William Le Queux (continued 2)

The good-looking Prince Albert, whose real name was hidden in obscurity, but who was best known as Tremlett, Burchell-Laing, Drummond, Lord Nassington, and half a dozen other aliases, constantly amazed and puzzled the police. Leader of that small circle of bold and ingenious men, he provided the newspapers with sensational gossip from time to time, exploits in which he usually made use of one or other of his high-power cars, and in which there was invariably a lady in the car.

Prince Albert was nothing if not a ladies’ man, and in two years had owned quite a dozen cars of different makes with identification plates innumerable, most of them false.

His Highness, who always found snobs to bow and dust his boots, and who took good care to prey upon their snobbishness, was a perfect marvel of cunning. His cool audacity was unequalled. The times which he passed unsuspected and unidentified beneath the very noses of the police were innumerable, while the times in which Garrett had been in imminent peril of arrest were not a few.

The present journey was, however, to say the least, a very mysterious one.

That morning at ten o’clock he had sat, as usual, in the cosy chambers in Dover Street. His Highness had given him a cigar, and treated him as an equal, as he did always when they were alone.

“You must start directly after lunch for the Highlands, Garrett,” he had said suddenly, his dark, clearly defined brows slightly knit. He was still in his velvet smoking-jacket, and smoked incessantly his brown “Petroffs.”

“I know,” he went on, “that the weather is wretched—but it is imperative. We must have the car up there.”

Garrett was disappointed, for they were only just back from Hamburg, and he had expected at least to spend a few days with his own people down at Surbiton.

“What?” he asked, “another coup?” His Highness smiled meaningly.

“We’ve got a rather ticklish piece of work before us, Garrett,” he said, contemplating the end of his cigar. “There’s a girl in it—a very pretty little girl. And you’ll have to make a lot of love to her—you understand?” And the gay nonchalant fellow laughed as his eyes raised themselves to the chauffeur’s.

“Well,” remarked the man, somewhat surprised. “You make a much better lover than I do. Remember the affair of the pretty Miss Northover?”

“Yes, yes!” he exclaimed impatiently. “But in this affair it’s different. I have other things to do besides love-making. She’ll have to be left to you. I warn you, however, that the dainty Elfrida is a dangerous person—so don’t make a fool of yourself, Garrett.”

“Dangerous?” he echoed.

“I mean dangerously attractive, that’s all. Neither she, nor her people, have the least suspicion. The Blair-Stewarts, of Glenblair Castle, up in Perthshire, claim to be one of the oldest families in the Highlands. The old fellow made his money at shipbuilding, over at Dumbarton, and bought back what may be, or may not be, the family estate. At any rate, he’s got pots of the needful, and I, having met him with his wife and daughter this autumn at the ‘Excelsior,’ at Aix, am invited up there to-morrow to spend a week or so. I’ve consented if I may go incognito as Mr Drummond.”

“And I go to take the car up?”

“No. You go as Herbert Hebberdine, son of old Sir Samuel Hebberdine, the banker of Old Broad Street, a young man sowing his wild oats and a motor enthusiast, as every young man is more or less nowadays,” he laughed. “You go as owner of the car. To Mrs Blair-Stewart I explained long ago that you were one of my greatest friends, so she has asked me to invite you, and I’ve already accepted in your name.”

“But I’m a stranger!” protested Garrett.

“Never mind, my dear fellow,” laughed the audacious Prince. “Clayton will be up there too. It’s he who knows the people, and is working the game pretty cleverly.”

“Is it jewels?” asked the chauffeur in a low voice.

“No, it just isn’t, this time! You’re mistaken, as you always are when you’re too inquisitive. Garrett, it’s something better,” he answered. “All you’ve got to do is to pretend to be smitten by the girl. She’s a terrible little flirt, so you won’t have very much difficulty. You make the running, and leave all the rest to me.” His master, having shown him on the map where Glenblair was situated, half way between Stirling and Perth, added:

“I’ll go up to-night, and you’ll be there in three days’ time. Meanwhile I’ll sing your praises, and you’ll receive a warm welcome from everybody when you arrive. Take your decent kit with you, and act the gentleman. There’s a level thousand each for us if we bring it off properly. But,” he added, with further injunctions not to fall genuinely in love with the pretty Elfrida, “the whole thing rests upon you. The girl must be devoted to you—otherwise we can’t work the trick.”

“What is the trick?” asked Garrett, his curiosity aroused.

“Never mind what it is, Garrett,” he said, rising to dismiss him.

“Have your lunch and get away. You’ve five hundred miles of bad roads and new metal before you, so the sooner you’re off the better. Call and see Clayton at his rooms. He’s got a bag, or something, to put in the car, I think. When we meet in Scotland, recollect that I’m Prince Albert incognito. We were at Bonn together, and have been friends for many years. Good luck to you!”

And with that he left the Prince’s cosy rooms, and soon found himself out in Dover Street again, much puzzled.

The real object of his visit and his flirtation at a Scotch castle filled his mind as, in the dull light of that fading afternoon, he swept along the muddy Great North Road his exhaust opened and roaring as he went ascending through Whetstone and Barnet in the direction of Hatfield. The “sixty” repainted cream with narrow gilt lines upon it certainly presented a very smart appearance, but in the back he had a couple of false number-plates, together with three big pots of dark-green enamel and a brush, so that if occasion arose, as it had arisen more than once, he could run up a by-road, and in an hour transform its appearance, so that its own maker would scarcely recognise it.

In the grey twilight as he approached Hitchin, swinging round those sharp corners at a speed as high as he dared, it poured with rain again, and he was compelled to lower the wind-screen and receive the full brunt of the storm, so blurred became everything through the sheet of plate-glass. The old “Sun” at Hitchin reached, he got a drink, lit his head-lamps, and crossing the marketplace, pushed forward, a long and monotonous run up Alconbury Hill and through Wansford to Stamford where, at the Stamford Hotel—which recalled memories of the Northovers—he ate a cold dinner and rested for an hour over a cigar.

Many were the exciting adventures he had had while acting as chauffeur to his Highness, but his instructions that morning had somehow filled him with unusual misgiving. He was on his way to pretend to make love to a girl whom he had never seen, the daughter of a millionaire shipbuilder, a man who, as the Prince had informed him, had risen from a journeyman, and like so many others who make money, had at once looked round for a ready-made pedigree, and its accompanying estate. Heraldry and family trees seem to exercise a strange and unaccountable fascination for the parvenu.

As he pushed north, on through that long dark night in the teeth of a bitter northeaster and constant rain, his mind was full of the mysterious coup which his Highness and his friend were about to attempt. Jewels and money were usually what they were in search of, but on this occasion it was something else. What it was, his Highness had flatly refused to tell.

Aided by the Rev. Thomas Clayton, one of the cleverest impostors who ever evaded the police, his Highness’s successes had been little short of marvellous. His audacity was unparalleled. The Parson, who lived constantly in that smug circle wherein moved the newly-rich, usually marked down the victim, introduced his Highness, or the fascinating Mr Tremlett, and left the rest to the young cosmopolitan’s tact and ingenuity. Their aliases were many, while the memory of both Tremlett and Clayton for faces was extraordinary. A favourite pose of the Prince was that of military attaché in the service of the German Government, and this self-assumed profession often gained him admission to the most exclusive circles here, and on the Continent.

Garrett’s alias of Herbert Hebberdine he had assumed on one or two previous occasions—once at Biarritz, when his Highness successfully secured the splendid pearl necklace of the Duchess of Taormino, and again a few months later at Abbazia, on the beautiful shore of the Adriatic. On both occasions their coup had been brought off without a hitch, he recollected. Therefore, why should he, on this occasion, become so foolishly apprehensive?

He could not tell. He tried to analyse his feelings as, hour after hour, he sat at the wheel, tearing along that dark, wet, endless highway due north towards York. But all in vain. Over him seemed to have spread a shadow of impending evil, and try how he would, he could not shake off the uncomfortable feeling that he was rushing into some grave peril from which he was destined not to escape.

To describe in detail that wet, uncomfortable run from Hyde Park Corner to Edinburgh would serve no purpose in this little chronicle of an exciting chapter of an adventurous life. Suffice it to say that, late in the night of the second day after leaving London, he drew up before the North British Hotel, in Prince’s Street, glad of shelter from the icy blast. A telegram from his Highness ordered him to arrive at the castle on the following evening; therefore, just as dusk was falling, he found himself before the lodge-gates of the splendid domain of the laird of Glenblair, and a moment later turned into the drive which ascended for more than a mile through an avenue of great bare beeches and oaks, on the one side a dense wood, and on the other a deep, beautiful glen, where, far below, rippled a burn with many picturesque cascades.

Once or twice he touched the button of the electric horn to give warning of his approach, when suddenly the drive took a wide curve and opened out before a splendid old mansion in the Scotch baronial style, situated amid the most romantic and picturesque scenery it had ever been his lot to witness.

At the door, brought out by the horn, stood his Highness, in a smart suit of blue serge, and the Parson, in severe clerical garb and pince-nez, while with them stood two women, one plump, elderly, and grey-haired, in a dark gown, the other a slim figure in cream with wavy chestnut hair, and a face that instantly fascinated the new-comer.

As he alighted from the car and drew off his fur glove the Prince—who was staying incognito as Mr Drummond—introduced him to his hostess, before whom he bowed, while she, in turn, said:

“This is my daughter, Elfrida—Mr Hebberdine.”

Garrett bowed again. Their eyes met, and next instant the young man wished heartily that he had never come there. The Prince had not exaggerated her beauty. She was absolutely perfect. In all the years he had been a wanderer he had never seen such dainty chic, such tiny hands and feet, or such a sweet face with its soft pink cheeks and its red lips made for kisses. She could not have been more than eighteen or so, yet about her was none of the gaucherie of the school-girl. He noticed that she dropped her eyes quickly, and upon her cheeks arose just the soupçon of a blush.

“Had a good run, Herbert?” asked the Prince as he entered the big hall of the castle.

“Not very. The roads were infernally bad in places,” replied the other, “and the new metal between York and Newcastle is most annoying.”

“Good car, that of yours!” remarked the Parson, as though he had never seen it before, while his Highness declared that a six-cylinder was certainly the best of all.

After a whisky and soda, brought by the grave, antiquated butler, Garrett drove the car round to the garage some little distance from the house, where he found three fine cars belonging to his host.

Then, as he went to his room to change for dinner, he passed his Highness on the stairs.

“The game’s quite easy,” whispered the latter as he halted for a second. “It remains for you to make the running with Elfrida. Only be careful. Old Blair-Stewart is pretty sly—as you’ll see.”

At dinner in the long old-fashioned panelled room, hung with the portraits of what were supposed to be the ancestors of the Blair-Stewarts of Glenblair, Garrett first met the rather stout, coarse-featured shipbuilder who had assumed the head of that historic house, and had bought the estate at three times its market value. From the first moment of their meeting Garrett saw that he was a blatant parvenu of the worst type, for he began to talk of “my hothouses,” “my motors,” and “my yacht” almost in the first five minutes of their conversation.

The party numbered about fifteen at dinner, and he had the good fortune to be placed next the dainty little girl in turquoise towards whom the part allotted to him was to act as lover.

She was, he saw, of very different type to her father. She had been at school in Versailles, and afterwards had studied music in Dresden she told him, and she could, he found, speak three languages quite well. She had apparently put off her school-girl shyness when she put up her hair, and indeed she struck him as being an amusing little friend to any man. Motoring was her chief hobby. She could drive one of her father’s cars, a “sixteen-twenty” herself, and often did so. Therefore they were soon upon a topic in which they were mutually enthusiastic.

A yellow-haired, thin-faced young man of elegant appearance, for he had a velvet collar to his dress-coat and amethyst buttons to his vest, was looking daggers at them. From that Garrett concluded that Archie Gould was the lover of the winning Elfrida, and that he did not approve of their mutual merriment. The Parson, who said grace, was a perfect example of decorum, and was making himself delightful to his hostess, while his Highness was joking with a pretty little married woman who, without doubt, was full of admiration of his handsome face.

What would the good people of Glenblair have thought had they been aware of the identity of the trio they were entertaining at their table? As Garrett reflected, he smiled within himself. His fellow guests were mostly wealthy people, and as he looked around the table he saw several pieces of jewellery, necklets, pendants and the like for which the old Jew in the Kerk Straat at Amsterdam would have given them very fair prices.

If jewellery was not the object of their visit, then what was?

Two days passed, and Garrett took Elfrida and the Prince for several runs on the “sixty,” much to the girl’s delight. He watched closely the actions of his two companions, but could detect nothing suspicious. Blair-Stewart’s wife was a quaint old crow with a faint suspicion of a moustache, who fancied herself hugely as wife of the wealthy laird of Glenblair. She was busy visiting the poor of the grey straggling Highland village, and his Highness, flattering her vanity, was assisting her. Next to the Prince, the Parson was the most prominent person in the house-party, and managed to impress on every occasion his own importance upon the company.

With the dainty Elfrida, Garrett got on famously, much to the chagrin and disgust of her yellow-headed young admirer, Gould, who had recently inherited his father’s estate up in Inverness-shire, and who it was currently reported, was at that moment engaged in the interesting occupation of “going through” it.

Elfrida, though extremely pretty, with a soft natural beauty all her own, was an essentially out-door girl. It being a hard frost, they had been out together on the “sixty” in the morning, and later she had been teaching him curling on the curling-pond in the park, and initiated him into the mysteries of “elbow in” and “elbow out.” Indeed, every afternoon the whole party curled, a big bonfire being lit on the side of the pond, and tea being taken in the open. He had never practised the sport of casting those big round stones along the ice before, but he found it most invigorating and amusing, especially when he had as instructress such a charming and delightful little companion.

Just as the crimson light of sundown was tinting the snow with its blood-red glow one afternoon, she suddenly declared her intentions to return to the house, whereupon he offered to escort her. As soon, however, as they were away from the rest of the party she left the path by which they were approaching the avenue, saying that there was a shorter cut to the castle. It was then that they found themselves wandering over the snow in the centre of a leafless forest, where the deep crimson afterglow gleamed westward among the black trunks of the trees, while the dead silence of winter was upon everything.

Garrett was laughing with her, as was his habit, for their flirtation from the first had been a desperate one. At eighteen, a girl views nothing seriously, except her hobbies. As they walked together she presented a very neat-ankled and dainty appearance in her short blue serge skirt, little fur bolero, blue French beret, and thick white gloves. In the brief time he had been her father’s guest, he had not failed to notice how his presence always served to heighten the colour of her cheeks, or how frequently she met him as if by accident in all sorts of odd and out-of-the-way corners. He was not sufficiently conceited to imagine that she cared for him any more than she did for young Gould, though he never once saw him with her. He would scowl at them across the table; that was all.

Of a sudden, as they went on through the leafless wood she halted, and looking into his face with her beautiful eyes, exclaimed with a girl’s frankness:

“I wonder, Mr Hebberdine, if I might trust you?—I mean if you would help me?”

“Trust me!” he echoed very surprised, as their acquaintanceship had been of such short duration. “If you repose any confidence in me, Miss Blair-Stewart, I assure you I shall respect its secrecy.”

Her eyes met his, and he was startled to see in them a look of desperation such as he had not seen in any woman’s gaze before. In that moment the mask seemed to have fallen from her, and she stood there before him craving his pity and sympathy—his sympathy above that of all other men!

Was not his position a curious one? The very girl whom he had come to trick and to deceive was asking him to accept her confidences.

“You are very kind indeed to say that,” she exclaimed, her face brightening. “I hardly know whether I dare ask you to stand my friend, for we’ve only known each other two or three days.”

“Sufficiently long, Miss Elfrida, to win me as your faithful champion,” the young man declared, whereupon her cheeks were again suffused by a slight flush.

“Well, the fact is,” she said with charming bluntness, “though I have lots of girl friends, I have no man friend.”

“There is Archie Gould,” he remarked, “I thought he was your friend!”

“He’s merely a silly boy,” she laughed. “I said a man friend—like yourself.”

“Why are you so anxious to have one?”

She hesitated. Her eyes were fixed upon the spotless snow at their feet, and he saw that she held her breath in hesitation.

“Men friends are sometimes dangerous, you know,” he laughed.

“Not if the man is a true gentleman,” was her rather disconcerting answer. Then, raising her eyes again, and gazing straight into his face she asked, “Will you really be my friend?”

“As I’ve already said, I’d only be too delighted. What do you want me to do?”

“I—I want you to help me, and—and to preserve my secret.”

“What secret?” he inquired, surprised that a girl of her age should possess a secret.

He saw the sudden change in her countenance. Her lips were trembling, the corners of her mouth hardened, and, without warning, she buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.

“Oh! come, come, Elfrida!” he exclaimed quickly, placing his hand tenderly upon her shoulder. “No, don’t give way like this! I am your friend, and will help you in what ever way you desire, if you will tell me all about it. You are in distress. Why? Confide in me now that I have promised to stand your friend.”

“And—and you promise,” she sobbed. “You promise to be my friend—whatever happens.”

“I promise,” he said, perhaps foolishly. “Whatever happens you may rely upon my friendship.”

Then, next instant, his instructions from his Highness flashed across his mind. He was there for some secret reason to play a treacherous part—that of the faithless lover.

She stood immovable, dabbing her eyes with a little wisp of lace. He was waiting for her to reveal the reason of her unhappiness. But she suddenly walked on mechanically, in her eyes a strange look of terror, nay of despair.

He strode beside her, much puzzled at her demeanour. She wished to tell him something of which she was ashamed. Only the desperation of her position prompted her to make the admission, and seek his advice.

They had gone, perhaps, three hundred yards still in the wood. The crimson light had faded, and the December dusk was quickly darkening, as it does in Scotland, when again she halted and faced him, saying in a faltering tone:

“Mr Hebberdine, I—I do hope you will not think any the worse of me—I mean, I hope you won’t think me fast, when I tell you that I—well, somehow, I don’t know how it is—but I feel that Fate has brought you here purposely to be my friend—and to save me!”

“To save you!” he echoed. “What do you mean? Be more explicit.”

“I know my words must sound very strange to you. But it is the truth! Ah!” she cried, “you cannot know all that I am suffering—or of the deadly peril in which I find myself. It is because of that, I ask the assistance of you—an honest man.”

Honest! Save the mark! He foresaw himself falling into some horrible complication, but the romance of the situation, together with the extreme beauty of his newly found little friend held the young man fascinated.

“I cannot be of assistance, Miss Elfrida, until I know the truth.”

“If we are to be friends you must call me Elfrida,” she said in her girlish way, “but in private only.”

“You are right. Other people might suspect, and misconstrue what is a platonic friendship,” he said, and he took her hand in order to seal their compact.

For a long time he held it, his gaze fixed upon her pale, agitated countenance. Why was she in peril? Of what?

He asked her to tell him. A slight shudder ran through her, and she shook her head mournfully, no word escaping her lips. She sighed, the sigh of a young girl who had a burden of apprehension upon her sorely troubled mind. He could scarcely believe that this was the bright, happy, laughing girl who, half an hour ago, had been putting her stones along the ice, wielding her besom with all her might, and clapping her dainty little hands with delight when any of her own side knocked an opponent off “the pot lid.”

At last, after long persuasion, during which time dusk had almost deepened into darkness in that silent snow-covered wood, she, in a faltering voice, and with many sentences broken by her emotion, which she vainly strived to suppress, told him a most curious and startling story to which he listened with breathless interest.

The first of the series of remarkable incidents had occurred about two years ago, while she was at school in Versailles. She, with a number of other elder girls, had gone to spend the summer at a branch of the college close to Fontainebleau, and they often succeeded, when cycling, in getting away unobserved and enjoying long runs in the forest alone. One summer’s evening she was riding alone along a leafy by-way of the great forest when, by some means, her skirt got entangled in the machine and she was thrown and hurt her ankle. A rather well-dressed Frenchman who was coming along assisted her. He appeared to be very kind, gave her a card, with the name “Paul Berton” upon it, was told her name in response, and very quickly a friendship sprang up between them. He was an engineer, and staying at the Lion d’Or, in Fontainebleau, he said, and having wheeled her machine several miles to a spot quite near the college, suggested another meeting. She, with the school-girl’s adventurous spirit, consented, and that proved to be the first of many clandestine rendezvous. She was not quite seventeen while he was, she thought, about twenty-six.

She kept her secret from all, even from her most intimate schoolmate, fearing to be betrayed to the head governess, so all the summer these secret meetings went on, she becoming more and more infatuated on every occasion, while he, with apparent carelessness, learned from her the history of her family, who they were, and where they resided.

“One thing about Paul puzzled me from the very first evening we met,” she said reflectively as she was describing those halcyon days of forbidden love. “It was that I noticed, high upon his left wrist, about four inches from the base of the hand, a scarlet mark, encircling the whole arm. It looked as though he had worn a bracelet that had chafed him, or perhaps it had been tattooed there. Several times I referred to it, but he always evaded my question, and seemed to grow uneasy because I noticed it. Indeed, after a few meetings I noticed that he wore shirts with the cuffs buttoned over with solitaires, instead of open links. Well—” she went on slowly with a strange, far-away look in her face. “I—I hardly like to tell you further.”

“Go on, little friend,” he urged, “your secret is in safe keeping with me—whatever it may be. You loved the man, eh?”

“Ah! yes!” she cried. “You are right. I—I loved him—and I did not know. We met again in Paris—many times. All sorts of ruses I resorted to, in order to get out, if only for half an hour. He followed me to London—when I left school—and he came up here.”

“Up here!” he gasped. “He loved you, then?”

“Yes. And when I went to Dresden he went there also.”

“Why?”

She held her breath. Her eyes looked straight into his, and then were downcast.

“Because—because,” she faltered hoarsely, “because he is my husband!”

“Your husband. Great heavens!”

“Yes. I married him six months ago at the registry office in the Blackfriars Road, in London,” she said in a strangely blank voice. “I am Madame Berton.”

He stood utterly dumbfounded. The sweet, refined face of the child-wife was ashen pale, her white lips were trembling, and tears were welling in her eyes. He could see she wished to confide further in him.

“Well?” he asked. It was the only word he could utter.

“We parted half an hour after our marriage, and I have only seen him six times since. He comes here surreptitiously,” she said in a low voice of despair.

“Why?”

“Because evil fortune has pursued him. He—he confessed to me a few weeks ago that he was not so rich as he had been. He will be rich some day, but now he is horribly poor. He being my husband, it is my duty to help him—is it not?”

Garrett’s heart rose against this cowardly foreigner, who had inveigled her into a secret marriage, whoever he might be, for, according to French law, he might at once repudiate her. Poor child! She was evidently devoted to him.

“Well,” he said, “that depends upon circumstances. In what manner is he seeking your assistance?”

She hesitated. At last she said:

“Well—I give him a little money sometimes. But I never have enough. All the trinkets I dare spare are gone.”

“You love him—eh?” asked the young man seriously.

“Yes,” was her frank reply. “I am looking forward to the day when he can acknowledge me as his wife. Being an engineer he has a brilliant idea, namely, to perform a great service to my father in furthering his business aims, so that it will be impossible for him to denounce our marriage. Towards this end I am helping him. Ah! Mr Hebberdine, you don’t know what a dear, good fellow Paul is.”

The young man sniffed suspiciously.

“He has invented a new submarine boat which will revolutionise the naval warfare of the future. Father, in secret, builds submarine boats, you know. But Paul is anxious to ascertain what difference there is between those now secretly building and his own invention, prior to placing it before dear old dad.”

“Well?”

She hesitated.

“I wanted to ask you, Mr Hebberdine, if you will do me a favour to-night,” she said presently. “Paul is staying at the ‘Star,’ down in the village, in the name of Mr James. I dare not go there, and he dare not approach me. There have been thieves about in this neighbourhood lately, and dad is having the castle watched at night by detectives.”

At this Garrett pricked up his ears. Glenblair was, in those circumstances, no place for his Highness and his clerical companion.

“I wonder,” she suggested, “whether you would do me a great favour and go down to the village to-night about ten and—and give him this.”

From within her fur bolero she produced an envelope containing what seemed to be a little jewellery box about two inches long by an inch and a half broad. This she handed to him saying, “Give it into the hand of nobody except Paul personally. Tell him that you are my friend—and his.”

So devoted was the girl-wife to her husband, and so unhappy did she seem that Garrett, filled with the romance of the affair, at once agreed to carry out his promise. Her remarkable story had amazed him. He alone knew her secret.

As they sat at dinner that night, her eyes met his once or twice, and the look they exchanged was full of meaning. He was the bearer of some secret message to her husband.

At half-past nine when the men had gone to the billiard-room, Garrett slipped upstairs to his room to put on a pair of thick boots, for he had a walk through the snow a good couple of miles to the village.

Scarcely had he closed the door when it opened again, and the Prince, his finger raised in silence, entered, and in a low excited whisper exclaimed:

“It’s all up! We must get away on the car as soon as possible. Every moment’s delay means increased peril. How have you got on with Elfrida?”

The chauffeur stared at him without uttering a word.

“Elfrida!” he echoed at last. “Well, she’s told me a most remarkable story, and made me her confidante.” Then, as briefly as possible, he told him everything. How her husband was staying in Glenblair village as Mr James; and how he had promised to convey the little packet to him.

When he had finished the Prince fell back in his chair utterly dumbfounded. Then, taking the little packet, he turned it over in his hand.

“Great Heavens!” he cried. “You don’t know what you’ve done, Garrett. There’s something very funny about all this!” he added quickly. “Wait here, and I’ll run along to Clayton,” and he left the young man instantly, carrying the packet in his hand.

An hour later Garrett was driving the Prince and the Rev. Thomas Clayton in the car due south, and they were travelling for all they were worth over the hard frozen snow. Of the reason of that sudden flight, Garrett was in complete ignorance. All he knew was that he had orders to creep out to the garage, get the car, and await his companions who, in a few moments, came up out of the shadows. Their big overcoats were in the car, therefore their evening clothes did not trouble them. Then, with as little noise as possible, they ran down a back drive which his Highness, having reconnoitred, knew joined the main Perth road. An idling constable saw them, and wished them good evening. They were guests from the Castle, therefore he allowed them to pass unmolested.

The constable would scarcely have done this, however, had he known what they were carrying away with them.

They took the road by Dunblane and Stirling, and then straight south into Glasgow, where at two o’clock in the morning, Garrett’s two companions alighted in a deserted snow-covered street in the suburbs of the city, and bidding him farewell, gave him orders to get back to London with all haste.

The run was a most dismal one. All through the snowstorm next day he kept on, making but poor progress.

Next night, Garrett spent alone in Carlisle, and on the following morning started direct for London, being compelled, owing to the abominable state of the roads, to take two days over the run.

A week of suspense went by, when one evening he received a note from his Highness, in consequence of which he went to Dover Street, where he found him smoking one of his “Petroffs,” as was his wont.

“Well, Garrett?” he laughed. “Sit down, and have a drink. I’ve got eight hundred pounds for you here—your share of the boodle?”

“But I don’t understand,” he exclaimed. “What boodle?”

“Of course you don’t understand!” he laughed. “Just carry your mind back. You told me the story of little Elfrida’s unfortunate secret marriage, and that her husband had a red ring tattooed around his left wrist. That conveyed nothing to you; but it told me much. That afternoon I was walking with the ladies up Glenblair village when, to my surprise, I saw standing at a door no less a person than Jacques Fourrier, or ‘Le Bravache,’ as he’s known in Paris, an ‘international,’ like ourselves.”

“Le Bravache!” gasped Garrett, for his reputation was that of the most daring and successful adventurer on the Continent, besides which he knew him as his Highness’s arch-enemy owing to a little love affair of a couple of years before.

“Yes. ‘Le Bravache’!” the Prince went on. “He recognised me, and I saw that our game was up. Then you told me Elfrida’s story, and from the red circle on the man’s arm I realised that Paul Berton, the engineer, and ‘Le Bravache’ were one and the same person! Besides, she had actually given you to take to her husband the very thing we had gone to Glenblair to obtain!”

“What was it?” he asked excitedly.

“Well, the facts are these,” answered the audacious, good-looking Prince, blowing a cloud of smoke from his lips. “Old Blair-Stewart has taken, in secret, a contract from the German Government to build a number of submarine boats for naval use. The plans of these wonderful vessels are kept in a strong safe in the old chap’s private office in Dumbarton, and both Fourrier and ourselves were after them—the French Intelligence Department having, in confidence, offered a big sum to any one bringing them to the Quay d’Orsay. Now you see the drift of the story of the exemplary Paul to his pretty little wife, and why he induced her to take impressions in wax of her father’s safe-key, she believing that he merely wanted sight of the plans in order to ascertain whether they were any better than his own alleged invention. Fortunately for us, she induced you to be her messenger. When we sent you up there with orders to be nice to Elfrida we never anticipated such a contretemps as Fourrier’s presence, or that the dainty little girl would actually take the impressions for us to use.”

“Then you have used it?”

“Of course. On the night after leaving you, having made the false key in Glasgow, we went over to Dumbarton and got the plans quite easily. We crossed by Harwich and Antwerp to Brussels on to Paris, and here we are again. The Intelligence Department of the Admiralty are very satisfied—and so are we. The pretty Elfrida will no doubt remain in ignorance, until her father discovers his loss, but I’m half inclined to write anonymously to her and tell the poor girl the truth regarding her mysterious husband. I think I really shall, for my letter would cast a good deal of suspicion upon the Man with the Red Circle.”

Chapter Five.

The Wicked Mr Wilkinson.

How my cosmopolitan friend, the Prince, was tricked by a woman, and how he was, entirely against his inclination, forced to run the gauntlet of the police at Bow Street at imminent risk of identification as Tremlett, form an interesting narrative which is perhaps best told in his own words, as he recounted it to me the other day in the noisy Continental city where he is at this moment in hiding.

An untoward incident, he said one afternoon as we sat together in the “sixty” on our way out into the country for a run, occurred to me while travelling from Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, to Bucharest, by way of Rustchuk. If you have ever been over that wonderfully-engineered line, which runs up the Isker defile and over the high Balkans to the Danube, you will recollect, Diprose, how grand is the scenery, and how full of interest is the journey across the battlefields of Plevna and the fertile, picturesque lands of Northern Bulgaria.

It is a corner of Europe practically unknown.

At Gornia, a small wayside station approaching the Danube, the train halts to take up water, and it was there that the mishap occurred to me. I had descended to stretch my legs, and had walked up and down the platform for ten minutes or so. Then, the signal being given to start again, I entered my compartment, only to discover that my suit-case, despatch-box, coat, and other impedimenta were missing!

The train was already moving out of the station, but, in an instant, my mind was made up, and, opening the door, I dropped out. My Bulgarian is not very fluent, as may be supposed, but I managed to make the dull station-master understand my loss.

He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, and exhibited his palms in perfect ignorance. This rendered me furious.

Within my official-looking despatch-box were a number of valuable little objects, which I wished to keep from prying eyes my passport and a quantity of papers of highest importance. No doubt some clever railway thief had made off with the whole!

For a full ten minutes I was beside myself in frantic anger; but judge my amazement when presently I found the whole of my things piled up outside the station in the village street! They had been placed there by a half-drunken porter, who believed that I intended to descend.

Fortunately no one understood German or English, for the language I used was rather hem-stitched. My annoyance was increased on learning that there was not another train to Rustchuk—where I had to cross the Danube—for twenty-four hours, and, further, that the nearest hotel was at Tirnovo, eighteen miles distant by a branch line.

I was therefore compelled to accept the inevitable, and in the dirty, evil-smelling inn at Tirnovo—about on a par with a Russian post-house—I met, on the following day, Madame Demidoff, the queer-looking old lady with the yellow teeth, who, strangely enough, came from London.

She had with her a rather attractive young girl of about twenty, Mademoiselle Elise, her niece, and she told me that they were travelling in the Balkans for pleasure, in order to ascertain what that unbroken ground was like.

The first hour I was in Tirnovo and its rat-eaten “hotel” I longed to be away from the place; but next morning, when I explored its quaint terrace-like streets, built high upon a sleep cliff where the river below takes a sweep almost at right angles, and where dense woods rise on the opposite bank, I found it to be a town full of interest, its old white mosques and other traces of Turkish occupation still remaining.

To the stranger, Tirnovo is but a name on the map of the Balkans, but for beauty of situation and quaint interest it is surely one of the strangest towns in Europe.

The discomforts of our hotel caused me to first address the ugly old lady in black, and after luncheon she and her niece Elise strolled out upon the high bridge with me, and through the Turkish town, where the little girls, in their baggy trousers, were playing in the streets, and where grave-faced men in fezzes squatted and smoked.

Madame and her niece were a decidedly quaint pair. The first-named knew her London well, for when she spoke English it was with a distinctly Cockney accent. She said “Yers” for “Yes,” and “’Emmersmith” for “Hammersmith.” Mademoiselle was, however, of a type, purely Parisienne—thin, dark-haired, narrow-featured, with bright, luminous, brown eyes, a mouth slightly large, and a sense of humour that attracted me.

Both of them had travelled very extensively, and their knowledge of the Continent was practically as wide as my own. Both were, of course, much impressed by my princely position. It is marvellous what a title does, and how snobbish is the world in every quarter of the globe.

So interesting did I find the pair that I spent another day in Tirnovo, where, in the summer sunset, we were idling after dinner on the balcony overhanging the steep cliff above the river. Our salle-à-manger was half filled by rough, chattering peasants in their white linen clothes embroidered in red, and round pork-pie hats of fur, while our fare that night had been of the very plainest—and not over fresh at that.

But it was a distinctly curious incident to find, in that remotest corner of the Balkans, a lady whose residence was in the West End of London, and who, though a foreigner by birth, had evidently been educated “within the sound of Bow Bells.”

“I love Bulgaria,” the old lady had said to me as we had walked together down by the river bank that afternoon. “I bring Elise here every summer. Last June we were at Kazanlik, among the rose-fields, where they make the otto of rose. It was delightful.”

I replied that I, also, knew Servia, Bulgaria, and Roumania fairly well.

“Then your Highness is travelling for pleasure?” she inquired.

I smiled vaguely, for I did not satisfy her. She struck me as being a particularly inquisitive old busybody.

When next morning Mademoiselle Elise informed me that her aunt was suffering from a headache, I invited her to go for a stroll with me out of the town, to which she at once acceded.

Her smart conversation and natural neat waisted chic attracted me. She used “Ideale,” the very expensive Parisian perfume that to the cosmopolitan is somehow the hall-mark of up-to-date smartness. Her gown was well-cut, her gloves fresh and clean, and her hat a small toque of the very latest mode.

Idling beside her in the bright sunshine, with the broad river hundreds of feet below, and the high blue Balkans on every side about us, I spent a most delightful morning.

“We move down to Varna to-morrow, and then home by way of Constantinople,” she replied in French in answer to my question. “Aunt Mélanie has invited your Highness to our house in Toddington Terrace, she tells me. I do hope you will come. But send us a line first. In a month we shall be back again to the dreariness of the Terrace.”

“Dreariness? Then you are not fond of London?”

“No.” And her face fell, as though the metropolis contained for her some sad memory she would fain forget. Her life with that yellow-toothed, wizen-faced old aunt could not be fraught with very much pleasure, I reflected. “I much prefer travelling. Fortunately we are often abroad, for on all my aunt’s journeys I act as her companion.”

“You are, however, French—eh?”

“Yes—from Paris. But I know the Balkans well. We lived in Belgrade for a year—before the Servian coup d’état. I am very fond of the Servians.”

“And I also,” I declared, for I had been many times in Servia, and had many friends there.

They were a curious pair, and about them both was an indescribable air of mystery which I could not determine, but which caused me to decide to visit them at their London home, the address of which I had already noted.

At five o’clock that evening I took farewell of both Madams and her dainty little niece, and by midnight was in the Roumanian capital. My business—which by the way concerned the obtaining of a little matter of 20,000 francs from an unsuspecting French wine merchant—occupied me about a week and afterwards I went north to Klausenburg, in Hungary, and afterwards to Budapest, Graz, and other places.

Contrary to my expectations, my affairs occupied me much longer than I expected, and four months later I found myself still abroad, at the fine Hôtel Stefanie, among the beautiful woods of evergreen laurel at Abbazia, on the Gulf of Quarnero. My friend, the Rev. Thomas Clayton from Bayswater, was staying there, and as, on the evening of my arrival, we were seated together at dinner I saw, to my great surprise, Madame Demidoff enter with the pretty Elise, accompanied by a tall, fair-haired gentlemanly young man, rather foppishly dressed.

“Hulloa?” I exclaimed to my friend, “there’s somebody I know! That old woman is Madame Demidoff.”

“No, my dear Prince,” was my friend’s reply. “You are, I think, mistaken. That is the old Countess Gemsenberg, and the girl is her daughter Elise. She’s engaged to that fellow—an awful ass—young Hausner, the son of the big banker in Vienna, who died last year, leaving him thirty million kroners.”

“Do you really know this?” I asked, looking the Parson straight in the face.

“Know it? Why, everybody in this Hotel knows of their engagement. I’ve been here five weeks, and they were here before I arrived. They’re staying the season, and have the best suite of rooms in the place. The old Countess is, no doubt, very wealthy, and lives in Munich.”

Neither of the women had noticed me, and I remained silent.

What my friend had told me was certainly extraordinary. Why, I wondered had Madame represented herself as a woman of the middle-class, resident in a dull West End terrace? Why had Elise not admitted to me the truth? She had seemed so charmingly frank.

With an intention to remain unseen and observant I purposely avoided the pair that evening.

Next morning I saw Elise and young Hausner strolling together on the Strandweg, that broad path which forms the principal promenade, and runs along the rocky coast from Volosca to Icici. She was smartly dressed in cream serge, girdled narrow but distinctive, and wore a large black hat which suited her admirably, while he was in an easy suit of dark blue, a panama, and white shoes. They were talking very earnestly as they walked slowly on in the bright autumn sunshine with the blue Adriatic before them. He seemed to be telling her something very seriously, and she was listening without uttering a word—or, at least, she scarcely spoke while they were within my sight.

On returning to the hotel I stumbled upon Madame Demidoff, who, seated in the hall, was chatting with a tall, bald-headed, middle-aged man in dark brown tweed, who had every appearance of an Englishman. She had just given him a letter to read, and he was laughing heartily over it. Fortunately, however, she sat with her back to the door and, therefore, did not observe me. So I was enabled to make my exit without detection.

Half an hour later I pointed out the Englishman to the Parson, asking who he was.

“I don’t know,” was his reply. “I’ve never seen him before; a fresh arrival, I suppose.”

That day I lunched and dined in my private sitting-room, in order to avoid the pair, and continue my observations. That night I caught sight of Elise, whose exquisite gown of pale pink chiffon was creating a sensation among the well-dressed women, for the news of her engagement to the young millionaire banker made her the most-talked-of and admired girl in the great crowded hotel.

At eleven that night, when I believed that the ladies had gone to bed, I ventured downstairs to the fumoir. As I went along the corridor, I noticed Madame’s English friend, with his overcoat over his evening clothes, leaving the hotel for a stroll, while almost at the same moment Madame herself emerged from one of the rooms, and, without doubt, recognised me, I saw her start quickly, hesitate for a second, and then turn away in pretence that she had not noticed me.

Her attitude was distinctly curious, and therefore I made no attempt to claim acquaintance.

The mystery of the situation was, however, considerably increased when, next morning, I was surprised to learn that the Countess Gemsenberg had received bad news from Munich, that her husband had been injured in a lift accident, and that she and her daughter had left Mattuglie—the station for Abbazia, three miles distant—by the 8:48 train, young Hausner leaving by the same train.

From the servants I discovered that Madame and her daughter had spent half the night packing, and had not announced their departure until six that morning. No telegram had been received by either of the trio, which seemed to me a curiously interesting point.

Was it possible that Madame had fled upon recognising me? If so, for what reason?

The mystery surrounding the pair attracted me, and during the further fortnight I remained at the Stefanie, I made inquiries concerning them. It appeared that a few days after their arrival the Countess herself had told two German ladies of her daughter’s engagement to young Hausner, and that the latter would arrive in a few days. This news at once spread over the big hotel, and when the young man arrived he at once became the most popular person in Abbazia.

The Countess’s enemies, however, declared that one night in the hotel-garden she and Hausner had a violent quarrel, but its nature was unknown, because they spoke in English. Mademoiselle was also present, and instead of supporting her lover, took her mother’s side and openly abused him.

And yet next morning the pair were walking arm-in-arm beside the sea, as though no difference of opinion had occurred.

As for the Englishman in brown, I ascertained that he did not live there, but at the Quarnero, down by the sea. Those who heard him talk declared that the Countess addressed him as Mr Wilkinson, and that he was undoubtedly English.

Many facts I ascertained were distinctly strange. The more so when, on making inquiry through a man whom the Parson knew living at the Quarnero, I found that this Mr Wilkinson had left Abbazia at the same hour as his three friends.

I could see no reason why my presence at the Stefanie should create such sudden terror within the mind of the old lady with the yellow teeth. The more I reflected upon the whole affair, the more mysterious were the phases it assumed.

I recollected that the old lady, whoever she might be, lived at Number 10 Toddington Terrace, Regent’s Park, and I resolved to call and see her in pretence that I had not recognised her in Abbazia, and was unaware of her presence there.

Autumn gave place to winter, and I was still wandering about the Continent on matters more or less lucrative. To Venice Naples and down to Constantinople I went, returning at last in the dark days of late January to the rain and mud of London; different, indeed, to the sunshine and brightness of the beautiful Bosphorus.

One afternoon, while seated here in Dover Street, lazily looking forth upon the traffic, I suddenly made up my mind to call upon the old lady, and with that purpose took a taxi-cab.

As we pulled up before Number 10, I at once recognised the truth, for the green Venetian blinds were all down.

In answer to my ring, a narrow-faced, consumptive-looking woman, evidently the caretaker, opened the door.

“No, sir. Madame Demidoff and Elise left home again for the Continent a fortnight ago, and they won’t be back till the beginning of April.” She spoke of Elise familiarly without the prefix “Miss.” That was curious.

“Do you know where they are?”

“I send their letters to the Excelsior Hotel, at Palermo.”

“Thank you. By the way,” I added, “do you happen to know who is the landlord of these houses?”

“Mr Epgrave, sir. He lives just there—that new-painted house at the corner;” and she pointed to the residence in question.

And with that information I re-entered the cab and drove back to the club.

So Madame was enjoying the war in Sicilian sunshine! Lucky old woman. I had only been back in London a week, and was already longing for warmth and brightness again.

That night, seated alone, trying to form some plan for the immediate future, I found myself suggesting a flying visit to Palermo. The Villa Igiea was a favourite hotel of mine, and I could there enjoy the winter warmth, and at the same time keep an eye upon the modest old lady of Toddington Terrace, who appeared to blossom forth into a wealthy countess whenever occasion required.

The idea grew upon me. Indeed, a fortnight later, constant traveller that I am, I ran from Paris to Naples in the “sixty,” with Garrett, and shipped the car over to Palermo, where I soon found myself idling in the big white and pale green lounge of the Igiea, wondering how best to get sight of Madame, who I had already ascertained, was at the Excelsior at the other end of the town, still passing as Countess Gemsenberg. The pretty Elise was with her, and my informant—an Italian—told me in confidence that the young Marquis Torquato Torrini, head of the well-known firm of Genoese shipowners who was staying in the hotel, was head over heels in love with her, and that engagement was imminent.

I heard this in silence. What, I wondered had become of the young Austrian millionaire, Hausner?

I, however, kept my own counsel, waited and watched. The Parson also turned up a couple of days later and started gossip and tea-drinking in the hotel. But, of course, we posed as strangers to each other.

The Igiea being the best hotel in Palermo and situated on the sea, the blue Mediterranean lapping the grey rocks at the end of the beautiful garden, it is the mode for people at other hotels to go there to tea, just as they go to the “Reserve,” at Beaulieu, or the Star and Garter at Richmond.

I therefore waited from day to day, expecting her to come there. Each day I pottered about in the car, but in vain.

One morning, however, while passing in front of the cathedral, I saw her walking alone, and quickly seized the opportunity and overtook her.

“Ah! Mademoiselle!” I exclaimed in French as I raised my cap in feigned surprise and descended from the car. “Fancy, you! In Palermo! And Madame, your aunt?”

“She is quite well, thank you, Prince,” she replied; and then, at my invitation, she got into the car and we ran round the town. I saw that she was very uneasy. The meeting was not altogether a pleasant surprise for her; that was very evident.

“This place is more civilised than Tirnovo,” I laughed. “Since then I expect that you, like myself, have been travelling a good deal.”

“Yes. We’ve been about quite a lot—to Vienna, Abbazia, Rome, and now to Palermo.”

“And not yet to London?”

“Oh! yes. We were at home exactly eleven days. The weather was, however, so atrocious that Madame—my aunt, I mean—decided to come here. We are at the Excelsior. You are, of course, at the Igiea?”

And so we ran along through the big, rather ugly, town, laughing and chatting affably. Dressed in a neat gown of dove-grey cloth, with hat to match and long white gloves, she looked extremely chic, full of that daintiness which was so essentially that of the true Parisienne.

I told her nothing of my visit to Toddington Terrace, but presently I said:

“I’ll come to the Excelsior, and call on your aunt—if I may?”

I noticed that she hesitated. She did not seem at all desirous to see me at their hotel. I, of course, knew the reason. The old lady was not Madame Demidoff in Palermo.

“We will call and see you at the Igiea,” she said. “We have never been there yet.”

“I shall be delighted,” I answered her. “Only send me a note, in order that I may be in.”

Beyond the town we ran along beside the calm blue sea, with the high purple hills rising from across the bay.

Bright and merry, she seemed quite her old self again—that sweet and charming self that I had first met in that rough, uncouth Bulgarian town. After an hour, we got out and seated ourselves on the rocks to rest.

She was certainly not averse to a mild flirtation. Indeed—had she not already been engaged to Hausner, broken it off, and was now half engaged to the Marquis Torrini? She was nothing if not fickle.

“Yes,” she sighed at last, “I suppose we shall have to go back to humdrum London, before long. It is so much more pleasant here than in Toddington Terrace,” she added in her pretty broken English.

“Ah! Mademoiselle,” I laughed. “One day you will marry and live in Paris, or Vienna, or Budapest.”

“Marry!” she echoed. “Ugh! No!” and she gave her little shoulders a shrug. “I much prefer, Prince, to remain my own mistress. I have been too much indulged—what you in English call spoil-et.”

“All girls say that!” I laughed. “Just as the very man who unceasingly declares his intention to remain a bachelor is the first to become enmeshed in the feminine web.”

“Ah! you are a pessimist, I see,” she remarked, looking straight into my eyes.

“No, not exactly. I suppose I shall marry some day.”

“And you are engaged—eh?”

“No,” I laughed, “it hasn’t got so far as that yet. A single kiss and a few letters—that’s the present stage.”

“And the lady is Engleesh?”

“Ah! The rest must, for the present, remain a mystery, mademoiselle,” I laughed, wondering what the Marquis would say if he discovered us idling away the morning like that.

And so we chatted and laughed on, the best of friends. I tried to obtain some facts regarding her visit to Abbazia, but she was not communicative. Knowing that she was well aware of my visit to the Stefanie, I mentioned it casually, adding:

“You must have already left before my arrival.”

For an instant she raised her eyes to mine with a keen look of inquiry, but, finding me in earnest, lowered her gaze again.

At length I saw from my watch that we must move again, if we intended to be back to luncheon, therefore we rose and re-entering the car drove by the sea-road, back to the town. She seemed delighted with her ride.

“I’ll bring my aunt to call on you very soon,” she said, as we parted. “I will send you a line to say the day.”

“Yes, do, mademoiselle, I shall be greatly charmed. Au revoir!” and I lifted my hat as she gave me her tiny, white-gloved hand and then turned away.

Next afternoon, while in the car near the theatre, I saw her driving with a dark-bearded, well-dressed young man, whom I afterwards discovered was the Marquis.

She saw me raise my hat, blushed in confusion, and gave me a slight bow of acknowledgment.

That evening I made a discovery considerably increasing the puzzle.

I met the mysterious Mr Wilkinson face to face in the hall of the Hôtel de France, whither I had gone to pay a call upon some English friends who had just arrived.

Wearing the same brown suit, he passed me by and left the hotel, for he was unacquainted with me, and therefore unaware of my presence. From the hall-porter I learnt that “Mr James Wilkinson, of London”—as he had registered in the hotel-book—had been there for the past three days.

For four days I awaited Madame’s visit, but no note came from Elise. The latter was, no doubt, too occupied with her Italian lover. I could not write to her, as she had not given me the name by which she was known at the Excelsior.

Compelled, therefore, to play a waiting game, I remained with my eyes ever open to catch sight of one or other of the mysterious quartette. But I was disappointed, for on this fifth day I made inquiry, and to my utter dismay discovered that the same tactics had been adopted in Palermo as in Abbazia.

The whole four had suddenly disappeared!

Greatly puzzled, the Parson returned to London. I nevertheless remained in Italy until May, when back again I found myself, one bright afternoon about five o’clock, descending from the car outside the house in Toddington Terrace, my intention being to pay a call upon Madame Demidoff.

My ring was answered by a neat maidservant in smart cap and apron.

Next instant we stared at each other in speechless amazement. It was Elise!

Utterly confused, her face first flushed scarlet, and then blanched.

“You—you want to see Madame,” she managed to stammer in her broken English. “She isn’t at home!”

Beyond her, in the hall, stood the tall figure of a man, whom I at once recognised as the mysterious Wilkinson.

“But, mademoiselle,” I said, smiling, yet wondering, the motive of that masquerade. “I called also to see you.”

She drew herself up in an instant, replying with some hauteur:

“I think, m’sieur, you have made some mistake. We have never met before—to my knowledge.”

Her reply staggered me.

“When will Madame Demidoff return?” I inquired, amazed at this reception.

“To-morrow—at this hour,” was her rather hesitating reply.

“Then I shall be glad if you will give her my card, and say I will call,” I said; “that is if you still deny having met me in Tirnovo and in Palermo?”

“I really do not know what you are talking about, m’sieur,” she answered, and then, without further parley, closed the door in my face. I stood still, staggered.

Surely my reception at Toddington Terrace was the reverse of cordial.

Next afternoon at the same hour I called at Number 10, but there was no response to my ring, and the blinds were all down again. The place was deserted, for the tenants had evidently fled.

That same night as I sat in my rooms, a short, thick-set man, who gave the name of Payne, was ushered in.

“I think,” he said, “your Highness happens to know something of an old lady named Demidoff and her friends who live in Toddington Terrace?”

“Yes,” I replied, much surprised.

“Well,” he explained, “I’m a police officer, and I watched you go twice to the house, so I thought you knew something about them. Are they your friends?”

“Well, no; not exactly my friends,” I replied, very suspicious of my visitor. “I had never been nearer a man from Scotland Yard in all my life! Imagine my position, my dear Diprose!”

“Ah! that’s a good job. They seem to have been playing a pretty smart game on the Continent of late.”

“How? What was their game?” I asked eagerly.

“One that brought them in thousands a year. From the Italian and Austrian police, who are both over here, it seems that they worked like this: Old Madame Demidoff had a young and pretty French servant named Elise. On the Continent Madame took the title of countess, and Elise posed as her daughter. The latter flirted with wealthy young bachelors, and so cleverly did she play her cards, that in several instances they proposed marriage to her. Then, after the old woman had secretly spread the report of the engagement, there would suddenly appear on the scene Elise’s English husband—a well-known ex-convict named Wilkinson. This latter person would at once bluster, make charges against the unsuspecting young lover, threaten exposure, and end by accepting a thousand or two to preserve secrecy, none of the young elegants, of course, caring that it should be known how completely they had been ‘had.’ There are over a dozen different charges against them, the most recent being a coup in Palermo a few months ago, by which they blackmailed the young Marquis Torrini to the tune of nine thousand pounds.”

“I was in Palermo at the time, but I never knew that was their game.”

“Were you?” he cried in triumph. “Then you’ll identify them, won’t you? I arrested Madame Demidoff and Wilkinson at Parkeston Quay last night, as they were getting away to the Hook. The girl tried to get to Paris, but was followed and apprehended on landing at Calais early this morning. The Italian Government are asking for the extradition of the interesting trio, and the papers are already on their way over.”

I regretted having blurted forth the fact that I had known them in Palermo, for in the interests of justice—though terribly afraid of being recognised myself—I was compelled to identify Madame and Wilkinson at Bow Street next day.

She swore a terrible vengeance upon me, but at present I have no fear of her reprisals, for the Assize Court at Palermo a month ago condemned her to ten years’ imprisonment, while Wilkinson—whose past record was brought up—has been sent to Gorgona for fifteen years, and the dainty Elise, his wife, is serving seven years at Syracuse.

“But,” the Prince added: “By Jove! it was a narrow squeak for me. Old Never-let-go Hartley, of Scotland Yard, was in the Extradition Court. And I know he was racking his brains to remember where he had met me before.”

Chapter Six.

The Vengeance of the Vipers.

Certain incidents in my friend’s career are a closed book to all but Clayton, the exemplary Bayswater parson, the devoted valet Charles, and his smart chauffeur Garrett.

Gay, well-dressed, debonair as he always is, a veritable master of the art of skilful deception and ingenious subterfuge, he has found it more than once to his advantage to act as spy. His knowledge of the east of Europe is perhaps unique. No man possessed a wider circle of friends than Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein, who to-day can pose perfectly as the young German Highness, and to-morrow as the wandering Englishman, and a bit of a fool to boot.

This wide acquaintance with men and matters in the Balkans first brought him in touch with the Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office, and his services as secret agent of the British Government were promptly secured. In this connection he was always known as Mr Reginald Martin. Downing Street is rather near New Scotland Yard, where the names of Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein and of Tremlett are a little too well-known. Therefore, to the chief of the Secret Service, and afterwards to the British Ministers and consuls resident in the Balkan countries, Servia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Roumania, he was for a time known as Reggie Martin.

Only on rare occasions, however, were his services requisitioned. The game of spying did not pay him nearly so well as the game of jewel-lifting. Yet he had taken to it out of mere love of adventure, and surely some of his experiences in the Orient were sufficiently perilous and exciting. More than once he had been in possession of State secrets which, if divulged, would have set two or more of the Powers flying at one another’s throats, and more than once he had carried his life in his hand.

One series of incidents through which he lived last year were, in themselves, as romantic as anything seen written in fiction. They were hard solid facts—an exciting chapter from the life of a man who was a perfect and polished adventurer, a little too impressionable perhaps, where the fair sex were concerned, but keen-witted, audacious, and utterly fearless. He seldom, if ever, speaks of the affair himself, for he is not anxious that people should know of his connection with the Secret Service.

As an old college chum, and as one whom he knows is not likely to “give him away” to the police, he one day, after great persuasion, related it in confidence to me as together we spent a wearisome day in the rapide between Paris and Marseilles.

“Well, my dear Diprose, it happened like this,” he said, as he selected one of his “Petroffs” and lit it with great care. “I was sent to the Balkans on a very difficult mission. At Downing Street they did not conceal that fact from me. But I promised to do my best. Garrett was with the ‘sixty’ in Vienna, so I wired sending it on to Sofia, in Bulgaria, and then left Charing Cross for the Balkans myself.

“I first went viâ Trieste down the Adriatic to Cattaro and up to quaint little Cettinje, the town of one long street, where I had audience of Prince Nicholas of Montenegro, whom I had met twice before—in my character of Reggie Martin, of course—and thence I went north to Servia, where I was received several times in private audience by King Peter. One day I arrived in Bulgaria to have confidential interviews with the Prime Minister Dimitri Petkoff, and the newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. My orders from Downing Street, I may as well at once admit, were to ascertain whether Bulgaria intended to declare war against Turkey over Macedonia. The British Government was extremely anxious to ascertain Bulgaria’s intentions, as well as the views of the other Balkan Powers, in order that the British policy towards the Porte might combat that of the expansion intrigues of Germany.

“Our public at home have a perfectly erroneous idea of Bulgaria, believing it to be a semi-savage land. If, however, they went to Sofia they would find a fine modern city entirely up to date—a city that must in a few years become the Paris of the Balkans.

“I had wandered along the wide tree-lined boulevards, idled outside the big white mosque, and strolled through the market alive with peasants in their sheepskins, and the girls with sequins and fresh flowers twined in their plaited hair, until it was time for me to keep my appointment with my friend the patriot Petkoff, Prime Minister.

“Half an hour later I was conducted through the long corridor of the fine Government offices opposite the Sobranje, or Parliament House, and ushered into the presence of the real ruler of Bulgaria.

”‘Ah! mon cher Martin,’ he cried in French. ‘Welcome back to Sofia! They were talking of you in the Club last night. De Corvin was saying you were delayed in Belgrade. He met you there—at our Legation, so he told us. And you have your motor-car here—eh? Good. I’ll go for a run with you,’ and his Excellency put out his left hand in greeting. His right sleeve hung limp and empty, for he lost his arm in the Turco-Russian Campaign, at the historic battle of the Shipka.

“Dark-eyed, dark-haired, with a pleasant face and a small pointed imperial on his chin, he was a wonderful orator and a magnificent statesman who had the full confidence of his sovereign. A dozen times had political plots, inspired by Russia, been formed to assassinate him. Indeed, he had actually been driving beside the great Stambouloff when the latter had been killed in the street. But he had always escaped. Under his direction, Bulgaria had risen to be the strong power of the Balkans, and as my personal friend I hoped that he would tell me, in strictest confidence, what was his future policy towards the Turk.

“With that object I took the seat he offered me, and lighting cigarettes, we began to chat.

“Through the open window came up the strains of martial music, as an infantry regiment in their grey uniforms on the Russian model were marching past, and as I glanced around the quiet, comfortable, red-carpeted room, I saw that the only picture was a fine full-length portrait of the Prince.

“For fully an hour we gossiped. Perfectly frankly I at last told his Excellency the object of my mission.

“He shrugged his shoulders somewhat dubiously, and smiled, declaring that each of the Powers was endeavouring to ascertain the very same thing. I pressed my point, assuring him of Britain’s good-will, and explaining certain facts which, after a while, decided him.

”‘But you see, mon cher ami,’ he said, ‘supposing the truth got out to Constantinople! All my efforts of the past fifteen years would be negatived. And further—it would mean dire disaster for Bulgaria!’

”‘I have been entrusted with many State secrets before, your Excellency,’ I replied. ‘It would, for instance, not be the first time you spoke with me in confidence.’

“He admitted it, and assuring me of his good-will towards England, he declared that before he could speak, he must consult his royal master.

“Therefore, the French Minister awaiting an audience, I rose and left, having arranged to dine with him at the Union Club that evening.

“For nearly a week I idled in Sofia visiting many diplomatists and their wives, motoring about the neighbourhood, and driving out every night at one Legation or the other, no one, of course, being aware of my secret mission in the Bulgarian capital. Garrett kept eyes and ears open, of course. Useful man Garrett—very useful indeed.

“One night with the Italian minister and his wife, I went to the official ball given by the Minister-President, and among others I had as partner a rather tall, fair-haired girl with clear blue eyes and a pretty childlike face. About twenty-two, she was dressed exquisitely in white chiffon, the corsage of which was trimmed with tiny pink roses, and on her white-gloved wrist gleamed a splendid diamond bracelet. Olga Steinkoff was her name, and as we waltzed together amid the smartly dressed women and uniformed and decorated men I thought her one of the most charming of cosmopolitan girls I had ever encountered south of the Danube.

“Her chaperone was an old and rather ugly woman in dark purple silk, a stiff and starchy person who talked nearly the whole evening to one of the attachés of the Turkish Legation, a sallow, middle-aged, bearded man in black frock-coat and red fez.

“The girl in white chiffon was perfect in figure, in daintiness and chic, and a splendid dancer. We sat out two dances, and waltzed twice together, I afterwards taking her down to supper. She spoke French excellently, a little English, and a little Bulgarian, while Russian was her own language. Her father lived in Moscow, she told me, and she had spent four years in Constantinople with her aunt—the ugly old woman in purple.

“The sallow-faced, beady-eyed Turk who did not dance, and who took no champagne, was evidently her particular friend. I inquired of the Italian minister and found that the thin-faced bearded attaché was named Mehmed Zekki, and that he had been in Sofia only a couple of months.

“Towards me he was quite affable, even effusive. He mentioned that he had noticed me in the Club, dining with the Prime Minister, and he referred to a number of people in Belgrade who were my friends. He was attaché there, he told me, for two years—after the coup d’état.

“Twice during next day I encountered the charming Olga, driving with her aunt, in a smart victoria, and during the next week met them at several diplomatic functions.

“One afternoon, Olga and her chaperone accepted my invitation for a run on the ‘sixty,’ and I took them for a little tour of about thirty miles around the foot of the high Balkans, returning along the winding banks of the Isker. They were delighted, for the afternoon was perfect. I drove, and she sat up beside me, her hand on the horn.

“One night, ten days later, we were sitting out together in the bright moonlight in the garden of the Austrian Legation, and I found her not averse to a mild flirtation. I knew that the frock-coated Turk was jealous, and had become amused by it. On four or five occasions she had been out for runs with me—twice quite alone.

“I mentioned the Turk, but she only laughed, and shrugging her shoulders, answered:

”‘All Turks are as ridiculous as they are bigoted. Mehmed is no exception.’

“I was leaving Bulgaria next morning, and told her so.

”‘Perhaps, mademoiselle, we shall meet again some day, who knows?’ I added, ‘You have many friends in the diplomatic circle, so have I.’

”‘But you are not really going to-morrow!’ she exclaimed with undisguised dismay, opening her blue eyes widely, ‘surely you will stay for the ball at the palace on Wednesday.’

”‘I regret that is impossible,’ I replied, laughing. ‘I only wish I could remain and ask you to be my partner, but I have urgent business in Bucharest.’

”‘Oh! you go to Roumania!’ she cried in surprise. ‘But,’—she added wistfully, ‘I—I really wish you could remain longer.’

“During our brief friendship I had, I admit, grown to admire her immensely, and were it not for the fact that a very urgent appointment called me to Roumania, I would have gladly remained. She had taken possession of my senses.

“But I took her soft hand, and wished her adieu. Then we returned into the ballroom, where I found several of my friends, and wished them farewell, for my train left at nine next morning.

“In a corner of the room stood the veteran Prime Minister, with a star in brilliants upon his dress-coat, the empty sleeve of which hung limply at his side.

”‘Au revoir, mon cher ami,’ he said grasping my hand warmly. ‘Recollect what I told you this morning—and return soon to Bulgaria again. Bon voyage!’

“Then I passed the police-guard at the door, and drove back to the Hôtel de Bulgarie.

“That night I slept but little. Before me constantly arose the childlike beautiful face of Olga Steinkoff that had so strangely bewitched me.

“I knew that I was a fool to allow myself to be attracted by a pair of big eyes, confirmed bachelor and constant traveller that I am. Yet the whole night through I seemed to see before my vision the beautiful face, pale and tearful with grief and sorry. Was it at my departure?

“Next day I set out in the car across the Shipka, and three nights later took up my quarters at that most expensive hotel, the ‘Boulevard,’ at Bucharest, the Paris of the Near East. Next day I paid several visits to diplomats I knew. Bucharest is always full of life and movement—smart uniforms and pretty women—perhaps the gayest city in all the Continent of Europe.

“On the third evening of my arrival I returned to the hotel to dress for dinner, when, on entering my sitting-room, a neat female figure in a dark travelling-dress rose from an armchair, and stood before me gazing at me in silence.

“It was Olga!

”‘Why, mademoiselle!’ I cried, noticing that she was without her hat, ‘fancy you—in Bucharest! When did you arrive?’

”‘An hour ago,’ she answered, breathlessly. ‘I—I want your assistance, M’sieur Martin. I am in danger—grave danger!’

”‘Danger! Of what?’

”‘I hardly know—except that the police may follow me and demand my arrest. This place—like Sofia—swarms with spies.’

”‘I know,’ I said, much interested, but surprised that she should have thus followed me. ‘But why do you fear?’

”‘I surely need not explain to you facts—facts that are painful!’ she said, looking straight at me half-reproachfully with those wonderful blue eyes that held me so fascinated. ‘I merely tell you that I am in danger, and ask you to render me assistance.’

”‘How? In what manner can I assist you?’

”‘In one way alone,’ was her quick, breathless answer. ‘Ah! if you would only do it—if you would only save my life!’ And with her white ungloved hands clenched in desperation, she stood motionless as a statue.

”‘Save your life!’ I echoed. ‘I—I really don’t understand you, mademoiselle.’

”‘Before they arrest me I will commit suicide. I have the means here!’ and she touched the bodice of her dress. ‘Ah, m’sieur, you do not know in what a position I find myself. I prefer death to save my honour, and I appeal to you, an English gentleman to help me!’

“Tears were rolling down her pale cheeks as she snatched up my hand convulsively, imploring me to assist her. I looked into her countenance and saw that it was the same that I had seen in those dark night hours in Sofia.

”‘But, mademoiselle, how can I help you?’ I inquired. ‘What can I do?’

”‘Ah! I—I hardly like to ask you,’ she said, her cheeks flushing slightly. ‘You know so very little of me.’

”‘I know sufficient to be permitted to call myself your friend,’ I said earnestly, still holding her tiny hand.

”‘Then I will be frank,’ she exclaimed, raising her clear eyes again to mine. ‘The only way in which you can save me is to take me at once to England—to—to let me pass as your wife!’

”‘As my wife!’ I gasped, staring at her. ‘But—’

”‘There are no buts!’ she cried, clinging to me imploringly. ‘To me it is a matter of life—or death! The Orient Express passes here at three to-morrow morning for Constantza, whence we can get to Constantinople. Thence we can go by steamer on to Naples, and across to Calais by rail. For me it is unsafe to go direct by Budapest and Vienna. Already the police are watching at the frontier.’

“For a moment I was silent. In the course of years of travel I had met with many adventures, but none anything like this! Here was a charming girl in dire distress—a girl who had already enchanted me by her beauty and grace—appealing to my honour to help her out of a difficulty. Nay to save her life!

“She was Russian—no doubt a political suspect.

”‘Where is Madame?’ I inquired.

”‘Gone to Belgrade. We parted this morning, and I came here to you.’

”‘And your friend, Mehmed?’

”‘Bah! the yellow-faced fool!’ she cried impatiently with a quick snap of her white fingers. ‘He expects to meet me at the Court ball to-night!’

”‘And he will be disappointed!’ I added with a smile, at the same time reflecting that upon my passport already viséd for Constantinople—covered as it was, indeed, with visés for all the East—I could easily insert after my own name the words, ‘accompanied by his wife Louisa.’

“Besides, though I had several times been in the Sultan’s capital, I knew very few people there. So detection would not be probable.

“Olga saw my hesitation, and repeated her entreaty. She was, I saw, desperate. Yet though I pressed her to tell me the truth, she only answered:

”‘The police of Warsaw are in search of me because of the events of May last. Some day, when we know each other better, I will tell you my strange story. I escaped from the “Museum of Riga”’!”

“Pale to the lips, her chest rising and falling quickly, her blue eyes full of the terror of arrest and deportment to Poland she stood before me, placing her life in my hands.

“She had escaped from the ‘Museum of Riga,’ that prison the awful tortures of which had only recently been exposed in the Duma itself. She, frail looking, and beautiful had been a prisoner there.

“It wanted, I reflected, still eight days to the opening of the shooting which I was due to spend with friends in Scotland. Even if I returned by the roundabout route she suggested I should be able to get up north in time.

“And yet my duty was to remain there, for at noon on the morrow, by the Orient Express from Constantza to Ostend, a friend would pass whom I particularly wanted to meet on business for a single moment at the station. If I left with my pretty companion I should pass my friend on the Black Sea a few hours out of port. It meant either keeping the appointment I had made with my friend, or securing the girl’s safety. To perform my duty meant to consign her into the hands of the police.

“Acquaintance with political refugees of any sort in the Balkan countries is always extremely risky, for spies abound everywhere, and everybody is a suspect.

“I fear I am not very impressionable where the fair sex are concerned, but the romance and mystery of the situation whetted my appetite for the truth. Her sweet tragic face appealed to me. I had fallen in love with her.

“She interpreted my hesitation as an intention to refuse.

”‘Ah! M’sieur Martin. Do, I beg, have pity upon me! Once in your England I shall no longer fear those tortures of Riga. See!’ and drawing up her sleeve she showed me two great ugly red scars upon the white flesh scarcely yet healed. ‘Once in your England!’ she cried clasping her hands and falling at my feet, ‘I shall be free—free!’

”‘But how do you know that the police have followed you?’

”‘Mariniski, our military attaché in Sofia, is my cousin. He warned me that two agents of Secret Police arrived there yesterday morning. When I got here I received a wire from him to say they are now on their way here to Bucharest. Therefore not a moment must be lost. We can leave at three, and at ten to-morrow morning will have sailed from Constantza. They are due here at eleven-thirty.’

”‘To-night?’

”‘No, to-morrow.’

“She held my hands in hers, still upon her knees, her gaze fixed imploringly into mine. What could I do, save to render her assistance? Ah! yes, she was delightfully charming, her face perfect in its beauty, her hands soft and caressing, her voice musical and silvery.

“I gave her my reply, and in an instant she sprang to her feet, kissing my hands again and again.

“I sent the car back to Vienna, and early that morning we entered the train of dusty wagons-lits which had been three days on its journey from Ostend to the Orient, and next morning in the bright sunshine, found ourselves on the clean deck of the mail steamer for Constantinople.

“There were not more than twenty passengers, and together with my dainty little companion, I spent a happy day in the bright sunshine, as we steamed down the Black Sea, a twelve-hour run. Dinner was at half-past five, and afterwards, in the evening twilight, as we passed the Turkish forts at the beautiful entrance to the Bosphorus, we sat together in a cosy corner on deck, and I held her small, soft hand.

“She had, I admit, completely enchanted me.

“She seemed to have suddenly become greatly interested in me, for she inquired my profession, and the reason I visited the East, to which I gave evasive, if not rather misleading replies, for I led her to believe that I was the representative of a firm of London railway contractors, and was in Sofia taking orders for steel rails.

“It is not always judicious to tell people one’s real profession.

“When we reached the quay at Constantinople, and I had handed over my baggage to the dragoman of the Pera Palace Hotel, my pretty companion said in French:

”‘I lived here for quite a long time, you know, so I shall go and stay with friends out at Sarmaschik. I will call at your hotel at, say, eleven to-morrow morning. By that time you will have ascertained what is the next steamer to Naples.’

“And so, in the dirty ill-lit custom-house at Galata, with its mud, its be-fezzed officials and slinking dogs, we parted, she entering a cab and driving away.

“Next morning she kept her appointment and was, I saw, exceedingly well-dressed.

“I told her when we met in the big vestibule of the hotel, that there was a steamer leaving for Marseilles at four that afternoon, and suggested that route as preferable to Naples.

”‘I think we will delay our departure until to-morrow,’ she said. ‘My friends have a little family gathering to-night, and ask me to say that they would be delighted to meet you. They are not at all bigoted, and you will find them very hospitable.’

“I bowed and accepted the invitation.

”‘You will not find the house alone, as Constantinople is so puzzling,’ she said. ‘I will send their kavass for you at eight o’clock.’

“And a few moments later she drove away in the smart carriage that had brought her.

“That day I idled about the Sultan’s capital, looked in at St. Sophia, paused and watched the phantasmagoria of life on the Galata Bridge, and strolled in the Grand Rue at Pera, merely killing time. Case-hardened bachelor that I am, my mind was now filled with that sweet-faced, beautiful woman of my dreams who had been so cruelly tortured in that abominable prison at Riga, and whom I was aiding to the safe refuge of England’s shores.

“Once, while turning a corner at the end of the Grand Rue, the busy shopping centre of the Turkish capital, a mysterious incident occurred. Among the many figures in frock-coats and fezes my eye caught one which caused me to start. It struck me curiously as that of my sallow-faced friend, Mehmed Zekki, of Sofia. Yet in a crowd of Turks all dressed alike, one is rather difficult to distinguish from another, so I quickly dismissed the suspicion that we had been followed.

“I had already dined at the hotel and was sitting in the Turkish smoking-room, when there arrived a big Montenegrin kavass, in gorgeous scarlet and gold, and wearing an arsenal of weapons in his belt, as is their mode.

”‘Monsieur Martin?’ he inquired. ‘Mademoiselle Olga. She send me for you. I take you to ze house.’

“So I rose, slipped on my overcoat, and followed him out to the brougham, upon the box of which, beside the driver, sat a big black eunuch. The carriage had evidently been to fetch some ladies before calling for me.

“The kavass seated himself at my side, and we drove up and down many dark, ill-lit streets, where the scavenger dogs were howling, until we suddenly came out in view of the Bosphorus, that lay fairy-like beneath the full Eastern moon.

“Nicholas, the kavass, was from Cettinje, he told me, and when we began to talk, I discovered that his brother Mirko had been my servant on a journey through Albania two years before.

”‘What! Gospodin!’ cried the big mountaineer, grasping my hand and wringing it warmly. ‘Are you really the Gospodin Martin? I was in Cettinje last summer, and my dear old father spoke of you! I have to thank you. It was you who brought the English doctor to him and saved his life. Fancy that we should meet here, and to-night!’

”‘Why to-night?’

“The big fellow was silent. His manner had entirely changed.

“Suddenly he said: ‘Gospodin, you are going to the house of Mehmed Zekki and—’

”‘Zekki!’ I gasped. ‘Then I was not mistaken when I thought I saw him. He had followed us.’

”‘Ah! Gospodin! Have a care of yourself! Take this, in case—in case you may require it,’ he said, and pulling from his sash one of his loaded revolvers, he handed it to me.

”‘But you said that mademoiselle had sent you for me?’ I remarked surprised.

”‘I was told to say that, Gospodin. I know nothing of mademoiselle.’

”‘Mademoiselle Olga Steinkoff. Have you never heard of her?’ I demanded.

”‘Never.’

”‘Then I will go back to the hotel.’

”‘No, Gospodin. Do not show fear. It would be fatal. Enter and defy the man who is evidently your enemy. Touch neither food nor drink there. Then, if you are threatened, utter the words, Shunam-al-zulah—recollect them. Show no fear, Gospodin—and you will escape.’

“At that moment the carriage turned into a large garden, which surrounded a fine house—almost a palace—the house wherein my enemy was lying in wait.

“Entering a beautiful winter-garden full of flowers, a servant in long blue coat and fez, conducted me through a large apartment, decorated in white and gold, into a smaller room, Oriental in decoration and design, an apartment hung with beautiful gold embroideries, and where the soft cushions of the divans were of pale-blue silk and gold brocade.

“Two middle-aged Turks were squatting smoking, and as I was shown in, scowled at me curiously, saluted, and in French asked me to be seated.

”‘Mademoiselle will be here in a few moments,’ added the elder of the pair.

“A few seconds later the servant entered with a tiny cup of coffee, the Turkish welcome, but I left it untouched. Then the door again opened and I was confronted by the sallow-faced, black-bearded man against whom the kavass had warned me.

”‘Good evening, Monsieur Martin,’ he exclaimed with a sinister grin upon his thin face. ‘You expected, I believe, to meet Mademoiselle Olga, eh?’

”‘Well—I expected to meet you,’ I laughed, ‘for I saw you in Pera to-day.’

“He looked at me quickly, as his servant at that moment handed him his coffee on a tray.

”‘I did not see you,’ he said somewhat uneasily, raising his cup to his lips. Then, noticing that I had not touched mine, he asked, ‘Don’t you take coffee? Will you have a glass of rahki?’

”‘I desire nothing,’ I said, looking him straight in the face.

”‘But surely you will take something? We often drank together in the Club at Sofia, remember!’

”‘I do not drink with my enemies.’

“The trio started, glaring at me.

”‘You are distinctly insulting,’ exclaimed Mehmed, his yellow face growing flushed with anger. ‘Recall those words, or by the Prophet, you do not pass from this house alive!’