A Fascinating Traitor

C >> Col. Richard Henry Savage >> A Fascinating Traitor

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"I promise you all!" faltered the excited woman. "Let me go now.
Let me go home, Alan," she murmured, and there were no heart secrets
between them any more, as the blushing woman, still trembling with
the audacity of her own burning emotions, was led safely to the
door of the jewel mart.

"Be brave, be brave, dear Justine," he whispered. "Old Johnstone
has sent for me. You shall have your home yet; I guarantee it.
I shall be frequently at the house in the next few days. Remember
to control yourself, and to watch the sly game of this old brute.
I will stay here and send off at once our first letter to Euphrosyne.
This girl will have a million pounds. You and your sister must not
be robbed of the recompense of nearly twenty years of tenderness.
Cleave to her, heart to heart, and tell me all. I will make you
both rich!"

"Trust me to the death! I understand all now," whispered Justine,
her breast heaving in a new and strange emotion, flooding her chilly
veins as with a subtle fiery elixir.

"Then go, but, dear one, be here two days from now at the same
time. Should any accident happen, Ram Lal will then come and bear
to you my message. You can trust him. I will stay here and send
this registered letter from here at once. Then, Hugh Johnstone
has three loving guardians to outwit before he can hide away your
beautiful nursling!"

"For you." he softly whispered, as he slipped a little packet into
her hand, when she stole out of the shop, after Alan Hawke had
judiciously reconnoitered.

"Dear, simple soul!" contentedly reflected Major Hawke, as he
busied himself with the important letter to the staid Euphrosyne.
"She has given me her heart, in her loving eagerness to defend that
child, and the key to the whole situation. It would be just like
this old brute to spirit the girl away to baffle Madame Berthe
Louison. That is, if he dare not kill or intimidate her. And that
I must look to. I think that I see my way to that girl's side now.
God, what a pot of money she will have!"

When Alan Hawke had finished his boldly warm letter to Euphrosyne,
he sealed it and sent it to the post by Ram Lal's footman. The
world looked very bright to him as, enjoying a capital cheroot, he
studied for a half hour a wall map of India. "There's a half dozen
ways to spirit her out of the Land of the Pagoda Tree. I must watch
and trust to Justine. To-night I may or may not know what this
devil of a Berthe Louison is up to. Will she try to take the girl
away? That would be fatal."

"Hardly--hardly," he decided, as he mixed a brandy pawnee. He
gazed around at Ram Lal's sanctum, in which the old usurer received
the Europeans whom he fleeced in his nipoy-lending operations. "A
pretty snug joint. Many a hundred pounds have I dropped here." It
was neatly furnished forth with service magazines, London papers,
army lists, and all the accessories of a London money-lender's
den. When the receipt for his registered letter was laid away
in his pocket-book, Alan Hawke calmly ordered his carriage. "I'll
take a brush around town and show them that I am out of all these
intrigues," he decided. It was six hours later when he drew up at
the Club, having passed Madame Berthe Louison's splendid turnout
swinging down the Chandnee Chouk. On the box the alert Jules, in
a yager's uniform, sat beside the dusky driver, and, even in the
dusk, he could see the neat French maid seated, facing her mistress.
"By God! She has the nerve of a Field Marshal! She will never hide
her light under a bushel!" he had gasped when Madame Louison, at
ten feet distant, gazed at him impassively through her longue vue,
and then calmly cut him. He was soon besieged by a crowd of gay
gossips at the Club upon dismounting from his trap.

"Tell us, Hawke, who is the wonderful beauty who has taken the
Silver Bungalow," was the excited chorus.

"How the devil should I know, when you fellows do not," good-humoredly
cried Alan Hawke, as the Club steward edged his way through the
throng.

"There's a message for you, Major," said the functionary. "Mr. Hugh
Johnstone is quite ill at his house, and has been sending all over
for you."

"Ah! This is grave news" ostentatiously cried Hawke. "I'll drive
over at once." And then he fled away, leaving the gay loiterers
still discussing the lovely anonyma whose advent was now the one
sensation of the hour. "Who the devil can her friends be?"

"She plays a bold game," mused the startled Major.

On her return to the marble house, Justine Delande had been welcomed
by the anxious-eyed apparition of Nadine Johnstone, who burst into
her room in a storm of tears. "I have been so frightened," she
cried as she clasped her returning governess in her trembling grasp.

"My father has just had a terrible seizure--an attack while riding
out on business. He will see no one but Doctor McMorris, and besides,
he has the old jewel merchant searching all over Delhi for Major
Hawke. You must not leave me a moment, Justine."

"Is he better?" demanded Justine, with guilty qualms.

"He is resting now, but he will not be quieted till he sees this
strange man," answered the disconsolate girl.

"How beautiful she is," mused the Swiss woman, as Nadine Johnstone
sat with parted lips relating the excitements of the morning. The
wooing Indian climate was fast ripening the exquisite loveliness
of eighteen. Her dark eyes gleamed with earnestness, and the rich
brown locks crowned her stately head as with a coronal of golden
bronze. The roses on her cheeks were not yet faded by the insidious
climate of burning India, and a thrilling earnestness accented the
music of her voice.

"What can we do, Nadine?" murmured Justine Delande.

"Nothing," sighed the motherless girl. "But when this Major Hawke
comes, you must, for my sake, find out all you can. Ah! To leave
India forever!" she sighed. Her marble prison was only a place of
sorrow and lamentation.

Major Hawke's flying steeds reached the marble house, after a
circuit to Ram Lal's jewel mart. Without leaving his carriage, he
called out the obsequious old Hindu. The dusk of evening favored
Ram Lal in his adroit lying.

He gave a brief account of Hugh Johnstone's strange morning seizure,
forgetting to divulge to Hawke that the old nabob had already bribed
him heavily to watch the inmate of the Silver Bungalow, and report
to him her every movement. Nor, did the Hindu divulge his secret
report to Madame Berthe Louison, after her ostentatious public
carriage promenade. He further hid the fact that Madame Louison had
deftly pressed a hundred pounds upon him, in return for a daily
report of the secret life of the marble house. But he smiled blandly,
when Major Hawke hastily said "Will he die?"

"No; he is all right! He was over there with the Mem-Sahib this
morning, and something must have happened."

"What happened?" imperiously demanded Hawke.

"I don't know," slowly answered Ram Lal.

"Don't lie to me, Ram Lal," fiercely said the Major. "I have a
fifty-pound note if you will find out."

"He is going there to-morrow," slowly said Ram.

"All right, watch them both. I'll be back here. Wait for me." And
then at a nod the horses sprang away.

"Fools! Fools all!" glowered Ram Lal, as he straightened up from
his low salaam. "I'll have those stolen jewels yet. Now is the time
to gain his confidence. He is an old man, and weak, and, cowardly."

When Major Hawke entered the great doors of the marble house, he
was gravely received by Mademoiselle Justine Delande. "He has been
asking every ten minutes for you," she said. "I am to show you at
once to his rooms."

"Now, what's this? what's all this?" cheerfully cried the Major as
he entered the vast sleeping-room of the Anglo-Indian. Old Johnstone
feebly pointed to the door, and motioned to his attendants to leave
the room. He was worn and gaunt, and his ashen cheeks and sunken
eyes told of some great inward convulsion. He had aged ten years
since the pompous tiffin. "I'm not well, Hawke! Come here! Near to
me!" he huskily cried. And then, the hunter and the hunted gazed
mutely into each other's eyes.

"What's gone wrong?" frankly demanded the Major. The old man scowled
in silence for a moment.

"I have no one I dare trust but you," he unwillingly said. "You
know something of my position, my future. I want to know if you
have ever met this woman who has taken the Silver Bungalow--a kind
of a French woman. There's her card." Old Johnstone's haggard eyes
followed Hawke, as he silently studied the bit of pasteboard.

"Madams Berthe Louison," he gravely read. And, then, with a
magnificent audacity, he lied successfully. "Never even heard the
name," he murmured.

"Fellows at the Club speaking of some such woman today. Pretty
woman, I supppose a declasste." Hawke, lifted his eyebrows.

"No, a she-devil!" almost shouted old Hugh. "Now, I want you to
watch her and find out who her backers are. She is trying to annoy
me. Be prudent, and I'll make it a year's pay to you." Hawke's greedy
eyes lightened as he bowed. "But never mention my name. Come here
as often as you will. Go now and look up what you can. I'll see you
to-morrow, in the afternoon. Don't scrape acquaintance with her.
Just watch her. I'm going there to-morrow morning myself."

"You?" said Hawke.

"Yes," half groaned the old man, turning his face to the wall.
"Come to-morrow afternoon. Spare no money. I'll make it right.
Don't linger a minute now."

Major Alan Hawke was gayly buoyant as the horses trotted back to
Ram Lal Singh's, where he proposed to await the hour of ten o'clock.
"I fancy, my lady, that you, too, will pay toll, as well as Hugh
Johnstone," he murmured. "You shall pay for all you get, and pay
as you go." He cheerfully dined alone in Ram Lal's little business
sanctum, and listened to the measured disclosures of the Hindu in
return for the fifty-pound note.

"It's to-morrow's interview that I want to know about," quietly
directed the major, whereat Ram Lal modestly said:

"I'll find a way to let you know all."

"That's more than she will, the sly devil," said Hawke, in his
heart, as he leaned back in the consciousness of "duty well done."

In the Silver Bungalow, Alixe Delavigne sat in her splendid
dining-room, under the ministrations of her Gallic body-guard. Her
eyes were very dreamy as she recalled all the fearful incidents
of the annee terrible. The flight from Paris after their father's
death, the escape to England, the refuge at a Brighton hotel--the
sudden projecture of Hugh Fraser athwart their humble lives. When
the returned Indian functionary abandoned all other pursuits and
plainly showed his mad craving to follow Valerie Delavigne everywhere,
then the younger sister had learned of his rank, of his long leave
and wealth and future prospects. The man was most personable then.
He was of a solid rank and a brilliant civil position, and the
penniless daughters of the dead Colonel Delavigne were now reduced
to a few hundred francs. The hand of Misery was upon them, poor
and friendless. Alixe, with a shudder, recalled the two years
of silence, since the ardent Pierre Troubetskoi had whispered to
beautiful Valerie Delavigne in Paris: "I go to Russia, but I will
soon return and you must wait for me!"

Day by day, when the skies grew darker, Valerie Delavigne had gazed
with a haunting sorrow in her eyes, at her helpless sister. Some
strange possessing desire had urged Hugh Fraser on to woo and win
the helpless French beauty, whom an adverse fate had stranded in
England. The mute sacrifice of the wedding was followed by the two
years of Valerie's loveless marriage. It was an existence for the
two sisters, bought by the sacrifice of one and Troubetskoi never
had written!

Sitting alone, waiting for the morrow, to face Hugh Fraser once more,
Alixe Delavigne recalled, with a vow of vengeance, that sad past,
the slow breaking of the butterfly, the revelation of all Hugh Fraser's
cold-hearted tyranny, the sway of his demoniac jealousy--jealous,
even, of a sister's innocent love. And that last miserable scene,
on the eve of their projected voyage to India, when the maddened
tyrant discovered Pierre Troubetskoi's long-belated letter, returned
once more to madden her. Fraser had simply raged in a demoniac
passion.

For the mistake of a life was at last revealed when that one letter
came! The letter addressed to the wife as Valerie Delavigne, which
had followed them slowly upon their travels, and, by a devil's
decree, had fallen, by a spy-servant's trick, into Hugh Fraser's
hands. It mattered not that the coming lover was even yet ignorant
of the miserable marriage. The envelope, with its address, was
missing, when the long pages of burning tenderness were read by
the infuriated husband. "I have been buried a year in the snows
of Siberia," wrote Pierre, "upon the secret service of the Czar.
I was ill of a fever for long months upon my return, and now I am
coming to take you to my heart, never to be parted any more." The
address of his banker in Paris, all the plans for their voyage to
Russia, even the tender messages to the sister of his love--all
these were the last goad to a maddened man, whose raging invective
and brutal violence drove a weeping woman out into the cheerless
night. He deemed her the Russian's cherished mistress. With a
shudder Alixe Delavigne recalled the white face of the discarded
mother, whose babe slumbered in peace, while the half-demented
woman fled away to the shelter of the house of an old French nurse.

The morrow, when Hugh Fraser bade her also leave his house
forever, was pictured again in her mind, and the insolent gift of
the hundred-pound note, with the words, "Go and find your sister!
Never darken my door again!" She had taken that money and used it
to save her sister's life.

The darkened sick-chamber, the flight across the channel, and the
rugged path which led Valerie, at last, to die in peace in Pierre
Troubetskoi's arms--all this returned to the resolute avenger of
a sister who had died, dreaming of the little childish face hidden
from her forever, "He shall pay the price of his safety to the
uttermost farthing, to the last little humiliation," she cried,
starting up as Alan Hawke stood before her, for the hour of ten
had stolen upon her. "Nadine shall love her mother, and that love
shall bridge the silent gulf of Death!"

"You have been agitated?" he gently said, for there were tell-tale
tears upon her lashes. "Tell me, is it victory or defeat?"

"I shall see my sister's child, to-morrow," the Lady of Jitomir
bravely said. "And he--the man of the iron heart--shall conduct me
to his house in honor." There was that shining on her transfigured
face which made Alan Hawke murmur:

"There is a great love here--greater than the hate which demands
an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

He waited, abashed and silent, for his strange employer's orders
of the day.

"Is there anything I can do for you to-morrow?" said Alan Hawke.
"Do you find your arrangements convenient for you here in every
way?" The respectful tone of his manner touched Berthe Louison's
heart. He was beginning to win his way to her regard by judiciously
effacing himself.

"I am entirely at home, thanks to your thoughtful provision," she
smiled. "There is nothing to-night. Have you seen Johnstone?" Her
dark eyes were steadfastly fixed upon him now.

"Yes; he sent for me. He is very much agitated and, I should say,
he is almost at your mercy. But beware of an apparent surrender on
his part. He is--capable of anything!"

"I know it. I am on my guard," slowly replied Berthe Louison. She
saw that Alan Hawke had spoken the truth to her--even with some
mental reservations. "To-morrow morning will determine my public
relations with Hugh Johnstone. Come to me to-morrow night, and do
not be surprised if we meet as guests at Hugh Johnstone's table.
You must only meet me as a stranger. I may leave here for a few
days, and then I will place you in charge of my interests in my
absence."

The Major gravely replied:

"You may depend upon me wherever you may wish to call upon me."

"Strange mutability of womanhood," he mused a half hour later as
he left the lady's side. "There is a woman whom I should not care
to face tomorrow morning if I were in Hugh Johnstone's shoes."
It was the renegade's last verdict as he slept the sleep of the
prosperous. The Willoughby dinner and his own feast now occupied
his attention, for his mysterious employer had bade him to eat,
drink, and be merry.

At ten o'clock the next day the "gilded youth" of the Delhi Club
all knew that Hugh Johnstone had betaken himself to the Silver
Bungalow, in the carriage of the woman whose beauty was now an
accepted fact. Hugely delighted, these ungodly youth winked in
merry surmises as to the relationship between the budding Baronet
and the hidden Venus. Even bets as to discreetly "distant
relationship," or a forthcoming crop of late orange blossoms were
the order of the day. But silent among the merry throng, the handsome
Major, making his due call of ceremony upon General Willoughby,
denied all knowledge of the designs of either of the high contracting
parties.

In due state, escorted by the alert Jules Victor, Hugh Johnstone
entered the Silver Bungalow, to find his Cassandra silently awaiting
him. There was no memory of the happenings of the day before in
her unconstrained greeting. The door of the strategic cabinet was
ajar, but the tottering visitor had no fears of an ambush. For
Madame Alixe Delavigne calmly said: "Jules, you may remain within
call, in the hall."

The old nabob's heart leaped up in a welcome relief at this command.
His wrinkled face was of the hue of yellowed ivory, and his cold
blue eyes were weak and watery, as he heavily lurched into a chair
facing his hostess. Courage and craft had not failed him, for
already Douglas Fraser was speeding on to Delhi from Calcutta, the
sole occupant of a special train. In the long vigil of the night,
Hugh Johnstone had evolved a plan to ward off the blow of the sword
of Fate! But watchfully silent he awaited his enemy's conversational
attack.

"Damn her! I will outwit her yet!" he silently swore.

"Before you give me your answer, Hugh Fraser," said the calm-voiced
woman, "I wish to tell you again what, in your mad jealousy, you
would not believe. I swear to you that Pierre Troubetskoi's letter,
written to my dead sister, was written in ignorance of her marriage
with you. The frightful scenes of the carnage of Paris had tossed
us to and fro, and the careless destruction of the envelope, addressed
to my sister under her maiden name, prevented me from proving her
innocence as a wife. Pierre Troubetskoi had long known my father,
who had been an attache in Russia. He was Valerie's knightly suitor.
And he fell into the estates which now burden me with wealth, while
absent upon the Czar's secret affairs. My gallant old father was
sacrificed to the frenzy of the time; his soldier's face betrayed
him, his rosette of the Legion doomed him, Troubetskoi's letter
to our father demanding Valerie's hand was returned to the writer,
through the Russian Legation, a year later, after the reorganization
of the Paris Post-office. I do not ask you to believe this, but by
the God of Heaven, it is my warrant for forcing myself to the side
of my dead sister's child. She shall yet have every acre and every
rouble that Pierre Troubetskoi would have given to this child whom
you hide. My sister died with her empty arms stretched to Heaven,
imploring God for her child. And now, what terms will you make
with me. In the one case, an armed peace; in the other, "war to
the knife!"

"What would you have?" he stubbornly muttered. "You seek my ruin."

"I do not!" solemnly answered Berthe Louison. "God has blasted
your life in denying you the love of your own child. You rule her
by fear. You, in your selfish passion, once reached out your strong
hand and crushed this girl's mother, a poor, fragile flower, in
her girlhood. Valerie believed Pierre to be dead or false when she
timidly crossed the threshold of the wedded home which you made
a prison for her! You only care for this bubble Baronetcy and for
your heaped-up hoards. The tribute of the shrieking ryot! Now, here
are my terms: I will go down with you to Calcutta, and deliver over
to you there the receipt for the deposit of jewels which holds back
your coveted honor. You may do with them as you will! A visit to
the Viceroy will at once clear the path. Tell any story you will
of their recovery. An underling's unfaithfulness or the loss of the
paper. You may remove them and surrender them as you will. Perhaps
a fanciful discovery of their hiding-place here, their surrender by
Hindu thieves, frightened at last; any of these conventional lies
will clear your official record of the olden stain. Long years ago
I would have treated with you, but I wanted to find the child. You
hid her away from me. I found you out by chance in your changed
name and new official residence."

"And your terms?" demanded Johnstone. He saw, with lightning cunning,
a pathway leading him out of his troubles. The vigil of the night
before had borne its fruit already.

"That I have free access to your house and home. That I shall be
the honored guest at your table. That I shall be left in no dubious
social standing here. That I may see your daughter, learn to know
her, and you may prudently arrange the story I am to tell her later.
As Madame Berthe Louison, a tourist of wealth, an art dilettante, a
French woman of rank and position, your social guaranty will keep
the pack of human wolves away from my retreat here. I have my papers
to prove all this."

"When must this be? Before I receive the jewels? Before my title
to the baronetcy is perfected? What guaranty have I?" he replied.

"My honor alone! I pledge you now that I will not make myself
known to Nadine until you have received the jewels and the Crown
has obtained its long sequestered property. We are to come back
here together. The future relations can be decided upon when I have
satisfied my natural affection; when your innocently besmirched
record has been righted." Hugh Johnstone's silvered head was bowed
for a long interval in his trembling hands. "You will not betray
me to the authorities, when all is done? Your lips shall be sealed
as to the past?" Alixe Delavigne bowed in silence. "Then I accept
your terms upon one condition only: That until we return from Calcutta,
you will only see Nadine in my presence or in that of Mademoiselle
Delande, her governess. It is only fair. When you have restored to
me the jewels, you can then concert with me upon a plan to enlighten
Nadine, with no scandal to me, no heart-break to her. The slightest
gossip as to a family skeleton reaching the Viceroy or the home
authorities would lead to my public disgrace."

Alixe Delavigne paced the room in silence for a few moments, while
Hugh Johnstone's eyes were fixed upon the opened cabinet whence
Jules Victor had so fiercely sprung forth as a champion.

"Be it so!" sternly replied Alixe Delavigne. "And may God confound
and punish the one who breaks the pact."

"When do you wish to come? When can you go to Calcutta? I would like
to hasten matters," demanded the old nabob, with his eyes averted.
The beautiful woman paused, and after a moment replied:

"To-morrow, come here and bring me to your house to dine. This
afternoon you may call here and drive me over Delhi in your carriage.
This will set a public seal upon our acquaintance. My maid can
accompany us. This done, I will go to Calcutta with my two European
servants, as you wish. You can take the train on either the preceding
or the following day. It will avoid both spies and gossip."

"I will go before you and await you!" eagerly said Hugh Johnstone,
rising. "I will ask another person to dine with us to-morrow, and
this evening I will prepare my daughter for the dinner, so that
your coming will be no surprise to her. Shall I bring my carriage
here at four to-day?"

"I will await you," gravely said Alixe Delavigne, as she bowed in
answer to her guest's formal signal of departure.

An hour later Jules Victor reported to his mistress: "We drove to
the telegraph office, where I awaited the gentleman for some time,
and then we repaired to his home."

There was a disgruntled man whose curses upon his kinsman's changing
moods were both loud and deep when Douglas Fraser received a telegram
that night at Allahabad. "Is the old man crazy?" he demanded, as he
read the words: "Wait at Allahabad for me. Keep shady. With you in
three days. Telegraph your address." The canny young Scot thought
of a coming legacy and obeyed the head of his clan.

Madame Berthe Louison, as Delhi was destined to know her, lingered
long over her afternoon driving toilet. There was a recurring fear
which made her tremble. "Would Hugh Johnstone divulge the facts as
to the jewels to the Viceroy, and so gain his free rehabilitation-and
then defy her? No-no! He never would dare!" she answered. "My agents
are even now watching that bank. The bank would never give up the
sealed packages contents unknown, save on surrender of the carefully
drawn receipts." And then Berthe remembered her own secret work at
Calcutta. The Grindlays knew of the surreptitious attempts made by
the plausible Hugh Fraser to withdraw the deposit long before the
baronetcy episode. And Berthe laughed, in memory of her capture
of the receipts in the old days at Brighton, while looking for the
stolen letter.

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