The House of Whispers

The Frenchman sighed. He saw he was in for a long dissertation; and, moving uneasily towards the window, changed the topic of conversation by saying, "I had a long letter from Paris this morning. Krail is back again, it appears."

"Ah, that man!" cried the other impatiently. "When will his extraordinary energies be suppressed? They are watching him carefully, I suppose."

"Of course," replied the Frenchman. "He left Paris about a month ago, but unfortunately the men watching him did not follow. He took train for Berlin, and has been absent until now."

"We ought to know where he's been, Goslin," declared the elder man. "What fool was it who, keeping him under surveillance, allowed him to slip from Paris?"

"The Russian Tchernine."

"I thought him a clever fellow, but it seems that he's a bungler after all."

"But while we keep Krail at arm's length, as we are doing, what have we to fear?" asked Goslin.

"Yes, but how long can we keep him at arm's length?" queried Sir Henry. "You know the kind of man—one of the most extraordinarily inventive in Europe. No secret is safe from him. Do you know, Goslin," he added, in a changed voice, "I live nowadays somehow in constant apprehension."

"You've never possessed the same self-confidence since you found Mademoiselle Gabrielle with the safe open," he remarked.

"No. Murie, or some other man she knows, must have induced her to do that, and take copies of those documents. Fortunately, I suspected an attempt, and baited the trap accordingly."

"What caused you to suspect?"

"Because more than once both Murie and the girl seemed to be seized by an unusual desire to pry into my business."

"You don't think that our friend Flockart had anything to do with the affair?" the Frenchman suggested.

"No, no. Not in the least. I know Flockart too well," declared the old man. "Once I looked upon him as my enemy, but I have now come to the conclusion that he is a friend—a very good friend."

The Frenchman pulled a rather wry face, and remained silent.

"I know," Sir Henry went on, "I know quite well that his constant association with my wife has caused a good deal of gossip; but I have dismissed it all with the contempt that such attempted scandal deserves. It has been put about by a pack of women who are jealous of my wife's good looks and her chic in dress."

"Are not Flockart and mademoiselle also good friends?" inquired Goslin.

"No. I happen to know that they are not, and that very fact in itself shows me that Gabrielle, in trying to get at the secret of my business, was not aided by Flockart, for it was he who exposed her."

"Yes," remarked the Frenchman, "so you've told me before. Have you heard from mademoiselle lately?"

"Only twice since she has left here," was the old man's bitter reply, "and that was twice too frequently. I've done with her, Goslin—done with her entirely. Never in all my life did I receive such a crushing blow as when I found that she, in whom I reposed the utmost confidence, had played her own father false, and might have ruined him!"

"Yes," remarked the other sympathetically, "it was a great blow to you, I know. But will you not forgive mademoiselle?"

"Forgive her!" he cried fiercely, "forgive her! Never!"

The grey-bearded Frenchman, who had always been a great favourite with Gabrielle, sighed slightly, and gave his shoulders a shrug of regret.

"Why do you ask that?" inquired Sir Henry, "when she herself admitted that she had been at the safe?"

"Because–" and the other hesitated. "Well, for several reasons. The story of your quarrel with mademoiselle has leaked out."

"The Whispers—eh, Goslin?" laughed the old man in defiance. "Let the people believe what they will. My daughter shall never return to Glencardine—never!"

As he had been speaking the door had opened, and James Flockart stood upon the threshold. He had overheard the blind man's words, and as he came forward he smiled, more in satisfaction than in greeting.

CHAPTER XXIX

CONTAINS A FURTHER MYSTERY

"My dear Edgar, when I met you in the Devonshire Club last night I could scarcely believe my own eyes. Fancy you turning up again!"

"Yes, strange, isn't it, how two men may drift apart for years, and then suddenly meet in a club, as we have done, Murie?"

"Being with those fellows who were anxious to go along and see the show at the Empire last night, I had no opportunity of having a chat with you, my dear old chap. That's why I asked you to look in."

The two men were seated in Walter's dingy chambers on the second floor in Fig-Tree Court, Temple. The room was an old and rather frowsy one, with shabby leather furniture from which the stuffing protruded, panelled walls, a carpet almost threadbare, and a formidable array of calf-bound volumes in the cases lining one wall. The place was heavy with tobacco-smoke as the pair, reclining in easy-chairs, were in the full enjoyment of very excellent cigars.

Walter's visitor was a tall, dark man, some six or seven years his senior, a rather spare, lantern-jawed young fellow, whose dark-grey clothes were of unmistakable foreign cut; and whose moustache was carefully trained to an upward trend. No second glance was required to decide that Edgar Hamilton was a person who, having lived a long time on the Continent, had acquired the cosmopolitan manner both in gesture and in dress.

"Well," exclaimed Murie at last, blowing a cloud of smoke from his lips, "since we parted at Oxford I've been called to the Bar, as you see. As for practice—well, I haven't any. The gov'nor wants me to go in for politics, so I'm trying to please him by getting my hand in. I make an odd speech or two sometimes in out-of-the-world villages, and I hope, one day, to find myself the adopted candidate for some borough or other. Last year I was sent round the world by my fond parents in order to obtain a broader view of life. Is it not Tacitus who says, 'Sua cuique vita obscura est'?"

"Yes, my dear fellow," replied Hamilton, stretching himself lazily in his chair. "And surely we can say with Martial, 'Non est vivere, sed valere vita'—I am well, therefore I am alive! Mine has been a rather curious career up to the present. I only once heard of you after Oxford—through Arthur Price, who was, you'll remember, at Balliol. He wrote that he'd spoken one night to you when at supper at the Savoy. You had a bevy of beauties with you, he said."

Both men laughed. In the old days, Edgar Hamilton had been essentially a ladies' man; but, since they had parted one evening on the station-platform at Oxford, Hamilton had gone up to town and completely out of the life of Walter Murie. They had not met until the previous evening, when Walter, having dined at the Devonshire—that comfortable old-world club in St. James's Street which was the famous Crockford's gaming-house in the days of the dandies—he had met his old friend in the strangers' smoking-room, the guest of a City stockbroker who was entertaining a party. A hurried greeting of surprise, and an invitation to call in at the Temple resulted in that meeting on that grey afternoon.

Six years had gone since they had parted; and, judging from Edgar's exterior, he had been pretty prosperous.

Walter was laughing and commenting upon it when his friend, removing his cigar from his lips, said, "My dear fellow, my success has been entirely due to one incident which is quite romantic. In fact, if anybody wrote it in a book people would declare it to be fiction."

"That's interesting! Tell me all about it. My own life has been humdrum enough in all conscience. As a budding politician, I have to browse upon blue-books and chew statistics."

"And mine has been one of travel, adventure, and considerable excitement," declared Hamilton. "Six months after I left Oxford I found myself out in Transcaucasia as a newspaper correspondent. As you know, I often wrote articles for some of the more precious papers when at college. Well, one of them sent me out to travel through the disturbed Kurdish districts. I had a tough time from the start. I was out with a Cossack party in Thai Aras valley, east of Erivan, for six months, and wrote lots of articles which created a good deal of sensation here in England. You may have seen them, but they were anonymous. The life of excitement, sometimes fighting and at others in ambush in the mountains, suited me admirably, for I'm a born adventurer, I believe. One day, however, a strange thing happened. I was riding along alone through one of the mountain passes towards the Caspian when I discovered three wild, fierce-looking Kurds maltreating a girl, believing her to be a Russian. I called upon them to release her, for she was little more than a child; and, as they did not, I shot two of the men. The third shot and plugged me rather badly in the leg; but I had the satisfaction that my shots attracted my Cossack companions, who, coming quickly on the spot, killed all three of the girl's assailants, and released her."

"By Jove!" laughed Murie. "Was she pretty?"

"Not extraordinarily—a fair-haired girl of about fifteen, dressed in European clothes. I fainted from loss of blood, and don't remember anything else until I found myself in a tent, with two Cossacks patching up my wound. When I came to, she rushed forward, and thanked me profusely for saving her. To my surprise, she spoke in French, and on inquiry I found that she was the daughter of a certain Baron Conrad de Hetzendorf, an Austrian, who possessed a house in Budapest and a château at Semlin, in South Hungary. She told us a curious story. Her father had some business in Transcaucasia, and she had induced him to take her with him on his journey. Only certain districts of the country were disturbed; and apparently, with their guide and escort, they had unwittingly entered the Aras region—one of the most lawless of them all—in ignorance of what was in progress. She and her father, accompanied by a guide and four Cossacks, had been riding along when they met a party of Kurds, who had attacked them. Both father and daughter had been seized, whereupon she had lost consciousness from fright, and when she came to again found that the four Cossacks had been killed, her father had been taken off, and she was alone in the brutal hands of those three wild-looking tribesmen. As soon as she had told us this, the officer of the Cossacks to which I had attached myself called the men together, and in a quarter of an hour the whole body went forth to chase the Kurds and rescue the Baron. One big Cossack, in his long coat and astrakhan cap, was left to look after me, while Nicosia—that was the girl's name—was also left to assist him. After three days they returned, bringing with them the Baron, whose delight at finding his daughter safe and unharmed was unbounded. They had fought the Kurds and defeated them, killing nearly twenty. Ah, my dear Murie, you haven't any notion of the lawless state of that country just then! And I fear it is pretty much the same now."

"Well, go on," urged his friend. "What about the girl? I suppose you fell in love with her, and all that, eh?"

"No, you're mistaken there, old chap," was his reply. "When she explained to her father what had happened, the Baron thanked me very warmly, and invited me to visit him in Budapest when my leg grew strong again. He was a man of about fifty, who, I found, spoke English very well. Nicosia also spoke English, for she had explained to me that her mother, now dead, had been a Londoner. The Baron's business in Transcaucasia was, he told me vaguely, in connection with the survey of a new railway which the Russian Government was projecting eastward from Erivan. For two days he remained with us; but during those days my wound was extremely painful owing to lack of surgical appliances, so we spoke of very little else besides the horrible atrocities committed by the Kurds. He pressed me to visit him; and then, with an escort of our Cossacks, he and his daughter left for Tiflis; whence he took train back to Hungary.

"For six months I remained, still leading that roving, adventurous life. My leg was well again, but my journalistic commission was at an end, and one day I found myself in Odessa, very short of funds. I recollected the Baron's invitation to Budapest, therefore I took train there, and found his residence to be one of those great white houses on the Franz Josef Quay. He received me with marked enthusiasm, and compelled me to be his guest. During the first week I was there I told him, in confidence, my position, whereupon he offered me a very lucrative post as his secretary, a post which I have retained until this moment."

"And the girl?" Walter asked, much interested.

"Oh, she finished her education in Dresden and in Paris, and now lives mostly with her aunt in Vienna," was Hamilton's response. "Quite recently she's become engaged to young Count de Solwegen, the son of one of the wealthiest men in Austria."

"I thought you'd probably become the happy lover."

"Lover!" cried his friend. "How could a poor devil like myself ever aspire to the hand of the daughter of the Baron de Hetzendorf? The name doesn't convey much to you, I suppose?"

"No, I don't take much interest in unknown foreigners, I confess," replied Walter, with a smile.

"Ah, you're not a cosmopolitan nor a financier, or you would know the thousand-and-one strings which are pulled by Conrad de Hetzendorf, or the curious stories afloat concerning him."

"Curious stories!" echoed Murie. "Tell me some. I'm always interested in anything mysterious."

Hamilton was silent for a few moments.

"Well, old chap, to tell you the truth, even though I've got such a comfortable and lucrative post, I'm, even after these years, considerably mystified."

"How?"

"By the real nature of the Baron's business."

"Oh, he's a mysterious person, is he?"

"Very. Though I'm his confidential secretary, and deal with his affairs in his absence, yet in some matters he is remarkably close, as though he fears me."

"You live always in Budapest, I suppose?"

"No. In summer we are at the country house, a big place overlooking the Danube outside Semlin, and commanding a wide view of the great Hungarian plain."

"The Baron transacts his business there, eh?"

"From there or from Budapest. His business is solely with an office in the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris, and a registered telegraphic address also in Paris."

"Well, there's nothing very mysterious in that, surely. Some business matters must, of necessity, be conducted with secrecy."

"I know all that, my dear fellow, but—" and he hesitated, as though fearing to take his friend into his confidence.

"But what?"

"Well—but there, no! You'd laugh at me if I told you the real reason of my uneasiness."

"I certainly won't, my dear Hamilton," Murie assured him. "We are friends to-day, dear old chap, just as we were at college. Surely it is not the place of a man to poke fun at his friend?"

The argument was apparently convincing. The Baron's secretary smoked on in thoughtful silence, his eyes fixed upon the wall in front of him.

"Well," he said at last, "if you promise to view the matter in all seriousness, I'll tell you. Briefly, it's this. Of course, you've never been to Semlin—or Zimony, as they call it in the Magyar tongue. To understand aright, I must describe the place. In the extreme south of Hungary, where the river Save joins the Danube, the town of Semlin guards the frontier. Upon a steep hill, five kilometres from the town, stands the Baron's residence, a long, rather inartistic white building, which, however, is very luxuriously furnished. Comparatively modern, it stands near the ruins of a great old castle of Hetzendorf, which commands a wide sweep of the Danube. Now, amid those ruins strange noises are sometimes heard, and it is said that upon all who hear them falls some terrible calamity. I'm not superstitious, but I've heard them—on three occasions! And somehow—well, somehow—I cannot get rid of an uncanny feeling that some catastrophe is to befall me! I can't go back to Semlin. I'm unnerved, and dare not return there."

"Noises!" cried Walter Murie. "What are they like?" he asked quickly, starting from his chair, and staring at his friend.

"They seem to emanate from nowhere, and are like deep but distant whispers. So plain they were that I could have sworn that some one was speaking, and in English, too!"

"Does the baron know?"

"Yes, I told him, and he appeared greatly alarmed. Indeed, he gave me leave of absence to come home to England."

"Well," exclaimed Murie, "what you tell me, old chap, is most extraordinary! Why, there is almost an exactly similar legend connected with Glencardine!"

"Glencardine!" cried his friend. "Glencardine Castle, in Scotland! I've heard of that. Do you know the place?"

"The estate marches with my father's, therefore I know it well. How extraordinary that there should be almost exactly the same legend concerning a Hungarian castle!"

"Who is the owner of Glencardine?"

"Sir Henry Heyburn, a friend of mine."

"Heyburn!" echoed Hamilton. "Heyburn the blind man?" he gasped, grasping the arm of his chair and staring back at his companion. "And he is your friend? You know his daughter, then?"

"Yes, I know Gabrielle," was Walter's reply, as there flashed across him the recollection of that passionate letter to which he had not replied. "Why?"

"Is she also your friend?"

"She certainly is."

Hamilton was silent. He saw that he was treading dangerous ground. The legend of Glencardine was the same as that of the old Magyar stronghold of Hetzendorf. Gabrielle Heyburn was Murie's friend. Therefore he resolved to say no more.

Gabrielle Heyburn!

CHAPTER XXX

REVEALS SOMETHING TO HAMILTON

Edgar Hamilton sat with his eyes fixed upon the dingy, inartistic, smoke-begrimed windows of the chambers opposite. The man before him was acquainted with Gabrielle Heyburn! For over a year he had not been in London. He recollected the last occasion—recollected it, alas! only too well. His thin countenance wore a puzzled, anxious expression, the expression of a man face to face with a great difficulty.

"Tell me, Walter," he said at last, "what kind of place is Glencardine Castle? What kind of man is Sir Henry Heyburn?"

"Glencardine is one of the most beautiful estates in Scotland. It lies between Perth and Stirling. The ruins of the ancient castle, where the great Marquis of Glencardine, who was such a figure in Scottish history, was born, stands perched up above a deep, delightful glen; and some little distance off stands the modern house, built in great part from the ruins of the stronghold."

"And there are noises heard there the same as at Hetzendorf, you say?"

"Well, the countryfolk believe that, on certain nights, there can be heard in the castle courtyard distinct whispering—the counsel of the devil himself to certain conspirators who took the life of the notorious Cardinal Setoun."

"Has any one actually heard them?"

"They say so—or, at any rate, several persons after declaring that they had heard them have died quite suddenly."

Hamilton pursed his lips. "Well," he exclaimed, "that's really most remarkable! Practically, the same legend is current in South Hungary regarding Hetzendorf. Strange—very strange!"

"Very," remarked the heir to the great estate of Connachan. "But, after all, cannot one very often trace the same legend through the folklore of various countries? I remember I once attended a lecture upon that very interesting subject."

"Oh, of course. Many ancient legends have sprung from the same germ, so that often we have practically the same fairy-story all over Europe. But this, it seems to me, is no fairy story."

"Well," laughed Murie, "the history of Glencardine Castle and the historic family is so full of stirring episodes that I really don't wonder that the ruins are believed to be the abode of something supernatural. My father possesses some of the family papers, while Sir Henry, when he bought Glencardine, also acquired a quantity. Only a year ago he told me that he had had an application from a well-known historical writer for access to them, as he was about to write a book upon the family."

"Then you know Sir Henry well?"

"Very well indeed. I'm often his guest, and frequently shoot over the place."

"I've heard that Lady Heyburn is a very pretty woman," remarked the other, glancing at his friend with a peculiar look.

"Some declare her to be beautiful; but to myself, I confess, she's not very attractive."

"There are stories about her, eh?" Hamilton said.

"As there are about every good-looking woman. Beauty cannot escape unjust criticism or the scars of lying tongues."

"People pity Sir Henry, I've heard."

"They, of course, sympathise with him, poor old gentleman, because he's blind. His is, indeed, a terrible affliction. Only fancy the change from a brilliant Parliamentary career to idleness, darkness, and knitting."

"I suppose he's very wealthy?"

"He must be. The price he paid for Glencardine was a very heavy one; and, besides that, he has two other places, as well as a house in Park Street and a villa at San Remo."

"Cotton, or steel, or soap, or some other domestic necessity, I suppose?"

Murie shrugged his shoulders. "Nobody knows," he answered. "The source of Sir Henry's vast wealth is a profound mystery."

His friend smiled, but said nothing. Walter Murie had risen to obtain matches, therefore he did not notice the curious expression upon his friend's face, a look which betrayed that he knew more than he intended to tell.

"Those noises heard in the castle puzzle me," he remarked after a few moments.

"At Glencardine they are known as the Whispers," Murie remarked.

"By Jove! I'd like to hear them."

"I don't think there'd be much chance of that, old chap," laughed the other. "They're only heard by those doomed to an early death."

"I may be. Who knows?" he asked gloomily.

"Well, if I were you I wouldn't anticipate catastrophe."

"No," said his friend in a more serious tone, "I've already heard those at Hetzendorf, and—well, I confess they've aroused in my mind some very uncanny apprehensions."

"But did you really hear them? Are you sure they were not imagination?

In the night sounds always become both magnified and distorted."

"Yes, I'm certain of what I heard. I was careful to convince myself that it was not imagination, but actual reality."

Walter Murie smiled dubiously. "Sir Henry scouts the idea of the Whispers being heard at Glencardine," he said.

"And, strangely enough, so does the Baron. He's a most matter-of-fact man."

"How curious that the cases are almost parallel, and yet so far apart!

The Baron has a daughter, and so has Sir Henry."

"Gabrielle is at Glencardine, I suppose?" asked Hamilton.

"No, she's living with a maiden aunt at an out-of-the-world village in Northamptonshire called Woodnewton."

"Oh, I thought she always lived at Glencardine, and acted as her father's right hand."

"She did until a few months ago, when–" and he paused. "Well," he went on, "I don't know exactly what occurred, except that she left suddenly, and has not since returned."

"Her mother, perhaps. No girl of spirit gets on well with her stepmother."

"Possibly that," Walter said. He knew the truth, but had no desire to tell even his old friend of the allegation against the girl whom he loved.

Hamilton noted the name of the village, and sat wondering at what the young barrister had just told him. It had aroused suspicions within him—strange suspicions.

They sat together for another half-hour, and before they parted arranged to lunch together at the Savoy in two days' time.

Turning out of the Temple, Edgar Hamilton walked along the Strand to the Metropole, in Northumberland Avenue, where he was staying. His mind was full of what his friend had said—full of that curious legend of Glencardine which coincided so strangely with that of far-off Hetzendorf. The jostling crowd in the busy London thoroughfare he did not see. He was away again on the hill outside the old-fashioned Hungarian town, with the broad Danube shining in the white moonbeams. He saw the grim walls that had for centuries withstood the brunt of battle with the Turks, and from them came the whispering voice—the voice said to be that of the Evil One. The Tziganes—that brown-faced race of gipsy wanderers, the women with their bright-coloured skirts and head-dresses, and the men with the wonderful old silver filigree buttons upon their coats–had related to him many weird stories regarding Hetzendorf and the meaning of those whispers. Yet none of their stories was so curious as that which Murie had just told him. Similar sounds were actually heard in the old castle up in the Highlands! His thoughts were wholly absorbed in that one extraordinary fact.