The Mischief-Maker Part 51

Kendricks went to the door and locked it, went to the cupboard and brought out the whiskey and soda, undid his Gladstone bag, b.u.t.toned a life preserver on his left wrist, and laid a Mauser pistol on the table by the side of him.

"Julien," he said, "I feel like the biggest a.s.s unhung, but I am here with my playthings to be watchdog. Get to your desk and write, man. One drink first. Come."

They raised their gla.s.ses.

"What have you called number three?" Kendricks asked.

"'A Maker of Toys!'" Julien replied.

"Here's d.a.m.nation to him!" Kendricks said, raising the gla.s.s to his lips. "Now get to work, Julien."

CHAPTER XI

BY THE PRINCE'S ORDERS

Once more mademoiselle sat beneath a canopy of pink roses, surrounded by obsequious waiters, with the murmur of music in her ears, opposite the man she adored. Yet without a doubt mademoiselle was disturbed. Her fixed eyes were riveted upon the newspaper which Herr Freudenberg had pa.s.sed into her hand. She was suddenly very pale.

"Send some of these people away," she begged. "I am frightened."

Herr Freudenberg smiled. With a wave of his hand they were alone.

"Dear Marguerite," he said quietly, "compose yourself. All those who stand in my way and the way of my country must be swept aside, but remember this. They have all received their warning. I lift my hand against no one who has not first received a chance of escape."

"He was a man so gallant," she faltered, "so _comme il faut_.

Listen to me, please."

She laid the newspaper upon the table and kept the flat of her hand still upon it. Then she leaned towards him.

"You will not be angry with me?" she implored. "Indeed I did it to please you, to win, if I could, a little more of your love. I knew that this man Sir Julien stood in your path and that you found it difficult to remove him. An impulse came to me. We had talked together gayly as a man of gallantry may talk to a woman like myself. It might easily pa.s.s for flirting, those things that he has said. Although you, dear one,"

she added, looking across the table, "know how it is with me when such words are spoken. Well, I bought cartridges for my little pistol that you gave me, I thrust it into the bosom of my gown, I wore my prettiest clothes, and yesterday I went to his rooms."

Herr Freudenberg's cold eyes were suddenly fixed upon her face. His fingers stopped their drumming upon the tablecloth.

"Proceed!"

"I meant to shoot him," she confessed. "I thought that if I could not escape afterwards it was so easy for people to believe that he was my lover, that it was a crime of jealousy, a moment's pa.s.sion. I said to myself, too, that you would help so that after all my punishment would be a very small affair. In no other way it seemed to me could he have been disposed of so easily."

"Sweet little fool!" Herr Freudenberg murmured. "Did it never enter into your little brain that you are known as my companion?"

She shook her head.

"That would have counted for nothing. People would not have believed that I had any other motive. I should have declared that it was a love affair."

"What happened?"

"He was too quick for me," mademoiselle admitted. "He saw me feel the spot where the pistol lay concealed. He--he s.n.a.t.c.hed it away."

"And afterwards?" Herr Freudenberg inquired, with the ghost of a smile upon his lips.

She raised her eyes.

"He let me go," she replied. "He threw open the door and he laughed at me. Forgive me, please, if I am sad, if indeed I weep. He was a gallant gentleman."

Herr Freudenberg sighed. Slowly he raised his gla.s.s to his lips and drank.

"It is an amiable epitaph," he declared. "Many a man has gone up to Heaven with a worse. Cheer up, my little Marguerite. A year or two more or less in a man's life is no great matter, and after all it was not one warning which this rash man received. You have not yet read the account of the affair."

Mademoiselle slowly withdrew the palm of her hand from the paper. The paragraph was headed:

SHOCKING EXPLOSION IN THE RUE DE MONTPELIER.

She looked up.

"I cannot read it," she murmured. "Tell me."

"It is simple," he replied. "This afternoon an unfortunate explosion occurred in the house in the Rue de Montpelier where Sir Julien had his apartments. The whole of the front of the premises was blown away. It is regrettable," he added, with a little shrug of the shoulders, "that in all seven people perished, including the concierge. Mr. Kendricks, an English journalist, was taken away alive, but terribly injured, to the hospital. His companion, who seems to have been within a few feet of him when the explosion occurred, was unfortunately blown to pieces.

The details as to his fate might perhaps interfere with your appet.i.te, but let me at least a.s.sure you, my dear Marguerite," Herr Freudenberg continued, "that such a death is entirely painless. I regret the necessity for such means, but the man had his chance. I regret, also, the fate of the other poor people who lost their lives. Unfortunately, it was necessary to remove Sir Julien in such a way that no suspicion should be cast upon any one person. The death of the concierge, for instance, was absolutely essential. He was suspicious about some of my men who had been making inquiries."

"But it is horrible!" she gasped.

"Little one," he went on, "life is like that. To succeed one has to cultivate indifference. Sir Julien Portel had many warnings. He knew very well that if he persisted in writing those articles, he was braving my defiance. Already he has done mischief enough. The whole series would have undone the work of the last two years. To-night,"

Herr Freudenberg continued, with a sigh of relief, "we may open the Journal without apprehensions. There are no more secrets disclosed, no more of these marvelously written appeals to--"

Herr Freudenberg stopped short. His eyebrows had drawn closer together.

He was gazing at the sheet which he held in his hand with more expression in his face than mademoiselle had ever seen there before.

"My G.o.d!" he muttered.

She, too, bent forward. She, too, saw the article with its heading: "A Maker of Toys!"

Herr Freudenberg waved her back. Line by line he read the article. When he had finished, his face was almost ghastly. He drained his gla.s.s and called for the _sommelier_.

"Serve more wine," he ordered briefly.

"What is it that you have seen?" she asked.

"I was a fool not to have been prepared," he answered. "There is another article in to-night's paper, but of course he would have sent it off before--before the explosion happened. It is worse than the others!" he went on hoa.r.s.ely. "Thank Heaven, that man is out of the way! I would give a million marks to be able to destroy every copy of this paper that was ever issued. It is not fair fighting!... It is barbarous! No longer can I hope for any privacy in this country. You see--you see, Marguerite? He has written of me openly. 'The Toymaker from Leipzig!'--that is what he has called me! These two, Kendricks and he, they saw through me from the first. They knew what it was that I desired. d.a.m.n them!"

Mademoiselle crossed herself instinctively. Once she had been religious.

"Poor Sir Julien!"

Herr Freudenberg sighed.