The dangerous game
Again he was seized by a paroxysm of grief, and tears stood in his
dark eyes as, standing before the window, he gazed blankly out upon
the falling snow.
“I will return to London,” he said aloud at last. “I can’t remain here
to suffer any longer. Now I know the bitter truth that she loves that
fellow I will go out of her life in silence”; and he gazed about the
room, stupefied at the blow he had received.
Then slowly he started packing his papers into his leather
dispatch-case, his high, open brow clouded by pain and anguish, and
tears still standing in his eyes.
“I’ll go to-night,” he murmured to himself. “It is better so.”
Then, having cleared his writing-table, he opened one of his battered,
much be-labeled leather trunks, and began to arrange his reference
books inside. He was kneeling on the floor, packing away his books,
when the door opened, and Edris entered.
She saw the cleared writing-table, and exclaimed in surprise.
“What on earth are you doing, Seti?”
“I’m leaving for London to-night,” was his reply, as he rose to his
feet.
“Leaving! Why? What’s happened?”
“I’m leaving because I cannot remain here any longer. You know the
reason, Edris,” he said very seriously.
“You are leaving me here alone--abroad? Surely not!” said the girl, in
a voice of reproach.
“No. You will come with me, Edris, back to England,” he said firmly,
placing his hand upon her shoulder.
“I shall certainly do no such thing!” she replied indignantly. “You
brought me out here, and you cannot leave me here among strangers!”
“You will be among friends--Karl, and his mother, who is so anxious to
meet you,” he said bitterly.
She saw the change in him, and feared how much of her deceit he knew.
Her lover’s words recurred to her--the instructions he had given to
her as to how to further mislead him.
“Oh, it’s always Karl--Karl! I’m utterly sick of it!” she cried, in
pretense of protest. “Have I not told you, darling, that I love
you--and only you? Can’t you believe me?”
The sad-faced man looked straight into her eyes--a long, serious,
intense look--and then said slowly:
“No, Edris, I can’t!”
“Seti!” she cried, tearing off her ski-cap and tossing it upon a chair
as she gripped his hand and turned her face upwards to his. “What is
the matter with you? You can’t leave me here. If you love me, you will
remain. I am yours. You can’t desert me.”
“But I can’t remain here longer, in any case.”
“You are jealous of Karl. He is going at four o’clock. Let him go, and
we will discuss it afterwards,” she suggested. “Let’s go down to
luncheon. But don’t make a scene at table, I beg of you.”
“I shall make no scene,” he said in a hard voice, which betrayed
hatred of the man whom he suspected, and who was, moreover, his guest.
“Well, I must go to my room for a moment. I’ll meet you at the table,”
she said merrily, and kissing him as though nothing had occurred, she
went out.
Instead of going to her room she flew downstairs, and, finding Karl,
said:
“He’s furious. He’s packing up to go to England!”
“Let him go,” was the man’s whispered reply. “We shall be alone then,
my darling.”
Ten minutes later all three met at the table set in the window
commanding a gorgeous view of the Bernese Alps, half-hidden, however,
by the snow-blizzard which had suddenly sprung up.
Darville, though almost beside himself with rage, yet, by sheer
strength of will, preserved a calm, even cordial exterior towards his
guest. In those minutes since she had left him a sudden thought had
crossed his ever-active brain--the brain of the super-man. Edris had
begged him to obtain employment for Karl. That would not be at all
difficult. By reason of his position he was enabled to pull many
unsuspected strings, and, indeed, to make or mar the careers of many
men, and women also.
As they sat gossiping--Edris, with lies upon her pretty lips, relating
what a delightful ski-run they had had together, though, as a matter
of fact, they had been in that clump of firs all the morning--it
occurred to him how, by the use of those all-powerful hidden hands
which he controlled, he might so easily rid himself of his rival, and
wreak fearful and terrible revenge.
Karl Weiss had come between the girl he held dearer than life and
himself. The tall Swiss had arisen as a barrier between them--a
barrier that he intended to break down. He set his teeth and clenched
his hands. Seton Darville was fearless and bold, not a man to be
trifled with.
At four o’clock Edris contrived to see her Swiss lover off at the
station. Not without some sense of amusement Darville watched the
eagerness which she displayed to be allowed to go to the train alone
with him. His mind being made up, he raised no objection, for he
himself pleaded being too busy to go.
The couple were, of course, delighted, and on their way planned
further secret meetings in Interlaken in the days following. The snow
had now ceased, and, as they plodded through the main streets of
Wengen, Karl was buoyant and boastful, as he always was. In his own
estimation no man could do such deeds of bravery--which, by the way,
was a pose of his always in order to attract women, a pose that was,
in itself, full proof of his base origin and his unscrupulous deceit.
Then, when the electric train came down from the high-up Schiedegg,
the junction for the Jungfrau railway, he kissed her a fond farewell,
and the train moved down into the deep valley to Lauterbrunnen, where
he would take train for Interlaken.
Meanwhile Seton Darville, whose hatred when once aroused was dangerous
and deadly, was walking alone along the terrace of the hotel, smoking
a cigarette and thinking out the most terrible revenge that any human
mind had perhaps ever conceived.
By means so subtle that nobody would dream of them he could rid
himself of his rival, and nobody would ever be the wiser--not even
Edris!
CHAPTER XXII.
THE VALLEY OF LIES
That night Darville found Edris most charming. He almost thought
that he had been mistaken in his suspicions, and was on the point of
being annoyed with himself for having been so foolish as to doubt her.
At the dance she smiled at him each time she passed with her partner
and, later, they sat in a cozy corner together drinking orangeade and
eating sandwiches. Curiously enough, she seemed pleased that Karl had
gone. Her sudden attitude puzzled him, so amazingly clever was she.
But that love-look--that one expression in a woman’s eyes that can
never be feigned--was, alas! absent.
On the following Tuesday at half-past six in the evening Edris had
left him to go and dress, when the page knocked at his door and
announced that a gentleman had called to see him.
A few moments later his secretary, Bennett, stood upon the threshold.
He had come from London with a dispatch-case, the replica of
Darville’s, full of papers requiring his signature.
Seton greeted him warmly, closed the door, and locked it. Without any
preliminary, and without removing his overcoat, the ex-naval officer
unlocked the case, and drew out a pile of documents.
From them he selected three, one of them being upon pale green paper.
“These require reading,” he said abruptly. “The others only want your
signature.”
“Had a good journey?” asked Darville, taking one of the reports which
his secretary handed him.
“Excellent; I came through in the sleeper from Calais to Interlaken.
I’ve been waiting there at the Hotel du Lac for two days until you
telephoned to me to come up.”
“I couldn’t ’phone before. I’ve--I’ve been busy,” Darville said, and,
seating himself again at his table, he digested the three documents
which required his decision.
“H’m! Pretty serious,” he remarked. “Send Maynard to Madrid, and Boyd
had better go to Warsaw. But the Moscow problem is a facer. Whom shall
we send?”
“I can’t suggest anybody. The mission is most dangerous,” Bennett
replied. “It would mean torture and death to anyone we sent there at
the present time. We can’t forget poor Harding’s fate.”
“That’s true. I’ll think it over, and let you know, Bennett.”
When dealing with Secret Service problems Seton Darville was always a
different man. The duality of his strong character was now shown, for
the grief and despair into which he had been plunged of late had, in a
moment, been succeeded by a hard-headed alertness, tact, and foresight
that were amazing.
“By the way,” Darville said, when they had been chatting for nearly a
quarter of an hour. “Karl Weiss is staying in Interlaken, and I have
an interest in him. To-morrow morning he will meet a young English
lady at the East Station at 10.23. The lady will wear a dark blue
ski-ing costume with a scarlet tam-o’-shanter. I want you to report to
me their movements and their attitude towards each other. I shall be
at the Hotel du Lac at four o’clock. Meet me in the café there and
report to me. But doesn’t Eicher--the man we employed in the Marbach
affair--live somewhere in this neighborhood?”
“He lives in Thun.”
“Then find him at once, and get him to help you. Being Swiss, he can
keep observation better.”
And he gave Bennett Karl’s address, after which the Secret Service
official took up his dispatch-case, and left without Edris being aware
of his visit. Wherever Darville traveled Bennett usually came to him
each fortnight or three weeks with papers that could not be intrusted
to the post.
As soon as he had gone a dark look settled again upon Darville’s
features, as he passed into his bedroom and hurriedly dressed for
dinner, and when he came forth again he found Edris, in a beautiful
dance-frock of silver tissue and geranium, seated in his arm-chair
awaiting him.
Next morning they took breakfast together at eight, and, after he had
kissed her, he walked to the station with her.
“I don’t like you going, darling. I shall be so lonely here without
you,” he declared. “You will not forget that you belong to me--will
you, dearest?”
“Of course not, Seti,” she answered seriously. “I belong to no other
man than you, therefore you can trust me implicitly. I am only going
to spend the day at Karl’s house and be introduced to his mother. Why
don’t you come, too?”
“I’m awfully busy,” he said. “I’ll come down to Interlaken and fetch
you. Meet me at the Hotel du Lac at five.”
The electric train moved away down the snowy side of the Wengernalp to
Lauterbrunnen in the deep valley below.
Seton Darville took a long walk, impatient for the hours to pass, and,
after lunch, left Wengen full of anxiety to know what Edris had been
doing.
At four o’clock he entered the café of the Hotel du Lac, one of the
most popular hotels in Switzerland, where he found Bennett seated
alone drinking his café-Kirsch. He took a seat at the same table,
when, in a low voice, so that other men in the café should not
overhear, he said:
“Eicher and I have kept the lovers in sight all day.”
“Lovers!” gasped the other. “Are they lovers?”
“Not the slightest doubt of that. They have been up on the Heimwehfluh
all day; she in his arms, and he has been kissing her many times.
Eicher was up there all the time, and watched.”
“Then they have not been to Weiss’s home?”
“No. When they came down just now they went to tea at a place
somewhere along the Höheweg, and are there now.”
“Then they are lovers, eh?”
“Most certainly. She seems desperately fond of him.”
“Thanks, Bennett,” he managed to exclaim. “You’ll return by the
Boulogne express to-night. I shall be home next week.”
He left his secretary and passed across the café into the hotel,
where he sat to chat with Mr. Haller, the courteous proprietor, who
was his personal friend. Edris and Karl entered the lounge with only
five minutes to spare to catch the train. Therefore they lost no time