The Cardinal Moth

"Ah, that is like a new planet in a blue sky!" Frobisher cried. "Lopez, I am obliged to you. Come again when I am less excited and I will suitably reward you. To-night I am tête montêe– I am not responsible for my actions. And the lie shall be told for you, a veritable chef-d'oeuvreamongst lies. Sit down, and the best shall not be good enough for you."

"I must go," Lopez said in the same even tones. "I have private business elsewhere. I drink nothing and I smoke nothing till business is finished. Good-night, prince of rascals, and fair dreams to you."

Lopez passed leisurely into the black throat of the library, Hafid following. Frobisher nodded and chuckled, not in the least displeased. He had not been so excited for years. The sight of those blossoms filled him with unspeakable pleasure. For their sakes he would have committed murder without the slightest hesitation. He had eyes for nothing else, ears deaf to everything. He heeded not the purr of the hall bell again, he was lost to his surroundings until Hafid shook him soundly.

"Count Lefroy to see you, and Mr. Manfred," he said. "I told them you were engaged, but they said that perhaps – "

Frobisher dropped into his chair with the air of a man satiated with a plethora of good things.

"Now what have I done to deserve all this beatitude!" he cried. "An unique find and a brother collector to triumph over, to watch, to prick with the needle of jealousy. But stop, I must worship alone to-night. Say that I shall particularly desire to see them at luncheon to-morrow."

CHAPTER II

ANGELA

Frobisher sat the following morning in the orchid-house chuckling to himself and waiting the advent of his two guests to luncheon. Heaven alone could follow the twists and turns of that cunning brain. Frobisher was working out one of his most brilliant schemes now. He took infinite pains to obtain by underground passages the things he might have obtained openly and easily. But there was the delight of puzzling other people.

He looked up presently, conscious of a presence beyond his own. In the dark Frobisher could always tell if anybody came into the room. He crooked his wicked head sideways with the air of a connoisseur, and in sooth there was good cause for his admiration. Here was something equal at least to his most beautiful and cherished orchids, a tall, graceful girl with shining brown hair, and eyes of the deepest, purest blue. Her complexion was like old ivory, and as pure, the nose a little short, perhaps, but the sweet mouth was full of strength and character.

"I came for the flowers that you promised me, Sir Clement," she said.

"Call me uncle and you shall have the conservatory," Frobisher grinned. "I am your uncle by marriage, you know, and your guardian by law. Angela, you are looking lovely. With the exception of a peasant woman I once met in Marenna, you are the most beautiful creature I ever saw."

Angela Lyne listened with absolute indifference. She was accustomed to be studied like this by Sir Clement Frobisher, whom she loathed and detested from the bottom of her heart. But Lady Frobisher was her aunt, and Frobisher her guardian for the next year, until she came of age, in fact.

"Give me the flowers," she said. "I am late as it is. I have sent my things on, for I shall dine with Lady Marchgrave after the concert, and come home alone. Hafid will let me in."

"Better take a latchkey," Frobisher suggested. "There! Let me pin them in for you. I'll show you an orchid when you have time to examine it that will move even you to admiration. But not now; she is too superb a creature for passing admiration. Now I think you will do."

There was no question of Frobisher's taste or his feeling for arranging flowers. The blossoms looked superb and yet so natural as they lay on Angela's breast – white orchids shot with sulphur. They were the theme of admiration an hour later at Lady Marchgrave's charity concert; they gleamed again on Angela's corsage as she sat in the Grosvenor Square drawing-room at dinner. Five-and-twenty people sat round the long table with its shaded lights and feathery flowers. There were distinguished guests present, for Lady Marchgrave was by way of being intellectual, but Angela had eyes for one man only. He had come a little late, and had slipped quietly into a chair at the bottom of the table – a tall man with a strong face, not exactly handsome, but full of power. The clean-shaven lips were very firm, but when the newcomer smiled his face looked singularly young and sweet. Angela's dinner partner followed her glance with his eyes.

"If it isn't that beast Denvers," he muttered. "I thought he had been murdered in the wilds of Armenia or some such desirable spot. You ought to be glad, Angela."

"I am glad, Mr. Arnott," Angela said coldly. "Permit me to remind you again that I particularly dislike being called by my Christian name; at least, at present."

The little man with the hooked nose and the shifting, moist eye, put down his champagne glass savagely. For some deep, mysterious reason, Sir Clement favoured George Arnott's designs upon Angela, and if nothing interfered he was pretty sure to get his own way in the end. At present Angela was coldly disdainful; she little dreamt of the power and cunning of the man she was thwarting. She turned her head away, absently waiting for Lady Marchgrave's signal. There was a flutter and rustle of silken and lace draperies presently, and the chatter of high-bred voices floating from the hall. A good many people had already assembled in the suite of rooms beyond, for Lady Marchgrave's receptions were popular as well as fashionable. Angela wandered on until she came to the balcony overlooking the square. She leant over thoughtfully – her mind had gone back to such a night a year or so before.

"Mine is a crescent star to-night," a quiet voice behind her said. "I seemed to divine by instinct where you were. Angela, dear Angela, it is good to be with you again."

The girl's face flushed, her blue eyes were full of tenderness. Most people called her cold, but nobody could bring that accusation against her now. Her two hands went out to Harold Denvers, and he held them both. For a long while the brown eyes looked into the heavenly blue ones.

"Still the same?" Denvers asked. "Nobody has taken what should be my place, Angela?"

"Nobody has taken it, and nobody is ever likely to," Angela smiled. "There is supposed to be nothing between us; you refused to bind me, and you did not write or give me your address, but my heart is yours and you know it. And if you changed I should never believe in anything again."

"If I should change! Dear heart, is it likely? If you only knew what I felt when I caught sight of you to-night. My queen, my beautiful, white queen! If I could only claim you before all the world!"

Angela bent her head back behind the screen of a fluttering, silken curtain and kissed the speaker. He held her in his arms just for one blissful moment.

"It seems just the same," he said, "as if the clock had been put back a year, to that night when Sir Clement found us out. The son of the man whom he had ruined and his rich and lovely ward! There was a dramatic scene for you! But he only grinned in that diabolical way of his, and shortly after that mission to Armenia was offered to me. I never guessed then who procured it for me, but I know now as well as I know that Sir Clement never intended me to come back."

"Harold! Do you really mean to say that – that – "

"You hesitate, of course. It is not a pretty thing to say. Life is cheap out there, and if I was killed, what matter? Let us talk of other and more pleasant things."

"Of your travels and adventures, for instance. Did you find any wonderful flowers, like you did, for instance, in Borneo, Harold? Where did you get that lovely orchid from?"

A single blossom flamed on the silk lapel of Denvers' coat – a whitish bloom with a cloud of little flowers hovering over it like moths. It was the Cardinal Moth again.

"Unique, is it not?" Harold said. "Thereby hangs a strange, romantic tale which would take too long to tell at present. What would Sir Clement give for it?"

"Let me have it before I go," asked Angela, eagerly. "I should like to show it to Sir Clement. He has some wonderful flower that he wants me to see, but I feel pretty sure that he has nothing like that. I shall decline to say where I got the bloom from."

Denvers removed the exquisite bloom with its nodding scarlet moths and dexterously attached it to Angela's own orchids. The thing might have been growing there.

"It seems strange to see that bloom on your innocent breast," Harold said. "It makes me feel quite creepy when I look at it. If you only knew the sin and misery and shame and crime that surrounds the Cardinal Moth you would hesitate to wear it."

Angela smiled; she did not possess the imaginative vein.

"You shall tell me that another time," she said. "Meanwhile you seem to have dropped from the clouds… Are your plans more promising for the future?"

"A little nebulous for the present," Denvers admitted, "though the next expedition, which is not connected with Sir Clement Frobisher, promises well for the future. There is a lot to be done, however, and I am likely to be in London for the next three weeks or so. And you?"

"We are here for the season, of course. My aunt is staying at Chaffers Court till Friday, hence the fact that I am here alone. If you are very good you shall take me as far as Piccadilly in a taxi. I must see a good deal of you, Hal, for I have been very lonely."

There was a pathetic little droop in Angela's voice. Harold drew her a little closer.

"I wish I could take you out of it, darling," he said. "For your sake, we must try and make the next venture a success. If we can only start the company fairly, I shall be able to reckon on a thousand a year. Do you think you could manage on that, Angela?"

"Yes, or on a great deal less," Angela smiled. "I could be happy with you anywhere. And you must not forget that I shall have a large fortune of my own some day."

Other people were drifting towards the cool air of the balcony now, George Arnott amongst the number. It was getting late, and Angela was tired. She whispered Harold to procure her a cab, and that she would say good-night to Lady Marchgrave and join him presently. The cab came, and so did the lights of Piccadilly all too soon. Denvers lingered on the steps just for a moment. He was going down to a big country house on Saturday for the week-end. Would Angela come if he could procure her an invitation? Angela's eyes replied for her. She was in the house at length by the aid of her latchkey. The dining-room door opened for a moment; there was a rattle of conversation and the smell of Egyptian cigarettes. Evidently Sir Clement was giving one of his famous impromptu dinner-parties. Angela took the spray of orchids from her breast and passed hurriedly in the direction of the orchid-house. The bloom would keep best there, she thought.

As she passed along the corridor the figure of a man preceded her. The stranger crept along, looking furtively to the right and the left. From his every gesture he was doing wrong here. Then he darted for the orchid-house and Angela followed directly she had recovered herself. She would corner the man in the conservatory and demand his business. In the conservatory Angela looked about her. The man had vanished.

He had utterly gone – he was nowhere to be seen. Angela rubbed her eyes in amazement. There was no other way out of the conservatory. She stood therewith the Cardinal Moth in her hand, aware now that she was looking into the scared face of Hafid.

"Take it and burn it, and destroy it," he said in a dazed kind of way. "Take it and burn it at once. Dear lady, will you go to bed? Take it and burn it – my head is all hot and confused. Dear lady, do not stay here, the place is accursed. By the Prophet, I wish I had never been born."

CHAPTER III

CROSSED SWORDS

Hafid came into the library and pulled to the big bronze gates of the orchid-house like the portals of a floral paradise. There were flowers here: stephanotis climbing round the carved mantel, ropes of orchids dangling from the electroliers, in one corner a mass of maiden-hair fern draped the wall. Even the pictures in their Florentine frames were roped with blossoms.

Frobisher glanced beyond the carved and twisted gates with a peculiar smile after Angela had departed. His luncheon guests were late. He looked more like a mischievous bird than usual. There was an air of pleased anticipation about him as of a man who is going to witness a brilliant comedy.

There came to him a tall man with a heavy moustache and an unmistakable military swagger. If Frobisher resembled a parrot, Lefroy was most unmistakably a hawk. He passed in society generally as a cavalry officer high in favour of his Majesty the Shan of Ganistan; more than one brilliant expedition against the hill-tribes had been led by him. But some of the hill-men could have told another tale.