"No."
Ruxton shrank from the news he must convey. The doubt in his monosyllable, however, did not pass the other by. The Pole's big eyes turned full upon his companion's face, and enquiry rang in his echo of the monosyllable.
"No?"
"You cannot go to your daughter's place. Von Salzinger has discovered it. It will be watched."
"Ah!"
"It is an added reason for my meeting you."
"It is an added complication. So, so."
"But not beyond – straightening out."
"No?"
"My father is awaiting you. There is Dorby."
They walked on in silence. The old man moved with surprising vigor. He was thinking rapidly. The new situation involved a readjustment of plans. He was seeking solution with a fertility of imagination which might have astonished the Englishman had he known.
Ruxton went on.
"Our works are under protection from our naval authority. They should be safe. My father thinks the shelter of our home should serve for the present."
Von Hertzwohl seemed to pass the offer by, dwelling only upon the safety of the works.
"That is good, the works protected," he said abruptly, his luminous eyes shining. "You are clever. You take no chance. And the work? It goes on? Good! Ah! I must see it all." He rubbed his hands. "There is no hitch? Nothing? The vessels grow – grow while you look. Ah, yes, I know you British. There will be no more submarine danger; no more massacre of women and children at sea. It gives me the greatest joy."
The old man's enthusiasm was beyond all thought of self. It was so simple, so intense. It was the enthusiasm of a child for his new toy, and Ruxton marvelled at the odd mixture which went to make up his strange character.
"The completion of the work is as inevitable as that your Government means to – hunt you down."
Ruxton thought to impress the Pole with the precariousness of his position. But the man brushed it aside.
"Ach!" he cried, with a gesture of recklessness. "Yes, they hunt me down. That is it. That is why I do not burden your father with my safeguard. It is good to think of. This generous man – your father. It is good that his son comes to – help me. I feel it all here." He pressed one hand over his heart. "But no. I know these people. I do not fear them. They hunt me down. They kill me. It is not so much. It is so small a thing I do not think of it. No. But they do not hunt me down," he went on, with a smile of quiet confidence. "I will go with you to Dorby. I will talk with your great father – and then – I go. It will be good to befool them – and I will befool them."
He laughed a fearless, heart-whole laugh which left the younger man marvelling.
CHAPTER XIX
THE TIGER SPRINGS
The drawing-room at Redwithy Farm was bathed in the shadows of early autumn evening. A fire of blazing logs spluttered and crackled in the great open fireplace. Its ruddy light shed an atmosphere of mellow comfort and coziness over the entire aspect of the room. Under ordinary circumstances Vita would have revelled in the delight of these moments of a great new happiness in her beautiful home.
She was ensconced in an armchair beside the fire which had doubtless, in years gone by, supported the slumbering form of some bewigged country squire. Its design was perfect for such a purpose. A small tea-table stood at her elbow. The muffins were cold upon it, but she had been glad of the mildly stimulating effects of the tea.
Now she was sitting forward in her chair gazing deep down into the heart of the fire. A teeming thought was speeding through a brain which, of late, seemed always to be working at high pressure. The odd pucker of thought between her brows added charm and character to her beautiful face. Her eyes, too, had lost something of their profound serenity. They were alight and shining with a certain nervous concentration, while her delicate lips were unusually firmly compressed.
She had only returned from London an hour earlier, and now, far from the distractions of the momentous hours she had spent with the man whose love had been powerful enough to sweep aside every other consideration from her mind, she was striving to quell all emotion, and disentangle the skeins in which she felt hopelessly caught up.
Paramount, her great love for Ruxton stood out and tripped her at every effort to concentrate upon those matters which related to the plans upon which they were all at work. Her alarm for her father was real and almost overwhelming. But her joy in her new-found love robbed it of half its significance. In the happiness of the moment it was impossible to believe or accept, even, the suggestion that disaster had overtaken, or could overtake him.
In the first rush of her dread Ruxton's confidence had reassured her. Her father must be safe. Her lover's argument had been so clear and convincing. Then he had promised to meet him on his arrival in England. Yes, her father was bound to make for Dorby. That was their secret landing-place. Ruxton would be there. He would not fail. He would warn him of Von Salzinger's discovery of her house. He would arrange for his safety. To all these things he had given his word, and his word was all-sufficient for her. As for his ability to put his promise into effect there could be no question. The proud thought in her was supreme.
She dwelt upon the glamored picture of her lover which was always in her mind, and it comforted her and reassured her as she had never found comfort or reassurance before. No one who knew him could question, she felt. Her vivid mental vision dwelt upon the sculptured beauties of his magnificent face and head. The calmly assured manner; the great physical strength, which reminded her of the men in the wonderful history of her own country, – these things overbore her woman's timidities, and reacted upon her in a manner which drove all doubts headlong.
He would write her. How? Through the post, or would he send a messenger with the news of her father's safety? It was a useless speculation. All she knew was that the news would come. He had promised it.
Vassilitz entered the room. Vita knew it because the door had opened, and the rattle of the handle had disturbed her. Otherwise the man's movements were decorously silent. He crossed to the windows and drew the curtains. He glided across the room, and prepared to remove the tea-things.
Would madame have the lights? No, madame preferred the firelight. The brighter lights would have disturbed her dreaming. The man bore the tea-table away, his dark eyes and sallow features perfect in their immobility.
As the door closed behind him, memory brought Vita a fleeting unease. She remembered Ruxton's warning about Vassilitz. He had suggested his possible connection with the Secret Service. It seemed impossible. And yet Ruxton had been definite. How long had she known him? She cast back in her mind. Why, as long as she could remember. She remembered him as a village lout, who sometimes worked for her father in his garden. Then he had been taken away to the army, as they were all taken away by the cruel conscript laws. Yes, of course, he had been away in the army, and – they had lost sight of him all that time – the time he was in the army.
Then she dismissed the matter. Ruxton must be right. She was sure he would not say such a thing without some reason. She would send Vassilitz back to his home. There must be no unnecessary risk of her father's safety.
Having settled the matter, the fiery caverns in the grate absorbed her attention once more, and every beat of her heart helped to bridge the distance which separated her from the lover who had so suddenly thrust himself into her life.
How long she sat crouching over the crackling fire, dreaming those dreams of life, which afterwards become the most sacred treasures of a woman's memory, Vita never knew. Later, when she reviewed those moments, conviction remained that never for one moment had her eyes closed in response to the seductive warmth of the fire. Yet she knew that in some strange manner oblivion must have stolen upon her. Without a shadow of warning she found herself sitting bolt upright, every drop of blood seeming to have receded from her veins, leaving her shivering in a frigid panic. The cold, hard tones of a man's voice were addressing her.
"The Princess will forgive the unceremonious nature of this visit," it said. "It is imperative, for – it is made under the direct authority of those who claim all subjects of the Fatherland."
The words were in German. They were without a shadow of inflection, and thereby gained in the consummate tyranny of their meaning.
Vita was on her feet. Nor had the wild panic which swept through her every nerve centre power to rob her of the regal poise natural to her. She battled fiercely for calmness, but only achieved it superficially.
In the dark of the room she could see nothing of the intruder distinctly. A shadowy outline in the direction of the closed door was all she could make out. Then, with a swift movement, one arm was thrust out towards the wall beside the fireplace. Her fingers encountered a group of electric switches. In a moment the room was flooded with a shaded, mellow light.
"Frederick von Berger! You!"
It was the only exclamation that escaped her parched lips. But it expressed all the terror which would no longer be denied.
She had recognized the intruder. And behind him she saw the square figure of Von Salzinger. But the latter meant nothing compared with the overwhelming personality of the man whom she, with thousands of others, had always regarded as the Kaiser's evil genius. Probably only once or twice in all her years she had seen this man in the flesh. But his pictures, they were known to everybody in the Fatherland, just as was the sinister reputation which dogged his name.
Oh, yes, she knew him – and he was here, here in England, and had stolen in upon the privacy and obscurity of her home. What was his purpose? What? Something of it, at least, was plain to her from the moment of her recognition. It was the cruel hand of the Teutonic machinery reaching out towards her and – hers. Hers! The thought seared itself upon her brain. For herself she had no thought, but for her father she had become the veriest coward.
The intruder displayed no interest or feeling at the manner of Vita's greeting. The lines of his face remained as stonily graven as chiselled marble. So cold was his regard that it even seemed incapable of interpreting her matchless beauty.
"I am honored that the Princess recognizes me," he said, with a coldness that made his words an offence. "It will save explanation."
Then he came towards her and stood before the fire confronting her. His height matched hers, which left him only of medium height for a man.
"Your father has sold the secrets of Borga to – England. Now he has made good his escape to – England." Then without a sign, or gesture, or shadow of significance, he added: "So you see it was necessary to visit you here."
It was well-nigh an impossibility ever to fathom the thought which lay behind this man's spoken word. There was a directness and simplicity about him which was utterly confounding. Then there was that dreadful frigidity of eye and attitude.
Vita realized the impossibility at once. She made no attempt to guess at that which was in his mind. She contented herself with his admission of her father's escape. Without it terror alone would have remained. Instead, now, a wonderful calmness settled upon her. Maybe there was a touch of desperation in her calm. But there was still the assurance of her father's security, at least temporarily. She must watch. She must strive. If there were the smallest possibility she must baffle the purpose which had brought Frederick von Berger to her home. She waited.
"It is not presumed, of course, that you are aware of these matters – yet. But it is well known to our agents that you are in touch with the Prince. Therefore it is probable on his arrival in England he will communicate with you. It is not our intention to permit you to thus incriminate yourself. All possibility of the Prince's communicating with you must be avoided, or you, a woman, will fall under the penalty of his crimes. You will prepare yourself at once to make a journey by road. You will leave this house at once, and remain away from it until the whole unpleasant affair has been settled to the satisfaction of Berlin. These are instructions direct to you from the authority of the land which still claims you subject."
Resentment was the dominant emotion the man's pronouncement stirred in Vita. His authority was unquestioned in her mind, but the manner of him was infuriating to her hot Polish blood. The sparkle of her beautiful eyes could not be concealed. She bit her lips to keep back the hot words which leapt in retort, and, all the while he was speaking, she reminded herself of the necessity for calm. The moment his last word died out her reply came.
"Here, in England, I am commanded by German authority to abandon my home and go whithersoever it pleases you to conduct me. German authority in a country where German authority does not obtain. You trespass on my premises, admitted I do not know how. You dictate this absurd order to me, and expect me to obey it. This is not Prussia."
"Precisely, Princess. If this were Prussia there would be no discussion." It was the first shadow of threat the man had displayed. It was not in his tone. It lay in the keen, steely cold gleam of his eyes. "As for the authority," the man shrugged, "there is no corner in the world where a German subject exists that German authority does not obtain – for the German subject. If you have not yet realized this, then I beg you to do so at once. The method of enforcing that authority alone differs."
"I understand that. In England it is enforced by the methods such as any common criminal might adopt. For instance, the burglar who steals into private houses."
The biting sarcasm left Frederick von Berger quite undisturbed.
"The chief point is, it is, and will be, enforced," he observed coolly. "Will you be kind enough to prepare for that journey?"
"If I refuse?"
Von Berger shrugged.
"You will still make it. The preparations will be made for you."
"By whom?"
"By your servants."
There was just the faintest flicker of the eyelids as the man assured her. There was no smile, and yet there was a change from the frigidity which had been so poignantly marked up to that moment.
"My servants! Are they, too, bound to obey the mandates of Berlin in violation of the laws of free England?" Anger was getting the better of her resolve.
"They, too, are children of the Fatherland."
"Spies!"
The exclamation broke from the angry woman with fierce heat.
"Certain of them have their orders."
They stood eye to eye. The anger of the Princess flamed into the cold gaze of the man. There was no yielding in either at the moment.
"I refuse."
The words came full of desperate determination. But even as Vita pronounced them she felt their futility. Swiftly she cast about in her mind for a loophole of escape, but every avenue seemed to be closed. The house was isolated. It was attended by seven or eight servants, and bitterly she remembered that they all came from a country which yielded allegiance to Teutonic tyranny. Ruxton had been right. Oh, how right! Which of these servants were under the orders of this man? She could not be sure, excepting in the case of Vassilitz. Again panic grew and reached a pitch of hysteria as she listened to the man's easy level tones.
"You are angry, and your common-sense is blinded by it," he said without emotion. "Were it not so you would see the absurdity of your refusal. I am not without means of enforcing authority. Listen. At the front door stands a powerful car. A closed car, which is fictitiously numbered. While we are talking your maid is packing for you. She has orders to prepare for you every luxury and comfort you are accustomed to require. This luggage will be placed in the car, and she will travel with you. If you persist in your refusal you will be dealt with. If you seek to call for aid you will be silenced. The servants in your house will not dare to raise a finger in your assistance. You will be conducted to a place already prepared to receive you. You will be treated with every courtesy your rank and sex entitles you to. And when these affairs are settled to suit Berlin you will be released. Do you still refuse?"
The recital of the conditions prevailing possessed a conviction that suggested the inevitability of Doom, Vita realized. Coming from another than Frederick von Berger she might have hoped. But this man – she shivered. A conscienceless mechanism as soulless as cold steel.
Her answer was delayed. Her eyes, searching vainly, swept over the room. Finally they encountered the square face of Von Salzinger. She had forgotten him. Her gaze was caught and held, and, in a moment, she realized that he was endeavoring to convey some meaning to her. Its nature was obscure, but the expression of his usually hard face suggested sympathy, and almost kindliness. Could it be that in the grinding machinery of Prussian tyranny she possessed one friend? She remembered Von Salzinger's protestations. She remembered that he had spoken of love to her. Love – what a mockery! But might she not hope for support from him? No, he was bound hand and foot. She dared hope for no open support. But —
Von Berger displayed the first sign of impatience. He withdrew his watch.
"I cannot delay," he said. "It is not my desire to use the force at my command. Being in England, and you being a woman, discussion has been permitted. You will now choose definitely, within one minute, whether you will submit to the orders of Berlin, or resist them. I am considering your convenience. It is immaterial to me which course you adopt."
He held the watch in the palm of his hand, and his eyes were bent upon its face, marking the progress of the second hand. The influence of his attitude was tremendous. He was a perfect master of the methods which he represented. No one could have observed him and failed to realize that here was a man who, with the same extraordinary callousness, could easily have stepped to the side of a fainting woman, and, without a qualm, have placed the muzzle of a revolver to her temple and blown her brains out, as had been done in Belgium.
Vita watched him, fascinated and terrified. The silent moments slipped away with the inevitability which no human power can stay.
Von Berger looked up. The measure of his eyes was coldly calculating.
"You have ten seconds," he said, and returned to his contemplation of the moving hand.
The strain was unendurable. Vita felt that she must scream. Her will was yielding before the moral terror this man inspired. There was no hope of help. No hope anywhere. The fire shook down, and she started, her nerves on edge. She glanced over at Von Salzinger. Instantly his features stirred to that meaning expression of sympathy. Now, however, it only revolted her, and, as though drawn by a magnet, her eyes came back to the bent head of Von Berger.
Simultaneously the man looked up and snapped his watch closed and returned it to his pocket.
"Well?" he demanded, and the whole expression of him had changed.
Vita saw the tigerish light suddenly leap into his eyes. The man was transfigured. She warned herself he was no longer a man. She could only regard him as something in the nature of a human tiger.
"I will go," she said, in a voice rendered thick by her terror-parched throat.
"Ja wohl!"
Von Berger turned and signed to his confederate.
CHAPTER XX
BAR-LEIGHTON
The face that gazed out at the driving October rain was one whose expression of unrelieved misery and hopelessness might well have melted a heart of flint. The wide, grey eyes had lost their languorous melting delight, which had been replaced by one of driven desperation. Dark, unhealthy rings had sunk their way into the young surrounding flesh. They were the rings of sleeplessness, and an ominous indication of the mental attitude behind them. The oval of the cheeks had become pinched and pale, while the drooping lips added a pathos that must have been irresistible to a heart of human feeling.
Vita was a prisoner in the hands of men without scruple or mercy. At least one of them she knew could claim all and more than such words expressed. Of the other she was less convinced. In fact, it was the thought that he was, perhaps, simply under the control of the other which, she told herself, made sanity possible. But even so it was the vaguest, wildest hope, and only in the nature of a straw to which to cling in her desperation.
The window from which she looked out gave upon a wildly desolate scene. She was down deep, almost in the bowels of the earth, she admitted, and the rugged sides of the chasm, clad in a garment of dark conifers and leafless branches, rose up abruptly in every direction her window permitted her gaze to wander.
She had no understanding of where she was. The journey had been long. It had been swift, too, under the skillful driving of Frederick von Berger, beside whom Von Salzinger had travelled. She had a vague understanding that the moon had been shining somewhere behind the car most of the time. Therefore she had decided they were travelling westwards. Then had come the dawn which had found them racing across a wide and desolate moorland, in a gale of wind and a deluge of driving rain, with dense mist clouds filling to overflowing sharp and narrow hollows which dropped away from the high level like bottomless pits of mystery and dread.
There had been nobody inside the car to question but her maid, Francella, and Vita had steadfastly denied herself any form of intercourse with the woman, under the certainty that she formed part of the Secret Service with which all unknowingly she had been surrounded.
Then had come a moment when her straining eyes, striving to penetrate the rain-streaming windows, had detected a distant view of a stretch of water. She had not been certain at first. But later she had detected the hazy outline of a steamboat upon it, with a long streaming smoke-line lying behind it. So she made up her mind it was the sea.
Even this, however, gave her no real cue to her whereabouts. For a moment she thought of Dartmoor, but later on she believed that that desolate wilderness was well inland.
Later again, all speculation had been yielded up under the painful interest of the moment. They were driving along the edge of a deep, mist-laden ravine. Vita had gazed down upon it in awed contemplation. It was narrow and precipitous. Then had happened something which made her shiver and clutch at the sides of the car. The driver had swung round a fierce hairpin bend in the road. The next moment the downward incline made her seek support lest she should slide from her seat. In a moment the car was swallowed up in the dense white fog of the ravine.
So she had come to her prison, which she learned accidentally was called Bar-Leighton. Whether the name applied to the house or to the locality she never knew. It was a big rambling mansion, deep hidden in a close surrounding of trees, nor, as far as Vita could see, was the ravine occupied by any other habitation.
This was the second day of her imprisonment. It had been raining when she arrived. It was still raining. It looked as if it were likely to continue raining for a month. Vita had spent most of her time gazing out of the window. She was heart-broken and desperate.
She had no eyes for anything but the cheerless view beyond the window. Its attraction was small enough in its repellent austerity, but it represented freedom. It represented the life which was forbidden her. Somewhere out there beyond, miles and miles away, was the love of her life, maybe vainly seeking her. Somewhere out there all that made for her happiness in life lay beyond her reach. Would she ever recover it? Would she ever listen to those calm tones of encouragement, and purpose, and love again? It seemed impossible. It seemed as though the end of all things was about to be achieved for her, now that the savage hand of Prussian tyranny had been laid upon her.
The treatment meted out to her had been by no means hard so far. She occupied a suite of apartments unusually handsome and spacious. But they led from one into the other, and all the outer doors were securely locked. She had been handed over to a hard-faced matron of German nationality on her arrival, nor, from that moment, had she been permitted sight of either of her male captors.
It was this dreadful isolation, this suspense, which affected her. Was she to remain here indefinitely, ignorant of her father's movements, of all that might be happening to her lover, of the possible disaster to all those plans to which she had so completely lent herself? The thought was maddening. It was completely unbearable. She wanted to weep, to scream. But she did neither. She sat on in a window-seat in the splendid sitting-room, and gazed miserably out on the depressing aspect which thrust her lower and lower in the deeps of despair.
If Vita had been permitted no further sight of her captors it was not because they had taken their departure from the precincts of the prison they had prepared for her. On the contrary. With the arrival of Prince von Berger at this retreat, hidden so deeply in the remoteness of some of the wildest of the west country, the place became a hive of secret activity. Many visitors came and went, but mostly at night. And so contrived were their movements, that never for one moment did the mansion lose its appearance of neglect in the hands of an indifferent caretaker.
Amongst those who visited the place at night was Johann Stryj, and with him a man named Emile Heuferman. It was a far cry from Dorby to Bar-Leighton, but distance seemed to have no concern for these people, who were served by cars of great speed and power. It was obvious that Frederick von Berger's visit to England had been the cue for great activity in the underworld of the Secret Service, and that far-reaching powers were in his control.
While Vita watched the desolation of rain-washed woodlands, Von Berger was occupied with Johann Stryj and Heuferman in a library, which had obviously once been the pride of a previous owner of the house. Von Salzinger was in attendance, too, and, for more than two hours, it was pretty evident these four had been in close consultation on matters of vital interest.
It was obvious, too, that Heuferman was of lesser degree than his companion, Stryj, for it was to the latter Von Berger chiefly addressed himself and from whom he extracted the information he needed. All the talk was of Dorby, and during it the name of Farlow frequently mixed itself into the details. The manner of these men was devoid of all heat. Von Berger might have been a machine, so frigidly precise was his whole attitude. Johann Stryj spoke only the words necessary, with an effect and decision which must have left nothing to be desired by his exalted superior. Von Salzinger was reduced to a mere observer, but Heuferman became an object for the reception of explicit instructions, which, for the most part, he received with monosyllabic acquiescence.
It was in the middle of the afternoon that the meeting terminated. When Johann Stryj and his companion had taken their departure Frederick von Berger turned to the silent ex-Captain-General. His eyes were speculative. It was the cold calculation of a mind seeking to complete a half-formed train of thought.
"What were your relations with this woman – before the war?"
Von Salzinger started. A flush tinted his heavy features a sort of copper hue.
"I – don't understand, Excellency."
That odd flicker of the eyelids which seemed to be the only indication of a lighter mood accompanied Von Berger's next words.
"Yet it is not difficult. Information tells us that you at one time sought to marry her. Since coming to England you renewed your acquaintance. I desire the exact explanation. I may need to use the – relationship."
The flush had left the other's cheeks. His eyes took on a smile of meaning.
"At one time I had such thoughts. Now I have no desire to – marry her."
"Ah!"
Von Berger had faced round from the library table at which he was seated, and, crossing his legs, sat contemplatively with his elbows supported on the arms of his chair and his chin resting upon his clasped hands.
Von Salzinger stirred.
"I regard her now as one of my country's enemies. There can be no thought of marriage with one's country's enemy. Such can never receive the consideration we display towards our own womankind. In war the woman is the prize of the victor. That is real war."
The callous brutality of the man was revolting. But the other gave no sign. He contented himself with a continuance of his cold regard, and a further ejaculation.
Encouraged by this negative sign of approval Von Salzinger ventured an interrogation.
"How can my relations with her further your plans, Excellency?"
"I am not quite sure – yet." Then Von Berger bestirred himself. "It is necessary to lay hands on Von Hertzwohl – at once, and – "
He broke off. At that moment a knock at the door interrupted him.
Von Salzinger sprang to his feet and hurried across the room. After reclosing the door he returned to Von Berger.
"Vassilitz has brought this telegram. It arrived last night at Redwithy Farm. Does your Excellency wish to speak to him?"
Von Berger took the message and opened it. It was addressed to Madame Vladimir at Redwithy Farm. The set of his features relaxed as he read the brief communication. Then he passed it across to Von Salzinger.
"Much news in a few words," was his comment.
The other perused the telegram carefully. It came from Dorby —
"All's well. Arrived safely. Returning to town. Love. – Ruxton."
"It means – ?"
"Von Hertzwohl has arrived in England. At Dorby. Also that he returns to London – Farlow, I mean, and that he is obviously the lover of the woman whom you regard as the prize of the victor. Tell Vassilitz to return to the farm without delay, to remain watchful, and to continue to act as instructed. I must interview the Princess."