BUT, after all, things did not exactly turn out as Mr. Horser had imagined. The sight of the empty room and the closed door were satisfactory enough, and he did not hesitate for a moment.
“Look here, sir,” he said, “you and I are going to settle this matter quick. Whatever you paid Skinner you can have back again. But I’m going to have that report.”
He took a quick step forward with uplifted hand—and looked into the shining muzzle of a tiny revolver. Behind it Mr. Sabin’s face, no longer pleasant and courteous, had taken to itself some very grim lines.
“I am a weak man, Mr. Horser, but I am never without the means of self-defence,” Mr. Sabin said in a still, cold tone. “Be so good as to sit down in that easy-chair.”
Mr. Horser hesitated. For one moment he stood as though about to carry out his first intention. He stood glaring at his opponent, his face contracted into a snarl, his whole appearance hideous, almost bestial. Mr. Sabin smiled upon him contemptuously—the maddening, compelling smile of the born aristocrat.
“Sit down!”
Mr. Horser sat down, whereupon Mr. Sabin followed suit.
“Now what have you to say to me?” Mr. Sabin asked quietly.
“I want that report,” was the dogged answer.
“You will not have it,” Mr. Sabin answered. “You can take that for granted. You shall not take it from me by force, and I will see that you do not charm it out of my pocket by other means. The information which it contains is of the utmost possible importance to me. I have bought it and paid for it, and I shall use it.”
Mr. Horser moistened his dry lips.
“I will give you,” he said, “twenty thousand dollars for its return.”
Mr. Sabin laughed softly.
“You bid high,” he said. “I begin to suspect that our friends on the other side of the water have been more than ordinarily kind to you.”
“I will give you—forty thousand dollars.”
Mr. Sabin raised his eyebrows.
“So much? After all, that sounds more like fear than anything. You cannot hope to make a profitable deal out of that. Dear me! It seems only a few minutes ago that I heard your interesting friend, Mr. Skinner, shake with laughter at the mention of such a thing as a secret society.”
“Skinner is a blasted fool,” Horser exclaimed fiercely. “Listen here, Mr. Sabin. You can read that report if you must, but, as I’m a living man you’ll not stir from New York if you do. I’ll make your life a hell for you. Don’t you understand that no one but a born fool would dare to quarrel with me in this city? I hold the prison keys, the police are mine. I shall make my own charge, whatever I choose, and they shall prove it for me.”
Mr. Sabin shook his head.
“This sounds very shocking,” he remarked. “I had no idea that the largest city of the most enlightened country in the world was in such a sorry plight.”
“Oh, curse your sarcasm,” Mr. Horser said. “I’m talking facts, and you’ve got to know them. Will you give up that report? You can find out all there is in it for yourself. But I’m going to give it you straight. If I don’t have that report back unread, you’ll never leave New York.”
Mr. Sabin was genuinely amused.
“My good fellow,” he said, “you have made yourself a notorious person in this country by dint of incessant bullying and bribing and corruption of every sort. You may possess all the powers you claim. Your only mistake seems to be that you are too thick-headed to know when you are overmatched. I have been a diplomatist all my life,” Mr. Sabin said, rising slowly to his feet, and with a sudden intent look upon his face, “and if I were to be outwitted by such a novice as you I should deserve to end my days—in New York.”
Mr. Horser rose also to his feet. A smile of triumph was on his lips.
“Well,” he said, “we— Come in! Come in!” The door was thrown open. Skinner and two policemen entered. Mr. Sabin leaned towards the wall, and in a second the room was plunged in darkness.
“Turn on the lights!” Skinner shouted. “Seize him! He’s in that corner. Use your clubs!” Horser bawled. “Stand by the door one of you. Damnation, where is that switch?”
He found it with a shout of triumph. Lights flared out in the room. They stared around into every corner. Mr. Sabin was not there. Then Horser saw the door leading into the bed-chamber, and flung himself against it with a hoarse cry of rage.
“Break it open!” he cried to the policemen.
They hammered upon it with their clubs. Mr. Sabin’s quiet voice came to them from the other side.
“Pray do not disturb me, gentlemen,” he said. “I am reading.”
“Break it open, you damned fools!” Horser cried. They battered at it sturdily, but the door was a solid one. Suddenly they heard the key turn in the lock. Mr. Sabin stood upon the threshold.
“Gentlemen!” he exclaimed. “These are my private apartments. Why this violence?”
He held out the paper.
“This is mine,” he said. “The information which it contains is bought and paid for. But if the giving it up will procure me the privilege of your departure, pray take it.”
Horser was purple with rage. He pointed with shaking fist to the still, calm figure.
“Arrest him,” he ordered. “Take him to the cells.”
Mr. Sabin shrugged his shoulders.
“I am ready,” he said, “but it is only fair to give you this warning. I am the Duke of Souspennier, and I am well known in England and France. The paper which you saw me hand to the porter in the hall as we stepped into the elevator was a despatch in cipher to the English Ambassador at Washington, claiming his protection. If you take me to prison to-night you will have him to deal with to-morrow.”
Mr. Horser bore himself in defeat better than at any time during the encounter. He turned to the constables.
“Go down stairs and wait for me in the hall,” he ordered. “You too, Skinner.”
They left the room. Horser turned to Mr. Sabin, and the veins on his forehead stood out like whipcord.
“I know when I’m beaten,” he said. “Keep your report, and be damned to you. But remember that you and I have a score to settle, and you can ask those who know me how often Dick Horser comes out underneath in the long run.”
He followed the others. Mr. Sabin sat down in his easy-chair with a quiet smile upon his lips. Once more he glanced through the brief report. Then his eyes half closed, and he sat quite still—a tired, weary-looking man, almost unnaturally pale.
“They have kept their word,” he said softly to himself, “after many years. After many years!”
Duson came in to undress him shortly afterwards. He saw signs of the struggle, but made no comment. Mr. Sabin, after a moment’s hesitation, took a phial from his pocket and poured a few drops into a wineglassful of water.
“Duson,” he said, “bring me some despatch forms and a pencil.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Sabin wrote for several moments. Then he placed the forms in an envelope, sealed it, and handed it to Duson.
“Duson,” he said, “that fellow Horser is annoyed with me. If I should be arrested on any charge, or should fail to return to the hotel within reasonable time, break that seal and send off the telegrams.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Sabin yawned.
“I need sleep,” he said. “Do not call me to-morrow morning until I ring. And, Duson!”
“Yes, sir.”
“The Campania will sail from New York somewhere about the tenth of October. I wish to secure the whole of stateroom number twenty-eight. Go round to the office as soon as they open, secure that room if possible, and pay a deposit. No other will do. Also one for yourself.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Here’s a lady inquiring for you, sir—just gone up to your room in the elevator,” the hotel clerk remarked to Mr. Sabin as he paused on his way to the door to hand in his key. “Shall I send a boy up?”
Mr. Sabin hesitated.
“A lady?” he remarked tentatively.
The hotel clerk nodded.
“Yes. I didn’t notice the name, but she was an Englishwoman. I’ll send up.”
“Thank you, I will return,” Mr. Sabin said. “If I should miss her on the way perhaps you will kindly redirect her to my rooms.”
He rang for the elevator, and was swiftly transported to his own floor. The door of his sitting-room was open. Duson was talking to a tall fair woman, who turned swiftly round at the sound of his approach.
“Ah, they found you, then!” she exclaimed, coming towards him with outstretched hands. “Isn’t this a strange place and a strange country for us to meet once more in?”
He greeted her gallantly, but with a certain reserve, of which she was at once aware.
“Are there any countries in the world left which are strange to so great a traveler as Lady Muriel Carey?” he said. “The papers here have been full of your wonderful adventures in South Africa.”
She laughed.
“Everything shockingly exaggerated, of course,” she declared. “I have really been plagued to death since I got here with interviewers, and that sort of person. I wonder if you know how glad I am to see you again?”
“You are very kind, indeed,” he said. “Certainly there was no one whom I expected less to see over here. You have come for the yacht races, I suppose?”
She looked at him with a faint smile and raised eyebrows.
“Come,” she said, “shall we lie to one another? Is it worth while? Candour is so much more original.”
“Candour by all means then, I beg,” he answered.
“I have come over with the Dalkeiths, ostensibly to see the yacht races. Really I have come to see you.”
Mr. Sabin bowed.
“I am delightfully flattered,” he murmured.
“I don’t exactly mean for the pleasure of gazing into your face once more,” she continued. “I have a mission!”
Mr. Sabin looked up quickly.
“Great heavens! You, too!” he exclaimed.
She nodded.
“Why not?” she asked coolly. “I have been in it for years, you know, and when I got back from South Africa everything seemed so terribly slow that I begged for some work to do.”
“And they sent you here—to me?”
“Yes,” she answered, “and I was here also a few weeks ago, but you must not ask me anything about that.”
Mr. Sabin’s eyebrows contracted, his face darkened. She shrank a little away from him.
“So it is you who have robbed me of her, then,” he said slowly. “Yes, the description fits you well enough. I ask you, Lady Carey, to remember the last time when chance brought you and me together. Have I deserved this from you?”
She made a little gesture of impotence.
“Do be reasonable!” she begged. “What choice had I?”
He looked at her steadfastly.
“The folly of women—of clever women such as you,” he said, “is absolutely amazing. You have deliberately made a slave of yourself—”
“One must have distraction,” she murmured.
“Distraction! And so you play at this sort of thing. Is it worth while?”
Her eyes for a moment clouded over with weariness.
“When one has filled the cup of life to the brim for many years,” she said, “what remains that is worth while?”
He bowed.
“You are a young woman,” he said. “You should not yet have learned to speak with such bitterness. As for me—well, I am old indeed. In youth and age the affections claim us. I am approaching my second childhood.”
She laughed derisively, yet not unkindly. “What folly!” she exclaimed.
“You are right,” he admitted. “I suppose it is the fault of old associations.”
“In a few minutes,” she said, smiling at him, “we should have become sentimental.”
“I,” he admitted, “was floundering already.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“You talk as though sentiment were a bog.”
“There have been worse similes,” he declared.
“How horrid! And do you know, sir, for all your indignation you have not yet even inquired after your wife’s health.”
“I trust,” he said, “that she is well.”
“She is in excellent health.”
“Your second visit to this country,” he remarked, “follows very swiftly upon your first.”
She nodded.
“I am here,” she said, “on your account.”
“You excite my interest,” he declared. “May I know your mission?”
“I have to remind you of your pledge,” she said, “to assure you of Lucille’s welfare, and to prevent your leaving the country.”
“Marvelous!” he exclaimed, with a slight mocking smile. “And may I ask what means you intend to employ to keep me here?”
“Well,” she said, “I have large discretionary powers. We have a very strong branch over on this side, but I would very much rather induce you to stay here without applying to them.”
“And the inducements?” he asked.
She took a cigarette from a box which stood on the table and lit one.
“Well,” she said, “I might appeal to your hospitality, might I not? I am in a strange country which you have made your home. I want to be shown round. Do you remember dining with me one night at the Ambassador’s? It was very hot, even for Paris, and we drove afterwards in the Bois. Ask me to dine with you here, won’t you? I have never quite forgotten the last time.”
Mr. Sabin laughed softly, but with undisguised mirth.
“Come,” he said, “this is an excellent start. You are to play the Circe up to date, and I am to be beguiled. How ought I to answer you? I do remember the Ambassador’s, and I do remember driving down the Bois in your victoria, and holding—I believe I am right—your hand. You have no right to disturb those charming memories by attempting to turn them into bathos.”
She blew out a little cloud of tobacco smoke, and watched it thoughtfully.
“Ah!” she remarked. “I wonder who is better at that, you or I? I may not be exactly a sentimental person, but you—you are a flint.”
“On the contrary,” Mr. Sabin assured her earnestly, “I am very much in love with my wife.”
“Dear me!” she exclaimed. “You carry originality to quixoticism. I have met several men before in my life whom I have suspected of such a thing, but I never heard any one confess it. This little domestic contretemps is then, I presume, disagreeable to you!”
“To the last degree,” Mr. Sabin asserted. “So much so that I leave for England by the Campania.”
She shook her head slowly.
“I wouldn’t if I were you.”
“Why not?”
Lady Carey threw away the end of her cigarette, and looked for a moment thoughtfully at her long white fingers glittering with rings. Then she began to draw on her gloves.
“Well, in the first place,” she said, “Lucille will have no time to spare for you. You will be de trop in decidedly an uncomfortable position. You wouldn’t find London at all a good place to live in just now, even if you ever got there—which I am inclined to doubt. And secondly, here am I—”
“Circe!” he murmured.
“Waiting to be entertained, in a strange country, almost friendless. I want to be shown everything, taken everywhere. And I am dying to see your home at Lenox. I do not think your attitude towards me in the least hospitable.”
“Come, you are judging me very quickly,” he declared. “What opportunities have I had?”
“What opportunities can there be if you sail by the Campania?”
“You might dine with me to-night at least.”
“Impossible! The Dalkeiths have a party to meet me. Come too, won’t you? They love dukes—even French ones.”
He shook his head.
“There is no attraction for me in a large party,” he answered. “I am getting to an age when to make conversation in return for a dinner seems scarcely a fair exchange.”
“From your host’s point of view, or yours?”
“From both! Besides, one’s digestion suffers.”
“You are certainly getting old,” she declared. “Come, I must go. You haven’t been a bit nice to me. When shall I see you again?”
“It is,” he answered, “for you to say.”
She looked at him for a moment thoughtfully.
“Supposing,” she said, “that I cried off the yacht race to-day. Would you take me out to lunch?”
He smiled.
“My dear lady,” he said, “it is for Circe to command—and for me to obey.”
“And you’ll come and have tea with me afterwards at the Waldorf?”
“That,” Mr. Sabin declared, “will add still further to my happiness.”
“Will you call for me, then—and where shall we have lunch, and at what time? I must go and develop a headache at once, or that tiresome Dalkeith boy will be pounding at my door.”
“I will call for you at the Waldorf at half-past one,” Mr. Sabin said. “Unless you have any choice, I will take you to a little place downtown where we can imagine ourselves back on the Continent, and where we shall be spared the horror of green corn.”
“Delightful,” she murmured, buttoning her glove. “Then you shall take me for a drive to Fifth Avenue, or to see somebody’s tomb, and my woman shall make some real Russian tea for us in my sitting-room. Really, I think I’m doing very well for the first day. Is the spell beginning to work?”
“Hideously,” he assured her. “I feel already that the only thing I dread in life are these two hours before luncheon.”
She nodded.
“That is quite as it should be. Don’t trouble to come down with me. I believe that Dalkeith pere is hanging round somewhere, and in view of my headache perhaps you had better remain in the background for the moment. At one-thirty, then!”
Mr. Sabin smiled as she passed out of the room, and lit a cigarette.
“I think,” he said to himself, “that the arrival of Felix is opportune.”
They sat together at a small table, looking upon a scene which was probably unique in the history of the great restaurant. The younger man was both frankly interested and undoubtedly curious. Mr. Sabin, though his eyes seemed everywhere, retained to the full extent that nonchalance of manner which all his life he had so assiduously cultivated.
“It is wonderful, my dear Felix,” he said, leisurely drawing his cigarette-case from his pocket, “wonderful what good fellowship can be evolved by a kindred interest in sport, and a bottle or so of good champagne. But, after all, this is not to be taken seriously.”
“Shamrock the fourth! Shamrock the fourth!”
A tall young American, his thick head of hair, which had once been carefully parted in the middle, a little disheveled, his hard, clean-cut face flushed with enthusiasm, had risen to his feet and stood with a brimming glass of champagne high over his head. Almost every one in the room rose to their feet. A college boy sprang upon a table with extended arms. The Yale shout split the room. The very glasses on the table rattled.
“Columbia! Columbia!”
It was an Englishman now who had leaped upon a vacant table with upraised glass. There was an answering roar of enthusiasm. Every one drank, and every one sat down again with a pleasant thrill of excitement at this unique scene. Felix leaned back in his chair and marveled.
“One would have imagined,” he murmured, “that America and England together were at war with the rest of the world and had won a great victory. To think that this is all the result of a yacht race. It is incredible!”
“All your life, my dear Felix,” Mr. Sabin remarked, “you have underrated the sporting instinct. It has a great place amongst the impulses of the world. See how it has brought these people together.”
“But they are already of the same kin,” Felix remarked. “Their interests and aims are alike. Their destinies are surely identical.”
Mr. Sabin, who had lit his cigarette, watched the blue smoke curl upwards, and was thoughtful for a moment.
“My dear Felix!” he said. “You are very, very young. The interests of two great nations such as America and England can never be alike. It is the language of diplomacy, but it is also the language of fools.”
Their conversation was for the moment interrupted by a fresh murmur of applause, rising above the loved hum of conversation, the laughter of women, and the popping of corks. A little troop of waiters had just wheeled into the room two magnificent models of yachts hewn out of blocks of solid ice and crowned with flowers. On the one were the Stars and Stripes, on the other the Shamrock and Thistle. There was much clapping of hands and cheering. Lady Carey, who was sitting at the next table with her back to them, joined in the applause so heartily that a tiny gold pencil attached to her bracelet became detached and rolled unobserved to Mr. Sabin’s side. Felix half rose to pick it up, but was suddenly checked by a quick gesture from his companion.
“Leave it,” Mr. Sabin whispered. “I wish to return it myself.”
He stooped and picked it up, a certain stealthiness apparent in his movement. Felix watched him in amazement.
“It is Lady Carey’s, is it not?” he asked.
“Yes. Be silent. I will give it back to her presently.”
A waiter served them with coffee. Mr. Sabin was idly sketching something on the back of his menu card. Felix broke into a little laugh as the man retired.
“Mysterious as ever,” he remarked.
Mr. Sabin smiled quietly. He went on with his sketch.
“I do not want,” Felix said, “to seem impatient, but you must remember that I have come all the way from Europe in response to a very urgent message. As yet I have done nothing except form a very uncomfortable third at a luncheon and tea party, and listen to a good deal of enigmatic conversation between you and the charming Lady Carey. This evening I made sure that I should be enlightened. But no! You have given me a wonderful dinner—from you I expected it. We have eaten terrapin, canvas-back duck, and many other things the names of which alone were known to me. But of the reason for which you have summoned me here—I know nothing. Not one word have you spoken. I am beginning to fear from your avoidance of the subject that there is some trouble between you and Lucille. I beg that you will set my anxiety at rest.”
Mr. Sabin nodded.
“It is reasonable,” he said. “Look here!”
He turned the menu card round. On the back he had sketched some sort of a device with the pencil which he had picked up, and which instead of black-lead contained a peculiar shade of yellow crayon. Felix sat as though turned to stone.
“Try,” Mr. Sabin said smoothly, “and avoid that air of tragedy. Some of these good people might be curious.”
Felix leaned across the table. He pointed to the menu card.
“What does that mean?” he muttered.
Mr. Sabin contemplated it himself thoughtfully. “Well,” he said, “I rather thought that you might be able to explain that to me. I have an idea that there is a society in Europe—sort of aristocratic odd-fellows, you know—who had adopted it for their crest. Am I not right?”
Felix looked at him steadfastly.
“Tell me two things,” he said. “First, why you sent for me, and secondly, what do you mean—by that?”
“Lucille,” Mr. Sabin said, “has been taken away from me.”
“Lucille! Great God!”
“She has been taken away from me,” Mr. Sabin said, “without a single word of warning.”
Felix pointed to the menu card.
“By them?” he asked.
“By them. It was a month ago. Two days before my cable.”
Felix was silent for several moments. He had not the self-command of his companion, and he feared to trust himself to speech.
“She has been taken to Europe,” Mr. Sabin continued. “I do not know, I cannot even guess at the reason. She left no word. I have been warned not to follow her.”
“You obey?”
“I sail to-morrow.”
“And I?” Felix asked.
Mr. Sabin looked for, a moment at the drawing on the back of the menu card, and up at Felix. Felix shook his head.
“You must know,” he said, “that I am powerless.”
“You may be able to help me,” Mr. Sabin said, “without compromising yourself.”
“Impossible!” Felix declared. “But what did they want with Lucille?”
“That,” Mr. Sabin said, “is what I am desirous of knowing. It is what I trust that you, my dear Felix, may assist me to discover.”
“You are determined, then, to follow her?”
Mr. Sabin helped himself to a liqueur from the bottle by his side.
“My dear Felix,” he said reproachfully, “you should know me better than to ask me such a question.”
Felix moved uneasily in his chair.
“Of course,” he said, “it depends upon how much they want to keep you apart. But you know that you are running great risks?”
“Why, no,” Mr. Sabin said. “I scarcely thought that. I have understood that the society was by no means in its former flourishing condition.”
Felix laughed scornfully.
“They have never been,” he answered, “richer or more powerful. During the last twelve months they have been active in every part of Europe.”
Mr. Sabin’s face hardened.
“Very well!” he said. “We will try their strength.”
“We!” Felix laughed shortly. “You forget that my hands are tied. I cannot help you or Lucille. You must know that.”
“You cannot interfere directly,” Mr. Sabin admitted. “Yet you are Lucille’s brother, and I am forced to appeal to you. If you will be my companion for a little while I think I can show you how you can help Lucille at any rate, and yet run no risk.”
The little party at the next table were breaking up at last. Lady Carey, pale and bored, with tired, swollen eyes—they were always a little prominent—rose languidly and began to gather together her belongings. As she did so she looked over the back of her chair and met Mr. Sabin’s eyes. He rose at once and bowed. She cast a quick sidelong glance at her companions, which he at once understood.
“I have the honour, Lady Carey,” he said, “of recalling myself to your recollection. We met in Paris and London not so very many years ago. You perhaps remember the cardinal’s dinner?”
A slight smile flickered upon her lips. The man’s adroitness always excited her admiration.
“I remember it perfectly, and you, Duke,” she answered. “Have you made your home on this side of the water?”
Mr. Sabin shook his head slowly.
“Home!” he repeated. “Ah, I was always a bird of passage, you remember. Yet I have spent three very delightful years in this country.”
“And I,” she said, lowering her tone and leaning towards him, “one very stupid, idiotic day.”
Mr. Sabin assumed the look of a man who denies any personal responsibility in an unfortunate happening.
“It was regrettable,” he murmured, “but I assure you that it was unavoidable. Lucille’s brother must have a certain claim upon me, and it was his first day in America.”
She was silent for a moment. Then she turned abruptly towards the door. Her friends were already on the way.
“Come with me,” she said. “I want to speak to you.”
He followed her out into the lobby. Felix came a few paces behind. The restaurant was still full of people, the hum of conversation almost drowning the music. Every one glanced curiously at Lady Carey, who was a famous woman. She carried herself with a certain insolent indifference, the national deportment of her sex and rank. The women whispered together that she was “very English.”
In the lobby she turned suddenly upon Mr. Sabin.
“Will you take me back to my hotel?” she asked pointedly.
“I regret that I cannot,” he answered. “I have promised to show Felix some of the wonders of New York by night.”
“You can take him to-morrow.”
“To-morrow,” Mr. Sabin said, “he leaves for the West.”
She looked closely into his impassive face.
“I suppose that you are lying,” she said shortly.
“Your candour,” he answered coldly, “sometimes approaches brutality.”
She leaned towards him, her face suddenly softened.
“We are playing a foolish game with one another,” she murmured. “I offer you an alliance, my friendship, perhaps my help.”
“What can I do,” he answered gravely, “save be grateful—and accept?”
“Then—”
She stopped short. It was Mr. Sabin’s luck which had intervened. Herbert Daikeith stood at her elbow.
“Lady Carey,” he said, “they’re all gone but the mater and I. Forgive my interrupting you,” he added hastily.
“You can go on, Herbert,” she added. “The Duc de Souspennier will bring me.”
Mr. Sabin, who had no intention of doing anything of the sort, turned towards the young man with a smile.
“Lady Carey has not introduced us,” he said, “but I have seen you at Ranelagh quite often. If you are still keen on polo you should have a try over here. I fancy you would find that these American youngsters can hold their own. All right, Felix, I am ready now. Lady Carey, I shall do myself the honour of waiting upon you early to-morrow morning, as I have a little excursion to propose. Good-night.”
She shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly as she turned away. Mr. Sabin smiled—faintly amused. He turned to Felix.
“Come,” he said, “we have no time to lose.”
“I regret,” Mr. Sabin said to Felix as they sat side by side in the small coupe, “that your stay in this country will be so brief.”
“Indeed,” Felix answered. “May I ask what you call brief?”
Mr. Sabin looked out of the carriage window.
“We are already,” he said, “on the way to England.”
Felix laughed.
“This,” he said, “is like old times.”
Mr. Sabin smiled.
“The system of espionage here,” he remarked, “is painfully primitive. It lacks finesse and judgment. The fact that I have taken expensive rooms on the Campania, and that I have sent many packages there, that my own belongings are still in my rooms untouched, seems to our friends conclusive evidence that I am going to attempt to leave America by that boat. They have, I believe, a warrant for my arrest on some ridiculous charge which they intend to present at the last moment. They will not have the opportunity.”
“But there is no other steamer sailing to-morrow, is there?” Felix asked.
“Not from New York,” Mr. Sabin answered, “but it was never my intention to sail from New York. We are on our way to Boston now, and we sail in the Saxonia at six o’clock to-morrow morning.”
“We appear to be stopping at the Waldorf,” Felix remarked.
“It is quite correct,” Mr. Sabin answered. “Follow me through the hall as quickly as possible. There is another carriage waiting at the other entrance, and I expect to find in it Duson and my dressing-case.”
They alighted and made their way though the crowded vestibules. At the Thirty-fourth Street entrance a carriage was drawn up. Duson was standing upon the pavement, his pale, nervous face whiter than ever under the electric light. Mr. Sabin stopped short.
“Felix,” he said, “one word. If by any chance things have gone wrong they will not have made any arrangements to detain you. Catch the midnight train to Boston and embark on the Saxonia. There will be a cable for you at Liverpool. But the moment you leave me send this despatch.”
Felix nodded and put the crumpled-up piece of paper in his pocket. The two men passed on. Duson took off his hat, but his fingers were trembling. The carriage door was opened and a tall, spare man descended.
“This is Mr. Sabin?” he remarked.
Mr. Sabin bowed.
“That is my name,” he admitted, “by which I have been generally called in this democratic country. What is your business with me?”
“I rather guess that you’re my prisoner,” the man answered. “If you’ll step right in here we can get away quietly.”
“The suggestion,” Mr. Sabin remarked, “sounds inviting, but I am somewhat pressed for time. Might I inquire the nature of the charge you have against me?”
“They’ll tell you that at the office,” the man answered. “Get in, please.”
Mr. Sabin looked around for Felix, but he had disappeared. He took out his cigarette-case.
“You will permit me first to light a cigarette,” he remarked.
“All right! Only look sharp.”
Mr. Sabin kept silence in the carriage. The drive was a long one. When they descended he looked up at Duson, who sat upon the box.
“Duson,” he said, and his voice, though low, was terrible, “I see that I can be mistaken in men. You are a villain.”
The man sprung to his feet, hat in hand. His face was wrung with emotion.
“Your Grace,” he said, “it is true that I betrayed you. But I did it without reward. I am a ruined man. I did it because the orders which came to me were such as I dare not disobey. Here are your keys, your Grace, and money.”
Mr. Sabin looked at him steadily.
“You, too, Duson?”
“I too, alas, your Grace!”
Mr. Sabin considered for a moment.
“Duson,” he said, “I retain you in my service. Take my luggage on board the Campania to-morrow afternoon, and pay the bill at the hotel. I shall join you on the boat.”
Duson was amazed. The man who was standing by laughed.
“If you take my advice, sir,” he remarked, “you’ll order your clothes to be sent here. I’ve a kind of fancy the Campania will sail without you to-morrow.”
“You have my orders, Duson,” Mr. Sabin said. “You can rely upon seeing me.”
The detective led the way into the building, and opened the door leading into a large, barely furnished office.
“Chief’s gone home for the night, I guess,” he remarked. “We can fix up a shakedown for you in one of the rooms behind.”
“I thank you,” Mr. Sabin said, sitting down in a high-backed wooden chair; “I decline to move until the charge against me is properly explained.”
“There is no one here to do it just now,” the man answered. “Better make yourself comfortable for a bit.”
“You detain me here, then,” Mr. Sabin said, “without even a sight of your warrant or any intimation as to the charge against me?”
“Oh, the chief’ll fix all that,” the man answered. “Don’t you worry.”
Mr. Sabin smiled.
In a magnificently furnished apartment somewhere in the neighbourhood of Fifth Avenue a small party of men were seated round a card table piled with chips and rolls of bills. On the sideboard there was a great collection of empty bottles, spirit decanters and Vichy syphons. Mr. Horser was helping himself to brandy and water with one hand and holding himself up with the other. There was a knock at the door.
A man who was still playing looked up. He was about fifty years of age, clean shaven, with vacuous eyes and a weak mouth. He was the host of the party.
“Come in!” he shouted.
A young man entered in a long black overcoat and soft hat. He looked about him without surprise, but he seemed to note Mr. Horser’s presence with some concern. The man at the table threw down his cards.
“What the devil do you want, Smith?”
“An important despatch from Washington has just arrived, sir. I have brought it up with the codebook.”
“From Washington at this time of the night,” he exclaimed thickly. “Come in here, Smith.”
He raised the curtains leading into a small anteroom, and turned up the electric light. His clerk laid the message down on the table before him.
“Here is the despatch, Mr. Mace,” he said, “and here is the translation.”
“English Ambassador demands immediate explanation of arrest of Duke Souspennier at Waldorf to-night. Reply immediately what charge and evidence. Souspennier naturalised Englishman.”
Mr. Mace sprang to his feet with an oath. He threw aside the curtain which shielded the room from the larger apartment.
“Horser, come here, you damned fool!”
Horser, with a stream of magnificent invectives, obeyed the summons. His host pointed to the message.
“Read that!”
Mr. Horser read and his face grew even more repulsive. A dull purple flush suffused his cheeks, his eyes were bloodshot, and the veins on his forehead stood out like cords. He leaned for several moments against the table and steadily cursed Mr. Sabin, the government at Washington, and something under his breath which he did not dare to name openly.
“Oh, shut up!” his host said at last. “How the devil are we going to get out of this?”
Mr. Horser left the room and returned with a tumbler full of brandy and a very little water.
“Take a drink yourself,” he said. “It’ll steady you.”
“Oh, I’m steady enough,” Mr. Mace replied impatiently. “I want to know how you’re going to get us out of this. What was the charge, anyhow?”
“Passing forged bills,” Horser answered. “Parsons fixed it up.”
Mr. Mace turned a shade paler.
“Where the devil’s the sense in a charge like that?” he answered fiercely. “The man’s a millionaire. He’ll turn the tables on us nicely.”
“We’ve got to keep him till after the Campania sails, anyhow,” Horser said doggedly.
“We’re not going to keep him ten minutes,” Mace replied. “I’m going to sign the order for his release.”
Horser’s speech was thick with drunken fury. “By —- I’ll see that you don’t!” he exclaimed.
Mace turned upon him angrily.
“You selfish fool!” he muttered. “You’re not in the thing, anyhow. If you think I’m going to risk my position for the sake of one little job you’re wrong. I shall go down myself and release him, with an apology.”
“He’ll have his revenge all the same,” Horser answered. “It’s too late now to funk the thing. They can’t budge you. We’ll see to that. We hold New York in our hands. Be a man, Mace, and run a little risk. It’s fifty thousand.”
Mace looked up at him curiously.
“What do you get out of it, Horser?”
Horser’s face hardened.
“Not one cent!” he declared fiercely. “Only if I fail it might be unpleasant for me next time I crossed.”
“I don’t know!” Mace declared weakly. “I don’t know what to do. It’s twelve hours, Horser, and the charge is ridiculous.”
“You have me behind you.”
“I can’t tell them that at Washington,” Mace said.
“It’s a fact, all the same. Don’t be so damned nervous.”
Mace dismissed his clerk, and found his other guests, too, on the point of departure. But the last had scarcely left before a servant entered with another despatch.
“Release Souspennier.”
Mace handed it to his companion.
“This settles it,” he declared. “I shall go round and try and make my peace with the fellow.”
Horser stood in the way, burly, half-drunk and vicious. He struck his host in the face with clenched fist. Mace went down with scarcely a groan. A servant, hearing the fall, came hurrying back.
“Your master is drunk and he has fallen down,” Horser said. “Put him to bed—give him a sleeping draught if you’ve got one.”
The servant bent over the unconscious man.
“Hadn’t I better fetch a doctor, sir?” he asked. “I’m afraid he’s hurt.”
“Not he!” Horser answered contemptuously. “He’s cut his cheek a little, that’s all. Put him to bed. Say I shall be round again by nine o’clock.”
Horser put on his coat and left the house. The morning sunlight was flooding the streets. Away down town Mr. Sabin was dozing in his high-backed chair.