Wolfenden checked himself in the middle of a hot reply. He was suddenly conscious of the absurdity of losing his temper in the open street with a man so obviously ill-balanced—possessed, too, of such strange and wild impulses.
“Let us talk,” he said, “of something else, or say good- morning. Which way were you going?”
“To the Russian Embassy,” Felix said, “I have some work to do this afternoon.”
Wolfenden looked at him curiously.
“Our ways, then, are the same for a short distance,” he said. “Let us walk together. Forgive me, but you are really, then, attached to the Embassy?”
Felix nodded, and glanced at his companion with a smile.
“I am not what you call a fraud altogether,” he said. “I am junior secretary to Prince Lobenski. You, I think, are not a politician, are you?”
Wolfenden shook his head.
“I take no interest in politics,” he said. “I shall probably have to sit in the House of Lords some day, but I shall be sorry indeed when the time comes.”
Felix sighed, and was silent for a moment.
“You are perhaps fortunate,” he said. “The ways of the politician are not exactly rose-strewn. You represent a class which in my country does not exist. There we are all either in the army, or interested in statecraft. Perhaps the secure position of your country does not require such ardent service?”
“You are—of what nationality, may I ask?” Wolfenden inquired.
Felix hesitated.
“Perhaps,” he said, “you had better not know. The less you know of me the better. The time may come when it will be to your benefit to be ignorant.”
Wolfenden took no pains to hide his incredulity.
“It is easy to see that you are a stranger in this country,” he remarked. “We are not in Russia or in South America. I can assure you that we scarcely know the meaning of the word ‘intrigue’ here. We are the most matter-of-fact and perhaps the most commonplace nation in the world. You will find it out for yourself in time. Whilst you are with us you must perforce fall to our level.”
“I, too, must become commonplace,” Felix said, smiling. “Is that what you mean?”
“In a certain sense, yes,” Wolfenden answered. “You will not be able to help it. It will be the natural result of your environment. In your own country, wherever that may be, I can imagine that you might be a person jealously watched by the police; your comings and goings made a note of; your intrigues—I take it for granted that you are concerned in some—the object of the most jealous and unceasing suspicion. Here there is nothing of that. You could not intrigue if you wanted to. There is nothing to intrigue about.”
They were crossing a crowded thoroughfare, and Felix did not reply until they were safe on the opposite pavement. Then he took Wolfenden’s arm, and, leaning over, almost whispered in his ear—
“You speak,” he said, “what nine-tenths of your countrymen believe. Yet you are wrong. Wherever there are international questions which bring great powers such as yours into antagonism, or the reverse, with other great countries, the soil is laid ready for intrigue, and the seed is never long wanted. Yes; I know that, to all appearance, you are the smuggest and most respectable nation ever evolved in this world’s history. Yet if you tell me that your’s is a nation free from intrigue, I correct you; you are wrong, you do not know—that is all! That very man, whose life last night you so inopportunely saved, is at this moment deeply involved in an intrigue against your country.”
“Mr. Sabin!” Wolfenden exclaimed.
“Yes, Mr. Sabin! Mind, I know this by chance only. I am not concerned one way or the other. My quarrel with him is a private one. I am robbed for the present of my vengeance by a power to which I am forced to yield implicit obedience. So, for the present, I have forgotten that he is my enemy. He is safe from me, yet if last night I had struck home, I should have ridded your country of a great and menacing danger. Perhaps—who can tell—he is a man who succeeds—I might even have saved England from conquest and ruin.”
They had reached the top of Piccadilly, and downward towards the Park flowed the great afternoon stream of foot-people and carriages. Wolfenden, on whom his companion’s words, charged as they were with an almost passionate earnestness, could scarcely fail to leave some impression, was silent for a moment.
“Do you really believe,” he said, “that ours is a country which could possibly stand in any such danger? We are outside all Continental alliances! We are pledged to support neither the dual or the triple alliance. How could we possibly become embroiled?”
“I will tell you one thing which you may not readily believe,” Felix said. “There is no country in the world so hated by all the great powers as England.”
Wolfenden shrugged his shoulders.
“Russia,” he remarked, “is perhaps jealous of our hold on Asia, but——”
“Russia,” Felix interrupted, “of all the countries in the world, except perhaps Italy, is the most friendly disposed towards you.”
Wolfenden laughed.
“Come,” he said, “you forget Germany.”
“Germany!” Felix exclaimed scornfully. “Believe it or not as you choose, but Germany detests you. I will tell you a thing which you can think of when you are an old man, and there are great changes and events for you to look back upon. A war between Germany and England is only a matter of time—of a few short years, perhaps even months. In the Cabinet at Berlin a war with you to-day would be more popular than a war with France.”
“You take my breath away,” Wolfenden exclaimed, laughing.
Felix was very much in earnest.
“In the little world of diplomacy,” he said, “in the innermost councils these things are known. The outside public knows nothing of the awful responsibilities of those who govern. Two, at least, of your ministers have realised the position. You read this morning in the papers of more warships and strengthened fortifications—already there have been whispers of the conscription. It is not against Russia or against France that you are slowly arming yourselves, it is against Germany!”
“Germany would be mad to fight us,” Wolfenden declared.
“Under certain conditions,” Felix said slowly. “Don’t be angry—Germany must beat you.”
Wolfenden, looking across the street, saw Harcutt on the steps of his club, and beckoned to him.
“There is Harcutt,” he exclaimed, pointing him out to Felix. “He is a journalist, you know, and in search of a sensation. Let us hear what he has to say about these things.”
But Felix unlinked his arm from Wolfenden’s hastily.
“You must excuse me,” he said. “Harcutt would recognise me, and I do not wish to be pointed out everywhere as a would-be assassin. Remember what I have said, and avoid Sabin and his parasites as you would the devil.”
Felix hurried away. Wolfenden remained for a moment standing in the middle of the pavement looking blankly along Piccadilly. Harcutt crossed over to him.
“You look,” he remarked to Wolfenden, “like a man who needs a drink.”
Wolfenden turned with him into the club.
“I believe that I do,” he said. “I have had rather an eventful hour.”
CHAPTER X
THE SECRETARY
Table of Contents
Mr. Sabin, who had parted with Wolfenden with evident relief, leaned back in the cab and looked at his watch.
“That young man,” he remarked, “has wasted ten minutes of my time. He will probably have to pay for it some day.”
“By the bye,” the girl asked, “who is he?”
“His name is Wolfenden—Lord Wolfenden.”
“So I gathered; and who is Lord Wolfenden?”
“The only son of Admiral the Earl of Deringham. I don’t know anything more than that about him myself.”
“Admiral Deringham,” the girl repeated, thoughtfully; “the name sounds familiar.”
Mr. Sabin nodded.
“Ver
y likely,” he said. “He was in command of the Channel Squadron at the time of the Magnificent disaster. He was barely half a mile away and saw the whole thing. He came in, too, rightly or wrongly, for a share of the blame.”
“Didn’t he go mad, or something?” the girl asked.
“He had a fit,” Mr. Sabin said calmly, “and left the service almost directly afterwards. He is living in strict seclusion in Norfolk, I believe. I should not like to say that he is mad. As a matter of fact, I do not believe that he is.”
She looked at him curiously. There was a note of reserve in his tone.
“You are interested in him, are you not?” she asked.
“In a measure,” he admitted. “He is supposed, mad or not, to be the greatest living authority on the coast defences of England and the state of her battleships. They shelved him at the Admiralty, but he wrote some vigorous letters to the papers and there are people pretty high up who believe in him. Others, of course, think that he is a crank.”
“But why,” she asked, languidly, “are you interested in such matters?”
Mr. Sabin knocked the ash off the cigarette he was smoking and was silent for a moment.
“One gets interested nowadays in—a great many things which scarcely seem to concern us,” he remarked deliberately. “You, for instance, seem interested in this man’s son. He cannot possibly be of any account to us.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Did I say that I was interested in him?”
“You did not,” Mr. Sabin answered, “but it was scarcely necessary; you stopped to speak to him of your own accord, and you asked him to supper, which was scarcely discreet.”
“One gets so bored sometimes,” she admitted frankly.
“You are only a woman,” he said indulgently; “a year of waiting seems to you an eternity, however vast the stake. There will come a time when you will see things differently.”
“I wonder!” she said softly, “I wonder!”
Mr. Sabin had unconsciously spoken the truth when he had pleaded an appointment to Lord Wolfenden. His servant drew him on one side directly they entered the house.
“There is a young lady here, sir, waiting for you in the study.”
“Been here long?” Mr. Sabin asked.
“About two hours, sir. She has rung once or twice to ask about you.”
Mr. Sabin turned away and opened the study door, carefully closing it behind him at once as he recognised his visitor. The air was blue with tobacco smoke, and the girl, who looked up at his entrance, held a cigarette between her fingers. Mr. Sabin was at least as surprised as Lord Wolfenden when he recognised his visitor, but his face was absolutely emotionless. He nodded not unkindly and stood looking at her, leaning upon his stick.
“Well, Blanche, what has gone wrong?” he asked.
“Pretty well everything,” she answered. “I’ve been turned away.”
“Detected?” he asked quickly.
“Suspected, at any rate. I wrote you that Lord Deringham was watching me sharply. Where he got the idea from I can’t imagine, but he got it and he got it right, anyhow. He’s followed me about like a cat, and it’s all up.”
“What does he know?”
“Nothing! He found a sheet of carbon on my desk, no more! I had to leave in an hour.”
“And Lady Deringham?”
“She is like the rest—she thinks him mad. She has not the faintest idea that, mad or not, he has stumbled upon the truth. She was glad to have me go—for other reasons; but she has not the faintest doubt but that I have been unjustly dismissed.”
“And he? How much does he know?”
“Exactly what I told you—nothing! His idea was just a confused one that I thought the stuff valuable—how you can make any sense of such trash I don’t know—and that I was keeping a copy back for myself. He was worrying for an excuse to get rid of me, and he grabbed at it.”
“Why was Lady Deringham glad to have you go?” Mr. Sabin asked.
“Because I amused myself with her son.”
“Lord Wolfenden?”
“Yes!”
For the first time since he had entered the room Mr. Sabin’s grim countenance relaxed. The corners of his lips slowly twisted themselves into a smile.
“Good girl,” he said. “Is he any use now?”
“None,” she answered with some emphasis. “None whatever. He is a fool.”
The colour in her cheeks had deepened a little. A light shot from her eyes. Mr. Sabin’s amusement deepened. He looked positively benign.
“You’ve tried him?” he suggested.
The girl nodded, and blew a little cloud of tobacco smoke from her mouth.
“Yes; I went there last night. He was very kind. He sent his servant out with me and got me nice, respectable rooms.”
Mr. Sabin did what was for him an exceptional thing. He sat down and laughed to himself softly, but with a genuine and obvious enjoyment.
“Blanche,” he said, “it was a lucky thing that I discovered you. No one else could have appreciated you properly.”
She looked at him with a sudden hardness.
“You should appreciate me,” she said, “for what I am you made me. I am of your handiwork: a man should appreciate the tool of his own fashioning.”
“Nature,” Mr. Sabin said smoothly, “had made the way easy for me. Mine were but finishing touches. But we have no time for this sort of thing. You have done well at Deringham and I shall not forget it. But your dismissal just now is exceedingly awkward. For the moment, indeed, I scarcely see my way. I wonder in what direction Lord Deringham will look for your successor?”
“Not anywhere within the sphere of your influence,” she answered. “I do not think that I shall have a successor at all just yet. There was only a week’s work to do. He will copy that himself.”
“I am very much afraid,” Mr. Sabin said, “that he will; yet we must have that copy.”
“You will be very clever,” she said slowly. “He has put watches all round the place, and the windows are barricaded. He sleeps with a revolver by his side, and there are several horrors in the shape of traps all round the house.”
“No wonder,” Mr. Sabin said, “that people think him mad.”
The girl laughed shortly.
“He is mad,” she said. “There is no possible doubt about that; you couldn’t live with him a day and doubt it.”
“Hereditary, no doubt,” Mr. Sabin suggested quietly.
Blanche shrugged her shoulders and leaned back yawning.
“Anyhow,” she said, “I’ve had enough of them all. It has been very tiresome work and I am sick of it. Give me some money. I want a spree. I am going to have a month’s holiday.”
Mr. Sabin sat down at his desk and drew out a cheque-book.
“There will be no difficulty about the money,” he said, “but I cannot spare you for a month. Long before that I must have the rest of this madman’s figures.”
The girl’s face darkened.
“Haven’t I told you,” she said, “that there is not the slightest chance of their taking me back? You might as well believe me. They wouldn’t have me, and I wouldn’t go.”
“I do not expect anything of the sort,” Mr. Sabin said. “There are other directions, though, in which I shall require your aid. I shall have to go to Deringham myself, and as I know nothing whatever about the place you will be useful to me there. I believe that your home is somewhere near there.”
“Well!”
“There is no reason, I suppose,” Mr. Sabin continued, “why a portion of the vacation you were speaking of should not be spent there?”
“None!” the girl replied, “except that it would be deadly dull, and no holiday at all. I should want paying for it.”
Mr. Sabin looked down at the cheque-book which lay open before him.
“I was intending,” he said, “to offer you a cheque for fifty pounds. I will make it one hundred, and you will rejoin your family circle at Fakenham
, I believe, in one week from to-day.”
The girl made a wry face.
“The money’s all right,” she said; “but you ought to see my family circle! They are all cracked on farming, from the poor old dad who loses all his spare cash at it, down to little Letty my youngest sister, who can tell you everything about the last turnip crop. Do ride over and see us! You will find it so amusing!”
“I shall be charmed,” Mr. Sabin said suavely, as he commenced filling in the body of the cheque. “Are all your sisters, may I ask, as delightful as you?”
She looked at him defiantly.
“Look here,” she said, “none of that! Of course you wouldn’t come, but in any case I won’t have you. The girls are—well, not like me, I’m glad to say. I won’t have the responsibility of introducing a Mephistocles into the domestic circle.”
“I can assure you,” Mr. Sabin said, “that I had not the faintest idea of coming. My visit to Norfolk will be anything but a pleasure trip, and I shall have no time to spare.
“I believe I have your address: ‘Westacott Farm, Fakenham,’ is it not? Now do what you like in the meantime, but a week from to-day there will be a letter from me there. Here is the cheque.”
The girl rose and shook out her skirts.
“Aren’t you going to take me anywhere?” she asked. “You might ask me to have supper with you to-night.”
Mr. Sabin shook his head gently.
“I am sorry,” he said, “but I have a young lady living with me.”
“Oh!”
“She is my niece, and it takes more than my spare time to entertain her,” he continued, without noticing the interjection. “You have plenty of friends. Go and look them up and enjoy yourself—for a week. I have no heart to go pleasure-making until my work is finished.”
She drew on her gloves and walked to the door. Mr. Sabin came with her and opened it.
“I wish,” she said, “that I could understand what in this world you are trying to evolve from those rubbishy papers.”
He laughed.
“Some day,” he said, “I will tell you. At present you would not understand. Be patient a little longer.”
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