The Lady in the Car Part 18

"`Good evening, Monsieur Martin,' he exclaimed with a sinister grin upon his thin face. `You expected, I believe, to meet Mademoiselle Olga, eh?'

"`Well--I expected to meet you,' I laughed, `for I saw you in Pera to-day.'

"He looked at me quickly, as his servant at that moment handed him his coffee on a tray.

"`I did not see you,' he said somewhat uneasily, raising his cup to his lips. Then, noticing that I had not touched mine, he asked, `Don't you take coffee? Will you have a gla.s.s of rahki?'

"`I desire nothing,' I said, looking him straight in the face.

"`But surely you will take something? We often drank together in the Club at Sofia, remember!'

"`I do not drink with my enemies.'

"The trio started, glaring at me.

"`You are distinctly insulting,' exclaimed Mehmed, his yellow face growing flushed with anger. `Recall those words, or by the Prophet, you do not pa.s.s from this house alive!'

"I laughed aloud in their faces.

"`Ah!' I cried, `this is amusing! This is really a good joke! And pray what do you threaten?'

"`We do not threaten,' Zekki said. `You are here to die.' And he laughed grimly, while the others grinned.

"`Why?'

"`That is our affair.'

"`And mine also,' I replied. `And gentlemen, I would further advise you in future to be quite certain of your victim, or it may go ill with you.

Let me pa.s.s!' And I drew the revolver the _kava.s.s_ had given me.

"`Put that thing away!' ordered the elder of the men, approaching me with threatening gesture.

"`I shall not. Let us end this confounded foolishness.

_Shunam-al-Zulah_!'

"The effect of these words upon the trio was electrical.

"The sallow-faced _attache_ stood staring at me open-mouthed, while his companions fell back, as though I had dealt them both a blow. They seemed too dumbfounded to respond, as, revolver in hand, I next moment pa.s.sed out of the room and from that house to which I had been so cleverly lured, and where my death had evidently been planned.

"At the hotel I spent a sleepless night, full of deep anxiety, wondering for what reason the curious plot had been arranged, and whether my dainty little companion had had any hand in it.

"My apprehensions were, however, entirely dispelled when early on the following been morning, Olga called to ask why I had absent when the _kava.s.s_ had called for me.

"I took her into one of the smaller rooms, and told her the whole truth, whereat she was much upset, and eager to leave the Turkish capital immediately.

"At seven that same evening we sailed for Naples, and without further incident duly arrived at the Italian port, took train for Rome, and thence by express to Paris and Charing Cross.

"On the journey she refused to discuss the plot of the jealous, evil-eyed Turk. Her one idea was to get to London--and to freedom.

"At eleven o'clock at night we stepped out upon Charing Cross platform, and I ordered the cabman to drive me to the Cecil, for when acting the part of Reggie Martin, I always avoided Dover Street. It was too late to catch the Scotch mail, therefore I would be compelled to spend the first day of the pheasants in London, and start north to my friends on the following day.

"Suddenly as we entered the station she had decided also to spend the night at the Cecil and leave next day for Ipswich, where a brother of hers was a tutor.

"I wished her good-night in the big hall of the hotel, and went up in the lift.

"Rising about half-past six next morning and entering my sitting-room, I was amazed to encounter Olga, fully dressed in hat and caracul jacket, standing in the grey dawn, reading a paper which she had taken from my despatch-box!

"Instantly she dropped her hand, and stood staring at me without uttering a word, knowing full well that I had discovered the astounding truth.

"I recognised the doc.u.ment by the colour of the paper.

"`Well, mademoiselle?' I demanded in a hard tone, `And for what reason, pray, do you pry into my private papers like this?'

"`I--I was waiting to bid you adieu,' she answered tamely.

"`And you were at the same time making yourself acquainted with the contents of that doc.u.ment which I have carried in my belt ever since I left Sofia--that doc.u.ment of which you and your interesting friend, Zekki, have ever since desired sight--eh?' I exclaimed, bitterly. `My duty is to call in the police, and hand you over as a political Spy to be expelled from the country.'

"`If m'sieur wishes to do that he is at perfect liberty to do so,' she answered, in quick defiance. `The result is the same. I have read Petkoff's declaration, so the paper is of no further use,' and she handed it to me with a smile of triumph upon those childlike lips.

`Arrest or liberty--I am entirely in monsieur's hands,' she added, shrugging her shoulders.

"I broke forth into a torrent of reproach for I saw that Bulgaria had been betrayed to her arch-enemy, Turkey, by that sweet-faced woman who had so completely deceived me, and who, after the first plot had failed, had so cleverly carried the second to a successful issue.

"Defiant to the last, she stood smiling in triumph. Even when I openly accused her of being a spy she only laughed.

"Therefore I opened the door and sternly ordered her to leave, knowing, alas! that, now she had ascertained the true facts, the Bulgarian secret policy towards Turkey would be entirely negatived, that the terrible atrocities in Macedonia must continue, and that the Russian influence in Bulgaria would still remain paramount.

"I held my silence, and spent a dull and thoughtful Sunday in the great London hotel. Had I remained in Bucharest, as was my duty, and handed the doc.u.ment in Petkoff's handwriting to the King's Messenger, who was due to pa.s.s in the Orient express, the dainty Olga could never have obtained sight of it. This she knew, and for that reason had told me the story of her torture in the prison at Riga and urged me to save her.

Zekki, knowing that I constantly carried the secret declaration of Bulgaria in the belt beneath my clothes, saw that only by my unconsciousness, or death, could they obtain sight of it. Hence the dastardly plot to kill me, frustrated by the utterance of the pa.s.sword of the Turkish spies themselves.

"It is useless for a man to cross swords with a pretty woman where it is a matter of ingenuity and double-dealing. With the chiefs of the Foreign Office absent, I could only exist in anxiety and dread, and when I acted it was, alas! too late.

"Inquiries subsequently made in Constantinople showed that the house in which Zekki had received me, situated near the konak of Ali Saib Pasha, was the headquarters of the Turkish Secret Service, of which the sallow-faced scoundrel was a well-known member, and that on the evening of the day of my return to London the body of Nicholas, the Montenegrin _kava.s.s_ who saved my life, had been found floating in the Bosphorus.

Death had been his reward for warning me!

"Readers of the newspapers are well aware how, two months later, as a result of Turkish intrigue in Sofia, my poor friend Dimitri Petkoff, Prime Minister of Bulgaria, was shot through the heart while walking with me in the Boris Garden.

"Both Bulgarian and Turkish Governments have, however, been very careful to suppress intelligence of a dramatic incident which occurred in Constantinople only a few weeks ago. Olga Steinkoff, the secret agent employed by the Sublime Porte, was, at her house in the Sarmaschik quarter, handed by her maid a beautiful basket of fruit that had been sent by an admirer. The dainty woman with the childlike face cut the string, when, lo! there darted forth four hissing, venomous vipers. Two of the reptiles struck, biting her white wrist ere she could withdraw, and an hour later, her face swollen out of all recognition, she died in terrible agony.

"The betrayal of Bulgaria and the a.s.sa.s.sination of Petkoff, the patriot, have, indeed, been swiftly avenged."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE SIGN OF THE CAT'S-PAW.

Another part which the Prince played in the present-day drama now being enacted in Eastern Europe brought him in touch with "The Sign of the Cat's-Paw," a sign hitherto unknown to our Foreign Office, or to readers of the daily newspapers.

At the same time, however, it very nearly cost him his own life.