Aladdin of London Part 22

"I told you that we should have no difficulties," he exclaimed.

Alban helped himself to some superb bisque soup and permitted the waiter to fill his gla.s.s from a flask of Chablis.

"It was quite an accident upon my part. I went up to the Castle as you advised me and then down into the old town. Lois is with her friends there. I have had a long talk to her and now I understand everything."

The Count nodded his head and sipped his wine. The frankness of all this deceived him but not wholly. The boy had discovered something--it remained to be seen how much.

"You are successful beyond hope," he exclaimed presently, "this will be great news for Mr. Gessner. Of course, you asked her plainly what had happened?"

"She told me without my asking, Count. Now I understand everything--for the first time."

The tone of the reply arrested Sergius' attention and brought a frown to his face. He kept his eyes upon Alban when next he spoke.

"Those people are splendid liars," he remarked as though he had been expecting just such a story--"of course she spoke about me. I can almost imagine what she said."

"It was a very great surprise to me," Alban rejoined, and with so simple an air that any immediate reply seemed impossible. For five minutes they ate and drank in silence. Then Count Sergius, excusing himself, stood up and went to the window.

"Is she to come to this hotel?" he asked anon.

"She would be very foolish to do so, Count."

"Foolish, my dear fellow, whatever do you mean?"

"I mean what I say--that she would be mad to put herself into your power."

The Count bit his lip. It had been many years since so direct an insult had been offered to him, and yet he did not know how to answer it.

"I see that these people have been lying to you as I thought," he rejoined sharply, "is it not indiscreet to accept the word of such a person?"

"You know perfectly well that it is not, Count. You brought me to Warsaw to help you to arrest Lois Boriskoff. Well, I am not going to do so and that is all."

"Are you prepared to say the same to your friend in London--will you cable that news to Mr. Gessner?"

"I was going to do so without any loss of time. You can send the message for me if you like."

"Nothing will be easier. Let me take it down at your dictation. Really I am not offended. You have been deceived and are right to say what you think. Our friend at Hampstead shall judge between us."

He lighted a cigarette with apparent unconcern and sat down before the writing-table near the window.

"Now," he asked, "how shall we put it to him?"

Alban came over and stood by his side.

"Say that Paul Boriskoff must be released by his intervention without any condition whatever."

"He will never consent to that."

"He will have to consent, Count Sergius. His personal safety depends upon it."

"But, my dear boy, what of the girl? Are you going to leave her here to shout our friend's secret all over Warsaw?"

"She has not spoken and she will not speak, Count."

"Ah, you are among the credulous. Your confidence flatters her, I fear."

"It is just--she has never lied to me."

The Count shrugged his shoulders.

"I will send your message," he said.

He wrote the cable in a fine pointed hand and duly delivered it to the waiter. His own would follow it ten minutes later--when he had made up his mind how to act. A dangerous thought had come to him and begun to obsess his mind. This English boy, he was saying, might yet be a more dangerous enemy than the girl they had set out to trap. It might yet be necessary to clap them both in the same prison until the whole truth were known. He resolved to debate it at his leisure. There was plenty of time, for the police were watching all the exits from the city, and if Lois Boriskoff attempted to pa.s.s out, G.o.d help her.

"We must not expect an answer to this before dinner," he said, holding out the message for the waiter to take it. "If you think it all right, we can proceed to amuse ourselves until the reply comes. Warsaw is somewhat a remarkable city as you will already have seen. Some of its finest monuments have been erected to celebrate the execution of its best patriots. Every public square stands for an insurrection. The castle is fortified not against the stranger but the citizen--those guns you tell me about were put there by Nicolas to remind us that he would stand no nonsense. We are the sons of a nation which, officially, does not exist--but we honor our dead kings everywhere and can show you some of Thorwaldsen's finest monuments to them. Let us go out and see these wonders if you are willing."

The apparent digression served him admirably, for it permitted him to think. As many another in the service of the autocracy, he had a sterling love for Poland in its historical aspect, and was as proud as any man when he uttered the name of a Sobieski, a Sigismund or a Ladislaus. Revolution as a modern phase he despised. To him there were but people and n.o.bles, and the former had become vulgar disturbers of the Czar's peace who must be chastened with rods. His own career depended altogether upon his callous indifference to mere human sympathies.

Alban could offer no objection to visit Warsaw under such a pleasant guide and he also welcomed the hours of truce. It came to him that the Count might honestly doubt Lois' word and that, knowing nothing of her, he would have had little reason to trust her. The morning pa.s.sed in a pleasant stroll down the Senatorska where are the chief shops of Moscow.

Here the Count insisted upon buying his English friend a very beautiful amber and gold cigarette-case, to remind him, as he said, of their quarrel.

"It was very natural," he admitted, "I know these people so well. They talk like angels and act like devils. You will know more about them in good time. If I have interfered, it was at my friend Gessner's wish. I shall leave the matter in his hands now. If he accepts the girl's word, he is perfectly at liberty to do so. To me it is a matter of absolute indifference."

Alban took the cigarette-case but accepted it reluctantly. He could not resist the charm of this man's manner nor had he any abiding desire to do so. As far as that went, there was so much to see in these bright streets, so many odd equipages, fine horses, prettily dressed women, magnificent soldiers, that his interest was perpetually enchained and he uttered many exclamations of surprised delight very foreign to his usual manner.

"I cannot believe that this is the city we saw yesterday," he declared as the Count called a drosky and bade the driver make a tour of the avenues and the gardens--"you would think the people were the happiest in the world. I have never seen so many smiling faces before."

The Count understood the situation better.

"Life is sweet to them because of its uncertainty. They live while they can. When I used to fish in your English waters, they sent me to a river where the Mayfly was out--ah, that beautiful, fluttering creature which may live one minute or may live five. He struggles up from the bottom of the river, you remember, and then, just as he has extended his splendid wings, up comes a great trout and swallows him--the poor thing of ten or twenty or a hundred seconds. Here we struggle up through the social ranks, and just when the waters of intrigue fascinate us and we go to play Narcissus to them, up comes the official trout and down his throat we go. Some day there will be so many of us that the trout will be gorged and unable to move. Then he will go to the cooking-pot--but not in our time, I think."

Alban remained silent. That "not in our time" seemed so strange a saying when he recalled the threats and the promises of the fanatics of Union Street. Was this fine fellow deceiving himself, or was he like the Russian bureaucracy, simply ignorant? The lad of twenty could not say, but he made a shrewder guess at the truth than the diplomatist by his side.

They visited the Lazienki Park, pa.s.sing many of Warsaw's famous people as they went, and so affording the Count many opportunities for delightful little histories in which such men excel. No pretty woman escaped his observation, few the rigors of his tongue. He could tell you precisely when Madame Latienski began to receive young Prince Nicolas at her house and the exact terms in which old Latienski objected to the visits. Priests, jockeys, politicians, actors--for these he had a distinguishing gesture of contempt or pity or gracious admiration. The actresses invariably recognized him with alluring smiles, which he received condescendingly as who should say--well, you were fortunate.

When they arrived at the Moktowski barracks, a group of officers quickly surrounded them and conducted them to a place where champagne corks might pop and cigarettes be lighted. This was but the beginning of a round of visits which Alban found tiresome to the last degree. How many gla.s.ses of wine he sipped, how many cigarettes he lighted, he could not have told you for a fortune. It was nearly five o'clock when they returned to the hotel and the Count proposed an hour's repose "de travail."

"There is no message from your friend," he said candidly, "no doubt your telegram has troubled him. Perhaps we shall get it by dinner-time. You must be very tired and perhaps you would like to lie down."

Alban did not demur and he went to his own room, and taking off his boots he lay upon his bed and quickly fell fast asleep. Count Sergius, however, had no intention of doing any such thing. He was closeted with the Chief of the Police ten minutes after they had returned, and in twenty he had come to a resolution.

"This young Englishman will meet the girl Lois Boriskoff to-morrow morning," he said. "Arrest the pair of them and let me know when it is done. But mind you--treat him as though he were your own son. I have my reasons."

The Chief merely bowed. He quite understood that such a man as Sergius Zamoyski would have very good reasons indeed.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE DAWN OF THE DAY