A Fascinating Traitor

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

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"Very good!" approvingly answered the dignified confidant and patron.
"See here, Ram Lal! You have only to serve me well in these little
private matters, and you shall handle all the coming Mem-Sahib's
money business here! She wants to be quiet. I am to direct all her
private matters! Not a word, however, to old Hugh!" The two men
separated, Hawke with the knowledge that one of Ram's men had already
glided into the swarming household entourage of Hugh Johnstone's
stately home, and the spy was on every movement of the strange
interior, which defied the Delhi beaux.

"Not a bad day's work," mused Hawke, as he dined in solitary state.
The hospitable bidding of the wealthiest civilian of Delhi to tiffin
on the morrow brought him in touch with Alixe Delavigne's proposed
victim once more. The delighted rascal mused: "I will surely have
letters from her to-morrow, possibly even a telegram of her arrival.
When the silly Swiss woman is the partner of an innocent secret,
she is mine to control! Then the chase for a few lacs of rupees
begins!"

Major Hawke was somewhat startled at the little avalanche of
welcoming cards and notes. "Bravo! this will throw old Hugh off
the track a bit also. The simple duty of piquing local curiosity
shall open all hearts, hearths, and homes to me!" And then, Alan
Hawke joyously realized how easily the light-headed world can
be fooled to the top of its bent by the hollow trick of a bit of
mystery play.

"This falls out rightly," he mused. "I will take up all the threads
of my old society life and Madame Berthe Louison may deign to
confide a bit in me the first half of the story forced from her,
then I will guess out all the missing links of the chain. Once
domiciled here, she is helpless in my hands, for I can either gain
her inner secrets, or boldly checkmate her. And the veiled Rose of
Delhi?"

Alan Hawke dreamed not of the sorrows of the restless heart beating
in that virginal bosom. He paced the veranda of the Club gravely
preoccupied till the midnight hour. Long before that, Justine
Delande had sought her rooms in a feeble flutter of excitement over
the harmless assignation of the morrow. There was a stern old man
pacing his splendid hall alone, with an unhappy heart, that night,
for Hugh Johnstone saw again in the sweet uplifted eyes of his
beautiful child the old unanswered question!

He stood long gazing out upon the unpitying stars, while above
him, lonely and lovely, Nadine recked not the queenly splendor of
her magnificent apartment. Glittering wealth, splendid train of
servants, the golden future stretching out before her, all this
she noted not, for, even in the gray, colorless life of the pension
school at Geneva, soft-eyed Hope whispered to her of a gentle and
gracious mother! Loved--gone before, but not lost--and, here in
the land of gaudy Asiatic splendors, a strange land of wonderment
and fairy riches, she sobbed alone in her heart anguish:

"He will not speak! He tells me nothing! A marble palace this,
but never a home!" The timid girl had seen no beloved woman's face
upon the fretwork of the walls of this Aladdin's castle. And, in
her own frightened heart, she remembered the ashen pallor of her
father's face when she had faltered out the burning question of
her yearning heart--the question of long years! The past was still
a blank to her, while on this same night, crafty Alan Hawke in
Delhi, and, in far Calcutta, a woman, pacing her boudoir in sad
unrest, were both busied with the story of the vanished mother whom
the Rose of Delhi had never seen!

Alixe Delavigne, lonely and resolute, was thinking of her departure
on the morrow, to face the man who had locked his dead past in
his own marble heart, in his grand marble palace. Her busy days at
Calcutta had astounded the senior manager of Grindlay & Co. The old
banker marveled at the strange commissions and imperative orders of
his beautiful business client, but many years had taught him much
of the incomprehensibility of womanhood! Whereupon he marveled in
silence, and bowing with his hand upon his heart, assured the lady
of his absolute discretion, and the unbroken honor of the house.
"Some very queer little life histories go on out here in India!"
mused the old banker, as he handed the lady her special letter to
the Delhi agents of the great house which house which he directed.
"As beautiful as a statue, as firm as a flint! Where have I seen
a face like hers?" mused the old man, as he sought his rest.

The "beautiful statue" was steadfastly gazing at the picture of
the young Rose of Delhi, in her lonely boudoir. "She shall learn
to love her! To love her--through me! And this man of iron shall
yield! He shall hear my prayer! For, if he does not, then, he
shall be struck to the heart--blow for blow! And Fate shall pass
her over! I swear it by that lonely grave in far away Jitomir!"
There were kisses rained upon the pictured face smiling up at her,
the face which had called back to her the dead past, and then the
"beautiful statue" tore aside her gown. She gazed upon a folded
paper which had long lain upon her throbbing heart. "This shall
speak for me--at the last! His pride shall bend! He shall not break
the child's heart! For the mother's sake, I swear it! She shall
love and be loved!" and as she spoke, in far away Delhi sweet
Nadine stirred in her sleep, and smiled, with opening arms, for
the phantom mother she fondly sought seemed to clasp her now to a
loving breast!

In the Delhi Club there was high wassail below him, while Major
Alan Hawke restlessly paced his spacious rooms above, watching the
lonely white moon sail through the clearest skies on earth. The quid
mines had all observed the patiently haughty air of the returned
Major, and even the chattering club stewards marveled at the sudden
efflorescence of Hawke Sahib's fortunes.

"Devilish neat-handed fellow, Hawke," growled old Major Bingo Morris,
over his whist cards. "Close-mouthed fellow! Always wonder why he
left the service! Neat rider! Good hand with gun and spear! He
ought to be in our Staff Corps! He knows every inch of the northern
frontier!" The old Major glared around, inviting further comment.

"Fellow in Bombay tells me he went a cropper about some woman
or other, ten years ago," lisped a rosy young lieutenant who was
spreading the golden revenues of a home brewery over the pitfall-dotted
path of a rich Indian sub.

"Right you are!" sententiously remarked Verner of the Horse Artillery.
"He went a stunning pace for a while, and at last had to get out.
Big flirtation--wife of commanding officer! Hawke acted very nicely.
Said nothing--sacrificed himself. That's why the women all like
him. Very safe man. But, he's a shy bird now." They dissected his
past, guessed at his present, but could not read his future!

And then and there, the man who knew it all, told of the mysterious
governmental quest confided to Major Alan Hawke. "You see, he has
a sort of roving commission in mufti, to counteract the ceaseless
undermining of the Russian agents in Persia, Afghanistan and in
the Pamirs. We always bear the service brand too openly. It gives
away our own military agents. Now, Hawke's a fellow like Alikhanoff,
that smart Russian duffer! He can do the Persian, Afghan, or
Thibetan to perfection! He has been on to London. Some morning he
will clear out. You'll hear of him next at Kashgar, or in Bhootan,
or perhaps he will work down into China and report to the Minister
there. He is a Secret Intelligence Department of One, that's all!"

"That's all very irregular for Her Majesty's Service," growled an
envious agnostic.

"Bah! Secret Service has no rules, you know," said the man who knew
it all, thrusting his lips deeply into a brandy pawnee.

And so it was noted that Alan Hawke was a devilish pleasant fellow,
a rising man, and one who had certainly dropped into an extremely
good thing. The tide of Fortune was setting directly in favor
of the man who, pacing the floor upstairs, unavailingly tormented
himself with the subject of the missing jewels.

"If I could only get a hold on Hugh Johnstone!" mused the adventurer.
"Berthe Louison knows nothing of these old matters. She only seeks
to approach the child. And she will be here to watch me in a day or
so. Ram Lal, the old scoundrel! Does he know? If he did, he would
bleed the would-be Baronet on his own account. But he may not know
of the golden opportunity, and the old wretch always has many irons
himself in the fire. Hugh Fraser was a canny Scot in his youth.
Sir Hugh Johnstone is a horse of another color. If old Johnstone
has the jewels, why does he not yield them up? Perhaps he wants
the Baronetcy first, and then his memory may be strangely refreshed."

As the wanderer strode up and down the room like a restless wolf,
he returned in his memories to the strange intimacy of Hugh Fraser
and Ram Lal. "I have it!" he cried. "I will kill two birds with
one stone. My pretty 'employer' shall furnish the golden means to
loosen old Ram Lal's tongue. This Swiss woman is fond of gewgaws,
he tells me. I will let Ram Lal 'squeeze' the Madame's household
accounts to his heart's content. If the Swiss woman is susceptible,
she can be delicately bribed with jewels paid for by my haughty
employer's money, and my feeding this 'bucksheesh' out to Ram Lal
liberally may bring him to talk of the old days. I must give Hugh
Johnstone the idea that I am inside the official secrets as to the
affair of the Baronetcy. Fear will make him bend, if he is guilty,
and I will alarm Ram Lal at the right time. If they have any old
bond of union, the ex-Commissioner may turn to me for help, and
all this will bring me nearer to the still heart-whole woman who
is hidden in that marble prison. I will make my strongest running
on the Swiss woman. Once the bond of friendly secrecy established
between us, she can be fed, bit by bit, for then she dare not break
away."

Ram Lal Singh was the last watcher in Delhi who coveted a glimpse
that night into the dim future. The old schemer sat alone in his
favorite den in rear of the shop. His round, black eyes surveyed
complacently his faithful domestics, sleeping on the floor at the
threshold of the doors of the four rooms opening into the central
hall of his shop. A single clap of his hands, and these faithful
retainers were ready to rise, tulwar in hand, and cut down any
intruder.

The old jewel merchant's eye roved over the medley of priceless
bric-a-brac in the main hall. The spoils of temple and olden palace
cast grotesque, soft, dark shadows on the floor, under the glimmer
of the swinging cresset lamp filled with perfumed nut oil. Seated
cross-legged, and nursing the mouth-piece of his narghileh, Ram
Lal pondered long over the sudden appearance of the rehabilitated
Major Hawke, and the coming of the rich Mem-Sahib who was to be a
hidden bird in the luxurious nest already awaiting its inmate.

Ram Lal was vaguely uneasy, as he glanced at the pretty pavilion
in his own compound, where languid loveliness awaited his approach.
He resigned himself with a sigh to his lonely schemes. He rose and
with his own hand, poured out a draught of the forbidden strong
waters of the Feringhee.

Dropping down upon the cushions, he reviewed the whole day's doings.
"It is not for him, for Hawke Sahib, this bungalow of delight is
made ready! And the old Sahib is to know nothing. Can it be a trap
for him? I am to watch the old man for Hawke Sahib. This woman
who comes. They say here he will go soon away, over the sea to the
court of the Kaisar-I-Hind. He is rich, why does he linger? And
perhaps not return.

"All these long years of my watch thrown away! For, never a single
one of the sacred jewels has he shown me! They have never seen the
light since the awful day in Humayoon's Tomb. Has he the jewels?
Does he hide them? Has he buried them? Has he sent them away? If
he has them, then he dies the death of a dog. The jewels of a king
to be the spoil of a low tax-gatherer! The King of Kings.

"But why does he not go? I have watched him for years.

"There is some reason! Hawke Sahib shall tell me all! He must tell!
He needs my help!" The old man's slumbers were haunted with the
olden memories of a day of doom, the day when the bodies of the
sacred Princes of Oude lay naked in the glaring sun as they were
despoiled after Hodson's pistol had done its bloody work. "They may
have taken them all from him, these English are greedy spoilers,"
muttered the crafty old man, as his head fell upon the silken cushions
with a curse. He was a rebel still, as rank as Tantia Topee.

In the splendid marble palace of Hugh Johnstone, the startled Justine
Delande was awake long before the dawn, thinking only of the meeting
of the morning, her bosom heaving with its first questionable
secret, but Major Alan Hawke smiled as he leisurely breakfasted
later, reading a telegram just received. "On my way. Will come to
private address. Send servants to Allahabad to join me. Silence
and discretion.--Lausanne."

CHAPTER V.

A DIPLOMATIC TIFFIN.

Major Alan Hawke had designedly breakfasted in the stately seclusion
of his rooms, and as he came gravely sauntering into the Club
ordinary, was at once beset by a friendly chorus, as he carelessly
glanced over the morning letters which attested his progress toward
the social zenith. He, however, gazed impatiently at the club-house
door, where a neat pair of ponies awaited him, with servants deftly
purveyed by the subtle Ram Lal. His two body servants were also
afrites of the same sly Aladdin. His swelling port duly impressed
his old friends.

The man "who had dropped into a good thing" gently put aside sundry
hospitable proffers, politely laughed away several tempting bargains
as to horses, carriages, furnished bungalows, and offers of racing
engagements, hunting bouts, and "private" dinners. "Waiting orders,
d'ye see!" he gently murmured. "Not worth while to set up anything!"
And then, with the air of a martyr, he disappeared, the ponies
springing briskly away, leaving all baffled conjecture behind.
The curious men who were left discussing a flying rumor that Major
Hawke was authorized to raise a Regiment of Irregular Horse for
a special expeditionary secret purpose, wrangled with those who
maintained that a brilliant local civil-service vacancy would be
theatrically filled by the man who now bore a brow of mystery. The
advent of this prosperous Hawke had made the great social deeps of
Delhi to boil like a pot. His mission was one of those things no
fellow could find out.

Laughing in his sleeve, the object of all this sudden curiosity
made a number of detours, and adroitly followed a native servant
down an obscure rear street, after dismissing his pony carriage.
The equipage was busied during the earlier hours of the day in
leaving the visiting cards of the returned soldier of fortune in
certain quarters well calculated to attract social notice.

Threading the spacious gardens in rear of Ram Lal's establishment,
the artful Major entered the jewel merchant's abode without the
notice of the morning gossips of the Chandnee Chouk. "All right,
now," he laughed, as he bade the sly merchant set a private guard
to prevent all intrusion upon their privacy. "I think that I have
thrown these fellows off the track very neatly!" he laughed. "No
one knows of your rear entrances at the club, I am sure!" It suited
the luxurious old jewel merchant to hide the opulence of his secret
life, and to veil the graceful lapses of his private code from the
sober austerities of a dignified Mohammedanism.

"Look alive now, Ram Lal!" said Hawke, briskly, as he handed his
confederate the telegram from Berthe Louison. "You see that the
lady will arrive here tomorrow night! Some one must go down to
Allahabad for her! Are you all ready for her coming?"

"Perfectly!" smiled Ram Lal. "The Mem-Sahib could give a dinner
of twenty covers in an hour after her arrival! You know that the
bungalow was fitted up for--" he bent his head and whispered to
Major Hawke, who laughed intelligently and viciously.

"All right, then! Here is the address in Allahabad, where the lady
is to wait for her conductors. She seems not to wish me to come down.
I will be at the bungalow, then, on your arrival! I will give you
a letter for her," said Hawke. Ram Lal's eyes gleamed in anticipation
of the fat pickings of the Mem-Sahib. He pondered a moment over
the case.

"Then, I will go down myself," complacently said Ram Lal, with an
eye to future business. "You can tell her to trust to me in all
things. She shall travel like a queen!"

"That is better, and so I will telegraph to her, at Allahabad,
this afternoon, that I have sent you to meet her! Have a covered
carriage awaiting her here, and no one must be allowed to follow
her to her hidden nest. It is the making of your fortune with her!"
cried Hawke, as he lit a cheroot.

"Trust to me, Sahib!" answered the wily jewel merchant, relapsing
into an expectant silence. He already connected the arrival of the
beautiful foreigner with the destiny of the opulent man whom he
had revengefully watched for twenty years. Hugh Fraser Johnstone
had heaped up a fortune, but it was not yet successfully deported
to England.

"And the Swiss woman, when may I see her; this morning?" demanded
the adventurer, as he dropped into a cool, Japanese chair.

"My man will bring you the news of her coming!" answerd the oily
old miscreant. "I told him to watch her, and run on to warn me!"
Ram Lal was a wily old Figaro of much experience.

"Good! Then go outside and wait for her," coolly commanded the young
man. "When she comes, you can come in and warn me, and I will be
ready." Ram Lal obediently left Hawke without a questioning word,
and the busy brain of the adventurer was soon occupied with weaving
the meshes for the bird nearing the snare. "This woman's help is
absolutely necessary to me now!" he thought, as he contemplated his
own handsome person in a mirror. "If she can only hold her tongue
and keep a secret, she may be the foundation of my fortunes. I
think that I can make it worth her while, but she must never fall
under the influence of this she-devil in petticoats, who comes
to-morrow night! And yet, the Louison knows she is here! A friendship
between them must be prevented!" He closed his eyes dreamily, and
studied the problem of the future attentively, revolving every point
of womanly weakness which he had observed in his past experience.

He had finally hit upon the right thing. It came to him just as Ram
Lal entered, with his finger on his lip. "She is in there, waiting
for you, and she came alone!" said the crafty merchant. "I can
perhaps frighten her with the idea that Madame Louison wishes to
supplant her as lady bear leader. The future pickings of this young
heiress would be then lost to her! Yes! A woman's natural jealousy
will do the trick!" so sagely mused the young man as he walked out
into the hall, where Ram Lal's treasures were heaped up on every
side. There was no one visible in the shop, but Ram Lal silently
pointed with a brown finger, gleaming with whitest gems, to a
closed door. It was the entrance to the room specially devoted to
the superb collection of arms, the regained loot of Delhi, slyly
collected in the days of the mad sacking by the revengeful English
soldiery. A bottle of rum then bought a princely token.

It had been with a guilty, beating heart that Justine Delande abandoned
her fair, young charge to the morning ministrations of a bevy of
dark-skinned servants. However, the sturdy Genevese waiting-maid
who had accompanied them to India was at hand, when the spinster
incoherently murmured her all too voluble excuses for an early
morning visit to the European shops on the Chandnee Chouk, and then
fled away as if fearful of her own shadow. She was duly thankful
that no one had observed her entrance to the jewel shop, and the
refuge of the room, pointed out by the amiable Ram Lal, at once
reassured her. Justine was accorded a brief breathing spell by the
fates as the Major settled his plans.

It did not seem so very hard, this first fall from maidenly grace,
when Major Alan Hawke, entering the little armory chamber, politely
led the startled woman to a seat, with a graceful self-introduction.

"I should have recognized you any where, Mademoiselle Justine,"
deftly remarked the Major, "by your resemblance to your most charming
sister. You have, I hope, received some private letters from her,
with regard to my visit?" The Swiss gouverriante faltered forth
her affirmative answer, while secretly approving the enthusiastic
judgment of her distant sister upon this most admirable Crichton of
English Majors. "Then," said Hawke, alluringly, "we must be very good
friends, you and I, for we are alone together, among strangers, in
this far-away land!" Then he calmly dropped into an easy discourse,
in which Geneva and Sister Euphrosyne punctuated the graceful flow
of his friendly chat. There was nothing very sinful in the debut
of this little intrigue.

"Let us always speak French!" said Alan Hawke, with a quiet, warning
glance at the closed door. "These same soft-eyed Hindostanees are the
very subtlest serpents of the earth. The only way to do, is never
to trust any of them!" The Major was busied in carefully taking
a mental measurement of Mademoiselle Justine, who, still well on
the sunny side of forty, was really a very comely replica of her
severer intellectual sister. Justine Delande still lingered in that
temperate zone of life where a fair fighting chance of matrimony
was still hers. "If a ray of sunshine ever steals into the flinty
bosom of a Swiss woman, there maybe a gleam or two still left here,"
mused the Major, most adroitly avoiding all reference to Justine's
rosebud charge, and only essaying to place her entirely at her
ease.

But, in proportion as he gracefully labored, the frightened governess
began to realize the danger of her situation.

"I hope that no one will observe us," she said, speaking rapidly
and under her breath. "Mr. Johnstone is so eccentric, so haughty,
and so very peculiar!" Her distress was evident, and the gallant
Major at once hastened to allay her fears.

"I have already thought of that. My old friend, Ram Lal, has a
lovely garden in rear of his house and there we will be entirely
unobserved. For I have so much that I would say to you." It was with
a sigh of relief that the frightened woman hastily passed through
Ram Lal's spacious snuggery in rear of his jewel mart and was soon
ensconced in a little pagoda, where Major Hawke seated himself at
her side and skillfully took up his soft refrains.

In half an hour they were thoroughly en ban rapport, for the
graceful Major Hawke adroitly conversed with his laughing eyes
frankly beaming upon the lonely woman. He had drawn a long breath
of relief when he ran over the letter which the delighted Justine
frankly submitted to him for his inspection. The fair Euphrosyne's
secret advices justified his warmest anticipations. He had conquered
her heart.

"I will not delay you longer this morning," he said at last, with
an artful mock confidence. "I am infinitely grateful to you for so
kindly coming to meet me here. And it is only due to you to tell
you why I begged you to come here to-day. The nature of my important
official duties is such that I am not permitted to exhibit my
real character to any one here as yet. I am charged with some very
delicate public duties which may force me to linger here for some
time, or perhaps disappear without notice, only to return in the
same mysterious manner. But in me you have a stanch secret friend
always. I have already written to your charming sister, and I expect
to receive from her letters which will be followed by letters to
you from her. And I shall write to-day and tell her of your goodness
to me." Miss Justine Delande's eyes were downcast. Her agitated
bosom was throbbing with an unaccustomed fire, and the desire to
be safely sheltered once more in Hugh Johnstone's marble palace
was now strong upon her.

Hawke paused, still keeping his pleading eyes fixed upon the
fluttering-hearted woman's face. "Miss Nadine sees absolutely no
one!" murmured the governess, "and, of course, I never leave her.
It is a very exacting and laborious position, this charge which I
now fill, and of course the life is a very lonely one, though Nadine
is an angel!" enthusiastically cried Miss Justine.

"And so," earnestly said Major Alan Hawke, "I am absolutely prevented
from seeing you, unless you will trust yourself to me, and come
here again." The frightened woman cast a glance at the unfamiliar
loveliness of the secluded garden, with the hidden kiosques, sacred
to Ram Lal's furtive amours.

"I dare not!" she said, with trembling lips. "I would like to come,
but--"

"Listen!" said Alan Hawke, softly taking her unresisting hand, "I
will confide in you. I must, even to-day, go to Hugh Johnstone's
house. He has bidden me to a private interview. And he gives
a tiffin in my honor. I have known him in past years. He does not
as yet know of my official position. My duties are secret. My very
honor forbids me to divulge it. I dare not openly acknowledge an
acquaintance with you, with your sister. It rests with you that
we meet again, for my sake, for your own sake, for your sister's
sake. I cannot lose you for a mere quibble."

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