In Direst Peril Part 22

"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 b.u.t.toning 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 friends.h.i.+p'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 G.o.d'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 a.s.surances that nothing would happen to the old man."

"Do you think," I asked him, "that the solemn a.s.surances 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 s.h.i.+ft for yourself."

"Very well," he answered, sullenly; and, rising to his feet, he began to b.u.t.ton 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 pa.s.sage.

"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 a.s.sistance.

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 pa.s.sing 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.