Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “The — Turkish Embassy.”

  “What!”

  “You knew it,” she said in a low voice, walking through the darkness beside him.

  “What is your name?” he insisted.

  “Dumont.”

  “What else?”

  “Ilse Dumont.”

  “That’s French.”

  “It’s Alsatian German.”

  “All right. Now, why did you break into that house?”

  “To take what you took.”

  “To steal these papers for the Turkish Embassy?”

  “To take them.”

  “For the Turkish Ambassador!” he repeated incredulously.

  “No; for his military attaché.”

  “What are you, a spy?”

  “You knew it well enough. You are one, also. But you have treated me as though I were a thief. You’ll be killed for it, I hope.”

  “You think I’m a spy?” he asked, astonished.

  “What else are you?”

  “A spy?” he repeated. “Is that what you are? And you suppose me to be one, too? That’s funny. That’s extremely — —” He checked himself, looked around at her. “What are you about?” he demanded. “What’s that in your hand?”

  “A cigarette.”

  They had arrived at the road. He got over the wall with the box; she vaulted it lightly.

  In the darkness he caught the low, steady throbbing of his engine, and presently distinguished the car standing where he had left it.

  “Get in,” he said briefly.

  “I am not a thief! Are you going to lay that charge against me?”

  “I don’t know. Is it worse than charging you with three separate attempts to murder me?”

  “Are you going to take me to jail?”

  “I’ll see. You’ll go as far as Orangeville with me, anyhow.”

  “I don’t care to go.”

  “I don’t care whether you want to go or not. Get into the car!”

  She climbed to the seat beside the wheel; he tossed in the olive-wood box, turned on his lamps, and took the wheel.

  “May I have a match for my cigarette?” she asked meekly.

  He found one, scratched it; she placed a very thick and long cigarette between her lips and he lighted it for her.

  Just as he threw in the clutch and the car started, the girl blew a shower of sparks from the end of her cigarette, rose in her seat, and flung the lighted cigarette high into the air. Instantly it burst into a flare of crimson fire, hanging aloft as though it were a fire balloon, and lighting up road and creek and bushes and fields with a brilliant strontium glare.

  Then, far in the night, he heard a motor horn screech three times.

  “You young devil!” he said, increasing the speed. “I ought to have remembered that every snake has its mate.... If you offer to touch me — if you move — if you as much as lift a finger, I’ll throw you into the creek!”

  The car was flying now, reeling over the dirt road like a drunken thing. He hung grimly to the wheel, his strained gaze fixed on the shaft of light ahead, through which the road streamed like a torrent.

  A great wind roared in his ears; his cap was gone. The car hurled itself forward through an endless tunnel of darkness lined with silver. Presently he began to slow down; the furious wind died away; the streaking darkness sped by less swiftly.

  “Have you gone mad?” she cried in his ear. “You’ll kill us both!”

  “Wait,” he shouted back; “I’ll show you and your friends behind us what speed really is.”

  The car was still slowing down as they passed over a wooden bridge where a narrow road, partly washed out, turned to the left and ran along a hillside. Into this he steered.

  “Who is it chasing us?” he asked curiously, still incredulous that any embassy whatever was involved in this amazing affair.

  “Friends.”

  “More Turks?”

  She did not reply.

  He sat still, listening for a few moments, then hastily started his car down the hill.

  “Now,” he said, “I’ll show you what this car of mine really can do! Are you afraid?”

  She said between her teeth:

  “I’d be a fool if I were not. All I pray for is that you’ll kill yourself, too.”

  “We’ll chance it together, my murderous little friend.”

  The wind began to roar again as they rushed downward over a hill that seemed endless. She clung to her seat and he hung to his wheel like grim death; and, for one terrible instant, she almost lost consciousness.

  Then the terrific pace slackened; the car, running swiftly, was now speeding over a macadam road; and Neeland laughed and cried in her ear:

  “Better light another of your hell’s own cigarettes if you want your friends to follow us!”

  Slowing, he drove with one hand on the wheel.

  “Look up there!” he said, pointing high at a dark hillside. “See their lights? They’re on the worst road in the Gayfield hills. We cut off three miles this way.”

  Still driving with one hand, he looked at his watch, laughed contentedly, and turned to her with the sudden and almost friendly toleration born of success and a danger shared in common.

  “That was rather a reckless bit of driving,” he admitted. “Were you frightened?”

  “Ask yourself how you’d feel with a fool at the wheel.”

  “We’re all fools at times,” he retorted, laughing. “You were when you shot at me. Suppose I’d been seized with panic. I might have turned loose on you, too.”

  For a while she remained silent, then she looked at him curiously:

  “Were you armed?”

  “I carry an automatic pistol in my portfolio pocket.”

  She shrugged.

  “You were a fool to come into that house without carrying it in your hand.”

  “Where would you be now if I had done that?”

  “Dead, I suppose,” she said carelessly.... “What are you going to do with me?”

  He was in excellent humour with himself; exhilaration and excitement still possessed him, keyed him up.

  “Fancy,” he said, “a foreign embassy being mixed up in a plain case of grand larceny! — robbing with attempt to murder! My dear but bloodthirsty young lady, I can hardly comprehend it.”

  She remained silent, looking straight in front of her.

  “You know,” he said, “I’m rather glad you’re not a common thief. You’ve lots of pluck — plenty. You’re as clever as a cobra. It isn’t every poisonous snake that is clever,” he added, laughing.

  “What do you intend to do with me?” she repeated coolly.

  “I don’t know. You are certainly an interesting companion. Maybe I’ll take you to New York with me. You see I’m beginning to like you.”

  She was silent.

  He said:

  “I never before met a real spy. I scarcely believed they existed in time of peace, except in novels. Really, I never imagined there were any spies working for embassies, except in Europe. You are, to me, such a rare specimen,” he added gaily, “that I rather dread parting with you. Won’t you come to Paris with me?”

  “Does what you say amuse you?”

  “What you say does. Yes, I think I’ll take you to New York, anyway. And as we journey toward that great metropolis together you shall tell me all about your delightful profession. You shall be a Scheherazade to me! Is it a bargain?”

  She said in a pleasant, even voice:

  “I might as well tell you now that what you’ve been stupid enough to do tonight is going to cost you your life.”

  “What!” he exclaimed laughingly. “More murder? Oh, Scheherazade! Shame on your naughty, naughty behaviour!”

  “Do you expect to reach Paris with those papers?”

  “I do, fair houri! I do, Rose of Stamboul!”

  “You never will.”

  “No?”

  “No.” She sat staring ahead of her for a few moments, then turned on
him with restrained impatience:

  “Listen to me, now! I don’t know who you are. If you’re employed by any government you are a novice — —”

  “Or an artist!”

  “Or a consummate artist,” she admitted, looking at him uncertainly.

  “I am an artist,” he said.

  “You have an excellent opinion of yourself.”

  “No. I’m telling you the truth. My name is Neeland — James Neeland. I draw little pictures for a living — nice little pictures for newspapers and magazines.”

  His frankness evidently perplexed her.

  “If that is so,” she said, “what interests you in the papers you took from me?”

  “Nothing at all, my dear young lady! I’m not interested in them. But friends of mine are.”

  “Who?”

  He merely laughed at her.

  “Are you an agent for any government?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  She said very quietly:

  “You make a terrible mistake to involve yourself in this affair. If you are not paid to do it — if you are not interested from patriotic motives — you had better keep aloof.”

  “But it’s too late. I am mixed up in it — whatever it may mean. Why not tell me, Scheherazade?”

  His humorous badinage seemed only to make her more serious.

  “Mr. Neeland,” she said quietly, “if you really are what you say you are, it is a dangerous and silly thing that you have done tonight.”

  “Don’t say that! Don’t consider it so tragically. I’m enjoying it all immensely.”

  “Do you consider it a comedy when a woman tries to kill you?”

  “Maybe you are fond of murder, gentle lady.”

  “Your sense of humour seems a trifle perverted. I am more serious than I ever was in my life. And I tell you very solemnly that you’ll be killed if you try to take those papers to Paris. Listen!” — she laid one hand lightly on his arm— “Why should you involve yourself — you, an American? This matter is no concern of yours — —”

  “What matter?”

  “The matter concerning those papers. I tell you it does not concern you; it is none of your business. Let me be frank with you: the papers are of importance to a foreign government — to the German Government. And in no way do they threaten your people or your country’s welfare. Why, then, do you interfere? Why do you use violence toward an agent of a foreign and friendly government?”

  “Why does a foreign and friendly government employ spies in a friendly country?”

  “All governments do.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It is. America swarms with British and French agents.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s my business to know, Mr. Neeland.”

  “Then that is your profession! You really are a spy?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you pursue this ennobling profession with an enthusiasm which does not stop short of murder!”

  “I had no choice.”

  “Hadn’t you? Your business seems to be rather a deadly one, doesn’t it, Scheherazade?”

  “Yes, it might become so.... Mr. Neeland, I have no personal feeling of anger for you. You offered me violence; you behaved brutally, indecently. But I want you to understand that no petty personal feeling incites me. The wrong you have done me is nothing; the injury you threaten to do my country is very grave. I ask you to believe that I speak the truth. It is in the service of my country that I have acted. Nothing matters to me except my country’s welfare. Individuals are nothing; the Fatherland everything.... Will you give me back my papers?”

  “No. I shall return them to their owner.”

  “Is that final?”

  “It is.”

  “I am sorry,” she said.

  A moment later the lights of Orangeville came into distant view across the dark and rolling country.

  CHAPTER XVI

  SCHEHERAZADE

  At the Orangeville garage Neeland stopped his car, put on his straw hat, got out carrying suitcase and box, entered the office, and turned over the care of the machine to an employee with orders to drive it back to Neeland’s Mills the next morning.

  Then he leisurely returned to his prisoner who had given him her name as Ilse Dumont and who was standing on the sidewalk beside the car.

  “Well, Scheherazade,” he said, smiling, “teller of marvellous tales, I don’t quite believe your stories, but they were extremely entertaining. So I won’t bowstring you or cut off your unusually attractive head! No! On the contrary, I thank you for your wonder-tales, and for not murdering me. And, furthermore, I bestow upon you your liberty. Have you sufficient cash to take you where you desire to waft yourself?”

  All the time her dark, unsmiling eyes remained fixed on him, calmly unresponsive to his badinage.

  “I’m sorry I had to be rough with you, Scheherazade,” he continued, “but when a young lady sews her clothes full of papers which don’t belong to her, what, I ask you, is a modest young man to do?”

  She said nothing.

  “It becomes necessary for that modest young man to can his modesty — and the young lady’s. Is there anything else he could do?” he repeated gaily.

  “He had better return those papers,” she replied in a low voice.

  “I’m sorry, Scheherazade, but it isn’t done in ultra-crooked circles. Are you sure you have enough money to go where destiny and booty call you?”

  “I have what I require,” she answered dryly.

  “Then good-bye, Pearl of the Harem! Without rancour, I offer you the hand that reluctantly chastened you.”

  They remained facing each other in silence for a moment; his expression was mischievously amused; hers inscrutable. Then, as he patiently and good-humouredly continued to offer her his hand, very slowly she laid her own in it, still looking him directly in the eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a low voice.

  “For what? For not shooting me?”

  “I’m sorry for you, Mr. Neeland.... You’re only a boy, after all. You know nothing. And you refuse to learn.... I’m sorry.... Good-bye.”

  “Could I take you anywhere? To the Hotel Orange? I’ve time. The station is across the street.”

  “No,” she said.

  She walked leisurely along the poorly lighted street and turned the first corner as though at hazard. The next moment her trim and graceful figure had disappeared.

  With his heart still gay from the night’s excitement, and the drop of Irish blood in him lively as champagne, he crossed the square briskly, entered the stuffy station, bought a ticket, and went out to the wooden platform beside the rails.

  Placing box and suitcase side by side, he seated himself upon them and lighted a cigarette.

  Here was an adventure! Whether or not he understood it, here certainly was a real, story-book adventure at last. And he began to entertain a little more respect for those writers of romance who have so persistently attempted to convince an incredulous world that adventures are to be had anywhere and at any time for the mere effort entailed in seeking them.

  In his case, however, he had not sought adventure. It had been thrust upon him by cable.

  And now the drop of Irish in him gratefully responded. He was much obliged to Fate for his evening’s entertainment; he modestly ventured to hope for favours to come. And, considering the coolly veiled threats of this young woman whom he had treated with scant ceremony, he had some reason to expect a sequel to the night’s adventure.

  “She,” he thought to himself, “had nothing on Godiva — except a piano cover!”

  Recollection of the absurd situation incited his reprehensible merriment to the point of unrestrained laughter; and he clasped his knees and rocked to and fro, where he sat on his suitcase, all alone under the stars.

  The midnight express was usually from five to forty minutes late at Orangeville; but from there east it made up time on the down grade to Albany.

&
nbsp; And now, as he sat watching, far away along the riverside a star came gliding into view around an unseen curve — the headlight of a distant locomotive.

  A few moments later he was in his drawing-room, seated on the edge of the couch, his door locked, the shade over the window looking on the corridor drawn down as far as it would go; and the train rushing through the starry night on the down grade toward Albany.

  He could not screen the corridor window entirely; the shade seemed to be too short; but it was late, the corridor dark, all the curtains in the car closed tightly over the berths, and his privacy was not likely to be disturbed. And when the conductor had taken both tickets and the porter had brought him a bottle of mineral water and gone away, he settled down with great content.

  Neeland was in excellent humour. He had not the slightest inclination to sleep. He sat on the side of his bed, smoking, the olive-wood box lying open beside him, and its curious contents revealed.

  But now, as he carefully examined the papers, photographs, and drawings, he began to take the affair a little more seriously. And the possibility of further trouble raised his already high spirits and caused that little drop of Irish blood to sing agreeably in his veins.

  Dipping into Herr Wilner’s diary added a fillip to the increasing fascination that was possessing him.

  “Well, I’m damned,” he thought, “if it doesn’t really look as though the plans of these Turkish forts might be important! I’m not very much astonished that the Kaiser and the Sultan desire to keep for themselves the secrets of these fortifications. They really belong to them, too. They were drawn and planned by a German.” He shrugged. “A rotten alliance!” he muttered, and picked up the bronze Chinese figure to examine it.

  “So you’re the Yellow Devil I’ve heard about!” he said. “Well, you certainly are a pippin!”

  Inspecting him with careless curiosity, he turned the bronze over and over between his hands, noticing a slight rattling sound that seemed to come from within but discovering no reason for it. And, as he curiously considered the scowling demon, he hummed an old song of his father’s under his breath: