Harleston suggested "and have her, if she hasn't done so already,
identify you to the Marquis?"
"I shall, if the Marquis is sceptical. I'll admit that I'm pitiably
foolish, but I don't want Mrs. Durrand to know how I've bungled her
matter until the bungle is corrected."
"I can quite understand," said Harleston gently.
"Oh, I know you are right," she murmured, "yet I'm afraid to go alone."
"Take some other friend with you; some well-known man who can vouch for
your identity."
"I know no one in Washington except the friends at the Shoreham, and
they are not residents here."
"Are you acquainted with any prominent woman?"
"No! I've lived in Europe for years--and while I have met over there
women from Washington it's been only casually. They won't recollect me,
any more than I would them, for purposes of vouchment or
identification."
"Then go alone."
"I will. It is the right thing to do. Yesterday I was thinking that you
had the letter and could return it to me. I waited. Today I can
appreciate your reason for withholding it--likewise the necessity for me
to go to the Ambassador with my story. And I shall tell him the _whole_
story; he may believe it or not as he is inclined. I'm only a volunteer
in this affair, and I've decided that for me the course of discretion
and frank honesty is much wiser than silently fighting back.
Furthermore, it does not estop me from fighting the Spencer gang."
"You have made a wise decision," Harleston commented. "Tell the
Ambassador, and be quit of the affair--and don't fight the Spencer gang,
Mrs. Clephane; it is not worth while."
She arose, and he went with her down the corridor and up the steps to
the entrance.
"Every action is suspected and distrusted in diplomacy," he said,
"therefore I may not accompany you. Someone would be sure to see us and
report to the Embassy that I had brought you--the natural effect of
which would be to make the Marquis disbelieve your tale. For you see,
until we have translated the letter, we cannot assume that America is
not concerned."
"And you will not think ill of me for disclosing your part in the
affair?" she asked.
"Quite the contrary," he smiled. "Moreover, it is the course for you to
pursue; to hold back a single thing as to me will result only in
distrust. Indeed, implicating me will help substantiate your story."
"You're very good and very thoughtful," she murmured--and once more
suffered him to look deep into her eyes.
"I am very willing for you to think me both," he replied. "Now I'm going
to call a taxi at the Fourteenth Street exit, and follow yours up
Sixteenth Street until I see you at the French Embassy. Tell your
chauffeur to drive down to Twelfth Street, up to H and then out to
Sixteenth. My taxi will be loitering on Sixteenth and will pick up yours
as it passes and follow it to the Embassy. Once there you're out of
danger of the Spencer gang. And let me impress you with this fact: tell
the story to someone of the staff. If you fail to get to the Ambassador,
get a Secretary or an Attaché."
"I'll try to find someone who will listen!" she laughed.
"And I rather fancy you will be successful," he smiled. "It would be a
most unusual sort of man who won't both listen and look."
"Careful, Mr. Harleston!" she reminded.
He put her in the taxi; bowed and turned back into the hotel--wondering
why he had ever fancied Madeline Spencer.
Mrs. Clephane gave her orders to the chauffeur, ending with the
injunction to drive slowly.
As they swung into Sixteenth Street, a taxi standing before St. John's
Episcopal Church followed them; and Mrs. Clephane recognized Harleston
as its occupant.
At the French Embassy she descended and rang the bell, and was instantly
admitted by a liveried footman.
"I wish to see his Excellency the Ambassador!" she said, speaking in
French.
The flunky took her card and bowed her into a small reception room.
After a moment or so a dapper young man entered, her card in his
fingers.
"Messes Cleephane?" he inquired.
"I am Mrs. Clephane," she replied in French. "I wish to see his
Excellency the Ambassador on a most important matter."
"You have an appointment with his Excellency?" he asked, this time in
French.
"You are--" she inflected.
"His secretary, madame," the young man bowed.
"No, I have not an appointment," she replied, "but I come from Madame
Durrand who was the bearer of a cipher letter from the Foreign Minister.
Madame Durrand was injured as she was about to take train in New York,
and gave me the letter to deliver."
The secretary looked at her blandly and smiled faintly.
"You have the letter with you?" he asked.
"Again, no," she replied. "It is to explain its loss, and to warn the
Ambassador that I am here."
"His Excellency is exceedingly busy--will you not relate the
circumstances to me?"
"My instructions from Madame Durrand are most specific that I am to deal
only with his Excellency," Mrs. Clephane explained--with such a dazzling
smile that the secretary's eyes fairly popped. "Won't you please tell
him I'm here, and that I have a luncheon engagement at one o'clock."
The secretary hesitated. Again the smile smote him full in the face--and
he hesitated no longer.
"Come with me, Madame Clephane," he replied "His Excellency is occupied
at present, but I'll deliver your message."
Once more the smile--as opening the door for her he bowed her into an
inner office, and carefully placed a chair for her.
"A moment, madame," he whispered, disappearing through an adjoining
doorway.
Whereat Mrs. Clephane sighed with amused complacency, and waited.
Presently the door opened and the secretary appeared. "His Excellency
will receive you, Madame Clephane," he said.
"I thank you--oh, so much!" she whispered as she passed him--and the
look that went with the words cleared all her scores--and almost
finished him.
So much for a smile--when a beautiful woman smiles, and smiles in just
the right way, and especially when the man smiled on is a Frenchman.
The Ambassador was standing by a large, flat-topped desk in the centre
of the room, his back was to the light, which was generously given in
all its effulgence to his visitors. He was a small man and slight of
build, intensely nervous, with well-cut features, gray hair--what there
was of it--and a tiny black moustache curled up at the ends but not
waxed.
He came briskly forward and extended his hand.
"My dear Madame Clephane," he said in French, leading her to a chair,
"how can I serve you?"
"By listening to my story, your Excellency, and believing it," Mrs.
Clephane answered,--"and at the end not being too severe on me for my
misfortune and ignorance."
"That will not be difficult," he bowed, with a frank look of admiration.
"You come from Madame Durrand, I believe?"
"Yes--you know Madame Durrand?"
The Marquis nodded. "I have met her several times."
"I'm glad!" said she. "It may help me to prove my case."
"Madame is her own proof," was the answer.
For which answer he drew such a smile from Edith Clephane that in
comparison the secretary's smile was simply as nothing.
"Your Excellency overwhelms me," she replied. "I'm positively trembling
with apprehension lest I fail to--" she dropped into English--"make
good."
He laughed lightly. "You will make good!" he replied, also in English,
"Pray proceed."
And Mrs. Clephane told him the whole story, from the time she met Madame
Durrand on the steamer to the present moment--omitting only the
immaterial personal portions occurring between Harleston and herself,
and the fact that his taxi had escorted hers until she was at the
Embassy.
Her narrative was punctuated throughout by the Marquis's constant
exclamations of wonder or interest; but further than exclaiming, in the
nervous French way, he made no interruption.
And on the whole, she told her story well; at first she was a little
nervous, which made her somewhat at a loss for words; yet that soon
passed, and her tale flowed along with delightful ease.
"Now you have been a wonderfully gracious listener, your Excellency,"
she ended, "ask whatever questions you wish in regard to the matter; I
shall be only too glad to answer if I am able."
"Madame's narrative has been most detailed and most satisfactory," the
Marquis answered. "But let me ask you to explain, if you can, why Madame
Durrand has not made a written report of this matter to the Embassy?"
"I have no idea--unless she is ill."
"Broken bones do not usually prevent one from writing, or dictating, a
letter."
"It _is_ peculiar!" Mrs. Clephane admitted.
"What is the name of the hospital?" the Marquis asked.
"In the hurry and excitement I quite forgot to ask the name," she
replied. "The station officials selected it. I was thinking of
her--Madame Durrand, I mean--more than the name of the hospital. I don't
even know the street; though it's somewhere in the locality of the
station. It is dreadfully stupid of me, your Excellency, not to
know--but I don't."
"We can remedy that very readily," he said, and pressed a button. His
secretary responded. "Telephone our Consul-General in New York to
ascertain immediately from the railroad officials the hospital to which
Madame Durrand, who broke her ankle and wrist in the Pennsylvania
Station, at ten o'clock on Monday, was taken."
The secretary saluted and withdrew.
"Might not our friends the enemy have bribed someone to suppress Madame
Durrand's letter or wire?" Mrs. Clephane asked.
"Very possibly. It is entirely likely that they wouldn't be apt to stop
with the accident."
"You think they were responsible for Madame Durrand's fall?" she
exclaimed.
"Have you forgotten the man who jostled Madame Durrand?" the Marquis
reminded.
"To be sure! How stupid not to think of it. You see, your Excellency, I
am not accustomed to the ways of diplomacy and to assuming every one's a
rogue until he proves otherwise."
"You have a poor opinion of diplomats!" he smiled.
"Not of diplomats, only of their professional ways. And as they all have
the same ways, it's fair, I suppose, among one another."
"Did you tell Monsieur Harleston your opinion of our vocation?" he
asked.
"I did--somewhat more emphatically."
"And what, if you care to tell, did he say?"
"He quite agreed with me; he even went further."
"Wise man, Harleston!" the Marquis chuckled.
"Implying that he was not sincere?"
The Marquis threw up his hands. "Perish the thought! I imply that he is
a man of rare discrimination and admirable taste."
"Now won't you please tell me, your Excellency, if you credit, no, if
you _believe_, my story--and don't be a diplomat for the telling."
"My dear Madame Clephane, I do believe your tale--it bears the impress
of truth in what you've not done, as well as in what you've done. Had
you ever been in the service you would recognize my meaning. That the
abductors did not triumph was due first to their carelessness, and
second to chance, in the person of Monsieur Harleston. He plays the
game; and is violating no rule of diplomacy by his course in the affair.
Indeed he would be recreant to his country's service were he to do
otherwise. And France would infinitely prefer the United States to have
the letter rather than Germany. It's unfortunate, but it's not as
unfortunate as it might be."
"You make me feel much, oh, so much better!" Mrs. Clephane replied. "I
feared lest my blunder could never be forgiven nor forgotten; and that
Madame Durrand would be held responsible and would never again be
trusted."
The Ambassador smiled and shook his head. "I think you need not worry,"
he replied.
"And I'm perfectly sure, your Excellency, that if the United States is
neither directly or indirectly concerned in the matter of the letter,
and if you were to submit a translation of the letter to prove it, Mr.
Harleston will deliver to you the original."
"Did Monsieur Harleston tell you so?" the Marquis smiled.
"No, oh, no! I only thought that--"
"--in this one instance diplomats would trust each other?" he
interjected. "Alas, no! Monsieur Harleston would only assume the
translation to be false and given for the sole purpose of deception. I
should assume exactly the same, were our positions reversed."
"Couldn't you prove your translation by giving him the key to the
cipher?" she asked.
"My dear madame," the Marquis smiled, "such a thing would be
unprecedented--and would mean my instant dismissal from the service,
and trial for treason."
She made a gesture of defeat. "Well, you can at least have the letter
repeated by cable."
"Also we can cable the government to dispatch another letter," the
Ambassador soothed. "There are plenty of ways out of the difficulty, so
don't give yourself any concern--and the United States is welcome to the
letter. It will be a far day, I assure you, ere its cipher bureau
translates it."
He glanced at the clock. Mrs. Clephane arose.
"I'm sorry for the mess I have made," she said.
"Don't give it a thought," he assured her. "If you can help us, you will
be where?"
"I will be at the Chateau until this matter is straightened out--and
subject to your instant call."
"Good--you are more than kind; France appreciates it."
He took her hand, escorted her with gracious courtesy to the door, and
bowed her out.
Then he stepped to his desk and rang twice.
The First Secretary entered.
"Did you hear her entire story?" the Marquis asked.
"I did, sir," the First Secretary replied.
"You believe it?"
"Absolutely."
"Then set Pasquier to work to ascertain what this Madame Spencer is
about. Let him report as quickly as he has anything definite. I'll cable
Paris at once as to the letter."
XIV
THE SLIP OF PAPER
Madeline Spencer, leaning languidly against the mahogany table in the
corner of the drawing-room, drummed softly with her finger tips as she
listened.
"What is the use of it all?" Marston was asking. "We can't get the
letter. Harleston evidently told the truth; he has turned it over to the
State Department, so why not be content that it's there, and let well
enough alone?"
"I've been letting well enough alone by occupying them with the notion
that the letter is the thing most desired," Mrs. Spencer returned.
"Muddying the water, as it were, so as to obscure the main issue and get
away with the trick. Direct your attention here, if you please,
gentlemen! Meanwhile we escape from the other end."
"Mrs. Clephane was at the French Embassy this afternoon," he observed.
"At last she had a glimmering of sense!" Mrs. Spencer laughed. "Why she
didn't beat it there direct from the train I can't imagine. Such
ignorance is a large asset for those of us who know. I had thought of
impersonating her and amusing myself with d'Hausonville, but I concluded
it wasn't worth while. It _riles_ me, however, that the affair was so
atrociously bungled by Crenshaw and the others. What possessed them to
release Mrs. Clephane once they had her?--and what in Heaven's name made
them overlook the letter in the cab?"
"Search me!" Marston replied.
"There is no occasion to search you, Marston," she smiled, "I shouldn't
find very much except--placidity."
"Placidity has its advantages," he smiled back.
"It has; that's why I asked the Chief for you. You were not as happy in
your choice of assistants, Marston. They are a stupid lot. You may send
them back to New York. We'll handle this matter ourselves, with Mrs.
Chartrand's involuntary assistance."
"Very good, madame!" said Marston. "The trouble, you see, came with that
chap Harleston's butting into the affair. Who would have foreseen that
he would happen along just at that particular moment and scoop the
letter without turning a hair. It was rotten luck sure."
"It was all easy enough if the blundering fools had only exercised an
atom of sense," Mrs. Spencer retorted. "Mrs. Clephane couldn't deceive a
normal two-year-old child; she is as transparent as plate glass."
"She was clever enough to get rid of the letter in the cab, and to give
them the plausible story that it was locked in the hotel safe. And the
hotel safe was the reasonable place for her to leave the letter until
she had seen the Ambassador, and someone from the Embassy could return
with her and get the letter."
"Granted--if Mrs. Clephane were a wise woman and in the service. She
isn't wise and she isn't in the service; and both these facts are so
apparent that he who runs may read. She played the Buissards for fools
and won. If they had exercised the intelligence of an infant, they'd
have known that she had the letter with her when she left the hotel. You
got a glimmer of light when you thought of the cab--and Mrs. Clephane
told you that Mr. Harleston had stopped and looked at the sleeping
horse and then started him toward Dupont Circle. You came to me to
report--and I, knowing Harleston, solved the remainder of the mystery.
But with Harleston's entry the affair assumed quite a different aspect;
and it is no reflection on you, Marston, that your expedition to his
apartment didn't succeed; though somewhat later Crenshaw did act as a
semi-reasonable man, and secured the letter--only to foozle again like
an imbecile. The play in the hotel last night, as schemed by us, should
have gone through and eliminated Clephane and Harleston for a time; but
Harleston upset things by his quick action and sense of
danger--moreover, he guessed as to Clephane, for the management got wise
and made a search, and the dear lady found Harleston and me in Peacock
Alley--and she pre-empted him."
Marston blinked and said nothing.
"Why don't you say something?" she asked sharply.
"What is there to say that you don't already know," he replied placidly.
"Very little, Marston, about the subject in hand," she replied curtly.
"And now let us see how matters stand to date. First--the French
Ambassador knows that a cipher letter to him from his Foreign Minister
has been intercepted and is in the hands of the American State
Department. Second--as it is in letter cipher, there isn't much
likelihood of it being translated. Third--the matter covered by the
letter must be something that they are reluctant to send by cable; for
you know, Marston, that the United States, in common with European
nations, requires all telegraph and cable companies to forward
immediately to the State Department a copy of every cipher message
addressed to a foreign official. Maybe they are not able to translate
it, but of that the sending nation cannot be sure and it makes it very
careful, particularly when the local government is affected.
Fourth--France will have to choose between consuming a week in getting
another letter from Paris to Washington, or she will have to chance the
cable with the risk of America learning her message."
"What do you think France will do?" Marston asked.
"If the letter concerned my mission, she will risk the cable," Mrs.
Spencer replied. "She would far rather disclose the affair to the United
States, than to let Germany succeed."
"May she not be content now to warn the United States?" suggested
Marston.
"It's quite possible. All depends whether the letter concerns my
mission. We have been informed by the Wilhelm-strasse that it probably
does, and directed to prevent its delivery to the French Ambassador.
We've succeeded in preventing, but bungled it over to the United
States--the one country that we shouldn't have aroused. What in the
devil's name ails your assistants, Marston--particularly Crenshaw?"
"To be quite candid," Marston replied, "he had a grouch; he thought that
Sparrow and I flub-dubbed the matter of the cab, and deliberately tried
to lose him when we went to the Collingwood. And when he did come, he
drew his gun on us until he understood."
"What?" she exclaimed.
"He thought that it was a scheme of Sparrow to injure him in your eyes.
It seems that he and Sparrow are jealous of your beautiful eyes."
"What are you talking about?" she demanded. "What have I, or my
beautiful eyes, to do with Crenshaw and Sparrow?"
"What usually happens to the men who are associated with you in any
enterprise: they get daffy over you."
"Because they get daffy over me is no excuse for stupid execution of the
business in hand," she shrugged. "_You_ never have been guilty of
stupidity, Marston."
"Because I've managed never to be a fool about you--however much I have
been tempted to become one."
"Have been, Marston?" she inflected.
"Have been--and _am_," he bowed. "I'm not different from the
rest--only--"
She curled herself on a divan, and languidly stretched her slender
rounded arms behind the raven hair.
"Only what, Marston?" she murmured.
"Only I know when the game is beyond me."
"So, to you, I'm a game?"
"Of an impossible sort," he replied. "I admire at a distance--and keep
my head."
"And your heart, too, _mon ami_?"
"My heart is the servant of my head. When it ceases so to be, I shall
ask to be detached from the Paris station."
"Are you satisfied with your present assignment?"
"Much more than satisfied; very much more than satisfied."
She held out her hand to him, and smiled ravishingly.
"We understand each other now, Marston," she said simply; which tied
Marston only the tighter to her--as she well knew. And Marston knew it,
too. Also he knew that he had not the shade of a chance with her--and
that she knew that he knew it. It was Madeline Spencer's experience with
men that such as she tried for she usually got. There were exceptions,
but them she could count on the fingers of one hand. Harleston--though
for a time he was on the verge of submission--was an exception. And for
that she was ready to rend him at the fitting opportunity; the more so
because her own feelings had been aroused. As they were once before with
Armand Dalberg--who had calmly put her in her place, and tumbled her
schemes about her ears.
All her life there would be a weak spot in her heart for Dalberg; and,
such is the peculiarly inconsistent nature of the female, a hatred that
fed itself on his scorn of her.
She had dared much with Dalberg--and often; and always she had lost. The
Duke of Lotzen was only a means to an end: money and exquisite ease.
Left with ample wealth on his decease, she, for her excitement and to be
in affairs, had mixed in diplomacy, and had quickly become an expert in
tortuous moves of the tortuous game.
Then one day she encountered Harleston, and bested him. With a rare good
nature for a diplomat, he had taken his defeat with a smile, at the same
time observing her manifold attractions with a careful eye and an
indulgent mind for the past. Which caused her to look at him again, and
to think of him frequently; and at last to want him for her own--after a
little while. And he had appeared not averse to the wanting--after a
little while. Now, just as he was about to succumb, he was suddenly
whisked away by another woman--that woman simply a later edition of
herself: the same figure, the same poise, the same methods, the same
allurements; but younger in years, fresher, and, she admitted it to
herself, less acquainted with the ways of men. And now she had lost
him; and never would she be able to get him back. Another woman had
filched him from her--filched him forever from her, she knew.
Therefore she hated Mrs. Clephane with a glowing hate.
"Have you seen the--_man_?" Marston asked, when her attention came back
to him.
She nodded. "I've had a communication from him."
"Anything doing?"
"Not yet. He will duly apprise me. Meanwhile we, or rather I, am to
remain quiet and wait expectantly."
"He thinks you are alone?"
"Of course. He would be off like a colt if he thought that I had a corps
of assistants."
"The longer the delay the more chance France has to repeat the letter by
cable," Marston remarked.
"Certainly--but I shan't be fool enough to tell him so, or anything as
to the letter. He would end negotiations instantly."
"When are you to see him?"
"This afternoon at three."
"At Chartrands?"
"No, in Union Station."
"It's a long way to go," Marston observed.
"So I intimated, but without avail."
"Is he afraid?"
"No, only inexperienced in deception and over cautious. Moreover, it is
a serious business."
"Particularly since Harleston is on the trail?" Marston added.
Mrs. Spencer nodded again. "We'll pray that he does not uncover the
matter until we are up and away."
"If we pray, it should be effective!" Marston laughed.