E. Phillips Oppenheim - The Betrayal

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"Is it," I asked calmly, "a genuine case?"

Lord Blenavon nodded.

"I do not think that it is a secret," he said, helping himself to wine
and passing the decanter. "She has made up her mind at last to marry
Mostyn Ray. The affair has been hanging about for more than a year. In
fact, I think that there was something said about it before Ray went
abroad. Personally, I think that he is too old. I don't mind saying so
to you, because that has been my opinion all along. However, I suppose
it is all settled now."

I kept my eyes fixed upon the wineglass in front of me, but the things
which I saw, no four walls had ever enclosed. One moment the rush of
the sea was in my ears, another I was lying upon the little horsehair
couch in my sitting-room. I felt her soft white fingers upon my pulse
and forehead. Again I saw her leaning down from the saddle of her great
brown horse, and heard her voice, slow, emotionless, yet always with its
strange power to play upon my heartstrings. And yet, while the grey
seas of despair were closing over my head, I sat there with a
stereotyped smile upon my lips, fingering carelessly the stem of my
wineglass, unwilling guest of an unwilling host. I do not know how long
we sat there in silence, but it seemed to me an eternity, for all the
time I knew that Blenavon was watching me. I felt like a victim upon
the rack, whilst he, the executioner, held the cords. I do not think,
however, that he learnt anything from my face.

With a little shrug of the shoulders he abandoned the subject.

"By-the-bye, Ducaine," he said, "I hope you won't mind my asking you a
rather personal question."

"If it is only personal," I answered quietly, "not at all. As you know,
I may not discuss any subject connected with my work."

"Quite so! I only want to know whether your secretarial duties begin
and end with your work on the Council of Defence, or are you at all in
my father's confidence as regards his private affairs?"

"I am temporary secretary to the Council of Defence only, Lord
Blenavon," I answered. "I know nothing whatever of your father's
private affairs. He has his own man of business."

I am not sure whether he believed me. He cracked some walnuts and
commenced peeling them.

"My father will never listen to me," he said, "but I feel sure that he
makes a mistake in becoming a director of all these companies. Politics
should be quite sufficient to engross his time, and the money cannot be
so much of an object to him. I don't suppose his holdings are large,
but I am quite sure that one or two of those Australian gold mines are
dicky, and you know he was an enormous holder of Chartereds, and
wouldn't sell, worse luck! Of course I'm not afraid of his losing in
the long run, but it isn't exactly a dignified thing to be associated
with these concerns that aren't exactly A1. His name might lead people
into speculations who couldn't altogether afford it."

"I know nothing whatever of these matters," I answered, "but from what I
have seen of your father I should imagine that he is remarkably able to
guard his own interests."

Blenavon nodded.

"I suppose that is true," he admitted. "But when he is already a rich
man, with very simple tastes, I am rather surprised that he should care
to meddle with such things."

"Playing at commerce," I remarked, "has become rather a hobby with men
of leisure lately."

"And women, too," Blenavon assented. "Rather an ugly hobby, I call it."

A servant entered and addressed Blenavon. "The carriage is at the door,
your Lordship," he announced.

Blenavon glanced at his watch and rose.

"I shall have to ask you to excuse me, Ducaine," he said. "I was to
have dined out to-night, and I must go and make my peace. Another glass
of wine?"

I rose at once.

"Nothing more, thank you," I said. "I will just say good-night to your
sister."

"She's probably in the drawing-room," he remarked. "If not, I will make
your excuses when I see her."

Blenavon hurried out. A few moments later I heard the wheels of his
carriage pass the long front of the house and turn down the avenue. I
lingered for a moment where I was. The small oak table at which we had
dined seemed like an oasis of colour in the midst of an atmosphere of
gloom. The room was large and lofty, and the lighting was altogether
inadequate. From the walls there frowned through the shadows the
warlike faces of generations of Rowchesters. At the farther end of the
apartment four armed giants stood grim and ghostlike in the twilight,
which seemed to supply their empty frames with the presentment of actual
warriors. I looked down upon the table, all agleam with flowers, and
fruit, and silver, over which shone the red glow of the shaded lamps.
Exactly opposite to me, in that chair now pushed carelessly back, she
had sat, so close that my hand could have touched hers at any moment, so
close that I had been able to wonder more than ever before at the
marvellous whiteness of her skin, the perfection of her small,
finely-shaped features, the strange sphinxlike expression of her face,
always suggestive of some great self-restraint, mysterious, and subtly
stimulating. And as I stood there she seemed again to be occupying the
chair, at first a faint shadowy presence, but gaining with every second
shape and outline, until I could scarcely persuade myself that it was
not she who sat there, she whose eyes more than once during dinner-time
had looked into mine with that curious and instinctive demand for
sympathy, even as regards the things of the moment, the passing jest,
the most transitory of emotions. A few minutes ago I had felt that I
knew her better than ever before in my life, and now the chair was
empty. My heart was beating at the imaginary presence of the vainest of
shadows. She was going to marry Colonel Mostyn Ray.

And then I stood as though suddenly turned to stone. Before me were the
great front windows of the castle. Beyond, eastwards, stretched the
salt marshes, the salt marshes riven with creeks. Once more my
unwilling hands touched that huddled-up heap of extinct humanity. I saw
the dead white face, which the sun could never warm again, and I felt
the hands, cold, clammy, horrible. Ray was a soldier, and life and
death had become phrases to him; but I--it was the first dead man I had
ever seen, and the horror of it was cold in my blood. Ray had murdered
him, fought with him, perhaps, but killed him. What would she say if
she knew? Would his hands be clean to her, or would the horror rise up
like a red wall between them?

"Will you take coffee, sir?"

I set my teeth and turned slowly round. I even took the cup from the
tray without spilling it.

"What liqueur may I bring you, sir?" the man asked.

"Brandy," I answered.

In a few minutes I was laughing at myself, not quite naturally, perhaps,
but only I could know that. I was getting to be a morbid, nervous
person. It was the solitude! I must get away from it all before long.
Fate had been playing strange tricks with me. Life, which a few months
ago had been a cold and barren thing, was suddenly pressed to my lips, a
fantastic, intoxicating mixture. I had drawn enough poison into my
veins. I would have no more. I swore it.

* * * * *

I tried to leave the castle unnoticed, but the place was alive with
servants. One of them hurried up to me as I tried to reach my hat and
coat.

"Her ladyship desired me to say that she was in the billiard-room, sir,"
he announced.

"Will you tell Lady Angela--" and then I stopped. The door of the
billiard-room was open, and Lady Angela stood there, the outline of her
figure sharply de fined against a flood of light. She had a cue in her
hand, and she looked across at me.

"You are a long time, Mr. Ducaine. I am waiting for you to give me a
lesson at billiards."

I crossed the hall to her side.

"I thought that as Lord Blenavon had gone out--"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"That you would evade your duty, which is clearly to stay and entertain
your hostess."

She closed the door and glanced at me curiously.

"What has happened to you?" she asked. "You look as though you had been
with ghosts."

"Is it so impossible?" I asked, moving a little nearer to the huge log
fire. "What company is more terrifying than the company of our dead
thoughts and dead hopes and dead memories?"

"Really, I am afraid that Blenavon must have been a very depressing
companion!" she said, leaning her elbow upon the broad mantelpiece.

It was absurd! I tried to shake myself free from the miseries of the
last hour.

"I am afraid it must have been the other way," I said, "for your brother
has gone out."

"Yes," she said quietly, "he has gone to that woman at Braster Grange.
I wish I knew what brought her into this part of the country."

I looked round at the billiard-table.

"Did you mean that you would like a game?" I asked. "I am rather out of
practice, but I used to fancy myself a little."

"I have no doubt," she answered, sinking into a low chair, "that you are
an excellent player, but I am willing to take it for granted. I do not
wish to play billiards. Draw that chair up to the fire and talk to me."

It was of all things what I wished to avoid that night. But there was
no escape. I obeyed her.

"What your brother has told me is, I presume, no secret," I said. "I am
to wish you happiness, am I not?"

She looked up at me in quick surprise.

"Did Blenavon tell you--"

"That you had promised to marry Colonel Mostyn Ray. Yes."

"That is very strange," she said thoughtfully. "Blenavon is not as a
rule needlessly communicative, and at present it is almost a secret."

"Nevertheless," I said, turning slowly towards her, "I presume that it
is true."

"It is perfectly true," she answered.

There was silence between us for several minutes. One of the footmen
came softly in to see whether we required a marker, and finding us
talking, withdrew. I was determined that the onus of further speech
should remain with her.

"You are surprised?" she asked at last.

"Very."

"And why?"

"I scarcely know," I answered, "except that I have never associated the
thought of marriage with Colonel Ray, and he is very much older than
you."

"Yes, he is a great deal older," she answered. "I think that his
history has been rather a sad one. He was in love for many years with a
woman who married--some one else. I have always felt sorry for him ever
since I was a little girl."

"Do you know who that woman was?"

"I have never heard her name," she answered.

I found courage to lift my eyes and look at her.

"May I ask when you are going to be married?"

Her eyes fell. The question did not seem to please her.

"I do not know," she said. "We have not spoken of that yet. Everything
is very vague."

"Colonel Ray is coming down here, of course?" I remarked.

"Not to my knowledge," she declared. "Not at any rate until the next
meeting of the Council. I shall be back in town before then."

"I begin to believe," I said, with a grim smile, "that your brother was
right."

"My brother right?"

"He finds you enigmatic! You become engaged to a man one day, and you
leave him the next--without apparent reason."

She was obviously disturbed. A slight wave of trouble passed over her
face. Her eyes failed to meet mine.

"That I cannot altogether explain to you," she said. "There are reasons
why I should come, but apart from them this place is very dear to me. I
think that whenever anything has happened to me I have wanted to be
here. You are a man, and you will not altogether understand this."

"Why not?" I protested. "We, too, have our sentiment, the sentiment of
places as well as of people. If I could choose where to die I think
that it would be here, with my windows wide open and the roar of the
incoming tide in my ears."

"For a young man," she remarked, looking across at me, "I should
consider you rather a morbid person."

"There are times," I answered, "when I feel inclined to agree with you.
To-night is one of them."

"That," she said coolly, "is unfortunate. You have been over-working."

"I am worried by a problem," I told her. "Tell me, are you a great
believer in the sanctity of human life?"

"What a question!" she murmured. "My own life, at any rate, seems to me
to be a terribly important thing."

"Suppose you had a friend," I said, "who was one night attacked in a
quiet spot by a man who sought his life, say, for the purpose of
robbery. Your friend was the stronger and easily defended himself.
Then he saw that his antagonist was a man of ill repute, an evildoer, a
man whose presence upon the earth did good to no one. So he took him by
the throat and deliberately crushed the life out of him. Was your
friend a murderer?"

She smiled at me--that quiet, introspective smile which I knew so well.

"Does the end justify the means? No, of course not. I should have been
very sorry for my friend; but if indeed there is a Creator, it is He
alone who has power to take back what He has given."

"Your friend, then--"

"Don't call him that!"

I rose up and moved towards the door. I think that she saw something in
my face which checked any attempt she might have made to detain me.

"You must forgive me," I said. "I cannot stay."

She said nothing. I looked back at her from the door. Her eyes were
fixed upon me, a little distended, full of mute questioning. I only
shook my head. So I left her and passed out into the night.

CHAPTER XVII

MORE TREACHERY

There followed for me a period of unremitting hard work, days during
which I never left my desk save at such hours when I knew that the
chances of meeting any one scarcely existed. Several times I saw Lady
Angela from my window on the sands below, threading her way across the
marshes to the sea. Once she passed my window very slowly, and with a
quick backward glance as she turned to descend the cliff. But I sat
still with clenched teeth. I had nailed down my resolutions, I had
determined to hold fast to such threads of my common sense as remained.
Only in the night-time, when sleep mocked me and all hope of escape was
futile, was I forced to grapple with this new-born monster of folly. It
drove me up across the Park to where the house, black and lightless,
rose a dark incongruous mass above the trees, down to the sea, where the
wind came booming across the bare country northwards, and the spray
leaped white and phosphorescent into the night like flakes of
wind-hurled snow. I stood as close to the sea as I dared, and I prayed.
Once I saw morning lighten the mass of clouds eastwards, and the grey
dawn break over the empty waters. I heard the winds die away, and I
watched the sea grow calm. Far across on the horizon there was faint
glimmer of cold sunlight. Then I went back to my broken rest. It was
my solitude in those days which drove me to seek peace or some measure
of it from these things.

At last a break came, a summons to London to a meeting of the Council.
I was just able to catch my train and reach the War Office at the
appointed time. There were two hours of important work, and I noticed a
general air of gravity on the faces of every one present. After it was
over Ray came to my side.

"Ducaine," he said, "Lord Chelsford wishes to speak' to you for a few
moments. Come this way."

He led me into a small, barely-furnished room, with high windows and
only one door. It was empty when we entered it. Ray looked at me as he
closed the door, and I fancied that for him his expression was not
unfriendly.

"Ducaine," he said, "there has been some more of this damned leakage.
Chelsford will ask you questions. Answer him simply, but tell him
everything--everything, you understand."

"I should not dream of any concealment," I answered.

"Of course not! But it is possible--Ah!"

He broke off and remained listening. There was the sound of a quick
footstep in the hall.

"Now you will understand what I mean," he whispered. "Remember!"

It was not Chelsford, but the Duke, who entered and greeted me
cordially. With a farewell nod to me Ray disappeared. The Duke looked
round and watched him close the door. Then he turned to me.

"Ducaine," he said, "a copy of our proposed camp at Winchester, and the
fortifications on Bedler's Hill, has reached Paris."

"Your Grace," I answered, "it was I who pointed out to you that our
papers dealing with those matters had been tampered with. I am waiting
now to be cross-questioned by Lord Cheisford. I have done all that is
humanly possible. It goes without saying that my resignation is yours
whenever you choose to ask for it."

The Duke sat down and looked at me thoughtfully.

"Ducaine," he said, "I believe in you."

I drew a little breath of relief. The Duke was a hard man and a man of
few words. I felt that in making that speech he had departed a great
deal from his usual course of action, and I knew that he meant it.

"I am very much obliged to your Grace," I answered.

"I think," he continued, "that Lord Cheisford and in fact all the others
are inclined to accept you on my estimate. We all of us feel that we
are the victims of some unique and very marvellous piece of roguery on
the part of some one or other. I believe myself that we are on the eve
of a discovery."

"Thank Heaven!" I murmured.

"We shall only succeed in unravelling this mystery," the Duke continued
deliberately, "by very cautious and delicate manoeuvring. I have an
idea which I propose to carry out. But its success depends largely upon
you."

"Upon me?" I repeated, amazed.

"Exactly! Upon your common sense and judgment." The Duke paused to
listen for a moment. Then he continued, speaking very slowly, and
leaning over towards me--

"Lord Chelsford proposes for his own satisfaction to cross-examine you.
It occurs to me that you will probably tell him of your fancied
disturbance of those papers in the safe, and of your little adventure
with the Prince of Malors." I looked at him in surprise. "Have they not
all been told of this?" I asked. "No."

There was a moment's dead silence. I was a little staggered. The Duke
remained imperturbable.

"They have not been told," he repeated. "No one has been told. The
matter was one for my discretion, and I exercised it."

There seemed to be no remark which I could make, so I kept silence.

"We have discussed this matter before," the Duke said, "and my firm
conviction is that you were mistaken. That safe could only have been
opened by yourself, Ray, or myself. I think I am justified in saying
that neither of us did open it."

"Nevertheless that safe was opened," I objected. "Those were the very
papers, copies of which have found their way to Paris."

"Exactly," the Duke answered. "Only you must remember that every member
of the Board was sufficiently acquainted with their contents to have
sent those particulars to Paris, without opening the safe for a further
investigation of them. Any statement of your suspicion would only
result in attention being diverted from the proper quarters to members
of my household. I believe that even if you are right, even if those
papers were disturbed, it was done simply to throw dust in your eyes.
Do you follow me?"

"Yes, your Grace," I answered.

"Lord Chelsford, if you were able to convince him, would most certainly
be misled in this direction. That is why I have kept your report to
myself. That is why my advice to you now is to say nothing about your
imagined displacement of those papers. That is my advice. You
understand?"

"Yes, your Grace," I repeated.

"With regard to the Prince of Malors," the Duke continued, "my firm
conviction is that you were mistaken. Malors is not a politician. He
has nothing whatever to gain or lose in this matter. He is a member of
one of the most ancient houses of Europe, a house which for generations
has been closely connected with my own. I absolutely decline to believe
that whilst under my roof a Malors could lower himself to the level of a
common spy. Such an accusation brought against him would be regarded as
a blot upon my hospitality. Further, it would mean the breaking off of
my ancient ties of friendship. I am very anxious, therefore, that you
should bring yourself to accept my view as to this episode also."

"Your Grace," I answered, "you ask me very hard things."

He looked at me with his clear cold eyes.

"Surely not too hard, Mr. Ducaine," he said. "I ask you to accept my
judgment. Consider for a moment. You are a young man, little more than
a boy. I for forty years have been a servant of my country, both in the
field and as a lawmaker. I am a Cabinet Minister. I have a life-long
experience of men and their ways. My judgment in this matter is that
you were mistaken, and much mischief is likely to ensue if the Prince of
Malors should find himself an object of suspicion amongst us."

"Your Grace," I said, "forgive me, but why do you not say these things
to the Board, or to Lord Chelsford and Colonel Ray after they have heard
my story?"

"Because," the Duke answered, "I have no confidence in the judgment of
either of them. Both in their way are excellent men, but they are of
this new generation, who do not probe beneath the surface, who form
their opinions only from the obvious. It is possible that after hearing
your story they might consider the problem solved. I am, at any rate,
convinced that they would commence a search for its solution in
altogether wrong quarters."

"Your Grace," I said firmly, "I am very sorry indeed that I cannot take
your advice. I think it most important that Lord Cheisford should know
that those papers were tampered with. And as regards the Prince of
Malors, whatever his motive may have been, I discovered him in the act
of perusing the documents relating to the subway of Portsmouth. I
cannot possibly withhold my knowledge of these things from Lord
Chelsford. In fact, I think it is most important that he should know of
them."

The Duke rose slowly to his feet. He showed no sign of anger.

"If you prefer your own judgment to mine, Mr. Ducaine," he said, "I
have no more to say. I have taken you into my confidence, and I have
endeavoured to show you your most politic course of behaviour. If your
views are so far opposed, you must not consider it an injustice if I
decide that a person of more judgment is required successfully to
conduct the duties of secretary to the Council."

"I can only thank your Grace for your past kindness," I answered with
sinking heart.

He looked across at me with still cold eyes.

"Do not misunderstand me," he said. "I do not dismiss you. I shall
leave that to the Board. If my colleagues are favourably disposed
towards you I shall not interfere. Only so far as I am concerned you
must take your chance."

"I quite understand your Grace," I declared. "I think that you are
treating me very fairly."

The Duke leaned back in his chair.

"Here they come!" he remarked.

CHAPTER XVIII

IN WHICH I SPEAK OUT

The door was thrown open. Lord Chelsford and Colonel Ray entered
together. The Commander-in-Chief accompanied them, and there was also
present a person who sat a little apart from the others, and who, I
learned afterwards, was a high official in the secret service. More
than ever, perhaps, I realized at that moment in the presence of these
men the strangeness of the events which for a short space of time, at
any rate, had brought me into association with persons and happenings of
such importance.

Lord Chelsford seated himself at the open desk opposite to the Duke. As
was his custom, he wasted no time in preliminaries.

"We wish for a few minutes' conversation with you, Mr. Ducaine," he
said, "on the subject of this recent leakage of news concerning our
proceedings on the Council of Defence. I need not tell you that the
subject is a very serious one."

"I quite appreciate its importance, sir," I answered.

"The particular documents of which we have news from Paris," Lord
Chelsford continued, "are those having reference to the proposed camp at
Winchester and the subway at Portsmouth. I understand, Mr. Ducaine,
that these were drafted by you, and placed in a safe in the library of
Rowchester on the evening of the eighteenth of this month."

"That is so, sir," I answered. "And early the next morning I reported
to the Duke that the papers had been tampered with."

There was a dead silence for several moments. Lord Chelsford glanced at
the Duke, who sat there imperturbable, with a chill, mirthless smile at
the corner of his lips. Then he looked again at me, as though he had
not heard aright.

"Will you kindly repeat that, Mr. Ducaine?" he said.

"Certainly, sir," I answered. "I had occasion to go to the safe again
early on the morning of the nineteenth, and I saw at once that the
documents in question had been tampered with. I reported the matter at
once to his Grace."

The eyes of every one were bent upon the Duke. He nodded his head
slowly.

"Mr. Ducaine," he said, "certainly came to me and made the statement
which he has just repeated. I considered the matter, and I came to the
conclusion that he was mistaken. I was sure of it then. I am equally
sure of it now."

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