PRINCE ROGOVICH! Prince Rogovich!”
Staring up at the clammy wall of the liner, blanched by searchlights, against which the little tug bumped and jostled, Philip Hindwood could hear the Prince's name being shouted in staterooms, along decks and passageways.
It had been midnight when they had drifted like a gallivanting hotel, all portholes ablaze, into the starlit vagueness of Plymouth Harbor. The Ryndam did not dock there; she only halted long enough to put off the English passengers and to drop the English mail. There had been three passengers to land, of whom Hindwood had been the first; the rest were disembarking at Boulogne or Rotterdam. They had been met just outside the harbor by the tug, and the transshipping of the mail had immediately commenced. The last bag had been tossed over the side; the immigration officials had completed their inspection. Santa Gorlof, the second passenger for England, radiantly smiling above her sables, had come down the gangplank. It was for the third passenger that the liner delayed and the tug still waited.
“Prince Rogovich! Prince Rogovich!”
The cries were becoming more insistent and impatient. They broke on the stillness with the monotony of despair. To judge by the sound, every soul aboard the liner had taken up the search, from the firemen in the stoke-hole to the Marconi men on the top deck. Even the thud of the engines seemed ominous, like the pounding of a heart stifled with foreboding. Across the velvety expanse of water, as though they had a secret they were trying to communicate, shore lights winked and twinkled. They seemed to be signaling the information that, no matter how long the search was maintained, Prince Rogovich would not be found that night.
II
Except for this last disturbing incident, it had been a pleasant voyage—the most pleasant Philip Hindwood could remember. They had left New York in the brilliant clearness of blue September skies. The clear blueness had followed them. The slow-going, matronly Ryndam had steamed on an even keel through seas as tranquil and reflective as the proverbial mill-pond. Her company had been dull, consisting mainly of American drummers and Dutch Colonials returning from Java. But he had no grounds for complaint; he had chosen her for her dullness. He had wanted to lay up a store of rest before plunging into the strenuous excitements which were the purpose of his journey.
He had gone aboard her in an unsociable frame of mind, determined to talk to nobody; the success of his errand depended on his silence. He believed that he was half a year ahead of the times. When his rivals had caught up to where he was at present, he would have made himself a world power and dictator.
But the dullness of the ship's company had exceeded expectations. Because of this he had broken his compact and allowed his privacy to be invaded by two vivid personalities. The first had been Prince Rogovich—the second, Santa Gorlof.
Prince Rogovich had evidently boarded the ship with precisely the same intentions as himself. All his meals had been served in his stateroom; it had not been until the evening of the third day that he had appeared on deck. He was a man of commanding height, lean of hip and contemptuous of eye, with the disquieting, haughty reticence of an inscrutable Pharaoh. There was something alluring and oriental about the man, at once sinister and charming. Behind his silky black beard he hid a face which was deathly white; its pallor was not of ill-health, but of passion. It was easy to believe all the rumors about him, both as regarded his diabolical cleverness and his sensual cruelty. His enemies were legion. Even among his countrymen he could count few friends, although he was reckoned their greatest patriot. In Poland he was suspected as much as he was admired, and was accused of intriguing in order that he might set up a throne for himself. The object of his flying visit to America had been to consult financial magnates on the advisability of floating an international loan in the interests of Poland. There were men the world over and in Russia especially, who would have paid a king's ransom for advance information as to what answer the financiers had returned.
Though Hindwood would not have claimed as much, he and the Prince were two of a kind, equally magnificent in their dreams, equally relentless in their means of realization, and equally insatiable in their instinct for conquest. Their difference lay in the fact that the Polish aristocrat had already attained the goal toward which the self-made American was no more than striving.
Their first meeting had happened in the early hours of the morning. Hindwood, being unable to sleep, had partly dressed and gone on deck. There, in the grayness of the dawn, he had espied a tall figure slowly pacing, accompanied by a snow-white Russian wolfhound. It was the remarkable grace of the man that had first held him, his faculty for stillness, his spectral paleness, his padded tread. But the moment he had approached him, the sense of his grace had been obscured by an atmosphere of menace. So sinister was his beauty that it had required an effort to pass him twice. Secretly Hindwood had observed him. He was like his hound, treacherously languid, insolently fastidious, and bred to the point of emaciation. But his languor was the disguise of a hidden fierceness, which betrayed itself in his red, curved lips and the marble coldness of his stare. It was at the third time of passing, when he had all but gone by him, that he had heard his name spoken.
“Mr. Hindwood.” Then, as he had turned, “You're the famous railroad expert. Am I right? It's fortunate we should have met. I missed you in America. So you, too, are among the sleepless!”
Then and there had started the first of those amazing conversations, which had held Hindwood fascinated for the remainder of the voyage. It had made no difference that in his heart he had almost hated the man—hated his ruthlessness, his subtlety, his polished immorality; the moment he commenced to talk, he surrendered to his spell. Their encounters had taken place for the most part between midnight and sunrise. To be his companion was like eavesdropping on the intimate counsels of all the cabinets of Europe or like reading your daily paper a year before it was published for the rest of mankind. On matters which did not concern him the Prince could be brilliantly confessional; indiscretion was the bait with which he lured his victims to reveal themselves. The secrets which were his own he kept. Never once did he drop a hint that would indicate the success or failure of his recent mission. The single time that, Santa Gorlof had asked him point-blank, his dark eyes had become focusless as opals, and his white face, under its silky covering of beard, unnoticing and sphinx-like. It was then that Hindwood had recognized the resemblance to Pharaoh in his tyrannic immobility and silence.
And Santa Gorlof! There was a woman—mysterious, exotic, well-nigh mythical! Compared with her the Prince was an open book. From the start she had made no attempt to explain herself, had referred neither to her past nor her future, had offered no credentials. She had imposed herself on Hind-wood like a goddess who expected to be worshiped. She had swept him off his feet, beaten aside his caution, and reached his heart before he was aware.
But was it his heart? How often, in the past few days, he had asked himself that question! He didn't want to believe that it was his heart. He was a man who rode alone; his aloneness was the reason for his swiftness. He had been tricked once by a woman. That was when he was a boy; now he was a man nearing forty. She had cheated him so cruelly that, though she had been dead many years, the bitterness still rankled. Behind the beauty of all women his skepticism detected the shallow loveliness of the one false woman who had stolen his idealism, that she might trample on it.
He did not love Santa. He had assured himself a thousand times that he did not love her. She was too dangerous, too incalculable. He had spent long hours of wakeful nights in completing the inventory of her bad points. And yet, while he had been with her, his veins had run fire; while he had been apart from her, all his pleasures had seemed tasteless. Who was she? Whence had she come? Whither was she going? What had been her business on the Ryndam, and what had Prince Rogovich known about her? The Prince had known something—something which had given him power over her. At a glance from him, her caprice had vanished and she had become downcast as a child. He had muttered a few unintelligible words, probably in Polish, and her pride had crumbled.
Hindwood was at a loss to account for these signs of a secret understanding. It had been he who had introduced them. It had been Santa who had confessed to curiosity about the Prince and had begged for the introduction. The moment he had made them acquainted, they had seemed to become delighted with each other's company—so delighted that there had been times when he himself had felt excluded. A half-humorous rivalry for Santa's favors had sprung up between the Prince and himself. This atmosphere of jealousy had been accentuated by the behavior of the wolfhound; Santa's mere approach had been sufficient to rouse him into fury. He had become so dangerous that he had had to be sent below whenever she was present.
And yet, despite her manifest efforts to hold the Prince enchanted, behind his back she had expressed the most vigorous aversion. She had spoken of his reputation for treachery and the whispers that went the rounds of his heartlessness toward women. During the final days of the voyage she had partly atoned for this inconsistency by appealing to Hindwood to protect her against the Prince's far too pressing attention. She had declared herself to be in some kind of danger—though what kind, whether moral or physical, she had left him to conjecture. She had rather flattered him by her appeal; nevertheless, he had been considerably surprised to observe how little interest she had still displayed in protecting herself. During the whole of that last day, while they had been approaching the white line of Cornish coast, she had scarcely devoted to him a glance or a word; every minute she had spent with His Highness, whom she professed to regard with so much terror. She had created the impression of employing every trick at her disposal in a frantic attempt to secure him as her conquest.
If, as many of the passengers had asserted, the presence of Santa Gorlof and the Prince on the same boat had been no accident, then what had been the object of their elaborately planned deception? Were they lovers who had chosen this secret method of traveling in order to avoid a scandal? Or was she one of the many women whom he was reported to have abandoned, who had seized the leisure of an Atlantic voyage as an opportunity for reinstating herself in his affection?
As Hindwood listened in the darkness to the Prince's name being shouted and waited for the tug to cast off, the surmise strengthened into certainty that he had been the dupe of a piece of play-acting, the purpose of which he could not fathom.
III
Philip!”
He had been so absorbed in his thoughts that he had not noticed how she had stolen up behind him. Without removing his arms from the rail, he turned slowly and surveyed her.
An enviable woman! And her age? Perhaps thirty. She was probably a Slav—either Russian or Polish. Her face was smooth as marble, high cheekboned and golden in complexion. Her eyes were almond-shaped, heavy-lidded, and of the palest gray. Her lips were passionate and always a little parted, revealing a line of perfect whiteness like a streak of snow between the curling edges of two rose-petals. But it was her hair that was her glory—abundant as night, blue-black as steel, and polished as metal. She wore it simply, gathered back from her forehead and caught in a loose knot, low against her neck. There was an air of indefinable aristocracy about her; perhaps it was the slightness of her figure and the alert composure of her carriage. And then there was a touch of the exotic, wistfully sad, yet exceedingly mocking. Like so many Slavs, behind the European there lurked a hint of the Asiatic. If her eyes had been darker, she might easily have passed for a Hindoo princess.
Her fascination, quite apart from her beauty, lay in the fact that she was so ravishingly feminine. To be a woman was her proud profession—and in this again she was Asiatic. What hours she must have spent over pampering her body! She was sleek and groomed as a race-horse. Physically she was the last word in feminine perfection. Her string of pearls was worth more than most men earn in a lifetime. Her sables represented the year's income of a millionaire. There was no item of her attire that was not sumptuous and that had not been acquired regardless of expense. To have achieved her luxuriance of beauty must have dissipated a fortune. Whose fortune? Surely, not hers!
His mind was haunted by misgivings as he watched her. He had so nearly allowed himself to care for her. It was only her lightness and willful inconsiderateness that had prevented. But now that he had been prevented, her employment of his Christian name struck him as singularly inappropriate. It made him suspect a trap. It put him in a mood to interpret any tenderness on her part as strategy, as a signal that something was wanted.
While he eyed her in silence, she drew nearer and leaned across the rail. Her shoulder pressed him. He was aware of the tingling sensation of her warmth, like a little hand caressing. He caught her fragrance, secret and somnolent as the magic of hidden rose-gardens in Damascus.
She spoke. Her voice was deep and foreign; it seemed too deep to be pent in so slight a body. It was harsh in many of its tones, as though there had been times when it had been parched with thirst. It conjured visions of caravans creeping across molten deserts. It was hypnotic, barbaric. In listening to it, he lost sight of the exquisite sophistication of her appearance. His imagination reclothed her, loosening her hair, veiling her face, shrouding her in a robe of gold and saffron, slipping sandals on her feet and making her ankles tinkle with many bangles.
“You don't like me any more. Is it not so?” she questioned softly. “My master is offended.”
He shook himself irritably, as though he were flinging off the yoke of her attraction. “I'm not offended. I was thinking.”
“About what?”
“Prince Rogovich.”
“And why should my master be thinking of Prince Rogovich?”
He leaned still further across the rail in an instinctive effort to avoid her. There was seduction in the feigned humility with which she addressed him, as though he were a Pasha and she a slave-girl.
“Because,” he said, “it would be indecent for me to be thinking of anything else. He may be dead. There's no knowing. This time last night I could walk and talk and laugh with him. He was full of plans. He was something real that I could touch. To-night he has vanished.”
“Vanished!” She repeated the word with a sigh which was almost of contentment.
“I was wondering,” he continued, and then halted. “You were wondering?” she prompted.
Drawing himself erect, he faced her. Her bantering tone had roused his indignation. Yet, even in his revulsion, he thrilled to the sweetness of her luring eyes, glinting at him palely through the shadows.
“He was more your friend, much more your friend, than mine,” he reproached her. “There's probably been a tragedy. Yet you don't seem to care. One might even believe you were glad.”
“Not glad. Not exactly.” She spoke smilingly, averting her eyes. “But as for caring—why should I?”
He laughed quietly. “Yes, why should you? Why should you care what happens to any man?”
“But I hated him,” she protested. “He had given me cause to hate him.”
“You had a strange way of showing it. You made yourself most amazingly charming. He could never have guessed—no one could ever have guessed who watched you with him, that you—”
“Ah, no. Only you and I—we knew. It wasn't our business to let everybody guess.”
Suddenly she seemed to divine what was troubling him. Darting out her hand, she seized his wrist in a grip of steel. That such strength lay hidden in so frail a hand was unexpected. Her attitude instantly changed to one of coaxing.
“You're jealous. Don't be jealous. It had to be, and it's ended. In a sense it was for your sake that it had to happen.”
Leisurely he freed himself, bending back her fingers and taking pleasure in demonstrating that his strength was the greater.
“I've no idea what you're talking about,” he said coldly. “Your feelings toward Prince Rogovich are none of my concern. If, by the thing that had to happen, you refer to the shameless way in which you made love to him, I can not conceive any possible set of circumstances that would make it necessary for you to make love for my sake to another man.”
He had turned and was sauntering away from her. She went after him breathlessly, arresting him once more with the secret strength of her slim, gloved hand.
“To make love to him! I didn't mean that.”
What it was that she had meant, she had no time to tell. The siren of the Ryndam burst into an earsplitting blast, impatient, repeated, and agonizing. At the signal gangplanks were withdrawn from the tug and run back into dark holes in the side of the liner. Ropes were cast off and coiled. Engines began to quicken and screws to churn. The narrow channel which had separated the two vessels commenced to widen. On the Ryndam the band struck up. Above its lively clamor the sound of Prince Rogovich's name being shouted could still be heard. As Hindwood stared up at the floating mammoth, scanning the tiers of faces gaping down, even at tills last moment he half expected to see the Prince come rushing out. Instead a sight much stranger met his eyes.
The tug was backing away to get sufficient clearance to turn in the direction of land. She had not quite cleared herself, when signs of frenzied disturbance were noticeable on the promenade deck. The musicians were dropping their instruments and fleeing. Passengers were glancing across their shoulders and scattering in all directions. In the vacant space which their stampede had created, the infuriated head of the Prince's wolfhound reared itself. For a couple of seconds he hung there poised, glaring down; then suddenly he seemed to descry the object he was searching. Steadying himself, he shot straight out into the gulf of blackness. In a white streak, like the finger of conscience pointing, he fell, just missing the deck of the tug, where Hindwood and his companion were standing. He must have struck the side, for as he reached the water he sank.
0008m
It was over in less time than it takes to tell, but it had seemed to Hindwood that as the hound had leaped, his burning gaze had been fixed on Santa Gorlof.
IV
She made no sound while the danger lasted, but the moment the hurtling, white body had fallen short, she rushed to the side, peering down into the yeasty scum of churned-up blackness. She was speaking rapidly in a foreign language, laughing softly with malicious triumph and shaking a small, clenched fist at the night. It was thus that a woman at Jezreel must have looked, when she painted her face and tired her hair and leaned out of her palace window, jeering at the charioteer who had been sent to slay her. The passionate eloquence of Santa's gestures thrilled as much as it shocked Hindwood; it made her appearance of lavish modernity seem a disguise. And yet he admired her more than ever; it was her courage he admired. Putting his arm about her roughly, “Enough,” he said. “You're coming inside.”
She darted back her head in defiance like a serpent about to strike. Then recognition of him dawned in her eyes. She ceased to struggle and relaxed against his breast. It was only for a second. Slipping her arm submissively into his, “Very well. If you say so,” she whispered.
Guiding her steps across the slippery deck, he pushed open the door of a little saloon and entered. The atmosphere was blue with wreaths of smoke and heavy with the smell of tobacco. At a table in the center, beneath a swinging lamp, the immigration officers were dealing cards and settling their debts with pennies. They were too absorbed in their petty gambling to notice what was going on about them. In a corner, outside the circle of light, he found a trunk and ordered her to sit down. The meekness with which she complied flattered his sense of her dependence. He might really have been a Pasha and she his slave-girl.
He did not understand her. She cozened and baffled him. People and things which he did not understand were apt to rouse his resentment, especially when they were women. His distrust of the sex was inherent. But as he watched this woman drooping in the shadows, his pity came uppermost. She was so alone, so unprotected. The hour was late—long past midnight. Her storm of emotion had exhausted her. It was absurd that he should have allowed himself to become so jealous. He could never have made her his wife. The chances were, she would not have accepted him; she belonged to a more modish world. And if she had, she would have driven him from his course with her whims and tempests. She would have wrecked his career with her greed for wealthy trappings. He and she were utterly different. They had nothing in common but their physical attraction.
He was seeing things clearly. With each fresh whiff of land, affairs were regrouping themselves in their true perspective. He had been the shuttlecock of a shipboard flirtation. He had magnified infatuation into a grand passion. On many a previous voyage he had been the amused spectator of just such profitless expenditures of sentiment. And here he was, a victim of the same foolishness! The futility of the ending was the adventure's condemnation. Probably she was indulging in similar reflections! Within an hour of stepping ashore they would have lost sight of each other forever. After so much intimacy and misplaced emotion, they would walk out of each other's life without regret. Partly out of curiosity, but more out of courtesy, he seated himself beside her for what he intended should be their last conversation.
“What happens next?”
She clutched her furs more closely about her. “I don't know.”
“But you must know,” he persisted. “What I meant was, where is your destination?”
“London.” Then she added wearily, “You could have discovered by examining my labels.”
Her fatigue made him the more determined to be helpful. “I didn't ask out of impertinence, but because I thought it would be London. Probably there'll be no train to London to-night. If the Prince had been with us, they'd have put on a special, but you and I are the only passengers, and neither of us is sufficiently important. Besides, after this delay, it'll be nearly daylight before we clear the Customs.”
“Then I'll have to sleep in Plymouth.”
“Perhaps you'll be met by friends?”
He had no sooner hazarded the suggestion than an obvious conjecture flashed through his mind. The marvel was that it had not flashed earlier. She might be married. If the conjecture proved correct, it would put the final punishing touch of satire to this wild-goose romance.
Sweeping him with her pale, derisive eyes, “Friends!” she murmured. “You may set your mind at rest. I shall be met by no friends.”
After that there was silence, a silence interrupted at intervals by the exclamations of the players as they thumped down their cards and raked in their pennies.
For relief he reverted to the subject uppermost in both their minds. “I wonder what became of him.”
“I wonder.” Her tone betrayed no interest.
“I've been trying to think back,” he said, “trying to remember when last I saw him.”
“Yes.”
“I believe I last saw him alive just after——”
She spun round, as though jerked on wires. “Alive! Who suggests that he isn't alive?”
“No one. I'm the first. But if he isn't found by to-morrow, the suggestion will be on the lips of all the world.”
“I doubt it.”
“You do?” Hindwood smiled. “Men of the Prince's eminence are not allowed to vanish without a stir. I'm only hoping that you and I are not involved in it. We were the only people with whom he associated on the voyage. We're likely to be detained and certain to be questioned. For all we know the air's full of Marconi messages about us at this moment.”
Her face had gone white. “About us? What had we to do with it?”
“Nothing. But when a tragedy of this sort occurs, we're all liable to be suspected.”
She gazed at him intently. “Then you think there was a tragedy?”
“I feel sure of it. It's my belief that he either fell or was pushed overboard. Somewhere out there in the darkness he's bobbing up and down. It's almost as though I could see him. I couldn't feel more sure if——”
She shuddered and pressed against him. “You're trying to frighten me. I won't be frightened. It's all nonsense what you're saying. Why should any one want to push him over?”
“I'm sorry,” he apologized. “I didn't mean to frighten you. Perhaps we're wasting our breath and already he's been found.”
“No, but why should any one want to push him over?” she urged.
“I can't answer that. But he wasn't liked. One could be fascinated by his personality, but one couldn't like him. Take yourself—weren't you telling me a few minutes ago how intensely you hated him?”
She nodded. “He was the sort of man every woman had the right to hate.” After a pause she faced him, completely mistress of herself. “When did you last see him?”
“I'm not certain.” Hindwood hesitated. “As far as I remember, it was after dinner in the lounge. He was giving some instructions about his baggage. When did you?”
“After dinner in the lounge.” Her eyes met his and flickered. “It must have been shortly after eight, for I spent till ten in my stateroom finishing my packing.”
Before she had made an end, he knew that she had lied. Several times after dinner he had walked past her stateroom, hoping for a last encounter. Her trunks and cases had been piled in the passage, already locked and strapped. He had tried to discover from the stewardess her whereabouts and had been told that since dining she had not returned. He had gone on deck in search of her, hunting everywhere. It must have been shortly after ten that he had come across two shadowy figures in the bows. They were whispering together. They might have been embracing. The man's figure had been too dim for him to identify, but he could have sworn that the woman's was hers.
He had reached this point in his piecing together of evidence, when he noticed that the card-players were pushing back their chairs.
Santa touched his arm gently. “I think we're there.”
The next moment the soft bump of the tug against the piles confirmed the news of their arrival.
V
It began to look as if all hope of rest would have to be abandoned. At the moment of landing the dock had been almost festive. There had been a group of railway officials, mildly beaming and fussily important, who had approached Hindwood as he stepped ashore, with “Prince Rogovich, if we are not mistaken?” There had been another group of newspaper reporters who, having addressed him as “Your Highness,” and having discovered their error, had promptly turned their backs on him.
There had been a Major in uniform, with a monocle in his eye, who had pranced up, tearing off a salute and announcing, “I'm detailed by the Foreign Office, your Excellency.”
When they had learned that the Prince had unaccountably avoided Plymouth, their atmosphere of geniality faded. The special train, which was to have borne him swiftly to London, was promptly canceled. Within ten minutes, muttering with disgust, all the world except two porters had dribbled off into the night.
In the waiting-room where, pending the inspection of the Customs officers, Hindwood and Santa were ordered to remain, their reception was no more enlivening. At first, when they had entered, a lunch-counter had been spread, gleaming with warmth and light. Before mirrors, girl attendants had been self-consciously reviewing their appearance with smiles of brightest expectation. Their expectancy had been quickly dulled by the news of the Prince's non-arrival. They had scarcely spared time to supply the wants of the two travelers before they had started to close up. The ticket clerk had copied the girls' example. As he had pulled down the shutter of his office he had briefly stated, “No train till the eight-thirty in the morning.”
After that they had been left—he and this strange woman—in the drafty gloom of the ill-lighted dockstation. The two porters had huddled down and snored among the baggage; Santa, closing her eyes, had appeared to join them in their slumbers.
At last a solitary Customs officer had arrived. He volunteered no explanation for his delay. He was evidently newly risen, half awake, and in a mood of suppressed irritation. His examination was perfunctory. Having completed his barest duty, he likewise made his exit. It was then, when all their troubles seemed ended, that the porters had informed them that it was necessary for passengers to see their luggage weighed and personally to supervise its being loaded in the van for London.
Hindwood turned to his companion. “You're tired. You'd better be off to bed. I'll see this through for you.”
Half an hour later, when he had complied with all formalities and was free to seek a bed himself, he remembered that he hadn't inquired where she would be staying and that he didn't know the name of a hotel. Wondering where he should sleep and how he could reach her with the receipts for her trunks, he wandered out into the yard of the station. The first grayness of dawn was spreading. A chill was in the air. Behind the sepulchers of muted houses a cock was crowing. He gazed up and down. Near the gate a horse-drawn cab was standing. Its lamp burned dimly, on the point of flickering out. The driver sat hunched on the box; the horse hung dejectedly between the shafts. They both slumbered immovably.
Crossing the yard, he shook the man's arm. “Hi! Wake up. I want you to drive me to a good hotel.” The man came to with a jerk. “A good 'otel! That's wot the lady wanted. You must be the gen'leman I wuz told to wait for.”
Hindwood nodded. “So you've driven the lady already! Then you'd better take me to wherever you took her.”
He had opened the door and was in the act of entering when the horse started forward, making him lose his balance. As he stretched out his hands to steady himself, what was his surprise to discover that the cab was already tenanted!
VI
I beg your pardon.”
There was no reply to his apology. He repeated it in a tone of more elaborate courtesy, “I beg your pardon.”
When he was again greeted with silence, he added: “I thought it was empty. I didn't do it on purpose. I hope you're not hurt.”
In the mildewed square of blackness, rank with the smell of stables, he held his breath, trying to detect whether sleep would account for the taciturnity of the other occupant. He could detect nothing; all lesser sounds were drowned in the rattle of their progress. Groping, he felt a woman's dress. Hollowing his hand to shade the flame, he struck a match. For a brief moment his eyes met hers, opened wide and gazing at him. Instantly she leaned forward, pursing her lips. The flame went out.
“What's the meaning of this?” He had been startled and spoke with sharpness.
“There was only one cab, so I——” She yawned luxuriously. “So I waited. I didn't want to lose you.”
It was his turn to be silent. After a pause, while she gave him a chance to reply, she continued: “You'd have been stranded if I'd taken the only cab. And then I didn't want to lose you. Not that losing me would have meant anything to you—not now. It wouldn't, would it?”
There was no escape. However she chose to accuse him, he would be forced to listen. But it couldn't be far to the hotel. Speaking reasonably, he attempted to appease her. “I've given you no occasion for supposing——”
She laughed softly. “Don't you think so? On the boat you were burning up for me. You were molten—incandescent. Now you're dark and dank—through with me.”
She caught her breath. Though he could not see her, he knew that her small, clenched fists were pressed against her mouth. Again she was speaking.
“Why is it? If you'd only give me a reason! While I've been sitting here alone, I've kept asking myself: 'Why is it? Am I less beautiful, less kind, less good? Does he think that he's discovered something evil about me? What have I done that he should have changed so suddenly?'”
With a cry of pain, she turned. “What have I done? It's just that you should tell me. If you'll take me back, I'll be anything for you. I'll try so hard to be more beautiful.”
“You couldn't be more beautiful.”
It was said without enthusiasm. The suspicion still possessed him that she was play-acting. Last evening she had practiced these same wiles on the man who had vanished. Did she intend that he should vanish, too? It was horrible that he should ask himself such a question, and yet he could not rid his imagination of the snow-white hound, plunging to death and pointing at her like the finger of conscience. The happenings of that night had been sufficiently dramatic, so why this second rehearsal? He was too humble in his self-esteem to believe that his own attractions could account for such a storm of passion.
“Santa, you're exaggerating.” He spoke cautiously. “You never belonged to me. Until now you've given no hint that you wanted to belong to me. On the contrary, you've trifled with me and shown a distinct preference for another man. It's preposterous for you to talk about my taking you back when I never had you. We've been companions for a handful of hours. We've liked being together—at least, I have. But to create such a scene is absurd. Nothing warrants it. In the ordinary course of events, our liking might strengthen into love—there's no telling. But everything'll end right here and now if you force matters. What d'you know about me? About you I know even less. If any one were to ask me, I couldn't tell him whether you were a Pole or a Persian, or whether you were single, divorced, or married. I haven't the least idea of your social standing or why, while appearing so prosperous, you travel without a maid and by yourself. For all I know——”
“A man needs to know nothing about a woman,” she interrupted, “except that he loves her. She might be a thousand things; if he loved her, none of them would count. If she were bad, he would hope to make her good with his own goodness. Men always expect women to do that; why shouldn't a woman expect it of a man? If you loved me—and you did love me—no matter how wicked you thought me, even though you believed I'd killed some one, you wouldn't care. You'd find some splendid motive and persuade yourself that I'd done it for the best.” She broke off. Then she added, “Of course, I haven't.”
“Haven't!”
“Haven't killed somebody.”
It was an extraordinary disclaimer—as though it were always within the bounds of possibility that nice, conventional women might have killed somebody. She had said it as casually as another woman might have said, “I don't powder,” or “I don't smoke.”
He scarcely know whether to be shocked or amused. He was loath to take her seriously. Behind the thinning darkness he was trying to discover her expression, when his calmness was swept away by a new disturbance. She had slipped to her knees in the narrow space. By the dim light that streaked the panes he could just make out her figure, bowed against him. The next moment her tears were falling, and she was kissing his hands.
“You mustn't, Santa.”
He tried to withdraw his hands. She clung to them. Failing in that, he attempted to raise her face. She kept it obstinately averted. The bumping of the cab on the uneven paving jostled her against him; he feared lest inadvertently he might bruise her. The situation was grotesque. It stirred both his pity and his anger. If this were play-acting, then it was laughter and not sobbing that was shaking her. But if her grief were real——
At that thought the shy, lonely tenderness of the man overwhelmed him. Here at last was a fellow-creature who needed his affection. She was so fragile, so capricious, so rapturous!
“Poor Santa! I didn't mean—— Somehow I've hurt you.”
She didn't speak, but she stayed her sobbing.
“Let me see your face.”
He stooped lower. The scent of her hair was in his nostrils. His reluctant arms went about her. Their embrace strengthened.
With a moan she lifted up her face, white and ghostly as the dawn that was all about them. In a frenzy of silent longing their lips met.
VII
With a jerk the cab drew up against the pavement. Tossing the reins on the horse's back, the driver was lumbering down. That Santa might have time to compose herself, Hindwood leaned quickly out, slamming the door behind him.
“Where've you brought us?”
“It's a good 'otel,” the man grumbled, on the defensive, staring at the gray cliff of shrouded windows. “It was a good 'otel you wanted. And then it's h'opposite the London Station where the train starts in the marnin'. It'll give the missis ten minutes extry in bed.”
“The missis!” Hindwood frowned. “If you refer to the lady who's with me, she's not my 'missis.'”
The man became sly. Stretching a fat finger along his nose, he edged nearer and whispered: “Between you and me that's h'alright. Wot wiv drivin' so many gentry from the Contingnong me own morals are almost foreign.”
Hindwood turned from him coldly. “You're on the wrong tack. And now how does one get into this hotel? Will they admit us at such an hour?”
“H'at h'all hours. H'absolutely h'at h'all hours.”
“If that's the case,” he thrust his head inside the cab, “you stay here, Santa. I'll go and find out.”
In a few minutes he was back. “They'll take us. Go inside and wait while I settle with the driver.” When he joined her at the desk, he found it necessary to make the same explanation that he had already made to the cabman. The night-porter had allotted them one room, taking it for granted they were married. He had to be informed that two were required.
“D'you want 'em on the same floor and next to each other?”
“On the roof if you like,” Hindwood answered impatiently, “only let us get to bed. We're, or rather I'm catching the eight-thirty train to London in the morning, and it's nearly daylight now. How about you?” He turned to Santa. “What train are you catching?”
“The same as you.”
“Then we might as well breakfast together?”
She nodded.
Turning again to the night-porter, he said, “Put us both down for a call at seven.”
The man was leading the way upstairs. As they followed, Santa whispered,
“You see, you were mistaken.”
“How?”
“You threatened that we'd be detained and questioned. You frightened me terribly. We weren't.”
“No. We weren't.”
She slipped her arm through his companionably. “I feel so relieved and happy. I don't believe there was a tragedy. The Prince changed his mind at the last moment; he's landing at Boulogne or Rotterdam. It may even have been a strategy to mislead some enemy who was waiting for him here in Plymouth.”
“Perhaps. I never thought of that.”
Their rooms were on different floors. The porter showed the way to hers first. Now that they had to separate, Hindwood would have given much for a private word with her. Discreetly, outside her door, in the presence of the night-porter, they parted.
“Then we meet at breakfast,” he reminded her.
“At breakfast,” she assented. “And let's hope that we don't oversleep ourselves.”
VIII
It seemed to him that his head had just touched the pillow when he was awakened by his door being pounded. Sitting up in bed, he consulted his watch. Seven exactly!
“I'm awake,” he shouted. With that he jumped out of bod to prevent himself from drowsing.
His first thought was of her; again he was going to meet her. The prospect filled him with excitement, but not with gladness. His dreams had been troubled by her; there had been no moment since he had closed his eyes that he had been without her. The wildness of that kiss, bestowed in the dark by a woman humbling herself, had set his blood on fire. It was not right that a man should be kissed like that, and yet he longed to reexperience the sensation.
“Any woman could have done it,” he argued. “This isn't love; it's nothing peculiar to Santa. Any reasonably beautiful woman could have done it by acting the way she acted. I had consoled myself that I was immune from women. I was starving, and I didn't know it.”
His sane mind warned him that it would be wise to avoid further encounters. She was too alluring for him to withstand. There were too many things about her that were unaccountable. There was her frenzied display of infatuation for both himself and the Prince, all within the space of twelve hours.
He was brushing his hair and viewing his reflection in the shabby mirror, when he reached this point. He stopped brushing and regarded his reflection intently. What could any woman discover in those features to go mad over? It was a hard face, cleanshaven, bony, and powerful, roughened by the wind and tanned by the sun. It was the mask of an ascetic, which concealed rather than revealed the emotions. And yet once it had been sensitive; you could trace that in the kindly blueness of the eyes and the faint tenderness of the full-lipped mouth. The hair was a rusty brown, growing thin about the temples; the nose was pinched at the nostrils with long-endured suffering—the brow furrowed. He smiled in amused disapproval and went on with his brushing. Not the face of an Apollo! Nothing to rave about!
And yet, despite his looks, here was at least one woman who, for whatever reason, was desperate to marry him. On the drive through the dawn from the dock to the hotel she had left no doubt of her intentions. It inflamed his curiosity. Though he was nearing forty, with the exception of that one disastrous affair, women were still for him an untried adventure. But in the case of Santa, to indulge his curiosity further might lead to penalties. She was liable to repeat last night's performance; the journey to London would probably provide her with a fitting opportunity. If it did, could he muster the cruelty to refuse her?
On one point his mind was made up: he would not marry her. He had no time to waste on marriage. With her it would be folly. Moreover, while her breaking down of reticences had spurred his eagerness, it had forfeited his respect. It had robbed him of his prerogative of conquest. It had changed him from the hunter into the hunted. He was all but trapped.
“Trapped!”
He was fastening his bag. He pressed the catch into the lock and stood up.
“Trapped! Not yet. Not exactly.”
Immediately his mind began to race, devising plans for eluding capture. He didn't need to keep his breakfast appointment with her. He could miss the eight-thirty and travel to London later. He could slip out unnoticed and take up his abode in another hotel. Once he had lost her, he would have put himself beyond temptation. She would have no clew to his whereabouts, nor he to hers.
As he passed slowly down the stairs, he was still undecided as to how he should act. On arriving in the hall, he loitered by the hotel desk, half determined to call for his reckoning and make a bolt for it. While he dallied, the yearning to see her for a last time swam uppermost. After all, he owed something to the only woman who had paid him the compliment of loving him. He would not speak to her, would not let her know that he was there. He would peep into the room unseen and remember her always as waiting for him.
Bag in hand, he strode along the passage to the coffee-room, where breakfast was being served. The baize doors were a-swing with scurrying waiters. Stooping, he peered through the panes. Pushing the doors slightly open, he gazed more steadily. The room was littered with ungroomed people, their heads bowed, their elbows flapping, like a flock of city sparrows snatching crumbs from beneath the hoofs of passing traffic. Nowhere could he espy her, his rarer bird of the dainty plumage.
He grew ashamed of his furtiveness. Why should he be afraid of her? She shouldn't be disappointed. She should find him gallantly expecting her. Resigning his bag to a solicitous bell-boy, he drew himself up to his lean western height and entered.
IX
Seated at a table, lie had watched the swing-doors for a full half-hour. He had finished his breakfast. If he were to catch the eight-thirty, it was time for him to be moving. He began to flirt with the idea of postponing his journey; it was evident she had overslept herself.
At the desk, while he settled his account, he had it on the tip of his tongue to inquire for her, but he was daunted by the presence of the night-porter. The man kept eyeing him with a knowing grin, as though he were expecting just such a question.
“I won't gratify him,” Hindwood thought. “The fellow knows too much. It's fate, if I miss her.”
He crossed the road to the station. Having secured a seat in a first-class smoker, he roamed up and down the platform. Every few minutes he consulted his watch as the hands circled nearer to the half-hour. He bought papers at the news-stand and returned to buy more papers; from there, while not seeming to do so, he could obtain a clear view of the hotel. And still there was no sign of her.
When it was almost too late, he threw caution to the winds. At a gait between a run and a walk, he recrossed the road and dashed up the hotel steps. As he confronted the clerk behind the desk, he was a little breathless; he was also aware that the night-porter's grin had widened.
“There's a lady staying here. She was to have traveled with me to London. I'm afraid she's not been wakened.”
“A lady!” The clerk looked up with the bored expression of one who was impervious to romance. “A lady! Oh, yes.”
“She's a passenger from the Ryndam,” he continued. “Her name's Miss Gorlof. Send some one to her room to find out at once——”
The night-porter interrupted. Addressing the clerk, he said: “The gentleman means the foreign-looking lady wot I told you about—the one in all the furs.” Then to Hindwood, “She was called for at six this mornin'. A gentleman in goggles, who couldn't speak no English, arrived in a tourin' car and drove off with 'er.”
“Drove off with her. But——”
Realizing that too much emotion would make him appear ridiculous, he steadied his voice and asked casually, “I suppose she left a note for me?”
The clerk glanced across his shoulder at the rack. “Your name's Mr. Hindwood, isn't it?” He raised his hand to a pigeonhole lettered “H”. “You can see for yourself, sir. There's nothing in it.”
“Then perhaps it was a verbal message. She would be certain to leave me her address.”
The clerk turned to the night-porter. “Did she?” The night-porter beamed with satisfaction. “She did not.”
He had achieved his dramatic effect.
X
He was the last passenger to squeeze through the barrier. As he scrambled into his carriage, the train was on the point of moving. Spreading one of his many papers on his knees, he lit a cigarette. He believed he was behaving as though nothing had happened. “That I can take it like this proves that she was nothing to me,” he assured himself.
Ten minutes later he discovered that he had not read a line and that the cigarette had gone out.
“I suppose I'm a bit upset,” he admitted, “though goodness knows why I should be. The matter's ended exactly as I wanted.”
But had it? What had he wanted? Does a man ever know what he wants where a woman is concerned? He desires most the thing which he most dreads. During the voyage he had wanted to win her from Prince Rogovich. On the tug he had wanted to forget her. In the cab he had wanted to go on kissing her forever. That morning he had wanted to save his freedom. On the station, like a maddened schoolboy, his terror had been lest he might lose her.
As a result he had lost her. Somewhere through the sunny lanes of Devon she was speeding with the gentleman who “couldn't speak no English” and wore goggles. In which direction and for what purpose he could not guess.
He smiled bitterly. It was a situation which called for mirth. He had accused her of having trapped him at a time when she herself had been escaping from him. He had complained that her affection was too ardently obvious at a moment when she was proving herself most coldly elusive. While he had been resenting the way in which he was being hunted, she had already abandoned him to hunt to his heart's content.
His reflections were broken in upon by a weakeyed old clergyman seated opposite to him in the far corner.
“Excuse me, but I see by your labels that you've just landed. May I ask whether your vessel was the Ryndam?”
“It was.”
“Then there's an item in the local paper which should interest you. It has to do with Prince Rogovich, the great Polish patriot. He was your fellow passenger, if I'm not mistaken.”
Hindwood was disinclined for conversation. He made his tone brusk that he might discourage further questions. “You're not mistaken, and I guess I know what you're going to tell me: that after all the preparations made for his reception, the Prince didn't land at Plymouth but, without notifying any one, traveled on either to Boulogne or Rotterdam.”
“But that wasn't what I was going to tell you,” the old gentleman continued in his benevolent pulpit manner. “Oh, no, I was going to tell you something quite different. After the Ryndam left Plymouth, the Captain had her searched from stem to stern. Not a trace of the Prince could be found.”
“Extraordinary! I suppose the news was received by wireless. Does the paper suggest an explanation?”
“None whatsoever. I thought you'd be interested. Perhaps you'd like to read for yourself.”
The paper contained the bare fact as the clergyman had stated it. “A complete search was made. All his personal belongings were found intact, but of the Prince himself not a trace.”
Hindwood closed his eyes and pretended to sleep that he might protect himself from further intrusions. He wanted to argue his way through this problem and to acquit Santa of any share in what had happened. And yet, if an investigation were held and he himself had to tell all he knew, things would look black for her. Was that why——?
He tried to crush the ugly thought, but it clamored to be expressed. Was that why she had made love to him—that her kiss might seal his lips with silence?
The train was slowing down. He opened his eyes. In the cheerfulness of sunshine life took on a more normal aspect. Towering above crowded roofs of houses, a tall cathedral pricked the blueness of the sky.
“Where are we?”
The clergyman was collecting his bundles. “Exeter—where I alight.”
As soon as he had the carriage to himself, before any one could enter, he reached up to the rack and quickly removed the Ryndam labels from his bag. Having done that, he stepped to the platform and went in search of papers. The torn labels were still in his hand. Surreptitiously he dropped them between the train and the platform, some distance lower down than his own carriage. He realized the stealth he had employed only when Exeter was left behind.
“Ridiculous!” he shrugged his shoulders. “It's getting on my nerves.”
In his most recently acquired batch of papers he found no reference to the topic which absorbed him. At the time when the London press had been published, the disappearance of the Prince had not been known to the world.
Throughout the journey, at every fresh stopping-place, he repeated the performance, dashing down platforms in quest of newsboys and purchasing copies of every journal on sale. He caught himself continually eyeing his bag to make sure that he really had removed all labels. He began to feel as if he himself were the criminal. In his intentions he was already an accessory after the fact. Whether Santa was innocent or guilty, at all costs he had determined to shield her.
Through the late summer afternoon, as he drew nearer to London, his suspense began to die. He was getting the later editions now; none of them so much as mentioned the affair. In Plymouth and Bristol it had probably been of local importance. He took courage to smile. What a coward dread can make of an honest man!
Afternoon was fading into the gold of evening when they steamed into Paddington. By making haste he could just reach the American Embassy before closing time. It was likely that several communications had been addressed to him there. He had cabled ahead to the Ritz for a reservation. It wouldn't take him far out of his direction to call at the Embassy on the way to his hotel.
In the stir and bustle of familiar London, the nightmare of the voyage grew vague. He stepped from the carriage like a man awaking. It thrilled him with happy surprise to discover the old gray city, plumed with smoke and smiling, waiting unchanged beneath his feet to welcome him. The very smell of mingled gasoline and horses from the cab-ranks was reassuring. Every sight that his eyes encountered made him feel respectable.
“Any luggage, sir?” It was a porter accosting him.
“Yes. Two trunks. At least, I guess they're on this train.”
“Which van, sir?”
“The one from Plymouth.” Then, with conscious bravado, he added: “I'm from the Ryndam. You'll recognize them by the Holland-American tags.”
The porter had gone to secure a barrow. While Hindwood waited, gazing about him idly, his eyes were startled by a news-placard bearing the following legend:
DISAPPEARANCE OF A PRINCE
FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED
He swayed, as though he had been struck by a bullet. He glanced round feverishly, fearing lest he might espy another placard stating, “Santa Gorlof Arrested.” But no—for the moment she was safe. He thanked God for the touring-car and the forethought of the foreign gentleman who could speak no English.
Quickly he began to readjust his plans. If he went to claim his trunks, there was no telling by whom he might be met—newspaper men, detectives, officials from the Foreign Office. Moreover, Santa's trunks were in the van. When he had explained himself, he might be called upon to account for her absence. There was only one thing for him to do: for her sake he must get out of England. If he delayed, he might be prevented. It would be unwise for him to go to the Ritz; he must spend the night at some obscure hotel. The only place to which he might be traced was the Embassy; but he would have to risk that—it was of the utmost importance that he should pick up his communications.
He was on the point of making good his escape, when the porter trundled up with his barrow.
“Hi, mister! Where are you goin'? I'll be needin' you to identify 'em.”
“I know you will.” Hindwood turned on him a face which was flustered. “But I've just remembered I have an engagement. I'll send for them later. It'll make no difference to you; here's what I should have paid you.”
The man, having inspected it carefully, pocketed the half-crown. “It won't take long,” he suggested; “me and the barrow's ready. And it won't cost you nothink, seein' as how you've paid me.”
“No time.”
Without more ado, he made a dash for the nearest taxi. “As fast as you like,” he told the driver; “the faster, the bigger your fare.”
He fled out of the station at a forbidden rate, but after half a mile the taxi halted against the curb. Lowering the window, he looked out.
“What's the matter? Something wrong with your engine?”
“We ain't been follered. You can calm down,” the driver assured him soothingly. “Wot's wrong is that you ain't told me no address.”
“Stupid of me! The American Embassy.”
At the Embassy, having explained his errand, he was requested to wait. Then, rather to his surprise, instead of having his letters handed to him, he was shown into a handsome room where, at the far end, a gray-haired man was seated, sorting papers behind a large mahogany table.
Hindwood crossed the room and held out his hand.
“I'm Philip Hindwood, the railroad expert. I guess you've heard of me. I called in case there was some mail for me. I had no intention of troubling you personally.”
“I'm glad you've come,” said the gray-haired man gravely. “If you hadn't troubled me, I should have had to trouble you. There have been inquiries for you. They have to do with a woman who goes by the name of Santa Gorlof. The police thought you might know something about her. It seems she's wanted.”
