Napier was not yet out of the hospital when the cable came, telling the
date of Julian's sailing from New York and that Nan was returning by the
same ship.
Nine days after, Napier sat in his sister's London house, raging
feverishly at his slow convalescence, which wasn't in reality slow at
all. To him, there, caught, as he said, "by the foot, like a rabbit in a
trap," came the awful news--they still cried these things in streets--of
the torpedoing of the _Leyden_.
He sent his man Day to Liverpool that evening to give help or, at the
worst, to send back instant news. The knowledge that Sir James and Lady
Grant had taken the first train on the same errand was a thought to lean
on.
Yet those next days of waiting! They were followed by the news,
wirelessed from the SS. _Clonmel_, which told of falling in with a
handful of _Leyden_ survivors among a boatful of dead. "Identities not
established," it announced. That meant people too injured or too
delirious to tell their names; people rescued too late, people dying.
Who could sit and wait in London? Not Napier. Within two hours of a
stormy interview with his surgeon Napier was on his way.
Leaning on his crutches, he stood in the crowd on the Liverpool wharf.
Among the faces all about him, fear-darkened, hope-lit, tear-stained, or
merely curious, one of them caught Napier's eye for its look of
detachment. Or was it for something familiar? The blue eyes crossed his
with no flicker of recognition. But when Napier looked round again, the
man was withdrawing from the line of vision, and to do that was no easy
matter in the crush. Was it Ernst Pforzheim, with his mustache shaved
off? Napier had decided against so far-fetched an assumption before the
incident was forgotten in the wild cheering that broke from the crowd,
and which rose again and again, as the _Clonmel_ steamed up the Mersey
with its tragic remnant.
There was no glimpse of Julian among those ravaged faces, and no use,
Napier told himself, no earthly use, to look for that other. Yet all the
forces of body and of soul met in the concentration of his scrutiny from
end to end of the slowing ship.
No, she wasn't there. Napier's right hand tightened on the bar of his
crutch. He leaned an instant against the shoulder of his servant,
feeling the dreaded onset of that dizzy sickness which comes back upon
men who have had a touch of gas. Still, he was master enough of himself
to notice that the captain moved a little as he put up his hand in
recognition of some one on the wharf. Then Napier saw her--or _was_ it
Nan?
The face, with the scarf wound round it, was like a mask. Lines,
features, the pale _brune_ coloring, were there; but where was Nan?
A second cheer had gone up from the docks as the _Clonmel_ made fast.
The crowd surged forward, shouting questions about the fate of certain
Liverpool stokers and seamen. The police intervened, and opened a lane
as the first passengers came down the gangway, hatless, unshaven, in
borrowed clothes. Women in the crowd below, crying out names, questions,
had to be held back by main force. "Let the passengers land first!" And
still the cries went up, one sharper than all the rest: "Is Jimmy
O'Brian saved?"
The pressure was relieved about the gangway when Nan, one of the last to
land, had reached the wharf. She stood with those vacant eyes of hers on
Gavan's crutch instead of on his face.
"You--wounded!"
He had not shaped the words, "Where's Julian?" and yet she answered him.
"Julian is dead. The rescue people buried him--at sea."
Napier tried ineffectually enough to shield her from a man with a
note-book, volleying questions.
While Napier and his man, with the girl between them, slowly made their
way through the throng, Napier told her she must take over the rooms he
had engaged.
"You won't be able to travel for a day or two," he said.
She stopped short at that, and began to look about with those unseeing
eyes. She was "_quite_ able to travel." She "must travel." She was going
to Scotland.
A chill gripped Gavan's heart. Was she delirious?
"Anywhere you like when you've had a few days--"
"A few days? I can't wait a few days. _She_ can't wait--Julian's mother.
I'm going first to her."
An immense relief swept over him. The mind was there, the faithful,
loyal mind.
"You needn't go to Scotland. The Grants are behind you, in that crowd,
talking to the captain."
Vision rose again in the dimmed eyes. A great tenderness lit the still
features as Nan caught sight of the tall, bent old man beside Julian's
mother, and the changed face of the woman.
When once she had reached them, the last threads that had seemed
precariously to hold her to Napier snapped. Her meeting with the Grants
was very quiet, but evidently it changed the old people's plans in so
far as they had plans. Sir James took Nan on his arm. The policeman,
piloting Lady Grant, led the way out of the crowd within a yard of
Napier. The girl turned to him.
"Gavan!"
"Where shall you be?" Napier made a motion to join her.
"She'll be with us, naturally," said Julian's father, his eyes resting
an instant on Napier. "And you--soon you'll come--" he didn't try to
finish. That "soon" had said enough. The old man could not at the moment
bear even Gavan near his grief. The look in his eyes brought tears to
Napier's as, forlornly, he watched the little group disappear in the
crowd.
What a world! Would people ever be happy again?
The reporters, who had got hold of the captain and one of the survivors,
surrounded the pair three and four deep. Their ranks were broken by a
distracted woman with a shawl over her head, strained tight round her
piteous face.
"Is it here he is, the gentleman who was saved? For the love of God,
sir, did ye see Jimmy O'Brian? I'm his mother."
Napier leaned more heavily on his servant.
"We must get out of this," he said. But they couldn't. People who hadn't
found their friends were not to be convinced they weren't on board.
Again and again denied access to the ship, they pressed through the
crowd with cries and questions. They couldn't see the crutch. Napier was
knocked and jostled. The old gas-sickness was heavy on him. He took
refuge on a sea-chest behind a pile of luggage, and sent Day to keep
places in the train. When he lifted his swimming head, struggling still
against that tide of nausea rising to choke him, Napier saw that the
crowd had thinned now to a few groups of last, despairing lingerers.
Even the cries for Jimmy O'Brian had sunk into the same stillness that
wrapped the sailor at the bottom of the sea. A little old man in a
threadbare coat closely buttoned round a meager body went up to the
guard at the foot of the gangway.
"You are quite sure? The passengers are _all_ off?"
"Haven't I told you no end o' times? They're _gone_, every man Jack of
'em, and we're hoistin' the gangway."
The old man walked forlornly away, his threadbare ulster flapping
against his shins.
"Any idea when the other lady will be coming off?" a foreign-sounding
voice asked on the other side of the luggage.
"'Other lady'! What other lady?"
Napier, leaning over, saw something shoved into a grimy fist. The
_Clonmel_ deck-hand had no need to look at the aid to memory. The
faculty of touch had applied the stimulus. "There _was_ another lady,"
he said; "but she ain't comin' ashore here. Goin' back with us to
Ireland."
Napier watched the sailor take the inquirer over to the guard. The guard
proved amenable. In a moment the stranger with the square back had
passed up the gangway. No detectives were with him; he had gone on board
alone. If it wasn't Ernst Pforzheim, it was some mustacheless individual
extremely like him in feature, and as unlike as a seedy bowler, shabby
clothes, and a slouching air could render the smart young gentleman of
Glenfallon Castle. What did it mean?
The same question seemed to have occurred to a reporter who observed
from a distance this case of flagrant favoritism. He was further
rewarded for his patience by seeing presently the sailor who had been
tipped beckoned by a steward from the top of the gangway. The reporter
came strolling along the now nearly deserted wharf. He coasted gloomily
round the piled-up luggage, looking at the labels. When he had passed
out of Napier's range--suddenly voices!
Napier shifted his position again. Two men who had given no sign of life
before were being asked some question by the reporter. One of the pair
caught Napier's eye. Singleton! Napier's chilled blood ran swiftly. It
_was_ Ernst, then, who had gone on board! And if he didn't come back, if
he was for escaping to Ireland, Singleton and his companion would search
the ship. Plainly Singleton was trying to get rid of the reporter.
Whatever was afoot here, it was not desirable to have it in the papers.
The secret-service man and his companion, who looked as if he might be a
plain-clothes policeman, turned a cold shoulder on the reporter, and
suddenly fell back in the direction of Napier. Suddenly the reporter
darted out from the shadow of the luggage and stood hovering near the
gangway. The sailor and a steward were bringing down a shrouded figure
in an invalid chair--a lady, you might think, if you didn't strongly
suspect it to be Ernst doubling on his track after getting wind of
Singleton waiting down there behind the luggage. When quiet had
descended on the wharf and the ship was searched, Mr. Ernst would be far
away.
"Put the lady down." Singleton's companion had planted himself in the
way of the little procession, his coat turned back to show the police
badge.
"Go on, I tell you!" The voice that came shrilly out of the veils was
bewilderingly unlike the one Napier had been waiting for. The rest was
mere pantomime from where he sat. The veiled head turned and seemed to
catch sight of Singleton. Whereon the invalid darted out of the chair
and ran with extraordinary fleetness down toward the warehouses.
When Gavan had pulled himself up on his crutch, he saw in the middle
distance Singleton's companion and the reporter running along the wharf,
while some yards further on, a squat, petticoated figure struggled
fiercely in the arms of a fat policeman. Hat and veil were torn off, and
Napier had an instant's glimpse of the face of Greta von Schwarzenberg,
horrible with fear. The next instant she had succeeded in drawing back
far enough to lift her foot, and to launch at the policeman a totally
unexpected blow in the belly. Stark astonishment, as much as anything,
sent the man stumbling back a couple of paces. The woman darted past
into a region of piled barrels, casks, and cases, policeman and reporter
in pursuit. Napier had fleeting glimpses of a game of hide-and-seek,
grotesque in spite of the fact that it was played with passion, Greta
appearing, disappearing, the others hot on her track, Greta tearing off
scarf, ulster, and jacket as she ran, and casting them forth for her
pursuers to catch their feet in. The policeman again fulfilled her
hopes, but in vain was the net spread in sight of Singleton. He it was
who at the most critical moment headed her off from the street. Back she
doubled toward the water and was once more lost to view.
"If it was anybody else," Napier said, struggling to a balance on the
well foot, "I'd say she hadn't a dog's chance."
"No, sir," the returned Day remarked obligingly as he steadied the
crutch.
Owing, Napier afterward learned, to police orders in connection with the
apprehension of a passenger off the _Clonmel_, the Euston train was
still in the station. As Napier hobbled along the platform, Singleton
and one of the ship's officers went by, making hurried inspection of
each carriage. One door they opened revealed a man lying out at full
length on the seat. As he raised his head, Napier recognized in the
changed face Hallett Newcomb. The _Clonmel_ officer asked if his late
passenger had seen anything of "the lady, the older one."
Newcomb shook his head. He'd heard she was going on to Ireland.
"So did we," said Singleton. "We sent a man on board to induce her
quietly to change her mind; but that woman's the devil. Simply vanished
into air, or, rather, _I_ believe she dived." All the same, they went on
with their examination. Napier meanwhile had his bag brought into
Hallett Newcomb's carriage. The fruitless search for Greta ended; the
train was allowed to proceed.
On that journey back to London Napier heard through what the survivors
of the _Leyden_ had lived, to what Julian had succumbed.
In those next days Nan lay in that house in Berkeley Street where she
had helped to nurse Julian back to health. Napier sent or telephoned
daily to inquire for her. "Great care, complete quiet," Lady Grant wrote
at the end of a week. "Not easily or soon will she shake off the horror
of that voyage and of Julian's death."
Napier was the less prepared for Singleton's visit, a few days later,
hot-foot from Berkeley Street. Singleton had, as he said, hunted up Miss
Ellis "as a last hope." Oh, yes, he'd seen her.
"She'd been on the point of sending to you to get my address. What I
hoped she'd tell me, I've come to doubt if she knows. I want your
opinion on that. I see now I shall have to go warily." Singleton drew
his chair closer to the fire and held out a hand to the blaze. There was
not wariness only in the fine eyes, but the passion of the quest, and
behind all a suppressed excitement, new in Napier's knowledge of the
man. "For months," he went on, "there's been a leakage at the War
Office."
Yes, Napier knew that. What he didn't know was that Schwarzenberg had
been the one to make first-hand use of the leakage. Singleton had come
to believe she'd engineered it. However that might be, "_there's_
leakage still."
Napier caught the infection of Singleton's excitement.
"Can't Ernst get to the bottom of it--with the lady's kind help?"
"_Her_ help? After he'd let her into the Liverpool trap?" inquired
Singleton with scorn for such innocence. "Ernst, poor devil, won his
release from Miss Greta, when he'd got her into our hands." The
secret-service man studied the fire, frowning. "I didn't get what I went
for, but I've had a rather curious interview with your American friend.
She'd been looking at back copies of the newspapers. The library, where
she was lying, was half snowed under with newspapers. Been poring over
accounts of the torpedoing and the rescue. But she hadn't been able to
find anything about Greta, not a breath. 'Well,' I said, 'doesn't that
mean there's nothing to say?'
"'Only something to keep dark?' she suggested. Oh, she's no fool! She
sat up and looked through me. I explained that all I meant was that
Schwarzenberg mightn't be of such general interest as she imagined. She
thought that over a moment, and then she said something that astonished
me a good deal, given the terms Newcomb tells me they'd been on.' If it
isn't known where Greta is,' she said, 'that's bad all round.' I asked,
'Why, all round?'
"She wouldn't answer directly. 'To be able to vanish like that,' she
said. 'It's true, then; you do some things badly over here.'
"'Undoubtedly we do.'" Singleton smiled again as though recalling a
compliment paid the British service.
And then he owned that she had very nearly bowled him over the next
moment by saying: "'You don't happen to know where Mr. Ernst Pforzheim
is?'
"'Pforzheim?'" Singleton had echoed feebly with his vacant,
uninterested look. "'What makes you think of Pforzheim?'
"'Because wherever Ernst Pforzheim is, we'll find Greta.'"
Singleton smiled at her: "You're clear off the track. Pforzheim was
arrested ages ago and locked up."
"But he escaped; Greta told me so."
"Well, he hasn't escaped, so make your mind easy about that."
She lay silent a moment, turning it over in her mind: "But if she didn't
find Ernst, what _did_ she do?"
Singleton seemed not to know the answer to that.
The girl sat up with startling suddenness: "'I thought I'd ask you
first,' she said.
"'And second?'
"'I shall have to pull myself together and find out if _somebody_
doesn't know where she is.'"
Singleton asked, "Why?" As she didn't answer that: "Is there any great
hurry?"
"Well, there is," she admitted, with a nervous clasping and unclasping
of her hands. "I can't say any more, but the authorities have got to
know."
"To know--" He waited.
"That Greta ought to be found."
"And when she _is_ found?" Singleton inquired innocently.
Her answer evidently cost her something. "She ought to be sent out of
the country."
Singleton suggested the futility of that had been proved.
"That's why, that's why!" She clutched the silk coverlid. "The people
who know how to deal with these things have got to know. Though for _me_
to have to tell them,"--her eyes filled--"it's an awful thing!"
He saw a way to ingratiate himself.
"I think I can save you that," he said.
"Can you? _Can_ you? Oh, I'd be endlessly thankful!"
"I didn't say that _nobody_ knew where to find the lady. Lord, it made
her sit up straighter than ever."
"I was right, then," she said. "I felt you'd be the one to know. But you
are keeping back something. Mr. Singleton, what has happened to Greta?"
He told her nothing very serious had happened as yet.
She lay back on the cushions an instant, with her chin up and her eyes
on the window cornice.
"Then--I'm--not too late," she said.
"Too late for what?"
"Where _is_ she?"
"I didn't tell you I could put my hand on her," he said. "I told you,
very privately, of course, and as a great--the greatest--mark of
confidence, that there were those who could."
"Well, I've got to be one of them," she said in her shortcut American
way. When she saw he wasn't going to notice that observation, she went
on: "Ever since I got better, I've lain in the room up there waiting for
a letter from her." She had said it precisely as though her last
encounter with the Schwarzenberg had been one of ordinary friendship. "I
telegraphed Lady McIntyre to forward any letters, and she has. Not a
thing from Greta."
"No, I dare say not," Singleton had answered.
"But why do you 'dare say not'?" Anxiety settled on her face again. "You
make me all the surer of what I've been feeling so strongly that I can't
sleep. Greta is in terrible need of help. All the more because of what
she's done."
"And do you imagine, if she were in need of help, she'd turn to you?"
"Oh, quite certainly."
Singleton hadn't been able to repress the rejoinder: "It's a good thing,
then, she _can't_." He wasn't the least prepared for the sensation by
that innocent utterance.
"_She can't!_" The girl had risen, and the silk coverings fell about her
feet as she stood there with frightened eyes, saying under her breath,
"_Why_ can't she?"
He did his best to soothe her. "You've just admitted you wouldn't have
her free to carry out her designs."
"No! no!" She dropped weakly on the edge of the sofa and sat leaning
forward: "Not free to do harm, but surely she is free to write to a
friend?"
"I wouldn't, if I were you, be heard calling yourself a friend."
"I _was_ a friend," she said. "How far can you go back, once you've been
an intimate friend?"
"You have never been a friend, intimate or otherwise, because you never
really knew the woman." And then he told her--not the details of the
struggle on the wharf, the escape at risk of drowning, and the two days'
pursuit of one of the most notorious spies in Europe. He told her merely
that Miss von Schwarzenberg was under detention during his Majesty's
pleasure.
When he had done so, he devoutly wished he hadn't.
"Instead of helping us to find out who the woman's accomplices are," he
complained to Napier, "your Miss Ellis will be worrying us about the
woman herself."
Then Singleton developed the idea that had come to him after leaving
Berkeley Street. Mightn't it be possible to get the all-important clue
out of Schwarzenberg herself by means of the Ellis girl if the
authorities could be persuaded to give her access to Miss Ellis?
Napier was quite sure when his visitor left that Singleton was convinced
of the hopelessness as well as the inadvisability of that device. Napier
thought the less about what he characterized to himself as "the fellow's
crazy project," because his mind was occupied with endless speculations
about Nan.
A sentence in a letter which came the next day in answer to one of
Napier's, shed a certain light. "Don't you, too, feel that I must tell
Lady Grant how things are before I see you here? I haven't the strength
for that just yet." She went on to say she'd seen Singleton and she had
since tried to get more definite news through the authorities. "But you
won't want to hear about Greta, though I must just tell you that Mr.
Singleton has been very kind. He's found out she's a Prisoner of the
First Class. That's so like Greta, if she was to be a prisoner at all!"
In his uneasiness Napier managed, two days later, to get Singleton on
the telephone. He was told in a voice with impatience of "the stupidity
at H. Q. which persisted in blocking the unceasing efforts of that girl
to get permission to see the Elusive One. I've advised your
friend"--Singleton's laugh came metallic along the wire--"to ask _you_
to get her the permit."
"She knows better," retorted Napier. Something seemed to go wrong with
the line after that. He didn't get Singleton again. Singleton was
greatly occupied about that time.
As a special, indeed an unprecedented, concession, a permit was
ultimately obtained for an unnamed lady to pay a visit to a person
designated only by the Number 96 in a metropolitan prison.
Singleton didn't show Miss Ellis the permit until he had talked to her
for some minutes about the superhuman difficulties that had to be
surmounted before he had been able to get their request so much as
listened to. He had sworn not to yield up the all-powerful piece of
paper without exacting a pledge from Miss Ellis. She was to promise on
her word of honor that she wouldn't let the Schwarzenberg know who had
moved in the matter. This was of an importance he could not explain to
her, but it was "the condition."