In Direst Peril Part 27

"In that case," said Roncivalli, rising, "until tomorrow, madame. Until to-morrow, Mr. Brunow." He took up his paletot from the chair onto which he had thrown it on his entrance, and threw it over his shoulder. Then he took his hat, and with a half-theatrical bow all round, and a smile at Sacovitch, he left the room. The hall-door banged a few seconds later, and his footstep sounded on the gravel of the path and then died away.

"I am not quite sure that I trust that fellow," Sacovitch said a minute later. "It will be your business to keep a strict eye upon him."

"Have no fear," said the baroness. "He shall be well watched."

There was more talk, but it had no interest for me, though I still listened intently in the hope of learning more. In a quarter of an hour or thereabouts the servant was called in, and received instructions to bring the baroness's carriage, which appeared to be put up at a hotel while the conference was being held. She and Brunow and Constance were, it appeared, going back to town together, and I learned incidentally that the cottage had been rented by Sacovitch for his own purposes, as affording a more convenient and secret meeting-place than any he could find in London. Directly the servant had received his orders I gave Hinge a sign, and with infinite precautions we climbed from the veranda to the garden, and thence made our way on tip-toe, like a pair of thieves, to the roadway.

"They're a nice old lot, sir, ain't they?" said Hinge, when we had walked a hundred yards in silence.

I quieted him by returning no answer, and we walked on without another word until I had reached my own chamber. By this time I had quite made up my mind as to the line it was my duty to adopt, and wheresoever it led me I was resolved to follow. I gave Hinge my purse, and instructed him to pay the bill, to pack up my belongings, and to be ready to catch the first train into town. He was full of wonderment and conjecture, but, like the old soldier he was, he obeyed without inquiry. When I arrived at my own rooms I sat down and wrote a statement of the whole truth, as brief and concise as I could make it, and copied it four or five times over; and armed with these doc.u.ments, I drove to the addresses of such men as I knew where to find among our _societaires_.

Under ordinary circ.u.mstances, since the count's departure and the betrayal of poor old Ruffiano, I should have gone to Roncivalli; but now that he was turned traitor I had to rely upon my own limited information, which served me very awkwardly. I had calculated beforehand on the chance that I might not find any one of the men I sought at home, and my worst forebodings were fulfilled. I left in each case my written statement, and before I returned to my own rooms I had delivered them all. The unfortunate part of the business was, as I knew full well, that hardly a man among them could read English, and in almost every case the recipient of my letter would have to seek a translator before he could find me. I knew, on the other hand, that if once the statement I had made reached the intelligence of any one Italian patriot, the news would spread like wildfire, and that, if I needed them, a hundred men would be at my disposal to check the treason meditated by Roncivalli and Brunow.

In each epistle I besought the receiver to follow me without delay to Southampton, and I undertook to wire to each the address at which I might be found, and begged him, in case he should follow immediately, to make arrangements to have that address rewired.

All this being done, I sat down and wrote out a fuller statement of the case for Violet's reading, if ever I should again be so happy as to find the chance of placing it in her hands. This occupied me until an hour after midnight. I went to bed, leaving with Hinge the responsibility of awaking me in time for the first train next morning to Southampton.

When we reached the railway station I caught a glimpse of Roncivalli and Brunow and the baroness; but this was no more than I had expected, and it cost me but little trouble to evade them. We reached Southampton without adventure, and I kept my place in the railway carriage until Hinge reported to me that they had left the platform. Then I ventured after them in a fly, and having seen them all enter a hotel together, I made a note of its name and position in my mind, and took a little drive into the country before returning. When I got back and procured rooms, my heart leaped as I signed the visitors' book, for at the top of the page on which I wrote I saw the names of Lady Rollinson, Miss Rossano and maid. It cost me an effort to put the question with untroubled face and voice, but I asked the servant who conducted me to my room if Miss Rossano were still staying in the house. He answered uninterestedly that he did not know the lady. But when I mentioned her as Lady Rollinson's companion, he recalled her to mind.

"No, sir," he said; "the lady stayed in the house the night before last, but she went away with her maid yesterday morning."

As to when she would return, or as to the direction she had taken at the time of her departure, he could tell me nothing. And so, as fate would have it, I was left in the ignorance and uncertainty which had perplexed me from the first. A minute's interview with Violet would, of course, have put an end to the danger of the situation, but in her absence I felt as powerless here as I had been in London. I was on the scene of action, but so long as Lady Rollinson retained her absurd suspicions, I could not approach the actors and actresses in the scene of tragedy which grew every moment more threatening and more imminent.

Hinge was so far in my confidence already that I had not much difficulty in laying before him all my hopes and fears. I wrote an urgent note to Lady Rollinson, and sent it by his hand, instructing him to deliver it to her ladys.h.i.+p personally. I read it over to him when it was completed, and at the end of every sentence he nodded a.s.sent to it.

"Dear Lady Rollinson," I wrote, "you have engaged to pay into the hands of Signor Roncivalli a sum of forty thousand pounds, to be handed to Count Rossano. Before you do this I beseech you solemnly to give me a moment's interview. The payment of that money will result in the count's betrayal to the Austrians. You know what he has suffered already, and you know how little mercy he can look for at their hands if they should once more succeed in getting hold of him. I beg you, for his sake, and for the sake of Violet, whom I know you love, to give me an interview of five minutes only. You may question the bearer of this note, who will tell you everything, and you may rely upon his knowledge and discretion.

If you are still determined not to see me, I shall be quite content that you should learn the truth from him. But I beg you, by everything you hold dear, not to disregard my warning. Count Rossano is in peril of the gravest sort, and if you should hand Miss Ros-sano's gift to him without inquiry, you may sign his death-warrant, and will certainly give yourself grounds for the bitterest self-reproaches you have ever known."

Hinge undertook, with a full sense of the responsibility which rested upon him, to deliver this letter, and went away with it; but in ten minutes he came back with the envelope unopened.

"_I_ got to 'er ladys.h.i.+p," he said; "but the minute I told 'er where I came from she threw the letter on the table and told me to bring it back again. I tried my best, sir, but she wouldn't listen to me. She ordered me out of the room, sir; and when I tried to tell 'er what the matter was, she rung the bell and walked out. You can't follow a lady into 'er bedroom, sir; and say what I would I couldn't get 'er to let me get a word in edgeways. A servant comes up in answer to the ring, and 'er ladys.h.i.+p, from inside 'er bedroom, says, 'Waiter, request that man to leave my room, and see as 'e don't trouble me no more.'"

"Where are Lady Rollinson's rooms?" I asked him, desperately.

"They're in this corridor, sir," Hinge answered; "at the far end, numbers 38, 39, and 40."

I s.n.a.t.c.hed up the letter, strode along the corridor, and knocked at the middle door of the suite. Lady Rollinson herself answered my summons, and before I could speak a word slammed the door indignantly in my face and turned the key. I heard the bolt shoot in the lock, and a second later an angry peal at the bell sounded. I stood there, altogether irresolute and disconsolate. A waiter came flying up the stairs, and, bustling past me, knocked at the door.

"Who's there?" cried her ladys.h.i.+p's voice from within. "Send the manager to me. Tell him that I am being persecuted, and that I demand his protection."

What was a man to do in a case of that kind? I could simply retire to my own apartments; but I did it in such a pa.s.sion of wrath and impotence that I could have taken that stupid and credulous old woman by the shoulders and shaken her to reason. I was too angry and disheartened to speak a word; but while I was pacing up and down the room, and wondering what my next move should be, the manager of the hotel presented himself, with a message from Lady Rollinson.

"It is no affair of mine, sir," said the man, who was extremely polite and business-like; "but the lady declares that she will not see you on any account, or receive any communication from you. I am to tell you that if you persist in attempting to see her she will leave the hotel.

I can't afford to have my customers troubled in this way, and I must ask you to go."

I told him I should decline to go. I asked him to sit down, and I related to him the whole story, so far as it was necessary that any outside person should hear it, in order that he might judge of the situation. The man became interested, and even in a way sympathetic.

"It's a very curious case; sir," he admitted; "but I can't allow my customers to be disturbed, all the same. If I were in your place, sir,"

he added, "I should appeal to the police."

This advice was so hopelessly astray from the point that I dismissed the man, though I had to promise him that Lady Rollinson should suffer no further annoyance. Hinge was hard to pacify, for in his loyalty to me and the affection that had grown up between us, he was almost as much interested as I was, and he kept breaking in with a "Look 'ere, sir, this is Captain Fyffe, my master. It was him as rescued Count Rossano from the fortress of Itzia--you must have seen it in the papers." The man was got rid of at last, and the promise was given. And now there was nothing to be done but to await the arrival of some one or two of the patriotic _societaires_ from London. Even in the extremity at which things had arrived, I more than half dreaded their coming. If they came at all, they would come with a full knowledge of the facts, and their arrival meant nothing less than murder. It would have been the wildest of dreams to suppose for an instant that any one of them would allow his beloved chief to be handed over to the Austrians at any cost; and though I was willing to pay almost any price to save the count, I had a horror of bloodshed in a case like that.

"Let us leave no stone unturned," I said to Hinge.

"I will go to the railway station to meet any friends of mine that may arrive, and in the meantime you can go to the docks and ascertain what vessels sail for any Italian port to-morrow. Find out if it is possible for me to get berths aboard the boat by which Brunow and Roncivalli sail."

"You trust me, sir," Hinge returned; "I'll do my best."

We parted for an hour or so. My waiting at the station came to nothing, and when Hinge returned he had no news worth the telling. The regular liners were all known, and had been easy enough to find. He had learned by cunning inquiry that luggage had been taken that evening aboard a craft whose destination v was unknown, and he had had her pointed out to him. When he had pulled out into the harbor to speak the craft, he had been warned away by a man who either could not understand him or refused to do so. It was not in itself a suspicious or remarkable thing that a stranger should not have been allowed to board a foreign craft after dark, but in the circ.u.mstances it was enough to make me believe that this was the s.h.i.+p by which the traitorous party was to sail. To be so near, to know so much, and yet to be so helpless was downright maddening.

"Once the money is in the hands of those wretches," I said, "once they are away, the count is doomed. That headstrong old woman is throwing away her niece's fortune to betray her niece's father; and if she knew what she was doing she would sooner put her own right hand in the fire."

"If I was you, sir," Hinge responded, "I shouldn't let her do it."

"You wouldn't?" I responded.

"No, sir," said Hinge; "I wouldn't."

"And how would you prevent it?" I asked. I spoke eagerly, for I could not help thinking he had some scheme in mind.

"I don't know, sir," said Hinge; "but I shouldn't let 'er do it. I'd rouse the town agen 'em. Do you mean to tell me, sir, as any set of English people 'ud let a lot of scoundrels like them go off to sell the life of an innocent gentleman? I don't believe it. I should rouse the town."

I bade him hold his tongue and go, and for two or three hours I sat by myself, raging at my own helplessness. There is nothing so intolerable to an active mind as the sense of urgent duty confronted by impotence.

And if ever circ.u.mstance in the whole history of the world yet justified a man, sane and sober, in a madman's act, I felt myself justified when the last desperate resort occurred to me.

CHAPTER XX

I said not a word; but I sat by myself, and I matured, I think, the maddest scheme that ever entered a sane man's head. Desperate diseases, as everybody knows, ask for desperate remedies, and here I do not know how it was possible for anybody to overestimate the urgency of the case.

Count Rossano has gone peacefully to his rest now this many a year, but I had learned to love the man with a loyal affection and esteem, the like of which I never felt for any human creature, except my wife and my own children. It made for a good deal in my affection for him that I had been instrumental in rescuing him from that living death he had suffered for so many years, for I have found over and over again in my own experience that one of the surest ways of learning to love a man is to do him a good turn. And apart from my own affection for him, he was the very apple of Violet's eye, and my affection for her I have never been able to find words for. That her money should be employed to lure her father to destruction was a thing altogether hideous and intolerable; and when I hit upon the only method I could see to prevent so dreadful a consummation, I accepted my own madness with a tranquillity which has surprised me very often in remembering it. I thought it well, before starting on the enterprise I had in hand, to set down my purpose in writing, so that if it miscarried I might at least escape the mischief of misconstruction. So I sat down and wrote deliberately that it was my intention to rob Lady Rollinson of the sum of forty thousand pounds, intrusted to her by Miss Violet Rossano for transmission to her father.

If I could have seen any other way out of it I would not have taken this; but I had searched everywhere in my own mind, and until this one extraordinary proposition disclosed itself I had been able to find no road at all. I set down in the doc.u.ment I wrote my purpose in this strange proceeding; I signed and sealed it in an envelope, and put it in my pocket. Then I waited until the house was quite silent, and the last waiter had shuffled along the corridor. It was one o'clock in the morning before I was satisfied that the whole house had sunk to slumber, and then I marched straight to the room in which Lady Rollinson had last decisively refused to grant me a moment's interview. I remember very well that there were three pairs of boots outside the door, that they were all new and neat and fas.h.i.+onable, and that I thought, as I looked at them, that in contrast with my own heavy and mud-stained footgear they looked marvellously small and delicate. I turned the handle of the door, and, to my surprise, it yielded. I found myself within a dimly-lighted room, where the main illumination was refracted in a ghostly fas.h.i.+on from the white ceiling, and came from the street-lamps in the square below. I closed the door behind me, and found that I had light enough to make my way about without difficulty. The room was furnished in hotel fas.h.i.+on, and at one wall of it stood a ghostly piano, its form revealed by mere hints of polish on its surface here and there.

On the opposite side was an escritoire with writing implements, and a few scattered sheets of paper. In the centre of the room was a table, and two or three disordered chairs were scattered about the apartment.

Faint as the light was, a cursory glance about the place made it evident to me that so large an amount of money as the sum I meant to steal was hardly likely to be there. There were two doors opening out of the room apart from the one by which I had entered, and I was compelled to trust to chance in my choice of the one to be next opened. I cannot in the least tell why, but I walked without hesitation to the one on my left.

I tried the handle, and the door resisted me. I tried again more strenuously, and I heard a voice from the other side cry out in sleepy tones, asking who was there. I knew the voice for Lady Rollinson's.

I know very well that I am telling a queer story, but I must tell it plainly. I set my sound knee against that door and threw my whole weight with it, and in a second, with a horrible wrench at the injured wrist and ankle, I stood inside the room. A faint scream greeted me, and I saw a white figure in the act of scrambling upright in the bed.

"You will do well to be quiet," I said, and the figure sank back with a sort of moan and gurgle of astonishment. My own nerves were so overstrung already that I discerned a comedy in a situation sufficiently serious, and if I had given way to the impulse which a.s.sailed me I should have broken into a shout of unreasoning laughter. This was only a surface current, however, and I was as conscious of the serious import of my business as I am now in recalling the incidents of that incredible adventure.

"Your ladys.h.i.+p," I said, with that odd sense of comedy still uppermost, "will regard this as rather a curious intrusion. You have forty thousand pounds belonging to Miss Rossano, and I am here to rob you of it. I propose to do it with all delicacy; but if your ladys.h.i.+p will be good enough to understand me, I mean to have the money."

That she heard me I am sure, but the sole answer I received came in the shape of a m.u.f.fled scream from underneath the bedclothes.

"The money," I said, "is Violet's property, and to her I shall be perfectly willing to account for it. You must tell me where it is, and I shall take it, and shall keep it until she comes to claim it." I waited, and no answer came at all. I was bubbling with subdued laughter, and fully alive at the same time to the serious side of my own position.

"Where is the money?" I asked, in a voice as stern as I could make it.

"Tell me, and tell me without delay!"

The blinds of the room were drawn, and even that faint illumination which had guided my steps in the sitting-room was missing here. I could see nothing but the dull gray gleam of the white counterpane and the hangings of the bed.

"Tell me at once," I said. "You may ask me for any explanation in the morning, and I will give it Where is the money?"