"Yes," I said. "Why?"
But his countenance had turned pale, and he gave no answer to my question.
"If these same Leithcourts are really friends of yours, Durnford, old fellow, I"m sorry I"ve said anything against them," the Major exclaimed in an apologetic tone. "Only the end of my visit was so abrupt and so extraordinary, and the company such a mixed one, that--well, to tell you the truth, the people are a mysterious lot altogether."
"Perhaps our Leithcourts are not the same as those Jack knows," I remarked, in order to escape from a rather difficult situation; whereupon Durnford, as though eager to conceal his surprise, said with a forced laugh, "Oh! probably not," and reseated himself at table. Then the Major quickly changed the topic of conversation, and afterwards he and his friend pa.s.sed along to their table and sat down to eat.
I could not help noticing that Jack Durnford was upset at what he had learnt, yet I hesitated just then to put any question to him. I resolved to approach the subject later, so as to allow him time to question me if he wished to do so.
After smoking an hour we went across to the Empire, where we spent the evening in the grand circle, meeting many men we knew and having a rather pleasant time among old acquaintances. If a man who had lived the club life of London returns from abroad, he can always run across someone he knows in the circle of the Empire about ten o"clock at night.
Jack was, however, not his old self that he had been before dinner. His brow was now heavy and thoughtful, and he appeared deeply immersed in some intricate problem, for his eyes were fixed vacantly when opportunity was afforded him to think, and he appeared to desire to avoid his friends rather than to greet them.
After the theater I induced him to come round to the Cecil, and in the wicker chair in the big portico before the entrance we sat to smoke our final cigars. It is a favorite spot of mine when in London, for at afternoon, when the string band plays and the Americans and other cosmopolitans drink tea, there is a continual coming and going, a little panorama of life that to a student of men like myself is intensely interesting. And at night it is just as amusing to sit there in the shadow and watch the people returning from the theaters or dances and to speculate as to whom and what they are. At that one little corner of London just off the Strand you see more variety of men and women than perhaps at any other spot. All grades pa.s.s before you, from the pushful American commercial man interested in a patent medicine, to the proud Indian Rajah with his turbaned suite; from the variety actress to the daughter of a peer, or the wife of a millionaire pork-butcher doing Europe.
"You"ve been a bit down in the mouth to-night, Jack," I said presently, after we had been watching the cabs coming up, depositing the home-coming revelers from the Savoy or the Carlton.
"Yes," he sighed. "And surely I have enough to cause me--after what I"ve heard from Bartlett."
"What! Did the facts he told us convey any bad news to you?" I inquired with pretended ignorance.
"Yes," he said hoa.r.s.ely, after a brief pause. Then he added: "Bartlett said you could tell me what happened up in Scotland, where Leithcourt had shooting. Tell me everything," he added with the air of a man in whom all hope is dead.
"Well," I began, "the Leithcourts took Rannoch Castle, close to my uncle"s place, near Dumfries. I got to know them, of course, and often shot with his party. One day, however, I was amazed to notice in one of the rooms the photograph of a lady, the exact counterpart of that picture which, I recollect, I told you when in Leghorn I had found torn up on board the _Lola_. You recollect what I narrated about my strange adventure, don"t you?"
"I remember every word," was his answer. "Go on. What did you do?"
"Nothing. I held my tongue. But when I discovered that the fellow who called himself Woodroffe--the man who had represented himself as the owner of the _Lola_, and who, no doubt, had had a hand in breaking open Hutcheson"s safe in the Consulate--was engaged to Muriel, I became full of suspicion."
"Well?"
"Woodroffe, after meeting me, disappeared--went to Hamburg, they said, on business. Then other things occurred. A man and woman were found murdered up in the wood about a mile and a half from the castle. The man was made up to represent my man Olinto--I believe you"ve seen him in Leghorn?"
"What! They"ve killed Olinto?" he gasped, starting from his chair.
"No. The fellow was made up very much like him. But his wife Armida was killed."
"They killed the woman, and believed they had also killed her husband, eh?" he said bitterly through his teeth, and I saw that his strong hands grasped the arms of his chair firmly. "And Martin Woodroffe is engaged to Muriel Leithcourt. Are you certain of this?"
"Yes; quite certain."
"And is there no suspicion as to who is the a.s.sa.s.sin of the woman Santini and this mysterious man who posed as her husband?"
"None whatever."
For some time Jack Durnford smoked in silence, and I could just distinguish his white, hard face in the faint light, for it was now late, and the big electric lamps had been turned out and we were in semi-darkness.
"That fellow shall never marry Muriel," he declared in a fierce, hoa.r.s.e voice. "What you have just told me reveals the truth. Did you meet Chater?"
"He appeared suddenly at Rannoch, and the Leithcourts fled precipitately and have not since been heard of."
"Ah, no wonder!" he remarked with a dry laugh. "No wonder! But look here, Gordon, I"m not going to stand by and let that scoundrel Woodroffe marry Muriel."
"You love her, perhaps?" I hazarded.
"Yes, I do love her," he admitted. "And, by heaven!" he cried, "I will tell the truth and crush the whole of their ingenious plot. Have you met Elma Heath?" he asked.
"Yes," I said in quick anxiety.
"Then listen," he said in a low, earnest voice. "Listen, and I"ll tell you something.
"There is a greater mystery surrounding that yacht, the _Lola_, than you have ever imagined, my dear old chap," declared Jack Durnford, looking me straight in the face. "When you told me about it on the quarter-deck that day outside Leghorn, I was half a mind to tell you what I knew.
Only one fact prevented me--my disinclination to reveal my own secrets.
I loved Muriel Leithcourt, yet, afloat as I was, I could never see her--I could not obtain from her own lips the explanation I desired. Yet I would not prejudge her--no, and I won"t now!" he added with a fierce resolution.
"I love her," he went on, "and she reciprocates my love. Ours is a secret engagement made in Malta two years ago, and yet you tell me that she has pledged herself to that fellow Woodroffe--the man known here in London as d.i.c.k Archer. I can"t believe it--I really can"t, old fellow.
She could never write to me as she has done, urging patience and secrecy until my return."
"Unless, of course, she desired to gain time," I suggested.
But my friend was silent; his brows were deep knit.
"Woodroffe is at the present moment in Petersburg," I said. "I"ve just come back from there."
"In St. Petersburg!" he gasped, surprised. "Then he is with that villainous official, Baron Oberg, the Governor-General of Finland."
"No; Oberg is living shut up in his palace at Helsingfors, fearing to go out lest he shall be a.s.sa.s.sinated," was my answer.
"And Elma? What has become of her?"
"She is in hiding in Petersburg, awaiting such time as I can get her safely out of Russia," and then, continuing, I explained how she had been maimed and rendered deaf and dumb.
"What!" he cried fiercely. "Have they actually done that to the poor girl? Then they feared that she should reveal the nature of their plot, for she had seen and heard."
"Seen and heard what?"
"Be patient; we will elucidate this mystery, and the motive of this terrible infliction upon her. Muriel wrote to me saying that poor Elma, her friend, had disappeared, and she feared that some evil had also happened to her. So Oberg had sent her to his fortress--his own private Bastille--the place to which, on pretended charges of conspiracy against Russia, he sends those who thwart him to a living tomb."
"I have seen him, and I have defied him," I said.
"You have! Man alive! be careful. He"s not a fellow who sticks at trifles," said Jack warningly.
"I don"t fear," I replied. "Elma"s enemies are also mine."
"Then I take it, old fellow, that notwithstanding her affliction, you are actually in love with her?"
"I intend to rescue, and to marry her," I answered quite frankly.
"But first we must tear aside this veil of mystery and ascertain all the facts concerning her," he said. "At present I only know one or two very vague details. The baron is certainly not her uncle, as he represents himself to be, but it seems certain that she is the daughter of Anglo-Russian parents, and was born in Russia and brought to England when a child."