"Ah!" exclaimed the Under-Secretary with affected nonchalance, "I merely
asked out of curiosity. I have no intention whatever of paying such a
sum."
"For the amount I have named we will guarantee to place you ashore in
Greece, or in any other of the few countries that remain open to
fugitives from justice."
"I have no doubt," Dudley answered with distinct sarcasm. "But as I
have no intention of being blackmailed, or even of employing any of your
efforts on my behalf, we may as well end this interview." He rose from
his chair and drew himself up to his full height.
The two men exchanged glances full of sinister meaning.
"Our aid has been invoked by your friend, the English signorina," the
young man exclaimed in a bullying tone, for the first time revealing his
true character. "We have told you our terms--high, we admit, but not
too exorbitant when you recollect the many bribes that have to be paid."
"Ten thousand pounds, eh?"
"That is the sum."
"Well, I'll make a confession to you both," declared Chisholm defiantly.
"It is this. My life isn't worth to me ten thousand pence. Now you
can at once relinquish all hope of bleeding me in the manner you have
arranged."
"The signore is frank," remarked the old man. "Frankness saves so much
argument in such matters. I will be frank also, and say that there is
still another, and perhaps more pleasant mode of escape."
"I shall be interested to hear it," said Dudley, folding his arms, and
leaning carelessly back against the table.
The man was silent for a moment, as though hesitating whether to tell
his visitor the truth. At last he spoke, compressing his scheme into a
couple of words.
"By marriage."
"With whom?"
At that instant the door was flung open suddenly, and there advanced
into the room the woman he believed to be far away in Italy--the woman
who held his future in her hands, Muriel Mortimer.
"Marriage with me," she said, answering his question.
"You!" he cried, thoroughly taken aback at her sudden appearance. "What
do you mean? Kindly explain all this."
"It requires no explanation, Mr. Chisholm," she replied, her pale face
hard-set and determined. "You are in the gravest peril, and I have come
to you prepared to rescue you from the punishment which must otherwise
fall upon you. To-night you have been with the woman who loves you--the
witch-like woman who has half London at her feet. I know it all. You
love her, and intend to marry her. But you will marry me--me!" and she
struck her breast with her hand to emphasise her words. "Or," she
added,--"or to-night you will be arrested as a common criminal."
He looked her straight in the face without flinching. She was dressed
plainly, even shabbily, in rusty black, as though, when out of doors, to
avoid attention. Her countenance, pallid and drawn, showed how
desperate she was. He, for his part, perceived that he had been tricked
by her, and the thought lashed him to fury.
"Listen!" he cried indignantly; "I have been enticed here to this place
as part of a plot formed to obtain ten thousand pounds by blackmail, or
else to drive me into becoming your husband, you well knowing that I
should be prepared to pay any sum to be rid of the danger that threatens
me. You promise me freedom if I consent to one or the other. The
affection you pretended to feel for me was a sham of the worst kind.
You and your precious myrmidons want money--only money. But from me you
won't obtain a single halfpenny. Understand that, all three of you!"
"You intend to marry her!" she said between her teeth. "But you shall
never do that. She shall know the truth."
"Tell her. To me, it is quite immaterial, I assure you," he declared in
defiance.
He saw that this woman, whom he had once believed so innocent, even
childish in her simplicity, was an associate of an unscrupulous gang
that, no doubt, existed by blackmailing those who desired to escape from
England. He had heard vague rumours of the existence of this strange
association, for it had long ago been a puzzle to the London police why
so many foreigners were able to evade them and fly successfully from the
country, while Englishmen, who knew well the various outlets, usually
failed.
"You made a solemn compact with me that night at Wroxeter," she said.
"And you have broken it. On my part I have done all that was possible.
Cator would have known the truth long ago had it not been for my
presence in Italy, and for the counteracting efforts of his own
lieutenant, Francesco Marucci. To my foresight all this is due, yet now
you decline to save yourself!"
"I refuse to be blackmailed."
"You hope to escape and marry her," laughed the fair-haired woman
defiantly.
"I hope for nothing. My life is, to me, just as precious as it was that
bitter night at Wroxeter."
"And you absolutely refuse to accept the alternative?"
"I will accept nothing either from you, or from your associates," he
replied.
"Then we are to be enemies?"
"If you so desire."
"You prefer the revelations that I intend to make?"
"I do, most certainly," he answered with a forced laugh.
"Shall I tell you one thing?"
"Do, by all means."
"Well, you shall never marry her. To-morrow she will hate the very
mention of your name," she cried wildly.
"My memory, you mean."
"Why?"
"Because to-morrow I shall be dead, and your chance of plucking the
pigeon will have disappeared," he answered bitterly.
She looked at him with a maddened and fiery glance, as though his
defiance had aroused the spirit of murder within her. She saw that his
determination to carry out his previous intention of suicide checkmated
her. All her ingenious wiles had been conceived and operated in vain.
While he still lived, there was a hope of securing the prize which an
hour ago had seemed to be so well within her grasp.
"So you refuse!" she cried in a frenzy of anger. "You intend to escape
by self-destruction, miserable coward that you are!"
"I am no coward!" he replied with fierce indignation. "If I were a
coward I would accept the offer of your associates and pay willingly to
be placed beyond the possibility of arrest. But I prefer to face the
inevitable, and shall do so without flinching." Then, turning to the
others, he added: "I wish all three of you more success in your next
attempt to squeeze money from an unfortunate criminal--that is all."
He turned to leave, but Tonio, the hot-headed young bully, instantly
sprang forward and drew from his belt a glittering knife, one of those
long, narrow-bladed weapons which the Italian of the South usually
carries out of sight on his person, although his paternal government
forbids him so to do. Quick as thought Dudley divined the Italian
wished to prevent him from leaving the house, and, seeing the knife held
down threateningly before him, he raised his fist and with a rapid,
well-directed drive from the shoulder struck the fellow beneath the jaw
with such force that he was lifted up and fell backwards upon the table,
overturning the cheap paraffin lamp standing there.
In an instant the place burst into flames. During the confusion that
followed, while the woman rushed from the room screaming "Fire!" Dudley
dashed out of the house, expecting, of course, to find his cab waiting
for him.
But it was not there. While he had been arguing, the old hag had
evidently paid the fare and dismissed the conveyance, a fact which was
in itself sufficient evidence that they had not intended him to leave
the house.
For a moment he hesitated. Then, recognising how narrowly he had
escaped being struck down by an assassin, he turned and hurried away
across the rough brick-field to which the unfinished road gave entrance.
Shouts of alarm, and loud cries of "Fire!" sounded behind him, but
without turning to look he continued on his way, stumbling along in the
darkness, utterly dumbfounded at his strange adventure and the
remarkable revelation of the true character of the pretty young woman
known in West End drawingrooms as Muriel Mortimer.
For most of the remainder of the night Dudley Chisholm, unnerved by the
strange affair and haunted by the constant dread that he was already
under police surveillance, wandered through the deserted streets of
Penge and Lower Sydenham. He feared to inquire the way from any of the
constables he met, lest he should be recognised. As he was entirely
unacquainted with the district, he knew his position was hopeless till
there should be light enough to show him the Crystal Palace. Once
arrived there, he could easily make his way back to London, for in days
gone by he had often driven down in his tandem from Westminster, once or
twice with Claudia at his side.
The night was dark, starless, and intensely cold. But he heeded not
fatigue, for his mind was full of the gravest reflections. That the
woman Mortimer, the mysterious ward of the Meldrums, had laid a very
clever plot, into which he had fallen, was plainly apparent. But he had
refused her demands, and she was now, of course, his most bitter enemy.
That she would seek vengeance he had no doubt, for she had already shown
herself to be a woman not to be thwarted.
And what was worse than all--she knew his secret.
Through the ill-lit suburban roads he wandered on and on, reflecting
bitterly that with this woman as his enemy there only remained for him
suicide, if he wished to avoid arrest and a criminal's trial. He came
at last to a railway line running on a low embankment, through market
gardens, and it occurred to him to climb up there and wait in patience
for the approach of a train. All this time Dudley Chisholm was not in
the least distraught; and yet of all his wishes none was so powerful as
the wish to end his life.
But Claudia's beautiful face arose before him. Her dear eyes, with that
familiar expression of tenderness, a little sad, but sweet with a
love-look not to be mistaken, seemed to gaze upon him just as they had
done during that blissful hour before midnight, when he had held her in
his arms and breathed into her ear the declaration of his love.
Ah, how passionately he loved her!
No, he could not take farewell of life without once again beholding her!
He descended the embankment and walked along what seemed interminable
miles of streets, until he met at last a bricklayer on his way to work,
carrying his tin tea-bottle in his hand. This man proved communicative,
and informed him that he was at Rushey Green, on the main road which led
through Lewisham and Deptford, where it entered one of the arteries of
London, the Old Kent Road.
He glanced at his watch and found that it was close upon five o'clock.
Roused by this discovery, he pushed forward at a quicker pace, at length
finding a belated cab in front of a coffee-stall, at which its driver
was refreshing himself. Then, thoroughly worn out, he got into the
conveyance and was driven back to his chambers.
Old Parsons had a message for him when he reached home.
"A man called to see you during the night, master Dudley. He wished to
see you very particularly, but would leave no card."
"What kind of man?" inquired his master suspiciously.
"I think he was a gentleman. At least he spoke like one. I had never
seen him before. He wanted to know whether he would find you down at
the House, and I said that it was most probable you were there."
"He wasn't a foreigner?"
"Oh no," the old man answered. "Some papers have also been brought by a
messenger. They are on your table."
Dudley passed through into his study, put down his hat, and broke open
the usual sealed packet of Parliamentary papers which reached him each
night, and which contained among others, the draft of the questions to
be addressed to him on the following day in his capacity of Foreign
Under-Secretary in the House.
Without seating himself he took out the question paper and looked at it.
He glanced rapidly from paragraph to paragraph. Suddenly his gaze
became fixed, and he held his breath. He read in the precise
handwriting of Wrey, the following words:
"Mr. Gerald Oldfield (Antrim West) to ask the Under-Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs whether it is true that a certain member of this
House, now a Member of Her Majesty's Government, has sold to the
representative of a Foreign Power a copy of certain confidential
diplomatic correspondence, and further whether it is not a fact that the
Member of Her Majesty's Government referred to is guilty of the crime of
wilful murder."
The blue official paper fluttered from his nerveless fingers and fell to
the ground.
"My God!" he gasped, his jaws rigid, his eyes staring and fixed. "My
secret is already known to my enemies!"