A Maker of History - E. Phillips Oppenheim (best books to read for students TXT) 📗

over by our enemies, who would easily possess themselves of any information which he might gain."

Spencer nodded.

"It is good reasoning," he admitted.

"Listen," Monsieur Louis continued. "I speak now on behalf of my friends. You know whom I mean. You have solved the mystery of our existence. We are omnipotent. The police and the secret service police and the Government itself are with us. We have license throughout the city. We may do what others may not. For us there is no crime. I kill you now perhaps. The police arrive. I am before the Commissioner. I give him the sign—it is l'affaire Poynton. I go free! It is a certain thing."

"Granted!" Spencer said. "Proceed with your killing, or your argument."

"With the latter, if you please," Monsieur Louis answered. "I do not choose to kill. L'affaire Poynton, then. Harm is not meant to either of these young people. That I assure you upon my honor. In three weeks, or say a month, we have finished. They may return to their homes if they will. We have no further interest in them. For those three weeks you must remain as you are—you, and if you have influence over him, Sir George Duncombe. The other two fools we have no care for. If they blundered into knowledge—well, they must pay. They are not our concern, yours and mine. For you, I bring you an offer, Monsieur Spencer."

"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes!" Spencer murmured.

Monsieur Louis smiled.

"My gift," he answered, "will not terrify you. You are a journalist. I offer to make the fortune of your paper. You shall be the first to announce an affair of the greatest international importance since the war between Russia and Japan was declared. No, I will go further than that. It is the greatest event since Waterloo."

"L'affaire Poynton strikes so deep?" Spencer remarked.

"So deep," the Baron answered. "It is the fools who grope their way into great places. So did the boy Poynton. You, my friend, shall be the one brilliant exception. You shall make yourself the king of journalists, and you shall be quoted down the century as having achieved the greatest journalistic feat of modern days."

Spencer turned his drawn, haggard face towards his visitor. A slight flush of color stained his cheek.

"You fascinate me," he said slowly. "I admit it. You have found the weak spot in my armor. Proceed! For whom do you speak?"

Monsieur Louis abandoned his somewhat lounging attitude. He stood by Spencer's side, and, leaning down, whispered in his ear. Spencer's eyes grew bright.

"Monsieur Louis," he said, "you play at a great game."

The Baron shrugged his shoulders.

"Me!" he answered. "I am but a pawn. I do what I am told."

"To return for a moment to l'affaire Poynton," Spencer said. "I am in the humor to trust you. Have I then your assurance that the boy and girl do not suffer?"

"Upon my own honor and the honor of the company to whom I belong," he answered with some show of dignity. "It is a pledge which I have never yet broken."

"I am a bribed man," Spencer answered.

Monsieur Louis threw away his second cigarette. He cast a look almost of admiration upon the man who still lay stretched upon the couch.

"You are the only Englishman I ever met, Monsieur Spencer," he said, "who was not pig-headed. You have the tenacity of your countrymen, but you have the genius to pick out the right thread from the tangle, to know truth when you meet it, even in unlikely places. I doff my hat to you, Monsieur Spencer. If you permit I will send my own physician to you. You will be yourself in a week."

"You know the antidote?" Spencer remarked grimly.

"Naturally! Accidents will happen. You wish that I should send him?"

"Without doubt," Spencer answered. "I am weary of this couch."

"You shall leave it in a week," Monsieur promised, as he left the room.

Spencer closed his eyes. Already he felt coming on the daily headache, which, with the terrible weakness, was a part of his symptoms. But there was no rest for him yet. Monsieur Louis had scarcely been gone five minutes when Duncombe arrived.

Duncombe had had no word of his friend's illness. He stood over his couch in shocked surprise.

"My dear fellow," he exclaimed. "I had no idea that you were ill. This is why I have not heard from you, then."

Spencer smiled as he held out his hand, and Duncombe, who seemed to catch some meaning in the upraised eyebrows of his friend, was shocked.

"You mean?" he exclaimed.

Spencer nodded.

"L'affaire Poynton" he said gently. "A very subtle dose of poison indeed, my friend. I shall not die, but I have had my little lesson. Here the individual has little chance. We fight against forces that are too many for us. I told you so at the start."

"Yet I," Duncombe answered, "have not suffered."

"My friend," Spencer answered, "it is because I am the more dangerous."

"You have discovered something?" Duncombe exclaimed.

"I came near discovering a great deal," Spencer answered. "Perhaps it would have been better for my system if I had discovered a little less. As it is I have finished with l'affaire Poynton for the present. You see how very nearly l'affaire Poynton finished me."

"It is not like you," Duncombe said thoughtfully, "to give anything up."

"We come face to face sometimes with unique experiences, which destroy precedent," Spencer answered. "This is one of them."

"And what," Duncombe asked, "do you advise me to do?"

"Always the same advice," Spencer answered. "Leave Paris to-day. Go straight back to Norfolk, read the newspapers, and await events."

"Well, I think that I shall do so," Duncombe answered slowly. "I have found out where Miss Poynton is, but she will not see me. I have made an enemy of my dearest friend, and I have, at any rate, interrupted your career and endangered your life. Yes, I will go back home."

"You may yet save your friend some—inconvenience," Spencer suggested. "Try to persuade him to go back with you."

"He will not listen to me," Duncombe answered. "He has brought an English detective with him, and he is as obstinate as a mule. For myself I leave at nine o'clock."

"You are well advised, exceedingly well advised," Spencer said. "Mind I do not take the responsibility of sending you away without serious reasons. I honestly believe that Miss Poynton is safe, whatever may have happened to her brother, and I believe that you will serve her best by your temporary absence."

Duncombe stood for a moment wrapped in thought. The last few months had aged him strangely. The strenuous days and nights of anxious thought had left their mark in deep lines upon his face. He looked out of the window of Spencer's room, and his eyes saw little of the busy street below. He was alone once more with this strange, terrified girl upon the hillside, with the wind in their faces, and making wild havoc in her hair. He was with her in different moods in the little room behind his library, when the natural joy of her young life had for the moment reasserted itself. He was with her at their parting. He saw half the fearful regret with which she had left his care and accepted the intervention of the Marquise. Stirring times these had been for a man of his quiet temperament, whom matters of sentiment and romance had passed lightly by, and whose passions had never before been touched by the finger of fire. And now he was going back to an empty life—a life at least empty of joy, save the hope of seeing her again. For good or for evil, the great thing had found its way into his life. His days of calm animal enjoyment were over. Sorrow or joy was to be his. He had passed into the shadows of the complex life.

He remembered where he was at last, and turned to Spencer.

"About yourself, Spencer," he said. "Have you seen a doctor?"

"Yes. I am not seriously ill," his friend answered. "The worst is over now. And, Duncombe, it's hard for you to go, I know—but look here, I believe that you will be back in a month, and taking Miss Poynton to lunch chez Ritz. I never felt so sure of it as I do to-day."

Duncombe remembered the answer to his note, and found it hard to share his friend's cheerfulness.

CHAPTER VIII A POLITICAL INTERLUDE

Duncombe laid down his cue and strolled towards the sideboard, where his guest was already mixing himself a whisky and soda.

"By the by, Runton," he said, "have you seen anything of our friend Von Rothe since that little affair at your place?"

Lord Runton shook his head.

"Not once," he answered. "He behaved very decently about it on the whole; treated it quite lightly—but he wouldn't let me go near the police. It was a long way the most unpleasant thing that ever happened in my house."

"Never any further light upon it, I suppose?" Duncombe asked.

Lord Runton shook his head.

"None. Of course we could have traced them both without a doubt if we had put it in the hands of the police, but Von Rothe wouldn't hear of it. He tried to treat it lightly, but I know that he was very much worried."

"Do you yourself believe," Duncombe asked, "that it was a political affair or an ordinary robbery?"

"I think that it was the former," Lord Runton answered. "Those people were not common adventurers. By the by, George, have you got over your little weakness yet?" he added with a smile.

Duncombe shrugged his shoulders.

"Nearly made a fool of myself, didn't I?" he remarked, with a levity which did not sound altogether natural.

"She was an uncommonly fascinating young woman," Lord Runton said, "but she didn't seem to me very old at the game. She was clever enough to fool Von Rothe, though. He admits that he told her that he was expecting a special messenger from Berlin."

Duncombe seemed to have had enough of the subject. He got up and filled his pipe.

"Is Jack coming down this week?" he asked.

"No! He wired this morning that he can't get away. Sefton isn't coming, either. Between ourselves, George, something seems to be going on at the Foreign Office which I don't understand."

"What do you mean?" Duncombe asked. "There has been no hint at any sort of trouble in the papers."

"That's just what I don't understand," Lord Runton continued. "It is certain that there is an extraordinary amount of activity at Portsmouth and Woolwich, but even the little halfpenny sensational papers make no more than a passing allusion to it. Then look at the movements of our fleet. The whole of the Mediterranean Fleet is at Gibraltar, and the Channel Squadron is moving up the North Sea as though to join the Home Division. All these movements are quite unusual."

"What do you make of them then?" Duncombe asked.

"I scarcely know," Lord Runton answered. "But I can tell you this. There have been three Cabinet Councils this week, and there is a curious air of apprehension in official circles in town, as though something were about to happen. The service clubs are almost deserted, and I know for a fact that all leave in the navy has been suspended. What I don't understand is the silence everywhere. It looks to me as though there were really going to be trouble. The Baltic Fleet sailed this morning, you know."

Duncombe nodded.

"But," he said, "even if they were ill disposed to us, as no doubt Russia is just now, what could they do? One squadron of our fleet could send them to the bottom."

"No doubt," Lord Runton answered. "But supposing they found an ally?"

"France will never go to war with us for Russia's benefit," Duncombe declared.

"Granted," Lord Runton answered, "but have you watched Germany's attitude lately?"

"I can't say that I have," Duncombe admitted, "but I should never look