The Pauper of Park Lane

“A person I know?” gasped the young man.

Chapter Forty One.

The Gateway of the East

The diplomat would say nothing more. When pressed by Charlie Rolfe he said that it was a surmise. Until the truth was proved he refused to speak more plainly.

“You declare that the plot by which an innocent child died was formed by a friend of mine!” the younger man exclaimed.

“I tell you that such is my firm belief,” Sir Charles repeated. “To-morrow I will endeavour to discover whether the same influence that caused the explosion of the bomb at Topschieder is responsible for the Doctor’s disappearance.”

“But cannot you be more explicit?” asked Rolfe. “Who is the assassin – the murderer of children?”

“At present I can say no more than what I have already told you,” was the diplomat’s grave response.

“You believe that the same motive has led to the Doctor’s disappearance as was the cause of the bomb outrage at Topschieder?”

“I do.”

“Then much depends upon the Doctor’s death?”

“Very much. His enemies would reap a large profit.”

“His enemies in the Skuptchina, you mean?”

“Those – and others.”

“He had private enemies also – secret ones that were even more dangerous than the blatant political orators.”

“Then private vengeance was the cause?”

“No – not exactly; at least, I think not,” Sir Charles replied. “But please ask no more. I will tell you the truth when I have established it.”

“I wish I could discover where Maud is. Surely it is strange that the Prime Minister’s wife should have said she met her lately here, in Belgrade.”

“Maud Petrovitch is not in Servia. I am certain of that point.”

“Why?”

“Because her father would never allow her to return here after that tragedy at Topschieder.”

“The assassin – the man who threw the bomb. Where is he?”

“In the fortress – condemned to a life sentence,” the diplomat answered. “He was caught while running away from the scene – a raw peasant from Valjevo, hired evidently to hurl the bomb. He was subjected to a searching examination, but would never reveal by whom he was employed. He was tried and condemned to solitary confinement, which he now is undergoing. You know the horrors of the fortress here, on the Danube, with its subterranean cells – eh?”

“I’ve heard of them,” responded the younger man. “But even that fate is too humane for a man who would deliberately kill an innocent child!”

“A life sentence in the fortress is scarcely humane,” the British Minister remarked grimly. “No one has ever entered some of those underground dungeons built by the Turks centuries ago. Their horrors can only be surmised. To all outsiders, who have wished to inspect the place, the Minister of Justice has refused admission.”

“Then the assassin has only received his deserts.”

“The person who formed the plot and used the ignorant peasant as his cat’s-paw should be there too – or even instead of him,” declared Sir Charles angrily. “The peasant suffers, while the real culprit gets off scot-free and unknown.”

“Then he is still unknown?” exclaimed Rolfe in surprise.

“Save to perhaps three persons, of whom I am one.”

“And also the man who threw the bomb!”

“I have heard that the solitary confinement in a dark cell already worked its effect upon him. He is hopelessly insane.”

Rolfe drew a long breath, and glanced around the cosy room with its long row of well-filled book-cases, its big writing-table, and its smaller tables filled with Japanese bric-à-brac, of which Sir Charles was an ardent collector.

In the silence that fell the footman tapped at the door and presented a card. Then Rolfe, declaring that he must go, rose, gripped the grey-haired Minister’s hand, and extracting from him a promise to tell the truth as soon as he had established it, followed the smart English footman down the stairs.

That night, as he sat amid the clatter and music of the brilliantly lit Grand Café, he reflected deeply on all that had been told him, wondering who was the friend who had been responsible for the outrage, which had induced the Doctor to forsake his native land never to return. Servia was a country of intrigue and unrest, as is every young country. He looked around the tables at the gay crowd of smart officers with their ribbons and crosses upon their breasts and their well-dressed womenkind, and wondered whether any fresh conspiracy was in progress.

The rule of King Peter – maligned though that monarch had been – had brought beneficent reforms to Servia. And yet there was an opposition who never ceased to hurl hard epithets against him, and to charge him with taking part in a plot, of the true meaning of which he certainly had had no knowledge.

Belgrade is a city in which plots against the monarchy are hinted at and whispered in the corners of drawing-rooms, where diplomacy is a mass of intrigue, a city of spies and sycophants, of concession-hunters and political cliques. Gay, pleasant, and easy-going, with its fine boulevard, its pretty Kalamegdan Garden, and its spick-and-span new streets, it is different to any other capital of Europe; more full of tragedy, more full of plot and counter-plot.

Austria is there ever seeking by her swarm of secret agents to stir up strife and to organise demonstrations against the reigning dynasty. Germany is there seeking influence and making promises, while Bulgaria is ever watchful; Turkey is silent and spectral, and Great Britain looks on neutral, but noting every move of the deep diplomatic juggling of the Powers.

At night amid the clatter, the laughter, and the gipsy music of the Grand Café, with its billiard tables in the centre and its restaurant adjoining, the stranger would never dream of its close proximity to the tragedy of a throne. Just as the bright lights and calm, moonlit sea throw a glamour over that plague spot Monte Carlo, until the visitor believes that no evil can lurk in that terrestrial paradise, so in Belgrade is everything so pleasant, so happy, so careless that the stranger would never dream that the whole city sits ever upon the edge of a volcano, and that the red flag of revolt is ready at any, moment to be hoisted.

Charlie Rolfe knew Belgrade, and knew the tragedy that underlay its brightness. What greater tragedy could there be than the death of the innocent child blown to atoms by the bomb?

Who could be the culprit whom Sir Charles had told him was his “friend.” He had known the Doctor well, but not intimately as Max Barclay had done. Curious that Max had told him nothing concerning that tragic incident which had caused the Servian statesman and patriot to turn his back upon his beloved country and live in studious seclusion in England. Max had told him many things, but had never mentioned that subject.

Was Max Barclay the “friend” to whom Sir Charles had referred. Was it really possible? He held his breath, contemplating the end of his half-smoked cigar and wondering.

It was a strange suspicion. Of late, ever since Max had charged him with having been present at Cromwell Road on the night of the disappearance, he had somehow held aloof from the man to whom Marion was so devoted.

And now? Even she had disappeared! What could it mean?

Did Max Barclay really know how and why Marion had disappeared, and for motives of his own was making a mystery?

The message from Barclay worried him. Marion was missing. Why had she left Cunnington’s? She must have left of her own accord, he felt confident. She would never be discharged. Sam Statham would never, for a moment, allow that.

A tall man with a fair, pointed beard approached him, raised his hat, and gripped his hand. It was Drukovitch, the director of the National Theatre, and a friend of his. The new-comer seated himself at the table, and the waiter brought a tiny glass of “slivovitza,” or plum gin, that liqueur so dear to the Servian palate. Drukovitch was one of the best-known and most popular men in Belgrade; a thorough-going cosmopolitan, and a man of the world. Sometimes he went to London, and whenever there Charlie entertained him at his club, or they went to the theatre and supped at the Savoy.

As they chatted, Rolfe explaining that he was in Servia upon financial matters as usual, Drukovitch nodded to the officers and civilians whom he knew, many of them famous for the part they had played in the recent coup d’état. Some of them, indeed, wore the white-enamelled cross, which decoration marked them as partisans of the dynasty of the Karageorge. And meanwhile the orchestra were playing the popular waltz from “The Merry Widow,” the air haunting everybody and everyone.

That night there was a court hall at the Palace, and the forthcoming event was upon everyone’s lips. There was seldom any entertainment at the New Konak, for his Majesty led a very quiet life, the almost ascetic life of a soldier – riding out at dawn, attending to duties of state during the day, and retiring early.

Perhaps the most maligned man in all Europe, King Peter of Servia was, nevertheless, known to those intimate around the throne to be a most conscientious ruler, fully aware of all his responsibilities, and striving ever to pacify the various political factions, sustaining the prestige of Servia abroad, and ameliorating the condition of his people at home.

The truth regarding King Peter had never been written. Of libels and vile calumnies there had been volumes, but no journalist had ever dared to put into print the real facts of King Peter’s innocence of any connivance at the dastardly murder of Alexander and Draga.