The Seven Conundrums/Conundrum 4
CONUNDRUM NUMBER FOUR
THE COURTSHIP OF NAIDA
Rose, Leonard and I first saw Naida Modeschka dance from the wings of the great London music hall where she was the star performer, and where we, very much to our surprise, had been offered a brief engagement. I think that from our point of vantage she was even more wonderful than from the vast and densely packed auditorium. None of us had ever before seen movement like it. The wooden boards her feet touched seemed at the moment of contact to become a sea of quicksilver. She had her own arrangement of lights, and she floated in and out of them, her pale face and limbs glittering at one moment like polished marble, the next only a shadow, a skulking, floating shadow, with a pair of great black eyes shining from a terrified face. She never told us or any one else whence came the music to which she danced, notes as full of Arcadian and mysterious poetry as Grieg, and sometimes breathing the riotous passion of Dvorák. She seemed to delight in unexpected interludes, in sudden changes, and there was something even a little cynical in the outburst of savage passion with which her dance concluded. There was not the slightest doubt, however, as to her complete success. The audience at this particular music hall, the Parthenon, is seldom jaded—they are drawn from too wholesome a class of people—but they are as quick to appreciate a new thing as any audience in the world. There were qualities in Naida's dancing which even the Russian Ballet had failed to disclose—pride of the body, cynical contempt of passion for its own sake, and underneath, the soft, alluring call to Love. She stood by us, panting, after her fifth recall. The faintest of perfumes, something between green tea and Russian violets, seemed to be exuded of her breathlessness from the trembling, exquisitely shaped body, concealed, for the sake of ancient prejudices, under a flowing veil of black net, more subtly appealing to modern perceptions than even the naked Eve reaching up to the branches of the apple tree. We were a little spellbound, but her eyes caught mine and I spoke.
"Mademoiselle," I said, "you dance as no other on earth."
"Why not include heaven, monsieur," she answered quickly, "for I fear there will be no dancing like mine there."
She made her final bow and came back to where a gaunt and stolid maid pushed past us and wrapped her in a long black satin coat, trimmed and lined with black sable fur. The maid would have hurried her off but she lingered.
"It is your turn, Monsieur?" she asked me. "You three who appear now?"
I assented. The piano was already being drawn into position. Rose stood a few yards away, looking at her hair in a glass. She had already thrown aside her coat. In the auditorium I fancied that I could still hear that faint emotional quiver lingering like the echo of feeling.
"It is our turn," I replied, "but how an audience could be expected to listen to our banalities after the atmosphere you have created, I can't imagine!"
She made no acknowledgment of my compliment. She was looking at me as though engrossed in her own thoughts, so that in those few seconds I found myself studying her. No breathing person could have called her beautiful, even good-looking. She was dark, with dark hair, eyes and eyebrows. Her cheek bones were almost prominent, her chin narrow, her mouth large but so sensitive that it seemed never at rest. There was not an atom of make-up on her face, and her pallor in the light in which she stood was almost ghastly. Her arms and hands were as lovely as the rest of her body. I could have imagined her, severely dressed, in the classical shades of a great library, one of the leaders of women's thought.
"I shall stay here for your performance," she announced. "Please do your best. Sanda, fetch me a chair."
At the risk of seeming egotistical, I am here going to announce that we three had very much improved in our work during these days of our prosperity. Rose's perfectly chosen gowns, her renewed health of body and mind, seemed to have given to her voice a richer and sweeter note, and to her feet all the fascinating lightness of modern dancing. Leonard's sense of humour had broadened, and his capacity for finding new stories amounted positively to genius. I myself, in better health, certainly found myself a more adequate partner for Rose, both in singing and dancing. Whatever influence our patron had had to use in the earlier days to secure us engagements was unneeded now. We were at the Parthenon according to instructions, but the engagement had been given to us on our own application and without any outside intervention. Perhaps because our unambitious performance soothed the jangled nerves of our audience, we were extraordinarily well received that night. When it was all over, I found Naida still waiting in her chair. She rose at once and took my arm.
"You will escort me to my dressing room," she said.
"With the greatest pleasure," I assented.
"You see," she went on, "I am making the way easy for you. You are a myrmidon of the great Mr. Thomson, are you not?"
I was startled.
"I know a Mr. Thomson," I admitted, "but it is some time since I have heard from him."
Her eyes mocked me.
"The cleverest of all conspirators," she said, as she came to a standstill outside her dressing room and waved her hand to Rose and Leonard, "are those who do not fear to tell the truth. Lies lead far on the road to failure, but we each have our own methods."
"Believe me," I assured her earnestly, "I have never heard of you in my life except from the newspapers."
"And you have never seen me before?"
"Never!"
She looked at me steadfastly. Her dark, heavily lidded eyes seemed a little contracted; her lips smiled as though they had a joke to themselves. She was a strange-looking creature.
"Well," she conceded, "granted that this is our first meeting—what of it, Monsieur?"
"I pray that it may not be our last," I answered, with ready sincerity.
Her fingers strayed to the knob of the door.
"You will receive your belated instructions before very long," she said. "Then I shall make it easy for you. You may visit me when you like. I live at 96, Milan Court. And so, Monsieur!"
She held her fingers to my lips. I am bound to admit that I hurried back to Leonard, a little shaken.
"A conquest, my son," he observed, looking up from a bowl of cold water and rubbing his head vigorously. "Rose is furious with you. She has asked me to take her out to supper."
"Capital!" I replied spitefully. "I will join you."
Our conversation that evening finally turned upon a subject which we had once or twice lately skirted somewhat apprehensively. We supped at an inconspicuous but desirable table in the Milan Grill Room, and in a style which would have seemed to us, only a few months ago, wildly extravagant. There was no jazz band to affront our ears and disturb our digestion. We were in touch with the more epicurean type of deliberate pleasure-seekers, the more select crowd who had studied or imbibed the philosophy of pleasure. Everywhere was an air of warmth and luxury. The men and women, mostly in couples, by whom we were surrounded, were chiefly those who had eschewed the hysterical quest of promiscuous pleasure for the more settled but not less fascinating ways of Bohemian domesticity. An actor-manager, close at hand, was giving a digest of a play he had read that afternoon to his leading lady—also his inseparable companion. A celebrated producer and well-known actor was enjoying a brief period of rest with the only woman in his life who had learnt to soothe as well as to fascinate. A widely known and hard-worked barrister, the tragedy of whose domestic life was known to all his friends, was revelling in one hour of peace during the day in the company of a sympathetic and very human little lady from an adjoining theatre. The atmosphere to us, who had only lately found our way into the paths of prosperity, was almost intoxicating.
It was Leonard who started things by raising his glass to our benefactor. We drank the toast gratefully enough. Then Rose for the first time put into words what was so often in the minds of all of us.
"Maurice," she asked me, "how long does our bargain with Mr. Thomson actually last?"
"There was no time limit," I answered.
"Not, perhaps, in words," she persisted, "but how long in your mind do you consider we are morally bound?"
"Metaphysical history would suggest the period of our lifetime," I replied. "There is no precedent for a soul, once disposed of, being returned to its owner."
She sighed.
"It seems a pity. We really haven't anything more to gain. One would like to settle down and enjoy now with a clear conscience. Why, one of you could marry me."
"We hadn't thought of that," Leonard said drily.
"The fact of it is," I groaned, "we are both in love with you." She leaned back in her chair and looked at us for a moment. I think she realised that I had spoken the truth.
"Then all I can say," she murmured, "is that you are better actors than I thought you were—and greater dears."
"We are wandering from the subject," I said firmly. "I propose that we apply to Mr. Mephistopheles Thomson for a time limit. I should think"
That is just as far as I got in my daring proposal. I sat with my mouth unbecomingly open and a fatuous look of astonishment upon my face. My two companions also were stricken dumb. Arrived apparently from nowhere, neat, inconspicuous and unobtrusive, Mr. Thomson paused before our table and greeted us with pleasing cordiality.
"Congratulations to all of you," he said, as he drew up a chair and seated himself. "I was at the Parthenon to-night. If Naida Modeschka's performance was the most wonderful, yours was certainly the most pleasing item upon the programme."
"We have improved, I think," Rose admitted modestly. "Nice frocks do make so much difference."
"And good food," Leonard murmured.
"And no anxieties," I ventured.
"Apropos of which," the newcomer enquired, "how goes our bargain? Do you want your souls back again?"
"If you've quite finished with them," Rose confessed. "We should hate to seem ungrateful, but so far as we are concerned all our ambitions are satisfied."
"We are earning twice as much as we spend," Leonard pointed out.
"And we could book up for two years," I put in.
Mr. Thomson, who upon his arrival had made mystic signs to a waiter, watched the champagne being poured into our glasses. We were not overcareful in the matter of our expenditure, but champagne was the one luxury we denied ourselves except on special occasions.
"You disappoint me," our patron confessed.
Rose leaned forward across the table. She spoke quickly, almost tumultuously.
"Don't think us ungrateful," she begged. "We are not. We often think of that wretched night at Cromer when you became our good angel. Many and many a time since we have blessed your name."
Mr. Thomson bowed.
"Ours was a bargain," he said, "and you have fulfilled your share of it. My disappointment springs from another cause. I have pictured you in my mind as children of the land of Adventure."
"We have lifted the curtain," I ventured to remind him.
"You have done more," he admitted. "You have all three shown capacity and courage. Why withdraw? Believe me, the end and aim of life is not prosperity. The moment the love of adventure ceases, the slumber of middle age commences. There isn't anything more fatal to genius or to the fuller life than a contented conscience, a swelling bank account, and an amble along the easy ways. I give you back what you are pleased to call your souls, if you will. In five years' time, the three of you will be prematurely middle-aged, the limits of your ambitions will be fixed, one day will be as another. With the passing of all mystery from your lives, will come the adipose somnolence which breeds mental and moral indigestion."
I think that we were all hypnotised. The calmness of his speech, his precise and unemotional handling of words, seemed to lend to them an even greater significance. Before we had realised what was happening, Mr. Thomson was on his feet again.
"We will make that time limit one year, dating from the night at Cromer," he pronounced.
"Yes!" we all three assented.
"To-morrow afternoon at four o'clock," he added, turning to me, "you will call upon Naida Modeschka, the dancer who is now performing at the Parthenon."
"I have already made her acquaintance," I told him. "She spoke to me this evening. She referred to you."
Mr. Thomson smiled benevolently.
"Naida is wonderful," he said. "Nevertheless, you will call. Ask her what has become of Felix Worth. Afterwards, place yourself in her hands. She will explain exactly what is required of you."
As unobtrusively as he had come, he departed. He attracted no attention, and looked neither to the right nor to the left. As he vanished through the revolving door, we all looked at one another.
"Mr. Mephistopheles Thomson," Rose murmured.
"With an accent on the Christian name," Leonard remarked.
Naida received me very graciously on the following afternoon. I was a little surprised that she had made no attempt whatever to alter her surroundings or in any way to create an atmosphere. The ordinary hotel furniture and hangings were lightened only by a profusion of flowers, mostly deep red roses. In place of the flowing robes one might have expected, the great dancer wore a severe tailor-made costume of grey tweed. Her hair was brushed plainly back from her forehead and tied with ribbon behind. There was no other caller present when I arrived.
"It would be charming of you to come so soon," she murmured, as she held out her hand, "if it were your own will which brought you."
"My own will would have brought me here in any case," I assured her, "but as it happens I have another mission. I am to ask you what has become of Felix Worth."
I looked into the eyes of another woman for a moment, and I was afraid. Her momentary fit of fury, however, passed. She motioned me to a chair.
"How much do you know of this matter?" she asked.
"Nothing at all," I answered promptly.
"That is the way with him," she ruminated. "His agents never know anything."
"That does not, I trust, prevent my finding great pleasure in making your acquaintance, Mademoiselle," I ventured.
She looked at me curiously. Sixty seconds ago I should have described her as being, off the stage, disappointedly plain. I realised my mistake.
"It does not prevent your paying me any compliments you choose," she replied. "There is no reason why we should not be friends—even comrades. The only cloud between us appears to be that it will fall to your lot to kill the only man I have ever really cared for."
I started in my chair.
"I can assure you," I told her, "I am not out for that sort of thing at all."
"But it will come," she persisted.
"It will not," I contradicted her firmly. "I have done all the killing I want to, in fair fighting. I have a weakness for adventures, but nothing would induce me to become an assassin."
She looked at me contemplatively, leaning across from her chair with her chin balanced upon her hands. Then she got up and brought me a queer round wooden box of fragrant Russian cigarettes. She herself lit one, and I followed her example.
"Are you afraid, dear earnest Englishman," she asked, "that I should hate you? Let me tell you the truth. For this man I have no love any more. And he must die."
"He may live or he may die," I answered, "but I am no man's executioner."
"We shall see," she remarked indifferently. "You are a just man, beyond a doubt, but I like you. You are different from all others."
"In what respect?" I enquired.
"I admit you here," she replied, "to the intimacy of a private visit, yet you have not yet suggested that you should become my lover. It intrigues me, this diffidence."
I felt a sudden desire to get out of the room. She laughed at me, laughed with simple, unaffected mirth, laughed till she came over and laid her hands upon my shoulders.
"Go away, dear man," she begged, "before I make myself foolish about you. You shall sit at my side to-night, and perhaps then, when you see what others think of me, you may whisper different things."
"And where do I sit by your side to-night?" I asked.
"You and your two friends," she said, "sup with me in the restaurant downstairs at midnight. Convey my compliments and this invitation to your charming lady companion. I shall see her at the theatre and will confirm it."
She gave me her fingers and held them for a moment against my lips. Then I went out, a little dazed.
I began to fear that Naida was going to make trouble for me. At the theatre that evening she demanded my constant attendance. Twice she sent notes to my dressing room, and in the midst of the tumultuous applause which followed her wonderful dancing, when she stood in the wings with us after her seventh recall, she tore one of the red roses which had been thrown on to the stage from its cluster, and thrust it in my buttonhole.
"So!" she whispered. "They will know from whom that rose comes. Your fingers will caress it when you sing. They will applaud you the more for my sake."
This was all very pretty and soothing to my vanity, and, I frankly admit, in its way pleasant, but I had all the time the feeling that it was likely to bring trouble upon me. When, in her most charming manner, Naida had issued her invitation to Rose, her enthusiastic acceptance was entirely marred for me by the manner of it.
"A supper party will be perfectly delightful," Rose declared, smiling with dangerous sweetness. "I have a little headache to-night but that will pass. In any case you will not mind if Leonard—if Mr. Cotton should bring me away early."
"So long as you do not rob me of my dear cavalier," Naida replied, to my dismay, squeezing my arm.
I marched Leonard on one side, taking advantage of the insistent roars of recall which drew Naida back on to the stage.
"Look here, Len," I said, "I don't know what this game is, but I'm playing it for the three of us. I am obeying orders so far as Mademoiselle Naida is concerned. If Rose won't see it, I shall rely upon you."
"I'll do my best, old chap," he promised, with a gloom which I fancied was not altogether natural. "It's a jolly hard situation, though. Rose had asked me to take her out to supper to-night, and to dinner on Sunday night."
"You can count that dinner off," I said firmly. "We three have dined together every Sunday night since we started out. Sometimes it's been a scrag of mutton and a glass of beer; once or twice—that week at Cromer, Len—not even that. On Sunday night it's going to be caviare and a Maryland chicken, and I'm in it."
"That's all right," Leonard assured me. "Of course, Rose thought that you'd be in attendance on Naida."
"You and I won't have any misunderstanding, at any rate, Len," I insisted. "Naida means just as much to me as that bit of fluff on your coat. When our year is up, I shall ask Rose to marry me, and though you're the dearest fellow in the world, I hope she'll have me and not you."
"I sha'n't take advantage, old chap," Leonard promised, with a sigh, "but it's getting filthily difficult. She pretended she wanted me to kiss her last night."
"I'll punch your head if you do," I answered savagely. "Our call."
The supper party did not improve matters. We found quite a distinguished little gathering in the foyer of the Milan, including the managing director of the Parthenon, some of the best known dramatic critics, a famous actor and his wife, another and a lady who might have been, a foreign ambassador, and two other well-known and distinguished men about town. Naida did her duty by placing a very distinguished nobleman with cosmopolitan tastes upon her right, but, to my secret dismay and the wonder of the rest of the company, she insisted upon my occupying the seat on the other side of her.
"Now," she whispered, looking at me from under her eyelashes with that slow, curious smile upon her lips, "I have made the little lady jealous, is it not so? And also the great managing director who pays me my salary, and perhaps others. But what does it matter? You are content?"
The lie came uneasily from my lips. Naida, however, seemed satisfied. It was borne in upon me now that it was her deliberate purpose, part of the game, in fact, not only to exploit me as a victim of her charms but to practically advertise her simulated infatuation. I watched Rose flirting desperately with a very attractive man who was seated upon her left, and for a moment I felt that the situation was impossible—that I should do best to mutter a few plain words to my hostess and deliberately dissociate myself from the rôle into which I had drifted. Then I remembered our chief's confidence—Naida spoke to me with unexpected kindness. I caught the echo of Rose's unnecessarily joyous laughter, and I changed my mind. Thenceforth I played my part. I lent myself to the gaiety of the moment. We were all young together. The wine was good, life was good, the very music seemed playing us down the avenues of pleasure. From a gay party we became almost an uproarious one. We moved outside into the lounge for our coffee, Naida never letting me for an instant leave her side, relegating to me the duties of host, thrusting her pocketbook into my hand, insisting that I should order the cigars and liqueurs, fee the waiters, and even sign the bill on her behalf. There were many smiles amongst the little company, shrugs of the shoulders, and whispered enquiries as to my identity. My fictitious position seemed to make me an object of envy, but I never altogether lost my head. I waited for my opportunity, and when it came I rose quickly to my feet and walked over to Rose's side. Her companion of the moment had been summoned away to speak to some acquaintances in another part of the lounge.
"Rose," I began sternly
She looked at me with a bright but artificial smile. I leaned down and continued under my breath.
"I play the buffoon to order," I reminded her. "You, too, have your part in this."
"Indeed?" she murmured.
"Yes! Your part is not to make mine more difficult. Your part is to remember"
Then I stopped short. It was a difficult position. There was my contract with Leonard to be borne in mind.
"To remember what?" she asked, looking at me more naturally.
"The things of which your heart assures you," I answered. "I am only human. If I fail to-night, the fault will not be wholly mine."
After that there was a change in Rose's demeanour, and once, when our eyes met, she smiled. Naida, however, still played her part of sorceress. She seemed impatient of every word she was forced to speak to others. She whispered often in my ear. Even her fingers sought mine. It was just at this stage that for the first time I noticed the somewhat singular appearance of a man who was watching us from the few seats upstairs reserved for guests of the hotel who were not in evening dress. As though he sought concealment, he had found a chair in the most remote corner and was half hidden by a slight projection of the wall. He had a mass of black hair, a heavy, sallow face, from which one formed the idea that he had recently removed a beard, and dark staring eyes. He was untidily dressed for his surroundings, amongst which he seemed curiously out of place. An impulse prompted me to point him out to Naida. She glanced in the direction I indicated but merely shrugged her shoulders.
"Dear friend," she whispered, "you forget that I am a famous person, more so abroad than in your little island. There are many who watch me with thoughts in their heart which they will never dare to utter. There are many who would give a share of their possessions to be seated where you are seated, to be treated as I am treating you."
"The man is a foreigner, without a doubt," I remarked.
"And foreigners," she answered, with a stabbing little glance, "are quicker to feel and understand than Englishmen."
We kept the party going until long past closing time, and then an adjournment of our diminished numbers was made to Naida's suite. Here she distributed signed photographs to her remaining guests, accompanied by a wave of the hand which meant dismissal. Rose and Leonard were amongst the first to leave, Rose with a look in her eyes which might have meant anything. I stepped quickly forward. Naida looked at me warningly. Now that we had left the lounge, it seemed to me that her demeanour had to some extent changed.
"For your impatience, Monsieur Maurice," she said, "you will be the last. Offer the cigarettes, if you please. And your friend Mr. Cotton, will he not take a whisky and soda before he goes?"
One by one they drifted away. Rose and Leonard were driven home by one of the former's new admirers. The time came when we were alone. Naida listened to the closing of the door and to the clanging of the lift gate. Then with her back to the table against which she was leaning, she looked across at me with an odd little smile upon her lips.
"So we are alone, my friend."
"It has that appearance," I admitted, taking one of her cigarettes and lighting it. "I await your further instructions."
She nodded her head slowly. She seemed to be considering my attitude.
"My further instructions," she mimicked. "Oh, Monsieur Maurice, what a strange person! Ring the bell on your left, please."
I obeyed. A maid presented herself at once from the inner room. Naida spoke to her for a moment in some weird language. Then she turned towards me, yawned and stretched herself.
"Prepare for a shock," she said. "For ten minutes I leave you. You seat yourself in that easy chair, you take a whisky and soda and the evening paper, you make yourself at home. You understand?"
"Perfectly," I answered, not at all sorry for a few minutes' solitude.
"Then au revoir! But have no fear," she added, looking back with a mocking smile, "I shall return."
A quarter of an hour or so passed. I heard Naida telephoning from her bedroom and heard her voice in conversation with her maid. Then she reappeared. She was wearing a yellow creation tied around her with a girdle, Chinese sandals tied with broad yellow ribbon; and her unloosed hair was gathered together with ribbon of the same colour. She displayed herself for my admiration.
"You admire, Monsieur Maurice? You like the colour?"
"You look charming," I replied. "And now?"
She held up her finger.
"You are not to stir," she directed, waving her finger at me.
She moved towards the door which led into the corridor, opened it softly and peered outside. Then, as though not satisfied, she disappeared altogether. When she returned, she closed the door with a little slam and threw herself into a chair opposite to me.
"And now?" I repeated patiently.
"It is the hardest part of your task, this, Monsieur Maurice," she said, with a demure little droop of the eyes. "You see the time? It is exactly two o'clock. For one hour you remain where you are. At the end of that hour you are free. You may then leave, and, if you wish it so, your courtship of Naida is over."
"And for that hour?" I asked, a little unsteadily.
She came and sat on the arm of my chair. Her face was upturned to mine.
"Shall I keep you company?" she whispered.
I leaned down and took the kiss she offered me. I held her for a moment in my arms. Then I gripped her wrists.
"Naida," I said, and my own voice sounded to me unfamiliar, "of course I know this is a game, but I don't understand the rules."
"We make them," she murmured.
"I am in love with Rose Mindel," I continued. "I should be married to her at the present moment but for a stupid agreement between Leonard Cotton and myself, made when we three started out together. I am in love with her, but I'm no Joseph. You know what you are, and your power. I'm not any different from other men."
"But you do not care, then?" she asked quickly.
"There isn't any ordinary young man of my type," I answered, "who has drunk your wine and sat by your side all the evening, and received your kindness, and finds himself here alone with you, who wouldn't care—in a way—the wrong way. I care like that, if it's any good. And now you understand."
She slipped from her place, kissed me on both eyes, and ran across to the door of the inner room. She looked back at me only for a moment, opened her lips, said nothing, and disappeared, closing the door softly behind her. I mixed myself the stiffest whisky and soda I had ever concocted in my life, lit a cigar from a box I found on the sideboard, and sat down to watch the clock.
At five minutes to three, I was walking up and down the room with my overcoat on. At a minute to the hour, as I stood with my eyes glued to the clock, the inner door softly opened. Naida stood framed upon the threshold. There was a look of distress upon her face.
"Monsieur Maurice," she said, "I had made up my mind to say nothing, but that was wrong. You are a very honourable young man and I have not met many. It has been promised to me that no harm shall come to you, but yet—go warily to the lift."
She disappeared and closed the door. For the first time she locked it. Somehow, I felt, as I stepped out into the corridor, that the dangers which might be waiting for me were small things. I stood for several seconds, looking up and down. To reach the lift I had to traverse the whole of the corridor, turn to the left and pass along another shorter one. I stepped out carelessly enough, and then—the scantily lit passage seemed suddenly filled with whispering voices, with eyes peering at me from mysterious corners; the soft carpets behind me were reverberant with muffled and stealthy footsteps. I was acutely conscious of the presence of danger. As I neared the corner of the corridor every nerve of my body was bristling with apprehension. Before I turned, I paused for a moment and looked behind. There was only a single electric lamp burning, but I could see dimly along the empty space to the end. There was no sign of any moving figure, nor any sound. Then I turned the corner to find myself suddenly seized in a pair of giant arms, the dull flicker of upraised steel before my eyes, the sallow, brutelike face, the black, flaming eyes of the man who had watched me from the lounge, within an inch or two of me.
I had no chance to call out. My assailant's left hand was upon my throat. I could see him gathering strength to drive that knife down into my heart. My brain was perfectly active. I waited with tense muscles for the terrible moment, meaning to fling myself on one side in the hope that I might escape mortal injury from that first blow, at any rate. And then I saw something loom up behind. I saw an arm raised even higher than my captor's, and I heard the wickedest sound in life—the crash of dull metal into a man's skull. The grasp upon my throat was instantly relaxed, doors were thrown open along the corridor, and I sank back into a momentary fit of unconsciousness.
If our customary supper party with Mr. Thomson lacked some of those qualities which in the earlier days of our adventures had made it so wonderful a thing, the change of venue, and our host's curious genius in devising new dishes, still contrived to make the occasion a memorable one. We met this time in a private room at the Hotel Albion at Brighton, whither a telephone message had summoned us earlier in the day. Mr. Thomson, spick and span as ever, looking in the pink of condition, commended to us the best oysters in the world and sipped almost reverently the contents of a dust-covered bottle of Chablis.
"I am not sure," he told us, with the air of one imparting grave knowledge, "that in these days it is not possible to find better vintages out of London than one comes across even in the restaurants de luxe. This wine, for instance."
"The wine is wonderful," Rose agreed. "These oysters are wonderful, too, and I never saw such a lobster mayonnaise as that upon the sideboard. But, dear Mr. Thomson, if you expect us to enjoy our supper, do be merciful. There will be no waiter in the room for at least five minutes. Give us some idea as to the meaning of this last adventure."
Mr. Thomson smiled benevolently.
"Why not?" he said. "Here is the story in a very few words. There was in London, ten days ago, the most dangerous anarchist and political disturber of the peace in Europe. His name is a household word to all of you. He passed here as Paul Kansky."
"Naida's lover," I ventured.
"As a matter of fact, her husband," Mr. Thomson explained. "His removal was absolutely necessary for the internal peace of this country. There were a hundred charges on which he could have been arrested, but not one for which he could have been safely put out of the way. Being at times open to accept a contract of this nature, I undertook to dispose of him."
I shivered a little as I listened. Mr. Thomson continued very much as though he were referring to some ordinary commercial undertaking.
"Kansky's one weakness was Naida Modeschka, his one passion jealousy. With the aid of our young friend here, I succeeded in fanning that passion into a red-hot flame. I succeeded, too, in engineering such an attempt at wilful murder on the part of Kansky that his own demise, owing to the apparently accidental intervention of a casual rescuer, seemed to occur quite naturally. You behold the result of an exceedingly well-laid scheme. This mischievous person is dead and buried under the name he bore at the Milan Hotel, and which the great world of his followers does not recognise."
"Then my rescuer," I exclaimed, "John P. Martin, the American Oil Trust man"
"Precisely," Mr. Thomson interrupted. "Mr. Martin was my agent, a man of iron and a professional fighter, planted in room number eighty-four, with instructions to intervene on your behalf in such a way that Kansky could give no more trouble."
"And those other two men who gave evidence—the witnesses?"
"Also arranged for," Mr. Thomson acknowledged. "It was really a very well-planned affair. The man Kansky's passion for Naida was proved by the letters produced in court. His attack upon our young friend here provided ample excuse for Mr. Martin's vigorous action. The witnesses, of course, were able to declare that Kansky was in the act of committing a probable murder, and that Martin's contra attack, with its unfortunate results, saved your life."
"And Naida?" Rose enquired.
Mr. Thomson smiled.
"How should we be able to deal with these little affairs," he observed, "but for the vagaries, my dear Miss Mindel, of your wonderful sex? Naida was a very willing accomplice in our little scheme. For seven years in a brutalised Russia she had lived under that man's dominance. When she was fortunate enough to escape over here, it was certainly not with the idea of again submitting to it. I hear the waiter. Any more questions?"
"For whom were you acting?" I asked eagerly. "How did this affair come into your hands?"
Mr. Thomson seemed to be listening to the roar of the sea, which came to us pleasantly through the open window.
"Ah!" he murmured. "That again is a question the answer to which I fear must be postponed. Shall we call it Conundrum Number Four?"