The Secret of the Silver Car Part 17

"My lord," Trent began, "I am going to say something that will first of all astonish you and then probably make you angry at what seems presumption."

"I hardly think you will do that," the other said urbanely. He was sure now it had to do with Lady Daphne.

"You have said," Trent went on, "that you are grateful to me for my help to your son, Arthur."

"I am profoundly grateful," the earl said quickly, "you have made a new man of him."

"Then promise me you will not interrupt me by ringing for a servant to show me out."

"I will promise that blindly," smiled the n.o.bleman.

"I owe a debt to your family. Arthur saved my life and I am still a debtor. Since I have been here I have found out a great deal about your life work. I found out also that at a moment when the Empire most needed you you retired. I know at the present moment your name is being mentioned everywhere as the most suitable for one of the highest offices under the crown. I know the prime minister made a golfing trip to Newquay the excuse to call on you personally. I know that in this very room you refused a request from your sovereign."

There was no doubting the agitation this statement produced in the ex-amba.s.sador. But he was mindful of his promise.

"I know," the inexorable Trent went on, "that your refusal has something to do with what your son did when he was irresponsible. I saw you throw a terrible glance at him during the prime minister's talk over the luncheon table. It told me plainly that remotely or not it was because of something he did that you remain here eating your heart out.

Afterwards you were especially kind to him. It was as though you repented your momentary anger. My lord, am I right so far?"

"I do not pretend to understand how you have learned these facts," the earl said slowly, "but you have made no error. What happened is over, dead and done with."

"I'm not so sure," Trent cried. "Perhaps because there was a day when I wrote stories of a rather lurid type I can think of half a hundred things that might seem final to you but which would yield to my type of mind. Nothing is final to us Americans."

Lord Rosecarrel looked at him shrewdly.

"What you say is preposterous, Mr. Trent, but nevertheless it interests me. What causes could this fertile mind of yours suggest?"

"Blackmail first of all," Trent said. Lord Rosecarrel did not give any indication whether the shot told or not. "Blackmail can be sub-divided into many heads."

"And is there a remedy for blackmail, then?" the earl asked blandly.

"A remedy can always be found for things," Trent said confidently.

"It amounts to this," the diplomat continued calmly as though he were discussing an interesting phase in another man's life, "that you suppose I am held inactive here because of the hold some man or government has on me. Admitting for a moment that this is true, do you not suppose that I should have strained every nerve, called upon my every resource to remove the obstacle which you admit has a remedy?"

"I think you have tried and failed," Trent said.

"It is curious," said the earl still impersonally, "how fiction of the type you used to write has taken possession of the public mind."

"I should not fail," Trent said steadily.

"You still persist in making the imaginary real," the earl said good humouredly.

"Why do you fence with me at a time like this?" Trent said making a gesture of despair. "Can't you see I am in earnest?"

"You rate your powers so highly then?"

"You employed amateurs, my lord, I am a professional adventurer."

"What are you doing in my house?"

"Living honest hours and learning that a past can't be undone. I know very well that you thought I wanted to see you because I love your daughter. It is true. I do love her. And it is because I love her that I am going. And it is because I want to prove that I am only truthful when I say that, I offer to undertake anything that may help you."

"But the reward?"

"To have done something for her is the reward."

The earl was silent for a minute. Then he paced the room. Trent watched his tall, bent form wondering what was to be the outcome.

"Mr. Trent," said the earl pausing before him, "you are either a scoundrel or else the most chivalrous gentleman I have ever known. For the moment I hardly know what to think, or say, or do. If I give you my confidence and you abuse it the public will share the knowledge of a disgrace which now only my enemy knows. If you set me free from my bondage you put me under an obligation that I can never pay. If I let you make the attempt in which two men have given their lives and you fail I shall never forgive myself."

"But my lord," Trent reminded him, "I am a professional. I have never failed. I detest a brawl but I love danger, and life means less to me than you might suppose. If I fail you will never be compromised. I shall want no help nor send any plea for a.s.sistance. I work alone--always."

The earl did not answer him directly.

"The hounds met at Michaelstowe this morning," he said, "and I took the opportunity of sending off a wire in reply to this post card which came last night."

Trent looked at it. It was in a language unknown to him.

"It is in Hungarian," Lord Rosecarrel told him, "and it says, 'Please let me know that the report in today's Times that you have accepted office is incorrect.' The telegram I sent to the writer said: 'The report is wrong. I have refused.' There you have my secret. The man who sent the post card, in effect, threatened me with exposure if I came out of retirement."

"Then it is blackmail," Trent breathed.

"I am going to trust you," the earl said suddenly. "I am going to think of you as the chivalrous gentleman. The man who wrote the post card is a very big figure in the politics of what used to be called _mittel Europa_. Our interests clashed. He was on one side and I on the other.

It happened that I was usually able to out manoeuvre him because my training had been such that no man in public life knew the Balkans as I did, and do still, the wheels within wheels, the inner hidden things that make national sentiment so dangerous at times or so valuable as the case may be. In time he came to think me the one man who could comprehend his activities and check them. He set out to ruin me. He believed his ends justified other methods than I used. I was shot at on the _Ferencz Jozsef rakpart_ for example and a companion killed."

"Do you still seem a menace to him?" Trent asked.

"More than ever if I take the position offered me in the near East. You see the rumour in the Times brings instant recognition. I knew he was in London."

Trent looked at the speaker and wondered what it could be which kept him from the work his country demanded of him. a.s.suredly it was not lack of courage.

"He was in London when he obtained the hold over me that keeps me buried here. Arthur was at the moment a secretary of Rudolph Castoon. One night he opened a strong box of mine and took some bank notes to pay a racing debt. It was a terrible blow to think he had fallen so low, but I was more alarmed to find a tentative draft of a treaty which was never made effective, a doc.u.ment in my own writing, had disappeared. At the time it might have incensed a country since allied with us almost to the point of a declaration of war. Arthur told me it was gibberish to him and he had thrown it on the fire. A month later I was summoned to a cabinet meeting. A friend told me I was to be asked to produce the treaty draft. I called Arthur to see me. I told him my honor was involved and that if he had not destroyed it or was holding it to sell another power I must know. He gave me his solemn word of honor, uttered in the most convincing manner, that he had thrown it into the open fire.

"When the prime minister asked for the draft I told him I had destroyed it thinking its value gone and fearful of the danger of having it at my house in Grosvenor Place. At the moment I was absolutely convinced that my son had been honest with me. It was obvious I could not tell the cabinet I had caught him stealing money or that he had torn up the draft. I gave the cabinet my word of honor that it was destroyed and I allowed them to a.s.sume that I did it. It was a lie and I do not justify its use, but first and foremost my son's protection seemed necessary. It was less than three months later that I received a visit from the man who wrote that post card.

"It was in Paris where I was staying with my daughter. He said that at last he had a weapon which would wound me. Arthur had sold him the draft. He had it concealed where none could get it. Unless I retired from public life and activities he would show it to the same cabinet which had heard me swear I had destroyed it with my own hands. The inference would be that I had sold it. It was known that I had lost money through the failure of a London bank. No matter what the cabinet thought my honor was smirched and I should rightly be considered unfit for high office. There, Mr. Trent, is the real reason."

"Do you know where the draft of the treaty is hidden?"

"In his almost inaccessible castle in Croatia."

"You are certain?"

"Two men have died so that the knowledge might be mine."

"I should imagine he would keep it in the deposit box of a bank where he could get at it quickly."

"Banks can be broken into easier far than his strong room. He lives, despite the changes wrought by the war, in a style almost feudal. He owns and controls twenty square miles of the country where his home is.

What chance, I ask you, has a stranger of getting near without incurring suspicion. There are many men who can speak German or French like natives but Hungarian is a different matter, a non-Aryan tongue."