The World Masters Part 15

"Really, Chrysie, I don't wish to know, and I don't think you ought to know," said Lady Olive, still more stiffly.

"Well," replied Chrysie, defiantly, "I am sorry I riled you, but I do know it; and honestly, Olive, it's what's you and I and all of us ought to know."

At this Lady Olive's curiosity appealed very strongly to her sense of the proprieties, and she said more amiably:

"Do you really mean, Chrysie, that there's something serious in it--that, for instance, it has anything to do with the works?"

"I don't know yet," said Chrysie, "but I've got a pretty good copy of it in my satchel, thanks to those awful pencils they give you to use in British telegraph offices. Anyhow, it was addressed to Count Valdemar, _Yacht Vlodoya_, Cherbourg; and Cherbourg's not on the way to the Baltic, is it? Let's go and have an ice and some cakes somewhere, so that I can read what is written."

"That's very strange," said Lady Olive, "and the Count professed to be in such a hurry to get back to Petersburg. What on earth can he be doing at Cherbourg?"

"I reckon poppa and the viscount would give something to know that, too," said Chrysie, as they turned into a confectioner's. They ordered ices, and Chrysie took the telegram form out of her satchel and unfolded it gingerly. Her pretty brows puckered over it for a few moments, as she slanted it this way and that to get the light on it.

Then she put her elbows on the little marble table, and said in a low tone:

"It's in French, and it tells the Count that the _Nadine_ starts this evening instead of to-morrow morning. The last word is 'Depechez,' and that's French for 'Make haste,' isn't it? Now, do you think I was right in doing a very improper thing--which, of course, it was?"

"I'm afraid you were, Chrysie," said Lady Olive. "It's certainly very mysterious. How is the telegram signed?"

"There isn't any signature," replied Chrysie. "Our friend's a bit too cute for that."

"What on earth do you mean, Chrysie?" said Lady Olive, with a note of alarm in her voice. "What friend?"

Chrysie looked up and said, with a snap of her eyes: "What other friend than M'am'selle Felice's mistress--the n.o.ble Adelaide de Conde?"

Lady Olive started. To her straightforward English sense of honour it seemed impossible that a woman so gently bred as Adelaide de Conde could accept her father's hospitality, and yet send such a message as this to those who might before long be the enemies of his country.

"Chrysie," she said, "I could not believe that for a moment. It is utterly incredible that the marquise could be guilty of anything of the sort. I admit that it is very suspicious that the _Vlodoya_ should be at Cherbourg instead of on her way to the Baltic, and that Adelaide's maid should send such a message; but it seems to me much more likely that Felice is in the pay of these Russians, and that her mistress knows nothing about it."

"Well," said Chrysie, rising, "we shall see. Now I guess we'd better be getting down on board. I shall give this to the viscount, and he can have a council of war on it."

"The viscount!" smiled Lady Olive, as they went out into the street.

"How very formal we are, Chrysie. Why don't you call him Shafto?"

"Because I won't let him call me Chrysie--yet," was the reply.

CHAPTER XIX

When the _Nadine_ left her moorings, at about four o'clock on a lovely June afternoon, she sauntered easily down to the Needles at about twelve knots. For reasons of his own her owner had never put her to full speed in crowded waters, or, in fact, where any other craft was near enough to see what she could do. On deck the princ.i.p.al actors in the tragedy that was to come were sitting in deck-chairs or strolling about, chatting in the most friendly fashion possible, just as though the graceful little vessel was not practically carrying the fate of the world as she slipped so smoothly and swiftly through the swirling water that ran along her white sides.

Until nightfall she continued at the same speed; but when dinner was over, and the lights were up, Hardress lit a cigar and went on to the bridge, and said to the commander:

"Captain Burgess, I think you can let her go now. Full speed ahead, right away to Halifax. As I have told you, it is most urgent that we should be there in between five and six days. Of course, everything depends on the engines, and I think it would be well to work the engine-room staff in treble shifts, just to see that nothing goes wrong. Any accident in the engine-room would mean a good deal to me.

So you may tell the stokers and engineers that if everything goes smoothly, and we get to Halifax by the 15th--that's giving you five days and a bit from now--there will be a hundred pounds extra to be divided among them when we've coaled up again at Halifax. You understand, I want those engines looked after as though they were a lady's watch."

"Certainly, my lord," replied the captain. "I hope, sir, you don't think that anything of that sort is necessary for the working of the _Nadine_; but, of course, the engine-room staff will be very glad to accept your lordship's generosity."

The captain blew his whistle, and the head and shoulders of a quartermaster appeared on the ladder, looking up to the bridge.

"Quartermaster, who is on duty in the engine-room?"

"Mr Williams, sir," replied the quartermaster, touching his cap.

"Ask him to be good enough to step up here for a moment."

"Ay, ay, sir," and the head and shoulders disappeared.

A few moments later Edward Williams came up on to the bridge. Apart from the work of his profession he was an intensely nervous man, and his imagination had instantly construed the sudden and unwonted summons into a suspicion of his contemplated guilt, and his close-set, greenish-blue eyes shifted anxiously from the captain to Hardress in a way that at once inspired Hardress with vague undefined suspicions, which somehow brought him back to one or two interviews on the subject of Williams's patents--which had ended in a way which would have prompted a less generous man to have dismissed him on the spot. It was only a suspicion. Still, in another sense, it was the intuition of a keen and highly-trained intellect, and somehow, by some process which Hardress himself could not have explained, Williams's manner as he came on the bridge, and that sudden shifty glance, inspired him with the thought that this was a man to be watched.

"Mr Williams," said the captain, "his lordship has just informed me that it is most important we should get to Halifax in the quickest possible time; and, as you have most of the routine work to do, under Mr M'Niven, and are, perhaps, more in touch with the men than he is, I wish you to tell the men that from here to Halifax the engineers and stokers will work in treble shifts. It'll be a bit harder work, but not for long. And his lordship has kindly promised a hundred pounds to be divided among the engineer's staff at Halifax. Now, that's not bad extra pay for five or six days work, and I hope you'll see that it's earned."

"Very well, sir," replied the engineer, doing his best to keep his voice steady, and not quite succeeding. "It is, I am sure, most generous of his lordship, and I am quite certain that the men will do everything in their power to deserve it."

"And," said Hardress, noting the break in his voice, "you understand, Mr Williams, I shall expect the officers to do the same. We can take no risks this trip, and there must be no accidents or breakdowns. Time is too precious; you understand me, of course. I will see Mr M'Niven later on. That will do, thank you."

Mr Williams touched the peak of his cap, and disappeared down the ladder, feeling, in his inmost soul as though his contemplated treachery had already been discovered. And yet, if he had seen the matter from another point of view, he might have known that the precautions which Hardress had taken were, under the circ.u.mstances, just what any man carrying such enormous responsibilities as he did would have taken, for, as he had said, everything depended on the _Nadine's_ engines. It was, therefore, the most natural thing in the world that everything possible should be done to ensure their perfect working. In fact, if he had not had the burden of a contemplated treachery on his soul, he would have considered the orders to be not only natural, but necessary.

As he reached the deck, it happened that the marquise was strolling forward towards the bridge. Williams raised his cap, and by the light of one of the electric deck-lamps, Hardress saw from the bridge that she looked hard at him for a moment, and that he replied with an almost imperceptible shake of the head. His brows came together for a moment, and he shut his teeth. His keen intellect saw what his half-intoxicated senses would not have seen. Under any normal circ.u.mstances, it was impossible that his guest, Adelaide de Conde, could have even the remotest relations with his second engineer, and yet there was no mistaking what he had seen as she pa.s.sed under the electric light.

"Captain Burgess," he said, suddenly, in a low voice, "I don't quite like the look of Mr Williams. I have nothing against him, but I know he has a bit of a grudge against me about those patents of his, and----"

"Surely you don't think, my lord, that he would do anything?"

"No," interrupted Hardress; "I say nothing, except that we're taking no risks this voyage; but I shall ask Mr M'Niven to have a very sharp watch kept on the engines."

"May I come up on to the sacred territory?" said a sweet, pleading voice from half-way up the bridge stairs.

"And may we too?" said the voice of Miss Chrysie just behind.

"By all means, marquise," said Hardress; "and you too, Olive, and Miss Chrysie, certainly; only I hope you've got your caps pinned on securely, because we're going to quicken up."

"Ah," said Adelaide, coming up on to the bridge with her head half-enveloped in a fleecy shawl, "quicken up. Does that mean what you call full speed?"

"Something like it, I reckon," said Miss Chrysie, coming up close behind her, followed by Lady Olive, both with white yachting caps pinned more or less securely on to their abundant tresses.

"Yes," said Hardress, with a note in his voice that Adelaide had not heard before; "it is full speed. Now, hold on to your headgear and you'll see."

As he spoke he put his hand on the handle of the engine telegraph and pulled it over from half to full speed. They heard a tinkle in the engine-room, and presently the bridge began to throb and thump under their feet. The sharp prow of the _Nadine_ had so far been cleaving the water with scarcely a ripple. Now it seemed to leap forward into it, and raised a long creased swirl to left and right. A sudden blast of wind struck their faces, hands instinctively went up to heads, and Lady Olive exclaimed:

"What is that, Shafto? It hasn't suddenly come on to blow, has it?"

"Oh no," he laughed. "We're making it blow. That's only the difference between about ten or eleven knots and twenty--and there's a bit of a breeze against us, about five miles an hour--so that makes it twenty-five miles an hour--in fact, even thirty--for knots are longer than miles."

"Now isn't that just gorgeous!" said Miss Chrysie, and she opened her mouth and filled her lungs with the strong salt breath of the sea--"and there goes my cap," she said, when she got her breath again.