Whoso Findeth a Wife

“No, I leave you to discover the truth,” she answered, arching her dark brows, a shadow of annoyance crossing her refined features at that moment.

“You are apparently well acquainted with Miss Laing,” I said, after a long pause.

“I know her,” she admitted abruptly.

“Then, as I refuse to listen further to any charges against her of which you can give me no corroboration, it may be best for me to bring her here to hear your allegations, even at risk of creating a scene. You said you intended to render me a service, and by facing her you can.”

“No, no,” she cried, suddenly jumping from her chair and laying her hand upon my arm in earnestness. “She does not know I am in London; she must never know, otherwise our plans will be spoilt. Do not mention my name to her; now promise me,” she implored. “Promise me, and I will render you the assistance you will require ere long. The secret knowledge I possess enables me to give you warning. Remember that what I have said is between one friend and another.”

Through my perturbed mind there surged vivid recollections of recent events, of Ella’s beauty, and of the inscrutable mystery surrounding her. It was amazing, to say the least, that this handsome girl, whose life had been so romantic and full of tragedy, should thus make veiled allegations and denounce as vile and worthless the woman I so deeply loved. That she had some ulterior motive was, of course, apparent, but although I debated within myself its probable cause, I utterly failed to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. One fact was, however, impressed upon me during our subsequent conversation – namely, that Sonia was in possession of the secret that Ella withheld from me. That the pretty Russian had known Mrs Laing and Ella intimately I could not doubt from what she told me regarding them, yet I did not fail to detect in her voice a harshness whenever she spoke of them, the more so when she mentioned the name of my well-beloved. Once, in trying to determine the cause of this, I felt inclined to attribute it to jealousy, but when I reflected that I had seen Sonia only once before, and that I knew absolutely nothing of her except what she herself had told me, I scouted the idea.

It was plain, too, that she had been intimately acquainted with Dudley, for she spoke of him familiarly, smiled at his little eccentricities, and expressed the most heartfelt regret at his mysterious and tragic end. Times without number, when she had sunk back into her chair, I tried to induce her to impart to me something more regarding the woman I loved, but she declined. She warned me by constant utterances to be circumspect, but regarding the past preserved a silence rigid and severe.

Presently, as my eyes wandered around the well-furnished room, I noticed, standing upon the piano, a photograph frame of oxydised silver containing a portrait. I looked at it astounded, for it was the likeness of my dead friend. She noticed my attention attracted by it, and rising in silence, brought it across to me, and taking it from its frame, said, —

“This, perhaps, will convince you that Mr Ogle was my friend.”

I took the portrait from her hand, and read on the back in his well-known handwriting the words, – “From Dudley to dearest Sonia.”

No copy of this portrait had I before seen. From the suit of light tweed he wore I knew that he could not have been photographed longer than a month prior to his death, and it seemed likely that he had had this taken specially for her. Although fond of telling me of his flirtations, he had never spoken of his acquaintance with this pretty refugee, yet from her remarks I knew that they had been friends for several years.

Long and earnestly I looked at the picture, then handed it back to her without comment. Truth to tell, even this counterfeit presentment filled me with a fierce hatred against him, for had not Lord Maybury been absolutely correct in remarking that everything pointed to the conclusion that he was a spy? Indeed, his association with this pretty Russian, who had perhaps fascinated him, was another fact which seemed now to confirm my increasing suspicions. It was a romantic story that Sonia told me, but what evidence did I possess that she was actually a political refugee? The warrant issued from St Petersburg for the arrest of her father and herself was for the murder of a foreign woman who, according to the depositions that my friend at the Russian Embassy showed me, had been enticed to a house in a low quarter of the city and strangled with a silken cord. No hint had been given that the pair “wanted” were “apostles of dynamite,” and I now remembered that when I had suggested it to my friend he laughed, declaring that I was utterly mistaken. I recollected that the words he used were, —

“They are not revolutionists, but a precocious pair of criminals who, from time to time, have made enormous coups. No doubt the charming girl has told you some ingenious fiction or other about her father’s patriotism, but I should advise you to take it all with the proverbial grain of salt. They are the only two of an utterly unscrupulous gang now remaining at liberty, and if your Government will give them up, we will rid society of them by burying them deep in one of our Siberian mines. But as you have come with this offer to readjust the little diplomatic friction in return for their liberty, I will urge my chief to accept it; nevertheless, do not forget that this action of yours will set at liberty a pair of the most fearless and ingenious harpies in Europe.”

As I sat opposite her, watching her seductive smiles, these words recurred to me, and I wondered whether the allegations of the Secretary of the Embassy was true. I recollected also, when, with tears in those brilliant eyes, she had besought me to intercede on her father’s behalf, how she told me distinctly that Sekerzhinski, the Chief of Police, had made charges against them cruel and false. Certainly when she had come to me humbly imploring the protection of the British Government against the persecution of her accusers she had none of the swagger of the adventuress. Even now, dressed in plain mourning, with no jewellery except the single golden bangle which I remembered she had worn when we before met, I could not bring myself to think that she was actually the desperate criminal that my friend Paul Verblioudovitch would have me believe.

Knowing, as I did, how the Tzar’s emissaries followed and captured by all manner of subtle devices those suspected of revolutionary conspiracy, I was again convinced, as I had been two years ago, that Sonia was a conspirator against the life of his Majesty. She certainly was not a common criminal. As she chatted to me, young, refined, sad-eyed, there were in her face unmistakable traces of anxiety and suffering. Finding that she absolutely refused to say anything further regarding the woman I adored, I began to question her as to her own happiness and future.

“Ah,” she sighed, “I am lonely, dull, and unhappy now that my father is no longer alive. Together we shared months of terrible hardship, of semi-starvation, hiding in the frozen wilds of the North, and ever pushing forward through that great lonely land towards our goal of freedom. Often and often we were compelled to exist on roots and leaves, and more than once we were compelled to face death,” and she shuddered. “The recollection of that terrible journey is to me like some hideous nightmare, for to escape detection we often travelled by night, in terror of the wolves, and guided only by the brilliant stars high in the bright, frosty sky. The knowledge of our fate if caught – the mines in far Siberia – held us in dread and hastened our footsteps. Thus, clad only in tattered rags, we went forward shivering, knowing that to halt meant certain death. Not until after three long months of suffering did we reach Stockholm, where we once more awakened to the joys of life, but then, alas! they had in them the dregs of bitterness. Two days after regaining our liberty, the news reached us that my poor mother had died at the roadside while chained to a gang of desperate convicts on their long and weary journey to Lake Baikal, the most dreaded district in all Asiatic Russia. The Almighty spared her the horrors of the fever-infected étapes and the gloom and torture of the mines, but from that moment my poor father, heart-broken, grew careless of the future, and it was only for my sake that he endeavoured to elude the bloodhounds of the Tzar.”

“Do you live here, in this house, alone?” I asked.

“No,” she replied. “I have Pétrouchka and his wife Akoulina, who were our servants in St Petersburg for many years, in addition to the English maid who admitted you.”

“Then you are not quite alone,” I said. “Besides, you ought not to be unhappy, for you have enough money to live comfortably, and you should try and forget your sad bereavement.”

“Alas! I cannot forget,” she said, still speaking in French. “It is impossible. I am exiled here in your country, while all my relatives and friends are so far away. I cannot go into your society, for I have no chaperon; besides, English puzzles me so. I shall never learn it, never. Oh, it is so difficult.”

“Yes,” I admitted, laughing. “But not so puzzling as your own Russian, with all its bewildering letters.”

She smiled, but there was a touch of wistful sadness in her handsome face when, after a slight pause, she looked at me earnestly, saying, —

“It was because I am so lonely and unhappy that I asked you to come here to-night.”

“To be your companion – eh?” I observed, laughing. “Well, what you have told me regarding Ella Laing is scarcely calculated to set a man’s mind at rest.”

“Ah, no. I have only told you in order that you should be forewarned. Let that pass; yet remember the words I have uttered, proof of which you shall have some day. The fact is, I want you to do me a favour. I am tired of this exile from my friends; I have no one as companion except old Akoulina, and I want to return to Russia for a month or so to visit my relatives, and to transact some legal business connected with my poor father’s estate.”

“But is it safe for you to return?” I hazarded.

“Not unless you will procure me a passport. This you can do if you will,” she answered earnestly.

“You would be arrested on the frontier,” I said. “Is it wise to run such risk?”

“Of course the passport must not be in my own name,” she went on. “You alone can obtain one from your friend at the Embassy.”

I shook my head dubiously, feeling assured that I could never induce Verblioudovitch to issue a false passport to a woman he had denounced as a dangerous criminal.

“Ah, you will try, will you not?” she implored, rising and gripping my arm. “It is necessary that I should be in St Petersburg within fourteen days from now, in order to give instructions regarding my late father’s property. His brother, my uncle, is endeavouring to cheat me of it, and I must return, or I shall lose everything. I shall be ruined utterly.”

She spoke so rapidly, and upon her pale face was a look so wistful, that I felt assured she was in earnest. Hers was not the face of a malefactor, but rather that of a modest girl whose spirit had been broken by her bereavement.

“I obtained your immunity from arrest here in England, it is true,” I said. “But I fear that in my efforts to obtain for you a false passport I shall fail. If the police discover you within Russian territory, then nothing can save you from Siberia.”

“But they will not find me,” she cried hastily. “Obtain for me a passport that will carry me across the frontier, and within an hour I shall be as dead to the police as the stones in the wall.”

This expression she had involuntarily let drop struck me as distinctly curious. It certainly was not such a phrase as would be used by any but a constant fugitive from justice. Indeed, it was really the parlance of the habitual criminal. Again I remained silent in doubt.

“Will you try?” she asked, intensely in earnest.

“If it is your wish I will try,” I answered. “But only in return for one service.”

“Well?” she inquired sharply.

“That when I bring you the passport you will tell me truthfully and honestly the grounds whereon you allege that Ella Laing is my enemy.”

She knit her brows for a few brief seconds, as if the possibility of my demand had never occurred to her. Then, suddenly smiling, she answered, extending her hand, —

“It’s a bargain. But, remember, I must be in St Petersburg within fourteen days.”

“I shall not forget,” I answered, with a sudden resolve to do my utmost to obtain the permit allowing this strange but handsome girl to re-enter her native land, and thus learn the truth regarding my well-beloved. “I shall call on Verblioudovitch to-morrow.”

“You are good to me, m’sieur, very good,” she cried, joyfully. “In return, I will tell you one thing, even now. If you doubt what I say regarding the woman you love, look calmly into her face, pressing her hand affectionately the while, and ask her if she knows anyone with diamond eyes.”

“Is Diamond Eyes a pet name?” I inquired. I was puzzled, for I had a faint consciousness of having heard that designation before, but to whom applied I know not.

“Discover for yourself,” she answered, smiling. “I have given you the clue. Follow it, and seek the truth.”

Many times during our subsequent conversation I besought her to tell me something further, but she would not, and at last, after remaining with her over an hour, I left, promising I would at once set about obtaining the passport she desired. Hers was a strange personality, yet I, by some vague intuition, felt myself on the verge of a discovery. I was convinced that she knew of the theft of the secret convention, and could, if she wished, impart to me some startling truth.

Chapter Sixteen

Advice Gratis

Soon after noon next day I called at the Russian Embassy at Chesham House, and was ushered into the private room of my friend, Paul Verblioudovitch, the secretary to the urbane old gentleman who acted as the Tzar’s representative at the Court of St James. It was a large but rather gloomy room, well stocked with books, containing a writing-table and several easy-chairs, into one of which I sank after the hall-porter, a gigantic, liveried Russian, had conducted me thither, and announced the immediate arrival of my official friend.

While waiting, I reflected that my errand was scarcely one that would commend itself to the favour of Lord Warnham. Official relations between the Russian Embassy and the British Foreign Office, never very cordial, were, owing to our knowledge of the suppressed declaration of war, now seriously strained. Nevertheless, Paul and I were very intimate friends. I had first met him in St Petersburg, where for six months I had occupied an unimportant post in the British Embassy. Being compelled to pay frequent visits to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, I was always seen by Verblioudovitch, an official who spoke excellent English. Then I left and returned to London under Lord Warnham, and for nearly two years entirely lost sight of him, until I was one day delighted to find he had been promoted as Secretary of Embassy in London. Since that time our friendship had been renewed, and we had spent many a pleasant evening together.

“Ah, my dear fellow!” he cried, almost without any trace of accent, as he suddenly opened the door and interrupted my reflections. “You’re an early visitor,” he laughed, shaking hands cordially. “Well, what is it? A message from your indefatigable chief?”

“No, not exactly,” I smiled, sinking again into my comfortable chair as he walked to the opposite side of his writing-table, afterwards seating himself at it. He was a well-preserved man of about forty-five, tall, erect, of military bearing, with closely-cropped, dark hair, a well-trimmed moustache, and a face that was an index to his happy, contented disposition. The Tzar’s officials are supposed to be a set of the most stern, hard-hearted ruffians on earth, but there was certainly nothing of the heartless persecutor about him. Indeed, he was quite the reverse – a devil-may-care, easy-going fellow, who enjoyed a joke hugely, and when outside the sombre walls of the Embassy was full of genuine good humour and buoyant spirits. He may have been able to disguise his careless demeanour beneath the stern, strictly business-like manner of officialdom, but I, for one, had never seen him assume the loftiness of his position as secretary of the chief among the Embassies in London.

“Our people at home have recently been playing an amusing little game at your expense, haven’t they?” he laughed, passing over to me his silver cigarette case and selecting one himself when I gave it back to him.

“I believe they have,” I answered.

“I would have given anything to have seen the look on your old chief’s face when first he heard that we were going to declare war,” he laughed. “How did he take it? You had a rough half-hour, I expect.”

“Of course,” I smiled. “Things looked so serious.”

“Yes, so they did,” he admitted, his face growing grave. “I quite expected that we should have to pack up our baggage and go back to St Petersburg. The fact is it’s a puzzle to us why the Imperial declaration wasn’t actually published. A hitch somewhere, I suppose.”

“Fortunately for us – eh?” I observed, lighting up calmly. He imported his own cigarettes, and they were always excellent.

“Yes,” he answered, adding after a moment’s reflection, “but why have you come to me now that we are officially at daggers drawn?”

“Only officially are we bad friends,” I said. “Personally we shall be on good terms always, I hope, Paul. It was because I know I can count upon your assistance that I’ve come to ask you a favour.”

“Ask away, old chap,” he said, deftly twisting his cigarette in his fingers, afterwards placing it between his lips.

“I have a friend who wants to go to Russia, and desires a passport.”

“Well, he can get one at the Consul-General’s office,” my friend answered, without removing his cigarette. “I’ll give you a note, if you like.”

“No,” I said. “First, it is not a man who is going, but a woman; and, secondly, I want a passport viséd by the Embassy in a name other than the real name of its bearer.”

“Oh,” he exclaimed suspiciously, glancing straight at me. “Something shady, oh? Who’s the woman?”

“Well, she’s hardly a woman yet,” I answered. “A pretty girl who has lost her father and desires to return to her friends in St Petersburg.”

“What’s her name?”

“You know her,” I said slowly. “I came to you on her behalf some time ago when a warrant was out for the arrest of her and her father. I – ”

“Of course, I quite remember,” he answered quickly, interrupting me. “Anton Korolénko escaped with his daughter, that ingenious little nymph, Sonia, who came and pitched you a long, almost idyllic yarn, and you came here to intercede. I did as you requested and secured their freedom by endorsing the report of the agent of police told off to watch them by a statement that both father and daughter were dead. I then kept my promise by returning the warrant, but I tell you I narrowly escaped getting into a devil of a scrape about it.”

“But you can manage to give me a false passport for her, can’t you?” I urged.

“Where’s her father? If he goes back their whole game will be given away.”

“Her father is dead,” I answered.

“Dead! Well, the grave is, I think, about the best place for such an enterprising old scoundrel, and as for his daughter, hang it, old chap, ten years in Nerchinsk wouldn’t hurt her. What story has she been telling you this time, eh?” he asked.

“She is lonely without her father, and in order to secure her property, which is about to be seized by her uncle, she is bound to be in St Petersburg within fourteen days.”

“Fourteen days,” repeated my friend, reflectively. “Let’s see, to-day’s the twelfth,” and he made some rapid calculations upon his blotting-pad. “Well, what else?” he inquired, looking up at me keenly.

“Nothing, except that she dare not return under her own name.”

“I should scarcely think she’d better,” he laughed, “unless she wants to spend the remainder of her days in that rather uncomfortable hotel called Schlusselburg, where the beds are not aired, and there are no toilet-glasses. But, tell me,” he added gravely, a moment later, “why do you interest yourself in her welfare? She’s entertaining and rather pretty, I’ve been told, but surely you, who are engaged to that charming girl to whom you introduced me at the Gaiety one evening a few weeks ago, really ought not to associate yourself with Anton Korolénko’s daughter? She’s a criminal.”

“I have an object,” I said briefly.

“Every man says that when a girl has taken his fancy. I know the world, old fellow.”

“But it so happens that I’ve not been captivated by her charms,” I retorted.

“Well, my dear Geoffrey,” he said, in a tone of unusual gravity, “take my advice and keep away from her. Ever since you induced me to secure her her liberty, I have honestly regretted it, knowing as I do the terrible crimes alleged against the gang of which she and her villainous old father were prominent members.”

“What kind of crimes were they?”

“Everything, from picking pockets to murder,” he answered. “They stuck at nothing, so long as they secured the huge stakes for which they played. Has she been again weaving for your benefit any more of her tragic romances? She’d make a fortune as a novelist.”

I paused in deep thought.

“Truth to tell,” I said at last, “she has made an allegation against the woman I love.”

“Against Ella Laing?” he exclaimed, a faint shadow of anger crossing his brow. “What has she said? Tell me; perhaps I can suggest a way of dealing with her,” he added quickly. “She’s most unscrupulous; her tongue is tipped with venom.”

“She has given me to understand that Ella is an adventuress, and my most bitter enemy,” I blurted out suddenly.

He flung down his pen in anger, a fierce imprecation in Russian upon his lips. The reason of his sudden annoyance was a mystery, but his quick eyes noticed my amazement, and in on instant he assumed a calm demeanour, saying, in a voice of reproach, —

“So this woman, who has libelled Ella, you are striving to assist, eh? Well, what ground has she for her allegation?”

“She will tell me only on one condition.”

“And what is that?”

“If I induce you to give her a false passport, and promise not to inform the frontier police of her intended departure, she will relate to me the truth,” I said.

“And are you actually prepared to accept as truth the allegations which this woman uses as a lever to compel you to exercise your good offices on her behalf?” he observed, in a tone of reproach.

I was silent, for I now recognised for the first time the strength of his argument.

“You see her position is this,” he continued. “She has nothing to lose and everything to gain. You get her the permit she desires; and she, in return, will tell you some absurd romance or other, concocted, perhaps, because she has taken a fancy to you and is jealous of Ella. We are friends, Deedes, or I should not speak so plainly. But I tell you that if I were in your place I would refuse to hear any lies from this pretty, soft-spoken criminal.”

“I quite appreciate your argument,” I answered, reflectively, “and I thank you for your good advice.” Were the words she had uttered lies, I wondered? Assuredly, her allegation that Ella was my enemy was a foul falsehood; nevertheless that she was well aware of the tragic end of Dudley Ogle I could not doubt, and her assertion that it had been intended that I should be the victim had startled me and aroused my curiosity. I was determined, at all hazards, to ascertain the truth.

“Do not be entrapped by a pretty face or a fine pair of eyes, that’s my advice,” my companion said, slowly striking a match.

“I can assure you, old fellow, I shall not be misled by any pretty face, even if it has diamond eyes,” I said, quite unthinkingly, Sonia’s strange words recurring to me at that moment.

“Diamond eyes!” gasped Paul Verblioudovitch, starting visibly and holding the burning match still between his fingers without lighting his cigarette. He had in that instant grown paler, and I thought I detected that his hand trembled, almost imperceptibly be it said. “What do you mean?” he demanded, with a strange fierceness in his gaze. “What do you know of Diamond Eyes?”