"I don't think I shall marry you, after all," Maggie announced that
evening, as she stood looking at herself in one of the gilded mirrors
with which the drawing-room at Belgrave Square was adorned.
"Why not?" Nigel asked, with polite anxiety.
"You are exhibiting symptoms of infidelity," she declared. "Your
flirtation with Naida this afternoon was most pronounced, and you went
out of your way to ask her to dine to-night."
"I like that!" Nigel complained. "Supposing it were true, I should
simply be obeying orders. It was you who incited me to devote myself to
her."
"The sacrifices we women make for the good of our country," Maggie
sighed. "However, you needn't have taken me quite so literally. Do you
admire her very much, Nigel?"
He smiled. His manner, however, was not altogether free from
self-consciousness.
"Of course I do," he admitted. "She's a perfectly wonderful person,
isn't she? Let's get out of this Victorian environment," he added,
looking around the huge apartment with its formal arrangement of
furniture and its atmosphere of prim but faded elegance. "We'll go into
the smaller room and tell Brookes to bring us some cocktails and
cigarettes. Chalmers won't expect to be received formally, and
Mademoiselle Karetsky will appreciate the cosmopolitan note of our
welcome."
"We do look a little too domestic, don't we?" Maggie replied, as she
passed through the portière which Nigel was holding up. "I'm not at all
sure that I ought to come and play hostess like this, without an aunt or
anything. I must think of my reputation. I may decide to marry Mr.
Chalmers, and Americans are very particular about that sort of thing."
"From what I have seen of him, I should think that Chalmers would make
you an excellent husband," Nigel declared, as he rang the bell. "You
need a firm hand, and I should think he would be quite capable of using
it."
"You take the matter far too calmly," she objected. "I can assure you
that I am getting peevish. I hate all Russian women with creamy
complexions and violet-coloured eyes."
"They are wonderful eyes," Nigel declared, after he had given Brookes an
order.
Maggie looked at him curiously.
"Naida is for your betters, sir," she reminded him. "You must not forget
that she is to rule over Russia some day."
"Just at present," Nigel observed, "Paul Matinsky has a perfectly good
wife of his own."
"An invalid."
"Invalids always live long."
"Presidents and emperors can always get divorces," Maggie insisted,
"especially in this irreligious age."
"Matinsky isn't that sort," Nigel said cheerfully. "Even an old gossip
like Karschoff calls him a purist, and you yourself have spoken of his
principles."
Maggie shrugged her shoulders.
"All right," she remarked. "If you are determined to rush into danger, I
suppose you must. There is just one more point to be considered, though.
I suppose you know that if you succeed any farther with Naida, you will
introduce a personal note into our coming struggle."
"What do you mean?" Nigel demanded.
"Why, Immelan, of course," she replied. "He's head over ears in love
with Naida. Any one can see that."
Nigel laughed scornfully.
"My dear child," he protested, "can you imagine a woman like Naida
thinking seriously of a fellow like Immelan?--a scheming, Teutonic
adventurer, without even the breeding of his class!"
Maggie laughed softly for several moments.
"My dear Nigel," she exclaimed, "what a luxury to get at the man of
you! I haven't seen your eyes flash like that for ages. The cocktails,
thank goodness! Shake one for me till it froths all the way up the
glass, please, and then give me a cigarette."
Nigel obeyed orders, helped himself, and glanced at the clock as Brookes
left the room.
"How nice of you to come half an hour early, Maggie!" he remarked.
She made a little grimace.
"The first time you have noticed it," she said dolefully. "Do you
realise, Nigel, that it is nearly a week since you proposed to me? Apart
from your penchant for Naida, don't you really want to marry me any
more?"
He came across the room and stood looking down at her thoughtfully. She
was wearing a somewhat daringly fashioned black lace gown, which showed
a good deal of her white shoulders and neck. Her brown hair was simply
but artistically arranged. She was piquante, alluring, with a
provocative smile at the corners of her lips and a challenging gleam in
her eyes. The daintiness and femininity of her were enthralling.
"You would make an adorable wife," he reflected.
"For some one else?"
"An unspeakable proposition," he assured her.
"You're very nice-looking, Nigel," she murmured.
"You're terribly attractive, Maggie!"
"Then why is it," she sighed, "that we neither of us want to marry the
other?"
"If a serious proposition would really be of interest to you," he
began,--
She made a little grimace.
"You heard them coming," she interrupted.
The three expected guests arrived almost together, bringing with them,
at any rate so far as Chalmers and Naida were concerned, an atmosphere
of light-heartedness which was later on to make the little dinner party
a complete success. Naida, too, was in black, a gown simpler than
Maggie's but full of distinction. She wore no jewellery except a
wonderful string of pearls. Her black hair was brushed straight back
from her forehead but drooped a little over her ears. She seemed to
bring with her a larger share of girlishness than any of them had
previously observed in her, as though she had made up her mind for this
one evening to cast herself adrift from the graver cares of life and to
indulge in the frivolities which after all were the heritage of her
youth. She sat at Nigel's right hand and plied him with questions as to
the lighter side of his life,--his favourite sport, books, and general
occupation. She gave evidences of humour which delighted everybody, and
Nigel, though he would at times have welcomed, and did his best to
initiate, an incursion into more serious subjects, found himself
compelled to admire the tact with which she continually foiled him.
"It is a mistake," she declared once, "to believe that a woman is ever
serious unless she is forced to be. All our natural proclivities are
towards gaiety. We are really butterflies by instinct, and we are at our
best when we are natural. Don't you agree with me, Maggie?"
"From the bottom of my heart," Maggie assented. "Nothing but conscience
ever induces me to pull a long face and turn my thoughts to serious
things. And I haven't a great deal of conscience."
"So you see," Naida continued, smiling up at her host, "when you try to
get a woman to talk politics or sociology with you, you are brushing a
little of the down off her wings. We really want to be told--other
things."
"I should imagine," he replied, "that my sex frequently indulged you."
"Not so much as I should desire," she assured him. "I have somehow or
other acquired an undeserved reputation for brains. In Russia
especially, when I meet a stranger, they don't even look at my frock or
the way my hair is done. They plunge instead into a subject of which I
know nothing--philosophy or history, or international politics."
"Do you know nothing of international politics?" Nigel asked.
"A home thrust," she declared, laughing. "I suppose that is a subject
upon which I have some glimmerings of knowledge. Really not very much,
though, but then I have a theory about that. I think sometimes that the
clearest judgments are formed by some one who comes a little fresh to a
subject, some one who hasn't been dabbling in it half their lifetime and
acquired prejudices. Do you always provide strawberries for your guests,
Lord Dorminster? If so, I should like to come and live here."
"If you will promise to come and live here," he replied, "I will provide
strawberries if I have to start a nursery garden in Jersey."
"Maggie," Naida announced across the table, "Lord Dorminster has
proposed to me. The matter of strawberries has brought us together. I
don't think I shall accept him. There are no means of making him keep
his bargain."
"He'd make an awfully good husband," Maggie declared. "If no one else
wants me, I shall probably marry him myself some day."
Naida shook her head.
"Lord Dorminster is more my type," she declared. "Besides, you have had
your chance if you really wanted him. I have a great friend in Russia
who prophesies that I shall never marry. That does not please me. I
think not to be married is the worst fate that can happen to any woman."
"The remedy," Nigel told her, "is in your own hands."
Jesson, quieter than the others, was still an interesting personality,
often intervening with a shrewd remark and listening to the sallies of
the others with a humorous gleam in his spectacle-shielded eyes. When at
last the girls left them for a time, Nigel led the way at once into the
library, where coffee and liqueurs were served.
"I expect the others will find their way here in a few minutes," he
said, as the door closed behind Brookes and his satellite. "You had
something to say to me, Chalmers, about Mr. Jesson here."
"All that I have to say is in the nature of a testimonial," the young
American replied. "Jesson was easily one of our best men in Europe. He
resigned a few months ago simply because he wants a job with you
fellows."
"I don't quite understand," Nigel began.
"Let me explain," Jesson begged. "I spent the last three years poking
about Europe, and so far as the United States is concerned, there's
nothing doing. My reports aren't worth much more than the paper they are
written on, and while I'm drawing my money from Washington, it's not my
business to collect information that affects other countries. That's why
I've sent in my resignation. There are great events brewing eastwards,
Lord Dorminster, and I want to take a hand in the game."
"Do you want to work for us?" Nigel asked.
"You're right," was the quiet reply. "I guess that's how I've figured it
out. You see, I'm one of those Americans who still consider themselves
half English. Next to the United States, Great Britain is the country
for me. I know what I'm talking about, Lord Dorminster, and I've come to
the conclusion that there's a lot of trouble in store for you people."
"I'm pretty well convinced of that myself," Nigel agreed, "but you know
how things are with us. We have a democratic Government who have placed
their whole faith in the League of Nations, and who are absolutely and
entirely anti-militarist. On paper, the governments of Russia, Germany,
and most of the other countries of Europe, are of the same ilk. Some of
us--my uncle was one--who have studied history and who know something of
the science of international politics, realise perfectly well that no
Empire can be considered secure under such conditions. This country
swarms with foreign secret-service men. What they are planning against
us, Heaven knows!"
"Heaven and Naida Karetsky," Chalmers intervened softly.
"You believe that she is our enemy?" Nigel asked, with a look of trouble
in his eyes.
"She is Immelan's friend," Chalmers reminded him.
"There was a man named Atcheson," Jesson began quietly--
Nigel nodded.
"He was one of the men my uncle sent out. The first one was stabbed in
Petrograd. Jim Atcheson was poisoned and died in Berlin."
"There was rather a scare in a certain quarter about Atcheson," Jesson
observed. "He was supposed to have got a report through to the late Lord
Dorminster."
"He got it through all right," Nigel replied. "My uncle was busy
decoding it, seated in this room, at that table, when he died."
"His death was very sudden," Jesson ventured.
"I have not the faintest doubt but that he was murdered," Nigel
declared. "The document upon which he was working disappeared entirely
except for one sheet."
"You have that one sheet?" Jesson asked eagerly.
Nigel produced it from his pocketbook, smoothed it cut, and laid it upon
the table.
"There are two things worth noticing here," he pointed out. "The first
is that the actual name of a town in Russia is given, and a telephone
number in London. Kroten I have looked up on the map. It seems to be an
unimportant place in a very desolate region. The telephone number is
Oscar Immelan's."
"That is interesting, though not surprising," Jesson declared. "Immelan,
as you of course know, is one of your enemies, one of those who are
working in this country for purposes of his own. But as regards Kroten,
may I ask where you obtained your information about the place?"
Nigel dragged down the atlas and showed them the paragraph. Jesson read
it with a faint smile upon his lips.
"I fancy," he remarked, "that this is a little out of date. I should
like, if you have no objection, to start for Kroten this week."
"Good heavens! Why?" Nigel exclaimed.
"I can scarcely answer that question," Jesson said. "I am like a man
with a puzzle board and a heap of loose pieces. Kroten is one of those
pieces, but I haven't commenced the fitting-in process yet. Here," he
said, "is as much as I can tell you about it. There are three cities,
situated in different countries in the world, which are each in their
way connected with the danger which is brewing for this country. I have
heard them described as the three secret cities. One is in Germany. I
have been there at the risk of my life, and I came away simply puzzled.
Kroten is the next, and of the third I have still to discover the
whereabouts. Are you willing, Lord Dorminster, to let me act for you
abroad? I require no salary or remuneration of any sort. I am a wealthy
man, and investigations of this kind are my one hobby. I shall not move
without your permission, although I recognise, of course, that your own
position is entirely an unofficial one. If you will trust me, however, I
promise that all my energies shall be devoted to the interests of this
country."
Nigel held out his hand.
"It is a pact," he decided. "Before you leave, I will give you the whole
of my uncle's brief correspondence with Sidwell. You may be able to
gather from it what he was after. Sidwell, you remember, was stabbed in
a café in the slums of Petrograd."
"I remember quite well," Jesson admitted quietly. "I knew Sidwell. He
was a clever person in his way, but he relied too much upon disguises. I
fancy that I hear the voices of the ladies coming. I shall just have
time to tell you rather a curious coincidence."
The two men waited eagerly. Jesson touched with his forefinger the sheet
of paper which he had been studying.
"Sidwell," he concluded, "could not have been so far off the mark. The
man with whom he was spending the evening in that café was a mechanic
from Kroten."