The House of Whispers

The Frenchman sighed. He saw he was in for a long dissertation; and, moving uneasily towards the window, changed the topic of conversation by saying, "I had a long letter from Paris this morning. Krail is back again, it appears."

"Ah, that man!" cried the other impatiently. "When will his extraordinary energies be suppressed? They are watching him carefully, I suppose."

"Of course," replied the Frenchman. "He left Paris about a month ago, but unfortunately the men watching him did not follow. He took train for Berlin, and has been absent until now."

"We ought to know where he's been, Goslin," declared the elder man. "What fool was it who, keeping him under surveillance, allowed him to slip from Paris?"

"The Russian Tchernine."

"I thought him a clever fellow, but it seems that he's a bungler after all."

"But while we keep Krail at arm's length, as we are doing, what have we to fear?" asked Goslin.

"Yes, but how long can we keep him at arm's length?" queried Sir Henry. "You know the kind of man—one of the most extraordinarily inventive in Europe. No secret is safe from him. Do you know, Goslin," he added, in a changed voice, "I live nowadays somehow in constant apprehension."

"You've never possessed the same self-confidence since you found Mademoiselle Gabrielle with the safe open," he remarked.

"No. Murie, or some other man she knows, must have induced her to do that, and take copies of those documents. Fortunately, I suspected an attempt, and baited the trap accordingly."

"What caused you to suspect?"

"Because more than once both Murie and the girl seemed to be seized by an unusual desire to pry into my business."

"You don't think that our friend Flockart had anything to do with the affair?" the Frenchman suggested.

"No, no. Not in the least. I know Flockart too well," declared the old man. "Once I looked upon him as my enemy, but I have now come to the conclusion that he is a friend—a very good friend."

The Frenchman pulled a rather wry face, and remained silent.

"I know," Sir Henry went on, "I know quite well that his constant association with my wife has caused a good deal of gossip; but I have dismissed it all with the contempt that such attempted scandal deserves. It has been put about by a pack of women who are jealous of my wife's good looks and her chic in dress."

"Are not Flockart and mademoiselle also good friends?" inquired Goslin.

"No. I happen to know that they are not, and that very fact in itself shows me that Gabrielle, in trying to get at the secret of my business, was not aided by Flockart, for it was he who exposed her."

"Yes," remarked the Frenchman, "so you've told me before. Have you heard from mademoiselle lately?"

"Only twice since she has left here," was the old man's bitter reply, "and that was twice too frequently. I've done with her, Goslin—done with her entirely. Never in all my life did I receive such a crushing blow as when I found that she, in whom I reposed the utmost confidence, had played her own father false, and might have ruined him!"

"Yes," remarked the other sympathetically, "it was a great blow to you, I know. But will you not forgive mademoiselle?"

"Forgive her!" he cried fiercely, "forgive her! Never!"

The grey-bearded Frenchman, who had always been a great favourite with Gabrielle, sighed slightly, and gave his shoulders a shrug of regret.

"Why do you ask that?" inquired Sir Henry, "when she herself admitted that she had been at the safe?"

"Because–" and the other hesitated. "Well, for several reasons. The story of your quarrel with mademoiselle has leaked out."

"The Whispers—eh, Goslin?" laughed the old man in defiance. "Let the people believe what they will. My daughter shall never return to Glencardine—never!"

As he had been speaking the door had opened, and James Flockart stood upon the threshold. He had overheard the blind man's words, and as he came forward he smiled, more in satisfaction than in greeting.

CHAPTER XXIX

CONTAINS A FURTHER MYSTERY

"My dear Edgar, when I met you in the Devonshire Club last night I could scarcely believe my own eyes. Fancy you turning up again!"

"Yes, strange, isn't it, how two men may drift apart for years, and then suddenly meet in a club, as we have done, Murie?"

"Being with those fellows who were anxious to go along and see the show at the Empire last night, I had no opportunity of having a chat with you, my dear old chap. That's why I asked you to look in."

The two men were seated in Walter's dingy chambers on the second floor in Fig-Tree Court, Temple. The room was an old and rather frowsy one, with shabby leather furniture from which the stuffing protruded, panelled walls, a carpet almost threadbare, and a formidable array of calf-bound volumes in the cases lining one wall. The place was heavy with tobacco-smoke as the pair, reclining in easy-chairs, were in the full enjoyment of very excellent cigars.

Walter's visitor was a tall, dark man, some six or seven years his senior, a rather spare, lantern-jawed young fellow, whose dark-grey clothes were of unmistakable foreign cut; and whose moustache was carefully trained to an upward trend. No second glance was required to decide that Edgar Hamilton was a person who, having lived a long time on the Continent, had acquired the cosmopolitan manner both in gesture and in dress.

"Well," exclaimed Murie at last, blowing a cloud of smoke from his lips, "since we parted at Oxford I've been called to the Bar, as you see. As for practice—well, I haven't any. The gov'nor wants me to go in for politics, so I'm trying to please him by getting my hand in. I make an odd speech or two sometimes in out-of-the-world villages, and I hope, one day, to find myself the adopted candidate for some borough or other. Last year I was sent round the world by my fond parents in order to obtain a broader view of life. Is it not Tacitus who says, 'Sua cuique vita obscura est'?"

"Yes, my dear fellow," replied Hamilton, stretching himself lazily in his chair. "And surely we can say with Martial, 'Non est vivere, sed valere vita'—I am well, therefore I am alive! Mine has been a rather curious career up to the present. I only once heard of you after Oxford—through Arthur Price, who was, you'll remember, at Balliol. He wrote that he'd spoken one night to you when at supper at the Savoy. You had a bevy of beauties with you, he said."

Both men laughed. In the old days, Edgar Hamilton had been essentially a ladies' man; but, since they had parted one evening on the station-platform at Oxford, Hamilton had gone up to town and completely out of the life of Walter Murie. They had not met until the previous evening, when Walter, having dined at the Devonshire—that comfortable old-world club in St. James's Street which was the famous Crockford's gaming-house in the days of the dandies—he had met his old friend in the strangers' smoking-room, the guest of a City stockbroker who was entertaining a party. A hurried greeting of surprise, and an invitation to call in at the Temple resulted in that meeting on that grey afternoon.

Six years had gone since they had parted; and, judging from Edgar's exterior, he had been pretty prosperous.

Walter was laughing and commenting upon it when his friend, removing his cigar from his lips, said, "My dear fellow, my success has been entirely due to one incident which is quite romantic. In fact, if anybody wrote it in a book people would declare it to be fiction."

"That's interesting! Tell me all about it. My own life has been humdrum enough in all conscience. As a budding politician, I have to browse upon blue-books and chew statistics."

"And mine has been one of travel, adventure, and considerable excitement," declared Hamilton. "Six months after I left Oxford I found myself out in Transcaucasia as a newspaper correspondent. As you know, I often wrote articles for some of the more precious papers when at college. Well, one of them sent me out to travel through the disturbed Kurdish districts. I had a tough time from the start. I was out with a Cossack party in Thai Aras valley, east of Erivan, for six months, and wrote lots of articles which created a good deal of sensation here in England. You may have seen them, but they were anonymous. The life of excitement, sometimes fighting and at others in ambush in the mountains, suited me admirably, for I'm a born adventurer, I believe. One day, however, a strange thing happened. I was riding along alone through one of the mountain passes towards the Caspian when I discovered three wild, fierce-looking Kurds maltreating a girl, believing her to be a Russian. I called upon them to release her, for she was little more than a child; and, as they did not, I shot two of the men. The third shot and plugged me rather badly in the leg; but I had the satisfaction that my shots attracted my Cossack companions, who, coming quickly on the spot, killed all three of the girl's assailants, and released her."

"By Jove!" laughed Murie. "Was she pretty?"

"Not extraordinarily—a fair-haired girl of about fifteen, dressed in European clothes. I fainted from loss of blood, and don't remember anything else until I found myself in a tent, with two Cossacks patching up my wound. When I came to, she rushed forward, and thanked me profusely for saving her. To my surprise, she spoke in French, and on inquiry I found that she was the daughter of a certain Baron Conrad de Hetzendorf, an Austrian, who possessed a house in Budapest and a château at Semlin, in South Hungary. She told us a curious story. Her father had some business in Transcaucasia, and she had induced him to take her with him on his journey. Only certain districts of the country were disturbed; and apparently, with their guide and escort, they had unwittingly entered the Aras region—one of the most lawless of them all—in ignorance of what was in progress. She and her father, accompanied by a guide and four Cossacks, had been riding along when they met a party of Kurds, who had attacked them. Both father and daughter had been seized, whereupon she had lost consciousness from fright, and when she came to again found that the four Cossacks had been killed, her father had been taken off, and she was alone in the brutal hands of those three wild-looking tribesmen. As soon as she had told us this, the officer of the Cossacks to which I had attached myself called the men together, and in a quarter of an hour the whole body went forth to chase the Kurds and rescue the Baron. One big Cossack, in his long coat and astrakhan cap, was left to look after me, while Nicosia—that was the girl's name—was also left to assist him. After three days they returned, bringing with them the Baron, whose delight at finding his daughter safe and unharmed was unbounded. They had fought the Kurds and defeated them, killing nearly twenty. Ah, my dear Murie, you haven't any notion of the lawless state of that country just then! And I fear it is pretty much the same now."

"Well, go on," urged his friend. "What about the girl? I suppose you fell in love with her, and all that, eh?"

"No, you're mistaken there, old chap," was his reply. "When she explained to her father what had happened, the Baron thanked me very warmly, and invited me to visit him in Budapest when my leg grew strong again. He was a man of about fifty, who, I found, spoke English very well. Nicosia also spoke English, for she had explained to me that her mother, now dead, had been a Londoner. The Baron's business in Transcaucasia was, he told me vaguely, in connection with the survey of a new railway which the Russian Government was projecting eastward from Erivan. For two days he remained with us; but during those days my wound was extremely painful owing to lack of surgical appliances, so we spoke of very little else besides the horrible atrocities committed by the Kurds. He pressed me to visit him; and then, with an escort of our Cossacks, he and his daughter left for Tiflis; whence he took train back to Hungary.

"For six months I remained, still leading that roving, adventurous life. My leg was well again, but my journalistic commission was at an end, and one day I found myself in Odessa, very short of funds. I recollected the Baron's invitation to Budapest, therefore I took train there, and found his residence to be one of those great white houses on the Franz Josef Quay. He received me with marked enthusiasm, and compelled me to be his guest. During the first week I was there I told him, in confidence, my position, whereupon he offered me a very lucrative post as his secretary, a post which I have retained until this moment."

"And the girl?" Walter asked, much interested.

"Oh, she finished her education in Dresden and in Paris, and now lives mostly with her aunt in Vienna," was Hamilton's response. "Quite recently she's become engaged to young Count de Solwegen, the son of one of the wealthiest men in Austria."

"I thought you'd probably become the happy lover."

"Lover!" cried his friend. "How could a poor devil like myself ever aspire to the hand of the daughter of the Baron de Hetzendorf? The name doesn't convey much to you, I suppose?"