Part 20 (1/2)
Cartoner rode into our midst to-night.”
”Cartoner?” repeated the prince.
”Yes. He rang the bell, and when the door was opened--we were expecting some one else--he led his horse into our midst, with a loose shoe.”
”Who saw him?” asked the prince.
”Every one.”
”Kosmaroff?”
”Yes. And if I had not been there it would have been all up with Cartoner. You know what Kosmaroff is. It was a very near thing.”
”That would have been a mistake,” said the prince, reflectively. ”It was the mistake they made last time. It has never paid yet to take life in driblets.”
”That is what I told Kosmaroff afterwards, when Cartoner had gone. It was evident that it could only have been an accident. Cartoner could not have known. To do a thing like that, he must have known all--or nothing.”
”He could not have known all,” said the prince. ”That is an impossibility.”
”Then he must have known nothing,” put in Wanda, with a laugh, which at one stroke robbed the matter of much of its importance.
”I do not know how much he perceived when he was in--as to his own danger, I mean--for he has an excellent nerve, and was steady; steadier than I was. But he knows that there was something wrong,” said Martin, wiping the dust from his face with his pocket-handkerchief. His hand shook a little, as if he had ridden hard, or had been badly frightened.
”We had a bad half-hour after he left, especially with Kosmaroff. The man is only half-tamed, that is the truth of it.”
”That is more to his own danger than to any one else's,” put in Wanda, again. She spoke lightly, and seemed quite determined to make as little of the incident as possible.
”Then how do matters stand?” inquired the prince.
”It comes to this,” answered Martin, ”that Poland is not big enough to hold both Kosmaroff and Cartoner. Cartoner must go. He must be told to go, or else----”
Wanda had taken up her work again. As she looked at it attentively, the color slowly faded from her face.
”Or else--what?” she inquired.
Martin shrugged his shoulders.
”Well, Kosmaroff is not a man to stick at trifles.”
”You mean,” said Wanda, who would have things plainly, ”that he would a.s.sa.s.sinate him?”
Wanda glanced at her father. She knew that men hard pressed are no sticklers. She knew the story of the last insurrection, and of the wholesale a.s.sa.s.sination, abetted and encouraged by the anonymous national government of which the members remain to this day unknown. The prince made an indifferent gesture of the hand.
”We cannot go into those small matters. We are playing a bigger game that that. It has always been agreed that no individual life must be allowed to stand in the way of success.”
”It is upon that principle that Kosmaroff argues,” said Martin, uneasily.
”Precisely; and as I was not present when this happened--as it is, moreover, not my department--I cannot, personally, act in the matter.”
”Kosmaroff will obey n.o.body else.”
”Then warn Cartoner,” the prince said, in a final voice. His had always been the final word. He would say to one, go; and to another, come.