Lady Larkspur Part 14

Raynor laughed and shook his head.

"It's fortunate that Montani is a gentleman, anxious to shield and protect you. You have a fan in your hand----"

She spread it for our inspection.

"A harmless trinket, but without it the adventure would have been very tame."

"The story of the fan is in the most secret archives of Paris and Washington. When you were packing up in Tokyo to come home on the very last day before your departure a lady called on you whom you knew as Madame Volkoff."

"That dear woman!" exclaimed Mrs. Farnsworth. "We knew her very well."

"Almost too well," cried Raynor. "A cultivated woman and exceedingly clever, but a German spy. She had collected some most interesting data with reference to j.a.panese armament and defenses, but suspecting that she was being watched, she hit upon a most ingenious way of getting the information across the Pacific, expecting to communicate with German agents in America who could pick it up and pa.s.s it on to Berlin. You see, she thought you an easy mark. She got hold of a fan which Montani informs me is the exact counterpart of that one you hold. She reduced her data to the smallest possible compa.s.s, concealed it in her fan, and watched for a chance to exchange with you. The astute Montani found the j.a.panese artisan who had done the tinkering for her and surmised that you were to be made the unconscious bearer of the incriminating papers.

Montani jumped for the steamer you were sailing on with every determination to get the fan. His professional pride was aroused, and it was only after he found it impossible to steal the fan that he asked our a.s.sistance. He's a good fellow, a gentleman in every sense, and with true French chivalry wanted to do the job without disturbing you in any way."

We pressed closer about Raynor as he took the fan, spread it open, and held it close against a table-lamp. "The third, sixth, and ninth," he counted. "You will notice that those three pieces of ivory are a trifle thicker and not as transparent as the others. Glancing at them casually in an ordinary light, you would never suspect that they had been hollowed out, an exceedingly delicate piece of work. It's a pity to spoil anything so pretty, but----"

He snapped the top of one of the panels, disclosing a neatly folded piece of thin paper.

"If you are all satisfied, I will not go further. I want to deliver this to the French Emba.s.sy intact. I expect Montani here to-night; he will no doubt be enormously relieved."

A machine whizzed into the driveway, and Montani came in brushing past the astonished Antoine, who had answered the bell.

"The fan is safe," cried Raynor; "you may complete the identification."

"I've handled this whole affair most stupidly," said Montani after a hurried examination. "I'm satisfied that a German agent in America has picked up the trail of the fan. One or two lines of my own communications failed to work, and after reporting the whole matter to the French Emba.s.sy I began searching for a man, the most dangerous of all the German spies, who had been intrusted with the business of recovering Madame Volkoff's fan and pa.s.sing the contents on to Berlin.

This person has been representing himself as a French secret agent; he's enormously plausible. I feared he might attempt what I failed to do.

If----"

Alice glanced at me, and I stepped to the wall and punched the b.u.t.ton.

"Antoine," I said, "tie the arms of the prisoner in the tool-house and bring him here."

"A man in the tool-house!" Montani, Torrence, and Raynor e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in concert.

"Oh, yes," murmured Alice, "that's the pleasantest chapter of all. Our grenadiers captured a whole invading army that made a night attack--one of the most remarkable engagements of the present war, Mr. Torrence."

"The battle of the Bell-Hops," I suggested. "The prisoner will be here in a moment."

While we waited Montani produced a photograph, instantly recognizable as a likeness of our prisoner.

"My reputation is saved!" he exclaimed excitedly. "That he should have been caught here! It is too much! I shall never forgive myself for not warning you of the danger. But you understand, mesdames, that I was sincerely anxious to recover the fan without letting you know its importance. When I found at Seattle and Chicago that you were travelling under a.s.sumed names, I was--pray, pardon me--deeply puzzled, the more so because I had satisfied myself in Tokyo that you were loyal Englishwomen, and I believed you to be innocent of complicity with Madame Volkoff. Why you should have changed your names, I didn't know, but it's not my affair now."

"We saw you on the steamer and again in the hotel at Chicago. It was very amusing to be followed. We gave you the slip, stopped at Buffalo to see Niagara, and you came on here and scared the servants to death! But you were generous at every point," said Alice. "We changed our names so we could amuse ourselves here--at Bob's expense. So now I ask everybody's forgiveness!"

The prisoner, arriving at this moment, became the centre of interest.

Without a word Montani walked up to him, brushed back his hair, and called our attention to a scar on the crown of his head.

"There can be no mistake. This is Adolph Schwenger, who pa.s.ses as readily for a Frenchman as I do for an Italian. The capture is of great importance. I shall want the names of all the persons who a.s.sisted in the matter."

"It isn't quite clear to me," remarked Raynor, turning to me, "why you held that fellow and said nothing about it. If there had been a mistake, it would have been just a little embarra.s.sing for you, Singleton."

"Chivalry!" Mrs. Farnsworth answered for me. "An anxious concern for the peace and dignity of two foolish women! I didn't know there was so much chivalry left in the world."

An hour was spent in explanations, and Raynor declared that I must write a full account of the Allied army in Connecticut and the capture of the spy. The State archives contained nothing that touched this episode for piquancy, he declared; and even the bewildered Torrence finally saw the joke of the thing and became quite human.

Raynor and Montani decided after a conference that the German agent should be taken to New York immediately, and I called Flynn to drive them down.

"It's most fortunate, sir, that you sent for him just when you did!"

announced Antoine, nearly bursting with importance. "The boys had heard queer sounds in the night, but could find nothing wrong. The prisoner had taken up the flooring at the back of the tool-house, and was scooping up the dirt. He'd got a place pretty near big enough to let him through. I suppose we ought to have noticed it, sir."

"You managed the whole thing perfectly, Antoine--you and all of you."

It was just as Raynor and Montani were leaving the house with the prisoner that we heard a commotion in the direction of the gates. I had sent word that no one was to be admitted to the grounds, but as I ran out the front door a machine was speeding madly toward the house. A dozen of the guards were yelling their protests at the invasion, and a spurt of fire preluded the booming of Zimmerman's shotgun.

"Get your man into the car and beat it," I shouted to Raynor, thinking an attempt was about to be made to rescue the prisoner.

The touring-car left just as a Barton taxi flashed into the driveway.

The driver was swearing loudly at one of the Tyringham veterans who had wedged himself into the door of the machine. With some difficulty I extricated Scotty from his hazardous position.

Searles jumped out (I had forgotten that he might arrive that night), but before I could greet him he swung round and a.s.sisted a lady to alight--a short, stout lady in a travelling cap, wrapped in a coat that fell to her heels. She began immediately to deliver orders in an authoritative tone as to the rescue of her belongings. Searles dived into the taxi and began dragging out a vast amount of small luggage, but my attention was diverted for a moment by Alice, who jumped down the steps and clasped her arms about the neck of the stout lady.

"Aunt Alice!" I heard her saying. "Why didn't you tell us to meet you?"

"Why didn't I tell you?" demanded the stout lady. "The moment you left me I knew I'd made a mistake in letting you come over here on one of your absurd larks! And from the row I had getting into the premises I judge that you're at your old tricks. Fired upon! Treated as though I were an outlaw! You shall never go out of my sight again!"

"Oh, please don't scold me!" Alice pleaded and turning to me: "This is Bob Singleton, your nephew."

Mrs. Bashford--and I made no question that Searles's companion was indubitably my uncle's widow--gave me her hand and smiled in a way that showed that she was not so greatly displeased with Alice as her words implied.

"Pay that driver for me and don't fail to tip him. Those Methuselahs at the gate all but killed him. It was only the vigorous determination of this gentleman, who very generously permitted me to share the only motor at the station, that I got through the gates alive! I beg your pardon, but what _is_ your name?"

"Mrs. Bashford," I interposed, "my friend, Mr. Searles."

"Mr. Searles!" cried Alice, dropping a cage containing some weird Oriental bird which had been among my aunt's impedimenta. The bird squawked hideously.

"Miss Violet Dewing, permit me to present the author of 'Lady Larkspur'!"

Poor Torrence, clinging to a pillar for support, now revived sufficiently to be included in the introductions.

It was a week later that Alice and I sat on the stone wall watching the waves, at the point forever memorable as the scene of our first talk.

"Aunt Alice isn't playing fair," she said. "She pretends now that it was all my idea--coming over to play at being your uncle's widow, but she really encouraged me to do it so I could give her an impartial judgment of your character. I'm her only niece and her namesake, and she relies on me a good deal. You know she's very, very rich, and she had never any idea of keeping your uncle's money. She meant all the while to give it to you--provided she found you were nice. And she thinks you are very nice."

"Your own opinion of me would be interesting," I suggested.

She had gathered a handful of pebbles and was flinging them fitfully at a bit of driftwood. I wished her lips hadn't that little quiver that preluded laughter and that her eyes were not the haven of all the dreams in the world.

She landed a pebble on the target before replying.