I WAS a great deal more pleased to see Dagara than he was to see me, judging by the way in which he took my hand and the little nervous shrinking movement as I linked my arm in his and turned back with him toward the carriage.
“I am afraid I am a little late, but I have made all the haste I could,” I said with a smile of apology which perplexed him considerably.
“You have an appointment then? I myself am—am waiting for a friend.”
“My appointment is with you, of course. There is a change in the plans and I have come to fetch you. I have a carriage here for the purpose. I was delighted to come. I want to ask your opinion about something.”
“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand, Mr. Donnington.”
“The fact is I want to talk chess with you—about M. Polski’s ten problems, and particularly the fifth and sixth.”
His face turned to the colour of the paving stones he was staring at so intently, and his voice was as husky as if half the dust of the city had got into his throat when he muttered: “What do you mean?”
“Here’s my carriage. Jump in, and we’ll chat it over as we drive.” I had already told the driver where to go.
Dagara had no jump left in him, poor fellow, and tried to refuse to get in at all. But with my help he stumbled in and sat staring helplessly at me, as I talked a lot of nonsense about chess—to give him time to pull himself together.
“Where are you taking me, Mr. Donnington?” he asked when I had chattered myself almost out of breath.
“He is driving us down to a landing-stage and I’m going to give you some lunch on my yacht. I have had a desire for a chat with you for several days.”
“I am much obliged to you, Mr. Donnington, but I cannot go now.”
“Oh, nonsense. I’ll make excuses to M. Volheno.”
“But I will not go. I won’t be forced in this way,” he cried, striving hard to rally his courage.
“Of course I won’t force you. I’ll stop the carriage.” I leant forward as if to call to the driver, and then turned with a meaning look. “By the way, did you find that missing letter the other day?”
“I don’t know what you mean. I demand to get out.”
“I know why it was missing, M. Dagara. Would you rather lunch with me or shall we return together to M. Volheno? Decide quickly, please. It must be one or the other.”
He drew a sobbing breath of fright; and all thought of resistance was abandoned.
I let him frighten himself thoroughly until we were nearing the landing-stage. “Now I want you to understand things. I shall either be one of the best friends you ever had or I shall ruin you lock, stock and barrel. That rests with you. I know all you have been doing and what your appointment was for to-day. Give me the papers you have and tell me candidly all you know about these people’s plans, and I shall be the friend. Refuse, and I shall be the reverse. And I can be a very ugly enemy, M. Dagara. We shall not talk on the way to the yacht and you will have ample time to think over your position and decide. But I must have the papers at once, lest you should take a fancy to pitch them into the harbour.”
He hesitated in positively pitiful fear.
“If you do not give them to me now without trouble, my men on the launch will take them from you by force.”
That threat had a wholesome effect. After a moment he handed me an envelope which I pocketed, and he gave no more trouble.
In consequence of some repairs to the roadway the carriage had to stop some fifty yards short of the landing-stage, but he walked to the launch without demur, and when I told him to conceal himself in the little cabin he obeyed at once.
As soon as we reached the Stella I led him into the saloon. “Now I’ll have your decision, Dagara,” I said sharply.
“Will you really try to shield me?”
“Yes, I give you my word—but no half measures, mind. I know quite enough to test the truth of all you say.”
“I’m the most miserable man in Portugal, Mr. Donnington, and this double life is killing me;” and then out came his story.
It was very similar to Vasco’s case—except that Dagara’s wife had been the means of his undoing. She had friends among the revolutionaries and had been in league with them some time before he discovered it. She had wormed things out of him, as wives can and do out of husbands who love and trust them, and had handed on the information to her friends.
Barosa had learnt this and naturally jumped at the chance of getting a man in such a position into his clutches. It was not difficult to lay a trap for him, and he found himself suddenly faced with the alternative of giving a little information of a comparatively harmless description, or of seeing the wife he loved denounced to the Government as a revolutionary.
Love for wife triumphed over fealty to employer, and the information was given. It concerned only some arrangements for the disposition of a body of troops and police on one occasion when the king was returning to the capital from a shooting party. But it was given in writing—Barosa took good care of that, of course—and from that hour Dagara was a bond-slave and had never known a minute’s peace of mind.
By degrees, cunningly progressive, information of increasing secrecy and importance had been extorted from him until even his wife was scared out of her senses and the man himself driven to regard suicide as offering the only prospect of relief from unbearable torture.
I was right in my guess that Miralda had been used lately as a go-between. She knew the wife, and Vasco had been dastard enough to induce his sister to fetch one or two communications from Dagara, without telling her their nature. She had then been allowed to discover their treasonable character, and had immediately refused to carry any more. Then the screw was turned. She was already compromised and her name as a suspect would be given up. She had resisted strenuously, answering threat with threat, but the thing had been done cleverly, and the only people she was at that time in a position to harm were the Dagaras, her friends, and her own brother. The latter’s prosecution for the theft he had confessed was the next menace, and this had driven her to yield, and so, like Dagara, she had become hopelessly entangled in the net.
This was almost all that Dagara could tell me. I put a guarded question about the Visconte de Linto, but he declared with the exception of Miralda, Henriques and a friend of his wife’s, he did not know the name of another person in the conspiracy. Henriques was the caretaker of the building in which the chess club met, and carried his letters to Vasco.
The reason for this caution on Barosa’s part was clear. He knew that Dagara had a very weak backbone and that at any moment a fit of remorse might seize him in which he would reveal all he knew to Volheno. He was therefore allowed to know as little as possible.
“But you know what use is made of the information you have given from time to time?” I asked him.
“So far as I can see, it has been of comparatively little use. I have told them from time to time the objects and plans of the police and have warned them when suspicion has fallen on certain individuals, or when raids have been planned. The threatened persons have disappeared and the raids have brought no result.”
“You warned them about me and gave them that letter?”
“Yes. But in regard to that a curious thing occurred. I received a communication in the cipher warning me to look out for it.”
I understood this of course. In his eagerness that the attempt against me should not misfire, Sampayo had sent the warning.
“But what are these men’s plans?”
“I don’t know. They are of course in league against the Government, but what they mean to do I have no idea. That uncertainty is the heaviest part of my burden. It weighs on me night and day.”
“Well, let us deal with these papers in particular,” I said. “What is the information in them?”
“I was ordered to ascertain the movements of the police and troops to-morrow evening when the King returns to the city from a shooting expedition. Except that in this case I had to get fuller details and quite exact particulars; the information is no more than I have supplied before.”
“Do you suppose any demonstration is to take place against him or any attempt made to harm him?”
“God forbid,” he cried instantly agitated.
“Is there anything in the arrangements differing from those which are usually made?”
“Yes, there is. His Majesty is not supposed to be returning for another week and is only remaining for the one night. He has expressly ordered that the customary arrangements shall be omitted both on his arrival and on his departure the following morning early. He wishes the matter to be kept quite secret.”
I pricked up my ears at this. “Tell me the police arrangements.”
“They are all there,” he replied pointing to the papers.
“Tell me generally.”
“There will be very few police or military present. He crosses from Barreiro in an ordinary launch—not the royal launch—and instead of going to the Quay, he will land at the Eastern landing-stage—the one from which you brought me to-day. He will be accompanied only by two members of the shooting party, and three or four officers will be present to receive him.”
“Of any particular regiment?”
“The First Battalion of the Royal Guards.”
This was the regiment in which Sampayo was a major and Vasco lieutenant.
“Wait a moment. Is not the loyalty of that regiment suspected?”
“Oh no,” he replied decidedly.
“But M. Volheno said something of the sort to me.”
“M. Volheno was only trying to draw some admissions from you, Mr. Donnington. He dictated to me a précis of his conversation with you that morning; and I knew at once what his object had been.”
“Well, go on.”
“A private carriage will be in waiting for his Majesty, and he and his two companions will drive in that to the Palace.”
“But a carriage cannot get any closer to the stage than ours to-day—that is some forty or fifty yards from the landing-place.”
“His Majesty has used that stage more than once when returning privately to the city.”
“Since you have been giving away this information?”
“Yes, once—about six weeks ago.”
“Will that part be policed?”
“It never is. His Majesty does not go in fear of any section of his people. He ridicules the very suggestion of such a thing, Mr. Donnington.”
“And M. Franco and M. Volheno?”
“Are of the same opinion so far as the capital is concerned. Of course, it would be different in Oporto. The revolutionaries are strong there. But in Lisbon there is no more than discontent which the police can suppress.”
“I understand. Now, would it take you long to make a copy of these papers?”
“An hour, perhaps.”
“Do so while you are having something to eat. I wish to think things over.” I left him at the work and going on deck nearly tumbled over Burroughs, who was staring intently at some object through the most powerful glass we had on the yacht.
“Don’t show yourself, Ralph. Come here a moment,” and he pulled me under the lee of the pinnace behind which he was screening his action.
“What is it?”
“You’ve infected me with some of your suspicions, and as you said last night about yourself, I’m either a stupid ass or I’ve made a discovery which may be important. I’ve been watching the people on that boat there—the one with the grey hull and sharp lines. She’s called the Rampallo. She came in yesterday, and the old man tells me the whole of her crew were discharged soon after you sent for me.”
“Well, what’s that to us? We don’t want any hands.”
“But she hasn’t taken on another.”
“I suppose her skipper or owner can please himself.”
“But the skipper went with the crew as well. And when I came off this morning to fetch the launch, I saw that tall young dandy on board her—the fellow who was out with us.”
“The devil you did!” I exclaimed, with suddenly roused interest.
“There have been two or three boats out to her this morning, and what can any one be wanting in a yacht with no crew on board?”
“Let me have a squint at her,” I said, taking the glass and training it on her. She was a nice craft, about 250 tonnage; her sharp lines suggested a good turn of speed; and everything about her was as smart as one expects to see it in a private yacht.
“What drew my attention to her,” said Burroughs at my elbow, “was that I saw some one carefully scanning us through a glass, and I thought I’d return the compliment.”
“What was he like?”
The description he gave fitted no one whom I knew. “He’s been at it more than once since. The old man has noticed it too.”
“Are you sure that you recognized that young fellow?” I asked as I handed him the glass, not having seen any one on the yacht.
“I’d eat my sea-boots if it wasn’t.”
“Well, keep an eye skinned for her. It’s very singular.”
I took his advice not to show myself and sat down on the other side of the deck and lit a cigar to think things over.
I recalled Vasco’s request for the loan of the Stella and the hesitating way in which he had explained that he had abandoned the idea of taking his companions for a day’s cruise.
Why was he on that other yacht? For a time my mind was so thronged with the crowd of suggestions arising out of Dagara’s statement, the events of the last few days, and now this enigma of a crewless yacht, that I had the greatest difficulty in picking a course. In my present mood I was ready to see matter for suspicion in anything, however trivial.
Presently Burroughs called to me. “He’s there now, Ralph.”
It was Vasco, sure enough. The glass showed his features plainly; and while I was watching, two other men came up on the deck and all three went ashore in a launch.
I returned to my seat completely bewildered. I had gained vitally important information, but had no idea what use to make of it. Rack my wits as I would, I couldn’t see the connecting link with Barosa’s plans.
Then all suddenly a wild thought occurred to me: far-fetched, extravagant, and grossly improbable; but not impossible.
It was that an attempt was to be made on the king’s life, and that this crewless yacht was to afford the means of escape for the assassins.
Possible or impossible I could put it to the test. It was good enough to form a working hypothesis, and I plunged into the consideration of the steps to take.
In the first place Dagara must go back to the city with the papers and these must find their way to Barosa.
I saw how to do that. I called Burroughs to me.
“Jack, I am going to take Dagara back to the city in the launch, and I want you to go at once to my rooms and liberate the fellow we caught last night. It must be done cleverly. Tell Simmons to leave Foster in the room alone with him and then to fire a shot and yell to Foster for help. Foster is to rush out, leaving the door open and the way clear for the scoundrel to get off. He must be at liberty inside an hour from now and must have no suspicion that the thing is a plant. Get going, man. I’ll tell you all afterwards,” I said as he hesitated and wanted to ask questions.
Then I went down to Dagara to test him.
I should have to trust him, for his part was of the very pith and marrow of my new plans.