The Moonlit Way Part 8

"The _Mot d'Ordre_?"

"Certainly."

"I asked you that because Ferez Bey is notoriously in Germany's pay.

And Ferez Bey financed the affair. You said so. Besides, you and he discussed it before me in my own salon."

"And you suspected that I bought the _Mot d'Ordre_ with German money for the purpose of carrying out German propaganda in a Paris daily paper?"

"I don't know why Ferez Bey gave you the money to buy it."

"He did not give me the money."

"You said so. Who did?"

"_You!_" he fairly yelled.

"W-what!" stammered the girl, confounded.

"Listen to me, you rat!" he said fiercely. "I was not such a fool as you believed me to be. I lavished money on you; you made a fortune for yourself out of your popularity, too. Do you remember endorsing a cheque drawn to your order by Ferez Bey?"

"Yes. You had borrowed every penny I possessed. You said that Ferez Bey owed you as much. So I accepted his cheque----"

"That cheque paid for the _Mot d'Ordre_. It is drawn to your order; it bears your endors.e.m.e.nt; the _Mot d'Ordre_ was purchased in your name. And it was Max Freund who insisted that I take that precaution.

Now, try to blackmail me!--you and your English spy!" he cried triumphantly, his voice breaking into a squeak.

Not yet understanding, merely conscious of some vague and monstrous danger, the girl sat motionless, regarding him intently out of beautiful, intelligent eyes.

He burst into laughter, made falsetto by the hysteria of sheer hatred:

"That's where you are now!" he said, leering down at her. "Every paper I ever made you sign incriminates you; your cancelled cheque is in the same packet; your _dossier_ is d.a.m.ning and complete. You didn't know that Ferez Bey was sent across the frontier yesterday, did you? Your English spy didn't inform you last night, did he?"

"N-no."

"You lie! You _did_ know it! That was why you stole away last night and met your jackal--to sell him something besides yourself, this time! You knew they had arrested Ferez! I don't know how you knew it, but you did. And you told your lover. And both of you thought you had me at last, didn't you?"

"I--what are you trying to say to me--do to me?" she stammered, losing colour for the first time.

"Put you where you belong--you dirty spy!" he said with grinning ferocity. "If there is to be trouble, I've prepared for it. When they try you for espionage, they'll try you as a foreigner--a dancing girl in the pay of Germany--as my mistress whom Max Freund and I discover in treachery to France, and whom I instantly denounce to the proper authorities!"

He shoved his pistol into his breast pocket and put on his marred silk hat.

"Which do you think they will believe--you or the Count d'Eblis?" he demanded, the nervous leer twitching at his heavy lips. "Which do you think they will believe--your denials and counter-accusations against me, or Max Freund's corroboration, and the evidence of the packet I shall now deliver to the authorities--the packet containing every cursed doc.u.ment necessary to convict you!--you filthy little----"

The girl bounded from her bed to the floor, her dark eyes blazing:

"d.a.m.n you!" she said. "Get out of my bedroom!"

Taken aback, he retreated a pace or two, and, at the furious menace of the little clenched fist, stepped another pace out into the corridor.

The door crashed in his face; the bolt shot home.

In twenty minutes Nihla Quellen, the celebrated and adored of European capitals, crept out of the street door. She wore the dress of a Finistere peasant; her hair was grey, her step infirm.

The _commissaire_, two _agents de police_, and a Government detective, one Souchez, already on their way to identify and arrest her, never even glanced at the shabby, infirm figure which hobbled past them on the sidewalk and feebly mounted an omnibus marked Gare du Nord.

For a long time Paris was carefully combed for the dancer, Nihla Quellen, until more serious affairs occupied the authorities, and presently the world at large. For, in a few weeks, war burst like a clap of thunder over Europe, leaving the whole world stunned and reeling. The dossier of Nihla Quellen, the dancing girl, was tossed into secret archives, together with the dossier of one Ferez Bey, an Eurasian, now far beyond French jurisdiction, and already very industrious in the United States about G.o.d knows what, in company with one Max Freund.

As for Monsieur the Count d'Eblis, he remained a senator, an owner of many third-rate decorations, and of the _Mot d'Ordre_.

And he remained on excellent terms with everybody at the Swedish, Greek, and Bulgarian legations, and the Turkish Emba.s.sy, too. And continued in cipher communication with Max Freund and Ferez Bey in America.

Otherwise, he was still president of the Numismatic Society of Spain, and he continued to add to his wonderful collection of coins, and to keep up his voluminous numismatic correspondence.

He was growing stouter, too, which increased his spinal waddle when he walked; and he became very prosperous financially, through fortunate "operations," as he explained, with one Bolo Pasha.

He had only one regret to interfere with his sleep and his digestion; he was sorry he had not fired his pistol into the youthful face of Nihla Quellen. He should have avenged himself, taken his chances, and above everything else he should have destroyed her beauty. His timidity and caution still caused him deep and bitter chagrin.

For nearly a year he heard absolutely nothing concerning her. Then one day a letter arrived from Ferez Bey through Max Freund, both being in New York. And when, using his key to the cipher, he extracted the message it contained, he had learned, among other things, that Nihla Quellen was in New York, employed as a teacher in a school for dancing.

The gist of his reply to Ferez Bey was that Nihla Quellen had already outlived her usefulness on earth, and that Max Freund should attend to the matter at the first favourable opportunity.

III

SUNSET

On the edge of evening she came out of the Palace of Mirrors and crossed the wet asphalt, which already reflected primrose lights from a clearing western sky.

A few moments before, he had been thinking of her, never dreaming that she was in America. But he knew her instantly, there amid the rush and clatter of the street, recognised her even in the twilight of the pa.s.sing storm--perhaps not alone from the half-caught glimpse of her shadowy, averted face, nor even from that young, lissome figure so celebrated in Europe. There is a sixth sense--the sense of nearness to what is familiar. When it awakes we call it premonition.

The shock of seeing her, the moment's exciting incredulity, pa.s.sed before he became aware that he was already following her through swarming metropolitan throngs released from the toil of a long, wet day in early spring.

Through every twilit avenue poured the crowds; through every cross-street a rosy glory from the west was streaming; and in its magic he saw her immortally transfigured, where the pink light suffused the crossings, only to put on again her lovely mortality in the shadowy avenue.

At Times Square she turned west, straight into the dazzling fire of sunset, and he at her slender heels, not knowing why, not even asking it of himself, not thinking, not caring.

A third figure followed them both.

The bronze giants south of them stirred, swung their great hammers against the iron bell; strokes of the hour rang out above the din of Herald Square, inaudible in the traffic roar another square away, lost, drowned out long before the pleasant bell-notes penetrated to Forty-second Street, into which they both had turned.

Yet, as though occultly conscious that some hour had struck on earth, significant to her, she stopped, turned, and looked back--looked quite through him, seeing neither him nor the one-eyed man who followed them both--as though her line of vision were the East itself, where, across the grey sea's peril, a thousand miles of cannon were sounding the hour from the North Sea to the Alps.