Elusive Isabel Part 21

"And now what?" he demanded abruptly. "This man has treated us as if we were a pair of children."

"He's a wonderful man," she replied.

"That may be--but we have been fools to allow him to do all this."

Miss Thorne turned flatly and faced him.

"We are not beaten yet," she said slowly. "If all things go well we--we are not beaten yet."

The _Lusitania_ was rounding Montauk Point when the wireless brought her to half-speed with a curt message:

"Isabel Thorne and Pietro Petrozinni aboard _Lusitania_ wanted on warrants charging conspiracy. Tug-boat will take them off, intercepting you beyond Montauk Point.

"CAMPBELL, Secret Service."

"What does _that_ mean?" asked the prince, bewildered.

"It means that the compact will be signed in Was.h.i.+ngton in spite of Mr.

Grimm," and there was the glitter of triumph in her eyes. "With the aid of one of the maids in the depot at Jersey City I managed to get a telegram of explanation and instruction to De Foe in New York, and this is the result. He signed Mr. Campbell's name, I suppose, to give weight to the message."

An hour later a tug-boat came alongside, and they went aboard.

XX

THE LIGHT IN THE DOME

From where he sat, in a tiny alcove which jutted out and encroached upon the line of the sidewalk, Mr. Grimm looked down on Pennsylvania Avenue, the central thread of Was.h.i.+ngton, ever changing, always brilliant, splashed at regular intervals with light from high-flung electric arcs.

The early theater crowd was in the street, well dressed, well fed, careless for the moment of all things save physical comfort and amus.e.m.e.nt; automobiles, carriages, cabs, cars flowed past endlessly; and yet Mr. Grimm saw naught of it. In the distance, at one end of the avenue the dome of the capitol cleft the shadows of night, and a single light sparkled at its apex; in the other direction, at the left of the treasury building which abruptly blocks the wide thoroughfare, were the s.h.i.+mmering windows of the White House.

Motionless, moody, thoughtful, Mr. Grimm sat staring, staring straight ahead, comprehending none of these things which lay before him as in a panorama. Instead, his memory was conjuring up a pair of subtle, blue-gray eyes, now pleading, now coquettish, now frankly defiant; two slim, white, wonderful hands; the echo of a pleasant, throaty laugh; a splendid, elusive, radiant-haired phantom. Truly, a woman of mystery!

Who was this Isabel Thorne who, for months past, had been the storm-center and directing mind of a vast international intrigue which threatened the world with war? Who, this remarkable young woman who with ease and a.s.surance commanded amba.s.sadors and played nations as p.a.w.ns?

Now that she was safely out of the country Mr. Grimm had leisure to speculate. Upon him had devolved the duty of blocking her plans, and he had done so--merciless alike of his own feeling and of hers. Hesitation or evasion had never occurred to him. It was a thing to be done, and he did it. He wondered if she had understood, there at the last beside the rail? He wondered if she knew the struggle it had cost him deliberately to send her out of his life? Or had even surmised that her expulsion from the country, by his direct act, was wholly lacking in the exaltation of triumph to him; that it struck deeper than that, below the listless, official exterior, into his personal happiness? And wondering, he knew that she _did_ understand.

A silent shod waiter came and placed the coffee things at his elbow. He didn't heed. The waiter poured a demi-ta.s.se, and inquiringly lifted a lump of sugar in the silver tongs. Still Mr. Grimm didn't heed. At last the waiter deposited the sugar on the edge of the fragile saucer, and moved away as silently as he had come. A newspaper which Mr. Grimm had placed on the end of the table when he sat down, rattled a little as a breeze from the open window caught it, then the top sheet slid off and fell to the floor. Mr. Grimm was still staring out the window.

Slowly the room behind him was thinning of its crowd as the theater-bound diners went out in twos and threes. The last of these disappeared finally, and save for Mr. Grimm there were not more than a dozen persons left in the place. Thus for a few minutes, and then the swinging doors leading from the street clicked, and a gentleman entered.

He glanced around, as if seeking a seat near a window, then moved along in Mr. Grimm's direction, between the rows of tables. His gaze lingered on Mr. Grimm for an instant, and when he came opposite he stooped and picked up the fallen newspaper sheet.

"Your paper?" he inquired courteously.

Mr. Grimm was still gazing dreamily out of the window.

"I beg pardon," insisted the new-comer pleasantly. He folded the paper once and replaced it on the table. One hand lingered for just the fraction of a moment above Mr. Grimm's coffee-cup.

Aroused by the remark, Mr. Grimm glanced around.

"Oh, thank you," he apologized hastily. "I didn't hear you at first.

Thank you."

The new-comer nodded, smiled and pa.s.sed on, taking a seat two or three tables down.

Apparently this trifling courtesy had broken the spell of reverie, for Mr. Grimm squared around to the table again, drew his coffee-cup toward him, and dropped in the single lump of sugar. He idly stirred it for a moment, as his eyes turned again toward the open window, then he lifted the tiny cup and emptied it.

Again he sat motionless for a long time, and thrice the new-comer, only a few feet away, glanced at him narrowly. And now, it seemed, a peculiar drowsiness was overtaking Mr. Grimm. Once he caught himself nodding and raised his head with a jerk. Then he noticed that the arc lights in the street were wobbling curiously, and he fell to wondering why that single flame sparkled at the apex of the capitol dome. Things around him grew hazy, vague, unreal, and then, as if realizing that something was the matter with him, he came to his feet.

He took one step forward into the s.p.a.ce between the tables, reeled, attempted to steady himself by holding on to a chair, then everything grew black about him, and he pitched forward on the floor. His face was dead white; his fingers moved a little, nervously, weakly, then they were still.

Several people rose at the sound of the falling body, and the new-comer hurried forward. His coat sleeve caught the empty demi-ta.s.se, as he stooped, and swept it to the floor, where it was shattered. The head waiter and another came, pell-mell, and those diners who had risen came more slowly.

"What's the matter?" asked the head waiter anxiously.

Already the new-comer was supporting Mr. Grimm on his knee, and flicking water in his face.

"Nothing serious, I fancy," he answered shortly. "He's subject to these little attacks."

"What are they? Who is he?"

The stranger tore at Mr. Grimm's collar until it came loose, then he fell to chafing the still hands.

"He is a Mr. Grimm, a government employee--I know him," he answered again. "I imagine it's nothing more serious than indigestion."

A little knot had gathered about them, with offers of a.s.sistance.

"Waiter, hadn't you better send for a physician?" some one suggested.

"I'm a physician," the stranger put in impatiently. "Have some one call a cab, and I'll see that he's taken home. It happens that we live in the same apartment house, just a few blocks from here."

Obedient to the crisply-spoken directions, a cab was called, and five minutes later Mr. Grimm, still insensible, was lifted into it. The stranger took a seat beside him, the cabby touched his horse with a whip, and the vehicle fell into the endless, moving line.

XXI

A SLIP OF PAPER

When the light of returning consciousness finally pierced the black lethargy that enshrouded him, Mr. Grimm's mind was a chaos of vagrant, absurd fantasies; then slowly, slowly, realization struggled back to its own, and he came to know things. First was the knowledge that he was lying flat on his back, on a couch, it seemed; then, that he was in the dark--an utter, abject darkness. And finally came an overwhelming sense of silence.

For a while he lay motionless, with not even the movement of an eye-lash to indicate consciousness, wrapped in a delicious languor. Gradually this pa.s.sed and the feeble flutter of his heart grew into a steady, rhythmic beat. The keen brain was awakening; he was beginning to remember. What had happened? He knew only that in some manner a drug had been administered to him, a bitter dose tasting of opium; that speechlessly, he had fought against it, that he had risen from the table in the restaurant, and that he had fallen. All the rest was blank.

With eyes still closed, and nerveless hands inert at his sides he listened, the while he turned the situation over in speculative mood.

The waiter had administered the drug, of course, unless--unless it had been the courteous stranger who had replaced the newspaper on the table!

That thought opened new fields of conjecture. Mr. Grimm had no recollection of ever having seen him before; and he had paid only the enforced attention of politeness to him. And why had the drug been administered? Vaguely, incoherently, Mr. Grimm imagined that in some way it had to do with the great international plot of war in which Miss Thorne was so delicate and vital an instrument.