A Fascinating Traitor

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

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Justine Delande saw a future reward awaiting the two faithful
guardians of the childhood of Miss Million. With a sudden impulse,
she cried: "There is one to aid even nearer to us now than Major
Hardwicke. For I have a telegram from Euphrosyne, that Major Haivke
is at Geneva."

Nadine Johnstone rose and seized both of Justine's hands: "Promise
me now, by my dead mother's grave, that you will never tell that
man anything of our secret compact of to-day! I fear him! I disliked
him from the first! He had strange dealings with the dead." The
girl's face was stern. "If I am approached by him in any way, I will
cease every communication with you forever! I will have no aid of
Alan Hawke."

And when the parting hour came, Justine Delande was amazed at the
cold dignity with which Nadine Johnstone faced the grim old uncle.
It was only at the gate of the "Banker's Folly," that the heiress
for the last time kissed her friend in adieu. "Fear not for me. I
have learned the lesson of Life. Remember!" she whispered. "Keep
the faith! Guard my trusts!" and then, Justine sobbed: "Loyal a
la, mort!"

The evening shades were darkening the sculptured shores of Rozel
Bay, where clumsy luggers lay far below, high and dry on the beach,
behind the great masonry pier. Skiffs and fishing-boats lined the
shores, and the soft breeze moved the foliage of the luxuriant
garden. The white stars were peeping out and twinkling in the gray
and lonely sea, as Nadine shivered and walked firmly back to the
portico, where the old recluse awaited her.

With a stiff motion of perfunctory courtesy, he motioned the heiress
into the frosty-looking drawing-room, now lit up with spectral
gleams of wax candles. For he would treat his ward with a frozen
dignity.

Andrew Fraser coughed in a hollow warning and wasted no words in
his first bulletin of "General Orders." "I have here a certified
copy of your late father's will," he said, "for your perusal. You
will see all the conditions of life which he has wisely laid down
for you. I have telegraphed on to London for his solicitor to send
a representative here, and the original testament will be duly
filed at Doctors' Commons, at once. I shall at once provide you
with suitable women attendants. I have already engaged a proper
housekeeper, to whom you can state all your wishes. With regard
to money matters and your correspondence, you must consult me! For
the present, you will readily see that I deem it imprudent for you
to leave these spacious and splendid grounds! But, ye'll find ways
to busy yourself. Women always do!"

The old pedant marveled at the young woman's composure, for she
simply bowed and awaited a termination of the interview. Slightly
disconcerted, he abruptly demanded: "Have you anything to say?"

"Only this, Andrew Fraser," coldly replied the heiress. "Your sending
away the only woman whom I know in the world has marked you as a
tyrant and a jailer." Her spirit was as unyielding as his own, and
he winced.

"Ye'll find I had your father's warrant. I'll go on to the end and
obey him! There are to be no old associations kept up, and when ye
come to your own ye can do all ye will! I'll go my way in my duty
and do it as it seems right!" When he finished he was alone, for
the daughter of Valerie Delavigne had passed him with a glance of
unutterable contempt.

There was fire in the eye of the rebellious girl, and the elastic
firmness of youth in her tread, but above stairs, in her own lonely
rooms, her courage faded away quickly. But she wrapped her sorrows
in her own proud young heart and turned her eyes to the far East.
"Will he come?" she murmured.

When the clumsy island serving girl had trimmed the fire and drawn
the heavy curtains, Nadine Johnstone locked her doors. She sat
spellbound, with a wildly beating heart, until she had read the last
of the sixteen provisions of her father's vindictive will. Though
the whole fortune was left absolutely to her, with the exception
of twenty-five thousand pounds each to Andrew Fraser and his son,
she was tied up by restrictions so infamously brutal, that her
three years of minority stretched out before her as a death in life.
Five hundred pounds a year of pin money were allowed to her until
her majority, "to be expended with the approval of her guardian."

In an agony of lonely sorrow she threw herself, dressed, upon her
bed and sobbed herself into forgetfulness, her last cry for help
mingling the names of Berthe Louison and Harry Hardwicke. "Will
Justine be true to her oath?" she faltered, as she drifted into
the blessed release of dreamland.

As the night wore on, Justine Delande, tossing on her bed in the
Royal Victoria Hotel, waited for the dawn, to sail for Granville.
She had telegraphed in curt words her dismissal, and she burned
to reach Geneva, for to her the sight of Alan Hawke's face was the
one oasis in her desert of sorrow.

Long after Nadine Johnstone had closed her tired eyelids, stern
old Andrew Fraser cowered below, glowering over his library fire,
clad in a huge plaid dressing gown. His greedy eyes watched the
dancing flames, and he rubbed the thin palms in triumph, while he
sipped his nightly glass of Highland whisky grog. It had been a
famous secret campaign for the surviving brother.

"If all goes on well; all goes well!" he crooned. "There's Douglas,
gone for good! The boy is young and soft-like. He might fall into
this pert minx's hands as young Douglas with Queen Mary of old.
And, thank God, he knows nothing of the packet of jewels! Not a
soul knows in the wide world! Why should I not save them for myself
and turn them into gold? Yes, save them for myself. For the boy?
But he never must know! Ah! I must hide them well! This stubborn
girl knows nothing! That is right! Janet Fairbarn will be here in
two days, and I'll have another man to keep watch; yes, and a good
dog, too! For the gallants must never cross my wall!"

"He! He! She'll no fule with Janet Fairbarn," he gloated, "and the
will gives me every power. I must find a place of safety for the
jewels," he mused. "I'm glad that I burned Hughie's letter, as he
told me. There's nothing now to show for them. The bank would not
be safe. Never must they go out of my hands. And, I can write a
sealed letter for Douglas, to be opened by him alone, if I should
be called away. I can put it in the bank, and take a receipt and
send the boy the receipt. But, no human being must know that I have
them." He tottered away to his sleep murmuring, "But safer still,
to turn them into yellow gold. There's a deal of them. I must find
out in time how to dispose of them, but never till the lass above
is gone and my accounts all discharged." And the old miser, who
had already robbed his dead brother, slept softly in love with his
own exceeding cunning.

Of all the loungers on the wind-swept wharf at Granville-sur-Mer
next day, decidedly the most natty was Jules Victor, who was now
awaiting the return of the little St. Helier's packet, to engage a
special cabin for himself, with all a Gaul's horror of the stormy
passage. He sprang forward, in a genuine surprise, as Mademoiselle
Justine Delande, aided by the stout Swiss maid, tottered over the
gangplank. "Madame is ill, a la bonne heure! Let me conduct you
to the Hotel Croix d'Or, where Madame Louison is even now awaiting
the Paris train." The ex-zouave was a miracle of politeness and,
he proudly conducted Justine to a waiting fiacre, having deftly
reserved himself the choice of staterooms. With the skill of his
artful kind, Jules hastened upstairs at the Hotel Croix d'Or, to
announce to his mistress the lucky find of a windy afternoon on
Granville quay.

That night, when Justine Delande reached Paris, she was assured
in her heart that her own future fortunes were safe, and that her
sister would surely be the recipient of Nadine Johnstone's future
bounty. For Madame Berthe Louison, ever armed against possible
treachery, announced her own instant departure for Poland. "But, I
leave Jules in charge in Paris, and he will find the way to deliver
your letters to your young friend."

When Justine Delande was safely escorted to the train by the
smiling Madame Berthe Louison, she proceeded to register a packet
for London, addressed to "Major Harry Hardwicke."

That young officer's heart was light, three days later, when
he received the letter of Nadine which Madame Louison had cajoled
easily from the Swiss woman. And the happy Major's heart was no
lighter than Nadine's for the watchful Janet Fairbarn, now on duty,
with her selected subordinates, wondered to see the pale-faced girl
laugh merrily as she chatted over the garden wall with a strolling
French peddler. "I may trade at the gate, may I not, Miss Janet,"
said Nadine, "or is that one of the crimes?" But Jules Victor had
brought her a new life. She whispered, "He will come!"

CHAPTER XIII.

AN ASIATIC LION IN HIDING.

Madame Alixe Delavigne sat alone in her snug apartment of the Hotel
Croix d'Or, at Granville-sur-Mer, four days after Justine Delande
had been driven forth from the Banker's Folly! The perusal of a
long letter from Jules Victor was interrupted by the arrival of a
telegram from that rising young soldier, Captain Anson Anstruther.
It needed but a single glance to call the resolute woman to action.

Smartly ringing the bell, she ordered the maid, her bill, and a
voiture to convey her to the Boulogne station. "So, Hardwicke and
Captain Murray are safely in London! Major Hawke is at Geneva, and
I am to hide at Rosebank Villa until he has reported and been sent
away on his continental tour of the great jewel dealers!"

With flying fingers the lady soon penned a letter addressed to
"Monsieur Alois Vautier, Marchand-en-petit, Hotel Bellevue, St.
Aubin, Jersey." "He can telegraph to me at Richmond, and one of us
will soon be on the ground to aid him! Now, 'the longest way round
is the nearest way home!'" laughed the ci-devant Madame Louison, as
she departed for Boulogne, an hour later, having carefully mailed
her letter personally, and sent a brief telegram to the active
Jules Victor.

The ex-Zouave had easily made the rounds of the pretty islet of
Jersey, in his capacity of merchant of small wares, long before
Alixe Delavigne, braving the stormy channel, had proceeded from
Folkestone directly to Richmond, and hidden herself in the leafy
bowers of Rosebank Villa. Smiling, gay and debonnair with all the
women servants, he had a pinch of snuff, a cigar of fair quality,
or a pipe full of tabac for coachman and groom, supplemented with
many a petit verre from his capacious flask. His Gallic gallantry,
with the gift of a trinket or ribbon, made him welcome with simple
milk-maid or pert house "slavey," and the dapper little Frenchman
was already an established favorite in the wine-room of the Hotel
Bellevue.

His greatest triumph, however, was the secret demonstration of the
cheapness of Jersey prices to the London sewing woman and smart
lady's maid, now chafing under Janet Fairbarn's iron rule at the
"Banker's Folly." "Norn d'un pipe! But I have to make shameful
rabaissements de prix," muttered Jules, as he adroitly worked upon
the susceptibilities of the two new maid servants. While one or
the other of these women always accompanied Miss Nadine Johnstone
in her daily wanderings through the splendid gardens of the Folly,
the merry voice of Jules Victor was often heard by them singing
on his way down the road. The gift of a famous brule guenle had
propitiated the simple Jersey gardener, whose stout boy rejoiced
in a new leather jacket, almost a gift, and the second man, Andrew
Fraser's reinforcement, a famous drinker, was soon a nightly
companion of "Alois Vautier" at the one little "public," down under
the scarped hill at Rizel Bay.

Andrew Fraser, closeted with the London lawyer, had almost forgotten
the existence of Nadine Johnstone.

A formal interview as to the filing of her father's will, a mere
mute exhibition of perfunctory courtesy, released Nadine to her own
devices, while Professor Andrew Fraser returned to his afternoon
studies with that famous young Yankee savant, Professor Alaric
Hobbs, of Waukesha University.

The beautiful captive was now happy in dissembling her contentment,
for, though the sharp-featured Scotch housekeeper, Janet Fairbarn,
keenly watched all her outgoings, sending always one of the women
as an "outside guard," the heiress had learned some of woman's
secret arts quickly. The peddler, Alois Vautier, brought to her
letters and messages which made her lonely heart light, even in
her stately semi-durance. And the epistles of Major Harry Hardwicke
left her with a heart trembling in delight after their perusal.

And so it fell out that four days after Alixe Delavigne had returned
to Rosebank Villa, that a packet of important letters was smuggled
past the droning Professor's picket line, one of which caused Nadine
Johnstone to hide her tell-tale blushes in her room.

"To-morrow I will come by, to deliver some little purchases of the
maids! Have your answers all ready. I will be here at ten, at the
garden gate!" Long after the Yankee Professor had left the "Folly"
for St. Heliers that night, the lonely girl bent her beautiful head
over the pages, destined to safely reach her lover's eyes in fair
London town. And to Berthe Louison, she now poured out her loving
heart, for she knew that her protecting friends would soon be near
her.

"We are waiting, watching, and planning," wrote Alixe Delavigne.
"Be cheerful--silent--watchful! I must be near you, I must see you,
face to face, to tell you all the story of the past! I will then
tell you, my own darling child, of the mother whom you have never
known. But, first, Major Hardwicke must open a way to your side!
Beware of the schemes of Alan Hawke! He will be here to-morrow,
and he may steal over to Jersey, though his duty takes him for a
month to the Continent! You will surely see Major Hardwicke before
you see me for Andrew Fraser might take alarm at a sight of my face
and so hide you away from us all!"

Miss Mildred Anstruther was a delicate symphony in gray, as she
gracefully presided the next evening over the dinner table at which
Alixe Delavigne, Captain Anstruther, Major Hardwicke, and Captain
Murray merrily discussed the sudden hastening of Captain Eric
Murray's nuptials. Hardwicke's duty as "best man" was now the only
bar to the beginning of a campaign destined to foil Andrew Fraser's
Loch Leven tactics of imprisoning his niece and ward.

"You will have but a brief honeymoon, Eric!" laughed Hardwicke.

"You have promised to stand by me, Harry," replied his friend. "See
me married to-morrow, then a week's honeymoon at Jersey is all that
I ask! I can bestow my wife there with a dear friend, who has the
prettiest old Norman chateau-maison on the island, and after that
be near you there at Rozel Bay to work up the final discomfiture of
this old vampire. I only claim the attendance of the whole party
at my wedding, then I will disappear and spy out the ground for
you long before you are ready to astonish the dreamy old bookworm.
I have made my own plans, and Flossie has agreed to our runaway
trip 'in the interests of the service'! She is a soldier's daughter,
remember!" Miss Mildred, wreathed in her soft laces, shimmering
in her gray poplin, and bending her stately head in salutation,
extended a delicate hand, loaded down with quaint old Indian rings,
to each, when the coffee was served.

"I will leave you now to the hatching of your famous conspiracy for
the invasion of the Island of Jersey." The old gentlewoman passed
smilingly through the door where the three knightly soldiers stood
bowing low, and then the four conspirators sat down to arrange the
dramatis persona of a little society play in "High Life," in which
Professor Andrew Fraser was destined to be the central figure, and
act without "lines" or rehearsal.

The "leading lady" was at the present moment dreaming of a golden
future in her own rooms at the "Banker's Folly." Nadine Johnstone
had been allowed to make her apartments as bright and cheery as
her buoyant nature suggested.

For Andrew Fraser, after much discussion with Janet Fairbarn, had
convoyed the heiress to St. Heliers for a day. The resources of
all the local furnishers were taxed by the young prisoner's taste,
and, the old executor, unbending a little, grimly vaunted his
"dangerous liberality." "I'll be bail for the expenditure of five
hundred pounds, as an extra allowance," he said. "Now make yourself
snug here, for ye'll bide here the whole three years! As to the
bookmen, music, and libraries, I'll give ye a free hand.

"The yearly allowance of yere lamented father will cover all
yere dealings with mantua-makers and milliners. That is yere own
affair--all that sort of womanly gear. We will make one day of it,
and if ye are lacking aught, then Miss Janet can bring ye to town,
or the dealers can come." It was, thus self-deluded, that Andrew
Fraser noted the coming cheerfulness of his defiant young charge.
He fancied he had provided every wish of her lonely heart. But the
trailing lines of smoke of the daily Southampton packets only spoke
to Nadine of a growing correspondence with Major Harry Hardwicke,
Royal Engineers. She waited now for Simpson's arrival for news of
the Delhi mystery--the death of the unloving parent, who had been
only her jailer.

At Rosebank Villa, Major Hardwicke was busied with Captain Murray,
while Anstruther drew Alixe Delavigne aside. "Listen to all Murray
proposes, and agree to it. You may be astonished at our plans, but
between you and I, alone, lies the deeper secret. My secret orders
from the Viceroy are for your ear alone. Your life-quest to reach
Nadine's side can only betaken up after Murray and Hardwicke have
finished their little masquerade at the 'Banker's Folly.' Let this
secret be ours, alone! Do you promise me, Alixe? I will aid you,
heart, life, and soul!" And, with her eyes softly shining in a
growing tenderness, Alixe Delavigne murmured: "I trust you in all
things! It shall be as you wish."

Captain Anstruther then led the way to the library, and closing
the doors with the minute attention of a true conspirator, cried:
"Murray, we will hear from you first!" Seated, with her lips parted
in an expectant smile, Alixe Delavigne listened in amazement as
"Red Eric" proceeded.

"I got the little idea from Frank Halton, of the Globe. You may
know that he was out at the Khyber Pass seven years ago, as the war
correspondent of the Telegraph, and he ran over Cabul at the time
of the Penj-Deh incident. He has prepared a series of varied skits
and personal items covering the visit incognito of Prince Djiddin,
a Thibetan noble of ancient and shadowy lineage. This 'Asiatic Lion'
will be duly kept in the shadows of a mysterious seclusion in the
Four Kingdoms until we introduce him to a small section of the
British public.

"The Globe, the Indian Mail, the Mirror, the Colonial Gazette, and
other periodicals will darkly hint at his itinerary, and he will
be paraded judiciously, and no vulgar eye must ever rest upon him.
These items will be widely copied. A graceful, social phantom, a
Veiled, mysterious young potentate is Prince Djiddin!" "The humbug
will be easily discovered!" said Anstruther, still at sea.

"Not if you flung your protecting mantle over him!" cried Murray.
"We will shield him by a protecting Moonshee, who alone speaks his
august master's language, a tongue not to be easily translated;
in fact, perfectly proof against all prying outsiders. The one way
to hoodwink old Fraser is to humbug him about the great work on
Thibet. That is the one soft spot in the hide of this old alligator.
We have gone carefully over the reports of your secret agent at
St. Heliers. Make us square with him, Captain, let him have your
orders to aid us, and he can get us first hooked on to this Yankee
Professor Alaric Hobbs! We will jolly him a bit, and so, get an
interview with old Fraser, and then fool the old chap to the top
of his bent. We will supply him with theories enough to set every
bee in his bonnet buzzing. Your man is already 'solid' with Professor
Alaric Hobbs, who is a quaint genius, and withal, a hard-headed
Yankee, but full of cranks and 'isms.'"

Anson Anstruther exchanged doubtful glances with Alixe Delavigne,
who was still very agnostic. "The real object is to spy out the
interior of Fraser's household without alarming him, and to locate
his hidden treasure, and, moreover, to open a safe, personal
communication with Nadine Johnstone. Letters and messages finally
go astray. And, at the very first sign of danger, old Andrew would
clear out to the Continent, shut up the girl, get rid of that
insured package, and cut all future communications! In the long three
years, the girl might die, be estranged from you, or perhaps fall
into the hands of some foreign fortune hunter. Human nature--woman
nature--is a mutable quantity. But once we are in communication we
can provide for future correspondence in any event.

"And you, Anstruther, would be defeated in recovering the hidden
property of the Crown. Moreover, these two Frasers are the only
heirs-at-law.

"Who knows what might not be done for a million, when a beggarly
fifty pounds will buy a death certificate in many a little continental
town?" They were all gravely silent as Murray soberly clinched his
argument. "It is idle not to believe that old Hugh Fraser Johnstone
laid out his brother's whole future course! He certainly has
trusted him with his stealings, the lost crown jewels! He trusts
his child's whole future to the care of these two cold Scotsmen,
and gives the heiress over to old Andrew, to keep her safe from
Madame," Murray bowed, "his only living enemy, and from all the other
relatives of his long-hated dead wife. From your own disclosures
and Madame's own words, we must all fear that her first appearance
would be the signal for the spiriting away of Nadine until the
minority is at an end. And it might invite some secret crime. She
bears the hated face of her dead mother, you say!"

"True," murmured Anstruther. "My solicitor tells me, too, that a
guardianship by will is the very strongest tying-up of a rich young
ward. We can follow on later, perhaps, if this opening could be
made, but where have we a 'Prince Djiddin,' and where, the wonderful
'Moonshee?'"

"There is Prince Djiddin," laughed Captain Murray, pointing to
Major Harry Hardwicke, "and here is the Moonshee," he tapped his
own broad breast.

"I fail to understand you," slowly replied Anstruther, now blankly
gazing at the two men in a growing wonderment.

"Nothing easier," briskly answered Murray. "I go quietly over
to Jersey and spend a honeymoon week with Flossie. She is soldier
enough to know that my little masquerade means full 'duty pay
and traveling allowances.' I will hide her safely with my Jersey
friends, and while Frank Halton works his secret Literary Bureau,
I will steal over to Southampton and bring 'Prince Djiddin' over
to St. Heliers. I will see that he naturally falls in with Prof.
Alaric Hobbs, and then, 'fond of seclusion,' I will embower my
'Asiatic Lion' not a league from the 'Banker's Folly.' I will be
near my Flossie, and I propose to bring 'Prince Djiddin' soon face
to face with the heiress.

"As the Prince speaks not a word of English, even old Fraser will
be disarmed. Neither Hobbs, Alaric of that ilk, nor Fraser have
ever been in India, and we can easily fool them. Neither of us
have ever been been in Jersey, and fortunately our figures, age,
and complexions aid the makeup. I can do the Moonshee. It was my
'star' cast in many a garrison theatrical show. Remember, none of
them have ever seen Hardwicke or myself--only Miss Nadine will know
us."

"But," faltered Alixe Delavigne, "Captain Murray makes no provision
for me. Must I be hidden here always?" Her voice was trembling with
the surging love of her longing heart.

"Ah! dear Madame!" replied Murray. "Place aux dames. You can be
later quietly escorted to St. Heliers. Old bookworm Fraser does
not leave the 'Folly' once in six months. You shall, on to-morrow,
arrange with Mrs. Flossie Murray to share 'those days of absence'
with her, while I am playing the 'Moonshee' to 'Prince Djiddin's'
leading part. With your own sly man-of-all-work, then how easy
for the acute Jules Victor to lead you into the extensive grounds,
where you may often meet Nadine Johnstone when all is safe. He has
the friendly entree, and can hoodwink the attendants of the garden,
while your own ingenuity will enable you to have stolen interviews
in the splendid rambles of the 'Banker's Folly.' Old Andrew never
quits his study, and all we have to do is to watch Miss Janet
Fairbarn. Jules Victor can guard against a surprise by her."

"It is an ingenious plan, but, a dangerous one," mused Anstruther.

"Not so," boldly replied Murray. "Remember that old Fraser is
crazy on his bookwork. Hobbs is his only male visitor. He has not
a relative, a friend--no one to watch on the outside while we hold
the old chap at bay. Miss Janet watches in the house." Anstruther
had been carefully studying the two men's faces. "'Prince Djiddin'
will be all right, with a little makeup, using walnut juice and a
proper costume. His Indian brown is quite the thing. But you, my
boy, must be an Eurasian, the son of a high English official and
a native woman of rank. You were carried away to Thibet by your
beautiful Cashmere mother when she was abandoned. The usual sad
story will go. She, driven out by her family, refuges finally in
Hlassa, and your English was, of course, learned before the death
of your father, when you were eighteen. Your usefulness as interpreter
caused you to attach yourself to 'Prince Djiddin's' noble family.

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