Answer me this question. Have you parted with any of our secrets?"
"Not one," the Prince a.s.sured him. "A certain lady visited this house last night, not, as you seem to think, at my invitation, but on her own initiative. She was not successful in her quest."
"She would not pay the price, eh?" Immelan sneered. "By the G.o.ds of your ancestors, Prince Shan, are there not women enough in the world for you without bartering your honour, and the great future of your country, for a blue-eyed jade of an Englishwoman?"
The Prince sat slowly up. His appearance was ominous. His face had become set as marble; there was a look in his eyes like the flashing of a light upon black metal. He contemplated his visitor across the lilies.
"A man so near to death, Immelan," he enjoined, "might choose his words more carefully."
Immelan laughed scornfully.
"I am not to be bullied," he declared. "Your doors with their patent locks have no fears for me. When you walk abroad, you are followed by members of your household. When you come to my rooms, they attend you. I am not a prince, but I, too, have a care for my skin. Three of my secret service men never let me out of their sight. They are within call at this moment."
His host smiled.
"This is very interesting," he said, "but you should know me better, Immelan, than to imagine that mine are the clumsy methods of the dagger or the bullet. The man whom I will to die--drinks with me."
He pointed a long forefinger at the empty gla.s.s. Immelan gazed at it, and the sweat stood out upon his forehead.
"My G.o.d!" he muttered. "There was a queer taste! I thought that it was aniseed!"
"There was nothing in that gla.s.s," the Prince declared, "which the greatest chemist who ever breathed could detect as poison, yet you will die, my friend Immelan, without any doubt. Shall I tell you how? Would you know in what manner the pains will come? No? But, my friend, you disappoint me! You showed so much courage an hour ago. Listen. Feel for a swelling just behind--Ah!"
Immelan was already across the room. The Prince touched a bell, the doors were opened. Ghastly pale, his head swimming, the tortured man dashed out into the street. The Prince leaned back amongst his cushions, untied a straw-fastened packet of his long cigarettes, lit one, and closed his eyes.
CHAPTER XXVI
Nigel was just arriving at Dorminster House when Maggie returned from her ride. He a.s.sisted her to dismount and entered the house with her.
"There is something here I should like to show you, Maggie," he said, as he drew a dispatch from his pocket. "It was sent round to me half an hour ago by Chalmers, from the American Emba.s.sy."
"It"s about Gilbert Jesson!" Maggie exclaimed, holding out her hand for it.
Nigel nodded.
"There"s a note inside, and an enclosure," he said. "You had better read both."
Maggie opened out the former:
MY DEAR DORMINSTER,
I am afraid there is rather bad news about Jesson. One of our regular line of airships, running from San Francisco to Vladivostok, has picked up a wireless which must have come from somewhere in the South of China. They kept it for a few days, worse luck, thinking it was only nonsense, as it was in code. Washington got hold of it, however, and cabled it to us last night. I enclose a copy, decoded.
Sincerely yours,
JERE CHALMERS.
The copy was brief enough. Maggie felt her heart sink as she glanced through the few lines:
Report dispatched London. Fear escape impossible. Good-by.
JESSON.
"Horrible!" Maggie exclaimed, with a shiver. "I thought he was in Russia."
"So did we all," Nigel replied. "He must have come to the conclusion that the key to the riddle he was trying to solve was in China, and gone on there. Look here, Maggie," he continued, after a moment"s hesitation, "do you think anything could be done for Jesson with Prince Shan?"
Maggie was silent. They were standing in a shaded corner of the hall, but a fleck of sunshine shone in her hair. She was still a little out of breath with the exercise, her cheeks full of healthy colour, her eyes bright. She tapped her skirt with her riding whip. Nigel watched her a little uneasily.
"Prince Shan is calling here this afternoon," Maggie announced. "I hope you don"t mind."
"What are you going to say to him?" Nigel asked bluntly.
There was a short, tense silence. Even at the thought of the crisis which she knew to be so close at hand, Maggie felt herself unnerved and in dubious straits.
"I do not know," she said at last. "For one thing, I do not know what he wants."
"What he wants seems perfectly plain to me," Nigel replied gravely. "He wants you."
Maggie made a desperate effort to regain the lightheartedness of a few weeks ago.
"If you believe that," she said, "your composure is most unflattering."
There was a ring at the front doorbell, and a familiar voice was heard outside. Maggie turned away to the staircase with a little sigh of relief.
"Naida!" she exclaimed. "I remember now I asked her for a quarter past one instead of half-past. You must entertain her, Nigel. I"ll change into something quickly. And of course I"ll speak to Prince Shan. We mustn"t lose a minute about that. I"ll telephone from my room in a few minutes, Naida. Nigel will look after you."
Naida came down the hall, cool and exquisitely gowned in a creation of shimmering white. Nigel led her into the rarely used drawing-room and found a chair for her between the open window and the conservatory. At first they exchanged but few words. The sense of her near presence affected Nigel as nothing of the sort had ever done before. She for her part seemed quite content with a silence which had in it many of the essentials of eloquence.
"If the history of these days is ever written by an irascible German historian," Naida remarked at length, "he will probably declare that the destinies of the world have been affected during this last month by an outburst of primitivism. Do you know that I have written quite nice things to Paul about you English people? Honest things, of course, but still things which you helped me to discover. And Prince Shan, too. I think that when he rode here through the clouds, he believed in his heart that he was coming as a harbinger of woe."
"You really think, then, that the crisis is past?" Nigel asked.
She nodded.
"I am almost sure of it. Prince Shan returns to China within the course of the next few days."
"We have lived so long," Nigel observed, "in dread of the unknown. I wonder whether we shall ever understand the exact nature of the danger with which we were faced."
"It depends upon Prince Shan," she replied. "The terms were Immelan"s, but the method was his."
"Do you believe," he asked a little abruptly, "that the attempt on Prince Shan"s life last night was made by Immelan?"
There was a touch, perhaps, of her Muscovite ancestry in the cool indifference with which she considered the matter.