"Bless you, my boy!" the Colonel started up, clutching at this straw. "I would go with her, wherever she was sent. Anything would be better than what she faces now—anything!"
"But we need time for this," Roger hurried on. "We'll have to rake up all the excesses of Sir Humphrey's past and brief Counsel on entirely new lines. In fact, it virtually means asking for the case to be retried."
Colonel Thursby sank back with a groan. "Nay. I fear that after all 'tis useless. The judge would never grant an adjournment at this stage, unless we could produce at least some evidence in support of our new line of defence. Could we but bring a doctor into court tomorrow morning to swear that he had noticed signs of insanity in Humphrey, we should be given time to collect proof that he was really mad. But we cannot. Neither, were we granted the time, could we collect the proof. If drinking like a fish and reckless riding are to be accounted signs of lunacy, then half the squires in England would be chained to the walls of Bedlam."
"In Sir Humphrey's case 'twas not excessive drinking and hard riding alone," Roger persisted. "Towards the end his mind was definitely affected. He had a mania that Georgina was making a fool of him, and when he burst into her room he acted like a madman. I'll swear to that."
"You cannot, without- revealing your presence there."
"I'll do so then. I would venture anything on a chance that Georgina's sentence may be transportation rather than a hanging."
The Colonel wrung his hands. Oh, Roger, my boy, I know you would; and all my instincts urge me to let you make the attempt. But 'tis, now that I must strive to keep a level head for both of us. Do you not see that even if the judge granted an adjournment, at the end of it we'd still have no solid evidence that we could bring to establish Humphrey's madness. Then, when the case reopened, your part in this affair would be uncovered by the prosecution. You would find yourself in the dock beside Georgina. As two lovers accused of doing her husband to death between you, what chance would either of you stand?"
"None, I fear," agreed Roger miserably.
For a few moments they sat silent, then he burst out: "Yet, by hook or by crook, an adjournment we must get. Even in a week much could be done. We could find ways and means to throw discredit on the prosecution's witnesses. We could create a belief that Georgina went in terror of her husband, even if we have to bribe fresh witnesses of our own to say so. We could engage new Counsel to present the defence from a different angle. But all these things need time—time— time!"
" 'Tis the same thought that has haunted me these past three weeks," sighed the Colonel. "Yet, had I had longer, I know not what more I could have done; or even now if these measures you propose would prove effective. They sound so simple, but I fear you would find them far from easy of accomplishment."
Roger suddenly snapped his fingers. "I have it! I will go to the Prime Minister. As the King's first representative he must surely have the power to order the adjournment of a trial for a week."
Colonel Thursby did not seek to dissuade him. His own belief was, that although the Royal prerogative enabled the King to pardon a convicted person, if he wished, not even he had the right to stay the course of British justice once it was set in motion. Yet the Colonel, worn out as he was himself, could still sympathise with Roger's terrible urge to take some form of action, and thought it better that he should set out on a futile errand than remain inactive at the mercy of his heartrending thoughts.
Grabbing his hat and cloak, Roger promised that he would come back as soon as he could, and ran downstairs. As there was no hackney coach in sight, he dashed round to the mews at the back of the house, shouted for his old friend Tomkins, the Colonel's coachman, and told him to harness a pair of horses to a carriage. By half-past six he was back in Downing Street.
His luck was in to the extent that the Prime Minister had just finished dinner and was about to go across to the House, so consented to give him a few minutes before leaving, but there it ended. Pitt was gentle but adamant.
He said that if Roger was dissatisfied with the course that the case had taken, that alone, as a member of the public, gave him no right whatever to intervene. If he had private knowledge of the circumstances in which Sir Humphrey Etheredge had met his death, then it was his duty to disclose it. As far as he, the Prime Minister was concerned, even with the best will in the world, he could not instruct a judge to adjourn a case upon which he was already sitting. The only means by which an adjournment could be secured was by an application to submit fresh evidence before the judge ordered the jury to find a verdict.
"Fresh evidence!" "Time!" "Fresh evidence!" "Time!"were the words that hammered like the loud ticking of a clock in Roger's overwrought brain. How, without worsening Georgina's desperate position, by making it public that she had had a lover with her in her bedroom who had helped to bring about her husband's death, could he produce the one and secure the other?
Suddenly he saw that there was only one person in the world who, if he chose, could stave off the apparent inevitability of the judge donning the black cap and pronouncing the death sentence on Georgina the foDowing morning. It was Vorontzoff. His enemy had been the first to arrive in the room and find Georgina kneeling by her dead husband's body. If he could be cajoled, bribed or bullied into retracting the evidence he had already given, and making a fresh statement, the situation might yet be saved.
For a further ten minutes Roger talked to Pitt, asking his advice on the legal aspects of certain courses which might be pursued. With some reluctance Pitt agreed that one of them was worth attempting; then he added:
"To approve what you have in mind is not consonant with my status as a barrister-at-law, and even less so with my functions as a Minister of the Crown. Yet, from what you tell me, I realise that you are driven to this extremity out of an attachment which combines the highest feelings of a brother, friend and lover. In such a case I cannot find it in myself to put a restraint upon you. Officially, I must know nothing of this matter, but as a friend I hope that you will succeed in your unorthodox endeavour to unveil the truth and establish Lady Etheredge's innocence."
*****
Side by side they went downstairs to their respective carriages. Britain's great Prime Minister, sitting stiff-necked and unbending, as usual, drove the short distance to the House of Commons; while Roger directed Colonel Thursby's coachman to Amesbury House.
For the past three hours he had not given a single thought to Natalia Andreovna. Now, as he walked up the steps of the mansion it struck him that on this, their first night in England, he would have once more to plead urgent business as an excuse for leaving her. But he was not called upon to do so.
On entering the drawing-room, where several members of the family and their friends staying in the house were assembled round a dish of after-dinner tea, the old Marquess told him that when they had finished dinner, as he had not returned, Natalia had expressed a wish to take a drive round Piccadilly and the Parks to see them for the first time in the evening light. She had excused herself from accepting an offer that one of them should accompany her, on the plea that Roger would be disappointed if, during her first outing in London, anyone but himself showed her the sights. So, in order to indulge this whimsy of his foreign guest, the Marquess had sent for his second coachman, who spoke a little French, and told him to take her for an hour's drive round the town.
Roger's mind was too occupied with Georgina to give the matter anything but the scantiest thought. He inquired if Droopy Ned was at home and, on learning that he had not yet come in, excused himself and hurried up to his room.
There, he collected one of his pistols, loaded it, thrust it into the inner pocket of his coat, and, running down to the courtyard, told old Tomkins to drive him to Woronzow House in St. John's Wood.
It was now close on a quarter to eight and an unusually warm evening for early spring, but dusk was already obscuring the vistas as he drove up the splendid new thoroughfare of Portland Place and out into the country.
For the best part of a mile the way lay through farm lands, then they turned off the Hampstead Road and entered the shadows of a woodland glade.
During the drive Roger had had time to think out his plan of campaign. He felt certain that if he drove up to the front door of the Embassy, and sent in his name, Vorontzoff would refuse to see him alone, from fear that he meditated an assault. The proposition that he meant to put to the Ambassador was not, as he had led Pitt to suppose, that he should reveal certain facts that he had so far suppressed out of malice, but that he should go into court next morning and tell a lie to save Georgina's life.
Roger had argued to himself that Vorontzoff was as much responsible for Sir Humphrey Etheredge's death as either he or Georgina, in fact, more so; for had the Russian not sent his midnight messenger to Goodwood it would never have occurred. Therefore he must be persuaded that in common decency it was for him to avert the penalty from falling on another. If entreaties, and appeals to any sense of chivalry he might have, were not enough, Roger meant to threaten him and, as he had disclosed to Pitt, in the last extremity, force him to sign a statement at the point of a pistol.
But any such conversation could not possibly be held in the presence of witnesses; and Roger did not wish his visit to the house to be known even to the Embassy servants, if it could possibly be avoided. So when the carriage drew level with the end of the Embassy garden, he told Tomkins to pull up, and wait there until his return.
Leaving the road he walked round the corner of a wall that enclosed the garden from the wood, and along it for some twenty paces until he came to a wrought-iron gate. He had thought that he would have to climb the wall, but he was saved the trouble, as the gate proved to be unlocked. Having peered through it to make certain that no one was about, he slipped inside.
*****
The house, a large, rambling, two-storied building, was about a hundred yards away, and almost concealed from where Roger stood by a belt of trees, beyond which lay an irregularly-shaped lawn with big ornamental trees growing round its edges. In the failing light the young spring green, which was just beginning to sprout from the earlier trees and bushes, was hardly apparent; but it served to thicken a little the cover afforded by the winter foliage.
Moving cautiously from tree to tree Roger made his way round the west side of the lawn towards the main block of the building. As he got nearer he could see that the ground-floor windows, three of which had lights shining from them, were raised a few feet above a low gravel terrace, on which stood two carved stone seats. The main block had two big bow-windows, each of which supported a separate balcony for the room above, and between them was a doorway with a flight of iron steps leading down to the garden.
Having reached the side of the house, which consisted of a slightly lower wing, he began to tiptoe along the terrace. Just before he came to the first of the lighted windows he crouched down, so as to bring his head below the level of the sill; then he lifted it and risked a quick peep inside. It was a dining-room, and two footmen were in there laying the table for supper. Crouching again, he tiptoed on.
Suddenly a bang and a rattle in his rear, caused him to start and quickly flatten himself against the wall; but it was only one of the footmen in the room he had just passed, closing the windowed drawing the curtains for the night.
Creeping another few steps he arrived at the first of the big bow-windows. This too, had a light coming from it but not so brightly as from the other. Lifting his head again he peeped in through its lower left-hand corner. The room was a handsomely-furnished study and in it, with his back half-turned to Roger, a wigless man was sitting writing at a desk by the light of a solitary two-branched candelabra. It gave the only light in the room, and so accounted for its dimness, but light enough for Roger to identify the writer. That broad, muscular frame and bull-like neck could belong only to Vorontzoff.
Roger saw that of the three windows that formed the bay those at each side were both open at the top; so he had only to ease up the lower sash of the one nearest him to crawl inside. But the noise he would make in doing so was certain to attract Vorontzoff's attention; and the Russian might shout for help, or if he were armed, become master of the situation before his visitor could cover him with a pistol.
To see the Russian sitting there with his back turned, and only some panes of glass in between them, was, for Roger, tantalising in the extreme. At first sight it had seemed such a piece of good fortune that the mildness of the weather had led to several ground-floor windows being open; so it was doubly aggravating now to realise that he could not take advantage of that without giving his enemy the advantage over him.
It occurred to him that he could smash one of the window panes, thrust his pistol through it pointed at Vorontzoff's back, and threaten to shoot him if he called for help; then make him come to the window, raise its lower sash and admit his visitor himself. But there was a danger attached to such a proceeding. One of the servants might hear the smashing of the glass, and come running to see if his master had met with an accident. On consideration that seemed unlikely, so Roger decided to risk it. But, just as he was about to pull out his pistol, he saw the door of the room opening, and was forced to duck out of sight.
A moment later he stole a cautious glance. A footman stood framed in the doorway and was just ending a sentence in Russian. Vorontzoff replied abruptly in the same language, and stood up.
Roger gave them another thirty seconds, then peeped again. The footman was lighting the candles in the chandelier and Vorontzoff was on the far side of the room putting on his wig in front of a gilt-framed wall-mirror. After a slightly longer interval Roger snatched another look. Vorontzoff was just going out of the door and the footman was walking towards the window. Scared that the man would see him, Roger dropped down on his knees and crouched almost flat, to get below the angle of the man's glance if he looked out.
The shadows were thickening now and the heavy foliage of a big magnolia grandiflora, climbing up the side of the house, helped to obscure the place where Roger was kneeling. The footman shut one of the windows but ignored the other, then pulled the heavy curtains, cutting off any further chance of Roger seeing into the room.
He got to his feet and stood there listening intently for a moment. He could hear the man's footfalls as they crossed the parquet of the floor, then they faded away. Roger had no idea if Vorontzoff had come back into the room or not, but he felt that it was now or never.
Gripping the lower framework of the window which was still open at the top, he eased it up. It ran smoothly on its weights making little noise. When he had it open a couple of feet he put his hands on the sill, kicked himself off the ground and, as quietly as possible, wriggled inside. Between the window and the fall of the curtain there was a space about a foot wide, and ample in which to stand up. Getting cautiously to his feet he listened again.
For half a minute he could hear nothing but the beating of his own heart, then he caught Vorontzoff's voice, distant but clear, speaking in French.
"This way, Madame. In my room we shall be able to talk at our ease."
A woman murmured something that Roger did not catch. There came the noise of footsteps on the parquet and people settling themselves in chairs, then Vorontzoff spoke again:
"His Excellency wrote to warn me that there was a prospect of my being able to welcome you here either this month or next. But there seemed some little doubt then whether you would be able to make the journey. I ani delighted that you managed to do so, as I feel certain that you will be of the very greatest assistance to me in London."
"I am, I believe, exceptionally well placed to be so," replied the woman, with a little laugh; and Roger stiffened where he stood, for the voice was that of Natalia Andreovna.
* * * * *
"I gather that you are married to a young man in the service of the British Foreign Office?" Vorontzoff remarked, continuing the conversation in French; and Roger blessed the custom of educated Russians of rarely using
their own language, except when addressing servants.
"Yes, Monsieur," replied Natalia. " 'Tis too long a story to tell in detail now. This is my first night in London, and I succeeded in slipping away from the mansion where he lodged me only on the pretext of wishing to see the city at sunset by myself. I will give you simply the bare outline.
"I believed my husband to be a Frenchman when he married me at the order of the Empress, in Petersburg, towards the beginning of last September; but a fortnight later he left me at a moment's notice, marooned in Copenhagen, on the plea of urgent business. 'Twas on doing so that he disclosed in a letter that he was really an Englishman; and that gave me furiously to think. While we were in Stockholm, where we first met, and later in Russia, his curiosity on the subjects of Her Majesty's Court and our foreign policy had been insatiable. Naturally I wondered if he had been making use of me to gain information, so I determined to wait and find out. Then, early in October I had a letter despatched by him from Gothenborg. In it he told me that he would not be able to rejoin me for some time. To begin with I had been much attracted to him physically, but the attraction was Wearing thin, as these things do, and there was a certain softness about his nature which at times repelled me; so I decided to wait no longer, but rejoin my father."
So thatwas the truth of the matter, thought Roger grimly. Her feelings for him had been on a par with his for her, all the time. What a fool he had been to go out to Stockholm and fetch her, when by leaving her there he might have been rid of her for good.
Vorontzoff had interrupted her to say: "Pardon me, Madame, but am I not right in supposing ,that your return to your father was dictated, partly at least, by the fact that you could not go back to Russia, owing to your having incurred the Empress's displeasure?"
" 'Tis true, your Excellency," Natalia admitted, "and as I have a great love for our country I took it hard. 'Twas in the hope that I might earn reinstatement in Her Majesty's good graces, that I suggested to my father making a rapprochement with my husband for the purpose of gaining possession of his secrets."
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