Part 16 (2/2)
But neither that night, nor two days later, at Major Hawke's superb dinner at the Delhi Club, did the jeunesse doree of the old capital extract an admission from that mysterious ”secret service” man, Major Alan Hawke. ”You cannot deny, Hawke, that you dined at the marble house with the beauty whom we are all toasting,” said a rallying roisterer.
”And--with the Veiled Rose of Delhi!” said another, still more eagerly.
”It is true, gentlemen” gravely said Major Hawke, ”that I was invited to dinner at the marble house, but Madame Louison is a stranger to me, and I believe a tourist of some rank. It was merely a formal affair.
I believe that she brought letters from Paris to Hugh Johnstone.” Late that night Alan Hawke laughed, as he pocketed his winnings at baccarat.
”Three hundred pounds to the good! I'm a devil for luck!” And he sat down in his room to think over all the events of a day which had half turned his head. Warned by Justine Delande that Madame Louison was bidden to dine with Hugh Johnstone, Alan Hawke closely interrogated her.
She evidently knew and suspected nothing. ”Ah! Berthe plays a lone hand against the world,” he smiled.
His mysterious employer had merely bidden him be ready to meet her there, without surprise. There was as yet no lightning move up on the chess board, and in vain he studied her resolute, smiling face. ”All I can tell you,” murmured Justine to her handsome Mentor, in the seclusion of Ram Lal's back room, ”is that this Madame Berthe Louison comes to spend the day in looking over Hugh Johnstone's art treasures. Nadine and I are to meet her, with the master. Do you know aught of her?”
”Nothing, dear Justine,” unhesitatingly lied Alan Hawke. ”Watch her and tell me all.”
”I will,” smilingly replied the Swiss. ”I have a strange fear that Hugh Johnstone has known her before, that he intends to marry her, and then to send us two, Nadine and I, away to a quiet life in Europe.” Whereupon Alan Hawke laughed loud and long.
”She is only a bird of pa.s.sage, some wealthy globe wanderer, perhaps even a sly adventuress. No, old Johnstone will not tempt Fortune.”
”He has been so unusually amiable,” agnostically said Justine. ”Of course he could hide such a design easily from Nadine, who knows nothing of love.”
”She will learn! She will learn--in due time,” laughed Hawke. ”There is but one thing possible. This whole pretended visit may be a sham--she may even be the belle amie of this old curmudgeon.”
”I will watch all three of them! You shall know all!” murmured Justine, as she stole away, not without the kisses of her secret knight burning upon her lips.
”What a consummate actress!” mused Alan Hawke, when, for the first time, since Nadine Johnstone's arrival, a formal dinner party enlivened the dull monotony of the marble house. The round table, set for five, gave Hugh Johnstone the strategic advantage of separating his secret enemy from his blus.h.i.+ng daughter. Hawke demurely paid his devoirs to Madame Justine Delande, with a finely studied inattention to either the guest of the evening or the beautiful girl who only murmured a few words when presented to her father's only visitor. ”I wonder if Justine, poor soul, will see the resemblance?” It had been a triumph of art, Madame Berthe Louison's magnificent dinner toilette, those rich robes which effaced the opening-rose beauty of the slim girl in the simplicity of her rare Indian lawn frock. Rich color and flowers and diamonds heightened the splendid loveliness of the woman who ”looked like a queen in a play that night.”
Alas, for Justine Delande, she was so busied with her mute telegraphy to Alan Hawke that she never saw the startling family likeness of the two women so eagerly watched by Hugh Johnstone. But the keen-eyed Alan Hawke saw the girl's fascinated gaze. He noted her virginal bosom heaving in a new and strange emotion. He marked the tender challenge of her dreamy eyes as Berthe Louison's loving soul spoke out to the radiant young beauty only held away from her heart by the stern old skeleton at the feast.
The long-drawn-out splendors of the feast were over, and the ladies had, at last, retired. Hawke observed the stony glare with which Johnstone whispered a few words of command to Justine Delande, when the two men sought the smoking-room.
The door was hardly closed upon them when the coffee and cigars were served, when Johnstone, striding forward, locked the door.
”See here, Hawke!” abruptly said the host ”I want you to serve me to-night, and to stand by me while this she-devil is in Delhi. I've got to run down to Calcutta on business for a few days. She will not be here. She has some business of her own down there, also. First, find out for me, for G.o.d's sake, all about her. How she came here; where she hides in Europe; who her friends are. When you are able to, you can follow her over the world. I'll foot the bill, as the Yankees say.
”Now, to-night, I wish you to take your leave conventionally. Get away at once, and go immediately and telegraph to Anstruther in London. No, don't deny you are intimate with him. I know it. Telegraph him that I am in a position, now, to trace out and restore those missing jewels. The secret of their hiding is mine at last. Here's a hundred pounds. Don't spare your words. Within a month they will be in the hands of the Viceroy. I have to play a part to get them--a dangerous part. I pledge my whole estate to back this. But I must have my Baronetcy so that I can leave India, for I fear the vengeance of the devils who robbed the captured Princes of Oude.
”Once in England, I am safe. I'll not leave till I get the Baronetcy, and the jewels will not be delivered up until I get it. I am closely watched here.”
Hawke's eyes burned fiercely. ”And if I was to take the train and tell the Viceroy this?” he boldly said.
”Then I would say that you had lied--that is all.”
”What do I get?” coolly demanded Hawke.
”Five thousand pounds the day that I get my Baronetcy,” quietly replied Johnstone.
”I'll not do it,” hotly cried Hawke. ”You might say I lied,” he sneered.
”I want it now!”
The two men glared at each other in a mutual distrust. Hugh Johnstone pondered a moment, and said deliberately:
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