"But certainly," answered Desmond, "I am not an errand boy nor yet a detective. I regard myself as a German officer doing his duty on the front. We have many fronts besides the Western and the Eastern. England is one.
"Ah," exclaimed the girl, clasping her hands together and looking at him with enraptured eyes, "I see you understand! My friend, I am much tempted to make a confidant of you!"
Desmond looked at her but did not speak. Again he felt that silence was now his only role. He tried hard to fix his mind on his duty; but the man in him was occupied with the woman who looked so appealingly at him.
"... but if I do," the girl went on and her voice was hurried and anxious, "you must swear to me that you will respect my confidence, that you will not betray me to the others and that you will, if need be, protect me."
Seeing that Desmond remained silent, she hastened to add:
"Believe me, what I ask you to do is not in opposition to your duty. My friend, for all my surroundings, I am not what I seem.
Fate has drawn me into the system of which you form part; but, believe me, I know nothing of the service to which you and Mortimer and the rest belong!"
She spoke with painful earnestness and in a tone so mournful that Desmond felt himself profoundly moved. "If only she is not acting!" he thought, and sought to shake himself free from the spell which this girl seemed able to cast about him at will.
"Promise me that you will respect my confidence and help me!" she said and held out her hand.
Desmond"s big hand closed about hers and he felt an odd thrill of sympathy with her as their hands met.
"I promise!" he said and murmured to himself something very like a prayer that he might not be called upon to redeem his word.
She let her eyes rest for a moment on his.
"Be careful!" she urged warningly, while the ghost of a smile flitted across her face. "Very soon I may call upon you to make good your words!"
"I promise!" he repeated--and his eyes never left hers.
"Then," she cried pa.s.sionately, "find out who has stolen for the Crown Prince the Star of Poland at the price of the life of a harmless old man!"
"The Star of Poland!" repeated Desmond. "What is the Star of Poland?"
The girl drew herself up proudly and there was a certain dignity about her manner as she answered.
"I am a Pole," she said, "and to us Poles, the Star of Poland has stood for centuries as a pledge of the restoration of our long-lost kingdom. It was the princ.i.p.al jewel of the Polish Coronation sword which vanished many hundreds of years ago--in the thirteenth century, one of my compatriots once told me--and it was one of the most treasured national possessions in the Chateau of our great king, John Sobieski at Villanoff, outside Warsaw. My friend, I am not religious, and since my childhood I have renounced the ancient faith of my fathers, but, when I think of the extraordinary chain of circ.u.mstances by which this treasure came into my possession, I almost believe that G.o.d has chosen me to restore this gem to the King of an independent Poland.
"Four years ago I was in the United States, a very humble dancer in vaudeville of the third or fourth cla.s.s. When I was appearing at Columbus, Ohio, I met a German, a man who had been an officer in the Prussian Guard but had come to grief and had been forced to emigrate.
"This man"s name was Hans von Schornbeek. Like so many German officers who go to America, in his time he had been everything--waiter, lift-man, engine-driver and heaven knows what else, but when I met him he was apparently well-off. It was only later on that I knew he was one of your princ.i.p.al secret agents in America.
"He praised my talents highly and offered to furnish the capital to start me as an Oriental dancer with a large company of my own.
There was only one condition attaching to his offer, a condition, ma foi! which was not disagreeable to me. It was that, after six months tour in the States and Canada, I should go to Brussels and settle down there in a house that Herr von Schornbeek would present me with.
"Mon ami, in those days, I understood nothing at all of diplomacy. I knew only that I was often hungry and that I had a little talent which, were it given a chance, might keep me from want. Herr von Schornbeek fulfilled his promises to me. I had my company, I did my tour of America and Canada with great success and finally I came to Europe and made my debut at Brussels.
"I knew Brussels already from the old days. As a half-starved, unhappy child with a troupe of acrobats, I had often appeared there. But now I came to Brussels as a conqueror. A beautiful villa in the suburb of Laeken was ready to receive me and I found that a large credit had been opened in my name at one of the princ.i.p.al banks so that I could keep open house.
"I think I scarcely realized then the role that I was destined to fill by the German Secret Service. In all my life before, I had never been happy, I had never ceased to struggle for my bare existence, I had never had pretty clothes to wear, and motor-cars and servants of my own."
She paused and glanced around her. The room was almost dark; the fog outside hung like a veil before the window.
"Light the lamp!" she begged, "I do not like the dark!"
Desmond struck a match and kindled an oil lamp, which stood on the sideboard.
"Ah! my friend," the girl resumed. "I took my fill of life with both hands. The year was 1913. Now I know that I was one of the German agents for the penetration of Belgium in preparation of what was coming. My mission was to make friends among the Belgians and the French and the cosmopolitan society of Brussels generally, and invite them to my house where your people were waiting to deal with them.
"My pretty villa became the rendezvous for half the rascals of Europe, men and women, who used to meet there with all kinds of mysterious Germans. Sometimes there was a scandal. Once a Belgian Colonel was found shot in the billiard-room; they said it was suicide and the thing was hushed up, but dame! now that I know what I know...
"Enfin! I shut my eyes to it all... it was none of my business...
and I revelled in my robes, my dancing, my new life of luxury!
"And then the war came. I was at Laeken, resting after a visit to Rome. There was a lot of talk about the war amongst the people who came to my house, but I did not see how it could affect me, an artiste, and I never read the newspapers. My German friends a.s.sured me that, in a little while, the German army would be at Brussels; that, if I remained quietly at home, all would be well.
They were very elated and confident, these German friends of mine. And rightly; for within a few weeks the Germans entered the city and a General quartered himself in my villa. It was he who brought the Crown Prince to see me.
"Mon cher, you know this young man and his reputation. I am not excusing myself; but all my life had been spent up to then in the bas-fonds of society. I had never known what it was to be courted and admired by one who had the world at his feet. Parbleu! one does not meet a future Emperor every day!
"Enfin! the Prince carried me with him back to Metz, where he had his headquarters. He was very epris with me, but you know his temperament! No woman can hold him for more than a few weeks, vain and weak and arrogant as he is. But pardon! I was forgetting that you are a good German. I fear I offend your susceptibilities..."
Desmond laughed drily.
"Madame," he said, "I hope I have preserved sufficient liberty of judgment to have formed my own opinion about our future sovereign. Most Germans have..."
"Alors," she broke in fiercely, her voice shaking with pa.s.sion, "you know what an ign.o.ble canaille is this young man, without even enough decency of feeling to respect the troops of whom he has demanded such b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifices. At Metz we were near enough to the fighting to realize the blood and tears of this war. But the Prince thought of nothing, but his own amus.e.m.e.nt. To live as he did, within sound of the guns, with parties every night, women and dancing and roulette and champagne suppers--bah! c"etait trop fort! It awakened in me the love of country which lies dormant in all of us. I wanted to help my country, lest I might sink as low as he..."
"One day the Prince brought a young officer friend of his to dine with me. This officer had come from the Eastern front and had been present at the capture of Warsaw. After dinner he took a leather case out of his pocket and said to the Prince: "I have brought your Imperial Highness a little souvenir from Poland!" As he spoke he touched a spring and the case flew open, displaying an enormous diamond, nearly as big as the great Orloff diamond which I have seen at Petrograd, surrounded by five other brilliants, the whole set like a star.
""The Star of Poland," said the young officer (the Prince called him "Erich;" I never heard his full name), "it comes from the long-lost Coronation sword of the Polish kings. I took it for your Imperial Highness from the Chateau of John Sobieski at Villanoff.
"I could not take my eyes off the gem. As the Prince held it down under the lamp to study it, it shone like an electric light. I had met many of my fellow countrymen in America and I had often heard of this jewel, famous in our unhappy history.
"The Prince, who was gay with champagne, laughed and said:
""These lousy Poles will have no further use for this pretty trinket, thanks to our stout German blows, will they, Erich?"
"And his friend replied:
""We"ll give them a nice new German const.i.tution instead, your Imperial Highness!"
"The Prince, as I have said, was very merry that night. He let me take the jewel from its case and hold it in my hands. Then I fastened it in my hair before the mirror and turned to show myself to the Prince and his companion.
""Donnerwetter! said Willie. "It looks wonderful in your hair, Marcelle!"
"Then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he cried:
""Erich! What do you say, Marcelle is a Pole. She shall have the Star of Poland and wear it in memory of me!"
"The other thought this a famous idea, and so the jewel pa.s.sed into my hands. That same evening I resolved that it should be a sacred duty on my part to keep it in safety until I could hand it back to the lawful sovereign of an independent Poland.
"I was very unhappy at Metz until the Star of Poland came to comfort me. When I was alone, I used to take it from its case and feast my eyes upon it. I made many attempts to get away, but the Prince would never let me go, though he had long since tired of me and I was merely one of his harem of women. Pfui!"