Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?”

  “Kervyn — I don’t know what it is. I must not know. It is a matter of honour.”

  “If you don’t know what it is you carry in that satchel you evidently suspect what it might prove to be.”

  “Yes.”

  “You have very strong suspicions?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Why did you take such a thing?”

  “I promised.”

  “Whom?”

  “I can’t tell you. It is a matter of honour. I — I didn’t want to involve you if things turned badly. I asked you to leave me.... Even at the last moment I tried to give you a chance to go ashore and escape. Kervyn, I’ve tried to be honourable and to be loyal to you at the same time. I’ve tried — I’ve tried—” Her childish voice faltered, almost broke, and she turned her head sharply away from him.

  He dropped onto the lounge beside her, sick with anxiety, and laid his hand over hers where it lay in her lap.

  “I’m afraid that you have papers in that satchel which might mean the end of the world for you,” he said under his breath. “God alone knows why you carry them if you suspect their contents.... Well, I won’t ask you anything more at present.... If your conscience acquits you, I do. I do anyway. You have given me plenty of chances to escape. You have been very plucky, very generous to me, Karen.”

  “I have tried to be,” she said unsteadily. “You have been far too kind to me, Kervyn.... I — I don’t mean to tremble so. I think I am, feeling the — the reaction.”

  “Lie down. I am afraid I’ll have to stay here — —”

  “Yes; don’t go out on deck. Don’t take any more risks.... I’ll lie down if I may.” She rose, looked around with eyes still darkly dilated by fear:

  “Oh!” she breathed— “if we were only out of British waters!”

  He looked at his watch, and at the same moment a deep blast from the steamer vibrated through the cabin.

  “They’ve cast off,” he said calmly.

  The girl had flung herself on the bed and buried her face in the pillow. Her brown velvet hat had fallen to the floor, her thick brown hair clustered in glossy disorder over neck and cheek. One slim hand clutched convulsively a tiny handkerchief crushed into a ball.

  “We have every chance now,” he said very gently, bending over the pillow— “barring a wireless to some British guard-ship. Don’t give way yet, Karen.” He laid a cool, firm hand over hers and tried to speak jestingly. “Wait until there’s no danger at all before you go all to pieces,” he whispered.

  As he bent above her, he became conscious of the warm fragrance of tears. But no sound came, not a quiver. And after a while he went over to the sofa and sat down, staring at the locked satchel on the floor, vaguely aware that the boat was in steady motion.

  “Karen,” he said after a moment.

  “Yes — dear.”

  “You know,” he said, forcing a laugh, “you needn’t say it when we’re alone — except for practice.”

  “Yes, dear, I know.”

  “May I ask you something?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Did you know that official named Mitchell?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Mr. Grätz.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  AT SEA

  The funnel smoke blew low, burying the afterdecks, and a hurricane of scud and spindrift swept everything forward, drenching the plunging steamer to the bridge. Stanchions, davits, hatches were all a-dip, decks a-wash, and the Dutch ensign whipping aloft in a thick grey sky that seemed to speed astern as though in chase of the heaving grey waste of waters that fled away beneath.

  Here and there a trawler tossed and rocked; lean, melancholy wanderers on the face of the waters; twice the raking stacks of destroyers, smothered in foam, dashed eastward running full speed on some occult trail twixt sky and sea.

  The grey world grew duller, duller; one by one the blinding searchlights on coast-guard ships broke out, sweeping sky and ocean as though in desperate appeal to the God above and in menacing warning to the devils that lurked below.

  For they said the North Sea was full of them; legions of them tossed broadcast from the black hell of some human mind. And beneath them, deeper, lying as still as death on the Channel’s floor, waited the human submarines in unseen watery depths — motionless, patient, awaiting the moment to strike.

  Night came; the white level glare of searchlights flooded the steamer, lingered, shifted, tossed their dazzling arms heavenward as though imploring the Most High, then swept unseen horizons where the outermost waters curve with the curving globe.

  Only one light burned in the stateroom, but the port was not covered.

  Karen lay on the bed, unstirring save for a slight tremor of her shoulders now and then. Her brown hair, half loosened, had fallen in thick burnished curls on the pillow; one hand covered her eyes, palm outward. Under it the vivid lips, scarcely parted, rested on each other in a troubled curve.

  Guild brooded silently on the lounge under the port. Sometimes his sombre gaze rested on her, sometimes on the locked satchel which had rolled to the side of the bed.

  Every time the arrowy beam of light from a warship flooded the cabin with swift white splendour his heart seemed to stop, for the menace of the wireless was always a living dread; and the stopping of a neutral ship and the taking from it of suspects had become a practice too common even to excite comment, let alone protest.

  Twice they were stopped; twice Ardoise signals twinkled; but no cutter came alongside, and no officer boarded them. It was an eternity of suspense to Guild, and he stood by the open port, listening, the satchel in his hand ready to fling it out into the turmoil of heaving waters.

  The steward came, and Guild ordered something served for them both in the stateroom. Karen had not awakened, but her hand had slipped from her eyes and it lay across the edge of the bed.

  On the bridal finger glimmered the plain gold band — his credentials to her from her father.

  He went over and looked down into the white, childish face. Faultless, serene, wonderful as a flower it seemed to him. Where the black lashes rested the curve of the cheek was faintly tinted with colour. All else was snowy save for the vivid rose of the scarcely parted lips.

  Nineteen! — and all those accomplishments which her dim living-room at Westheath had partly revealed — where books in many languages had silently exposed the mind that required them — where pictures, music — all the unstudied and charming disorder of this young girl’s intimate habitation had delicately revealed its tenant.

  And what her living-room had foreshadowed was only, after all, but a tinted phantom of the girl he had come to know in the flesh — the real mistress of that dim room quickened to life — a warm, living, breathing reality, low-voiced, blue-eyed, winsome and sweet with the vague fragrance of youth incarnate clinging to her, to every gesture, every movement, every turn of her head — to her very skirts it seemed — youth, freshness, purity unblemished.

  As he stood there he tried to realize that she was German — this young girl with her low and charming English voice and her accentless English speech.

  He had listened in vain for any flaw, any indication of alien birth. Nothing betrayed her as a foreigner, except, possibly, a delightfully quaint formality in accepting any service offered. For when he asked her whether she desired this or that, or if he might do this or that for her, always her answer in the affirmative was, “Yes, please,” like a little girl who had been carefully taught to respect age. It amused him; for modern English young women are less punctilious with modern youth.

  There came a dull clatter of crockery from the passageway; Guild turned and opened the door. The waiter produced a folding table, spread it, and arranged the dishes.

  “That will be all,” whispered Guild. “Don’t knock again; I’ll set the tray outside.”

  So the waiter went away and Guild closed the door a
gain and turned back to the bed where Karen lay. Her delicate brows were now slightly knitted and the troubled curve of her lips hinted again of a slumber not wholly undisturbed by subconscious apprehension.

  “Karen,” he said in a low voice.

  The girl opened her eyes. They had that starry freshness that one sees in the eyes of waking children. For a moment her confused gaze met his without expression, then a hot flush stained her face and she sat up hurriedly. Down tumbled the thick, burnished locks and her hands flew instinctively to twist them up.

  “I didn’t realize that I had been asleep. Please, will you turn your back” — her glance fell on the table— “I shall be ready in a moment — Kervyn.”

  “Had I not better give you the place to yourself?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “I’ll do a sentry-go in the corridor,” he said. “Open the door when you’re quite ready.”

  So he went out and walked up and down until the stateroom door opened and her low voice summoned him.

  “I can’t eat,” she said.

  “Do you feel the sea?”

  “No” — she smiled faintly— “but the excitement of the day — the anxiety — —”

  “We’ll have some tea, anyway,” he said.

  They ate a little after all, and the hot and rather vile tea stimulated her. Presently he set tray and table outside in the corridor and came slowly back to where she had gathered herself in a corner of the sofa.

  “The sea is rather rough,” he said. “You seem to be a good sailor.”

  “Yes, I am. My father had a yacht and my mother and I always went when he cruised.”

  This slightest glimpse of personal history — the first she had vouchsafed — the first slight lifting of the curtain which hung between them, aroused his latent curiosity.

  What else lay behind that delicate, opaque veil which covered the nineteen years of her? What had been the childhood, the earlier life of this young girl whom he had found living alone with a maid and a single servant at an obscure heath outside of London?

  Gently born, gently bred young girls of aristocratic precedents, don’t do that sort of thing. Even if they desire to try it, they are not permitted. Also they don’t go on the stage, as a rule.

  Neither the sign manual, the sign visible of the theatre, nor yet that occult indefinable something characteristic of the footlights appeared to taint her personality.

  Talented as she was undoubtedly, cultured and gently nurtured, the sum total of all her experience, her schooling, her development, and her art had resulted only in a charming harmony, not a personality aggressively accented in any single particular. Any drawing-room in any country might have contained this young girl. Homes which possess drawing-rooms breed the self-possession, the serenity, the soft voice, the winsome candour and directness of such girls as she.

  She was curled up in the corner of the sofa where he had placed behind her the two pillows from the bed, and her winning blue eyes rested every few minutes upon this young man whom she had known only a few hours and whom she already, in her heart and in her mind, was calling a friend.

  She had never had any among young men — never even among older men had she experienced the quiet security, the untroubled certainty of such a friendship as had begun now — as had suddenly stepped into her life, new, yet strangely familiar — a friendship that seemed instantly fully developed and satisfactory.

  There appeared to be no room for doubt about it, no occasion for waiting, no uncertainty in her mind, no inclination and no thought of the lesser conventionalities which must strew elaborately the path of first acquaintance with the old, old-fashioned garlands — those prim, stiff blossoms of discretion, of propriety, of self-conscious concession to formula and tradition.

  No; when her eyes first fell on him her mind and heart seemed to recognize what neither had ever before beheld — a friend. And from that moment the girl had accepted the matter as settled, as far as she herself was concerned. And she had lost very little time in acquainting herself with his views upon the subject.

  That he had responded to the friendship she had so naïvely offered did not surprise her. She seemed to have expected it — perhaps in the peril of the moments when they were nearing London and doubt and suspicion in her mind concerning the contents of her satchel were becoming an agony to her as they grew more definite — perhaps even then the sudden and deep sense of gratitude for his response had made courage a new necessity and had armoured her against panic — for friendship’s sake.

  All she realized in that moment was that this friendship, so sudden, so vital, was already so strong in her, so real, that even in the terror of that instant she thought of the danger to him, and asked him to let her go on alone.

  Perhaps they both were thinking of these things — she, curled up in her corner, looking thoughtfully at him; he, knees crossed, gazing restlessly from object to object in the unsteady stateroom, but his eyes always reverting to her.

  Then the duet of silence ended for a while. He said: “You must not suppose that I am not keenly alive to the kindness, the fearless generosity you have shown me all through this affair. What you suffered is lodged forever in my mind — and in my heart.”

  “What you have done for me is in my — heart,” she said in her sweetly modulated voice.

  “I have done very little — —”

  “You would not leave me!”

  “My own life was forfeit if I did — —”

  “No! You did not reason that way! Besides, had I managed to get through alone, you should have had your life back again to do with as you pleased. No; you did not reason that way. You stood by a friend in peril — at your own peril.”

  She drew a deep, tremulous breath. “More than that,” she said, “you stood by me when you almost believed I had lied to you — lied shamefully.”

  “I had my plans ready — in that event,” he said, forcing a laugh.

  “You did doubt me?”

  “Yes.”

  She bent her head, looked thoughtfully at her hands, which clasped one knee, then, lifting her eyes: “I forgive you,” she said gravely.

  He flushed: “I did not know you — did not realize — what you are — —”

  “You were slower than I.”

  “What?”

  “I trusted you — from the first.”

  He was silent; she watched him for a few moments, then:

  “When you concluded that I had lied to you, what plans had you ready?”

  “I had rather not say — —”

  “Please do.”

  He bit his lip: “I had decided to take your satchel from you.”

  “Against my wishes?” she asked, amazed.

  “Yes.”

  There was no resentment, only a childish surprise: “Why?”

  “I told you that I am an enemy to your country.”

  “Yes, I know — —”

  “I told you that I would not knowingly permit you to take out of England anything which might be detrimental to England’s interests. And I made up my mind that if you had deceived me — and although I stood by you — because you are only a young girl — and were in danger from those who make no allowance for youth and sex — nevertheless, as soon as you were in personal safety, I meant to take from you whatever you had concealed from me and which might have been of service to England’s enemies.”

  “Would you have done that?”

  “Yes, if you had been untruthful to me.”

  She bent her head, thoughtfully; then looking up at him: “Yes; that would have been just.... But I have not been untruthful.”

  His perplexed and slightly careworn eyes met hers.

  “I can’t doubt you,” he said. “I know you have been truthful. But — what is in that satchel? Forgive me, I must ask you. Because there is evidently enough there to terrify you at the thought of British eyes inspecting it.”

  “Kervyn — can’t you believe me when I tell you that I don’t know wha
t is in that satchel?”

  “I do believe you. But tell me what you are afraid it might be.”

  “I can’t — truly I can’t tell you. Don’t you understand? Don’t you realize that I must have promised?”

  “Promised?”

  “Yes — not to unlock or open the satchel. I did promise.”

  “To whom did you make that promise?” And, as she did not reply: “Was the promise made to anybody I ever met?”

  She looked at him in a distressed way, but his face darkened and his determination increased.

  “Did you make that promise to a German? An officer? Did you make it to General von Reiter?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see. And there are papers in that satchel!”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you get them?”

  “From — Mr. Grätz.”

  “You were accustomed to receive papers from Mr. Grätz?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “At certain intervals?”

  “I don’t know. Whenever Mr. Grätz telephoned, Anna, my maid, went to London and usually brought back the — the plans.”

  “Plans!”

  “Yes. I understood that they were plans of a new automobile which was being designed by the Edmeston Agency for their Berlin branch. Mr. Grätz mentioned it as the Bauer-Schroeder car.”

  “To whom were these plans to go, ultimately?”

  “I sent them to New York.”

  “To whom?”

  “To Schimmel and Company, Broadway.”

  “Have you any idea where Schimmel and Company sent those plans?”

  “Yes. I never thought much about it then, but today I realized that sooner or later the plans were sent to General von Reiter — in Berlin.”

  “You are sure?”

  “Yes. I saw them when I was there last April. He said that those were the plans which I had sent to Schimmel and Company.”

  “You saw the plans?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were they plans of an automobile?”

  “I — thought so then. They were on very thin paper. I supposed them to be drawings of detached machinery in sections. They looked to me like fragments of something.”