Whither Thou Goest Part 43

"Some day, perhaps; but not now. To return to our chief, Contraras. He explained to me that he has no desire to remove this particular man, if he will fall into line with him. He frankly admits that he is too small game, that he would willingly avoid the odium that such a deed would bring on the brotherhood."

"Ah!" Violet was very interested now. "If he falls in line with him.

What does that mean? Or perhaps," she added bitterly, "this is another secret that is to be hidden from me."

"Not at all," was the quiet answer. "I usually keep my own secrets, but I am not always so scrupulous with regard to the secrets of others.

Contraras is going to offer him two alternatives. The first is--that he resigns from the Emba.s.sy on some plausible pretext, and takes a solemn oath to do nothing to thwart the brotherhood. The other alternative you can guess."

"Death," whispered Violet in a hollow voice, and her face went as pale as death itself.

"And you can guess what Rossett's answer will be?" said Moreno, breaking the long silence that ensued between them after those significant words.

"I know, I know. He will choose death unless you can save him." The woman in her came suddenly to the surface, and she broke down, sobbing bitterly.

Moreno looked at her steadily, but not unkindly, for a long time. Her emotion was genuine enough, he was sure. When the dastardly project had only been in the air, so to speak, she had not realised the full horror of it. Now that it was so near to accomplishment, she was stricken with remorse for having harboured such revengeful thoughts.

And presently he spoke again, in his quiet, deliberate accents.

"By a miracle, it may be possible for me to save him, if I can outwit them."

"But cannot I help you? I know you do not believe much in the capacity of women, but I am not a fool, and in a crisis I believe my nerves are steady."

"If it is fated for me to succeed, I shall work better alone. But I would like to ask you this. It will be a cruel ordeal for you to be present at this scene, especially at the moment when you will be called upon to record your vote as a member of the tribunal. Would you be grateful to me if I could save you from that ordeal?"

"Very, very grateful," sobbed the now sorely stricken woman. "But it is impossible. I have seen Contraras to-day also. He has arranged for Alvedero to fetch me to-morrow evening, and to conduct me to that awful house where we are to receive Guy Rossett. It is impossible."

"There are very few things in this world that are impossible," said Moreno, a little impatiently. "The first idea I had was that you would frankly throw yourself on the compa.s.sion of Contraras, tell him that this man was once your lover, and that you must be excused from taking part in the proceedings on the ground of common humanity. The question is, would that work? It might, because I know he is still remorseful about the fate of Valerie Delmonte. But we are not sure. He is a fanatic of the deepest dye."

"Absolutely a fanatic," corroborated Mrs Hargrave. "To him the welfare of the brotherhood is the one supreme thing. All human emotions must be subjugated, all consideration of friends and kindred swept aside, in pursuance of the one object."

"I am disposed to agree," said Moreno. "Contraras' sense of compa.s.sion is a doubtful factor. We will discard that idea. Will you put yourself in my hands?"

She looked intently into the dark, brilliant eyes, and what she read there rea.s.sured her. He was stubbornly secretive, but he was kind and sympathetic. He was ready to do his best to serve her.

"Yes, I will," she said bravely. "I trust you."

"Good! Then that is settled. Alvedero will call for you to-morrow evening as arranged, but you will not accompany him. He will come alone."

"How are you going to do it?" she cried breathlessly. Her admiration for the man had grown intensely during the last few days. He seemed able to work miracles.

"I shall keep that a secret too till to-morrow morning, when I shall be round at eleven o'clock. If I told you now, you would not get a wink of sleep all night."

"I shall not get a wink of sleep as it is," she answered.

But, secretive to the last, Moreno was not to be tempted into frankness.

"Oh, yes, you will. Anyway, you have promised to leave yourself in my hands. To-morrow morning, at eleven o'clock."

They shook hands without another word. Moreno walked back to his lodgings reflecting deeply.

Was this attractive young woman really as bad as he had once thought?

Was she not rather a creature of strong pa.s.sions, of impulses at times ungovernable? Were there not in her womanly feelings that could be cherished and fostered by sympathetic companions.h.i.+p?

Anyway, if she followed his instructions, as she had agreed to do, he had secured her safety as well as his own. And that would be a result that would gratify him exceedingly.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

Save for a little impatience when his judgment was impugned, or somebody questioned the soundness of his opinions, Moreno was a person of the most equable temperament, and singularly light hearted.

Still, when he rose early on the morning of this most eventful day, he was in a very grave and thoughtful mood. He was playing a most difficult and dangerous game. Even if he outwitted the Heads of the brotherhood in Spain, as he believed he had, there were left Lucue and Jaques in London to deal with.

To save Guy Rossett was easy enough; he had laid his plans very surely for that. But he had to save himself; also to save Violet Hargrave. In the plausible explanations that he would have to give in London, there must be no loopholes.

Very early in the morning he again saw the Chief of Police, in company with Farquhar, who, now that the game was really afoot, was manifesting a keen interest in the chase. They rehea.r.s.ed the whole programme all over again.

"He is cleverer than I thought him at first," whispered Moreno to his friend, when the somewhat stout man had withdrawn for a moment to consult one of his lieutenants. "But I am relying on you to be constantly at his elbow. You are not the sort of chap to get flurried."

And Farquhar, although quite a modest kind of fellow, agreed that he could keep his head in a crisis.

At eleven o'clock, as arranged, Moreno presented himself at the lodgings of Mrs Hargrave. She looked very pale and there were dark rings round her eyes. It was easy to see that her night had been a perturbed one, that she had enjoyed little or no sleep.

"You don't look in the best of health and spirits," he said kindly.

"Well, you have got to pluck up your courage. You will want plenty of it for the next twenty-four hours."

She s.h.i.+vered. "If I had known what I was going in for, I would never have yielded to Jaques' entreaties," she said.

"You never quite know what you will be landed in when you embark in these enterprises," answered the young man lightly. "Well, now to business. You still want to be absent from that meeting to-night?"

"If it is possible."

"It is quite possible, but you will have to rely on me, and you will also have to be very brave."

He drew out of his pocket a small, dark-coloured phial, and held it to the light.

"You see that?" he asked. "Well, this is going to be your salvation."

She s.h.i.+vered again; her nerves were very much out of order this morning, but she began to have an idea of what he was driving at.

"This is the secret, then, that you would not tell me last night. I have got to drink that."

Moreno nodded. "Yes, if you are still in the same mind as you were yesterday. In my very early youth I was apprenticed to a chemist. I very soon began to acquire a wide knowledge of drugs, and their properties."

They had been standing up to the present. Moreno pointed to a sofa.

"We can talk more easily if we sit. I have mixed you here a perfectly safe compound, which I want you to drink before I leave, so that I can take away the bottle; I would prefer it was not left lying about, you understand."

She looked at him with eyes that expressed a great dread. "What effect will it have?"

"I tell you frankly, about six or seven o'clock you will feel very ill, very faint. Those effects will last for the best part of twelve hours.

A few hours after that, you will be yourself again."