Elusive Isabel Part 22

Where was he? Conjecture stopped there. Evidently he was where the courteous gentleman in the restaurant wanted him to be. A prisoner?

Probably. In danger? Long, careful attention to detail work in the Secret Service had convinced Mr. Grimm that he was always in danger.

That was one reason--and the best--why he had lain motionless, without so much as lifting a finger, since that first glimmer of consciousness had entered his brain. He was probably under scrutiny, even in the darkness, and for the present it was desirable to accommodate any chance watcher by remaining apparently unconscious.

And so for a long time he lay, listening. Was there another person in the room? Mr. Grimm's ears were keenly alive for the inadvertent shuffling of a foot; or the sound of breathing. Nothing. Even the night roar of the city was missing; the silence was oppressive. At last he opened his eyes. A pall of gloom encompa.s.sed him--a pall without one rift of light. His fingers, moving slowly, explored the limits of the couch whereon he lay.

Confident, at last, that wherever he was, he was unwatched, Mr. Grimm was on the point of concluding that further inaction was useless, when his straining ears caught the faint grating of metal against metal--perhaps the insertion of a key in the lock. His hands grew still; his eyes closed. And after a moment a door creaked slightly on its hinges, and a breath of cool air informed Mr. Grimm that that open door, wherever it was, led to the outside, and freedom.

There was another faint creaking as the door was shut. Mr. Grimm's nerveless hands closed involuntarily, and his lips were set together tightly. Was it to be a knife thrust in the dark? If not--then what? He expected the flare of a match; instead there was a soft tread, and the rustle of skirts. A woman! Mr. Grimm's caution was all but forgotten in his surprise. As the steps drew nearer his clenched fingers loosened; he waited.

Two hands stretched forward in the dark, touched him simultaneously--one on the face, one on the breast. A singular thrill shot through him, but there was not the flicker of an eye or the twitching of a finger. The woman--it _was_ a woman--seemed now to be bending over him, then he heard her drop on her knees beside him, and she pressed an inquiring ear to his left side. It was the heart test.

"Thank G.o.d!" she breathed softly.

It was only by a masterful effort that Mr. Grimm held himself limp and inert, for a strange fragrance was enveloping him--a fragrance he well knew.

The hands were fumbling at his breast again, and there was the sharp crackle of paper. At first he didn't understand, then he knew that the woman had pinned a paper to the lapel of his coat. Finally she straightened up, and took two steps away from him, after which came a pause. His keenly attuned ears caught her faint breathing, then the rustle of her skirts as she turned back. She was leaning over him again--her lips touched his forehead, barely; again there was a quick rustling of skirts, the door creaked, and--silence, deep, oppressive, overwhelming silence.

Isabel! Was he dreaming? And then he ceased wondering and fell to remembering her kiss--light as air--and the softly spoken "Thank G.o.d!"

She did care, then! She _had_ understood, that day!

The kiss of a woman beloved is a splendid heart tonic. Mr. Grimm straightened up suddenly on the couch, himself again. He touched the slip of paper which she had pinned to his coat to make sure it was not all a dream, after which he recalled the fact that while he had heard the door creak before she went out he had not heard it creak afterward.

Therefore, the door was open. She had left it open. Purposely? That was beside the question at the moment.

And why--how--was she in Washington? Pondering that question, Mr.

Grimm's excellent teeth clicked sharply together and he rose. He knew the answer. The compact was to be signed--the alliance which would array the civilized world in arms. He had failed to block that, as he thought.

If Miss Thorne had returned, then Prince Benedetto d'Abruzzi, who held absolute power to sign the compact for Italy, France and Spain, had also returned.

Stealthily, feeling his way as he went, Mr. Grimm moved toward the door leading to freedom, guided by the fresh draft of air. He reached the door--it was standing open--and a moment later stepped out into the star-lit night. It was open country here, with a thread of white road just ahead, and farther along a fringe of shrubbery. Mr. Grimm reached the road. Far down it, a pin point in the night, a light flickered through interlacing branches. The tail lamp of an automobile, of course!

Mr. Grimm left the road and skirted a spa.r.s.e hedge in the direction of the light. After a moment he heard the engine of an automobile, and saw a woman--barely discernible--step into the car. As it started forward he staked everything on one bold move, and won, his reward being a narrow sitting s.p.a.ce in the rear of the car, hidden from its occupants by the tonneau. One mile, two miles, three miles they charged through the night, and still he clung on. At last there came relief.

"That's the place, where the lights are--just ahead."

There was no mistaking that voice raised above the clamor of the engine.

The car slackened speed, and Mr. Grimm dropped off and darted behind some convenient bushes. And the first thing he did there was to light a match, and read what was written on the slip of paper pinned to his coat. It was, simply:

"My Dear Mr. Grimm:

"By the time you read this the compact will have been signed, and your efforts to prevent it, splendid as they were, futile. It is a tribute to you that it was unanimously agreed that you must be accounted for at the time of the signing, hence the drugging in the restaurant; it was only an act of kindness that I should come here to see that all was well with you, and leave the door open behind me.

"Believe me when I say that you are one man in whom I have never been disappointed. Accept this as my farewell, for now I a.s.sume again the name and position rightfully mine. And know, too, that I shall always cherish the belief that you will remember me as

"Your friend,

"ISABEL THORNE.

"P. S. The prince and I left the steamer at Montauk Point, on a tug-boat."

Mr. Grimm kissed the note twice, then burned it.

XXII

THE COMPACT

A room, low-ceilinged, dim, gloomy, sinister as an inquisition chamber; a single large table in the center, holding a kerosene lamp, writing materials and a metal spheroid a shade larger than a one-pound sh.e.l.l; and around it a semicircle of silent, masked and cowled figures. There were twelve of them, eleven men and a woman. In the shadows, which grew denser at the far end of the room, was a squat, globular object, a ma.s.sive, smooth-sided, black, threatening thing of iron.

One of the men glanced at his watch--it was just two o'clock--then rose and took a position beside the table, facing the semicircle. He placed the timepiece on the table in front of him.

"Gentlemen," he said, and there was the faintest trace of a foreign accent, "I shall speak English because I know that whatever your nationality all of you are familiar with that tongue. And now an apology for the theatric aspect of all this--the masks, the time and place of meeting, and the rest of it." He paused a moment. "There is only one person living who knows the name and position of all of you," and by a sweep of his hand he indicated the motionless figure of the woman. "It was by her decision that masks are worn, for, while we all know the details of the Latin compact, there is a bare chance that some one will not sign, and it is not desirable that the ident.i.ty of that person be known to all of us. The reason for the selection of this time and place is obvious, for an inkling of the proposed signing has reached the Secret Service. I will add the United States was chosen as the birthplace of this new epoch in history for several reasons, one being the proximity to Central and South America; and another the inadequate police system which enables greater freedom of action."

He stopped and drew from his pocket a folded parchment. He tapped the tips of his fingers with it from time to time as he talked.

"The Latin compact, gentlemen, is not the dream, of a night, nor of a decade. As long as fifty years ago it was suggested, and whatever differences the Latin countries of the world have had among themselves, they have always realized that ultimately they must stand together against--against the other nations of the world. This idea germinated into action three years ago, and since that time agents have covered the world in its interest. This meeting is the fruition of all that work, and this," he held the parchment aloft, "is the instrument that will unite us. Never has a diplomatic secret been kept as this has been kept; never has a greater reprisal been planned. It means, gentlemen, the domination of the world--socially, spiritually, commercially and artistically; it means that England and the United States, whose sphere of influence has extended around the globe, will be beaten back, that the flag of the Latin countries will wave again over lost possessions.

It means all of that, and more."

His voice had risen as he talked until it had grown vibrant with enthusiasm; and his hands pointed his remarks with quick, sharp gestures.

"All this," he went on, "was never possible until three years ago, when the navies of the world were given over into the hands of one nation--my country. Five years ago a fellow-countryman of mine happened to be present at an electrical exhibition in New York City, and there he witnessed an interesting experiment--practical demonstration of the fact that a submarine mine may be exploded by the use of the Marconi wireless system. He was a practical electrician himself, and the idea lingered in his mind. For two years he experimented, and finally this resulted." He picked up the metal spheroid and held it out for their inspection. "As it stands it is absolutely perfect and gives a world's supremacy to the Latin countries because it places all the navies of the world at our mercy. It is a variation of the well-known percussion cap or fuse by which mines and torpedoes are exploded.

"The theory of it is simple, as are the theories of all great inventions; the secret of its construction is known only to its inventor--a man of whom you never heard. It is merely that the mechanism of the cap is so delicate that the Marconi wireless waves--and _only_ those--will fire the cap. In other words, this cap is tuned, if I may use the word, to a certain number of vibrations and half-vibrations; a wireless instrument of high power, with a modifying addition which the inventor has added, has only to be set in motion to discharge it at any distance up to twenty-five miles. High power wireless waves recognize no obstacle, so the explosion of a submarine mine is as easily brought about as would be the explosion of a mine on dry land. You will readily see its value as a protective agency for our seaports."

He replaced the spheroid on the table.

"But its chief value is not in that," he resumed. "Its chief value to the Latin compact, gentlemen, is that the United States and England are now concluding negotiations, unknown to each other, by which _they_ will protect _their_ seaports by means of mines primed with this cap. The tuning of the caps which we will use is known only to us; _the tuning of the caps which they will use is also known to us_! The addition to the wireless apparatus which they will use is such that they _can not_, even by accident, explode a mine guarding our seaports; but, on the other hand, the addition to the wireless apparatus which _we_ will use permits of the extreme high charge which will explode their mines. To make it clearer, we could send a navy against such a city as New York or Liverpool, and explode every mine in front of us as we went; and meanwhile our mines are impervious.

"Another word, and I have finished. Five gentlemen, whom I imagine are present now, have witnessed a test of this cap, by direct command of their home governments. For the benefit of the others of you a simple test has been arranged for to-night. This cap on the table is charged; its inventor is at his wireless instrument, fifteen miles away. At three o'clock he will turn on the current that will explode it." Four of the eleven men looked at their watches. "It is now seventeen minutes past two. I am instructed, for the purposes of the test, to place this cap anywhere you may select--in this house or outside of it, in a box, sealed, or under water. The purpose is merely to demonstrate its efficacy; to prove to your complete satisfaction that it can be exploded under practically any conditions."

His entire manner underwent a change; he drew a chair up to the table, and stood for an instant with his hand resting on the back.

"The compact is written in three languages--English, French and Italian. I shall ask you to sign, after reading either or all, precisely as the directions you have received from your home government instruct.

On behalf of the three greatest Latin countries, as special envoy of each, I will sign first."

He dropped into the chair, signed each of the three parchment pages three times, then rose and offered the pen to the cowled figure at one end of the semicircle. The man came forward, read the English transcript, studied the three signatures already there with a certain air of surprise, then signed. The second man signed, the third man, and the fourth.

The fifth had just risen to go forward when the door opened silently and Mr. Grimm entered. Without a glance either to right or left, he went straight toward the table, and extended a hand to take the compact.

For an instant there had come amazement, a dumb astonishment, at the intrusion. It pa.s.sed, and the hand of the man who had done the talking darted out, seized the compact, and held it behind him.

"If you will be good enough to give that to me, your Highness,"

suggested Mr. Grimm quietly.

For half a minute the masked man stared straight into the listless eyes of the intruder, and then:

"Mr. Grimm, you are in very grave danger."