Trusia Part 15

Though cautioned to stay within call, Josef was dismissed to his unrevealed disappointment.

"Now, go ahead, Johann," commanded the Privy Counselor, when the sound of receding footsteps a.s.sured him that Josef was no longer in earshot.

"I never had so much money at one time," continued the messenger, manifestly ill at ease since the departure of Josef. "I began to wonder why the stranger had given it to me for so simple a service. When the dumb man ponders overlong he seeks counsel. That was my case. My friend and I sat and talked of it and as we talked we drank.

"My friend said that the reason for keeping it secret was the person to whom it was written. At first I laughed at him. It could mean nothing.

He pushed the brandy toward me and laughed too. I supposed he thought the same. Then I began to turn it over in my head, and as it seemed possible it might mean something, I besought him how such a thing could be. He replied by asking to whom the letter was addressed. I said in a foreign language,--English I do not understand. He pondered and said it might be sent by a spy to the Russian police. He added that it might mean hanging for me; I was afraid it was so, then in my fright I drank more brandy. My head reeled, but I was less afraid. I laughed once more.

I asked him what he would do. He requested to see the letter. I was angry. 'Fool,' he said, 'not to open it; just to see the address. That will tell. No one will know.' I gave it to him. He pushed the brandy to me as he puzzled over the odd letters. When I looked up from the bottle, he was staring at me, his eyes big and scared. 'It is as I thought,' he said, in a whisper one uses near the graveyard at night. I hardly knew what to do, Excellency, so I wandered in the forest. I fear I was drunk from the brandy. The rest Her Highness can tell you," and the man wiped the perspiration from his brow.

"We found him skulking in the forest; not twenty minutes ago,"

supplemented Trusia. "His actions were so mysterious and his speech so reprehensible that we brought him here."

Carter, regarding the whole affair as a delusion--a bubble soon broken, brought the matter to an issue.

"Don't you think," he suggested confidently, "that Johann should produce the incriminating doc.u.ment. I think it will turn out to be a certain message to one Henry Jarvis, Broker, William Street, New York." He came forward to stand beside Sobieska at the table, as Johann took out a bulky envelope from a dispatch box and placed it before the Minister.

Trusia, too, had drawn near. The trio started involuntarily as they read the address of Russia's sub-minister of Secret Police in Warsaw staring them in the face. Trusia gasped and turned white. Sobieska walked to the door, closed it gently and returned to the table.

"Who was your friendly counselor?" he demanded of Johann.

"I dare not tell you," the fellow replied doggedly.

"If I have to ask Posner at the inn, it will go hard with you, Johann."

"He does not know; we did not drink at Posner's."

"That is certainly a clever imitation of my writing," said Carter, who had been carefully studying the characters on the envelope. Sobieska looked up. "You do not believe me capable of communicating with your enemies!" He appealed to the girl, whose white face was staring at the oblong packet lying on the table.

"I do not know what to believe," she said as she struggled to keep back the tears. "Open it, Sobieska." The latter complied and scanned the communication.

"This," he said, looking up gravely, "purports to be a preliminary report of Calvert Carter and Todcaster Carrick to their immediate superior in the Imperial Secret Police at Warsaw. It contains a further promise of early developments and the coming of a King to Krovitch. It is signed 'Calvert Carter.'"

Sobieska reached so suddenly forward to touch a call bell that Johann jumped. A gray-haired sergeant entered.

"A corporal and file," was Sobieska's command. Carter straightened himself haughtily. Were they going to arrest him for this forgery?

"Count Sobieska," he began indignantly, while Johann's dull eyes brightened.

"Wait, please," was the Minister's only comment.

Carter turned to Her Grace to remonstrate against such an indignity, but her head was turned from him. There were footsteps, rhythmic, orderly, at the door. It opened to admit the corporal and his men. Vividly it recalled to Carter another such scene when he was a judge and----

"Put Johann under arrest," came the curt interruption to his thoughts from the lips of Sobieska. "If you permit any one to communicate with him, it will mean a court martial for all of you," said the Minister.

The sudden and unexpected reversal of the preconceived program was too much for the messenger, as, cursing and struggling, he was hustled toward the door. As the heavy oak panel swung to upon the prisoner, he muttered something which caught the waiting ear of Sobieska, who glanced toward his princess to see if she had heard. Satisfied that she had not, he swept a triumphant look at Carter, who was dumbfounded at the turn affairs had taken. The American stretched out his hand to the Krovitzer.

"Paul Zulka's friends are to be trusted," said Sobieska. "You have already made a personally vindictive enemy," he continued; "have you any idea who it is?" The indolent wink accompanying the inquiry cautioned Carter not to name any one if he had.

"I have," replied Calvert, who had understood the signal.

"Don't name him then, at present," requested the Minister.

"Why not?" queried an indignant Trusia, "as Major Carter is innocent, this wretch must be punished at once."

"Your Highness," respectfully counseled the Privy Counselor, "Major Carter has been in our country too short a time even to be sure of his friends, much less of his enemies. His surmises, therefore, might be unwarranted, and might put a perfectly innocent person under suspicion.

Be a.s.sured," he a.s.serted vehemently, "I will thoroughly sift out this matter in my official capacity. Whether it confirms his premonitions or not, you will learn in due time. I am inclined to believe that Johann was intended to fall into your hands, but with a different intent.

Either that or the message was meant for Russia, the risk to be shouldered upon Carter. May I employ Josef," he requested blandly, "as a messenger to Colonel Sutphen?"

"Certainly," she replied, and the old fellow was sent for.

There was neither tremor nor twitch on his impa.s.sive countenance as he responded to the summons, although he must have missed Johann and knew not what had transpired.

"You are to take this note to Colonel Sutphen at once," said Sobieska curtly. "At once," he reiterated with emphasis, "don't even wait for a hat. Your trip and return will be timed," he was fairly warned. "It is of the utmost importance," the Minister remarked impressively as he handed the retainer a hastily scrawled but securely sealed note. Josef might have been carrying the order for his own execution, for all he knew, but he did not permit any outward sign of trepidation to show in his face. With commendable alacrity he left the room on his mission, watched by Sobieska in the doorway. Returning, with hardly concealed impatience, the Minister begged of Her Grace to be excused for the time being and requested the a.s.sistance of Carter.

"Yes, Sobieska, go," she said. "I am as anxious as you can be to reach the bottom of this mystery. Somehow, I cannot help feeling that there is something inimical to my country in it all."

"Pray G.o.d that it is not so," said the Minister as he bowed her from the office. No sooner was she gone than the two men faced each other, the same thought in their minds, the same name on their lips.

"Josef," they said in the same breath.

"There's not a minute to lose," continued the Minister. "That is why I trumped up that message to get him out of the way. We must search his room immediately, before he has a chance to forestall us. Come," he said, grasping Carter's arm.

Together they mounted stairways, plunged down pa.s.sages, grim and shadow infested, until the Servitor's room was reached. The barrenness of the place seemed to be sufficient guarantee for the honesty of its usual occupant. A table without a drawer, no closet and some burned-out logs in the large fireplace afforded but scant hiding places. Sobieska carefully tapped each board separately to ascertain if a secret receptacle had been formed in such a fashion, but the floor was perfectly solid. He tried the flagging of the hearth as well as the brick arch of the fireplace with no more success. He was about to acknowledge failure when Carter accidentally turned over one of the charred logs lying at his feet. An exclamation burst from the Minister's lips.

Minute and scattered fragments of paper, saved from the blaze by the bulk of the log above them, lay scattered on the hearth. These Sobieska pounced upon eagerly.

Further search bore no fuller fruit, so with their meagre harvest the pair descended to the office again. Here the Krovitzer, piecing the fragments together, and pasting them on a sheet of paper, laid them before Carter.

"There," said the Minister, "are the experiments in your handwriting.

Now wait until he comes back."

"But how did he get a copy?" queried the puzzled American.

"Easy enough," replied Sobieska. "He kept those papers he took from you in the cell yesterday. Your pa.s.sport furnished your signature. He's a clever rascal. Subst.i.tuted the forgery for the other letter, while Johann drank. Either that or they're in league together, which I am not prepared to believe, yet. In any event we must get a new messenger."

"Tell me," said the curious Carter, "how came you to suspect Josef, as you read the letter Johann had with him?"

Sobieska smiled indulgently. "A man of your varied metropolitan experience would scarcely write a letter as he would a thesis for a University degree. Whoever wrote that epistle had doubtless a work of rhetoric at his elbow, fearful of mistakes. Look at it yourself," and he pushed the paper over to Carter. It was, indeed, a studied composition of good proportions and well rounded sentences.

"I have heard you talk," continued his instructor, "and I felt satisfied that Major Carter, if a spy, would hardly have wasted his efforts in such a prim presentation of his facts." He glanced at his watch. "He would have doubtless used cipher. Josef is due in just one minute now.

There he comes," he said, as there was a low rap at the door. "Come in."

Punctuality outdone, Josef entered and handed Sobieska a note. Without even glancing at it, the latter tossed it on the table. Picking up the sheet on which were the pasted fragments, he handed it to the Servitor, watching him closely with narrowing eyes. Without a tremor the paper was received, examined, read, and handed back to Sobieska with a smile.

"Well, Excellency?"

"Ever see that before, Josef?"

"I think so, Excellency. Did you find them in my room?" he inquired with quiet effrontery.