CHAPTER XV
The paddles had already begun to churn in the water, and the vessel to move slowly, but with a swift vibration in every plank of her which promised speed when once she had gathered way. I was suspicious enough already, though in so vague a fashion that I hardly guessed what I suspected, and I recall the fact that I was not in the least surprised when I heard a cry from Ruffiano's lips, and saw the old man struggling in the arms of a big sailor who had clipped him by both elbows from behind and held him in a position of the most serious disadvantage. Without reflection, I sprang to his release. I felt a heavy blow between the shoulders, which would in all probability have taken effect upon my head but for my sudden movement, and in an instant I was in the middle of as severe a rough-and-tumble fight as I could remember anywhere. There were eight or ten people engaged in it, and the whole thing was so rapid that I had not the faintest idea as to where my opponents came from. I only know that within five seconds of the time at which I had left the deck I was somehow back upon it, fighting, as it seemed to me at the moment, for bare life, though I cannot think at this time of day that any very serious personal violence was intended towards myself.
I was fighting like mad with half a dozen when we suddenly swerved altogether against some part of the bulwark which had not been properly secured, and was probably made to open to afford a gangway for passengers, or for the unloading of baggage. The rail swung back, and I, clutching desperately at one of the fellows with whom I was struggling, fell overboard, and soused into the black water, with the bitter chill of a rainy spring in it. I think I may say quite honestly that on land I was a tolerably accomplished sportsman, but I was mainly inland bred as a boy, and though I could swim, after a fashion, and could also, after a fashion, handle a pair of sculls, I was a moderately poor creature in the water. The man I had clutched went down with me, and we both came up spouting the loathsome Thames water from our mouths and nostrils, and still holding to each other. As good luck would have it for me at that moment I came up on top, and a single blow disengaged me from my late adversary. The vessel from which we had fallen was already at a distance which seemed astonishing, and as I trod the water and looked about me, all the twinkling lights of the river craft and the shore looked alarmingly distant. I made for the nearest of them all, and swam, dreadfully embarrassed by my boots and soaked clothing. The light towards which I directed myself shone green over the black spaces of the water, and concentrating all my observation upon it, I thought I approached it at quite a royal pace. In a very little while, however, I discovered that the light was bearing down on me at a much greater rate than that at which I was approaching it, and finally I had some ado to get out of the way of the boat which carried it, and was considerably tossed and tumbled about in the long furrowing wake it made. I sang out at my loudest, but I can only suppose that I was not heard, for the craft, whatever it might have been, swept swiftly down the stream, and in a few seconds was lost to me. I began to feel horribly cold and hopeless. I have been in danger a good many times in my life, but almost always when I could warm the sense of peril by action; but here I felt for a moment as if my time had come, and as if nothing I could do could avert it. The fancy fairly sickened me; and what with the chill of immersion, the sickening taste of the nauseous water, and my own sense of feebleness as a swimmer, I was on the edge of giving up; but all of a sudden, as I have felt more than once in my time, a perfectly calm and bright sensation succeeded to the panic, and I rolled over on to my back, determined to make the best of things and to husband my strength as far as possible. I had read scores of times, as everybody has, that a man floating in the water has only to throw his head back, to keep his hands down, and to rest quite still to be safe. I tried this promising experiment, and whether from the weight of my wet clothes or the irregularity of my breathing, I found that it would not answer, and that I was compelled to keep in motion. I could feel that the current was carrying me, and as I paddled along, most carefully husbanding my strength, I saw that I was bearing gradually nearer to a light on shore, whose position in reference to the various other lights determined me that it was a fixed and not a moving object. I swam towards it, carefully regulating my respiration and determined to avoid all flurry, but I saw that in spite of my utmost efforts I was being hurried past it. Then I drifted into a space where there was something of a little broken, choppy sea, and got another fill of that beastly water, which tasted of tar and sewage and all abominations, and sickened me again to the very heart. Then, before I had fairly recovered from this, and while I was only automatically keeping myself afloat, I saw the wet, rotting piles of a wooden pier quite close to me, and swimming like a madman, touched the surface, and tried to get a grip of it. I failed, and was swept along, gripping and slipping in a most desperate endeavor, until at last the finger-nails of my right hand stuck somewhere in a crack of the water-soaked and slimy wood, and I held on, feeling that I was safe. I had not the faintest sensation of pain at the time, but I clung to the slimy pillar of that pier so urgently with both hands that my nails were half torn away, and for a fortnight later it was only with great difficulty that I could handle a pen, or button or unbutton a collar, or use a knife and fork. I tried to bottom the stream, but found I was quite out of my depth, and so worked cautiously along with the current from post to post until I came to the end of the structure, and then feeling my way round it in grim darkness, found myself at last with my feet embedded in soft mud. I held on there for a minute or two to take breath, and then fought on again. In a little while I found myself on dry land, but so used up by the pull and by the unwonted exertion that I fell all in a heap at the water's edge, and lay there so prostrated that I could move neither hand nor foot. At first the air was tenfold colder than the water had been, but the natural heat reasserted itself gradually, and my forces so far gathered themselves together that I could stand upon my feet and walk. I went on blindly just at first, with such lights as were visible dancing wildly all about me, and it must only have been by sheer good fortune that I did not wander back into the river from which I had so narrowly escaped. Sometimes I saw hundreds of lights, green and red and dazzling white, which had no existence at all, but in the midst of these I made out one which was stationary and real, and I went towards it. When I reached it I found that it hung above the door of that identical public-house at which we had found our boatman, and there at the doorway, glass in hand, was the hackney driver who had brought us down. The man looked amazed to see me, and was more surprised still when I hailed him. He undertook immediately to drive me back to town; helped me into the cab, wrapped me up from head to foot in a rough oilcloth, got me a stiff glass of hot brandy-and-water, and drove away.
The journey down had been long, but the return seemed actually interminable, and it seems so now in my recollection of it. I plead guilty to a confusion of mind which for a while left me powerless to think about anything. Notwithstanding the wraps with which the driver had supplied me, the cold of the March night pierced me to the bone, and the brandy I had taken seemed rather to stupify than to revive me; but when at last I did get home, and Hinge had helped me to a scorching rub-down with rough towels, and had assisted me to dress in dry raiment, I felt more myself again, and sent downstairs for the cabman, who was still waiting there for his fare. The man could tell me absolutely nothing of any value, and I soon found out that the fellow was as much surprised at the turn events had taken as I was myself. A servant girl, it seemed, had come upon the street and had told him that he was wanted a few doors off. He gave me correctly and with no unwillingness Brunow's address, and told me that the gentleman who chartered him had bidden him to drive first to the Italian restaurant, and then to our ultimate destination. I took the man's number and dismissed him with a handsome gratuity. Hinge at first wanted to insist on my immediate retirement to bed, but with every moment that went by I felt better, and when I had drunk a cup of his excellent coffee I was quite myself again, except in so far as all the events of the night seemed to have a curiously unreal and dreamlike feeling about them. The more I turned the thing over in my mind the more I felt inclined to doubt Brunow's bonafides, and yet our long acquaintance and the downright horrible character of the betrayal which had really been committed made the doubt seem so criminal that I tried to drive it away. The more I refused to harbor it the more emphatically it came back again. I recalled Brunow at every instant at which I had consciously or unconsciously observed him, and I knew that there had somehow been a burden on his mind. I could recall his cry when he had said that we were aboard the wrong ship; and let me do what I might, I could not rid myself of the belief that his voice and look at that moment were artificial and theatrical. Once, in the middle of that rough-and-tumble which ended in my involuntary plunge into the water, I had caught sight of him in the gleam of a sickly oil-lamp which swung above the deck. He was held, yet not restrained, by a burly seaman, and the picture was burned into my mind as if by fire. The man was peering over his shoulder, ten thousand times more interested in watching the progress of the struggle than in guarding Brunow, and Brunow was watching the struggle too, but not in the least with any look of amazement, but only with one which I could not for the life of me help construing into fear and shame and self-reproach. It was like a scene beheld by lightning, divided and apart from everything else, and I found it ineffaceable.
It seemed to me obvious that the first thing to be done was to communicate with Ruffiano's friends, for whether he had been spirited away by design or not, it was undeniable that he was in a strange predicament. I set out at once for our ordinary meeting-place, taking Hinge with me, and a brisk walk of a quarter of an hour brought me to the spot. The room in which we held our meetings was approached by an entrance which ran beside the lower room of the restaurant. I left Hinge in this narrow passage, and mounted the stairs rapidly. Before I reached the room I heard the hum of excited voices, and when I tried the door I found that it was locked; I gave the signal known to every member of our fraternity, and the door was opened. The man who opened it, a swarthy Neapolitan whom I barely knew by name, started with amazement as he saw me, and gave vent to an ejaculation. There were perhaps a score of men in the room, and as I stepped forward they all started to their feet and began to press about me with questionings, of which I could barely understand a phrase. One man only hung aloof, and that man was Brunow. I was so amazed to see him there, and so bewildered by the din of welcome and inquiry, that I had no opportunity for a real observation of anything; but I am a mistaken man indeed if Brunow were not to the full as much amazed at seeing me as I at seeing him.
“My good friends,” I called out at last, “let me have silence for a minute. Where is Count Ruffiano?”
Every one pointed at once to Brunow. He advanced, and I read treason in his face.
“My dear Fyffe,” he cried, holding out his hand to me, “I had never hoped to see you alive again.”
This time it was I who refused to see Brunow's hand, as he, only a few hours ago, had declined to see mine. If I had laid bare his villainy there and then, I have no shadow of doubt that there would have been murder done. If I had even hinted at suspicion, his life would have been barely worth a minute's purchase. If my associates had a fault with which both foes and friends alike would have credited them, it was that they were dangerously prone to act first and to argue afterwards. There had been treason in the camp already; when was ever a revolution conducted without it? But I could not make it my business to denounce a fellow-countryman, and a man who had once called himself my friend, unless I could proceed on actual certainty. It took an hour of excited talk to do it, and I had to describe my own share in the adventure twice or thrice; but I got Brunow away at last, and as we went down the stairs together I slipped my arm through his and held him with a grip which I dare say he found significant.
“You will come to my rooms,” I said. He made no answer, and I walked along with him, Hinge following at a distance of a yard or two, and so far, of course, suspecting nothing. Not a word was spoken by the way, and Brunow walked like a man who was going to the scaffold. When we came to iny own rooms I locked the door and faced him.
“What have you done with Ruffiano?” I asked him, sternly.
“God only knows what has become of him,” cried Brunow, casting his hands abroad with a gesture which was meant to convey at once irritation and wonder. “I made my way straight back to tell the story of the extraordinary incident of to-night, and I have told it. The men we have just left can confirm me in the statement that I did not lose a minute.” He was defending himself already, though no accusation had been brought against him.
“You escaped from the ship?” I asked him, curtly.
“Yes,” he answered, with a gasp; “I escaped from the ship.”
“How?” I asked.
“I followed your example,” he returned, “and leaped overboard.”
“To arrive here,” I said, “in dry clothes, having made no change?”
He gave a sudden start at this, and cast a hurried glance at his own figure. Then he looked at me with an expression I shall not readily forget. It was that of a hunted creature trapped, and recognizing the fact that he was caught.
“I swam ashore,” he said, “and I have changed my clothes at home.”
I moved without a word to the door, and, opening it, called out to Hinge, who stood waiting for me in the darkening passage, bidding him to mount. He came and stood at attention.
“Mr. Brunow,” I said, “will give you the key of his rooms, and you will go from here to there, and by his orders will bring back to me a soaked suit of clothes which you will find there. Oblige me by handing my man your key,” I added, turning again on Brunow.
He shot a whisper at me.
“Do you wish to have me murdered?”
“I wish to know,” I answered, “and I mean to know, the truth. What have you done with Ruffiano?”
“I tell you,” he cried, desperately, “I have done nothing! I know nothing! You were there yourself, and you can tell as well as I that the whole thing was a surprise. How was I to know we were being carried aboard an Austrian craft? How could I suspect the man who came to me of treachery?”
“You swam ashore?” I asked. “I am not to be charged with hunting you to death because I ask for a sight of the clothes you swam in. Give Hinge your key!”
“He's quite welcome to it,” he answered, turning his white, defiant face on me, and fumbling in his pocket with a hand so unnerved that he could grasp nothing with it for a minute. “There you are,” he said at last, drawing out his latch-key and handing it to Hinge. “Do as you are told.”
Hinge accepted the key, and, saluting, left the room without a word, though with a curious look both at Brunow and myself. When he had gone Brunow threw himself into a chair and drew out a cigar-case. He opened it, and selected and lit a cigar, though he shook so that he only succeeded with an expenditure of some half a dozen matches. When he had got a light at last he threw himself back and puffed away with as complete an expression of insouciance as he could command. I, of course, had nothing to say until Hinge returned, though I knew perfectly well beforehand what the result of his errand would be. He came back at last, and when his step was heard upon the stair Brunow looked more ghastly than ever as he turned his face towards me. When Hinge came in empty-handed the poor detected wretch rose with a pretence of bluster which was miserable to see.
“Why the devil,” he cried, “haven't you done what you were told to do? This is a pretty servant of yours. Why hasn't he brought the things back as he was told to do?”
Hinge said nothing, but looked from me to my visitor in some bewilderment.
“You hear!” cried Brunow, rising and throwing the stump of his cigar into the grate with a sickly pretence of anger.
“Beg your pardon, sir,” said Hinge; “there's Mr. Brunow's key, sir. Seems to me I've been sent on a fool's errand. Mr. Brunow's man wants to know what I mean by coming with a message like that. He says Mr. Brunow hasn't been at home since half-past six this evening. Mr. Brunow's man, sir,” Hinge pursued, “seemed to think I was trying to make a fool of him.”
“That will do,” I answered. “You have obeyed your orders, and that is all you have to think about. Go and wait outside.”
He went, but I could see that he nursed a little sense of injury. I turned to Brunow and asked him: “Is the game played out yet, or have you any other shift to show me?”
He made no answer at the minute, but fumbled in his pocket again for his cigar-case, with the same shaky and uncertain motion as before. He avoided my eyes, though every now and then he looked towards me as if in spite of himself. For my own part, I could not look away from him, and I do not know now whether I felt more rage or more contempt or more pity for him. I had not thought him so cowardly as he showed himself to be.
“It is for you,” I told him at last, “to explain your actions of to-night. You know what the situation means. I charge you here with having betrayed a comrade whom you had sworn, in common with the rest of us, to stand by to the last. If I had brought the charge I am making now against you a little more than half an hour ago it would have gone hard with you. You are as well aware of that fact as I am, and you know that nothing could have saved you from my just renunciation but the memory of an old friendship, of which you have proved yourself utterly unworthy.”
“I know you're talking nonsense,” he responded, trying to brave it out still. “What should I want to betray old Ruffiano for?”
A sudden gust of wrath swept through me, and blew away before it the last sense of compunction in my mind.
“Understand,” I said, “that I am in earnest in this matter, and that I mean to carry out my threat at once. Unless I receive from you a full confession of this night's infamy, I shall detain you here, and shall send Hinge to summon a meeting here; and at that meeting I shall denounce you as a traitor to the cause you have sworn to forward. I shall bring my proofs, and I shall leave you to justify yourself as best you may. What the consequence of that step may be it is for you and not for me to calculate. I will give you five minutes in which to make up your mind.”
“You can do what the devil you please,” he said; and I rang the bell. Hinge came in, and I bade him go out and call a cab. He obeyed, and taking a seat at the table I began to write out a series of addresses. I read them aloud to Brunow when I had finished, and he recognized the names of half a dozen of the most resolute of our leaders.
“You are playing with your own life!” I cried. “You have only to tell the truth to have a chance for it. You have only to go on lying in this futile way to throw your last chance into the gutter. I will palter with you no longer, and unless by the time at which Hinge returns you have made a clean breast of it, I shall send for the men whose names are here, I shall bring my charge, and you will have to stand the consequences.”
“You can commit any folly you please,” he answered. “I've nothing to say to you; and if you choose to excite the suspicions of a lot of foreign scum like that, you can do it, and take the responsibility.”
“Very well,” I said, and the room was dead still for a space of, I should say, four or five minutes; then the rumble of a cab was heard in the street and a step upon the stairs. It was a dreadful minute alike for Brunow and myself, and, looking at him, I felt a resurrection of pity in me.
“Is this bravado worth while any longer, Brunow?” I asked him. “I have no resource but to keep my word. If my man enters the room before you have spoken, he shall go on his errand, and then may Heaven have mercy on the soul of a traitor!”
Hinge's footstep came nearer, and his key touched the lock with a smart click. Brunow rose to his feet as if without any volition of his own, and made a sign with his hand against the door.
“You wish him to remain outside?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, and, falling back into the chair from which he had arisen, covered his white face with both hands. He had allowed his burning cigar to fall upon the carpet, and, a faint odor of acrid smoke reaching my nostrils, I looked for it, found it, and threw it into the empty grate. This trivial action seemed as important at the moment as anything else.
Hinge knocked at the door, but I told him to go down-stairs, and to detain the cab until I should call him. I heard the closing of the outer door, and heard every step of Hinge's feet until he reached the bottom of the stairs. Then the silence was so intense that I could hear Brunow's watch quite distinctly as it ticked in his pocket, and my own kept time to it.
“You have decided wisely,” I said at last; “and when you have told me the truth you shall have your chance.” He was silent for so long a time that I had to urge him. “I shall not wait forever.”
“Well,” he said, desperately, looking up at me for a mere instant, and then, burying his face in his hands again, “tell me what you want to know.”
“I want,” I told him, “to know the truth about the whole of this miserable business. Who employed you here?”
“Employed me!” he responded.
“Who paid you for this act of treachery?”
“You know all you want to know, it seems, already,” he answered, sullenly, and at that I lost patience with him wholly.
“If I am not answered at once and without reserve,” I said, “I will keep my part of the bargain, and leave you to your chance. Who paid you?”
“You can do what you like,” he answered, rising. “I'm not going to betray a lady, anyhow.”
“Thank you,” I answered, with a more bitter disdain than I can easily express in words. “If you choose to make your confession in that form, it is as useful to me as it would be in any other. You were paid for this by a lady. Who was she? You will find it agreeable to have a little force exerted for the satisfaction of your own conscience, if that is the name you give it. Who was the lady?”
“I don't know that I'm bound to risk my life for her,” he answered. “It's in her way of business, and she's paid for it.”
“And who is she?” I demanded once again.
“The Baroness Bonnar,” said Brunow.
CHAPTER XVI
To say that I was not astonished would be absurd; but the words had scarcely been spoken a moment when I began to be aware that I was wondering at my own amazement. On the whole, there was nobody whom I knew and nobody at whose existence I could have guessed who was quite so likely to be engaged in an affair of that nature as the Baroness Bonnar.
He fell back into his arm-chair with a certain air of defiance and lit another cigar, as if by this time he were thoroughly determined to brazen the whole thing out, and to justify himself to himself, even if it were impossible to find a justification for any other. His cigar slipped from his nerveless fingers; as he reseated himself he stooped to pick it up, and, looking at it with a critical eye, began to smoke again. I verily believe that if any stranger had been present, I might have been supposed to be the more disturbed and self-conscious of the two. Perhaps I was, for throughout the whole of this singular interview I was haunted by a wondering inquiry as to what I should do with the man when I had completely exposed his infamy. I dare say I was a fool from the first to feel so, though I could not help it; but to surrender him to the vengeance he had invited seemed altogether an impossibility. In that respect at least he had me at a disadvantage, and I cannot help thinking that he knew it.
“The Baroness Bonnar!” I echoed. He made no answer, but leaned back in my arm-chair, smoking with an outside tranquillity, as if the whole affair were no business of his. “The Baroness Bonnar!” I repeated, and he gave a brief nod in affirmation. “And what,” I asked, “does she propose to pay you for this unspeakable rascality?”
A decanter and a water-jug stood upon the table, and he helped himself, holding up his tumbler against the light to judge of the amount of spirit he had taken before adding the water he needed. When his shaking hand jerked the jug and he had taken more water than he thought necessary, he sipped critically at the contents of the tumbler and added a little more spirit. Then he sipped again, and settled himself back into his chair, as if resigned to boredom. I knew I had only to speak a word to put all these airs to flight, but I hesitated to speak it.
“What does she pay you?” I asked again, and he turned upon me with a wretched attempt at a smile and a wave of the hand in which he held his cigar.
“It isn't usual to discuss these things,” he answered.
“You wish me to understand,” I said, “that for the sake of an amour with a woman of her age you have broken the most sacred oath a man could take, and have betrayed to life-long misery an old man who trusted you, and who never did you any harm. You have confessed yourself contemptible already, but surely you have a better excuse for your own villainy than this?” He was still silent, and smoked on with the same effort after an outward seeming of tranquillity, though his white face and shaking hand belied him. “What did you get in money?”
“Look here, Fyffe,” he answered, inspecting the ash of his cigar with the aspect of a connoisseur, and evading my glance, “your position gives you an advantage, but you are trying to make too much use of it. I had the most perfect assurances that the old man would be treated kindly, and I know that nobody has any intention to do anything but keep him out of mischief.”
I am very much ashamed of it now, and I think I was even a little conscious of shame about it then, but I felt inclined to comprehend the man, to fathom his depths of self-excuse, and I bore with his evasions and his explanations in a spirit of savage banter.
“Come,” I said, “we shall get to understand each other before we part. What were you paid?”
“In money?” he asked, flicking the ash from his cigar and settling himself with ostentatious pretence of ease. “In money—nothing.”
At that very minute a knock sounded at the door, and mechanically consulting my watch, I saw that it was already nearly midnight. I had no reason to expect a visitor at that hour, and I stood listening in silence, while Hinge answered the summons at the door. There was a murmur of voices outside, and when I looked at Brunow I saw him start suddenly forward as if in the act to rise. For a second or two he set in an attitude of enforced attention, leaning forward with a hand on either arm of the chair, as if prepared to spring to his feet; but observing that my eye was upon him, he sank back again and began to smoke once more. This time nothing but the rapidity with which he puffed at his cigar was left to indicate his discomposure.
Hinge rapped at the door, and when I bade him enter, came in followed by a stranger, whose aspect was simply and purely business-like. This man bowed to me and then to Brunow, and receiving no response from either of us, stood for a moment as if embarrassed.
“Captain Fyffe, I believe?” he said, rather awkwardly.
“That is my name,” I answered. “What is your business?”
“I beg pardon for coming here, sir,” he responded, “but I have been waiting all night to find the Honorable Mr. Brunow, and I have only just heard that he was here. Can I have a word with you, sir?” He turned to Brunow as he spoke. “Sorry to trouble you, sir, but you remember what you promised me. I took your word of honor, sir, and I've made myself personally responsible.”
“Damn it all!” cried Brunow, rising, with a whiter face than ever; “do you suppose that a gentleman is to be badgered about a thing of this kind at this hour of the night in another gentleman's rooms? Wait outside. Go down-stairs and wait for me, and I will arrange with you when we go home together.”
“Very well, sir,” the man replied. He was perfectly respectful, though there was an underlying threat in his manner. “I'll do as you wish. But I hope you understand—”
“I understand everything!” cried Brunow, with an imperious wave of the arm. “Do as you are told!”
“Hinge,” I said, seeing a sudden light upon the complication of affairs which lay before me, “Mr. Brunow and I have business with each other which may detain us for some little time. This person can wait in your room until Mr. Brunow is at liberty.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” the man responded, “I've spent a good deal of time about this business already, and it's getting late. I shall be glad to know when I may expect to be able to talk to Mr. Brunow.”
“You will wait outside,” I answered; “and I think I may guarantee that you will not be kept waiting long.”
The man retired, and I turned on Brunow, as certain of the position of affairs at that moment as I was half an hour later.
“This man,” I said, “has a business claim upon you, and you have promised to satisfy him to-night. Now, I know something of your affairs, and I can guess pretty well that without to-night's action you might not have been in a position to meet him. You had better make a clean breast of it, and it will pay you to remember once for all that I hold your life in my hands, and that I am not altogether indisposed to use my power. What were you paid, or what are you to be paid?”
“I have told you everything I had to tell,” said Brunow, falling back into his former sullen attitude. “You can do just as you please, Fyffe, but I shall say no more.”
I took between my thumb and finger the sheet which lay upon the table, inscribed, as he knew perfectly well, with the names and addresses of the people mainly concerned in our enterprise, and held it up before him.
“Very well,” he said, after looking at it and me, and reading no sign of wavering in my face, “I was to get five hundred pounds.”
“Provided always,” I suggested, “that your plot came to a successful issue.”
“Of course,” he answered, biting his cigar and speaking in a tone of furtive flippancy, which I suppose was the only thing left to the poor wretch to hide the nakedness of his discomfiture.
“And you reckon,” I asked him, “on being paid to-morrow?” Except for a sullen motion of his chair he gave no sign of answer. “Now listen to me,” I said. “I have made up my mind as to what I will do. You shall not touch one penny of this blood-money. You shall have a run for your worthless life, and I promise not to denounce you to the men whom you have betrayed for twelve hours. To-morrow at midday I shall tell all I know, and you are the best judge of what it will be safest to do in the meanwhile.”
“All right,” he answered, desperately, rising to his feet and buttoning his coat about him; “you've found your chance and you've used it. It's a useful thing for you to get me out of the way, no doubt, but I may find a chance of being even with you yet, and if I do, I'll take it.”
“You seem resolute,” I told him, “to force me to do my worst. At this very instant, when I hold your life in my hands, when it is in my power to hand you over to justice by a word, and when I propose—partly for old friendship's sake and partly because I am ashamed that a fellow-countryman of mine should have been such a blackguard—to let you go, you are fool enough to tell me that my mercy has no effect upon you, and that you will do your best to be revenged upon me. Think that over, Brunow.”
He turned his face away, and sat in silence for a minute; but all of a sudden I saw his shoulders begin to heave, his hands worked together, and he broke into convulsive tears. He sobbed so noisily that though the door was already closed, I darted towards it with an instinctive wish to shut out the sound from the ears of the people in the next room.
“For God's sake, Fyffe,” he broke out, “let me go! I'll promise anything, do anything. I've—I've always been an honorable man till now, and I—I can't stand it any longer. If you've got any pity in you, let me go!”
I was as much ashamed as he was, though, I hope, in another way, and I was eager to cut short the conference. For all that, I had a duty to discharge.
“You shall go,” I said, “and I shall be glad to be rid of you. But first of all you shall make a clean breast of it.”
He told the story in a furtive, broken way, as well he might; and how much more and how much less than the actual truth he told me I never knew with certainty, but it came to this. He had had heavy gambling losses, and had got into financial difficulties. The Baroness Bonnar had found this out, and had told him of a way by which he might recuperate himself. She had only hinted at first, and he had indignantly refused her proposal, but he had played about the bait, as I could readily fancy him doing, and had finally gorged it. He was to have received five hundred pounds next day on consideration of the arrival of intelligence from the people to whom he had betrayed Ruffiano, and he confessed that he had been promised other work of the same kind.
“I swear to you, Fyffe,” he declared, “that I'd never have done it at all if I hadn't had the most solemn assurances that nothing would happen to the old man.”
“Do you think,” I asked him, “that the solemn assurances of a spy are worth much in any case?”
“They won't hurt him,” said Brunow; “I made sure of that beforehand. I give you my word of honor. I was careful about it, because I have rather a liking for him.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him if, having rather a liking for him, he had betrayed him to the Austrians, what he would have done if he had rather a dislike for him. But it could serve no purpose to argue at all in such a case, and it was hopeless to imagine that any exposure of himself would have made the man realize the perfidy of his own nature.
“The world is before you,” I said, “and, so far as I am concerned, you may go where you will. I do not pretend to offer you any security from the vengeance of the men whose oath you have betrayed. I should be powerless to do that, however much I wished it. You must shift for yourself.”
“Very well,” he answered, sullenly; and, rising to his feet, he began to button his coat and to gather together his hat and gloves and walking-cane. Then he made a movement to go, but half-way to the door stopped irresolutely. I thought he was about to speak again, but after a pause of a second or two he went on, opened the door with an unsteady hand, and went out without closing it behind him. The man I had told to wait outside must have been upon the watch, for I heard his voice at the very instant at which Brunow set foot in the narrow passage.
“Well, sir?” he said.
“Well?” said Brunow.
“I am sorry to press this claim, sir,” said the man, “but I have my instructions, and I can't help it. If you'll give me your word that you will settle in the morning, I will wait till then. But it's no use making any bogus promise.”
“I suppose you don't mean to lose sight of me?” Brunow asked.
“That's the state of the case, sir,” the man answered.
“H'm!” said Brunow, in a casual tone; “got anybody with you now?”
“Sheriff's officer in a hackney-coach down-stairs,” the man responded. He had caught Brunow's tone to a hair, and spoke as if the whole thing were the merest casual trifle.
“He's prepared to do his duty now?” asked Brunow. I heard no response, but I presume that the man gave some sign of affirmation, for Brunow went on: “Very well; I'm ready. It could hardly have happened at a better time.”
“I thought you were going to square up to-morrow, sir,” the man said.
“So did I,” responded Brunow; “but I've as much chance of that now as you have of being Emperor of China. Go on; I'm quite ready.”
There was a trifling difficulty with the catch of the outer door, with which both Hinge and myself had long been familiar, and which we now surmounted with perfect ease. It bothered Brunow and the stranger, however, for I heard them both fumbling at the lock, and at last Hinge, hearing also, left his little bedroom on the landing and came to their assistance.
Then the door was opened, and with a cry of “Goodbye, Fyffe!” to which I returned no answer, Brunow went away in charge of his business friend.
At the first opening of the outer door the cold wind of the spring night came into the room with a burst, and scattered a handful of papers about the floor. I busied myself in picking these up again, but finding that the hall-door was still open, I called out to Hinge to close it. He delayed until I had repeated my order in an angry tone, and then, having closed the door, he came into my room with a hurried and excited look.
“Beg pardon for keeping the door open, sir,” said Hinge, “but I've just seen something rather curious.”
“Never mind that now,” I answered. “Go to bed. I shall not want you any more to-night.”
“No, sir,” said Hinge. “If you'll excuse me, sir, this is something very important.”
He was not wont to be troublesome, but after all the events of that strange night I was fairly unsettled and pretty well out of temper. I snapped at Hinge, telling him to go and not to bother me with any nonsense just then.
“Got to tell you this, sir,” said Hinge, standing at attention, and looking straight before him. Even then it was with no sense of importance in the matter he had to communicate that I listened to him.
“Go on,” I said, “and get it over. What is it?”
“Well, sir,” said Hinge, “when I was in the general's service in Vienna I used to see a lot of the Austrian police. I got to know some of them by sight—a good many, I might say. Secret chaps, they was, sir—spies.”
“That's all very interesting,” I returned, “but you can see I'm bothered just at present, and I want to be alone. You can tell me all that at another time.”
“There's one of them a-living in this house, sir,” said Hinge, as little moved by my interruption as if I had not spoken.
This was news, and my impatience and ill-temper vanished.
“How do you know?” I asked. “Tell me all about it.”
“I never set eyes on him but just this minute, sir,” said Hinge, “since I left Vienna. But he walked upstairs just now with a latch-key in his hand, and he went into the rooms overhead of yours, sir. That's him a-walking about now, I'll lay a fiver.” As a matter of fact, I could bear a heavy footstep pacing the room above. “The odd part of it is, sir,” Hinge pursued, “this cove knows Mr. Brunow, and Mr. Brunow knows him, sir.”
“Oh,” I asked, fully interested by this time, “how do you know that?”
“They spoke together on the stairs, sir. This fellow Sacovitch, that's his name, he says to Mr. Brunow, 'Alloa,' he says, 'you 'ere?' And Mr. Brunow says, 'Don't speak to me; I'll write to you.' Now I don't like the look o' that, sir, and I thought you ought to know about it.”
“You are quite right, Hinge,” I said. “It was your business to tell me; and if I had known it yesterday, or if I had only known of it eight hours ago, it might have been of use to me.”
“This Sacovitch chap didn't see me, sir,” said Hinge, with a certain modest exultation; “I took care of that. But I nips half-way upstairs after him, and sees him open the door with his latch-key, and then I nips down again.”
“Do you think he would know you if he saw you?” I asked.
“There's no saying about that, sir,” Hinge responded; “he might and he mightn't. You see, sir, he's a swell in his own way, this chap is. He used to dine with the general, and they used to salute him like as if he was an officer. There was every reason, don't you see, sir, why I should notice him, and there was no mortal reason in the world why he should notice me. But there's no mistaking him, sir, and I should have spotted his ugly mug among a million.”
“Thank you very much, Hinge. That will do.” Hinge went away, and I sat down to think this new matter over. Of course I had never been foolish enough to suppose that Brunow had given me any information of value against his party, outside the one admission that he had been hired by the Baroness Bonnar; but here was sudden proof of the incompleteness of his confession. Shall I confess that my first impulse was to do an extremely silly and inconsiderate thing? I felt inclined, foolish as it will sound, to walk upstairs and to introduce myself sardonically to Herr Sacovitch, since that was the gentleman's name, with the proclamation of my newly-acquired knowledge of his business, and request that he would waste no further time in prosecuting it so far as I was concerned. But this foolish desire had scarcely occurred to me before I threw it out of the window. If the man believed himself to be unknown, I had the whip-hand of him in knowing him, and to have exposed my knowledge would only have been to release him for the prosecution of useful business on his own side, while some other person, whom I might never have the luck to recognize at all, would take his place. I was rather flattered, on the whole, to think that a great European power like Austria found it worth while to put a watch upon my actions; but there was only a passing satisfaction in that fancy. I could not get poor old Ruffiano out of ray head that night. I undressed and went to bed, but I courted sleep in vain. All night long I heard the quarters strike, and then the hours, and all night long the picture of the good, genial, patient, suffering old man fairly haunted me. There were times when I blamed myself severely for having allowed his betrayer to go free at all, and there were moments when, if Brunow had been once again before me, I should have had no control over myself. But, after all, mercy is just as much a duty as justice, and on looking back I am not disposed to censure myself very heavily for the course I took. I can think of nothing more hateful than Brunow's crime, and of nothing more just than the punishment which finally befell him; but I am glad that the act of vengeance was not mine.
It was bright morning when at last I fell asleep, and before that happened I had formed one clear resolution. This was to seek out Violet in the course of the day, to let-her know what had happened, and consult her judgment as to what my own course should be. In the meantime Brunow, in a debtor's prison, could do no further mischief, and was, at the same time, safe from immediate vengeance. There was time for a pause before further action was needed, and it was this reflection more than anything else which calmed me down at last into a state of mind in which sleep was possible.
I breakfasted at the usual time, for Hinge in household matters was a perfect martinet, and all my home affairs were as punctual as a clock. Then, at as early an hour as I dared to venture on, I walked to Lady Rollinson's house. The servant who answered my summons at the door had been in the habit of skipping on one side at once, and throwing the door open in something of an excess of hospitality. I had sometimes even felt a touch of humorous anger at the man; for his fashion of receiving me had seemed to indicate that he was in possession of the secret of the position, and it was as if his flourish of welcome showed an approval of my suit. But to-day he held the door half open, and, before I could get out a word of inquiry, said, “Not at hom?”
“Neither Lady Rollinson nor Miss Rossano?” I asked him.
“Not at home, sir,” the man repeated. He looked conscious beneath my eye, and his manner was distinctly embarrassed.
“Are you quite sure of that?” I asked him. “Kindly go and see.” The man looked more discomposed than ever, but he said for the third time: “Not at home, sir.” And in the face of this repeated declaration it seemed useless to inquire again. I walked away, a little puzzled by the man's manner. I had heard of no intended visit, and so far as I could guess I knew of every plan which Violet and Lady Rollinson had formed. It is not usual for an accepted suitor to be met at the door of his fiancee's house with that curt formula, and I went away dissatisfied and wondering, turning my steps homeward. I had made up my mind to dismiss the whole circumstance and to write to Violet, and I was walking up the stairs which led to my chambers, in haste to put that little project into execution, when I ran full against a stranger on the landing. He raised his hat with an apology, and I was in the act of doing the same when his foreign accent induced me to look more closely at him. He was a tall, dark man, very gentlemanly to look at and irreproachably dressed. In a dark, saturnine way he was handsome, and recalling Hinge's statement that he would have known the ugly mug of our fellow-lodger among a million, I settled within my own mind that this could not be the man; but I still observed him with a little interest in the certainty that if not the man himself, he was at least a visitor. Hinge was at the door when I reached it.
“Did you spot him, sir?” he asked, eagerly. “That's him as you ran into on the stairs—Sacovitch.”
I answered that I should know the man again, and with that should have forgotten to think about him, but that for days afterwards Hinge was full of excited intelligence about him, relating how he had received such a visitor at such a time, and had gone out in a cab at such an hour, returning after such and such a length of absence. In a very little time the mention of him became a bore, and I forbade Hinge to speak of him unless he had something of importance to tell me.
In the meantime I wrote my note and sent it to the post. I waited all day, and received no answer. When the next morning's post came in I turned my letters over hastily, and was a little surprised, as well as disappointed, to find that I had no line from Violet. Again that morning I made my way to Lady Rollinson's house, and again the accustomed servant met me, and this time fairly staggered me with a repetition of his “Not at home.”
“Am I to understand,” I asked, “that Lady Rollinson and Miss Rossano have left town?”
“Can't say, sir,” said the man, staring straight above my head with unmoving eyes, but fidgeting nervously with his hands and feet. “My orders is: 'Not at home to Captain Fyffe.'”
“That will do,” I returned, and walked away, more puzzled than I had ever been in my life before. I went back to my rooms, and there I wrote this note:
“Dear Lady Rollinson,—When I called at your house yesterday I was told that you and Violet were not at home. When I called again this morning, I was told that you were 'not at home to Captain Fyffe.' This troubles and worries me so much that I hope you will not think me impertinent if I ask the reason for it.”
I despatched that letter by Hinge, with instructions to await an answer. In half an hour the answer came, and for the time being left me more puzzled and troubled than ever:
“Lady Rollinson acknowledges the receipt of Captain Fyffe's letter, and begs to say that on the two occasions referred to by Captain Fyffe her instructions were accurately obeyed by her servant.”
That was all. There was not one word in explanation of this astonishing announcement. Violet and I were engaged to be married, with her father's warmest approval, and Lady Rollinson had, until that moment, shown nothing but the most enthusiastic favor for the match. And here, on a sudden, I was forbidden the house, without rhyme or reason.
For an hour I was like a man on whom a thunderbolt had fallen.