Avenger — Chapters 29 & 30
A SUBSTANTIAL GHOST
Monsieur Jules, of the _Lion d'Or,_ was in a state of excitement bordering upon frenzy.
Events were happening indeed with him, this placid August weather.
First the occupancy of the château by the mysterious lady, and the subsequent edict of the steward against all strangers; then the coming of this tourist yesterday, who had gone for an evening stroll without paying his bill, and was now a prisoner of the law, Heaven only knew on what charge!
Added to this--a matter of excitement enough surely--the giant Englishman, who had been his guest for nearly three weeks--a model guest too,--had departed at a minute's notice, though not, the saints be praised, without paying his bill.
And now, though the hour was yet scarcely nine o'clock, a carriage with steaming horses was standing at his door, and the beautiful young English lady was herself inside his inn.
He was indeed conducting her down the grey stone passage out on to the rose-bordered garden, which was the pride of his heart, and where monsieur, the remaining Englishman, was smoking his morning cigarette.
She barely waited until Monsieur Jules had bowed himself out of hearing distance.
She looked at Wrayson, at the table laid for one only, and at the empty garden.
"Where is he--your friend?"
she demanded breathlessly.
"Gone," Wrayson answered.
"I am sorry, but I did my best.
He went away at daylight.
I saw him off, but I could not keep him."
"Where to?"
she asked.
"You know that, at least."
He pointed towards the distant coast line.
"In that direction!
That is all I know."
"He told you nothing before he went?"
she asked eagerly.
"Nothing at all," he answered.
"He refused to discuss what had happened.
Sit down, Louise," he added firmly.
"I want to talk to you."
He placed a chair for her under the trees.
She sank into it a little wearily.
"A certain measure of ignorance," he said, "I am willing to put up with, but when you exhibit such extraordinary interest in another man, I really feel that my limit has been reached.
Who is he, Louise?
You must tell me, please!"
"I wish I could tell you," she answered.
"I wish I could say that I knew.
Half the night the three of us have talked and wondered.
I have heard plenty of theories as to a second life on some imaginary planet, but I never heard of the dead who lived again here, in this world!"
He looked puzzled.
"Do you mean," he asked, "that he was like some one whom you believed to be dead?"
She was silent for a moment.
The sun was hot even where they sat, but he fancied that he saw her shiver.
She looked into his face, and something of the terror of the night before was in her eyes.
"To us," she said slowly, "to Madame de Melbain and to me, he was a ghost, an actual apparition.
He spoke to us with the voice of one whom we know to be dead.
He came to us, in his form."
Wrayson looked across at her with a quiet smile.
"There was nothing of the ghost about Duncan!"
he remarked.
"I should consider him a remarkably substantial person.
Don't you think that we were all a little overwrought last night?
A strong likeness and a little imagination will often work wonders."
"If it was a likeness only," she said, "why did he leave us so abruptly, why has he left this place at a moment's notice to avoid us?"
Wrayson was silent for a few seconds.
"Look here," he said, "this is a matter of common sense after all.
If you were _not_ deceived by a likeness, it was the man himself!
That goes without saying.
What reasons had you for supposing that he was dead?"
"The newspapers, the War Office, even the return of his effects."
"From where?"
Wrayson asked.
"From South Africa.
He was shot through the lungs in Natal!"
"Men have turned up before, after having been reported dead," he remarked sententiously.
"But he was in the army," she replied.
"Don't you see that if he was alive now, he would be a deserter.
He has never rejoined.
He was certified as having died in the hospital at Ladysmith!"
Wrayson looked steadily into her agitated face.
"Supposing," he said, "that he turned out to be the man whom you have in your mind, what is he to you?"
"My brother," she answered simply.
Wrayson's first impulse was of surprise.
Then he drew a long breath of relief.
He looked back upon his long hours of anxiety, and cursed himself for a fool.
"What an idiot I have been!"
he declared.
"Of course, I know that you lost a brother in South Africa.
But--but what about Madame de Melbain?"
"Madame de Melbain and my brother were friends," she said quietly.
"There were obstacles or they would have been more than friends."
Wrayson nodded.
"Now supposing," he said, "that, by some miracle, your brother still lived, that this was he, is there any reason why he should avoid you both?"
She thought for a moment.
"Yes!"
she said slowly, "there is."
"I suppose," he continued tentatively, "you couldn't tell me all about it?"
"I couldn't," she answered.
"It isn't my secret."
Wrayson looked for a moment away from her, across the valley with its flower-spangled meadows, parted by that sinuous poplar-fringed line of silver, the lazy, slow-flowing river stealing through the quiet land to the sea.
The full summer heat was scarcely yet in the air, but already a faint blue haze was rising from the lowlands.
Up on the plateau, where they were sitting, a slight breeze stirred amongst the trees; Monsieur Jules had indeed some ground for his pride in this tiny sylvan paradise.
"I think," he said, "that for one day we will forget all this tangle of secrets and unaccountable doings.
What do you say, Louise?"
he whispered, taking her unresisting hand into his.
"May I tell Monsieur Jules to serve breakfast for two in the arbour there?"
She laughed softly into his face.
There was the look in her eyes which he loved to see, half wistful, half content, almost happy.
"But you are never satisfied," she declared.
"If I give you a day, a whole precious day out of my valuable life--" "They belong to me, all of them," he declared, bending over her till his lips touched her cheek.
"Some day I am very sure that I shall take them all into my charge."
She disengaged herself from his embrace with a sudden start.
Wrayson turned his head.
Within a yard or two of them, Madame de Melbain had paused in the centre of the little plot of grass.
She was looking at them from underneath her lace parasol, with faintly uplifted eyebrows, and the dawn of a smile upon her beautiful lips.
Louise sprang to her feet, and Wrayson followed her example.
Madame de Melbain lowered her parasol as though to shut out the sight of the two.
"May I come on?"
she asked.
"I want to speak to Louise, although I am afraid I am shockingly _de trop.
_" Wrayson had an idea, and acted upon it promptly.
"Madame de Melbain," he said, "I believe that you have some influence with Louise, I am sure that you are one of those who sympathize with the unfortunate.
Can't I bespeak your good offices?"
She lowered her parasol to the ground, and leaned a little forward upon it.
Her eyes were fixed steadily upon Wrayson.
"Go on," she said briefly.
"I love Louise," Wrayson said, "and I believe she cares for me.
Nevertheless, she refuses to marry me, and will give no intelligible reason.
My first meeting with her was of an extraordinary nature.
I
assisted her to leave a house in which a murder had been committed, since which time I think we have both run a risk of trouble with the authorities.
Louise lives always in the shadow of some mystery, and when I, who surely have the right to know her secrets, beg for her confidence, she refuses it."
"And what is it that you wish me to do?"
Madame de Melbain asked softly.
"To use your influence with Louise," Wrayson pleaded.
"Let her give me her confidence, and let her accept from me the shelter of my name."
Madame de Melbain was silent for several moments.
She seemed to be thinking.
Louise's face was expressionless.
She had made one attempt to check Wrayson, but recognizing its futility she had at once abandoned it.
From below in the valley came the faint whir of the reaping machines, from the rose garden a murmur of bees.
But between the two women and the man there was silence--silence which lasted so long that Monsieur Jules, who was watching from a window, called softly upon all the saints of his acquaintance to explain to him of what nature was this mystery, which seemed to be developing, as it were, under his own surveillance.
At last Madame de Melbain appeared to come to a decision.
She moved slowly forward, until she stood within a few feet of him.
Then she raised her eyes to his and looked him long and earnestly in the face.
"You look," she said, half under her breath, "like a man who might be trusted.
I will trust you.
I will be kinder to you than Louise, for I will tell you all that you want to know.
But when I have told you, you will have in your keeping the honour of an unfortunate woman whose name alone is great."
Wrayson looked her for a moment in the eyes.
Then he bowed low.
"Madame," he said, "that trust will be to me my most sacred possession."
She smiled at him faintly, nodding her head as though to keep pace with her thoughts.
"I believe you, Mr. Wrayson," she said.
"Yes, I believe you!
Let me tell you this, then.
I count it amongst my misfortunes that my own troubles have become in so large a manner the troubles of my friends.
You will appreciate that the more, perhaps, when I tell you that Madame de Melbain is not the name by which I am generally known.
I am that unfortunate woman the Queen of Mexonia!"
CHAPTER XXX THE QUEEN OF MEXONIA
Wrayson, who had been prepared for something surprising, was yet startled out of his composure.
The affairs of the unhappy Royal House of Mexonia were the property of the world.
He half rose to his feet, but Madame de Melbain instantly waved him back again.
"My friends," she said, "deem it advisable that my whereabouts should not be known.
I certainly am very anxious that my incognita should be preserved."
She paused, and Wrayson, without hesitation, answered her unspoken question.
Unconsciously, too, he found himself using the same manner of address as the others.
"Madame," he said, "whatever you choose to tell me will be sacred."
She bowed her head slightly.
"I am going to tell you a good deal," she said, glancing across at Louise.
Louise opened her lips as though about to intervene.
Madame de Melbain continued, however, without a break.
"I am going to tell you more than may seem necessary," she said, "because I believe that I am one of those unfortunate persons whose evil lot it is to bring unhappiness upon their friends.
So far as I can avoid this, Mr. Wrayson, I mean to.
Further--it is possible that I may ask you--presently--to render me a service."
Wrayson bowed low.
He felt that she was already well aware of his willingness.
"First, then, let me tell you," she continued, leaning back in her chair, and looking away across the valley with eyes whose light was wholly reminiscent, "that we three were schoolgirls together, Louise, Amy--whom you know better, perhaps, as the Baroness de Sturm--and myself.
We were at a convent near Brussels.
There were not many pupils, and we three were friends....
"We had a great deal of liberty--more liberty, perhaps, than our friends would have approved of.
We worked, it is true, in the mornings, but in the afternoons we rode or played tennis in the Bois.
It was there that I met Prince Frederick, who afterwards became my husband.
"I was only sixteen years old, and just as silly, I suppose, as a girl brought up as I had been brought up was certain to be.
I was very much flattered by Prince Frederick's attentions, and quite ready to respond to them.
My own family was noble, and the match was not considered a particularly unequal one, for though Frederick was of the Royal House, he was a long way from the succession.
Still, there was a good deal of trouble when a messenger from Frederick went to my father.
He declared that I was altogether too young; my mother, on the other hand, was just as anxious to conclude the match.
Eventually it was arranged that the betrothal should take place in six months--and Frederick went back to Mexonia."
Madame de Melbain paused for a moment.
Wrayson felt, from her slightly altered attitude and a significant lowering of her voice, that she was reaching the part of her narrative which she found the most difficult.
"We girls," she continued, "went back to school, and just at that time Louise's brother came over to Brussels.
I think that I have already told you that the supervision over us was far from strict.
There was nothing to prevent Captain Fitzmaurice being a good deal with us.
We had picnics, tennis parties, rides!
Long before the six months were up I understood how foolish I had been.
I wrote to Prince Frederick and begged him to release me from our uncompleted engagement.
His answer was to appear in person.
He made a scene.
My mother and father were now wholly on his side.
Within a few weeks he had lost both a cousin and a brother.
His succession to the throne was almost a certainty.
His own people were just as anxious to have him married.
I did not know why then, but I found out later on.
They had their way.
I believe that things are different in an English home.
In mine, I can assure you that I never had any chance.
I entered upon my married life without the least possibility of happiness.
Needless to say, I never realized any!
For the last four years my husband has been trying for a divorce!
Very soon it is possible that he will succeed."
Wrayson leaned a little towards her.
"Is it permitted, Madame, to ask a question?"
"Why not?"
"You have fought against this divorce, you and your friends, so zealously.
Yet your life has been unhappy.
Release could scarcely have been anything but a relief to you!"
Madame de Melbain raised her head slightly.
Her brows were a little contracted.
From her eyes there flashed the silent fire of a queen's disdain.
"Release!
Yes, I would welcome that!
If it were death it would be very welcome!
But divorce--he to divorce me, he, whose brutality and infidelities are the scandal of every Court in Europe!
No!
A divorce I never shall accept.
Separation I have insisted upon."
Wrayson hesitated for a moment.
"May I be pardoned," he said, "if I repeat to you what I saw in print lately--in a famous English paper?
They spoke of this divorce case which has lasted so long; they spoke of it as about to be finally decided.
There was some fresh evidence about to be produced, a special court was to be held."
Madame de Melbain turned, if possible, a shade paler.
"Yes!"
she said slowly, "I have heard of that.
We have all heard of that.
I want to tell you, Mr. Wrayson, what that fresh evidence consists of."
Wrayson bowed and waited.
Somehow he felt that he was on the eve of a great discovery.
"Both before my marriage and afterwards," Madame de Melbain said quietly, "I wrote to--Captain Fitzmaurice.
I was always impulsive--when I was younger, and my letters, especially one written on the eve of my marriage, would no doubt decide the case against me.
Captain Fitzmaurice was killed--in Natal, but in a mysterious way news has reached me of the letters since his death."
"In what way?"
Wrayson asked.
For the first time, Madame de Melbain glanced a little nervously about her.
Against listeners, however, they seemed absolutely secure.
There was no hiding-place, nor any one within sight.
Upon the land was everywhere the silence of a great heat.
Even in the shade where they sat the still air was hot and breathless.
Down in the valley the cows stood knee deep in the stream, and a blue haze hung over the vineyards.
"Nearly eighteen months ago," Madame de Melbain continued, "I received a letter signed by the name of Morris Barnes.
The writer said that he had just arrived from South Africa, and had picked up on one of the battlefields there a bundle of letters, which he had come to the conclusion must have been written by me.
He did not mince matters in the least.
He was a blackmailer pure and simple.
He had given me the first chance of buying these letters!
What was my offer?"
A sharp ejaculation broke from Wrayson's lips.
Louise signed to him to be silent.
"Amy was with me when the letters came," Madame de Melbain continued.
"She left at once for England to see this man.
The sum he demanded was impossible.
All that she could do was to ask for time, and to arrange to pay him so much a month whilst we were considering how to raise the money.
He accepted this, and promised to keep silence.
He kept his word, but for a time only.
He made inquiries, and he seems to have come to the conclusion that the money was on the other side.
At any rate, he approached the advisers of my husband.
He was in treaty with them for the letters--when he--when he met with his death!"
Wrayson had a feeling that the heat was becoming intolerable.
He dared not look at Louise.
His eyes were fixed upon the still expressionless face of the woman whose story was slowly unfolding its tragic course.
"A rumour of this," Madame de Melbain continued, "reached us in Mexonia!
I telegraphed to Amy!
She and Louise were at their wits' ends.
Louise decided to go and see this man Barnes, to make her way, if she could, into his flat, to search for and, if she could find them, to steal these letters.
She carried out her purpose or rather her attempted purpose.
The rest you know, for it was you who saved her!"
"The man," Wrayson said hoarsely, "was murdered."
Madame de Melbain inclined her head.
"So I have understood," she remarked.
"He was murdered," Wrayson continued in a harsh, unnatural voice, "on that very night, the night when he was to have made over these letters to your--enemies!
The message was telephoned to me!
He was to go to the Hotel Francis.
He was warned that there was danger.
And there was!
He was murdered--while the cab waited--to take him there!"
Her eyes held his--she did not flinch.
"The man who telephoned to me--Bentham his name was, the agent of your enemies,--he, too, was murdered!"
"So I have heard," she said calmly.
"The letters!"
he faltered.
"Where are they?"
"No one knows," she answered.
"That is why I live always on the brink of a volcano.
Many people are searching for them.
No one as yet has succeeded.
But that may come at any moment."
"Madame," he said, "can you tell me who killed these men?"
She raised her eyebrows.
"I cannot," she answered coldly.
"Madame," he declared, "the man Barnes was a pitiful blackmailing little Jew!
For all I know, he deserved death a dozen times over--ay, and Bentham too!
But the law does not look upon it like that.
Whoever killed these men will assuredly be hanged if they are caught.
Don't you think that your friends are a little too zealous?"
She met his gaze unflinchingly.
"If friends of mine have done these things," she said, "they are at least unknown to me!"
He drew a short choking breath of relief.
Yet even now the mystery was deeper than ever!
He began to think out loud.
"A friend of yours it must have been," he declared.
"Barnes was murdered when in a few hours he would have parted with those letters to your enemies; Bentham was murdered when he was on the point of discovering them!
There is some one working for you, guarding you, who desires to remain unknown.
I wonder!"
He stopped short.
