Elusive Isabel Part 8

At about the moment he rose to go out, Miss Thorne, closely veiled, left the Venezuelan legation and walked rapidly down the street to a corner, where, without a word, she entered a waiting automobile. The wheels spun and the car leaped forward. For a mile or more it wound aimlessly in and out, occasionally bisecting its own path; finally Miss Thorne leaned forward and touched the chauffeur on the arm.

"Now!" she said.

The car straightened out into a street of stately residences and scuttled along until the placid bosom of the Potomac came into view; beside that for a few minutes, then over the bridge to the Virginia side, in the dilapidated little city of Alexandria. The car did not slacken its speed, but wound in and out through dingy streets, past tumble-down negro huts, for half an hour before it came to a standstill in front of an old brick mansion.

"This is number ninety-seven," the chauffeur announced.

Miss Thorne entered the house with a key and was gone for ten minutes, perhaps. She was readjusting her veil when she came out and stepped into the car silently. Again it moved forward, on to the end of the dingy street, and finally into the open country. Three, four, five miles, perhaps, out the old Baltimore Road, and again the car stopped, this time in front of an ancient colonial farm-house.

Outwardly the place seemed to be deserted. The blinds, battered and stripped of paint by wind and rain, were all closed, and one corner of the small veranda had crumbled away from age and neglect. A narrow path, strewn with pine needles, led tortuously up to the door. In the rear of the house, rising from an old barn, a thin pole with a cup-like attachment at the apex, thrust its point into the open above the dense, odorous pines. It appeared to be a wireless mast. Miss Thorne pa.s.sed around the house, and entered the barn.

A man came forward and kissed her--a thin, little man of indeterminate age--drying his hands on a piece of cotton waste. His face was pale with the pallor of one who knows little outdoor life, his eyes deep-set and a-glitter with some feverish inward fire, and the thin lips were pressed together in a sharp line. Behind him was a long bench on which were scattered tools of various sorts, fantastically shaped chemical apparatus, two or three electric batteries of odd sizes, and ranged along one end of it, in a row, were a score or more metal spheroids, a shade larger than a one-pound sh.e.l.l. From somewhere in the rear came the clatter of a small gasoline engine, and still farther away was an electric dynamo.

"Is the test arranged, Rosa?" the little man queried eagerly in Italian.

"The date is not fixed yet," she replied in the same language. "It will be, I hope, within the next two weeks. And then--"

"Fame and fortune for both of us," he interrupted with quick enthusiasm.

"Ah, Rosa, I have worked and waited so long for this, and now it will come, and with it the dominion of the world again by our country. How will I know when the date is fixed? It would not be well to write me here."

My lady of mystery stroked the slender, nervous hand caressingly, and a great affection shone in the blue-gray eyes.

"At eight o'clock on the night of the test," she explained, still speaking Italian, "a single light will appear at the apex of the capitol dome in Washington. That is the signal agreed upon; it can be seen by all in the city, and is visible here from the window of your bedroom."

"Yes, yes," he exclaimed. The feverish glitter in his eyes deepened.

"If there is a fog, of course you will not attempt the test," she went on.

"No, not in a fog," he put in quickly. "It must be clear."

"And if it is clear you can see the light in the dome without difficulty."

"And all your plans are working out well?"

"Yes. And yours?"

"I don't think there is any question but that both England and the United States will buy. Do you know what it means? Do you know what it means?" He was silent a moment, his hands working nervously. Then, with an effort: "And his Highness?"

"His Highness is safe." The subtle eyes grew misty, thoughtful for a moment, then cleared again. "He is safe," she repeated.

"Mexico and Venezuela were--?" he began.

"We don't know, yet, what they will do. The Venezuelan answer is locked in the safe at the legation; I will know what it is within forty-eight hours." She was silent a little. "Our difficulty now, our greatest difficulty, is the hostility of the French amba.s.sador to the compact.

His government has not yet notified him of the presence of Prince d'Abruzzi; he does not believe in the feasibility of the plan, and we have to--to proceed to extremes to prevent him working against us."

"But they _must_ see the incalculable advantages to follow upon such a compact, with the vast power that will be given to them over the whole earth by this." He indicated the long, littered work-table. "They _must_ see it."

"They will see it, Luigi," said Miss Thorne gently. "And now, how are you? Are you well? Are you comfortable? It's such a dreary old place here."

"I suppose so," he replied, and he met the solicitous blue-gray eyes for an instant. "Yes, I am quite comfortable," he added. "I have no time to be otherwise with all the work I must do. It will mean so much!"

They were both silent for a time. Finally Miss Thorne walked over to the long table and curiously lifted one of the spheroids. It was a sinister looking thing, nickeled, glittering. At one end of it was a delicate, vibratory apparatus, not unlike the transmitter of a telephone, and the other end was threaded, as if the spheroid was made as an attachment to some other device.

"With that we control the world!" exclaimed the man triumphantly. "And it's mine, Rosa, mine!"

"It's wonderful!" she mused softly. "Wonderful! And now I must go. I may not see you again until after the test, because I shall be watched and followed wherever I go. If I get an opportunity I shall reach you by telephone, but not even that unless it is necessary. There is always danger, always danger!" she repeated thoughtfully. She was thinking of Mr. Grimm.

"I understand," said the man simply.

"And look out for the signal--the light in the apex of the capitol dome," she went on. "I understand the night must be perfectly clear; and _you_ understand that the test is to be made promptly at three o'clock by your chronometer?"

"At three o'clock," he repeated.

For a moment they stood with their arms around each other, then tenderly his visitor kissed him, and went out. He remained looking after her vacantly until the chug-chug of her automobile, as it moved off down the road, was lost in the distance, then turned again to the long work-table.

VIII

MISS THORNE AND NOT MISS THORNE

From a pleasant, wide-open bay-window of her apartments on the second floor, Miss Thorne looked out upon the avenue with inscrutable eyes.

Behind the closely drawn shutters of another bay-window, farther down the avenue, on the corner, she knew a man named Hastings was hiding; she knew that for an hour or more he had been watching her as she wrote. In the other direction, in a house near the corner, another man named Blair was similarly ensconced, and he, too, had been watching as she wrote.

There should be a third man, Johnson. Miss Thorne curiously studied the face of each pa.s.ser-by, seeking therein something to remember.

She sat at the little mahogany desk and a note with the ink yet wet upon it lay face up before her. It was addressed to Signor Pietro Petrozinni in the district prison, and read:

"My Dear Friend:

"I have been waiting to write you with the hope that I could report Senor Alvarez out of danger, but his condition, I regret to say, remains unchanged. Shall I send an attorney to you? Would you like a book of any kind? Or some delicacy sent in from a restaurant? Can I be of any service to you in any way? If I can please drop me a line.

"Sincerely,

"Isabel Thorne."

At last she rose and standing in the window read the note over, folded it, placed it in an envelope and sealed it. A maid came in answer to her ring, and there at the window, under the watchful eyes of Blair and Hastings--and, perhaps, Johnson--she handed the note to the maid with instructions to mail it immediately. Two minutes later she saw the maid go out along the avenue to a post-box on the corner.

Then she drew back into the shadow of the room, slipped on a dark-colored wrap, and, standing away from the window, safe beyond the reach of prying eyes, waited patiently for the postman. He appeared about five o'clock and simultaneously another man turned the corner near the post-box and spoke to him. Then, together, they disappeared from view around the corner.

"So that's Johnson, is it?" mused Miss Thorne, and she smiled a little.

"Mr. Grimm certainly pays me the compliment of having me carefully watched."

A few minutes later she dropped into the seat at the desk again. The dark wrap had been thrown aside and Hastings and Blair from their hiding-places could see her distinctly. After a while they saw her rise quickly, as an automobile turned into the avenue, and lean toward the window eagerly looking out. The car came to a standstill in front of the legation, and Mr. Cadwallader, an under-secretary of the British emba.s.sy, who was alone in the car, raised his cap. She nodded and smiled, then disappeared in the shadows of the room again.

Mr. Cadwallader went to the door, spoke to the servant there, then returned and busied himself about the car. Hastings and Blair watched intently both the door and the window for a long time; finally a closely veiled and m.u.f.fled figure appeared at the bay-window, and waved a gloved hand at Mr. Cadwallader, who again lifted his cap. A minute later the veiled woman came out of the front door, shook hands with Mr.

Cadwallader, and got in the car. He also climbed in, and the car moved slowly away.