Chapter X: The Girl of the Snows

Ten minutes later Darville’s telephone bell rang again, whereupon he held a brief conversation with somebody who told him something which caused him both surprise and alarm. Two other urgent calls came through in quick succession, whereupon he sat down and wrote a hasty note:

“Dear Edris,--I am so very sorry, but it will be impossible for me to keep our appointment this afternoon, as I have to be out of London again. I shall be at my flat at Hove over the week-end. Can you induce your mother to allow you to come and see me there, instead of going back home? I want so very much to see you--so do come. Drew, my man, will take any message if I am not here. Do forgive me for canceling the appointment, but I’m horribly busy.

“Yours as ever,
“Seton Darville.”

He addressed it to her at the Berkeley Hotel, and then sent Drew round with it into Piccadilly immediately.

At eleven he presided over a secret conference held in his private room at the office. All four men who sat with him were smartly dressed, alert, shrewd cosmopolitans, who spent their adventurous lives traveling in the interests of the defense of Britain against the machinations of her enemies.

In a few terse, well-chosen words Darville explained why they were in conference, and then he unfolded an enemy intrigue which held all of them amazed at his astuteness and foresight. He had established facts of which the world had never dreamed. His intuition was as astounding as it was uncanny, and his bold entry into that house in Edinburgh was yet another illustration of that utter fearlessness which all his staff so admired. When anything unusually dangerous was to be undertaken, Seton Darville, in order to set an example, never failed to do it himself in his easy-going, debonair way, just as though he had no care in all the world.

The Englishmen who “do things” never talk about them. Darville never did. Only three or four of his most intimate friends in all the world knew the truth concerning his exact position--that of one of the most powerful and influential men in the whole kingdom. In certain directions his power equaled that of the Prime Minister, while his scribbly signature, often only half legible, controlled the expenditure of huge sums of the public money.

To the men around that table he gave certain instructions, very precise and exactly to the point.

“Remember,” he said, “Caborn will be easily alarmed. He’s a very clever scoundrel; one of Steinhauer’s best men. He knows England well, and has lived in London some years before the war, and, indeed, became naturalized as a British subject. His wife Joan is a German-American, born in St. Louis, but she has no American accent. She came to London when she was twelve years old. Both are in the pay of our enemies, and both are utterly unscrupulous and dangerous. They are well supplied with expert assistance, and also with money. But, gentlemen,” he added, “I warn you to be careful of your own selves, if you value your lives. One false step and you will all be launched into eternity. I’ve myself made the investigations, and now I have placed you in possession of the true facts.”

The men exchanged glances in silence. The seriousness of the situation had been impressed upon them.

The instructions their chief had given them showed the extreme gravity of the affair.

He explained how he had entered the house in Strathnairn Road, of what he had discovered there, and how he had gummed those little discs of paper upon the electrical terminals.

“You see, at the critical moment the contacts will not be made,” he said. “And by that your lives will probably be saved. You will find a motor boat at your disposal at Macdonald’s boat-house at South Queensferry. No questions will be asked. If they are, then refuse to say a word. Gentlemen,” he added further, “I leave you to act. The Caborns know me personally, therefore it is best that I should fade out of this affair. You will all leave by the Scotch express to-night, and be in Edinburgh soon after seven to-morrow morning. Make your headquarters at the Caledonian; I shall probably be with Paton at the North British.”

The conference lasted till past noon, when Darville walked along to Downing Street, where he knocked at the door of No. 10, and was at once admitted. Passing through an outer hall, he turned down a short passage and entered the private sanctum of old Lord Heverbridge, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, a thin-faced, white-haired, rather sour-looking man, who, at the moment, was standing at the window with one of his secretaries.

“Hulloa, Darville!” exclaimed the P.M., as he instantly recognized the novelist. “Anything unusual? You never come to me unless you have something urgent to report.”

There was a very close affiliation between the Foreign Office, across the way, and the Secret Service, as the former depended for its confidential information upon the untiring efforts of the latter. And in matters of great urgency it was Darville’s habit to report direct to the Prime Minister himself.

“Yes. There is something urgent,” replied the younger man after the secretary had left, and then, leaning against the big, round polished table in the center of the somber, rather gloomy, room, he gave a brief résumé of the enemy conspiracy he had unearthed.

“Bless my soul!” cried the Prime Minister, his face suddenly paler when he heard the astounding facts. “How on earth did you get to know that, Darville?”

“By means of a little cunning and ingenuity,” Darville laughed. “But in my opinion it is very serious.”

“I quite agree,” declared old Lord Heverbridge, pacing his small, somber room, with its green-painted walls and heavy Victorian furniture. Lord Heverbridge was one of the few great Victorian statesmen remaining. His age was seventy-seven, but his brain was still as alert and active as when he had led the Conservative Party thirty years before. He had served in eight Administrations, and had ever been held as one of Britain’s strongest men.

“Are you quite certain of your facts?” he asked Darville, suddenly halting.

“Quite.”

“What does the Admiralty know?”

“Nothing. They are in ignorance at present.”

“But they ought to know, surely,” exclaimed the fine old statesman, his thin, white hands clasped behind his back, and his figure erect, notwithstanding his age.

“I think not,” was Darville’s slow reply. “They might become active, and would possibly bungle the affair. I have already made all arrangements to combat the plot. I thought, however, it would be as well to let you know the truth, but I tell you in confidence nobody outside my department knows, except yourself.”

“You pay me a direct compliment, Darville,” declared the Prime Minister. “Without your constant vigilance all over the face of Europe I don’t know where we should be. If it were not for you, I fear we should cut a very sorry figure sometimes. And yet you are unpaid! You do arduous, brilliant work for the country year after year, often risking your liberty, and without asking for any other reward than the joy of serving your country. Recollect that a baronetcy is due to you. Why have you twice refused it?”

And he fixed his gray, deep-set eyes upon the broad-chested, active man before him.

“For reasons known only to myself,” was the vague reply, the same reply he had given on two previous occasions. “Besides, I am not a rich man.”

“That’s your own fault. You could have five or six thousand a year and all your expenses, if you would only accept it.”

“And, if I did, I should be just a paid spy and a servant of the state, Lord Heverbridge,” Darville replied quietly. “No, I would rather pay my own expenses and be free. Then nobody can point at me in scorn.”

“Yes, Darville. I suppose you are right, my dear fellow. I suppose you are right,” exclaimed the Prime Minister, with a sigh. “The country, however, ought to be very grateful to you--and they would be, if they could only know.”

“I don’t want them ever to know. They regard me as a popular writer of fiction, and socially I’m in a good set. That’s all that I care.”

“Yes, yes, Darville. I’m one who has watched you ever since the pre-war days when you warned us of the coming conflagration, and you were disbelieved by the Cabinet. It must have disheartened you!”

“Not in the least,” laughed Darville. “I felt no more annoyance than you have done when, time after time, you have been so cruelly attacked by your political enemies.”

“My wife has ever been my comforter,” remarked the Prime Minister in a low, serious voice.

“I have no comforter,” replied the other.

“It is not too late for you to marry, Darville,” Lord Heverbridge remarked in the same serious tone.

“Me! Marry? No,” he laughed airily. “I think not. I never shall.”

Then, after a further chat for ten minutes or so regarding the political situation in the Near East, from which the Prime Minister learned one or two facts of interest, Darville strode out into Downing Street again, being saluted by the police-constable on duty as he turned into Whitehall.

When he reëntered his rooms in Duke Street, Drew came forward at once.

“I delivered the note to Miss Temperley, sir. She asked you to ring her up when you came in.”

So his master at once got on the telephone to the Berkeley.

“Hulloa, Seton,” he heard Edris exclaim; “is that you? I say, it’s awfully good of you to invite me down to Hove. Mother’s a brick. Yes. She’ll let me come, but if I do you’ll have to promise to take me out to Wengen. Remember that. You’ll promise, won’t you?” she added in a wheedling voice.

Darville tried to give a non-committal answer. Edris was very charming--his ideal of all a real platonic girl friend should be. But the grit in the cogs was that young lover of hers, to whom he knew she was devoted; besides the difference of their ages. He could never regard her as anything else but as a daughter. Love? He had never in all his life experienced it, and always regarded it as a malady of the young, akin to croup or chicken-pox. He sometimes wrote in his books about real love, but it was all a mere hollow pretence. His pen could never faithfully portray anything in which he himself did not believe, and his millions of readers had long ago realized that what he wrote about devotion and affection was only a milk-and-water make-believe. No passion of real love had ever stirred the chords of emotion in his heart. His two natures were as distinct as the poles. On the one hand he was amazingly young and active for his age, and could tire out most men of half his years, and possessed that kind, generous and sympathetic nature which attracted women and caused them to vote him “a dear”; yet, on the other, he was hard, callous, calculating, and embittered against the world, cynical, unscrupulous, and unrelenting towards his enemies. He always declared, with truth, that he never asked a favor, and never forgave those who had wronged him.

Edris’ voice softened him. But he still gave evasive answers.

“I have so many engagements, you know,” he said on the wire. “We’ll talk it all out down at Hove. I’m going back to Scotland just now, but I’ll be back by the sea the last thing on Friday night, and will meet you at Brighton station at 12.5 on Saturday. Is that all right?”

“Certainly,” replied the girl. “I’m so sorry I can’t have tea with you to-day, but I quite understand. I’ve persuaded mother to stay here till Saturday, when she goes home, and I come along to you. I hear there’s an awful rush for sleepers to Interlaken this season. I booked mine last July. I hope you’ll get one.”

“Well,” laughed Darville. “I don’t expect to be left behind if I decide to go. See you on Saturday, and I’ll be delighted. Good-by, Edris.”

He turned from the telephone with a deep, thoughtful expression upon his usually good-humored countenance.

He recalled the words of the Prime Minister, that he ought to marry. But Edris was many years his junior, a smart, go-ahead girl, greatly admired, and a cosmopolitan almost as thorough-going as himself. It was somewhat against the _convenances_ that she should come to stay with him at his little _pied-à-terre_ facing the sea at Hove, with only a single maid-servant there. Yet, after all, she was a modern girl, and it was her supreme independence which was the charm that had first attracted him.

Before the war no respectable girl would have dared to have gone to stay as guest in a bachelor’s rooms. But with the emancipation of women there are other manners in these days of the extinction of the chaperon.

That night he again went North in a sleeping-berth bound for Edinburgh.

For the next two days he watched the careful investigations being made into the doings of the Caborns in Strathnairn Road, and especially those of their working-class friends. Then, on Friday morning, he left again for King’s Cross, and late that night, after crossing London, arrived in Hove. Constant traveler that he was, long journeys never affected him, and he arrived just before midnight at his cozy flat a few doors west of Brunswick Square.

It was a charming set of rooms, which, alas! he seldom occupied. He loved the sea, and when in England his great desire always was to live within sight and hearing of the waves of the Channel. The flat was on the first floor. In front of it was a broad lawn, the fashionable promenade on fine days, and, beyond the beach--the gray, ever-rolling water. The flat was one of the little luxuries with which he indulged himself, because whenever he might be in any city in Europe he always regarded the small cozy flat as “home.”

The rooms in Duke Street were a necessity, and Drew was most discreet and reliable. But at Hove he was really at home, removed from every worry and responsibility.

The excellent, middle-aged maid who cooked and looked after him, and whose name was Kate, had retired to bed when he let himself in with his latch-key, to find his whisky-and-soda and a few ham sandwiches left for him upon the dining-room table. He was hungry and tired after his long journey, so he promptly ate all the sandwiches, and took a long drink, and afterwards passed into his room, wherein he had not slept since the previous summer. But all was clean and in order, just as he had left it.

Next morning was cold but dry; therefore, after writing several important letters, he took a sharp walk along the broad promenade between the lawns and the sea, and eventually stood on the platform at Brighton station as the Pullman train from London slowly glided in.

Suddenly he espied a smart, well-set-up figure, daintily shod, and wearing a close-fitting black hat and a green coat trimmed with skunk, approaching him, followed by a porter carrying her dark blue morocco dressing-case.

Next moment a pair of pretty, gray, dancing eyes, framed by a sweet countenance, regular in its contour, met his.

“Edris!” he cried gladly as, in his eagerness, he took her small gloved hand in welcome. “How ripping it is to see you again--once again!”

“Do you really think so?” was the question the smart, outdoor girl put to him with a gay laugh. “I wonder?”

And together they walked to the waiting taxi.