CHAPTER XII

MURDER

It was no doubt quite for the best that my sister interrupted us at such a moment. Althea's solicitude on my account; the sacrifice she had shown herself ready to make to secure my safety, and the emotion caused by my return, had filled me with stronger hopes than I had ever ventured to encourage before.

Yet to have spoken the words which Bessie's entrance had prevented, would only have complicated matters and have placed Althea in a position of supreme embarrassment. Whatever her feeling might be for me, she still held paramount what she believed to be her duty in regard to her father, and continued to look upon the marriage with von Felsen as a possible alternative.

There was another consideration, moreover. If I had blurted out the declaration of my love, it would make it very difficult, if not actually impossible, for her to remain longer in the same house with us.

Bessie was quick to understand that she had entered at an awkward moment, and paused for an instant by the door. "I could not wait any longer when I knew Herr von Felsen had gone," she said doubtfully.

"There is no reason why you should, Bess," I replied.

"Come and sit by me," said Althea, making room for her. "And now, Mr. Bastable, was I not right in thinking that Herr von Felsen was at the bottom of all your trouble? I read an absolute confirmation of it in his face when you came in; although I was sure of it before, of course, when I told Herr Feldermann."

"It is one thing to guess and another to have proof," I said, and went on to give them a general account of my adventure of the preceding night. They both plied me with a host of questions until at length I had to avoid the fusillade on the plea that I was both famished and worn out.

Bessie ran off at once to have something got ready for me, and again Althea and I were alone. But I had myself well in hand now. Besides, the conditions were changed; the moment of emotion had passed, and we were both cooler.

"It was on my account then that you got into this danger?" she said.

"If von Felsen was in it, probably; but then there has never been any love lost between us. He has always owed me a grudge." I had not admitted that I knew he had planned the thing.

"If you can prove it, you will have him punished?"

"I hope to deal with him in another way yet."

"Is it not all a terrible complication?"

"I think we shall unravel it," I said hopefully.

Bessie came back then to say that all was ready for me and I rose.

"How shall I ever be able to repay my obligation, Mr. Bastable?"

"I shall manage to get even with you some day, I expect. Bessie will tell you that whenever I do a little thing for her, she has to pay the price, eh Bess?"

"Bessie has already told me lots of things," was the reply.

"Ah, you mustn't believe half she says. She's a born gossip," I answered, and then went off.

The next morning I went early to the Jew's house and found him full of the news of my disappearance. I did not tell him what had occurred, merely that I had had to leave the city and had been detained.

"I came to see you that night because I wanted to know if your daughter's marriage could not be postponed for a time."

"It is fixed for to-morrow, Herr Bastable, and everything is arranged."

"I'm afraid you'll have to put it off, Ziegler." But he would not listen to this. He was deaf alike to arguments, persuasions and threats. And while we were in the midst of a heated discussion about it, Hagar herself came in.

He told her what I wished; but she added her protests to his and spoke with great passion. She was intensely agitated at the suggestion, and wound up a fierce tirade with the vehement declaration: "If it is put off, father, I will kill myself." And that ended the matter.

She was a strange girl; and the instant I said that I should urge it no more, she seized my hand and pressed her lips to it, not a little to my embarrassment. "It is you I have to thank for its taking place so soon, Herr Bastable. I know that. Father has told me all: and I shall never cease to feel that you have been my best friend throughout."

"You see," said the Jew, lifting up his hands, when she had left the room.

"All right. Let us talk about something else. How goes the matter of the papers?"

"Just as we should wish; but I was sorry you did not come to me yesterday. I had arranged for you to see some of my friends."

"I can see them to-day. I am in earnest, and mean to go through with the thing. I am as eager as you yourself, I assure you."

He sat thinking a moment. "I ought to tell you, I think. There has been some rumour again of betrayal of our plans. Only vague, I give you my honour; but hints which I do not understand. You have not spoken to any one?"

"Not to a soul."

"I do not understand it. I do not understand it," he repeated. "Questions were even put to me about myself--to me, who have given so much to the cause and done so much, too. But if any questions are put to you to-day, you will understand the reason. Will you come here this afternoon?"

After some further conversation I agreed to return in the afternoon and left him. I attached little or no importance to his statements at the time, but they had a more than sinister look when I came to recall them in the light of after events.

I knew I was playing with double-edged tools in the affair. Suspicion of my good faith would bring on me the anger of men to whom treachery was the one unforgivable crime; while, on the other hand, the mere fact of my having any dealings at all with them might place me in jeopardy with the authorities.

It was for this reason that I had resolved to prevent von Felsen having any knowledge of the part I was playing until the very last moment. I should not be a free man for an hour after he got wind of the thing, unless I was in a position to call a halt by means of my knowledge of his own acts.

From Ziegler I went to Chalice, and found matters in a pretty muddle. Ever since I had seen her two days before she had been in a condition of excited indecision; and as I had not gone to her, she had sent for Prince von Graven. He was there when I arrived, and she had just told him all I had said to her.

His reception of me may be imagined. He looked as if it would have given him the pleasure of his life to run me through there and then, and his furiously indignant denunciation of my interference in the affair matched his looks.

A very warm altercation followed, in the course of which it came out that the Kaiser had heard the rumours in regard to the Prince and Althea. Chalice watched us both and appeared to side with each in turn. She evidently wished to be able both to marry a man of his high rank, and yet to secure the triumph of the promised Court patronage.

At length I began to find myself losing command of my temper under the fire of his invective, so I held my tongue and let him rage at will.

"If ill temper would solve the difficulty we should very soon settle it," I declared, when a pause gave me a chance to speak. "But we are not doing an atom of good by all this talk. The thing is perfectly simple: Fraeulein Chalice can either give up this chance or give up you. One of the two sacrifices she must make, and if we stay here and talk till to-morrow morning we can't alter the position."

"You have no right to interfere, sir," he rapped back.

"My interference has consisted in telling her the plain truth."

"To attempt to come between us in this way is unjustifiable, monstrous. I will not allow it either. You shall answer to me, sir."

"I don't care a snap of my finger for your anger, Prince von Graven; and I certainly do not intend to have a personal quarrel over the thing. Can you deny that I have put the matter in its true light?"

"That is not the point. The point is your conduct."

I shrugged my shoulders and turned to Chalice. "It is for you to decide. I shall of course take your answer as final."

"But how can I decide? Is there no way out?"

"There is only one of the two ways. You can't have both. I will come for your decision in an hour," I replied and rose. I thought that it would be best for me to leave them together to discuss it alone.

But Chalice stopped me. "Don't go, Herr Bastable; but excuse us a moment"; and she took him into another room.

She was soon back again, smiling and carolling an air from one of her songs. "The Prince has gone," she announced. "He is in a tearing rage and vows he will never see me again if I do what you ask. But I shall do it. I wrote the letter yesterday, and it took me such a time. Here it is"; and she handed it to me.

"I may place this in hands which will give it to the Emperor?"

"Why, of course," she cried. "But you must make sure that it does get to him."

"I can promise that, I think."

"You don't know how I thank you, Herr Bastable," she said gaily, as we shook hands. "And if I tell the truth, I would really rather please the Kaiser than the Prince. I would indeed, although I didn't dare to say so while he was here. He is such a dear fellow. I hate to make him angry; but he is awfully handsome when he is in a rage, isn't he? And if he doesn't come round this time, I can't help it, can I? And now I must get to my practice. Good-bye."

In this way she settled it; and whether she did or did not care for the man who was willing to sacrifice all his prospects in life for her sake, I could not even then determine. Nor did I, in truth, very much care.

I went straight with the letter to Herr Borsen, who showed some surprise at seeing me. "I heard strange news about you, Herr Bastable. I am glad to see there was no truth in it. You were reported to have disappeared."

"I have reappeared, that's all; and I have news for you, which I think you will agree is of importance."

"You newspaper men have certainly the habit of rushing matters," he smiled. "What is it?"

"We must have a deal over it. It is something that the Emperor will be very glad to know; and if I tell you, will you give me an undertaking to get it direct to him?"

"Would you wish His Majesty to be also a party to the matter?" he asked with a very dry smile. "Or perhaps you would prefer an audience with him?"

I affected to take his jibe as earnest and replied very seriously: "Yes, that would be by far the simplest course."

"You could then force your own terms on him."

"Exactly. Do you think I had better just drop in on him in a friendly way?" I paused and then added: "Or shall we quit fooling and settle something?"

"What is the nature of your news?"

"I understand that at length the news about Prince von Graven and Fraeulein Korper has reached His Majesty. Is that so?"

"Undoubtedly; and with results."

"Well, if I can hand you a statement as to the truth of the whole affair, together with a written renunciation on the lady's part, will you pledge me your word of honour that it shall go straight to the Kaiser?"

"You're a cool hand, Bastable," he said laughing.

"Well, my dear fellow, there are other ways of doing it; but I know enough of Court affairs to be aware that any one who could claim the credit of having obtained such a document would do himself a good turn. I would rather you had the credit than any one else; but you see you are Count von Felsen's secretary, and I have to reckon with him."

He sat thinking. He knew the advantage to be gained as well as I did. "Yes, I'll give you my word," he said after the pause.

I handed him the letter which Chalice had given me without a word, and watched his mounting surprise as he read it. "But this is not from Fraeulein Korper at all."

"No. That's the mistake. The Prince cares no more for her than you do"; and I made the matter plain, taking good care to emphasize the sacrifice which Althea had made and her real motive.

"She is a singer, then?" he asked, referring to Chalice.

"She has one of the most beautiful voices you ever heard, Borsen. She is Grumpel's favourite pupil, and he is putting her into the programme for the State concert next week in the place of his Prima, who has disappointed him."

He looked at me, his eyes full of meaning and his lips drawn into a dry smile. "I think I see. And you don't wish to appear in it?"

"You can shut me clean out of the picture if you like"; and I rose.

"I hope she will make the sensation old Grumpel expects. She ought to, after this," he said as we shook hands.

"Oh, by the way," I said, turning at the door as if with an afterthought, "I expect to have some almost equally important news for you about the von Felsen marriage in a day or two. Matters are in train."

"Are you going to bring that off too?" he exclaimed. "Upon my word, I shall begin to have some real belief in you newspaper men."

"I only want a few days," I replied casually.

"After this, you can have a month, of course, or as long as you wish."

I returned home, speculating rather uneasily what Althea would say when I told her what had occurred; but she was not in the house, and my sister told me she had gone to see Chalice. I was not sorry that Chalice should tell her the news.

In the afternoon I spent an hour or two with Herr Ziegler, and was introduced to some of the men associated with him in the political schemes of the Polish party.

I could not see any real reason for me to meet them, and I said as little as possible, beyond expressing sympathy with their cause and a willingness to help in the manner arranged with the Jew.

They appeared to be equally on their guard with me; and the chief impression left on my mind was that the men were not going straight; that some of them distrusted Ziegler, and were disposed therefore to regard me with no little suspicion. There was an air of insincerity, a disposition to fence, and such a reluctance to do more than hint and insinuate and imply, that I felt anything but easy in mind.

I told the Jew my opinion when the rest had left us; but he explained it away as no more than the caution natural under the circumstances.

However, the main thing I cared about was the arrangement that I was to be the go-between with von Felsen in getting the papers; and as any hour might bring the news that he had obtained them, Ziegler and I were to keep in constant touch.

But the more I thought over the afternoon's interviews the less I liked the look of things, and the stronger grew the impression that there was something crooked. I began to worry myself with the fear that the plan on which so much depended would go wrong.

For the first time, also, there was something like a cloud between Althea and myself as the result of the news Chalice had told her. She said little more than that she knew what had been done; but added that, as there was no longer any reason for her to remain with us, she had decided to return home on the following morning.

I took this as a sign of her dissatisfaction at my action; and as I was in a fretful and rather irritable mood, I just held my tongue. The evening was thus passed with a feeling of restraint which all Bessie's efforts could not remove.

I sat worrying over matters for a few minutes after they had left me, and at length grew so uneasy that I resolved to go at once to Ziegler to thresh out with him my doubts about his friends. I could not rest quiet or shake off the sense of impending trouble; and I soon had a tragic and terrible confirmation of my fears.

I was close to his house when I met Hagar rushing along the street distraught with terror. She was bareheaded, her eyes wide and fright-stricken, and she was so absorbed by her agitation, that she did not see me and did not even hear me when I first called to her.

I turned and caught her up.

"What has happened?" I asked, seizing her arm.

She tried at first to break away from me with a cry of fear, as if not recognizing me.

"I am Mr. Bastable, your father's friend. Tell me what is the matter."

She looked at me with a dazed expression, trembling violently the while, and then, with a great effort as if her emotion were choking her, she told me.

"I was coming to you. Oh, Herr Bastable, my father is dead. He has been murdered. Oh God! Oh God!"

I caught my breath with the shock of the tidings, and in an instant all my suspicions of the afternoon recurred to me with startling force.