CHAPTER XV

JUST OFF THE STRAND

A week had gone by. The Nord Express had brought me posthaste across

Europe from Petersburg to Calais, and I was again in London. I had left

Elma in the care of the Princess Zurloff, whom I knew would conceal her

from the horde of police-agents now in search of her.

The mystery had so increased until now it had become absolutely

bewildering. The more I had tried to probe it, the more inexplicable had

I found it. My brain was awhirl as I sat in the _wagon-lit_ rushing

across those wide, never-ending plains that lie between the Russian

capital and Berlin and the green valleys between the Rhine-lands and the

sea. The maze of mystery rendered me utterly incapable of grasping one

solid tangible fact, so closely interwoven was each incident of the

strange life-drama in which, through mere chance, I was now playing a

leading part. I was aware of one fact only, that I loved Elma with all

my soul, even though I knew not whom she really was--or her strange life

story. Her sweet face, with those soft, brown eyes, so tender and

intense, stood out ever before me, sleeping or waking. Each moment as

the express rushed south increased the distance between us, yet was I

not on my way back to England with a clear and distinct purpose? I

snatched at any clue, however small, with desperate eagerness, as a

drowning man clutches at a straw.

The spy from Abo had seen me on the railway platform on my departure

from Petersburg. He had overheard me buy a ticket for London, and

previous to stepping into the train I had smiled at him in glad triumph.

My journey was too long a one for him to follow, and I knew that I had

at last outwitted him. He had expected to see Elma with me, no doubt,

and his disappointment was plainly marked. But of Woodroffe I had

neither seen nor heard anything.

* * * * *

It was a cold but dry November night in London, and I sat dining with

Jack Durnford at a small table in the big, well-lit room of the Junior

United Service Club. Easy-going and merry as of old, my friend was

bubbling over with good spirits, delighted to be back again in town

after three years sailing up and down the Mediterranean, from Gib. to

Smyrna, maneuvering always, yet with never a chance of a fight. His

well-shaven face bore the mark of the southern suns, and the backs of

his hands were tanned by the heat and the sea. He was, indeed, as smart

an officer as any at the Junior, for the Marines are proverbial for

their neatness, and his men on board the _Bulwark_ had received many a

pleasing compliment from the Admiral.

"Glad to be back!" he exclaimed, as he helped himself to a "peg." "I

should rather think so, old chap. You know how awfully wearying the life

becomes out there. Lots going on down at Palermo, Malta, Monte Carlo, or

over at Algiers, and yet we can never get a chance of it. We're always

in sight of the gay places, and never land. I don't blame the youngsters

for getting off from Leghorn for two days over here in town when they

can. Three years is a bigger slice out of a fellow's life than anyone

would suppose. But, by the way, I saw Hutcheson the other day. We put

into Spezia, and he came out to see the Admiral--got despatches for

him, I think. He seems as gay as ever. He lunched at mess, and said how

sorry he was you'd deserted Leghorn."

"I haven't exactly deserted it," I said. "But I really don't love it

like he does."

"No. A year or two of the Mediterranean blue is quite sufficient to last

any fellow his lifetime. I shouldn't live in Leghorn if I had my choice.

I'd prefer somewhere up in the mountains, beyond Pisa, or outside

Florence, where you can have a good time in winter."

Then a silence fell between us, and I sat eating on until the end of the

meal, wondering how to broach the question I so desired to put to him.

"I shall try if I can get on recruiting service at home for a bit," he

said presently. "There's an appointment up in Glasgow vacant, and I

shall try for it. It'll be better, at any rate, than China or the

Pacific."

I was just about to turn the conversation to the visit of the mysterious

_Lola_ to Leghorn, when two men he knew entered the dining-room, and,

recognizing him, came across to give him a welcome home. One of the

newcomers was Major Bartlett, whom I at once recollected as having been

a guest of Leithcourt's up at Rannoch, and the other a younger man whom

Durnford introduced to me as Captain Hanbury.

"Oh, Major!" I cried, rising and grasping his hand. "I haven't seen you

since Scotland, and the extraordinary ending to your house-party."

"No," he laughed. "It was an amazing affair, wasn't it? After the

Leithcourts left it was like pandemonium let loose; the guests collared

everything they could lay their hands upon! It's a wonder to me the

disgraceful affair didn't get into the papers."

"But where's Leithcourt now?" I asked anxiously.

"Haven't the ghost of an idea," replied the Major, standing astride with

his hands in his pockets. "Young Paget of ours told me the other day

that he saw Muriel driving in the Terminus Road at Eastbourne, but she

didn't notice him. They were a queerish lot, those Leithcourts," he

added.

"Hulloa! What are you saying about the Leithcourts, Charley?" exclaimed

Durnford, turning quickly from Hanbury. "I know some people of that

name--Philip Leithcourt, who has a daughter named Muriel."

"Well, they sound much the same. But if you know them, my dear old chap,

I really don't envy you your friends," declared the Major with a laugh.

"Why not?"

"Well, Gregg will tell you," he said. "He knows, perhaps, more than I

do. But," he added, "they may not, of course, be the same people."

"I first met them yachting over at Algiers," Jack said. "And then again

at Malta, where they seemed to have quite a lot of friends. They had a

steam-yacht, the _Iris_, and were often up and down the Mediterranean."

"Must be the same people," declared the Major. "Leithcourt spoke once or

twice of his yacht, but we all put it down as a non-existent vessel,

because he was always drawing the long bow about his adventures."

"And how did you first come to know him?" I asked of the Major eagerly.

"Oh, I don't know. Somebody brought him to mess, and we struck up an

acquaintance across the table. He seemed a good chap, and when he asked

me to shoot I accepted. On arrival up at Rannoch, however, one thing

struck me as jolly strange, and that was that among the people I was

asked to meet was one of the very worst blacklegs about town. He called

himself Martin Woodroffe up there--although I'd known him at the old

Corinthian Club as Dick Archer. He was believed then to be one of a

clever gang of international thieves."

"When I first met him he gave me the name of Hornby," I said. "It was in

Leghorn, where he was on board a yacht called the _Lola_, of which he

represented himself as owner."

"He left Rannoch very suddenly," remarked Bartlett. "We understood that

he was engaged to marry Muriel. If so, I'm sorry for her, poor girl."

"What!" cried Durnford, starting up. "That man to marry Muriel

Leithcourt?"

"Yes," I said. "Why?"

But his countenance had turned pale, and he gave no answer to my

question.

"If these same Leithcourts are really friends of yours, Durnford, old

fellow, I'm sorry I've said anything against them," the Major exclaimed

in an apologetic tone. "Only the end of my visit was so abrupt and so

extraordinary, and the company such a mixed one, that--well, to tell you

the truth, the people are a mysterious lot altogether."

"Perhaps our Leithcourts are not the same as those Jack knows," I

remarked, in order to escape from a rather difficult situation;

whereupon Durnford, as though eager to conceal his surprise, said with a

forced laugh, "Oh! probably not," and reseated himself at table. Then

the Major quickly changed the topic of conversation, and afterwards he

and his friend passed along to their table and sat down to eat.

I could not help noticing that Jack Durnford was upset at what he had

learnt, yet I hesitated just then to put any question to him. I resolved

to approach the subject later, so as to allow him time to question me

if he wished to do so.

After smoking an hour we went across to the Empire, where we spent the

evening in the grand circle, meeting many men we knew and having a

rather pleasant time among old acquaintances. If a man who had lived the

club life of London returns from abroad, he can always run across

someone he knows in the circle of the Empire about ten o'clock at night.

Jack was, however, not his old self that he had been before dinner. His

brow was now heavy and thoughtful, and he appeared deeply immersed in

some intricate problem, for his eyes were fixed vacantly when

opportunity was afforded him to think, and he appeared to desire to

avoid his friends rather than to greet them.

After the theater I induced him to come round to the Cecil, and in the

wicker chair in the big portico before the entrance we sat to smoke our

final cigars. It is a favorite spot of mine when in London, for at

afternoon, when the string band plays and the Americans and other

cosmopolitans drink tea, there is a continual coming and going, a little

panorama of life that to a student of men like myself is intensely

interesting. And at night it is just as amusing to sit there in the

shadow and watch the people returning from the theaters or dances and to

speculate as to whom and what they are. At that one little corner of

London just off the Strand you see more variety of men and women than

perhaps at any other spot. All grades pass before you, from the pushful

American commercial man interested in a patent medicine, to the proud

Indian Rajah with his turbaned suite; from the variety actress to the

daughter of a peer, or the wife of a millionaire pork-butcher doing

Europe.

"You've been a bit down in the mouth to-night, Jack," I said presently,

after we had been watching the cabs coming up, depositing the

home-coming revelers from the Savoy or the Carlton.

"Yes," he sighed. "And surely I have enough to cause me--after what I've

heard from Bartlett."

"What! Did the facts he told us convey any bad news to you?" I inquired

with pretended ignorance.

"Yes," he said hoarsely, after a brief pause. Then he added: "Bartlett

said you could tell me what happened up in Scotland, where Leithcourt

had shooting. Tell me everything," he added with the air of a man in

whom all hope is dead.

"Well," I began, "the Leithcourts took Rannoch Castle, close to my

uncle's place, near Dumfries. I got to know them, of course, and often

shot with his party. One day, however, I was amazed to notice in one of

the rooms the photograph of a lady, the exact counterpart of that

picture which, I recollect, I told you when in Leghorn I had found torn

up on board the _Lola_. You recollect what I narrated about my strange

adventure, don't you?"

"I remember every word," was his answer. "Go on. What did you do?"

"Nothing. I held my tongue. But when I discovered that the fellow who

called himself Woodroffe--the man who had represented himself as the

owner of the _Lola_, and who, no doubt, had had a hand in breaking open

Hutcheson's safe in the Consulate--was engaged to Muriel, I became full

of suspicion."

"Well?"

"Woodroffe, after meeting me, disappeared--went to Hamburg, they said,

on business. Then other things occurred. A man and woman were found

murdered up in the wood about a mile and a half from the castle. The man

was made up to represent my man Olinto--I believe you've seen him in

Leghorn?"

"What! They've killed Olinto?" he gasped, starting from his chair.

"No. The fellow was made up very much like him. But his wife Armida was

killed."

"They killed the woman, and believed they had also killed her husband,

eh?" he said bitterly through his teeth, and I saw that his strong hands

grasped the arms of his chair firmly. "And Martin Woodroffe is engaged

to Muriel Leithcourt. Are you certain of this?"

"Yes; quite certain."

"And is there no suspicion as to who is the assassin of the woman

Santini and this mysterious man who posed as her husband?"

"None whatever."

For some time Jack Durnford smoked in silence, and I could just

distinguish his white, hard face in the faint light, for it was now

late, and the big electric lamps had been turned out and we were in

semi-darkness.

"That fellow shall never marry Muriel," he declared in a fierce, hoarse

voice. "What you have just told me reveals the truth. Did you meet

Chater?"

"He appeared suddenly at Rannoch, and the Leithcourts fled precipitately

and have not since been heard of."

"Ah, no wonder!" he remarked with a dry laugh. "No wonder! But look

here, Gordon, I'm not going to stand by and let that scoundrel Woodroffe

marry Muriel."

"You love her, perhaps?" I hazarded.

"Yes, I do love her," he admitted. "And, by heaven!" he cried, "I will

tell the truth and crush the whole of their ingenious plot. Have you met

Elma Heath?" he asked.

"Yes," I said in quick anxiety.

"Then listen," he said in a low, earnest voice. "Listen, and I'll tell

you something.

"There is a greater mystery surrounding that yacht, the _Lola_, than you

have ever imagined, my dear old chap," declared Jack Durnford, looking

me straight in the face. "When you told me about it on the quarter-deck

that day outside Leghorn, I was half a mind to tell you what I knew.

Only one fact prevented me--my disinclination to reveal my own secrets.

I loved Muriel Leithcourt, yet, afloat as I was, I could never see

her--I could not obtain from her own lips the explanation I desired. Yet

I would not prejudge her--no, and I won't now!" he added with a fierce

resolution.

"I love her," he went on, "and she reciprocates my love. Ours is a

secret engagement made in Malta two years ago, and yet you tell me that

she has pledged herself to that fellow Woodroffe--the man known here in

London as Dick Archer. I can't believe it--I really can't, old fellow.

She could never write to me as she has done, urging patience and secrecy

until my return."

"Unless, of course, she desired to gain time," I suggested.

But my friend was silent; his brows were deep knit.

"Woodroffe is at the present moment in Petersburg," I said. "I've just

come back from there."

"In St. Petersburg!" he gasped, surprised. "Then he is with that

villainous official, Baron Oberg, the Governor-General of Finland."

"No; Oberg is living shut up in his palace at Helsingfors, fearing to go

out lest he shall be assassinated," was my answer.

"And Elma? What has become of her?"

"She is in hiding in Petersburg, awaiting such time as I can get her

safely out of Russia," and then, continuing, I explained how she had

been maimed and rendered deaf and dumb.

"What!" he cried fiercely. "Have they actually done that to the poor

girl? Then they feared that she should reveal the nature of their plot,

for she had seen and heard."

"Seen and heard what?"

"Be patient; we will elucidate this mystery, and the motive of this

terrible infliction upon her. Muriel wrote to me saying that poor Elma,

her friend, had disappeared, and she feared that some evil had also

happened to her. So Oberg had sent her to his fortress--his own private

Bastille--the place to which, on pretended charges of conspiracy against

Russia, he sends those who thwart him to a living tomb."

"I have seen him, and I have defied him," I said.

"You have! Man alive! be careful. He's not a fellow who sticks at

trifles," said Jack warningly.

"I don't fear," I replied. "Elma's enemies are also mine."

"Then I take it, old fellow, that notwithstanding her affliction, you

are actually in love with her?"

"I intend to rescue, and to marry her," I answered quite frankly.

"But first we must tear aside this veil of mystery and ascertain all the

facts concerning her," he said. "At present I only know one or two very

vague details. The baron is certainly not her uncle, as he represents

himself to be, but it seems certain that she is the daughter of

Anglo-Russian parents, and was born in Russia and brought to England

when a child."

"But from whom do you expect I can obtain the true facts concerning her,

and the reason of the baron's desire to keep her silent?"

"Ah!" he said, twisting his mustache thoughtfully. "That's just the

question. For a solution of the problem we must first fathom the motive

of the Leithcourts and the reason they fled in fear before that fellow

Chater. That Muriel is innocent of any complicity in their plot,

whatever it may be, I feel convinced. She may be the victim of that

blackleg Woodroffe, who, as Bartlett has told you, is one of the most

expert swindlers in London, and who has already done two terms of penal

servitude."

"But what was the motive in breaking open the Consul's safe, if not to

obtain the Foreign Office or Admiralty ciphers? Perhaps they wanted to

steal them and sell them to a foreign government?"

"No; that was not their object. I've thought over it many, many times

since you told me, and I feel convinced that Woodroffe is too shrewd a

fellow not to have known that no Consul goes away on leave and allows

his ciphers to remain behind. When he leaves his post he always deposits

those precious books either at the Foreign Office here or with his

Consul-General, or with a Consul at another port. They'd surely

ascertain all that before they made the raid, you bet. The affair was a

risky one, and Dick Archer is known as a man of many precautions."

"But he is on extremely friendly terms with Elma. It was he who

succeeded in finding her in Finland, and taking her beyond Oberg's

sphere of influence to Petersburg."

"Then it is certainly only an affected friendship, with some sinister

motive underlying it."

"She wrote a letter from her island prison to an old schoolfellow named

Lydia Moreton, asking her to see Woodroffe at his rooms in Cork Street,

and tell him that through all she was suffering she had kept her promise

to him, and that the secret was still safe."

"Exactly. And now the fellow fears that as you are so actively searching

out the truth, she may yield to your demands and explain. He therefore

intends to silence her."

"What! to kill her, you mean?" I gasped, in quick apprehension.

"Well, he might do so, in order to save himself, you see," Jack replied,

adding: "He certainly would have no compunction if he thought that it

would not be brought home to him. Only he, no doubt, fears you, because

you have found her, and are in love with her."

I admitted the force of his argument, but recollected that my dear one

was safe in concealment, and that the Princess was our friend, even

though I, as an Englishman, had no sympathy with the doctrine of the

bomb and the knife.

I tried to get from him all that he knew concerning Elma, but he seemed,

for some curious reason, disinclined to tell. All I could gather was

that Leithcourt was in league with Chater and Woodroffe, and that Muriel

had acted as an entirely innocent agent. What the conspiracy was, or

what was its motive, I could not discern. I was as far off the solution

of the problem as ever.

"We must first find Muriel," he declared, when I pressed him to tell me

everything he knew. "There are facts you have told me which negative my

own theories, and only from her can we obtain the real truth."

"But surely you know where she is? She writes to you," I said.

"The last letter, which I received at Gib. ten days ago, was from the

Hotel Bristol, at Botzen, in the Tyrol, yet Bartlett says she has been

seen down at Eastbourne."

"But you have an address where you always write to her, I suppose?"

"Yes, a secret one. I have written and made an appointment, but she has

not kept it. She has been prevented, of course. She may be with her

parents, and unable to come to London."

"You did not know that they had fled, and were in hiding?"

"Of course not. What I've heard to-night is news to me--amazing news."

"And does it not convey to you the truth?"

"It does--a ghastly truth concerning Elma Heath," he answered in a low

voice, as though speaking to himself.

"Tell me. What? I'm dying, Jack, to know everything concerning her. Who

is that fellow Oberg?"

"Her enemy. She, by mere accident, learned his secret and Woodroffe's,

and they now both live in deadly fear of her."

"And for that reason she was taken to Siena, where some villainous

Italian doctor was bribed to render her deaf and dumb."

He nodded in the affirmative.

"But Chater?"

"I know very little concerning him. He may have conspired with them, or

he may be innocent. It seems as though he were antagonistic to their

schemes, if Leithcourt and his family really fled from him."

"And yet he was on board the _Lola_. Indeed, he may have helped to

commit the burglary at the Consulate," I said.

"Quite likely," he answered. "But our first object must be to rediscover

Muriel. Paget says she is in Eastbourne. If she is there, we shall

easily find her. They publish visitors' lists in the papers, don't they,

like they do at Hastings?" Then he added: "Visitors' lists are most

annoying when you find your name printed in them when you are supposed

officially to be somewhere else. I was had once like that by the

Bournemouth papers, when I was supposed to be on duty over at

Queenstown. I narrowly escaped a terrible wigging."

"Shall we go to Eastbourne?" I suggested eagerly. "I'll go there with

you in the morning."

"Or would it not be best to send an urgent wire to the address where I

always write? She would then reply here, no doubt. If she's in

Eastbourne, there may be reasons why she cannot come up to town. If her

people are in hiding, of course she won't come. But she'll make an

appointment with me, no doubt."

"Very well. Send a wire," I said. "And make it urgent. It will then be

forwarded. But as regards Olinto? Would you like to see him? He might

tell you more than he has told me."

"No; by no means. He must not know that I have returned to London,"

declared my friend quickly. "You had better not see him--you

understand."

"Then his interests are--well, not exactly our own?"

"No."

"But why don't you tell me more about Elma?" I urged, for I was eager to

learn all he knew. "Come, do tell me!" I implored.

"I've told you practically everything, my dear old fellow," was his

response. "The revelation of the true facts of the affair can be made

only by Muriel. I tell you, we must find her."

"Yes, we must--at all hazards," I said. "Let's go across to the

telegraph office opposite Charing Cross. It's open always." And we rose

and walked out along the Strand, now nearly deserted, and despatched an

urgent message to Muriel at an address in Hurlingham Road, Fulham.

Afterwards we stood outside on the curb, still talking, I loth to part

from him, when there passed by in the shadow two men in dark overcoats,

who crossed the road behind us to the front of Charing Cross station,

and then continued on towards Trafalgar Square.

As the light of the street lamp fell upon them, I thought I recognized

the face of one as that of a person I had seen before, yet I was not at

all certain, and my failure to remember whom the passer-by resembled

prevented me from saying anything further to Jack than:

"A fellow I know has just gone by, I think."

"We seem to be meeting hosts of friends to-night," he laughed. "After

all, old chap, it does one good to come back to our dear, dirty old town

again. We abuse it when we are here, and talk of the life in Paris, and

Vienna, and Brussels, but when we are away there is no place on earth so

dear to us, for it is 'home.' But there!" he laughed, "I'm actually

growing romantic. Ah! if we could only find Muriel! But we must

to-morrow. Ta-ta! I shall go around to the club and sleep, for I haven't

fixed on any diggings yet. Come in at ten to-morrow, and we will decide

upon some plan. One thing is plainly certain; Elma must at once be got

out of Russia. She's in deadly peril of her life there."

"Yes," I said. "And you will help me?"

"With all my heart, old fellow," answered my friend, warmly grasping my

hand, and then we parted, he strolling along towards the National

Gallery on his way back to the "Junior," while I returned to the _Cecil_

alone.