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Great Secret

<h2 id="id02610" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXXVI</h2> <h5 id="id02611">AN URGENT WARNING</h5> Madame came alone to luncheon the next morning, and beckoned me to her table. "Well," she said, with her black eyes fixed steadily upon mine, "you are of the same mind, eh?" I bowed. "I prefer to think," I said, "that you were joking yesterday." "So!" she answered, and began to eat. I gathered that I was dismissed. But presently she called me back again. "You have many friends in London, Herr Paul?" she asked. "None at all," I answered. "It is very lonely." "I thought," she said, "that I saw you coming out of some flats in Dover Street the other day." Madame was a little over-anxious. She was showing her hand too openly. I leaned over the table, after a cautious glance around. "I will tell you," I said, "since you are so kind as to be interested. I am looking for another situation. I think that I shall go into a private family." "Another situation?" she exclaimed. "You are not satisfied here?" I shook my head. "My uncle," I said, "is a very mean man. He does not like to pay both Karl and myself—and he pays me very little. It is all promises!—and meanwhile Elsie waits." Madame laughed, not altogether pleasantly. "Elsie is likely to wait," she said. "You are too scrupulous, Herr Paul. I have shown you how to make a great deal of money." "The money with which I marry Elsie," I answered, "shall not be blood money." She let me go then, and I went away well pleased. I fancied that I was holding my own with Madame. And I had left the way clear for my next visit, which was no small thing. At half-past three the restaurant was almost empty. Very soon after four I rang the bell of Lady Dennisford's town house in Park Lane. The man who opened it stared at my request to see her Ladyship. Eventually, however, I persuaded him to take in a message. I wrote a single word upon a plain card, and in five minutes I was shown into a small boudoir. Lady Dennisford entered the room almost at the same instant from an opposite door. She was dressed in deep mourning; but it seemed to me that something of the old weariness was gone from her face. She looked at me searchingly, but obviously without recognition. "I am Lady Dennisford," she said. "What is your business with me?" I kept my eyes fixed upon her steadily. "You do not recognize me, Lady Dennisford?" I asked. She frowned slightly. "Your voice is familiar," she answered, "and—why, you have a look of Hardross Courage! Who are you?" "I am Hardross Courage," I answered. "Please do not look at me as though I were something uncanny. The report of my death was a little premature!" She held out her hands. "My dear Hardross!" she exclaimed. "You have taken my breath away! I am delighted, of course; but"—she continued, looking at me wonderingly—"what has happened to you? Where did you get those clothes?" "I am going to explain everything to you, Lady Dennisford," I declared; "but before I do so, let me ask you something! I have given you one shock! Can you stand another?" "What do you mean?" she asked. "You see before you," I answered, "one dead man who has come to life. Can you bear to hear of another?" Then every shred of color left her cheeks, and she trembled like one stricken with an ague. But all the time her eyes were pleading passionately with mine, as though it lay in my power to make the thing which she longed for true. "Not—not Leslie! It is impossible." "It is the truth," I answered. "He is alive." I caught her just in time, and led her to the sofa. Her face was bloodless, even to the lips. "Lady Dennisford," I said earnestly, "for his sake, for mine, bear up. Don't let me have to call for the servants. We are both in danger. Your people will probably be questioned." "I will be brave," she answered with quivering lips; "but what did it mean—at Saxby then? Why, there was a funeral!" "He was hard-pressed," I told her, "and it was the only way to save him. Be brave, Lady Dennisford, for I have come to you for help!" "I will do everything you ask me to," she answered. "But tell me one thing more. He is alive!" "He is in London," I answered. "He would have come himself, but the risk would have been greater. Will you listen to what I have to say?" "Go on," she answered. "I am ready." "You know what happened to him in Berlin fifteen years ago," I began. "He suffered for another's fault, but he suffered. His career was over, he was left with but two objects in life. One was a desire to reinstate himself; another, hatred for the country whose spies had brought ruin upon him. He changed his identity, but he remained at Berlin. For years he met with no success. Then fortune favored him. By chance he picked up one of the threads of the most cunning, the most cruel, the most skilfully thought-out plots against this country which the secret history of the world had ever known. He escaped to London, but spies were already on his track. I saved him from death once, and from that moment I, too, was drawn into the vortex. Let me tell you exactly what has happened to us since we joined forces." Lady Dennisford was a good listener. I gave her, in as few words as possible, a faithful account of our adventures, and she never once interrupted me with a single question. When I had finished, she was perfectly calm and self-possessed. "It is the most wonderful story I have ever heard," she declared with glowing eyes. "The most wonderful part of it, from our point of view, is to come," I answered grimly. "We have a fair amount of proof, and we have laid all the facts before the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister." "Well?" "They absolutely refuse to believe us! Notwithstanding everything that we have put before them, the Channel Squadron has sailed for Kiel." Lady Dennisford was a woman born for emergencies. She made no remark. She simply asked the one sensible question: "What can I do?" "Lord Esherville is your cousin, is he not?" "Yes!" "He is an influential member of the Cabinet. Will you go to him, tell him what you know of us, tell him who Guest is and his history? Try and convince him that we are not cranks, and that the country is really in the deadliest peril. Get him to see Polloch at once. Both Guest and myself are watched, because we have taken a café which is frequented by these people, but we will arrange a meeting, somehow. Try and get us a hearing." She rose to her feet. "When?" "It must be within the next thirty-six hours," I answered, "or it will be too late." "Where shall I let you know?" "Letters are not safe," I answered. "I will call here at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning." "You are not going," she exclaimed. "You will have some tea?" I laughed outright. "Please don't forget," I begged her, "that I have come about a situation. I am going to bring my references to-morrow." "Absurd," she murmured softly. "Is—Leslie—also a—what did you say you were?—a waiter?" "He is the proprietor of the Café Suisse in Old Compton Street," I answered. "I am his nephew learning the business." "May I come and lunch?" she asked. "I think not," I answered, smiling. "Our restaurant does not cater for such clients." "Then how shall I let you know?" she asked. "I will bring my references to-morrow," I answered—"at eleven o'clock." I bought an evening paper on my way back to the Café Suisse. Of news here was very little. A leading article commented, with what to me seemed fatuous satisfaction, upon our improved foreign relations. Our entente with France was now in a fair way to be supplemented by a better understanding with Germany. Great things were hoped from the friendly visit of our fleet to Kiel; such international courtesies made always for good. And as I walked through the twilight with the paper clenched in my hand, I forgot where I was, I seemed to see over the grey sea to where, silently and secretly, the long service trains to Germany crawled to that far northward point, disgorging all the while their endless stream of soldiers, with mathematical regularity. The great plot moved. I read the extracts from the Berlin and Frankfort papers, and I knew that the wonderful example of the world's newest Power had been scrupulously followed. No word was there of secret manoeuvres amidst the wastes of those northern sands. I read the imposing list of battleships and cruisers, now ploughing their stately way across the dark waters, and I shuddered as I thought of the mine-sown track across which they would return. I remembered what a great German statesman had once boldly declared—"there is no treachery, if it be only on sufficiently great a scale, which success does not justify." And here was I, almost the only Englishman who knew the truth—powerless! It was a busy night at the Café Suisse. Guest promenaded the room in his tightly fitting frock coat, his grey wig, and newly grown imperial, exchanging greetings with his clients in many languages. The long table was full! Hartwell was there, and Hirsch, and Kauffman, Madame and the others. And always I fancied that when I approached their table their voices dropped a little, and covert glances followed me when I turned away. Had Madame succeeded in making them suspicious, I wondered. They went into the club-room as usual, and a quiet time followed in the restaurant. I went to talk with Madame, but she had little to say to me. Somehow, though, I could not move a yard without feeling that her eyes were upon me. Once only she beckoned to me. "Well," she asked, "have you found the place yet, where you will make so much money that you can send for the beloved Elsie?" I smiled deprecatingly. "I have answered two advertisements," I said; "one at a club, but they were no good. I am going to see a rich English lady to-morrow morning. She may engage me as butler." "You are a very foolish young man, Herr Paul," she said. "You do not know how to look after yourself. You will never make any money!" It was one o'clock the next morning before Guest and I turned homeward to our rooms, for we had thought it well to separate, and I could tell him what had passed between Lady Dennisford and myself. He heard me without interruption, but I saw his face twitch with anxiety. "It is almost the last chance," he muttered. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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