The Yellow Crayon
alternative.”
“Nevertheless,” he said, “I hope that you will change your mind.”
“Are you a detective?” she asked abruptly.
“Madam is correct!”
The flush of colour faded from her cheeks.
“I presume, then,” she said, “that I am under your surveillance?”
“In a sense,” he admitted, “it is true.”
“On the steamer,” she remarked, “you spoke as though your interest in me
was not inimical.”
“Nor is it,” he answered promptly. “You are in a difficult position, but
you may find things not so bad as you imagine. At present my advice to
you is this: Go upstairs to your room and stay there.”
The little man had a compelling manner. Lucille made her way towards the
elevator.
“As a matter of fact,” she murmured bitterly, “I am not, I suppose,
permitted to leave the hotel?”
“Madam puts the matter bluntly,” he answered; “but certainly if you
should insist upon leaving, it would be my duty to follow you.”
She turned away from him and entered the elevator. The door of her room
was slightly ajar, and she saw that a waiter was busy at a small round
table. She looked at him in surprise. He was arranging places for two.
“Who gave you your orders?” she asked.
“But it was monsieur,” the man answered, with a low bow. “Dinner for
two.”
“Monsieur?” she repeated. “What monsieur?”
“I am the culprit,” a familiar voice answered from the depths of an
easy-chair, whose back was to her. “I was very hungry, and it occurred
to me that under the circumstances you would probably not have dined
either. I hope that you will like what I have ordered. The plovers’ eggs
look delicious.”
She gave a little cry of joy. It was Mr. Sabin.
CHAPTER XLII
The Prince dined carefully, but with less than his usual appetite.
Afterwards he lit a cigarette and strolled for a moment into the lounge.
Celeste, who was waiting for him, glided at once to his side.
“Monsieur!” she whispered. “I have been here for one hour.”
He nodded.
“Well?”
“Monsieur le Duc has arrived.”
The Prince turned sharply round.
“Who?”
“Monsieur le Duc de Souspennier. He calls himself no longer Mr. Sabin.”
A dull flush of angry colour rose almost to his temples.
“Why did you not tell me before?” he exclaimed.
“Monsieur was in the restaurant,” she answered. “It was impossible for
me to do anything but wait.”
“Where is he?”
“Alas! he is with madam,” the girl answered.
The Prince was very profane. He started at once for the elevator. In a
moment or two he presented himself at Lucille’s sitting-room. They were
still lingering over their dinner. Mr. Sabin welcomed him with grave
courtesy.
“The Prince is in time to take his liqueur with us,” he remarked,
rising. “Will you take fin champagne, Prince, or Chartreuse? I recommend
the fin champagne.”
The Prince bowed his thanks. He was white to the lips with the effort
for self-mastery.
“I congratulate you, Mr. Sabin,” he said, “upon your opportune arrival.
You will be able to help Lucille through the annoyance to which I deeply
regret that she should be subjected.”
Mr. Sabin gently raised his eyebrows.
“Annoyance!” he repeated. “I fear that I do not quite understand.”
The Prince smiled.
“Surely Lucille has told you,” he said, “of the perilous position in
which she finds herself.”
“My wife,” Mr. Sabin said, “has told me nothing. You alarm me.”
The Prince shrugged his shoulders.
“I deeply regret to tell you,” he said, “that the law has proved too
powerful for me. I can no longer stand between her and what I fear may
prove a most unpleasant episode. Lucille will be arrested within the
hour.”
“Upon what charge?” Mr. Sabin asked.
“The murder of Duson.”
Mr. Sabin laughed very softly, very gently, but with obvious
genuineness.
“You are joking, Prince,” he exclaimed.
“I regret to say,” the Prince answered, “that you will find it very far
from a joking matter.”
Mr. Sabin was suddenly stern.
“Prince of Saxe Leinitzer,” he said, “you are a coward and a bully.”
The Prince started forward with clenched fist. Mr. Sabin had no weapon,
but he did not flinch.
“You can frighten women,” he said, “with a bogie such as this, but you
have no longer a woman to deal with. You and I know that such a charge
is absurd--but you little know the danger to which you expose yourself
by trifling with this subject. Duson left a letter addressed to me in
which he announced his reasons for committing suicide.”
“Suicide?”
“Yes. He preferred suicide to murder, even at the bidding of the Prince
of Saxe Leinitzer. He wrote and explained these things to me--and the
letter is in safe hands. The arrest of Lucille, my dear Prince, would
mean the ruin of your amiable society.”
“This letter,” the Prince said slowly, “why was it not produced at the
inquest? Where is it now?”
“It is deposited in a sealed packet with the Earl of Deringham,” Mr.
Sabin answered. “As to producing it at the inquest--I thought it more
discreet not to. I leave you to judge of my reasons. But I can assure
you that your fears for my wife’s safety have been wholly misplaced.
There is not the slightest reason for her to hurry off to America. We
may take a little trip there presently, but not just yet.”
The Prince made a mistake. He lost his temper.
“You!” he cried, “you can go to America when you like, and stay there.
Europe has had enough of you with your hare-brained schemes and foolish
failures. But Lucille does not leave this country. We have need of her.
I forbid her to leave. Do you hear? In the name of the Order I command
her to remain here.”
Mr. Sabin was quite calm, but his face was full of terrible things.
“Prince,” he said, “if I by any chance numbered myself amongst your
friends I would warn you that you yourself are a traitor to your Order.
You prostitute a great cause when you stoop to use its machinery to
assist your own private vengeance. I ask you for your own sake to
consider your words. Lucille is mine--mine she will remain, even though
you should descend to something more despicable, more cowardly than
ordinary treason, to wrest her from me. You reproach me with the
failures of my life. Great they may have been, but if you attempt this
you will find that I am not yet an impotent person.”
The Prince was white with rage. The sight of Lucille standing by Mr.
Sabin’s side, her hand lightly resting upon his, her dark eyes full of
inscrutable tenderness, maddened him. He was flouted and ignored. He was
carried away by a storm of passion. He tore a sheet of paper from his
pocket book, and unlocking a small gold case at the end of his watch
chain, shook from it a pencil with yellow crayon. Mr. Sabin leaned over
towards him.
“You sign it at your peril, Prince,” he said. “It will mean worse things
than that for you.”
For a second he hesitated. Lucille also leaned towards him.
“Prince,” she said, “have I not kept my vows faithfully? Think! I came
from America at a moment’s notice; I left my husband without even a word
of farewell; I entered upon a hateful task, and though to think of it
now makes me loathe myself--I succeeded. I have kept my vows, I have
done my duty. Be generous now, and let me go.”
The sound of her voice maddened him. A passionate, arbitrary man, to
whom nothing in life had been denied, to be baulked in this great desire
of his latter days was intolerable. He made no answer to either of them.
He wrote a few lines with the yellow crayon and passed them silently
across to Lucille.
Her face blanched. She stretched out an unwilling hand. But Mr. Sabin
intervened. He took the paper from the Prince’s hand, and calmly tore it
into fragments. There was a moment’s breathless silence.
“Victor!” Lucille cried. “Oh, what have you done!”
The Prince’s face lightened with an evil joy.
“We now, I think,” he said, “understand one another. You will permit me
to wish you a very pleasant evening, and a speedy leave-taking.”
Mr. Sabin smiled.
“Many thanks, my dear Prince,” he said lightly. “Make haste and complete
your charming little arrangements. Let me beg of you to avoid bungling
this time. Remember that there is not in the whole of Europe to-day a
man more dangerous to you than I.”
The Prince had departed. Mr. Sabin lit a cigarette and stood on the
hearthrug. His eyes were bright with the joy of fighting.
“Lucille,” he said, “I see that you have not touched your liqueur.
Oblige me by drinking it. You will find it excellent.”
She came over to him and hung upon his arm. He threw his cigarette away
and kissed her upon the lips.
“Victor,” she murmured, “I am afraid. You have been rash!”
“Dearest,” he answered, “it is better to die fighting than to stand
aside and watch evil things. But after all, there is no fear. Come! Your
cloak and dressing case!”
“You have plans?” she exclaimed, springing up.
“Plans?” He laughed at her a little reproachfully. “My dear Lucille! A
carriage awaits us outside, a special train with steam up at the Gard de
L’ouest. This is precisely the contingency for which I have planned.”
“Oh, you are wonderful, Victor,” she murmured as she drew on her coat.
“But what corner of the earth is there where we should be safe?”
“I am going,” Mr. Sabin said, “to try and make every corner of the earth
safe.”
She was bewildered, but he only laughed and held open the door for her.
Mr. Sabin made no secret of his departure. He lingered for a moment in
the doorway to light a cigarette, he even stopped to whisper a few
words to the little man in plain dinner clothes who was lounging in the
doorway. But when they had once left the hotel they drove fast.
In less than half an hour Paris was behind them. They were traveling in
a royal saloon and at a fabuulous cost, for in France they are not fond
of special trains. But Mr. Sabin was very happy. At least he had escaped
an ignominious defeat. It was left to him to play the great card.
“And now,” Lucille said, coming out from her little bed-chamber which
the femme de chambre was busy preparing, “suppose you tell me where we
are going.”
Mr. Sabin smiled.
“Do not be alarmed,” he said, “even though it will sound to you the
least likely place in the world. We are going to Berlin.”
CHAPTER XLIII
The great room was dimly enough lit, for the windows looking out upon
the street were high and heavily curtained, The man who sat at the desk
was almost in the shadow. Yet every now and then a shaft of sunlight
fell across his pale, worn face. A strange combination this of the
worker, the idealist, the man of affairs. From outside came the hum of
a great city. At times, too, there came to his ears as he sat here the
roar of nations at strife, the fierce underneath battle of the great
countries of the world struggling for supremacy. And here at this
cabinet this man sat often, and listened, strenuous, romantic, with
the heart of a lion and the lofty imagination of an eagle, he steered
unswervingly on to her destiny a great people. Others might rest, but
never he.
He looked up from the letter spread out before him. Lucille was seated
at his command, a few yards away. Mr. Sabin stood respectfully before
him.
“Monsieur le Duc,” he said, “this letter, penned by my illustrious
father to you, is sufficient to secure my good offices. In what manner
can I serve you?”
“Your Majesty,” Mr. Sabin answered, “in the first place by receiving me
here. In the second by allowing me to lay before you certain grave and
very serious charges against the Order of the Yellow Crayon, of which
your Majesty is the titular head.”
“The Order of the Yellow Crayon,” the Emperor said thoughtfully,
“is society composed of aristocrats pledged to resist the march of
socialism. It is true that I am the titular head of this organisation.
What have you to say about it?”