"I know very little of the details," replied the girl. "Max could, of
course, tell you everything. He introduced me one night to Mr Adam,
who seemed a very polite man."
"All bows and smiles, like the average Frenchman--eh? Oh, yes. I
happen to know him. Well?"
"He seems a most intimate friend of Max's."
"Is he really?" remarked the millionaire. "Then Max doesn't know as
much about him as I do."
"What?" asked Marion in quick alarm. "Isn't he all that he pretends to
be?"
"No, he isn't. I must see Barclay to-morrow--the first thing to-morrow.
I wonder if he's put any money into the venture?"
"Of that I don't know. He only told me that it would mean a big
fortune."
"So it would--if it were genuine."
"Then isn't it genuine?" she asked anxiously.
"Genuine! Why, of course not! Nothing that Jean Adam has anything to
do with, my dear young lady, is ever genuine. Depend upon it that his
Majesty the Sultan will never grant any such concession. He fears
Bulgaria far too much. If it could have been had, I may tell you at
once I should already have had it. There is, as you say, a big thing to
be made out of it--a very big thing. But while the Sultan lives the
line will never be constructed. Pachitch, the Prime Minister of Servia,
told me so the last time I was in Belgrade, and I'm entirely of his
opinion."
"But what you tell me regarding Mr Adam surprises me."
"Ah! you are still young, Miss Rolfe! You have many surprises yet in
store for you," he replied with a light laugh. "Do you know Adam
personally?"
"Yes."
"Then beware of him, my girl--beware of him!" he snapped, his grey face
darkening in remembrance of certain ugly facts, and in recollection of
the sinister face of the shabby lounger against the park railings.
"Is he such a bad man, then?"
Sam Statham pressed his thin lips together.
"He is one of those men without conscience, and without compunction; a
man whose plausible tongue would deceive even Satan himself."
"Then he has deceived Max--I mean Mr Barclay," she exclaimed, quickly
correcting her slip of the tongue, her cheeks slightly crimsoning at the
same time.
"Without doubt," was the millionaire's reply. "I must see Barclay
to-morrow, and ascertain what are Adam's plans."
"He is persuading Mr Barclay to go to Constantinople. I know that
because he asked me to use my influence upon him in that direction."
"Oh, so he has approached you, also, has he? Then there is some strong
motive for this journey, without a doubt! Barclay will be ill-advised
if he accepts the invitation. The bait held out is a very tempting one;
but when I've seen your gentleman friend he will not be so credulous."
"I'm very surprised at what you told me. I thought Mr Adam quite a
nice person--for a foreigner."
"No doubt he was nice to you, for he wished to enlist your services to
induce your lover to go out to Turkey. For what reason?"
"How can I tell?" asked the girl. "Mr Barclay mentioned that the
railway concession would mean the commercial development of the Balkan
States, and that it would be one of the most paying enterprises in
Europe."
"That is admitted on all hands. But as the concession is not granted,
and never will be granted, I cannot see what object Adam has in inducing
your friend to visit Constantinople. Was he asked to put money into the
scheme, do you know?"
"Mr Adam did not wish him to put up any money until he had thoroughly
satisfied himself regarding the truth of his statements."
Statham was silent.
"That's distinctly curious," he remarked at last, apparently much
puzzled by her statement. "Underlying it all is some sinister motive,
depend upon it."
"You alarm me, Mr Statham," the girl said, apprehensive of some
unexpected evil befalling the man she loved.
"It is as well to be forearmed in dealing with Jean Adam," was the old
man's response. "More than one good man owes the ruin of his life's
happiness, nay his death, to the craft and cunning of that man, who,
under a dozen different aliases, is known in a dozen different capitals
of the world."
"Then he's an adventurer?"
"Most certainly. Tell Barclay to come and see me. Or better, I will
write to him myself. It is well that you've told me this, otherwise--"
and he broke off short, without concluding his sentence.
The pretty clock chimed the half-hour musically, reminding Marion of the
unusual hour, and she stirred as if anxious to leave. Her handkerchief
dropped upon the floor. The old man noticed it, but did not direct her
attention to it.
"Then if you wish it, Mr Statham, I will say nothing to Mr Barclay,"
she remarked.
"No. You need say nothing. I will send him a message in the morning.
But," he added, looking straight into the girl's beautiful face, "will
you not reconsider your decision, Miss Rolfe?"
"My decision! Of what?" she asked.
"Regarding the statement made to you by Maud Petrovitch. She told you
something. What was it? Come, tell me. Some very great financial
interests are involved in the ex-Minister's disappearance. Your
information may save me from very heavy losses. Will you not assist
me?"
"I regret that it is impossible."
"Have I not even to-night been your friend?" he pointed out. "Have I
not warned you against the man who is Max Barclay's secret enemy--and
yours--the man Jean Adam?"
"I am very grateful indeed to you," she answered; "and if it were in my
power, I would tell you what she told me."
"In your power!" he laughed. "Why, of course, it is in your power to
speak, if you wish?"
"Maud made a confession to me," she declared, "and I hold it sacred."
"A confession!" he exclaimed, regarding her in surprise. "Regarding her
father, I suppose?"
"No; regarding herself."
"Ah! A confession of a woman's weakness--eh?"
"Its nature is immaterial," she responded in a firm tone. "I was her
most intimate friend, and she confided in me."
"And because it concerns her personally, you refuse to divulge it?"
"I am a woman, Mr Statham, and I will not betray anything that reflects
upon another woman's honour."
"Women are not usually so loyal to each other!" he remarked, not without
a touch of sarcasm. "You appear to be unlike all the others I have
known."
"I am no better than anybody else, I suppose," she replied. "Every
woman must surely possess a sense of what is right and just."
"Very few of them do," the old man snarled, for woman was a subject upon
which he always became bitterly sarcastic. In his younger days he had
been essentially a ladies' man, but the closed page in his history had
surely been sufficient to sour him against the other sex.
The world, had it but known the truth, would not have pondered at Sam
Statham's hatred of society, and more especially the feminine element of
it. But, like many another man, he was misjudged because he was
compelled to conceal the truth, and was condemned unjustly because it
was not permitted to him to make self-defence.
How many men--and women, too--live their lives in social ostracism, and
perhaps disgrace, because for family or other reasons they are unable to
exhibit to the world the truth. Many a man, and many a woman, who read
these lines, are as grossly misjudged by their fellows as was Samuel
Statham, the millionaire who was a pauper, the man who lived that sad
and lonely life in his Park Lane mansion, daily gathering gold until he
became crushed beneath the weight of its awful responsibility, his sole
aim and relaxation being the mixing with the submerged workers of the
city, and relieving them by secret philanthropy.
The sinner assumes the cloak of piety, while too often the denounced and
maligned suffer in silence. It was so in Samuel Statham's case; it is
so in more than one case which has come under my own personal
observation during the inquiries I made before writing this present
narrative of east and west.
The old millionaire was surprised at the girl's admission that what the
Doctor's daughter had told her was a confession. He realised how, in
face of the fact that her brother loved Maud Petrovitch, it was not
likely that she would betray her. Still, his curiosity was excited.
The girl before him knew the truth of the ex-Minister's strange
disappearance--knew, most probably, his whereabouts.
"Was the confession made to you by the Doctor's daughter of such a
private nature that you really cannot divulge it to me?" he asked her,
appealingly. "Remember, I am not seeking to probe the secrets of a
young girl's life, Miss Rolfe. On the contrary, I am anxious--most
anxious--to clear up what is at present a most mysterious and
unaccountable occurrence. Doctor Petrovitch disappeared from London
just at a moment when his presence here was, in his own interests, as
well as in mine, most required. I need not go into the details," he
went on, fixing her with his sunken eyes. "It is sufficient to explain
to you that he and I had certain secret negotiations. He came here on
many occasions, always in secret--at about this hour. He preferred to
visit me in that manner, because of the spies who always haunted him and
who reported all his doings to Belgrade."
"I was not aware that you were on friendly terms," Marion remarked.
"Maud never told me that her father visited you."
"Because she was in ignorance," Statham replied. "The Doctor was a
diplomatist, remember, and could keep a secret, even from his own
daughter. From what I've told you, you can surely gather how extremely
anxious I am to know the truth."
Marion was silent. She realised to the full that financial interests of
the millionaire were at stake--that her statement might save huge losses
if she betrayed Maud, and told this man the truth. He was her friend
and benefactor. To him both she and Charlie owed everything. Without
him they would be compelled to face the world, she friendless and
practically penniless. The penalty of her silence he had already
indicated. By refraining from assisting her, he could to-morrow cast
her out of her employment, discredited and disgraced!
What would Max think? What would he believe?
If she remained silent she would preserve Maud's honour and Charlie's
peace of mind. He was devoted to the sweet-faced, half-foreign girl
with the stray little wisp of hair across her brow. Yet if he knew what
she had told him he would hate her--he must hate her. Ah! the mere
thought of it drove her to a frenzy of despair.
She set her teeth, and, with her face pale as death, she rose slowly to
go. Her brows were knit, her countenance determined.
Come what might, she would be loyal to her friend. Charlie should never
know the truth. Rather than that she would sacrifice herself--sacrifice
her love for Max Barclay, which was to her the sweetest and most
treasured sentiment in all the world.
"I have asked you to assist me, Miss Rolfe," the old man said, in a low,
impressive voice, leaning his arm upon the edge of his writing-table and
bending towards her. "Surely when you know all that it means to me, you
will not refuse?"
"I refuse to betray my friend," was her firm response, her face white to
the lips. "You may act as you think proper, Mr Statham. You may allow
my friends to think ill of me; you may stand aside and see me cast
to-morrow at a moment's notice out of Cunnington's employ because of my
absence to-night, but my lips are closed regarding the confession made
to me in confidence. In anything else I am ready to serve you. You
have asked me to go upon a journey in your interests--in a motor car
that is awaiting me. This I am willing and anxious to do. You are my
benefactor, and it is my duty to do what you wish."
"It is your duty, Miss Rolfe, to tell me what I desire to know."
"No!" she cried, facing him boldly, her bright eyes flashing defiantly
upon him. "It is not my duty to betray my friend--even to you!"
"Very well," he answered, with a smile upon his thin lips. "It is
getting late. They may be wondering at Cunnington's. I will see you to
the door."
And the expression upon his face showed her, alas! too plainly that for
her there was no future.
The present was already dead, the future--?