Elusive Isabel, by Jacques Futrelle (16 page)

“I have no choice in the matter, Mr. Grimm,” he said at last. “I shall have to put it to my client, of course. Can you give me, say, half an hour to communicate with him?”

“Certainly,” and Mr. Grimm rose obligingly. “Shall I wait outside here or call again?”

“You may wait if you don’t mind,” said Mr. Howard. “I’ll be able to let you know in a few minutes, I hope.”

Mr. Grimm bowed and passed out. At the end of twenty-five minutes the door of Mr. Howard’s private office opened and he appeared. His face was violently red, evidently from anger, and perspiration stood on his forehead.

“I can’t do anything with him,” he declared savagely. “He says simply that negotiations must be conducted through me or not at all.”

Mr. Grimm had risen; he bowed courteously.

“Very well,” he said placidly. “You understand, of course, as the note says, that this refusal of his terminates the negotiations, so—”

“But just a moment—” interposed Mr. Howard quickly.

“Good day,” said Mr. Grimm.

The door opened and closed; he was gone. Three minutes later he stepped into a telephone booth at a near-by corner and took down the receiver.

“Hello, central!” he called, and then: “This is Mr. Grimm of the Secret Service. What number was Mr. Howard talking to?”

“Eleven double-nought six, Alexandria,” was the reply.

“Where is the connection? In whose name?”

“The connection is five miles out from Alexandria in a farmhouse on the old Baltimore Road,” came the crisp, business-like answer. “The name is Murdock Williams.”

“Thank you,” said Mr. Grimm. “Good-by.”

A moment later he was standing by the curb waiting for a car, when Howard, still angry, and with an expression of deep chagrin on his face, came bustling up.

“If you can give me until to-morrow afternoon, then—” he began.

Mr. Grimm glanced around at him, and with a slight motion of his head summoned two men who had been chatting near-by. One of them was Blair, and the other Hastings.

“Take this man in charge,” he directed. “Hold him in solitary confinement until you hear from me. Don’t talk to him, don’t let any one else talk to him, and don’t let him talk. If any person speaks to him before he is locked up, take that person in charge also. He is guilty of no crime, but a single word from him now will endanger my life.”

That was all. It was said and done so quickly that Howard, dazed, confused and utterly unable to account for anything, was led away without a protest. Mr. Grimm, musing gently on the stupidity of mankind in general and the ease with which it is possible to lead even a clever individual into a trap, if the bait appeals to greed, took a car and went up town.

Some three hours later he walked briskly along a narrow path strewn with pine needles, which led tortuously up to an old colonial farmhouse. Outwardly the place seemed to be deserted. The blinds, battered and stripped of paint by wind and rain, were all closed and one corner of the small veranda had crumbled away from age and neglect. In the rear of the house, rising from an old barn, a thin pole with a cup-like attachment at the apex, thrust its point into the open above the dense, odorous pines. Mr. Grimm noted these things as he came along.

He stepped up quietly on the veranda and had just extended one hand to rap on the door when it was opened from within, and Miss Thorne stood before him. He was not surprised; intuition had told him he would meet her again, perhaps here in hiding. A sudden quick tenderness lighted the listless eyes. For an instant she stood staring, her face pallid against the gloom of the hallway beyond, and she drew a long breath of relief, as she pressed one hand to her breast. The blue-gray eyes were veiled by drooping lids, then she recovered herself and they opened into his. In them he saw anxiety, apprehension, fear even.

“Miss Thorne!” he greeted, and he bowed low over the white hand which she impulsively thrust toward him.

“I—I knew some one was coming,” she stammered in a half whisper. “I didn’t know it was you; I hadn’t known definitely until this instant that you were safe from the explosion. I am glad—glad, you understand; glad that you were not—” She stopped and fought back her emotions, then went on: “But you must not come in; you must go away at once. Your—your life is in danger here.”

“
How
did you know I was coming?” inquired Mr. Grimm.

“From the moment Mr. Howard telephoned,” she replied, still hastily, still in the mysterious half whisper. “I knew that it could only be some one from your bureau, and I hoped that it was you. I saw how you forced him to call us up here, and that was all you needed. It was simple, of course, to trace the telephone call.” Both of her hands closed over one of his desperately. “Now, go, please. The Latin compact is at an end; you merely invite death here. Now, go!”

Her eyes were searching the listless face with entreaty in them; the slender fingers were fiercely gripping one of Mr. Grimm’s nerveless hands. For an instant some strange, softening light flickered in the young man’s eyes, then it passed.

“I have no choice, Miss Thorne,” he said gravely at last. “I am honor bound by my government to do one of two things. If I fail in the first of those—the greater—it can only be because—”

He stopped; hope flamed up in her eyes and she leaned forward eagerly studying the impassive face.

“Because—?” she repeated.

“It can only be because I am killed,” he added quietly. Suddenly his whole manner changed. “I should like to see the—the inventor?”

“But don’t you see—don’t you see you
will
be killed if—?” she began tensely.

“May I see the inventor, please?” Mr. Grimm interrupted.

For a little time she stood, white and rigid, staring at him. Then her lids fluttered down wearily, as if to veil some crushing agony within her, and she stepped aside. Mr. Grimm entered and the door closed noiselessly behind him. After a moment her hand rested lightly on his arm, and he was led into a room to his left. This door, too, she closed, immediately turning to face him.

“We may talk here a few minutes without interruption,” she said in a low tone. Her voice was quite calm now. “If you will be—?”

“Please understand, Miss Thorne,” he interposed mercilessly, “that I must see the inventor, whoever he is. What assurance have I that this is not some ruse to permit him to escape?”

“You have my word of honor,” she said quite simply.

“Please go on.” He sat down.

“You will see him too soon, I fear,” she continued slowly. “If you had not come to him he would have gone to you.” She swayed a little and pressed one hand to her eyes. “I would to God it were in my power to prevent that meeting!” she exclaimed desperately. Then, with an effort: “There are some things I want to explain to you. It may be that you will be willing to go then of your own free will. If I lay bare to you every step I have taken since I have been in Washington; if I make clear to you every obscure point in this hideous intrigue; if I confess to you that the Latin compact has been given up for all time, won’t that be enough? Won’t you go then?”

Mr. Grimm’s teeth closed with a snap.

“I don’t want that—from you,” he declared.

“But if I should tell it all to you?” she pleaded.

“I won’t listen, Miss Thorne. You once paid me the compliment of saying that I was one man you knew in whom you had never been disappointed.” The listless eyes were blazing into her own now. “
I
have never been disappointed in you. I will not permit you to disappoint me now. The secrets of your government are mine if I can get them—but I won’t allow you to tell them to me.”

“My government!” Miss Thorne repeated, and her lips curled sadly. “I—I have no government. I have been cast off by that government, stripped of my rank, and branded as a traitor!”

“Traitor!” Mr. Grimm’s lips formed the word silently.

“I failed, don’t you see?” she rushed on. “Ignominy is the reward of failure. Prince d’Abruzzi went on to New York that night, cabled a full account of the destruction of the compact to my government, and sailed home on the following day. I was the responsible one, and now it all comes back on me.” For a moment she was silent. “It’s so singular, Mr. Grimm. The fight from the first was between us—we two; and you won.”

Mr. Grimm dropped into a chair with his teeth clenched, and his face like chalk. For a minute or more he sat there turning it all over in his mind. Truly the triumph had been robbed of its splendor when the blow fell here—here upon a woman he loved.

“There’s no shame in the confession of one who is fairly beaten,” Isabel went on softly, after a little. “There are many things that you don’t understand. I came to Washington with an authority from my sovereign higher even than that vested in the ambassador; I came
as
I did and compelled Count di Rosini to obtain an invitation to the state ball for me in order that I might meet a representative of Russia there that night and receive an answer as to whether or not they would join the compact. I received that answer; its substance is of no consequence now.

“And you remember where I first met you? It was while you were investigating the shooting of Senor Alvarez in the German embassy. That shooting, as you know, was done by Prince d’Abruzzi, so almost from the beginning my plans went wrong because of the assumption of authority by the prince. The paper he took from Senor Alvarez after the shooting was supposed to bear vitally upon Mexico’s attitude toward our plan, but, as it developed, it was about another matter entirely.”

“Yes, I know,” said Mr. Grimm.

“The event of that night which you did
not
learn was that Germany agreed to join the compact upon conditions. Mr. Rankin, who was attached to the German embassy in an advisory capacity, delivered the answer to me, and I pretended to faint in order that I might reasonably avoid you.”

“I surmised that much,” remarked Mr. Grimm.

“The telegraphing I did with my fan was as much to distract your attention as anything else, and at the same time to identify myself to Mr. Rankin, whom I had never met. You knew him, of course; I didn’t.”

She was silent a while as her eyes steadily met those of Mr. Grimm. Finally she went on:

“When next I met you it was in the Venezuelan legation; you were investigating the theft of the fifty thousand dollars in gold from the safe. I thrust myself into that case, because I was afraid of you; and mercilessly destroyed a woman’s name in your eyes to further my plans. I made you believe that Senorita Rodriguez stole that fifty thousand dollars, and I returned it to you, presumably, while we stood in her room that night. Only it was not her room—it was
mine!
I
stole the fifty thousand dollars! All the details, even to her trip to see Mr. Griswold in Baltimore in company with Mr. Cadwallader, had been carefully worked out; and she
did
bring me the combination of the safe from Mr. Griswold on the strength of a forged letter. But she didn’t know it. There was no theft, of course. I had no intention of keeping the money. It was necessary to take it to distract attention from the thing I
did
do—break a lock inside the safe to get a sealed packet that contained Venezuela’s answer to our plan. I sealed that packet again, and there was never a suspicion that it had been opened.”

“Only a suspicion,” Mr. Grimm corrected.

“Then came the abduction of Monsieur Boissegur, the French ambassador. I plunged into that case as I did in the other because I was afraid of you and had to know just how much you knew. It was explained to you as an attempt at extortion with details which I carefully supplied. As a matter of fact, Monsieur Boissegur opposed our plans, even endangered them; and it was not advisable to have him recalled or even permit him to resign at the moment. So we abducted him, intending to hold him until direct orders could reach him from Paris. Understand, please, that all these things were made possible by the aid and cooperation of dozens, scores, of agents who were under my orders; every person who appeared in that abduction was working at my direction. The ambassador’s unexpected escape disarranged our plans; but he was taken out of the embassy by force the second time under your very eyes. The darkness which made this possible was due to the fact that while you were looking for the switch, and I was apparently aiding, I was holding my hand over it all the time to keep you from turning on the light. You remember that?”

Mr. Grimm nodded.

“All the rest of it you know,” she concluded wearily. “You compelled me to leave the Venezuelan legation by your espionage, but in the crowded hotel to which I moved I had little difficulty avoiding your Mr. Hastings, your Mr. Blair and your Mr. Johnson, so I came and went freely without your knowledge. The escape of the prince from prison you arranged, so you understand all of that, as well as the meeting and attempted signing of the compact, and the rapid recovery of Senor Alvarez. And, after all, it was my fault that our plans failed, because if I had not been—been uneasy as to your condition and had not made the mistake of going to the deserted little house where you were a prisoner, the plans would have succeeded, the compact been signed.”

“I’m beginning to understand,” said Mr. Grimm gravely, and a wistful, tender look crept into his eyes. “If it had not been for that act of—consideration and kindness to me—”

“We would have succeeded in spite of you,” explained Isabel. “We were afraid of you, Mr. Grimm. It was a compliment to you that we considered it necessary to account for your whereabouts at the time of the signing of the compact.”

“And if you had succeeded,” remarked Mr. Grimm, “the whole civilized world would have come to war.”

“I never permitted myself to think of it that way,” she replied frankly. “There is something splendid to me in a battle of brains; there is exaltation, stimulation, excitement in it. It has always possessed the greatest fascination for me. I have always won, you know, until now. I failed! And my reward is ‘Traitor!’”

“Just a word of assurance now,” she went on after a moment. “The Latin compact has been definitely given up; the plan has been dismissed, thanks to you; the peace of the world is unbroken. And who am I? I know you have wondered; I know your agents have scoured the world to find out. I am the daughter of a former Italian ambassador to the Court of St. James. My mother was an English woman. I was born and received my early education in England, hence my perfect knowledge of that tongue. In Rome I am, or have been, alas, the Countess Rosa d’Orsetti; now I am an exile with a price on my head. That is all, except for several years I was a trusted agent of my government, and a friend of my queen.”