Home > Authors Index > E. Phillips Oppenheim > Mischief Maker > This page
The Mischief Maker, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
||
Book 2 - Chapter 11. By The Prince's Orders |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ BOOK TWO CHAPTER XI. BY THE PRINCE'S ORDERS Once more mademoiselle sat beneath a canopy of pink roses, surrounded by obsequious waiters, with the murmur of music in her ears, opposite the man she adored. Yet without a doubt mademoiselle was disturbed. Her fixed eyes were riveted upon the newspaper which Herr Freudenberg had passed into her hand. She was suddenly very pale. "Send some of these people away," she begged. "I am frightened." Herr Freudenberg smiled. With a wave of his hand they were alone. "Dear Marguerite," he said quietly, "compose yourself. All those who stand in my way and the way of my country must be swept aside, but remember this. They have all received their warning. I lift my hand against no one who has not first received a chance of escape." "He was a man so gallant," she faltered, "so _comme il faut_. Listen to me, please." She laid the newspaper upon the table and kept the flat of her hand still upon it. Then she leaned towards him. "You will not be angry with me?" she implored. "Indeed I did it to please you, to win, if I could, a little more of your love. I knew that this man Sir Julien stood in your path and that you found it difficult to remove him. An impulse came to me. We had talked together gayly as a man of gallantry may talk to a woman like myself. It might easily pass for flirting, those things that he has said. Although you, dear one," she added, looking across the table, "know how it is with me when such words are spoken. Well, I bought cartridges for my little pistol that you gave me, I thrust it into the bosom of my gown, I wore my prettiest clothes, and yesterday I went to his rooms." Herr Freudenberg's cold eyes were suddenly fixed upon her face. His fingers stopped their drumming upon the tablecloth. "Proceed!" "I meant to shoot him," she confessed. "I thought that if I could not escape afterwards it was so easy for people to believe that he was my lover, that it was a crime of jealousy, a moment's passion. I said to myself, too, that you would help so that after all my punishment would be a very small affair. In no other way it seemed to me could he have been disposed of so easily." "Sweet little fool!" Herr Freudenberg murmured. "Did it never enter into your little brain that you are known as my companion?" She shook her head. "That would have counted for nothing. People would not have believed that I had any other motive. I should have declared that it was a love affair." "What happened?" "He was too quick for me," mademoiselle admitted. "He saw me feel the spot where the pistol lay concealed. He--he snatched it away." "And afterwards?" Herr Freudenberg inquired, with the ghost of a smile upon his lips. She raised her eyes. "He let me go," she replied. "He threw open the door and he laughed at me. Forgive me, please, if I am sad, if indeed I weep. He was a gallant gentleman." Herr Freudenberg sighed. Slowly he raised his glass to his lips and drank. "It is an amiable epitaph," he declared. "Many a man has gone up to Heaven with a worse. Cheer up, my little Marguerite. A year or two more or less in a man's life is no great matter, and after all it was not one warning which this rash man received. You have not yet read the account of the affair." Mademoiselle slowly withdrew the palm of her hand from the paper. The paragraph was headed: SHOCKING EXPLOSION IN THE RUE DE MONTPELIER. She looked up. "I cannot read it," she murmured. "Tell me." "It is simple," he replied. "This afternoon an unfortunate explosion occurred in the house in the Rue de Montpelier where Sir Julien had his apartments. The whole of the front of the premises was blown away. It is regrettable," he added, with a little shrug of the shoulders, "that in all seven people perished, including the concierge. Mr. Kendricks, an English journalist, was taken away alive, but terribly injured, to the hospital. His companion, who seems to have been within a few feet of him when the explosion occurred, was unfortunately blown to pieces. The details as to his fate might perhaps interfere with your appetite, but let me at least assure you, my dear Marguerite," Herr Freudenberg continued, "that such a death is entirely painless. I regret the necessity for such means, but the man had his chance. I regret, also, the fate of the other poor people who lost their lives. Unfortunately, it was necessary to remove Sir Julien in such a way that no suspicion should be cast upon any one person. The death of the concierge, for instance, was absolutely essential. He was suspicious about some of my men who had been making inquiries." "But it is horrible!" she gasped. "Little one," he went on, "life is like that. To succeed one has to cultivate indifference. Sir Julien Portel had many warnings. He knew very well that if he persisted in writing those articles, he was braving my defiance. Already he has done mischief enough. The whole series would have undone the work of the last two years. To-night," Herr Freudenberg continued, with a sigh of relief, "we may open the Journal without apprehensions. There are no more secrets disclosed, no more of these marvelously written appeals to--" Herr Freudenberg stopped short. His eyebrows had drawn closer together. He was gazing at the sheet which he held in his hand with more expression in his face than mademoiselle had ever seen there before. "My God!" he muttered. She, too, bent forward. She, too, saw the article with its heading: "A Maker of Toys!" Herr Freudenberg waved her back. Line by line he read the article. When he had finished, his face was almost ghastly. He drained his glass and called for the _sommelier_. "Serve more wine," he ordered briefly. "What is it that you have seen?" she asked. "I was a fool not to have been prepared," he answered. "There is another article in to-night's paper, but of course he would have sent it off before--before the explosion happened. It is worse than the others!" he went on hoarsely. "Thank Heaven, that man is out of the way! I would give a million marks to be able to destroy every copy of this paper that was ever issued. It is not fair fighting!... It is barbarous! No longer can I hope for any privacy in this country. You see--you see, Marguerite? He has written of me openly. 'The Toymaker from Leipzig!'--that is what he has called me! These two, Kendricks and he, they saw through me from the first. They knew what it was that I desired. Damn them!" Mademoiselle crossed herself instinctively. Once she had been religious. "Poor Sir Julien!" Herr Freudenberg sighed. "To-morrow night, at any rate," he said, "there will be no article. We have made sure of that. I pray to Heaven that it may not be too late!" She shuddered. The service of dinner was resumed. "Put the paper away," she begged. "Don't let us think of it any more. After all, as you say, he was warned. Nothing that one feels now can do any good. Give me some wine. Talk to me of other things." Estermen came in to them presently. Herr Freudenberg insisted upon his taking a chair. Once more he dismissed the waiters. "All goes well," Estermen announced. "There is not an idea at headquarters as to the source of the explosion. I have been round with the newspaper men." "How is Kendricks?" Herr Freudenberg asked. "Alive, but barely conscious." "It is a pity," Herr Freudenberg said coldly. "Kendricks is responsible for a good deal of the trouble. Did you see that to-night's article is here?" Estermen nodded. "He must have been a day ahead," he explained. "It was probably a later one of the series upon which he was engaged when the thing occurred." "This one will do sufficient harm," Herr Freudenberg remarked grimly. Estermen shrugged his shoulders. "It is true, and yet we have a great start. Public opinion is thoroughly unsettled. Even those who accepted the _entente_ as the most brilliant piece of diplomacy of the generation, are beginning to wonder what really has been gained by it. If I were at Berlin," Estermen continued, with a covert glance up at his master, "now is the time I should choose. To-morrow _Le Grand Journal_ will be silent. To-morrow I should send a polite notification to the English Government that owing to the unsettled condition of the country, and the nervousness of certain German residents, His Imperial Majesty has thought it wise to send a warship to Agdar." "The German subjects are a trifle hypothetical," Herr Freudenberg muttered. "We had the utmost difficulty in persuading an ex-convict to go out there." "What does it matter?" Estermen asked. "He is there. He represents the glorious liberties of the Fatherland. Millions have been spent before now for the blood of one man." Marguerite sighed. She was leaning back in her place, watching the boughs of the lime trees swinging gently back and forth in the night breeze, the cool moonlight outside, refreshing in its contrast to the over-lit and overheated auditorium of the music-hall. On the stage a Revue was in full swing. Mademoiselle Ixe glanced at it but seldom. Her eyes seemed to be always outside. "Tell me," she demanded almost passionately, "why cannot one leave the world alone? It is great enough and beautiful enough. Will Germany be really the happier, do you think, if she triumphs against England? It doesn't seem worth while. Life is so short, the joy of living is so hard to grasp. Don't you think," she added, leaning towards her companion, her beautiful eyes full of entreaty, "that for one night at least, all thoughts of your country and of her destinies might pass away? Let us live in the world that amuses itself, that takes the pleasures that grow ready to its hand, whose arms are not rapacious, and whose sword lies idle. Forget for a little time, dear friend. Let us both forget!" Herr Freudenberg smiled as he finished his wine. "Ah! dear Marguerite," he said, "you preach the great philosophy. We will try humbly to follow in your footsteps. Lead on and we will follow--up to the Montmartre, if you will, or down to the Rue Royale. What does it matter, sweetheart, so long as we are together?" She shivered a little as his fingers touched hers, although her eyes still besought him. The _vestiaire_ was standing by with her lace coat. She rose slowly to her feet. "To the Rue Royale," she decided. "To-night I have no fancy for the Montmartre." _ |
||