Chapter 9

"And hasn't she remained disappeared?"

Carpenter nodded.

"Then I'm inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. I'll trust her, until I've seen something to warrant distrust--bearing in mind, however, what you have just told me, and the possibility of my being mistaken. I reckon I can veer quickly enough if--"

The telephone rang. Carpenter picked up the receiver.

"Yes, Mr. Harleston is here," he replied, passing the receiver across.

"Yes," said Harleston. "Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Clephane.... Very nice, indeed.... Be delighted!... In ten minutes, I'll be there. Good-bye." He pushed back the instrument. "Mrs. Clephane has telephoned that she must see me at once. Meanwhile--the key-word, my friend."

Carpenter drummed on the table, and frowned at the door that had closed behind Harleston.

"The man's bewitched," he muttered. "However I threw a slight scare into him, and maybe it will make him pause; he is not quite devoid of sense. Bah! All women are vampires."

XIII

THE MARQUIS

"Mrs. Clephane will be right down, Mr. Harleston," said the telephone operator.

A moment later the elevator flashed into sight, and Mrs. Clephane stepped out and came forward with the languorously lithe step, perfectly in keeping with her slender figure. She wore a dark blue street suit, and under her small hat her glorious hair flamed like an incandescent aureole. She greeted Harleston with an intimate little nod and smile.

"You're good to come!" she said.

"To myself, I think I'm more than good," he answered.

"No, no, sir!" she smiled. "No more compliments between us, if we're to be friends."

"We're to be _friends_," he returned.

"_Ergo_," she replied. "Sit down just a minute, will you?"

"I'll sit down for a month, if you're--"

"_Ergo! Ergo!_" she reminded him.

"I had not gotten used to the unusual restriction" he exclaimed. "You're the first woman ever I met or heard of who dislikes compliments."

"I don't dislike compliments, Mr. Harleston; but compliments, it seems, are given in diplomacy for a purpose; and as I don't understand anything of diplomacy we would better cut them out--until we have finished with diplomacy. Then you may offer as many as you like, and I'll believe them or not as I'm minded."

"Have it as you wish!" he smiled, looking into the brown eyes with frank admiration.

"Compliments may be conveyed by looks as well as by words," she reproved.

"But of the feeling that prompts the look you can be in no doubt. Moreover, a look is silent."

"Nonsense," said she. "Besides, I want to ask you a favour. You see, I'm prepared to go out--and I want you to go with me. Will you do it?"

"It will have to be mightily against my conscience to make me refuse _you_," Harleston replied.

"I'm glad you recognize a conscience," she remarked.

"I refer to my diplomatic conscience."

"And a diplomatic conscience is a minus quantity," she observed.

"What is it you would of me, dear lady?" he asked.

"I would that you should go with me to the French Ambassador, and help me to explain the--now don't say you won't, Mr. Harleston--"

"My dear Mrs. Clephane, it is--" he began.

"It is _not_ impossible!" she declared. "Why won't you do it?"

"For your sake as well as for my own," he explained. "America and France are not working together in this matter, and for me to accompany you would result simply in your being obliged to explain _me_ as well as the letter, besides leading to endless complications and countless suspicions. Didn't I expound this last evening?"

"You did--also much more; but I've thought over it almost the whole night, and I simply must get this miserable letter off my mind. Perhaps Mrs. Spencer has forestalled me with the Ambassador and has given him such a tale as will insure my being shown the door; nevertheless I'll risk it."

"Why don't you get in communication with your friend Madame Durrand," Harleston suggested "and have her, if she hasn't done so already, identify you to the Marquis?"

"I shall, if the Marquis is sceptical. I'll admit that I'm pitiably foolish, but I don't want Mrs. Durrand to know how I've bungled her matter until the bungle is corrected."

"I can quite understand," said Harleston gently.

"Oh, I know you are right," she murmured, "yet I'm afraid to go alone."

"Take some other friend with you; some well-known man who can vouch for your identity."

"I know no one in Washington except the friends at the Shoreham, and they are not residents here."

"Are you acquainted with any prominent woman?"

"No! I've lived in Europe for years--and while I have met over there women from Washington it's been only casually. They won't recollect me, any more than I would them, for purposes of vouchment or identification."

"Then go alone."

"I will. It is the right thing to do. Yesterday I was thinking that you had the letter and could return it to me. I waited. Today I can appreciate your reason for withholding it--likewise the necessity for me to go to the Ambassador with my story. And I shall tell him the _whole_ story; he may believe it or not as he is inclined. I'm only a volunteer in this affair, and I've decided that for me the course of discretion and frank honesty is much wiser than silently fighting back. Furthermore, it does not estop me from fighting the Spencer gang."

"You have made a wise decision," Harleston commented. "Tell the Ambassador, and be quit of the affair--and don't fight the Spencer gang, Mrs. Clephane; it is not worth while."

She arose, and he went with her down the corridor and up the steps to the entrance.

"Every action is suspected and distrusted in diplomacy," he said, "therefore I may not accompany you. Someone would be sure to see us and report to the Embassy that I had brought you--the natural effect of which would be to make the Marquis disbelieve your tale. For you see, until we have translated the letter, we cannot assume that America is not concerned."

"And you will not think ill of me for disclosing your part in the affair?" she asked.

"Quite the contrary," he smiled. "Moreover, it is the course for you to pursue; to hold back a single thing as to me will result only in distrust. Indeed, implicating me will help substantiate your story."

"You're very good and very thoughtful," she murmured--and once more suffered him to look deep into her eyes.

"I am very willing for you to think me both," he replied. "Now I'm going to call a taxi at the Fourteenth Street exit, and follow yours up Sixteenth Street until I see you at the French Embassy. Tell your chauffeur to drive down to Twelfth Street, up to H and then out to Sixteenth. My taxi will be loitering on Sixteenth and will pick up yours as it passes and follow it to the Embassy. Once there you're out of danger of the Spencer gang. And let me impress you with this fact: tell the story to someone of the staff. If you fail to get to the Ambassador, get a Secretary or an Attaché."

"I'll try to find someone who will listen!" she laughed.

"And I rather fancy you will be successful," he smiled. "It would be a most unusual sort of man who won't both listen and look."

"Careful, Mr. Harleston!" she reminded.

He put her in the taxi; bowed and turned back into the hotel--wondering why he had ever fancied Madeline Spencer.

Mrs. Clephane gave her orders to the chauffeur, ending with the injunction to drive slowly.

As they swung into Sixteenth Street, a taxi standing before St. John's Episcopal Church followed them; and Mrs. Clephane recognized Harleston as its occupant.

At the French Embassy she descended and rang the bell, and was instantly admitted by a liveried footman.

"I wish to see his Excellency the Ambassador!" she said, speaking in French.

The flunky took her card and bowed her into a small reception room.

After a moment or so a dapper young man entered, her card in his fingers.

"Messes Cleephane?" he inquired.

"I am Mrs. Clephane," she replied in French. "I wish to see his Excellency the Ambassador on a most important matter."

"You have an appointment with his Excellency?" he asked, this time in French.

"You are--" she inflected.

"His secretary, madame," the young man bowed.

"No, I have not an appointment," she replied, "but I come from Madame Durrand who was the bearer of a cipher letter from the Foreign Minister. Madame Durrand was injured as she was about to take train in New York, and gave me the letter to deliver."

The secretary looked at her blandly and smiled faintly.

"You have the letter with you?" he asked.

"Again, no," she replied. "It is to explain its loss, and to warn the Ambassador that I am here."

"His Excellency is exceedingly busy--will you not relate the circumstances to me?"

"My instructions from Madame Durrand are most specific that I am to deal only with his Excellency," Mrs. Clephane explained--with such a dazzling smile that the secretary's eyes fairly popped. "Won't you please tell him I'm here, and that I have a luncheon engagement at one o'clock."

The secretary hesitated. Again the smile smote him full in the face--and he hesitated no longer.

"Come with me, Madame Clephane," he replied "His Excellency is occupied at present, but I'll deliver your message."

Once more the smile--as opening the door for her he bowed her into an inner office, and carefully placed a chair for her.

"A moment, madame," he whispered, disappearing through an adjoining doorway.

Whereat Mrs. Clephane sighed with amused complacency, and waited.

Presently the door opened and the secretary appeared. "His Excellency will receive you, Madame Clephane," he said.

"I thank you--oh, so much!" she whispered as she passed him--and the look that went with the words cleared all her scores--and almost finished him.

So much for a smile--when a beautiful woman smiles, and smiles in just the right way, and especially when the man smiled on is a Frenchman.

The Ambassador was standing by a large, flat-topped desk in the centre of the room, his back was to the light, which was generously given in all its effulgence to his visitors. He was a small man and slight of build, intensely nervous, with well-cut features, gray hair--what there was of it--and a tiny black moustache curled up at the ends but not waxed.

He came briskly forward and extended his hand.

"My dear Madame Clephane," he said in French, leading her to a chair, "how can I serve you?"

"By listening to my story, your Excellency, and believing it," Mrs. Clephane answered,--"and at the end not being too severe on me for my misfortune and ignorance."

"That will not be difficult," he bowed, with a frank look of admiration. "You come from Madame Durrand, I believe?"

"Yes--you know Madame Durrand?"

The Marquis nodded. "I have met her several times."

"I'm glad!" said she. "It may help me to prove my case."

"Madame is her own proof," was the answer.

For which answer he drew such a smile from Edith Clephane that in comparison the secretary's smile was simply as nothing.

"Your Excellency overwhelms me," she replied. "I'm positively trembling with apprehension lest I fail to--" she dropped into English--"make good."

He laughed lightly. "You will make good!" he replied, also in English, "Pray proceed."

And Mrs. Clephane told him the whole story, from the time she met Madame Durrand on the steamer to the present moment--omitting only the immaterial personal portions occurring between Harleston and herself, and the fact that his taxi had escorted hers until she was at the Embassy.

Her narrative was punctuated throughout by the Marquis's constant exclamations of wonder or interest; but further than exclaiming, in the nervous French way, he made no interruption.

And on the whole, she told her story well; at first she was a little nervous, which made her somewhat at a loss for words; yet that soon passed, and her tale flowed along with delightful ease.

"Now you have been a wonderfully gracious listener, your Excellency," she ended, "ask whatever questions you wish in regard to the matter; I shall be only too glad to answer if I am able."

"Madame's narrative has been most detailed and most satisfactory," the Marquis answered. "But let me ask you to explain, if you can, why Madame Durrand has not made a written report of this matter to the Embassy?"

"I have no idea--unless she is ill."

"Broken bones do not usually prevent one from writing, or dictating, a letter."

"It _is_ peculiar!" Mrs. Clephane admitted.

"What is the name of the hospital?" the Marquis asked.

"In the hurry and excitement I quite forgot to ask the name," she replied. "The station officials selected it. I was thinking of her--Madame Durrand, I mean--more than the name of the hospital. I don't even know the street; though it's somewhere in the locality of the station. It is dreadfully stupid of me, your Excellency, not to know--but I don't."

"We can remedy that very readily," he said, and pressed a button. His secretary responded. "Telephone our Consul-General in New York to ascertain immediately from the railroad officials the hospital to which Madame Durrand, who broke her ankle and wrist in the Pennsylvania Station, at ten o'clock on Monday, was taken."

The secretary saluted and withdrew.

"Might not our friends the enemy have bribed someone to suppress Madame Durrand's letter or wire?" Mrs. Clephane asked.

"Very possibly. It is entirely likely that they wouldn't be apt to stop with the accident."

"You think they were responsible for Madame Durrand's fall?" she exclaimed.

"Have you forgotten the man who jostled Madame Durrand?" the Marquis reminded.

"To be sure! How stupid not to think of it. You see, your Excellency, I am not accustomed to the ways of diplomacy and to assuming every one's a rogue until he proves otherwise."

"You have a poor opinion of diplomats!" he smiled.

"Not of diplomats, only of their professional ways. And as they all have the same ways, it's fair, I suppose, among one another."

"Did you tell Monsieur Harleston your opinion of our vocation?" he asked.

"I did--somewhat more emphatically."

"And what, if you care to tell, did he say?"

"He quite agreed with me; he even went further."

"Wise man, Harleston!" the Marquis chuckled.

"Implying that he was not sincere?"

The Marquis threw up his hands. "Perish the thought! I imply that he is a man of rare discrimination and admirable taste."

"Now won't you please tell me, your Excellency, if you credit, no, if you _believe_, my story--and don't be a diplomat for the telling."

"My dear Madame Clephane, I do believe your tale--it bears the impress of truth in what you've not done, as well as in what you've done. Had you ever been in the service you would recognize my meaning. That the abductors did not triumph was due first to their carelessness, and second to chance, in the person of Monsieur Harleston. He plays the game; and is violating no rule of diplomacy by his course in the affair. Indeed he would be recreant to his country's service were he to do otherwise. And France would infinitely prefer the United States to have the letter rather than Germany. It's unfortunate, but it's not as unfortunate as it might be."

"You make me feel much, oh, so much better!" Mrs. Clephane replied. "I feared lest my blunder could never be forgiven nor forgotten; and that Madame Durrand would be held responsible and would never again be trusted."

The Ambassador smiled and shook his head. "I think you need not worry," he replied.

"And I'm perfectly sure, your Excellency, that if the United States is neither directly or indirectly concerned in the matter of the letter, and if you were to submit a translation of the letter to prove it, Mr. Harleston will deliver to you the original."

"Did Monsieur Harleston tell you so?" the Marquis smiled.

"No, oh, no! I only thought that--"

"--in this one instance diplomats would trust each other?" he interjected. "Alas, no! Monsieur Harleston would only assume the translation to be false and given for the sole purpose of deception. I should assume exactly the same, were our positions reversed."

"Couldn't you prove your translation by giving him the key to the cipher?" she asked.

"My dear madame," the Marquis smiled, "such a thing would be unprecedented--and would mean my instant dismissal from the service, and trial for treason."

She made a gesture of defeat. "Well, you can at least have the letter repeated by cable."

"Also we can cable the government to dispatch another letter," the Ambassador soothed. "There are plenty of ways out of the difficulty, so don't give yourself any concern--and the United States is welcome to the letter. It will be a far day, I assure you, ere its cipher bureau translates it."

He glanced at the clock. Mrs. Clephane arose.

"I'm sorry for the mess I have made," she said.

"Don't give it a thought," he assured her. "If you can help us, you will be where?"

"I will be at the Chateau until this matter is straightened out--and subject to your instant call."

"Good--you are more than kind; France appreciates it."

He took her hand, escorted her with gracious courtesy to the door, and bowed her out.

Then he stepped to his desk and rang twice.

The First Secretary entered.

"Did you hear her entire story?" the Marquis asked.

"I did, sir," the First Secretary replied.

"You believe it?"

"Absolutely."

"Then set Pasquier to work to ascertain what this Madame Spencer is about. Let him report as quickly as he has anything definite. I'll cable Paris at once as to the letter."

XIV

THE SLIP OF PAPER

Madeline Spencer, leaning languidly against the mahogany table in the corner of the drawing-room, drummed softly with her finger tips as she listened.

"What is the use of it all?" Marston was asking. "We can't get the letter. Harleston evidently told the truth; he has turned it over to the State Department, so why not be content that it's there, and let well enough alone?"

"I've been letting well enough alone by occupying them with the notion that the letter is the thing most desired," Mrs. Spencer returned. "Muddying the water, as it were, so as to obscure the main issue and get away with the trick. Direct your attention here, if you please, gentlemen! Meanwhile we escape from the other end."

"Mrs. Clephane was at the French Embassy this afternoon," he observed.

"At last she had a glimmering of sense!" Mrs. Spencer laughed. "Why she didn't beat it there direct from the train I can't imagine. Such ignorance is a large asset for those of us who know. I had thought of impersonating her and amusing myself with d'Hausonville, but I concluded it wasn't worth while. It _riles_ me, however, that the affair was so atrociously bungled by Crenshaw and the others. What possessed them to release Mrs. Clephane once they had her?--and what in Heaven's name made them overlook the letter in the cab?"

"Search me!" Marston replied.

"There is no occasion to search you, Marston," she smiled, "I shouldn't find very much except--placidity."

"Placidity has its advantages," he smiled back.

"It has; that's why I asked the Chief for you. You were not as happy in your choice of assistants, Marston. They are a stupid lot. You may send them back to New York. We'll handle this matter ourselves, with Mrs. Chartrand's involuntary assistance."

"Very good, madame!" said Marston. "The trouble, you see, came with that chap Harleston's butting into the affair. Who would have foreseen that he would happen along just at that particular moment and scoop the letter without turning a hair. It was rotten luck sure."

"It was all easy enough if the blundering fools had only exercised an atom of sense," Mrs. Spencer retorted. "Mrs. Clephane couldn't deceive a normal two-year-old child; she is as transparent as plate glass."

"She was clever enough to get rid of the letter in the cab, and to give them the plausible story that it was locked in the hotel safe. And the hotel safe was the reasonable place for her to leave the letter until she had seen the Ambassador, and someone from the Embassy could return with her and get the letter."

"Granted--if Mrs. Clephane were a wise woman and in the service. She isn't wise and she isn't in the service; and both these facts are so apparent that he who runs may read. She played the Buissards for fools and won. If they had exercised the intelligence of an infant, they'd have known that she had the letter with her when she left the hotel. You got a glimmer of light when you thought of the cab--and Mrs. Clephane told you that Mr. Harleston had stopped and looked at the sleeping horse and then started him toward Dupont Circle. You came to me to report--and I, knowing Harleston, solved the remainder of the mystery. But with Harleston's entry the affair assumed quite a different aspect; and it is no reflection on you, Marston, that your expedition to his apartment didn't succeed; though somewhat later Crenshaw did act as a semi-reasonable man, and secured the letter--only to foozle again like an imbecile. The play in the hotel last night, as schemed by us, should have gone through and eliminated Clephane and Harleston for a time; but Harleston upset things by his quick action and sense of danger--moreover, he guessed as to Clephane, for the management got wise and made a search, and the dear lady found Harleston and me in Peacock Alley--and she pre-empted him."

Marston blinked and said nothing.

"Why don't you say something?" she asked sharply.

"What is there to say that you don't already know," he replied placidly.

"Very little, Marston, about the subject in hand," she replied curtly. "And now let us see how matters stand to date. First--the French Ambassador knows that a cipher letter to him from his Foreign Minister has been intercepted and is in the hands of the American State Department. Second--as it is in letter cipher, there isn't much likelihood of it being translated. Third--the matter covered by the letter must be something that they are reluctant to send by cable; for you know, Marston, that the United States, in common with European nations, requires all telegraph and cable companies to forward immediately to the State Department a copy of every cipher message addressed to a foreign official. Maybe they are not able to translate it, but of that the sending nation cannot be sure and it makes it very careful, particularly when the local government is affected. Fourth--France will have to choose between consuming a week in getting another letter from Paris to Washington, or she will have to chance the cable with the risk of America learning her message."

"What do you think France will do?" Marston asked.

"If the letter concerned my mission, she will risk the cable," Mrs. Spencer replied. "She would far rather disclose the affair to the United States, than to let Germany succeed."

"May she not be content now to warn the United States?" suggested Marston.

"It's quite possible. All depends whether the letter concerns my mission. We have been informed by the Wilhelm-strasse that it probably does, and directed to prevent its delivery to the French Ambassador. We've succeeded in preventing, but bungled it over to the United States--the one country that we shouldn't have aroused. What in the devil's name ails your assistants, Marston--particularly Crenshaw?"

"To be quite candid," Marston replied, "he had a grouch; he thought that Sparrow and I flub-dubbed the matter of the cab, and deliberately tried to lose him when we went to the Collingwood. And when he did come, he drew his gun on us until he understood."

"What?" she exclaimed.

"He thought that it was a scheme of Sparrow to injure him in your eyes. It seems that he and Sparrow are jealous of your beautiful eyes."

"What are you talking about?" she demanded. "What have I, or my beautiful eyes, to do with Crenshaw and Sparrow?"

"What usually happens to the men who are associated with you in any enterprise: they get daffy over you."