AT the second summons Barosa roused himself.
“What will you do, Mr. Donnington. We have a secret means of leaving the house and——”
“I swear I had forgotten that,” exclaimed Maral, as he jumped up, grabbed his papers and made for the door.
“Wait please. Give me the letter which M. Volheno wrote me,” I said, stopping him.
He searched for it agitatedly and then thrust it into my hand. “Come on, Barosa,” he cried and darted away.
“Are you going to remain?” asked Barosa, hurriedly.
I nodded. “You won’t want to use this house again?”
“Of course not. But——”
The crash of glass below interrupted him, announcing that the police had broken in, and the next moment I had the room to myself and sat down to wait for the real police and find out how their treatment differed from that of the bogus ones.
With Volheno’s letter in my possession I had nothing to fear, and I glanced at it to make sure that Maral in his panic had handed me the right one—and then gave a start of surprise.
It was Volheno’s letter all right, but folded up in it was a long doubled strip of paper with three rows of small holes punched in it at irregular intervals. I knew instantly what it was—the key to the cipher which I had seen attached to the letter which I had duplicated.
As the police might have a fancy to search me I rolled it and the other strip very tightly, emptied a cigarette, inserted the roll, and plugged up the ends with tobacco; and just when the police were at the door I struck a match and was puffing at the cigarette as two of them entered.
“Good evening, gentlemen, I’m very relieved to see you,” I said, rising and carefully pinching out the lighted tobacco.
“You are our prisoner,” exclaimed one of them, covering me with a revolver.
“I’m extremely relieved to hear it, I can assure you.”
“Where are the others?”
“What others?”
“The other scoundrels who use this house?”
“To my intense satisfaction your arrival scared them away.”
“Don’t try and fool us with that tone. You won’t help them and it will make things worse for you. Put up your hands.”
I did so, at once, of course, keeping hold of my precious cigarette, and they made a very business-like search of all my pockets, and then felt all about me to see that I had no weapons. They put the results of their search on the desk, and one of them, being a very zealous officer, went to the trouble of breaking open two or three of the cigarettes and pinching and bending the rest. But it did not occur to him that I could be smoking one which he might wish to see. It had been quite a happy thought, that little precaution of mine.
Then one of them picked up the letter from Volheno and was unfolding it when I said gently: “I am not sure that M. Volheno will care for you to read correspondence between us.”
The name acted like a charm of magic. He refolded it and dropped it like a live coal.
“It would, however, assist you to understand the position, my friend, and appreciate your mistake,” I said in the same suave tone.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Ralph Donnington. I am an Englishman and have the privilege of enjoying the friendship of M. Volheno.”
“Why didn’t you say who you were before?”
“You did not ask me, and I never argue with the man at the butt end of a revolver.”
“How is it you are here?”
“I think that is a matter I can better explain to my friend, M. Volheno, himself.” Seeing the excellent effect of the name, I deemed it judicious to rub it in. “Are you in command here? If not, I wish you would bring your superior here or take me to him.”
They whispered together and one of them left the room.
“Do you know where you are? What this house is, I mean?”
“Oh yes, perfectly. I have had very good proof of it. Would you have any objection to my lowering my hands? This is rather a trying position.”
He nodded and his face relaxed in a grin which he turned away to conceal.
“I should also like my matchbox and cigarettes—if you don’t think I shall blow the Government up with them. Thank you very much,” I added as he handed them to me.
Affecting considerable annoyance at the condition of the cigarettes, I tossed away those which were broken, and while pretending to straighten out the bent ones I managed to slip the one I held into the case without his knowledge. Then I lit another and pocketed the case, and sat puffing away, with that air of easy indifference affected by the cigarette-smoking villain in melodrama when he is top dog and has all the virtuous members of the caste in his power.
I had nearly finished the cigarette when the man returned with a superior officer whose look of chagrin told me that the raid had been unsuccessful and that Barosa and the rest had escaped.
“Now what is your story?” he asked brusquely.
As he had the look of a man who would not stand any nonsense, I dropped my air of indifference. “I am an Englishman, Donnington is my name. I quite understand that my presence here requires explanation and that of course I am entirely in your hands.”
“What is your explanation?”
“I was brought here by force.”
He sneered. “You think I shall believe that?”
“I am sure that my friend, M. Volheno, will.”
“What does M. Volheno know of you?”
“Your men took from me a letter he wrote to me. It is on the desk there and explains itself. But it is marked confidential; and whether he would wish you to read it is a point I will leave to you. I am indifferent.”
This proved a good card. He stretched out his hand to take the letter and paused.
“Tell me the purport of it,” he said.
“No, no. I can’t do that. It is a confidential letter, I say. I cannot disclose it therefore. But I am your prisoner and cannot prevent your doing what you please.”
His perplexity was quite amusing.
“How do I know it is not a forgery?”
“I don’t know that myself, but it was addressed to me at my rooms, 318, Rua de Palma, and reached me to-night through the post.”
“How long have you been in this house?”
“Some hours.”
“Alone?” he cried with another sneer.
“Oh no. For part of the time one man was here; for others, two; and at times perhaps a dozen.”
“Where are they?”
“I have no more idea than you. There were two of them when you and your men arrived. I was then left alone.”
“But the house was surrounded. They couldn’t escape.”
“I was brought straight to this room and have not been allowed to leave it for a moment.”
“‘Allowed’?” he repeated quickly, catching at the word.
“That is just what I mean. Otherwise, I certainly should not have remained.”
“Who were the men?”
I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. “I would tell you if I could.” This was a deliberate equivocation, but it saved me from a direct lie. I meant that I could not because of my pledge, but I meant him to infer that I did not know.
He paused and I added: “And now I shall be glad to know what you propose to do with me?”
“What do you suppose we generally do with prisoners? Billet them at the Avenida Palace Hotel? You’ll be locked up for the rest of the night, of course, while we make inquiries about you.”
“I am an Englishman—as I have told you.”
“What of that? What’s good enough for a Portuguese is good enough for an Englishman, I suppose.”
“I am also a friend of M. Volheno.”
“So you say. But do you expect me to rouse him in the middle of the night whenever a revolutionary rascal chooses to say he is a friend?”
“I can give you the names of several other influential men who know me. The Marquis de Pinsara, Visconte de Linto,” and I rattled off a number of the men to whom I had been introduced on the night of the reception.
“You can communicate with them in the morning and call them as witnesses,” he sneered. He had the sardonic habit strongly developed. “But I haven’t done questioning you yet.”
“I shall not answer any more questions. You don’t believe what I tell you. My object was to avoid the unpleasantness of being thrust into one of your filthy gaols; and that has evidently failed.”
“You will tell me where the men are hidden who were here with you,” he said very threateningly.
“I repeat, I know no more than you do. You were already in the house when they left this room.”
“That won’t do for me,” he answered bluntly. He motioned to the two men who pulled my hands behind my back and slipped a pair of handcuffs on my wrists, while he himself sat down at the desk and made a list of the things the men had taken from me. “Is this all?” he asked the fellow who had searched me.
“All but a cigarette case.”
“Anything in it?”
“Nothing but cigarettes. I made sure of that.”
“All right.” I breathed more freely.
“Now, prisoner, show me the secret hiding-place in this room.”
“There is none. The men left the room.”
He came close up and glared so fiercely into my face that I thought he was going to strike me. He was the sort of brute to enjoy hitting a defenceless man. “If you lie to me, I’ll——” he ground his teeth and left me to finish the sentence out of my own fears.
“I do not lie,” I said meeting his look steadily. “And you will do well to bear in mind in all you do now that in the morning you will find every word I have said as to my friendship with M. Volheno is true.”
I spoke very calmly thinking it would have the better effect. But it appeared to enrage him and this time he actually raised his hand for a blow. It was therefore clearly time to try a change of manner.
So I shoved my head forward until our noses were nearly touching and with a fierce oath, I cried: “You dare to lay a hand on me, you infernal bully, and it shall cost you dear. M. Volheno shall know of this. Do your duty whatever that may be, but not one jot more, or——” and I adopted his tactic of an unfinished sentence.
The result was a surprising success. His hand fell to his side, his eyes wavered, and his threatening truculence of manner dropped from him like a cloak. The reason was, of course, that he was a miserable coward and had mistaken my coolness for fear.
“I am only doing my duty,” he muttered.
“You lie,” I thundered back, quick to take advantage of his mood. “You dare to handcuff me like a felon, when I tell you I am a British subject and give you ample means of testing what I say. You’ll have to reckon with the British Legation for this. Do what you will, while you have me in your power; but don’t think for an instant you won’t have to pay for your bullying in the morning.”
“I have——”
“Don’t try to excuse yourself. If you want to bully any one, do it with the unfortunate devils under your orders. As for me, do what you dare—but remember, it will be my turn to-morrow.”
“If you’ll give your word not to offer resistance, you shall be freed.”
“You didn’t ask that before you handcuffed me. I call these men to witness that. Take me in them to M. Volheno—if you dare. Or haul me off to gaol in them. It’s all one to me—until to-morrow.”
He paused and then signed to the men who freed me, and he left the room. I sat down and the men stood near the door whispering and sniggering together. They appeared to be rather pleased at their chief’s discomfiture.
He was away so long that I fell asleep and was in the middle of a realistic dream that I was in prison among the scum of the city when I was roused by some one thundering my name in my ear.
I started up and found the official had returned with a companion who was shaking me and calling me by name.
“Mr. Donnington! Mr. Donnington!”
“Well, what is it?” I grumbled, blinking at him like an owl until I recognized him as a man I had seen at Volheno’s bureau.
“M. Volheno desired me to come to you, sir.”
“Oh, ho,” I chuckled, turning to the official, “so you thought discretion was the better part of bullying, eh?”
“My name is Dagara, Mr. Donnington. I am M. Volheno’s private secretary. He instructed me to say that he desires to see you as soon as you can call on him.”
“I have to go to gaol first,” I said with a snarl for my old enemy. “I was already there in my dreams when you roused me. But if I am to be shot or hanged or beheaded as this man decides, I’ll leave directions for my corpse to be packed up neatly and sent to M. Volheno.” I was winning so I could afford a small jibe.
“You are of course at liberty to go where you will,” said Dagara.
“Then I’ll go back to bed,” I declared as I rose, “and will see M. Volheno in the morning. I have to tell him how this brute has treated me.”
The official had wilted like an unwatered flower in the noon sunlight. He returned me my belongings and began to mumble an apology. “I much regret——”
“I’ve no doubt of it. I know your kind,” I cut in drily, and then left the house with Dagara, feeling that I was well out of an ugly business.
I had come off with all the honours of war, too, for my letters had not been read and the two little secret papers were safely stowed away in my cigarette case.
The secretary walked with me to my rooms and I found him an exceedingly close-lipped individual. The house where the drastic test of my good faith had been applied was in the Rua Formosa, about half a mile from the Rua de Palma; and during the walk I could get little else than monosyllables from my companion. He did go so far as to tell me that he had been at work all night with Volheno and that that was the reason he had not gone home and had been able to come so promptly to identify me.
But when I asked him about the police official he replied that he knew nothing.
I soon ceased to question him, and as we reached my rooms, he said suddenly: “You will understand of course that M. Volheno never allows me to speak of any of his affairs. I will give him your message, and wish you good-morning, Mr. Donnington;” and with this abrupt apology in explanation of his silence, he raised his hat and went off.
A useful and silently working wheel, no doubt, in the complicated machinery of the Dictator’s system of government, was my mental verdict as I entered my rooms, eager to examine my prizes at leisure.
I put back some of the things Barosa’s men had left littered about, brewed myself some strong coffee, and set to work.
I first read through again very carefully the forged letter which had been sent to Volheno. That it was the work of an enemy who was well versed in my movements was of course on the surface. My friendship with the man to whom it was addressed, my secret knowledge of the house in the Rua Catania, my business in regard to these Beira concessions, these three points told their story as plainly as the attempt proved the ingenious malignity of the writer, and his intention to cause Barosa and his friends to suspect me of treachery. The blow was aimed at my life.
There was only one man in all Lisbon who could have the needed information and would have the motive.
Sampayo.
Jealousy was one motive, and fear of what I knew about him another. And he was just the sort of cunning beast to go to work in this mole-like way. He had reckoned that Barosa’s people would accept without question such a proof of my treachery and act upon it. And in all probability they would have done so, but for my conversation with Barosa on the night of the reception and his conviction of my good faith.
But there was another point. He must have known that the contents of the letter would be at once passed on to Barosa. There was therefore some one about Volheno in league with the revolutionary party, and that some one must be sufficiently high in his confidence to be able to get the letter and send it to his friends.
I must find that man out; and then I studied the little slip of paper which Maral had inadvertently given me with the letter.
The line of nonsense ran as follows.
“Real effects to you truly. You know what this only can mean. 134”
Absolute gibberish of course. But I had the key.
I noticed that the sentence exactly fitted a line of the same length as the strip of paper with the holes in it; and when I laid the first line of holes on the top of the words the meaning was clear.
All the letters were covered by it except the following:
RETURN AT ONCE
“Return at once.”
A simple direction to send the letter back; and 134 was probably the number by which the man was known to his companions. I had had my trouble for nothing—or next to nothing; for the cipher key did not cover the figures at the end of the message.
Then a thought struck me. The numerals might stand for letters: 134 would be “A. C. D.;” or 13 and 4, “M.D.”
“M.D.!” I uttered the letters aloud in my surprise. They were Miralda’s initials. “Miralda Dominguez.”
The coincidence mazed me; but a moment’s reflection made the inference appear grotesque, preposterous, idiotic; and I laughed at it.
But my nerves were out of balance. The ordeal of the last few hours, following so close upon the tense interview with Miralda on the Stella, had tried me severely. Everybody appeared to be playing at make-believe to cause me to misread everything I saw and heard.
Even as I laughed at the thought that Miralda could have had even the remotest connexion with the cipher message, the disconcerting possibility suggested by the coincidence would not be shaken off.
Furious with myself, for the subconscious distrust of her which this depression of spirits implied, I huddled the papers together and went off to bed.