CHAPTER III
THE BLOOD-STAINED PORTRAIT
In the vestibule I hung around waiting till Anne and Mrs. Dennis Sutherland should reappear from the cloak-room.
It was close on the time when I was due at Whitehall Gardens, but I must have a parting word with Anne, even at the risk of being late for the appointment with my chief.
Jim and Mary passed through, and paused to say good night.
“It’s all right, Maurice?” Mary whispered. “And you’re coming to us to-morrow, anyhow?”
“Yes; to say good-bye, if I have to start on Monday.”
“Just about time you were on the war-path again, my boy,” said Jim, bluffly. “Idleness is demoralizing, ’specially in London.”
Now this was scarcely fair, considering that it was little more than a month since I returned from South Africa, where I had been to observe and report on the conditions of labor in the mines; nor had I been by any means idle during those weeks of comparative leisure. But I knew, of course, that this was an oblique reference to my affair with Anne; though why Jim should disapprove of it so strongly passed my comprehension. If Anne chose to keep me on tenter-hooks, well that was my affair, not his! Still, I wasn’t going to quarrel with Jim over his opinion, as I should have quarrelled with any other man.
Anne joined me directly, and we had two precious minutes together under the portico. Mrs. Sutherland’s carriage had not yet come into the courtyard, and she herself was chatting with folks she knew.
There were plenty of people about, coming and going, but Anne and I paced along out of the crowd, and paused in the shadow of one of the pillars.
She looked ethereal, ghostlike, in her long white cloak, with a filmy hood thing drawn loosely over her shining hair.
I thought her paler than usual – though that might have been the effect of the electric lights overhead – and her face was wistful, but very fair and sweet and innocent. One could scarcely believe it the same face that, a few minutes before, had been animated by audacious mischief and coquetry. Truly her moods were many, and they changed with every fleeting moment.
“I’ve behaved abominably to you all the evening,” she whispered tremulously. “And yet you’ve forgiven me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. The queen can do no wrong,” I answered. (How Jim Cayley would have jeered at me if he could have heard!) “Anne, I love you. I think you must know that by this time, dear.”
“Yes, I know, and – and I am glad – Maurice, though I don’t deserve that you should love me. I’ve teased you so shamefully – I don’t know what possessed me!”
If I could only have kissed those faltering lips! But I dare not. We were within range of too many curious eyes. Still, I held her hand in mine, and our eyes met. In that brief moment we saw each into the other’s soul, and saw love there, the true love passionate and pure, that, once born, lasts forever, through life and death and all eternity.
She was the first to speak, breaking a silence that could have lasted but a fraction of time, but there are seconds in which one experiences an infinitude of joy or sorrow.
“And you are going away – so soon! But we shall meet to-morrow?”
“Yes, we’ll have one day, at least; there is so much to say – ”
Then, in a flash, I remembered the old man and Cassavetti, – the mystery that enshrouded them, and her.
“I may not be able to come early, darling,” I continued hurriedly. “I have to see that old man in the morning. He says he knows you, – that you are in danger; I could not make out what he meant. And he spoke of Cassavetti; he came to see him, really. That was why I dare not tell you the whole story just now – ”
“Cassavetti!” she echoed, and I saw her eyes dilate and darken. “Who is he – what is he? I never saw him before, but he came up and talked to Mr. Cayley, and asked to be introduced to me; and – and I was so vexed with you, Maurice, that I began to flirt with him; and then – oh, I don’t know – he is so strange – he perplexes – frightens me!”
“And yet you gave him a flower,” I said reproachfully.
“I can’t think why! I felt so queer, as if I couldn’t help myself. I just had to give him one, – that one; and when I looked at him, – Maurice, what does a red geranium mean? Has it – ”
“Mrs. Dennis Sutherland’s carriage!” bawled a liveried official by the centre steps.
Mrs. Sutherland swept towards us.
“Come along, Anne,” she cried, as we moved to meet her. “Perhaps we shall see you later, Mr. Wynn? You’ll be welcome any time, up to one o’clock.”
I put them into the carriage, and watched them drive away; then started, on foot, for Whitehall Gardens. The distance was so short that I could cover it more quickly walking than driving.
The night was sultry and overcast; and before I reached my destination big drops of rain were spattering down, and the mutter of thunder mingled with the ceaseless roll of the traffic.
I was taken straight to Lord Southbourne’s sanctum, a handsomely furnished, but almost ostentatiously business-like apartment.
Southbourne himself, seated at a big American desk, was making hieroglyphics on a sheet of paper before him while he dictated rapidly to Harding, his private secretary, who manipulated a typewriter close by.
He looked up, nodded to me, indicated a chair, and a table on which were whiskey and soda and an open box of cigarettes, and invited me to help myself, all with one sweep of the hand, and without an instant’s interruption of his discourse, – an impassioned denunciation of some British statesman who dared to differ from him – Southbourne – on some burning question of the day, Tariff Reform, I think; but I did not listen. I was thinking of Anne; and was only subconsciously aware of the hard monotonous voice until it ceased.
“That’s all, Harding. Thanks. Good night,” said Southbourne, abruptly.
He rose, yawned, stretched himself, sauntered towards me, subsided into an easy-chair, and lighted a cigarette.
Harding gathered up his typed slips, exchanged a friendly nod with me, and quietly took himself off.
I knew Southbourne’s peculiarities fairly well, and therefore waited for him to speak.
We smoked in silence for a time, till he remarked abruptly: “Carson’s dead.”
“Dead!” I ejaculated, in genuine consternation. I had known and liked Carson; one of the cleverest and most promising of Southbourne’s “young men.”
He blew out a cloud of smoke, watched a ring form and float away as if it were the only interesting thing in the world. Then he fired another word off at me.
“Murdered!”
He blew another smoke ring, and there was a spell of silence. I do not even now know whether his callousness was real or feigned. I hope it was feigned, though he affected to regard all who served him, in whatever capacity, as mere pieces in the ambitious game he played, to be used or discarded with equal skill and ruthlessness, and if an unlucky pawn fell from the board, – why it was lost to the game, and there was an end of it.
Murdered! It seemed incredible. I thought of Carson as I last saw him, the day before I started for South Africa, when we dined together and made a night of it. If I had been available when the situation became acute in Russia a few weeks later, Southbourne would have sent me instead of him; I should perhaps have met with his fate. I knew, of course, that at this time a “special” in Russia ran quite as many risks as a war correspondent on active service; but it was one thing to encounter a stray bullet or a bayonet thrust in the course of one’s day’s work, – say during an émeute, – and quite another to be murdered in cold blood.
“That’s terrible!” I said huskily, at last. “He was such a splendid chap, too, poor Carson. Have you any details?”
“Yes; he was found in his rooms, stabbed to the heart. He must have been dead twenty-four hours or more.”
“And the police have tracked the murderer?”
“No, and I don’t suppose they will. They’ve so many similar affairs of their own on hand, that an Englishman more or less doesn’t count. The Embassy is moving in the matter, but it is very unlikely that anything will be discovered beyond what is known already, – that it was the work of an emissary of some secret society with which Carson had mixed himself up, in defiance of my instructions.”
He paused and lighted another cigarette.
“How do you know he defied your instructions?” I burst out indignantly. The tone of his allusion to Carson riled me. “Don’t you always expect us to send a good story, no matter how, or at what personal risk, we get the material?”
“Just so,” he asserted calmly. “By the way, if you’re in a funk, Wynn, you needn’t go. I can get another man to take your place to-night.”
“I’m not in a funk, and I mean to go, unless you want to send another man. If you do, send him and be damned to you both!” I retorted hotly. “Look here, Lord Southbourne; Carson never failed in his duty, – I’d stake my life on that! And I’ll not allow you, or any man, to sneer at him when he’s dead and can’t defend himself!”
Southbourne dropped his cigarette and stared at me, a dusky flush rising under his sallow skin. That is the only time I have ever seen any sign of emotion on his impassive face.
“I apologize, Mr. Wynn,” he said stiffly. “I ought not to have insinuated that you were afraid to undertake this commission. Your past record has proved you the very reverse of a coward! And, I assure you, I had no intention of sneering at poor Carson or of decrying his work. But from information in my possession I know that he exceeded his instructions; that he ceased to be a mere observer of the vivid drama of Russian life, and became an actor in it, with the result, poor chap, that he has paid for his indiscretion with his life!”
“How do you know all this?” I demanded. “How do you know – ”
“That he was not in search of ‘copy,’ but in pursuit of his private ends, when he deliberately placed himself in peril? Well, I do know it; and that is all I choose to say on this point. I warned him at the outset, – as I need not have warned you, – that he must exercise infinite tact and discretion in his relations with the police, and the bureaucracy which the police represent; and also with the people, – the democracy. That he must, in fact, maintain a strictly impartial and impersonal attitude and view-point. Well, that’s just what he failed to do. He became involved with some secret society; you know as well as I do – better, perhaps – that Russia is honeycombed with ’em. Probably in the first instance he was actuated by curiosity; but I have reason to believe that his connection with this society was a purely personal affair. There was a woman in it, of course. I can’t tell you just how he came to fall foul of his new associates, for I don’t know. Perhaps they imagined he knew too much. Anyhow, he was found, as I have said, stabbed to the heart. There is no clue to the assassin, except that in Carson’s clenched hand was found an artificial flower, – a red geranium, which – ”
I started upright, clutching the arms of my chair. A red geranium! The bit of stuff dangling from Cassavetti’s pass-key; the hieroglyphic on the portrait, the flower Anne had given to Cassavetti, and to which he seemed to attach so much significance. All red geraniums. What did they mean?
“The police declare it to be the symbol of a formidable secret organization which they have hitherto failed to crush; one that has ramifications throughout the world,” Southbourne continued. “Why, man, what’s wrong with you?” he added hastily.
I suppose I must have looked ghastly; but I managed to steady my voice, and answer curtly: “I’ll tell you later. Go on, what about Carson?”
He rose and crossed to his desk before he answered, scrutinizing me with keen interest the while.
“That’s all. Except that this was found in his breast-pocket; I got it by to-night’s mail. It’s in a horrid state; the blood soaked through, of course.”
He picked up a small oblong card, holding it gingerly in his finger-tips, and handed it to me.
I think I knew what it was, even before I looked at it. A photograph of Anne Pendennis, identical – save that it was unframed – with that which was in the possession of the miserable old Russian, even to the initials, the inscription, and the red symbol beneath it!
CHAPTER IV
THE RIVER STEPS
“This was found in Carson’s pocket?” I asked, steadying my voice with an effort.
He nodded.
I affected to examine the portrait closely, to gain a moment’s time. Should I tell him, right now, that I knew the original; tell him also of my strange visitant? No; I decided to keep silence, at least until after I had seen Anne, and cross-examined the old Russian again.
“Have you any clue to her identity?” I said, as I rose and replaced the blood-stained card on his desk.
“No. I’ve no doubt the Russian Secret Police know well enough who she is; but they don’t give anything away, – even to me.”
“They sent you that promptly enough,” I suggested, indicating the photograph with a fresh cigarette which I took up as I resumed my seat. I had managed to regain my composure, and have no doubt that Southbourne considered my late agitation was merely the outcome of my natural horror and astonishment at the news of poor Carson’s tragic fate. And now I meant to ascertain all he knew or suspected about the affair, without revealing my personal interest in it.
“Not they! It came from Von Eckhardt. It was he who found poor Carson; and he took possession of that” – he jerked his head towards the desk – “before the police came on the scene, and got it through.”
I knew what that meant, – that the thing had not been posted in Russia, but smuggled across the frontier.
I had met Von Eckhardt, who was on the staff of an important German newspaper, and knew that he and Carson were old friends. They shared rooms at St. Petersburg.
“Now why should Von Eckhardt run such a risk?” I asked.
“Can’t say; wish I could.”
“Where was he when poor Carson was done for?”
“At Wilna, he says; he’d been away for a week.”
“Did he tell you about this Society, and its red symbol?”
“’Pon my soul, you’ve missed your vocation, Wynn. You ought to have been a barrister!” drawled Southbourne. “No, I knew all that before. As a matter of fact, I warned Carson against that very Society, – as I’m warning you. Von Eckhardt merely told me the bare facts, including that about the bit of geranium Carson was clutching. I drew my own inference. Here, you may read his note.”
He tossed me a half-sheet of thin note-paper, covered on one side with Von Eckhardt’s crabbed German script.
It was, as he had said, a mere statement of facts, and I mentally determined to seize an early opportunity of interviewing Von Eckhardt when I arrived at Petersburg.
“You needn’t have troubled to question me,” resumed Southbourne, in his most nonchalant manner. “I meant to tell you the little I know, – for your own protection. This Society is one of those revolutionary organizations that abound in Russia, but more cleverly managed than most of them, and therefore all the more dangerous. Its members are said to be innumerable, and of every class; and there are branches in every capital of Europe. A near neighbor of yours, by the way, is under surveillance at this very moment, though I believe nothing definite has been traced to him.”
“Cassavetti!” I exclaimed with, I am sure, an excellent assumption of surprise.
“You’ve guessed it first time; though his name’s Vladimir Selinski. If you see him between now and Monday, when you must start, I advise you not to mention your destination to him, unless you’ve already done so. He was at the Savage Club dinner to-night, wasn’t he?”
One of Southbourne’s foibles was to pose as a kind of “Sherlock Holmes,” but I was not in the least impressed by this pretension to omniscience. He was a member of the club, and ought to have been at the dinner himself. If he had looked down the list of guests he must have seen “Miss Anne Pendennis” among the names, and yet I believed he had not the slightest suspicion that she was the original of that portrait!
“I saw him there,” I said, “but I told him nothing of my movements; though we are on fairly good terms. Do you think I’m quite a fool, Lord Southbourne?”
He looked amused, and blew another ring before he answered, enigmatically: “David said in his haste ‘all men are liars.’ If he’d said at his leisure ‘all men are fools, – when there’s a woman in the case’ – he’d have been nearer the mark!”
“What do you mean?” I demanded, hotly enough.
“Well, I also dined at the Cecil to-night, though not with the ‘Savages,’ and I happened to hear that you and Cassavetti – we’ll call him that – were looking daggers at each other, and that the lady, who was remarkably handsome, appeared to enjoy the situation! Who is she, Wynn? Do I know her?”
I watched him closely, but his face betrayed nothing.
“I think your informant must have been a – journalist, Lord Southbourne,” I said very quietly. “And we seem to have strayed pretty considerably from the point. I came here to take your instructions, and if I’m to start at nine on Monday I shall not see you again.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“All right; we’ll get to business. Here’s the new code; get it off by heart between now and Monday, and destroy the copy. It’s safer. Here’s your passport, duly viséd, and a cheque. That’s all, I think. I don’t need to teach you your work. But I don’t want you to meet with such a fate as Carson’s; so I expect you to be warned by his example. And you are not to make any attempt to unravel the mystery of his death. I tell you that for your own safety! The matter has been taken up from the Embassy, and everything possible will be done to hunt the assassin down. Good-bye, and good luck!”
We shook hands and I went out into the night. It was now well past midnight, and the streets were even quieter than usual at that hour, for there had been a sharp storm while I was with Southbourne. I had heard the crash of thunder at intervals, and the patter of heavy rain all the time. Now the storm was over, the air was cool and fresh, the sky clear. The wet street gleamed silver in the moonlight, and was all but deserted. The traffic had thinned down to an occasional hansom or private carriage, and there were few foot-passengers abroad. I did not meet a soul along the whole of Whitehall except the policemen, their wet mackintoshes glistening in the moonlight.
But, as I reached the corner of Parliament Square, I saw, just across the road, a man and woman walking rapidly in the direction of Westminster Bridge. I glanced at them casually, then looked again, more intently. The man looked like a sailor; he wore a pea-jacket and a peaked cap, while the woman was enveloped in a long dark cloak, and had a black scarf over her head. I saw a gleam of jewelled shoe-buckles as she picked her way daintily across the wet roadway to the further corner by the Houses of Parliament.
My heart seemed to stand still as I watched her. At any other time or place I would have sworn that I knew the tall, slender figure, the imperial poise of the head, the peculiarly graceful gait, swift but not hurried. I inwardly jeered at myself for my idiocy. My mind was so full of Anne Pendennis that I must imagine every tall, graceful woman was she! This lady was doubtless a resident in the southern suburbs, detained by the storm, and now on her way to one of the all-night trams that start from the far side of Westminster Bridge. There was quite a suburban touch in a woman in evening dress being escorted by a man in a pea-jacket. She might be an artiste, too poor to afford a cab home.
Nevertheless, while these thoughts ran through my mind, I was following the couple. They walked so swiftly that I did not decrease the distance between us. Half-way across the bridge I was intercepted by a beggar, who whined for “the price of a doss” and kept pace with me, till I got rid of him with the bestowal of a coin; but when I looked for the couple I was stalking they had disappeared.
I quickened my pace to a run, and at the further end looked anxiously ahead, but could see no trace of them. There were more people stirring in the Westminster Bridge Road, even at this hour; street hawkers starting home with their sodden barrows, the usual disreputable knot of loungers gathered around a coffee-stall; but those whom I looked for had vanished. Swiftly as they were walking they could scarcely have traversed the distance between the bridge and the trams in so short a time.
Had they gone down the steps to the river embankment? I paused and listened, thought I heard a faint patter, as of a woman’s high heels on the stone steps, and ran down the flight.
The paved walk below St. Thomas’ Hospital was deserted; I could see far in the moonlight. But near at hand I heard the plash of oars. I looked around and saw that to the right there was a second flight of steps, almost under the shadow of the first arch of the bridge, and leading right down to the river.
I vaulted the bar that guarded the top of the flight and ran down the steps. Yes, there was the boat, with the sailor and another man pulling at the oars, and the woman sitting in the stern. The scarf had slipped back a little, and I saw the glint of her bright hair.
“Anne! Anne!” I cried desperately.
She heard and turned her face.
My God, it was Anne herself! For a second only I saw her face distinctly, then she pulled the scarf over it with a quick gesture; the boat shot under the dark shadow of the arches and disappeared.
I stood dumbfounded for some minutes, staring at the river, and trying to convince myself that I was mad – that I had dreamt the whole incident.
When at last I turned to retrace my steps I saw something dark lying at the top of the steps, stooped, and picked it up.
It was a spray of scarlet geranium!