An Imperial Marriage Part 26

He looked at me, his eyes full of meaning and his lips drawn into a dry smile. "I think I see. And you don't wish to appear in it?"

"You can shut me clean out of the picture if you like"; and I rose.

"I hope she will make the sensation old Grumpel expects. She ought to, after this," he said as we shook hands.

"Oh, by the way," I said, turning at the door as if with an afterthought, "I expect to have some almost equally important news for you about the von Felsen marriage in a day or two. Matters are in train."

"Are you going to bring that off too?" he exclaimed. "Upon my word, I shall begin to have some real belief in you newspaper men."

"I only want a few days," I replied casually.

"After this, you can have a month, of course, or as long as you wish."

I returned home, speculating rather uneasily what Althea would say when I told her what had occurred; but she was not in the house, and my sister told me she had gone to see Chalice. I was not sorry that Chalice should tell her the news.

In the afternoon I spent an hour or two with Herr Ziegler, and was introduced to some of the men a.s.sociated with him in the political schemes of the Polish party.

I could not see any real reason for me to meet them, and I said as little as possible, beyond expressing sympathy with their cause and a willingness to help in the manner arranged with the Jew.

They appeared to be equally on their guard with me; and the chief impression left on my mind was that the men were not going straight; that some of them distrusted Ziegler, and were disposed therefore to regard me with no little suspicion. There was an air of insincerity, a disposition to fence, and such a reluctance to do more than hint and insinuate and imply, that I felt anything but easy in mind.

I told the Jew my opinion when the rest had left us; but he explained it away as no more than the caution natural under the circ.u.mstances.

However, the main thing I cared about was the arrangement that I was to be the go-between with von Felsen in getting the papers; and as any hour might bring the news that he had obtained them, Ziegler and I were to keep in constant touch.

But the more I thought over the afternoon's interviews the less I liked the look of things, and the stronger grew the impression that there was something crooked. I began to worry myself with the fear that the plan on which so much depended would go wrong.

For the first time, also, there was something like a cloud between Althea and myself as the result of the news Chalice had told her. She said little more than that she knew what had been done; but added that, as there was no longer any reason for her to remain with us, she had decided to return home on the following morning.

I took this as a sign of her dissatisfaction at my action; and as I was in a fretful and rather irritable mood, I just held my tongue. The evening was thus pa.s.sed with a feeling of restraint which all Bessie's efforts could not remove.

I sat worrying over matters for a few minutes after they had left me, and at length grew so uneasy that I resolved to go at once to Ziegler to thresh out with him my doubts about his friends. I could not rest quiet or shake off the sense of impending trouble; and I soon had a tragic and terrible confirmation of my fears.

I was close to his house when I met Hagar rus.h.i.+ng along the street distraught with terror. She was bareheaded, her eyes wide and fright-stricken, and she was so absorbed by her agitation, that she did not see me and did not even hear me when I first called to her.

I turned and caught her up.

"What has happened?" I asked, seizing her arm.

She tried at first to break away from me with a cry of fear, as if not recognizing me.

"I am Mr. Bastable, your father's friend. Tell me what is the matter."

She looked at me with a dazed expression, trembling violently the while, and then, with a great effort as if her emotion were choking her, she told me.

"I was coming to you. Oh, Herr Bastable, my father is dead. He has been murdered. Oh G.o.d! Oh G.o.d!"

I caught my breath with the shock of the tidings, and in an instant all my suspicions of the afternoon recurred to me with startling force.

CHAPTER XIII

IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH

As soon as I had shaken off the first stunning effect of the news of the murder, I did what I could to calm Hagar, and then asked her to return with me to the house. But this induced a fresh paroxysm of alarm.

"No, no. They will take my life," she cried. "I dare not. I dare not."

"I will see that no one harms you," I a.s.sured her. "I am armed, and by this time they will have fled. There is no danger."

I prevailed in the end, and together we went back to the house. She shuddered violently as we entered, and clung to my arm, shrinking and shaking and glancing about her in terror at every step.

I knew where her father had kept his liquors, so I got her some brandy and made her drink a fairly stiff dose.

"Where are your servants?" I asked.

"One is ill, and the other has been away all the afternoon." Her lips trembled and her voice quivered as she replied.

"You must make an effort," I said sharply. "Tell me everything."

"I cannot think. I cannot think," she moaned distractedly, and laid her head on the table in an agony of wild grief.

I gave her some more of the spirit, and as soon as she had drunk it I said as impressively as I could: "If you would revenge your father's death, you must let me know everything at once. Revenge is still in your power, remember. Your father would have had you think of that."

The appeal had an immediate effect. She raised her head and her eyes flashed with a new light. "You are right," she cried in a strong vibrating tone. "I will never rest until he is revenged and his murderers are punished. That I swear to my G.o.d!"

She rose then and led me into the room where the body lay, just as it had fallen, huddled up on the floor close to the table at which most of the old man's life had been spent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The body lay, just as it had fallen huddled up on the floor, close to the table." _Page_ 133]

"You have had no doctor yet," I exclaimed, turning to the telephone.

"I ran for my life the instant I discovered what had occurred."

"What is your doctor's name?" I asked as I tried the telephone. She told me; but I could get no reply to my call. And then I discovered that the communication had been cut. A sinister and suggestive circ.u.mstance.

I knelt down by the body and made a rapid examination. He had been stabbed from behind, and was long past all human help. The eyes were fast glazing and the body beginning to stiffen.

As I was feeling the pulse a ring dropped from the hand, and intent on the work of examination, I put it without thinking into my pocket.

"When did it occur?"

"I do not know. I was in my room upstairs and came down to speak to him about--about my marriage to-morrow----" She paused and closed her eyes and clenched her hands for a moment, and then forced herself to continue. "I found him as you see. That was just before I ran out of the house in my panic and you met me. I remembered his warning to me and fled. I was mad for the time, I think."

"What was his warning?"