Читать книгу Whither Thou Goest - Le Queux William - Страница 6

“And you think mischief is brewing, eh?”

The speaker was Maurice Farquhar. The man he addressed was Andres Moreno, the black-browed Spaniard who had dined with him on the previous evening at the restaurant where they had met Guy Rossett and his party.

Maurice, a member of the junior bar, with a daily increasing practice, rented a charming suite of rooms in one of the most cloistered courts of the Temple. Certainly, this suite was on the top floor, and it was a stiff climb up those stairs. But Maurice was young and healthy, and the ascent of those few steep stairs did not trouble him in the least.

Apart from his own special legal business, which absorbed his best faculties, he was a man of many interests. During the lean years, when he had waited for briefs, he had supplemented his modest patrimony by journalism. He became a somewhat well-known figure in Fleet Street, specialising more or less upon foreign politics.

Then, when the briefs began to flow in, he had gradually dropped journalism. Now and again, at the earnest request of a persistent editor, he would write an article or a letter on some burning question, in which he could display his particular knowledge of affairs.

In those old journalistic days, happy, careless days, when a dinner at the old “Cheshire Cheese” was accounted something of a luxury, when he never entered the portals of the Ritz or Carlton, save as the guest of some rich friend or relation, he had struck up a great comradeship with Andres Moreno, son of a Spanish father and an English mother, an adroit and clever journalist, who could turn his hand to anything.

Nothing came amiss to Moreno; he was the handy man of journalism. He could write a most flamboyant description of a fashionable bazaar. He could, in a sufficiently well-paid article, penetrate the subtle schemes of European monarchs and statesmen.

His knowledge of London and every other foreign capital was illuminating. He knew every prominent detective, he enjoyed the acquaintance of not a few members of the criminal classes. He was hail-fellow-well-met with staunch monarchists and avowed anarchists. But it was always difficult with this man, who had friends in so many camps, to discover what were his real opinions.

Maurice who, perhaps, knew him better than anybody, on the mental side, always declared that he had no fixed opinions.

“When you are with the good old-fashioned Tory,” he had said once to him laughingly, “you are all for King and Church and State and good Government. When you are with the anarchist, your sympathies go with the poor devils who have got nothing, and want to blow up everybody, in the hopes of getting a bit out of the wreck.”

And Moreno, in the same jocular spirit, had admitted there was a certain element of truth in the description.

“I am so infernally sympathetic, you know, Farquhar. I am like a straw blown by the wind. Any man who can talk to me earnestly for five minutes makes me see eye to eye with him. When I have left him, when the magnetism of his presence is removed, the cold fit succeeds, and I see with the eye of Andres Moreno. On the whole, I think I may say I am on the side of law and order.”

And Farquhar had replied in the same half-jocular vein. “Better stick on that side, old man. Otherwise they will end by taking from you even that little which you have.”

Since those days of early friendship, the two men had prospered exceedingly. Moreno was a very highly paid journalist. Farquhar was one of the rising members of the junior bar.

The young barrister repeated his question.

“And you think mischief is brewing, eh?” Moreno raised himself from what appeared to be a deep reverie. It was a peculiarity of the man that suddenly he would relapse into deep meditation, and for the moment seem oblivious of what was going on around him. Then, in a flash, his keen intellect would assert itself, and he would pick up, in a very easy fashion the dropped threads of the previous conversation.

“Very serious mischief, old man,” he said, in his deep, rather husky tones. He spoke English perfectly, by the way, without the slightest trace of foreign accent. As a matter of fact, he had been born and bred in the country of his mother.

“Is it a great secret?” questioned Farquhar.

Moreno looked at him kindly. He was very greatly attached to this quiet Englishman, who had taken him by the hand in those early days when some of the brethren of the pen had regarded him as an outsider, and shown their dislike very plainly.

“It is to everybody else, but not to you, my old and tried friend. I can trust you not to suck another man’s brains. Besides, you are out of the business now. Yes, there are great things going on, in Madrid, Barcelona and Seville. There are also great things going on in a little corner in London, I can assure you.”

Farquhar lifted his eyebrows, but he made no comment. Moreno would talk when it pleased him.

The Spaniard laughed softly, and leaned back in his chair. He was a man of deep and subtle humour, and was continually smiling at the ironies and incongruities of life.

“I am going to astonish you now, my good Maurice. To-morrow night I am going to be inducted as a member of an anarchist society in Soho.”

Farquhar, disturbed in his well-balanced mind, gave a violent start.

“Are you mad, Andres? Have you any idea of what you will commit yourself to?”

Moreno shrugged his broad shoulders indifferently.

“I shall know, and size it all up the day after to-morrow; I am a soldier of fortune, my friend. I am an enterprising journalist – anything for sensation, anything for ‘copy.’ I shall put my anarchist friends to good use.”

“And they will kill you while you are doing it, or after you have done it,” said Farquhar grimly.

“You do not pay a very high compliment to my intelligence, my friend. I think I may say that I am clever. Anarchists are very stupid people. They will suspect each other long before they suspect Andres Moreno.”

He was a small man, but he looked quite important as he made this boast. Whatever his failings, a want of confidence in himself was not one of them. But Farquhar still appeared dubious.

“I was a little doubtful till last night when I saw your friends at the restaurant,” went on Moreno, in his slightly husky voice. “You did not introduce me, there was no opportunity for that. I recognised one of them, Guy Rossett, who, I take it, is the fiancé of that charming young lady who, you say, is your cousin.”

Farquhar frowned a little. How quick these foreigners were to guess things.

“I have no idea,” he said stiffly. “General Clandon is my uncle, and I have been on very intimate terms with him and his family since I was a child. If there were any engagement, I think I should have been informed.”

Moreno noticed the frown, the stiffness in the tone. He went on smoothly.

“I may be jumping at conclusions rather too hastily, but I will tell you how I arrived at them. I happen to know that Guy Rossett is appointed to the Embassy at Madrid. With his sister, he dines with this charming girl and a man, obviously her father. It looks to me like a farewell dinner, and at a restaurant which is excellent, but certainly not fashionable. They wanted to escape observation, otherwise a man in Rossett’s position, and he was certainly the host, would have been at the Ritz.”

“And what do you deduce from these profound observations, worthy of Sherlock Holmes himself?” asked Farquhar a little testily.

Moreno answered slowly. He could see that his friend was troubled, but he had gone too far to recede.

“I should say there was a secret understanding between the young people, approved of by the girl’s father, and the man’s sister. Probably they are still waiting for the Earl’s consent to an open engagement.”

Farquhar, to hide his agitation, swallowed his whiskey and soda in one draught, and chewed viciously at the end of his cigar.

“You may be right,” he said, speaking with forced calm. “Well, let us get back to your anarchists. What has made you join them?”

Moreno reflected a moment before he spoke.

“I happen to know that young Rossett was in possession of some very exclusive information about this particular plot. That is one of the reasons why he has been sent to Spain.”

“And where do you come in?” questioned Farquhar.

Moreno smiled. “It is as much curiosity as anything. The anarchists know that Rossett knows a good deal about them. Now, I want to find out how they are going to act when Rossett finds himself in Madrid, you see.”

“And you’ll find it out before you are many hours older, cunning old devil that you are,” said Farquhar, with an appreciative smile. “Well, let me know how you get on. Isobel Clandon is my cousin, and I can’t help feeling interested in all this, especially if what you suggest about her and Rossett is true.”

When Moreno had left, the ambitious young barrister sat thinking deeply. He had loved his cousin for years, not perhaps with any great overmastering passion, but with that steady affection which might be expected from a man of his grave and cautious temperament.

He was prepared to speak when the time was ripe, when his prospects and circumstances permitted him to offer Isobel a proper home. Moreno’s words troubled him, and he had an uneasy suspicion that the Spaniard, with his swift intelligence, had accurately gauged the situation. The fruit which might have been his for the mere stretching out of the hand – had it been plucked by somebody more impetuous, more energetic than himself?

This he must learn as soon as possible. Moreno’s words had suddenly roused him to action. He was now blaming in his mind, those very traits on which he had been wont to pride himself, his scrupulousness, his excessive caution.

He had always thought that Isobel liked him, that she would not be reluctant to entertain his advances, when he had judged the time was right to make them.

And, of course, he had been a fool. He had not looked at the position from the girl’s point of view. A girl, however much she may be inclined towards a man, is not disposed to wait indefinitely while he is making up his mind, nicely balancing pros and cons.

He had never thought of anybody else for his wife. But he had reckoned too surely on the fact that she was waiting quietly in that little home at Eastbourne, till he chose to make love to her.

He wired to General Clandon the next morning, explaining that he had a couple of days’ leisure; might he run down? There came back the cordial reply, “Come at once. Delighted.”

Truth to tell, the General was both proud and fond of his nephew, the son of his favourite sister. He might have thought at times that the young man was a little too grave and serious for his years, he had always seemed singularly free from the follies of youth. But he had the greatest respect for his sterling qualities, for his high principles and character.

Father and daughter met him at the station. Isobel liked him very much. There was a time when liking might have been converted into a warmer feeling. But, speaking in vulgar parlance, Maurice had failed through his over-scrupulousness, his too nice weighing of possibilities and probabilities, to strike while the iron was hot.

And then Guy Rossett, ardent, impetuous, the beau idéal of a lover, had carried her off her feet, and her cousin was hardly a memory, so much did she live in the radiance of the present.

He had a most dainty dinner. Isobel was a wonderful housekeeper, and could accomplish wonders on a very limited income. Maurice, his desire sharpened by his forebodings, thought what a perfect wife she would make, uniting the decorative with the practical.

After dinner she left the men alone to their wine and cigars. Farquhar was not long in coming to the point. It was typical of his rather staid and old-fashioned way of regarding things that, even in the delicate matter of love, the correct method was to approach the parent first.

“I wonder, uncle, if you have ever thought of me in the light of a future son-in-law?”

The General looked a little embarrassed. Not very long ago, that aspect of his nephew had presented itself to him, and the prospect was not unpleasing. He had a shrewd notion that Maurice was very attached to his pretty cousin, and was marking time for some quite honourable and justifiable reasons.

Of Isobel he was not at all sure. Maurice had every good quality from a man’s point of view, but he was not quite the stuff out of which romantic and compelling lovers are made. And her father was certain that Isobel was full of romance.

The General answered slowly, and with a caution worthy of Maurice himself. “I might have thought about it some time ago, my boy. I fancied then that you were greatly attached. Let me see, it was some three or four years ago that I formed that opinion, I think.”

“Yes,” said Maurice, speaking with a quiet bitterness. “I suppose it was about then that I showed my feelings, as far as I am capable of showing them, plainly. But there were reasons why I did not speak then, reasons that I still think good ones.”

“I am sure of that, my dear boy,” said the uncle kindly. He guessed now the reason of this visit, that sudden telegram.

“At that time I was making headway, it is true, but my position was by no means assured. You know the smallness of my patrimony, and what I earned outside was inconsiderable. I did not feel justified in asking a girl to wait, on the chance of prospects that might never come to fruition.”

“Quite right, quite honourable!” murmured the poor General, dreading the inevitable end of this discourse. Maurice was stating the case, rather as if he were addressing a jury, but there was no doubt he meant business. Even a man of his cautious temperament could now safely allow himself the luxury of matrimony, that was evident from this preamble.

“It has always been my one thought to marry Isobel, assuming that she would have me, the moment I was in a position to take a wife. That moment has now arrived; I have no fears of the future. The question arises, am I too late?”

The General was terribly embarrassed by this direct question. He was a most straightforward man, he loathed subterfuge.

But what was he to do? The engagement of his daughter to Guy Rossett was a secret one. He was, in honour bound, to give neither of them away.

He temporised weakly. “Have you spoken to Isobel about this?”

“No,” came the answer. “I thought it was right to approach you first.”

“Exactly, exactly,” stammered the poor father. “Very right and proper, of course. But you had better put it to Isobel, and see what she says. Of course, you understand there is no opposition on my part.”

Farquhar looked at him keenly. Yes, Moreno’s suspicions were justified. There was a secret engagement. The General had thrown the onus on his daughter. She could tell as much or as little as she pleased.

“Thanks,” he said quietly. “I will speak to Isobel to-morrow morning.”

The next day, in a little sheltered arbour in the not too extensive garden, he asked his cousin to marry him. He explained to her, as he had explained to her father, the reasons which had held him back.

She listened to him with composure. She was dimly aware that, a few years ago, this declaration of love would have set her cheeks aflame, her heart beating. To-day, it left her regretful, but cold.

“I am dreadfully sorry, Maurice. I am very, very fond of you, but not in that way. I look upon you as a brother, a very dear brother.”

There was decision and finality in the low, gentle tones. It was a bitter disappointment. He had always fancied in his masculine optimism that Isobel was waiting ready to fall into his arms, when he had made up his mind to ask her.

It was a bitter disappointment, but he bore it with his usual stoicism. Ambition was the greater factor in his life; love would always play a subordinate part. Still, Isobel’s refusal had taken something away that could never be replaced.

There was a long pause. He was the first to break the silence.

“Your affections are engaged. You are in love with somebody else?”

A vivid flush overspread the fair face. “It is quite true, I love somebody else.”

“The man you were dining with, Guy Rossett?” replied Farquhar quietly.

“Ah, you have guessed! But it is quite a secret. My father knows. His sister knows. His father is obstinate and prejudiced; he wants him to marry a woman in his own world. We are waiting for his consent.”

“I quite understand,” said Farquhar gloomily. “I am too late, I can see. Honestly, Isobel, had I asked you, say, a year ago, would your answer have been different?”

Her frank and candid gaze met his steadfast glance. “I fancy I should have said yes, Maurice. But I am not certain it would have been real love; you see, I have known so few men. Guy has revealed a new world to me.”

Farquhar sighed. He was eloquent enough in the courts, but he was dumb in the presence of women. This handsome young diplomatist had spoken to her in a language that she readily understood.

He silently said good-bye to his dream, the fair dream of the future which was to be glorified by Isobel Clandon’s gracious presence.

“So that is all over. Well, Isobel, I hope you will always allow me to be your very good friend.” She reached out her hand impulsively and laid it on his.

“Oh, yes, please, Maurice. You will always be a dear, kind brother, won’t you?”

“Perhaps some day I may be able to help you. I have just learned there is some danger threatening Guy Rossett.”

Her face blanched. She turned to him an imploring glance.

“Danger threatening Guy. Oh, please tell me, quickly.”

With a bitter pang, he realised in that anguished utterance a full sense of the love which he had lost, of the youthful heart which he had allowed another man to capture.

In a few brief sentences, he told her what Moreno had related to him.