I callher a woman, but she can have been no more than seventeen or eighteen, I think. She was one of those dark, supple Siresian girls who approach so infinitely nearer to one’s ideal houri of the East than any really Oriental beauty ever can do. Her great black eyes wandered nervously from O’Hagan’s face to mine.
“Tell me!” she cried, in pretty, broken English—“I saw you whispering together—tell me! You are from Leo?”
Nipping my arm, O’Hagan bowed again.
“I knew it!” cried the girl joyously. “Something told me!”
Good God! at her words, at sight of the mist of gladness, of gratitude, clouding her beautiful eyes, I could have kicked myself—I could have attacked O’Hagan nor counted the cost!
“He is so stupid—the Duke,” she ran on, confidently: “so stupid! He leaves his coat in there”—she pointed to a distant door—“and these”—producing a bulky, sealed parcel—“in the pocket!”
Then she laughed joyously. Her eyes, though, brimmed over with tears. Her credulity amazed me, of course; but not so greatly as one might suppose. There is something about O’Hagan that women trust implicitly; and it is something, I contend, which shall be written to his credit in the greater Doomsday Book—a real grandeur of soul which all his surprising superficialities cannot wholly mask.
Perceive me, then, at this juncture, a man rendered helpless by warring emotions, conflicting doubts, fears, and a supreme wonderment.
“Do you think you will be in time?” she pleaded, pressing the packet into his hands.
“I hope so, mademoiselle!” he replied.
His handsome face was stern. He had dropped his monocle, and, with it, I thought, somewhat of his flippancy.
“They may think he has turned traitor!” she went on, rapidly: “he—who has given up everything to the Cause! But they will be furious—they will not reason! Even now, monsieur, they may be condemning him!”
Her use of the word “monsieur” set me wondering. Her voice broke. Her brave eyes grew dim. And a lump rose in my throat. For I had perceived the reality of her trouble, and I think I had never felt a more despicable scoundrel. I thought that, as a man and a gentleman, I truly was not worth our united three-and-ninepence! What should I do? How should I act? Thus, miserably, I searched my inert intelligence; then:
“Listen,” began my friend, succinctly—“I cannot go among them, because I am not one of them! Do not be afraid. I am a true friend to the Cause and to Leo. But how may I reach him?—where do they meet to-night? And are you certain that he will be there?”
A shadow—a vague shadow—clouded the girl’s face. Anxiously, intently, she watched O’Hagan; and this he perceived.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, with a frank pride which is his peculiar birthright—“it is not possible that you can mistrust my word! Upon my honour, I will deliver this packet as you direct, and no man shall hinder me. But you must tell me where they meet, and how I may gain admittance.”
A moment more she hesitated—searching his face with big, anxious eyes. Then dawned the light of a great resolution; and I knew that she had determined to trust to her instincts.
“Here,” she said, hastily pulling a ring from her finger. “Show this to the woman in the shop before the Café de l’Orient, Greek Street, and say ‘Warsaw.’ You will be admitted. Give the packet to Leo or to the President; to no one else! Quick! go, I implore you!”
O’Hagan took the ring, raised the girl’s white fingers to his lips, and bowed over her hand as over the hand of a queen. It was the farewell of an old-time courtier and most perfect gentleman—completely untheatrical, exquisitely dignified. At such moments you perceive in my friend the ideal cavalier.
Her face flushed rosily—and paled to a greater pallor.
In the doorway O’Hagan turned again and bowed. Then, straight downstairs we hastened—he with the package in an inside pocket—and through to the street, unquestioned. A taxi-cab had just discharged a visitor at the door, and O’Hagan detained the man with a short, imperious gesture.
We leapt in.
“Café de l’Orient, Greek Street,” said my friend. “Three-and-nine if you get there in five minutes!”
—————
Thecab having moved on,—
“I regret,” began O’Hagan, “that we have missed our supper! But I have triumphantly proven my words anent the survival of Romance. You note into what a surprising adventure we have blundered merely by honouring a Grand Duke with our company! Here we have all the elements of a stirring romance indeed: the autocratic nobleman, the distressed lovers, the ring as a token! I am delighted, Raymond!”
“O’Hagan!” I interrupted sternly—“ifyouare delighted, I am appalled! Of the deception practised upon the Duke I will say nothing; but to have tricked a girl who confided——”
“Stop!” cried O’Hagan imperiously. “Stop there, Raymond! You!—my friend—and charge me with such a crime! Raymond!——”
“She thinks,” I interrupted, excitedly——
“She thinks,” my friend took me up, “that we are acquainted with her secrets, and trusts us accordingly. Good. Is her trust misplaced? Do we intend to betray her? No! ten thousand times no! It is perfectly evident that her lover—Christian name, Leo; surname, unknown; nationality, possibly Polish—is involved in some conspiracy directed against a government—probably that of Russia. Her father, or guardian, our mutual acquaintance the Duke, had obtained, through the treachery of one Casimir, proofs of Leo’s complicity. These, we may assume, he intended to employ—(a) to frustrate Leo’s designs in regard to the lady; (b) to bring about the arrest, or ruin, of the said Leo.
“Delightful, my boy! Wildly and picturesquely romantic! Enter Lawrence Raymond and Bernard O’Hagan—and what becomes of the ducal plan? It miserably crumbles to dust! Virtue and Love are triumphant, and we are the heroes of the hour!”
The cab stopped before a dingy little café. Our entire capital O’Hagan lavished upon the man, and we entered the café.
Its front portion proved to consist of a shop where coffee-pots and such utensils were sold, and behind the counter sat an adipose and unctuous lady of considerable maturity. O’Hagan’s entrance brought her to her feet in quick alarm.
My friend held the ring before her eyes. She viewed it in palpable wonder, her slightly crooked gaze vacillating betwixt the face of my cavalierly friend and my own.
“Warsaw!” said O’Hagan, magnificently—and swept his arm toward a dirty glass-panelled door on our right.
“Oui, monsieur!” mumbled the old woman; and shuffled around the counter.
Without properly realising by what stages I had come there, I found myself standing before the closed door of an upper-floor room. O’Hagan knocked. A shouted conversation, rising, a harshduetto, above an angry chorus, ceased abruptly.
O’Hagan threw wide the door and strode into the room.
This was small, smelling strongly of stale coffee and caporal cigarettes, and was illuminated by a gas burner low hung above a square table. About the table sat eight or ten foreigners—seemingly Russians or Poles—nearly all of whom leapt to their feet at our appearance. One, an old man with a venerable white beard, rose with greater dignity, fixing his brilliant eyes upon my friend.
O’Hagan rested one hand upon his hip, and with the other held the monocle an inch or so removed from his right eye. Amid a magnetic silence:
“Gentlemen,” he said, with a sort of frigid courtesy—“and good people—you will favour me by resuming your seats!”
Of this gracious permission no one availed himself. An angry muttering arose, and—
“What is your business?” demanded the venerable chairman, in excellent English.
O’Hagan, through upraised glass, studied each face in turn and attentively. The muttering grew, and grew, and became a simian clamour. All eyes were turned to my nonchalant friend.
“My business, monsieur,” he replied—speaking in French, probably with the idea that the rest of the company would be more likely to understand him—“is of the utmost gravity.”
The uproar waxed louder. One swarthy, thickset fellow turned and took a step in O’Hagan’s direction. O’Hagan raised his glass again—and the fellow sat down.
“But,” resumed my friend icily, “until a perfect silence is preserved I shall not disclose it” (louder uproar than ever); “I am not accustomed to interruption by the rabble.”
Silence fell—save that it was a murderous silence. But:
“Your rebuke is just,” said the aged spokesman, glaring fiercely around. “I will see to it that you are not interrupted. Your business, monsieur?”
“It is,” replied O’Hagan, “to denounce a traitor!”
At that a perfect howl went up. Chairs crashed back upon the floor; and the discussion, which evidently had been interrupted by our entrance, was now resumed with renewed violence. All eyes turned upon a dark young man sitting on the right of the chairman. His handsome, aristocratic face was deathly pale, and his fine nostrils quivered with some emotion hardly repressed.
“Silence!” roared the chairman, in clarion tones, and struck his fist upon the table with a resounding bang. “Silence! Are you mad, that you dispute with strangers present!” He glared about him ominously. “Again, monsieur”—to O’Hagan—“what is your business?”
O’Hagan paused awhile, staring down a man who continued to mutter rapidly to his right-hand neighbour. Then—
“The letters and photographs,” began my friend, as one whose patience wearies——
But yet again he was interrupted, and now, by the dark young man; who leapt from his place, a hectic flush colouring his pale cheeks.
“You have them, monsieur?” he cried, holding his outstretched hands towards us. “God! you have them?”
O’Hagan:
“I have just recovered them from the apartments of the Grand Duke John!”
High heaven! Never can I forget the shriek of execration that greeted the name of the Grand Duke! We seemed, in a moment, to be surrounded by fiends of the uttermost darkness. They mowed and gibbered like animal things. Only the dark young fellow retained any self-control—sinking back upon his chair and biting his lip. But his eyes were glad; and by his eyes it was that I knew him for Leo.
“Silence!” came the mighty voice again. And the terrible old man glared about him, quelling his unruly compatriots like a pack of dogs. “Hand me those letters, monsieur.”
O’Hagan, amid another throbbing stillness, produced the package.
“Am I addressing,” he inquired, “the gentleman known as the President?”
“I am the President, monsieur,” he was answered.
My friend passed the package to the old man. Rapidly, the latter broke the seals and examined the contents. Intense expectancy was written upon every face. It seemed that life or death hung upon the result of his examination. This, however was brief. Placing the bundle upon the table before him—
“Brothers,” he said, with some emotion, “a great danger is providentially averted. All are here!”
Something in his look suppressed the mighty shout almost ere it left the throats of the shouters.
“You said, monsieur,” he continued, turning his eyes upon O’Hagan, “that you would denounce to us a traitor. I do not know who you are nor whence you come; but you have to-night done that which shows you a friend. You have saved the lives—and more than the lives—of some who never forget, and who will be grateful while they have hearts that beat. Your actions prove you: your words shall be respected. Name the traitor amongst us, monsieur.”
The simple dignity of the old man’s speech and manner impressed me immensely, but the eyes that glared from all around the table were not pleasant to see.
“For what I have done,” said O’Hagan slowly, “I claim a reward: the immunity of the man I shall denounce!”
The necessity for the words was rendered evident by the negative yell which answered them; it was, however, immediately checked by the President.
“The reward you claim is a high one, monsieur,” he said, “and wholly contrary to the rules of our Order! But the service you have rendered is beyond all human recompense. Therefore I grant your request.”
Some few murmurs arose; but a glance from the fiery old eyes restored complete silence.
“The traitor,” announced O’Hagan, “is called Casimir!”
“You lie!” screamed a man wearing a short, red beard, leaping madly to his feet. “Curse you! you lie!”
O’Hagan focussed him through the monocle.
“I was with the Grand Duke when you handed him the packet,” he said, with a sort of suppressed ferocity—“you brick-dust baboon!”
“You were not!” shrieked the other. “The Grand Duke was alone——!”
He stopped. His florid face blanched to a mottled white, and he dropped back, the picture of a rogue unmasked. Then:
“You see, monsieur,” said O’Hagan to the President, “I have indicated your traitor and he has condemned himself; for the Grand Dukewasalone!”
I expected a veritable pandemonium to burst upon us; but my expectation was not realised. The man seated beside Casimir turned, and with a cold smile, but blazing eyes, struck him deliberately across the face with his open hand. The outraged rascal bounded again to his feet; but a look around the silent company was enough. One quick glance he directed toward the old man, who stood with finger rigidly pointed to the door, and, head bent, he shuffled past us—and was gone.
Then, certainly, a scene of the wildest enthusiasm ensued. Everybody present seemed bent upon embracing Leo; but, escaping from his excited fellows, he came and took both O’Hagan’s hands in his own, turning then to me, and shaking mine as warmly.
“Gentlemen,” he said, in very fair English, “I will not attempt to thank you. I only thank God that there are such as you in the world!”
“Devilish embarrassing!” O’Hagan confessed to me, later, “considering the real objective of the expedition—id est: supper!”
“Here,” said my friend, “is something to which you have a better claim than I.” He handed Leo the ring. “To that brave lady you owe everything, sir; to us, nothing.”
“She will always bless you,” said the other, kissing the ring reverently—“as I bless her! I do not know your names, gentlemen—nor, in the circumstances, ask them. But if ever Fate should lead you to Poland, the home of Count Leo Riersiwicz isyourhome.”
“Quite a charming little adventure,” said O’Hagan, as we passed westward; “save that one cannot sympathise with any man who elects to associate with such a crew of undesirable pole-cats.”
Two peers, a newspaper proprietor, and an actor-manager waited upon the kerb of Oxford Circus, whilst ’bus drivers, draymen, vanmen on vans and other impossibles, drove by. O’Hagan’s procedure on occasions of this kind is a joy unique and a memory ineffaceable.
Regardless of the direction, language, behaviour, or wishes of such persons, he proceeds across the road at the same dignified and even pace which he had observed upon the pavement. With dray horses standing on their hind-legs and waving their fore-legs over his picturesque head, with taxi-cabs menacing plate-glass windows, and motor ’busses hastily diverting their routes, he pauses to light an Egyptian cigarette.
Having returned his gold matchbox to his waistcoat pocket, unruffled he pursues his way, the only extant example of thegrand seigneur.
The End
This edition is limited to 1,000 copies.In Memoriam—Sax Rohmer1883-1959
This edition is limited to 1,000 copies.
In Memoriam—Sax Rohmer
1883-1959
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.
A Table of Contents was added for reader convenience.