Chapter IV: Book II: The Lone Wolf’s Daughter (2)

All thought of fear or deference was gone, she had nothing left but scorn for these two despicable creatures, the fat harpy and her crapulent consort who had battened so long upon her misery, who had held her in bondage to the most menial tasks of their wretched restaurant while they filched and hoarded the money paid them for giving her the care and the advantages that were her due.

And something of this new-found dignity, to which her title was so unquestionable, which set her upon a level from which she could not but look down on these two paltry frauds, so abashed the Frenchwoman that the phrases of invective and vilification which gushed instinctively from the foul springs of her temper stuck in her throat, she couldn’t utter them, and she well-nigh choked with impotent fury and fear as the girl spoke.

“You swindlers!” Sofia said, deliberately. “You poor cheats! To pocket a thousand pounds a year of my mother’s money—and make me slave for you in your wretched café! And for eighteen years! For eighteen years you have been robbing me of every right I had in the world, robbing me of everything I’ve needed and longed and prayed for, everything you were paid to give me—while I drudged for you and endured your ill-temper and your abuse and the contamination of association with you!... Give me that letter.”

She possessed herself of it unopposed. But now Mama Thérèse found her tongue.

“What—what do you mean?” she gasped, livid with fright. Was not a fortune slipping through her avaricious fingers? “What are you going to do?”

“Do?” Sofia cried. “I don’t know, more than this: I’m not going to stay another hour under this roof, I’m going to leave to-night—now— immediately! That’s what I’m going to do!”

“Where are you going?”

The question halted Sofia in the doorway.

“To find my father—wherever he is!”

She left the two staring at each other, dumbfounded and aghast.

At the far end of the passage she flung open her bedchamber door, entered, turned up the light, and snatched her cloak and hat from pegs beneath the curtained shelf that held her scanty wardrobe.

Adjusting these before the mirror she could hear Thérèse bawling at Dupont to follow and stop her. Sofia had little fear he would find heart to attempt that, none the less she hurried. Once her hat was adjusted there was nothing to detain her; the best she had she stood in; no sentimental associations invested that room, the tomb of her defrauded childhood, the prison of her maltreated youth, to make her linger there, but only hateful ones to speed her going.

She turned and fled.

Stumbling on the stairs, she heard Thérèse still screaming imprecations and commands at Dupont, then the clumping of the man’s feet as, yielding at length, he started in pursuit.

Through the green baize door she burst into the café like a young tornado. Every head turned her way with gaping mouths and protruding eyes of astonishment as she stopped at the caisse and brazenly, in the face of them all, plundered the till.

This was a matter of necessity. Sofia had not one shilling of her own. But those two had robbed her, what she took was not so much as a thousandth part of the money of which they had despoiled her. Moreover, she dared not go out penniless to face London.

Snatching a handful of loose coin, she made for the door. But the delay had been fatal. Dupont was now at her heels, and displaying extraordinary agility in a man of his years of dissipation and sedentary habits. And Thérèse was not far behind.

Seeing coins trickling through the fingers of the fugitive and falling to ring and spin upon the floor, the Frenchwoman raised an anguished shriek of “_Thief! Stop thief!_”—and such part of the audience as had remained in its seats rose up as one man.

In the same instant Dupont’s fingers clamped down on Sofia’s shoulder. She screamed, and he chuckled and dragged her back. Then his arm was struck up by a deft hand, the girl slipped from his hold and darted out through the doors.

Roaring with rage (now that his blood was up, his heart in the chase) Dupont turned upon the meddler. This was young Mr. Karslake. Dupont did not know him except by sight, but that slender, boyish figure and the semi-apologetic smile on Karslake’s lips did not inspire respect. Blindly and with all his might Dupont swung his right to the other’s head, only to find it wasn’t there.

The weight of the unexpended blow carried Dupont off his feet. He fell in a heap, and Mama Thérèse, charging wildly after Sofia, tripped on his body and deposited fourteen stone of solid flesh squarely in the small of Dupont’s back with a force that drove the breath out of him in one agonized blast.

Karslake laughed aloud: it was all as good as a cinema. Then he followed Sofia.

It was a dark and silent street by night, little used, a mere link between two main thoroughfares. Sofia, running for dear life, was still far from the nearest corner. Karslake doubled nimbly across the street to the only vehicle in sight, an impressive Rolls-Royce town-car. Jumping on the running-board he pointed out the fleeing shadow to the chauffeur.

“Lay alongside that young woman before she makes the corner, Albert!”

Without delay the car began to move.

Meanwhile, the Café des Exiles was erupting antic shapes, waiters, customers, Dupont, Thérèse. The quiet hour was made hideous by their yells.

“_Stop thief!” “À la voleuse!” “L’arrêtez!” “À la voleuse!” “Stop thief!_”

An entirely superfluous bobby weathered the corner, discovered Sofia in flight across the street, came about, and shaped a diagonal course to cut across her bows. She saw him coming and stopped short with a gasp of dismay. Simultaneously the Rolls-Royce slid smoothly in between them and Karslake hopped down. Sofia uttered a small cry, more of surprise than fright, and hung back, trying to free the arm by which he was trying to guide her to the open door.

“It’s our only chance,” he warned her, coolly. “We’re between two fires. Better not delay!”

She yielded and tumbled in. Karslake followed and slammed the door. The car shot away and rounded into the cross street before the bobby could collect himself enough to look at its license plate. He made after it, but when he had reached the corner it had turned another and was lost.

At the second turning Karslake looked round from the window with a reassuring laugh, and settled back beside Sofia.

“So that ends that!”

She stared wide-eyed through the shadows. She knew him now, she was not in the least afraid, but she was confused beyond measure.

“Why—why—” she faltered—“what—who are you and where are you taking me?”

“Oh, I beg your pardon!” said the young man, contritely. “I forgot. One ought to introduce one’s self before rescuing ladies in distress—but there really wasn’t time, you know. If you’ll overlook the informality, my name’s Karslake, Roger Karslake, Princess Sofia, and I’m taking you to your father.”

V HOUSE OF THE WOLF

This startling announcement Sofia received without comment and with a composure quite as surprising. The life which had made her what she was, a young woman singularly unillusioned, well-poised, and well-informed, had brought out in her nature a strong vein of scepticism. She was not easily to be impressed. The more remarkable the circumstance in question, the less inclined was she to exclaim about it, the stronger was her propensity to look shrewdly into the matter and find out for herself just what it was that made it seem so odd.

She didn’t repose much faith in those striking synchronizations which apparently unrelated influences sometimes effect with related events, and which we are accustomed to term coincidences. She distrusted their specious seeming of spontaneity, she suspected a deep design behind them all.

For example: Up to the moment of her flight from the Café des Exiles there had been, as Sofia saw it, nothing extraordinary or inexplicable in the chapter of happenings which had made her acquainted, as abruptly as tardily, with certain facts concerning her parentage.

You might, if you felt like it, call it a strange coincidence that she should have read the advertisement of Messrs. Secretan & Sypher just before their letter was delivered and Mama Thérèse by her intemperate conduct warmed Sofia’s simmering suspicions to the boiling point. But then Sofia read the Agony Column every time it came into her hands: she would have been more surprised had she missed noticing her given name in print, and downright ashamed of herself if she had failed to associate the letter with the advertisement.

If you asked her, she called it Fate, the foreordained workings of occult forces charged with dominion over human affairs. Sooner or later she must somehow have learned the truth about her right place in the world; and to her way of thinking it was no more astonishing that she should have learned it through accident supplemented by the acute inferences of a sharply stimulated imagination, rather than through being waited upon by a delegation of legal gentlemen commissioned with the duty of enlightening her. And the colossal set-piece of the evening having been duly exploded, no sequel whatever could expect anything better than relegation to the cheerless limbo of anticlimax.

Thus when young Mr. Karslake explained his uninvited if timely intervention by stating that he was conducting her to the parent of whose existence she had so recently been informed, he succeeded—not to put too fine a point upon it—only in making it all seem a bit thick.

So for the time being Sofia contented herself with silent study of his face as fitfully revealed by the passing lights of Shaftesbury Avenue.

A nice face (she thought) open and naïve, perhaps a trace too much so; but, viewed at close quarters, by no means so child-like as she had thought it, and by no means wanting in evidences of quiet strength if one forgave the funny little moustache which (now one came to, observe it seriously) was precisely what lent that possibly deceptive look of innocence and inconsequence, positively weakening the character of what might otherwise have been a countenance to foster confidence.

As for Mr. Karslake, he endured this candid scrutiny with a faintly apprehensive smile, but volunteered nothing more; so that, when the silence in time acquired an accent of constraint, it was Sofia who had to break it, not Mr. Karslake.

“I’m wondering about you,” she explained quite gravely.

“One fancied as much, Princess Sofia.”

She liked his way of saying that; the title seemed to fall naturally from his lips, without a trace of irony. None the less, it wouldn’t do to be too readily influenced in his favour.

“Do you really know my father?”

“Rather!” said Mr. Karslake. “You see, I’m his secretary.”

“How long—”

“Upward of eighteen months now.”

“And how long have you known I was his daughter?”

Mr. Karslake, consulting a wrist-watch, permitted himself a quiet smile.

“Thirty-eight minutes,” he announced—“say, thirty-nine.”

“But how did you find out—?”

“Your father called me up—can’t say from where—said he’d just learned you were acting as cashier at the Café des Exiles, and would I be good enough to take you firmly by the hand and lead you home.”

“And how did he learn—?”

“That he didn’t say. ’Fraid you’ll have to ask him, Princess Sofia.”

Genuinely diverted by the cross-examination, he awaited with unruffled good humour the next question to be put by this amazingly collected and direct young person. But Sofia hesitated. She didn’t want to be rude, and Karslake seemed to be telling a tolerably straight story; still, she couldn’t altogether believe in him as yet. She couldn’t help it if his visit to the restaurant had been a shade too opportune, his account of himself too confoundedly pat.

No: she wasn’t in the least afraid. Even if she were being kidnapped, she wasn’t afraid. She was so young, so absurdly confident in her ability to take care of herself. On the other hand, intuition kept admonishing her that in real life things simply didn’t happen like this, so smoothly, so fortunately; somehow, somewhere, in this curious affair, something must be wrong.

“Please: what is my father’s name?”

“Prince Victor Vassilyevski.”

“You’re sure it isn’t Michael Lanyard?”

Now Mr. Karslake was genuinely startled and showed it. Sofia remarked that he eyed her uneasily.

“My sainted aunt! Where did you get hold of that name?”

“Isn’t it my father’s?”

“Ye-es,” the young man admitted, reluctantly; at least with something strongly resembling reluctance. “But he doesn’t use it any more.”

“Why not?”

Mr. Karslake was silent, thoughtful. Sofia felt that she had scored and with determination pressed her point.

“Do you mind telling me why he doesn’t use that name, if it’s his?”

“See here, Princess Sofia”—Karslake slewed round to face her squarely with his most earnest and persuasive manner—“I am merely Prince Victor’s secretary, I’m not supposed to know all his secrets, and those I do know I’m supposed not to talk about. I’d much rather you put that question to Prince Victor yourself.”

“I shall,” Sofia announced with decision. “When am I to see him? To-night?”

“Of course. That is, I presume you will. I mean to say, Prince Victor wasn’t at home when I left, but if I know him he’s sure to be when we arrive. And I’m taking you there as directly as a motor can travel in this blessed town.”

Sofia looked out of the window. The car, having turned down Regent Street from Piccadilly Circus, was now traversing sedate Pall Mall; and in another moment it swung into the passage between St. James’s Palace and Marlborough House Chapel; and then they were in The Mall, with the Victoria Memorial ahead, glowing against the dingy backing of Buckingham Palace.

Now, since all Sofia’s reading had inculcated the belief that the enterprising kidnapper always made off with his victim by way of dark bystreets and unsavoury neighbourhoods, she felt somewhat reassured.

“Have we very far to go?”

“We’re almost there now—Queen Anne’s Gate.”

A good enough address. Though that proved nothing. There was still plenty of time, anything might happen....

Sofia shrugged, and settled back to await developments.

But there was nothing to warrant misgivings in the aspect of the dwelling before which the car presently drew up. If it wasn’t the palace Sofia had unconsciously been looking forward to, it owned a solid, dull-faced dignity that suited well the town-house of a person of quality, it measured up quite acceptably to Sofia’s notion of what was becoming to the condition of a prince in exile—who naturally would live quietly, in view of the recent revolution in Russia.

Without augmented fears, then, though still on the alert for anything that might seem questionable, and more agitated with excitement than she let him suspect, Sofia permitted Mr. Karslake to conduct her to the door.

He had barely touched the bell-button when this door opened, revealing a vista of spacious entrance-hall.

To one side stood a manservant to whom Sofia paid no attention till the sound of his name on Karslake’s tongue struck an echo from her memory. “Thanks, Nogam. Prince Victor home yet?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“Tell him, please, when he comes in, we’re waiting in the study.”

“’Nk-you, sir.”

The servant was the man whom Karslake had met in the Café des Exiles only a few hours before. Catching Sofia’s quick, questioning glance, Nogam paused at respectful attention. And, even then, she was struck again with his fidelity to the rôle in the social system for which Life had cast him. In the café, that afternoon, he had cut a mildly incongruous figure, unpretending but alien to that atmosphere; here, in the plain evening-dress livery of his station, he blended perfectly into the picture.

Karslake gave his hat and stick to the man, then opened one wing of a great double doorway, and with a bow invited Sofia to precede him. She faltered, hazily conceiving that threshold in the guise of an inglorious Rubicon. But she had already gone too far into this adventure to draw back now without forfeiting her self-respect. With a deceptively firm step she entered a room to wonder at.

Sombre shadows masked much of its magnificent proportions, but what Sofia could see suggested less the study of a man of everyday interests than the private museum of an Orientalist whose wealth knew no limits.

The air was warm and close, aromatic with the ghosts of ten thousand perished perfumes. The quiet, when Karslake had closed the door, was oppressive, as if some dark enchantment here had power to tame and silence the growl of London that was never elsewhere in all the city for an instant still.

On a great table of black teakwood inlaid with mother of pearl burned a solitary lamp, a curious affair in filigree of brass, furnishing what illumination there was. Its closely shaded rays made vaguely visible walls dark with books, tier upon tier climbing to the ceiling; chairs of odd shape, screens of glowing lacquer; tables and stands supporting caskets of burning cinnabar, of ivory, of gold, of kaleidoscopic cloisonné; trays heaped high with unset jewels; cabinets crowded with rare objects of Eastern art; squat shapes of neglected gods brandishing weird weapons; grotesque devil masks ferociously a-grin; chests of strange woods strangely fashioned, strangely carved, and decorated with inlays of precious metals, banded with huge straps of black iron, from which gushed in rainbow profusion silks and brocades stiff with barbaric embroideries in gold- and silver-thread and precious stones.

Confused by the impact upon her perceptions of so much that was unexpected and bizarre, the girl looked round with an uncertain smile, and found Karslake watching her with a manner of peculiar gravity and concern.

“Prince Victor is an extraordinary man,” Karslake replied to her unspoken comment; “probably the most learned Orientalist alive. Sometimes I think the East has never had a secret he doesn’t know.”

He paused and drew nearer, with added earnestness in his regard.

“Princess Sofia,” said he, diffidently, “if I may say something without meaning to seem disrespectful—”

Perplexed, she encouraged him with one word: “Please.”

“I’m afraid,” Karslake ventured, “you will have many strange experiences in this new life. Some of them, I fancy, you won’t immediately understand, some things may seem wrong to you, you may find yourself confronted with conditions hard to accept ...”

He rested as if in doubt, and she fancied that he was listening intently, almost apprehensively, for some signal of warning. But on her part Sofia heard no sound.

Impressed and puzzled, she uttered a prompting “Yes?”

“I only want to say”—he employed a tone so low that she could barely hear him—“if you don’t mind—whatever happens—I’d be awf’ly glad if you’d think of me as one who sincerely wants to be your friend.”

“Why,” she said in wonder—“thank you. I shall be glad—”

She checked in astonishment: a man was approaching from the general direction of the door by which they had entered.

The effect was uncanny, as if the figure had materialized before her very eyes, out of clear air, as if one of those many shadows had taken on shape and substance while she looked.

The man himself was nothing unusual in general aspect, of no remarkable stature, neither tall nor small, neither robust nor slender. His evening clothes were without fault, but as much might be said of ten thousand men who might be seen any night in the public rendezvous of leisured London. His carriage had special distinction only in that he moved with a sort of feline grace. Still, something elusive made him unlike any other man Sofia had ever met, something arresting and not altogether prepossessing.

As he drew nearer and his features became more clearly defined by the light, she was sensible of gazing into a face of unique cast. Of an odd grayish pallor accentuated by hair so black that it might have been painted on his skull with india-ink, the skin seemed to be as soft and smooth as a child’s, beardless and wholly without lustre. The mouth was sensuous yet firm, with hard, full lips. Leaden pouches hung beneath heavy-lidded eyes set at a noticeable angle. The eyes themselves were as black as night and as lightless; the rays of the lamp struck no gleam from them; in spite of this they were compelling, masterful, and disconcerting.

Karslake at once fell back, with a bow so low it was little less than an obeisance.

“Prince Victor!”

The man nodded acknowledgment of this greeting without detaching attention from the girl. His voice, slightly tremulous with emotion, uttered her name: “Sofia?”

She collected herself with an effort. “I am Sofia,” she replied almost mechanically.

“And I, your father...”

Prince Victor lifted hands of singular delicacy, slender and tapering, whose long fingers were dressed with many curious rings.

A reluctance she could not understand hindered Sofia from going gladly into those arms. She had to make herself yield. They tightened hungrily about her. She closed her eyes and experienced a slight, invincible shudder.

“My child!”

The lips that touched her forehead astonished her with their warmth. Instinctively she had expected them to be cool, as frigid as the effect of that strange mask of which they formed a part.

Then, held at arm’s-length, she submitted to an inspection whose sum was enunciated with a strange smile of gratification:

“You are beautiful.”

In embarrassment she murmured: “I am glad you think so—father.”

“As beautiful as your mother—in her time the most beautiful creature in the world—her image, a flawless reproduction, even to her colouring, the shade of the hair, the eyes—so like the sea!”

“I am glad,” the girl repeated, nervously.

“And until to-night I did not know you lived!”

She mustered up courage enough to ask: “How—?”

The heavy lids drooped lower over the illegible eyes. “My attention was called to a newspaper advertisement signed by a firm of solicitors. I got in touch with them—a matter of some difficulty, since it was after business hours—and found out where to look for you. Then, prevented from acting as quickly as I wished, myself, I sent Karslake here to bring you to me.”

“But, according to their letter, the solicitors thought I was in France, in a convent!”

“When they advertised for me—yes. But by the time I enquired they were better informed.”

“But the advertisement was addressed to Michael Lanyard!”

The thin lips formed a faint smile. “That was once my name. I no longer use it.”

Against a feeling that she was adopting an attitude both undutiful and unbecoming, Sofia persisted.

“Why?”

Prince Victor Vassilyevski gave a gesture of pain and reluctance.

“Must I tell you? Why not? You must know some day, as well now as later, perhaps. Twenty years ago the name of Michael Lanyard was famous throughout Europe—or shall I say infamous?—the name of the greatest thief of modern times, otherwise known as ‘The Lone Wolf’.”

Involuntarily, Sofia stepped back, as if some shape of horror had been suddenly thrust before her face.

“The Lone Wolf!” she echoed in a voice of dismay. “A thief! You!”

The man who called himself her father replied with a series of slow, affirmative nods.

“That startles you?” he said in an indulgent voice. “Naturally. But you will soon grow accustomed to the thought, you will condone that chapter in my history, remembering I am no longer that man, no longer a thief, that for many years now my record has been without reproach. You will remember that there is more joy in Heaven over the one sinner who repents ... You will forgive the father, if only for your mother’s sake.”

“For my mother’s sake—?”

“What the Lone Wolf was in his day, your mother was in hers—the most brilliant adventuress Europe ever knew.”

“Oh!” cried the girl in semi-hysterical protest. “Oh, no, no! Impossible!”

“I assure you, it is quite true. Some day I may tell you her history—and mine. For the present, you will do well to think no more about what I have confessed. Repining can never mend the past. It is to-day and to-morrow you must think of: that you are restored to me, and that I have not only the means but a great hunger to make you happy, to gratify your slightest whim.”

“I want nothing!” Sofia insisted, wildly.

“You want sleep,” Prince Victor corrected, fondly—“you want it badly. You are nervous, overstrung, in no condition to understand the great good fortune that has befallen you. But to-morrow you will see things in a rosier light.”

Apparently he had manipulated some signal unremarked by Sofia. The door opened, framing the figure of the man Nogam. Without looking round, but with an inscrutable smile, Prince Victor took the girl in his arms again and held her close.

“You rang, sir?”

“Oh, are you there, Nogam? Is the apartment ready for the Princess Sofia?”

“Quite ready, sir.”

“Be good enough to conduct her to it.” Again Prince Victor kissed Sofia’s forehead, then let her go. “Good-night, my child.”

Moving slowly toward the door, drooping, Sofia made inarticulate response. She felt suddenly stupefied with fatigue. To think meant an effort that mocked her flagging powers. A vast lassitude was weighing upon her, body and spirit were faint in the enervation of an inexorable disconsolation.

VI THE MUMMER

Alone with his secretary, Prince Victor Vassilyevski dropped indifferently the guise of manner with which he had clothed himself for the benefit of the woman whom he claimed as his own child. That semblance of shy affection coloured by regrets for the past and modified by the native nobility of a prince in exile—so becoming in a parent to whose bosom a daughter whom he had never seen was suddenly restored—being of no more service for the present, was incontinently discarded. In its stead Victor favoured Karslake with a slow smile of understanding that broadened into an insuppressible grin of successful malice, a grimace of crude exultation through which peered out the impish savage mutinously imprisoned within a flimsy husk of modern manner.

Suspecting this self-betrayal, he erased the grin swiftly, but not so swiftly that Karslake failed to note it. And the young man, smiling amiably and respectfully in return, was sensible of a thrill: yet another glimpse had been given him into the mystery that slept behind that countenance normally so impenetrable.

But he was studious to show nothing of his own emotion. It was his part to be merely a mirror, to reflect rather than to feel, to be an instrument infinitely supple and unfailing, never an independent intelligence. Not otherwise could he count on holding his place in Victor’s favour.

“You were quicker than I hoped.”

“I had no trouble, sir,” Karslake returned, cheerfully. “Things rather played into my hands.”

Victor dropped into a chair beside the table and lifted the lid of a small golden casket. Helping himself to one of its store of cigarettes, he made Karslake free of the remainder with a gracious hand. The secretary demurred, producing his pocket case.

“If you don’t mind, sir ...”

Victor moved a supercilious eyebrow. “Woodbines again?”

“Sorry, sir; I know they’re pretty awful and all that, but they were all I could get in France, and I contracted a taste for them I can’t seem to cure. I remember, while I lay in a hospital, hardly a whole bone in my body, thanks to the Boche and his flying circus—it was that lot sent me crashing, you know—the nurses used to tempt me with the finest Turkish; but somehow I couldn’t go them; I’d beg for Woodbines.”

Prince Victor dismissed the subject curtly. “I am waiting to hear about Sofia.”

“Not much to tell, sir. There seemed to be a storm of sorts brewing when I got there. The young woman was at her desk with a face like a thundercloud. While I was trying to make up my mind what would be my best approach, she jumped down, flew upstairs and, I gathered, kicked up a holy row. You see, she’d seen that advertisement of Secretan & Sypher’s, and smelt a rat.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing definite, sir: seemed to understand she was the daughter of Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, only she objected to her father being anybody but Michael Lanyard.”

“Go on.”

“After a bit she stampeded downstairs again, with the old girl and that swine of a Dupont at her heels. I blocked him and gave Sofia a chance to get outside. The whole establishment boiled out into the street after us, yelling like fun, but I got the girl into the car ... and here we are.”

But Prince Victor seemed to have lost interest. The glow ebbing from his face, his lips tightening, the thick lids drooping low over his eyes, he sat in apparent abstraction, aping the impassivity of the graven idols that graced his study.

“I don’t mind owning, sir,” the younger man resumed, nervously, “she had me sparring for wind when she put it to me point-blank her father’s name was Michael Lanyard.”

Without moving Victor enquired in a dull voice: “What did you tell her?”

“That it was a name you had once used, sir, but.... Well, what you told her, all except the Lone Wolf business. Don’t mind telling you I was in a rare funk till you capped my story so neatly.”

He laughed and ventured with a hesitation quite boyish: “I say, Prince Victor—if it’s not an impertinent question—was there any truth in that? I mean about your having been the Lone Wolf twenty years ago.”

“Not a syllable,” said Victor, dryly.

“Then your name never was Michael Lanyard?”

“Never, but ...”

During a long pause the secretary fidgeted inwardly but had the wisdom to refrain from showing further inquisitiveness. He could see that strong passions were working in Victor: a hand, extended upon the table, unclosed and closed with a peculiar clutching action; the muscles contracted round mouth and eyes, moulding the face into a cast of disquieting malevolence. The voice, when at length it resumed, was bitter.

“But Michael Lanyard was my enemy ... and is to-day.... He became a lover of Sofia’s mother, he had a hand in overturning plans I had made, he humiliated, mocked me.... And to-day he is interfering again.... But ...”

Victor sank back in his chair. Suddenly that unholy grin of his flashed and faded.

“But now his impertinence fails, his insolence over-reaches itself. Now I have the whip-hand and ... I shall use it!”

Vindictiveness that could find relief only in action mastered the man.

“Be good enough to take this dictation.”

Karslake turned to the table and opened a portfolio of illuminated Spanish leather.

“Ready, sir,” he said, with pencil poised.

_“To Michael Lanyard, Intelligence Division, the War Office, Whitehall. Sir: Your daughter Sofia is now with me. Permit me to suggest that, in consideration of this situation, you cease to meddle with my affairs. Your own intelligence must tell you nothing could be more fatal than an attempt to communicate with her.”_

“Sign on the typewriter with the initial _V_.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Type it on plain paper, use a plain envelope, be sure that neither has a watermark, and get it off to-night without fail. Take a taxi to St. Pancras station and post it there. If you make haste you can get it in a pillar-box before the last collection.”

“I shan’t lose a minute, sir.”

Karslake straightened up, folding the paper, and made for the door.

“One moment, Karslake.... This man, Nogam: where did you pick him up?”

“He used to buttle for my father, sir, but got into trouble—some domestic unpleasantness, I believe—needed money, and raised a cheque. The old boy let him off easy; but I’ve got the cheque, and Nogam knows it. The fellow’s perfectly trained and absolutely dependable, knows his place and his duties and not another blessed thing. I’ll send him in if you like.”

Prince Victor uttered with dry accent: “Why?”

“Thought you might care to have a talk with him, sir.”

“I have.”

“Oh!” Mr. Karslake exclaimed—“I didn’t know.”

“Quite so,” commented Prince Victor. “I shan’t need you again to-night, Karslake.”

“Good-night, sir.”

When the secretary had gone, Victor sat motionless, so still that his breathing scarcely stirred his body, with a face absolutely imperturbable, steadfastly gazing into that darkness which shrouded the workings of his mind.

On the doorstep a shrill whistle sounded: Nogam calling Karslake’s taxi. Victor heard the vehicle roll in and stand panting at the curb, then the slam of its door, the diminishing rumble of its departure.

The house door closed, and after a little the study door opened, and Nogam halted on the threshold.

Unstirring Victor enquired: “What is it, Nogam?”

“I wished to enquire would there be anything more to-night, sir.”

“Nothing.”

“’Nk you, sir.”

“But Nogam: in this house, regardless of the custom which may have obtained in other establishments where you have served, you will always knock before entering a room, and never enter until you obtain permission.”

“But if I’m sure the room is empty, sir, and get no answer—?”

“Then you may enter any room but this. Never this, unless I am here—or Mr. Karslake is—and you get leave.”

“’Nk you, sir.”

“Good-night.”

As the door closed Victor extended a thin, effeminate hand to a casket of ivory, searched with sensitive finger-tips its exquisite tracery until a cunningly hidden spring responded and the lid, splitting in two, sank down into its walls. In the pocket thus revealed were many pills, apparently hand-moulded, of a grayish-brown substance, putty-soft.

Slowly Victor selected three, placed one after another upon his tongue, and swallowed them.

He shut the casket and sat waiting.

Slowly the keenness of his countenance became blurred, as if the hand of an unseen sculptor were rubbing down its features, doing away the veneer with which Europe had overlaid the primitive Asiatic, which now showed on the surface, in every detail of coarsely modelled nose, oblique eyes of animal cunning, pendulous lips cruel and sensual.

By degrees a faint trace of colour began to flush Victor’s cheeks, a smile modified the set of his mouth, the heavy-lidded eyes lost their lustreless opacity and glimmered with uncanny light.

He breathed deeply, evenly, with an evident relish. The action of the opium was visibly renewing his powers. His expression, softening, became terrible with brute tenderness and longing. Gazing into shadows in which he saw that which he wished ardently to see, he stretched forth his arms, and his lips moved, shaping a name:

“Sofia!”

As those syllables, freighted with that undying passion which consumed the man, sounded upon the stillness, Victor turned sharply, with a gesture of irritation, looking aside, listening.

Instantaneously the Asiatic disappeared, thrust back into its habitual latency within the prison of European: Prince Victor was as he had been, as always to the world, cool, composed, and crafty, master, never creature, of his emotions.

A faint buzzing was audible, broken by muffled clicks.

Rising, Victor approached a table in a corner and with a key from his pocket ring unlocked a heavy casket of bronze. As he raised its cover a small electric bulb illuminated the interior, focussing on the paper-covered face of a mechanical writing device, upon which a pencil with a broad flat lead operated by a metal arm was tracing characters resembling the hieroglyphics of the Chinese.

When the clicking ceased and the pencil was at rest, Victor caught an end of the paper and pulled it forward until a blank surface again occupied the writing-bed. Upon this with another pencil he inscribed a reply, then closed and relocked the casket.

Back at the table with the lamp, the message just received became crisp black ash on a brazen tray.

From a locked chest Victor produced an inverness and a soft hat of black felt. Wearing these he moved quietly out of the lamp’s radius of light, and made himself one with the shadows that crowded one another round the walls. He did not leave by the hall door; but of a sudden the room was untenanted.

VII THE FANTASTICS

Downstream from The Pool, a little way below Shadwell, an uncouth row of dilapidated dwellings in those days stood—or, better, squatted, like a mute company of draggletail crones—atop a river-wall whose ancient blocks, all ropy with the slime of centuries, peered dimly out through groups of crazy spiles at the restless pageant of Thames-life.

Viewed by day, say from the deck of a river steamer, the spectacle they offered was, according to bias of mood and disposition, unlovely and drear or colourful and romantic: Whistler might have etched these houses, Dickens have staged therein a lowly tragedy, Thomas Burke have made of one a frame for some vignette unforgettable of Limehouse life.

Builded of stone or brick or both as to their landward faces, without exception they presented to the river false backs of wooden framework which overhung the water. Ordinarily, their windows were tight-shut, the panes opaque with accumulated grime—many were broken and boarded. Their look was dismal, their squalor desperate.

Below, by day, heavy wherries swung moored to the ooze-clad spiles or, when the tide was out, sprawled upon stinking mud-flats with a gesture of pathetic helplessness peculiar to stranded watercraft. Seldom was one observed in use: to all seeming they existed for purposes of atmosphere alone.

More seldom still did any dwelling betray evidence of inhabitation beyond faint wisps of smoke, like ghosts of famine, drifting from the chimneypots, or—perhaps—some unabashed exhibit of red flannel hung out to dry with wrist or ankle-bands nipped between a window-sash and sill.

By night, however, a stir of furtive life was to be surmised from cryptic lights that flared and faded behind the crusted window-glass or fell through opened floor-traps to the thick black element that swirled about the spiles, and from guarded calls as well, inarticulate cries of hate and love and pain, rumours of close and crude carousal.

And ever and again the belated riverfarer would encounter one of the wherries, its long oars swung by brawny arms and backs, stealing secretly across the inky waters on some errand no less dark.

On land the buildings lined a cobbled street, from dawn to dark a thoroughfare for thundering lorries and, twice daily, in murk of early morning and gloom of early night, scoured by a nondescript rabble employed in the vast dockyards whose man-made forests of masts and cordage, funnels and cranes, on either hand lifted angular black silhouettes against the misty silver of the sky.

Black and white and yellow and brown, men of every race and skin, they came and went, their brief hours loud with babel of strange tongues and a scuffling of countless feet like the sound of surf; and their goings left the street strangely hushed, a way of sinister reticences, its winding length ill-lighted by infrequent corner-lamps, its mephitic glooms enlivened by windows of public houses all saffron with specious promise of purchasable good-fellowship.

One of these, the Red Moon, faced the row of waterfront houses, standing at the intersection of a street which struck inland to the pulsing heart of Limehouse. A retired bully of the prize-ring ruled with a high hand over its several bars and many patrons, yellow men and white girls, deck-hands and dock-workers, pugilistic and criminal celebrities of the quarter, and their sycophants. Its revels rendered the nights cacophonous, its portals sucked in streams of sweethearts and more impersonal lovers of life and laughter, and spewed out sots close-locked in embraces of maudlin affection or brutal combat. Bobbies kept an eye on the Red Moon, a respectful one: interference with the time-hallowed customs and prerogatives of its clientèle was something to be adventured with extreme discretion.

Out of the hinterland of Limehouse, a tall man came to the Red Moon that night, walking with long, loose-jointed strides, holding his head high and looking over the heads of all he passed with a fixed, far gaze. He had a hatchet-face, sallow, with lantern jaws, a petulant mouth, hot eyes that showed too much white above their pupils. A lank black mane greased his collar. His garments, shoddy but whole, were stained and bleached in spots, apparently the work of acids, and so wrinkled and shapeless as to suggest that their owner slept without undressing as a matter of habit. The pockets of his coat bulged noticeably.

Shouldering heedlessly into the saloon-bar, he found it deserted except for a chinless potman: the liveliest evening trade was always plied in the cheaper bars adjacent.

One glance sufficed to identify him: with a surly nod the potman ducked behind a partition to call the proprietor. Drinks were in order when this last appeared; and a brief conference in undertones ended when, having made careful reconnaissance, the publican nodded shortly to the patron, a jerk of his thumb designating a small door let into the wall to one side of the bar proper.

Through this the tall man passed to find himself upon a dark stairway, at the foot of which another door admitted to an underground chamber where an apparently exclusive social gathering was in session of Saturnalia.

In one corner a long-suffering piano was taking cruel punishment at the hands of a flashily dressed, sharp-faced man of horsey type. Flanking him, two young women of the world, with that insouciance which appertains—in Limehouse—to sweet sixteen, were chanting shrilly to his accompaniment: both more than comfortably drunk. In the middle of the room assorted lawbreakers gathered round a table were playing fan-tan at the top of their lungs. At smaller tables men and women sat consuming poisons of which they were obviously in no crying need; while in bunks builded against one wall devotees of the pipe reclined in various stages of beatitude. The air was hot, and foul with cigarette smoke, sickening fumes of sizzling opium, effluvia of beer and spirits, sour reek of sweating flesh.

Incurious glances greeted the newcomer: none paid him more heed than an indifferent nod. On his part, brief but comprehensive survey having deepened the stamp of scorn upon his features, he ignored them all and, proceeding directly to a bunk of the lowermost tier, aroused its occupant with a smart tap on the shoulder.

The ostensible drug-addict looked up dreamily, then opened his eyes wide, with surprising docility rolled out and, uttering no word, lurched to the fan-tan table. The tall man took his place, lay down, and drew together the unclean curtains of sleazy stuff provided to afford privacy to shrinking souls. This done, he turned on his side and knuckled in peculiar rhythm the back of the bunk, a solid panel which slipped smoothly to one side, permitting the man to tumble out into still another room, a cheerless place, with floor of stone and the smell of a vault.

When the panel had slipped back into place, closing out the bunk, the man stood in night absolute. But after a minute a slender beam of golden light struck suddenly athwart the darkness and found his face. This he endured impassively, only lifting a hand to describe an obscure sign. Immediately the light was shut off, a door opened in the wall opposite, dull light from behind disclosed the silhouette of a man in Chinese robes, his head inclined in a bow of courteous dignity.

In good English but with musical Eastern inflection a voice gave greeting:

“Good evening, Thirteen. You are awaited—and welcome!”

“Good evening, Shaik Tsin,” the European replied in heavy un-English accents. “Number One is here, yes?”

“Not yet. But we have just received a telautographic message saying he is on his way.”

Nodding impatiently, Thirteen passed through the door, which the Chinaman quickly closed and barred.

The chamber to which one gained admittance by ways so devious and fantastic was large—exactly how large it was difficult to guess, since all its walls were screened by black silk panels upon which golden dragons writhed and crawled. A thick carpet of black covered every inch of visible floor space, a black silk canopy hid the ceiling, and all the room was in deep shadow save the space immediately beneath a great lamp of opalescent glass, likewise draped in black.

Here stood an octagonal table of black teakwood, on seven sides of which seven chairs were placed. When Thirteen had taken his seat all these were occupied. On the eighth side an eighth chair stood empty on a low dais, the heavy carving of its high back, its massive arms and legs, picked out with gold.

The six who had anticipated Thirteen at this bizarre rendezvous hailed him as a familiar, according to their several idiosyncrasies, brusquely, indifferently, or with some semblance of cordiality. They made a motley crew.

Two were Englishman in appearance, though the figure of languid elegance in evening dress that might have graced the lounge of a West End club had a voice soft with Celtic brogue. The other owned a gross body clothed in loud checks and, with his mean blue eyes, his mottled complexion, and cunning leer, would not have seemed out of place in a betting-ring.

Aside from these there were a moon-faced Bengali babu, a dark Italian with flashing eyes and teeth, and a stout person of bovine Teutonic cast—the type that is sage, shrewd, easy-going when unopposed, but capable under provocation of exhibiting the most conscienceless brutality.

From this last Thirteen got his warmest welcome.

“You are late, mine friend.”

“In good time, however,” Thirteen responded with a nod toward the vacant chair. “More than that, the summons was handed me only twenty minutes ago.”

“How was that?” the babu asked. “It was sent at six o’clock.”

“I was at work in the laboratory and had left orders I was not to be disturbed. But for one thing”—the petulance of Thirteen’s habitual expression was lightened by a flash of self-gratulation, and his voice shook a little with excitement—“I might not have received the summons before morning.”

“And that one thing?”

“Success, comrades! At last—after months of experimentation—I have been successful!”

“’Ow?” dryly demanded the man in the checked suit.

“I have discovered a great secret—discovered, perfected, adapted it to common means at our command. Comrades, I tell you, to-night we hold all England in the hollow of our hands!”

With an incoherent exclamation and eyes afire the Russian sat forward. Unconsciously the others imitated his action. Only the man in evening dress made a show of remaining unimpressed.

“It’s fine, fat words you’re after using,” he commented. “‘All England in the hollow of our hands!’ If they mean anything at all, comrade, they mean—”

“Everything!” Thirteen cut in with arrogant assertiveness; “all we’ve been waiting for, hoping for, praying for—the end of the ruling classes, extinction of the accursed aristocrats, subjugation of the thrice-damned bourgeois, the triumph of the proletariat, all at a single stroke, swift, subtle, and sure! Freedom for Ireland, freedom for India, freedom for England, the speedy spreading of that red dawn which lights the Russian skies to-day, till all the wide world basks in its warm radiance and acclaims us, comrades, its redeemers!”

“Lieber Gott!” the German breathed. “Colossal!”

“’Ear, ’ear!” the Englishman applauded, perfunctory and skeptical. “Bli’me if you didn’t mike me forget where I was—’ad me thinking I was in ’Yde Park, you did, listening to a bloody horator on a box.”

“You may laugh,” Thirteen replied with a sour glance; “but when you have heard, you will not laugh. I am not boasting—I am telling you.”

“Not a great deal,” the Irishman suggested. “Your mouth is full of sounds and fury, but till you tell us more you’ll have told us nothing.”

The face of Thirteen grew darker still, and for a moment he seemed to meditate an angry retort; but he thought better of it, contenting himself with an impatient movement and a mutter: “All in good time; Number One is not here yet.”

“W’y wyste time w’itin’ for ’im?” demanded the Englishman. “’E’s no good, ’e’s done.”

Thirteen’s eyes narrowed. “How so?”

“’E’s done, Number One is—finished, counted out, napoo! ’E’s ’ad ’is d’y, and a pretty mess ’e’s mide of it—and it’s ’igh time, I say, for ’im to step down and let a better man tike ’old.”

Growls in chorus endorsed this declaration of mutiny; but suddenly were stilled by a voice, sonorous and calm, from outside the circle:

“You think so, Seven? Well—who knows?—perhaps you are right.”

VIII COUNCIL OF THE GODLESS

Someone exclaimed in an accent of alarm: “Number One!”

With a concerted turning of startled heads, a hasty thrusting back of chairs, the gathering rose in involuntary deference. That is, five rose as one; and, after a moment during which his spirit of insubordination faltered and failed, the Englishman got awkwardly to his feet and stood abashed and sullen.

The one to remain seated was the Irishman so well turned out by Conduit Street; who made no move more than slightly to elevate supercilious brows and slouch a little lower in his chair, glancing from face to face of the circle, then back to the cold countenance presented by the author of the abrupt interruption.

This last stood quietly beside the eighth chair, a hand on its carved arm, one foot on the edge of the dais. A long robe of black silk enveloped him; on its bosom a Chinese unicorn was embroidered. His girdle clasp was of Imperial jade set with rubies. The girdle itself was yellow. A great ruby button, nearly an inch in diameter, set in a mounting of worked gold, crowned a hat like an inverted round bowl. His black silk shoes were heavy with golden embroidery, and had white soles an inch thick. Authority lent inches to his stature, so that he seemed to dominate his company physically as well as spiritually.

A pace or two in the rear Shaik Tsin, with impassive face and arms folded in voluminous sleeves, waited as might a bodyguard.

A sardonic glimmer in eyes half visible under heavy lids alone betrayed relish of the situation, the homage commanded and the sensation created by this inopportune and unheralded arrival: deliberately Number One mounted the dais and posed himself in the throne-like chair. Then, as his look read face after face, he smiled with twitching and disdainful nostrils.

“Gentlemen of the Council,” he said, slowly, “I bow to you all. Pray be seated.”

In confounded silence the six resumed their seats, while the seventh—who had not moved—lighted a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and through a veil of smoke continued to regard Number One with insolent eyes.

“I fear my arrival was ill-timed, gentlemen. Seven had the floor, and I confess to finding what I happened to overhear extremely interesting. If he will be good enough to continue ...”

The Irishman gave a light, derisive laugh. Shifting uneasily in his chair, the man in the checked suit flushed darkly, then stiffened his spine, hardened his eyes, set his jaw, and faced Number One defiantly.

“You ’eard ... I ’olds by w’at I said.”

“I am to understand, then, you think it time for me to abdicate and let another lead you in my stead?”

The Englishman assented with an inarticulate monosyllable and a surly nod.

“And may one ask why?”

“Blue’s plice in Pekin Street was r’ided this afternoon,” Seven announced truculently. “But per’aps you didn’t know—”

“Not until some time before the news reached you,” One replied, pleasantly. “And what of it?”

“Three fycers in a week, Gov’ner—anybody’ll tell you that’s comin’ it a bit thick.”

“Granted. What then?”

“That’s only part of it. Tike last week: Eighteen pinched, the queer plant in ’Igh Street pulled by the coppers—”

“I know, I know. To your point!”

Seven hesitated under that steely stare. “I leave it to you, Gov’ner,” he continued to stammer at length. “S’y you was me and I was Number One—w’at would you think?”

“Why, quite naturally, that some superior intelligence has latterly been collaborating with Scotland Yard.”

“Aren’t you a bit behindhand in arriving at that conclusion?” the Irishman suggested with an ill-dissembled sneer.

“No, Eleven,” Number One replied, mildly, “since I arrived at it some time since.”

“But took no measures—”

“You are in a position to state that as a fact?”

Eleven shrugged lightly. “Need I be? Does not our situation speak for itself?”

“Since you cannot be as thoroughly acquainted as I am with the situation, and since it seems I am required to account for my leadership or surrender it to you, Eleven ... I believe you have selected yourself to replace me as Number One, have you not?—that is to say, in the improbable event of my abdication.”

“Improbable?” repeated the Irishman. “I wouldn’t call it that.”

“You are right,” Number One assented, gravely: “unthinkable is the word. But you haven’t answered my question.”

“Oh, as for that, if the Council should see fit to appoint me Number One, I’d naturally do my best.”

“And most noble of you, I’m sure. But rather than bring down any such disaster upon this organization, I will say now that measures have already been taken, and I am to-night in a position to promise you that the new spirit in Scotland Yard will no longer be a factor in our calculations.”

“That wants proving,” Eleven contended.