Peter Ruff and the Double Four Part 80

"I heard the news early this morning by telegram," she went on. "For a long time I was prostrated. Then early this afternoon I began to think--one must always think. Bernadine was a dear friend, but things between us lately have been different, a little strained. Was it his fault or mine--who can say? Does one tire with the years, I wonder? I wonder!"

Her eyes were lifted to his and Peter was conscious of the fact that she wished him to know that they were beautiful. She looked slowly away again.

"This afternoon, as I sat alone," she proceeded, "I remembered that in my keeping were many boxes of papers and many letters which have recently arrived, all belonging to Bernadine. I reflected that there were certainly some who were in his confidence, and that very soon they would come from his country and take them all away. And then I remembered what I owed to England, and how opposed I always was to Bernadine's schemes, and I thought that the best thing I could do to show my grat.i.tude would be to place his papers all in the hands of some Englishman, so that they might do no more harm to the country which has been kind to me. So I came to you."

Again her eyes were lifted to his and Peter was very sure indeed that they were wonderfully beautiful. He began to realize the fascination of this woman, of whom he had heard so much. Her very absence of coloring was a charm.

"You mean that you have brought me these papers?" he asked.

She shook her head slowly.

"No," she said, "I could not do that. There were too many of them--they are too heavy, and there are piles of pamphlets--revolutionary pamphlets, I am afraid--all in French, which I do not understand. No, I could not bring them to you. But I ordered my motor car and I drove up here to tell you that if you like to come down to the house in the country where I have been living, to which Bernadine was to have come to-night--yes, and bring your friend, too, if you will--you shall look through them before any one else can arrive."

"You are very kind," Peter murmured. "Tell me where it is that you live."

"It is beyond Hitchin," she told him, "up the Great North Road. I tell you at once, it is a horrible house in a horrible lonely spot. Within a day or two I shall leave it myself forever. I hate it--it gets on my nerves. I dream of all the terrible things which perhaps have taken place there. Who can tell? It was Bernadine's long before I came to England."

"When are we to come?" Peter asked.

"You must come back with me now, at once," the Baroness insisted. "I cannot tell how soon some one in his confidence may arrive."

"I will order my car," Peter declared.

She laid her hand upon his arm.

"Do you mind coming in mine?" she begged. "It is of no consequence, if you object, but every servant in Bernadine's house is a German and a spy. There are no women except my own maid. Your car is likely enough known to them and there might be trouble. If you will come with me now, you and your friend, if you like, I will send you to the station to-night in time to catch the train home. I feel that I must have this thing off my mind. You will come? Yes?"

Peter rang the bell and ordered his coat.

"Without a doubt," he answered. "May we not offer you some tea first?"

She shook her head.

"To-day I cannot think of eating or drinking," she replied. "Bernadine and I were no longer what we had been, but the shock of his death seems none the less terrible. I feel like a traitor to him for coming here, yet I believe that I am doing what is right," she added, softly.

"If you will excuse me for one moment," Peter said, "while I take leave of my wife, I will rejoin you presently."

Peter was absent for only a few minutes. Sogrange and the Baroness exchanged the merest commonplaces. As they all pa.s.sed down the hall, Sogrange lingered behind.

"If you will take the Baroness out to the car," he suggested, "I will telephone to the Emba.s.sy and tell them not to expect me."

Peter offered his arm to his companion. She seemed, indeed, to need support. Her fingers clutched at his coat-sleeve as they pa.s.sed on to the pavement.

"I am so glad to be no longer quite alone," she whispered. "Almost I wish that your friend were not coming. I know that Bernadine and you were enemies, but then you were enemies not personally, but politically.

After all, it is you who stand for the things which have become so dear to me."

"It is true that Bernadine and I were bitter antagonists," Peter admitted, gravely. "Death, however, ends all that. I wish him no further harm."

She sighed.

"As for me," she said, "I am growing used to being friendless. I was friendless before Bernadine came, and latterly we have been nothing to one another. Now, I suppose, I shall know what it is to be an outcast once more. Did you ever hear my history, I wonder?"

Peter shook his head.

"Never, Baroness," he replied. "I understood, I believe, that your marriage--"

"My husband divorced me," she confessed, simply. "He was quite within his rights. He was impossible. I was very young and very sentimental.

They say that Englishwomen are cold," she added. "Perhaps that is so.

People think that I look cold. Do you?"

Sogrange suddenly opened the door of the car in which they were already seated. She leaned back and half closed her eyes.

"It is rather a long ride," she said, "and I am worn out. I hope you will not mind, but for myself I cannot talk when motoring. Smoke, if it pleases you."

"Might one inquire as to our exact destination?" Sogrange asked.

"We go beyond Hitchin, up the Great North Road," she told him again.

"The house is called the High House. It stands in the middle of a heath and I think it is the loneliest and most miserable place that was ever built. I hate it and I am frightened in it. For some reason or other, it suited Bernadine, but that is all over now."

The little party of three relapsed into silence. The car, driven carefully enough through the busy streets, gradually increased its pace as they drew clear of the suburbs. Peter leaned back in his place, thinking. Bernadine was dead! Nothing else would have convinced him so utterly of the fact as that simple sentence in the Daily Telegraph, which had been followed up by a confirmation and a brief obituary notice in all the evening papers. Curiously enough, the fact seemed to have drawn a certain spice out of even this adventure; to point, indeed, to a certain monotony in the future. Their present enterprise, important though it might turn out to be, was nothing to be proud of. A woman, greedy for gold, was selling her lover's secrets before the breath was out of his body. Peter turned in his cus.h.i.+oned seat to look at her.

Without doubt, she was beautiful to one who understood, beautiful in a strange, colorless, feline fas.h.i.+on, the beauty of soft limbs, soft movements, a caressing voice, with always the promise beyond of more than the actual words. Her eyes now were closed, her face was a little weary. Did she really rest, Peter wondered? He watched the rising and falling of her bosom, the quivering now and then of her eyelids. She had indeed the appearance of a woman who had suffered.

The car rushed on into the darkness. Behind them lay that restless phantasmagoria of lights streaming to the sky. In front, blank s.p.a.ce.

Peter, through half-closed eyes, watched the woman by his side. From the moment of her entrance into his library, he had summed her up in his mind with a single word. She was, beyond a doubt, an adventuress. No woman could have proposed the things which she had proposed, who was not of that ilk. Yet for that reason it behooved them to have a care in their dealings with her. At her instigation they had set out upon this adventure, which might well turn out according to any fas.h.i.+on that she chose. Yet without Bernadine what could she do? She was not the woman to carry on the work which he had left behind, for the love of him. Her words had been frank, her action shameful but natural. Bernadine was dead and she had realized quickly enough the best market for his secrets. In a few days' time his friends would have come and she would have received nothing. He told himself that he was foolish to doubt her.

There was not a flaw in the sequence of events, no possible reason for the suspicions which yet lingered at the back of his brain. Intrigue, it was certain, was to her as the breath of her body. He was perfectly willing to believe that the death of Bernadine would have affected her little more than the sweeping aside of a fly. His very common sense bade him accept her story.

By degrees he became drowsy. Suddenly he was startled into a very wide-awake state. Through half-closed eyes he had seen Sogrange draw a sheet of paper from his pocket, a gold pencil from his chain, and commence to write. In the middle of a sentence, his eyes were abruptly lifted. He was looking at the Baroness. Peter, too, turned his head; he, also, looked at the Baroness. Without a doubt, she had been watching both of them. Sogrange's pencil continued its task, only he traced no more characters. Instead, he seemed to be sketching a face, which presently he tore carefully up into small pieces and destroyed. He did not even glance towards Peter, but Peter understood very well what had happened. He had been about to send him a message, but had found the Baroness watching. Peter was fully awake now. His faint sense of suspicion had deepened into a positive foreboding. He had a reckless desire to stop the car, to descend upon the road and let the secrets of Bernadine go where they would. Then his natural love of adventure blazed up once more. His moment of weakness had pa.s.sed. The thrill was in his blood, his nerves were tightened. He was ready for what might come, seemingly still half asleep, yet, indeed, with every sense of intuition and observation keenly alert.

Sogrange leaned over from his place.

"It is a lonely country, this, into which we are coming, madame," he remarked.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Indeed, it is not so lonely here as you will think it when we arrive at our destination," she replied. "There are houses here, but they are hidden by the trees. There are no houses near us."

She rubbed the pane with her hand.

"We are, I believe, very nearly there," she said. "This is the nearest village. Afterwards, we just climb a hill and about half a mile along the top of it is the High House."

"And the name of the village," Sogrange inquired.

"St Mary's," she told him, "In the summer people call it beautiful around here. To me it is the most melancholy spot I ever saw. There is so much rain, and one hears the drip, drip in the trees all the day long. Alone I could not bear it. To-morrow or the next day I shall pack up my belongings and come to London. I am, unfortunately," she added, with a little sigh, "very, very poor, but it is my hope that you may find the papers, of which I have spoken to you, valuable."

Sogrange smiled faintly. Peter and he could scarcely forbear to exchange a single glance. The woman's candor was almost brutal. She read their thoughts.

"We ascend the hill," she continued. "We draw now very near to the end of our journey. There is still one thing I would say to you. Do not think too badly of me for what I am about to do. To Bernadine, while he lived, I was faithful. Many a time I could have told you of his plans and demanded a great sum of money, and you would have given it me willingly, but my lips were sealed because, in a way, I loved him. While he lived I gave him what I owed. To-day he is dead, and, whatever I do, it cannot concern him any more. To-day I am a free woman and I take the side I choose."

"Dear madame," he replied, "what you have proposed to us is, after all, quite natural and very gracious. If one has a fear at all about the matter, it is as to the importance of these doc.u.ments you speak of.