"I suppose," Immelan suggested, as the two men reached the house in
Curzon Street, "it would be useless to ask you to break your custom and
lunch with me at the Ritz or at the club?"
His companion smiled deprecatingly.
"I have adopted so many of your western customs," he said
apologetically. "To this lunching or dining in public, however, I shall
never accustom myself."
Immelan laughed good-naturedly. The conversation of the two men on their
way from the Park had been without significance, and some part of his
earlier nervousness seemed to be leaving him.
"We all have our foibles," he admitted. "One of mine is to have a pretty
woman opposite me when I lunch or dine, music somewhere in the distance,
a little sentiment, a little promise, perhaps."
"It is not artistic," Prince Shan pronounced calmly. "It is not when the
wine mounts to the head, and the sense of feeding fills the body, that
men speak best of the things that lie near their hearts. Still, we will
let that pass. Each of us is made differently. There is another thing,
Immelan, which I have to say to you."
They passed into the reception room, with its shining floor, its
marvellous rugs, its silken hangings, and its great vases of flowers.
Prince Shan led his companion into a recess, where the light failed to
penetrate so completely as into the rest of the apartment. A wide
settee, piled with cushions, protruded from the wall in semicircular
shape. In front of it was a round ebony table, upon which stood a great
yellow bowl filled with lilies. Prince Shan gave an order to one of the
servants who had followed them into the room and threw himself at full
length among the cushions, his head resting upon his hand, his face
turned towards his guest.
"They will bring you the aperitif of which you are so fond," he said,
"also cigarettes. Mine, I know, are too strong for you."
"They taste too much of opium," Immelan remarked.
Prince Shan's eyes grew dreamy as he gazed through a little cloud of
odorous smoke.
"There is opium in them," he admitted. "Believe me, they are very
wonderful, but I agree with you that they are not for the ordinary
person."
The soft-footed butler presented a silver tray, upon which reposed a
glassful of amber liquid. Immelan took it, sipped it appreciatively, and
lit a cigarette.
"Your man, Prince," he acknowledged, "mixes his vermouths wonderfully."
"I am glad that what he does meets with your approval," was the
courteous reply. "He came to me from one of your royal palaces. I simply
told him that I wished my guests to have of the best."
"Yet you never touch this sort of drink yourself," Immelan observed
curiously.
The Prince shook his head.
"Sometimes I take wine," he said. "That is generally at night. A few
evenings ago, for instance," he went on, with a reminiscent smile, "I
drank Chateau Yquem, smoked Egyptian cigarettes, ate some muscatel
grapes, and read 'Pippa Passes.' That was one of my banquets."
"As a matter of fact," Immelan remarked thoughtfully, "you are far more
western in thought than in habit. The temperance of the East is in your
blood."
"I find that my manner of life keeps the brain clear," Prince Shan said
slowly. "I can see the truth sometimes when it is not very apparent. I
saw the truth last night, Immelan, when I sent Sen Lu to die."
Immelan's expression was indescribable. He sat with his mouth wide open.
The hand which held his glass shook. He stared across the bowl of lilies
to where his host was looking up through the smoke towards the ceiling.
"Sen Lu was a traitor," the latter went on, "a very foolish man who with
one act of treachery wiped out the memory of a lifetime of devotion. In
the end he told the truth, and now he has paid his debt."
"What do you mean?" Immelan demanded, in a voice which he attempted in
vain to control. "How was Sen Lu a traitor?"
"Sen Lu," the Prince explained, "was in the pay of those who sought to
know more of my business than I chose to tell--who sought, indeed, to
anticipate my own judgment. When they gathered from him, and, alas! from
my sweet but frail little friend Nita, that the chances were against my
signing a certain covenant, they came to what, even now, seems to me a
strange decision. They decided that I must die. There I fail wholly to
follow the workings of your mind, Immelan. How was my death likely to
serve your purpose?"
Immelan was absolutely speechless. Three times he opened his lips, only
to close them again. Some instinct seemed to tell him that his companion
had more to say. He sat there as though mesmerised. Meanwhile, the
Prince lit another cigarette.
"A blunder, believe me, Immelan," he continued thoughtfully. "Death will
not lower over my path till my task is accomplished. I am young--many
years younger than you, Immelan--and the greatest physicians marvel at
my strength. Against the assassin's knife or bullet I am secure. You
have been brought up and lived, my terrified friend, in a country where
religion remains a shell and a husk, without comfort to any man. It is
not so with me, I live in the spirit as in the body, and my days will
last until the sun leans down and lights me to the world where those
dwell who have fulfilled their destiny."
Immelan drained the contents of the glass which his unsteady hand was
holding. Then he rose to his feet. The veins on his forehead were
standing out, his blue eyes were filled with rage.
"Blast Sen Lu!" he muttered. "The man was a double traitor!"
"He has atoned," his companion said calmly. "He made his peace and he
went to his death. It seems very fitting that he should have received
the dagger which was meant for my heart. Now what about you, Oscar
Immelan?"
Immelan laughed harshly.
"If Sen Lu told you that I was in this plot against your life, he lied!"
The Prince inclined his head urbanely.
"Such a man as Sen Lu goes seldom to his death with a lie upon his
lips," he said. "Yet I confess that I am puzzled. Why should you plan
this thing, Immelan? You cannot know what is in my mind concerning your
covenant. I have not yet refused to sign it."
"You have not refused to sign it," Immelan replied, "but you will
refuse."
"Indeed?" the Prince murmured.
"You are even now trifling with the secrets confided to you," Immelan
went on. "You know very well that the woman who came to you last night
is a spy whose whole time is spent in seeking to worm our secret from
you."
"Your agents keep themselves well informed," was the calm comment.
"Yours still have the advantage of us," Immelan answered bitterly. "Now
listen to me. I have heard it said of you--I have heard that you claim
yourself--that you have never told a falsehood. We have been allies.
Answer me this question. Have you parted with any of our secrets?"
"Not one," the Prince assured him. "A certain lady visited this house
last night, not, as you seem to think, at my invitation, but on her own
initiative. She was not successful in her quest."
"She would not pay the price, eh?" Immelan sneered. "By the gods of your
ancestors, Prince Shan, are there not women enough in the world for you
without bartering your honour, and the great future of your country, for
a blue-eyed jade of an Englishwoman?"
The Prince sat slowly up. His appearance was ominous. His face had
become set as marble; there was a look in his eyes like the flashing of
a light upon black metal. He contemplated his visitor across the lilies.
"A man so near to death, Immelan," he enjoined, "might choose his words
more carefully."
Immelan laughed scornfully.
"I am not to be bullied," he declared. "Your doors with their patent
locks have no fears for me. When you walk abroad, you are followed by
members of your household. When you come to my rooms, they attend you. I
am not a prince, but I, too, have a care for my skin. Three of my secret
service men never let me out of their sight. They are within call at
this moment."
His host smiled.
"This is very interesting," he said, "but you should know me better,
Immelan, than to imagine that mine are the clumsy methods of the dagger
or the bullet. The man whom I will to die--drinks with me."
He pointed a long forefinger at the empty glass. Immelan gazed at it,
and the sweat stood out upon his forehead.
"My God!" he muttered. "There was a queer taste! I thought that it was
aniseed!"
"There was nothing in that glass," the Prince declared, "which the
greatest chemist who ever breathed could detect as poison, yet you will
die, my friend Immelan, without any doubt. Shall I tell you how? Would
you know in what manner the pains will come? No? But, my friend, you
disappoint me! You showed so much courage an hour ago. Listen. Feel for
a swelling just behind--Ah!"
Immelan was already across the room. The Prince touched a bell, the
doors were opened. Ghastly pale, his head swimming, the tortured man
dashed out into the street. The Prince leaned back amongst his cushions,
untied a straw-fastened packet of his long cigarettes, lit one, and
closed his eyes.