CHAPTER XI
When Topham left Miss Byrd he went back to the American embassy. The hour was late and the windows were all dark and the rooms seemed deserted, and despite Rutile’s invitation for a moment Topham hesitated to climb the stairs.
Finally he stepped to the entrance, intending to ask the watchman-porter there whether the secretary had gone. To his surprise—though not so greatly so as it would have been if he had known German customs better—the door was ajar and the watchman missing; so with a shrug of his shoulders he entered and climbed the stairs.
A tap at the embassy offices brought immediate answer, and he opened the door just as Rutile came to meet him.
“Come in, old man,” called the latter. “I’ve been sitting in the moonlight thinking something out. I often do when I’ve got something important on hand. Come and sit down and I’ll light up and we’ll have a drink.”
Topham took the proffered chair, but declinedthe drink. “Not tonight, thank you!” he decided. “And don’t light up for me. I like moonlight. Queer about the moon, though. It affects most people the other way, doesn’t it.”
“Maybe! But not me! I’m rather excitable, you know. Liable to get worked up over things and to exaggerate their importance. When I suspect I’m doing that, I sit down in the moonlight—if there’s a moon handy—and in the stillness—if stillness is to be had—and think it all over. That’s what I’ve been doing tonight.
“And did it soothe you?”
Rutile shook his head, doubtfully. “I’m not certain,” he admitted. “You navy people have the best of it, after all. You haven’t got to agitate your supposed brains. All you’ve got to do is to fight, and if you get a chance to distinguish yourself the whole country knows it and the Sunday newspapers call you heroes and clamor for your promotion. We diplomats, on the other hand, are valuable in the inverse ratio that we make it known.”
“Yes?” remarked Topham, languidly.
“Yes! Of course!” returned Rutile, impatiently. “We diplomats are the real defenders of the peace. Suppose we had a war! All you fellowscould do would be to whip the enemy and if you did it you would get medals and prize money and things. But I’ve prevented at least one war and nobody knows anything about it except the last administration at Washington and if there’s any deader tomb for a man’s achievements than the last administration, I don’t know where it is—unless it’s the administration before the last.”
Topham fidgeted. He was not very apt at speech. “What war did you prevent?” he asked, at last, seeing that Rutile expected him to say something.
“Oh! None of any special consequence,” returned the other sarcastically, “Just a little bit of a war—one between Germany and the United States.”
“You’re joking, aren’t you?”
“Never less so. His Majesty Wilhelm was working to grab southern Brazil two or three years ago and I checkmated him; knocked his plans sky-high. If I hadn’t we’d have had to fight him or abandon the Monroe Doctrine. And just because I did it so quietly nobody knew anything about it, bright young men like you want to know whether I am serious; even the Ambassador has his doubts on the subject.”
Topham was not listening. Rutile’s mention of Brazil had given him the opening he desired.
“That reminds me,” he said, awkwardly, “What do you think of Count Ouro Preto and his sister? Risdon was speaking of them this morning, you know. They’re Brazilians, aren’t they?”
Rutile swallowed. It is not altogether pleasant to be checked so abruptly when talking about one’s self. Then he laughed.
“You’re the directest ever!” he remarked. “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to know about the Countess Elsa, and save me telling you a lot of stuff you didn’t listen to? I suppose you have found out that it was she who crossed with you?”
Topham stared. “Yes!” he said. “Risdon pointed her out on the street this morning and I recognized her. How did you guess?”
“Oh! Easily! Her name really is Elsa Ferreira, you know. The title is very new—one of Dom Pedro’s creations just before he was turned out by the republic. So she’s been to New York! She’s been missing from here for about three weeks, and people have been wondering where she was.”
“Tell me something about her.”
Rutile threw up his hands. “I haven’t time to do justice to the subject,” he declared. “Shecame to Berlin about six months ago, and promptly got the whole hoch wohlgebornen bunch at her feet, men and women too. She’s beautiful, but it isn’t altogether her looks, you know; it’s her amazing knowledge of men and things. They say she hired out once as a chambermaid and at another time worked in a factory here. They also say that she was the masked unknown who caused such a sensation by dancing as Salome for charity in the most outrageous costume that ever—”
“I don’t believe it!” Topham’s face was flushed and his eyes glittered.
Rutile studied him curiously. The dispatches Topham had brought had been devoted wholly to the Count and Countess del Ouro Preto. The navy officer did not know this, of course, but Rutile felt very sure that he believed the two were behind the efforts that had been made to rob him of them. Knowing the fascinations of the countess, the secretary had little hesitation in guessing that Topham had fallen a victim to them. He wanted to warn him, but scarcely knew how to begin. After all, Topham was going away in twenty-four hours, and the first canon of friendship is “don’t butt in.”
So he changed the subject. “Hope you enjoyed yourself tonight,” he observed.
“Finely! I went to your Thiergarten and met several people I knew—Lord Maxwell, the British Ambassador, and young Ferreira—the Count del Ouro Preto, I should say—and—”
“Ouro Preto!” Rutile was startled. “What did he want?”
Topham considered. “Nothing!” he answered. “He was full of his coming audience with the emperor and—”
“Audience with the emperor!” Rutile was on his feet. “What do you mean? Has Ouro Preto seen the emperor?”
Topham drew out his watch and consulted it. “Well!” he said. “It’s now 12:45, so I may safely say that he has. He was to be received at eleven o’clock tonight.”
“You’re sure?”
“Well! not entirely! Ouro Preto himself said the appointment was for ten o’clock tomorrow, but Lord Maxwell said it was for eleven tonight, and I suspect that Ouro Preto was mistaken.”
Rutile sat down again, slowly. “So do I,” he replied, drily. “But what I most want to know is, why did he tell you about it?”
Topham laughed. “Oh! he was too full of it to keep still. Pure spontaneousness!”
“Spontaneous fiddlesticks! What didyousay? What did he ask you?”
“Why! I don’t know! Nothing important. Let’s see. I believe he said he feared somebody might oppose the restoration of the dukedom, and that he was afraid to speak to most people about it, but that he could talk to me because of course the United States had no interest—”
“Oh!”
“Eh? Yes! I told him of course we hadn’t. Queer, though! Lord Maxwell asked me later almost the same thing. Wanted to know whether the United States objected to the Kaiser giving Ouro Preto his toy? As if the United States had any interest in petty German dukedoms!”
Rutile threw up his hands. “Lord! Lord!” he cried. “I suppose you told Maxwell that?” he queried.
“Of course. What the devil is the matter with you, Rutile?”
For an instant the secretary stared at the navy officer, without speaking. “Look here, Topham,” he said at last. “I want to know whether you are the guileless child I have always supposed you tobe, or whether you are so infernally deep that even I can’t fathom you. Confound you, man, you’ve had me guessing ever since you got here. You—”
Abruptly the secretary broke off and leaned forward. “What’s that?” he questioned, whisperingly.
The night was very still. Traffic in the street outside had almost ceased—for the moment had ceased altogether. Not even a footfall sounded. But from somewhere close at hand there came a slight grating sound.
“Sounds like somebody sawing,” muttered Topham. “What—
“Sshh!” A grin of perfect comprehension came over Rutile’s face. “Gently!” he whispered. “Somebody’s trying to break into the embassy’s rooms. And I think I can guess who it is. But we’ll give him the surprise of his life. Come.”
He arose and tiptoed to the door of the adjoining room, and opened it cautiously. Like the one in which the two had sat, this room was dark except for the brilliant moonlight that streamed in at the uncurtained windows. It was empty, but the sound of the sawing was much more distinct. Evidently the would-be intruder was close at hand.
Silently Rutile approached the door that gave upon the corridor without and pointed to the lock. Something was moving in and out just above it, and in a moment Topham distinguished the blade of a saw working through the woodwork. Four augur holes had been bored at the corners of an imaginary square, and some one was slowly joining them, with the evident intention of making an opening through which he might slip his arm and shoot back the bolts.
Rutile looked at Topham with twinkling eyes. With a gesture for silence he tiptoed to a closet and with infinite caution took out a light but strong rope.
This he handed to Topham. “You’re a sailor,” he said under his breath. “Make a dip noose.”
With an instant understanding of what he proposed, Topham hastily knotted the line, and returned it to the secretary. The latter stepped close to the door, where the saw had almost completed its work, and stood waiting.
Soon the saw was drawn back, a finger appeared through the augur hole, closed around the edge of the square and exerted a gentle pressure. With scarcely a sound the wood yielded, and the piece was drawn gently out.
With baited breath the two men waited. Evidently those without were listening. Then an arm came through the hole and a hand began to feel for the key. Instantly Rutile slipped his rope around the wrist, drew it tight, and threw himself back on the rope.
A startled exclamation came from the outside, and then the prisoned man began a desperate though silent struggle for liberty. But he was at a terrible disadvantage. Inch by inch, his arm was drawn until his body was fast against the door; then there was a sudden yielding. “My God,” cried a voice. “Stop! You’re killing me. I surrender. I’ll tell everything. I’ll— Stop! Stop! Don’t strike! I’ll keep faith. I’ll—” The words ended with a thick choking hiccough.
“Hold this, Topham,” ordered Rutile, passing over the rope. “I’ll ring for the police.”
He pressed the burglar alarm on the wall, lighted the gas and was back at the door. “Now we’ll see what we’ve caught,” he declared, turning the key in the lock.
The door swung open and, with the relaxing of the rope, a man’s body pitched down upon the threshold and lay there, his upturned face ghastly in the glare of the gas jets. From his breast projectedthe handle of a dagger, whose blade had been driven in to the hilt, and, and across the white bosom of his shirt a crimson stain was widening. It needed no second glance to see that he was dead.
Rutile studied the dark face. “Looks like a Spaniard or a Spanish-American,” he decided. “Just about what I would have expected. But I never saw him before!”
Topham said nothing. His brain was whirling. For he, at least, had seen the man’s face before. It was that of the Spanish-American who had given him the drugged cigarette—of the man whom he had seen only a few hours before coming down the steps of the building that housed the Countess Elsa.