Kitabı oku: «Her Majesty's Minister», sayfa 3
“With me?”
“Yes, m’sieur. Do not let us lose a single instant, or it may be too late. Ah! my poor young mistress! Poor mademoiselle! it is terrible – terrible!”
Chapter Five
La Comtesse
The Countess, a handsome, well-preserved woman of middle age, slightly inclined to embonpoint, met me on the threshold, and in silence grasped my hand. From the window she had apparently watched me alight from the fiacre, and had rushed forth to meet me.
That something unusual had occurred was plain from the paleness of her countenance and the look of despair in her eyes. We had been excellent friends in Brussels in bygone days, for she had favoured my suit and had constantly invited me to her pretty home in the Boulevard de Waterloo or to the great old château in the Ardennes. A glance was sufficient to show me that she had grown considerably older, and that her face, although it still bore distinct traces of a faded beauty, was now worn and haggard. She was essentially a grande dame of the old régime, now fast disappearing from our ken, but at no time could she be considered a great hostess. She was somewhat intransigent, a woman of strong prejudices, usually well justified, and incapable of pretence or shams. But the law of kindliness was ever on her tongue, and she contented herself with giving those of whom she disapproved a wide berth. She was dressed plainly in black, with a single wisp of lace at the throat – a costume unusual for her. In Brussels her handsome toilettes, obtained from Paris, had always been admired. Although matronly, like the majority of Belgian women, she was extremely chic, with an almost girlish waist, and at whatever hour one called one always found her dressed with extreme taste and elegance. I must, however, admit that her appearance surprised me. Her hair had grown greyer, and she seemed as though utterly negligent of her personal appearance.
“Madame!” I exclaimed in alarm as our hands met, “tell me what has occurred.”
“Ah, m’sieur,” she cried in French, “I am in despair, and have sent for you! You can help me – if you will.”
“In what manner?” I inquired breathlessly.
“Yolande!” she gasped, in a choking voice.
“Yolande!” I echoed. “What has happened to her? Your man will tell me nothing.”
“He has orders to say nothing,” she explained, leading the way into the elegant salon. “Now tell me,” she said, looking at me very earnestly, “I am in sheer desperation, as you may see, or I would not presume to question you. Will you forgive me if I do?”
“Most certainly,” I responded.
“Then before we go further I will put my question to you,” she said in a strange voice. “Do you love Yolande?”
Such direct inquiry certainly took me by complete surprise. I stood looking at her for a few seconds absolutely open-mouthed.
“Why ask me that?” I inquired, puzzled. “Tell me what has happened to her.”
“I can tell you nothing until you have answered my question,” she replied quite calmly. I saw from her countenance that she was desperate.
“I think, madame, that when we were together in Brussels my actions must have betrayed to you – a woman – the state of my heart towards your daughter,” I said. “I do not seek to deny that at that time I loved her more fondly than I could ever love again, and – ”
“Then you do not love her still?” she cried, interrupting me.
“Allow me to conclude,” I went on, speaking quite calmly, for I saw in this curious question of hers some mysterious motive. “I loved her while in Brussels, and for two years hoped to make her my wife.”
“And then you grew tired of her?” the Countess asked, in a tone that was almost a sneer in itself. “It is always the same with you diplomatists. The women of every capital amuse you, but on your promotion you bow your adieux and seek fresh fields to conquer.”
“I think you misjudge me,” I protested, rather annoyed at her words. “I loved Yolande. When I admit this, I also admit that, like other men whose calling it is to lounge in the principal salons of Europe, I had not escaped the fascination exercised by other eyes than hers. But to me she was all the world. Surely, madame, you remember the days at Houffalize? You cannot disguise from yourself that I really loved her then?”
“But all that is of the past,” she said seriously, her white hands clasped before her. “Briefly, you no longer entertain any love for her. Is not that so?”
I hesitated. My position was a difficult one. I was a diplomatist, and could speak untruths artistically when occasion required, but she had cornered me.
“Madame has guessed the truth,” I answered at last.
“Ah!” she cried hoarsely, “I thought as much. You have found some other woman whom you prefer?”
I nodded assent. It was useless to lead her to believe what was not the truth. Yolande was of course charming in many ways; but when I thought of Edith I saw that comparison was impossible.
“And you have no further thought of her?” she asked.
“As far as marriage is concerned, no,” I responded. “Nevertheless, I still regard her as an intimate friend. I was here only two or three hours ago chatting with her.”
“You!” she cried, glaring at me strangely. “You were here – to-day?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I thought she would certainly tell you of my visit.”
“She told me nothing. I was quite unaware of it. I was out, and the servants told me that a gentlemen had called in my absence.”
“I gave a card,” I replied. “It is no doubt in the hall.”
“No, it is not. It has been destroyed.”
“Why?” I asked.
“For some mysterious reason known to Yolande.” Then, turning quickly again to me, she placed her hand upon my arm in deep earnestness, saying: “Tell me, is your love for her absolutely and entirely dead – so dead that you would not care to perform her a service?”
Anderson’s strange and startling story flashed through my mind. I made no reply.
“Remember the affection you once bore her,” she urged. “I am a woman, m’sieur, and I presume to remind you of it.”
I needed no reminder. The recollection of those sweet idyllic days was still fresh as ever in my memory. Ah! in those brief sunny hours I had fondly believed that our love would last always. It is ever the same. Youth is ever foolish.
“I should have loved her now,” I answered at last, “were it not for one fact.”
There was a mystery which had ended our love, and I saw now an opportunity of clearing it up. “To what fact do you refer?”
“To the reason of our parting.”
“The reason!” echoed the Countess. “I have no idea whatever of the reason. What was it?”
I held my breath. Would it be just to tell her the truth? I wondered. I reflected for a moment, then in a calm voice answered:
“Because I discovered that her heart was not wholly mine.”
She regarded me with undisguised amazement.
“Do you mean that Yolande had another lover?”
“No!” I cried with sudden resolve. “This conversation is not fair to her. It is all finished. She has forgotten, and we are both happy.”
“Happy!” cried the Countess hoarsely. “You are, alas! mistaken. Poor Yolande has been the most unhappy girl in all the world. She has never ceased to think of you.”
“Then I regret, madame,” I responded.
“If you really regret,” she answered, “then your love for her is not altogether dead.”
She spoke the truth. At this point I may as well confide to you, my reader, the fact that I still regarded my charming little friend of those careless days of buoyant youth with a feeling very nearly akin to love. I recollected the painful circumstances which led to our parting. My memory drifted back to that well-remembered, breathless summer’s evening when, while walking with her along the white highway near her home, I charged her with friendliness towards a man whose reputation in Brussels was none of the best; of her tearful protests, of my all-consuming jealousy, of her subsequent dignity, and of our parting. After that I had applied to the Foreign Office to be transferred, and a month later found myself in Rome.
Perhaps, after all, my jealousy might have been utterly unfounded. Sometimes I had thought I had treated her harshly, for, truth to tell, I had never obtained absolute proof that this man was more than a mere acquaintance. Indeed, I think it was this fact, or just a slight twinge of conscience, that caused a suspicion of the old love I once bore her to remain within me. It was not just to Edith – that I knew; yet notwithstanding the denunciations of both Kaye and Anderson, I could not altogether crush her from my heart. To wholly forget the woman for whom one has entertained the grand passion is often most difficult, sometimes, indeed, impossible of accomplishment. Visions of some sweet face with its pouting and ready lips will arise, constantly keeping the past ever present, and recalling a day one would fain forget. Thus it was with me – just as it has been with thousands of others.
“No,” I admitted truthfully and honestly at last, “my love for Yolande is perhaps not altogether dead.”
“Then you will render me a service?” she cried quickly. “Say that you will – for her sake! – for the sake of the great love you once bore her!”
“Of what nature is this service you desire?” I asked, determined to act with caution, for the startling stories I had heard had aroused within me considerable suspicion.
“I desire your silence regarding an absolute secret,” she answered in a hoarse half-whisper.
“What secret?”
“A secret concerning Yolande,” she responded. “Will you, for her sake, render us assistance, and at the same time preserve absolute secrecy as to what you may see or learn here to-day?”
“I will promise if you wish, madame, that no word shall pass my lips,” I said. “But as to assistance, I cannot promise until I am aware of the nature of the service demanded of me.”
“Of course,” she exclaimed, with a faint attempt at a smile. My words had apparently reassured her, for she instantly became calmer, as though relying upon me for help. “Then as you give me your promise upon your honour to say nothing, you shall know the truth. Come with me.”
She led the way down the long corridor, and turning to the left suddenly opened the door of a large and handsome bed-chamber, the wooden sun-blinds of which were closed to keep out the crimson glow of the sunset. The room was a fine one with big crystal mirrors and a shining toilette-service in silver, but upon the bed with its yellow silk hangings lay a female form fully dressed, but white-faced and motionless. In the dim half-light I could just distinguish the features as those of Yolande.
“What has occurred?” I cried in a hoarse whisper, dashing towards the bedside and bending down to look upon the face that had once held me in fascination.
“We do not know,” answered the trembling woman at my side. “It is all a mystery.”
I stretched forth my hand and touched her cheek. It was icy cold.
In those few moments my eyes had become accustomed to the dim light of the darkened room, and I detected the change that had taken place in the girl’s countenance. Her eyes were closed, her lips blanched, her fair hair, escaped from its pins, fell in a sheen of gold upon the lace-edged pillow.
I held my breath. The awful truth was distinctly apparent. I placed my hand upon her heart, the bodice of her dress being already unloosened. Then a few seconds later I drew back, standing rigid and aghast.
“Why, she’s dead!” I gasped.
“Yes,” the Countess said, covering her face with her hands and bursting into tears. “My poor Yolande! she is dead —dead!”
The discovery appalled me. Only a couple of hours before we had chatted together, and she seemed in the best of health and spirits, just as in the old days, until I had made the announcement of Wolf’s presence in Paris. The effect of that statement upon her had apparently been electrical. Why, I knew not. Had she not implored me to save her? This in itself was sufficient to show that she held him in deadly fear.
Again I bent in order to make further examination, but saw the unmistakable mark of death upon her countenance. The lower jaw had dropped, the checks were cold, and the silver hand-mirror which I had snatched from the table and held at her mouth was unclouded. There was no movement – no life. Yolande, my well-beloved of those long-past days, was dead.
I stood there at the bedside like a man in a dream. So swiftly had she been struck down that the terrible truth seemed impossible of realisation.
The Countess, standing beside me, sobbed bitterly. Truly the scene in that darkened chamber was a strange and impressive one. Never before in my whole life had I been in the presence of the dead.
“Yolande – Yolande!” I called, touching her cheek in an effort to awaken her, for I could not believe that she was actually dead.
But there was no response. Those blanched lips and the coldness of those cheeks told their own tale. She had passed to that land which lies beyond the range of human vision.
How long I stood there I cannot tell. My thoughts were inexpressibly sad ones, and the discovery had utterly upset me, so that I scarcely knew what I said or did. The blow of thus finding her lifeless crushed me. The affair was mysterious, to say the least of it. Of a sudden, however, the sobs of the grief-stricken Countess aroused me to a sense of my responsibility, and taking her hand I led her from the bedside into an adjoining room.
“How has this terrible catastrophe occurred?” I demanded of her breathlessly. “Only two hours ago she was well and happy.”
“You mean when you saw her?” she said. “What was the object of your call?”
“To see her,” I responded.
“And yet you parted ill friends in Brussels?” she observed in a tone of distinct suspicion. “You had some motive in calling. What was it?”
I hesitated. I could not tell her that I suspected her daughter to be a spy.
“In order to assure her of my continued good friendship.”
She smiled, rather superciliously I thought.
“But how did the terrible affair occur?”
“We have no idea,” answered the Countess brokenly. “She was found lying upon the floor of the salon within a quarter of an hour of the departure of her visitor, who proved to be yourself. Jean, the valet-de-chambre, on entering, discovered her lying there, quite dead.”
“Astounding!” I gasped. “She was in perfect health when I left her.”
She shook her head sorrowfully, and her voice, choking with grief, declared:
“My child has been killed – murdered!”
“Murdered! Impossible!” I cried.
“But she has,” she declared. “I am absolutely positive of it!”
Chapter Six
A Piece of Plain Paper
“What medical examination has been made?” I demanded.
“None,” responded the Countess. “My poor child is dead, and no doctor can render her assistance. Medical aid is unavailing.”
“But do you mean to say that on making this discovery you did not think it necessary to send for a doctor?” I cried incredulously.
“I did not send for one – I sent for you,” was her response.
“But we must call a doctor at once,” I urged. “If you have suspicion of foul play we should surely know if there is any wound, or any injury to account for death.”
“I did not consider it necessary. No doctor can return her to me,” she wailed. “I sent for you because I believed that you would render me assistance in this terrible affair.”
“Most certainly I will,” I replied. “But in our own interests we must send for a medical man, and if it is found to be actually a case of foul play, for the police. I’ll send a line to Doctor Deane, an Englishman whom I know, who is generally called in to see anybody at the Embassy who chances to be ill. He is a good fellow, and his discretion may be relied upon.”
So saying, I scribbled a line on the back of a card, and told the man to take a cab down to the Rue du Havre, where the doctor occupied rooms over a hosier’s shop a stone’s throw from the bustling Gare St. Lazare.
A very curious mystery was evidently connected with this startling discovery, and I was anxious that my friend, Dick Deane, one of my old chums of Rugby days, should assist me in clearing it up.
The Countess de Foville, whose calmness had been so remarkable while speaking with me before we entered the death-chamber, had now given way to a flood of emotion. She sank back into her chair, and, burying her face in her hands, cried bitterly.
I tried to obtain some further information from her, but all that escaped her was:
“My poor Yolande! My poor daughter!” Finding that my endeavours to console her were futile, I went forth and made inquiries of the three frightened maidservants regarding what had occurred.
One of them, a dark-eyed Frenchwoman in frilled cap, whom I had seen on my previous visit, said, in answer to my questions:
“Jean discovered the poor mademoiselle in the petit salon about a quarter of an hour after m’sieur had left. She was lying upon her face near the window, quite rigid. He shouted; we all rushed in, and on examining her found that she was already dead.”
“But was there no sign of a struggle?” I inquired, leading the way to the room indicated.
“The room was just as m’sieur sees it now,” she answered, with a wave of her hand.
I glanced around, but as far as I could distinguish it was exactly as I had left it.
“There was no mark of violence – nothing to show that mademoiselle had been the victim of foul play?”
“Nothing, m’sieur.”
Could it have been a case of suicide? I wondered. Yolande’s words before I had taken leave of her were desponding, and almost led me to believe that she had taken her life rather than face the man Wolf who had so suddenly arrived in Paris – the man who exercised upon her some mysterious influence, the nature of which I could not guess.
“It was not more than fifteen minutes after I had left, you say?” I inquired.
“No, m’sieur, not more.”
“Mademoiselle had no other visitor?”
“No, m’sieur. Of that we are all certain.”
“And the Countess, where was she during the time I was here?”
“She was out driving. She did not return till about five minutes after we had made the terrible discovery.”
“And how did madame act?”
“She ordered us to carry poor mademoiselle to her room. Poor madame! She bore the blow with wonderful fortitude.”
That remark caused me to prick up my ears.
“I don’t quite understand,” I said. “Did she not give way to tears?”
“No, m’sieur; she shed no tears, but sat erect, motionless as a statue. She appeared unable to realise that poor mademoiselle was actually dead. At last she rang, and sent Jean to you.”
“You are absolutely certain that mademoiselle had no visit or after I left?”
“Absolutely.”
“It would, moreover, not be possible for anyone to enter or leave without your knowledge?” I suggested.
“M’sieur understands me perfectly. Mademoiselle must have fallen to the floor lifeless immediately after I had let you out. She made no sound, and had Jean not entered with her letters, which the concierge had brought, my poor young mistress might be lying there now.”
The average Frenchwoman of the lower class is always dramatic wherever a domestic calamity is concerned, and this worthy bonne was no exception. She punctuated all her remarks with references to the sacred personages of the Roman Catholic religion.
“You haven’t searched the room, I suppose?”
“No, m’sieur. Madame gave orders that nothing was to be touched.”
This reply was eminently satisfactory. I glanced again around the place, now dim in the falling twilight, and ordered her to throw back the sun-shutters.
The woman went to the window and opened them, admitting a flood of mellow light, the last crimson of the glorious afterglow. Up from the boulevard came the dull roar of the traffic, mingling with the sound of distant bells ringing the Ave Maria. The bonne – an Alsatian, from her accent – crossed herself from force of habit, and retreated towards the door.
“You may go,” I said. “I will remain here until the doctor arrives.”
“Bien, m’sieur,” answered the woman, disappearing and closing the door after her.
My object in dismissing her was to make a thorough search of the apartment, in order to discover whether any of Yolande’s private possessions were there. She had been denounced by Kaye and Anderson as a spy, and it occurred to me that I might possibly discover the truth. But she was dead. The painful fact seemed absolutely incredible.
The room was not a large one, but well furnished, with considerable taste and elegance. There was the broad, silk-covered couch, upon which Yolande had sat in the full possession of health and spirits only a couple of hours before; the skin rug, upon which her tiny foot had been stretched so coquettishly; the small table, by which she had stood supporting herself after I had made the fatal announcement that Wolf was in Paris.
As I stood there the whole of that strangely dramatic scene occurred to me. Yet she was dead – dead! She had died with her secret in her heart.
At any moment Dick Deane might arrive, but I desired to be the first to make an examination of the room, and with that object crossed to the little escritoire of inlaid olive-wood, one of those rather gimcrack pieces of furniture manufactured along the Ligurian coast for unsuspecting winter visitors. It was the only piece of incongruous furniture in the room, all the rest being genuine Louis Quatorze.
One or two letters bearing conspicuous coats-of-arms were lying there, but all were notes of a private nature from one or other of her friends. One was an invitation to Vichy from the Baronne Deland, wife of the great Paris financier; another, signed “Rose,” spoke of the gaiety of Cairo and the dances at Shepheard’s during the past winter; while a third, also in French, and bearing no signature, made an appointment to meet her in the English tea-shop in the Rue Royale on the following day at five o’clock.
That note, written upon plain paper of business appearance, had apparently been left by hand. Who, I wondered, was the person who had made that appointment? To me the writing seemed disguised, and probably, owing to the thickness of the up-strokes, had been penned by a male hand. There was a mistake in the orthography, too, the word “plaisir” being written “plasir.” This showed plainly that no Frenchman had written it.
I placed the letter in my pocket, and, encouraged by it, continued my investigations.
In the tiny letter-rack was a note which the unfortunate girl had written immediately before being struck down. It was addressed to “Baronne Maillac, Château des Grands Sablons, Seine et Marne.” The little escritoire contained four small drawers; the contents of each I carefully scrutinised. They were, however, mostly private letters of a social character – some from persons whom I knew well in Society. Suddenly, from the bottom of one of the smaller drawers, I drew forth several sheets of plain octavo paper of a pale yellow shade. There were, perhaps, half-a-dozen sheets, carefully wrapped in a sheet of plain blue foolscap. I opened them, and, holding one up to the light, examined the water-mark.
Next instant the truth was plain. That paper was the official paper used in French Government offices for written reports. How came it in her possession, if the accusation against her were untrue?
I held it in my hand, glaring at it in bewilderment. Sheet by sheet I examined it, but there was no writing upon it. Apparently it was her reserve store of paper, to be used as wanted. In the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs everything is methodical, especially the preparation of the dossiers. A certain dossier had once fallen into Kaye’s hands, and it contained sheets of exactly similar paper to that which I held in my hand.
Eagerly I continued my search, striving to discover some writing which might lead me to a knowledge of the truth, but I found nothing. I had completed an examination of the whole of the contents of the drawers, when it occurred to me that there might be some other drawer concealed there. Years ago I had been offered an escritoire of this pattern in Genoa, and the sun-tanned fellow who endeavoured to induce me to purchase it had shown behind the centre drawer in the table a cunningly contrived cavity where private correspondence might be concealed.
Therefore I drew out the drawer, sounded the interior at the back, and, finding it hollow, searched about for the spring by which it might be opened. At last I found it, and next moment drew forth a bundle of letters. They were bound with a blue ribbon that time had faded. I glanced at the superscription of the uppermost, and a thrill of sympathy went through me.
Those carefully preserved letters were my own – letters full of love and tenderness, which I had written in the days that were dead. I stood holding them in my hand, my heart full of the past.
In this narrative, my reader, it is my intention to conceal nothing, but to relate to you the whole, undisguised truth, even though this chapter of England’s secret history presents a seemingly improbable combination of strange facts and circumstances. Therefore I will not hide from you the truth that in those moments, as I drew forth one of the letters I had written long ago and read it through, sweet and tender memories crowded upon me, and in my eyes stood blinding tears. I may be forgiven for this, I think, when it is remembered how fondly I had once loved Yolande, before that fatal day when jealousy had consumed me, and I had turned my back upon her as a woman false and worthless.
Letter after letter I read, each bringing back to me sad memories of those days, when in the calm sunset hour we had wandered by the riverside hand in hand like children, each supremely content in each other’s love, fondly believing that our mad passion would last always. In all the world she had been, to me, incomparable. The centre of admiration at those brilliant balls at the Royal Palace at Brussels, the most admired of all the trim and comely girls who rode at morning in the Bois, the merriest of those who picnicked in the forest round about the ancient château, the sweetest, the most tender, and the most pure of all the women I knew – Yolande in those days had been mine. There, in my hand, I held the letter which I had written from Scotland when on leave for the shooting, asking if she loved me sufficiently to become my wife. To that letter I well remembered her reply – indeed, I knew it verbatim; a tender letter, full of honest love and straightforward admission – a letter such as only a pure and good woman could have penned. Yes, she wrote that she loved me dearly, and would be my wife.
And yet it was all of the past. All had ended.
I sighed bitterly – how bitterly, mere words cannot describe. You, reader, be you man or woman, can you fully realise how deeply I felt at that moment, how utterly desolate the world then seemed to me?
Those letters I slowly replaced in the cavity and closed it. Then, as I turned away, my eyes fell upon the photographs standing upon a small whatnot close by the escritoire. They were of persons whom I did not know – all strangers, save one. This was a cabinet portrait in a heavy silver frame, and as I took it up to scrutinise it more closely a cry involuntarily escaped my lips.
The picture was a three-quarter length representation of a black-bearded, keen-eyed man, standing with his hands thrust idly in his pockets, and smoking a cigarette. There was no mistaking those features. It was the photograph of the man the discovery of whose presence in Paris had produced such an extraordinary effect upon her – Rodolphe Wolf.
