Singleton had spent a great deal of time on the case. He staked much on
that meeting between the two women. In his disgust and rage at the
Schwarzenberg's self-control under all her surface emotionalism, her
shrewd conviction that the interview did not lack auditors, spoiled all
his plans.
He had as good as pledged himself. "Shut those two up in an empty room,"
he had said to the chief, "and you've only to turn on the tap."
And behold Greta, with a watch set on that tongue of hers, talking tosh,
and entirely content to work on the feelings of that little fool!
* * * * *
"She is delirious!" Nan caught up with Singleton and a strange gentleman
in the lower corridor. The strange gentleman hurried on and was lost to
sight. She was too excited at the moment to wonder how Singleton
happened to be in the corridor or to notice his black looks. Breathing
quick and hard, she said, "Greta is delirious!"
"Oh, _is_ she?" She elicited no more till they were getting into the
car. Nan asked Singleton to tell the chauffeur to drive to Whitehall.
"Whitehall?"
"Yes, to the Intelligence Office."
"What for, in the name of--"
"We must get her a doctor."
"They have a doctor here."
"Not a proper doctor. You ought to see the condition she's in. We must
go to your chief and get him to allow--"
When he'd spoken to the chauffeur, he followed her into the car, slammed
the door, and relapsed into moody silence.
Above the profoundly stirred deeps a trifle rose to the surface.
"I thought," she said, "prisoners of the first class could wear their
own clothes."
"Well?"
"Miss von Schwarzenberg was in prison clothes."
"Then it's her own fault. She started first class."
"How could it be her own fault? You don't think she would _choose_ to
wear such--"
"She chooses to give trouble." Singleton relapsed again into silence.
What had happened to Mr. Singleton after she left him? It struck her
from time to time that the man, who had been so sympathetic--nearly as
keen for the meeting as Nan herself, once his objection had been
overcome--seemed to take strangely little interest in the issue. This
knowledge marred and certainly shortened the account she gave him. She
found herself dwelling mainly on what Greta had told her about the third
degree. Singleton's silence got on her nerves.
"What do you say to their not letting her sleep?" She waited to hear him
deny the charge. "You don't think they'll ever try that again?"
"She'd much better have talked freely to you." It wasn't the coldness of
the reply that struck the girl so much as the latent menace in it.
"Why should you have wanted her to say more?"
"Well, didn't _you_? I thought you were for the Allies."
"So I am."
"After my persuading the chief it was better to let you do the job
unconsciously, then you go and"--with a gulp of bitterness Singleton
swallowed his too unflattering opinion of what, precisely, Miss Ellis
had gone and done. Only one count in the long indictment slipped out:
"To forget even to press the question of the friend in the War Office
when Schwarzenberg had broached it herself--to let slip a chance like
that!"
"How do you know I let it slip?" came from the dark corner.
"Well, _didn't_ you?"
"I haven't told you so." There was a moment's silence. "How did you
know?" the girl repeated.
"Well, how do you suppose I know?"
* * * * *
No word out of her for the rest of that awful drive till she saw they
had reached Berkeley Street.
He apologized for not going to Whitehall. Too late. Everything shut up.
"I'll go and see the chief to-morrow and let you hear," he declared.
He scribbled a note that evening, reporting to headquarters:
"No result yet. Particulars given to-morrow."
Singleton didn't sleep much that night. He made up for the loss in the
morning. Before he was dressed a message summoned him to the chief.
At Whitehall he learned that Miss Ellis had been waiting there that
morning before the doors were opened. She had sent in her card a good
hour and a half before the chief arrived, but she refused point-blank to
see any one else. The chief passed her waiting there in the hall. He had
her in.
"You ought to hear the chief!" Singleton said grimly to Napier that
afternoon. Singleton himself had enjoyed the privilege of "hearing the
chief." She had come "to demand an extension of privilege for that
woman, a doctor and so on."
The chief talked with her long enough to make up his mind she was no
good for the business.
"He didn't spare her, I'm afraid. He says she cheeked him. Can't imagine
it, can you?"
Napier couldn't say.
"Well, I said he must have misunderstood. I reminded him she was an
American. The chief says in one breath she told him he was inhuman and
in the next demanded a permit to take a doctor to the prison.
"'Oh, I know,' she interrupted, 'you're going to say they've got a
doctor--'
"'I beg your pardon, that was not in the least what I was going to say.'
"'What, then?'
"'I was going to say, why should she have any doctor at all? Your
friend,' the chief told her, 'has it in her power, so Mr. Singleton
imagines, to do us some little service. If she won't, what's the good of
her? Whether she _could_ do us this particular service, since that
isn't what you've come about, we'll leave unconsidered. What there's no
doubt about is her power to do us harm. Your friend has got to be
suppressed.' And he shut that mouth of his like a steel trap.
"'Suppressed!' She stared at him. Can't you see her? '_Suppressed?_
How?'
"'Ah, that's been the problem. Not with _me_. I've known from the
beginning there was only one way.'
"'Only one way? You mean to murder her?'
"The chief blinked several times at that. He hasn't got over blinking
yet, by Jove! He says she went straight from there to the American
embassy. Before she got any one to see her, the ambassador had been
telephoned to. So that's all right; but _my_ chance is gone.
Schwarzenberg is to have her final hearing on Thursday."
"Is it likely to go against her?"
"Likely? Sure."
The butler came in with a folded half-sheet of note-paper on a tray.
Napier opened it.
Get rid of him, please, Gavan. I will wait.
N. E.
Napier put the note in his pocket.
"Say I'll be there in two minutes."
* * * * *
As he opened the door, he faced the Messenger standing there in the
middle of the room with wide, scared eyes. "O Gavan!" She fled into his
arms.
* * * * *
He held her there against him in the corner of the sofa till she could
speak once more. Every now and then she broke out crying afresh as she
told in incoherent fragments what that last horrible twenty-four hours
had brought of knowledge, of anguish, of loathing.
"I've come to get you to help poor Greta and"--and she took for granted
he'd do that--"to help poor me."
"Help you, my darling?"
She gave that quick nod.
"You must please do something for me and do it quickly." Her eyes went
to the clock. "Forgive me for not being able to take the time to explain
it all, but they--the Government of your country--is likely to"--she
caught her breath, and the voice sank--"to do the most horrible thing, a
thing you must prevent." In the silence she leaned forward the better to
see his face. Plainly it made her anxious; she looked away with that
fold between the brows. "I've just found out," she went on in a
half-whisper--"it's no hearsay!--the authorities consider that Greta was
caught 'red-handed,' as they call it. There's no time to go into that.
It doesn't matter--"
"Doesn't matter!"
"Not now. Oh, don't look like that!"
She put up her hand and drew her finger-tips down across his face.
He caught at the wrist and held her while he talked very quietly. There
was no trace of exultation over the "enemy" woman who had served him so
ill and served his country worse. "But we can't, to salve our private
feelings, leave a person of that sort--"
"_Whatever_ she's done, you can't let her be killed, Gavan! Gavan, you
can't! Not a woman who was my old friend."
"_Don't_!" he cried out. "It's more than I can bear to hear you calling
her your friend. Of course you are horror-struck--"
"I am more than horror-struck; I'm haunted. I'll be haunted all my days
unless you--O Gavan,--if you're sorry, take me out of this nightmare!"
As he tried to draw her to him again, he felt her shuddering. "It isn't
horror only. I've been through vileness, too. It's all clinging about
me. I've seen a man making use of holy things for hideous ends. I've
seen a woman broken by torture. I've seen--" She jumped up, with a hand
dashed across her wet eyes--"If you can't _do_ something, if you let
Greta be shot, I shall never sleep again. I shall go mad."
"Hush! hush! Don't you see that if I were to do everything in my power,
this business has gone too far? I am as helpless as you, as helpless as
she."
"You can't say that till you've tried--tried everything. If you'll only
_try_!"
Without her saying so, he felt that to have tried to save that wretched
woman, even to have failed, as fail he must, would count for something.
Whether it would count enough, who could say? There are games you can't
play with imagination and memory. Well out of his reach, she was
watching him with an intensity that held her breathless.
"What you suppose I can say to the authorities, feeling as I do, _I_
don't know."
"I know." She came a step nearer. "Make them see that Greta can do them
one last greatest harm of all. Oh, she'll have the best of it yet if you
don't do something to stop them! Can't you see?"
He shook his head.
"Well, just think! They've got her absolutely in their power. _That's_
an awful responsibility. They can do what they like with her. They think
she can't retaliate any more, but you show them she can. Oh, she'll have
her revenge if she can goad them into being cruel! I thought I was
asking you to do something for my sake, for our two sakes, when I came
here. But I see now you'll do worse than make me miserable as long as I
live if you let them--kill Greta. You'll be doing a bad service to
England."
"You mean," he said, "that because she's a woman--"
"Let _them_ think that if they like!" She watched him hobble to the
bell. "Oh, kind and dear--"
* * * * *
Two days Gavan spent seeing people, pulling strings, arguing, urging.
Unblushingly he used his friends, he pledged his credit. He had never
worked harder in his life; and then, to save their faces, the
authorities said they had never intended the death-penalty for the
woman. In England they didn't, and so on.
Napier took the news to Berkeley Street that same afternoon.
"But understand," he stood up before Nan's chair, leaning only on his
stick, "it's right to tell you, no power under heaven will make me
either in the near future or the far future, _nothing_ will make me
raise a finger to have that woman set free."
"Free! Oh, no, she can't be allowed free."
"Very well," said Napier, relieved; "just so you understand."
"She's lost her right to freedom."
He looked at her.
"And you don't think death is better?"
"Yes, death is better for Greta, but not for us. I mean, _we_ couldn't
do it, nor let it be done as vengeance. That isn't for us."
His eyes followed her. "Where are you going?"
"Going to push the little sofa to the fire. It's bad for you to stand."
While he waited, not offering to help, just looking at her, a servant
came in.
"Mr. Singleton, Miss, on the telephone. I've connected this one." The
servant went out.
Nan went up to Gavan with a harassed face. She didn't want to talk to
Mr. Singleton. "Could you, do you think--"
She left him at Sir James's writing-table, and went back to make the
cushions comfortable.
"Oh, you're speaking for her, are you?" Singleton said. "Well, you can
tell her, then, that the play is _ausgespielt_."
"What do you mean?" Gavan's voice was sharp. "They didn't go back on
their word?"
"No, no; and she took the finding of the court this morning gamely
enough--death-sentence, commuted to imprisonment for life. They let me
see her a minute before she was taken back to her cell. Game? Never saw
anything like it, till I proved to her that Ernst was acting for us.
_That_ got her! But when they came to take her away, she was quiet
enough. 'Tired,' she said. Thought she'd sleep at last. 'Rather a
strain, these last days.' When they went in with her food--dead."
"What? Say it again."
"_Dead!_" Singleton repeated.
"Heart?"
"Not a bit of it. You remember my saying to you at Lamborough that we'd
found everything except a pinch of white powder? She had it all right.
Jove! I wish we had one or two to match her!"
Gavan hung up the receiver and turned back to the figure at the fire.