L.P.M. : The End of The Great War Part 30

"SIT DOWN, YOU DOG!"

As Edestone and Lawrence were coming down the stairs they were met by one of the German servants, who told them in a rather excited manner that the Secretary wished to see them both in his library.

Hastening down they were surprised as they arrived in the main hall to see through the iron and gla.s.s grille a squad of German soldiers standing at the front door.

"This is their last card," said Edestone in an undertone, "and if it fails there is nothing left for them to do but kill me. They have received word from Leipsic and they know that there is no time to lose, so we can look out now for anything. You had better get our party together, Lawrence, and see that every man has a pistol. There are two automatics in my room. When you get back, if you find me standing, or if I rise, or if I light a cigar, make some excuse and get up to the roof as quickly as you can and send your S. O. S. call to 'Specs.' He can be here in fifteen minutes after he receives it. Then, lock that grille and station someone there you can trust."

"I wonder what they'll charge me with?" he thought as alone he entered the room where the Secretary was sitting calmly, although Edestone could see that he was making a great effort not to show his indignation to the German officer who was standing in front of him.

Edestone knew him so well that when he saw his mouth fixed as though he was whistling quietly to himself, the forefinger of his right hand at his lips as if to a.s.sist him in his musical efforts,--he who could not turn a tune,--he knew that Jones had himself well in hand. In his left hand the Secretary held a formal-looking paper with which he was quietly tapping the table in front of him as though keeping time to his soundless and imaginary ditty. With his chin well down, he was looking from under his heavy eyebrows with eyes that were dangerously cold.

The officer who had delivered these papers was apparently waiting for his answer and stood very erect, looking straight ahead of him. He did not change his position or notice Edestone as he entered the room.

"Good-morning, Count von Hemelstein," said Edestone on seeing who it was, and the soldier then condescended to acknowledge the greeting with a slight bow.

The Secretary leaned forward, and putting both hands flat on the table while looking straight at Count von Hemelstein, said in a rather judicial tone, as though delivering an opinion from the bench:

"Mr. Edestone, Count von Hemelstein has just delivered to me an order for your arrest on the charge of giving a.s.sistance to the enemies of Germany. He also charges Lawrence Stuyvesant with insulting the Emperor's uniform and his dignity by impersonating a Prince of the Royal Blood and rendering that Prince ridiculous. He states, however, in your case that the Emperor will accept your explanation if you will accompany Count von Hemelstein quietly and make it to His Imperial Majesty in person. In the case of Lawrence Stuyvesant, he demands an apology and has paroled him in my custody until this is received, and as in the first case he makes a further condition, which is that the Emperor will accept an apology made by Lawrence Stuyvesant to the Prince himself, provided only that you agree to accompany Count von Hemelstein quietly and at once."

Then turning as if addressing a prisoner on trial before him he said, in that soft and quiet voice always a.s.sumed by a judge in speaking to a criminal, even though he knows that the culprit has just boiled his mother:

"In the case against you, Mr. Edestone, in your absence I have flatly denied the charge. In the case against Lawrence Stuyvesant I deny all knowledge of, and decline to express an opinion until I have had an opportunity of looking into, the circ.u.mstances of the alleged offence."

Edestone who had stood during this went over and took a seat at the Secretary's side of the table. "It is just as you said it would be," he observed to the Count with a mocking laugh as he pa.s.sed him. "You Germans are so thorough."

The Count made no reply, only stiffening up, if it were possible to give any more of that quality of German militarism to a ramrod in human form.

He stood as if expecting the Secretary to continue, or to hear further from Edestone, but both men sat perfectly still looking at him. The Secretary, as if having delivered his ruling, he was waiting for the case to go on, settled back into his chair, while Edestone, with the look of a lawyer who is perfectly satisfied with the ruling of the court, was grinning at his opponent, toying with both hands with a small bronze paper-weight made in the shape of a ploughshare, recently received from Was.h.i.+ngton with the compliments of the Secretary of State.

As neither man seemed to have the slightest intention of breaking the silence, after a moment which seemed an age, Count von Hemelstein brought his hand with a snap to a salute.

"My orders are to bring Mr. Edestone with me," he said, "and if you decline to deliver him to me, Mr. Secretary, I must use force."

"That I have no power to prevent you from doing," said Jones. "You are now in the Emba.s.sy of a friendly nation, on soil dedicated by His Imperial Majesty to the use of the representative of that nation, whose safety and that of those he may see fit to protect are guaranteed by the most solemn promise that it is possible for one nation to make to another. If His Imperial Majesty intends to break his solemn word, I am as powerless as the lowest peasant in his domain. As to my word of honour as to the safe-keeping of Mr. Lawrence Stuyvesant, you have by your act reduced me to the rank of a simple American citizen, and as such, and not as representing the Amba.s.sador at the Court of Berlin--for after this there can be none--I tell you that I will not give my word to those who do not keep theirs. As to Mr. Edestone, I can simply, for his own sake, advise him to go with you, but not before I tell him that his country will resist with all its power the indignity which His Majesty has seen fit to offer it."

Lawrence, who had come in during this speech, was standing looking in amazement from one to the other.

Then Edestone rose. "Mr. Secretary," he said, "I regret to have been the cause of putting you in this most trying position, and before I decide to accompany this officer or detective I must think, so with your permission I will light a cigar." He walked over to a table and very slowly selected one from a box that was there.

Lawrence, as if he had forgotten something, left the room hurriedly.

Edestone very deliberately took his cigar and very slowly lighted it. He then as slowly walked back to his seat and sat blowing ring after ring, holding all the time the box of matches in his right hand.

In the meantime Lawrence had walked to the front door, as if looking out to see why the soldiers were there, and turned the key of the grille so noiselessly that it failed to attract any attention from the men on the outside. Then turning to Fred, the Bowery boy, who was waiting for him, he spoke in an undertone.

"Don't let any of the servants open that door or even go near it," he said, and, satisfied that his order would be obeyed, stepped inside the elevator and closed the door with a bang.

Edestone, who had meanwhile been doing anything simply to kill time, heard this. He knew that Lawrence would work quickly, and had had ample time to carry out the first part of his instructions. As if about to drop into his pocket the box of matches he was holding, he drew with a quick motion a .38 automatic, and leaning across the table covered the Count with it.

"Hold up your hands!" he said without raising his voice. "It is safer."

There was on his face that unmistakable look of the man who intends to kill. The other man saw it and understood, and reluctantly raised his hands above his head after making a half-gesture as if to draw his own pistol from his belt but thinking better of it.

"This is very foolish, Mr. Edestone," he said with a disdainful sneer. "Will you fight single-handed six million men?"

Jones, who when a young man had spent a good many years in a frontier town, was too accustomed to this method of punctuating one's remarks and calling the undivided attention of one's listener to them, to be much surprised. At any rate, he showed none, and besides he knew Edestone to be a perfectly cool man whose trigger finger would not twitch from nervousness.

"Be careful, Jack," he contented himself with saying very quietly; "I suppose you know what you are about." Then he settled back to wait for Edestone to explain what he would do next.

"Yes, William," said Edestone, "I know exactly what I am doing, and in order to relieve you and your Government from any responsibility, I here, in the presence of the Emperor's representative, renounce my allegiance to the United States of America and to all other countries, and I now become a law unto myself, accountable to no one but myself--in other words, an outlaw, a pirate." He turned then to the emissary of the Kaiser.

"Count von Hemelstein, as I intend to keep you in that position for some little time unless you will allow me to remove your arms--not your sword," he explained quickly on seeing the look of horror that came over the Prussian's face. "I will allow you to keep that barbaric relic of the Middle Ages and modern j.a.pan, to which you and the Knights k of the Orient attach so much importance. But that very nice automatic I must have. I beg that you will allow me to take it without any unnecessary fuss." He walked around the table and, gently pulling the pistol out of its holster, put it into his own pocket, keeping the Count carefully covered all the while.

"Now you can take down your hands. I know that you can hide nothing more dangerous in that tight-fitting uniform of yours than a long cigarette holder and a very pretty box. I am delighted that you have been so quiet, as no one could come to your a.s.sistance. Your soldiers are locked outside of the iron grille and would have some difficulty in breaking it down, even if they could hear you; so sit down. I wish to explain a few things to you.

"It is now exactly a quarter before eight o'clock. By eight the Little Peace Maker will be over the Emba.s.sy, and you with your boastful knowledge of other people's business must realize what that means. You have heard what I just said to the Secretary representing the United States at the Court of Berlin, and my object in making that statement before you was to relieve him and the United States of America of the responsibility of any of my acts. The Little Peace Maker is my own personal property, and before she fires a gun or drops a bomb I shall haul down the flag of the United States and run up my own private signal, which on my yacht, the _Storm Queen_, is well known in all yachting circles. In short, from now on I declare myself an outlaw.

"If your Emperor will allow me and my men to go abroad peaceably, I will do so and all may be well, but at the very first act of violence I will take the necessary steps to protect them. I intend to keep you here until I am notified that the airs.h.i.+p has arrived, and when I leave this room, my advice to you is not to follow me, but go at once and notify your superior officer and thereby save the great loss of life that will otherwise ensue.

"Now, Count, as we will have about ten minutes longer together, I am quite sure that the Secretary will not object to your joining me with one of the Amba.s.sador's extremely good cigars," and he winked at his friend Jones.

He walked over to the table as if to get the box, but the moment his back was turned the Count jumped and started for the door like a flash. With a quick side step, however, Edestone threw himself between him and the only exit from the room, and giving the fugitive a good poke in the stomach with the muzzle of his gun, said:

"I allowed you to do that to show you that you are absolutely in my power. Sit down, Count von Hemelstein, and if you will give me your word of honour that you will not move I shall not tie you. Do you accept these terms?"

The Count nodded his head and sat down, and the Secretary, who all this time had been sitting perfectly quiet, said with a very little bit of a smile on about one-half of his mouth:

"Count von Hemelstein, if I were you I should sit still. You must see that you are powerless to do anything, and whereas I know that Mr. Edestone does not intend to kill you unless it is absolutely necessary, I am equally certain that he intends to if it is. In fact, I do not know that he might not kill me if I stood in his way. He has just declared himself to be an outlaw, and it is my duty to turn him over to the authorities, but I should hate to have to try to do it now that he seems so bent on leaving us."

Edestone, who quickly caught the idea that the Secretary was trying to convey to him, turned on his friend.

"If you, my friend, whom I have known for years, desert me now," he declared in a loud and apparently much excited tone, "or attempt to deliver me over to these wild people to kill, I will kill you, if it is the last act of my life." He faced about so that one eye was hidden from the flabbergasted German and gave another significant wink. Then turning back to the Count he resumed: "I will kill any man who prevents me from going on board the Little Peace Maker tonight. Now let us talk about more pleasant things for the few remaining minutes that we are to have in each other's company."

But the Count was in no mood for conversation. He sat staring at the floor, while Edestone with his watch in his hand waited for word from Lawrence. It was now eight o'clock and still no response. Could there be some mistake? Had the Germans been able to prevent his message from going through? Or was Lawrence waiting to be sure that the airs.h.i.+p was coming before leaving the roof to notify him?

On the outside all was quiet, and as long as the soldiers did not suspect, everything would be all right. But suppose that the Emperor should grow impatient and send another messenger? He was just congratulating himself that the Count did not know what time it was or that the Little Peace Maker was now overdue, when a clock somewhere struck eight.

The Count straightened up and his look of k interest changed to hope, and finally a smile broke over his face as the minutes slipped by.

"Well, Mr. Edestone, your little dream will soon be over," he taunted, after sitting for about five minutes longer.

Even the Secretary was growing fidgety. He knew that something would have to happen soon or the German General Staff, with its usual thoroughness, would ask the reason why, and this question would be put in their usual forcible manner.

It was now ten minutes after eight, and Edestone expected every minute to hear a ring at the front door. Besides, the dusk was coming on and the servants would soon be in to light the lights. He had decided that if they did he would retreat to the roof, forcing the Count to accompany him, and there make a last stand. He formed a mental resolution never to leave that roof alive except on board of the Little Peace Maker. He had always said that he had rather be dead than a failure. He did not want to live to see his life's work, his beautiful s.h.i.+p, which must finally come down, used for war, death, and destruction, his dream of universal peace gone forever; or by his own discovery remove still farther from the grasp of the long-suffering world that relief which it was vainly reaching out for in its present desperate plight.

Was this the end? If so, he would meet it calmly, but not until he had made a fight. Then he would meet Fate with a smile, for she had been good to him. Perhaps an all-wise Providence had decreed that man must fight on to the bitter end, and to punish him for his presumption in attempting to alter an unalterable law had led him on only to destroy him just as he, with his petty little mind, thought he had reached the goal.