Next day, and the next, Charlie called upon the British Minister, but
could obtain no further information.
Sir Charles had failed to establish his suspicion, and therefore
declined to say anything further.
Rolfe, on his part, had learned from Drukovitch the full details of the
dastardly attempt upon the Doctor's life at Topschieder, and how the
little child had been blown to atoms. The escape of Petrovitch had been
little short of miraculous, and it was now whispered that the conspiracy
had no political significance, but was an act of private vengeance.
Whatever its motive might have been, it had had the desired effect of
preventing the Doctor from returning to Servia.
In various quarters Rolfe made diligent inquiry, and established without
a doubt that Maud Petrovitch had within the past ten days or so been in
Belgrade.
A young officer of the King's guard, a Lieutenant Yankovitch, had seen
her in the Zar Duschanowa Uliza. He described her as wearing a white
serge gown and a big black hat. She was walking with a short, elderly,
grey-haired woman, undoubtedly a foreigner--English or American. He was
marching with his company, or would have stopped and spoken to her.
Another person discovered by Drukovitch was a domestic who had once been
in the Doctor's service. She declared that early one morning when going
from her home to the house in the Krunska where she was now employed,
she met her young mistress Maud with the same elderly woman--a woman
rather shabbily-dressed. The pair were passing the Russian Legation,
and she stopped and spoke.
The young lady had told her that she was only on a flying visit to
Belgrade, and that she was leaving again on the morrow. To the
servant's inquiries regarding the Doctor his daughter was silent, as
though she did not wish to mention her father.
According to the servant's description. Mademoiselle Maud looked very
wan and pale, as though she had passed many sleepless nights full of
anxiety and dread.
The Prime Minister's wife had no recollection of telling her husband
about meeting the Doctor's daughter. Somebody else must have mentioned
it to the grey-bearded statesman, who, full of the cares of office, had
forgotten who it had been.
A third person who had seen Maud, however, was one of the agents of
secret police on duty at the railway station. It was this man's work to
watch arriving passengers, and detail agents to watch any suspected to
be foreign spies. According to his report, made to the chief of police,
Mademoiselle Petrovitch arrived in Belgrade late one night with an
elderly Englishwoman and a tall, thin man, probably a German. They
hired a cab and drove out to an address near the Botanical Gardens, on
the opposite side of the city. Recognising who she was, he did not
instruct an agent to follow her. The two ladies returned to the railway
station four days later and left again by the Orient express for
Budapest.
The officials of the international express, in passing through Servia,
are compelled to furnish to the secret police the names and
nationalities of all passengers travelling. When the train arrives in
Belgrade the commissario is always handed the list, which is filed for
reference. Upon the list on that particular day was shown the names of
Mademoiselle Maud Pavlovitch, of Belgrade, and Mrs Wood, of London.
The girl had only slightly disguised her name.
These results of Charlie's inquiry showed quite plainly that his
well-beloved was alive, and that she had been in Servia with some secret
object. The police were unaware of the exact address near the Botanical
Gardens where the couple stayed. It is only within their province to
watch suspected foreigners. Of Servians they take no account.
Therefore, beyond the facts already stated, Rolfe could discover
nothing.
Day after day he remained in Belgrade, sometimes spending the afternoon
by going for a trip across the Danube to that dull and rather
uninteresting frontier town of Hungary, Semlin, and always hoping to be
able to discover something further--some clue to the strange
disappearance of the Doctor, or the real reason why his Maud was so
determined to hold aloof from him.
Thrice he received wild telegrams from Max Barclay, asking for
information as to where he might best seek news of Marion. News of her?
Her brother was just as staggered by her disappearance as was her
lover.
He telegraphed that she might perhaps be at the house of an old servant
of their fathers at Boston, in Lincolnshire. But next day came a report
despatched from Boston that the good man and his wife had heard nothing
of their late master's daughter.
Again to Bridlington he sent Max, to some friends there; but from that
place came a similar response. Marion was, like Maud, in hiding! But
why?
In the bright morning sunshine he strolled the streets, which were so
full of quaint and interesting types. There in Belgrade, the gateway of
the East, one saw the Servian peasant in his high boots, his white shirt
worn outside his trousers, and his round, high cap of astrakhan. The
better-class peasant wore his brown homespun, while the women with the
gay coloured kerchiefs on their heads wore their heavy silver girdles
and their ornaments reminiscent of the Turkish occupation. Big, burly
men in scarlet waistbands and fur caps, women in pretty peasant costumes
from the distant provinces, officers gay with ribbons and crosses, and
ladies in gowns and hats that spoke mutely of Bond Street and the Rue de
la Paix; all were seen in the ever moving panorama of that cosmopolitan
little capital where East meets West.
The financial business which Charlie had come there to transact had
already been concluded, to the mutual satisfaction of his Excellency the
Prime Minister and of the grey-faced old misanthrope seated in the
silent room in Park Lane. Many cables in cipher had been exchanged, and
Charlie had placed his signature to half a dozen documents, which in due
course would be countersigned with old Sam's scrawly calligraphy. The
stake of Statham Brothers in Servia represented considerably over one
million sterling, and nobody had been more conscious of old Sam's
readiness to assist in the development of the country's rich resources
than his Majesty the King.
Upon a side table in Statham's study in Park Lane was a big autographed
portrait in a silver frame, which King Peter had given him at his last
audience. Therefore it was with feelings of gratification that Charlie
heard from the Minister-President's lips the verbal message which the
King had sent--a message of thanks to Mr Rolfe for doing all that he
had done to arrive at a satisfactory arrangement whereby with English
capital Servia's wealth was to be exploited and work provided for her
industrial population.
Though he knew that Maud Petrovitch was no longer in Belgrade, yet he
still lingered on at the Grand Hotel amid all its clatter, its hustle,
and its music. Truth to tell, he earnestly desired to obtain the truth
from Sir Charles Harrison. For that dastardly attempt at Topschieder a
friend of his was responsible!
It was the identity of the friend in question that he was deeply anxious
to establish, so that in future he would know whom to doubt and whom to
trust.
Was Max Barclay really his friend?
Hour upon hour he reflected upon that problem. He recollected incidents
which, in his present state of mind, filled him with misgivings. Why
had he openly charged him with having been present at the house in
Cromwell Road after the disappearance of the Doctor and his daughter?
Indeed, had he not practically charged him with opening the Doctor's
safe and abstracting its contents? He had not made the charge directly,
it was true, but his remarks had certainly been made in a spirit of
antagonistic suspicion.
A long letter from Max explained the sudden disappearance of Marion from
Cunnington's, and begged him to give all information regarding any
likely quarter where the girl had sought refuge. It was now plain
enough to Charlie that his sister had been discharged from the
establishment in Oxford Street--and in disgrace! In what disgrace?
When he read the letter in his room at the hotel, he crushed it in his
hand with an imprecation upon his lips. Cunnington should answer to him
for this indignity. He would compel the fellow to tell him the truth.
His sister's honour was at stake.
Disgraced by her sudden discharge, she had disappeared. She had, no
doubt, been ashamed to face the man who loved her, ashamed, too, to
write to her brother. Instead, she preferred to go away and efface
herself, as, alas! so many London shop-girls have done before her.
Charlie Rolfe knew the cruelty practised by many a shop-keeper in London
in discharging their female employees at a moment's notice. For a man
it matters little. Perhaps, indeed, it is best for both parties. But
for a helpless girl without friends, without money, and without home to
be cast suddenly upon the great world of London, filled as it is with
lures and temptations, is a grave sin which no tradesman ought to
commit. And yet there are to-day in London and its suburbs hundreds of
smug, top-hatted, frock-coated tradesmen, who, though pillars of their
chapels and churches and stalking round the aisles with their plush
collecting-bags on Sundays, will on six days in the week cast forth any
poor girl in their employ without a grain of sympathy or compunction
merely because she may break a rule, or even because she does not lie to
customers sufficiently well to induce them to make purchases.
The general public are ignorant of the tyranny of shop-life in London.
There have been strikes--strikes quickly suppressed because, by lifting
his finger the employer is overwhelmed with assistants glad to live on a
mere bread and butter wage--and those strikes have been treated
humorously by the evening papers. Ah! the tragedy of it all.
Charles Rolfe, though secretary and trusted factotum of a millionaire,
knew it all. His sister had been in a snug "billet," one from which he
had fondly believed she could never have been dislodged.
But the hard, bitter truth was now apparent. Even his own brotherly
protection had availed her nothing. She had been consigned to disgrace.
It was with such bitter thoughts he resolved to return to London. He
went to the telegraph office and sent a long message to Sam Statham,
explanatory of what had occurred, and beseeching his intervention with
Cunnington.
Through the night he waited, but received no response.
Then he went round in the morning to bid Sir Charles adieu.
"Well, Rolfe!" exclaimed the representative of the British Government;
"I'm sorry you're off so quickly. My wife was asking you to dine
to-morrow night--usual weekly dinner, you know."
"And have you discovered nothing regarding Petrovitch?" asked Charlie
quickly.
"Well," replied the diplomat, after a moment's hesitation, "to tell the
truth, I have."
"You have!" gasped the young man eagerly. "What?" The other knit his
brows, and was for a moment silent.
"Something--something!" he said, "that is astounding. I--I cannot give
it credence. It is all too amazing--too tragic--too utterly
incomprehensible."