The Sins of Severac Bablon Part 24

Zoe felt that her face turned pale; but she bravely smiled as the Scotland Yard man approached her.

"You see, I am back again, Miss Oppner! Do you know if Mr. Oppner has gone out?"

"I am not sure. But I think he went out with Mr. Alden."

Sheffield's face clouded. This employment of a private detective was a sore point with the Inspector. It seemed strangely like a slight upon the official service. Not that Sheffield was on bad terms with Alden. He was too keen a diplomat for that. But he went in hourly dread that the Pinkerton man would forestall Scotland Yard.

To Sheffield it appeared impossible that Severac Bablon could much longer evade arrest. In fact, it was incomprehensible to him how this elusive character had thus far remained at large. Slowly, and by painful degrees, Sheffield was learning that Severac Bablon's organisation was more elaborate and far-reaching, and embraced more highly placed persons, than at one time he could have credited.

It would appear that there were Government officials in the group which surrounded this man, pointing to ramifications which sometimes the detective despaired of following. News from Paris, received only that morning, would seem to indicate that a similar state of affairs prevailed in the French capital. With whom, Sheffield asked himself, had he to deal? Who _was_ Severac Bablon? That he was in some way a.s.sociated with Jewish people and Jewish interests the Yard man was convinced. But he could not determine, to his own satisfaction, if Severac Bablon's activities were inimical to Juda or otherwise. It was a bewildering case.

"I hope Mr. Oppner hasn't gone out," he said, after a pause. "I particularly wanted to see him again."

"Is there some new clue?" asked Zoe eagerly.

Inspector Sheffield was nonplussed. Here was the daughter of J. J.

Oppner, the last girl in the world whom any sane man would suspect of complicity in the Severac Bablon outrages; yet, for reasons of his own, Sheffield wondered if she were as wholly ignorant of Bablon's ident.i.ty as the rest of the world. He distrusted everyone. He had said to Detective-Sergeant Harborne, who was a.s.sociated with him in the case, "Where Severac Bablon is concerned, I wouldn't trust the Lord Mayor of London--no, nor the Archbishop of Canterbury."

Accordingly, he replied, "I think not, Miss Oppner. I'll just run upstairs and see if there's anybody about."

CHAPTER XII

LOVE, LUCRE AND MR. ALDEN

Zoe was waiting for Lady Mary Evershed. Lady Mary was late--an unremarkable circ.u.mstance, since Lady Mary was a woman, and less remarkable than ordinarily for the reason that Lady Mary had met Sir Richard Haredale on the way. At the time she should have been at the Astoria she was pacing slowly through St. James's Park, beside Haredale.

"My position is becoming impossible, Mary," he said, with painful distinctness. "Every day seems to see the time more distant, instead of nearer, when I can say good-bye to Mr. Julius Rohscheimer. My situation is little better than that of his secretary. By hard work, and it _is_ hard work to act as Rohscheimer's social Virgil!--and by harder self-repression, I have struggled to earn enough to enable me to cry quits with the other rogues who preyed upon me, when--before I knew you.

I've scarcely a shred of self-respect left, Mary!"

She looked down at the gravelled path and made no answer to his self-accusation.

"It is only my sense of humour that has saved me. But one day I shall break out! It is inevitable. I cannot pander for ever to Rohscheimer's social ambitions. Yet, if I show fight, he will break me! Saving the prospect--with a hale and hearty uncle intervening, and one of the best; may he live to be a hundred!--of the t.i.tle, and all that goes with it, what have I to offer you, Mary? I am a man sailing under false colours.

Practically, I am a salaried servant of Rohscheimer's. I don't actually draw my salary; but in recognition of my services in popularising his wife's entertainments, he keeps the vultures at bay! Bah! I despise myself!"

Mary looked up to him, tenderly reproachful.

"You silly boy!" she said. "There is nothing dishonourable in what you do!"

"Possibly not. But how would your father like to know of my position."

She lowered her eyes again.

"Is my father indebted to Julius Rohscheimer in any way, d.i.c.k?" she asked suddenly.

Haredale laughed nervously.

"Rohscheimer does not honour me with the whole of his confidence in financial matters," he replied. "It is a question Adeler would be better able to answer."

"Mr. Adeler, yes. What a singular man! Do you know, d.i.c.k, in spite of father's ideas respecting our old English aristocracy, I have sometimes felt, in Mr. Adeler's presence, that he, though a Jew, was a thousand times more of an aristocrat than I?"

Haredale glanced at her oddly.

"I have at times been conscious of a similar feeling!" he said. "No doubt one's instincts are true enough. Adeler's pedigree conceivably may go back to Jewish n.o.bles who entertained monarchs in their marble palaces when the Eversheds and Haredales considered several streaks of red ochre an adequate costume for the most important functions."

He laughed boyishly at his own words.

"Oh, d.i.c.k!" said Mary. "How absurd of you. It is impossible to imagine an Evershed in such a condition. But yet, you are right. How singular that most people should overlook so obvious a fact; that there is a Jewish aristocracy, possibly one of the most ancient in the world."

"The Jews are an Eastern people," replied Haredale. "That is the fact which is generally overlooked. They are, excepting one, the most remarkable people in the modern world."

"Do you know," said the girl, unconsciously lowering her voice, "I have sometimes thought that Severac Bablon was in some way connected----"

"Yes?"

"With the ancient history of the Jews!"

"What do you mean exactly?"

"I can hardly explain. But at the Rohscheimers, on the night of the ball, Severac Bablon was masked, of course; yet it seemed to me----"

"Mary," interrupted Haredale, "don't tell me that you believe the romantic stories circulating about the man!"

"What stories, d.i.c.k?"

"Why, about his holding the Seal of Suleyman, whatever that may be----"

"But Mrs. Elschild says he _does_!"

Haredale started.

"How can she possibly know?"

A flush tinged Lady Mary's clear complexion for a moment, and left it paler than it was wont to be. She despised a woman who could not preserve a secret (and therefore must have had a poor opinion of her s.e.x), yet she had nearly allowed her own tongue to betray her. Whatever Mrs. Elschild had told her had been told in confidence, and under the seal of friendship.

"Perhaps she does not know. Someone may have told her."

"It's all over London," said Haredale; "in the clubs, everywhere! I wonder you have not heard it before. There seems to be an organised attempt to glorify this man, who, after all, is no more than an up-to-date highwayman. Someone has spread the absurd story that he is of Jewish royal blood; whereas the royal line of the Jews must have been extinct for untold generations!"

"Why must it? You have just said that the Jews are an Eastern people.

And all Eastern peoples are subtle and secretive. I invariably lose half of my self-importance in Egypt, for instance. There is something in the eye of the meanest _fellah_ which is painfully like patronage!"

Haredale shrugged his shoulders.

"What a thing it is," he said humorously, "to be born with black hair, flashing eyes and an olive skin! One can then be any kind of mountebank or robber, and yet rest a.s.sured of the ladies' homage."