The peculiarity of Smith’s proceedings highly stimulated the curiosity of Mr. Phillips. The envelope in his pocket helped him to the belief that he held the clue of an exciting mystery. He pondered the matter while he shaved. He was dull company at breakfast because he could not get it out of his head. He made up his mind at last to confide his vague suspicions to Mr. Donovan. This was a difficult decision to arrive at. He would have much preferred to unravel his mystery himself, to go to the Queen with evidence completely sufficient to condemn a whole band of conspirators. But he saw no chance of getting any further in his investigations. Smith’s morning expedition remained obstinately unconnected with the torn envelope. A sense of loyalty to his employers combined with devotion to the Queen decided him to tell Mr. Donovan all he knew.
The work of unloading theIdawent on briskly all the morning. Mr. Donovan sat, remote from the turmoil, on his balcony. Mr. Phillips, seeking a moment when Smith was busy elsewhere, climbed to the balcony. Mr. Donovan welcomed him.
“Sit right down,” he said. “There’s another chair knocking about somewhere. Take a cigar.”
Mr. Phillips hauled a deck chair from the sunshine into the shade and stood leaning over the back of it.
“This island,” said Mr. Donovan, “seems likely to be restful. Once we’re through with the job of landing our trunks we shall be able to settle down and just stay put. I don’t say but it’s pleasant for a man like me who’s worked some in his time to sit here and watch other people sweating——”
He waved his hand towards the islanders, who staggered up the steps under their loads. He included with a sweeping gesture two boats which had just left the ship’s side. The day was exceedingly hot. All these men were certainly sweating. The clanking and rattling of the donkey engines were plainly audible across the water. The engineman was probably sweating too. Captain Wilson, standing erect in the full blaze of the sun on the steamer’s fore-deck, cannot possibly have been cool. Mr. Donovan sighed with satisfaction.
“I don’t deny that it’s pleasant,” he said, “kind of aggravates the sense of restfulness; but for real calm give me a country where nobody works at all. That’s what I am looking forward to. That’s why I reckon this island is going to suit me.”
“Mr. Donovan,” said Phillips, “there’s a matter I want to speak to you about. I daresay there’s nothing in it; but I can’t help feeling——”
Mr. Phillips’ hand went to his breast pocket. He clutched the torn envelope.
“Here’s something I picked up the day before yesterday,” he said.
Smith stepped suddenly between him and Mr. Donovan. Smith was a hard worker, and a loud shouter when shouting was desirable. He was also, as Phillips knew, a quiet mover when he chose. He held a tray in his hand with two glasses on it. He handed one to Mr. Donovan and the other to Phillips.
“Beg pardon, sir,” he said, “but there’s some cases of books come ashore, sir. I thought you’d like to arrange about them yourself, sir, seeing as how I don’t understand libraries.”
He spoke to Phillips. He did not expect Mr. Donovan to arrange anything.
“You’re young, Phillips,” said Mr. Donovan. “According to the prophets and other wise men it’s a good thing to be young. I’m getting on for sixty, but there are compensations. I don’t feel called on to see after things. I don’t have to toil any. Smith!”
“Yes, sir.”
“There exist in the U. S. A. more than two hundred formulæ for the compounding of cocktails. They vary from the simple dry Martini to the more poetic Angel’s Smile. How many of them do you know, Smith?”
“About eight, sir, eight or ten.”
“Few men, except professional bar-tenders, knowmore,” said Mr. Donovan. “But you can learn. I see before you, Smith, years of artistic endeavour. Eight from two hundred leave a hundred and ninety-two. I think I have a book containing the formulæ. It was compiled by one of our leading citizens after a term of residence in a dry State. I shall give you the book, Smith. My digestion remains unimpaired up to date. I shall sample the results of your labours.”
Mr. Phillips swallowed his cocktail and went away without saying any more about the torn envelope. He had no intention of telling his story in the presence of Smith.
He tried again an hour later. He calculated on not being interrupted this time. Smith had gone off to the steamer. From time to time he had to go to the steamer to act as interpreter there. Captain Wilson seemed curiously incapable of making himself understood by the islanders.
“That you again, Mr. Phillips,” said Donovan. “Sit down. Take a cigar and sit down.”
“There’s something I want to speak to you about, sir,” said Phillips.
“If you must speak,” said Donovan, “I hope you’ll sort of murmur. That engine has stopped clanking for a moment and Smith isn’t shouting any at those poor devils of islanders. ‘Silence,’ says the poet, Oliver Wendell Holmes, ‘like a poultice came to heal the wound of sound.’ It’s a kind of advanced sample of what this island’s going to be.”
This was not encouraging to Mr. Phillips. He hesitated. Far away, under the shadow of the cliffs, a small boat moved slowly. In it was the Queen, seated in the stern with a huge box of chocolates in her lap. Kalliope rowed, her mouth full of chocolates. Phillips could not see the box or Kalliope’s mouth. The boat was too far away for that. But he knew the chocolates were there. Early in the day the Queen had come to him and demanded candies. She had come at a fortunate moment. He was in the act of opening a large case, sent out, so the label declared, by Fuller, and Kalliope had carried down to the boat a huge box of chocolates. It was the sight of that boat—perhaps, too, the thought of the chocolates—which spurred Mr. Phillips to tell his tale in spite of all discouragement. Is there anything which is more eloquent of innocent helplessness, anything which makes a stronger appeal to the protective instinct of a man, than the vision of two girls eating chocolates?
“The day I first landed, sir,” he said, “I found this.”
He handed the torn envelope to Mr. Donovan.
“The postmark, sir,” he said, “is London, December 15, 1913. Now how do you think it got here?”
Donovan looked at the envelope curiously. He turned it over, felt the texture of it with his fingers. At last he spoke.
“Mr. Phillips,” he said, “I may be wrong in myinterpretation of facts. I don’t know that any recognized minister of religion would support me; but it’s my belief that if Eve hadn’t stirred that serpent up, kind of annoyed him by poking round, the creature would have lain quiet enough and there’d have been no trouble about the apple. That’s the nature of snakes. I’ve seen quite a few and I know. Now this island is about the nearest thing to a real restful paradise that I’ve bumped into since I first started my pilgrimage through this vale of tears. I don’t say there’s no snakes in it. There may be. But my notion is to let those snakes lie unless they start in molesting me.”
“But,” said Mr. Phillips, “there must have been somebody in the house here, somebody who had no right to be in it. Otherwise how would that envelope with the London postmark——”
“The British nation,” said Donovan, “is at the present moment exciting itself quite a bit about the effect of the Movies—what you call cinemas your side—on the minds of the young. What your leading reformers say is that it upsets the budding intellect of the rising generation to present life to it as life is not. As a general rule I’m not much taken up with eminent reformers. They’re a class of citizens I don’t admire, though I admit they have their uses in supplying loftiness of view and generally keeping up the more serious kinds of charm practised by the female sex. But in the matter of the effect of movies on the young mind those reformers may be right. It seems to meyou’ve gathered in some foolish notions about life, Mr. Phillips. Desperate villains dropping envelopes and generally scattering clues along their tracks would be interesting things, a darned sight more interesting than eminent reformers. Only there aren’t any. They don’t exist outside of novels and picture houses.”
Mr. Donovan held out the torn envelope. Phillips took it and stuffed it into his pocket again. He was unconvinced. Cinema exhibitions are responsible for many vain imaginings, no doubt; but his envelope was a fact. He had found it. The postmark was plain and clear. He moved over to the edge of the balcony and gazed out across the sunlit bay. It seemed impossible then and there to tell the story of Smith’s morning expedition. Mr. Donovan’s logical rationalism was invincible.
“If you happen to come on that book about cocktails,” said Donovan, “just give it to Smith. It’s somewhere. In giving the order for the library for this island, I specially mentioned that book along with complete illustrated editions of all standard American and European authors.”
Phillips turned and left the balcony. It was, after all, absurd to worry and puzzle over his envelope. It could have no meaning. Some stray tourist perhaps, sight-seeing far from all beaten tracks, had made his way into the house. Tourists are notorious for leaving paper behind them. As for Smith and his boating at dawn—could Smithpossibly have gone to search for breakfast eggs in a sea cave?
He glanced once more at the bay before he returned to his work. The Queen’s boat was no longer in sight. The girls had landed perhaps in some quiet creek, or the Queen had taken a fancy to cross the bay and explore the village where her subjects lived.
Kalliope rowed easily and was well content to go on rowing all day. She was almost perfectly happy. Fuller’s sweets were a revelation of unimagined delight to her, and she could gaze without interruption at the Queen. There was little in the world left for her heart to desire.
The girls rowed round the shore of the bay. The shadow of the white cliffs was grateful. The Queen delighted to drag her hands through the cool water. The sound of its lapping against the steep rocks soothed her. She liked to peer into the blue depths. When she looked up it was pleasant to meet Kalliope’s soft brown eyes and to see the ready smile broaden on the girl’s lips. Now and then, laughing, she leaned forward and pressed a chocolate into Kalliope’s mouth. The Queen’s fingers were often wet with salt water, but that did not spoil the flavour of the sweets for Kalliope.
The boat slipped past high sheer cliffs, past little coves, on whose sand men’s feet had surely never trodden, past the mouths of great caves, gloomy, mysterious, from the depths of which came a hollow murmuring of water. The caves had astrange fascination for the Queen. Her eyes followed their steep walls up to the arches of their high dripping roofs, tried to pierce the dim and darkening shades within, gazed down through the water at round boulders and flat shelves of rock, seen magnified and strangely blue in the depths. At first she was half fearful and would not allow the boat to be taken near the mouths of the caves she passed. At the mouth of one cave Kalliope shouted suddenly. Echoes answered her from within, repeating her shout and repeating it till the cries seemed to come from far off, from the very centre of the island. Opposite another cave Kalliope shouted again and banged her oars against the gunwhale of the boat. A flock of grey birds, some kind of rock pigeons, flew out, making a sound of rushing with their wings. The Queen became, little by little, less fearful and more curious.
They came at last to a cavern with a wide entrance. The daylight shone far inside. The water was blue far into the depths, not purple or black as it seemed to be just inside the narrower caves. The Queen signed to Kalliope. The boat turned, slipped into the wide entrance, rose and fell upon the swelling water under the high roof. Kalliope rowed on. For awhile she rowed with her oars full stretch on their rowlocks. Then the walls narrowed more and more till she must ship her oars. The boat glided on slowly from the impulse of her last stroke. The walls narrowed still. Kalliope stood up. Pushing against one wall and then the other with anoar grasped midway in her hands she drove the boat forward. Suddenly the space widened. The roof was higher, almost out of sight. The boat passed into a huge cavern very dimly lit. The Queen gasped, sat open-mouthed in breathless silence for a moment; then looking round she saw that the cavern was lit by several thin shafts of pale-blue light. More than one of the caves whose entrance the boat had passed led into this great cavern. Kalliope, laughing, plunged an oar into the waters. It shone silver like some long fish. The Queen gazed at it. She plunged her own arm in and saw it turn silver too.
The water was still deep and seemed scarcely to shallow at all as the boat moved forward into the depths of the cavern. Suddenly the Queen saw before her a steep beach covered with large, round stones. The boat grounded. Kalliope leaped on shore. She held her hand out to the Queen. The two girls stood together on the beach. Kalliope, still holding her Queen’s hand, led the way upwards, away from the boat and the water. Her bare feet moved lightly over the stones which shifted and rolled under the Queen’s shoes, making a hollow sound. Echoes multiplied the sound until the air was full of hollow mutterings, like the smothered reports of very distant guns. Kalliope led on. To her the way was familiar. The dim light and hollow noises were commonplace. At last she stopped and with a little cry pointed forward.
The Queen looked. Her eyes were well accustomed now to the dim light. She saw.
There in the depths of the mysterious cavern, it would not have surprised the girl to see strange things. She would scarcely have been astonished if Kalliope had pointed to a group of mermaids combing damp hair with long curved shells. Old Triton with his wreathed horn would have been in place, almost an expected vision, if he had sat on a throne of rock, sea carved, with panting dolphins at his feet. The Queen saw no such beings. What she did see called from her a little cry of surprise, made her cling suddenly to Kalliope’s arm.
“Oh!” she said. “Oh, Kalliope, what are they?”
“Damn boxes,” said Kalliope.
Before the eyes of the Queen, stretching along the back of the cave, was a long row of large galvanized iron tanks, strongly made, with heavily studded seams, each with a great copper tap. They were ranged in a most orderly line, like some grey monsters carefully drilled. They were all exactly the same width, the same height, and the copper spouts exactly matched each other.
“Damned boxes,” said Kalliope cheerfully.
Any one looking at them might almost have agreed with her. They were not precisely boxes. They were cisterns, tanks, but they gave the impression of being damnable and damned.
“But,” said the Queen, “what are they for?What’s the meaning of them? How did they get here? Who brought them?”
Kalliope did not understand the questions, but guessed at what her mistress asked. She had been learning English for three days only. She had been quick to pick up certain words from the Queen, words in frequent use between them. But in face of questionings like these the vocabulary of millinery and hair dressing failed her hopelessly. She fell back on what she had picked up from the sailors’ lips and from her brothers who were already enriching the island language with English slang.
“Blighters,” she said, “mucky ship—go row, go row—damn boxes.”
In spite of the pale light and the sinister mystery of the tanks in front of her the Queen laughed aloud. The pursuing echoes made Kalliope’s English irresistibly absurd. Then she pondered. Men—whether “blighters” in Kalliope’s mouth conveyed reproach or were simply a synonym for men she did not know—men in a ship—“mucky” described the ship as little probably as “damn boxes” described the packing-cases of furniture or “bloody” her trunks of clothes. Men in a ship had brought the tanks, had rowed them—“go row” was plain enough—ashore in boats.
“But who,” said the Queen, “and why?”
Kalliope was beaten. Who and why were too much for her, as indeed they have been for people far wiser than she. Are not all theology and all philosophy attempts, and for the most part vainattempts, to deal with just those two words, who and why?
“Blighters,” said Kalliope, and the echoes repeated her words with emphasis, “blighters, blighters, blighters,” till the Queen came to believe it.
Then Kalliope, memory wakened in her, grew suddenly hopeful. She began to hum a tune, very softly at first, making more than one false start; but getting it nearly right at last. The Queen recognized it. She had heard it a hundred times in old days at prayers in the chapel of her college. It was a hymn tune. The words came back to her at once. “Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God.” She took Kalliope by the arm and led her back to the boat.
“Come away,” she said, “quick, quick. I’m going mad.”
Kalliope entered into the spirit of a new game. She ran down across the rolling pebbles.
“Go row,” she said. “Quick, quick.”
The boat, Kalliope pushing, dragging, rowing, burst from the cavern, fled beyond the shadow of the cliffs, glided into the blaze of sunshine and the sparkling water of the outer bay. The Queen lay back in the stern and laughed. Kalliope, resting on her oars, laughed too. The Queen’s laughter passed into an uncontrollable fit. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Her sides were sore. She gasped for breath. The thought of that row of portentously solemn grey tanks was irresistibly comic. They looked like stranded codfish with their tongues out.They looked like a series of caricatures of an American politician, a square-headed ponderous man, who had once dined with her father. He had the same appearance of imbecile gravity, the same enormous pomposity. The copper spouts were so many exaggerated versions of his nose.
Her imagination flew to a vision of the men who had brought the tanks and cisterns there in a “mucky ship.” She seemed to see them, thin scarecrows of men, crawling over the rusty sides of some battered tramp steamer; mournful men with brown faces and skinny arms, singing their hymn with sharp cracked voices while they laboured at their utterly preposterous task. Laughter conquered the Queen. She lay back helpless in the merciless grip of uncontrollable merriment. Kalliope could not laugh so much. The joke was beyond her. She sat with a wavering half-smile on her lips watching the Queen. The box of chocolates lay in the bottom of the boat. Kalliope stretched her foot out, touched the box, pushed it gently towards the Queen. It seemed to her waste of a golden opportunity to leave the box, no more than half empty, at their feet. The movement broke the spell of the Queen’s laughter. She picked up the box, pushed chocolates into Kalliope’s mouth, filled her own with them.
Ifind it necessary to remind myself from time to time that the Queen of Salissa is a young girl, in mind and experience little more than a child. If I think of her as a woman or allow myself to credit her with any common sense, that blight which falls on the middle-aged, her actions become unintelligible.
She ought, no doubt, to have gone straight to her father and told him about the cisterns in the cave. That was the sane thing to do. Donovan was a man of clear understanding and wide knowledge. He would have—I do not know precisely what he would have done, but it would have been something entirely sensible. The Queen dreaded nothing so much as that. She found herself for the first time in her life in touch with a mystery, surrounded by things fascinatingly incomprehensible. Her island held a secret, was the scene—there could be no doubt about it—of a deep, dark, perhaps dangerous plot. She was thrilled. The more she thought of the cavern and the mysterious tanks, the more delightful the thrills became.
She made a confidant of Phillips, choosing instinctively the only person on the island likely tobe in full sympathy with her. Phillips was older than she was. He was twenty-eight; but he was a simple, straightforward young man with his boyish taste for adventure unspoiled. He was also deeply in love with the Queen.
I have found it very difficult to get either from the Queen or from Phillips a complete and coherent account of what happened between the discovery of the cisterns and the day when theIdasailed, taking Phillips away from the island. I gather that they were both the victims of a bad attack of detective fever. They have talked to me quite freely and cheerfully of the “Island Mystery.” That was the Queen’s phrase. About a much more important matter the Queen will not speak at all, and Phillips cannot be induced to dwell on details. I have been obliged to depend mainly on Kalliope for information, and even now Kalliope does not speak English well.
“We have three clues,” said the Queen hopefully, “three really good clues. We ought to be able to unearth the mystery. Detectives hardly ever have so many.”
Phillips named the three clues, ticking them off on his fingers.
“First, the torn envelope; second, Smith’s expedition to the cave before dawn——”
“Before dawn,” said the Queen with rapture.
“Third, the cisterns in the cave. Let’s go and see the cisterns.”
“No,” said the Queen. “The great thing is notto be carried away by passion. We must be cold, purely intellectual. We must be thoroughly systematic. We’ll begin with the torn envelope. It happened first.”
They retired to a shady corner of the balcony outside the Queen’s rooms and studied the torn envelope for two hours. They were analytical, keenly and minutely observant, coldly cautious in forming conclusions. They tried every method of detection known to detective science. They held the envelope up to the light in order to discover a watermark. They examined the texture of the paper, the ink and the postage stamp, carefully through a powerful magnifying glass. They scraped one corner of the envelope with the blade of a penknife. They took four photographs, two of the front and two of the back, with the Queen’s hand camera. They talked a good deal about fingerprints.
Phillips had a logical mind and a capacity for synthetic induction. The Queen was perhaps the more careful observer. She had certainly the more brilliant imagination. After two hours’ work they summed up their conclusions, making careful notes with the Queen’s fountain pen on the blank pages at the end of a large diary.
“A man or men——” said Phillips.
The Queen wrote down “A man or men” in the diary.
“Has,” said Phillips, “or have, been present on the island of Salissa at some date between December15, 1913, and April 30, 1914. The said man or men was or were during part of that period in occupation of the royal palace.”
“Royal palace,” said the Queen, writing rapidly.
“This man—or men, of course—was in correspondence with some person at present unknown, resident in the city of London.”
“That’s very important,” said the Queen. “Anything more?”
“No,” he said, “that’s all I’ve got.”
The Queen handed over the diary. It was Phillips’ turn to write.
“I observed,” she said, “that the envelope is of the kind used by business men, an office envelope; also that the stamp is put on crooked.”
Phillips looked at the stamp. It was put on crooked.
“From this I infer,” said the Queen, “either that the man in London——What did you call him?”
“Person at present unknown,” said Phillips.
“Either that the person at present unknown was (a) habitually careless about details, or that (b) though usually careful he was in a hurry when he despatched this letter.”
“By Jove!” said Phillips, “but, I say, mightn’t somebody else, an office boy or some one, have put on the stamp?”
“Not on a letter of this kind,” said the Queen. “The writer wouldn’t have trusted any one else.”
“It’s frightfully clever of you,” said Phillips, “to have thought of all that.”
“It does not lead to anything very definite yet,” said the Queen. “But you’ll find it will all fit together—like a jigsaw puzzle you know—when we get to work on the other two clues. We can’t expect to solve a mystery of this sort straight off. We’ve only been at it two hours.”
Kalliope stood all the time at the far end of the balcony watching the Queen. She knew nothing about the investigation of the island mystery which was going on under her eyes. But she was a young woman who had lived a simple and natural life. In some things she was far wiser than her mistress. She seems to have realized that the Queen and Phillips were making, without knowing it, considerable progress into the heart of another, much more enthralling, mystery. As a chaperone Kalliope was negligible.
“The next clue,” said the Queen, “is Smith. We must shadow him.”
“Day and night,” said Phillips.
“And Stephanos. Stephanos was with him when he went to the cavern that morning.”
“Stephanos is in it up to the neck,” said Phillips. They shadowed Smith for the rest of that day. They stole on tip-toe about the house and burst suddenly into rooms where Smith was at work, coming upon him unexpectedly. They hid in cupboards and behind curtains in rooms which Smith was likely to enter. They left letters, written in cipher, and marked coins in prominent places where Smith could hardly fail to see them.Kalliope conceived that an elaborate game of hide-and-seek was being played. She joined in, enthusiastically but unintelligently, concealing herself in various parts of the house without regard to Smith’s habits. Once she remained obstinately hidden for more than an hour under the Queen’s bed.
The results were most unsatisfactory. Smith spent his day sweeping floors, making beds, cooking food and compounding cocktails for Mr. Donovan. His few leisure moments were spent in polishing silver. He was totally uninterested in cipher documents and never looked at marked coins.
Smith still slept on the steamer, so it fell to Phillips to keep guard over him at night. He adopted the ingenious, though not very novel plan of pasting a strip of paper across the door of Smith’s cabin. In the morning, very early, he went to look at the door. The paper was intact.
So far as could be discovered Smith led a dull, laborious but innocent life, working hard all day and sleeping sound at night. But the time spent in shadowing him was not wholly wasted. The Queen and Mr. Phillips enjoyed themselves thoroughly. So did Kalliope. So, I have no doubt, did Smith.
“I do call this sleuth work jolly,” said the Queen. “Let’s try old Stephanos.”
They gave a whole day to Stephanos the Elder. During the early hours he sat outside the door of his cottage, rolling cigarettes in thin brown paper and smoking them. When the Queen came nearhim he stood up and bowed gravely. When she passed he sat down again. At noon he went indoors and dined. The Queen sent Kalliope across the harbour to the palace with a note to Smith. She returned with a large basket. The Queen and Phillips picnicked on the beach.
Early in the afternoon Stephanos walked through the vineyards which lay behind the village and sat down under a mulberry tree. The Queen stalked him. She made her approach in a most approved fashion, creeping through some low bushes with the utmost caution. She was even careful to advance against the wind in case Stephanos should have an unusually acute sense of smell. Phillips and Kalliope watched her from a hiding-place near the village. When she got within twenty yards of the old man, he rose to his feet, laid his hand on his heart and bowed to the Queen with dignified courtesy. If he felt any surprise at seeing the Queen crawling along the ground on her stomach he did not show it. His face expressed paternal but quite respectful benignity. The Queen returned from this expedition very much heated, with her hair dishevelled. Kalliope spent some time trying to rub the dirt off the front of her frock.
An hour later Stephanos climbed slowly to the high plateau of the island and sat down on the edge of a cliff. This time Phillips stalked him, making his way up the steep gully which led to a part of the cliff behind the old man’s seat. Stephanos sat gazing at the sea, apparently unconscious that any onewas near him. But when Phillips emerged from his gully the old man was there waiting for him, bowing with placid politeness just as he had bowed to the Queen.
The complete failure of this sleuth work would have been a disappointment to many people. The Queen and Phillips remained perfectly cheerful and laughed happily at their own misfortunes.
Kalliope regarded them with some wonder. The ways of highly civilized people were strange to her. She became slightly contemptuous of Phillips and wondered that the Queen tolerated him so long. Kalliope had a lover of her own, a young man much more direct and rapid than Phillips was. She was of opinion that a very diffident lover was unsatisfactory. He wasted time. It seemed to her foolish to spend hours talking and consulting in the corner of a balcony, playing hide-and-seek about a house, and a whole day climbing over an island, when it was quite easy to kiss and be happy at once. She longed to express her sympathy, condole with the Queen over Phillips’ insulting apathy. It was, perhaps, fortunate that Kalliope’s English was wholly insufficient for such confidences.
Before the next day was over Kalliope thought better of Phillips.
The envelope yielded little useful information. The shadowing of Smith and Stephanos was entirely useless. But neither the Queen nor Phillips lost heart. They were as eager as ever to solve themystery. There remained the third clue, the cisterns in the cave.
The Queen, Phillips and Kalliope started early next day. They went in the small island boat which Kalliope rowed. Smith was on the palace steps to see them off. He had with him a large basket packed with food.
“Thank you, Smith,” said the Queen. “I expect we’ll be back for luncheon, but we may not. One never knows. We meant to be back yesterday, but——”
“Yes, your Majesty,” said Smith. “Not knowing where you thought of going, I packed the basket.”
“Oh, not far,” said the Queen. “Still, we may not be back.”
Smith stood respectful as a footman who has closed his mistress’ carriage door until the boat pushed off. Then he sat down on the steps below the flagstaff and lit a pipe. It was, perhaps, an idle morning with Smith. He seemed in no hurry to go back to his work. He sat smoking and watched the boat as she crossed the harbour. He saw her reach the mouth of the cave and disappear into its depths. Soon afterwards another boat put off from the beach below the village. Smith watched it too. There was one man on board. It also headed for the mouth of the cave. Smith knocked the ashes out of his pipe, stood up and went into the palace.
Kalliope poled the boat through the narrow partof the cave, rowed her briskly across the lagoon within and beached her on the steep slope beyond. Phillips leaped ashore and held out his hand to the Queen. They stumbled a little on the round stones. It is very difficult to walk steadily over stones which roll under the feet. The Queen laid her hand on Phillips’ arm. She went more securely with this support, so she held to it, leaning a good deal of her weight on it.
“There!” she said. “Look at them. Aren’t they the most ridiculous things you ever saw?”
No doubt the tanks, with their grey fronts and great spouts sticking out of them, had an absurd appearance. They reminded Phillips of the prehistoric monsters which artists sometimes draw in our comic papers. They had the same look of stupid largeness. There was the same suggestion of gaping malevolence. In the cool blue light of the cave they looked grotesquely inappropriate. Phillips’ first impulse was to laugh aloud. But he was a young man with a conscience. It was his duty to examine the cisterns, to find out if possible what they were, not to make fun of them.
He walked up to the nearest one and turned on the tap. Nothing came out. He tried the next one with the same result. He walked along the whole line of tanks and turned on every tap. The tanks were apparently empty. Mr. Phillips picked up a stone and struck each tank several times. The sound was hollow. If there had been any doubt about that the echoes would have convincedhim. There was a fusillade of hollow tappings.
Phillips, placing his foot on the tap of one of the tanks, climbed up.
“Well,” said the Queen from below. “What have you found?”
“They’re very large,” said Phillips. “They go back a long way. They’d hold gallons and gallons of whatever they’re supposed to hold, and there are round lids with handles to lift them off by.”
“Oh,” said the Queen. “I would like to see. I think I could get up.”
Phillips thought so too. He stretched out a helping hand. The Queen put her foot on a tap and grasped the hand. Phillips pulled. The Queen sprang upwards, holding the hand tight. She reached the top of the tank breathless and sat down. Phillips still held her hand.
It is doubtful whether the Queen ever realized the full size of those tanks, or even saw the lids which Mr. Phillips had mentioned. The light was very dim. The situation, in spite of the grotesque appearance of the tanks, was exceedingly romantic. Long stalactites hung, faintly gleaming, from the roof. The water, strangely blue, mourned against the stones of the beach, sighed through the deep recesses of the cave. The world and all common things seemed very remote.
Ten minutes later the Queen suddenly started. She wriggled rapidly along the edge of the tanks until she sat five or six yards away from Phillips.
“Oh,” she cried, “there’s Kalliope!”
They had left Kalliope at the boat, but she had not stayed there. She was standing in front of the tanks looking up at the Queen and Phillips. She stood quite still. It was impossible to know how long she had been there.
“Damn Kalliope!” said Mr. Phillips fiercely.
Kalliope smiled quietly. She showed no signs of embarrassment. She did not pretend to be looking in any other direction. She had been kissed herself more than once by her own lover, and had found it pleasant. It did not strike her as in any way odd that the Queen should like kisses too.
“Help me down, quick,” said the Queen.
She did not wait for the help she asked. Disdaining even the foothold of the tap she slid over the edge of the tank and came down with a crash on the rolling stones at Kalliope’s feet. Phillips followed her with a single bound.
Kalliope pointed with her finger to a boat, another boat, which had just grounded on the beach. Stephanos the Elder stepped from it and bowed low to the Queen, bowed so low that his long beard almost touched the ground.
“Well, I’m blest!” said Phillips.
“My!” said the Queen, “isn’t it lucky I saw Kalliope just when I did? Fancy if that old fellow had caught us! I don’t so much mind about Kalliope, though of course it was awful. But I never could have looked the old man in the face if he had seen us.”
Later on, while they sat at luncheon on the sandof a little cove near the entrance of the cave, the Queen suddenly burst into a peal of merry laughter.
“Say,” she said, “he stalked us rather better than we stalked him yesterday, didn’t he?”
Next day theIda, with Phillips on board, set sail for England.
“Grand Hotel des Champs d’Élysèes, Paris,June 4, 1914.
“
My dear Gorman,—
“I arrive at the excellent Beaufort’s Hotel the day after to-morrow. I hope that you will dine with me that evening at 8 p.m. There are matters of importance. Corinne accompanies me. She is adorable as ever, in good form and full of peas. We have had a time of a life, rattling, since I saw you. Now—alas and damn—there are matters of importance. The Emperor—but I can write no more—Corinne awaits me. We go to paint Paris blue, she and I, once again. Then—damn and alas—London and the virtuous life of your English middling class.
“Konrad Karl.”
Gorman did not hesitate for a moment. He made up his mind to accept the invitation even if he had to miss the most important division which Parliament enjoyed during its whole session. The prospect of seeing Konrad Karl and Madame Ypsilante practising middle-class virtue in Beaufort’s Hotelwas by itself sufficiently attractive. The promise of important affairs for discussion was another lure. Gorman loves important affairs, especially those of other people. But the mention of the Emperor interested him most. The introduction of his name made it certain that the important affairs were those of Salissa. And Gorman had always been anxious to understand in what way the Emperor was mixed up with Megalia and how he came to exercise an influence over that independent state.
Gorman was dressing for dinner—was, in fact, buttoning his collar—when his landlord entered his room and handed him a card. Gorman looked at it.
“Friedrich Goldsturmer,Dealer in Jewels and Precious Stones,Old Bond Street.”
Written across the corner of the card were the words: “Business important and urgent.”
Gorman glanced at his watch. He had no time to spare if he meant to be at Beaufort’s at eight. Punctuality was no doubt one of the middle-class virtues which the King and Madame Ypsilante were at that moment practising. Gorman hesitated. The landlord, who had once been a butler, stood waiting.
“Tell him,” said Gorman, “to call to-morrow at eleven.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” said the landlord, “but the gentleman says his business is most pressing.”
Gorman reflected. If Goldsturmer had given the landlord five shillings—and this seemed likely—the business must be very pressing indeed; and King Konrad Karl could not yet have become an absolute slave to the virtue of punctuality.
“Show him in here,” said Gorman; “that will save time.”
Goldsturmer slipped into the room and stood meekly near the door.
“Sit down,” said Gorman. “Sit on the bed if you can’t find a chair, and tell me what you want with me, as quickly as you can.”
“It’s very kind of you,” said Goldsturmer, “to receive me at this hour. Nothing but the very pressing nature of my business—but I will get to the point. You will doubtless remember a certain rope of pearls. Let me see, it must have been in March——”
“I don’t remember any rope of pearls,” said Gorman. “I take no interest in pearls.”
“No? Still I hoped you might recollect those pearls. They were the finest I ever had in my hands.”
Goldsturmer spoke in a tone of pained regret. It seemed to him a sad thing that there should be any man in the world who took no interest in pearls.
“Madame Ypsilante bought them,” said Goldsturmer.
“There’s no use coming to me,” said Gorman, “if you’ve failed to get your money. I’ve nothing to do with the lady.”
Goldsturmer smiled.
“She paid,” he said. “Otherwise she would not have got the pearls. There was another lady who might have bought them, an American, a Miss Donovan.”
“But Madame got them,” said Gorman.
“Yes. But perhaps Miss Donovan might have them now, through me, at the original price.”
Gorman began to be interested.
“Madame tired of them?” he asked. “Wants to sell?”
“Tired of them!” said Goldsturmer. “No. For any one who loves pearls that would be impossible. But desires to sell. Yes.”
“Well,” said Gorman. “That’s her affair and yours. I don’t see that I have anything to do with it.”
“Before I agree to buy,” said Goldsturmer, “I should like to be sure that the American lady, Miss Donovan, still wishes for the pearls. I do not want to lock up my capital. I cannot afford to lock up so large a sum. I must be assured of a purchaser before I buy from Madame Ypsilante. It is not every one who can pay for such pearls. Ah! if you had seen them! They are suited for the wearing of a queen. Only a queen should have them.”
Miss Donovan was, of course, a queen. Gorman wondered whether Goldsturmer knew that. He looked at the little Jew sharply. Goldsturmer’s face wore a far-away dreamy expression. Heseemed to be thinking of his pearls draped round the neck of an Empress, a Czarina or some other lady of very high estate who would wear them worthily.
“Only a queen,” he murmured, “should wear those pearls.”
“Madame Ypsilante is the next best thing to a queen,” said Gorman.
A faint smile flickered across Goldsturmer’s mouth.
“I would rather,” he said, “that a real queen, a queen by right of law, wore them. Tell me, Mr. Gorman, is Miss Donovan still willing to buy them?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Gorman. “I haven’t seen her for weeks. She’s yachting in the Mediterranean with her father. If I were you I’d give up Miss Donovan and look out for a queen.”
“Thank you,” said Goldsturmer. “But if I give up Miss Donovan I think I shall not buy the pearls from Madame Ypsilante. There are, alas, few queens.”
Gorman was not, after all, more than five minutes late for dinner. The King was waiting for him, but without any sign of impatience. Madame Ypsilante entered the room a minute or two later.
She was wearing a purple velvet dress which struck Gorman as a very regal garment. Round her neck was a magnificent rope of pearls. Gorman had no doubt that they were those of which Goldsturmer had spoken. They were finer than any he had ever seen. It was easy to believe that therewas no other such necklace in the world and that only a queen should wear them. But they suited Madame Ypsilante. She would, so far as her appearance went, have made a very fine queen.
During dinner the conversation was about Paris. The King spoke of pleasant adventures there, of the life he and Madame had lived, of the delight of having money to spend, really enough of it, in a city like Paris. He told his stories well, his vehemently idiomatic English emphasizing his points. He became lyrical in his appreciation of the joys of life. When dessert was on the table and port took the place of champagne he lapsed into a philosophic mood.
“The damned gods of life,” he said, “are blind of one eye. They are lame and they limp. They are left-handed. They give the oof, the dollars, the shekels, and do not give the power to enjoy. The Americans—your Donovan, for example. What does he know of pleasure? The English of your middling classes. What is Paris to them? They have money but no more. Those left-handed gods have given a useless gift. On me and on Corinne they have bestowed the power, the knowledge, the skill to enjoy; and we, damn it all, have no money.”
The King sighed deeply. Madame Ypsilante had tears in her eyes. She was in full sympathy with the King’s new mood. Gorman was astonished. The price which Mr. Donovan had paid for the crown of Salissa was a large one. Even after tenthousand pounds had been spent on Madame Ypsilante’s pearls there was a sum left which it would be difficult to spend in a few weeks.
“Surely,” he said, “you haven’t got rid of all the money yet? You can’t have spent it in the time. I didn’t think you could be hard up again so soon. Even when I heard that Madame wanted to sell her pearls——”
“Sell my pearls!” said Madame. “But never! Never, never!!”
There were no tears in her eyes then. The mood of self-pity induced by the King’s reflections on left-handed gods had passed away. She looked fierce as a tigress when she shot out her next question to Gorman.
“Who has said that I wish to sell my pearls? Who has said it? I demand. I insist: Tell me his name and I will at once kill him. I shall pluck out his heart and dogs shall eat it.”
Gorman did not care whether Goldsturmer’s heart was eaten by dogs or not. He did want to understand how it came that the astute Jew expected to have the pearls offered to him. It was plain that Madame Ypsilante did not want to sell them and that she had not suggested the sale.
“It was Goldsturmer,” said Gorman, “who told me. He seemed to think that Miss Donovan might buy them.”
Madame at once knocked down two wine-glasses and a vase of flowers.
“That cursed offspring of the litter of filthy Jewswho make Hamburg stink! Tell him that I will pull out his hair, his teeth, his eyes, but that never, never will that American miss touch one of my pearls. I will not sell, will not, will not.”
The King looked round. He satisfied himself that the waiters had left the room.
“Alas,” he said, “alas, my poor Corinne! But consider. There is an English proverb: the horse needs must trot along, trot smart, when it is the devil who drives.”
“He is the devil, that Emperor,” said Madame. “But not for any Emperor will I part with one single pearl.”
“Look here,” said Gorman. “There’s evidently been some mistake about Goldsturmer and the pearls. I don’t profess to understand what’s happening, but if I’m to help you in any way——”
“You are to help damnably,” said the King. “Are you not our friend?”
“In that case,” said Gorman, “before I go a step further into the matter I must know what on earth the Emperor has got to do with Madame’s pearls.”
“The Emperor,” said Madame Ypsilante, “is a devil.”
“Take another glass of port,” said the King. “No? Then light a cigar. If you will light a cigar and fill for yourself a glass of brandy—also for Corinne—I will tell you about the Emperor.”
Gorman filled Madame’s glass and his own. He was particular about Madame’s. Brandy had asoothing influence on her. He did not like her habit of throwing things about in moments of excitement. He also lit a cigar.
“I will make my breast clean of the whole affair,” said the King. “Then you will understand and help us. The Emperor has spilt cold water all over Salissa—that is over the sale of the island to the American.”
“The Emperor must have very little to do,” said Gorman, “if he has time to waste in fussing about a wretched little island like Salissa. How did he hear about the sale?”
“I think,” said the King, “that Steinwitz must have permitted the cat to jump out of the bag. Steinwitz smelt rats, of that I am sure.”
“I daresay you’re right,” said Gorman. “I rather thought Steinwitz was nosing around. But why does the Emperor mind? That’s what I’m trying to get at.”
The King shrugged his shoulders.
“Who knows?” he said. “Real Politik, perhaps. What you call——How do you callReal Politik?”
“Haven’t got a word for it,” said Gorman. “For the matter of that we haven’t got the thing. We manage along all right with sham politics, Ireland and Insurance Acts and the rest of it. If real politics lead to trouble over places like Salissa I prefer our home-made imitation. ButReal Politikor not, the thing’s done; so what’s the good of the Emperor talking?”
“The Emperor,” said the King, “says ‘Buy back.Take again your island. Foot—no, it is foot of a horse—hoof, or boot away the American. Give him his price and let him go.’ And I cannot. It is no longer possible to give back the oof.”
“I quite understand that,” said Gorman. “Your six weeks in Paris and Madame’s pearls——”
“The Emperor shall not touch my pearls,” said Madame Ypsilante. “Rather would I swallow them.”
“The American,” said the King, “will perhaps accept a reduced price. The island is not an amusing place. Dull, my friend, dull as ditch mud. By this time he has found out that Salissa is as respectable as Sunday, as golf, as what you call a seasonable ticket. He will not want to keep it. He will accept a price, perhaps, if I offer.”
“I don’t expect he’ll accept a price at all,” said Gorman, “reduced or increased. I don’tknow, of course. He may be dead sick of the place already; but I’ll be surprised if he is. You’ll find when you ask him that he’ll simply refuse to part with the island.”
“But,” said the King, “he must. As I have just said to Corinne, when the devil drives the horse to water it needs must take a drink. The Emperor has said that Salissa is once more to return to the Crown of Megalia.”
“The Emperor may say that,” said Gorman, “but it doesn’t at all follow that Donovan will agree with him.”
“But the Emperor——! It is not for Mr. Donovanto agree or disagree with the Emperor. When the Emperor commands it is a case of knuckles down. But you do not know the Emperor.”
“I do not,” said Gorman, “but I’m inclined to think that you take an exaggerated view of him. After all, what can he do to Donovan or to you for that matter? Come now, suppose you won’t or can’t buy back the island, what happens? What’s the alternative? There must be an alternative of some sort.”
“There is—yes, there certainly is an alternative.”
The King paused and looked apprehensively at Madame Ypsilante.
“He can’t lay hands on you,” said Gorman, “if you stick to Paris or even London. That Emperor isn’t particularly popular in either city.”
The King, his eyes still fixed on Madame Ypsilante, nodded sideways towards Gorman. The nod was a very slight one, barely perceptible. It suggested the need of extreme caution. Gorman is a quick-witted man and he saw the nod, but he failed altogether to guess what the alternative was.
Madame Ypsilante noticed the expression of the King’s face when he looked at her. She also saw the nod that was meant for Gorman. She became uneasy. Her eyes had a hard glitter in them. Gorman at once refilled her glass. That soothed her a little. She did not break anything. But she spoke:
“Konrad, at once tell me all that the Emperor said.”
“Corinne,” said the King, “my beloved Corinne,it will make no difference to you. The future and the past will be as six to one and half a dozen to the other. You will always be Corinne. Have no fear, and—as my friend Gorman would say, do not take off your hair.”
“Tell me,” said Madame.
“The Emperor,” said the King, “has said to me, ‘Buy back the island or else marry the American.’ In that way also Salissa would return to the Crown of Megalia.”
Gorman fully expected that Madame Ypsilante would at once have broken every glass on the table. It would not have surprised him in the least if she had torn handfuls of hair off the King’s head. To his amazement she laughed. It was a most unpleasant laugh. But it was not the laugh of a lunatic. It was not even hysterical.
“That imbecile,” she said, “that miss!”
Her contempt for the girl left no room for jealousy. Madame Ypsilante did not seem to care whether the King married or did not.
“I don’t think much of that plan,” said Gorman. “Your Emperor may be the everlasting boss you seem to think——”
“In the register of Lloyd’s,” said the King, “he takes place in the class A 1st.”
“But,” said Gorman, “he hasn’t much sense if he thinks that a girl like Miss Donovan can be married off in that way to any one he chooses to name. I’m not saying anything against your character, sir——”
“My Konrad,” said Madame Ypsilante, “is Konrad.”
“Exactly,” said Gorman. “Those are my points put concisely in two words. First he’s yours and next he’s himself. No. I don’t think that you’ve much chance of buying back the island, but you’ve no chance at all of marrying the girl.”
“I do not want either the one or the other,” said the King. “I do not care the cursing of a tinker, not a two-a-penny damn if I never put my eye on the island or the girl. Arrange which you prefer. I place both into your hands, my dear Gorman. I leave them there. I shall put my foot on the bill if you buy and the price is moderate. I shall toe the scratch if you arrange that I lead the American to the altar of Hymen. Settle, arrange, fix down which you will.”
Gorman gasped. He was always ready to give disinterested advice in the King’s affairs. He was even willing to lend a helping hand in times of difficulty; but he was startled at being asked to act as plenipotentiary for the sale of a kingdom or the negotiation of a royal marriage.
“Do you mean to say,” he said, “that you expect me to arrange the whole thing?”
“You have tumbled to the idea with precision,” said the King. “You have caught it on. You are wonderful, my friend. Thus everything arranges. You go to Salissa and tell the American the wishes of the Emperor. Corinne and I return to Paris. If a sale is arranged——”
“I will not part with my pearls,” said Madame. “Neither for the Emperor nor for any one.”
“Corinne!” said the King reproachfully. “Would I ask it of you? No. If a sale is arranged I give a bill to the American, a bill of three months, and for security I place at his disposal—I pledge the revenue of Megalia for ten years; for a hundred years. If it seems more desirable that I marry; good, I am ready. The American girl comes to Paris. I meet her. We marry. The Emperor is satisfied. It is upon you, my dear Gorman, to fix it down.”
“I don’t see,” said Gorman, “how I can possibly undertake——It’s asking a lot, you know. Besides——”
“You are my friend,” said the King. “Can I ask more than too much from my friend?”
“Besides,” said Gorman, “it’s no kind of use. Donovan isn’t likely to sell. He certainly wouldn’t accept your bill if he did sell. And marrying the girl is out of the question. What’s the good of my undertaking impossibilities?”
The King stood up. With his cigar between his fingers he raised his right hand above his head. He laid his left hand upon his shirt front. It was an impressive and heroic attitude.
“For Gorman, M.P.,” he said, “there are in the world no impossibilities. For his talents all careers are open doors. When Gorman, M.P., says ‘I do it,’ the damned thing at once is done. I offer——But no. I do not offer where I trust——I conferupon Gorman, M.P., the Order of the Royal Pink Vulture of Megalia, First Class. You are Knight Commander, my friend. You are also Count Gorman if you wish.”
Madame Ypsilante slipped from her chair and knelt down at Gorman’s feet. She took his right hand and kissed it with every appearance of fervour.
“You will do it,” she said, “for the sake of Konrad Karl. Oh, Sir Gorman, M.P., you would do it at once if you understood. Poor Konrad! He is having so much delight with me in Paris. This time only in our lives it has come to us to have enough money and to be in Paris. It is cruel—so cruel that the Emperor should say: ‘No. Give back the money. Go from Paris. Be starved. Have no pearls, no joy.’ But you will save us. Say you will save us.”
Gorman’s position was an exceedingly difficult one. Madame Ypsilante had firm hold on his hand. She was kissing it at the moment. He was not at all sure that she would not bite it if he refused her request.
“I’ll think the whole thing over,” he said. “I don’t expect I can do anything, but I’ll look into the matter and let you know.”
Madame mouthed his hand in a frenzy of gratitude. She wept copiously. Gorman could feel drops which he supposed to be tears trickling down the inside of his sleeve. The King seized his other hand and shook it heartily.
“It is now as good as done,” he said. “Let us drink to success. I ring the bell. I order champagne, one bottle, two bottles, three, many bottles in the honour of my friend Sir Gorman who has said: ‘Damn it, I will.’”
Under the influence of the second bottle of champagne the King escaped from his heroic mood. Gorman began to realize that a certain cunning lay behind the preposterous proposal he had listened to.
“I shall inform the Emperor,” said the King, “that you go to Salissa to arrange according to his wish. I shall say: ‘M.P. Count Sir Gorman goes. He is a statesman, a financier, a diplomat, a man of uncommon sense.’ The Emperor will then be satisfied.”
“He’ll probably be very dissatisfied when I come back,” said Gorman.
“That will be—let me consider—perhaps eight weeks. In eight weeks many things may happen. And if not, still Corinne and I will have had eight weeks in Paris with oof which we can burn. It is something.”