A Fascinating Traitor

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

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"Home," said the genial banker, as he deferentially questioned the
Lady of the Silver Bungalow. "Do you honor us with a long visit?"
he eagerly asked.

"I return to-morrow evening, on the same train with the soon-to-be
Sir Hugh. I only came here to attend to some business at the French
Consulate and to adjust this trifling matter." Hugh Johnstone writhed
in rage, as he saw the cool way in which Berthe Louison fortified
her safety lines.

Before they were in the shelter of the banker's superb mansion, Hugh
Johnstone was double locked within the walls of Douglas Fraser's
apartment.

"I have two hours to work in" he gasped, after a nervous examination
of the contents of the cases which had been placed at his feet in
his carriage. "And, then, for the Viceroy! But first to the steamer
and the Insurance Office!'"

Not a human being in Calcutta ever knew the contents of the small
steel strongbox which occupied the place of honor in the treasure
room of the Empress of India on her speeding down the Hooghly. But
a Director of the Anglo-Indian Assurance Company opened his eyes
widely when Hugh Johnstone, his fellow director, cheerfully paid
the marine insurance fees on a policy of fifty thousand pounds
sterling. "I am sending some of my securities home, Mainwaring,"
the great financier said. "I intend to remove my property, bit
by bit, to London. I do not dare to trust them on one ship." The
director sighed in a hopeless envy of his millionaire friend.

Hugh Johnstone's Calcutta agent was also solemnly stirred up when
his principal gave him some private directions as to the custody
of his private papers and a substantial Gladstone bag, consigned
to the recesses of the steel vaults. "I go back with these papers
to Delhi to-morrow night. Give me the keys of my private compartment
till then. In a few months I may be called to London. Douglas Fraser
will have my power of attorney."

With a sunny gleam in his face, Hugh Johnstone then alertly sprang
into his carriage, when he had finished his careful toilet, to meet
the Viceroy of India. The two brass-bound mahogany cases were left
standing carelessly open upon his table in Douglas Fraser's rooms,
neatly packed with an assortment of toilet articles and all the
multitudinous personal medical stores of a refined Anglo-Indian
"in the sere and yellow."

"Five pounds worth!" laughed Hugh Johnstone, as he closed the door.
"Now, in one hour, my Lady Disdain, I can say 'Checkmate.' Ram Lal
shall attend to you later--behind all your bolts and bars. He will
find a way to reach you."

It was a matter of profound speculation to the gilded youth of the
Government House what strangely sudden friendship had blossomed to
bring the august representative of the great Victoria, Kaisar-I-Hind,
and Queen of England, as far as the middle of the audience room,
in close colloquy with, and manifesting an almost affectionate
leave-taking of, the silver-haired millionaire of Delhi.

But that night the most confidential General "at disposal" received
from the Viceroy some secret orders which caused the experienced
soldier's eyes to open widely.

"Remember! The personal interests of the Crown are involved here!" said
the Viceroy. "Any mistake might cost me my Sovereign's confidence
and you your commission, perhaps a Star of India!" he laughed, with
an affected lightness.

In far-away Delhi, as the sun faded away into the soft summer twilight,
Harry Hardwicke was sitting at the side of Nadine Johnstone, while
her stern father secretly exulted in distant Calcutta. He had
already mailed by registered post a set of duplicated receipts and
insurance policies for his last shipment addressed to "Professor
Andrew Fraser" and his mind was centered upon some peculiarly
pleasurable coming events to take place in the Marble House. But
the dreamy-eyed girl watching the man who had so gallantly saved
her life, thought only of a love which had stolen into her heart
to wake all its slumbering chords to life, and to loosen the sweet
music of her singing soul! They were alone, save for the bent
figure of Justine Delande at a distant window, and the spirit of
Love breathed upon them silently drew them heart to heart.

Here now, before the divinity so fondly worshiped, Harry Hardwicke
lost his soldier's ready voice. "Say no more! You need rest, Miss
Nadine! I shall only call to-morrow to assure myself of your perfect
recovery. When your father returns I shall do myself the honor to
ask his formal permission to visit you later." There was a sigh
and a sob as Nadine Johnstone took her silent lover's hands and
pressed them in her own, bursting into happy tears.

"I owe you my life--my father shall speak, but in my own heart I
shall treasure your splendid bravery forever!" Her tall young knight
stooped over the little hands, kissed them, and was turning to go,
when the maiden slipped off a sparkling ring. "Wear this always for
my sake; I can say no more till we meet again!" And, bending low,
Captain Hardwicke stepped backward, as from a queen's presence,
leaving her there, weak, loving, and trembling in a strange delight.

As he rode slowly homeward in the evening's glow, he passed Major
Alan Hawke dashing away to the railway station in a carriage.
Traveling luggage told the story of a sudden jaunt. A wave of the
hand and the secret-service man was gone. Hawke growled: "Damned
young jackanapes, I'll fool you, too; but what does old Johnstone
want?" He was reading a telegram just received: "Come to meet me
at Allahabad. Have brought the drafts. Want you for a few days down
here."

At ten o'clock next morning, Simpson, his voice all broken, his
old eyes filled with tears, dashed into Captain Hardwicke's office.
"Dead?" cried the young soldier, springing up in a sudden horror.
"No. Gone over night--both the women--God knows where, but they
left secretly, by the Master's orders!" And then Hardwicke sank
back into his chair with a groan. But, at Allahabad, Major Alan
Hawke was raving alone in a helpless rage. There was no Johnstone
there, and Ram Lal Singh had telegraphed him: "The daughter and
governess went away in the night by the railroad--special train.
A man from Calcutta took them away."

"You shall pay for this, you old hound!" he yelled, "Yes, with your
heart's blood.'"

CHAPTER IX.

ALAN HAWKE PLAYS HIS TRUMP CARD.

When the Calcutta train rolled into Allahabad, two days after Harry
Hardwicke's crushing surprise, Major Alan Hawke, the very pink of
Anglo-Indian elegance, awaited the dismounting of the returning
voyagers. He had passed a whole sleepless night in revolving the
various methods to play oft each of his wary employers against each
other, and had decided to let Fate make the game.

"The devil of it is, I'm not supposed to know anything of the
flitting!" he mused, after digesting Ram Lal Singh's carefully
worded telegrams. All the light in his shadowy mental eclipse was
the positive information that a special train had been made up for
Bombay at the station, "on government secret service."

"The old man is preparing to fight, now," he decided. "His 'wooden
horse' is within Berthe Loiuson's camp. If she is not wary, she
may never leave India, Johnstone can be very ugly. But what must
I do? Shall I warn Berthe, now? If I do, she will both doubt me
and make a scene. Old Johnstone will then know at once that I have
betrayed him." An hour's cogitation led Alan Hawke to decide to
let the "high contracting parties" fight it out themselves at Delhi.

"I'll secretly join the winner and then bleed them both. I must be
unconscious of all. Johnstone's money I want first, then, Berthe
must pay me well for my aid." With an exquisite nosegay of flowers,
he awaited the slow descent of the social magnates. A second telegram
from Johnstone had warned him that the wanderers were on the same
train. "He is a cool devil!" mused Hawke.

Radiant in beauty, pleasantly smiling, and watched by her French
bodyguard, Madame Louison swept into the grand cafe room upon the
arm of Hugh Johnstone, who deftly exchanged a silent glance of
warning with the artful Major. The first intimation of Johnstone's
craft was the fact that Alan Hawke found he could not manage to see
Madame Louison alone, even for a single moment. There was a veiled
surprise in her beautiful brown eyes, when the nabob led Hawke a
few tables away for a conference in full view of the beauty, who
was surrounded with a cloud of obsequious attendants. "As we have
but one hour, Madame, pray at once, order a repast for us all. I
must have a few words with Hawke." Johnstone was as smiling as a
summer sea.

"We were delayed a day by my own private business," genially cried
the nabob. "What's new in Delhi?"

It was the crowning lie of Hawke's splendidly mendacious career
when he carelessly said, "Nothing. I supposed, of course, that you
had grave need of me here."

"So I have," earnestly replied Johnstone, as the station master
bustled up, scraping and bowing, with a bundle of letters and several
telegrams. "Just look over these five drafts on Glyn, Carr & Glyn's,
while I look at the letters," whispered Johnstone, handing Hawke
an official looking envelope. Even while the adventurer carefully
scanned the bills of exchange, he saw a gleam of devilish triumph
in the old man's eyes as he opened the telegrams, and with affected
carelessness shoved his letters in his pocket. "See here, Hawke!
You can even earn a neat 'further donation' if you will play your
part rightly. General Abercromby, as personally representing the
Viceroy, arrives here to-morrow night to adjust my accounts finally.
He will be a week or so at Delhi. I want you to represent me and
receive him here. I've telegraphed back to Abercromby that you
will bring him up in a special car. He does not want old Willoughby
to think he is nosing around Delhi. Now, do the handsome thing.
Abercromby knows you. Here is a pocket-book. Lose a few fifty-pound
notes to the old boy on the train. Amuse him, mind you, and set
him up well! The car will be well stocked. I leave my two men here
to wait on you and him. That's all. I want to go off 'in a blaze
of glory,' as the Yankees would say. I will meet you at Delhi.
Abercromby comes to my house. Can I depend on you? And, not a
single word about the Baronetcy. The Viceroy has graciously sent
a special dispatch to England."

"All right. Let us join the Madame," said Hawke, with an
uneasy feeling of a coming tropical storm, "I'm glad to be out of
it," mused Hawke. "If Abercromby stays a week, both parties will
defer hostilities until he goes. If that soft-hearted Swiss fool
only telegraphs! By God, I would have liked to have had one final
tete-a-tete. She can make my fortune yet."

The flying minutes glided easily away, with Hugh Johnstone's old-time
gallantry artfully separating the two secret conspirators against
his peace. Alan Hawke lunched gayly, with but one lurking regret--a
futile sorrow that he had not bent Justine Delande to his will.
There was no dark pledge between them, no secret bond of a man's
perfidious victory, no soft surrender, the seal of a woman's
dishonor.

"Will she telegraph?" the adventurer asked himself with a beating
heart and a burning brain. "If so, then I hold them both in my
hands, and the game is mine." When the train drew out, the Major
watched the disappearing forms of the mortal enemies in a secret
wonder. "Have they made it up? Will they marry after all?" he
growled, and yet he laughed the idea to scorn. "And yet fear, as
well as love, has tied the nuptial knot before," he mused.

A new proof of Johnstone's craft was afforded him after he had, in
a leisurely way, verified the regularity of his windfall in good
London exchange, signed by the millionaire upon his home bankers,
and duly stamped. A mental flash of lightning showed him how he was
"sewed up," for Johnstone's all too polite servants shadowed him,
alternately, in his every movement. He even dared not visit the
secret telegraph address. "Old scoundrel!" raged Alan Hawke. "I
will only get the first news after the fair and probably in a storm
from Berthe. The denouement may occur with me languishing here in
Capua. Suppose that this she-devil would bolt? Where would I land
then?" He was most sadly rattled.

In the Delhi train, Hugh Johnstone busied with his late London
papers, slyly smiled as he studied a route map and railway time
table. He had received a single telegraphed word, dated Madras,
and wisely left unsigned, but that one word was the keynote of his
coveted victory--"Arrived."

"Ah! my lady," he mused, casting his eyes in the direction of Madame
Louison's cozy private compartment. "To-morrow at Delhi, if Douglas
Fraser is true to his trust, there will be the message which tells
of a 'bark upon the sea,' which bears away forever all the brightness
of your life--away from you, yes, forever! And Hawke, this smart
cad, is powerless now, and both of them are outwitted. The Baronetcy
is safe the very moment that Abercromby's work is done. I've paid
Hawke now, and he has been very naturally brought down here, out of
the way. Madame! Madame! Now to settle accounts with you the very
moment that Abercromby has reported back from Calcutta. I think I
will just have a good old-fashioned talk with Ram Lal Singh. I need
his evidence to hoodwink this old cask of grog, Abercromby. I must
blow off' his vanity in great style."

While Berthe Louison slept, while old Hugh Johnstone plotted,
while Ram Lal Singh fumed at Delhi, and Harry Hardwicke "mourned
the hopes that left him," Major Alan Hawke retired to the Nirvana
of a long afternoon siesta. There was a little departing detachment on
this golden afternoon at Madras--two frightened women, now gladly
seeking the shelter of their cabins, as the fleet steamer Coomassie
Castle turned her prow toward Palk Strait. The terrible ordeal
of "passing the surf" had appalled them, and the exhausted Nadine
Johnstone at last fell asleep with her arms clasped around her
sad-hearted governess. A hundred times had they read over together
the old nabob's telegram: "Going home from Calcutta to settle the
Baronetcy appointment. Will meet you in Europe." Nadine's letter
from her stern father bade her implicitly trust to her new-found
kinsman, Douglas Fraser. The old nabob's judiciously private letter
had filled Justine Delande's sad heart with one twilight glow of
happiness. A comforting cheque for one thousand pounds was contained
therein.

The words: "Your salary and expenses will be paid by me in Europe.
This is only a little present. Another may await you and your
sister, if you fulfill your trust, that no man, not even Douglas
Fraser, meets my daughter alone until you give her back to me. He
is but my traveling agent. Nadine is in your hands alone. I have
so written to her." With a breaking heart Justine Delande kissed
her beloved gage d'amour, the diamond bracelet, murmuring: "Alan!
Alan! To part without even a word!" She lay with tear-stained eyes,
watching the low shores of Madras fade away, and listened to the
sleeping girl's murmur: "Harry! Harry! I owe you my life!" Even the
maid mourned a dashing Sergeant-Major! With a desperate courage,
trying to fan the spark of love, which had slowly crept into her
lonely heart, Justine Delande had timidly bribed a stewardess,
going on shore for some last commissions, to telegraph to the secret
address at Allahabad the words: "Madras steamer Coomassie Castle,
Brindisi."

The signature, "Your Justine," brought a grim smile to Alan Hawke's
face, the next night, when on the arrival of General Abercromby, he
stationed Hugh Johnstone's secret spies on duty with the redoubtable
Calcutta warrior. "By God! She is both game and true!" cried Hawke.
"Here is my fortune, and Justine shall share my spoils yet!" As the
special train rolled out into the starlit night the old nabob, in
a paroxysm of delight, read in the marble house words telegraphed
by the happy-hearted Douglas Fraser, now taking up his endless deck
tramp on the Brindisi bound steamer. The young Scotsman, ignorant
of all intrigue, was relieved to know that he had laid the firm
foundation of his future fortunes. His last shore duty was done
when he had wired to his urgent relative in Delhi the glad tidings:
"All right. Coomassie Castle. Orders strictly obeyed."

Even the astute Alan Hawke failed, after many days of futile private
research, to trace the route of the train which had pulled out of
Delhi in the dead of night, beat the record to Allahabad, and then,
turning off apparently for Bombay, had curved, on a loop, to the
Madras line, and surpassed all speed records on the Indian Peninsula.
Even when he telegraphed to Ram Lal's friends at Madras, he could
obtain no definite trace, the railway officials were silent,
and the travelers had sought no hotel in Madras. Hugh Johnstone's
well applied money had smothered all inquiry. Even the driver and
stokers of the special train never knew who so generously presented
them with a ten pound note apiece. "Some secret service racket,"
they laughed over their ale. Not a tremor of a single muscle betrayed
Major Alan Hawke when he delivered over his official charge, Major
General Abercromby, to Hugh Johnstone in the golden glow of Delhi's
morning. "I've kept your interests in view," he whispered. "The
old boy's just two hundred pounds richer. And, you may be sure,
he wanted for nothing. I know all his damned old tiger and mutiny
stories by heart. I'm going up to the Club for a good long sleep.
My compliments to the ladies," lightly said Alan Hawke, as he
gracefully declined Hugh Johnstone's invitation to breakfast. Then
Johnstone bore off his purple prize, set in red and gold.

The wide ripple of excitement caused by General Abercromby's reported
arrival had crowded the railway station. Hugh Johnstone chuckled,
"Evidently Hawke knows nothing," as the two old friends drove away
in splendid state. But Major Hawke, an hour later, at his Club, was
suddenly interrupted in a cozy breakfast by the most unceremonious
entrance of Major Harry Hardwicke, whose promotion was at last
gazetted. "Hello! I see you're a Major now. Lucky devil! What can
I do for you, Hardwicke?" cried Alan Hawke, eyeing the haggard and
worn-looking young officer with a strange dawning suspicion of the
truth. "Did he know, too, of the Hegira?"

Major Hardwicke threw himself down in a chair, curtly saying: "You
can tell me who effectuated this lightning disappearance act of
Madame Delande and young Miss Johnstone."

"You speak in riddles to me, Hardwicke," coolly said the wary Major.
"I've just come in from Allahabad with General Abercromby, who is
here to settle old Johnstone's accounts. I know nothing of what
you refer to. I expected to meet both the ladies at dinner to-day."

"Then I will not uselessly take up your time, Major Hawke," gloomily
rejoined Hardwicke, as he picked up his sword, and, with a cold
formal bow, quitted the room.

"I must watch this young fool," growled Alan Hawke. "Thank my
lucky stars, the woman is far away! But, he's well connected, has
a brilliant record, and is a V. C. now for Berthe Louison and the
fireworks! But, first, old Ram Lal! They bowled the old boy out! I
suppose that he has already told Alixe Delavigne that she has been
outwitted. I hold the trump cards now! No single word without its
golden price! I must not make one false step! As to the club men,
I only join in the general wonder." He made a careful and very
studied toilet and sauntered out of the club en flaneur, and then
stealthily betook himself to the pagoda in Ram Lal's garden, where
his innocent dupe had so often waited for him with a softly beating
heart.

"I'm glad the girl is gone," mused Alan Hawke. "If she were here,
the chorus hymning Hardwicke's perfections might set her young heart
on fire." He was, as yet, ignorant of the tender bond of gratitude
fast ripening into Love. For, Love, that strange plant, rooted in
the human heart, thrives in absence, and, watered by the tears of
sorrow and adversity, fills the longing and faithful heart, in days
of absence, with its flowers of rarest fragrance and blossoms of
unfading beauty. Nadine Johnstone, speeding on over sapphire seas,
had already conquered the tender secret of the simple Justine
Delande's heart; and in her own loving day-dreams:

"Aye she loot the tears down fa' for Jock o' Hazeldean!"

"I must see him again! I must see him!" she fondly pledged her
waiting heart. With the serpent cunning of a loving maiden, she
brooded like a dove with tender eyes, and so in her heart of hearts,
determined to draw forth from her stalwart cousin, Douglas Fraser,
the secret of their future destination. And the honest fellow became
even as wax in her hands; while the gloomy Hardwicke, in far-away
Delhi, eyed the parchment-faced Hugh Johnstone in mute wonder,
at the long official reception in the Marble House. "Will he not
vouchsafe to me even one word of thanks?" thought the young man,
in an increasing wonder.

But, Ram Lal Singh, when Major Alan Hawke drew him into the sanctum
behind the shop, showed a dark face, seamed with lines of care.
"There will be some terrible happening!" muttered the smooth old
Mohammedan.

He had good gift of the world's gear, and now preferred the role of
fox to lion. "She knows nothing as yet. I waited till I could see
you. I dared not to tell her. She only fancies that this official
visit of the General-Sahib from Calcutta will, of course, take up
all their time at the marble house. But she begs me to watch them
all, and she has given me some little presents--money presents."
Hawke winced, but in silence. His employer trusted him not. Here
was proof positive.

"How in the devil's name did they get away without you knowing of
it?" demanded Hawke. "If you are lying to me, Ram Lal, we may lose
both our pickings from this fat pagoda tree. You see old Johnstone
may slip away after the girl. He may leave here with Abercromby."

The jewel merchant's eyes gleamed with a smoldering fire. "Johnstone
Sahib will not leave Delhi. It is in the stars! He has too much here
to leave. There are many old ties which bind. No, he will not go
like a thief in the night." Hawke was surprised at the old rascal's
evident emotion.

"Then tell me what you think about the disappearance of these
women," said Hawke, watching him keenly.

"I have seen all my friends in the station, even the mail clerks,
telegraph men, and all," began Ram Lal. "A train 'on government
service'--a special--came in that night from Allahabad at ten o'clock.
Then two small trains were kept in waiting for some hours; one left
for Simla before daylight, and the other drew out for Allahabad.
There was a crowd of ladies, officers' ladies, and some children
and servants in the waiting-room. They like to travel at night in
the cool shade. No one knew them. Now, at Allahabad, the east-bound
train could branch off either for Calcutta, Madras, or Bombay."

"So you know not which way these women fled?" The old merchant
seemed absolutely at sea. As Hawke shook his head the story was
soon finished.

"My men at the marble house tell me that a strange young man arrived
at ten o'clock. He was admitted by Simpson, the private man of
Johnstone Sahib. The Swiss woman talked with him alone a half hour
in the library, and then Johnstone's daughter came down there,
but only for a few moments. My men watched him writing and reading
papers in the library; then they all went away."

"That is all. I slipped into the house when Simpson went away
next day. He often goes out to drink secretly, and he has a pretty
Eurasian friend or two, besides, down in the quarter." Ram Lal
winked significantly. "I went all over the upper part of the house
myself. The women's rooms were left just as if they had gone out
for a drive along the Jumna. If they took anything it was only
a few hand parcels. Now you know all that I know. No one ever saw
the strange man before. And these people are gone for good, that is
all. Go now to the Mem-Sahib at the Silver Bungalow. I fear her.
But tell me what I must say to her." The old man was evidently in a
mortal fear. "There is that French devil--that old soldier. He is
a fighting devil, that one, and the woman a tiger. The lady herself
is a tiger of tigers!"

"Say nothing, Ram Lal," soothingly said Hawke. "Leave it all to me.
I see it. Old Johnstone has sent the girl to the hills to keep her
away from the young fellows who will crowd the house, while this
General Abercromby is here. There'll be drink and cards, and God
knows what else."

"I know," grinned Ram Lal. "I knew old Johnstone in the old days,
a man-eater, a woman-killer, a cold-hearted devil, too! What does
he do with this General?" The jewel merchant's eyes blazed.

"Oh! Buying his new title with some official humbug or another. I
don't know. Perhaps he is really settling his accounts," laughed
Hawke.

"I have a little account of my own to settle with him! I will see
him at once! He, too, may slip away and follow his girl to the
hills," quietly said Ram Lal. "I know his past. He is never to
be trusted--not for a moment--as long as he is alive!" Alan Hawke
stared in wonder at Ram Lal, who humbly salaamed, when he closed:

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