A FEW hours’ sleep enabled me to laugh much more sincerely at the thought which had sent me off to bed in a hurry, and I was reviewing the whole situation when Miralda’s brother called. He had the look of a man who had been making a night of it, and was washed out and generally sorry for himself.
“Hullo, then, I have caught you, Mr. Donnington. May I come in?”
“Of course you may,” I said as I shook hands with him, put him into an easy chair and handed him the cigarettes. “Why, did you think you wouldn’t catch me?”
He lit a cigarette and I saw that his hand shook badly.
“Eh? Oh, you’re such a busy man, aren’t you?” His hesitancy and a note in his voice suggested nervousness, as if he had been momentarily at a loss how to answer.
“Not too busy for a chat with you at any time, lieutenant.” I spoke cordially because I wished to be friendly.
“Thanks,” he said, adding after a puff or two: “You look confoundedly fit.”
“Not much the matter, I’m glad to say.”
“No, I should think not, indeed.” Another pause followed and he put his eyeglass in position, glanced at me and then round the room, and let it fall again. “I suppose not.”
“Will you have a pick-me-up?” I asked. It struck me he had been looking about for one.
“Cognac,” he replied with a nod. I rang for my servant, Bryant, and mixed a brandy and soda, which Vasco drank eagerly. “Had a hot night of it,” he murmured with one of his inane grins as he set the empty glass down.
“Lost?”
“I always do, curse the luck,” he answered, and pouring himself out about a wine-glassful of brandy he gulped it down. “Hair of the dog, you know,” he added, smacking his lips. The spirit stimulated him. “Better luck next time;” and he laughed, the frown left his face, and he lolled back smoking with an air of indifference real or assumed.
“So you’re off, eh? Going in your yacht?”
“Off? Where to?”
“Home, I suppose. That’s what I meant about catching you.”
“I am not going away.”
“Not? Why Sampayo——” he stopped suddenly. “No, it wasn’t Sampayo of course—but I heard you were going last night,” he said, evidently confused by his first slip.
My interest awoke in an instant. If Sampayo had sent him to me, it was probably to learn the issue of the previous night’s scheme.
“No no. I shan’t be able to get away for a long time to come.”
“Then I wonder why the deuce—I’m awfully glad to hear it. Then you won’t be taking your boat away?”
“Of course not. But I’m afraid the weather yesterday made your trip in her rather unpleasant.”
“Not a bit of it. The fact is I—I came to ask you a favour. I wonder if you’d mind lending her to me for a day. As a matter of fact I want to give some of the fellows of my regiment a bit of an outing, and I should like to take ’em out in her.”
He said all this with the air of one repeating a lesson and very much afraid of forgetting it. “My dear lieutenant, you can have her and welcome. Give me a couple of days’ notice, that’s all.”
“Thanks. I’m afraid you’ll think it cool of me.”
“Not cool of you at all; but I think Major Sampayo himself might have asked, instead of worrying you to do it.”
He sat bolt upright and stared at me. “I say, how the deuce did you know?” he cried, astonishment shaking all the pretence out of him.
“Never mind that. You can have the Stella,” I answered, with a smile, intending him to infer that I knew much more.
“I know I’m a clumsy sort of ass. I suppose I gave it away. Dashed if you don’t beat me;” and he shook his head in perplexity as he first tried to relight his cigarette and then threw it away and started a fresh one.
“Did Major Sampayo tell you why he thought I was leaving in such a hurry?”
“Here, hold on. I’m getting a bit afraid of you.”
“I am the last man in Lisbon you need be afraid of, lieutenant. I have the greatest desire for your friendship and—if you would like to give it—your confidence.”
I spoke earnestly and he glanced at me with a hunted, harassed look in his eyes, and then reached for the brandy again. I put it out of his reach. “I never was more serious in my life,” I added. “If I can ever help you, you have only to ask.”
He got up. He was pale and shaking. “I think I’ll go,” he said.
“Very well. But don’t forget what I’ve said. I mean it, on my honour;” and I held out my hand.
Instead of taking it he looked intently into my eyes and then, to my surprise, and pain, he seemed to crumple up suddenly. He threw himself back into the chair, covered his face with his hands and burst into tears.
It is hateful to see a man cry, but the feeling I had for him was rather pity than contempt. His tears told me so much. He was the merest tool in Sampayo’s hands, and his weak nature was as clay for the stronger man’s moulding. Miralda’s words flashed across my mind—that behind her betrothal to Sampayo was a “story of shame and crime.” Here was the key to it, I was convinced.
The shock of learning that I knew Sampayo was in the background, his fear of what I knew, followed by my earnest offer of friendship, confidence and help, coming at a moment when he was shaken by a night of dissipation, had unmanned him.
With an excuse that I had to speak to Bryant, I left him alone for a few minutes, and when I returned he was staring out of the window smoking.
“You’ll think me an awful fool and baby, Mr. Donnington,” he said nervously and shamefacedly.
“No. Any man might break down under the load you are carrying.”
“May I come and see you again? I’m all shaken up now.”
“You can do better than that. Tell me now.”
“How you read a fellow’s thoughts.”
“Sit down and tell me frankly what hold Major Sampayo has on you.”
“I—I can’t tell you.”
“Is it money?”
“I—I can’t tell you,” he repeated, in the same hesitating way.
“I shan’t preach. I only wish to help.”
“I—I can’t tell you. I—I daren’t. I wish to heaven I dared.”
“You mean because of—your sister and all the others involved?”
With a quick start he asked, “Is it on her account you ask?”
“It is on your account, I ask.”
He wavered, but with a shrug of his thin shoulders he turned back to stare out of the window again. After a pause he said somewhat irritably. “I’m not in the confessional box, Mr. Donnington. You’ve no right to question me. And after all, you can’t help me.”
“If you think that, there’s an end of the thing, lieutenant.”
“Now I’ve put your back up, I suppose?” and he laughed feebly.
“Not in the least, I assure you. I know that you are in a devil of a mess——”
“How do you know it? Has Miralda——” he broke in.
“Don’t mention your sister’s name, please,” I interposed in my turn, speaking sharply.
“Sampayo says you hate him on her account. And he hates you. There’s no mistake about that.”
“Yet he sent you to borrow my yacht.”
“That’s for another thing altogether—there I go. If I stop here you’ll have everything out of me.”
“If you mean in regard to this wretched conspiracy, I probably know much more than you could tell me.”
His jaw fell in his surprise. “You know and yet lend the Stella? Why, are you——” He paused and stared at me in gaping bewilderment.
There could be only one reason for this. The Stella was to be used for some purpose connected with the revolutionaries and he had jumped to the conclusion that I was in league with them. Before I could reply he saw his mistake. “What a mess I’m making of things,” he muttered to himself; and then to me weakly—“Don’t question me any more, Donnington.”
“Very well. But I was not asking you about that at all, merely your personal affairs.”
He stood glancing at me nervously and irresolutely. “I say, you won’t give me away, will you?”
“You have my word on that.”
“Not even to Miralda, I mean? I told her I wanted to talk to you, but she wouldn’t hear of it.”
“When was that?”
“A couple of days ago.” That was before our talk on the Stella when she had been intent upon keeping me at a distance.
“Why did you ask her?”
“There you go again. You said you wouldn’t question me. I wish you wouldn’t,” he said peevishly, and then added with utter inconsequence; “she used to be always speaking of you when she came back from Paris. You were Miralda’s Englishman, you know. And when you turned up here——”
“I’d rather you didn’t tell me.”
“You are an odd mixture. One minute you want to know everything and the next you shut me up. She’s awfully white and it’s because it’s so hard on her that I feel such a brute. I——” he pulled up suddenly and seized his hat. “No, hang it, I can’t tell you now.”
At that moment Bryant brought in a letter from Volheno asking me to go to him at once, and when we were alone again Vasco held out his hand. “May I come again? I—I should like to tell you.”
I told him to come any time, and having made me repeat my promise not to give him away, he wrung my hand and went off.
So Miralda was being sacrificed to save her brother from the consequences of the “shame and crime” of which he had been guilty. That was unmistakably plain now; as plain as that Sampayo was the brute who was demanding the sacrifice as the price of his silence.
In one way it was good news to me. I had feared that there might prove to be some other obstacle far more difficult to overcome. But the instant I sent Sampayo flying for life from the vengeance of the Corsican, Prelot, this barrier would cease to have terrors for either Miralda or her weak-kneed brother. It would be best, however, to learn what this crime was before dealing with Sampayo.
It must be serious, for Vasco was absolutely helpless; so much so that Miralda had forbidden him to speak to me. But that must have been before our explanation on the Stella. Would she still forbid him?
Other points in the interview were by no means so clear as the evidence of Sampayo’s power. Why had he been sent to me? Was it merely to ascertain whether I had escaped the snare laid on the previous night? If so why the request about the Stella?
The two things appeared to be inconsistent, and yet there was a possible explanation. Knowing Vasco to be a fool, Sampayo had had to prompt him with a reason for the call, supposing I had escaped from the toils. Vasco was prepared to find me gone. He had blurted that out; and Sampayo had probably coached him with the request for the yacht to conceal his own hope—that I was dead—and at the same time to give him something to talk about if I were found at home.
Could that request for the yacht be genuine? If so, for what purpose was it wanted? I could not answer that riddle at present, but I might be able to get the answer from Vasco.
As I was leaving to go to Volheno, I remembered the ease with which Barosa’s men had got into the flat, so I told Bryant to get a new lock and a bolt and have them fitted that day. I had had enough of midnight visitors.
Volheno received me as courteously as ever, but I soon found that he was profoundly perplexed about my conduct.
“I expected you much earlier, Mr. Donnington.”
“I am sorry. I didn’t get to bed till six o’clock and lay late.”
“You’ll understand that I have been anxious to hear your news. You have rendered me a most valuable service by giving me the information about that Rua Catania house, and you will add immensely to my obligation if you’ll tell me about this affair last night in the Rua Formosa.”
“I have not rendered you any service at all, as a matter of fact. I was coming to see you about your letter. It was a complete puzzle. I did not write to you at all.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I altogether. But if you received a letter signed with my name giving information, it was a forgery.”
“Mr. Donnington! Are you serious?”
“Never more sober in my life.”
He rang his table bell. “Tell M. Dagara to come to me.”
“He is out, sir.”
“Tell him to come to me the instant he returns. I had no doubt that the signature was yours. I couldn’t doubt it.”
“Well, you must doubt it now. I declare to you positively that I did not write the letter which put you on the track of that Rua Catania business.”
“I am bound to say I thought it strange that, having been only a few hours in the city, you should have got secret information which my people have been trying in vain to get for weeks.”
I let this go without a reply, but he guessed my reason for silence.
“Had you any such information in your possession?” he asked, shooting a quick questioning glance at me.
“I think I would rather not answer that question.”
“That means that you had, of course, and makes the matter all the stranger.”
“Well, I’ll admit I knew something,” I said on second thoughts, reflecting that I should have to explain the previous night’s affair. “These are the facts. You remember warning me not to be in the streets at night. I disregarded the warning and on the second night I got into the middle of a fight between the mob and the police, and had to run for it. By chance I found shelter in that house in the Rua Catania and afterwards learnt the character of the place.”
“You saw some of these villains there, of course?”
“Yes, and had a bit of trouble, but I got out all right.”
“Do you know the men?”
“Yes,” I said, after considering. “But the position is this. I only got away by passing my word of honour not to speak of anything or any person I had seen there.”
“Of course such a pledge given under those circumstances is not to be considered binding. Do you know the names of any of them or——”
I shook my head. “I must keep the word I gave, M. Volheno.”
“Would you keep your word to a murderer who spared your life on condition that you kept secret a murder you had seen him commit?”
“That case has not arisen and I would prefer not to discuss questions of casuistry.”
“But these men are assassins and worse. They are enemies of the State ripe for any evil work. I must press you to tell me all you know.”
“My lips are sealed. And to that fact I owe my escape from worse trouble last night.”
“Well, tell me that then,” he said, with a deep frown of vexation.
“The letter you received in my name was really intended to fix on me a charge of having broken my pledge;” and I went on to give him a short and carefully worded account of what had passed, laying particular stress upon my treatment by the police.
He put the last point aside with a short promise that the matter should be sifted, and then questioned me at great length and with all the pressure he could exert to get me to give the names of the men I had seen, or a description of them.
I resisted all his pressure and then he tried argument. He explained the position of the Government, and their difficulties; the urgent necessity that they should know who were their friends and who their enemies, declaring that my information might be of positively vital importance.
In reply I uttered one or two home truths, telling him that in my opinion they were trying their hands at repression in a very amateurish fashion; employing enough force to render many classes of the people dissatisfied and violent, but not enough to keep them in subjection.
We were hammering away at this when Dagara entered.
“You asked for me, sir?”
“Oh, yes. Bring me the file of personal letters—A to F. That brings us back from the general question to your part in particular, Mr. Donnington,” he said, when the secretary had gone out again.
“You must not press me any more. I cannot do what you ask.”
But he did press me very strongly indeed, and then Dagara returned with the file of letters.
“I want that which Mr. Donnington wrote about the Rua Catania affair. Just find it.”
I was not a little curious to see whether the copy I had made had been returned.
“I think I left it in my desk,” said Dagara.
“Oh, how many times have I told you to file these at once.”
“I did file it, sir, but if you remember you asked for it when you were dictating the reply to Mr. Donnington.”
“Manoel, Manoel, is that any excuse for not refiling it at once?” exclaimed Volheno, and proceeded to lecture the man for his carelessness.
It was well for me that both of them were thus engaged, and I rose and strolled to the window and looked out.
“Manoel,” was his first name, then, “Manoel Dagara”; and in a flash the identity of the “M. D.” of the cipher message was plain.
This sleek, secretive, smooth-tongued secretary who had parried my questions with the unctuous plea that his employer enjoined such close silence in regard to his affairs, was in league with Barosa! On such terms indeed that he even purloined private letters and carried them to his other masters.
Here in the very eye of the web of Government was a traitor.
Volheno might well say they did not know who were friends and who enemies.