Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07

by The Second Seal

  The next sitting was on Thursday, the 23rd, and the Duke was spared the necessity of taking special measures on his arrival by de Lazalo, who had asked him to lunch beforehand. When Ilona appeared it was obvious to De Richleau that she was doing a poor best to suppress great excitement; so he was not at all surprised when, after twenty minutes, she declared that she had sat long enough for that day. Then, no sooner had they adjourned to the garden than she made the same excuse as before to take him inside again.

  As soon as they were alone, he said, “What is it, dearest? Don’t tell me that they are hastening on your marriage?”

  “No, no!” She shook her head and her eyes were wide. “There is nothing fresh about that. But they’ve sent the ultimatum.”

  “The ultimatum!” he exclaimed.

  “Yes. To Serbia. It is to be delivered by our Ambassador in Belgrade at six o’clock this evening.”

  He stared at her. “But this is terrible! After—after we all thought that things would be smoothed over. If they meant to send one, why ever didn’t they do so before? Or is this the result of some fresh outrage that we have not yet heard about?”

  “I gather now that they always meant to, but have held it up for some reason that is still being kept a close secret.”

  “Do you know anything of its terms?”

  “Only that they are extremely harsh. Count Aulendorf told me that they were such that no nation could be expected to accept them. And the Serbians have been given only forty-eight hours in which to reply.”

  “Then this means war.”

  “I fear so. The thought is horrible. Still, those swinish Serbians have asked for it, and we shall soon give them the hiding they deserve.”

  “But, Ilona, there is a great danger that the war will spread. Should Russia make the least move in Serbia’s favour, Germany will march against her. The Germans will take no risk of Russia striking first. And, although you may not know it, the Kaiser has guaranteed to support Austria to the limit.”

  “Well, so he should. He is a vulgar little man, but the least he can do for his ally is to see that Russia does not stab us in the back.”

  “I don’t contest that from Austria’s point of view. But don’t you see, darling, that if Russia and Germany begin hostilities France will come in as Russia’s ally, and England. Italy too, perhaps, and Rumania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece. It will be an immeasurable catastrophe, with the armies of every nation in Europe spreading death and desolation in their path.”

  A shudder ran through her. “You paint a terrible picture, Armand; but there can be no drawing back now. We can only pray that Serbia will agree to our demands, however harsh they may be; or that your fears of the conflict spreading will not be realized. If they are, Austria will need every soldier she can raise to fight her battles. When I made you an honorary Colonel of my regiment I little thought that you would be called upon to fight. But if you have to go with the rest, I know that your conduct will make me prouder than ever of you.”

  He looked at her aghast; then seized her hands and cried “My sweet! My sweet! How can you have forgotten that I am British?”

  “British!” she gasped. “But you were born the heir to both French and Austrian titles. Since you were expelled from France, how can your nationality be anything now but Austrian?”

  “Ilona, my own!” His grip on her hands tightened while he fought for words. “Our love—our love has been so different from that of an ordinary couple. We’ve had so little time together—never enough to do more than say we love one another. Perhaps I never told you; but I thought you knew. When I was exiled from France I considered becoming an Austrian officially. But I didn’t. For reasons into which there is no point in going now, I took out British naturalization papers. So—so you see, if the worst happens we—we shall be on opposite sides.”

  Her eyes grew rounder, but she did not speak; so after a moment he went on: “For us, I fear this sending of an ultimatum is the end. You are the last woman in the world who needs to be told that personal interests must be sacrificed to duty. Mine, if war comes, is to serve England to the best of my ability. Ilona, to part with you is to tear my heart from my body. But it has to be. Now that hostilities against Serbia have actually been threatened, I must at once return to London.”

  Pulling her hands from his, she threw her arms round his neck. “Not yet, Armand! Not yet. What you tell me is a shock. It’s not that I mind your being British, but that we may find our countries fighting against one another. For us to be utterly cut off from each other like that would be terrible.”

  “My love, even had I been Austrian our separation must have come soon.”

  “You mean by my marriage? I know. But at least we should still have been able to get news of one another. Besides, my engagement has not yet been announced, so it will be several weeks before they— they pack me off to Bulgaria. I was counting on those weeks to store up a further treasure of loving memories of you.”

  “And I of you, beloved. But we must now make shift with those we have already.”

  “No, no! There is still a little time for us to snatch others. I beg you not to rob me of it. Why are you in such a desperate hurry to get back to England? Your duty does not require that you should leave Vienna yet.”

  “By implication it does. In forty-eight hours Austria and Serbia will be at war. It will take me that long to get home, and, knowing what I do, it would not be right for me to take any risk of being stranded abroad with the possibility of a general war breaking out.”

  “But nothing is certain yet. Serbia may decide to grovel rather than fight.”

  “You forget that I have been in Belgrade recently. I know the temper of the Serbs. Their army believes yours to be effete. Despite the odds, they will accept the challenge without hesitation.”

  “Even then the war may not spread: And if it does—if Russia, Germany and France all come in—England may still keep out.”

  “If France is attacked, Britain will come to her aid. I am certain of it.”

  “How can you be?”

  He hesitated for a moment. Distressed beyond measure as he was, at the thought of leaving her, he felt that he must get home. He was convinced that nothing could now avert war on the grand scale, and if he were to take his proper part in it, the sooner he got back to London the better. To remain a few days longer could make their parting no less painful; yet it seemed unnecessarily brutal to deprive her of them without any apparent reason. If he gave a truthful answer to her question, that would provide it.

  Looking down into her eyes,’ he said gravely, “From conversations that I had with several highly placed men before I left London, I am convinced that Britain will honour her alliance with France.”

  Ilona was not impressed. She shook her head impatiently. “The awful deed at Sarajevo did not take place till the end of June—a full two months after we left London. If the conversations you speak of occurred in April they can have been only the vaguest speculations, and had no relation whatever to this quarrel between Austria and Serbia. It is absurd to attach any weight to an unofficial pronouncement on a situation which could not possibly have been foreseen.”

  “The possibility of such a situation arising was foreseen.”

  “What! They knew in England of the plot to murder my cousin?”

  “No! No! But it was feared that during the summer a breach would occur between Austria and Serbia. That was the subject of those discussions, and I was informed officially that in such a case Britain would stand no nonsense from Germany.”

  She frowned. “You say you were informed officially. Why was that? What had such a matter to do with you?”

  Too late De Richleau realized that in his anxiety to convince her of the desperateness of the situation he had gone much further than he intended. He could only reply, “I am in the service of the British Government.”

  Her face had lost its colour as she asked: “What do you mean by that? You have never said anything to me of being con
nected with the British Embassy here.”

  “I am not,” he admitted, now seeking frantically in his mind for the best course to adopt. He could refuse to answer further questions from her. But he could not bear to have her tortured by doubts about himself. It would be better to tell her the whole truth and trust to her appreciating his motives for what he had done. That seemed to offer the only chance of preserving her faith in him and not soiling her memories of her love with miserable uncertainties.

  “Listen, Ilona,” he said firmly. “It is best that I should tell you now that I have deceived you in certain matters; not deliberately, but through force of circumstances. For example, I never went to Constantinople, as I told you; but during my absence from Vienna I was all the time in Belgrade. That apart, in the main, I have not lied to you about myself, but simply refrained from informing you about the work to which I was committed before we crossed the Channel together, and the secret activities that it entailed. I am not a British diplomat, but it would be fair to say that I have been acting on instructions from the British Foreign Office. Even before I met you, there was some reason to suppose that Serbia intended to give Austria provocation for war. I was sent out to inquire into that and, if I could, suggest measures to prevent it. That was how I learned of the Black Hand’s plot to assassinate your cousin.”

  Slowly she withdrew her arms from round his neck and let them fall to her sides. “Do you—? Surely you cannot mean that you are a spy?”

  “That is an unpleasant word, Ilona. Use it if you must, but at least remember my motive and who—”

  Her face suddenly became distorted by horror. Drawing back from him, she cried: “What does it matter why, or on whom, you spied? You! A man of gentle birth! A nobleman! Oh, how could you demean yourself by undertaking such vile work?”

  It was a question that in May and early June he had asked himself a hundred times, but he had since become so fully convinced that in this case the end justified the means, that his voice hardened as he replied:

  “If it be demeaning oneself to strive to avert untold misery overtaking countless innocent people, then I am guilty of it. What is more, I would demean myself again if by ferreting out Austria’s secrets I could yet prevent a war.”

  “Perhaps—” Her voice broke and she went on in a whisper:

  “Perhaps you have already endeavoured to do so. Since you left England you have spent far more time in Vienna than in Belgrade.”

  He shook his head miserably. “Ilona, what of your love for me? Have you not sufficient faith in me as a man to believe that I have acted only from good motives?”

  “Yes, I love you,” she murmured. “I cannot help myself in that. For the rest, I don’t know what to think.”

  For a moment they stared at one another in unhappy silence. Then she drew herself up and said: “In view of what you have told me, I realize the necessity for your immediate departure. You have my permission to go.”

  She was near to tears, but pride held them back. Her voice held no quaver of sentiment, and her attitude was entirely regal. To him there seemed no alternative but to accept this formal dismissal. Overwhelmed with sorrow at this tragic ending to their love affair, he bowed to her, turned on his heel, and limped slowly towards the door.

  He had barely reached it when he heard a choking sob behind him, and her low cry: “Armand!”

  Turning, he saw that tears were now streaming down her face. She held out her arms. “Oh, Armand! We must not part like this. Not—not without one last kiss.”

  His game leg forgotten, he re-crossed the studio in a few strides. Trembling with emotion, he caught her to him.

  “I—I simply can’t understand why—why you should have done such a thing,” she sobbed. “Surely only the most awful people are employed as spies? Ex-officers who have been dismissed from the army in disgrace and can find no other way to earn a living; petty criminals who are induced to do it by reduction of their sentences; and—and prostitutes in garrison towns.”

  He pressed her wet cheek against his. “Darling, you are right about peace-time spies being mainly recruited from the dregs of humanity; though in war many of them are honourable and courageous people who risk their lives from entirely patriotic motives. As far as I am concerned, I agreed to undertake this mission only with the greatest reluctance. But once I had done so I realized its immense importance. Surely you can see that had I been only a little more fortunate I might have been in time to prevent the assassination of your cousin? Had I been able to do that, this terrible crisis would never have arisen.”

  She nodded, and smiled up at him through her tears. “Yes, yes. That’s true. I hadn’t looked at it like that.”

  “Oh, thank God!” he kissed her again. “Thank God you realize what I have been trying to do. I would have eaten out my heart with misery had I been forced to leave you believing me to be unworthy of your love.”

  Her face clouded again. “But what of Austria? While you have been here many of our leading men must have talked freely in your presence. You must have heard many of our secrets, too.”

  “I have; but none of any great importance. And I swear to you that I have not used any of the knowledge I have gained to Austria’s detriment.”

  Once more her blue eyes shone with love and trust. “Then I don’t care what nationality you are or what you’ve done. I love you, and I shall never love anyone else. Stay with me, Armand! Stay with me yet a little time. Serbia may give in. There may be no war. Remain here at least until we know the worst, and it is absolutely necessary for you to go.”

  He shook his head. “No, beloved. I beg you not to ask me.”

  “Please, Armand! Please! Remember what is in store for me. Once I am married memories of you are all I’ll have to live on—the only thing I’ll have to comfort me for the rest of my life.”

  “I cannot,” he sighed. “I must go. Do you not see that if I remain and, even despite myself, learn more of Austria’s intentions, should there be war between our countries it will be my duty to tell what I know.”

  “You tell me that you have not passed on the knowledge that you have gained so far, so why should you disclose anything more that you may learn in these next few days? Since you are so honourable as to wish to go on that account, surely your love for me is sufficient to put the seal of honour on your lips about everything you hear until you leave Vienna.”

  Suddenly he kissed her violently again, broke the grasp of her hands about his neck, and exclaimed: “Ilona, you are seeking to place me in an impossible position. You ask too much. I love you desperately. I’ll love you till the day I die. But I’ve got to go. I must. Good-bye.”

  Swinging away from her, he limped swiftly across the room. His heart was pounding and there was a mist before his eyes. He felt as though he were leaving a part of himself behind, but he had steeled himself to it. If he stayed the odds were all against his learning anything that mattered about Austria’s military preparations unless he went out of his way to do so. And if by chance he did, he considered that the services he had already rendered would justify him in keeping his mouth shut. It had never been suggested that he should attempt to ferret out Austria’s secrets, so he could have stayed on for a day or two without risk of being faced with the awful question of whether it was his duty to betray Ilona’s trust in him. But Austria had her blank cheque from the Kaiser, and now that she had sent out an ultimatum he felt that war was inescapable. To remain was only to court a repetition of this agony of parting a few days hence. Torture as the thought was to him that he might never see her again, he knew that he had been wise for both of them in refusing her plea to delay his departure.

  As he stumped towards the door, dragging his injured leg a little, he was terribly tempted to look round and snatch one last look at her to preserve in his memory. But he dared not do so, knowing that he would weaken if he did.

  Suddenly he heard her running feet. She caught him when he was still only two-thirds of the way across the room. Seizing
him by the arm she swung him round, exclaiming:

  “Armand! Armand! There is something that I have not yet told you.”

  He made a half-hearted attempt to free his arm. “No, please,” he begged. “For pity’s sake! Let me go now, and don’t prolong this agony.”

  But she ignored his plea and her words came pouring out in a breathless spate:

  “Oh, Armand, I have deceived you too. I have done worse! I may have harmed you. But I love you so much that I could not find the strength to give you up. I’ve never loved anyone before. I was never even kissed until you kissed me. Since that night at Königstein I’ve only lived from hour to hour on the thought that you would soon hold me in your arms again. I’ve been incredibly wicked. God will punish me for it, I know. But I don’t mind that. I don’t mind anything if only you’ll stay until we know that war with England is certain. I’ll be content with very little. Just to be with you whenever we can manage it. Just to hold your hand, to see you and hear your voice. Please, please forgive me and grant me that much.”

  As she paused for breath, he asked in amazement, “But what is there for me to forgive, my sweet? In what way have you deceived me?”

  Her lovely face was a picture of grief and contrition as she sobbed: “I lied to you the other day. And worse—much worse—I should never have let you kiss me. I didn’t see Dr. Bruckner on Friday. It wasn’t necessary. I have known for months that my lungs are affected. I am suffering from consumption.”

  CHAPTER XX - THE ROAD TO THE ABYSS

  De Richleau raised his slender hands and took Ilona’s lovely, tear-stained face between them. Before she could pull back her head, he leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. Then he said:

  “My poor Princess. I feared this all the time. In fact, I felt almost certain of it.”

  “You knew! And yet you went on kissing me.” There was adoration in her eyes, but she added unhappily, “I ought never to have let you. There is a risk that you might contract my disease—may have done so already.”