CHAPTER XIII. AN ASIATIC LION IN HIDING.
Madame Alixe Delavigne sat alone in her snug apartment of the Hotel Croix d’Or, at Granville-sur-Mer, four days after Justine Delande had been driven forth from the Banker’s Folly! The perusal of a long letter from Jules Victor was interrupted by the arrival of a telegram from that rising young soldier, Captain Anson Anstruther. It needed but a single glance to call the resolute woman to action.
Smartly ringing the bell, she ordered the maid, her bill, and a voiture to convey her to the Boulogne station. “So, Hardwicke and Captain Murray are safely in London! Major Hawke is at Geneva, and I am to hide at Rosebank Villa until he has reported and been sent away on his continental tour of the great jewel dealers!”
With flying fingers the lady soon penned a letter addressed to “Monsieur Alois Vautier, Marchand-en-petit, Hotel Bellevue, St. Aubin, Jersey.” “He can telegraph to me at Richmond, and one of us will soon be on the ground to aid him! Now, ‘the longest way round is the nearest way home!’” laughed the ci-devant Madame Louison, as she departed for Boulogne, an hour later, having carefully mailed her letter personally, and sent a brief telegram to the active Jules Victor.
The ex-Zouave had easily made the rounds of the pretty islet of Jersey, in his capacity of merchant of small wares, long before Alixe Delavigne, braving the stormy channel, had proceeded from Folkestone directly to Richmond, and hidden herself in the leafy bowers of Rosebank Villa. Smiling, gay and debonnair with all the women servants, he had a pinch of snuff, a cigar of fair quality, or a pipe full of tabac for coachman and groom, supplemented with many a petit verre from his capacious flask. His Gallic gallantry, with the gift of a trinket or ribbon, made him welcome with simple milk-maid or pert house “slavey,” and the dapper little Frenchman was already an established favorite in the wine-room of the Hotel Bellevue.
His greatest triumph, however, was the secret demonstration of the cheapness of Jersey prices to the London sewing woman and smart lady’s maid, now chafing under Janet Fairbarn’s iron rule at the “Banker’s Folly.” “Nom de pipe! But I have to make shameful rabaissements de prix,” muttered Jules, as he adroitly worked upon the susceptibilities of the two new maid servants. While one or the other of these women always accompanied Miss Nadine Johnstone in her daily wanderings through the splendid gardens of the Folly, the merry voice of Jules Victor was often heard by them singing on his way down the road. The gift of a famous brule gueule had propitiated the simple Jersey gardener, whose stout boy rejoiced in a new leather jacket, almost a gift, and the second man, Andrew Fraser’s reinforcement, a famous drinker, was soon a nightly companion of “Alois Vautier” at the one little “public,” down under the scarped hill at Rizel Bay.
Andrew Fraser, closeted with the London lawyer, had almost forgotten the existence of Nadine Johnstone.
A formal interview as to the filing of her father’s will, a mere mute exhibition of perfunctory courtesy, released Nadine to her own devices, while Professor Andrew Fraser returned to his afternoon studies with that famous young Yankee savant, Professor Alaric Hobbs, of Waukesha University.
The beautiful captive was now happy in dissembling her contentment, for, though the sharp-featured Scotch housekeeper, Janet Fairbarn, keenly watched all her outgoings, sending always one of the women as an “outside guard,” the heiress had learned some of woman’s secret arts quickly. The peddler, Alois Vautier, brought to her letters and messages which made her lonely heart light, even in her stately semi-durance. And the epistles of Major Harry Hardwicke left her with a heart trembling in delight after their perusal.
And so it fell out that four days after Alixe Delavigne had returned to Rosebank Villa, that a packet of important letters was smuggled past the droning Professor’s picket line, one of which caused Nadine Johnstone to hide her tell-tale blushes in her room.
“To-morrow I will come by, to deliver some little purchases of the maids! Have your answers all ready. I will be here at ten, at the garden gate!” Long after the Yankee Professor had left the “Folly” for St. Heliers that night, the lonely girl bent her beautiful head over the pages, destined to safely reach her lover’s eyes in fair London town. And to Berthe Louison, she now poured out her loving heart, for she knew that her protecting friends would soon be near her.
“We are waiting, watching, and planning,” wrote Alixe Delavigne. “Be cheerful—silent—watchful! I must be near you, I must see you, face to face, to tell you all the story of the past! I will then tell you, my own darling child, of the mother whom you have never known. But, first, Major Hardwicke must open a way to your side! Beware of the schemes of Alan Hawke! He will be here to-morrow, and he may steal over to Jersey, though his duty takes him for a month to the Continent! You will surely see Major Hardwicke before you see me for Andrew Fraser might take alarm at a sight of my face and so hide you away from us all!”
Miss Mildred Anstruther was a delicate symphony in gray, as she gracefully presided the next evening over the dinner table at which Alixe Delavigne, Captain Anstruther, Major Hardwicke, and Captain Murray merrily discussed the sudden hastening of Captain Eric Murray’s nuptials. Hardwicke’s duty as “best man” was now the only bar to the beginning of a campaign destined to foil Andrew Fraser’s Loch Leven tactics of imprisoning his niece and ward.
“You will have but a brief honeymoon, Eric!” laughed Hardwicke.
“You have promised to stand by me, Harry,” replied his friend. “See me married to-morrow, then a week’s honeymoon at Jersey is all that I ask! I can bestow my wife there with a dear friend, who has the prettiest old Norman chateau-maison on the island, and after that be near you there at Rozel Bay to work up the final discomfiture of this old vampire. I only claim the attendance of the whole party at my wedding, then I will disappear and spy out the ground for you long before you are ready to astonish the dreamy old bookworm. I have made my own plans, and Flossie has agreed to our runaway trip ‘in the interests of the service’! She is a soldier’s daughter, remember!” Miss Mildred, wreathed in her soft laces, shimmering in her gray poplin, and bending her stately head in salutation, extended a delicate hand, loaded down with quaint old Indian rings, to each, when the coffee was served.
“I will leave you now to the hatching of your famous conspiracy for the invasion of the Island of Jersey.” The old gentlewoman passed smilingly through the door where the three knightly soldiers stood bowing low, and then the four conspirators sat down to arrange the dramatis persona of a little society play in “High Life,” in which Professor Andrew Fraser was destined to be the central figure, and act without “lines” or rehearsal.
The “leading lady” was at the present moment dreaming of a golden future in her own rooms at the “Banker’s Folly.” Nadine Johnstone had been allowed to make her apartments as bright and cheery as her buoyant nature suggested.
For Andrew Fraser, after much discussion with Janet Fairbarn, had convoyed the heiress to St. Heliers for a day. The resources of all the local furnishers were taxed by the young prisoner’s taste, and, the old executor, unbending a little, grimly vaunted his “dangerous liberality.” “I’ll be bail for the expenditure of five hundred pounds, as an extra allowance,” he said. “Now make yourself snug here, for ye’ll bide here the whole three years! As to the bookmen, music, and libraries, I’ll give ye a free hand.
“The yearly allowance of yere lamented father will cover all yere dealings with mantua-makers and milliners. That is yere own affair—all that sort of womanly gear. We will make one day of it, and if ye are lacking aught, then Miss Janet can bring ye to town, or the dealers can come.” It was, thus self-deluded, that Andrew Fraser noted the coming cheerfulness of his defiant young charge. He fancied he had provided every wish of her lonely heart. But the trailing lines of smoke of the daily Southampton packets only spoke to Nadine of a growing correspondence with Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers. She waited now for Simpson’s arrival for news of the Delhi mystery—the death of the unloving parent, who had been only her jailer.
At Rosebank Villa, Major Hardwicke was busied with Captain Murray, while Anstruther drew Alixe Delavigne aside. “Listen to all Murray proposes, and agree to it. You may be astonished at our plans, but between you and I, alone, lies the deeper secret. My secret orders from the Viceroy are for your ear alone. Your life-quest to reach Nadine’s side can only be taken up after Murray and Hardwicke have finished their little masquerade at the ‘Banker’s Folly.’ Let this secret be ours, alone! Do you promise me, Alixe? I will aid you, heart, life, and soul!” And, with her eyes softly shining in a growing tenderness, Alixe Delavigne murmured: “I trust you in all things! It shall be as you wish.”
Captain Anstruther then led the way to the library, and closing the doors with the minute attention of a true conspirator, cried: “Murray, we will hear from you first!” Seated, with her lips parted in an expectant smile, Alixe Delavigne listened in amazement as “Red Eric” proceeded.
“I got the little idea from Frank Halton, of the Globe. You may know that he was out at the Khyber Pass seven years ago, as the war correspondent of the Telegraph, and he ran over Cabul at the time of the Penj-Deh incident. He has prepared a series of varied skits and personal items covering the visit incognito of Prince Djiddin, a Thibetan noble of ancient and shadowy lineage. This ‘Asiatic Lion’ will be duly kept in the shadows of a mysterious seclusion in the Four Kingdoms until we introduce him to a small section of the British public.
“The Globe, the Indian Mail, the Mirror, the Colonial Gazette, and other periodicals will darkly hint at his itinerary, and he will be paraded judiciously, and no vulgar eye must ever rest upon him. These items will be widely copied. A graceful, social phantom, a Veiled, mysterious young potentate is Prince Djiddin!” “The humbug will be easily discovered!” said Anstruther, still at sea.
“Not if you flung your protecting mantle over him!” cried Murray. “We will shield him by a protecting Moonshee, who alone speaks his august master’s language, a tongue not to be easily translated; in fact, perfectly proof against all prying outsiders. The one way to hoodwink old Fraser is to humbug him about the great work on Thibet. That is the one soft spot in the hide of this old alligator. We have gone carefully over the reports of your secret agent at St. Heliers. Make us square with him, Captain, let him have your orders to aid us, and he can get us first hooked on to this Yankee Professor Alaric Hobbs! We will jolly him a bit, and so, get an interview with old Fraser, and then fool the old chap to the top of his bent. We will supply him with theories enough to set every bee in his bonnet buzzing. Your man is already ‘solid’ with Professor Alaric Hobbs, who is a quaint genius, and withal, a hard-headed Yankee, but full of cranks and ‘isms.’”
Anson Anstruther exchanged doubtful glances with Alixe Delavigne, who was still very agnostic. “The real object is to spy out the interior of Fraser’s household without alarming him, and to locate his hidden treasure, and, moreover, to open a safe, personal communication with Nadine Johnstone. Letters and messages finally go astray. And, at the very first sign of danger, old Andrew would clear out to the Continent, shut up the girl, get rid of that insured package, and cut all future communications! In the long three years, the girl might die, be estranged from you, or perhaps fall into the hands of some foreign fortune hunter. Human nature—woman nature—is a mutable quantity. But once we are in communication we can provide for future correspondence in any event.
“And you, Anstruther, would be defeated in recovering the hidden property of the Crown. Moreover, these two Frasers are the only heirs-at-law.
“Who knows what might not be done for a million, when a beggarly fifty pounds will buy a death certificate in many a little continental town?” They were all gravely silent as Murray soberly clinched his argument. “It is idle not to believe that old Hugh Fraser Johnstone laid out his brother’s whole future course! He certainly has trusted him with his stealings, the lost crown jewels! He trusts his child’s whole future to the care of these two cold Scotsmen, and gives the heiress over to old Andrew, to keep her safe from Madame,” Murray bowed, “his only living enemy, and from all the other relatives of his long-hated dead wife. From your own disclosures and Madame’s own words, we must all fear that her first appearance would be the signal for the spiriting away of Nadine until the minority is at an end. And it might invite some secret crime. She bears the hated face of her dead mother, you say!”
“True,” murmured Anstruther. “My solicitor tells me, too, that a guardianship by will is the very strongest tying-up of a rich young ward. We can follow on later, perhaps, if this opening could be made, but where have we a ‘Prince Djiddin,’ and where, the wonderful ‘Moonshee?’”
“There is Prince Djiddin,” laughed Captain Murray, pointing to Major Harry Hardwicke, “and here is the Moonshee,” he tapped his own broad breast.
“I fail to understand you,” slowly replied Anstruther, now blankly gazing at the two men in a growing wonderment.
“Nothing easier,” briskly answered Murray. “I go quietly over to Jersey and spend a honeymoon week with Flossie. She is soldier enough to know that my little masquerade means full ‘duty pay and traveling allowances.’ I will hide her safely with my Jersey friends, and while Frank Halton works his secret Literary Bureau, I will steal over to Southampton and bring ‘Prince Djiddin’ over to St. Heliers. I will see that he naturally falls in with Prof. Alaric Hobbs, and then, ‘fond of seclusion,’ I will embower my ‘Asiatic Lion’ not a league from the ‘Banker’s Folly.’ I will be near my Flossie, and I propose to bring ‘Prince Djiddin’ soon face to face with the heiress.
“As the Prince speaks not a word of English, even old Fraser will be disarmed. Neither Hobbs, Alaric of that ilk, nor Fraser have ever been in India, and we can easily fool them. Neither of us have ever been in Jersey, and fortunately our figures, age, and complexions aid the makeup. I can do the Moonshee. It was my ‘star’ cast in many a garrison theatrical show. Remember, none of them have ever seen Hardwicke or myself—only Miss Nadine will know us.”
“But,” faltered Alixe Delavigne, “Captain Murray makes no provision for me. Must I be hidden here always?” Her voice was trembling with the surging love of her longing heart.
“Ah! dear Madame!” replied Murray. “Place aux dames. You can be later quietly escorted to St. Heliers. Old bookworm Fraser does not leave the ‘Folly’ once in six months. You shall, on to-morrow, arrange with Mrs. Flossie Murray to share ‘those days of absence’ with her, while I am playing the ‘Moonshee’ to ‘Prince Djiddin’s’ leading part. With your own sly man-of-all-work, then how easy for the acute Jules Victor to lead you into the extensive grounds, where you may often meet Nadine Johnstone when all is safe. He has the friendly entree, and can hoodwink the attendants of the garden, while your own ingenuity will enable you to have stolen interviews in the splendid rambles of the ‘Banker’s Folly.’ Old Andrew never quits his study, and all we have to do is to watch Miss Janet Fairbarn. Jules Victor can guard against a surprise by her.”
“It is an ingenious plan, but, a dangerous one,” mused Anstruther.
“Not so,” boldly replied Murray. “Remember that old Fraser is crazy on his bookwork. Hobbs is his only male visitor. He has not a relative, a friend—no one to watch on the outside while we hold the old chap at bay. Miss Janet watches in the house.” Anstruther had been carefully studying the two men’s faces. “‘Prince Djiddin’ will be all right, with a little makeup, using walnut juice and a proper costume. His Indian brown is quite the thing. But you, my boy, must be an Eurasian, the son of a high English official and a native woman of rank. You were carried away to Thibet by your beautiful Cashmere mother when she was abandoned. The usual sad story will go. She, driven out by her family, refuges finally in Hlassa, and your English was, of course, learned before the death of your father, when you were eighteen. Your usefulness as interpreter caused you to attach yourself to ‘Prince Djiddin’s’ noble family.
“Yes,” said Hardwicke. “A couple of days spent in the British Museum, and with your fertile imagination, Eric, you will be enabled to describe the mysterious, lonely city on the Dzangstu, and even the gilded temples of Mount Botala. You can easily book up all about the Dalai Lama. Make a voyage a la Tom Moore to Cashmere!”
“Right you are!” laughed Eric Murray. “Frank Halton stole into the town of Hlassa and he now offers to me his sketchbooks and private notebooks. Foreigners from the south have occasionally been allowed to go into Thibet since the Nepauese were driven out, but only very rarely. I will have all the rig and quaint outlandish gear that Halton brought away. So you see we are the ‘Ever Victorious Army.’ Yes. Prince Djiddin will be a go.” And the others were fain to agree in the plausibility of the scheme.
It was midnight when the quartette separated to meet at the quiet wedding of the morrow. Alixe Delavigne had finally approved the plan, when Anson Anstruther drew her away to confer upon the risk. “You see,” he pleaded, “Murray will never even speak to Miss Johnstone. All that pleasing task is left to Prince Djiddin, who can and will, of course, choose any unguarded moment. Captain Murray will hold old Fraser personally in limbo, while you and Prince Djiddin can meet the pretty captive in alternation. At any danger signal, the Prince and Moonshee can quit Jersey at once.” Then the lightning thought came to the lady: “She already loves him! It must be so! He is the only young officer who was ever allowed to enter the Marble House in that long year of golden bondage. It shall be so! I can trust to him for her sake, if he loves her for Love’s own sake. I can remain near Nadine then, even if they have to disappear, for Jules will keep the pathway open.” And yet, shamefaced in her own growing tenderness for her mentor, Anstruther, she took these wise counsels away to hide them in her own happy heart. “It will make us then, Captain Murray,” she said, as she extended her hand in good night, “a little circle of five, gathered around this motherless and fatherless girl to save her from the secret schemes of tyrant and fortune hunter.”
“Precisely so, Madame,” laughed Murray, “when I have sworn in my beautiful recruit to-morrow. Then we will be five in very truth.” There was a flying early morning visit to Hunt and Roskell’s on the morrow, which greatly astonished Captain Anstruther, who had escorted Madame Alixe Delavigne down on her way to the pretty chapel at Kew, where Captain Murray duly “swore in his beautiful recruit,” with bell, book, and candle. The parure of diamonds which the lady of Jitomir gave to Mrs. Flossie Murray caused even the eyes of “The Moonshee” to open in wonder at the little campaign breakfast of the leaders of this Crusade of Love. “Only suited to the wife of Prince Djiddin’s High Chamberlain,” laughed Alixe Delavigne, as the happy Captain departed on his honeymoon tour, escaping showers of rice, to “move upon the enemy’s works in Jersey.”
“Thank God that I have got that sharp-eyed Hawke safely out of town,” cried Captain Anstruther to his beautiful confidante, as they escorted Miss Mildred back to beautiful Rosebank. The “lass o’ Richmond Hill” was no fairer than the happy woman who had seen Major Hardwicke depart for a long conference with that all powerful sprite of the magic pen, Frank Halton, who was now busied in launching his creation, Prince Djiddin. “A single word at the ‘F. O.’ will legalize our useful myth, ‘Prince Djiddin,’ and I hope that Hardwicke and Murray will succeed. They can surely lose nothing by the attempt. I am known to be the Viceroy’s aide-de-camp ‘on leave,’ a near kinsman, and I am sure that old Fraser would take alarm at the first visit or written communication from me. Once startled, he would soon be off to hide the jewels on the Continent, and then only laugh at our efforts. Of course he will swear that the insured packet only contained family papers or some of the estate’s securities. Yes! Alan Hawke is the only man whom I fear now as to the safety of either the girl or the jewels. He seems to have had many old dealings with Hugh Johnstone, too!” They were silent as they threaded the beautiful Surrey garden lanes of the old burgh of Sheen. Loved by the bluff Harrys of the English throne, its beauties sung by poet and deputed by artist, the charming declivities of Richmond gained a new name from Henry VII, and its bosky shades once saw a kingly Edward, a Henry, and a mighty Elizabeth drop the scepter of Great Britain from the palsied hand of Death. Its little parish church to-day hides the ashes of the pensive pastoral poet Thomson, and the bones of the great actor Kean. But, Anstruther’s active mind was only dwelling in the present, as Miss Mildred nodded in the carriage. He saw again the simple wedding of the morning, and heard once more those touching words “I, Eric, take thee, Florence.” Then his eyes sought the face of Alixe Delavigne in a burning glance, which caused that lady to seek her own bower in Rosebank villa, and hide her blushes from “Him Who Would Not Be Denied.” Miss Mildred smiled and nodded behind her fan, for she heard the Bells of the Future sounding afar off.
The graceful woman escorted Captain Anstruther to the river’s edge that night, when he departed to a conference of moment with Hardwicke and Halton. She fled back, like the swift Camilla, to her own nest, as the Captain went forth upon the river. Only the listening flowers heard her startled answer when Anstruther had found a voice to tell the Pilgrim of Love his own story in a soldier’s frank way. “Wait, Anson! Wait, till you know me better, till our quest is done; wait till the roses bloom here once more,” she had whispered.
“And if I do wait, Alixe—if I ask you again?” Anstruther cried as he kissed her slender hand.
“Then you shall have my answer,” she faltered, but her eyes shone like stars as she lightly fled away.
Captain Anson Anstruther had reckoned without his host when he rejoiced over Alan Hawke’s departure. As the aide-de-camp sped down the darkened river, he still saw Alixe Delavigne’s eyes gleaming down on him in every tender twinkling star, but the wily agent whom he had dispatched to the Continent four days before, was near him yet, and comfortably dining in a little snug public in the Tower Hamlets, on this very night. He was looking for tools suited to a dark game which busied his reckless heart.
Major Alan Hawke (temporary rank) had passed two days at Geneva in a serious conference with the sorrowing sisters Delande. His meeting with the softhearted Justine had brought the color back to the poor woman’s face, and she shyly held up the diamond bracelet to his view, murmuring, “I have thought of you and kissed it every night and morning, for your sake, Alan!”
With a glance of veiled tenderness, the acute schemer took his fair dupe out upon the lake, while Euphrosyne directed the slow grinding of the mills of the gods. “I must lose no time,” Hawke pleaded, “as I have to report for duty in London.” And so, he gleaned the story of the hegira and the situation at the Banker’s Folly. He heard all, and yet felt that there was a gap in the story. Justine was true to her plighted word.
He instinctively felt that Justine was holding back something of moment, and yet in his heart he felt that the price of that disclosure would be his formal betrothal to the loving Justine. But he dared not vow to marry, and the Swiss woman was loyally true to her oath. He remained “their loving brother” as yet, and when two days later, Alan Hawke departed for London direct, he mused vainly over the tangled problem until he reported to Captain Anson Anstruther. “If this greenhorn girl has any designs of her own she has not told them yet to Justine. I must get a man to help me to work my scheme, or go over to Jersey myself,” he at last decided. He was secretly happy at Captain Anstruther’s prompt injunctions to make ready for a tour of two months upon the Continent. “I shall have all your detailed instructions prepared tomorrow, Major Hawke,” said the young aide-de-camp. “Meet me, therefore, at the Junior United Service at ten o’clock; you can take a couple of days to look over London, and then proceed at once to the delicate duty which I will give to you. And, remember, the Viceroy’s orders are that you are to report to me alone, and also to preserve an absolute secrecy. Your future rank will depend upon your discretion.” Major Alan Hawke was not as cheerful, however, when he opened his private mail at Morley’s Hotel, as when he had bade adieu to Captain Anstruther. A formal communication from the Credit Lyonnais informed him that Monsieur le Professeur Andrew Fraser had formally forbidden Messrs. Glyn, Carr & Glyn to pay the four bills of exchange, acting in his capacity of executor of a will duly filed at Doctor’s Commons, and that the four drafts must be proved as debts against the estate, and so paid later, in due process of law on proof of the claim. The refusal was due to the death of the drawer before presentment.
“Damn it! I must play a fine game now!” he glowered. “Anstruther I must obey in all! Once back in India with rank, however, I can force old Ram Lal to pay these drafts. He dare not resist—there’s the rope for him!
“And I must find a fellow to spy out the situation in Jersey. I certainly dare not linger here!” He be-took himself to an old haunt in Tower Hamlets, where the first stars of the “swell mob” were wont to linger, a haunt where he had once taken refuge in his changeling days, years before.
A glance at a man seated enjoying a good cigar at a table caused his heart to leap up in joy. “Jack Blunt—of all men! By God! this is luck!” he cried. When the happy Alan Hawke tapped the smoker smartly on the shoulder he first laid a finger on his own lip and then hastily said: “Get a private room, Jack, I want you at once. I’ve a special bit of business in your line.” Major Alan Hawke, Temporary Rank, unattached, hastily bade the boni-face serve the best supper available for two. “Mind you, no poison in the wine!” he sharply said.
“We’ve the best vintages of London Docks,” grinned the happy host, as he sped away and left the two scoundrels alone.
“What are you doing now, Jack?” queried Hawke.
“Nothing,” sullenly replied the middle-aged star of the swell mob. “My eyes! you are in great form,” he admiringly commented.
“Can you leave town for a week or so, on a little job for me?” briskly continued the Major.
“Ready money?” said “Gentleman Jack” Blunt, stroking out a pair of glossy side whiskers.
“Yes, cash in plenty on hand, and lots more in sight,” imperatively replied the Major.
“Do I work with you, or alone?” asked Blunt.
“It’s a little private investigation,” replied Hawke, “and as I have to leave town to-night, and spend a couple of months on the Continent, you are the very man. I am afraid to appear in the thing myself, as I am well known to the other parties, and so I fear being followed over the Channel. I’m back again in the army.” Jack’s eyes grew larger in a trice.
“Here comes the grub,” gayly said Blunt. “You can trust the wine here. The crib is square, too. Now, my boy, fire away. We are alone, and no listeners here.” Before Jack Blunt had put away a pint of best “beeswing” sherry, he was aware of all Alan Hawke’s intentions. His keen brain was working all its “cylinders.”
“Give me just five minutes to think it over, Governor,” said the sparkling-eyed, dark-faced, swell cracksman. “I know Jersey like a book. I worked the ‘summer racket’ there once. The excursion boats, the farmers’ races, the Casino balls, the Military games, and the whole lay. I think I can cook up a plan. You don’t show up just yet. I am to do the ‘downy cove.’”
“Not till I can double on my track, and you have piped the whole situation off,” said Hawke. “The game is a queer one. I may want to come over later and show up and make a little society play on the girl. I may, however, join you and help you secretly, or I may have to stay away altogether. But I must act at once. There’s money in it. If you have to make the running yourself, you can get your own help.”
“And, you have the real stuff?” agnostically demanded Jack Blunt.
“What do you want for a starter as your pay for the report to be sent to me at the Hotel Faucon, Lausanne, Switzerland?” Hawke was eager and disposed to be liberal.
“Oh! A hundred sovs for the job, as you lay it out—and fifty for my little incidentals,” laughed Jack Blunt. “Of course, if it goes on to anything serious, you’ll have to put away the real ‘boodle,’ where I have something to run with, if I have to cut it. I might run up a dangerous plant!”
“Bah!” decisively said Hawke. “Only an old fool to dodge, who is over seventy—a dotard—and a foolish girl of eighteen—a simple boarding-school miss!”
“Yes, but she has a million, you say. There’s always some one to love a girl with that money! Love comes in by the door, and the window, too, you know!”
“She has never been five minutes alone with a man in her life!” cried Hawke. “You are safe—dead sure safe!” Blunt’s roving black eyes rested on Hawke’s eager face as he laughed.
“And you want to marry her, to keep others from her, or run her off at the worst, you say? That’s your little game.”
“I will have either the girl, or those jewels! By God! I will! I’ve got money to work with, plenty of it—not here,” cautiously said Hawke, “but there’s your hundred and fifty. Do you stand in?”
“To the death—if you do the handsome thing, my boy!” said the handsome ruffian, pocketing the notes. “When do I start?”
“Take the midnight train to Southampton, and go at work at once. I fear they may send some damned spies over there! Now, what’s your plan?” Major Hawke watched his old pal in a brown study.
Jack Blunt had smoked half his cigar, when he brought his white hand down with a whack. “I have it! A combination of gentleman artist and literary gent! ‘The Mansion Homes of Jersey,’ to illustrate a volume for the use of tourists—London and Southwestern Railway’s enterprise. I’ll sneak in and do the grand. You want a correct sketch and map of house and grounds, and the whole lay out?” Artist Blunt was delightfully interested in his Jersey tour now.
“Yes!” cried Alan Hawke, his eyes growing wolfish, and he leaned over to his companion and whispered for a few moments. “That’s the trick, Governor,” nodded Jack Blunt, “You work on the double event. And—I get my money—play or pay?”
“Yes. Put up in good notes—only you are not to bungle!”
“Do you think I would fool around with a ‘previous conviction’ against me? The next is a lifer, and I’ve got to use the knife or a barker, if I run up against trouble, for I’ll never wear the Queen’s jewelry again! I’ve sworn it!” The man’s eyes were gleaming now like burning coals, “I’ll do the grand, and then, take off my beard and change my garb! I look twenty years older in a stubble chin. I can watch them from the public at Rozel Pier. I used to do a neat little bit of cognac, silk, and cigar smuggling. I know every crag of Corbiere Rocks, every shady joint in St. Heliers, every nook of St. Aubin’s Bay. Oh! I’m fly to the whole game!”
“Could you not get a good boat’s crew there?” anxiously demanded Major Hawke.
“Ah! My boy! I am ‘king high’ with a set of daring fishermen, who can smell out every rock from Dover to Land’s End; and, from Calais to Brest, in the blackest night of the channel, if it pays.”
“Then, Jack, your fortune is made, if you stand in. We’ll pull it off, in one way or the other. You’ve got an easy job for a man of your ability. I’ll meet you at Granville! Now, get over to St. Heliers, and work the whole trick in your own way! Send me your secret address in Jersey at once to Hotel Faucon, Lausanne, and run over to the French coast at Granville and find a safe nest there for us. There we are within seventeen miles of each other, with two mails a day, and the telegraph. It’s a wonderful plant, so it is.”
“Yes, Governor! And old Etienne Garcia, at the ‘Cor d’Abondance’ in Granville, is the very slyest rogue in France. When you find a Crapaud who is dead to rights, he is always an out and outer. I’ll square you with my old pal, Etienne, who slyly makes ‘floaters’ and then gets the government cash reward for towing them in. He has always a half dozen pretty girls hanging around there, and many a good looking stranger has ended his ‘tour’ by a sudden drop through the flow of the drinking room over the wharf where Etienne keeps his ‘boats to let.’”
“How does he do it?” mused Alan Hawke. “It’s a risky game in France.”
Jack Blunt laughed.
“A few puffs of smoke in a cognac glass, and the subject is knocked out for an hour after drinking from the nicotine-filmed crystal, bless you,” laughed Blunt, “there’s never a mark on Etienne’s victims. He is too fine for that, only cases of plain, simple, ‘accidental drowning.’
“You may as well address me as ‘Joseph Smith, Jersey Arms, Rozel Pier, Jersey.’ I am solid with Mrs. Floyd, the landlady there,” said the scoundrel mobsman, anxious to spend some of his cash.
“All right, then, Jack! Go ahead!” cheerfully cried Major Hawke. “Don’t overgo my instructions a single hair! I’ll either join you in the grand stroke, or else meet you at Granville and there tell you what to do. Remember that I’ll settle all your Jersey bills, and I will send a post order for ten pounds extra to you at the ‘Jersey Arms,’ to give you a local standing with the postman.
“That you can spend on the underlings around the Banker’s Folly, but beware of an old body servant named Simpson—an old red-coat who may turn up any day now from India! He was Johnstone’s own man, and he hates me, at heart, I know! Now, if you can do the ‘artist act,’ you must find out where the old man keeps his stuff! I don’t know yet whether we want him first or the girl; or to crack the whole crib! If we ever do, then, Simpson must get the—” Hawke grimly smiled, as he drew his hand across his throat! “I must be off!” he hastily said as he noted the time.
On his way over to Folkestone, Major Alan Hawke mused over his great coup, as he lay at ease, wrapped up in a traveling rug, and now resplendent in a fur-trimmed top coat, befrogged and laced, which indicated the officer en retraite.
“I will first do up Holland, Belgium, and Denmark, and take a little preliminary look around Paris,” mused the Major, studying a list of the missing jewels which Captain Anstruther had artfully arranged. Sundry deductions and additions, with an admirable disorder in the items (judiciously divided and reclassified) served to guard against any old confidences exchanged between Ram Lal and his secret friend Hawke. The real list in the original was now in the private pocket-book of the Viceroy.
“Each of our Consuls at the cities you are to visit has this list,” said Anstruther to the Major, “and you can vary your travel as you choose, but visit all these jewel marts, and report to the local Consuls. If they have further orders for you, you will get them there, at first hands. Should you find that any of the jewels have been offered for sale, simply report the facts to the local Consul, and write under seal to me at the Junior United Service, then go on and examine further at once! You are to take no steps whatever to recover them, or to alarm the thieves! All your expenses and your pay will be advanced by me!” The acute schemer decided not to risk any suspicions by marketing his own jewels. “They might bounce me for the murder,” fearfully mused the Major. “I could show no honest title through Ram Lal. They might arrest him, and I need him to pay the protested drafts—later, when I go back on the Viceroy’s staff!” He smiled and wove his webs like a spider in his den.
On his arrival in Paris, from a run to the Low Countries, a week later, Major Alan Hawke betook himself at once to No. 9 Rue Berlioz. And there Marie Victor greeted him, handing him a letter which was dated from Jitomir, Volhynia. “How is your mistress?” he affably demanded.
“She is well, and will remain for several months longer in Russia!” politely answered Marie, bowing him out.
“By God, then, she has given up the chase! I see it all!” mused Hawke, as he pored over the letter on his way to the Hotel Binda. “The trump card she wished to play was to blast the old fellow’s hopes of a baronetcy. Death has struck down her prey, and, she will now wait till the girl is free! She is too sly to face old Fraser; his brother has warned him. But she says she will need me in the winter, on her return.”
The deceived scoundrel laughed. “The coast is left clear for me now! I’ll telegraph to Joseph Smith, run on to Geneva, deposit my own jewels there, in the agency of the Credit Lyonnais, and then return the notifications of protest of the Bills of Exchange to Ram Lal.
“I wonder if I can steal those jewels, get my Major’s rank as a reward from the Viceroy, and marry the girl? It would be the luck of a life!” he dreamed.
Two days later, on the terraces of Lausanne, he laughed over Jack Blunt’s cheeky campaign.
“The ‘artist dodge’ worked to a charm,” wrote Jack. “I used the Kodak, and I have a dozen good views of the house, and as many more of the grounds. My chapter on the ‘Artistic Homes of Jersey,’ will be a full one! I soon jollied a couple of the London maid servants into my confidence. By the way, send me, at once, another ‘tenner’ for expense, and some money for my own regular bills. I can make great play on the two frolicsome maids. They are up for a lark. The shy bird keeps her rooms; and there really seems to be no young man around. Devilish strange! A room is being got ready for the old body servant who is now on his way from India. He might fall over Rozel cliff some night, when half seas over! That’s a natural ending for him! Maps, sketches, and all will be ready for you at the place we agreed. It’s all lying ready to our hand, and ten minutes of a dark night is all I want. The old chap is always mooning alone in his study, till the midnight hours, over his books, and he has the whole ground floor to himself. The men are in the gardener’s house, ten rods away, and all the women sleep upstairs. He sees no one but a half crazy Yankee professor, who drops in of a morning. But, the shy bird keeps in her cage, and lives in great state, upstairs. More when you send the money.”
On his way to say adieu to Justine, before departing to Vienna, Alan Hawke smiled grimly. “I can strike now, when I will, and as I will! But, first to race around a little, and then, having fulfilled my mission, to get a couple of weeks’ furlough, to go about my own affairs. The coast is clear. Jack Blunt’s plan is right. Simpson must be first put out of the way. He would fight like a rat on general principles.”
At Rosebank Villa, Madame Alixe Delavigne was nightly busied now in official conferences with Major Harry Hardwicke, who had lingered in the concealment of Anstruther’s home. The Captain found abundant time to prosecute his “official business” with his lovely aid in the secret service. And he had learned all of Alixe Delavigne’s lessons now, save to acquire the patience to wait. But a growing album of newspaper clippings was daily augmented by Frank Hatton’s artfully disseminated items regarding “Prince Djiddin of Thibet,” the first visitor of rank from that land of shadows. The warring journals who wrangled over the rich young visitor’s “stern retirement” from all public intrusion referred to the political coup de main to be looked for in “the near future.” From various parts of the United Kingdom, the mysterious princely visitor’s trail was daily telegraphed, and a hearty laugh from all three of the conspirators of Rosebank Villa greeted the final article in the St. Heliers Messenger, stating that a learned Moonshee or Pundit, “the only Asiatic attendant of Prince Djiddin of Thibet” was arranging for a brief visit of a descendant of the Dalai-Lamas.
Anstruther and Hardwicke laughed merrily at Frank Halton’s last graceful touches. “A romantic gratitude to a retired British officer, who had once befriended the Prince’s august father, was the one impelling cause of a visit, in which the strictest retirement would be guarded by the dweller on the Roof of the World,” etc., etc. So read out Madame Delavigne, closing with the remark that the “Moonshee had already visited the Royal Victoria Hotel at St. Heliers to arrange for the coming of his friend, and to the regret of the authorities, the Prince would decline all the hospitality due to his exalted rank.”
“Captain Murray must be even now at work,” anxiously said the fair reader.
“We will hear at once,” said Anstruther. “Prince Djiddin, you must now materialize! For Murray’s letter tells me that he is already in full communication with Jules Victor at the Hotel Bellevue. So the ‘Moonshee’ has one faithful friend near at hand. If there is any shadowing of either of you, Jules Victor is an invincible avant garde. He knows the faces of all the dramatis personae. You see, Douglas Fraser is gone to India and old Andrew has never seen any of our ‘star actors.’ We are absolutely safe!”
“It seems that fortune favors us,” tremblingly said Alixe Delavigne. “This prying and curious Yankee, Professor Hobbs, also seems to have fallen at once into the trap! Captain Murray’s description of his ‘interview,’ at the Royal Victoria, with Alaric Hobbs, is a crystallized work of humorous art!”
“Of course the Yankee savant will write columns to the Waukesha Clarion, describing this Asiatic lion, Prince Djiddin, and exploit him in the States as an ‘original discovery’ of his own. His eagerness to arrange an interview between the Prince and Professor Fraser is most ludicrously fortunate for us,” said Captain Anstruther.
The entrance of the butler with a telegram disturbed “Prince Djiddin” and his lovely confidential staff officer. “An answer, please, Captain,” formally continued the household factotum.
“Hurrah!” cried Hardwicke, when the little conclave gathered around the red light. “Simpson has arrived, and now Nadine and I have some one whom we can both trust!” The further information that the “Moonshee” would arrive forthwith to conduct “Prince Djiddin” to the safe haven where that fascinating bride, Mrs. Flossie Murray, awaited her beloved truant, was a call to prompt action. “I am ready! I shall drop the Royal Engineers and live up to my ‘blue china’ as a Prince!” cried Hardwicke.