Elusive Isabel, by Jacques Futrelle Read online

  She raised her eyebrows, but was silent.

  “Somehow,” he went on after a moment, “I could never associate a woman with destructiveness, with wars and with violence.”

  “That is an unjust way of saying it,” she interposed. And then, musingly: “Isn’t it odd that you and I—standing here by the rail—have, in a way, held the destinies of the whole great earth in our hands? And now your remark makes me feel that you alone have stood for peace and the general good, and I for destruction and evil.”

  “I didn’t mean that,” Mr. Grimm said quickly. “You have done your duty as you saw it, and—”

  “Failed!” she interrupted.

  “And I have done my duty as I saw it.”

  “And won!” she added. She smiled a little sadly. “I think, perhaps you and I might have been excellent friends if it had not been for all this.”

  “I know we should have,” said Mr. Grimm, almost eagerly. “I wonder if you will ever forgive me for—for—?”

  “Forgive you?” she repeated. “There is nothing to forgive. One must do one’s duty. But I wish it could have been otherwise.”

  The Statue of Liberty slid by, and Governor’s Island and Fort Hamilton; then, in the distance, Sandy Hook light came into view.

  “I’m going to leave you here,” said Mr. Grimm, and for the first time there was a tense, strained note in his voice.

  Miss Thorne’s blue-gray eyes had grown mistily thoughtful; the words startled her a little and she turned to face him.

  “It may be that you and I shall never meet again,” Mr. Grimm went on.

  “We will meet again,” she said gravely. “When and where I don’t know, but it will come.”

  “And perhaps then we may be friends?” He was pleading now.

  “Why, we are friends now, aren’t we?” she asked, and again the smile curled her scarlet lips. “Surely we are friends, aren’t we?”

  “We are,” he declared positively.

  As they started forward a revenue cutter which had been hovering about Sandy Hook put toward them, flying some signal at her masthead. Slowly the great boat on which they stood crept along, then the clang of a bell in the engine-room brought her to a standstill, and the revenue cutter came alongside.

  “I leave you here,” Mr. Grimm said again. “It’s good-by.”

  “Good-by,” she said softly. “Good-by, till we meet once more.”

  She extended both hands impulsively and he stood for an instant staring into the limpid gray eyes, then, turning, went below. From the revenue cutter he waved a hand at her as the great Lusitania, moving again, sped on her way. The prince joined Miss Thorne at the rail. The scowl was still on his face.

  “And now what?” he demanded abruptly. “This man has treated us as if we were a pair of children.”

  “He’s a wonderful man,” she replied.

  “That may be—but we have been fools to allow him to do all this.”

  Miss Thorne turned flatly and faced him.

  “We are not beaten yet,” she said slowly. “If all things go well we—we are not beaten yet.”

  The Lusitania was rounding Montauk Point when the wireless brought her to half-speed with a curt message:

  “Isabel Thorne and Pietro Petrozinni aboard Lusitania wanted on warrants charging conspiracy. Tug-boat will take them off, intercepting you beyond Montauk Point.

  “CAMPBELL, Secret Service.”

  “What does that mean?” asked the prince, bewildered.

  “It means that the compact will be signed in Washington in spite of Mr. Grimm,” and there was the glitter of triumph in her eyes. “With the aid of one of the maids in the depot at Jersey City I managed to get a telegram of explanation and instruction to De Foe in New York, and this is the result. He signed Mr. Campbell’s name, I suppose, to give weight to the message.”

  An hour later a tug-boat came alongside, and they went aboard.

  XX

  THE LIGHT IN THE DOME

  From where he sat, in a tiny alcove which jutted out and encroached upon the line of the sidewalk, Mr. Grimm looked down on Pennsylvania Avenue, the central thread of Washington, ever changing, always brilliant, splashed at regular intervals with light from high-flung electric arcs. The early theater crowd was in the street, well dressed, well fed, careless for the moment of all things save physical comfort and amusement; automobiles, carriages, cabs, cars flowed past endlessly; and yet Mr. Grimm saw naught of it. In the distance, at one end of the avenue the dome of the capitol cleft the shadows of night, and a single light sparkled at its apex; in the other direction, at the left of the treasury building which abruptly blocks the wide thoroughfare, were the shimmering windows of the White House.

  Motionless, moody, thoughtful, Mr. Grimm sat staring, staring straight ahead, comprehending none of these things which lay before him as in a panorama. Instead, his memory was conjuring up a pair of subtle, blue-gray eyes, now pleading, now coquettish, now frankly defiant; two slim, white, wonderful hands; the echo of a pleasant, throaty laugh; a splendid, elusive, radiant-haired phantom. Truly, a woman of mystery! Who was this Isabel Thorne who, for months past, had been the storm-center and directing mind of a vast international intrigue which threatened the world with war? Who, this remarkable young woman who with ease and assurance commanded ambassadors and played nations as pawns?

  Now that she was safely out of the country Mr. Grimm had leisure to speculate. Upon him had devolved the duty of blocking her plans, and he had done so—merciless alike of his own feeling and of hers. Hesitation or evasion had never occurred to him. It was a thing to be done, and he did it. He wondered if she had understood, there at the last beside the rail? He wondered if she knew the struggle it had cost him deliberately to send her out of his life? Or had even surmised that her expulsion from the country, by his direct act, was wholly lacking in the exaltation of triumph to him; that it struck deeper than that, below the listless, official exterior, into his personal happiness? And wondering, he knew that she did understand.

  A silent shod waiter came and placed the coffee things at his elbow. He didn’t heed. The waiter poured a demi-tasse, and inquiringly lifted a lump of sugar in the silver tongs. Still Mr. Grimm didn’t heed. At last the waiter deposited the sugar on the edge of the fragile saucer, and moved away as silently as he had come. A newspaper which Mr. Grimm had placed on the end of the table when he sat down, rattled a little as a breeze from the open window caught it, then the top sheet slid off and fell to the floor. Mr. Grimm was still staring out the window.

  Slowly the room behind him was thinning of its crowd as the theater-bound diners went out in twos and threes. The last of these disappeared finally, and save for Mr. Grimm there were not more than a dozen persons left in the place. Thus for a few minutes, and then the swinging doors leading from the street clicked, and a gentleman entered. He glanced around, as if seeking a seat near a window, then moved along in Mr. Grimm’s direction, between the rows of tables. His gaze lingered on Mr. Grimm for an instant, and when he came opposite he stooped and picked up the fallen newspaper sheet.

  “Your paper?” he inquired courteously.

  Mr. Grimm was still gazing dreamily out of the window.

  “I beg pardon,” insisted the new-comer pleasantly. He folded the paper once and replaced it on the table. One hand lingered for just the fraction of a moment above Mr. Grimm’s coffee-cup.

  Aroused by the remark, Mr. Grimm glanced around.

  “Oh, thank you,” he apologized hastily. “I didn’t hear you at first. Thank you.”

  The new-comer nodded, smiled and passed on, taking a seat two or three tables down.

  Apparently this trifling courtesy had broken the spell of reverie, for Mr. Grimm squared around to the table again, drew his coffee-cup toward him, and dropped in the single lump of sugar. He idly stirred it for a moment, as his eyes turned again toward the open window, then he lifted the tiny cup and emptied it.

  Again he sat motionless for a long time, and
thrice the new-comer, only a few feet away, glanced at him narrowly. And now, it seemed, a peculiar drowsiness was overtaking Mr. Grimm. Once he caught himself nodding and raised his head with a jerk. Then he noticed that the arc lights in the street were wobbling curiously, and he fell to wondering why that single flame sparkled at the apex of the capitol dome. Things around him grew hazy, vague, unreal, and then, as if realizing that something was the matter with him, he came to his feet.

  He took one step forward into the space between the tables, reeled, attempted to steady himself by holding on to a chair, then everything grew black about him, and he pitched forward on the floor. His face was dead white; his fingers moved a little, nervously, weakly, then they were still.

  Several people rose at the sound of the falling body, and the new-comer hurried forward. His coat sleeve caught the empty demi-tasse, as he stooped, and swept it to the floor, where it was shattered. The head waiter and another came, pell-mell, and those diners who had risen came more slowly.

  “What’s the matter?” asked the head waiter anxiously.

  Already the new-comer was supporting Mr. Grimm on his knee, and flicking water in his face.

  “Nothing serious, I fancy,” he answered shortly. “He’s subject to these little attacks.”

  “What are they? Who is he?”

  The stranger tore at Mr. Grimm’s collar until it came loose, then he fell to chafing the still hands.

  “He is a Mr. Grimm, a government employee—I know him,” he answered again. “I imagine it’s nothing more serious than indigestion.”

  A little knot had gathered about them, with offers of assistance.

  “Waiter, hadn’t you better send for a physician?” some one suggested.

  “I’m a physician,” the stranger put in impatiently. “Have some one call a cab, and I’ll see that he’s taken home. It happens that we live in the same apartment house, just a few blocks from here.”

  Obedient to the crisply-spoken directions, a cab was called, and five minutes later Mr. Grimm, still insensible, was lifted into it. The stranger took a seat beside him, the cabby touched his horse with a whip, and the vehicle fell into the endless, moving line.

  XXI

  A SLIP OF PAPER

  When the light of returning consciousness finally pierced the black lethargy that enshrouded him, Mr. Grimm’s mind was a chaos of vagrant, absurd fantasies; then slowly, slowly, realization struggled back to its own, and he came to know things. First was the knowledge that he was lying flat on his back, on a couch, it seemed; then, that he was in the dark—an utter, abject darkness. And finally came an overwhelming sense of silence.

  For a while he lay motionless, with not even the movement of an eye-lash to indicate consciousness, wrapped in a delicious languor. Gradually this passed and the feeble flutter of his heart grew into a steady, rhythmic beat. The keen brain was awakening; he was beginning to remember. What had happened? He knew only that in some manner a drug had been administered to him, a bitter dose tasting of opium; that speechlessly, he had fought against it, that he had risen from the table in the restaurant, and that he had fallen. All the rest was blank.

  With eyes still closed, and nerveless hands inert at his sides he listened, the while he turned the situation over in speculative mood. The waiter had administered the drug, of course, unless—unless it had been the courteous stranger who had replaced the newspaper on the table! That thought opened new fields of conjecture. Mr. Grimm had no recollection of ever having seen him before; and he had paid only the enforced attention of politeness to him. And why had the drug been administered? Vaguely, incoherently, Mr. Grimm imagined that in some way it had to do with the great international plot of war in which Miss Thorne was so delicate and vital an instrument.

  Where was he? Conjecture stopped there. Evidently he was where the courteous gentleman in the restaurant wanted him to be. A prisoner? Probably. In danger? Long, careful attention to detail work in the Secret Service had convinced Mr. Grimm that he was always in danger. That was one reason—and the best—why he had lain motionless, without so much as lifting a finger, since that first glimmer of consciousness had entered his brain. He was probably under scrutiny, even in the darkness, and for the present it was desirable to accommodate any chance watcher by remaining apparently unconscious.

  And so for a long time he lay, listening. Was there another person in the room? Mr. Grimm’s ears were keenly alive for the inadvertent shuffling of a foot; or the sound of breathing. Nothing. Even the night roar of the city was missing; the silence was oppressive. At last he opened his eyes. A pall of gloom encompassed him—a pall without one rift of light. His fingers, moving slowly, explored the limits of the couch whereon he lay.

  Confident, at last, that wherever he was, he was unwatched, Mr. Grimm was on the point of concluding that further inaction was useless, when his straining ears caught the faint grating of metal against metal—perhaps the insertion of a key in the lock. His hands grew still; his eyes closed. And after a moment a door creaked slightly on its hinges, and a breath of cool air informed Mr. Grimm that that open door, wherever it was, led to the outside, and freedom.

  There was another faint creaking as the door was shut. Mr. Grimm’s nerveless hands closed involuntarily, and his lips were set together tightly. Was it to be a knife thrust in the dark? If not—then what? He expected the flare of a match; instead there was a soft tread, and the rustle of skirts. A woman! Mr. Grimm’s caution was all but forgotten in his surprise. As the steps drew nearer his clenched fingers loosened; he waited.

  Two hands stretched forward in the dark, touched him simultaneously—one on the face, one on the breast. A singular thrill shot through him, but there was not the flicker of an eye or the twitching of a finger. The woman—it was a woman—seemed now to be bending over him, then he heard her drop on her knees beside him, and she pressed an inquiring ear to his left side. It was the heart test.

  “Thank God!” she breathed softly.

  It was only by a masterful effort that Mr. Grimm held himself limp and inert, for a strange fragrance was enveloping him—a fragrance he well knew.

  The hands were fumbling at his breast again, and there was the sharp crackle of paper. At first he didn’t understand, then he knew that the woman had pinned a paper to the lapel of his coat. Finally she straightened up, and took two steps away from him, after which came a pause. His keenly attuned ears caught her faint breathing, then the rustle of her skirts as she turned back. She was leaning over him again—her lips touched his forehead, barely; again there was a quick rustling of skirts, the door creaked, and—silence, deep, oppressive, overwhelming silence.

  Isabel! Was he dreaming? And then he ceased wondering and fell to remembering her kiss—light as air—and the softly spoken “Thank God!” She did care, then! She had understood, that day!

  The kiss of a woman beloved is a splendid heart tonic. Mr. Grimm straightened up suddenly on the couch, himself again. He touched the slip of paper which she had pinned to his coat to make sure it was not all a dream, after which he recalled the fact that while he had heard the door creak before she went out he had not heard it creak afterward. Therefore, the door was open. She had left it open. Purposely? That was beside the question at the moment.

  And why—how—was she in Washington? Pondering that question, Mr. Grimm’s excellent teeth clicked sharply together and he rose. He knew the answer. The compact was to be signed—the alliance which would array the civilized world in arms. He had failed to block that, as he thought. If Miss Thorne had returned, then Prince Benedetto d’Abruzzi, who held absolute power to sign the compact for Italy, France and Spain, had also returned.

  Stealthily, feeling his way as he went, Mr. Grimm moved toward the door leading to freedom, guided by the fresh draft of air. He reached the door—it was standing open—and a moment later stepped out into the star-lit night. It was open country here, with a thread of white road just ahead, and farther along a fringe of shrubbery. Mr. Grimm reached
the road. Far down it, a pin point in the night, a light flickered through interlacing branches. The tail lamp of an automobile, of course!

  Mr. Grimm left the road and skirted a sparse hedge in the direction of the light. After a moment he heard the engine of an automobile, and saw a woman—barely discernible—step into the car. As it started forward he staked everything on one bold move, and won, his reward being a narrow sitting space in the rear of the car, hidden from its occupants by the tonneau. One mile, two miles, three miles they charged through the night, and still he clung on. At last there came relief.

  “That’s the place, where the lights are—just ahead.”

  There was no mistaking that voice raised above the clamor of the engine. The car slackened speed, and Mr. Grimm dropped off and darted behind some convenient bushes. And the first thing he did there was to light a match, and read what was written on the slip of paper pinned to his coat. It was, simply:

  “My Dear Mr. Grimm:

  “By the time you read this the compact will have been signed, and your efforts to prevent it, splendid as they were, futile. It is a tribute to you that it was unanimously agreed that you must be accounted for at the time of the signing, hence the drugging in the restaurant; it was only an act of kindness that I should come here to see that all was well with you, and leave the door open behind me.

  “Believe me when I say that you are one man in whom I have never been disappointed. Accept this as my farewell, for now I assume again the name and position rightfully mine. And know, too, that I shall always cherish the belief that you will remember me as

  “Your friend,

  “ISABEL THORNE.

  “P. S. The prince and I left the steamer at Montauk Point, on a tug-boat.”

  Mr. Grimm kissed the note twice, then burned it.

  XXII

  THE COMPACT

  A room, low-ceilinged, dim, gloomy, sinister as an inquisition chamber; a single large table in the center, holding a kerosene lamp, writing materials and a metal spheroid a shade larger than a one-pound shell; and around it a semicircle of silent, masked and cowled figures. There were twelve of them, eleven men and a woman. In the shadows, which grew denser at the far end of the room, was a squat, globular object, a massive, smooth-sided, black, threatening thing of iron.