A Fascinating Traitor Part 17

"I'll give you five accepted drafts for a thousand pounds each, when I return from Calcutta, on Glyn, Carr & Glyn, my London bankers, dated thirty days apart. That will make you sure of your money, and me, sure of my Baronetcy. Will you act?" Hawke knocked the ash off his Havana lightly.

"Yes, if you give me a thousand pounds cash bonus now! I am deliberately misleading Anstruther to help you. And I risk my own place to do it."

"All right," said Johnstone as he left the room, and in a few moments returned with a check-book. "There's your thousand pounds. Now listen.

Not a word to old General Willoughby. He is a meddlesome old sot. I shall slip away quietly. To deceive the Delhi scandal-mongers you must call here every day in my absence. Mademoiselle Delande will receive you. My daughter, of course, sees no one in my absence. And you can inform Delhi secretly, guardedly, that Madame Berthe Louison is an art enthusiast, a Frenchwoman of rank and fortune, and one who, in her short stay, only studies the wonders of old Oude. I don't want this d.a.m.ned pack of local lady-killers--the lobster-backs--to get after her. Do you understand? I'll have further use for you. I may retire to Europe. You can trust the Swiss woman. I will give her my orders."

"All right! I will go and telegraph as soon as I can make my adieux.

When do you start for Calcutta?" Hawke asked warily.

"The moment you get Anstruther's reply," decisively replied Johnstone.

"I'll be away for a couple of weeks in all!" Hawke turned paler than his wont, but he mused in silence and cheerfully finished his coffee and cognac. In half an hour, he left an aching void in Justine Delande's bosom, but some subtle magnetism had so drawn Berthe Louison and the heart-stirred Justine together that Hugh Johnstone was happy, when, with courtly gallantry, he escorted the beauty, who had set Delhi all agog, to her garden-bowered nest.

"Have I kept my compact?" said Berthe, as they stood once more in her "tiger's den."

"You have, madame!" said Hugh Johnstone. "I have been considering all.

I will leave secretly for Calcutta in two or three days. You had better follow me in a week. I have some private business there. I will ask my friend, Major Hawke, to show you the environs. You can trust him.

Telegraph me to Grindlay's Bank, Calcutta, of your arrival. I will meet you. Our business transacted, we can return together on the same train.

All will then be safe." His own secret preparations were all made.

"I agree to all," said Berthe. "And, as to Nadine?"

Johnstone turned with blazing eyes, "You are to see her each day, at her own home, in the presence of Justine Delande. She will have my orders.

Remember our compact! All your future a.s.sociation with her depends on your prudence. I will not be betrayed or openly disgraced!" His face was as black as a murderer caught in the act.

"I remember!" said the beauty of the Bungalow.

"To mystify the fools here, if I will bring my daughter and take you for a drive, each day at four, till I go," said Johnstone. "And, then, I'll have Hawke show you the city." He bowed, and at once disappeared, leaving his enemy laughing. But he grinned.

"If she knew that I go to meet Douglas Fraser, my lady would pa.s.s an uneasy night! I hold the trump cards now!"

Major Alan Hawke smiled grimly the next day, when he presented to Hugh Johnstone a neatly got up cipher, answering dispatch in code words which had cost Ram Lal just half of the bribe which Hawke gave him for the sly Hindu telegraph clerk.

"Ah! Anstruther was prompt!" said the neatly tricked nabob, when Hawke translated:

"Intelligence gratifying. Name approved and on list. Appointment sure!"

Three days later, Delhi missed Hugh Johnstone from the afternoon drives, which showed Madame Louison and Nadine to an eager bevy of Madame Grundys. But the envied of all men was Major Alan Hawke, escorting Madame Louison for a week over the storied plains of the Jumna.

When Madame Berthe Louison and her two body servants took the Calcutta train, local society jumped to its sage conclusion.

"Old Hugh will lead the beautiful Countess to the altar, while Major Alan Hawke will bear off the Rosebud of Delhi, and so become the richest son-in-law in India." But the handsome Alan Hawke, each morning lingering with Justine Delande in the grounds of the marble house, never saw the face of Nadine Johnstone. The beautiful girl breathlessly awaited her new-made friend's return. But stern old Hugh Johnstone, at Calcutta, laughed as he thought of his own secret coup de main.

"Wait! Wait till I return!" he gloated. "She is powerless now!"

CHAPTER VIII. HARRY HARDWICKE TAKES THE GATE NEATLY.

In the few days succeeding Hugh Johnstone's still unsuspected departure, the dull fires of a growing jealousy burned and smouldered in Captain Harry Hardwicke's agitated heart. The old nabob had neatly slipped away in the night, on a special engine, and the Captain heard all the growing tattle of Delhi, as to the social activity at the marble house. The open hospitable board of General Willoughby rang with the very wildest rumors. Alan Hawke seemed to be the "Prince Charming" of the hidden festivities.

Hardwicke, on the eve of his Majority, now darkly moped in his rooms, undecided to apply for a long home leave, unwilling to leave Delhi, and even afraid to ask his general for any positive favor as to a future station. Club and mess bandied the freest tattle as to old Hugh Johnstone's lovely "importation." Men eyed the prosperous Major Alan Hawke on his rising pathway with a growing envy. There was a smart coterie who now firmly believed that the Major's only "secret business"

was to marry the Rose of Delhi, and then, departing on an extended honeymoon, leave the "Diamond Nabob," as the ci-devant Hugh Fraser was called, free to proclaim Madame Berthe Louison, queen of the marble house, and sharer of his expected dignity, the crown of his life, the long-coveted Baronetcy. When old Major Verner growled:

"That's the scheme, Hardwicke! My Lady of France makes the condition that the young heiress shall be settled first. Gad! What a lucky dog Hawke is!" Then, Harry Hardwicke suddenly discovered that he loved the moonlight beauty of his dreams--the fair veiled Rose of Delhi. Hawke rose up as a darkly menacing cloud on his future.

His morning rides were now but keen inspections of the Commissioner's garden, and, lingering on the Chandnee Chouk, he knew, by experiments, conducted with a beating heart, just where Justine Delande was wont to wander in the lonely labyrinth, with her lovely young charge. A low double gate, a break in the high stone wall, often gave him glimpses of the two women in their morning rambles and, with a softened feeling, born of her own secret pa.s.sion for Hawke, Justine Delande watched a fluttering handkerchief often answer Captain Hardwicke's morning salute.

"Tell me, Justine," said Nadine, the morning after Hugh Johnstone had stolen away, "Why does my father not ask Major Hardwicke to visit us? He is to be promoted for his superb gallantry, he is so brave--so n.o.ble! He certainly has as many claims to honor as this--this Major Hawke--whom my father has made his confidant. I don't know why, but I don't like that man!"

"What do you know of Major Hardwicke, as you call him?" cried Justine in wonder at Miss Nadine's growing interest.

"Ah!" the agitated girl cried with blushing cheeks, "Mrs. Willoughby told me how he dragged his wounded friend out of a storm of Afghan b.a.l.l.s, and gave her back the child of her heart. It was General Willoughby who got him his Victoria Cross. And, she says that he is a hero, he is so gentle and manly--so gifted--a man destined to be a commanding general yet." The guilty Swiss woman dared not raise her eyes to watch the fleeting blushes on Nadine's cheeks.

"It is time, high time we leave India," she mused, and then, the thought of separation from Alan Hawke chilled her blood. "Let us go in," she said. "The gra.s.s is damp yet." Captain Hardwicke's argus eyes, love inspired, were now daily fixed on the marble house. He scoured Delhi and ama.s.sed a pyramid of detached fragmentary gossip in all his alarm, but one star of hope cheered him. Though Major Hawke was known as the only cavalier of Madame Louison, save the old nabob, now supposed to be ill at home; though Hawke drove out for a week with the lovely countess--to the great surprise of the local society, the handsome renegade had never once been seen in public with Miss Nadine Johnstone. Stranger still, the star-eyed Madame Berthe Louison had never accompanied the young heiress in the regular afternoon parade en voiture. "There's a mystery here," mused the lover. "Old Hugh and the Major appear daily with the Frenchwoman, but Nadine Johnstone has never been seen alone with anyone save her father, or this Swiss duenna. Hawke is making slow progress there, if any." Meeting old Simpson, the nabob's butler, Captain Hardwicke tipped him with a five-pound note. The old retired soldier grinned and opened his confidence.

"The Major! Bless your stars!" gabbled Simpson, "She's a straightaway angel, and not for the likes of him! Major Hawke has a dark spot or two in his record--away back!" grumbled Simpson, "No, Captain! Major Hawke has never set eyes on her for a single moment, but the one night of that dinner. By the way, it is the only one we ever gave!" The butler swelled up proudly.

"That night she never lifted her eyes, nor spoke even a word to him. He comes to see the Guv'nor on business, an' mighty private business it is.

They're locked up together often."

"And, this marrying? The stories are now told everywhere?" queried Hardwicke, blushing, but desperately remembering that "all is fair in love and war." He, an incipient Major, a V. C.--"pumping" an old private soldier.

"Rank rot!" frankly said the butler, "They're all strangers. The French countess is only sight-seeing here and buying out old Ram Lal's shop.

The old thief! She brought letters to the Guv'nor! That's all! He's no special fancy to her, and he set Major Hawke on just to do the amiable.

The Guv'nor's far too old to beau the lady around. Marry?--not him! And Miss Nadine's just as silent as a flower in one of them gold vases. All she does is to look pretty and keep still, poor lamb. Her music, her books, her flowers, her birds. And as to Major Hawke and this Madame Louison--I've the Guv'nor's own orders they are never to see Miss Nadine. That is, Hawke not at all, and the lady only when Miss Delande is present! Them's my solid orders, and the old Guv'nor put my eye out with a ten-pound note--the first I ever got from him. No, Captain!

You've done the handsome by me, and I give you the straight tip--wasn't I in the old Eighth Hussars with your father when we charged the rebel camp at Lucknow? I've got a tulwar yet that I cut out of the hand of a 'pandy' who was hacking away at Colonel Hardwicke."

"How did you get it, Simpson?" cried the young Captain.

"I got arm and all! Took it off with a right cut! You may know, Cap'n, that we ground our sabers in those old days! No, sir! Miss Nadine's for none of them people, and Hawke is only in the house for business. He's a deep one--is that same Hawke," concluded Simpson, pocketing his note.

Captain Hardwicke began to see the light dawning. "Alan Hawke has then some secret business scheme with the old money grubber that's all,"

mused the young engineer officer, happy at heart. "I'll fight a bit shy of him. His scheme may take the girl in. So, old Johnstone's away a few days. Perhaps settling his affairs before his departure. I think," the lover mused, "I will follow them to Europe, if they go, and, if they stay, Willoughby will ask for my retention, and, after all, 'faint heart never won fair lady.' Hawke is not an open suitor. If the old man should ever marry this French beauty, I may find the pathway open to Nadine Johnstone's side!"

So, with a "fighting chance," Captain Hardwicke determined that Miss Nadine should know his heart before long, and have also a chance to know her own mind. "The fact is, the old boy has lived the life of a recluse, that's all, but I'll find a way to pierce the sh.e.l.l of his moroseness.

There's one comfort," he smiled, "No other fellow is making any running."

In these swiftly gliding days of absence, Ram Lal Singh and the watchful Major Alan Hawke conferred at length over narghileh and gla.s.s. A sullen discontent had settled down on Hawke's brow when Berthe Louison publicly departed upon her business trip with not even a fragmentary confidence.

"Wait for my return, and only watch the marble house," said the Madame.

"Do not be foolish enough to attempt to call on Miss Nadine. I heard Johnstone tell the Swiss woman not to allow you to follow up any social acquaintance with his daughter. 'I want Nadine to remain a girl as yet,'

growled the old brute. Now, the Swiss woman may be able to give you some information."

"I'll do what I can," carelessly replied Alan Hawke, but his eyes gleamed when she said:

"Do not sulk in your tent. On my return I shall have need of you. You can prepare to go into action then."