William Le Queux

“ I had received positive proof from Renouf that she had been a constant visitor to Sonia, and it was impossible to talk with frivolity in that oppressive atmosphere of doubt. Mrs Laing, I noticed, hung her gold pince-nez high upon her nose in wonder. Ella was thus consuming herself with anxiety, while I, struggling along from day to day, saw my last hope growing thinner and yet more shadowy, and looming through it—despair. ”

“ Few men were better known in Paris than Hugh Cargill.
“Yes, yes, I know,” I exclaimed impatiently. I was sitting dumbfounded, the words beneath the picture dancing before my vision in letters of fire.
The portrait that seemed to smile mockingly at me was a reproduction of a photograph of Ella. The handsome, regular features were unmistakable. With the exception of the magnificent tiara, the ornaments she wore I recognised as belonging to her. All were now in my possession, alas! for on leaving me she had discarded them, and with ineffable sadness I had locked them away in a small cabinet. ”

“ A moment later I met Mrs Laing herself. She was elderly and effusive; tall, and of stately bearing. Her hair was perfectly white but by no means scanty, her face was clever and refined without that grossness that too often disfigures a well-preserved woman of fifty, and in her dark eyes, undimmed by time, there was always an expression of calm contentment. Her husband had been a great traveller until his death ten years ago, and she, accompanying him on his journeys in the East, had become a clever linguist, an accomplishment which her only daughter, Ella, shared. ”

“ To-day is the most sorry day that England has ever known. The death-knell of her power is ringing,” and he walked down the room towards me, pale-faced and bent, his countenance wearing an expression of unutterable gloominess. He was, I knew, a patriot who would have sacrificed his life for his country’s honour, and every word he had uttered came straight from his heart.
“How the secret agents of the Tzar obtained knowledge of the treaty surpasses comprehension,” I exclaimed.
“The catastrophe is due to you—to you alone!” he cried. ”

“ I observed, “is no ordinary seal.”
“It looks ordinary enough,” she answered, smiling. “It’s only brass.”
“But its discovery forms a clue to a most serious and startling crime,” I said.
“A crime!” she gasped. “What do you mean? Dudley’s murder?”
I did not fail to notice that she used the word “murder” as if she had absolute proof that death had not been due to natural causes. Yet the effect of my announcement had been to fill her with sudden apprehension. She strove to appear amazed, but I thought I could detect in her attitude and bearing a fear that I had knowledge of her secret. ”

“ Publicly, from the steps of St Stephen’s Hall, the official statement had been shouted, and the multitude sent up such an outburst of applause that it echoed far and wide from the dark walls of Parliament and Abbey, church and hospital. The more enthusiastic ones yelled themselves hoarse with joyful shouts, while others started to sing “God save the Queen” until, taken up by all, the National Anthem echoed through the streets again and again. Then cheer upon cheer was given for “Warnham” and for “Good old Maybury,” the women joining in honouring England’s greatest statesman. ”

“ I answered, caressing her, stroking her wealth of gold-brown hair fondly as of old. “I love you still, Ella; yet, speaking candidly, I cannot trust you further until you explain the truth.”
“But you will be patient, will you not?” she urged. “Remember that I have before me a task so difficult that it may require all my woman’s tact and cunning to accomplish it. But I will—I must succeed; failure will mean that I lose you, my best beloved. ”

“ Who will believe such a woman?” he cried.
“Everyone will,” Sonia retorted quickly. “See, here is the proof,” and she drew from her pocket a well-worn suède glove of dark grey, which I recognised at once as being one of the kind always worn by Dudley. “The splinter of glass is still inside.”
The man who had led the double life of spy and legislator, and who had amassed a great fortune in his speculations in African gold, stood livid, with terror-stricken eyes riveted upon the evidence of his crime, like one transfixed. ”

“ Although myself a criminal I yearned for love, and foolishly believing that you cared for me, preserved the secret of your guilt, allowing you to wreck the happiness of Geoffrey Deedes, the man who twice proved my friend, and of Elizaveta, the only honest woman who ever spoke kindly to me or endeavoured to induce me to reform. Because you were chief of the Tzar’s spies and I was notorious, with plenty of money always at command, you imagined that you held me irrevocably. ”

“ I have merely asked you a simple question, whether you are aware of the past of Ella Laing, and you have not answered. You are silent.”
“I know sufficient of her past to love her,” I answered, determined that the words of this strange-mannered girl should not arouse greater suspicion than that which already dwelt in my mind.
“Love her! Bah! You will hate her when you learn the truth,” she cried, with a gesture of disgust. ”

“ Induce the woman you love to speak; nay, if she loves you, force her to do so, for a woman who truly loves a man will do anything to benefit him, otherwise she is unworthy to become his wife. Some day ere long you yourself will become a diplomat, as other members of your family have been. Now is the time to practise tact, the first requisite of successful diplomacy. Be tactful, be resourceful, be cunning, and look far into the future, and you will succeed both in clearing yourself and in explaining this, the most remarkable mystery that has occurred during the long years of my administration. ”

“ I had expected him to be eager to further probe the mystery, and try and elucidate the manner in which Dudley had manufactured the dummy and exchanged it for the secret convention. Instead of this he was distrustful and suspicious; indeed, he boldly accused me of attempting to wilfully mislead him and conceal the truth.
“I have told you no lies. Every word I have uttered is the truth,” I answered, with fierce indignation. ”

“ But Beck, greatly to the amusement of Ella, was firm in his opinions, and, when I argued with him, commenced to quote statistics with a glibness which told how carefully he had studied the speech he recently delivered before the House, a speech which, by the way, had been dismissed in one line by all the newspapers. Ella, standing beside me in her pale cream dress, girdled narrow with a band of mauve silk, looked charming, and supported me in all my views, exhibiting a knowledge of politics and of the Continental outlook that I had not in the least suspected. ”

“ If you are still upon English soil, you will be arrested for the murder of my friend,” I answered calmly. “I see plainly how, while I left you alone with the dead man, you placed in his pocket the brass seal found upon him, and how cleverly you managed to introduce the bogus passport and evidences of forgery among his possessions. Yours was a devilish ingenuity, indeed.”
“If I fly you will not follow?” he gasped eagerly.
“Wherever you may hide you will be followed by your guilt,” I answered. “A murderer can hope for no forgiveness from his fellow-men.” ”

“ Well, it is, oh, so very difficult?”
“Do you tell me that Ella Laing is not what she represents herself to be?” I inquired eagerly.
“Ah, no,” she answered. “I ask m’sieur if he knows of her past. M’sieur was once good to me, very good. I forget never those who to me are generous.”
“But your words contain a hidden meaning,” I said, dropping into French, hoping thereby to induce her to place my mind at rest.
“Yes, I am well aware of that,” she answered, with volubility. “You love her; you have offered her marriage—the woman who is your most bitter foe!”
“What do you mean? That Ella is my enemy?” ”

“ It was on my tongue to relate to her the whole circumstances, but suddenly remembering that for the present the secret of England’s peril must be preserved if the identity of the spy were to be discovered, I refrained, and answered,—
“The man who used that seal committed one of the worst crimes of which a man can be guilty.”
“What was it; tell me?” she asked quickly. “Surely Dudley never committed any offence!”
“I am not certain,” I answered gloomily. “An enemy who would pose as a friend, as he has done, might be capable of any deceit.” ”

“ Some said that a strange romance in his youth had soured him, causing him to become misanthropic and eccentric; but it was always my opinion that the blow which fell upon him years ago; the early death of his young and beautiful wife, whom he loved intensely, was responsible for his slavish devotion to duty, his eccentricity, and the cool cynicism with which he regarded everybody, from his Sovereign to his secretary. As a Foreign Minister, every Government in Europe admired, yet feared him. He was, without doubt, the most shrewd and clever statesman the present century had known. ”

“ Foremost in my mind was the strange, inviolable secret that I felt convinced existed between Ella and Beck. Although strenuously denied by her, she had nevertheless admitted her unworthiness of my love. Yet I adored her. No woman had ever stirred my soul as she had; no woman had so completely held me under her spell. ”

“ The foreman of the jury expressed a wish to put a question to Ella, and a few moments later she stood where I had stood, and removing her glove, took the oath with trembling voice.
“Have you any reason to suppose, Miss Laing, that Mr Ogle’s declaration of love to you had aroused the enmity of Mr Deedes?” asked the man, seriously.
“No,” she answered in a tone so low that I could scarcely distinguish the word.
“Mr Deedes was your lover, wasn’t he?”
“I am still engaged to him,” she replied, tears welling in her eyes. “He tells a falsehood when he says that our love is at an end.” ”

“ I know how weary and wretched your life must be, with mystery surrounding you as it does, and being compelled to live apart from the woman you love; but, frankly, the fact that her cold, proud Highness fears to acknowledge you, or tell you the truth, is a source of satisfaction to me. She has sown dissension, and is now reaping her harvest of tears.”
The cankerworm of care was eating out my heart, and I resolved to make one final appeal to her better nature, albeit I saw from her demeanour how embittered she was against Ella. ”

“ Don’t speak of death,” she whispered. “If you died, I—I should die also, Geoffrey. I could not live without you. How I have endured these dark, weary weeks I scarcely know.”
Together we remained a long time, while I reproached myself for entertaining suspicion that her friendliness with Dudley or with Beck was anything but platonic, declaring that my love had ever been unwavering, that my recent actions had been due to a mad and unjust jealousy for which I craved her forgiveness. ”

“ Sonia urged, in a strange, hollow voice, that sounded like one speaking in the far distance. “I do not deny that my presence may seem unwarrantable. I admit that between us there can no longer be friendship, yet strange it is that, although you are honest, upright and respected, while I am a social outcast, spurned and degraded by all, there nevertheless exists a common bond between us—the bond of love. You love Geoffrey, the man who by law is your husband; while I love another, a man you also know;” ”

“ I saw that the stigma upon me meant ruin, both social and financial. Branded as a spy, I should be spurned by Ella, sneered at by Mrs Laing, and avoided by Beck. Friends who had trusted me would no longer place any confidence in a man who had, according to their belief, sold his country into the hands of her enemies, while it was apparent from the Earl’s words that he had no further faith in my actions. ”

“ Some day you shall know everything, but until then think only of me as the woman who loves you with all her soul.”
She spoke with a terrible earnestness, her slim fingers clutching my arm convulsively, and as I gave my promise to regard her always as a pure and upright woman, and forget the mystery surrounding her, I sealed our compact with a long, passionate kiss.
Mrs Laing, stiff and stately in black satin, entered the room a few moments later, and Ella, having whispered and obtained my consent, forthwith made a full and complete statement to her mother of the position of affairs. ”

“ I will, Geoffrey! Soon I shall be freed from this terrible yoke that crushes me beneath its burden,” she exclaimed eagerly. “Be patient, and ere long we may again live together and enjoy our happiness to the full. You still doubt that I really love you. You believe that my marriage was a mere freak, of which I afterwards repented, and then strove to hide my identity. What can I do?” she cried, dismayed. “What can I do to give you proof that I love no other man?” ”

“ I myself was young once. When a man loves a woman he is very loth to think her capable of deceit. Yet in this instance we must not overlook the fact that more than one female spy has been brought under our notice.”
“I am aware of that,” I replied, angry that he should have made such a suggestion against my well-beloved, yet remembering her strange utterances when she heard the news of impending war shouted in the street. “But I have the most implicit faith in the woman who is to be my wife.”
“Has she explained, then, the character of the secret existing between herself and Ogle?” ”

“ Yet you admit having allowed Dudley Ogle to utter words that I alone had a right to utter!”
“Yes, I admit all,” she said, with a tragic touch of sorrow in her strained voice. “I deny nothing.”
“And you come to me asking forgiveness, believing that I can again trust you without hearing any explanation of your recent strange conduct with Beck, as well as with Dudley! I think you must regard me, Ella, as a weak, impressionable fool,” I added, with bitter sarcasm.
“No, I do not,” she cried quickly. “I appeal to your generosity towards a woman. ”

“ Surely you would never be so cruel, Geoffrey. It would kill me.”
“I have loved you, Ella,” I said hoarsely, after a pause, brief and full of suspense. “No man could have loved a woman with a passion more tender than I have done, but now that I have discovered how basely I have been deceived, my affection has turned to hatred.” ”

“ Her lips quivered slightly and her glance wavered. “Yes,” she answered, “I did not meet anyone I knew.”
“That is a lie, Ella!” I cried.
“It is not,” she stammered, pale and agitated. “I have told you the truth.”
“To prevaricate is utterly useless,” I said angrily. “I followed you through Kensington Gardens, where you were walking with your lover. I—”
“My lover?” she cried hoarsely, in dismay. “He—he is not my lover. I had never seen him before!”
“Then by your own admission you have abandoned all respect for me and yourself. You are addicted to strolling alone with any idiot who flatters you.” ”

“ I said at last, “she has made an allegation against the woman I love.”
“Against Ella Laing?” he exclaimed, a faint shadow of anger crossing his brow. “What has she said? Tell me; perhaps I can suggest a way of dealing with her,” he added quickly. “She’s most unscrupulous; her tongue is tipped with venom.”
“She has given me to understand that Ella is an adventuress, and my most bitter enemy,” I blurted out suddenly. ”