A Fascinating Traitor Part 28

"Call up your servants. Get out the carriage. Go back to your women.

Make merry. You are perfectly safe, but only if you obey me!" was the last mandate of the triumphant bravo. When he stepped out of the house, attended by the frightened murderer, Alan Hawke whispered from the carriage: "Your house is under a close watch--even now. Remember--I give you till sundown, and if you fail, I will come with the guard! I shall seal up the dagger and leave it here with a message to the General Willoughby Sahib to be given to him, at once, by one who knows you! So, I can trust you. Nothing must happen to your dear friend, you know!" he smilingly said in adieu, as Ram Lal groaned in anguish.

Alan Hawke had closely examined the vehicle, and he sat with his drawn revolver ready as he drove down the still lit-up Chandnee Chouk. In a storm of remorse and agony, the plundered jeweler was now doubly locked up in his room. "I must do this devil's bidding!" he murmured. "Bowanee!

Bowanee! You have betrayed your servant!" was his cry as he sought the safety of the Zenana.

Major Hawke tasted all the sweets of a great secret triumph as he cast up his accounts. "The five thousand pounds frightened from this old wretch, Ram Lal, really squares me with the estate of the 'dear departed.' The jewels are worth twice as much more, and, with Ram Lal's indors.e.m.e.nt all the other drafts on Glyn's bank are as good as gold.

There is twenty thousand clear profit. I will send them on now for acceptance, openly, through the Credit Lyonnaise when I get to Paris.

For Berthe Louison will give me, also, a good character. Old Ram's indors.e.m.e.nts make them perfectly good anywhere. I had better hide the details of this windfall, out here. And, now, thank Heaven, I am 'fixed for life,' and I can go in boldly and play the Prince Charming to Miss Moneybags, the fair Nadine." He tossed a double rupee to the driver, as the sentry swung the gate, but, hastily called him back as Captain Jordan said, hastening from the house:

"Orders are waiting for you now, with the General. Let me give you a trusty Sergeant. Drive right up there, Major. The General sent word that he awaits you." And so the Major sped away to his chief.

No human being in Delhi ever knew the purport of the orders which General Willoughby handed to Major Hawke, on this eventful evening, but much marveled all Delhi that the favorite of fortune was absent from the funeral of the late Hugh Fraser Johnstone, Esq., of Delhi and Calcutta.

He had vanished, with no P.P.C. calls, and a hundred-pound note tossed to the poor little Eurasian girl in the cottage was her whole fortune in life now.

But a grave-faced civilian public official, with Major Williamson, of the Viceroy's general staff (a late arrival from Calcutta), ruled over the marble house in place of Major Alan Hawke "absent upon special duty." Only Ram Lal knew of the real destination of the lucky man, who was only free from care when he had sailed from Bombay direct for Brindisi, on the fleet steamer Ramchunder.

"I am safe now," laughed Alan Hawke, who rejoiced in the easy tour of duty before him. "To repair to London and to report to Captain Anson Anstruther, A.D.C., for special duty." Such were the Viceroy's secret orders. It was General Willoughby who had absolutely invoked secrecy.

"Wear a plain military undress, and you must avoid most men, and all women. Keep your mouth shut and you may find your provisional rank confirmed."

To Berthe Louison's secret agents, the Grindlay Bank at Delhi, Major Hawke had delivered a sealed envelope. "Use this only at your sorest need. I will see Madame Louison probably before she has any orders for me, as to her private affairs." When the envelope was opened the words "Major Alan Hawke, Hotel Faucon, Lausanne, Switzerland," gave the only address which the adventurer dared to leave. And it was that which the cowering Ram Lal Singh copied when he brought to Alan Hawke the four sets of altered Bills of Exchange, and the Bank of England notes for the check of five thousand pounds.

Major Hawke surveyed the skillfully raised Bills of Exchange and carefully examined them in a dark room with a light, and also before the glaring sun rays. "A splendid job, Ram Lal," he gayly said. "You must have given them a coat of size and then moistened and ironed them." The old rascal gloomily accepted the professional compliment. "I observe that you have labored to protect your own indors.e.m.e.nt," sportively remarked the Major.

"And now you will return to me my jewels?" timidly demanded Ram Lal.

"Do you wish me to send the dagger of Mirzah Shah to General Willoughby?

It is deposited here, with a sealed letter," coldly sneered Hawke.

"Should anything happen to me or, to these drafts, it would be sent to the General, and you would hang. No, I will keep the jewels."

And then Major Hawke thrust the s.h.i.+vering wretch out, having liberally paid to him, through Grindlay, the balance due by Berthe Louison.

"I swear that I did not get a single jewel from--from him. He has hidden them," pleaded Ram Lal.

"Ah! I must look to this" mused Hawke, when Ram Lal had been frightened away with a last stern injunction:

"Obey my slightest wishes or you will hang! I will have you watched till I return! There are eyes upon your path that never close in sleep!" Ram Lal shuddered in silence.

Delhi soon forgot the man whom the great stone now covered in the English cemetery, and only General Willoughby and the easy-going civil authorities knew of the cablegram: "Coming on with full power from Senior Executor.--Douglas Fraser, Junior Executor." The cablegram was dated from Milan, for two keen Scottish brains were now busied with plans to save and care for the worldly gear so suddenly abandoned to their care by Hugh Johnstone. Though Delhi was swept as with a besom, no trace of the cowardly a.s.sa.s.sins was ever found, and only old Simpson, waiting, in final charge as household major domo for Douglas Fraser's arrival, could enlighten the perturbed commanding General with certain vague suspicions. But Ram Lal slept now in a growing security.

"It is clear that the master was watched in his secret preparations for the voyage home," said Simpson, "and some outsiders, with the help of some traitor among the blacks, paid off an old score. I could tell of many an old enemy which he gained in these twenty years." sadly said Simpson. "I feel they only mussed up the room to give an appearance of robbery. The mahogany boxes were merely part of master's old wedding outfit in London, and I know that they were only filled with toilet articles and little medical stores. They only lugged them off to make a show."

And General Willoughby, following up Simpson's clues, easily discovered a shady side of Johnstone's past life, not compatible with the pompous panegyrics of the Indian press, the resolutions of a dozen clubs and societies, the minutes of the Bank of Bengal, and other mortuary literature of a complimentary nature. It was some old curse come down upon the defenseless man in his old age! And so no one ever sought for the solution of the mystery in the deep dejection of Ram Lal Singh, who vainly mourned for his lost jewels and money. Fear tied his hands, and his tongue was palsied by guilt. He vindictively, however, raised his customary "rate of usance," and swore in his own hardened heart that the needy borrowers of Delhi should recoup him fully before a year. The one Star gleaming in the dark night of financial blackness was the vengeance upon the man who had tricked and despoiled a fellow-robber thirty years before.

Major Hawke on his homeward way counted up a goodly store of twelve thousand pounds in money, jewels of nearly the same value, and the skillfully raised and properly indorsed drafts on London for twenty thousand more. "If I can only get these pa.s.sed by the executors I am a made man for life," mused the Major as the Ramchunder sped over the blue Arabian sea. "If I discover the secret of the stolen jewels, they must yield, to save both family honor and money; if I don't, then, Ram Lal must save his life and protect the drafts. I will negotiate them with the Credit Lyonnais, in Paris, and force Berthe to help me. No one shall rob me now," somewhat illogically mused the brilliant adventurer, proud of his life-work.

At Calcutta, the n.o.ble Viceroy had already given to Major Harry Hardwicke and Capt. Eric Murray his orders for their performance of a delicate duty.

"You will find Captain Anstruther to be my personal as well as official representative in London, and Her Majesty's service demands prudence in this grave affair. So but one set of confidential cipher dispatches have been sent on, and Captain Anstruther will have charge of the whole delicate affair. Should either of you meet Major Alan Hawke in London, or out of India, your commissions will depend on guarding an absolute silence as to the whole Johnstone affair. You are trusted, and not watched, gentlemen," said the great n.o.ble, "and he is watched, and not trusted. Now, I have done all I can for you, as this duty takes you home and brings you back at the expense of her Majesty's government. You will not fail to communicate with me from Aden, Suez, and Port Said, as well as Brindisi, and to report if Madame Louison has received at each place her telegrams and proceeded on her journey in safety. Her Majesty's consuls will, in each place, aid you in every way. Should I decide to drop or quash the whole affair, my young kinsman, Anstruther, represents me, personally as well as officially."

And so the gay young bridegroom-to-be sailed from Calcutta light-hearted, while Harry Hardwicke counted each day's reckoning as bringing him, by leaps and bounds, nearer to the dark-eyed girl now left alone in the world. "There shall nothing come between us now, my darling one!" was the young Major's fond vow confided to the evening star, glowing in its trembling silver radiance over the spicy Indian Ocean.

Alixe Delavigne was still "Madame Berthe Louison" to the glittering circle of pa.s.sengers who envied her the state in which she traveled, the slavish obeisance of the s.h.i.+p's officers, and the deft ministrations of those admirable servants, Jules Victor and Marie. "A great personage incognito," was the general verdict, and so the luckless swains hovering around fell off one by one, as the beautiful woman seemed to be always wrapped in an unbroken reverie. There was an anxious gleam in the lady's eyes, for she felt that she was going home to the sternest battle of her life, and she brooded now only upon the trials of the future. She never knew how near the dark angel's wing had swooped over her own defenseless head.

For the gray head now lying low had been secretly busied with plans for a huge bribe to Ram Lal which should buy him to the doing of a dark deed without a name. Only Berthe's determined attack on the granting of the baronetcy in London, and her own "lightning disappearance" had saved her from Ram Lal's cupidity. Master of the secrets of a dozen Eastern poisons, the artful confederate of her dark retinue in the silver bungalow, Ram Lal would have gladly worked Hugh Johnstone's will for his red gold. But the fierce quarrel and the precipitate flight of Berthe Louison had balked Johnstone, who fell by the very hand of the sly wretch whom he had designed to buy, as the murderer of another. The engineer hoist by his own petard. But, steadfastly looking to Valerie's child alone, she knew not the dangers which she had escaped.

"I was afraid they would kill you, Madame. Thank G.o.d, we are now safe at sea!" said Jules Victor.

"Who?" cried the startled woman.

"Why, that old wretch; he had money, and his spies were all around you,"

said Jules.

"Yes! Thank G.o.d! We are safe now!" mused Berthe Louison, and she bade a long adieu to the strange scenes of her pilgrimage. "I shall never see India again!" she reflected, when she pa.s.sed, in a mental review, Calcutta, holy Benares, smoky Patna, brisk Allahabad, Cawnpore, where the white-winged angel broods over the innocent dead, heroic Lucknow, and crime-haunted Delhi--all these rose up in a weird panorama of the mind. Strange tales of wild adventure told by Alan Hawke returned to her now--the mysteries of Thibet, the weird ferocity of Bhotan, the quaint tales of the polyandrous Todas, and the strange story of Vijaynagar, the desecrated city whose streets are peopled but ten days in the year! A lotos land where crime broods, where the cobra hides under the painted blossoms of Death!

Glittering palaces of Agra, gloomy caves of Elephanta, the light and lovely Mohammedan architecture, the dark haunts of Kali and Bowanee, the thronged Ghats of the sacred rivers, the color medleys of the vast cities, all these busied her as she pa.s.sed her days alone in study over the secretly gathered up collection of polychrome views which had taken her from the Neilgherries to Cape Comorin. Her dreams of all her subtle plans to counteract all of Johnstone's schemes, her tender intrigues to silently entrap Nadine Johnstone's girlish heart, her carefully plotted line of future action, all of these things vanished in a moment, at Aden, when a government launch steamed out, and an officer of the vessel led up Her Majesty's Consul to address the mysterious lady pa.s.senger.

There was a rush of volunteers when the woman, always brave in sorrow and ever fate defying, fainted away in a deathly trance as her eyes eagerly scanned the brief dispatch of the Viceroy. They were underway again when she realized the fearful decrees of a merciless fate! She read with a shudder, the lines again and again, whispering: "Can it be?"

"Hugh Johnstone murdered by persons--unknown at Delhi? Hasten on to London. Anstruther will have full details. Please acknowledge!"

And it was half an hour before the beautiful Nemesis who had clouded Hugh Johnstone's life had penned her simple answer. Only at night, on the voyage afterward, did she ever leave her splendid staterooms, and when Brindisi was reached she vanished with her loyal servants so quickly that even the veriest fortune hunter could not follow on her trail. "Some terrible row--some sad family happening," was the general smoking-room verdict! But, with a heart strangely yearning to the orphaned child, Berthe Louison hastened, without stopping, by Venice to lovely Munich and on to gay Paris. "She shall be mine now--mine to love, to cherish, my poor darling!" vowed the woman whose eyes shown out in an infinite pity! The cup of vengeance was dashed away from her lips for, behind the arras, the waiting headsman of Fate had struck in the night and laid low the man who would have compa.s.sed her death!

Madame Alixe Delavigne was only a gracious memory to the sympathetic men pa.s.sengers who hastened on to London via Mont Cenis, but the chattering gossips of the Rue Berlioz noted, with an eager Gallic curiosity, the return of the mysterious occupant of No. 9. Jules Victor and his wife were seen, however, for only one day, busied about their usual household avocations, and then the returning travelers vanished once more to baffle the chatterers. "Diantre! Comme ils sont des voyageurs!" cried the coachman who took the wanderers to the Gare St. Lazare. There was need of haste now, for Madame Louison had received three foreign dispatches, besides a letter from Captain Anstruther, now waiting impatiently at London, and chafing over his unsuccessful queries at Morley's Hotel. The gallant Captain's letter was pregnant with governmental mysteries, and yet the beautiful woman sighed as she saw the vein of personal interest but too clearly evident in the long communication. A single glance at her tell-tale mirror rea.s.sured her, and she blushed, as she murmured:

"He believes me younger than I am!" But her brow was grave as she revolved the situation. "There will be a long struggle, a fight of love against craft and and greed! Who will win?" The fact that the Government Secret Service had already traced the delivery of the heavily insured s.h.i.+pment, "ex. Str. Lord Roberts," to Professor Andrew Fraser, was a first victory for the enemy! "If the old nabob wrote directly via Brindisi to his brother, then the acute old Scotch Professor may be on his guard now! And--the will?--the will? What does it provide for Nadine's future? If he had already taken the alarm-then I may have yet to fight my way to my darling's side! The black curtain of the past shall never be lifted by my hand unless--unless Andrew Fraser forces me to strike hard at his dead brother's paper card house of honorable deeds!"

As Madame Louison watched the rich moonlight silvering the broken wake of the channel steamer, she pondered over the telegrams. "Major Hardwicke and Alan Hawke are both en route to London, charged with different missions. And I am to beware of Hawke. They have only sent him away, perhaps, to veil the official game of the Indian authorities. And Alan Hawke truthfully warns me of his coming by private dispatch. Is he trying to regain his lost status? Douglas Fraser, the second executor, on his way back to India. He has pa.s.sed Brindisi already. Ah! The sorrows for the dead are quickly a.s.suaged when the 'property interests'

furnish a fat picking to solicitors and the holders of dead men's gear.

"Nadine is only eighteen--she has three years to remain under legal tutelage. Perhaps Andrew Fraser may have been already coached upon his course by his unrelenting kinsman. And there is a fortune waiting for father and son in the perquisites." Madame Louison fell asleep in a vain quandary as to the precise age when men ceased to value wealth and to sell their souls for gold. That question was still undecided when the steamer Sparrow Hawk sped into Dover harbor.

The beautiful wanderer was now clearly resolved as to her future treatment of Alan Hawke. "My foe dead, the theater of war is transferred to Great Britain. He is not necessary to my own campaign, but, in watching him, I may be able to s.h.i.+eld Nadine from his crafty plots. If he should try to secretly make friends with the Frasers, and to return to India, to aid the nephew, he might a.s.sist in robbing Valerie's child of this mountain of miserably gotten wealth.

"Thank G.o.d, I can make her rich. But Captain Anstruther will know the Viceroy's whole mind, and I can trust to him." But her cheeks were rosy red and her dancing dark eyes dropped in a sudden confusion, as the handsome aid-de-camp leaped aboard the steamer at Dover Pier.

"I did not expect you!" she murmured.

"I knew, of course, from your dispatch when you would arrive, and so I came down to further the Viceroy's business!" the soldier said in a sudden confusion. In an hour, the two who had met in such strange manner at Geneva were seated alone in a first-cla.s.s compartment, and were merrily whirling on to Lud's town. Captain Anstruther's ten s.h.i.+llings to the guard secured them from annoying intrusion. In another compartment, Jules and Marie Victor sagely exchanged their lightning glances of Parisian acuteness.

"C'est un homme magnifique!" murmured Marie, and Jules gravely nodded, "Peut-etre, notre maitresse l'a connu longtemps. II est tres tendre!"

The staff-officer "furthered the Viceroy's business" by clasping both of Alixe Delavigne's prettily-gloved hands. Her bosom heaved in a soft alarm, but she repulsed him not.

"Why did you deceive me at Geneva?" he eagerly demanded, with a trembling voice. And Alixe Delavigne's eyes were downcast and dreamy, as she whispered:

"Because I was only a poor pilgrim of Love--a lonely woman, heart hungry for the tidings of the girl whom you have brought back to me!" The young officer gazed out of the window, and in his heart, he already pardoned her.

"To those who love much, much shall be forgiven!" he reflected, with a compa.s.sion growing momentarily, for he saw the shadow of tears in the beautiful dark brown eyes. And he forbore to question her as he gazed at her glowing face.

With a sudden lifting of her stately head, the woman sitting there, her heart throbbing in a strange unrest, laid her hand lightly upon his arm.