CHAPTER XV

BARON VON RINGHEIM

Baron von Ringheim had been sitting by Althea, and rose at my entrance and bowed to me with old world courtesy.

"My father, Mr. Bastable," said Althea; and at this he advanced toward me with hand extended.

I was still under the thrall of astonishment caused by my recognition, and only the expression of mingled pain, alarm and surprise on Althea's face enabled me to take his hand and mumble some formal reply.

He did not appear to notice anything strange in my conduct, however.

"I have to return you many thanks, sir, for the assistance which you have rendered to my daughter. She has told me how you have helped her, and I beg you to believe that I am sincerely grateful."

He said this with an air of great dignity, of patronage, indeed; almost as if in his opinion the opportunity of helping a daughter of his was something upon which I might well congratulate myself.

I murmured some sort of reply about having done very little.

"I would not have you belittle your services, Herr Bastable," he continued in the same indulgent tone. "I and Althea--for she is entirely with me in expressing this sentiment--are your debtors, distinctly your debtors. Our family is one of the oldest and highest in the Empire, and although at the present time we are the subjects of cruel persecution and have suffered egregious wrongs and abominable robbery, it shall never be said that we are deficient in gratitude."

This long and curious speech gave me time to recover myself, while the look of growing embarrassment and concern with which Althea regarded him while he was making it recalled to my memory what she had said of him on a former occasion.

"I beg you to say no more," I replied.

"That is the modesty of an English gentleman, and I appreciate it," he answered with another elaborate flourish and bow. "I have heard of you, Herr Bastable, and was assured that I should find a welcome here. For that also we thank you."

"My father can remain to-night?" asked Althea, as a sort of aside.

He heard this, however. "To be frank with you, Herr Bastable, I am in a slight difficulty for the moment. It is some time since I was in Berlin; as a matter of fact, I am not supposed to be allowed to come here at all, and if my presence were discovered it might lead to very serious embarrassment. I shall therefore appreciate it very highly if you will permit me to ask your hospitality for a while."

"I shall esteem it an honour, Baron."

"Again I beg to assure you that I am extremely grateful."

I had still great difficulty in suppressing the signs of infinite amazement that this could possibly be the same man whom I had seen in the company of the two ruffians in the old Jew's house.

"You look very tired and worried, Mr. Bastable," said Althea. "Bessie has very kindly seen to a room being prepared for my father."

"I am worn out, and shall ask the Baron to excuse me"; and we bowed gravely to one another. "But there is a question I should wish to put before retiring--who spoke so highly of me to you as to induce you to put this confidence in me to-night?"

"I knew that my daughter was here, Herr Bastable. The information came from a highly confidential source. But I was absolutely sure of you."

A glance of appeal from Althea accompanied this courteously worded roundabout refusal to tell me anything more, so I bade them good-night and went away. I was indeed so fatigued that even this strange development, with all the awkward and indeed perilous complications it threatened, could not keep me awake. I slept soundly for many hours, and did not awake until late in the morning.

Over my breakfast Bessie gave me her views of the Baron.

"He is a very strange old gentleman, Paul. His room is next to mine, you know; and I heard him moving about very early, hours before I got up. And when I saw him afterwards he had forgotten who I was, and spoke to me as if I were a servant. What do you make of him?"

"I am probably more puzzled than you are, Bess."

"How did he come here? Did Althea tell him of us?"

"I don't think so. Has she ever said anything to you about him?"

"Has she said anything to you? She did to me, but I don't know whether she meant me to tell you."

"About the effect of his troubles upon him, you mean?"

"Yes," she nodded rather eagerly. "I suppose he is harmless."

"Oh yes," I said with a smile. "He'll be all right in that respect. You needn't be scared."

"He has a loaded revolver. He left it under his pillow. Ellen was nearly frightened out of her life when she fetched me to see it."

"Where is it?"

"He came in for it just as we were both there. He was really very odd. He had that little bag of his with him and----"

"What little bag? Did he bring any luggage with him, then?"

"Nothing except the little leather bag. Well, he apologized to us, taking me for one of the servants, as I told you, and declared that the thing was not loaded--although I am sure it was--and made up a story that he was accustomed to have it with him just for practice, and said that we were not to say anything to any one about it; and then he offered us some money."

"What did you do?" I asked with a grin.

"It's no laughing matter, Paul. Ellen declares she can't stay in the house if he stops here."

"I'll see to it. But what did you do?"

"You don't suppose we took his money. I told him pretty sharply he had made a mistake; but he was so polite and seemed so sorry, that I couldn't be angry. But you'll have to do something, or we shall lose Ellen."

"Oh, I'll do something. You need not be frightened, nor Ellen either. So far as I can see, his brain has been affected by his troubles and persecution, and he is just a mixture of dignified gentleman and something else; and I'll see that when he is something else, he will not be able to do any harm."

"Poor Althea is in an awful state about it all. She almost broke down this morning when speaking to me about it, and you know what wonderful strength she has. She believes that he will be arrested here, that some one has betrayed us, and that he has been sent here merely to get us all into trouble. She intends to take him away somewhere to-day, I think."

"Well, it is a bit of a mix up, Bess, and that's the truth; but I'll find a way to straighten things out. You talk to Ellen and put her right, and if you can't, I'll see her. In the meantime, I'll go and talk things over with Althea and her father. I was too tired last night."

"Althea wants to see you. She told me so."

"All right. I'll go up to her room as soon as I have thought matters over."

It was of course quite on the cards that Althea's guess at the reason for her father's coming to my house was the right one; and it was certainly a disquieting suggestion. I remembered Feldermann's hints about my connexion with the Polish party and the questions put to me on the previous night by the police. If we were found harbouring a man who was held to be so dangerous as the Baron, the consequences to Althea and to us all might be really serious.

As to his object in Berlin at such a time, I myself could make a pretty fair guess. Ziegler had more than once suggested that a stroke of some sort was to be attempted soon, and the mysterious hints dropped to me that day in the club by the Polish journalist prompted the exceedingly disquieting thought that the attempt might take the form of some kind of violence.

That Baron von Ringheim was in league with the more desperate section of the party was shown plainly by his having been with two of them on the previous night at the Jew's house on a mission of violence. Yet he had obviously gone to the house to attempt to prevent violence. His protests had proved as much.

So far as I could judge, he had gone there to investigate some charges of treachery which had been made against the murdered man; and that von Felsen had intentionally started those suspicions, and had in some way been instrumental in sending the men to the house, I was convinced. But why send such a man as the Baron? Did von Felsen know that he was actually in Berlin--and then a light seemed to break in upon everything.

It must have been through von Felsen that the news of Althea's whereabouts had been conveyed to her father, and he had deliberately contrived that he should arrive at a moment when the murder had just been committed--apparently by Ziegler's associates. The moment of all others when the Baron would be in the greatest need of shelter.

But one of the most perplexing parts of the puzzle still remained to be solved. What was the precise character of the relationship between the Baron and the rest of this Polish party? Althea had suggested that although formerly he had been a real power amongst them, in later years his authority and influence had ceased.

There had been ample ground in the conduct of the two men toward him on the preceding night to confirm this, but I must satisfy myself completely on the point. I was ready, for Althea's sake, to run the risk of harbouring him; but I was certainly not going to allow him to use the house for the furtherance of any schemes of his party, whether violent or not.

I went upstairs, resolved to find this out from himself. I was fortunate to find him alone in his room. I could talk more plainly to him alone than when Althea was present.

He had the little bag of which my sister had spoken, and he gave a little start of surprise and hurriedly shut and locked it. I think he was rather offended at the abrupt manner in which I entered the room, and with much the same outward show of old-fashioned courtesy which he had displayed on the previous night there was a nervous restlessness which was fresh.

He greeted me with a bow and words of thanks, and for a moment we played at just being guest and host. But I kept my eyes fixed steadily on him all the time, and he began to grow exceedingly uncomfortable under the scrutiny, and at length found himself quite unable to meet my eyes.

"You must excuse me now, Herr Bastable," he said at length; and hugging his bag as if it contained all he had in the world, he made as if to leave the room.

For a second or two I did not reply, but just stared hard first at him and then very pointedly at the bag.

"I must first ask you one or two questions, Baron von Ringheim." I dropped the courteous tone and put a spice of sharpness into my tone.

He noticed it at once and drew himself up, but could not meet my eyes. "I don't understand by what right you adopt that tone, sir."

"And you will please to answer me quite frankly. Nothing else will satisfy me or meet the needs of the case."

"This is quite extraordinary."

I pointed at the bag. "You have a revolver there. Why?"

"I decline to be questioned in this tone by you or any one, sir. I am under an obligation to you for what you have done for my daughter and now for myself, but this gives you no right----"

"I take the right, Baron. In the first place, believe that I am wishful to be your friend in every sense of the term, and you may safely give me your fullest confidence. Your daughter will have told you that, I am sure."

"My private affairs----"

"Are precisely those which I am determined to know, Baron," I broke in pretty sternly. I felt that I must dominate him. "This is as much for your own sake as for your daughter's. Now, please, an answer."

But he would not answer, and made an attempt to avoid doing so by a show of anger.

"Tell me then the object of your presence in Berlin?" I said next.

"This is insufferable conduct, sir. Insufferable," he cried.

I should have to hit him harder if I was to do anything with him. "Tell me then what you were doing at the house of Herr Ziegler just after he had been assassinated last night?"

The effect was instantaneous. He turned very white, stared at me for a second and began to tremble violently.

"What do you mean?" he faltered after a pause.

"I was there and saw you, Baron."

He clasped his hands to his face and fell back into a chair.

"Remember, please, that I speak only as a friend. I declare to you on my honour that I have no motive but to help you. But I must be told everything. Put yourself unreservedly into my hands, and I can and will save you; but there must be no half measures. I repeat, you must tell me everything."

For a long time he was unable to speak a word, and I made no attempt to force matters. I wished him to recover some measure of self-control.

"I had nothing to do with that--that deed," he said presently, speaking in a slow broken tone.

"I know that. I know that the man was dead before you arrived; but your companions came prepared to do it, and but for my presence, there would have been a second murder."

"No, no, no," he protested.

"I know what I say to be true, Baron; just as I am convinced that you went there to protest against any violence at all."

"Ah, you know that. Yes, that is true. I swear that," he cried eagerly. "I should have prevented it. My authority as leader would have prevented it. Would to Heaven I had been in time!"

"You have great influence with your associates, then?"

"I am the leader of the whole movement. My word is absolute."

The declaration was made with a singular mixture of pride and simpleness. It was obvious that he believed it. "You think those men last night would have obeyed you?"

"They would not have dared to disobey," he replied in the same tone. "I went there to inquire into a charge of treachery against Ziegler--that he had betrayed some of our plans to an Englishman---- Why it was to you, of course." He said this with a little start as if he had just recalled it. "I was called to Berlin on that very matter."

I began to see light now. Althea was right in one respect--his mind was so affected and his memory so clouded that consecutive reasoning was impossible. He was not responsible for either words or deeds. But there was more behind. Some one was using him as a stalking horse for very sinister purposes.

"You arrived in the capital yesterday and were told to come to the house of a man believed to be about to betray your schemes?"

"Yes," he said simply, almost pathetically.

"Can you think of any reason for that?"

"No. I didn't understand it. I forgot until this moment, indeed, that you were the suspected Englishman."

It was obviously useless to question him any more about that. "Now, as to this other purpose--the bigger plan of your associates?"

"You know that too?"

"Have I not proved to you that I know things? But I am not a traitor, Baron."

He smiled childishly. He had become almost like a child, indeed, now. "It will be a grand stroke against the Government. We shall destroy the vessel, of course; but there will be no loss of life. I will not sanction the taking of lives, Herr Bastable."

So this was the scheme. To blow up one of the Kaiser's warships. I repressed all signs of astonishment and tried to look as if I had expected the reply. "But you cannot avoid loss of life, Baron."

It proved a very fortunate remark. With a very cunning smile he looked up and nodded his head knowingly. "I shall not allow it to be done until I am sure of that. I keep the bomb in my own possession till then"; and he hugged the little bag closer than ever to his side.

Here was a complication indeed. A lunatic in the house with a bomb in his possession capable of blowing a warship to fragments.

And this was the man I had described to Bessie as harmless!