01 I Cannot Tell You How Much I Have to Thank You For

IN THE FOG

By Richard Harding Davis


02 the Four Strangers at Supper Were Seated Together


IN THE FOG


CHAPTER I

The Grill is the club most difficult of access in the world. To be placed
on its rolls distinguishes the new member as greatly as though he had
received a vacant Garter or had been caricatured in “Vanity Fair.”

Men who belong to the Grill Club never mention that fact. If you were to
ask one of them which clubs he frequents, he will name all save that
particular one. He is afraid if he told you he belonged to the Grill, that
it would sound like boasting.

The Grill Club dates back to the days when Shakespeare’s Theatre stood on
the present site of the “Times” office. It has a golden Grill which
Charles the Second presented to the Club, and the original manuscript of
“Tom and Jerry in London,” which was bequeathed to it by Pierce Egan
himself. The members, when they write letters at the Club, still use sand
to blot the ink.

The Grill enjoys the distinction of having blackballed, without political
prejudice, a Prime Minister of each party. At the same sitting at which
one of these fell, it elected, on account of his brogue and his bulls,
Quiller, Q. C., who was then a penniless barrister.

When Paul Preval, the French artist who came to London by royal command to
paint a portrait of the Prince of Wales, was made an honorary member—only
foreigners may be honorary members—he said, as he signed his first
wine card, “I would rather see my name on that, than on a picture in the
Louvre.”

At which Quiller remarked, “That is a devil of a compliment, because the
only men who can read their names in the Louvre to-day have been dead
fifty years.”

On the night after the great fog of 1897 there were five members in the
Club, four of them busy with supper and one reading in front of the
fireplace. There is only one room to the Club, and one long table. At the
far end of the room the fire of the grill glows red, and, when the fat
falls, blazes into flame, and at the other there is a broad bow window of
diamond panes, which looks down upon the street. The four men at the table
were strangers to each other, but as they picked at the grilled bones, and
sipped their Scotch and soda, they conversed with such charming animation
that a visitor to the Club, which does not tolerate visitors, would have
counted them as friends of long acquaintance, certainly not as Englishmen
who had met for the first time, and without the form of an introduction.
But it is the etiquette and tradition of the Grill, that whoever enters it
must speak with whomever he finds there. It is to enforce this rule that
there is but one long table, and whether there are twenty men at it or
two, the waiters, supporting the rule, will place them side by side.

For this reason the four strangers at supper were seated together, with
the candles grouped about them, and the long length of the table cutting a
white path through the outer gloom.

“I repeat,” said the gentleman with the black pearl stud, “that the days
for romantic adventure and deeds of foolish daring have passed, and that
the fault lies with ourselves. Voyages to the pole I do not catalogue as
adventures. That African explorer, young Chetney, who turned up yesterday
after he was supposed to have died in Uganda, did nothing adventurous. He
made maps and explored the sources of rivers. He was in constant danger,
but the presence of danger does not constitute adventure. Were that so,
the chemist who studies high explosives, or who investigates deadly
poisons, passes through adventures daily. No, ‘adventures are for the
adventurous.’ But one no longer ventures. The spirit of it has died of
inertia. We are grown too practical, too just, above all, too sensible. In
this room, for instance, members of this Club have, at the sword’s point,
disputed the proper scanning of one of Pope’s couplets. Over so weighty a
matter as spilled Burgundy on a gentleman’s cuff, ten men fought across
this table, each with his rapier in one hand and a candle in the other.
All ten were wounded. The question of the spilled Burgundy concerned but
two of them. The eight others engaged because they were men of ‘spirit.’
They were, indeed, the first gentlemen of the day. To-night, were you to
spill Burgundy on my cuff, were you even to insult me grossly, these
gentlemen would not consider it incumbent upon them to kill each other.
They would separate us, and to-morrow morning appear as witnesses against
us at Bow Street. We have here to-night, in the persons of Sir Andrew and
myself, an illustration of how the ways have changed.”

The men around the table turned and glanced toward the gentleman in front
of the fireplace. He was an elderly and somewhat portly person, with a
kindly, wrinkled countenance, which wore continually a smile of almost
childish confidence and good-nature. It was a face which the illustrated
prints had made intimately familiar. He held a book from him at
arm’s-length, as if to adjust his eyesight, and his brows were knit with
interest.


03 the Men Around The Table Turned

“Now, were this the eighteenth century,” continued the gentleman with the
black pearl, “when Sir Andrew left the Club to-night I would have him
bound and gagged and thrown into a sedan chair. The watch would not
interfere, the passers-by would take to their heels, my hired bullies and
ruffians would convey him to some lonely spot where we would guard him
until morning. Nothing would come of it, except added reputation to myself
as a gentleman of adventurous spirit, and possibly an essay in the
‘Tatler,’ with stars for names, entitled, let us say, ‘The Budget and the
Baronet.’”

“But to what end, sir?” inquired the youngest of the members. “And why Sir
Andrew, of all persons—why should you select him for this
adventure?”

The gentleman with the black pearl shrugged his shoulders.

“It would prevent him speaking in the House to-night. The Navy Increase
Bill,” he added gloomily. “It is a Government measure, and Sir Andrew
speaks for it. And so great is his influence and so large his following
that if he does”—the gentleman laughed ruefully—“if he does,
it will go through. Now, had I the spirit of our ancestors,” he exclaimed,
“I would bring chloroform from the nearest chemist’s and drug him in that
chair. I would tumble his unconscious form into a hansom cab, and hold him
prisoner until daylight. If I did, I would save the British taxpayer the
cost of five more battleships, many millions of pounds.”


04 I Would Tumble his Unconscious Form Into a Hansom Cab

The gentlemen again turned, and surveyed the baronet with freshened
interest. The honorary member of the Grill, whose accent already had
betrayed him as an American, laughed softly.

“To look at him now,” he said, “one would not guess he was deeply
concerned with the affairs of state.”

The others nodded silently.

“He has not lifted his eyes from that book since we first entered,” added
the youngest member. “He surely cannot mean to speak to-night.”

“Oh, yes, he will speak,” muttered the one with the black pearl moodily.
“During these last hours of the session the House sits late, but when the
Navy bill comes up on its third reading he will be in his place—and
he will pass it.”

The fourth member, a stout and florid gentleman of a somewhat sporting
appearance, in a short smoking-jacket and black tie, sighed enviously.

“Fancy one of us being as cool as that, if he knew he had to stand up
within an hour and rattle off a speech in Parliament. I ‘d be in a devil
of a funk myself. And yet he is as keen over that book he’s reading as
though he had nothing before him until bedtime.”

“Yes, see how eager he is,” whispered the youngest member. “He does not
lift his eyes even now when he cuts the pages. It is probably an Admiralty
Report, or some other weighty work of statistics which bears upon his
speech.”

The gentleman with the black pearl laughed morosely.

“The weighty work in which the eminent statesman is so deeply engrossed,”
he said, “is called ‘The Great Rand Robbery.’ It is a detective novel, for
sale at all bookstalls.”

The American raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

“‘The Great Rand Robbery’?” he repeated incredulously. “What an odd
taste!”

“It is not a taste, it is his vice,” returned the gentleman with the pearl
stud. “It is his one dissipation. He is noted for it. You, as a stranger,
could hardly be expected to know of this idiosyncrasy. Mr. Gladstone
sought relaxation in the Greek poets, Sir Andrew finds his in Gaboriau.
Since I have been a member of Parliament I have never seen him in the
library without a shilling shocker in his hands. He brings them even into
the sacred precincts of the House, and from the Government benches reads
them concealed inside his hat. Once started on a tale of murder, robbery,
and sudden death, nothing can tear him from it, not even the call of the
division bell, nor of hunger, nor the prayers of the party Whip. He gave
up his country house because when he journeyed to it in the train he would
become so absorbed in his detective stories that he was invariably carried
past his station.” The member of Parliament twisted his pearl stud
nervously, and bit at the edge of his mustache. “If it only were the first
pages of ‘The Rand Robbery’ that he were reading,” he murmured bitterly,
“instead of the last! With such another book as that, I swear I could hold
him here until morning. There would be no need of chloroform to keep him
from the House.”

The eyes of all were fastened upon Sir Andrew, and each saw with
fascination that with his forefinger he was now separating the last two
pages of the book. The member of Parliament struck the table softly with
his open palm.

“I would give a hundred pounds,” he whispered, “if I could place in his
hands at this moment a new story of Sherlock Holmes—a thousand
pounds,” he added wildly—“five thousand pounds!”

The American observed the speaker sharply, as though the words bore to him
some special application, and then at an idea which apparently had but
just come to him, smiled in great embarrassment.

Sir Andrew ceased reading, but, as though still under the influence of the
book, sat looking blankly into the open fire. For a brief space no one
moved until the baronet withdrew his eyes and, with a sudden start of
recollection, felt anxiously for his watch. He scanned its face eagerly,
and scrambled to his feet.

The voice of the American instantly broke the silence in a high, nervous
accent.

“And yet Sherlock Holmes himself,” he cried, “could not decipher the
mystery which to-night baffles the police of London.”

At these unexpected words, which carried in them something of the tone of
a challenge, the gentlemen about the table started as suddenly as though
the American had fired a pistol in the air, and Sir Andrew halted abruptly
and stood observing him with grave surprise.

The gentleman with the black pearl was the first to recover.

“Yes, yes,” he said eagerly, throwing himself across the table. “A mystery
that baffles the police of London.


05 ‘my Name,’ he Said, ‘is Sears.’

“I have heard nothing of it. Tell us at once, pray do—tell us at
once.”

The American flushed uncomfortably, and picked uneasily at the tablecloth.

“No one but the police has heard of it,” he murmured, “and they only
through me. It is a remarkable crime, to, which, unfortunately, I am the
only person who can bear witness. Because I am the only witness, I am, in
spite of my immunity as a diplomat, detained in London by the authorities
of Scotland Yard. My name,” he said, inclining his head politely, “is
Sears, Lieutenant Ripley Sears of the United States Navy, at present Naval
Attache to the Court of Russia. Had I not been detained to-day by the
police I would have started this morning for Petersburg.”

The gentleman with the black pearl interrupted with so pronounced an
exclamation of excitement and delight that the American stammered and
ceased speaking.

“Do you hear, Sir Andrew!” cried the member of Parliament jubilantly. “An
American diplomat halted by our police because he is the only witness of a
most remarkable crime—the most remarkable crime, I believe
you said, sir,” he added, bending eagerly toward the naval officer, “which
has occurred in London in many years.”

The American moved his head in assent and glanced at the two other
members. They were looking doubtfully at him, and the face of each showed
that he was greatly perplexed.

Sir Andrew advanced to within the light of the candles and drew a chair
toward him.

“The crime must be exceptional indeed,” he said, “to justify the police in
interfering with a representative of a friendly power. If I were not
forced to leave at once, I should take the liberty of asking you to tell
us the details.”

The gentleman with the pearl pushed the chair toward Sir Andrew, and
motioned him to be seated.

“You cannot leave us now,” he exclaimed. “Mr. Sears is just about to tell
us of this remarkable crime.”

He nodded vigorously at the naval officer and the American, after first
glancing doubtfully toward the servants at the far end of the room, leaned
forward across the table. The others drew their chairs nearer and bent
toward him. The baronet glanced irresolutely at his watch, and with an
exclamation of annoyance snapped down the lid. “They can wait,” he
muttered. He seated himself quickly and nodded at Lieutenant Sears.

“If you will be so kind as to begin, sir,” he said impatiently.

“Of course,” said the American, “you understand that I understand that I
am speaking to gentlemen. The confidences of this Club are inviolate.
Until the police give the facts to the public press, I must consider you
my confederates. You have heard nothing, you know no one connected with
this mystery. Even I must remain anonymous.”

The gentlemen seated around him nodded gravely.

“Of course,” the baronet assented with eagerness, “of course.”

“We will refer to it,” said the gentleman with the black pearl, “as ‘The
Story of the Naval Attache.’”

“I arrived in London two days ago,” said the American, “and I engaged a
room at the Bath Hotel. I know very few people in London, and even the
members of our embassy were strangers to me. But in Hong Kong I had become
great pals with an officer in your navy, who has since retired, and who is
now living in a small house in Rutland Gardens opposite the Knightsbridge
barracks. I telegraphed him that I was in London, and yesterday morning I
received a most hearty invitation to dine with him the same evening at his
house. He is a bachelor, so we dined alone and talked over all our old
days on the Asiatic Station, and of the changes which had come to us since
we had last met there. As I was leaving the next morning for my post at
Petersburg, and had many letters to write, I told him, about ten o’clock,
that I must get back to the hotel, and he sent out his servant to call a
hansom.

“For the next quarter of an hour, as we sat talking, we could hear the cab
whistle sounding violently from the doorstep, but apparently with no
result.

“‘It cannot be that the cabmen are on strike,’ my friend said, as he rose
and walked to the window.

“He pulled back the curtains and at once called to me.

“‘You have never seen a London fog, have you?’ he asked. ‘Well, come here.
This is one of the best, or, rather, one of the worst, of them.’ I joined
him at the window, but I could see nothing. Had I not known that the house
looked out upon the street I would have believed that I was facing a dead
wall. I raised the sash and stretched out my head, but still I could see
nothing. Even the light of the street lamps opposite, and in the upper
windows of the barracks, had been smothered in the yellow mist. The lights
of the room in which I stood penetrated the fog only to the distance of a
few inches from my eyes.

“Below me the servant was still sounding his whistle, but I could afford
to wait no longer, and told my friend that I would try and find the way to
my hotel on foot. He objected, but the letters I had to write were for the
Navy Department, and, besides, I had always heard that to be out in a
London fog was the most wonderful experience, and I was curious to
investigate one for myself.

“My friend went with me to his front door, and laid down a course for me
to follow. I was first to walk straight across the street to the brick
wall of the Knightsbridge Barracks. I was then to feel my way along the
wall until I came to a row of houses set back from the sidewalk. They
would bring me to a cross street. On the other side of this street was a
row of shops which I was to follow until they joined the iron railings of
Hyde Park. I was to keep to the railings until I reached the gates at Hyde
Park Corner, where I was to lay a diagonal course across Piccadilly, and
tack in toward the railings of Green Park. At the end of these railings,
going east, I would find the Walsingham, and my own hotel.

“To a sailor the course did not seem difficult, so I bade my friend
goodnight and walked forward until my feet touched the paving. I continued
upon it until I reached the curbing of the sidewalk. A few steps further,
and my hands struck the wall of the barracks. I turned in the direction
from which I had just come, and saw a square of faint light cut in the
yellow fog. I shouted ‘All right,’ and the voice of my friend answered,
‘Good luck to you.’ The light from his open door disappeared with a bang,
and I was left alone in a dripping, yellow darkness. I have been in the
Navy for ten years, but I have never known such a fog as that of last
night, not even among the icebergs of Behring Sea. There one at least
could see the light of the binnacle, but last night I could not even
distinguish the hand by which I guided myself along the barrack wall. At
sea a fog is a natural phenomenon. It is as familiar as the rainbow which
follows a storm, it is as proper that a fog should spread upon the waters
as that steam shall rise from a kettle. But a fog which springs from the
paved streets, that rolls between solid house-fronts, that forces cabs to
move at half speed, that drowns policemen and extinguishes the electric
lights of the music hall, that to me is incomprehensible. It is as out of
place as a tidal wave on Broadway.

“As I felt my way along the wall, I encountered other men who were coming
from the opposite direction, and each time when we hailed each other I
stepped away from the wall to make room for them to pass. But the third
time I did this, when I reached out my hand, the wall had disappeared, and
the further I moved to find it the further I seemed to be sinking into
space. I had the unpleasant conviction that at any moment I might step
over a precipice. Since I had set out I had heard no traffic in the
street, and now, although I listened some minutes, I could only
distinguish the occasional footfalls of pedestrians. Several times I
called aloud, and once a jocular gentleman answered me, but only to ask me
where I thought he was, and then even he was swallowed up in the silence.
Just above me I could make out a jet of gas which I guessed came from a
street lamp, and I moved over to that, and, while I tried to recover my
bearings, kept my hand on the iron post. Except for this flicker of gas,
no larger than the tip of my finger, I could distinguish nothing about me.
For the rest, the mist hung between me and the world like a damp and heavy
blanket.

“I could hear voices, but I could not tell from whence they came, and the
scrape of a foot moving cautiously, or a muffled cry as some one stumbled,
were the only sounds that reached me.

“I decided that until some one took me in tow I had best remain where I
was, and it must have been for ten minutes that I waited by the lamp,
straining my ears and hailing distant footfalls. In a house near me some
people were dancing to the music of a Hungarian band. I even fancied I
could hear the windows shake to the rhythm of their feet, but I could not
make out from which part of the compass the sounds came. And sometimes, as
the music rose, it seemed close at my hand, and again, to be floating high
in the air above my head. Although I was surrounded by thousands of
householders—13—I was as completely lost as though I had been
set down by night in the Sahara Desert. There seemed to be no reason in
waiting longer for an escort, so I again set out, and at once bumped
against a low iron fence. At first I believed this to be an area railing,
but on following it I found that it stretched for a long distance, and
that it was pierced at regular intervals with gates. I was standing
uncertainly with my hand on one of these when a square of light suddenly
opened in the night, and in it I saw, as you see a picture thrown by a
biograph in a darkened theatre, a young gentleman in evening dress, and
back of him the lights of a hall. I guessed from its elevation and
distance from the side-walk that this light must come from the door of a
house set back from the street, and I determined to approach it and ask
the young man to tell me where I was. But in fumbling with the lock of the
gate I instinctively bent my head, and when I raised it again the door had
partly closed, leaving only a narrow shaft of light. Whether the young man
had re-entered the house, or had left it I could not tell, but I hastened
to open the gate, and as I stepped forward I found myself upon an asphalt
walk. At the same instant there was the sound of quick steps upon the
path, and some one rushed past me. I called to him, but he made no reply,
and I heard the gate click and the footsteps hurrying away upon the
sidewalk.


06 a Square of Light Suddenly Opened in the Night

“Under other circumstances the young man’s rudeness, and his recklessness
in dashing so hurriedly through the mist, would have struck me as
peculiar, but everything was so distorted by the fog that at the moment I
did not consider it. The door was still as he had left it, partly open. I
went up the path, and, after much fumbling, found the knob of the
door-bell and gave it a sharp pull. The bell answered me from a great
depth and distance, but no movement followed from inside the house, and
although I pulled the bell again and again I could hear nothing save the
dripping of the mist about me. I was anxious to be on my way, but unless I
knew where I was going there was little chance of my making any speed, and
I was determined that until I learned my bearings I would not venture back
into the fog. So I pushed the door open and stepped into the house.

“I found myself in a long and narrow hall, upon which doors opened from
either side. At the end of the hall was a staircase with a balustrade
which ended in a sweeping curve. The balustrade was covered with heavy
Persian rugs, and the walls of the hall were also hung with them. The door
on my left was closed, but the one nearer me on the right was open, and as
I stepped opposite to it I saw that it was a sort of reception or
waiting-room, and that it was empty. The door below it was also open, and
with the idea that I would surely find some one there, I walked on up the
hall. I was in evening dress, and I felt I did not look like a burglar, so
I had no great fear that, should I encounter one of the inmates of the
house, he would shoot me on sight. The second door in the hall opened into
a dining-room. This was also empty. One person had been dining at the
table, but the cloth had not been cleared away, and a nickering candle
showed half-filled wineglasses and the ashes of cigarettes. The greater
part of the room was in complete darkness.

“By this time I had grown conscious of the fact that I was wandering about
in a strange house, and that, apparently, I was alone in it. The silence
of the place began to try my nerves, and in a sudden, unexplainable panic
I started for the open street. But as I turned, I saw a man sitting on a
bench, which the curve of the balustrade had hidden from me. His eyes were
shut, and he was sleeping soundly.

“The moment before I had been bewildered because I could see no one, but
at sight of this man I was much more bewildered.

“He was a very large man, a giant in height, with long yellow hair which
hung below his shoulders. He was dressed in a red silk shirt that was
belted at the waist and hung outside black velvet trousers which, in turn,
were stuffed into high black boots. I recognized the costume at once as
that of a Russian servant, but what a Russian servant in his native livery
could be doing in a private house in Knightsbridge was incomprehensible.

“I advanced and touched the man on the shoulder, and after an effort he
awoke, and, on seeing me, sprang to his feet and began bowing rapidly and
making deprecatory gestures. I had picked up enough Russian in Petersburg
to make out that the man was apologizing for having fallen asleep, and I
also was able to explain to him that I desired to see his master.

“He nodded vigorously, and said, ‘Will the Excellency come this way? The
Princess is here.’

“I distinctly made out the word ‘princess,’ and I was a good deal
embarrassed. I had thought it would be easy enough to explain my intrusion
to a man, but how a woman would look at it was another matter, and as I
followed him down the hall I was somewhat puzzled.

“As we advanced, he noticed that the front door was standing open, and
with an exclamation of surprise, hastened toward it and closed it. Then he
rapped twice on the door of what was apparently the drawing-room. There
was no reply to his knock, and he tapped again, and then timidly, and
cringing subserviently, opened the door and stepped inside. He withdrew
himself at once and stared stupidly at me, shaking his head.

“‘She is not there,’ he said. He stood for a moment gazing blankly through
the open door, and then hastened toward the dining-room. The solitary
candle which still burned there seemed to assure him that the room also
was empty. He came back and bowed me toward the drawing-room. ‘She is
above,’ he said; ‘I will inform the Princess of the Excellency’s
presence.’

“Before I could stop him he had turned and was running up the staircase,
leaving me alone at the open door of the drawing-room. I decided that the
adventure had gone quite far enough, and if I had been able to explain to
the Russian that I had lost my way in the fog, and only wanted to get back
into the street again, I would have left the house on the instant.

“Of course, when I first rang the bell of the house I had no other
expectation than that it would be answered by a parlor-maid who would
direct me on my way. I certainly could not then foresee that I would
disturb a Russian princess in her boudoir, or that I might be thrown out
by her athletic bodyguard. Still, I thought I ought not now to leave the
house without making some apology, and, if the worst should come, I could
show my card. They could hardly believe that a member of an Embassy had
any designs upon the hat-rack.

“The room in which I stood was dimly lighted, but I could see that, like
the hall, it was hung with heavy Persian rugs. The corners were filled
with palms, and there was the unmistakable odor in the air of Russian
cigarettes, and strange, dry scents that carried me back to the bazaars of
Vladivostock. Near the front windows was a grand piano, and at the other
end of the room a heavily carved screen of some black wood, picked out
with ivory. The screen was overhung with a canopy of silken draperies, and
formed a sort of alcove. In front of the alcove was spread the white skin
of a polar bear, and set on that was one of those low Turkish coffee
tables. It held a lighted spirit-lamp and two gold coffee cups. I had
heard no movement from above stairs, and it must have been fully three
minutes that I stood waiting, noting these details of the room and
wondering at the delay, and at the strange silence.

“And then, suddenly, as my eye grew more used to the half-light, I saw,
projecting from behind the screen as though it were stretched along the
back of a divan, the hand of a man and the lower part of his arm. I was as
startled as though I had come across a footprint on a deserted island.
Evidently the man had been sitting there since I had come into the room,
even since I had entered the house, and he had heard the servant knocking
upon the door. Why he had not declared himself I could not understand, but
I supposed that possibly he was a guest, with no reason to interest
himself in the Princess’s other visitors, or perhaps, for some reason, he
did not wish to be observed. I could see nothing of him except his hand,
but I had an unpleasant feeling that he had been peering at me through the
carving in the screen, and that he still was doing so. I moved my feet
noisily on the floor and said tentatively, ‘I beg your pardon.’

“There was no reply, and the hand did not stir. Apparently the man was
bent upon ignoring me, but as all I wished was to apologize for my
intrusion and to leave the house, I walked up to the alcove and peered
around it. Inside the screen was a divan piled with cushions, and on the
end of it nearer me the man was sitting. He was a young Englishman with
light yellow hair and a deeply bronzed face.

“He was seated with his arms stretched out along the back of the divan,
and with his head resting against a cushion. His attitude was one of
complete ease. But his mouth had fallen open, and his eyes were set with
an expression of utter horror. At the first glance I saw that he was quite
dead.

“For a flash of time I was too startled to act, but in the same flash I
was convinced that the man had met his death from no accident, that he had
not died through any ordinary failure of the laws of nature. The
expression on his face was much too terrible to be misinterpreted. It
spoke as eloquently as words. It told me that before the end had come he
had watched his death approach and threaten him.

“I was so sure he had been murdered that I instinctively looked on the
floor for the weapon, and, at the same moment, out of concern for my own
safety, quickly behind me; but the silence of the house continued
unbroken.

“I have seen a great number of dead men; I was on the Asiatic Station
during the Japanese-Chinese war. I was in Port Arthur after the massacre.
So a dead man, for the single reason that he is dead, does not repel me,
and, though I knew that there was no hope that this man was alive, still
for decency’s sake, I felt his pulse, and while I kept my ears alert for
any sound from the floors above me, I pulled open his shirt and placed my
hand upon his heart. My fingers instantly touched upon the opening of a
wound, and as I withdrew them I found them wet with blood. He was in
evening dress, and in the wide bosom of his shirt I found a narrow slit,
so narrow that in the dim light it was scarcely discernable. The wound was
no wider than the smallest blade of a pocket-knife, but when I stripped
the shirt away from the chest and left it bare, I found that the weapon,
narrow as it was, had been long enough to reach his heart. There is no
need to tell you how I felt as I stood by the body of this boy, for he was
hardly older than a boy, or of the thoughts that came into my head. I was
bitterly sorry for this stranger, bitterly indignant at his murderer, and,
at the same time, selfishly concerned for my own safety and for the
notoriety which I saw was sure to follow. My instinct was to leave the
body where it lay, and to hide myself in the fog, but I also felt that
since a succession of accidents had made me the only witness to a crime,
my duty was to make myself a good witness and to assist to establish the
facts of this murder.

“That it might possibly be a suicide, and not a murder, did not disturb me
for a moment. The fact that the weapon had disappeared, and the expression
on the boy’s face were enough to convince, at least me, that he had had no
hand in his own death. I judged it, therefore, of the first importance to
discover who was in the house, or, if they had escaped from it, who had
been in the house before I entered it. I had seen one man leave it; but
all I could tell of him was that he was a young man, that he was in
evening dress, and that he had fled in such haste that he had not stopped
to close the door behind him.

“The Russian servant I had found apparently asleep, and, unless he acted a
part with supreme skill, he was a stupid and ignorant boor, and as
innocent of the murder as myself. There was still the Russian princess
whom he had expected to find, or had pretended to expect to find, in the
same room with the murdered man. I judged that she must now be either
upstairs with the servant, or that she had, without his knowledge, already
fled from the house. When I recalled his apparently genuine surprise at
not finding her in the drawing-room, this latter supposition seemed the
more probable. Nevertheless, I decided that it was my duty to make a
search, and after a second hurried look for the weapon among the cushions
of the divan, and upon the floor, I cautiously crossed the hall and
entered the dining-room.

“The single candle was still flickering in the draught, and showed only
the white cloth. The rest of the room was draped in shadows. I picked up
the candle, and, lifting it high above my head, moved around the corner of
the table. Either my nerves were on such a stretch that no shock could
strain them further, or my mind was inoculated to horrors, for I did not
cry out at what I saw nor retreat from it. Immediately at my feet was the
body of a beautiful woman, lying at full length upon the floor, her arms
flung out on either side of her, and her white face and shoulders gleaming
dully in the unsteady light of the candle. Around her throat was a great
chain of diamonds, and the light played upon these and made them flash and
blaze in tiny flames. But the woman who wore them was dead, and I was so
certain as to how she had died that without an instant’s hesitation I
dropped on my knees beside her and placed my hands above her heart. My
fingers again touched the thin slit of a wound. I had no doubt in my mind
but that this was the Russian princess, and when I lowered the candle to
her face I was assured that this was so. Her features showed the finest
lines of both the Slav and the Jewess; the eyes were black, the hair
blue-black and wonderfully heavy, and her skin, even in death, was rich in
color. She was a surpassingly beautiful woman.


07 at My Feet Was the Body of a Beautiful Woman

“I rose and tried to light another candle with the one I held, but I found
that my hand was so unsteady that I could not keep the wicks together. It
was my intention to again search for this strange dagger which had been
used to kill both the English boy and the beautiful princess, but before I
could light the second candle I heard footsteps descending the stairs, and
the Russian servant appeared in the doorway.

“My face was in darkness, or I am sure that at the sight of it he would
have taken alarm, for at that moment I was not sure but that this man
himself was the murderer. His own face was plainly visible to me in the
light from the hall, and I could see that it wore an expression of dull
bewilderment. I stepped quickly toward him and took a firm hold upon his
wrist.

“‘She is not there,’ he said. ‘The Princess has gone. They have all gone.’

“‘Who have gone?’ I demanded. ‘Who else has been here?’

“‘The two Englishmen,’ he said.

“‘What two Englishmen?’ I demanded. ‘What are their names?’

“The man now saw by my manner that some question of great moment hung upon
his answer, and he began to protest that he did not know the names of the
visitors and that until that evening he had never seen them.

“I guessed that it was my tone which frightened him, so I took my hand off
his wrist and spoke less eagerly.

“‘How long have they been here?’ I asked, ‘and when did they go?’

“He pointed behind him toward the drawing-room.

“‘One sat there with the Princess,’ he said; ‘the other came after I had
placed the coffee in the drawing-room. The two Englishmen talked together
and the Princess returned here to the table. She sat there in that chair,
and I brought her cognac and cigarettes. Then I sat outside upon the
bench. It was a feast day, and I had been drinking. Pardon, Excellency,
but I fell asleep. When I woke, your Excellency was standing by me, but
the Princess and the two Englishmen had gone. That is all I know.’

“I believed that the man was telling me the truth. His fright had passed,
and he was now apparently puzzled, but not alarmed.

“‘You must remember the names of the Englishmen,’ I urged. ‘Try to think.
When you announced them to the Princess what name did you give?’

“At this question he exclaimed with pleasure, and, beckoning to me, ran
hurriedly down the hall and into the drawing-room. In the corner furthest
from the screen was the piano, and on it was a silver tray. He picked this
up and, smiling with pride at his own intelligence, pointed at two cards
that lay upon it. I took them up and read the names engraved upon them.”

The American paused abruptly, and glanced at the faces about him. “I read
the names,” he repeated. He spoke with great reluctance.

“Continue!” cried the Baronet, sharply.

“I read the names,” said the American with evident distaste, “and the
family name of each was the same. They were the names of two brothers. One
is well known to you. It is that of the African explorer of whom this
gentleman was just speaking. I mean the Earl of Chetney. The other was the
name of his brother, Lord Arthur Chetney.”

The men at the table fell back as though a trapdoor had fallen open at
their feet.

“Lord Chetney!” they exclaimed in chorus. They glanced at each other and
back to the American with every expression of concern and disbelief.

“It is impossible!” cried the Baronet. “Why, my dear sir, young Chetney
only arrived from Africa yesterday. It was so stated in the evening
papers.”

The jaw of the American set in a resolute square, and he pressed his lips
together.

“You are perfectly right, sir,” he said, “Lord Chetney did arrive in
London yesterday morning, and yesterday night I found his dead body.”

The youngest member present was the first to recover. He seemed much less
concerned over the identity of the murdered man than at the interruption
of the narrative.

“Oh, please let him go on!” he cried. “What happened then? You say you
found two visiting cards. How do you know which card was that of the
murdered man?”

The American, before he answered, waited until the chorus of exclamations
had ceased. Then he continued as though he had not been interrupted.

“The instant I read the names upon the cards,” he said, “I ran to the
screen and, kneeling beside the dead man, began a search through his
pockets. My hand at once fell upon a card-case, and I found on all the
cards it contained the title of the Earl of Chetney. His watch and
cigarette-case also bore his name. These evidences, and the fact of his
bronzed skin, and that his cheekbones were worn with fever, convinced me
that the dead man was the African explorer, and the boy who had fled past
me in the night was Arthur, his younger brother.

“I was so intent upon my search that I had forgotten the servant, and I
was still on my knees when I heard a cry behind me. I turned, and saw the
man gazing down at the body in abject horror.

“Before I could rise, he gave another cry of terror, and, flinging himself
into the hall, raced toward the door to the street. I leaped after him,
shouting to him to halt, but before I could reach the hall he had torn
open the door, and I saw him spring out into the yellow fog. I cleared the
steps in a jump and ran down the garden walk but just as the gate clicked
in front of me. I had it open on the instant, and, following the sound of
the man’s footsteps, I raced after him across the open street. He, also,
could hear me, and he instantly stopped running, and there was absolute
silence. He was so near that I almost fancied I could hear him panting,
and I held my own breath to listen. But I could distinguish nothing but
the dripping of the mist about us, and from far off the music of the
Hungarian band, which I had heard when I first lost myself.

“All I could see was the square of light from the door I had left open
behind me, and a lamp in the hall beyond it flickering in the draught. But
even as I watched it, the flame of the lamp was blown violently to and
fro, and the door, caught in the same current of air, closed slowly. I
knew if it shut I could not again enter the house, and I rushed madly
toward it. I believe I even shouted out, as though it were something human
which I could compel to obey me, and then I caught my foot against the
curb and smashed into the sidewalk. When I rose to my feet I was dizzy and
half stunned, and though I thought then that I was moving toward the door,
I know now that I probably turned directly from it; for, as I groped about
in the night, calling frantically for the police, my fingers touched
nothing but the dripping fog, and the iron railings for which I sought
seemed to have melted away. For many minutes I beat the mist with my arms
like one at blind man’s buff, turning sharply in circles, cursing aloud at
my stupidity and crying continually for help. At last a voice answered me
from the fog, and I found myself held in the circle of a policeman’s
lantern.

“That is the end of my adventure. What I have to tell you now is what I
learned from the police.

“At the station-house to which the man guided me I related what you have
just heard. I told them that the house they must at once find was one set
back from the street within a radius of two hundred yards from the
Knightsbridge Barracks, that within fifty yards of it some one was giving
a dance to the music of a Hungarian band, and that the railings before it
were as high as a man’s waist and filed to a point. With that to work
upon, twenty men were at once ordered out into the fog to search for the
house, and Inspector Lyle himself was despatched to the home of Lord Edam,
Chetney’s father, with a warrant for Lord Arthur’s arrest. I was thanked
and dismissed on my own recognizance.

“This morning, Inspector Lyle called on me, and from him I learned the
police theory of the scene I have just described.

“Apparently I had wandered very far in the fog, for up to noon to-day the
house had not been found, nor had they been able to arrest Lord Arthur. He
did not return to his father’s house last night, and there is no trace of
him; but from what the police knew of the past lives of the people I found
in that lost house, they have evolved a theory, and their theory is that
the murders were committed by Lord Arthur.

“The infatuation of his elder brother, Lord Chetney, for a Russian
princess, so Inspector Lyle tells me, is well known to every one. About
two years ago the Princess Zichy, as she calls herself, and he were
constantly together, and Chetney informed his friends that they were about
to be married. The woman was notorious in two continents, and when Lord
Edam heard of his son’s infatuation he appealed to the police for her
record.

“It is through his having applied to them that they know so much
concerning her and her relations with the Chetneys. From the police Lord
Edam learned that Madame Zichy had once been a spy in the employ of the
Russian Third Section, but that lately she had been repudiated by her own
government and was living by her wits, by blackmail, and by her beauty.
Lord Edam laid this record before his son, but Chetney either knew it
already or the woman persuaded him not to believe in it, and the father
and son parted in great anger. Two days later the marquis altered his
will, leaving all of his money to the younger brother, Arthur.

“The title and some of the landed property he could not keep from Chetney,
but he swore if his son saw the woman again that the will should stand as
it was, and he would be left without a penny.

“This was about eighteen months ago, when apparently Chetney tired of the
Princess, and suddenly went off to shoot and explore in Central Africa. No
word came from him, except that twice he was reported as having died of
fever in the jungle, and finally two traders reached the coast who said
they had seen his body. This was accepted by all as conclusive, and young
Arthur was recognized as the heir to the Edam millions. On the strength of
this supposition he at once began to borrow enormous sums from the money
lenders. This is of great importance, as the police believe it was these
debts which drove him to the murder of his brother. Yesterday, as you
know, Lord Chetney suddenly returned from the grave, and it was the fact
that for two years he had been considered as dead which lent such
importance to his return and which gave rise to those columns of detail
concerning him which appeared in all the afternoon papers. But, obviously,
during his absence he had not tired of the Princess Zichy, for we know
that a few hours after he reached London he sought her out. His brother,
who had also learned of his reappearance through the papers, probably
suspected which would be the house he would first visit, and followed him
there, arriving, so the Russian servant tells us, while the two were at
coffee in the drawing-room. The Princess, then, we also learn from the
servant, withdrew to the dining-room, leaving the brothers together. What
happened one can only guess.

“Lord Arthur knew now that when it was discovered he was no longer the
heir, the money-lenders would come down upon him. The police believe that
he at once sought out his brother to beg for money to cover the
post-obits, but that, considering the sum he needed was several hundreds
of thousands of pounds, Chetney refused to give it him. No one knew that
Arthur had gone to seek out his brother. They were alone. It is possible,
then, that in a passion of disappointment, and crazed with the disgrace
which he saw before him, young Arthur made himself the heir beyond further
question. The death of his brother would have availed nothing if the woman
remained alive. It is then possible that he crossed the hall, and with the
same weapon which made him Lord Edam’s heir destroyed the solitary witness
to the murder. The only other person who could have seen it was sleeping
in a drunken stupor, to which fact undoubtedly he owed his life. And yet,”
concluded the Naval Attache, leaning forward and marking each word with
his finger, “Lord Arthur blundered fatally. In his haste he left the door
of the house open, so giving access to the first passer-by, and he forgot
that when he entered it he had handed his card to the servant. That piece
of paper may yet send him to the gallows. In the mean time he has
disappeared completely, and somewhere, in one of the millions of streets
of this great capital, in a locked and empty house, lies the body of his
brother, and of the woman his brother loved, undiscovered, unburied, and
with their murder unavenged.”

In the discussion which followed the conclusion of the story of the Naval
Attache the gentleman with the pearl took no part. Instead, he arose, and,
beckoning a servant to a far corner of the room, whispered earnestly to
him until a sudden movement on the part of Sir Andrew caused him to return
hurriedly to the table.

“There are several points in Mr. Sears’s story I want explained,” he
cried. “Be seated, Sir Andrew,” he begged. “Let us have the opinion of an
expert. I do not care what the police think, I want to know what you
think.”

But Sir Henry rose reluctantly from his chair.

“I should like nothing better than to discuss this,” he said. “But it is
most important that I proceed to the House. I should have been there some
time ago.” He turned toward the servant and directed him to call a hansom.

The gentleman with the pearl stud looked appealingly at the Naval Attache.
“There are surely many details that you have not told us,” he urged. “Some
you have forgotten.”

The Baronet interrupted quickly.

“I trust not,” he said, “for I could not possibly stop to hear them.”

“The story is finished,” declared the Naval Attache; “until Lord Arthur is
arrested or the bodies are found there is nothing more to tell of either
Chetney or the Princess Zichy.”

“Of Lord Chetney perhaps not,” interrupted the sporting-looking gentleman
with the black tie, “but there’ll always be something to tell of the
Princess Zichy. I know enough stories about her to fill a book. She was a
most remarkable woman.” The speaker dropped the end of his cigar into his
coffee cup and, taking his case from his pocket, selected a fresh one. As
he did so he laughed and held up the case that the others might see it. It
was an ordinary cigar-case of well-worn pig-skin, with a silver clasp.

“The only time I ever met her,” he said, “she tried to rob me of this.”

The Baronet regarded him closely.

“She tried to rob you?” he repeated.


08 the Princess Zichy

“Tried to rob me of this,” continued the gentleman in the black tie, “and
of the Czarina’s diamonds.” His tone was one of mingled admiration and
injury.

“The Czarina’s diamonds!” exclaimed the Baronet. He glanced quickly and
suspiciously at the speaker, and then at the others about the table. But
their faces gave evidence of no other emotion than that of ordinary
interest.

“Yes, the Czarina’s diamonds,” repeated the man with the black tie. “It
was a necklace of diamonds. I was told to take them to the Russian
Ambassador in Paris who was to deliver them at Moscow. I am a Queen’s
Messenger,” he added.

“Oh, I see,” exclaimed Sir Andrew in a tone of relief. “And you say that
this same Princess Zichy, one of the victims of this double murder,
endeavored to rob you of—of—that cigar-case.”

“And the Czarina’s diamonds,” answered the Queen’s Messenger
imperturbably. “It’s not much of a story, but it gives you an idea of the
woman’s character. The robbery took place between Paris and Marseilles.”

The Baronet interrupted him with an abrupt movement. “No, no,” he cried,
shaking his head in protest. “Do not tempt me. I really cannot listen. I
must be at the House in ten minutes.”

“I am sorry,” said the Queen’s Messenger. He turned to those seated about
him. “I wonder if the other gentlemen—” he inquired tentatively.
There was a chorus of polite murmurs, and the Queen’s Messenger, bowing
his head in acknowledgment, took a preparatory sip from his glass. At the
same moment the servant to whom the man with the black pearl had spoken,
slipped a piece of paper into his hand. He glanced at it, frowned, and
threw it under the table.

The servant bowed to the Baronet.

“Your hansom is waiting, Sir Andrew,” he said.

“The necklace was worth twenty thousand pounds,” began the Queen’s
Messenger. “It was a present from the Queen of England to celebrate—”
The Baronet gave an exclamation of angry annoyance.

“Upon my word, this is most provoking,” he interrupted. “I really ought
not to stay. But I certainly mean to hear this.” He turned irritably to
the servant. “Tell the hansom to wait,” he commanded, and, with an air of
a boy who is playing truant, slipped guiltily into his chair.

The gentleman with the black pearl smiled blandly, and rapped upon the
table.

“Order, gentlemen,” he said. “Order for the story of the Queen’s Messenger
and the Czarina’s diamonds.”


CHAPTER II

“The necklace was a present from the Queen of England to the Czarina of
Russia,” began the Queen’s Messenger. “It was to celebrate the occasion of
the Czar’s coronation. Our Foreign Office knew that the Russian Ambassador
in Paris was to proceed to Moscow for that ceremony, and I was directed to
go to Paris and turn over the necklace to him. But when I reached Paris I
found he had not expected me for a week later and was taking a few days’
vacation at Nice. His people asked me to leave the necklace with them at
the Embassy, but I had been charged to get a receipt for it from the
Ambassador himself, so I started at once for Nice The fact that Monte
Carlo is not two thousand miles from Nice may have had something to do
with making me carry out my instructions so carefully. Now, how the
Princess Zichy came to find out about the necklace I don’t know, but I can
guess. As you have just heard, she was at one time a spy in the service of
the Russian government. And after they dismissed her she kept up her
acquaintance with many of the Russian agents in London. It is probable
that through one of them she learned that the necklace was to be sent to
Moscow, and which one of the Queen’s Messengers had been detailed to take
it there. Still, I doubt if even that knowledge would have helped her if
she had not also known something which I supposed no one else in the world
knew but myself and one other man. And, curiously enough, the other man
was a Queen’s Messenger too, and a friend of mine. You must know that up
to the time of this robbery I had always concealed my despatches in a
manner peculiarly my own. I got the idea from that play called ‘A Scrap of
Paper.’ In it a man wants to hide a certain compromising document. He
knows that all his rooms will be secretly searched for it, so he puts it
in a torn envelope and sticks it up where any one can see it on his mantel
shelf. The result is that the woman who is ransacking the house to find it
looks in all the unlikely places, but passes over the scrap of paper that
is just under her nose. Sometimes the papers and packages they give us to
carry about Europe are of very great value, and sometimes they are special
makes of cigarettes, and orders to court dressmakers. Sometimes we know
what we are carrying and sometimes we do not. If it is a large sum of
money or a treaty, they generally tell us. But, as a rule, we have no
knowledge of what the package contains; so, to be on the safe side, we
naturally take just as great care of it as though we knew it held the
terms of an ultimatum or the crown jewels. As a rule, my confreres carry
the official packages in a despatch-box, which is just as obvious as a
lady’s jewel bag in the hands of her maid. Every one knows they are
carrying something of value. They put a premium on dishonesty. Well, after
I saw the ‘Scrap of Paper’ play, I determined to put the government
valuables in the most unlikely place that any one would look for them. So
I used to hide the documents they gave me inside my riding-boots, and
small articles, such as money or jewels, I carried in an old cigar-case.
After I took to using my case for that purpose I bought a new one, exactly
like it, for my cigars. But to avoid mistakes, I had my initials placed on
both sides of the new one, and the moment I touched the case, even in the
dark, I could tell which it was by the raised initials.

“No one knew of this except the Queen’s Messenger of whom I spoke. We once
left Paris together on the Orient Express. I was going to Constantinople
and he was to stop off at Vienna. On the journey I told him of my peculiar
way of hiding things and showed him my cigar-case. If I recollect rightly,
on that trip it held the grand cross of St. Michael and St. George, which
the Queen was sending to our Ambassador. The Messenger was very much
entertained at my scheme, and some months later when he met the Princess
he told her about it as an amusing story. Of course, he had no idea she
was a Russian spy. He didn’t know anything at all about her, except that
she was a very attractive woman.

“It was indiscreet, but he could not possibly have guessed that she could
ever make any use of what he told her.

“Later, after the robbery, I remembered that I had informed this young
chap of my secret hiding-place, and when I saw him again I questioned him
about it. He was greatly distressed, and said he had never seen the
importance of the secret. He remembered he had told several people of it,
and among others the Princess Zichy. In that way I found out that it was
she who had robbed me, and I know that from the moment I left London she
was following me and that she knew then that the diamonds were concealed
in my cigar-case.

“My train for Nice left Paris at ten in the morning. When I travel at
night I generally tell the chef de gare that I am a Queen’s
Messenger, and he gives me a compartment to myself, but in the daytime I
take whatever offers. On this morning I had found an empty compartment,
and I had tipped the guard to keep every one else out, not from any fear
of losing the diamonds, but because I wanted to smoke. He had locked the
door, and as the last bell had rung I supposed I was to travel alone, so I
began to arrange my traps and make myself comfortable. The diamonds in the
cigar-case were in the inside pocket of my waistcoat, and as they made a
bulky package, I took them out, intending to put them in my hand bag. It
is a small satchel like a bookmaker’s, or those hand bags that couriers
carry. I wear it slung from a strap across my shoulder, and, no matter
whether I am sitting or walking, it never leaves me.

“I took the cigar-case which held the necklace from my inside pocket and
the case which held the cigars out of the satchel, and while I was
searching through it for a box of matches I laid the two cases beside me
on the seat.

“At that moment the train started, but at the same instant there was a
rattle at the lock of the compartment, and a couple of porters lifted and
shoved a woman through the door, and hurled her rugs and umbrellas in
after her.

“Instinctively I reached for the diamonds. I shoved them quickly into the
satchel and, pushing them far down to the bottom of the bag, snapped the
spring lock. Then I put the cigars in the pocket of my coat, but with the
thought that now that I had a woman as a travelling companion I would
probably not be allowed to enjoy them.

“One of her pieces of luggage had fallen at my feet, and a roll of rugs
had landed at my side. I thought if I hid the fact that the lady was not
welcome, and at once endeavored to be civil, she might permit me to smoke.
So I picked her hand bag off the floor and asked her where I might place
it.

“As I spoke I looked at her for the first time, and saw that she was a
most remarkably handsome woman.

“She smiled charmingly and begged me not to disturb myself. Then she
arranged her own things about her, and, opening her dressing-bag, took out
a gold cigarette case.

“‘Do you object to smoke?’ she asked.

“I laughed and assured her I had been in great terror lest she might
object to it herself.

“‘If you like cigarettes,’ she said, ‘will you try some of these? They are
rolled especially for my husband in Russia, and they are supposed to be
very good.’

“I thanked her, and took one from her case, and I found it so much better
than my own that I continued to smoke her cigarettes throughout the rest
of the journey. I must say that we got on very well. I judged from the
coronet on her cigarette-case, and from her manner, which was quite as
well bred as that of any woman I ever met, that she was some one of
importance, and though she seemed almost too good looking to be
respectable, I determined that she was some grande dame who was so
assured of her position that she could afford to be unconventional. At
first she read her novel, and then she made some comment on the scenery,
and finally we began to discuss the current politics of the Continent. She
talked of all the cities in Europe, and seemed to know every one worth
knowing. But she volunteered nothing about herself except that she
frequently made use of the expression, ‘When my husband was stationed at
Vienna,’ or ‘When my husband was promoted to Rome.’ Once she said to me,
‘I have often seen you at Monte Carlo. I saw you when you won the pigeon
championship.’ I told her that I was not a pigeon shot, and she gave a
little start of surprise. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ she said; ‘I thought
you were Morton Hamilton, the English champion.’ As a matter of fact, I do
look like Hamilton, but I know now that her object was to make me think
that she had no idea as to who I really was. She needn’t have acted at
all, for I certainly had no suspicions of her, and was only too pleased to
have so charming a companion.

“The one thing that should have made me suspicious was the fact that at
every station she made some trivial excuse to get me out of the
compartment. She pretended that her maid was travelling back of us in one
of the second-class carriages, and kept saying she could not imagine why
the woman did not come to look after her, and if the maid did not turn up
at the next stop, would I be so very kind as to get out and bring her
whatever it was she pretended she wanted.

“I had taken my dressing-case from the rack to get out a novel, and had
left it on the seat opposite to mine, and at the end of the compartment
farthest from her. And once when I came back from buying her a cup of
chocolate, or from some other fool errand, I found her standing at my end
of the compartment with both hands on the dressing-bag. She looked at me
without so much as winking an eye, and shoved the case carefully into a
corner. ‘Your bag slipped off on the floor,’ she said. ‘If you’ve got any
bottles in it, you had better look and see that they’re not broken.’

“And I give you my word, I was such an ass that I did open the case and
looked all through it. She must have thought I was a Juggins. I get
hot all over whenever I remember it. But in spite of my dulness, and her
cleverness, she couldn’t gain anything by sending me away, because what
she wanted was in the hand bag and every time she sent me away the hand
bag went with me.

“After the incident of the dressing-case her manner changed. Either in my
absence she had had time to look through it, or, when I was examining it
for broken bottles, she had seen everything it held.

“From that moment she must have been certain that the cigar-case, in which
she knew I carried the diamonds, was in the bag that was fastened to my
body, and from that time on she probably was plotting how to get it from
me. Her anxiety became most apparent. She dropped the great lady manner,
and her charming condescension went with it. She ceased talking, and, when
I spoke, answered me irritably, or at random. No doubt her mind was
entirely occupied with her plan. The end of our journey was drawing
rapidly nearer, and her time for action was being cut down with the speed
of the express train. Even I, unsuspicious as I was, noticed that
something was very wrong with her. I really believe that before we reached
Marseilles if I had not, through my own stupidity, given her the chance
she wanted, she might have stuck a knife in me and rolled me out on the
rails. But as it was, I only thought that the long journey had tired her.
I suggested that it was a very trying trip, and asked her if she would
allow me to offer her some of my cognac.

“She thanked me and said, ‘No,’ and then suddenly her eyes lighted, and
she exclaimed, ‘Yes, thank you, if you will be so kind.’

“My flask was in the hand bag, and I placed it on my lap and with my thumb
slipped back the catch. As I keep my tickets and railroad guide in the
bag, I am so constantly opening it that I never bother to lock it, and the
fact that it is strapped to me has always been sufficient protection. But
I can appreciate now what a satisfaction, and what a torment too, it must
have been to that woman when she saw that the bag opened without a key.

“While we were crossing the mountains I had felt rather chilly and had
been wearing a light racing coat. But after the lamps were lighted the
compartment became very hot and stuffy, and I found the coat
uncomfortable. So I stood up, and, after first slipping the strap of the
bag over my head, I placed the bag in the seat next me and pulled off the
racing coat. I don’t blame myself for being careless; the bag was still
within reach of my hand, and nothing would have happened if at that exact
moment the train had not stopped at Arles. It was the combination of my
removing the bag and our entering the station at the same instant which
gave the Princess Zichy the chance she wanted to rob me.

“I needn’t say that she was clever enough to take it. The train ran into
the station at full speed and came to a sudden stop. I had just thrown my
coat into the rack, and had reached out my hand for the bag. In another
instant I would have had the strap around my shoulder. But at that moment
the Princess threw open the door of the compartment and beckoned wildly at
the people on the platform. ‘Natalie!’ she called, ‘Natalie! here I am.
Come here! This way!’ She turned upon me in the greatest excitement. ‘My
maid!’ she cried. ‘She is looking for me. She passed the window without
seeing me. Go, please, and bring her back.’ She continued pointing out of
the door and beckoning me with her other hand. There certainly was
something about that woman’s tone which made one jump. When she was giving
orders you had no chance to think of anything else. So I rushed out on my
errand of mercy, and then rushed back again to ask what the maid looked
like.


09 This Gave the Princess Zichy The Chance

“‘In black,’ she answered, rising and blocking the door of the
compartment. ‘All in black, with a bonnet!’

“The train waited three minutes at Aries, and in that time I suppose I
must have rushed up to over twenty women and asked, ‘Are you Natalie?’ The
only reason I wasn’t punched with an umbrella or handed over to the police
was that they probably thought I was crazy.

“When I jumped back into the compartment the Princess was seated where I
had left her, but her eyes were burning with happiness. She placed her
hand on my arm almost affectionately, and said in a hysterical way, ‘You
are very kind to me. I am so sorry to have troubled you.’

“I protested that every woman on the platform was dressed in black.

“‘Indeed I am so sorry,’ she said, laughing; and she continued to laugh
until she began to breathe so quickly that I thought she was going to
faint.

“I can see now that the last part of that journey must have been a
terrible half hour for her. She had the cigar-case safe enough, but she
knew that she herself was not safe. She understood if I were to open my
bag, even at the last minute, and miss the case, I would know positively
that she had taken it. I had placed the diamonds in the bag at the very
moment she entered the compartment, and no one but our two selves had
occupied it since. She knew that when we reached Marseilles she would
either be twenty thousand pounds richer than when she left Paris, or that
she would go to jail. That was the situation as she must have read it, and
I don’t envy her her state of mind during that last half hour. It must
have been hell.


10 She Knew She Would Be Twenty Thousand Pounds Richer

“I saw that something was wrong, and in my innocence I even wondered if
possibly my cognac had not been a little too strong. For she suddenly
developed into a most brilliant conversationalist, and applauded and
laughed at everything I said, and fired off questions at me like a machine
gun, so that I had no time to think of anything but of what she was
saying. Whenever I stirred she stopped her chattering and leaned toward
me, and watched me like a cat over a mouse-hole. I wondered how I could
have considered her an agreeable travelling companion. I thought I would
have preferred to be locked in with a lunatic. I don’t like to think how
she would have acted if I had made a move to examine the bag, but as I had
it safely strapped around me again, I did not open it, and I reached
Marseilles alive. As we drew into the station she shook hands with me and
grinned at me like a Cheshire cat.

“‘I cannot tell you,’ she said, ‘how much I have to thank you for.’ What
do you think of that for impudence!

“I offered to put her in a carriage, but she said she must find Natalie,
and that she hoped we would meet again at the hotel. So I drove off by
myself, wondering who she was, and whether Natalie was not her keeper.

“I had to wait several hours for the train to Nice, and as I wanted to
stroll around the city I thought I had better put the diamonds in the safe
of the hotel. As soon as I reached my room I locked the door, placed the
hand bag on the table and opened it. I felt among the things at the top of
it, but failed to touch the cigar-case. I shoved my hand in deeper, and
stirred the things about, but still I did not reach it. A cold wave swept
down my spine, and a sort of emptiness came to the pit of my stomach. Then
I turned red-hot, and the sweat sprung out all over me. I wet my lips with
my tongue, and said to myself, ‘Don’t be an ass. Pull yourself together,
pull yourself together. Take the things out, one at a time. It’s there, of
course it’s there. Don’t be an ass.’

“So I put a brake on my nerves and began very carefully to pick out the
things one by one, but after another second I could not stand it, and I
rushed across the room and threw out everything on the bed. But the
diamonds were not among them. I pulled the things about and tore them open
and shuffled and rearranged and sorted them, but it was no use. The
cigar-case was gone. I threw everything in the dressing-case out on the
floor, although I knew it was useless to look for it there. I knew that I
had put it in the bag. I sat down and tried to think. I remembered I had
put it in the satchel at Paris just as that woman had entered the
compartment, and I had been alone with her ever since, so it was she who
had robbed me. But how? It had never left my shoulder. And then I
remembered that it had—that I had taken it off when I had changed my
coat and for the few moments that I was searching for Natalie. I
remembered that the woman had sent me on that goose chase, and that at
every other station she had tried to get rid of me on some fool errand.


11 I Threw out Everything on the Bed

“I gave a roar like a mad bull, and I jumped down the stairs six steps at
a time.

“I demanded at the office if a distinguished lady of title, possibly a
Russian, had just entered the hotel.

“As I expected, she had not. I sprang into a cab and inquired at two other
hotels, and then I saw the folly of trying to catch her without outside
help, and I ordered the fellow to gallop to the office of the Chief of
Police. I told my story, and the ass in charge asked me to calm myself,
and wanted to take notes. I told him this was no time for taking notes,
but for doing something. He got wrathy at that, and I demanded to be taken
at once to his Chief. The Chief, he said, was very busy, and could not see
me. So I showed him my silver greyhound. In eleven years I had never used
it but once before. I stated in pretty vigorous language that I was a
Queen’s Messenger, and that if the Chief of Police did not see me
instantly he would lose his official head. At that the fellow jumped off
his high horse and ran with me to his Chief,—a smart young chap, a
colonel in the army, and a very intelligent man.

“I explained that I had been robbed in a French railway carriage of a
diamond necklace belonging to the Queen of England, which her Majesty was
sending as a present to the Czarina of Russia. I pointed out to him that
if he succeeded in capturing the thief he would be made for life, and
would receive the gratitude of three great powers.


12 Threw Everything in the Dressing-case out on The Floor

“He wasn’t the sort that thinks second thoughts are best. He saw Russian
and French decorations sprouting all over his chest, and he hit a bell,
and pressed buttons, and yelled out orders like the captain of a penny
steamer in a fog. He sent her description to all the city gates, and
ordered all cabmen and railway porters to search all trains leaving
Marseilles. He ordered all passengers on outgoing vessels to be examined,
and telegraphed the proprietors of every hotel and pension to send him a
complete list of their guests within the hour. While I was standing there
he must have given at least a hundred orders, and sent out enough
commissaires, sergeants de ville, gendarmes, bicycle police, and
plain-clothes Johnnies to have captured the entire German army. When they
had gone he assured me that the woman was as good as arrested already.
Indeed, officially, she was arrested; for she had no more chance of escape
from Marseilles than from the Chateau D’If.

“He told me to return to my hotel and possess my soul in peace. Within an
hour he assured me he would acquaint me with her arrest.

“I thanked him, and complimented him on his energy, and left him. But I
didn’t share in his confidence. I felt that she was a very clever woman,
and a match for any and all of us. It was all very well for him to be
jubilant. He had not lost the diamonds, and had everything to gain if he
found them; while I, even if he did recover the necklace, would only be
where I was before I lost them, and if he did not recover it I was a
ruined man. It was an awful facer for me. I had always prided myself on my
record. In eleven years I had never mislaid an envelope, nor missed taking
the first train. And now I had failed in the most important mission that
had ever been intrusted to me. And it wasn’t a thing that could be hushed
up, either. It was too conspicuous, too spectacular. It was sure to invite
the widest notoriety. I saw myself ridiculed all over the Continent, and
perhaps dismissed, even suspected of having taken the thing myself.

“I was walking in front of a lighted cafe, and I felt so sick and
miserable that I stopped for a pick-me-up. Then I considered that if I
took one drink I would probably, in my present state of mind, not want to
stop under twenty, and I decided I had better leave it alone. But my
nerves were jumping like a frightened rabbit, and I felt I must have
something to quiet them, or I would go crazy. I reached for my
cigarette-case, but a cigarette seemed hardly adequate, so I put it back
again and took out this cigar-case, in which I keep only the strongest and
blackest cigars. I opened it and stuck in my fingers, but instead of a
cigar they touched on a thin leather envelope. My heart stood perfectly
still. I did not dare to look, but I dug my finger nails into the leather
and I felt layers of thin paper, then a layer of cotton, and then they
scratched on the facets of the Czarina’s diamonds!

“I stumbled as though I had been hit in the face, and fell back into one
of the chairs on the sidewalk. I tore off the wrappings and spread out the
diamonds on the cafe table; I could not believe they were real. I twisted
the necklace between my fingers and crushed it between my palms and tossed
it up in the air. I believe I almost kissed it. The women in the cafe
stood tip on the chairs to see better, and laughed and screamed, and the
people crowded so close around me that the waiters had to form a
bodyguard. The proprietor thought there was a fight, and called for the
police. I was so happy I didn’t care. I laughed, too, and gave the
proprietor a five-pound note, and told him to stand every one a drink.
Then I tumbled into a fiacre and galloped off to my friend the Chief of
Police. I felt very sorry for him. He had been so happy at the chance I
gave him, and he was sure to be disappointed when he learned I had sent
him off on a false alarm.

“But now that I had found the necklace, I did not want him to find the
woman. Indeed, I was most anxious that she should get clear away, for if
she were caught the truth would come out, and I was likely to get a sharp
reprimand, and sure to be laughed at.

“I could see now how it had happened. In my haste to hide the diamonds
when the woman was hustled into the carriage, I had shoved the cigars into
the satchel, and the diamonds into the pocket of my coat. Now that I had
the diamonds safe again, it seemed a very natural mistake. But I doubted
if the Foreign Office would think so. I was afraid it might not appreciate
the beautiful simplicity of my secret hiding-place. So, when I reached the
police station, and found that the woman was still at large, I was more
than relieved.

“As I expected, the Chief was extremely chagrined when he learned of my
mistake, and that there was nothing for him to do. But I was feeling so
happy myself that I hated to have any one else miserable, so I suggested
that this attempt to steal the Czarina’s necklace might be only the first
of a series of such attempts by an unscrupulous gang, and that I might
still be in danger.

“I winked at the Chief and the Chief smiled at me, and we went to Nice
together in a saloon car with a guard of twelve carabineers and twelve
plain-clothes men, and the Chief and I drank champagne all the way. We
marched together up to the hotel where the Russian Ambassador was
stopping, closely surrounded by our escort of carabineers, and delivered
the necklace with the most profound ceremony. The old Ambassador was
immensely impressed, and when we hinted that already I had been made the
object of an attack by robbers, he assured us that his Imperial Majesty
would not prove ungrateful.

“I wrote a swinging personal letter about the invaluable services of the
Chief to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and they gave him enough
Russian and French medals to satisfy even a French soldier. So, though he
never caught the woman, he received his just reward.”

The Queen’s Messenger paused and surveyed the faces of those about him in
some embarrassment.

“But the worst of it is,” he added, “that the story must have got about;
for, while the Princess obtained nothing from me but a cigar-case and five
excellent cigars, a few weeks after the coronation the Czar sent me a gold
cigar-case with his monogram in diamonds. And I don’t know yet whether
that was a coincidence, or whether the Czar wanted me to know that he knew
that I had been carrying the Czarina’s diamonds in my pigskin cigar-case.
What do you fellows think?”


CHAPTER III

Sir Andrew rose with disapproval written in every lineament.

“I thought your story would bear upon the murder,” he said. “Had I
imagined it would have nothing whatsoever to do with it I would not have
remained.” He pushed back his chair and bowed stiffly. “I wish you good
night,” he said.

There was a chorus of remonstrance, and under cover of this and the
Baronet’s answering protests a servant for the second time slipped a piece
of paper into the hand of the gentleman with the pearl stud. He read the
lines written upon it and tore it into tiny fragments.

The youngest member, who had remained an interested but silent listener to
the tale of the Queen’s Messenger, raised his hand commandingly.

“Sir Andrew,” he cried, “in justice to Lord Arthur Chetney I must ask you
to be seated. He has been accused in our hearing of a most serious crime,
and I insist that you remain until you have heard me clear his character.”

“You!” cried the Baronet.

“Yes,” answered the young man briskly. “I would have spoken sooner,” he
explained, “but that I thought this gentleman”—he inclined his head
toward the Queen’s Messenger—“was about to contribute some facts of
which I was ignorant. He, however, has told us nothing, and so I will take
up the tale at the point where Lieutenant Sears laid it down and give you
those details of which Lieutenant Sears is ignorant. It seems strange to
you that I should be able to add the sequel to this story. But the
coincidence is easily explained. I am the junior member of the law firm of
Chudleigh & Chudleigh. We have been solicitors for the Chetneys for
the last two hundred years. Nothing, no matter how unimportant, which
concerns Lord Edam and his two sons is unknown to us, and naturally we are
acquainted with every detail of the terrible catastrophe of last night.”

The Baronet, bewildered but eager, sank back into his chair.

“Will you be long, sir!” he demanded.

“I shall endeavor to be brief,” said the young solicitor; “and,” he added,
in a tone which gave his words almost the weight of a threat, “I promise
to be interesting.”

“There is no need to promise that,” said Sir Andrew, “I find it much too
interesting as it is.” He glanced ruefully at the clock and turned his
eyes quickly from it.

“Tell the driver of that hansom,” he called to the servant, “that I take
him by the hour.”

“For the last three days,” began young Mr. Chudleigh, “as you have
probably read in the daily papers, the Marquis of Edam has been at the
point of death, and his physicians have never left his house. Every hour
he seemed to grow weaker; but although his bodily strength is apparently
leaving him forever, his mind has remained clear and active. Late
yesterday evening word was received at our office that he wished my father
to come at once to Chetney House and to bring with him certain papers.
What these papers were is not essential; I mention them only to explain
how it was that last night I happened to be at Lord Edam’s bed-side. I
accompanied my father to Chetney House, but at the time we reached there
Lord Edam was sleeping, and his physicians refused to have him awakened.
My father urged that he should be allowed to receive Lord Edam’s
instructions concerning the documents, but the physicians would not
disturb him, and we all gathered in the library to wait until he should
awake of his own accord. It was about one o’clock in the morning, while we
were still there, that Inspector Lyle and the officers from Scotland Yard
came to arrest Lord Arthur on the charge of murdering his brother. You can
imagine our dismay and distress. Like every one else, I had learned from
the afternoon papers that Lord Chetney was not dead, but that he had
returned to England, and on arriving at Chetney House I had been told that
Lord Arthur had gone to the Bath Hotel to look for his brother and to
inform him that if he wished to see their father alive he must come to him
at once. Although it was now past one o’clock, Arthur had not returned.
None of us knew where Madame Zichy lived, so we could not go to recover
Lord Chetney’s body. We spent a most miserable night, hastening to the
window whenever a cab came into the square, in the hope that it was Arthur
returning, and endeavoring to explain away the facts that pointed to him
as the murderer. I am a friend of Arthur’s, I was with him at Harrow and
at Oxford, and I refused to believe for an instant that he was capable of
such a crime; but as a lawyer I could not help but see that the
circumstantial evidence was strongly against him.

“Toward early morning Lord Edam awoke, and in so much better a state of
health that he refused to make the changes in the papers which he had
intended, declaring that he was no nearer death than ourselves. Under
other circumstances, this happy change in him would have relieved us
greatly, but none of us could think of anything save the death of his
elder son and of the charge which hung over Arthur.

“As long as Inspector Lyle remained in the house my father decided that I,
as one of the legal advisers of the family, should also remain there. But
there was little for either of us to do. Arthur did not return, and
nothing occurred until late this morning, when Lyle received word that the
Russian servant had been arrested. He at once drove to Scotland Yard to
question him. He came back to us in an hour, and informed me that the
servant had refused to tell anything of what had happened the night
before, or of himself, or of the Princess Zichy. He would not even give
them the address of her house.

“‘He is in abject terror,’ Lyle said. ‘I assured him that he was not
suspected of the crime, but he would tell me nothing.’

“There were no other developments until two o’clock this afternoon, when
word was brought to us that Arthur had been found, and that he was lying
in the accident ward of St. George’s Hospital. Lyle and I drove there
together, and found him propped up in bed with his head bound in a
bandage. He had been brought to the hospital the night before by the
driver of a hansom that had run over him in the fog. The cab-horse had
kicked him on the head, and he had been carried in unconscious. There was
nothing on him to tell who he was, and it was not until he came to his
senses this afternoon that the hospital authorities had been able to send
word to his people. Lyle at once informed him that he was under arrest,
and with what he was charged, and though the inspector warned him to say
nothing which might be used against him, I, as his solicitor, instructed
him to speak freely and to tell us all he knew of the occurrences of last
night. It was evident to any one that the fact of his brother’s death was
of much greater concern to him, than that he was accused of his murder.


13 We Found Him Propped up in Bed

“‘That,’ Arthur said contemptuously, ‘that is damned nonsense. It is
monstrous and cruel. We parted better friends than we have been in years.
I will tell you all that happened—not to clear myself, but to help
you to find out the truth.’ His story is as follows: Yesterday afternoon,
owing to his constant attendance on his father, he did not look at the
evening papers, and it was not until after dinner, when the butler brought
him one and told him of its contents, that he learned that his brother was
alive and at the Bath Hotel. He drove there at once, but was told that
about eight o’clock his brother had gone out, but without giving any clew
to his destination. As Chetney had not at once come to see his father,
Arthur decided that he was still angry with him, and his mind, turning
naturally to the cause of their quarrel, determined him to look for
Chetney at the home of the Princess Zichy.

“Her house had been pointed out to him, and though he had never visited
it, he had passed it many times and knew its exact location. He
accordingly drove in that direction, as far as the fog would permit the
hansom to go, and walked the rest of the way, reaching the house about
nine o’clock. He rang, and was admitted by the Russian servant. The man
took his card into the drawing-room, and at once his brother ran out and
welcomed him. He was followed by the Princess Zichy, who also received
Arthur most cordially.

“‘You brothers will have much to talk about,’ she said. ‘I am going to the
dining-room. When you have finished, let me know.’

“As soon as she had left them, Arthur told his brother that their father
was not expected to outlive the night, and that he must come to him at
once.

“‘This is not the moment to remember your quarrel,’ Arthur said to him;
‘you have come back from the dead only in time to make your peace with him
before he dies.’

“Arthur says that at this Chetney was greatly moved.

“‘You entirely misunderstand me, Arthur,’ he returned. ‘I did not know the
governor was ill, or I would have gone to him the instant I arrived. My
only reason for not doing so was because I thought he was still angry with
me. I shall return with you immediately, as soon as I have said good-by to
the Princess. It is a final good-by. After tonight, I shall never see her
again.’

“‘Do you mean that?’ Arthur cried.

“‘Yes,’ Chetney answered. ‘When I returned to London I had no intention of
seeking her again, and I am here only through a mistake.’ He then told
Arthur that he had separated from the Princess even before he went to
Central Africa, and that, moreover, while at Cairo on his way south, he
had learned certain facts concerning her life there during the previous
season, which made it impossible for him to ever wish to see her again.
Their separation was final and complete.

“‘She deceived me cruelly,’ he said; ‘I cannot tell you how cruelly.
During the two years when I was trying to obtain my father’s consent to
our marriage she was in love with a Russian diplomat. During all that time
he was secretly visiting her here in London, and her trip to Cairo was
only an excuse to meet him there.’

“‘Yet you are here with her tonight,’ Arthur protested, ‘only a few hours
after your return.’

“‘That is easily explained,’ Chetney answered. ‘As I finished dinner
tonight at the hotel, I received a note from her from this address. In it
she said she had but just learned of my arrival, and begged me to come to
her at once. She wrote that she was in great and present trouble, dying of
an incurable illness, and without friends or money. She begged me, for the
sake of old times, to come to her assistance. During the last two years in
the jungle all my former feeling for Ziehy has utterly passed away, but no
one could have dismissed the appeal she made in that letter. So I came
here, and found her, as you have seen her, quite as beautiful as she ever
was, in very good health, and, from the look of the house, in no need of
money.

“‘I asked her what she meant by writing me that she was dying in a garret,
and she laughed, and said she had done so because she was afraid, unless I
thought she needed help, I would not try to see her. That was where we
were when you arrived. And now,’ Chetney added, ‘I will say good-by to
her, and you had better return home. No, you can trust me, I shall follow
you at once. She has no influence over me now, but I believe, in spite of
the way she has used me, that she is, after her queer fashion, still fond
of me, and when she learns that this good-by is final there may be a
scene, and it is not fair to her that you should be here. So, go home at
once, and tell the governor that I am following you in ten minutes.’
“‘That,’ said Arthur, ‘is the way we parted. I never left him on more
friendly terms. I was happy to see him alive again, I was happy to think
he had returned in time to make up his quarrel with my father, and I was
happy that at last he was shut of that woman. I was never better pleased
with him in my life.’ He turned to Inspector Lyle, who was sitting at the
foot of the bed taking notes of all he told us.

“‘Why in the name of common sense,’ he cried, ‘should I have chosen that
moment of all others to send my brother back to the grave!’ For a moment
the Inspector did not answer him. I do not know if any of you gentlemen
are acquainted with Inspector Lyle, but if you are not, I can assure you
that he is a very remarkable man. Our firm often applies to him for aid,
and he has never failed us; my father has the greatest possible respect
for him. Where he has the advantage over the ordinary police official is
in the fact that he possesses imagination. He imagines himself to be the
criminal, imagines how he would act under the same circumstances, and he
imagines to such purpose that he generally finds the man he wants. I have
often told Lyle that if he had not been a detective he would have made a
great success as a poet, or a playwright.

“When Arthur turned on him Lyle hesitated for a moment, and then told him
exactly what was the case against him.

“‘Ever since your brother was reported as having died in Africa,’ he said,
‘your Lordship has been collecting money on post obits. Lord Chetney’s
arrival last night turned them into waste paper. You were suddenly in debt
for thousands of pounds—for much more than you could ever possibly
pay. No one knew that you and your brother had met at Madame Zichy’s. But
you knew that your father was not expected to outlive the night, and that
if your brother were dead also, you would be saved from complete ruin, and
that you would become the Marquis of Edam.’

“‘Oh, that is how you have worked it out, is it?’ Arthur cried. ‘And for
me to become Lord Edam was it necessary that the woman should die, too!’

“‘They will say,’ Lyle answered, ‘that she was a witness to the murder—that
she would have told.’

“‘Then why did I not kill the servant as well!’ Arthur said.

“‘He was asleep, and saw nothing.’

“‘And you believe that?’ Arthur demanded.

“‘It is not a question of what I believe,’ Lyle said gravely. ‘It is a
question for your peers.’

“‘The man is insolent!’ Arthur cried. ‘The thing is monstrous! Horrible!’

“Before we could stop him he sprang out of his cot and began pulling on
his clothes. When the nurses tried to hold him down, he fought with them.

“‘Do you think you can keep me here,’ he shouted, ‘when they are plotting
to hang me? I am going with you to that house!’ he cried at Lyle. ‘When
you find those bodies I shall be beside you. It is my right. He is my
brother. He has been murdered, and I can tell you who murdered him. That
woman murdered him. She first ruined his life, and now she has killed him.
For the last five years she has been plotting to make herself his wife,
and last night, when he told her he had discovered the truth about the
Russian, and that she would never see him again, she flew into a passion
and stabbed him, and then, in terror of the gallows, killed herself. She
murdered him, I tell you, and I promise you that we will find the knife
she used near her—perhaps still in her hand. What will you say to
that?’

“Lyle turned his head away and stared down at the floor. ‘I might say,’ he
answered, ‘that you placed it there.’

“Arthur gave a cry of anger and sprang at him, and then pitched forward
into his arms. The blood was running from the cut under the bandage, and
he had fainted. Lyle carried him back to the bed again, and we left him
with the police and the doctors, and drove at once to the address he had
given us. We found the house not three minutes’ walk from St. George’s
Hospital. It stands in Trevor Terrace, that little row of houses set back
from Knightsbridge, with one end in Hill Street.

“As we left the hospital Lyle had said to me, ‘You must not blame me for
treating him as I did. All is fair in this work, and if by angering that
boy I could have made him commit himself I was right in trying to do so;
though, I assure you, no one would be better pleased than myself if I
could prove his theory to be correct. But we cannot tell. Everything
depends upon what we see for ourselves within the next few minutes.’

“When we reached the house, Lyle broke open the fastenings of one of the
windows on the ground floor, and, hidden by the trees in the garden, we
scrambled in. We found ourselves in the reception-room, which was the
first room on the right of the hall. The gas was still burning behind the
colored glass and red silk shades, and when the daylight streamed in after
us it gave the hall a hideously dissipated look, like the foyer of a
theatre at a matinee, or the entrance to an all-day gambling hell. The
house was oppressively silent, and because we knew why it was so silent we
spoke in whispers. When Lyle turned the handle of the drawing-room door, I
felt as though some one had put his hand upon my throat. But I followed
close at his shoulder, and saw, in the subdued light of many-tinted lamps,
the body of Chetney at the foot of the divan, just as Lieutenant Sears had
described it. In the drawing-room we found the body of the Princess Zichy,
her arms thrown out, and the blood from her heart frozen in a tiny line
across her bare shoulder. But neither of us, although we searched the
floor on our hands and knees, could find the weapon which had killed her.


We Found the Body of The Princess Zichy

“‘For Arthur’s sake,’ I said, ‘I would have given a thousand pounds if we
had found the knife in her hand, as he said we would.’

“‘That we have not found it there,’ Lyle answered, ‘is to my mind the
strongest proof that he is telling the truth, that he left the house
before the murder took place. He is not a fool, and had he stabbed his
brother and this woman, he would have seen that by placing the knife near
her he could help to make it appear as if she had killed Chetney and then
committed suicide. Besides, Lord Arthur insisted that the evidence in his
behalf would be our finding the knife here. He would not have urged that
if he knew we would not find it, if he knew he himself had carried
it away. This is no suicide. A suicide does not rise and hide the weapon
with which he kills himself, and then lie down again. No, this has been a
double murder, and we must look outside of the house for the murderer.’

“While he was speaking Lyle and I had been searching every corner,
studying the details of each room. I was so afraid that, without telling
me, he would make some deductions prejudicial to Arthur, that I never left
his side. I was determined to see everything that he saw, and, if
possible, to prevent his interpreting it in the wrong way. He finally
finished his examination, and we sat down together in the drawing-room,
and he took out his notebook and read aloud all that Mr. Sears had told
him of the murder and what we had just learned from Arthur. We compared
the two accounts word for word, and weighed statement with statement, but
I could not determine from anything Lyle said which of the two versions he
had decided to believe.

“‘We are trying to build a house of blocks,’ he exclaimed, ‘with half of
the blocks missing. We have been considering two theories,’ he went on:
‘one that Lord Arthur is responsible for both murders, and the other that
the dead woman in there is responsible for one of them, and has committed
suicide; but, until the Russian servant is ready to talk, I shall refuse
to believe in the guilt of either.’

“‘What can you prove by him!’ I asked. ‘He was drunk and asleep. He saw
nothing.’

“Lyle hesitated, and then, as though he had made up his mind to be quite
frank with me, spoke freely.

“‘I do not know that he was either drunk or asleep,’ he answered.
‘Lieutenant Sears describes him as a stupid boor. I am not satisfied that
he is not a clever actor. What was his position in this house! What was
his real duty here? Suppose it was not to guard this woman, but to watch
her. Let us imagine that it was not the woman he served, but a master, and
see where that leads us. For this house has a master, a mysterious,
absentee landlord, who lives in St. Petersburg, the unknown Russian who
came between Chetney and Zichy, and because of whom Chetney left her. He
is the man who bought this house for Madame Zichy, who sent these rugs and
curtains from St. Petersburg to furnish it for her after his own tastes,
and, I believe, it was he also who placed the Russian servant here,
ostensibly to serve the Princess, but in reality to spy upon her. At
Scotland Yard we do not know who this gentleman is; the Russian police
confess to equal ignorance concerning him. When Lord Chetney went to
Africa, Madame Zichy lived in St. Petersburg; but there her receptions and
dinners were so crowded with members of the nobility and of the army and
diplomats, that among so many visitors the police could not learn which
was the one for whom she most greatly cared.’

“Lyle pointed at the modern French paintings and the heavy silk rugs which
hung upon the walls.

“‘The unknown is a man of taste and of some fortune,’ he said, ‘not the
sort of man to send a stupid peasant to guard the woman he loves. So I am
not content to believe, with Mr. Sears, that the servant is a boor. I
believe him instead to be a very clever ruffian. I believe him to be the
protector of his master’s honor, or, let us say, of his master’s property,
whether that property be silver plate or the woman his master loves. Last
night, after Lord Arthur had gone away, the servant was left alone in this
house with Lord Chetney and Madame Zichy. From where he sat in the hall he
could hear Lord Chetney bidding her farewell; for, if my idea of him is
correct, he understands English quite as well as you or I. Let us imagine
that he heard her entreating Chetney not to leave her, reminding him of
his former wish to marry her, and let us suppose that he hears Chetney
denounce her, and tell her that at Cairo he has learned of this Russian
admirer—the servant’s master. He hears the woman declare that she
has had no admirer but himself, that this unknown Russian was, and is,
nothing to her, that there is no man she loves but him, and that she
cannot live, knowing that he is alive, without his love. Suppose Chetney
believed her, suppose his former infatuation for her returned, and that in
a moment of weakness he forgave her and took her in his arms. That is the
moment the Russian master has feared. It is to guard against it that he
has placed his watchdog over the Princess, and how do we know but that,
when the moment came, the watchdog served his master, as he saw his duty,
and killed them both? What do you think?’ Lyle demanded. ‘Would not that
explain both murders?’


15 Entreating Chetney Not to Leave Her

“I was only too willing to hear any theory which pointed to any one else
as the criminal than Arthur, but Lyle’s explanation was too utterly
fantastic. I told him that he certainly showed imagination, but that he
could not hang a man for what he imagined he had done.

“‘No,’ Lyle answered, ‘but I can frighten him by telling him what I think
he has done, and now when I again question the Russian servant I will make
it quite clear to him that I believe he is the murderer. I think that will
open his mouth. A man will at least talk to defend himself. Come,’ he
said, ‘we must return at once to Scotland Yard and see him. There is
nothing more to do here.’

“He arose, and I followed him into the hall, and in another minute we
would have been on our way to Scotland Yard. But just as he opened the
street door a postman halted at the gate of the garden, and began fumbling
with the latch.

“Lyle stopped, with an exclamation of chagrin.

“‘How stupid of me!’ he exclaimed. He turned quickly and pointed to a
narrow slit cut in the brass plate of the front door. ‘The house has a
private letter-box,’ he said, ‘and I had not thought to look in it! If we
had gone out as we came in, by the window, I would never have seen it. The
moment I entered the house I should have thought of securing the letters
which came this morning. I have been grossly careless.’ He stepped back
into the hall and pulled at the lid of the letterbox, which hung on the
inside of the door, but it was tightly locked. At the same moment the
postman came up the steps holding a letter. Without a word Lyle took it
from his hand and began to examine it. It was addressed to the Princess
Zichy, and on the back of the envelope was the name of a West End
dressmaker.

“‘That is of no use to me,’ Lyle said. He took out his card and showed it
to the postman. ‘I am Inspector Lyle from Scotland Yard,’ he said. ‘The
people in this house are under arrest. Everything it contains is now in my
keeping. Did you deliver any other letters here this morning!’

“The man looked frightened, but answered promptly that he was now upon his
third round. He had made one postal delivery at seven that morning and
another at eleven.

“‘How many letters did you leave here!’ Lyle asked.

“‘About six altogether,’ the man answered.

“‘Did you put them through the door into the letter-box!’

“The postman said, ‘Yes, I always slip them into the box, and ring and go
away. The servants collect them from the inside.’

“‘Have you noticed if any of the letters you leave here bear a Russian
postage stamp!’ Lyle asked.

“The man answered, ‘Oh, yes, sir, a great many.’

“‘From the same person, would you say!’

“‘The writing seems to be the same,’ the man answered. ‘They come
regularly about once a week—one of those I delivered this morning
had a Russian postmark.’

“‘That will do,’ said Lyle eagerly. ‘Thank you, thank you very much.’

“He ran back into the hall, and, pulling out his penknife, began to pick
at the lock of the letter-box.

“‘I have been supremely careless,’ he said in great excitement. ‘Twice
before when people I wanted had flown from a house I have been able to
follow them by putting a guard over their mail-box. These letters, which
arrive regularly every week from Russia in the same handwriting, they can
come but from one person. At least, we shall now know the name of the
master of this house. Undoubtedly it is one of his letters that the man
placed here this morning. We may make a most important discovery.’

“As he was talking he was picking at the lock with his knife, but he was
so impatient to reach the letters that he pressed too heavily on the blade
and it broke in his hand. I took a step backward and drove my heel into
the lock, and burst it open. The lid flew back, and we pressed forward,
and each ran his hand down into the letterbox. For a moment we were both
too startled to move. The box was empty.

“I do not know how long we stood staring stupidly at each other, but it
was Lyle who was the first to recover. He seized me by the arm and pointed
excitedly into the empty box.

“‘Do you appreciate what that means?’ he cried. ‘It means that some one
has been here ahead of us. Some one has entered this house not three hours
before we came, since eleven o’clock this morning.’

“‘It was the Russian servant!’ I exclaimed.

“‘The Russian servant has been under arrest at Scotland Yard,’ Lyle cried.
‘He could not have taken the letters. Lord Arthur has been in his cot at
the hospital. That is his alibi. There is some one else, some one we do
not suspect, and that some one is the murderer. He came back here either
to obtain those letters because he knew they would convict him, or to
remove something he had left here at the time of the murder, something
incriminating,—the weapon, perhaps, or some personal article; a
cigarette-case, a handkerchief with his name upon it, or a pair of gloves.
Whatever it was it must have been damning evidence against him to have
made him take so desperate a chance.’

“‘How do we know,’ I whispered, ‘that he is not hidden here now?’

“‘No, I’ll swear he is not,’ Lyle answered. ‘I may have bungled in some
things, but I have searched this house thoroughly. Nevertheless,’ he
added, ‘we must go over it again, from the cellar to the roof. We have the
real clew now, and we must forget the others and work only it.’ As he
spoke he began again to search the drawing-room, turning over even the
books on the tables and the music on the piano. “‘Whoever the man is,’ he
said over his shoulder, ‘we know that he has a key to the front door and a
key to the letter-box. That shows us he is either an inmate of the house
or that he comes here when he wishes. The Russian says that he was the
only servant in the house. Certainly we have found no evidence to show
that any other servant slept here. There could be but one other person who
would possess a key to the house and the letter-box—and he lives in
St. Petersburg. At the time of the murder he was two thousand miles away.’
Lyle interrupted himself suddenly with a sharp cry and turned upon me with
his eyes flashing. ‘But was he?’ he cried. ‘Was he? How do we know that
last night he was not in London, in this very house when Zichy and Chetney
met?’

“He stood staring at me without seeing me, muttering, and arguing with
himself.

“‘Don’t speak to me,’ he cried, as I ventured to interrupt him. ‘I can see
it now. It is all plain. It was not the servant, but his master, the
Russian himself, and it was he who came back for the letters! He came back
for them because he knew they would convict him. We must find them. We
must have those letters. If we find the one with the Russian postmark, we
shall have found the murderer.’ He spoke like a madman, and as he spoke he
ran around the room with one hand held out in front of him as you have
seen a mind-reader at a theatre seeking for something hidden in the
stalls. He pulled the old letters from the writing-desk, and ran them over
as swiftly as a gambler deals out cards; he dropped on his knees before
the fireplace and dragged out the dead coals with his bare fingers, and
then with a low, worried cry, like a hound on a scent, he ran back to the
waste-paper basket and, lifting the papers from it, shook them out upon
the floor. Instantly he gave a shout of triumph, and, separating a number
of torn pieces from the others, held them up before me.

“‘Look!’ he cried. ‘Do you see? Here are five letters, torn across in two
places. The Russian did not stop to read them, for, as you see, he has
left them still sealed. I have been wrong. He did not return for the
letters. He could not have known their value. He must have returned for
some other reason, and, as he was leaving, saw the letter-box, and taking
out the letters, held them together—so—and tore them twice
across, and then, as the fire had gone out, tossed them into this basket.
Look!’ he cried, ‘here in the upper corner of this piece is a Russian
stamp. This is his own letter—unopened!’

“We examined the Russian stamp and found it had been cancelled in St.
Petersburg four days ago. The back of the envelope bore the postmark of
the branch station in upper Sloane Street, and was dated this morning. The
envelope was of official blue paper and we had no difficulty in finding
the two other parts of it. We drew the torn pieces of the letter from them
and joined them together side by side. There were but two lines of
writing, and this was the message: ‘I leave Petersburg on the night train,
and I shall see you at Trevor Terrace after dinner Monday evening.’

“‘That was last night!’ Lyle cried. ‘He arrived twelve hours ahead of his
letter—but it came in time—it came in time to hang him!’”

The Baronet struck the table with his hand.

“The name!” he demanded. “How was it signed? What was the man’s name!”

The young Solicitor rose to his feet and, leaning forward, stretched out
his arm. “There was no name,” he cried. “The letter was signed with only
two initials. But engraved at the top of the sheet was the man’s address.
That address was ‘THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, ST. PETERSBURG, BUREAU or THE
NAVAL ATTACHE,’ and the initials,” he shouted, his voice rising into an
exultant and bitter cry, “were those of the gentleman who sits opposite
who told us that he was the first to find the murdered bodies, the Naval
Attache to Russia, Lieutenant Sears!”

A strained and awful hush followed the Solicitor’s words, which seemed to
vibrate like a twanging bowstring that had just hurled its bolt. Sir
Andrew, pale and staring, drew away with an exclamation of repulsion. His
eyes were fastened upon the Naval Attache with fascinated horror. But the
American emitted a sigh of great content, and sank comfortably into the
arms of his chair. He clapped his hands softly together.

“Capital!” he murmured. “I give you my word I never guessed what you were
driving at. You fooled me, I’ll be hanged if you didn’t—you
certainly fooled me.”

The man with the pearl stud leaned forward with a nervous gesture. “Hush!
be careful!” he whispered. But at that instant, for the third time, a
servant, hastening through the room, handed him a piece of paper which he
scanned eagerly. The message on the paper read, “The light over the
Commons is out. The House has risen.”

The man with the black pearl gave a mighty shout, and tossed the paper
from him upon the table.

“Hurrah!” he cried. “The House is up! We’ve won!” He caught up his glass,
and slapped the Naval Attache violently upon the shoulder. He nodded
joyously at him, at the Solicitor, and at the Queen’s Messenger.
“Gentlemen, to you!” he cried; “my thanks and my congratulations!” He
drank deep from the glass, and breathed forth a long sigh of satisfaction
and relief.

“But I say,” protested the Queen’s Messenger, shaking his finger violently
at the Solicitor, “that story won’t do. You didn’t play fair—and—and
you talked so fast I couldn’t make out what it was all about. I’ll bet you
that evidence wouldn’t hold in a court of law—you couldn’t hang a
cat on such evidence. Your story is condemned tommy-rot. Now my story
might have happened, my story bore the mark—”

In the joy of creation the story-tellers had forgotten their audience,
until a sudden exclamation from Sir Andrew caused them to turn guiltily
toward him. His face was knit with lines of anger, doubt, and amazement.

“What does this mean!” he cried. “Is this a jest, or are you mad? If you
know this man is a murderer, why is he at large? Is this a game you have
been playing? Explain yourselves at once. What does it mean?”

The American, with first a glance at the others, rose and bowed
courteously.

“I am not a murderer, Sir Andrew, believe me,” he said; “you need not be
alarmed. As a matter of fact, at this moment I am much more afraid of you
than you could possibly be of me. I beg you please to be indulgent. I
assure you, we meant no disrespect. We have been matching stories, that is
all, pretending that we are people we are not, endeavoring to entertain
you with better detective tales than, for instance, the last one you read,
‘The Great Rand Robbery.’”

The Baronet brushed his hand nervously across his forehead.

“Do you mean to tell me,” he exclaimed, “that none of this has happened?
That Lord Chetney is not dead, that his Solicitor did not find a letter of
yours written from your post in Petersburg, and that just now, when he
charged you with murder, he was in jest?”

“I am really very sorry,” said the American, “but you see, sir, he could
not have found a letter written by me in St. Petersburg because I have
never been in Petersburg. Until this week, I have never been outside of my
own country. I am not a naval officer. I am a writer of short stories. And
tonight, when this gentleman told me that you were fond of detective
stories, I thought it would be amusing to tell you one of my own—one
I had just mapped out this afternoon.”

“But Lord Chetney is a real person,” interrupted the Baronet, “and
he did go to Africa two years ago, and he was supposed to have died there,
and his brother, Lord Arthur, has been the heir. And yesterday Chetney did
return. I read it in the papers.” “So did I,” assented the American
soothingly; “and it struck me as being a very good plot for a story. I
mean his unexpected return from the dead, and the probable disappointment
of the younger brother. So I decided that the younger brother had better
murder the older one. The Princess Zichy I invented out of a clear sky.
The fog I did not have to invent. Since last night I know all that there
is to know about a London fog. I was lost in one for three hours.”

The Baronet turned grimly upon the Queen’s Messenger.

“But this gentleman,” he protested, “he is not a writer of short stories;
he is a member of the Foreign Office. I have often seen him in Whitehall,
and, according to him, the Princess Zichy is not an invention. He says she
is very well known, that she tried to rob him.”

The servant of the Foreign Office looked unhappily at the Cabinet
Minister, and puffed nervously on his cigar.

“It’s true, Sir Andrew, that I am a Queen’s Messenger,” he said
appealingly, “and a Russian woman once did try to rob a Queen’s Messenger
in a railway carriage—only it did not happen to me, but to a pal of
mine. The only Russian princess I ever knew called herself Zabrisky. You
may have seen her. She used to do a dive from the roof of the Aquarium.”

Sir Andrew, with a snort of indignation, fronted the young Solicitor.

“And I suppose yours was a cock-and-bull story, too,” he said. “Of course,
it must have been, since Lord Chetney is not dead. But don’t tell me,” he
protested, “that you are not Chudleigh’s son either.”

“I’m sorry,” said the youngest member, smiling in some embarrassment, “but
my name is not Chudleigh. I assure you, though, that I know the family
very well, and that I am on very good terms with them.”

“You should be!” exclaimed the Baronet; “and, judging from the liberties
you take with the Chetneys, you had better be on very good terms with
them, too.”

The young man leaned back and glanced toward the servants at the far end
of the room.

“It has been so long since I have been in the Club,” he said, “that I
doubt if even the waiters remember me. Perhaps Joseph may,” he added.
“Joseph!” he called, and at the word a servant stepped briskly forward.

The young man pointed to the stuffed head of a great lion which was
suspended above the fireplace.

“Joseph,” he said, “I want you to tell these gentlemen who shot that lion.
Who presented it to the Grill?”

Joseph, unused to acting as master of ceremonies to members of the Club,
shifted nervously from one foot to the other.

“Why, you—you did,” he stammered.

“Of course I did!” exclaimed the young man. “I mean, what is the name of
the man who shot it! Tell the gentlemen who I am. They wouldn’t believe
me.”

“Who you are, my lord?” said Joseph. “You are Lord Edam’s son, the Earl of
Chetney.”

“You must admit,” said Lord Chetney, when the noise had died away, “that I
couldn’t remain dead while my little brother was accused of murder. I had
to do something. Family pride demanded it. Now, Arthur, as the younger
brother, can’t afford to be squeamish, but personally I should hate to
have a brother of mine hanged for murder.”

“You certainly showed no scruples against hanging me,” said the American,
“but in the face of your evidence I admit my guilt, and I sentence myself
to pay the full penalty of the law as we are made to pay it in my own
country. The order of this court is,” he announced, “that Joseph shall
bring me a wine-card, and that I sign it for five bottles of the Club’s
best champagne.” “Oh, no!” protested the man with the pearl stud, “it is
not for you to sign it. In my opinion it is Sir Andrew who should
pay the costs. It is time you knew,” he said, turning to that gentleman,
“that unconsciously you have been the victim of what I may call a
patriotic conspiracy. These stories have had a more serious purpose than
merely to amuse. They have been told with the worthy object of detaining
you from the House of Commons. I must explain to you, that all through
this evening I have had a servant waiting in Trafalgar Square with
instructions to bring me word as soon as the light over the House of
Commons had ceased to burn. The light is now out, and the object for which
we plotted is attained.”

The Baronet glanced keenly at the man with the black pearl, and then
quickly at his watch. The smile disappeared from his lips, and his face
was set in stern and forbidding lines.

“And may I know,” he asked icily, “what was the object of your plot!”

“A most worthy one,” the other retorted. “Our object was to keep you from
advocating the expenditure of many millions of the people’s money upon
more battleships. In a word, we have been working together to prevent you
from passing the Navy Increase Bill.”

Sir Andrew’s face bloomed with brilliant color. His body shook with
suppressed emotion.


16 What Was the Object of Your Plot?

“My dear sir!” he cried, “you should spend more time at the House and less
at your Club. The Navy Bill was brought up on its third reading at eight
o’clock this evening. I spoke for three hours in its favor. My only reason
for wishing to return again to the House to-night was to sup on the
terrace with my old friend, Admiral Simons; for my work at the House was
completed five hours ago, when the Navy Increase Bill was passed by an
overwhelming majority.”

The Baronet rose and bowed. “I have to thank you, sir,” he said, “for a
most interesting evening.”

The American shoved the wine-card which Joseph had given him toward the
gentleman with the black pearl.

“You sign it,” he said.

THE END.

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