“You have spent some time examining it yourself,” she said in a low tone; “what was your own opinion?”
“I found some sheets,” he answered, “and I read them very carefully; they were connected with the various landing-places upon the Suffolk coast. An immense amount of detail was very clearly given. The currents, bays, and fortifications were all set out; even the roads and railways into the interior were dealt with. I compared them afterwards with a map of Suffolk. They were, so far as one could judge, correct. Of course this was only a page or two at random, but I must say it made an impression upon me.”
There was another silence, this time longer than before. Lady Deringham was thinking. Once more, then, the man had lied to her! He was on some secret business of his own. She shuddered slightly. She had no curiosity as to its nature. Only she remembered what many people had told her, that where he went disaster followed. A piece of coal fell into the grate hissing from the fire. He stooped to pick it up, and catching a glimpse of her face became instantly graver. He remembered that as yet he had heard nothing of what she had come to tell him. Her presence in the library was altogether unexplained.
“You were very good,” she said slowly; “you stayed what might have been a tragedy. You knew that I was there, you helped me to escape; yet you must have known that I was in league with the man who was trying to steal those papers.”
“There was no mistake, then! You were doing that. You!”
“It is true,” she answered. “It was I who let him in, who unlocked your father’s desk. I was his accomplice!”
“Who was the man?”
She did not tell him at once.
“He was once,” she said, “my lover!”
“Before——”
“Before I met your father! We were never really engaged. But he loved me, and I thought I cared for him. I wrote him letters—the foolish letters of an impulsive girl. These he has kept. I treated him badly, I know that! But I too have suffered. It has been the desire of my life to have those letters. Last night he called here. Before my face he burnt all but one! That he kept. The price of his returning it to me was my help—last night.”
“For what purpose?” Wolfenden asked. “What use did he propose to make of the Admiral’s papers if he succeeded in stealing them?”
She shook her head mournfully.
“I cannot tell. He answered me at first that he simply needed some statistics to complete a magazine article, and that Mr. C. himself had sent him here. If what you tell me of their importance is true, I have no doubt that he lied.”
“Why could he not go to the Admiral himself?”
Lady Deringham’s face was as pale as death, and she spoke with downcast head, her eyes fixed upon her clenched hands.
“At Cairo,” she said, “not long after my marriage, we all met. I was indiscreet, and your father was hot-headed and jealous. They quarrelled and fought, your father wounded him; he fired in the air. You understand now that he could not go direct to the Admiral.”
“I cannot understand,” he admitted, “why you listened to his proposal.”
“Wolfenden, I wanted that letter,” she said, her voice dying away in something like a moan. “It is not that I have anything more than folly to reproach myself with, but it was written—it was the only one—after my marriage. Just at first I was not very happy with your father. We had had a quarrel, I forget what about, and I sat down and wrote words which I have many a time bitterly repented ever having put on paper. I have never forgotten them—I never shall! I have seen them often in my happiest moments, and they have seemed to me to be written with letters of fire.”
“You have it back now? You have destroyed it?”
She shook her head wearily.
“No, I was to have had it when he had succeeded; I had not let him in five minutes when you disturbed us.”
“Tell me the man’s name.”
“Why?”
“I will get you the letter.”
“He would not give it you. You could not make him.”
Wolfenden’s eyes flashed with a sudden fire.
“You are mistaken,” he said. “The man who holds for blackmail over a woman’s head, a letter written twenty years ago, is a scoundrel! I will get that letter from him. Tell me his name!”
Lady Deringham shuddered.
“Wolfenden, it would bring trouble! He is dangerous. Don’t ask me. At least I have kept my word to him. It was not my fault that we were disturbed. He will not molest me now.”
“Mother, I will know his name!”
“I cannot tell it you!”
“Then I will find it out; it will not be difficult. I will put the whole matter in the hands of the police. I shall send to Scotland Yard for a detective. There are marks underneath the window. I picked up a man’s glove upon the library floor. A clever fellow will find enough to work upon. I will find this blackguard for myself, and the law shall deal with him as he deserves.”
“Wolfenden, have mercy! May I not know best? Are my wishes, my prayers, nothing to you?”
“A great deal, mother, yet I consider myself also a judge as to the wisest course to pursue. The plan which I have suggested may clear up many things. It may bring to light the real object of this man. It may solve the mystery of that impostor, Wilmot. I am tired of all this uncertainty. We will have some daylight. I shall telegraph to-morrow morning to Scotland Yard.”
“Wolfenden, I beseech you!”
“So also do I beseech you, mother, to tell me that man’s name. Great heavens!”
Wolfenden sprang suddenly from his chair with startled face. An idea, slow of coming, but absolutely convincing from its first conception, had suddenly flashed home to him. How could he have been so blind? He stood looking at his mother in fixed suspense. The light of his knowledge was in his face, and she saw it. She had been dreading this all the while.
“It was Mr. Sabin!—the man who calls himself Sabin!”
A little moan of despair crept out from her lips. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.
CHAPTER XXX
THE GATHERING OF THE WAR-STORM
Table of Contents
Mr. Sabin, entering his breakfast-room as usual at ten o’clock on the following morning, found, besides the usual pile of newspapers and letters, a telegram, which had arrived too late for delivery on the previous evening. He opened it in leisurely fashion whilst he sipped his coffee. It was handed in at the Charing Cross Post Office, and was signed simply “K.”:—
“Just returned. When can you call and conclude arrangements? Am anxious to see you. Read to-night’s paper.—K.”
The telegram slipped from Mr. Sabin’s fingers. He tore open the St. James’s Gazette, and a little exclamation escaped from his lips as he saw the thick black type which headed the principal columns:—
“EXTRAORDINARY TELEGRAM OF THE GERMAN
EMPEROR TO MOENIG!
GERMAN SYMPATHY WITH THE REBELS!
Warships Ordered to Delamere Bay!
Great Excitement on the Stock Exchange!”
Mr. Sabin’s breakfast remained untasted. He read every word in the four columns, and then turned to the other newspapers. They were all ablaze with the news. England’s most renowned ally had turned suddenly against her. Without the slightest warning the fire-brand of war had been kindled, and waved threateningly in our very faces. The occasion was hopelessly insignificant. A handful of English adventurers, engaged in a somewhat rash but plucky expedition in a distant part of the world, had met with a sharp reverse. In itself the affair was nothing; yet it bade fair to become a matter of international history. Ill-advised though they may have been, the Englishmen carried with them a charter granted by the British Government. There was no secret about it—the fact was perfectly understood in every Cabinet of Europe. Yet the German Emperor had himself written a telegram congratulating the State which had repelled the threatened attack. It was scarcely an invasion—it was little more than a demonstration o
n the part of an ill-treated section of the population! The fact that German interests were in no way concerned—that any outside interference was simply a piece of gratuitous impertinence—only intensified the significance of the incident. A deliberate insult had been offered to England; and the man who sat there with the paper clenched in his hand, whilst his keen eyes devoured the long columns of wonder and indignation, knew that his had been the hand which had hastened the long-pent-up storm. He drew a little breath when he had finished, and turned to his breakfast.
“Is Miss Sabin up yet?” he asked the servant, who waited upon him.
The man was not certain, but withdrew to inquire. He reappeared almost directly. Miss Sabin had been up for more than an hour. She had just returned from a walk, and had ordered breakfast to be served in her room.
“Tell her,” Mr. Sabin directed, “that I should be exceedingly obliged if she would take her coffee with me. I have some interesting news.”
The man was absent for several minutes. Before he returned Helène came in. Mr. Sabin greeted her with his usual courtesy and even more than his usual cordiality.
“You are missing the best part of the morning with your Continental habits,” she exclaimed brightly. “I have been out on the cliffs since half-past eight. The air is delightful.”
She threw off her hat, and going to the sideboard, helped herself to a cup of coffee. There was a becoming flush upon her cheeks—her hair was a little tossed by the wind. Mr. Sabin watched her curiously.
“You have not, I suppose, seen a morning paper—or rather last night’s paper?” he remarked.
She shook her head.
“A newspaper! You know that I never look at an English one,” she answered. “You wanted to see me, Reynolds said. Is there any news?”
“There is great news,” he answered. “There is such news that by sunset to-day war will probably be declared between England and Germany!”
The flush died out of her cheeks. She faced him pallid to the lips.
“It is not possible!” she exclaimed.
“So the whole world would have declared a week ago! As a matter of fact it is not so sudden as we imagine! The storm has been long brewing! It is we who have been blind. A little black spot of irritation has spread and deepened into a war-cloud.”
“This will affect us?” she asked.
“For us,” he answered, “it is a triumph. It is the end of our schemes, the climax of our desires. When Knigenstein came to me I knew that he was in earnest, but I never dreamed that the torch was so nearly kindled. I see now why he was so eager to make terms with me.”
“And you,” she said, “you have their bond?”
For a moment he looked thoughtful.
“Not yet. I have their promise—the promise of the Emperor himself. But as yet my share of the bargain is incomplete. There must be no more delay. It must be finished now—at once. That telegram would never have been sent from Berlin but for their covenant with me. It would have been better, perhaps, had they waited a little time. But one cannot tell! The opportunity was too good to let slip.”
“How long will it be,” she asked, “before your work is complete?”
His face clouded over. In the greater triumph he had almost forgotten the minor difficulties of the present. He was a diplomatist and a schemer of European fame. He had planned great things, and had accomplished them. Success had been on his side so long that he might almost have been excused for declining to reckon failure amongst the possibilities. The difficulty which was before him now was as trifling as the uprooting of a hazel switch after the conquest of a forest of oaks. But none the less for the moment he was perplexed. It was hard, in the face of this need for urgent haste, to decide upon the next step.
“My work,” he said slowly, “must be accomplished at once. There is very little wanted. Yet that little, I must confess, troubles me.”
“You have not succeeded, then, in obtaining what you want from Lord Deringham?”
“No.”
“Will he not help you at all?”
“Never.”
“How, then, do you mean to get at these papers of his?”
“At present,” he replied, “I scarcely know. In an hour or two I may be able to tell you. It is possible that it might take me twenty-four hours; certainly no longer than that.”
She walked to the window, and stood there with her hands clasped behind her back. Mr. Sabin had lit a cigarette and was smoking it thoughtfully.
Presently she spoke to him.
“You will get them,” she said; “yes, I believe that. In the end you will succeed, as you have succeeded in everything.”
There was a lack of enthusiasm in her tone. He looked up quietly, and flicked the ash from the end of his cigarette.
“You are right,” he said. “I shall succeed. My only regret is that I have made a slight miscalculation. It will take longer than I imagined. Knigenstein will be in a fever, and I am afraid that he will worry me. At the same time he is himself to blame. He has been needlessly precipitate.”
She turned away from the window and stood before him. She had a look in her face which he had seen there but once before, and the memory of which had ever since troubled him.
“I want you,” she said, “to understand this. I will not have any direct harm worked upon the Deringhams. If you can get what they have and what is necessary to us by craft—well, very good. If not, it must go! I will not have force used. You should remember that Lord Wolfenden saved your life! I will have nothing to do with any scheme which brings harm upon them!”
He looked at her steadily. A small spot of colour was burning high up on his pallid cheeks. The white, slender fingers, toying carelessly with one of the breakfast appointments, were shaking. He was very near being passionately angry.
“Do you mean,” he said, speaking slowly and enunciating every word with careful distinctness, “do you mean that you would sacrifice or even endanger the greatest cause which has ever been conceived in the heart of the patriot, to the whole skin of a household of English people? I wonder whether you realise the position as it stands at this moment. I am bound in justice to you to believe that you do not. Do you realise that Germany has closed with our offer, and will act at our behest; that only a few trifling sheets of paper stand between us and the fullest, the most glorious success? Is it a time, do you think, for scruples or for maudlin sentiment? If I were to fail in my obligations towards Knigenstein I should not only be dishonoured and disgraced, but our cause would be lost for ever. The work of many years would crumble into ashes. My own life would not be worth an hour’s purchase. Helène, you are mad! You are either mad, or worse!”
She faced him quite unmoved. It was more than ever apparent that she was not amongst those who feared him.
“I am perfectly sane,” she said, “and I am very much in earnest. Ours shall be a strategic victory, or we will not triumph at all. I believe that you are planning some desperate means of securing those papers. I repeat that I will not have it!”
He looked at her with curling lips.
“Perhaps,” he said, “it is I who have gone mad! At least I can scarcely believe that I am not dreaming. Is it really you, Helène of Bourbon, the descendant of kings, a daughter of the rulers of France, who falters and turns pale at the idea of a little blood, shed for her country’s sake? I am very much afraid,” he added with biting sarcasm, “that I have not understood you. You bear the name of a great queen, but you have the heart of a serving-maid! It is Lord Wolfenden for whom you fear!”
She was not less firm, but her composure was affected. The rich colour streamed into her cheeks. She remained silent.
“For a betrothed young lady,” he said slowly, “you will forgive me if I say that your anxiety is scarcely discreet. What you require, I suppose, is a safe conduct for your lover. I wonder how Henri would——”
She flashed a glance and an interjection upon him which checked the words upon his lips. The gesture was almost
a royal one. He was silenced.
“How dare you, sir?” she exclaimed. “You are taking insufferable liberties. I do not permit you to interfere in my private concerns. Understand that even if your words were true, if I choose to have a lover it is my affair, not yours. As for Henri, what has he to complain of? Read the papers and ask yourself that! They chronicle his doings freely enough! He is singularly discreet, is he not?—singularly faithful!”
She threw at him a glance of contempt and turned as though to leave the room. Mr. Sabin, recognising the fact that the situation was becoming dangerous, permitted himself no longer the luxury of displaying his anger. He was quite himself again, calm, judicial, incisive.
“Don’t go away, please,” he said. “I am sorry that you have read those reports—more than sorry that you should have attached any particular credence to them. As you know, the newspapers always exaggerate; in many of the stories which they tell I do not believe that there is a single word of truth. But I will admit that Henri has not been altogether discreet. Yet he is young, and there are many excuses to be made for him. Apart from that, the whole question of his behaviour is beside the question. Your marriage with him was never intended to be one of affection. He is well enough in his way, but there is not the stuff in him to make a man worthy of your love. Your alliance with him is simply a necessary link in the chain of our great undertaking. Between you you will represent the two royal families of France. That is what is necessary. You must marry him, but afterwards—well, you will be a queen!”
Again he had erred. She looked at him with bent brows and kindling eyes.
“Oh! you are hideously cynical!” she exclaimed. “I may be ambitious, but it is for my country’s sake. If I reign, the Court of France shall be of a new type; we will at least show the world that to be a Frenchwoman is not necessarily to abjure morals.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
21 Greatest Spy Thrillers in One Premium Edition (Mystery & Espionage Series) Page 462
