“Kiss me—upon the lips, Leopold,” she ordered.
“There is no Leopold here,” he replied; “you yourself have said it.”
She came a little nearer. “Upon the lips,” she whispered.
He held her, stooped down, and their lips met. Then she stood apart from him. Her eyes were for a moment closed, her hands were extended as though to prevent any chance of his approaching her again.
“Now I know the truth,” she muttered.
Dominey found an opportunity to draw Seaman away from his little group of investment-seeking friends.
“My friend,” he said, “trouble grows.”
“Anything more from Schmidt’s supposed emissary?” Seaman asked quickly.
“No. I am going to keep away from him this evening, and I advise you to do the same. The trouble is with the Princess.”
“With the Princess,” declared Seaman. “I think you have blundered. I quite appreciate your general principles of behaving internally and externally as though you were the person whom you pretend to be. It is the very essence of all successful espionage. But you should know when to make exceptions. I see grave objections myself to your obeying the Kaiser’s behest. On the other hand, I see no objection whatever to your treating the Princess in a more human manner, to your visiting her in London, and giving her more ardent proofs of your continued affection.”
“If I once begin—”
“Look here,” Seaman interrupted, “the Princess is a woman of the world. She knows what she is doing, and there is a definite tie between you. I tell you frankly that I could not bear to see you playing the idiot for a moment with Lady Dominey, but with the Princess, scruples don’t enter into the question at all. You should by no means make an enemy of her.”
“Well, I have done it,” Dominey acknowledged. “She has gone off to bed now, and she is leaving early to-morrow morning. She thinks I have borrowed some West African magic, that I have left her lover’s soul out there and come home in his body.”
“Well, if she does,” Seaman declared, “you are out of your troubles.”
“Am I!” Dominey replied gloomily. “First of all, she may do a lot of mischief before she goes. And then, supposing by any thousand to one chance the story of this cousin of Schmidt’s should be true, and she should find Dominey out there, still alive? The Princess is not of German birth, you know. She cares nothing for Germany’s future. As a matter of fact, I think, like a great many Hungarians, she prefers England. They say that an Englishman has as many lives as a cat. Supposing that chap Dominey did come to life again and she brings him home? You say yourself that you do not mean to make much use of me until after the war has started. In the parlance of this country of idioms, that will rather upset the apple cart, will it not?”
“Has the Princess a suite of rooms here?” Seaman enquired.
“Over in the west wing. Good idea! You go and see what you can do with her. She will not think of going to bed at this time of night.”
Seaman nodded.
“Leave it to me,” he directed. “You go out and play the host.”
Dominey played the host first and then the husband. Rosamund welcomed him with a little cry of pleasure.
“I have been enjoying myself so much, Everard!” she exclaimed. “Everybody has been so kind, and Mr. Mangan has taught me a new Patience.”
“And now, I think,” Doctor Harrison intervened a little gruffly, “it’s time to knock off for the evening.”
She turned very sweetly to Everard.
“Will you take me upstairs?” she begged. “I have been hoping so much that you would come before Doctor Harrison sent me off.”
“I should have been very disappointed if I had been too late,” Dominey assured her. “Now say good night to everybody.”
“Why, you talk to me as though I were a child,” she laughed. “Well, good- bye, everybody, then. You see, my stern husband is taking me off. When are you coming to see me, Doctor Harrison?”
“Nothing to see you for,” was the gruff reply. “You are as well as any woman here.”
“Just a little unsympathetic, isn’t he?” she complained to Dominey. “Please take me through the hall, so that I can say good-bye to every one else. Is the Princess Eiderstrom there?”
“I am afraid that she has gone to bed,” Dominey answered, as they passed out of the room. “She said something about a headache.”
“She is very beautiful,” Rosamund said wistfully. “I wish she looked as though she liked me a little more. Is she very fond of you, Everard?”
“I think that I am rather in her bad books just at present,” Dominey confessed.
“I wonder! I am very observant, and I have seen her looking at you sometimes—Of course,” Rosamund went on, “as I am not really your wife and you are not really my husband, it is very stupid of me to feel jealous, isn’t it, Everard?”
“Not a bit,” he answered. “If I am not your husband, I will not be anybody else’s.”
“I love you to say that,” she admitted, with a little sigh, “but it seems wrong somewhere. Look how cross the Duchess looks! Some one must have played the wrong card.”
Rosamund’s farewells were not easily made; Terniloff especially seemed reluctant to let her go. She excused herself gracefully, however, promising to sit up a little later the next evening. Dominey led the way upstairs, curiously gratified at her lingering progress. He took her to the door of her room and looked in. The nurse was sitting in an easy-chair, reading, and the maid was sewing in the background.
“Well, you look very comfortable here,” he declared cheerfully. “Pray do not move, nurse.”
Rosamund held his hands, as though reluctant to let him go. Then she drew his face down and kissed him.
“Yes,” she said a little plaintively, “it’s very comfortable.—Everard?”
“Yes, dear?”
She drew his head down and whispered in his ear.
“May I come in and say good night for two minutes?”
He smiled—a wonderfully kind smile—but shook his head.
“Not to-night, dear,” he replied. “The Prince loves to sit up late, and I shall be downstairs with him. Besides, that bully of a doctor of yours insists upon ten hours’ sleep.”
She sighed like a disappointed child.
“Very well.” She paused for a moment to listen. “Wasn’t that a car?” she asked.
“Some of our guests going early, I dare say,” he replied, as he turned away.
CHAPTER XXIII
Table of Contents
Seaman did not at once start on his mission to the Princess. He made his way instead to the servants’ quarters and knocked at the door of the butler’s sitting-room. There was no reply. He tried the handle in vain. The door was locked. A tall, grave-faced man in sombre black came out from an adjoining apartment.
“You are looking for the person who arrived this evening from abroad, sir?” he enquired.
“I am,” Seaman replied. “Has he locked himself in?”
“He has left the Hall, sir!”
“Left!” Seaman repeated. “Do you mean gone away for good?”
“Apparently, sir. I do not understand his language myself, but I believe he considered his reception here, for some reason or other, unfavourable. He took advantage of the car which went down to the station for the evening papers and caught the last train.”
Seaman was silent for a moment. The news was a shock to him.
“What is your position here?” he asked his informant.
“My name is Reynolds, sir,” was the respectful reply. “I am Mr. Pelham’s servant.”
“Can you tell me why, if this man has left the door here is locked?”
“Mr. Parkins locked it before he went out, sir. He accompanied—Mr. Miller, I think his name was—to the station.”
Seaman had the air of a man not wholly satisfied.
“Is it usual to lock up a sitting-room in this fashion?” he asked.
&nb
sp; “Mr. Parkins always does it, sir. The cabinets of cigars are kept there, also the wine-cellar key and the key of the plate chest. None of the other servants use the room except at Mr. Parkins’ invitation.”
“I understand,” Seaman said, as he turned away. “Much obliged for your information, Reynolds. I will speak to Mr. Parkins later.”
“I will let him know that you desire to see him, sir.”
“Good night, Reynolds!”
“Good night, sir!”
Seaman passed back again to the crowded hall and billiard-room, exchanged a few remarks here and there, and made his way up the southern flight of stairs toward the west wing. Stephanie consented without hesitation to receive him. She was seated in front of the fire, reading a novel, in a boudoir opening out of her bedroom.
“Princess,” Seaman declared, with a low bow, “we are in despair at your desertion.”
She put down her book.
“I have been insulted in this house,” she said. “To-morrow I leave it.”
Seaman shook his head reproachfully.
“Your Highness,” he continued, “believe me, I do not wish to presume upon my position. I am only a German tradesman, admitted to the circles like these for reasons connected solely with the welfare of my country. Yet I know much, as it happens, of the truth of this matter, the matter which is causing you distress. I beg you to reconsider your decision. Our friend here is, I think, needlessly hard upon himself. So much the greater will be his reward when the end comes. So much the greater will be the rapture with which he will throw himself on his knees before you.”
“Has he sent you to reason with me?”
“Not directly. I am to a certain extent, however, his major-domo in this enterprise. I brought him from Africa. I have watched over him from the start. Two brains are better than one. I try to show him where to avoid mistakes, I try to point out the paths of danger and of safety.”
“I should imagine Sir Everard finds you useful,” she remarked calmly.
“I hope he does.”
“It has doubtless occurred to you,” she continued, “that our friend has accommodated himself wonderfully to English life and customs?”
“You must remember that he was educated here. Nevertheless, his aptitude has been marvellous.”
“One might almost call it supernatural,” she agreed. “Tell me, Mr. Seaman, you seem to have been completely successful in the installation of our friend here as Sir Everard. What is going to be his real value to you? What work will he do?”
“We are keeping him for the big things. You have seen our gracious master lately?” he added hesitatingly.
“I know what is at the back of your mind,” she replied. “Yes! Before the summer is over I am to pack up my trunks and fly. I understand.”
“It is when that time comes,” Seaman said impressively, “that we expect Sir Everard Dominey, the typical English country gentleman, of whose loyalty there has never been a word of doubt, to be of use to us. Most of our present helpers will be under suspicion. The authorised staff of our secret service can only work underneath. You can see for yourself the advantage we gain in having a confidential correspondent who can day by day reflect the changing psychology of the British mind in all its phases. We have quite enough of the other sort of help arranged for. Plans of ships, aerodromes and harbours, sailings of convoys, calling up of soldiers—all these are the A B C of our secret service profession. We shall never ask our friend here for a single fact, but, from his town house in Berkeley Square, the host of Cabinet Ministers, of soldiers, of the best brains of the country, our fingers will never leave the pulse of Britain’s day by day life.”
Stephanie threw herself back in her easy-chair and clasped her hands behind her head.
“These things you are expecting from our present host?”
“We are, and we expect to get them. I have watched him day by day. My confidence in him has grown.”
Stephanie was silent. She sat looking into the fire. Seaman, keenly observant as always, realised the change in her, yet found something of mystery in her new detachment of manner.
“Your Highness,” he urged, “I am not here to speak on behalf of the man who at heart is, I know, your lover. He will plead his own cause when the time comes. But I am here to plead for patience, I am here to implore you to take no rash step, to do nothing which might imperil in any way his position here. I stand outside the gates of the world which your sex can make a paradise. I am no judge of the things that happen there. But in your heart I feel there is bitterness, because the man for whom you care has chosen to place his country first. I implore your patience, Princess. I implore you to believe what I know so well,—that it is the sternest sense of duty only which is the foundation of Leopold Von Ragastein’s obdurate attitude.”
“What are you afraid that I shall do?” she asked curiously.
“I am afraid of nothing—directly.”
“Indirectly, then? Answer me, please.”
“I am afraid,” he admitted frankly, “that in some corner of the world, if not in this country, you might whisper a word, a scoffing or an angry sentence, which would make people wonder what grudge you had against a simple Norfolk baronet. I would not like that word to be spoken in the presence of any one who knew your history and realised the rather amazing likeness between Sir Everard Dominey and Baron Leopold Von Ragastein.”
“I see,” Stephanie murmured, a faint smile parting her lips. “Well, Mr. Seaman, I do not think that you need have many fears. What I shall carry away with me in my heart is not for you or any man to know. In a few days I shall leave this country.”
“You are going back to Berlin—to Hungary?”
She shook her head, beckoned her maid to open the door, and held out her hand in token of dismissal.
“I am going to take a sea voyage,” she announced. “I shall go to Africa.”
The morrow was a day of mild surprises. Eddy Pelham’s empty place was the first to attract notice, towards the end of breakfast time.
“Where’s the pink and white immaculate?” the Right Honourable gentleman asked. “I miss my morning wonder as to how he tied his tie.”
“Gone,” Dominey replied, looking round from the sideboard.
“Gone?” every one repeated.
“I should think such a thing has never happened to him before,” Dominey observed. “He was wanted in town.”
“Fancy any one wanting Eddy for any serious purpose!” Caroline murmured.
“Fancy any one wanting him badly enough to drag him out of bed in the middle of the night with a telephone call and send him up to town by the breakfast train from Norwich!” their host continued. “I thought we had started a new ghost when he came into my room in a purple dressing-gown and broke the news.”
“Who wanted him?” the Duke enquired. “His tailor?”
“Business of importance was his pretext,” Dominey replied.
There was a little ripple of good-humoured laughter.
“Does Eddy do anything for a living?” Caroline asked, yawning.
“Mr. Pelham is a director of the Chelsea Motor Works,” Mangan told them. “He received a small legacy last year, and his favourite taxicab man was the first to know about it.”
“You’re not suggesting,” she exclaimed, “that it is business of that sort which has taken Eddy away!”
“I should think it most improbable,” Mangan confessed. “As a matter of fact, he asked me the other day if I knew where their premises were.”
“We shall miss him,” she acknowledged. “It was quite one of the events of the day to see his costume after shooting.”
“His bridge was reasonably good,” the Duke commented.
“He shot rather well the last two days,” Mangan remarked.
“And he had told me confidentially,” Caroline concluded, “that he was going to wear brown to-day. Now I think Eddy would have looked nice in brown.”
The missing young man’s requiem was fini
shed by the arrival of the local morning papers. A few moments later Dominey rose and left the room. Seaman, who had been unusually silent, followed him.
“My friend,” he confided, “I do not know whether you have heard, but there was a curious disappearance from the Hall last night.”
“Whose?” Dominey asked, pausing in the act of selecting a cigarette.
“Our friend Miller, or Wolff—Doctor Schmidt’s emissary,” Seaman announced, “has disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” Dominey repeated. “I suppose he is having a prowl round somewhere.”
“I have left it to you to make more careful enquiries,” Seaman replied. “All I can tell you is that I made up my mind last night to interview him once more and try to fathom his very mysterious behaviour. I found the door of your butler’s sitting-room locked, and a very civil fellow—Mr. Pelham’s valet he turned out to be—told me that he had left in the car which went for the evening papers.”
“I will go and make some enquiries,” Dominey decided, after a moment’s puzzled consideration.
“If you please,” Seaman acquiesced. “The affair disconcerts me because I do not understand it. When there is a thing which I do not understand, I am uncomfortable.”
Dominey vanished into the nether regions, spent half an hour with Rosamund, and saw nothing of his disturbed guest again until they were walking to the first wood. They had a moment together after Dominey had pointed out the stands.
“Well?” Seaman enquired.
“Our friend,” Dominey announced, “apparently made up his mind to go quite suddenly. A bed was arranged for him—or rather it is always there—in a small apartment opening out of the butler’s room, on the ground floor. He said nothing about leaving until he saw Parkins preparing to go down to the station with the chauffeur. Then he insisted upon accompanying him, and when he found there was a train to Norwich he simply bade them both good night. He left no message whatever for either you or me.”
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