E. Phillips Oppenheim

“ Peter Ruff emptied his own tumbler and took up his hat.
“Sir Richard,” he said, “you are like a good many other people. Now that the thing is done, you shrink from the thought of it. You even wonder how I could have planned to bring about the death of this man. Listen, Sir Richard. Pity for the deserving, or for those who have in them one single quality, one single grain, of good, is a sentiment which deserves respect. Pity for vermin, who crawl about the world leaving a poisonous trail upon everything they touch, is a false and unnatural sentiment. ”

“ For your sake I risked an awful death. For your sake I have lived like a hunted man, with the cry of the wolves always in my ears, and the fear of death and of eternal torture with me day by day. No other man since the world was made has done more. Have pity on me!”
She was unmoved; her face had lost all expression. No one noticed in that rapt moment that Bernadine had crept from the room.
“It was you,” she cried, “who killed my father, and sent my brothers into exile.”
“God help me!” he moaned.
She turned to De Grost. ”

“ Peter Ruff answered, devoting himself to the game.
The following night, being the last but one before the wedding itself, a large dinner-party had been arranged for, and the resources of even so princely a mansion as Clenarvon Court were strained to their utmost by the entertainment of something like one hundred guests in the great banqueting-hall. The meal was about half-way through when those who were not too entirely engrossed in conversation were startled by hearing a dull, rumbling sound, like the moving of a number of pieces of heavy furniture. People looked doubtfully at one another. ”

“ When you took your rooms here and called yourself Peter Ruff, it was rather in your mind to aid the criminal than to detect the crime. Fate seems to have decreed otherwise. Why, I wonder?”
“Things have gone that way,” Peter Ruff remarked.
“I will tell you why,” she continued. “It is because, at the bottom of your heart, there lurks a strong and unconquerable desire for respectability. In your heart you are on the side of the law and established things. You do not like crime; you do not like criminals. You do not like the idea of associating with them. ”

“ What is there, do you think, in a dull English house-party to attract a man like myself? Don’t you understand that it is the gambler’s instinct—the restless desire to be playing pitch-and-toss with fate, with honor, with life and death, if you will—that brings such as myself into the ranks of the ‘Double-Four’? It is the weariness which kills, Peter Ruff. One must needs keep it from one’s bones. ”

“ The face of the Baron de Grost became like a mask. It was as though suddenly he had felt the thrill of danger close at hand, danger even in that scented atmosphere wherein he sat.
“Alas, Madame!” he answered, “it is you, now, who are pleased to jest. Your husband is a great and powerful ambassador. I, unfortunately, have no career, no place in life save the place which the possession of a few millions gives to a successful financier.” ”

“ Above them shone the stars and around them a noise like thunder. Bernadine, who alone understood, was the first to recover himself. He stood in the midst of them, his hands above his head, laughing as he looked around at the strange storm, laughing like a madman.
“The wonderful Carl,” he cried. “Oh, matchless servant. Arrest me now, if you will, you dogs of the police. Rout out my secrets, dear Baron de Grost. Tuck them under your arm and hurry to Downing Street. This is the hospitality of the High House, my friends. It loves you so well that only your ashes shall leave it.” ”

“ Peter Ruff shook his head.
“More than that,” he said. “You are a brave man in your way, Sir Richard Dyson, but you are going about now shivering under a load of fear. It sits like a devil incarnate upon your shoulders. It poisons the air wherever you go. Write your cheque, Sir Richard, and you can leave that little black devil in my wastebasket. You are under my protection. Nothing will happen to you.”
Sir Richard sat like a man mesmerised. The little man with the amiable expression and the badly fitting suit was leaning back in his chair, his finger tips pressed together, waiting. ”

“ A revolution is a certainty. How much better that that revolution should be conducted in a dignified manner; that I, with my reputation for democracy which I have carefully kept before the eyes of my people, should be elected President of the new Spanish Republic, even if it is the gold of the American which places me there. In a year or two, what may happen who can say? This craving for a republic is but a passing dream. Spain, at heart, is monarchial. She will be led back to the light. It is but a short step from the president’s chair to the throne. ”

“ There is a marked disinclination on the part of those who have been our slaves, to accept orders from any one. Espionage we can still command—the best, perhaps, in Europe—because here we use a different class of material. But of those underneath, we are, for the moment, doubtful. Paris is all in a ferment. Under its outward seemliness a million throats are ready to take up the brazen cry of revolution. One trusts nobody. One fears all the time.”
“You or I!” Peter repeated, slowly. “It will not be sufficient, then, that we find Bernadine and deliver him over to your country’s laws?” ”

“ There is below us—the ‘Double-Four’—the eight gentlemen now present, an executive council composed of five of the shrewdest men in France. They take their orders from us. We plan, and they obey. We have imagination, and special sources of knowledge. They have the most perfect machinery for carrying out our schemes that it is possible to imagine. I do not wish to boast, Mr. Ruff, but if I take a directory of Paris and place after any man’s name, whatever his standing or estate, a black cross, that man dies before seven days have passed. You buy your evening paper—a man has committed suicide! ”

“ We need friends, Baron de Grost.”
“You cannot seriously doubt but that you will find them in this country,” Peter remarked. “There has never been a time when the English nation has not sympathized with the cause of liberty.”
“It is not the hearts of your people,” Major Kosuth said, “which I fear. It is the antics of your politicians. Sympathy is a great thing, and good to have, but Turkey to-day needs more. The heart of a nation is big, but the number of those in whose hands it remains to give practical expression to its promptings, is few.” ”

“ Peter Ruff, with his back against the door, shook his head gravely.
“My dear Lord Merries,” he said, “my office is not a mortuary.”
Merries gasped.
“You know me, then?” he muttered, hoarsely.
“Of course,” Ruff answered. “It is my profession to know everybody. Go and sit down upon that easy-chair, and drink the brandy and soda which Miss Brown is about to mix for you. That’s right.”
Merries staggered across the room and half fell into an easy-chair. He leaned over the side with his face buried in his hands, unable still to face the horror which lay upon the floor. ”

“ Sogrange murmured, “the Press nowadays becomes more unreliable every day. It is apparent, my dear Von Hern, that this account of your death was, to say the least of it, exaggerated.”
Peter said nothing. His eyes were fixed upon the Baroness. She sat in her chair quite motionless, but her face had become like the face of some graven image. She looked at Bernadine, but her eyes said nothing. Every glint of expression seemed to have left her features. ”

“ Peter Ruff asked, with a start.
“A bachelor,” Monsieur de Founcelles answered. “We who have made crime and its detection a life-long study, have reduced many matters concerning it to almost mathematical exactitude. Of one thing we have become absolutely convinced—it is that the great majority of cases in which the police triumph are due to the treachery of women. The criminal who steers clear of the other sex escapes a greater danger than the detectives who dog his heels. It is for that reason that we choose only unmarried men for our executive council.” ”

“ The two men who stood upon the hill, and Peter Ruff, who lay upon his stomach behind a huge boulder, looked upon a new thing.
Far down in the valley from out of a black shed—the only sign of man’s handiwork for many miles—it came—something grey at first, moving slowly as though being pushed down a slight incline, then afloat in the air, gathering speed—something between a torpedo with wings and a great prehistoric insect. ”

“ What enterprise is there worthy of a man like Guillot, in which he could engage himself here in London between now and midnight? Any ordinary theft is beneath him. The purloining of the crown jewels, perhaps, he might consider, but I don’t think that anything less in the way of robbery would bring him here. He has his code and he is as vain as a peacock. Yet money is at the root of everything he does.”
“How does he spend his time here?” Violet asked.
“He has a handsome flat in Shaftesbury Avenue,” Peter answered, “where he lives, to all appearance, the life of an idle man of fashion. ”

“ Bernadine has fled to this country with barely an hour to spare. His offense is extraditable by a law of the last century which has never been repealed. He is guilty of treason against the Republic of France. Yet they do not want him back, they do not want a trial. I have papers upon my person which, if I took them into an English court, would procure for me a warrant for Bernadine’s arrest. It is not this we desire. Bernadine must die. No fate could be too terrible for a man who has striven to corrupt the soul of a nation. It is not war, this. It is not honest conspiracy. ”

“ Sogrange declared.
“Why should one refuse to face facts?” Bernadine replied. “One does not often talk so frankly, but we three are met together this evening under somewhat peculiar circumstances. The days of the glory of France are past. England has laid out her neck for the yoke of the conqueror. Both are doomed to fall. Both are ripe for the great humiliation. You two gentlemen whom I have the honor to receive as my guests,” he concluded, filling his glass and bowing towards them, “in your present unfortunate predicament represent precisely the position of your two countries.” ”

“ Peter preserved his attitude of bland incredulity.
“Listen,” he said, drawing a whistle from his pocket, “it is just possible that you are in earnest. I will bet you, then, if you like, a hundred pounds, that if I blow this whistle you will either have to open your door within five minutes or find your house invaded by the police.”
No one spoke for several moments. The veins were standing out upon Bernadine’s forehead.
“We have had enough of this folly,” he cried. “If you refuse to realize your position, so much the worse for you. Blow your whistle, if you will. I am content.” ”

“ Peter Ruff answered. “I thought of wearing my brown, with a brown overcoat. What do you suggest?”
“I like you in brown,” she answered, simply. “I should change, if I were you.”
He smiled faintly.
“I believe,” he said, “that you have a sort of superstition that as I change my clothes I change my humors.”
“Should I be so very far wrong?” she asked. “Don’t think that I am laughing at you, Peter. The greatest men in the world have had their foibles.”
Peter Ruff frowned.
“We shall be away for several days,” he said. “Be sure that you take some wraps. It will be cold, crossing.” ”

“ As Lady Mary and her escort drew near, the reason for the young American’s annoyance became clearer—his two companions were talking softly, but with great animation, in a foreign language, which it was obvious that he did not understand. Peter Ruff’s elbow pressed against his partner’s arm, and their pace slackened. He ventured, even, to pause for a moment, looking into the ballroom as though in search of some one, and he had by no means the appearance of a man likely to understand Hungarian. Then, to Lady Mary’s surprise, he touched the Count von Hern on the shoulder and addressed him. ”

“ Peter Ruff murmured.
“Mr. Dory is not well off,” she continued, “and I am afraid that I am very fond of life and going about, and everything is so expensive nowadays. Then I don’t like his profession. I think it is hateful to be always trying to catch people and put them in prison—don’t you, Mr. Ruff?”
Peter Ruff smiled.
“Naturally,” he answered. “Your husband and I work from the opposite poles of life. He is always seeking to make criminals of the people whom I am always trying to prove worthy members of society.”
“How noble!” Maud exclaimed, clasping her hands and looking up at him. ”

“ Peter continued, “it is quite amazing, the interest which the evening papers always take in the movements of one connected ever so slightly with their world. I think that a dozen newspapers have told their readers the exact amount of money I am going to lend or borrow in New York, the stocks I am going to bull or bear, the mines I am going to purchase. My presence on an American steamer is accounted for by the journalists a dozen times over. Yours, Duchesse, if one might say so without appearing over curious, seems the most inexplicable. What attraction can America possibly have for you?” ”

“ Bernadine mocked him.
“To prevent your shooting me in cold blood, I suppose,” he remarked. “Nothing except that my servants are too clever. No one save myself is allowed to remain under this roof with arms in their possession. Your pocket was probably picked before you had been in the place five minutes. No, my dear Baron, let me assure you that escape will not be so easy! You were always just a little inclined to be led away by the fair sex. The best men in the world, you know, have shared that failing, and the Baroness, alone and unprotected, had her attractions, eh?” ”

“ Peter Ruff raised his eyebrows.
“Dear Lady Mary,” he said, “remember that it is the business of Scotland Yard to find a man guilty. It is mine, when I am employed for that purpose, to find him innocent. You must not be too hard upon my friend Mr. Dory. He and I seem to come up against each other a little too often, as it is.”
“A little too often!” John Dory repeated, softly. “But one cannot tell. Don’t believe, Lady Mary,” he added, “that we ever want to kill an innocent man.” ”

“ You are English, Monsieur Peter Ruff, and in some respects you have not moved with the times. Confess, now, that your idea of a secret society is a collection of strangely attired men who meet in a cellar, and build subterranean passages in case of surprise. In Paris, I think, we have gone beyond that sort of thing. We of the ‘Double-Four’ have no headquarters save the drawing-room of Madame; no hiding-places whatsoever; no meeting-places save the fashionable cafes or our own reception rooms. The police follow us—what can they discover?—nothing! ”

“ Eight o’clock was striking from St. Martin’s Church when the door of Peter Ruff’s office was softly opened and closed again. A man in a slouch hat and overcoat entered, and after feeling along the wall for a moment, turned up the electric light. Violet Brown rose from her place with a little sob. She stretched out her hand to him.
“Peter!” she cried. “Peter!”
“My name,” the newcomer said calmly, “is Mr. Spencer Fitzgerald.”
“Oh, listen to me!” she begged. “There is still time, if you hurry. Think how many clever men before you have been deceived by the woman in whom they trusted. ”