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The Great Secret, a fiction by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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CHAPTER XXIII. THE PRETENDER |
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_ Mr. de Valentin led the way to a secluded corner of the smoke-room, and laid a well-filled cigarette case upon the table. He beckoned to the steward. "You will take something?" he asked. I ordered a whisky and soda and lit a cigarette. I had tasted nothing like them since I had left England. Mr. de Valentin leaned across the table towards me. "Mr. Courage," he said, "I am going to ask you to accept a confidence from me. You are an English gentleman, and although I have not the honor to be myself an Englishman, my associations with your country have always been very close, and I am well aware that a special significance attaches itself to that term." He paused and looked across at me somewhat anxiously. His speech was slow but very distinct. He had little accent, but I had known quite well that he was not an Englishman. "I shall be very glad to hear anything that you have to say, Mr. de Valentin," I answered. He beat with his forefinger upon the table for a few moments absently. I found myself studying him critically. His appearance was without doubt distinguished. His sallow face, his pointed black beard, his high, well-shaped nose, and almost brilliant eyes gave him the appearance of a Spaniard; but the scrupulous exactness of his plain dinner clothes, his well-manicured nails, and the ring upon his little finger, with its wonderful green stone, were all suggestive of the French aristocrat. His eyebrows were knit just now, as though with thought. Presently he looked up from the table and continued: "If you will permit me," he said, "I should like to introduce myself. My name is not Mr. de Valentin. I am Victor Louis, Comte de Valentin, Marquis de St. Auteuil, Duc de Bordera and Escault, Prince of Normandy." I nodded gravely. "And according to some," I remarked in a low tone, "King of France!" He looked at me in keen surprise. He was evidently taken aback. "You knew me?" he exclaimed. "I felt very sure," I answered, "that you were the person whom you have declared yourself to be. I have seen you twice in Paris, and you must remember that this is an age of illustrated papers and journalistic enterprise." "You have not mentioned your recognition of me?" he asked quickly. "Certainly not," I answered. "It was not my affair, and in your position I can conceive that there may be many reasons for your desiring to travel incognito." He smiled a little wearily. "Yet it would tax your ingenuity, I imagine," he continued, "to account for my travelling in company with Mrs. Van Reinberg and her daughters." "It is not my affair," I answered. "We Englishmen are supposed to have learnt the secret of minding our own business." "You Englishmen, certainly," he answered, "but not always your servants." I looked at him a little puzzled. His words had seemed to possess some special significance. "You will not, I am sure, take offence at what I am about to say, Mr. Courage," he continued; "but may I ask if you have confidence in the manservant who is now travelling with you?" It was a shock, but I fancy that I remained unmoved. "You mean my man Peters?" I inquired. "I can guarantee his honesty certainly." "Can you also guarantee," Mr. de Valentin asked me, "that he is simply what he professes to be--a valet, and not, for instance, a spy?" "My dear sir," I protested, "we scarcely know the meaning of that word in England. To say the least of it, such a suggestion would be wildly improbable." He sighed. "In France," he said, "one looks for spies everywhere. I myself have suffered painfully on more than one occasion from espionage. One grows suspicious, and, in this instance, I have grounds for my suspicions." "May I know what they are?" I asked. "I was about to tell you," Mr. de Valentin answered. "I have with me in my cabin certain papers, which are of great importance to me. I had occasion to look them through last night, and although none were missing, yet there was every indication of their having been tampered with. I questioned my servant, who is a very faithful fellow, and I found that the only person with whom he had made friends, and who had entered my cabin, was your man, Peters I think you called him." Mr. de Valentin was watching me closely, and the test was a severe one. I was annoyed with Guest for having kept me in ignorance of what he had done. "I do not see how your private papers could have been of the slightest use to Peters," I said; "but if you like to come down to my state-room you can question him yourself." "That," he answered, "I will leave to you. I take it then that you have no suspicion that your servant is any other than he professes to be?" "I am perfectly convinced that he is not," I declared. Mr. de Valentin bowed. "For the moment," he said, "we will quit the subject. I have another matter, equally delicate, which I should like to discuss with you." "I am quite at your service," I assured him. "You have a saying in English," he continued, "which, if I remember it rightly, says that necessity makes strange bedfellows. I myself am going into a strange country upon a strange errand. I do not consider myself a person of hyper-exclusive tastes, but I must confess that I do not find myself in sympathy with the country-people and friends of Mrs. Van Reinberg!" I shrugged my shoulders. "Then why go amongst them?" I asked. "You are surely at liberty to do as you choose!" Mr. de Valentin took up his case and chose another cigarette. "In this instance," he said coldly, "I am not entirely my own master. There were powerful reasons why I should have taken this voyage to America, and there are reasons why I should have done so with Mrs. Van Reinberg. Which brings me, by the bye, to the second matter concerning which I wished to speak to you." I accepted another of Mr. de Valentin's excellent cigarettes, and composed myself once more to listen. "I am going to Lenox," he continued, "to meet there a few American friends, with whom I have certain affairs of importance to discuss. You, also, have been invited to Lenox. My request is that you defer your visit there until after my departure." I raised my eyebrows at this. It seemed to me that Mr. de Valentin was going a little too far. "May I inquire," I asked politely, "in what respect you find my presence there undesirable? We are not bound, I presume, to come much into contact with one another." "You misunderstand me," Mr. de Valentin declared. "It is not a personal matter at all. My visit to Lenox has been arranged solely to discuss a certain matter with certain people. The presence of those who are not interested in it would be an embarrassment to all of us. Further, to recur to a matter which we have already spoken of, I cannot divest myself of certain suspicions concerning your servant." I considered my reply for a moment or two. "As regards the latter," I said after a pause, "I can not take you seriously. Besides, it is very unlikely that my servant would accompany me to Lenox. If my presence there would be an embarrassment, I really do not see why Mrs. Van Reinberg asked me." "She did so thoughtlessly," Mr. de Valentin answered. "Her reasons were tolerably clear to me, perhaps to you. With regard to them, I have nothing to say, except that your visit could be paid just as well, say in a fortnight after we land." "Unfortunately," I answered, "that would not suit me. To be frank with you, Miss Van Hoyt would have left." "If I can arrange," Mr. de Valentin continued, with some eagerness, "that she should not have left!" I hesitated for a moment. "Mr. de Valentin," I said, "I cannot conceive what cause for embarrassment could arise from my presence in Lenox at the same time as yourself. I do not ask you to tell me your secrets; but, in the absence of some more valid reason for staying away, I shall certainly not break my present engagement." There was a silence between us for several moments. Mr. de Valentin was fingering his cigarette case nervously. "I am perhaps asking too much of a stranger, Mr. Courage," he said. "The matter is of the deepest importance to me, or I would not have troubled you. Supposing Miss Van Hoyt should herself fix the date of your visit, and engage to be there?" "That," I answered, "would, of course, be sufficient for me." Mr. de Valentin rose from his seat. "We will leave it like that then," he said. "I must apologize, Mr. Courage, for having troubled you with my private affairs, and wish you good-night!" We separated a few moments later, and I went down to my state-room. I found Guest busy writing in a pocket-book, seated on the edge of his bunk. I told him of my conversation with Mr. de Valentin. "I knew it was risky," he remarked when I had finished, "but it was an opportunity which I dared not miss." "You might have told me about it," I protested. "I was altogether unprepared." "The less you know," he answered, "the better. If you like, I will show you tracings of some letters which I discovered in Mr. de Valentin's portfolio. They were quite worth the journey to America, apart from anything else. Personally, I should advise you not to see them until our return to England." "Very well," I answered. "Don't show them to me. But I shouldn't try it again. Mr. de Valentin is on his guard." Guest smiled a little wearily. "I am not likely to make such a mistake as that," he answered. "Besides, I have been through all his papers. His secrets are ours now, only we must know what is decided upon at Lenox. Then we can return to England, and the first part of our task will be done!" _ |
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