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The Great Prince Shan, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Chapter 19 |
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_ CHAPTER XIX Seated in one of the first tier boxes at the Albert Hall, in the gorgeous but obsolete uniform of a staff officer in the Russian Imperial Forces, Prince Karschoff, with Nigel on one side and Maggie on the other, gazed with keen interest at the brilliant scene below and around. The greatest city the world has ever known seemed in those days to have entered upon an orgy of extravagance unprecedented in history. Every box and every yard of dancing space on the floor beneath was crowded with men and women in wonderful fancy costumes, the women bedecked with jewels which eager merchants had brought together from every market of the world; even the men, in their silks and velvets and ruffles, carrying out the dominant note of wealth. It was a ball given for charity and under royal patronage. "All our friends seem to be here to-night," the Prince remarked, glancing around. "I saw Naida with her father and the eternal Oscar Immelan. Chalmers is here with an exceedingly gay party, and yonder sits his Imperial Highness, looking very much the barbaric prince.--By the by," he added, glancing towards Maggie, "I thought that he was not coming?" Maggie, who seemed a little tired, nodded quietly. It was a week or ten days later, and an early season was now in full swing. "He told me that he was not coming," she said. "I suppose the temptation to wear that gorgeous raiment was too much for him." "Apropos of that, there is one curious thing to be noted here with regard to clothes," the Prince continued. "Amongst the men, you find Venetian Doges, Chancellors, gallants of every age, but scarcely a single uniform. In a way, this seems typical of the passing of the militarism of your country. You are beginning to remind me of Venice in the Middle Ages. There is a new type of brain dominant here, fat instead of muscle, a citizen aristocracy instead of the lean, clear-eyed, athletic type." Maggie moved in her place a little irritably. "I am tired of warnings," she declared. "I wish some one could do something." "It is impossible," the Prince pronounced solemnly. "Napoleon earned for himself a greater claim to immortality when he christened the English a nation of shopkeepers than when he won the Battle of Austerlitz. If the Englishman of to-day saw his material prosperity slipping away from him, then indeed he would be nervous and restless, ready to lean towards every wind that blew, to listen to every disquieting rumour. To-day his bank balance is prodigious, and all's well with the world.--How wonderfully Prince Shan lives up to his part to-night!" They looked across towards the opposite box, whose single occupant, in the bright green robes of a mandarin, sat looking down upon the gay throng with an absolutely immovable expression. There was something almost regal about his air of detachment, his solitude amidst such a gay scene. "There is one of the strangest and most consistent figures in history," Karschoff, who was in a talkative frame of mind, went on reflectively. "I honestly believe that Prince Shan considers himself to be of celestial descent, to carry in his person the honour of countless generations of Manchus. He has no intimates. Even Immelan usually has to seek an audience. What his pleasures may be, who knows?--because everything that happens with him happens behind closed walls. To-night, the door of his box is guarded as though he were more than royalty. No one is allowed to enter unless he has special permission." "There is some one entering now," Maggie pointed out, "for the first time. Watch!" La Belle Nita stood for a moment in the front of the box. She was dressed in the gala costume of a Chinese lady, in a cherry-coloured robe with wide sleeves, her hair, with its many jewelled ornaments, like a black pool of night, her face ghastly white with a superabundance of powder. Prince Shan turned his head slightly towards her, and though no muscle of his face moved, it was obvious that her coming was unwelcome. She began to talk. He listened with the face of a sphinx. Presently she drew back into the shadows of the box. She had thrown herself into a chair, and her face was hidden. "La Belle Nita has made a mistake," Maggie observed. "His Serene Highness evidently had no wish to be disturbed." Karschoff's eyes rested upon the figure in green silk, and they were filled with an unwilling admiration. "That man is magnificent," he declared. "Watch his face now that he is speaking. Not a muscle moves, not a flash in his eyes, yet one has the fancy that he is saying terrible things." It was obvious, a moment later, that La Belle Nita had left the box. Maggie sprang up. Her colour was a little heightened. There was a rare nervousness in her tone. "Let us walk around and find some of the others," she suggested, turning to Nigel. "I want to dance." They all three passed out and mingled with the dancers. Maggie put on her mask and deliberately glided into the crowd as though with the intention of losing herself. It was not until she was underneath Prince Shan's box and out of sight of its occupant that she paused. Her thoughts were in a turmoil. His presence there, after his deliberate assurance to her that he had no intention of coming, his calm and unnoticing regard of her and every one else, seemed to confirm in every way the wave of pessimism which she as well as Nigel was experiencing. She had passed Immelan in the entrance, and there was something ominously disturbing in his cool, triumphant smile. She pictured to herself the agreement signed, some nameless terror already launched. She remembered that Nigel had complained of Naida's inaccessibility during the last few days. She herself had been surprised at Prince Shan's apparent withdrawal, temporary though it might be, from the peculiar but impressive position which he had taken up with regard to her. She stood back against the wall, in a dark corner, striving to collect her thoughts, thankful for the brief respite from conversation. A man in the costume of a monk, who had followed her across the room, touched her on the shoulder. He spoke in a quiet, unfamiliar voice with a foreign accent, "You are Lady Maggie Trent?" "Yes!" "Will you please go to box number fourteen, on the second tier? There is some one there who waits for you." "Who is it?" she asked. The monk had glided away. Maggie, after a few minutes' reflection, slipped out into the corridor, mounted one flight of stairs, and passed along the semicircular balcony. The door of box number fourteen was ajar. She pushed it gently open and glanced in. Seated so as to be out of sight of the whole house was La Belle Nita. For a moment the two looked at each other. Then the Chinese girl sprang to her feet, made a quaint little bow, and, gliding around, closed the door behind her visitor. "Sit down, please," she invited. "I will tell you things you may like to hear." A sudden thought flashed into Maggie's mind. She began to see light. She obeyed at once. The two women sat well back and out of sight of the house. La Belle Nita held the handle of the door in her hand while she spoke, as though to prevent any one entering. "I have an enemy who was once a friend," she said, "and I wish to do him evil. He is not only my enemy, but he is yours. He is the enemy of all you English people, because it is a great disaster which he plans to bring upon you." "You speak of Prince Shan?" Maggie exclaimed. Even at the mention of his name, the girl shook. She looked around as though fearing the shadows. She rattled the door to make sure that it was closed. "For him whom you call Prince Shan I have worked many years, first of all in Paris, now here. I was content with small reward. That reward he now takes from me. It is my wish to betray him." "Why do you send for me?" Maggie asked. "Because you have been an English spy," was the quiet reply. "It may surprise you that I know that, but I do know. I have been a spy for Prince Shan in Paris. You were a spy for England in Berlin. You were a spy for your country's sake; I was a spy for love. Now I betray for hate." "Please go on." "Prince Shan came this time to Europe with two schemes in his mind," the girl continued. "One concerned France. That one he has discarded. Through me he learned of the military strength of France, her secret resources, of her tireless watch upon the Rhine. So he listens to Immelan, and Immelan and he together, oh, English lady, they have made a wonderful plan!" "Are you going to tell me what it is?" Maggie asked, her eyes bright with excitement. "I cannot tell you because I do not know," was the unwilling admission, "but I will make it so that you can discover for yourself. A few hours ago, the plan was submitted to Prince Shan. It lies in the third drawer of an ebony cabinet, in the room on the left-hand side of the hall after you have entered his house in Curzon Street." "But no one can enter it!" Maggie exclaimed. "The place is like a fort. No stranger may pass the threshold even. The Prince has told me himself that he receives no visitors." La Belle Nita smiled. From a pocket somewhere within the folds of her flowing gown, she produced two small keys. "Listen," she said. "The house in Curzon Street has been called the House of Silence. There are many servants there, but they come only from beneath and when they are summoned. There is what no other person has ever possessed--the key of the front door. There is also the key of the cabinet. Prince Shan has ordered his automobile for two o'clock. It is now barely midnight." The keys lay in the palm of Maggie's hand. Her heart had begun to beat quickly. Somehow or other, she was conscious of a thrill of excitement which she had never before experienced, even when she had sat back in her corner of the railway carriage, watching for the frontier, knowing that the wires were busy with her name, and that men who knew no mercy were on her track. "If the servants should hear me?" she faltered. "You say only 'I await the Prince'," La Belle Nita murmured. "That key never leaves his own person save for one in great favour. They will believe that he gave it to you. You will be unmolested." A queer sensation suddenly assailed Maggie. She felt extraordinarily primitive, ridiculously feminine. She looked at the girl opposite to her, the girl whose body was draped in perfumed silks, whose face was thick with rice powder, whose eyes were sad. She felt no pity. What feeling she had, she did not care to analyse. "Is this your key?" she asked. "It was mine once, but its use has been forbidden to me," the girl replied. "Prince Shan is a changed man. Something has come into his life of which I know nothing, but as it has come, so must I go. I give you your chance, lady, but already I weaken. Go quickly, if you go at all. Please leave me, for I am very unhappy." Maggie stole quietly out and made her way through the jostling throng back to her own box, which for the moment was empty. She slipped on her cloak, and from the hidden spaces where she stood she looked across the auditorium. The silent figure in green silk robes was still seated in his place, his eyes following the movements of the dancers, his head a little thrown back, a slight weariness in his face. He was still alone. He still had the air of being alone because it was his desire. Once he looked up towards the box in which she was, and Maggie, although she knew she was invisible, shrank back against the wall. She set her teeth hard and looked back through the slightly misty space. An unfamiliar feeling for a moment almost choked her. She waited until she had vanquished it, then adjusted her mask and left the box. _ |
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