Читать книгу Her Majesty's Minister - William Le Queux - Страница 14

I was still standing by the window, holding the photograph in my hand, and gazing upon it in wonder, when Dick Deane was shown in.

“What’s the matter, old chap? Are you the man in possession here?” he asked breezily, gripping me by the hand.

He was a fair, merry-faced fellow of thirty-five, rather good-looking, smartly dressed in black frock-coat of professional cut, and wearing a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez. He had been born in Paris, and had spent the greater part of his life there, except during the years when he was at school with me before going to Edinburgh, where he took his degree. Then he had returned to Paris, taken his French degree, and had soon risen to be one of the fashionable doctors in the French capital. He was an especial favourite in the salons, and, like every good-looking doctor, a favourite with the ladies.

“I’m not in possession,” I answered. “A very serious affair has happened here, and we want your assistance.”

In an instant he became grave, for I suppose my tone showed him that I was in no humour for joking.

“What’s the nature of the affair?” he asked.

“Death,” I replied seriously. “A lady here—a friend of mine—has died mysteriously.”

“A mystery—eh?” he exclaimed, instantly interested. “Tell me about it.”

“This place,” I replied, “belongs to the Countess de Foville, a lady whom I knew well when I was at the Brussels Embassy, and it is her daughter Yolande who has been found dead in this room this evening.”

“Yolande de Foville!” he repeated, with knit brows. “She was a friend of yours once, if I mistake not?” he added, looking me straight in the face.

“Yes, Dick, she was,” I responded. “I told you of her long ago.”

“You loved her once?”

“Yes,” I answered with difficulty, “I loved her once.”

“And how did the unfortunate affair occur?” he asked, folding his arms and leaning back against a chair. “Tell me the whole story.”

“I called here this afternoon, and spent half an hour or so with her,” I said. “Then I left and returned straight to the Embassy—”

“You left her here?” he inquired, interrupting. “Yes, in this very room. But it seems that a quarter of an hour later one of the servants entered and discovered her lying upon the door, dead.”

“Curious!” he ejaculated. “Has a medical man seen her?”

“No. The Countess sent for me as being one of her daughter’s most intimate friends, and I, in turn, sent for you.”

“Where is the poor young lady?”

“In her room at the end of the corridor,” I answered hoarsely.

“Is there any suspicion of murder?”

“Apparently none whatever. She had no visitor after I left.”

“And no suspicion of suicide?” he asked, with a sharp look. “Did you part friends?”

“Perfectly so,” I responded. “As to suicide, she had no reason, as far as anyone knows, to make an attempt upon her life.”

He gave vent to an expression which sounded to me much like a grunt of dissatisfaction.

“Now, be perfectly frank with me, Gerald,” he said, suddenly turning to me and placing his hand upon my shoulder. “You loved her very dearly once—was that not so?”

I nodded.

“I well remember it,” he went on. “I quite recollect how, on one occasion, you came over to London, and while dining together at Jimmy’s you told me of your infatuation, and showed me her photograph. Do you remember the night when you told me of your engagement to her?”

“Perfectly.”

“And as time went on you suddenly dropped her—for what reason I know not. We are pals, but I have never attempted to pry into your affairs. If she really loved you, it must have been a hard blow for her when she heard that you had forsaken her for Edith Austin.”

“You reproach me,” I said. “But you do not know the whole truth, my dear fellow. I discovered that Yolande possessed a second lover.”

He nodded slowly, with pursed lips.

“And that was the reason of your parting?”

“Yes.”

“The sole reason?”

“The sole reason.”

“And you have no suspicion that she may have committed suicide because of her love for you? Such things are not uncommon, remember, with girls of a certain temperament.”

“If she has committed suicide, it is not on my account,” I responded in a hard voice.

“I did not express that opinion,” he hastened to protest. “Before we discuss the matter further it will be best for me to see her. Death may have been due to natural causes, for aught we know.”

I stood motionless. His suggestion that my sweetheart of the old days had committed suicide because I had forsaken her was a startling one. Surely that could not be so?

“Come,” my friend said, “let us lose no time. Which is the room?”

I led him along the corridor, and opened the door of the chamber in which she was lying so cold and still. The light of the afterglow fell full upon her, tipping her auburn hair with crimson and illuminating her face with a warm radiance that gave her back the appearance of life. But it was only for a few moments. The slanting ray was lost, and the pallor of that beautiful countenance became marked against the gold of her wondrous hair.

In silence I stood at the foot of the bed watching my friend, who was now busy with his examination. He opened her eyes and closed them again, felt her heart, raised her arms, and examined her mouth, uttering no word. His serious face wore a look as though he were infinitely puzzled.

One after the other he examined the palms of her hands long and carefully, then, bending until his eyes were close to her face, he examined her lips, brow, and the whole surface of her cheeks. Upon her neck, below the left ear, was a mark to which he returned time after time, as though not satisfied as to its cause. Upon her lower lip, too, was a slight yellow discoloration, which he examined several times, comparing it with the mark upon the neck. He was unable to account for either.

“Curious!” he ejaculated. “Very curious indeed!”

“What is curious?” I inquired eagerly.

“Those marks,” he answered, indicating them with his finger. “They are very puzzling. I’ve never seen such marks before.”

“Do they point to foul play?” I inquired, feeling suspicious that she had by some mysterious means fallen the victim of an assassin.

“Well, no,” he responded, after some hesitation; “that is not my opinion.”

“Then what is your opinion?”

“At present I have none. I can have none until I make a thorough examination. There are certainly no outward marks of violence.”

“We need not inform the police, I suppose?”

“Not at present,” he replied, his eyes still fixed upon the blanched face of the woman who had once been all the world to me.

I raised her dead hand, and upon it imprinted a last fervent kiss. It was cold and clammy to my lips. In that hour all my old love for her had returned, and my heart had become filled with an intense bitterness and desolation. I had thought that all my love for her was dead, and that Edith Austin, the calm, sweet woman far away in an English county, who wrote to me daily from her quiet home deep in the woodlands, had taken her place. But our meeting and its tragic sequel had, I admit, aroused within me a deep sympathy, which had, within an hour, developed into that great and tender love of old. With men this return to the old love is of no infrequent occurrence, but with women it seldom happens. Perhaps this is because man is more fickle and more easily influenced by woman’s voice, woman’s glances, and woman’s tears.

The reader will probably accuse me of injustice and of fickleness of heart. Well, I cannot deny it; indeed, I seek to deny nothing in this narrative of strange facts and diplomatic wiles, but would only ask of those who read to withhold their verdict until they have ascertained the truth yet to be revealed, and have read to the conclusion, this strange chapter of the secret history of a nation.

My friend the doctor was holding one hand, while I imprinted a last kiss upon the other. A lump was in my throat, my eyes were filled with tears, my thoughts were all of the past, my anguish of heart unspeakable. That small chill hand with the cold, glittering ring—one that I had given her in Brussels long ago—seemed to be the only reality in all that hideous phantasmagoria of events.

“Do not despair,” murmured the kind voice of my old friend, standing opposite me on the other side of the bed. “You loved her once, but it is all over—surely it is!”

“No, Dick!” I answered brokenly. “I thought I did not love her. I have held her from me these three years—until now.”

“Ah!” he sighed, “I understand. Man always longs for the unattainable.”

“Yes, always,” I responded.

In that moment the memory of the day when we had parted arose gaunt and ghost-like. I had wronged her; I felt confident that I had. All came back to me now—that cruel, scandalous denunciation I had uttered in the heat of my mad jealousy—the false tale which had struck her dumb by its circumstantial accuracy. Ah! how bitter it all was, now that punishment was upon me! I remembered how, in the hour of my worldly triumph and of her highest hope—at the very moment when she had spoken words of greater affection to me than she had ever used before—I had made the charge against her, and she had fallen back with her young heart crushed within her. My ring was there, still glittering mockingly upon her dead hand. By the unfounded charge I had made against her I had sinned. My sin at that moment arose from its grave, and barred the way for ever to all hope—to all happiness.

The summer twilight was stealing on apace, and in the silence of the room there sounded the roar of life from the boulevard below. Men were crying Le Soir with strident voices, and all Paris was on its way to dine, and afterwards to enjoy itself in idleness upon the terraces of the cafés or at those al-fresco variety performances in the Avenue des Champs Elysées, where the entrance fee includes a consommation.

Deane still held my old love’s hand, bending in the dim light until his eyes were close to it, watching intently. But I took no notice, for my eyes were fixed upon that face that had held me in such fascination, and had been so admired at those brilliant receptions given by King Leopold and the Countess of Flanders. The doctor stretched forth his hand, and of a sudden switched on the electric light. The next instant I was startled by his loud ejaculation of surprise.

“Thank God!” he cried. “She’s not dead, after all!”

“Not dead!” I gasped, unable fully to realise his meaning.

“No,” he answered breathlessly. “But we must not lose a single instant.” And I saw that with a lancet he had made an incision in her delicate wrist, and there was blood there. “She is in a state of catalepsy, and we must do all in our power to bring her round.”

“But do you think you can?” I cried.

“I hope so.”

“Do your best, Dick,” I implored. “Save her, for my sake.”

“Rely upon me,” he answered calmly, adding: “Run along to Number 18 in the boulevard—the corner house on the right—and bring Doctor Trépard at once. He lives au troisième. Tell him that I sent you, and that the matter is one of life or death.” He scribbled some words on a card, and, giving it me, added: “Tell him to bring this. Meanwhile, I will commence artificial respiration. Go!”

“But do you think she will really recover?” I demanded.

“I can’t tell. We have already lost so much time. I had no idea of the truth. It has surprised me just as it has surprised you. This moment is not one for words, but for actions. Don’t lose an instant.”

Thus urged, I snatched up my hat and tore along the boulevard like a madman. Without difficulty I found Trépard’s appartement, and on being admitted found him a grave-faced, rather stout old Frenchman, who, on the instant I mentioned Dick’s name and gave him the card with the words upon it, naming some drugs he required, went into an adjoining room, and fetched a phial of tiny red pillules, which he held up to the light. Then he put on his hat, and descended with me to the street. A fiacre was passing, which we took, and five minutes later we were standing together in the room where Yolande was lying.

“This is a most curious case, my dear Trépard,” began Dick, speaking in French—“a case of coma, which I have mistaken for death;” and, continuing, he briefly explained how the patient had been found in a state so closely resembling death that he himself had been deceived.

The old Frenchman placed his hand upon her heart, and, withdrawing it, said:

“She’s breathing now.”

“Breathing!” I echoed. “Then she is recovering!”

“Yes, old fellow,” Dick replied, “she is recovering—at least we hope we shall save her.” Then, turning to his colleague, he raised her hand and pointed to the finger-nails, asking: “Do you notice anything there?”

The other, adjusting his pince-nez, bent and examined, them one by one.

“Yes,” he answered at last. “A slight purple discoloration at the base of the nails.”

“And upon the lower lip does anything strike you as peculiar?”

“A yellow mark,” he answered, after carefully inspecting the spot indicated.

“And there?” Deane asked, touching the mark upon the neck.

“Very strange!” ejaculated the elder man. “It is a most unusual case.”

“Yes. Have you brought the hydrated peroxide of iron?”

For answer the Frenchman produced the tiny tube, saying:

“Then you suspect poison?”

“Most certainly,” he replied; and, taking a glass, he placed a single pillule in it, dissolving it in water, which he afterwards forced between the grey lips of my unconscious love. Afterwards he glanced at his watch, observing: “We must give another in fifteen minutes.”

Then, drawing a chair to the bedside, he seated himself, holding her wrist and watching her countenance for any change that might take place there.

“Have you no idea of the nature of the poison?” I inquired eagerly.

“None,” he responded. “Ask me no questions now. When we have brought her round will be time enough. It should be sufficient for you to know that she is not dead. Why not leave us for the present? Go and break the good news to the Countess.”

“You wish to be alone?”

“Yes. This is a serious matter. Leave us undisturbed, and on no pretext allow her mother to enter here.”

Thus urged, and feeling reassured by their statement that she still lived and that the pulsations of her heart were already quite perceptible, I left the room, noiselessly closing the door after me, and sought the Countess in the small blue boudoir to which she had returned plunged in grief and dark despair.

She was seated in a chair, motionless and statuesque, staring straight before her. The blow had utterly crushed her, for she was entirely devoted to her only daughter now that her husband was dead. I well knew how deep was her affection for Yolande, and how tender was her maternal love.

The room was in semi-darkness, for she had not risen to turn on the light. As I entered I did so with her permission, saying quietly:

“Madame, I come to you with a message.”

“From whom?” she asked in a hard mechanical voice.

“From my friend Deane, the English doctor whom I have summoned. Yolande still lives!”

“She lives!” she cried, springing to her feet in an instant. “You are deceiving me!”

“I am not, madame,” I reassured her, smiling. “Your daughter is still breathing, and is increasing in strength perceptibly. The doctors say that she will probably recover.”

“Thank God!” she gasped, her thin white hands clasped before her. “I pray that He may give her back to me. I will go to her.”

But I held her back, explaining that both the medical men had expressed a wish to remain there alone.

“But what caused that appearance so akin to death?” she asked quickly.

“At present they cannot tell,” I responded. “Some deleterious substance is suspected, but until she has returned to consciousness and can give us some details of her sudden attack we can determine nothing.”

“But she will recover, m’sieur?” the Countess asked. “Are you certain?”

“The chances are in her favour, the doctors say. They have given her a drug to counteract the effect of the poison.”

“Poison! Was she poisoned?” gasped the Countess.

“Poison is suspected,” I answered quietly. “But calm yourself, madame. The truth will be discovered in due course.”

“I care nothing so long as Yolande is given back to me!” the distressed woman cried. “Was it your English friend who discovered the truth?”

“Yes,” I replied. “He is one of the cleverest men in Paris.”

“And to him my poor Yolande will owe her life?”

“Yes, to him.”

“And to you also, m’sieur? You have done your utmost for us, and I thank you warmly for it all.”

“Madame,” I said earnestly, “I have done only what a man should do. You sought my assistance, and I have given it, because—”

“Because of what?” she inquired sharply the instant I paused.

“Because I once loved her,” I responded with perfect frankness.

A sigh escaped her, and her hand sought my arm.

“I was young once, m’sieur,” she said in that calm, refined voice which had long ago always sounded so much to me like that of my own dead mother. “I understand your feeling—I understand perfectly. It is only my poor daughter who does not understand. She knows that you have forsaken her—that is all.”

It was upon my tongue to lay bare to her the secret of my heart’s longings, yet I hesitated. I remembered that calm, serious, sweet-faced woman on the other side of the English Channel, far from the glare and glitter of life as I knew it—the fevered life which the diplomat in Paris is forced to lead. I remembered my troth to Edith, and my conscience pricked me.

“Could it be possible,” I reflected, “that Yolande was really in the pay of a Government hostile to England?” Kaye was already nearing Berlin with the intention of searching out her actions and exposing her as a spy, while Anderson had already denounced her as having been a party to an attempt to secure the secret which he had carried from Berlin to Downing Street.

With a mother’s solicitude the Countess could for some time only speak of Yolande’s mysterious attack; but at last, in order to prosecute my inquiries further, I observed, during a lull in the conversation:

“At the Baroness de Chalencon’s last night a friend of yours inquired about you, madame.”

“A friend? Who?”

“A man named Wolf—Rodolphe Wolf.”

The next instant I saw that the mention of that name affected the mother no less markedly than it had affected the daughter. Her face blanched; her eyes opened wide in fear, and her glance became in a moment suspicious. With marvellous self-possession she, however, pretended ignorance.

“Wolf?” she repeated. “I do not remember the name. Possibly he is some person we have met while travelling.”

“Yolande knew him, I believe, in Brussels,” I remarked. “He appeared to be acquainted with you.”

“My daughter’s friends are not always mine,” she remarked coldly, with that cleverness which only a woman of the world can possess, and at once returned to the discussion of Yolande and the probability of her recovery.

This puzzled me. I felt somehow convinced that she knew the truth. She had some distinct object in endeavouring to seal my lips. What it was, however, I could not determine.

She was expressing a fervent hope that her daughter would recover, and pacing the room, impatient to go to her bedside, when, of a sudden, Dick opened the door, and, putting his head inside, addressed me, saying:

“Can I speak with you a moment, Ingram?” She dashed to the door in eagerness, but after a word of introduction from myself, he informed her that Yolande had not sufficiently recovered to be disturbed.

“Perfect quiet is absolutely necessary, madame,” he urged. “Your daughter, I am pleased to tell you, will live; but she must be kept absolutely quiet. I cannot allow you to approach her on any pretext whatsoever.”

“She will not die, will she?” the woman implored distractedly.

“No,” he replied, in a voice somewhat strained, I thought, “she will not die. Of that you may rest assured.”

Then turning to me, he beckoned, and I followed him out of the room.