The Message

He held forth the spare gun as a hint. Grouse were plentiful at Lochmerig, and three other men in the line of shelters were busy. Baumgartner forthwith excelled himself. Just as a novice at Monte Carlo may achieve several winning coups in succession, so did fortune favor one whom nature had not designed as a sportsman. He shot with blind confidence, and brought down half a dozen birds while they came sailing over the crest of the hill before a strong breeze that brought them to close range. That he rendered them for the most part uneatable did not trouble him in the least. Sport was merely slaying to him; his only trophies previously were some tame pigeons secured for practice.

So Baumgartner was well content. As he trudged down the brae to Lochmerig Lodge, discoursing learnedly to his companions anent the “stopping” qualities of his eighty–guinea pair of guns, his eyes roved over the beauties of loch and glen, and the day–dream that it would be well to pass the remainder of his days in this quiet haven cast its spell on his soul. Rich as he was, he owned no home except a garish mansion in New York. His career had been meteoric, full of lurid energy. Beginning with the lust of money, he had followed the beaten track of his order, and became obsessed with the lust of power. Yet his ambition needed spurring. Already the tremendous issues involved in the project which procured him the condescending patronage of an emperor were revealing their dangers. Here, in Scotland, surrounded by subservient friends and well–trained servants, he longed for rest. Lairdship was proving a subtle rival to West African adventure.

Moreover, he was married, and Mrs. Baumgartner was endowed with a will of her own and a tongue to bear witness thereto. She was learning to appreciate the easy tolerance of English society, which proved itself far more accessible than the Four Hundred of New York. Men and women of recognized social rank and pleasant manners were quite willing to shoot over the Lochmerig moors, play bridge in the Lodge, cruise on the Sans Souci, and generally live and amuse themselves at the millionaire’s expense. Mrs. Baumgartner was shrewd enough to see that the gain of a big slice of British territory in West Africa would offer poor compensation for the loss of the new career which was opening up an alluring vista to her dazzled gaze. For once, therefore, discord threatened in the household. In her daughter, too, she found a powerful ally. A month of close companionship with Evelyn Dane had completely changed the life–theories of a spoiled and affected girl of eighteen. Too young as yet to be jealous of Evelyn’s greater attractions, Beryl Baumgartner was alert enough to see that vulgar pertness was ludicrously inadequate as a means of winning male regard. Luckily, she became enthusiastically attached to Evelyn from the first hour. The wonderful faculty of hero–worship had survived the precocity of a too–indulgent rearing. It was stronger now than mere counsel. Beryl began to copy her new friend, and at once she began to improve.

It was, therefore, a very dark cloud that lowered over the Baumgartner sky when a family coach which brought visitors from the ten miles distant railway deposited at the hospitable door of Lochmerig Lodge, at one and the same moment, Mrs. Laing, Miguel Figuero, and Count von Rippenbach. As it happened, the three already knew each other slightly. They had met in Madeira during the previous winter. Figuero then acted as bear–leader to the count before he started on the hunting trip in the Tuburi hinterland which had come to the Under Secretary’s knowledge.

It was a surprise to both men when they encountered Mrs. Laing at Perth Junction. They passed several interesting hours in her company, and von Rippenbach, who spoke English better than Figuero, was a skilled cross–examiner. Thus, he soon hit upon a plausible explanation of the lady’s appearance in Inverness–shire. She was one of Mrs. Baumgartner’s social links with England. On his part, as a “distinguished foreigner,” he would be acceptable in a higher circle than that occupied by his host, but, when it came to Figuero, Mrs. Laing was puzzled – indeed, somewhat amused.

The man’s record was no secret. Tolerant Madeira did not ask how he had risen to seeming affluence. It helped him to spend his money, and was graciously blind to the darker pages of his history – nevertheless, those pages were an open book to local gossips.

Figuero, a shrewd and level–headed scoundrel, was the most taken aback of the trio at this unlooked–for meeting. He was aware of the love passages between Warden and Rosamund Laing; he feared Warden; and here was the woman whom Warden had once loved crossing his path at an awkward hour.

The situation might have provided harmless interest for a number of unimportant people at Lochmerig if Figuero had not recognized Evelyn Dane the instant he set eyes on her. Straightway the tiny rills of intrigue and suspicion flowing through the adventurer’s brain united into a torrent.

Seizing the first opportunity that presented itself, he drew Baumgartner into an unoccupied room, and closed and locked the door. Before the surprised millionaire could utter a word of protest, the West African fire–brand began to question him in his own tongue, since Baumgartner, despite his Teutonic label and semblance, had a Portuguese mother.

“Why did you fail to recognize the girl I described to you in Cowes?” he demanded fiercely. “Malediction! Are you mad, that you would risk our enterprise in this fashion?”

“You must neither address me in that manner nor talk in riddles,” growled Baumgartner. “What girl? How am I to know one among the ten thousand girls of a regatta week?”

“Riddles! It is you who are the conundrum, senhor. I tell you that this Englishman, Captain Warden, a Deputy Commissioner in Nigeria, is the man we have most to fear, yet you permit one who is probably his fiancée, and surely in league with him, to live in your house and spy on the actions of yourself and your friends. What will Count von Rippenbach think when I tell him? What will the Emperor say, after all the precautions we took that none should know – ”

“Silence!” roared Baumgartner, who could hold his own in matters that demanded clear thinking and careful guidance. “You are too ready with some names, Senhor Figuero, yet too sparing of others that may explain your folly. Of whom are you speaking?”

“Of the young Englishwoman I have just met, of course. I am not good at catching these strange words, but I mean the good–looking one, the tall slim girl in white muslin, she with brown hair and Madonna eyes – ”

“Do you mean Miss Dane?”

“Yes – that is she. I remember now.”

“My daughter’s companion! Nonsense!”

“It is true, I tell you. Am I likely to forget a face – and such a face! Did I not describe her dress? She must have left your yacht just before Warden met her. And they are lovers. How can I be mistaken? They went away from Cowes in the same train. I told you her destination. What was it? I have it written here,” and he hurriedly turned over the leaves of a note–book.

Baumgartner was undoubtedly impressed. Figuero’s earnestness was not to be gainsaid, and he had an unpleasant belief, now he came to recall the incidents of a busy day, that Evelyn Dane was dressed exactly as Warden’s unknown acquaintance was pictured.

Meanwhile, the Portuguese found the memorandum he sought.

“Here it is,” he snapped, all a–quiver with the doubts that threatened the destruction of his pet scheme of vengeance on the British power which had stopped the supply of slaves to the Sultan of Bogota. “Langton in Oxfordshire – that is the place. The railway official spelt it for me. A boatman told me he knew the girl, and gave me some outlandish name as being hers. Now I see he was fooling me. What was his motive? Was he also an emissary of Warden’s? Let me assure you, senhor, this thing begins to look ugly.”

Baumgartner’s heavy jowl lost some of the ruddy hue of the moors. Count von Rippenbach had been ready enough to apply the screw when his quondam confederate showed a degree of hesitancy in falling in with the proposal he came from London to make, and this latest complication would strengthen von Rippenbach’s hands beyond resistance. Already the lairdship of Lochmerig was becoming visionary, and the far–off hills of interior Africa grew more substantial in their dim outlines.

But the millionaire, though he might toady to a Scottish gillie for a crumb of recognition as a marksman, had not attained his present position by displaying weakness in face of a crisis.

“I believe you are the victim of a delusion,” he said, with some show of dignity, “but, even if you are right, we gain nothing by yielding to panic. What if Miss Dane is, as you say, Warden’s belle amie? Why should that be harmful? Does it not explain his visit to Cowes? Indeed, once we are convinced that they know each other, we can turn the circumstance to our own purpose. I am far from crediting an insignificant official of the Niger Company with the importance you seem to attach to him, but, granted he is a hostile influence to be feared, why not stalk him through an unsuspecting agent?”

“You don’t rate him high enough,” muttered Figuero. “He can sway those stupid niggers like no other man in Nigeria. He talks Arabic, and Hausa, and krooboy palaver as well as I do. He broke the Oku ju–ju when it was worth a thousand lives to touch a stick or a feather. If Warden gets wind of our project before we are ready, we will fail, and you realize what that means to all of us.”

A dinner gong came to Baumgartner’s aid. He wished to avoid any discussion on the last point raised by the Portuguese. It bristled with thorns. Von Rippenbach revealed some of its cactus–like properties earlier in the evening.

“You and I and the Count will go into other matters fully to–morrow,” he said. “As for Miss Dane, I shall clear up that difficulty without delay. Act as though you had never seen her before, and keep your ears open during dinner.”

So it came to pass that Evelyn, who was mightily astonished and perplexed by the arrival of the two men concerning whom Warden had told her so much, was still more bewildered when Mr. Baumgartner availed himself of a lull in the conversation at the dinner–table to say casually:

“By the way, Miss Dane, is Langton, in Oxfordshire, near your people’s place?”

“Yes,” she said, wondering what the question signified.

“I suppose, then, you passed through it on your way home after quitting the Sans Souci at Cowes?”

“Oh, yes. Langton is our station.”

“Ah! What a small world it is! A friend of mine, Mr. James G. Hertz, of Boston, is staying there now. I suppose you did not chance to meet him?”

“No. Our village is three miles away, and that is a long distance in the country.”

And, in truth, Mr. James G. Hertz, of Boston, who was buried in Boston, could tell of yet more impassable gulfs.

Rosamund Laing was sitting next to Figuero. She noticed the eager attention with which he followed this trivial bit of talk, though his limited knowledge of English rendered most of the lively chatter at the table unintelligible.

“Were you in Cowes during the regatta week, Senhor Figuero?” she asked.

It was a reasonable deduction from his presence at Lochmerig, but she little guessed the devilish purpose engendered in that alert brain by her aimless inquiry. The Portuguese felt that he was at a disadvantage among the gay throng gathered under Baumgartner’s roof. His nimble wits were dulled by the barrier of language. It put him outside the pale. Things might be occurring which he ought to know, but which were hidden from him owing to this drawback. In the beautiful woman by his side he might find an excellent go–between if only he could command her interest. Was that old flame quite quenched in her heart, he mused? She had married a rich man, but had she forgotten – did any woman ever forget – her first love? He thought not. At any rate, here was an opening provided by the gods.

“I lib for Cowes one–time, senora,” he murmured, “an’ I see somet’ing dere dat I tell you if you not vexed.”

“Why should I be vexed?” she said, smiling at the odd expressions, though she was quite conversant with the lingua franca of the coast.

“You ‘member dem Captain Warden?”

“Of course I do.”

“An’ you keep secret dem t’ing I tell you?”

“Where Captain Warden’s affairs are concerned, I shall certainly not discuss him or them.”

Figuero paid no heed to the intentional snub.

“You understan’ better w’en I tole you dem secret. You promise not speak ‘im any one?”

“Well – yes.”

“He fit for marry dem Mees Dane.”

“Don’t be idiotic.”

Mrs. Laing could not help it. She was so startled that she raised her voice, and more than one of her neighbors wondered what the sallow–faced stranger had said that evoked the outburst. Figuero looked annoyed. He was not prepared for such vehement repudiation of his news. Fortunately, the Honorable Billy Thring was giving a realistic account of his failure to secure an heiress during a recent wife–hunting tour in America – he tried lots of ‘em, he explained, but they all said he must kill off at least one brother and two healthy nephews before they would risk marryin’ a prize dude like him – so Rosamund’s emphatic cry passed almost unheeded amidst the laughter evoked by Thring’s exploits.