Clearly Philip was dissatisfied. There was a stubborn look upon his face. He folded the Bill reluctantly, finding in the very feel of it under his fingers, a great threat, a great danger.
“It should be enough for you that you will be fulfilling your brother’s wish,” said his tutor severely.
Philip nodded his head slowly. Yes, he owed the enlargement of this last year, and all the joyous confidence which it had brought to him, to Karl John’s generosity. It seemed a small return after all, this harmless lie which he might have to tell. Yet he could not rid himself of the foreboding that it was going to mean for him a second shipwreck and disaster.
Anthony Craston in the recess of the window found an easy explanation of Mr Hanson’s rigmarole. Karl John Königsmark was likely to be brought to question in the matter of this murder since two of his dependants had committed it. Why, with so much money to his hand, was he living secretly in a mean lodging — he who, a year ago, had dazzled the Court itself by the magnificence of his equipment? He was wise to get rid of it, and how could he do it more safely than by entrusting it to his young brother? Meanwhile, there stood the young brother, mightily scared and distressed.
Anthony came forward and slipped his arm under Philip’s. He had no liking for mysteries. They bred terrors because of the darkness in which they hid. The broad daylight and a man resolved them.
“Mr Hanson,” he began and stopped astounded by the consternation in the tutor’s face. Hanson gaped. He looked towards the window. He should have looked there when first he came into the room, before ever he began to speak. The blood suddenly rushed into his face.
“You have been behind those curtains,” he cried angrily, “quiet as a mouse, listening.”
Anthony was puzzled by Hanson’s violence. Was there another reason for the story which he had imposed upon Philip, than the simple obvious one which had occurred to him?
“I did not wish to interrupt,” Anthony answered. “It seemed to me that you were in a great hurry, that you would resent being interrupted.”
Mr Hanson had by now recovered something of his prudence.
“What you heard was of no account. I imagined you to be deliberately listening. I beg your pardon. You had something to say to me?”
Anthony Craston, born of a line of Ambassadors, formed his question in indefinite diplomatic words.
“There has been a great commotion in the Haymarket. We in this room have heard rumours of a crime. We should like to know the truth.”
Mr Hanson looked and listened with a sincere respect. There was authority in this boy and a simple sturdiness which his friend beside him lacked; just as he, Craston, lacked the quick sensibility of Philip, and his fineness of nerve. The quicksand and the rock, thought Mr Hanson as he saw the two youths side by side. There was more of bright flame in Philip, more of good earth in Anthony. They were the complement one of the other. There was something protective in Anthony, something solitary and aloof in Philip. Their very attitude demonstrated it as they stood with Anthony’s arm holding Philip close. Welded into one they would have made a man in a million of men. Apart one was doomed, the other second-rate. This Mr Hanson, the tutor, ruminated whilst he chose the words of his answer.
“I was at the Court tonight” — Mr Hanson had been the companion of the elder Count when he had come a year ago to London with little knowledge of the English tongue; and as his companion he had been given the entrée to Whitehall— “I was at the Court. At nine o’clock the news was brought that Mr Thomas Thynne had been murderously attacked in his coach at the corner of St. Alban’s Street and Pall Mall. Mr Thynne was returning from the Countess of Northumberland’s house and had the Duke of Monmouth with him. A footman with a lighted torch preceded the coach. Three men were following it on horseback. As long as the Duke rode with Mr Thynne, no attack was made. But the Duke got out at his own house. As soon as the coach went on, one of the riders galloped up to the coachman and drawing a pistol cried ‘Stop, you dog!’ the two other horsemen closed in at the side. One thrust a blunderbuss through the window and fired it at Mr Thynne. The four bullets destroyed him, and whilst the unfortunate man was being carried into his house, the three desperadoes galloped up the Haymarket and scattered.”
“Are they known?” Anthony asked.
“Not yet,” answered Mr Hanson. “But before morning they will be known and laid by the heels.”
“You are very sure.”
“His Majesty was much disturbed,” Hanson explained. “Tom Thynne was a Parliament man and of the Duke of Monmouth’s party. His Majesty held that unless the criminals were quickly brought to book, it would be openly said that the murder was connived at by the Court. Sir John Reresby, the magistrate, happened to be present and the King was instant with him, and Sir John went away upon this business on the moment.”
“And that is all?” Anthony asked.
“That is all,” answered Mr Hanson.
“Except that I wish you both, young gentlemen, good night,” added Monsieur Faubert.
It was an order. The two boys made their bow and went out of the room. But what they had heard was not all. The door had hardly closed before Hanson was whispering in an agitation to the schoolmaster.
“That fool Vratz rode straight to Königsmark’s new lodging in St. Martin’s Lane.”
Monsieur Faubert uttered a most unscholarly oath.
“He did. Rode at a gallop to the door, threw his reins to Königsmark’s boy and went up to Königsmark’s room. There I found him after I left the Palace. Luckily Harder, the German doctor, was present too and I sent Vratz off with him.
“Was anyone about?” asked Faubert anxiously.
“God’s blood, there’s always someone about when you have anything to hide. And this man, Reresby, has a sharper nose than any hound I ever met with. If he once gets wind that Count Karl Königsmark has been skulking in a mean lodging in London for the last three weeks, his Countship will be a meal for the crows. He’s away tomorrow. But in time?” and Mr Hanson shrugged his shoulders for an answer to that question.
Monsieur Faubert edged his chair a little closer to Frederick Hanson’s.
“Karl John is rich,” he said.
“But Reresby is honest,” Hanson answered
“Even honesty may shut its eyes, if it wakes to find its pockets full.”
“And the birds all flown,” Mr Hanson spoke very doubtfully.
“Let us see what the morning brings,” he added.
Much the same words were being spoken at that moment in the upper story of the house. Philip stopping at his bedroom door, turned about and caught the border of his friend’s coat at the breast. He held it tight and shook it, smiling wistfully, and let it go.
“Here’s an end of our dreams, Anthony — Oxford, a lifetime of comradeship. They were lovely, they decorated an unforgettable year. But they were the cobwebs made by dew and tonight they are gone.”
There was so much of sadness and so much of certainty in Philip’s voice that Anthony Craston knew not how to answer him. Behind this foul murder of which they had learned, there were secrets no doubt as yet obscure to both of them; secrets which might so stain the name of Königsmark in English eyes that there would be found no single corner in Oxford for Philip.
“But for you and me, Philip, nothing has changed. Nothing can change whatever happens.”
Philip shook his head. For a moment he would not trust himself to speak
“I think everything has changed.” He was holding the Bill of Exchange crushed in his right hand but he smoothed it out now slowly. “The dreams, the pleasant schemes we plotted out so eagerly, work perhaps in the same cities, holidays together, they were the lesser part of it, reflections, shadows of the real true thing, our great friendship. But I believe this week will see the end of that. I do, though I would give half my life to come to think with you.”
Philip was speaking with a simplicity which could not but move and persuade his friend.
“F
or all the love you have given me,” he continued with a smile, “and still more perhaps, for all the love I have for you, I thank you very much, whilst there is still time to thank you.”
He held his friend for a moment against his heart and then saying in a quiet low voice. “Good-bye, Anthony,” he went into his room. Anthony looked blankly at the closing door.
“Well, we shall see what tomorrow brings,” was all that he could find to say.
X. THE END OF A FRIENDSHIP
THE MORNING BROUGHT in a swift sequence the arrest of the three murderers. Vratz was taken in bed in Dr. Harder’s house in Bloomsbury. He was awake when the officers broke into his room, a giant of a man with a sword ready to his hand on a table beside the bed. Yet he made not an effort to defend himself. Boroski and the third man, a Swedish Lieutenant named John Stern, were captured at the Black Bull Tavern in High Holborn. They were brought before Sir John Reresby and Mr Bridgeman, Magistrates, on Tuesday and on Wednesday Mr Hanson was summoned before the Privy Council, the King himself presiding. Although these examinations were held in private, the fact that Mr Hanson had been sent for became public and set a whole swarm of rumours buzzing. It was know that Hanson was the private tutor of the young Count Königsmark at Monsieur Faubert’s Academy. It was remembered that a year ago Karl John, the elder Königsmark, was a suitor for the hand of the lady whom a despotic grandmother had married, much against the lady’s will, to Tom Thynne of Longleat. Here at once was an explanation of this barbarous and amazing crime. The Königsmarks were folk outside the computation of ordinary men. They were like the planets and moved in ways mysterious to behold. Also they were foreigners and, on that account, prodigious. A crowd sullen and dangerous gathered that Wednesday night in front of Monsieur Faubert’s Academy and was only dispersed by the watch. There were people in that crowd who were not loath to believe that Karl John for safety’s sake had changed himself into the shape and form of his younger brother and was behind those windows sniggering at them exultantly. On Thursday, however, it was known that Karl John had been secretly in London and had fled. For a Hue and Cry was issued against him and a reward of two hundred pounds set on his head.
Throughout these anxious days, Philip Königsmark kept to his rooms, and though Anthony Craston paced the corridor, hoping that the door would open and pestering everyone who passed him with questions, no one but Monsieur Faubert and the tutor were admitted.
On the night of the Friday, Anthony had come to the end of his patience. All that day there had been strangers coming and going with whispered messages. Hanson was wringing his hands and reproaching himself aloud like a man beside himself. He stopped in front of Craston and broke out, hardly knowing to whom he spoke: “If I have brought my Lord into peril, it is the last thing I would do. But they asked and asked and put so many glosses upon my words that as I am before God Almighty, I cannot say I heard this or spoke that.”
Monsieur Faubert laid a hand upon Hanson’s shoulder and shook him into silence.
“Look you, there is a better way than talk! What is a man’s wealth for but to shield him from the edge of the law? I shall see to it myself. I shall go to this Sir John Reresby and put him in the way of saving a good life with a handsome profit for himself which he can take all the more easily since His Majesty’s wishes jump to the same end.”
Anthony turned away from both of them, and running to Philip’s door, flung himself against it. He would have broken it down had it been locked. But it was merely upon the latch and gave way under his weight so that he was shot without ceremony into the room.
Philip was staring into the fire, seeing I know not what horrid forebodings taking life and shape amongst the coals. He looked up with a start and a joyous welcome flashed into his eyes. But the welcome was against his will. He tried to compose his face to a look of cold dignity and his voice to an astonished hard question, “Will you explain, sir, this indecorous intrusion?” But he could not. Anthony had intended to carry the day by a warm affection, but he seemed merely to have been kicked into the room by someone who had caught him spying at the keyhole, and he wore so rueful a countenance that Philip began to laugh and caught him by the arm and pressed him down in a chair beside him and laughed again till the tears rose into his eyes, and Anthony must laugh with him. Chance had done the best turn it could to the two lads and for a little while they sat basking, as much in the renewal of their comradeship as in the glow of the fire.
“But I should not have let you in,” said Philip remorsefully in a little while. “I am accursed. I bring nothing but unhappiness to the few whom I love. Unhappiness for them and banishment for myself.”
“Banishment?”
Anthony echoed the word in perplexity. Unhappiness? What was friendship for except to share it, and by sharing lighten it? But the strange word “banishment” called for an interpretation.
Philip nodded his head.
“My brother was arrested today at Gravesend.”
“At Gravesend?”
“He was disguised as a waterman. He was boarding a ship bound for Sweden. They are bringing him back by the river to stand his trial.”
Anthony was startled. Flight in a disguise looked very dangerously like a confession of guilt. Only a few minutes back he had seen Philip’s tutor in a piteous agitation. The Privy Council had plagued him into an admission which put Karl John in peril of his life: and Monsieur Faubert’s confidence reposed on nothing more solid than bribery. But he said stoutly: “They will have much to prove at his trial.”
“And he much to deny,” Philip returned. “And much that he can’t deny.”
“There’s no motive,” argued Anthony.
“Only marriage with the greatest match in England and perhaps in all Europe,” answered Philip.
He had only within these last days learned the story of Elizabeth Percy, the child who owned the vast Northumberland estates. At the age of twelve she had been married by her guardian, the old and despotic countess, to young Lord Ogle, the Duke of Newcastle’s heir. It had been a marriage only in name and within a few months she was a widow. A little more than a year afterwards Count Königsmark, a figure of splendour and the King’s chosen friend, had sought her hand, and had not been rebuffed. But the old dowager had more than a word or two to say. She dipped her hand into the deep money-bags of Tom Thynne, a middle- aged dullard who had nothing but a fine capacity of drink to recommend him, and bullied the child into a second loveless marriage. Elizabeth Ogle had fled from her new husband within an hour or two of the ceremony, and Karl John had carried his wounded pride, if not his wounded heart, to the siege of Tangier. He had returned secretly to London and here was Elizabeth Ogle now twice a widow and still a maid.
Anthony Craston listened to the story with a mind whirling between horror and awe. A certain amount of lawlessness, a tinge or flavour of it — yes, he was willing to concede that as a not undesirable element in a character. He could bring himself with a small effort to admire it. But lawlessness so barbarous that it did not shrink even from a deliberately planned cold- blooded murder — no, even in Philip’s brother that was not to be endured.
“It’s not to be imagined,” he cried. “There’s the man Vratz. It’s he who is guilty.”
“Vratz takes all upon himself,” Philip returned quietly.
“Ah! What did I say?” exclaimed Anthony.
“Just what Vratz says — and no one else,” Philip returned with the ghost of smile. “Vratz would have us believe that he took no order from Karl John, that he sent a challenge to Thomas Thynne because Thynne had spoken disrespectfully of my brother’s horsemanship, that Thynne did not answer, that he stopped Thynne’s coach to force him to an answer, that Boroski mistook his orders and fired when he should have threatened to fire. Too thin a story, Anthony, to explain Thynne’s murder,” he said with a sneer at his own miserable pun. “For there’s the Polander still to be explained.”
“Boroski?” asked Anthony in bewilderment. For he put him down as
a mere puppet in the story, an instrument, a tool.
“Yes, we are all shipwrecked on the Polander — Karl John, myself—”
“You, Philip, no!” Anthony interrupted. “Even if” — how should he put it?— “all the rest were true, you are not even tarnished.”
Philip looked for a little while into the fire without speaking. Then he said: “But I shall be. I owe very much to Karl John. Oh, I shall be.” He stood up and laid his hand upon his friend’s shoulder. “Yes, we drive to pieces on the Polander, Karl John and I and our friendship. It has been lovely. I thank you for it, Anthony, from the deepest corner of my heart. But the Polander destroys it. A brute? Yes. It’ll be gossamer to his claws.”
Anthony was familiar with the extremes to which Philip’s enthusiasms and dejections ran. But he was speaking now with a simple and quiet gravity which had the certainty of fate. The words sounded final. They were a prophecy of a disaster to come against which neither could contend.
“No, Philip, I don’t accept it. I don’t believe it,” Anthony replied, but try as he might, he could not even persuade himself.
“You shall see for yourself,” said Philip. “I prayed that you should not come to the trial. Now I beg that you will. I believe that Karl John will be acquitted — yes,” and he stretched out a hand to prevent Anthony from interrupting. “I believe that he will be acquitted through me. But we shall none the less have shipwrecked on the Polander, Karl John and I and the great love you and I have for one another.”
Anthony Craston left him standing before the fire and now and then pushing moodily at the coals with the toe of his shoe.
XI. A CAUSE CÉLÈBRE
AMONGST MANY CURIOUS and abnormal trials of this period, not one was quite so fantastic as the arraignment of Karl John, Count Königsmark, and his three henchmen for the murder of Thomas Thynne. It began on February 26th and finished that night in accordance with the old rule that when the trial is once begun, the jury can neither eat nor drink until they have given their verdict.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 702