Part 9 (1/2)
”The necklace was stolen from Raoul by a thief, who must have been one of the most expert in the world. Can you imagine Raoul's feelings? He came to me in despair, asking my advice. What was he to do? He dared not appeal to the police, or the d.u.c.h.ess's secret would come out. And he couldn't bear to tell her of the loss, not only because it would be such a blow to her, as she was depending on the money from the sale of the jewels, but because she knew that he was in some difficulties, and _might_ be tempted to believe that he'd only pretended the diamonds were stolen--while really he'd sold them for his own use.”
”As she's fond of him, and trusts him, probably she would have thought no such thing,” I tried to comfort Maxine. ”But certainly, it was a rather bad fix.”
”Rather bad fix! Oh, you laconic creatures, Englishmen. All you think of is to hide your feelings behind icy words. As for me--well, there was nothing I wouldn't have done to help him--nothing. My life would have been a small thing to give. I would have given my soul. And already a thought came flas.h.i.+ng into my mind. I begged Raoul to wait, and say nothing to the d.u.c.h.ess, who didn't even know yet that he'd come back from Amsterdam. The thought in my mind was about the commission from your Secretary for Foreign Affairs. As I told you, I'd just sent him word in the usual cypher and through the usual channels, that I couldn't do what he wanted. He'd offered me eight thousand pounds to undertake the service, and four more if I succeeded. I believed I could succeed if I tried. And with the few thousands I'd saved up, and selling such jewels as I had, I could make up the sum Raoul had been told to ask for the necklace. Then he could give it to the d.u.c.h.ess, and she need never know that the diamonds had been stolen. All that night I lay awake thinking, thinking. Next day, at a time when I knew Raoul would be working in his office, I went to see him there, and cheered him up as well as I could. I told him that in a few days I hoped to have eighteen or twenty thousand pounds in my hands--all for him. To let him have the money would make me happier than I'd ever been. At first he said he wouldn't take it from me--I knew he would say that! But, at last, after I'd cried and begged, and persuaded, he consented; only it was to be a loan, and some how, some time, he would pay me back. In that office there are several great safes; and when we had grown quite happy and gay together, I made Raoul tell me which was the most important of all--where the really sacred and valuable things were kept. He laughed and pointed out the most interesting one--the one, he said, which held all the deepest secrets of French foreign diplomacy. I was sure then that the thing I had to get for the British Foreign Secretary must be there, though it was such a new thing that it couldn't have been anywhere for long. 'There are three keys to that safe,' said Raoul. 'One is kept by the President; one is always with the Foreign Secretary; this is the third'; and he showed me a strange little key different to any I had seen before. 'Oh, do let me have a peep at these wonderful papers,'
I pleaded with him. Before coming I had planned what to do. Round my throat I wore a string of imitation pearls, which I'd put on for a special purpose. But they were pretty, and so well made that only an expert would know they weren't real. Raoul isn't an expert; so at the moment he fitted the key into the lock of the safe to open the door, I gave a sly little pull, and broke the thread, making the pearls roll everywhere about the floor. He was quite distressed, forgot all about the key in the lock, and flew to pick up the pearls as if each one were worth at least a thousand francs.
”While he was busy finding the lost beads, I whipped out the key, took an impression of it on a piece of wax I had ready, concealed in my handkerchief, and slipped it back into the lock while he was still on his hands and knees on the floor. Then he opened the safe-door for a moment, just to give me the peep I had begged for, but not long enough for me to touch anything even if I'd dared to try with him standing there. Enough, though, to show me that the doc.u.ments were neatly arranged in labelled pigeon-holes, and to see their general character, colour, and shape. That same day a key to fit the lock was being made; and when it was ready, I made an excuse to call again on Raoul at the office. Not that a very elaborate excuse was needed. The poor fellow, trusting me as he trusts himself, or more, was only too glad to have me come to him, even in that sacred place. Now, the thing was to get him away. But I'd made up my mind what to do. In another office, upstairs, was a friend of Raoul's--the one who introduced us to each other, and I'd made up a message for him, which I begged Raoul to take, and bring his friend to speak to me. He went, and I believed I might count on five minutes to myself. No more--but those five minutes would have to be enough for success or failure. The instant the door shut behind Raoul, I was at the safe. The key fitted. I s.n.a.t.c.hed out a folded doc.u.ment, and opened it to make quite, quite certain it was the right one, for a mistake would be inexcusable and spoil everything. It was what I wanted--the treaty, newly made, between j.a.pan, Russia and France--the treaty which your Foreign Secretary thought he had reason to believe was a secret one, arranged between the three countries without the knowledge of England and to the prejudice of her interests. The one glance I had gave me the impression that the doc.u.ment was nothing of the kind, but quite innocent, affecting trade only; yet that wasn't my business. I had to send it to the Foreign Secretary, who wanted to know its precise nature, and whether England was being deceived. In place of the treaty I slipped into its pigeon-hole a doc.u.ment I'd brought with me--just like the real thing. No one opening the safe on other business would suspect the change that had been made. My hope was to get the treaty back before it should be missed. You see, I was betraying Raoul, to save him. Do you understand?”
”I understand. You must have persuaded yourself that you were justified.
But, good Heavens, Maxine,” I couldn't help breaking out, ”it was an awful thing to do.”
”I know--I know. But I had to have the money--for Raoul. And there was no other way to get it. You remember, I'd refused, till the diamonds were lost, and would have refused even if Raoul had nothing to do with the French Foreign Office. But let me go on telling you what happened. I had time enough. I had even a minute or two to spare. And fortunately for me, the man I'd sent Raoul to find was out. I looked at my watch, pretended to be surprised, and said I must go at once. I couldn't bear to waste a second in hurrying the treaty off, so that it might the more quickly be on its way back. I hadn't come to visit Raoul in my own carriage, but in a cab, which was waiting. As Raoul was taking me to it, Count G.o.densky got out of a motor-brougham, and saw me. If only it had been anywhere except in front of the Foreign Office! I told myself there was no reason why he should guess that anything was wrong, but I was in such a state of nerves that, as he raised his hat, and his eyebrows, I fancied that he imagined all sorts of things, and I felt myself grow red and pale. What a fool I was--and how weak! But I couldn't help it. I didn't wait to go home. I wrote a few lines in the cab, and sent off the packet, registered, in time I hoped, to catch the post--but after all, it didn't. Coming out from the post office, there was G.o.densky again, in his motor-brougham. _That_ could have been no coincidence. A horrid certainty sprang to life in me that he'd followed my cab from the Foreign Office, to see where I would go. Why couldn't I have thought of that danger? I have always thought of things, and guarded against them; yet this time, this time of all others, I seemed fated.”
”But if G.o.densky had known what you were doing, the game would have been up for you before this,” I said.
”He didn't know, of course. Only--if he wants to be a woman's lover and she won't have him, he's her enemy and he's the enemy of the man who _is_ her lover. He's too clever and too careful of his own interests to speak out prematurely anything he might vaguely suspect, for it would do him harm if he proved mistaken. He wouldn't yet, I think, even warn those whom it might concern, to search and see if anything in Raoul's charge were out of order or missing. But what he would do, what I think he has done, is this. Having some idea, as he may have, that my relations with certain important persons in England are rather friendly, and seeing me come from the Foreign Office to go almost straight to the post, it might have occurred to him to try and learn the name of my correspondent. He has influence--he could perhaps have found out: but if he did, it wouldn't have helped him much, for naturally, my dealings with the British Foreign Secretary are always well under cover--hence a delay sometimes in his receiving word from me. What I send can never go straight to him, as you may guess. G.o.densky would guess that, too: and he would have perhaps informed the police, very cautiously, very unofficially and confidentially, that he suspected Maxine de Renzie of being a political spy in the pay of England. He would have advised that my movements be watched for the next few days: that English agents of the French police be warned to watch also, on their side of the Channel.
He would have argued to himself that if I'd sent any doc.u.ment away, with Raoul's connivance or without, I would be wanting it back as soon as possible; and he would have mentioned to the police that possibly a messenger would bring me something--if my correspondence through the post was found to contain nothing compromising. Oh, there have been eyes on me, and on every movement of mine, I'm sure. See how efficient, though quiet, the methods have been where you're concerned. They--the police--knew the name of the man I was to meet here at this hotel; and if, as G.o.densky must have hoped, any doc.u.ment belonging to the French Government had been found on you or me, everything would have played into his hands. Raoul would have been ruined, his heart broken, and I--but there are no words to express what I would have suffered, what I may yet have to suffer. G.o.densky would be praised for his cleverness, as well as securing a satisfactory revenge on me for refusing him. The only thing which rejoices me now is the thought of his blank disappointment when he gets the news from the Commissary of Police.”
”You don't believe then,” I asked, ”that G.o.densky has had any hand in the disappearance of the treaty?”
”I would believe it, if it weren't for the necklace being put in its place. Even if Count G.o.densky could have known of Raoul's mission with the diamonds, and got them into his own hands, he wouldn't have let them get out again with every chance of their going back to Raoul, and thus saving him from his trouble. He'd do nothing to help, but everything to hinder. There lies the mystery--in the return of the necklace instead of the treaty. You have no knowledge of it, you tell me; yet you come to me with it in your pocket--the necklace stolen from Raoul du Laurier, days ago, in Amsterdam or on the way there.”
”You're certain it's the same?”
”Certain as that you are you, and I am I. And I'm not out of my mind yet--though I soon shall be, unless you somehow save me from this horror.”
”I'm going to try,” I said. ”Don't give up hope. I wish, though, that you hadn't to act to-night.”
”So do I. But there's no way out of it. And I must go now to the theatre, or I shall be late: my make-up's a heavy one, and takes a long time. I can't afford to have any talk about me and my affairs to-night, whatever comes afterwards. Raoul will be in a box, and at the end of the first act, he'll be at the door of my dressing-room. The agony of seeing him, of hearing him praise my acting, and saying dear, trusting, loving words that would make me almost too happy, if I hadn't betrayed him, ruined his career for ever!”
”Maybe not,” I said. ”And anyhow, there's the necklace. That's something.”
”Yes, that's something.”
”Will G.o.densky be in the audience, too?” I asked.
”I'm sure he will. He couldn't keep away. But he may be late. He won't come until he's had a long talk with the Commissary of Police, and tried to thrash matters out.”
”If only your theory's right, then,--if he hasn't dared yet to throw suspicion on du Laurier, and if the loss of that letter-case with its contents is as much of a mystery to him as it is to us, we have a little time before us still: we're comparatively safe for a few hours.”
”We're as safe,” answered Maxine, with a kind of desperate calmness, ”as if we were in a house with gunpowder stored underneath, and a train laid to fire it. But”--she broke off bitterly, ”why do I say '_we_'. To you all this can be no more than a regret, a worry.”
”You know that's not just!” I reproached her. ”I'm in this with you now, heart and soul. I spoke no more than the truth when I said I'd give my life, if necessary, to redeem my failure. Already I've given something, but--”
”What have you given?” she caught me up quickly.
”My hope of happiness with a girl I love as you love du Laurier,” I answered; then regretted my words and would have taken them back if I could, for she had a heavy enough burden to bear already, without helping me bear mine.