Complete weird tales of.., p.1026
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1026
CHAPTER XVII
A CONFERENCE
THE ELEGANTLY MODULATED accents of Aristocrates, announcing the imminence of luncheon, aroused Barres from disconcerted but wrathful reflections.
As he sat up and tenderly caressed his battered head, Thessalie and Dulcie came slowly into the studio together, their arms interlaced.
Both exclaimed at the sight of the young man’s swollen face, but he checked their sympathetic enquiries drily:
“Bumped into something. It’s nothing. How are you, Dulcie? All right again?”
She nodded, evidently much concerned about his disfigured forehead; so to terminate sympathetic advice he went away to bathe his bruises in witch hazel, and presently returned smelling strongly of that time-honoured panacea, and with a saturated handkerchief adorning his brow.
At the same time, there came a considerable thumping and bumping from the corridor; the bell rang, and Westmore appeared with the trunks — five of them. These a pair of brawny expressmen rolled into the studio and carried thence to the storeroom which separated the bedroom and bath from the kitchen.
“Any trouble?” enquired Barres of Westmore, when the expressmen had gone.
“None at all. Nobody looked at me twice. What’s happened to your noddle?”
“Bumped it. Lunch is ready.”
Thessalie came over to him:
“I have included Dulcie among my confidants,” she said in a low voice.
“You mean you’ve told her — —”
“Everything. And I am glad I did.”
Barres was silent; Thessalie passed her arm around Dulcie’s waist; the two men walked behind together.
The table was a mass of flowers, over which netted sunlight played. Three cats assisted — the Prophet, always dignified, blinked pleasantly from a window ledge; the blond Houri, beside him, purred loudly. Only Strindberg was impossible, chasing her own tail under the patient feet of Aristocrates, or rolling over and over beneath the table in a mindless assault upon her own hind toes.
Seated there in the quiet peace and security of the pleasant room, amid familiar things, with Aristocrates moving noiselessly about, sunlight lacing wall and ceiling, and the air aromatic with the scent of brilliant flowers, Barres tried in vain to realise that murder could throw its shadow over such a place — that its terrible menace could have touched his threshold, even for an instant.
No, it was impossible. The fellow could not have intended murder. He was merely a blackmailer, suddenly detected and instantly frightened, pulling a gun in a panic, and even then failing in the courage to shoot.
It enraged Barres to even think about it, but he could not bring himself to attach any darker significance to the incident than just that — a blackmailer, ready to display a gun, but not to use it, had come to bully a woman; had found himself unexpectedly trapped, and had behaved according to his kind.
Barres had meant to catch him. But he admitted to himself that he had gone about it very unskilfully. This added disgust to his smouldering wrath, but he realised that he ought to tell the story.
And after the rather subdued luncheon was ended, and everybody had gone out to the studio, he did tell it, deliberately including Dulcie in his audience, because he felt that she also ought to know.
“And this is the present state of affairs,” he concluded, lighting a cigarette and flinging one knee across the other, “ —— that my friend, Thessalie Dunois, who came here to escape the outrageous annoyance of a gang of blackmailers, is followed immediately and menaced with further insult on my very threshold.
“This thing must stop. It’s going to be stopped. And I suggest that we discuss the matter now and decide how it ought to be handled.”
After a silence, Westmore said:
“You had your nerve, Garry. I’m wondering what I might have done under the muzzle of that pistol.”
Dulcie’s grey eyes had never left Barres. He encountered her gaze now; smiled at its anxious intensity.
“I made a botch of it, Sweetness, didn’t I?” he said lightly. And, to Westmore: “The moment I suspected him he was aware of it. Then, when I tried to figure out how to get him into the studio, it was too late. I made a mess of it, that’s all. And it’s too bad, Thessa, that I haven’t more sense.”
She gently shook her head:
“You haven’t any sense, Garry. That man might easily have killed you, in spite of your coolness and courage — —”
“No. He was just a rat — —”
“In a corner! You couldn’t tell what he’d do — —”
“Yes, I could. He didn’t shoot. Moreover, he legged it, which was exactly what I was certain he meant to do. Don’t worry about me, Thessa; if I didn’t have brains enough to catch him, at least I was clever enough to know it was safe to try.” He laughed. “There’s nothing of the hero about me; don’t think it!”
“I think that Dulcie and I know what to call your behaviour,” she said quietly, taking the silent girl’s hand in hers and resting it in her lap.
“Sure; it was bull-headed pluck,” growled Westmore. “The drop is the drop, Garry, and you’re no mind-reader.”
But Barres persisted in taking it humorously:
“I read that gentleman’s mind correctly, and his character, too.” Then, to Thessalie: “You say you don’t recognise him from my description?”
She shook her head thoughtfully.
“Garry,” said Westmore impatiently, “if we’re going to discuss various ways of putting an end to this business, what way do you suggest?”
Barres lighted another cigarette:
“I’ve been thinking. And I haven’t a notion how to go about it, unless we turn over the matter to the police. But Thessa doesn’t wish publicity,” he added, “so whatever is to be done we must do by ourselves.”
Thessalie leaned forward from her seat on the lounge by Dulcie:
“I don’t ask that of you,” she remonstrated earnestly. “I only wanted to stay here for a little while — —”
“You shall do that too,” said Westmore, “but this matter seems to involve something more than annoyance and danger to you. Those miserable rascals are Germans and they are carrying on their impudent intrigues, regardless of American laws and probably to the country’s detriment. How do we know what they are about? What else may they be up to? It seems to me that somebody had better investigate their activities — this one-eyed man, Freund — this handy gunman in spectacles — and whoever it was who took a shot at you the other day — —”
“Certainly,” said Barres, “and you and I are going to investigate. But how?”
“What about Grogan’s?”
“It’s a German joint now,” nodded Barres. “One of us might drop in there and look it over. Thessa, how do you think we ought to go about this affair?”
Thessalie, who sat on the sofa with Dulcie’s hand clasped in both of hers — a new intimacy which still surprised and pleasantly perplexed Barres — said that she could not see that there was anything in particular for them to do, but that she herself intended to cease living alone for a while and refrain from going about town unaccompanied.
Then it suddenly occurred to Barres that if he and Dulcie went to Foreland Farms, Thessalie should be invited also; otherwise, she’d be alone again, except for the servants, and possibly Westmore. And he said so.
“This won’t do,” he insisted. “We four ought to remain in touch with one another for the present. If Dulcie and I go to Foreland Farms, you must come, too, Thessa; and you, Jim, ought to be there, too.”
Nobody demurred; Barres, elated at the prospect, gave Thessalie a brief sketch of his family and their home.
“There’s room for a regiment in the house,” he added, “and you will feel welcome and entirely at home. I’ll write my people to-night, if it’s settled. Is it, Thessa?”
“I’d adore it, Garry. I haven’t been in the country since I left France.”
“And you, Jim?”
“You bet. I always have a wonderful time at Foreland.”
“Now, this is splendid!” exclaimed Barres, delighted. “If you disappear, Thessa, those German rats may become discouraged and give up hounding you. Anyway, you’ll have a quiet six weeks and a complete rest; and by that time Jim and I ought to devise some method of handling these vermin.”
“Nobody,” said Thessalie, smiling, “has asked Dulcie’s opinion as to how this matter ought to be handled.”
Barres turned to meet Dulcie’s shy gaze.
“Tell us what to do, Sweetness!” he said gaily. “It was stupid of me not to ask for your views.”
For a few moments the girl remained silent, then, the lovely tint deepening in her cheeks, she suggested diffidently that the people who were annoying Thessalie had been hired to do it by others more easy to handle, if discovered.
There was a moment’s silence, then Barres struck his palm with doubled fist:
“That,” he said with emphasis, “is the right way to approach this business! Hired thugs can be handled in only two ways — beat ’em up or call in the police. And we can do neither.
“But the men higher up — the men who inspire and hire these rats — they can be dealt with in other ways. You’re right, Dulcie! You’ve started us on the only proper path!”
Considerably excited, now, as vague ideas crowded in upon him, he sat smiting his knees, his brows knit in concentrated thought, aware that they were on the right track, but that the track was but a blind trail so far.
Dulcie ventured to interrupt his frowning cogitation:
“People of position and influence who hire men to do unworthy things are cowards at heart. To discover them is to end the whole matter, I think.”
“You’re absolutely right, Sweetness! Wait! I begin to see — to see things — see something — interesting — —”
He looked up at Thessalie:
“D’Eblis, Ferez Bey, Von-der-Goltz Pasha, Excellenz, Berlin — all these were mixed up with this German-American banker, Adolf Gerhardt, were they not?”
“It was Gerhardt’s money, I am sure, that bought the Mot d’Ordre from d’Eblis for Ferez — that is, for Berlin,” she said.
“Do you mean,” asked Westmore, “the New York banker, Adolf Gerhardt, of Gerhardt, Klein & Schwartzmeyer, who has that big show place at Northbrook?”
Barres smiled at him significantly:
“What do you know about that, Jim! If we go to Foreland we’re certain to be asked to the Gerhardt’s! They’re part of the Northbrook set; they’re received everywhere. They entertain the personnel of the German and Austrian Embassies. Probably their place, Hohenlinden, is a hotbed of German intrigue and propaganda! Thessa, how about you? Would you care to risk recognition in Gerhardt’s drawing-room, and see what information you could pick up?”
Thessalie’s cheeks grew bright pink, and her dark eyes were full of dancing light:
“Garry, I’d adore it! I told you I had never been a spy. And that is absolutely true. But if you think I am sufficiently intelligent to do anything to help my country, I’ll try. And I don’t care how I do it,” she added, with her sweet, reckless little laugh, and squeezed Dulcie’s hand tightly between her fingers.
“Do you suppose Gerhardt would remember you?” asked Westmore.
“I don’t think so. I don’t believe anybody would recollect me. If anybody there ever saw Nihla Quellen, it wouldn’t worry me, because Nihla Quellen is merely a memory if anything, and only Ferez and d’Eblis know I am alive and here — —”
“And their hired agents,” added Westmore.
“Yes. But such people would not be guests of Adolf Gerhardt at Northbrook.”
“Ferez Bey might be his guest.”
“What of it!” she laughed. “I was never afraid of Ferez — never! He is a jackal always. A threatening gesture and he flees! No, I do not fear Ferez Bey, but I think he is horribly afraid of me.... I think, perhaps, he has orders to do me very serious harm — and dares not. No, Ferez Bey comes sniffing around after the fight is over. He does no fighting, not Ferez! He slinks outside the smoke. When it clears away and night comes he ventures forth to feed furtively on what is left. That is Ferez — my Ferez on whom I would not use a dog-whip — no! — merely a slight gesture — and he is gone like a swift shadow in the dark!”
Fascinated by the transformation in her, the other three sat gazing at Thessalie in silence. Her colour was high, her dark eyes sparkled, her lips glowed. And the superb young figure so celebrated in Europe, so straight and virile, seemed instinct with the reckless gaity and courage which rang out in her full-throated laughter as she ended with a gesture and a snap of her white fingers.
“For my country — for France, whose generous mind has been poisoned against me — I would do anything — anything!” she said. “If you think, Garry, that I have wit enough to balk d’Eblis, check Ferez, confuse the plotters in Berlin — well, then! — I shall try. If you say it is right, then I shall become what I never have been — a spy!”
She sat for a moment smiling in her flushed excitement. Nobody spoke. Then her expression altered, subtlely, and her dark eyes grew pensive.
“Perhaps,” she said wistfully, “if I could serve my country in some little way, France might believe me loyal.... I have sometimes wished I might have a chance to prove it. There is nothing I would not risk if only France would come to believe in me.... But there seemed to be no chance for me. It is death for me to go there now, with that dossier in the secret archives and a Senator of France to swear my life away — —”
“If you like,” said Westmore, very red again, “I’ll go into the business, too, and help you nail some of these Hun plotters. I’ve nothing better to do; I’d be delighted to help you land a Hun or two.”
“I’m with you both, heart and soul!” said Barres. “The whole country is rotten with Boche intrigue. Who knows what we may uncover at Northbrook?”
Dulcie rose and came over to where Barres sat, and he reached up without turning around, and gave her hand a friendly little squeeze.
She bent over beside him:
“Could I help?” she asked in a low voice.
“You bet, Sweetness! Did you think you were being left out?” And he drew her closer and passed one arm absently around her as he began speaking again to Westmore:
“It seems to me that we ought to stumble on something at Northbrook worth following up, if we go about it circumspectly, Jim — with all that Austrian and German Embassy gang coming and going during the summer, and this picturesque fellow, Murtagh Skeel, being lionised by — —”
Dulcie’s sudden start checked him and he looked up at her.
“Murtagh Skeel, the Irish poet and patriot,” he repeated, “who wants to lead a Clan-na-Gael raid into Canada or head a death-battalion to free Ireland. You’ve read about him in the papers, Dulcie?”
“Yes ... I want to talk to you alone — —” She blushed and dropped a confused little curtsey to Thessalie: “Would you please pardon my rudeness — —”
“You darling!” said Thessalie, blowing her a swift, gay kiss. “Go and talk to your best friend in peace!”
Barres rose and walked away slowly beside Dulcie. They stood still when out of earshot. She said:
“I have a few of my mother’s letters.... She knew a young man whose name was Murtagh Skeel.... He was her dear friend. But only in secret. Because I think her father and mother disliked him.... It would seem so from her letters and his.... And she was — in love with him.... And he with mother.... Then — I don’t know.... But she came to America with father. That is all I know. Do you believe he can be the same man?”
“Murtagh Skeel,” repeated Barres. “It’s an unusual name. Possibly he is the same man whom your mother knew. I should say he might have been about your mother’s age, Dulcie. He is a romantic figure now — one of those dreamy, graceful, impractical patriots — an enthusiast with one idea and that an impossible one! — the freedom of Ireland wrenched by force from the traditional tyrant, England.”
He thought a moment, then:
“Whatever the fault, and wherever lies the blame for Ireland’s unrest to-day, this is no time to start rebellion. Who strikes at England now strikes at all Freedom in the world. Who conspires against England to-day conspires with barbarism against civilisation.
“My outspoken sympathy of yesterday must remain unspoken to-day. And if it be insisted on, then it will surely change and become hostility. No, Dulcie; the line of cleavage is clean: it is Light against Darkness, Right against Might, Truth against Falsehood, and Christ against Baal!
“This man, Murtagh Skeel, is a dreamer, a monomaniac, and a dangerous fanatic, for all his winning and cultivated personality and the personal purity of his character.... It is an odd coincidence if he was once your mother’s friend — and her suitor, too.”
Dulcie stood before him, her head a trifle lowered, listening to what he said. When he ended, she looked up at him, then across the studio where Westmore had taken her place on the sofa beside Thessalie. They both seemed to be absorbed in a conversation which interested them immensely.
Dulcie hesitated, then ventured to take possession of Barres’ arm:
“Could you and I sit down over here by ourselves?” she asked.
He smiled, always amused by her increasing confidence and affection, and always a little touched by it, so plainly she revealed herself, so quaintly — sometimes very quietly and shyly, sometimes with an ardent impulse too swift for self-conscious second thoughts which might have checked her.
So they seated themselves in the carved compartments of an ancient choir-stall and she rested one elbow on the partition between them and set her rounded chin in her palm.
“You pretty thing,” he said lightly.
At that she blushed and smiled in the confused way she had when teased. And at such times she never looked at him — never even pretended to sustain his laughing gaze or brave out her own embarrassment.
“I won’t torment you, Sweetness,” he said. “Only you ought not to let me, you know. It’s a temptation to make you blush; you do it so prettily.”
