Ambrose Lavendale, Diplomat. E. Phillips OppenheimЧитать онлайн книгу.
Her eyes, however, were open, and she was struggling helplessly to move.
'I am all right,' she assured them feebly. 'Has any one—any brandy?'
She tried to sit up, but she was obviously on the point of collapse. Mr. Hurn pushed his way to her side. From another pill-box which he had withdrawn from his pocket, he took out a small pellet and forced it unceremoniously through her teeth.
'I invented an antidote whilst I was about it,' he explained. 'Had to keep on taking it myself when I was experimenting. She's only got a touch of it. She'll be all right in five minutes. What I should like to know is,' he concluded suspiciously, 'what the devil she was doing here, any way.'
The recovery of the young lady was almost magical. She first sat up. Then, with the help of Lavendale's hand, she rose easily to her feet. She pointed to the spinney.
'What on earth is this awful thing?' she faltered.
No one spoke for a minute.
'What were you doing round here, young lady?' Mr. Hurn asked bluntly.
She looked at him with her big, innocent eyes as though surprised.
'I was motoring along the road,' she explained, 'when I saw you stop,' she went on, turning towards the General. 'I remembered that I had heard there was to be a review here. I thought I might see something of it.'
There was a silence.
'Perhaps,' Merrill suggested, 'the young lady will give us her name and address?'
She raised her eyebrows slightly.
'But willingly,' she answered. 'I am Miss Suzanne de Freyne, and my address is at the Milan Court. I haven't done anything wrong, have I?'
'Nothing at all,' Lavendale assured her hastily. 'It's we who feel guilty.'
'But what does it all mean?' she demanded, a little pathetically. 'I was just walking across the field when suddenly that happened. I felt as though all the strength were going out of my body. I didn't exactly suffocate, but it was just as though I was swallowing something which stopped in my throat.'
'Capital!' Mr. Hurn exclaimed, his face beaming. 'Most interesting! Perhaps, after all,' he went on complacently, 'if we may take it for granted that the young lady's presence is entirely accidental, her experience is not without some interest to us.'
'But will no one tell me what it means?' she persisted.
There was a silence. Lavendale was suddenly oppressed by a queer foreboding. The General took Miss de Freyne courteously by the arm and led her on one side. He pointed with his riding whip to the gate where the limousine was standing.
'Young lady,' he said, 'Captain Merrill here will take you back to your car. You will confer a great obligation upon every one here, and upon your country, if you allow this little incident to pass from your mind.'
She laughed softly. Her eyes seemed to be seeking for something in Lavendale's face which she failed to find. Then she turned away with a shrug of the shoulders and glanced up at Captain Merrill.
'I am not a prisoner, am I?' she asked. 'Let me assure you all,' she declared, with a little wave of farewell, 'that I never want to think of this hateful spot again.'
They watched her pass through the gate and enter the car which was standing in the road.
'Does any one know her?' the General inquired.
'She was at the next table to Mr. Hurn here when I spoke to him at the Milan,' Lavendale observed thoughtfully. 'She was listening to our conversation. It may be a coincidence, but it seems strange that she should have been on our heels just at this particular moment.'
The General passed his arm through Mr. Hurn's.
'The Intelligence Department shall make a few inquiries,' he promised. 'As for you, my dear sir, our positions are now reversed. My time is yours. I will find another opportunity to inspect these troops. Will you return with me to the War Office at once?'
'Right away,' Mr. Hurn assented. 'And, General,' he went on, swaggering a little as he shambled along by the side of the tall, alert, military figure—queerest contrast in the world—'give me a factory—one of your ordinary factories will do, all your ordinary appliances will do, but give me control of it for one month and you can invite me to Berlin to the peace signing.'
*****
At about half-past eight that evening, after having waited about for some time in the hall of the Milan Grill-room, Lavendale handed his coat and hat to the vestiaire and passed into the crowded restaurant. A young man of excellent poise and balance, he was almost bewildered at his own sensations as he elbowed his way through the throng of waiters and passers-by. At the corner of the glass screen he paused. The girl was there, seated at the same table, with a newspaper propped up in front of her. Her black hair seemed glossier than ever; her face, unshadowed by any hat, a little more pallid and forceful. A fur coat had fallen back from her white shoulders. She seemed to be wholly absorbed in the paper in front of her.
'A table, monsieur?' a soft voice murmured at his elbow.
Lavendale shook off his abstraction and glanced reluctantly away.
'I am dining with Mr. Hurn, Jules,' he replied. 'He said eight o'clock, but I can't see anything of him.'
Jules pointed to a table close at hand, evidently reserved for two people. There were hors d'oeuvres waiting and a bottle of wine upon the ice.
'Mr. Hurn ordered dinner for eight o'clock punctually, sir,' he announced. 'I have been expecting him in for some time.'
The girl, as though attracted by their voices, had raised her eyes. She looked towards the unoccupied table by the side of which Jules was standing. The three of them for a moment seemed to have concentrated their regard upon the same spot, and Lavendale was conscious of a queer little emotion, an unanalyzable foreboding.
'The gentleman ordered a very excellent dinner,' Jules observed. 'I have already sent back the cocktails twice.'
Lavendale glanced at the clock. Almost at the same time his eyes met the girl's. There was a quiver of recognition in her face. He took instant advantage of it and moved towards her.
'You are quite recovered, I trust, Miss de Freyne?'
She raised her eyes to his. Again he felt that sense of baffling impenetrability. It was impossible even to know whether she appreciated or resented his question.
'I am quite recovered, thank you,' she said. 'You have seen nothing more of our queer little friend?'
'Nothing at all,' she told him.
'He invited me to dine with him,' Lavendale explained, 'at eight o'clock punctually. I have been waiting outside for nearly half an hour.'
She glanced at the clock and Lavendale, with a little bow, passed on.
'Perhaps he meant me to go up to his room,' he remarked, addressing Jules. 'Do you know his number?'
'Eighty-nine in the Court, sir,' the man replied. 'Shall I send up?'
'I'll go myself,' Lavendale decided.
Jules bowed and, although Lavendale did not glance around, he felt that the girl's eyes as well as the man's followed him to the door. He rang for the lift and ascended to the fourth floor, made his way down the corridor and paused before number eighty-nine. He knocked at the door—there was no reply. Then he tried the handle, which yielded at once to his touch. Inside all was darkness. He turned on the electric light and pushed open the door of the sitting-room just in front.
'Mr. Hurn!' he exclaimed, raising his voice.
There was still no reply—a strange, brooding silence which seemed to possess subtle qualities of mystery and apprehension. Lavendale had all the courage and unshaken nerves of youth and yet at that moment he was afraid. His groped along the wall for the switch and found it with an impulse of