The Dark Star, Robert W. Chambers [e reader books txt] 📗

steady eyes.

“Before I tell you,” continued Neeland, “what happened to me through Ilse Dumont, I must tell you what occurred in the train on my way to Paris.... May I have a cigarette, Princess Naïa?”

“At your elbow in that silver box.”

Rue Carew lighted it for him with a smile, but her hand still trembled.

“First,” he said, “tell me what particular significance those papers in the olive-wood box have. Then I can 295 tell you more intelligently what happened to me since I went to Brookhollow to find them.”

“They are the German plans for the fortification of the mainland commanding the Dardanelles, and for the forts dominating the Gallipoli peninsula.”

“Yes, I know that. But of what interest to England or France or Russia––”

“If there is to be war, can’t you understand the importance to us of those plans?” asked the Princess in a low, quiet voice.

“To—‘us’?” he repeated.

“Yes, to us. I am Russian, am I not?”

“Yes. I now understand how very Russian you are, Princess. But what has Turkey––”

“What is Turkey?”

“An empire––”

“No. A German province.”

“I did not know––”

“That is what the Ottoman Empire is today,” continued the Princess Mistchenka, “a Turkish province fortified by Berlin, governed from Berlin through a Germanised Turk, Enver Pasha; the army organised, drilled, equipped, officered, and paid by the Kaiser Wilhelm; every internal resource and revenue and development and projected development mortgaged to Germany and under German control; and the Sultan a nobody!”

“I did not know it,” repeated Neeland.

“It is the truth, mon ami. It is inevitable that Turkey fights if Germany goes to war. England, France, Russia know it. Ask yourself, then, how enormous to us the value of those plans—tentative, sketchy, perhaps, yet the inception and foundation of those German-made and German-armed fortifications which today 296 line the Dardanelles and the adjacent waters within the sphere of Ottoman influence!”

“So that is why you wanted them,” he said with an unhappy glance at Rue. “What idiotic impulse prompted me to put them back in the box I can’t imagine. You saw me do it, there in the taxicab.”

Ruhannah said:

“The chauffeur saw you, too. He was looking at you in his steering mirror; I saw his face. But it never entered my mind that anything except idle curiosity possessed him.”

“Perhaps,” said the Princess to Neeland, “what you did with the papers saved your life. Had that chauffeur not seen you place them in the box, he might have shot and robbed you as you left the cab, merely on the chance of your having them on your person.”

There was a silence; then Neeland said:

“This is a fine business! As far as I can see murder seems to be the essence of the contract.”

“It is often incidental to it,” said the Princess Mistchenka serenely. “But you and Ruhannah will soon be out of this affair.”

“I?” said the girl, surprised.

“I think so.”

“Why, dear?”

“I think there is going to be war. And if there is, France will be concerned. And that means that you and Ruhannah, too, will have to leave France.”

“But you?” asked the girl, anxiously.

“I expect to remain. How long can you stay here, Jim?”

Neeland cast an involuntary glance at Rue as he replied: 297

“I intended to take the next steamer. Why? Can I be of any service to you, Princess Naïa?”

The Princess Mistchenka let her dark eyes rest on him for a second, then on Rue Carew.

“I was thinking,” she said, “that you might take Ruhannah back with you if war is declared.”

“Back to America!” exclaimed the girl. “But where am I to go in America? What am I to do there? I—I didn’t think I was quite ready to earn my own living”—looking anxiously at the Princess Naïa—“do you think so, dear?”

The Princess said:

“I wanted you to remain. And you must not worry, darling. Some day I shall want you back–– But if there is to be war in Europe you cannot remain here.”

“Why not?”

“In the first place, only useful people would be wanted in Paris––”

“But, Naïa, darling! Couldn’t I be useful to you?” The girl jumped up from the sofa and came and knelt down by the Princess Mistchenka, looking up into her face.

The Princess laid aside her cigarette and put both hands on Rue’s shoulders, looking her gravely, tenderly in the eyes.

“Dear,” she said, “I want James Neeland to hear this, too. For it is partly a confession.

“When I first saw you, Rue, I was merely sorry for you, and willing to oblige Jim Neeland by keeping an eye on you until you were settled somewhere here in Paris.

“Before we landed I liked you. And, because I saw wonderful possibilities in the little country girl who shared my stateroom, I deliberately made up my mind 298 to develop you, make use of your excellent mind, your quick intelligence, your amazing capacity for absorbing everything that is best, and your very unusual attractions for my own purposes. I meant—to train you—educate you—to aid me.”

There was a silence; the girl looked up at her, flushed, intent, perplexed; the Princess Mistchenka, her hands on the girl’s shoulders, looked back at her out of grave and beautiful dark eyes.

“That is the truth,” said the Princess. “My intention was to develop you along the lines which I follow as a—profession; teach you to extract desirable information through your wit, intelligence, and beauty—using your youth as a mask. But I—I can’t do it––” She shook her head slightly. “Because I’ve lost my heart to you.... And the business I follow is a—a rotten game.”

Again silence fell among those three; Rue, kneeling at the elder woman’s feet, looked up into her face in silence; Neeland, his elbows resting on his knees, leaned slightly forward from the sofa, watching them.

“I’ll help you, if you wish,” said Rue Carew.

“Thank you, dear. No.”

“Let me. I owe you everything since I have been here––”

“No, dear. What I said to you—and to James—is true. It’s a merciless, stealthy, treacherous business; it’s dangerous to a woman, body and soul. It is one long lifetime of experience with treachery, with greed, with baser passions, with all that is ignoble in mankind.

“There is no reason for you to enter such a circle; no excuse for it; no duty urges you; no patriotism incites you to such self-sacrifice; no memory of wrong done to your nearest and dearest inspires you to 299 dedicate your life to aiding—if only a little, in the downfall and destruction of the nation and the people who encompassed it!”

The Princess Mistchenka’s dark eyes began to gleam, and her beautiful face lost its colour; and she took Rue’s little hands in both of hers and held them tightly against her breast.

“Had I not lost my heart to you, perhaps I should not have hesitated to develop and make use of you.

“You are fitted for the rôle I might wish you to play. Men are fascinated by you; your intelligence charms; your youth and innocence, worn as a mask, might make you invaluable to the Chancellerie which is interested in the information I provide for it.

“But, Rue, I have come to understand that I cannot do this thing. No. Go back to your painting and your clever drawing and your music; any one of these is certain to give you a living in time. And in that direction alone your happiness lies.”

She leaned forward and kissed the girl’s hair where it was fine and blond, close to the snowy forehead.

“If war comes,” she said, “you and James will have to go home, like two good children when the curfew rings.”

She laughed, pushed Rue away, lighted another cigarette, and, casting a glance partly ironical, partly provocative, at the good-looking young man on the sofa, said:

“As for you, James, I don’t worry about you. Impudence will always carry you through where diplomacy fails you. Now, tell me all about these three unpleasant sporting characters who occupied the train with you.”

Neeland laughed. 300

“It seems that a well-known gambler in New York, called Captain Quint, is backing them; and somebody higher up is backing Quint––”

“Probably the Turkish Embassy at Washington,” interposed the Princess, coolly. “I’m sorry, Jim; pray go on.”

“The Turkish Embassy?” he repeated, surprised that she should guess.

“Yes; and the German Embassy is backing that. There you are, Jim. That is the sequence as far as your friend, Captain Quint. Now, who comes next in the scale?”

“This man—Brandes—and the little chalk-faced creature, Stull; and the other one, with the fox face—Doc Curfoot.”

“I see. And then?”

“Then, as I gathered, there are several gentlemen wearing Teutonic names—who are to go into partnership with them—one named Kestner, one called Theodore Weishelm, and an exceedingly oily Eurasian gentleman with whom I became acquainted on the Volhynia—one Karl Breslau––”

“Breslau!” exclaimed the Princess. “Now I understand.”

“Who is he, Princess?”

“He is the most notorious international spy in the world—a protean individual with aliases, professions, and experiences sufficient for an entire jail full of criminals. His father was a German Jew; his mother a Circassian girl; he was educated in Germany, France, Italy, and England. He has been a member of the socialist group in the Reichstag under one name, a member of the British Parliament under another; he did dirty work for Abdul Hamid; dirtier for Enver Bey.

301

“He is here, there, everywhere; he turns up in Brazil one day, and is next in evidence in Moscow. What he is so eternally about God only knows: what Chancellery he serves, which he betrays, is a question that occupies many uneasy minds this very hour, I fancy.

“But of this I, personally, am now satisfied; Karl Breslau is responsible for the robbery of your papers today, and the entire affair was accomplished under his direction!”

“And yet I know,” said Neeland, “that after he and Kestner tried to blow up the captain’s cabin and the bridge aboard the Volhynia yesterday morning at a little after two o’clock, he and Kestner must have jumped overboard in the Mersey River off Liverpool.”

“Without doubt a boat was watching your ship.”

“Yes; Weishelm had a fishing smack to pick them up. Ilse Dumont must have gone with them, too.”

“All they had to do was to touch at some dock, go ashore, and telegraph to their men here,” said the Princess.

“That, evidently, is what they did,” admitted Neeland ruefully.

“Certainly. And by this time they may be here, too. They could do it. I haven’t any doubt that Breslau, Kestner, and Ilse Dumont are here in Paris at this moment.”

“Then I’ll wager I know where they are!”

“Where?”

“In the Hôtel des Bulgars, rue Vilna. That’s where they are to operate a gaming house. That is where they expect to pluck and fleece the callow and the aged who may have anything of political importance about them worth stealing. That is their plan. Agents, 302 officials, employees of all consulates, legations, and embassies are what they’re really after. I heard them discussing it there in the train today.”

The Princess had fallen very silent, musing, watching Neeland’s animated face as he detailed his knowledge of what had occurred.

“Why not notify the police?” he added. “There might be a chance to recover the box and the papers.”

The Princess shook her pretty head.

“We have to be very careful how we use the police, James. It seems simple, but it is not. I can’t explain the reasons, but we usually pit spy against spy, and keep very clear of the police. Otherwise,” she added, smiling, “there would be the deuce to pay among the embassies and legations.” She added: “It’s a most depressing situation; I don’t exactly know what to do.... I have letters to write, anyway––”

She rose, turned to Rue and took both her hands:

“No; you must go back to New York and to your painting and music if there is to be war in Europe. But you have had a taste of what goes on in certain circles here; you have seen what a chain of consequences