I had been alone for nearly an hour before there came a cautious tapping at my door, I opened it at once, and stared at my visitor in surprise. It was the man in the grey tweed suit, who had broken into my room the night before.
"You!" I exclaimed; "what the mischief are you doing here?"
"If you will permit me to enter," he said, "I shall be glad to explain."
He stepped past me into the room. I closed the door behind him.
"What do you want with me?" I asked.
My visitor regarded me thoughtfully through his gold-rimmed spectacles. I, too, was taking careful note of him. Any one more commonplace—with less of the bearing of a conspirator—it would be impossible to imagine. His features, his clothes, his bearing, were all ordinary. His face had not even the shrewdness of the successful business man. His brown beard was carefully trimmed, his figure was a little podgy, his manner undistinguished. I found it hard to associate him in my mind with such things as the woman whom I had left a few moments ago had spoken of.
"I understand," he said, "that you wish for an interview with your friend, Mr. Leslie Guest. His room happens to be close to mine. I shall be pleased to conduct you there!"
"You have seen Miss Van Hoyt then?" I exclaimed.
"I have just left her!" he answered.
I stared at him incredulously.
"Do you mean to tell me," I said, "that, after last night, you have dared to remain in the hotel—that you have a room here?"
My visitor smiled.
"But certainly," he said, "you are under some curious apprehension as to the events of last night. My friend and I are most harmless individuals. We only wanted a little business conversation with Mr. Guest, which he was foolish enough to try and avoid. That is all arranged, now, however!"
"Is it?" I answered curtly. "Then I am sorry for Mr. Guest!"
Again my visitor smiled—quite a harmless smile it was, as of pity for some unaccountably foolish person.
"You do not seem," he remarked, "if I may be pardoned for saying so, a very imaginative person, Mr. Courage, but you certainly have some strange ideas as to my friend and myself. Possibly Mr. Guest himself is responsible for them! A very excitable person at times!"
"You had better take me to him, if that is your errand," I said shortly."This sort of conversation between you and me is rather a waste of time."
"Certainly!" he answered. "Will you follow me?"
We took the lift to the sixth floor, traversed an entire corridor, and then, mounting a short and narrow flight of stairs, we arrived at a passage with three or four doors on either side, and no exit at the further end. We seemed to be entirely cut off from the main portion of the hotel, and I noticed that there were no numbers on the doors of the rooms. A very tall and powerful-looking man came to the head of the stairs, on hearing our footsteps, and regarded us suspiciously. Directly he recognized my companion, however, he allowed us to pass.
"A nice quiet part of the hotel this," my guide remarked, glancing towards me.
"Very!" I answered dryly.
"A man might be hidden here very securely," he added.
"I can well believe it," I assented.
He knocked softly at the third door on the left. A woman's voice answered him. A moment later, the door was opened by a nurse in plain hospital dress.
"Good evening, nurse!" my companion said cheerfully. "This gentleman would like to see Mr. Guest! Is he awake?"
The nurse opened the door a little wider, which I took for an invitation to enter. She closed it softly behind me. My guide remained outside.
The room was a very small one, and furnished after the usual hotel fashion. The only light burning was a heavily-shaded electric lamp, placed by the bedside. The nurse raised it a little, and looked down upon the man who lay there motionless.
"He is asleep," she remarked. "It is time he took his medicine. I must wake him!"
She spoke with a pronounced foreign accent. Her fair hair and stolid features left me little doubt as to her nationality. I was conscious of a strong and instinctive dislike to her from the moment I heard her speak and watched her bending over the bed. I think that her face was one of the most unsympathetic which I had ever seen.
She poured some medicine into a glass, and turned on another electric light. Her patient woke at once. Directly he opened his eyes, he recognized me with a little start.
"You!" he exclaimed. "You!"
I sat down on the edge of the bed.
"You haven't forgotten me then?" I remarked. "I'm sorry you're queer!Nothing serious, I hope?"
He ignored my words. He was looking at me all the time, as though inclined to doubt the evidence of his senses.
"Who let you come—up here?" he asked in a whisper.
"I made inquiries about you, and got permission to come up," I answered."How are you feeling this evening?"
"I don't understand why they let you come," he said uneasily. "Stoop down!"
The nurse came forward with a wineglass.
"Will you take your medicine, please?" she said.
"Presently," he answered, "put it down."
She glanced at the clock and held the glass out once more.
"It is past the time," she said.
"I have had two doses to-day," he answered. "Quite enough, I think. Set it down and go away, please. I want to talk with this gentleman."
"Talking is not good for you," she said, without moving. "Better take your medicine and go to sleep!"
He took the glass from her hand, and, with a glance at its contents which puzzled me, drank it off.
"Now will you go?" he asked, handing back the glass to her.
She dragged her chair to the bedside.
"If you will talk," she said stolidly, "I must watch that you do not excite yourself too much!"
He glanced meaningly at me.
"I have private matters to discuss!" he said.
"You are not well enough to talk of private matters, or anything else important," she declared. "You will excite yourself. You will bring on the fever. I remain here to watch. It is by the doctor's orders."
She sat down heavily within a few feet of us.
"You speak French?" Guest asked me.
I nodded.
"Fairly well!"
"Watch her! See whether she seems to understand. I want to speak of what she must not hear."
She half rose from her chair. So far as her features could express anything, they expressed disquietude.
"She does not understand," I said. "Go on!"
She bent over the bedside.
"You must not talk any more," she said. "It excites you! Your temperature is rising."
He ignored her altogether.
"Listen," he said to me, "why they have let you come here I cannot tell!You know that I am in prison—that I am not likely to leave here alive!"
"I don't think that it is so bad as that," I assured him.
"It is worse! I am likely to die without the chance of finishing—my work. Great things will die with me. God knows what will happen."
"You have a doctor and a hospital nurse," I remarked. "That doesn't look as though they meant you to die!"
"You don't know who I am, and you don't know who they are," he answered, dropping his voice almost to a whisper.
"I want a month, one more month, and I might cheat them yet!"
"I don't think that they mean you to die," I said. "They have an idea that you are in possession of some marvellous secret. They want to get possession of that first."
"They persevere," he murmured. "In Paris—but never mind. They know very well that that secret, if I die before I can finish my work, dies with me, or—"
The nurse, who had left us a few moments before, re-entered the room. She went straight to a chair at the further end of the apartment, and took up a book. Guest looked at me with a puzzled expression.
"Stranger still!" he said, "we are allowed to talk."
"It may be only for a moment," I reminded him.
"Or pass it on to a successor who will complete my work," he said slowly."I fear that I shall not find him. The time is too short now."
"Have you no friends I could send for?" I asked.
"Not one!" he answered.
I looked at him curiously. A man does not often confess himself entirely friendless.
"I need a strong, brave man," he said slowly—"one who is not afraid ofDeath, one who has the courage to dare everything in a great cause!"
"A great cause!" I repeated. "They are few and far between nowadays."
He looked at me steadily.
"You are an Englishman!"
I laughed.
"Saxon to the backbone," I admitted.
"You would consider it a great cause to save your country from ruin, from absolute and complete ruin!"
"My imagination," I declared, "cannot conceive such a situation."
"A flock of geese once saved an empire," he said, "a child's little finger in the crack of the dam kept a whole city from destruction. One man may yet save this pig-headed country of ours from utter disaster. It may be you—it may be I!"
"You are also an Englishman!" I exclaimed.
"Perhaps!" he answered shortly. "Never mind what I am. Think! Think hard! By to-morrow you must decide! Are you content with your life? Does it satisfy you? You have everything else; have you ambition?"
"I am not sure," I answered slowly. "Remember that this is all new to me.I must think!"
He raised himself a little in the bed. At no time on this occasion had he presented to me the abject appearance of the previous night. His cheeks were perfectly colorless, and this pallor, together with his white hair, and the spotless bed-linen, gave to his face a somewhat ghastly cast, but his dark eyes were bright and piercing, his features composed and natural.
"Listen," he said, "they may try to kill me, but I have a will, too, and I say that I will not die till I have found a successor to carry on—to the end—what I have begun. Mind, it is no coward's game! It is a walk with death, hand in hand, all the way."
He raised suddenly a warning finger. There was a knock at the door. The nurse who answered it came to the bedside.
"The gentleman has stayed long enough," she announced. "He must go now!"
I rose and held out my hand. He held it between his for a moment, and his eyes sought mine.
"You will come—to-morrow?"
"I will come," I promised. "To-morrow evening."
At about nine o'clock the following morning a note was brought to my room addressed to me in a lady's handwriting. I tore it open at once. It was, as I bad expected, from Miss Van Hoyt.
"I should like to see you for a few minutes at twelve o'clock in the reading-room.
"Yours sincerely,
I wrote a reply immediately:—
"I regret that I am engaged for the day, and have to leave the hotel in an hour. I shall return about seven o'clock. Could you not dine with me this evening, either in the hotel or elsewhere?
"Yours sincerely,
Over my breakfast I studied the handwriting of her note. It might indeed have served for an index to so much of her character as had become apparent to me. The crisp, clear formation of the letters, the bold curves and angular terminations, seemed to denote a personality free from all feminine weaknesses. I was reminded at once of the unfaltering gaze of her deep blue eyes, of the chill precision of her words and manner. I asked myself, then, why a character so free, apparently, from all the lovable traits of her sex, should have proved so attractive to me. I had known other beautiful women, I was not untravelled, and I had met women in Paris and Vienna who also possessed the more subtle charms of perfect toilet and manners, and were free from the somewhat hopeless obviousness of most of the women of our country. There was something beneath all that. At the moment, I could not tell what it was. I simply realized that, for the first time, a woman stood easily first in my life, that my whole outlook upon the world was undermined.
Just as I was leaving the hotel, I saw her maid coming down the hall with a note in her hand. I waited, and she accosted me.
"Monsieur Courage!"
"Yes!" I answered.
She gave me the note.
"There is no reply at present," she said, dropping her voice almost to a whisper. "Monsieur might open it in his cab."
She gave me a glance of warning, and I saw that the hall porter and one of his subordinates were somewhat unnecessarily near me. Then she glided away, and I drove off in my cab. Directly we had started, I tore open the envelope and read these few lines.
"I will dine with you to-night at the Café Français at eight o'clock. Please take a table upstairs. Do not ask for me again or send me any further message until we meet there.
"Yours sincerely,
At Lord's I was compelled to spend half the day hanging about the pavilion, smoking a good many more cigarettes than I was accustomed to, and finding the cricket much less interesting than usual. My own innings fortunately kept me distracted for a little more than two hours, and the effort of it soothed my nerves and did me good all round. On my way back to the hotel, I determined to forget everything except that I was going to dine alone with the one companion I would have chosen first out of the whole world. In that frame of mind I bathed, changed my clothes, and made my way a little before the appointed time to the Café Français.
I found out my table, sent for some more flowers, and ordered the wine.Then I descended to the hall just in time to meet my guest.
She wore nothing over her evening dress save a lace scarf, which she untwisted as we ascended the stairs. For some reason I fancied that she was not very well pleased with me. Her greeting was certainly cool.
"Is this your favorite restaurant?" I asked, as the head-waiter ushered us to our table.
"I have no favorite restaurant," she answered; "only to-night I felt in the humor for French cooking—and French service."
I fancied that there was some meaning in the latter part of her sentence; but at that time I did not understand. I had ordered the dinner carefully; and I was glad to see that, although she ate sparingly, she showed appreciation. Wine she scarcely touched.
"So you have been particularly engaged to-day," was almost her first remark.
"I was forced to go to Lord's," I reminded her. "A cricket match lasts three days."
"Three whole days!" she exclaimed, raising her eyebrows.
"Certainly! unless it is over before," I replied.
"And you mean to say that you are a prisoner there all that time—that you could not leave if you chose to?"
"I am afraid not," I answered. "Cricket is a serious thing in this country, you know. If you are chosen to play and commence in the match, you must go through with it. Surely you have met with something of the same sort of thing in the football matches in America!"
"I have never been interested in such things," she said. "I suppose that is why I have never realized their importance. I am afraid, Mr. Courage—"
"Well?"
She lifted her eyes to mine. What a color!—and what a depth. Then I knew, as though by inspiration, how it was that I found myself passing into bondage. Cold she might seem, and self-engrossed! It was because the right chord had never been struck. Some day another light should shine in those wonderful eyes. I saw her before me transformed, saw color in her still, marble cheeks, saw her lips drift into a softer curve, heard the tremor of passion in her quiet, languid tone.
"Do you know that you are staring at me?" she remarked, calmly.
I apologized profusely.
"It is a bad habit of mine," I assured her. "I was looking—beyond."
There was real interest then in her face. She leaned a little forward. Perhaps it was my fancy, but I thought that she seemed to regard me differently.
"How interesting!" she said. "Do you know I had not given you credit for much imagination. You must tell me what you saw!"
"Impossible!" I declared.
"Rubbish!" she answered, "nothing is impossible. Besides, I ask it,"
"I do not know you well enough," I declared, helping myself to an artichoke, "to be personal."
"The liberties you take in your thoughts," she answered, "I permit you to render into speech. It is the same thing."
"One's thoughts," I answered, "are too phantasmagorial. One cannot collect them into speech."
"You must try," she declared, "or I shall never, never dine with you again. Nothing is so interesting as to see yourself from another's point of view!"
"Is it understood," I asked, "that I am not held personally responsible for my thoughts—that if I try to clothe them with words, I am held free from offence?"
She considered for a moment.
"I suppose so," she said. "Yes! Go on."
I drank off my glass of wine, and waited until the waiter, who had been carving a Rouen duckling on a stand by the side of the table, had stepped back into the background.
"Very well!" I said. "I am thirty-three years old and a bachelor, well off, and I have never been a stay-at-home. I know something of society in Paris, in Vienna, in Rome, as well as London. I have always found women agreeable companions, and I have never avoided them. The sex, as a whole, has attracted me. From individual members of it I have happened to remain absolutely heart-whole."
"Marvellous," she murmured in gentle derision. "Please pass the toast.Thank you!"
"I have been compelled," I said, "to be egotistical. I must now become personal. I saw you for the first time in the hall at the Universal, the morning before yesterday. I encountered you the night before under extremely dubious circumstances. I spoke to you for the first time yesterday. I have met other women as beautiful, I have met many others who have been more gracious to me. These things do not seem to count. You have asked for truth, mind, and you are going to have it. As surely as we are sitting here together, I know that, from henceforth, for me there will be—there could be—no other woman in the world!"
She moved in her chair a little restlessly. Her eyes avoided mine. Her eyebrows had contracted a little, but I could not see that she was angry.
"What am I to think of such a declaration as that?" she asked quietly. "You are not a wizard. You have seen of me what I chose, and you have seen nothing which a man should find lovable, except my looks."
I smiled as I leaned a little forward.
"Don't do me an injustice," I begged. "You have brought me now to the very moment when I forgot myself, and prompted your question. Remember that one has always one's fancy. I looked at you to-night, and I thought that I saw another woman—or rather I thought that I saw the woman that you might be, that I would pray to make you. The other woman is there, I think. I only hope that it may be my good fortune to call her into life."
Her head was bent over her plate. She seemed to be listening to the music—or was there something there which she did not wish me to see? I could not tell. The waiter intervened with another course. When she spoke to me again, her tone was almost cold, but it troubled me very little. There was a softness in her eyes which she could not hide.
"It seems to me," she said, "that we have been very frivolous. I agreed to dine with you that we might speak together of this unfortunate person, Leslie Guest. You saw him last night?"
"Yes," I answered, "I saw him."
My tone had become grave, and my face overcast. She was watching me curiously.
"Well!"
"I am bothered," I admitted. "I don't quite know what I ought to do!"
"Explain!"
"It seemed to me," I said, "that the man was neither more nor less than a prisoner there in the hands of those who, for some reason or other, are his enemies."
"That," she admitted, "is fairly obvious; what of it?"
"Well," I said, "the most straightforward thing for me to do, I believe, would be to go to the nearest police-station and tell them all I know."
She laughed softly.
"What an Englishman you are!" she exclaimed. "The law, or a letter to theTimes. These are your final resources, are they not? Well, in this case, let me assure you that neither would help you in the least."
"I am not so sure," I answered. "At any rate, I do not see the fun of letting him remain there, to be done to death by those mysterious enemies of his."
"Then why not take him away?" she asked quietly.
"Where to?" I asked.
"Your own home, if you are sufficiently interested in him!"
"Do you mean that?" I asked.
"I do! Listen! I have no pity for the man who calls himself Leslie Guest! Death he has deserved, and his fate, whomever might intervene, is absolutely inevitable. But I do not wish him to die—at present!"
"Why not?"
"You can imagine, I think. He has the secret."
"He does not seem to me," I remarked, "the sort of man likely to part with it."
"Not to me," she answered quickly, "not to those others. From us he would guard it with his life! With you it is different."
"I am not sure," I said slowly, "that I wish to become a sharer of such dangerous knowledge."
"You are afraid?" she asked coldly.
"I do not see what I have to gain by it," I admitted. "I am not curious, and the possession of it certainly seems to entail some inconvenience, if not danger."
Her lip curled a little. She nodded as though she quite understood my point of view.
"You have said enough," she declared; "I perceive that I was not mistaken! You are exactly the sort of man I thought you were from the first. It is better for you to return to your cricket and your sports. You are at home with them; in the great world you would soon be weary and lost. Call for your bill, please, and put me in a cab. I have a call to make before I return to the hotel"
"One moment more," I begged. "You have not altogether understood me! I have spoken from my own point of view only. I have no interest in the salvation of Leslie Guest, beyond an Englishman's natural desire to see fair play. I have no wish to be burdened with a secret which seems to spell life or death in capital letters. But show me where your interest lies, and I promise you that I will be zealous enough! Tell me what to do and I will do it. My time and my life are yours. Do what you will with them! Can I say more than that?"
She flashed a wonderful look at me across the table—such a look that my heart beat, and my pulses flowed to a strange, new music. Her tone was soft, almost caressing.
"You mean this?"
"Upon my honor I do!" I answered.
"Then take Leslie Guest with you back to your home in the country," she said. "Keep him with you, keep every one else away from him. In less than a week he will tell you his secret!"
"I will do it," I answered.
"This," the nurse said, after a moment's somewhat awkward pause, "is the doctor—Dr. Kretznow!"
A tall, awkwardly built man, wearing heavy glasses, turned away from the bedside, and looked at me inquiringly.
"My name is Courage, doctor," I said; "I am an acquaintance of your patient's."
The doctor frowned on me as he picked up his hat.
"I have given no permission," he said, "for my patient to receive visitors."
"I trust that you don't consider him too ill," I answered. "I was hoping to hear that he was better!"
"He is doing well enough," the doctor declared, "if he is left alone.But," he added, in a lower tone, "he is a sick man—a very sick man."
I glanced towards the bedside, and was shocked at the deathly pallor of his face. His eyes were half closed. He had not the air of hearing anything that we said. I walked towards the door with the doctor.
"What is the matter with him, doctor?" I asked.
He glanced towards me suspiciously.
"I was told," he said, "that my patient was without friends here, or any one for whom he could send."
"I have only known him a very short time," I answered, "but I am interested in him. If I may be allowed to say so, I am perfectly willing to defray any charges—"
He stopped me impatiently.
"I am physician to the hotel," he said, "Mr. Blumentein arranges all that with me!"
"Then perhaps as I have told you I am interested in him, I can trespass so far upon your courtesy as to inquire into the nature of his ailment," I said.
"I am afraid," he said, "that as you are not a medical man, I could scarcely make you understand."
"There was—an accident, I think," I began.
"A trifle! Nothing at all," the doctor declared hastily. "The trouble is with his heart. You will excuse me! I have many calls to make this evening."
"Perhaps you would kindly give me your address," I said. "Dr. Mumford, the heart specialist, is an acquaintance of mine. You would not object to meet him in consultation?"
He looked at me for a moment fixedly.
"It is not at all necessary!" he declared. "If Mr. Blumentein is not satisfied with my conduct of the case, I will withdraw from it at once! Otherwise, I shall not tolerate any interference!"
He left me without another word. I returned to the bedside. As I approached, Guest deliberately opened one eye and then closed it again. I addressed him in French:
"How are you?"
"About as I am meant to be," he answered.
The nurse came over to the bedside.
"It is not well for the gentleman to talk to-night," she said. "The doctor has said that he must be quite quiet."
"I shall only stay a few minutes," I answered; "and I will be careful not to disturb him."
She stood quite still for a moment, looking sullenly at us. Then she turned away and left the room. Guest raised himself a little in the bed.
"She has gone to fetch one of my—guardians," he remarked grimly.
"I am going to take you away from here—down to my home in the country,"I said. "Do you think you can stand the journey?"
"Whether I can or not makes no difference," he answered. "I shall never be allowed to leave this room alive."
The Britisher in me was touched.
"Rubbish," I answered, "if you talk like that, I shall go to Scotland Yard at once. I tell you frankly, I don't like your nurse. I don't like your doctor, I don't like their shutting you up in this lonely part of the hotel, and I can't understand the attitude of Mr. Blumentein at all. He must know what he is risking in attempting this sort of thing, in London of all places in the world."
He interrupted me impatiently.
"Don't talk about Scotland Yard," he said. "These people are not fools.They would have a perfect answer to any charge you might bring."
"You don't mean that you intend to lie here and be done to death?" I protested.
"Death for me is a certain thing," he answered. "I have been a doomed man for months. There was never a chance for me after I entered the portals of this hotel. I knew that; but I backed my luck. I thought that I might have had time to finish my work—to lay the match to the gunpowder."
"Listen," I said, "there is a lady—a young lady staying here, a Miss VanHoyt."
"Well?"
"It was her suggestion that I should take you away with me!"
His eyes seemed to dilate as he stared at me.
"Say that again," he murmured.
I repeated my words. He raised himself a little in the bed.
"What do you know of her?" he asked.
"Not much," I answered. "She came to Lord's cricket ground. My cousin was with her. We have spoken about you."
"You know—"
"I know that she is or appears to be one of your—what shall I say—enemies."
"She is willing," he repeated, "for me to go away with you! Ah!"
A sudden understanding came into his face.
"Yes!" he declared hoarsely, "I think that I understand. Go back to her! Say that I consent. She—she is different to those others. She plays—the great game! Hush! I go to sleep!"
He closed his eyes. The door opened, and the nurse entered, followed by a man who bowed gravely to me. He was still wearing a grey tweed suit and a red tie; his eyes beamed upon me from behind his gold-rimmed spectacles.
"Ah!" he exclaimed softly, "so you have come to see your friend. It is very kind of you! I trust that you find him better."
I pointed to the nurse.
"Send her away," I said. "I want to talk to you!"
"We will talk with pleasure," the newcomer answered, "but why here? We shall disturb our friend. Come into my room, and we will drink a whisky and soda together."
"Thank you, no!" I answered dryly. "I will drink with you at the bar, or in the smoking-room if you like—not in your room."
He bowed.
"An admirable precaution, sir," he declared. "We will go to the smoking-room."
I glanced towards the bed. Guest was sleeping, or feigning sleep. My companion's eyes followed mine sympathetically.
"Poor fellow!" he exclaimed. "I am afraid that he is very ill!"
I opened the door and pushed him gently outside.
"We will go downstairs and have that talk," I said.
We found a quiet corner in the smoking-room, where there was a little recess partitioned off from the rest of the room. My companion drew a small card-case from his pocket.
"Permit me, Mr. Courage," he said, "to introduce myself. My name isStanley, James Stanley, and I come from Liverpool. Waiter, two bestScotch whiskies, and a large Schweppe's soda."
"Mr. Stanley," I said, "I am glad to know a name by which I can call you, but this is going to be a straight talk between you and me; and I may as well tell you that I do not believe that your name is Stanley, or that you come from Liverpool!"
"Ah! It is immaterial," he declared softly.
"I want to speak to you," I said, "about the man Guest upstairs. It seems to me that there is a conspiracy going on against him in this hotel. I want you to understand that I am not prepared to stand quietly aside and see him done to death!"
My companion laughed softly. He took off his spectacles, and wiped them with a silk handkerchief.
"A conspiracy," he repeated, "in the Hotel Universal. My dear sir, you are letting your indignation run away with you! Consider for a moment what you are saying. The hotel is full of visitors from all parts of England. It is one of the largest and best known in London. Its reputation—"
"Oh! spare me all this rot," I interrupted rudely. "Let me remind you of what happened two nights ago, when you broke into my room in search of Guest."
"Ah!" he remarked, "that, no doubt, must have seemed an odd proceeding to you. But, in the first place, you must remember we had no idea that the room was occupied. We were very anxious to have an explanation with our friend, purely a business matter, and he had irritated us both by his persistent avoidance of it. We have had our little talk now, and the matter is over. My partner has already left, and I am returning to Liverpool myself to-morrow or the next day. I fear that you were misled by my language and manner on that unfortunate evening. I am sorry; but I must admit that I was over-excited."
"Very good," I said. "Then, perhaps, as you are so fluent with your explanations, you will tell me why Mr. Guest has been removed to a part of the hotel which I am quite sure that no one knows anything about, is being attended by a doctor of most unprepossessing appearance, and a nurse who treats him as a jailer would!"
Mr. Stanley's face beamed with good-humored mirth.
"You young men," he declared, "are so imaginative. Mr. Guest has simply been removed to the part of the hotel which is reserved for sick people. No one likes to know that they have anybody next door to them who is seriously ill. As for the doctor, he is a highly qualified practitioner, and visits the hotel every day by arrangement with the manager; and the nurse was sent from the nearest nurses' home."
"You think, then," I continued, "that if I were to go to Scotland Yard, and tell them all that I know, that I should be making a fool of myself."
Mr. Stanley's eyes twinkled.
"Why not try it?" he suggested. "There is a detective always in attendance on the premises. Send for him now, and let us hear what he says."
"Very well, Mr. Stanley," I said, "your explanations all sound very reasonable. I am to take it, then, that if Mr. Guest desired to—say leave the hotel to-morrow, no one would make any objection!"
Mr. Stanley was almost distressed.
"Objection! My dear sir! Mr. Guest is his own master, is he not? He pays his own bill, and he leaves when he likes. At present, of course, he is not able to, but that is simply a matter of health."
"I am proposing," I said, "to take Mr. Guest away with me into the country to-morrow."
Mr. Stanley looked at me steadily. There was a subtle change in his face. I was watching him closely, and I saw the glint of his eyes behind his spectacles. I began to think I had been rash to lay my cards upon the table.
"I am afraid," he said gently, "that you are proposing what would be—certain death to Mr. Guest—in his present state of health."
"I am afraid," I replied, "that if I leave him here, it will also be—to certain death!"
Mr. Stanley called to the waiter.
"One small drink more, and I must go to bed," he said. "Up to a certain point, I agree with you. I believe that Leslie Guest is a dying man. Whether he stays here or goes makes little difference—very little difference indeed to me. Your health, Mr. Courage! A farewell drink this, I am afraid!"
I raised my tumbler to my lips, and nodded to him. Then I rose to my feet, but almost as I did so, I realized what had happened. The floor heaved up beneath my feet, my knees trembled, I felt the perspiration break out upon my forehead. Through the mist which was gathering in front of my eyes, I could see the half-curious, half-derisive glances of the other occupants of the room; and opposite, Mr. Stanley, his eyes blinking at me from behind his spectacles, his expression one of grieved concern. I leaned over toward him.
"You d——d scoundrel!" I exclaimed.
After that, my head fell forward upon my folded arms, and I remembered no more!
I sat up in bed, heavy, unrefreshed, and with a splitting headache. The clock on the mantelpiece was striking three o'clock; from below I could hear the clatter of vehicles in the courtyard, and the distant roar of traffic from the streets beyond. Slowly I realized that it was three o'clock in the afternoon; the events of the night before re-formed themselves in my mind. I rang the bell for the valet and sprang out of bed.
"Why didn't you call me this morning?" I asked angrily.
"You gave no orders, sir," the man answered. "I have been in the room once or twice, but you were sleeping so soundly that I didn't like to disturb you."
I began tearing on my clothes.
"What sort of weather has it been?" I asked.
"Pouring rain since seven o'clock, sir!" the man answered. "No chance of play at Lord's, sir!"
"Thank Heaven!" I exclaimed fervently. "Order me a cup of tea, will you, and—stop a minute—take this note round to Miss Van Hoyt—367."
He returned in a few minutes with the tea; but he brought my note back again.
"Miss Van Hoyt left the hotel this morning, sir," he announced.
I turned round quickly.
"She is coming back, of course!" I exclaimed.
"The chambermaid thought not, sir," the man declared. "She has given up her room, at any rate. They would know for certain down in the office."
I finished the rest of my toilet in a hurry, and went straight to the reception bureau. I fancied that the clerk to whom I addressed myself eyed me queerly.
"Can you tell me if Miss Van Hoyt has left the hotel?" I asked.
"She left this morning, sir," he replied.
"Is there any message for me—Mr. Courage?" I asked.
He disappeared for a moment, but I fancied that his search was only perfunctory.
"Nothing at all for you, sir," he announced.
I concealed my surprise as well as I could.
"Will you send my card up and ascertain if I can see Mr. Leslie Guest?" I asked. "He is staying somewhere in the south wing."
"Mr. Leslie Guest left just before one o'clock, sir," the clerk answered.
"Left the hotel!" I repeated. "Why! He was in bed yesterday, and scarcely able to move."
The clerk shrugged his shoulders. He had the air of being a little tired of me.
"He was probably better to-day," he answered. "At any rate, he was well enough to travel."
"Is Mr. James Stanley, of Liverpool, in?" I asked.
"Mr. Stanley paid his bill and went away at eight o'clock this morning," the man answered, going back to his ledger.
"I must see the manager at once," I declared firmly.
The clerk called a page-boy.
"Take this gentleman's name down to Mr. Blumentein," he ordered shortly.
I waited for several minutes. Then the boy returned, and beckoned me to follow him.
"Mr. Blumentein will see you in his office, sir," he announced. "Will you come this way?"
It was a very different Mr. Blumentein who looked up now, as I was shown into his private room. He regarded me with a frown, and his manner was indubitably hostile.
"You wish to speak to me, sir?" he asked curtly.
"I do!" I answered. "There is a good deal going on in your hotel which I do not understand; and I may as well tell you that I am determined to get to the bottom of it. I was drugged in the public smoking-room last night by a man who called himself Stanley, acting in collusion with one of the waiters."
Mr. Blumentein looked at me superciliously.
"Mr. Courage," he said, "the events of last night preclude my taking you seriously any more; but I should like you to understand that you have proved yourself an extremely troublesome guest here."
"What do you mean by the events of last night?" I asked.
"You were drunk in the smoking-room," Mr. Blumentein replied curtly, "and had to be assisted to your room. Don't trouble to deny it. There are a dozen witnesses, if necessary. I shall require you to leave the hotel within the next few hours."
"You know very well that I was nothing of the sort," I answered hotly.
"It is easily proved," Mr. Blumentein asserted. "Please understand that I am not prepared to discuss the matter with you."
"Very well," I answered. "Let it go at that. Whilst I was safely put out of the way, several of your guests seem to have left. Will you give me Miss Van Hoyt's address?"
"I will not," the manager answered.
"Mr. Leslie Guest's then?"
"I do not know it," he declared.
I turned towards the door.
"Very well, Mr. Blumentein," I said; "but if you imagine that this matter is going to rest where it is, you are very much mistaken. I am going straight to a private detective's, who is also a friend of mine!"
"Then for Heaven's sake go to him!" Mr. Blumentein declared irritably."We have nothing to conceal here! All that we desire is to be left aloneby guests whose conduct about the place is discreditable. Good afternoon,Mr. Courage!"
I returned to my room and had my bag packed. Then I sat down to think. I reviewed the course of events carefully since the night before last. Try how I could, I found it absolutely impossible to arrive at any clear conclusion with regard to them. The whole thing was a phantasmagoria. The one person in whom I had believed, and at whose bidding I was willing to take a hand in this mysterious game, had disappeared without a word of explanation or farewell. There could be only one reasonable course of action for me to pursue, and that was to shrug my shoulders and go my way. I had my own life to live, and although its limitations might be a little obvious, it was yet a reasonable and sane sort of life. Of Adèle I refused resolutely to think. I knew very well that I should not be able to forget her. On the other hand, I was convinced now that she was simply making use of me. I would go back home and forget these two days. I would reckon them as belonging to some one else's life, not mine.
I paid my bill, left the hotel, and caught the five o'clock train from St. Pancras to Medchester. From there I had a ten-mile drive, and it was almost dusk when we turned off the main road into the private approach to Saxby Hall—my old home. Every yard of the land around, half meadow-land, half park, I knew almost by heart; every corner and chimney of the long irregular house was familiar to me. It all looked very peaceful as we drove up to the front; the blue smoke from the chimneys going straight up in a long, thin line; not a rustle of breeze or movement anywhere. Perkins, my butler, came out to the steps to meet me, and successfully concealed his surprise at my return two days before I was expected.
"Any news, Perkins?" I inquired, as he helped me off with my coat.
"Nothing in any way special, sir," Perkins replied. "The cricket team from Romney Court were over here yesterday, sir, for the day."
"Gave 'em a licking, I hope?" I remarked.
"We won by thirty runs, sir," Perkins informed me. "Johnson was bowling remarkably well, sir. He took seven wickets for fifteen!"
I nodded, and was passing on to my study. Perkins followed me.
"We got your first telegram early this morning, sir!" he remarked.
I stopped short.
"What telegram?" I asked.
"The one telling us to prepare for the gentleman, sir," Perkins explained. "We had to guess at the train; but we sent the brougham in for the twelve o'clock, and Johnson waited. We've given him the south room, sir, and I think that he's quite comfortable."
"What the devil are you talking about?" I asked.
It was Perkins' turn to stare, which he did for a moment blankly.
"The gentleman whose arrival you wired about, sir," he answered. "Mr.Guest, I believe his name is."
"Mr. Guest is here now?" I asked.
"Certainly, sir! In the south room, sir! He asked to be told directly you arrived, sir!"
I turned abruptly towards the staircase. I said not another word to Perkins, but made my way to the room which he had spoken of. I knocked at the door, and it was Guest's voice which bade me enter. It was Guest himself, who in a grey travelling suit, which made him look smaller and frailer than ever, lay stretched upon the sofa over by the great south windows!
He sat up at once, but he did not attempt to rise. His eyes watched me anxiously. My surprise seemed to trouble him.
"I am afraid—" he began hesitatingly.
"You need be afraid of nothing," I interrupted, going over and taking his hand. "Only how on earth did you get here?"
He looked around before replying. The old habits had not deserted him.
"Your friend, Miss Van Hoyt, arranged it," he said. "The others had another plan; but they were no match for her."
"But how did you come?" I asked. "You were not well enough to travel alone."
"She left me at Medchester station," he answered. "Your carriage brought me over here, and your servants have been most kind. But—but before I go to bed to-night, there are things which I must say to you. We must not sleep under the same roof until we have arrived at an understanding."
I looked at him with compassion. He had shaved recently, and his face, besides being altogether colorless, seemed very wan and pinched. His clothes seemed too big for him, his eyes were unnaturally clear and luminous.
"We will talk later on," I said, "if it is really necessary. Shall you feel well enough to come down and have dinner with me, or would you like something served up here?"
"I should like to come down," he answered, "if you will lend me your man to help me dress."
"Come as you are," I said. "We shall be alone!"
He smiled a little curiously.
"I should like to change," he declared. "A few hours of civilization, after all I have been through, will be rather a welcome experience."
"Very well," I told him, "I will send my man at once. There is just another thing which I should like to ask you. Have you any objection to seeing my doctor?"
"None whatever," he answered. "I think perhaps," he added, "that it would be advisable, in case anything should happen while I am here."
I laughed cheerfully.
"Come," I declared, "nothing of that sort is going to happen now. You are perfectly safe here, and this country air is going to do wonders for you."
He made no answer in words. His expression, however, plainly showed me what he thought. I did not pursue the subject.
"I will send a man round at once," I said, turning away. "We dine at eight."
My guest at dinner-time revealed traces of breeding and distinction which I had not previously observed in him. He was obviously a man of birth, and one who had mixed in the very best society of other capitals, save London alone. He ate very little, but he drank two glasses of my "Regents" Chambertin, with the air of a critic. He declined cigars, but he carried my cigarette box off with him into the study; and he accepted without hesitation some '47 brandy with his coffee. All the time, however, he had the air of a man with something on his mind, and we had scarcely been alone for a minute, before he brushed aside the slighter conversation which I was somewhat inclined to foster, and plunged into the great subject.
"Mr. Courage," he said, "I want to speak to you seriously." I nodded.
"Why don't you wait for a few days, until you have pulled up a little?" I suggested. "There is no hurry. You are perfectly safe down here."
He looked at me as one might look at a child.
"There is very urgent need for hurry," he asserted, "and apart from that, death waits for no man, and my feet are very near indeed to the borderland. There must be an understanding between us."
"As you will," I answered, "although I won't admit that you are as ill as you think you are!"
He smiled faintly.
"That," he said, "is because you do not know. Now listen. You have to make, within the next few minutes, a great decision. Very likely, after you have chosen, you will curse me all your days. It was a freak of fate which brought us together. But I must say this. You are the sort of man whom I would have chosen, if any measure of choice had fallen to my lot. And yet," he looked around, "I am almost afraid to speak now that I have seen you in your home, now that I have realized something of what your life must be."
All the time, underneath the flow of his level words, there trembled the sub-note of a barely controlled emotion. The man's eyes were like fire. His cigarette had gone out. He lit another with restless, twitching fingers.
"Words, at any rate, can do me no harm," I said encouragingly. "Go on! I should like to hear what you have to say."
"Words," he exclaimed, "bring knowledge, and with knowledge comes all the majesty or the despair of life. One does not need to be a student of character to know that you are a contented man. You are well off. You have a beautiful home, you are a sportsman, your days are well-ordered, life itself slips easily by for you. You have none of the wanderer's discontent, none of the passionate heart longings of the man who has lifted even the corner of the veil to see what lies beyond. If I speak, all this may be changed to you. Why should I do it?"
His words stirred me. The eloquence of real conviction trembled in his tone. I felt some answering spark of excitement creep into my own blood.
"Let me hear what you have to say, at all events!" I exclaimed. "Don't take too much for granted. Mine has been a simple life, but there have been seasons when I would have changed it. I come of an adventurous race, though the times have curbed our spirits. It was my grandfather, Sir Hardross Courage, who was ambassador at Paris when Napoleon—"
"I know! I know!" he exclaimed. "Your grandfather! Good! And NicholasCourage—what of him?"
"My uncle!" I answered. "You have heard of him in Teheran."
A spot of color burned in his pallid cheeks.
"I hesitate no longer," he cried. "These were great men; but I will show you the way to deeds which shall leave their memory pale. Listen! Did you ever hear of Wortley Foote?"
"The spy," I answered, "of course!"
He started as though he were stung even to death. His cheeks were flushed, and then as suddenly livid. He seemed to have grown smaller in his chair, to be shrinking away as though I had threatened him with a blow.
"I forgot," he muttered. "I forgot. Never mind. I am Wortley Foote. At least it has been my name for a time."
It was my turn to be astonished. I looked at him for a moment petrified. Was this indeed the man who had brought all Europe to the verge of war, who was held responsible for the greatest international complication of the century? Years had passed, but I remembered well that week of fierce excitement when the clash of arms rang through Europe, when three great fleets were mobilized, and the very earth seemed to reverberate with the footsteps of the gathering millions, moving always towards one spot. Disaster was averted by what seemed then to be a miracle; but no one ever doubted but that one man, and one man alone, was responsible for what might have been the most awful catastrophe of civilized times. And it was that man who sat in my study and watched me now, with ghastly face and passionately inquiring eyes. When he spoke, his voice sounded thin and cracked.
"I had forgotten," he said, "that I was speaking to one of the million. To you, mine must seem a name to shudder at. Yet listen to me. My life is finished. I have lied before now in great causes. No man in my position could have avoided it. To-day, I speak the truth. You must believe me! Do you hear?"
"Yes!" I answered, "I hear!"
"Death is my bedfellow," he continued. "Death is by my side like my own shadow. In straits like mine, the uses of chicanery are past. I come of a family of English gentlemen, even as you, Hardross Courage. We are of the same order, and I speak to you man to man, with the dew of death upon my lips. You will listen?"
"Yes!" I answered, "I will listen!"
"You will believe?"
"Yes!" I answered, "I will believe!"
He drew a breath of relief. A wonderful change lightened his face.
"Diplomacy demanded a victim," he said, "and I never flinched. Two men knew the truth, and they are dead. My scheme was a bold one. If it had succeeded, it would have meant an alliance with Germany, an absolute incontrovertible alliance and an imperishable peace. France and Russia would have been powerless—the balance of strength, of accessible strength, must always have been with us. Every German statesman of note was with me. The falsehood, the vilely egotistic ambition of one man, chock-full to the lips with personal jealousy, a madman posing as a genius, wrecked all my plans. My life's work went for nothing. We escaped disaster by a miracle and my name is written in the pages of history as a scheming spy—I who narrowly escaped the greatest diplomatic triumph of all ages. That is the epitome of my career. You believe me?"
"I must," I answered.
"I was reported to have committed suicide," he continued. "Nothing was ever farther from my thoughts."
I followed an ancient maxim. I sought safety in the shadow of the enemy.I went to Berlin."
"The man who foiled you—" I said slowly.
"You know who it was," he interrupted. "The man who believes that he hears voices from heaven, that by the side of his Divine wisdom his ministers are fools and children, crying for they know not what! I may not see it, but you most surely will see the pricking of the bubble of his reputation. His name may stand for little more than mine, when the book of fate is finally closed."
He was silent for a moment, and glanced towards the sideboard. I could see the perspiration standing out in little white beads upon his forehead; he had the air of a man utterly exhausted. I poured him out a glass of wine, and brought it over. He drank it slowly, and reached out his hand for a cigarette.
"Never mind these things," he said more quietly. "A man in my condition should avoid talking of his enemies. I lived for two years quietly in Berlin. I changed as much of my appearance as illness had left recognizable; and during all that time I lived the ordinary life of a German citizen of moderate means, without my identity being once suspected. I frequented the cafés, I made friends with people in official positions. At the end of that time, I commenced to shape my plans. You can imagine of what nature they were. You can imagine what it was that I desired. I wanted to catch my enemy tripping."
I looked across at him a little incredulously. This was a strange story which he was telling me, and I knew very well, from the growing excitement of his manner, that its culmination was to come.
"But how could you in Berlin, alone, hope to accomplish this?" I asked.
"I knew the ropes," he answered simply, "and I lived for nothing else. I saw him drive amongst his people every day, and I bowed with the rest, I who could have spat in his face, I who carried with me the secret of his miserable perfidy, who knew alone why his ministers regarded him as a spoilt and fretful child. But I waited. Gradually I wormed my way a little into the fringe of the German Secret Service. I took them scraps of information; but such scraps that they were always hungry for more. I posed as a Dutch South African. They even chaffed me about my hatred for England. All the time I progressed, until, by chance, I stumbled across one of the threads which led—to the great Secret!"
There was a discreet knocking at the door. We both turned impatiently around. A servant was just ushering in our village doctor.
"Dr. Rust, sir," he announced.