Kitabı oku: «The Princess Dehra», sayfa 8
“Rooms deserted,” he whispered – “what’s on the third floor?”
“It’s a mere garret; the servants quarters are in a detached building in the rear.”
“We’ll chance the garret – I laid a chair across the foot of those stairs – and also at the head of the back stairs – anything doing below?”
“Quiet as the grave, sir.”
“An apt simile, Bernheim,” said the Archduke; “there is going to be a death or two down there to-night, if we can manage it – just as a gentle notice to our cousin of what he may expect.”
The old soldier’s hand sought impulsively his master’s.
“You mean it, my lord?” he asked eagerly.
“I do; I’m – ” a stair creaked very faintly – “they’re coming,” he ended.
Both men bent forward listening … the seconds passed … no sound came to them. Then Bernheim bethought himself of the rail, and laid his ear upon it. Instantly he was up.
“They are coming,” he whispered, “I could hear them distinctly.”
“Good,” said Armand. “We will give them the steel as soon as they’re within reach – be ready – I’ll take the right.”
The stairway was of more than medium width, and straight-away almost to the lower floor, the turn being at the bottom. While the lights were on, Bernheim had noticed a heavy oak chest against the wall near where they were standing. Now it suddenly occurred to him how it could be used. Asking the Archduke to bear aside a moment, he seized it in his powerful arms, and carrying it to the head of the stairs hurled it, with all his strength, down into the darkness.
There was a heavy thud as of human bodies struck, wild shrieks of pain and terror, and then a deafening crash, as the chest broke asunder against the wall below, followed directly by moans, and curses, and struggles to get free.
Although Armand had not seen what his Aide had done, he could picture it all now, and he laughed aloud.
“Clear away the débris, gentlemen!” he called. “On to the charge! Don’t be a lot of quitters; we’ve plenty of ammunition left; en avant!”
But only the moans answered him. He drew Bernheim closer.
“What do you suggest,” he asked; “shall we go down?” – And the upsetting of the chair at the rear stairs answered him.
“Turn on the lights when I whistle,” he ordered, and stole swiftly to the rear of the hall.
Doubtless the purpose had been to attack them simultaneously in front and rear, and here was the chance to give this detachment, also, a surprise. He heard the chair being set carefully aside, followed by foot-falls such as are made only by shoeless feet. The darkness was impenetrable, but he knew they paused at the door, and then came slowly forward, passing him so closely he could have touched them with his hand. The next instant he gave the signal.
As the lights blazed out, disclosing three masked men with drawn swords, the Archduke leaped forward and, with the hilt of his rapier, struck the one nearest him behind the ear. The rogue dropped in his tracks. At the same moment, Bernheim’s pistol cracked, and another went down, shot through the head. The third stood irresolute; and him the Archduke addressed.
“It’s the pistol, yonder, or the sword, here,” he said; “which will you choose?”
The fellow chanced to be almost in line with the front stairs, and for answer he sprang across the hall and dashed down them. Bernheim’s gun spoke thrice: the first bullet struck the wall; the second, the newel post; the third, fired into the semi-obscurity below, and as the knave’s head was almost on a line with the floor, brought an answering cry; but it did not disable him; they heard him stumble over the broken chest, then the key was thrust into the lock, the front door was flung back, and he crossed the porch at a run.
“He’s the last of them, I fancy,” said Armand.
Bernheim looked at the pistol in disgust.
“I never did have any patience with these toys,” he growled; “three shots across a blanket, and only a touch!”
The Archduke pointed to the dead body.
“You did pretty well there,” he said.
“Luck, pure luck.” He went over to the stairs. “I don’t hear anything,” he said; “the chest seems to be very quiet – what about the lights; shall I turn them off?”
“First take a look at these gentlemen,” said Armand; “do you know them?”
The Aide stooped over the one he had killed and jerked off the mask that covered his upper face – then did the same with the other, and shook his head.
“I never saw either of them,” he said; “but they look the part – you hit this one exactly on the spot; he is paralyzed or dead.”
“We will leave him to find out for himself which it is,” the Archduke answered – “unless, Colonel, you wish to search further for the lady – as I remember, you promised her the first killing.”
Bernheim laughed.
“I rather imagine your lady is a man – I think we shall find her at the foot of the stairs.”
He ran quickly down, vaulted over the débris with the aid of the rail, and turned on the light.
The Archduke had followed him as far as the turn.
“It looks as though you got her, Colonel,” he remarked, pointing with his rapier to two men who lay among the fragments of the chest. One was dead – face and head mashed flat, the crimson splotch on the white wall marking where the heavy missile had crushed them. The other, both legs broken at the ankles, and half his ribs driven in, was pinned in the corner, unconscious – a singularly repulsive creature, with huge, protruding teeth, pimply face, an enormous red nose, and a mouth like a fish’s.
Bernheim looked him over.
“Positively, I’d be ashamed to employ such carrion,” he remarked. “I don’t understand Lotzen; he is an aesthete, even in his crimes.”
The Archduke stepped carefully into the hall, and laid his rapier on the table.
“Let us be off,” he said; “there is nothing more to do.” He turned toward the door – then stopped and reached for the sword.
“Others are coming,” he said; – “we’ll fight it out right here.”
There was the quick tramp of feet on the porch, and a sergeant and two police entered. Their looks of bewildered surprise, as they recognized the Archduke and his Aide, were so comical that even Bernheim smiled, though his words were curt enough.
“Salute, men!” he said, “don’t you know His Royal Highness?”
The sergeant’s hand went up.
“Your pardon, sir,” he stammered, “but we heard shots – and this house is supposed to be unoccupied. I am sorry – ”
Armand motioned him to silence.
“There is nothing to pardon, sergeant,” he said; “you are doing your duty very properly, and you come in good time. You will search this place thoroughly, including the grounds; remove the dead and wounded immediately; see that all knowledge of the affair is suppressed, and report to me at noon to-morrow.”
The officer saluted again. “Yes, Your Highness.”
“Where are our capes, Colonel?”
“In the library – I’ll get them.”… He dropped the Archduke’s about his shoulders, and the sergeant did the same for him.
As they gained the Avenue, the cathedral bell struck three.
“A nice hour for an old man like you, Bernheim, to be going home,” said the Archduke.
A quizzical smile came into the Aide’s stern face.
“A lady called me,” he replied.
XII
THE SOLE SURVIVOR
Ferida Palace, the residence of His Royal Highness the Duke of Lotzen, on the Alta Avenue half a mile or so beyond the Epsau, is a great, rambling pile of gray stone, of varying height and diverse architecture, set in the midst of grounds that occupy two entire squares, and are surrounded by a high, embattled wall, pierced with four wide entrances, whose bronze gates are famous in their craftsmanship.
Here the Duke lived in a splendor and munificence almost rivaling the King himself, and with a callous indifference to certain laws of society, that would have scandalized the Capital had it become public knowledge. But in his household, the servant who babbled, never babbled twice; he left Dornlitz quite too suddenly; and those who were wise learned quickly that they lost nothing in wage nor perquisite by being blind and dumb. For Lotzen did not skimp his steward – all he required was skillful service, and that what occurred within the Palace must not go beyond the walls. Nevertheless, in conduct, he was not the habitual libertine and roué, – the contrary was, in truth, the fact – but he proposed to have the opportunity to do as he liked when the fancy moved him – and to have no carping moralist praying over him and then retailing his misdeeds with unctuous smirks of pious horror. Not that he cared a centime for their horrors or their prayers, but because it were not well to irritate unduly the King, by doings which he might not countenance, if brought formally to his attention – though the Duke was well aware that Frederick troubled himself not at all how he went to the devil, nor when, save that the quicker he went the better.
And so it was, that he had not hesitated to bring with him the woman of raven hair and dead-white cheek, and to install her in the gorgeous suite in the west wing of the Ferida, where others, as frail but far less fair, had been before her – and the world never the wiser – just as now it was not the wiser as to Madeline Spencer’s presence. The time was not yet for her to show herself, and in the meantime she had remained secluded; she was too well known in Dornlitz to escape recognition; and even Lotzen dared not, at this exigency, so spurn public sentiment as to sponsor the adventuress whom he had procured to pose as wife to the Archduke Armand.
She had come with him to the Capital with deep misgiving, and only after much urging and jeweled caresses; though not the least of the inducements was the hope of annoying the Princess Dehra – for whom she had conceived the most violent hate. By herself it would, of course, have been a fatulously foolish hate, but with Lotzen, and under the peculiar situation existing at Court, there was a chance – and it was this chance she meant to play for and to seize. And besides, it promised the excitement and ample financial returns that were the mainsprings of her existence.
And though it fretted her beyond measure to dawdle in idleness and tiresome inanition, even in the luxury of the Ferida, yet she endured it with amazing equanimity; and amused herself, the while, by flirting with the Duke’s friends, when the Duke was not in presence – and sometimes when he was. And then, when he sulked or stormed, a soft arm would slip around his neck, and a pair of red lips smile close to his face; and, presently, he was caressing the one, and pleading for the others – and there was peace, and on her terms. The marvel of it all, was how she held him – as no woman had ever held him hitherto; she made no pretense of love, nor tried for it from him – a pleasant camaraderie was all she gave, and all she asked for; favor-free to-day, favor-cold to-morrow; elusive as a moon-beam; fickle as the wind; tempting and alluring as a vestal; false and faithless as the Daughter of the Foam.
And though Lotzen knew it – and knew it well – for she had told him frankly what she was and what she lived for, yet her fascinations negatived her words; while her indifference as to whether she stayed or went – and which he was thoroughly aware was not assumed – only captivated him the more, who had been used to easy conquest and clinging hearts.
He had explained fully to her the complication produced by the disappearance of the Laws, recounting in detail the scene at the Royal Council, when the compromise was forced; but as to Adolph and the incidents of the King’s library he said never a word. To her prompt query, as to how he accounted for the Book’s disappearance, he answered that the American, knowing it contained no decree in his favor, had stolen and, doubtless, destroyed it – and that the Princess Royal’s story was a clever lie – “just such a lie as you, yourself, would have told for me, in a similar exigency,” he had added; and she had smiled an acquiescence – thinking, the while, that for the American she would have done much more than lie, and gladly, if he would but let her.
Since the day when, as Colonel Spencer’s bride, she had come to the old fort on the Missouri, and had first set eyes on Captain Armand Dalberg, there was but one man who might have stirred her cold heart to an honest beat; and though he had ignored her overtures, and finally had scorned them with scarring words, yet it had not entirely killed the old desire; and even now, after all that she had done against him, and was ready yet to do, a single word from him would have brought her to his side. Yet, because she knew that word would never come, and that another woman claimed him honestly and without fear, she would go on with her part; and all the more willingly that it enabled her to strike through him the woman who had won him.
And now, after the two weeks quiescence, the restless fever was upon her, and the Duke had caught the signs; next would come the call to Paris; and he knew the second call would win. If he were to hold her, it was time to start the campaign she had come to assist – and that very day was his visit to the Summer Palace, and the sudden determination of his plan. But when, in the evening, he had gone to her apartments to tell her of it, and to discuss the opening moves, she had sent him the message that she was indisposed and had retired, and that he should breakfast with her the next day.
And in the morning he had found her in her boudoir, in the most enticing of soft blue gowns, and no touch of dishabille nor carelessness in all her attire, from the arrangement of the raven hair to the shoeing of the slender feet. Madeline Spencer was much too clever to let a man see her in negligée when, to him, the hour for negligée was passed.
She met him with a smile, and let him kiss her cheek.
“I am sorry about last night, dear,” she said, “but I was quite too wretched to see even you – and I wanted to see you.”
He sat on the arm of the chair, playing softly with her hair.
“I wish I could believe that it was just I you wanted,” he said.
She shot him an upward glance of her siren eyes.
“I have been thinking about this business that we have on hand,” she continued; “and, Ferdinand, if you wish my aid, you must get busy – I can’t endure this stagnation longer. I’m a wild beast that would die in confinement; I need the jungle and the air and sky.”
He laughed, and pinched her ear.
“Your jungle, little one, is the Champs Élysées and cher Maxim’s; la chaleur communicative du banquet; – your air and sky, the adulation of the masculine and the stare of admiring eyes.”
“Yes, it is; and I’ve been away a long, long time; yet I want to stay with you until this work is ended – because” (taking his hand and smiling up at him) “you have been good to me, and because it promises excitement of a novel sort – only, dear, do let us be at it.”
A door swung back. “Madam is served!” came the monotone.
As they went in, the Duke slipped his arm around her slender waist.
“We’re going to be at it,” he said; “send the servants away and I’ll tell you my plan; it was for that I came last evening.”
“Now, tell me!” she exclaimed, as the door closed behind the footman.
“We are going back to Lotzenia,” he said.
She paused, and the black eye-brows went up.
“We?” she inflected.
He nodded. “That is where the game will be played out.”
“And why not here, in Dornlitz?”
“Because it’s easier there – and surer.”
She made to shiver. “So, for me, it’s only out of a charming mausoleum into a common grave.”
He laughed. “It will be a rarely lively grave, my dear Madeline, and, I promise you, exciting enough for even your starved nerves.”
“When do we start?”
“Soon, I trust – there is work to be done here first.”
“And I may help?”
“Yes, you may help – the plan needs you.”
“And the plan?” she asked eagerly.
“The very simplest I could devise,” said he; “to lure the American to Lotzenia and – ”
She smiled comprehendingly. “Why take all that trouble – why not kill him in Dornlitz?”
He flung up a cautioning hand. “Softly, my dear, softly – and not so blunt in the words – and as I said, it’s easier there and surer.”
“But it would be so much prettier to play the game out here,” she half objected; “and more accordant with your taste, I fancy.”
“Very true,” said he. “It’s always more artistic to run a man through with a rapier than to kill him with a club; but in this business it’s the end alone that concerns me. Yet the primary essential, in either method, is opportunity and freedom of movement; neither is here; both will be plentiful in the North.”
“And, of course, at your friendly invitation, the American will gladly accompany you to Lotzenia and permit himself to be – offered up.”
“Practically that.”
An impatient smile shone in her eyes.
“I do not understand, Ferdinand, why you persist in under-rating your enemy; it’s the climax of bad generalship. The American may be reckless and a bit headstrong, but assuredly he is not a fool.”
The Duke shrugged his shoulders. “He can fight, I grant you – but he can’t scheme nor plot – nor detect one, though it’s as evident as the sun.”
“And yet – ” she waved her hand toward the Epsau – “it is he you’re fighting for the Crown.”
“Luck!” he scoffed – “a dotard King, a damn Huzzar uniform, and a silly girl.”
“Is his luck any the less now, with the girl Regent of Valeria?” she asked.
“Possibly not,” he said; “and hence another reason for the mountains – she won’t be with him there.”
She gave it up – she had tried repeatedly, but it was impossible, it seemed, to arouse him to Armand’s real ability – when hate rides judgment, reason lies bound and gagged.
“Why should the Governor of Dornlitz go to far off Lotzenia?” she asked.
He glanced around the room suspiciously; then scribbled a line in pencil on his cuff and held it over to her.
She read it, and looked at him in puzzled interrogation.
“I don’t understand,” she said; “you told me that he – ”
He had anticipated her question.
“So I did,” he interrupted quickly, “but I have no proof; and lately I have come to doubt it. At any rate, this will disclose the truth. If my scheme works, he will follow into Hell itself.”
“A strikingly appropriate name for your Castle, dear,” she laughed.
He nodded and smiled.
“And what if the scheme doesn’t work?” she asked.
“In that event, the laugh is on me, and we must devise another means to draw him there.”
“Which will be quite fruitless, I can assure you.”
“Then we will fight it out here,” he said, “and I shall doubly need you.”
“And you’ll get me, doubly welcome.”… She lit a cigarette and passed it to him; and lit another for herself. “Now, how are we to contrive to set the trap?”
A footman entered and handed the Duke a visiting card, with something penciled on it…
“It’s Bigler,” he said, “and he asks to be admitted immediately – he’s always in a rush. Tell Count Bigler I’ll see him presently.”
She stayed the servant with a motion; she did not intend to lose Lotzen until he had told her the whole plot.
“Why not have him here?” she asked; “and then let him go.”
“By all means, if you will permit,” and he nodded to the footman.
Most women would have called Count Bigler handsome; and not a few men, as well. He was red-headed and ruddy, with clean-cut features, square chin, and a laughing mouth, that contrary to Valerian fashion was not topped by a moustache. Since boyhood, he had been Lotzen’s particular companion and intimate; and, as is usual in such instances, he was almost his antipode in temperament and manner.
He saluted the Duke with easy off-handedness, and bent with deferential courtesy over Mrs. Spencer’s hand; but pressing it altogether more tightly than the attitude justified.
She answered with the faintest finger tap and a quick smile, and waved him to a chair.
“If I’m de trop,” she said, “I’ll vacate.”
“Madame is never de trop, to me,” he answered, taking the cigarette she offered and smiling down at her, through the smoke, as he lit it.
When he turned to sit down, the left side of his face was, for the first time, toward the Duke, showing the ear bound with strips of surgeon’s plaster.
“In the name of Heaven, man,” said he, “what have you been doing with yourself?”
The Count laughed. “Trading the top of my ear for a day or two more of life.”
“Duel?” Lotzen asked.
“Yes, after a fashion, but not exactly under the code.”
The primeval woman stirred in Mrs. Spencer.
“The story, Count, the story!” she demanded, coiling her lithe arms behind her head, and leaning far back in languorous gracefulness.
“It’s the story that brings me here so early,” he replied.
The Duke was frowning. Duelling was a serious crime in Valeria, even in the Army, and it was a particularly unfortunate moment for Bigler to offend; and especially as only the Governor of Dornlitz or the Regent could save him from punishment.
“How did you manage to get into such a mess just at this time?” he asked sharply. “Was any one killed?”
The Count nodded. “Four, I think; I didn’t stay to examine them.”
“Four! four! God, man, was it a massacre?”
“Almost – I’m the sole survivor on your side.”
Lotzen’s frown grew.
“On my side!” he echoed.
“I was assuming to act for you,” Bigler explained.
“For me! – who was on the other side?”
“The American – the American and Bernheim.”
For a space the Duke smoked in silence; then he gave a faint chuckle.
“They came rather close to making it five, didn’t they?” He touched his ear – “Bernheim, I suppose?.. Of course, the American would have made it five. What a fool you are, Bigler, to go into such a thing without telling me.”
“I’m telling you now,” the Count grinned.
“And I’m exceedingly grateful to my dear cousin for leaving you to tell it. It’s the only service he has ever done me. I assume it isn’t necessary to ask if you got him – or even wounded him?”
“Quite unnecessary.”
Madeline Spencer had been chafing at the delay; now she arose, and, going over to a divan, sank sinuously among the pillows, one trim, blue silk ankle shimmering far below her skirts.
“If you were as slow in the fight, Count, as you are in getting at the story,” she remarked, “it’s a wonder to me how Bernheim missed you.”
Both men laughed, and Bigler’s glance lingered a moment in open admiration.
The Duke swung his hand toward her.
“Madame grows impatient,” he said. “Proceed, Monsieur Edmund.”
The Count took a fresh cigarette.
“It was this way,” he began, pivoting his chair around on one back leg, so that he would have both his auditors within his direct vision. “The two weeks we were bound to idleness mourning for old Frederick, I spent in watching the American. I soon discovered that it was his custom, every few days, to visit, very late at night, his friend, the American Ambassador, and that he invariably not only walked the entire distance from the Epsau and back, but also went unattended. It seemed to me very simple to waylay him, some night on his return; the streets were usually deserted then, and he should be an easy victim, if set upon by enough men to assure success. And I had about arranged the matter, when I chanced to remember that the De Saures were still in the country and their house closed. It stands far back from the Avenue, you know, and a safer and surer plan occurred to me: – I would lure him into this house, and leave him there for burial. In the dark, my four rogues could put enough steel through him, from behind, to insure his quick demise. I proposed to take no chances with such a swordsman by giving him a light; and besides, it was just as well that the men should not know their victim. Nor did they ever see me unmasked. For decoy, one of the rogues procured a woman – ”
“What!” exclaimed the Duke, – “one of their women!”
“It was voice, not beauty, I wanted – the cry of a female for help.”
Lotzen nodded and smiled. “Rather clever.”
“For a week we met at the house at eleven o’clock every night, but the American didn’t go to the Embassy. Then, last night, at twelve, he went, and old Bernheim with him. That didn’t bother me much, however, and we waited for their return. They came about two, through driving rain and wind; and the woman played her part perfectly. Such piteous cries I never heard. ‘Don’t strike me again – don’t strike me again – help – help;’ reiterated in tones that would have moved even your heart, my dear Duke. I was concealed near the gate and they moved me – and they caught the American instantly, though Bernheim scented danger and protested vigorously. ‘It may be a trap of Lotzen’s,’ he warned. ‘Damn Lotzen!’ was the prompt answer, as the girl wailed again – I tell you she was an artist at it; she, herself, must be used to beatings. They ran up the path to the house, I following; and here the whole scheme was almost upset by some fool having left the front door open. Bernheim protested that it proved the trap; and even the American was hesitating, when again the woman wailed. That settled it; and I dashed around the house to the rear entrance.
“My purpose was to draw them upstairs and finish the job there. They searched the first floor – we were on the second – then, leaving all the electric lights burning, they ascended – and we went down the back way, turned off the lights and closed and locked the doors. They promptly extinguished the lights they had set going above, and the house was in the densest darkness I have ever known. We could hear them whispering in the upper hall; and I sent two of my rogues up the front stairs and led the others up the rear, intending to snap an electric torch for the instant it would require to do our work; and which seemed all the easier because I had observed, at the gate, that the American was without his sword. When we were half way up, I heard a crash from the front, followed by the American’s laugh. I paused an instant, then hurried on, and fell over a chair that had been placed at the head of the stairs. Everything remained quiet, however, and we went forward into the hall. My finger was on the key of the torch when there came a shrill whistle, and the lights went on. I saw Bernheim in front of us, pistol in hand; it flashed, and the man on my left went down. At the same moment, the American sprang at us from behind and felled the other fellow with the hilt of a sword – where he got it the devil only knows. As for me, I admit I was dazed with surprise; I heard the American offer me the choice: pistol or sword – I took the pistol. I had retained enough sense to know I hadn’t the faintest chance with him. The front steps were near; I made the leap of my life, and plunged down them. Bernheim fired three times – this (indicating his ear) was the last; the first two missed.”
“What had become of your other pair of rogues?” the Duke asked.
“Dead. I fell over them at the foot of the stairs, buried under a huge chest.”
“Flung upon them, doubtless, as they were ascending,” said Lotzen.
Bigler nodded. “That was the crash I heard.” He took another cigarette, and lighted it carefully. “And that, madame, is the story,” he ended, looking at Mrs. Spencer.
She flashed him a bright smile.
“The nicest thing about it, my dear Count,” she said, “is that you are here to tell it.”
“Even if he doesn’t in the least deserve to be here,” the Duke interjected. “Such a – my dear Edmund, don’t do it again. You’re too young and innocent to die. Leave the strategy to me – and my lady, yonder; we will give you enough of fighting in due time – and soon.”
The Count laughed in good natured imperturbability.
“I’m done,” he said frankly. “I’m ready to take orders from you or my lady – particularly from my lady.”
The Duke gave him a quick, sharp glance.
“The orders will come through me,” he said, rather curtly.
Madeline Spencer held out her hand to the Count.
“When His Highness grows jealous,” she said, languidly arising and shaking down her skirts, “it’s time, you know, for you to go – come back when he is not here;” and with a provoking smile at the Duke, she flung the Count a kiss – “for your wounded ear, my lord.”
