CHAPTER IX. ALAN HAWKE PLAYS HIS TRUMP CARD.
When the Calcutta train rolled into Allahabad, two days after Harry Hardwicke’s crushing surprise, Major Alan Hawke, the very pink of Anglo-Indian elegance, awaited the dismounting of the returning voyagers. He had passed a whole sleepless night in revolving the various methods to play oft each of his wary employers against each other, and had decided to let Fate make the game.
“The devil of it is, I’m not supposed to know anything of the flitting!” he mused, after digesting Ram Lal Singh’s carefully worded telegrams. All the light in his shadowy mental eclipse was the positive information that a special train had been made up for Bombay at the station, “on government secret service.”
“The old man is preparing to fight, now,” he decided. “His ‘wooden horse’ is within Berthe Loiuson’s camp. If she is not wary, she may never leave India, Johnstone can be very ugly. But what must I do? Shall I warn Berthe, now? If I do, she will both doubt me and make a scene. Old Johnstone will then know at once that I have betrayed him.” An hour’s cogitation led Alan Hawke to decide to let the “high contracting parties” fight it out themselves at Delhi.
“I’ll secretly join the winner and then bleed them both. I must be unconscious of all. Johnstone’s money I want first, then, Berthe must pay me well for my aid.” With an exquisite nosegay of flowers, he awaited the slow descent of the social magnates. A second telegram from Johnstone had warned him that the wanderers were on the same train. “He is a cool devil!” mused Hawke.
Radiant in beauty, pleasantly smiling, and watched by her French bodyguard, Madame Louison swept into the grand cafe room upon the arm of Hugh Johnstone, who deftly exchanged a silent glance of warning with the artful Major. The first intimation of Johnstone’s craft was the fact that Alan Hawke found he could not manage to see Madame Louison alone, even for a single moment. There was a veiled surprise in her beautiful brown eyes, when the nabob led Hawke a few tables away for a conference in full view of the beauty, who was surrounded with a cloud of obsequious attendants. “As we have but one hour, Madame, pray at once, order a repast for us all. I must have a few words with Hawke.” Johnstone was as smiling as a summer sea.
“We were delayed a day by my own private business,” genially cried the nabob. “What’s new in Delhi?”
It was the crowning lie of Hawke’s splendidly mendacious career when he carelessly said, “Nothing. I supposed, of course, that you had grave need of me here.”
“So I have,” earnestly replied Johnstone, as the station master bustled up, scraping and bowing, with a bundle of letters and several telegrams. “Just look over these five drafts on Glyn, Carr & Glyn’s, while I look at the letters,” whispered Johnstone, handing Hawke an official looking envelope. Even while the adventurer carefully scanned the bills of exchange, he saw a gleam of devilish triumph in the old man’s eyes as he opened the telegrams, and with affected carelessness shoved his letters in his pocket. “See here, Hawke! You can even earn a neat ‘further donation’ if you will play your part rightly. General Abercromby, as personally representing the Viceroy, arrives here to-morrow night to adjust my accounts finally. He will be a week or so at Delhi. I want you to represent me and receive him here. I’ve telegraphed back to Abercromby that you will bring him up in a special car. He does not want old Willoughby to think he is nosing around Delhi. Now, do the handsome thing. Abercromby knows you. Here is a pocket-book. Lose a few fifty-pound notes to the old boy on the train. Amuse him, mind you, and set him up well! The car will be well stocked. I leave my two men here to wait on you and him. That’s all. I want to go off ‘in a blaze of glory,’ as the Yankees would say. I will meet you at Delhi. Abercromby comes to my house. Can I depend on you? And, not a single word about the Baronetcy. The Viceroy has graciously sent a special dispatch to England.”
“All right. Let us join the Madame,” said Hawke, with an uneasy feeling of a coming tropical storm, “I’m glad to be out of it,” mused Hawke. “If Abercromby stays a week, both parties will defer hostilities until he goes. If that soft-hearted Swiss fool only telegraphs! By God, I would have liked to have had one final tete-a-tete. She can make my fortune yet.”
The flying minutes glided easily away, with Hugh Johnstone’s old-time gallantry artfully separating the two secret conspirators against his peace. Alan Hawke lunched gayly, with but one lurking regret—a futile sorrow that he had not bent Justine Delande to his will. There was no dark pledge between them, no secret bond of a man’s perfidious victory, no soft surrender, the seal of a woman’s dishonor.
“Will she telegraph?” the adventurer asked himself with a beating heart and a burning brain. “If so, then I hold them both in my hands, and the game is mine.” When the train drew out, the Major watched the disappearing forms of the mortal enemies in a secret wonder. “Have they made it up? Will they marry after all?” he growled, and yet he laughed the idea to scorn. “And yet fear, as well as love, has tied the nuptial knot before,” he mused.
A new proof of Johnstone’s craft was afforded him after he had, in a leisurely way, verified the regularity of his windfall in good London exchange, signed by the millionaire upon his home bankers, and duly stamped. A mental flash of lightning showed him how he was “sewed up,” for Johnstone’s all too polite servants shadowed him, alternately, in his every movement. He even dared not visit the secret telegraph address. “Old scoundrel!” raged Alan Hawke. “I will only get the first news after the fair and probably in a storm from Berthe. The denouement may occur with me languishing here in Capua. Suppose that this she-devil would bolt? Where would I land then?” He was most sadly rattled.
In the Delhi train, Hugh Johnstone busied with his late London papers, slyly smiled as he studied a route map and railway time table. He had received a single telegraphed word, dated Madras, and wisely left unsigned, but that one word was the keynote of his coveted victory—“Arrived.”
“Ah! my lady,” he mused, casting his eyes in the direction of Madame Louison’s cozy private compartment. “To-morrow at Delhi, if Douglas Fraser is true to his trust, there will be the message which tells of a ‘bark upon the sea,’ which bears away forever all the brightness of your life—away from you, yes, forever! And Hawke, this smart cad, is powerless now, and both of them are outwitted. The Baronetcy is safe the very moment that Abercromby’s work is done. I’ve paid Hawke now, and he has been very naturally brought down here, out of the way. Madame! Madame! Now to settle accounts with you the very moment that Abercromby has reported back from Calcutta. I think I will just have a good old-fashioned talk with Ram Lal Singh. I need his evidence to hoodwink this old cask of grog, Abercromby. I must blow off’ his vanity in great style.”
While Berthe Louison slept, while old Hugh Johnstone plotted, while Ram Lal Singh fumed at Delhi, and Harry Hardwicke “mourned the hopes that left him,” Major Alan Hawke retired to the Nirvana of a long afternoon siesta. There was a little departing detachment on this golden afternoon at Madras—two frightened women, now gladly seeking the shelter of their cabins, as the fleet steamer Coomassie Castle turned her prow toward Palk Strait. The terrible ordeal of “passing the surf” had appalled them, and the exhausted Nadine Johnstone at last fell asleep with her arms clasped around her sad-hearted governess. A hundred times had they read over together the old nabob’s telegram: “Going home from Calcutta to settle the Baronetcy appointment. Will meet you in Europe.” Nadine’s letter from her stern father bade her implicitly trust to her new-found kinsman, Douglas Fraser. The old nabob’s judiciously private letter had filled Justine Delande’s sad heart with one twilight glow of happiness. A comforting cheque for one thousand pounds was contained therein.
The words: “Your salary and expenses will be paid by me in Europe. This is only a little present. Another may await you and your sister, if you fulfill your trust, that no man, not even Douglas Fraser, meets my daughter alone until you give her back to me. He is but my traveling agent. Nadine is in your hands alone. I have so written to her.” With a breaking heart Justine Delande kissed her beloved gage d’amour, the diamond bracelet, murmuring: “Alan! Alan! To part without even a word!” She lay with tear-stained eyes, watching the low shores of Madras fade away, and listened to the sleeping girl’s murmur: “Harry! Harry! I owe you my life!” Even the maid mourned a dashing Sergeant-Major! With a desperate courage, trying to fan the spark of love, which had slowly crept into her lonely heart, Justine Delande had timidly bribed a stewardess, going on shore for some last commissions, to telegraph to the secret address at Allahabad the words: “Madras steamer Coomassie Castle, Brindisi.”
The signature, “Your Justine,” brought a grim smile to Alan Hawke’s face, the next night, when on the arrival of General Abercromby, he stationed Hugh Johnstone’s secret spies on duty with the redoubtable Calcutta warrior. “By God! She is both game and true!” cried Hawke. “Here is my fortune, and Justine shall share my spoils yet!” As the special train rolled out into the starlit night the old nabob, in a paroxysm of delight, read in the marble house words telegraphed by the happy-hearted Douglas Fraser, now taking up his endless deck tramp on the Brindisi bound steamer. The young Scotsman, ignorant of all intrigue, was relieved to know that he had laid the firm foundation of his future fortunes. His last shore duty was done when he had wired to his urgent relative in Delhi the glad tidings: “All right. Coomassie Castle. Orders strictly obeyed.”
Even the astute Alan Hawke failed, after many days of futile private research, to trace the route of the train which had pulled out of Delhi in the dead of night, beat the record to Allahabad, and then, turning off apparently for Bombay, had curved, on a loop, to the Madras line, and surpassed all speed records on the Indian Peninsula. Even when he telegraphed to Ram Lal’s friends at Madras, he could obtain no definite trace, the railway officials were silent, and the travelers had sought no hotel in Madras. Hugh Johnstone’s well applied money had smothered all inquiry. Even the driver and stokers of the special train never knew who so generously presented them with a ten pound note apiece. “Some secret service racket,” they laughed over their ale. Not a tremor of a single muscle betrayed Major Alan Hawke when he delivered over his official charge, Major General Abercromby, to Hugh Johnstone in the golden glow of Delhi’s morning. “I’ve kept your interests in view,” he whispered. “The old boy’s just two hundred pounds richer. And, you may be sure, he wanted for nothing. I know all his damned old tiger and mutiny stories by heart. I’m going up to the Club for a good long sleep. My compliments to the ladies,” lightly said Alan Hawke, as he gracefully declined Hugh Johnstone’s invitation to breakfast. Then Johnstone bore off his purple prize, set in red and gold.
The wide ripple of excitement caused by General Abercromby’s reported arrival had crowded the railway station. Hugh Johnstone chuckled, “Evidently Hawke knows nothing,” as the two old friends drove away in splendid state. But Major Hawke, an hour later, at his Club, was suddenly interrupted in a cozy breakfast by the most unceremonious entrance of Major Harry Hardwicke, whose promotion was at last gazetted. “Hello! I see you’re a Major now. Lucky devil! What can I do for you, Hardwicke?” cried Alan Hawke, eyeing the haggard and worn-looking young officer with a strange dawning suspicion of the truth. “Did he know, too, of the Hegira?”
Major Hardwicke threw himself down in a chair, curtly saying: “You can tell me who effectuated this lightning disappearance act of Madame Delande and young Miss Johnstone.”
“You speak in riddles to me, Hardwicke,” coolly said the wary Major. “I’ve just come in from Allahabad with General Abercromby, who is here to settle old Johnstone’s accounts. I know nothing of what you refer to. I expected to meet both the ladies at dinner to-day.”
“Then I will not uselessly take up your time, Major Hawke,” gloomily rejoined Hardwicke, as he picked up his sword, and, with a cold formal bow, quitted the room.
“I must watch this young fool,” growled Alan Hawke. “Thank my lucky stars, the woman is far away! But, he’s well connected, has a brilliant record, and is a V. C. now for Berthe Louison and the fireworks! But, first, old Ram Lal! They bowled the old boy out! I suppose that he has already told Alixe Delavigne that she has been outwitted. I hold the trump cards now! No single word without its golden price! I must not make one false step! As to the club men, I only join in the general wonder.” He made a careful and very studied toilet and sauntered out of the club en flaneur, and then stealthily betook himself to the pagoda in Ram Lal’s garden, where his innocent dupe had so often waited for him with a softly beating heart.
“I’m glad the girl is gone,” mused Alan Hawke. “If she were here, the chorus hymning Hardwicke’s perfections might set her young heart on fire.” He was, as yet, ignorant of the tender bond of gratitude fast ripening into Love. For, Love, that strange plant, rooted in the human heart, thrives in absence, and, watered by the tears of sorrow and adversity, fills the longing and faithful heart, in days of absence, with its flowers of rarest fragrance and blossoms of unfading beauty. Nadine Johnstone, speeding on over sapphire seas, had already conquered the tender secret of the simple Justine Delande’s heart; and in her own loving day-dreams:
“Aye she loot the tears down fa’ for Jock o’ Hazeldean!”
“I must see him again! I must see him!” she fondly pledged her waiting heart. With the serpent cunning of a loving maiden, she brooded like a dove with tender eyes, and so in her heart of hearts, determined to draw forth from her stalwart cousin, Douglas Fraser, the secret of their future destination. And the honest fellow became even as wax in her hands; while the gloomy Hardwicke, in far-away Delhi, eyed the parchment-faced Hugh Johnstone in mute wonder, at the long official reception in the Marble House. “Will he not vouchsafe to me even one word of thanks?” thought the young man, in an increasing wonder.
But, Ram Lal Singh, when Major Alan Hawke drew him into the sanctum behind the shop, showed a dark face, seamed with lines of care. “There will be some terrible happening!” muttered the smooth old Mohammedan.
He had good gift of the world’s gear, and now preferred the role of fox to lion. “She knows nothing as yet. I waited till I could see you. I dared not to tell her. She only fancies that this official visit of the General-Sahib from Calcutta will, of course, take up all their time at the marble house. But she begs me to watch them all, and she has given me some little presents—money presents.” Hawke winced, but in silence. His employer trusted him not. Here was proof positive.
“How in the devil’s name did they get away without you knowing of it?” demanded Hawke. “If you are lying to me, Ram Lal, we may lose both our pickings from this fat pagoda tree. You see old Johnstone may slip away after the girl. He may leave here with Abercromby.”
The jewel merchant’s eyes gleamed with a smoldering fire. “Johnstone Sahib will not leave Delhi. It is in the stars! He has too much here to leave. There are many old ties which bind. No, he will not go like a thief in the night.” Hawke was surprised at the old rascal’s evident emotion.
“Then tell me what you think about the disappearance of these women,” said Hawke, watching him keenly.
“I have seen all my friends in the station, even the mail clerks, telegraph men, and all,” began Ram Lal. “A train ‘on government service’—a special—came in that night from Allahabad at ten o’clock. Then two small trains were kept in waiting for some hours; one left for Simla before daylight, and the other drew out for Allahabad. There was a crowd of ladies, officers’ ladies, and some children and servants in the waiting-room. They like to travel at night in the cool shade. No one knew them. Now, at Allahabad, the east-bound train could branch off either for Calcutta, Madras, or Bombay.”
“So you know not which way these women fled?” The old merchant seemed absolutely at sea. As Hawke shook his head the story was soon finished.
“My men at the marble house tell me that a strange young man arrived at ten o’clock. He was admitted by Simpson, the private man of Johnstone Sahib. The Swiss woman talked with him alone a half hour in the library, and then Johnstone’s daughter came down there, but only for a few moments. My men watched him writing and reading papers in the library; then they all went away.”
“That is all. I slipped into the house when Simpson went away next day. He often goes out to drink secretly, and he has a pretty Eurasian friend or two, besides, down in the quarter.” Ram Lal winked significantly. “I went all over the upper part of the house myself. The women’s rooms were left just as if they had gone out for a drive along the Jumna. If they took anything it was only a few hand parcels. Now you know all that I know. No one ever saw the strange man before. And these people are gone for good, that is all. Go now to the Mem-Sahib at the Silver Bungalow. I fear her. But tell me what I must say to her.” The old man was evidently in a mortal fear. “There is that French devil—that old soldier. He is a fighting devil, that one, and the woman a tiger. The lady herself is a tiger of tigers!”
“Say nothing, Ram Lal,” soothingly said Hawke. “Leave it all to me. I see it. Old Johnstone has sent the girl to the hills to keep her away from the young fellows who will crowd the house, while this General Abercromby is here. There’ll be drink and cards, and God knows what else.”
“I know,” grinned Ram Lal. “I knew old Johnstone in the old days, a man-eater, a woman-killer, a cold-hearted devil, too! What does he do with this General?” The jewel merchant’s eyes blazed.
“Oh! Buying his new title with some official humbug or another. I don’t know. Perhaps he is really settling his accounts,” laughed Hawke.
“I have a little account of my own to settle with him! I will see him at once! He, too, may slip away and follow his girl to the hills,” quietly said Ram Lal. “I know his past. He is never to be trusted—not for a moment—as long as he is alive!” Alan Hawke stared in wonder at Ram Lal, who humbly salaamed, when he closed:
“See the woman over there—come back, and tell me what I must do or say. You and I are comrades,” the jewel seller leeringly said, “and we must lie together! All the world are liars-and half of the world lives by lying.” with which sage remark the old curio seller betook himself to his narghileh.
In a half an hour, Major Alan Hawke was wandering through the garden of the Silver Bungalow with Alixe Delavigne at his side. Behind them, at a discreet distance, sauntered Jules Victor, his dark eyes most intently fixed upon the promenaders. Madame Delavigne was pleased to be cheerfully buoyant. She had silently listened to Hawke’s recital of the probable causes of General Abercromby’s visit. “I could see that Johnstone evidently wished to occupy us both at Allahabad. Your conduct was discretion itself! Have you seen him yet? Or the ladies?” She eyed her listener keenly.
“No, Madame,” frankly said Hawke. “There is all manner of official junketing on here now. I am not, of course, to be officially included, as I am not on the staff of either the visiting or commanding general. I must wait until I am invited—if I am!” he hesitatingly said. “You know that my rank is—to say the least—shadowy!” The lady passed over this semi-confession in silence.
“It is not like Johnstone to let Nadine meet all the gay coterie which will fill the great halls,” mused Madame Delavigne. “I suppose that the dear child will have a week of ‘marble prison’ in her rooms, with only the governess. I think I shall let General Abercrornby leave before I call. What do you advise? Johnstone has always ignored the ladies of Delhi!”
“I really am powerless to counsel you,” said Major Hawke gravely, “as I am outside of the circle. I would watch this man keenly. He bears you no good will. And now—what shall I do? Did your business at Calcutta bring me the summons to action?” There was no undue eagerness in his voice. He was gliding into a safe position for the future eclaircissement.
“Not yet. But it will come! It will come—as soon as this General goes. For I now will demand the right to drop Berthe Louison, and to be my own self. To be Alixe Delavigne to one bright, loving human soul only, in this land of arid solitudes, of peopled wastes. The land of the worn, scarred human nature, which, blind, creedless, and hopeless, staggers along under the burden of misery under the menace of the British bayonet.”
“When do you leave it?” quietly asked the cautious Major.
“When my work is done!” the resolute woman replied. “I am here for peace or war! We have only crossed swords! I do not trust this man a moment! He is capable of any foul deed! Now, you must keenly watch the clubs, the social life. Find out all you can! Come to me here every night at ten. If I suddenly need you, then I will send Ram Lal!”
“By day or night I am ready!” gravely said Major Hawke. “I do not like to intrude upon you,” he hesitatingly said.
“You will win your spurs yet in my service!” said Alixe. “The real struggle is to come yet. I am only knocking at the door of Nadine’s heart. And the old nabob is but half conquered.”
Major Hawke, with a bow, retired and wended his way to the Club, where he spent an hour in preparing a careful letter to Euphrosyne Delande. It was a careful document, intended to prudently open communication with Justine through the Halls of Learning on the Rue du Rhone, Geneva, but a little sealed inclosure to Justine was the grain of gold in all the complimentary chaff. “Her own heart, poor girl, will tell her what to do,” said Hawke, as he departed and registered the letter himself.
The passing cortege of General Abercromby, returning the visit of the local chief, excited Hawke’s attention. He caught a glimpse of the silver-haired millionaire whom two widely different natures had denounced that day as “being capable of anything.”
“And so old Ram Lal has it ‘in for him,’ too! What can he mean?”
With a sudden impulse Major Hawke drove back and made a formal call upon the ladies at the Marble House. He was astounded when old Simpson, with a grudging welcome, openly announced that the ladies were permanently not at home. “Gone to the hills for a month or two,” curtly replied the veteran servant, and then, on a silver tray, the butler decorously handed to Major Alan Hawke a sealed letter. “I was to seek you out at the Club, sir, as this letter is important. I take the liberty to give it to you now. It was the master’s orders: ‘That I give it into your own hands!’”
Major Alan Hawke’s face darkened as he read the curt lines penned by Hugh Johnstone himself. With a smothered curse he thrust the letter in his pocket. “Both of them are trying to keep me in the dark, I’ll let Madame Berthe Louison run her own head into the trap. Then, when she pays, I will talk, but not till then.” The careful lines stated that for a week the writer would be greatly engrossed with private matters, and at home to no one. “I will send for you as soon as I am able to see you, upon some new business matters.”
The last clause was significant enough. “He prepared this to give me a social knockout!” coolly said the renegade. “All right! But wait! By Gad! I fancy I’ll take a cool revenge in joining Ram Lal and Berthe Louison. Suppose that the old duffer were put out of the way? Could I then count on Justine, and my wary employer? There is a storm brewing, and breakers ahead. I must soon get my ‘retaining fee’ from the lady of the Silver Bungalow or I may lose it forever! And I will let her uncover the empty bird’s nest herself! She must not suspect me!” And yet the curt letter of the old civilian wounded him to the quick. “What does this jugglery mean? He ought to fear me, by this time, just a little! He intends to crush Berthe Louison by some foul blow, and then will he dare to begin on me? I will double forces with Ram Lal. That’s my only alliance!” The Major’s soul was up in arms.
When the splendid reception at General Willoughby’s was over, Hugh Johnstone cautiously approached Major Hardwicke. “I am just told that General Abercromby will remain and dine ‘en famille’ with his old brother in arms. Will you drive with me to my house? I have something of a private nature to say to you. I can give you a seat in my carriage.” Major Hardwicke bowed and, obtaining his conge, sat in expectant waiting until the two men were comfortably seated in Johnstone’s snuggery in the deserted mansion. They talked indifferently over Abercromby’s arrival till Simpson announced dinner.
“I would like you to dine with me, Major Hardwicke,” said the old Commissioner, “for I have something now to say to you.” He rang a silver bell, and, whispering to Simpson, faced his young visitor, who had bowed in acceptance. The butler returned in a few moments with a superb Indian saber, sheathed in gold, and shimmering with splendid jewels. He stood, mute, as Johnstone gravely said: “I learned from Simpson, on my return from Calcutta, of your prompt gallantry in aiding my daughter in her hour of peril.” He continued, “Simpson alone, was left to tell me, as I have sent the child away to the hills for a couple of months. For reasons of my own, I do not care to have a motherless girl exposed to the indiscriminate hubbub of merely official society. The young lady will probably not remain in India. I therefore sent them all away before this official visit, which would have forced a child, almost yet a school girl, out into the glare of this local junketing,” he said with feeling.
“Take this saber, Major. It was given up by Mir-zah Shah, a Warrior Prince, in old days, so the legend goes. It is the sword of a king’s son. It will recall your own saber play so neatly conceived, and, as a personal reminder, wear this for me! It is a rare diamond, which I have treasured for many years. And its old Hindustanee name was ‘Bringer of Prosperity.’” Hardwicke bowed, and murmured his thanks.
The nabob slipped a superb ring from his finger, and then, as if he had relieved his mind forever of a painful duty, dismissed the subject, almost feverishly entertaining his solitary guest at the splendid feast which had been prepared for General Abercromby. It was late when the strangely assorted convives separated. “I will now send Simpson home with you, in my carriage,” solicitously remarked Johnstone, as the hour grew late. “There is a prince’s ransom on that sword—and, you did not bring your noble charger! You must treat him well for my sake—for my daughter’s sake!”
“Will Miss Johnstone return soon?” said the heart-hungry lover, catching at this last straw.
“It is undetermined! I may send them home in a few months. But, if I have any little influence left, ‘at Headquarters,’ that shall always be exerted for you. I am always glad to meet you, your father’s son, for Colonel Hardwicke was a true soldier of the olden days—brave, loyal, and beyond reproach.”
The lover’s beating heart was smothered in this flowing honey. “Ah! I must trust to Simpson!” he mused. “The old man is a sly one!”
Politely bowed out by the stern, lonely old man, Major Hardwicke departed, his conversational guns spiked with the deft compliments, as the mighty clatter of the returning General filled the courtyard of the Marble House.
In the soft, wooing stillness of the night, Simpson, at the young Major’s side, found time to whisper: “Never let the Guv’nor see us together! He’s a sly one! There’s a honey-baited trap in this! The girl’s been spirited off to Europe! I only know that—but, as yet, no more.”
“What do you mean? Is he lying to me?” gasped Hardwicke, with a sinking heart.
“Rightly said!” huskily whispered Simpson. “Seek for her—London ways—I’ll find it out soon where she is, and I’m just scholar enough to write! Give me your own safe London address! I heard ye would soon take yer long leave. Bless her sweet soul! I’ll tell ye now! She whispered to me: ‘Tell him—tell Major Hardwicke—he’ll hear from me himself, even if I was at the very end of the earth! and give him this!’” The frightened servant thrust a little packet into the officer’s hand. “It was the only chance she had.”
“That Swiss woman watched her every moment, and the man—the one the father sent from Calcutta. There was a telegram to her. I gave it to her myself! Major, my oath—they’re on the blue water, now! I’ll watch and come to you! Don’t leave Delhi till I post you!”
“You’re a brave fellow, Simpson. Keep this all quiet,” softly said Major Hardwicke. “I’ll follow your advice, and I’ll not leave here till I know more from you. I’ll follow her to Japan, but I’ll see her again.”
“That’s the talk, Major!” cried the happy old soldier, who felt something crisp in his hand now. “Distrust old Hugh! He’ll lie to ye and trap ye! Watch him! He’s capable of anything.” The carriage then stopped with a crash and Hardwicke sprang out lightly. “Make no sign! Trust to me! I’ll come to ye!” was Simpson’s last word.
Before Simpson had discovered in the marble house the pleasing figures on a ten-pound note, Harry Hardwicke, striding up and down his room, in all the ecstasy of a happy lover, had kissed a hundred times a little silver card case—a mere school girl’s poor treasure, but priceless now—for within it was a hastily severed tress of gold-brown hair, tied with a bit of blue ribbon. A scrap of paper in penciled words brought to him “Confirmation stronger than Holy Writ.” “I will write or telegraph when not watched. Do not forget. —Nadine.”
The words of the old servitor returned to the soldier in a grim warning. “He is capable of anything.”
“So am I,” cried Harry as his heart leaped up. “I will find her were she at the North Pole. He cannot hide her from me. Love laughs at locksmiths!”
If the would-be Sir Hugh Johnstone had heard the three verdicts of the hostile critics of his being “capable of anything,” he might have laughed in defiance, but after several friendly “night caps” with the slightly jovial General Abercromby, it might have seriously disturbed the host to know what hidden suspicions the Viceroy’s envoy had brought back from a very secret conference with that acute old local commander, Willoughby.
“It sounds all very well, Abercromby, my old friend,” said Willoughby, “but Johnstone, or old Fraser, as we call him, is a hitman shark! Without a list or some general details, he will surely rob the crown of one-half the jewels, you may be sure. His cock and bull story of their recovery is too pellucid. It’s Hobson’s choice, though. That or nothing. He, of course, slyly claims to have only lately made this bungling accidental recovery. If the return is a really valuable one, then all you can officially do is to accept it. But be wary! I can give you some friendly aid here, when you get all the returned treasure. I’ll give you a captain’s guard here. Bring all here at once. We, you, and I, will seal it up, and I’ll have old Ram Lal Singh secretly come here and value them. He’s the best judge of gems in India, and he was once an official in the Royal Treasure Chamber of the old King of Oude. Less than fifty thousand pounds worth as a return would be a transparent humbug, and besides you can delay your signature for a day or so, till you and I, after listing the gems, see this old expert and have him examine them in our presence. No one need know of it but you and I, and His excellency, the Viceroy. As for Hugh Johnstone, he is simply capable of anything. I told the Viceroy’s aid, Anstruther, so. And I’ll be damned glad to get Johnstone out of my bailiwick, that I will.”
With which vigorous “flea in the ear,” General Willoughby dismissed his startled comrade to the society of his crafty old host. And, that night, strange dreams of unrest haunted the “modern Major General” in the marble house, while singularly gloomy misgivings weighed down the brave-hearted Berthe Louison, now heart-hungry for a sight of the doubly beloved child of the dead lady of Jitomir. She woke in the hot and clammy night to cry “No, no! He would never dare to! She is here! I shall go boldly and demand to see her to-morrow!” Her womanly intuition told her the lines were broken.
And so, robed in fashion’s shining armor, Alixe Delavigne counted the moments, until at four o’clock of the next afternoon her carriage waited in the bower-decked oval of the marble house. A gloomy frown settled upon her face, as the impassive Hugh Johnstone approached her carriage, sun helmet in hand. She scented treachery now! There were a dozen brilliant young officers longingly gazing at this sweet apparition in the gloomy gardens. Even General Abercromby strutted out and displayed himself in the foreground, as Johnstone leaned over and gravely whispered to the pale-faced beauty:
“My daughter has been sent away from the city for her health! Her absence is indefinite. I will see you when General Abercromby leaves here in a week, and explain all. No, not before. It is impossible.”
With a sudden motion of her hand to Jules, Alixe Delavigne leaned back, half fainting, upon her cushions. Her agitated heart was now beating in a wild tumult of rage and baffled hatred! “Home!” she cried, and then, as the marble house was lost to view, she harshly cried: “To Ram Lal’s first! To the jewel store!”
There was a brooding death in her eyes when she sternly said to the merchant: “Send him to me at once! Send Hawke! Go! Waste not a moment!”
And then she swore an oath of vengeance, which would have made Hugh Fraser Johnstone shudder, as he sat drinking champagne cup with his guest. “One for you, my lady!” he had laughed, grimly, as the woman whom he had tricked drove swiftly away. And the grim fates laughed too, spinning at a shortening life web.
Major Alan Hawke was interrupted in his cosy nest at the Club by the hasty advent of Ram Lal. The old jeweler had for once abandoned all his Oriental calm, and he trembled as he muttered. “She demands you at once. I brought my own carriage. Go to her quickly. There will be a great monsoon of quarrel now. But her face looks as if she was stricken to the death, and something will come of all this. You must watch like the crouching cheetah!”
“What has happened?” anxiously cried Hawke.
“She has just found out the women are gone! She went up to the marble house this afternoon, and saw the old Sahib Johnstone. He did not even bid her to leave her carriage. One of my men ran over at once and told me. She drove to the shop on her way homeward and sent me here.” The black Son of Plutus scuttled away, as if in a mortal fear. “I do not dare to face her—in her angry mood,” was Ram’s last word. He was only accustomed to baby-faced Hindu women of the “langorous lily” type, who hung on his every word—the mute slaves of his jaded passions. “This one is a tigress!” he sighed, as he fled from the Club.
“Ah! My lady is a bit rattled,” mused Hawke as the carriage sped along. “Now is the time to catch her off her guard.” And so he made himself sleek and patient, with the surface varnish of his “society manner,” when Jules Victor, with semi-hostile eyes, ushered him into the presence of Alixe Delavigne, still in her robes of “visitation splendor.”
“What is this devil’s work done in my absence? This spiriting away of Nadine!” cried Alixe, grasping Hawke’s wrist with a nervous clasp, which made the strong man wince. “This juggling in my absence?” Her eyes were sternly fixed on him in dawning suspicions.
“Madame,” calmly said Alan Hawke, “if you had trusted to me, this would not have happened. But you have chosen to make an enigma of yourself, from the first. I am not tired of your moods, but I am of your cold disdain, your contemptuous slighting of my useful mental powers. You left me with no orders. I warned you that he was capable of anything. See how he has treated me,” he continued, with a well-dissembled indignation. “He called me away to Allahabad to be bear-leader to Abercromby, and the brute has just shown me the door, to-day, openly saying that his daughter has gone to the Hills. I believe that he lies! I know that he does! If you had deigned to trust me, I would have followed on her track to hell itself, but you chose to play the woman—the catlike toying with men! Damn him! I owe him one now! If he had openly entertained me in this brilliant visit, I might have re-entered the staff service—in a week. And, you threw all my experience away in not trusting to me.”
Alixe Delavigne looked up, with one piercing glance, as she sealed a note. “Go openly to him—to Johnstone! Bring him back at once with you! He dare not disobey this! I will denounce him, now, to-day! to both the generals, and go to the Viceroy myself! I care not what excuse he makes! BRING HIM!”
“And so I cut the last tie that binds me to a future reinstatement for you, a callous employer, and am left adrift without an anchor out for the future! You know that this man is a director of the Bank of Bengal! A multi-millionaire! He will chase me from India! I might trace the girl to her hiding-place for you! She has surely been sent home by sea!” Alixe Delavigne was gliding up and down the room as noiselessly as a serpent. She abruptly stopped her march.
“I will find her in Europe! What do you require to follow my orders for three months? To wait here and then to take the road or to join me in Europe! I pay all expenses and incidentals. What will make you reasonably sure against fate—in advance?”
Alan Hawke dropped his eyes. Gentleman once, he was ashamed of the sordid implied threat of abandonment.
“Five thousand pounds!” he whispered. The stony-faced woman dashed off a check.
“Bring that man to me at once!” she cried, “and then go down to Grindlay’s agency here, and get your money! Go openly!”
“Shall I come back with him?” demanded Hawke.
“No, bring him here, and then excuse yourself.”
Alixe Delavigne watched the carriage dash away. Hawke was on his mettle at last, and he brutally enjoyed the little tableau, when Hugh Fraser Johnstone impatiently tore open “Madame Berthe Louison’s” note. Hawke observed significantly that he had been shown into a small room, suited to semi-menial interviews. The additional slight maddened him. The clash of glasses and shouts of a gay crowd of military convives rose up in a merry chorus within. Across that banquet hall’s draped doors the thin, invisible barrier of “Coventry” shut out the bold social renegade. “She’ll have to wait, Hawke!” roughly said Hugh Johnstone, moving toward the door.
“By God! she shall not wait a minute, you damned old moneybags!” cried the ruined soldier, who had long forfeited his caste—his cherished rank. “You treated her like a brute to-day! She is a lady, and you can’t play fast and loose with her! You insulted me by closing your damned door and sending me your offensive letter. Go to her now! If you do not, I’ll send my seconds to you, and if you don’t fight, by Heaven, I’ll horsewhip you like a drunken pandy!” and the fearless renegade barred the door.
“Don’t be a fool, Hawke,” faltered Johnstone. “She has taken the whole thing the wrong way. I’ll join you in a moment. I’ve got these men on my hands. What did she tell you?”
“Nothing!” harshly cried Hawke, “and I wash my hands of you and her. Settle your intrigues as you will!”
Not a word was spoken, as Alan Hawke gravely opened the door to Madame Berthe Louison’s reception room. Hugh Johnstone’s yellow face paled as the Major breaking the silence, coldly said: “Madame! I have broken a friendship of fifteen years to-day! Please do consider me a stranger to you both after today!” And then he walked firmly out of the house with a warning glance to Jules Victor, lingering in the long hall.
The quick Frenchman saw in Hawke’s gesture the secret sign of a hidden friend, and he threw up his hand in a Parisian gesture of gratitude and comprehension, and failed not to report to his mistress, who saw Hawke’s fine method with a secret delight.
Hawke drove to Grindlay’s agency, where, in a private room, he promptly cashed his check.
“I’ll take it in Bank of England notes!” he quietly said as the clerk lifted inquiring eyes. “I am going to transact some business for the lady.”
“Now, I can defy Fate!” he exulted, when he was safe out of the bank. “She will trust me now, and old Johnstone will fear me. A case of vice versa!” And, as he drove to the Club, he murmured, “I will never leave this fight now! Damme! I’ll just go in and get the girl! Just to spite the old coward!”
Within the dreaming shades of the gardens hiding the Silver Bungalow, there was no sign of clamor. The beautiful little jewel-box of a mansion was apparently deserted, but a duel to the death was going on within the great white parlor where Hugh Johnstone stood raging at bay. He leaped up in a mad outburst of passion, when Alixe Delavigne cuttingly broke the silence. The old nabob knew that the desperate woman in her reckless mood feared nothing.—
“You have lied to me! You have tricked me! You have sent that girl away to Europe to hide her forever from me! I kept my pact, and, you deliberately lied!” She stood before him like an avenging fury, quivering in a passion which appalled him. But secure in his skillfuly executed maneuver, he reached for his hat and stick.
“I defy you! I have no answer to your abuse! Draw off your fighting cur, Major Hawke, or I’ll grind you and him in the dust!” The old man was frantic under the insult. He moved toward the door.
“Stop! You go to your ruin!” cried the irate woman. “Will you give me full access to your daughter?”
“Never! My Lady! Go and lord it over your whipped hounds in Poland—hide in your estates the price of the double shame of two most accommodating Frenchwomen!”
“By the God who made me” she hissed, “I will bar your Baronetcy forever! I will find out that girl, and she shall learn to love me and despise your hated name and memory! It is open war now! and,—mark you—liar and hound, these two generals, the Viceroy, and, all India shall soon know what I know!” Then, with a clang of her silver bell, she called Jules Victor to her side. “Jules,” she said, “If this person ever crosses the threshold of my door again, shoot him like the dog he is!”
And then the black-browed Frenchman, holding open the door, hissed “ALLEZ!” as Hugh Johnstone saw for the last time the marble face of the woman who had doomed him to shame.
“Go and send Ram Lal to me at once!” sternly said Berthe Louison. “Then to Major Hawke. Tell him that I want him to dine with me, and I shall need him all the evening. Order my carriage for five o’clock!”
Alan Hawke had played his best trump card, and played it well, for the woman who had doubted him, gloried in his courage and hardihood. “I can trust him now!” she murmured when she drove to the Delhi agency of Grindlays and, two hours later, astounded the local manager by the executive rapidity of her varied business actions.
“What’s in the wind?” murmured the bank manager. “A sudden flitting!” He had been ordered to detail two of his best men to accompany Madame Louison to Calcutta, in a special car leaving at midnight. “Telegraph to your head office in Calcutta of my arrival. Major Alan Hawke will represent me here, under written orders to be left with your Calcutta manager. Send this on in cipher.” She handed him a long dispatch to his chief.
Madame Berthe Louison was seen in Delhi, in public, for the last time, as she gazed steadily at the brilliant throng on the lawns of the marble house. A fete Champetre had brought “all of Delhi” together, and the conspicuous absence of “the French Countess” was the reigning sensation. The tall, bent form of Hugh Fraser Johnstone was prominent reigning as host, under a great marquee. Neither of the great generals were there, however, for Simpson had drawn Major Hardwicke aside to whisper: “A captain’s guard came here to-day and took an enormous treasure in precious stones up to Willoughby’s Headquarters!” and the two commanders were even then busied in listing the recovered loot, with a dozen yellow-faced Hindus and several confidential staff officers. “It’s the last act, Captain darlin’,” said Simpson. “Old Hugh has given me secret orders to get ready to go on to London. He only takes his personal articles. Young Douglas Fraser will come here and manage the Indian estates.”
“Who’s he?” eagerly cried Hardwicke.
“The fellow who carried the women away—the old man’s only nephew.”
“Ah! now I see!” heavily breathed Hardwicke. “I will take the previous boat, and wait for the old man at Brindisi! Post me! I’ll keep mum!”
“Depend on me for my life itself,” said Simpson; “but be prudent! I don’t want to lose my life pension. He’s been a good master to me. We’ve grown old together!” sighed the gray-headed soldier.
The frightened Ram Lal Singh was driven around Delhi this eventful day like a hunted rat. Suddenly summoned to General Willoughby’s private rooms, escorted by a sergeant, who never left him a moment, the old Mohammedan was ushered into the presence of the two generals, who pounced upon him and showed him a great, assorted treasure in diamonds, pearls, pigeon rubies, sapphires, and emeralds of great size and richness. They were all duly weighed and listed, and duplicate official invoices lay signed upon the table.
“You were Mirzah Shah’s Royal Treasure Keeper? Tell me. Are all his jewels here? The treasure that disappeared at Humayoon’s Tomb before Hodson slew the princes in the melee?”
Ram Lal saw the frowns of men who had blown better men than himself from the guns in the old days, and he had a vivid memory of those same hideous scenes.
“They are about half here in weight and number; about a quarter of the value. There is a hundred thousand pounds worth missing!” said the jewel dealer, gazing on the totals of numbers and weights. “The historic diamonds, the matchless pearls, the never-equaled rubies—all the choicest have been abstracted, and by a skillful hand!”
“Go, then!” cried Willoughby. “Seal this in your breast! Speak to no one or you’ll die in jail, wearing irons! Here!” A hundred-pound note was thrust into his hand, and he was whirled away to his shop.
“Ah! The gray devil! he has stolen and hidden the best! I will watch him like a ghoul of Bowanee, and they shall be mine! He would turn tail now and steal away!” Ram Lal laughed an oily laugh, and going to an old cabinet, took out a heavy kreese. “The poisoned dagger of Mirzah Shah!” he smiled. “After many years!” It was Hugh Johnstone himself who sought Ram Lal in his pagoda that afternoon, and, after making some heavy purchases, finally drew out a list of jewels.
“I wish you to certify, Ram Lal,” he cautiously said, “that these are all the jewels of Mirzah Shah, that you handled as ‘Keeper of the Prince’s Treasure,’ before the Meerut mutineers rushed down upon us.” Slowly peering over the paper, the crafty Ram Lal said:
“You forget, Sahib, that I was sent away to Lucknow and Cawnpore, by Mirzah Shah, with letters to Nana Sahib and Tantia Topee. I was shut out of Delhi till after the British were camped on the Windmill Ridge, and for months I never saw the royal jewels! Every moon the list was made anew. The mollahs and moonshees and treasurers took jewels for the Zenana every moon, and for the gifts of the princes. I could not testify to this!” The old man was on his guard.
“I will pay you well, Ram Lal. It is my last little matter to settle with the authorities! Then my accounts are closed forever! As Treasurer you could do this!” Old Hugh Fraser Johnstone was ignorant of the veiled scrutiny of his stewardship.
Ram Lal raised his head, at last, with something like defiance. “The better half is gone—the rarest—the richest! True, the princes may have divided them, they may have bribed their mutineer officers with some, but, a true list may be in the hands of these Crown officers here. They captured all the Palace papers. Now, I did not open them at Humayoon’s Tomb. You know,” he faltered, “how they passed through your hands!”
Hugh Johnstone, for the last time tried to threaten and bully. “I will have you punished. I paid you well—you must lie for me! We both lied then.”
“Then the curse of Allah be upon the liar who lies now,” solemnly said Ram Lal Singh. “I will not sign! I have the savings of years to guard. You will go away and the Crown will come upon me for the missing gems. I was absent five months from the Palace when you were in Brigadier Wilson’s Camp! I will offer my head to these generals, but I will not sign! The Kaisar-I-Hind is just, and I will tell all!” With an oath of smothered rage, Hugh Johnstone strode away.
“I must try and make a royal present to Willoughby’s wife,—a timely one—and lose a half a lac of rupees to Abercromby. They may find a way to pass the matter over.” He dared not press Ram Lal to a public exposition of all the wanderings of Mirzah Shah’s jewels. “If I had not told them that fairy tale, I might hedge; but it’s too late now. I will go down to Calcutta, see the Viceroy, and then clear out for good. And I must placate Alan Hawke. I was a fool to ignore him. But, to make an enemy of him, on account of that damned woman, would be ruin. He chums with Ram Lal. He might cable to Anstruther.”
In fact Alan Hawke’s bold social revolt had imposed on Johnstone. “He might help to cover all up if I induced Abercromby to get him back on the staff once more. I was a fool to slight him.” Hugh Fraser Johnstone was dimly conscious that his own line of battle was wavering, and that his flanks were unguarded—his rear unprotected. “I will only trust my homeward pathway to Simpson, and my health is a good excuse for clearing out for good. I can easily locate on the Continent—in Belgium, or Switzerland—and out of reach of any little trouble to come. They’ve no proof. This fellow has no list, thank Heaven. I’ll slip down to Ceylon and catch the first boat there to Suez. Then ho for Geneva!”
But Ram Lal Singh’s slight defenses fell instantly before the golden battering-ram of Madame Berthe Louison’s direct onslaught. “I was busied in the bazaars, buying jewels,” he expostulated, when Jules Victor led him into Madame Louison’s boudoir. Even then Major Hawke was curiously noting the dismantled condition of the reception-room, where Johnstone had at last thrown off the mask.
“I leave Major Hawke here to close all my business, Ram Lal,” she said. “I go to Calcutta. I may be gone for some months. But I have watched you and him. You are close friends—very close friends. Now, remember that I pay him and I pay you. I wish you to give me—to sell me—the list of the jewels which Johnstone took away from you and hid, when he was Hugh Fraser.” The old scoundrel began to protest. Berthe Louison rang her silver bell. “Jules!” she said, “I wish you to go to General Willoughby with this letter, and tell him to send a guard here to arrest a thief who has government jewels.”
Ram Lal was on the floor at her feet, groveling, before she grimly smiled, as he held out a paper, quickly extracted from his red sash. “That will do, Jules.” The Frenchman stood without the door. “You will not run away. You are far too rich, Ram Lal. And you will be watched every moment. Sign and seal the list, and date it to-day.” The old craven begged hard for mercy. “Here is a hundred pounds. Hawke will pay you four hundred more when I am safely on the sea, but only then! He will close all my bills. Remember, I shall come back again. And,” she whispered a word, “he will watch you closely.” The jeweler sealed the document, and scribbled his certificate. “Not one word of my business, not even to Hawke, on your life,” she said. “I shall come again! And General Willoughby will throw you in prison on a word from me.”
Major Alan Hawke was astounded, after an hour’s yielding to the social charm of Madame Alixe Delavigne, when the happy woman led him away from the dinner table. “Now for a half-hour’s business chat,” she gayly said. “No, no notes. We shall next meet at No. 9 Rue Berlioz, Paris. You will receive my sealed directions from Grindlay’s agent here, with funds to settle my affairs. I go to-night to Calcutta, and thence to Europe. Obey my orders. You will get them, sealed, from the agent here. You can come on, by Bombay, when I cable to you. I will cable direct here to Grindlay’s. They’ll not lose sight of you,” she smiled.
“And my relations with old Hugh?” he gasped in surprise.
“Just watch him and follow him on to Europe. Neither you nor he can do me any harm, but your reward for your manly stand to-day will reach you in Paris. I knew of it.”
“Shall I not see you to the train?” Hawke stammered.
“Ah!” she smiled, extending her hand warmly, “I have a double guard and my servants. I will be met at Calcutta, and I go on my way safely now to work a slow vengeance!”