Chapter XII: The Divine Figure of the North

“Dear Wylie,--I am sorry to have to tell you that in consequence of the action of the authorities in sending troops against them, Stoyan and his band have now increased the ransom they demand for us to twenty thousand pounds. They also say that if the pursuit continues, first one and then another of us will be killed, and the ransom for the remaining one will be raised by five thousand pounds a-week. I tell you honestly that the efforts of the troops can have no result beyond irritating the brigands and making our position worse, and that we are at this moment hidden where I believe no power on earth could find us. The ladies agree with me, very reluctantly.--Yours truly,

“Maurice Smith.
“Zoe Smith.
“Eirene Smith.”

This was written on the upper half of a sheet from Zoe’s large note-book, and at the foot appeared the following, which could be torn off before the recipient made the first portion public:--

“For goodness’ sake, Wylie, drop it. Your intentions are excellent, but they don’t seem to come off. The girls are half-dead with exhaustion after the way you have been hunting us about, and we are at present cheerfully accommodated underground, with only the faintest glimmer of light. I couldn’t tell you where we are if I would, and I wouldn’t if I could. For some reason or other the brigands have taken a dislike to you, and if you persist in staying up here, I am given to understand that you will find yourself confronted with our dead bodies in various uncomfortable attitudes. Cut away to Therma and hurry up that ransom. This is the kindest thing you can do for us.”

On his return from the vain pursuit of the brigands which followed the meeting with the routed detachment, Wylie discovered this letter pinned with a dagger to the doorpost of the house where he had taken up his quarters. None of the villagers had seen who brought it, and no one could offer any suggestion on the subject, but whether the universal ignorance was real, or the result of a secret understanding with the brigands, did not appear. The letter had the desired effect, sending Wylie back to Therma in something more nearly approaching panic than he had ever known. He was not as reckless of the lives of his friends as he had appeared, but he had undoubtedly brought them into imminent peril, though his course had been adopted in utter desperation. His first appearance at Therma, bearing the story of what had happened and the demand for a ransom, had been the signal for the commencement of a wild tragi-comedy of irresponsibility. The Roumi authorities declared flatly that there were no brigands in Emathia, so that it was obviously impossible that the travellers could have been carried off by brigands. The British representatives, to whom Wylie appealed at the same time, cherished grave doubts as to the wisdom of paying a ransom, since no British traveller in Emathia would be safe after such a precedent had been set. Professor Panagiotis, torn by conflicting emotions, proved almost equally unsatisfactory. He had found himself of late subjected to a disquieting espionage, which filled him with fear lest his plans had in some way been divined. In such a case, it seemed to him that his only chance was to grip his important secret more tightly than ever. Lest Wylie should make use of it to bring pressure on any of the Governments concerned, he kept it even from him, pooh-poohing his reminder of the explanations Maurice had promised him, and showing an uneasy curiosity on the subject of Eirene, for whose existence he could not account. He volunteered, indeed, to write to Maurice’s bankers, asking them to advance the money for the ransom, with the natural result that they demanded either a cheque signed by Maurice or an interview with Wylie and a sight of his authority, and Wylie could not bring himself to leave Emathia while his friends’ fate hung in the balance. The Professor’s sole useful contribution to the debate was the conviction that the outrage had been perpetrated by a band of Thracian marauders, with which the newspapers in his interest made Europe ring. The Thracian Government, approached on the subject, replied with virtuous indignation that its attitude was perfectly correct. It had always studiously discouraged--in the most official manner--the formation of such bands, and refused them permission to cross the frontier into Emathia. If the reprehensible activity of private persons had managed to organise a band, the authorities viewed it with entire detachment, and the Roumi Government was welcome to do as it liked with the members, when it caught them.

This acknowledgment that there might be foreign, though not native, brigands on the sacred soil of Emathia stirred the Roumi officials to a pitch of activity positively dangerous. Urged on by Professor Panagiotis and his adherents, they sent troops into the hills, and loudly proclaimed their intention of sweeping the miscreants from the face of the earth, and rescuing the captives without fee or reward. Into the vortex of this expedition Wylie was whirled, partly by the demand of the authorities that he should accompany the troops and behold the vengeance exacted, partly by his own hope that he might be able to make the measures taken effectual. His friend Palmer, smarting under the loss of the faithful Haji Ahmad, had willingly joined him in a bold journey through the heart of the brigands’ country, in the hope that the luggage so lavishly displayed would prove a bait sufficient to ensure their being carried off also, when the best trackers in the country, provided by Professor Panagiotis, would follow them up, and thus discover the brigands’ stronghold. Demo’s recognition of Wylie in his disguise had prevented this, but the journey had its fruit in the discovery of the boot-tracks of the captives, and thus enabled Wylie to lay his plans for a systematic search. As Maurice had conjectured, it was the torrent-bed, the use of which as a path he had not suspected, which had thrown him out when he felt certain that he had the brigands safe in one particular group of hills, and the carelessness of the detachment which had been sent on to hold the pass enabled his prey to slip through his fingers. Thus baffled, he had no alternative but to hurry back to Therma, in compliance with Maurice’s earnest request, only to find fresh discouragements awaiting him. Before leaving for the hills, he had written a full account of the capture to Maurice’s bankers, enclosing a certified copy of the first letter signed by the three captives, in the hope that they might be induced to depart from their attitude of severe correctness. Their answer had now arrived, making it evident that the worthy country gentlemen, who had known Maurice and Zoe all their lives, and their parents and grandparents before them, regarded the intrusion of Eirene into the letter as evidence of a not very cleverly constructed plot, concocted, it was to be presumed, by Wylie and Professor Panagiotis, for the purpose of extorting money. Whether they imagined the Professor and Wylie were holding the captives in durance, or doubted their being in durance at all, or what they thought Eirene had to do with the matter, they did not say, but they wound up a lengthy refusal to do anything without seeing Wylie, with the coldly sarcastic remark that the Roumi Government was obviously the proper channel from which to obtain the ransom.

“Why can’t the old idiots see that it’s a matter of life and death?” mused Wylie bitterly, as he read the letter on the terrace of his hotel. “I’m not going cap in hand to them to be treated like a pickpocket and sent off with a flea in my ear, while the Smiths are being massacred. I’d rather pay the money myself. I wonder if I could manage to raise it in the time? I don’t see where it’s to come from. Or is there any one else I could worry into taking action?”

He thought over the long list of people to whom he had written urgent letters--every one he had ever heard of who was likely to have influence with the press or with any of the Governments interested in Emathia--and realised wrathfully that, though his journalistic appeals had produced a good deal of frothy rhetoric and bloodthirsty declamation in the columns of newspapers of the baser sort, the practical effect appeared to be _nil_. True, an artist on the staff of the ‘Plastic,’ who happened to be in the neighbourhood--as distances go in Eastern Europe--had been ordered to the scene of the capture, which was now, on the well-established principle of the steed and the stable-door, kept constantly patrolled by police, and had made many sketches of the localities concerned, but without stirring the placid blood of the public to any extraordinary heat. He had moved on to Therma now, and was staying at the hotel, and as Wylie halted irresolutely in his anger and perplexity outside the window of the smoking-room, he came out and joined him.

“I say, you don’t mind my speaking to you, do you?” he asked, in a pleasant, boyish voice. “I know you’re the man who was captured with the Smiths, and I want to find out something about them. I’m sick of sketching a set of rotten roadsides--might as well be a camera at once--and there’s not a sensation in the whole lot. What I’m thinking of is a full-page drawing of the outrage itself--call it a fancy picture if you like, but that’s the sort of thing that tells. Besides, if I work up the figures from your description, it’s not a fancy picture. Do you mind?”

“I don’t mind what I do that’s likely to give the slightest help in rescuing them,” said Wylie emphatically.

“I know. Horribly rough on them and you too--all this red tape. Let’s go ahead, then. What sort of a chap is Smith?”

“Cambridge man, usual style, nothing particular about him, but an awfully good sort. His eldest sister told me that he got a gold medal for poetry this spring, but you’d never think it to look at him.”

“A gold medal? Not for an English poem? I was there myself, and there was no Smith in. My young brother got a medal for a Greek epigram, and he was so keen on my seeing him in all his glory that I ran down for the day. Took the opportunity to get half a page of sketches for the ‘Daily Plastic,’ too, as the affair isn’t much known. They keep the date dark lest the men should get in and rag--so my brother told me. Now what was the chap’s name who got the English medal? It was a St Saviour’s man, and the Master was so proud he talked of nothing else for a week.”

“Miss Smith told me her brother got it,” said Wylie, in the tone which implies that there is no more to be said.

“But there must be a mistake somewhere. Look here; I believe I have that very sketch-book in my room. I’ll get it, and we can see the fellow’s name.”

He vanished indoors, and presently returned breathless, flicking over the leaves of a well-filled sketch-book.

“Here it is!” he cried. “Teffany! I knew there was something queer about the name.” He put the book into his companion’s hands, and Wylie found himself confronted with an unmistakable portrait of Maurice in cap and gown, wearing a rather strained smile, and gripping a roll of paper very tight. In close proximity was a sketch of Professor Panagiotis, all alert attention, bending forward to listen.

“Why, that’s Smith!” cried Wylie, “and this----”

“Yes, it’s awfully rummy, isn’t it? That’s the old johnny who hangs out at Kallimeri, close here. It gave me quite a shock when I met him in the street, but then I remembered that my brother told me he was some Greek bigwig. Then my man is your man, after all? I say, this is something like a joke!”

“But what possible reason can he have had for changing his name?” cried Wylie, trying to recall anything that ought to have prepared him for the discovery.

“And there’s another thing,” said the artist, who was enjoying himself hugely. “He’s got a sister too many. Teffany has only one, I know. She came up to Girtham at the same time that he entered at St Saviour’s, and they were called ‘The Orphans’ everywhere, because they used to go about together in deep mourning. It was for their grandfather, though. Their father was killed in the Soudan years before, and their mother died from the shock. So where does the other girl come in?”

“Of course she is only a half-sister; I knew that.”

“But younger than either of them, you say? Oh, this is brain-splitting! She must be a cousin.”

“Really,” said Wylie stiffly, “I see no reason for us to trouble about the matter. No one ever doubted that she was their sister.”

“Well, we seem to have come upon a nice little double mystery. Look here, monsieur,” the artist cried to a man who was standing just inside the smoking-room, “come and adjudicate. What reason could a man have, whose name wasn’t Smith, for calling himself Smith, when he was doing nothing more heinous than coming with his sisters to stay with Professor Panagiotis?”

“English, of course?” said the stranger, joining them, and speaking with a slight foreign accent. “Why need one seek a reason, then? The pseudo-Smith is rich--perhaps noble--at home, and he desires a new sensation. Therefore he obtains one by travelling _incognito_.”

“Well, I suppose Teffany is comfortably off”--the stranger’s eyelid flickered as the artist spoke--“but there are no titles in the family, that I know of. Why in the world should he do it?”

“The natural modesty of the British character,” suggested the stranger.

“And there’s another thing. Why should he call a girl his sister who isn’t his sister?”

“If you ask me,” said the stranger waggishly, “I should say that it was some one else’s sister.”

“Oh, but two of them?” cried the artist. “Or, if one was genuine, how do you account for her tolerating the bogus one?”

“Look here,” said Wylie, “that will do. You, and Smith’s--I mean Teffany’s--bankers, and Professor Panagiotis, all persist that there can’t be a second sister. I tell you there is, for I have seen her and talked to her. I have the honour of both the Miss Smiths’--the Miss Teffanys’, I mean--acquaintance, and whatever stupid mystery you may manage to cook up, I’m certain there’s the most ordinary explanation if we only knew it. I don’t want any more jokes on the subject.”

“Awfully sorry,” said the artist hastily, as the stranger withdrew with a smile; “but it is funny, you know.”

“To you, perhaps. Who’s your grinning friend?”

“A Greek--Mitsopoulo his name is--good sort of chap. Knows the ropes, puts me up to all sorts of things. His sister is married to the Scythian Consul-General--frightfully handsome woman. But he’s only staying here.”

“I don’t know why you called him in,” said Wylie uneasily. “We don’t want Scythia mixed up in this business.”

The artist stared at him. “Oh, I say,” he laughed, “there’s no doubt where you come from, is there? ‘Keep your powder dry, and hate a Scythian like the devil’--that’s about the mark of you North-West Frontier men, isn’t it?”

“What do you know about the North-West Frontier?” growled Wylie. “I’m off to Professor Panagiotis to get this thing cleared up. I shall end by wringing the old blighter’s neck for him, I know.”

“So long!” said the artist pacifically, for he had not yet got all the information he wanted, and he settled down to a sketch for his picture, leaving the girls’ faces blank, while Wylie, refusing the offers of donkey-boys and cab-drivers, tramped off to Kallimeri. The Professor had learnt to dread his coming, and distinguished on this occasion in the very sound of his footsteps fresh cause for alarm. Wylie gave him no opportunity of denying the identification established by the sketch, but demanded bluntly the reason of the change of name, and why he had not been told of it before. The only course was to explain the whole of the circumstances, and this the Professor took.

“You see, then,” he ended, “that not a breath of this must creep out. Our young friend stands in the way of both Scythian and Thraco-Dardanian ambitions, and if it was known who he was, it would be fatally easy to arrange for his death--at the hands of the brigands, by a fall in the mountains, by a shot from a Roumi rifle. It would occur so naturally that there would be no room for inquiry, and his sister, who would otherwise inherit his claims, would share his fate. Now do you see why I kept you in the dark? It was for their sake. I feared that by some inadvertence”--Wylie moved angrily--“Well, now that you know the truth, and what hangs upon your silence, you will see that nothing must be said. There is a dangerous man at your hotel--Nicetas Mitsopoulo, a Greek traitor in Scythian employ--beware of him.”

“Your warning comes a little late. The gentleman you mention was present when I discovered the truth.”

Professor Panagiotis flung up his hands in despair. “Then Maurice Teffany and his sister are as good as dead! My hopes are destroyed.”

“Don’t blither about your hopes,” said Wylie savagely, “but think what we can do. What chance have we of saving them?”

“If we can raise the ransom by the very day stipulated--the brigands are generally faithful to their word--but if it is an hour late----”

“Then the ransom must be raised, by hook or by crook. Can you advance it? I will give you my bond for all I am worth, and I am certain Smith will regard the rest as a debt of honour.”

“Alas, no! It is not in my power,” groaned the Professor.

“Nonsense! you are well known to be a rich man. How much can you lay your hands upon in ten days?”

“I--I must explain to you,” said the Professor diffidently, “that events have advanced since I had the good fortune to discover Mr Teffany. In view of the happy prospects of the Greek cause, I have felt justified in promoting a certain degree of organisation among its adherents--enabling them to defend their homes against their ruthless Slavic assailants----”

“And institute reprisals, no doubt?” said Wylie. “This means, of course, that you have been arming the Emathian Greeks against the Slavs, by way of improving matters?”

“And the cost has been very heavy,” pursued the Professor, with humility, “and one large consignment of--defence weapons--fell, unfortunately, into the hands of one of the Thracian committees, so that I am actually straitened.”

“Well, can you beg, borrow, or steal five thousand pounds by the end of next week? I think I ought to be able to manage the other fifteen thousand, by realising everything I have in the world. If not, you must scrape together the difference. At any cost we must stop Mr Mitsopoulo’s little games.”

Had Wylie been present at a certain discussion at the Scythian Consulate that evening, he would have realised that Nicetas Mitsopoulo was playing even a deeper game than he imagined. The Greek arrived at a private door, which was opened to him by the Consul-General himself, a big, fair man, whose bluff exterior concealed a very serviceable share of diplomatic _finesse_.

“Welcome, Nikita Feodorovitch!” he said pleasantly. “You will find Chariclea ready for you. Curiously enough, immediately after your message arrived, a sudden headache prevented her from going to the party at the Cimbrian Consul’s.”

M. Mitsopoulo pushed past his brother-in-law rather impatiently, for the Consul-General was always ready to find amusement, such as the professional plotter had long since outgrown, in these tricks of the trade. Much more in sympathy with him was his sister, Madame Ladoguin, or Chariclea Feodorovna, as she was called by her Scythian acquaintances. A handsome woman in a loose Levantine dress, with her dark hair hanging below her waist in two heavy plaits, she awaited him on a cushioned divan in her boudoir, with cigarettes and the ever-ready samovar at hand. M. Ladoguin lounged in after him, and sat down at a little distance, ready to act as friend of the court.

“This has been a day of events and surprises,” said Mitsopoulo, accepting a glass of tea, with thin slices of lemon floating in it, from his sister. “I have made such progress that I am almost bewildered, and I bring the results of my labours to you, Chariclea, that you may check them and assure me I have not deceived myself.”

“I will scrutinise them as rigorously as if they were the report of a Reform Scheme,” she answered, with a lazy smile.

“That is just what I want. You have guessed, I am sure, Chariclea, that my visit here was in connection with the disappearance, which was not made known to the public, of a young lady of high rank. All the indications seemed to point to her having escaped to America, but as the Greek Panagiotis was known to have tampered with her father, it was thought well to watch for her here. I placed the amiable Panagiotis under surveillance, which I fear he has found inconvenient, but as it did not appear that he was either holding or expecting any communication with the Princess, I was about to withdraw it. Then, only a week ago, one of my agents brought word that a breast-ornament of gold and rubies, of a unique Byzantine design, had been offered for sale secretly by a Jew in this city. The description corresponded with that of one of the jewels which had disappeared with the Princess, and I authorised the man to secure it at any cost, but, alas! at the first hint of inquiry it disappeared again, and has probably been broken up. Until to-day, therefore, I thought it probable that the Princess had eluded my vigilance and was in hiding here, subsisting by the sale of her jewels until she found it safe to communicate with Panagiotis.” He paused impressively.

“Yes, and now?” asked Mme. Ladoguin.

“To-day I was summoned to assist at a conversation between a brainless artist staying at the hotel, and the English officer who was captured with the renowned Smiths----”

“Are you quite sure you were not assisting before you were summoned, Nikita?” laughed the Consul-General. His brother-in-law passed over the question as unworthy of an answer.

“--And I discovered a very curious fact, vouched for by three separate authorities, that one of the ladies passing as Miss Smith is not a Miss Smith at all. Mr and Miss Smith have no sister, and Panagiotis, with whom they were to stay, did not expect a second lady guest.”

“Well?” demanded Mme. Ladoguin, her eyes glowing sombrely.

“The idea came to me in a flash, but it was too improbable to accept without investigation. I went at once to the station, and by great good fortune succeeded in finding the guard of the train that was wrecked near Przlepka. Otherwise I might have had to wait two or three days. He recollected the party perfectly, and described them--the brother an ordinary, impassive Englishman, one sister vivacious in the wooden English way, but the other totally different. He said himself that he would have guessed her to be a Scythian, as also the aunt who was killed in the accident. With another happy flash, I asked him if he had happened to visit the aunt’s grave at Przlepka. He had done so, and the name upon the stone was Evdotia Vladimirovna. That was the Christian name of Madame Lyofsky, the lady-in-waiting who vanished with the Princess.”

“Excellent! Well done! Continue, pray!” cried Mme. Ladoguin, clapping her hands softly.

“I could get no more from the man, for he had, of course, only been able to observe the Smiths from Tatarjé to Przlepka. To obtain further information, I must go myself to Tatarjé and question the car-attendant on the Orient Express, who must have plenty to tell. But at present, what is your view of the case, my dear Chariclea?”

“There can only be one view,” she responded quickly. “The Princess fell in with these Smiths in Paris, and either by bribery or entreaty, induced them to adopt Mme. Lyofsky and herself as members of their party, flattering herself that she would thus escape discovery.”

“So I should have thought but for something else that I learned to-day. The man Smith and his sister are in reality no more Smith than the Princess is. Their true name is Teffany.”

“Well?” asked the Consul-General curiously.

“Teffany--which is Theophanis,” said M. Mitsopoulo. His sister sprang up from her cushions.

“What! Nicetas, you don’t mean----”

“I mean that Panagiotis has succeeded, where his predecessors failed, in unearthing or manufacturing an English representative of the senior male line of the descendants of John Theophanis.”

“But why then trouble himself with the Princess?” asked M. Ladoguin helplessly.

“Oh, that’s clear enough,” was the contemptuous reply of his wife. “She is to marry the claimant.”

“Now there I can’t agree with you, Chariclea,” said her brother. “Panagiotis is far too wise for that. The united claims of the two would be absolutely unassailable, and there would be no room for him. He might choose to arrange such a marriage by slow degrees, inventing hindrances and delays so as to make his own services appear indispensable, but it would be madness to begin by throwing the two young people together.”

“But we can hardly charge the worthy Professor with the railway accident and the capture by the brigands, can we?” asked M. Ladoguin, laughing. “We know better than that.”

“No, that was certainly unforeseen on his part. But why plot so clumsily as to let them travel by the same train?”

“He must have had some scheme for separating them as soon as they became interested in one another,” suggested Mme. Ladoguin, without much conviction.

“Now I am going to propound a common-sense view of the matter, since you two clever people are at a loss,” said her husband. “What if Panagiotis has washed his hands of the girl--the Princess, I mean--since he discovered his male heir; and what if she took the journey entirely on her own account, enraged at the neglect of her claims? That would account for his not expecting her. The meeting with the Smiths would then be a pure coincidence.”

“Absurd!” said Mme. Ladoguin sharply, following the sound Higher Critical rule of rejecting the obvious. “Do you suggest that these young people, whose interests are diametrically opposed, fell in love at first sight, like characters of Shakespeare, and agreed to--to pool their respective claims?”

“Possibly. Isn’t it more reasonable than to suppose that Panagiotis brought them together and explained the situation, with a view to a State marriage?”

“Stop!” cried Mitsopoulo suddenly. “Adopting the coincidence theory provisionally, must we suppose that the situation is explained at all? In my view, Panagiotis arranged the disappearance of the Princess, but she was too impatient to await the date he had fixed. He had intended to produce her a month or so hence, when the young man was entirely in his power; but naturally he says nothing to either of them. She escapes sooner than he wished, and falls in with the other claimant and his sister in Paris. There was the coincidence. Now, is it likely that either party would even be aware of the other’s existence, since it is to the interest of Panagiotis to keep them in ignorance for his own purposes? Therefore, why should they confide in each other at all?”

“Oh, but everything must have come out since--or at least, half of everything,” said M. Ladoguin, generalising unwisely on a common-sense basis. “The man and his sister, who are new to the idea of their dignity, could not possibly keep silence.” Mitsopoulo nodded, remembering Zoe’s confidence to Wylie about the gold medal, and his brother-in-law went on, much encouraged. “With the Princess it is different. She must be capable of determined secrecy, from the skill with which she concealed her preparations for escape, and she has long believed herself the heir of the Eastern Empire. Finding herself confronted with a claim antagonistic and superior to her own, what will be her impulse? Will it not be to retain her secret haughtily, watching for the chance of crushing her rival? I should say that if you want her back, you will find her thankful to come.”

“Do you want her back?” asked Mme. Ladoguin.

“Most certainly,” replied her brother; “she is an invaluable asset, tracing an uninterrupted Greek and Orthodox descent from John Theophanis. The Englishman’s claim is the best by the ordinary law of Europe, but would break down hopelessly when tried by the Imperial family statutes. She ought to have been married long ago, and her claim carried into the Scythian Imperial house; but she is in a troublesome position--too important and yet not important enough. It is believed that she aspired to an alliance with the Emperor himself--and if I had had the direction of affairs I fancy I should have settled it in that way. But it was otherwise decided, and she rejected with contumely the Grand Duke Ivan Petrovitch, who was suggested to her as a suitor. She also took matters into her own hands, or Panagiotis persuaded her that she did.”

“Then she must be taken care of, I suppose,” drawled Mme. Ladoguin, “which is a pity, or she might have been disposed of with the other inconveniences. They are merely inconveniences, are they not? A judicious massacre, now, or an accident with the dynamite which these reprehensible bands of brigands manage somehow to get hold of?”

“No, I think not,” said her brother, after a moment’s reflection. “You forget Panagiotis, and that blue-eyed swashbuckler who was captured with them. They will make out that we were anxious to get rid of the man and his claims, and there will be unpleasantness. What must be done is to make him confess the baselessness of his pretensions. He must own that he was tempted by Panagiotis to put himself forward as a Theophanis, without the slightest ground for the assertion. That will dispose of both him and his sister. How the details are to be arranged we must discuss another day.”

“I should recommend the monastery of Hadgi-Antoniou if you want any one kept out of the way for an indefinite time,” smiled M. Ladoguin.

“Just so; and plenty of palm-oil to obviate any difficulties. I must get an order for funds from Pavelsburg,” said Mitsopoulo.

Wylie also was seeking funds at that moment. A letter to his lawyers was directing them to sell out all his securities, and to mortgage to its utmost value the little Border estate which called him master. However onerous the conditions, he must have fifteen thousand pounds in ten days.