the letter may simply be incidental to that business, in that its
delivery to the French Ambassador will embarrass or complicate that
business. The latter is likely the fact."
"It grows more involved every minute," Mrs. Clephane sighed. "It's
useless to try to make me comprehend. I want to hear what happened to
you; such simple concrete doings are more adapted to my unsophisticated
mind."
"When I returned to the telephone, you were gone," he said; "I waited
awhile, then cruised through the rooms, then went back to our place and
waited again. Finally I went in to dinner, leaving word to be notified
the moment you returned. I was at my soup when a note was brought to me
saying that you had just seen someone whom you wished to avoid, and
asking me to dine with you in your apartment--and that you would explain
your disappearance. I went up at once to No. 972; and there encountered
pretty much similar treatment to yours,"--and he detailed the episode,
down to the time she reappeared in the corridor.
She had heard him through without an interruption; at the end she said
simply:
"I've absolutely no business in this affair, Mr. Harleston. When such
things can happen in this hotel, in the very centre of the National
Capital and among the throngs of diners and guests, it behooves an
ordinary woman to seek safety in a hospital or a prison. It seems that
the greater the prominence of the place, the greater the danger and the
less liability to arrest."
"In diplomacy!" he acquiesced.
"Then again, I say, Heaven save me from meddling in diplomacy!"
"Amen, my lady! Moreover," he added, as they arose and passed into the
corridor, "I want you as you are."
Once again their eyes met--she coloured and looked away.
"Play the game, Mr. Harleston," she reminded, "play the game! And thank
you for a delicious dinner and a charming evening--and don't forget
you've an appointment at ten."
"I had forgotten!" he laughed, drawing out his watch.
It was ten minutes of the hour.
"Take me to the F Street elevator and then hurry on," said she.
"And you will do nothing--and go nowhere until tomorrow?" he asked.
"I'll promise to remain here until--"
"I come for you in the morning?" he broke in.
"If I'm not abducted in the interval, I'll wait," and stepped into the
car. "Good-night, Mr. Harleston!" she smiled--and the car shot upward.
"Hum!" muttered Harleston as he turned for his coat and hat. "I may be
a fool, but I'll risk it--and I think I'm _not_."
It was but a step to Headquarters and he walked.
"The Superintendent," he said to the sergeant on duty in the outer
office.
"The Chief has gone home, Mr. Harleston," was the answer.
"Home?"
"Yes, sir, two hours ago; he'll not be back tonight."
"Get him on the telephone," Harleston directed.
"Yes, sir, Mr. Harleston.... Here he is, sir--you can use the 'phone in
the private office."
"Hello! Is that you, Ranleigh? Yes, I recognized the voice. Did you
telephone me at the Chateau about six-thirty?... You didn't?... You were
on your way home at that hour.... Yes, exactly; it was a plant.... Do
you know Crenshaw escaped from my apartment.... Yes, I saw him in the
Chateau this evening.... What?... Yes, better look up Whiteside at
once.... Yes, in the Collingwood.... Very good; I'll meet you there....
All right, I'll tell the sergeant."
XII
CARPENTER
Harleston took a taxi to the Collingwood, arriving just as Ranleigh came
up, and the two men went in together.
Whiteside was there; gagged and bound to the same chair that had held
Crenshaw.
The rooms were in confusion. Everything had been gone through; clothes
were scattered over the floor, papers were strewn about, drawers stood
open.
They released Whiteside, and presently he was able to talk.
"When did it happen?" Ranleigh asked.
"About five o'clock this afternoon, sir," Whiteside replied, in a most
apologetic tone. He knew there was no sympathy and no excuse for the
detective who let his prisoner escape. "The bell rang. I went to the
door--and was shot senseless by a chemical revolver. When I came to, I
had exchanged places with the prisoner, and he and another man were
just departing. 'My compliments to Mr. Harleston when he returns,' said
Crenshaw, as he went out."
"Describe the other man!" said Ranleigh.
"Medium sized, slender, dark hair and eyes, good features, looked like a
gentleman, wore a blue sack-suit, black silk tie, and stiff straw hat."
"It's Sparrow," Harleston remarked. "Did they take anything with them?"
"Nothing whatever that I saw, sir."
"You're excused until morning," said the Chief curtly.
The detective saluted and went out.
"I am exceedingly sorry I overlooked Whiteside when I escaped from
Crenshaw's garrote in the Chateau," Harleston remarked. "The simple fact
is, I clean forgot him until I was talking with you on the telephone."
"It's just as well, Mr. Harleston," Ranleigh replied. "It served him
right. He will be fortunate if his want of precaution doesn't cost him
his job."
"No, no!" Harleston objected. "Whiteside has been punished. I intercede
for him. Let him continue in his job, please."
"Very good, sir," Ranleigh acquiesced. "But he'll be informed that he
owes his retention entirely to you."
When Ranleigh departed, after hearing a detailed account of the
evening's doings at the hotel, Harleston sat for a little while
thinking; finally he drew over a pad and made a list of things that
required explanation, or seemed to require explanation, at the present
stage of the matter:
"(1) The translation of the cipher letter. This should explain Madeline
Spencer's connection with the affair.
"(2) Did the following persons, incidents, or circumstances have any
bearing on the affair.
"(a) The lone and handsome woman, who left the Collingwood at three that
morning.
"(b) The note 'à l'aube du jour' (signed) 'M,' found in Crenshaw's
pocket.
"(c) The telephone call of the Chartrand apartment at 12:52 A.M., by a
man who said that he was 'here' and to meet him at 10 A.M.
"(d) The persons in the Chartrand apartment the previous night.
"(e) After 1 P.M. no one entered the Collingwood by the usual way, and
no one telephoned; how, therefore, did anyone in the Collingwood know of
the incident of the cab, and of my connection with it.
"(f) Who is Mrs. Winton of the Burlingame apartments?
"(g) Why was she in Peacock Alley, wearing black and red roses, at five
o'clock this afternoon?"
Harleston read over the list, folded it, and put it in his pocket-book;
then he went to bed. There was plenty for him to seek, in regard to the
affair of the cab of the sleeping horse, but nothing more for the
Spencer gang to inspect in his apartment. Crenshaw had made a thorough
job of his investigation.
In the morning he took out the list and went over it again. They all
were dependent on the translation of the letter; if it did not show that
the United States was concerned in the matter, the rest became merely of
academic interest--and Harleston had little inclination and no time for
things academic. The difficulty was, that until the key to the cipher
was found nothing was academic which appeared to have any bearing on the
affair.
So he sent for the manager of the Collingwood, and asked as to the
Chartrands. The manager's information, which was definite if not
extensive, was to the effect that the Chartrands were people of means
from Denver, with excellent social position there, and with connections
in Washington. They had been tenants of the Collingwood less than a
week, having sublet the Dryand apartment. It was a large apartment. Mr.
Chartrand was possibly forty-five, his wife thirty-eight or forty and
exceedingly good-looking. There was, of course, no record kept of their
visitors, nor did the house know who they were entertaining the previous
evening. He was entirely sure, however, that the Chartrands were above
suspicion. Mrs. Chartrand was a blonde, petite and slender; Chartrand
was tall and rather stout, with red hair, and a scar across his
forehead. As for the tall, slender woman who left the Collingwood at
three in the morning, he did not recognize her from the description; he
would, however, investigate at once.
That it might be Madeline Spencer, now that her presence in Washington
was declared, Harleston thought possible. "Slender, twenty-eight, walks
as though the ground were hers," the telephone operator had said. He
would get the photograph from Carpenter and let Miss Williams see it. If
she recognized it as Spencer, much would be explained.
He stopped a moment at the Club, then went on to the State Department.
As he turned the corner near the Secretary's private elevator, the
Secretary himself was on the point of embarking and he waited.
"You want to see me?" he asked.
"Just a moment, Mr. Secretary, since you're here," Harleston responded.
"I came particularly to see Carpenter. There has been a plenty doing in
that matter, but nothing worthy of report to you--except one thing.
Madeline Spencer is in town."
"The devil she is!" exclaimed the Secretary.
"And as beautiful, as fascinating, as sinuous, and as young as ever."
"She must be a vision."
"She is--and an extraordinarily dangerous vision."
"Only to you impressible chaps!" the Secretary confided. "She is not
dangerous to me, be she ever so beautiful, and fascinating, and
sinuous, and young. When will you present me?"
"When do you suggest?" Harleston asked.
"Tomorrow, at four?"
"If I can get the lady, certainly."
"Later she'll get me, you think!" the Secretary laughed.
"If she is so minded she'll get you, I have not the least doubt,"
Harleston shrugged.
"Then here is where you have your doubt resolved into moonshine."
"Very well; it won't be the first time I've had the pleasure of seeing
moonshine. I'll try to make the appointment for tomorrow at four."
"Self-opinionated old mountebank," Harleston thought, as he went down
the corridor to Carpenter's office. "I shall enjoy watching Spencer make
all kinds of an ass of him. 'You impressible chaps!--not dangerous to
me!' Oh, Lord, the patronizing bumptiousness of the man!... Have you
anything for me, Carpenter?" he asked, as he entered the latter's
office.
The Fifth Assistant was sitting with his feet on his desk, a cigar in
his mouth, his gaze fixed on vacancy.
"Damn your old cipher, Harleston!" he remarked, coming out of his
abstraction. "It's bothered me more than anything I've tackled for
years. I can't make head nor tail of it. Its very simplicity--or seeming
simplicity--is what's tantalizing. It's in French. Of so much I feel
sure, though I've little more than intuition to back it. As you know,
this Vigenèrie, or Blocked-Out Square, cipher is particularly difficult.
I've tried every word and phrase that's ever been used or discovered. We
have a complete record of them. None fit this case. Can you give me
anything additional that will be suggestive?"
"Here's what I've brought," Harleston replied--and related, so far as
they seemed pertinent, the incidents of the previous afternoon and
evening.
"A French message in an English envelope, inclosing an unmounted
photograph of Madeline Spencer, a well-known German Secret Agent in
Paris," Carpenter remarked slowly; "and the letter is borne by Madame
Durrand to the French Ambassador. You see, my intuition was right? the
letter is in French; and as it is of French authorship the key-word is
French. That narrows very materially our search. Find the key-word to
the Vigenèrie cipher of the French Diplomatic Service and we shall have
the translation."
"You haven't that word?" Harleston asked.
"We've got quantities of keys to French ciphers, and numerous ones to
the Blocked-Out Square, but they won't translate this letter." He took
up a small book and opened it at a mark. "Here are samples of the
latter: _ecclesiastiques, coeur de roche, a deau eaux, fourreau, chateau
d'eau_, and so on. But, alas, none of them fits; the French Government
has a new key. Indeed, she changes it every month or oftener; sometimes
she changes it just for a single letter."
"Then we must apply ourselves to obtaining the French key-word,"
Harleston remarked. "Can you--do it?"
"Maybe we can pilfer it and maybe we can't. At least we can make a brisk
attempt. I will give orders at once. In the meantime, if you'll keep me
advised of what happens, we may be able to piece your and my information
together and make a word."
"I'll do it!" Harleston replied and started toward the door. Half-way
across the room he suddenly whirled around. "Lord, Carpenter. what an
imbecile I am!" he exclaimed. "I fancy I've had the key-word all the
while and never realized it."
"There are too many petticoats in this case," Carpenter shrugged.
"Never mind the petticoats!" Harleston laughed. "Get out the letter and
try this phrase on it: _à l'aube du jour_."
Without a word of comment, Carpenter set down the cipher message, letter
by letter, and wrote over it _à l'aube du jour_. Then he took up a
printed Blocked-Out Square and with incredible swiftness began to write
the translation.
"Where did you get this 'at the break of day,' Harleston?" he asked as
he wrote.
"Found it in Crenshaw's pocket-book when he returned to hold me up,"
Harleston replied.
"Only this isolated phrase?"
"Yes--and signed with the single initial 'M.'"
"Hump!" Carpenter commented. "Mrs. Spencer's name, I believe you said,
is Madeline. I tell you there are too many women in this affair."
Suddenly he threw down the pen. "What's the use in going on with it. If
you can supply a key to this key we may arrive. Such an array of
unpronounceables may be Russian, it assuredly isn't French or English.
Look at it!" and he handed the translation to Harleston, who read:
AGELUMTONZUCLPMUHRHUNBARGPUH
PJICLWYIAOIWFPHLUOZFRXUFJWH
WASNVDPS
"Good Lord!" said Harleston. "I pass. Did you ever see so many
consonants. I reckon my key-word isn't the key."
"Try being held up again," Carpenter advised; "you may succeed the
second time. If Madeline Spencer is the holdee, no telling what you'd
find."
"I'd find nothing," Harleston rejoined.
"You'd be holding a particularly lovely and attractive bit of skirts!"
Carpenter smiled.
"I don't want to hold that at present."
"Not even--Mrs. Clephane?"
Harleston raised his eyebrows slightly.
"What do you know about Mrs. Clephane?" he asked.
"That she's even lovelier and more attractive than Mrs. Spencer."
"You've seen her--you know her?"
"You told me," replied Carpenter.
"I told you!--I never referred to Mrs. Clephane's appearance."
"Exactly: your careful reticence told me more than if you had used tons
of words. I'm a reader of secret ciphers; you don't imagine a mere
individual presents much of a problem. I tell you there are too many
petticoats mixed up in this affair of the cab of the sleeping horse,"
Carpenter repeated. "Be careful, Harleston. Women are a menace--they
spoil about everything they touch."
"Marriage in particular?" Harleston inquired.
"Exactly!"
"A bachelor's wisdom!" Harleston laughed.
"Why are you a bachelor?" Carpenter shrugged.
"Because I never--"
"--found the woman; or have been adroit enough to avoid her wiles,"
Carpenter cut in. "And whichever it is, you've shown your wisdom. Don't
spoil it now, Harleston, don't spoil it now. Millionaires and
day-labourers are the only classes that have any business to marry; the
rest of us chaps either can't afford the luxury, or are not quite poor
enough to be forced to marry in order to get a servant."
"You would be popular with the suffragettes," Harleston remarked.
"Worldly wisdom of any sort is never popular with those against whom it
warns."
"An aphorism!" Harleston laughed.
"Aphorism be damned; it's just plain horse sense. Don't do it, old man,
don't do it!"
"Don't do what?"
"Don't fall in love with Mrs. Clephane."
"Good Lord!" Harleston exclaimed.
"Good Lord all you want, you're on the verge and preparing to leap
in--and you know it. Let some other man be the life-saver, Harleston.
You're much too fine a chap to waste yourself in foolishness."
"And all this," Harleston expostulated with mock solemnity, "because I
neglected to include a description of Mrs. Clephane."
"Neglected with deliberation. And with you that is more significant than
if you had detailed most minutely her manifold attractions. Look here,
Harleston, do you want this translation for yourself or for Mrs.
Clephane?"
"I want the translation because the Secretary of State wants it,"
Harleston replied quietly.
"Oh, don't become chilly," Carpenter returned good-naturedly. "If you
permit, I'll tell you something about a Mrs. Clephane--queer name
Clephane, and rather unusual--whom I used to see in Paris," glancing
languidly at Harleston, "several years ago. Want to hear it?"
"Sure!" said Harleston. "Drive on and keep driving. You won't drive over
me."
"It isn't a great deal," Carpenter went on, slowly tearing the consonant
collection into bits, "and perchance it wasn't your Mrs. Clephane; but
her name, and her beauty and charm, and Paris, and some other inferences
I drew, led me to suspect that--" He completed the sentence by a wave of
his hand. "She was Robert Clephane's wife--yes, I see in your face that
she is your Mrs. Clephane--and he led her a merry life, though if rumour
lied not she kept up with the pace he set. I saw her frequently and she
was as--well you have not overdrawn the 'reticence picture.' Shall I
continue?"
Harleston smiled and nodded.
"Doubtless you already know the tale," Carpenter remarked.
"I know only what Mrs. Clephane has told me," Harleston replied.
The Fifth Assistant Secretary picked up a ruler and sighted carefully
along the edge.
"I seem to be in wrong, old man," he said. "Please forget that I ever
said it or anything--you understand."
"My dear fellow, don't be an ass!" Harleston laughed. "I'm not sensitive
about the lady; I never saw her until last night."
"Quite long enough for a man disposed to make a fool of himself--if the
lady is a beauty."
"I'm disposed to hear more from you, if you care to tell me," Harleston
replied. "However, jesting aside, Carpenter, what do you know? Mrs.
Clephane is something of a puzzle to me, but I have concluded to accept
her story; yet I'm always open to conviction, and if I'm wrong now's the
time to enlighten me--the State comes first, you know."
"Are you viewing Mrs. Clephane simply as a circumstance in the affair of
the cipher letter?" Carpenter asked.
"Certainly!" said Harleston.
"Then I'll give you what I heard. It's not much, and it may be false;
it's for you to judge, in the light of all that you know concerning her,
whether or not it affects her credibility. Mrs. Clephane went with a
notoriously fast set in Paris, and her reputation was somewhat cloudy."
"I know of that," returned Harleston, "also that Clephane was a roué,
and generally an exceedingly rotten lot."
"Precisely--and her conduct as to him may be quite justifiable; yet
nevertheless it weakens her credibility; puts her story as to the letter
under suspicion. And there is one thing more: Clephane, you know, was
killed in an aeroplane smash. Did Mrs. Clephane tell you anything as to
it?"
"Merely referred to it."
"Well, at a dinner the night before, he effervesced that his wife had
repeatedly tried to poison him, and had told him only that evening that
she hoped the flight of the morrow would be his last, and that he would
fall so far it would be useless to dig for his remains. At the aviation
field the following day he appeared queer, and his friends urged him not
to try the flight; but he waved them aside, with the remark that maybe
Mrs. Clephane had drugged him and at last would win out. His fall came
a trifle later. Suspicion followed, of course."
"How do you know all this?" Harleston asked.
"From a man who was one of his intimates, and has reformed; and from
having myself been in the aviation field the day of the tragedy."
"You heard Clephane's remark?"
"I did."
"Hum!" said Harleston slowly. "A man of Clephane's habits will accuse
anyone of anything at certain times. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't
blame Mrs. Clephane, nor any other woman, for chucking such a husband
out of the boat. It's contrary to the Acts of Assembly in such cases
made and provided, but it's natural justice and amply justifiable."
"You don't credit it?" Carpenter asked.
"I can't. Moreover, didn't she change instantly her course of life and
disappear from the gay world?"
"I believe that is so."
"And hasn't she remained disappeared?"
Carpenter nodded.
"Then I'm inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. I'll trust
her, until I've seen something to warrant distrust--bearing in mind,
however, what you have just told me, and the possibility of my being
mistaken. I reckon I can veer quickly enough if--"
The telephone rang. Carpenter picked up the receiver.
"Yes, Mr. Harleston is here," he replied, passing the receiver across.
"Yes," said Harleston. "Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Clephane.... Very nice,
indeed.... Be delighted!... In ten minutes, I'll be there. Good-bye." He
pushed back the instrument. "Mrs. Clephane has telephoned that she must
see me at once. Meanwhile--the key-word, my friend."
Carpenter drummed on the table, and frowned at the door that had closed
behind Harleston.
"The man's bewitched," he muttered. "However I threw a slight scare into
him, and maybe it will make him pause; he is not quite devoid of sense.
Bah! All women are vampires."
XIII
THE MARQUIS
"Mrs. Clephane will be right down, Mr. Harleston," said the telephone
operator.
A moment later the elevator flashed into sight, and Mrs. Clephane
stepped out and came forward with the languorously lithe step, perfectly
in keeping with her slender figure. She wore a dark blue street suit,
and under her small hat her glorious hair flamed like an incandescent
aureole. She greeted Harleston with an intimate little nod and smile.
"You're good to come!" she said.
"To myself, I think I'm more than good," he answered.
"No, no, sir!" she smiled. "No more compliments between us, if we're to
be friends."
"We're to be _friends_," he returned.
"_Ergo_," she replied. "Sit down just a minute, will you?"
"I'll sit down for a month, if you're--"
"_Ergo! Ergo!_" she reminded him.
"I had not gotten used to the unusual restriction" he exclaimed. "You're
the first woman ever I met or heard of who dislikes compliments."
"I don't dislike compliments, Mr. Harleston; but compliments, it seems,
are given in diplomacy for a purpose; and as I don't understand anything
of diplomacy we would better cut them out--until we have finished with
diplomacy. Then you may offer as many as you like, and I'll believe them
or not as I'm minded."
"Have it as you wish!" he smiled, looking into the brown eyes with frank
admiration.
"Compliments may be conveyed by looks as well as by words," she
reproved.
"But of the feeling that prompts the look you can be in no doubt.
Moreover, a look is silent."
"Nonsense," said she. "Besides, I want to ask you a favour. You see, I'm
prepared to go out--and I want you to go with me. Will you do it?"
"It will have to be mightily against my conscience to make me refuse
_you_," Harleston replied.
"I'm glad you recognize a conscience," she remarked.
"I refer to my diplomatic conscience."
"And a diplomatic conscience is a minus quantity," she observed.
"What is it you would of me, dear lady?" he asked.
"I would that you should go with me to the French Ambassador, and help
me to explain the--now don't say you won't, Mr. Harleston--"
"My dear Mrs. Clephane, it is--" he began.
"It is _not_ impossible!" she declared. "Why won't you do it?"
"For your sake as well as for my own," he explained. "America and France
are not working together in this matter, and for me to accompany you
would result simply in your being obliged to explain _me_ as well as the
letter, besides leading to endless complications and countless
suspicions. Didn't I expound this last evening?"
"You did--also much more; but I've thought over it almost the whole
night, and I simply must get this miserable letter off my mind. Perhaps
Mrs. Spencer has forestalled me with the Ambassador and has given him
such a tale as will insure my being shown the door; nevertheless I'll
risk it."