The Second Victorian Mystery Megapack, page 25
When Melun had reached the ground floor he sought out Mme. Estelle.
“I have not had much opportunity of saying anything to you,” he remarked as he entered the room in which she was sitting, “but I should like to tell you now how splendidly you have done.”
Madame was restless and ill at ease.
“If I had seen that girl before to-day,” she said, “I should never have brought her here.”
“Then you would have been a fool,” said Melun, rudely.
“Possibly, but still, even at the risk of your displeasure, there are a few things which I do not care to do.”
Melun glanced at her sharply.
“Of course,” she continued, “it is too late now. I have made up my mind, and we will go through with it, but frankly, I don’t like this business.”
“Never mind,” said Melun; “it will not last for ever. To-morrow ought to settle it. I shall go back to town the first thing, starting at about five o’clock, as I shall have to make a détour. I have changed the number of the car, but still it is hard to say what Westerham may be up to. If he finds that his precious motor has not come back to town he may take to advertising it as stolen—which would be awkward.”
Madame at this point bade Melun good-night, and the captain sent for Crow. To him he gave instructions to have the car ready at five o’clock, but told him that he should drive it back to town himself.
“You can serve a better purpose by remaining here,” he said. “For, mark you, I will have no hanky-panky games in this house in my absence. And, mark you, too, I have no desire to have Mme. Estelle and Lady Kathleen becoming too friendly. You never can rely on women. They are funny creatures, and Madame is far too sympathetic with the girl already. So I shall look to you to stop anything of that sort.
“For the rest, you will know what to do if certain contingencies should arise. I have not brought the dogs here for nothing.” He broke off and shuddered a little himself as at some short distance from the house he could hear the baying of the great hounds.
“They are loose, I suppose?” he asked.
Crow nodded.
“Then Heaven help the stranger,” he rejoined with a cruel laugh, and pulling a rug over himself he lay down to sleep on the sofa.
He was up betimes in the morning, and had, indeed, been gone four hours when Mme. Estelle came lazily down to breakfast.
Melun had left no instructions in regard to Kathleen’s food, and as she did not consider it advisable to let the unfortunate girl starve, Madame, after she had herself breakfasted, set a tray with the intention of carrying it up to Kathleen’s room.
Before she could do this, however, it was necessary to send for Crow in order to obtain the key.
When she asked for it, Crow shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.
“I have very strict orders,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Madame demanded sharply. “What do you mean?”
“Simply that the master said that you and the young lady were not to get talking too much. He said nothing about food, or of waiting on her ladyship, and it didn’t occur to me until this morning that it was a bit of a rum job for a chap like myself to wait on her.
“However,” he added, with a smirk, “I don’t so much mind.”
But Crow’s clumsy utterances had again aroused all Madame’s sleeping suspicions. There was, moreover, no reason why she should keep silence now. Her treachery was a different matter altogether. The way was smooth for asking Kathleen the question the answer to which meant so much to her.
She laughed in Crow’s face.
“It was hardly necessary for the captain to give you any orders, seeing that he gave certain instructions to me. He said that as there was no other woman in the house it would be my place to take Lady Kathleen anything that she actually needed. I am going to take up her breakfast now. Give me the key.”
Crow hesitated a moment, but finally handed over the key. Madame put it on the breakfast tray and went upstairs.
Kathleen, as she heard the bolts drawn back and the key turned in the lock, suffered fresh apprehension. For she had caught the rustle of Madame’s skirts outside, and she would rather have faced Melun than the woman.
With very little apology Mme. Estelle entered, and, setting the breakfast down, immediately withdrew. Her impatience to ask the question was great, but she schooled herself to waiting.
In half an hour’s time she went up for the tray, and then she faced Kathleen boldly and looked her in the eyes.
“Lady Kathleen,” she said, “I am really ashamed to have brought you here in such a treacherous way. I will not ask you to forgive me, for you will not understand. I can only tell you that I am a very loving and jealous woman.”
Mme. Estelle paused, and was conscious that Kathleen looked at her in great surprise.
“I want,” she continued, “to ask you a question which means much to me. Is it, or is it not, one of Captain Melun’s conditions that you shall marry him before he returns your father’s secret?”
“Yes,” answered Kathleen, very quietly, “it is.”
Madame’s rather flushed face grew white, and her eyes blazed with passion. She clenched her fists and beat the air with them.
“Oh, the liar!” she cried, “the liar! Oh! it is hard to be treated like this when I have done so much for him.”
Kathleen drew back, startled and amazed.
“I assure you that you need have no fear so far as I am concerned. Both my father and myself have refused to comply with that condition, and we shall refuse to the end.”
Madame, however, paid but little heed to Kathleen; she was beside herself with rage.
“Ah, ah!” she cried, “wait till he returns! I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!”
So distorted with fury was the woman’s face that Kathleen became alarmed for her sanity. She drew near to her and endeavoured to catch her hands in her own, imploring her to be calm.
By-and-by Mme. Estelle listened to her, and in a sudden revulsion of feeling fell on her knees, sobbing bitterly.
Kathleen bent over her, doing her best to console her, and presently, as the woman grew calmer, she endeavoured to turn the situation to her own and her father’s advantage.
“The best way to defeat Captain Melun’s scheme, so far as I am concerned,” she urged, “is to release me.”
But at that Mme. Estelle leaped to her feet again and her face was hideous in its cunning.
“Ah! not that,” she cried, “not that! If I distrust him, I distrust you still more. Your pretty face may look sad and sorrowful, and you may declare to me that you will never consent; but I will wait and see. I’ll wait until Melun returns and confront you with him. Then perhaps I shall learn the real truth.”
Kathleen made a little despairing gesture with her hands; argument, she saw, would be useless.
Gathering herself together, Madame blundered, half blind with tears, out of the room, and Kathleen with a sinking heart heard the bolts drawn again.
All through the day Madame sat brooding, sending Kathleen’s lunch and tea up to her by Crow.
All the evening she still sat and brooded, until as eleven o’clock drew near and there were still no signs of the captain she had worked herself up into a hysteria of rage.
Twelve o’clock struck, and still the captain was absent. Another half-hour dragged slowly by, and then she heard his car grating its way up the hill-side.
She was at the door to meet him, and would have plunged straightway into the matter which absorbed her but for the sight of his face.
It was haggard and pale as death. His eyes were blazing in their sockets, and his straggling hair lent him altogether a distraught and terrifying aspect.
“Melun!” cried the woman, stretching out her hand, “what is it?”
“I don’t know,” he said hoarsely; “I wish I did, but the Premier’s gone.”
“Gone! What do you mean?”
“He is lost. Westerham kidnapped him.”
“Impossible!”
“Impossible, you fool!” shouted the captain, irritably. “It’s true—perfectly true!”
He walked into the hall and sank exhausted into a chair. “As for me,” he grumbled, “I have had the narrowest escape I ever had.”
“So that’s all, is it?” cried Mme. Estelle, remembering her own grievance. “So that’s all!
“But what of me? What do you think I have gone through? What do you think I have suffered? What do you think I have found out?”
Melun rose unsteadily from his chair and looked at her in alarm.
“Is it Lady Kathleen?” he asked; “is she safe?”
“Safe! Oh, yes, she is safe,” she cried, with a peal of uncanny laughter. “Safe for your kisses and for your caresses. Oh, you liar! you liar! I have been true to you in all respects, and you have been false to me in everything that mattered. So you will marry the pretty Lady Kathleen, will you? Oh, but you won’t! Never! Never!”
She rushed at Melun as though to strike him, but Melun, jaded though he was, was quick and strong.
He caught her brutally, as he might a dog, by the neck, and threw her into the dining-room, the door of which stood open, and, utterly careless as to what harm he might do to her, sent the unhappy woman sprawling on to the floor. In a second he had banged the door to and turned the key in the lock. He sank down on to the bench trembling and exhausted.
He heard Marie pick herself up and hurl herself in blind and impotent fury against the door.
He listened, shaking like a leaf, as shriek after shriek of frenzy reached his ears.
Up in the tower Kathleen heard these shrieks too, and shuddered. A horrible fear took possession of her heart that there was murder being done below.
She sat on the edge of her bed with her hands pressed to her heart, listening in fascinated horror.
The shrieks died away, and there was complete silence in the house for full half an hour.
Then Kathleen heard a sudden shout, a crashing of glass and a scrambling, tearing noise, the hideous bay of the boarhounds in the courtyard, a scream, and a thud.
Stabbing the other noise with sharp precision came the sound of shots.
CHAPTER XXI
THE KIDNAPPING OF THE PRIME MINISTER
“Out of evil cometh good.” Had Westerham caught the eye of Kathleen as the two motor cars passed each other at the corner of Whitehall Kathleen herself would have been spared much suffering and several men would not have gone to their account. But a meeting at that moment would have so changed the whole course of events that far greater trouble would have befallen, and the whole earth might have become involved in a disaster which would have grown, without question, into Armageddon.
It was, however, in happy ignorance of both the greater and the lesser evil that Westerham, in what were really most excellent spirits, drew up the car which he had borrowed from Dunton at No. 10 Downing Street.
With him came Mendip, the younger of the two men whom he had met in such curious circumstances at the gaming club on the night when Kathleen had staked her father’s honour against the bank and, for the time, lost.
Mendip was one of those strange, tired men who appear to do nothing and yet accomplish much. He was slow of speech, but quick in action when occasion demanded; silent, serious, and of a character built to bear with resolution any temptation or trial which might arise.
Dunton trusted him implicitly, and, in spite of his short acquaintance with him, Westerham trusted him too.
A third person had been necessary for the enterprise, and had been found in the person of Tom Lowther, a good-natured young giant, who laughed his way through what, to him, was a laughing world.
It was with an immense grin of satisfaction that he had taken on his shoulders the task of driving the car in which Westerham set out on his desperate enterprise.
Dunton had left his chambers early in the morning, so that about eleven o’clock all the men who had been selected to drag the Premier’s secret from him had gathered in Dunton’s rooms.
There, half humorously, Westerham had explained the project to them, basing his argument upon a lesson drawn from an abortive raid which certain suffragettes had made upon the official residence not long before.
What woman could attempt, he had argued, man could decidedly accomplish.
So the plan was mapped out; and according to the arrangements which Westerham made, Lowther backed the car round in Downing Street and drew it up alongside the curb, so that its head pointed towards Whitehall, and, as Westerham hoped, the high road of escape.
It was astonishing that, in spite of the suffragettes’ attempt on Downing Street, more precautions were not taken. For all he knew, Westerham might have had to encounter worse opposition than he did. But he was prepared for all emergencies, and, moreover, determined not to spare drastic measures if it came to a tight corner.
As he drew up to the door, Westerham hoped that the immaculate Dunton might play his part as well as he intended to play his own. Dunton had gone down to Chichester, and had ordered his yacht to await him in the fair way off Selsey Bill.
It was to Dunton’s yacht that Westerham determined to take the Premier.
As the car came to a standstill, Westerham and Mendip alighted quickly, and without hesitation pulled the little brass knob at No. 10. As they expected, the door was pulled open quickly, and the head, followed by the figure, of the Premier’s official door-keeper appeared in the entry.
Westerham was first up the steps, with Mendip hard at his heels.
He pushed the man aside, and had slammed the door to in the twinkling of an eye. He thrust the man back into the deep, cane-hooded chair in which he was wont to sit and dream away his official hours, and had him gagged before he had time to cry out. Then, by means of the straps with which he had provided himself, he and Mendip securely lashed the man’s feet together, tying his hands behind his back.
This work done, they paused and listened; but, in spite of the scuffle there had been, there was no sound of approaching footsteps, nor, indeed, any sign that they had been overheard.
Without a word, Westerham grasped the man by the shoulders, and Mendip took him by the heels; and so they carried him through the red-baize swing-doors which formed the entrance to the passage leading to the council chamber.
There, with no ceremony at all, they dropped him on the ground, and ran quickly down the corridor.
At the bottom of this there stood a door, which opened easily as Westerham turned the handle.
They then found themselves in a somewhat ellipse-shaped vestibule, which, as a matter of fact, was the outer lobby of the room where the Cabinet Council was being held.
That the door of the council chamber would be locked Westerham knew full well; but he had come prepared to overcome any difficulty of this kind.
Nevertheless, he turned the handle, only to find, as he had expected, that the key on the inner side had been turned.
When in America, Westerham had found it necessary to force more than one door; and now he pursued the tactics which he had found efficacious on previous occasions.
Swiftly he drew his own revolver from his hip-pocket and held out his other hand for Mendip’s. Mendip, with his eyes beaming, passed his own weapon to Westerham without a word.
He then placed the noses of both the six-shooters on the woodwork just above the lock, pointing them downwards so that no damage might be done to the ministers within. He pulled the triggers simultaneously, and the sound of splintered woodwork and riven iron followed instantaneously on the double report.
The door all about the lock was shattered into matchwood, and Westerham, thrusting his foot forward, pushed it open.
Mendip sprang back in fear lest his face should be recognised by any of the startled ministers, while Westerham strode calmly into the room.
The Cabinet Council was in full session about a long oval table.
The Premier, who sat opposite the door, had risen from his seat, and with a white face was staring directly into Westerham’s eyes.
The other ministers had thrust back their chairs, and were now upon their feet. There was complete silence.
Westerham had not the slightest fear of any of them being armed, and without a pause walked over to the table and knocked sharply with the butt of his revolver on the polished wood.
“Lord Penshurst,” he said quietly, “I wish to speak to you.”
The Prime Minister’s jaw opened and closed spasmodically, so that his white beard wagged upon his breast. He made no answer.
Silently the other ministers drew aside into two groups, leaving Westerham and the Premier facing each other in the center of the room.
With an effort, Lord Penshurst got the better of his agitated nerves and rapped out a sharp “What do you want?”
“Lord Penshurst,” said Westerham, calmly, “you know who I am. You know on what mission I am here. If you refuse to come round the table to speak to me instantly and speak to me alone I cannot be held responsible for the consequences.”
The Premier, without a word and with trailing steps began to make the circuit of the long table. As he approached, Westerham drew back so that now he was at the entrance to the council chamber. He beckoned Lord Penshurst still nearer.
When the Premier was quite close to him he stooped and whispered into his ear so that none of the other ministers could by any chance catch his words.
“If you want to save Lady Kathleen and yourself, you must come with me at once.”
Lord Penshurst said, “It’s impossible!”
