_THE SENTENCE OF BANISHMENT_
Lord Rosecarrel who was out with the hounds that day was riding ahead of
his daughter when she and her escort joined the field. He was a finely
built man and looked exceedingly well in hunting costume. He wore a
closely trimmed beard, now almost white, and seemed, so Trent thought,
more than his sixty-five years. It was a fine, sensitive face, and the
earl had all his days until this strange retirement mixed with the great
of the earth and taken part in the councils of nations. This mystery
connected with his withdrawal from public affairs intrigued the
American. He believed Daphne knew. He was wondering what it was when the
earl reined in his horse.
"I am told you leave no later than tomorrow, Mr. Trent, I hope you will
dine with us tonight."
Anthony Trent hesitated a moment before answering.
"Thank you," he said, "I should like to."
He knew it would only reopen old wounds but the temptation to see Daphne
again was not to be resisted.
It would have been a dull dinner but for the earl. Whether or not he saw
Daphne's depression, the disappointment of his son and the
disinclination of the visitor to talk, he was entertaining and witty. He
asked a number of questions about the United States where his son and
heir was. While he played billiards with Arthur, Trent and the girl
watched them. In truth they paid little attention to the scores or
strokes.
It was not easy to get back to the intimacy of the morning. There was a
certain reserve in the girl's manner, and a look of sadness that
immeasurably distressed Trent.
"Ours is a tragic family," she said, when he tried to bring her to a
brighter mood. "We used to be so happy. My mother was wonderful. She is
gone, my two brothers are dead, St. Just is away and my father simply
pining away of a dreadful thing that wasn't his fault."
"I wish you would tell me what it is," he said.
"Impossible," she said decisively. "It poisons his whole life."
"It was Arthur's fault, wasn't it?" he demanded.
"What makes you say that?" she returned.
"I know it," he said emphatically, "and whatever he did can be undone
and if it's humanly possible I can do it. Is someone blackmailing him?"
He could see she was startled. He must have hit on something not far
removed from the truth.
"Not that," she said, looking at where her father was standing
apprehensively. "And I'm sure you could do nothing."
"I can try," he said earnestly. "Listen to me, Daphne. I feel that
there is nothing in life for me but the memory of you. I want more than
anything else to do something for you to prove my love. I have nothing
in all life to lose. I have no relations, no friends to speak of. My
life has been made up of," he hesitated, "of adventures where I pitted
myself against the world and won."
She thought of that night in Dereham. Was that one of his adventures?
Certainly he had given her the impression of great strength and
resolution. Of all the men she met Rudolph Castoon and Anthony Trent
most radiated this uncommon quality.
She looked across the big room to her father. Arthur was making a big
break and the earl was not watching him; she knew he was not thinking of
the game. He was thinking of that insuperable obstacle which barred him
from the work he loved, the work in which he was needed. He looked a
sad, broken man and reminded Trent of the portrait of Julius the second,
by Raphael, which he had seen in Florence.
"I dare not tell," she said. "It touches big things and would involve
many names and would lead you into great peril."
"It would not be the peril for me that you think," he insisted. "I shall
know when my hour is to strike. Darling, let me try to do something for
the woman I love, for the family where I found such happiness and such
sorrow. I have brought so much trouble on you that I want to feel I did
something to atone."
He felt for a fleeting moment the warm clasp of her hand.
"You have often been in danger?" she asked.
"It has been my life," he said simply.
"I am afraid to tell my father," she confessed.
"Must he know?" Trent asked.
"Yes. I know the whole hideous thing only in the barest outline."
"I shall broach the subject," he said confidently, "after all I have
nothing to lose. I go tomorrow anyway."
She hesitated a moment.
"My father may think you are doing it at a price."
"Instead of which I am offering to help you as atonement."
The light died from her eyes and the hope left her heart. Nothing could
alter his decision, nothing apparently blot out the past that held them
asunder.
The Earl of Rosecarrel heard Anthony Trent's request for a private
interview with a rather troubled mind. He had no doubt it had to do with
his daughter. He told himself he had been very careless.
"By all means my dear fellow," he said cordially, "come to my library
where we shall be quite alone."
Never had Trent been bidden to this great book lined chamber. It was
open neither to those who came on visitors' day nor to the casual guest.
It was here the earl and the prime minister were closeted for several
hours.
"My lord," Trent began, "I am going to say something that will first of
all astonish you and then probably make you angry at what seems
presumption."
"I hardly think you will do that," the other said urbanely. He was sure
now it had to do with Lady Daphne.
"You have said," Trent went on, "that you are grateful to me for my help
to your son, Arthur."
"I am profoundly grateful," the earl said quickly, "you have made a new
man of him."
"Then promise me you will not interrupt me by ringing for a servant to
show me out."
"I will promise that blindly," smiled the nobleman.
"I owe a debt to your family. Arthur saved my life and I am still a
debtor. Since I have been here I have found out a great deal about your
life work. I found out also that at a moment when the Empire most needed
you you retired. I know at the present moment your name is being
mentioned everywhere as the most suitable for one of the highest offices
under the crown. I know the prime minister made a golfing trip to
Newquay the excuse to call on you personally. I know that in this very
room you refused a request from your sovereign."
There was no doubting the agitation this statement produced in the
ex-ambassador. But he was mindful of his promise.
"I know," the inexorable Trent went on, "that your refusal has something
to do with what your son did when he was irresponsible. I saw you throw
a terrible glance at him during the prime minister's talk over the
luncheon table. It told me plainly that remotely or not it was because
of something he did that you remain here eating your heart out.
Afterwards you were especially kind to him. It was as though you
repented your momentary anger. My lord, am I right so far?"
"I do not pretend to understand how you have learned these facts," the
earl said slowly, "but you have made no error. What happened is over,
dead and done with."
"I'm not so sure," Trent cried. "Perhaps because there was a day when I
wrote stories of a rather lurid type I can think of half a hundred
things that might seem final to you but which would yield to my type of
mind. Nothing is final to us Americans."
Lord Rosecarrel looked at him shrewdly.
"What you say is preposterous, Mr. Trent, but nevertheless it interests
me. What causes could this fertile mind of yours suggest?"
"Blackmail first of all," Trent said. Lord Rosecarrel did not give any
indication whether the shot told or not. "Blackmail can be sub-divided
into many heads."
"And is there a remedy for blackmail, then?" the earl asked blandly.
"A remedy can always be found for things," Trent said confidently.
"It amounts to this," the diplomat continued calmly as though he were
discussing an interesting phase in another man's life, "that you suppose
I am held inactive here because of the hold some man or government has
on me. Admitting for a moment that this is true, do you not suppose that
I should have strained every nerve, called upon my every resource to
remove the obstacle which you admit has a remedy?"
"I think you have tried and failed," Trent said.
"It is curious," said the earl still impersonally, "how fiction of the
type you used to write has taken possession of the public mind."
"I should not fail," Trent said steadily.
"You still persist in making the imaginary real," the earl said good
humouredly.
"Why do you fence with me at a time like this?" Trent said making a
gesture of despair. "Can't you see I am in earnest?"
"You rate your powers so highly then?"
"You employed amateurs, my lord, I am a professional adventurer."
"What are you doing in my house?"
"Living honest hours and learning that a past can't be undone. I know
very well that you thought I wanted to see you because I love your
daughter. It is true. I do love her. And it is because I love her that I
am going. And it is because I want to prove that I am only truthful when
I say that, I offer to undertake anything that may help you."
"But the reward?"
"To have done something for her is the reward."
The earl was silent for a minute. Then he paced the room. Trent watched
his tall, bent form wondering what was to be the outcome.
"Mr. Trent," said the earl pausing before him, "you are either a
scoundrel or else the most chivalrous gentleman I have ever known. For
the moment I hardly know what to think, or say, or do. If I give you my
confidence and you abuse it the public will share the knowledge of a
disgrace which now only my enemy knows. If you set me free from my
bondage you put me under an obligation that I can never pay. If I let
you make the attempt in which two men have given their lives and you
fail I shall never forgive myself."
"But my lord," Trent reminded him, "I am a professional. I have never
failed. I detest a brawl but I love danger, and life means less to me
than you might suppose. If I fail you will never be compromised. I shall
want no help nor send any plea for assistance. I work alone--always."
The earl did not answer him directly.
"The hounds met at Michaelstowe this morning," he said, "and I took the
opportunity of sending off a wire in reply to this post card which came
last night."
Trent looked at it. It was in a language unknown to him.
"It is in Hungarian," Lord Rosecarrel told him, "and it says, 'Please
let me know that the report in today's Times that you have accepted
office is incorrect.' The telegram I sent to the writer said: 'The
report is wrong. I have refused.' There you have my secret. The man who
sent the post card, in effect, threatened me with exposure if I came out
of retirement."
"Then it is blackmail," Trent breathed.
"I am going to trust you," the earl said suddenly. "I am going to think
of you as the chivalrous gentleman. The man who wrote the post card is a
very big figure in the politics of what used to be called _mittel
Europa_. Our interests clashed. He was on one side and I on the other.
It happened that I was usually able to out manoeuvre him because my
training had been such that no man in public life knew the Balkans as I
did, and do still, the wheels within wheels, the inner hidden things
that make national sentiment so dangerous at times or so valuable as the
case may be. In time he came to think me the one man who could
comprehend his activities and check them. He set out to ruin me. He
believed his ends justified other methods than I used. I was shot at on
the _Ferencz Jozsef rakpart_ for example and a companion killed."
"Do you still seem a menace to him?" Trent asked.
"More than ever if I take the position offered me in the near East. You
see the rumour in the Times brings instant recognition. I knew he was in
London."
Trent looked at the speaker and wondered what it could be which kept him
from the work his country demanded of him. Assuredly it was not lack of
courage.
"He was in London when he obtained the hold over me that keeps me buried
here. Arthur was at the moment a secretary of Rudolph Castoon. One
night he opened a strong box of mine and took some bank notes to pay a
racing debt. It was a terrible blow to think he had fallen so low, but I
was more alarmed to find a tentative draft of a treaty which was never
made effective, a document in my own writing, had disappeared. At the
time it might have incensed a country since allied with us almost to the
point of a declaration of war. Arthur told me it was gibberish to him
and he had thrown it on the fire. A month later I was summoned to a
cabinet meeting. A friend told me I was to be asked to produce the
treaty draft. I called Arthur to see me. I told him my honor was
involved and that if he had not destroyed it or was holding it to sell
another power I must know. He gave me his solemn word of honor, uttered
in the most convincing manner, that he had thrown it into the open fire.
"When the prime minister asked for the draft I told him I had destroyed
it thinking its value gone and fearful of the danger of having it at my
house in Grosvenor Place. At the moment I was absolutely convinced that
my son had been honest with me. It was obvious I could not tell the
cabinet I had caught him stealing money or that he had torn up the
draft. I gave the cabinet my word of honor that it was destroyed and I
allowed them to assume that I did it. It was a lie and I do not justify
its use, but first and foremost my son's protection seemed necessary. It
was less than three months later that I received a visit from the man
who wrote that post card.
"It was in Paris where I was staying with my daughter. He said that at
last he had a weapon which would wound me. Arthur had sold him the
draft. He had it concealed where none could get it. Unless I retired
from public life and activities he would show it to the same cabinet
which had heard me swear I had destroyed it with my own hands. The
inference would be that I had sold it. It was known that I had lost
money through the failure of a London bank. No matter what the cabinet
thought my honor was smirched and I should rightly be considered unfit
for high office. There, Mr. Trent, is the real reason."
"Do you know where the draft of the treaty is hidden?"
"In his almost inaccessible castle in Croatia."
"You are certain?"
"Two men have died so that the knowledge might be mine."
"I should imagine he would keep it in the deposit box of a bank where he
could get at it quickly."
"Banks can be broken into easier far than his strong room. He lives,
despite the changes wrought by the war, in a style almost feudal. He
owns and controls twenty square miles of the country where his home is.
What chance, I ask you, has a stranger of getting near without incurring
suspicion. There are many men who can speak German or French like
natives but Hungarian is a different matter, a non-Aryan tongue."
"It should be done from the inside," Trent mused.
"One of them was," the earl told him, "the man who tried was skillful,
adroit and courageous. He had flirted with death a hundred times, just
as you have done Mr. Trent, but they set a trap for him there which a
fool would have passed by; a trap so skillfully baited that only a
clever man would have tried to use it to further his cause. Yet he
failed. You have no idea of the household at that fantastic castle in
the mountains. You have no idea of the imperious temper and power of the
man who owns it, the multitude of servitors who would kill did he but
suggest it, the motley company he entertains there."
This mention of many visitors interested Trent.
"He entertains a great deal then?"
"Only those he knows, men and women. The life there as reported to me
reads like a chronicle of medieval days."
"The other man who failed--what did he go as?"
"A steeple chase jockey. The count kept a great stud and raced all over
Continental Europe. He owned Daliborka the great horse which won the
_Grand Prix_."
"The horse that was stolen?"
"Exactly. Daliborka and three other thoroughbreds were missing from the
stables. The man who pretended to be a jockey and was instead a man of
lineage and wealth secreted the horses at intervals along the forest
road that runs from the castle to the coast. It was his idea when he had
obtained the draft to make his way by relays to the nearest harbour.
The poor fellows never had the opportunity to throw a leg across any of
them. You see, Mr. Trent, there is no chance at all."
"I will make one," the American said confidently, "I am going to enjoy
this."
"After what I have said you still persist?"
"Because of it," laughed Anthony Trent. He had forgotten everything but
the prospect of coming danger, the duel that was to be fought between
him and this fabulous magnate. It was characteristic of Trent that he
swept aside all other possible inmates of the lonely castle as beneath
his notice. His business was with the superior.
"How do you know he is still in London?" Trent demanded.
"I keep myself informed," the earl said. "A newspaper clipping concern
sends me every notice of him."
"I want them," the younger man observed, "I want everything that will
help me."
He read through the brief notices eagerly and wished English papers
discussed personalities with the detail American periodicals employed.
The only item that interested him deeply was a notice that Count Michæl
Temesvar had visited the automobile show at the Crystal Palace and
seemed interested in the new twelve cylinder Lion car.
"Rather humorous in its way," the earl said smiling, "since I own a
great deal of stock in that company. That's why I have that
inordinately high powered car in the garage which you and Arthur seem
to like."
"Humorous!" Trent repeated, "I don't know that it isn't more humorous
than you know. Do you think he has any idea you are interested in the
company?"
"Few know it," the earl said, "and I don't see why he should when even
my friends are ignorant."
"How much of it do you own?" Trent asked eagerly.
"More probably than any one stockholder."
"And a letter from you to the manager would make me solid." He explained
the slang, "I mean if you wrote a letter to the manager asking that I be
given certain powers would he honor it?"
"Most certainly," the earl answered. "There can be no doubt about it."