CHAPTER I
THE MYSTERIOUS FOREIGNER
"Hello! Yes--I'm Maurice Wynn. Who are you?"
"Harding. I've been ringing you up at intervals for hours. Carson's ill,and you're to relieve him. Come round for instructions to-night. LordSouthbourne will give them you himself. Eh? Yes, Whitehall Gardens.Ten-thirty, then. Right you are."
I replaced the receiver, and started hustling into my dress clothes,thinking rapidly the while.
For the first time in the course of ten years' experience as a specialcorrespondent, I was dismayed at the prospect of starting off at amoment's notice--to St. Petersburg, in this instance.
To-day was Saturday, and if I were to go by the quickest route--the Nordexpress--I should have three days' grace, but the delay at this endwould not compensate for the few hours saved on the journey. No,doubtless Southbourne would expect me to get off to-morrow or Mondaymorning at latest. He was--and is--the smartest newspaper man inEngland.
Well, I still had four hours before I was due at Whitehall Gardens; andI must make the most of them. At least I should have a few minutes alonewith Anne Pendennis, on our way to the dinner at the Hotel Cecil,--theSavage Club "ladies" dinner, where she and my cousin Mary would beguests of Jim Cayley, Mary's husband.
Anne had promised to let me escort her,--the Cayley's brougham was asmall one, in which three were emphatically a crowd,--and the drive fromChelsea to the Strand, in a hansom, would provide me with theopportunity I had been wanting for days past, of putting my fate to thetest, and asking her to be my wife.
I had thought to find that opportunity to-day, at the river picnic Maryhad arranged; but all my attempts to secure even a few minutes alonewith Anne had failed; though whether she evaded me by accident or designI could not determine, any more than I could tell if she loved me.Sometimes, when she was kind, my hopes rose high, to fall below zeronext minute.
"Steer clear of her, my boy," Jim Cayley had said to me weeks ago, whenAnne first came to stay with Mary. "She's as capricious as she'simperious, and a coquette to her finger-tips. A girl with hair and eyeslike that couldn't be anything else."
I resented the words hotly at the time, and he retracted them, with apromptitude and good humor that disarmed me. Jim was a man with whom itwas impossible to quarrel. Still, I guessed he had not changed hisopinion of his wife's guest, though he appeared on excellent terms withher.
As for Mary, she was different. She loved Anne,--they had been fastfriends ever since they were school-girls together at Neuilly,--and ifshe did not fully understand her, at least she believed that hercoquetry, her capriciousness, were merely superficial, like the hard,glittering quartz that enshrines and protects the pure gold,--and has tobe shattered before the gold can be won.
Mary, I knew, wished me well, though she was far too wise a little womanto attempt any interference.
Yes, I would end my suspense to-night, I decided, as I wrestled with arefractory tie.
Ting ... ting ... tr-r-r-ing! Two short rings and a long one. Not thetelephone this time, but the electric bell at the outer door of mybachelor flat.
Who on earth could that be? Well, he'd have to wait.
As I flung the tie aside and seized another, I heard a queer scratchingnoise outside, stealthy but distinct. I paused and listened, thencrossed swiftly and silently to the open door of the bedroom. Some onehad inserted a key in the Yale lock of the outer door, and was vainlyendeavoring to turn it.
I flung the door open and confronted an extraordinary figure,--an oldman, a foreigner evidently, of a type more frequently encountered in theEast End than Westminster.
"Well, my friend, what are you up to?" I demanded.
The man recoiled, bending his body and spreading his claw-like hands ina servile obeisance, quaint and not ungraceful; while he quavered outwhat was seemingly an explanation or apology in some jargon that wasquite unintelligible to me, though I can speak most European languages.I judged it to be some Russian patois.
I caught one word, a name that I knew, and interrupted his flow ofeloquence.
"You want Mr. Cassavetti?" I asked in Russian. "Well, his rooms are onthe next floor."
I pointed upwards as I spoke, and the miserable looking old creatureunderstood the gesture at least, for, renewing his apologeticprotestations, he began to shuffle along the landing, supporting himselfby the hand-rail.
I knew my neighbor Cassavetti fairly well. He was supposed to be apress-man, correspondent to half a dozen Continental papers, and gavehimself out as a Greek, but I had a notion that Russian refugee wasnearer the mark, though hitherto I had never seen any suspiciouscharacters hanging around his place.
But if this picturesque stranger wasn't a Russian Jew, I never saw one.He certainly was no burglar or sneak-thief, or he would have bolted whenI opened the door. The key with which he had attempted to gain ingressto my flat was doubtless a pass-key to Cassavetti's rooms. He seemed aqueer person to be in possession of such a thing, but that wasCassavetti's affair, and not mine.
"Here, you'd better have your key," I called, jerking it out of my lock.It was an ordinary Yale key, with a bit of string tied to it, and afragment of dirty red stuff attached to that.
The stranger had paused, and was clinging to the rail, making a queergasping sound; and now, as I spoke, he suddenly collapsed in a heap, hisdishevelled gray head resting against the balustrade.
I guessed I'd scared him pretty badly, and as I looked down at him Ithought for a moment he was dead.
I went up the stairs, and rang Cassavetti's bell. There was no answer,and I tried the key. It fitted right enough, but the rooms were empty.
What was to be done? Common humanity forbade me to leave the poor wretchlying there; and to summon the housekeeper from the basement meanttraversing eight flights of stairs, for the block was an old-fashionedone, and there was no elevator. Besides, I reckoned that Cassavettiwould prefer not to have the housekeeper interfere with his queervisitor.
I ran back, got some whiskey and a bowl of water, and started to givefirst aid to my patient.
I saw at once what was wrong,--sheer starvation, nothing less. I toreopen the ragged shirt, and stared aghast at the sight that met my eyes.The emaciated chest was seamed and knotted with curious scars. I hadseen similar scars before, and knew there was but one weapon in theworld--the knout--capable of making them. The man was a Russian then,and had been grievously handled; some time back as I judged, for thescars were old.
I dashed water on his face and breast, and poured some of the whiskeydown his throat. He gasped, gurgled, opened his eyes and stared at me.He looked like a touzled old vulture that has been badly scared.
"Buck up, daddy," I said cheerfully, forgetting he wouldn't understandme. I helped him to his feet, and felt in my trouser pocket for a coin.It was food he wanted, but I had none to give him, except some crackers,and I had wasted enough time over him already. If I didn't get a hustleon, I should be late for my appointment with Anne.
He clutched at the half-crown, and bent his trembling old body again,invoking, as I opined, a string of blessings on my unworthy head.Something slipped from among his garments and fell with a tinkle at myfeet. I stooped to pick it up and saw it was an oval piece of tin, inshape and size like an old-fashioned miniature, containing a portrait.He had evidently been wearing it round his neck, amulet fashion, for athin red cord dangled from it, that I had probably snapped in my haste.
He reached for it with a quick cry, but I held on to it, for Irecognized the face instantly.
It was a photograph of Anne Pendennis--badly printed, as if by anamateur--but an excellent likeness.
Underneath were scrawled in red ink the initials "A. P." and two orthree words that I could not decipher, together with a curioushieroglyphic, that looked like a tiny five-petalled flower, drawn andfilled in with the red ink.
How on earth did this forlorn old alien have Anne's portrait in hispossession?
He was cute enough to read my expression, for he clutched my arm, a
nd,pointing to the portrait, began speaking earnestly, not in the patois,but in low Russian.
My Russian is poor enough, but his was execrable. Still, I gathered thathe knew "the gracious lady," and had come a long way in search of her.There was something I could not grasp, some allusion to danger thatthreatened Anne, for each time he used the word he pointed at theportrait with agonized emphasis.
His excitement was so pitiable, and seemed so genuine, that I determinedto get right to the root of the mystery if possible.
I seized his arm, marched him into my flat, and sat him in a chair,emptying the tin of crackers before him, and bidding him eat. Hestarted crunching the crackers with avidity, eyeing me furtively all thetime as I stood at the telephone.
I must let Anne know at once that I was detained.
I could not get on to the Cayley's number, of course. Things alwayshappen that way! Well, I would have to explain my conduct later.
But I failed to elicit much by the cross-examination to which Isubjected my man. For one thing, neither of us understood half that theother said.
I told him I knew his "gracious lady;" and he grovelled on the floor,clawing at my shoes with his skinny hands.
I asked him who he was and where he came from, but could make nothing ofhis replies. He seemed in mortal fear of some "Selinski"--or a name thatsounded like that; and I did discover one point, that by Selinski hemeant Cassavetti. When he found he had given that much away, he was soscared that I thought he was going to collapse again, as he did on thestaircase.
And yet he had been entrusted with a pass-key to Cassavetti's rooms!
Only two items seemed perfectly clear. That his "gracious lady" was indanger,--I put that question to him time after time, and his answernever varied,--and that he had come to warn her, to save her ifpossible.
I could not ascertain the nature of the danger. When I asked him hesimply shook his head, and appeared more scared than ever; but Igathered that he would be able to tell "the gracious lady," and that shewould understand, if he could only have speech with her. But when Ipressed him on this idea of danger he did a curious thing. He picked upCassavetti's key, flattened the bit of red stuff on the palm of hishand, and held it towards me, pointing at it as if to indicate that herewas the clue that he dare not give in words.
I looked at the thing with interest. A tawdry artificial flower, withfive petals, and in a flash I understood that the hieroglyphic on theportrait represented the same thing,--a red geranium. But what did theymean, anyhow, and what connection was there between them? I could notimagine.
Finally I made him understand--or I thought I did--that he must come tome next day, in the morning; and meanwhile I would try and arrange thathe should meet his "gracious lady."
He grovelled again, and shuffled off, turning at every few steps to makea genuflection.
I half expected him to go up the stairs to Cassavetti's rooms, but hedid not. He went down. I followed two minutes later, but saw nothing ofhim, either on the staircase or the street. He had vanished as suddenlyand mysteriously as he had appeared.
I whistled for a hansom, and, as the cab turned up Whitehall, Big Benchimed a quarter to eight.
The Red Symbol Page 3