Читать книгу Of Royal Blood - William Le Queux - Страница 5

Table of Contents

DINNER was a pleasant affair in the panelled room through the long windows of which I could see the valley of the Thames, with its riverside lights twinkling afar. Two elderly men and a couple of pretty girls had been invited to meet me, and the gossip was light and amusing. My hostess was the life and soul of the party, bright, vivacious, and full of mirth, yet I could not disguise the fact that she regarded me with some suspicion. During the meal I tried hard to recollect where we had met before, but failed utterly. Her conversation was that of a well-educated, clever woman. Her face was familiar; her lips, a trifle thick and full, had once before struck me as unusual in one of her beauty and grace. But where I had seen her I could not remember.

"Gordon tells me that you've just had the good fortune to be appointed to Brussels," exclaimed a pretty, dark-haired girl in blue who sat next to me, but whose name I had not caught when introduced to her.

"Yes," I laughed. "Do you know Brussels?"

"I was at school there four years," she answered, toying with her hock glass. "But I didn't see very much of it. Our excursions were mainly confined to Sunday walks in the Bois."

"You'll return, perhaps, when you are married," I said, smiling. "It's a very pleasant city for a honeymoon."

"We spent part of our honeymoon there, on our way to the Rhine," interrupted Mrs. Clunes. "It was quite as bright as Paris, without all that rush and turmoil. And the Bois de la Cambre—isn't it charming?"

"Yes," I said, for as part of my training for a diplomatic career I had spent a year in the Belgian capital, and practically knew every inch of it, from the Quartier where the English reside, away to Laeken, and from St. Giles to Schaerbeck.

"I only wish we could live there, instead of here," she continued, with a slight pout. "I do hope that some day Gordon will get nominated abroad. I should love a cosmopolitan life."

"Life at an embassy would be awfully jolly," observed my neighbour in blue. "One must meet so many interesting people, from kings and queens downwards."

"Kings and queens are not as a rule interesting people," I said. "The monarchs I have met have not impressed me very much. They look much more regal in the illustrated papers than they are in real life. The most interesting persons as a rule are those foreign secret agents who are always seeking to pry into our affairs and learn what we don't desire that they should know."

"I've heard a lot of strange stories about those spying individuals," said my hostess, at once interested. "What are they like? Do tell me."

"Well," I said, "every one of the Governments of Europe, with the possible exception of Switzerland, finds it necessary to maintain a corps of secret agents for confidential duty. Their remuneration being defrayed from the Secret Service Fund at the disposal of every Prime Minister, the national treasury takes no cognisance of their expenses or of their names. These latter are only known to the Premier and to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. They are ignored at the regular police headquarters, while the general public very often has no knowledge of the existence of such a force. Their duty is to learn all that transpires in the various Embassies and report to the Chancellerie. They number people in every class of life, and almost every nationality."

"And does not our British Government take steps to combat the efforts of these spies?" asked the old gentlemen opposite.

"In a measure it does," I responded carelessly. "It, of course, behoves us to be wary with this horde of secret agents about us, for their ingenuity is simply marvellous."

"Of course there are lots of books which reveal the elaborate system of espionage in Russia," observed the girl in blue.

"Ah! that's quite a different affair," I replied. "The Russian agents are mostly employed for the purpose of keeping watch upon the doings of those of the Czar's subjects who live beyond the frontiers of Russia; and when it is borne in mind that those number close upon a million, and that every Russian has in his blood the characteristic Asiatic taste for conspiracy and intrigue against his Government, it can be readily understood that the secret agents of the Chancellerie of the Emperor have their hands pretty full. It is not the agents of the Ministry of the Interior that troubles us, but the system of spies established in every country in Europe with a view to learning the secrets of British diplomacy. We hold the balance of power you see; and because of this every effort is being made to reduce our prestige and undermine our supremacy."

"It certainly behoves you all to be as secret as the grave," my hostess said. "I don't think I should like to be in possession of a State secret which a hundred unscrupulous persons were seeking to discover. One must feel awfully uncomfortable."

"But you are a woman, my dear," laughed her husband. "They say that your sex can't keep a secret," a remark whereat everyone laughed.

"Ah! perhaps not," answered the merry, light-hearted little woman. "But it seems so horrible if you can't tell who is your friend and who's your enemy," and she fixed her eyes upon me with a strange look of misgiving.

"Exactly," I said. "This secret service, being beyond the pale of the law, is contrary to all notions of what is straightforward and honourable. The methods of action these agents employ are often most questionable and unsavoury. Indeed, for example at Vienna, where perhaps the secret service is permitted to play the greatest role, his Majesty has been compelled by the stress of public opinion to consent to the imprisonment and suspension from office of the chief of the service for making use of dishonourable manoeuvres. Again, in Germany, in response to the memorable speech by the Liberal leader Richter in the Reichstag, exposing the unscrupulousness of secret agent von Rumpf, his role as a provoker and instigator of crime, and his employment, not only of criminal methods, but even of criminals, in order to succeed in the intrigues in which he was engaged, the Minister of the Interior proclaimed the doctrine that the Executive and his Government have a right to use the extra-legal, or to put it plainly, unlawful, methods for attaining its aims when the ordinary legal methods are inadequate and unavailing. This declaration is in itself sufficient to show to what an extent espionage is carried at a foreign Court."

"If such is the case, then each of our Embassies is surrounded by enemies," observed young Mrs. Clunes.

"Of course it is," exclaimed her husband. "Don't you recollect that I told you once how cleverly they work the cabinet noir in France, in Germany, and in Russia—so ingeniously, indeed, that our representatives at those Courts dare not send a single despatch through the post, otherwise it is opened and copied."

"Then they open official letters?" exclaimed the girl in blue at my side.

"To the cabinet noir nothing is sacred," I said.

"It is established for the purpose of dealing with both official and private correspondence, and the manner in which letters are opened and resealed is in itself a marvel of ingenuity. So well is it done that letters sealed with wax are opened and again secured, leaving the original seal intact, without a trace remaining that it has been tampered with."

"We've had one or two experiences of that sort of thing of late, Crawford, haven't we?" remarked my friend with a meaning look.

"Yes," I answered. "At Constantinople lately one or two matters which we believed secret, while we were trying to adjust affairs between Turkey and Greece after the war, leaked out in a very mysterious way. Active inquiries were made, and it was found that the Russian cabinet noir was at work, and, further, that at Petersburg they were fully informed of all our secret instructions received from Lord Macclesfield."

My hostess sighed. As her white chest heaved her necklet of amethysts glistened, and her lips became compressed. I noticed this latter involuntary movement of the muscles of her face, and saw that she was anxious to change the subject. I admit that at that moment I entertained a growing suspicion of her.

That she was eminently graceful and charming there could be no two opinions. Gordon, however, had never told me who she was. When I had been a month at Constantinople I received a letter suddenly announcing his marriage, to which I had responded by sending a cheque to a London silversmith with instructions to forward a wedding-present, and by writing him a letter of congratulation. Then I had seen the announcement in the Standard a week later that he had married, at the village of Rockingham, 'Judith, daughter of the late William Carter-Harrison,' and had wondered whether or not she were pretty.

Gordon had not much changed in the years I had been absent. Ten years ago we were both second division clerks, and we had certainly enjoyed London life and had a very large circle of friends. He was always gay and light-hearted, fond of practical joking and eternally declaring that he should never marry. Yet he had now taken to himself a wife, and had become just a trifle graver than before, as of course befitted a responsible householder whose name was on the jury-list.

At last, when dessert was finished, the ladies left, and presently after a brief gossip we rejoined them in the drawing-room. The size and tasteful decoration of the place surprised me. The walls were entirely in white, with a ceiling of that type for which Adams was noted a century ago; blazing logs burned upon old-fashioned fire-dogs, and there was a capacious chimney-corner with its settle and old oak arm-chair. It needed not a second glance to ascertain that the furniture, every bit of it, was genuine old oak, and as we entered I could not refrain from repeating to Gordon my admiration of his tasteful home.

"It is Judith's fancy," he repeated, happily. "I was for a house in Kensington; but she loves Richmond because in summer we can get on the river, or go for pleasant drives. She's always been used to the country, and declares that London suffocates her."

"Can you wonder at it?" his wife asked me, overhearing our conversation. "To me London is dreadful. I go up once or twice a week to do shopping, or to a theatre, but really I'm always glad to get back here to the quietness of my home. And besides, the view from these windows is the best within a hundred miles of London."

"Of course," I replied, for although I could see nothing in the darkness I knew well the picturesque scene from the windows of the Star and Garter, where I had so often dined in the days before I went abroad. Below lay a broad green valley, with the Thames winding away like a silver ribbon between trees and meadows past Twickenham Ferry to Teddington Lock, a magnificent picture at any time but doubly so when the silent highway reflected back the golden blaze of summer sunset. "But your decorations here are in such excellent taste, yet so extremely simple. I envy Gordon his home. Only one room have I seen before similar to this."

"Where?" my friend inquired.

"In Vienna. It belonged to a lady I knew."

"Vienna!" exclaimed his wife, with sudden interest. "Were you at the Embassy there?"

"Yes," I replied. "I was there about two years."

"Then you may perhaps have known of an officer named Krauss—Oswald Krauss?"

In an instant the truth came upon me as a lightning flash. Perhaps I started at mention of that name—a name which to me carried with it recollections of a hideous but hidden page in my history—at any rate, even though I felt myself standing immovable, glaring at her, I managed to recover myself sufficiently to answer:

"The name Krauss is exceeding common in Vienna. I have no recollection of any man whose Christian name was Oswald. What was he?"

"His father was Baron Krauss, of Budapesth," she answered, simply, her blue eyes fixed upon me, with a curious look of severity.

"No," I answered with affected carelessness, "I have no recollection of ever meeting him."

That calm inquiry she had uttered held me breathless. No. I had not been mistaken when suspicion had seized me that we were not altogether strangers. This woman in coral had, by mention of that name, a hated name graven for ever upon my memory because of the burden of evil which had fallen upon me, brought back to me in all their hideous reality those circumstances which I had so long striven to forget. Our eyes again met, and in the blue depths of hers there was a smile of mocking triumph.

This woman who was Gordon's wife held the secret of my sin.