To say that I was not astonished would be absurd; but the words had
scarcely been spoken a moment when I began to be aware that I was
wondering at my own amazement. On the whole, there was nobody whom I
knew and nobody at whose existence I could have guessed who was quite so
likely to be engaged in an affair of that nature as the Baroness Bonnar.
He fell back into his arm-chair with a certain air of defiance and
lit another cigar, as if by this time he were thoroughly determined to
brazen the whole thing out, and to justify himself to himself, even
if it were impossible to find a justification for any other. His cigar
slipped from his nerveless fingers; as he reseated himself he stooped
to pick it up, and, looking at it with a critical eye, began to smoke
again. I verily believe that if any stranger had been present, I might
have been supposed to be the more disturbed and self-conscious of the
two. Perhaps I was, for throughout the whole of this singular interview
I was haunted by a wondering inquiry as to what I should do with the man
when I had completely exposed his infamy. I dare say I was a fool from
the first to feel so, though I could not help it; but to surrender him
to the vengeance he had invited seemed altogether an impossibility. In
that respect at least he had me at a disadvantage, and I cannot help
thinking that he knew it.
“The Baroness Bonnar!” I echoed. He made no answer, but leaned back
in my arm-chair, smoking with an outside tranquillity, as if the whole
affair were no business of his. “The Baroness Bonnar!” I repeated,
and he gave a brief nod in affirmation. “And what,” I asked, “does she
propose to pay you for this unspeakable rascality?”
A decanter and a water-jug stood upon the table, and he helped himself,
holding up his tumbler against the light to judge of the amount of
spirit he had taken before adding the water he needed. When his
shaking hand jerked the jug and he had taken more water than he thought
necessary, he sipped critically at the contents of the tumbler and added
a little more spirit. Then he sipped again, and settled himself back
into his chair, as if resigned to boredom. I knew I had only to speak a
word to put all these airs to flight, but I hesitated to speak it.
“What does she pay you?” I asked again, and he turned upon me with a
wretched attempt at a smile and a wave of the hand in which he held his
cigar.
“It isn't usual to discuss these things,” he answered.
“You wish me to understand,” I said, “that for the sake of an amour
with a woman of her age you have broken the most sacred oath a man could
take, and have betrayed to life-long misery an old man who trusted you,
and who never did you any harm. You have confessed yourself contemptible
already, but surely you have a better excuse for your own villainy than
this?” He was still silent, and smoked on with the same effort after an
outward seeming of tranquillity, though his white face and shaking hand
belied him. “What did you get in money?”
“Look here, Fyffe,” he answered, inspecting the ash of his cigar with
the aspect of a connoisseur, and evading my glance, “your position gives
you an advantage, but you are trying to make too much use of it. I had
the most perfect assurances that the old man would be treated kindly,
and I know that nobody has any intention to do anything but keep him out
of mischief.”
I am very much ashamed of it now, and I think I was even a little
conscious of shame about it then, but I felt inclined to comprehend the
man, to fathom his depths of self-excuse, and I bore with his evasions
and his explanations in a spirit of savage banter.
“Come,” I said, “we shall get to understand each other before we part.
What were you paid?”
“In money?” he asked, flicking the ash from his cigar and settling
himself with ostentatious pretence of ease. “In money--nothing.”
At that very minute a knock sounded at the door, and mechanically
consulting my watch, I saw that it was already nearly midnight. I had
no reason to expect a visitor at that hour, and I stood listening in
silence, while Hinge answered the summons at the door. There was a
murmur of voices outside, and when I looked at Brunow I saw him start
suddenly forward as if in the act to rise. For a second or two he set in
an attitude of enforced attention, leaning forward with a hand on either
arm of the chair, as if prepared to spring to his feet; but observing
that my eye was upon him, he sank back again and began to smoke once
more. This time nothing but the rapidity with which he puffed at his
cigar was left to indicate his discomposure.
Hinge rapped at the door, and when I bade him enter, came in followed by
a stranger, whose aspect was simply and purely business-like. This man
bowed to me and then to Brunow, and receiving no response from either of
us, stood for a moment as if embarrassed.
“Captain Fyffe, I believe?” he said, rather awkwardly.
“That is my name,” I answered. “What is your business?”
“I beg pardon for coming here, sir,” he responded, “but I have been
waiting all night to find the Honorable Mr. Brunow, and I have only just
heard that he was here. Can I have a word with you, sir?” He turned to
Brunow as he spoke. “Sorry to trouble you, sir, but you remember what
you promised me. I took your word of honor, sir, and I've made myself
personally responsible.”
“Damn it all!” cried Brunow, rising, with a whiter face than ever; “do
you suppose that a gentleman is to be badgered about a thing of this
kind at this hour of the night in another gentleman's rooms? Wait
outside. Go down-stairs and wait for me, and I will arrange with you
when we go home together.”
“Very well, sir,” the man replied. He was perfectly respectful, though
there was an underlying threat in his manner. “I'll do as you wish. But
I hope you understand--”
“I understand everything!” cried Brunow, with an imperious wave of the
arm. “Do as you are told!”
“Hinge,” I said, seeing a sudden light upon the complication of affairs
which lay before me, “Mr. Brunow and I have business with each other
which may detain us for some little time. This person can wait in your
room until Mr. Brunow is at liberty.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” the man responded, “I've spent a good deal of
time about this business already, and it's getting late. I shall be glad
to know when I may expect to be able to talk to Mr. Brunow.”
“You will wait outside,” I answered; “and I think I may guarantee that
you will not be kept waiting long.”
The man retired, and I turned on Brunow, as certain of the position of
affairs at that moment as I was half an hour later.
“This man,” I said, “has a business claim upon you, and you have
promised to satisfy him to-night. Now, I know something of your affairs,
and I can guess pretty well that without to-night's action you might not
have been in a position to meet him. You had better make a clean breast
of it, and it will pay you to remember once for all that I hold your
life in my hands, and that I am not altogether indisposed to use my
power. What were you paid, or what are you to be paid?”
“I have told you everything I had to tell,” said Brunow, falling back
into his former sullen attitude. “You can do just as you please, Fyffe,
but I shall say no more.”
I took between my thumb and finger the sheet which lay upon the table,
inscribed, as he knew perfectly well, with the names and addresses of
the people mainly concerned in our enterprise, and held it up before
him.
“Very well,” he said, after looking at it and me, and reading no sign of
wavering in my face, “I was to get five hundred pounds.”
“Provided always,” I suggested, “that your plot came to a successful
issue.”
“Of course,” he answered, biting his cigar and speaking in a tone of
furtive flippancy, which I suppose was the only thing left to the poor
wretch to hide the nakedness of his discomfiture.
“And you reckon,” I asked him, “on being paid to-morrow?” Except for
a sullen motion of his chair he gave no sign of answer. “Now listen to
me,” I said. “I have made up my mind as to what I will do. You shall
not touch one penny of this blood-money. You shall have a run for your
worthless life, and I promise not to denounce you to the men whom you
have betrayed for twelve hours. To-morrow at midday I shall tell all I
know, and you are the best judge of what it will be safest to do in the
meanwhile.”
“All right,” he answered, desperately, rising to his feet and buttoning
his coat about him; “you've found your chance and you've used it. It's a
useful thing for you to get me out of the way, no doubt, but I may find
a chance of being even with you yet, and if I do, I'll take it.”
“You seem resolute,” I told him, “to force me to do my worst. At this
very instant, when I hold your life in my hands, when it is in my power
to hand you over to justice by a word, and when I propose--partly
for old friendship's sake and partly because I am ashamed that a
fellow-countryman of mine should have been such a blackguard--to let you
go, you are fool enough to tell me that my mercy has no effect upon you,
and that you will do your best to be revenged upon me. Think that over,
Brunow.”
He turned his face away, and sat in silence for a minute; but all of a
sudden I saw his shoulders begin to heave, his hands worked together,
and he broke into convulsive tears. He sobbed so noisily that though the
door was already closed, I darted towards it with an instinctive wish to
shut out the sound from the ears of the people in the next room.
“For God's sake, Fyffe,” he broke out, “let me go! I'll promise
anything, do anything. I've--I've always been an honorable man till now,
and I--I can't stand it any longer. If you've got any pity in you, let
me go!”
I was as much ashamed as he was, though, I hope, in another way, and
I was eager to cut short the conference. For all that, I had a duty to
discharge.
“You shall go,” I said, “and I shall be glad to be rid of you. But first
of all you shall make a clean breast of it.”
He told the story in a furtive, broken way, as well he might; and how
much more and how much less than the actual truth he told me I never
knew with certainty, but it came to this. He had had heavy gambling
losses, and had got into financial difficulties. The Baroness Bonnar had
found this out, and had told him of a way by which he might recuperate
himself. She had only hinted at first, and he had indignantly refused
her proposal, but he had played about the bait, as I could readily
fancy him doing, and had finally gorged it. He was to have received five
hundred pounds next day on consideration of the arrival of intelligence
from the people to whom he had betrayed Ruffiano, and he confessed that
he had been promised other work of the same kind.
“I swear to you, Fyffe,” he declared, “that I'd never have done it at
all if I hadn't had the most solemn assurances that nothing would happen
to the old man.”
“Do you think,” I asked him, “that the solemn assurances of a spy are
worth much in any case?”
“They won't hurt him,” said Brunow; “I made sure of that beforehand. I
give you my word of honor. I was careful about it, because I have rather
a liking for him.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him if, having rather a liking for
him, he had betrayed him to the Austrians, what he would have done if he
had rather a dislike for him. But it could serve no purpose to argue at
all in such a case, and it was hopeless to imagine that any exposure of
himself would have made the man realize the perfidy of his own nature.
“The world is before you,” I said, “and, so far as I am concerned, you
may go where you will. I do not pretend to offer you any security from
the vengeance of the men whose oath you have betrayed. I should be
powerless to do that, however much I wished it. You must shift for
yourself.”
“Very well,” he answered, sullenly; and, rising to his feet, he began
to button his coat and to gather together his hat and gloves and
walking-cane. Then he made a movement to go, but half-way to the door
stopped irresolutely. I thought he was about to speak again, but after
a pause of a second or two he went on, opened the door with an unsteady
hand, and went out without closing it behind him. The man I had told to
wait outside must have been upon the watch, for I heard his voice at the
very instant at which Brunow set foot in the narrow passage.
“Well, sir?” he said.
“Well?” said Brunow.
“I am sorry to press this claim, sir,” said the man, “but I have my
instructions, and I can't help it. If you'll give me your word that
you will settle in the morning, I will wait till then. But it's no use
making any bogus promise.”
“I suppose you don't mean to lose sight of me?” Brunow asked.
“That's the state of the case, sir,” the man answered.
“H'm!” said Brunow, in a casual tone; “got anybody with you now?”
“Sheriff's officer in a hackney-coach down-stairs,” the man responded.
He had caught Brunow's tone to a hair, and spoke as if the whole thing
were the merest casual trifle.
“He's prepared to do his duty now?” asked Brunow. I heard no response,
but I presume that the man gave some sign of affirmation, for Brunow
went on: “Very well; I'm ready. It could hardly have happened at a
better time.”
“I thought you were going to square up to-morrow, sir,” the man said.
“So did I,” responded Brunow; “but I've as much chance of that now as
you have of being Emperor of China. Go on; I'm quite ready.”
There was a trifling difficulty with the catch of the outer door, with
which both Hinge and myself had long been familiar, and which we now
surmounted with perfect ease. It bothered Brunow and the stranger,
however, for I heard them both fumbling at the lock, and at last Hinge,
hearing also, left his little bedroom on the landing and came to their
assistance.
Then the door was opened, and with a cry of “Goodbye, Fyffe!” to which I
returned no answer, Brunow went away in charge of his business friend.
At the first opening of the outer door the cold wind of the spring night
came into the room with a burst, and scattered a handful of papers about
the floor. I busied myself in picking these up again, but finding that
the hall-door was still open, I called out to Hinge to close it. He
delayed until I had repeated my order in an angry tone, and then, having
closed the door, he came into my room with a hurried and excited look.
“Beg pardon for keeping the door open, sir,” said Hinge, “but I've just
seen something rather curious.”
“Never mind that now,” I answered. “Go to bed. I shall not want you any
more to-night.”
“No, sir,” said Hinge. “If you'll excuse me, sir, this is something very
important.”
He was not wont to be troublesome, but after all the events of that
strange night I was fairly unsettled and pretty well out of temper.
I snapped at Hinge, telling him to go and not to bother me with any
nonsense just then.
“Got to tell you this, sir,” said Hinge, standing at attention,
and looking straight before him. Even then it was with no sense of
importance in the matter he had to communicate that I listened to him.
“Go on,” I said, “and get it over. What is it?”
“Well, sir,” said Hinge, “when I was in the general's service in Vienna
I used to see a lot of the Austrian police. I got to know some of them
by sight--a good many, I might say. Secret chaps, they was, sir--spies.”
“That's all very interesting,” I returned, “but you can see I'm bothered
just at present, and I want to be alone. You can tell me all that at
another time.”
“There's one of them a-living in this house, sir,” said Hinge, as little
moved by my interruption as if I had not spoken.
This was news, and my impatience and ill-temper vanished.
“How do you know?” I asked. “Tell me all about it.”
“I never set eyes on him but just this minute, sir,” said Hinge, “since
I left Vienna. But he walked upstairs just now with a latch-key in his
hand, and he went into the rooms overhead of yours, sir. That's him
a-walking about now, I'll lay a fiver.” As a matter of fact, I could
bear a heavy footstep pacing the room above. “The odd part of it is,
sir,” Hinge pursued, “this cove knows Mr. Brunow, and Mr. Brunow knows
him, sir.”
“Oh,” I asked, fully interested by this time, “how do you know that?”
“They spoke together on the stairs, sir. This fellow Sacovitch, that's
his name, he says to Mr. Brunow, 'Alloa,' he says, 'you 'ere?' And Mr.
Brunow says, 'Don't speak to me; I'll write to you.' Now I don't like
the look o' that, sir, and I thought you ought to know about it.”
“You are quite right, Hinge,” I said. “It was your business to tell
me; and if I had known it yesterday, or if I had only known of it eight
hours ago, it might have been of use to me.”
“This Sacovitch chap didn't see me, sir,” said Hinge, with a certain
modest exultation; “I took care of that. But I nips half-way upstairs
after him, and sees him open the door with his latch-key, and then I
nips down again.”
“Do you think he would know you if he saw you?” I asked.
“There's no saying about that, sir,” Hinge responded; “he might and he
mightn't. You see, sir, he's a swell in his own way, this chap is. He
used to dine with the general, and they used to salute him like as if he
was an officer. There was every reason, don't you see, sir, why I should
notice him, and there was no mortal reason in the world why he should
notice me. But there's no mistaking him, sir, and I should have spotted
his ugly mug among a million.”
“Thank you very much, Hinge. That will do.” Hinge went away, and I sat
down to think this new matter over. Of course I had never been foolish
enough to suppose that Brunow had given me any information of value
against his party, outside the one admission that he had been hired by
the Baroness Bonnar; but here was sudden proof of the incompleteness
of his confession. Shall I confess that my first impulse was to do an
extremely silly and inconsiderate thing? I felt inclined, foolish as
it will sound, to walk upstairs and to introduce myself sardonically
to Herr Sacovitch, since that was the gentleman's name, with the
proclamation of my newly-acquired knowledge of his business, and request
that he would waste no further time in prosecuting it so far as I was
concerned. But this foolish desire had scarcely occurred to me before I
threw it out of the window. If the man believed himself to be unknown,
I had the whip-hand of him in knowing him, and to have exposed my
knowledge would only have been to release him for the prosecution of
useful business on his own side, while some other person, whom I might
never have the luck to recognize at all, would take his place. I was
rather flattered, on the whole, to think that a great European power
like Austria found it worth while to put a watch upon my actions; but
there was only a passing satisfaction in that fancy. I could not get
poor old Ruffiano out of ray head that night. I undressed and went to
bed, but I courted sleep in vain. All night long I heard the quarters
strike, and then the hours, and all night long the picture of the good,
genial, patient, suffering old man fairly haunted me. There were times
when I blamed myself severely for having allowed his betrayer to go
free at all, and there were moments when, if Brunow had been once again
before me, I should have had no control over myself. But, after all,
mercy is just as much a duty as justice, and on looking back I am not
disposed to censure myself very heavily for the course I took. I can
think of nothing more hateful than Brunow's crime, and of nothing more
just than the punishment which finally befell him; but I am glad that
the act of vengeance was not mine.
It was bright morning when at last I fell asleep, and before that
happened I had formed one clear resolution. This was to seek out Violet
in the course of the day, to let-her know what had happened, and consult
her judgment as to what my own course should be. In the meantime Brunow,
in a debtor's prison, could do no further mischief, and was, at the same
time, safe from immediate vengeance. There was time for a pause before
further action was needed, and it was this reflection more than anything
else which calmed me down at last into a state of mind in which sleep
was possible.
I breakfasted at the usual time, for Hinge in household matters was a
perfect martinet, and all my home affairs were as punctual as a clock.
Then, at as early an hour as I dared to venture on, I walked to Lady
Rollinson's house. The servant who answered my summons at the door had
been in the habit of skipping on one side at once, and throwing the door
open in something of an excess of hospitality. I had sometimes even felt
a touch of humorous anger at the man; for his fashion of receiving me
had seemed to indicate that he was in possession of the secret of the
position, and it was as if his flourish of welcome showed an approval of
my suit. But to-day he held the door half open, and, before I could get
out a word of inquiry, said, “Not at hom?”
“Neither Lady Rollinson nor Miss Rossano?” I asked him.
“Not at home, sir,” the man repeated. He looked conscious beneath my
eye, and his manner was distinctly embarrassed.
“Are you quite sure of that?” I asked him. “Kindly go and see.” The man
looked more discomposed than ever, but he said for the third time: “Not
at home, sir.” And in the face of this repeated declaration it seemed
useless to inquire again. I walked away, a little puzzled by the man's
manner. I had heard of no intended visit, and so far as I could guess I
knew of every plan which Violet and Lady Rollinson had formed. It is not
usual for an accepted suitor to be met at the door of his _fiancee's_
house with that curt formula, and I went away dissatisfied and
wondering, turning my steps homeward. I had made up my mind to dismiss
the whole circumstance and to write to Violet, and I was walking up the
stairs which led to my chambers, in haste to put that little project
into execution, when I ran full against a stranger on the landing. He
raised his hat with an apology, and I was in the act of doing the same
when his foreign accent induced me to look more closely at him. He was a
tall, dark man, very gentlemanly to look at and irreproachably dressed.
In a dark, saturnine way he was handsome, and recalling Hinge's
statement that he would have known the ugly mug of our fellow-lodger
among a million, I settled within my own mind that this could not be the
man; but I still observed him with a little interest in the certainty
that if not the man himself, he was at least a visitor. Hinge was at the
door when I reached it.
“Did you spot him, sir?” he asked, eagerly. “That's him as you ran into
on the stairs--Sacovitch.”
I answered that I should know the man again, and with that should have
forgotten to think about him, but that for days afterwards Hinge was
full of excited intelligence about him, relating how he had received
such a visitor at such a time, and had gone out in a cab at such an
hour, returning after such and such a length of absence. In a very
little time the mention of him became a bore, and I forbade Hinge to
speak of him unless he had something of importance to tell me.
In the meantime I wrote my note and sent it to the post. I waited all
day, and received no answer. When the next morning's post came in I
turned my letters over hastily, and was a little surprised, as well as
disappointed, to find that I had no line from Violet. Again that morning
I made my way to Lady Rollinson's house, and again the accustomed
servant met me, and this time fairly staggered me with a repetition of
his “Not at home.”
“Am I to understand,” I asked, “that Lady Rollinson and Miss Rossano
have left town?”
“Can't say, sir,” said the man, staring straight above my head with
unmoving eyes, but fidgeting nervously with his hands and feet. “My
orders is: 'Not at home to Captain Fyffe.'”
“That will do,” I returned, and walked away, more puzzled than I had
ever been in my life before. I went back to my rooms, and there I wrote
this note:
“Dear Lady Rollinson,--When I called at your house yesterday I was told
that you and Violet were not at home. When I called again this morning,
I was told that you were 'not at home to Captain Fyffe.' This troubles
and worries me so much that I hope you will not think me impertinent if
I ask the reason for it.”
I despatched that letter by Hinge, with instructions to await an answer.
In half an hour the answer came, and for the time being left me more
puzzled and troubled than ever:
“Lady Rollinson acknowledges the receipt of Captain Fyffe's letter, and
begs to say that on the two occasions referred to by Captain Fyffe her
instructions were accurately obeyed by her servant.”
That was all. There was not one word in explanation of this astonishing
announcement. Violet and I were engaged to be married, with her father's
warmest approval, and Lady Rollinson had, until that moment, shown
nothing but the most enthusiastic favor for the match. And here, on a
sudden, I was forbidden the house, without rhyme or reason.
For an hour I was like a man on whom a thunderbolt had fallen.