OUT OF RUSSIA

By CRITTENDEN MARRIOTT

THE ISLE
OF
DEAD SHIPS

THE FASCINATING SARGASSO SEA NOVEL

“Chapter after chapter unfolds new and
startling adventures.”

—Philadelphia Press.

“A thriller from start to finish. The
book will certainly prove a delight to the
lovers of romance and adventure.”

—San Francisco Bulletin.

FRONTISPIECE IN COLOR
AND THREE ILLUSTRATIONS
IN BLACK AND WHITE

12mo. Cloth, $1.00 net.

J. B. LIPPINCOTT CO.
PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA

THE DIVER COMMANDED HER TO REPORT AT ONCE TO THE INNER CIRCLE OF THE BROTHERHOOD

Page [165]

OUT OF RUSSIA

BY
CRITTENDEN MARRIOTT
AUTHOR OF “THE ISLE OF DEAD SHIPS,” “UNCLE SAM’S
BUSINESS,” “HOW AMERICANS ARE GOVERNED,” ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
FRANK McKERNAN

PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1911

Copyright, 1910, by Crittenden Marriott
Copyright, 1911, by J. B. Lippincott Company
Published February, 1911
Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company
The Washington Square Press, Philadelphia, U. S. A.

ILLUSTRATIONS

OUT OF RUSSIA

CHAPTER ONE

THE PROFESSOR was pottering about his laboratory. He called it a laboratory, this work-room down in New Jersey, where he was peacefully ending his days, but it was not such in the ordinary acceptation of the term. The brightly burning lights shone on no apparatus for distilling evil-smelling gases, no glass retorts, no long lines of bottles. What instruments it disclosed were of a kind more likely to appeal to a sailor than to a chemist, though many of them would probably have seemed odd to both. A lead-line with “marks” and “deeps,” various scoop nets, a long sectional aquarium in which various sea creatures moved, barometers, anemometers, and other “meters” for measuring winds and waters, a great globe, and piles of charts, were some of the articles the room contained, for this was the workshop of Professor Shishkin, the great Russian physicist, member of scores of learned societies, and the ultimate authority on the waves, winds, currents, flora, and fauna of the ocean.

The Professor had come to America about twenty years before, bringing with him a young daughter, a working knowledge of the English language, and a profound acquaintance with the ocean. He had secured a post in a small school, from which he had gone from one college to another, all the while growing in reputation until he came to be probably the best known physicist in the world. When he came to America, he was apparently about fifty years of age, but where and how he had passed those fifty years he never told. Obviously, he must have been a student if not a professor, and it seemed strange that one with his attainments could have lived for half a century unnoticed; yet of his early life no trace was to be had. His name did not appear on the rolls of any of the great European universities; and even after he grew to distinction, no alma mater claimed him for her own. Deliberately he had cut himself off from his early life. To him, the past was dead.

But the past is never really dead. Its beginnings are untraceable, and its ending must ever be unknown. Men put their finger on some turning point in their lives and say, “Here this began,” or, “Here that ended.” Wrong in both assertions! The beginning began long before, and the ending will not end even when R.I.P. is graven on their tombstones. At the very moment when Professor Shishkin was congratulating himself on the peaceful afternoon of his life, strenuous fate was on its way in the darkness of that March evening to call him again to action.

The avatar of fate was one who would attract attention even in New York, that melting pot of the nations. Carelessly dressed, dark, with high cheek-bones and glowing eyes, even the casual might pronounce him a fanatic who was living on his nerves and declare that some day the nerves would burn out and the man collapse.

At the door he gave his name to Olga Shishkin, the Professor’s daughter, now grown to womanhood, and she took it to the Professor in his laboratory.

The Professor was puzzled. “Maxime Gorloff,” he repeated doubtfully. “I don’t recall the name. Did he say what he wanted, Olga?”

Olga shook her head. “No,” she answered. “Only that he wanted to see the distinguished Professor. He seemed very much in earnest. He speaks English well, but with an accent. I think he must be an immigrant.”

“An immigrant! Eh?” The Professor did not measure men by the price of their steamer passages. “Well, show him in. I am always glad to talk with strangers, especially if they are very much in earnest. They usually have a new point of view and can teach me something. Show him in.”

The man came in. If a shade of disappointment crossed his face as he noted the Professor’s white hair and wasted limbs, it disappeared as he returned the latter’s courteous greeting. “I have come many miles to see you, Professor,” he declared quietly, as he took the chair proffered.

“So!” The Professor preened himself with harmless vanity. People often came many miles to see and consult him. “Many miles!” he repeated. “That means so different a thing to-day than it did when I was young. Fifty miles were very many in those days.”

The man Maxime nodded understandingly. “And four thousand is many to-day; yes! Moscow is four thousand miles away.”

“You come from Moscow?” The Professor’s tone expressed only polite interest. Moscow was indeed very far from him, mentally as well as geographically.

“Yes, from Moscow! From the House of the Seven Feathers—Brother.”

The Professor sat rigid, the smile fading slowly from his lips. His hands slowly tightened on the arms of his chair until the knuckles showed white. “I—I—did not catch—that is, what—the House of the Seven Feathers, did you say?”

Pity showed in the young man’s eyes, but he did not waver. “Yes, I said that—Brother,” he reiterated.

“I—I don’t understand.”

Maxime leaned forward. “What shall I say to remind you?” he asked. “Shall I recite the oath of brotherhood or call the names of the Defenders of the Cause? Shall I adjure you by fire or steel or rope? I come from the House of the Seven Feathers, Brother. Make answer!”

The Professor’s dry lips moved. “What is their color, Brother?” he asked, the words dropping unwillingly from his lips.

“Red!” The man touched his hand to his forehead.

“May they prosper!” The Professor stroked his beard. The first shock was past, and the words came easier. After all, the visit could portend little. He was too old. “Very well,” he said. “I acknowledge the call. What will you?”

“The Brotherhood has need of you.”

“The Brotherhood has no longer a claim on me. I did it good service once. I gave it my youth and my early manhood, and I paid for it to the full. That was twenty years ago. For twenty years I have had no intercourse with it. My obligation is ended.”

“So long as fire burns and water flows; so long as steel cuts and grass grows; till death and after it,” quoted the other softly.

“But I am no longer a Russian; I am an American citizen.”

“Adoption does not free a man from his mother’s call. Your long exemption only adds to your obligation.”

The Professor moved uneasily in his chair. Fear was growing on him, but he tried to shake it off. “I am not in sympathy with the present aims of the Brotherhood,” he protested. “I have lived too long in the outer world. No cause was ever helped by murder. Besides, Russia is not fitted for self-government.”

Maxime shrugged his shoulders. “We will not discuss it,” he declared. “The Brotherhood calls you. Will you obey, or must I first remind you of what it did for you twenty years ago, just before you fled secretly by night from the palace of the Grand Duke in St. Petersburg, bearing in your arms——”

“Stop! Stop!”

But the man went on pitilessly. “Twenty years ago,” he said, as one repeating a lesson, “you were known by the name of Lladislas Metrovitch. You were a subordinate member of the Brotherhood, and rendered it good though not material service. You were married twice, the second time to an American lady who had been the governess of your nieces. You had one child by her. You were well known for your scientific attainments. One day you were arrested, charged with sedition. You disappeared. Your property was confiscated, your household scattered.

“Three years went by, during which you rotted in the dungeons of the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. Then, by the aid of the Brotherhood, you escaped—old before your time, broken, feeble. You sought for your wife, your family. You could learn little of them. At last you heard that your wife was dead, and that her child and yours was being brought up in the household of the Grand Duke Ivan. You did not dare to claim the child openly, but, aided by the Brotherhood, you stole her and escaped with her to America.”

The Professor raised his head. His shoulders shook. The forgotten horror of those by-gone days had all come back as if it had been but yesterday. He was about to speak when the man interposed.

“I have more to tell,” he said. “When you fled from Russia you thought your wife was dead. You were deceived. She did not die until about a year ago.”

“Not dead! Not dead!” The Professor’s face flushed red, then changed to a ghastly pallor. “Not dead!” he muttered.

“No, not dead!” The worst was over, and the man hurried on. “There was much connected with your arrest that you did not know. You believed that it was due to your association with the Brotherhood. You were wrong. You were arrested because the Grand Duke Ivan admired your wife.”

The Professor’s shoulders shook, but he said no word. Age dulls the capacity to feel; cools the passions as well as the affections. The old man had borne much; no further shock could greatly move him.

“You disappeared. Ivan was kind to your wife, but declared that your arrest had been ordered by the Emperor himself, and that he could do nothing. Soon you were reported dead. Not long after he married her—morganatically, of course. She is not to be too much blamed. She was penniless, alone, in a strange land, with a child to support. She married him. When you stole your child you stole it from her.”

The Professor’s dry lips moved. “I did not know,” he murmured.

“No, you did not know. The fault was not yours, but that of the system we are trying to destroy. So much for the past! Now for the future. Will you obey the orders of the Brotherhood?”

Maxime’s voice dropped, and he sat silent, watching the older man dumbly fighting through the shock. Pity was in his eyes, but relentlessness was there also—the relentlessness of the priest who pities the victim, but does not drop the sacrificial knife. Patiently he waited for the other to speak.

At last the words came, and Maxime’s face flushed with triumph as he heard them.

“What does the Brotherhood require?” the Professor asked hollowly.

The younger man stretched out his hand to the great globe that stood beside him and twirled it on its axis. “In March, just two years ago,” he began, “the ship Orkney sailed from London for St. Petersburg with five millions in gold on board, consigned to the Russian government. It was the people’s gold, borrowed on the people’s credit, to aid in enslaving the people. We swore it should never reach St. Petersburg. We kept our word. The Orkney was wrecked in the night in the Gulf of Bothnia—no one survived to tell where. Russia long sought for it in vain. We ourselves sought for it in vain. But now, at last, a clue has reached our hands.”

“Well?”

“It is not perfect yet, but it will be. Marie Fitzhugh, our agent, will be here in a few hours, and will forge the last links. Her task is difficult, but she will succeed. By one means or another, she will succeed. I would have waited till she had finished her part before seeing you, but I have been ordered to another duty and must leave to-night. So she herself will send you word—perhaps to-morrow. If not to-morrow, soon after.”

“Well?”

“If she succeeds, we shall be able to go to the spot and get the gold. If she fails, we nevertheless shall know approximately where to look for it. But, as you are aware, no vessel can dredge in the Baltic without being watched. We do not want to find the gold for Russia to seize. So we come to you for help.”

“What?” Amazement showed in Professor Shishkin’s face and voice. “Are you serious?” he demanded.

“Why not? You have spent a lifetime studying the sea. You have made a specialty of the Baltic. You have won a great name by your work there. What more natural then than that you should revisit your chosen field? What more natural than that you should take divers with you to explore the sea-bottom? You, and you alone, of all the Brotherhood, can do this without suspicion. You, and you alone, can get the gold safely on board after it is found.”

“But——”

“There are no buts when the Brotherhood speaks, and it has spoken. If the task be difficult, the more honor in accomplishing it. A ship will be provided, manned, and equipped. Your sole duty is to prepare such apparatus as you may need for your scientific work, and to spread abroad the alleged object of your trip. Probably you had better send an announcement of it to the newspapers. Of course you will not do this until Marie notifies you.”

“Very well.”

“One thing more,” went on the messenger, gravely. “I am instructed to command you to take your daughter with you. Her presence will add force to your declaration that the trip is purely scientific.”

The Professor shook his head. “I cannot do it,” he declared. “I cannot and will not take Olga to Russia, under any circumstances. You know why.”

“The Brotherhood commands it.”

“I will appeal.”

“There is no appeal, as you know.”

“Then I refuse.”

The man sprang to his feet. “Refuse, do you?” he cried, in a sibilant hiss that seemed to fill the room. “Refuse? Have you forgotten the penalty of disobedience? Have you forgotten the oath you took?—‘If I fail in obedience, may I be cut off, I and my children and my children’s children, and my name live no more forever.’ Do you remember, Professor Shishkin?”

The man paused, and his voice changed. “Believe me, I am sorry,” he murmured; “but I, like yourself, am a subordinate. It is the Brotherhood that speaks, not I. And the Brotherhood speaks for the people—do not forget that—speaks for the great, inarticulate Russian people, struggling to burst their age-long shackles. While we sit here, men are sacrificing their lives and women their honor for the cause. Who are you to hold back? No harm will come to your daughter, but even if the risk were ten times greater, still she must take it. You and she both owe it to Russia.” He paused. “What shall I say to the Brotherhood?” he demanded.

The old man bowed his head. “I will obey,” he muttered. “I must obey. I have no choice.”

CHAPTER TWO

ALSTON CARUTH lived in the Chimneystack Building. When he returned to his apartments at midnight on the day of Gorloff’s visit to Professor Shishkin, he found Marie Fitzhugh, agent of the Brotherhood, awaiting him. She had risen at the sound of his key in the lock, and stood facing him, externally cool and self-possessed, but with apprehension shining in her soft dark eyes. Her fingers trembled as they rested on the edge of the table, and her color came and went. A close observer would have said that she was frightened half to death.

Caruth, however, was not a close observer; at least, not at that moment. Amazement showed in his eyes as he snatched off his hat and whipped the cigarette from his parting lips. His fresh young face, flushed from the gaiety of the evening, looked almost boyish in its confusion.

His obvious embarrassment seemed to restore the girl’s balance. “Mr. Caruth?” she inquired, with a slight movement of her head.

Caruth nodded. For the moment he was beyond words. Her soft, musical voice and air of refinement impressed him, despite the unconventionality of her presence in his rooms at that time of the night, and his attitude became even more respectful. “Yes,” he stammered; “I am Mr. Caruth. What can I do for you?”

“I am Miss Fitzhugh. I have come four thousand miles to talk with you, Mr. Caruth. Your valet was kind enough to let me wait, though he was clearly horrified by my desiring to do so. Will you not sit down?”

Caruth hesitated. Of medium build, clean-shaven, correctly dressed, he might have stepped out of a Gibson drawing. Every detail was present, even to the strong chin and the firm mouth.

“It is late,” he suggested, glancing at the clock, the hands of which stood straight upward. “I am at your service, of course, but perhaps to-morrow——”

The girl smiled, a trifle wearily. “One does not come four thousand miles for a trifle,” she answered. “The convenances must yield to necessity. I must talk with you to-night.”

Caruth bowed and seated himself across the centre table from her. Though his surprise had not abated, he was rapidly regaining his self-possession, and as the girl resumed her own chair, he leaned forward a little, studying her thoughtfully, noting the anxious lines about her youthful eyes and mouth.

Although her English had been excellent, she did not impress him as being of American nor yet of English birth. An alien air clung intangibly about her and about her costume, which, even to his masculine intelligence, bespoke the work of a dress-maker of more than ordinary skill.

She was plainly a lady. Had it not been too amazing, he would have guessed that she must be a person of distinction in her own land—wherever that might be. That she was beautiful seemed somehow not surprising; that she was very young did. What could such a woman be doing alone in his bachelor rooms at that hour of the night.

Disguising his wonder, he sought to carry off the situation. “You are tired?” he questioned gently. “I’m afraid I kept you waiting a long time. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Can’t I offer you something to eat or drink, Miss Fitzhugh?”

Slowly the girl nodded. “I’m glad,” she breathed, half to herself. “They told me American men were like this, but I could scarcely believe it. In Europe it would have been very different. I am proud of my half-cousins.” She paused; then answered his question. “Thank you,” she said. “I will take a glass of sherry and a biscuit.”

Caruth touched the bell. “Sherry and crackers, Wilkins,” he ordered briefly.

Not until the tray had been set before them, and the valet had gone, did either of them speak again. Caruth was slowly awakening to the fact that the beauty of the woman before him was not ordinary. It was not alone the perfection of her features that appealed to him. Every detail about her was artistically perfect. Her coloring, the poise of her head, the slim roundness of her taper fingers, the iridescent gleam of her brown hair beneath her wide hat—all satisfied his somewhat critical taste.

Suddenly he realized that he was staring, and, dropping his eyes, he forced himself to speak casually. “Your half-cousins?” he queried, answering her lead. “You are, then——”

“American? Yes! On my mother’s side, but my father is Russian, and I have never been in America until to-night. I like it, Mr. Caruth,” she ended—“what I have seen of it. It rests with you to confirm my opinion.”

Caruth questioned her with his eyes. “Yes?” he answered politely. “I hope I shall be able to do so.”

For a moment the girl did not speak. Her bosom rose and fell a trifle faster. She crumbled her cracker nervously, and her hand shook slightly as she lifted her glass. Caruth, silent, attentive, awaited her pleasure.

“Ten days ago,” she said, at last, “a letter was mailed to you at Stockholm in Sweden. It was not intended for you. It was sent to you by mistake—a mistake realized within a few hours after it had been posted. An effort was made to recover it, but it had already started on its way. Its progress has been traced carefully. It left Brest on the steamship Latourette, which reached quarantine here at eight o’clock to-night. It may be delivered to you at any moment.”

Caruth glanced at the clock and smiled. “I fear you are mistaken,” he objected. “Even if this letter reached the post-office to-night—which seems to me doubtful—it will not be delivered until to-morrow—unless, of course, it has a quick delivery stamp on it.”

The girl nodded. “It has a quick delivery stamp on it,” she rejoined promptly; “and if I understand your post-office methods, it will be delivered very soon. The mail-bags left the ship when I did.”

“You crossed on the same vessel?”

“Yes. Special arrangements had been made, and I was permitted to come up to the city on the tug that brought the mail. I came straight here and have been waiting ever since. The letter has not arrived yet; therefore it must come soon.”

“And when it does?” Caruth’s wonder was growing. Dimly he suspected whither the conversation was tending, and with growing interest he waited for his guest to come to the point. “When it does?” he questioned again, gently.

The girl’s breath came faster. She evaded a direct answer.

“You see, Mr. Caruth,” she argued, “I do not try to conceal from you the importance of this letter. It is of the very highest value to me and to my friends. To you, it is neither of value nor of importance, and, not being intended for you, it does not belong to you. It was sent to you by mistake. I have come to ask you to give it back to me unopened. Will you do it?”

Caruth drew a long breath. The inborn tendency of all men of his race to do anything that a pretty woman wishes impelled him to promise. Yet the request was certainly amazing.

“You ask a good deal, Miss Fitzhugh,” he temporized. “I know nothing of this letter. I have no correspondents that I know of in Sweden—nor in Europe either, for that matter. You may be right in saying that the letter is not intended for me; yet—well, I think I am entitled to ask a little further explanation. How is it possible for a letter not intended for me to be addressed to me here—for I presume it is so addressed?”

Miss Fitzhugh drew herself up. “Yes, the address is correct,” she answered coldly. “I have told you it was put on by mistake by a friend of mine who sends me to reclaim the letter——”

She broke off suddenly, as with startling abruptness the electric bell at the door of the apartment sounded in their ears. “There! It’s come! Go quick,” she cried.

Mechanically Caruth rose and turned to the door; then hesitated. “Wilkins will bring it,” he explained.

“Wilkins? Your man? No! Go yourself. This matter is too grave to trust to any one. Go quick.”

Under the spell of her command, Caruth stepped hastily to the door of the room and flung it open. At the end of the hall the valet was just signing the book of a letter carrier. As Caruth appeared he looked up. “Quick delivery letter for you, sir,” he said.

Caruth took the letter, nodded, and turned back into the room.

The girl was standing where he had left her. Her lips were parted, and her breath came fast. When she saw the letter her eyes glistened and she stretched out her hand.

But Caruth drew back. “One moment,” he exclaimed.

The girl’s eyes flashed. “What do you mean?” she demanded. “I have explained my claim to that letter. You have no right to keep it. Give it to me at once.” An imperious stamp of her foot put a period to her words.

A weaker man would have yielded, but Caruth set his jaws. “You have set forth your claim to this letter,” he answered coldly, “after a fashion. But, if you will pardon my saying so, you have by no means proved your right to it. It may very well have been mailed to me by mistake, and you may know it—without being entitled to it.”

Scornfully the woman stared at him. Her head was thrown back, and the breath whistled through her distended nostrils.

“So!” she breathed, at last. “So this is American manhood! For the first time in my life, my word has been questioned to my face.”

Caruth looked, as he felt, acutely uncomfortable. “No, no!” he protested eagerly. “I don’t question your word. I didn’t know that you had given it. Nobody”—a flash of admiration showed in his eyes—“nobody could look at you and doubt you. I don’t doubt that you have told me the exact facts. But I am also very sure that you have not told me all of them. If the letter does not belong to me, I will willingly surrender it to the real owner. But I might do endless harm by surrendering it to the wrong party. I cannot give it up without knowing more.”

Caruth quailed as he spoke. It was terribly hard even to debate anything this woman asked. Scarcely could he force himself to go on. “I must know more,” he pleaded. “Really, I must know more! Don’t you see that I must?”

“Very well. You shall.” The woman paused for an instant and then went on: “This letter and another were put into a bottle which was thrown overboard from a sinking ship. It floated about until ten days ago, when it was picked up by a fisherman. One of the letters was for my friends. The address was legible, and it was forwarded to us by mail, reaching us twenty-four hours later. The address on the other had partly faded; the name of the person for whom it was meant had disappeared altogether. But it was addressed in your care, at your address here. The fisherman who found it showed it to a casual American, who advised him to send it on to you, and who provided him with an envelope and postage, including a quick delivery stamp.

“When our letter came, we hurried down to question the fisherman, and from him learned what I have told you. Our letter had once contained all the information we needed, but part of the writing had been washed out by the sea water, and could not be read. We hope that the letter sent to you may be in better condition, so I have hurried over here to get it from you.”

Caruth listened amazedly. “But,” he objected, “for whom was the letter really meant?”

“I do not know. Evidently for some one associated with you. Can you not guess?”

Caruth shook his head slowly. “No,” he mused. “No, I cannot guess.” Curiously he studied the envelope he held in his hands.

The woman hesitated; then came to a sudden resolution. “There are two envelopes,” she explained. “One of them was put on by the fisherman. Open that, if you will, but be careful.”

Caruth obeyed and drew out the inclosure. It was a small envelope, dirty and stained and smelling strongly of fish. Indeed, a minute scale clung to one corner until he mechanically brushed it away. On the face, in blurred writing, appeared his own name: “Care Mr. Alston Caruth, Chimneystack Apartment Building, New York, N. Y.” Another name had been written just above, but it was indecipherable.

“The whole address was there when the fisherman opened the bottle,” explained the girl. “Part of it soaked off in his pocket on the way to shore. Can you make it out?”

Caruth studied the superscription, and shook his head. “No,” he declared; “I can make out nothing. But I soon will.” With a quick motion, he ripped open the envelope.

Before he could draw out the contents, the girl caught his hand. “Wait!” she cried. “Wait! Have I not proved my right to that letter?”

Caruth shook his head. “Certainly not,” he decided. “So far as I can see, neither you nor I have any title to it, or any right to read it. Nor do I intend to read it further than to see whether the inside gives any clue to the man for whom it is intended.”

“Wait!” Tensely the girl’s hand fell on his arm. “If nothing else will avail,” she cried, “will not my entreaties do so. I beg you, I implore you, to give me that letter. It is nothing to you; it may easily be life or death to me. You do not know for whom it is meant. You are under no obligations to an unknown writer and an unknown addressee. Do not look into it farther. Give me the letter, I implore you!”

She leaned forward. Her violet eyes gleamed into his; her lips quivered, her form shook with the stress. “Oh!” she pleaded. “Give it to me. You will give it to me?”

A sudden passion flamed in Caruth’s veins—a passion that gripped and shook him. “By God!” he cried hoarsely. “You—you——”

The girl started back and dropped her hand. Then her lips curled. Men were all alike, after all. American men were no better than their European brothers. She had seen so many; so very many. Caruth would yield, and she would despise him for it. Yet she went on. “Give it to me,” she breathed.

“No!” Caruth’s voice rang out. “No! No! Oh, you women! You beautiful women! How easily you beguile men! How dare you do it? How dare you use beauty such as yours for such a purpose? How dare you use such tools to gain your selfish ends?”

“How dare I?” The girl’s form straightened till to Caruth’s gaze she seemed to tower above him. “How dare I?” Her voice was low and thrilling, but it did not quiver. “How dare I? I dare because my country calls me to do it. All that I am and have belongs to it. My future, my liberty, my life, are all at its service. I am entitled to that letter—I swear it. If you ask it, I will tell you everything, and in so doing put my life in your hands. Shall I do it?”

Caruth drew his hand across his eyes. “No!” he said hoarsely. “I believe you. Take the letter.”

Eagerly the woman reached out her hand, but before her fingers could close upon the envelope, the portières that hung between the apartment and an inner room clashed gently on their rings and Caruth’s valet pushed his way through them. “I beg pardon, sir!” he murmured deferentially.

Annoyed, Caruth faced him, the hand holding the letter dropping to his side. “Well, Wilkins?” he questioned coldly.

“I beg pardon, sir,” repeated the man. “But I think that letter belongs to me, sir. Will you kindly look inside and see if it doesn’t begin ‘My dear Jim’ and end ‘Yours, Bill,’ sir? If it does, it is certainly mine, sir. I think it’s from my brother Bill, sir.”

CHAPTER THREE

SLOWLY Caruth regained his balance. The valet’s deferential plea came like a tonic to his overstrung nerves. Nothing was more natural than that Wilkins should have had a letter addressed in his care; he wondered that the possibility of this had not occurred to him at once. And with the advent of the valet, the whole situation had become ridiculous; he felt as if he had been playing a part in some melodrama and had suddenly stepped back into the realm of common sense. With a laugh on his lips, he turned to Miss Fitzhugh.

His lips straightened and his smile froze. Never had he seen such disappointment on the face of a woman. Her eyes glared roundly and her breath whistled through her parted lips. Blindly she caught at the table, like one about to collapse. Her trembling fingers touched a wine-glass, and mechanically she lifted it to her lips.

As she drank, the color came back to her cheeks and her eyes brightened. Caruth, watching, noticed that she was listening to some one. An instant later he realized that it was Wilkins, and, with an effort, he wrenched his eyes away from hers and turned them on the valet.

The man’s attitude was deferential in the extreme. His eyes were discreetly dropped, and he seemed unaware of the confusion his appearance had caused. “I had a brother that was a sea-faring man, sir,” he was saying. “Sailed out of Lunnon in the steamship Orkney for St. Petersburg, hard on two years ago, sir. She was never heard from again. Lost at sea somewheres, sir. The letter may be from him, sir. I told him to write me in your care, sir.”

Miss Fitzhugh did not speak, and Caruth hesitated, but only for a moment. Slowly he opened the letter and glanced at the top and bottom of the scrawl; mechanically he refolded it and slipped it back into its envelope. “You’ve hit it, Wilkins,” he declared. “The letter does begin ‘Dear Jim’ and does end ‘Your brother, Bill.’ Your claim seems to be clear.” He handed the letter to the man.

As the latter took it, the woman came out of her trance. “Wilkins!” she called sharply.

“Yes, madam.” The valet turned toward her, subservient as ever.

Without taking her eyes from him, Miss Fitzhugh sank into her chair. “So, Wilkins,” she said slowly, “you have been listening?”

“Yes, madam.” There was no defiance nor disrespect in the valet’s tones, nor was there any apology. He simply admitted the undeniable fact, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“It is a vice of servants the world over. When one subordinates himself to the will of another, he seems to lose many of the manly virtues. If you have been listening, Wilkins, you know that I put a high value on that letter. It seems that it is yours. Well, I will buy it from you—unread. What is your price?”

Slowly the man shook his head. “I would rather not sell it, madam,” he answered.

“Nonsense! Of course you will sell it.” The woman spoke imperiously, but the valet did not change his submissive yet dogged bearing. “I have not much money with me, but I will give you five hundred dollars cash for it.”

Again Wilkins shook his head. “I can’t consider it, madam,” he repeated.

Miss Fitzhugh opened the bag that swung from her belt and threw a roll of bills on the table. “Count that for me, please, Mr. Caruth,” she ordered. “I am not quick at American money.”

Caruth obeyed in silence. Though Wilkins was clearly within his rights, he found himself regarding the man with rising anger, and would have intervened if it had seemed possible for him to do so. But the situation for the time being, at least, was dearly beyond his control. “Eleven hundred and fifty-one dollars,” he announced.

“It is all I have. Take it and give me the letter.” Miss Fitzhugh was again addressing the valet.

For the third time Wilkins shook his head. “No!” he repeated doggedly.

Undisturbed, the woman turned to Caruth. “Lend me a thousand dollars,” she requested.

Caruth started. Then, with a smile, he took out his pocket-book and added its contents to the pile. “There’s only about seven hundred here, Wilkins,” he remarked, half humorously, “but I’ll give you my check for the balance—if you’ll accept it.”

The letter rustled in Wilkins’s fingers as he twisted and turned it. Obviously he was tempted. Yet, after a quick questioning glance at the woman’s face, he again shook his head. “No, madam,” he replied coolly. “Bill took a good deal of trouble to get this to me, and I fancy it’s valuable. Any way, I think I’ll chance it, madam.”

“Valuable!” The woman stared at the valet in seeming surprise. “Nonsense!” she scoffed. “What could your Bill tell you that could be worth eighteen hundred dollars. If you suppose that the information I hope it contains will be worth anything to you in a money way, you are mistaken. It would cost you your life to try to use it. Be wise: take the money and give me the letter. The value of the letter to us lies chiefly in preventing other people from getting it.”

“Very well, madam. I’ll destroy it, then, madam.” He stepped to the fire and made a motion to throw it upon the flames.

Like a cat, the woman sprang forward and caught his arm, her silken skirts hissing as she moved. “No, no!” she cried.

A triumphant smile curled the valet’s lips. “Very well, madam,” he acceded meekly. “As you wish, madam.”

LIKE A CAT, THE WOMAN SPRANG FORWARD AND CAUGHT HIS ARM

The woman fell back a step, and stood staring at the valet. For the first time, she seemed to try to take his measure as a man, and to bend her faculties to reading the lines of his features. “Humph!” she murmured, at last, in a singular tone. “I am beginning to see. How long have you been with Mr. Caruth, Wilkins?”

“Two years, madam.”

“You brought recommendations, of course! Mr. Caruth, I should advise you to look up the writers of those recommendations at once. You may learn something that will surprise you. Now, Wilkins, listen to me.” A subtle change came into Miss Fitzhugh’s voice; she might almost have been addressing an equal. “You have played your part well and have served your master well. But you had better not push matters too far. It is dangerous.”

A glint of fear crept into the valet’s eyes, and his look wandered up and down the girl’s person, as if expecting to see a weapon; almost he seemed to fear an attack of some kind. “Dangerous in what way, madam?” he asked, still respectfully.

“Dangerous by violence. Do you think those who sent me here—four thousand miles—to get that letter, will let you escape with it? Once you have read it, there will be no more safety for you on the face of the earth. Death will dog your footsteps and sit by your side. Sleeping and waking, he will be upon you. You cannot beg for mercy, for there will be no one from whom to beg. When I go out of that door, I disappear, and even if you could find me, it would not save you, for I am only an agent, powerless to change the will of my superiors. I give you my word that in asking for that letter I am trying to save your life, as well as to gain my own ends. I give you my word that I know of no way in which you can evade your fate, once you have read it. For the last time, I beg you, take the money and give me the letter.”

There was silence in the room as the valet turned the letter over and over, staring at it, hesitating. His fingers trembled and his eyes grew wider.

With a shock, Caruth realized that murder had been threatened in his very presence—and that he was not horrified, as he knew he ought to have been. Rather, he sympathized with the woman, who towered above the man in angry beauty.

At last the valet broke the silence. “My God!” he whispered. “My God!” Slowly and unsteadily, he made his way to the table and laid the letter upon it. Slowly, he picked up the bills one by one. Then he raised his heavy eyes and for an instant looked into the face of the woman. The next moment he was at the door, hurrying away with the swift, silent footsteps of the well-trained servant. The portières fell together behind him.

With a long sigh of relief, the girl picked up the letter. The strain of the past moments showed itself in her face.

“I will return your money as soon as I can see my friends,” she declared weariedly. “Meanwhile, perhaps you will retain this.” She stripped a ring from her fingers. “It is worth more than the money,” she added.

Caruth drew back, deeply hurt. “Thank you,” he returned angrily, “but I am not a pawnbroker—even if I am accessory to a threat to commit murder. Return the money when you like.”

He spoke bitterly, for he was furious that he should have allowed his man to be forced into the surrender of his rights. Man-like, he felt the necessity of blaming his own derelictions on some one else.

Miss Fitzhugh seemed to understand, for she stepped forward and laid her hand on his arm. “Believe me, Mr. Caruth,” she declared earnestly, “believe me, you have done right. Whatever value this letter possessed belongs to us of right. The man who wrote it betrayed a secret that was not his; and, whether his or no, your valet could not have profited by it. You have done a good deed, and you have been as kind and true and staunch to me as my own brother could have been. My mother was right when she told me a woman could always appeal safely to an American gentleman. Now, good-night and good-by.”

Alarm drove away Caruth’s misgivings. “You—you will let me see you again,” he begged.

Slowly the woman shook her head. “I fear not,” she answered. “I shall sail for home on the next steamer—this very day if I can find one leaving. This is good-by.”

“But—but—where are you going? It is not easy for a woman to find accommodations at this time of the night. See, it is after twelve o’clock. Won’t you stay here? I can easily go to a hotel.”

Again the woman shook her head. “I have friends waiting for me,” she averred. “Good-night.”

The blackness of despair settled on Caruth. “But—but—I can’t let you go like this. I must see you again. Tell me where your home is. Let me hope to see you there some day. I’ve known you only an hour or two, but I can’t—I can’t let you go out of my life this way, without a word or a sign. I must see—good God! What’s the matter?”

On the woman’s face a look of frozen horror had dawned. Her eyes dropped from his to the letter she had unconsciously withdrawn from its envelope; and following them, Caruth saw in her hand a sheet of paper, stiff and white, very different from the soft, sea-stained sheet he had handled a few moments before. It scarcely needed her terrified words to give the explanation.

“He has substituted another letter!” she cried. “He was acting all the time! And I did not guess! I did not guess! He has gone with the hope of Russia in his hands!”

CHAPTER FOUR

RECKLESSLY Caruth plunged down the half-lighted steps. The elevator had stopped running, and, in any event, he had no time to wait for elevators. Down he sped, past tight-shut doors, whose occupants slept calmly despite his noisy rush; over marble steps, through tessellated halls, round slippery corners. Twice he nearly fell, but he saved himself and went on, bursting at last like a meteor on the scandalized watchman, whom the clatter of his coming had roused from a blameless nap.

“Now, now, now!” clamored that individual. “What in hell’s bells you think you’re doing, gallopin’ like this? Why, it’s Mr. Caruth!”

“Yes, it’s I.” The young man’s breath came in gasps. One does not race down eight flights of steps without showing the effects. “Yes, it’s I! Has my man, Wilkins, gone out in the last five minutes?”

“Wilkins? Naw! Say, Mr. Caruth, you’d better go to bed and sleep it off, or it’ll be you for the psychopathic ward the first thing you know.”

“Bosh! Wilkins has run away from my rooms with a valuable letter and eighteen hundred dollars in money. Are you sure he hasn’t passed you?”

“Eighteen hundred! Gee! ’Course I’m sure. Ain’t I been here right along?”

Caruth drew a long breath and glanced up the stairway down which he had just raced. So sure had he been that Wilkins had fled that he had not stopped to search in his own apartments. A suspicion that he had made himself ridiculous began to penetrate to his brain, and he glanced shamefacedly at the watchman.

That individual was regarding him suspiciously. He caught the look, interpreted it correctly, and smiled encouragingly. “It’s all right, Mr. Caruth,” he extenuated. “It’s all to the regular for a gent to have the nightmare when he goes to sleep in his chair. Just you go back to your rooms and take a dose of bromide and say your lay-me-downs, and neither of us’ll remember anything about this to-morrow. I’d start the elevator for you if I could, but I can’t, so it’s you for the glue-foot climb.”

Caruth scarcely heard the man. His first spasm of distrust in his own action had quickly passed, and by the time the other had finished he had gone back to his first idea.

“Nonsense, Jackson!” he burst out impatiently. “I haven’t been asleep. Wilkins has fled within five minutes. If he hasn’t passed you, he must have gone some other way. How else could he go? Quick, man! He must be caught.”

But the watchman refused to be hurried. “There ain’t no way out but this,” he declared, “unless he done a high dive from the fire-escape.”

Caruth started. He had forgotten the dangerous combination of open platforms and loose-hung ladders plastered across the hall windows on each floor. If Wilkins had taken that means of escape, as was entirely probable, he must be well out of reach, and no way to find him would remain except the slow appeal to the police. He would call up the headquarters and——

Suddenly he recalled his visitor. Would she care to have the affair made public? Certainly he could not act without consulting her.

The watchman’s voice broke on him. That individual had switched on the lights in the hall, and had gone back to where a closed door gave on an alley. “We’ll take a look at that Jacob’s ladder just to satisfy you, Mr. Caruth,” he called. “See here!” He threw open the door and let Caruth step out into the night.

At first the alley seemed dark, but soon objects began to stand out in the faint light. First the skyline showed, clear against the towering sides of the chasm, then the iron of the fire-escape disentangled itself from the darkness and began to show in rectangular tracery.

Before Caruth could distinguish more, the watchman uttered an exclamation. “By George!” he cried. “Somebody has been on that escape. It’s been let down.”

Caruth looked where the other pointed. Plainly discernible now to his distended pupils, the lowest stretch of the iron ladder trailed across his field of vision. Some one had cut loose the fastenings that held it high in the air, out of reach of casual sneak thieves, and had lowered it to the ground.

Wilkins’s selection of a route was obvious. But it was also obvious that he was gone.

Caruth turned disconsolately away. He was beginning to wonder what had become of Miss Fitzhugh. When he had started down the stairs, she had been close behind him, and he had expected her to follow, but though more than time enough for her to reach the bottom had elapsed, she had not appeared. His first thought was that she had remained above out of some belated care for her reputation. Then, quickly following, came the possibility of a more sinister explanation.

The incidents of the night to his mind admitted but one explanation. Despite her American name (which might well have been assumed) the girl was a Russian, and he who says Russia nowadays connotes revolution, plots, arrests, and all the rest of the melodrama. The girl might be a nihilist or she might be a police spy, but he was sure that she must be one or the other. And Wilkins was her enemy. She had recognized him as such—not at first, but toward the end, when he had tricked her by his feint of throwing the letter in the fire. Caruth remembered her every word. And he had left her alone! How did he know that Wilkins had gone? How did he know that he had not concealed himself and waited——

Slow and long-drawn-out when written down, the sequence of events with all its possibilities flashed like lightning through his mind. His hair rose upon his head, and the sweat stood out upon his forehead. His heart thumped furiously! Scarcely could he comprehend the words of the watchman.

Yet that individual was cursing roundly. “I’d like to know who in h——’s setting leaky pots out on that escape,” he finished. “Dropping stuff on a man’s clothes and spoilin’——”

The voice died away in an inarticulate murmur, and Caruth saw the man’s face blanch as he held out his hand. “It’s blood,” he hissed. “Blood! Blood! Somebody’s bleedin’ like a stuck pig up there. Somebody’s been murdered.” He ran down the hall and pressed the button of a police call. Then he came hurrying back.

“Here; you!” he shouted, his respectful manner falling from him like a garment. “Chase up them steps to the third floor and meet me at the window. On your way, now, Willie!”

Caruth came out of his trance and sped up the main stairway as the watchman ran up the fire-escape. One flight—two flights—three flights! Along the hall he rushed and threw open the window, just as the watchman reached it from below.

The electric lights threw a white glare upon the grating and upon a human form huddled across it in a strange, unnatural shape. The light fell upon the livid face and staring eyes and upon the dark spot that marred the whiteness of the open shirt bosom. Caruth drew his breath sobbingly. For the body was not that which he had feared to see.

The watchman bent and peered into the white face. “It’s Wilkins, all right,” he commented. “He didn’t get far with that eighteen hundred of yours. Somebody must have been laying for him. They’ve turned his pockets inside out, and I guess they got it, all right.” Deftly he ran his hand over the body.

“Nothin’ doing,” he reported. “They’ve skinned him clean. Here, Mr. Caruth! The cops’ll be here in a minute. I wish you’d chase down and put ’em wise.”

Caruth obeyed as he would have obeyed any behest of the stronger will. The situation had dazed him. An immense relief mingled with an immense terror; relief that his worst fears had not been realized; terror lest something even worse had happened in its stead. Wilkins was dead; presumably the woman still lived. But whose hand had struck the blow?

A swish of silk sounded in his ears, and he looked up. She was there before him, peering downward with curious, frightened eyes.

“Mr. Caruth,” she called, in hushed tones. “Mr. Caruth! Has anything happened?”

“Yes!” Relief was in his voice. Her bearing was not that of a murderess.

“What is it?”

“I have no time to tell you. You must go. The police are coming, and you must not be seen. Hurry!”

The unsolved mystery of the girl’s visit had grown blacker than ever, but Caruth did not hesitate. He knew that it was his duty to detain her till the fire-escape had given up its secret, but not for a moment did he pause. He refused to think of what it all meant. He only knew that he was on her side, heart and soul, and would do her bidding till he died.

“Hurry,” he repeated. “There isn’t a moment to lose.”

But the girl held back. “The letter,” she pleaded. “I cannot go without it.”

“You must. I didn’t want to tell you, but—Wilkins has been murdered, and the police are coming. The letter is out of reach, for the moment anyhow. You must go at once. The police will be here in a moment.” He hurried her to the door and peered out. Bare and silent in the first break of dawn, the street stretched interminably away. No human being seemed to stir. But as he listened a far-away rumble grew on his ears.

“The patrol wagon!” he gasped. “This way! Quick! God help you!”

In an instant she was gone, hurrying swiftly down the street, with steps that did not falter. Caruth watched till he saw a man’s figure step from the shadows to join her, and the two vanish around a corner. Then, sick at heart, as only the young can be when they find their heart’s idol clay, he turned back to greet the police. They were at his elbow—six of them—leaping from a wagon and hurrying forward. “What’s doing?” demanded the foremost.

“Murder! On the third-floor fire-escape. The watchman is there.”

The officer spun round. “On your way, boys!” he ordered. “Front and back!” He turned to Caruth. “Who did it?” he demanded.

If the young man hesitated, it was only for an instant. “I don’t know,” he answered. “It’s my valet. He robbed me and fled. I discovered it a moment later, and started after him. He had disappeared. The watchman found his body. His pockets were empty. Some confederate must have been waiting for him.”

The two men were alone in the hall. The other officers had all vanished, some through the rear entrance; some up the stairs. The crowd that was to come had not yet gathered, though the sound of running footsteps outside showed that its first units were coming, attracted by the clatter of the patrol.

The officer, used to scenes of excitement, and knowing the importance of ideas expressed before those in touch with tragedy had time consciously or unconsciously to mould their opinions, waited to ask one more question before he too hurried to the rear.

“Suspect anybody?” he demanded. “Seen anybody suspicious?”

Caruth looked him straight in the face. “No,” he lied. “No, I’ve seen nobody. As I said, the man robbed me, and I suppose some confederate killed him for his booty.”

When the officer had gone, Caruth turned and with leaden feet climbed the weary stairs that led to his room. He did not stop at the third floor, nor go again to inspect the lump of pallid flesh that alone remained of his servant. In fact, for the time he had altogether forgotten Wilkins. The murder had driven the murdered man from his mind.

He had answered the officer on the spur of the moment, thinking only to shield the girl, and not considering the possible—yes, the inevitable—consequences. The words once said, he would have given worlds to recall them, and yet he knew that he would only have reiterated them, if given the chance.

He would have no such chance, however. The true tale of the night’s events would have been preposterous enough at best. He could fancy how a hard-headed American jury would have listened to it, and how even a fourth-rate lawyer would have proved its impossibility. But, at all events, in telling it, he would have been telling the truth, and would have had the consciousness of rectitude to support him.

But his hasty answer had made the truth impossible, and he must go on piling lie upon lie in sickening iteration. Liars need good memories; would his prove equal to the task? Would no one catch him tripping? His answer had made him a criminal in the eyes of the law—an accessory after the fact. The thought sickened him; and yet mingled with his dismay was a fierce joy that he was doing it for her sake—for the sake of the woman who had walked into his life a few moments before; a woman of whose status and probably of whose real name he was ignorant.

Why had he done it, he asked himself with dazed wonder. He owed her nothing. She had forced herself on him, had cajoled him, and had finally fled, leaving him to bear the brunt of her crime—hers or her accomplices. He had done all she asked, had aided her meekly, and at the end had placed himself in shameful jeopardy without even being asked to do so. Harshly he laughed as he thought of it.

Then he threw out his hands. “There’s no use in thinking,” he muttered. “I’m a fool—but it’s stronger than I am. I must go on to the end—and lie and lie and lie.”

CHAPTER FIVE

AFTER all, matters went off very quietly. The murder of James Wilkins caused a surprisingly small sensation. Circumstances were against it. A prominent statesman had just denounced another prominent statesman for having accepted the tainted money of a wicked trust, and the accused statesman was calling heaven and earth as witness to his innocence; the champion heavyweight pugilist of the country had just given way to a new champion; and the Black Hand had blown up a restaurant whose proprietor had defied it. The papers had little space left for a plain case of robbery and murder, such as that of Wilkins seemed to be.

Caruth had told a straight story, which had been accepted at its face value. According to him, he had come home late and had sat down to smoke before going to bed. He had laid some money—about eighteen hundred dollars in bills—on the table beside him. Wilkins had been moving about and had seen the money and after a moment had left the room. When Caruth looked for the money an instant later it had disappeared. He had hurried downstairs in hope of catching the man, and with the aid of the night watchman had found his body. On looking up the references Wilkins had brought him, he had found that they were forged. He suspected, therefore, that the man had entered his service with sinister intent, and had been murdered by a confederate who had come to join him in the robbery.

The recital of this combination of fact and fancy gave Caruth no compunctions so far as Wilkins was concerned; the man’s references really were forged, and he had really stolen the money, by whatever particular name the law might label his act.

To Caruth, this tale seemed very lame, but, to his astonishment, no one questioned it. So utterly was this the case that it irritated him; it seemed to him extraordinary that the actual sequence of events could have happened without in some way impressing itself on the intelligence of every one who came within reach of it. He did not want to be suspected, yet the lack of detective ability on the part of the police angered him. Why this should be so, let psychologists explain.

The money borrowed from him by the so-called Miss Fitzhugh had been returned the afternoon after the crime in the form of a money-order sent by mail, about as clever a way of combining safety in transmission with concealment of the sender as could well be contrived. Clearly she did not desire to continue the acquaintance.

Caruth did! For several days he carefully abstained from any search, fearing that to do so might excite suspicion, but after a week had passed and Wilkins seemed forgotten, he began to think it safe to start inquiries.

His search began at the steamship offices. He first examined the passenger list of the Latourette, the vessel on which Miss Fitzhugh had claimed to have arrived, and sought for her name, only to find that it was not there. Less hopefully, he examined the lists of the vessels sailing from New York during the week that had elapsed since the murder, only to find no trace of her. Finally something happened that determined him to enlist the aid of Joe Bristow, a newspaper man of his acquaintance.

Bristow was ship-news reporter of the Consolidated Press. His duties required him to remain at Quarantine so long as any steamship was likely to arrive there. Ordinarily he left for the city at five or six o’clock in the afternoon, but if one of the great liners reported itself by wireless as intending to make port that night, he had to remain to see what news and passengers she brought. Few steamships reached New York without being boarded by him, and few important visitors entered port without being interviewed by him. He, if any one, would be likely to know if anybody answering Miss Fitzhugh’s description had arrived recently.

Caruth, who knew him slightly as the occupant of a small apartment high up in the Chimneystack Building, took the first opportunity that afforded to accost him and to invite him into his apartment.

Bristow accepted readily, though a faint smile curved his lips, as if some secret idea were stirring in his mind. He did not know Caruth very well, though he had frequently passed the time of day with him, and he had never before been asked to join the young fellow. Newspaper men are apt to grow cynical, and Bristow had learned to suspect the motives of those who sought him out.

Caruth led his guest to his den, and placed the decanters before him. Then, through the wreaths of tobacco smoke, he put his question, leading up to it with what he believed to be commendable astuteness.

Bristow listened quietly; then he answered one question with another. “The Latourette?” he repeated. “Yes; she arrived at eight o’clock on the night of March 5. Her mails and two of her passengers were brought up to the city on the mail tug. Let’s see—that was the night your valet was murdered, wasn’t it?”

Caruth blenched slightly. The reporter’s inquiry was probably only casual, but it might easily be otherwise. Perhaps he had erred in consulting this keen-faced newspaper man. However, there was nothing to do but to go on.

“Yes,” he answered steadily; “it was the same night.”

Bristow nodded. “I saw the lady,” he stated reflectively. “She was a looker all right. She had deep violet eyes and dark hair with a glint in it. She spoke English perfectly, but there was something foreign about her.” He paused and knocked the ash from his cigar. “I came up on the tug with her,” he added casually.

“Yes? And her name? I—I—have reasons for wanting to know.”

Bristow smiled inscrutably. “I don’t doubt you have,” he answered drily, “and, as it happens, I can probably give you some information. The question is whether I shall do it.”

Caruth colored. “I don’t understand you, Mr. Bristow,” he syllabled anxiously.

“Probably not. I will try to explain.” The reporter tossed his cigar into the fire and leaned back in his chair. “Isn’t it curious how things fit in together?” he began reflectively. “Life is a mosaic made up of hundreds of separate facts. Each belongs in one place and only in one. Until rightly fitted, the whole is an unintelligible jumble. But when fitted, we see that they are all parts of one design. I am interested in Russia and Russians. My work has compelled me to be; some of the best ‘stories’ I have gotten for the Consolidated Press have had to do with Russia. I am well acquainted in the Russian colony here. Professor Shishkin, the distinguished Russian scientist, is a great friend of mine. I’m telling you this so that you may understand why I was interested in this woman—this Russian woman, for she was Russian—about whom you are inquiring. My interest did not decrease when she took a cab at the Battery and told the cabman to drive her to this building.”

Caruth gasped, but said nothing.

“When I returned home after midnight,” went on the reporter, “the elevator had stopped running, and I had to walk up the stairs. Your door was ajar. As I passed it I distinctly heard a woman’s voice—and yours. It was none of my business, and I went on upstairs and to bed. The next morning I heard about your valet’s murder, and noticed that you said nothing about a visitor in your flat. Yet a woman must have been there when your man fled; in fact, I suspect that he had left your door open in his flight only a moment before I passed up the stairs. Your inquiry seems to bring all these facts into a somewhat curious consonance.”

Caruth was breathing hard. “Well?” he asked. “What are you going to do about it?”

The reporter hesitated. “I don’t know,” he answered at last, frankly. “It all depends! But I want you to understand one thing, Mr. Caruth: I am not a police reporter nor a yellow sensation reporter. My duty to the Consolidated Press does not call on me to solve murder mysteries, nor to pry into scandals. I don’t know you very well, nor what you are capable of doing at a pinch. For the matter of that, nobody does know what a man is capable of—not even himself. I’ve seen too many unexpected manifestations of virtue and of crime to judge lightly. That is why I have kept silent, though I knew you were holding back something about this murder. I don’t think to-night’s developments will lead me to change my course, though I cannot be certain. If you have any explanation to make, I shall be glad to hear it. I shall not make a newspaper story out of it, and I shall not repeat it without grave cause. More than this I cannot promise.”

Caruth did not answer for a moment. His thoughts whirled, unsettled as dry leaves in an October blast. His secret, it seemed, was not his secret at all—had never been his secret. From the first, this newspaper man had been able to shatter his glib story by a word, and had refrained from doing so. How many others possessed the same potentiality for mischief? Abruptly he threw away his cigar.

“I’ll tell you the whole story,” he declared. “I don’t know whether you’ll believe it or not. Probably I shouldn’t believe it myself if any one else told it to me. It seems too preposterous to talk about plots and terrorists and all that here in New York.”

“Not at all,” Bristow smiled. “New York is a hot-bed of plots. Probably nine-tenths of all the political plots in the world are hatched here and hereabouts. Just consider a moment! Anybody can plot in this country in perfect safety; and there are plenty of plotters handy. Is it a Russian plot? New York is the second largest Russian city in the world. It has thousands upon thousands of dwellers who have been driven out of Russia at the blow of the knout. Is it a German one? Berlin is the only city in the world holding more Germans than New York. Is it an Italian one? There are more Italians in and around New York than there are in Rome. Plots? Why, New York reeks with plots and plotters! Men lay their schemes, raise their funds, choose their emissaries, and a month or so later something happens in Europe—it may be the murder of a king. But it started here, beneath our noses.”

“But if there are so many plots, why are there so few results? We seldom hear——”

“Because if plotters are safe here, so are spies. Every European Government maintains an army of spies in this country. Every assemblage of plotters has one or more traitors in the pay of those who are menaced. It’s as broad as it’s long. But go on with your story. I only wanted to assure you that it will have to be a very remarkable case of plotting to surprise me.”

Caruth plunged in. “When I came home that night,” he began, “she was waiting for me. I had never seen her before. She said she was a Russian—the daughter of a Russian man and an American woman. She gave me a name, but it was probably assumed. She wanted a letter that had been mailed to me in Stockholm ten days before—by mistake, she said. It enclosed another letter that had been picked up in a bottle floating in the Baltic. The address of this second letter was partly illegible, but it was directed in my care and was sent to me accordingly. She said the letter belonged of right to her friends. While she was speaking the letter arrived—by special delivery. It seemed to be as she had stated. I was about to surrender it to her when my man, Wilkins, claimed it. More, he proved his claim. I gave him the letter. She tried to buy it from him—offered eighteen hundred dollars cash for it. Wilkins refused. Then she threatened him. Said she asked him to surrender it for his own sake; that he would be killed if he once read it; that she could not save him. Of course this smacked of revolution, nihilism, terrorism. Wilkins appeared to be frightened. He agreed to surrender the letter. He laid it on the table, took the money, and went out. Three minutes later we discovered that he had substituted blank paper for the letter. I ran after him and found him dead. The girl left just before the police came.”

“And you concealed the fact that she had been here. Why?”

Caruth colored. “It—it isn’t a thing that one tells to just any one,” he stammered. “But—well, I suppose it sounds foolish to you, but—I love her.”

The reporter did not smile. “Foolish?” he echoed gently. “Why foolish? Love is not foolishness. It’s madness, perhaps, but not foolishness. Good Heavens! Do you think one can be a newspaper man and see daily the broad trail of joy and sorrow, blood, death, ruin, happiness, rapture, and all the rest of it that love marks athwart the path of human life, and think it foolishness? Why, man, love means life! It means the preservation of the race! It means evolution! It is the one great primal passion! No, Mr. Caruth; never expect a newspaper man to laugh at love. He has seen too much of it. Of course I knew that must be your reason for screening the woman. But do you think she killed him?”

Caruth shook his head emphatically. “No!” he declared. “No!”

“Why not?”

“She couldn’t.” The young fellow leaned forward. “She couldn’t,” he declared eagerly. “See here: Wilkins took the money and fled. He knew we would be after him in a moment. He would not have delayed. He must have been out on that fire-escape and down to the place where he was killed before I left the room. This is the eighth floor; he was found on the third. He must have gone there by himself. No one could have carried his body there—not possibly! And it is preposterous to suppose that he went down to the third floor and waited there for her to overtake and murder him. No! She didn’t do it! She couldn’t have done it.”

“An accomplice?”

Caruth threw up his hands. “Very likely,” he groaned. “And yet how could an accomplice know that Wilkins had gotten away with the letter before she knew it herself? For he was probably dead when she did discover it. If not, he must have been killed within a very few seconds afterwards. She made no signal; she had no reason to make any. How could an accomplice know?”

“Let’s see!” Bristow looked around the room. “You were sitting in here, were you not?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Of course you were. My dear fellow, can’t you really answer your own question?”

Caruth shook his head hopelessly. “I’ve thought and thought,” he declared, “but I don’t progress an inch. Can you answer it?”

“Of course! Look through the sliding doors behind you. What is that thing that cuts across the upper left-hand corner of the window at the back?”

Caruth looked, then rose to his feet. Chagrin was pictured on his features. “Do you know,” he admitted disgustedly, “I never thought of that before? I never realized that that infernal fire-escape crossed my window. There is such a little piece of it that——”

“There is quite enough to permit a man to peer into your rooms. No doubt the murderer was watching there, and when Wilkins tried to escape by that route he found death awaiting him.”

“But—but—how did the spy know that Wilkins had changed the letters?”

“Perhaps he didn’t know it. Perhaps he was a mere thief who killed for money; or perhaps he saw the shift which was made too deftly for you to notice; or perhaps the girl signalled him.”