“Monsieur,” said Carlier, in a low, confidential voice, when they were alone, “though I may be a thief, and under arrest, I am still a son of France, am I not?”
“I suppose so,” replied the commissary, rather puzzled.
“Well,” said the man before him, “if you keep observation upon the Baron de Rycker, you will find that what he has lost he well deserved to lose.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the Baron is a spy—a secret agent of Germany.”
The commissary looked at him sharply, and asked:
“How do you know that?”
“Ansell told me.”
“Are you quite certain?”
“Quite. Ansell has done some jobs for him, and has been well paid for them. He has acted as a spy for our enemies.”
“A spy as well as a thief—eh?”
“Exactly, m’sieur. Ansell has been in the Baron’s pay for nearly two years.”
“But this allegation is quite unsubstantiated. The Baron de Rycker is well known and highly popular in Paris. He moves in the best society, and the Ministers frequently dine at his table.”
“I know that, m’sieur. But search that safe in the little room upstairs—the safe we opened. Go there in pretence of examining our finger-prints, and you will find in the safe quantities of compromising papers. It was that collection of secret correspondence which we were after when the alarm-bell rang. We intended to secure it and sell it back to Germany.”
“If what you say is really true, Carlier, our friends in Berlin would probably give you quite a handsome price for it,” replied the official thoughtfully.
He had watched the thief’s face, and knew that he was telling the truth.
“Will you have inquiries made?” urged the thief.
“Most certainly,” was the reply. “And if I find you have told the truth, I will endeavour to obtain some slight favour for you—a shorter sentence, perhaps.”
“I have told you the truth, m’sieur. It is surely the duty of every Frenchman, even though he be a thief like myself, to unmask a spy.”
“Most certainly,” declared the official. “And I am very glad indeed that you have told me. I shall make a report to the Prefect of Police thismorning, and tell him the name of my informant. The matter will be dealt with at once by the political department of the Sûreté.”
“The Baron will not be told who informed against him?” asked Adolphe anxiously.
“Certainly not. But if Ralph Ansell is arrested, he will be charged with assisting foreign spies—a charge quite as serious as breaking into the Baron’s house.”
“He hated the Baron because the latter had discharged him from his secret service.”
“What were his duties?”
“Ah! that I do not quite know, except that he performed delicate missions, and sometimes went abroad, to Holland, England, Norway, and other places.”
“Ansell evidently knew the arrangements of the house—eh?”
“He had been to see the Baron in secret many times.”
“And been well paid for his work, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes; heavily paid.”
“Well,” remarked the police official, “you may rest assured that the Baron will, in future, be well watched. We have no love for foreign spies in Paris, as you know.”
And then the commissary went on to question Carlier closely regarding his antecedents and his connection with the notorious Bonnemain gang, which had now been so fortunately broken up.
To all his questions Adolphe replied quite frankly, concealing nothing, well knowing that hissentence would not be made heavier if he spoke openly.
“I’ve heard stories of you for a long time, Carlier,” the commissary said at last. “And I suppose we should not have met now, except for the blackguardly action of this man who posed as your friend.”
“No. I should have escaped, I expect, just as I have done so often that my friends call me ‘The Eel,’ on account, I suppose, of my slipperiness!” And he grimaced.
The official laughed, and, with a word of thanks for the information concerning the Baron, both captor and prisoner passed back into the living-room, where the police-agents were concluding their searching investigations.
Nothing had been found of an incriminating nature, and the commissary now saw that the man arrested had spoken the truth.
While Ansell’s house was being turned upside down and Adolphe and the commissary were exchanging confidences, “The American” was having a truly hot and exciting time, as indeed he richly deserved.
Having entered the shaft, after securing the trap-door with its stout, iron bolt, he descended the rickety ladder to the cellar; thence, passing by a short tunnel, which Bonnemain had constructed with his own hands, he ascended a few rough wooden steps, and found himself in a lean-to outhouse close to a door in a high wall which led into a side street.
Creeping to the door he drew the bolt, and in a moment was free.
Turning to the left, he took to his heels, and ran as fast as his legs would carry him, intending, if possible, to get away to the country.
He was elated at his narrow escape, and how cleverly he had tricked his friend, with whom he knew the police would be busy and so allow him time to get clean away.
He was lithe and active, and a good runner. Therefore in his rubber-soled shoes he ran swiftly in the grey light of early morning, turning corner after corner, doubling and re-doubling until he came to a main thoroughfare. Then, walking slowly, he crossed it, and dived into a maze of small turnings, all of which were familiar to him.
His first idea had been to seek refuge in the house of a friend—a thief, like himself, named Toussaint—but such a course would, he reflected, be highly dangerous. The police knew Toussaint to be a friend of his, and would, perhaps, go there in search of him.
No. The best course was to get away into the country, and then to Belgium or Spain. With that snug little sum in his pocket, he could live quietly for at least a year.
At last, out of breath, he ceased running, and, moreover, he noticed some men, going to their work early, look askance at his hurry.
So he walked quietly, and lit a cigarette so as to assume an air of unconcern.
“‘The Eel’ has been trapped at last,” he laughed to himself. Then, as he put his hand into the outside pocket of his jacket, it came into contact with Jean’s letter of farewell.
He drew it out, glanced at it, and put it into his inner pocket with an imprecation followed by a triumphant laugh.
Then he whistled in a low tone to himself a popular and catchy refrain.
He was walking along briskly, smiling within himself at his alert cleverness at escaping, when, on suddenly turning the corner of a narrow street close to the Seine, he found himself face to face with two agents of police on cycles.
They were about a hundred yards away and coming in his direction. They instantly recognised him. They were the two men sent out by the commissary.
In a moment, by the attitude of the two officers, Ralph Ansell realised his danger. But too late. They threw down their cycles and fell upon him.
For a few seconds there was a fierce struggle, but in desperation Ansell drew his revolver and fired point-blank at one of his captors, who staggered and fell back with a bullet-wound in the face.
Then in a moment the thief had wrenched himself free and was away.
The sound of the shot alarmed two other police-cyclists who were in the vicinity, and, attracted by the shouts of the injured man’s companion, they were soon on the scene, and lost no time in pursuing the fugitive.
The chase was a stern one. Through narrow, crooked streets “The American” ran with all speed possible, his endeavour being to reach a narrow lane protected from wheeled traffic by posts ateither end, where he knew the cyclists would be compelled to dismount.
The quarter where he was, chanced to be a not altogether respectable one, therefore the wild shouts of the pursuing cyclists brought no assistance from the onlookers. Indeed, the people shouted to the fugitive, crying:
“Run, young fellow! Run on and they won’t get you! Run!”
And men and women shouted after him encouragingly.
With their cries in his ears, Ansell mended his pace, but his pursuers were fast gaining upon him, and had almost overtaken him when he reached the narrow passage between two high, dark-looking houses, close to the river.
He was now near to the river-bank, and within sight of the Pont des Peupliers, which crosses the Seine to Issy. The two police-agents threw aside their cycles and sped after him, but he was too quick for them, and when they had passed through the passage, they saw him dashing along by the edge of the river.
In his mad haste he stumbled and fell, and his pursuers were instantly upon him. But ere they could reach him he had jumped again to his feet and, levelling his revolver, fired point-blank at them.
The bullet passed them harmlessly, but a group of men on their way to work, attracted by the shot and seeing the thief fleeing from justice, again shouted to him encouragingly, for the police ofParis are not in good odour with the public, as are the police of London.
“Keep on, brave boy!” they shouted. “Go it! Don’t give up!” And so on.
The police-cyclists proved, however, to be good runners. They took no heed of the men’s jeers. One of their colleagues had been shot; therefore they intended to arrest his assailant, alive or dead.
Indeed, the elder of the two men had drawn his heavy revolver and fired at Ansell in return.
“Coward!” cried the men, reproachfully. “You can’t catch the man, so you’d shoot him down. Is that the justice we have in France?”
On went the hunted thief, and after him the two men, heedless of such criticism, for they were used to it.
At last, as they neared the bridge, Ralph Ansell felt himself nearly done. He was out of breath, excited; his face scarlet, his eyes starting out of his head.
He was running along the river-bank, and within an ace of arrest, for the two men had now out-run him.
They were within a dozen feet of his heels, one of them with a heavy, black revolver in his hand.
Should he give up, or should he make still one more dash—liberty or death?
He chose the latter, and ere his pursuers were aware of his intention, he halted on the stone edge of the embankment.
For a second he paused, and laughing back triumphantly at the agents, who had cornered him,he raised his hands above his head and dived into the swiftly flowing stream.
The men who had chased him drew up instantly, and the elder, raising his weapon, fired at the thief’s head as it appeared above the water. Three times he fired, and had the satisfaction of seeing the head disappear beneath the surface close to the dark shadow of the bridge.
That he had wounded him was plainly evident. Therefore, in satisfaction, the two men stood and watched to see the fugitive rise again.
But they watched in vain.
If he did rise, it was beneath the great bridge, where the dark shadow obscured him, for it was not yet daylight.
Ralph Ansell, alias “The American,” and alias half-a-dozen other names, known in criminal circles in Paris, London, and New York, sank in the swift, muddy Seine flood—and disappeared.
Just before eleven o’clock on the following morning two sisters of the Order of Saint Agnes, one of the religious Orders which devote themselves to nursing the poor, were passing through the Tuileries Gardens, sombre figures in their ample plain, black habits, black head-dresses, and deep, white collars, their hands beneath their gowns and gaze downturned, when one of them chanced to note the frail, pathetic little figure of a woman resting upon one of the seats.
It was Jean Ansell. Worn and weary after hours of aimless wandering, she had entered those gardens so beloved of Parisianbonnesand children, and sunk down upon that seat just within the high railings skirting the busy Rue de Rivoli, and had then burst into bitter tears. Her young heart was broken.
Within sound of the hum of the never-ceasing motor traffic, up and down that fine, straight streetof colonnades to the great Place de la Concorde, where the fountains were playing, the stream of everyday life of the Gay City had passed her by. None cared—none, indeed, heed a woman’s tears.
Men glanced at her and shrugged their shoulders, and the women who went by only grinned. Her troubles were no concern of theirs. Hatless, with only an old black shawl about her, and with her apron still on, she found herself hungry, homeless, and abandoned. Moreover, she was the wedded wife of a dangerous criminal!
Those who passed her by little dreamed of the strange tragedy that was hers, of the incidents of the past night, of the burglary, the betrayal, the arrest, the flight, and the crowning tragedy. Indeed, she herself sat in ignorance of what had happened to the pair after they had left the house.
She was only wondering whether Ralph had found her note, and whether on reading it, he had experienced any pang of regret.
She was only an encumbrance. He had bluntly told her so.
And as she again burst into tears, for the twentieth time in the half-hour she had rested upon that seat, the two grave-faced sisters noticed her. Then, after discussing her at a distance, they ventured to approach.
She was sitting in blank despair, her elbow upon the arm of the seat, her head bent, her hand upon her brow, her whole frame convulsed by sobs.
“Sister, you are in trouble,” exclaimed the elder of the two thin-faced, ascetic-looking women, addressing her as she placed a hand tenderly upon her shoulder. “Can we be of any assistance?”
Poor Jean looked up startled, dazed for the moment. She was amazed at sight of them. Ah, only those who have been adrift in Paris—the bright, laughter-loving, gay city of world-wide fame—know how hard, cruel, and unsympathetic Paris is, how the dazzling shops, the well-dressed crowds, the brilliantly-lit boulevards, the merrycafés, and the clattering restaurants all combine to mock the hungry and weary, the despairing, the penniless.
The girl looked up into the kind, rather sad features framed by the white linen head-dress, and tried to speak. She endeavoured to reply, but so weak was she after a whole day and night without food, that she suddenly fainted.
It was some time before she recovered consciousness, but as soon as she was sufficiently calm she gave them a brief account of what had happened. She said nothing about her husband’s latest exploit, but merely told them how she had left him because of his neglect and brutality, combined with the fact that she had made the astounding discovery that he was a thief.
They sat beside her, listening attentively to her story, and expressing the deepest sympathy.
Then, after a quarter of an hour’s conversation, the two sisters agreed that they could not leave her there alone, and suggested that she should accompanythem to the convent, situated a few kilometres out of Paris, close to Enghien.
So, after taking her to a small restaurant near and giving her some food, they took a taxi to the Gare du Nord, and half an hour later entered the big convent of the Order, a grey, inartistic, but spacious place, with large shady gardens at the rear, sloping down to the Lake of Enghien.
In the heavy door was a small grille, and when one of the sisters rang the clanging bell a woman’s face peered forth at them with curiosity before admitting them.
Jean, in her weak, nervous state, had visions of long, stone corridors, of ghostly figures in black habits and white caps moving noiselessly, and of a peace and silence entirely strange to her. Inside, no one spoke. Save those conducting her to the rooms of the Mother Superior, all were mute.
On every wall was a crucifix, and at each corner in a small niche stood a statue of the Holy Virgin.
They passed by the fine chapel, and Jean saw the long, stained-glass windows, the rows of empty chairs, and the Roman Catholic altar, the burning candles reflecting upon the burnished gilt, and the arum lilies in the big brass vases on either side.
At last, shown into a large bare room, the walls of which were panelled half-way up—a room bare, austere, and comfortless, with an utter lack of any attempt at decoration—Jean sank into a big leather-covered arm-chair, and one of the sisters took the old black shawl from her shoulders.
A few minutes later there entered an elderly, stately woman, with hard mouth and aquiline nose, yet in whose eyes was a pleasant, sympathetic expression—a woman very calm, very possessed, even austere. She was the Mother Superior.
With her was another sister, also a probationer in the white dress, big apron, and cap with strings, proclaiming her to be a nurse.
The two sisters who had found the poor girl introduced her to the Mother Superior, who at first looked askance at her and whose manner was by no means cordial.
She heard all in silence, gazing coldly at the girl seated in the chair.
Then she questioned her in a hard, unmusical voice.
“You have been brought up in London—eh?”
“Yes, madame. I was a modiste, and my father was a restaurant keeper.”
“You speak English?”
“Quite well, madame. I have lived there ten years.”
“We have a branch of the sisterhood in England—near Richmond. Perhaps you know it?”
“Yes, madame. I remember my father pointing the convent out to me.”
“Ah, you know it!” exclaimed the elder woman. “I was there last year.”
Then she reverted to Jean’s husband, asking where they were married, and many details concerning their life since that event.
To all the questions Jean replied frankly andopenly. All she concealed was the fact that Ralph and Adolphe had committed a burglary on the night when she had taken her departure.
“I could not stand it any longer, madame,” she assured the Mother Superior, with hot tears in her big eyes. “He tried to strike me, but his friend prevented him.”
“His friend sympathised with you—eh?” remarked the woman, who had had much experience of the wrongs of other women.
“Yes, madame.”
“In love with you? Answer me that truthfully!” she asked sternly.
“I—I—I really don’t know,” was the reply, and a hot flush came to her pale cheeks.
The questioner’s lips grew harder.
“But it is plain,” she said. “That man was in love with you! Did he ever suggest that you should leave your husband?”
“No—never—never!” she declared very emphatically. “He never made such a suggestion.”
“He did not know your intention of leaving your home?”
“No. He knew nothing.”
The Mother Superior was silent for a few moments, surveying the pale, despairing little figure in the huge carved chair; then, with a woman’s sympathy, she advanced towards her and, placing her hand upon her shoulder, said:
“My child, I believe your story. I feel that it is true. The man who was a criminal deceived you, and you were right to leave him to his own devices,if he refused to listen to your appeal to him to walk in the path of honesty. To such as you our Order extends its protection. Remain here with us, child, and your home in future shall be a home of peace, and your life shall be spent in doing good to others, according to the Divine command.”
At her words the three sisters bent to her enthusiastically, calling her by her Christian name; while Jean, on her part, raised the thin, bony hand of the Mother Superior and kissed it in deep gratitude.
From that moment she became a probationer, and joined the peaceful, happy circle who kept their religious observations so rigidly, and who, during the hours of recreation, chattered and made merry together as women will.
In her white dress, linen apron, and flat cap with strings, her first duties were in the linen-room, where she employed her time in sewing, with three other probationers as companions, while each day she attended a class for instruction in first aid in nursing.
Thus the weeks went on until, in the month of November, the Mother Superior came to her one afternoon with the news—not altogether welcome—that as she spoke English so well, it had been arranged that she should be transferred to the branch in London, and that she was to leave in two days’ time.
So attached had she become to them all that she burst into tears and appealed to be allowed to remain. The matter, however, had been decided by the Council of the Order, therefore to stay was impossible.The only hope that the Mother Superior held out was that she might come back to Paris at frequent intervals as a visitor.
Long and many were the leave-takings, but at last came the hour of her departure.
Then, with a final farewell to the Mother Superior, she entered the taxi with her small belongings and drove to the Gare du Nord, where, in the black habit of the Order, she took train for London.
The journey by way of Calais and Dover had no novelty for her. She had done it several times before. But on the arrival platform at Charing Cross she saw two sisters of her Order awaiting her, and was quickly welcomed by them.
Then, hailing a taxi, the three drove at once away through Kensington, across Hammersmith Bridge, along Castlenau, across Barnes Common, and at last into Roehampton Lane, that long, narrow thoroughfare which, even to-day, retains a semi-rural aspect, its big, old-fashioned houses surrounded by spacious grounds, and its several institutions which have been built on sites of mansions demolished during the past five years or so.
The Convent of Saint Agnes was a big building, constructed specially by the Order some twenty years ago. Shut off from the dusty, narrow roads by a high, grey wall with a small, arched door as the only entrance, it stood about half-way between the border of Barnes Common and Richmond Park, a place with many little arched windows and a niche with a statue of the Virgin over the door.
Here the Mother Superior—a woman slightly older than the directress in Paris, but with a face rather more pleasant—welcomed her warmly, and before the next day had passed Jean had settled down to her duties—the same as those in Paris, the mending of linen, at which she had become an adept.
In the dull November days, as she sat at the window of the linen-room overlooking the frost-bitten garden with its leafless trees and dead flowers, she fell to wondering how Ralph fared. She wondered how all her friends were at the Maison Collette, and who was now proprietor of her dead father’s little restaurant in Oxford Street.
Through the open windows of her little cubicle, in the silence of night, she could see the red glare over London, and could hear the distant roar of the great Metropolis. Oft-times she lay thinking for hours, thinking and wondering what had become of the man she so unwisely loved—the man who had destroyed all her fondest hopes and illusions.
December went on, a new year dawned—a year of new hopes and new resolutions.
She had settled down in her new home, and, among the English sisters, found herself just as happy as she had been at Enghien. No one in the whole sisterhood was more attentive to her instruction, both religious and in nursing, for she was looking forward with hope that by March she would pass from the grade of probationer to that of nurse, andthat she would soon go forth upon her errands of mercy among the poor and afflicted.
And so, after the storm and stress of life in the underworld of Paris, Jean Ansell lived in an atmosphere of devotion, of perfect happiness, and blissful peace.
Months—months of a quiet, peaceful, uneventful life—went by, and Jean had become even more popular among the English sisters than she had been in Paris.
Though her life had so entirely changed, and she had naught to worry her, not a thought nor a care beyond her religious duties and her nursing, in which she was now growing proficient, she would sometimes sit and think over her brief married life, and become filled by wonder.
Where was her husband? Where, too, was the low-born thief who had taken her part and prevented the blow upon that never-to-be-forgotten night?
Sometimes when she reflected upon it all she sat horrified. And when she recollected how shamefully she had been deceived by the man she so implicitly trusted and so dearly loved, tears would well in her great, big eyes. Sister Gertrude, one of the nurses, a tall, fair woman, who was her most intimate friend, often noticed the redness of her eyes, and guessed the truth.
Seldom, if ever, Jean went out farther than across Barnes Common or into Richmond Park for exercise, and always accompanied by Sister Gertrude, the latter wearing the black habit of the Sisterhood, while Jean herself was in a distinctive garb as a nurse of the Order of Saint Agnes.
Never once in all those months had she been in London. All she saw of it was the red glare upon the night sky. But she was happy enough. London, and especially the neighbourhood of Regent Street, would remind her too vividly of Ralph and of her dear father.
One spring afternoon, while seated at the open window finishing some needlework destined for a poor family living in a back street off the Hammersmith Broadway, she was chatting merrily with Sister Gertrude. Over their needlework the rules allowed them to chatter, and in that barely-furnished little room she and Sister Gertrude enjoyed many a pleasant gossip.
Outside, the garden was gay with daffodils and hyacinths, and the trees were just bursting into bud, the fresh green rendered the brighter by the warm sunshine.
Jean concluded her work at last, placed her needle in the cushion, and removed her thimble.
“At last!” she sighed. “I’ve been over this a whole week,” she added.
“Yes; you’ve been most patient,” declared her friend. “Soon you will abandon needlework and be sent out nursing. I heard the Mother Superior talking about it with Sister Lilian after vespers lastnight. Now that Sister Hannah has gone back to Paris we are one nurse short, and you are to take her place.”
“Am I?” cried Jean, with delight, for she had studied long and diligently in the hope that soon outside work would be given her. She was devoted to nursing, and had made herself proficient in most of the subjects.
“Yes. I believe you will hear something in the course of a few days. But,” added Sister Gertrude, “I know another secret. Your friend, the Mother Superior in Paris, is coming here, and ours has been transferred to Antwerp. The change will be announced, I expect, to-morrow.”
At this news Jean expressed the greatest satisfaction, for the grave, yet rather hard-faced, directress of the convent at Enghien had been so good and generous that she had become devotedly attached to her. Indeed, to her she owed her life, for in her despondent state on that morning when found in the Tuileries Gardens she had seriously contemplated throwing herself into the Seine.
Jean was therefore loud in praise of the directress from Enghien, and highly delighted at the thought of her coming to take over the direction of the English branch of the Order.
“Here is some paper and string to wrap up your work,” Sister Gertrude said at last, handing her an old copy of theDaily Telegraph. “I am taking it with me to Hammersmith this evening.”
And then she left the room, promising to return in a few minutes.
Alone, Jean, standing at the window, gazed idly at the newspaper, the date of which was a Monday in the previous October.
It was strictly against the rules of the Order to read any newspaper, but as she turned it over, a column headed “Paris Day by Day” caught her eye. The temptation proved too much, and she scanned it down as she had been in the habit of scanning the paper each evening in the days when she had lived at home.
Suddenly a paragraph caught her eye. Her mouth stood open, her eyes started from their sockets as she read. Then she held her breath, placing her left hand to her breast as though to stay the beating of her heart.
Her countenance was blanched to the lips. The words she read were as follows:
“The daring exploits of the notorious criminal, Ansell, alias ‘The American,’ and Carlier, alias ‘The Eel,’ are at an end. Yesterday, in Paris, Carlier was sentenced to seven years’ hard labour, and Ansell, it will be remembered, was shot by the police while swimming the Seine, but his body was never recovered.”
“The daring exploits of the notorious criminal, Ansell, alias ‘The American,’ and Carlier, alias ‘The Eel,’ are at an end. Yesterday, in Paris, Carlier was sentenced to seven years’ hard labour, and Ansell, it will be remembered, was shot by the police while swimming the Seine, but his body was never recovered.”
“Dead!” she gasped, white as death. “Shot down by the police—my husband!”
She staggered, clutching at the small deal work-table for support, or she would have fallen.
“And Adolphe has been sent to prison for seven years!” she went on, speaking to herself in a lowmechanical tone. “Was it for the crime committed on that night, I wonder? Were my fears well-grounded, and did my prediction of discovery come true? Ah, if Ralph had but listened to my appeal!” she cried in agony. “But he is dead—dead! Shot by the police—shot down like an animal. Ah, what an ignominious end!”
The newspaper fell from her fingers. The blow had stunned her.
She stood swaying slightly, her white face turned towards the open window, her eyes staring straight before her—silent, motionless, aghast.
Sister Gertrude entered, but so preoccupied was she that she was utterly unconscious of her presence.
“You are unwell, Jean,” she said, in her soft, refined voice, for before entering the convent five years ago she had moved in society, being the daughter of a well-known Paris banker. “Tell me, dear, what ails you?”
Jean started, and stared at her in amazement.
“I—I—oh, there is nothing,” she faltered. “I don’t feel very well—that’s all.”
The newspaper lay on the floor, where it had fallen from her white, nerveless fingers.
In Jean’s face was a hard, haggard look, and Sister Gertrude, a woman of the world, noted it, and wondered what could have affected her in those few moments of her absence.
“Tell me, dear, how you feel? Can I get you anything?” she asked her friend, to whom she was so much attached.
“Nothing, thanks,” was her reply, with a great effort. “I shall be quite well soon, I hope.”
Sister Gertrude advanced towards her, and, placing her hand upon the girl’s shoulder tenderly, said:
“You will soon be all right again, dear, I hope. But why keep your secret? Why not confide in me?”
“Secret!” she echoed. “It is no secret!”
“Then why not tell me the truth right out? What has upset you?”
Jean clenched her teeth. How could she confess that she was the wife of a notorious thief—a man who had been shot like a dog by the police?
No. Her secret was hers, and it should remain so. Her past from that moment was buried. None, save the Mother Superior at Enghien and the two sisters who had found her in the Tuileries Gardens, knew the truth. And none should now know.
“Really, you are a little too solicitous of my welfare,” she laughed, well feigning amusement at the situation. “I am quite well now. Quite well, I assure you.”
And picking up the old copy of the newspaper, she resumed the wrapping up of the parcel of underclothing which she had made with her own hands for charitable purposes.
And the big bell having clanged out for tea in the refectory, Jean and Sister Gertrude passed arm-in-arm through the long stone corridor to the big, vaulted hall, where all the inmates of the convent had assembled and the Mother Superior was presiding over the four shining tea-urns at the top table.
But Jean sat silent and thoughtfully sipping her tea, heedless of all about her.
Her mind was full of that terse announcement which she had read, the obituary notice of the notorious thief known in Paris as “The American”—the man whom she loved and who was her husband.
She was thinking, too, ofFil-en-Quatre, the shock-headed, rather uncouth Parisian loafer—the man who had been sentenced to seven years’ hard labour. That meant Cayenne, without a doubt—drudgery at Devil’s Island, that ill-governed penal settlement established by the Republic of France.
She remembered him. Ah, how often he had sympathised with her! How frequently he had uttered cheering words to her in secret, although he had never once betrayed his friend’s real profession, nor had he ever once spoken of the great and fervent affection which he had borne her.
Though he was a thief, a scoundrel of the underworld of Paris, ingenious, unscrupulous, and even dangerous if cornered, he was nevertheless loyal and honest towards his friend, and behaved as a gentleman towards his friend’s wife.
Yes, Adolphe Carlier, though a thief, was still a gentleman in the true sense of the word.
The weeks went by, and poor Jean, a widow in secret—for she told no one of what had occurred—was sent forth daily in the poorer districts of London on her mission to the sick, to whom she carried food and delicacies prepared by the kind hands of the sisters.
The slums she visited in Clerkenwell and other places often reminded her of those last few days of her married life, those days before she parted for ever from “Le Costaud.” Where men feared to venture, and where no police-constable cared to go alone, she went without fear, down into the deepest depths of the unknown underworld of London, and through months she worked hard each day amid the most sordid and poverty-stricken surroundings, returning each night to the convent fagged and hungry. But now that she knew the bitter truth, her whole life was devoted to her work of mercy and to her religious duties. Her sweetness of disposition, her calm patience, her soft voice, and her cheerful manner all endeared her to those whom she tended with such unremitting care.
Thus she passed the long summer days in the stifling slums of London.
So devoted was she, and so hard did she work, that at last a serious illness was threatened, in consequence of which she was sent by the Mother Superior to the West of England branch of the Order, who had a small convent at Babbacombe, near Torquay, and in the latter town, in better air, she continued her labours.
Not far from the convent, on the road leading to Newton Abbot, was the ivy-covered lodge and great, handsome gates of ornamental iron leading to Bracondale Park, the seat of the Right Honourable the Earl of Bracondale, K.G.
The park, a spacious domain with great oaks and elms, was situated high up, overlooking the EnglishChannel, and away in the distance the long, rather low-built mansion with a square, castellated turret at the western end. The fine domain of the Bracondales, one of the most ancient families in England, extended over many thousands of fertile acres in Devon, besides which the Earl possessed a deer forest near Grantown, in the Highlands; a pretty winter villa at Beaulieu, close to Nice; the old-fashioned town house in Belgrave Square, and a pretty seaside villa in the new and fashionable little resort, Saint-Addresse, near Havre.
But, as His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the Earl of Bracondale had but little time in which to enjoy his beautiful residences. True, he spent a few weeks on the Riviera in winter, shot once or twice over the Bracondale coverts in the season, and spent an annual fortnight up at the shooting lodge in Scotland; but he was usually to be found either at Downing Street or down at Bracondale immersed and absorbed by the affairs of State.
His one hobby was motoring, and he frequently drove his own car—a big six-cylinder open one. Years ago, on the introduction of the motor-car, he had been a young man, and had quickly become an enthusiast. He had motored ever since the early days, and was still an expert driver. Once he had held a world’s distance record, and nowadays, even with the heavy responsibilities upon him, he was never so happy as in overcoat and cap at the steering-wheel. And in this recreation he found a very beneficial change after so many hours of studyingcomplicated reports and worrying despatches from the Embassies abroad.
One summer’s night he had been addressing a big political meeting at Plymouth, and at ten o’clock he turned out of the garage of the Royal Hotel, and alone drove through the brilliant, starlit night back to Babbacombe. Usually when he went out at night he took Budron, the head chauffeur, with him. But on this occasion he had left the man in London, superintending some repairs to one of the other cars. Hence he put on a cigar, and, alone, drove leisurely along the rather narrow, winding high road which leads from Plymouth through Plympton and Ivybridge.
The distance was twenty-five miles or so, and he travelled swiftly during the last portion of it.
It was nearly half-past eleven when he passed through Torquay, then silent and deserted, and ascending the hill, was quickly on the Babbacombe road.
Suddenly, however, when within half a mile of his own lodge gates, at a sharp bend in the narrow road along the cliffs, he found himself facing a heavy wagon, the driver of which was asleep.
There was the crash of a heavy impact, a shattering of glass, a rearing of horses, and next second his lordship, shot out of his seat, was lying on the other side of a low hedge, doubled up and quite still, while the car itself was overturned and completely wrecked.
The two doctors, summoned by telephone from Torquay, stood beside Lord Bracondale’s bed, and after careful examination and long consultation, grew very grave.
His lordship had been carried unconscious to the park and upstairs into his own tastefully-furnished room, where he still remained motionless and senseless, though two hours had now passed.
In addition to severe contusions, his shoulder was badly dislocated, and it was also feared that he had suffered severe internal injury through being thrown against the steering-pillar of the car. The examination had occupied a long time, and the greatest consternation had been caused in the big household, the servants going about pale and scared.
Dr. Wright-Gilson, the elder of the two medical practitioners, a rather bent, grey-bearded man, addressing his colleague, said, after a long discussion:
“I really think that Morrison should see him.If I telephoned to him at Cavendish Square he could be down here by ten o’clock to-morrow. We could then have a consultation, and decide whether to operate or not.”
To this the younger man agreed; therefore Wright-Gilson went into the library with Jenner, the stout, white-headed old butler, and, using the private telephone to Downing Street, which stood upon the big, littered writing-table, he was quickly put on to the house of Sir Evered Morrison, the great surgeon.
The specialist, who was asleep, answered the telephone at his bedside, and, hearing of the accident, promised he would catch the next train from Paddington. Then he rose, dressed hurriedly, and left by the newspaper-train.
At eleven o’clock the next morning—by which hour the world knew of his lordship’s accident—the great specialist had made his examination and was seated in the library with the two Torquay doctors.
“No,” said Sir Evered, a tall, thin, clean-shaven man, who was a personal friend of Lord Bracondale’s. “In my opinion an operation is not advisable. The case is a serious one, and full of grave danger. But I do not think we need despair. I’ll remain here, and by this evening I shall hope to see consciousness restored.” Then he added: “By the way, are there any good nurses in Torquay?”
“The Convent of Saint Agnes is quite close. They are a Nursing Order, as you know,” replied Dr. Wright-Gilson.
“Yes, and usually most excellent. We had better send for the Mother Superior and get her to give us two trustworthy nurses. Having myself had experience of them, I have always found them most painstaking, and in every way excellent.”
“That is also my own experience, Sir Evered. Several of my patients have employed them with great success.”
“Very well; we will have them.” And Jenner was at once called and sent with a note from the great surgeon to the Mother Superior.
Twenty minutes later the grave-faced directress, who wore her black habit and wide, white collar, and spoke with a very pronounced French accent, arrived, accompanied by Jean and Sister Gertrude, whom she introduced to the three medical men standing in the library.
And very soon afterwards Jean found herself installed in the big, handsome bedroom beside the unconscious Cabinet Minister.
The white, inanimate face lay upon the pillow with the pallor of death upon it, the sheet edged with broad lace having been turned down and carefully arranged by the head housemaid.
Many and precise were the instructions which Sister Gertrude and Jean received from the great surgeon, who first explained to them the injuries from which his distinguished patient was suffering, and the nature of the treatment he intended to adopt.
The Honourable John Charlton, his lordship’s private secretary, arrived post-haste from London at midday, and took over many of the confidentialpapers and other documents which were lying about upon the library table.
He was anxious for the Earl to recover consciousness in order to obtain instructions concerning the attitude to be adopted towards Austria, regarding whom a ticklish point of policy had on the previous evening arisen. The political horizon of Europe changes from hour to hour.
Our Ambassador in Vienna had wired in cipher urgently requesting a response, and this only the Foreign Minister himself could give.
But the doctors would not allow him to be disturbed.
A warm, anxious day went by, and Jean found herself amid surroundings so luxurious and artistic that she gazed about her open-mouthed in wonder.
As a nurse she soon showed her proficiency and her business-like methods—a manner which at once impressed Sir Evered.
But, alas! The Earl of Bracondale still remained unconscious. His pulse was feeble, his heart was just beating; the spark of life was still aglow.
From all quarters of the world, from every one of the Chancelleries of Europe, telegrams of regret arrived. Kings, statesmen, politicians of all grades, and all parties, lawyers, diplomats; in fact, all classes, sent messages, and all day long boys kept continually cycling up the long drive through the park bearing sheaves of orange-coloured envelopes, which were opened one after the other by the Honourable John Charlton.
Not before the following afternoon did consciousness return to the injured man, and then Jean’s real work commenced.
His eyes, when they first opened, met her calm, anxious gaze.
He looked at her in astonishment, and then glanced at the other faces of the doctors around.
Sir Evered spoke as he bent over him.
“You know me—eh? Come, you’re a lot better now, my dear fellow. Just drink this,” and he took a glass from Jean’s hand.
The prostrate man swallowed the liquid with an effort. Then, staring about him with an air of astonishment, he said:
“Why—it’s you, Evered. You!”
“Yes; I’m here looking after you, and with good nursing you’ll soon be quite right again.”
His lordship drew a long breath, and for a few moments remained silent. Then he asked, in a low, weak whisper:
“What’s happened?”
“Oh, nothing very much. Don’t bother about it,” was the great specialist’s reply. “You were thrown out of your car, that’s all. No bones broken.”
“Ah! yes,” he replied, slowly raising a hand to his brow. “Ah! yes—now I remember. That wagon—right across the road—and no light upon it! Yes—I—I remember!”
“Don’t bother. That’s enough now. Just go to sleep again, my dear fellow,” said Sir Evered, soothingly, placing his hand upon his patient’sbrow. “Don’t try and think. Just rest for the present.”
And thus advised, his lordship closed his eyes wearily, and was soon asleep.
“Excellent,” declared Sir Evered, much gratified when outside the room with the others, leaving Jean alone with the sleeper. “He’ll recover—no doubt he will.”
And five minutes later he was in the library, speaking over the telephone to the Prime Minister at Downing Street, while that same evening the papers gave the welcome news to the world that there was every hope of the Foreign Minister’s restoration to health.
The three medical men had strapped up the injured shoulder and applied various remedies, therefore the patient that night was in no pain, though Sister Gertrude took Jean’s place at ten o’clock and sat by his bedside all night, receiving hourly visits from the doctors.
Bracondale Park was a house of breathless anxiety through the days which followed. Sir Evered, though his presence was required hourly in London—as is the presence of such a great surgeon—remained at the bedside of his friend. They had been at Cambridge together, and ever since their undergraduate days had been intimate chums.
His lordship’s illness proved of longer duration than was at first anticipated. Sir Evered remained at Bracondale a whole week, and then, finding that his patient was progressing favourably, returned to London, leaving the case in the hands of Dr. Wright-Gilsonand Dr. Noel Tanner, while Sister Gertrude and Jean did the nursing.
Life at Bracondale Jean found extremely pleasant. The great house, with its luxuriously-furnished rooms, its fine picture-gallery, where, often, in her hours of recreation, she wandered; the big winter-garden with palms and exotic flowers, the conservatories, the huge ballroom—wherein long ago the minuet had been danced by high-born dames in wigs and patches—the fine suites of rooms with gilded cornices—all were, to her, full of interest.
The great house was built by the second Earl of Bracondale, who was the famous Chancellor of the Exchequer in the reign of Charles I., and ever since the Bracondales had borne their part in the government of England.
The room allotted to Jean was a visitor’s room—a large, old-fashioned sitting-room, with a bed in one corner screened off; a room the long, leaded windows of which afforded beautiful views across the extensive, well-wooded park to the blue sea beyond. It was a place with a quiet, old-world atmosphere—a room that had never been changed for a century past. The old chintzes were of the days of our grandmothers, while the Chippendale chairs and tables would have fetched hundreds of pounds if put up at Christie’s.
The elderly housekeeper, in her black silk cap, did all she could to make her comfortable, and treated her with the greatest consideration and respect—more so, perhaps, than she did Sister Gertrude, who, of course, wore the habit of theOrder, while Jean still wore her French nurse’s uniform.
Old Jenner, on the other hand, looked upon “them dressed-up Sisters o’ Mercy,” as he termed them in the servants’ hall, as interlopers, and was often sarcastic at their expense. As an old servant of the family, he felt jealous that they should wait upon his master while his presence was not permitted in the sick-room.
All his life he had been used to wait upon “his young lordship,” and he was annoyed that he was not allowed to do so at that critical hour.
As soon as the injured man was sufficiently well to talk and to recognise that he was being tended by sisters from the neighbouring convent, he treated both with the greatest consideration. A car was placed at their disposal every afternoon so that they might take an airing, while the whole house was thrown open to them to wander where they liked.
The library, however, was Jean’s favourite room. It was a big, sombre, restful place, with high windows of stained glass, a great carved overmantel, and electric lights set in the ancient oaken ceiling. Lined from ceiling to floor with books, and with several tables set about the rich Turkey carpet, it was a cosy, restful place, where one could lounge in a big arm-chair and dream.
Jean’s duties in the sick-room were never irksome. The pair took it in turns to sit with the patient every other night, and it was only then that the hours in the green-shaded night-light seemed neverending. By day she found Bracondale always interesting and frequently amusing.
After he had been in bed a fortnight the doctors allowed him to see visitors, and several distinguished men called and were admitted by Jean. These included the Prime Minister, politicians, and magnates of commerce. And there were some mysterious visitors also, including a Mr. Darnborough, who called one afternoon, being shown up by Jenner.
Jean, in surprise, found the butler and the visitor outside the door, whereupon Jenner explained:
“This is Mr. Darnborough, nurse, a very great friend of his lordship. He must see him alone, as they have confidential business to transact.”
“Thank you, Jenner,” replied Jean, rather stiffly. “If his lordship wishes to see Mr. Darnborough alone he will probably tell me so.”
And, surveying the visitor with some suspicion, she ushered him to the sick man’s side.
“Ah! my dear Darnborough!” cried his lordship, gaily, as soon as he recognised him. “I’m very glad to see you. I heard that you were in Cairo a week ago. Well, how are things in Egypt?”
“Just as full of trouble as ever,” was the reply; “but——” and he glanced inquiringly at Jean.
“Oh, yes, I forgot,” exclaimed the Earl. “Nurse Jean, might I ask the favour that you leave Mr. Darnborough to talk with me alone for half an hour? I shall be all right—and my medicine is not due until five o’clock.”
Jean smiled at the pair.
“Certainly; I will come back when it is time for your lordship to have the next dose,” she answered.
And with that she passed noiselessly out of the room, the Earl’s dark eyes following her.
The door having closed, the pair were left alone. Then the Earl lay listening attentively to the all-important secret report which Darnborough had travelled down there to make.
Jean, thus dismissed, descended to the library, where, across the dark crimson carpet, the last rays of the gorgeous sunset slanted in through the high windows in which were set the armorial bearings of the dead-and-gone Bracondales in stained-glass escutcheons.
She crossed the great sombre apartment and stood gazing through the diamond panes away over the level green of the broad park to where the sea lay bathed in the golden light of the dying day.
Her eyes were fixed vacantly into space. She was thinking—thinking again of that fateful paragraph in the paper—the unexpected news which had rendered her a widow. And poor Adolphe? Alas! though he had been her only friend and full of sympathy for her, yet he was now wearing out his days in penal servitude at the dreaded Devil’s Island.
She thought of him often with feelings of pity.Though a criminal of a criminal stock, ill-bred, and with scarcely any education, yet he had behaved to her as few men had behaved. He had always held her in high esteem and respect. Even as she stood there she could hear his high-pitched voice addressing her as “Madame.”
Upstairs, by the bedside of the sick Cabinet Minister, the thin, grey-faced man, “the eyes and ears of the Cabinet,” was making a secret report to his lordship.
Though the Earl of Bracondale, K.G., was His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, yet Darnborough, the ever-astute, sleepless man of secrets, was the keeper of Great Britain’s prestige abroad. Though his name never appeared on the roll of Government servants, and did not draw any salary as an official, yet he was the only man in England who could demand audience of the Sovereign at any hour by day or by night, or who had the freeentréeto the Royal residences and could attend any function uninvited.
As a statesman, as a secret agent, as an ingenious plotter in the interests of his country, he was a genius. He was a discovery of the late Lord Salisbury in the last days of the Victorian Era. At that time he had been a Foreign Office clerk, a keen-eyed young man with a lock of black hair hanging loosely across his brow. Lord Salisbury recognised in him a man of genius as a diplomat, and with his usual bluntness called him one day to Hatfield and gave him a very delicate mission abroad.
Darnborough went. He had audience with theShah of Persia, juggled with that bediamonded potentate, and came back with his draft of a secret treaty directed against Russia’s influence safely in his pocket. He had achieved what British Ministers to Teheran for the previous fifteen years had failed to effect. And from that moment Darnborough had been allowed a free hand in international politics.
Lord Rosebery, Lord Lansdowne, and Sir Edward Grey had adopted the same attitude towards him as the great Lord Salisbury. He was the one man who knew the secret policy of Britain’s enemies, the man who had so often attended meetings of the Cabinet and warned it of the pitfalls open for the destruction of British prestige.
At that moment the renowned chief of the Secret Service was explaining the latest conspiracy afoot against England, a serious conspiracy hatched in both Berlin and Vienna to embroil our nation in complications in the Far East. Darnborough’s agents in both capitals had that morning arrived at Downing Street post-haste and reported upon what was in progress, with the result that their chief had come to place before the Foreign Minister the latest iniquity of diplomatic juggling.
His lordship lay in bed and listened to the man of secrets without uttering a word.
At length he turned his head restlessly on the pillow and, with a weary sigh, remarked:
“Ah! Darnborough, I fear that each day brings us nearer the peril, nearer the day of Germany’s attack. The exposure of those confidential reports upon our naval manœuvres was serious enoughto our diplomacy. The policy of the Government is, alas! one of false assurance in our defences. The country has been lulled to sleep far too long. False assurances of our national security have been given over and over again, and upon them the Cabinet have pursued a policy of bluff. But, alas! the days of Palmerston and Salisbury are past. Europe can gauge the extent and strength of our national defence, and, with the navigation of the air, we live no longer upon ‘the tight little island’ of our revered ancestors.”
“Yes,” replied the man seated in the chair by the bedside, as he stretched his legs forward and folded his arms. “In all the capitals it is to-day the fashion to laugh at England’s greatness, and to speak of us as a declining Power. I hear it everywhere. The Great Powers are in daily expectation of seeing the tail of the British lion badly twisted, and I quite agree that the most unfortunate leakage of a national secret was that report upon the last naval manœuvres. The bubble of our defensive and offensive power has burst.”
“And poor Richard Harborne lost his life,” remarked the Earl.
“Yes,” replied the other, thoughtfully.
“He was a fine fellow, Darnborough—a very fine young fellow. He came to see me once or twice upon confidential matters. You sent him to Mexico, you’ll remember, and he came to report to me personally. I was much struck by his keen foresight and cleverness. Have you gained any further information concerning his mysterious end?”
“I have made a good many inquiries, both at home and abroad, but Harborne seems to have been something of a mystery himself. He was strangely reserved, and something of a recluse in private life—lived in chambers in the Temple when not travelling abroad, and kept himself very much to himself.”
“For any reason?”
“None, as far as I can tell. He was a merry, easy-going young fellow, a member of the St. James’s, and highly popular among the younger set at the club, but he held aloof from them all he could. As I told you some time ago, there was a lady in the case.”
His lordship sighed.
“Ah! Darnborough, the best of men go under for the sake of a woman!”
“In this case I am not sure that Harborne was really a victim,” replied his visitor. “Only the other day, when in Borkum, I ascertained that Harborne had been in Germany and met by appointment a young foreign woman named Fräulein Montague. She was French, I was told, and very pretty. It was she who carried on the negotiations for the purchase of the secret of the new Krupp aerial gun.”
“You ought to find her. She might tell you something.”
“That’s just what I am striving my utmost to do. I have learnt that she was the daughter of a French restaurant-keeper, living somewhere in London, and that after Harborne’s death she married aFrenchman, whose name I am unable, as yet, to ascertain.”
“You will soon know it, Darnborough,” remarked the Earl with a faint smile. “You always know everything.”
“Is it not my profession?” the other asked. “Yes, I shall try to discover this lady, for I have a theory that she knows something which we ought to know. In addition, she knows who killed Richard Harborne.”
“I sincerely hope that you will be successful,” declared the Foreign Minister. “By Harborne’s death Britain has lost a fearless patriot, a man who served his country as truly and as well as any bedecorated general, and who had faced death a dozen times unflinchingly in the performance of his duties to his country and his sovereign.”
“Yes,” declared Darnborough, “if any man deserved a C.M.G. or a knighthood, Dick Harborne most certainly did. I am the only person who is in the position of knowing how devotedly he served his country.”
“I know, I know!” exclaimed the Earl. “And if he had lived it was my intention of including his name in the next Birthday Honours list.”
“Poor fellow,” remarked his chief. “I wonder who that woman Montague was, and whether she really had any hand in the crime? That he was fond of her I have learned on good authority, yet Dick was, after all, not much of a ladies’ man. Therefore I am somewhat surprised at the nature of the information I have gathered. Nevertheless, Imean to find the woman—and to know the truth.”
“Have you any clue whatever to her identity?” inquired the Earl, looking at him strangely.
“None, save what I have told you,” was the slow, deliberate reply. “But I think I shall eventually find her.”
“You will, Darnborough. I know well what you mean when you reply in those terms. I have experienced your vague responses before,” laughed his lordship.
But the great secret agent only grinned, and his grey face broadened into a smile, while the Earl lay wondering whether, after all, his visitor knew more concerning the mysterious female friend of Harborne than he had admitted.
Darnborough went on with his secret report, placing before the Secretary of State the exact nature of the war-cloud which once again threatened to arise over Europe, and of which our Embassies in Berlin and Vienna, with all the pomp of their officialdom, were as yet in ignorance.
And while the chief of the Secret Service was closeted with the Foreign Minister, and the latter was scribbling some pencil notes of his visitor’s report, Jean waited downstairs in the library for the Earl’s permission to return to his room.
As the soft after-glow of early autumn spread over the western sea before her, she turned at last from the long window and crossed the big room, wherein deep shadows were now falling.
The Earl’s mysterious visitor had been shown inthere by Jenner before being conducted to his lordship’s room, and upon the Earl’s pedestal writing-table, set in an alcove overlooking the terrace, stood a small, well-worn despatch-box of green enamelled steel, covered with dark green canvas.
It had been brought by Darnborough, and stood unlocked and open, just as he had taken from it the written reports of the agents of the Secret Service who had arrived at Charing Cross early that morning from the Continent.
Curiosity prompted Jean to pause and peer into it. She wondered what business that rather sour-faced man had with the Earl, and what that portable little steel box could contain.
A photograph—the photograph of a young and handsome woman—which was lying face upwards, first attracted her attention. Curious, she thought, that the man towards whom old Jenner had been so deferential should carry about the picture of a pretty woman.
She took it in her fingers and held it in the light in order to examine it more closely. Then, in replacing it, she glanced at the file of papers uppermost, a thick bundle of various documents, stamped with the arms of England and the words, “Foreign Office,” and upon the outside of which was written in a bold, clerkish hand, “ReRichard Harborne, deceased.”