Роберт Чамберс - The Dark Star

"You are fitted for the rôle I might wish you to play. Men are fascinated by you; your intelligence charms; your youth and innocence, worn as a mask, might make you invaluable to the Chancellerie which is interested in the information I provide for it.

"But, Rue, I have come to understand that I cannot do this thing. No. Go back to your painting and your clever drawing and your music; any one of these is certain to give you a living in time. And in that direction alone your happiness lies."

She leaned forward and kissed the girl's hair where it was fine and blond, close to the snowy forehead.

"If war comes," she said, "you and James will have to go home, like two good children when the curfew rings."

She laughed, pushed Rue away, lighted another cigarette, and, casting a glance partly ironical, partly provocative, at the good–looking young man on the sofa, said:

"As for you, James, I don't worry about you. Impudence will always carry you through where diplomacy fails you. Now, tell me all about these three unpleasant sporting characters who occupied the train with you."

Neeland laughed.

"It seems that a well–known gambler in New York, called Captain Quint, is backing them; and somebody higher up is backing Quint―"

"Probably the Turkish Embassy at Washington," interposed the Princess, coolly. "I'm sorry, Jim; pray go on."

"The Turkish Embassy?" he repeated, surprised that she should guess.

"Yes; and the German Embassy is backing that. There you are, Jim. That is the sequence as far as your friend, Captain Quint. Now, who comes next in the scale?"

"This man—Brandes—and the little chalk–faced creature, Stull; and the other one, with the fox face—Doc Curfoot."

"I see. And then?"

"Then, as I gathered, there are several gentlemen wearing Teutonic names—who are to go into partnership with them—one named Kestner, one called Theodore Weishelm, and an exceedingly oily Eurasian gentleman with whom I became acquainted on the Volhynia —one Karl Breslau―"

"Breslau!" exclaimed the Princess. " Now I understand."

"Who is he, Princess?"

"He is the most notorious international spy in the world—a protean individual with aliases, professions, and experiences sufficient for an entire jail full of criminals. His father was a German Jew; his mother a Circassian girl; he was educated in Germany, France, Italy, and England. He has been a member of the socialist group in the Reichstag under one name, a member of the British Parliament under another; he did dirty work for Abdul Hamid; dirtier for Enver Bey.

"He is here, there, everywhere; he turns up in Brazil one day, and is next in evidence in Moscow. What he is so eternally about God only knows: what Chancellery he serves, which he betrays, is a question that occupies many uneasy minds this very hour, I fancy.

"But of this I, personally, am now satisfied; Karl Breslau is responsible for the robbery of your papers today, and the entire affair was accomplished under his direction!"

"And yet I know," said Neeland, "that after he and Kestner tried to blow up the captain's cabin and the bridge aboard the Volhynia yesterday morning at a little after two o'clock, he and Kestner must have jumped overboard in the Mersey River off Liverpool."

"Without doubt a boat was watching your ship."

"Yes; Weishelm had a fishing smack to pick them up. Ilse Dumont must have gone with them, too."

"All they had to do was to touch at some dock, go ashore, and telegraph to their men here," said the Princess.

"That, evidently, is what they did," admitted Neeland ruefully.

"Certainly. And by this time they may be here, too. They could do it. I haven't any doubt that Breslau, Kestner, and Ilse Dumont are here in Paris at this moment."

"Then I'll wager I know where they are!"

"Where?"

"In the Hôtel des Bulgars, rue Vilna. That's where they are to operate a gaming house. That is where they expect to pluck and fleece the callow and the aged who may have anything of political importance about them worth stealing. That is their plan. Agents, officials, employees of all consulates, legations, and embassies are what they're really after. I heard them discussing it there in the train today."

The Princess had fallen very silent, musing, watching Neeland's animated face as he detailed his knowledge of what had occurred.

"Why not notify the police?" he added. "There might be a chance to recover the box and the papers."

The Princess shook her pretty head.

"We have to be very careful how we use the police, James. It seems simple, but it is not. I can't explain the reasons, but we usually pit spy against spy, and keep very clear of the police. Otherwise," she added, smiling, "there would be the deuce to pay among the embassies and legations." She added: "It's a most depressing situation; I don't exactly know what to do…. I have letters to write, anyway―"

She rose, turned to Rue and took both her hands:

"No; you must go back to New York and to your painting and music if there is to be war in Europe. But you have had a taste of what goes on in certain circles here; you have seen what a chain of consequences ensue from a chance remark of a young girl at a dinner table."

"Yes."

"It's amusing, isn't it? A careless and innocent word to that old busybody, Ahmed Mirka Pasha, at my table—that began it. Then another word to Izzet Bey. And I had scarcely time to realise what had happened—barely time to telegraph James in New York—before their entire underground machinery was set in motion to seize those wretched papers in Brookhollow!"

Neeland said:

"You don't know even yet, Princess, how amazingly fast that machinery worked."

"Tell me now, James. I have time enough to write my warning since it is already too late." And she seated herself on the sofa and drew Ruhannah down beside her.

"Listen, dear," she said with pretty mockery, "here is a most worthy young man who is simply dying to let us know how picturesque a man can be when he tries to."

Neeland laughed:

"The only trouble with me," he retorted, "is that I've a rather hopeless habit of telling the truth. Otherwise there'd be some chance for me as a hero in what I'm going to tell you."

And he began with his first encounter with Ilse Dumont in Rue Carew's house at Brookhollow. After he had been speaking for less than a minute, Rue Carew's hands tightened in the clasp of the Princess Naïa, who glanced at the girl and noticed that she had lost her colour.

And Neeland continued his partly playful, partly serious narrative of "moving accidents by flood and field," aware of the girl's deep, breathless interest, moved by it, and, conscious of it, the more inclined to avoid the picturesque and heroic, and almost ashamed to talk of himself at all under the serious beauty of the girl's clear eyes.

But he could scarcely tell his tale and avoid mentioning himself; he was the centre of it all, the focus of the darts of Fate, and there was no getting away from what happened to himself.

So he made the melodrama a comedy, and the moments of deadly peril he treated lightly. And one thing he avoided altogether, and that was how he had kissed Ilse Dumont.

When he finished his account of his dreadful situation in the stateroom of Ilse Dumont, and how at the last second her unerring shots had shattered the bomb clock, cut the guy–rope, and smashed the water–jug which deluged the burning fuses, he added with a very genuine laugh:

"If only some photographer had taken a few hundred feet of film for me I could retire on an income in a year and never do another stroke of honest work!"

The Princess smiled, mechanically, but Rue Carew dropped her white face on the Princess Naïa's shoulder as though suddenly fatigued.