A Fascinating Traitor

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

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28

Twenty-four hours later Major Alan Hawke was again a stormy petrel
on Life's trackless ocean. The cold politeness of Captain Anson
Anstruther at the brief interview at the Junior United Service Club
in London at once decided the wanderer to make for India as soon
as his "pressing engagements" would allow. There was no seeming
menace, however, in Anstruther's wearied air of perfunctory courtesy.

"The whole affair being officially dropped, Major Hawke," said
Anstruther, "I only ask for your personal receipt for my individual
check. You will observe that this eleven hundred pounds is not in
any way government funds. And, on behalf of the Viceroy himself,
I thank you for your energy shown in the inquiry, which is now
permanently abandoned." To Major Hawke's murmured request, Anstruther
replied:

"Certainly! Drive around to Grindlay's in Parliament Street with
me and they will at once give you notes or their own circular check
for this money." In ten minutes, when Hawke had lightly announced
his intention to return to India, the Captain observed: "I may
not meet you for some years. If the Viceroy returns to England,
my promotion will probably carry me with his Embassy to Paris as
Major and Military Attache." And then they parted as mere casual
acquaintances.

"Damn his cool impertinence," mused Alan Hawke, as he caught a
passing cab, after telegraphing his greetings and intended departure
to Justine Delande.

"Write one letter to Hotel Binda, Paris, then all to the P. & O.
Agency, Brindisi; after that, to Delhi," were the lying words which
reached the Swiss woman, whose loving breast was now given over to
a tumult of sighs.

Major Hawke was not free from secret apprehensions until he landed
at Calais, upon the next morning. "Now for a last 'throw off' at
Paris!" he exclaimed. "Damn England! I hope I shall never see it
again!" he growled, unmindful of the pitiless Fates ever spinning
the mysterious web of Destiny. "I'll first show up at Berthe
Louison's, at No. 9 Rue Berlioz. They shall have my next address
given to them as Delhi. The real Major Hawke dives under the troubled
sea of Life at Paris, only to emerge at Calcutta! Ram Lal is like
all his kind, a coward at heart! He has not denounced me, for, if
he had, Captain Anstruther would have nabbed me in England. He
acts by the Viceroy's private cabled orders. No! The coast is all
clear for my dash at the enemy's works!"

Before the morning dawned on the sea-girt coast of La Manche, Marie
Victor had duly telegraphed Major Hawke's impending departure for
India to the beautiful recluse who now cheered the lonely bride of
"the Moonshee," at the old Norman chateau, embowered in its splendid
gardens, within a league of the Banker's Folly.

Alan Hawke, closely shaven, and masquerading in a French commis-voyageur's
modest garb, was seated at ease in Etienne Garcin's death-trap at
the Cor d'Abundance, in foggy Granville. His darkened locks and
nondescript garb thoroughly effaced the "officer and gentleman."
One of the old French villain's wickedest and prettiest woman decoys
was coquettishly serving Hawke's breakfast as he read the burning
words of Justine Delande's message from the heart. The last greeting,
tear-blotted, and promptly sent to the Hotel Binda.

"It's a wild day, a wild-looking place, and a wild enough sea,"
grumbled Major Hawke, gazing out of the grimy window at the rolling
green surges breaking, white-capped, far out beyond the new pier,
where the black cannon were drenched and crusted with the salty
flying scud. Far away, a little side-wheel steamer was laboring
along over the strait from the blue island of Jersey, rising and
dipping half out of sight, with a trail of intermittent puffs of
dense black smoke.

"There is the enemy's stronghold, and now for Jack Blunt's plan
of campaign! I wonder if he'll come over to-day, or to-morrow? He
must have had my telegram last night!" Alan Hawke amused himself
with the bold, black-eyed French girl's vicious stories of olden
deeds done there in Etienne Garcin's gloomy spider's den. He even
laughed when the red-bodiced she-devil laughingly pointed down at
the loosened floor-planks in the back room, underneath which mantrap
the swish of the throbbing waves could be heard.

Then the sheeted, cold driving rain hid the promontory, with its
heavy, lumpy-looking fort, the old gray granite parish church, and
the clustered ships of the harbor, now dashing about and tugging
wildly at their doubled moorings, soon to be left high and dry on
the soft ooze when the thirty-foot tide receded. "There's where we
find our best customers," laughed the French wanton, as Alan Hawke
drew her to his knee, and they laughed merrily over the golden
harvest of the sea, the price of the recovered dead. Through the
narrow stone fanged streets lumbered along the heavy French hooded
carts, driven by squatty men in oil skins and sou'westers, and
laden down with the spoils of the whale, cod, and oyster fisheries.
Stout women in huge blue aprons, with baskets on their rounded arms,
gossiped at the protecting corners, while the shouts of Landlord
Etienne Garcin's drunken band of sea wolves now began to ring out
in the smoky salle a boire.

It was two o'clock when the burly form of Etienne Garcin was propelled
unceremoniously into Alan Hawke's room. A grin of satisfaction spread
over the bullet-headed old ruffian's face, and his round gray pig
eyes twinkled, as he noted the already established entente cordiale
between Jack Blunt's pal and the wanton spy who was the absent
Jack's own especial pet. But, Alan Hawke was temporarily blind to
the universally offered charms of the soubrette as he read Joseph
Smith's careful report.

"That's the talk!" joyously cried Hawke. His heart bounded in a
fierce thrill. "By God! Simpson shall be 'done up' in short order.
The drunken old dog. He cut off the payment of my drafts with his
blabbing tongue!

"Yes, over the cliffs he goes, and we will make sure of
him--forever--before he takes his last tumble! Jack! Jack! You are
a hero!" he mused, as the triumphant words of Jack Blunt's great
discovery were read again and again. And then, he carefully burned
the letter, before the astonished eyes of the tempting companion of
his waiting hours. "These fools of employers!" cheerfully muttered
Alan Hawke. "They always think that 'Servant's Hall' has no eyes.
That the maid in her cap and apron has not the same burning passions
as idle Madame in her silks and laces. That the man has not his own
easy-going vices just as alive and masterful as the base appetites
of the swell master."

While Alan Hawke thus exulted at Granville, there was gloom and
jealousy in the heart of Prof. Alaric Hobbs, of Waukesha University,
Wisconsin, U. S. A.

A tall, lank, bespectacled "Westerner," nearly thirty-five years
of age, the blue-eyed country boy had dragged himself up from the
obscurity of a frontier American farm into the higher life. Uncouth,
awkward, and yet resolute and untiring, he had justified his first
instructor's prediction:

"He has the head of a horse, and will make his mark!" Newspaper
trainboy, chainman, assistant on Government frontier surveys, and
frontier scout, he early saved his money so as to complete a sporadic
university curriculum. A trip to Liberia, a dash down into Mexico,
and a desert jaunt in Australia, had not satisfied his craving for
adventure. With the results of two years of professional lectures,
he was now imbibing continental experiences, and plotting a bicycle
"scientific tour of the world." Hard-headed, fearless, devoted,
and sincere, he was a mad theorist in all his mental processes,
and had tried, proved, and rejected free love, anarchy, Christian
science, and a dozen other feverish fads, which for a time jangled
his mental bells out of tune. A cranky tracing of the lost Ten
Tribes of Israel down to the genial scalpers of the American plains
had thrown him across the renowned Professor Andrew Fraser, who
had, on his part, located these same long mourned Hebrews in Thibet,
ignoring the fact that they are really dispersed in the United
States of America as "eaters of other men's hard-made 'honey'" in
the "drygoods," clothing, and "shent per shent" line. For, a glance
at the signs on Broadway will prove to any one that the "lost" have
been found in Gotham.

Smoking his corncob pipe the Professor paced his rooms at the Royal
Victoria, and mentally consigned Prince Djiddin and his indefatigable
Moonshee to Eblis, the Inferno, Sheol, or some other ardent corner
of Limbo. "How long will these two yellow fellows keep poor old
Fraser enchanted?" mused the disgruntled American, mindful of his
hotel bill running on. "The old man is crazy after the two Thibetans,
and I can't see his game. He does not wish me to publish my own
volume first. That is why he has given me the 'marble heart,' and
taken them into his house. Their wing of the Banker's Folly is
now an Eastern idolaters' temple. If I could only hook on to the
'Moonshee,' I might make a 'scoop'--a clean scoop--on old Fraser.
God! how my book would sell if I could only get it out first. And
yet I dare not offend this old scholar, Andrew Fraser. He must be
true to me. He has read to me all the original manuscript of his
own half-finished work. He must trust to me, and he has promised
to give me a resume of their disclosures also after they leave.
The Thibetan Prince will only be here two weeks longer."

"Then old Fraser will take me to his heart again." Alaric Hobbs
reflected on his vain attempt to try the Tunguse, Chinook, Zuni,
Apache, Sioux, and Esquimaux dialects on the handsome Prince Djiddin,
whose Oriental magnificence was even now the despairing admiration
of the two pretty housemaids.

"My august master cannot speak to any one but the great scholar
whom he came here to see. He soon returns to his retirement in his
palace in the Karakorum Mountains. And he never will emerge thence!"
solemnly said the Moonshee, adding in a whisper: "He may, by the
grace of Buddha, be re-incarnated as the Dalai-Lama. He springs from
the loins of kings. I dare not break in upon his awful silence."
The Moonshee's significant gesture of drawing a hand across his
own brown throat had silenced the pushing American professor.

"By hokey!" he groaned, "it is hard to have to play second fiddle
to this purblind old Scotchman." Alaric Hobbs had been a reporter
upon that dainty sheet, The New York Whorl, in one of his "emergent"
periods, and so he writhed in agony at being left at the post. "I
must be content to tap old Fraser when he comes back from London
with that embarrassing lump of beauty, his millionaire niece. She
would make a fitting spouse for this Prince Djiddin, for she never
speaks a word--at least to me. And this swell Prince, who comes 'only
one in a box,' gets the same 'frozen hand.' Funny girl, that. But
I must yield to old Fraser's moods." Alaric Hobbs then descended to
the tap-room and instructed the pretty barmaid in the manufacture
of his own favorite "cocktail," an American drink of surpassing
fierceness and "innate power," which had once caused "Bald-headed
Wolf," a Kiowa chieftain, to slay his favorite squaw, scalp a
peace commissioner, and chase a fat army paymaster till he died of
fright in his ambulance, after Alaric Hobbes had incautiously left
a bottle of this "red-eye" mixture with his aboriginal host on one
of the "exploring tours." A powerful disturbing agent, the American
cocktail!

But for all Miss Nadine Johnstone's seeming aversion to men, and in
spite of Prince Djiddin's inability to utter a word of any jargon
save ninety-five degree Thibetan, "far above proof," on this very
morning while the "Moonshee" was transcribing under the watchful
eyes of the excited Andrew Fraser the disclosures of the evening
before, the young millionairess was "getting on" very well in
exhibiting the glories of the tropical garden to the august tourist
from the lacustrine Himalayas.

Jules Victor adroitly busied the maid whom Janet Fairbarn had dispatched
to "play propriety," and the other London girl had quietly stolen
away to her own last rendezvous with her mysterious London lover,
"Mr. Joseph Smith," otherwise "Jack Blunt, Esq., of the Swell Mob
of the Thames."

The whispers of the stately young Prince brought crimson blushes to
the face of the glowing girl, whose answering murmurs were as low
as the siren voice of Swinburne's "small serpents, with soft, stretching
throats." They had a double secret to keep now. A momentous, a
dangerous one; for in the depths of the Tropical Gardens of Rozel,
the passionate hearted Alixe Delavigne was hidden, waiting this very
morning to clasp again the beautiful orphan to a bosom throbbing in
wildest love. Prince Djiddin, always on his guard, artfully turned
back and busied the maid, when she was released from Jules Victor's
vociferous bar-gaining, with a half-hour's choosing her "fairing,"
out of the lively peddler's pretty stock. The woman's vanity made
her an easy victim. The "descendant of Thibetan Kings" could not,
of course, speak intelligibly, but the yellow sovereigns which he
carried were the magic talisman which opened at once the pretty
maid servant's softened heart.

It was a long half hour before the happy Nadine Johnstone returned
to join the kinsman of the Maharajah of Cashmere. Her eyes were
gleaming in a tender, dawning lovelight, her lips still thrilling
with Alixe Delavigne's warm kisses. In her heart, there still rang
out her mysterious visitor's last words: "Wait, darling! My own
darling! Before another month the secret Government agent will have
officially visited Andrew Fraser. We are all ready to act with
crushing power when the happy moment safely arrives. And you shall
then hear all the story of the past on my breast. You shall know
how near you have been to my loving heart in all these weary years.
The story of your own dear mother's life shall be my wedding present
to you. Yet, a few days more of watchful patience," softly sighed
Alixe.

"For we must not let Andrew Fraser wake for a moment from his frenzy
of Thibetan study until we can force from him the permission which
we will demand to visit you, and to free you from his control."

Prince Djiddin paced solemnly back toward the Banker's Folly, leaving
the overjoyed maid to bundle up all her many gifts. A grateful wink
to Jules Victor from the Prince rewarded the disguised valet, as
he gayly sped away to meet his mistress, and to obtain her orders
for the next day. This artful game of mingled Literature and Love
had so far been safely played, but Jules Victor had secretly warned
Nadine Johnstone against any confidences with her pretty London
sewing woman. "She has found a sweetheart here. He is a curious
looking fellow, he has money and is liberal, and, so, what you
tell her she will surely tell her sweetheart. Trust to no one but
the other maid, who is devoted to me," proudly said the dapper
little Frenchman. Nearing the mansion, on this eventful morning,
Prince Djiddin, at a hidden bend of a leafy path, whispered to his
fair conductress, "For God's sake, darling Nadine, do not betray
yourself! Those sweetly shining eyes are tell-tale stars! Your
heart happiness will struggle for expression. Go to your rooms at
once. Pour out your happy heart in song, lift up your voice. But,
watch over your very heart-throbs! Only a single fortnight more,
darling, and we will clip the claws of this old Scottish lion who
has you in his clutches!

"Anstruther will soon make his coup de main, for Hawke has at last
gone back to India, and we will have a deadly grasp soon on the
frightened Andrew Fraser. He must either give up his legal tyranny
and yield you to us, or else face a future which would appall
even a braver man. I dare not to tell you our secret yet. Only the
Viceroy and Anstruther know it. And, now, darling, above all, be
sure not to betray yourself, in London. Remember that Anstruther
will have you secretly watched, from this gate to the very moment
when you return to it! Any false play of old Fraser would lead to
his detention by the authorities, and you would be freed at once
by the law!"

In the three weeks of their long masquerade, neither Prince Djiddin,
his scribe and interpreter, or else the two, as studious visitors,
never left Andrew Fraser alone a single moment! The old scholar
was thrilled at heart with Eric Murray's solemn rehearsing of Frank
Halton's valuable notebooks and ingenious theories. He eagerly
enforced Prince Djiddin's request that no curious strangers shoud
be allowed to force themselves on him, no matter of what lofty rank.
Prince Djiddin was wrapped in the veil of a solemn personal seclusion.

And to this end Simpson, now the butler of the "Banker's Folly,"
was especially assigned to wait upon the austere "Prince Djiddin" as
his "body servant." Only one visit of state was exchanged between
"Prince Djiddin" and General Wragge, Her Majesty's Commander
of the Channel Islands. The "Moonshee," with a sober dignity, had
interpreted for the British Commander of the Manche, and in due
state, a return visite de ceremonie to General Wagge's mansion and
headquarters strangely found Captain Anson Anstruther, A.D.C. of
the Viceroy of India, a pilgrim to St. Heliers, to arrange secretly
for "Prince Djiddin's" safe conduct and return to Thibet. The
curious society crowd and St. Heliers's beautiful women envied
Captain Anstruther his three hours conference with the "Asiatic
lion."

By day, in the vaulted library, Andrew Fraser pored over the weird
stories of Runjeet Singh, of Aurung zebe, of King Dharma, and the
Cashmerian priest who came with Buddha's first message to Thibet!
The story of the marvelous royal babe found floating in the
Ganges, in a copper box, a century before Christ, the tales of the
"Konchogsum," the "Buddha jewel," the "doctrine jewel," and the
"priesthood jewel" fed the burning fever of old Fraser's senile
mind. He now felt that he lived but only in the past. At night,
he labored alone till the wee sma' hours, depositing his precious
manuscript in a secret hiding-place, where he now scarcely glanced
at the "insured packet," which had been such a dangerous legacy
of his dead brother. He had forgotten all his daily life and even
his fears for the future in the fierce exultation of concealing
his strangely gotten Thibetan lore from his rival, Alaric Hobbs.

"A remarkable mind," growled old Fraser, "but a Yankee--and so
untrustworthy." At last, unwillingly, with a quaking heart, lest
Prince Djiddin should decamp in his absence, he obeyed an imperative
legal summons and proceeded to London with Nadine Johnstone, leaving
his house under the charge of that sphinx-eyed Scottish spinster,
Janet Fairbarn.

To the "Moonshee," and to the rubicund veteran Simpson, the
departing Andrew Fraser said solemnly, "The Prince is to be the
master here until my return." With a joyous heart the London sewing
girl embarked as Miss Johnstone's one personal attendant, forgetful
of her devoted lover, Joseph Smith, who had temporarily disappeared,
gone over to France "on business." For she was herself going back
to the dear delights of her beloved London, and her liberal lover
had already given her his address at the Cor d'Abondance.

"You must telegraph to me, Mattie, where you are staying, and when
you leave London to return. I may run over to Southampton and come
back on the same boat with you. Write to me, my own girl, every
day, and here's a five-pound note to buy your stamps with." On his
sacred promise of honor to write to her himself every day, and to
let no black Gallic eyes eclipse her "orbs of English blue," Mattie
Jones allowed her lover an extra liberal allowance of good-bye
kisses.

While Professor Andrew Fraser, Miss Nadine Johnstone, and the
lovelorn Mattie Jones, were escorted to London by a head clerk of
the estate's solicitors, Prince Djiddin and the "Moonshee" unbent
their brows and rested from the nervous strain of the three weeks
of continued deception.

While the happy "Moonshee" escaped to his own fair bride, Prince
Djiddin, under Simpson's guidance, examined minutely the superb
modern castle, and even microscopically examined all the beautiful
surroundings of Rozel Head. "It may come in handy some day," mused
Major Hardwicke, "especially if we have to aid Nadine Johnstone to
escape." The pseudo-Prince was glad to often steal out alone to
the headland overlooking Rozel Pier, and there watch the French
luggers beating to seaward sailing like fierce cormorants along
the wild coast of St. Malo. He was glad to fill his lungs with the
fresh, crisp, salt air, and to commune in safety at length with
the faithful Simpson.

Securely hid in an angle of the cliff, they talked over all the
mystery of Hugh Fraser's bloody "taking off," and of the dreary
three years of Death in Life left before Nadine.

"As for the old master, he was an out and out hard 'un," stolidly
said Simpson. "Who killed him, nobody knows and nobody cares. I've
always suspicioned that there Ram Lal and yer fancy friend, this
Major Alan Hawke."

Hardwicke started in a sudden alarm. "Why so?" he demanded.

"I believe that they tried to blackmail him about some of his old
Eurasian love affairs, or else some official secret they had spied
out. You see the niggers in the marble house were all Ram Lal's
friends, and any one of them could have left the murderers alone
to do their work and then let 'em out of the house. I believe that
Hawke did the job, and Ram Lal got away with some of the missing
crown jewels. I'll tell you, Major Harry, General Willoughby and
the magistrates had me under fire there for many a day."

"See here, Simpson," said Major Hardwicke, "a man who would murder
the father, would rob the daughter! I'll give you a thousand pounds
if you instantly notify me, if Hawke ever is found creeping around
here. There may be some ugly old family secrets, you know."

"I'm your man! Pay or no pay!" cried Simpson. "Only they think of
giving me a three months' leave on pay to visit my people."

"Don't go! Don't go! till I tell you!" cried the Major.

"I am glad this fellow Hawke, whom you say has been dropped, is
now on his way back to India," said Simpson.

"Yes, but he might show up here devilish strangely," mused
Hardwicke. "He is just the fellow for a dirty fluke. Watch over
Nadine, Simpson," cried Hardwicke, "for I've sworn to make her my
wife, within three months, uncle or no uncle!"

"I will," growled Simpson. "I've an old grudge to settle with the
Major, and I'll tell you some day," said the veteran. "Let us go
in. There are some curious people here. I'll tell you all when
I'm your own man, and the young mistress is Mrs. Major Hardwicke!"

On this very evening, as the gray mists hid the Jersey outline
from the windows of Etienne Garcin's den, Jack Blunt and Major Alan
Hawke were seated in the Major's bedroom in the cabaret. They were
cheerfully discussing two steaming "grogs," but there was doubt and
a shifty lack of thorough confidence between the two scoundrels as
yet.

"So you think the boat will do?" flatly demanded Jack Blunt, offering
some exceptional cigars.

"Just the thing," carefully replied the Major. "And your terms for
a two weeks charter?"

"Twenty-five hundred francs for the boat and outfit--the same sum
for the gang, cash down. Two weeks, with the privilege of renewal
for two more-at the same rate," doggedly said Blunt. "Now, you've
got to make up your mind soon, Hawke," said Jack Blunt roughly.
"I've told you the whole lay, and so far, have given you the worth of
your money. If you can't 'come up,' then I'm going to run a lugger
load of brandy and 'baccy over to the Irish coast. She's a sixty
tonner and by God! fit to cross the Atlantic! Old Garcin, too, is
getting impatient. Our being here, stops his 'regular business,'"
gloomily said Blunt,

Hawke's impassive face angered Jack Blunt as he continued: "And
you say that I can trust Garcin's brother Andre down at Isle Dial."

"Yes. Even if we had to stow one or both of these fools away down
there."

"I am sure that Angelique and I could hide them away for a year or
else safely forever there," cried Jack Blunt, in a hoarse whisper.
"It's only a matter of money and damme if I believe you've got any!
If you fool us, you'll never get out of here alive!" Major Hawke
only smiled, and dropped his hands lightly on the butts of two heavy
bull-dog revolvers ready there in his velveteen trousers' pockets.

"Jack! Don't be an ass!" he said. "I play this game to win. Do you
think that I would bring my ready money into this murder pen? Now,
tell me what you will take in cash, to tell me where the old miser
has hidden the stuff I want? And how much will you take to do the
job? I want to know when they return, and I want your help and the
aid of the gang. You are to crack the crib--alone--while they are
away, and then we, perhaps, may meet them, on their way home. The
lugger lying off in that cove to the north of Rozel Head, below
the old martello tower."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28