WHILE THE CITY SLEPT
Daunt accompanied his chief that evening to a dinner at the Nobles'
Club--a "stag," for conventional functions had been discontinued since
the royal death had cast a pall over the stay of the Squadron. As they
drove thither a nearer shadow was over the Ambassador's spirits. His
thoughts would stray to Barbara and her misfortune, which seemed so deep
and irreparable. He had eventually accepted his wife's diagnosis as to
Daunt's _tendresse_, but he had a confidence that his Secretary of
Embassy, though hard-hit, would bear no scars. He could not guess all
that lay beneath the brave domino Daunt was wearing.
The affair was a late one, with various native divertisements:
top-spinners, painters whose exquisite brush-etchings, done in a few
seconds, were given as mementoes to the guests, and jugglers who,
utterly without paraphernalia, caused live fowl to appear in impossible
places. Toward the close the Ambassador found himself seated beside the
Minister of Marine.
"Very clever," he said, as a Chinese pheasant flew out of an inverted
opera-hat. "I almost believe he could produce my missing dog if he were
properly urged."
"Have you lost one?" asked the Admiral. "I'm sorry."
The Ambassador laughed. "It was really something of a relief," he said,
and told the story of the Russian wolf-hound which had so curiously
disappeared on the evening of Doctor Bersonin's call. "The oddest thing
about it," he ended, "is that, though the name of the Embassy was on his
collar, nothing has been heard of him."
The two men chatted for some time on things in general, the conversation
veering to the Squadron. The Ambassador thought the other seemed
somewhat distrait. At two the affair ended and the carriages drew up to
the windy porte-cochère. There was a confidential matter which the
Ambassador wished to speak of with his host. He had mentioned it, but no
fitting opportunity had occurred. At the door the Admiral recalled it,
suggesting with a quizzical reference to the other's American fondness
for late hours that, as his house was on the way, the Ambassador stop
there, while they had their talk over a cigar. The latter, therefore,
departed in the Admiral's carriage, and Daunt drove alone to the
Embassy, directing the coachman to go in a half-hour for his chief.
In the past three days Daunt had fought a constant battle. Every feature
of that night at Nikko was stamped indelibly on his mind. The passionate
resentment, the agony of protest that had come to him at the ball, when
he had received the torn fragments of his letter to Barbara, returned in
double force, opposing a strange, new sense of shame that his thought
should follow her even into the tragic shadow where she now dwelt.
Yet--for fancy will not be denied--his brain would again and again
circle the same somber treadmill:
_We have done those things which we ought not to have done!_ He seemed
to hear her say it on the dark hillside. Her voice had had that in it
which, against his will, had thrilled him. What had she done that she
regretted? She had spoken of the day in the cave at Enoshima--had seemed
to wish him to believe that she had not then been acting a part. Could
anything have happened in that one day's interval so utterly to change
her? She had been unhappy, for he had surprised her weeping. What was it
she had wished to "confess?" So to-night his gloomy reflections ran--to
their submerging wave of self-reproach.
He let himself into the Chancery with his latch-key, to get his
evening's mail. A telegram had been laid on his desk. It was a
cipher from Washington, and he opened the safe at once and from the
inner drawer took out the official code books. He sat down at one of
the desks and began the decoding of the text. For a time he worked
mechanically--as it were, with but one-half of his brain--tracing each
group of figures in the bulky volume, transposing by the secret key,
dragging, in the complicated process, sense and coherency from the
meaningless digits. Then he sat staring at the result:
"Large short selling to-day in European bourses and in New York
(comma) unexplainable on usual grounds (comma) is creating
anxiety (period) Can scarcely be explained except on hypothesis
that secret group of dealers have suddenly come into possession
of information which leads them to consider the international
situation ominous (period) Newspapers in ignorance of anything
extraordinary (period) London and Paris evidently puzzled
(period) Has situation developed new phases and in your opinion
does it contain possible element of danger (period) Hasten
reply."
A full five minutes Daunt sat motionless, revolving the matter in all
its bearings. An answer must be sent without delay. A part of that
answer might be found in the departure of the Squadron. The newspapers
had announced its receipt of sailing-orders, but the news had yet to be
verified. The Naval Minister could give this verification.
He went at once to the stables, where the carriage was about to start
for the Ambassador. He sprang in. A little later he was at the Admiral's
official residence and his chief was perusing the message. After a
moment's thought the Ambassador read it aloud.
Daunt had made a move to retire, but the Admiral stopped him.
"Pray don't go yet," he said. "There is something I should like to say
on this matter, and I count on your discretion, Mr. Daunt, as on His
Excellency's. Since the American Government attaches significance to
that peculiar incident, I think no harm can come from an exchange of
opinion. It may help us both." He paused a moment, his foot tapping the
floor.
"The news contained in that telegram," he continued presently, "for the
past two days has caused my Government great concern. Your Excellency
will understand when I say that the particular objects of this attack
(if I may so call it) are precisely those securities which would suffer
most were Japan's peace or prosperity threatened. There has seemed to be
a concurrence in it not purely fortuitous. Back of this selling is no
mere opinion--it is too assured for that. Some interest or individual
abroad is apparently banking heavily on a belief that Japan is about to
enter a period of stress!"
The Ambassador spoke for the first time. "_Abroad?_" he said shrewdly.
The Admiral looked at him an instant without speaking. His expression
changed swiftly. He rose and went quickly to the telephone in the next
room.
"He is talking with the Secret Service," said Daunt, in a low tone.
In a few moments their host returned. There was something in his face
that made the Ambassador's keen eye kindle. "The suggestion was most
pertinent," he said. "There is one man in Japan who, exclusive of the
commercial codes, has sent in the past two days cipher telegrams to New
York, London and Berlin."
He took a short turn about the room in some agitation. "Your
Excellency," he said, stopping short, "I make a confident of you. That
man is Doctor Bersonin."
The Ambassador started.
"Pray absolve me," said the Admiral quickly, "from an apparent
indiscretion. Doctor Bersonin is no longer in the Japanese service. His
contract expired at noon to-day. It will not be renewed. As one of _my_
Government I speak to you, as the representative of _your_ Government,
concerning a private individual whose acts are in the purview of us
both. The circumstances are extraordinary, but I think the occasion
justifies this conversation."
He rang a bell sharply and his private secretary entered. "Bring me," he
said in Japanese, "report number eleven of Lieutenant Ishida Hetaro."
When it was brought, he turned to a leaf underscored scored with red.
"Your Excellency," he said, "interested me profoundly this evening by
the account of the disappearance of your dog. I am going to ask Mr.
Daunt--who reads Japanese so fluently--to give a running translation of
this."
Daunt took the manuscript--as perfectly executed as an inscription in
Uncial Greek--and began to read. As he translated, his breath came more
quickly, and the Ambassador leaned forward across the table. Yet the
words chronicled nothing more than the curious disappearance from the
laboratory of a tiny song-bird--_and a steel pen-rest_. The close of the
narrative drew an exclamation from the Ambassador's lips. For it told of
feathery sprays of reddish-brown powder on the expert's desk, and he
seemed to see himself, his study lamp in his hand, bending over curious
whorls of dust on his own piazza.
"May I ask," said the Admiral, "whether the episode of the dog suggested
to Your Excellency the possibility that your caller might himself be
able to solve the mystery of the animal's disappearance?"
The Ambassador's reply came slowly, but with deliberate emphasis:
"It did. The more so, from our previous conversation. In my study I have
the model of a Dreadnaught. We were discussing this, and the doctor
described the fighting machine of the future--an atomic engine which
should utilize some newly discovered law of molecular action, a machine
that might be carried in a single hand, to which a battle-ship would be,
as he expressed it, 'mere silly shreds of steel.' He spoke, I thought,
with a strange confidence that seemed almost unbalanced. In connection
with the conversation, the later incident, I confess, left a deep
impression. Yet the idea it suggested was so incredible that I have
never spoken of it to any one before."
"Suppose," said the Admiral, "that the man we are discussing has
actually constructed such a machine. What possible connection can there
be between that and a confidence in some near event which will lower
Japan's credit in the eyes of the world?"
Before the Ambassador replied there was the sound of voices outside--a
sudden commotion and a woman's agitated protestations. The secretary
came in hurriedly and whispered to the Admiral. A door slammed in the
hall, there was the sound of a short struggle, and a girl burst into the
room. She threw herself at the Admiral's feet, panting broken sentences.
Her _kimono_ was torn and muddied, her blue-black hair was loosened, and
her face white and pitifully working.
A man had darted after her--he was the Admiral's _aide_. He grasped her
arm. "She has been at the Department," he said in English, with a glance
at the visitors. "They detained her there, but she got away. They have
telephoned a warning that she might attempt to see you."
She struggled against him, her eyes sweeping the circle about her with a
passionate entreaty. Suddenly she saw the Ambassador. She lifted her
face, swollen with crying, to him:
"You--nod know me--Haru?" she faltered, "_né_? Say so!"
"Haru!" he exclaimed. Then, turning to the Admiral, "I know the child,"
he said. "She was companion to one of our house-guests till a week ago,
when she disappeared from her home."
His host made an exclamation of pity. "It is _no-byo_, no doubt," he
said, using the word for the strange Japanese brain-fever which is akin
to madness. "She must be cared for at once." He leaned and spoke
soothingly to her.
A spasm seized Haru. She tore herself from the _aide's_ grasp and,
falling prone, beat her small fists on the floor. "They will none of
them listen! They will none of them listen!" she screamed, in Japanese.
"They call it the fever, and they will not hear! And to-morrow it will
be too late!" A peal of hysteric laughter shook her, mixed with
strangling sobs. "Are all the gods with Bersonin-_San_?"
At that name the Admiral's face changed swiftly. "Leave her with me," he
said, "and wait in the anteroom."
"But, Excellency--"
The other lifted his hand, and the _aide_ withdrew with the secretary.
His two callers had risen, but he stayed them. "We have gone far along
the road of confidence to-night," he said in a low tone. "If you are
willing, we will go to the end."
He bent and drew the girl to a sitting posture.
"Tell us," he said gently, "what brought you here."