The Sins of Severac Bablon Part 22

"I demand an answer! Who are you?"

"That is another question," replied the stranger, in his soft, musical voice, "and I will try to answer it. At dinner last night I told you of a man whose fathers saw the Great Pyramid built, whose race was old when that pyramid was new. I told you of an unbroken line of kings--of kings who wore no crowns, whose throne was lost in the long ago."

She closed and re-opened her right hand nervously, and a new light came into her eyes. His words had touched again, as the night before, the hidden deeps of her nature, quickening into life the mysticism that lay there. She would have spoken, but he quietly motioned her to silence--and she was silent.

"I said that the time approached when that ancient line again should claim place among the monarchies of the world. I said that millions of men and women, in every habitable quarter of the globe, owed allegiance to that man who was, by divine right, their king!"

His face lighted up with a wild enthusiasm. To the beautiful girl who listened, spell-bound, he seemed as one inspired.

"Upon his people lay a cloud--a tainting shadow grown black through the centuries. He must disperse it, proclaiming to the world that his was a n.o.ble people, a nation with a mighty soul! The evil came not from without but from within. The worst enemies of the Jews are the Jews. In attacking those enemies of his people, inevitably he would come into collision with many governments. But he would do them no wrong, save in showing them powerless to protect the traitors from his righteous wrath!"

For a long moment she watched him, and no words came to her. That this splendid man was mad flashed through her mind as a possible thing; but that thought she dismissed, and remained bewildered.

"Is it true?" she asked, in a pleading voice; "or are you jesting with me?"

He smiled, having resumed his habitual calm.

"It is true!" he answered. "Upon the word of a rogue--a thief--upon the honour of Severac Bablon!"

Zoe started, yet she was not afraid; for something had told her almost from his entrance that this was he--the man whose name at that very hour glared from countless placards, upon a great part of the civilised world; whose deeds at that moment were being babbled of in every tongue from Chinese to Italian.

"But, if you are that man, and----" She hesitated. "You are wrong, I am sure! Oh! indeed, truly, I think you are wrong! Not in your aims, but in making so many new enemies! You have placed yourself outside all laws!

You may be arrested at any hour!"

"That phase of my campaign will pa.s.s. I shall meet the Ministers of all the Powers upon equality--as the plenipotentiary of eight million people! All that I have done will be forgotten in the light of what I _shall_ do!"

"I cannot understand about last night. Your presence was an accident----"

He laughed softly.

"I knew that Lady Vignoles' party numbered fourteen. I caused your father to be detained. One of my friends--I will not name him--suggested a novel mode of seeking a guest: I caused Megger's man to be absent whilst another of my friends, imitating his speech, sent the telephone message! Is that accident?"

"It is----"

"Unworthy, you would say? The work of a common cracksman? But, by those lowly means I secured proof that Bernard Megger, director of the Uitland Rands Consolidated Mines Syndicate, and Isaac Jacobsen, the Kimberley mail robber, were one and the same! He has escaped the laws of England, but he cannot escape me!"

She shrank involuntarily, her now frightened eyes fixed upon the face of this man, whose patriotism, whose zeal, whose incredibly lofty purpose she did not, could not, doubt, but whose methods she could, not condone--by whose will her own father had suffered. Then, in a quickly imperious yet kindly manner, he placed both his hands upon her shoulders, looking, with earnest, searching eyes, deep into her own.

"What would you desire me to do that half a million pounds can compa.s.s?"

he asked.

"Return it to those it belongs to, if you can, and, with any that you cannot return, endow homes by the sh.o.r.e for sick slum children!"

He moved his left hand, and she saw dully gleaming upon his finger, a great green stone, bearing a strange device. In some weird fas.h.i.+on it seemed to convey a message to her--intimate, convincing. Within those green depths there dwelt a mystery. She felt that the ring was incalculably old, and that its wearer must wield almost limitless power.

It was an uncanny idea, but she lived to know that her instincts had not wholly misled her.

"It shall be done!" said Severac Bablon. "And you will be my friend?"

"I will try!" whispered Zoe, "if you wish. But, oh, believe me! You are wrong! You are wrong! There is, there _must_ be some better way!"

As he removed his hands from her shoulders she turned aside and glanced through the open window, seeing nothing of the panorama of London below, but seeing only a great throne, and upon it a regal figure, his head crowned with the ancient crown of the Jewish kings. When she turned again her father stood behind her. But Severac Bablon was gone!

"Thought you had a visitor, Zoe?" said Mr. Oppner. "There's a gentleman here would like to have a look at him!"

He turned to a big, burly man, dressed in neat serge, who bowed awkwardly and immediately took a sharp look around the room. Mr. Oppner eyed his daughter with grim suspicion.

"Inspector Sheffield would like to ask you something!"

"Sorry to trouble you, miss," said the inspector, misinterpreting the sudden, strained look that had come into her eyes, and smiling in kindly fas.h.i.+on. "But I've been following a man all the morning, and I rather think he came into this hotel! Also--please excuse me if I'm wrong--I rather fancy he came up here!"

"What is he like--this--man?" she asked mechanically, looking away from the detective.

"This morning he was like the handsomest gentleman in Europe, miss! But he may have altered since I saw him last! He's the latest thing in quick-change artists I've met to date!"

"What do you want him for?"

Sheffield raised his eyebrows.

"He's Severac Bablon!" he said simply. "Does your late visitor answer to the description?"

"My visitor was a gentleman who wanted funds for building a home for invalid children!"

"You're sure it wasn't our man, miss?"

("And you will be my friend" he had asked. "I will try," had been her promise.)

"I am quite sure my visitor was not a criminal of any kind!" she answered. "You have made a strange mistake!"

The inspector bowed and quitted the room immediately. Mr. Oppner stood for some moments watching his daughter--and then followed the officer.

Zoe went to her room, and allowed her maid to dress her, without proposing a solitary alteration in the scheme. She was very preoccupied.

In the lounge she found her father deep in conversation with a clean-shaven man who had the features and complexion of a Sioux, and wore a tweed suit which to British eyes must have appeared several sizes too large for him. His Stetson was tilted well to the rear of his skull, and he lay back smoking a black cheroot. This was Aloys X. Alden of Pinkerton's. Zoe hesitated. The conversation clearly was a business one.

And, at that moment, a tall figure appeared beside her.

Zoe drew a sharp breath--almost a breath of pain. She glanced toward the group of two in the distant corner. They were discussing, as she knew quite well, various plans for the apprehension of the man who had become a nightmare to certain capitalists. They were devising, or seeking to devise, schemes for penetrating the secret of his real ident.i.ty--for peering beneath the mask of the real man.

And here, by her side, stood Severac Bablon!

"Pray, pray go!" she whispered tremulously. "I thought you had left the hotel. For your own sake, if not for mine, you should have done so."

"But if it happens that I am staying here?"

"Please go! There--with my father--is a detective----"

"I know him well!" was the reply. Severac Bablon's melodious voice was calm. He smiled serenely. "But, fortunately, he does not know me! My name, then, for the present, is Mr. Sanrack; and I have taken this risk--though believe me it is not so great as you deem it--because I have something more to say. I was interrupted by the arrival of Inspector Sheffield."

"He may come in at any moment!"