“No,” he answered impatiently. “I put two and two together and made that out for myself, and I’ve never mentioned it to a soul but you.”
I breathed more freely when I heard that.
“I just said when I looked at the thing: ‘Hello, that’s Anne Pendennis,’ and at that he began to question me about her, and I guessed he had some motive, so I was cautious. I only told him she was my wife’s old school friend, who had been staying with us, but that I didn’t know very much about her; she lived on the Continent with her father, and had gone back to him. You see I reckoned it was none of my business, or his, and I meant to screen the girl, for Mary’s sake, and yours. But now, this has come up; and you’re arrested for murdering Cassavetti. Upon my soul, Maurice, I believe I ought to have spoken out! And if you stand in danger.”
“Listen to me, Jim Cayley,” I said determinedly. “You will give me your word of honor that, whatever happens, you’ll never so much as mention Anne’s name, either in connection with that portrait or Cassavetti; that you’d never give any one even a hint that she might have been concerned—however innocently—in this murder.”
“But if things go against you?”
“That’s my lookout. Will you give your word—and keep it?”
“No.”
“Very well. If you don’t, I swear I’ll plead ‘Guilty’ to-morrow!”
The threat was sufficient and Jim capitulated.
“Though you are a quixotic fool, Maurice, and no mistake,” he asserted vehemently.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I suggested. “Something pleasant, for a change. How’s Mary?”
“Not at all well; that’s why we went down to Cornwall last week; we’ve taken a cottage there for the summer. The town is frightfully stuffy, and the poor little woman is quite done up. She’s been worrying about Anne, too, as I said; and now she’ll be worrying about you! She wanted to come up with me yesterday, when I got the wire,—it was forwarded from Chelsea,—but I wouldn’t let her; and she’ll be awfully upset when she sees the papers to-day. We don’t get ’em till the afternoon down there.”
“Well, let her have a wire beforehand,” I counselled. “Tell her I’m all right, and send her my love. You’ll turn up at the court to-morrow to see me through, I suppose? Tell Mary I’ll probably come down to Morwen with you on Friday. That’ll cheer her up no end.”
“I hope you may! But suppose it goes against you, and you’re committed for trial?” Jim demanded gloomily. His customary cheeriness seemed to have deserted him altogether at this juncture.
“I’m not going to suppose anything so unpleasant till I have to,” I asserted. “Be off with you, and send that wire to Mary!”
I wanted to get rid of him. He wasn’t exactly an inspiriting companion just now; besides, I thought it possible that Southbourne might come to see me again; and I had determined to tackle him about that portrait, and try to exact the same pledge from him that I had from Jim. He might, of course, have shown it to a dozen people, as he had to Jim; and on the other hand he might not.
He came right enough, and I opened on him at once. He looked at me in his lazy way, through half-closed lids,—I don’t think I’ve ever seen that man open his eyes full,—and smiled.
“So you do know the lady, after all,” he remarked.
“I’m not talking of the original of the portrait, but of Miss Pendennis,” I retorted calmly. “I’ve seen Cayley, and he’s quite ready to acknowledge that he was misled by the likeness; but so may other people be if you’ve been showing it around.”
“Well, no; as it happens, I haven’t done that. Only you and he have seen it, besides myself. I showed it him because I knew you and he were intimate, and I wanted to see if he would recognize her, as you did,—or thought you did,—when I showed it you, though you wouldn’t own up to it. I’m really curious to know who the original is.”
“So am I, to a certain extent; but anyhow, she’s not Miss Pendennis!” I said decisively; thoughwhether he believed me or not I can’t say. “And I won’t have her name even mentioned in connection with that portrait!”
“And therefore with,—but no matter,” he said slowly. “I wish, for your own sake, and not merely to satisfy my curiosity, that you would be frank with me, or, if not with me, at least with Sir George. However, I’ll do what you ask. I’ll make no further attempts, at present, to discover the original of that portrait.”
That was not precisely what I had asked him, but I let it pass. I knew by his way of saying it that he shared my conviction—and Jim’s—that it was Anne’s portrait right enough; but I had gained my point, and that was the main thing.
The hearing at the police court next day was more of an ordeal than I had anticipated, chiefly because of my physical condition. I had seemed astonishingly fit when I started,—in a cab, accompanied by a couple of policemen,—considering the extent of my injuries, and the sixty hours’ journey I had just come through; and I was anxious to get the thing over. But when I got into the crowded court, where I saw numbers of familiar faces, including Mary’s little white one,—she had come up from Cornwall after all, bless her!—I suddenly felt myself as weak as a cat. I was allowed a seat in the dock, and I leaned back in it with what was afterwards described by the reporters as “an apathetic air,” though I was really trying my hardest to avoid making an ass of myself by fainting outright. That effort occupied all the energy I had, and I only heard scraps of the evidence, whichseemed, to my dulled brain, to refer to some one else and not to me at all.
At last there came a confused noise, shouting and clapping, and above it a stentorian voice.
“Silence! Silence in the court!”
Some one grasped my right arm—just where the bandage was, though he didn’t know that—and hurt me so badly that I started up involuntarily, to find Sir George and Southbourne just in front of the dock holding out their hands to me, and I heard a voice somewhere near.
“Come along, sir, this way; you can follow to the ante-room, gentlemen; can’t have a demonstration in Court.”
I felt myself guided along by the grip on my arm that was like a red-hot vice; there were people pressing about me, all talking at once, and shaking hands with me.
I heard Southbourne say, sharper and quicker than I’d ever heard him speak before:
“Here, look out! Stand back, some of you!”
The next I knew I was lying on a leather sofa with my head resting on something soft. My collar and tie lay on the floor beside me, and my face was wet, and something warm splashed down on it, just as I began to try and recollect what had happened. Then I found that I was resting on Mary’s shoulder, and she was crying softly; it was one of her tears that was trickling down my nose at this instant. She wiped it off with her damp little handkerchief.
“You poor boy; you gave us a real fright this time,” she exclaimed, smiling through her tears,—awan little ghost of a smile. “But we’ll soon have you all right again when we get you home.”
“I’m all right now, dear; I’m sorry I’ve upset you so,” I said, and Jim bustled forward with some brandy in a flask, and helped me sit up.
I saw then that Sir George and Southbourne were still in the room; the lawyer was sitting on a table close by, watching me through his gold-rimmed pince-nez, and Southbourne was standing with his back to us, staring out of the window.
“What’s happened, anyhow?” I asked, and Sir George got off the table and came up to me.
“Charge dismissed; I congratulate you, Mr. Wynn,” he said genially. “There wasn’t a shred of real evidence against you; though they tried to make a lot out of that bit of withered geranium found in your waste-paper basket; just because the housekeeper remembered that Cassavetti had a red flower in his buttonhole when he came in; but I was able to smash that point at once, thanks to your cousin.”
He bowed towards Mary, who, as soon as she saw me recovering, had slipped away, and was pretending to adjust her hat before a dingy mirror.
“Why, what did Mary do?”
“Passed me a note saying that you had the buttonhole when you left the Cecil. I called her as a witness and she gave her evidence splendidly.”
“Lots of the men had them,” Mary put in hurriedly. “I had one, too, and so did Anne—quite a bunch. And my! I should like to know what that housekeeper had been about not to empty the waste-paperbasket before. I don’t suppose he’s touched your rooms since you left them, Maurice!”
“It might have been a very difficult point,” Sir George continued judicially; “the only one, in fact. For Lord Southbourne’s evidence disposed of the theory the police had formed that you had returned earlier in the evening, and that when you did go in and found the door open your conduct was a mere feint to avert suspicion. And then there was the entire lack of motive, and the derivative evidence that more than one person—and one of them a woman—had been engaged in ransacking the rooms. Yes, it was a preposterous charge!”
“But it served its purpose all right,” drawled Southbourne, strolling forward. “They’d have taken their time if I’d set them on your track just because you had disappeared. Congratulations, Wynn. You’ve had more than enough handshaking, so I won’t inflict any more on you. Wonder what scrape you’ll find yourself in next?”
“He won’t have the chance of getting into any more for some time to come. I shall take care of that!” Mary asserted, with pretty severity. “Put his collar on, Jim; and we’ll get him into the brougham.”
“My motor’s outside, Mrs. Cayley. Do have that. It’s quicker and roomier. Come on, Wynn; take my arm; that’s all right. You stand by on his other side, Cayley. Sir George, will you take Mrs. Cayley and fetch the motor round to the side entrance? We’ll follow.”
I guess I’d misjudged him in the days when I’d thought him a cold-blooded cynic. He had certainlyproved a good friend to me right through this episode, and now, impassive as ever, he helped me along and stowed me into the big motor.
Half the journalists in London seemed to be waiting outside, and raised a cheer as we appeared. Mary declared that it was quite a triumphant exit.
“
It’s terrible, Maurice! If only I could have a line, even a wire, from her, or her father, just to say she was alive, I wouldn’t mind so much.”
“She may have written and the letter got lost in transit,” I suggested.
“Then why didn’t she write again, or wire?” persisted Mary. “And there are her clothes; why, she hadn’t even a second gown with her. I believe she’s dead, Maurice; I do indeed!”
She began to cry softly, poor, dear little woman, and I did not know what to say to comfort her. I dare not give her the slightest hint as to what had befallen Anne, or of my own agony of mind concerning her; for that would only have added to her distress. And I knew now why it was imperative that she should be spared any extra worry, and, if possible, be reassured about her friend.
“Nonsense!” I exclaimed. “You’d have heard soon enough if anything had happened to her. And the clothes prove nothing; her father’s a wealthy man, and, when she found the things didn’t arrive, she’d just buy more. Depend upon it, her father went to meet her when he left the hotel at Berlin, and they’re jaunting off on their travels together all right.”
“I don’t believe it!” she cried stormily. “Annewould have written to me again and again, rather than let me endure this suspense. And if one letter went astray it’s impossible that they all should. But you—I can’t understand you, Maurice! You’re as unsympathetic as Jim, and yet—I thought—I was sure—you loved her!”
This was almost more than I could stand.
“God knows I do love her!” I said as steadily as I could. “She will always be the one woman in the world for me, Mary, even if I never see or hear of her again. But I’m not going to encourage you in all this futile worry, nor is Jim. He’s not unsympathetic, really, but he knows how bad it is for you, as you ought to know, too. Anne’s your friend, and you love her dearly—but—remember, you’re Jim’s wife, and more precious to him than all the world.”
She flushed hotly at that; I saw it, though I was careful not to look directly at her.
“Yes, I—I know that,” she said, almost in a whisper. “And I’ll try not to worry, for his,—for all our sakes. You’re right, you dear, kind old boy; but—”
“We can do nothing,” I went on. “Even if she is ill, or in danger, we can do nothing till we have news of her. But she is in God’s hands, as we all are, little woman.”
“I do pray for her, Maurice,” she avowed piteously. “But—but—”
“That’s all you can do, dear, but it is much also. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. Keep on praying—and trusting—and the prayers will be answered.”
She looked at me through her tears, lovingly, but with some astonishment.
“Why, Maurice, I’ve never heard you talk like that before.”
“I couldn’t have said it to any one but you, dear,” I said gruffly; and we were silent for a spell. But she understood me, for we both come from the same sturdy old Puritan stock; we were both born and reared in the faith of our fathers; and in this period of doubt and danger and suffering it was strange how the old teaching came back to me, the firm fixed belief in God “our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” That faith had led our fathers to the New World, three centuries ago, had sustained them from one generation to another, in the face of difficulties and dangers incalculable; had made of them a great nation; and I knew it now for my most precious heritage.
“I should utterly have fainted; but that I believe verily to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. O tarry thou the Lord’s leisure; be strong and He shall comfort thy heart; and put thou thy trust in the Lord.
”Through God we will do great acts; and it is He that shall tread down our enemies.”
Half forgotten for so many years, but familiar enough in my boyhood,—when my father read a psalm aloud every morning before breakfast, and his wrath fell on any member of the household who was absent from “the reading,”—the old words recurred to me with a new significance in the long hours when I lay brooding over the mystery and peril which encompassed the girl I loved. Theybrought strength and assurance to my soul; they saved me from madness during that long period of forced inaction that followed my collapse at the police court.
Mary, and Jim, too,—every one about me, in fact,—despaired of my life for many days, and now that I was again convalescent and they brought me down to the Cornish cottage, my strength returned very slowly; but all the more surely since I was determined, as soon as possible, to go in search of Anne, and I knew I could not undertake that quest with any hope of success unless I was physically fit.
I had not divulged my intention to any one, nor did I mean to do so if I could avoid it; certainly I would not allow Mary even to suspect my purpose. At present I could make no plans, except that of course I should have to return to Russia under an assumed name; and as a further precaution I took advantage of my illness to grow a beard and mustache. They had already got beyond the “stubby” and disreputable stage, and changed my appearance marvellously.
Mary objected strenuously to the innovation, and declared it made me “look like a middle-aged foreigner,” which was precisely the effect I hoped for; though, naturally, I didn’t let her know that.
Under any other circumstances I would have thoroughly enjoyed my stay with her and Jim at the cottage, a quaint, old-fashioned place, with a beautiful garden, sloping down to the edge of the cliffs, where I was content to sit for hours, watching the sea—calm and sapphire blue in these August days—and striving to possess my soul in patience. Ina way I did enjoy the peace and quietude, the pure, delicious air; for they were means to the ends I had in view,—my speedy recovery, and the beginning of the quest which I must start as soon as possible.
We were sitting in the garden now,—Mary and I alone for once, for Jim was off to the golf links.
I had known, all along, of course, that she was fretting about Anne; but I had managed, hitherto, to avoid any discussion of her silence, which, though more mysterious to Mary than to me, was not less distressing. And I hoped fervently that she wouldn’t resume the subject.
She didn’t, for, to my immense relief, as I sat staring at the fuchsia hedge that screened the approach to the house, I saw a black clerical hat bobbing along, and got a glimpse of a red face.
“There’s a parson coming here,” I remarked inanely, and Mary started up, mopping her eyes with her ridiculous little handkerchief.
“Goodness! It must be the vicar coming to call,—I heard he was back,—and I’m such a fright! Talk to him, Maurice, and say I’ll be down directly.”
She disappeared within the house just as the old-fashioned door-bell clanged sonorously.
A few seconds later a trim maid-servant—that same tall parlor-maid who had once before come opportunely on the scene—tripped out, conducting a handsome old gentleman, whom she announced as “the Reverend George Treherne.”
I rose to greet him, of course.
“I’m very glad to see you, Mr. Treherne,” I said, and he could not know how exceptionally truthful the conventional words were. “I must introducemyself—Maurice Wynn. My cousin, Mrs. Cayley, will be down directly; Jim—Mr. Cayley—is on the golf links. Won’t you sit down—right here?”
I politely pulled forward the most comfortable of the wicker chairs.
“Thanks. You’re an American, Mr. Wynn?” he asked.
“That’s so,” I said, wondering how he guessed it so soon.
We got on famously while we waited for Mary, chatting about England in general and Cornwall in particular. He’d been vicar of Morwen for over forty years.
I had to confess that I’d not seen much of the neighborhood at present, though I hoped to do so now I was better.
“It’s the loveliest corner in England, sir!” he asserted enthusiastically. “And there are some fine old houses about; you Americans are always interested in our old English country seats, aren’t you? Well, you must go to Pencarrow,—a gem of its kind. It belongs to the Pendennis family, but—”
“Pendennis!” I exclaimed, sitting up in astonishment; “not Anthony Pendennis!”
He looked at me as if he thought I’d suddenly taken leave of my senses.
“Yes, Anthony Pendennis is the present owner; I knew him well as a young man. But he has lived abroad for many years. Do you know him?”
“
Yes, I’ve met him once, under very strange circumstances,” I answered. “I’d like to tell them to you; but not now. I don’t want my cousin to know anything about it,” I added hastily, for I heard Mary’s voice speaking to the maid, and knew she would be out in another minute.
“May I come and see you, Mr. Treherne? I’ve a very special reason for asking.”
He must have thought me a polite lunatic, but he said courteously:
“I shall be delighted to see you at the vicarage, Mr. Wynn, and to hear any news you can give me concerning my old friend. Perhaps you could come this evening?”
I accepted the invitation with alacrity.
“Thanks; that’s very good of you. I’ll come round after dinner, then. But please don’t mention the Pendennises to my cousin, unless she does so first. I’ll explain why, later.”
There was no time for more, as Mary reappeared.
A splendid old gentleman was the Rev. George Treherne. Although he must certainly have been puzzled by my manner and my requests, he concealed the fact admirably, and steered clear of any reference to Pencarrow or its owner; though, of course,he talked a lot about his beloved Cornwall while we had tea.
“He’s charming!” Mary declared, after he had gone. “Though why a man like that should be a bachelor beats me, when there are such hordes of nice women in England who would get married if they could, only there aren’t enough men to go round! I guess I’ll ask Jane Fraser.”
She paused meditatively, chin on hand.
“No,—Jane’s all right, but she’d just worry him to death; there’s no repose about Jane! Margaret Haynes, now; she looks early Victorian, though she can’t be much over thirty. She’d just suit him,—and that nice old vicarage. I’ll write and ask her to come down for a week or two,—right now! What do you think, Maurice?”
“That you’re the most inveterate little matchmaker in the world. Why can’t you leave the poor old man in peace?” I answered, secretly relieved that she had, for the moment, forgotten her anxiety about Anne.
She laughed.
“Bachelorhood isn’t peace; it’s desolation!” she declared. “I’m sure he’s lonely in that big house. What was that he said about expecting you to-night?”
“I’m going to call round after dinner and get hold of some facts on Cornish history,” I said evasively.
I hadn’t the faintest notion as to what I expected to learn from him, but the moment he had said he knew Anthony Pendennis the thought flashed to my mind that he might be able to give me some clue tothe mystery that enveloped Anne and her father; and that might help me to shape my plans.
I would, of course, have to tell him the reason for my inquiries, and convince him that they were not prompted by mere curiosity. I was filled with a queer sense of suppressed excitement as I walked briskly up the steep lane and through the churchyard,—ghostly looking in the moonlight,—which was the shortest way to the vicarage, a picturesque old house that Mary and I had already viewed from the outside, and judged to be Jacobean in period. As I was shown into a low-ceiled room, panelled and furnished with black oak, where the vicar sat beside a log fire, blazing cheerily in the great open fireplace, I felt as if I’d been transported back to the seventeenth century. The only anachronisms were my host’s costume and my own, and the box of cigars on the table beside him, companioning a decanter of wine and a couple of tall, slender glasses that would have rejoiced a connoisseur’s heart.
Mr. Treherne welcomed me genially.
“You won’t find the fire too much? There are very few nights in our West Country, here by the sea at any rate, when a fire isn’t a comfort after sunset; a companion, too, for a lonely man, eh? It’s very good of you to come round to-night, Mr. Wynn. I have very few visitors, as you may imagine. And so you have met my old friend, Anthony Pendennis?”
I was thankful of the opening he afforded me, and answered promptly.
“Yes; but only once, and in an extraordinaryway. I’ll tell you all about it, Mr. Treherne; and in return I ask you to give me every bit of information you may possess about him. I shall respect your confidence, as, I am sure, you will respect mine.”
“Most certainly I shall do that, Mr. Wynn,” he said with quiet emphasis, and forthwith I plunged into my story, refraining only from any allusion to Anne’s connection with Cassavetti’s murder. That, I was determined, I would never mention to any living soul; determined also to deny it pointblank if any one should suggest it to me.
He listened with absorbed interest, and without any comment; only interposing a question now and then.
“It is astounding!” he said gravely at last. “And so that poor child has been drawn into the whirlpool of Russian politics, as her mother was before her,—to perish as she did!”
“Her mother?” I asked.
“Yes, did she—Anne Pendennis—never tell you, or your cousin, her mother’s history?”
“Never. I doubt if she knew it herself. She cannot remember her mother at all; only an old nurse who died some years ago. Do you know her mother’s history, sir?”
“Partly; I’ll tell you all I do know, Mr. Wynn,—confidence for confidence, as you said just now. She was a Polish lady,—the Countess Anna Vassilitzi; I think that was the name, though after her marriage she dropped her title, and was known here in England merely as Mrs. Anthony Pendennis. Her father and brother were Polish noblemen, who,like so many others of their race and rank, had been ruined by Russian aggression; but I believe that, at the time when Anthony met and fell in love with her,—not long before the assassination of the Tzar Alexander the Second,—the brother and sister at least were in considerable favor at the Russian Court; though whether they used their position there for the purpose of furthering the political intrigues in which, as transpired later, they were both involved, I really cannot say. I fear it is very probable.
“I remember well the distress of Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis,—Anthony’s parents,—when he wrote and announced his engagement to the young countess. He was their only child, and they had all the old-fashioned English prejudice against ‘foreigners’ of every description. Still they did not withhold their consent; it would have been useless to do so, for Anthony was of age, and had ample means of his own. He did not bring his wife home, however, after their marriage; they remained in Russia for nearly a year, but at last, soon after the murder of the Tzar, they came to England,—to Pencarrow.
“They did not stay many weeks; but during that period I saw a good deal of them. Anthony and I had always been good friends, though he was several years my junior, and we were of entirely different temperaments; his was, and is, I have no doubt, a restless, romantic disposition. His people ought to have made a soldier or sailor of him, instead of expecting him to settle down to the humdrum life of a country gentleman! While as for his wife—”
He paused and stared hard at the ruddy glow of the firelight, as if he could see something picturedtherein, something that brought a strange wistfulness to his fine old face.
“She was the loveliest and most charming woman I’ve ever seen!” he resumed emphatically. “As witty as she was beautiful; a gracious wit,—not the wit that wounds, no, no! ‘A perfect woman nobly planned’—that was Anna Pendennis; to see her, to know her, was to love her! Did I say just now that she misused her influence at the Russian Court in the attempt to further what she believed to be a right and holy cause—the cause of freedom for an oppressed people? God forgive me if I did! At least she had no share in the diabolical plot that succeeded all too well,—the assassination of the only broad-minded and humane autocrat Russia has ever known. I’m a man of peace, sir, but I’d horsewhip any man who dared to say to my face that Anna Pendennis was a woman who lent herself to that devilry, or any other of the kind—yes, I’d do that even now, after the lapse of twenty-five years!”
“I know,” I said huskily. “That’s just how I feel about Anne. She must be very like her mother!”
He sat so long silent after that outburst that I feared he might not be willing to tell me any more of what I was painfully eager to hear.
“Did she—the Countess Anna—die here, sir?” I asked at last.
He roused himself with a start.
“I beg your pardon; I had almost forgotten you were there,” he said apologetically. “Die here? No; better, far better for her if she had! Still, she was not happy here. The old people did not like her; did not try to like her; though I don’t know how they could have held out against her, for she did her best to conciliate them, to conform to their narrow ways,—except to the extent of coming to church with them. She was a devout Roman Catholic, and she explained to me once how the tenacity with which the Polish gentry held to their religious views was one more cause of offence against them in the eyes of the Russian bureaucracy and episcopacy. I don’t think Mrs. Pendennis—Anthony’s mother—ever forgave me for the view I took of this matter; she threatened to write to the bishop. She was a masterful old lady—and I believe she would have done it, too, if Anthony and his wife had remained in the neighborhood. But the frictionbecame unbearable, and he took her away. I never saw her again; never again!
“They went to London for a time; and from there they both wrote to me. We corresponded frequently, and they invited me to go and stay with them, but I never went. Then—it was in the autumn of ’83—they returned to Russia, and the letters were less frequent. They were nearly always from Anna; Anthony was never a good correspondent! I do not know even now whether he wrote to his parents, or they to him.
“I had had no news from Russia for some months, when Mr. Pendennis died suddenly; he had been ailing for a long time, but the end came quite unexpectedly. Anthony was telegraphed for and came as quickly as possible. I saw very little of him during his stay, a few days only, during which he had to get through a great amount of business; but I learned that his wife was in a delicate state of health, and he was desperately anxious about her. I fear he got very little sympathy from his mother, whose aversion for her daughter-in-law had increased, if that were possible, during their separation. Poor woman! Her rancour brought its own punishment! She and her son parted in anger, never to meet again. She only heard from him once,—about a month after he left, to return to Russia; and then he wrote briefly, brutally in a way, though I know he was half mad at the time.
“‘My wife is dead, though not in childbirth. If I had been with her, I could have saved her,’ he wrote. ‘You wished her dead, and now your wish is granted; but I also am dead to you. I shallnever return to England; I shall never bring my child home to the house where her mother was an alien.’
“He has kept his word, as you know. He did not write to me at all; and it was years before I heard what had happened during his absence, and on his return. When he reached the frontier he was arrested and detained in prison for several days. Then, on consideration of the fact that he was a British subject—”
“That doesn’t weigh for much in Russia to-day,” I interpolated.
“It did then. He was informed that his wife had been arrested as an accomplice in a Nihilist plot; that she had been condemned to transportation to Siberia, but had died before the sentence could be executed. Also that her infant, born a few days before her arrest, had been deported, with its nurse, and was probably awaiting him at Konigsberg. Finally he himself was conducted to the frontier again, and expelled from ‘Holy Russia.’ The one bit of comfort was the child, whom he found safe and sound under the care of the nurse, a German who had taken refuge with her kinsfolk in Konigsberg, and who confirmed the terrible story.
“I heard all this about ten years ago,” Treherne continued, “when by the purest chance I met Pendennis in Switzerland. I was weather-bound by a premature snowstorm for a couple of days, and among my fellow sufferers at the little hostelry were Anthony and his daughter.”
“Anne herself! What was she like?” I asked eagerly.
“A beautiful girl,—the image of her dead mother,” he answered slowly. “Or what her mother must have been at that age. She was then about—let me see—twelve or thirteen, but she seemed older; not what we call a precocious child, but womanly beyond her years, and devoted to her father, as he to her. I took him to task; tried to persuade him to come back to England,—to his own home,—if only for his daughter’s sake. But he would not listen to me.
“‘Anne shall be brought up as a citizeness of the world,’ he declared. ‘She shall never be subjected to the limitations of life in England.’
“I must say they seemed happy enough together!” he added with a sigh.
“Well, that is all I have to tell you, Mr. Wynn. From that day to this I have neither seen nor heard aught of Anthony Pendennis and his daughter; but I fear there is no doubt that he has allowed her—possibly even encouraged her—to become involved with some of these terrible secret societies, that do no good, but incalculable harm. Perhaps he may have inspired her with an insane idea of avenging her mother; and now she has shared her mother’s fate!”
“I will not believe that till I have proof positive,” I said slowly.
“But how can you get such proof?” he asked.
“I don’t know yet; but I’m going to seek it—to seek her!”
“You will return to Russia?”
“Why, yes; I meant to do that all along; whatever you might have told me would have made no difference to that determination!”
“But, my dear young man, you will be simply throwing your life away!” he remonstrated.
“I think not, and it’s not very valuable, anyway. I thank you for your story, sir; it helps me to understand things a bit,—Anne’s motive, and her father’s; and it gives me a little hope that they may have escaped, for the time, anyhow. He evidently knew the neighborhood well, or he couldn’t have turned up at that meeting; and if once he could get her safely back to Petersburg, he could claim protection for them both at the Embassy, though—”
“If he had been able to do that, surely he or she would have communicated with your cousin, Mrs. Cayley?” he asked, speaking the thought that was in my own mind.
“That’s so; still there’s no use in conjecturing. You’ll not let my cousin get even a hint of what I’ve told you, Mr. Treherne? If she finds out that Pencarrow belongs to Mr. Pendennis, she’ll surely cross-question you about him, and Mary’s so sharp that she’ll see at once you’re concealing something from her, if you’re not very discreet.”
“Thanks for the warning. I promise you that I’ll be very discreet, Mr. Wynn,” he assured me. “Dear me—dear me, it seems incredible that such things should be!”
It did seem incredible, there in that peaceful old-world room, with never a sound to break the silence but the lazy murmur of the waves, far below; heard faintly but distinctly,—a weird, monotonous, never ceasing undersong.
We parted cordially; he came right out to theporch, and I was afraid he might offer to walk some of the way with me. I wanted to be alone to try and fix things up in my mind; for though the history of Anne’s parentage gave me a clue to her motives, there was much that still perplexed me.
Why had she always told Mary that she knew nothing of Russia,—had never been there? Well, doubtless that was partly for Mary’s own sake, to spare her anxiety, and partly because of the vital necessity for secrecy; but a mere evasion would have served as well as the direct assertion,—I hated to call it a lie even in my own mind! And why, oh why had she not trusted me, let me serve her; for she knew, she must have known—that I asked for nothing better than that!
But I could come to no conclusion whatever as I leaned against the churchyard wall, gazing out over the sea, dark and mysterious save where the moonlight made a silver track across the calm surface. As well try to fathom the secret of the sea as the mystery that enshrouded Anne Pendennis!
On one point only I was more resolved than ever,—to return to Russia at the earliest possible moment.
“
You must have found Cornish history very fascinating, Maurice,” Mary declared at breakfast-time next morning. “Jim says it was nearly twelve when you got back. You bad boy to keep such late hours, after you’ve been so ill, too!”
“I’m all right again now,” I protested. “And the vicar certainly is a very interesting companion.”
There were a couple of letters, one from theCourieroffice, and another from Harding, Lord Southbourne’s private secretary, and both important in their way.
Harding wrote that Southbourne would be in town at the end of the week,en routefor Scotland, and wished to see me if I were fit for service. “A soft job this time, a trip to the States, so you’ll be able to combine business with pleasure.”
Under any other circumstances I could have done with a run home; but even while I read the letter I decided that Southbourne would have to entrust the matter—whatever it might be—to some one else.
I opened the second letter, a typed note, signed by Fenning the news editor, enclosing one of the printed slips on which chance callers have to write their name and business. I glanced at that first, and found it filled in with an almost indecipherable scrawl. I made out the name and address right enough as “M. Pavloff,Charing Cross Hotel,” and puzzled over a line in German, which I at length translated as “bearing a message from Johann.” Now who on earth were Pavloff and Johann?
“Dear Wynn,” the note ran:“One of your Russian friends called here to-night, and wanted your address, which of course was not given. I saw him—a big surly-looking man, who speaks German fairly well, but would not state his business—so I promised to send enclosed on to you.“Hope you’re pulling round all right!“Yours sincerely,“Walter Fenning.”
“Dear Wynn,” the note ran:
“One of your Russian friends called here to-night, and wanted your address, which of course was not given. I saw him—a big surly-looking man, who speaks German fairly well, but would not state his business—so I promised to send enclosed on to you.
“Hope you’re pulling round all right!
“Yours sincerely,
“Walter Fenning.”
A big surly-looking man. Could it be Mishka? I scarcely dared hope it was, remembering how and where I parted from him; but that underlined “Johann” might—must mean “Ivan,” otherwise the Grand Duke Loris. To give the German rendering of the name was just like Mishka, who was the very embodiment of caution and taciturnity.
“Well, I’ve got my marching orders,” I announced. “I’ll have to go back to London to-day, Mary, to meet Southbourne. Where’s the time-table?”
Mary objected, of course, on the score that I was not yet strong enough for work, and I reassured her.
“Nonsense, dear; I’m all right, and I’ve been idle too long.”
“Idle! When you’ve turned out that Russian series.”
“A month ago, and I haven’t done a stroke since.”
“But is this anything special?” she urged. “LordSouthbourne is not sending you abroad again,—to Russia?”
“No fear of that, little woman; and if he did they would stop me at the frontier, so don’t worry. Harding mentioned the States in his note.”
“Oh, that would be lovely!” she assented, quite reassured. I was thankful that she and Jim were settled down in this out-of-the-way place for the next few weeks, any way. It would be easy to keep them in ignorance of my movements, and, once away, they wouldn’t expect to hear much of me. In my private capacity I was a proverbially remiss correspondent.
They both came with me the seven-mile drive to the station; and even Jim, to my relief, didn’t seem to have the least suspicion that my hurried departure was occasioned by any other reason than that I had given.
Anne’s name had never been mentioned between him and myself since my release. Perhaps he imagined I was forgetting her, though Mary knew better.
I sent a wire from Exeter to “M. Pavloff,” and when I arrived at Waterloo, about half-past ten at night, I drove straight to the Charing Cross Hotel, secured a room there, and asked for Herr Pavloff.
I was taken up to a private sitting-room, and there, right enough, was Mishka himself. In his way he was as remarkable a man as his master; as imperturbable, and as much at home in a London hotel, as in the café near the Ismailskaia Prospekt in Petersburg.
He greeted me with a warmth that I felt to be flattering from one of his temperament. In many ways he was a typical Russian, almost servile, in his surly fashion, towards those whom he conceived to be immeasurably his superiors in rank; more or less truculenttowards every one else; and, as a rule, suspicious of every one, high or low, with whom he came in contact, save his master, and, I really believe, myself.
At an early stage in our acquaintanceship he had abandoned the air of sulky deference which he had shown when we first met on the car returning to Dunaburg after the accident, and had treated me more or lessen camarade, though in a kind of paternal manner; and yet I doubt if he was my senior in years. He was a man of considerable education, too, though he was usually careful to conceal the fact. To this day I do not know the exact position he held in his master’s service. It may perhaps be described as that of confidential henchman,—a mediæval definition, but in Russia one is continually taken back to the Middle Ages. One thing, at least, was indubitable,—his utter devotion to his master.
“So, the little man kept his word, and sent for you. That is well. And you have come promptly; that also is well. It is what you would do,” he said, eying me quite affectionately. “We did not expect to meet again,—and in England,hein?”
“That we didn’t!” I rejoined. “Say, Mishka, how did you get clear; and how did you know where to find me?”
“One thing at a time. First, I have brought you a letter. Read it.”
With exasperating deliberation he fetched out a bulky pocket-book, and extracted therefrom a packet, which proved to be a thick cream envelope, carefully protected from soilure by an outer wrapping of paper.
Within was a letter written in French, and in a curiously fine, precise caligraphy. It was dated August 10th,from the Castle of Zostrov, and it conveyed merely an invitation to visit the writer, and the assurance that the bearer would give me all necessary information.
“I can offer you very little in the way of entertainment, unless you happen to be a sportsman, which I think is probable. There is game in abundance, from bear downwards,” was the last sentence.
It was a most discreet communication, signed merely with the initial “L.”
“Read it,” I said, handing it to Mishka. He glanced through it, nodded, and handed it back. He knew its contents before, doubtless; but still I gathered that he could read French as well as German.
“Well, are you coming?” he asked.
“Why, certainly; but what about the information his Highness mentions?”
He put up his hand with a swift, warning gesture, and glanced towards the door, muttering:
“There is no need of names or titles.”
“Or of precautions here!” I rejoined impatiently. “Remember, we are in England, man!”
“True, I forgot; but still, caution is always best. About this information. What do you wish to know?”
“Why, everything, man; everything! How did you escape? What is—he—doing at this place; have you news ofher? That first, and above all!”
“That I cannot give, for I have it not. I think he knows somewhat, and if that is so he himself will tell you. But I have heard nothing—nothing! For the rest, I crawled further into the forest, and lay quiet there. I heard enough through the night to know somewhat at least that was befalling, but I kept still. What could I have done to aid? And later, I made my wayto a place of safety; and thence, in due time, to Zostrov, where I joined my master. It is one of his estates, and he is banished there, for how long? Who can say? Till those about the Tzar alter their minds, or till he himself sees reason to go elsewhere! They dare do nothing more to him, openly, for he is a prince of the blood, when all is said, and the Tzar loves him; so does the Tzarina (God guard her), though indeed that counts for little! It is not much, this banishment,—to him at least. It might have been worse. And he is content, for the present. He finds much work ready to his hand. We get news, too; much more news than some imagine,—the censor among them. We heard of your deliverance almost as soon as it was accomplished, and, later, of your—what do you call it?”
“Acquittal?” I suggested.
“That would be the word; you were proved innocent.”
“Not exactly; there was not sufficient evidence of my guilt and so I was discharged,” I answered; and as I spoke I remembered that, even now, I was liable to be rearrested on that same charge, since I had not been tried and acquitted by a jury.
“We know, of course,” he continued, “that you did not murder that swine Selinski.”
“How do you know that?” I demanded.
“That I may not tell you, but this I may: if you had been condemned, well—”
He blew a big cloud of smoke from his cigar, a cloud that obscured his face, and out of it he spoke enigmatically:
“Rest assured you will never be hung for the murder of Vladimir Selinski, although twenty English juriesmight pronounce you guilty! But enough of that. The question is will you return with me, or will you not? He has need of you; or thinks he has, which is the same thing; and I can smooth the way. There will be risks.”
“I know all about that,” I interrupted impatiently. “And I shall go with you, of course!”
“Of course,” he acquiesced phlegmatically. But, as he spoke, he held out his big blunt hand; and I gripped it hard.
Two days later I saw Lord Southbourne, and resigned my position as a member of his staff. I felt myself mean in one way, when I thought of how he had backed me right through that murder business,—and before it, when he set Freeman on my track.
He showed neither surprise nor annoyance; in fact he seemed, if anything, more nonchalant than usual.
“Well, of course you know your own affairs best. I haven’t any use for men who cultivate interests outside their work; and you’ve done the straight thing in resigning now that you ‘here a duty divided do perceive,’ as I heard a man say the other day.”
“Von Eckhardt!” I exclaimed.
“Guessed it first time,” he drawled. “Could any one else in this world garble quotations so horribly? If he would only give ’em in German they would be more endurable, but he insists on exhibiting his English. By the way, he has relinquished his vendetta.”
“That on Carson’s account?”
“Yes, he believes the murderer, or murderers, must have been wiped out in that affair where you came to grief so signally. He had heard about it before he saw your stuff, though no official account was allowed to get through; and he gave me some rather interesting information, quite gratuitously.”
“Does it concern me, or—any one I know?” I asked, steadying my voice with an effort.
“Well, not precisely; since you only know the lady by repute, and by her portrait.”
I remembered that Von Eckhardt was the one person besides myself who was aware of Anne’s identity, which I had betrayed to him in that one unguarded moment at Berlin, for which I had reproached myself ever since. True, before I parted from him, I had exacted a promise that he would never reveal the fact that he knew her English name; never mention it to any one. But he was an erratic and forgetful individual; he might have let the truth out to Southbourne, but the latter’s face, as I watched it, revealed nothing.
“Oh, that mysterious and interesting individual,” I said indifferently. “Do you mind telling what he said about her?”
“Not at all. It appears that he admires her enthusiastically, in a quite impersonal sort of way—high-flown and sentimental. He’s a typical German! He says she is back in Russia, with her father or uncle. She belongs to the Vassilitzi family, Poles who have been political intriguers for generations, and have suffered accordingly. They’re actively engaged in repairing the damage done to their precious Society in that incident you know of, when all the five who formed the executive, and held and pulled the strings, were either killed or arrested.”
This was startling news enough, and it was not easy to maintain the non-committal air of mild interest that I guessed to be the safest. Still I think I did manage it.
“That’s queer,” I remarked. “He said the Society had turned against her, condemned her to death.”
Southbourne shrugged his shoulders slightly.
“I’m only repeating what he told me. Thought you might like to hear it. She must be an energetic young woman; wish I had her on my staff. If you should happen to meet her you can tell her so. I’d give her any terms she liked to ask.”
Was he playing with me,—laughing at me? I could not tell.
“All right, I’ll remember; though if she’s in Russia it’s very unlikely that I shall ever see her in the flesh,” I said coolly. “Did he say just where she was? Russia’s rather vague.”
“No. Shouldn’t wonder if she wasn’t Warsaw way. McIntyre—he’s at Petersburg in your place—says they’re having no end of ructions there, and asked if he should go down,—but it’s not worth the risk. He’s a good man, a safe one, but he’s not the sort to get stuff through in defiance of the censor, though he’s perfectly willing to face any amount of physical danger. So I told him not to go; especially as we shan’t want any more sensational Russian stuff at present; unless—well, of course, if you should happen on any good material, you can send it along; for I presume you are not going over to Soper, eh?”
“Of course I’m not!” I said with some warmth. Soper was chief proprietor of several newspapers in direct opposition to the group controlled by Southbourne, and he certainly had made me more than one advantageous offer,—the latest only a week or two back, just after my Russian articles appeared inThe Courier.
“I didn’t suppose you were, though I know he wants you,” Southbourne rejoined. “I should rather like toknow what you are up to; but it’s your own affair, of course, and you’re quite right to keep your own counsel. Anyhow, good luck to you, and good-bye, for the present.”
I was glad the interview was over, though it left me in ignorance as to how much he knew or suspected about my movements and motives. I guessed it to be a good deal; or why had he troubled to tell me the news he had heard from Von Eckhardt? If it were true, if Anne were no longer in danger from her own party, and was again actively associated with it, her situation was at least less perilous than it had been before, when she was threatened on every side. And also my chances of getting into communication with her were materially increased.
I related what I had learned to Mishka, who made no comment beyond a grunt which might mean anything or nothing.
“Do you think it is true?”
“Who knows? It is over a fortnight since I left; and many things may happen in less time. Perhaps we shall learn when we return, perhaps not.”
In some ways Mishka was rather like a Scotsman.
A few days later his preparations were complete. The real or ostensible object of his visit to England was to buy farm implements and machinery, as agent for his father, who, I ascertained, was land steward of part of the Zostrov estates, and therefore a person of considerable importance. That fact, in a way, explained Mishka’s position, which I have before defined as that of “confidential henchman.” I found later that the father, as the son, was absolutely devoted to their master, who in his turn trusted them both implicitly. They werethe only two about him whom he could so trust, for, as he had once told me, he was surrounded by spies.
Mishka’s business rendered my re-entry into the forbidden land an easily arranged matter. Several of the machines he bought were American patents, and my rôle was that of an American mechanic in charge of them. As a matter of fact I do know a good deal about such things; and I had never forgotten the apprenticeship to farming I had served under my father in the old home. Poor old dad! As long as he lived he never forgave me for turning my back on the farm and taking to journalism, after my college course was over. He was all the more angry with me because, as he said, in the vacation I worked better than any two laborers; as I did,—there’s no sense in doing things by halves!
It would have been a very spry Russian who had recognized Maurice Wynn, the physical wreck that had left Russia in the custody of two British police officers less than three months back, in “William P. Gould,” a bearded individual who spoke no Russian and only a little German, and whose passport—issued by the American Minister and dulyvisédby the Russian Ambassador in London—described him as a native of Chicago.
Also we travelled by sea, from Hull to Riga, taking the gear along with us; which in itself minimized the chance of detection.
We were to travel by rail from Riga to Wilna, via Dunaburg; and the rest of the journey, rather over than under a hundred and twenty miles, must be by road, riding or driving. From Wilna the goods we were taking would follow us under a military escort.
“How’s that?” I asked, when Mishka told me ofthis. “Who’s going to steal a couple of wagon-loads of farm things?”
His reply was enigmatic.
“You think you know something of Russia, because you’ve seen Petersburg and Moscow, and have never been more than ten miles from a railroad. Well, you are going to know something more now; not much, perhaps, but it may teach you that those who keep to the railroad see only the froth of a seething pot. We know what is in the pot, but you, and others like you, do not; therefore you wonder that the froth is what it is.”
A seething pot. The time soon came when I remembered his simile, and acknowledged its truth; and I knew then that that pot was filled with hell-broth!