Elusive Isabel, by Jacques Futrelle by Unknown (good short books .TXT) 📗

the sharp crackle of paper. At first he didn’t understand, then he knew that the woman had pinned a paper to the lapel of his coat. Finally she straightened up, and took two steps away from him, after which came a pause. His keenly attuned ears caught her faint breathing, then the rustle of her skirts as she turned back. She was leaning over him again—her lips touched his forehead, barely; again there was a quick rustling of skirts, the door creaked, and—silence, deep, oppressive, overwhelming silence.

Isabel! Was he dreaming? And then he ceased wondering and fell to remembering her kiss—light as air—and the softly spoken “Thank God!” She did care, then! She had understood, that day!

The kiss of a woman beloved is a splendid heart tonic. Mr. Grimm straightened up suddenly on the couch, himself again. He touched the slip of paper which she had pinned to his coat to make sure it was not all a dream, after which he recalled the fact that while he had heard the door creak before she went out he had not heard it creak afterward. Therefore, the door was open. She had left it open. Purposely? That was beside the question at the moment.

And why—how—was she in Washington? Pondering that question, Mr. Grimm’s excellent teeth clicked sharply together and he rose. He knew the answer. The compact was to be signed—the alliance which would array the civilized world in arms. He had failed to block that, as he thought. If Miss Thorne had returned, then Prince Benedetto d’Abruzzi, who held absolute power to sign the compact for Italy, France and Spain, had also returned.

Stealthily, feeling his way as he went, Mr. Grimm moved toward the door leading to freedom, guided by the fresh draft of air. He reached the door—it was standing open—and a moment later stepped out into the star-lit night. It was open country here, with a thread of white road just ahead, and farther along a fringe of shrubbery. Mr. Grimm reached the road. Far down it, a pin point in the night, a light flickered through interlacing branches. The tail lamp of an automobile, of course!

Mr. Grimm left the road and skirted a sparse hedge in the direction of the light. After a moment he heard the engine of an automobile, and saw a woman—barely discernible—step into the car. As it started forward he staked everything on one bold move, and won, his reward being a narrow sitting space in the rear of the car, hidden from its occupants by the tonneau. One mile, two miles, three miles they charged through the night, and still he clung on. At last there came relief.

“That’s the place, where the lights are—just ahead.”

There was no mistaking that voice raised above the clamor of the engine. The car slackened speed, and Mr. Grimm dropped off and darted behind some convenient bushes. And the first thing he did there was to light a match, and read what was written on the slip of paper pinned to his coat. It was, simply:

“My Dear Mr. Grimm:

“By the time you read this the compact will have been signed, and your efforts to prevent it, splendid as they were, futile. It is a tribute to you that it was unanimously agreed that you must be accounted for at the time of the signing, hence the drugging in the restaurant; it was only an act of kindness that I should come here to see that all was well with you, and leave the door open behind me.

“Believe me when I say that you are one man in whom I have never been disappointed. Accept this as my farewell, for now I assume again the name and position rightfully mine. And know, too, that I shall always cherish the belief that you will remember me as

“Your friend,

“ISABEL THORNE.

“P. S. The prince and I left the steamer at Montauk Point, on a tug-boat.”

Mr. Grimm kissed the note twice, then burned it.

XXII

THE COMPACT

A room, low-ceilinged, dim, gloomy, sinister as an inquisition chamber; a single large table in the center, holding a kerosene lamp, writing materials and a metal spheroid a shade larger than a one-pound shell; and around it a semicircle of silent, masked and cowled figures. There were twelve of them, eleven men and a woman. In the shadows, which grew denser at the far end of the room, was a squat, globular object, a massive, smooth-sided, black, threatening thing of iron.

One of the men glanced at his watch—it was just two o’clock—then rose and took a position beside the table, facing the semicircle. He placed the timepiece on the table in front of him.

“Gentlemen,” he said, and there was the faintest trace of a foreign accent, “I shall speak English because I know that whatever your nationality all of you are familiar with that tongue. And now an apology for the theatric aspect of all this—the masks, the time and place of meeting, and the rest of it.” He paused a moment. “There is only one person living who knows the name and position of all of you,” and by a sweep of his hand he indicated the motionless figure of the woman. “It was by her decision that masks are worn, for, while we all know the details of the Latin compact, there is a bare chance that some one will not sign, and it is not desirable that the identity of that person be known to all of us. The reason for the selection of this time and place is obvious, for an inkling of the proposed signing has reached the Secret Service. I will add the United States was chosen as the birthplace of this new epoch in history for several reasons, one being the proximity to Central and South America; and another the inadequate police system which enables greater freedom of action.”

He stopped and drew from his pocket a folded parchment. He tapped the tips of his fingers with it from time to time