Months of anxiety went wearily by, but no tidings of Ella could I glean.
Time could never efface the bitter memories of the past. The police
had, at Lord Warnham's instigation, exerted every effort to trace her,
but without avail. She had disappeared with a rapidity that was
astounding, for, apparently expecting that some attempt might be made to
follow her, she had ingeniously taken every precaution to baffle her
pursuers in the same manner as her mother had done. The cause of her
sudden flight was an enigma only equalled by my discovery of her
portrait in the Earl's possession. Although I had several times in
conversation led up to the subject of photographs, and shown him Ella's
picture, that had been taken by a firm in Regent Street, the astute old
statesman made no sign that he already had her counterfeit presentment
hidden among his most treasured possessions. When I recollected, as I
often did, how on gazing upon it, while believing me engrossed in the
writing of a dispatch, the sight of it had affected him, the new phase
of the mystery perplexed me sorely. That they had been previously
acquainted seemed more than probable, and his Lordship's earnest desire
to secure knowledge of her whereabouts lent additional colour to this
opinion.
Daily the aged statesman grew more gloomy and misanthropic. He lived
alone, in an atmosphere of severe officialdom. His only recreation was
a formal visit on rare occasions to a reception at one or other of the
principal Embassies, or attendance on Her Majesty at Osborne or
Balmoral; his brief, far-seeing suggestions at the Cabinet Council were
always adopted unanimously, and his peremptory "notes" to the Powers
incontrovertible marvels of diplomacy. He hated society, and never went
anywhere without some strong motive by which he could further his
country's interests. His eccentricities were proverbial, his caustic
observations on men and things the delight of leader-writers on
Government journals; and as director of England's foreign policy he was
feared, yet admired, in every capital in Europe. He, however, cared not
a jot for notoriety, but with an utter disregard for all else, served
his country with a slavish devotion, that even the most scathing
Opposition gutter-journal could not fail to recognise.
It was common talk that some strange, romantic incident had overshadowed
his life, but with that innate secrecy that was part of his creed he
never confided in anybody. Notwithstanding his frigid cynicism,
however, he was nevertheless sympathetic, and at any mention of Ella's
name he would rivet his searching eyes upon me, while across the white
brow, furrowed by the heavy responsibilities of State through so many
years, would spread an expression of regret, anxiety or pain. But he
spoke seldom upon that subject. That he regarded my marriage as a
deplorable fiasco I was well aware, but felt that in his cold heart,
hardened as it was by the artful subterfuges of successful diplomacy,
there yet remained a spark of pity, for he still regarded me as his
_protege_.
On the day after Ella had fled I called at Andrew Beck's office at
Winchester House, Old Broad Street, but found he had sailed a few days
before by the Union Liner _Scot_ for Cape Town. Of late he had become
connected with several South African gold ventures of enormous extent,
and in the interests of some of the companies most prominently before
the public, had undertaken the journey. His great wealth, in
combination with that of his associates, had inspired public confidence,
and there had commenced that feverish tendency in the city that quickly
developed, and was later known as the "gold boom." The movements of the
popular member for West Rutlandshire were cabled and chronicled in the
newspapers as diligently as if he were a prince of a reigning house, and
it was with extreme satisfaction that one morning in June I saw it
announced that the mail had arrived at Southampton from the Cape bearing
him on board, the same paper printing an account of an interview
regarding gold prospects in South Africa which he had given its
representative before he left the steamer. I was down at Warnham at the
time, but three days later returned to London, and that same night
sought Beck at the House of Commons.
I found him in the Members' Lobby, bustling about in his ill-fitting
evening clothes and crumpled shirt-front, looking sun-tanned and well; a
trifle more arrogant, perhaps, but nevertheless easy-going and
good-natured as usual. He greeted me heartily, and the night being warm
we lit cigars and walked out upon the Terrace beside the Thames. Big
Ben was chiming the midnight hour. It was bright and star-lit above,
but before us the river ran darkly beneath the arches of Westminster
Bridge, its ripples glistening under the gas lamps. Across on the
opposite bank, in the row of buildings comprising St Thomas's Hospital,
lights glimmered faintly in the windows of the wards, while here and
there on the face of the black, silent highway, lights, white, red and
green, shone out in silent warning.
As we set foot upon the long, deserted Terrace, strolling slowly forward
in the balmy, refreshing night air, my thoughts wandered back to the
last occasion when we had spent an evening together beside the Thames,
that memorable night at "The Nook," when we had afterwards discovered
Dudley Ogle lying dead.
During the first half-hour we discussed the progress of several
questions of foreign policy which had been pursued during his absence,
and he, an enthusiast in politics, confided in me his intention to head
a select circle of his party to demand a commission of inquiry into the
working of our mobilisation scheme for home defence.
"One would think that you desired to obtain further notoriety," I
laughed. "Surely you are popular enough; you are now the man of the
hour."
"Well, I suppose I am," he answered, a trifle proudly, halting suddenly,
leaning with his back to the stone parapet and puffing vigorously at his
cigar. "But it isn't for the sake of notoriety that I'm pressing
forward this inquiry. It is for the benefit of the country generally.
The scheme for the mobilisation of our forces in case of invasion is
utterly rotten, and had we been compelled to fight a little time ago,
when France and Russia were upon the point of declaring war, we should
have been in a wretched plight. The scheme is all very well on paper,
but I and my friends are determined to ascertain whether it will act.
It has never been tested, and no doubt it is utterly unworkable. What,
indeed, can be said of a scheme which decrees that in case of an enemy
landing on our shores a regiment of cavalry, now in London, must draw
its horses from Dublin! Why, the thing's absurd. We don't mean to rest
until the whole matter is thoroughly threshed out."
"You intend to worry up the War Office a little," I observed, smiling.
"Yes," he answered, ostentatiously. "We intend to bring public opinion
to bear so heavily upon them that they will be absolutely bound to
submit to the inquiry. This is, however, a secret for the present. It
is best that the newspapers should not get hold of it yet. You
understand?"
"Of course," I said.
We stood watching the dark, swirling waters and enjoying the cool night
breeze that swept along the river, causing the lamps to flicker, when he
suddenly asked,--"How is Ella? I quite forgot to ask after your wife."
"I don't know," I replied, after a brief pause.
"Don't know?" he echoed, looking at me, puzzled. "Why, what's the
matter?"
"She has left me," I answered gravely.
"Left you!" he cried, removing his cigar and staring at me. "Have you
quarrelled?"
"No. On my return home one night in January I found a note of farewell
from her. I have heard nothing of her since. Mrs Laing disappeared on
the same day."
"Disappeared!" he gasped. My announcement had caused him the greatest
consternation, for he stood agape. "Have you no idea of the reason?"
"None whatever," I replied. Then confidentially I told him of Ella's
mysterious absences, her walk in Kensington Gardens, and her letters
from the unknown individual who had met her so frequently, omitting,
however, all mention either of the theft or recovery of the secret
convention, for it was Lord Warnham's wish that I should keep the
existence of that instrument a profound secret.
"Have you no idea who this strange fellow is?" he inquired,
sympathetically.
"Not the slightest," I said.
"Ella was not addicted to flirtation," he observed reflectively, a few
moments later. "As you are aware, I have been acquainted with the
family for some years, and have known your wife ever since she could
toddle."
"Tell me of them," I urged impatiently. "I know scarcely anything
beyond what Ella and her mother have told me. What do you know of
Ella's past?"
"You speak as if you suspected her to be an adventuress," he said, and
as the lamplight fell upon his face I saw that his lips relaxed into a
good-humoured smile. "As far as I'm aware there is no incident of her
life prior to marriage that will not bear the fullest investigation; and
as for her mother, no more straightforward nor upright woman ever lived.
Before poor Robert Laing died I was a frequent visitor at their country
house, so I had ample opportunity of noticing what an affectionate
family they were; and after his death it was I who succeeded in turning
his great business into a limited liability concern."
To outsiders Beck was a swaggering parvenu, who delighted in exhibiting
his wealth to others by giving expensive dinners and indulging in
extravagances of speech and beverage; but towards me he had always been
honestly outspoken and unassuming--in fact, a typical successful
business man, with whose unruffled good humour I had, even when madly
jealous of his attentions to Ella, found it impossible to quarrel. I
had long ago grown to ridicule the suggestion that any secret had
existed between them, and now felt instinctively that he was my friend.
"Do you think--" I asked him, after a long pause. "Candidly speaking,
have you any suspicion that Dudley Ogle was her lover?"
He knit his brows. For an instant a hard expression played about his
mouth, and he drew a long breath.
"I didn't, of course, know so much of Dudley as you did," he answered,
slowly contemplating the end of his cigar. "But to tell you the honest
truth, I always suspected that he loved her. In fact her own evidence
at the inquest was sufficient proof of that."
"His death was an enigma," I observed.
"Entirely so," he acquiesced, sighing.
"She alleged that he had been murdered, and there is no room for doubt
that she entertained certain very grave suspicions."
"Of what?"
"Of the identity of the murderer," I said. "She declared to me, times
without number, that she would never rest until she had unravelled the
mystery."
"Her theory was a very wild one," he laughed. "Personally, I do not
entertain it for one moment. The medical opinion that he died from a
sudden but natural cause is undoubtedly correct," he said, replacing his
dead cigar between his lips, as, slowly striking a vesta, he re-lit it.
Then he added, "Her anxiety to avenge Dudley's death certainly seems to
bear out your suspicion that they were lovers."
"Then you entirely agree with me?" I cried.
"In a measure only," he answered, his voice suddenly harsh and cold. "I
have no suspicion that she ever reciprocated his affection, although in
seeking to learn the truth of your friend's tragic end she must have had
some very strong motive."
"Another fact I also discovered was a trifle curious," I observed, after
we had strolled along the deserted Terrace from end to end, discussing
the details of Dudley's death, and the manner in which it had affected
her.
"What was it?" he inquired, glancing towards me.
"I found that she was in the habit of visiting every day a pretty
Russian girl with whom I was acquainted."
"Before marriage?" he asked, raising his eyebrows meaningly.
"Yes," I answered. "She was a refugee, and I had been enabled to render
her father a service some time before; therefore we had become friends.
I had lost sight of her for a long time, and when I again met her I
discovered that she had not only been an intimate friend of poor Dudley,
but that Ella visited her frequently on her bicycle when she was
supposed by her mother to be riding in the Park."
"Was there anything remarkable in that fact?" he inquired, with a
half-amused air, nevertheless regarding me with undue keenness, I
thought.
"Nothing, except that the little Russian, who, having lost her father,
was living a lonely life in a rather large house in Kensington, warned
me against Ella, telling me she was my enemy. She, however, left
without fulfilling her promise to reveal the details."
"Your enemy!" he cried, laughing jocosely. "She was evidently jealous
of your attentions to her, my boy. A Russian, too! She was a Nihilist,
I suppose, or some interestingly romantic person of that sort, eh?
Surely you didn't heed what she said, did you?"
"Of course not," I replied, with a forced laugh. "I loved Ella too
well; so I married her."
"And you now regret it," he added abruptly.
Without replying I walked on by his side, smoking furiously. My object
in seeking him had been to learn what I could of Ella's past, but no
mysterious incident had, to his knowledge, occurred. Her family were
well-known in Yorkshire, respected throughout the county, and no breath
of scandal had ever besmirched the fair fame of either Robert Laing's
widow or his daughter. Beck, their intimate friend, concealed nothing
from me, but frankly discussed my hopes and fears, expressing his
heartfelt sympathy that I should have thus mysteriously lost my
well-beloved, and offering me all the assistance that lay in his power.
"It certainly is extremely curious that Mrs Laing should have left Pont
Street without sending me a letter to the club, giving me her new
address," he said calmly, after reflection.
"You have not, then, heard from her?"
"No, I have had no letter. A week before I left for South Africa I
dined there, and she then told me that she intended to remain in England
throughout the year. She expressed the greatest gratification that Ella
had married so happily, and seemed in the best of spirits. Yet a few
days later, it appears, she fled as secretly as if she had been a
criminal. It is really very extraordinary; I can't account for it in
the least."
"All effort to trace Ella has failed," I observed gloomily, after a
moment's reflection.
"Whose aid have you sought? A private inquiry agent?"
"No. The police," I answered.
"Police!" he exclaimed, surprised. "They have committed no crime,
surely. I--I mean that the police do not trace missing friends."
"They will carry out the orders of any Government Department," I
answered. "The request came from my chief."
"From Lord Warnham! Then you have told him!"
"Of course," I responded.
In contemplative silence he slowly blew a great cloud of smoke from his
lips. Then he said, "There is one thing you haven't told me, Geoffrey.
What was the name of this pretty Russian who made these mysterious
allegations against Ella?"
"Her name was Sonia Korolenko."
"Sonia Korolenko!" he cried in a voice strangely hoarse, halting and
glaring at me with wide-open, staring eyes. "Sonia! And she has gone,
you say?"
"Yes. She has returned to Russia, I believe. But what do you know of
her?" I quickly inquired.
"Nothing. I merely know her by repute as a notorious woman, that's
all," he answered. "You were certainly wise to discard her
allegations."
"Is she such a well-known person?" I asked.
"I should rather think so," he answered, elevating his eyebrows. "Her
fame has spread all over the Continent. She was leader of a certain
circle of questionable society in Vienna a year ago, and narrowly
escaped falling into the hands of the police."
"But what can have induced Ella to associate with her?" I exclaimed in
wonderment.
"Ah! That is more than we can tell," he answered, in a tone of sincere
regret. "The ways of women of her type are ofttimes utterly
incomprehensible."
"Were you aware that Ella was acquainted with her?" I inquired
earnestly.
At that moment, however, the electric gongs along the Terrace commenced
ringing sharply, announcing that the House was about to divide. The
division was upon an important amendment, and had been expected at any
moment since the dinner-hour. Turning back quickly he hurried through
the tea-room along the corridor, and shaking hands with me in haste,
promising to resume our conversation on another occasion, disappeared to
record his vote.
For a single instant I stood alone in the Lobby, watching the receding
figure of the portly man of the hour, and pondering deeply. Then, full
of gloomy recollections of the past, I turned on my heel and went out
through the long, echoing hall.