Peter Ruff and the Double Four Part 73

The Prince shook his head.

"Another time," he declared. "Another time."

He hurried away. It was already half past ten and the saloon was almost empty. The steward came up to them.

"The saloon is being closed for the night, sir," he announced.

"Let us go on deck," Peter suggested.

They found their way up on to the windward side of the promenade, which was absolutely deserted. Far away in front of them now were the disappearing lights of the Lusitania. The wind roared by as the great steamer rose and fell on the black stretch of waters. Peter stood very near to his companion.

"Listen, Sogrange," he said, "the affair is clear now save for one thing."

"You mean Sirdeller's motives?"

"Not at all," Peter answered. "An hour ago, I came across the explanation of these. The one thing I will tell you afterwards. Now listen. Sirdeller came abroad last year for twelve months' travel. He took a great house in San Sebastian."

"Where did you hear this?" Sogrange asked.

"I read the story in the New York Herald," Peter continued. "It is grossly exaggerated, of course, but this is the substance of it.

Sirdeller and his suite were stopped upon the Spanish frontier and treated in an abominable fashion by the customs officers. He was forced to pay a very large sum, unjustly I should think. He paid under protest, appealed to the authorities, with no result. At San Sebastian he was robbed right and left, his privacy intruded upon. In short, he took a violent dislike and hatred to the country and every one concerned in it.

He moved with his entire suite to Nice, to the Golden Villa. There he expressed himself freely concerning Spain and her Government. Count von Hern heard of it and presented Marsine. The plot was, without doubt, Bernadine's. Can't you imagine how he would put it? 'A revolution,' he would tell Sirdeller, 'is imminent in Spain. Here is the new President of the Republic. Money is no more to you than water. You are a patriotic American. Have you forgotten that a warship of your country with six hundred of her devoted citizens was sent to the bottom by the treachery of one of this effete race? The war was an inefficient revenge. The country still flourishes. It is for you to avenge America. With money Marsine can establish a republic in Spain within twenty-four hours.'

Sirdeller hesitates. He would point out that it had never been proved that the destruction of the Maine was really due to Spanish treachery.

It is the idea of a business man which followed. He, at his own expense, would raise the Maine. If it were true that the explosion occurred from outside, he would find the money. You see, the message has arrived.

After all these years the sea has given up its secret. Marsine will return to Spain with an unlimited credit behind him. The House of Brangaza will crumble up like a pack of cards."

Sogrange looked out into the darkness. Perhaps he saw in that great black gulf the pictures of these happenings which his companion had prophesied. Perhaps, for a moment, he saw the panorama of a city in flames, the pa.s.sing of a great country under the thrall of these new ideas. At any rate, he turned abruptly away from the side of the vessel, and taking Peter's arm, walked slowly down the deck.

"You have solved the puzzle, Baron," he said, gravely. "Now tell me the one thing. Your story seems to dovetail everywhere."

"The one thing," Peter said, "is connected with the d.u.c.h.esse. It was she, of her own will, who decided to come to America. I believe that, but for her coming, Bernadine and the Prince would have waited in their own country. Money can flash from America to England over the wires. It does not need to be fetched. They have still one fear. It is connected with the d.u.c.h.esse. Let me think."

They walked up and down the deck. The lights were extinguished one by one, except in the smoking-room. A strange breed of sailors from the lower deck came up with mops and buckets. The wind changed its quarter and the great ship began to roll. Peter stopped abruptly.

"I find this motion most unpleasant," he said. "I am going to bed.

To-night I cannot think. To-morrow, I promise you, we will solve this.

Hush!"

He held out his hand and drew his companion back into the shadow of a lifeboat. A tall figure was approaching them along the deck. As he pa.s.sed the little ray of light thrown out from the smoking-room, the man's features were clearly visible. It was the Prince. He was walking like one absorbed in thought. His eyes were set like a sleep-walker's.

With one hand he gesticulated. The fingers of the other were twitching all the time. His head was lifted to the skies. There was something in his face which redeemed it from its disfiguring petulance.

"It is the man who dreams of power," Peter whispered. "It is one of his best moments, this. He forgets the vulgar means by which he intends to rise. He thinks only of himself, the dictator, king, perhaps emperor. He is of the breed of egoists."

Again and again the Prince pa.s.sed, manifestly unconscious even of his whereabouts. Peter and Sogrange crept away unseen to their staterooms.

In many respects the room resembled a miniature court of justice. The princ.i.p.al sitting-room of the royal suite, which was the chief glory of the Adriatic, had been stripped of every superfluous article of furniture or embellishment. Curtains had been removed, all evidences of luxury disposed of. Temporarily the apartment had been transformed into a bare, cheerless place. Seated on a high chair, with his back to the wall, was Sirdeller. At his right hand was a small table, on which stood a gla.s.s of milk, a phial, a stethoscope. Behind his doctor. At his left hand a smooth-faced, silent young man--his secretary. Before him stood the d.u.c.h.esse, Peter and Sogrange. Guarding the door was one of the watchmen, who, from his great physique, might well have been a policeman out of livery. Sirdeller himself, in the clear light which streamed through the large window, seemed more aged and shrunken than ever. His eyes were deep set. No tinge of color was visible in his cheeks. His chin protruded, his s.h.a.ggy gray eyebrows gave him an unkempt appearance.

He wore a black velvet gown, a strangely cut black morning coat and trousers, felt slippers, and his hands were clasped upon a stout ash walking-stick. He eyed the newcomers keenly but without expression.

"The lady may sit," he said.

He spoke almost in an undertone, as though anxious to avoid the fatigue of words. The guardian of the door placed a chair, into which the d.u.c.h.esse subsided. Sirdeller held his right hand towards his doctor, who felt his pulse. All the time Sirdeller watched him, his lips a little parted, a world of hungry excitement in his eyes. The doctor closed his watch with a snap and whispered something in Sirdeller's ear, apparently rea.s.suring.

"I will hear this story," Sirdeller announced. "In two minutes every one must leave. If it takes longer, it must remain unfinished."

Peter spoke up briskly.

"The story is this," he began. "You have promised to a.s.sist the Prince of Marsine to transform Spain into a republic, providing the salvage operations on the Maine prove that that ship was destroyed from outside.

The salvage operations have been conducted at your expense and finished.

It has been proved that the Maine was destroyed by a mine or torpedo from the outside. Therefore, on the a.s.sumption that it was the treacherous deed of a Spaniard or Cuban imagining himself to be a patriot, you are prepared to carry out your undertaking and supply the Prince of Marsine with means to overthrow the Kingdom of Spain."

Peter paused. The figure on the chair remained motionless. No flicker of intelligence or interest disturbed the calm of his features. It was a silence almost unnatural. "I have brought the d.u.c.h.esse here," Peter continued, "to tell you the truth as to the Maine disaster."

Not even then was there the slightest alteration in those ashen gray features. The d.u.c.h.esse looked up. She had the air of one only too eager to speak and finish.

"In those days," she said, "I was the wife of a rich Cuban gentleman, whose name I withhold. The American officers on board the Maine used to visit at our house. My husband was jealous; perhaps he had cause."

The d.u.c.h.esse paused. Even though the light of tragedy and romance side by side seemed suddenly to creep into the room, Sirdeller listened as one come back from a dead world.

"One night," the d.u.c.h.esse went on, "my husband's suspicions were changed into knowledge. He came home unexpectedly. The American--the officer--I loved him--he was there on the balcony with me. My husband said nothing.

The officer returned to the ship. That night my husband came into my room. He bent over my bed. 'It is not you,' he whispered, 'whom I shall destroy, for the pain of death is short. Anguish of mind may live.

To-night six hundred ghosts may hang about your pillow!'"

Her voice broke. There was something grim and unnatural in that curious stillness. Even the secretary was at last breathing a little faster.

The watchman at the door was leaning forward. Sirdeller simply moved his hand to the doctor, who held up his finger while he felt the pulse. The beat of his watch seemed to sound through the unnatural silence. In a minute he spoke.

"The lady may proceed," he announced.

"My husband," the d.u.c.h.esse continued, "was an officer in charge of the Mines and Ordnance Department. He went out that night in a small boat, after a visit to the strong house. No soul has ever seen or heard of him since, or his boat. It is only I who know!"

Her voice died away. Sirdeller stretched out his hand and very deliberately drank a tablespoonful or two of his milk.

"I believe the lady's story," he declared. "The Marsine affair is finished. Let no one be admitted to have speech with me again upon this subject."

He had half turned towards his secretary. The young man bowed. The doctor pointed towards the door. The d.u.c.h.esse, Peter and Sogrange filed slowly out. In the bright sunlight the d.u.c.h.esse burst into a peal of hysterical laughter. Even Peter felt, for a moment, unnerved. Suddenly he, too, laughed.

"I think," he said, "that you and I had better get out of the way, Sogrange, when the Count von Hern meets us at New York!"

CHAPTER X. THE AFFAIR or AN ALIEN SOCIETY

Sogrange and Peter, Baron de Grost, standing upon the threshold of their hotel, gazed out upon New York and liked the look of it. They had landed from the steamer a few hours before, had already enjoyed the luxury of a bath, a visit to an American barber's, and a genuine c.o.c.ktail.

"I see no reason," Sogrange declared, "why we should not take a week's holiday."

Peter, glancing up into the blue sky and down into the faces of the well-dressed and beautiful women who were streaming up Fifth Avenue, was wholly of the same mind.