The affair occurred about a couple of months after the death of the fascinating Olga Steinkoff. He had been sent back to the Balkans upon another mission. Cosmopolitan of cosmopolitans, he had been moving rapidly up and down Europe gathering information for Downing Street, but ever on the look-out for an opening for the Parson and himself to operate in a very different sphere.
Garrett, blindly obedient to the telegrams he received, had taken the car on some long flying journeys, Vienna, Berlin and back to Belgrade, in Servia. For two months or so I had lost sight of both the mild-mannered, spectacled Clayton and the Prince, when one morning, while walking down St James"s Street, I saw Garrett in his grey and scarlet livery driving the car from Piccadilly down to Pall Mall.
By this I guessed that his Highness had returned to London, so I called at Dover Street, and twenty minutes later found myself seated in the big saddle-bag chair with a "Petroff" between my lips.
He was in his old brown velvet lounge coat and slippers, and had been at his writing-table when I entered. But on my appearance he threw down his pen, stretched himself, and sat round for a gossip.
Suddenly, while speaking, he made a quick, half-foreign gesture of ignorance in response to a question of mine, and in that brief instant I saw upon his right palm a curious red mark.
"Hullo!" I asked. "What"s that?"
"Oh--nothing," he replied, rather confused I thought, and shut his hand so that I could not see it.
"But it is!" I declared. "Let me see."
"How inquisitive you are, Diprose, old chap," he protested.
So persistent was I, and so aroused my curiosity by finding a mark exactly like the imprint of a cat"s-paw, that, not without considerable reluctance, he explained its meaning. The story he narrated was, indeed, a most remarkable and dramatic one. And yet he related it as though it were nothing. Perhaps, indeed, the puzzling incidents were of but little moment to one who led a life so chock-full of adventure as he.
Yes, it really was curious, he remarked at last. It was in March. I had been in London"s mud and rain for a fortnight, and grown tired of it. Suddenly a confidential mission had been placed in my hands--a mission which had for its object British support to the Bulgarian Government against the machinations of Austria to extend her sphere of influence southward across the Danube and Servia.
My destination was Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, and once more the journey by the Orient Express across Europe was a long and tedious one.
I had wired to Garrett, who was awaiting me with the car at the Hungaria, in Budapest, to bring it on to Sofia.
But I was much occupied with the piece of scheming which I had undertaken to carry out. My patriotism had led me to attempt a very difficult task--one which would require delicate tact and a good deal of courage and resource, but which would, if successful, mean that a loan of three millions would be raised in London, and that British influence would become paramount in that go-ahead country, which, ere long, must be the power of the Balkans.
I knew, however, that there were others in Sofia upon the same errand as myself, emissaries of other governments and other financial houses.
Therefore, in the three long never-ending days the journey occupied, my mind was constantly filled with thoughts of the best and most judicious course to pursue in order to attain my object.
The run was uneventful, save for one fact. At the Staatsbahnhof, at Vienna, just before our train left for Budapest, a queer, fussy little old man in brown entered, and was given the compartment next mine.
His nationality I could not determine. He spoke deep guttural German with the fair-bearded conductor of the train, but by his clothes--which were rather dandified for so old a man--I did not believe him to be a native of the Fatherland.
I heard him rumbling about with his bags next door, apparently settling himself, when of a sudden my quick ear caught an imprecation which he uttered to himself in English.
A few hours later, at dinner, I found him placed at the little table opposite me, and naturally we began to chat. He spoke in French-- perfect French it was--but refused to speak English, though, of course, he could had he wished.
"Ah! non," he laughed, "I cannot. Excuse me. My p.r.o.nunciation is so faulty. Your English is so ve-ry deefecult."
And so we chatted in French, and I found the queer old fellow was on his way to Sofia. He seemed slightly deformed, his face was distinctly ugly, broad, clean-shaven, with a pair of black piercing eyes that gave him a most striking appearance. His grey hair was long, his nose aquiline, his teeth protruding and yellow, and he was a grumbler of the most p.r.o.nounced type. He growled at the food, at the service, at the draughts, at the light in the restaurant, at the staleness of the bread we had brought with us from Paris, and at the b.u.t.ter, which he declared to be only Danish margarine.
His complaints were amusing. He was possessed of much grim humour. At first the _maitre d"hotel_ bustled about to do the bidding of the new-comer, but very quickly summed him up, and only grinned knowingly when called to listen to his biting criticism of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-lits and all its works.
Next day, at Semlin, where our pa.s.sports were examined, the pa.s.sport-officer took off his hat to him, bowed low and _vised_ his pa.s.sport without question, saying, as he handed back the doc.u.ment to its owner:
"_Bon voyage_, Altesse."
I stared at the pair. My fussy friend with the big head must therefore be either a prince or a grand duke! Just then I was not a prince--only plain M"sieur Martin. In Roumania princes are as plentiful as blackberries, so I put him down as a Roumanian.
As I sat opposite him at dinner that night he was discussing with me the harmful writings of some newly discovered German who was posing as a cheap philosopher, and denouncing them as dangerous to the community.
He leaned his elbow upon the narrow table and supported his clean-shaven chin upon his finger, displaying to me most, certainly by accident, the palm of his thin right hand.
What I discovered there caused me a good deal of surprise. In its centre was a dark livid mark, as though it had been branded there by a hot iron, the plain and distinct imprint of a cat"s-paw!
It fascinated me. There was some hidden meaning in that mark, I felt convinced. It was just as though a cat had stepped upon blood with one of its fore-paws and trodden upon his hand.
Whether he noticed that I had detected it or not, I cannot say, but he moved his hand quickly, and ever after kept it closed.
His name, he told me at last, was Konstantinos Va.s.sos, and he lived in Athens. But I took that information _c.u.m grano_, for I knew him to be a prince travelling _incognito_. The pa.s.sport-officer at Semlin makes no mistakes.
But if actually a prince, why did he carry a pa.s.sport?
There is, unfortunately, no good hotel at Sofia. The best is the Bulgarie, kept by a pleasant old lady to whom I was well-known as M"sieur Martin, and in this we found ourselves next night installed. He gave his name as Va.s.sos, and to all intents and purposes was more of a stranger in Prince Ferdinand"s capital than I myself was, for I had been there at least half a dozen times before. Most of the Ministers knew me, and I was always elected a member of the smart diplomats" club, the Union, during my stay.
The days pa.s.sed. From the first morning of my arrival I found myself as before in a vortex of gaiety; invitations to the Legations poured in upon me, cards for dances here and there, receptions by members of the Cabinet, and official dinners by the British and French Ministers, while daily I spent each afternoon with my friend, Colonel Mayhew, the British military _attache_, in his comfortable quarters not far from our Agency.
All the while, I must here confess, I was working my cards very carefully. I had sounded my friend, Petkoff, the grave, grey-haired Prime Minister--the splendid Bulgarian patriot--and he was inclined to admit the British proposals. The Minister of War, too, was on my side.
German agents had approached him, but he would have none of them. In Bulgaria just then they had no love of Germany. They were far too Russophile.
Indeed, in this strenuous life of a fortnight or so I had practically lost sight of the ugly old gentleman who had been addressed by the pa.s.sport-officer as his Highness. Once or twice I had seen him wandering alone and dejected along the streets, for he apparently knew n.o.body, and was having a very quiet time, Greeks were disliked in Sofia almost as much as Turks, on account of the Greek bands who ma.s.sacre the Bulgars in Macedonia.
One night at the weekly dance at the Military Club--a function at which the smart set at Sofia always attend, and at which the Ministers of State themselves put in an appearance--I had been waltzing with the daughter of the Minister of the Interior, a pretty dark-haired girl in blue, whom I had met during my last visit to Bulgaria, and the Spanish _attache_, a pale-faced young man wearing a cross at his throat, had introduced to me a tall, very handsome, sweet-faced girl in a black evening-gown trimmed with silver.
A thin wreath of the same roses was in her hair, and around her neck was a fine gold chain from which was suspended a big and l.u.s.trous diamond.
Mademoiselle Balesco was her name, and I found her inexpressibly charming. She spoke French perfectly, and English quite well. She had been at school in England, she said--at Scarborough. Her home was at Galatz, in Roumania, where her father was Prefect.
We had several dances, and afterwards I took her down to supper. Then we had a couple of waltzes, and I conducted her out to the carriage awaiting her, and, bowing, watched her drive off alone.
But while doing so, there came along the pavement, out of the shadow, the short ugly figure of the old Greek Va.s.sos, with his coat collar turned up, evidently pa.s.sing without noticing me.
A few days later, when in the evening I called on Mayhew at his rooms, he said:
"What have you been up to, Martin? Look here! This letter was left upon me, with a note asking me to give it to you in secret. Looks like a woman"s hand! Mind what you"re about in this place, old chap! There are some nasty pitfalls, you know!"
I took the letter, opened it, read it through, and placed it in my pocket without a word.
With a bachelor"s curiosity, he was eager to know who was my fair correspondent. But I refused to satisfy him.
Suffice it to say that on that same night I went alone to a house on the outskirts of Sofia, and there met at her urgent request the pretty girl Marie Balesco, who had so enchanted me. Ours seemed to be a case of mutual attraction, for as we sat together, she seemed, after apologising for thus approaching me and throwing all the convenances to the winds, to be highly interested in my welfare, and very inquisitive concerning the reasons which had brought me to Bulgaria.
Like most women of the Balkans, she smoked, and offered me her cigarette-case. I took one--a delicious one it was, but rather strong-- so strong, indeed, that a strange drowsiness suddenly overcame me.
Before I could fight against it the small, well-furnished room seemed to whirl about me, and I must have fallen unconscious. Indeed I knew no more until on awakening I found myself back in my bed at the hotel.
I gazed at the morning sunshine upon the wall, and tried to recollect what held occurred.
My hand seemed strangely painful. Raising it from the sheets, I looked at it.