“For my husband,“with love from“Lucille.”
Mr. Passmore shrugged his shoulders. He had not the vice of obstinacy, and he knew when to abandon a theory.
“I am corrected,” he said. “In any case, a mystery remains as well worth solving. Who are these people at whose instigation Duson was to have murdered you—these people whom Duson feared so much that suicide was his only alternative to obeying their behests?”
Mr. Sabin smiled faintly.
“Ah, my dear Passmore,” he said, “you must not ask me that question. I can only answer you in this way. If you wish to make the biggest sensation which has ever been created in the criminal world, to render yourself immortal, and your fame imperishable—find out! I may not help you, I doubt whether you will find any to help you. But if you want excitement, the excitement of a dangerous chase after a tremendous quarry, take your life in your hands, go in and win.”
Passmore’s withered little face lit up with a gleam of rare excitement.
“These are your enemies, sir,” he said. “They have attempted your life once, they may do it again. Assume the offensive yourself. Give me a hint.”
Mr. Sabin shook his head.
“That I cannot do,” he said. “I have saved you from wasting your time on a false scent. I have given you something definite to work upon. Further than that I can do nothing.”
Passmore looked his disappointment, but he knew Mr. Sabin better than to argue the matter.
“You will not even produce that letter at the inquest?” he asked.
“Not even that,” Mr. Sabin answered.
Passmore rose to his feet.
“You must remember,” he said, “that supposing any one else stumbles upon the same trail as I have been pursuing, and suspicion is afterwards directed towards madame, your not producing that letter at the inquest will make it useless as evidence in her favour.”
“I have considered all these things,” Mr. Sabin said. “I shall deposit the letter in a safe place. But its use will never be necessary. You are the only man who might have forced me to produce it, and you know the truth.”
Passmore rose reluctantly.
“I want you,” Mr. Sabin said, “to leave me not only your address, but the means of finding you at any moment during the next four-and-twenty hours. I may have some important work for you.”
The man smiled as he tore leaf from his pocketbook and a made a few notes.
“I shall be glad to take any commission from you, sir,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I scarcely thought that you would be content to sit down and wait.”
Mr. Sabin smiled.
“I think,” he said, “that very shortly I can find you plenty to do.”
Mr. Sabin a few minutes afterwards ordered his carriage, and was driven to Dorset House. He asked for Lucille, but was shown at once into the library, where the Duke was awaiting him. Then Mr. Sabin knew that something had happened.
The Duke extended his hand solemnly.
“My dear Souspennier,” he said, “I am glad to see you. I was in fact on the point of despatching a messenger to your hotel.”
“I am glad,” Mr. Sabin remarked, “that my visit is opportune. To tell you the truth, Duke, I am anxious to see my wife.”
The Duke coughed.
“I trust,” he said, “that you will not for a moment consider me guilty of any discourtesy to the Countess, for whom I have a great respect and liking. But it has come to my knowledge that the shelter of my roof and name were being given to proceedings of which I heartily disapproved. I therefore only a few hours ago formally broke off all connection with Saxe Leinitzer and his friends, and to put the matter plainly, I expelled them from the house.”
“I congratulate you heartily, Duke, upon a most sensible proceeding,” Mr. Sabin said. “But in the meantime where is my wife?”
“Your wife was not present at the time,” the Duke answered, “and I had not the slightest intention of including her in the remarks I made. Whether she understood this or not I cannot say, but I have since been given to understand that she left with them.”
“How long ago?” Mr. Sabin asked.
“Several hours, I fear,” the Duke answered. “I should like, Souspennier, to express to you my regrets that I was ever induced to become connected in any way with proceedings which must have caused you a great deal of pain. I beg you to accept my apologies.”
“I do not blame you, Duke,” Mr. Sabin said. “My one desire now is to wrest my wife away from this gang. Can you tell me whether she left alone or with any of them?”
“I will endeavour to ascertain,” the Duke said, ringing the bell.
But before the Duke’s somewhat long-winded series of questions had gone very far Mr. Sabin grasped the fact that the servants had been tampered with. Without wasting any more time he took a somewhat hurried leave and drove back to the hotel. One of the hall porters approached him, smiling.
“There is a lady waiting for you in your rooms, sir,” he announced. “She arrived a few minutes ago.”
Mr. Sabin rang for the elevator, got out at his floor and walked down the corridor, leaning a little more heavily than usual upon his stick. If indeed it were Lucille who had braved all and come to him the way before them might still be smooth sailing. He would never let her go again. He was sure of that. They would leave England—yes, there was time still to catch the five o’clock train. He turned the handle of his door and entered. A familiar figure rose from the depths of his easy-chair. Her hat lay on the table, her jacket was open, one of his cigarettes was between her lips. But it was not Lucille.
“Lady Carey!” he said slowly. “This is an unexpected pleasure. Have you brought Lucille with you?”
“I am afraid,” she answered, “that I have no ropes strong enough.”
“You insinuate,” he remarked, “that Lucille would be unwilling to come.”
“There is no longer any need,” she declared, with a hard little laugh, “for insinuations. We have all been turned out from Dorset House neck and crop. Lucille has accepted the inevitable. She has gone to Reginald’s Brott’s rooms.”
Mr. Sabin smiled.
“Indeed. I have just come from Dorset House myself. The Duke has supplied me with a highly entertaining account of his sudden awakening. The situation must have been humorous.”
Her eyes twinkled.
“It was really screamingly funny. The Duke had on his house of Lords manner, and we all sat round like a lot of naughty children. If only you had been there.”
Mr. Sabin smiled. Suddenly she laid her hand upon his arm.
“Victor,” she said, “I have come to prove that I am your friend. You do not believe that Lucille is with Reginald Brott. It is true! Not only that, but she is leaving England with him to-night. The man’s devotion is irresistible—he has been gaining on her slowly but surely all the time.”
“I have noticed,” Mr. Sabin remarked calmly, “that he has been wonderfully assiduous. I am sure I congratulate him upon his success, if he has succeeded.”
“You doubt my word of course,” she said. “But I have not come here to tell you things. I have come to prove them. I presume that what you see with your own eyes will be sufficient.”
Mr. Sabin shook his head.
“Certainly not,” he answered. “I make it a rule to believe nothing that I see, and never to trust my ears.”
She stamped her foot lightly upon the floor.
“How impossible you are,” she exclaimed. “I can tell you by what train Lucille and Reginald Brott will leave London to-night. I can tell you why Lucille is bound to go.”
“Now,” Mr. Sabin said, “you are beginning to get interesting.”
“Lucille must go—or run the risk of arrest for complicity in the murder of Duson.”
“Are you serious?” Mr. Sabin asked, with admirably assumed gravity.
“Is it a jesting matter?” she answered fiercely. “Lucille bought poison, the same poison which it will be proved that Duson died of. She came here, she was the last person to enter your room before Duson was found dead. The police are even now searching for her. Escape is her only chance.”
“Dear me,” Mr. Sabin said. “Then it is not only for Brott’s sake that she is running away.”
“What does that matter? She is going, and she is going with him.”
“And why,” he asked, “do you come to give me warning? I have plenty of time to interpose.”
“You can try if you will. Lucille is in hiding. She will not see you if you go to her. She is determined. Indeed, she has no choice. Lucille is a brave woman in many ways, but you know that she fears death. She is in a corner. She is forced to go.”
“Again,” he said, “I feel that I must ask you why do you give me warning?”
She came and stood close to him.
“Perhaps,” she said earnestly, “I am anxious to earn your gratitude. Perhaps, too, I know that no interposition of yours would be of any avail.”
Mr. Sabin smiled.
“Still,” he said, “I do not think that it is wise of you. I might appear at the station and forcibly prevent Lucille’s departure. After all, she is my wife, you know.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I am not afraid,” she said. “You will make inquiries when I have gone, and you will find out that I have spoken the truth. If you keep Lucille in England you will expose her to a terrible risk. It is not like you to be selfish. You will yield to necessity.”
“Will you tell me where Lucille is now?” he asked.
“For your own sake and hers, no,” she answered. “You also are watched. Besides, it is too late. She was with Brott half an hour after the Duke turned us out of Dorset House. Don’t you understand, Victor—won’t you? It is too late.”
He sat down heavily in his easy-chair. His whole appearance was one of absolute dejection.
“So I am to be left alone in my old age,” he murmured. “You have your revenge now at last. You have come to take it.”
She sank on her knees by the side of his chair, and her arms fell upon his shoulders.
“How can you think so cruelly of me, Victor,” she murmured. “You were always a little mistaken in Lucille. She loved you, it is true, but all her life she has been fond of change and excitement. She came to Europe willingly—long before this Brott would have been her slave save for your reappearance. Can’t you forget her—for a little while?”
Mr. Sabin sat quite still. Her hair brushed his cheeks, her arms were about his neck, her whole attitude was an invitation for his embrace. But he sat like a figure of stone, neither repulsing nor encouraging her.
“You need not be alone unless you like,” she whispered.
“I am an old man,” he said slowly, “and this is a hard blow for me to bear. I must be sure, absolutely sure that she has gone.”
“By this time to-morrow,” she murmured, “all the world will know it.”
“Come to me then,” he said. “I shall need consolation.”
Her eyes were bright with triumph. She leaned over him and kissed him on the lips. Then she sprang lightly to her feet.
“Wait here for me,” she said, “and I will come to you. You shall know, Victor, that Lucille is not the only woman in the world who has cared for you.”
There was a tap at the door. Lady Carey was busy adjusting her hat. Passmore entered, and stood hesitating upon the threshold. Mr. Sabin had risen to his feet. He took one of her hands and raised it to his lips. She gave him a swift, wonderful look and passed out.
Mr. Sabin’s manner changed as though by magic. He was at once alert and vigorous.
“My dear Passmore,” he said, “come to the table. We shall want those Continental time-tables and the London A.B.C. You will have to take a journey to-night.”
The two women were alone in the morning-room of Lady Carey’s house in Pont Street. Lucille was walking restlessly up and down twisting her handkerchief between her fingers. Lady Carey was watching her, more composed, to all outward appearance, but with closely compressed lips, and boding gleam in her eyes.
“I think,” Lady Carey said, “that you had better see him.”
Lucille turned almost fiercely upon her.
“And why?”
“Well, for one thing he will not understand your refusal. He may be suspicious.”
“What does it matter? I have finished with him. I have done all that I pledged myself to. What more can be expected of me? I do not wish to see him again.”
Lady Carey laughed.
“At least,” she said, “I think that the poor man has a right to receive his congé from you. You cannot break with him without a word of explanation. Perhaps—you may not find it so easy as it seems.”
Lucille swept around.
“What do you mean?”
Lady Carey shrugged her shoulders.
“You are in a curious mood, my dear Lucille. What I mean is obvious enough. Brott is a strong man and a determined man. I do not think that he will enjoy being made a fool of.”
Lucille was indifferent.
“At any rate,” she said, “I shall not see him. I have quite made up my mind about that.”
“And why not, Countess?” a deep voice asked from the threshold. “What have I done? May I not at least know my fault?”
Lady Carey rose and moved towards the door.
“You shall have it out between yourselves,” she declared, looking up, and nodding at Brott as she passed. “Don’t fight!”
“Muriel!”
The cry was imperative, but Lady Carey had gone. Mr. Brott closed the door behind him and confronted Lucille. A brilliant spot of colour flared in her pale cheeks.
“But this is a trap!” she exclaimed. “Who sent for you? Why did you come?”
He looked at her in surprise.
“Lucille!”
His eyes were full of passionate remonstrance. She looked nervously from him towards the door. He intercepted her glance.
“What have I done?” he asked fiercely. “What have I failed to do? Why do you look as though I had forced myself upon you? Haven’t I the right? Don’t you wish to see me?”
In Brott’s face and tone was all the passionate strenuousness of a great crisis. Lucille felt suddenly helpless before the directness of his gaze, his storm of questions. In all their former intercourse it had been she who by virtue of her sex and his blind love for her had kept the upper hand. And now the position was changed. All sorts of feeble explanations, of appeals to him, occurred to her dimly, only to be rejected by reason of their ridiculous inadequacy. She was silent-abjectly silent.
He came a little closer to her, and the strength of the man was manifest in his intense self-restraint. His words were measured, his tone quiet. Yet both somehow gave evidence of the smouldering fires beneath.
“Lucille,” he said, “I find you hard to understand to-day. You have made me your slave, you came once more into my life at its most critical moment, and for your sake I have betrayed a great trust. My conscience, my faith, and although that counts for little, my political career, were in the balance against my love for you. You know which conquered. At your bidding I have made myself the jest of every man who buys the halfpenny paper and calls himself a politician. My friends heap abuse upon me, my enemies derision. I cannot hold my position in this new Cabinet. I had gone too far for compromise. I wonder if you quite understand what has happened?”
“Oh, I have heard too much,” she cried. “Spare me the rest.”
He continued as though he had not heard her.
“Men who have been my intimate associates for many years, and whose friendship was dear to me, cross the road to avoid: meeting me, day by day I am besieged with visitors and letters from the suffering people to whom my word had been pledged, imploring me for some explanation, for one word of denial. Life has become a hell for me, a pestilent, militant hell! Yet, Lucille, unless you break faith with me I make no complaint. I am content.”
“I am very sorry,” she said. “I do not think that you have properly understood me. I have never made you any promise.”
For a moment he lost control of himself. She shrank back at the blaze of indignation, half scornful, half incredulous, which lit up his clear, grey eyes.
“It is a lie!” he answered. “Between you and me it can be no question of words. You were always very careful of your pledges, but there are limits even to your caution—as to my forbearance. A woman does not ask a man who is pleading to her for her love to give up everything else he cares for in life without hope of reward. It is monstrous! I never sought you under false pretenses. I never asked you for your friendship. I wanted you. I told you so plainly. You won’t deny that you gave me hope—encouraged me? You can’t even deny that I am within my rights if I claim now at this instant the reward for my apostasy.”
Her hands were suddenly locked in his. She felt herself being drawn into his arms. With a desperate effort she avoided his embrace. He still held her left wrist, and his face was dark with passion.
“Let me go!” she pleaded.
“Not I!” he answered, with an odd, choked little laugh. “You belong to me. I have paid the price. I, too, am amongst the long list of those poor fools who have sold their gods and their honour for a woman’s kiss. But I will not be left wholly destitute. You shall pay me for what I have lost.”
“Oh, you are mad!” she answered. “How could you have deceived yourself so? Don’t you know that my husband is in London?”
“The man who calls himself Mr. Sabin?” he answered roughly. “What has that to do with it? You are living apart. Saxe Leinitzer and the Duchess have both told me the history of your married life. Or is the whole thing a monstrous lie?” he cried, with a sudden dawning sense of the truth. “Nonsense! I won’t believe it. Lucille! You’re not afraid! I shall be good to you. You don’t doubt that. Sabin will divorce you of course. You won’t lose your friends. I—”
There was a sudden loud tapping at the door. Brott dropped her wrist and turned round with an exclamation of anger. To Lucille it was a Heaven-sent interposition. The Prince entered, pale, and with signs of hurry and disorder about his usually immaculate person.
“You are both here,” he exclaimed. “Good! Lucille, I must speak with you urgently in five minutes. Brott, come this way with me.”
Lucille sank into a chair with a little murmur of relief. The Prince led Brott into another room, and closed the door carefully behind him.
“Mr. Brott,” he said, “can I speak to you as a friend of Lucille’s?”
Brott, who distrusted the Prince, looked him steadily in the face. Saxe Leinitzer’s agitation was too apparent to be wholly assumed. He had all the appearance of being a man desperately in earnest.
“I have always considered myself one,” Brott answered. “I am beginning to doubt, however, whether the Countess holds me in the same estimation.”
“You found her hysterical, unreasonable, overwrought!” the Prince exclaimed. “That is so, eh?”
The Prince drew a long breath.
“Brott,” he said, “I am forced to confide in you. Lucille is in terrible danger. I am not sure that there is anybody who can effectually help her but you. Are you prepared to make a great sacrifice for her sake—to leave England at once, to take her to the uttermost part of the world?”
Brott’s eyes were suddenly bright. The Prince quailed before the fierceness of his gaze.
“She would not go!” he exclaimed sharply.
“She will,” the Prince answered. “She must! Not only that, but you will earn her eternal gratitude. Listen, I must tell you the predicament in which we find ourselves. It places Lucille’s life in your hands.”
“What?”
The exclamation came like a pistol shot. The Prince held up his hand.
“Do not interrupt. Let me speak. Every moment is very valuable. You heard without doubt of the sudden death at the Carlton Hotel. It took place in Mr. Sabin’s sitting-room. The victim was Mr. Sabin’s servant. The inquest was this afternoon. The verdict was death from the effect of poison. The police are hot upon the case. There was no evidence as to the person by whom the poison was administered, but by a hideous combination of circumstances one person before many hours have passed will be under the surveillance of the police.”
“And that person?” Brott asked.
The Prince looked round and lowered his voice, although the room was empty.
“Lucille,” he whispered hoarsely.
Brott stepped backwards as though he were shot.
“What damned folly!” he exclaimed.
“It is possible that you may not think so directly,” Saxe Leinitzer continued. “The day it happened Lucille bought this same poison, and it is a rare one, from a man who has absconded. An hour before this man was found dead, she called at the hotel, left no name, but went upstairs to Mr. Sabin’s room, and was alone there for five minutes, The man died from a single grain of poison which had been introduced into Mr. Sabin’s special liqueur glass, out of which he was accustomed to drink three or four times a day. All these are absolute facts, which at any moment may be discovered by the police. Added to that she is living apart from her husband, and is known to be on bad terms with him.”
Brott as gripping the back of a chair. He was white to the lips.
“You don’t think,” he cried hoarsely. “You can’t believe—”
“No” the Prince answered quickly, “I don’t believe anything of the sort. I will tell you as man to man that I believe she wished Mr. Sabin dead. You yourself should know why. But no, I don’t believe she went so far as that. It was an accident. But what we have to do is to save her. Will you help?”
“Yes.”
“She must cross to the Continent to-night before the police get on the scent. Afterwards she must double back to Havre and take the Bordlaise for New York on Saturday. Once there I can guarantee her protection.”
“Well?”
“She cannot go alone.”
“You mean that I should go with her?”
“Yes! Get her right away, and I will employ special detectives and have the matter cleared up, if ever it can be. But if she remains here I fear that nothing can save her from the horror of an arrest, even if afterwards we are able to save her. You yourself risk much, Brott. The only question that remains is, will you do it?”
“At her bidding—yes!” Brott declared.
“Wait here,” the Prince answered.
Saxe Leinitzer returned to the morning-room, and taking the key from his pocket unlocked the door. Inside Lucille was pale with fury.
“What! I am a prisoner, then!” she exclaimed. “How dare you lock me in? This is not your house. Let me pass! I am tired of all this stupid espionage.”
The Prince stood with his back to the door.
“It is for your own sake, Lucille. The house is watched.”
She sank into a low chair, trembling. The Prince had all the appearance of a man himself seriously disturbed.
“Lucille,” he said, “we will do what we can for you. The whole thing is horribly unfortunate. You must leave England to-night. Muriel will go with you. Her presence will help to divert suspicion. Once you can reach Paris I can assure you of safety. But in this country I am almost powerless.”
“I must see Victor,” she said in a low tone. “I will not go without.”
The Prince nodded.
“I have thought of that. There is no reason, Lucille, why he should not be the one to lead you into safety.”
“You mean that?” she cried.
“I mean it,” the Prince answered. “After what has happened you are of course of no further use to us. I am inclined to think, too, that we have been somewhat exacting. I will send a messenger to Souspennier to meet you at Charing Cross to-night.”
She sprang up.
“Let me write it myself.”
“Very well,” he agreed, with a shrug of the shoulders. “But do not address or sign it. There is danger in any communication between you.”
She took a sheet of note-paper and hastily wrote a few words.
“I have need of your help. Will you be at Charing Cross at twelve o’clock prepared for a journey.—Lucille.”
The Prince took the letter from her and hastily folded it up.
“I will deliver it myself,” he announced. “It will perhaps be safest. Until I return, Lucille, do not stir from the house or see any one. Muriel has given the servants orders to admit no one. All your life,” he added, after a moment’s pause, “you have been a little cruel to me, and this time also. I shall pray that you will relent before our next meeting.”
She rose to her feet and looked him full in the face. She seemed to be following out her own train of thought rather than taking note of his words.
“Even now,” she said thoughtfully, “I am not sure that I can trust you. I have a good mind to fight or scream my way out of this house, and go myself to see Victor.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“The fighting or the screaming will not be necessary, dear Countess,” he said. “The doors are open to you. But it is as clear as day that if you go to the hotel or near it you will at once be recognised, and recognition means arrest. There is a limit beyond which one cannot help a wilful woman. Take your life in your hands and go your own way, or trust in us who are doing our best to save you.”
“And what of Reginald Brott?” she asked.
“Brott?” the Prince repeated impatiently. “Who cares what becomes of him? You have made him seem a fool, but, Lucille, to tell you the truth, I am sorry that we did not leave this country altogether alone. There is not the soil for intrigue here, or the possibility. Then, too, the police service is too stolid, too inaccessible. And even our friends, for whose aid we are here—well, you heard the Duke. The cast-iron Saxon idiocy of the man. The aristocracy here are what they call bucolic. It is their own fault. They have intermarried with parvenus and Americans for generations. They are a race by themselves. We others may shake ourselves free from them. I would work in any country of the globe for the good of our cause, but never again in England.”
Lucille shivered a little.
“I am not in the humour for argument,” she declared. “If you would earn my gratitude take that note to my husband. He is the only man I feel sure of—whom I know can protect me.”
The Prince bowed low.
“It is our farewell, Countess,” he said.
“I cannot pretend,” she answered, “to regret it.”
Saxe Leinitzer left the room. There was a peculiar smile upon his lips as he crossed the hall. Brott was still awaiting for him.
“Mr. Brott,” he said, “the Countess is, as I feared, too agitated to see you again for the present, or any one else. She sends you, however, this message.”
He took the folded paper from his waistcoat pocket and handed it to the other man. Brott read it through eagerly. His eyes shone.
“She accepts the situation, then?” he exclaimed.
“Precisely! Will you pardon me, my friend, if I venture upon one other word. Lucille is not an ordinary woman. She is not in the least like the majority of her sex, especially, I might add, amongst us. The fact that her husband was living would seriously influence her consideration of any other man—as her lover. The present crisis, however, has changed everything. I do not think that you will have cause to complain of her lack of gratitude.”
Brott walked out into the streets with the half sheet of note-paper twisted up between his fingers. For the first time for months he was conscious of a distinct and vivid sense of happiness. The terrible period of indecision was past. He knew now where he stood. Nor was his immediate departure from England altogether unpleasant to him. His political career was shattered—friends and enemies were alike cold to him. Such an act of cowardice as his, such pitiful shrinking back at the last fateful moment, was inexplicable and revolting. Even Letheringham was barely civil. It was certain that his place in the Cabinet would be intolerable. He yearned for escape from it all, and the means of escape were now at hand. In after years he knew very well that the shadow of his broken trust, the torture of his misused opportunities, would stand for ever between him and the light. But at that moment he was able to clear his mind of all such disquieting thoughts. He had won Lucille—never mind at what cost, at what peril! He had won Lucille!
He was deeply engrossed, and his name was spoken twice in his ear before he turned round. A small, somewhat shabby-looking man, with tired eyes and more than a day’s growth of beard upon his chin, had accosted him.
“Mr. Brott, sir. A word with you, please.”
Brott held out his hand. Nevertheless his tone when he spoke lacked heartiness.
“You, Hedley! Why, what brings you to London?”
The little man did not seem to see the hand. At any rate he made no motion to take it.
“A few minutes’ chat with Mr. Brott. That’s what I’ve come for.”
Brott raised his eyebrows, and nodded in somewhat constrained fashion.
“Well,” he said, “I am on my way to my rooms. We can talk as we go, if you like. I am afraid the good people up in your part of the world are not too well pleased with me.”
The little man smiled rather queerly.
“That is quite true,” he answered calmly. “They hate a liar and a turn-coat. So do I!”
Brott stopped short upon the pavement.
“If you are going to talk like that to me, Hedley,” he said, “the less you have to say the better.”
The man nodded.
“Very well,” he said. “What I have to say won’t take me very long. But as I’ve tramped most of the way up here to say it, you’ll have to listen here or somewhere else. I thought you were always one who liked the truth.”
“So I do!” Brott answered. “Go on!”
The man shuffled along by his side. They were an odd-looking pair, for Brott was rather a careful man as regards his toilet, and his companion looked little better than a tramp.
“All my life,” he continued, “I’ve been called ‘Mad Hedley,’ or ‘Hedley, the mad tailor.’ Sometimes one and sometimes the other. It don’t matter which. There’s truth in, it. I am a bit mad. You, Mr. Brott, were one of those who understood me a little. I have brooded a good deal perhaps, and things have got muddled up in my brain. You know what has been at the bottom of it all.
“I began making speeches when I was a boy. People laughed at me, but I’ve set many a one a-thinking. I’m no anarchist, although people call me one. I’ll admit that I admire the men who set the French Revolution going. If such a thing happened in this country I’d be one of the first to join in. But I’ve never had a taste for bloodshed. I’d rather the thing had been done without. From the first you seemed to be the man who might have brought it about. We listened to you, we watched your career, and we began to have hopes. Mr. Brott, the bodies and souls of millions of your fellow-creatures were in the hollow of your hand. It was you who might have set them free. It was you who might have made this the greatest, the freest, the happiest country in the world. Not so much for us perhaps as for our children, and our children’s children. We didn’t expect a huge social upheaval in a week, or even a decade of years. But we did expect to see the first blow struck. Oh, yes, we expected that.”
“I have disappointed you, I know, you and many others,” Brott said bitterly. “I wish I could explain. But I can’t!”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” the man answered. “You have broken the hearts of thousands of suffering men and women—you who might have led them into the light, have forged another bolt in the bars which stand between them and liberty. So they must live on in the darkness, dull, dumb creatures with just spirit enough to spit and curse at the sound of your name. It was the greatest trust God ever placed in one man’s hand—and you—you abused it. They were afraid of you—the aristocrats, and they bought you. Oh, we are not blind up there—there are newspapers in our public houses, and now and then one can afford a half-penny. We have read of you at their parties and their dances. Quite one of them you have become, haven’t you? But, Mr. Brott, have you never been afraid? Have you never said to yourself, there is justice in the earth? Suppose it finds me out?”
“Hedley, you are talking rubbish,” Brott said. “Up here you would see things with different eyes. Letheringham is pledged.”
“If any man ever earned hell,” Hedley continued, “it is you, Brott, you who came to us a deliverer, and turned out to be a lying prophet. ‘Hell,’” he repeated fiercely, “and may you find it swiftly.”
The man’s right hand came out of his long pocket. They were in the thick of Piccadilly, but his action was too swift for any interference. Four reports rang suddenly out, and the muzzle of the revolver was held deliberately within an inch or so of Brett’s heart. And before even the nearest of the bystanders could realise what had happened Brott lay across the pavement a dead man, and Hedley was calmly handing over the revolver to a policeman who had sprang across the street.
“Be careful, officer,” he said, “there are still two chambers loaded. I will come with you quite quietly. That is Mr. Reginald Brott, the Cabinet Minister, and I have killed him.”
“For once,” Lady Carey said, with a faint smile, “your ‘admirable Crichton’ has failed you.”
Lucille opened her eyes. She had been leaning back amongst the railway cushions.
“I think not,” she said. “Only I blame myself that I ever trusted the Prince even so far as to give him that message. For I know very well that if Victor had received it he would have been here.”
Lady Carey took up a great pile of papers and looked them carelessly through.
“I am afraid,” she said, “that I do not agree with you. I do not think that Saxe Leinitzer had any desire except to see you safely away. I believe that he will be quite as disappointed as you are that your husband is not here to aid you. Some one must see you safely on the steamer at Havre. Perhaps he will come himself.”
“I shall wait in Paris,” Lucille said quietly, “for my husband.”
“You may wait,” Lady Carey said, “for a very long time.”
Lucille looked at her steadily. “What do you mean?”
“What a fool you are, Lucille. If to other people it seems almost certain on the face of it that you were responsible for that drop of poison in your husband’s liqueur glass, why should it not seem so to himself?”
Lucille laughed, but there was a look of horror in her dark eyes.
“How absurd. I know Victor better than to believe him capable of such a suspicion. Just as he knows me better than to believe me capable of such an act.”
“Really. But you were in his rooms secretly just before.”
“I went to leave some roses for him,” Lucille answered. “And if you would like to know it, I will tell you this. I left my card tied to them with a message for him.”
Lady Carey yawned.
“A remarkably foolish thing to do,” she said. “That may cause you trouble later on. Great heavens, what is this?”
She held the evening paper open in her hand. Lucille leaned over with blanched face.
“What has happened?” she cried. “Tell me, can’t you!”
“Reginald Brott has been shot in Piccadilly,” Lady Carey said.
“Is he hurt?” Lucille asked.
“He is dead!”
They read the brief announcement together. The deed had been committed by a man whose reputation for sanity had long been questioned, one of Brott’s own constituents. He was in custody, and freely admitted his guilt. The two women looked at one another in horror. Even Lady Carey was affected.
“What a hateful thing,” she said. “I am glad that we had no hand in it.”
“Are you so sure that we hadn’t?” Lucille asked bitterly. “You see what it says. The man killed him because of his political apostasy. We had something to do with that at least.”
Lady Carey was recovering her sang froid.
“Oh, well,” she said, “indirect influences scarcely count, or one might trace the causes of everything which happens back to an absurd extent. If this man was mad he might just as well have shot Brott for anything.”
Lucille made no answer. She leaned back and closed her eyes. She did not speak again till they reached Dover.
They embarked in the drizzling rain. Lady Carey drew a little breath of relief as they reached their cabin, and felt the boat move beneath them.
“Thank goodness that we are really off. I have been horribly nervous all the time. If they let you leave England they can have no suspicion as yet.”
Lucille was putting on an ulster and cap to go out on deck.
“I am not at all sure,” she said, “that I shall not return to England. At any rate, if Victor does not come to me in Paris I shall go to him.”
“What beautiful trust!” Lady Carey answered. “My dear Lucille, you are more like a school-girl than a woman of the world.”
A steward entered with a telegram for Lucille. It was banded in at the Haymarket, an hour before their departure. Lucille read it, and her face blanched. “I thank you for your invitation, but I fear that it would not be good for my health.—S.”
Lady Carey looked over her shoulder. She laughed hardly.
“How brutal!” she murmured. “But, then, Victor can be brutal sometimes, can’t he?”
Lucille tore it into small pieces without a word. Lady Carey waited for a remark from her in vain.
“I, too,” she said at last, “have had some telegrams. I have been hesitating whether to show them to you or not. Perhaps you had better see them.”
She produced them and spread them out. The first was dated about the same time as the one Lucille had received.
“Have seen S. with message from Lucille. Fear quite useless, as he believes worst.”
The second was a little longer.
“Have just heard S. has left for Liverpool, and has engaged berth in Campania, sailing to-morrow. Break news to Lucille if you think well. Have wired him begging return, and promising full explanation.”
“If these,” Lucille said calmly, “belonged to me I should treat them as I have my own.”
“What do you mean?”
“I should tear them up.”
Lady Carey shrugged her shoulders with the air of one who finds further argument hopeless.
“I shall have no more to say to you, Lucille, on this subject,” she said. “You are impossible. In a few days you will be forced to come round to my point of view. I will wait till then. And in the meantime, if you think I am going to tramp up and down those sloppy decks and gaze at the sea you are very much mistaken. I am going to lie down like a civilized being, and try and get a nap. You had better do the same.”
Lucille laughed.
“For my part,” she said, “I find any part of the steamer except the deck intolerable. I am going now in search of some fresh air. Shall I send your woman along?”
Lady Carey nodded, for just then the steamer gave a violent lurch, and she was not feeling talkative. Lucille went outside and walked up and down until the lights of Calais were in sight. All the time she felt conscious of the observation of a small man clad in a huge mackintosh, whose peaked cap completely obscured his features. As they were entering the harbour she purposely stood by his side. He held on to the rail with one hand and turned towards her.
“It has been quite a rough passage, has it not?” he remarked.
She nodded.
“I have crossed,” she said, “when it has been much worse. I do not mind so long as one may come on deck.”
“Your friend,” he remarked, “is perhaps not so good a sailor?”
“I believe,” Lucille said, “that she suffers a great deal. I just looked in at her, and she was certainly uncomfortable.”
The little man gripped the rail and held on to his cap with the other hand.
“You are going to Paris?” he asked.
Lucille nodded.
“Yes.”
They were in smoother water now. He was able to relax his grip of the rail. He turned towards Lucille, and she saw him for the first time distinctly—a thin, wizened-up little man, with shrewd kindly eyes, and a long deeply cut mouth.
“I trust,” he said, “that you will not think me impertinent, but it occurred to me that you have noticed some apparent interest of mine in your movements since you arrived on the boat.”
Lucille nodded.
“It is true,” she answered. “That is why I came and stood by your side. What do you want with me?”
“Nothing, madam,” he answered. “I am here altogether in your interests. If you should want help I shall be somewhere near you for the next few hours. Do not hesitate to appeal to me. My mission here is to be your protector should you need one.”
Lucille’s eyes grew bright, and her heart beat quickly.
“Tell me,” she said, “who sent you?”
He smiled.
“I think that you know,” he answered. “One who I can assure you will never allow you to suffer any harm. I have exceeded my instructions in speaking to you, but I fancied that you were looking worried. You need not. I can assure you that you need have no cause.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I knew,” she said, “that those telegrams were forgeries.”
He looked carefully around.
“I know nothing about any telegrams,” he said, “but I am here to see that no harm comes to you, and I promise you that it shall not. Your friend is looking out of the cabin door. I think we may congratulate ourselves, madam, on an excellent passage.”
Lady Carey disembarked, a complete wreck, leaning on the arm of her maid, and with a bottle of smelling salts clutched in her hand. She slept all the way in the train, and only woke up when they were nearing Paris. She looked at Lucille in astonishment.
“Why, what on earth have you been doing to yourself?” she exclaimed. “You look disgustingly fit and well.”
Lucille laughed softly.
“Why not? I have had a nap, and we are almost at Paris. I only want a bath and a change of clothes to feel perfectly fresh.”
But Lady Carey was suspicious.
“Have you seen any one you know upon the train?” she asked.
Lucille shook her head.
“Not a soul. A little man whom I spoke to on the steamer brought me some coffee. That is all.”
Lady Carey yawned and shook out her skirts. “I suppose I’m getting old,” she said. “I couldn’t look as you do with as much on my mind as you must have, and after traveling all night too.”
Lucille laughed.
“After all,” she said, “you know that I am a professional optimist, and I have faith in my luck. I have been thinking matters over calmly, and, to tell you the truth, I am not in the least alarmed.”
Lady Carey looked at her curiously.
“Has the optimism been imbibed,” she asked, “or is it spontaneous?”
Lucille smiled.
“Unless the little man in the plaid mackintosh poured it into the coffee with the milk,” she said, “I could not possibly have imbibed it, for I haven’t spoken to another soul since we left.”
“Paris! Here we are, thank goodness. Celeste can see the things through the customs. She is quite used to it. We are going to the Ritz, I suppose!”