“I regret,” began O’Hagan, “that we have missed our supper! But I have
triumphantly proven my words anent the survival of Romance. You note
into what a surprising adventure we have blundered merely by honouring a
Grand Duke with our company! Here we have all the elements of a stirring
romance indeed: the autocratic nobleman, the distressed lovers, the ring
as a token! I am delighted, Raymond!”
“O’Hagan!” I interrupted sternly—“if _you_ are delighted, I am
appalled! Of the deception practised upon the Duke I will say nothing;
but to have tricked a girl who confided——”
“Stop!” cried O’Hagan imperiously. “Stop there, Raymond! You!—my
friend—and charge me with such a crime! Raymond!——”
“She thinks,” I interrupted, excitedly——
“She thinks,” my friend took me up, “that we are acquainted with her
secrets, and trusts us accordingly. Good. Is her trust misplaced? Do we
intend to betray her? No! ten thousand times no! It is perfectly evident
that her lover—Christian name, Leo; surname, unknown; nationality,
possibly Polish—is involved in some conspiracy directed against a
government—probably that of Russia. Her father, or guardian, our mutual
acquaintance the Duke, had obtained, through the treachery of one
Casimir, proofs of Leo’s complicity. These, we may assume, he intended
to employ—(a) to frustrate Leo’s designs in regard to the lady; (b) to
bring about the arrest, or ruin, of the said Leo.
“Delightful, my boy! Wildly and picturesquely romantic! Enter Lawrence
Raymond and Bernard O’Hagan—and what becomes of the ducal plan? It
miserably crumbles to dust! Virtue and Love are triumphant, and we are
the heroes of the hour!”
The cab stopped before a dingy little café. Our entire capital O’Hagan
lavished upon the man, and we entered the café.
Its front portion proved to consist of a shop where coffee-pots and such
utensils were sold, and behind the counter sat an adipose and unctuous
lady of considerable maturity. O’Hagan’s entrance brought her to her
feet in quick alarm.
My friend held the ring before her eyes. She viewed it in palpable
wonder, her slightly crooked gaze vacillating betwixt the face of my
cavalierly friend and my own.
“_Warsaw!_” said O’Hagan, magnificently—and swept his arm toward a
dirty glass-panelled door on our right.
“Oui, monsieur!” mumbled the old woman; and shuffled around the counter.
Without properly realising by what stages I had come there, I found
myself standing before the closed door of an upper-floor room. O’Hagan
knocked. A shouted conversation, rising, a harsh _duetto_, above an
angry chorus, ceased abruptly.
O’Hagan threw wide the door and strode into the room.
This was small, smelling strongly of stale coffee and caporal
cigarettes, and was illuminated by a gas burner low hung above a square
table. About the table sat eight or ten foreigners—seemingly Russians
or Poles—nearly all of whom leapt to their feet at our appearance. One,
an old man with a venerable white beard, rose with greater dignity,
fixing his brilliant eyes upon my friend.
O’Hagan rested one hand upon his hip, and with the other held the
monocle an inch or so removed from his right eye. Amid a magnetic
silence:
“Gentlemen,” he said, with a sort of frigid courtesy—“and good
people—you will favour me by resuming your seats!”
Of this gracious permission no one availed himself. An angry muttering
arose, and—
“What is your business?” demanded the venerable chairman, in excellent
English.
O’Hagan, through upraised glass, studied each face in turn and
attentively. The muttering grew, and grew, and became a simian clamour.
All eyes were turned to my nonchalant friend.
“My business, monsieur,” he replied—speaking in French, probably with
the idea that the rest of the company would be more likely to understand
him—“is of the utmost gravity.”
The uproar waxed louder. One swarthy, thickset fellow turned and took a
step in O’Hagan’s direction. O’Hagan raised his glass again—and the
fellow sat down.
“But,” resumed my friend icily, “until a perfect silence is preserved I
shall not disclose it” (louder uproar than ever); “I am not accustomed
to interruption by the rabble.”
Silence fell—save that it was a murderous silence. But:
“Your rebuke is just,” said the aged spokesman, glaring fiercely around.
“I will see to it that you are not interrupted. Your business,
monsieur?”
“It is,” replied O’Hagan, “to denounce a traitor!”
At that a perfect howl went up. Chairs crashed back upon the floor; and
the discussion, which evidently had been interrupted by our entrance,
was now resumed with renewed violence. All eyes turned upon a dark young
man sitting on the right of the chairman. His handsome, aristocratic
face was deathly pale, and his fine nostrils quivered with some emotion
hardly repressed.
“Silence!” roared the chairman, in clarion tones, and struck his fist
upon the table with a resounding bang. “Silence! Are you mad, that you
dispute with strangers present!” He glared about him ominously. “Again,
monsieur”—to O’Hagan—“what is your business?”
O’Hagan paused awhile, staring down a man who continued to mutter
rapidly to his right-hand neighbour. Then—
“The letters and photographs,” began my friend, as one whose patience
wearies——
But yet again he was interrupted, and now, by the dark young man; who
leapt from his place, a hectic flush colouring his pale cheeks.
“You have them, monsieur?” he cried, holding his outstretched hands
towards us. “God! you have them?”
O’Hagan:
“I have just recovered them from the apartments of the Grand Duke John!”
High heaven! Never can I forget the shriek of execration that greeted
the name of the Grand Duke! We seemed, in a moment, to be surrounded by
fiends of the uttermost darkness. They mowed and gibbered like animal
things. Only the dark young fellow retained any self-control—sinking
back upon his chair and biting his lip. But his eyes were glad; and by
his eyes it was that I knew him for Leo.
“Silence!” came the mighty voice again. And the terrible old man glared
about him, quelling his unruly compatriots like a pack of dogs. “Hand me
those letters, monsieur.”
O’Hagan, amid another throbbing stillness, produced the package.
“Am I addressing,” he inquired, “the gentleman known as the President?”
“I am the President, monsieur,” he was answered.
My friend passed the package to the old man. Rapidly, the latter broke
the seals and examined the contents. Intense expectancy was written upon
every face. It seemed that life or death hung upon the result of his
examination. This, however was brief. Placing the bundle upon the table
before him—
“Brothers,” he said, with some emotion, “a great danger is
providentially averted. All are here!”
Something in his look suppressed the mighty shout almost ere it left the
throats of the shouters.
“You said, monsieur,” he continued, turning his eyes upon O’Hagan, “that
you would denounce to us a traitor. I do not know who you are nor whence
you come; but you have to-night done that which shows you a friend. You
have saved the lives—and more than the lives—of some who never forget,
and who will be grateful while they have hearts that beat. Your actions
prove you: your words shall be respected. Name the traitor amongst us,
monsieur.”
The simple dignity of the old man’s speech and manner impressed me
immensely, but the eyes that glared from all around the table were not
pleasant to see.
“For what I have done,” said O’Hagan slowly, “I claim a reward: the
immunity of the man I shall denounce!”
The necessity for the words was rendered evident by the negative yell
which answered them; it was, however, immediately checked by the
President.
“The reward you claim is a high one, monsieur,” he said, “and wholly
contrary to the rules of our Order! But the service you have rendered is
beyond all human recompense. Therefore I grant your request.”
Some few murmurs arose; but a glance from the fiery old eyes restored
complete silence.
“The traitor,” announced O’Hagan, “is called Casimir!”
“You lie!” screamed a man wearing a short, red beard, leaping madly to
his feet. “Curse you! you lie!”
O’Hagan focussed him through the monocle.
“I was with the Grand Duke when you handed him the packet,” he said,
with a sort of suppressed ferocity—“you brick-dust baboon!”
“You were not!” shrieked the other. “The Grand Duke was alone——!”
He stopped. His florid face blanched to a mottled white, and he dropped
back, the picture of a rogue unmasked. Then:
“You see, monsieur,” said O’Hagan to the President, “I have indicated
your traitor and he has condemned himself; for the Grand Duke _was_
alone!”
I expected a veritable pandemonium to burst upon us; but my expectation
was not realised. The man seated beside Casimir turned, and with a cold
smile, but blazing eyes, struck him deliberately across the face with
his open hand. The outraged rascal bounded again to his feet; but a look
around the silent company was enough. One quick glance he directed
toward the old man, who stood with finger rigidly pointed to the door,
and, head bent, he shuffled past us—and was gone.
Then, certainly, a scene of the wildest enthusiasm ensued. Everybody
present seemed bent upon embracing Leo; but, escaping from his excited
fellows, he came and took both O’Hagan’s hands in his own, turning then
to me, and shaking mine as warmly.
“Gentlemen,” he said, in very fair English, “I will not attempt to thank
you. I only thank God that there are such as you in the world!”
“Devilish embarrassing!” O’Hagan confessed to me, later, “considering
the real objective of the expedition—_id est_: supper!”
“Here,” said my friend, “is something to which you have a better claim
than I.” He handed Leo the ring. “To that brave lady you owe everything,
sir; to us, nothing.”
“She will always bless you,” said the other, kissing the ring
reverently—“as I bless her! I do not know your names, gentlemen—nor,
in the circumstances, ask them. But if ever Fate should lead you to
Poland, the home of Count Leo Riersiwicz is _your_ home.”
“Quite a charming little adventure,” said O’Hagan, as we passed
westward; “save that one cannot sympathise with any man who elects to
associate with such a crew of undesirable pole-cats.”
Two peers, a newspaper proprietor, and an actor-manager waited upon the
kerb of Oxford Circus, whilst ’bus drivers, draymen, vanmen on vans and
other impossibles, drove by. O’Hagan’s procedure on occasions of this
kind is a joy unique and a memory ineffaceable.
Regardless of the direction, language, behaviour, or wishes of such
persons, he proceeds across the road at the same dignified and even pace
which he had observed upon the pavement. With dray horses standing on
their hind-legs and waving their fore-legs over his picturesque head,
with taxi-cabs menacing plate-glass windows, and motor ’busses hastily
diverting their routes, he pauses to light an Egyptian cigarette.
Having returned his gold matchbox to his waistcoat pocket, unruffled he
pursues his way, the only extant example of the _grand seigneur_.