The Price of Things Part 40

"She was jealous of you all the same. But Denzil, I track it by the scent. I know Ferdinand uses that scent," he held out the card. "Smell."

Denzil sniffed as Amaryllis had done.

"It is so faint I should not have remarked it unless you had told me--but I daresay if it was a scent one had smelt before, one would be struck by it! But how are you going to prove it, Stepan? We shall have to have convincing proof--because I am the only witness of poor John's death, and it could easily be said that I am too deeply interested to be reliable.

For G.o.d's sake, old friend, think of some way of making a certainty."

"I have a way which I can enforce as soon as I reach Paris. Meanwhile say nothing to any one and put the thought of it out of your heads. The evidence of your own eyes convinced you that John is dead; you found it difficult to accept that he was alive even when seeing what appeared to be his own writing, but if I a.s.sure you that this is forged you can be at peace. Is it not so?"

Amaryllis' lips were trembling; the shock and then this counter shock were unhinging her. She was horrified at herself that she should not catch at every straw to prove John was alive, instead of feeling some sense of relief when Verisschenzko protested that the postcard was a forgery.

Poor John! Good, and kind, and unselfish. It was all too agitating. But was just life such a very great thing? She knew that had she the choice she would rather be dead than separated now from Denzil. And if John were really to be alive--what misery he would be obliged to suffer, knowing the situation.

"Quite apart from what to me is a convincing proof, the scent,"

Verisschenzko went on, "the card must be a forgery because of John's seeming oblivion of the possibility that you two might have already carried out his wishes. All this would have been very unlike him. But if it is, as I think, Ferdinand's and Harietta Boleski's work, they would not be likely to know that John had desired that Denzil should marry you, Amaryllis, and so would have thought a short card with longings to see you would be a natural thing to write. Indeed you can be at rest. And now I will go and dress for dinner, and we will forget disturbing thoughts."

Amaryllis and Denzil will always remember Stepan's wonderful tact and goodness to them that evening; he kept everything calm and thrilled them all with his stories and his conversation and his own wonderfully magnetic personality. And after dinner he played to them in the green drawing room and, as Mrs. Ardayre said, seemed to bring peace and healing to all their troubled souls.

But when he was alone with Denzil late, after the two women had retired to bed, he sunk into a deep chair in the smoking room and suddenly burst into a peal of cynical laughter.

"What the devil's up?" demanded Denzil, astonished.

"I am thinking of Harietta's exquisite mistake. She believes the baby is mine! She is mad with a goat's jealousy; she supposes it is I who will marry Amaryllis--hence her plot! Does it not show how the good are protected and the evil fall into their own traps!"

"Of course! She was in love with you!"

"In love! Mon Dieu! you call that love! I mastered her body and was un.o.btainable. She was never able to draw me more than a person could to whom I should pay two hundred francs. She knew that perfectly--it enraged her always. The threads are now completely in my hands. Conceive of it, Denzil! The man at the Ardayre ball was her first husband for whom she always retained some kind of animal affection--because he used to beat her. They married her to Stanisla.s.s just to obtain the secrets of Poland, and any other thing which she could pick' up. Her marvellous stupidity and incredible want of all moral restraint has made her the most brilliant spy. No principles to hamper her--nothing. She has only tripped up through jealousy now. When she felt that she had lost me she grew to desire me with the only part of her nature with which she desires anything, her flesh--then she became unbalanced, and in September before I left, gave the clue into my hands. I shall not bore you with all the details, but I have them both--she and Ferdinand Ardayre. The first husband has gone back to Germany from Sweden, but we shall secure him, too, presently. Meanwhile I shall hand Harietta to the French authorities--her last exploits are against France. She has enabled the Germans to shoot six or seven brave fellows, besides giving information of the most important kind wormed from foolish elderly adorers and above all from Stanisla.s.s himself."

"She will be shot, I suppose."

"Probably. But first she shall confess about the postcard from the prison camp. I shall go to Paris immediately, Denzil; there must be no delay."

"You will not feel the slightest twinge because she was your mistress, if she is shot, Stepan? I ask because the combination of possible emotions is interesting and unusual."

"Not for an instant--" and suddenly Verisschenzko's yellow-green eyes flashed fire and his face grew transfigured with fierce hate. "You do not know the affection I had for Stanisla.s.s from my boyhood--he was my leader, my ideal. No paltry aims--a great pioneer of freedom on the sanest lines. He might have altered the history of our two countries--he was the light we need, and this foul, loathsome creature has destroyed not only his soul and his body, but the protector and defender of a conception of freedom which might have been realised. I would strangle her with my own hands."

"Stanisla.s.s must have been a weakling, Stepan, to have let her destroy him. He could never have ruled. It strikes me that this is the proof of another of your theories. It must be some debt of his previous life that he is paying to this woman. He was given his chance to use strength against her and failed."

The hate died out of Verisschenzko's face--and the look of calm reasoning returned.

"Yes, you are right, Denzil. You are wiser than I. So I shall not give her up, for punishment of her crimes. I shall only give her up because of justice--she must not be at large. You see, even in my case,--I who pride myself on being balanced, can have my true point of view obsessed by hate. It is an ign.o.ble pa.s.sion, my son!"

"You will catch Ferdinand too?"

"Undoubtedly--he is just a rotten little snipe, but he does mischief as Harietta's tool--and through his business in Holland."

"He loathes the English--that is his reason, but Madame Boleski has no incentive like that."

"Harietta has no country--she would be willing to betray any one of them to gratify any personal desire. If she had been a patriot exclusively working for Germany, one could have respected her, but she has often betrayed their secrets to me--for jewels--and other things she required at the moment. No mercy can be shown at all."

"In these days there is no use in having sentiment just because a spy is a woman--but I am glad it is not my duty to deliver her up."

Verisschenzko smiled.

"I cannot help my nature, Denzil,--or rather the attributes of the nation into which in this life I am born. I shall hand Harietta over to justice without a regret."

Then they parted for the night with much of the disturbance and the complex emotions removed from Denzil's heart.

CHAPTER XXII

When Verisschenzko reached Paris and discovered the desecration of the Ikon, an icy rage came over him. He knew, even before questioning his old servant, that it could only be the work of Harietta. Jealousy alone would be the cause of such a wanton act. It revealed to him the certainty of his theory that she had imagined the little Benedict to be his child. No further proof that the postcard was a forgery was really needed, but he would see her once more and obtain extra confirmation.

His yellow-green eyes gleamed in a curious way as he stood looking at the mutilated picture.

That her ridiculous and accursed hatpin should have dared to touch the eyes of his soul's lady, and scratch out the face of the child!

But he must not let this emotion of personal anger affect what he intended in any case to do from motives of justice. In the morning he would give all his proofs of her guilt to the French authorities, and let the law take its course--but to-night he would make her come there to his apartment and hear from him an indictment of her crimes.

He sat down in the comfortable chair in his own sitting room and began to think.

His face was ominous; all the fierce pa.s.sions of his nation and of his nature held him for a while.

His dog, an intelligent terrier whom he loved, sat there before the fire and watched him, wagging his stump of a tail now and then nervously, but not daring to approach. Then, after half an hour had gone by, he rose and went to the telephone. He called up the Universal and asked to be put through to the apartment of Madame Boleski, and soon heard Harietta's voice. It was a little anxious--and yet insolent too.

"Yes? Is that you Stepan! Darling Brute! What do you want?"

"You--cannot you come and dine with me to-night--alone?"

His voice was honey sweet, with a spontaneous, frank ring in it, only his face still looked as a fiend's.

"You have just arrived? How divine!"

"This instant, so I rushed at once to the telephone. I long for you--come--now."

He allowed pa.s.sion to quiver in the last notes--he must be sure that she would be drawn.

"He cannot have opened the doors of the Ikon," Harietta thought. "I will go--to see him again will be worth it anyway!"

"All right!--in half an hour!"

"_Soit_,"--and he put the receiver down.

Then he went again to the Ikon and examined the doors; by slamming them very hard and readjusting one small golden nail, he could give the fastening the appearance of its having been jammed and impossible to open. He ordered a wonderful dinner and some Chateau Ykem of 1900.

Harietta, he remembered, liked it better than Champagne. Its sweetness and its strength appealed to her taste. The room was warm and delightful with its blazing wood fire. He looked round before he went to dress, and then he laughed softly, and again Fin nervously wagged his stump of a tail.

Harietta arrived punctually. She had made herself extremely beautiful.