought himself tounderstand the meaning of the words that one portion of his brain keptrepeating to the other portion which could not comprehend them. Hetried to recollect all that he knew of carbonic acid gas, which was, infact, not much. He vaguely remembered that it is not an active gas thatmingles with the air and spreads, but rather it lurks in corners—aninvisible form of death—and will so lurk for years unless disturbedby a current of air.Cornish knew that in falling he had fallen out of the radius of theescaping gas, which probably filled the upper part of the room. If heraised himself, he would raise himself into the gas, which was slowlydescending upon him, and that would mean instant death. He had alreadyinhaled enough—perhaps too much. He lay quite still, breathing thedraught between the door and the threshold, and raising his left hand,felt for the handle of the door. He found it and turned it. The doorwas locked. He lay still, and his brain began to wander, but with aneffort he kept a hold upon his thoughts. He was a strong man, who hadnever had a bad illness—a cool head and an intrepid heart.Stretching out his legs, he found some object close to him. It was VonHolzen's desk, which stood on four strong legs against the wall.Cornish, who was quick and observant, remembered now how the room wasshaped and furnished. He gathered himself together, drew in his legs,and doubled himself, with his feet against the desk, his shoulderagainst the door. He was long and lithe, of a steely strength which hehad never tried. He now slowly straightened himself, and tore thescrews out of the solid wood of the door, which remained hanging by theupper hinge. His head and shoulders were now out in the open air.He lay for a moment or two to regain his breath, and recover from thedeadly nausea that follows gas poisoning. Then he rose to his feet, andstood swaying like a drunken man. Von Holzen's cottage was a few yardsaway. A light was burning there, and gleamed through the cracks of thecurtains.
Cornish went towards the cottage, then paused. “No,” he muttered, holding his head with both hands. “It will keep.” And he staggered away in the darkness towards the corner where the empty barrels stood against the fence.
“One and one with a shadowy third.”
“You have the air,mon ami, of a malgamiter,” said Mrs. Vansittart, looking into Cornish's face—“lurking here in your little inn in a back street! Why do you not go to one of the larger hotels in Scheveningen, since you have abandoned The Hague?”
“Because the larger hotels are not open yet,” replied Cornish, bringing forward a chair.
“That is true, now that I think of it. But I did not ask the question wanting an answer. You, who have been in the world, should know women better than to think that. I asked in idleness—a woman's trick. Yes; you have been or you are ill. There is a white look in your face.”
She sat looking at him. She had walked all the way from Park Straat in the shade of the trees—quite a pedestrian feat for one who confessed to belonging to a carriage generation. She had boldly entered the restaurant of the little hotel, and had told the waiter to take her to Mr. Cornish's apartment.
“It hardly matters what a very young waiter, at the beginning of his career, may think of us. But downstairs they are rather scandalized, I warn you,” she said.
“Oh, I ceased explaining many years ago,” replied Cornish, “even in English. More suspicion is aroused by explanation than by silence. For this wise world will not believe that one is telling the truth.”
“When one is not,” suggested Mrs. Vansittart.
“When one is not,” admitted Cornish, in rather a tired voice, which, to so keen an ear as that of his hearer, was as good as asking her why she had come.
She laughed. “Yes,” she said, “you are not inclined to sit and talk nonsense at this time in the morning. No more am I. I did not walk from Park Straat and take your defences by storm, and subject myself to the insult of a raised eyebrow on the countenance of a foolish young waiter, to talk nonsense even with you, who are cleverer with your non-committing platitudes than any man I know.” She laughed rather harshly, as many do when they find themselves suddenly within hail, as it were, of that weakness which is called feeling. “No, I came here on—let us say—business. I hold a good card, and I am going to play it. I want you to hold your hand in the mean time; give me to-day, you understand. I have taken great care to strengthen my hand. This is no sudden impulse, but a set purpose to which I have led up for some weeks. It is not scrupulous; it is not even honest. It is, in a word, essentially feminine, and not an affair to which you as a man could lend a moment's approval. Therefore, I tell you nothing. I merely ask you to leave me an open field to-day. Our end is the same, though our methods and our purpose differ as much as—well, as much as our minds. You want to break this Malgamite corner. I want to break Otto von Holzen. You understand?”
Cornish had known her long enough to permit himself to nod and say nothing.
“If I succeed,tant mieux. If I fail, it is no concern of yours, and it will in no way affect you or your plans. Ah, you disapprove, I see. What a complicated world this would be if we could all wear masks! Your face used to be a safer one than it is now. Can it be that you are becoming serious—un jeune homme sérieux?Heaven save you from that!”
“No; I have a headache; that is all,” laughed Cornish.
Mrs. Vansittart was slowly unbuttoning and rebuttoning her glove, deep in thought. For some women can think deeply and talk superficially at the same moment.
“Do you know,” she said, with a sudden change of voice and manner, “I have a conviction that you know something to-day of which you were ignorant yesterday? All knowledge, I suppose, leaves its mark. Something about Otto von Holzen, I suspect. Ah, Tony, if you know something, tell it to me. If you hold a strong card, let me play it. You do not know how I have longed and waited—what a miserable little hand I hold against this strong man.”
She was serious enough now. Her voice had a ring of hopelessness in it, as if she knew that limit against which a woman is fated to throw herself when she tries to injure a man who has no love for her. If the love be there, then is she strong, indeed; but without it, what can she do? It is the little more that is so much, and the little less that is such worlds away.
Cornish did not deny the knowledge which she ascribed to him, but merely shook his head, and Mrs. Vansittart suddenly changed her manner again. She was quick and clever enough to know that whatever account stood open between Cornish and Von Holzen the reckoning must be between them alone, without the help of any woman.
“Then you will remain indoors,” she said, rising, “and recover from your ... strange headache—and not go near the malgamite works, nor see Percy Roden or Otto von Holzen—and let me have my little try—that is all I ask.”
“Yes,” answered Cornish, reluctantly; “but I think you would be wiser to leave Von Holzen to me.”
“Ah!” said Mrs. Vansittart, with one of her quick glances. “You think that.”
She paused on the threshold, then shrugged her shoulders and passed out. She hurried home, and there wrote a note to Percy Roden.
“It seems a long time since I saw you last, though perhaps it only seems so tome. I shall be at home at five o'clock this evening, if you care to take pity on a lonely countrywoman. If I should be out riding when you come, please await my return.
“Yours very truly,
She closed the letter with a little cruel smile, and despatched it by the hand of a servant. Quite early in the afternoon she put on her habit, but did not go straight downstairs, although her horse was at the door. She went to the library instead—a small, large-windowed room, looking on to Oranje Straat. From a drawer in her writing-table she took a key, and examined it closely before slipping it into her pocket. It was a new key with the file-marks still upon it.
“A clumsy expedient,” she said. “But the end is so desirable that the means must not be too scrupulously considered.”
She rode down Kazerne Straat and through the wood by the Leyden Road. By turning to the left, she soon made her way to the East Dunes, and thus describing a circle, rode slowly back towards Scheveningen. She knew her way, it appeared, to the malgamite works. Leaving her horse in the care of the groom, she walked to the gate of the works, which was opened to her by the doorkeeper, after some hesitation. The man was a German, and therefore, perhaps, more amenable to Mrs. Vansittart's imperious arguments.
“I must see Herr von Holzen without delay,” she said. “Show me his office.”
The man pointed out the building. “But the Herr Professor is in the factory,” he said. “It is mixing-day to-day. I will, however, fetch him.”
Mrs. Vansittart walked slowly towards the office where Roden had told her that the safe stood wherein the prescription and other papers were secured. She knew it was mixing-day and that Von Holzen would be in the factory. She had sent Roden on a fool's errand to Park Straat to await her return there. Was she going to succeed? Would she be left alone for a few moments in that little office with the safe? She fingered the key in her pocket—a duplicate obtained at some risk, with infinite difficulty, by the simple stratagem of borrowing Roden's keys to open an old and disused desk one evening in Park Straat. She had conceived the plan herself, had carried it out herself, as all must who wish to succeed in a human design. She was quite aware that the plan was crude and almost childish, but the gain was great, and it is often the simplest means that succeed. The secret of the manufacture of malgamite—written in black and white—might prove to be Von Holzen's death-warrant. Mrs. Vansittart had to fight in her own way or not fight at all. She could not understand the slower, surer methods of Mr. Wade and Cornish, who appeared to be waiting and wasting time.
The German doorkeeper accompanied her to the office, and opened the door after knocking and receiving no answer.
“Will the high-born take a seat?” he said; “I shall not be long.”
“There is no need to hurry,” said Mrs. Vansittart to herself.
And before the door was quite closed she was on her feet again. The office was bare and orderly. Even the waste-paper baskets were empty. The books were locked away and the desks were clear. But the small green safe stood in the corner. Mrs. Vansittart went towards it, key in hand. The key was the right one. It had only been selected by guesswork among a number on Roden's bunch. It slipped into the lock and turned smoothly, but the door would not move. She tugged and wrenched at the handle, then turned it accidentally, and the heavy door swung open. There were two drawers at the bottom of the safe which were not locked, and contained neatly folded papers. Her fingers were among these in a moment. The papers were folded and tied together. Many of the bundles were labelled. A long narrow envelope lay at the bottom of the drawer. She seized it quickly and turned it over. It bore no address nor any superscription. “Ah!” she said breathlessly, and slipped her finger within the flap of the envelope. Then she hesitated for a moment, and turned on her heel. Von Holzen was standing in the doorway looking at her.
They stared at each other for a moment in silence. Mrs. Vansittart's lips were drawn back, showing her even, white teeth. Von Holzen's quiet eyes were wide open, so that the white showed all around the dark pupil. Then he sprang at her without a word. She was a lithe, strong woman, taller than he, or else she would have fallen. Instead, she stood her ground, and he, failing to get a grasp at her wrist, stumbled sideways against the table. In a moment she had run round it, and again they stared at each other, without a word, across the table where Percy Roden kept the books of the malgamite works.
A slow smile came to Von Holzen's face, which was colourless always, and now a sort of grey. He turned on his heel, walked to the door, and, locking it, slipped the key into his pocket. Then he returned to Mrs. Vansittart. Neither spoke. No explanation was at that moment necessary. He lifted the table bodily, and set it aside against the wall. Then he went slowly towards her, holding out his hand for the unaddressed envelope, which she held behind her back. He stood for a moment holding out his hand while his strong will went out to meet hers. Then he sprang at her again and seized her two wrists. The strength of his arms was enormous, for he was a deep-chested man, and had been a gymnast. The struggle was a short one, and Mrs. Vansittart dropped the envelope helplessly from her paralyzed fingers. He picked it up.
“You are the wife of Karl Vansittart,” he said in German.
“I am his widow,” she replied; and her breath caught, for she was still shaken by the physical and moral realization of her absolute helplessness in his hands, and she saw in a flash of thought the question in his mind as to whether he could afford to let her leave the room alive.
“Give me the key with which you opened the safe,” he said coldly.
She had replaced the key in her pocket, and now sought it with a shaking hand. She gave it to him without a word. Morally she would not acknowledge herself beaten, and the bitterness of that moment was the self-contempt with which she realized a physical cowardice which she had hitherto deemed quite impossible. For the flesh is always surprised by its own weakness.
Von Holzen looked at the key critically, turning it over in order to examine the workmanship. It was clumsily enough made, and he doubtless guessed how she had obtained it. Then he glanced at her as she stood breathless with a colourless face and compressed lips.
“I hope I did not hurt you,” he said quietly, thereby putting in a dim and far-off claim to greatness, for it is hard not to triumph in absolute victory.
She shook her head with a twisted smile, and looked down at her hands, which were still helpless. There were bands of bright red round the white wrists. Her gloves lay on the table. She went towards them and numbly took them up. He was impassive still, and his face, which had flushed a few moments earlier, slowly regained its usual calm pallor. It was this very calmness, perhaps, that suddenly incensed Mrs. Vansittart. Or it may have been that she had regained her courage.
“Yes,” she cried, with a sort of break in her voice that made it strident—“yes. I am Karl Vansittart's wife, and I—cared for him. Do you know what that means? But you can't. All that side of life is a closed book to such as you. It means that if you had been a hundred times in the right and he always in the wrong, I should still have believed in him and distrusted you—should still have cared for him and hated you. But he was not guilty. He was in the right and you were wrong—a thief and a murderer, no doubt. And to screen your paltry name, you sacrificed Karl and the happiness of two people who had just begun to be happy. It means that I shall not rest until I have made you pay for what you have done. I have never lost sight of you—and never shall—”
She paused, and looked at his impassive face with a strange, dull curiosity as she spoke of the future, as if wondering whether she had a future or had reached the end of her life—here, at this moment, in the little plank-walled office of the malgamite works. But her courage rose steadily. It is only afar off that Death is terrible. When we actually stand in his presence, we usually hold up our heads and face him quietly enough.
“You may have other enemies,” she continued. “I know you have—men, too—but none of them will last so long as I shall, none of them is to be feared as I am—”
She stopped again in a fury, for he was obviously waiting for her to pause for mere want of breath, as if her words could be of no weight.
“If you fear anything on earth,” she said, acknowledging is one merit despite herself.
“I fear you so little,” he answered, going to the door and unlocking it, “that you may go.”
Her whip lay on the table. He picked it up and handed it to her, gravely, without a bow, without a shade of triumph or the smallest suspicion of sarcasm. There was perhaps the nucleus of a great man in Otto von Holzen, after all, for there was no smallness in his mind. He opened the door, and stood aside for her to pass out.
“It is not because you do not fear me—that you let me go,” said Mrs. Vansittart. “But—because you are afraid of Tony Cornish.”
And she went out, wondering whether the shot had told or missed.