Complete weird tales of.., p.920
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 920
Already a butler was opening the grille; already the chauffeur had swung Neeland’s steamer trunk and suitcase to the sidewalk; already the Princess and Rue were advancing to the house, while Neeland fumbled in his pocket for the fare.
The butler, bowing, relieved him of the olive-wood box. At the same instant the blue-bloused man with the hose turned the powerful stream of water directly into the butler’s face, knocking him flat on the sidewalk; and his two comrades tripped up Neeland, passed a red sash over his head, and hurled him aside, blinded, half strangled, staggering at random, tearing furiously at the wide band of woollen cloth which seemed to suffocate him.
Already the chauffeur had tossed the olive-wood box into the cab; the three blue-bloused men sprang in after it; the chauffeur slipped into his seat, threw in the clutch, and, driving with one hand, turned a pistol on the half drowned butler, who had reeled to his feet and was lurching forward to seize the steering wheel.
The taxicab, gathering speed, was already turning the corner of the rue de la Lune when Neeland managed to free throat and eyes from the swathe of woollen.
The butler, checked by the levelled pistol, stood dripping, still almost blinded by the force of the water from the hose; but he had plenty of pluck, and he followed Neeland on a run to the corner of the street.
The street was absolutely empty, except for the sparrows, and the big, fat, slate-coloured pigeons that strutted and coo-cooed under the shadow of the chestnut trees.
CHAPTER XXVI
RUE SOLEIL D’OR
MAROTTE, THE BUTLER, in dry clothes, had served luncheon — a silent, respectable, self-respecting man, calm in his fury at the incredible outrage perpetrated upon his person.
And now luncheon was over; the Princess at the telephone in her boudoir; Rue in the music-room with Neeland, still excited, anxious, confused.
Astonishment, mortification, anger, had left Neeland silent; and the convention known as luncheon had not appealed to him.
But very little was said during that formality; and in the silence the serious nature of the episode which so suddenly had deprived the Princess of the olive-wood box and the papers it contained impressed Neeland more and more deeply.
The utter unexpectedness of the outrage — the helpless figure he had cut — infuriated him. And the more he reflected the madder he grew when he realised that all he had gone through meant nothing now — that every effort had been sterile, every hour wasted, every step he had taken from Brookhollow to Paris — to the very doorstep where his duty ended — had been taken in vain.
It seemed to him in his anger and humiliation that never had any man been so derided, so heartlessly mocked by the gods.
And now, as he sat there behind lowered blinds in the cool half-light of the music-room, he could feel the hot blood of resentment and chagrin in his cheeks.
“Nobody could have foreseen it,” repeated Rue Carew in a pretty, bewildered voice. “And if the Princess Naïa had no suspicions, how could I harbour any — or how could you?”
“I’ve been sufficiently tricked — or I thought I had been — to be on my guard. But it seems not. I ought never to have been caught in such a disgusting trap — such a simple, silly, idiotic cage! But — good Lord! How on earth was a man to suspect anything so — so naturally planned and executed — so simply done. It was an infernal masterpiece, Rue. But — that is no consolation to a man who has been made to appear like a monkey!”
The Princess, entering, overheard; and she seated herself and looked tranquilly at Neeland as he resumed his place on the sofa.
“You were not to blame, Jim,” she said. “It was my fault. I had warning enough at the railroad terminal when an accident to my car was reported to me by the control through you.” She added, calmly: “There was no accident.”
“No accident?” exclaimed Neeland, astonished.
“None at all. My new footman, who followed us to the waiting salon for incoming trains, returned to my chauffeur, Caron, saying that he was to go back to the garage and await orders. I have just called the garage and I had Caron on the wire. There was no accident; he has not been injured; and — the new footman has disappeared!”
“It was a clear case of treachery?” exclaimed Neeland.
“Absolutely a plot. The pretended official at the terminal control was an accomplice of my footman, of the taxicab driver, of the pretended street-cleaners — and of whom else I can, perhaps, imagine.”
“Did you call the terminal control?”
“I did. The official in charge and the starter had seen no such accident; had given no such information. Some masquerader in uniform must have intercepted you, Jim.”
“I found him coming toward me on the sidewalk not far from the kiosque. He was in uniform; I never dreamed he was not the genuine thing.”
“There is no blame attached to you — —”
“Naïa, it actually sickens me to discover how little sense I possess. I’ve been through enough to drive both suspicion and caution into this wooden head of mine — —”
“What have you been through, Jim?” asked the Princess calmly.
“I’ll tell you. I didn’t play a brilliant rôle, I’m sorry to admit. Not common sense but sheer luck pulled me through as far as your own doorstep. And there,” he added disgustedly, “the gods no doubt grew tired of such an idiot, and they handed me what was coming to me.”
He was so thoroughly and so boyishly ashamed and angry with himself that a faint smile flitted over the Princess Naïa’s lips.
“Proceed, James,” she said.
“All right. Only first may I ask — who is Ilse Dumont?”
For a moment the Princess sat silent, expressionless, intent on the man whose clear, inquiring eyes still questioned her.
The Princess finally answered with a question:
“Did she cause you any trouble, Jim?”
“Every bit I had was due to her. Also — and here’s a paradox — I shouldn’t be here now if Ilse Dumont had not played square with me. Who is she?”
The Princess Naïa did not reply immediately. Instead, she dropped one silken knee over the other, lighted a cigarette, and sat for a few moments gazing into space. Then:
“Ilse Dumont,” she said, “is a talented and exceedingly pretty young woman who was born in Alsace of one German and one thoroughly Germanised parent.
“She played two seasons in Chicago in light opera under another name. She had much talent, an acceptable voice and she became a local favourite.”
The Princess looked at her cigarette; continued speaking as though addressing it:
“She sang at the Opéra Comique here in Paris the year before last and last year. Her rôles were minor ones. Early this spring she abruptly broke her contract with the management and went to New York.”
Neeland said bluntly:
“Ilse Dumont is an agent in the service of the Turkish Government.”
The Princess nodded.
“Did you know it, Naïa?”
“I began to suspect it recently.”
“May I ask how?”
The Princess glanced at Rue and smiled:
“Ruhannah’s friend, Colonel Izzet Bey, was very devoted to Minna Minti — —”
“To whom!” exclaimed Neeland, astounded.
“To Ilse Dumont. Minna Minti is her stage name,” said the Princess.
Neeland turned and looked at Rue, who, conscious of his excitement, flushed brightly, yet never suspecting what he was about to say.
The Princess said quietly:
“Yes, tell her, Jim. It is better she should know. Until now it has not been necessary to mention the matter, or I should have done so.”
Rue, surprised, still prettily flushed with expectancy, looked with new curiosity from one to the other.
Neeland said:
“Ilse Dumont, known on the stage as Minna Minti, is the divorced wife of Eddie Brandes.”
At the mention of a name so long hidden away, buried in her memory, and almost forgotten, the girl quivered and straightened up, as though an electric shock had passed through her body.
Then a burning colour flooded her face as at the swift stroke of a lash, and her grey eyes glimmered with the starting tears.
“You’ll have to know it, darling,” said the Princess in a low voice. “There is no reason why you should not; it no longer can touch you. Don’t you know that?”
“Y-yes — —” Ruhannah’s slowly drooping head was lifted again; held high; and the wet brilliancy slowly dried in her steady eyes.
“Before I tell you,” continued Neeland, “what happened to me through Ilse Dumont, I must tell you what occurred in the train on my way to Paris.... May I have a cigarette, Princess Naïa?”
“At your elbow in that silver box.”
Rue Carew lighted it for him with a smile, but her hand still trembled.
“First,” he said, “tell me what particular significance those papers in the olive-wood box have. Then I can tell you more intelligently what happened to me since I went to Brookhollow to find them.”
“They are the German plans for the fortification of the mainland commanding the Dardanelles, and for the forts dominating the Gallipoli peninsula.”
“Yes, I know that. But of what interest to England or France or Russia — —”
“If there is to be war, can’t you understand the importance to us of those plans?” asked the Princess in a low, quiet voice.
“To— ‘us’?” he repeated.
“Yes, to us. I am Russian, am I not?”
“Yes. I now understand how very Russian you are, Princess. But what has Turkey — —”
“What is Turkey?”
“An empire — —”
“No. A German province.”
“I did not know — —”
“That is what the Ottoman Empire is today,” continued the Princess Mistchenka, “a Turkish province fortified by Berlin, governed from Berlin through a Germanised Turk, Enver Pasha; the army organised, drilled, equipped, officered, and paid by the Kaiser Wilhelm; every internal resource and revenue and development and projected development mortgaged to Germany and under German control; and the Sultan a nobody!”
“I did not know it,” repeated Neeland.
“It is the truth, mon ami. It is inevitable that Turkey fights if Germany goes to war. England, France, Russia know it. Ask yourself, then, how enormous to us the value of those plans — tentative, sketchy, perhaps, yet the inception and foundation of those German-made and German-armed fortifications which today line the Dardanelles and the adjacent waters within the sphere of Ottoman influence!”
“So that is why you wanted them,” he said with an unhappy glance at Rue. “What idiotic impulse prompted me to put them back in the box I can’t imagine. You saw me do it, there in the taxicab.”
Ruhannah said:
“The chauffeur saw you, too. He was looking at you in his steering mirror; I saw his face. But it never entered my mind that anything except idle curiosity possessed him.”
“Perhaps,” said the Princess to Neeland, “what you did with the papers saved your life. Had that chauffeur not seen you place them in the box, he might have shot and robbed you as you left the cab, merely on the chance of your having them on your person.”
There was a silence; then Neeland said:
“This is a fine business! As far as I can see murder seems to be the essence of the contract.”
“It is often incidental to it,” said the Princess Mistchenka serenely. “But you and Ruhannah will soon be out of this affair.”
“I?” said the girl, surprised.
“I think so.”
“Why, dear?”
“I think there is going to be war. And if there is, France will be concerned. And that means that you and Ruhannah, too, will have to leave France.”
“But you?” asked the girl, anxiously.
“I expect to remain. How long can you stay here, Jim?”
Neeland cast an involuntary glance at Rue as he replied:
“I intended to take the next steamer. Why? Can I be of any service to you, Princess Naïa?”
The Princess Mistchenka let her dark eyes rest on him for a second, then on Rue Carew.
“I was thinking,” she said, “that you might take Ruhannah back with you if war is declared.”
“Back to America!” exclaimed the girl. “But where am I to go in America? What am I to do there? I — I didn’t think I was quite ready to earn my own living” — looking anxiously at the Princess Naïa— “do you think so, dear?”
The Princess said:
“I wanted you to remain. And you must not worry, darling. Some day I shall want you back —— But if there is to be war in Europe you cannot remain here.”
“Why not?”
“In the first place, only useful people would be wanted in Paris — —”
“But, Naïa, darling! Couldn’t I be useful to you?” The girl jumped up from the sofa and came and knelt down by the Princess Mistchenka, looking up into her face.
The Princess laid aside her cigarette and put both hands on Rue’s shoulders, looking her gravely, tenderly in the eyes.
“Dear,” she said, “I want James Neeland to hear this, too. For it is partly a confession.
“When I first saw you, Rue, I was merely sorry for you, and willing to oblige Jim Neeland by keeping an eye on you until you were settled somewhere here in Paris.
“Before we landed I liked you. And, because I saw wonderful possibilities in the little country girl who shared my stateroom, I deliberately made up my mind to develop you, make use of your excellent mind, your quick intelligence, your amazing capacity for absorbing everything that is best, and your very unusual attractions for my own purposes. I meant — to train you — educate you — to aid me.”
There was a silence; the girl looked up at her, flushed, intent, perplexed; the Princess Mistchenka, her hands on the girl’s shoulders, looked back at her out of grave and beautiful dark eyes.
“That is the truth,” said the Princess. “My intention was to develop you along the lines which I follow as a — profession; teach you to extract desirable information through your wit, intelligence, and beauty — using your youth as a mask. But I — I can’t do it — —” She shook her head slightly. “Because I’ve lost my heart to you.... And the business I follow is a — a rotten game.”
Again silence fell among those three; Rue, kneeling at the elder woman’s feet, looked up into her face in silence; Neeland, his elbows resting on his knees, leaned slightly forward from the sofa, watching them.
“I’ll help you, if you wish,” said Rue Carew.
“Thank you, dear. No.”
“Let me. I owe you everything since I have been here — —”
“No, dear. What I said to you — and to James — is true. It’s a merciless, stealthy, treacherous business; it’s dangerous to a woman, body and soul. It is one long lifetime of experience with treachery, with greed, with baser passions, with all that is ignoble in mankind.
“There is no reason for you to enter such a circle; no excuse for it; no duty urges you; no patriotism incites you to such self-sacrifice; no memory of wrong done to your nearest and dearest inspires you to dedicate your life to aiding — if only a little, in the downfall and destruction of the nation and the people who encompassed it!”
The Princess Mistchenka’s dark eyes began to gleam, and her beautiful face lost its colour; and she took Rue’s little hands in both of hers and held them tightly against her breast.
“Had I not lost my heart to you, perhaps I should not have hesitated to develop and make use of you.
“You are fitted for the rôle I might wish you to play. Men are fascinated by you; your intelligence charms; your youth and innocence, worn as a mask, might make you invaluable to the Chancellerie which is interested in the information I provide for it.
“But, Rue, I have come to understand that I cannot do this thing. No. Go back to your painting and your clever drawing and your music; any one of these is certain to give you a living in time. And in that direction alone your happiness lies.”
She leaned forward and kissed the girl’s hair where it was fine and blond, close to the snowy forehead.
“If war comes,” she said, “you and James will have to go home, like two good children when the curfew rings.”
She laughed, pushed Rue away, lighted another cigarette, and, casting a glance partly ironical, partly provocative, at the good-looking young man on the sofa, said:
“As for you, James, I don’t worry about you. Impudence will always carry you through where diplomacy fails you. Now, tell me all about these three unpleasant sporting characters who occupied the train with you.”
Neeland laughed.
“It seems that a well-known gambler in New York, called Captain Quint, is backing them; and somebody higher up is backing Quint — —”
“Probably the Turkish Embassy at Washington,” interposed the Princess, coolly. “I’m sorry, Jim; pray go on.”
“The Turkish Embassy?” he repeated, surprised that she should guess.
“Yes; and the German Embassy is backing that. There you are, Jim. That is the sequence as far as your friend, Captain Quint. Now, who comes next in the scale?”
“This man — Brandes — and the little chalk-faced creature, Stull; and the other one, with the fox face — Doc Curfoot.”
“I see. And then?”
“Then, as I gathered, there are several gentlemen wearing Teutonic names — who are to go into partnership with them — one named Kestner, one called Theodore Weishelm, and an exceedingly oily Eurasian gentleman with whom I became acquainted on the Volhynia — one Karl Breslau — —”
“Breslau!” exclaimed the Princess. “Now I understand.”
“Who is he, Princess?”
“He is the most notorious international spy in the world — a protean individual with aliases, professions, and experiences sufficient for an entire jail full of criminals. His father was a German Jew; his mother a Circassian girl; he was educated in Germany, France, Italy, and England. He has been a member of the socialist group in the Reichstag under one name, a member of the British Parliament under another; he did dirty work for Abdul Hamid; dirtier for Enver Bey.
