He peered forward over his desk at the tall graceful figure whose entrance had been so noiseless, and whose footsteps had been so light that she stood almost within a few feet of him before he was even aware of her presence. Then his surprise was so great that he could only gasp out her name.
“You! Lucille!”
She smiled upon him delightfully.
“Me! Lucille! Don’t blame your servant. I assured him that I was expected, so he allowed me to enter unannounced. His astonishment was a delightful testimony to your reputation, by the bye. He was evidently not used to these invasions.”
Brott had recovered himself by this time, and if any emotion still remained he was master of it.
“You must forgive my surprise!” he said. “You have of course something important to say to me. Will you not loosen your cloak?”
She unfastened the clasp and seated herself in his most comfortable chair. The firelight flashed and glittered on the silver ornaments of her dress; her neck and arms, with their burden of jewels, gleamed like porcelain in the semi-darkness outside the halo of his student lamp. And he saw that her dark hair hung low behind in graceful folds as he had once admired it. He stood a little apart, and she noted his traveling clothes and the various signs of a journey about the room.
“You may be glad to see me,” she remarked, looking at him with a smile. “You don’t look it.”
“I am anxious to hear your news,” he answered. “I am convinced that you have something important to say to me.”
“Supposing,” she answered, still looking at him steadily, “supposing I were to say that I had no object in coming here at all—that it was merely a whim? What should you say then?”
“I should take the liberty,” he answered quietly, “of doubting the evidence of my senses.”
There was a moment’s silence. She felt his aloofness. It awoke in her some of the enthusiasm with which this mission itself had failed to inspire her. This man was measuring his strength against hers.
“It was not altogether a whim,” she said, her eyes falling from his, “and yet—now I am here—it does not seem easy to say what was in my mind.”
He glanced towards the clock.
“I fear,” he said, “that it may sound ungallant, but in case this somewhat mysterious mission of yours is of any importance I had better perhaps tell you that in twenty minutes I must leave to catch the Scotch mail.”
She rose at once to her feet, and swept her cloak haughtily around her.
“I have made a mistake,” she said. “Be so good as to pardon my intrusion. I shall not trouble you again.”
She was half-way across the room. She was at the door, her hand was upon the handle. He was white to the lips, his whole frame was shaking with the effort of intense repression. He kept silence, till only a flutter of her cloak was to be seen in the doorway. And then the cry which he had tried so hard to stifle broke from his lips.
“Lucille! Lucille!”
She hesitated, and came back—looking at him, so he thought, with trembling lips and eyes soft with unshed tears.
“I was a brute,” he murmured. “I ought to be grateful for this chance of seeing you once more, of saying good-bye to you.”
“Good-bye!” she repeated.
“Yes,” he said gravely. “It must be good-bye. I have a great work before me, and it will cut me off completely from all association with your world and your friends. Something wider and deeper than an ocean will divide us. Something so wide that our hands will never reach across.”
“You can talk about it very calmly,” she said, without looking at him.
“I have been disciplining myself,” he answered.
She rested her face upon her hand, and looked into the fire.
“I suppose,” she said, “this means that you have refused Mr. Letheringham’s offer.”
“I have refused it,” he answered.
“I am sorry,” she said simply.
She rose from her chair with a sudden start, began to draw on her cloak, and then let it fall altogether from her shoulders.
“Why do you do this?” she asked earnestly. “Is it that you are so ambitious? You used not to be so—in the old days.”
He laughed bitterly.
“You too, then,” he said, “can remember. Ambitious! Well, why not? To be Premier of England, to stand for the people, to carry through to its logical consummation a bloodless revolution, surely this is worth while. Is there anything in the world better worth having than power?”
“Yes,” she answered, looking him full in the eyes.
“What is it then? Let me know before it is too late.”
“Love!”
He threw his arms about her. For a moment she was powerless in his grasp.
“So be it then,” he cried fiercely. “Give me the one, and I will deny the other. Only no half measures! I will drink to the bottom of the cup or not at all.”
She shook herself free from him, breathless, consumed with an anger to which she dared not give voice. For a moment or two she was speechless. Her bosom rose and fell, a bright streak of colour flared in her cheeks. Brott stood away from her, white and stern.
“You—are clumsy!” she said. “You frighten me!”
Her words carried no conviction. He looked at her with a new suspicion.
“You talk like a child,” he answered roughly, “or else your whole conduct is a fraud. For months I have been your slave. I have abandoned my principles, given you my time, followed at your heels like a tame dog. And for what? You will not marry me, you will not commit yourself to anything. You are a past mistress in the art of binding fools to your chariot wheels. You know that I love you—that there breathes on this earth no other woman for me but you. I have told you this in all save words a hundred times. And now—now it is my turn. I have been played with long enough. You are here unbidden—unexpected. You can consider that door locked. Now tell me why you came.”
Lucille had recovered herself. She stood before him, white but calm.
“Because,” she said, “I am a woman.”
“That means that you came without reason—on impulse?” he asked.
“I came,” she said, “because I heard that you were about to take a step which must separate us for ever.”
“And that,” he asked, “disturbed you?”
“Yes!”
“Come, we are drawing nearer together,” he said, a kindling light in his eyes. “Now answer me this. How much do you care if this eternal separation does come? Here am I on the threshold of action. Unless I change my mind within ten minutes I must throw in my lot with those whom you and your Order loathe and despise. There can be no half measures. I must be their leader, or I must vanish from the face of the political world. This I will do if you bid me. But the price must be yourself—wholly, without reservation—yourself, body and soul.”
“You care—as much as that?” she murmured.
“Ask me no questions, answer mine!” he cried fiercely. “You shall stay with me here—or in five minutes I leave on my campaign.”
She laughed musically.
“This is positively delicious,” she exclaimed. “I am being made love to in medieval fashion. Other times other manners, sir! Will you listen to reason?”
“I will listen to nothing—save your answer, yes or no,” he declared, drawing on his overcoat.
She laid her hand upon his shoulder.
“Reginald,” she said, “you are like the whirlwind—and how can I answer you in five minutes!”
“You can answer me in one,” he declared fiercely. “Will you pay my price if I do your bidding? Yes or no! The price is yourself. Now! Yes or no?”
She drew on her own cloak and fastened the clasp with shaking fingers. Then she turned towards the door.
“I wish you good-bye and good fortune, Reginald,” she said. “I daresay we may not meet again. It will be better that we do not.”
“This then is your answer?” he cried.
She looked around at him. Was it his fancy, or were those tears in her eyes? Or was she really so wonderful an actress?
“Do you think,” she said, “that if I had not cared I should have come here?”
“Tell me that in plain words,” he cried. “It is all I ask.”
The door was suddenly opened. Grahame stood upon the threshold. He looked beyond Lucille to Brott.
“You must really forgive me,” he said, “but there is barely time to catch the train, Brott. I have a hansom waiting, and your luggage is on.”
Brott answered nothing. Lucille held out her hands to him.
“Yes or no?” he asked her in a low hoarse tone.
“You must—give me time! I don’t want to lose you. I—”
He caught up his coat.
“Coming, Grahame,” he said firmly. “Countess, I must beg your pardon ten thousand times for this abrupt departure. My servants will call your carriage.”
She leaned towards him, beautiful, anxious, alluring.
“Reginald!”
“Yes or no,” he whispered in her ear.
“Give me until to-morrow,” she faltered.
“Not one moment,” he answered. “Yes—now, this instant—or I go!”
“Brott! My dear man, we have not a second to lose.”
“You hear!” he muttered. “Yes or no?”
She trembled.
“Give me until to-morrow,” she begged. “It is for your own sake. For your own safety.”
He turned on his heel! His muttered speech was profane, but inarticulate. He sprang into the hansom by Grahame’s side.
“Euston!” the latter cried through the trap-door. “Double fare, cabby. We must catch the Scotchman.”
Lucille came out a few moments later, and looked up and down the street as her brougham drove smartly up. The hansom was fast disappearing in the distance. She looked after it and sighed.
Lucille gave a little start of amazement as she realised that she was not alone in the brougham. She reached out for the check-cord, but a strong hand held hers.
“My dear Lucille,” a familiar voice exclaimed, “why this alarm? Is it your nerves or your eyesight which is failing you?”
Her hand dropped. She turned towards him.
“It is you, then, Prince!” she said. “But why are you here? I do not understand.”
The Prince shrugged his shoulders.
“It is so simple,” he said. “We are all very anxious indeed to hear the result of your interview with Brott—and apart from that, I personally have too few opportunities to act as your escort to let a chance go by. I trust that my presence is not displeasing to you?”
She laughed a little uneasily.
“It is at any rate unnecessary,” she answered. “But since you are here I may as well make my confession. I have failed.”
“It is incredible,” the Prince murmured.
“As you will—but it is true,” she answered. “I have done my very best, or rather my worst, and the result has been failure. Mr. Brott has a great friend—a man named Grahame, whose influence prevailed against mine. He has gone to Scotland.”
“That is serious news,” the Prince said quietly.
Lucille leaned back amongst the cushions.
“After all,” she declared, “we are all out of place in this country. There is no scope whatever for such schemes and intrigues as you and all the rest of them delight in. In France and Russia, even in Austria, it is different. The working of all great organisation there is underground—it is easy enough to meet plot by counterplot, to suborn, to deceive, to undermine. But here all the great games of life seem to be played with the cards upon the table. We are hopelessly out of place. I cannot think, Prince, what ill chance led you to ever contemplate making your headquarters in London.”
The Prince stroked his long moustache.
“That is all very well, Lucille,” he said, “but you must remember that in England we have very large subscriptions to the Order. These people will not go on paying for nothing. There was a meeting of the London branch a few months ago, and it was decided that unless some practical work was done in this country all English subscriptions should cease. We had no alternative but to come over and attempt something. Brott is of course the bete noire of our friends here. He is distinctly the man to be struck at.”
“And what evil stroke of fortune,” Lucille asked, “induced you to send for me?”
“That is a very cruel speech, dear lady,” the Prince murmured.
“I hope,” Lucille said, “that you have never for a moment imagined that I find any pleasure in what I am called upon to do.”
“Why not? It must be interesting. You can have had no sympathy with Brott—a hopeless plebeian, a very paragon of Anglo-Saxon stupidity?”
Lucille laughed scornfully.
“Reginald Brott is a man, at any rate, and an honest one,” she answered. “But I am too selfish to think much of him. It is myself whom I pity. I have a home, Prince, and a husband. I want them both.”
“You amaze me,” the Prince said slowly. “Lucille, indeed, you amaze me. You have been buried alive for three years. Positively we believed that our summons would sound to you like a message from Heaven.”
Lucille was silent for a moment. She rubbed the mist from the carriage window and looked out into the streets.
“Well,” she said, “I hope that you realise now how completely you have misunderstood me. I was perfectly happy in America. I have been perfectly miserable here. I suppose that I have grown too old for intrigues and adventures.”
“Too old, Lucille,” the Prince murmured, leaning a little towards her. “Lucille, you are the most beautiful woman in London. Many others may have told you so, but there is no one, Lucille, who is so devotedly, so hopelessly your slave as I.”
She drew her hand away, and sat back in her corner. The man’s hot breath fell upon her cheek, his eyes seemed almost phosphorescent in the darkness. Lucille could scarcely keep the biting words from her tongue.
“You do not answer me, Lucille. You do not speak even a single kind word to me. Come! Surely we are old friends. We should understand one another. It is not a great deal that I ask from your kindness—not a great deal to you, but it is all the difference between happiness and misery for me.”
“This is a very worn-out game, Prince,” Lucille said coldly. “You have been making love to women in very much the same manner for twenty years, and I—well, to be frank, I am utterly weary of being made love to like a doll. Laugh at me as you will, my husband is the only man who interests me in the slightest. My failure to-day is almost welcome to me. It has at least brought my work here to a close. Come, Prince, if you want to earn my eternal gratitude, tell me now that I am a free woman.”
“You give me credit,” the Prince said slowly, “for great generosity. If I let you go it seems to me that I shall lose you altogether. You will go to your husband. He will take you away!”
“Why not?” Lucille asked. “I want to go. I am tired of London. You cannot lose what you never possessed—what you never had the slightest chance of possessing.”
The Prince laughed softly—not a pleasant laugh, not even a mirthful one.
“Dear lady,” he said, “you speak not wisely. For I am very much in earnest when I say that I love you, and until you are kinder to me I shall not let you go.”
“That is rather a dangerous threat, is it not?” Lucille asked. “You dare to tell me openly that you will abuse your position, that you will keep me bound a servant to the cause, because of this foolish fancy of yours?”
The Prince smiled at her through the gloom—a white, set smile.
“It is no foolish fancy, Lucille. You will find that out before long. You have been cold to me all your life. Yet you would find me a better friend than enemy.”
“If I am to choose,” she said steadily, “I shall choose the latter.”
“As you will,” he answered. “In time you will change your mind.”
The carriage had stopped. The Prince alighted and held out his hand. Lucille half rose, and then with her foot upon the step she paused and looked around.
“Where are we?” she exclaimed. “This is not Dorset House.”
“No, we are in Grosvenor Square,” the Prince answered. “I forgot to tell you that we have a meeting arranged for here this evening. Permit me.” But Lucille resumed her seat in the carriage.
“It is your house, is it not?” she asked.
“Yes. My house assuredly.”
“Very well,” Lucille said. “I will come in when the Duchess of Dorset shows herself at the window or the front door—or Felix, or even De Brouillae.”
The Prince still held open the carriage door.
“They will all be here,” he assured her. “We are a few minutes early.”
“Then I will drive round to Dorset House and fetch the Duchess. It is only a few yards.”
The Prince hesitated. His cheeks were very white, and something like a scowl was blackening his heavy, insipid face.
“Lucille,” he said, “you are very foolish. It is not much I ask of you, but that little I will have or I pledge my word to it that things shall go ill with you and your husband. There is plain speech for you. Do not be absurd. Come within, and let us talk. What do you fear? The house is full of servants, and the carriage can wait for you here.”
Lucille smiled at him—a maddening smile.
“I am not a child,” she said, “and such conversations as I am forced to hold with you will not be under your own roof. Be so good as to tell the coachman to drive to Dorset House.”
The Prince turned on his heel with a furious oath.
“He can drive you to Hell,” he answered thickly.
Lucille found the Duchess and Lady Carey together at Dorset House. She looked from one to the other.
“I thought that there was a meeting to-night,” she remarked.
The Duchess shook her head.
“Not to-night,” she answered. “It would not be possible. General Dolinski is dining at Marlborough House, and De Broullae is in Paris. Now tell us all about Mr. Brott.”
“He has gone to Scotland,” Lucille answered. “I have failed.”
Lady Carey looked up from the depths of the chair in which she was lounging.
“And the prince?” she asked. “He went to meet you!”
“He also failed,” Lucille answered.
Mr. SABIN drew a little breath, partly of satisfaction because he had discovered the place he sought, and partly of disgust at the neighbourhood in which he found himself. Nevertheless, he descended three steps from the court into which he had been directed, and pushed open the swing door, behind which Emil Sachs announced his desire to supply the world with dinners at eightpence and vin ordinaire at fourpence the small bottle.
A stout black-eyed woman looked up at his entrance from behind the counter. The place was empty.
“What does monsieur require she asked, peering forward through the gloom with some suspicion. For the eightpenny dinners were the scorn of the neighbourhood, and strangers were rare in the wine shop of Emil Sachs.”
Mr. Sabin smiled.
“One of your excellent omelettes, my good Annette,” he answered, “if your hand has not lost its cunning!”
She gave a little cry.
“It is monsieur!” she exclaimed. “After all these years it is monsieur! Ah, you will pardon that I did not recognise you. This place is a cellar. Monsieur has not changed. In the daylight one would know him anywhere.”
The woman talked fast, but even in that dim light Mr. Sabin knew quite well that she was shaking with fear. He could see the corners of her mouth twitch. Her black eyes rolled incessantly, but refused to meet his. Mr. Sabin frowned.
“You are not glad to see me, Annette!”
She leaned over the counter.
“For monsieur’s own sake,” she whispered, “go!”
Mr. Sabin stood quite still for a short space of time.
“Can I rest in there for a few minutes?” he asked, pointing to the door which led into the room beyond.
The woman hesitated. She looked up at the clock and down again.
“Emil will return,” she said, “at three. Monsieur were best out of the neighbourhood before then. For ten minutes it might be safe.”
Mr. Sabin passed forward. The woman lifted the flap of the counter and followed him. Within was a smaller room, far cleaner and better appointed than the general appearance of the place promised. Mr. Sabin seated himself at one of the small tables. The linen cloth, he noticed, was spotless, the cutlery and appointments polished and clean.
“This, I presume,” he remarked, “is not where you serve the eightpenny table d’hote?”
The woman shrugged her shoulders.
“But it would not be possible,” she answered. “We have no customers for that. If one arrives we put together a few scraps. But one must make a pretense. Monsieur understands?”
Mr. Sabin nodded.
“I will take,” he said, “a small glass of fin champagne.”
She vanished, and reappeared almost immediately with the brandy in a quaintly cut liqueur glass. A glance at the clock as she passed seemed to have increased her anxiety.
“If monsieur will drink his liqueur and depart,” she prayed. “Indeed, it will be for the best.”
Mr. Sabin set down his glass. His steadfast gaze seemed to reduce Annette into a state of nervous panic.
“Annette,” he said, “they have placed me upon the list.”
“It is true, monsieur,” she answered. “Why do you come here?”
“I wanted to know first for certain that they had ventured so far,” Mr. Sabin said. “I believe that I am only the second person in this country who has been so much honoured.”
The woman drew nearer to him.
“Monsieur,” she said, “your only danger is to venture into such parts as these. London is so safe, and the law is merciless. They only watch. They will attempt nothing. Do not leave England. There is here no machinery of criminals. Besides, the life of monsieur is insured.”
“Insured?” Mr. Sabin remarked quietly. “That is good news. And who pays the premium?”
“A great lady, monsieur! I know no more. Monsieur must go indeed. He has found his way into the only place in London where he is not safe.”
Mr. Sabin rose.
“You are expecting, perhaps,” he said, “one of my friends from the—”
She interrupted him.
“It is true,” she declared. “He may be here at any instant. The time is already up. Oh, monsieur, indeed, indeed it would not do for him to find you.”
Mr. Sabin moved towards the door.
“You are perhaps right,” he said regretfully, “although I should much like to hear about this little matter of life insurance while I am here.”
“Indeed, monsieur,” Annette declared, “I know nothing. There is nothing which I can tell monsieur.”
Mr. Sabin suddenly leaned forward. His gaze was compelling. His tone was low but terrible.
“Annette,” he said, “obey me. Send Emil here.”
The woman trembled, but she did not move. Mr. Sabin lifted his forefinger and pointed slowly to the door. The woman’s lips parted, but she seemed to have lost the power of speech.
“Send Emil here!” Mr. Sabin repeated slowly.
Annette turned and left the room, groping her way to the door as though her eyesight had become uncertain. Mr. Sabin lit a cigarette and looked for a moment carefully into the small liqueur glass out of which he had drunk.
“That was unwise,” he said softly to himself. “Just such a blunder might have cost me everything.”
He held it up to the light and satisfied himself that no dregs remained. Then he took from his pocket a tiny little revolver, and placing it on the table before him, covered it with his handkerchief. Almost immediately a door at the farther end of the room opened and closed. A man in dark clothes, small, unnaturally pale, with deep-set eyes and nervous, twitching mouth, stood before him. Mr. Sabin smiled a welcome at him.
“Good-morning, Emil Sachs,” he said. “I am glad that you have shown discretion. Stand there in the light, please, and fold your arms. Thanks. Do not think that I am afraid of you, but I like to talk comfortably.”
“I am at monsieur’s service,” the man said in a low tone.
“Exactly. Now, Emil, before starting to visit you I left a little note behind addressed to the chief of the police here—no, you need not start—to be sent to him only if my return were unduly delayed. You can guess what that note contained. It is not necessary for us to revert to—unpleasant subjects.”
The man moistened his dry lips.
“It is not necessary,” he repeated. “Monsieur is as safe here—from me—as at his own hotel.”
“Excellent!” Mr. Sabin said. “Now listen, Emil. It has pleased me chiefly, as you know, for the sake of your wife, the good Annette, to be very merciful to you as regards the past. But I do not propose to allow you to run a poison bureau for the advantage of the Prince of Saxe Leinitzer and his friends—more especially, perhaps, as I am at present upon his list of superfluous persons.”
The man trembled.
“Monsieur,” he said, “the Prince knows as much as you know, and he has not the mercy that one shows to a dog.”
“You will find,” Mr. Sabin said, “that if you do not obey me, I myself can develop a similar disposition. Now answer me this! You have within the last few days supplied several people with that marvelous powder for the preparation of which you are so justly famed.”
“Several—no, monsieur! Two only.”
“Their names?”
The man trembled.
“If they should know!”
“They will not, Emil. I will see to that.”
“The first I supplied to the order of the Prince.”
“Good! And the second?”
“To a lady whose name I do not know.”
Mr. Sabin raised his eyebrows.
“Is not that,” he remarked, “a little irregular?”
“The lady wrote her request before me in the yellow crayon. It was sufficient.”
“And you do not know her name, Emil?”
“No, monsieur. She was dark and tall, and closely veiled. She was here but a few minutes since.”
“Dark and tall!” Mr. Sabin repeated to himself thoughtfully. “Emil, you are telling me the truth?”
“I do not dare to tell you anything else, monsieur,” the man answered.
Mr. Sabin did not continue his interrogations for a few moments. Suddenly he looked up.
“Has that lady left the place yet, Emil?”
“No, monsieur!”
Mr. Sabin smiled.
“Have you a back exit?” he asked.
“None that the lady would know of,” Emil answered. “She must pass along the passage which borders this apartment, and enter the bar by a door from behind. If monsieur desires it, it is impossible for her to leave unobserved.”
“That is excellent, Emil,” Mr. Sabin said. “Now there is one more question—quite a harmless one. Annette spoke of my life being in some way insured.”
“It is true, monsieur,” Emil admitted. “A lady who also possessed the yellow crayon came here the day that—that monsieur incurred the displeasure of—of his friends. She tried to bribe me to blow up my laboratory and leave the country, or that I should substitute a harmless powder for any required by the Prince. I was obliged to refuse.”
“And then?”
“Then she promised me a large sum if you were alive in six months, and made me at once a payment.
“Dear me,” Mr. Sabin said, “this is quite extraordinary.”
“I can tell monsieur the lady’s name,” Emil continued, “for she raised her veil, and everywhere the illustrated papers have been full of her picture. It was the lady who was besieged in a little town of South Africa, and who carried despatches for the general, disguised as a man.”
“Lady Carey!” Mr. Sabin remarked quietly.
“That was the lady’s name,” Emil agreed.
Mr. Sabin was thoughtful for a few moments. Then he looked up.
“Emil Sachs,” he said sternly, “you have given out at least one portion of your abominable concoction which is meant to end my days. Whether I shall escape it or not remains to be seen. I am forced at the best to discharge my servant, and to live the life of a hunted man. Now you have done enough mischief in the world. To-morrow morning a messenger will place in your hands two hundred pounds. A larger sum will await you at Baring’s Bank in New York. You will go there and buy a small restaurant in the business quarter. This is your last chance, Emil. I give it to you for the sake of Annette.”
“And I accept it, monsieur, with gratitude.”
“For the present—”
Mr. Sabin stopped short. His quick ears had caught the swish of woman’s gown passing along the passage outside. Emil too had heard it.
“It is the dark lady,” he whispered, “who purchased from me the other powder. See, I open gently this door. Monsieur must both see and hear.”
The door at the end of the passage was opened. A woman stepped out into the little bar and made her way towards the door. Here she was met by a man entering. Mr. Sabin held up his forefinger to stop the terrified exclamation which trembled on Emil’s lips. The woman was Lucille, the man the Prince. It was Lucille who was speaking.
“You have followed me, Prince. It is intolerable.”
“Dear Lucille, it is for your own sake. These are not fit parts for you to visit alone.”
“It is my own business,” she answered coldly.
The Prince appeared to be in a complaisant mood.
“Come,” he said, “the affair is not worth a quarrel. I ask you no questions. Only since we are here I propose that we test the cooking of the good Annette. We will lunch together.”
“What, here?” she answered. “Absurd.”
“By no means,” he answered. “As you doubtless know, the exterior of the place is entirely misleading. These people are old servants of mine. I can answer for the luncheon.”
“You can also eat it,” came the prompt reply. “I am returning to the carriage.”
“But—”
Mr. Sabin emerged through the swing door. “Your discretion, my dear Lucille,” he said, smiling, “is excellent. The place is indeed better than it seems, and Annette’s cookery may be all that the Prince claims. Yet I think I know better places for a luncheon party, and the ventilation is not of the best. May I suggest that you come with me instead to the Milan?”
“Victor! You here?”
Mr. Sabin smiled as he admitted the obvious fact. The Prince’s face was as black as night.
“Believe me,” Mr. Sabin said, turning to the Prince, “I sympathise entirely with your feelings at the present moment. I myself have suffered in precisely the same manner. The fact is, intrigue in this country is almost an impossibility. At Paris, Vienna, Pesth, how different! You raise your little finger, and the deed is done. Superfluous people—like myself—are removed like the hairs from your chin. But here intrigue seems indeed to exist only within the pages of a shilling novel, or in a comic opera. The gentleman with a helmet there, who regards us so benignly, will presently earn a shilling by calling me a hansom. Yet in effect he does me a far greater service. He stands for a multitude of cold Anglo-Saxon laws, adamant, incorruptible, inflexible—as certain as the laws of Nature herself. I am quite aware that by this time I ought to be lying in a dark cellar with a gag in my mouth, or perhaps in the river with a dagger in my chest. But here in England, no!”
The Prince smiled—to all appearance a very genial smile.
“You are right, my dear friend,” he said, “yet what you say possesses, shall we call it, a somewhat antediluvian flavour. Intrigue is no longer a clumsy game of knife and string and bowl. It becomes to-day a game of finesse. I can assure you that I have no desire to give a stage whistle and have you throttled at my feet. On the contrary, I beg you to use my carriage, which you will find in the street. You will lunch at the Milan with Lucille, and I shall retire discomfited to eat alone at my club. But the game is a long one, my dear friend. The new methods take time.”
“This conversation,” Mr. Sabin said to Lucille, “is interesting, but it is a little ungallant. I think that we will resume it at some future occasion. Shall we accept the Prince’s offer, or shall we be truly democratic and take a hansom.”
Lucille passed her arm through his and laughed.
“You are robbing the Prince of me,” she declared. “Let us leave him his carriage.”
She nodded her farewells to Saxe Leinitzer, who took leave of them with a low bow. As they waited at the corner for a hansom Mr. Sabin glanced back. The Prince had disappeared through the swing doors.
“I want you to promise me one thing,” Lucille said earnestly.
“It is promised,” Mr. Sabin answered.
“You will not ask me the reason of my visit to this place?”
“I have no curiosity,” Mr. Sabin answered. “Come!”
Mr. Sabin, contrary to his usual custom, engaged a private room at the Milan. Lucille was in the highest spirits.
“If only this were a game instead of reality!” she said, flashing a brilliant smile at him across the table, “I should find it most fascinating. You seem to come to me always when I want you most. And do you know, it is perfectly charming to be carried off by you in this manner.”
Mr. Sabin smiled at her, and there was a look in his eyes which shone there for no other woman.
“It is in effect,” he said, “keeping me young. Events seem to have enclosed us in a curious little cobweb. All the time we are struggling between the rankest primitivism and the most delicate intrigue. To-day is the triumph of primitivism.”
“Meaning that you, the medieval knight, have carried me off, the distressed maiden, on your shoulder.”
“Having confounded my enemy,” he continued, smiling, “by an embarrassing situation, a little argument, and the distant view of a policeman’s helmet.”
“This,” she remarked, with a little satisfied sigh as she selected an ortolan, “is a very satisfactory place to be carried off to. And you,” she added, leaning across the table and touching his fingers for a moment tenderly, “are a very delightful knight-errant.”
He raised the fingers to his lips—the waiter had left the room. She blushed, but yielded her hand readily enough.
“Victor,” she murmured, “you would spoil the most faithless woman on earth for all her lovers. You make me very impatient.”
“Impatience, then,” he declared, “must be the most infectious of fevers. For I too am a terrible sufferer.”
“If only the Prince,” she said, “would be reasonable.”
“I am afraid,” Mr. Sabin answered, “that from him we have not much to hope for.”
“Yet,” she continued, “I have fulfilled all the conditions. Reginald Brott remains the enemy of our cause and Order. Yet some say that his influence upon the people is lessened. In any case, my work is over. He began to mistrust me long ago. To-day I believe that mistrust is the only feeling he has in connection with me. I shall demand my release.”
“I am afraid,” Mr. Sabin said, “that Saxe Leinitzer has other reasons for keeping you at Dorset House.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“He has been very persistent even before I left Vienna. But he must know that it is hopeless. I have never encouraged him.”
“I am sure of it,” Mr. Sabin said. “It is the incorrigible vanity of the man which will not be denied. He has been taught to believe himself irresistible. I have never doubted you for a single moment, Lucille. I could not. But you have been the slave of these people long enough. As you say, your task is over. Its failure was always certain. Brott believes in his destiny, and it will be no slight thing which will keep him from following it. They must give you back to me.”
“We will go back to America,” she said. “I have never been so happy as at Lenox.”
“Nor I,” Mr. Sahin said softly.
“Besides,” she continued, “the times have changed since I joined the Society. In Hungary you know how things were. The Socialists were carrying all before them, a united solid body. The aristocracy were forced to enter into some sort of combination against them. We saved Austria, I am not sure that we did not save Russia. But England is different. The aristocracy here are a strong resident class. They have their House of Lords, they own the land, and will own it for many years to come, their position is unassailable. It is the worst country in Europe for us to work in. The very climate and the dispositions of the people are inimical to intrigue. It is Muriel Carey who brought the Society here. It was a mistake. The country is in no need of it. There is no scope for it.”
“If only one could get beyond Saxe Leinitzer,” Mr. Sabin said.
She shook her head.
“Behind him,” she said, “there is only the one to whom all reference is forbidden. And there is no man in the world who would be less likely to listen to an appeal from you—or from me.”
“After all,” Mr. Sabin said, “though Saxe Leinitzer is our enemy, I am not sure that he can do us any harm. If he declines to release you—well, when the twelve months are up you are free whether he wishes it or not. He has put me outside the pale. But this is not, or never was, a vindictive Society. They do not deal in assassinations. In this country at least anything of the sort is rarely attempted. If I were a young man with my life to live in the capitals of Europe I should be more or less a social outcast, I suppose. But I am proof against that sort of thing.”
Lucille looked a little doubtful.
“The Prince,” she said, “is an intriguer of the old school. I know that in Vienna he has more than once made use of more violent means than he would dare to do here. And there is an underneath machinery very seldom used, I believe, and of which none of us who are ordinary members know anything at all, which gives him terrible powers.”
Mr. Sabin nodded grimly.
“It was worked against me in America,” he said, “but I got the best of it. Here in England I do not believe that he would dare to use it. If so, I think that before now it would have been aimed at Brott. I have just read his Glasgow speech. If he becomes Premier it will lead to something like a revolution.”
She sighed.
“Brott is a clever man, and a strong man,” she said. “I am sorry for him, but I do not believe that he will never become Prime Minister of England.”
Mr. Sabin sipped his wine thoughtfully.
“I believe,” he said, “that intrigue is the resource of those who have lived their lives so quickly that they have found weariness. For these things to-day interest me very little. I am only anxious to have you back again, Lucille, to find ourselves on our way to our old home.”
She laughed softly.
“And I used to think,” she said, “that after all I could only keep you a little time—that presently the voices from the outside world would come whispering in your ears, and you would steal back again to where the wheels of life were turning.”
“A man,” he answered, “is not easily whispered out of Paradise.”
She laughed at him.
“Ah, it is so easy,” she said, “to know that your youth was spent at a court.”
“There is only one court,” he answered, “where men learn to speak the truth.”
She leaned back in her chair.
“Oh, you are incorrigible,” she said softly. “The one role in life in which I fancied you ill at ease you seem to fill to perfection.”
“And that?”
“You are an adorable husband!”
“I should like,” he said, “a better opportunity to prove it!”
“Let us hope,” she murmured, “that our separation is nearly over. I shall appeal to the Prince to-night. My remaining at Dorset House is no longer necessary.”
“I shall come,” he said, “and demand you in person.”
She shook her head.
“No! They would not let you in, and it would make it more difficult. Be patient a little longer.”
He came and sat by her side. She leaned over to meet his embrace.
“You make patience,” he murmured, “a torture!”
Mr. Sabin walked home to his rooms late in the afternoon, well content on the whole with his day. He was in no manner prepared for the shock which greeted him on entering his sitting-room. Duson was leaning back in his most comfortable easy-chair.
“Duson!” Mr. Sabin said sharply. “What does this mean?”
There was no answer. Mr. Sabin moved quickly forward, and then stopped short. He had seen dead men, and he knew the signs. Duson was stone dead.
Mr. Sabin’s nerve answered to this demand upon it. He checked his first impulse to ring the bell, and looked carefully on the table for some note or message from the dead man. He found it almost at once—a large envelope in Duson’s handwriting. Mr. Sabin hastily broke the seal and read: